This is a recap and review of the premiere of the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us. Expect spoilers for season 1 and game 1, but also some references to and comments about the second game (though without spoilers).
The wait is finally over. It’s been more than 2 years since the release of the season finale of the first season of HBO’s adaptation of the beloved and critically acclaimed video game series known as The Last of Us, the two parts of which are my favorite video games ever made. Now, the second season premiere has been released on Max around the world, and the showrunners are now officially no longer adapting the first game, but rather the highly discussed, more complex, and much longer second game (click here to read my spoiler-filled thoughts on The Last of Us: Part II). How did the season premiere live up to the excellent games and the strong first season? Well, let’s have a closer look.
In the first episode of the second season — titled Future Days (for reasons that will be very clear to fans of the video games) — Joel (played by Pedro Pascal) sees a psychotherapist (Gail, played by Catherine O’Hara) to understand why Ellie (played by Bella Ramsey) won’t talk to him, while Ellie goes on patrol with her best friend, Dina (played by Isabela Merced), who has a good relationship with Joel.
Interesting changes to the narrative structure
Fans of the game will, almost immediately as the series starts, be fascinated by the structural changes that have been made here to the complex video game narrative (which, in an effective way, jumps from perspective to perspective and from present day to flashback in very cinematic moments throughout its enormous runtime). Following an opening scene where we, again, see the final scene from season 1, where Joel swore — and lied — to Ellie about what had happened at the Firefly hospital outpost, the series jumps back to the vicinity of said hospital where we meet characters that gamers will know very well, including Abby (played by Kaitlyn Dever), who are all mourning the people that Joel killed in his attempt to ‘save’ Ellie. Abby essentially sees red and asks for her friends’ backup in getting payback — she wants Joel dead. Notably, we even get glimpses of giraffes here to remind us of one of the most beautiful moments in the overall narrative (seen in both the first game and season). But I also think we see the giraffes so as to contrast the beauty of wildlife roaming free in peace with the darkness of the damage Joel did to the Fireflies, which are now seriously weakened. In this scene, there’s even a discussion of them possibly going to Seattle, which is a piece of information that will have the ears of fans of the game prick up.
This aforementioned scene is setting up the dual narrative from the game, though in a notably different way than the game did, which will likely divide opinion among fans. Whether right or wrong, this restructuring and way of revealing their mission feels like a direct result of the way a toxic vocal minority of gamers responded to early scenes in the game. What follows is a five-year time jump and a return to Jackson, Wyoming, and Tommy’s settlement, where our protagonists now live. The surroundings, details, and characters will all mostly be familiar to fans of the game, as there are plenty of little easter eggs and references in posters, objects, and whatnot (Curtis and Viper! Savage Starlight! Shimmer! The Employee of the Month-dog!). Unless I’m mistaken, though, it wasn’t exactly a five-year time jump in the game. I believe, at this moment, the game jumped four years ahead in time, though it isn’t really that big of a change, given the timeline was changed quite a bit already in season one.
Emphasis on Joel’s characterization
The scenes in Jackson, Wyoming aren’t just fun for fans excited about easter eggs and cameos (composer Gustavo Santaolalla even shows up for a cameo appearance!), the scenes also give us more of a sense of Joel and Ellie’s dynamics and roles in the settlement. Here, we see Joel be a loving uncle, we see him discuss plans for the future of the settlement, and he even mentors Dina (played with wonderful warmth by Isabela Merced), the fan-favorite video game character (in her first series appearance). There’s also a very intriguing scene in an office, where Joel and Maria (played by Rutina Wesley) have a disagreement about bringing people into the settlement. This scene wherein Joel is in the office arguing against taking anyone in, in which he says you should take care of your own first, echoes his longstanding beliefs, which compelled him to make the decision to save Ellie’s life (in the season one finale) rather than do what was most ethically and morally correct for all of mankind. This is one of several scenes in this episode that do a good job of emphasizing Joel’s characterization and the complexities found therein.
