Review 696: The Last of Us (Season 1)

  

Based on the video game the The Last of Us by Naughty Dog; In 2023, 20 years after a pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection, which causes its hosts to transform into zombie-like creatures and society collapses. Joel (Pedro Pascal) is a smuggler living in a military quarantine in Boston Massachusetts, managed by the Federal Disaster Response Agency (FEDRA)    

As the show goes on, they start to become more comfortable with each other, they start to trust each other and ultimately will do anything for each other.

Joel is a broken man who lost his daughter at the start of the outbreak and is now afraid to open himself up to anyone again. He is completely frozen in his trauma, he's still stuck in that one moment and opening himself up to Ellie is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. He's awakening a part of himself that he thought was lost forever, the part that he's tried to keep buried for 20 years and like thawing out from the cold, regaining that feeling is painful.

Much like The Mandalorian, Joel and Ellie encounter a bunch of one-off, colourful guest characters that filter throughout the show  Gabriel “Ghost Rider” Luna, Nico Parker, Anna Torv from Fringe, Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett, Melanie Lynskey, Lamar Johnson, Jeffrey Pierce, Retina Wesley (whom you may recognise as Liza Warner from Arrow), Graham Greene, Storm Reid, Scott Shepherd.

Sarah is almost the protagonist of the first episode until disaster strikes