The Last of Us season two review: 'The plot twist tears the heart out of the series'
The video game adaptation won many plaudits for its grim-but-humane first season. Amidst a semblance of civilisation, the second series is an uneven odyssey.
Despite all the mush-brained infected creatures roaming around, The Last of Us was never really about the zombies. The series' first season worked so well because of the growing bond between lead character Joel and Ellie, the orphaned teenager he was hired to take cross country, who eventually becomes his surrogate daughter.
The zombies added danger, suspense and action, but the show's strength was its deeply felt depiction of how love survives even in a zombie apocalypse, with Joel and Ellie as a newly created family.
Season two takes a drastic plot turn, truly the most jaw-dropping in a hit series I can remember, a twist too stunning to spoil. Unsettling a hit can work brilliantly, as it did when The Bear replaced the first season's sandwich shop with a fine-dining restaurant in its second series. But the big alteration in The Last of Us is a devastating creative choice.
There are still high points and emotional moments. Pedro Pascal still gives a charismatic and wrenching performance as Joel, letting us see both the hardened survivor and the tenderness that has persisted. And Bella Ramsey still sharply defines the strong-willed Ellie. But the plot twist tears the heart out of the series, leaving a diminished version of the great show it once was.
The new season starts out strongly, though, picking up the story five years after it left off. Joel and Ellie are now settled in Jackson, Wyoming and the early episodes there smoothly evoke the feel of an old-time Western. The town is enclosed by fortified walls, and horse-drawn carts walk on the main streets. Citizens on horseback, including Joel and Ellie, patrol the area outside the gates looking for the infected.
Although Ellie lives in the garage of Joel's house, she is furious at him and the show takes its time teasing why. You might think you know. As last season ended he swooped her off an operating table where surgeons might have used her immunity to cure the plague but would certainly have caused her death. (It's a TV drama, not science.) He killed people to escape then lied to her about it. It turns out that's not the entire cause of her anger.
Around them, some captivating actors bring Jackson to life. Joel's loyal brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna) is more central this season. As Gail, the town's irreverent therapist, Catherine O'Hara delicately balances some mordant lines with Gail's grief over losing her husband. Isabela Merced is especially vibrant as the energetic Dina, who has just broken up with her boyfriend, Jesse (Young Mazino). You can't blame Merced because the writers telegraph Dina's possible romance with Ellie too heavily from the start.
The story soon goes awry when it sends Ellie and Dina away from Jackson onto a dangerous road trip
The most thrilling, action-filled set piece comes early too, as hordes of the infected storm the Jackson barricades while townspeople shoot from roofs. But danger also comes from other places. Kaitlyn Dever plays Abby, a merciless new character searching for Joel, vowing revenge for his hospital attack. As in the first season, this one grapples with a society in which killing takes on a different moral meaning and even infected loved ones have to be shot.
Abby is just one of the characters struggling with those questions: when is killing acceptable in this post-apocalyptic world? How do people separate vengeance and justice? That is still a bracing theme.
But the story soon goes awry when it sends Ellie and Dina away from Jackson onto a dangerous road trip. Scene for scene, the zombie attacks can be harrowing. The creatures look disgusting, brains spilling out of their heads as they leap out of the shadows in dark basements. But the attacks come too regularly and predictably now.
And however much you might be rooting for Ellie and Dina to acknowledge their attraction, they spend so much time dodging the infected – as if killing zombies really is the show's point – that their relationship is no match for Joel and Ellie's. A flashback episode that fills in Joel and Ellie's five years between seasons is eloquent, among the best of the new crop. But it also reveals how much the series relies on the dynamic between them.
'The Walking Dead' Has Many More Worlds to Explore
“The Walking Dead” has many miles to go before the walkers — and everyone else — call it a night. That was the message of the retrospective panel on the franchise at Mipcom to mark the 15th anniversary of the TV series’ premiere on AMC Network.
Scott Gimple, writer, executive producer and the steward of the “Walking Dead” universe, said the most recent spinoff series, “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon,” is but one example of the additional material to come from the universe based on the graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman. “Daryl Dixon” bowed in 2023 and was renewed in July for a final fourth season that is in production in Spain.
Gimple likened the storytelling possibilities to the intricate canon of stories and characters assembled by DC and Marvel in the comic book realm. “It was all one story. It went in all sorts of different directions,” Gimple said. “Even with characters who have done so many things, we can put them in different worlds where they have different challenges and evolve them through these challenges.”
The stars of “Daryl Dixon,” Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride, were on hand for the panel was AMC Networks president Dan McDermott. The 40-minute session was moderated by self-proclaimed superfan Aisha Tyler, who directed four episodes of “The Walking Dead” and has appeared in spinoff series “Fear the Walking Dead.” “The Walking Dead” mothership series ran 11 seasons, concluding in 2022.
Tyler told the crowd she’s always trumpeted her love of “Walking Dead” even among those who look down their nose at genre fare. “It’s not abut the zombies, it’s about the peple. This is a show asking big questions about what it means to be human,” Tyler said. (That said, there were performers costumed in gory detail as the show’s famous “walkers” lurching around the hallway outside the Grand Auditorium in the Palais des Festivals where the session was held.)
McDermott echoed Gimple’s faith in the Walking Dead universe’s stamina. “Daryl Dixon” revolves around the story that begins when Reedus’ longtime fan-favorite “Walking Dead” character winds up in France where he encounters an entirely new dynamic among resistance movements et al.
“It’s quite possible we could see this group up here 15 years from now,” he said. “There are many more continents to visit. It’s about how [the characters] evolve over time. It’s really exciting to see how far we can take this.” Gimple added that taking “Walking Dead” stalwart characters to new lands such as France and Spain opens up a treasure box of storytelling possibilities. “In a lot of ways, [the locations] give the story to us,” Gimple said.
McBride noted that the emotional tone of “Daryl Dixon” has been markedly different for her character, Carole Peletier, who remains back in the U.S. searching for Daryl. But Peletier endured one tragedy after another during her 11 seasons on “Walking Dead.”
“She is a little bit lighter. I like getting to explore that for her. It’s different going to work ehen you can laugh. When carole’s laughing it’s different going to work,” McBride said.
Tyler pressed Reedus on the physical nature of his job. “I’ve had so many real black eyes on the show that Scott has to write them in the script from time to time,” Reedus said. “I loved shooting Georgia — you were just drenched. It was so humid there. It’s part of the show….It’s very physically demanding. We all care so much about it. It’s just part of the job.”
The panel was introduced by AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan. She noted that AMC executives were cautioned back in 2010 when the series premiered on Halloween night that they should have moderate expectations for the ratings. After all, it was a genre thriller, and a zombie apocalypse thriller at that. “We were told it was a niche of a niche,” Dolan said. “It turned out to be quite a niche.”
