This article includes spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 and The Last of Us season two finale.
Summary
The Last of Usseason two is over, and it ended with a bang that those who have playedThe Last of Us Part 2likely saw coming. However, you might have noticed amid all of the bloody chaos that one pretty significant moment from the sequel was missing, and Craig Mazin has explained why he and Neil Druckmann ultimately decided it wasn’t needed.
Season two’s finale included the build-up to Ellie finding Abby, or rather Abby finding Ellie despite what we’ve been building to for the six episodes prior. You’ll know by now that Ellie and Abby rack up their death tolls on the way to their season-ending confrontation, however, there’s one life that the writers of the show decided to spare.
As Ellie makes her way through Seattle’s aquarium on her quest to find Abby, she’s confronted by a dog that proceeds to attack her. Not just any dog, but a dog that the players later get to know. She even has a name - Alice. Since it’s either her or Alice, the poor pup ends up being killed by Ellie. That brutal moment was omitted from the show, and in a press conference that preceded Sunday’s finale, Craig Mazin explained the thought process behind leaving it on the cutting room floor (thanks,Comicbook.com).
Alice The Dog Was Spared In The Show
Ellie Killing A Dog Might Have Been A Little Much In Live Action
“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,” Mazin explained. The writer compared it to a moment on the set of Chernobyl where he had a discussion with the crew about whether or not to show a radiation burn victim, or to just show part of them.
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.
Having played the games and watched the show, I get it. You kill a lot of NPC dogs in The Last of Us games, and even though you get to know Alice later, killing her would have been a lot more graphic, and arguably unnecessary, in the live-action adaptation. While the writers are trying to convey that Ellie has changed, crossing a line that she might not be able to come back from, they also don’t want viewers to hate Ellie. Having her brutally murder a dog may well have conjured up feelings for people in Ellie that the creators of this show really don’t want people to be feeling.
