Latest news with #NaughtyDog
Scientific American
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Scientific American
Behind the Scenes on the Science of The Last of Us
Behavioral ecologist David Hughes, who consulted on the video game that inspired the hit TV show The Last of Us, speaks about how our experience with the COVID pandemic changed the way we relate to zombie fiction By & Nature magazine The year was 2013, and the release of a hotly anticipated zombie-apocalypse video game was on the horizon. The game, called The Last of Us, invited players to explore what then seemed a fanciful scenario: a world devastated by a pandemic in which a pathogen kills millions of people. Unlike in many apocalypse fictions, the pathogen responsible wasn't a bacterium or a virus, but a fungus called Cordyceps that infects humans and takes over their brains. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The writers at game studio Naughty Dog, based in Santa Monica, California, were inspired by real fungi — particularly Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, known as the zombie-ant fungus. The fungus infects insects and releases chemicals into the animals' brains to change their behaviour. Ahead of the game's release, Naughty Dog turned to scientists, including behavioural ecologist David Hughes, a specialist in zombie-ant fungi (he named one after his wife), to field questions from the media about the fungal and pandemic science that inspired the story. Hughes, who is at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park, has since moved to studying climate change and food security. The Last of Us spawned a sequel game in 2020 and a critically acclaimed television show, the second season of which concludes on 25 May on HBO. Hughes spoke to Nature about his experience consulting on the game and why COVID-19 changed our appetite for zombies. What was your involvement with the game? Naughty Dog studios asked me and a few other people who were notable in this space, including psychologists, to talk about whether we could have a global pandemic. Of course, in the intervening period, we all learnt that the answer was yes. They asked us to go around Europe and do a series of lectures to stave off critique and provide support to the idea that infections that jump from one species into another — zoonotic infections — are not only possible, but actually they're the predominant mechanism by which humans are infected with new parasites that cause disease. I had the good fortune to go to the studios and see the artistry that was involved, and meet the team and the voice actors of the video game. What did you make of the science in the game? I was really impressed by how much the game's writers got into the science of it and started to understand things like fungi and slime moulds, and just trying to think about the ways in which these organisms do their business. They really took it by themselves and incorporated those elements into the game. I think they were even mail-ordering slime moulds so they could just leave it out on a petri dish and examine it. And you see that throughout the game. And now in the TV programme, in the intros, they have these slime balls. The writers were geeky, and understanding fungi is not complex, so they ran with it. Did you play the games? I tried and I failed miserably! I'm just a typical hopeless scientist. Is the idea of a Cordyceps pandemic realistic? It is not unrealistic that fungi can infect humans if they come from animals. It is unrealistic to think that they could cause the behavioural changes in humans. The writers took liberties. They had different stages about how the infection changes over time. That's all fanciful, of course. Looking at the second season of the TV show, it was interesting that they have this communicative nature of the spores or the fungal hyphae. That's interesting because we know fungi are connected like that over many kilometres — for example, the mycorrhizal fungi, which are underneath root systems in trees, do that effectively. Have you been impressed by the science in the TV show? I often find that's the wrong question, because I dont think the job of the entertainment industry is to impress scientists. Scientists are highly problematic individuals. It's called the Carl Sagan effect. The more you popularize science, the less good your science is. It's an inverse relationship. I think it doesn't really matter. Science belongs to society, and people should tell stories about that. And, you know, snooty scientists saying, 'Oh, you didn't get this exactly right,' — like, who cares? What was your reaction when the COVID-19 pandemic happened? I told you so! In The Last of Us lectures, I talk about the same thing. I said, the problem is not whether we'll have zombie-ant fungi manipulating humans. It's not going to happen. The problem is if we lose 5% of our population, and the global economy shuts down, which we saw. Do you think the COVID-19 pandemic changed our appetite for zombie-apocalypse media? It's very interesting. You build a game about a dystopian future based on a pandemic, you live through a pandemic, and then what's the relevance of the game or the movie? I think our appetite for being scared by pandemics has receded because we all have PTSD. Or, we don't have PTSD and realized that some of us just don't care about other people. So it's interesting to look at the history of zombie lore. Back in the 1950s and 60s, it was all about nuclear weapons, because we were all collectively fearful of that. And then it moved into diseases, because we had an over-populated society. Then we had a pandemic, and we shrugged and moved on. So the fascinating thing is, The Last of Us is nice, but it's not what it used to be. first published on May 23, 2025.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The Last Of Us season 3 coming soon? Here's everything you need to know about Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey's show
