HBO’s The Last of Us is a Sloppy, Inconsistent Mess (TLOU 101 & 102 Review)

Despite some shining moments, the first two episodes of the show are overrun with a debilitating self-consciousness.

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the critical reception of HBO’s TV series adaptation of popular video game The Last of Us, or even if you’ve just browsed the review section of any popular media website, you’ve probably seen the rave reviews praising the acting performances, writing, set design, and basically every other aspect of the show. Based on this popular reception, you’d be forgiven for thinking that showrunners Craig Mazin (of Chernobyl fame) and Neil Druckmann (lead developer of the original game) have absolutely knocked the ball out of the park.

Unfortunately, you would be wrong. HBO’s The Last of Us is an almost impressively spineless retelling that seems to understand almost nothing about its source material, despite the fact that Druckmann, who is largely considered to be its auteur, is so closely involved. The characterization is bafflingly inconsistent and almost completely redefines the characters from who they are in the games. The character relationships are flattened and simplified, seemingly for the sake of “likeability.” The writing is clunky and awkward, the choices behind what to change and what to keep are nonsensical, and Pedro Pascal keeps forgetting he’s supposed to be from Texas.

This is heavy criticism, I know, and it demands supporting evidence and explanation. But before I delve into the many, many things wrong with the trainwreck that the first two episodes of this show have been, I’d actually like to go over the best aspects of the show, which are unfortunately all contained within the first 40 minutes of the first episode.

Part 1: The Good

HBO’s The Last of Us opens on a 1968 talk show where two epidemiologists are discussing potential future global pandemics, including the cordyceps virus that will become the main threat in the world of The Last of Us. On its own, this is a pretty damn perfect way to kick off the show. The charismatic, humorous talk show host makes sense both as a way to facilitate exposition from the epidemiologists and keep us entertained. The tension builds with the slow dimming of the host’s 8-watt smile as Dr. Neuman reveals the potential for a future fungal pandemic that wipes us out- all of us. The terminology of pandemic and Neuman’s references to global warming are clever ways of increasing the horror factor by tapping into common contemporary anxieties around COVID and climate change.  (“True, fungi cannot survive if its host's internal temperature is over 94 degrees. And currently, there are no reasons for fungi to evolve to be able to withstand higher temperatures. But what if [...] the world were to get slightly warmer? Well, now there is reason to evolve.”)

From an adaptation perspective, this scene is equally well suited to new and old fans. For an audience unfamiliar with the world of the game, it’s intriguing enough to keep them watching while also explaining the basics of the fungal virus that will come to form the horrific backdrop of the story. Meanwhile, fans of the original game are immediately presented with an unfamiliar setting and scene, as opposed to a rehash of a scene they already know and love. This addition both further expands on the logistics of the cordyceps virus and hints towards what aspects of the story the show plans on using its expanded scope and length to further explore.

The sequence immediately after the title credits (which are beautiful) is also hard to find fault with. Where the game introduced Joel and his daughter Sarah, had her gift Joel his repaired watch, and then went almost directly into the chaos of the apocalypse, the show spends a full day following Sarah, from home, to school, to the repair shop where she fixes Joel’s watch, to their neighbor’s house, and then back home. This is another well thought-out choice that takes advantage of the expanded runtime of the show and lets us fall in love with Sarah while slowly building tension towards what we know is going to happen. Over breakfast, Sarah, Joel, and Joel’s brother Tommy overhear news about some kind of outbreak or riot in Jakarta, but think little of it. In the watch shop, the repairman’s wife rushes to close the shop early, nervous and scared of what her sister has told her on the phone. In an excellently framed shot, Sarah casually peruses DVDs at her neighbor’s house while just behind her, out of focus, we see an old lady begin to twitch unsettlingly in a manner every game fan will instantly recognize as indicative of the cordyceps infection. Our slow- yet purposeful- exploration of Sarah’s day increases the tragedy of her demise, and appropriately reincorporates iconic shots from the games, such as shots from Sarah’s perspective when the Millers are trying to drive out of the city.

For new fans, Sarah’s sudden, violent death after we’ve been allowed to grow fond of her hits hard; meanwhile, returning viewers have been getting reacquainted with this central yet largely unexplored character from the games, all with the sinking knowledge that she doesn’t have long to live. Over breakfast, Sarah tells her dad, “Aw, [Tommy] loves you,” to which Joel replies, “No, he’s dependent on me.” “Same thing,” Tommy returns, foreshadowing the way dependency and love will later become intermixed for Ellie and Joel. In the iconic sequences where the Millers are attempting to escape, and where Sarah is ultimately shot, the frame composition is mirrored from the game; if you lined up the show and game versions of the same shots, Game!Joel and Show!Joel would be facing each other. The show’s construction literally puts it in direct conversation with its source material.

These two sequences are interesting, compelling, and thoughtfully constructed. Unfortunately, almost immediately after they conclude, the mistakes begin. Within the span of the remaining hour, the show quickly becomes cluttered beyond belief with unnecessary changes, comically accelerated emotional arcs, a refusal to commit itself to its own changes, and- worst of all- its insistence on recycling game moments and dialogue with seemingly no comprehension at all of what made those moments compelling or interesting in the original.

Part 2: The Joftening (Joel Softening)

Almost as soon as we’re reintroduced to Joel after the events of Sarah’s prologue, one of the worst characterization choices the show has made becomes clear: this Joel is a softer, more moral, and more emotionally open version of the Joel from the Last of Us games. While Game!Joel was a smuggler by trade, Show!Joel works regular jobs burning bodies and working in the sewers, and smuggles on the side. While Game!Joel was trading with Robert for guns, Show!Joel is trying to get a car battery so he can go look for Tommy, who has disappeared. While we see Game!Joel pin down and torture Robert before Tess executes him, we never even see Show!Joel interact with Robert (who dies offscreen after his first and only scene). While Joel and Tess in the game have a combative relationship in which they are alternately mean, flirty, affectionate and sarcastic with each other, Tess and Joel spoon in bed together in their very first joint scene. The show’s creators even acknowledge that during the casting process, they were looking less for someone who could play into Joel’s “tough guy” persona than what NakeyJakey has called Joel’s “super tender daddy energy.”

