Was HBO's The Last of Us Really Necessary?

me my relationship with The Last of Us feels like it's been a never-ending cycle when the game released in 2013 amidst a horde of other zombie games even being a huge fan of naughty dog I tried it and I was not about it the story felt too familiar the post-apocalyptic zombie genre felt overdone cynical pretentious teenage me was not having it you know this is a 10 out of 10 Masterpiece 200 Game of the Year Awards what does everyone love so much about this but three years later in 2016 I decided to actually play it all the way through and I fell in love with it the characters the world the soundtrack all of it I finally came to understand what compelled everyone when it came out and I felt like such an idiot forever dismissing it as a derivative game in a tired genre so when The Last of Us 2 was announced I was all in until the game's entire story leaked online he did discourse about the game plagued so social media well before and well after the game released and I just kind of looked at it all and thought why even bother playing this anymore this is just exhausting six months went by the game went on a 50 sale and I thought and why the hell not and I just let the internet noise Fade Into the background and engage with the game myself and what I got was an absolute mess of a game that I really really loved I found it thematically challenging and ambitious and it gave me experiences playing a game that I had never personally had before and while I don't think it's a 10 out of 10 Masterpiece I do think it's an important milestone for video games as an art form and will be a definitive moment in gaming history that we all look back on for better or worse so now it's been over two years since that moment and this Last of Us show has fully released on HBO Max when the show was first announced I couldn't help but share in the sentiment most Last of Us fans had at the time which was what's the point of making this into a TV show is this really necessary I mean the game is damn near perfect it's been out for almost a decade it's been remastered and remade who is this show for did we need this this is what I mean by my relationship with the last of us being this endless cycle every time something new gets announced or released for whatever reason my mind jumps straight to skeptic autism and doubt yet I am proven wrong every single time first things first this show is good so [ __ ] good one of the highest Praises I can give the show is that every decision it makes feels deeply considered probably in part because the showrunners themselves had similar reservations about whether or not the game needed an adaptation I think that a lot of fans were nervous about the game being adapted at all and I understand that yeah I get nervous when we had the same nervousness yeah exactly and and that's a good nervousness it's good to be nervous it means you care I think if I had to describe why this show works so well both as an adaptation and on its own Merit in one single word that word would be intentionality that singular word permeates through and enhances every moment of the show take for example the cinematography while the sense of depth full immersion I got could never really help to fully match the game the show comes damn close thanks to the mindfulness that went into each visual creative Choice from the way it's shot with its handheld camera work that's often very zoomed in with shallow depth of field and naturalistic lighting only showing off wides to establish the geography of a location you know the long road ahead the vast spread of Decay the insurmountable odds Etc it not only perfectly mimics the feeling of the contrast between the game's cutscenes and gameplay but it also makes the show feel very contemporary and sells the intimacy of the story not to mention the production design and the visual effects apart from like a couple of times where I felt that what I was watching was very much shot on a set the look of the world felt vastly lived in and fully realized both beautiful and terrifying seeing the before and after comparisons for the visual effects gave me such a deep appreciation for the work the team put in for so much of the show I wasn't even aware I was looking at fully digital environments it all felt so seamless which is probably the biggest compliment you could pay to an effects team the shot we were behind Ellie and we see that mall coming on that wasn't at the mall that was on a sound stage we built a little railing and then there's this blue and so we say to Alex Wong our visual effects supervisor you're gonna have to figure this out and he was scared and what Alex and the vendors did to make that happen is Magic honestly the work done here makes me feel inspired the same way I was when I watched bonus feature DVDs as a kid seeing how all of this came together is truly extraordinary to witness so much so that me talking over this footage just feels wrong the story of course is basically undeniably powerful the game already proved its story works on nearly every level especially emotionally given the massive response it garnered and I of course as a fan appreciate that the show maintains that and translates The Amazing Story as Faithfully as it can but even every change to the story feels deliberate and purposeful adding both to the immersive qualities and the emotional weight of the story like some of the carefully laid out details that give us subtle insight into how the outbreak might have started cordyceps mutated someone that got into the food supply probably a basic ingredient like flour sugar there were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere all across the country across the world bread cereal pancake mix I was gonna make you birthday pancakes I swear or with the show's decision to only use violence and action in very specific moments in the game much of the play time is focused around stealth and shooting sneaking past clickers or stabbing them from behind or taking out Hunters one by one with limited ammo there was a real sense of danger in every moment of the gameplay and I think the show uses the tools of filmmaking to replicate that same feeling of dread making the clickers more rare and deadly