While the first episode of the second season of “The Last of Us” was quite cautious, the second episode immediately played all its cards, raising the stakes to a fundamentally new level. There are no more half-measures or cautious nods – a full-fledged story development is underway, and for fans of the original game, often in unexpected and unfamiliar ways. There are many changes, and spoilers are unavoidable.
As mentioned in the previous review, the first episode was more of a setup and something of an explanation of the balance of power. There were minor changes compared to the game, but overall everything moved along familiar lines. Perhaps the main difference was the fact that Abby`s motivation was revealed from the very first frames. The second episode still doesn`t clarify why this was done: in the original game, the separation worked for a key idea and showed that Ellie`s feelings for Abby are generally equivalent to those of Abby and Joel. Gradual clarification of the nuances allowed one to experience everything personally and understand the motivation of the one who seemed like a villain, but here everything is revealed immediately and, in the absence of emotional attachment to the new heroine, somewhat devalues her arc.
The second episode immediately changes the balance of power: in the game, Ellie went on patrol with Dina, and Joel with Tommy. In the series, Tommy stays in Jacksonville, Joel goes with Dina, and Ellie with Jesse. Oddly enough, this is quite important: the change in composition is clearly related to the dissatisfaction of gamers regarding the events that launch the main plot. In fact, the main complaint in the “golf scene” is not even the fact of using a golf club, but how Joel and Tommy end up in such a situation at all. Most often, gamers noted that a seasoned smuggler would hardly so easily trust strangers, and even more so would not lose vigilance in a dangerous situation. In the series, this is changed by several edits, starting with Joel`s health problems and ending with his concern for Dina, who had already suffered frostbite in the unexpectedly started storm. Indeed, it was the fact that the girl was already in the hands of the attackers that forced him to obey – no further explanation is needed. And, judging by the high ratings (the second episode currently has the highest rating in the history of the show), this approach turned out to be more correct.
The key scene itself combines old and new – this applies to both details and entire segments, including lines and actions. There were surprises – in particular, the ending, although similar in message, differs in content, which looks like an extremely interesting step, considering how memorable it was in the original. It is impossible not to note that a different arrangement of accents changes the feeling of the episode: in the original, everything was arranged so that the player felt a burning hatred for strangers, whose motivation, in fact, remained a mystery, while in the series their decisions make much more sense at this stage and do not require further explanations. In general, the approach is understandable: after all, the show is based on an already existing story, so you can`t step into the same river twice – it`s easier to try to come up with some other approach and surprise with something else. Which the series manages to do due to a completely new story with an infected attack on Jacksonville.
In the game, a crowd of zombies appeared as quickly as it disappeared without any long-term consequences: it was a tense segment, which, without much change, also made it into the series, including the excellently staged scene with the fence breaking under the weight of the infected. At the same time, the corpses remaining after the battle were surprising in their small number: everything felt that there were many more opponents than the жалкая горстка (meager handful) that remained lying at the gates of the mansion. In the series, the huge crowd does not disappear anywhere and attacks the city, about the existence of which the zombies learned through the mycelium that stretched to Jacksonville – a hint of this was hidden in the finale of the previous series.
The defense of the city turned out to be incredibly spectacular: the storming crowds of infected are reminiscent of scenes from “World War Z,” although the scale here is somewhat smaller, which is not surprising from the point of view of lore – after all, in the years after the outbreak, the ranks of the infected should have thinned out. Nevertheless, both the defense of the walls of Jacksonville and the subsequent battle already in the city look mesmerizing: you can feel that professionals worked on the staging, who wanted both to set the right mood and to show the scale of the threat. At the same time, the consequences of the attack will clearly become an excellent reason not to send people in pursuit of Abby – in the game, this, again, is not particularly supported by any weighty arguments.
In general, the second episode sets a much higher bar than the opening episode, powerfully accelerating the plot and fueling interest in subsequent episodes. It is all the more interesting whether it will be possible to maintain the corresponding level further: after an emotional start, the game somewhat slowed down to give the gamer a small breather before subsequent events, where the brakes were completely off. In general, the intrigue is growing – we are waiting for next week!
Finley Holt