I’m only about 15 mins in to the video but I do have to respectfully disagree about Tommy’s decision to leave Ellie behind not making sense. It makes perfect sense. He knows what Joel sacrificed so Ellie could live, and he knows his brother would kick his ass if he knew he was knowingly bringing Ellie into such a dangerous situation. Not to mention, Tommy has grown to love Ellie, too. It’s his niece. Did he know Ellie would probably find a way to follow him? Yes. But that doesn’t make it nonsensical that he would refuse to be the one to invite her to join him in something so dangerous. He knows if Ellie dies, Joel died for nothing. Not to mention, he knows Joel wouldn’t want either of them going after Abby. Tommy might want to go against that, but it’s realistic he would at least want to do what he could to limit Ellie’s role in it.

hmm, i don’t know. i think dina leaving ellie makes perfect sense. she gave ellie an ultimatum, “if you leave again, i’m gone”. and ellie leaving again shows that she valued revenge over her family.

When you realise if Ellie just stayed with Dina and JJ, Abby would have died on that beach

Ellie doesn’t ask why she’s never found anyone else who’s immune because she’s dumb or because the writing is bad, she asks it because the first thing Joel tells her when she wakes up is that there’s dozens of immune people. It’s his literal explanation from the first game as to why they left the firefly base.

Well, Tommy does tell Maria to lock up Ellie so she doesn’t follow Tommy. He went in her stead in order to keep her safe. Makes sense to me. 🤷‍♂️

I never understood why Joel explained himself to Ellie while leaving out so many details at Salt Lake hospital. Like the fireflies took an unconscious Ellie and were ready to kill her to make this vaccine. Kinda silly because 20 years had gone by. What’s another day to wait before scrambling her brains? They also attacked Joel, a man who was performing cpr on a child. I get that they had to make conflict for the first games ending. But Ellie is a child and despite her potentially wanting to sacrifice herself, she is too young to make that choice, and the fireflies screwed up any possibility of making a vaccine due to their haste. I just think Joel should’ve explained himself further. Yes he lied, and it’s bad. But it’s not like Ellie was consenting and the fireflies handled this responsibly. “Oh my! The child is here! Quickly before she wakes up, prep for surgery! Right away! Let’s not do any tests or ANYTHING! We’ve waited 20 years for this chance, let’s rush into it blindly for no reason!”

i still maintain that it would have been better pacing to START with Abby’s story up until she gets to the theater AND THEN swapping to Ellie’s story from the beginning. it would’ve made people a lot more sympathetic towards abby, and the shock of seeing the girl you just spent the first half of the story playing as murdering Joel would have been mind blowing

Something I noticed on my second play through was the correlation between Ellie and a character that Dina talks about called "Eugene" Eugene joined the firefly's when he is a younger man and that's where he met Tommy and ended up in Jackson .A note from his ex wife that you can find in his bunker shows her begging him to come home to her and her daughter, telling Eugene to leave the firefly's, to let someone else save the world, let someone else get revenge on FEDRA, to pick family over revenge and war. But Eugene didn't, he left with the firefly's, left his family behind, and it seems like he never saw them again, and Dina comments on how lonely Eugene was for the remainder for his life before he had a stroke and died. In the end, Ellie also choice revenge over family, left her partner and child behind, and in the end lost everyone she loved and became very lonely. I don't know if this was an intended idea put into the game or if I'm reading to much into it, but I thought it was interesting.

JJ is Jessie Joel not Jessie Jr. per Neil

they never pointed out how the good doctor and his people wanted to dissect the child’s brain without her consent for a _chance_ at a cure cuz it’d throw a wrench into their whole moral compass thing.

Tommy leaving Ellie in Jackson makes a lot of sense to me. He didn’t want something to happen to her while seeking revenge. And on top of that if he did bring her along and something bad happened to her, he didn’t want that on his conscience. Losing his brother and his brothers “daughter” (again), both bc he couldn’t protect them well enough might have been too much for him. Also he knew he could take care of himself. Was it stupid to go alone? Yes. But he was for sure putting in work with his sniper. Edit: I also want to add that with his state of mind and emotions at that moment, he likely wasn’t thinking rationally (which would have been go with Ellie so you can both take care of Abby. And you can have each others backs) he was likely thinking more emotionally, being that he couldn’t handle losing Ellie too

I would point out during Abbys first section before she meets jole during the snow storm she finds their tracs and follows them so I kinda do nto get how it is contrived to think some one hunting some one would find them when they leave tracks.

I have yet to play either games. I've watched others playthroughs/cutscenes. But...my inital reasoning for Ellie putting the knife to Levs' throat was to in a sense antagonize Abby to engage in fighting her, giving Ellie a reason to to go though with it.

