“The Last of Us” season two is shaping up to be a poor television adaptation of the smash hit video game it’s based on.
Neil Druckmann wrote ‘The Last of Us: Part II’, a sequel to the original that follows Ellie as she tracks down her father’s killer. After it won the Game Award for Game of the Year, showrunner Craig Mazin reached out to Druckmann in pursuit of a TV adaptation. While season one was critically acclaimed and publicly revered, season two is failing to meet everyone’s expectations.
The one obvious weakness of season two, as it stands, is how unsuccessfully they stay true to the source material. There is a big issue with casting the story’s main antagonist: Abby. In the game, Abby is a tall, muscular woman. Her muscles are more than just an aesthetic choice, though. She got bulky to be able to take down Ellie’s father for her own revenge. However, the casting director thought assigning the role to a scrawny, 5’2” woman would somehow effectively tell that story. It just doesn’t make sense.
Beyond casting, the writing keeps teetering between original and game-accurate. While it’s understandable to change a few things to keep it interesting, they change several plot points in ways that make little to no sense. It feels like they’re trying to keep game fans happy by keeping certain conversations word-for-word, but then needlessly changing what characters appear in scenes. The flip-flopping gets exhausting.
But it’s not just changing scenes. Some of the original dialogue is so out of character that it becomes infuriating. For example, Abby calls Joel, the man who murdered her father, “handsome” more than once. This is something she would never say in the game, considering her background.
It’s not all bad, though. The attack on Jackson was an excellent choice from the writers, setting up character development across the board. Not only that, it laid a good foundation for the rest of the story to unfold. Finally, the acting ability really makes up for the faults of production. Kaitlyn Dever and Bella Ramsey have exceeded expectations and done the best they could with a bad script.
Overall, ‘The Last of Us’ season two has not lived up to the hype built around it by the game and its first season. HBO has the funds to pay better writers, and Neil Druckmann needs to stick to his original creation.