Season 2 of The Last of Us , starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, wrapped up today with its gripping seventh episode—and it did not disappoint. While some fans of the original Naughty Dog game took issue with certain changes and others still favor Season 1, there's no denying that Season 2 delivered even more emotional weight—especially with the heartbreaking loss of Joel and its aftermath. With the finale now aired, fans are eagerly asking: Will there be a Season 3 of The Last of Us? The answer is Yes. HBO has officially renewed the series for a third season. Is there a release date? Not yet. The streaming platform hasn't announced a release date for Season 3. However, given the two-year gap between Seasons 1 and 2, a 2027 premiere seems likely. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Taytay: Here's How Much Dental Implants Really Cost In 2025 Dental implant | Search Ads Learn More ALSO READ: Trump kicks off Memorial Day with controversial rant by ripping into 'decrepit corpse' Biden What Is The Last of Us About? The Last of Us is a critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic drama created by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, adapted from the 2013 video game by Naughty Dog. The series stars Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, alongside Gabriel Luna (Tommy), Isabela Merced (Dina), Young Mazino (Jesse), and Kaitlyn Dever (Abby Anderson). Live Events In India, Seasons 1 and 2 are currently streaming on JioCinema (formerly Hotstar). In fact, showrunner Craig Mazin recently said that they won't be able to finish up the story with the third season alone so a fourth season is in the lineup too. In an interview with Collider, Mazin stated, 'But certainly, there's no way to complete this narrative in a third season. Hopefully, we'll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth. That's the most likely outcome.' ALSO READ: Memorial Day 2025: What's open and shut in US? See which stores are operating today Bella Ramsey subjected to online hate Bella Ramsey has been a constant target of trolls following the release of The Last of Us Season 2. Noted for her stunning performance at a young age, Bella Ramsey has recently become the target of severe internet hatred, particularly since playing Ellie in HBO's The Last of Us. Bella Ramsey has faced constant harassment on platforms such as Reddit and X despite getting Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. The second season draws from Part II of the video game series, set four years after the events of the first game. It portrays Ellie as older, tougher, and physically stronger. At 21, Ramsey has faced intense online criticism and mockery from some fans who argue she doesn't closely resemble the video game version of Ellie. Bella Ramsey getting trolled Ramsey started facing online criticism ever since she was announced to portray Ellie, a role deeply rooted into the LGBTQ+ storyline of the famous game that has been adapted by HBO for its series. ALSO READ: On Memorial Day, Florida residents asked to reconsider their plans and stay indoors. Check latest weather update 'Why is there so much hate towards Bella Ramsay?" read the question posed by a user on Reddit. Bella Ramsey, who rose to fame at the age of 11 for her portrayal of the fearless Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones, has continued to grow up in the public eye. Her role as the host of a series based on one of the most beloved video games has, however, made her a target for criticism. Much of the backlash—driven largely by far-right circles and online communities often referred to as the "manosphere"—centers on Ramsey not conforming to traditional standards of beauty or conventional expectations for female leads. Online trolls frequently circulate doctored images and AI-generated edits of her, promoting women they deem more stereotypically attractive. Tensions escalated further as the show embraced the original game's LGBTQ+ themes. While Ellie's sexuality has always been a core element of the game's narrative, its on-screen portrayal—especially in a second season that highlights her romantic relationship—has provoked outrage among some viewers. Critics have labeled the series as 'too woke,' while others appear unsettled by the depiction of a queer protagonist who isn't presented through a lens of male objectification. ALSO READ: Did French Prez Macron's wife Brigitte just slap him? Watch shocking incident that went viral Who is Bella Ramsey? Bella Ramsey, who identifies as non-binary and has spoken openly about her experiences with anorexia, mental health challenges, and, more recently, autism, has chosen to step away from social media due to ongoing harassment. In an interview with The New York Times, Ramsey shared how the negativity began to take a toll on her well-being. 'It's the first time I've ever had a negative reaction to something. There would be times I'd find it funny. Then I'd get to the end of a 10-minute scrolling session, put my phone down and realize: Maybe that was a bad idea.' She has since deactivated her Instagram and Twitter accounts. Speaking with Game of Thrones co-star Kit Harington, she explained, 'I've reached a point where I don't actually need this anymore. People know that a fake account pretending to be me isn't me.' ALSO READ: Memorial Day 2025: Massive air disruptions across US due to severe weather conditions, hundreds of flights grounded Bella said she never really wanted to be on social media in the first place. 'I always knew that I'd [deactivate] it one day,' she said. 'It wasn't like this big, dramatic thing, but I thought with season two coming out, it would be better to just avoid Twitter and Reddit. Now I'm doing that, and everything's fine.' Despite the backlash, Ramsey remains deeply committed to her craft. 'If you don't want to watch the show because it has gay storylines or a trans character, that's your loss,' she told the publication. The Last of Us streams on HBO worldwide, and on JioCinema in India. Season two stars Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal, and Kaitlyn Dever. Two episodes are out now, with new ones released each week. Much like her character Ellie in The Last of Us, Ramsey refuses to be silenced or sidelined. Her strength lies in her defiance — a quality that makes her presence at the heart of the series all the more powerful.