I don’t think they were manipulating players to like Abby and dislike Ellie. I think they were trying to show how they are such similar people, ridiculed with their addiction to revenge. They aren’t forcing you to switch teams or even justify Joel’s death by fleshing out Abby’s character and making her more human. In my opinion, Part 2 isn’t about hate, it’s about addiction. It’s as much a story about love as the first game, just to the other extreme. I do think the placement of Ellie and Joel’s talk was absolutely perfect. Showing us that scene towards the end of the entire game really changes your perception of any further play-throughs. It shows us that Ellie went through all of this knowing the whole truth and why Joel did what he did. It shows us how she finally had the chance to choose her own trajectory in life by deciding to forgive Joel, just for it to be so brutally torn away from her once again. “I don’t think I could ever forgive you for that. But I would like to try.”

So much about any kind of art/media/entertainment is subjective... But I've never heard anyone who's coined this game as "straight garbage" that hasn't also absolutely lost their mind over Joel dying. Those two opinions seem to be intrinsically linked... People are entitled to enjoy or not enjoy any medium of art - but to dismiss this game as "straight garbage" seems to be a very narrow and thinly veiled view.

I think my issue with the game comes down to rhe whole "ending the cycle of revenge" point just not working for me. The amount of people Ellie and Abby kill along the journey and I'm supposed to think that the cycle is over because Ellie spared the person she actually wants to kill? Who can tell me that the next game the child of another random npc (that's what the doctor was in the first game, pretty much) won't show up to kill either Ellie or Abby as revenge? Idk, it was just a bit too much for me to believe. It's a story that I don't think fits an action game. It will work better in the series for sure. ETA: I do like the game guys, I just didn't enjoy the story all that much but that's fine, the game was still pretty solid for me

The fact you’re saying Tommy leaving her behind “makes no sense at all” is crazy…. He knew what SHE MEANT TO JOEL.. why would he want to endanger her so just she could get revenge?? Literally that simple

Oh man, I forgot how bad this game was. Beautiful game/gameplay, "good" story, terrible writing.

"When this game focuses in on Joel and Elllie, I love it." Exactly. This is what fans who were so disappointed by this sequel feel as well. And thats why it is so upsetting and downright annoying that the game forces you into false sympathy for a random character that we don't give a rats ass about. I expected Joel to die in this game as well, but not the way he did. It was so incredibly disappointing and a very unfitting end for a beloved character. I agree that the "Abbys crew" characters are terribly written and are such nothing characters that I genuinely wonder why the game puts such emphasis on them. But the worst thing of all is the pacing. It feels like you're constantly being thrown back to scenarios you've already went through. It's repetitive and annoying. Also the constant guilt-trip the game tries to brute force you into is so draining, I found myself in too many eye rolling moments to count. All in all, this game tried way too hard to be fancy with a nothing B-Story when they could have just given us more Ellie and Joel surviving the apocalypse together. Make him die in the end, sure, make it a not happy ending, thats fine. But this was not it NaughtyDog.

My girlfriend really likes the last of us season 1 and i am not ready for her to find out what happens in the second game

Joel did get comfortable in the years in Jackson, but what's an even more sobering truth is that he just had that conversation with ellie the night before. He was on a high and felt like he's getting his daughter back. He's guard was absolutely down. That's all.

Ellie didn't lose Dina. The ending of the game shows Ellie wearing Dina's bracelet which Dina held onto when she left, not to mention she has a jacket on. It's not supposed to be Ellie being alone, its her moving on from Joel after not being able to play guitar, and living the rest of her life with Dina. The reason why you didn't see this is because the game does an awful job showcasing this, the last scene we get of Dina is her saying that if Ellie leaves, they're done, only for her to, offscreen, turn around and accept Ellie. This is what I hope the writers were doing at least, because Ellie losing everything after breaking the cycle of violence destroys the first games amazing ending.

Great video, i don't agree with the story being poorly written. Everything you feel in the game is valid but i just like talking about this game: Joel and Tommy do have their guard up initially when they meet Abbys crew, he asks questions about what they're doing there, constantly is looking around, and they identify their patches. But at that time it's not like they have a choice but to stay there and believe that if they were going to attack them, they would've done so already. I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of people's favorite moments are the Joel and Ellie stuff but almost everything involving Abby is found flawed from a writing standpoint in some way. (Abby and Lev's developing of their relationship is forced, their parallels are not subtle enough, her flashbacks are boring, they want us to like her while tearing down Ellie). I don't agree with any of these and don't think the way they handle this is bad from a writing standpoint at all. The game wants to highlight our biases. For a lot of players, just like Ellie, they understand Joel has harmed a lot of people and why Abby went after him, but they don't care, and thats ok. A writer on Avatar said once that a character doesn't need to be likeable, but understandable and dimensional, and whether or not you grew to like her, I think they succeeded in making a good character in Abby. Plus the game is full of subtlety for example leaving so much up to interpretation on what a characters are thinking based on their faces alone. That's what i like about this game and how people have their own interpretations of so many moments, like why Ellie let Abby go in the end. There are parts of the story i find flaws in, like every story ever, but the good for me outweighs my issues by a mile.

