How the hell do you adapt a game like The Last Of Us Part II?
With a new remaster in stores, and major casting news rolling out for the upcoming season of The Last Of Us, we dig into the series' second game
TV Features The Last Of Us
[Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for 2020 video game The Last Of Us Part II—and, likely, for at least some of the plot elements of the still-filming second season of HBO’s The Last Of Us TV show.]
Two weeks ago, news broke that actor Kaitlyn Dever was joining the cast for the second season of HBO’s The Last Of Us TV series—which is still floating along without a release date, with “some time in 2025” the best anybody in TV land can guess. But despite that mild ambiguity, Dever’s casting kicked off a small firestorm of speculation, because it was revealed that she’d be playing a character named Abby Anderson when she joined the Emmy-winning video-game adaptation’s second season—which means The Last Of Us is almost certainly diving whole hog into the story of 2020’s The Last Of Us Part II. And that means things are about to get … messy.
Because while the critical consensus on Part II has mostly calmed down in the four years since its release—give or take some moderate consternation lately at the fact that Sony has already rolled out a “remastered” version of the hardly retro game, out last week–the game was something of a lightning rod when it first came out. Some of that wasn’t developer Naughty Dog’s fault. (A high-profile leak from the game’s development, showcasing several cutscenes and character models, fired up the kinds of chuds who get angry when female video-game characters aren’t “feminine” enough, to pick one of the more vitriolic examples.) But some of it was in direct to response to the game’s big narrative swings, which were, depending on who you asked, either “bold” or “super-aggressive and kind of manipulative.”
Many of which, we have to assume, will now be inherited by its TV adaptation: Excepting its critically heralded third episode, Craig Mazin’s adaptation of the first game into the show’s first season was almost overwhelmingly faithful–down to the season’s final scene almost exactly mimicking both the dialogue, and the staging, of the game’s famous ending. With game series creative director Neil Druckmann on board for the second season, as he was for the first, it would be shocking to see the series diverge more than a few inches from established canon.
What does that all mean? A few things—all of which could make The Last Of Us’ second season a very weird run of TV.
The Pedro Pascal “issue”
Anyone hoping to avoid spoilers for either the game series, or the show’s next season, should hop off this train now, because there’s really no way to talk about either without addressing the fungus-encrusted elephant in the room: protagonist Joel Miller’s sudden death, an hour or so into The Last Of Us Part II.
Pedro Pascal, who plays Joel on the show, has, understandably, hedged a bit when asked about this plot element–because how could he not? (Nobody wants the HBO Spoiler Squad on their ass.) But The Last Of Us Part II really doesn’t function as a story without it: Joel’s sudden death, at the hands of a group of survivors who come to the almost ludicrously idyllic community where he and Ellie (Bella Ramsay) have been living out their post-apocalypse, is rooted in both the aftermath of the first game and the narrative obsessions of the second. Everything The Last Of Us Part II wants to say about humanity–and it wants to say a lot—grows out of that early moment of sudden, shocking brutality, one moment of horrifying trauma birthed directly from another.
This was controversial, to say the least, in the games, where Joel was a beloved character played by well-liked voice actor Troy Baker. Applying it to a rising/risen star like Pascal—who did so much work to build a beautiful, broken human out of some fairly stock parts with his performance as Joel in the show’s first season–might be even more disruptive. Pascal and Ramsay both came up through Game Of Thrones, of course, so neither is unfamiliar with being on a series that jettisoned its “star” at a critical early point. But seeing the show’s most marketable star go the way of Logan Roy one episode into its new season is still likely to leave fans a bit discombobulated.
The absolute brutality of Ellie Williams
If the above paragraphs didn’t clue you in, The Last Of Us Part II is an aggressively grim game. Even its genuine moments of love or levity come with the unavoidable knowledge that something truly awful is right around the corner—and rarely in the form of something as simple as a rampaging fungus monster. That goes doubly true for the character of Ellie, who came of age in the first game/season—and who spends the second game having her last few shreds of innocence sliced off of her piece by piece.
And really, we’re looking forward to seeing what Ramsay, who was excellent in the first season, will do with this material, as Ellie becomes harder and harder, and harder and harder to root for, the further into her need for vengeance she descends. But it’s going to be a lot for audiences, even by the standards of HBO: We’ll be curious to see if the TV show stays true to the moment that would, in a less ugly narrative, be Ellie’s rock bottom—i.e., the confrontation with Mel, for game players—or if it’ll back away from quite that level of character-alienating horror. But either way, we’ll likely depart the show’s second season with very little idea of who, if anyone, we want to see getting what they want out of this broken and miserable world.
A question of perspective
There’s also a question of structure to be addressed here, requiring us to spoil The Last Of Us Part II’s other big twist: the fact that only about half of the game is played from Ellie’s perspective, with the game rewinding at a major turning point to show what its three violent days in Seattle have been like for Joel’s killer, Abby.
