After four agonizing weeks of waiting, Dina and Ellie finally consummated their relationship in The Last of Us during this week’s episode. The live-action adaptation has taken a few creative liberties with the girl’s love story, and that meant rather than starting the game out in a relationship, it baited the audience with a month-long “will they/won’t they?” arc. But now that they’ve confessed their feelings and decided to live a life of mutual domesticity with a kid on the way, the reaction has been somewhat mixed. Like most criticism laid at the show’s feet, it has to do with how showrunner Craig Mazin has chosen to change the storyline up for the show compared to the game on which it’s based.
In The Last of Us Part II, Dina and Ellie’s relationship begins in much happier circumstances. This is before Joel’s death at the hands of Abby, and so it’s not heightened by the explosive life-or-death circumstances seen in the show. The two’s budding romance is pretty much conflict-free for the first several hours of the game. Dina is a ride-or-die, ready to help Ellie cross state lines for her revenge tour in Seattle, and most of their time together on the first day in the city is about getting to know each other better in this new romantic context. The first time there’s real tension between the girls is when Dina reveals that she is pregnant with her ex-boyfriend Jesse’s baby. By this point, they’ve been traveling for weeks to reach the city, and Dina suspected she was pregnant for at least some of the trip. Ellie is furious at her for keeping this information from her, saying that they could have turned around and gotten her back home, going as far as to call her a “burden” in a fit of anger.
The two reconcile the next morning, but the scene illustrates how Ellie’s violent conquest is distorting everything else in her life. She’s concerned for Dina, but frustrated at how this development threatens to derail her revenge. Ellie comes off as boorish and dismissive of her girlfriend’s condition, and it stings hearing something so callous come out of her mouth in the heat of the moment. Compare that to the show’s take on this reveal:
Ellie is jazzed about being a parent in HBO’s version of the scene. Some fans similarly share the excitement of the mothers-to-be. Part of this is no doubt because viewers have been waiting for weeks for these two to seal the deal, but Ellie actor Bella Ramsey’s humorous “I’m gonna be a dad” line has become its own meme. It’s a sweet scene, and cuteness is enough to win over most people’s hearts.
But isn’t it all a little too perfect? That’s the argument some Last of Us fans are making, looking at the scenes side-by-side.
TikTok user tambor wrote, “I’m trying real hard to defend the show and understand their choices, but why is Ellie so joyous after Joel’s death?”
“I know everybody’s gonna love this change because it’s funny, but them removing all of the conflict and relationship development and combining it into one happy-go-lucky fairytale moment is annoying,” TikTok user char said in the comments.
“I didn’t like this change [because] it was one of the stepping stones of Ellie losing herself to revenge,” TikTok user Invader wrote. “I hope they can still flesh this out correctly.”
Part of me reads this as another example of the show being scared to let its leads be unlikeable. The adaptation has taken a lot of the thornier aspects of the original story out to endear viewers to characters like Abby and Joel. The second season was forthcoming with Abby’s motivations, seemingly in an effort to help viewers warm up to her after the ludicrous backlash toward her when The Last of Us Part II launched. The show also bent over backwards to justify Joel’s violent actions in season one, so this isn’t a recent tonal shift for HBO’s recreation. Ellie’s curt reaction to Dina’s pregnancy is hardly the most reprehensible thing she’ll do before she leaves Seattle, but if the show’s already pulling its punches on this, it doesn’t bode well for how down-and-dirty it’s going to be when things get much, much worse for our funky little lesbian.
If nothing else, the show needed a little bit of levity after the brutal past couple of weeks. Enjoy the happy gay moms while you can, viewers. Shit’s gonna hit the fan again real quick.