5/19/2025 - The Last of Us Pt. 2

I've been having some issues with the TV adaptation of The Last of Us 2. Story beat after story beat has been overwritten and rearranged with this second season, and it has not always been for the better. However, I will say that much of my criticisms of the first five episodes are more nitpicky and minor. Things like wonky dialogue, some light pacing issues, somewhat discordant writing tone. These are all important, mind you, but up until now it's been more of a matter of taste. I think the consequences of writing changes in this newest episode have much further reaching consequences than anything in previous episodes.

I've just finished watching episode 6 which aired last night. It was a montage of all the flashbacks littered piecemeal throughout the video game's story. In the video game version of the story, we watch these flashbacks unfold one at a time. These flashbacks are happy to juxtapose the grief Ellie is feeling as she sets out on a quest to avenge her father, Joel. The player's experience of each one is bittersweet, and the empathetic player will share in Ellie's grief. She has lost her father, and each scene we are given is a gift necessary for even the most emotionally closed-off (me) to relate to Ellie's loss. This father was someone she was deeply close to, but she also had a lot of strife within that relationship as well. She had confronted Joel years previous about the truth of what really happened when he rescued her from the hospital attack, and she's been mad at him ever since that truth came to light. Joel dies before they heal this rift in their relationship, and Ellie carries the weight of her father's death and guilt for her last memories she has of him, or lack thereof.

When I think about The Last of Us Part 2, I think about its climax. While Ellie and Abby are fighting in the water, the game cuts away to Joel's face as he's sitting on his porch. I remember playing it for the first time, and my heart seized at that sight. When I was given the full flashback, I was crying. The game's final moments are where it truly shines. I remember very little about the game since I played it when it came out, but I remember that cutaway perfectly. I don't think of Joel's death when I look back on this game as most players do; I think of Ellie's grief in that shallow water. And I always think back to that cut of Joel's face on the porch. It was the perfect blowup, the final gut punch. It drives home what Ellie lost and can never get back, no matter who she kills in this futile revenge plot.

Not to forget: this flashback recontextualizes Ellie's grief. When you're given the full scene, you understand that not only was her father taken away from her, but he was taken from her right after they had begun to make amends. It adds another element of tragedy on top of the tragedy. And while playing oppression olympics is awful for real life, it's basically the name of the game for fiction writing. Why have tragedy*1 when you could have tragedy*2?

And before you say, "Well, I still felt sad during the episode so it still works," I just want to say that I know it still works (this was a real comment from my dad and brother, I know I'm the outlier lol). But does it work as well? That porch scene was what tied together the whole game, and they just threw it into a montage at the beginning of the revenge arc. I don't like counting chickens before they hatch, but I highly doubt that whatever they do for the final confrontation in season 3 will live up to how they executed it in the game. The game's pace and the interwoven flashbacks was very well done in the game, why meddle with that?

This also brings us back to the whole point of the flashbacks: to ground the player in what Ellie is feeling at that time. What she remembers, what she's reminiscing on, and her exact motivation at that moment. The flashback in the climax is about forgiveness, and her remembering that at that moment points to her reasoning for letting Abby go. Without this reason for the flashbacks, I question why the flashback episode is necessary. If you wish the rush the final piece in the character motivation puzzle, why not scrap the whole flashback idea and only include the porch scene. Just place it right at the beginning of the season, where it actually fits in the timeline, finagle the parts that mattered in the episode (Ellie piecing together the truth), and proceed fully linearly. An episode of flashbacks makes for a dull viewing experience and ruins the pacing in the grand scheme of things. It still partially works because it is nice to have this context, but if this episode truly is necessary, then maybe place this episode before the one where Ellie descended into full-fledged revenge madness.

At this point in the show, we have an episode that began with Ellie goofing off, finding an accomplice to her father's revenge, and brutally murdering her followed by an episode full of loosely connected memories. It feels disjointed. Maybe if these memories were intercut with the immediate aftermath of Ellie's murdering, Dina's reaction, etc., to have a sort of "cool-down" effect, it might have flowed more smoothly, but for now the fact of the matter is this: we had a huge blow-up episode, the official start to Ellie's self-destruction, followed by, what, 40 minutes of filler? I am a fan of expanding character relationships and making characters come to life. However, when an episode of flashbacks are placed so atrociously, then we call it what it is - FILLER. But, hell, without episode 7 out yet, I don't even know just how odd the pacing will feel yet.

Again, it depends on how they actually finish the show, and I do think that these slight changes in character motivations set us up for somewhat of a different story. At least, somewhat different character arcs for our main gals. With these flashbacks given to us this early on, we have an idea of Ellie starting out from an even higher moral ground only to reach the same lows as she did in the game, as witnessed by her confrontation with Joel over Gail's husband.

I'm always willing to eventually be wowed by a show I'm invested in, I'm just doubtful it will happen. I got burned the same way on Arcane season 2, which started awful, and I thought, "Hey, it's just a rough beginning to bridge the ending of the first season to the actual season 2 plot," yet it only went downhill from there. I've been tentatively watching to see if this season improves from its slow start (I was surprised, though not upset, it took two episodes to reach the game's inciting incident), and unfortunately with this game being split up into two seasons, it will be years before I even know whether or not I ultimately like any of these changes. I do think I'll stay firm in one opinion, though: the game's execution of this story is miles better than the show's.