[HBO Series] The Last of Us (beware spoilers)

I thought the prologues for the first 2 episodes were brilliant additions to the show, and was disappointed that they didn't continue them. Those parts nailed that Chernobyl documentary feel.

 

Regarding the spoilers, I have thoughts on it as well.

Spoiler

1st spoiler: The game did a much better job of setting up Joel to be an absolute killing machine. The show portrayed Joel as a much weaker man and thus it was startling to see him tear through the fireflies troops at the end. Had they shown more of the badass Joel truly is then it would have not seem so jarring. Maybe less realistic, but it's TV, basically a zombie show, I don't need complete realism.

2nd spoiler: I think Joel made the right decision. Those fireflies look like hacks. They might have created a cure, but more likely they just would have butchered Ellie and still not have managed to create a cure. More time was needed to make sure they had everything in line but their desperation superseded smart scientific pacing to the point they didn't want to give Joel or Ellie a say in the matter. Truly, Joel could only do what any good father would, which is protect his daughter (of sorts). Had they given Joel and Ellie time to get used to the idea, to say goodbye to each other, to make certain that the only known immune person in the world was not butchered needlessly before thinking everything through then maybe things would have been different. They had to make certain their way was the right way and they just seemed to be rushing everything. Anyways, point is the way they acted crazy and tried to kick Joel out after telling him Ellie was going to be butchered and not even telling Ellie she was going to die at that operating table. Joel's reaction is understandable. Give them a week, make sure you've thought everything through, and then maybe you have a different outcome.

 

More of this world building would have been great.

 

Now that would be an interesting plot for a third game!

 

Thought it was pretty good. Not an iconic show like some seem to think it is, in my opinion, but very strong.

 

Just finished the series.

I was a huge fan of the game (probably my favorite piece of IP in all of film, games, and TV) so I was prepared to be disappointed.

I was not. I was pleasantly surprised. Pascal was phenomenal. I loved seeing Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker cameos. Nick Offerman deserves some kind of award. The podcast is a great companion piece and shows you just how meticulous Craig Mazin is. This is the first action/horror show in a long time where I didn't constantly have my suspension of disbelief shattered because of some bad writing or dialogue. People made believable mistakes, people spoke like REAL humans. It was refreshing.

Having your favorite piece of nerd culture make it to the big leagues is a weird feeling. Getting to talk about a video game you know *way* too much about with people who never would have encountered it before, or are seeing it with fresh eyes, is a strange experience.

I kind of hate that they're going to make Part 2 into Season 2 because there's just so much baggage with it. I'd rather they just leave it be and take the W. Part 2 is not as strong narratively but it is a lot more ambitious. I think its overall format (swapping character POVs, a linear, 3 day storyline) could actually fit the mini-series format even better than Part 1 (which was much more grandiose in terms of scale/time).

 

Yep. The game tried to do it a different way (with more action/gamey stuff), but I think the show version did a better job of trying to make this point.

Maybe it could have been removed, but I think it is a great episode on its own and within the context of the overall season. I'm not opposed to other ideas on how to best deliver this content (I also really liked Episode 7, but questioned its placement/delivery), but the content itself was great IMO.

Ultimately, I think you're right that this is another case of Stormtrooper Syndrome, and you kinda just have to shut off your brain and accept it. That said, I think there are some things to consider:
(I'll spoiler tag just in case as I get to specifics from your spoiler tag)

Spoiler

I might be forgetting something from the show, but I don't really view the Fireflies in general or the Fireflies that were in the hospital as hardened veterans who defeated FEDRA. In fact, I don't think they ever won any true battles against FEDRA (at the very least, they've taken *mostly* defeats from FEDRA). I don't want to get into any potential spoilers for future content, but I don't think it is surprising to think that the Fireflies really aren't in a good place at that moment (and they're in an even worse place following the events of the season).

A lot of Fireflies are just citizens tired of dealing with FEDRA. Maybe they got some training and equipment from those in the Fireflies, but I wouldn't say it is the best stuff, nor are they the best decision makers in general (even if their cause is just). They're basically the definition of a ragtag resistance group.

Of course, I don't think FEDRA is necessarily that well armed or trained either, but compared to raiders and Fireflies, they're pretty damn tough.

It was a bit silly how Joel and Ellie got caught by them if I'm being honest. I don't necessarily think the Fireflies were even being that organized or trained. Joel and Ellie were just walking through the city, speaking loudly and not really fully aware of their surroundings. That's a bit different than how they (specifically Joel) usually handle those type of scenarios (hell, he was trying to be super cautious prior to the giraffes). This is probably one of those "the game did it better" scenarios, but I'm OK shutting off my brain for this.

So yeah....I think it is still pretty crazy to think Joel could single handedly do what he did (in the game, at least "you" are doing it, and IIRC you can fail/die). But I think it is somewhat more plausible than you might give it credit.

Similar to above, I don't really disagree with your take about the bloater. The bloater and the various "stages" of the infected are 100% driven by gameplay reasons. I don't know if they would have bothered otherwise. Maybe you could have a Shaq-sized infected individual, who might be stronger and tougher than normal infected, but that's about it.