On the one hand, this might actually be easier for the TV show to handle than the game; one of The Last Of Us franchise’s big tricks is adapting techniques from film and media, where they’re less familiar, to the medium of games, and this kind of perspective flip is far closer to old hat for television. That being said, the parts of the game where you play as Abby constitute a huge portion of the game, introducing new characters, stories, motivations, and problems, all to drill in for players that she’s just as much a person, a “protagonist,” as Ellie herself. A 24-hour-long video game can take that kind of time to make its points—a nine-hour TV series, not so much. It’s key to Druckmann’s vision of The Last Of Us Part II that Abby feel as “real” to the player/viewer as Joel or Ellie did. Building that kind of identification, without feeling repetitive or digressive, is going to be a fascinating struggle for the show to handle in a fraction of the time.
Is there room for another “Long, Long Time”?
As we noted above, the first season of The Last Of Us deviated from the game’s plot in only one serious regard—and was rewarded powerfully for it, with critics and viewers alike holding up that digression point, “Long, Long Time” as a series highlight. With Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett moving mountains to flesh out characters who were, in the game, an asshole and a corpse, respectively, the episode served as a necessary antidote to the grimness of the rest of the season, reminding viewers that there was still the possibility of life, even for “the last of us.”
Mazin, and writer Peter Hoar, could fit that material into the series in part because they were adapting a largely episodic narrative: The first Last Of Us plays out as a series of vignettes as much as it is a more cohesive story, and it was fairly simple to swap out the running and shooting of the game’s “Bill’s Town” segment for something with considerably more heart. Just as importantly, it demonstrated at least some justification for the entire show, dialing into quieter, more human moments, at a distance from Joel and Ellie’s story.
The Last Of Us Part II is a much tighter narrative ship, though, with a big chunk of its power coming from the way it buries you in first Ellie and then Abby’s head. And so it remains to be seen where Mazin and his team can find room for a bit of light to shine through. (Even if you zoom out of the Ellie-Abby conflict, the game’s background plot is about a brutal inter-clan war waged between military despots on the one hand and transphobic religious zealots on the other; there’s not a lot of room for gentler shading there.) We suspect that the Abby material will have to stand in for that kind of digression, but her story is so married and mirrored to Ellie’s that it’ll be difficult to get meaningful breathing room out of it.
All that being said: It’s worth stepping back and remembering that we’re talking about a TV show that hasn’t even been filmed at this point, let alone aired. Speculation can only go so far before it just becomes fortune-telling and just as useful. But The Last Of Us’ nature as an adaptation—and one especially beholden to its source material—invites these kinds of questions. The Last Of Us Part II landed like a bomb in 2020, detonating video-game discourse for months around it. We can only imagine what its adaptation to television will do when it arrives some time next year.
66 Comments
I am curious if the flashbacks in part II will serve as scenes taking place in real-time, to flesh out Ellie and Abby’s ‘growth’ into adulthood, while also giving us more time with Joel. It has been awhile since I played part II, but from what I can recall they probably won’t stand that well on their own and will need to be built out more. Which, based on “Long, Long Time” might not be such a bad thing.I will say that more than once I have hoped that someone is advising Kaitlyn Dever to stay off the internet for the next few years.
I could certainly see HBO being hesitant about a plot that takes Pascal out of the show. He’s its most famous actor, and the interplay between him and Ramsay is what made season one work so well. It tough to blow that up in just the show’s second season, when you potentially can have a longterm hit just by staying the course. And I don’t think the situation is fully comparable to Game of Thrones, which was always an ensemble show. It would be more like killing Tony Soprano is the beginning of season 2. So I agree with you that they may do a middle season focusing on the period between the two games. That said, I hope they don’t do this cop-out. TV shows are more interesting when they are willing to change the dynamics that we’ve come to expect, even when those dynamics are successful in the first season.
I agree with what you’re saying, but at the same time; he’s gotta die. There’s no alternative that tells the story of the second game in a compelling or satisfying way. I love Pascal, and he’s done a great job, and I hope they murder him by the end of episode 1.
I think it’s likely that some if not all the flashbacks in part two are played chronologically. They need to keep Pascal around for more than one episode (and I suspect they will want to keep him around for the whole or bulk of the season if possible). Maybe the first episode of the new season will set up the conflict/stakes (revealing Abby’s connection to Joel or that Abby + co are outside Jackson), and then flip back for several eps. They’ll definitely need built up some and Abby’s backstory is going to need to be front-ended (and probably fleshed out – I can’t remember how much we really properly of her growing up/life before her dad died beyond one long flashback, but it’s been a few years).
