A Skeptical Review of HBO's 'The Last of Us' - Season 1

so I've been waiting for about two months to talk about The Last of Us on HBO because I wanted to just get all my thoughts out there at once instead of like slowly dripping them on you guys sounded sensual but the day has arrived the finale of season one just launched last night which is actually tonight I have not seen it yet so I'm recording this first chunk of this skeptical review of the Season before I've seen the finale and then I'm gonna watch the finale and come back and that'll be the ending section of the video where I share my thoughts on how they tied this up if you've been following the news related to the show you know that Bella Ramsay who plays of course Ellie she said that this ending would divide a lot of people would be highly polarizing we aren't really sure if that's for gamers or if that's for like people who haven't played the games so you know what we're just gonna have to wait and see I'm very excited but I want to offer my thoughts on the season as it stands right now and I think that there's a lot of things to be said as implied by the title of this video I went into this a little skeptical I wasn't sold on the idea of translating this into an HBO series because let's just be real most of the video game TV show adaptations that we've seen recently are not great I guess more specifically I should just say video game adaptations into film or TV more generally they don't tend to end super well and going into this I didn't know anything about Pedro Pascal I also didn't really know anything about Bella Ramsay so I was very interested in how this would play out knowing that Neil druckman the game's original Creator author director blah blah blah was involved helped Grease the wheels a lot he's a very narrative focused guy so if anybody being involved would soothe my concerns it would be him but the last of us is a difficult project it's very sensitive there's a lot of nuance and let's be real sometimes video games just don't translate into popular media that well this is simply because in video games they can have an hour or two where the player is exploring say a level with another character in the game so you can build relationships companionship camaraderie Fellowship whatever word you want to use with a care character just by engaging with the gameplay Loop by itself passively building that relationship every time you help the other up a ledge and over the wall or they help you take down some enemies in a combat sequence each time that happens there's a little bit of credibility with that character added there's a little bit of likability added you start to trust them as a player because of this weird thing that's happening in our monkey brains where we start to trust people and characters that help us but of course in a TV show you can't really do that interact ability is not a thing and that changes a lot especially in a game like the last of us where a lot of things are communicated to the player passively through World building through exploration through dialogue that happens passively while exploring between characters or through notes that you discover out in the world all of that stuff doesn't work in a TV show you have to find a different way to do it and that's why they had to make changes that's why they had to make shifts which is why The Last of Us season one I think is worth talking about from a gaming perspective because there are changes and things that have shifted and that's one of the main things we'll be focusing on in this video is briefly discussing each of those changes and I'll offer my thoughts on them some of them I think were were good changes or great additions even and other changes I just didn't really puzzled by and I'm not sure why they needed to be made I'm sure it goes without saying but I'm going to be talking about like the whole game and the whole season of the show so there will be spoilers um so just be ready for that I guess there's not a lot here that will be spoiled if you've already played the game or are familiar with the game so rest easy there but we're gonna talk about it all now to begin I don't want to go through the entire story once again I already did like a multi-hour breakdown of the last of Us's Story the individual story beats the characters all of that good stuff if you're interested I'll have it linked in the description box below for the last of us part one and part two I've done it all I know these games backwards and forwards so instead of doing that all over again I want to offer my thoughts as I said on the broader themes the changes in tone and and the things that they've shifted and then also the major changes in lore alterations that they've made as as I mentioned some of them valid some of them really confusing the first and perhaps most obvious change is that they set this adaptation in 2003 whereas the original game was set in 2013 which was the same year that the game launched this decision was a little confusing to me I found it a little odd I'm not totally sure why they did this I've tried looking it up and seeing if anybody's mentioned in interviews as to why some people think it has to do with the fact that cell phones were less common so maybe that could explain why the the fungus was able to spread and communication wasn't as clear as it would have been otherwise other people think it's just because maybe they wanted to do something with cell towers or something like nobody really really knows as far as I can tell if you have a theory as to why they said it in 2003 pushed it back 10 years I am very very interested in hearing that I'm not totally sure I think the game worked fine in 2013 as it originally was but you know I'm sure they had their reasons and if you're anything like me you'll also notice in this initial scene uh that it's a very loving relationship that's being established between father and daughter uh Joel's shirt is on inside out once again establishing that he is strung out he doesn't really know how to juggle everything in his life but he's working his ass off to try and make it happen and I gotta hand it to Pedro I really was not not Dull there's a slight visual resemblance but like I really didn't know what to make of this guy when I heard that he was going to be playing Joel I knew he had been of course in like Game of Thrones and that he had a history with Mandalorian but I I don't really watch TV shows much so I