The Last Of Us is HBO‘s latest sensation. The post-apocalyptic horror-drama is a hit with audiences and critics alike, something especially impressive for a video game adaptation.
The show was already doing well but hit a real tipping point with last Sunday’s Episode 3, which turned the show from a success into a bona fide cultural moment. The so-called “bottle” episode took a break from the cross-country road trip across infected America to rewind and tell a contained 20-year love story about two people finding each other after the world collapsed. The surprising, beautiful, heartbreaking one-off caught viewers off-guard in the most amazing way — and has been hailed by many as one of the greatest hours of TV of all time. The guy who made The Haunting Of Hill House even thought so!
Tonight’s episode of #TheLastOfUsHBO is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen
— Mike Flanagan (@flanaganfilm) January 30, 2023
So… why is it the lowest rated episode of the show so far? Like, not even close?
The series has an average rating of 9.2 out of 10 on IMDB, a really exceptional score. Episode 1 has a 9.2. Episode 2? 9.2. But after a week, Episode 3 has, as of this writing, dropped to 7.9. The episode that had everyone raving? Yep.
Video: Pedro Pascal Took Ambien & FORGOT He Was Cast In The Last Of Us!
If it fell off in quality a bit, it would get fewer 10-star votes, replaced by more 7s, 8s, and 9s, that kind of thing. That didn’t happen. The first episode got 49,000 10-star ratings. Episode 3, titled Long, Long Time, got nearly 91,000 10-stars. There were actually far fewer 8s and 9s, meaning those people likely went up to 10.
The difference then? The number of 1-star ratings. That went from 1,427 on Episode 1 to over 46,000 on Episode 3. Yep. It’s getting review-bombed.
It’s not just IMDB. On Metacritic, the first two eps scored an 8.6 and 8.5, respectively. Episode 3? 5.0. And if you scroll through the reviews, once again, it’s mostly 10s… and a ridiculously large number of 1-star reviews.
Why?
Well, in case we forgot to mention, that love story in Long, Long Time? It was between two men, played by Parks and Recreation fave Nick Offerman and The White Lotus standout Murray Bartlett. That’s right. A bunch of damn homophobes couldn’t stand that there were dudes kissing dudes. Suddenly the show about surviving a fungal-infected zombie hellscape got all “woke” and a bunch of whiny man-babies couldn’t take it. It made widdle Ben Shapiro all uncomfortable — he had to do a whole video about it.
Sigh. It’s 2023, and we are truly devolving as a society. These anti-LGBT a-holes have been whipped into such a frenzy they even have to turn zombie shows into a stupid culture war.
Innerestingly, despite being a brand new show, the franchise is no stranger to this phenomenon. The Last Of Us Part II got review-bombed so badly within minutes of its release in 2020 — due in no small part to word getting around that there was a *gasp* positive portrayal of a trans character — that Metacritic changed its rules afterwards to force gamers to wait 36 hours after games were released to review them. Obviously they can’t prove whether someone actually played the game they were giving a 1-star spike, but they at least stopped trolls from logging reviews before they could possibly have had time to even play.
Kinda makes you wonder how many of the 1-star reviews for TLOU Episode 3 even watched, doesn’t it?
[Image via HBO/YouTube.]
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