Review
Culture
Film & TV
Trauma
5 min read

This bad TV version of The Last of Us ruins much more than storytelling

Following up the acclaimed video game doesn't deliver prestige viewing.
A pensive looking woman glances to the side.
Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey.
HBO.

What’s the point of the TV adaptation of The Last of Us

Throughout its second series, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this question. I’m still short of an answer. 

Turning the two The Last of Us video games into prestige TV was always going to be problematic, because those video games already were prestige TV. You just had to press buttons on a controller now and then.  

The first The Last of Us video game is regularly included in lists of the best video games ever, and it’s not because of any ground-breaking gameplay or because of any technological advancements it made. It’s because of its story.  

It is richly character-focussed, gritty, realistic, and utterly human. The Last of Us Part I (as it’s now known) carries the kind of gravitas and emotional complexity you might expect from the likes of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Chernobyl, or The West Wing. It’s already prestige TV.  

So, is the TV adaptation simply an attempt to make this same story accessible to people who don’t play video games? Maybe. That would make sense, were it not for its deeply frustrating second series, the finale of which has just aired. 

The Last of Us Part II was massively controversial when it released in 2020. (WARNING: absolutely colossal spoilers ahead, for both the games and the TV show). Joel – the main protagonist of the first game – is abruptly and brutally murdered in its opening act. This leads Ellie – his pseudo-surrogate-daughter – to hunt down those responsible in attempt to enact a reckoning.  

In the video game, most of the story is told over the course of three days. First, from Ellie’s perspective, then from the perspective of Abby, Joel’s killer. In the TV show, the second series covers Ellie’s side of the story before very abruptly shifting to Abby’s side in the final seconds, leaving the viewers with a cliffhanger. Even as someone who’s played the game and knows what’s going to happen, it felt like a bit of a slap in the face. 

But for someone who hasn’t played the games it must be bordering on nonsensical. Even spread over two series, the story is so truncated, and so much is left unsaid. I can’t imagine making sense of this series without having played the video game first. But the TV show is basically just a live action remake of the game. Which again begs the question: what’s the point of the TV adaptation of The Last of Us

I’ve found this series, and the video game it’s based off, hugely frustrating. Because it’s trying to convey an important message. But both the game and the show contrive to undermine their important central ideas through poor storytelling techniques and structures.  

But in making clear what was left unsaid in the game, the power of the moment is undercut. Much is spoken; little is said. 

Let’s take one example. Half-way through the game (or towards the end of series 2), Ellie has tracked down and tortured one of Abby’s friends for information on her whereabouts. Afterwards, she talks to her lover Dina about what happened.  

In the game, it’s harrowing. Ellie is visibly shaken by what she’s just witnessed herself do. “I made her talk.” She says. And then to Dina: “I don’t want to lose you.” “Good,” comes Dina’s reply. And that’s it. Cut to black. Little is spoken; much is said.  

But where the scenes last about 30 seconds in the game, in the TV show it’s over five minutes long. “I made her talk. I thought it would be harder to do, but it wasn’t. It was easy. I just kept hurting her.” So says Ellie, halfway through the conversation. The writers are clearly trying to make explicit Ellie’s fear that she’s losing herself, and Dina by extension, in her thirst for revenge. But in making clear what was left unsaid in the game, the power of the moment is undercut. Much is spoken; little is said. 

“I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards,” Garth Marenghi once said. I can only assume he writes for HBO now. 

It’s a shame the scene gets fluffed as badly as it does, because really it’s the centrepiece of the narrative. Faced with unthinkable violence, Ellie chooses to repay the act in kind. But, in hunting down and torturing those responsible, ultimately Ellie finds herself becoming less and less human with each act of revenge. Here, in this conversation with Dina, Ellie begins to glimpse the reality of this. That acts of violence towards others are ultimately also acts of violence towards her own nature.  

This is, as it turns out, a deeply Christian notion. Where other Ancient Near Eastern creation myths depict their gods as creating the world through violent and bloody struggle, in Genesis God merely speaks life into being. Where Jesus’ disciples would violently overthrow their Roman oppressors, he instead says “those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”  

Moreover, Jesus’ death by crucifixion was unspeakably cruel and violent, encompassing protracted public humiliation, sexual abuse, and mutilation. It is here that Christ draws the suffering of the world to himself, that we might be given the opportunity to live free from the ongoing cycle of violence that surrounds us. Not that we might avoid having violence done to us, but that we might find the strength not to be violent in turn.  

