The Last of Us

Ellie Williams is a 14-year-old girl born into a post-apocalyptic world. After discovering that she's immune to the Cordyceps infection that has claimed so many ...

Even though the character is never seen in the games, we learn about her from other characters and the note she left for Ellie that players can see in Ellie’s backpack. Henry is the older brother and protector of Sam. Baker will be playing James, a member of a community of survivors that Joel and Ellie have to fight against. [Kathleen is a new character](https://www.denofgeek.com/games/the-last-of-us-hbo-series-melanie-lynskey-character-details-explained/) not previously included in the games. Perry is a new character created for the series. Frank is played by Murray Bartlett, who has recently appeared in The White Lotus and Welcome to Chippendales. Offerman has had a lengthy career, including roles in the series Parks and Recreation, Devs, and A League of Their Own. Joel Miller is a hardened survivor tasked with taking Ellie across the country to the Fireflies – a resistance movement looking for a cure to the Cordyceps infection and fighting against FEDRA. Sarah is played by Nico Parker who previously appeared in the movies Dumbo and Reminiscence. [The Last of Us](https://www.denofgeek.com/the-last-of-us/) is a terrifying zombie story and a heartbreaking tale of humanity. But it seems like even newcomers to the story will have a lot to look forward to with the series thanks to the talented actors bringing this emotional story to life. HBO's The Last of Us has a talented cast bringing this emotional story to life.

The 2023 release date for the TV show has finally arrived on HBO in the US and Sky and NOW in the UK, so read on to find out how you can watch the post- ...

‘That allowed the violence to have even more impact than in the game, because when you hold on showing the threat and you’re seeing people’s reaction to a threat, that makes it scarier. One of the things that I loved hearing from [co-creator Craig] and HBO very early on was, “Let’s take out all the violence except for the very essential.” although of course, the show still makes for a gruesome and often terrifying watch. Here’s what you need to know. [Pedro Pascal brushes off trolls criticising diversity of The Last of Us TV series: ‘The game is very innovative in its inclusiveness’](https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/13/the-last-of-us-pedro-pascal-brushes-off-trolls-criticising-diversity-18096927/?ico=more_text_links) The Last of Us premieres on Monday January 16 on Sky Atlantic and NOW. With the first season airing in the UK on Monday January 16, this means that the season finale will land on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Monday March 13, while it will air in the US on HBO on the evening of Sunday March 12. How to watch The Last of Us in the UK So how can you watch The Last of Us in the UK? The 2023 release date for the TV show has finally arrived on HBO in the US and Sky and NOW in the UK, so read on to find out how you can watch the post-apocalyptic tale unfold. The Last of Us follows lead characters Joel (Pedro) and Ellie (Bella) in a world where the Cordyceps infection – which in real life can have a detrimental impact on insects – has managed to infiltrate the human population, leading to widespread devastation and destruction. [The Last of Us](https://metro.co.uk/tag/last-of-us/) video game is finally hitting our screens with the new TV adaptation, with former Game of Thrones stars [Pedro Pascal](https://metro.co.uk/tag/pedro-pascal/?ico=auto_link_entertainment_P1_LNK1) and [Bella Ramsey](https://metro.co.uk/tag/bella-ramsey/?ico=auto_link_entertainment_P1_LNK2) leading the cast.

In the series, adapted from the acclaimed 2013 video game, Joel is played by Pedro Pascal. However, there are a number of subtle differences between the way the ...

“And that was part of the casting of Pedro Pascal as Joel. In the UK, it airs at 2am on 16 January on Sky Atlantic and NOW. In the game, he is involved in a weapons deal. “[In the game], Joel’s walking in a crouch so much that he would have, like, these massive quads, right? In the series, however, he is after a car battery. 55-year-olds can’t crouch for more than like three minutes!

We trace the history of Naughty Dog's pop culture phenomenon, from the video game's 2013 debut to its adaptation as an HBO series 10 years later.

I think ‘The Last of Us,’ for it to be authentic to take place in the United States, has to explore all those kinds of characters.” Straley left Naughty Dog not long after the release of 2016’s “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End,” before HBO was involved in a “Last of Us” series, and is not credited on the HBO series. “Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators.” HBO and Sony declined to comment on the record. We get to explore the downbeats of these characters and we get to flesh them out in ways we couldn’t in the game.” The studio support was always there, says Asad Qizilbash, the head of PlayStation Productions, who was working in Sony’s marketing department when “The Last of Us” was released. In “The Last of Us,” Joel starts to see the world through the eyes of Ellie, and Ellie, who has never been out of militarized zones, often finds the beauty in ruins. “The Last of Us” was the rare game that sought to avoid action, letting Ellie pester Joel with questions about what it was like to be alive before the apocalypse. No, it’s because “The Last of Us” always felt like a mission statement, a game that wanted to prove that big-budget action shooters — “AAA games” in industry speak — could not only have a sense of gravitas but could advance the medium in narrative, gameplay and representation. “The Last of Us” has its share of those, but by and large they’re unexpectedly brief and often interrupted with opportunities to guide the character or to initiate an optional conversation. Now, “The Last of Us” is a While there’s no shortage of violence in the video game space, “The Last of Us” did it differently. Sony’s landmark 2013 game “The Last of Us” didn’t make it easy on players.

