finally caught up. The show is pretty good but I wouldn't call it amazing (as in, Breaking Bad level). Endure and Survive stands up there as one of the top episodes of any series ever. However just too many slow/filler style episodes for me. Many things can probably be cut down to 30 minutes but they spent an hour. It's like the show would simultaneously benefit from having more episodes to flesh out the characters/motivations while also having less episodes to cut down on the filler, idk it's weird. I'd give the first season a solid 8.5/10 overall.
Never played the game but knew about it. The show isn’t bad by any means…. Or boring…. It’s just been a B- show for me so far. Just something seems missing to me.
Did it get any better? I stopped watching at the communist propaganda, not sure if to give it another try...
Great final episode, but it was once again cut short. I don't see how episodes 8 and 9 can be cut short yet episode 3 was soooooooo long. I've noticed that the producers are not great at action, good at times, but not great. Oh well, it is what it is. Overall, other than episode 3 it had some really great moments. I think the first episode and the end of episode 5 really still stand out in my mind. Maybe I'll re-watch and see what it's like and what could have been improved or totally skipped.
I've been avoiding this thread because I know people are dicks and will spoil things because they are miserable dicks and want other people to also be miserable, flaccid dicks. That said, I have loved the show. Pedro Pascal is putting on a 10/10 performance, and Bella Ramsey as well (especially as the season went on). I was kinda hoping for more of a bang in the final episode of the season, but oh well. It was still good. But yeah I think this is the most immersed in a show I've been in a long time.
My one criticism is the severe lack of Clickers. I get you want to focus on the human element and don't want to end up with mundane zombie scenes, but to barely show them at all I think really reduces the suspense as well as the urgency and purpose of Joel and Ellie's journey together. Cordyceps, what Cordyceps?! Whatever the reasons for not including more zombie scenes, I hope that's addressed in the second season. Still a good show, but not incredible.
The show truly excelled every time zombies were on the scene. My main criticism of this show is the lack of proper action throughout the show, most explicit in the hot garbage snooze fest waste of an episode 3.
My main issue with the show is it just didn't seem all that epic, literally or figuratively. There are feature-length adventure movies that do a better job of giving viewer's a sense of the characters undertaking a long journey. Speaking of, I don't think it would've been too difficult to fit the central narrative into a single movie. There was a beginning (Boston) and an end (SLC). And in between there's basically a true, catch-your-breath middle (Wyoming), sandwiched between "two villains of the week." That was basically it for the bare-bones plot. And even with the minimal plot there was a lot of duplication. The two villains were similar (both groups following a seemingly unconventional "bad guy leader," who was really just a crazy person). The plot device "oh, the Fireflies aren't here" was used twice to move things along. I think they did an okay job with the character development, but at a couple points I felt like it was a little heavy handed and took unnecessary time trying to hit you over the head when explaining the character's motivations. And given the very short season, I'm not sure if they really had that time to spare. I'm assuming/hoping there are new central characters coming into the show next season, because I'm not sure if I have enough interest to watch a whole other season if the show's main focus is going to continue to be a character study of Elie and Joel. The opening of the show was perfection and my favorite part of the series. After that, Pedro Pascal's acting was the best part. The last two episodes, where it showed Joel's coldness and casual violence was pretty fricking disturbing. The actress who played Ellie was great when she was precocious, wise-cracking and sarcastic, but the moments where she was supposed to show more child-like innocence came across as a little awkward in my opinion. Anyway, when it comes down to it, I think all my main complaints stem from the show only being 9 episodes. And given that limitation, I don't really agree with some of the creators' decisions.
As far as the show needing to be "epic," it's about two normal humans traversing, essentially, a post-apocalyptic world. There are no dragons or fantastical landscapes or mind-blowing superpowers or really, any motivations other than just to survive until tomorrow. And then the next day, and then the next, and so on and so forth. Point is, asking for the overall journey to be epic is trying to squeeze blood from a stone. It is what it is. Fitting everything into a movie seems like a good idea at first, but that would have lessened the impact of characters like Sam and Henry. Just like many of us are lamenting the pacing of the final few episodes, we'd just as likely be lamenting how characters were underdeveloped if they had gone the movie route.
