The video game adaptation won many plaudits for its grim-but-humane first season. Amidst a semblance of civilisation, the second series is an uneven odyssey.

Despite all the mush-brained infected creatures roaming around, The Last of Us was never really about the zombies. The series' first season worked so well because of the growing bond between lead character Joel and Ellie, the orphaned teenager he was hired to take cross country, who eventually becomes his surrogate daughter.

The zombies added danger, suspense and action, but the show's strength was its deeply felt depiction of how love survives even in a zombie apocalypse, with Joel and Ellie as a newly created family.

Season two takes a drastic plot turn, truly the most jaw-dropping in a hit series I can remember, a twist too stunning to spoil. Unsettling a hit can work brilliantly, as it did when The Bear replaced the first season's sandwich shop with a fine-dining restaurant in its second series. But the big alteration in The Last of Us is a devastating creative choice.

There are still high points and emotional moments. Pedro Pascal still gives a charismatic and wrenching performance as Joel, letting us see both the hardened survivor and the tenderness that has persisted. And Bella Ramsey still sharply defines the strong-willed Ellie. But the plot twist tears the heart out of the series, leaving a diminished version of the great show it once was.

The new season starts out strongly, though, picking up the story five years after it left off. Joel and Ellie are now settled in Jackson, Wyoming and the early episodes there smoothly evoke the feel of an old-time Western. The town is enclosed by fortified walls, and horse-drawn carts walk on the main streets. Citizens on horseback, including Joel and Ellie, patrol the area outside the gates looking for the infected.

Although Ellie lives in the garage of Joel's house, she is furious at him and the show takes its time teasing why. You might think you know. As last season ended he swooped her off an operating table where surgeons might have used her immunity to cure the plague but would certainly have caused her death. (It's a TV........

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