Now that the big ‘plot twist’ has happened in season 2 of HBO’s The Last Of Us, I feel like now is a good time to let you know why I’m not watching. I played the game.
Warning: Massive Spoilers if you haven’t seen the episode or played the game yet. Here’s what the writers did that turned me off from the game and show: They killed Joel. They killed their lead character. Now as a writer of television shows I can see the conversation in my mind as some dumbass pitches the idea of killing the anchor of the show. The next thing that happens, is some other idiot looks up and says something along the lines of ‘Wow… that would be really interesting’.
They always use the word interesting because it’s really non-committal. You’re not saying it’s a good or bad idea, your kind of just flattering the person behind the idea but leaving yourself an excuse if the producers disagree. It’s a coward’s way of being non creatively ‘creative’. I have always despised ‘interesting’ in the writer’s room.
Okay, I don’t want to get too lengthy here. So, let’s go. Some moron decided to kill Joel, becasue the idea of a lesbian relationship in a video game was ‘interesting’ or ‘hadn’t been done before’ or some such pedestrian reasons. And it was a bad choice. Why? It leaves you with one character: Ellie. And that’s not going to cut it. In the game you have to play as Abby and that is some serious bullshit. She killed Joel.
So, the writers made an ‘interesting choice’ a ‘never been done choice’. Even though it had been done in Game of Thrones and that’s probably where they got the idea. However, in GOT, killing Ned Stark was actually helpful because there were too many great characters to write for. George RR Martin had to kill Ned to service all the other characters. But The Last Of Us doesn’t have that issue. It has Ellie. That’s it. And that won’t cut it. It didn’t work in the game and it’s not going to work for HBO. And that, kids, is why I’m not watching.
Here’s a review from Critical Drinker. I like this dude’s stuff. It’s worth a watch.