I have faith in the cast and crew to bring this together sublimely. Apologies if I’m repeating the article/essay, but aren’t they splitting the second game into two seasons? I’d be interested to see if they change the narrative halfway through, a la the newer Stephen King’s IT films, or weave it throughout both seasons of the show, a la Stephen King’s IT. Kind of hoping for the latter, assuming I’m correct about the 2 season nature of the beast
“…fired up the kinds of chuds who get angry when female video-game characters aren’t “feminine” enough…”The same people who get angry seeing Black characters in their medieval fantasy settings because it’s “not believable” got upset because Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn/Horizon Forbidden West, a woman in a post-apocalyptic world who was raised by a lone man who had concerns like teaching her to survive, had fuzz on her face because they think women are naturally hairless. “Fixed” images of Aloy also have her wearing modern makeup because that’s a concern when you’re trying to get through the day not getting killed by robots.Gamers being a mistake aside, I hope the show has continues to be as faithful to the story has it has been. I’m not one of those people who think adaptations need to never veer from the source, but the first season makes me think they’ll do it well. And honestly? I can be petty and I don’t want the people who lost their shit after the second game (neither of which I played but the whining was everywhere) to think they won.
Gamer chuds already kind of won this one. Abby’s casting, from the outside, feels like acquiescing to the people that complained about her not being feminine enough. She could for sure bulk way up, but it seems like if they wanted to be more faithful there must have been an actor out there that was more Abby’s build.
Craig Mazin knows what he is doing. How many times does he have to prove it?
I’m not crazy about watching season two, if it bleeds right into the game sequel. I tried it. Tonally, it’s like either watching someone get their head beaten in with a cinder block, or doing that sort of thing in-game.
Yikes.
I would split the game into two seasons. Premiere episode of season 2 would end with Abby confronting Joel. Room for Joel episodes focusing on the hotel/sniping incident and the birthday. Finale of season 2 would be Abby and Lev arriving to the theater and that confrontation. Season 3 would be Abby’s side of the story with an episode for Ellie confronting Joel about the Firefly hospital. I think there’s plenty of room for a Long Long Time-like sidebar episode. So many characters now to pick from.
Mazin has said he expects to make at least two more seasons, so I expect they won’t kill Joel off until mid/late of the upcoming season and instead use earlier episodes to fill in some of Abby’s backstory so the audience has some sympathy for her… before Ellie proceeds to kill everyone she cares about.
Well the shows version of the Ellie and Joel relationship isn’t as strong as the games version so they’ll need a couple of episodes to build it up before they kill Joel off. I can see Abby’s backstory being the Long, Long Time episode for season 2 before they make it the turning point.
I was saying this the entire time the first season was airing – Joel in the show is not as easy to empathize with and is a less sympathetic character than he is in the games. I’m almost certain that was an intentional decision so that there isn’t as much of an outcry when the golf trip happens.
Agree about Abby.I also noticed the show features an Ellie that is far less likable than the video game version, yet shows far more of her trauma. So I’m not sure where they will be going with season 2.
The Last of Us Part II is more than twice the length of the the first game. So it seems just as likely he just almost directly adapts the game and splits it at the Abby part or intersects them and then splits halfway through both sections.There’s not really a lot of room to add a bunch of Joel stories when there’s more than two seasons of story to adapt in the current version of the game.
I suspect that Joel will get killed off at the end of Season 2, to be honest. I cannot see them killing Pedro off without giving us more people to care about that are left besides just Ellie and we haven’t had enough time with anyone else to care about anyone.
I expect season 2 to follow most of the story beats that are in the second game, but in a completely linear fashion – while also filling in the time between season 1 and season 2 with a couple of side stories. That will give us more time to know Abby and come across as a more natural story beat than the “surprise” it is in the game.
Joel is going to die as the Season two cliff hanger into Season 3.
“I expect they won’t kill Joel”
I hope not. In the game, not having Abby’s backstory works really well, because without that context, she’s just evil, and the violence against her and her friends seems justified… until you get that context later. For me, it’s the best part of the game’s plot.
Well they’ll split it into 2 seasons for a start as there’s no way to cover it all in one season. Where that split happens is another matter entirely and there are probably only 2-3 options.1. The Joel ending, and the problem with that is then you’ve got to fill out Season 2 with… something. You could, I suppose just hide what happens until the finale flashback and have Ellie Vs Abby as unexplained until that point.2. The Mel ending. If you really want to hammer home how far Ellie has fallen. And throw in Nora to that mix.3. The showdown in the theatre. This one seems like the logical midpoint of the story.
They’ve said they’ll split it into 2 seasons and I’ve been curious about where they would split it. The showdown in the theater is definitely a good call.Could be Ellie season2, Abby Season 3 with the big showdown.I’m really curious about the status of Part III. I know that Maizin has stated that the show is *probably* only going to cover Parts I and II. But I imagine Part III would complete the saga. And if you’ve got a good creative team doing the tv adaptation, you’d hope they’d finish the story.I know that Druckmann at least has an outline for Part III and you’d think he’d have discussed this with Maizin. Maybe there’s a significant time jump such that they wouldn’t want to go right into a Part III.