didn't really know what to make of it but I gotta hand it to him he's ended up being a phenomenal Joel I think he's doing a great job and every time I see anything about this guy pop up I love him more and more he seems like a National Treasure so uh thumbs up one of the other things about the show that struck me especially in the first episode is just how much that they've added they mentioned that they were going to be changing some stuff and then we would see some things we didn't see in the games but there actually is a lot here remember I said there are some things you can communicate through video games that you can't communicate the same way through television or movies or shows like that this is an example of it in the games we get familiarized with Sarah very very quickly and then stuff goes down in the show they wanted to to build that up a little bit more so that when Sarah's demise arrives it hits all the more emotionally and impactfully I will be completely honest with because I saw Sarah's death coming from a mile away I didn't really find this to be too emotionally taxing because I've already been down that emotional roller coaster and so it just didn't hit me as hard as it did the first time I played the game and experienced this but I've been told by people who are not familiar with the games that experience this for the first time no exposure no spoilers or anything that this hit very very hard and I think that's why they spent more time building up the relationship between the viewer Joel and and Sarah and apparently it worked the first 30 minutes of this episode that is an hour and 20 minutes long is spent with Sarah predominantly not even with Joel predominantly and that's for very good reason because they wanted to make sure when this emotional beat happens it hits and it stays one of the other changes they made is that they opened the show with these small little vignettes which are meant to complement the story that's going to be told throughout the course of the episode they only do this for the first handful of episodes and then they stop and just get right to the point but I actually really really like these things the opening sequence of the first episode establishes the potential for a fungal outbreak like the cordyceps fungus that eventually causes the world to collapse in the world of The Last of Us they tie it to the events of global warming and how that could cause the fungus to exacerbate Its Behavior and then spread massively and I I think this stuff is really really cool this is a complement to the story it's not changing it it's not majorly altering the lore what is altering the lore is changing how the fungus works on a foundational level in the HBO version of The Last of Us there are no spores as you guys know everything is transmitted through tendrils basically so all of the fungal groups and established networks are connected so even in one building if somebody trips that could alert a horde of infected a mile away because it's all connected through these tendrils that spread on the ground and as you can see with the actual infected the tendrils come out of their mouths it's honestly more horrifying this way I actually really kind of like this change again it's not clear why they decided to make this shift this was something that was in the original artwork for the game they just decided to shift more towards the spores and focusing on Ellie's immunity that way because as a gameplay mechanic it's really interesting to have it so Ellie doesn't have to worry about spores whereas Joel and Tess do and especially in terms of gaining trust with Ellie and Joel being able to see Ellie survive the spores is something that okay well she clearly is immune because I would be dead right now if I was around those spores but with it being shifted to the tendrils that's not really a thing that happens anymore which leaves more tension between Joel and Ellie when he first finds out that she's infected at the end of episode one so it's it's an interesting shift I think I'm more generally positive towards the change though I wouldn't say I'm like a fan of it or I would have made the same shift but again I stand by the fact that this is pretty horrifying and um this old lady she freaking nailed her role in this show like oh my God this shot right here if you've watched the show you know exactly what I'm talking about what happens here sends shivers down my spine it's subtle it's fantastically well executed and it's awesome I just it's great and in general there's a lot of subtlety in the show which I am very very thankful for even as somebody very familiar with the story The World the characters the lore blah blah blah I still found myself engaged and enthralled to try and pick up on all of the little details that they scattered throughout such as in the first episode where there's multiple examples of Joel and Sarah just barely missing an opportunity at consuming a flower product on the morning of Joel's birthday they ran out of pancake mix and Joel forgot to buy more fresh so he and Sarah couldn't have pancakes on the day big bummer but that's good because the fungus is actually being transported through flour that's being distributed through shopping malls and shopping centers which is why it's also good that later on they don't accept biscuits when it's offered to them by the adlers which again is a great touch he offers biscuits fresh biscuits he's feeding it to Old Mrs Adler but thank God Joel and Sarah weren't hungry so they don't eat any there and then when Joel gets back home after a long hard day's work he forgot to pick up a birthday cake for him and Sarah to enjoy which again ends up saving their lives at least one of their lives because one you know uh and it ends up being a really good thing because if they had eaten the birthday cake they would have gotten infected and all of these little details are tossed in there and you don't have to notice them but when you do it makes it all the better and more interesting and honestly the whole first episode just in general I thought was really really good I'm a little less sold on the performance of the actress who plays Tess I just felt like she was a little stiff that's my humble opinion she loosened up a lot in episode two but I don't know it's very I'm a badass Watch Me Roar and it just didn't play as well as I think Tess played in the games though I will admit I'm a little biased because I thought the actress