Setting aside what it says that the people organizing the adaptation of The Last of Us apparently don’t think the original version of the main character is very likable, this is a horrible decision. It changes Joel’s core character so much that he might as well be unrecognizable. A few of Joel’s main qualities in the game are his closed-off-ness from everyone but a few select people, his selfishness, and his prioritization of family above all else. This latter quality- the incredible and ultimately destructive extent to which he loves the people he loves- is buried under a massive pile of emotional rubble after Sarah’s death, as he closes himself off from the world. Throughout the game, this rubble is slowly eroded via his relationship with Ellie, as we see him open up again, and then at the end of the game his love turns destructive when his prioritization of family above all else and selfishness interact and result in him (spoiler) dooming the entire world to a zombie apocalypse forever so that he can save his little girl. And not only does “softening” Joel make him essentially a different person, it reduces the impact of what are arguably the two most important features of the story- Joel’s evolving relationship with Ellie, and his choice at the end of the game.

Joel’s relationship with Ellie is made all the more interesting for the exact qualities the show apparently doesn’t think are “likable” enough to preserve in Joel. Game!Joel is initially downright rude to Ellie, even when she doesn’t deserve it- it takes a long time for him to be able to warm up to her, even chastising instead of thanking her when she kills someone for the first time in her life to defend Joel. In the game, even as fourteen-year-old Ellie is visibly reeling from the fact that she just took someone’s life, Joel scolds her for not listening to him by staying put where she was. You could read this a variety of ways; Joel feeling guilty that Ellie had to kill to defend him and channeling that guilt into misdirected anger; Joel not wanting to confront what it means for Ellie to kill for him; Joel feeling emotionally unprepared to comfort a girl the same age as his lost daughter; Joel just being a dick; the list goes on.

Joel and Ellie’s growing bond and the eventual extremes that Joel goes to for her are fascinating because it’s a bond that, by all accounts, should not have been formed. Game!Joel and Game!Ellie are drastically different in both personality and priority. Joel is not initially interested in becoming a father figure or even caring about Ellie. To some extent, he is actually incapable of committing to her earlier on, because of the degree to which he is emotionally closed off from the world. When Joel is generally portrayed as a rude, selfish, pragmatically violent asshole, like he is in the game, it means something for him to make a joke with Ellie or to feel an instinct to protect her. Show!Joel is considerably nicer to just about everyone, which saps his moments of vulnerability of meaning.

The conclusion of The Last of Us, where Joel slaughters an entire hospital of Fireflies in order to save Ellie, is among both its best and most iconic features, so it is incredible to me that the show would choose to tone down two of the three qualities in Joel that most directly contribute to it. Rewatching the beginning of the game feels like a slap in the face when you know how it’s all going to end, because of course Joel made the choice that he made; his apathy towards morality and his rationalization of violence as a means to an end are there from the very start.

Yet despite the fact that the show tones down its Joel Miller to be less of a Joel Miller for the sake of likeability, it still wants us to believe that Joel is feared by the other inhabitants of the QZ. This is accomplished by having Tess repeatedly sit people down and explain to them just how scary she and Joel are, usually with dialogue along the lines of “Joel, Robert is so, so scared of you, you big scary boy,” or “Hey, Ellie, Joel and I are really big, bad, scary people.” Since, unlike in the game, we haven’t seen Joel react to Tess’s bruises with more frustration than concern- we haven’t seen them chase down Robert and communicate almost wordlessly as they torture and execute him- we’ve seen literally nothing of what makes Joel intimidating, or their capabilities as a team- these lines are pretty funny from two characters who have done nothing but get beat up, get drunk, and spoon in bed.

In fact, Tess’s insistence on telling us over and over again how “bad” she and Joel are almost reads like the HBO Last of Us is actually a comedy about two incompetent smugglers reinforcing each other’s delusions of grandeur while failing at every simple task they try to accomplish. Show!Tess and Show!Joel are literally never shown to be capable at all. We meet Tess when she’s being held captive by Robert and has clearly been beaten. She goes outside and is immediately captured by the military. Meanwhile, Joel is working sewer jobs and passing out drunk. They spoon, and then Tess “the Joel whisperer” talks Joel down from the apparent rampage he was about to go on upon seeing her black eye. When they decide to sneak Ellie out of the QZ, they are almost immediately caught by a soldier who previously warned Joel that he might get caught if he went out that night. The only scene that portrays Joel as having any sort of social status or respect within the QZ is a brief clip of him skipping the line to try and radio out to his brother. But even this is undercut by the fact that he’s doing this to search for his little brother rather than in search of weaponry.

The final scene of the first episode, where Tess, Joel and Ellie are attempting to sneak out of the QZ, provides another opportunity for the writers to show us Tess and Joel in action, but once again, the writers massively fumble the bag. The trio are caught by a soldier who earlier warned Joel to stay inside that night. Okay, so Joel and Tess can’t successfully sneak out of a QZ without getting caught, (even with a warning!) despite the fact that, as smugglers, that’s literally their job? Cool! And not only are they smugglers who can’t sneak past a guard, the guard they can’t sneak past is a guard that Joel actively trades with. Okay, so they can neither sneak past nor convince someone Joel should be familiar with to let them go. Nice. And when the guard catches them, he’s in the middle of taking a piss- i.e., off his guard, and still neither Joel nor Tess uses this to quickly get the advantage over him. Wonderful. I can definitely see why Robert was apparently so terrified of Joel.

When the soldier tests Ellie for infection, she temporarily disarms him by stabbing him in the thigh, just like in the game. This gives Joel and Tess the perfect opportunity to disarm and shoot the soldier while he’s reeling from the wound. In the game, the two take advantage of this to kill the soldier. In the show, Tess merely says, “Ellie, what the fuck?”, and within two seconds all three of them are at gunpoint again. (Although in the show’s defense, I guess it makes sense for the totally incompetent Tess and Joel to be shocked by the idea of actively doing something to get out of a life-threatening situation.) At this point, even though the show has established the soldier would be free to and probably inclined towards shooting all three of them, he for some reason simply yells at Joel to get out of the way so he can shoot Ellie. This conveniently gives Joel an opportunity to rush the soldier and beat him to death, while Ellie looks on with a blank expression that Mazin and Druckmann clarify in interviews is supposed to convey admiration, or “activation.” (We’ll get to that mess later.) Speaking of Ellie…

Part 3: Ellie

Ellie is most often remembered or identified for the valuable moments of levity she brings to the original game; she tells Joel puns, makes jokes about him being old, and since she was born after the apocalypse, Joel sometimes has to explain leftover fragments of our world the two come across to her, which can often be comedic. But just like Joel’s selfishness and violence are just as important to his character as his more recognized prioritization of family, Ellie also has other characteristics that are just as important as her sense of humor.

