Curse? What curse? For all the usual doom-mongering around video game adaptations, the quickfire phenomon of The Last of Us should have surprised no one. The nine-episode HBO series, adapted from the acclaimed 2013 game, had everything going in its favour. A generous prestige TV budget. Charismatic stars on the upswing of their careers. Well-plotted, character-driven source material. All it needed to do was stick the landing, and it did. The Last of Us was both a critical and commercial smash, with viewership numbers ballooning as the series went on. And the series is vying for a number of major awards at the Emmys tonight. Its second season renewal, announced a year ago, was inevitable. But while season one was a slam dunk, its follow-up has the potential to be a disaster.
As fans of the game know well – but millions of TV viewers may not – The Last of Us had a sequel, released in 2020. Set four years after the ending of the original, The Last of Us Part II was a masterpiece of the medium, expanding on much of what the first one did well. While The Last of Us was primarily the story of Joel (Troy Baker in the game, a jaded Pedro Pascal on TV), Part II gave much more focus to Ellie (Ashley Johnson/Bella Ramsey), his spirited teenage ward. It was bigger, richer, darker, and messier. And it was one of the most rabidly polarising games ever made.
