I am a bit of sucker for zombie movies and so I was looking forward to this new series, The Last of Us. I need to say up front that I am completely unfamiliar with the video game.
One of the scary things about this series is that the “zombies” have a fairly realistic origin. This is not a virus that reanimates the dead. Rather it is a fungus that infects the living and keeps them going for quite a while.
What is scary about this is that it is based on a real fungus that does this exact same thing to insects. If this fungus ever evolved into being able to infect humans, we would be in big trouble.
The series starts at the beginning of the apocalypse with a man named Joel, his daughter, and his brother. Unfortunately his daughter is killed, which obviously devastates Joel.
It then fast forwards twenty years as the world has to some degree survived the apocalypse. There are communities, often run by military, that rule with an iron fist. Discipline is severe and the people are not happy.
Joel wants to go on a quest to find his brother. At the beginning of this, he encounters Ellie, a fourteen year old girl, who he is told that he must get to a certain place. This is the basic plot of the movie, Joel’s attempt to get Ellie where she needs to be.
Why is Ellie so important? She has been bit by an infected but she has not “turned.” The reason is that she has an immunity for some reason. The hope is that scientists can use her to create a cure for the fungal infection.
The infected in this show are not the slow and dull walkers from The Walking Dead. They are fast and they are connected through a fungal network. Plus there are the Clickers, infected who can not see because the fungus has taken over their heads by they are extremely deadly.
While this is technically in the genre of a “zombie apocalypse” the infected don’t play that big of a part. In fact their absence might shock the audience.
The Last of Us is basically a character drama. It is about the life and struggles of Joel and Ellie and some of the people they encounter. What is most important is not the conflict with the infected but the conflict with other people, as well as the inner conflict of the characters.
There are some very moving episodes that very much stretch the expectations of those used to zombie shows. They are based somewhat on the video game, but apparently adapted for this medium.
I must admit that I was disappointed with the season finale. They arrived exactly where we expected to arrive but how it worked out was not that great. I found it to be rather anticlimactic.
Having said that, the series and season itself was quite good. I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to next season. The characters and characterization were excellent. The actors who portrayed Joel and Ellie were very believable.
Sometimes new series can be filled with hype. This was one series that basically lived up to the hype.
