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

Introduction

HBO’s The Last of Us episode five of season two, Feel Her Love, is frustrating for me as someone who knows the game. I know I’ve said this before but there’s things going on here where you get a better appreciation of what’s going on and what they’re doing when you know where they’re headed. But I’ve promised not to do any spoilers and I will keep that promise.

Accordingly, I’ll once again keep things to a high level view with the companion promise that I will circle back and talk more about what was going on in this episode once the show itself connects the dots that it’s placing.

That being said, the show does need to exist on its own, so let’s talk about it in that respect.

How Does HBO’s The Last of Us Hold Up if You Don’t Know the Game?

In a lot of respects I think the show, both season one and season two so far, holds up great. It’s got a story about people and concepts that uses the vehicle of the apocalypse as the method for telling it.

The show also has the ability to tell a story in the way they game can’t. The game needs to keep somebody holding a controller from getting bored. That’s as much about making sure to have good pacing on when a player needs to hit some buttons and interact with the world around them as it is about giving them a good reason why they’re interacting with the world around them.

A TV show doesn’t have that problem so it can focus entirely on story. Moreover it can take dozens of hours of playtime and toss them out the window in favor of telling more story. Part of the reason why The Last of Us games take time to play is because in the game you’re the one figuring out how to get through a building with stalkers in it. As TV Ellie and Dina discovered, it’s not easy. Hope you didn’t have anything else planned with your afternoon! (But think of the sense of accomplishment when you manage it!)

Which means the show can do things I like such as give Dina more backstory. I liked hearing about why she’s a little fucked up as a person. I mean it’s the apocalypse, pretty much everyone is fucked up as a person. But it was nice hearing how Dina’s particular brand of fucked up developed and turned into a situation where she is firmly team revenge for Joel’s death.

The flip side is that while we were getting that story from Dina I sat there -and even wrote in my notes - I feel like we’re getting more about Dina’s motivations than we are about Ellie’s. Yes, sure, I watched season one. I know Ellie has a strong attachment to Joel and thus would have strong feelings about losing him even if they were on the outs when he died. (Arguably even stronger feelings about losing him when they’re on the outs because that means it’s a rift that will never be repaired.)

But what I’m not seeing is any of this in Ellie’s emotions. And to be clear, I don’t think this is a fault of Bella Ramsey’s acting. They’re doing great at showing that right now Ellie’s got a mix of thoughts and feelings going on. My fault is with the writing for not giving a better through line on what those thoughts and feelings are.

The show’s made more than a few changes from the game and in general I’m for them. Last week’s scene of the reveal that Ellie is immune and Dina is pregnant was one of them. I found it vastly superior to the game version and I stand by that.

I won’t get too much into how the game handled it to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t played yet. But one of the tweaks to the scene is the emotions of it. I find the emotions of both versions believable. However, changing the emotions of a very crucial scene has a ripple effect on everything else going on.

Again I’m dancing around diving too deeply but one of the things that got me with the story of The Last of Us Part II was the degree of difficulty there was in convincing me, the person with my ass sat on the couch, why in the ever loving fuck would all these people not go the hell home?

I get it, Ellie wants revenge. You can get me on her leaving the safety of Jackson no problem. Dina following her, also no problem. They arrive in Seattle, start to get the lay of the land, realize it’s a little more dangerous than they thought, keep pushing because they’re stubborn…

And then they’re watching a guy get his guts ripped out of him while he’s still alive because a religious cult that an entire fucking army is skittish about didn’t like the dude.

GO THE FUCK HOME.

I get that Ellie is 19 so in many ways still a stupid teenager. Likewise that her being immune undoubtedly feeds into the idea every teenager has that they’re immortal. But sweet tapdancing JESUS at what point between the army, the stalkers, the cult, the hordes, the hospital basement that’s a living infected wall, the sheer size of the city, hell even the rain and humidity do you not just go “You know what? I just remembered I own a mattress and pillows back at my house in Jackson. Laters gators!”

The way the story needs to work is that you need to convince the audience that even if they wouldn’t make these decisions the characters would. And I have to say in this episode the show is not selling me on Ellie being so laser focused on revenge for Joel that it obliterates every other rational thought in her mind.

I get it. They were trying. Her putting the guitar down in the theater was obviously meant to indicate she’d triggered bad memories. It’s not coincidence that after that moment Dina came in with the start of a plan. I also get that Nora talking about it was another PTSD moment for Ellie. But these moments have been interspersed with Ellie bouncing around and downright playful in general, let alone when she flirts with Dina.

Likewise I get that PTSD isn’t a constant state. I’m not saying Ellie can never be happy. I thought her scene with Dina last week was great. Ellie feeling the emotions in reaction to Dina wanting to be with her and raise a kid with her are perfect reasons for her to be tipped over to the side of happiness.

But we need more which shores up why that happiness - particularly a happiness about her future - isn’t pulling her from the path of vengeance.

