The Last of Us Season 2’s finale spared audiences from one of the game’s most upsetting moments, which that may be hard to believe after what we’ve seen. The Last of Us is a series that isn’t afraid to take some big swings. Major characters have died at unexpected times, multiple children have been brutally killed, and much more. It’s a franchise where no one is safe, not even people you’d think are main characters. That, of course, raises the stakes tremendously and allows for something really unique since the audience usually assumes certain people are off the table. With that said, The Last of Us Season 2 cut out some scenes from the game that may have been too much for a general audience to handle.
In the video game The Last of Us Part 2, Ellie breaks into the aquarium where she believes Abby is hiding out. However, she encounters an unexpected obstacle: a dog named Alice. The dog charges Ellie and takes her to the ground, where Ellie is forced to stab the dog in order to survive. She doesn’t show much remorse for it as the player has the ability to kill many other dogs throughout the game. In the show, the dog is completely absent and it’s not fully clear whether or not it will appear in Season 3, which will show Abby’s perspective from the last 3 days in Seattle. The dog isn’t a vital part of the story, but it is something that obviously shows how far gone Ellie is on her quest for revenge.
Why The Last of Us Season 2 Cut Ellie Killing Alice the Dog
So, why did this scene between Ellie and Alice the dog get cut? Well, it’s because it was deemed too much for this show by showrunner Craig Mazin. Speaking during a press conference about the season finale, Mazin noted that Ellie kills Owen and Mel and by virtue, the unborn baby that lives inside of her. On top of that, they felt that they could lose the audience by having Ellie kill a dog since it’s basically real life in the TV show and just an animation in the show. Although they wouldn’t kill a real dog on set, the effect it has of seeing that kind of violence against an otherwise real animal may have turned too many people off.
“In the game, when Ellie arrives in the aquarium, a dog attacks her and she stabs it to death, and we don’t know this dog,” said Mazin. “I won’t get into what happens later, because there’s referring to what’s next season, but we had a situation where a number of horrible things were happening. Plus, because it’s live action, the nature of violence becomes much more graphic. It’s more graphic because it’s not like there’s an animation between you and it, it’s people, and it’s very disturbing. We knew what was going to happen to Mel was disturbing, and to Owen, and also what had just happened to Ellie was disturbing.
“I remember having this conversation with the on rank when we were showing a radiation burn victim in Chernobyl for the first time, and the camera kind of just like moved all the way down and showed everything. And we were like, we have it, but why don’t we just show a little bit of it? It’s just feeling now like we’re tormenting the audience [and] almost getting pornographic, so you don’t want to feel exploitative, you don’t want to feel like you’ve crossed some line, so you make some choices.”
Of course, while this will likely upset people who played The Last of Us Part 2 and wanted people to see how torn they are supposed over Ellie’s actions. That’s valid, but Ellie still goes extremely far in killing a pregnant woman. Whether people will have mixed feelings for Ellie after everything remains to be seen. The Last of Us Season 3 likely won’t be released until 2027, if the schedule between Season 1 and 2 repeats.
Do you think Ellie’s actions were softened too much? Let me know in the comments.
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