!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!
The Last of Us is back in our living rooms and crying hearts after its critically acclaimed first season, and after a debut season that brought home eight Primetime Emmy Awards and countless praise from fans and newcomers alike, viewers got their first taste of what showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann had in store for Season 2 of their post-apocalyptic hit-you-directly-in-the-feels melodrama on Sunday.
In an inevitable “calm before the storm” opening scenario, Season 2’s premiere episode, “Future Days”, jumps five years ahead from where we left Joel and Ellie’s relationship-altering encounter as they made their way back to the settlement in Jackson, Wyoming. We are introduced to new characters, a secure and democratic settlement and way of life, and we revisit a core cast whose relationships and bonds were painfully altered in the finale of Season 1.
The first season of The Last of Us was brilliant at remaining true to the video game’s narrative, in many cases shot-for-shot, while still deviating from the game and adding more and different takes on certain scenarios in perfect ways. We get a deviation from the game right out of the gate in Season 2’s opening scene. Abby. While the game spends many of its opening hours introducing us to Abby through mystery, painting her intentions with a broad brush over time as her and her fellow members of the Washington Liberation Front make their way to Jackson, Season 2 opens with the introduction of our new character Abby and reveal her intentions and place in the world in the opening minutes. As they stand over the graves of the Joel-massacred Fireflies, including Abby’s father, Abby strongly claims that they WILL find Joel and that they WILL kill him. Many fans saw the casting of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby incomparable to the physical makeup of Abby in the game, but what they may not have seen coming is Kaitlyn’s magnificent performance of carrying Abby’s revenge. Kaitlyn absolutely shines in her brief appearances in the opening episode, displaying Abby’s incredible raw emotion as she leads her group towards Joel. It will be interesting to see how the choice of revealing Abby’s intentions this early plays out in comparison to slapping you in the face with it at the end of the game’s first act, which is one of the most legendary narrative shifts in gaming history.
We see very little interaction between Joel and Ellie in the episode, but what we do see is impactful and what we understand is that, just like in the game, their relationship is broken. Based off of Joel’s actions, secret, and lie, their bond is entirely different than the unbreakable one that was built in season one. This rattles Joel enough to where Joel begins seeing the settlement therapist, Gail, played by the wonderful Catherine O’Hara. Taking another tiny slice from the game and expanding it, akin to Bill and Frank’s story in season one, Mazin and Druckmann create Gail as the wife of Eugene, an in-game character who was only mentioned by name. We find out that Joel killed Eugene sometime in the last five years, but we do not know how, only that he “had to”. Pedro Pascal continues to shine in the scene of his therapy session with Gail, somehow able to show frustration, impatience, guilt, and sadness all with one look. “I saved her.” We see that Joel is broken and doesn’t know how to fix it, especially without revealing what he’s done, even if Gail is onto him.
We get reintroduced to Ellie through the course of establishing everyday town life. Now 19, Ellie has graduated to training, doing patrol routes around the settlement to scout infected, and getting sniping lessons from her uncle Tommy. We find her still extremely interested and engaged in everything around her, with that no-fear mentality that makes Ellie so great. Her opening scene is one that lets you know that Ellie is a tougher version of the young, immune girl we last saw, as she beats down a grown man in her training with her scar-covering tattoo in tow. We also get to see her quiet side and further detachment from Joel, since we see her living in the garage behind Joel’s house. Like in the game, Ellie enjoys her time alone, writing in her journal and listening to music. If you’ve played the game, you know how important the guitar is. Joel makes a short trip to Ellie’s garage and sees the dusty guitar and takes it for tuning, foreshadowing its return. The little details, such as Nirvana’s first single, “Love Buzz” playing on Ellie’s radio, pointing towards the Seattle setting where most of the story takes place, remain wonderful additions to the show when you’re looking for them.
