The Last of Us: Season 2

I feel like this season of The Last of Us was never going to get a fair shake after a stunning first season that showed us that video game adaptations can be good. It set the bar really high and was based on a beloved video game that was universally celebrated. And then The Last of Us Part II rolled out and the response — while mostly driven by a weird mixture of misogyny and psychosis — was sometimes less than complimentary. Luckily, I don’t read reviews or whatever forums teenage incels hang out in who were pissed their video game starred a girl. The horror! Granted, I wasn’t as enthralled with Part II as I was the original, but it certainly provided a lot of lore, action and feels for a series to chew on.

But, inherent in the second game is a functional narrative thing that would make season two of the show difficult. Perspective. The game — which is a third-person perspective game — still personalizes the experience because you’re playing as a character. In this case, both Ellie and her new nemesis, Abby. Your perspective — and, to some extent, your allegiance — is split. Now, how in the world is a TV show going to do this? Turns out, it pretty much takes a pass at the attempt. They don’t intermingle the Ellie and Abby stories, instead choosing to follow Ellie this season and move the entirety of the Abby perspective to season three. Their two dueling stories aren’t Rashomon-ish, in that they’re told pretty objectively in overlapping timelines. The choice to make the clean split is mostly interesting because we won’t even get Abby’s story until 2027, or whenever they’re able to produce the next season. At which point, it’ll be hard to remember — let alone care — about this narrative. It’s really only because I played the game and know what’s what that I know I can hang. If I were a casual watcher, it would be a lot to ask.

Mechanics aside, I do think the season has a lot to offer. I played the game not too long ago, so it was still relatively fresh in my mind. I felt there was both an advantage and disadvantage to this. I knew what was coming, but also missed the parts that didn’t. In the game Ellie is a murdering machine. You kill the shit out of zombies and soldiers and every manner of everything. In the show Ellie (Bella Ramsey) will gladly kill a clicker, but humans are a whole different deal. Her violence, unlike in the game, scares her and actually affects her. It almost had to. So, just as a matter of making her character human, she has to be more engaged both intellectually and emotionally with her own nature. They have to build her emotional connection with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and complicate her anger toward Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). She can’t just be all aggression and killing. And while Ramsey is definitely good in parts, there are some instances where she doesn’t quite hit the notes. Like your favorite band playing your favorite song live and changing it in a way from the recorded version that mutes its usual impact. It doesn’t ruin the whole song per se — the tune can still be fine — but it just feels a bit like a letdown. I can’t really describe it, but she’s sometimes just missing that extra gear. The same kind of went for the series itself. They had the emotional scene where Ellie plays “Take on Me” on a guitar and sings to her new gal pal, Dina (Isabela Merced), which is good. But could have been great. But then in a scene very quickly afterward, she finds another guitar and starts to strum the Pearl Jam tune, “Future Days,” before putting the guitar down. In some ways it actually detracts from the emotional scene before it and feels like an awkward pile on. A false start of sorts.

There are also logic leaps that gamers are willing to make — at least this gamer — that are a little more glaring in a TV show. Ellie and Dina quickly prep for their long journey from Jackson to Seattle — a journey we have to assume will be treacherous as hell between the weather, the zombies and the humans, but they just kind of arrive in Seattle no worse for wear. No stories about avoiding hordes. No real talk about running out of food (they would have run out of food) or freezing in the forest. They just kind of roll into town, Dina’s hair looking beauty parlor chic. And somehow in a city of about 150 square miles they easily find exactly the people they’re looking for. And, yes, I know it’s not a bustling metropolis of four million anymore, but there is a lot of “trust us” that might be okay in a video game, but just seems kind of lazy or rushed on screen.

And, yes, some major stuff goes down in this season. I’m not sure the biggest of which is a spoiler at this point, but I won’t spoil it. Suffice it to say that there is a major factor missing from this season that puts added pressure on Bella to carry the weight. They do surround her with some charismatic performances from Isabela Merced and Young Mazino. But it can feel light at times. Not her fault per se, but there are moments where things just feel a bit like a YA novel. Young love in dangerous surrounds and all that. I mean, there aren’t vampires and werewolves of whatever, but we get to watch teens’ burgeoning sexual awakenings while death waits around every corner. There’s something almost silly about it. That said, there are some harrowing scenes, including one directly from the game that involves an insane horde in an underground subway station. It’s pretty cool. There are some other nice set pieces as well, but the largest one — the attack on Jackson, which is a construct of the TV show — feels pretty wimpy when comparing it to any of the similar raids in shows like Game of Thrones. Like they had to cut a bunch of corners due to budget constraints, so things are shot at just the right angle to not show the seams and edited in such a way so as to not expose the true number of extras or battlements. Plus, the bloater CGI did look kind of janky.

Look, I’m nitpicking around the edges. This is a good show. It’s just that season one just had more to work with in terms of world-building and a concise, compelling front-to-back story. And added in some TV-specific content — like the “Long, Long Time” (aka Frank & Bill) episode — that really put a finer point on what living in this world means. It had heart, action and even some surprise moves in its quiver. Season two had a lot to accomplish in two episodes less and didn’t come across quite as considered or full. People will argue why that is, and some will probably say “I told you so.” But those people went in with their pre-conceived notions anyway. I spent a good deal of the series amazed at how closely they recreated scenes from the game. The sets and the set decoration just so spot on. Bringing that animation to life in such a visceral way is incredibly impressive. That said, I am concerned how they’re possibly going to finish off the story in just one more season. A season that is probably still several years off. If they do have to go beyond three, I fear the actors will age out, things will fall by the wayside and this story, which deserves to be told, will moulder like so many mushroom zombie bodies on the highway.