One of our favorite creative bakeries, One House Bakery, has made yet another clever sculpture out of bread. Last time, the bakery furnished us with “Pan Solo,” a life-sized version of Han Solo frozen in carbonite made entirely out of, you guessed it, bread. And now, they’re honoring another pop-cultural phenomenon, The Last of Us. One House Bakery has taken some unassuming bread dough and turned it into a terrifying Clicker right out of Max’s adaptation of the popular game. There’s actually some irony in seeing a bread Clicker sculpture because, in The Last of Us live-action series, bread was partially responsible for creating Clickers in the first place.

Still, we’ll put this bread Clicker on our table, right next to the delicious The Last of Us Clicker cake we saw not too long ago. Now we just need a Clicker sculpted out of raisin cookies or pancakes, and we’ll truly have the full set.

All joking aside, this The Last of Us Clicker bread sculpture is incredibly impressive. Although Clickers are obviously horrifying, they represent one of the most intricate stages of being an Infected on The Last of Us. Clickers have gone full zombie enough that they have layers upon layers of fungus growing out of them and forming elaborate patterns. There’s a strange beauty and gracefulness to all those tendrils. And One House Bakery brings every facet of The Last of Us‘ Clickers to life in bread form. Not a crinkle is left uncrinkled and no tooth is left unchipped. It’s really quite a marvel.

The bakery shares more about their bread Clicker in an Instagram post detailing this The Last of Us project. The sculptor, Hannalee Pervan, notes that the bakery made the sculpture completely out of bread dough. And that she and her mom fell in love with The Last of Us and “were immediately obsessed by the beauty and the terror of the clickers and the cordyceps.” Pervan notes, “We have been working for months with dough on our creations and I hope we did the show proud! Come by and say hi to our clicker, Gus…funGus…get it???

FunGus will be available to witness in all his bread majesty throughout the month of October at One House Bakery. We just hope no one tries to eat this bread Clicker… We all saw what happened on The Last of Us.

The post THE LAST OF US Bread Clicker Gives Us Another Reason to Fear Flour appeared first on Nerdist.

With both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA striking for fair contracts, it’s hard to predict when The Last of Us will return to HBO. That doesn’t mean we’re not already thinking about season two. The series is already arguably the greatest video game adaptation ever (possibly by a wide margin). Now showrunner Craig Mazin has made the wait for its return even harder. He spoke to The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd about the past and (potentially much longer than we even hoped for) future of the show. That included hints he might already have found the right person to play The Last of Us Part II‘s infamous Abby.

Forget just adapting two video games into two seasons of television, The Last of Us sounds like it will run for at least four. Mazin says the story of the franchise’s second installment is too big to cover in just one season on HBO. That means we’re going to get at least three years of live-action clickers. But while he says it’s possible the series will even run for five, four seems to be all but guaranteed. However, no one shouldn assume to know what that means for the fate of any characters, including the main ones. As Mazin pointed out, season one wasn’t a straight adaptation of the first game. The series wasn’t afraid to make changes.

We know one major video game character who will definitely join in the dystopian fun whenever the show returns, Abby Anderson. (Mazin seemingly teased her coming arrival with a poster already.) The showrunner wouldn’t confirm if he had already cast his Abby. It certainly sounds like he did and can’t announcer her because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Based on the show’s previous casting in season one we’re confident he found the perfect choice. But Mazin thinks the initial reaction to the news will lead some people to say, “Really?” just as they did when the show revealed Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey would play the leads. Oops!

As for season one, Mazin’s favorite moment came in the finale when Joel and Ellie discussed his healed head scar. Mazin also discussed the ethics of the murder spree Joel went on shortly after that moment. He doesn’t have any easy answers for us. Not that we want them. All we want is season two of The Last of Us. And also seasons three, four, and five.

The post THE LAST OF US Showrunner Craig Mazin Reveals Plans for Several Seasons and Abby Casting Hints appeared first on Nerdist.

We may not have officially kicked off summer, but that doesn’t mean it’s too soon to start planning for Halloween. Specifically, it’s time to think about this year’s Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights. And this year, expect to hear some disturbing clicking sounds in their latest Haunted House. Because Naughty Dog has revealed that their iconic game (now HBO sensation) The Last of Us will get its own Halloween Horror Nights haunted house this fall.

The Last of Us haunted house will welcome guests at Universal Studios Orlando on September 1. The Universal Studios Hollywood version opens on September 7. Watch the super creepy announcement video:

The description for The Last of Us Halloween Horror Nights experience is as follows:

The Last of Us haunted houses on both coasts will propel guests into a world of carnage and mayhem as they follow in the footsteps of the game’s protagonists, Joel and Ellie, who endure a brutal journey in a world overtaken by a fungal virus that turns humans into various forms of a new threat known as the Infected. As guests encounter the Infected – Runners, Stalkers and Clickers – along with The Hunters, a band of hostile humans, they will need to navigate the Pittsburgh Quarantine Zone, including iconic locations from the video game such as the creepy and desolate The Hotel Grand and a labyrinth of dark and dank tunnels, in a desperate attempt to escape and survive.

Executive Producer of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood John Murdy has longed to include The Last of Us for a long time. In a statement, he said, “The world inside the game offers a multitude of suspenseful and horrifying opportunities.” Thanks to the popularity of both the game and the TV series, we expect the lines for this one to be substantial. We expect more HHN announcements in the weeks to come. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit Universal’s site.

The post THE LAST OF US Coming to Universal Halloween Horror Nights appeared first on Nerdist.

It seems like the new trend for prestige television series is to wait two years between seasons. That’s what will likely happen with House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and now… The Last of Us. According to Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie on The Last of Us, we might not see season two of The Last of Us until 2025. But at least production appears to be starting soon.

Per The Independent, Ramsey shared the following about the filming and airing of The Last of Us season two on The Jonathan Ross Show, “It will be a while. I think we’ll probably shoot at the end of this year, beginning of next… So it’ll probably be the end of 2024, early 2025.” This seems to add up with previous statements from Pedro Pascal, noting season two could begin to film in 2023. We can’t say we want to wait two years for the next season of The Last of Us. But we can’t say we feel exactly surprised to hear this news either.

Recently, Craig Mazin, co-creator of the series, noted that season two remains in the script phase, additionally confirming its early stages of development. And Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin both recently commented that season two was “months not years” away from starting, per Deadline.

Of course, nothing is ever set in stone when it comes to filming schedules. And HBO has not made an official announcement about when we can expect The Last of Us season two to release. All we know is that it’s coming. Although two years seems to be the new norm, we can’t help but cross our fingers that The Last of Us‘ popularity might get it back onto our screens a little more quickly.

Originally published on March 20, 2023.

The post THE LAST OF US Season 2 May Not Arrive Until 2025 appeared first on Nerdist.

If you’re entering the world of HBO’s The Last of Us completely unaware of anything but the series, then we suggest you read no further. Because recently, Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, and more discussed the most shocking part of The Last of Us Part II. Yes, we’re talking about Joel’s death.

Speaking to Esquire, Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, and Craig Mazin all chimed in on the matter of Joel’s death, whether it will happen, and how the series will likely approach it. And… yeah, it’s not looking so great for Joel. But… we probably won’t see Joel die in the first episode of The Last of Us season two either.

Pascal noted he hasn’t played The Last of Us games or watched the scene of Joel’s death to date. But “It wouldn’t make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path… So, yeah, that’s my honest answer.” It sounds like Pascal has squared with his character’s fate. But co-star Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, doesn’t seem so certain about losing Pascal’s Joel yet.

They offer, “If that does take place in the show… I don’t know that I’m emotionally ready for it.” But likely, Ellie won’t feel emotionally ready for it either. So, that’s probably another check in the Joel death category.

However, showrunner Craig Mazin does offer a sprinkle of something different. On the matter of Joel’s death in the HBO The Last of Us series, he has this to say:

This should be fairly obvious to anyone by now, but I don’t fear killing characters. But the important thing to note is that neither Neil [Druckmann, who co-created and exec-produces the series with Mazin] nor I feel constrained by the source material.

Fascinating. Could there be hope for Pedro Pascal’s Joel on The Last of Us, yet? Or will his death simply evolve to the point we don’t see it coming, and it hurts all the more? Probably the latter. But with confirmation that The Last of Us Part II will be told over more than one season, we probably still have some time left with Joel. This is great because we need to see more of Pascal and Ramsey and their Joel and Ellie before we have to let them go. Then again, if Joel did die in The Last of Us season two episode one, we surely will not have seen that one coming.

The post Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey Discuss THE LAST OF US PART II Shocker appeared first on Nerdist.

There’s no doubt that there’s been a massive surge of new interest in The Last of Us recently. Season one of the Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey-led show proved to be a huge hit. And although many fans of the HBO’s The Last of Us series had already played through the games, many also discovered the world for the first time. And that’s why it feels exciting for many that The Last of Us Part I has finally arrived on PC. In previous, you could only play The Last of Us on consoles. But with a flood of fans ready to dive into The Last of Us‘ adventures, giving more avenues to access the game makes complete sense.

However, The Last of Us Part I hasn’t had a very smooth transition to PC. Reports on Steam indicate the PC version of the game currently crashes a lot and doesn’t seem optimized for the new platform. Right now, most of the thumbs are down. So if you want to play The Last of Us on PC, we’d probably recommend waiting a bit or preparing yourself for some issue-born frustration. Happily, though, help does seem to be on the way. The game’s developer, Naughty Dog, promises they are investigating the, surely, many reports they have received. Fingers crossed help is on the way. Hang on The Last of Us, you just have to survive a little longer.

With The Last of Us season one at an end and season two still far away, new fans will likely look to the games as a means to continue exploring the world. Hopefully, they can immerse themselves in infected very soon. And then the thrills of The Last of Us Part I on PC can be the chief source of terror… Not the horrors of a constant crash.

The post THE LAST OF US Game Finally Arrives on PC, But Is Currently Very Glitchy appeared first on Nerdist.

If your TV show has a special young orphan in desperate need of a fearsome caregiver you know what to do. You call Pedro Pascal. Between The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, he has firmly entrenched himself as pop culture’s go-to surrogate dad. But if you could only rely on one them, who would you choose: Din Djarin or Joel Miller? Which Pedro padre is the preeminent papa is the difficult question my editors posed to me, a parent myself. Only, I’ve never hunted a single bounty, killed a giant fungus monster, or traveled to either Wyoming or Tatooine. So to settle this fictional father showdown, I’m going to pit these Pedro Pascal characters head-to-head with specific traits you’d hope to see out of any good dad whether they live in a galaxy far, far away or a dystopian monster wasteland. Because kids everywhere need the same things.

What are those traits? We’re using this excellent list of exemplary parental qualities as our categories, along with an extra one I promise every good parent needs.

(Note: We’re only judging Joel based on Pedro Pascal’s version of the character. The Last of Us video game franchise—especially Part II—has no bearing on this daddy duel.)

Showing Love

Din Djarin dedicated his life to walking Mandalore’s ancient Way. Yet he loves his son so much he willingly removed his helmet to show Grogu his face, making himself an Apostate in the process. That’s really tough to top. But Joel did exactly that when he doomed all of mankind to save Ellie’s life. He chose her over literally everyone else on the planet. He then gave her plausible deniability about what he’d done so she didn’t have to live with that guilt. That’s love. Was that right or wrong? Impossible to say. But what is possible is naming a winner in this category.

EDGE: Joel

Providing Support

Children need praise and encouragement, obviously. Less obvious is who gets the nod here. This might sound like another Joel category on the surface, because he not only listens to Ellie’s needs he also frequently compliments, encourages, and soothes her. But Din is petty supportive, too. He found a Jedi master to to train Grogu, gave him his blessing to continue his training under Luke Skywalker despite how much it broke his heart, then welcomed back Grogu when the Child chose to be with his dad instead. Plus, you know, there’s the whole keeping him safe from an evil empire thing. That counts, too. That definitely counts.

EDGE: Din

Setting Limits

Din spends half his time telling Grogu what not to do. Yet we’ve seen how ineffective he is at setting limits. The little green guy still eats too many cookies, plays with parts of the ship he shouldn’t, noshes on frog eggs, and “squeezies” Anzellans. Meanwhile, Joel made it clear to Ellie she is not allowed to wander off, lest a Clicker tear her apart. And since no Clicker tore her apart, Joel did a pretty good job setting literal limits.

EDGE: Joel

Being a Role Model

Joel has a temper and is quick to violence. Also, he sure did murder a whole lot of innocent people in his past. So…uh…yeah, we’re giving this one to the honorable, far more in-control Din Djarin. By a lot.

EDGE: Din

Teaching Responsibility

Has Din taught Grogu anything? Grogu is 50 years old and doesn’t even know his Aurebesh alphabet yet! But do you see them practicing their letters or learning how to count? Meanwhile, Joel gives Ellie history lessons and shows her how to safely operate firearms. Normally that last thing would be so, so, so bad, but in a dystopian world full of monsters that’s like teaching a normal kid how to do laundry. (Speaking of, Joel should probably teach Ellie how to get blood and dead fungal vines out of clothes.)

EDGE: Joel

Providing a Range of Experiences

This one is kind of unfair. There’s not exactly a wide range of experiences you can offer a child in a dying world where survival is your only task every day. Plus, Joel doesn’t even always have a truck, let alone a jetpack or a spaceship that makes planet-hopping easy. If he did we know for sure he’d take Ellie to the Moon, but until that happens Din wins this one by default.

EDGE: Din

Showing Respect

Joel loved Ellie enough to ask Tommy to keep her safe when he knew his brother was better prepared to do so. But he respected Ellie enough to let her ultimately make that decision. Did he undo all of that by not letting her know the truth about her immunity? Maybe, but you could also argue he respected her enough to let her live it without guilt. As for Din, he let Grogu decide himself wehther to live as either a Jedi or a Mandalorian. He then respected his child’s choice when he changed his mind. This… this is a hard one.

After lengthy consideration I have to go with Joel. The difference is how many time we saw him respond to Ellie’s emotional needs on a level Din hasn’t had to because of Grogu’s relative age. Joel respects Ellie’s feelings and pain in a way that is pretty moving, especially because we know Joel himself is not always in control of his. Treating your child as their own person with their own emotional maturity is the ultimate sign of respect.

EDGE: Joel

Patience

This is my own addition to these categories, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a father it’s that being a good dad is often about having patience. Kids don’t always do what you want, let alone when you want. And you never stop being a parent. You’re on the job 24/7, no matter how tired, sick, or busy you ae. So it’s easy to be a good dad when everything is going right and your child is behaving. But the real test comes when they just threw applesauce on the wall while the doorbell is ringing and you’re on the phone with the doctor because you’ve been sick for three days.

And it’s pretty obvious which Pedro Pascal dad has more patience. It’s the one without the severe anger issues capable of saying very hurtful things.

EDGE: Din

Final Verdict

Am I a good dad? I certainly hope so. I try to be everyday. But am I a dummy because I added an eighth category and ended up with a tie on a list I fully controlled? Certainly. because now I need a final, bonus tie-breaker trait to settle this. Fortunately I know just what that is.

Not Always Wearing a Helmet So Your Kid Can Actually See You

Easy.

EDGE AND WINNER OF THE PEDRO PASCAL DAD BATTLE: Joel from The Last of Us

Don’t take it personally, though Din. This ruling might change after we see more of both your fictional dads in action.

Plus, no matter what happens on The Mandalorian, you’ll always be a better father than this guy.

For the record, Oberyn was the coolest Pedro Pascal dad.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.(Or Pedro Pascal’s dad characters.)

The post Who Is the Better Pedro Pascal Dad? THE MANDALORIAN’s Din Versus THE LAST OF US’ Joel appeared first on Nerdist.

The Last of Us season two might not come our way for a long time. But, we are already getting some sinister hints about what could happen next on the TV show. Neil Druckmann shared a The Last of Us season two poster on Twitter for fans to mull over. And, for the gamers among us, there’s a hint at a dangerous character coming Joel and Ellie’s way. 

The poster clearly shows a muscular arm holding a hammer with what appears to be a burning (or at least illuminated) car in the background. Game fans immediately went into organized panic mode, suggesting that this arm belongs to The Last of Us‘ Abby Anderson. Spoiler note: Please turn back now if you don’t want spoilers for The Last of Us Part II game.

In that game, Abby is a former Firefly who wants to exact revenge against Joel for killing her father, a surgeon at the hospital where Joel saves Ellie from life-ending surgery. So, based on this poster, it looks like Joel may have a target on his back if this is Abby coming for him in The Last of Us season two. Off note, though, in The Last of Us Part II game, Abby’s iconic weapon of choice is a golf club. And we don’t see that pictured in this The Last of Us season two poster. So, maybe, just maybe, he will find a way to endure and survive her wrath.

The post THE LAST OF US Shares an Ominous Season 2 Poster appeared first on Nerdist.

