It feels like when Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann sat down to adapt this season, they decided gamers could handle complexity - but TV audiences couldn’t. Like they assumed we’re all too emotionally fragile or intellectually limited to piece together a non-linear narrative. So they flattened it. Straightened it out. Spelled it all out in bold, underlined exposition. Abby killed Joel? Here’s exactly why. Right now. No mystery. No ambiguity. No walking a mile in anyone’s shoes. Just a Wikipedia summary with better lighting.
And it’s not like the original game was some avant-garde, art-house puzzle box. It was just smart storytelling. It gave us information slowly and deliberately, withholding context so we could feel the full impact of shifting perspectives. You hate Abby - until you don’t. You love Ellie - until you’re forced to ask if she’s gone too far. That’s the power of the story. That’s the whole point.
But the show doesn’t trust that process. It gives away the twist and then asks us to care about the aftermath. It’s like watching Memento in chronological order. Sure, you still get the story, but you lose the disorientation. You lose the doubt. You lose the weight of not knowing who to root for until it’s too late.
And let’s talk about Ellie.
Bella Ramsey is a great actor. But in Season 2, her portrayal of Ellie doesn’t fit the story. And it’s not that this version of Ellie is too stoic or emotionally detached - it’s the opposite. She’s too much like the Ellie from the first game. She’s still chatty. Still making jokes. Still cracking sarcastic one-liners like the world hasn’t broken her yet. But in the second game, Ellie is a shell of herself. She’s not the same. She’s been shattered - not just by Joel’s death, but by his lies. That’s what changes her. That’s what hardens her. That’s what sends her spiraling into an obsession with revenge. This version of Ellie hasn’t changed at all. And inside this story? That’s jarring. That’s wrong.
The character is supposed to be unraveling. The fire inside her is supposed to be burning her from the inside out. But the show is too afraid to let her burn.
And nowhere is that clearer than in the finale. Spoilers ahead - if you haven’t watched or played, skip this paragraph. I’m serious.
When Ellie finds Mel and Owen in the aquarium, that moment is supposed to be a point of no return. In the game, she’s in full-blown vengeance mode. She’s lost herself. She swims through a storm, leaves a trail of bodies behind, kills a dog without blinking. She’s so blinded by rage that she murders both Mel and Owen in a brutal, frenzied panic - only to realize after the fact that Mel was pregnant. And that’s the moment it all collapses. Her grief. Her guilt. Her humanity. Everything she’s been carrying explodes in one horrific revelation. She sees what she’s become, And she has a complete mental breakdown.
But in the show? It’s framed as an accident. Owen tries to shoot her. She has no choice but to shoot back, The bullet hits him and grazes Mel. Ellie, in this version, never planned on killing them. She even tries to help. She tries to save the baby. And it’s like… what are we even doing here?
Again, the story beat is the same. Owen and Mel are dead. Mel was pregnant. But the emotional weight is completely different. In the game, Ellie has to live with the fact that she chose violence and crossed a line she can’t uncross. In the show, she’s just a victim of circumstance. It wasn’t her fault. She tried. She didn’t mean to.
What is this?! That’s not the story. That’s not the Ellie we’re supposed to be reckoning with. And this is not me crying over changes from the game - This is a completely different main character, with entirely different motivations. Why?
And here’s the other thing: they are robbing us of revelations. Over and over again.
One of the most powerful aspects of The Last of Us Part II is that it keeps you in the dark. Not in a confusing way - in a deliberate way. You’re not supposed to know who to root for. You’re not supposed to understand everyone’s motivations right away. Because not knowing is the point. That’s how the game earns its emotional punches. It builds its world through revelation after revelation, each one crashing over you when you least expect it.
The show… doesn’t do that. It shows its hand constantly. Like it’s afraid we’ll get bored if we have to wait five minutes without a clean answer.
Take the WLF, the Washington Liberation Front. In the game, when Ellie and Dina decide to go find the people responsible for Joel’s death, we still think they’re tracking a small group of ex-Fireflies. Just some random militia thugs. We don’t realize until much later that the Wolves are actually a full-blown military machine. A heavily armed faction with tanks, barracks, drills, stadiums, ranks. When you finally play as Abby and walk through their converted stadium base, it’s a jaw-dropping moment. You realize just how outmatched Ellie is. It’s terrifying.
But in the show? We already know. They told us immediately. We’ve seen the army. The trucks. The command structure. So when the season ends with Abby walking into that stadium, it’s not a big reveal - it’s just set dressing. There’s no gasp. No tension. No "oh my god" moment. It’s just Abby, looking out at a military base we’ve already toured.
That’s what frustrates me the most. This story is built on reveals. On shifting perspectives. On realizing you were wrong about someone and then having to sit with that discomfort. That is actually the entire point of the game. But when the show front-loads everything, it strips away the impact. It neuters the experience. It trades emotional payoff for early exposition. And for what? Viewer comfort? If there is one thing this story isn't - it's comfortable.
I don’t understand it. The structure of the game is brilliant. It makes you walk into every room blindfolded and then rips the blindfold off right when it hurts the most. And here, the show just hands us flashlights and says, “Don’t worry. Nothing scary in there. Here’s the backstory in advance.”
It’s not just disappointing. It’s sabotage.
I’ll probably keep watching. Of course I will. I care too much about these characters to look away now. But I can’t shake the feeling that the showrunners don’t trust us. And if they don’t trust us, how can we trust them to tell this story the way it deserves to be told?
