Save the Dog: Why They Cut Alice from the Last of Us Finale

Geek Feed

a day ago

The Last of Us finale had come as a shock to several viewers, but anyone who's played the game knew exactly what was coming… sort of.
Fans online have been discussing all sorts of changes the series has been doing compared to the game, and a lot of fans were wondering just where Alice a.k.a. Mel's WLF-trained dog was. Since the dog was ultimately going to be killed by Ellie, showrunner Craig Mazin thought that having Ellie kill a dog would have been 'one too much' for the scene.
Talking to Polygon, Mazin explains , 'There are two cardinal rules in Hollywood, one, don't spend your own money, two, don't kill a dog… Plus, because it's live action, the nature of violence becomes much more, well, graphic. It's more graphic because…it's not like there's an animation between you and it, [and] it's very disturbing.'
Seeing that Ellie already kills Owen, Mel, and (indirectly) Mel's baby (plus Jessie gets shot); it was game creator Neil Druckmann who said, '…in our conversation, we're like this [is] probably one too many.'
Interestingly enough, some fans were complaining that Mazin was so 'fine' with dog murder in Chernobyl , to which he actually addresses that in the interview, 'I think you get like one dog murdering episode a lifetime.'
If anything, most of the audience's investment on Alice actually comes from Abby's side of the story since players get to interact and even play with her in the game. No doubt Alice will probably be introduced in the next season, but who knows, maybe it's Tommy that offs her this time.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Check out the complete second season of The Last of Us now streaming on HBO Max.