By Alex Tilton

I had all my usual reservations about The Last of Us. Right off the bat, there were three reasons to be concerned. It was massively hyped, it has a rabid fandom, and it’s a video game adaptation. That last concern would usually be the biggest. But in this case even I knew better. The Last of Us had universal praise for its storytelling. And for once, it wasn’t a ‘player choice’ type game. This game had a set story, and you played through it. Just like the old days.

Being produced by HBO eliminated any concerns about the hype. That just left the issue of the rabid fans, to whom HBO might pander to them rather than do what was right to make good television.  But they didn’t. Instead they produced one of the best shows you’ll ever see.

You likely know both Pedro Pascall and Bella Ramsey from Game of Thrones. Putting them together in a show that is almost completely character driven was perfect casting. Either of them could hold up the series by themselves, together they make it impossible to complain about. In fact, the pairing is so good that it gets me past the fact that it is approximately the 300th zombie show on cable television.

The Last of Us does everything well, but its best feature is its story structure. The main characters Joel (Pascal) and Ellie (Ramsey) are the focus of the plot, but their travels allow the show to move from place to place, highlighting the pain, struggles and humanity of the people they meet along the way. There’s an entire episode that they’re barely in, and its amazing.

Joel is introduced to us as a blue-collar single father, who almost immediately loses everything when civilization collapses following a worldwide infection by a fungus called Cordyceps that hijacks the brain. All that’s left to him after the world falls is his brother, and a woman he forms a relationship with in the ruins of Boston, now ruled by an openly fascist remnant of the former U.S. Federal Government.

After poaching the truck battery Joel had been hoping to use to attempt a rescue of his brother, a resistance group called Firefly recruits him to transport a girl named Ellie cross country to one of their facilities in exchange for all the supplies he needs. Why does Ellie matter? Because in spite of having been bitten by a cordyceps infected zombie, she hasn’t turned. She’s the first known case of immunity, and that means there’s hope for the first time. So they set off heading west. They don’t have a great deal of optimism. The journey is very long and extremely dangerous. On top of that, they don’t even know if a vaccine or treatment can actually be created from Ellie. All they know is that there’s nothing for it but to try.

I love this show. This might surprise you if you’ve been reading my reviews long enough to hear me trash talk The Walking Dead. But where TWD has no sense of hope ever, and they make a point of not explaining the zombies to show how philosophical they are, The Last of Us lays the fact out so you aren’t left wondering, and it does have a spark of hope.

Not hope for humanity as a whole. The show gives us many, many reasons to think that the cordyceps infection isn’t nearly as ugly as the human race it destroyed, but hope for Joel and Ellie. In her, Joel finds his first reason to care about anything in a very long time. In him, Ellie finds someone who treats her as more than just a means to an end. At no point does the show ever suggest that a cure or vaccine would undo the collapse of civilization. If anything you suspect it would be hoarded and weaponized by whomever got it first. No. We’re not here to watch the world be saved. We’re here to watch Joel and Ellie save each other from an empty, lonely hell.

When The Last of Us 2 came out, and people just wouldn’t shut up about it, I finally broke down and read the plot summary for the first game. So I know what’s coming, as do millions of other people who did actually play it. It takes nothing whatsoever away from it for me. The performances are so good, and the worldbuilding is so effective that I just can’t find any room for complaints. They did this one right.

And so, The Last of Us gets added to the list of perfect shows alongside The Expanse, Rome, Deadwood, Carnival Row and Peaky Blinders. It’s a clear case of the subscription being worthy of its price. Proceed without fear and enjoy a well-crafted ride.

Image Source: hbo.com