Many shows have undead creatures, but none of those shows are quite like The Last of Us. The not-so-zombie monsters—whether they are clickers, runners, or bloaters—and their gnarly appearance are still quite the threat in this universe, even though humans are worse. And just like actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey portray our lead characters Joel and Ellie, real people contribute to bringing those monsters to life too. In this fascinating and lowkey unsettling video, we see a pair of The Last of Us voice actors—Misty Lee and Phillip Kovats—make those scary clicker sounds that signal danger.

Interestingly, both actors also voiced the creatures in the games. Talk about a really cool job! And the sounds they make keep us up at night. While The Last of Us season one did focus quite a bit on character development, we did get some serious clicker and bloater action, from their hive mind capabilities to those terrifying sounds.

We can’t speak for everyone, but we want more clickers in season two.

The post Watch THE LAST OF US Voice Actors Make Creepy Clicker Sounds appeared first on Nerdist.

There’s very little funny about The Last of Us. And the character of Joel rarely smiles throughout the show. Probably one of the least funny episodes of the series, which is saying something, is The Last of Us‘ season one finale. But luckily, to soothe our aching hearts and crying eyes, Pedro Pascal offered us a blooper from the show. As Pascal delivers Joel’s serious lines from the final episode, he dissolves into a fit of laughter. Honestly, we can’t help but laugh along to this The Last of Us blooper.

Pedro Pascal teases us with other fun behind-the-scenes images from The Last of Us. But you can watch the outtake by arrowing all the way over to the right.

Honestly, we needed that after a whole season of the show crushing our souls. We can’t imagine The Last of Us season two will offer us any solace. But it would be nice to see a proper The Last of Us blooper reel before we have to face down more doom and gloom.

And maybe we could get at least one moment of happiness for Joel and Ellie? Just one?

The post Joel Giggles a Little in THE LAST OF US Finale Blooper, Courtesy of Pedro Pascal appeared first on Nerdist.

As The Last of Us was first released on the PlayStation a decade ago, everything from key moments to delicate minutiae have calcified in fans’ minds. This hikes up the temperature considerably in terms of anticipation — the legacy is quite real. One of the big questions going into HBO’s adaptation is how much of the game will carry over into the series, and how much will change? The balance is vital to anchor viewers in the story’s world, while still expanding on it in truthful, authentic measures.

Jump to: Episode One // Episode Two // Episode Three // Episode Four // Episode Five // Episode Six // Episode Seven // Episode Eight // Episode Nine (Giraffes!)

Episode 1

Joel’s Birthday Watch

The story’s opening moments are some of the most difficult to experience as a player, and as they should be. The first POV you play in The Last of Us is of Sarah Miller, Joel’s daughter. The game begins on the evening of Outbreak Day, also known as Joel’s birthday, where Sarah gives him a watch. This exchange is so heartfelt, boxed in with the priceless father-daughter humor that is so fleeting between the two of them. This scene is almost identical in the show, with Nico Parker’s Sarah echoing the same, cheeky words from the game to explain how she paid for the watch: “I sell hardcore drugs,” in the same Texan accent.

The similarities are eerie, but deserved; its warmth swells, especially if you come to the show as a fan of the games. However, before this, the show rewinds us back to the beginning of Outbreak Day, to September 26th, 2003, a decade before the events of the game.

HBO’s adaptation allows viewers to get even closer to Sarah. We follow her throughout the day — cooking breakfast; tossing out quips about Joel needing diapers soon; heading to school; venturing downtown on a city bus to have Joel’s watch fixed (with his money from his bedroom drawer). This makes her death so much more grueling on viewers, as the scene — downtown in flames, restaurant that Joel carries her through, and standoff with the soldier — is effectively identical to that in the game. 

The Beginning of the Journey

Fast forward 20 years, and Joel is not bedridden like he is in the game. Instead, he is tossing the corpse of an infected child into the FEDRA flames of the QZ. Tess, gunslinging and troubled as ever, is instead a captive of Robert. He stole the car battery that she and Joel had planned to use to go find Tommy out West. The familial ties seem to be much stronger in the show. Joel and Tess’s romantic partnership is more or less confirmed, and they have a pre-existing mission to go find Tommy who has been AWOL through their radio communications.

When Joel and Tess set off to satisfy their vendetta against Robert, he is already dead — it is Marlene who kills him. His stupidity from the game bleeds into the show, as he thought he would get away with selling the defective car battery again to the Fireflies. 

The game and the adaptation converge here, with Marlene handing Ellie over to Tess and Joel. The promise of goods is still very much the same, and their agreement to transport Ellie to downtown Boston is still for selfish reasons. Marlene is injured, FEDRA about a block away from the Fireflies hideout, and desperation is the final push — Joel and Tess for their car battery, Marlene for getting Ellie to the Fireflies lab out West.

Episode 2

Venturing Into Downtown Boston

Once Tess, Joel, and Ellie make it out of the Boston QZ, they do something they almost never do in the game—they rest. Well, Ellie does; Joel and Tess keep watch over her from a lengthy distance inside of a disused barber shop with overgrown foliage. The next events of the show occur in broad daylight as opposed to nighttime, allowing the horror to exist on its own without the darkness to tip the edge. The skyline almost mirrors the environment art from the game: demolished skyscrapers holding each other up to keep from completely dissolving into rubble.

Instead of venturing into one of the dilapidated office buildings to get closer to the Capitol, they cut through a hotel. This seems to evoke a similar setting later in the Pittsburgh portion of the game. While the circumstances are different, geography, character, and plot-wise, this scene even takes from the dialogue of that game encounter, when Ellie asks, “You ever stay in a place like this?” to which Tess takes Joel’s response, “Uh, no. A little out of our league.” In this way, it seems the creators of the show are doing as much as they can to preserve the original content, even if misplaced.

The Museum

After climbing ten flights of stairs, Joel and Tess realize that they cannot take “the long way” due to the hundreds of infected bodies connected on the ground below (and the short cut was axed before they started walking). Tess explains to Ellie the connectedness of Infected, of how these tendrils can grow miles long underground, forging them into a responsive network. They ultimately decide to go through the museum, which seems to have had a history of Infected dominating the building. When they enter the building, they realize the state of the building is in way worse shape than they had anticipated: the clicking noise is a dead give-away. They make it through, almost exactly as in the game, but not without forthcoming consequences.

The Capitol Building

The similarities between the game and the series with respect to the Capitol Building are haunting, from the angle of the light shining through the high windows to the color of the walls to the dome shape. The panic and exasperation from the game are maintained in this scene as they discover that all of the Fireflies in the Capitol were murdered by Infected. “Our luck had to run out sooner or later,” she says, to which Ellie responds, exactly the same as in the game: “F**k, she’s infected!” Joel turns to her at the same time as the camera pans to him, so that the viewers learn about Tess’s grim fate. Tess’s last preserved line from the game is “Oops, right?” as she uncovers her neck, bitten.

Instead of FEDRA showing up to hunt them down, it’s the dozens of Infected they had spotted earlier in the day from the balcony of the hotel — the tendrils from the Capitol have awakened the masses, and they come running. Tess quickly knocks over tanks of gasoline throughout the room. When the game’s “Make this easy for me,” is replaced with “Save who you can save,” Joel jerks around and drags Ellie out before he can stop himself, because if he waits any longer, he won’t be able to. By the time the Infected make it to the Capitol, Joel and Ellie are gone and Tess tinkers with a lighter that won’t catch. An Infected’s tendrils enter her mouth, making for the most disgusting kiss scene you have ever seen on screen. Then, from outside of the building, you see: an explosion.

Episode 3

Bill and Frank

For this episode, which aligns with the portion of the game in Bill’s town, HBO changes the canon markedly. The greatest distinction, which is inspired from the game, is that Frank is alive in the show — not a corpse with a caustic letter left behind for Bill. Due to the content of that letter in the game, and Ellie later cracking a joke about the male pornography that she took from Bill’s lodging, many fans of the game have long deduced that Bill is gay, and that Frank was in fact his partner, in more than just work. Therefore, the entire presence of Bill and Frank’s story diverges from the game, but it seems to exist with the same flavor as the actual game, such that the story exists authentically within the world of The Last of Us.

Bill’s Less of a Jerk…Slightly

An interesting, more subtle change within the episode is how Bill is as a character. We learn that Bill is an excellent cook and his anal-retentive demeanor manifests more so in maintaining the tranquility of his town. His survivalist skills are more apparent with diminished threat from Infected or raiders. His electric fence keeps those out, and his white-picket fence community is pristine. Within, there is a fabric store, hardware store, and winery.

The Letter

One small thing seems to be preserved, however small it is. That is the letter Ellie and Joel find when they finally reach Bill’s town in present day, months after he and Frank have died. The contents of the letter are obviously different from the game due to the vast changes of the plot. However, within the letter, along with Bill’s humor, refers to Tess as Joel’s lover, more or less. In the game, Bill’s allusion to Tess and Joel as “inseparable” is one of the only clues that confirms the romantic dimension of their relationship. In this case, it surfaces in the letter, along with the flashback to Joel and Tess dining with Bill and Frank. It truly is a treat to watch.

Episode 4

Ellie’s Puns

The fourth episode of the season marks Ellie and Joel’s portion of the journey that they spend in the car. If this were the game, they would be driving towards Pittsburgh; however, the Pittsburgh act of the game is now Kansas City. Remarkably, as in the game, Ellie takes to her humor in this episode, bearing the same copy, cover and all, of the book of puns that Riley gives to her in Left Behind: No Pun Intended (Part Too). Different parts of the episode feature Ellie’s puns, including their campsite in the forest at night that is not from the game. 

Moments on the Road

Also from the game are two classic moments from their car ride. First, Ellie whips out a Hank Williams cassette tape, asking Joel, “Does this make you all nostalgic?” to which he replies, “This was actually before my time. It’s a winner, though,” and the notorious tune “Alone and Forsaken” from their entry into Pittsburgh plays in the show. Immediately after, Ellie announces she has something else, a male porn magazine from Bill’s town. With this comes her famous joke, as she asks Joel, “Why are all these pages stuck together?” Joel’s “Uh…” is gorgeously cut with Ellie’s “I’m just f*cking with you,” as she tosses the magazine out the window.

These moments, where the dialogue comes directly from the game, are so nostalgic for game players, which allows for divergences elsewhere in the plot. They are precious reminders of this ambitious series’ origins. It is even more heartfelt to hear Bella Ramsey adopt the same words that Ashley Johnson spoke over a decade ago, taking on some of her accent, some of her intonation, and making those things new.

The Gunfight

The direct transfer of game material earlier in the episode balances with unexpected, new story points. When Joel and Ellie arrive in Kansas City, they find themselves in a showdown with locals as in Pittsburgh. Here, the locals aren’t really “hunters”: they are part of the Kansas City insurgency that overthrew FEDRA 10 days before our protagonists arrive. In this way, the series elaborates upon the mythology of The Last of Us world, showing different kinds of resistance. This part of the episode also incorporates the game moment from the hotel where Ellie defends Joel by shooting his attacker. In the adaptation, Ellie of course uses the gun that she secretly took from Bill and Frank’s house, and she uses it to shoot Joel’s attacker whom he could not hear due to his auditory problems. This moment is incredibly emotional, hitting much harder than its counterpart.

Henry and Sam

This new section of the story returns to the game roots once we hear about Sam and Henry. Before they ever come on screen, Kathleen, the leader of the resistance, seem deadset on finding them. She has a vendetta against Henry for providing the intel to FEDRA on her brother’s actions and whereabouts. He was the leader of the resistance before his death. Her mission, hinged on vindictiveness, is to find and kill Henry, as well as all other FEDRA collaborators. Kathleen riles up her soldiers and teammates, including Perry, who is played by Jeffrey Pierce, the original voice actor for Tommy. As Ellie and Joel try to find a way out of the city, they make it to the top of the tallest building in KC, where they awake to Sam and Henry’s guns pointed at them, marking the official introduction to their characters in the show.

Episode 5

Sam and Henry

Sam and Henry are two of the most cherished characters of the first game. Their heartbreaking story from the game is even deeper in the series, as Sam is much younger, and is also deaf. Therefore, Henry is not only his big brother and protector, but also his ASL interpreter. The audience witnesses so many silent but beautiful exchanges throughout the episode. 

Navigating Underground KC

In episode 5, Henry reveals why he and Sam followed Joel and Ellie: he has a plan to safely exit the city. In exchange, Henry asks that Joel protect him, since the way out of the city involves maintenance tunnels where FEDRA related all of the city’s Infected. Though Henry assures Joel and Ellie that he has it on good word that FEDRA had cleared out the tunnels a few years back, there may be a few still down there.

The tunnel system emulates the sewers in the Pittsburgh section of the game. After trekking through, they encounter a room resembling the children’s area of the sewers, with books, arts and crafts, and toys. They realize the room served as an underground harbor for those trying to continue with their lives, leaving a lingering melancholy. We see a great deal of parallels here, as Ellie and Sam play a bit of soccer with the wall-drawn goalie net.

Savage Starlight

Savage Starlight is real! The series features true copies of the original comic series from the game, which serves as a gorgeous way for Ellie and Sam to bond organically throughout the episode, despite the fact that Ellie doesn’t know ASL. 

Sniper in the Suburbs

Unlike in the game, the small group from the series makes it out of the tunnel system without encountering any Infected, and certainly no Stalkers as in the sewers. However, once they reach the residential area outside of the perimeter, the episode evokes the unforgettable game sequence of the belligerent sniper blocking their exit from the city, notwithstanding the different circumstances. Joel weaves stealthily through the area, eschewing all bullets, and makes his way up to the top floor of the house where the sniper is stationed. Once he arrives, he kills the sniper and takes over, exactly as he does in the game (which is one of my favorite sequences to play). As Kathleen and the resistance fighters show up as well as the swarms of Infected, Joel works his magic.

The Bloater

From early episode four, Kathleen and Perry hint at something awful in the tunnels; the asphalt ground of a building cracked from underneath. This episode reveals tons of runners, clickers, and finally, a Bloater coming up through the fiery foundation of a house. The Bloater seems an almost direct replica of one from the game, as gruesome as it is horrifying. The Bloater moves the same way, murders the same way, and sounds the same way as in the game. It does not throw acid spores at its victims due to changes in the show’s Infected lore.  

Sam’s Death

This part of the episode was destined to be the most devastating, and it is. There are direct carryovers from the game, but in the adaptation, Ellie actually knows that Sam has been bitten. More heartbreakingly, she attempts to cure him through a transfer of her “magic blood.” By morning, the events are the same: Sam has turned, Henry shoots Sam, and then he takes his own life. The added touch of sentimentality, however, is that Joel and Ellie bury Sam and Henry, laying them to rest. Ellie then says goodbye to her small friend, laying Sam’s writing pad on his grave. She writes the words “I’m sorry” in bold. The series succeeds in showing how the tragedy of Sam and Henry affects her in her journey.

Episode 6

Venturing Out West

When Ellie and Joel make it out of Kansas City, they set off towards Wyoming to find Tommy. As in the game, Tommy was once part of the Fireflies; Joel figures he will be able to help them find out where the research laboratory is located. Because they traveled primarily on foot with no definitive location on the map to find Tommy, Joel and Ellie wander aimlessly through Wyoming, in winter rather than autumn as in the game. A group of people that turn out to be members from the Jackson settlement where Tommy has been living stop them in a tense exchange; this moment of capture evokes the moment when Ellie and Joel arrive at the hydroelectric power plant in the game.

Jackson

When Ellie and Joel arrive in Jackson, the story bypasses the conflict at the powerplant from the game wherein marauders attack the plant workers. Instead, this episode gives us a taste of The Last of Us Part II, which is the first time players encounter the Jackson commune. The scenes in snowy Jackson depict nearly an exact replica from the second game; small rustic shops lining both sides of a communal area, even including “The Tipsy Bison” bar. This is where Ellie picks up the “bigot sandwiches” from Seth before going out on patrol. (If you know, you know.)

The gorgeous scene pops against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains. Tommy and Joel’s heartfelt reunion seems much more potent in the game as Joel calls out to him as he rides in on a horse. They jump into each other’s arms, and for the first time in the series, Joel displays some outward sense of relief, maybe even some happiness.

Joel’s Request

One of the key differences to this chapter is that we learn Maria Miller, Tommy’s wife, is pregnant. We also learn that she had a child die after the cordyceps outbreak, same as Joel. Subsequently, when Joel asks Tommy to take his place in delivering Ellie to the Fireflies, Tommy is much more resistant. However, to equilibrate the higher stakes, Joel’s plea is more painful than in the game. He laments all of his failures, failing Sarah, then Tess, and nearly failing Ellie in Kansas City. Ultimately, Joel’s internal strife is more apparent on the outside; due to his declining physical condition, he does not believe he can provide for Ellie all of the way, which is what leads Tommy to accept.

