Review of The Last of Us Season 2 — The Story Remains the Same, but There's Less Content (Ongoing Update)

There’s a lot of contradictory things one could say about the The Last of Us series, but one thing is undeniable — the project managed to capture attention and stay in the spotlight for a long time, both among gamers and general viewers. Based on the first part of the game of the same name, the show more or less accurately followed all the major plot twists of the original, ending on a powerful cliffhanger. It was almost obvious that the creators would continue in a similar format, this time using The Last of Us Part II as the foundation. On April 14, the long-awaited second season finally premiered — although only the first episode is out so far. The remaining seven episodes will be released weekly on Mondays. We immediately dropped everything to watch it and share our impressions, and we’ll keep updating this article as new chapters are released.

The second season begins with Abby, who, along with a group of friends, is burying her father and the other Fireflies. Right from the start, it’s noticeable how much her character design has changed. Instead of the off-putting, overbuffed woman with, let’s be honest, an unlikable expression, we now see a cute girl who doesn’t particularly stand out among others in terms of appearance. She’s pleasant and evokes sympathy. Kaitlyn Rochelle Dever is a sweetheart.

Although Joel is the main protagonist of The Last of Us and his actions in the finale of the first season resonated with many, the sequel manages to achieve something that even the original game struggled with. In The Last of Us Part II, the creators took a very peculiar approach to Abby’s character design. This sparked a wave of backlash online, along with tons of justifications, explanations, and deep-dives about why a muscular, unattractive woman with psychological issues was the only possible version of Abby.

From the very first seconds, the show completely dismantles all the logically built theories, as well as the incredibly clever arguments of Neil Druckmann and fans of his vision, by portraying Abby as an ordinary and rather attractive girl. Turns out, it was possible all along. Well… everyone will draw their own conclusions here. We certainly did.

Next, we are finally brought back to Joel and Ellie. It’s New Year’s Eve, which means there’s no time for slow pacing or long setups leading to that golf club scene. Everything unfolds just a few days before the fatal twist. It’s a controversial decision. If you remember the beginning of the game, you know that everything started with Joel telling his brother Tommy about the choice he had made. It’s a very short moment, yet a crucial one. It shows that over time, the brothers have grown closer. Joel completely trusts Tommy and knows his secret will be kept.

There’s nothing like that in the show. A similar conversation happens, but it’s not with Joel’s brother — instead, it’s with some random psychologist woman whom the old smuggler visits occasionally, paying for her time with contraband. The whole thing feels like a terrible mix of comedy and drama, and it’s messy too. Apparently, Joel shot her husband back in season one, which she mentions in a single sentence, but let’s be honest — no one even remembers who that character was. As a result, the scene feels dumb, emotionless, and simply takes up screen time. If this is what the creators meant when they talked about expanding the story, we honestly don’t know what to expect next.

Still, Pedro Pascal is fantastic. He’s 100% the same Joel. He looks the part, acts the part, and overall stands as a great example of how to adapt a video game character for a live-action series — even a multi-episode one.

Unfortunately, none of this applies to Ellie. We don’t know how, but the writers somehow managed to make her an even more unlikeable character than she was in the game. The core idea behind The Last of Us Part II was that the player was supposed to empathize with both Abby and Ellie equally. Both girls lost loved ones, made bad decisions, and hurt people. However, in the game, Ellie ultimately evoked more sympathy. She was calmer (at least at first), driven by a fierce but focused desire for revenge for Joel. She was a sweet-looking girl who was forced to become a butcher.

In the show, it feels like the opposite. Ellie is annoying — in literally every scene. And it’s not like the scenes are completely different: many moments directly replicate the source material, and sometimes even the lines are word-for-word. But the emphasis… the emphasis is completely different. It seems this is largely due to Bella Ramsey’s (Isabella May Ramsey) performance. She’s erratic, neurotic, constantly trying to prove something to someone, even though she lives in a world where one reckless move can get you killed. In the game, Ellie gradually turned into a predator — someone who kills without remorse anyone in her way. Show Ellie isn’t like that. She’s more likely to freak out and flail her knife around wildly until she accidentally hits something.

At the beginning of The Last of Us Part II, Dina and Ellie are sent on patrol. Their mission is to scout the area, gather supplies, and kill infected where possible. Despite all their jokes and playful banter, that’s exactly what they do — and they do it carefully and smartly.

In the show, the girls are part of a group and immediately ignore their squad captain, going AWOL for no apparent reason. Why? Presumably to emphasize the characters’ fierce individuality and complete lack of brains.

In the game, Joel emphasizes that Ellie helps everyone around the settlement — people love her and praise her. In the show, she mostly irritates those around her, constantly acting as if she’s entitled to special treatment. This creates an interesting conflict that wasn’t present in the original.

The reasons behind the rift between the smuggler and his adoptive daughter haven’t been revealed yet, but we have seen his overprotectiveness. In the game, this looked like an attempt to atone for his guilt. In the show, it’s the opposite — Ellie pushes boundaries constantly because she knows Joel is always standing behind her. But when he actually tries to help her, instead of being grateful, she just yells at him.