Through Ellie we also meet likely Season 2’s most important and influential new character, Dina. And boy did they nail the casting on this one. Isabela Merced is absolutely wonderful as Ellie’s “best friend” and patrol partner. In the game, Dina is the positive, ambitious, and care-free balance to an oftentimes bleak world and outlook. Isabela brings this to the show in droves, portraying Dina in a way that gives a different meaning to the word “infectious”. Her outlook on the world and how she interacts with people is different than most in a time of such strife, and Ellie has clearly created a partners-in-crime relationship with her. Her relationship with Ellie is clearly a playful and youthful one in the first episode, so it will be interesting to see how this plays up to the extremely heavy and mature nature of their relationship ahead.
The infected. Showrunners stated that there would be more infected in Season 2. And we got a fair amount in the first episode. Ellie tries out her new scope on the hill with Tommy, aiming under the gondolas, a sequence ripped straight from the game. But once Ellie and Dina separate from the group to fearlessly scout the grocery store, we get two fantastic zombie sequences. Going into stealth mode, Ellie and Dina silently communicate an attack on a clicker. In another gamer-moment(complete with a bottle-throwing distraction), we get to see Ellie take down her first clicker with a silent attack from behind with her switchblade. A few gaming-stabs later, the clicker is out, just like you do so many times in the game. This was undoubtedly a satisfying moment for gamers. The second introduces us to Part II and Season 2’s new brand of infected, the stalker. All previously encountered infected have reacted on sight(or sound) and ran directly towards their enemy. The stalker is smarter. It hides. It stays quiet. It stalks. Ellie’s encounter with her first stalker in episode one is intense, with anxiety-inducing buildup as the stalker moves across the background. It eventually attacks, and bites, as Ellie disposes of the new brand. Both old blood and new blood infected make satisfying appearances in the premiere, and the stalkers will definitely be back with their introduction sealed.
The episode winds into the last bit of establishing the town, the characters, and new and old relationships and comes at another staple scene of the franchise, the Jackson New Year’s Eve Barn Party. This comes as another bit of a risk by the showrunners, as this scene takes place later in the game as a flashback. Continuing to resequence some of Part II’s revealing events, it is presented here in a linear timeline. But this is where everything changes. We all remember it, Ellie hangs back by the bar as a slightly-buzzed Dina has all the eyes on her as she dances joyfully in the middle of the barn. Ellie forcibly gets out dialogue insisting that Dina will be back with her ex-boyfriend in a couple of weeks. Dina comes over to grab Ellie to dance as the song changes to a slow one, and an often not seen insecure Ellie is comforted by Dina’s passionate delivery of otherwise. The tension builds to them sharing a kiss on the dancefloor while the rest of the party seemingly comes to a halt. The scene for the show was shot beautifully and the cinematography to the game was nothing but a complete duplicate. A pivotal point and scene in the story was given the utmost care, and unless you only like the blood & guts, you walked away with this scene as the high point of the episode.
The moment ends abruptly when the bar owner calls them a slur and Joel intervenes. This shows more disconnect in his relationship with Ellie, since she feels like she no longer needs his protection and embarrasses him in front of the entire town. This encounter also mimics the game, an important reminder that Joel would still do anything to protect Ellie.
The episode closes by returning us to Abby, as she and her group come up on an overlook of the Jackson settlement. Roll credits.
The Birdict:
The anxiously awaited follow-up to The Last of Us’ incredible first season is off and running, and the first episode, “Future Days” reintroduces us to familiar characters with new relationships, and some spectacular performances of new characters played by Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine O’Hara, and Isabela Merced. The cast continues to perfectly accompany the brilliance of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, even in an opening where they barely interact. The infected continue to be top-notch, bringing fear and anxiety in every moment that you’re reminded of the terrors that the characters face outside of each other. The decisions to alter the order of key moments in the storytelling will have to wait to be absorbed in a negative or positive way until we see how they play out, but the moments they chose to alter are moments that hit SO HARD in the game because of WHEN you got that information. We might have to rely on a different form of satisfaction. Overall it was a great introductory start to a very, very dark story ahead. After the reveal that the game, The Last of Us Part II, will be a two-season dedication, we’re just getting started.
The Barn 