The Fight

As in the game, Ellie overhears Joel’s request to Tommy and thus feels abandoned. She does not, however, ride off on a horse. Instead, she stows herself away in a bedroom from the house that Tommy and Marie assign to Joel and Ellie. (This will likely be the house that Joel lives in in the second game, but that is to be seen.) Joel confronts Ellie in the bedroom, and the scene almost plays out identically to the corresponding cut scene from the game. It is clear that the production team understood the importance of this scene, as an important factor in each of their characterizations, as well as a milestone going forward. The next morning, Joel goes back on his word. He gives Ellie a choice on her guardian for the remainder of the trip. Without hesitation, she chooses Joel.

University of Eastern Colorado

The portion of the episode at the university feels a lot shorter. However, it does not do a disservice to the plot. The two of them arrive at the home of the Rams and encounter a scattered group of ex-laboratory monkeys. They eventually learn that the Fireflies have relocated to Salt Lake City. Finally, in the open air rather than the science building, a group of hunters accost the traveling pair. After a fight, Joel is impaled with a shiv in place of his gruesome fall from the second floor balcony from the game. The episode ends on a dangerous cliffhanger, providing a delight transition into Left Behind territory. 

Episode 7

Incapacitated Joel

Like The Last of Us: Left Behind, the DLC to the original game, this episode begins in the present day with Ellie caring for a severely injured Joel. Joel and Ellie are already in the wintery woods of David’s territory. Therefore, there is a lack of connectivity between the concurrent storylines, as both occur in shopping malls. Unlike the game, the events don’t jump back and forth in time, focusing primarily on Ellie and Riley’s story. However, the episode does end with Ellie stitching Joel’s wound up with a needle and thread that she finds in the house.

Riley’s Return

Following the flashback to Ellie’s life in FEDRA school, the events of Left Behind begin to play out. Riley sneaks into Ellie’s room, which by the way, is so Ellie; there is a collage of cutout photos on her wall all in the theme of space, along with an issue of Savage Starlight, cassette tapes of a-ha and Ella James, and a few dinosaur pictures (Easter eggs for TLOU Part II players). One difference is that Ellie does not know who Marlene is at this point, so when Riley mentions her, there is no association. This is a callback to the first episode when Marlene asks Ellie if she thought Riley was a terrorist for joining the Fireflies.

Entering the Mall

The events that follow are very loyal to the game, but their destination has been completely untouched since the outbreak. As Riley takes Ellie into the mall, Riley turns on the power straight away, and all of the stores light up in succession like dominoes. Pure amazement washes over Ellie. This is one of the only instances of joy that Ellie exhibits throughout the entire series, and it is beautifully underscored by “Take On Me” by a-ha, which is a reference anchored in the world of The Last of Us Part II. 

Carousel, Photo Booth, and Arcade

All of the fun activities from Left Behind unfold with uncanny resemblance. As in Left Behind, Riley takes Ellie around to the “five wonders of the mall.” Viewers only get a tiny window into the relationship of Ellie and Riley, so episode 7 is one of the shortest love stories on television ever, to contrast with Bill and Frank’s lifelong romance. HBO is so faithful with these moments from the game, honoring the importance that the DLC had in pop culture: it served as Naughty Dog’s explicit introduction of Ellie as a lesbian, back on Valentine’s Day in 2014. 

Ellie and Riley go from the carousel, with a “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure playing as the ride’s music, to the photo booth (where their photos are printed!), and then finally to the arcade, where they play Mortal Kombat instead of The Turning with beloved character, Angel Knives. Their young love progresses through hand holds, shared laughter, and flirtation, and the youthful shyness of their friendship and love blossoms.

The Halloween Store

The order  of events in the episode with respect to Left Behind is a bit different, for the scenes in the Halloween store occur as the grand finale to Riley and Ellie’s adventures. Ellie and Riley’s argument about RIley’s departure with the Fireflies ends with Ellie storming off, but she quickly turns on her heels back to Riley because she thinks she hears danger. Instead, she finds Riley in the Halloween store and Riley gifts her with No Pun Intended: Part Too. The two do the best to enjoy the rest of their night despite their shared devastation about Riley’s future.

Ellie dons a wolf mask, and Riley a clown mask, and the two dance it out on a glass-display counter to “I Got You Babe” by Etta James. They have the time of their lives, and when the emotions are running at their highest, they take off their masks and Ellie pleads, “Don’t go,” kissing Riley in gorgeous, true cinematic fashion. Ellie apologizes, and Riley retorts, “For what?” Grinning ear to ear with rosy cheeks, Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid pull off this scene without a hitch.

The Bite

Ellie and Riley’s post-first kiss glow is rudely interrupted by an infected man, and if it weren’t so tragic, it would be funny. It has been established that far fewer infected appear in the show than in the game, so the lone runner bears as much of a threat as the pack that chases the girls in the game. The scene is thus much different, but it ends the same: Ellie and Riley both have bite marks. Riley talks through their options, puts her hand in Ellie’s, and delivers her famous line, “We can just be all poetic and shit and lose our minds together.” Though we don’t see what happens over the next two days, we know for certain from prior episodes that Ellie, immune, shoots Riley when the infection takes over. 

Episode 8

Meeting David

The eighth installment to The Last of Us feels the closest to the source material, which constitutes the “Winter” act of the game. At this point, Joel’s condition is critical, and Ellie is just trying to salvage what she can to nurse Joel back to health in the ski-resort area they have found. As a means to an end, she goes hunting with Joel’s rifle. This portion of the game is special, as it is the first time you play as Ellie; the mission to bring down the deer carries over, though Ellie is equipped with Joel’s rifle as opposed to the bow and arrow.

When she eventually brings the buck down, she comes across two men, one of whom is David, and his companion James, played by Troy Baker (the voice actor for video game Joel). The initial dialogue between the characters is nearly an exact replica from the game, though Ellie is surely more menacing in the show, as she attempts to bolster herself up as a defense. Ellie shouts, “Turn and face me! Slow. Any sudden moves and I put one right between your eyes. Ditto for buddy boy.” In exchange for sharing the game she murdered, Ellie asks for antibiotics for Joel, which David promises.

The Cannibalism

The mythology surrounding David and his group is what most distinguishes this episode from the corresponding section of the game. HBO fleshes out the background of the group a bit more, making David a minister and creating a religious component to the group’s belief system. There is something immediately sinister about the group when the episode begins, between David’s sermons, the universal sadness in the members, and the quietness of the meals. Those who have played the game know that this is tied to the fact that the meals are made of human meat. David from the game justifies that this is due to prolonged absence of animal meat and other food supplies, and this is further contextualized when David tells Ellie that “only a few of us know.” There are parallel shots of human bodies in the kitchen area as in the game. 

The Chase

In place of the game play where David and Ellie fight Infected, Ellie takes the antibiotics from James and escapes, eager to help Joel. Nevertheless, David and his men are still on her tail, and as in the game, Ellie attempts to draw the attention away from the house where Joel is resting. David and his men capture Ellie after shooting down the horse, and imprison her in the same way they do the game.

The TV set looks almost the same, as she is caged within a kitchen where they are preparing their meals. David serves Ellie dinner, but having seen the human remains in the kitchen, she refuses. This conversation goes deeper than in the game, as David tries to manipulate Ellie more by trying to convince her to join him. Ellie eventually breaks free and murders James, escaping from David’s grasp for fear of losing her life to their next meal.

The Boss Fight

When Ellie escapes from the kitchen, she makes it to the open restaurant area but cannot get through as the doors are locked. This section corresponds to the boss fight with David, where players have to sneak up on him and stab him three times, making quick work as the building is slowly being consumed by flames. Ellie’s quiet, stalkery movements are replicated here, as is her tremendous victory when she repeatedly stabs David with his own machete, screaming wildly amidst a room full of flames.

Joel and Ellie’s Reunion

While Ellie is trying to liberate herself from imprisonment in the episode, Joel slowly works up the energy and stamina to come find her. He pushes through the pain as in the game, but encounters fewer people, though still leaving some casualties. When they reunite, the scene plays out almost exactly as in the game: Ellie, covered in David’s blood, is hysterical, running out of the restaurant where Joel finds her in the snow. She panics at his touch, but he pulls her close, comforting his adopted daughter. He says “It’s okay baby girl, I got you,” and Ellie calms substantially. It constitutes another major turning point in the game, depicting how close they have become, especially after almost losing one another. 

Episode 9

Arriving in Salt Lake City

In the game, Joel and Ellie’s arrival in Salt Lake City marks the transition into Spring, as does the series. The duo walk a segmented freeway, and Joel notices that Ellie acting aloof. This could be a result of her trauma from David, or regarding the uncertainty of her future with the Fireflies. Will they truly be at the hospital? If they are, will they be able to make a vaccine? What will become of her either way? Ellie has the weight on her shoulders, as she should. Joel attempts to break through her walls, stepping into the fatherly shoes he once wore: he promises to teach Ellie how to play the guitar.

Giraffes!

One of the most iconic moments from the last leg of the game is the giraffe encounter. Ellie’s love for nature yields a childlike joy when she finds the giraffes roaming around near St. Mary’s Hospital. It’s a reminder of how little she has been exposed to with respect to things that seem so mundane; it’s her first time seeing a giraffe, and Joel is there with her. This joy supersedes her reluctance and hesitation going forward. Joel and Ellie feed the giraffes, and then there is a shot of the two of them overlooking the view. The giraffe was not CGI, but a real giraffe that The Last of Us‘ team trained to accept food from Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s Joel and Ellie. According to HBO Max’s Making of The Last of Us, its name was Nabo. And, of course, we love this giraffe.

This, of course, parallels the scene from episode one of Ellie seeing the Boston skyline for the first time; the two of them realize in that moment just how far they have come together, and how different their relationship is from Boston to now. As a final option, Joel tells Ellie that she doesn’t have to go through with this, and Ellie responds very closely to how she does in the game: “After all we’ve been through, everything I’ve done… It can’t be for nothing.”

The Hospital Attack

When Joel and Ellie are taken into custody and transported to the hospital, Joel reunites with Marlene and finds out the truth: Ellie’s immunity comes from the mutated cordyceps penetrating her brain. The only way they can access them to synthesize a vaccine is killing her. Joel, as in the game, has to think fast: he won’t fail her the way he believes that he has failed Sarah and Tess. He creates a blood bath in St. Mary’s hospital to get to Ellie, who is at the point anesthetized in an operating room on the pediatrics floor. He makes quick work, taking Fireflies down, one-by-one. 

Joel Takes Ellie

When Joel arrives in the OR, he quickly shoots the surgeon and removes Ellie’s intubation, taking her out of the hospital. With an unconscious Ellie in his arms, Joel finds Marlene in the parking lot, and as in the game, ignores all of her pleas and rhetoric that she spews at him for what he has done. He shoots her as well, hijacks a car, and drives Ellie away from the place that almost ended her.

The Hike

When Ellie awakes, the pair have nearly made it to Jackson, but are left to hike a few hours due to a car malfunction. There is a weight in the air, something unspoken. Joel has lied to Ellie about other immune children, about the failure of the tests, but Ellie is too smart to truly accept his lie. At this point, that is not too clear apart from her skeptical demeanor, and Joel quells that by talking openly about Sarah for the very first time in the series: “She woulda liked you,” Joel tells Ellie, as he tries to find common ground between the two, ultimately deciding that Sarah would have liked Ellie because she’s funny. “I bet you would have liked her back,” Joel adds, and then they make it to the overlook of Jackson.

Finally, The Last of Us season one ends the same exact way the first game ends: Ellie confesses to Joel about how she came to survive infection. Ellie, in her discomfort following an unfulfilled mission, confronts Joel: “Swear to me. Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true.” And as in the game, Joel responds, stoic, on guard: “I swear.” With the same music from the game, same background scenery, Ellie speaks the final word: “Okay.”

The screen cuts to black, stirring in the anticipation for what will no doubt be another prodigious season.

The post The Biggest Moments THE LAST OF US Series Adapts From the Games appeared first on Nerdist.

The Last of Us’ season one finale went out with a wild and heartwrenching bang, showing Joel making some tough choices in the name of protecting his precious Ellie. It left us in limbo much like the game did; however, The Last of Us’ alternate ending is quite different from what we saw on-screen. 

Series co-creator Craig Mazin revealed to GQ that there was a longer and sadder final scene between Joel and Ellie. In The Last of Us‘ alternate ending, the duo is walking back to Jackson, but there is a clear and quiet divide between them. Joel promises Ellie that they will find something else to fight for, and she simply says “Okay,” before walking in her own bubble. This ending would be more of a growing distance between them over Joel’s decisions versus the cliffhanger we got.

Mazin speaks further about the decision to stick closer to the game, saying, “The change was really more something that Ali Abbasi, our director, had been playing around with. He had this thought of just playing out this slightly longer, sadder version where Ellie says, ‘okay’, and then she turns and walks away. And Joel looks after her. We see the two of them walking, not really together but apart, down towards Jackson. It lingers and then fades. There was something beautiful about it.”

Mazin admits that they thought about whether the alternate ending would annoy the people who played the game and how other general The Last of Us fans would feel. In the end, they decided the final shot they used sets up some excellent questions and speculation about what Ellie will do next. And, of course, The Last of Us‘ actual ending comes with the bonus of staying true to the end of the game.

We will likely have to wait a while to find out what happens next in The Last of Us, but in many ways, we are glad that the alternate ending didn’t come to fruition.

The post THE LAST OF US Season 1’s Alternate Ending Is a Sadder Final Scene appeared first on Nerdist.

Have you recovered from The Last of Us’ season one finale? No, we have not either. And that’s totally okay because this show always hits us square in the feels. The show’s first season was a complete knockout in the best way, expertly establishing its world and the bond between Ellie and Joel. It makes you want to watch it over and over again and learn all the intricate behind-the-scenes facts. If so, you’ll be thrilled to know that The Last of Us season one is coming to 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD this summer with a digital release on April 11. 

Those glorious physical copies of The Last of Us: The Complete First Season will be available on July 18. Outside of the obvious nine episodes, there are some rad featurettes including the cast and crew. Here are all the details, including what is digitally available vs. the physical copies only: 

• The Last of Us: Stranger Than Fiction (New Featurette Exclusive to 4K, BD and DVD) – Series cast and filmmakers are joined by experts in survival, microbiology, and parasitology for a chilling discussion on the realities of the invasive fungus and subsequent apocalypse in The Last of Us. 
• Controllers Down: Adapting The Last of Us (New Featurette Exclusive to 4K, BD and DVD) – Follow the journey of The Last of Us from console to screen as cast and filmmakers take us inside the process of expanding the world and breathing new life into the game’s beloved characters. 
• From Levels to Live Action (New Featurette Exclusive to 4K, BD and DVD) – Discover how The Last of Us incorporated and expanded fan-favorite game moments in the series.
• Getting to Know Me (4 Featurettes)
• The Last Debrief with Troy Baker (2 Featurettes)
• Inside the Episode (9 Featurettes)
• Is This A The Last of Us Line? (2 Featurettes)

The Last of Us season one Blu-ray and DVD release prices are as follows: 

Digital Purchase              $19.99 SD / $24.99 HD US; $24.99 SD / $29.99 HD (Canada)

4K Ultra HD                         $49.99 US/ $54.97 (Canada)

Blu-ray                                 $44.98 US/ $49.99 (Canada)

DVD                                    $39.99 US/ $44.98 (Canada)

We don’t know when The Last of Us season two is coming yet but, in the meantime, you can add this Blu-ray and DVD release to your collection. You will find it online and at major retailers nationwide.

The post THE LAST OF US Season 1 Is Coming to Blu-Ray, 4K Ultra HD, and DVD This Summer appeared first on Nerdist.

As a series adaptation, HBO’s The Last of Us has achieved remarkable success in shaping and elaborating upon the game’s skeleton. This does a great service to the game, which boasts strength in the subtlety of pre-woven plotlines. The expansion in the adaptation creates a world that appears to have gone on despite the apocalypse. One of these rich aspects of the story is notably the partnership between Joel and Tess. This is so engrossing that it often leaves players heartbroken after only a short amount of time spent with the two characters together.

However, the details and depth of their relationship were at the most speculated upon by passionate fans. At the least, the game hinted with certain contextual and dialogue clues from the limited interactions between Joel and Tess. That is, until the HBO adaptation blew Joel and Tess’s history wide open, amplifying their relationship. The choice ultimately proves to be an undeniable asset to the overarching narrative of The Last of Us season one. 

The dynamic between Joel and Tess in the game is full of banter their loyalty to one another unquestioned. However, HBO elevates their rapport across the board; the adaptation presents a small portrait of a life Joel and Tess have together, including the apartment they share in the Boston QZ. In their first scene together, Tess crawls into bed with Joel and wraps an arm around him. It’s a move leading viewers to understand the level of intimacy between them. Their rapport comes more into focus the following day when Joel jumps forward as soon as he sees Tess’s black eye, instantly prepared to jump to her defense.

