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.
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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