The Last of Us is deep into its second season, and so far it's doing a shockingly faithful job of adapting the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us Part II. The season kicked off with a brutal twist when the new character Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) came to the settlement of Jackson and murdered Joel, the hardened smuggler played by Pedro Pascal. Joel was the main character of The Last of Us season 1, but now he's off the board, clearing the way for his surrogate daughter Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to come to the forefront for season 2.
When The Last of Us Part II came out, the backlash to Joel's death was severe; things reached such an unhinged level that people were sending death threats to Abby actor Laura Bailey and her family. The show hasn't faced quite the same amount of controversy, but it's still had its share. It's never easy to kill off a main character and move on to the next generation.
There are a few reasons that I think Joel's death hasn't been quite so badly received on television. The first is that this twist has been out there in the world through the game for quite a while now, so plenty of people went into season 2 expecting it. Another is that the scene itself was fantastic; this is the sort of shocking death we used to get all the time on Game of Thrones, and it was refreshing to see the show commit to it. And yet another is that The Last of Us season 2 front-loaded Abby's backstory, so that we fully understand who she is and why she's killing Joel when it happens. This is a stark contrast to the game, where Abby's motives and identity are a mystery that goes unsolved for a substantial portion of the narrative.
But while knowing Abby's backstory ahead of time may have softened the blow of Joel's death, I'm also not entirely sure it was the right choice for the story.
Why Abby's identity works so well in the game
Questions surrounding how The Last of Us season 2 would handle Abby have been swirling ever since the show was renewed after its smash-hit first season. While the original Last of Us video game has a linear, episodic narrative that is well-suited to television, its sequel is far more ambitious. It plays with timeline and perspective, forcing players to control both Ellie and Abby during different sections. The way it flips perception of who the villain is throughout the story is one of its great achievements.
Part of why it all works so well is that The Last of Us Part II is subtle in its storytelling, and knows how to string along a good mystery. Abby comes onto the scene as a total unknown; we don't even know she's looking to murder Joel until she blows his kneecap out with a shotgun and takes him prisoner. Since we stay in Ellie's perspective after Joel's death, we spend the next lengthy portion of the game chasing Abby without fully understanding why she committed this horrific act.
The show went a different route, fully explaining that Abby is the daughter of the Firefly surgeon Joel killed in the season 1 finale right from the jump. We see her grieving his death right at the start of the very first episode of the season; later, when she captures Joel, she confronts him with this information directly before killing him.
I think this has detracted from the mystery of the story as Ellie and Dina (Isabela Merced) have gone on their hunt for Abby in Seattle. It's harder to root as blindly for them, because we already know that Abby had a very sympathetic reason for killing Joel in the first place. That undermines a key ingredient of The Last of Us Part II game, which lulls the player into wanting vengeance just as bad as Ellie does, only to belatedly make it clear that the path she's gone down is so terrible it's turning her into a monster herself.
There are still a few more episodes left in The Last of Us season 2, so perhaps the show will prove me wrong and it will become clear that front-loading Abby's story was a great decision. But as things stand right now, I think it's indicative of an even bigger problem: The Last of Us season 2 is blunting the nuanced storytelling of the game to make it simpler to parse for television audiences.
The Last of Us is spelling things out and killing some of its magic
Beyond Abby's introduction, there are a few other examples of The Last of Us dumbing down storylines in its second season. Perhaps the one which annoys me the most is Ellie having to reckon with her and Joel's final moment together on the night before his murder.
The game strings us along for quite a long time, giving small clues that make the player think Ellie's final conversation with Joel was their blow-up at the New Years dance, only to later fill in the picture more fully. We don't find out all the details until the very end of the game. It's all handled with an extreme amount of attention to detail that makes it a standout moment in a game filled with them.
The show, on the other hand, has put this question to viewers directly, when the psychotherapist Gail (Catherine O'Hara) outright asks Ellie about her final moments with Joel during Episode 203, saying those last moments with a loved one can sometime define our relationship with them after they're gone. This scene aggravates me, because it's spelling out something the game did in a way that feels dumbed down. And by doing so, it's losing some of the subtle magic that was the game's strong suit.
These examples make me worry over how well the show will handle the overall story of The Last of Us Part II. It's doing well so far, and has even outdone the game with a few scenes like Joel's death and the infected attack on Jackson. But those are big splashy moments; the ones I'm worried about are those which are so quiet that you don't realize their full impact until you're farther into the story, and they come back around to punch you right in the heart.
The Last of Us is adapting very challenging source material
Despite any concerns I may have about how The Last of Us is handling some of the game's subtler elements in season 2, I can also see how it may not have had a choice but to front load some material. A seven-episode season of television is a very different beast than a 30-hour video game, and the show has to figure out how to tell a full, compelling arc each season as well as give its various actors ample enough screentime to make the gig worth it. I don't know that it could feasibly string out mysteries like Abby's backstory the same way the game could without annoying viewers who have to wait years between seasons to see how it all resolves.
And while I think those mysteries are stronger in the game, we do have a few examples where the show is elevating things as well, such as with Isaac, the WLF leader played in both the game and TV series by Westworld's Jeffrey Wright. Wright is an incredible actor and Isaac was insanely underutilized in the video game. He's mentioned during Ellie's time in Seattle, but we don't ever actually see him until the perspective flips to Abby. And even then, Isaac gets minimal screentime.
The show gave us a good dose of Isaac in Episode 304, which made the inspired choice to flesh out a character who had unrealized potential from the game. We have a much better idea of his backstory and who he is. While that information is conveyed in the game through artifacts you can find lying around, the show's take on it may be even better.
The Last of Us is navigating things as well as it can; sometimes it falls short of the source material, and sometimes it improves on it. We'll have to watch the rest of the season to see how that works out for the even darker twists and turns ahead.
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