The Last of Us Season 2 shouldn’t cut the ‘worst’ moment in the game
HBO/Naughty DogGame spoilers ahead. Since The Last of Us Season 2 was confirmed, pockets of the internet have called for HBO to ‘fix’ the story. Do away with Abby’s perspective, draw clear lines between hero and villain, and save Joel Miller’s life.
It’s natural to want a positive outcome in a story about characters you treasure, and when the controller is in your hand, there’s the illusion of authorship. Joel is a captivating father figure who has earned legions of adoring fans, many of whom project their wishes onto a story that does not belong to us. But this is not a choose-your-own-adventure TV show, nor should it be.
When you press play on a cinematic game, or watch its faithful adaptation, you’re handing the reigns over to experience someone else’s creative vision. You can love or hate it, but we don’t get to swipe the pen out of the writers’ hands and tell them we know what’s best for their creation.
Changing the game’s pivotal death to appease fans would be the most effective way to undercut The Last of Us Season 2.
A storytelling choice isn’t bad because it hurts your feelings
Some people engaged with The Last of Us the way a child would: it made me cry, therefore it’s wrong. Thinking the media you’re attached to should placate, never challenge your perspective, and not hurt your feelings is a mistake.
Criticism is vital to art, and nobody has to like bold swings (that golf club swing really was bold) if they don’t sit right. However, much of the vitriol lobbed at The Last of Us 2 came from a place of hurt, not thoughtful analysis.
You can tell, because instead of writing essays or crafting YouTube videos, they were sending Abby’s voice actor Laura Bailey death threats.
Some people felt Joel’s extremely graphic, stomach-churning death was a personal attack on the player base – the gritty male protagonist shoved aside for Ellie’s situationship. Losing him and then having to spend time in the shoes of other characters was salt in the wound.
Complaints were rarely about the gameplay or mechanics; they were mostly about being asked to consider a perspective that was emotionally challenging and uncomfortable.
Viewing the choice to kill Joel through this victimized lens — believing Neil Druckmann did this to punish us – is partly why some players felt antagonized and don’t want to go through that loss again.
Without the bitter, the sweet wouldn’t be so sweet
TLOU2 is a special ride because it takes advantage of our capacity to love and grieve. It’s not that I enjoy putting myself through nauseating emotional strife (although, when the mood strikes…), it’s a matter of appreciating staying power.
People behind the scenes did their job correctly if the player was moved by a character loss. Whether that be Troy Baker’s convincing motion-capture performance, the gorgeous score, or the game’s sobering direction.
Unless a character’s demise is underwhelming and reductive, being open to death as a natural narrative fold is a reasonable expectation.
Oscar Wilde said, “Some things are more precious because they don’t last long.” Bittersweet series finales, games that lay their heroes to rest knowing there’s no more story to tell, and movies that leave you with something to chew on are often so effective at drawing us in.
If Baldur’s Gate 3 save scumming taught us anything, it’s that if we have control over our favorite characters’ fates, there would be little death or loss at all. It’s natural to resist harm befalling great people, real or fictional, because empathy is one of our built-in features – or at least, it should be.
We’ve seen Inside Out. We know that there cannot be joy without sadness.
The Abby problem
The misogynistic dehumanizing of Abby by the fanbase gives credence to the game’s stance that us vs. them thinking is a route to dangerous apathy.
Much emotional nuance and logical reasoning was lost in the rage. We watched Ellie ignore the cycle of violence, unwilling to grasp how Joel set his death in motion. As players, we’re baited into that same primal instinct – to react, to get revenge.
There has been a lot of talk about media literacy lately, and The Last of Us 2 is one of its bloodiest victims. The game attempts to provide a visceral experience by letting you live out the revenge fantasy before it eventually curdles and Ellie’s world shrinks around her.
When we find Abby at the end, the controller is meant to feel heavy, bogged down by the deeds committed to reach this crossroad. Many streamers were seen refusing to hit buttons, waiting to see if Ellie would stop if they did. Others met the beatdown with glee and were visibly confused when the game prevented the follow-through.
No matter how you play it (I know because I tried to stop the fight on the beach in every way possible), the result is the same. After almost killing a thin, weak Abby who wants to escape with Lev, Ellie pulls back at the last second.
Why do you hate Abby… when Ellie does the same things?
It’s clear why the game did this – it spends around 25 hours hammering in how every person thinks they’re the main character and dehumanizes faceless strangers. The hatred we feel for Abby, and the antagonizing decision to have you play through half the game as her, wasn’t a ‘gotcha’; it was the point. In the end, revenge feels worthless and more mindless killing untenable.
Plenty of people think this idea was executed badly, a position they have every right to take. However, many could not bite into these themes because they never empathized with Abby. The game doesn’t ask you to forgive her, but it hinges on the thesis that she isn’t more evil than Ellie.
The inability to extend grace to Abby for the same things the player does as Ellie is disappointing and strange because Abby is crucial to the narrative. If she doesn’t kill Joel, what reason is there for her in the story? There isn’t one. Do we want HBO cooking up their own recipe in her absence?
The Last of Us would betray its world by scrapping Joel’s death
There’s a time and a place for comfort food – when I watch Parks and Recreation, I don’t want to hear about any problem that can’t be solved in a neat half-hour. But The Last of Us is not that kind of universe, nor did it ever pretend to be.
We were shown ad-nauseam in the first game, and in The Last of Us Season 1, that Joel learned to disassociate from other people to kill them, to survive.
He could never have mowed down the Fireflies and carried Ellie out of that hospital without that learned behavior. He has been ending lives for decades, mostly out of necessity, but not always.
Joel and most survivors have done despicable things to protect the people they love. It’s a harsh, unforgiving world where misplaced trust will get you killed. There’s no sensible version of the story where a life like that doesn’t come back to haunt you.
As endearing as he was, Joel was no angel. He was not ruthlessly taken from us, he planted the seeds of his death long ago. If it weren’t Abby, it would have been someone else – I think they call it the cycle of violence, or something.
Yes, it hurts… and yes, it’s necessary
The games forced us to confront the common indiscriminate killing trope. Without knowing faces, names, and backstories, it’s so easy to bulldoze through NPCs. By shining a light on Abby’s life and father and how she lost her version of Joel, you no longer have that comforting distance.
You’re left with a husk when you remove his gnarly death. Even if you had him attacked but somehow survive, it smothers the story’s ideas.
There’s no suitable replacement to hammer home how resentment destroys us and human connection makes it impossible to take a life without the grief reverberating.
For more on the adaptation landscape, read how Halo failed to compete with The Last of Us, The Last of Us soundtrack, and everything we know about Fallout Season 2.