Fans of the video game The Last of Us have complained about the omission of a key scene from the latest episode of the acclaimed TV adaptation.
The Emmy-winning post-apocalyptic TV series continued its second season on Sunday night (20 April) with an episode that delivered a major twist.
Spoilers follow for The Last of Us season two, episode two – you have been warned...
Following what happened in the 2020 video game that inspired the second season, the latest episode of The Last of Us sees Abby (Kaityln Dever) murder Joel (Pedro Pascal) as revenge for the killing of her father.
While key parts of the episode play out similarly to the game, there were several changes made in adapting the story for television.
Among them was the decision to have Ellie (Bella Ramsey) go on patrol with Jesse (Young Mazino), not Dina (Isabela Merced), as happened in the game.
The change meant that a fan-favourite scene from the game, in which Ellie and Dina discover an old cannabis farm and have sex for the first time on an old sofa, does not occur at this point in the series.
Fans voiced their disappointment with the omission on social media.
“Never forget what they took from us,” wrote one person, alongside a screenshot of the scene in the game.
“DID THE LESBIANS JUST GOT ROBBED???? where's the couch scene?” another asked.
“I'm gonna miss you most of all, Dina and Ellie's weed scene,” joked someone else, riffing on a quote from The Wizard of Oz.
In an interview with The Wrap, The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann explained the reasons behind the changes.
“We’re building Jesse up more than we did in the game,” he said. “We wanted to show more of his dynamic with Ellie, and the relationship between Ellie and Dina takes a few different turns throughout the whole season. So if you’re familiar with the game, in that weed grow house, that relationship goes somewhere else that has not happened in the show.
Craig Mazin, who serves as showrunner on the series, added: “Maybe we scrapped the location, but we didn’t necessarily scrap the scene. I can see see people getting very angry and saying, ‘Oh, these guys aren’t going to do it.’
“If you watch Season one, we pretty much get around to everything we need to get around to. We just don’t necessarily do it exactly where it was in the game because the experience is different the way we divide episodes up. For instance, in Episode one, Ellie and Dina’s kiss at the dance happens like 90 per cent of the way in on the game. So all I’d say to people is Neil made the game, I’m a fan of the game.”
Following the latest episode’s release, Pascal has addressed the shock death scene, while Dever opened up about the tragic personal context of the episode’s production.
The Last of Us is available to watch in the UK on Sky and NOW.
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