Created by Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann
Written by Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann
Starring Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Anna Torv, Nick Offerman, Melanie Lynskey
New episodes airing Sundays at 9PM EST on HBO and HBO Max

by Jacob Harrington, Contributor

Post-apocalyptic storytelling can encompass so many different genres, themes, and different types of stories. But in so much of it (and there is just so, so much of it) we see some very familiar archetype—factions of scary survivors, zombies with names that are never just “zombies,” pandemics, etc. The Last of Us deals in those tropes and archetypes, but the reason the two video games were a big deal isn’t because of zombies, but that the story was remarkably compelling. The story and world of The Last of Us is a dark forest.

I will not be discussing any spoilers from either game. If it is not in the show, I will not mention it. Season two is now greenlit and happening. We will all ford that river together sometime, probably in 2025. I will also spare comparing The Last of Us to The Walking Dead. Instead, I would much rather compare it to HBO’s Station Eleven and The Leftovers, two of my favorite television shows ever made. Station Eleven also takes place in a world where a sudden pandemic wiped out most of humanity and crumbled civilization. It follows characters twenty years after the world ended, trying to make connections and piece civilization back together. I love storytelling about what happens after the world ends, which is also what The Leftovers is about. Only 2% of the world’s population vanished, but that 2% left a void that changed the world. The world as it was ended but kept going. How are the remnants of humanity that survived getting by twenty years after the world ended? Well, almost never well.

I came to the games very late, playing through the first one in spring 2020, ahead of the second game’s release. At the time my life was completely upside down. The pandemic upended all normalcy, and I was “lucky” enough to have an essential worker job that kept me on the front lines. Friends warned that the game might be too bleak for the moment, that I should focus on relaxing and playing something else, something more colorful. The weird thing is both The Last of Us games are so relentlessly depressing that they have an inverse effect on me. They make me look around and go well my life is great. It could all be much worse.

The Fermi Paradox asks the question that if the universe is so vast and infinite with galaxies, stars, and planets, then where are all the aliens? Why is it so quiet out there? Why haven’t the neighbors stopped by to say hi? An inherent, and grim, idea is present in both games: in such a fractured, ruined world, people would probably shoot first and ask questions later. This is the terrestrial version of the Dark Forest theory, one of the proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox. That our galaxy seems devoid of alien life because space-faring civilizations are stumbling around in an infinite dark forest, hostile to any one they encounter out of a self-defensive desperation to survive. That’s pretty much what “the last of us” means. These are the last survivors of humanity. If they take the time to talk each other, it might be too late. They didn’t get this far by being nice. That’s why Joel is the way he is. Joel and Ellie have a lot of dark forest to navigate.

Craig Mazin’s Chernobyl aired in 2019 on HBO and left viewers flabbergasted. It had such a thorough, all-encompassing sense of dread and doom—a horror series dressed up as a political historical thriller. It aired the year before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. With hindsight being 20/20, it predicted how a government could fumble their way through a crisis and make every imaginable misstep. It was extremely prescient of what was to come. The Last of Us isn’t prescient in the same way, but I do think that Mazin’s work on Chernobyl and the pandemic we’ve all been living through lend an extra dose of pathos to the show.

When we meet Joel (Pedro Pascal) in 2023, he’s a survivor who maybe doesn’t wish he had survived. He’s a hardened, bitter man. As civilization collapsed and humanity was largely wiped out by the Cordyceps infection, the world took his daughter from him. Not the virus or someone infected by it, but a soldier following orders.

Ellie (Bella Ramsey) on the other hand, was born after the world ended. Given the circumstances of the world around her she seems pretty well adjusted. She never knew the old world before it fell apart. Planes, arcade games, cars, comic books—to her these are artifacts from a civilization that fell apart before her birth. She has only ever known life in one of the quarantine zones—the miserable, occupied skeletal remnants of cities that were mostly bombed by the military during the outbreak.

A lonesome, hardened survivor getting saddled with protecting an important child as they set out on an adventure is a story trope explored about as often as the post-apocalypse. We’re maybe living in a golden age of it.

