The Last of Us is one of those titles where if you're even vaguely into gaming you'll have heard of it. The hugely popular pair of games has been consistently talked about, recommended, and re-released ten years ago. Despite the popularity of it, and the constant talk about it, it's a game I've yet to play (mainly because I've not even turned my Playstation of for the last four years, let alone play any of the exclusive games it has). So when it was announced that the game was being adapted into a television show I was happy that I'd finally get to experience this story without having to dust off the console and wait a week for all of the updates to install.
As more news of the impending series was released I have to admit, it went from a show that I thought I might check out to one that I knew I was going to have to watch. The casting of Pedro Pascal as Joel felt perfect. He looked like the grizzled survivor, and having seen him in several other roles I knew that he had the range to be able to play a character who you're kind of supposed to love, but also think is a bit of an awful person too. When it was announced that Bella Ramsey was playing Ellie I was very intrigued. Having mostly experienced her as Mildred Hubble in the new adaptation of The Worst Witch I knew that she could bring child-like, playful energy to the role; and her small appearances in Game of Thrones showed that she could bring some maturity and anger when needed. I began to hope that the show would do well as soon as the casting was announced due in large part to the 'fans' of the game who began to complain at the casting. The complaints that Bella wasn't 'pretty' enough to play Ellie (a character who is literally a 14-year-old girl), and all of the horrible comments about her physical appearance made me determined to watch the series to give it some extra ratings just to piss off the man-babies who were getting all creepy and pedo about a fictional teenage girl.
Then the show arrived, and with the very first scene I knew that I was going to be hooked. The opening moments of the first episode bear no relevance on the plot of the show, it doesn't feature characters that have an impact on what's to come, it doesn't get mentioned again, or referenced. It's throw-away. But, listening to scientists on a talk show discuss what a cordyceps outbreak would mean, how it would be an unwinnable situation perfectly set up the tone of the series. The moment of stunned silence from the audience, the weight that John Hannah brings with his delivery absolutely sells the moment too. And this isn't the only time we get a moment like this. The second episode jumps forward in time with its opening flashback, to the days just before the outbreak. The reaction from the scientist there, who sees the cordyeps in a human, who knows what that means, and tells the military to bomb everyone and everything including them prepares you perfectly for what's to come.
And what's to come is some of the best television in a long while. The first half of the first episode deals with the chaos of the outbreak, but told through the eyes of one family. It's here that we meet Joel for the first time, as a happy single father doing his best for his teenage daughter. Even those who don't know the story of the game, but know the basic premise of the show being a Lone Wolf and Cub style series have to feel that this is not going to end well, that the family unit we're spending time with is doomed in some way. But even so, the tragic end of this family still hits hard, and is the first of many moments in this series where your heart is going to be broken.
That's perhaps the biggest take away I have from this series. Pain. This show spent a good portion of its episodes breaking the hearts of the audience. It drew you in time and time again, and hurt the characters on the screen that by the time it was doing it for the third or fourth time I was left watching it in a state of heightened tension knowing that something awful was to come. The episode in which we get the flashback to how Ellie was infected is the perfect example to this. When it begins we don't know that this is when Ellie gets infected, we're not told that, but as she and Riley spend more time together, as they have fun, as you can see the love that the two of them have for each other you know with absolute certainty that this is going to end in tragedy because the show has done it so many times before. I spent half of that episode loving seeing them together, but the other half on the edge of my seat because I was waiting for the hammer to drop, for the horror to come crashing in and take that happiness away.
It's impossible to talk about The Last of Us and heartbreak without talking about the episode that did that the most; the other episode that put a queer romance front and centre. The third episode of the season introduced us to the character of Bill, played by Nick Offerman, way back when the outbreak begins. Being a doomsday prepper who has no trust in the government, Bill avoids the evacuation, and turns his small neighbourhood into a safe haven complete with running water and electricity. He builds a decent life for himself. But it's not until he meets Frank that it becomes a perfect life. Frank, played by Murray Bartlet, literally falls into Bill's life, ending up in one of his traps. After a somewhat tense and unusual first encounter, the two men realise that there's an attraction between the two of them, and Frank is allowed to stay.
