The Last of Us - HBO

Introversion

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Has no one else been watching this? The finale of the nine-episode season dropped last night.

Disclaimer: I’ve never played the video game it’s based on, so I neither know nor care how true to that game this series has been. Knowing its origins had me a little skeptical that I would enjoy it. I’m glad I watched.

A great deal of the pleasure of the series has for me been due to the performances of the two leads: A grizzled, emotionally stunted and violent man named Joel (played to perfection by Pedro Pascal), and a young teen girl named Ellie (played to equal perfection by Bella Ramsey) who falls under Joel’s protective wing.

TL;DR with mild spoilers: This is a dystopian zombie story, in which a species of fungus has evolved to be capable of infecting humans. And that’s what the show calls them: “The infected”. I must say, I’m pretty done with the zombie sub-genre, which also played into my strong initial side-eye for the show.

The first episode rolls out the back story, in which the initial outbreak happens in the US, mass panic ensues, and the usual zombie tropes of military quarantines, zombies biting and infecting anyone that can’t outrun or outgun them, etc etc. So far, so typical. Meh. I mean, it was well done, but nothing unusual. TW: There is a child death. Joel’s teenaged daughter

The second episode leaps into the show’s present, some fifteen or more years later. Joel is older and physically worn down, making a living scrounging for stuff he can sell into Boston’s black market. Boston and other major cities are divided into walled “quarantine zones” — QZs — under the control of quasi-military troops called FEDRA, who have managed to keep zombies out and a functioning if regimented and autocratic society more or less alive within those walls. A thriving revolutionary group of uncertain size called the Fireflies is a constant source of violence, as they try to free the QZ from FEDRA’s control. The Fireflies have a job for Joel: Move a young girl out of Boston and deliver her to another Firefly group. This girl, they say, is immune from the zombie fungus. Deliver her, so that a vaccine can be made from the study of her.

It’s at this point that the show becomes something special. The third episode barely mentions Joel and Ellie, and is some of the finest television I’ve ever watched. I don’t want to give away anything, but be prepared for a poignant emotional hammerblow. Episode four sets up for another emotional ride in episode five. It really just keeps getting better, albeit it’s often not an easy watch.

The relationship between Joel and Ellie grows slowly, carried by strong writing and the two actors’ performances. I really didn’t want the series to end, and I’ll say nothing about how it does, other than that it is somewhat ambiguous. I suspect this is partially to keep the option of another season on the table, though I don’t think it’s needed. But also because the show is letting us decide whether Joel’s actions in the final episode are justifiable or not. An argument could be made that Joel is ”a bad guy”, who does a supremely selfish thing. But while the show makes clear why he does the things he does, it doesn’t tell us how to judge him for that. Kudos to the showrunners.
 
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mrsmig

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My husband and I have been watching it. Like you, I'm unfamiliar with the game, and neither my husband nor I are fans of zombie stuff (he's actually creeped out by the whole concept of zombies). I think I watched maybe one episode of "The Walking Dead."

I confess I started watching "The Last of Us" at Episode 3, simply because my friends couldn't stop talking about it. It was an amazing episode, so we backed up and started watching the series rom the beginning.

I like that the series is not so much about zombie attacks as it as about surviving, and what being in a constant state of flight or fight does to your psyche. And I agree with you that Pascal and Ramsey (indeed, the whole cast) are terrific. But Episode 3 lifted the series to a completely different plane that it never reached again.

Did I think Series 1 was brilliant? With the exception of Episode 3, no. But I thought it was solid, and I'll very likely watch it next season.
 

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Did I think Series 1 was brilliant? With the exception of Episode 3, no. But I thought it was solid, and I'll very likely watch it next season.

8 was my favorite, because of the emotional payoff at the end. And I liked that Ellie was never stupid.

There were times the show played very much like video game cutscenes, but I didn’t mind too much, because the story moved right along, and the acting was spectacularly good throughout.

Mild, mostly-not-story-related spoiler for the 2nd video game:

The Last of Us Part II takes place four years after the end of the first game. I wondered how they were going to age up Bella Ramsey, and then I looked them up and learned they were 20 years old.
 
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Can't believe there hasn't been a thread on this before now! As I'm in the UK, it goes live about 2am here, and I've been getting up religiously to watch it every Monday morning!

I've played both games more than once. Both of them are masterpieces and are my favourite games of all time, but honestly? I might love the show even more. Craig Mazin's writing, combined with the oversight of Neil Druckmann (creator of the games) has been world-class. The casting has been perfect across the board as far as I'm concerned, and I love that they've included almost all of the original voice actors. It's often been shot-for-shot and word-for-word a retelling of the game, but somehow it works even better on tv.