being avoided at all costs turning the bloater into this undefeatable monster really amping up the threat of being ambushed by a horde if infected or running into a group of hunters it really captures that essential feeling of never being truly safe in this world I know many people were disappointed by the lack of action in the show compared to the game but as with everything else in the show this served a very intentional purpose the gaming experience violence very quickly becomes sort of just noise you're killing a gazillion people lots of monsters and here not so much and it was important I think for us tonally to make it clear that violence isn't clean and the people that you hurt are as human As You Are by making the action more sparse it gave the writers a chance to really flesh out the characterization of every character in the show thus making the moments of violence feel more impactful from the main cast all the way down to the side characters the lack of action gave them all a lot more time to share intimate moments with one another every character has new layers of both blatantly added depth and subtle Nuance that made them feel much more fully realized every moment they spend together in every change within those interactions felt absolutely essential in order to give the story The Emotional gut punch it once had in the game not to mention all the small ways in which this show sows the seeds for what's to come in part two which I won't spoil I wish I had the time in this video to fully convey just how brilliant all the story choices are beat by beat but in instead I'm just going to try and say it all in one sentence narratively speaking thanks to the power of hindsight and a new set of tools to work with I think Neil druckman and Craig Mason outdid what the first game's narrative achieved the performances across the board are all excellent obviously I have to shout out Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett for their beautiful performances in episode 3 that I'll bring up again later but I also really need to highlight Lamar Johnson and Kevon Woodard they made those final moments of episode 5 somehow even more heartbreaking Scott Shepard was Haunting as David the writing does a lot of heavy lifting but he took all the calculated manipulation possession and sociopathy right off the page and made it disturbingly real anatorev absolutely nailed the character of Tess and lastly of course let's talk about Joel and Ellie I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit torn on Pedro Pascal as Joel at first which isn't a slide against Pedro Pascal I think he embodied Joel incredibly well and even brought a lot more Dimension to the character the show really displays more of Joel's sensitivity and emotional confliction things we didn't see quite as presently in the game which much like everything else was a very intentional decision this is a difference of the stoic play it close to the vest Joel that we've seen so uh we kill a lot of innocent people uh I'll take that as a yes take it however you want you're killing innocent people come on we talked about it quite a bit beforehand because I knew it would give us more insight into who this character is and what drives him and what scares him the line I just know that when I wake up [Music] I've lost that was from Pedro directly it's so beautiful and it's so confessional and this is not at all like something we saw from Joel in the game it's a little more broken down and it's a little more upsetting it's this crushing sadness before the anger is mourning and grief you can see his heart breaking all over again the thing that he did that I loved is there's such this beauty to see Joel be afraid yes which was something we talked about all the time one of the things that I kept saying to him was because you're so naturally tough and Gruff and masculine and Joel the more you can show me a scared sad frightened kid inside of you the more I will connect with you and feel everything else I knew intuitively that this was certainly the right call for this adaptation in the game since you play as Joel the onus is kind of on you to project yourself onto the character to fill in the emotional gaps with your own experience which is powerful in its own way but could never truly be captured in the format of a show in the moments in the game where you may feel emotional playing as Joel the show has to display Joel being emotional I've heard a lot of people say they felt the show emasculated Joel by making him more visibly distraught and while I definitely would not agree with that take I still felt myself for a good portion of the show yearning for the more hardened walled off and ruthless approach of Troy Baker's performance in the game 20 years after his daughter's death sing Joel be almost completely devoid of humanity and just going through the motions much like the zombies around him there's something really powerful about that especially considering Joel's character Arc and where he ultimately ends up again I was still finding Pedro Pascal Immaculate in this interpretation of Joel and even thought he managed to capture some of that Brilliance I'm describing and more but I personally just felt like strangely something profound was slightly lost by the more nuanced approach in the show until we got to episode 8 and it finally clicked for me seeing the full brutality of Joel the way we would have in the game the visceral gut punch it gave me it just wouldn't have been there at all had he been the Joel I knew and loved from the game by this point it would have been exhausting and played out which sort of ties into the decision to have the violence in the show be more restrained and grounded in the first place this singular moment put the rest of the performance in context for me and showed me that I was wrong for wanting the game's version of Joel because even though Troy Baker's Joel was perfect in the game Pedro Pascal's Joel is perfect for the show but the real standout performance for me is Bella Ramsey as Ellie now obviously Ashley Johnson is Ellie right a lot of Bella Ramsay's performances built on the groundwork that Ashley Johnson laid held in the show they even have Ashley Johnson give birth to Bella