who played Tess in the games did a remarkable job through and through but nonetheless the first step episode of the show clips along at a pretty solid pace and I think is adapted pretty well I still insist Marlene is an absolute idiot and and nobody should trust her with the fate of humanity that's a holdover for my Impressions and opinions from the game itself I just think the fireflies are freaking morons and terrorists and I don't blame anybody for not trusting them so that doesn't really change here they didn't make her any more competent they just tried to justify her terroristic acts which if you think that they did do a good job of justifying that okay like maybe they did but I still think that the fireflies are not a sympathetic group at all but who knows maybe that's the point maybe the fireflies are supposed to be like they're just trying to make the most out of a really screwed up world and there's no right or wrong and this actually reminds me of something that Troy Baker who played Joel in the video games said when he was interviewed about the last of us as a franchise and basically what he said is that in his mind the world of the last of us has no Heroes no true heroes it only has villains that are dictated based on viewpoints and perspectives to one person their hero is another person's villain especially in a world as Cut Throat as this one and that's a theme that's very present in the first season or first part of The Last of Us and let's just say that idea is going to be all the more crucial in season two trust me so again maybe that is exactly exactly the point is that Marlene is not supposed to be seen as somebody who has it all together because they're trying to make it out and make it very very clear that she doesn't and she's just Another Broken person in this very broken world the other thing I have to give them credit for of course is the phenomenal music written and composed by the same guy that did it in the games Gustavo sent to alive uh he's absolutely amazing and I probably just butchered his name but his music is great and you should check it out if you haven't already also the cinematography is Top Notch this shouldn't come as a surprise considering the showrunners have backgrounds in Chernobyl and it's HBO I mean come on so of course you would kind of hope this would be the case but every shot of this show looks beautiful and amazing there's one exception that I found really really weird that we'll touch on in a little bit specifically at the end of episode 8 but again we'll get there and also shout out to the cinematographers for ending episode one where Joel is confronted with this soldier who has a rifle and a flashlight and it's a direct simile to what happened with him and Sarah at the end of her story and the difference is this time he's accompanied by Tess and Ellie the two people who he cares about most in this post-apocalyptic World which I just thought was a good touch and speaking of subtlety once again they have the little detail with the radios depending on which decade of music is playing that can communicate that bill is either okay or in trouble this is something that you'll pick up on if you've listened to the dialogue really really carefully where they explain how they created this system with the radio and of course we find out why this radio has switched to the decade of music that indicates something is very wrong episode 2 of course continues the story along with another edition of this sequence in the opening of the show where we are shown basically this lady who is a virologist or fungal expert or whatever her official title is she knows what she's doing when it comes to really dangerous fungal outbreaks and this is one such occasion where this exact thing has broken out in this area a military officer talks to her about what they should do and she tells them that they should blow up the city where this broke out even though there's only one or two people missing and they don't know who caused the initial bite that infected people her suggestion is to just blow up the entire city killing countless countless people but that's the best option because if this gets out it's going to cause the world to end and the reason this is important is because it again adds context adds understanding and complements the events and story that's going to be told throughout the episode because for the rest of this episode we're going to be exploring Through The Eyes of Joel and Ellie and Tess the outskirts of the city and we're going to see that it's bombed to Absolute Oblivion this thing's been attacked seemingly in some sort of crazy war and if you didn't have this context it would be up to just a single line of yeah they decided to bomb the city to get rid of infected pretty messed up but now we see why they did it we see how terrified the people making these decisions were and how they weren't happy about the decision that they were making but they had to make that difficult decision because it was their last chance at saving Humanity again it's a great complementative change or addition it's something that makes the story better and helps the viewer understand it to a greater degree this is also the episode where we get our first real look at the infected and I gotta say the Prosthetics and the special effects are pretty good and I know there's been a lot of hubbub about the infected being sort of an afterthought in this zombie show and to that I'll just say The Last of Us was never really about the infected it's about how human beings respond to an apocalypse a zombie apocalypse yes but it's fundamentally a story about people and how they treat each other and how they screw each other over even at this terrible moment for everybody and so well yeah I would like more infected I don't think that it actually is significantly hindered as a story by the less than overwhelming inclusion or representation of the infected in the show when we see them they're great and it's really cool and a lot of the time they're just talked about and we don't see them one of the other more horrifying changes was of course Tess's death which took place in this weird French kiss style because she's been infected so she just kind of Embraces it but the way they did it was with this bizarre French Kiss I I don't really know why they did that like this is one of those changes that I'm just thoroughly confused by I didn't find this to be like okay this adds to the story this