Pedro Pascal stars in “The Last of Us,” the HBO drama adapted from the video game of the same name. Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO via TNS
Nearly 10 years since PlayStation users were introduced to the beloved pair of Ellie and Joel, HBO released its highly anticipated adaptation of hit video game “The Last of Us” Sunday to mass approval from critics and fans alike.
It’s been a short five months since “House of the Dragon” shattered HBO’s premiere viewership record in August, and “The Last of Us” gave a formidable effort in climbing those rankings, garnering in an impressive 4.7 million viewers in its premiere episode titled “When You’re Lost in the Darkness.”
Serving as a dense first episode with its 81 minute run time, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness” opens with a scene featuring a pair of epidemiologists explaining the nature of a global pandemic in a 1968 interview, and how fungi pose a greater threat to humans than bacteria or viruses, especially if the world were to rise in temperature over the years — a less than subtle hint at what’s to come.
Flash forward 35 years, and viewers are unmistakably thrust into 2003, with Nokia flip phones, Avril Lavigne music and a contagious sense of post 9/11 patriotism in Austin, Texas. This is where audiences meet Joel (Pedro Pascal), his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) and his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) who plan to humbly celebrate his birthday that evening with some cake and a movie. Unfortunately for the trio, the story has other plans.
The landscape quickly turns into mayhem foreshadowed by the epidemiologists. A fungal infection known as Cordyceps — a brain infection originating in South America carried into humans through infested crops — quickly begins to wipe out much of the population. This effectively turns victims into “clickers,” severely infected people with faces scarred by fungus.
Whether a victim has recently been infected or already developed into a clicker, the goal of the Cordyceps is to spread to as many individuals as possible, posing immediate threats to everybody because the infected search nonstop for their next victim. Clickers pose a greater threat than normal infected victims, as they are able to maneuver through areas by using echolocation, as well as possessing increased aggression.
The sheer anxiety viewers will feel during Joel and Sarah’s escape sequence is worth an applause alone. The use of shaky cam, practical effects and Parker’s performance makes for a gut-wrenching emotional scene just 30 minutes into the episode.
Flash forward 20 years to 2023, and Joel is faced with living everyday in a largely unrecognizable and heavily policed quarantine zone in Boston. Manned by the Federal Disaster Response Agency — one of the last pre-outbreak remnants of the U.S. government — the quarantine zone conditions are heavily impoverished, often featuring public execution of those who try to escape the zones without authorization.
Working with corrupt FEDRA agents to buy a car battery in an attempt to reunite with Tommy across the country, Joel is introduced to Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a young orphan who is discovered to be immune to Cordyceps. Joel is tasked with accompanying Ellie across the country to create a vaccine by researching her immunity, and the pair are off on a troubling emotional journey across the ravaged country.
With an IMDb user rating of 9.4/10, “The Last of Us” is undoubtedly proving itself as HBO’s new show of the week for which audiences can look forward. With the help of Pascal and Ramsey’s performances along with a promising story, “The Last of Us” has quickly proved to be a worthy video game adaptation for audiences to enjoy.
Rating: 4.5/5