Fun fact the diary entry that is seen at 44:45 on the right side is the lyrics of a song called "The Guardian" by Shawn James :)

Noone upset at all that joel didn’t describe what happened at all to ellie, just told her “yea i killed them because they wanted to kill you.” not… “They knocked me out trying to save you from drowning, put a gun to my head and told me you needed to die, lied to me saying there wasn’t any other way and didn’t want to at-least humor the person who brought ellie DAYS of travel to the base safely by testing on you… not just outright kill you in a haphazard non-guaranteed way of MAYBE getting a cure. Not to mention they didn’t ask you , they purposely kept you unconscious so they didn’t possibly have to contest a child maybe valuing their life more then a low chance cure? A cure that a terrorist group (with a history with shitty choices and decision) may monopolize on the surviving humans of the world??. I just called them on their flawed decision and they threatened to kill me for caring about your wellbeing.” If he even said ANY of those points ellie wouldn’t just idk… ice him out? Let alone the narrative aspect of killing him so early and ruining the rest of the game for people who wanted tlou2 to be a sequel and a focus on idk… the relationship of ellie and joel? the WHOLE point of the first game? They set up abby so poorly and the back and forth narrative could’ve been done so much better. Im so upset and i hope the movie series change up joels passing or ill never forgive Naughty Dog for crippling this franchise like this

I personally loved the ending. Ever since Joel’s death, Ellie hadn’t been able to see his face without it being beaten to a pulp - look through her journal and you can tell she’s traumatised by the image. Of course you’d want revenge on the person who killed your dad, because Abby did, because Ellie did, because anyone who has experienced murder would against the killer. But as she’s on the verge of getting this revenge, as Abby is fighting for her life, we see Joel playing his guitar on his porch - which we know was one of his favourite ways to relax from the first game. This is no different to Abby being able to see her dad alive in her dream as opposed to seeing him dead, and she is able to move on after that. She found her purpose - looking after Lev and finding the Fireflies - and something worth fighting for. Ellie realises that even if Abby dies at that point, Joel is still gone, but at that moment she can see him as she knew him in his life, not during his brutal death. And that is why she lets Abby go. Her purpose *was* revenge but it’s fruitless and always has a cost. Lev may well have came after her for killing Abby and the cycle would have continued, and what purpose does that have? None.

I have to disagree on one thing. The idea that Joel should have had his guard up is one thing but let’s look at the scenario. He saved Abby and then they fight side by side with Tommy. They are about to be over run and need a safe place Abby suggests the spot which according to Joel and Tommy’s reaction might work which means they didn’t have a better solution. When they get to the safe (not safe) house Abby’s comrades shut the gates and throw fire bombs on the infected. Joel and Tommy both have fought along Abby and trial by combat trust exists. Even if they didn’t trust her they were out numbered anyway and no where to go. So playing the friend card is the only option as soon as they realize the danger it was too late. It was too late when Tommy Joel and Abby had to leave the lodge. The cabin was the only chance of surviving the horde. Then when you reach it was already too late. You want to think Joel and Tommy can just take care of the 6 members but why would they be prepared for that after fighting alongside Abby. I understand your thought but I don’t think you’re making sense really

My biggest issue with the theme and message of the story is the environment of the world. You’re in a post apocalyptic world, filled with not only infected zombies, but gangs of savage people doing anything to survive and literally militias. Your in a world were you’ve witnessed your closest friends and families die, and you’ve been forced to do some of the most messed up stuffs. What’s to stop some randoms ass Npc that Abby or any other character killed from coming back and continuing this “cycle of revenge” that the game so desperately wants to villanize. I don’t think this was the game for this message

At the end, it's a game about self loathing and eventually forgiveness. Both Ellie and Abby reach a point where they can forgive themselves. The Pearl Jam song is symbolism n both Ellie and Abby's characters are various points in their arc - "If I ever were you lose you, I'd surely lose myself". Ellie can't forgive herself for never getting to forgive Joel. Anny can't forgive herself for the things she's done and the relationships she's destroyed in doing so - she still has PTSD and killing Joel has given her no closure. Ellie relenting and letting Abby go is her letting that side of her, and Joel go. Ending the cycle and moving on, and hopefully going back to Dina and Jackson to live the best life she can. Also, the recording Ellie finds in the hospital is clearly Mel, Jerry's protege. Also, Mel telling Abby's she's a POS has more to do with the fact that Mel is referring to Abby basically torturing Joel with a golf club. They signed up to go get justice, but clearly nobody besides Manny was game to torture him as violently as she did. It's mention literally 3 minutes into Abby's day 1 when Manny tells Abby that Mel is shaken by how they killed Joel - so Mel sees Abby suddenly having a change of heart after doing all of the things she's done of hypocritical, and confronts her for it. She probably also knows that she's been fucking with Owen but can't really prove it. The writing around Joel's death isn't that lazy. They mention that they're aware that there's a patrol at the ski lodge. That patrol being Joel & Tommy is certainly convenient, but not lazy. Abby only runs into them after she triggers the hoard, which draws them out. As for Tommy leaving without Ellie, he understands that she has no experience against stronger militarized groups - groups that Tommy was apart of. There's also a chance Tommy knew who the WLF were and knew what they would be getting into - the founders of the WLF were Fireflies. Ellie throughout the game shows that she's in over his head. They survive in the end, but just barely. Ellie isn't a soldier. Stories don't have to be fulfilling. Shakespeare made a career out of unfulfilling and tragic stories.