The Review Geek
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Review Geek
The Last Of Us Season 2 Review – The worst show of the year?
Season 1 Season 2 Episode Guide Episode 1 -| Review Score – 3/5 Episode 2 -| Review Score – 3/5 Episode 3 -| Review Score – 3/5 Episode 4 -| Review Score – 2.5/5 Episode 5 -| Review Score – 2/5 Episode 6 -| Review Score – 3.5/5 Episode 7 -| Review Score – 2/5 The Last Of Us 2 is one of the most divisive and hotly contested games of all time. When it dropped back in 2020, critics loved it. It was touted as one of the greatest games of all time, with many outlets giving it top marks and praising every aspect of the title. There were some outliers (ourselves included here!) that didn't share that same sentiment, and the user reaction tells a very different story. To this day, the game remains a hotbed of discussion, torn into factions between those who love and those who loathe the title – and it's easy to see why. It's hard not to discuss spoilers when talking about The Last of Us part 2 so for that reason, this review will include spoilers, most notably about one character's death in episode 2, and the general plot direction of The Last Of Us Part 2 videogame. You have been warned! The biggest talking point of The Last of Us 2 comes from Joel's death. Our titular character from the first game, who made a tough choice to save Ellie from the Fireflies, is unceremoniously killed off within the first hours of the game. It's a brutal, savage affair, with an angry, vengeance-fuelled woman called Abby destroying this beloved character with a golf club. The same woman who we spend a good 10-12 hours playing as in the game. The other half sees you playing as Ellie, hunting down Abby's group and looking to exact revenge no matter the cost. The game flits back and forth between Ellie and Abby, and [laying as Joel's killer is not a particularly pleasant experience. The game uses every psychological trick in the book to railroad you into feeling empathy toward her and growing disdain for Ellie. Abby has the better combat options, more explosive guns and she can destroy Infected with her own bare hands. It's just generally a more pleasant experience to play as Abby – and that's by design. It all feeds into the psychological aspect of nudging players into a good experience with Abby, and it extends into visceral QTE sections too. At one point Ellie is forced to kill a dog that jumps at you with a hit of a button. However, we soon learn that this is Abby's dog and a few hours later we're playing catch with said dog during a flashback. These tricks pop up a lot in the game, and it's something that the videogame medium can get away with a lot more effectively. There's also the situation involving the game's pacing, which is pretty bad at times, and the overall message about how revenge is bad, the cycle of violence only leads to more violence and how forgiveness is the most important virtue of all are all very surface level. That's before mentioning how this revelation contradicts the fact you've just spent hours mowing down thousands of unnamed goons. Whatever way you slice it, adapting this game was never going to be an easy feat and with HBO in the driver's seat, they had an opportunity here to try and polish up this game into a narrative that was more palatable for a larger audience. And boy, have they dropped the ball. The Last Of Us season 2 doesn't just adapt the bad parts of the story, it completely recontextualizes parts of it and adds extra elements that undermine the entire point of the game. There are so many little changes along the way that destroy the integrity and structure of this narrative, that by the time you finish the seventh and final episode, you'll be scratching your head, wondering how this season managed to drop the ball so badly. This season adapts half the videogame, essentially just stopping midway through the story, ready for the third season to pick up in the near future. The seven episodes here follow Joel, Ellie and the others in the commune as they prepare for the next chapter in their lives. Things between Ellie and Joel are not good though. Their relationship is on the rocks after Ellie suspects Joel lied to her about the Firefly fiasco at the end of season 1. She's moved out the house, she's becoming a teenager now and she's branching out in her own direction. This drama from the Salt Lake City lab, where Joel killed a bunch of surgeons and took off with Ellie out of Firefly HQ, has serious ramifications for the story. One of those doctors happens to be the dad of a young girl called Abby. Blinded by rage, she takes her friends and hunts down Joel, determined to get her revenge. This then leads into a quest for vengeance, where Joel is unceremoniously killed in episode 2 and Ellie sets out to exact her revenge on Abby and her group as a consequence of this. All the while, the city of Jackson faces a horde of Infected that threaten to tear everything down. Episode 2 is decently paced and a definite high point of the season, although