You Need To Think Of The Last Of Us As A TV Show, Not As A Video Game Adaptation

The Last of Us season two is here, and is already making changes to how the scenes and story played out in the game. This is going to be a major theme of the discourse around season two, especially as it only tackles half of the full Part 2 game. Changes will be made here and there.

With this game being far more recent, just five years removed from the TV show rather than the decade gap between the first game and series, more people are going to notice more differences and similarities. I am here to tell you that the world, or at the very least your viewing experience, will be better if you don’t.

When The Last Of Us Show Changes Things, It’s For The Better

Some of these changes are minor, and perhaps things you’d only notice if you watched both side by side – in the TV show, Joel pushes the homophobe at Jackson to the ground, rather than pushing him away. Some are more obvious, like the clear difference in Abby’s appearance, or Joel being in therapy.

When it comes to the major differences, these are obviously extremely interesting creative choices and merit discussion. I’m not here to advocate for brain off, slop in. Why Joel is in therapy in character, and how that transforms how we see the narrative from his perspective, is a very deliberate decision made by the showrunners, and digging into the reasons behind that, and whether it works for you, can help you appreciate the show even more.

We did see some positive effects of this in season one. By far the biggest deviation from the game was in Long, Long Time, the flashback episode that revolved around Bill & Frank’s romance. In the game, this romance is only implied, and in our linear narrative we arrive after a messy break-up led to Frank’s suicide and Bill cloistering himself off from the world. The show expanding on these characters made the world deeper, which helps the show’s universe as a whole – while the first game/season is centred entirely around Ellie and Joel, the sequel relies on us understanding their place in the world, which in turn is easier for us to grasp when we already have Bill and Frank enriching it.

The Last Of Us TV Show Is Missing A Key Ingredient – Stans

Reviews tell us there is another episode of that nature this season, where we see a side character’s lore expanded upon in ways that wouldn’t necessarily serve a very driven action game where the heroes keep moving forward with ceaseless momentum. We don’t know who it is yet (personally I think Dina and Jesse’s relationship and resultant pregnancy is rushed over in the game), but I already suspect the show will be better for it.

But Long, Long Time felt like an exception to how we discussed The Last of Us the first time around. It was all very superficial, simply clapping (or booing) when the show did the thing from the game. I understand both reactions – it’s neat to see an adaptation made with enough reverence to respect the game in ways that until very recently would be alien to a game adaptation, but it’s also potentially quite dull to see the adaptation fail to adapt in favour of merely copying.

We’re already seeing that with complaints Bella Ramsey does not look like Ellie enough. I may have been guilty of this myself with my insistence Abby needs muscles, but I do feel that goes beyond aesthetic into a core part of her character, that she has obsessed over making herself physically immune to harm in the way Ellie is literally immune to harm. It’s symbolism, people!

As a result, it feels like all of the discussion around The Last of Us is both shallow and negative. For a big TV show with a highly charismatic cast, it doesn’t feel like it has much of a fandom. It has fans who are mainly imports from the games armed with magnifying glasses and axes to grind, and swathes of casual viewers, but when I look at shows like House of the Dragon or Yellowjackets, or looking back further the likes of Supernatural or Glee, there doesn’t seem even a fraction of this energy for The Last of Us.

Nobody is making pretty face pretty face edits for Isabela Merced because they’re too busy complaining about a poster not looking like some box art. Even when the Zaddy Pedro Pascal stuff bubbled up in season one, it was a parasocial obsession with Pascal as a charismatic celebrity rather than any engagement with the show itself. Trust me, the chaos of stantwt is a million times better than the bitterness the first season of the show brought with it.

It feels like The Last of Us is popular with eyeballs, but not with hearts. There’s a lot of casual viewers and hate-watching, but not enough people actually loving the show. Hopefully people got it out of their system in season one and this time around we’ll see fewer frame by frame analysis made with unfeeling coldness. From the immediate reaction to the premiere, I’m not holding my breath.