Movies News Talk
Craig Mazin, co-creator of HBO's The Last of Us TV series, hinted that the show would examine "unseen stories" from The Last of Us Part II, therefore implying that it is extrapolating a small number of background narratives from the game. Recent revelations about The Last of Us season 2 and beyond from Mazin and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann come from Deadline. Their TV version of The Last of Us Part II will occupy at least two seasons and maybe run into a third. They don't want to hurry through the plenty of story terrain that still has to be covered.
Mazin has hinted that the show will cover "Unseen Stories that were told within the context of that game's material," even if he has promised the TV series won't borrow its storytelling past from that of the source material. Beyond Ellie's vengeful quest in Seattle, the second season of The Last of Us will explore narrative strands the game only hinted at or referred to. This may involve making some of Ellie's notebook entries into their own episodes, investigating the beginnings of the W.L.F. fight with the Seraphites, or displaying story events that occurred off-screen.
Ellie and Dina's discovery of the horrific remnants and recorded evidence of Isaac's merciless revolt against FEDRA sets hints about the beginnings of the Washington Liberation Front as they are touring downtown Seattle. Though reading about that history in the game was fascinating, seeing it on TV would be even more exciting. The game lacked the cross-cutting, perspective-switching amenities the TV series would have.
Season 2 can clarify how the W.L.F. managed to topple the government bureaucrats and seize Seattle, much as The Last of Us season 1 covered in the specifics of the brutal militia group chasing down Sam and Henry. Like a Greek tragedy, the narrative of a gang of revolutionaries destroying a fascistic government later finds them themselves as fascistic oppressors. Furthermore, it would provide the TV makers a justification for more Jeffrey Wright—never a bad thing.
Ellie cuts through a neigHBOrhood called Hillcrest and discovers a set of letters depicting a convoluted portrait of a man named Boris Legasov when she sets off a solo trip across Seattle's suburbs. Before the epidemic, Boris was a talented archer; following the epidemic, he rose to be leader of his town and had a reputation as a brilliant clicker killer. Boris sought to fight war against the Wolves when his daughter Sofia was killed by the W.L.F.
Though they all wanted to exact revenge on Sofia just as much as he did, they believed that given the Wolves' population such an effort would be useless. Furious Boris imprisoned his neigHBOrs in a spore-filled garage, then contracted the disease when his best buddy Uli woke up and bit him. Not only is Boris's narrative complicated and sad enough for an entire episode; his quest for retribution following the murder of a loved one powerfully reflects Ellie's story.
Craig Mazin, co-creator of HBO's The Last of Us TV series, has hinted that the show will investigate "unseen stories" from The Last of Us Part II, therefore implying that the show is extending a small number of background narratives from the game. Recent revelations about The Last of Us Season 2 and beyond from Mazin and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann come from Deadline. Their TV version of The Last of Us Part II will occupy at least two seasons and maybe run into a third. They don't want to hurry through the plenty of story terrain that still has to be covered.
Mazin has hinted that the show will cover "Unseen Stories that were told within the context of that game's material," even if he has promised the TV series won't borrow its storytelling past from that of the source material. Beyond Ellie's vengeful quest in Seattle, the second season of The Last of Us will explore narrative strands the game only hinted at or referred to. This may involve making some of Ellie's notebook entries into their own episodes, investigating the beginnings of the W.L.F. fight with the Seraphites, or displaying story events that occurred off-screen.
Following Abby's grudgingly sparing Ellie, Dina, and Tommy's lives at the theater, there is a time jump to several months later when Ellie and Dina have moved into a farmhouse on Jackson's outskirts and are raising their son J.J. Jesse had been slain unexpectedly and the survivors had all sustained terrible injuries before Abby abandoned them at the theater. Tommy was wounded in the side of the head; Ellie broke her arm; Dina was pierced with an arrow and beaten unconscious.
The game is still unclear on how they healed from these wounds and made their way back to Jackson. The emotional wounds of failing their goal and losing Jesse would continue be fresh even after their physical wounds healed. Though sad, this melancholy journey home would be quite fascinating.
The Last of Us season 2 can examine the beginnings of the two groups' conflict with one another after investigating the W.L.F.'s and the Seraphites' backgrounds. Long enough the battle has been raging to have naïve young people like Abby, Lev, and Yara taught to hate the other side. The battle restarted right away after an attempted truce broke down due to such intensity of the conflict.