And this is the ultimate paradox at the centre of Christianity: that the greatest show of strength the world has ever seen is found in Christ’s being nailed to a tree.  

Violence begets violence begets violence begets violence. That’s the message of The Last of Us Part II; albeit one conveyed in a rather ham-fisted way. While I’m not optimistic, I hope the next series of the TV show manages to fix the game’s wobbly narrative structure to convey this in a way that is nuanced and compelling. Because it’s a message we desperately need to hear. 

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Essay
Art
Culture
Trauma
7 min read

From egalitarian to elite: 100 years of Art Deco

Birthed by a lost generation, its legacy is not what its creators sought

Sarah Basemera is a circular economy enthusiast and a founder of Canopi, a boutique for recrafted furniture.

An art deco poster shows the heads of three woman against a beach background.
McGill Library on Unsplash.

Agatha Christie, The Savoy Hotel, Cartier, The Great Gatsby, and All That Jazz sit under the gilt-edge umbrella that is Art Deco. This design movement blossomed for two decades. In 2025, Art Deco turns 100 years old. Today, it's a celebrated era for its gift to design, but what can we learn from this period, and how have the ideologies of this period stood the test of time? 

Art Deco saw  geometric patterns with rectilinear lines, rich jewel contrasting colours with luxury exotic materials, virtuosic craftsmanship, and streamlined expression in architecture, furniture, fashion, art, and jewelry.  

On the surface, this style had many muses, from traditional African art to Cubism. It linked the discovery of Tutankhamen in 1926 with the ceramics of Japan. The bold theatrical colours of the costumes and stage designs of the Ballet Russes, also made a huge impression on Deco creatives. It infused their work with the first vibrant, intense strokes of modern design.  

Over the past 100 years, we have applied Art Deco ideas in different ways, taking what we want from it when we needed to. 

It was the first truly international style, yet it had distinct local expressions. American Art Deco – such as the ornate topped skyscrapers like the Empire State building, had a different expression from opulent Parisian objects such as Cartier alabaster cigar boxes. 

The original Art Deco creatives sought to capture the essence of beauty refined to its simplest form. There was a focus on geometric shapes, symmetry and measured ornamentation.  They wanted to remove the excess frills of previous generations and refine the design.   

Under the gilt-edged Art Deco umbrella were two somewhat opposing arms – the decadent strand vs the essentialist. Today, in popular culture, we remember this period for the Roaring Twenties, excess and hedonism. The decadent strand favoured luxurious, opulent craftsmanship. Its products were attainable only by a small pool of wealthy patrons. 

The essentialist strand – "Art Deco de Moderne" began with noble intentions. They prized efficiency and simplicity, characterised by geometric rectilinear designs. These creatives wanted design to respond to the changing needs of the age. They wanted great design to be accessible to more people. Both strands recognised the power of design to elevate the human experience. They invested in the endeavour to craft beauty across the entire sphere of life, from elevated factories to generous streamlined apartments. 

Vogue Cup and Saucer, 1930, V&A Museum.

An art deco cup and saucer on display.
Vogue cup and saucer, 1930.

100 years later, the problem of accessibility of good design hasn't been fixed. Craftspeople still need to find ways to sustain a living. Handmade design from natural materials is still mainly attainable by the wealthiest. Local craftsmanship is in crisis, and many of us do not know and cannot afford artisans to make things for us from natural materials. Many skilled artisans cannot maintain workshops in our cities. 

Art Deco designers may not have described themselves as hedonists, but they certainly produced goods with this dazzling class in mind. These designers had to be at ease with this world and knew how to play its game to remain commercially viable. So why did the Art Deco Age gush with an ideology of hedonism?  

The philosophy of hedonism from the interwar period reflected the worldview of the so-called 'Lost Generation'. American author Gertrude Stein famously said to a young Ernest Hemingway years after World War I: 

"All of you young people who served in the war... You are all a lost generation . . . You have no respect for anything. You drink yourself to death ...". 

