Spoilers The Last of Us Season 2 - Spoilers

[Jayson1]

Perfect (given the story left to tell).



How? Because there is still two seasons' worth of story to tell. You've made your mind up it seems and aren't willing to embrace the story the creators intended to tell, like ohhhh so many others over the years.

Tell you what - just erase S2 from your head canon. Or better yet, imagine that Joel and Ellie finally made it to the hospital, cue montage of doctors extracting the vaccine from only Ellie's blood. Fast forward a year to a world free of infected, with Joel, Ellie and the rest of the Jackson crew partying while Tess's force ghost watches over them smiling.

That's not how my head canon would go. My head canon would have them spending this season dealing with the refugee issue, talked about in the first episode and the rise of the spores and also knowing that Abby is out their wanting revenge. Ellie falling in love as well with Dina and that causing some conflict with a more conservative Joel. Who isn't as hateful about such things like Seth but he is also like you would expect many people would be since this world sort of stopped in 2003. Abby eventually kills Joel just as he learns to finally accept Ellie for who she is. Third season she goes on a mission of revenge with Dina and Joel's brother. Harder to do because now the world has spores out their making travelling across country even harder than before. At least 10 episodes per season for the next two seasons.

 

[StarMan]

That's not how my head canon would go. My head canon would have them spending this season dealing with the refugee issue, talked about in the first episode and the rise of the spores and also knowing that Abby is out their wanting revenge. Ellie falling in love as well with Dina and that causing some conflict with a more conservative Joel. Who isn't as hateful about such things like Seth but he is also like you would expect many people would be since this world sort of stopped in 2003. Abby eventually kills Joel just as he learns to finally accept Ellie for who she is. Third season she goes on a mission of revenge with Dina and Joel's brother. Harder to do because now the world has spores out their making travelling across country even harder than before. At least 10 episodes per season for the next two seasons.

So basically, more Joel.

People were livid at Joel getting offed so early in the game. I played both games back-to-back for the first time a couple of years ago; I'd stumbled across the "Joel dies" spoiler before starting, but even then, I was taken aback at how early he was taken out. What flew over a lot of people's heads it seems was that was the desired effect (along with loathing Abby after the event); in real life, we lose people unexpectedly, cruelly and "before their time".

As punctuated at the end of the last episode, what's driving Ellie's vengeance isn't just avenging Joel, it's that Abby robbed her of a chance to rebuild their relationship just when she'd decided to try - and just after he finally came clean.

There's more to the story than you might expect.

As for 10 episodes, well, I don't know if that's an HBO directive to constrain the budget but given the content of the game covered so far and what they've delivered, I don't feel I've missed out on anything. If anything, they've expanded on the game content (except for Hat-o-saurus, damn them).

 

[FPAlpha]

That's not how my head canon would go. My head canon would have them spending this season dealing with the refugee issue, talked about in the first episode and the rise of the spores and also knowing that Abby is out their wanting revenge. Ellie falling in love as well with Dina and that causing some conflict with a more conservative Joel. Who isn't as hateful about such things like Seth but he is also like you would expect many people would be since this world sort of stopped in 2003. Abby eventually kills Joel just as he learns to finally accept Ellie for who she is. Third season she goes on a mission of revenge with Dina and Joel's brother. Harder to do because now the world has spores out their making travelling across country even harder than before. At least 10 episodes per season for the next two seasons.

Honestly i applaud the showrunners to have the guts to cut someone as important as Joel/Pascal from the show for story reasons.

Too many times shows and their showrunners/writers don't dare kill off popular characters and when it starts to drag down a show ( see Walking Dead) it may be too late to recover.

It is a ballsy move, that's without a doubt, and i too would have loved to see more Joel/Pascal but the story is even more important and if the story is not about generic post apocalyptic life with a slow enemy buildup then it's not. From what i can gather the show's overarching theme is the cycle of violence that leads to revenge and how to break it. It has become also really apparent with the recent episode when we see Joel's backstory, who grew up with a violent father and was not able to completely shake off that behaviour himself but he has hopes that Ellie, the next generation, can make another step just as he tried to.
This is a story i am very much interested to see play out and i won't pin that on the participation of a fan favorite actor or actress.

The show might lose viewers, we will know soon enough once the season concludes next weekend but then again even shows without such upheavals tend to lose viewers in later seasons, this is not new and it's not unusual.

 

[Jayson1]

The episode number was cut by that hack Zaslav. He did the same with "House of the Dragon" and even though people say otherwise I bet you he forced "Barry" and "Succession" to end earlier than they wanted. I loved those two shows and they represent what HBO is suppose to be IMO.

 

[Jayson1]

Honestly i applaud the showrunners to have the guts to cut someone as important as Joel/Pascal from the show for story reasons.

Too many times shows and their showrunners/writers don't dare kill off popular characters and when it starts to drag down a show ( see Walking Dead) it may be too late to recover.

It is a ballsy move, that's without a doubt, and i too would have loved to see more Joel/Pascal but the story is even more important and if the story is not about generic post apocalyptic life with a slow enemy buildup then it's not. From what i can gather the show's overarching theme is the cycle of violence that leads to revenge and how to break it. It has become also really apparent with the recent episode when we see Joel's backstory, who grew up with a violent father and was not able to completely shake off that behaviour himself but he has hopes that Ellie, the next generation, can make another step just as he tried to.
This is a story i am very much interested to see play out and i won't pin that on the participation of a fan favorite actor or actress.

The show might lose viewers, we will know soon enough once the season concludes next weekend but then again even shows without such upheavals tend to lose viewers in later seasons, this is not new and it's not unusual.

I do admire their guts also to take a chance. IMO though when you take a chance you need to know you have something good to replace it. I don't want to come down to hard on the actor because the internet is very mean to her but Bella Ramsey is not a very compelling actor to lead a show IMO. The character worked mostly off the chemistry between her and Joel. Pascal did a lot of heavy lifting though when it came to acting on the show.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I do admire their guts also to take a chance. IMO though when you take a chance you need to know you have something good to replace it. I don't want to come down to hard on the actor because the internet is very mean to her but Bella Ramsey is not a very compelling actor to lead a show IMO. The character worked mostly off the chemistry between her and Joel. Pascal did a lot of heavy lifting though when it came to acting on the show.

Nah, Bella is great.

 

[Jayson1]

It might be the writing. They haven't really made her feel like 4 plus years have passed IMO. She still feels like a teenager IMO. Someone who hasn't matured or hardened or anything.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

even though people say otherwise I bet you he forced "Barry"

Bill Hader Explains Why Season 4 Of 'Barry' Will Be Its Last

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/bill-hader-barry-season-4-last-1235544749/

Sounds to me like he ended it on his own terms rather than stretching the story out.

Something else to consider is that his marriage ended during the filming of Barry. His wife and three children lived on the East Coast and he was living and working on the West; commuting home every weekend during the first season. His daughters were entertaining high school during the final season and I'm sure he didn't want to be an absentee parent.​

 

[Nerys Myk]

It might be the writing. They haven't really made her feel like 4 plus years have passed IMO. She still feels like a teenager IMO. Someone who hasn't matured or hardened or anything.

Well, she is still a teenager. And she's pretty damn hard. She just beat the shit out of someone with a pipe. Joel of course was a bit overprotective as shown in the last few episodes. And somewhat over indulgent too. Still, she's been on patrol. She's learned self-defense. So, I'm not sure what show you're watching.