User reviews

If you've played the game, you KNOW what's coming just by the episode title. If you haven't played it, then you might have an idea of what's coming thanks to little mentions here and there in previous episodes. Either way, the episode delivers on all fronts as far as I'm concerned.

Storm Reid is SO well cast as Riley (even though she looks nothing like Riley from the game) and really embodies that character so well. Bella Ramsey, again, absolutely kills it as Ellie. Especially with this being an ever-so-slightly younger Ellie age-wise but a lot less world-weary than the Ellie we see with Joel. Speaking of Joel, Pedro gives so much more than one might expect given he's got about 3 minutes of screen time and maybe half a dozen lines. All 3 of them give brilliantly nuanced performances. Just more examples of why both Pedro and Bella deserve ALL the acting awards when it's that time of the year again.

Left Behind adapts the iconic dlc storyline incredibly well. Continuing that impressive balance of faithfulness and originality whilst depicting some of the most tender and heartwarming moments of the story so far which makes it all the more heartbreaking when these innocent moments are interrupted by the monsters of this world.

As with Bill and Frank's episode earlier on in the season, it may not drive the narrative forward on action alone but this definitely isn't 'filler' and is absolutely necessary to the story it's telling and has been integrated into the overarching story at the best possible place.

Bella Ramsey is perfect as usual with Ellie's optimism and fear of being alone still present and intact. Storm Reid absolutely shines as Riley with a confidence and soulfulness that matches the characters life experiences and her chemistry with Bella is instantaneous and so engaging to watch.

Liza Johnson's direction is amazing, the show has consistently been really impressive from a technical and visual standpoint but this one in particular is just absolutely gorgeous to look at from beginning to end and the mall set is insane in its scope and detail.

I genuinely do not understand all the negative reviews. You people that are saying this episode was "boring" and had "bad writing" and did not advance the plot or develop the characters in any way, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. You obviously do not understand any aspects or values of filmmaking. You should just go watch the Walking Dead or Stranger Things or something. You'll get all the big "awesome" monster stuff with a lot of "cool" action and some "great" chase scenes. That's clearly all your brain can comprehend.

This episode was probably the one closest to the game (btw I have no problem with changes), and I thought they did an excellent job recreating it for tv.

What else can I say? Great writing, great directing, excellent acting, beautiful cinematography, fantastic set design, great dialog (very similar to the game as well), etc.

The episode explores the game's DLC of the same title. While important to tell this story, a 10-15 min flashbacks within the main story would have been enough. Dedicating 2 out of 9 full episodes for character development, makes the main story feel rushed and incomplete. A good example would be ep 6 ending. The game explores a search for fireflies at the university for many hours, looking for clues, while the show dedicates 5 minutes of Joel and Ellie finding a packing list that was left behind by Fireflies but we get a full episode for 2 teens playing games in the mall... Only 2 episodes left people, what were you thinking?!

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it - 7/10.

Everything has been said and written about this exemplary series. In particular, the fact that it is, by far, the best TV adaptation of a video game. Pedro Pascal's play (Joel) confirms how he is one of the best actors in recent years (The Mandalorian, Narcos, The Mentalist, etc.).

But this series also presents a real revelation, the young actress Bella Ramsey (Ellie). She is, what is called, a "natural" actress. Whatever the scene, she is always credible. This is particularly true in the episode "Left Behind" (s01e07). It is clear that a brilliant future as an actress is offered to her.

One of the best series ever made. Period.

The worst episode so far. It was honestly disappointing. It was not bad, but following last week's already slow episode with another slow episode was disappointing. Some parts of the episode are genuinely great and we do gain a better understanding of Ellie, but I did not care much about the teenage girl drama.

I guess it's a beautiful and sad story, but not very intriguing. We already know how it's going to turn out, so why spend so much time on the small details? This episode is very similar to Long, Long Time, but just worse. The acting is good and the cinematography is beautiful but this time I just couldn't care. We know the outcome so there's no suspense. It would be a better episode if they shortened it down to 30 minutes and then we spent more time in the present.

I get it that you need slow paced episodes to have the action-packed ones feel more impactful. But this was just too much and a good foreshadowing of what we can expect of season 2. Again they missed the opportunity to show why Fedra is so evil and focused on emotional coming of age ideas for an hour. TBH what's so bad about Fedra? Like the Captain is mentioning, they are keeping everything together.

You can compare this one to Episode 3. Compared to that though, this episode feels boring and stretched. Ep. 3 featured little action but a lot of meaningful emotion, a well written and completed story arc and a story I had to think about for days. Ep. 7 didn't manage to do any of that.

During this episode we get a glimpse of Ellie's life before Joel. There were (and still are) many unanswered questions about her past so I think it was important to know a little bit more about her.