Ramsey's Ellie which was not an accidental piece of meta commentary but for me personally I prefer Bella Ramsay as Ellie when I think of Ellie as a character I'm thinking of her from now on one of the interesting aspects of the game is its use of what's now called performance capture technology and how that allowed a then 27 year old actor like Ashley Johnson to play a 14 year old Ellie in the original Last of Us we've also seen this recently with Sigourney Weaver in Avatar 2 who is currently 73 years old playing a 14 year old Navi version of herself in the film this presents an interesting creative challenge because there's something about childhood that feels intangible once you reach adulthood it is very difficult to authentically capture from the outside in especially when you're a 30 year old rider or an actor in your late 20s which is why Bo Burnham allowed Elsie Fisher to directly inform her character in eighth grade rather than having them strictly adhere to his script to bring forward that authentic sense of youthfulness that he wasn't able to fully tap into himself Bella Ramsay who is 19 and thus much closer to their childhood does exactly that with her performance as Ellie she brings a layer of authenticity and Youthful Spirit to her performance that now comparatively feels lacking in the game when adults write kids they either write them too young or too old there's this stage of life that I call that time of life [ __ ] you tuck me in they are ready to go out on their own they want a gun they want to be in charge they think they know everything also they're still children I think of Ellie as like a freshman in high school you know it's like the worst year possible and and yet there is the magic of your heart pounding in your chest for the first time really sure the way that opens up I mean that's where you really start to live and we're watching it happen here and and I think the fact that storm and and Bella are close enough to that experience that I'm sure they both had that you could feel it it just felt so true which only further enhances the character of Ellie seeing her innocence directly conflict with the horrific reality around her seeing how often she is forced to snap out of being a child in order to contend with the world she is facing and when I say she has innocence I don't mean naivety she's very aware of the world she's facing she's seen and done horrible things but she still has a genuine innocence a very real sense of joy and optimism despite it all that comes out in brief glimmers which of course in tandem only enhances her Dynamic with Joel seeing Joel try to protect that innocence that's still left in her that Optimum ISM that for him died with Sarah while also trying to prepare her for what's out there the very real danger she's already become too familiar with and that over the course of their Journey she only becomes more and more directly confronted by it is just so provocative in moving in Bella Ramsay Just Nails it every time there's such a skilled actor ringing out every last drop of emotion and Nuance through the performance the sweetness the trauma and everything in between I seriously can't say enough good things she is Ellie to me period and of course I need to talk a little bit about the most talked about episode of the entire show episode 3 long long time I mean this with no hyperbole this one episode Justified the entire Show's existence to me it stands apart from the rest of the show as its own artistic achievement everyone's praising the hell out of Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett's performances in this episode and I'm glad everyone's giving them their flowers because they both did an incredible job the level of genuine intimacy and chemistry they bring out in each other is just a beauty to witness I don't know how else to put it it's so so beautiful but let's not forget the amount of work and again intentionality that went into the writing and execution of this episode it's just so blatantly apparent that this episode was created with such deliberation authenticity and humanity and that's largely in part due to the team that was assembled to put this together it's a powerful achievement in queer representation in media and I think it deserves the praise it's getting for that alone but in addition to that it is just plainly one of the best pieces of romance I've personally seen in at least five years I appreciated that this romance portrayed is realized not idealized it is human love in all its beauty and its ugliness the post-apocalyptic backdrop strips away most of the external and societal drama that may come with a gay romance and shows what all this is really about that denial of your own identity for fear of being vulnerable for fear of finally admitting your deep connection with someone to yourself and the world just to inevitably lose them I was never afraid before you showed up showing what it truly means to live your life with someone the compromise the learning and growth the intimacy how these moments that we share are ultimately the ones we live for highlighting the difference between survival living another day and being truly alive which is obviously a huge part of what this entire show is about but I think it's perfectly encapsulated here at the end of the day though the end of the episode has made so many people cry this episode is not tragedy in the world of The Last of Us Bill and Frank's life together was a Triumph of humanity and that's what I found so touching about it a common complaint I see with episodes like long long time or episode 7 Left Behind based on the game's DLC chapter is that they feel just like that DLC additional stories filler I can understand the sentiment given that these episodes break up the pacing of the central Narrative of Joel and Ellie Plus at a certain point given how much stories like Bill and franks or Ellie and Riley's directly mirror other stories in the main plot like Sam and Henry's or Joel and Ellie's I did think at a certain point that it started to feel well episodic formulaic as much as we can we give our characters the things they want the most and then we punish them for getting them during Left Behind the person I was watching it with said