I don’t think they will structure it as flashbacks, to be honest, and that’s how Season 2 will have stuff to do. I think there’s a good chance that we get a linear story that picks up where we left off and Season 2 will primarily focus on the 5 years between game 1 and game 2. That means season 2 will be largely about Ellie learning the truth, Joel and Ellie falling out, and reconciling just for Joel to then get killed at the end of Season 2 and for it to be Ellie’s turn to snap. Knowing they’ve cast Abby, I think it’s equally possible that we see the ramp up to her actions, the fallout from the hospital and the build up of the clans getting ready to all kick off. Then Season 3 is the actual grim dark Abby/Ellie showdown stuff.
I got around to playing this last year, I was surprised that it got to me largely unspoiled.But it’s pretty grim, bleak shit. Eight episodes of that would be asking a lot.
I think the twist in The Last of Us, Part II is brilliant. After the first game, there really isn’t that much new we can learn about Joel — he thinks of Ellie as a daughter, and will do anything to protect her. What do we get from more Joel other than more of that?Pascal has another show that spent its first season showing how a cynical tough guy can decide to care for a child in spite of himself. I think we’ve seen how keeping that relationship basically unchanged in subsequent seasons is a narrative dead end. It’s not especially interesting to be reminded, again and again, that the Mandalorian considers Grogu his child.
Yeah, exactly. I was surprised at the amount of ppl defending Joel and rejecting Abby. Joel’s demise is exactly how he treated the Fireflys. Just another body to kill. Joel had reached the zenith of his arc when he began to view Ellie as a daughter. There was no more growth left for him. If The Last of Us is about fathers, then the 2nd game is about daughters. The sequel is no longer Joel and Ellie’s story. It’s now Ellie and Abby’s story.
Logically and morally, Joel is no different from most of the people in his world. He “deserves” to die like most of them do. The difference is, if you played that first game, you walked a mile (or a few hundred) in his shoes—felt his loss, lived through his pain, and clung to the last scrap of love he could find. It is damned hard to do all of that and then watch the storyteller kill him off (as brutally and callously as possible) in the service of telling some other story.Brave of Druckmann. Commendable, even. I still haven’t been able to subject myself to it. The ending of the first game hit me far too close to home, I guess. I’d be willing to play a game where Joel died, if it was near the end, doing something good for someone else for once—a Red Dead Redemption-style thing, I suppose. Failing that, at least have him alive in the game for longer rather than just as a miserable death that kicks off the plot. Maybe that means I’m more of a softie than Druckmann, but I’m willing to live with that. He did his job on the first game *so well* that now I can’t stand the idea of experiencing the second part of the story.
I get that take and the urge not to experience that. Not to defend the sequel, but the choice isn’t a cold one. It’s not like Joel is forgotten. It very much is a continuation of his and Ellie’s story, taken to it’s logical progression. A person doesn’t get to do what Joel does and not face some kind of consequence. However, it’s not like Joel is “gone” once he is well, “gone”. IMO, the story isn’t fridging Joel, because it is as much a tribute to him as it is a judgment and grieving process. Personally, I love the first game, but without the sequel continuing the story, it is then, that’s when it becomes upper echelon emotional storytelling.
I may someday play it. I sort of want to, but am also afraid to. The near-universal descriptions of it as one of the most grim and violent stories around did not help me over the hump, unfortunately. Bad enough I have to see Joel come to that—hours of unrelenting darkness afterward doesn’t sound like a very good time. (Not like the first game was light exactly, but you do cling to that relationship between Joel and Ellie in the face of it; I’d be curious if there’s anything at all to cling to in this one.)
Yep, I wouldn’t invalidate anyone reasons for not wanting to play it, especially when it comes to the violence. However, and it must not be understated, but there are some new deep and emotional relationships in the sequel. For as much darkness as there is in the game, it does feel well earned as gratuitous as it is, but to balance it out, there are many more deeper relationships both new and old to cling onto.
I’ll think about that, thank you! My wife really enjoyed watching the first season of the show with me, so if I don’t get to the second game before then, I may still watch the next season of the show–which may or may not push me to want to play the game, too.
I can’t stress enough how meaningful the giraffe scene was in the first game. It’s a beautiful moment, and one of the reasons The Last of Us Part 2 is a lesser work to the original, imo because there’s nothing like that in there. At the end of the day, throughout all the hell, the first story is about optimism. (Which can also be said about the adaptation’s brilliant “Long Long Time”) Part 2 is unequivocally not any of this. Even the fun-loving personality of Ellie is completely gone. It is for all intents and purposes, misery porn, and that may be a problematic ask for viewers. The showrunners have suggested that they may only cover half the game for Season 2 (it’s a long game) so I actually expect significant changes in regard to pacing and perspective. One of my main criticisms of Season 1 was not spending enough time with Joel and Ellie, since the series seemed more interested outside characters- And that’s an area that could actually be a good thing for Part 2’s story. Abby’s crew in particular, who I had no attachment to, so being able to flesh them out would be optimal. I’ll end with an excerpt from one of the best reviews I’d seen on The Last of Us Part 2 : Druckmann says the core of the game is about “these really intimate, intense relationships.” I bring this up not to quote the game’s marketing, but to try to understand what the people who made it thought they were doing. The story I experienced was about relationships only insofar as characters did things to each other. I didn’t learn anything about what it means to be human, or what we’re capable of when we’re hurt, or what can happen when we want to hurt others. The way Joel hurt Ellie in The Last of Us felt relatable to me; even if the fate of humanity has never hung in the balance, I know how it feels to make a desperate, selfish choice to hang on to something you love. The Last of Us 2’s amount of cruelty and violence ultimately overwhelmed any chance of that relatability here. I didn’t find it prurient—the game doesn’t relish in its gory deaths or emotional suffering. It just takes every opportunity to show them, over and over, and decides that counts as saying something about them.-And this is from AV Club’s buddies over at Kotaku!It’s par for the course to dismissively just call people names because they didn’t like the game. Or, as we’re increasingly seeing, just lump everybody together. But there’s an insecurity in shutting down discourse, when there are legit criticisms to be had. The reason I’m actually excited for Season 2 is because HBO has an opportunity to improve on some pretty flawed source material.