is a good change this just felt like some weird art piece and I'm really just thoroughly confused by it like there had to be a reason where they were sitting around the writer's table and they went like what what should we do with Tessa's death do the same thing no what should we do David what should we do and then he's like oh we should have the zombie French kisser with his weird hair Noodles coming out of his mouth I love it let's do it I I seriously don't understand this I feel like I'm missing something if you guys know why they chose to do this instead of just what they did in the game where she dies fighting the the oncoming soldiers from the qz at like let me know because I'm I'm thoroughly confused but after this of course Joel and Ellie are off on their Adventure Joel agrees to take her uh over to the fireflies because he promised Tess that he would do it and this sets emotion their Adventure in episode three we get to see a lot more relationship building between Joel and Ellie though he still doesn't really trust her and it's a much slower paced episode than what we just experienced which were two episodes that were very very quick paced and had a lot of action this episode of course focuses on Bill and Frank I again insist that Nick Offerman was the perfect person to cast for the role of Bill just like I there literally is not a human being on Earth that would be a better fit I think it's great and we get to see a significantly altered version of the story of Bill and Frank they were always a couple they always had a relationship together that was more than just survivors or friends and that's very very clear if you've played the game and read the documents and paid close attention to the dialogue that's communicated but what we didn't get in the game was this thorough background and specifically the ending of their story which is sort of a Romeo and Juliet or Romeo and and Julian style for now is that insensitive I don't know you know what I mean though Romeo and Juliet what am I talking about I swear to God I can't talk about it too much otherwise like I'll start tearing up and I won't get through this uh whole video but I thought this was just wonderfully executed and it's meant to offer sort of a different message than what we originally got in the game with these characters because in the games all of these smaller stories that you experience whether it be what you see happen with of course Sam and Henry or Bill and Frank in the game or of course Tess we see in the game a bunch of smaller stories that tell you yeah you can care about people but often you'll just end up sad and dead and in the game it's meant to be like yeah but even then it's still worth it but in the show they wanted to tweak it and say yeah no sometimes it ends badly like with Sam and Henry yes sometimes you end up hurt and hurt people hurt other people and sometimes it just ends tragically but other times it ends beautifully and as we saw in the note that bill left behind that Ellie reads to Joel it's clear that he thinks it's worth loving someone even if it's going to eventually end that makes it worth it because this life is just too short to go it alone and that offers a more positive story and an impact to Joel that makes him start thinking maybe I should try to find somebody to care about once again after everything happened with Sarah and on a less serious note we also get to see Ellie uh get her notable shirt her very iconic shirt in this episode which I thought was a great little nod to those of us who played the games I thought this was awesome now in episode 4 which is pretty straightforward we see more uh relationship building with Joel and Ellie of course and we also see smaller changes made slight alterations to keep the pacing up a little bit more on par with where they need it to be an example of the really minor changes would be like in the game they get jumped in Pittsburgh and that's where they meet Sam and Henry and all of that goes down but in the show they meet in Kansas City I'm not really sure why they made this change my guess is that they looked at like the maps of travel times and distances and thought that this made more sense if you were trying to get to Wyoming you would go this route so I guess they just decided to do this uh it's really not that big of a change but it was one that I noticed because I'm familiar with the games but really not a big deal like sure if I wanted to be pissy I could throw a fit about and be like they're just changing stuff for no reason but I really I just the day's too too short like I don't have the energy to be that nitpicky and that's coming from me like a world-renowned nitpicker and somebody who loves to go into detail and tear things apart in a Nitty Gritty way and honestly like that's such a minor complaint if that's the worst you have to say about this show it's probably a pretty good show one of the bigger changes though was this edition of a character named Kathleen her role in the story is basically to show what can go badly when somebody like Marlene takes over when they overthrow basically a military militia and the people grow in power and take over it can go badly because sometimes the wrong people take over and in fact often it will go badly because eventually the wrong person will take control and like I get why she's here I thought that they spent way too much time focused on her as a character I'm more interested in Joel and Ellie and I felt like this episode was really really weird because they just kept cutting back to her and I was like I don't I don't really care like again we're talking about perspectives I get that she's the hero of her own story but my hero in this story is Joel so like show me Joel you know if you want to give me a season three focused on Kathleen go for it I guess I don't know if it'll be that good but go for it I just don't like I don't really care it's like all those tidbits in The Witcher Netflix series where they keep cutting back to frangela and you're like I don't give a crap stop showing me frangela she's not that interesting she's kind of cringe and nobody cares but they keep cutting away to her talking for like a 10 minute monologue at a time you're like shut up and go back to The Witcher because I'm watching a TV show called The Witcher okay sorry sorry I got triggered I got triggered oh my God Luke's a snowflake yep sure I am confirmed fact check confirmed let's move on it's also in this