subtle changes like Tommy cowering from an Infected and Dina rather than Tommy up with Joel during the climax at the cabin are the beginning of big cracks forming in this narrative. It's here where the story then shifts across to Ellie's perspective for most of the season that follows. It's also where more changes are compounded – and not for the better. Unlike in the game, the show depicts a good chunk of time passing before Ellie sets out. This softens ger raw emotion as a result. She's still determined to track down Abby but her character is much less dark and gritty, with a distinct lack of urgency. She and Dina set out together and throughout the next series of episodes, the pair joke and laugh about, making tons of noise and forgetting how the Infected work in this world. Speaking of forgetting, the first season made a conscious choice to explain to us how the Cordyceps infection works. In the game, spores would infect you so hazmat suits and covering up were a necessity. This was changed for the show because they wanted you to see the actors' faces. However, season 2 completely forgets about this and has a pretty significant scene, taken beat for beat from the game, where a character dies from the spores. It's just one example of how poor the writing is in this season, where the writers can't even keep track of their own lore changes. The middle slew of episodes are a tough watch because of this. The early chapters in season 2 make a big deal about a subplot involving smart Infected and showing them working together. We see them ambush Ellie and Dina, we also see them working together to attack Jackson. It's great stuff and ratchets up the tension but then the second half of the season just completely abandons this plotline. In fact, they're turned into an afterthought most of the time. There's a lot more walking and talking here, and while that in itself would be fine, it's made painfully dull by the fact Dina and Ellie have zero chemistry together. The biggest culprit of that though stems from Bella Ramsey's portrayal of Ellie. It's nothing short of a disaster and one of the biggest miscasts in Hollywood history. It's hard to put into words how bad her performance is but when you compare some of her scenes against Ashley Johnson's excellent performance in the game, it's embarrassing how little range Ramsey has. The only saving grace here is that Kaitlyn Dever's portrayal of Abby is fantastic. She doesn't get many lines this season but damn, she's a great actress. She absolutely wipes the floor with Ramsey in the moments she does get and at least with her as the focal point in season 3, we may get some good acting to go with the story. It's actually pretty crazy because they manage to do here what the games failed to do – make you want Ellie to fail. Whether this character has been self-sabotaged or not is up for debate but it's a particular problem when this is the actress you're resting your entire show's narrative arc on. The revenge mission itself not only suffers from these constant jokes and Marvel-esque humour that's infected everything, but it also muddies the waters significantly when it comes to core motivations. In the game, Ellie had so much conviction and urgency that you knew she was in control of every situation. In the show however, Ellie is constantly questioning her own actions, driven forward by Dina planning and guiding her, or being chewed out by Jesse to get her back in the game. You never get the feel of this Ellie actually being the one leading this pack, and that's a big problem. The show does attempt to add more depth to the conflict though, expanding out the city of Seattle with an ongoing feud. On the one hand we have the WLF, a rebel militia group and the faction Abby is a part of. They're caught in a bitter feud with the Seraphites, a religious entity known colloquially as the Scars, who are operating out in the woods. The conflict spills over into Ellie's mission several times, but it's never done in a way where we get significant danger or tension for our protagonist. The pacing of this season is absolutely dreadful too, with many episodes padded out with meaningless scenes including Ellie singing 'Take On Me' and banging drums… in the middle of an amplified theatre, in a city with soldiers on the look-out and Infected lurking about. That's before mentioning the meandering walk-and-talk scenes, which I've covered already, Ellie's constant incompetence in combat situations, and a finale that just flatlines into ending. A cliffhanger ending itself is fine when done effectively, but after such a meandering season, we now have to wait 2 years before we get more of this story. The problem with that is it's going to give viewers a lot of time to chew over and digest what they've seen – and I have a feeling a lot of those people are going to leave with a bad taste in their mouths. When it comes to the visual design and production of this season though, The Last of Us is still a pretty show, albeit not to the same level as the first part. Seeing this