HBO’s ‘The Last Of Us’ Review Bombing Surpasses The Game’s Review Bombing

The Last of Us season 2 is now heading into the final half of its rather short seven episode season, and things have been somewhat…different this time around.

The first season of the show was praised for embodying the game well, outside of a few critiques, and critics and fans essentially agreed on its quality, a 96% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 87% audience score.

Season 2? Well, something’s changed.

As it stands, season 2 has a nearly-matched 95% critic scores to season 1 while the audience score has dropped a full 45% compared to season 2, and is now down to 42%. This is, ironically, something that mirrors what happened with the game, which received sky-high critic scores (a 93 Metacritic and it went on to be one of the most-awarded games of all time) contrasted with a 5.8/10 user score. Now, the sinking of the show’s second season has blown by even that low water mark.

What’s going on? Some complaints are different than the game, some are the same, some are just sort of confusing. Let’s go through the different aspects of this, not to necessarily say any are valid (well, I’ll throw my weight behind one), but just reporting what’s happening.

• Bella Ramsey’s Ellie – There is of course the “Ramsey doesn’t look like game Ellie” complaint, but that was also true in season 1 and it didn’t result in these bottomed-out scores. An evolved complaint now is that Ramsey doesn’t look like five-years-older Ellie like the character is supposed to after a time jump, even though Ramsey is older than that in real life. One refrain is that Ramsey should have been recast for season 2, and additional complaints Ramsey is acting differently, usually more upbeat, than game Ellie.

• Joel’s Death – This is an obvious one, as a large number of players hated the early execution of Joel, a beloved character and the playable lead of the first game. Here, it stood to reason that a number of show-watchers would hate that decision as well. However, it should be noted that these low scores began with episode one, and while they have sunk lower since, this is something that happened from the start before his death, so it’s not like it’s the sole explanation (though it is certainly cited in many more recent reviews).
• Abby Changes – This is one aspect I actually agree with. I think the changes made to Abby, both in terms of her physical size and the way her “origin story” was immediately explained was a poor decision and made the entire murder less impactful. The show has now abandoned Abby for the duration of the season, and if they were going to do that, similar to the game, they should have just left her full story a mystery. I don’t think this was the most well-handled, and it’s a key part of the story.

• Other Changes – That was perhaps a major one, but other complaints have cropped up about other issues. Tommy in particular has been a focus, given a battle scene in town instead of being present when Joel died. Additionally, the idea that he left before Ellie to get revenge himself seems to have been scrapped, so far as we know anyway.
• The Anti-Woke War – There’s just no way around this. It’s a factor. Exceptionally mean critiques about Ramsey’s appearance. Hate based on the same-sex romance between Ellie and Dina, which bloomed in full last week. And more generally, covering entertainment for a living, I’ve simply seen this sort of thing escalate even over the last ~3 years since season 1, and wildly ramped up after the recent election. You can easily peruse the negative reviews and see these complaints.
• Positives: Dina. Everyone loves Isabella Merced’s new Dina.

I can agree that perhaps season 2 hasn’t been as good or impactful as season 1. Is it this absolutely giant drop in quality? No, it’s not, and again, if you’re a gamer, you lived through something more or less identical to this in 2020, substituting making fun of Ellie’s appearance for Abby’s appearance, among other things (the ever-controversial Joel death). There’s not going to be anything to change these scores significantly now, but this was predictable enough, and here we are.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.