They need to do a DLC that shows Tommy's 3 days in Seattle (kinda like Left Behind in Part 1) I was so disappointed when they made Part 2 for PS5 and it didn't have it

The whole “you killed my father” revenge plot would have helped me like Abby more if she didn’t torture Joel for multiple hours before killing him, that lost any hope I had for ever liking Abby.

I would like to point out a little flaw about this whole revenge story- the vast trail of dead bodies Abby and Ellie leave behind... well, im sure they have family and friends too, who also might be upset by losing their loved ones

I will never understand why people like the horrible writing of this game.

My main problem with this story is that : - They went on assuming that we would "sympathize" with Abby's side after she killed Joel when we knew NOTHING about her. They should have put that scene of Marlene and Jerry in the first game so we understood quicker the consequences of killing Jerry. I had to wait like 12 hours to understand why Abby wanted to kill Joel and by that time my mind was already made on her. - The random PTSD moment at the end of the game. I can understand Ellie's indecisiveness but by the time we see how affected she is by killing, I was already done with Abby. - The writing and the way they "tried-harded" the parallels between Abby/Lev and Joel/Ellie. That shit was so in your face like : "Look !! Abby has found her people into Lev and the Santa Barbara's Fireflies, just like Joel did with Ellie and Jackson 🥰🥰🥰", "Look !! Abby likes anime and collects stuff, just like Ellie and her comic books and cards!!! :)))))) They are SOOOOOOO similar guys they probably would be best friends if it wasn't for circumstances ❤" It almost feels like the writers sat in front of me and told me "Here's a new Ellie and Joel :))))" for 30+ hours but I do not know those new characters. I do not know her opinions, her dreams, her hobbies, what she likes, what she dislikes. We don't know anything about her before she kills a Joel we've known for like, 7 years. How do you expect me to forgive, or at least sympathize with her ? This story had major pacing issues and I think it's what spoiled it for me. To compare with a game that I've played that came out the same year, Ghost of Tsushima. Imagine if the second act was just us playing as Khotun Khan and talking about his own insecurities and traumas (in parallel with Jin's) while he invades Tsushima. Like bro, I do not care, just die please 😂😂😂. - More of a personal issue but I do not like characters who quit halfway through things, it pisses me off. Especially when we kill THOUSANDS just to get to her only to give up right in front of an almost dead Abby. We have made thousands of Abbys, who could come back AT ANY MOMENT FOR US, in our way, only to fail in front of the only Abby that needed to die and that pissed me off. I wish they would have given us an option to spare people just like in Sifu, so there could be a consequence for OUR actions. I'm playing as Ellie (and Abby) but I'm not them. Not everybody can relate to their choices and their feelings so of course it's going to be polarizing. Now, I know that killing Abby won't bring back Joel (I already know he wouldn't be in the game) but Ellie can't come back to reality with a half empty cup. To me, the cup needs to be FULLY EMPTY to start all over again. I understand the point of the story but it's written so weirdly that I cannot like it. It just leave a sour taste in my mouth. And no matter how much I'd like to change some parts it won't change anything so it's just frustrating. It's like they choose the worst option in a Telltale game 😂😂

Which background music did you use for the video?

i think i’m more upset that ellie can no longer play guitar than the fact she let abby live

Abby didn’t just “happen” to stumble across Joel…Owen saw Joel’s patrol and then Abby tracked their horses.

I'll keep it real and say that while I disagree with a lot of the criticisms against the writing of the game, I genuinely love the story through and through and it's one of the most impressive I've ever seen across any medium but TBH it's my favourite game of all time, so there may be some bias. With that said though, this was a really well made video and I really appreciate that you're bringing a lot more to the stage than the typical criticisms this game gets. Awesome video, was very surprised to see you have under 5K subs.

what is the title of the background music? it’s really nice

Tommy leaving Ellie behind does kinds make sense to me. If Ellie died going out to avenge Joel, then everything Joel did since meeting Ellie was for nothing. All the fireflies he killed (Tommy was a firefly once too) and all of the emotional progress to becoming a better person Joel made as a result of taking care of Ellie would be gone in the wind. He didn't want to risk that and so instead, he went himself.

