With the release of Last of Us 2 Remastered and the announcement of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby for Season 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us, my mind’s been (yet again) swimming in reminiscences of how outstanding LOU1/2 were. They are the gold standard for story-driven, triple-A video game properties. They are also incredibly, and arguably justifiably, violent. In their adaptation to TV in HBO’s The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin glossed-over, foreshortened, or excised many of the long-running, violent episodes from the game. I think this is a narrative mistake that has weakened the characterization of Ellie and imperiled the story mechanics of a second season (and beyond).

Spoiler/Content warning: Obviously, spoiler warnings for the first season, first game, and the second game. Also, I’ll discuss a very post-apocalyptic horror hellscape of person-to-person violence…that also includes zombies