India, May 30 -- The Last of Us stormed onto screens last year with a rare mix of prestige-drama emotion and genre spectacle, proving that a game adaptation could sit comfortably among television's finest. Set in a United States crippled by a brain-altering fungal pandemic, the show followed weary smuggler Joel (Pedro Pascal) and immune teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey) on a cross-country trek that ended with Joel's morally catastrophic decision to save her life at humanity's expense.

While its second is gorgeous, gripping, and well acted, its truncated scope and fixation on vengeance blunt the emotional power that made the first run unforgettable.

Five years after the Salt Lake City massacre, Joel and Ellie have tried to build a life behin...