The Last Of Us: Season 2

Streaming on: Sky / NOW
Episodes viewed: 7 of 7

If there was ever even a “video game curse” — the claim that games could never be successfully adapted into film and television — then The Last Of Us definitively disproved it. The 2023 television series was a masterclass in adaptation, faithfully matching (and in some case besting) the groundbreaking 2013 game; in (re)telling the story of global fungus-based pandemic — released in the midst of an actual pandemic — showrunners Craig Mazin and original game writer Neil Druckmann forged something gorgeous, thrilling, and profound.

Now they are back, tempting fate and potential curses by going again. This new series, partly adapting the 2020 game sequel, only goes about halfway through The Last Of Us Part II’s lengthy, knotty narrative — Mazin has likened it to an Empire Strikes Back-style middle chapter — but against considerable odds they have pulled it off. For fans of just the TV show, the game, or both, this is another remarkable run of episodes, as high a quality of craft and care as you could ever hope.

There is a confident, mindful pace set here from the start. Episode one does the work of re-establishing this world: it has been five years since survivors Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) traversed a devastated United States, from Boston to Salt Lake City, hoping to deliver the seemingly immune Ellie to the mysterious Fireflies. In the aftermath of that brutal failure, the pair are now safely ensconced in the thriving town of Jackson, Wyoming, and some semblance of normality has been established.

They are even seeking healing and self-actualisation, a luxurious concept in a dystopian economy: Joel is now having regular therapy from whiskey-chugging shrink Gail (Catherine O’Hara, always great value), a character not found in the game. But Joel’s relationship with Ellie has deteriorated, their ill-defined surrogate father-daughter bond weakened in the face of Ellie’s teenage moodiness and her lingering suspicion of some unspoken betrayal.

Comparable to some of the hall-of-fame episodes from Game of Thrones.

As with the game and the initial run of episodes, the writing here — from Mazin, Druckman and the game sequel’s co-writer Halley Gross — is hugely impressive. It’s deep and full of intention, each story beat making real consideration for characters and their dynamics. It feels so authentic, bolstered by stunningly human performances from Pascal, Ramsey and a great ensemble of supporting players (Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy and Rutina Wesley as Tommy’s wife Maria create particularly poignant stakes).

All that establishing work plays off in episode two. To say things kick off might be understating it a little. An attack from a vast hoard of infected creates one of the series’ most palpitation-inducing moments yet, and the town’s strategic, trained-for response is thrilling and terrifying in equal parts: catapulted barrels of oil, snipers versus ‘runners’, flame-throwers versus ‘bloaters.’ In terms of scale and ambition, staging and fluency, episode two is comparable to some of the hall-of-fame episodes from Game of Thrones: the kind of exceptional grand scale cinematic television few others than HBO can muster.

Yet for all the armies of fungal-faced zombies — and the occasional nods to game mechanics (Ellie throws a bottle in episode one, a classic stealth-mission distraction technique) — the lens here remains achingly, painfully human. Joel and Ellie face a reckoning with the arrival of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever, offering a boldly different take to the game version), and much of this series mulls on the difference between revenge and justice, on the corrosive and pervasive cycle of violence. Peace is a fragile flower in the harsh wastelands of a world a quarter of a century into societal collapse. How do you find sense in all the senselessness? “There’s no right answer,” acknowledges Ellie’s love interest Dina (Isabela Merced) at one point.

It would be so easy for a show like this to feel unremittingly bleak, to embrace a kind of televisual nihilism. Be in no doubt, there will be tears (and more are bound to come in Season 3). But the magic trick the showrunners have waved here is in finding a delicate balance of tones, in finding warmth that melts the literal and figurative ice. The storytelling here is thoughtful and elliptical. One episode serves as a flashback, catching us up on intervening years between seasons, perfectly recreating the game’s most profound moments. It is astonishing, the sense of innocence and wonder that Ellie briefly enjoys in this episode, a bittersweet pill of the safety she has finally found, and the tragedy we know is yet to come.

All this is compounded by an entirely believable, staggeringly well-crafted immersive universe. The cinematography leans heavily into the game’s inherent cinematic qualities; the soul-tingling music from Gustavo Santaolalla summons an eerie elegance; the production design finds corresponding beauty and horror in nature, in its creeping ivy and fungal splendour. The world in The Last Of Us is full — of cruelty and community, hope and hopelessness, life and death. It’s all there.