episode that we see the first tidbit of vulnerability on Joel's part where he really clearly cares for Ellie she has to kill somebody in order to protect him and save him uh because he didn't hear them coming because he's deaf in his his uh left or right ear one of his ears because it's where he's been shooting all of these years it makes sense with the character and it's Justified and it re-establishes that he's also old and he's got high mileage on his engine so I like I get it and I think it's just a really really good touch in the next episode there's yet more rambling and focus on Kathleen as a character I think this one establishes her as a little more interesting and Cutthroat but once again I just don't think it really matters we also get to see the actor who played Tommy in the games he has like a two episode Cameo here and he did like really good I'll I'll give it to him I thought he was great we also get more of salmon Henry in detail one of the other alterations they made is that now Sam is deaf this was not in the games and the change feels if I had to put a word on it it feels contrived it feels like they were trying to find a way to swap the character up a little bit more and do something interesting uh subvert expectations perhaps and while I find it interesting like okay yeah how would a death character navigate this world it's interesting but like I I don't I just I again it just feels like changing it to see what it would be like if they changed it it's fine I don't think it hurt the show at all I think it offered a couple of moments I was like that's interesting okay how would that work yeah if he can't hear people coming how could that change okay that's kind of interesting but it didn't feel like it added anything this one did just feel like a change for the sake of changing things it was also in this episode where I saw a few things that made me really appreciate the games more such as this sequence in this underground bunker where a family had been posted up they had kids clearly there's toys and artwork from kids all over the thing and in the game you go through this section and you explore the levels and things and you find the same Forts and games and things and it's really really interesting to see what was a home for this family turned to Absolute crap and you wonder okay well if the family was here where is the family now and as you continue exploring eventually you find them and honestly it makes it all the more emotionally impactful when you see how great things were at one time in this space and how quickly things of course went Belly Up and how horrible it must have been for everybody so I felt like this moment and this sequence didn't land as hard in the show because we didn't have that interact ability but they tried to make the most of it by instead focusing on a bond between Ellie and Sam I also felt that their relationship was a little more contrived again I think part of it is because in this version of the story Sam is deaf and so every time Ellie's interacting with him it feels a little forced and contrived but maybe that's just me and maybe I'm just reading into it too much but it just never felt like she actually like really cared about Sam it always felt like okay go play with Sam go do something and I didn't feel real in the same way and once again the idea of having these smaller stories that push Joel into growing as a character and learning to love again and open his heart to other people this is once again another example of that because we have Henry and Sam he's saying yeah you know you love these little buggers so much he would do anything for him but you know you never know when something could go wrong and even still it's worth it and it's again another little thing that just pushes Joel a little bit further in a subtle way but it's noticeable and of course more random crap with Kathleen that we're like supposed to care about we also have this absolute Bonker sequence at the end of the chapter of the story with the infected coming out from the underground it was a cool touch and um again like I said earlier when the infected show up in this season they show up you know it's not like they pop up and it's like kind of underwhelming no when they're here they are here in full force and it's awesome honestly I thought that this was a much more interesting way of sort of wrapping up the story of this chapter compared to what they did in the games where it just kind of ends abruptly as they escape across uh the river and then through the bunkers and everything I thought this was really really cool so I think this was a cool change and then of course we all know how the story ended very very sad I thought again because I saw this coming it didn't hit me anywhere near as emotionally as I expected it to but you know what maybe that's just me and then the episode of course ends with this shot which is just straight out of the game I think this is awesome reminds me of the road which of course was one of the original Inspirations uh for the story of The Last of Us and again cinematography Top Notch love it 6 we get to see again more relationship building between Joel and Ellie and of course they reunite with Tommy and arrive in Jackson and I'm also pretty sure we get to see Dina when they arrive in Jackson as well because she's watching Ellie and then quickly rushes off when Ellie calls her out we'll see if this is actually Dina and if they bring her over to season two they already cast it as far as I'm aware they haven't cast most of the people for season two maybe they have privately and they just haven't announced it publicly yet but if they already cassadena and this turns out to be her then that's pretty cool I will say though that this episode is where it started to feel a little bit rushed it felt like they had really taken their time to build things up through the first five episodes and now things were starting to get a little crunch though okay well we're in Jackson we still have to go to the university and then Joel has to get injured and then we got David then we've got going all the way over to Utah there's a lot to do here we gotta start rushing and it it starts to feel as though they're really clipping along at a fast pace and I really am a firm believer that this show could have really benefited from maybe two or three more episodes where they took their time a little bit more perhaps two episodes exploring David and his whole compound