Show Review: The Last of Us, Ep. 1    

The Last of Us is originally an action-adventure game released in 2013, with a remake released in 2022, and now a television series that began airing in 2022. Die-hard fans of the game, players who have devoted hours to the intense storyline, and fans of zombie shows all tune in to watch this captivating show. Here is a rundown of how the first episode of The Last of Us played out and why it set a promising start for the series.

The first episode, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness”, takes place in Austin, Texas in 2003. The audience is introduced to Joel (Pedro Pascal), Joel’s daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker) and his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). It is Joel’s birthday, but according to Sarah, it isn't a priority for him. The radio in the background tells of worrying disturbances with no context on what or why. These few scenes lay out clues to the catastrophic events about to take place. 

Flash-forwarded 20 years later in the episode, the audience sees Joel in Boston, a refuge from the mutated fungus known as the Cordyceps, a disease that has plagued the entire world. The audience is introduced to different associations: Fedra (Federal Disaster Response Agency), an organization keeping survivors safe at the cost of their freedom, and the Fireflies, a group of renegades trying to uproot Fedra with their own motives in mind. This world is now centered on surviving, killing or being killed. 

Joel partners with a woman, Tess (Anna Torv), in this post-apocalyptic society. They smuggle drugs for money with the goal to escape and find Tommy. When they have a run-in with a Firefly, and agree to smuggle Ellie (Bella Ramsay) in exchange for a car battery. The ending scene is a cliffhanger just as they are approached by a Fedra soldier, leaving the viewers with a blurred explanation of what’s to come. 

Players of the game find that many of these scenes in the show are similar to those of the game itself. The game focuses mostly on plot and storyline rather than the graphic death and killing usually seen in RPGs. While the show is based directly on the game, different scenes have been added and removed for the sake of maintaining pace. The series has its similarities and its differences, which makes it a great show to watch regardless whether a viewer has played the game or not. 

The Last of Us, the game, is different from any other zombie game on the market. This difference makes the show unique. The storyline is fascinating, the special effects are exemplary, and from the first episode, the amount of thought put into this series is clear.

This series will be 9 episodes in total, and has already been renewed for a second season. Viewers of the series can hope to see a development in the relationships between the main characters, a more thorough exploration of the dystopian world they have survived in, and an explanation to the nature of the Cordyceps fungus and all the questions that go unanswered in the first episode. 

The series is an HBO Max special. The budget for the first season alone was 100 million dollars. It’s hardly a surprise that the first episode was a major success. But it showed that a game adaptation can be amazing, and it’s important to observe how this series may provide an opening for more game adaptations into shows. 

The series stands on its own with no requisite familiarity with the game to understand the show. This series deserves all the praise it’s gotten, and has a promising future for the episodes that follow.