Ellie is consumed by survivor’s guilt throughout both games as well as the DLC; not only is she immune to a disease that is still causing endless pain and suffering, but she was bitten at the same time as her best friend and childhood crush, Riley. The two made a pact to turn together, and yet Ellie survived. Ellie is terrified of ending up alone. Being a child with almost no experience outside of QZs, she is overwhelmed and terrified in many of the situations Joel and her find themselves in, yet she is brave enough not to panic in most of these situations.

Ellie is caring, compassionate, and far more empathetic than Joel. She has a quiet sorrow and anxiety and a strong determination both to not be a burden and to give her life- and her survival- meaning by cooperating with the Fireflies in order to create a cure. Ellie wants to be seen as capable; and for her age, she is, more than she knows. She saves Joel’s life several times in the games and always cooperates with him when it really counts. All of these conflicting and complementary qualities that make Ellie Ellie are discernible from her very first scene in the game.

The show, on the other hand, has so far reduced Ellie to a moody spitfire who runs off to chase butterflies (heh) at the most inopportune of times. Ellie’s first interaction with Joel is considerably more aggressive in the show; while she pulls a knife on him in both versions, in the show she leaps out of a hallway to attack him whereas in the game she pulls the knife out as he reaches towards her injured friend, Marlene. When Joel finally agrees to leave Tess, who has been bit, at the end of episode 2, Show!Ellie is combative, trying to pull away from him and yelling, “Fuck you, we’re not leaving here!” In the game, Ellie is distressed that they have to leave Tess, but she understands and follows Joel, apologetic.

Show!Ellie swears far more heavily than Game!Ellie- no easy feat- and none of the curses are delivered naturally. When Tess and Joel step into a different room and shut the door behind them- without even locking it- to discuss their next moves, Ellie yells angrily, “What the fuck!” When Joel takes a nap to pass the time while Tess stocks up on supplies, Ellie yells, “Well, what am I supposed to do?” The latter line is from the games, but while Johnson delivers it like a genuine question, Bella Ramsay’s Ellie seems genuinely furious at the idea of having to entertain herself for a few hours, despite being a 14 year old raised in an apocalyptic military school.

Ramsay does okay with some of Ellie’s comedic lines, but their overall line delivery is rushed and would benefit from a little more time to breathe. This becomes especially apparent in the second episode, which is a lot more dialogue-heavy for Ellie. Denied the use of a gun by Tess and Joel, Ramsay shoots out the line, “Okay, fine, I guess I’ll throw a fuckin’ sandwich at them,” with an unnatural level of speed. Even a few seconds between “Okay, fine,” and “I guess I’ll throw a fuckin sandwich,” would help naturalize the delivery and sell that Ellie is just thinking of these jokes on the fly and in reaction to Tess and Joel’s actions and dialogue, as opposed to reciting a script.

Compounding the problems with Ellie is the extent to which HBO’s The Last of Us wants to recall its source material without paying close attention to what made the moments it’s referencing good in the first place. In the second episode of the show, Ellie delivers the line, “Hey, fuck you, man, I didn’t ask for this!” This is a line directly from the game. Let’s compare the context around both versions of the line:

In the game:

ELLIE: Marlene... She said that they have their own little quarantine zone. With doctors there, still trying to find a cure.

JOEL: Yeah, we've heard that before, huh, Tess?

ELLIE: And that...whatever happened to me is the key to finding a vaccine.

JOEL: Oh, Jesus.

ELLIE: It's what she said.

JOEL: Oh, I'm sure she did.

ELLIE: Hey, fuck you, man. I didn't ask for this.

In the show:

ELLIE: [to herself] She told me not to tell anybody, and now I'm telling the first people that I... [to Tess and Joel] They’ve got their own zone with doctors. They're working on a cure. 

JOEL: Mm-hm. I've heard this before. 

ELLIE: And whatever happened to me... 

ELLIE/JOEL: ...is the key to finding the vaccine. 

JOEL: That's what this is? We've heard this a million times. Vaccines, miracle cures. None of it works. Ever. 

ELLIE: Fսck you, man. I didn't ask for this.

In the game, this is one the first expressions of frustration or anger we see from Ellie, and it’s in response to a high-pressure situation. Her actions have just saved Joel and Tess, but she also caused the death of a soldier, which she feels conflicted about and was not expecting (“Oh...oh, fuck. I thought we were just gonna hold them up or something!”). Joel and Tess have discovered her immunity and are debating what to do with her now; for all she knows, they might kill her themselves. While she’s trying to make a case for herself, Joel is butting in with snarky, sarcastic comments. It makes perfect sense for this Ellie to throw out a fuck you and to remind Joel of how little agency she’s had in the events leading up to this point.

In the show, Ellie has just woken up from a nap on a comfy pile of moss while Tess and Joel stand guard, they are in no immediate danger, and Joel has neither interrupted her nor been sarcastic, only expressing natural skepticism towards the concept of her immunity (another missed opportunity to let Joel be a cunt). The show erases the context of why Ellie says that line while still trying to reference its source material.

Same for the concierge scene in episode 2: as Tess, Joel, and Ellie make their way through a hotel towards Ellie’s dropoff point, Ellie wades off to the side towards a hotel desk and plays at being a concierge. In the game, this interaction takes place between Joel and Ellie, much, much later in the game, when it’s just the two of them and they have already bonded somewhat. While the player, as Joel, searches the hotel for ammo and supplies, Ellie plays at being a concierge. This makes sense; the player/Joel is busy doing something Ellie can’t help with, so she’s entertaining herself, and they’ve bonded enough at this point for the interaction to feel natural.

