‘The Last of Us’ Creator’s New Comments on Pedro Pascal’s Character Get Big Pushback

Season 2 of The Last of Us may be over, but it doesn’t mean that fans are ready to let bygones be bygones. While the popular HBO series burst onto the scene with a debut season that received high praise from fans and critics alike, things hit a rough stretch during the encore performance.

This largely stemmed from the creators of The Last of Us, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, sticking with the plan and making the adaptation as close to the video game as possible. This led to a fan-favorite actor, Pedro Pascal, who played a fan-favorite character in the show, Joel, being killed off extremely early in Season 2.

Although many fans knew that if the show followed the path of the video game, Pascal's character wouldn't make it out of the second season, the drastic change still didn't sit well with most.

(L-R) Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal attend the Los Angeles premiere Of HBO Original Series "The Last Of Us" Season 2 at TCL Chinese Theater.

Monica Schipper/Getty Images

However, when Mazin and Druckmann addressed that decision recently, while also speaking about The Last of Us on a larger scale, their approach and comments received significant pushback.

The duo joined Variety's A Night in the Writers' Room and Mazin immediately grabbed some attention when discussing the high expectations in Season 2 after the show was "rolling down a hill on fire" with its stellar first season.

“The second season comes with so many expectations, and we did learn a lot of lessons. And the problem with learning lessons is then you have to be accountable to those lessons," Mazin said. "And you’re not allowed to make those mistakes anymore, which is tragic. You do feel pressure to somehow fulfill what people want but also surprise them."

"You’re now a topic of discussion, whereas before you were just new and surprising. I mean, the bar for video game adaptations was pretty low. We had that going for us in Season 1 — now we kind of f---ed ourselves.”

While Mazin raised eyebrows with the last line in that statement, his attempt at sarcasm after Druckmann brought up killing off Pascal's character is what drew reactions from the show's fanbase.

Related: Pedro Pascal Makes Candid Confession About ‘Fantastic Four’ Co-Star Vanessa Kirby

“He did a thing. Everyone lost their s---, and then I had to do that same thing, because he did the thing. I loved doing the thing, I thought it was great,” Mazin says of the death. “The big complaint that I’ve gotten is, ‘Why did you kill Pedro Pascal?’ And I keep explaining, we didn’t kill him! He’s a man, he’s alive. He’s fine. And he’s in literally everything else. So I don’t know what the problem is!”

The fan reactions ranged from some trolling Mazin's attempt to be funny, with others using the comments to vent their frustrations about the changes made to The Last of Us since Joel's death.

"We are aware that Pedro is alive and well. Mazin knew people were referring to his character, so the response wasn’t funny. Problem is, Joel was the heart of the show and many people stopped watching after his death. I think the writers know it doesn’t work as well without him," replied one fan.

"We got a comedian over here," said another fan.

Another fan called Season 2 "awful" following Joel's death, and dubbed the show "a teen drama" now.

"Mazin's feeble attempt at humor falls flat. He knows people stopped watching when Joel was killed. He also knows that the rest of season 2 was awful without the one character (and actor), who was the most responsible for season 1's success-Joel (Pedro). TLOU is now a teen drama," read the comment.

"Yawn anything to distract from there mistakes," replied another reader.

"They killed off a popular actor on the show and now they're rewriting history because they know the show will die without him," read one fiery response.

Fans have been frustrated since Joel's death on the show, which has led to many brutally honest reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. While Season 1 received a critic score of 94% and a 62% rating on the fan-focused Popcornmeter, the Season 2 fan score plummeted.

Although The Last of Us Season 2 earned a strong 92% mark from critics, it currently sits with a 37% rating from fans.

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