There is a direct through line from Lone Wolf and Cub, the very popular Japanese manga adapted into six films in the 1970’s, to where we are now. Lone Wolf and Cub is about a wronged samurai warrior and his son, who chooses the path of a ronin. They travel Japan righting wrongs and seeking adventure and vengeance.

Logan kicked off the current trend of this dynamic in 2017. Another Sony PlayStation exclusive video game, 2018’s God of War, took this genre trope to new heights as the gruff Spartan warrior elevated to immortal destroyer of pantheons, Kratos, set out on a quest with his son Atreus who he only refers to as “boy.” The Mandalorian, the story of a solitary bounty hunter whose bounty hunting routine gets interrupted when he accidentally adopts a mystical child, heightened those heights further. These gruff protectors don’t want the burden of protection to be on them. They don’t want anything to do with anyone. They don’t want change. Caring for someone ties your fate to theirs.

It is worth noting the shared elements of these Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired tales. Two of them, God of War and The Last of Us, are Sony PlayStation exclusive video games. The Last of Us and The Mandalorian both star Pedro Pascal. Though Joel and the titular Mandalorian share some similarities, their quests and the worlds they occupy couldn’t be more different. Ellie and Grogu are pretty different as well. Becoming a parent or protector of someone else changes up your priorities more than a little bit and clearly a lot of these creators are inspired by that as they tell these Lone Wolf and Cub adjacent stories. It resonates because that other life is your responsibility. You have to guide them through the world and protect them from it.

Now with that said, the found parent/child dynamic is why it resonates with parents. I get that. I am far too much of a lazy coward to ever want to be a parent. What resonates with me about The Lone Wolf and Cub adjacent stories is watching two people change each other. They have a goal or a purpose they don’t want, they don’t want to be important or to be heroes. They don’t want to open up and get to know this other person, it’s too painful. They’d rather go back home. Over time, as they help each other and travel together, a trust forms. They become a team. They have a goal, and they help each other get there.

Pedro Pascal is such a good actor that he carries a TV show while barely ever showing his face. Watching the pilot for The Last of Us, I was relieved to see his handsome, rugged-yet-kind, and extremely expressive face. He is exceptionally good at balancing being threatening and gentle. He is also doing a slightly Texan accent that nods to the performance of Troy Baker, who played Joel in the game. There’s a precision to the performance that makes him perfect for the role, and Pascal being the star of two shows about a stern man protecting an important child in a dangerous world is no coincidence.

Bella Ramsey’s version of Ellie took me a scene or two to be fully on board with but won me over very quickly. Obviously, you can’t cast people that look exactly like dead ringers for video game characters, whose faces are digital creations. I think their energy and performance is so spot on. The performances by Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson in the game are iconic, sure, but things work differently in different mediums. Ellie is such a complicated character and requires a complex and nuanced portrayal. Both Pascal and Ramsey avoided a full play through of the game for the sake of making their performances their own thing, not influenced by the games. Ramsey perfectly matches video game Ellie’s energy while making the character their own. They have a piercing gaze, a great sarcastic tone, and a determined, stoic energy that stood out in Game of Thrones. It’s like HBO turning a minor league baseball player into a major league all-star.

There is a lot to be said about Neil Druckmann’s involvement in the show, as well. Druckmann is the co-showrunner along with Mazin, and he created and directed the games. The Halo TV show was thoroughly embarrassed by its source material, and it resulted in a terrible season of TV that pleased no one and wasted a great story with tons of potential. The Last of Us is a remarkably faithful adaptation of its source material. There are dialogue and moments that are 1:1 that are deployed with precision. Mazin and Druckmann have captured that tone and threaded the needle. Druckmann’s involvement means he gets to retell and hone this story he has already spent years of his life telling.

