The Adaptation of Us
The Last of Us Part II Concept Art by Eytan Zana
The Last of Us video game was an instant 10/10 classic when it was released in 2013. Since then it's become an innovative and essential piece of post-apocalypse/zombie media, receiving two remasters, a sequel, and a prestige drama television adaptation. The first season of the HBO adaptation was critically acclaimed and loved by audiences both new to and familiar with the video game source material. The second season, which is currently being released weekly on MAX is much more of a mixed bag than the previous season, much like the sequel game which it is adapting.
The Last of Us Part II received good reviews, but a mixed audience score upon release, due in no small part to the death of Joel, the protagonist you play as for almost the entire first game. People were displeased to the point of sending death threats to the game's director, Neil Druckman, and Laura Bailey, who plays/voices Abby, the character who kills Joel. While the reaction to the show hasn't been quite as extreme, there has been a good amount of disappointment with the direction and writing of the show.
Despite its shocking plot and character developments, The Last of Us Part II is thoroughly enjoyable to play and the dialogue is near perfect, loaded with emotion and grounded in subtle realism. Ellie’s journey to get revenge on Abby and her accomplices for killing her father figure is a harrowing exploration of grief and endurance. The game also features one of the most grounded and honest queer relationships in the interactive medium. Dina accompanies Ellie to Seattle, and their relationship simply is, unlike many queer stories where the queerness or coming-out is the central purpose of the story. Ellie’s struggle between letting go and finishing what she’s started (and later with what she’s done), is a masterclass in empathetic storytelling. In the second half of the game, you even play as Abby, living through her experiences leading up to her confrontation with Ellie, and though it feels impossible to empathize and forgive her for her actions, it does make you understand and relate to her character.
The writing in The Last of Us Season 2 is far more inconsistent. Ellie's quiet grief and gradual descent into vengeful rage are replaced with a quippy levity for the majority of the seven-episode season (the rest of the game is being adapted over two more seasons). The other characters are a bit more grounded, some even more than the game with expanded backstories and spotlight moments. But Ellie, the heart of the story, lacks the subtle sadness and desperation of her game counterpart, seemingly forgetting her grief immediately after leaving for Seattle to hunt down Abby. She doesn’t seem to take the mission seriously, regularly leading with a trigger-happy excitement. Mind you, it's not Bella Ramsey's fault as the actor. They're doing their best with the character and material that's been written for them. But as Ellie, they are constantly outshined by the better-written secondary characters.
The plot is similar but not the same as the game. Where the first season of the TV show stayed pretty close to the plot of the game, only changing less consequential plot details and adding scenes with side characters that weren’t explored in the game, the current season has been much looser with its adaptation. The climactic murder scene in the second episode is upstaged by a siege on the settlement Ellie and Joel have joined by a massive hoard of infected. The action sequence draws the attention and gravity away from the main story seemingly for the sole reason of adding a Game of Thrones battle. It doesn’t even have any real consequences, as after that episode all the action takes place away from the settlement, following Dina and Ellie in Seattle.
One of the biggest changes besides a confusing rearranging/remixing of the game’s well-crafted plot, has been the pacing of Ellie and Dina’s relationship. Some changes have been nice, like how Dina discovers Ellie is immune when she defends her from an infected attack and how Ellie reacts more positively to Dina's pregnancy. Other changes feel unnecessary and detract from the realistic, simple love they share in the game. Dina gets a whole coming-out story as the show strings out their flirtations far longer than the game. Traveling through the ruins of Seattle’s pride district they write in a little joke about all the rainbows where the game says nothing, letting the image of the flags and painted crosswalks speak for itself.
There are other, smaller changes every episode that make me sigh and shout because none of them seem to expand the plot in a meaningful way, instead detracting from the impact and depth story. More is not always more. Now they’re at a point where the writers seem to be doing backflips to try and make changes they made earlier in the plot make sense.
This is all opinion. And it's still been an interesting watch, but there's such a drop in quality from both the source material and the first season of the show. It’s disappointing to see such a great work of art remixed to the point where the character’s decisions don’t match their emotions, and a very efficient story of grief and revenge is turned into a drawn-out, convoluted mess.