I convinced my parents to watch it after the premiere, and my dad was put off by the idea of 'another Walking Dead show'. He messaged me after episode three, incredibly moved, and took it all back. The creators have proven that not only can video game adaptations work, they can work for a mainstream audience. As a decade-long fan of this story, I honestly don't think they could've done it better!
 

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I've been watching. I'm writing this in the afterglow of having just watched the last ep of the season. Got distracted by the Oscars last night, so I didn't get to it til this morning.

I had pretty much the same reservations y'all did, because (1) I've never played a video game; and (2) I'm such a huge horror fan, I've glutted myself with hundreds of hours of zompoc. These days I pretty much only go for Lucio-Fulci-style zomb action—lots of silly gut munching. Most of all, I'm tired of attempts to combine zompoc with drama. I prefer my horror straight up, with gore galore and plenty of either intentional or unintentional comedy. (One exception: the 2016 flick It Stains the Sands Red is terrific, with a solo female protag played by the brilliant composer-actor-artist Brittany Allen.) I watched a few seasons of The Walking Dead, but it eventually jumped the shark for me.

But for any of y'all reading this who are on the fence, I'll say that I think The Last of Us is very much worth watching, The drama, front and center, is really well written. (Sure, the acting is good, but it's the writing that makes it.) Especially the stand-alone love story in Epi 3.

To give a non-spoiler example of the writing: the kid named Ellie has a beat-up paperback book of puns she carries in her pack. (No Pun Intended, Volume Two by Will Livingston is its cover, but I don't know if the puns in the series are actually from that book.) The puns aren't just groaners: they act as counterpoint to the drama. At one especially bleak moment, Ellie reads this one: "I stayed up all night, wondering where the sun had gone, and then it dawned on me."

And at another time she reads, "People are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow."

Her companion, Joel, gives her a dark look. Ellie says, "Too soon?"

"No," Joel replies. "It's topical." The grim humor in his voice is palpable.

Not long after that he tells Ellie a crucial part of his back story, a detail he's been too closed off and emotion-plagued to share until then. It's hard not to think that the puns, along with other things, have helped pave the way for him to talk to her so openly.

I recommend watching the interviews with the two show creators and actors after each epi. After the last epi, one of them says, of a decision made by a character, "There's no limit to how much we could try to understand that, how much we could defend it, or judge it. And it's this beautiful shadow we can explore and question, find the horror and the humanity of."

I dig beautiful shadows. It's why I'm a horror fan. I hope that shadow gets explored in a second season.
 
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Jlombardi

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I'v been so hesitant to watch this because I loved the game. It holds the top spot in my mind for storytelling in video games with Hellblade and Bioshock. I have just never seen a good video game adaptation in my life. Maybe I should give it a try since the comments here seem positive.
 
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Introversion

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Maybe I should give it a try since the comments here seem positive.
What’s the worst that can happen? 😉

Though to be fair, I’ve little idea what a fan of the game thinks of this adaptation, beyond some reviews in places like Ars Technica where the reviewers were game fans. (They liked the show.)
 
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I finished this on Monday and agree with you OP thought it was an excellent tv show, was not expecting episode 3 and as someone who's played the game was a very nice surprise! The ending didn't have as much impact for me and some episodes felt a bit rushed when compared with the game's story, which takes around 20 hours to finish. But overall really enjoyed it.

I read somewhere they're looking to make 2 seasons from Part 2 which is a relief.
 

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I've played both games and absolutely adored them! The series was the same. My favorite, most emotionally charged episode, was episode 8. The ending was SUPERB.

Watching episode 9 (the finale) was a little trippy for me as the hospital they used to shoot in was the hospital I was born and grew up in. I have since moved away. Anyways, I was sitting there enjoying the episode, and all of a sudden the dingy elephant mural in the pediatric department came up and I was like... " I know that mural!" I had to look it up to be sure. They were all over Alberta filming.
 

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I had some familiarity with the game before hand, though I never played it. The main reason I started watching it was because of how much trusted people in my circles loved the third episode (it was gorgeous), and I definitely found the entire series worth the watch.
The performances of the two main actors, the focus on characterization over zombies, the shifting kinds of tension between episodes that kept the horror from losing impact or getting repetitive, and of course the overall moral greyness of choices made, all worked together to make a show that I'll be thinking about for a while.
 

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I loved how true the adaptation was. I didn't play the first game, but watched someone else play it. However, I didn't like the second game, and therefore, won't be watching the second season. If you know, you know.
 