In the show, the interaction is placed less than a day after Ellie and Joel meet for the first time, and while Tess, Joel and Ellie are actively trying to cross a decrepit hotel to get to a drop-off point. Ellie’s dicking around makes no sense when the three of them are in the middle of trying to get Ellie- who they acknowledge is cargo to them at this point- to the dropoff location so they can pick up the trade promised by Marlene. Ellie is still hostile to them, even more so than in the game, and they have not bonded with her; it makes no sense for any of their characters and makes Ellie seem pretty stupid, to swing from yelling insults in reaction to having a door closed on her, to skipping away from the path she’s supposed to be taking through an abandoned building to play at being concierge around two strangers, one of whom just lost control and beat a man to death in front of her in rage.

Game!Ellie is also less capable than Show!Ellie- by pure fault of the show’s writing. In the game version of the scene where Tess, Joel, and Ellie are caught by the soldier outside the QZ, Ellie’s quick thinking in stabbing the soldier enables Joel and Tess to kill him and for the three of them to escape. In the show, for the sake of an abysmally stupid parallel I’ll discuss later, the writers have Ellie’s stabbing fail and only put the three in more danger. Again, it’s baffling to make this child character seem like an inconvenience or a burden when those are the two things that people most often complain about from child characters. The original Ellie was not only a child character, but a video game NPC that the player had to escort, resulting in the developers putting an insane amount of effort into making sure she was helpful, since video game NPCs that need to be protected are infamously hated in video games. When you have a perfect setup to sell us on Ellie by showing us her quick thinking and unexpected capabilities, why on earth would you get rid of that?? Oh, wait. I know why. It’s for the sake of a hamfisted, comically macabre parallel between Joel’s relationships with Sarah and Ellie. But first, let me introduce you to the game dynamic between Joel and Ellie.

Part 4: Joel & Ellie

The original Joel and Ellie dynamic is fascinating to watch develop throughout the course of the game because of the way it evolves via both Ellie and Joel’s internal conflicts, the conflicts between Ellie and Joel, and the game’s main conflicts against hostile enemies. Joel and Ellie are extremely different in ways that compliment and challenge each other. Where Ellie is earnest, open, and highly empathetic, Joel is closed off. Where Ellie is new to life outside of the quarantine zone and to killing, these are both things Joel is highly familiar with. Where Ellie has only known life after the apocalypse, Joel lived most of his life in a pre-apocalyptic world, and misses its conveniences and luxuries, like coffee. Where Ellie, who is consumed by survivor’s guilt over her immunity, is hell-bent on finding a reason to justify her survival and all the hell they’ve been through, and wants to do what’s right, Joel puts no stock in such things, acknowledging the world as a cruel, meaningless place where you protect your own at any cost until you, too, die a brutal death. Despite the fact that they are almost total opposites, the two bond and come to care for each other- over the course of a year, the time period over which the first game- divided into four seasons- takes place.

The glacial pace at which Joel opens up to Ellie is crucial not only to making it believable for his character, but to giving the ultimate degree to which the two love each other any weight. Their relationship is formed despite their drastically different personalities. It is formed despite the fact that Joel’s trauma over Sarah (in combination with his personality) primes him to avoid this exact kind of relationship. It even happens despite the plot, which reminds us over and over again that Ellie was not supposed to be taken across the country by Joel, and neither was Joel supposed to come to care about her. Their relationship was never supposed to work or even come to being in the first place, and Joel is ultimately supposed to walk away from the hospital, leaving Ellie to die for the sake of a vaccine. Even earlier than that, Joel is supposed to pass her off to Tommy instead of taking him across the country herself. The plot’s slow build of their relationship, which is tested against increasingly impossible odds- until the final, impossible choice- is what gives the story power and weight. When Joel humors Ellie’s stupid puns or calls her “babygirl” after the close encounter with David, it’s a breath of relief and something we can really cheer for, because the game puts in an incredible amount of work to earn every single one of those moments.

This is what Game!Joel & Ellie have to offer; a fascinating, against-all-odds father-daughter relationship that builds slowly alongside the main plot, gaining strength with every test it’s put to, until it finally eclipses the apparent main goal of the game, and the player- as Joel- dooms the world to save their little girl. This is what the game has to offer, and it starts putting in the work from the very first time we meet Ellie, and become attached to her, and start wishing Joel would just be a little bit less of an asshole- and then, finally, he is, and the crowd goes wild! This phenomenally compelling, extremely loveable, well-developed dynamic is what the game has to offer.

So what does the show have to offer so far?

Magnets.

Remember the scene I discussed earlier, where Joel beats a soldier to death? At the end of episode 1, in the scene where Tess and Joel are attempting to escape the QZ, after Ellie has been detected as infected and stabs the soldier in the thigh, she winds up behind Joel, with the soldier aiming his gun at Ellie and yelling for Joel to get out of the way. The soldier’s flashlight hits Joel in an extremely obvious parallel to Sarah’s death scene.

(Although apparently not obvious enough, because rather than trust the audience to make that extremely obvious connection to something that happened, like, less than an hour ago in the same episode, or trust Pedro Pascal to convey what he was remembering via, I don’t know, acting, the show actually inserts a FLASHBACK to the parallel scene from EARLIER IN THE SAME EPISODE. Okay. Prestige television, sure.)

Joel’s PTSD is triggered, and he leaps forwards and beats the soldier to death with his bare hands while Ellie watches.

In an earlier scene during Sarah’s prologue, the apocalypse has just set in. The Millers, dimly aware of what is going on, are attempting to flee. As they get in the car, one of the Miller’s elderly neighbors, who Sarah regularly keeps company, has turned infected and is rushing towards them. (Ah, the ‘old people are scary’ trope. How original.) Joel whacks her with a wrench in self-defense and Sarah, horrified and confused, says, “You killed her.”

Here’s what showrunner Craig Mazin said on the official HBO The Last of Us podcast link about the two scenes.

Craig Mazin: Look, earlier in the episode when Joel hits the old lady in the head with the wrench. Sarah is horrified and cries. Even though that woman was trying to kill her, basically. And she says, "You killed her." She can't believe what she just saw. She just saw her father murder someone. Ellie sees something that isn't one swing, and that guy wasn't even threatening Joel's life. And he beats him to death. Punches him over and over and over. And Ellie is activated. And this is going to echo forward. This is something Neil and I talked about a lot, which was understanding where Ellie goes and understanding what the connection is between Joel and Ellie. That there's a thread there between them that is more than just, "I used to have a kid, and you're also a kid." There's something else. That there's the connection already between Joel and Ellie that is different from his connection with his own daughter, and perhaps potentially stronger, and certainly potentially more dangerous.

