‘The Last of Us’ has a problem with guest stars

Melanie Lynskey’s face is a wonder: a bombshell wrapped in tissue paper. The New Zealand star, whose bizarre career spans from heavenly creatures until Hello I Must Be Going, has made a name for himself playing slow-burn, free-for-all characters. More recently, she has garnered wide public attention for her role in the horror series yellowjackets. So it’s only natural that he’s the last guest star on The Last of Us, the most apocalyptic and fashionable series. Kathleen’s portrayal of her, a Kansas City-based resistance leader, is classic Lynskey: gentle on the surface, terrifying and stormy at heart. Kathleen is a grieving, vengeful, and headstrong woman. She not only likes chaos, but she feeds on it. It’s rare that a female character – really, any character – is allowed to express such a love of horror. Lynskey captured the attention of the public of the series, without a doubt. In fact, in case there was any doubt that we were dealing with an impressive character, she went so far as to execute her family doctor in cold blood…

All of this is setting a pattern for The Last of Us, in which, for now, the most interesting characters are the secondary ones. Last week, it was hard to escape the widespread adoration – on the internet, at least – when the series spent 40 minutes exploring the romance between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett)… By the way, here you can see the union of ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘The White Lotus’ that you did not expect. The sequence, strongly narrated and with many of the hallmarks of good television, was praised for its sensitivity, its acting, and for defying the expectations of the genre. Even if the praise seemed out of place – the claims that it was the best hour of television in history are disconcerting – the final point is undeniable: the world of video games and their adaptations to the screen is not known for its painstaking representation of LGBT characters.

As the Bill and Frank storyline suggests, it’s not a total surprise that the real intrigue takes place on the margins. The series was not going to star a middle-aged gay couple with a crush on Linda Ronstadt, nor an unsympathetic middle-aged woman (a video game is even less likely to make these figures its main characters). Bill and Frank’s storyline was expanded upon from erroneous comments in the source material. The character played by Lynskey is a total invention. These characters are clearly a focus of attention for the writers, a way of expanding on some of the more fruitful themes of the series. How this infection has changed the way people treat each other, for better and worse. The kind of people who can live – and thrive – in this terrible new world.

Focusing on these characters is not a problem. In the context of video game adaptations, it’s excitingly radical. But it does point to a more troubling question: why does everything really good happen outside of the leading couple?

It should not be like that. Pedro Pascal, a good actor, brings Joel the necessary toughness and tenderness. His story—the loss of his family—fits naturally into the themes of the series. You look at Pascal’s face as he walks through dilapidated Boston or the dusty corridor of a museum, and you feel the sway in his head: Is that loss a reason to give up or to keep going? The writers have not been so generous with the Ellie played by Bella Ramsey. She teases and leers, her naiveté is charming, but not much else so far. The dynamic between them is so slow that you’re often checking to see if the thing will kick off at once. (Anna Torv, as Joel’s partner Tess, bridged the gap between the two, bringing an electrifying dynamism to the series. Well, the character was dead by the end of the second episode.)

It’s very hard to get guest appearances right. The Good Wifeand its derived series The Good Fight, they were masterful when it came to choosing actors to embody the unmistakable lawyers and judges. Carrie Preston’s role as the formidable and reckless lawyer Elsbeth Tascioni is so beloved by fans that it has spawned her own series. Instead, there are other series that were not always so skilled at this level: friends he had so many high-level cameos that it was distracting. While some were witty (Christina Applegate as Rachel’s bratty sister Amy), others seemed a little gratuitous (Brad Pitt as a classmate who loathed Rachel). The less said about Jean-Claude Van Damme’s appearance in the second season, the better.

These apparitions are not all born equal: they can be good, they can be bad… but they are always distracting. The crucial element is having a compelling central cast. The guest stars shine with their own light in The Last of Us. But what is left once they have been used up?