I don't know if I buy it, but this video breaks down how the bloaters could have formed in a semi-plausible way:

The gist of it is that bloaters are super rare, they take ~10 years or more to form, and they require the biomass from multiple individuals (utilizing things like their calcium to form bony plates for extra protection). I don't think this is backed directly by the game (just visual stuff to go off of), but if you want to go down that path, you can possibly reason about a way these make sense. The bloater in the show would likely have had these things going for it (i.e., long period of time, lots of biomass, etc.), so I guess that logic can still apply to the show.



Don't need to really say much about your other spoiler tag, but yeah I think you're processing some of the points that the showrunners wanted people to think about.

Agreed. I do like them because they're a bit different and cool, but give us too much, and it will just end up being boring. There was one sequence in the game involving infected that I might have liked if it made it to the show, but that had little to do with them and more to do about the situation it put the characters in. I think the rest of the show did fine as is. Plus, as I pointed out earlier, you do get infected in nearly every episode. There aren't huge swarms of them that take up 30 minutes of running time, but they are there. From that perspective, I didn't think it was as big of a deal.

For seasons 2 and 3, it sounds like they'll have more of them. Not a bad thing for the reasons I stated (i.e., they're cool), but yeah I hope they don't overcorrect. I think the upcoming seasons might have more reasons to use them potentially (and of course we're going to get new "types"), but they should still largely be a background threat most of the time (and nothing more).

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Sorry meant to respond to your posts earlier, but didn't find the time until now. Thanks for the well thought out posts.

 

I was going to say yeah that's gonna be a no for me, dawg.

But the show doesn't really make you care for

Spoiler

Joel

, so maybe I will watch it since I never played the game.

 

I have both remakes sitting unopened. I guess I can open the second one and play it directly

 

1.

Spoiler

They didn't 'run out of episodes' as much as they didn't want to stray from the source material. That's part of adaptation from gaming. As far as 'stormtrooper syndrome' goes... the action in the TV series is extremely pulled back compared to the game. They said they did that on purpose for two reasons; 1 it's not a game so action cannot carry the weight of the media, 2 they wanted Joel's 'snapping' moment to be all that more shocking and visceral. I thought they handled it extremely well. I was never under the impression that the guys Joel was fighting were hapless idiots, nor was I ever under the impression during the series that Joel was some unstoppable killing machine... until then, which is exactly how it was supposed to go. That's his 'man on fire' moment. You can see it and hear it in the sequence. It's almost surreal, like a dream. The camera is fuzzy, the sound is muffled. The man is basically possessed by a demon of indomitable will. He's almost unconscious and acting on pure heightened, primal instinct. It's meant to convey just how badly Joel's sense of purpose and self worth was now tied to this girl.

2.

Spoiler

I can't speak to the science but in the podcast they did mention that it's reasonable to believe cordyceps would cause infected to be able to achieve physical feats beyond the normal limits of an uninfected host. That's why you see the Clickers especially running so damn fast, jumping like Carl Lewis, and basically ripping people to shreds. The fungus isn't really concerned with the physical limitations of its host. It's full send all the time. Bloaters were mostly invented for the purpose of spicing up the gameplay but the basic scientific reason that was given is that the longer some of these organisms stay alive the more mass they acquire. You'll see this brought to its extreme conclusion in Season 2.

 

Thanks. As I said I’m not a gamer and found out about the game after I heard of the show. I still haven’t played it so the game doesn’t affect my view of things.

Regarding the Fireflies while they are fed up civilians they are survivors so that makes them experienced and fought many battles against FEDRA and the infected. It still strains credibility they suddenly become the can’t shoot straight gang.

For the bloater I’ll watch the video when I get the chance but your description doesn’t seem to make sense to me. It sounds like the fungus is combining a bunch of people into a bloater. cordyceps in nature doesn’t combine a bunch of ants into a super ant and I can’t think of any parasite doing that. It just doesn’t seem to make sense from the biological standpoint. The goal of cordyceps isn’t to defeat humans in a fight but to infect them. Spreading by reproducing and infecting faster is the best strategy than evolving to create battle trolls. I still think those and other variants of the infected are just to make game
Play more exciting.

 

Spoiler

I fully get that it’s Joel’s Man on Fire moment. I think that makes perfect sense but the fireflies including Marlene look and act hapless against him. Marlene is supposed to be a great leader and as good a fighter as Joel yet makes the very dumb decision of just walking him out and arming him. The Fireflies have a fortified position in the hospital, outnumber Joel significantly and have things like grenades and teargas. Instead they just fire wildly and get mowed down my him.

Again I’m not a gamer but if this is based on game play it’s a lapse for a show that does a good job of showing realistic violence. Instead it starts getting to a John Wick level of unrealistic violence. For me it would’ve been better if he snuck in and used stealth to get Ellie back. They still could’ve had some shocking violence of him shooting the doctors.

