We predicted this. As soon as the first season of HBO’s The Last of Us wrapped up, we knew the inevitable would come with Season 2, especially after the episode that saw Joel’s character killed off. This mirrors the massive backlash the video game faced for the very same plot point. Back then, journalists quickly blamed “toxic fans” for their outrage, claiming fans needed to accept “subverting expectations” and the inclusion of certain character depictions. Now, history is repeating itself with the TV adaptation.
The disparity between critical reception and fan reception for Season 2 is stark. Critics are overwhelmingly positive, giving it a remarkable 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. We believe critics appreciate certain narrative choices, including dedicating an entire episode in Season 1 to making a non-gay character gay. However, the audience score tells a completely different story, sitting at a mere 49% based on over 2,500 ratings. This is a precipitous drop from Season 1, which garnered over 10,000 fan reviews with an 87% average rating. While some decline between seasons is expected, this is a significant drop in both sentiment and engagement.
Instead of acknowledging potential issues with the adaptation, media outlets are already publishing articles focused on “The Last of Us and toxic fan culture,” labeling the negative reception as “review brigading”. We’ve seen this narrative before, notably with the all-female Ghostbusters reboot, which we believe ultimately suffered at the box office due to poor reception. These outlets seem to flip-flop, sometimes claiming reviews don’t matter, and other times panicking when anonymous online reviews are negative.
Part of the fan criticism has centered on the casting of Bella Ramsay as Ellie, with many comparing her physical appearance to the video game character. While comparing an actor to the source material character isn’t inherently malicious, and criticism might be better directed at casting directors, some online commentary has unfortunately veered into concerning territory, especially given Ramsay’s past struggles. However, we believe it’s disingenuous to pretend that valid criticism of her physical dissimilarities to the game character doesn’t exist, which in our opinion, is quite pronounced. We also find moments, like her character easily defeating a full-grown man in jiu-jitsu, quite laughable.
We reject the idea that fans don’t have the right to criticize a show they are passionate about, however they see fit. The original video game still exists, but when an adaptation fails to meet fan expectations, particularly regarding character portrayal and faithfulness, fans have every right to express their dissatisfaction. We question whether low user scores truly constitute “review brigading” if people genuinely dislike the show. We believe the narrative blaming “toxic fans” is a tired, old story.
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