Quick correction for the Epilogue when Ellie returns to the abandoned farmhouse. It’s subtle & easily missable, but the scene starts where u can see Ellie wearing Dina’s bracelet. Signifying that she already has returned to Jackson and to JJ& Dina. She’s basically leaving the guitar behind to move on. So it’s not as bleak as most would think. But great analysis, I enjoyed this video & gave me even more perspective on the game as a whole. So thank you

i say that a game that is able to give you such a visceral reaction is a successful one. imagine creating a story that causes mobs of people to hate on a fictional character for killing another fictional character

The cycle ends when you kill everyone that could take revenge on you

what is the name of the song in the beginning?????

Thanks for making an intelligent critique. It's very rare to find good faith, nuanced discussion about games, let alone controversial games like TLOU 2. You helped fill that void.

I often think that maybe the story of part 2 would've worked a lot better if there was only one boat at end. So abby and ellie would be forced to interact, maybe if their life is threatend on their way, the circumstances would've forced them to talk things through, to understand each other truly and fully. All in all, 4 years later, i've come to like abby's pov in the game way more and really like her as a character. I always look forward to see her days in seattle whenever a gameplay pops on my ytb.

I disagree that Ellie making the right choice by sparing Abby was "rewarded" by losing Dina and JJ. She lost them by making the wrong choice to pursue Abby instead of letting it go. Sparing her was Ellie finally learning her lesson

It seems like all the great parts he loves are so lovable because they love the first game

I personally think that abbys character would have been more of a enjoyable character if they reworked the story to befriending joels group and her struggling with the decision to kill joel. The way they packaged it in this game made most people angry at abby, angry they had to play as abby, and furious that ellie didn’t kill her at the end of the game.

In my humble opinion, the hate this game got just proves the main theme of this story. It has so many complex stories to tell and if you ever felt loss like Ellie and the hate and anger it can bring you and consume you, you would appreciate this. Its a story of the best and worst that human emotions can do. And its very very real. The death threats Laura got about her child shows how far Anger can drive a human, just like Ellie. Try to feel more emphaty and less hate, cause thats the message this game wants to get through and the hate it got, just shows that there us not enough of it in the world right now, which makes me sad

They got too heavy handed with subverting expectations. There is a balance to doing it successfully they ignored that and turned the dial way way up and it ruined what could have been a great game. Also the lesbian relationship is pointless and monotonous part of the game.

I have an interesting theory. A lot of people were very upset with last of us 2. People seem to think the antagonist of the story is Abby. But I am a firm believer that the true villain of the last of us 2 was Joel's brother Tommy. If you think back on all of the major events in the story He was either directly responsible or the driving force of every major negative event.

the things you have to overlook to actually hate the writing

One of the things that bugs me most about the contrived nature of Joel and Abby meeting, is how she doesn't even consider letting him live. He saves her life and an hour later she doesn't even wrestle with herself over killing him, not even questioning her initial motivation to go on this quest? Why wouldn't she begin to doubt the path that she's on? She could have been asking herself if she really saw the death of her father in the right way and whether or not Joel was perhaps acting justified. That perhaps he was not at all the murderous, morally apathetic monster she thought he was. This would add further to the moral ambiguity of killing Ellie for a potential cure and give us a new perspective. There is so much more depth that could have been explored here, but instead we don't even get to experience what Abby told Joel in the minutes she was torturing him... Such a missed opportunity that just rubs more salt into the wound of how contrived and shallow the setup of their meeting is.

As much as I disliked the gaps in the story-telling - I thought it lent a palpable sense of realism to the characters' journeys. People do dumb things when they shouldn't. They trust people they shouldn't, when they shouldn't, and often do foolish things trying to protect loved ones - which backfire. This should be expected, not the exception. Tommy leaving early and trying to spare Ellie the pain of revenge (whether you get revenge or not, there's always pain) makes sense from a human perspective. Joel trusting strangers he shouldn't - while in extremis - makes sense from a human perspective. Dina being more worried about her friend/lover's mental state and feelings more than she should have been about her baby makes sense from a human perspective. All of these things, coupled with the randomness of the depopulated world allowing people to cross paths unexpectedly, are things that could happen in real life - history is littered with such examples of being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. All of theses 'wrong' decisions by our characters feel very believable from a human perspective.

Everyone is soo pissed off that Abby killed Joel, and I can understand why cause that gets to me too, but what bothers me more than anything is that Sarah should've grown up w Joel in the first game, having an Ellie and Sarah team up to go after Abby, and they all work together in last of us 3 against a much bigger threat, bigger than the Wolves, Seraphites, Rattlers etc.

