I recently finished Last of Us Season 2, the second season of the series based off the games. This season follows roughly the first half of the second game.

I liked this season, but I have to acknowledge that it was not as tight as the first season. This season made more changes to the story and characters than the first season did. As a result, the story is significantly different from the game. I’ll try to explain without giving away too many spoilers. Then I’ll go through five things that stood out to me about this show.

A quick synopsis

Okay, I’m going to try to do this spoiler free.

Four years after the first season, Joel and Ellie are now accepted citizens of Jackson Hole, but are estranged from each other. The town celebrates New Years and then suffers an attack from an outside party that leaves great devastation. Seeking justice (or possibly revenge), Ellie heads to Seattle to find those responsible, without regard of the consequences.

Simple enough? Good. Now, five things.

Fewer Game Experiences / Faster Storytelling

The game takes roughly 25 hours to complete, so halfway is 12 hours. The show tells the same amount of story in less than seven hours, missing five hours of game play. In addition, the show is adding its own plot lines, further constraining how much of the game’s story line the show can use.

As with the first season, a large portion of the game is automatically missing: the world exploration. This takes up a good amount of game time and involves a lot of little fights and Easter eggs. All this is missing from the show (with good reason; it’s not good screen time). It also means the show can feel a bit rushed, as a single day in Seattle takes one episode instead of four hours of game play.

Also, there is one aspect of this that I noticed, and we won’t know the true impact until Season 3 comes out. In the game, while you’re experiencing those broad sequences of world exploration, you hear all these little sound bits and side notes about what’s happening elsewhere in Seattle. These bits and notes help ground the experience of second half of the game .

Spoiler below if you want a better explanation of what I mean.

Different Routes for the Same Story

The show changes the story significantly while managing to retain the same overall arcs and high points. In other words, the same characters reach the same important plot points but get there taking different routes.

For example, the outside party’s attack on Jackson Hole that sets the story in motion.

In the game, it’s a small, selected strike that does what it needs to do and then they head home. the city as a whole isn’t impacted beyond that one attack. But in the show, the party sets a chain of events up that results in Jackson Hole suffering a cataclysm, defending against a major attack of the infected (this is in the trailers, so it shouldn’t be much of a spoiler).

With the town having suffered a major attack and recovery, Ellie’s request to go to Seattle and get justice brings different responses. The characters have to look at the situation differently, but the story requires them to arrive at the same decisions they did in the game. The different sequences of decisions and minor changes to characters lets this happen without any of it seeming to be too far of a reach.

That’s just one example of what I’m talking about, but hopefully you get the gist.

Different Character Roster

Changing the characters from the game is one thing, but the show takes it a step further by changing the roster.

The show has deleted several characters, mostly superfluous, third-tier characters who don’t do much but participate in certain scenes and events. In every case so far, I haven’t missed their deletion. I get why they’ve been cut, or why their influence was handed off to another characters.

The show makes up for it by adding new or expanding upon minor characters. As I said above, they’re telling a different story than they were in the game, with the main characters going through different processes to reach the same events, and the added/expanded characters facilitate those processes. In no case have I regretted or been frustrated at a characters’ addition or expansion.

Ellie – A very different character

Every character is different from their game version, but I thought Ellie was the most changed.

I found her to be more self-centered than the game version. Both show and game Ellies are capable and confident, but the show version takes it to a level of arrogance that I found annoying. She was stupid, even reckless, at times. And for a community as security conscious as Jackson Hole is, there’s no way she would be allowed to do the crap she does. But they keep letting her do it. I found it a bit unbelievable.

That being said, show Ellie needs to be arrogant. The obstacles in front of her are greater than what game Ellie had to deal with, and she needs that arrogance to roll over them. Game Ellie said she would do the same things, but Show Ellie had to do them.

She still works as a character, but she crossed into my annoyance with arrogance characters.

Game Psych Outs

Finally, I want to bring up the game psych outs. These are instances where the show did something that messed with the viewers who have played the game. These psych outs took two forms.

The first was when the show did something that, in the game, heralded a certain event or cutscene. The gamers would be ready to experience the show’s version of what happened next. Sometimes the show did what was expected, but sometimes it did not. Anyone who was new was none the wiser, while those who played the games were left surprised and maybe a little disappointed.

The second was when the show did something completely new, so far out of the expected story that the gamers had to wonder if the show was going to completely divorce from the original story. In these cases, the show manages to bring it back around, but for a moment, there’s that ‘holy crap they’re changing so much’ thought.

It was fun, as someone who’d played the games, to see the writers dangle the ‘will we/won’t we’ bits in front of us. Because as much as I expect them to follow the same path, they’ve already made changes, and there’s always that question of ‘how far from the path will they go’?

Conclusion

There are many other things I could say about this show, but that would require spoilers. So, I’ll leave it at those five things that stood out to me and save my spoiler thoughts for direct conversations.

This season is a fun watch. It’s not as good as the first season, but it’s got its highlights. If you have played the game, you’ll get to see a variation of the story you know that will keep you guessing and wondering up until the end. And if you haven’t played the game, I think you’ll still understand what’s going on.

It’s a shame we have to wait several years for the next season.

If you’ve seen the show, what are your thoughts?

Cheers!

Michael