'The Last of Us' - Season 2 Thread (NO GAME SPOILERS!) | HBO | April 13th, 2025 (7 Episodes)

[Jazzy B.]

This is the same HBO that showed a pregnant lady getting knifed in the belly, same HBO that showed, coincidentally, Pedro’s head getting smashed like a fukking grape. I highly doubt they were scared of the brutality.

This isn't Game of Thrones this is the Last of us.

Game of Thrones doesn't have shyt to do with this show.

They were clearly scared because Joel's death was TONED DOWN compared to the game.

They did NOT want a Negan/Glen situation with Abby and her crew.

 

[Jmare007]

I am curious about one major change from the game...

Spoiler

They swapped Dina and Tommy for the one being there during Joel's death. Tommy was Ellie's voice of vengeance, and Dina was Ellie's voice of reason. I'm curious if those two characters will play out the same way.

Maaan, the game

Spoiler

does Tommy so dirty. He ends up becoming a miserable old man that can't let go

I kinda hope the show is a little more forgiving. How we leave him in the 2nd game is one of the most heartbreaking parts of the whole story for me

 

[Jmare007]

The game leaves it open to interpretation as well. It never says one way or another that the surgery and subsequent science would be a success or failure. It just said that it had not worked previously. And the fact that Joel lies about it to Ellie, not wanting to tell her what he did, only further reinforces the ambiguity and open-to-interpretation of it all.

The game does imply that....

Spoiler: 2nd game spoiler

that humanity is beyond saving and that even if a cure was discovered, gang warfare, politics and humans being humans would've fukked it all up and not "save the world" with a cure.

There's nothing TLOU world shows us that can make you have faith that the Fireflies, or anyone for that matter, would've been able to save anyone but themselves from getting bitten. And even then, they would've probably died due to gang warfare for doses of the cure or some shyt

 

[Larry]

it finally happened


Me watching the last scene of episode 2:

 

[Jaguar93]

fukk Joel

 

[Codeine Bryant]

The game does imply that....

Spoiler: 2nd game spoiler

that humanity is beyond saving and that even if a cure was discovered, gang warfare, politics and humans being humans would've fukked it all up and not "save the world" with a cure.

There's nothing TLOU world shows us that can make you have faith that the Fireflies, or anyone for that matter, would've been able to save anyone but themselves from getting bitten. And even then, they would've probably died due to gang warfare for doses of the cure or some shyt

Spoiler

No argument there. Society would no doubt devolve into a brutal and vicious lawlessness in an apocalypse like this.

But that's hindsight. The nerds doing research and running operations and testing are still going to do their part to find a cure, vaccine, or whatever it is they can to mitigate the circumstances.

Man will be Man, though

 

[FAH1223]

I thought it was a good episode

Now I want to replay the 2nd game

 

[EzekelRAGE]

They did NOT want a Negan/Glen situation with Abby and her crew

I don’t get the negan/glen comparisons. The main backlash from negan/glen was because they handled Glenn dying the worst way possible. You know negan is beating someone to death, you hear screams from the rest of the gang reacting and see the blood running down someone’s face, but you don’t know who is being killed and the season ends. Then you don’t find out who is killed til the next season.

Here is a reminder of how the season ended and why they got the backlash



The only way the Joel Abby scene would be comparable is if they ended the season with Abby in a room with Joel Ellie Dina Tommy and we hear her beating someone to death and we don’t find out who til season 3.

Abby killed Joel, ain’t no redemption for her to the viewers who watched for Joel. All the shyt AMC did above played a major role in ppl turning on the show, that is on top of them pumpfaking Glenn getting killed earlier in the season with the dumpster scene.

 

[daemonova]

This is the same HBO that showed a pregnant lady getting knifed in the belly, same HBO that showed, coincidentally, Pedro’s head getting smashed like a fukking grape. I highly doubt they were scared of the brutality.

They ran an ad, live after the episode because they knew that this was going be a "Ned stark is killed" caliber of episode

 

[tinnyskillz]

Episode 2 is the best episode of the series. By far.

 

[detroitwalt]

This isn't Game of Thrones this is the Last of us.

Game of Thrones doesn't have shyt to do with this show.

They were clearly scared because Joel's death was TONED DOWN compared to the game.

They did NOT want a Negan/Glen situation with Abby and her crew.

My bad you were in the writer’s room and know everything

Except you weren’t and you don’t know shyt. Nobody was scared of anything.

 

[detroitwalt]

Funny thing to me is that the most 1:1 part of this episode was Abby having to out run a horde of infected and somehow surviving like 50 of them trying to touch and bite her while she was crawling under a fence that was about to give....that shyt was by far the worst part of the episode to me because it obviously doesn't translate as well on TV as it does in the game

Damn that didn’t work for you? shyt was terrifying to me. It seemed like the bigger threat was her getting crushed to death by the sheer number of infected leaning on that fence

 

[Uchiha God]

Funny thing to me is that the most 1:1 part of this episode was Abby having to out run a horde of infected and somehow surviving like 50 of them trying to touch and bite her while she was crawling under a fence that was about to give....that shyt was by far the worst part of the episode to me because it obviously doesn't translate as well on TV as it does in the game


Ehh, I think the TV show going for tension and dread instead of shock value is not as bad as you make it sound. Mostly because they do an amazing job at creating tension so people unfamiliar with the game dreading Joel getting got and slowly but surely seeing that it's gonna happen is an incredible TV watching experience that can feel just as fulfilling as the shock factor.

Sure, they are vastly different feelings and the game gets points for being brave enough to go for it the way ND went for it. But TV done this well, regardless if it isn't groundbreaking, it's still TV done well and that's appreciated as well


PS: Joel also tells Abby to shut the fukk in the game and get it done. Both the show and the game are telling its audience that these people looking for revenge are way too deep into their own fukked up issues that they are oblivious as to how they sound or are perceived from the outside.

The “criticisms” are largely nonsensical and/or shallow at best. “if you’re going to depart from the game, add to it” think about that sentence for a second. It’s an oxymoron - one that is fluff and holds no real substance - at least in isolation.

Ellie has the same “we have our shyt but we’re good” sentiment in-game - when you’re walking with Jesse, and then later to Maria when Maria says “I don’t know what’s happening between you and Joel” - yet here it’s being presented as lack of emotional subtlety for the sake of criticism

Joel, as you’ve pointed out, also tells Abby to shut the fukk up in game - dude says something along the lines of “do your rehearsed speech and get it over with” - and evidently a tv show will need/have exposition.

I have a theory that gamers are largely whiny by nature/design - you even see it in enthusiast gaming spaces where they spend more time complaining than playing video games. The internet also has this weird skewed perspective when it comes to criticism - that somehow being overtly critical of something, especially if popular, speaks to one’s knowledge (of subject matter) - that combined with nerds having a chip on their shoulder about their “counter-culture” being the defacto “pop culture” these days is just a terrible mix. If you ever hear “I read the books/comics/manga or I played the game” just give them a thumbs up and tune out whatever else they gon say

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Spoiler tags going crazy this ep

 

[klientel]

I dunno how they gonna pull off that alpha energy Abby has in the game with her being so tiny.

Spoiler

I wonder if they gonna drop the whole thing about Abby being one of the best soldiers in WLF. I just don’t see it with this girl.