I found part 2 a remarkable game – harder and more uncomfortable than the first, but in a lot of ways better, and a much deeper and more complex reflection on humanity than the first.The first game in a lot of ways is a pretty typical video game. Yes, its hopefulness in the face of dire circumstances is nice. But that hope is also what makes it easy for the player to revel in killing nameless humans – most extensively the hunters, but more worrisomely, the firefly doctors at the end. The game is structured, like so many video games, to thrive on an ‘us vs them’ mentality, to thrive on vengeance. Joel murders those doctors and the player is (mostly?) okay with it because we’ve spent so much time “getting to know” him and witnessing the deepening of his and Ellie’s relationship – in way that the game doesn’t really ask you to reflect on, its hopefulness is built on the back of those murders.The second game would seem to be heading down that same path – Joel’s brutal death works to excuse a lot of Ellie’s behaviour for a LONG TIME in the game (also, I’d disagree with the above review about the lack of human connection – Ellie and Dina’s relationship, Abbey and Lev’s). When the big Abbey twist came, I was outraged. The game had done such a fantastic job of villainising her that I was pissed it would expect me to play in her shoes. I didn’t want that at all, and seriously considered quitting.At that point, though, I actually think it becomes a much more human game than the first because it forces the player to ask ‘at what cost,’ and it forces the player to ask of ourselves what we expect from the game, what we expect from our entertainment, and in what situations we think the kind of vengeance Ellie and Abbey have been dolling out are acceptable. Bloody vengeance has been a popular narrative theme for the past 20 years, especially in movies like Kill Bill through Old Boy, Blue Ruin, and Promising Young Woman. And almost always these films and games position the audience to accept the vengeance as a form of justified retribution.By making that acceptance difficult for the player, TLOU2 does something that I found remarkable, even though I hated it for long stretches – it asks us to examine how easily we let ourselves be manipulated by a ‘justified’ thirst for vengeance. The uncomfortable feelings it raises are part of its reason for being. In that way I find it a much more thought-provoking and, in the end, a much more honest game than the first (which, btw, I also love).
I agree with your review more than who you are responding too, what bothers me most is the overly simplistic “I didnt learn, I didnt get, I know how…” Games/Stories are not made for one mans review, they allow people to see what they want, take away what they like, and be upset over the difference. I personally found the first game amazing, well made, written, and told. The show was good, some of the best part of the game were missing, but some of the best parts of the show were not in the game. As you said, its that idea which leads me to be excited for the 2nd season. People that choose to consume something or not based on a single 2nd/3rd hand account amazes me, but to each their own.
Jumping in to say that Oldboy is about vengeance as pointless source of moral corruption (another SK movie I Saw the Devil has an even crazier take on the theme). Blue Ruin invites the question of whether the main character should (or could) have let it go, but it’s also pretty enamored of depicting violence. Which gets into the problem with interrogating violence through a video game whose core mechanic is dozens of hours of brutal violence. The manipulation is in the gameplay, not just the narrative. Video games have the unique ability to create tension between the gameplay and the narrative, but the emphasis on violence means that the tension is inevitably “kill these people to progress, and then feel kinda bad about it.”
I agree, and part of the tension or difficulty I have with TLOU2 is that I really really appreciate what it’s trying to do/say. In the moment of playing, once I worked through (or began to work through) the feelings I was having about what it was putting me, as a player, it felt really revelatory. But also, to achieve its “maybe you shouldn’t enjoy the catharsis of vengeful violence as much as you do,” it makes you participate in a whole lot of it. For me, the big and brutal plot killings were less troubling than all of Ellie’s throat gougings and dog killings, which the game forces you to endure over and over.
Thank you for the very thoughtful response. I should state that I have no qualms with people getting more out of The Last of Us 2 than I did (as a Sony fanboy, all playstation “wins” are a net positive in my eyes). From a pure gameplay standpoint, I think TLOU 2 is impeccable, and I’d even argue Abby’s sections are superior to Ellie’s because she gets the cooler action set pieces and she gets The Rat King.
