“I'm taking a ride with my best friend” - The Last of Us on HBO (2023)

Again, Bill and (to an extent) Frank are in the game. That episode is not some total deviation, just kind of ... a distraction? Because the story is about Ellie and Joel, and I felt it detracted from that story a bit, in the literal sense, strictly minutes. Same with Kathleen. I get (and liked!) what they did and why, but I think it might have been better balanced with more Ellie and Joel, who, like the hundreds of documents you explore in the game, also interact more in the game, and not just in cut-scenes. The game is more than its cut-scenes (many/most? of which made it into the show more or less line for line/scene for scene);if you try watching just the cut scenes it's a bit like dozing off in the middle of a movie and only catching bits and pieces of the story. For example, the (non cut-scene) interaction between Bill and Ellie in the game is a highlight, iirc, and for obvious reasons none of it made it to the show.

Re: the infected, one of the few big changes from the game, probably to the show's detriment, is the way the infection spreads, not just through bites but also via spores. So there are a lot of scenes in the dark or damp where the threat is literally hanging in the air. Having a mask fail or break is about as bad as being bitten.

(Honestly, the show is a surprisingly faithful adaptation! That is, pretty much the entire "game" is in the show. Any quibbles I've had are really re: small tweaks and changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes less successful, imo, but generally always small.)

There is significant creative license to change Frank from an unanimated corpse who hung himself from a bite and turn him into fighting a lengthy Lifetime channel battle with MS and have he and his caring lover kill themselves together in solidarity. In the game Bill and Frank don't even interact but more importantly don't even like each other. Bill makes an offhand negative comment about his former partner Frank in passing dialogue and in Frank's page-long suicide letter you find next to his hanging body it contains a sentence or two about Bill, mainly that he hated his guts and was a waste of a life. There is innuendo that their bad blood may have stemmed from a possible lover's quarrel or misplaced feelings, but the show turns less than 30 seconds of obscure references in a 12 hour game into the bulk of a 75 minute episode. Even Jack Sparrow would be confused.

I do enjoy that the show's producers flipped the script on the long-besotted trope of fanservice in video games where you normally encounter oversexualized young women and instead offers this soft focus middle-aged bear seduction spending their days pairing wine surrounded by watercolors. But as many people ITT are confused about SOP of dystopian vaccine manufacture/distribution in a society that's turned into paranoid Goth tribe factions, the threat of which after 20 years is much more a threat to daily life than cordyceps. While the (non-game) Jakarta doctor 20 years earlier offered the solution of total annihilation, Ellie's (also non-game) approach to the vaccine was to become blood siblings with Sam (unsuccessful but perhaps a foreshadow that she cannot undo the virus despite theories that she was "the one"). I'm rambling but there was a lot left of the world and plot to explore and esp.after the last few episodes being so light on storytelling and the all-to-familiar panic rush to wrap things up makes the casual lingering in earlier eps 2 & 3 feel a bit superfluous.

I wouldn’t personally judge a show on its unexplored plot points or opportunities by the things people in a TV thread get hung up on tbh.

I mean, I would like to see the argument that episode 3 - about how people can not just survive but thrive in this world (adding even more fuel to Joel’s decision, the knowledge that people can not just live for the sake of living but live for the sake of someone else) offers less to this show than, idk, actors dead-eyed reading out detailed logistics descriptions for the satisfaction of people who miss the wood for the trees? The fact that even in a world without a cure people can carve out their own little slice of happiness? No?

The show is about potential as much as it’s about anything. Joel saves Ellie for the potential of how her life - their life together - might play out, we are shown in every episode her childish happiness at something, and the show giving us Sarah’s future and those of so many others suffocated by the cordyceps contrasts sharply with what Joel sees as his rare opportunity. They survived and they can be happy. It is selfish like Bill and Frank’s survival is selfish, but it’s also completely understandable. That’s the stuff that’s interesting about this show to me.

The show does not remotely need to have a ready to go vaccine rollout plan for it to matter, it’s total nitpicking and again, show me the argument that this adds more to the show than the stuff you feel was fanservice (for whom btw? You already made the point that a lot of homophobic fans had a problem with it.)