uh it just feels a little rushed if I'm being real this is something that's going to be Case by case of course you might not have felt it was rushed people who are not experienced or familiar with this story already might not feel it's rushed or might feel like it's super rushed I'm not really sure but for me as somebody familiar with the games and the stories already it felt like this was the moment that they started to go okay we gotta speed this up okay let's figure it out go go go you know and of course another small change Joel doesn't fall on a thing of rebar in this episode instead he gets stabbed or shanked basically and it's not that big of a change honestly it probably is just to make this a little bit more believable because getting impaled with like Rusty rebar is probably a lot harder to survive and come back from than seemingly a somewhat clean dagger or something but again it's a change for the sake of changing it's a little bit different but it's just probably done to make it a little bit more believable episode 7 is all about Ellie's relationship with Riley basically this is the entirety of the Left Behind DLC from 2014 I believe is when it launched and I thought it was pretty well done it's a pretty true to life retelling of that DLC with a couple of slight modifications here and there it makes the fireflies out to be like really pathetic though because they're recruiting children to fight in their cause because again they are a terrorist organization so it really makes them look bad at least to me again I have like zero sympathy for what's coming in the finale to the fireflies uh because I mean just look at their tactics like it's pretty horrifying and I think it's also in this episode that Bella Ramsay gets some more room to experiment with Ellie and I think just in general roll this is where I really became sold on her performance uh I think she loosened up a lot she had a bit more fun with it and I I just have to give her accolades I think it's great and then just like in the Left Behind DLC we see Ellie going and treating Joel in between these moments and discussions with Riley it's paced really really well and I I just think that this was awesome I love it I love it the one thing I would say is that again with the idea of pacing at the Forefront of our minds at this point it feels like we were clipping along and it started to feel a little rushed towards the end of the last episode episode six and then we get to episode seven and it's basically a flashback episode so it again feels like the pacing's a little bit off a little shifted and tilted again maybe just me but I'm just reporting on what I thought the next episode we get to meet David and his crew of course with Troy Baker who played Joel In The Last of Us games uh so it was really cool to see him get like a more elaborate role in the show and I thought this was a great fit for him I thought he did a great job now one of the biggest shifts of course is what they did with David David of course is still kind of a maniac and a crazy person cannibal but in this version of the story they really tried to justify his actions a little bit more he's still a creep and a pervert absolutely but they try to give him this like Messiah complex or make that more clear than it was in the game where not only is he basically a pastor or religious nut leading his cult but he also is somebody who can justify his actions by way of being a Shepherd to his flock he is somebody that's trying to provide for all of these people underneath him and so I mean if he has to feed them people you know human meat you know what who are you to judge me you know and again it's an interesting flip on what Troy Baker here said about this world which is there are no definitive Heroes there's only heroes and villains based on your perspective to David's followers he is a hero but to anybody else who comes in he's clearly a villain killing people and then feeding those people to his people he's clearly a maniac to people on the outside but to his followers he's a hero a messiah he is their leader and again it's just a really interesting doubling down on that Core theme of The Last of Us which is that fundamentally it's all just a matter of perspective and I'm not familiar with this actor but I gotta hand it to him he did a great job and sent tingles down my spine he did a great job I love it and of course we all know how the episode ends with his face being turned into SpaghettiOs and the one thing I mentioned earlier in the video was that the final shot of this episode felt a little weird in terms of cinematography and that's because the building behind them in this moment is literally on fire the entire complex is like burning to the ground but they spend like a solid 18 seconds just focused on this shot as Pedro and Bella walk away from the camera towards a massive Lake and like that's it it's really really odd it felt like there was supposed to be another shot that they plopped in at the end of this shot to overlap it and cut it off for five seconds panning out slowly showing the burning building and all of his followers rushing up and freaking out but no no they just show this and it felt weirdly amateur maybe it's just me but this shot I I actually thought something had gone wrong I was like what what is going on this is such a weird angle to take I I don't get it so this is like the one time in the show that I've been like what why it's really odd and that of course brings us to the finale which I'm about to go upstairs and watch for myself to see see what it's like so I'm gonna go do that and I'll be back in about 45 minutes to an hour and I will offer my thoughts on how they wrap this thing up okay so let's see uh let's see how they do one eternity later okay so in general I I think that was pretty good I think it was fairly solid I loved the little inclusion of the one the only Ashley Johnson of course she's amazing and actually funnily enough when we were watching this just now uh Nikki my my wife she was like oh it's Ellie just from the grunts because during this initial sequence where she's running through the forest she's like ah and because you play The Last of Us and you know the characters grunts so well because you hear that so much she was able to recognize that this is actually Ellie just from the grunting which I find kind of hilarious honestly but I thought this whole sequence was really really interesting gives us a little backstory