HBO’s The Last of Us is back and so begins the adaptation of Sony’s most divisive exclusive. While the first season had its deviations here or there, for the most part it was a fairly straight to the point adaptation. For us, this resulted in it feeling a bit like a highlight reel of our favourite game. This story is a different kettle of fish, however, and the latest season’s first episode is mixing things up already.

Naughty Dog’s controversial sequel is a far more expansive and complicated tale, and its structure wouldn’t quite work for television. It’s one of the first things HBO addresses though, introducing a ragtag crew of Firefly survivors, with one woman in particular hellbent on hunting down Joel and getting revenge for his season capping massacre.

We spend most of the first episode establishing life within the seemingly idyllic Jackson. Jumping five years on from the events of the first season, Ellie is hunting down infected with reckless abandon on patrols, whereas Joel is going to therapy as he struggles with Ellie not talking to him for reasons yet unknown.

For fans of the game, there are plenty of characters and moments that you’ll recognise, some of which are ripped straight from the game — line for line, shot for shot. However, showrunner Craig Mazin is once again tweaking things, with late-game moments showing up very early on, and character relationships changing — like Dina seemingly being close enough with Joel to watch movies with him.

It’s like the old Morcombe and Wise joke: he’s playing all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order. At this point, colour us intrigued. From our perspective, as massive fans of the games, the show is at its least interesting when it sticks to the script. These are stories etched into our brains forevermore, so seeing HBO move things around, change up the structure, and mess around with character dynamics is what we’re looking for in an adaptation.

Will it manage to capture the mastery of the PS4 original? Likely not, but that’s not to say we didn’t like what the show was doing differently. For one, Ellie and Dina’s relationship, while foundationally the same, the HBO version is much more playful, with Alien Romulus’ Isabela Merced being our favourite of the new additions to the cast.

We’re very keen to see just how much HBO will want to get out of Pedro Pascal this season, with his infamous golfing trip noticeably absent from this episode. This is a much more emotionally attuned take on the character, but we love that his terrible act from season one is laying heavy on him. And while we still have some reservations as to whether Bella Ramsey has the acting chops that will be demanded of them this season, Ramsey’s mischievous charm actually feels more natural with the aged-up Ellie.

Ultimately, this is a far tamer start compared to season one’s opener, but its careful remixing of elements from the game has us eager to see how it all pans out. Ultimately, we know where it’s going, but we don’t quite know where we’ll stop along the way, and that’s really all you can ask for as fans of the game.

What did you think of season two’s debut episode? Are you excited to see how things differ in this adaptation? Let us know down in the comments below.