*Spoiler warning for "The Last of Us" Season 2 and "The Last of Us Part ll"*
I remember sitting in my freshman year dorm room when I first heard the line:
"Because I can make it quick, or I can make it so much worse."
At the time, I had not made a lot of friends in college, I had the flu and I had never been more homesick in my life. With nothing to do, I spent four days straight from morning 'til night playing a game I had picked up while home the week before: "The Last of Us Part ll".
The game wasn't fantastical or imaginative — it was real. As a freshman in college trying their best to navigate the word around them, I felt drawn to Ellie's own personal journey.
I recall spending one of those mornings traveling through the streets of Hillcrest, fighting through countless Washington Liberation Front soldiers, some zombies and even a few cult members. Through arrow and bullet wounds, my quest for vengeance led me to one of Joel's killers: a member of the WLF named Nora.
Bathed in a dark red light, this scene is a turning point for our main character. At this moment, the true Ellie Williams was born — no longer a scared girl from the Boston Quarantine Zone who watches as everyone in her life either died or left her. She is now a force of nature who would destroy anything or anyone who stood in her way.
As she loomed over Nora with a broken pipe in her hand — mushroom spores plaguing the air — she asked where Abby was, to which Nora questioned why she should talk if she's going to die anyway.
Then I heard that line: "Because I can make it quick, or I can make it so much worse."
This line was not included in the show, which brings me to my feelings about season two. It looks like "The Last of Us," it sounds like "The Last of Us" and, to many people, it is "The Last of Us" — but not for me.
Because deep down, something as important as this needs to feel right, and it just doesn't.
It took me a while to truly understand how I felt about this particular scene. The lighting and visuals were right, Bella Ramsey's acting was phenomenal and, in a lot of ways, it was very much the same as the game, but something was off. It's such a small line, but to me, it encapsulated the moral dilemma of the scene.
I remember spending last Sunday night watching the new episode and waiting for that line.
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It was so important to me that it was all I thought about as I watched. Seeing how truly depraved and vicious Ellie would get was what so many of us fans had craved from this season.
Ultimately, we were left wanting more. Not only did we not get that line, but in the following scene — which we see in the final episode — Ellie feels remorse for what she did.
THAT is the difference for me.
In the game, Ellie explains that she made her talk. While doing so, there is fear in her voice, not from the fact that she feels bad about what she did to Nora, but from who she is becoming. In the show, she straight up says maybe Nora didn't deserve that, eliminating the tension of Ellie's moral code.
This brutal, gritty killing machine that Ellie becomes in the game is absent from the show.
Ellie isn't strong. She's not the smartest, but she's driven. That is the Ellie I relate to: the narrow-minded, toxically motivated character whose perspective is clouded by their deepest desire: to finish the job.
In one of the most devastating sequences in the game, Ellie murders Owen and Mel — two of Abby's friends who were present when Joel was killed. After killing both characters, Ellie finds out Mel was pregnant, putting into perspective how far her killing has gone.
In the show, Owen pulls a gun on Ellie, so she shoots at him in self-defense. The bullet then goes through him and hits Mel as well, accidentally killing her. It seems as though they were scared of making Ellie too violent out of fear that she'll become unlikeable, which resulted in an Ellie who is regretful and kills people by accident.
I think back to who I was when I first played the game during that October in 2023, alone in my room with nothing but my PlayStation 4.
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When Ellie wanted revenge for Joel, I felt that. When she realized the monster she had become, I felt that even more. This story and especially this character means so much to me, so seeing her become a shell of who she was in the game is heartbreaking.
Knowing what's to come in season three, I'm less excited. I don't feel like this version of the character is going to have the same impact. But when season three does arrive, I know I'll watch it, because even if this isn't what I wanted from the show, "The Last of Us" is still an amazing story, and I still want to see it through.
So until then, I'll go back to playing through Hillcrest and experiencing the story the way I believe it was meant to be told.
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this insight are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
Edited by George Headley, Leah Mesquita and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporter at mamareng@asu.edu and follow @matthewmarengo on X.
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Matthew is a junior studying journalism and mass communications with a minor in political science. He has previously worked for The Cut Network and has interned with the Student Television Network. He is in his 4th Semester with The State Press working previously as Multimedia Managing Editor and a Full Time Videographer.