as to why Ellie is probably immune because she was exposed to the fungus while technically still I guess attached to her mother and so that somehow allowed her to develop this thing in tandem with the fungus really really confusing but you know what this is I mean it's fiction so it's not that serious I will say that uh having a pregnant wife makes this opening bit really tough to watch and it made it pretty tough for uh Nikki to watch as well because of course this is like an actual living nightmare to basically welcome in a child into the world and then immediately know that you are not going to see the child like live or grow up to be anybody like immediately you have to let go like it's an actual nightmare so this was tough to watch but I think that that's partially the point the was Joel and Ellie in this episode are very reminiscent of the games beats in this chapter of the story where you can tell there's been a lot of bonding that's taken place since the whole thing went down with David they now are very very close together um Joel's opened up a lot and this is even seen in this section here where they're sitting and chatting and Joel opens up about Sarah and a attempt on himself just to leave it very you know Advertiser friendly uh and it's it's very interesting you know he's opening up to Ellie and you can tell that they've made a lot of progress with their relationship even though Ellie's a little distant because she's preparing for what's coming and she knows that this journey is probably about to come to an end but still it's it's really well done but still I would insist that law largely this feels pretty I don't know how else to say it rushed but even in the first game it felt a little rushed as well because after David's Camp thing happens it cuts to Black and then we cut forward to Spring and all of a sudden they're very very close they are talking openly with each other Joel is speaking emotionally about his daughter who died many many years ago and you don't really get to see that character building or that relationship building in real time you just have to accept that that largely happened off screen as a result of what you did see which was everything that went down with David and the rest of the episode is honestly pretty lean there's not a whole lot to say about it in terms of major alterations or things that I I didn't think fit I thought that it clipped along at a pretty good Pace the bits with Joel methodically and ruthlessly working his way through the hospital seemed well executed um perhaps that's a pun but just in general it felt like they were trying to make clear that Joel was going to stop at nothing to save Ellie I I would say like the couple of changes I would have made directorily would be to have Joel not walk at a very slow pace at the very end I mean right here Joel knows that Ellie is about to be killed in the operating room and he sees the end of the hallway and he just leisurely walks down the hallway I get it it's dramatic I love drama it's awesome but it didn't really make sense for me and there's a reason when I play the game I'm always just like sprinting at full speed at this point because I want to try to save Ellie if I'm putting myself in that headspace so I found this choice to have him move very slowly a little bit of an odd one and then of course he immediately pops the doctor in the head which um I mean we all know how that's gonna come back to bite him oh yeah and fun uh tidbit I'm pretty sure that that nurse right above Ellie's head is Laura Bailey I haven't really checked Twitter uh which as we all know is a great place to fact check stuff but I'm pretty sure that's her um who of course played Abby in The Last of Us Part Two so kind of a cool little inclusion there again I'm pretty sure there's probably a bunch of people in the comments like uh LOL Luke no that's not her but I'm I'm pretty sure I heard rumors that she was gonna get a cameo and I think that's her maybe not I but I like I'm I'm pretty sure one thing I will give Pedro Pascal credit for in this sequence is just how cold he is and I think that that's important because again the theme of this show really is at its core that there are no absolute Heroes it really does just come down to perspective and who you're rooting for and from which perspective you're looking at the story and I think that that's crucial because in the next season we're going to explore the opposite View and it's pretty easy to see how Joel could be interpreted as the bad guy basically damning Humanity single-handedly in order to save one person who he's come to care about all of my critiques and things of the story of The Last of Us still hold true I still think that the fireflies are freaking dumb asses like there's no reason to really believe that they could develop a cure they are grossly incompetent then they let one dude March through the hallways of this Hospital which is extremely important to them strategically and in terms of developing potentially a cure for Humanity they let him just March through and massacred dozens of their most highly trained and sophisticated operators and all the while you know Marlene mentions that she had a team of people escorting her across the country and she still almost died yeah I mean maybe it's because you're incompetent maybe it's because you also like were on death's door at the time that you passed off this incredibly valuable asset in the form of Ellie to Joel a Smuggler to bring across the country like across the board the fireflies seem to be buffoons so I don't really blame Joel for being like uh we're probably not losing that much however I don't think that this choice on the part of Joel to save Ellie despite the potential for a cure I don't think that works if the fireflies are just incompetent morons I think you have have to assume that if Joel had done nothing and kedaris paribus all else equal if he had done nothing that they would have found to cure and saved Humanity if you are are coming at it from that perspective then Joel's actions are really impactful and that sets up the sequel but if you look at it from the perspective of the fireflies being morons um who never really stood a chance of doing anything really notable then all of a sudden Joel's actions here really don't seem that severe he's just basically saving his adopted daughter from a bunch of Maniacs who want to like drill into the cranium of a small like teenage girl in the hopes