This week I finished watching HBO’s The Last of Us. I have little doubt that it’s going to be the single, best thing I’ll have watched this year. I looked forward to being both enthralled and traumatised by it every week and then sharing the experience online with after-show material and reaction videos.
It was a brilliant nine weeks.
The games
There are 4 games that have left a lasting impact on me: The Last of Us, Mass Effect, God of War and Until Dawn. Each of these games impacted me in ways that transcended the normal ability of the medium to do so. They left an impact similar to a TV show or a film rather than a game.
All four of those games impacted me in different ways due to the nature of their story and how it intersected with the game elements but The Last of Us is the only one that left me with a deep, meaningful and profound feeling like you might get after reading an enthralling novel that challenges you with questions.
I was both intrigued and nervous about it being adapted into a TV show as while the material was there, the history of video game adaptations is littered with mediocrity and crap.
The adaptation
I’ve had a lot of bad days. I’ve had bad days with you too. But I’ve had more good days with you than with anyone else. Just give me one more good day
– Frank, The Last of Us
Any concerns over the adaptation of The Last of Us were removed, not when we heard Neil Drukman would be involved, but when it was announced Craig Mazin was on board. Mazin gave us Chernobyl, which is the single, best and most artfully constructed limited series ever to air. The thought of Chernobyl-level writing being applied to The Last of Us turned trepidation into excitement.
The Last of Us isn’t just the best video game adaptation it goes down as one of the best adaptations from one medium to another, period.
The genius of The Last of Us is Mazen and Drukman knew when to give us what happened in the game directly, literally at the level of the direction, scene, script and performances and when to cut things out and add whole new things. Each and every choice did not detract from the experience but created this alternate experience that enhances the whole fabric of the narrative of The Last of Us across the game and the TV show. This is all necessary, as the game’s narrative has elements that would not transfer to the screen.
All the gameplay. Yeah, I fully understand why some people feel there was a lack of action or not enough infected, but a lot of those things are there to add gameplay elements as you’re playing a game. You’d not want to ‘watch through that’ in the TV show. As a result space between narrative beats shortens.
You’re focused on Joel and Ellie. The majority of the time in the game you play Joel, with some time spent with Ellie. Everything in the game is experienced from the perspective of the protagonists. This is because you have to be judicious with your cut-scenes that aren’t playing the game. A TV show affords you the opportunity to write scenes from completely different perspectives that provide a foundation or even feed into the decisions of the two protagonists.
The TV adaptation reverses things, while in a game you get extended gameplay with judicious cut-scenes in the TV show you’re going to not have all the gameplay but the medium is essentially one big cut-scene in game terms and seeing all those extended gameplay moments as scenes you watch would not be as much fun.
Ultimately, the ability to do this gave us a number of fantastic cold opens with Mazin’s, Chornobyl-style writing coming into great effect and we get the genius of episode three focusing on Frank and Bill. In the game, we only get to see Bill after the relationship has ended and Frank is dead and he’s a rather bitter individual. The episode focusing on their relationship in the TV show is one of the best episodes of TV written and feeds directly into changing Joel’s mindset on Ellie and the request Tess had made of him. Genius.
The beautiful hell
I used to be a fan of The Walking Dead, but if there is one show that overstayed its welcome due to just going on forever and feeding you an ever more oppressive experience it was The Walking Dead. I suspect I tuned out when a lot of people did when Neagan appeared. I did go back and completed the season(s) that dealt with Neagan but then I stopped. It just wasn’t fun any more.
The Last of Us does something really clever, it presents this beautiful hell, in that no matter how much it makes you cry or uncomfortable it doesn’t transgress over the line of you not wanting to watch it. You want to keep watching it because of the endearing yet ‘forged in an apocalypse’ relationship between Joel and Ellie. That keeps you watching like a burning light in the darkness that pulls you in like one of those scary deep-water fish with a bobbing lure.
The writing also balances the beauty and the pain, offering scenes of our two main character’s relationship progressing, long-term loving relationships that worked, societies that have succeded, moments when Ellie can just be a kid and epic scenery that is gorgeous to behold, particularly when they get to the winter sections which always reminded my of my trip to the Canadian Rockies. You know this beauty only goes so far before the ‘sad hammer’ hits, but the balance of the beauty and hell to be found in the post-apocalyptic society keeps you ploughing forward with gusto.
