Spoilers follow for HBO’s The Last of Us and video game The Last of Us Part II.
There’s a quiet, rumbling inevitability to season two of HBO’s runaway video game adaptation, The Last of Us. It has been far, far more successful than even the most optimistic pundit could have predicted, amassing record-setting viewership week on week and achieving a ubiquitous, watercooler impression on general audiences. It also kicked off yet another round of heated debate amongst fans over whether or not lead character Joel Miller’s actions in its violent finale were justified or not, complicated further this time by the near-perfect likability of actor Pedro Pascal that’s been thrown into the maelstrom. So what happens in two years’ time when this new audience, primed on sympathetic Joel and feverish Pascal fandom, collides with the complicated, messy story of The Last of Us Part II?
Something we discussed at length here during our weekly episode recap podcast was the way in which this adaptation framed Joel to the audience. Contrasting with video game Joel, whose violence and possessiveness were more pronounced, television Joel spent the majority of the show’s run as a pretty understandable sad dad. This archetype was not something that was missing from the games either, but along the way, small changes have crafted a character that merely gestures toward his toxicity, leaving audiences far more primed to sympathise with his devastating rampage to save Ellie’s life in the season finale.
When faced with the possibility of a cure to the fungal infection but at the cost of Ellie’s life, Joel comes undone, ignoring what he knows of Ellie’s wishes and forsaking the world to avoid losing another daughter. It is sympathetic, a parent violently refusing to subject themselves to the greatest trauma known to them, again. That degree to which you can understand his actions is the tension the game magnificently traded on, slamming to credits before you could even fully comprehend the depth of Joel’s violence or your role in it. The adaptation, for all its one-to-one shot recreations, fundamentally alters the delicate chemistry of this complex final act through its campaign to make Joel as likeable as possible to the audience. Players at the time undoubtedly struggled too, especially among those who viewed Joel as the quintessential masculine hero ideal, but now a far wider audience needs to square away his actions against another idealised version of Joel – the well-intentioned dad.
This complicated relationship the adaptation has with its audience is a powder keg though, as season two is readying up to introduce another archetype that audiences have a historically explosive reaction to – morally compromised women. Developer Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II was itself a deeply divisive text among fans and critics, leaving behind the safety of Part I’s narrative devices and instead telling a glacial, fractured tale of violent revenge and forgiveness. In a decision I’m still impressed by all these years later, the game opens with Joel’s death at the hands of new character Abby Anderson, daughter of one of the many Fireflies Joel murdered while “rescuing” Ellie. It is one of video game’s most controversial moments, an incredibly violent and uncompromising blow to the assumed structure of the series and the catalyst for Part II’s sprawling story.
Briefly, Part II casts the player as both Ellie and Abby, playing through the first half of the game as the former searches for the latter before pivoting to Abby’s perspective for the second half. The third half returns players to Ellie’s shoes for an exhausting journey into darkness, ultimately resulting in an ending that leaves only the smallest glimmer of hope for Abby, and Ellie having lost everything. And now, this messy, unruly exploration of personal destruction is up for adaptation as showrunner Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman need to introduce Abby to an audience they’ve conditioned to defend Joel.
Broadly speaking, television audiences have something of a spotty record when it comes to complicated women they deem a threat to their idealised men. There are countless examples across broadcast history but perhaps none more notable than Skyler White, the abused but ethically comprised wife of Walter White in Breaking Bad. Played by the immaculate Anna Gunn, who penned a deeply personal essay on her treatment during the show’s prime for The New York Times, Skyler drew out the worst in audiences who were incapable, or unwilling, to entertain the idea of a morally-unmoored woman in a show full of celebrated men of the same leaning. While Walt’s contradictions were nuanced, Skyler’s were hypocritical, his violence justified and hers unhinged. Gender double standards plague every corner of our lives but in our media consumption and reaction, it is laid bare and retweeted.
Abby Anderson, having faced incomprehensible backlash from gamers already, is about to be shown to the same general audience that rejects characters like Skyler White. Given the show’s failure to fully grapple with Joel’s true nature, its audience has been left in an emotionally tenuous place as it barrels towards the character’s death. Fuelled by cinematic language that framed Joel as warmer and a bad allergy to complex women, it’s impossible to not worry that Abby’s introduction will go as poorly, or worse than it originally did in 2020. Her violence will be inflicted upon an even deeper entrenched, beloved man, and her contradictions even further scrutinised because of it. To say nothing of the egregious transphobia and misogyny that swarmed Abby’s character design, with many bad-faith actors decrying her physical attributes – a trend we saw with Bella Ramsey’s casting already as ‘fans’ rejected the actor for physical likeness ‘issues’ alone.
Part II also sees Ellie engage in countless acts of horrendous violence but if the audience isn’t allowed to move beyond her position – one that justifies these choices out of justice for Joel – then this adaptation will have truly unravelled. Much speculation has been made about who will be cast as Abby for season two but I can’t help but eye these conversations with caution, whoever ends up with the role potentially being subjected to a sustained hate campaign from ‘fans’ as we’ve seen happen to countless women before her.
Abby Anderson in The Last of Us Part II
It’s difficult to quantify as (broadly again) I’m a strong proponent of trusting your audience with complicated ideas. That said, if the outburst of backlash to Part II taught us anything it’s that a large portion of The Last of Us’ audience wasn’t able to unpack the impact of Joel’s actions and, in turn, were unable to comprehend a sequel that dragged them into the light, kicking and screaming. What HBO’s adaptation had the chance to do was not correct this as such but learn from it, gently guiding viewers to different conclusions, ones that would allow Part II’s story to land in clearer heads and slightly more open minds.
Instead, The Last of Us doubled down on Joel and has, in turn, set up television’s next complicated woman to fail. Abby Anderson is an outstanding achievement in writing for the medium and her introduction to live-action could still be one of television’s best as well. But history warns us otherwise and Mazin’s audience is primed to repeat mistakes of the past, if the show even has the nerve to pull it off in the first place. Either way, godspeed to whoever plays Abby in the show, I hope you come out swinging.
