‘The Last Of Us’ Show Dives Back Into 2020’s ‘Part 2’ Game Drama

The Last of Us just aired what all game-players knew was coming, despite wild theories like the show possibly skipping its major death or pushing it to season 3. Rather, it kept the timeline of the games almost exactly. Spoilers follow.

That would be the execution of Joel at the hands of Abby, the daughter of the doctor about to operate on Ellie (which would kill her) in season 1. Now, the fanbase of both show-watchers and game-players has time-warped back to all these debates and controversies back in 2020 when the game was first released. Some issues are the same, some are now TV-specific.

I don’t have any idea what’s going on with audience scores. On Rotten Tomatoes, they’ve been low even since episode 1 of season 2, and after episode 2, they’re hovering at a quite bad 55%, as opposed to the 87% of season 1. But over on IMDB, no stranger to review bombing, the episode has a 9.5/10 score, the highest of the series so far. I’m very confused.

But laying out all the issues that fans seem to have with the episode in one way or another, it’s a long list.

• This has resparked the debate with those game fans who believe that Abby never should have killed off Joel at all which sparked a game-spanning storyline where you play as Abby that many fans did not like, and still do not like to this day.
• Anecdotally, this has translated into a similar situation with purely TV viewers. I have seen this become a “Glenn moment” for many viewers, a reference to when The Walking Dead brutally killed Glenn, even if it was a 1:1 translation from the comics. Millions of viewers instantly walked away and TWD’s ratings never recovered. Losing Joel, and in such a horrible fashion, may produce a similar result in a number of viewers, and I’m already seeing that happen among friends.

• There’s a middleground of game-players who did like the game or even the original scene, but believe the changed made for the show, Dina being there instead of Tommy, Abby’s attitude during the entire thing or even the fact that Dever just looks so diminutive compared to Game Abby that the entire thing is just less impactful. There’s also the take that Dever’s Abby looks and acts more like adult Ellie than Abby, which is confusing (her and Bella Ramsey’s casting has always been controversial).

There is of course a number of viewers, game-players or otherwise, who think this was fine. Or even great. Again, the episode has a 9.5/10 on IMDB. I’m in the camp where I think it could have been done a bit better, but I am certainly looking forward to seeing how the rest of the story plays out across the next two seasons as there is a ton still to come.

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