This mood was the backdrop to the literary and creative landscape of the 1920s. 

 When the Great War ended, people wanted to celebrate - play, party and travel, but euphoria for some turned to excess. The simple joys of living here and now became an absolute value. They had witnessed the horrors of war, the fragility of life and were jubilant, wishing to live life to the full. Knowing life could be cut short, the doyennes of the age swung into excess, supposedly breaking free of Christian values, only to find they became trapped in cycles of gratification that didn't deliver. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!" 

This unbridled hedonism was their feast after the plague - it was a coping mechanism. They couldn't think about the future – living here and now was a maxim underpinning this period.  

The Lost Generation grasped the concept of being present in the moment, but they also discovered numbing pain was a deeply unsatisfying solution. 

Fast forward a hundred years, and hedonism is still elusive and utterly unhelpful. It still has a numbing rather than a healing effect. Perhaps its modern relative is bingeing. You know what your binge is, and so does Netflix and our NHS.  

What can the hedonists hijack of Art Deco teach us? Looking sympathetically on this era – hedonism appears to be a coping mechanism. Something humans have needed for aeons. "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own",said Jesus. The Lost Generation grasped the concept of being present in the moment, but they also discovered numbing pain was a deeply unsatisfying solution. 

Ideally, the weight of grief and loss must be wrestled with, carried, shared and not buried. In great pain, it is still wiser to face it, wrestle, get help and cry out to God. In our age, we have the benefit of hindsight to know that burying trauma produces unhealthy outcomes in the long term. We have the privilege of being able to access counsellors, therapists and psychologists.  

The fragility of being in the shadow of death doesn't hang over us today in the West, because we haven't had a recent World War. The closest reminder came through the COVID-19 pandemic. For a moment, we were all forced to focus on simpler things and live less frenetically.  

Another ideology underpinning the age of Art Deco was the belief in the transformative power of the machine age. In this era, confidence rose in the ability of machines.  Steamships, aeroplanes, automobiles, electrification and telecommunications were transformative innovations.  

The rise of machines represented a break from the failed past and the move into modernity into the future. Some of the more modern leaning Art Deco designers took inspiration from the shapes of the new machines and hoped that mass production would lead to more democratic outcomes, with good design being available to all. From Art Deco de Moderne, we began to learn the beauty of simplicity. Efficiency and essentialism were prized. It was the forerunner to Modernism proper. Sadly, this aspect has been butchered over the decades and reproduced unfaithfully in architecture and consumer products. The principle of celebrating the inventiveness of man slowly evolved into something less noble. The desire to return to the essence of good design was galvanised by the need to rebuild fast after World War Two, both as a sign of triumphalism but also to give the nation decent homes. Council house homes were built quickly to rehouse the nation using cheap materials. 

Today, mass production has indeed made design more accessible. More of us have access to contemporary-designed objects and clothes because they are manufactured quickly out of cheap, synthetic, non-biodegradable, toxic materials, at the sweat and tears of workers who are trapped in inhumane conditions, rarely seeing sunlight or fair wages. 

Nevertheless, 100 Years of Art Deco design has shown us that quality still endures over quantity. The Art Deco legacy of brilliant buildings made of robust materials, with subtle virtuoso ornamentation, has survived the test of time. Though more of us can enjoy contemporary design at affordable prices, I doubt we will cherish most of what we own today even 20 years from now. It is mass-produced, less durable and made from low-grade materials and built to pass. 

Art Deco teaches us, our legacy is not in our hands but in those who remember us. Today, we look back at Art Deco not as egalitarian or hopeful but as opulent and lavish. The intellectuals of that age openly lived torn by their excesses, some even dying by suicide. Yet it was meant to be designed for the ordinary person and to elevate all. By simplifying design to its essence, it was supposed to democratise design. 

From Wall Street Deco to the frivolous woos and woes of Wodehousian characters and music in the keys of Jazz, this era has made its distinguished, enduring mark on the arts. Beneath the sparkle, what has developed an enduring patina with age, is the high quality of craftsmanship across all fields. 

Looking beyond the arts, the Lost Generation has taught us that escapism is elusive and to be cautious but not charmed by machines. We can delight in excellent craftsmanship and cherish the beauty of essence. 

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