out loud I'm just waiting for the bad thing to happen and I sh you not immediately after they said that it panned away from Ellie and Riley to show an infected waking up so again I get why this criticism is being lobbed at these episodes I can understand the feeling but if these episodes are intrinsic to the themes of the central story provide context for characters within that Central story and purposefully mirror the central story to give us a sense for just how wonderfully or terribly the central Journey could end then is it really filler I think this discussion really just comes down to a matter of media literacy which I know is a hot button topic that everyone's talking about right now but I really do think that the people who reduce these episodes down to just being filler are missing integral parts of that main story those being the overarching themes the story is exploring it's a matter of focusing on the literal text and ignoring the subtext which I know people are probably going to call me out for having done that in the past but I personally think that this Last of Us show perfectly rides that line between text and subtext the central story that's being told is so damn compelling that I can see why people were fiending to get back to it but I think this show would have been missing something integral without episodes like long long time or left behind which I think is only exemplified by the overwhelming emotional responses to episode 3 that have honestly been heartwarming and rejuvenating to see when I ask myself if this show was necessary episode 3 alone makes me want to answer yes but even looking at every episode overall the entire journey of the show I was captivated by everything that was happening from start to finish the world the performances the writing just everything there wasn't a wasted moment there wasn't a single place that the show wanted me to go that I didn't follow it to I often forgot I was watching an adaptation of something I already knew and loved and there were times I forgot I was even watching a show altogether I just lived in it art in general but especially storytelling in film or television in its purest form to me is an exchange of vulnerability and I think the last of us is a perfect distillation of that you can just tell plainly the people making this show poured their very essence into it and laid it bare for you to see they really really cared and I tried my damnedest to put myself in the same position to bring as much of myself into the show as it gave me and when I did that it genuinely moved me I checked my pride at the door I put all my worries aside and I fell in love with the last of us all over again just like I did in 2016 but yet again at the end of it all just like back then the cycle of Doubt continues [Music] foreign ful as it is on its own merits there is a broader discussion to be had about this last of us show as in not about what it is or how it functions but what it stands for what does it mean in the grand scheme of things what does it represent in the broader culture of art which I acknowledge is a discussion that most people especially those who simply enjoy the show are not likely to want to have so please understand that I don't want to be a gatekeeper here if you're a fan of the show you are a real fan of the last of us period but I still feel like there's an important discussion to be had about how this show re-contextualizes the game and how that's not always a good thing I feel like this can be pretty clearly demonstrated by comparing the ending of the game to the ending of the show apart from the opening the final episode is perhaps the most faithful adaptation of the game in the entire series yet in doing this near one-to-one Recreation it somehow exposes how different they really are in the game I feel like Joel's decision is a lot more understandable because I am playing as Joel and the game has more of a proclivity towards violence because it makes for engaging gameplay you've already killed dozens of people to save Ellie so at least when I first played it even when I got to the hospital I was right there with Joel in that moment in all his short-sightedness then once I reach the final moments I realized that it wasn't really about Ellie at all because if it was she wouldn't be alive the ending leaves you with a powerful question mark it Revels in ambiguity did you as Joel do the right thing it gave me years to reflect on that with no sequel in sight I personally didn't even want a sequel in all honesty I loved the ending because it was ambiguous but when that sequel did come and it fully contextualized that ending only then and did I fully realize just how truly monstrous Joel is when you're not the one playing him and while the ending of the first game was always contentious I think this is why so many people were blindsided by exploring the idea that maybe in this moment Joel was not Ellie's hero but rather Humanity's villain in the show though you really have no choice but to look at Joel from the outside in the show has much less of a proclivity toward violence and when it does show violence it humanizes it in a way the game doesn't and probably can't and maybe it is just the benefit of hindsight maybe this Choice was just as purposeful as everything else in the show because we've already seen this moment get misinterpreted to all hell but I feel like Joel's choice at the end loses its ambiguity in the show the way it's shot the music everything just clearly points to this being a selfish and psycho decision which it always was no doubt but I feel like the show makes that choice lose the emotional punch that it once had thanks to ambiguity and part two's full contextualization but that's the bigger more important elephant in the room the fact that we know a part two is coming at all the game's ending was a provocative and Powerful statement because it stood in isolation when the game came out that was it part two wasn't announced until three years later and wasn't released for another four years after that there was time to sit with the first games ending as it stood on its own and not only does the benefit of hindsight hurt the ending but the benefit of foresight does as well we may end up