Additionally, with the new plotline of Joel planning to go find Tommy in Wyoming, Tess demonstrates utmost loyalty to Joel in seeking out a car battery and trading with Robert, which puts her in a bind. At this point, before Ellie arrives in their lives, the series sets up an unyielding bond and partnership of high fidelity, making the stakes of losing one another potentially devastating. 

Much of the trip of transporting Ellie to the Capitol Building is the same as in the game. The series even maintains some degree of ambiguity in their relationship outside the walls of their apartment. The adaptation effectively demonstrates this when Ellie asks Joel what he is to Tess. He responds, “Pass.” Ellie receives her answer when they arrive at the Capitol Building and discover Tess’ infection. One of the few hints at a romantic history between Joel and Tess appears at the same time in the game, though with different context.

Tess’ dying wish from the game is for Joel to carry out the mission with Ellie. “There has to be enough here for you to feel some sort of obligation to me,” she pleads. In the series, Tess doesn’t have to appeal to their unspoken relationship. It’s seemingly too deep for that. Conversely, she appeals to his emotional limitations. “I never ask you for anything, not to feel the way I felt…” which is more devastating; Tess dies thinking Joel didn’t love her. When he tries to refute it, she cuts him off because her time is running out.

The choice to elevate the relationship between Joel and Tess not only serves Joel’s backstory, but also the believability that Joel will faithfully protect Ellie until they reach the Fireflies. Love and loyalty to Tess even after she is gone are the only motivations for Joel to venture West with Ellie. His cynicism has totally eclipsed the possibility for him that a cure is possible. Tess’s legacy is sacrosanct to Joel, underscored by the small cairn he builds with stones by a small stream just after Tess dies, laying her to rest in the only way he can. This display of vulnerability attests to how much Joel loved her, which elucidates Joel’s decision to take Ellie west after discovering that Bill and Frank were dead.

When Joel and Ellie arrive at Bill’s town, and Joel reads the line in Bill’s letter telling him to protect Tess, Joel loses his composure. This is the first time he does, between both the game and the series. He runs out of the house with the letter and seems lost, though not permitting his own tears. The adaptation allows Joel to feel the stabbing pain of losing the woman he loved for two decades, reminding him of the promise he made to her; even though Joel’s rules to Ellie mirror the cutscene from the game, including prohibiting her to speak about Tess, he doesn’t follow the rules himself.

Joel tells Ellie that “You keep going for family, and Tess was like family.” He pushes down all of his feelings, and when Tommy asks after Tess a few episodes later, Joel lies, saying “She’s fine,” until he finally tells the truth about their journey to him. 

The fleeting moments of screen time between Joel and Tess ultimately are what give way to their back story. Tess comforting Joel; her telling him to take a deep breath; Tess encouraging them to take Ellie to the Fireflies so they could get a car battery — all of these moments contribute to the idea that Tess kept Joel going. While the quiet love story between Joel and Tess is important on its own, it also sets up a parallel with the parental relationship between Joel and Ellie. Over time,  Ellie becomes the person who makes life for him worth living again. It’s a cycle of people helping people, even when hope is gone.

The post The Deeper Dimension to Joel and Tess’ Relationship in THE LAST OF US appeared first on Nerdist.

Mmmm, clicker for dessert. We’ve seen some drastic survival measures in The Last of Us. But to date, we don’t think anyone has tried to take a bite out of a clicker or any of The Last of Us‘ infected. Probably because they’d most likely get infected if they did. But even if you could consume infected growths… We doubt the results would taste as good as this incredible clicker cake. TheBakeKing took to TikTok to perfectly recreate The Last of Us‘ clickers using frosting, chocolate, and many cake layers. And, we have to say whatever sugary confection he used to add the bloody spittle onto the clicker’s teeth… it is very effective.

Check out this The Last of Us confection as it comes to life.

The Last of Us seems like a bit of a dour theme for a birthday party. But if you had your heart set on it, this cake would absolutely become the centerpiece. Honestly, by the end of the decorating, it’s hard to tell the cake clicker apart from the real clickers that menace our heroes on the show. Looking at it, we feel it will pounce to life at any minute. All that’s missing is for a set of creepy, crawly cake tentacles to emerge from the clicker’s mouth, itching to turn you into a desert version of yourself. And, of course, if this The Last of Us cake starts to make clicking noises… run.

Ironically, flour had a large hand in spreading The Last of Us‘ infection. It was a major source of the fungus which infected so many people at the start of the series—before any clickers were running around at all. So technically, a clicker cake harkens back to the truest infected of all. How is that for some deeply rooted meta-sweetness?

But, even still, we’d probably take a bite out of this The Last of Us clicker cake if we could… Delicious!

The post Disgustingly Delicious Clicker Cake Lets You Take a Bite Out of THE LAST OF US appeared first on Nerdist.

The first season of The Last of Us came to a bloody and heartbreaking end as Joel and Ellie finally reach the Firefly base. However, things aren’t as they seem as Joel is forced to make a difficult choice that will effect not only his relationship with Ellie, but the fate of humanity. Hector heads out of the QZ one last time to break down The Last of Us season finale and Joel’s shocking decision on today’s episode of Nerdist News!

More Last of Us News: https://nerdist.com/topic/television/
Watch more Nerdist News: http://bit.ly/1qvVVhV

Follow Us:
Facebook https://facebook.com/nerdist
Twitter https://twitter.com/Nerdist
Instagram https://instagram.com/nerdist/
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@nerdist

Image: HBO

#NerdistNews #TheLastOfUs

The post Did Joel Make the Right Choice? | THE LAST OF US Finale Breakdown appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s The Last of Us series is heading into season two. That means it’s moving into the story of The Last of Us: Part II. But, according to the show’s creators, we can expect a series that’s much longer than just two parts. The Last of Us‘ Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann recently confirmed to GQ the sprawling story of The Last of Us: Part II would be split across seasons.

“It’s more than one season,” Druckmann noted in response to a question of whether the second season would span the entire course of the second game. But how much more remains a question mark. Mazin adds, “You have noted correctly that we will not say how many. But more than one is factually correct.”

More than one leaves the door wide open. And Part II‘s story is indeed more complicated and character-filled than the tale of the first game. So breaking it up in this way makes sense. We’ll likely see the return of Tommy and Maria, alongside Joel and Ellie. We’ll also meet new characters in the second season of The Last of Us and beyond. HBO’s head of drama Francesca Orsi recently noted that season two of The Last of Us would offer “a big swing from both an entertainment standpoint, related to the clickers, but also just the more nuanced, complex character dynamic between our characters, Joel, Ellie and beyond.”

But one thing we shouldn’t expect in the future seasons is a one-to-one remake of the game. The show is, of course, an adaptation, and more changes will likely come with more real estate. Mazin notes, per Slash Film, “We will present things, but it will be different. It will be different, just as this season was different. Sometimes it will be different radically, and sometimes it will be barely different at all, but it’s going to be different, and it will be its own thing. It won’t be exactly like the game.”

Change can feel scary. But given everything we’ve seen in The Last of Us season one, we have high hopes for season two and beyond. Even if the series does not exactly replicate every part of The Last of Us‘ games, it will surely capture their spirit.

The post THE LAST OF US to Adapt PART II in Multiple Seasons, May Diverge From Game appeared first on Nerdist.

One of the joys of this season of HBO’s The Last of Us is seeing just how much Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann were able to change things up from the game. It’s certainly supremely faithful, but the changes have been welcome. And while the season one finale is pretty darned true to the game’s final section, the episode’s prologue is a whole big new section which gave Ellie some fascinating backstory. It all but explains how and why she’s immune.

The episode opens with a pregnant woman running through the forest, trying to evade an infected person. It’s not going well, as you might expect. This person is Anna (Ashley Johnson, who of course played Ellie in the game). She makes her way into an abandoned house but the infected pursue her. She fights for her life and eventually stabs the infected in the head, only then realizing she’d given birth in the struggle.

Anna cuts the umbilical cord with the same knife she used to kill the infected. She has also received a bite. This does not bode well for the new mother. Some time later, Marlene enters. Marlene and Anna know each other, evidently have been friends for years. Anna begs Marlene to take her newborn daughter, lying that she didn’t use the knife on the infected before the umbilical cord. Eventually, Marlene accepts, and Anna tells her the baby is named Ellie.

So from this we learn a few things. First and foremost, we know why Marlene knew who Ellie was. She was clearly aware of Ellie, but she put two and two together when the girl they discovered in the mall wasn’t a raving fungus monster despite her bites. Second, this all but confirms the very specific set of circumstances that led to Ellie’s immunity. A pregnant woman gives birth the second she’s bit, uses an infected knife to cut the umbilical. It’s unrepeatable.

Is this addition to the story strictly necessary? Certainly not. Most people were perfectly happy just to accept that Ellie was immune. Who knows why, she just is? The show, on the other hand, has spent a great deal of time, especially early on, pondering this question. Could there be other people like her? This makes it much clearer that Ellie is a unicorn. She isn’t just the first immune person they discovered; it’s possible she’s the only immune person there is or ever will be.

Therefore, it also makes the ending more profound. It shows us that even Ellie’s mother’s friend looks at the girl more as a means to a cure versus a real person. Conversely, we know that Ellie is the only one who even possibly could provide a cure, but Joel views her as a human first. He fought to keep her alive, and she made him more alive as a result. It’s a morally ambiguous ending even without this context, but Joel officially doomed the world so he could have his daughter back. That’s a hell of a tragedy, and damn compelling TV.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post THE LAST OF US Finale Gives a Ton of Backstory appeared first on Nerdist.

What would you do to protect the person you love most? The one who gives you a reason to get up every day because they make you feel—despite everything you might fear and hate about yourself—that you have value simply because you matter to them? The answer seems so obvious and so easy, doesn’t it? Anything. You’d do anything and everything to keep them safe. And the more they needed and depended on you the harder you’d fight for them. That’s why, in the moment, it was impossible not to root for Joel as he gunned down Fireflies in The Last of Us‘ incredible season one finale. Ellie is his purpose. And even if she wasn’t, she deserved to be saved.

But just as it did throughout the season, the show didn’t make any its most important ethical quandary obvious or easy. Rescuing this one innocent young girl was so morally complex that doing so as was just unforgivable as killing her. And when there’s no difference between right and wrong there’s no such thing as either. The only thing that matters is learning to live with the consequences of our decisions.

Marlene’s decision to let doctors kill Ellie seems reprehensible on the surface. She swore to protect her dying friend’s daughter. And that child is also mature beyond her years and capable of deciding if she wants to sacrifice herself. Even if she wasn’t, she’s still a person with a right to live. But Marlene knew what Ellie would decide to do. That kid would have willingly given her life to save all humanity. “There’s no half way with this.”

So if that’s the decision Ellie would have made anyway, wasn’t it better not making her know the fear of death? Wasn’t Marlene—who raised Ellie—being merciful in granting that kid the peace of ignorance? It’s not like Marlene wasn’t making a sacrifice of her own in doing so. She loves Ellie and would have to live with what she did to someone she loved.

Joel knew Marlene was right about what Ellie would decide. He lied about the doctors and other people with immunity because he knew what would happen if Ellie learned the truth. She’d find another surgeon to crack open her brain and take what’s inside. And even if Joel believed he was right to save her from herself, he was wrong to hide the truth from her. He took away Ellie’s autonomy same as Marlene.

Of course, Ellie is not just any kid. She is mankind’s only hope. What’s one life, no matter the person, against every other life in the world? As Marlene said, there is “no one else” coming to humanity’s rescue. It’s either Ellie’s life today or total annihilation tomorrow.

Plus, as Marlene also correctly pointed out, what exactly was Joel saving Ellie from? All he did was buy her a little more time in a dying world. He can’t protect her forever. He doomed Ellie to live in a wasteland without hope where she’ll see everyone she cares about die from Cordyceps until she’s inevitability torn apart by a monster or killed by raiders. What kind of life is that? What kind of life is that for all the other Ellies and Rileys and Sams of the world? Didn’t Joel owe it to all of those kids to protect them, too? And since Ellie would have said yes, wasn’t Marlene right about everything even if she was simultaneously wrong about everything, too?

The Last of Us isn’t a powerful story because it explores hypothetical moral conundrums in a fictional world. It’s a personal tale of individuals—each with tragic pasts that shapes their wants and needs—and the bond they form. And yet, even on a personal level what Joel did is ethically dubious at best. Even if we could magically justify his actions in saving Ellie, we can’t pretend his motives were entirely selfless. By saving her he saved himself. He was ready to end things after his daughter Sarah died. He wouldn’t be able to go on after losing Ellie, too. As he told his brother previously, Joel was barely able to handle the mere thought of something happening to her. Failing her is what he feared the most, but on some level failing her also meant failing himself.

But does any of that really take away from what he did when it was also responsible for keeping her alive before? Yes, he needed her as much as she needed him, and dooming everyone else was selfish for many reasons. But that same unflinching, desperate, pure love kept her safe. Without Joel’s love for her and Ellie’s love for him she never would have been on that operating table in the first place. Everything that motivated Joel to fight and protect her from the Fireflies is what allowed him to keep her safe crossing the country. Marlene barely made it there with a whole team of armed guards. And it’s not like Joel valued himself above Ellie. He begged her to leave him to die in that abandoned house. He didn’t care what happened to him if it meant she got to live.

This episode gave us so much to think about with its unanswerable ethical choices that unto itself it’s a stunning hour of television. But what made it a great season finale is how it worked in the context of the entire season. The finale was both framed by and reframed everything that preceded it. Bill and Frank’s love story defined the show’s main idea about finding purpose and meaning in others. But the finale shows why purpose is neither inherently good or bad. There’s only what we do because of it. And what it makes us do isn’t always clearly right or wrong. It’s why Marlene’s justification for killing Ellie sounded like another version of Kathleen yelling that maybe sometimes it’s better to let a kid die. Kathleen was a monster, but wasn’t letting Ellie die a case where Kathleen was correct?

From David letting his people eat human flesh rather than letting them perish, to Joel killing innocent people to keep Tess and Tommy alive, to gunning down little girls who might be Infected and soldiers who would willingly shoot them without knowing if they were, what’s the value of one life versus another? Versus countless others? Often times the answer seems so obvious and so easy, but only because one person means more to us than all others, not because it actually is.

The Last of Us didn’t tell us what’s right or wrong because sometimes no one can. Loving someone more than life itself doesn’t come with an easy set of rules to follow. It can make us do things we can’t justify anymore than we can justify not doing them. And understanding that difficult truth is one of the hardest parts of being human, because being human means living with the knowledge of what you’ve done without ever being able to know if what you did was right. It’s why sometimes the best we can hope for is allowing ourselves the mercy of not forcing ourselves to know, as Ellie did in the season’s final moment.

Before they went “home” to the commune in Wyoming Ellie finally told Joel what she did when Cordyceps took Riley. No one would fault Ellie for that, but she does. She believes she killed her best friend and has to live with that knowledge forever. That’s too much for anyone to live with, let alone a kid. How could she also live knowing she essentially killed everyone through inaction? She couldn’t anymore than Joel, Henry, Kathleen, and Bill could stop trying to protect the ones they loved the most. As strong as she is, Ellie understood that Joel was keeping her safe from something terrible. So even though in her heart she knew he was lying about the Fireflies, she allowed herself the gift of ignorance. “Okay,” she said when he swore to her.

It was a perfect summation of both the episode and the season, which never told us if characters were right or wrong, good or evil, justified or damned. All it told us is there are times when those concepts don’t even exist. The only thing that does exist are the people who must live with the realization that often the best any of us can hope for is being okay with what we’ve done.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike, and also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post THE LAST OF US’ Stunning Season Finale Provided No Easy Answers appeared first on Nerdist.

One of the biggest Easter eggs a video game adaptation can provide to fans is the inclusion of an original cast member into the mix. On the eighth episode of HBO Max’s The Last of Us series, the show brought in Joel from the original video games. Troy Baker, who voices Joel in The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II, finally joined the new infected world. But, of course, he didn’t play Joel this time around. Instead, Baker came into The Last of Us as an antagonist, James, the second-in-command of a horrible cult leader, David.

Speaking to Variety, the original Joel shared a little bit about his adaptation experience. He noted, “I thought I was gonna get a walk-on role. And then I got the script, and I was like, ‘Oh, there’s meat here.'” In fact, Baker noted to Deadline he thought he would play a clicker on The Last of Us. Instead, he got to play something even more sinister.

While in the games, Baker plays a character whose very core revolves around protecting his charge, Ellie. In The Last of Us series, Troy Baker had to leave Joel behind and instead provide the menace.

