Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Isabela Merced, Young Mazino, Kaitlyn Dever, Rutina Wesley, Danny Ramirez, Catherine O’Hara, Robert John Burke, Spencer Lord, Tati Gabrelle, Ariela Barer, Noah Lamanna, Jeffrey Wright, Alanna Ubach, Ben Ahlers, Hettienne Park, Tony Dalton, Joe Pantoliano.
The second season of The Last Of Us certainly can claim to move the action on, to expand the narrative of the downfall of humanity, but by doing so it finds itself lacking composure and the ferocity of the moment so elegantly pursued in its opening episodes.
The issue becomes apparent when the viewer is given time to think about how the series is presented, one of little risk fighting the hoards of humanity turned by the presence of a mass fungal infection into disgusting aberrations of walking fungi, and instead focusing on what becomes almost like an apocalyptic version of Death Wish, one that maintains the ideal of revenge as one of the stars of the television adapted version of the best selling computer game is murdered early on.
The sense of uneasy relationships, of a fractured society relearning the basics of civility and civilisation is fraught with the knowledge that the viewer will understand the futility of the exercise, that even as we band together after a shared horrific experience there will always be those who seek to undermine the fragile coexistence out a need to exploit even further the schism and division; and whilst there is no sign of more than one major battle between human and those affected with the fungi blight, the tension is built around two individuals, as Ellie seeks to destroy the person who took something special from her.
Whilst this pressure is undoubtedly satisfying, it very much feels underwhelming in the hands of one of protagonists, there is little sympathy for the character and indeed drives home the point arguably of miscasting, as the emotional range required is sadly missing from the plot and the resolution.
There is though possible redemption to come in a third series as the focus moves away at the end of its second series from the sense of the individual to the damnation of the whole as a tantalising flashback reveals the downfall of Seattle through the eyes of former Washington Liberation Front member, Abby, played with convincing ferocity by Kaitlyn Dever. It is with this feasible possibility of once more enlarging the storyline that gives hope that the series may once more get back on track.
A middling and muddling series, one that has slightly lost its way, The Last Of Us still has Integrity, but has to remind itself of the reason it was welcomed in the first place into viewers hearts.
Ian D. Hall