The Last of Us (Season 2)

⭐6/10

I feel like I have a bit of a complicated relationship with this season. It's an adaptation of a series I am heavily invested in, but moreso for the first game, and not the sequel which is what this is adapted from. I love this world and its characters, but I have mixed feelings on the second game. I gave that game a 9/10, ultimately admiring the decisions that game made while admitting that they didn't always land for me. Even with Tim's recent glowing review, I think my thoughts are still the same. The heart chooses what to love, and it simply can't love the characters from this game. 

But the problem with this season, then, is that this is actually the portion of the game that I absolutely loved. I often think back and feel that the first part had some of my favorite gaming memories ever. I think this show was a complete downgrade in every regard, from the small story changes, but mostly because of performances. 

I believe the issue is casting. I thought Ramsey was a pretty great choice for season 1 because she is a convincing 14 year old. The problem of course is that this season takes place 5 years in the future, and Ellie is a completely different character on a completely different quest, and Bella is now a pretty poor fit. She is supposed to be all hard edges, a driven, vengeful killer, and Bella is distinctly not that. Ellie goes down a dark path, and Bella is not convincing with this at all, her levity always making it feel like she's on a grade 8 grad trip to Seattle or something. This story is incredibly bleak, incredibly dark, and I never got this impression from her performance. I should add that Merced's Dina didn't help, again just carrying this sense of immaturity and lightness, but in the end they casted Ellie way too young for what she goes through here. 

That also plays into a lot of odd story decisions. If there was a story you could just live-action adapt, it's this one. Yes, there would be some challenges as this is a story distinctly made for gaming, but they made some odd choices that I thought made the product worse. Again, most of this revolves around Ellie, like her essentially having zero blood on her hands aside from 1 instance. I mean, one instance of torture is plenty, but she comes out of this pretty squeaky clean, her one darkest moment coming off as an accident here. I had to laugh when Dina takes off her shirt and Ellie is covered in blood and bruises. From what? You never got into a fight! 

There are other complaints, but in the end, I just didn't feel much watching this show. Maybe that's because I know the story, and this is just a softer version of it, but everything felt far more mailed in and hollow. There were some great instances for sure, including the additions. I liked Joel's episode with Eugene, and some of the original hard-hitting moments still worked here. But to me, this is a serious downgrade from the game, and I didn't even think the game was perfect. 

Still, play the game instead.