The Last of Us S2 Finale "Convergence" Review

Much of season two of The Last of Us has felt like an uncomfortably out-of-place tryst, and while I couldn't speak as to where Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman's "carefully planned arc" went, I have to admit that Convergence, the finale of season two, finally broke many of the show's bad habits. Ellie and Dina's out-of-place puppy-love romance is no longer the focal point of The Last of Us, and this adaptation is weirdly lighthearted no longer. Gone is the glorified post-apocalyptic sightseeing tour, replaced by a somber, reflective episode featuring a bunch of people who look and feel legitimately broken by both the tragedy they've endured and the terrible things they've done. For the first time since Through The Valley, the sophomore episode of this season, The Last of Us feels appropriately dark again. It may lack the tear-jerking sentimentality of last week's incredible The Price, but Convergence finally makes this show feel like it's moving somewhere, and that's valuable.

Stormy post-apocalyptic Seattle is beautifully realized in Convergence, with one nighttime sequence by the Seattle Sound being a standout. It looks and feels completely different from the rest of this season and even the rest of this show, embracing an inky blackness where the only source of light is nonstop lightning that does nothing but reveal the terrifying scale of the storm. There's even a big wave doing its best to take Ellie out, and it's frightening to look at, outdone only by a horrifying scene with a group of Seraphites who make the villains of The Walking Dead look like church greeters in comparison. Convergence finds this familiar darkness present in its source material, an effect missing from too much of the rest of this season and more than welcome as the story takes a turn for the darker.

The rest of season two of HBO's The Last of Us fluctuates between being mediocre one moment and one of the best things the company has ever produced the next. Convergence finally breaks this pattern, settling into a groove by making the otherwise tonally inappropriate arc following Ellie and Dina's quest for revenge for the death of Joel feel fittingly dark, at last making the biggest parts of this story click in ways that make me wonder why the rest of the season wasn't this spectacular. The acting in this series is mostly good and even great, but I'm unsure why HBO didn't recast Ellie. Bella Ramsey isn't terrible, but she lacks the range and the rage needed to portray an older Ellie, who's technically 19 but has the mindset of a 90-year-old. However, the rest of the cast is absolutely spot-on, and even though its strongest player, Kaitlyn Dever's Abby, was sidelined for virtually this entire season, I'm excited to see how HBO adapts her story in season three of The Last of Us.

People are complex, and though imperfect, The Last of Us effectively conveys this complexity that sometimes borders on a beautiful deception. Every coin has two sides, just like most people have two faces.

The Last of Us Season 2 - 7/10

James 1:19-20