But I do think the narrative wants things it doesn’t earn. By forcing us to play as Abby, we could have got the insight you’re describing, but she’s never actually that deep, and it was mainly just dealing with her boyfriend drama, and turning on the group she survived with for years to protect someone she just met for about 2 days. How does killing Joel effect or change Abby, or that her actions are now leading to the death of her friends? The story wasn’t interested in exploring this. (But hopefully HBO is)
I dipped in and out of the series. The pilot hit the usual zombie movie beats, but it was creative and had a lot of panache. Then I watched the Kansas City episodes with Melanie Linskey, and they were very silly. Still, the premise was neat, so I got the game, which has excellent writing and direction, but the gameplay did nothing for me. So I’ve been playing Resident Evil 4 instead. True story. It’s been quite a journey.
I can’t stress enough how meaningful the giraffe scene was in the first game. It’s a beautiful moment, and one of the reasons The Last of Us Part 2 is a lesser work to the original, imo because there’s nothing like that in there.How about the Space Travel /Moon Landing Museum act?
#facts
Joel and Ellie’s trip to the Wyoming Museum of Science and History for her birthday was an amazing part of a great game.
There’s absolutely a “Giraffe moment” in part 2, with the natural history museum and the rocket launch.
I genuinely thought the museum scene was even more touching. I loved it.
When Abby delivers the line “you’re my people” to Lev, that hit me as hard in the feels as “baby girl”.TLoU2, explores emotions more thoroughly than the original game. I think the issue a lot of people have with it, is that they don’t like dealing with some of those emotions, just like Ellie and Abby.
I actually totally whiffed on that, and stand corrected. Embarrassing considering Ellie’s birthday is actually my favorite chapter in the game!
Whether they worked for you or not, there are obviously several moments in the sequel that are aiming for the tone of part one. Most obviously, the natural history museum, which I personally found to be an incredible scene emotionally, and an incredible application of alternative gameplay to endless action.I absolutely could not agree with you less that there was a failure to create human characters. If anything, I found the characters in the sequel to be far more touching, far more three dimensional, and in general – a much bigger swing. It’s not as focused, and to be blunt, as perfect a story and game as the first. But there are ways in which it clearly surpasses the original, ambition obviously being one.
I fully disagree with tons of what you said. People keep pushing this idea that there was no hope in the second game, no jokes, no happiness, no story, just revenge bad…and it all feels like they got triggered by the violence in their later age like most who grow up do, and ignored tons of material. No part like the giraffe part…no there was a better one. When he took her out and snuck into the space museum and the screen goes completely black, and you see her childlike wonder. Like come on, no amount of pretentious review from a critic who uses buzz words will have me believe last of us 2 was bad. It was a more ambitious game than 1 and ambition seems to be bad for mass appeal games as people wanted a cookie cutter joel beats a bad guy story. The first was simple and straightforward and that worked for the time, There was way more to chew on with the second and anyone who says its all just revenge bad is really missing the point. The type of people who say Attack on titan is just a simple story about revenge and the ending is bad because it didn’t do what i want. Sad that so much youtubers and essays can sway people into believing lots of texts and saying buzz words makes them right and swaths of a game are just bad because they said so. Boiling down story to popular wants of reviewers is why so many stories have become cookie cutter. You must do this by act 1, never take out a beloved character, don’t make us play with that character or ill hate it since i can’t see two sides to a story…only thing i can agree with is the game could be shorter and the violence could use a mode to tone it down, so people can stop complaining about it. Nothing worse than say berserk or something which people tend to highlight as soooo good but does much more violent acts.
Fair enough. With all the dating and pregnancy drama, I don’t think Part 2 is any more ambitious than Part 1, when the narrative is stripped down to its basics. But at least for half the game, I think it’s interesting that we tangibly see the effect Ellie’s vengeance is having on her mentally. However, when it wants me to feel bad for a killing spree- even though the player has no choice if they want to progress, or the characters are making nonsensical decisions because the plot needs them to, then TLOU 2’s ultimate messaging about violence is hollow and unsatisfying, especially in regards to the end of the game. And perhaps that’s the point, but then the creators shouldn’t be surprised if intending to be unsatisfying left some people unsatisfied.
This is where I think the messages about violence will work better in the show. Without forcing the player to participate, it won’t have to worry about that cognitive dissonance.