Fi Webster

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I enjoyed the first season so much, I asked my husband to watch it with me. Unlike me (I'm 100% ignorant of all electronic games), my husband is a gamer. He has never played the Last of Us game, never even heard of it. Nonetheless, he found a lot of things very objectionable about the first epi of the series based on [insert bunches of gamer lingo.] After the first epi was over, he said, "Seriously?! You actually wanted to watch another epi of this turkey?" Then he said all the gamer gobbledygook I couldn't make sense of.

I'm rather crushed. Why does he have all these fierce objections to what he perceives as game-related flaws in a live action fictional series? Even when it's not a game he's ever played...

Can anyone propose an explanation? I mean, is this a thing gamers typically do?
 

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Can anyone propose an explanation?

Your husband's an ass who feels the need to suck the joy out of anything he doesn't personally like?

ETA I did find it felt a lot like a transcription of video game scenarios now and then; that's a valid critique of the show. It wasn't enough to ruin my enjoyment of it, but if someone in my house had been carping about it - and calling me out for liking it anyway - I would have had a few things to say about that.

Not everybody has to enjoy every thing, ffs. But if you're reflexively wrecking something for everyone else, you're a jackass.
 

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Your husband's an ass who feels the need to suck the joy out of anything he doesn't personally like?

ETA I did find it felt a lot like a transcription of video game scenarios now and then; that's a valid critique of the show. It wasn't enough to ruin my enjoyment of it, but if someone in my house had been carping about it - and calling me out for liking it anyway - I would have had a few things to say about that.

Not everybody has to enjoy every thing, ffs. But if you're reflexively wrecking something for everyone else, you're a jackass.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ THIS. THIS. THIS.
 
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I enjoyed the first season so much, I asked my husband to watch it with me. Unlike me (I'm 100% ignorant of all electronic games), my husband is a gamer. He has never played the Last of Us game, never even heard of it. Nonetheless, he found a lot of things very objectionable about the first epi of the series based on [insert bunches of gamer lingo.] After the first epi was over, he said, "Seriously?! You actually wanted to watch another epi of this turkey?" Then he said all the gamer gobbledygook I couldn't make sense of.

I'm rather crushed. Why does he have all these fierce objections to what he perceives as game-related flaws in a live action fictional series? Even when it's not a game he's ever played...

Can anyone propose an explanation? I mean, is this a thing gamers typically do?
Gaming discussion online is universally awful and very toxic, everyone at each others throats at all times. Developers regularly get death threats, games that people find something they don’t like get review bombed (check the viewer reviews for episode 3 of TLOU series - you’ll know why) and it’s polarising views either it’s ‘amazing’ or ‘trash’. You might be experiencing pretty standard gamer culture.

I quit gaming because the culture was ruining my experience, just sucked the fun out of it, and now feel much happier as a result 😂

That’s my personal experience anyway 🤷‍♂️
 
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lizmonster

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You might be experiencing pretty standard gamer culture.

Gamers are people, and trash is trash, no matter what excuse is used.

And online culture is a very different thing than what we can - and should - expect of people who live in our homes with us and claim to love us.

I quit gaming because the culture was ruining my experience, just sucked the fun out of it, and now feel much happier as a result 😂

I stay the hell out of any multiplayer environment.
 

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I mean it's got to be said at, Episode Three was the best gay story in the history of American film and television. I cried, and almost called out of work in the morning because I lost so much sleep because of it. It had a profound effect on every gay friend I know who watched it.

As a gay man I've never seen a gay character I can relate to, and the first time a gay romance has been given equal weight to a straight relationship. Normally we're foils, best friends, or sexless queers who are technically gay, but never actually do gay shit. The choice to have two strong, mature men, find each other, fall in love, and spend a life together is something I never saw as a kid.

I never had portrayals of happy, successful gay men living lives on their own terms. That didn't exist. I'm still single, have been most of my life, and overused drugs, alcohol and sex clubs when I was in my 20s. Now that I'm 45 I and how much of that was due to the fact I came of age during the AIDS Crisis and never imagined living past 25 because that was all I saw in news and entertainment.

I didn't have the language to tell other people what I wanted in part because I didn't have the language to tell myself what I wanted. It was only until seeing this Bill and Frank's story that I began to reconceptualize my own wants and needs.
 

Fi Webster

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I mean it's got to be said at, Episode Three was the best gay story in the history of American film and television.

I'm a cis-bi female married to a cis-bi male. I have quite a few gay male and lesbian friends. I, too, thought Episode Three was one of the best real-life gay love stories I've ever seen filmed. There have been some good gay love stories in shows like Six Feet Under and a small number of movies I've seen (e.g., Gods and Monsters), but this portrayal of a couple over time was most welcome. And they did all that in just one episode!

