Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Last of Us season two through episode seven as well as references to the games. Read at your own risk.

Intro

Welcome to the finale of season two of HBO’s The Last of Us! How we doing? Everyone feel hydrated?

It’s probably fairly obvious at this point that the finale of this season does not compare to the finale of season one in the sense of being a finale, frankly. It’s obviously a part 1 of 2 (ironic, since the story it’s based on is itself a Part Two). I can see why Craig Mazin handled this the way he did though. Which really gets into talking about the episode itself as well as season two as a whole so let’s get into it.

How Does Season Two of The Last of Us Stand Up?

Here the question is how does it stand up to both the standards of season one as well as the game.

With of course the full caveat that the story isn’t finished yet and thus can’t be fully judged as a story until we have season three under our belts, I think in general this season did pretty well? Certainly as well as it could?

I may as well pause at this point and say, as I indicated at the start of this season, in general the story of The Last of Us Part II didn’t work for me. I got what Neil Druckmann was going for with the idea of the cycle of violence. I thought the conceit of showing the audience a reverse Joel - have the killing happen and then make you feel sympathy for the killer - was interesting.

But ultimately the story of The Last of Us II is that Ellie and Abby both are people who go on herculean journeys (five years long in Abby’s case) to get revenge on the people who killed their father figures and the entire freaking time I watch the game I’m like… or you could not?

These women live in the apocalypse. Even if you took all the infected and cults and armies out of it it’s still a long god damn walk to even get to the person you’re trying to kill (again: five freaking years in Abby’s case!) I have exactly zero ability to relate to somebody who would be so laser focused hell bent on revenge that the end of the fucking world wouldn’t make them once stop and go “Am I just hangry? Should I try eating a sandwich and see if that changes my mind?”

I recognize that some people love the game. I’m told if you suffered a recent loss it can be particularly meaningful and make you more inclined to identify with Abby and Ellie’s desire to rail against something that took their loved one away. The game also won an insane number of game of the year awards so clearly the story worked for a lot of people.

But for me I have the hardest time managing to muster up giving a shit about Oh no! Is Ellie gonna make it out of this one? when I’m there going Ellie could’ve sat her ass home and had none of these problems. If Ellie is bound and determined to do the revenge version of constantly sticking her tongue into a light socket I’m going to feel no sympathy about her getting shocked over and over again. Frankly, I’m going to get a little bored along the way.

To that end I can say the show certainly recreated that feeling super well. Once again I was there having no ability to relate to somebody who couldn’t stop wanting revenge enough to get out of the freaking rain even - someone with therefore less common sense than a wild turkey, basically - as she repeatedly made dumbass decisions that got other people killed.

Here too is where both show and game didn’t stick the dismount for me in what Neil Druckmann was trying to do. Did you know violence begets violence? Did you know innocents get hurt along the way? No? Then I’m amazed you were living under a rock and yet were still able to score a Playstation console and make it through the over twenty plus hours of game time that walked you through that again and again and AGAIN.

Now in fairness to both game and show - and without trying to get into spoilers but thematically I think this should be pretty clear - Ellie’s story isn’t the one that’s really meant to break super new ground? It’s Abby’s. Which you should be able to guess since she’s the mirror of Joel, so if we the viewer and/or player are meant to learn anything, it’s via the character and story that puts what we already know in a new light. And as you saw tonight, Abby’s story comes next season.

Which mirrors the game. As we’ve talked about before, you play as Abby at the start of the game to get a little empathy for her as a person but then you don’t know anything about her other than that she kills Joel. Then you’re Ellie for a while - as the show did in this season - then Abby appears on Day Three and you flash back to Day One and see everything from Abby’s perspective.

A huge difference in show vs game is that the game doesn’t tell you the part about why Abby killed Joel until later. I know there are those who think it was a bad idea to come out of the gate with that but put me down as firmly in Craig Mazin’s camp on this one. A TV audience that will have to wait years for that information is not going to be able to process it the same way a player will who at least had to keep Abby alive during a blizzard and fights against infected. I do think many of Abby’s speeches were way too long and on the nose, but I still think it was the right call to reveal it immediately.

On the topic of things that were good, I’ll also say that I think season two did a good job with the world building. I was thrilled to see them actually doing something with the underground tendril communication network. It still makes zero sense since infected walking around aren’t connected to it but whatever. It’s a world where mushroom people walk around in the first place. The point is not to question the logistics of how Superman can fly, it’s to hope that his flight is an interesting and useful part of the story.