“That was probably my biggest challenge, not being in protector mode for Ellie.” Baker shares, “Here’s what’s so cool about Bella [Ramsey]: From my perspective, I’ve had such a dear relationship with Ashley Johnson and with the character of Ellie for so long, that I naturally want to assume that role. What Bella quickly teaches you, especially in this episode, is that there’s absolutely no protection needed. Both Bella and Ellie are incredibly fierce, adept, talented, powerful people. That’s the threat that James sees. He’s a pragmatist.”

But thankfully, series Ellie remains in good hands. Baker notes of The Last of Us‘ new Joel, Pedro Pascal. “If you watch all of [Pascal’s] choices, there’s so minimal, and because of that, they’re profound. And it makes Joel, in a lot of ways, more dangerous. There’s a physicality that he brought to this that we couldn’t have done in the game… That, to me, is something that helps to ground the story and present it in a very tangible way to a whole new audience.”

When characters get to live in different mediums, with different actors, fans get to benefit from each portrayal. As The Last of Us continues to adapt Joel and the other parts of the games, we look forward to returning to Baker’s performance and seeing it with new eyes.

Originally published on March 6, 2023.

The post Video Game Joel, Troy Baker, Reflects on THE LAST OF US Role and Pedro Pascal appeared first on Nerdist.

The Last of Us‘ eighth episode, “When We Are in Need,” delivered a truly stunning hour of television. It also delivered an all-time great villain in Scott Shepherd’s David. The mild, friendly, cannibalistic pedophile preacher was more horrifying than any fungus. But while he was a spiritual leader wielding the word of God as a weapon, the show was not an indictment of organized religion or its followers. It was akin to a sermon entirely in line with the teachings of the Bible. Because Christianity warns about monsters exactly like David, false prophets with evil appetites who will lead others astray at the end of the world.

Content Warning: This article includes references to cannibalism and pedophilia.

If you want a succinct masterclass in both screenwriting and developing a memorable villain, The Last of Us provided exactly that with David. At this point in the show’s run we know not to trust anyone in this dystopian wasteland of monsters. Especially the human ones. There’s no depths to the amount of evil a person might carry behind a friendly veneer. Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen made that clear. She sounded and looked more like a sweet librarian than the amoral, bloodthirsty killer she truly was. But that’s what made the episode’s writing and Shepherd’s mesmerizing performance so effective. It was hard not to initially think this soft-spoken man, the former math teacher who found faith in the face of armageddon, might actually be as kind as he seemed.

David’s people, suffering and broken, turned to him for comfort. He offered hope of both surviving their current hell and for eternal salvation in the next life. With his steadying hand and personal conviction it’s easy to see why they named him their actual leader and not just their preacher after meeting him along the proverbial road to Damascus. And even if he was not as good as he first appeared, how bad could he be if he insisted on saving a young girl’s life? He wanted to keep Ellie safe even though she represented one more mouth he could not feed. He also refused to hold her accountable for Joel’s actions. What could be more Christian than protecting the innocent and vulnerable? Of granting mercy and forgiveness? Of refusing to punish someone for the sins of their father?

But the warmth of God’s love and light that David bathed himself in slowly faded over the course of the episode. The show methodically revealed the dark depths of his deception and depravity with a deft hand that made discovering his true nature a terrifying journey. He was not a nice man in a sweater and glasses offering the Almighty’s grace to his congregation. He didn’t even see himself as a man. David considered himself a godlike “Father” to them all. And when a grieving daughter challenged his authority his previous kind words became a vicious backhand, all before he sat down to a bountiful feast while his hungry followers dined on morsels.

But that was merely the start of learning who David really was. We then discovered he had unwittingly turned his people into The Last of Us‘s very own Donner Party. It was the episode’s first shocking revelation to brilliantly reframe everything we’d already seen. But it was not its most important nor its most troubling. David could justify breaking the Bible’s commands against cannibalism because it was the only way he could save his people. And keeping that secret from them was in some ways a selfless act because it burdened him with additional sin rather than the others. In some ways his immorality was moral. (Note: Catholics believe they consume the literal body of Jesus Christ during Holy Communion. However, within the Church it’s still a sin to eat someone else’s flesh.)

There’s no justification, either religious or secular, for why he really kept Ellie safe, however. David was not a simple shepherd. He saw opportunity in the Apocalypse, a chance to finally embrace his true evil self. “I’ve always had a violent heart, and I struggled with it for a long time,” he told Ellie. “But then the world ended and I was shown the truth.” And for him the truth Cordyceps revealed was that his nature was not unnatural. Cordyceps proved to him violence is the only true form of love, because the fungus protects its family by attacking others.

David couldn’t admit any of that to his congregation, only Ellie. He wrongly thought he saw the same kind of evil and violence in her, whereas his “sheep” had good hearts. And it was those very same good hearts that left them vulnerable in their greatest time of need. “They need God, they need Heaven, they need a Father,” David said. And he fulfilled that role with lies that shielded the truth about himself.

But none of that means David or the show should be considered an indictment of religion and Christianity. It’s the opposite. That pedophile who once worked in an elementary school is a villain right out of the Bible. It warns its followers again and again about evil men like him. The Gospel of Matthew says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” because these “false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” And Romans 16:18 says, “For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.” It’s as though those passaged and the countless like them were the very inspiration for the character.

Those are just a tiny fraction of the Bible’s many warnings about David-like figures. Many of them come in the Book of Revelation which tells of the end of the world. It says that’s when false prophets and the Antichrist himself will come to prey on God’s followers. The lies of Satan and his worshippers, delivered with a smile and claiming to be in service of Christ, will lead the Lord’s sheep away from salvation when they need it most. But just as the Bible speaks of his coming, David met the very end that sacred book promises awaits his kind.

Flames filled the room where David tore off the last vestiges of his false persona. It was another perfect moment in a perfect episode, as though Hell itself had opened its gates to him. And as he sat atop Ellie and pinned her to the ground reveling in the fight, the kid with a good heart who was not like him at all, sent him where he belonged. She took hold of that butcher’s knife and fulfilled the Book of Revelation once more. For it says, “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

David wasn’t the show’s screed against religion or Christianity anymore than Kathleen was a screed against fighting fascism. They were both warnings about what can happen when we willingly blind ourselves out of desperation or fear. David was another warning against our own failing and the dangers of putting total faith in any leaders. Because our ability to see the truth about people we want—and often feel we need—to believe in can leads us to darkness. Sometimes we see the flames of damnation and think its a light of righteousness.

So long as any person, with all the failings that come with being human, has something to gain from leading others we are all vulnerable to evil. And that warning, told so powerfully in this episode, is an extension of the series’s most important ida. The Last of Us is about finding purpose in serving others rather than finding purpose in people who claim to serve us. That’s a beautiful idea, one that is as true in our own world as it is in fictional one. And you don’t need to be a Christian to see why.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike, and also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post THE LAST OF US Delivered an All-Time Villain of Biblical Proportions appeared first on Nerdist.

For anyone who’s played The Last of Us, which splits the narrative into seasons of the year, you know the “Winter” section is pretty rough. Not only is the terrain and visibility incredibly treacherous, it leads Ellie to perhaps the most infamous confrontation in the entire first game. For the corresponding episode of the HBO series, they somehow managed to make it even more horrific and intense while entirely removing a major set piece. You probably didn’t even miss it.

This section of the game is the first in which players take control of Ellie rather than Joel. Joel is still, as he is in the show, largely incapacitated from the wound he suffered in Colorado. For the entirety of the game to this point, Joel has been the player, and Ellie the escorted supporting character. So when we see the “Winter” chyron in the game, we’re surprised to see it’s Ellie we control. She has a bow and arrow and hunts for wild game. The solitude the player and Ellie feel is palpable. As Joel, we always had Ellie cracking jokes and keeping us honest; here, Ellie has no one, and that’s precisely what leads her to the horrors later in the story.

After shooting a deer—in the show, it’s just with a rifle—she comes across two weary looking hunters. One is David (Scott Shepherd) and the other is James (Troy Baker). Now anyone who has played the game knows David is bad news, but the TV show, I think, does a much better job of making David truly terrifying rather than video-game terrifying.

As voiced by Nolan North, Game David is scraggly, unshaven, seems to wear dirty rags, and speaks with what I can only describe as “evil creep whimpering.” In short, it’s no surprise when we learn David is a cannibal. This works just fine in a video game, and it’s no shade on North or the game designers. By this point in the game, we’ve met tons of weird creeps, and it’s really more of a question of whether Ellie can trust David for even a short period of time.

In the show, David is much subtler in his creepiness. While Shepherd plays him with the requisite shadiness, he’s clearly much more put together. His hair is short, he’s wearing a sweater, he looks like a guy. James, on the other hand, still looks much more in line with Game James, and we quickly learn why. More on that in a moment.

The first interaction plays out much like in the game. David tries to convince Ellie that he leads a bigger group and they need food. Ellie lies and says she does too, but eventually David convinces her that they can split the deer. James goes off to get the cutting implements while David stays with Ellie as collateral.

It’s here in the game when we get a big gameplay moment. Ellie and David have to fend off their position from a horde of infected. Waves of clickers and runners come into their little atrium of supposed safety and Ellie and David work together to stop them. It’s through this little action set piece that Ellie lets her guard down ever so slightly. She never fully trusts David, but she thinks they might be of similar level of desperate. Little does she know.

In the show, the same scene plays out very differently. We get no infected and instead we have a conversation where David talks about finding his way through religion after the fall of society. He has made a promise to his people, and wants to be a good person. Or so he says. It’s not entirely obvious that he’s up to some horrifying shiz, and this gives Ellie the briefest moment of guard-dropping when James returns.

Ellie has not that long ago seen Jackson, the thriving, safe, well-run community of survivors in Wyoming. David’s resort town-turned-sanctuary could easily have been the same kind of place. In fact, when we go back to the town with David, it certainly shows signs of what it could be. However, they were not blessed with the resources or the gumption of the Jackson compound, as evidenced by the slowly starving members of David’s flock.

What truly makes Show David scarier than Game David is that he believes he’s doing the right thing, and the power of his position has gone well to his head. We see everyone else pale and gaunt but David is well fed. Sure, it’s because he’s eating people, but in the same way we saw Kathleen’s followers trust her blindly to their own detriment, David’s people just want someone to believe in. They shouldn’t have done that. In the game, David feels like a psycho leading the Donner Party. In the show, he’s a monster who exploited lost souls.

By episode’s end, when Ellie goes feral in her final victory over David, both she and we have met the worst of The Last of Us. It’s not just people put in tough situations forced to do despicable things. Nor is it only an “us or them” mentality. David effectively gave Ellie the choice “Sell out Joel and become my next child bride or I’m going to eat you.” If the previous episode showed us the last hours of Ellie’s childhood, this episode showed us Ellie’s quick education on a what a world without Joel could hold for her. The winter of her innocence.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post Winter in THE LAST OF US Show Is Even More Brutal Than the Game appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s new hit series, The Last of Us, continues to enthrall viewers with its emotional exploration of a post-apocalyptic world. Thus far, The Last of Us uses fantastical elements to radically reimagine a better world, even as its characters’ lives crumble around them. Interestingly, the series shows this better avenue through its treatment of chronic illness, whether it’s the real-world sicknesses that also exist in The Last of Us, or the fungal infections that serve as the catalyst for the show. By exploring the emotional, physical, and social realities of chronic illness, The Last of Us is refreshing in its conclusiveness about one basic truth. Eventually, our bodies break down, but that doesn’t mean our stories end. 

In the show’s seventh episode, “Left Behind,” Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her crush, Riley (Storm Reid), meander around an abandoned mall together. After Ellie finally kisses Riley, one of the Infected bites both of them. Ellie rampages in anger over their dire situation while Riley stays calm. Riley states that they have two options. They can shoot themselves so they can’t turn into the Infected. Or they fight the infection for as long as they can, together. “It ends this way sooner or later, right?” Riley says, “Some of us just get there faster than others. But we don’t quit, whether it’s two minutes, or two days, we don’t give that up.” 

This fate for Ellie and Riley continues the show’s exploration of queer relationships and illness. For the two girls, their infection is an impetus to stay together, rather than separate themselves. In many ways, this recalls the relationship between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in episode 3 (“Long, Long Time”). Bill and Frank, miraculously, avoid infection; however, Frank eventually falls terminally ill with a condition that was incurable even before apocalypse. Bill tenderly cares for Frank until the latter decides one day that he is ready to die. Surprisingly, Bill also takes a lethal dose of medication because he doesn’t want to continue living without his “life’s purpose”—Frank. 

It’s often said that horror is uniquely suited for discussing societal taboos that are “too jarring” in other genres. This is certainly the case for The Last of Us. The Infected represent some of the taboos that American, capitalist society is afraid to confront: illness and aging. Eventually, most of the Infected in The Last of Us explode into a fungus blossom after a period of time. Like humans, they also age and break down. So in effect, the characters’ fight to survive against the Infected isn’t so much a literal “man vs. zombie” situation. It is more a reckoning with what our eventual fate will be. 

Because illness often comes with age, we try make ourselves look younger for as long as we can. We are so fearful of falling ill and permanently changing that we pretend that it only happens to other people. As the characters’ reactions to the Infected show, the most horrifying part about falling ill or growing old isn’t the disease or age itself. Rather, it’s the isolation and abandonment that we associate with them. We fear the social death that precedes our final, physical death. 

And this is precisely why The Last of Us is so radical in its handling of Ellie and Riley’s infections, alongside Bill and Frank’s battle with chronic illness. When queer characters fall sick, however unfairly, they’re not alone. This is a major break from most mainstream narratives of chronic illness. It usually focuses on the healthy partner’s “bravery” for choosing to love someone who is going to die. But the truth of the matter is, as Riley says, we are all going to die. Death just comes earlier for some of us. By having characters united in this truth, The Last of Us exposes the hypocrisy in our culture’s view of chronic illness and disability.  

As a chronically ill queer person, I am deeply moved by how The Last of Us finds beauty in its most tragic moments. Despite being set unequivocally in a world of horrors, this show envisions a radical, queer space that is free of our culture’s most toxic attitudes towards illness, disability, and dying. It hurt to watch two young lesbians grapple with the unfairness of their own mortality; however, the show remains deeply committed in its refusal to concede to our expectations. The apocalypse in The Last of Us didn’t make people like Riley and Ellie more eager to abandon each other in the face of the inevitable. 

I am not on Riley and Ellie’s “two minutes or two days” timeline. But I do fear that one day, I won’t be able to get out of bed. My illness put a strain on my previous relationship. So, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of going through my next stages alone. I know the richness of life will continue to exist regardless of how bad my health gets; however, these latent fears are more difficult to shake off than I would like to admit. 

But there’s Ellie, who, like me, is just as much baffled by her own survival as she is scared of what she might become. In episode five (“Endure and Survive”), she admits to Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard) that she is afraid of “ending up alone.” And yet, in this episode, she races to patch up a wounded Joel (Pedro Pascal) instead of heeding his advice to leave him to die. For me, she represents how being chronically ill opens up a world of defiant possibilities. Getting hurt never needs to equate to death. Our survival hinges upon our ability to care for each other before the inevitable. And even though I can’t see what’s hurting me, I choose to keep going, like Riley and Ellie did. 

Bill and Frank celebrated aging because “older means we’re still here.” I have taken this idea to heart, for whatever lies ahead for me. 

The post THE LAST OF US Radically Captures the Reality of Living with Chronic Illness appeared first on Nerdist.

Watching The Last of Us is not exactly a feel-good endeavor. That’s not a criticism or even a controversial statement. The series is a fantastic, moving adaptation that has been telling an engrossing story from its opening scene. But that story takes place in a bleak world full of broken people and literal monsters. Characters fight to barely survive in a wasteland of suffering until they die a horrific death that leaves us emotionally drained. And yet, even knowing all of that, the show’s seventh episode seemed like a bridge of sadness too far. The flashback to Ellie and Riley’s final day together bordered on manipulative in a way the show’s other tragic installments haven’t. Still, in the end, The Last of Us reminded us no matter how dark and painful things get, at its core, this is a story about hope. And Ellie is the living embodiment of that.

You didn’t need to be an expert in The Last of Us video games to know Ellie was hiding something about her past. The usually smart-aleck youngster grew quiet when asked about when she was bitten. She was specifically evasive when asked if anyone was with her during the attack. Now we know why she won’t talk about it. It was even worse than we could have imagined. Ellie’s was with RIley, her FEDRA roommate, best friend, and object of her affection.

It happened when Riley had brought Ellie to a seemingly abandoned mall. That trip, ultimately meant to serve as a Firefly recruitment pitch or goodbye, revolved around a wondrous night of pure happiness. Riley was able to give Ellie the gift of being a kid, a simple joy neither of them ever experienced. The two were also able to express their love for one another, a blossoming romance they’d never acknowledged before.

