The Last of Us series on HBO might be the best video game adaptation ever put on the big and small screen.  It exceeded all expectations in its storytelling and helpful it was to the game. I’m not saying it’s as good as the game itself because sometimes the best stories of the games that we play. But when it comes to telling the dark, dramatic tale of Ellie and Joel on their Odyssey out west, there really isn’t much that they could have done better. You don’t get a lot of exposition within the story and you certainly don’t play the game to know what’s going on. These Nine episodes tell a great story with Rich characters that make up the story within the first game. And probably the biggest reason for its success is that the writers didn’t try to cram a huge story into a 2-hour movie. It makes a difference when you actually have eight or nine hours to tell a big story because you have time to get to know the characters. It’s not perfect, but it says close as it can be to experiencing what gamers felt when playing the game. I think it also helped that Neil Druckmann who created the game directed the series.

It all starts with the casting. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey perfectly embody the spirit of these two characters that we got to play in a video game. While I admit I missed Troy Baker’s southern accent when he voiced the character Joel, Pedro Pascal captured every bit of the cynical hard-nosed father figure that Ellie needed. Bella Ramsey captured Ellie’s curious, sarcastic, and tough exterior perfectly as well. If you don’t get the casting right, then the series doesn’t work. But the casting was also perfect, even with characters that don’t share a lot of screen time like Tess or Marlene. Gabriel Luna did a great job playing Tommy and I look forward to seeing more of him in season 2. There were changes in the story, it couldn’t exactly be just like the game for those of us who’ve played it in order to enjoy the series.  The biggest example is the story of Bill and Frank. You don’t really get to know their backstory in the game. It’s only hinted that they were a couple.

Episode 3 was all about Bill and Frank’s story over 20 years and it’s one of the greatest love stories ever written. And for those who think that two men can’t have a great love story, one being a survivalist and one an idealist who finds that the one perfect thing worth fighting for during the Apocalypse is each other then you don’t know great love stories. Hats off to Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman for portraying these awesome characters. And you couldn’t pick him were fitting song for these two characters as they die in each other’s arms than Linda Ronstadt’s “Long, Long Time.” It really added to the entire series by having an entire episode dedicated to these two characters,  how they come to know Joel and Tess, and of course why Joel would go to them for help when he starts his journey with Ellie. Meeting Bill in the game is one of the best parts of the game, but not nearly as emotional.

When you do a series, some episodes are always better than others, but I think each episode really established the connection between Joel and Ellie, between the father figure and an orphan girl who’s known nothing but heartache. It may be true that you get to experience that a little bit more throughout the game as you’re playing these characters, but each episode was brilliantly written to where you feel everything these characters are feeling in the very last episode and Joel rescues her. That’s all I’ll say, can’t completely give it away to those who have never watched the series or played the game. All I’ll say is the hospital scene in the game is as gut-wrenching as it gets. One of the things that the series did right was allow the audience to really get to know some of the more beloved characters and even characters that weren’t really introduced in the game. Like for example, Kathleen. She’s not in the game, but her story mirrors the carnage that people had to endure for 20 years in one of the quarantine zones. You see through her eyes how a sadistic government entity took advantage of the people it was trying to protect through rape and murder, and then how the citizens rose up to reclaim their freedom. She’s a character that you can see was once innocent and believed good in people, but by the end, she becomes the very thing that she fought against. She becomes the villain who can’t forgive and uses murder to justify her revenge under the guise of what she thinks is justice. Melanie Lynskey did a great job portraying her so that you almost become sympathetic to her cause. And it’s brilliant how that character ties into the character of Henry and Sam. These are two characters that you do meet in the game and they help Ellie and Joel navigate the city. Their story is pulled right from the game. The scene where they die is just like in the game and just as emotional. Although it was a nice added twist in the series to have Sam be deaf.

What really makes the series so good are the little details that have been pulled from the game. From the exact clothes the character wore to even borrowing a lot of the dialogue from the game. The details were nice, but what they accomplished is adding so many emotional levels to the story. You connect with these characters very easily without having to play the game. I’ll admit that you connect more by playing the game, but I don’t think you literally beat that to watch this series and feel for these characters. You feel for all of them and their motivation because even the villains are just trying to survive. They’ll do whatever it takes to survive and keep their own kind alive. Kathleen is a great example because you feel sympathy for what she became in the end. You also understand Henry, who admits that he is a bad guy for ratting on his friends to the government in order to get medicine to help his brother. One can argue the morality of all the characters’ motivations, but until you are put in that position of survival, you don’t know what you’ll truly do if you were in the same situation.

Admittedly, they could have done more with the series to really capture the game. In a lot of ways, the series feels very short compared to the journey you experience while playing the game. Obviously, there’s a lot they left out. We don’t really get to experience as many monsters as we do in the game. The series focused more on the characters and their journey than it does the monsters they have to face, whereas in the game, it’s a perfect balance between the villains and monsters you have to kill to progress through the story. For me, one of the scariest moments in the game is having to silently sneak through the train station to get past about eight different clickers. The first time I played the game, it took me about three times to really get past everything and makes it even scarier because you’re in the dark. We only really get to experience that kind of scenario once in the second episode when there are in the museum. Exploring the university in the game is a lot more intense. For that matter, it’s a lot more intense trying to get through the city because there are so many bad guys you have to get past. And you have to rely on Ellie to back you up. I think my biggest complaint is the intensity of the hospital scene in the game versus the series where it feels like it happens too quickly. It takes a while to shoot your way through the hospital in order to rescue Ellie whereas it seemed like Joel did it quickly without even a scratch. That’s one of those scenes where I felt like they could have added another 10 minutes, but it still ends the same on an emotional level. Sometimes playing the story is better. Sometimes feeling the story is more emotional. But I don’t think a movie or a TV series based on a video game can ever truly be perfect because you don’t experience it the same way. However, the series comes close to matching the intensity of the game.

For those who will never play the game, you get the same great story with some added details like Bill and Frank’s story. But probably one of the most important added details is Ellie’s origin story. We get to meet her mother; we know what happens and how Marlene ended up taking care of her. I got to hand it to Ashley Johnson, who plays the mother in the series, but also voices the character of Ellie in the game. It’s almost as if she comes full circle by playing both of these characters. In a lot of ways, I am surprised that the full story of the first game fit within one season because there’s so much going on that they could have made it into two seasons while also adding more backstory to all of these characters. Maybe that’s what we’ll get in Season 2, which will be based on the second game. There’s a lot of room for flashbacks and a lot of room for great storytelling because the second game will jump 5 years in the future. There are a lot of unanswered questions. It will be fun to explore those unanswered questions in season 2 and probably a season 3 because to really tell the full story right, you almost need two more seasons of 8 to 9 episodes. However, season 1 of The Last of Us is a masterpiece because it captures the video game that it’s based on better than any other adaptation in movie or TV history. HBO did the right thing by making this into a series just like they did with Game of Thrones instead of trying to cram the story of any book into a two-hour movie, it just wouldn’t work. Season 1 looks like the game, feels like the game, and has all the emotional weight of the game. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish. The game itself is still better and even if you’re not a gamer, if you like the series, go back and play the original game. It’s worth the price of a PlayStation 4 and the 20 or so hours you’ll put into it. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey did a fantastic job capturing the spirit of Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who voiced the main characters in the game. In fact, the casting of the entire series was damn near perfect, especially Bill and Frank. The series is just as violent, sad, and dramatic as the game, and you will feel for the characters, even the villains just like you do is if you were playing the game. That is master storytelling, and hopefully, this series begins the perfect template for how to properly adapt stories from video games.