having to wait years to see it but a season 2 has already been announced which makes the ending feel less like powerful purposeful ambiguity and more like a tease for what's to come it just doesn't hit with the same force it once did and that is really my only contention with the existence of this show how it sometimes makes us lose sight of what the last of us even Beyond its narrative stood for as a video game in retrospect it feels like Naughty Dog the game Studio Behind The Last of Us was always trying to drive the needle forward for What video games were capable of from Crash Bandicoot to now they have constantly gone in different Bolder directions testing the limits of Animation graphical Fidelity cinematic gameplay and storytelling and never did they really do that more than with the last of us from the early 2000s Until the Last of Us released in 2013 the common belief was that video games were simply distractions for children where they just mindlessly press buttons to enact horrible acts of violence that these kids playing the games were largely apathetic toward in 2009 revered film critic Roger Ebert proclaimed video games can never be art going so far as to say no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with The Great poets filmmakers novelists and Poets Roger Eber even tweeted harsh disapproval of The Last of Us after its E3 gameplay Premiere saying that the game leaves nothing to the imagination and he unfortunately passed away just mere months before the game actually released which is honestly kind of ironic because while I and many others would argue that there were artistic achievements in the world of video games prior to these statements some of which were even a direct influence on the Last of Us it felt like co-creators Neil druckman and Bruce Straley went into the Last of Us wanting to create irrefutable proof that video games could be just as much of a vehicle for emotionally evocative and Rich storytelling as any other medium the interactive medium has an untapped potential to touch the feelings of the player if we can make you feel like you're actually with these characters on that journey and you're feeling the theory the same thing that they're appealing I remember when I first saw Children of Men I remember walking out of the theater like angry that why aren't games telling these kinds of stories but here's like a really intimate story told in genre extremely well and you could tell we drew a lot of inspiration from The Last of Us from Children of Men and the craziest part is they somehow did it I know that sounds hyperbolic I certainly didn't see it that way when it first came out looking back though it's apparent that The Last of Us was massively influential and important in helping to legitimize video games as an art form the game itself stood as a testament to the power of immersive interactivity that only video games can give you by combining engaging gameplay with an emotionally powerful story it stood Toe to Toe with films novels and poems and it did so to Roaring critical and Commercial Success solidifying itself in pop culture in a way that few pieces of art can ever even hope to achieve even with the last of us too for as contentious as it is Neil druckman definitely managed to spark a large conversation about what video games can be how far can a developer push immersion and interactivity what places can the player be taken to all this to say I'm a little lost as to how The Last of Us show fits into all of this how is this pushing the needle forward the way naughty dog always has is this show helping to legitimize video games what exactly was the ultimate goal in turning the last of us into an HBO show again I know that these are questions not many people care to answer your emotional experience with the show is proof enough of its value more than any ontological observations I could make about the show but again I still think these are important questions to ask especially the one about why they even made a last of a show in the first place the cynical side of me feels like it's just because money you know the entire show is effectively one big advertisement for the game which is just flatly true but I want to believe in my heart of hearts that the goal was to genuinely encourage more people to step into the world of video games even if the show is an advertisement that gets people to buy The Last of Us and play it that's still a win for video games right you know naughty dog gets more money to make games and more people get to experience the last of us as a game which is an entirely different experience than watching the show so I wouldn't be bold enough to call this show a step backwards for Naughty Dog but is pointing people to a decade-old game really pushing the conversation forward the way the rest of naughty dog's Endeavors have don't get me wrong the gameplay of The Last of Us is still serviceable and creates a level of immersion that the show could never possibly provide but the experience of The Last of Us was the narrative that's what made it stand out and still makes it stand out even now that it seems that all of Sony's AAA gaming Studios have traced the path of emotional storytelling The Last of Us created now that the narrative has really only been simultaneously expanded and refined by the show are the people who watched the show first and have now decided to play the game for the first time actually getting an inferior experience does this not retroactively make the last of us feel more akin to a really good movie tie-in game at this point I feel like I can clearly illustrate this by just pointing to Neil druckman's own words about the creative freedoms awarded to him by the show especially in regards to episode 3. this story in this episode you could not tell in the video game it'd be impossible to jump around that much especially the game The Last of Us is which again is more kind of action oriented you couldn't go this long without got some kind of set piece some kind of action press F to save Bill's life I mean everything you're seeing is either completely from Joel's perspective Ellie's perspective or for a tiny bit Sarah's perspective right that's it you know that at some point uh Marlene found Ellie