I’ve seen this take a lot, where people just don’t want to have to be the one holding the reins committing the actions Ellie takes since they’re not often heroic and slowly creeping into the as you said unsatisfying narrative avenue. It’s a rarer take I think it’s also why i think LOU2 is more ambitious than 1 so I guess were arguing different points on why we like and don’t. We agree that it’s supposed or trying to go for more of a downer ending but there is still hope in the ending IMO. Yes, the tv show may have an easier time showcasing its events as people are more ok being active onlooker’s vs being associates to the actions on screen. I think it’s again up to opinions. Someone could think actions are nonsensical, I didn’t find that happen as often as you. I didn’t find the message just about violence bad or think it was unsatisfying, but some did. I do think it’s a testament to how realistic looking and well-acted the game is that people have such intense hatred for the series. I mean in uncharted 1 you take out tons of goons and think you’re the hero. Last of us 2’s tone even if people say its trash online, still demands itself to be taken more serious and as you said makes some feel the cognitive dissonance. I’m guessing if it was more like a rpg with choices people would play the nicer route and you could end things in a safer route but again I think it would defeat the purpose of what the story was trying to do. Choice was never the point, it was a narrative and you doing the actions doesn’t make you or shouldn’t make you feel like you would or did those things, but I get that people have trouble taking themselves out that equation and I see your points a lot online for why people hate the game but love the first, so I’ll concede. Something about Joel doing the actions he did in the first game and having less impact (noticeably) or the better graphics to show the acting along with the more complex interwoven narrative worked for me (more challenging to get you to see your enemies’ side) vs the standard journey with kid learn to like them like daughter tuff choice make heroic one and people love your game storyline (heroic choice debatable I know)
I’m not sure I get the handwringing over this adaptation. The game was already structured like an incredibly well-told (if brutal) miniseries. Just adapt it faithfully and it will be excellent. Honestly a lot of the complaints from the initial reviews of Part 2 stem primarily from the fact that the game not only depicted such grim brutality, but that it forced the player to actively engage in that brutality to advance the story. HBO audiences won’t have that problem.
I definitely don’t think the structure of the second game (the big POV switch) will work for a TV series. I think the only reason it worked for the game is because of the activity of playing. Want to keep playing this game? Well, you have to play it as the character you absolutely hate. And it is both the activity of participating in Abby’s story AS HER as well as learning more about her that actually can soften a player to her (or however you want to phrase it). That is a very different ask and experience than the one to a passive TV audience: want to keep watching this show? You are stuck watching the character you absolutely hate do things with other characters you also hate – please care! At the end of Ellie’s section when suddenly you’re playing as Abby it’s a real jolt. Holy shit! They’re doing this to me! But that wow factor isn’t really there when it’s just “oh now we are watching this character again. it has been a long time and I hate her.”So I think Season 2 will probably jump back and forth between Jackson and Abby, playing a lot of the flashback stuff chronologically (and/or expanding on it/life in Jackson and Abby’s life (+ Co over the years)), and almost certainly culminating with Joel’s death at the end of the season. Though I suppose that could come an episode before the end and it could culminate with Ellie riding off to Seattle. There is a good bit of flashback to flesh out to show how the E/J relationship has changed. And they, imo, have to dig the audience into Abby before she kills Joel, or viewers are just going to peel off. In general I expect an episode, if no a season, to end with a smash cut from Ellie’s screaming face as Abby beats Joel to death.I strongly anticipate that either the first or second episode will be entirely Abby focused. And that we won’t know who she is or why she matters until the end of that episode, at the earliest. Like it may end with the reveal/death scene of her father in the operating room, so we suddenly understand her connection to Joel and the stakes ahead. The first episode makes the most sense to me but how many season premieres don’t show their bankable star even once…so maybe it will be ep 2. I’m repeating myself, but I just don’t think the task ahead of the show – to make viewers care about Abby (+ co.) or even make them willing to care about her – can be successful if we mainline events in the same structure as the game.
Pascal has too many jobs! This is great for him — though there’s a lot of flashback stuff he’d need to do. And obviously, they could make significant changes in the adaptation’s timeline.
My favorite part of The Last of Us II is that it’s about how the lie Joel told Ellie at the end of the first game teaches her a lesson that she takes deeply to heart, and leads to all of the pain she and Abby experience in the second game.
The flashback structure of The Last of Us II has us believing that at the beginning of the story, set about five years after the end of the first game, Ellie doesn’t know about Joel’s lie to her. As Ellie leaves for Seattle, the suspense comes because we’re expecting that she’ll learn at some point about Joel’s hospital rampage, and she’ll realize what she’s done to avenge someone who definitely had it coming this whole time, and it’s going to wreck her.
But that never happens. Instead, we find out through flashbacks that Ellie has known for years about Joel’s choice n the hospital, and that after a period of alienation, they’ve finally reconciled and she’s accepted him as he is. In the process she’s learned from him that loving your family means absolute loyalty. This gets doled out to us slowly, following the arc of Ellie’s escalating actions as they become less and less defensible. By the time the game has you-as-Ellie killing dogs and murdering a pregnant woman, you know that Ellie is fully aware of exactly who Joel was, what he’d done, and she’s still doing all of this killing ostensibly in his name.
Later, after Seattle, In the fifth act, when Tommy comes to Ellie at the farmhouse, she walks away and abandons her family out of the same sense of loyalty that Tommy invokes.
She learned the character lesson about loyalty that Joel’s example taught her. His parenting destroyed her.
