The last of us could be a huge hit, but that doesn’t mean the stars can’t feel insecure about the show’s reception. It’s been a few weeks since the critically acclaimed adaptation ended its first season, setting everything up for the next batch of episodes, focusing on the game’s second installment and following Ellie’s new journey.
With its final installment, the series had the difficult task of competing with one of the most anticipated events on the Hollywood scene, the Academy Awards. But even the most important awards show in the movie industry couldn’t shake the show off the top.
During the first season The last of us increased viewership episode after episode, and the result of this introduction to the story of Ellie and Joel reached 8.2 million viewers, surpassing the previous one by 8.1.
The series not only managed to beat the Academy Awards, but also a huge HBO hit: House of the Dragonthe Game of Thrones spinoff. With the first six episodes, The last of us reached an audience record of 30.4 million, leaving the George RR Martin universe series in second place with 29 million.
But even its massive success can’t prevent fan feedback from influencing the perceptions of the actors and crew behind the series about the work they’ve done.
In the last episode of Season 1, Pedro PascalJoel saves Ellie from the Fireflies before they can use her to develop a cure. Something that has naturally led to mixed reactions, since sacrificing the character of Bella Ramsey could mean saving the whole world.
In the middle of that moral debate, the actor has spoken Yahoo! Entertainment revealing that he is actively ignorant of the audience’s reaction to the finale:
“I feel in a sense protected from what the conversation is. And I think personally I wasn’t really ready for it to be more or less over, so I kind of kept my distance from the finals. It hasn’t entered my experience in terms of what people’s opinions are for or against, in terms of a very specific decision the character makes. I guess I’m actively ignorant of how everyone feels about it, but it wasn’t too hard to be, if that makes any sense. No one yelled at me in the street. Or something like, ‘How could you do that?’”