Mazin, again, in the behind the scenes for the first episode:

Craig Mazin: In the final moments of this episode, Joel forgets that the girl that is standing behind him is not his daughter. Primitive instinct takes over. He can't help but act like something else took control of him in a similar way to how the cordyceps does it, except for him, it's a version of love. The most remarkable thing about that moment is that when Ellie watches him beating a man to death, she is activated. Earlier in the episode when Sarah sees him killing this old woman who's infected, who he has to kill, she cries. Ellie doesn't cry. Ellie likes it. She likes the idea of somebody defending her like that, and she likes the idea of that guy being punished. This is where you begin to see the problem but also the deliciousness of the pairing. These two were meant to be together, but look out.

Mazin in an interview for episode 2:

Craig Mazin: Joel doesn’t want her, and she doesn’t want him. What they don’t know and what we know is they are two magnets that were destined to click together and form this inseparable and, at times, dangerous bond.

So apparently, the show’s perspective on why Ellie and Joel get along is because Ellie is a better (more murderous) version of Joel’s dead daughter, because she thinks it’s actually fucking sick when this man she’s known for less than a day, and whose hands her life is in, loses control and beats a random man to death in front of her. If you think about it, it’s actually not even that sad that Sarah died, because she (a child) got upset when her dad killed her friend with a wrench in front of her. LAME! Good thing Joel upgraded to Ellie, who is a better daughter with whom he can have a stronger connection, since she gets “activated” (?????) when people kill for her. Because as fans of the source material will remember, Ellie is infamously bloodthirsty.

There are so many things wrong with these two short interview excerpts that I almost have to laugh. First of all, the very fact that Joel, one of whose defining characteristics- and what makes him so ruthless and terrifying- is his controlled and pragmatic manner of excercising violence, something that we see both in his torture of Robert and torture of David’s minions later in the game. These are both key scenes, though since the show decided the former wasn’t important enough to include (or maybe they made Joel too unlikable!) maybe it won’t have the latter, either (and isn’t that a depressing thought.)

Second, the implication that Joel’s bond with his original daughter is apparently less deep than his bond with Ellie because Sarah thought murder was bad is both offensive and hilarious. Putting down Sarah and Joel’s relationship with her in order to elevate the Joel/Ellie relationship is unnecessary, disrespectful, and sets up a ridiculous internal logic for the show wherein you can only bond with people who are as similar to you as possible (though maybe this is actually in character for Neil.)

Third, Mazin identifies the core of the connection between Ellie and Joel in some sort of “power duo” bullshit that was apparently “magnetic” and “inevitable.” These two are “meant to be together.”

Yeah, so remember that whole spiel I went on about how their relationship’s evolution and persistence despite what was “supposed” to happen, and despite their diametrically opposed personalities, and eventually despite the fate of the entire world is what makes it fascinating and powerful? That’s all gone now. Joel and Ellie don’t form a bond despite being different in almost every respect. Apparently, it would be too difficult to write a relationship between two very different people, or to mine the source material for small similarities between Joel and Ellie that would allow them to bond via commonality. Instead, they get along because Joel goes out of control and kills people (which he does not do in the game) and Ellie likes this (which she does not in the game) and this similarity is the core of their bond (unlike in the game.)

This is basically a completely different show at this point. The two main characters are completely different people, opposites, in Ellie’s case, to their game counterparts, and the way they bond is also apparently intended to be completely different. As I discussed earlier, though, the game had them bond the way they did on purpose. There was clear effort put into the original way their relationship was developed, and it was explicitly the opposite of what the show is doing. So does the show genuinely think its way is better? Do Mazin and Druckmann genuinely think that doing the opposite of almost everything the game did would be a better way to tell the game’s story? I’m starting to think Craig Mazin doesn’t even like the source material-

Oh, so you like The Last of Us? Name five of their songs. / source: shorturl.at/qvwGI

…are you kidding, Neil?

Aside from this disastrous scene, the second episode gives us a few cute moments of banter between Joel and Ellie, and they take a clicker down together with Ellie holding the flashlight and Joel pointing the gun. These aren’t bad moments, but they’re undercut by my brain screaming, YOU HAVEN’T EARNED THIS YET! YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR IT! NOT YET, IT’S TOO EARLY!

To be fair, Mazin is probably not the only one to blame here. A lot of this is probably Neil Druckmann trying to add in foreshadowing for the events of the infamously controversial The Last of Us 2. In the sequel, Abby, the daughter of one of the doctors Joel kills to save Ellie, returns and kills Joel in revenge right in front of Ellie. In response, Ellie (with unclear motives that are never properly explored) brutally slaughters dozens of people (and a few dogs) on her way to Abby, including killing most of Abby’s friends. After committing mass murder several times and being left by her inconsistently written, underdeveloped girlfriend (who takes the kids!) she almost accomplishes her goal of murdering Abby, but then has a flashback of Joel playing the guitar. This reminder of her dad somehow makes Ellie arrive at the earth-shattering conclusion (I repeat, she has gone on multiple other mass murder sprees at this point) that killing people is BAD and WRONG (Why would remembering Joel even make her realize this? Because Joel was infamously so anti-murder?) The motives and reasoning behind Ellie’s decisions are never more than hinted at, seemingly because the game forgot characters even need motives to do things, and this choice makes no sense for her or the story for a whole barrage of reasons, but that’s a whole different essay.

It’s my guess that the “violent streak” Mazin and Druckmann are trying to gaslight us into thinking belongs in Ellie’s character is for the sake of setting up the show to cover the second game’s content as well. Never mind that in the second game, Ellie is visibly distraught over the murder she commits (since, y’know, she doesn’t like killing or find it as easy as Joel. Since that’s. You know. A core part of her character. And also she’s a child.) Look, guys, Ellie likes violence! And later on… she’s going to commit more violence! Wow. Writing. Television. Foreshadowing. Stunning work, everyone.

