The last co-creator of us explains why one of the most heartbreaking moments of the game was cut from season 2

“Get an episode to kill a dog a life.”

The second season of The last of us He didn’t hold back exactly. Through his seven episodes, he dived headlong into the brutal emotional ground of the second chapter of the game, highlighting the moral fog, violence and very human disorder that made part II so unforgettable.

But intense as the season finale, one of the most famous moments of the game was considerably missing, and now we know why.

Spoiler in sight for season 2, episode 7 of The last of us:

In the final, Ellie arrives at the Aquarium Derelic in search of Abby and in the meantime kills two of the dearest friends of Abby, Owen and Mel.

The latter, we find out too late, was pregnant. It is a heartbreaking scene towed by the game. But there is a character of the original sequence that never comes to the show, Alice, the German shepherd of Abby.

In The last part of us IIAlice is a dog with whom they spend time. It is loyal, trained and adorable, which makes even more overwhelming when Ellie kills her during the same sequence as the aquarium.

For those who played the game, the absence of Alice in the show was evident. According to the co-showrunner Craig MazinThat omission was a very intentional and very calculated decision.

“Get an episode of dog murder in a lifetime. There are two cardinal rules in Hollywood. One, don’t spend your money. Two, don’t kill the dog.”

While it might seem like a joke (and in part it is), Mazin went deeper, explaining the visceral difference between the violence of video games and what we see in live-action.

“We had a situation in which a number of horrible things were happening. Furthermore, because it is a live action, the nature of violence becomes much more graphic. It is more graphic. Because it is not as if there was an animation between you and it; it is people. And it is very disturbing.”

So what works, or at least functions, emotionally in a game does not always translate in the same way for television. The weight of killing a dog, in particular one that the spectators could worry, affects in a very different way when there is no digital layer that dab him.

And given how heavy the rest of the ending was, Mazin and the creative team felt that the addition of Alice’s death on top would have pushed things too much. “He ended up being excessive,” he admitted.

It is a difficult call. On the one hand, omitting Alice changes the plot of the scene for fans who know what happened in the game. But on the other, Mazin’s logic makes sense as there is a turning point in which emotional narration becomes an emotional punishment.