I’m nervous about it.
Let this be your notice that thar be lots and lots of spoilers below.
For anyone who hasn’t played the game itself, there’s quite a bit more story left in the season, and there’s a question if 43 minutes is enough time to actually capture it all.
All over the internet, people are breaking down their expectations for the final episode on a minute to minute basis and while some of them make sense, all of them have a feeling of being a bit rushed. That said, The Last of Us showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have pulled a rabbit out of a hat this season by staying true to the key emotional beats of a brilliant video game.
I hope, at the very least, it’s opened some eyes around video gaming for the uninitiated. Perhaps now some people, like treasured The Antagonist writer Orly Minazad and grumpy Managing Editor Laura J. Burns will begrudgingly admit that not every video game is PacMan.
I mean, check this out.
While I’m gushing, can we talk about “I got you baby girl?”
I mean, holy shit.
As a person who played the game years ago despite loathing scary shit, I viscerally remember the David boss fight and how many times I tried to get away from him in that burning cabin. Goddamn he killed me so many times I have trauma from it, but what a scene. What a performance from Scott Shepherd as David.
Even more impressive, to my mind, was Troy Baker’s James.
Baker, for those who aren’t gamers, is the voice of Joel himself in the game. So imagine that you’ve spent the last decade or so relating to and audibly embodying Joel, whose sole defining purpose is to protect Ellie, and then you have to go out there and try to kill Joel, and kill Ellie.
I mean. Hoooooooo boy!
Baker was psyched, though, saying in various interviews that he thought he’d just be a clicker so he was psyched to have a more featured role.
Now let’s take a quick look at some of the most fun The Last of Us tweets as we head into the final episode.
God, what a moment. At some point, we’ll have to discuss how those of us who played the game really related to the version of Joel that tortured those two guys to get to Ellie. More than that, though, he was “my Joel” when he willed himself out of his mattress to demolish the men who were hunting him and turned the tides on them. There were a few episodes early where Joel was like spray firing at clickers and lots of gamers were like “huh! That’s not my Joel.” Only when he became a ninja did uberdorks like me start to relate to what they had personally experienced with him. I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that, either immediately or eventually, as a primary character in a video game, you do triumph, even if it takes a while and many attempts.
Some more fun tweets:
And to finish on a sweet note:
The Last of Us season finale airs this Sunday on HBOMax.
