#craig mazin is who i should've pointed my criticisms at so my bad Neil

[james-stark-the-writer]

honestly, overall, that was a great fucking finale, actually almost made the show feel like it knew what it was doing the whole time and not like it had to shove 3 episodes worth of character development into one episode. truly, it almost made the whole thing worth it. i'll say episode 9 of The Last of Us S01 was a 8.5/10. i still don't like the opening 10 minutes for how they change the story but the rest absolutely fucking bangs.

it's crazy how 2 of the best episodes (outside of 5 and the flashback parts of 3) were co-written by Neil. i also just noticed Craig Mazin is the only writer on all the episodes besides 1, and 9 which he co-wrote with Neil, and 7 was written all by Neil. whoa, actually maybe my takes about there not being writers actually talking about these decisions was correct then, it was just Craig doing all the writing except for those 3 episodes, that's crazy. it really shows tbh. the season as a whole is a MESS. the show is a fundamentally broken and bad adaptation of The Last of Us and misrepresents the whole appeal of the property but then the stories of the games are fundamentally meant to be game stories and narratives and you can't just copy-paste them into a show. a better writer could've made it work by reassessing and rewriting every tiny bit to work as a TV show instead of feeling like a game narrative cut up into bits and supplanted as a TV narrative but Craig clearly isn't that writer.

honestly i'm sure other people besides me have already said everything there is to say about it, i keep getting enough video essays recommended about the show, and i've said most of what i wanted to say anyway. to me, as an adaptation, the show as a whole is a 6.75/10. it's not a full 7 but there are some really interesting adaptational choices here that at least make it worth a watch, however frustrating that watch might be bc of how much every other part sucks besides the new stuff and Bella's acting. as its own show, it's actually even lower for me, it's a 6/10, it feels like a disjointed fucking mess, like it's being held back (as i elaborated on here) and it really just doesn't really know what it wants to be. it constantly feels torn between wanting to tell its own story and wanting to be an adaptation and the show really suffers for it. the acting and characterization is all over the place and deeply shallow, Craig doesn't know what subtlety or subtext means, all the writing is just so much exposition about what the characters feel and think and basically none of it (again, i'm never talking about Bella here. theyr'e a perfect casting and there's only one moment in the entire show where i didn't absolutely love what they were doing) feels like the characters have actually lived in this world and have gone through the shit the dialogue says they have, it just feels so lifeless and empty and it's honestly exhausting trudging through most of it, watching them hit similar plot beats as the game with all the enthusiasm of running at the crack of dawn when you're not a morning person (idk, my brain's too exhausted to come up with a better example rn). it's like they knew the beginning and ending and forgot to actually do the legwork in the middle to make it make sense and like it has momentum and any real sense of narrative progression.

idk. i love the games, i knew this could never be the games, but i didn't expect it to be. it fails as both an adaptation and as a show. it's a mediocre show adaptation of great source material. i am deeply worried for S02, i need them to get a writer's room more than i need Euphoria to get one.

okay, then. here we are. the finale of The Last of Us S01. onto episode 9, then. if you missed it, here's my thoughts on episode 1:

my thoughts on episode 2:

my thoughts on episode 3:

my thoughts on episode 4:

my thoughts on episode 5:

my thoughts on episode 6:

my thoughts on episode 7:

and my thoughts on episode 8:

[bearpillowmonster]

The Last of Us HBO

This show is sort of in a bad situation because it's an adaptation of a beloved property that's going to be criticized if you're too close to the source material and too far, not to mention it's a video game property which has a track record of being subpar to just plain bad. And then that game is one of the most well known games of all time so there's that.

To be honest, I haven't played the games but I'd be living under a rock if I didn't know a lot of what already happens. And how do you do that? How do you subvert expectations when everyone already knows the spoiler?

I have the advantage to look at this from a different lens than that of a fan but I still can't help but draw comparisons and I think that's partially because it's so baked in. A good scene to represent this with is the truck getaway. In the game, you have a third person perspective of Sarah so you're in the backseat while these guys drive recklessly. It's not the same exact scene but it serves the exact same job using the exact same technique. If you watched a scene with very similar dialogue and the same end point, but just different means to get there, what did you see? Is it worth seeing again? In a game, you can feel the vibration of the controller as the car backs up and the intensity of your surroundings and how they're invading your little bubble. The scene in the show does a good job of replicating that but does that mean you're missing something?

If you've played the Last of Us and didn't like it then I don't think this show will do anything for you. There are differences but I think they fundamentally have the same problems but I think that doubles for if you liked the game, I think you'll at least enjoy it for what it's worth for a whole other Last of Us revisit after the initial game, the remaster, the remake and now this. Neil Druckmann is still involved and you can definitely tell his fingerprints are on it, unfortunately they still have unnecessary cursing. (like, you don't need it to make it gritty, how many times do I have to tell you that?) People who were jerks are still jerks. There are better things about it, there are worse things.

The other guy involved, the freaking director, Craig Mazin and his stupid comments about video games. I just don't understand but first I'll give him a hand for actually walking the walk after talking the talk but I still think some of his comments are wrong and that they don't even make sense in this context when he literally uses video game techniques to make it happen but oh well.

I mean literally, despite never playing the game, I knew what must have been there. "Ellie, I'll give you a boost, drop that ladder down to me." Little stuff like that, but it didn't really feel forced or out of place. I see now where a Last of Us MMO could come in, sort of like making it an RPG where you can choose to fight or join the Fireflies, I think that'd be quite fun but from what I see, it's a battle royale.

Acting. Pedro. That's all. I mean, I got my space cowboy but now I've got the southern accent to boot, all he needs is a little hat and we're good to go!

Honestly, it's probably better taken episode by episode because aside from actively trying to make you dislike the characters in a specific way in order to care about them, there are a few really good episodes and even the bad episodes have good parts but they are dominantly bad episodes and just straight bad characters or characters that have no relevance but get spotlight anyway. That isn't to say that it's only the new stuff that's bad either, there's a lot of good new stuff too, it's just a mystery as to what you're getting in any given episode, you can normally tell "Oh, this will be one of the predominantly good ones."

The end. Though I knew how it would end, it felt a little bit short lived and I don't mean that in length, more like they were trying to get it done, like the moments didn't hit as hard as they should've because of one reason or another. It all feels pretty summed up. Dialogue was disappointing since it was the last episode and they have a short moment before it all goes down where it feels like they trauma dump rather than a nice payoff to seeing them slowly trust each other enough to reveal one's insecurities which is ironic considering….well, season 2 will answer for that but all in all, a decent video game product.