With danger right around Ellie's search for Abby, the civil war offers an interesting backdrop. But the war itself is an interesting story in its own right. It’s a poignant allegory for any civil war and humanity’s penchant for killing each other and otherizing anyone with opposing viewpoints. There’s a lot of rich history to mine from the Wolves’ war with the Seraphites.
In The Last of Us Part II, players are introduced to Lev and Yara when the latter is set to be executed alongside Abby and the former arrives to save her (and reluctantly saves Abby, too). This is a great introduction to the characters as it shows a Wolf and a pair of Seraphites being forced to work together against a common enemy. It’s one of the most intense sequences in the whole game, so it should remain intact in the TV adaptation.
But either before or after the execution scene, The Last of Us TV show should go back and show Lev and Yara’s lives before going on the run. They talk a lot about their former life on the Seraphites’ island, but the TV series has the “show, don’t tell” liberty that the game doesn’t always have. These flashbacks can round out Lev and Yara’s relationship with their mom to make her death even more tragic.
When Abby finally gets to the aquarium, she finds Owen sitting in his prized sailboat, drinking and contemplating, and asks him what happened with Danny. Owen went A.W.O.L. after Danny was found bleeding out, and both Danny and Isaac contend that Owen shot Danny to protect a Seraphite. After finding Owen in the sailboat, Abby gets his version of the story.
Owen was faced with the task of killing an unarmed elderly Seraphite who wasn’t even reaching for his weapon. Tired of fighting over land he no longer cares about, Owen refused to kill the defenseless old man, so Danny pointed his gun at Owen. In the ensuing fight, Danny got shot and Owen fled the scene. Patrick Fugit’s telling of this story is really powerful in the game, but it might be even more powerful to actually show what happened and look into the elderly Seraphite’s eyes.
As Ellie and Dina make their way through the Seattle Q.Z., they see a lot of murals bearing the image of a woman in religious garb accompanied by the phrases, “Feel her love,” and “May she guide you.” As the game goes on, it becomes apparent that this woman is the prophet who created the Seraphite religion. According to Lev, the prophet initially preached love and unity, but her teachings got twisted and misinterpreted until people started killing in her name.
Abby and Lev present two very different portraits of the Seraphite prophet. Since she never appears on-screen, it’s unclear which one of them is closer to the truth. It could be interesting for The Last of Us TV show to take an episode, or even just a cold open, to explore the prophet’s origin story.
When Ellie and Dina go out on patrol and Ellie asks about Dina’s recently terminated relationship with Jesse, Dina mentions that Ellie never really talked to her about Cat. In the game’s flashbacks, Cat’s role is expanded as stories about her start to appear in Ellie’s journal. Cat is Ellie’s ex-girlfriend who gave her the tattoo that covers the chemical burn that covers her bite mark.
Ellie’s journal entries describe her crush on Cat, their early flirtation, and eventually their first kiss. Ellie writes that when Cat kissed her, she became paranoid that she’d pass on her Cordyceps infection. She stayed up all night, watching Cat sleep, looking for any signs of infection. This key part of Ellie’s backstory – and reckoning with her immunity – would make a great flashback or standalone installment of the TV show.
While Ellie is desperately trying to avoid the full force of the W.L.F. on her way through Hillcrest, she bumps into Jesse, who came all the way from Jackson to help her and Dina track down Abby. It’s a great surprise when Ellie is racing past the W.L.F.’s troops, narrowly avoiding their gunfire, then gets grabbed and pulled into a secluded building. Initially, she thinks she’s been captured, but then she recognizes her friend.
Jesse mentions that he left Jackson the day after Ellie and Dina and he’s been doing 18-hour stretches to catch up with them. It would be interesting to see Jesse’s solo journey to Seattle in a montage in The Last of Us season 2. Jesse is one of The Last of Us saga’s most likable characters, so it would be great to see more of his story in the TV show.
The most important off-screen story thread from The Last of Us Part II – and the one that would be easiest to integrate into the TV adaptation – is Tommy’s roaring rampage of revenge through Seattle. Ellie and Dina leave for Seattle a few hours after Tommy and when they arrive in the city, they find plenty of evidence that he’s already there. They find his campsite downtown, they find a pile of bodies he left in his wake, and they find the bloody fruits of his signature interrogation technique.
Rather than alluding to what Tommy’s been getting up to in Seattle, The Last of Us season 2 can just show it. The TV show might use its cross-cutting abilities to show Ellie and Abby’s perspectives of the three days in Seattle simultaneously. They might as well throw Tommy’s perspective in there, too.
Source: Deadline