Spoiler

As stated above though real cordyceps doesn’t work that way and earlier in the show they show humans completely consumed by cordyceps which is what it does in nature to ants. Making a jump from species due to changing environment is plausible and we see that with actual epidemics. Completely changing its propagation strategy requires a massive suspension of belief. This is where I think the series fails. The intros to the first two episodes are very powerful because they have a reasonable basis. The bloaters just seem like things just put in to make a bigger challenge for game play.

 

To note that my criticisms are minor compared to how good of an overall show it is. While I’m nitpicking on some of the science the story is still good and the acting outstanding.

One thing that I really think the Last of Us does well is that there is a lot of criticism of “wokeness” on media and the show is woke with both a diverse cast including homosexual main characters. There is also a subtext of class struggle with a Fascistic government oppressing the people. There is even a literal communist community in the show.

I personally do agree that media frequently tries to shoe horn in social messages and diversity. I felt that Rings of Power was problematic given they Tolkein had specific racial descriptions of the people of Middle Earth so just recasting them to be diverse added nothing artistically and went against Tolkein. I felt that latest Star Wars sequels were particularly egregious in just shoving in plot points and characters that appears to be virtue signaling and muddied up the story.

The Last of Us though shows that being “woke” of itself doesn’t make or break a show. What matters are things that have always mattered, a great story, great acting, and great directing.

 

Spoiler: Part 2 Stuff

I think Part 2 lends itself well to the show and there's talk that they might split it up into two seasons. Abby's "We let you both live and you wasted it" line would be a great place to end the season before switching to her perspective for season 3. The new audience would hate her and the perspective change for a new season would be jarring in a good way. I also think that the world building with the WLF, Seraphites and Rattlers would make the next season feel a lot more ambitious.

 

I'm just not wanting to relive the headache that was the release of that game. So, so tired of this culture war nonsense creeping into every corner of life.

 

I will say that a lot seemed to have been driven by a dedicated gamergate troll army and not the general gaming public. I came across spoilers for it upon release and didn't play the game for years because I know about the major plot point and didn't want to spend $60 on a spoiled story. However, once I got the game for $9.99 I loved it.

 

On the Fireflies, I still like to think of most of them as being closer to say Riley than Joel, but honestly as I said earlier, it is still a case of Stormtrooper Syndrome no matter what. I guess that explains why they're so bad at what they do (unlike say the Empire), but you're still going to have to shut off your brain and just root for Joel to do the impossible in that sequence.

For the bloater, I think it had to do with all that biomass getting trapped in one small area (without other plants/organisms/etc.), so without much other stimulus or nutrition, the cordyceps ends up creating supply lines to convert some of the biomass (possibly from people killed by the bloater prior to transformation) into nutrients for the "human" (or what was left of it) to continue living (so it could continue to spread the disease). Not that it knows it will take 10+ years, and I'm still not sure why it would do so much with the calcium to produce bony plates (even if it *could*) or why it wouldn't just become completely immobile, but hey if you want to reason about it somehow, I think it is possible (even if this is all unlikely). I think the guy who did that video is a (micro?)biologist or at least has some degree in biology, though that doesn't necessarily mean any of this is that reasonable (nor is he necessarily saying that per se). As above, I agree with you, as this is 100% gameplay stuff, but if people want to shut off their brains and accept some of this stuff, have at it.

On a side note, not sure if you knew this, but the game version has cordyceps spread via spores, not those tendril things (or bites in general). Well bites in the game would also obviously cause infections obviously, but spores were a main vector for transmission (this seems more plausible to me I think, but wouldn't work in a TV show). Additionally, the bloaters in the game have mycotoxin sacks they can throw at the player. Very gamey, and I'm not sure if that will end up being adapted into the show at any point.

 

Mentioned before, but yeah I think 60-80% off complaints for the game are not even legit IMO (dumb gamergate stuff, people going off leaks instead of the game, nonsensical complaints, etc). The rest of the super critical responses are generally valid, but keep in mind that plenty of people weren't impressed by the show too. Not everyone will end up loving things the same way as others.

I do think they put a lot of work into these projects regardless, so even if they do stuff I don't personally like, I can appreciate the work that goes into it.

 

Finally binge watched this show. I thought this thread had ballooned to 36 pages because people loved it so much and were extolling its virtues. I had no idea it was 70% people making the same arguments about 1 episode and then people continuing to feed those trolls.

But overall I really loved the season. I'm not a huge fan of how it ended, maybe because I had come to really like Joel and the way he ended this first season made me like him much less. I get it, and clearly this was intended by the showrunners/game creaters, but I wasn't expecting it (never played the game) and it kind of brought me down after a season long high enjoying the show.

And for reference, I absolutely loved episode 3 and didn't much care for episode 7. To me the biggest difference between those two is the actors from episode 3 were great and had tremendous chemistry while the actresses in ep 7 didn't seem to have any chemistry at all. I didn't even buy that they would be friends let alone a budding romance. No emotional stakes at all when I realized Ellie would have to kill her friend.

But overall I'm so glad this show exists and I'm really looking forward to the next season(s).