A few issues aside I actually thought it was a quite good and faithful first episode.
First of all I loved most of the new pre-outbreak stuff they added, seeing Joel, Sarah and Tommy living a normal life before **** hits the fan definitely makes what happens later hit a bit harder, the whole outbreak sequence was great as well, a bit more action oriented but I liked the intensity of the whole thing and how the music builds up over time, the air plane crash was a bit of weird deviation imho but I liked the nod of almost having the truck get crashed into.
Pedro Pascal does a good job as Joel, the Texan accent is there and physically he embodies the character well, you can see a lot of Troy Baker's original performance in him and I commend him for doing his home work.
Bella Ramsey is a good actress and I think she plays the spunky teenager part well but sometimes her accent is a bit all over the place and I'm not exactly feeling Ellie, they've changed her up a bit in the show and her and Joel seem even more spiteful torwars each other than I think is necessary so for now I can't properly give a final verdict because we still haven't seen how their bond will grow and how they'll both act it out, my gut feeling still believes she was miscast.
The rest of the cast was good, Gabriel Luna as Tommy was the standout for me because he looks nothing like Tommy but he plays him REALLY well he even has the perfect voice and demeanor I'd actually say out of all the new actors playing these roles he was the best, Merle Dandrige as Marlene is obviously perfect given she played her in the games too so it's really great to hear and see her in live action it adds that special touch if you're a fan of the games, Anna Torv and Nico Parker did fine but they weren't my favorite from the bunch and I think Hannah Hayes acted out that scene better in the game but for newcomers they fit the roles well enough.
To close my positive thoughts it's a very good adapation, most of the actors are good and there's tons of nods to the games, I love that they kept the original soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla, it also doesn't feel cheap like other apocalypse shows thanks to that HBO budget, it's so good having people working on this that are passionate about the source material and having so many elements of the game in there, if they can keep it up this can become the best live action of a video game and pave the way for proper adaptations in the future or at least one can hope, regardless of my obviously biased opinions torwards the games I still think this will be a huge hit and new watchers and most of the original fanbase is going to love this.
Now for things I didn't like, the way they did the cordyceps... I hate it, the spores are sorely missed, when Joel and Tess entered the tunnels and found the body on the wall I couldn't help but think how much better the scene would've been if everything was cloudy and they were wearing masks it would've added another layer of horror when Joel mentions maybe there's infected down there and the weird mouth fungus tentacles just don't work for me it completely takes away from the realism of the whole cordyceps concept and it's closer to sci-fi/fiction like invasion of the body snatchers. The lack of gore and violence is something I also don't like, what's there feels muted and sterilized, typical Hollywood violence and nothing as visceral and shocking as the games.
Some of the changes felt like they were made just for the sake of it too, like they totally could've kept some things exactly how they play out in the game and it would've worked better I think, finally the ending felt very, very rushed and could be a sign of what's to come since they've already confirmed there will be entire episodes focused on new characters and new material, I hope they can strike a balance between the original and new so we don't have more scenes, especially important ones like the reveal of Ellie's immunity being weirdly adapted and rushed like hell.