I also liked that season two did a better job of showing the infected as a threat. Season one made them seem far too easy to avoid which undercut the need to use Ellie as a cure in the first place. Season two made you appreciate that maybe you get time to breathe now and then (no spore joke intended) but you’re never fully safe.

Season two also had some deft storytelling. To circle back on things that I said I couldn’t touch on at the time, one of the things that was going on a lot was foreshadowing. When Ellie and Dina are talking about triangulation and were able to figure out the WLF were so free with their information on the comms because they assumed nobody was paying attention, that was Ellie and Dina themselves being so arrogant as to assume nobody could be tracking them. Lo and behold Jesse and Tommy find them, then whoops Abby does as well.

Likewise there’s the way Ellie leaves a path of destruction everywhere she goes. You get that in big things like the way she killed pregnant Mel, but also in little ways like how she found that pristine guitar in the music store and then left it exposed to the elements.

I do think the show made some good changes from the game as well. Ellie’s reaction to Dina being pregnant is better on the show than in the game. Likewise Dina’s to finding out Ellie is immune. I’m also wondering/hoping that when we get more followup with Dina finding out why Abby killed Joel there’s the element of wait, everyone I know who died by infection didn’t have to if not for Joel. My baby wouldn’t have to grow up in a world of infected if not for Joel.

I’m not saying I need Dina to cheerfully think sacrificing Ellie would be okay. That would be out of character for her. I’m just saying it would be interesting to see her have to factor that in to how she feels about her and Ellie’s future together. If nothing else I did like her finally being all “oh fuck this we’re going home now” though. (Also props to Isabela Merced for how you could see Dina trying to work through all her thoughts and emotions once she heard the full story. Isabela herself is one of the great additions to the show.)

The good part about the change in Ellie’s reaction to the pregnancy is that it makes Ellie more sympathetic as a character. The bad part about other changes to Ellie is that they undercut why she’s doing all this. While I couldn’t sympathize with game Ellie at all at no time did I question that Ellie was obsessed to the point of compulsion when it came to killing Abby. I could believe she would keep kissing that metaphorical light socket because her mind had broken to the point where she genuinely did not know how to do anything else. I wouldn’t do what Ellie was doing, but I believed she would.

Show Ellie not so much. Bella Ramsey could absolutely sell me on the emotions of Ellie being in a dark place and ready to hurt someone. They could also sell me on Ellie’s moments of giggly and blushing young love. What the show couldn’t sell me on was any sort of connection between those two sides of her. There are those who have pointed out that the romance scenes with Ellie and Dina felt like something out of a CW show that somehow got spliced in with the apocalyptic drama revenge story and honestly I can’t say that take is wrong.

(Others have pointed out it didn’t help that Dina looks like she wandered in from a CW show and they’re not wrong about that either.)

To get back to this episode, I do think the show did a great job with the energy and the sense of being in what was effectively a dark action movie. I personally could’ve done with shaving a minute or so off of each “Ellie is in a boat staring at the camera in a determined fashion” shot but that’s me splitting hairs.

I also think this episode did a fair job of Ellie at least having some realization about what an asshole she was being. While it is extremely on the nose that Abby’s group also has a pregnant person in it, that goes back to the game so you can’t fault the show there.

(Parallels? Do you get it? Abby lost a father and wanted revenge and then Ellie lost a father and wanted revenge? And both of their groups have a pregnant person in them? And a guy who’s a peer who is a responsible leader type who argues for a more merciful path and thinking of the bigger picture? Do you notice? DO YOU GET IT??? Ahem.)

At the very least the show did adequately convey that Ellie had a personal oh shit moment and was ready to grudgingly go home for the sake of Dina and others even if she wasn’t ready to admit she was fully wrong for everything she did.

If I’m wrapping this up by a taking a big picture view of the season, I will say I think that this season shares something in common with last season in that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann tend to have a crisis of confidence about some things where they end up taking fifteen steps to handle a problem they think needs to be fixed when 1) it could’ve taken maybe two steps tops and 2) may not have actually been a problem in the first place.

For example, spores weren’t introduced this season as part of a long held plan about the way the virus would evolve in this version of the world. Spores were introduced - per Craig and Neil in the podcast - because they couldn’t figure out how else Ellie would prove to Nora that she was immune.