Lol while thinking about corrupted tropes I just remembered in the second game, there is a (hetero) sex scene that is so OTT cringe/ick, awkward, unnecessary and unflattering (to all parties involved). It just comes out of nowhere and you're forced to endure it...

I can't wait to see what the producers do with that, probably turn it into a 3 episode sidebar?

The (hetero) sex scene in the second game is totally cringe/ick/unnecessary to a distracting degree. I forgot it even existed.

I'm willing to bet the expansion of Bill and Frank is this season was done with an eye potentially on specific events/plot points/parallels in the second season/game. Describing that episode as "about how people can not just survive but thrive in this world" is fair but maybe underscores a disconnect. Or perhaps an even greater thematic question: is there really a place for happiness in this (fictional) world? Or might that happiness be a fiction as well? For sure Joel envisions some sort of happy, or at least happier, future, but it's based on a lie.

Wait do you have to press buttons during it

I am very upset about that final episode

the guy who created the game is also working on the show. he is completely open to exploring ideas not in the game! and making changes to minor characters that expand the universe in a different way!

there’s this vibe like “a bunch of non gaming snowflakes wanted to adapt a game and made it too gay” ~frowny face~

bill still ultimately serves the same purpose for joel at the end of episode 3

i don’t see what the problem is beyond “it’s not the game” if you gave even a tenth of a shit about good storytelling (which if you played the game surely you do) this episode would stand as good storytelling!

oh they spent a whole episode living a life and having feelings how terrible

give me a goddamn break

Otm

the show telegraphed from the very first episode that it would not just be about joel and ellie. episode three just hammers it home. i'm honestly grateful i haven't played the game bc i had no problem getting on board with this

again, haven't played, prob never will, but everywhere the show has diverged from the game it has done so for the better imo (especially re: bill/frank's original relationship, and finding fucking letters everywhere)

as a video game adaptation, for me it never reached the meta-heights of the paul w.s. anderson resident evil series (not that it was ever going to), but it was a really beautifully conveyed character study about the way the world and your relationships with the people in it change you, often unaccountably, especially when said world is largely dead and hostile

There's no reason to get angry or defensive about the show. The show is great! But there is a reason the source material, a masterpiece of a game, was chosen for adaptation, and I don't think it's harmful to discuss how maybe it falls short a little. They are different mediums, and they achieve their goals different ways. Saying that the game is better or trying to explain why doesn't detract from the achievements of the show, especially for those that have not played the game and are experiencing the show on its own terms. I find that aspect of the discussion very interesting.

i did like that i was able to like... understand why the game is so acclaimed through isolated sequences, especially the joel terminator rampage sequence, bc you're installed in his perspective and understand why he's doing it even though he's doing all of these horrible things and you can't stop him

josh do you have strong feelings about the video game, yes or no

if nothing else - creating a shooter game with a storyling whose ultimate goal is to make you think "maybe shooting everybody is potentially possibly really a bad thing to do" is a pretty neat trick

Also if there was any fault with Ep 3 was that it was so fucking good the rest of the (very good) season felt like a bit of a letdown, any debate about whether that episode or important or a success seems completely bonkers to me.

xxpost I can't tell if you are trolling me or not, but yes, relatively so? But not in a "this source material should never be changed" sense.

Oh, and in case it's unclear, Bill and Frank are gay in the game, so that wasn't changed. I suspect any anti-gay discourse flying around out there stems in no small part from lingering (over) reactions to the second game. And it's quite possible the extended Bill and Frank episode of the show was a reaction to *that*.

I think Bill and Frank in the show was indeed good storytelling, but standalone storytelling. If you tried to describe the show to someone, or the story, they probably wouldn't come up at all.

Another example of a change from the game, subtle, with slightly different effects: the game pretty clearly takes place over the course of almost a year. I didn't get that feeling from the show. Not sure it matters.

urgh typos

meant to say:

Also if there was any fault with Ep 3, it was that it was so fucking good the rest of the (very good) season felt like a bit of a letdown, any debate about whether that episode was important or a success seems completely bonkers to me.

I am very glad I haven't seen any of the "ick, too gay" criticism. It has not escaped my notice that the show has a nonbinary actor playing a lesbian character.