HBO's adaptation of the brutal, post-apocalyptic video game is entirely faithful to its source material—yet pushes it beyond its creators' wildest ...

[Marvel Cinematic Universe](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a40458776/marvel-cinematic-universe-mcu/) is playfully hop-skipping through the aftermath of losing half of its own population. For the uninitiated: The Last of Us doesn't have the merriest worldview of the end of civilization. The Last of Us has always seemed to say that the end of times will reduce each of us to our extremes—our very worst and, if we're lucky, very best parts. The Last of Us—which visually, in the best way, watches like a shot-for-shot recreation of the video game—opens with the grizzly Joel (Pascal) and his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna) on the day that shit hits the fan. [2013's ](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a40960610/the-last-of-us-hbo-release-date-trailer-details/) [The Last of Us](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a23036/the-last-of-us-video-game/)—game developer Naughty Dog's brutalist masterpiece—to my fellow editors at Esquire. Loyalists of the video game will probably ask if The Last of Us is even half as harsh as its PlayStation counterpart. [The Last of Us Part II](https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a32907593/last-of-us-part-2-review-ellie-abby/) completionists certainly know—the game goes to painstaking lengths to show you its belief that we're all capable of becoming the thing we swear we are not. [sequel](https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a32910275/last-of-us-part-2-narrative-lead-halley-gross-interview/) released in 2017), or are simply curious about why [Pedro Pascal](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a39752344/pedro-pascal-oscar-isaac-video-interview/) and Bella Ramsey are hamming it up on a press tour together, fear not: HBO's The Last of Us, which debuts January 15, pushes the already-brilliant story beyond its creators' wildest nightmares. Joel gets wrapped up in the wheelings and dealings of a rebel faction, called the Fireflies, who ask him to smuggle a young girl named Ellie (Ramsey) across the cordyceps-ridden country. In the distance, as Joel and Ellie platform buildings, we see toppled skyscrapers, leaning on each other like books on a shelf. Really, it's 2023's [first great television show](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/g42288393/best-tv-shows-2023/). That's the gist of The Last of Us, to which HBO said [fuck-your-video-game-adaptation-curse](https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/g27664881/best-video-game-movies/), developed it into a TV series, and cleared its coveted Sunday night slot for it to air.

Pedro Pascal brings Joel to life in "The Last of Us," HBO's adaptation of the beloved, critically acclaimed video game. Liane Hentscher/HBO.

“The Last of Us” doesn’t necessarily reinvent the post-apocalyptic genre, but “The Walking Dead,” this is not. Oh, and sensitive viewers, beware – “The Last of Us” can be deeply sad. [ “Mandalorian,”](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/30/media/the-mandalorian-season-2-disney-star-wars/index.html) “Narcos,” “Game of Thrones”) as Joel and breakthrough performer Bella Ramsey (also of “Game of Thrones,” “Catherine Called Birdy”) as Ellie. Joel and Ellie are still our protagonists, and most of the series is dedicated to their relationship (albeit with some attacks by fungus-monster-people interspersed). That might rattle “The Last of Us” players used to destroying fungus-faced monsters between cutscenes, though there are still scares. [“The Last of Us”](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/10/entertainment/the-last-of-us-review/index.html) is now widely recognized as one of the best video games of all time. [bleak “Chernobyl” miniseries](https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/22/entertainment/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes-review/index.html). (In its original 2013 interview, IGN called their rapport “one of the great highlights” of the game.) He’s an often relentless smuggler with a deep-buried paternal side; she’s a parentless teen with the mouth of a sailor and a dangerous secret. From its heart-wrenching story to its celebrated cast, here’s why fans of the game and prospective new viewers can’t wait to watch “The Last of Us” when it debuts Sunday night. What’s so unpredictable about “The Last of Us” is how deftly it balances engaging gameplay with compelling, often heartbreaking storytelling. [ “The Walking Dead”](https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/21/entertainment/the-walking-dead-series-finale/index.html) had concluded its third season, [“World War Z”](https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/21/showbiz/celebrity-news-gossip/world-war-z-review-ew/index.html) was expected to be a summer blockbuster and “Resident Evil” was still perhaps the best-known zombie-starring video game. But “The Last of Us” also always prioritized the relationship between Joel and Ellie.

The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as the central duo of Joel and Ellie, but who else stars in the series and who do they play?

Who is Henry? Who is Sam? Who is Marlene? Who is Ellie? Who is Tommy? Henry is Sam's brother. Who is Joel? Sam is Henry's brother. She is also known for her TV roles in Station 19, Truth Be Told, [The Flight Attendant](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-flight-attendant-season-2-release-date/) and Greenleaf. Offerman has had a long career in TV and film and is particularly known for his comedic roles, including as Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation. Tommy is Joel's younger brother. He has also had major roles in films including [Kingsman: The Golden Circle](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/kingsman-movies-order/), [Wonder Woman 1984](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/wonder-woman-3-release-date/) and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

"The Last of Us" creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin explain why they did not want to include gameplay sequences in their HBO adaptation.