post-apocalyptic version of Seattle is great, and some of the sets are genuinely beautiful to look at. The camera work is generally quite good across the board too and there are a couple of very nice tracking shots here, especially when it mirrors some of the great Directing seen in the game. Seeing a forest lit up with torchlight is eerily intoxicating, and contrasts nicely with the frozen and snowy version of Jackson we see early on. These are but two examples and the series is littered with many scenes like this. Overall though, The Last of Us season 2 is not just a bad adaptation of source material, it's just a bad season of TV full stop. Terrible pacing is meshed in with bad dialogue, which is only compounded further by terrible acting and a distinct lack of chemistry on-screen. The smart Infected storyline goes nowhere, while contrived writing is mixed with a jarring tone that can't quite decide if it wants to be a quirky road trip or a genuine exploration of anger and grief. Somehow, The Last of Us season 2 has united a divisive fanbase into agreeing on one fact – this is not a good adaptation. Whether season 3 can actually turn things around or not is still up for debate but it'll need to pull off something special to come back from this car crash of a season.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Want More of ‘The Last of Us'? Read These Books Next.
HBO's propulsive, nail-biting series 'The Last of Us' — based on the acclaimed video game by Naughty Dog — offers a bleak and brutal depiction of the apocalypse, as hardscrabble survivors including Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) navigate a fallen world crawling with flesh-eating 'infected,' not to mention other healthy humans who range from desperate and mistrustful to aggressively sadistic. The show is violent and at times disturbing — especially in its shocking second season, which recently concluded — but there's more to it than action spectacle. A deep undercurrent of emotion runs through the series, making this story about zombies compulsively watchable, frequently moving and deeply human. While the first season of the show faithfully adapted the eponymous video game, HBO has split the story of its sequel, 2020's The Last of Us Part II, into two installments — meaning that we're leaving things on a considerable cliffhanger. If your craving for killer fungi, survival stories, revenge tales and postapocalyptic considerations of what we owe to each other isn't quite satisfied, these 10 novels can scratch that itch. Severance Not to be confused with another popular 2025 series, this darkly comic novel — published two years before Covid-19 — is an incisive (and prescient) portrait of a society stumbling through a devastating pandemic. The contagion here is Shen Fever, a debilitating fungal disease that turns its victims into (harmless) zombies. Even as it decimates the globe, Candace Chen, a millennial Chinese American woman living in New York City, resolves to see out the end of her contract doing product coordination for a Bible publisher. It's fairly soul-sucking drudgery but, it turns out, an improvement on life after societal collapse, when Candace finds herself sheltering in an Illinois shopping mall with a band of other survivors from whom she's hiding a secret. Manhunt In Felker-Martin's postapocalyptic thriller, a plague that targets testosterone has turned half the population into a brainless mass of murderers and rapists, leaving the matriarchy to reign supreme. But for Beth and Fran, two trans women keeping their hormones in check with home remedies, it isn't only the bloodthirsty men they need to worry about: Roving bands of TERFs view them not as fellow sister-survivors but as interlopers who need to be expunged. A smart book about the politics of gender and the perils of transphobia, 'Manhunt' could easily have turned didactic — but Felker-Martin, a dyed-in-the-wool horror fan, delights in the genre's free-flowing carnage, and that glee is tons of fun. What Moves the Dead Ursula Vernon, writing under a pseudonym, reimagines Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' as fungus-themed body horror in this slender, atmospheric novel set in the fictitious European nation of Ruravia. Alex Easton, a retired soldier of indeterminate gender, travels to the remote country home of the Ushers, Alex's childhood friends who have taken ill with a mysterious sickness that also seems to be afflicting various wildlife on the manor grounds. The style is Gothic and the tone is gloomy but playful, befitting the connection to Poe — but the creepy fungal growths and malformed hares are entirely Vernon's own. How High We Go in the Dark Nagamatsu's postapocalyptic novel begins like so many others: with the discovery of a virus, unearthed from the melting Siberian permafrost. But as the 'Arctic plague' devastates the globe, the novel breaks into fragments — each a kind of short-form fable about the aftershocks of modern civilization. Some, like a story about a euthanasia theme park that painlessly executes