Oh yeah absolutely. Without Joel, the series suffers so much because of how well Pedro Pascal nailed the role imo. It really, really wanted you to care about Ellie's relationship but I just couldn't because her character was so wildly unlikable. I didn't feel that the way the second game/season was written advanced the overarching theme of the series.
For that reason, I'm probably going to end up skipping the upcoming season. You'd be better off exploring similar themes in different media lol