“It’s a big time jump,” he says of the game’s sequel. It also seems inevitable that “The Last of Us” will extend beyond its first season, which covers the full storyline of the first game. Sony released “The Last of Us Part II” for Playstation 4 in 2020, which makes a sizable time jump and tells an even more sprawling story with several new characters, but Mazin is cagey about how future seasons of the series might unfold. In the game, Marlene only shows up “when Joel meets Marlene and no other time,” he says. But he understood innately that it would be a “mistake” to try to replicate the way the game is played on the show itself. “These characters that sometimes hunt you in the game, we get to humanize them in the show,” he says. “However, in the show, we were able to say oh, this moment that’s kind of hinted at, of what was it like when Ellie met Marlene for the first time, we get to dramatize that in the show.” Even more provocatively, Druckmann says the show will also spend time with the (non-zombie) enemies that players must kill to advance in the game. But Mazin and Druckmann used those sequences to draw viewers deeper into the emotional arcs of the characters rather than the harrowing spectacle surrounding them. “When you’re playing those sequences, that immersion really makes you connect with the player you’re controlling. “But ‘The Last of Us,’ more than any other video game I’ve ever played, connected me to character and relationship. Players must guide Joel and Ellie as they navigate through dilapidated office buildings and snowed-in ski resorts, and then utilize whatever weapons they have on them to take out the swarms of zombies — or mercenaries, or cannibals — that could just as easily kill them.

HBO's The Last of Us airs tonight; the TV adaptation of the popular video game stars Game of Thrones alums Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey.

[drop us a message here](https://wikiofthrones.com/contact-us). R. George R. ET), which you might remember as the time slot occupied by House of the Dragon last year on HBO and HBO Max. Watch the trailer right here: HBO is one of the leading networks in the world of television.

Here's a sentence that I never thought I'd type: The Last of Us airs its first episode tonight on HBO and HBO Max. It's a surreal feeling.

Neil, Craig and the production team took this opportunity to weave in new characters, themes, and locations — only where they felt true to the characters and the world, the “soul” of The Last of Us. As you can imagine, I’m extremely excited (and extremely nervous) for PlayStation and Naughty Dog fans to dive into the first episode and experience for themselves the love the cast and crew has poured into this adaptation. I can’t wait for the world to experience their portrayals and the rest of these unforgettable characters in an entirely new way.

The HBO drama, based on a video game, works best as a post-catastrophe travelogue, teasing out the ways survivors rebuild mini-societies with new alignments ...

Multicolored fungi bloom across the faces of the infected, leaving intact the mouths and teeth with which they attack, as they join a teeming, growing army that appears to know no natural death, and only lies dormant, waiting. Scott Shepherd is as terrifying as any of the spore-heads in his role as a soft-voiced pastor who preys on his followers’ need for solace and guidance. Between the monomaniacal militias and the self-cannibalizing cults, a deserted preschool classroom, constructed underground, stands as a brightly muraled testament to the blind hope that many parents still nursed for their children, while a heavily guarded commune risks the messy ideals of equality and coöperation even in the face of existential peril. A fascination with panicked brutality links “The Last of Us,” co-created by Craig Mazin, to his previous series, “Chernobyl.” On the autumn night in 2003 that the cordyceps arrive in Austin, a construction worker named Joel (Pedro Pascal) attempts to flee in a truck with his teen-age daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker), and his younger brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). “Station Eleven,” the defiantly optimistic portrait of a Shakespearean theatre troupe wayfaring through a post-pandemic Midwest, is another precursor, in images if not in tone; the Ozymandian sights of nature’s reclamations in “The Last of Us”—ducks and frogs swimming blithely in a flooded hotel lobby, or a herd of roaming giraffes seemingly escaped from a zoo—conjure that same beauty of perseverance amid desolation. When the mutation is first discovered, in Jakarta, a petrified mycologist advises, “Bomb this city and everyone in it.”

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey headline the cast as Joel and Ellie with Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Bill Offerman, Merle Dandridge, Murray Bartlett and more. There ...

The road runs through both Missouri and Kansas. The Last of Us Part II is also set in America, taking place mostly in Seattle. The first episode will be released on 15 January in America and 16 January in EU/UK.

[Ed. note: The rest of this piece contains incrementally increasing spoilers for The Last of Us (2013).] pedro pascal crouching, with bella ramsey at his ...

In the final act of The Last of Us (2013), Joel and an unconscious Ellie arrive in Salt Lake City following many brutal adventures, and Ellie is immediately taken in for treatment. Whether the ending of The Last of Us is a true twist ending is arguable. And The Last of Us has plenty of child death to go around (and not just the horrific one in its first episode). But it is an ending that firmly recontextualizes the kind of story that The Last of Us is. The ending of The Last Of Us is not ambiguous in its contents, containing a crystal clear succession of events and motivations — and at the same time, it leaves room for every player to form their own opinion on it. If you were within five yards of a video game in 2013, you may have gotten the sense that The Last of Us tells a story whose ending spawned significant debate.

