I genuinely can’t wait for the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us show. I’m not all that jazzed to watch it myself, but I really wanna see how folks who haven’t played The Last of Us Part 2 react to its bigger moments. HBO put out a trailer this week (watch above) that suggests season two isn’t shying away from the darkest and possibly most controversial moments in the game.
I hope it’ll be less controversial to suggest that folks wait to watch HBO’s version and instead play The Last of Us Part 2 first. It’s really good, and it’s also coming to PC around the same time that the show comes back in April.
This is mostly based on my experience with season one, which started really strong and had that neat Bill episode that expanded on a character we never got to know in the 2013 game. But I wasn’t as happy with HBO’s tireless sprint through the story, its surprising lack of action (the brutality of which was core to videogame Joel’s development as a murderous anti-hero), and Pedro Pascal’s resting sad face. Season one was a worthy interpretation of the game, but HBO’s Joel and Ellie had drifted far away from their originals by the finale.
Which is why I’m confident you’ll get something different (and maybe better) out of playing The Last of Us Part 2 before watching the broad strokes version of its story unfold over ten episodes. There’s also the fact that Naughty Dog’s sequel is a pretty excellent stealth-action game, constantly challenging you to overcome uneven odds through avoidance, anticipation, and resource management.
I’m planning a replay of Part 2 before giving the show another shot, and my mind is open to the ways HBO could improve on it, too. I’ll be interested to see if the show has anything more poignant to say about the good ol’ “cycle of violence” than the relatively weak sauce Neil Druckmann put on the page.
