The Last of Us: Season 1 (HBO) - Review 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

HORROR is never more interesting than when it holds a candle up to the human condition. The first season of The Last of Us did that brilliantly.

Adapted from the video game franchise by Naughty Dog by Craig Mazin (of Chernobyl acclaimed) and Neil Druckmann, the series could easily have become just another zombie derivative, trailing in the wake of The Walking Dead (brilliant in its heyday) and no better than other zombie themed video game adaptations such as Resident Evil.

But by keeping the zombies (or mutated humans) almost on the periphery, The Last of Us tapped into something much deeper and more profound. It examined humanity. But it also did so from a startlingly realistic viewpoint.

The opening scene of the opening episode, for instance, lays out a hauntingly credible scenario, framed by a conversation between two epidemiologists on a 60s talk show. It is one of these who correctly foreshadows the events that create the subsequent apocalypse: theorising that fungi are a grave threat to civilisation given the lack of preventative treatment or cure.

While initially debunked, due to fungi's inability to survive body heat, the scientific expert retaliates by pointing out that fungi could evolve to overcome this weakness as the world gets warmer, at which point humanity would not survive.

Cut forward to Austin, Texas, in 2003, and the start of the ‘pandemic’ that will ultimately wreak devastation across humanity. Caught in the middle of this is Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his daughter Sarah, who make a desperate attempt to flee a city caught in the grip of hysteria and ‘zombies’. Sadly, Sarah will not survive.

Cut forward another 10 years, to 2023, and The Last of Us finds Joel reluctantly tasked with helping a 14-year-old girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) get out of Boston and flee west because she could potentially hold the cure. Ellie has previously been bitten but never turned. And her secret must be kept at all costs.

Initially sceptical, Joel has other reasons for getting out of Boston; the most pressing of which is to be reunited with his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), with whom he has lost contact.

The ensuing episodes take the form of a road movie as Joel and Ellie slowly make their way west, encountering all sorts of hostility, both from the infected and from surviving humans. And it’s here that the show really examines humanity: for better and for worse.

One of the standout episodes is actually all about hope and love (episode 3, Long, Long Time). What’s more, it barely features Joel and Ellie, focusing instead on two gay men named Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett, of The White Lotus fame) and their unlikely relationship.

Bill begins the episode as a lone survivalist, content to barricade himself away from humanity and enjoy the fruits of his labour, content that the fortress he has built himself will keep him safe. But once Frank arrives, hungry and desperate for company, the two begin an unlikely friendship that blossoms into love. Over the ensuing years, they fend off attacks, befriend Joel and his former partner, and become so dependent on each other that by the time Frank is struck down by a degenerative disease and asks Bill to assist him in dying, Bill opts to take his own life too.

The final supper that ensues is desperately heart-breaking; the whole episode like an extended version of the opening segment of Pixar’s Up, albeit played out between two men. But it also offers a rare glimpse of humanity at its best: caring, compassionate, sharing and loving. It’s a show-stopper of an episode and one guaranteed to draw your tears.

This same humanity and capacity to remain good when the whole world is turning bad is central to the main relationship between Joel and Ellie too - which develops from initially being one of circumstance (and survivor/protector) to something akin to father-daughter. It is beautifully played by Pascal and Ramsey.

The former combines moments of survivalist brutality with sadness, regret and paternal pride, showcasing both intense rage and a capacity for unflinching violence with a vulnerability and tenderness that showcases the life he was forced to leave behind once disaster struck. It’s a performance that contains some comparisons with his work in The Mandalorian but which also gives him a lot more complexity to play with.

But Ramsey is his equal, her gutsy survivor with a hardened, quippy exterior belying a similarly fragile interior, born out of loss and being forced to grow up fast and see, do and comprehend things way above her age. Her performance is every bit as nuanced as Pascal’s.

The two develop this relationship against the backdrop of some truly challenging material (albeit with moments of nicely played humour). A fourth and fifth episode in Kansas City, which brings them into contact with fellow survivors Henry (Lamar Johnson) and his brother Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard), who are being hunted by bandit leader Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), is shot through with ethical and moral complexity and showcases the harshness of the world they are being forced to survive.

The conclusion of this story arc is gut-wrenching and unapologetically unsentimental. It is a formative chapter for Ellie. But it expertly showcases the knife edge upon which humanity now exists - and the fine line between good and bad, of keeping your soul and losing it completely. It also confronts the notions of what constitutes good and evil when humanity has spiralled so far from what we know. And it introduces a theme that will recur throughout: what price one life?

It’s a question that will come to haunt the final episodes of this first season as Joel is forced to make some tough decisions of his own. But it also sews the seeds of the way in which this central relationship will develop into season two. One suspects things won’t end happily.

But there’s another key line on the episode Kin, in which Ellie is warned of the dangers of trusting others - particularly those closest to you.

The final episodes of season one, When We Are In Need and Look For The Light, are among the most harrowing… especially the former. For it’s here that Ellie comes across arguably her most formidable foe in self-styled preacher, David (Scott Shepherd)… a genuinely chilling character.

When We Are In Need confronts leadership, exploitation, power and cannibalism and puts The Last of Us firmly in the realms of horror. But, again, it examines the human condition as viewed from the context of the extremes some will go to survive. And what evil needs to thrive. David is a heinous killer masquerading as a saviour - his scenes with Ellie are loaded with tension and gamesmanship. And they make for gripping, unsettling viewing.

Yet Look For The Light also exists in a moral conundrum, drawing the series to its bittersweet conclusion. For while Joel and Ellie finish up somewhere safe (back with Tommy), there is almost certainly more suffering to come.

The Last of Us (Season 1) is powerhouse TV - that rare example of a video to screen adaptation that works. But it’s also a riveting examination of humanity at its most desperate and fragile; offering horror and hope in equal measure, and driven by two terrific central performances.