Joel - Pedro Pascal · READ MORE · Ellie - Bella Ramsey · Trending · Tommy - Gabriel Luna · Tess - Anna Torv · Related articles · Sarah - Nico Parker.

The HBO and Sky Atlantic drama is ready to premiere with much excitement surrounding the first episode's release. The Last of Us premieres on Sunday, January 15, on HBO in the USA and Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK. Who is in the cast of The Last of Us? Tommy is the younger brother of Joel in The Last of Us game so it is believed this will be his role in the show as well. Ramsey's character Ellie in The Last of Us is vital as she is seen as the key to starting a new world as she is immune to the infection that killed billions. The Last of Us is making its debut in the US this weekend, but who stars in the cast?

The series is created by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann, who served as a writer and co-director on the 2013 original game from developer Naughty Dog ...

HBO Max is not currently available in the UK. Both actors star in the HBO adaptation, albeit in different roles. It will air simultaneously on Sky Atlantic in the UK on Monday January 16 at 2am GMT. In The Last Of Us, Pedro Pascal plays Joel opposite Ramsey. She also played Mildred Hubble in CBBC series The Worst Witch and voices the title character in [Netflix](https://www.nme.com/brands/netflix) animated series Hilda. The supporting cast includes Gabriel Luna (Terminator: Dark Fate) as Joel’s brother Tommy and Anna Torv (Mindhunter) as Tess.

The first episode of HBO's The Last of Us largely sticks to the original script, with a couple of tweaks. Here's how it differs.

But the conclusion is very much the same: Sarah is killed by a trigger happy soldier ordered to enforce the town's quarantine at any cost, leaving Joel to grieve for years to come. That's covered in a short, 15-minute prologue in the game, extended to just over half an hour in the show. [game narrative](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-last-of-us-part-ii-neil-druckmann-interview), its 81 minutes of runtime covering around the first hour of gameplay.

Music is a big part of the game, and it seems that's translating to the series too, with the first episode featuring music from Gustavo Santaolalla, who wrote ...

[subscribe now](http://radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article). - The Last Of Us (Never Again)The Last Of Us (Goodnight) - The Last Of Us (You and Me) - The Last Of Us (A New Dawn) - The Last Of Us - The Last Of Us (Astray) - Gustavo Santaolalla

Created by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and the original game's co-director Neil Druckmann, the series follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) 20 years ...

HBO Max is not currently available in the UK. The Last Of Us lacks novel ideas, but when it’s this good it can get away with it.” [four-star review](https://www.nme.com/reviews/tv-reviews/the-last-of-us-review-pedro-pascal-bella-ramsey-3376317), NME wrote: “Gamers have been burned before by poorly conceived adaptations of their favourite titles, so they were naturally skeptical.

'The Last of Us' set a gold standard for video-game storytelling. The adaptation's premiere makes it clear HBO doesn't want to screw that up.

She also learns that Marlene does not like being called a terrorist, particularly when she knows she’s working for a greater purpose and Ellie is essential to the cause. Meanwhile, Joel and Tess plot payback on the battery dealer who ripped them off, a pursuit that eventually brings them to Firefly headquarters, or what’s left of it. These include, of course, FEDRA soldiers, including Joel’s painkiller customer, who seems willing to bargain with them for their escape until Ellie stabs him before he can see she tests positive for infection, after which Joel murders him with his bare fists (after a brief flashback to Sarah) as Tess and Ellie look on. But that doesn’t get in the way of her expressing her resentment with defiant sarcasm. After Sarah joins Joel and Tommy in a pick-up with a quarter tank of gas, the three speed across the outskirts of Austin only to find the highway choked with traffic and the fields filled with soldiers. There’s kindness in the way the soldier tells the girl, “What if I told you that after we gave you some medicine, we’re going to find you your favorite food to eat?” but it’s a lie. When Joel and Sarah encounter a soldier, it quickly becomes apparent he’s going to kill them, presumably acting on orders to take extreme measures to contain the spread of the infection. When Tess finds herself in the middle of a FEDRA-Firefly street fight, she does her best not to get involved. The series begins in a slightly different place, opening with a scene set at the taping of a talk show in 1968 in which a smug interviewer talks to two scientists. (Could the sirens she’s been hearing all day have something to do with it?) And she’s helpful with the Adlers, the family next door with the nice dog and a senile, wheelchair-bound mother named Connie who never talks. [PlayStation 3 game in the summer of 2013](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-last-of-us-hbo-adaptation-review-non-gamers.html), The Last of Us drew breathless praise from reviewers, but that’s not particularly unusual. But the show also feels like its own creation, in large part because the series, and its well-chosen cast, emphasize the emotions at the heart of the game, including an interest in what place morality has in a brutal postapocalyptic world and a sense that it is connections between people that make life meaningful, even when surrounded by monsters.

We leap ahead to 2003 where we meet Sarah Miller (Nico Parker) and her father, Joel (Pedro Pascal). The single dad lives with his daughter in the outskirts of ...

