The Last of Us creator explains reason for controversial changes to gruesome twist that's given viewers nightmares
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Last of Us season two
The Last of Us fans have been left up in arms after the show made controversial changes to one of the most shocking moments in the game.
The show’s second season, starring Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal, and Kaitlyn Dever, adapts The Last of Us 2, Naughty Dog’s acclaimed but controversial sequel.
Rather than waiting or changing it, the most shocking moment from the second game happened in the second episode of season two, leaving viewers to compare it to Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding.
Spoilers below for season two, episode two
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In the episode, the actions of Pedro Pascal’s Joel in the season finale catch up with him, when a group of former Fireflies capture him and beat him to near death with a golf club.
When Ramsay’s Ellie arrives he is killed in front of her, with Dever’s Abby stabbing him in the neck with the shattered end of the club.
This marked one of a number of changes from the game, where she beats him to death with the still intact golf club.
In addition to this, in the game Joel is out on patrol with his brother Tommy, who in the show is left behind at Jackson to fight off a massive zombie attack.
In the show he is instead on patrol with Dina, Ellie’s love interest, with her being drugged.
Further, whilst Ellie is knocked out in the game after finding Joel being attacked by Abby, in the show she is kicked in the stomach, leaving her alive to crawl over and lie with Joel’s body.
Add to that them combining the characters of Jordan and Manny from the game into one, the changes were deeply controversial online, with one fan tweeting: “Damn the Last of Us show fumbled arguably the most important episode NOT to f**k up you have to be genuinely lying if you think any change or decisions they made were better than the game or even good for that matter.”
Other fans were behind the changes though, with one posting: “I thought the latest episode of The Last of Us was f**king incredible and the slight changes they made from the game will actually serve this particular story quite well.”
Neil Druckmann, the co-creator of the game, and show co-creator Craig Mazin have spoken about their explanation for the changes coming.
Speaking to The Wrap, Druckmann said of the changes to who goes on patrol: “ One, we wanted to show what’s at stake for Jackson, because that will come into play later in the season as well.”
He stated that Tommy felt like the ‘natural’ character for that.
The Naughty Dog chief also went on to say that they wanted to ‘demonstrate and show more of Dina’s relationship with Joel’.
He went on to say: “The other thing is we’re building Jesse up more than we did in the game. We wanted to show more of his dynamic with Ellie, and the relationship between Ellie and Dina takes a few different turns throughout the whole season.”
A famous segment in the game in which Ellie and Dinah, whilst on patrol at the same time as Joel’s death, shack up in what turns out to be a weed grow house.
Whilst many worried this was being left out entirely, Druckmann assured fans that it would ‘goes somewhere else that has not happened in the show’.
The gruesome death of Joel has left some fans with nightmares as a result of the shocking brutality.
One fan posted to reddit to say: “I literally woke up during the night and couldn’t fall asleep thinking of Joel on the floor. The fact that it was entirely circumstantial, jf the weather was different, if his patrol partner was different, if he had taken refuge in another building.
“Something about a man getting beat to death so brutally and cruelly and viscerally just really shook me. I think such a charismatic and well loved actor behind the character made it feel even worse. And poor Ellie!
“Don’t know if a character death has ever stuck with me 24 hours after watching, and I watched GoT. I almost want to quit the series I was so disturbed. Anyone else or am I just getting soft??”
Topics: TV, TV and Film, Gaming, HBO
Michael Slavin