THE LAST OF Us’s season 2 premiere picks up right where the first left off, with a reminder that Joel has just massacred the Fireflies, who planned to kill his surrogate-daughter Ellie to make a cure for the Cordyceps fungus ravaging the series’s world, and lied to Ellie about the outcome. We then see a small group of surviving Fireflies, including Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), the daughter of the doctor who was to perform the operation, vowing to take revenge on whoever was responsible. Flash forward a few years, and Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), now 19 years old, are back in the Jackson, Wyoming haven of the first series living a relatively normal life.
The first season of The Last of Us was, by and large, faithful to the best-selling, critically acclaimed video game it was based on. Sure, the first two episodes worked harder to establish the pre-Cordyceps world and the “refugee camp” where the game’s proper story began, and yes, it extrapolated a note found in the game into its most acclaimed episode and changed a detail here and there, but gamers were not in for any surprises. There were early signs that HBO’s season two would not follow Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II quite as closely: Dever hardly resembles the muscular, hardened Abby of the video game; Joe Pantoliano is equally far removed from the description of Eugene the game gives, and too big an actor for a character never actually seen in the game. In addition, the second season is a mere seven episodes (compared to the first season’s nine) despite the second game being significantly longer. But when Joel confesses to newcomer Dina (Isabela Merced), Ellie’s closest friend, that he’s in therapy, it’s clear that the deviations are going to be more than aesthetic.
In 2007, video game designer Clint Hocking coined the term “ludonarrative dissonance” to describe the disconnect between the message of a video game’s narrative and the message of its gameplay. The framework proved influential in games criticism, and it pops up in many critiques of The Last of Us. Ostensibly, the narrative wants to make us realize the futility and despair of wanton violence and revenge, but inflicting violence is also what makes the game fun to play. Are we really meant to believe, as we play as a man and snap the necks of dozens or hundreds of armed soldiers who kill us on sight, that violence is totally unjustified? Is it not, in fact, the only way, quite literally, to make progress? Perhaps. But a video game can get away with a lot that a TV show cannot. Violence has been one of the primary modes of interaction in games for decades, and hardly anyone raises an eyebrow at it; As Joel, a gamer can kill hundreds of virtual men without it weighing on their conscience, but in today’s age of realism, television’s Joel cannot. Of course, after what he went through in the first season, Joel will need therapy! In a video game, we would never accept it; In a TV show, we might not accept it otherwise.
Season 1 found room early on to add or expand upon details to emphasize the hellishness of its quarantine zone—think of the ration cards, the patrols, the emphasis on scavenging. Season 2 offers a contrast to that in its premiere. In Jackson, there are organized patrols, frank but fair discussions of roles and duties, dances, New Year’s celebrations, and, of course, movie nights. There is an understanding that this world, plagued may it be, is manageable, and people have found a way to live.
That normalcy demands a bit of political friction, too. Much was made of the timing in adapting a game about a world-altering pandemic when the COVID-19 pandemic was still the biggest news story in the world, but a bit of real-world resonance is par the course in populist-prestige television.
It’s no surprise, then, that the season 2 premiere contains a scene where Joel argues with Maria (Rutina Wesley), his sister-in-law and the head of the Jackson enclave, about whether they have a moral obligation to open their doors to refugees even without sufficient resources. It also includes, per the game, Ellie coming out and facing homophobia from another Jackson resident. In television’s more politicized The Last of Us, in its more homely Jackson, Eugene is more than a bit player, there is room for his widow Gail’s (Catherine O’Hara) role as a therapist, and we should expect that the show, like HBO’s Game of Thrones before it, is going to get further and further from its source as we move forward.
Stream The Last of Us on Max
Forrest Cardamenis is a Queens-based film critic whose work has also appeared in MUBI Notebook, Filmmaker Magazine, Reverse Shot, and other publications. You can follow him on Twitter at @FCardamenis for his thoughts on movies, music, sports, and more.
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