The Last of Us season two review

    THE LAST OF US season two was...okay.

    If that sounds like I'm soft pedaling the opening to a negative review, well, then you are extremely perceptive. The Last of Us season one was one of the best, if not the best, video game adaptations of all time. The only real competition I would say it has is the Fallout show and that is an entirely different genre despite them both being post-apocalypse science fiction programs. It was immensely popular for a reason and introduced a whole new audience to the world of Joel Miller and Ellie Williams. I feel like the attempt to retain this audience is what hurt it versus challenging them like the video game, The Last of Us 2, did.

    The premise is that a fungal outbreak has turned the majority of individuals into horrifying monsters. Ellie Williams (Bella Ramsey) is a young girl immune to the condition protected by Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) that ended the previous season with a devastating secret between them. The second game was deeply controversial as it shifted focus from the relationship between these two to a devastating cycle of revenge between Ellie and a new character, Abby Anderson (Kaitlyn Dever).

    I'm generally a defender of the video game and its most controversial choice (spoilers ahead) with the fact that it is an attack on the typical post-apocalypse lack of morality that is in so many works. The two women are incredibly hardass survivors and vicious without civilization to hold them back. However, it is shown to be a dark path that doesn't make either of them better. Instead, it just gradually winnows down their morality and breaking the cycle of violence is more important than any form of justice. It wasn't very popular in some circles because of Joel Miller being the most popular character in the franchise by far but it was an effective artistic statement.

    Season Two of the Last of Us seems to really wish it wasn't adapting the second game. I say that as a strange criticism but it feels like the best summary of the show I can think of. It doesn't change everything but it tries to softpedal, move around events, explain everything, and generally screwing with the tone. Ironically, it doesn't change any of the actual story so that its efforts are more or less vain. Like if you have someone who hates beef stew (or grimdark), you can't really prepare the beef stew in a way that will satisfy the negativity. The story is a horribly dark and depressing one that was still too dark for a lot of people.

    Since it's Pride month, it's also fascinating to see how the show handles its queer romance and leads with Ellie and Dina. The show seems to be much more interested in the chemistry between Bella Ramsey and Isabel Merced. The show seems like it would much rather be doing a story about them falling in love in the post-apocalypse rather than how vengeance poisons even the best things in our lives. Maybe I'm merely misjudging the pacing and we'll see that happen. Also, the scenes between the two are genuinely cute with some bittersweet ones like the fact the pair have no idea what the rainbow signifies when they enter one of Seattle's neigborhoods.

    The show has some genuinely fantastic acting throughout with Pedro Pascal and Jeffrey Wright (who was the voice of Isaac in the game) doing amazing jobs. Bella Ramsey is always great when she's the younger Ellie and Isabella Merced is a cool collected survivor throughout. I certainly don't think the show is bad by any means. I'm definitely going to watch the next season. However, I think the show pulls its punches.

    Ellie Williams in the game is someone on a horrible road of revenge and while the show version definitely does some terrible things, I feel like it doesn't feel like she's fully committed to the path of revenge that would match a book accurate Arya Stark. This one seems to not fully in the mind of wanting to kill Abby and all of her crew but just Abby, which doesn't make sense to me and weakens the game's message. I think this may be a Catch-22, though, because a lot of more casual viewers were horrified by even the softened version on display here.

    Oh well, we'll see where the road of revenge leads in...two years.

    Oof.