Is this The Last of Us' Game of Thrones or Walking Dead moment?

Plus: Analyzing the 'Sinners' box office analysis.

Pedro Pascal in “The Last of Us.” (HBO)

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for this week’s episode of “The Last of Us” and for the “Last of Us: Part II” video game.

The Gist

• Last night’s episode of “The Last of Us” brought to a life a pivotal, and upsetting, moment from the game it’s based on.

• Will the audience reaction be more like “Game of Thrones” or “The Walking Dead”? How will fans of the show, but non-gamers, respond?

• Plus: ‘Sinners’ slayed the box office. Isn’t that enough?

It happened.

For players of the “Last of Us: Part II” video game, last night’s episode of HBO’s “The Last of Us” TV series was a dreaded inevitability. For players, the realization that the game was actually a revenge (or redemption) tale focused on Ellie seeking out Joel’s murderer, meant working through our emotions alongside the characters in real time. Through Ellie’s eyes, we sought out Joel’s killer, Abby, and her allies, and we wrestled with her guilt and rage, which perhaps might have been our own.

TV does not afford that “comfort.” Millions of people now have a week to process their feelings about Joel’s death, which occurred in Sunday’s second episode of season two, titled “Through the Valley.” There’s no immediate gratification from continuing the story on your own time, and maybe getting the chance to take out your anger on some zombie “clickers.”

This week, many viewers will realize what players realized five years ago: that season two — and perhaps the already-announced season three — is about Ellie and Abby, and their intertwined trauma. A video game actively encourages us to see it through, and in this instance, also forces us to engage with the game as the person who just committed this atrocity (you also play as Abby). But with TV, fans have plenty of time to dwell on this bombshell, and some people might realize they don’t want to invest their time without Pascal/Joel.

Last night’s episode has been compared to “Game of Thrones”; this Slate piece calls it its “Red Wedding,” referring to the GOT season three slaughter of many main characters in one fell swoop. Another obvious GOT reference is season one’s killing of Ned Stark, an unexpected slaying of the show’s main character. The biggest difference with that, though, was that it occurred near the end of the season; with “The Last of Us,” it’s more about the fallout than the set up.

The episode reminded me of another popular series about the undead: AMC’s “The Walking Dead.” In its season seven premiere, a new bad guy, Negan, clobbers in two characters’ heads with a baseball bat, including the beloved Glenn, played by Steven Yeun. Glenn was one of the few remaining original characters from the first season, and had grown to be a fan-favorite. Seeing his head smashed in to literal pulp alienated many viewers, and ratings fell. Season six averaged 13 million viewers, while season seven averaged 11 million. Then season eight dropped steeper to 8 million average viewers (still pretty good, to be fair).

Will the same happen with “The Last of Us”? Too soon to tell. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score for the second season is at 53% right now, but that’s hardly a reflection of any widespread criticism and those scores should be taken with a grain of salt. The season premiere scored over 5 million viewers the night it aired, a 13% increase from the series premiere in 2023. And I’m sure the second episode will be big considering the online chatter, so we won’t know of any drop off until later in the season.

For what it’s worth, at Parrot Analytics, which measures audience “demand,” the show is 49 times more in demand than the average series over the last 30 days in the US, and only .2% of shows have that level of demand, according to the company.

Of course, the biggest difference is that the HBO hit hasn’t been airing for the better part of a decade. By the time Negan arrived, fans already felt worn down, betrayed, bamboozled, and the like. “The Last of Us” has the benefit of good will from a still-fresh first season. Even for some of those who feel cheated by Joel’s death, curiosity will surely push them to stick with the show.

It being a much better show than “The Walking Dead” might help, too. What “The Last of Us” understands that TWD didn’t is that a character death should matter to the narrative, not just be shock value. Here’s TLOU co-creator Craig Mazin:

“There’s a danger of tormenting people. It’s not what we want to do…Our instinct was to make sure that when we did it, that it felt natural in the story and was not some meta-function of us wanting to upset people.”

At any rate, this is a fascinating look at the dichotomy between different screen mediums: the interactive nature of video games versus the week-to-week waiting for a TV series. How will fans of the game respond to the show? Unlike Amazon’s “Fallout,” which told a new story set in the same world as the games, “The Last of Us” is adapting the same story, but adding its own touches where appropriate.

More importantly, how will fans of the show who hadn’t played the game respond to last night’s episode? Really, this is the first time that something this pivotal that originated in a video game has happened in a live-action TV series, and I for one have booked a front-row seat to the audience reaction.

Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners.” (Warner Bros.)

🧛 PLUS: ‘Sinners’ slayed the box office. Isn’t that enough?

Director Ryan Coogler’s vampire horror movie “Sinners” debuted to $48 million at the domestic box office over the weekend, the biggest opening for an original movie since Jordan Peele’s “Nope” in 2022.

But the hand-wringing has already begun over whether “Sinners” will be “profitable” or not, given its $90 million budget — even though it’s off to a solid start with a $60-plus million global haul and will have exceptional word of mouth given its A Cinemascore, an unheard of grade for an R-rated horror movie.

The New York Times’ headline touted that the movie’s a box office success “with an asterisk.” A Variety tweet, saying that “profitability remains a ways away” sparked responses from the likes of Ben Stiller and The Ringer’s Sean Fennessy.

“In what universe does a 60 million dollar opening for an original studio movie warrant this headline?” Stiller said.

“PVOD numbers — which are not made publicly available — alone will push it past break even,” Fennessy tweeted. “Studios are incentivized to make the final tally opaque, especially when participation is a factor.”

This always happens over a big movie’s opening weekend, and I’m not blameless. It’s easy to jump to conclusions, and oftentimes it’s not hard to tell if a movie will have legs or flop at the box office. But the issue is a good reminder that the economics of the movie business are changing rapidly, and opening weekend box office is just one factor in a much larger picture for a movie’s long-term success.

And “Sinners” will no doubt be a success story if it isn’t already.

Beyond the Traverse

🦖 The studio behind the Godzilla franchise plans to spend millions of dollars expanding it, including into video games.

🎮 Switch 2 pre-orders begin April 24 after being delayed.

💰 Netflix wants to be a trillion-dollar company.

💥 Business Insider published a profile of Stan Lee’s daughter, JC Lee, including rare interviews with her.

🤖 A “Pacific Rim” TV series is in the works at Amazon.