The Last of Us Review!

Alright! Today I'm reviewing HBO's latest mega-hit The Last of Us, a television show based on the 2013 video game of the same name. Run by Chernobyl's Craig Mazin and co-Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann, the show sees an apocalyptic world overrun by a mutated version of Cordyceps, a real-life fungus that slowly corrupts its host and turns them into zombie-like creatures. The main plot of the series sees the hardened survivalist Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) take Ellie, an immunized and profane fourteen-year-old, to a safe space where she may be analyzed for a cure, encountering scary zombies, human survivors, and friends old and new on the way. 

Right from the get-go, The Last of Us immediately grabs your attention with fantastic world-building thanks to the premiere episode, most of which took place in flashback and showed the events that led to the world the series presents. One of the most interesting aspects of any apocalypse story is how the world reacted to the threat and government response, and The Last of Us nailed both aspects with its premier and subsequent cold opens. Without showing much the series is able to say a lot, conveying the hopelessness and widespread impact of the infection. 

This leads to one of my favorite aspects of the series - the fact that it's not scary. While it has spooky zombies, it never relies on jump scares or anything explicitly tied to the horror genre. It reminds me of The Sixth Sense, where the well-written and phenomenally acted story would make someone who hates horror movies enjoy it. It's not aiming to scare you with promises of masked killers and fatalities, but rather to tell a story that has scary moments. It's built around a gripping story with tense scenes that happens to have scary zombie types roaming about than the other way around, and that is the most important aspect of the series' success. 

By not focusing on the zombies it allows the world to manifest itself in greater detail, especially evident by the way that the virus has influenced the series' protagonists. The thing that impacted them most isn't the physical representation of the Cordyceps, but instead the response to the Cordyceps. Joel's daughter wasn't killed by a zombie, she was killed by a government official told to eliminate potential hosts for the virus. Ellie is important because she's immune to the infection, not to zombie attacks. The actual zombies just roam around sewers and abandoned cities for the most part, it's how the world changed that creates the core conflicts of the series. 

The focus on the societal collapse is best exemplified by the cold opens to the first two episodes, one of which is old footage of a TV guest being questioned about Cordyceps in the 1970s, and the second of which is the autopsy of the first human host for the infection where they decide the best way to stop the disease would be to bomb the city. The terror of the series doesn't come from "oooh, spooky corpse things!" but rather the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the downfall of society seems hopeless and scarily realistic given our knowledge of government responses to crises. The virus's takeover seems rooted in reality to a scary degree, particularly after 2020 -  someone in an overpopulated country contracted it, passed it, and by the time anyone noticed it had already traveled the world via globalization. It's not even, like, a lab experiment gone wrong or bioweapon, just a real-life fungal infection that mutated just enough to infect humans and spread through the wheat supply. 

In addition to the magnificent world-building, the other standouts are the actual Last of Us. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey star as Joel and Ellie, respectively, and both have enough likable smarm and trauma present in their eyes to make their violent and unforgivable murderous rampages somewhat endearing. The tiny character moments between the two, be it joke books or giraffes, are often the best moments in the show, all bolstered by palpable chemistry that makes their unlikely friendship in the end of days all the more special. The only thing I wasn’t particularly on board with was Pedro Pascal’s Southern twang, which came and went like the sea goes out to tide.

The series also contains episodic people of the week, all of whom were fantastic in their short moments in the spotlight. Nico Parker, Anna Torv, Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett, Lamar Johnson, Melanie Lynskey, Storm Reid, Scott Shepherd, and Ashley Johnson, while confined to a singular episode and more often than not headlining their sections without the aid of the dual protagonists, all do tremendously well with their given time. Nico Parker in particular gave a kind and believable performance as Sarah Miller, anchoring the fantastic season premiere and consequently the emotional core of the series. 

Now, the large roster of single-use guest stars is not perfect. Like all episodic shows, some episodes are decidedly better than others. The first three episodes - “When You’re Lost In the Darkness,” “Infected,” and “Long, Long Time” are all fantastically well-paced, good-looking, and emotional, feeling cinematic in scope and scale. Unfortunately, episode four “Please Hold My Hand” can’t help but pale in comparison, as do episodes six, seven, and the ninth and final episode “Look for the Light,” which covered far too much ground in 45 minutes.

However, when The Last of Us reaches those highs it doesn’t just hit them, it absolutely destroys any and all expectations with the best apocalypse story this side of War for the Planet of the Apes. While my favorite episode was the premiere, the third episode, which centered on conspiracy theorist Bill (Nick Offerman) falling in love with Frank (Murray Bartlett), was unexpectedly sweet and tender and one of the best love stories in recent memory - although somewhat indulgent at an hour and twenty-one minutes. I also rather liked episode eight, which saw Joel and Ellie come into contact with a cannibalistic cult (A premise that should have left more of the disgusting imagery to the imagination). 

Even more amazing is that I'm not even biased due to nostalgia for the 2013 game. I have literally never played the source material, only vaguely knowing the leads, Cordyceps gimmick, and that The Last of Us Part II was very controversial for some heavy spoilers. This isn't a video game adaptation like Warcraft, where extensive knowledge of the game is needed to understand what's going on. Nor is it like Sonic the Hedgehog or Detective Pikachu, where it's loosely inspired by the game. The Last of Us is perfectly self-contained while also being (Presumably) a fantastic adaptation of the game. Nothing stuck out to me as fan service and nothing stuck out to me as a brutalization of the lore, but I knew some changes were made for the sake of adaptation.

I was also impressed by the production design, without which the series would have been much lesser. The degraded cities, vines, and, most importantly, the infected - all look fantastic. It makes it feel all the more real and believable. Admirable is also a good word - just as with the original Star Wars trilogy, when all else fails the makeup and visual effects more than compensate. The clickers, and more specifically the fungus that grows out of them, are absolutely vile to watch and yet oddly satisfying in their sound design. It's the compelling grotesqueness missing from modern media. 

The Last of Us is the perfect storm - great source material, fantastic leads, production design, score, cinematography, action, direction - everything that makes TV great The Last of Us has in spades. Aside from shaky pacing, inevitable episode-to-episode quality differences, and the fact that the Fireflies were underdeveloped and a lackluster threat for the series, everything about The Last of Us was downright heavenly. It even had a gimmicky 80s song! Everyone loves a gimmicky 80s song!

The series stands tall with other fantastic video game adaptations such as Arcane and... wow, I guess it's just Arcane? It's one of the only adaptations based on a video game to be as good as a movie about a video game (Wreck-It Ralph, Tron: Legacy, Free Guy, Jumanji). The Last of Us is also a fantastic reminder as to why the internet loves Pedro Pascal - because the guy is wonderful. Just wonderful. 

Overall, I give The Last of Us a 9/10. "Grimdark and moody, The Last of Us is the best example of how to do a moody apocalypse thriller since Planet of the Apes."

Can't wait for season two.