Think I said this earlier in the thread (and I've said it about TLOU before), but yeah the plot isn't that complex, nor is it epic. It is largely there to help the game/show serve as a character study and explore themes (i.e., unconditional love and the good/bad things that come with it). With that as the main focus of the narrative, I think it does things that few (if any) other games/shows/movies do. That works for me, but yeah if you want something else, you're not going to get it here. I disagree this would have worked as a single movie. I mean, yeah it *could* have been done, but just like the Uncharted movie, it would have flopped and been panned (and Uncharted is way less complicated than TLOU). The Girl with All The Gifts is like 60%-80% the same, and while I enjoyed it, I think it is missing some of the key things that make TLOU great (and even then, that was a long-ish movie that *probably* should have been longer). I do agree that that the "villains" could have been handled better. I think they kinda bungled Kathleen. She doesn't exist in the game, and while I don't think it was terrible (I did like some aspects of it quite a bit), I'm curious how things might have turned out differently if they went a different direction. David is the only real "villain" in the game (which when he's the only one, it kinda works better IMO), and as I noted in my last post, I think they could have developed that a bit more. In both cases, the focus should be on the characters affected by their actions, so it doesn't really bother me that much (Henry/Sam + Ellie arcs were great to me), but I agree it could have been better. I don't want to get too deep into spoilers for Part 2, but yes they do add more central characters, yet I think it is still largely a character study of Joel and Ellie. Druckmann (co-creator and main writer for TLOU) basically said he's the type of writer that likes to explore the same ideas/concepts/themes, and without getting into spoilers, I would agree that TLOU2 is essentially that. TLOU2 fans, I'm being purposely vague about new characters and plot points, but I think this is fairly accurate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As for the final episode, I wasn't bothered by the runtime at all. It actually had a bit more content than I expected if that makes sense. The ending of the game isn't particularly drawn out or anything, and the show feels fairly identical to the game in that final sequence (with the extra content from the intro). I don't know what they could have extended, especially if they didn't want to diverge much from the game (guess they could have put in scenes of the Fireflies talking to Ellie/Joel more...but that seems like a big diversion without benefit IMO). For the show overall, I would have liked some episodes to be longer, but nothing crazy. As for infected, I touched on that in my previous posts. I would have liked to see them more, but I also get why we didn't. I think they were a bit over-aggressive in cutting that content, but it was largely for the best IMO. Someone actually pointed out that only episodes 6 and 8 didn't feature any infected. It feels like there were barely any infected, but from that perspective, yeah that's still quite a bit, even if they're largely just a off-screen threat. It does sound like they might have more infected in Part 2, but we'll see. Part 2 seems more action-ey to me (I don't think of TLOU1 as being super action focused, and the game's action is pretty boring IMO), so might fit more in that season. Bella and Pedro were awesome, as were most of the main actors for the show (Henry, Sam, Tommy, etc.). I still think it is so crazy that Merle Dandridge was able to portray Marlene in the game and in the show...and IMO nailed it both times. Must be pretty surreal for her.
I do hope people keep in mind that people actively want to be as far away from Cordyceps-infected things as much as possible. We saw this in every situation in most episodes, really. The old couple living in the middle of nowhere. The commune where Tommy eventually settled in. The 'resort' where David and his group lived. Kathleen's QZ where all the infected were underground. There's logic in the show, not showing the audience clickers, constantly. To me, it'd be boring to see Joel and Ellie fight off clickers, visit Tommy's commune, fight off more clickers, get to the university, fight off clickers/people and so on. It makes sense to have Joel and Ellie fight off clickers in the game; if the game followed the style of the show and if you take out the cutscenes and story, it'd be just your player-controlled character walking/driving the whole time, which would not be engaging for the gamer. But in the show, they took liberties and cut out a lot of the "walking/driving" portion of the show. But I do understand, though. Different strokes for different folks. I went into this show / episode 1 expecting a bunch of clickers and bloaters and whatever else, but after the end of 9 episodes, I never once had a complaint about how there should have been more action or more infected.
I guess I needed their journey to feel like it was longer (more epic in the literal sense). I don't think I fully appreciated the bond between Joel and Ellie, nor was I ever overly worried about their survival in the infected-less world, where food and shelter aren't depicted as much of a problem. Presumably, the events happen over several months, but the way time passes in the show, it feels like it's been two weeks between Boston and SLC. I'm sure it all goes with the challenge of making a game into the show, and I get that. But I'm not going to give the show a handicap for that. I'm going to judge it just the same as I would any other show. If "epic" in the figurative sense of having these really huge over-the-top, climactic, suspenseful, action-packed moments was never meant to be in the cards, then that's fine. In my opinion, you didn't need 9 episodes for just a character study of 2 characters. And definitely not 9 more episodes of the same in season 2 .
After watching the finale with my wife last night, we both felt underwhelmed at the ending. I've watched all the "Behind the Scenes" of each episode to understand the showrunners a little better. I see the philosophical debate that the game is about. Joel is a husk after experiencing tragedy only to warm up with Ellie as a pseudo-daughter figure. He has to decide if saving Ellie is worth risking humanity's potential cure. Selfish wants vs. greater good. Ellie doesn't get her choice because Joel forces the solution, etc. etc. Even so, it fell flat to me. Shocker on the plot twists but little impact. There are valid criticisms for the adaptation. The lack of cordyceps being around is a big one. They aren't threatening at all. Is there really a need for the cure? Another is in the finale, game players noted that there didn't seem to be much urgency in Joel's rescue. The slow-motion Terminator plot armor where Joel mows everyone down wasn't that cinematic. It just happens. The showrunners left a lot to be desired throughout the season. Instead, they chose to focus on sideplots which is filler material compared to the central story. There's nothing wrong with filler episodes as long as they execute the season arc well. The season started off well with great plot, world building, and character introductions. It lost that momentum.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-last-of-us-finale-ending-explained-interview Confirmation that season 2 will not cover the entire 2nd game. 3 seasons seems like a possibility even. They talk about a lot of stuff, including why there's not more infected and whatnot.