Man, this show sucks. I don’t have a transition for this part. Let’s talk about Tess and Joel.

Part 5: Tess and Joel are Fucking (Boring) Now

I would affectionately describe Tess and Joel’s relationship in the game as “one of the most dynamics of all time.” We’re introduced to Game!Tess basically at the same time as we’re introduced to the post-apocalyptic version of Joel, which does a great job of selling their connection as well as the extent to which they depend and run with each other after the outbreak. Tess, bruised and bleeding, wakes Joel up on his birthday by storming in and pouring herself a drink. We learn that Tess and Joel are smugglers who work together, and Tess, having been told by Joel to leave him alone on his birthday (the day of the outbreak and of Sarah’s death), is returning from making one of their drops herself.

Joel is frustrated that she left him behind, and assumes from her beat-up face that the deal went south. Tess corrects him, noting that it went off smoothly but that she was jumped by men sent by Robert on her way back (Would you look at that, establishment of Tess’s capabilities; she just did a drop on her own and managed to fight off two of Robert’s men on her own and get back relatively unharmed.) Joel asks about her face and steps forwards to clean the wound for her. As they plan their next moves, Tess bats away his hand from her face.

There’s some kind of love here, obviously, but there’s also contention. Tess left to do the drop without letting him know. Joel was more frustrated than worried to discover her gone. He doesn’t freak out upon seeing her bruised; he knows she’s tough; but he also steps forwards to clean it for her without her asking. Tess is comfortable enough with him to allow it, but she also bats his hand away when she feels they’re getting off topic. These two are independent, capable, tough; they’re coworkers, they’re friends, they’re closer than friends, but there’s also a careful keeping of the other at bay, and a check that they put on each other when one is getting too sentimental.

As Tess and Joel go to find Robert, we get to see the way this complicated relationship plays out in more detail. Tess calls Joel “Texas.” He says, “Yes, Ma’am.” They banter about Tess being careful. Tess makes a joke about them being on a date, and Joel dryly returns, “Well, I am the romantic type.” When Tess gets a guy to back down from confronting Joel, Joel asks about him and Tess just says he’s an old headache and not to ask. There are boundaries here. When they find Robert, they synchronize their torture and execution of him without exchanging a word. It takes Tess far longer to agree to take Ellie on, and it’s only after Marlene lets her see the guns they’ll be getting in return for Ellie’s transport.

In the game, Tess’s death uses every nuance in her and Joel’s relationship to be as gut-wrenching as possible. Tess, Joel, and Ellie find the corpses of the Fireflies they were supposed to pass Ellie off to. Tess, who, unknown to Joel, has been bit, searches frantically for a map to where they were going. Is she doing this because she genuinely believes in a cure, or is she freaking out now that she knows she doesn’t have long to live, and desperately wants to give her death meaning? It’s left unclear. “What are we doing here?” Joel asks her. “This isn’t us.” “What do you know about us?” Tess snaps, verbalizing what we’ve seen so far as an unspoken agreement not to acknowledge the complexity of their relationship. “About me?”

JOEL: What are we doing here? This is not us.

TESS: What do you know about us? About me?

JOEL: I know that you are smarter than this.

TESS: Really? Guess what, we're shitty people, Joel. It's been that way for a long time.

JOEL: No, we are survivors!

TESS: This is our chance--

JOEL: It is over, Tess! Now we tried. Let's just go home.

TESS: I'm not...I'm not going anywhere. This is my last stop.

JOEL: What?

TESS Our luck had to run out sooner or later.

JOEL: What are you going on about--

TESS: No don't-- Don't touch me.

ELLIE: Holy shit. She's infected.

[Joel takes a step back.]

TESS: Joel...

JOEL: Let me see it.

TESS: I didn't mean for this--

JOEL: Show it to me.

[She pulls back her collar to reveal a fresh bite wound.]

JOEL: Oh, Christ.

TESS: Oops, right? [To Ellie] Give me your arm.

[She rolls up Ellie's sleeve where her bite mark is.]

TESS: This was three weeks. I was bitten an hour ago and it's already worse. This is fucking real, Joel. You've got to get this girl to Tommy's. He used to run with this crew. He'll know where to go.

JOEL: No, no, no, that was your crusade. I am not doin' that.

TESS: Yes you are. Look, there's enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation to me. So you get her to Tommy's.

[They hear a noise outside.]

Ellie: Shit.

Tess: Oh...

[A military vehicle pulls up.]

Guard: Watch the exit!

Tess: They're here.

Joel: Dammit.

Tess: I can buy you some time, but you have to run.

Ellie: What? You want us to just leave you here?

Tess: Yes.

Joel: There is no way that--

Tess: I will not turn into one of those things. Come on. Make this easy for me.

Joel: I can fight--

Tess: No, just go! Just fucking go.

Joel: Ellie.

Ellie: I'm sorry, I didn't -- I didn't mean for this.

Joel: Get a move on.

[Joel and Ellie move out. Tess stays behind.]

There’s so much going on here. Joel’s anger at Tess’s betrayal of their unspoken ethos of pragmatic violence when she voices that they have been shitty people for a long, long time. Joel recoiling from her when he sees the bite. “There’s enough here that you have got to feel some sort of obligation to me.” When they hear the military pulling up, Joel’s instinct to stay and fight (an entire squad of FEDRA soldiers?), and Tess yelling at him to just fucking go. After he and Ellie escape, Joel and Ellie have the following exchange:

ELLIE: Hey, look, um...about Tess... I don't even know what to--

JOEL: Here's how this thing's gonna play out. You don't bring up Tess -- ever.

There’s so much complexity packed into the few hours the player spends with Tess, both in the character of Tess herself- who we experience much as Tess probably experiences Joel- and in the complicated relationship between the two of them. Are they lovers? Are they exes? Are they friends? If Tess lived, would they have eventually gotten together? We get a little vignette of Tess and Joel and the sense that their relationship is either slowly building towards- something- or else is one of those strange never-ending slow burn partnerships that are more difficult to define- and it’s intriguing because of how many questions every exchange between them raises and doesn’t answer.