Still, this is largely all stage-setting and the meat of the story is still to come. He traded pills to a FEDRA soldier in return for the promise of a truck (minus the battery). The argument is interrupted by a bomb blast that knocks the walls in and knocks out Robert’s men. Tess and Joel gather intel on where their battery is and go to find it, eventually coming to the secret Firefly base where Ellie is being held. Nervous and unconvinced, they decide to let her live and move on into the night before FEDRA can catch up with them. All of this is conveyed in a talk show in 1960, and essentially spells out exactly what’s about to come in the story proper. We also meet members of the Fireflies, a revolutionary group that’s been carrying out bombings and other attacks across the QZ. The soldier checks in with his commanding officer and is told to shoot to kill, which he does, wounding Joel and killing Sarah. She visits their elderly neighbors (where we see the first signs of the infection taking hold, possibly thanks to corrupted biscuits) and when Joel returns from work—late, without a cake—they watch a movie together and she falls asleep on the couch. The game came out in 2013, the show in 2023. It’s his birthday but he’s off to a long day on the job as a contractor with his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). Just the end of the world.

The zombie apocalypse depicted in the popular video game series and newly adapted HBO series “The Last of Us” derives from a mutation to a type of fungus ...

The zombie apocalypse depicted in the popular video game series and newly adapted HBO series “The Last of Us” derives from a mutation to a type of fungus called cordyceps. This should probably come as no surprise, though: Unlike in the games and show, cordyceps, as we currently know it, will not turn you into a zombie. Cordyceps is real, and some

Vanity Fair chronicles all the similarities between HBO's post-apocalyptic adaptation 'The Last of Us' and the video game it's based on.

From that point, both the show and the game’s versions of the scene play very similarly to one another, all the way down to the dialogue. The Last of Us TV series and video game open differently from one another, with the HBO adaptation presenting a wholly original scene set during a 1968 TV interview. The story of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), survivors of a society-shattering plague fighting to, well, keep surviving, requires very little invention, due to the original game’s cinematic nature.

HBO's highly-anticipated TV adaptation of The Last Of Us premieres this month, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

HBO Max is not currently available in the UK. It’s the longest episode of the season. The Last Of Us lacks novel ideas, but when it’s this good it can get away with it.” Each episode will air weekly following the premiere on January 15. [four-star review](https://www.nme.com/reviews/tv-reviews/the-last-of-us-review-pedro-pascal-bella-ramsey-3376317), NME wrote: “Gamers have been burned before by poorly conceived adaptations of their favourite titles, so they were naturally skeptical. The second longest is the third episode, which spans 76 minutes.

HBO's super-sized series premiere saw Joel (Pedro Pascal) navigate trauma and find new purpose in Ellie (Bella Ramsey), plus some video-game callbacks.

People don’t love that sequence because it’s two minutes of CGI forming different shapes; they love it because it’s two minutes of CGI telling a story of sorts by establishing the geography of the series as a whole and of individual episodes, changing periodically to introduce new spots on the map or prepare us to return to little-visited places like The Pyke. While the idea of the spores rising into something resembling a city — i.e., a metaphor for how the world as we know it has been consumed by the mushrooms — is clever, it’s still ultimately just a bunch of shapes, and not interesting enough to go on for as long as it does. And we discover that Marlene needs Ellie to get to her other Fireflies out west because Ellie is somehow immune to the infection. Ellie is not as in command of the situation as Tess was, but we also quickly see that she is not afraid of being shackled to a wall by armed people who won’t explain why they want her. Then purpose arrives in the form of Ellie, a girl close in age to Sarah who needs passage out of the city. He is emotionally closed-off and efficiently brutal, and when his new charge Ellie is threatened by a soldier late in the episode, he has a PTSD flashback to Sarah’s death and turns absolutely savage in the way he beats on this man. [zombies](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/zombies/), though we do get the disgusting imagery of a dead body absorbed into a wall of fungus when Joel and the others traverse an underground tunnel late in the hour. (We are introduced to her surrounded by armed men after a beating, yet it is clear that she is in command of the room the entire time, and would likely have found a way out of her predicament even if a conveniently-timed Firefly bomb hadn’t given her an escape route.) He is existing rather than living, haunted by the loss of his daughter even more than the loss of everything else he knew, with few goals beyond getting through the next day. Before we get to that violent escape from Boston, we first have to establish the state of America 20 years after the zombie uprising. So I’ll be discussing this episode, and all the ones to come, solely on the basis of how it works as a television show. But before that, we have to watch civilization fall in the way it tends to in so many dystopian shows and movies. Instead, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are using those scenes to establish emotional stakes for Joel, and to make us deeply feel at least some of the pain he experiences when Sarah is shot by a panicked soldier on the night the world is wrecked.

In this case, the relationship between survivor Joel (Pedro Pascal), who's haunted by the loss of his daughter 20 years ago, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a strong- ...