Been replaying it recently, and it's definitely grown on me a lot

47:42 Respectfully, I feel that you missed the point of the story; twice. It’s not overt. The story respects and challenges its audience by not spelling out every theme but it’s about Ellie keeping her humanity. While she’s trying to drown Abby, we see a flash of Joel. Then once you get to the ending flashback of the game, you realize those are the same moments and it answers why she let Abby go. What does the last flashback say to you? Of course there are many perspectives of it but one of main themes that connects the flashback and the glimpse of Joel during the final fight with Abby and Ellie is forgiveness. Yes, breaking the cycle of violence is an important theme they’re trying to convey but Ellie is so driven by anger and revenge. So much that she’s willing to give up her happy life with Dina. Then when she finally gets the opportunity to put an “end” to her source of trauma, she’s reminded of her humanity and how she was able to forgive Joel. Or at the very least begin to forgive. It would have been easy and unfulfilling for Ellie to kill Abby. Abby’s experience of killing Joel proves that. Ellie learns that by forgiveness, she can finally start to let go of her trauma and move on. The same lesson she was beginning to learn by forgiving Joel. It took her a long time not to let rage and revenge get the better of her but by letting Abby go, it showed her growth over the game and was a far more profound conclusion than a bloodbath ending in another murder.

In the commentary for the game Neil mentions the trailer lie was a mistake and that he regrets doing it. Also, your video was unlucky to come out a few days before the Grounded II documentary about the making of the game.

I hate this game because I'm a grown ass man who doesn't need to be taught about cycles of violence from a video game. ND thinking they could make me connect with Abby after brutally murdering Joel was just goddam disrespectful to me.

This game is so frustrating because some aspects work well but so much of it is just bad. The gameplay is solid and some scenes work really well but for every scene that works there's 1 that is just bad.

Honestly i couldn’t wait for it to be over. It was absolutely dreadful, depressing and morbid. It jumps back and forth in time so often, it’s hard to keep up with the story. I don’t understand how they went from The Uncharted masterpiece to this.

i think ellie leaving dina for revenge in the end then coming back for her not seeing them there signifies it was ellie's decision that made them leave regardless of ellie sparing abby or killing her..

Thanks for the upload, been waiting for you to talk about part 2. The gameplay and world are fantastic

A lot of the controversy came from people who didn't play it nor understood it

I have some big plot issues with this game, the convenience of the horde pushing everyone in the right direction and right time, Jesse leaving Dina alone in an unsecured base to go with Ellie to find Tommy, Mel and Owen's confrontation with Ellie regarding the pregnancy, the tension and suspense of Ellie's POV being completely reset, 1-2 moments involving the Dina-Ellie-Jesse love triangle which I didn't like, Yara teleporting to Abby to save her from Tommy, and stuff like that. However, from a more story-based perspective from the 2 main characters in this one I fairly liked it. Tommy leaving Ellie and wanting her locked up makes sense because he's trying to protect her while that darker side of him from his Firefly days and when he and Joel were hunters has been brought to the forefront basically. There are pieces of context in several areas of this game and even the last game that support the softening of Joel. For example, in the last game after fighting alongside Henry and putting his trust in Henry (also due to him having a younger brother) he slept alongside them once they were safe. The game also makes it clear that Joel has been put into the patrol position which due to the reliability and caring Haven project as shown in a paper from Ellie Day 2 alongside those patrol notebooks and other context clues/dialogue would support his softening. It's also important to acknowledge that Tommy was trying to establish trust with Abby in that lodge and that even if Joel said nothing she would've known anyways. Ellie's journey in Ellie's POV up to Day 3 may make the game come off as just a revenge story (reminiscing memories hint at that) but Abby's perspective recontextualizes the story into something else and in the epilogue section with Ellie this is clearly not just a revenge story anymore, there's more driving her to this point than that. The game is not trying to turn Ellie into a villain from my perspective, it is just showing Ellie going down a path of false justice with her obsession being reinforced by the memories, while Abby has already gone down that path and she's trying to come back from that by realizing her wrongs and mindset and trying to change it but fails until Lev reminds her of what's important and what she's been trying to accomplish. (Pure Survivors in this world) Yes, I will admit that the majority of the side-characters don't have as much character to them as the characters from Part I and Left Behind and I admit that the flow of the plot with certain contrivances and a few pieces of plot armor are indeed messy, but I just don't think the story is absolutely terrible like a lot of people say. I don't think it's as good as Part I and the plot construction is definitely weaker, but I just can't say that it's bad in my opinion. 7/10

We all need to accept that the story of TLOU2 was not well written. The fact that people hate Abby as much as they do when the game wants the opposite reaction tells u everything u need to know. Many forms of media has done it. Making u empathize with the bad guy, and they were successful becoz of good writing.

Dina being pregnant was totally rediculous and cringe af.