This does present a challenge when they adapt The Last of Us 2, as that story is significantly darker than the first, but I am intrigued as to how they do it and if it will have its own ‘I am out factor’. It’s quite possible.
The relationship
“Everyone I Have Cared For Has Either Died Or Left Me. Everyone… Except For You! So Don’t Tell Me I Would Be Safer With Somebody Else, Because The Truth Is, I Would Just Be More Scared.”
– Ellie, The Last of Us
One of the things that was both weird and great about watching The Last of Us is I played the game back when it was released and I never played it again. This meant my memory of how the story was constructed was forgotten. The only thing I really remembered was the final moments and everything else was a blur. I didn’t remember what happened to Tess and Bill had been totally forgotten. Whole sequences in the game like Joel getting seriously injured or encountering Henry and Sam had vacated my brain. This meant I was largely enjoying it as new.
The relationship between Ellie and Joel is expertly constructed over the cause of the season and its pitched perfectly. Like the show as a whole, it presents something that is beautiful and toxic at the same time. While a proxy father and daughter finding each other is beautiful their relationship is based on a foundation of damage, pain, need and fear and ultimately a lie.
I think people forget this a bit when The Last of Us 2 came around and just took away an echo of ephemeral wholesomeness.
Ellie: Time heals all wounds I guess.
Joel: It wasn’t time that did it.
– Ellie and Joel, The Last of Us
While the relationship in both the game and the TV show have very similar dramatic beats that carry it forward the journey presented in the TV show is something to behold. This is because the dramatic turns and beats in the relationship are closer together and the primary focus of the narrative. You’re not separated from them by hours of gameplay. The writing is also forensically and meticulously constructed often by what is not said and through the characters they meet and the situations they find themselves in.
The casting of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey (and Anna Torv should get a lot of credit for her contribution as Tess in the early episodes) was a brilliant choice. I found them enthralling throughout. I did feel Ellie was different. I felt she had a slightly darker edge than the Ellie in the game who I remember as a lot more endearing – but I’ll be completely honest this could very well be a largely false memory based on the passage of time. Either way that’s not a complaint as Pedro and Bella nailed it and if they aren’t on an awards list or two at some point they’ve been robbed.
One final thing I want to say about the writing, while previously acknowledging how great an adaptation this is, a lot of the lines that hit people hard and echo across time are taken literally from the game and quite often presented in exactly the same way. The strength of the writing in The Last of Us game has to be applauded as it was of sufficient strength to be used in one of the best TV shows ever written.
The decision
After All We’ve Been Through. Everything That I’ve Done. It Can’t Be For Nothing.
– Ellie, The Last of Us
Ultimately, we are presented with the decision at the end of Ellie and Joel’s journey and it’s brilliant. It was brilliant for me even though I knew it was coming. I think that was partly because I’d forgotten a lot of the preceding events and just the passage of time. I’ll freely admit that the basis of Ellie and Joel’s relationship had become less dark and damaged in my mind as my distance from the game had grown so it was interesting seeing it played out and how that impacts the final and fateful decision.
It’s also great to see the decision playing out as event TV.
The event TV nature of The Last of Us was great and something I’ve not experienced for a while. I’d watch the episode and then over the week between episodes I’d watch reaction videos. I never used to get reaction videos but as content creators have started to cover better-written shows rather than ones just based on spectacle it’s become part of the experience. This ability to watch reaction videos gave the whole The Last of Us experience a sort of shared emotional journey which definitely added to the fabric of it.
Seeing people across the internet all ponder this final decision was interesting and presented something few other shows have achieved. I’m sure if I was on the platforms were the original game was discussed similar discussions took place back in 2013.
…And, Finally
Ellie: Swear to me. Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true.
Joel: I swear.
I’m currently playing through The Last of Us 2 as playing through games tends to take an astronomical amount of time these days. I started ages ago and the TV series has inspired me to get back into it. I’d say I’m enjoying The Last of Us 2 more due to watching the series this is because it has refreshed my very selective memory of the characters and events.
I originally thought The Last of Us 2 was jarring and felt disjointed from the relationship I remembered in the first game and the TV show has given me a transition point into the game sequel that is a better launching point.
It’s for this reason I think the proceeding two seasons of the TV show, which will cover the game sequel, are going to be brilliant. Darker, possibly even harder to watch than the series that’s just completed, but I have no doubt it’s going to be fascinating. What was very well done was the seeding of elements of the second game into the first TV series.
It’s also going to cause a complete and utter internet ruckus I suspect. Hold on tight.