terminally ill children, have the caustic sting of David Foster Wallace; others, particularly a late episode set on a vessel launched into deep space, pose poignant questions about what it means to be human. It's an impressive range of interconnected stories — and that's without mentioning the one about the talking pig. The Road An apocalypse story seemed like a considerable departure for the author of 'All the Pretty Horses,' 'No Country for Old Men' and other beloved westerns. But while the end-of-the-world setting suggests a pivot to sci-fi, the familiar hallmarks of McCarthy's fiction — ultra-spare prose, uncompromising realism — make this entirely of a piece with his previous work. A father and son traverse a barren American landscape in the aftermath of an undisclosed cataclysm, encountering the best and worst of humanity. Amid the desolation, McCarthy offers occasional glimpses of hope, and a beautiful depiction of an unbreakable parental bond. Station Eleven This hauntingly beautiful novel opens with the emergence of a virulent new flu, which kills its victims so rapidly that an actor is felled in the middle of a performance of 'King Lear'; 20 years later, where we lay our scene, most of the world's population has long since been wiped out. The story is centered around Kirsten, an 8-year-old child actor at the onset of the plague, who now roams the area around the Great Lakes with the Traveling Symphony, a troupe of actors who perform classical music and Shakespeare plays for colonies of fellow survivors. Evocative, page-turning and full of intrigue, Mandel's 2014 novel is more relevant than ever post-Covid. (There is also an excellent HBO series adaptation.) Parable of the Sower Butler's novel, published in 1993, is set in 2024 in a United States devastated by climate change, overrun with corrupt white nationalists and governed by a feckless autocrat who promises to 'make America great again.' It is science fiction that blurs disconcertingly into contemporary realism: Scenes of large swaths of California ablaze can be found both in its pages and across this year's news. It is also an astute, heart-pumping story about the meaning of community, and about a teenage girl with an uncanny gift navigating the privileges and dangers that come with it. California Lepucki's understated take on the apocalypse imagines a civilization fractured by a changing climate in which Americans reside in walled-off communities or live as best they can off the land. We follow a 20-something couple — Cal, a survivalist, and Frida, a former banker — as they traverse the Golden State in search of a stable place to land. By narrowing her focus to ordinary human relationships — which, in this new world, are fraught with many of the same tensions (miscommunication, longing, diverging needs) that prevailed in the old one — Lepucki puts a nuanced new spin on an often sensationalized genre. World War Z Subtitled 'An Oral History of the Zombie War' — and written as a follow-up to 'The Zombie Survival Guide,' a fictitious instructional manual for dealing with a plague of the undead — Brooks's cleverly structured novel is told through a series of interviews with survivors of the apocalypse. The sober, pseudoscientific naturalism of Brooks's writing has notes of Michael Crichton (particularly his classic techno-thriller 'The Andromeda Strain'), offering a vividly plausible simulation of how things might go if humankind had to fight off a brain-eating horde. (Spoiler: Not great!) The Girl With All the Gifts Melanie is a guileless 10-year-old girl living in Britain. She is well-mannered, possesses a genius I.Q. … and insatiably craves human flesh. When the book begins, Melanie — one of the 'hungry,' as this world calls its undead — is under observation at a military base in London, but when scavengers attack the facility, she and her teacher are forced to go on the run. In telling this story of humanity's last stand against a devastating fungal infection largely through Melanie's eyes, Carey adds a tragic dimension to a brutal tale — like Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' if it involved zombies.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Last Of Us Has Changed A Lot With Season 2, But There's One Thing I'm Hoping It Still Keeps
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Another week, another piece on The Last of Us, am I right? But no, in all honesty, I've been waiting anxiously and impatiently for The Last of Us Season 2 since the very minute Season 1 ended, as I am a longtime fan of the franchise. I never would have imagined that HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us would take off as much as it did when it was first released, but honestly, I am here for it, and it has only seemed to grow over time. But there have been some things that have changed throughout the series that I've liked…and some of them I haven't. Aside from that, there is one change that I genuinely don't want them to make – a death that has to stay there. So, before you get into this, this is