"You come at the king, you best not miss", a line from HBO's "The Wire" was what's repeating in my head while I watched this.

As a TV show in itself, It's not exactly bad. It's probably quite a bit better than usual gruel we get from streaming platforms.

But it went after a bar that's way too high for it. It follows the story of the game pretty closely, even re-enacting memorable scenes down to camera angles, such as when protagonists first saw the overtaken city and such. It changes story here and there, but often it works quite well. I don't mind Sarah being... different. I don't mind re-imagining how things went here or there. I actually quite like little flashbacks/whatever scenes about stuff that builds the story or explains the lore, but wasn't in the game. It's all good.

As long as the core premise holds. But it doesn't. I do buy Pedro Pascal, he looks like Joel, pretty much walks and talks like Joel, and feels right. But Bella Ramsey can't deliver Ellie. And it's not even her fault. Sure, she looks quite... off... and doesn't really come off or feel like a 14-year old (because she's not), but main problem is the aggressive, clueless script she's given.

Story of "Last of Us", the game that won uncountable awards, was about a strong man coping with extreme loss, and a scared girl trying to get close to him, while slowly opening up and showing she's pretty capable on her own.

Story of "Last of US", the HBO show, I'm not sure. Ellie in this one isn't a scared, suspicious, lonely girl trying to survive. Her very first scenes are full of cursing and gritting of teeth, she's a total badass with zero explanation to this, and goes more aggressive by every episode. The main theme just never comes through. Rather than someone Joel grows to love and care for as his own child, I keep wondering when he's going to dump her in the wilderness.

Or to put it simply, they tried to add girl power where none was needed (because game had more than enough), and totally overdid it, killing the main premise.

Which makes this entire show waste of time, because highly superior medium, telling that story times better, already exists.

Play the game. Skip this show.