[Chernobyl](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/chernobyl-is-more-terrifying-than-you-think/)’s Craig Mazin at the helm as showrunner and the game’s director Neil Druckmann onboard as a co-showrunner, HBO’s The Last of Us has every chance to be a worthy adaptation of one of the best video games of all time. But The Last of Us series isn’t just acclaimed for the characters and writing. You can almost smell the desecration and despair wafting through the Boston streets as Joel hauls the body of an executed boy (who we meet earlier in the episode…brutal) to a pyre for FEDRA. When Joel, Ellie, and Tess are held at gunpoint by the FEDRA soldier Joel’s been dealing pills to on the side as they’re on their way out of the quarantine zone, we see a fleeting image of Joel cradling Sarah right before she was shot. When the story jumps ahead 20 years and we find Joel in a ravaged Boston, working macabre odd jobs for FEDRA, the last remnants of the US government, you can feel the years of brutal post-apocalyptic survivalism and grieving for Sarah has taken its toll on him, and that he’s harboring some serious regret and self-loathing. The show obviously can’t offer us the same type of immersion, but what it does offer is more time with Sarah as she goes about her day, getting her dad’s watch repaired for his birthday, and visiting their neighbors. The story then jumps to 2003, introducing us to young Sarah Miller (Nico Parker), her father Joel, and his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), who together try to make it out of Austin alive during the emergence of the cordyceps outbreak. [Game of Thrones](https://www.denofgeek.com/game-of-thrones/) as the fearless Lyanna Mormont, and her natural ability to embody someone beyond her years despite her age and diminutive stature is on full display in her turn as Ellie as well. Will the new actors live up to the performances of the original cast? The show also adds a few new narrative wrinkles to the proceedings, such as a flashback to a 1968 talk show on which an epidemiologist (John Hannah) explains that fungi are a much greater threat to humankind than any virus, being that in certain cases, fungi can take control over the bodies of living hosts like ants and, potentially, humans. Judging from the first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, fans have nothing to fear — other than the infected fungal monstrosities waiting at every turn in this refreshingly faithful adaptation. In this case, the relationship between survivor Joel (

The Last of Us episode 1 ends with an 80s song playing over the radio. Who's singing? What's the name of that song? And why is it more important than you ...

The Last of Us is available on HBO in US. In the games, it's strongly hinted that Bill and Frank were gay lovers, and conversations around the show already suggest that this will be true of their story here them as well. That obviously parallels the bond which will gradually be forged between Joel and Ellie, especially at the end when Gahan sings "Never let me down" as a refrain. The song in question is called 'Never Let Me Down Again' and that voice you hear is coming from Dave Gahan, the lead singer of a legendary English band named Depeche Mode. And then, as the credits start to roll, the words "I'm taking a ride with my best friend/I hope he never lets me down again," can be heard beyond the storm. Unfortunately, we can't really go there at this stage, so that just leaves the question of that very last song. Joel isn't in the mood to discuss this, but after a nap helps calm his grouchiness somewhat, Ellie reveals that the radio came on while he was asleep. When Joel says "shit" in response, it confirms what Ellie suspected all along, that the "X" and therefore the number "80" means trouble. And what connection does it have to that old radio by the window? Joel briefly tries to "fix this" with his words, but then the guard's flashlight takes him back to the moment his daughter died, twenty years earlier, and he just loses it. "I've never been on the other side of the wall... [HBO's](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a35509074/the-last-of-us-release-date-hbo/) [The Last of Us](https://www.digitalspy.com/last-of-us/) sure does love to play around with time.

We zip forward to 2003, ten years before the opening of the game, and get a really nice sequence with Joel (Pedro Pascal), his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and ...

In this case, the writers and producers had to condense a 15-hour game into a 10-hour season of television. It doesn’t always work out (many movie adaptations of video games aren’t exactly great), but things can’t stay always precisely the same as they were in the source. Deviating from Joel and Ellie’s story to tell another one in this universe — something that wouldn’t be possible for the game to do — is an exciting change. I enjoyed the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie, which is nothing like any of the games, and I’m interested to see how the Gran Turismo film shakes out, given that it’s about someone who’s very skilled at those games becoming a real-life racing driver. In the same way, a movie that adapted any of the core Mario games exactly would quickly fall flat. We get to see some of what Sarah’s day-to-day existence is like in the hours before the outbreak occurs. Changing how the infection spreads from spores to fungus, for instance, means that the actors don’t have to wear masks in some scenes. They hit the story beats they needed to while changing things up enough to surprise fans of the game and, at least in some places, make the narrative work better in another medium. Things that work in a novel may not in a film, and retelling a game beat-for-beat in a TV show doesn’t make a lot of sense. The cold open is a scene from a ‘60s talk show, which is immediately a new twist. Thanks in part to some of the different paths it takes, HBO’s adaptation of the 2013 game is off to a stellar start. Even when it’s a game that’s as cinematic as The Last of Us.

The Cordyceps brain infection, as it would come to be known, infected and/or killed roughly 60% of the population just a short time later. The amount who ...