So how does the show do it? I’ve already gone over Show!Tess and Show!Joel’s incompetence, so I won’t rehash that. In the show, Tess and Joel are romantic partners. There’s essentially no doubt about that. After being let out by Robert and then let out of jail, Tess comes home to Joel passed out drunk in bed and cuddles up to him. The next morning, the second Joel sees her face, he rises from his chair as if he’s about to get up and storm over to murder Robert right then, right there. Tess, who the showrunners have dubbed “the Joel whisperer” (retch) talks him down in another Exposition Goddess moment (“Joel, Robert is so, so scared of you!”)

There’s no contention in this relationship and virtually no banter. They clash, briefly, when Tess quickly (far TOO quickly) agrees to take Ellie on (on Marlene’s word alone). Tess snaps at him exactly once, in episode 2, after she’s been bit, and it’s clearly meant as an aberration from their normal dynamic- Joel reacts with shock. Tess’ death scene is a comical downgrade from the original. The writers scramble to re-infuse their relationship with some of its complexity when Tess says, “I never asked you for anything. Not to feel the way I felt…” but given that we’ve never seen Joel be anything but equally as affectionate as she is, this line doesn’t really work. (Not to mention that this line isn’t even true. Despite Tess’s assertion that she’s never asked Joel for anything coming across like we’re supposed to believe it, she asked Joel for something in the previous episode- to not go berserk on Robert.) Finally, in a moment ripped straight from a shitty soap drama, Tess whispers, “Save who you can save,” and Joel grabs Ellie and runs.

Tess’s death scene itself is utterly bizarre, and, again, excessively melodramatic. In the game, we leave as Joel with Ellie, and we never see the exact scene of Tess’s death. In the show, instead of the military rushing the capitol, the show chooses to have infected be the threat Tess is staying behind to fight. Tess spills gasoline and grenades on the ground and pulls out a lighter to blow the place up as her infection starts to set in- then her lighter malfunctions. The infected break in, rushing past her into the building. One infected slowly approaches a terrified Tess, and opens its mouth to reveal mushroom tendrils growing within. It leans forwards and forcibly places its mouth over Tess’s in a “kiss of death” as mushroom tendrils presumably creep down her throat. Gross!

Here’s what my archnemesis Craig Mazin had to say about this moment:

CRAIG MAZIN: We were already talking about tendrils coming out and we were asking these philosophical questions, “Why are infected people violent? If the point is to spread the fungus, why do they need to be violent?” We landed on that they don’t. They’re violent because we resist, but what if you don’t? What does it look like if you just stand perfectly still and let them do this to you?

I had to put this here just to point out how shallow and unintelligent this obvious rape analogy is, and how strange it is to classify resistance as the source of violence- as if forcing a person into a state of infection against their will can be anything but violent, even the way it happens is gentle. The person a kiss is being forced on isn’t responsible for the resultant violence if they resist. But, again, from Neil, should I be surprised?

Tess’s line saying she never asked Joel to feel the way she felt rings hollow when we never see Joel be anything but openly affectionate and caring towards her. It doesn’t matter if Tess, our Goddess of Exposition, tells us that Joel has commitment issues. We never get to see Joel have commitment issues.

We do get to see the show having them, though.

Part 6: Commitment Issues

HBO’s The Last of Us has commitment issues. It wants to differentiate itself from its source material by making bold changes to the events and characters of the original, but is hesitant or straight up refuses to follow through on the consequences of those changes. It changes its characters, but then doesn’t account at all for how its changes would affect the rest of the story, and whether their altered versions of Joel or Tess or Ellie are even compatible with the iconic moments it lifts from the source material wholesale.

It’s as if Mazin and Druckmann don’t realize that almost everything that happens within the original The Last of Us- every line of dialogue, every plot point- stems from and relates back to the way they are characterized within the game. To change aspects of these characters, especially such crucial parts as the ones the show alters, without bothering to account for the ripple effect of these changes, is thoughtless and lazy and creates a massive dissonance between what we’re shown, what we’re told, and what the showrunners tell us in interviews they’re actually trying to do. And when the show does write itself a new, original plot point, it immediately backs down when it realizes it might actually have to deliver a climax of its own making, one not copied from the original game. This is what happens with Marlene and the Fireflies.

In the game, we meet Marlene when she is already injured and down on her luck. Her Firefly division has been practically decimated, and she needs Joel and Tess’s help to move Ellie out of the QZ. In the show, we meet Marlene in an introductory scene to the Fireflies. We learn that they have been bombing various other QZs to draw attention away from the one holding Ellie. Marlene fills in her fellow Firefly Kim on the plan: that night, every Firefly in the QZ is going to gather in that very building, and move Ellie to the dropoff point outside the city.

Wow, what a great setup for a conflict! What a creative mining of the original source material for a potentially great original action sequence. I can’t wait to see how this epic Firefly meeting plays out!

…except the next time we meet Marlene, it’s with Kim in the hallway with Joel, Tess, Ellie, and Robert’s corpse. That’s right; the first episode promises us a huge gathering of the Fireflies, this mysterious anti-military group, and then shortly after tells us that not only did we not get to see the Firefly meeting, but there was a huge battle between Fireflies and Robert’s people that we also completely skipped over.

Why?? In a show that lets us spend a full day with Sarah, that spends time on a guard and a child we will likely never see again right after the title credits of the first episode for the sake of world-building, is there any reason that we were not allowed to see the dramatic confrontation that broke down the Fireflies and landed Marlene in hot water? For game viewers, there’s no need for the confrontation, obviously, because we already know what’s going to happen. We know Marlene will be injured and have to trust Joel against her will. But for a new watcher, would it not be so utterly bizarre to be promised a gathering of rebels, and then have it revealed that they were all killed in a dramatic confrontation- but don’t worry, you don’t need to see the confrontation. We’ll just tell you what happened! Why would you want to see an action scene in a horror-action series?

The Firefly meeting and the battle would have been a perfect way to maintain the pacing of The Last of Us’s first episode, which explores underdeveloped areas and characters of the original game, while also injecting tension and excitement through a fight sequence. We could have gotten to know Marlene, Kim, and the Fireflies a little bit better, like we did Sarah, and then the episode could have concluded with Marlene and Kim realizing that they need to find someone else to transport Ellie- or even ended with Joel and Tess meeting Ellie. Game fans would have understood this as the kick-off point for the Joel-Ellie relationship, giving them something to come back to, and newer fans would have been compelled to find out what Marlene and Kim would do now that their original plan was foiled, and how Joel and Tess come into the picture.