But that sequence of joy and love went on for a very long time, all while the episode teased the inevitable disaster we knew awaited. Every laugh, every smile, every hand held, and every kiss added another layer of brutality. After awhile all that doomed happiness started to become too much. For a show that has managed to avoid feeling emotionally manipulative even while ripping our hearts out again and again, this episode felt like it was needlessly adding on extra pain. We met Joel’s daughter, saw the Cordyceps outbreak begin, and watched Sarah die in less time than Ellie and Riley ran around that mall. And it wasn’t as though every moment or conversation was of great importance. A lot of their last day together was about simply being there with them so we really felt the enormity of their tragedy.

Not everyone will agree this episode was emotionally manipulative, or that other episodes haven’t been. Some certainly feel that way about Bill and Frank’s romance. And this flashback did provide important background information about Ellie while still serving the show’s main story. We fully understand why she wouldn’t leave Joel’s side in the present.

But at minimum some sequences and conversations could have been shortened or omitted entirely without detracting from the episode’s overall effect or goals. We didn’t need to see Ellie and Riley experience so much joy to feel the anguish of their demise. We already know the world of The Last of Us is unimaginably brutal. Just as we know Ellie and every other kid born after the outbreak never truly had a childhood. At some point you’re just piling on an already overloaded pile of misery. That’s when you crossover from sad story to manipulative one. But ironically it was the episode’s saddest moment that kept it from truly feeling that way.

As the two young girls sat contemplating (what each imagined was) their inevitable death, Riley told Ellie they had two options. The first was to use their gun to “take the easy way out.” The second was to just continue on until they were both lost to the infection. Two kids in love had to pick between a quick end or a few more moments together before something even worse than death took them. That’s not much of a choice, so Ellie asked what their third option was. All Riley could say in response was “I’m sorry,” because there was nothing else they could do.

At least, there wasn’t a third option for her. But someday there could be for every other Riley out there. Ellie is the world’s third option, a chance at curing the insidious infection that otherwise will eventually destroy all mankind. She is the only hope anyone has of not having to pick between death or worse.

Neither Ellie nor Joel actually know if scientists can use her natural immunity to defeat Cordyceps. There’s no guarantee they’ll even get a chance to find out, either. Not when monsters both human and fungal alike stand between her and them. But they continue on because she is a small glimmer of hope in an otherwise hopeless world. And the darker it gets the brighter even the smallest light shines.

That was true in this episode, The Last of Us‘ most ruthlessly sad installment yet, same as its true for the series in general. Without Ellie this story would be too miserable to suffer through. But that’s why we keep tuning in week after week, because no matter how painful it is to watch these characters suffer, the mere hope they might not have to some day is enough to keep anyone going.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post THE LAST OF US’ Most Depressing Episode Still Found a Way to Remain Hopeful appeared first on Nerdist.

I know, “toxic masculinity” carries a whole lot of annoying baggage. Like many concepts that are suddenly ubiquitous in our hyper partisan world, the phrase became politicized and distorted before many people had a chance to fully comprehend what it actually means. As a result some think it accuses all forms of masculinity of being bad. That’s why they consider it an attack on the very concept of manliness itself. But if you ever wanted to know why that’s total bullshit The Last of Us just provided another perfect counterexample with its incredible sixth episode. Pedro Pascal’s Joel exemplifies the strength and power of non-toxic masculinity.

Toxic masculinity has a formal definition, but thanks to its endless political connotations it can mean something different to everyone. At its core, though, is the notion that certain stereotypical male behaviors are actively harmful to everyone. That especially refers to the ideas that boys and men must avoid showing emotion, making genuine connections with others, and letting themselves appear vulnerable in any way.

Those attitudes often result in destructive behavior. If you’ve ever seen a person start a fight because someone accidentally spilled a drink on them, you probably know what toxic masculinity looks like in its simplest form. The Last of Us also showed why those traits aren’t even limited to just men. Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen and her insatiable desire for vengeance highlighted just how much damage you can do when you deny your humanity, which is at the heart of toxic masculinity. But the concept also manifests in far subtler—and far worse—ways that are harder to see. Like when someone in need refuses to ask for help.

Masculinity itself is not inherently toxic, any more than being a man is. There are traditional aspects of manliness that have tremendous value to both society and the individual. And Pedro Pascal’s incredible performance in The Last of Us‘ sixth episode showed just how true that is.

No one can walk away from this episode or show saying Joel is not masculine. Not in good faith, at least. He’s tough, protective, skilled, and strong. He embodies many of the most common traits associated with masculinity. However, a big part of his strength comes from characteristics not traditionally considered “manly.” He can recognize and admit both his limits and his feelings. Joel doesn’t adhere to the toxic notion he can never show weakness, and that’s one of his greatest strengths. If he couldn’t, he’d be putting Ellie at far greater risk, like a captain who refuses to admit his boat has sprung a leak. It was good for both of them that he told her about his hearing problems.

Joel’s willingness to open up is why he turned to Tommy during a heartbreaking moment of vulnerability. Joel knew his brother could keep Ellie safe far better than himself. His age means he’s slowing down and not the man he once was. But Joel’s physical ailments aren’t even his biggest problem. He is also struggling to deal with his past and fear of failure. He carries an unimaginable amount of pain and guilt for the deaths of his daughter and Tess. (Just as he does for all of the terrible things he did in the name of keeping his loved ones safe.) And after so much loss he can barely handle the thought of failing Ellie, an innocent, lost kid who has nothing in a dying world besides him. His nightmares follow him everywhere.

Joel knows he is breaking down physically, but he knows the real issue is that he is already a broken man emotionally. Pretending otherwise in the name of manliness would only endanger Ellie. Asking Tommy to watch her, and being completely honest about why he needed his brother’s help, was the bravest thing Joel could do. Allowing himself to look weak and scared took courage, the core concept behind much of what we associate with masculinity. The best of us put our loved ones’ needs ahead of our own, even at great risk to ourselves.

Joel also did exactly that when he listened to Ellie and responded to her actual needs and not what he assumed she needed. In a vacuum he was probably right that Tommy would make for a better escort. But people don’t live in vacuums. We form emotional connections with the people we love. And with that love comes trust. Sometimes feeling safer is what keeps us going. It can be far more important and helpful than how well that person can hear or how fast they can run. Joel showing up in that stable and giving Ellie the option of going with either him or Tommy was non-toxic masculinity at its best. You can “be a man” by simply being there the way someone most needs you to be. Even/especially if it scares the shit out of you. What could be braver and more “manly” than that?

Non-toxic masculinity doesn’t prevent you from protecting the weak, caring for your family, and standing up against others. It actually makes you stronger for all the reasons toxic masculinity makes you weak. Toxic masculinity leads to you refusing to ask for help when you need it most. It drives you to do harmful things that endanger the very people you want to protect. There’s nothing brave in pretending you aren’t vulnerable. We’re all vulnerable, and we all have problems and shortcomings, even the most masculine among us.

Lying to yourself, closing yourself off emotionally, and putting the people you care about at risk have never been masculine traits. But they sure are toxic.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at  @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post THE LAST OF US’ Joel Exemplifies the Strength of Non-Toxic Masculinity appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s upcoming series The Last of Us looks like a pretty darn faithful adaptation of Naughty Dog’s groundbreaking 2013 action-adventure game. The game itself, though full of great set pieces and gameplay elements, was very much story-first, so adapting it to screen will not be that difficult. So if you haven’t played the game, you’ll be able to enjoy as it goes. But that also means you might just assume that The Last of Us‘ zombies are the typical undead shufflers. Not so! The once-human monsters of The Last of Us have a distinct progression and backstory that set them apart. Here’s everything you need to know!

The Last of Us Zombies Aren’t Zombies

I suppose, the first big thing about the zombies in The Last of Us is that they aren’t really zombies. At least, not zombies in the traditional, Romero-Kirkman way we think about them. The outbreak that causes the entire world to collapse in The Last of Us comes from a mutated strain of the Cordyceps fungus, and our non-zombie zombies come from this fungus and the infection it causes.

Cordyceps are parasitic fungi that usually attack insects, arthropods, or other fungi. Essentially, the Cordyceps fungus doesn’t tend to bug us too much in real life. However, in The Last of Us, a mutated version of the fungus enters human bodies via airborne spores and nestles itself in our brains.

In The Last of Us‘ universe, spores grow fungus in human brains until they eventually take over, creating a kind of zombie. The infection can also transmit via the saliva of those infected, so your typical bite. In this way, The Last of Us‘ zombies do offer us some traditional zombie aspects.

With that in mind, here are the stages of infection and consequent types of zombies at play in The Last of Us.

Jump to: Runners // Stalkers // Clickers // Bloaters // Shamblers // Rat King

Stage One of the Infected: Runners

The first stage of the Last of Us‘ zombie-creating infection is what survivors call “Runners.” These people will begin bleeding from their eyes, nose, and mouth, and run quite fast due to the fungus controlling their nervous systems. The base impulse of those at the Runners stage is to attack other people, often in hordes. While The Last of Us‘ Runners don’t possess any extra strength, their pain threshold is greater due, again, to fungus brain. (The answer to most questions of “Why can they do that?” is “Fungus Brain.”)

Stage Two of the Infected: Stalkers

Stalkers are people who’ve been infected anywhere between two weeks and a year. The fungus, by this point, will have sprung out of their head and body parts, creating a barnacle look. The Last of Us‘ Stalkers, as their name suggests, don’t run toward their prey but will instead wait in dark corners and wait for unsuspecting people to walk by. Those at this stage of infection also may prop themselves up near a wall and allow the fungus to grow into it. They can then pop out of the fungus when someone traipses by.

When in the Stalkers stage, The Last of Us‘ zombies also tend to moan and cry in pain as the fungus takes over their muscles. So that’s a lot of fun.

Stage Three of the Infected: Clickers

Probably the most distinctive type of infected in The Last of Us are the Clickers. These are people who’ve been infected for over a year. The fungus will have broken completely out of the top of their head, removing the victim’s eyes and replacing them with a sort of coral shape. The Last of Us‘ Clickers shamble around, emitting distinctive clicks which bounce off of walls and objects, allowing these infected zombie creatures to echolocate prey. The fungus will also have reinforced their muscles and calcified their skin, making the much stronger and more durable than in the earlier stages.

A consequence of the Clickers’ method of hunting is sound warfare, creating a terrifying portent of doom for people who walk into their general vicinity on The Last of Us.

We’ve seen a few Clickers throughout The Last of Us‘ episodes. The show’s creators share, “If you’ve survived long enough, eventually the Cordyceps grows through your face, cracks it open, takes away your eyes, your vision, and you become what’s called a ‘Clicker,’ because now these infected use echolocation to find their way.”

It’s not a pleasant infected state, but there’s a long way still to go.

Stage Four-One of the Infected: Bloaters

Yeah, it just keeps getting grosser, folks. After a person has been infected for many years, their bodies bloat and become entirely overrun with fungus. In this stage, The Last of Us‘ zombies are slow and can’t see, but the fungus has reinforced their bodies to the point that they’re basically tanks. Taller, wider, sturdier. Even shotgun blasts to the head won’t stop Bloaters. Only fire can topple these guys. They can also break off pieces of fungus from their epidermis and throw them as projectiles. Seriously, just disgusting.

HBO Max’s Live-Action Bloaters

We’ve now seen a Bloater appear on HBO’s The Last of Us, and this infected was not messing around. Every bit as gross as its game counterpart, the live-action Bloater was oozing and crushing. This zombie-like Bloater made short work of anyone in its way, including tearing someone’s head off.

Series co-creator Neil Druckmann shares more about The Last of Us, “There are certain people that are so strong and big that can survive even longer, and those are the Bloater… That’s why you’re seeing this person is so tall and massive in their strength. And it just becomes that much scarier, again as we go forward, there’s just these new types of infected.”

Craig Mazin, the series other co-creator shares, “We also thought, look, whatever this thing is and however it got that way, there was this notion that it might be scarier that at some point you realize, you’re not killing it… No one’s killing it, ever.” And the Bloater can only become something worse.

Stage Four-Two of the Infected: Shamblers

In areas of heavy water, like swamps and reservoirs, rather than turn into Bloaters, people infected for over a year will continue to shamble around relatively lithe. With the excess of moisture, the infected bodies of these infected zombies don’t calcify or grow in The Last of Us, but will instead emit and expel spores into the air. They also remain much quicker than those who are in either the Clickers or Bloaters stage.

Rare Infected Stage: The Last of Us‘ Zombies Form the Rat King

If you’ve heard of the horrifying natural phenomenon of a rat king, you might have an inkling of what this would mean in the context of The Last of Us‘ Cordyceps zombies. Rat kings are when several rats in a confined space will get their tails inexorably entwined and move together as one to survive. This The Last of Us phenomenon is pretty similar to a rat king infected except with zombies.

If enough Stalkers group together for a long enough time, their fungal growths will connect up. At that point, whichever member of the collective is the strongest will act as the ambulatory legs. In The Last of Us Part II, this only happens after 20 years of infection.

Why Are The Last of Us‘ Infected Violent?

It’s an interesting question. If the fungus is only trying to grow and spread, why do the infected zombies act violently toward the people that surround them? Speaking to Variety, The Last of Us‘ creators addressed this question as it pertains to the series.

Discussing Tess infected “kiss” in episode two of The Last of Us, Craig Mazin shares:

We were already talking about tendrils coming out and we were asking these philosophical questions, “Why are infected people violent? If the point is to spread the fungus, why do they need to be violent?” We landed on that they don’t. They’re violent because we resist, but what if you don’t? What does it look like if you just stand perfectly still and let them do this to you?

So, it turns out, maybe the zombies of The Last of Us aren’t actually violent by nature. But they don’t appreciate humanity’s desire to remain human either.

Final Stage: The Last of Us‘ Zombies Don’t End with Death

Even after an infected body dies, the fungus will continue to grow and spread spores out into the air. This is why survivors tend to wear gas masks when they enter abandoned buildings; it’s best to burn bodies of the infected, rather than let them rot.

Although spores don’t yet feature in HBO’s The Last of Us, the series brings a new level of fearsomeness to the fungus. The fungus is all connected by tendrils that grow underground and it shares something of a hive mind. If you interact with a patch fungus or an infected in one area, you could alert tons of infected zombies to your location.

So that’s fun, right? Lots to look forward to in The Last of Us series when it comes to zombies and fungus. We haven’t seen a ton of the infected in the show thus far, however, we did see a Bloater in one of the recent trailers for the series, so that’s some good nightmare fuel for you.

The Last of Us will premiere on HBO on January 15, 2023.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post THE LAST OF US Infected Zombie Types Explained: Clickers, Bloaters, and More appeared first on Nerdist.

If you find yourself saying kids “die all the time” and saving them is “f***ing with fate” so you can justify murdering children you are no longer a person. At that point you’ve become a monster indistinguishable from The Last of Us‘ Infected. That’s a moniker Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen certainly earned by the end of her time on the show. There’s no defending or equivocating any of her actions. But just because we can’t defend her doesn’t mean we can’t empathize with how she got to that point. Because Kathleen’s failings—which were also her greatest strengths—aren’t monstrous. They’re all too human.

Kathleen’s total loss of humanity began long before we met her. She lived in Kansas City’s Quarantine Zone, an area dubbed Killer City because of FEDRA’s brutal regime. The fascist group’s crimes were so notorious Joel had heard about them in Boston, a city also suffocating under FEDRA. But Kansas City’s sect was especially heinous. Henry said for 20 years that FEDRA outpost “raped and tortured and murdered people.” That inevitability led to an uprising spearheaded by Kathleen’s brother Michael, the man Henry and others once believed in.

We never met Michael, but we know Kathleen’s protector was everything she was not. “He was so beautiful,” Kathleen said. “I’m not. I never was. He would be horrified by the things I’ve done.” The things she did included merciless executions of friends and neighbors who collaborated with FEDRA. She also allowed the bloodbath her people exacted on soldiers. The crimes of Kathleen’s “free people” were as terrible and inexcusable as anything the military organization ever did.

Michael never saw FEDRA’s collapse because Henry betrayed him to save Sam. The cost of leukemia drugs was the resistance leader’s life. Henry paid it despite thinking his decision was indefensible. Unlike Kathleen’s insatiable desire to kill both Henry and Sam, we can not only understand what Henry did, we might even agree with his choice even if he couldn’t. Henry, a good man with a good heart, carried the guilt of his leader’s death with him for the rest of his short life. Michael didn’t want that. He didn’t even want his sister to seek revenge. His dying wish was for her to forgive Henry.

Joel, a man who has also done unforgivable things, is fulfilling Tess’s dying wish by taking Ellie to safety. The best of Tess is bringing out the best in Joel, who has a purpose bigger than himself. But Kathleen couldn’t fulfill her brother’s. She didn’t want to even if she could. “The last time I saw [Michael] alive, in jail, he told me to forgive,” she said. “And what did he get for that? Where is the justice in that? What is the point of that?”