The Last of Us is available on HBO in US. So, we challenged ourselves to come up with an interesting new way for the fungus to spread." Then after a year has passed, the fungus scars the host and blinds them completely, forcing them to use a new, primitive method of echolocation to find their way around. Within two weeks of infection, the host begins to lose their sight as a fungal growth corrupts their visual cortex. Those are the clickers who you're going to see a lot of this season. That's where we see the host lose their higher brain function, leaving behind those aggressive, irrational, zombie-like people we see at the start of the show and game. The Cordyceps brain infection, as it would come to be known, infected and/or killed roughly 60% of the population just a short time later. [The Last of Us](https://www.digitalspy.com/last-of-us/) isn't exactly [your standard zombie thriller](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a42429477/last-of-us-review-tv/), and that's clear from the beginning of the very first episode. How do we know 60% of the population were lost so quickly? In 1968, there was no evidence that this same process could affect humans because the human body is simply too warm for these strains of fungi to survive in. Humans now live in closed-off areas where guards check anyone coming in to see if they've been infected by the outbreak. [The Last of Us](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a42141245/the-last-of-us-first-trailer/) spoilers follow.

The "zombie virus" introduced in HBO's The Last of Us is unlike any you've ever seen before...

What’s so terrifying about this infection is that while we typically think of zombies as reanimated corpses that have been killed and then brought back to life by some sort of virus, the Cordyceps fungus technically keeps the host alive through this entire process, even though they aren’t conscious or in control. This stage of Cordyceps can occur anywhere between two weeks to a year after infection as the fungus takes further control over the host’s body. The next stage of infection is the Stalker, categorized by fungal plates that have begun to grow over the eyes. With that said, let’s dive into the different stages of infection we could see in this season of The Last of Us. Even though a newspaper found in the prologue of the game shows that the FDA tried to slow the spread by issuing food recalls, the incubation rate is so fast that hospitals quickly became overwhelmed at the onset of the outbreak. In this world, the Cordyceps fungus has mutated to infect the brains of humans, turning them into violent and bloodthirsty creatures intent on spreading the fungus as widely as possible.

It has been described as "comfortably the best adaptation of a video game ever made" that has been able to "break the curse" on gaming-TV crossovers.

"Through Ellie, we see its wonder. "Through Joel, we feel the heartbreak of this world," its chief television critic said. "The design is stunning: vistas of deserted, bombed out metropolises are matched by sprawling, Western inflected, shots of rural America." All this to an audience who may not traditionally engage with games. [there's some stand out acting in the series](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/11/the-last-of-us-tv-finally-has-the-perfect-video-game-adaptation) acknowledging "it's a bold statement to make" but episode three "might well be one of the TV episodes of 2023". [gave it four stars, saying](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-last-of-us-review-pedro-pascal-hbo-b2258847.html) it's "undoubtedly a new landmark in the seemingly impossible task of adapting video games".

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey lead this white-knuckle adaptation of the survival-horror gaming classic. Plus: Maternal is a fast-paced and stressful new ...

The scheming mayor’s young ward, Atari, flies to the island in search of his pet, and falls in with a canine pack voiced by the likes of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton and Bill Murray. The second of three shaming films by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein reaches the outbreak of war and unambiguous news of Nazi atrocities against European Jews. This new series of the compelling documentary strand was filmed last spring but even then – as paramedics respond to cardiac arrests, epileptic seizures and nasty falls – waiting times were stretching out alarmingly. This catchup revisits the venue a year later to see how Covid affected its attempt to attract a new clientele and balance the books. Last February, the BBC aired a charming documentary about a struggling Clacton working men’s club, which was attempting to modernise thanks to the proprietor’s daughters. It’s essentially a post-apocalyptic drama, but thanks to its origins, the story has real white-knuckle jeopardy.

ncredible as it sounds, HBO has David Attenborough to thank for its newest TV series The Last of Us. While watching an episode of Planet Earth, ...

You have to take the piss out of it because it’s so serious,” he says. “The purpose of adjusting [the storylines] was to deliver the same impact in television as they have in the game. “[However] one of the things that Craig said, and I leaned into, was that whenever we can separate ourselves from zombies we should take that opportunity. And even if it fails — and I don’t think it will — I wouldn’t change anything about it.” “I entered this deal with a lot of trepidation and some fear that this could end badly,” he says. With the game they have created these amazing movies, essentially, and I thought they were fantastic.” She is relentless and the moment she does make him smile for the first time, that’s a great achievement, making this grumpy-guts laugh. “I hadn’t heard of the game before I got the job. “It was very revelatory to find out that the source material was an immersive video game experience.” “They wanted to protect me and they didn’t want me to feel I had to copy the game and Ashley [Johnson]’s iconic Ellie,” Ramsey said. But what I do love and am fascinated by is the way disease can disrupt our humanity and show how fragile we are,” he says. “I understand why people like the idea of zombies; they’re an incredibly extensible analogy for whatever you want them to be, whether that’s consumerism or mortality.

Well, of a fungus. The terrifying real life inspiration for The Last Of Us' pandemic. “Fungi seem harmless enough,” Dr Newman tells the host of the TV panel ...

