The Last Of Us is facing massive backlash following Sunday’s episode. Note: Spoilers follow below.
Following the first episode of Season 2, which was horrible and woke AF, now for both the gamers and the normies, episode 2 looks to be a major disappointment and a further setback.
In Sunday’s episode, Abby indeed kills Joel, which lines up with the video games. Worth a mention is that gamers don’t like the second game compared to the first one.
The backlash
Regarding the backlash, Rotten Tomatoes is lit up with negative comments and ratings from fans following Sunday’s episode. The fan score also sees a big drop, as Season 1 has a fan score of 87%, while the first two episodes of Season 2 have a fan score of only 55%, which is considered “rotten.”
Previous to the episode, there was talk among gamers that the show would actually change things and try to keep Joel, played by Pedro Pascal, around as long as possible, but credit(?) to the show, they followed the game pretty closely and killed off Joel right away.
It’s probably safe to say that normies who probably never played the games never expected them to kill off Pascal, who has become a huge star.
Reactions
Here is a selection of some of the negative reactions from fans:
Probably one of the worst adaptations in existence. The only series more disappointing is the last two seasons of Game of Thrones.
Depressing. Horrible people doing horrible things. Vengeance is bad. Real *deep* themes.
First season was solid but this second season is not doing it for me AND a lot of people. RIP Pedro – not worth watching after him being gone.
What a waste of amazing potential. They decided to elevate a random never before seen bad guy into a main charecter killing threat using nothing but coincidence and luck. Dark, depressing, and dumb writing, dont bother getting invested.
Really poor writing. No one, including teenagers, would act so silly on duty when their lives are at stake.
as wel all know the second game truly let everyone down. killing the one thing that made the story awesome was straight up bad. but even with that in mind, the show is still well made well acted, yes alot of political spoonfeeding but i can look passed that. it cant be what season one was without its core but its still gonna be a cool looking interesting zombie show. just without the amazing father daughter dynamic that we all craved of a part 2
Plot Holes and Coincidences
I thought the overall episode was pretty decent and much better than the first episode.
While they ditched all the woke BS, I couldn’t help but pick things apart, such as sending people off during a snowstorm.
I also found it eyerolling that Abby had been looking for Joel for five years and finds him (or he find her). Something similar happened in the game, but — what a coincidence. It conveniently eliminated Abby’s group from having to infiltrate the city and all of that.
Speaking of the city, as I tweeted, how about since you have what looks to be thousands of people and even farm equipment and such, why not dig a big ass moat around the city??? Or has anyone ever visited Gettysburg? How about putting up those fences — Virginia worm fences, split-rail fences, or snake fences??? Well, the argument is that we wouldn’t have a show then (lol – ditto for Walking Dead, I guess).
Or how about, no one knew there was a ski lodge up in the hills?
Gamers not happy
Some gamers also haven’t been happy with the look of the actress playing Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever, so much so that the showrunner has responded (see below). I think the actress is doing a fine job, but I get where those fans are coming from. In the game, she has the look more of Linda Hamilton in T2, which I think makes sense if you think about it, as she’s a survivalist, etc.
“We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters…. We don’t value as much, ‘Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?’ Whatever it is. It’s not nowhere on the priority list, but it’s below a bunch of other things that we consider,” Neil Druckmann, head of creative at Naughty Dog, previously told Entertainment Weekly about the casting of Abby.
Will there be a drop in viewership?
What will be interesting to see is if the backlash and the exit of Pedro Pascal as Joel cause a drop in viewership. I can recall that when Andrew Lincoln exited The Walking Dead that it was all downhill from there, though that series was already in a downward spiral.
Are you still interested in following Ellie and Abby’s story? Or are you out just like Joel? Let us know in the comments below.