Because she didn’t have the same good heart as her brother, Kathleen couldn’t understand what Michael did in his final moments. He knew Henry was put in an impossible spot. Michael also knew his life was no more valuable than Sam’s. And he knew forgiveness is one of the most humane things we can do, while seeking vengeance sends us down a dark path that rots the soul.

Michael was the type of person we should want to be. But his kind heart was also responsible for his failures. Sometimes you need a vengeful, hyper-focused asshole to get things done. When fighting a war against an amoral enemy—of which Kansas City’s FEDRA qualified—you need a general to lead the way. And everything that made Michael a good person stopped him from doing what needed to be done. As Perry said to Kathleen, “Your brother was a great man. We all loved him. But he didn’t change anything. You did. We’re with you.”

Kathleen freed her people, not Michael. She used her rage to organize them and lead their cause. As Orlando Jones’ Mr. Nancy said on American Gods, “Angry is good. Angry gets shit done.” But just like Michael couldn’t stop being kind, Kathleen couldn’t stop being angry even when she won. And without her brother, her guiding light and moral compass, she had no one to pull her back from the darkness. Her closest friend Perry took every step down that road with her. He, along with the rest of those “free people,” couldn’t overcome the scars and pain accrued over 20 unimaginably painful years.

Can we blame them? Especially when Kathleen showed them what embracing their anger could accomplish? How many of us would be willing to show our enemies mercy under those circumstances? And how many of us, even under the best of circumstances, could truly forgive a man responsible for the death of the person we loved most? Life conspired against Kathleen to make her a monster. It gave her and everyone around her too much grief and anger and sadness to handle. Then it took away the anchor that kept her moored to her humanity. That’s how you end up at the point of wanting to kill innocent children.

By the time Infected rose from the ground and that Cordyceps child attacked Kathleen, she was no longer a human. She was a monster, same as them, a monster who doomed the very people she saved. All the good she did died with her and caused so many more needless deaths. And that happened because she couldn’t forgive one single person, a man who loved his brother, too.

What could Kathleen and Michael have accomplished together if she had used her own skills while he was still alive? Once the general won the war what kind of world could a kind, merciful, beloved leader have created for the victors? They needed each other to do great things. Like everyone living in a shattered world they needed to find purpose in another. Once there was no one for Kathleen to find purpose in—and no one to find purpose in her and not just her cause—she lost her humanity. Once her brother died it seemed like she never had a chance to keep it.

No one can defend Kathleen or what she did. She’s no hero and no one who was “with her” is even left to mourn her death. But unlike the Infected, controlled by a fungus, she became a monster for a far scarier reason: she was all too human.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at  @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post THE LAST OF US’ Kathleen Is An All-Too-Human Monster appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s The Last of Us has amassed so much success for so many different reasons. One of these is how easy it is to match a scene from the show to its game analog. Of course, there have been distinct changes, and it’s these changes that also contribute to such an engaged audience. Aspects of the show that stray from what we anticipate contribute to the sheer horror that it cultivates. These make it generally more terrifying to watch than the game is to play. This is especially true with how the series depicts FEDRA.

The nuance to these FEDRA changes is that they may not be changes at all based on the concept of the game. Rather, as is the case with other translational aspects of the adaptation, they are expansions of the source material. FEDRA, like with Joel and Tess’s relationship, required more intentional fleshing out to raise the stakes of the series’ storytelling.

As a reminder, FEDRA is a reduced form of government that effectively operates through different branches in different quarantine zones throughout the USA. As the central government dissolved after Outbreak Day, FEDRA assumed control. Without answering to any higher power, their acts of depravity and violence go unchecked. The series adaptation has used this blueprint to construct an austere, authoritarian body in The Last of Us that doesn’t have anything material to do with the fungal infection. They have thus made it into one of the most unnerving facets of the show. The creators have been able to do this in part by allowing some of the most merciless parts of history to repeat itself. 

As soon as the show transitions from Outbreak Day to 20 years later, we see the violence of FEDRA. Instead of seeing Joel waking up on a couch, a child with clunky, worn out sneakers walks up to the walls of the quarantine zone; the signs of infection are clear. Once FEDRA receives confirmation from the diagnostic scanner that the child is infected, a soldier sticks a syringe in his arm with the promise of his favorite food and toys. We next see Joel as he dumps the small body into a firepit in the QZ as his assigned work duty. The routine aspect of this travesty is what is most frightening. It recalls the mandatory labor of concentration camps, victims forced to dispose of bodies of other victims. The historical allusions don’t stop there. 

Mere moments later, as Joel finishes his shift for the day, he joins a crowd of people. In front of the crowd, three QZ inhabitants stand on a platform, each with their wrists tied behind their backs, three nooses dangling before them. A FEDRA officer is blasting the transgressors’ violations through a bullhorn. They never show us the hanging itself, but the fear-mongering is on full display. The lack of shock on Joel’s face doesn’t undermine it at all, nor does him walking immediately to a different FEDRA officer for bargaining. This is normal to him, and he believes resistance is futile.

In episode three, Ellie goes against Joel’s wishes and leads the way down a road to a grassless stretch of Earth littered with segmented skeletons. The introduction to Bill’s town takes place in a flashback, a few days after Outbreak Day, when FEDRA soldiers began to transport uninfected residents to quarantine zones. Joel tells Ellie, “[…] Told you you were going to a QZ and you were… if there was room.” If you look closer at the patch of land, there is more than just bones. We see suitcases, tattered articles of clothing, even a guitar case. The images immediately recall the Holocaust Museum in DC, with rooms filled with shoes and other items left behind at death camps.

When Ellie asks why, Joel tells her “Dead people can’t be infected.” The look on her face is heartbreaking — she who has lived her entire life in a post-apocalyptic world, who had never seen the pristine white-picket fences and wooden front doors unmarked by FEDRA’s spray paint.. The visual manifestation of FEDRA’s horrifying acts — of the people who have raised her and educated her from birth — is more harrowing to her than stabbing an infected person in the eye, which she does with ease just five minutes before. 

In episode four and five, however, FEDRA’s sinister lore blows wide open in Kansas City. The two episodes contain the most original content of the entire show, with a drastic reshaping of Sam and Henry’s segment of the canon. As Joel and Ellie arrive in Kansas City, we learn that the local resistance (separate from the Fireflies) has liberated the city from FEDRA. The resistance leader is Kathleen, an original character played by none other than Melanie Lynskey. KC FEDRA has a reputation that even reached Joel in Boston. “Monsters, savages, you heard right. Raping, torturing, and murdering people for 20 years. You know what happens when you do that to people? The moment they get a chance, they do it right back to you.”

Despite the resistance’s victory, Kathleen has a vendetta against FEDRA collaborators. Those people sold out resistance members like her brother for leverage. This is again a deeper depiction of how FEDRA abused its power to pin innocent civilians against each other. In this case, it was so that Henry could maintain Sam’s access to the chemotherapy treatment. This portion of the FEDRA story alludes further to authoritarian regimes in the ways that lamentable conditions force civilians to turn on each other, breaking the resistance, and falling victim to the ruling part as a means of survival. 

Ultimately, HBO’s The Last of Us houses the chilling echoes of our world’s violent history, mitigating the horror of flesh-eating zombies. Those with a true grasp of the story understand that it has little to do with fungus or an apocalypse. Instead, the story uses those conditions as a vehicle to meditate on humanity — how it can rise up in some cases or break down in others. Could we really call a microorganism evil when its biological imperative is to survive and multiply, just the same as humans? Instead, these new, much scarier perspectives of FEDRA redistribute the antagonism of The Last of Us, giving viewers greater pause when asked to consider the evil at play.

HBO’s The Last of Us airs every Sunday.

The post How FEDRA Is Different, and Scarier, in THE LAST OF US TV Show appeared first on Nerdist.

Forget the teams playing in the Super Bowl. The real competition this week was going to be between HBO’s new hit series The Last of Us and the Super Bowl itself. But sometimes, the wiser move is to avoid a conflict. And that’s exactly what HBO’s The Last of Us will do. In lieu of its usual release time on Sunday, which would have put it right up against the Super Bowl, The Last of Us episode five will air early on streaming channels.

So when can you watch? Well, episode five of The Last of US will premiere on HBO Max and HBO demand beginning on Friday, February 10 at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The show’s linear premiere will not come early, and will take place at its usual time on Sunday. And future episodes of The Last of Us will continue to release on Sundays on HBO. The series finale will take place on March 12.
 

The post THE LAST OF US Airs Early This Week, Here’s When You Can Watch appeared first on Nerdist.

The Last of Us‘s fourth episode introduced an entirely new figure to the franchise, Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen. The character’s first scene presented her as someone worth rooting for, a leader of free people interrogating a man who betrayed others to the fascist group Kathleen helped overthrow. By episode’s end, it wasn’t clear she’s any different from the coldblooded FEDRA she deposed. How should we feel about someone like that? That question is one of the biggest The Last of Us is asking. But the answer is not a matter of determining where the line between good and evil lies in a godforsaken world. It’s a matter of whether or not those concepts even exist when humanity doesn’t.

Kathleen didn’t get the information she wanted from her former doctor, but their conversation revealed a lot about what led both of them to that moment. FEDRA made people like him sell out friends and neighbors by giving them an unimaginable choice: their life or someone else’s. Some inevitably chose their own, even a doctor sworn to protect others from harm. That’s how Kathleen’s brother ended up beaten to death inside a FEDRA containment unit. A man named Henry gave him up.

The doctor wouldn’t tell her Henry’s location, even when Kathleen put a gun to his head. Unlike when FEDRA did the same thing, he didn’t believe Kathleen would kill him. He thought the woman he helped give birth to would never sink to FEDRA’s amoral depths. The doctor had faith in her as a good person. Minutes later, when he was of no immediate help, Kathleen shot him. She didn’t give him final chance to save himself or say goodbye to his loved ones. He died alone in that containment unit same as her brother.

Keeping a doctor around would have been wise, just as letting him live would have shown mercy. But in that moment of anger and sadness over her friends’ deaths it was possible to understand and possibly even forgive Kathleen for her ruthless vengeance. But everything else that followed showed just how wrong the doctor was about her. She’s no better than FEDRA. Kathleen used those deaths as an excuse to launch a massive manhunt for Henry. She lied to her people that Henry must have called in “outsiders” to hurt them. But we know it was her people who attacked Joel and Ellie without provocation. She leads a group that murders innocent victims for supplies while they drive around in armored trucks painted “We The People.”

If there was any remaining reason to sympathize with Kathleen and her cause that ended when we learned why Henry is hiding from her: he’s protecting a child named Sam. We don’t know their exact relationship (on the show) yet, but Sam’s drawings told us plenty. Sam needs Henry, his very own superhero. That might be why Henry sold out Kathleen’s brother in the first place. His purpose in this wasteland is to protect Sam, same as Bill’s purpose was to protect Frank and Joel’s new purpose is to protect Ellie. No one faulted Bill for burning people alive to keep Frank safe. Nor would anyone fault Joel for killing the men who ambushed him and Ellie. Can we fault Henry for handing someone over to FEDRA if it meant staying alive for Sam’s sake?

We know Joel wouldn’t. In this episode he told Ellie why he fights on in a world he thinks is hopeless. “You keep going for family. That’s about it,” he said. Joel is no different from Kathleen and her group when it comes to how you protect your own, either. “We did what we needed to survive,” Joel told Ellie about his past actions. It’s how he recognized the “I’m hurt” scam. He used to use it himself. And since he wouldn’t answer Ellie when she asked if that included killing innocent people, we truly know why Tess said her and Joel are not good people.

Learning about Joel’s prior actions probably won’t make many viewers stop liking him. Especially because we know what happened to him and his daughter. It’s easier to forgive and empathize with him because of what we know of his life. But anyone who has survived this world—from Kathleen and her doctor, to Henry and the soldiers of FEDRA—all lost people, too. No one survives the apocalypse without scars that fundamentally change them as people. Are they really any different from Joel? Is it fair to root for or against them when we can’t deny there’s no difference between perceived heroes and perceived villains?

What’s the ethical difference between FEDRA killing individuals to keep the QZ safe versus a group that murders innocent people for their food and supplies so they can live? Is their a distinction between a grieving sister who seeks vengeance and a man desperate to keep his vulnerable brother safe no matter what that takes? And what does morality matter when the world ensures all of our choices lead to someone’s death? The Last of Us isn’t asking us to answer these questions because no one can when right and wrong no longer exist. Instead the show is asking us to confront something much darker. It’s asking us to confront the fact that when humans face annihilation our humanity will die long before we do.

We’ll probably never face that truth because of a Cordyceps infection. But we might because we launch bombs powerful enough to wipe out most of mankind. Or because we won’t make sacrifices today to save our own planet’s future. Whatever the reason, The Last of Us is making clear people like Joel, Kathleen, and Henry that the only way to avoid living in a world without ethics or morals is to act with them when we still have the chance.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at    @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post Melanie Lynskey’s THE LAST OF US Character Makes Us Question Good and Evil appeared first on Nerdist.

It’s the end of the world. The things that matter most to you don’t exist anymore. Your sense of safety and normalcy, your sources of entertainment, your family and friends. How easy it’d be to lose hope—especially if you throw in an external threat like disease or zombies. There isn’t much to live for in an apocalypse and the thought of romance is certainly not at the top of your priorities. 

But what if you met a person—even an unsuspecting one—who renewed your sense of purpose? Someone you never would have spoken to in the before times. Maybe someone who’s fate drops in your lap right when you’re ready to give into the hysteria and chaos? The third episode of HBO’s The Last of Us gave us such a story.

“Long, Long Time” introduced us to Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), two men brought together by circumstance who find tender love in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The episode became a hit with Bill and Frank entering the pantheon of great TV love stories. And the fact that their romance is a queer romance is all the more lovely. So rarely do we get such tender, beautiful representation in the middle of a story about grit, survival, and monsters. 

If “Long, Long Time” pulled at your heartstrings, here are five more hopeful apocalyptic love stories on the small screen. Hopefully, they will remind you that there is still purpose to be found and joy to be had, even at the end of all things. 

Rick and Michonne (The Walking Dead) 

The Walking Dead shares plenty of DNA with The Last of Us. Both shows are hit adaptations of pre-existing IP taking place in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. The Last of Us will likely have limits in terms of season and story; however, The Walking Dead went on and on—for eleven seasons, to be exact. And yet, even when storylines stalled and quality ebbed, the show was capable of pleasant surprises.

This was especially true when the hardened Rick Grimes and Michonne Hawthorne began an apocalypse romance in season six. And their relationship that brought out the best of The Walking Dead. Survival stories aren’t much without a reason to keep fighting. Yes, Rick already had kids to protect and a righteous sense of duty to uphold. But it wasn’t until Michonne that he learned the value of partnership—one built on trust, understanding, and even, occasionally, humor. 

Though Rick appeared to die in season nine after sacrificing himself to save the Hilltop community, a devastated Michonne wasn’t so sure. The final two seasons of the show saw her following clues that point to his survival. A spinoff series about the couple and Michonne’s continued search will debut in 2024. Hopefully this couple’s love will continue to endure even after their show ends. And that’s something special. 

Kevin and Nora (The Leftovers)

The Leftovers is a different kind of apocalypse story, if you can even call it that. It’s not about a pandemic or zombie outbreak or catastrophe, but something far more nebulous: a supernatural event where 2% of the world’s population suddenly disappears. The series chronicles those left behind, who attempt to understand a world that suddenly makes no sense, where normalcy evaporates, religious fanaticism takes hold, and nihilism reigns. 

We find Kevin Garvey and Nora Durst in the throes of despair in season one of the show. He’s a small-town cop who struggles with his sanity in the aftermath of the Sudden Departure. She’s similarly unmoored, fighting for the will to live after losing her husband and children in the event. But they eventually come together, finding love, family, and community together—something they thought they’d lost forever. Their love story spans enormous time and distance. But the series finale puts them back where they began: at a dance, surrounded by others, a moment of peace and union in a world still scarred by inexplicable loss. 

Sawyer and Juliet (Lost)

This romance might sound like a cheat, because Lost isn’t in an apocalypse. But the fifth season of the show is absolutely apocalyptic. After a handful of crash survivors are rescued, those left behind contend with an island jumping through time. They’re eventually stranded in the 1970s, in a timeline they know ends in something called “The Incident,” which involves the detonation of a nuclear bomb. That’s pretty damn apocalyptic, if you ask me. 

The stakes are high and the emotions bleak, but that’s right when Sawyer and Juliet—both left behind, both without purpose—start seeing one another in a new light. A once contentious relationship turns first towards mutual respect and eventually to romance. They know they have limited time, but they commit to one another all the same. And though their island romance is of the tragic variety, it endures beyond conventional time, with the two reuniting in the afterlife in a scene that will never not make us sob. 