There is also just a ton of incredible craftwork and production quality on the screen. The set design and visuals of this show are dazzling. Those shots of Ellie, Tess, and Joel walking through the crumbled ruins of Boston are stunning. Each room the characters occupy feels like a ton of thought went into it, especially in that building Ellie and Joel first meet. The art department was incredible with set dressing and making everything looked ruined, overgrown, and dirty. Just the work on the fungal growths and spores that cover buildings probably took hours and hours to set dress. Western Canada standing in for Boston made a few people scoff, which is fair, but I otherwise love the decision to film in Alberta and Western Canada, a place not often seen on screen. It helps convey the twenty years of time between the end of the world and 2023.

Some other things from the game that made it into the shows are exquisite little details. Angle head flashlights that can be worn in the breast pocket of a shirt to point straight forward are a hallmark of Naughty Dog games. I was instantly delighted by all the backpack business Joel and Tess are doing in the first two episodes. In the game you carry a truck load of equipment in your bag which of course is a magical video game bag that has nearly infinite internal dimensions. If you need to craft a Molotov cocktail or a healing kit, it’s all in your bag. You just have to kneel down and do some busy work in your bag for a few seconds and then you’re good to go.

In the ruins of the world there is never a straight path from point A to point B. Just getting to the state house in Boston early in the game is a labyrinth journey of blocked paths, alternate work arounds, squeezing through narrow passages in hopes of finding a path. The show gets really into this in episode four with the blocked highway and abandoned buildings. It’s one of the things that is a key element of the game, and that it’s present in the show at all is great.

But then there is the third episode, “Long, Long Time.” It’s comprised almost entirely of tremendous character building that isn’t in the game, which made it a huge surprise to gamers and non-gamers. In the game, Bill is a grumpy and gruff survivor. You only meet Frank as a recently deceased corpse. Ellie intuits that Bill and Frank were probably more than friends. Gustavo Santaolalla’s gorgeous original music is on full display in this episode. He did the music for the games, and it only makes sense that he’d do the music for the show. Quiet, jangly guitars riffs that bounce between haunting and adventurous. The lingering closeups of painting materials and windowsills at the end of the episode are gorgeous. Little details that make up a life.

The show expands these characters into a beautiful story about two men finding love in this broken, ruined world. It is such a welcome and wonderful addition to the story. The games story is good enough to be worth adapting. It can also be better. “Long, Long Time” plays like an episode of The Leftovers, and it’s an incredible episode of television. It’s an enormous statement of intent and proof of concept to do something so different from the game so early on. I think that episode goes a long way to convince people who haven’t played the game that this is more than a dumb zombie game turned TV show.

Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett bring so much pathos to their performances, and then they’re gone. You can’t help but wish that Ellie got to meet them, and that Joel got to reunite with them after episode two. They died as in love and happy as you could hope to be in the dark forest. Loving someone ties your fate to theirs. It’s so easy to be alone, and be lonely but defensively want to stay alone, behind your walls where no one can hurt you. No one can come into your carefully set up and maintained survivalist compound and completely change your life. Two bearded character actors giggling with joy as they eat strawberries is just something special. “Older means we’re still here.” “I was never afraid until you showed up.”

My favorite scene so far came in the fourth episode: Ellie makes Joel laugh. The joke book and her love of puns is straight from the game. Ellie is just a kid who doesn’t want to be the possible savior of mankind. She has a lot of life to live before she can ever be as jaded and burnt out as Joel. Bella Ramsey is wonderful in these scenes.

Naughty Dog is being extremely tight-lipped about whether or not a third game is in active development, but I think it’s inevitable that there will be a Part 3. HBO potentially has a 4-5, maybe more, season show on its hands. At least three at minimum. This is a dense story with a huge number of characters, locations, factions, and opportunities to expand on the source material. Up until the very end, it’s never quite telling the story you think it is.

If you have the opportunity and are enjoying the show, you should play the games. If you want to be completely surprised by where the story goes you should avoid the games and spoilers once the season ends. I will be back to discuss the ending once it’s aired. The ending of the game has always stuck with me. Video games are this fascinating medium that is constantly innovating, moving forward, and getting worse all at the same time. Every once in a while, there is a story that transcends the medium. I think we’re lucky to have this show, and especially lucky to have Pascal and Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, two characters that have been bouncing around my brain for a few years.

Look for the light out there in the dark forest.