Or, if the show was never planning on showing us the Firefly meeting- why tell us about it? Why tell us that a resistance group is having a meeting to transport the key to saving the world if you’re not planning on showing it to us? Why then imply that there was a battle sequence between said military group and a rival smuggler of Tess and Joel’s if, again, we don’t get to see it? The show adds in original scenes explicitly promising action, and then backs down when it realizes showing us what it promised would be unfeasible for whatever reason, but doesn’t alter its promises. It’s baffling.

The show’s commitment issues are visible not only in big decisions like this, but in so many of the smaller choices I’ve discussed earlier. If this Ellie is more combative and angry, why is she skipping ahead of Tess and Joel to play at being a concierge? If Joel is less sarcastic, why is Ellie snapping at him to go fuck himself, and that she didn’t ask for this? HBO’s The Last of Us isn’t a solid show with a smattering of decisions I disagree with; it’s broken on a fundamental level.

In Conclusion, I Really Hope Bill Will Be A Cunt

HBO’s The Last of Us is partly so infuriating because it comes across as so obsessively concerned with how it will be received. Every line in the show, every frame, is both composed and delivered self-consciously. Bold choices are made to differentiate itself from the source material, but instead of fully committing to these changes, the show hurls them at you and then scurries behind a familiar visual or line to shield itself from your potential ire. No matter if said visual or line no longer makes any sense within the new context the show has created for itself! It’s a show that makes you want to pull the stars and writers aside, slide them a 20 dollar bill, and ask- hey, just between us- do you think this is good? Do you genuinely think what you’re making is good? Or do you just not give a shit? Are you just pandering? If they are, it’s working. Like I said, everyone is obsessed with this show.

The show spends so much time trying to convince you that it’s doing the characters and story you love justice that it completely forgets about actually doing what it wants to look like it’s doing. This is something that echoes in every aspect of the show. It’s evident in the casting of Joel being Pedro “Universally Loved For Single Dad Characters” Pascal as Joel, to emphasize the one most loveable quality of a complicated, multidimensional character. It’s equally evident in Ellie’s rewriting as nothing more than a spunky, belligerent jokester, whose equally important but less immediately loveable characteristics are flattened (sorrow, anxiety, seriousness, the quiet determination both in her own purpose and to not be a burden).

The show reads like it was created by someone who played the game one time five years ago and extrapolated the rest of the plot from the six or seven scenes that stuck with them the most. “Hmm, I remember that Tess and Joel cared about each other beyond just simple friends. I guess they were dating. I remember Joel being protective of Ellie and a link between Sarah and Ellie. Let’s throw that in as early as episode 2. I don’t remember how or why that relationship developed but what I liked was when they cared about each other, so let’s just do that as early as possible!”

The script treats any scene dedicated to development rather than climax as not worth adaptation, while, like with Marlene and the Fireflies, setting up action scenes for itself and then skipping over them completely. Tess and Joel’s torture and execution of Robert is a crucial scene to illustrating how their relationship and their world functions, but climax-wise it offers little, so why bother? Oh, but I guess we do need to establish these characters, though, so let’s just have Tess repeat over and over how evil and bad her and Joel are.

The show acts like the exposition and development of anything is a burden for both the creators to construct and the audience to sit through. It’s desperate to have poignant moments of culmination, but lacks either the patience or confidence in itself- or both- to actually commit to constructing interesting scenes to carry itself forward to those moments of culmination. There is almost no attempt to work in exposition in new and interesting ways that will communicate new information while also building the story. It’s like the creators want us to accept that exposition and development is a chore that we as the audience and they as the creators can universally recognize as a pain in the ass, so we should just sit tight while they roll out information in clunky, uncreative ways so we can get back to the unearned emotional beats of Joel looking at his watch or trying to protect ellie.

Perhaps the show will pull itself together. Hopefully, over the course of the next seven episodes, the show will begin to really assert itself (and hopefully, Pedro Pascal learns how to be consistently Texan.) According to the trailer, next Monday’s episode will introduce us to Bill and Frank, and to what apocalypse life has been like for someone living alone outside of the QZ. Hopefully, the show takes advantage of the time we actually get to spend with Frank- as opposed to in the game, where he is little more than a corpse- to do something interesting with his character and with Bill and Frank’s relationship. Mostly importantly to me, hopefully they allow Bill to be the fucking asshole he is in the game, and don’t defang him in the name of “likeability.” Hopefully. I guess we’ll see.

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Other Articles Criticizing The Last of Us, Because There’s Like Three Total For Some Reason

More resources if you’re a hater like me.

• The Last Of Us Show Might Be Better If It Worked More Like The Game

• The Not-So-Hidden Israeli Politics of The Last of Us Part II

• Where ‘The Last of Us Part II’ Ending Goes Wrong

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Bonus: The Flour Theory is Fucking Stupid

Okay, I’m sorry, this is a minor criticism and it doesn’t really fit within the body of this essay but I can’t not talk about it. I know the flour theory has been confirmed by Mazin and Druckmann, but the way they deliver it is fucking stupid and makes no sense. The outbreak starts in an Indonesian flour mill, right? And it happens right as the Millers are having breakfast. But in an interview with the showrunners, they confirm that the Millers not having flour for pancakes, Joel forgetting to bring home a birthday cake, and refusing their neighbors’ cookies and biscuits are all factors in them avoiding infection. BUT THE OUTBREAK JUST HAPPENED THAT MORNING! WHY WOULD THE FLOUR ALREADY IN THEIR CUPBOARDS BE INFECTED? HOW FAST IS THIS SUPPLY CHAIN? HOW MUCH FLOUR DO THESE PEOPLE CONSUME? You buy flour like once a month at most! Maybe twice a month if you’re a freak or something! Why would them not eating flour that they already had have any relation to an outbreak of new contaminated flour across the world? And the outbreak in Jakarta started with workers! The contaminated flour isn’t even done milling yet! Plus, the Jakarta flour mill they’re talking about only exports 5% of its flour internationally, I looked it up. Whatever I guess.