A lot of people die in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us and the HBO series that’s based on it. But in the Season 2 finale, viewers who already played The Last of Us: Part II or knew the story might have been expecting even more bloodshed, and now the showrunners have discussed why one death was cut.
Major spoilers follow below.
In The Last of Us Part II, Ellie kills a dog named Alice at the aquarium on her hunt for Abby. Alice the dog is kind of a big deal in the overall narrative and there are some sweet, tender moments featuring the pup. In the TV show, Ellie does not kill the dog. But why?
Showrunner Craig Mazin is no stranger to working on TV shows where the dog dies, as one episode of the beloved Chernobyl series for HBO that Mazin wrote included soldiers culling dogs to help prevent nuclear radiation from getting worse. Mazin said that was enough dog-killing for him.