But here’s the thing. “That lie destroyed her” makes Ellie look like an absolute dingus. I don’t buy that cause for character development in the slightest, people have gone through FAR WORSE than she did and not turn into fucking psychopaths. I know at least one person with a story of personal suffering and abuse that will wither you to your bones and she is perhaps the kindest most empathetic people I have ever known. If anything it’s an incredibly shallow interpretation of suffering and adolescent influence, but sure, murder justified and Fun For The Player I Guess.Part II honestly exposes Druckmann for a pretentious and self indulgent guy and the game as a classic case of 2nd system effect. It is nowhere near the story it thinks it is.
This is a weird take. My friend went through worst so you should handle pain the same way??? Overlooking the fact that ellie grew up in a world where she took a gun to someone before she learned to drive. Had a parental figure that handled things in a mostly violent and brutal way, and a society that didn’t condemn him to prison for it. Ellie was A word almost in the prior game, i think people forget this when they keep these rose-tinted glasses that the first wasn’t misery sometimes. People just hate that their simple story of the first was offset with a less predictable story where the lines weren’t so black and white, and they had to deal with the challenging story of seeing the side of the enemy and noticing their point of view. If you decide to tell me not true, i can remark back how many said the game was bad because they had no agency to change the story since they wanted to seek revenge or they wanted to not do blank act as if it should have been an rpg choice game when it was always a story. Also, people downplay how good the game felt to play and that many hate campaigns were over something that wasn’t even in the game. Hey if you don’t like the game that’s fine, I’m just sick of people justifying it with takes that the game did bad storytelling because it didn’t follow their personal way of a “good story” vs actual story mistakes. Than again that’s opinion so ehh.
People go through FAR WORSE than Bruce Wayne did and don’t turn into fucking Batman.
If what you took away from my comment was that it’s somehow excusing Ellie, then you need to spend some time working on your critical reading skills.
To answer the question: You make all the trannies detransition.
They have largely hinted that II will be covered in more than one season so my hunch is that, which means I think we’re getting at least one more season of the Joel/Ellie show before we get to a point where they are going to kill Joel. Maybe they will shock me, but I suspect we’re going to get a slower build to that moment with a better chance that we also see Abby’s side of the story in the lead up/the other clans getting all riled up and what have you.
They should absolutely end Episode 1 with a cliffhanger of Abby’s attack, and then start Episode 2 with Joel’s death. Have the courage to off your star character in the opening moments, just like the game did. It would be cowardly to walk it back simply because Pascal is famous.
The last of us Part 2 was a very divisive video game so I would expect the second season of the show, if it follows the second game, to be so as well.I honestly wonder how much padding they are going to do. I kinda bet we get a bunch of new content telling the story between the two games and then the last episode or two adapting the game up until Joels death and leave that as a cliff hanger for a season 3
The greatest structural risk of adapting TLOU2 at this moment is not the pacing nor the generally “dark” turn that the story and Ellie take, but that it is specifically inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, applies a both-sides-ist “cycle of violence” framework to it, and will potentially arrive in the midst of a very one-sided Israeli-Palestinian war.The emotional seed of the game, as Neil Druckmann has stated, was to try to fill players with intense hatred — the same kind of hatred that Druckmann felt toward Palestinians after the 2000 lynching of two Israeli soldiers — and then get players to interrogate that hate, their hate. I think it’s arguable whether the game succeeded at that, and it will be an even taller order for a TV show.The challenge of the adaptation will be 1) that as a passive medium, TV cannot as effectively erase the distance between Ellie and the viewer and invite the viewer to interrogate her actions as if they were their own, and 2) the game’s “cycle of violence” framework feels woefully inadequate when the real-life conflict is so asymmetric that Israel is literally being tried for genocide.
If they do intend on killing Joel off last episode of season 2 to set up Ellie v Abby in season 3 then they’re gonna have to add a lot of stuff not in the game. The start of the game up to the kill scene just doesn’t have enough material to fill out 9 episodes. They can obviously have the episodes split between the Jackson community doing stuff to secure their area and maybe use some of the flashbacks like the visit to the museum and doing patrols which lead Joel and Ellie to trying to get to the music store.But they’d need to add a lot more of Abby’s groups journey to fill the rest out and that could take away some of the suspense as to who they’re looking for and what they intend on doing.
Great article. For me, the absolute genius of the game is that they somehow managed to make me as angry and heartbroken as I have ever been over a story with Joel’s death, and then somehow were able to make me not only willing to play as his killer, but to actually empathize with and root for her later in the game. Doing that took skill and time. The creators of the show have proven to be excellent story tellers…I just hope they get the time they will need to attempt this complicated but absolutely amazing feat.
They need to drop the structure from the game and just have an expanded version of the flashbacks plus events in Ellie’s journal be the second season. Alternate between “Ellie” and “Abby” episodes, end the season with Ellie estranged from Joel and Abby and her crew starting the trip to Jackson.
I don’t know that Logan Roy really feels like an apt comparison? Brian Cox’s protestations aside, the character lasted until 6 episodes from the end of 4 seasons of a show that was ostensibly in large part about succeeding him, it’s not like he was finally going to kick it in the very last hour.