Another one of these scenes is his therapy session with Catherine O’Hara’s Gail. Unless I’m mistaken, hers is a completely new character that we never saw in the game, though there are elements of her narrative that are revealed here which nod back to the game, as well as reveal that they’ve reworked and changed character details. For example, in the video game, we do see Joel recap what he did in a confession scene with Tommy, which, I think, this therapy subplot is an attempt to expand on. In the show, Joel gives Gail weed as payment for the session, which leads to Gail mentioning how her husband died at Joel’s hands.
Her husband, Eugene (who has been cast for this season, so we’ll see him in a later episode, through a flashback presumably), was quite different in the game, where he’s only seen in a photo and talked about. He’s essentially a mentor figure for Dina (something, it seems, they’ve let Joel handle entirely in the series), but, in the game, the character dies by a stroke by his lonesome. So, it appears they’ve made serious changes to his character and Joel’s actions. One potential reason for this is perhaps to frontload the theme of forgiveness versus vengeance, which is a core theme of the game. In the scene, we see how Gail claims to have tried to put the events behind her, even if it is hard. Perhaps she’s upset about the way Joel put her husband down if, we’re assuming, he was infected when he was ‘killed,’ but there is also the chance that he killed Eugene for other more secretive reasons. Perhaps to keep his or Ellie’s secrets. Time will tell. In any case, O’Hara makes a strong first impression, and her character makes great thematic sense. This scene also features Pedro Pascal delivering some of his best work in this entire series. In general, I think he communicates his character’s struggles really well in the early stages of this season.
Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced are great together
Not only does this episode focus heavily on emphasizing Joel’s actions, his characterization, and his complexities, but there is also particular attention paid to establishing his and Ellie’s strained relationship, as well as Ellie’s relationship dynamic with Dina. Indeed, it isn’t just Pedro Pascal who gets to have a genuinely delightful scene with Isabela Merced. In actuality, with the adaptation, the showrunners have opted to take scenes that are relatively late flashbacks in the game and either show them entirely in this first episode or tease them (perhaps to give a nod to eager fans of the game). One of these is the scene that the image at the top of this review is referencing, the extremely well-realized barn dance scene, which is extremely memorable in the game.
In this episode, we see Ellie briefly out on a mission with Gabriel Luna’s Tommy (another reference to a section from the game), doing reconnaissance with Dina, take part in combat training, and, again, show her frustrations as well as her romantic interest in the barn dance scene (where Joel gets an earful from Ellie for showing aggression and doing things on her behalf, when Seth makes homophobic remarks). Although it’s clear that the show is doing a slightly different version of Ellie, I think Ramsey is doing a good job of putting forth an energy to her character that, in moments, resembles the person we love from the game, and I think the moments that indicate an interest in Dina are really sweet and well-realized without being too heavy-handed from a writing and performance perspective.
It’s also with Ellie that we get the main cordyceps action on the aforementioned reconnaissance mission with Dina, in a sequence of scenes that resembles the game quite a bit (there are even some really fun moments where game mechanics are referenced, e.g. the bottle scene). It’s also here that we meet the show’s first ‘stalker’ infected, which is in a scene that nails the tension and scariness of the franchise. It should be noted that this (not the scene but rather our first glimpse at a ‘stalker’) is happening a lot sooner in the show than it did in the game.
Overall thoughts
Really, this is the main conclusion with regard to the episode changes. There are serious changes to the structure of the game in this episode, including when to show certain characters, their motivations, and when to show the details of our main duo’s strained relationships, which was mostly drip-fed in flashbacks in the game. It’s important to note that this doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing. I think the show is doing a good job thus far, and only time will tell if their way of adapting the complex dual narrative of the game truly works on the show. But I like what I’m seeing.
I think some people may be concerned with how the restructuring is slightly handholdy compared to the video game, but I do think this is by design so as to better prepare a TV audience for what is coming soon. Performance-wise, I think Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bella Ramsey, and Isabela Merced all shine in this season premiere, and their excellent character work makes the episode’s more slow-burn pacing work really well.
A-
– Recap and review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 