I didn't have the language to tell other people what I wanted in part because I didn't have the language to tell myself what I wanted. It was only until seeing this Bill and Frank's story that I began to reconceptualize my own wants and needs.

I'm glad to hear Episode Three had such a positive effect on you. Your story is living proof of the educational role of good fiction about a wide range of relationships. While states like Florida are banishing books with gay love stories in school libraries, at least this episode of a popular show may have penetrated to some of the young people who need, as you say, to "reconceptualize" their wants and needs.

Speaking of young people, I was most annoyed to hear that the brief kiss between two girls, later in the series, was censored in some markets (China? I'm not sure where exactly).
 
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Cheering you all on!
A little late on this, having just found out that my dad subscribed to (HBO) Max. My friend had been begging me to give the game a try because she loves the story (but prefers the sequel). & I just hated the gameplay, ugh. I got to basically what’s the beginning of episode 4 in the game, & told her truthfully that after I had company for a week & wouldn’t be playing, it was possible that I just wouldn’t continue. And wasn’t it a shame I couldn’t watch the series because I was willing to be on board for the storyline, but stupid things like dying for two hours in a basement full of zombies before finally putting it on easy (something I’ve never done in a game before), or trying to simply push a car down a hill and having to pass, not 1, not 2, but 3 separate groups of zombies on a single street before getting to the hill? It just seemed ridiculous. Every cut scene was me waiting for a zombie to attack. The show still had me expecting one might occur at any time, but actually our heroes (more realistically, imo) only end up facing the infected a few times.

Episodes 3, 5, & 7 were the stand outs for me. The changes to “Bill’s episode” were gorgeous (though Bill’s chapter in the game was my fave of what I played, despite the car pushing). I didn’t love Kansas City, but the inevitable end of 5 got me. Loved 7, which I suspect came from the prequel game.

I’m sad to say I was disappointed in the finale. After the heart-wrenching stuff in the earlier episodes, it was a little bit anti-climatic for me, though I enjoyed the backstory at the beginning.
I had already clocked Joel’s violent tendencies, & that he was sprung to kill for Ellie way back in ep 1, before they had connected. Since the game follows Joel killing both humans & the infected in occasionally very violent ways, I’m not sure how the killing of the Fireflies is supposed to be taken as him going over the edge in this manner. Even the show had him escalate his violence in ep 8 so that the cold-blooded shooting of every Firefly he saw + the doctor was almost a step back from that. I felt like the show wanted me to be more affected than I was, but I’d already gone through a, “sheesh, Joel, does it need to be this violent?” moment several times before in the game & the show. So that leaves them hoping I’ll be shocked that Joel chose Ellie over the world. But I knew she was the star of the sequel, & maybe that ruined my shock. If anything, until ep 7, I had expected Joel would end up dying to save Ellie. But once he was near death in eps 6, 7, & 8, it seemed that would be redundant.

One thing I’ll say is that Ellie’s final question, as presented in the show, just wasn’t acted in a way that felt natural to me. I hopped to YT to see how the game end plays out (almost identical) but I felt the game Ellie’s way of asking and response to Joel’s lie really expressed the conflict she was feeling, suspecting he was lying. Bella, while excellent in many ways, just felt wooden here for me. And, so, every aspect of the finale felt flatter than it should’ve been, except the stuff with Ellie’s mom, which I liked, though I found it predictable.
 

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As a queer man, I wept during episode 3, and I am not typically very emotional.

(spoilers) I went into it completely blind. I laughed out loud when the MC took off his gas mask and I realized it was Nick fucking Offerman. Then when he met the survivor in the pit... I kept thinking, "Is this gay? There's a very weird amount of homoerotic tension here. This can't possibly be gay. Is it?" And IT WAS. I grew up during a time where gay characters were never portrayed on TV, and if they were, they were the punchline or (at best) the tragic sidekick. Romantic tension between same-sex characters was always SO disappointing and frustrating for me because it *never* went anywhere, and it always felt like I was being baited into thinking something "might" happen that never did. It got to the point where I actively avoided shows that had same-sex romantic tension because I hated feeling disappointed.

but it happened! and it was the best episode! And neither of them were stereotypes, and both of them felt like real people! and the "manlier" character was the vulnerable one! Truly, we are in a different era of television now.

Of course... I love Ellie and Joel as well. Wonderful characters.

I watched it with a friend of mine who played the games. He enjoyed the series GREATLY and chatted with me about which scenes were direct transcriptions from the games and which were altered. He seemed to think they did an excellent job.

I am very interested to see what they do with the next season / next game. I heard the second game was controversial because of some choices they made with the narrative, but (honestly) the first season was so skillful, I think the writing crew might be able to tweak things and pull it off.