The second season of HBO’s “The Last of Us” is set to release on April 13, 2025. An aspect of the series that some new fans might not know is that “The Last of Us” was originally released as a PS game in 2013. The game consists of two parts, the first being remastered for the PS4 and PS5 in 2022, and the second being available two years earlier in 2020.
The first part follows Joel Miller after the outbreak of a virus. A virus that turns people into flesh eating zombies. The virus originated as a fungal outbreak caused by climate change, that led to an invasive species of cordyceps to adapt to, rising temperatures causing them to inhabit and infect humans. Cordyceps are a parasitic fungus that spreads by infecting and taking over a host, replacing the host’s body with fungus, this is a real fungus, though cordycep infection has only been observed in ants.
Joel loses his young daughter to a federal agent who was ordered to shoot them both. Throughout his years in this post-apocalyptic world he crosses paths with a young girl named Ellie, and Joel takes the role of her protector.
Ellie was born to a woman who was infected by the virus, causing her to somehow become immune to itThere are many ways one can become infected by the virus. If a person breathes in cordyceps or gets bitten, they become infected, and depending on where on the body, it can take a couple hours or days to fully turn.
The stages of infection depend on how long the person has been infected. There are the most human, called runners, all the way to the least human, called shamblers.
The interesting thing about “The Last of Us,” is that unlike other zombie media like “The Walking Dead” or “Resident Evil,” the infected in the game are fully conscious and aware of what’s happening to them, and what they are compelled to do.
Those who are infected, infect others as a sort of preservation instinct the fungus has given them, to spread and survive.
This game was rightfully adapted into a TV series after the remaster’s success, with the first part of the game achieving an overall 4.5 star rating.
The first season, what would’ve been the first part in the game, was released in 2023, an ironic lineup with the timing of Covid-19. The show found great success, due to there already being a fanbase for it, and with the accuracy of plot that came with the first season.
Although the set of the show is undeniably accurate to the setting in the game, with some scenes being almost identical to what happens in the game, the issue for fans of the game comes with the casting of the characters. Ellie’s character was played by Bella Ramsey, who’s facial structure is undeniably different from Ellie in the game.
“I remember whenever they cast Bella Ramsey as Ellie, there was a lot of criticism out there, people being like ‘oh she’s not hot,’ which is a weird thing to say about a character who is canonically 15,” senior Evan Shondeck said.
Victoria Thomas, the casting director for “The Last of Us” season one, said in an interview with Cat Elliott that they decided to cast Ramsey because she “Stood out. Bella can be both tough and vulnerable…She just seemed to have the best combination of interesting qualities as an actor for the role.”
Though the adaptation was still a massive success, with the first season having a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the casting choices of season two are still an issue for fans. This time, it concerns Abby, a very muscular character, on a mission of revenge against Joel and Ellie in the second part of the game. However, the actress who was cast to play Abby was Kaitlyn Dever, a woman whose body type isn’t nearly as muscular as Abby’s is in the game.
“I think a big part of Abby’s character was her build and how muscular she was, and I think not having that in the show might change the story,” senior Shanone Geraghty said.
A lot of Abby’s confidence, and ability to survive comes from how powerful she is physically, and that not being in the show could potentially change Abby’s storyline.
This casting choice has received backlash as well. “I think they are improperly representing women, I think Abby’s body type and her muscular build in the game was a little clowned on, if you will,” junior Jocelyn MacDonald said.
Shondeck discussed why the muscular body type is important for her character. “It’s very important to have a character that’s not really represented too much in the media, and I think it’s important to actually follow through with what the characters look like rather than just going for the standard attractive woman act,” Shondeck said.
This representation is lacking with the casting choice of Dever as Abby, and fans think it lazy to cast a conventionally attractive skinny woman to play Abby, a character who’s everything but her looks.
Fans came to the conclusion that Abby’s build is very important to her as a character, and it would be inaccurate to have a smaller person play Abby, as she does a great deal of heavy lifting, and fighting, easily throughout the events of the game.
As fans of the game anticipate the second season they can only hope that the plot won’t be inaccurate like the casting has been.