I hasten to note that this would still be salient even if it were not personally relevant to me... but it is personally relevant to me.

I may have mentioned that my elder child is 15 and nonbinary; my younger child is 11 and nonverbal. His name is Sam. He communicates using a whiteboard or tablet.

So then this frkn teevee show serves up an episode in which: the nonbinary actor playing the 14ish lesbian teenager serves as a temporary big sibling to the Deaf/nonverbal kid whose name is Sam and communicates using a magic slate.

So yeah I needed a lot of time to recover from that one.

holy shit... that's wild.

I was once bitten by a museum employee who smelled bad so yeah sometimes TV gets too real

hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha

Didn't he grow up in Texas? Does his accent go funny on Mandalorian as well? Speaking of, both shows are bizarrely following the same trajectory...
At any point in the game, does Ellie develop mushroomchlorian force powers?

Having never played the game, I'd imagine I'd find it unbearably tedious as a narrative-delivery mechanism, given that I gave up on slogging through cutscenes and dialog in Castlevania and went for Vampire Survivors instead, which has the narrative content of a slot machine.

A game based on Ron Swanson macguyvering death traps, procuring meds and homesteading with a bickering partner with a dwindling health meter, might be fun though -- some kind of cross between tower defense, animal crossing, and sims.

Anyway I wanted to tell elder kid how that episode gave me ALL THE FEELS, and the conversation went like this:

"Sky, are you familiar with 'The Last of Us'?"

"Well, kinda. Most of what I've heard about it is that it's zombies, plus gay."

Take from that what you will.

I'm willing to bet the expansion of Bill and Frank is this season was done with an eye potentially on specific events/plot points/parallels in the second season/game.

Maybe you have something in mind from the game, but how could there be a parallel more relevant than the one between Bill/Frank E3 and Joel/Ellie season 1? The episode is still about Joel and Ellie, giving us a letter that could have been written by Joel at the end of season 1. It is also about the game, a way to make the "finding and reading of a letter" game mechanic work for television.

Could see the writers getting to the finale and thinking "this is all too sudden, but we can't have Joel explaining his transformation in real time" and then coming up with E3 as a solution exactly for telling the story of Joel and Ellie better. (And adding to it. Bill and Frank's story is also interesting and important in itself). So not being salty but seeing it as subtraction from the Joel/Ellie story time seems wrong!

Maybe you have something in mind from the game, but how could there be a parallel more relevant

Relevant spoilers from the second game:

In the second game, Ellie is in a stable, loving relationship, and she is eventually given an explicit choice: live in apparent domestic bliss with her girlfriend, together alone in an isolated house, very much akin to Bill and Frank, or return to her previous ways. When the show (presumably) gets to that inflection point, viewers will have an even better idea of what happiness can look like, or even that it truly is possible, making Ellie's decision that much more distressing. I think having seen Bill and Frank the way we have in the show will make that conflict even more powerful whenever we see it, which does make it an improvement, but mostly imo in the context of what is to come.

That whole bit with Bottom the Weaver and all really subtracts from the main action of "Midsummer Night's Dream," yo. I mean, why not just focus on the main characters the whole time?

xp maybe that possible future parallel is making it harder for you to accept the season 1 parallels as the episode's main function. I get what you are saying with the season 2 stuff, but I don't think it's necessary to explain or feel good about the writing decisions in season 1 alone.

I agree! Just part and parcel in comparing the game and show. Obv. not an issue for anyone that has not played the game (which, of course, is best known for its story, not gameplay).

fwiw I've seen some people complain a little about tiny tweaks to Ellie's character that may have a slight impact on the story going forward, but I don't think I have problem with what the showrunners intentionally shifted.

which, of course, is best known for its story, not gameplay

The gameplay is outstanding!

I think so, but it's a common complaint I've seen from some. I mean, the gameplay in the second game is so good I think that's why they remade the first game!

having only watched the show i found myself now pretty impressed with the game that it had such deep storylines already built in, like that the ending is part of the game blew my mind a bit.

it’s cool to know that gaming can allow for a nuanced, challenging emotional experience like that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oSFFSu57yU

The most-affecting aspect of the game that I felt vaguely-but-not-actually disappointed didn’t make it into the show was maybe interesting:

I remember there was this fairly terrifying sequence where Joel is having to navigate a school environment where airborne spores are a danger. The ambient light in the environment was precise, it had that “being in school after hours” feeling, which was already scary as shit.

