If you thought this conversation died with the success of The Last of Us season 1, I have bad news. Once again, terrible reviews are dragging down the score of the hit HBO show on Rotten Tomatoes — and something smells off.
“I despise the casting for TV Ellie”, “terrible casting for ellie”, and “Bella isn’t giving the same energy as Ellie in the game” are some of the comments circulating in the audience review section as the second season enters its endgame. Forget the fact that the actual apocalypse is going on; apparently the casting is the least realistic thing about the mushroom zombie show.
The practice of “review bombing” is where people leave negative online reviews en masse to show their displeasure, usually at a single issue. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Last of Us season 2 has an almost perfect critic’s score of 95 per cent. But from the general public, it’s now a miserable 39 per cent.
The fans’ main complaint is, once again, the casting of Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Yes, they wowed critics twice over, first as a cocky 14-year-old teaming up with Pedro Pascal’s Joel to survive in the post-apocalypse, then as a terrifying 19-year-old hell bent on avenging him. But some fans of the video game are being pretty darn weird about it.
Mostly, these people cannot seem to accept that Ramsey, now 21, doesn’t look exactly like Ellie from the games. While all Pascal needed to inhabit Joel was to be rugged in a cool jacket, Ramsey isn’t considered by some internet-dwellers as fragile and charming as the elfin digital version. Do we need explain how icky it is to speculate over the relative attractiveness of a video game teen versus the actor playing a role?
Also, it’s important that Ellie looks different in this version. Developers Naughty Dog got into a little bit of hot water when the actor Elliot Page realised that it looked suspiciously like his pre-transition likeness had been used as the starting point for game-Ellie’s face model. In a 2013 Reddit AMA, Page said he was frustrated it look like the game “ripped off my likeness” because they were filming motion-capture performances for a different game at the time.
Some of the review-bombing comes across as is straight-up homophobia. As in the game (!), Ellie is a lesbian who embarks on a romantic and sexual relationship with Dina, who is bisexual. The second season is entirely true to this arc, although some of the beat fall at different points in the story. But some of the armchair critics do not like this one bit. “Writers added progressive themes that weren’t present in the game,” said one Rotten Tomatoes commenter, who has clearly never played the game.
The Last of Us season 2 has been incredibly sensitive about portraying its central queer romance. Ramsey and Isabella Merced, who has also been knocking it out of the park in her portrayal of Dina, are both queer. In an interview with Variety, Merced explained that the pair choreographed their sex scene themselves, to ensure it came across as believable as possible. “We both have experience in queer relationships, she said. “You can just tell when a girl hasn’t kissed a girl before. You can just feel it.”
Ramsey is also non-binary and bound their chest during filming for the first season, so some of the moaning about their casting feels like a pointed dig at their perceived lack of performing femininity. Which they don’t owe anyone. The Last of Us 2 game attracted similar vitriol against the character of Abby, whose muscular body type strangely angered some gamers.
It’s not that there aren’t things to criticise about the TV adaptation. The writers have made several important changes to the narrative, which can be jarring for fans of the game. The second season also contained a major character death, which was bound to upset show-only watchers who didn’t know it was coming.
There is also some valid audience dissatisfaction with some wonkiness in its portrayal of the post-apocalypse. The cast’s clothes are pretty clean and neat, which begs the question about where everyone is getting fresh threads given society collapsed 25 years ago. Ammo supplies are seemingly limitless; Dina’s hair is consistently perfect. The infected are suddenly evolving at convenient moments for the plot. Not every television show resonates with everyone, and that’s okay. You can always not watch it.
But the singular focus of mass negative reviews on Ramsey’s appearance and performance has uncomfortable echoes of GamerGate, the 2014 internet harassment campaign against video games inclusion of women and minorities. The Last of Us is now a show based on a video game helmed by three female characters – Ellie, Dina, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), two of whom are openly queer. It’s disappointing, then, that a regressive backlash is playing out in the Rotten Tomatoes reviews.
Maybe they’ll get bored of it by the time we get season 3 (filming isn’t due to start until 2026)? We can live in hope.
The Last of Us Season 2 is streaming on Sky Atlantic and NOW