of somehow stumbling on a a cure to this virus so I think those problems that I had with the game are still here they weren't remedied by the finale but in general broad Strokes I think they did a decent job of showing the things that were in the game communique hating everything that they needed to communicate establishing and setting the stage for the next season which no doubt will be coming down the pike as it were and even the new scene that we got with Ellie's mom and Marlene is something that was referenced in the game and in some of the supporting documentation in The Last of Us Part Two and we never really got to see it firsthand and so to see it in the show was a cool addition and I thought it was interesting I'm not sure if it was like a huge value add but it was a thing all told I would say my impressions of The Last of Us on HBO have been incredibly positive I'm very impressed with how they've managed to put this show together and I think a lot of people are too which is why this has been so well received I'm really interested in seeing how the second season is received because the Gaming Community was generally very very negative towards it and my prediction would be that the broader population who's not familiar with the story already is actually going to have a much more positive experience with the second season because again I think it's important to remember that the gaming community's negative reaction to The Last of Us Part 2 came right after a bunch of leaks about the story about the characters the cast and everything a lot of which didn't end up actually being true a lot of the leaks with regards to the Last of Us Part Two ended up being false they were basically constructed by some trolls and disgruntled employees to try and upset the internet and it worked in a lot of ways and I've even done surveys of this here on the YouTube channel where I've surveyed people who regularly view this Channel and people who don't regularly view it but saw it in their recommended feed and in those surveys I've tested people who have overwhelmingly negative opinions of The Last of Us Part Two and overwhelmingly most of those people have very little knowledge of intricate details with regards to the game's Story gameplay mechanics and systems and the overall structure of the game like you know when you take over control of certain characters Etc which to me would heavily suggest that they didn't play the game and instead they're just echoing opinions that they saw on Twitter or 4chan or Reddit or wherever else or some YouTuber so they're just like regurgitating the negative opinion of the game because they think that that's interesting and uh with the broader population because the game's already out because that wave of spoilers already happened I don't think there's going to be that negative knee-jerk reaction to the events of The Last of Us Part Two And I think in general audiences will understand the Thematic decision to flip perspectives and show that from a very real perspective in the case of Abby Joel is not a good guy Joel is like a mass murdering psychopath and I totally get that even before The Last of Us Part Two when I did my little commentary of The Last of Us I said yeah no there's there's good reason to think that Joel is like not in the right for saving Ellie he robbed her of that choice and he massacred dozens upon dozens upon dozens of people who were trying to save Humanity uh and weren't doing anything wrong like in many ways like this guy right here is not is not like a hero to many other people which is why I love the Thematic decision to focus on not all heroes or Heroes to everybody but you know what I guess time will just tell whether or not the broader population thinks that this guy maybe deserves what's coming to him even if they personally really enjoy him or think that he is a good adopted father or adoptive father whatever the term is uh so it's going to be very very interesting I'm excited to see it I am really curious as to what they'll change how they'll alter it and I'm also really intrigued by the casting I'm not sure how that'll go but I'm all for it more than anything right now I just feel kind of bummed that now I don't have a show to watch on Sunday nights because I've been really really enjoying the last of us so I guess if you have any suggestions for what I should watch next let me know in the comments because I'm looking for something but all told The Last of Us on HBO pretty solid all the way throughout some weird clunky things here and there but in general really pretty good as always if you've enjoyed this video make sure to hit the like button and subscribe as I mentioned that helps out a ton sharing it directly with friends is a tremendous way to boost this video's performance as well just being real sharing it in Discord that type of thing and of course if you want to hang out with me in Discord just check out the link tree in the description box and you can join my Discord and my like Twitter and my live streams and everything like that because yes I do stream every Monday Wednesday and Friday um often more days than just that as well but just look up Luke Stevens live in YouTube uh search and you will find me and you can come hang out we can chat talk games it's really really fun we have a great community over there and I would love to add you to that Community but with all of that said it's about 12 30 at night I have a stream in about nine hours so I am gonna go try to get some sleep and uh I will see a lot of you guys when this goes up tomorrow morning in like nine and a half hours so oof shout out to Jacob my editor who's staying up late tell me cut this thing together in time so shout out to Jake cheers cheers to Jake with my water you know but okay thank you guys so much for watching I love you all more than you possibly know and I will see you in the next video or let's be real over on the live stream right now just look up Luke Stevens live in the search right now join me I'd love to see you hugs and kisses bye-bye I'll see you bye I'm out I'm I'm really bad at outros bye bye soothing sounds As I Disappear bye

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 114,502

Keywords: luke stephens, luke stephens the last of us, luke stephens tlou, tlou hbo, tlou season 1, tlou season 1 review, the last of us season 1 critique

Id: krSvdREevzw

Length: 51min 42sec (3102 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023