REVIEW: The Last of Us – Season One [2023]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 9 | Runtime: 50 minutes
Release Date: January 15th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Home Box Office (HBO)
Creator(s): Neil Druckmann & Craig Mazin / Neil Druckmann (video game)

If you turn into a monster, is it still you inside?

As someone who never played the video game and therefore had no clue what “The Last of Us” was about, I assumed it was just another zombie apocalypse. And while that assumption is reductively correct, there’s obviously a lot more going on. Enough that the biggest surprise for me was the series (and, presumably, the game, since many say Craig Mazin and original creative director Neil Druckmann’s adaptation is extremely faithful) proving much less “The Walking Dead” than “Falling Skies”. The factions between survivors, military, raiders, rebels, and collaborators. The quarantine zones and fights to stay hidden and safe from an unfamiliar entity. Despite the infected not finding sentience to speak and present their demands beyond nature simply evolving and invading as an involuntary act of preservation, this really does feel like a battle against an alien force.

But there’s also the reality that neither of those shows (nor this one) was ever truly about the so-called enemy. That entity was always a means towards proving mankind’s worst adversary is and always will be itself. That takes on greater meaning here too since the whole reason Earth was ravaged by this incurable fungal infection is because of global warming. We brought it on ourselves. So, we’re presented with an incredibly succinct and scary opening scene from the 1960s as two scientists on a talk show explain their greatest fears. It drives the point home perfectly since, as we’ve seen with COVID, deaths can be overcome (although they shouldn’t need to be solely due to the unnecessary politicization of medical expertise and empathy). To shift focus to a fungal outbreak like that of the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, however, is to accept abject futility. It’s not a matter of rolling the dice anymore. Or mitigating symptoms. To be infected is to die. Full stop. That genie cannot be put back into its bottle.

At least that’s what the world believed. Fourteen-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey) seems to be an outlier to the rule. Bitten weeks ago and still not turned, rebel force leader Marlene (Merle Dandridge) wonders if her blood might be a cure. Enter Joel (Pedro Pascal), a fifty-six-year-old former contractor turned smuggler with no allegiance to any group (governmental FEDRA, resistance Fireflies, or violent raiders). Already on his way west from Boston to find his brother, he and Tess (Anna Torv) get roped into a quid pro quo escort mission. Deliver Ellie to a scientific Firefly camp with the means of manufacturing a vaccine and receive a fully functioning vehicle to discover if Tommy (Gabriel Luna) is still alive. It won’t be easy or safe, but Joel is two decades removed from caring about whether his hands need dirtying to achieve his very selfish goals. So, off they go into the great unknown and violent world to become forever changed.

There’s very little filler in their nine-episode journey through Hell. Some episodes are almost entirely flashbacks, but the information and context presented within prove crucial to the present task at-hand. Don’t therefore dismiss the story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) as an interlude of hope. It may possess a necessary dose to combat the otherwise horrific tragedies that end the first two episodes, but it also reminds us that light in the darkness has an expiration date. At some point it will also extinguish. Death comes regardless of whether the bringer is a fungus, bullet, or time itself. We therefore need its brilliant display of unexpected love (“Long, Long Time” is as good as the hype, a contender for best episode of TV this year) to cut a path forward even if it won’t be coming along for the ride. Because lessons are learned. Exposition is shared. Life and loss coexist to portray the best and worst of humanity simultaneously. And Joel and Ellie’s quest simply carries on.

The same can be said with “Endure and Survive”, my second favorite chapter of the whole with an unforgettable villain (Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen is driven by justified revenge) and friend (Lamar Johnson’s Henry, a survivor weighed down by a conscience most have relinquished long ago). These characters become mirrors of who and what we can become when our backs are against the wall in an oppressive fascist state. They show how FEDRA and the Fireflies aren’t really that different from each other—two sides of the same coin that demand a monopoly on control. It’s why a flawed man like Joel proves so relatable. He doesn’t want power. He exists in the shadows to use their mutual desire for it to his advantage. Why? Because he was Henry before the fall. And he was Kathleen after it. These aren’t unique figures. Their sadness and rage is the norm. It consumes them. Joel is the exception for the simple fact that he’s stayed alive to forsake both archetypes.

We get backstory for Joel in the harrowing “When You’re Lost in the Darkness” and for Ellie in the playful yet tragic “Left Behind”. We experience the promise of post-apocalyptic life through Maria Miller’s (Rutina Wesley) commune in “Kin” and the evil that can arise when the leader of your flock is a wolf in sheep’s clothing like Scott Shepherd’s David in “When We Are in Need”. And all the while Joel and Ellie are ravaged by physical and emotional violence, filling up their already overflowing pool of trauma beyond its point of no return. It’s one thing to watch his gruff exterior melt into the vulnerability of fear, but another to see her sarcasm and smile disappear in lieu of a thousand-yard stare that would destroy most teens her age. That terror and despair being so visceral is a testament to the acting. Pascal and Ramsey bring their A-game from the first moment they’re seen on-screen to a nihilistic gut punch of an ending that tests their desire to keep going or allow themselves the room to believe their own lies.

It’s a challenging finish that will probably anger viewers. Not because of what it is, but because its authenticity to the characters and situations we’ve spent the past nine hours with confirms their worst flaws. You want to believe that doing their best taught them something along the way and that they can put those lessons to work to better themselves and the people they care about. While that result leaves a warm feeling, however, it often comes across as a hollow fabrication meant to sell virtue above pain. But there’s a reason the most romantic and hopeful chapters of this season ultimately end in horror. That result is unfortunately what most of us experience in our real lives too. Any anger towards what happens is thus less about the cost and more about the recognition that we might have done the same. Because what was it that Ellie said her biggest fear was? Discovering she was alone. The things we’ll do to avoid that solitude are infinite and sometimes heroically saving the person who prevents it proves the most cowardly act of all.