This episode pissed off a lot of homophobes, people who complained that the show was 'pushing an agenda' or saying that it was unnecessary, or that it ruined the source material because now we miss out on Bill and Ellie making snarky comments at each other. Those complaints are frankly ridiculous. The Last of Us is a very queer story, Bill was gay in the game, Ellie is gay, and the sequel features more queer and trans characters. The series, rather than just having this be a background thing, chose to put this wonderful, heartbreaking love story front and centre. And what made it so amazing, what made it so wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time is that Bill and Frank won. They won the apocalypse. They got to live in relative peace, they got to love deeply, and they got to end it on their terms. When the apocalypse hit queer rights weren't great in the US (not that they're doing well right now), and Bill had to hide who he was, but in the apocalypse that didn't matter. They weren't judged, they weren't abused or degraded for who they were, they just got to love openly. If there is one episode from this series that I'd be willing to show people as an example of why this series is so good, of why its worthy of attention it's this one. In one episode the show made one of the best queer love stories put to film. And yes, it's a heartbreaking one, one that even now writing about it is making me want to cry all over again, but it's still an amazing one.
That is far from the only amazing episode, or the only award worthy performance that the series has. The episodes that deal with the revolution in Kansas City makes you have to look at right and wrong, on how good and bad aren't clear distinct things. Do you side with the government that acts like fascist, or the rebels who perform public lynchings of their enemies when they win? Is Henry a bad person for turning in a man because it helped him to save his brother? The episode where Ellie is captured by David delivers the best performance from Bella Ramsey, and in my opinion shuts down any complaint or gripe about them being cast in the role. Ramsey delivers a performance that would be stunning from any actor, but from one who's only nineteen, it's becomes phenomenal. Ramsey is an actor that is going to get a lot of work after this series, and I can't wait to see what she does next and the kind of roles she gets, because this episode knocked it out of the park. And then there's the finale, the episode that already seems to have divided those watching it who didn't know where the story was going to go.
The series had been telling us, over and over, that Joel wasn't a good person. He'd done bad things in his past, he'd killed people, not all of them 'bad' people. But we'd grown close to him, we'd come to see him as a hero, we came to care about him because we were seeing him through Ellie's eyes. Then he goes on a rampage. I massively commend the decision to film it as they did, to muffle the sound, to drop the score, to not focus on the killings. It put us into Joel's head in that moment, into the tunnel vision he had when he went to save Ellie. I've already seen the debates and the discussions online, was Joel right to do that? Did he condemn the world in order to save one girl, and did he need to brutally slaughter everyone there to do it? There's no real answer to these questions. The show knows that this is a grey area, that Joel wasn't the hero in that moment. But his reaction is also one of those that I think many of us would have. If saving the world meant losing your world, the person you loved most, could you allow that, or would you burn the world down to save them? Pedro Pascal's performance in that episode was perfect for that moral quandary because he didn't go in angry, he didn't rage, he didn't act like he was the hero or the villain. He did what he did, and he seems to both regret it, and believe that it was the only course of action. People are going to be arguing over that episode for a long time to come.
The Last of Us wasn't just a show that was wonderfully written and acted though, it was also incredibly well shot. The series was able to make you believe that the world had fallen, and the visual effects of the ruined, ravaged cities reclaimed by nature sold you on the idea that the world we knew was gone. As the show progressed we were treated to different environments, with the snowbound episodes in particular looking wonderful. The cinematography of the series never let the audience down, and even the most awful, brutal locations ended up strangely beautiful.
The effects for the infected are also worth noting. The standard infected look different from what one would expect from a zombie; which is good, because despite being called a zombie story this isn't zombies at all. The fungus growing beneath the skin, the pieces sprouting through the flesh, looked fantastic, and made the infected look wonderfully disgusting. The ones that stand out though are the 'special' infected. The clickers, creatures whose heads are covered in fungal growth and can't see are absolutely horrific. It also helped that these were some of the first infected we get to interact with in the modern day, after it had been established how awful they were. The way they moved through the environment, hunting our heroes, was so creepy, and when they burst out of the shadows to throw themselves at their victims they look fantastic. The bloater who makes an appearance towards the end of the Kansas City arc is an incredible sight too, and if you can go check out the behind the scenes pictures of the suit, because it looks amazing when you can see the whole thing. I've seen some people complain that there's not enough infected in the series, but they sparse use of them, and the way that they are used in the story, makes them all the scarier for me. Having them as a looming horror rather than a constant threat makes them feel a lot more dangerous.
Despite not having played the game before watching the series I had a fantastic time with The Last of Us. The show very quickly draws you in thanks to the strong writing and the fantastic acting, and before you know it you'll be invested in these characters and their journey. I'm incredibly glad that the show has been renewed for a second season already, and can't wait to see what it does with the story of the sequel game. It's also given me the push to finally try out the first game, now that I've become a fan of the show. I expect that the series is going to be nominated for a lot of awards, and may well win some too, and that it's going to become a series that people talk about and recommend for years to come.
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