The Last Of Us S2 Premiere: "Future Days" Review
Let me start with the obvious: Abby. Abby is portrayed by Kaitlyn Dever the star of projects such as Booksmart, No One Will Save You, The Spectacular Now, etc. I was quite surprised to see Abby and the rest of her crew introduced so early on. There are two little gripes I have with the introduction of Abby. One: introducing Abby so early removes the built up tension between Joel and Ellie. The second thing is while Kaitlyn Dever is a great actress she isn't physically threatening to Ellie in the size department.
In the video game, Abby is increasingly bigger and stronger than Ellie which makes the match-up more interesting. Getting a little tease of Abby in this episode and her first reveal later on in this season as to why she's enacting revenge on our two characters would have been better to further divide a wedge between Joel and Ellie.
Something I feel like hasn't really been talked about enough is how this episode displays the importance of therapy. In a post-apocalyptic world like this series is set in the last thing anyone would be cornered about is our mental health. Not because it's not important but because there are very little people to talk to and you're more concerned about surviving. We see in this episode that Joel is in therapy and is discussing how his lie to Ellie is effecting their relationship and taking a tole on his mental well-being.
One thing we don't see enough from horror genres: smart monsters. The clickers are a massive step up from the previous season. Without spoiling anything there is a scene with Ellie encountering a Clicker and instead of the Clicker running at her Ellie ends up chasing it instead. It even hides from Ellie before sneak attacking her. I think this was a great way to show that the Clickers are much more than “mindless Zombies”.
Overall Thoughts: Aside from Abby and her motives being revealed so quickly, I don’t have any complaints at all. The two things surrounding Abby's character are small knit picks but I still loved this as a introduction to Season 2.
Rating: 7.5/10