here you get to see more of that you're coming into the game post all those things here we get to dramatize and see them so in a way this is making the game richer because these events that are referred to offhandedly you get to experience what they were like is this admittance of the game's narrative only being enhanced by a show format equivalent to the creator of the game conceding that film and television really are superior avenues for storytelling whether it be because of the differing aspects of these mediums and how they allow stories to be told or because of the fan bases of each of these mediums and what stories they will be receptive to obviously the answers to these questions I'm posing are going to come down to each individual's experience video games and television shows or different media one is not inherently more valid than the other so whichever you prefer is ultimately up to you and for the record I don't seriously think Neil druckman made the last of us into a show to invalidate his own work on the game so I guess I'll really just speak for myself for me given naughty dog's constant Strife to push the needle forward for video games I'm kind of disappointed with how long it seems they've been stuck on the Last of Us it's been a decade since the first game and other than Uncharted 4 it's been more and more Last of Us The Last of Us remastered The Last of Us two The Last of Us remake now this Last of Us show and soon a last of us live service multiplayer game which will be followed by one if not two more seasons of the show based on the last of us too a game whose Central themes are entirely tied to it being a video game that you control which a TV show would completely nullify which seems doubly pointless given that the last of us two being adapted will surely only bring on a similar level of discourse to the one that it seems we've only just processed opening it all up for comparison and retroactive criticism being lobbed at the games quote unquote incorrect narrative choices and I'm not saying the showrunners should cater to reactionaries by not adapting the last of us too but it really does show how pointless adapting all this seems to be when the last of us as a franchise seems to have already said everything it felt it needed to say these adaptations at the end of the day are just reiterating what the games have already brought to the metaphorical table bringing more voices into these conversations about them that we've already been having for years and probably will continue to have until the end of time so I understand what I'm contending with is not exactly the fault of the show yet still there's something so strange and somewhat sad about the last of us this game that once solely stood as a testament to video games as an art form becoming a multimedia franchise seeing it turn from a beacon for the power of video game storytelling into an HBO show that is arguably more recognized celebrated and culturally relevant now than the game ever was in some ways this show feels like a photograph of a painting becoming more famous and recognized than the painting itself the point being I'm ready for something new I'm ready for that next Naughty Dog project that pushes the needle even further forward that Sparks all sorts of new discourse and more importantly appreciation for What video games can be or hell I'd even be excited for Neil druckman to Branch out and create an entirely original show it's very clear his talents extend well beyond the realm of video games so why not it's certainly been validating to see how many people in the film in television industry respect The Last of Us for its artistic achievements as a video game and actively sought out being a part of its adaptation in any way they could plus it's great that the show is more readily accessible than even the latest remake with all its accessibility options could ever be it's only a good thing that this story is being told to more and more people but in my humble yet harsh and overly prescriptive opinion this is the last time this story ever needs to be directly retold we do not need any more Last of Us it is over it is done no more please again the last of us as a franchise feels like it is said everything it felt it needed to and even Neil druckman agrees to an extent this show has echoed those statements with a thunderous and heartfelt Bellow I want to make it perfectly clear that the show as it stands is so so good and I hope that with time it stays that way I absolutely adore the show and the original game so much so that I want to preserve them as they are because that's the only function I feel the last of us can really serve at this point to not let its flame die out and I guess I fear that it being franchised the way it currently is will eventually extinguish that flame the way it feels it has for so many other franchises but of course that's all just fear and speculation besides if the creative teams behind the last of us have constantly proven anything it's that I am wrong to doubt them like this I may feel a little lost in the dark right now but I know there's more light on the horizon that I'm just gonna have to wait and see but for right now that light is this show again I felt moved by every second of it and as I was watching it all of my doubt faded into the background and I simply enjoyed the eternally beautiful story a story that both exemplifies the beauty in finding a glimmer of hope the thing you love that keeps you moving through this world while also reaffirming how this love can lead to some of the most terrifying existential threats that we pose to each other and the world as a whole and how wonderfully ironic it is that this story that essentially validates both what I love about the world and what I fear about it is the one that keeps finding me time and time again in these periods of doubt and darkness I'm glad this show exists to at the least once again remind the world that stories like the last of us are important and that they're here to stay was it a necessary reminder maybe not for everyone but I definitely needed it foreign

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Length: 40min 0sec (2400 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023