With season two of HBO’s The Last of Us now in full swing (if you know you know) after this week’s episode, discourse around the show is, as expected, beginning to display obscene amounts of rage.
The show was always going to be dissected under a microscope by fans of the original games, especially in how it changes and expands on events from the established canon, and I’ve already complained about how much I dislike that Abby’s introduction has been altered. But I also want to highlight one thing I particularly enjoy about the show’s take on these characters.
Spoiler warning for HBO’s The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part 2.
Dina And Joel, BFFs
I’ve found it very interesting that the show has chosen to play up Dina and Joel’s relationship. In the game, these characters didn’t really have a relationship. They barely interacted at all, apart from that one scene at the New Year’s dance. Dina and Ellie have a relationship, but that’s kept completely separate from Ellie and Joel’s.
In the show, Dina and Joel seem to be pretty close – closer than Ellie and Joel are, at this point in time. They’re comfortable enough with each other that Dina asks Joel unprompted why Ellie is so angry with him, and she knows him well enough that when he uses therapy speak, she correctly realises that he’s been seeing Gail, Jackson’s resident therapist. He tells that same therapist that Ellie is unkind to him, while Dina treats him like a human being.
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Emotional devastation has never felt so devastating.
When Joel attacks Seth after he calls Ellie and Dina a homophobic slur, he’s not just defending Ellie, but Dina as well. There’s a crucial change from the game in the first episode, too: in the game, Ellie tells Dina that she has plans to watch a movie with Joel. In the show, however, it’s Dina who’s watching the film with Joel, and asks Ellie if she would like to join. Ellie and Joel are depicted as entirely estranged, with Dina trying to bridge the gap between them.
And in episode two, it’s Dina that goes on patrol with Joel, not Tommy. While Tommy is back in Jackson setting Bloaters on fire, Dina is the one who’s with Joel when Abby beats his brains out, the one who spends his last day with him instead of Ellie, who woke up too late to patrol with him like she wanted to.
How Will A Different Dina Affect The Plot?
This relationship will have huge ramifications on season two’s plot. I imagine it will create a layer of tension between Dina and Ellie that wasn’t there before – Dina spends Joel’s last day with him instead of Ellie, and that will likely hang over their relationship and add an undercurrent of guilt to their romance.
But it also gives Dina a different motivation than she had in the game. Because Ellie and Dina never get to smoke a doobie together in the show, their relationship never quite feels solidified. In the game, Dina follows Ellie out of love and dedication, telling her that if she goes, Dina will go too. It’s a declaration of devotion, but the show doesn’t take the same tack.
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A show to really focus on the last of them.
Instead, Dina is given her own reasons to want revenge. Joel is as much a father figure to her as he is to Ellie, and she was there when he was killed, albeit unconscious. This might mean we’ll see a more vengeful version of Dina in the show than in the game.
This, in itself, will have repercussions on the rest of the story. Game Dina is arguably more of a bystander, one who follows instead of leads. She doesn’t have the same thirst for revenge, which is why she begs Ellie to stay with her on the farm at the end of the game. Will Dina act the same way in the show? Will she decide against revenge at some point while Ellie chooses to pursue it, drawing a stark contrast between them and emphasising the game’s themes of choosing to let go of revenge in order to break the cycle?
It’s impossible to say now, obviously, and it may still be impossible to say until we see the third season of the show wrap up. But this crucial change in Joel and Dina’s relationship is one of the most exciting of the show so far, and I have a feeling the thematic payoff will be huge.