My dudes, seriously? They both get quickly bit while running from infected, you keep the scene of Nora saying Ellie damned them both, Ellie smugly goes “Did I?” and Nora then puts two and two together that if this girl wants revenge for them killing the guy who shot up the hospital maybe this is the girl he saved.

Like Jesus Christ, guys. You added a whole ass prologue scene with the implausible “Uhhh, but it doesn’t get into the vents! Because reasons!” on top of it because you had a panic attack that somehow Nora couldn’t figure this out with the barest of evidence. Seriously?

Look I’m not mad about spores being a thing. I like spores way more than bean sprouts coming out of people’s mouths! The design of the infected room with the spores in it was amazing! But considering we now know that season three is going to be Day One through Three again, how much do you think spores are going to be making an impact in the world as a whole? Isn’t this time, money, and effort that could’ve been put on other things?

There’s more but you get the point. Personally I suspect it’s Craig in particular who has these freakouts and needs to over when no, seriously, it was fine we promise. To be honest, as much as it’s great that most of the people working on this show are passionate fans of the game I think the show could benefit from having someone who doesn’t know the game from a hole in the wall to give the much needed POV of when things do and don’t make sense.

But still, on the whole the season didn’t suck for me? It certainly felt like a fairly solid seven episodes of characters in a world where the apocalypse happened. Much like with the game I don’t know that we needed the further adventures of this world when the power of the first game/season one was in the closed story. But we’re here and it could’ve done worse. Just have to see how they handle season three whenever that comes along.

Lagniappe

As always, things that don’t fit anywhere else:

• You may notice I said nothing about costuming. That’s because costuming for this season has grown into its own article. Believe me, I have THOUGHTS. They’re coming, don’t worry.
• I don’t want to get into it too much here but for example after last week’s episode I had an epiphany about who gets dirty/worn clothing and who doesn’t and this week’s episode proved me correct every single time.
• Jesse ultimately did the right thing but protip: you never pull arrows out when they have a head like that. You’ll do more damage than not. Push, don’t pull.
• Much as I told you to pay attention to “Day One” when it appeared, I’m letting you know now that there are a lot of details in Seattle that you’re going to see again when we go through the days from Abby’s point of view.
• Speaking of things I told you to pay attention to, I’m going to bring you back to season one and the story of Kathleen. Remember how I said not every supposedly obvious parallel was obvious? Kathleen’s story was a parallel for Ellie and Joel, yeah, but for them this season. Kathleen’s brother was her protector and when he died she lost her shit and ended up destroying everything. Kathleen was Ellie now that she’s lost Joel.
• This episode was brought to you by Costco! Home for all your apocalypse army needs!
• (I’ve got thoughts on THAT as well, but they’re going into the costume article.)
• “Everyone else is a fucking asshole” - a hit dog will holler, Ellie.
• Jesse’s assertion and Ellie’s agreement that she would set the world on fire to save him rings ludicrously hollow when earlier that day she couldn’t be arsed to go two blocks with him to keep him safe while rescuing the man who is her adoptive uncle. To be honest I was waiting for the show to simply not have Jesse make it back from that trip at all. At this point I wouldn’t trust Ellie to pass me a napkin, let alone watch my back in a life or death situation.
• Bless Craig and Neil’s hearts but they are shit at not ruining things in the podcast. Not only are they bad about obfuscating spoilers (far too frequently they pull the “Hmmm, guess we can’t talk about THIS EXTREMELY SPECIFIC THING” move which lets you know where spoilers will come, even if you don’t know from the game what they are) but they talked about the whole “Ellie’s only community is Joel” thing so much that it undercut Ellie’s speech about that when it happened. I’m not dinging them for that though, how many people listen to the podcast anyway? I’m just bemused that they can’t help themselves.
• Honestly, if I was a member of Jackson I’d kick Ellie’s ass out. You don’t care about community? Okay, we’ll stop burdening you with one then. Not like she’s doing shit to contribute. I’m convinced for most people in that town she was only known as Joel’s pain in the ass daughter that they put up with since Joel at least made himself useful.

And there we are! I do have a LOT more thoughts as they relate to costuming for the show so look for that article to come soon. In the meanwhile thanks for keeping me company for season two.