This game showcased that people value fiction over reality. Some folk were so upset with the writing choices that they felt justified in their aggressive behaviour towards real-life people. In some ways, it allows TLOU Pt2 seem quite meta, as it drove some players to similar emotional turmoils as Ellie.

They could have had Abby team up with Joel and Ellie doing whatever ... and slowly realize it's Joel who murdered her father.... then have an internal conflict going on about what to do. With the lazy writing, maybe even have her date ellie and add that compound the issue.

Great video but… you said it was bad writing that Ellie asks why she’s never met another immune. In the first game, Joel told her that there were dozens of others like her. I think her asking Joel that, was supposed to be rhetorical

Everyone criticizing these game for story, writing, execution etc. But the one thing which no one criticize is the music. Like man its too damnnn GOOOD. Like i dont think that anyone who had played or watch this game being played have anything to criticize its music. Gustavo Santaolalla respect 🫡🫡🫡

What makes someone say "they tried way to hard to empathize Abby". I thought it was naturally done. Can you elaborate on the actual technical aspect of it being forced?

song name for 1:02 ?

Dina is pregnant to give Ellie a reason to be alone in combat sections

I hope jeffrey wright reprises his role as isaac in the tv show. He’s up for a best actor oscar this year, if he’s in the show they’ll have to flesh out the character more. You hear so much about Isaac before you meet him, its disappointing how little consequence he has in the story in the end.

One thing I've noticed about this game is that most criticisms of contrivances or "plot holes" are the result of people who just straight up didn't pay attention, or even worse, didnt even play the game. I could list examples, but there are honestly so many that I don't know where to start.

People who hate it just can’t handle real life. People die, characters die. If you want everyone surviving happily, go watch Disney shows.

I just really disagree with the take that Joels death was lazy writing. At most it was contrived but it was bound to happen. If people don't like how early he died thats fine, but the game already gets complaints for being too long so how they did it is okay to me. Imagine we are playing as abby and we have to sneak into jackson to kill joel, I think people would hate that even more tbh. Her accidently running into joel solved that issue. Like i said, is it contrived? for sure but that doesn't make it bad

Personally, I thought the plot choice to show Joel's death first, then elaborate on Abby's character was phenomenal, and I don't think they were trying to make you "like" Abby afterwards. Just think of Part 1 - you get Joel's arc first, see his humanity unfold, and his rampage through the firefly hospital becomes understandable. I don't know a single person hating Joel for what he did in the end. People discuss the morality and circumstances and the what-ifs, yes, but there's no hate. For Abby, they flipped the script - first see the horrendous actions, then show the humanity of the murderer. Just imagine they had showed Abby's humanity and motivations first, then let the tragedy unfold - for one, the trauma and suddenness of Joel's death wouldn't have nearly as much impact, because at some point you'd see the confrontation Abby vs. Joel coming. For two, knowing where Abby is coming from, you might see her pursuit of revenge as somewhat justified and somewhat forgivable/relatable, just like Joel's actions at the end of Part 1 become understandable knowing his background and journey. The way the writers set up Part 2, they demonstrate how hard it is to see that humanity in someone, once you're already hating them. People's strong reaction to Abby kinda proves it. Many people don't just not like Abby, they actively hate her and talk/write about her with a passion, as if she was a real person who actually murdered someone. Some extend that hate even to the writers. I don't think any other plot choice would have evoked such strong emotions, or would've laid bare biases this well. Moreover, the plot choice of Part 2 puts us in Ellie's emotional space. At the moment of Joel's death we know as little about Abby as does Ellie, we don't see the human Abby, but the murderer Abby. tl;dr If the main theme of the game is hate, they made the perfect plot choice to get you there.

I thibk if they did the Abbie perspective as DLC it might just have worked really well

One of my biggest problem is that the ending of TloU it heavily implies Ellie knew Joel was lying so I can't buy it at all when she brings it up in 2.

There should have been WAY more development of Abby before Joel is murdered. MAYBE we would have cared a little more about her character. Maybe.

Anyone is free to not enjoy any piece of media they so choose. So if you don’t like TLOU2, that’s fine. You’re entitled to your feelings. But anyone saying TLOU2 is a garbage product is speaking purely from emotion and lacks further credibility as a circumstance of this fundamental failure of reasonable judgment.