Up until that point in the game, you’d confronted clickers and other mobile fungazombies, but it was exactly in this environment, navigating through it, that you started to see an increase in the prevalence of wall-bound fungal tendrils, leading to the discovery of a full-tilt immobile human fungus flower, head opened into mushroom growth, sitting against a wall. It was the closest visual depiction of a Lovecraft description as I’ve ever seen (and imo likely inspired similar imagery within the movie Annihilation)

I think they discovered those immobile human shitheads in the show but it didn’t happen as balletically as it did in the game, it was really something

Re: spores. For the last 3-ish years, lots of tv shows and movies have - understandably - not wanted to film sequences with a lot of masks; it interferes with showing emotions. Plus you don't pay a kabillion dollars for the face of Tom Cruise or whomsoever and only get his eyebrows.

So a future historian looking only at our entertainment from this period would be hard-pressed to find evidence of the times in which many of us walked about with half our faces obscured. Which would be at odds with the news coverage of the time.

Yeah, it's kind of fascinating. I think on one of the covid threads I noted some TV or movie person's conflicted reasoning. Show people with masks, like the real world, and you break the illusion of escapism. Show people without masks and you introduce a kind of cognitive dissonance scraping against the way the world is. Anyway, given the popularity of "The Mandalorian," or the success of "For All Mankind," this show prolly could have easily tossed in a mask or two. Seeing Pedro put on a mask for a scene probably wouldn't have been that confusing. If anything, it might have made for a pretty claustrophobic sequence!

It was odder to bring up the interlocked infected thing only to never mention it again, but maybe they will in the future.

As I mentioned up thread, can't imagine Pedro wanted to do another show with his face covered up

"No brown M&Ms, clean towels/socks, bottle of Maker's Mark, no covering my face."

A game based on Ron Swanson macguyvering death traps, procuring meds and homesteading with a bickering partner with a dwindling health meter, might be fun though -- some kind of cross between tower defense, animal crossing, and sims.

seeing this as some mid noughties Flash game on the HBO website as part of this series 2005 marketing push.

Flew through the 9 episodes in the last three days - an incredible show. Part of me wishes I had gotten to play more than 30 minutes of the game at my friend's house before watching to see the differences between the show and game, but I guess it made my show-watching experience much tenser not knowing what would happen. I was convinced Joel would be dead by the end of the season

Finally listened to the last official podcast episode, and while I stand by my (modest) reservations about the show, the podcast provided excellent closure.

“While everything at this moment is pencils down, I’m hopeful that we can come to terms sooner than later. Otherwise we will have to assess what is the end of the 24 schedule, what are the shows that are going to be delivered for 2025,” Orsi said. “At this point, those shows that I’m looking to air wouldn’t necessarily be ready if this strike last six to nine months. So yes, that’s a big question for us, but I think we’ll cross that road once we come to it.”

It’s “too early to tell” how the scheduling plans for specific shows will being impacted by the writers work stoppage, Orsi said. “We were looking at The Last Of Us for some time in 2025. And The White Lotus was ideally looking to go in 2024 but there’s some question about timing of the strike.”

Watching this again with my teen, who had never seen it, and while it holds up I maintain my criticism that there is not enough time spent traveling across the country with Ellie and Joel, and the two biggest comments I keep hearing from my kid are "everyone keeps talking about raiders but we never see any raiders" and "how are we supposed to care about any of these characters if they just immediately die?" Fair enough, the show does constantly introduce new characters/villains just to immediately kill them off (typically in the same episode), which gets a little distracting. If they had another episode of just Ellie and Joel traveling/solving problems/fighting it might have offered a bit more narrative breathing room.

I really enjoyed The Last of Us as it aired, but it has not remained in my mind whatsoever since finishing it. I'll definitely watch the next season but if you told me it was still two years away I wouldn't really be bothered.

It's two years away.