two weeks ago, news comes out Actress Kaitlyn Dever to join the cast of HBO drama Season 2 the last of us The TV series — which is still on the air but doesn’t have a release date yet, with “sometime in 2025” being the best anyone in TV land can guess.Despite some slight ambiguity, Dever’s casting sparked a bit of speculation as it was revealed that when she joins the second season of the Emmy-winning video game adaptation, she’ll be playing A character named Abby Anderson – which means the last of us We’re almost certainly going to be fully invested in the story of the 2020s The Last of Us Part 2. Which means things are about to get…chaotic.
[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.]
Because although the key consensus the second part Gaming has largely gone quiet in the four years since its release – most recently, Sony has unveiled a “remastered” version of the barely retro game, released last week – that feels a bit like Lightning when it first came out of pole. Some of these issues aren’t developer Naughty Dog’s fault. (A High-profile leaks from game development, showing off several cutscenes and character models that pissed off those who get offended when female video game characters aren’t “feminine” enough, to give a more mean-spirited example. ) but some of them are in direct response to the game’s big narrative swings, which, depending on who you ask, are either “bold” or “super aggressive and a little manipulative.”
We have to assume that much of this will now be carried over to its TV adaptation: except it Critically foreshadows episode threeCraig Mazin’s adaptation of the first game into the show’s first season is almost completely faithful – right down to the season’s final scene, which almost entirely mimics the game’s dialogue and staging. famous ending. As with the first season, the game series creative director Neil Druckmann is also on board for the second season, and it would be shocking to see the series stray even inches from the established canon. .
What does this all mean?There are a few things – all of which can make the last of us‘Season 2 is a very strange show.
Pedro Pascal “Problem”
Anyone hoping to avoid spoilers for the next season of the game series or show should jump off this train now, because there’s no way to talk about these two things without addressing the fungus-ridden elephant in the room: lead character Joel M. Le’s sudden death, about an hour The Last of Us Part 2.
Understandably, Pedro Pascal, who plays Joel in the show A bit evasive when asked about this plot element—because how could he not? (No one wants the HBO spoiler squad to harass them.) But The Last of Us Part 2 The story really doesn’t work without it: Joel’s sudden death at the hands of a group of survivors who arrive in an almost comically idyllic community, Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) There to live out their post-apocalyptic world, which is rooted in the aftermath of the first game and the narrative obsession of the second.everything The Last of Us Part 2 The desire to speak about humanity—and it has a lot to say—stems from early moments of sudden, shocking brutality, moments in which one horrific trauma arises directly from another.
It’s controversial to say the least in the game, where Joel is a beloved character played by popular voice actor Troy Baker. Apply that to a rising star like Pascal — who did a great job playing Joel in season one, portraying a beautiful, broken man with some fairly ordinary parts — and it might More destructive.Pascal and Ramsey both advanced game of ThronesOf course, so the pair are no strangers to episodes that ditch their “stars” at crucial early moments.But seeing the show’s most marketable star Go the Logan Roy way One episode from the new season may still leave fans a little confused.
The Absolute Brutality of Ellie Williams
If the paragraph above didn’t make it clear to you, The Last of Us Part 2 It’s an extremely cruel game. Even moments of genuine love or levity come with the inescapable knowledge that something truly terrible is coming, and rarely in the form of something as simple as a rampaging fungus monster. This is especially true for the character of Ellie, who came of age in the first game/season, and whose last vestiges of innocence were chipped away piece by piece in the second game.
In fact, we’re excited to see how Ramsay, who was so good in Season 1, will handle this material as Ellie becomes harder and harder to root for and her need for revenge grows. deep. decline.but this will be a a lot of For viewers, even by HBO standards: We’re curious to see if the show actually captures Ellie’s lowest point, which for gamers is the confrontation with Mel, in a less ugly narrative— —or whether it would be anywhere near that alienating level of horror. But either way, we’ll likely end Season 2 with little idea of who, if anyone, we want to see get what they want from this broken and tragic world.
a matter of perspective
There is also a structural problem that needs to be solved here, which requires us to spoil it The Last of Us Part 2of other Big Twist: In fact, only about half of the game is played from Ellie’s perspective, with the game rewinding at a major turning point to show Joel’s killer, Abby, during three violent days in Seattle.
On the one hand, this might actually be Easier TV shows are easier to handle than games; one the last of us One of the series’ great tricks is applying less-familiar film and media techniques to the gaming medium, with this perspective flipping closer to old-hat television. That being said, the portion of the game where you play as Abby makes up a large portion of the game, introducing new characters, stories, motivations, and questions, all designed to let the player understand that she is a human being, a “protagonist.” ,” as Ellie herself does. A 24-hour video game might take that long to get its point across, but a nine-hour TV series doesn’t. This is key to Druckmann’s vision The Last of Us Part 2 Abby is just as “real” to the player/viewer as Joel or Ellie. Establishing that sense of identity without feeling repetitive or beside the point will be a fascinating struggle for the show to handle in its short time.
Is there still room for “a long, long time”?
As we mentioned above, Season 1 the last of us Departing from the game’s plot in just one serious way, and richly rewarded for it, critics and audiences alike clung to this digression, “a long time” as a series highlight. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, who were in the game as Jerk and Corpse respectively, had their characters fleshed out more, and this episode became necessary for the grimness of the rest of the season. Antidote, reminding viewers that there is still the possibility of life, even for the “last of us.”
Messing and writer Peter Hall were able to incorporate this material into the series, in part because they were adapting a largely episodic narrative: the last of us The game is presented as a series of vignettes that also serve as a more cohesive story, and it’s fairly simple to swap out the run-and-gun aspects of the game’s Bill’s Town for something more heartfelt. Just as importantly, it justifies at least some of the show as a whole, incorporating quieter, more human moments away from Joel and Ellie’s story.
The Last of Us Part 2 This is a tighter narrative ship, though, and a lot of its power comes from the way it buries you first inside Ellie’s head, and then inside Abby’s. So it remains to be seen where Mazin and his team can find space to let a little light shine in. (Even if you distance yourself from Ellie and Abby’s conflict, the game’s backstory is about a brutal inter-tribal war between military tyrants on one side and transphobic religious fanatics on the other; there’s not much There’s room for gentler shading and we suspect Abby’s material would have to stand in for such digressions, but her story is so combined and mirrored with Ellie’s that it’s hard to get meaningful breathing room from it.
That being said: It’s worth taking a step back and remembering that we’re talking about a TV show that hasn’t been filmed yet, let alone aired. Speculation can only go so far until it becomes fortune telling and is equally useful.but the last of usNature as an adaptation—particularly indebted to its source material—raises such questions. The Last of Us Part 2 It dropped like a bomb in 2020, setting off months of video game discussion. We can only imagine what will happen when it’s adapted into a TV series sometime next year.
this story first appeared exist AV Club.