Ever fart when you cry? Like your body tenses up and it accidentally sneaks out. They shoulda made Ellie do that when she finds out. Nobody woulda been ready for it 😂

One thing about the end that bothers me is when during the flashback with Joel, Ellie says "my life wouldve mattered" to ne thats selfish when she knows how much she means to Joel and maybe couldve been more understanding about his feelings and why he did what he did. But then i guess Joel was being selfish when he saved her? I dont know. The story has been left open so maybe theyll wrap things up with some of these things if and when TLOU 3 comes out

One interesting thing I noticed from talking to people is that the game seems to have been much better received by people who played the second game immediately after their first playthrough of the first game. It actually makes a lot of sense why people who play both games for the first time back to back would love the story, because you're going into the first game expecting it to be a part 1 rather than a standalone story, and thus the second game having the previous game's emotional climax as the driving point for the entire story doesn't feel as...awkward? I guess awkward would be the word? Like for me, as someone who played the first game when it first came out and really came to appreciate its value as a perfect standalone story, it was already really jarring to imagine what a sequel would be like, and it was really awkward when the sequel's entire plot and emotional driving force turned out to be HIGHLY motivated by the events of the first game. This isn't a universally bad approach for sequels, but it is a bad approach when the first installment's impact and success explicitly comes from the fact that the story was left open ended and with lack of closure. When I try to think of a parallel, I imagine if Christopher Nolan suddenly made an Inception sequel where you see if the top stops spinning or not. Like no, nobody wants that. At all. Likewise, I genuinely did not want to see what happened next in Joel and Ellie's relationship. That's not the point of the ending. Before I rant too much, I'll just say that it definitely was possible for the Last of Us to have a universally loved sequel, but I think in order to do that it would have needed to essentially sideline the events of the main story to a big extent. I always look at Better Call Saul (prequel to Breaking Bad) and Puss in Boots The Last Wish (spin off to Shrek) as golden examples of how to make compelling spin off/sequel/prequel to a beloved story. Each of these respective stories expanded on both a beloved character and the world that the first story took place in, but they are EXTREMELY careful to leave the events of the first story completely untouched. Any reference to the initial story is done very sparingly and in more of an easter-eggy way, as the writers want to be very careful to not interfere with something that the audience already views as complete.

One hours of some of the worst opinions about this game i've ever heard...

The only actually great parts of this game are the scenes between Joel and Ellie. Think that says something about the direction they should have gone with it.

Totally disagree with your comments about Joel's dropping his guard with Abbie and her crew being completely out of character. In the first game he was jaded and angry at the world due to losing his daughter. In this one he's found a peaceful society with family, learned to love a surrogate daughter who he almost lost due to having his guard up all the time and killing first, asking questions later. He's softened because of those experiences. It's really obvious - I'm surprised you don't see that.

it's just a bad game, naughty dog created contraversy to distract from that, I've replayed one many times and struggled to get through this

Even after killing Joel Abby’s flash backs were of her dad (PTSD) What changed in her final flash back in the hospital was Lev (Love) Ellie’s final flashback was her convo with Joel and forgiving (Love) That’s the point of the end. Killing Abby won’t fix anything. Ellie lost everything again because she went to seek out her vengeance but can you blame her? It’s not a story of revenge, it’s a story about EMPATHY which a lot of you lack and it shows.

Love the game. A flawed masterpiece

This game Is good because It's got a realistic story and I like how If you're not one sided you can see that Abby and Ellie are the same character both want revenge on their dad's killer and the ultimate ending where Ellie decides against killing Abby because she finally realizes that It's not what Joel would want for her and that Joel saved her because he only wanted her to live hits hard when you think about It In depth

You can boil down the shortcomings of Part 2 with two words: pacing and exposition. The way the narrative pacing turns this game into two stories, each feeling like it's own story with some overlap, makes it feel exhausting. As far as exposition, I feel like the game should have done a cold open with Abby and her father lasting a couple hours culminating in the reveal that they are fireflies and Jerry is the surgeon Joel killed. This would have gone far in making the player sympathize with Abby.

Also why didn't Joel even try to shoot at abby? He has his gun! There is no universe where Abby would survive an encounter with Joel

I think everybody intentionally loses to Ellie when playing with abby as a boss fight and cheered😅😅😅

Love your Movie Overload channel and absolutely loving the game stuff too dude keep it up 😀

One of the failure of this narrative by basing it off Joel's past coming to do him in the end, is the very fact that by that resolve, all of the 7 - 11 people Ellie killed have family members, friend etc waiting in line to come after Ellie. Also this goes for Abby and her friend. The basis of the blame is strange when everyone else are murderers in similarity with Joel. Remembering that Joel was not killed for the potential preventing a cure. He was killed because he killed an NPC character. The setup was understandable but was weaker choice to set off the story. I am pretty sure with proper brain storming the writers could have came up with a better way for Joel to die because by this method there are lines of people waiting to kill Abby, Ellie etc. Also Joel did not just outright killed Abby's father, the man was threatening Joel and was in the way of a fed-up Joel rescuing Ellie. Abby know well why her father died because she was implicated in the notion of her father actually going through to killing Ellie.

Another terrific video! All of your points were valid, including pointing out Lev's shoes. I think it is okay to not have a clear conclusion on how to feel about The Last of Us Part 2. It had indeed created multiple debates and discussions. I am not just looking forward to seeing how HBO will adapt this divisive chapter but also the upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary on this game.