A Note from the Viking Wolf: Spoiler alert: This blog contains major plot spoilers for The Last of Us (both games and HBO seasons 1 & 2). Proceed like a clicker is in the room — cautiously.

The saying goes, you can’t please everyone all the time.

HBO’s The Last of Us has been running wild—and honestly? It’s one of the best video game adaptations ever made. Even if you’ve never picked up a controller, it’s a hell of a watch.

The games themselves? Both sit comfortably in my all-time top 20.

And yet… there’s a loud subsect of “fans” who bash the games and the show. I’ll be real with you—it makes absolutely no sense.

Major spoilers ahead. This is your last chance to turn back before the clickers get you.

In The Last of Us, Joel—a morally murky smuggler—escorts Ellie across a ruined U.S. after a fungal outbreak turns most of humanity into rage-fueled husks. Ellie’s immune. The Fireflies want to make a cure.

Problem is, it’ll kill her.

So Joel kills them. Everyone in the hospital.

Then lies to Ellie about it.

In Part II, we get our hearts ripped out: Abby—the daughter of the surgeon Joel killed—murders him with a golf club. Ellie watches, helpless. That’s when the blood feud begins.

The most common complaint?

“Joel shouldn’t have died.”

And it’s a complaint that misses so much of the game’s message.

One of the game’s central themes? Actions have consequences. Period. Intent doesn’t shield you from fallout.

Joel needed his reckoning. And oh, did he get it.

Ellie and her girlfriend, Dina, head to Seattle to settle the score. One by one, Ellie hunts Abby’s crew—until the line between justice and vengeance blurs into blood.

Then—curveball—we switch perspectives.

Now we’re Abby. We walk in her shoes. And suddenly, Ellie’s “targets” aren’t just villains. They’re people. A gamer. A loyal friend. A pregnant woman caught in a love triangle.

Even Abby—the same woman I wanted pixel-dead—became someone I respected. She’s fierce. She’s broken. She’s surviving. Just like Ellie.

By the end, Ellie hunts Abby down again. Abby’s barely alive—emaciated, tortured, left for dead by a sadistic gang called the Rattlers.

The final fight is brutal. Abby bites off two of Ellie’s fingers. Ellie gets the upper hand and starts to drown Abby. And I felt sick.

I was Darth Vader watching Palpatine fry Luke. All fury, no peace.

And then—Ellie lets her go.

Ellie limps home to an empty farmhouse.

Dina’s gone. She can’t even play Joel’s guitar—two fingers short. All that vengeance cost her everything.

Muted voices

The folks still whining about Joel’s death?

They sound like the same crew who rage-review every episode that doesn’t go their way.

Loud. Bitter. Unwilling to let a story challenge them.

And yeah, I’ll say it: some of the backlash probably has more to do with Ellie being a strong, queer female lead than any plot gripe.

If you haven’t played the games, do it. Let them gut-punch you. Let them change you.

If you’re just watching the show? Buckle up.

The ride’s only just getting bloody.