And it likely also nods to events to come later in the series, too… And Joel starts to reply, but our interest is elsewhere: we can hear a shift in the tone of the soldier’s voice. [The Arithmetic Of Compassion](https://www.arithmeticofcompassion.org/psychic-numbing), psychic numbing – but The Last Of Us takes action to avoid this diminishing returns on human compassion. You know that she believes that everything is going to be OK, even in spite of the swarms of cannibalistic infected roaming the streets – and, for whatever reason, we feel it, too. Joel did everything he could, gave it everything that he has, but his one and only daughter is still dead in his arms. Much like Joel, we mourn Sarah – we truly feel the loss of her. And so, when her dad slips away later that same night to bail Uncle Tommy (Gabriel Luna) out of prison, those who haven’t played the original videogame begin to worry incessantly: surely Joel is safer with Sarah, our MVP, than he is out there in an increasingly hostile world? “I’m sorry,” the soldier says, moving towards them to finish the job, but, thankfully, Tommy is back and he’s firing his own gun. You’d think, based on everything that’s happened so far, that it would be Joel, not Sarah, who would take that fatal shot to the abdomen. We hear, just as Sarah does, snatched soundbites from increasingly ominous news reports – and we watch as she takes a covert trip into the city, where she spends her hard-earned allowance on getting her dad’s watch repaired for his birthday. Much of the first episode belongs to Sarah. “Fungi seem harmless enough,” Dr Newman tells the host of the TV panel show he’s sitting in on.

HBO's post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us arrives, The Case I Can't Forget returns for a new run, and the always excellent Rory Kinnear stars in ...

Please review their details and accept them to load the content. A highlight is the new penthouse. He will call it The Bank of Dave. HBO's post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us arrives, The Case I Can't Forget returns for a new run, and the always excellent Rory Kinnear stars in The Bank of Dave . Inside they discover an exhausted wife who, despite her own physical problems, has been trying to save her husband's life. This gives Dave an idea. and depend on each other for survival. First there is the noise from tube lines that requires a rethink on the build and then, just weeks from opening, unprecedented levels of rainfall in central London cause the basement to flood and destroy much of what her team have been working towards. With the megabuild shell nearing completion, the hotel turns its attention to the interiors, employing some of the world’s top designers and craftsmen to meet the expectations of their well-heeled guests. Then he visits a Japanese-inspired micro-home in London and takes an inspiration trip to Israel to see one of the most unusual, hand-built homes he has ever seen. There she tries to help her brother, Nicky, convince their father, to put Ruth in a nursing home and face the end of their marriage. We need your consent to load this YouTube contentWe use YouTube to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity.

HBO's apocalyptic blockbuster debuts with an explosive, exposition-heavy episode.

The confrontation is tense (Tess calls Marlene the “Che Guevara of Boston”), but they eventually make a deal: if the pair get Ellie out of the quarantine zone, they’ll be rewarded with all the equipment they need. During the showdown, the soldier tests Ellie (she scans red, which means she’s infected), but Joel and Tess take her through the zone anyway. There’s plenty of murky sub-plot about underground dealings, but the short of it is that they’re looking for a car battery. Joel and Tommy (who sound like a pair of English builders) turn up just in time, killing the neighbour, and taking Sarah away in the truck. Their relationship, which hints at a past potentially unrequited love, is the best part of this new world. Tommy is clearly no good, but Joel can’t resist his brother, a quality I am sure will come to bite him in the ass later. The purplish hues, Noughties music (and warnings from Jakarta about the virus) on the radio, jokes about the Atkins diet: there’s a sense of humour and lived-in texture that’s missing elsewhere. She ventures next door, and we get our first glimpse of the infected. Anyway, for Joel’s birthday, Sarah gets his watch fixed (using his money: it’s the thought that counts!), but when she’s at the repair shop, she is booted out. The writing in this scene, funny and a little menacing, is the best of the episode. Later, to celebrate Joel’s birthday, she borrows a DVD from her elderly neighbour and they watch it on the sofa. Dr Newman (an exquisitely dour John Hannah) believes that fungi will most likely be the end of us, once they learn how to live inside humans.

To badly bastardise the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Spores, spores everywhere and not a drop of a vaccine. That's the main issue facing the human race ...

[Comicbook.com](https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-last-of-us-spores-changed-games-tv-show-adaptation/): “In the game, there are these [parts] where you encounter spores and you need to put a gas mask on. [Collider](https://collider.com/the-last-of-us-craig-mazin-neil-druckmann-interview/): “The game had spores in the air and people had to wear gas masks, and we decided, early on, that we didn’t wanna do that for the show. [The Last Of Us](https://www.reddit.com/r/thelastofus/comments/105251c/hbo_series_will_not_include_spores/) Reddit page (this very subject kicked off a 1,200+ post discussion about it) one person commented: “I did find the spores to be a really unique aspect of the cordyceps fungi, and the overall infected in the universe. The writer and creative direction for The Last Of Us game, Neil Druckmann, told To badly bastardise the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Spores, spores everywhere and not a drop of a vaccine. If you breathed in infected air of those suffering, there’s a good chance you would catch it too.