On this episode she finds herself with an intricate and difficult problem that concerns her survival and that of Joel. This conundrum triggers a memory from her past, a key part of her development as a person, said memory will allow the viewer to observe an oasis of fun, noise and party in the middle of the apocalypses, were, for a few moments, Ellie stops being a survivor to be what she is first and foremost: a teenager.

Like all of teenagers, she doesn't know exactly how to communicate what she wants and it's impossible not to relate to that feeling, that of a lost kid in the search of love and meaning.

This episode is the worst directed episode of the entire season. What's up with all the shaky camera especially in the first half? Did some amateur guy hired to direct it? Seriously it caused me nausea. The kids acting was fine nothing spectacular i guess, the cinematography decent but the pacing and editing horrible. I have played both the game and the DLC and i have to say not all segments and story plots can be translated good to a live action episode. What they did wrong here on top of the direction and pacing problems was to delicate an entire 60 min episode when they should have done this scenes as 15 min Ellie flashbacks. They could have saved just a little bit the episode (not much) if they decided to show Marlene picking up Ellie and having a conversation with her before their meeting with Joel. Their mistake was that the show-runners thought this plot deserved to be a 60 min segment. No its not, it was boring, terrible directed with pacing problems.

Okay, I was hopping on here just to come give this episode a 9 or 10 because I thoroughly enjoyed it and Ellie and her attitude are making more sense to me after revealing her backstory. I'm surprised it currently has a 7.7 (I'm writing this less than 2 days after it aired) and there's a ton of hate about it being cheesy teen drama and irrelevant. If you just want jumpscares and action 24/7, watch an action movie. The Last of Us is following a similar model to The Walking Dead ( I suspect the show knows it's drawing from TWD and GOT fans looking for something to fill in that void ) and is primarily about THE LAST OF US meaning the humans that are still alive and what life is like for them. TWD = Walking Dead = the humans still alive in the apocalypse. Did I lose interest sometimes in that show as well because of not enough action and too much drama? Sure. But it was all integral and authentic to the story and the world they created.

I think Bella did a wonderful job portraying Ellie here, she's just a teenage girl, teen girls do dumb things sometimes, they don't always say what they feel or mean, and every once in a while something good happens and you meet someone that actually gets you. This was well developed.

The music was amazing.

And how COOL was the area they explored?! We don't always get the privilege of "having fun" with characters during an apocalypse. I was genuinely excited by some of the things they found, and the nostalgic references!

They also cut in and out from what's currently happening with Joel, so if you're paying attention right now the show is highlighting how terrified both Ellie and Joel are to lose each other, and developing their relationship within other flashbacks.

Episodes like this are important so that you understand why characters make the decisions they do, why they vibe with some characters and not others, and just generally who they are deep down.

If anything I would expect episode 3 to be rated more harshly because it was a bit more out of place and focused on 2 characters we never met before. (I love ep 3 on its own, it's just kinda weird timing in the sequence of episodes.) This episode however was just the right time to help explain Joel and Ellie's chemistry.

I'm going to up my 9 to a 10 due to the skewed ratings it currently has.

This episode shouldn't be rated this low, however I think the main reason is some of the gamers who played the game. I believe that if this show was an original and the game didn't exist this episode would've easily got a higher than 9 rating.

People should really separate their brain of the game while watching this show if they want to enjoy it, and stop comparing the two.

Having played the game myself I agree that it's one of the greatest games ever made but if you played it i'd suggest you to not keep comparing every scene while watching the show, doing that you're just denying yourself the enjoyment of this piece of art.

Honestly, I think this is one of the best episodes so far. It makes you go throught an hour of mixed feelings and suspense and lets you on the edge till the end.

Just a boring 1 hour teen drama that didn't add a thing to the narrative. What happened here? Did the writers take a two week vacation? Who directed this one? This was a major step down for the whole series.

Zombies and death everywhere and what do we get? A one hour filler episode. This one really dragged the story line. All the teen-story pseudo-romance tale could have lasted 10 mins tops and the story move along quickly.

Why do I have a feeling that we are going to have a WALKING DEAD slow-as-molasses narrative from now on? The producers seem to be dragging this one too long.

Move along people. If you don't watch this one...you won't lose anything.

Anyone saying this is boring or a filler episode obviously has never experienced the source material and clearly has not interest in character development. If you're just here for the clickers, that cool I guess, but TLOU isn't about the clickers, it's about Ellie.

The show runners did a great job bringing the game to the screen in thos episode. Granted, it was a slow paced episode filled with teen drama, but guess what? You're watching a show about a teen in the aftermath of a fungal pandemic.

This episode was a masterful recreation of the originalaterial and the show runners should be proud.