This article includes spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 and The Last of Us season two finale.

Summary

The Last of Us TV adaptation omitted a controversial scene from the video game, splitting fans.
The exclusion of Ellie killing the dog is justified due to the sensitive nature of the content.
Not showing this scene won't impact the show's success or overall storyline, appealing to a wider audience.

The Last of Us television adaptation hasn't held back on delivering some brutal moments, perfectly implementing the emotional aspects of the source material. The series has seen several terrifying scenes take place that have led to the death of main characters and even children, which is a rarity in Hollywood.

It appeared that nothing was off limits for The Last of Us, but the second season proved that wasn't the case. An extremely controversial moment from the video game series was intentionally left out of the HBO version.

Joel and Ellie in the last of us episode 6

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By Henry-Damian Justice

In the video game The Last of Us Part 2, Ellie breaks into an aquarium to try and find Abby, but instead, she encounters her dog, Alice. While gamers aren't aware it belongs to Abby at the time, they're made to kill it to survive. However, when Abby's perspective is shown, it provides a harsh moral lesson. However, it is one that the television series opted to ignore, but for good reason, according to showrunner Craig Mazin during a press conference about the season finale.

"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," he said.

"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.”

There will no doubt be some fans of The Last of Us Part 2 who will be disappointed by the fact that this scene has been left out because it is a memorable part of the game. The franchise thrives on shocking audiences and putting them into extremely emotional and challenging situations, and given that this is the only time in the video game series where people have to kill a dog, it weighs heavily on people. That's the type of powerful moment that the show could have had, but the reasoning for avoiding it does make sense.

Ellie killing the dog is supposed to give gamers a huge moral lesson when they see things from Abby's perspective. At the moment, Ellie kills Alice, the dog, thinking that it is just a stray animal looking to kill her, but the reality is she's loyal and protective. Not having this violent and potentially upsetting scene might surprise people, but it's not like The Last of Us doesn't challenge audiences in how they view Ellie throughout the show. She murders Owen and Mel at the end of the second season, which is one of the darkest moments in the series to date. Ellie killing a pregnant woman who then begs her to save her unborn child ticks the dark box more than enough, and adding in the murder of an animal doesn't feel necessary.

Ultimately, the decision to leave Ellie killing Alice the dog won't hurt the television show in the long run, as it doesn't impact the overall story. Plus, given that many viewers who have never played the game are watching the show leaving this scene out will have gone unnoticed by many people. Of course, had it been added, there's no doubt it would've been a massive talking point that would've brought much attention to the HBO series. However, a lot of that could have been negative given how much dogs mean to people; therefore, avoiding this situation was likely the best decision for The Last of Us.

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