Magicians have a word for the final, most difficult part of an illusion. It's a term that went mainstream when Christopher Nolan used it as the title of his 2006 drama about dueling illusionists, The Prestige. Executing their final flourish, the prestige is the moment a performer truly wows their audience, leaving them wide-eyed and unsure how the magician pulled it off. The Last of Us Part II delivers its prestige in the latter half of its 25-hour journey, making it a flourish the seven-episode Season 2 of the TV series doesn't get to perform in its adaptation. But the second season is hardly the meandering middle act of a trilogy, as what it does translate from game to TV is just as moving as before, and even more daring.
One oft-heard criticism of The Last of Us is that it's an amalgam of The Road and Children of Men. I find that perspective reasonable but reductive, and even if one does hold that view, I've always thought the second game, and thus the second season, is where the series takes on a more impressive shape of its own. The first season's cliffhanger is a fascinating one, as it's quite unlike most on TV. Rather than leaving the fate of a character unknown or hitting the credits just as a new danger encroaches on the border of Joel and Ellie's life together, we were left with a lie.
Joel chose not to admit to Ellie that he'd essentially damned the entire world in order to save her life, and Ellie chose to take him at his word, though uncertainty seemed to already be nagging at her. Season 2 focuses on what comes of that lie, and does so in ways that anyone coming to the series with fresh eyes will be surprised by, to say the least.
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