There's still a lot we don't know about what comes next in HBO’s 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us. In the games, the sequel featured 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a considerable time skip, with core parts of the story told through playable flashbacks. It was a structure that worked perfectl🌼y - it thrust us into the core of the story, with the action taking place over just three days, but still allowed us to see how our leading characters had transformed in the time we wer🅺e separated from them.
There a🐬re a lot of ways this could be addressed on the screen. Will we see a season dedicated to these flashbacks, allowing viewers to grow more connected to each character before season three brings the torment of the games? Will it be told in a similar fashion to the games, with flashbacks peppered in? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:What will happen with Abby? Will, as has been rumoured, Joel's story change? All of these are interesting questions. I don't care about the answers to any of them. All I'm interested in is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:what happens to the Rat King.
Okay, maybe I care a little. I enjoyed the first season (as much as you can enjoy a show like The Last of Us), but felt it was a little too loyal to the game in places, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:rebuilding scenes shot for shot and ripping lines of dialogue verbatim. It was at its best when it was able to reinterpret the game's events in ways that made them richer, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:as it did i💖n Long, Long Tim🌊e with Bill and Frank. I also think the game's structure poses interesting questions and I hope the show is able to answer them, rather than just repeat them back. Mostly though, I just care about the Rat King.
The first season's most interesting work lay with the mythology's zombies, although the show asks nicely that you do not call them zombies. There was the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good - set pieces were used sparingly, understanding that this was a story of the people left behind, not about surviving the zombies themselves in the way The Walking Dead is. The bad - while interesting in principle, the hive mind idea led to a highly gendered zombie kiss as Tess was turned (later nominated ahead of Riley and Ellie 🍌or Bill and Frank ℱfor Best Kiss at the MTV Awards, to much fan confusion), and in its attempts to explain the outbreak, the show lost the apocalyptic punch of the unkn꧙own the games had.
But now, most importantly, the ugly. The clickers looked disgusting (168澳洲幸运😼5开奖网:despite the bloater becoming a s🙈ex symbol), and were mostly made using practical effects. While HBO does use VFX (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game of Thrones' dragons, obviously, were not real), the prestige look of the channel's offerings comes from shooting on location as much as possible and using high quality special effects. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The giraffe in the finale was real, when most other channels w🐻ould have used a green-screened ball of foam on a stick. So how do you do that with the Rat King?
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The Rat King is my favourite fight in The Last of Us Part 2, and easily the most viscerally disgusting. While searching the hospital, we stumble across an abandoned wing where bodies have fused together into an unholy tangle of limbs and subcutaneous fat. It's a swirling ball of body parts that's about nine feet tall and has arms and legs flailing everywhere. It feels impossible that you could do that practically, but it gets worse from there.
Halfway through the fight, a separate mass will separate off from the Rat King, leaving you with one still enormous brute to fight and another sneakier, speedier presence to look out for. It's going to need heavy CGI, which goes against The Last of Us' typical aesthetic, but also creates a major showdown against a zombified enemy (which the show avoided) and takes place mainly in the dark (where CGI can become confusing for viewers, especially in HBO's typical low lighting). I'm worried the series won’t do it justice, and it's my biggest fear for the show.
There are obviously bigger problems to solve. Abby, Joel, the time skip... all of these are major hurdles, but I expect the show to clear them. Even beat for beat, note for note copying the show would be serviceable, and whatever happens I have faith it will work. I'm less sure that will be the case with the Rat King, and that's why it's a major worry even if it's not as crucial to the story overall as some of the other elements. I'm not sure if the fight will be reduced, cut, changed, or if it will be practical or CGI. All I know is it's a major part of why I love The Last of Us Part 2, and I hope the show gets it right.