The Last of Us season two Through the Valley recap: Well that happened
Spoilers follow forThe Last of Usseason two, episodes one and two
Season one of HBO’s The Last of Us laid down a firm pact with viewers: core game narratives should be faithfully adapted, while the world around it should be crafted. Season two is not merely holding to its promise but rather detonation thereof. Episode two brings an incredible array of events never before seen on either show or game: a siege of Jackson Hole by a horde of Infected. Casting aside those stereotypical clickers and bloaters as mere phantoms of the mind, what we have here is a nightmarish tidal wave of Infected. The battle stands on equal with desperate clashes in Game of Thrones or the well-remembered siege of Helm’s Deep in Lord of the Rings: We witness a desperate defense, in which the flame of courage is barely flickering. Heroes are born and fall; sacrifices are made and somehow, begrudgingly, humanity’s flickering light still glows to exist.
The earth trembles. Clash of armies? Yes, but within the dark and cruel expanse, a more hideous intimacy burgeons. Joel’s sins, kept at bay for so long, claw back to the surface. Abby, driven by vengeance and aided by the remainder of the Seattle Fireflies, hands down further devastation. Joel fell. The blow not only struck him but us as well. To be forewarned dulls the blade. In this broken world where justice is only a bleed of gray, is it truly justice, or just another rung on that ladder towards pain?
From the first minutes of the premiere, the path served as another indication that destiny was bound to take Abby into some dark places, but, even then, the pace of her journey down still managed to give one an eerie jolt. One could say the same for Joel, but an intriguing question emerged over HBO: How was Craig Mazin going to handle the controversial happenings of the second game and the death of Joel, in particular?
A part of me dreamed of a slow-burning story, where Joel’s fate was cloaked in mystery until the end of the season, while Abby’s motives were brought forth piece by agonizing piece. Instead, the truth was boiled over in the second episode: Abby’s father was none other than the surgeon whom Joel killed to save Ellie. The revelation was served brutally fast, and this gave the television audience a very different albeit unsettling shade to Abby’s thirst for vengeance. However, the game kept the information from the player for a good while, painting Abby as a straightforward antagonist, thus lighting Ellie’s revenge as the driving force for the player.
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
While the narrative methods in video games don’t always work in passive mediums, the reveal of Abby’s motivations, perhaps somewhat prematurely, in no way hindered my experience. So, in the same way, the introduction of her crew and their unyielding pursuit of Joel felt natural. On the flip side, however, there’s another way to look at it in my opinion: revealing Abby’s motivation so early kills the mystery, undermining the carefully crafted momentum that held the players in its grip. That’s a fair criticism, though I really never minded it.
Imagine tuning in, popcorn in hand, only to witness the gut-wrenching demise of a lead character by episode two. For the uninitiated, nothing short of a downright sledgehammer would have done justice to the brutal fate of Joel. After all, the man had just saved Abby from the clutches of death! One could have wished for that act to somehow have brought about a change in Abby, to put less blame on her, or to save Joel from torturous death. Instead, she basked in it-and this even supposedly disturbed her allies. Then the real wrench in the works was thrown: Ellie, caliente and full of life an hour before, finds poor Dina unconscious and faces a final tormenting witness of Abby’s contemptible act. This horrid event gains ghastly extra hue, making it unforgettable when you remember Ellie’s cold shun of Joel at the dance the previous night, that final cruel jest of fate.
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Pedro Pascal’s omnipresence made “The Last of Us” seem like destined landmark in his career. Joel’s sudden death, while politically accurate to the narrative, feels like a punch to the gut. Of course, the flashbacks may tease some more glimpses, but the efficient center has gone with it. HBO paid the price of snubbing its star attraction, a dark kind of decision that has some eerie parallels to Ned Stark’s head being cut off in “Game of Thrones.” The North Star of the audience has been taken away. Now, the fate of the whole infected universe and indeed that of the series lie with Bella Ramsey. Will she step up? The rest of the season will reveal.
Mazin and Mylod effortlessly maneuver the sprawling aspects of the narrative and the ensemble. Kaitlyn Dever, indeed, stormed in, with Abby’s restrained rage channeled with an electric intensity-the game inspired on strong lines of violence. The tension in her comebacks with Joel and Dina was palpable even before the ultimate and brutal turn. Pascal and Merced deserve complete adulation; the deftness of their shifts from desperate rescuers to victims of betrayal is quite breathtaking.
Kaitlyn Dever in HBO’s The Last of Us
(Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO)
The quest for Joel turns into a desperate race against time as Ramsey and Young Mazino’s Jesse scour the ravaged landscape of the country. Gabriella Luna and Rutina Wesley, meanwhile, undertaking the roles of Tommy and Maria back in Jackson, act as the last bulwark before the mass hordes of Infected will sweep away their sanctuary. Even with these imperative storylines running parallel with the most devastating battle ever conceived during this series, culminating in Joel’s capture and heart-wrenching death, the episode never felt bloated. This is because of the ingenious interweaving of plot lines by the writers, which was effectively directed and deeply embodied by the cast.
Jackson’s stand against the Infected wasn’t just a battle; it was the careful balancing act of a symphony of hope and doom. The trailers predicted utter chaos, and that was the least of it. Picture this: oil barrels being showered from the fortified walls; a ring of flames spurting from the flamethrower; snipers perched like gargoyles. Jackson was ready. Until he wasn’t. Once the horde breached the wall, any amount of planning fell away into frantic scrambling for mere survival; gnawing doubt set in: Could Jackson-the one that stands for hope, truly fall? The show so tantalizingly dangled that potentiality, playing with our expectations of the lore as established in the game. This was not merely a consequence borne out of the relative Infected drought that occurred in season one; this was a narrative masterstroke. The large-scale disaster miraring the deeply personal loss of the key citizen magnified an already-grieving town-and bestowed them with more pain.
Infected Score: 11/10
Season two promises with another terrifying horde to be unleashed: will the showrunners truly deliver an Infected apocalypse? Let’s watch and find out if they will honor this plague-ridden promise.
Tommy, a raging inferno, roasting a Bloater against the sterile backdrop of a Mailboxes Etc.? A burning sea of Infected, set ablaze by exploding oil drums, engulfing a field in apocalyptic light? The nightmare of living corpses festering beneath a blanket of ice, erupting to let Abby shriek towards the fate Joel faced? Jackson’s dog sentinels, a furry defense to stem the tide of death? This was no mere action; it was a symphony of destruction, something that mere gamedom should only dream of. Good luck topping that, show.
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