your spoiler warning from The Last of Us video games. This series has changed a decent amount from the video games. Don't get me wrong – it's not like the story has changed a lot. We're not dealing with a strange Until Dawn adaptation here. What we're dealing with is a well-adapted video game franchise that is deciding to not only dive deeper into aspects that we haven't explored but also add substance to the story. That's not to say that some of the changes have been, well, for the better. Personally, one of the things I wanted to keep from Part 2 of The Last of Us was Joel's death. I feel that the entirety of the story and the theme of what grief does to us and the cost of love in a world where everything dies wouldn't have hit as hard if he hadn't been driven (pun intended) with that golf club. But in the game, it's not Dina who sees him get killed, but Tommy, and personally, that hits me harder. Adding more to Dina's backstory with Joel is great, but it doesn't hit the same. There's this utter gut punch that slams you when you realize that Tommy literally watched his older brother die in the game – and to me, that's better, and would have been excellently used in the show if they decided to go that route. The Dina change isn't one I'm super happy about. Even so, there are plenty of Last of Us changes that I do like. This isn't an article about the changes to The Last of Us. If anything, I really enjoy most of the changes. I love that we're seeing way more of Jackson this time around because, in the game, it feels like a footnote rather than an expanded piece of lore that we should have explored more. I like that we're getting a lot more backstory on certain characters and groups without giving away too many spoilers about who they are. I also love the addition of new characters. Catherine O'Hara's therapist was not one I ever envisioned for the series, but man, it was fitting to see Joel sit down with someone and talk about everything he has gone through. Even if we've only seen one scene of that so far, that's beside the point. These changes don't hinder the story—they enhance it. While I might not agree with everything, I can't argue that they're not well-thought-out and hold a different kind of weight than what we are used to. Another change that I've liked is that we've dug a little deeper into Jesse…which brings me to my most significant point. This is quite hard for me to say, but I need them to keep Jesse's death, and I'll tell you why. When I first played The Last of Us games, I knew Joel was going to die. I was a victim of the leaks that came out a month before the game's release. I wasn't upset about his death—in fact, I really welcomed it because that is bold and good storytelling, regardless of what people tell you. But because I knew from the leaks, it did not hit as hard as it should have. Do you want to know what did? Jesse's death. We meet Jesse at the beginning of the game, and he really seems like a nice guy with a sarcastic chip on his shoulder. At some point in the game, he willingly goes to Seattle to help Ellie and Dina despite knowing that Jackson is most certainly not going to be very happy about it, alongside Tommy. He's a good guy. And then he's shot by Abby, and it's so sudden, you can barely comprehend it until you're sobbing as we move into the next scene. I remember thinking, 'Oh my god, NO!' and legit began crying moments later because I couldn't believe they did that. And now, it feels like we're seeing Jesse a lot more. Young Manzino from the Beef cast is kicking it up a notch and giving us a sarcastic but kind and intelligent version of Jesse. We've seen his friendship with Ellie way more. And it makes me nervous that they might change things up and not kill him off this time around…heck, maybe they might even kill Tommy instead. I don't know. But hear me out – I need him to die now because, at this rate, we've gotten to know him way more than we ever thought we would. Jesse's death would actually mean so much more than it did in the game. While the idea of The Last of Us cast dwindling is a sad thought, the idea of Jesse dying would not only hit harder with the audience but would also inspire Ellie to go on her final hunt for Abby in Season 3 (whenever that comes around). It would be a fitting end to his character and would probably be one of the most heartbreaking deaths of the show. Heck, it would be a TV death that will continue to make The Last of Us an HBO show the world talks about. I feel like I've been able to accurately predict who dies in this show based on the game, but there have been moments when my expectations have been beyond subverted. Jesse's death could be another one. Then again, this show is not afraid to rip out my heartstrings, clearly, with Joel's death, so maybe I'm overthinking for no reason. Either way, I'll continue to watch the next three episodes and cry during each one because I love this show so much, and hopefully, wait for the doom to begin relatively soon. Well, we might already be there at this point, but you get me.