Overall, based on the first episode, the emotions so far are mostly negative. Ellie is supposed to be the main character of the second season. The story won’t return to Abby until episode three. If this approach doesn’t change, we’re in for a very debatable adaptation — one that closely replicates the form of the original but loses its essence. There’s no guarantee the success of the first season will be repeated.

Among the pleasant details, there are plenty of easter eggs — Ellie’s knife, her journal, the room decor, that guitar, the tattoo, and the costumes. The kiss scene (you know who with who) is recreated shot-for-shot, even down to the movements. All in all, a lot of work went into this — it’s just a shame that much of the soul seems to have been lost.

The second episode is out, which means we’re ready to discuss what we’ve seen once again. After the premiere, there were many rumors online that Neil Druckmann had decided to drastically alter the story, restructuring the plot twists to avoid writing out the show’s biggest star—Pedro Pascal—right at the beginning.

Now, however, all speculation is over. Despite claims of script rewrites and other bold statements, the creators of The Last of Us continue to add flashy but insignificant details without modifying the core framework established in the game.

The second episode begins with a snowstorm and Ellie heading out on patrol with Jesse. In the original, events unfolded slightly differently. Dina was by the protagonist’s side. The girls got caught in the storm and took shelter in an abandoned building with contraband, enjoying heartfelt conversation and female camaraderie. At the end, Jesse found them, delivering the news of Joel’s disappearance.

Now, however, the scene has been cut, once again portraying Ellie in a less-than-flattering light. Upon spotting the plants, she excitedly declares, like a foolish, hungry teenager, that she plans to take as much as she can carry. Needless to say, in the original, the girl behaved very differently. While not shunning pleasures, Ellie from the game always showed restraint and caution, which sharply contrasted with Dina. This further emphasized the protagonist’s lack of a normal childhood—she simply didn’t know how to have fun or just live. But in the series, this theme has been completely lost.

Joel also goes on patrol, but not with his brother—instead, it’s with Dina, which is quite amusing considering the smuggler’s words in the first episode about how Dina understands him better as a father figure than Ellie does.

From there, things play out more or less canonically. Abby encounters the infected, Joel saves her, accidentally reveals his name, and then plays a round of golf with the second protagonist. This moment still impresses and works just as well as it did in the game. Much of the credit goes to Kaitlyn Dever, who puts in a lot of effort to convey all the emotions, but there’s a catch. As we mentioned after watching the first episode, Abby is no longer a hulked-out, muscular woman—she’s now petite and delicate. The actress was given lines close to Abby’s in-game dialogue, but the same effect isn’t achieved. The on-screen Abby doesn’t feel threatening; she’s not the group’s leader and certainly not a soldier. Instead, we see a fragile avenger who can’t do much without the support of her bigger, stronger friends.

There’s another detail many casual viewers might miss. In the game, Joel only reveals his name inside the former Fireflies’ hideout. This means that for most of their interaction, Abby was genuinely grateful to him for saving her. Upon hearing the hated name, she snaps, unable to control her emotions. In the series, she learns the smuggler is her target almost immediately and deliberately leads him to his doom. This, in our opinion, ruins her character and makes her more of an outright antagonist than originally intended. Even Joel himself points out to Abby that he saved her, but she doesn’t care. The effect is further diluted because the series reveals the girl’s motivation from the very beginning, whereas in the game, we knew nothing about Abby or her goals for a long time.

Here, we tread into the territory of subjective opinions. After watching two episodes, there’s no doubt that the second protagonist’s portrayal has changed significantly—both due to the actress and some story revisions. The lines and scenes that worked well in the game simply don’t fit the TV version of Abby. We believe the solution would have been either to cast an actress who fully matched the original character’s image or to rewrite the dialogue and scene structure to better suit the revenge arc of a fragile, petite girl. However, we acknowledge that some may disagree with us.

The second episode also introduces a new element that, frankly, was missing in the game—Jackson’s defense against the infected. Druckmann has significantly upgraded his zombies. They now exhibit rudimentary intelligence and strategic thinking, can traverse vast distances, and even hide from the cold under piles of their dead brethren.

Tommy leads the defense. The scene is shot and staged brilliantly. Tommy proves himself as a leader and a true hero, while the massive horde of infected feels like a genuine threat. However, the series still has a couple of "buts" here. First, this is already the second time we’ve seen the fungus lurking in a clogged pipeline. It doesn’t do anything—it just lives there. Why? Either the writers are planning to expand Jackson’s story and return to the town even after Ellie and Tommy leave, or this is just cheap tension-building that will later lead to a rather stupid downfall of an entire city full of flamethrowers, firearms, and trained fighters.

The second "but" concerns the infected themselves. In the game, they wandered aimlessly unless living humans were nearby. In the series, however, the horde of monsters deliberately traverses several kilometers of snowy wasteland through storms and winds, as if they know exactly where the big city and its potential hosts are. Alternatively, perhaps the fungus works in such a way that the tendril in the pipe transmitted information to its kin through the frozen ground, acting as a compass for them. But that raises a slew of questions. Does the parasite’s hive mind have any range limitations? By the series’ logic, the main characters should instantly broadcast their location to the entire area the moment they step into a room with spores. For now, this remains a major question, and we hope it gets clarified in future episodes.

What did you think of the second episode of The Last of Us? Share your thoughts in the comments—we’d love to discuss!

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