Which you can do! I’m not saying it’s impossible! You don’t even have to try that hard because part of the point is that Ellie isn’t thinking rationally. Just off the top of my head say she believes she can’t focus on Dina and the kid until she settles things with Abby. Make the kid be even more motivation for Ellie to not only want to get this done but get it done quickly. I’m not saying you gotta be limited to that, I’m just saying it’s one of many options for getting from A to B.

Right now? Show’s not really doing that. Maybe the next two episodes will fix that but right now I’m on ehhh.

Go the hell home.

Lagniappe

As always, things that don’t fit anywhere else. Some due to how I can’t dive deeper into them without getting into spoilers:

• Stephen Williams directed this week’s ep but I liked how you saw a lot of the Craig Mazin signature of telling a story through people’s reactions. Losing somebody named Leon is a big deal, WLF is scared of going in the park. Things like that help build tension and teach the audience that if the characters are freaking out we need to too.
• “I know your orders, I gave them” is shitty writing, Craig, c’mon. That’s a super easy exposition fix by changing it to “After you told us to…”
• Yes, I heard the “If you know, you know” reference. That’s all we’re saying about that.
• I’m interested to see how they handle spores now that they’ve introduced them. I’ve talked about before how I liked spores better than the dumb tendril thing they tried in season one (I even rewatched parts of the first episode of season one this week and was reminded anew how stupid tendrils out of the mouth looked). But, as they correctly guessed when setting up the show, spores have their own logistical headaches. Didn’t get into the vents, huh? The things designed for airflow? Handy, that!
• There were some odd choices of framing in this ep. We had Ksenia Sereda on cinematography and she’s worked with Craig Mazin and on The Last of Us before which makes me inclined to believe that these were choices on Stephen Williams’s side. Things like having Elise Park looking directly at the camera during her testimony, framing Ellie in a hero shot when she said she was going to keep going - none of it was awful but it was strange and a little distracting.
• Jesse and Tommy showing up in Seattle is one of those things that works better for me in a game than on a show. In a game I recognize the meta need to stick with the player characters (literally the characters you play as) and resources and time are not going to be spent on showing anybody else. Which likewise means “Hey we headed to Seattle not long after you!” is an acceptable thing by a video game’s need for a suspension of disbelief. For a TV show with actors who could’ve just as easily come to set earlier that week you’re kinda there like uhhh, Dina and Ellie left on horse back with a clear goal one day ahead of you and weren’t trying to hide at any point on that journey. How shit are your tracking skills, guys?
• The clothing this season has been something a lot of people are picking up on, not just me and my obsessive self. I’ve been trying to wait and see on this but at this point, with Jesse fresh off his own cross country trip looking like he got his clothes directly from a well stocked Old Navy, I gotta say Ann Foley is missing the mark on making apocalypse clothes that look like they’ve been through the apocalypse. Season one did not have this issue. Clothes and accessories in season one looked appropriately worn down and dirty for the circumstances and environments of the characters wearing them. Clothes this season look brand spanking new and freshly pressed besides. It is such a weird thing to have a brain fart on when you’re working a show about the end of the world.
• Shameless plug alert: I actually went into details on what kinds of things should be kept in mind when dressing characters for the apocalypse. I touch on The Last of Us but it’s a much more general essay about where clothes come from and how a world altering event would affect what people are able to wear. It’s bonus content for paid members in the Krewe of Best Tea if you want to read it. (Join via Ko-Fi or here on the site).
• I have to say hair is another one that’s not working for me this season. I get that we want the actors to be at least vaguely nice to look at, but Dina’s beachy waves are distracting. Even moreso when somebody makes the call for her to put her hair up while she’s sitting with pencil and paper but then she takes it down to go into danger. I get that Dina and Ellie don’t keep their hair fully back like in the game because loose hair helps hide the stunt doubles, but you gotta match that with believable actions.
• I like Dina in general and think the show’s doing a good job with fleshing her out. That being said her being the one who is knowledgeable about everything is getting a little grating. It was offset a little bit by Ellie being the one who knew how to make a plan for dealing with the stalkers but I’d like to see more of that. I don’t like that so far Dina’s shine is based on making Ellie dull - both metaphorically and literally given how much “Hurr hurr Ellie is dumb” is a punchline.
• We did see some yellow paint this time so that made me happy. I don’t ask for much.
• Great editing work from Timothy A Good, as usual. Ellie chasing Nora was a great example of how editing is the thing that helps you not only know where characters are in a chase scene, but why they’re doing what they’re doing. Check out the way he shows Nora going through the various steps to decide to leap into that elevator shaft as just one example.
• Major, major props to the design team for setting up the Seattle hospital basement. It looked freaking amazing.

And oh hey! Look at the time! Gotta go… stop talking about the episode now. As always, appreciate you guys reading and being patient as we navigate the world of talking about things without spoiling everyone. See you next week!