Sarah and Rasmus (The Rain)

Netflix’s The Rain is less well-known stateside than the others on this list, but this is your plea to tune in. The Danish series happens in a post-apocalyptic future, after a virus in rainfall kills most of the population of Scandinavia. It follows two siblings who survive in a bunker and later emerge to look for their father. They team up with other survivors along the way, looking for answers in a devastated world they no longer recognize. 

In the show’s second season, one of the siblings, Rasmus, becomes infected with the virus. He hides his new affliction from the others, but another apocalypse survivor, a girl named Sarah, knows his secret and the two eventually develop and lovely romance. Like the other couples on this list, their connection brings a pure and pleasant sort of happiness into their lives. But impending tragedy tinges it. Still, they’re able to conjure magic together in the time they do have. And isn’t that what all of us should hope for—at least one good day?

Peter and Olivia (Fringe)

Fringe has a major The Last of Us connection: Anna Torv. Though her time as Tess was short lived, we got plenty of the Australian actress on the beloved sci-fi series Fringe, where she played the heroic and haunted FBI agent Olivia Dunham. Olivia’s romance with Peter Bishop doesn’t fit the exact same mold as the others on this list. It spans more seasons and had quite a few tangles along the way—including alternate universes, timelines, and era skips. But the final season of the show went full post-apocalypse, but just before it—knowing hope might soon be lost—we see Olivia and Peter set aside the troubles chasing them and choose love and family.

The last season is full of universe-shaking developments, but ultimately, Fringe stayed true to itself, anchoring all of its shenanigans in moments of human connection—and ultimately, happiness. Peter and Olivia, and their love for one another and their daughter, defies the odds. They’re reunited and transported back into a timeline where the apocalypse never came to be and they can have a less stressful romance.

Not every couple gets such a tidy resolution, but it’s the hope for this sort of outcome—or some quainter version of it—that keeps the flame lit. 

The post 5 Heartwarming Apocalyptic TV Romances Like THE LAST OF US’ Bill and Frank appeared first on Nerdist.

It’s Pedro Pascal’s moment. What can we say? He’s hitting it out of the park as apocalypse daddy Joel in The Last of Us. And he is slated for a triumphant return as space daddy in The Mandalorian season three. On top of all that, he will host Saturday Night Live for the first time. That is if he can leave The Last of Us behind. Let’s take a look at the first impression Pedro Pascal made on the Saturday Night Live set. Spoilers: There are Clickers and hammers involved. Bless your heart, Pedro Pascal.

Listen, it’s an honest mistake. We feel like we’re about to meet one of The Last of Us‘ infected Clickers at every turn, and we just watch the show. We can’t imagine what it’s like to really step into Joel’s mind. And we don’t really think we’d want to. Although, we have to say, and Joel would probably agree with us, that a hammer against an infected does not seem like a fight we’d want to pick. Where is your Darksaber, Pedro Pascal? But, hey, new cast member Matt does a very convincing zombie impression. And The Last of Us really does get under your skin.

The truly good news is that Pedro and the Clicker got to the root of their issue and then danced it out. We love to see a positive resolution. Maybe Joel can give it a try on The Last of Us?

But in all honesty, we are cackling over this Saturday Night Live tease already. Although Pedro Pascal’s next turns both entail a lot of drama, his comedic timing and facial expressions are top-notch. We can’t wait to see what kind of skits he’ll take part in when his episode of Saturday Night Live finally airs. But we certainly hope there will be more zombies and more The Last of Us parodies involved. Matt is ready to go, after all. We’d also love to see our favorite child Grogu make a cameo, but he could still be enjoying his time off before The Mandalorian season three airs on March 1.

Pedro Pascal hosts Saturday Night Live on February 4, 2023, with musical guest Coldplay.

The post Pedro Pascal Is TOO Into His THE LAST OF US Character in SNL Host Tease appeared first on Nerdist.

The Last of Us’ third episode was a triumph unto itself. You could know nothing about the show or its world and Bill and Frank’s romance still works as a moving, self-contained tale about the power of love even in the face of annihilation. But while their time together came to an end just as Joel and Ellie’s is beginning, the couple’s relationship will frame the entire series going forward. Their partnership will serve as the inspiration for Joel to risk everything for a girl he doesn’t even know. And the desire to protect one single person might be what it takes to protect everyone.

Anyway, I never liked you. But still, it’s like we’re friends. Almost. And I respect you, so I’m gonna tell you something because you’re probably the only person who will understand: I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died.

With all apologies to Ellie, Bill was not a genius. Bill was a scared man, scared of being who he really was and of everyone around him. He didn’t prep for the apocalypse because he thought it might arrive one day. He prepped for the apocalypse because he hoped it would. And when it did he was content to spend his remaining time in solitude. But then Frank fell into one of his traps.

You could spend thousands and thousands of words talking about what happened during this episode and not come close to discussing everything that made it special. Bill and Frank’s 16 years together, told a lifetime of stories, both about each man and their relationship. With incredible writing, filmmaking, and performances it also explored universal ideas of self-acceptance, personal growth, and opening up our hearts to others. But the most important idea for The Last of Us—the one that will carry forward on a show set in a wasteland so miserable that giving up is not only defensible but possible correct—is one of purpose.

After he downed his own glass of fatal wine, Bill told Frank why he was joining his love on a journey to their next life. “This isn’t the tragic suicide at the end of the play,” Bill said. “I’m old. I’m satisfied. And you were my purpose.”

It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful partnership that served as a powerful reminder that no matter how bad things gets the best of us can still endure. But the duo’s love did not die with them. In fact, it might one day save the world. Without knowing it, Bill’s goodbye letter pushed Joel to do something far bigger and more important than himself.

But I was wrong, because there was one person worth saving. That’s what I did. I saved him. Then I protected him. That’s why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do, and God help any mother fuckers who stand in our way. I leave all of my weapons and equipment. Use them to keep…

Bill thought he was telling Joel to keep Tess safe. She had been Joel’s purpose, his reason for going on and fighting through the darkness (both his own and the world’s). Now she’s gone, along with his only friends. All that remains for a grieving dad is a brother who left him behind. That is assuming Tommy isn’t dead already.

Joel wants to go looking for Tommy anyway. Tommy is family. But bringing along a little girl who know nothing of the dangers outside Boston’s Quarantine Zone seems exactly like the type of thing Joel would never do. As Tess said about them both, Joel is not a good person. He’s done horrible things he won’t speak of. And it was just a couple days ago when he argued for putting a bullet in Ellie’s head or turning her over to FEDRA who certainly kill her. Yet now he’s going to protect her against unimaginable threats across a country filled with monsters both human and literal. Why? Why is a bad person going to risk that for her?

Because Bill showed him why it’s a job worth doing. It’s really the only purpose any of us have and one we can all do in our own ways. Bill did that the best way he could, just as Frank did the same for Bill in his own way. One kept them fed and safe from danger. The other kept their hearts open when everything around them demanded they close them.

Now Ellie needs protection. If Joel won’t do it who will? Who he even can? He knows the answer. He knows Bill was right about why men like them are here. It’s the same reason people like Frank and Tess exist, because others need them.

But it’s not just Ellie who needs Joel, it’s everyone. She might be humanity’s only chance to save itself. Without the hope she represents for a cure Cordyceps will ultimately win. When that happens no one—not even a prepper who locked himself away from the outside world long before the world ended—will be safe.

The Last of Us’ story of two men who fell in love and saved one another was gorgeous entirely on its own. If they had never met Joel they would still have served a purpose on the show, a reminder that even during the worst of times the best of us can survive. But they did meet Joel, and everything they shared together will carry forward with him and his purpose. Just as they each saved one person, Joel can save Ellie. And if he does, it will mean Bill and Frank’s love saved the entire world even after they left it.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at   @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post The Story of Bill and Frank in THE LAST OF US Is So Much Bigger Than Them appeared first on Nerdist.

In the first two weeks of HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, save a few deviations, the show has stayed pretty close to the game’s story and events. The narrative and characters are the game’s strongest elements, so why mess with perfection? I had more or less assumed we’d continue to see closely hewn adaptations of events from the game, but the show’s third episode shook things up in a major way. While it depicts characters game fans will know, it does it a wholly new and frankly much more effective way. As tremendous as the show’s pilot was, I think episode three might be the show’s early masterpiece.

In the third episode, we meet Bill, played by Nick Offerman. Just like in the game (in which W. Earl Brown plays the character), Bill is an ornery survivalist who has used his doomsday prepper skills to the fullest in the apocalypse. When Joel and Ellie encounter Bill in the game, he’s supremely untrusting of anyone, especially Ellie, whom he sees as a liability. The player-controlled Joel needs Bill’s help in the heavily overrun town of Lincoln to get a car to take Ellie west. Bill has created a fortress for himself and set many traps for infected and uninfected scavengers alike.

We also learn in the game that Bill had a partner, Frank, whom he worked with for 20 years. Together they stayed alive and fortified the town. Some time prior to the events of the game, Frank—growing tired of Bill’s bullcrap—leaves Bill, stealing supplies and a car battery in the process. This leads to Bill giving Joel the advice to leave Ellie behind.

He says:

Once upon a time, I had somebody that I cared about. It was a partner. Somebody I had to look after. And in this world, that sort of shit’s good for one thing: gettin’ you killed.

– Bill in The Last of Us game

As the game progresses, and Joel searches the many neighborhood homes in Lincoln, he eventually finds Frank, long dead, hanging in a house. A nearby note for Bill explains that the cordyceps got Frank and he decided to end his own life rather than succumb to the fungal effects. The note also takes the opportunity to say how much he hates Bill’s guts. As per usual for the game, it’s bleak as hell. The player can decide whether or not to give Bill the letter, but even if you don’t, it’s a sad end for a character we now know is never going to see his friend again.

The first time we see Bill in the episode, he has already fortified Lincoln and spends his days laughing at infected who walk into his traps, gathering supplies, and making himself fancy meals. It’s a peek into Bill’s solo existence the game never shares. However, what we’re seeing is not Bill right before Ellie and Joel go to him; it’s Bill before he meets Frank.

Frank (Murray Bartlett) has fallen into one of Bill’s traps and, after making completely certain Frank isn’t infected, Bill helps him out. He gives him access to a shower, and food, and clothes, and we start to see a mutual attraction form. Bill isn’t just a gruff outdoorsman with a penchant for fine wine, he’s a sensitive art lover and pianist. Frank and Bill spend the night together, and Frank says the next day he’s not a one-night-stand kind of guy. He’ll stay for three days before leaving.

Cut to, three years later. Frank and Bill are a full-blown couple. The game only barely hints at this kind of relationship, but here, it’s front and center. But Bill is still an ornery cuss who distrusts everyone. When he learns Frank has communicated with outsiders, he gets his hackles up. He’s even more annoyed when Frank has invited them for dinner. And yes, it’s Joel and Tess, and yes, they set up a trading network, but Frank just wanted some friends, whereas Bill wants no one else but Frank in his life.

The dinner scene between the four of them is hilarious. Bill retains game-Bill’s unlikability when it comes to people he doesn’t trust, but we get more of an idea why. He’s worried about losing what he has, losing Frank and his contented way of life. We get the sense that it’s fear more than aggression that drives him.

Then the episode does something I truly was not expecting: it shows us the entirety of Bill and Frank’s relationship. Frank doesn’t leave like he does in the game, he’s in it for the long haul. We see Bill suffer a gunshot after a raid from outsiders, and as Frank tries to bandage him up, Bill explains that Frank is on his own. But he doesn’t die! We then skip even further to Frank sick and in a wheelchair. The pair are now visibly older, greying and wrinkled. Frank has suffered from some disease and reached the end.

Frank requests that Bill help him end his own life, to end his suffering peacefully. Bill decides without Frank, he has no reason to go on alone, and chooses to do the same. It’s a scene most people in the audience will watch through tears.

When Joel and Ellie arrive at Bill and Frank’s house, the couple are already dead, and Bill has left Joel a letter. It says:

To whomever but probably Joel:

August 29, 2023: if you find this please do not come into the bedroom. we left the window open so the house wouldn’t smell. It will probably be a sight. I’m guessing you found this Joel because anyone else would have been electrocuted or blown up by one of my traps. hehehehehehe. Take anything you need. the bunker code is the same as the gate code but in reverse.

Anyway, I never liked you. But still, it’s like we’re friends. Almost. And I respect you, so I’m gonna tell you something because you’re probably the only person who will understand: I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong, because there was one person worth saving. That’s what I did. I saved him. Then I protected him. That’s why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do, and god help any mother fuckers who stand in our way. I leave all of my weapons and equipment. Use them to keep Tess safe.

This complete reimagining of Bill and Frank achieves so much. Yes, I’m sure some game purists will be annoyed Joel and Ellie didn’t get to sneak through backyard with Bill and take out infected on their way to a car. But that’s a game; in a show it would just amount to another action sequence, Bill another side character. The show’s creators did the characters a major service by allowing them a full life, a loving life, and the chance for Bill not to tell Joel that caring for others is stupid but that caring for others is the only thing that matters.

It’s a gorgeous episode of television, with beautiful performances from Offerman and Bartlett. Episodes like this, and deviations from an interactive medium into a traditional viewing one, are the reason to adapt The Last of Us to TV. The game is an emotional journey, and the show isn’t losing any of that. But by giving characters different circumstances, the show can achieve emotional gut-punches whether you’ve played the game or not.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post THE LAST OF US Episode 3 Veers Drastically From the Game, and It’s the Best appeared first on Nerdist.

The apocalypse just got started at HBO. Now we officially know it’s going to continue for a little while longer. The network has announced The Last of Us will return for a second season.

Just like the video game franchise it’s based on, HBO’s zombie wasteland starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will be back for a second installment. The network has ordered another season of The Last of Us from co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. Not that there was much doubt about that based on its reception. In addition to overwhelming critical praise the show has proven to be a hit with viewers, too. It garnered the second biggest premiere audience for a new show at HBO. (Coming in only behind House of the Dragon‘s debut.) And since the pilot aired HBO says more than 22 million people have watched it.

Episode two’s ratings also showed off the appeal of the series. Its initial airing notched 5.7 million people, a million more than tuned in for the first’s episodes original showing. HBO says that 22% increase is the largest in its history.

“Craig and Neil, alongside EP Carolyn Strauss, and the rest of our phenomenal cast and crew, have defined a genre with their masterful debut season of The Last of Us,” said Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, Head of HBO Drama Series and Films, in a press release. “After pulling off this unforgettable first season, I can’t wait to watch this team outshine themselves again with season two.”

While fans of the video games might have some idea what to expect from a second season, newcomers to the franchise still have a long way to go before getting there. This announcement comes as season one still has eight episodes left. That’s a lot of time to live inside a monster-filled wasteland. But clearly not enough time to watch others do it.

The post THE LAST OF US Renewed for Season 2 at HBO appeared first on Nerdist.

Characters in The Last of Us video game franchise frequently don gas masks to stave off the Cordyceps infection. Survivors on HBO’s live-action adaptation don’t worry about airborne transmission, though. The fungus and monsters in the series version of The Last of Us do not emit floating spores carrying mind-controlling particles like they do in the games. But that doesn’t mean the show’s Infected are any less dangerous. HBO’s The Last of Us might have removed those deadly spores from its story, but it replaced them with a different type of nightmare.

One of the major ways infection spreads in The Last of Us games is via airborne spores. Those floating seeds enter a healthy person’s body and travel to their victim’s brain. Once there, the fungus takes over entirely. It’s the most insidious way the infection spreads in the games. You can potentially stave off a zombie bite—the other way people become sick—by physically fighting back. But as we all know, you can’t exactly punch an airborne pathogen. That’s why The Last of Us‘ survivors cover their faces with gas masks, to avoid inhaling the spores.

But on HBO’s show, Joel, Tess, and Ellie traveled outside the safety of their quarantine zone without any kind of breathing apparatus or protection because there are no Cordyceps spores in their world to worry about. As the showrunners have explained, those airborne terrors simply don’t exist there, at least, not yet. It’s an obvious (and needed) change for a live-action adaptation. It’s more compelling seeing Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s reactions on The Last of Us rather than imagining what they look like under a gas mask hiding from spores. But that change doesn’t mean the show sacrificed horror. It simply found a different way to make its characters fear that fungus.

“They’re connected.”
“More than you know.”

Ellie and Tess’ exchange over the ruins of Boston’s Faneuil Hall in episode two laid out the way the show’s fungal infection makes every location a hot spot for spread. “The fungus also grows underground, long fibers like wires, some of them stretching over a mile,” Tess said. “You step on a patch of Cordyceps in one place, and you can wake a dozen Infected from somewhere else. Now they know where you are. Now they come. You’re not immune from being ripped apart.”

Ellie saw firsthand just how those fibers work in the episode’s final sequence. A gunshot to a newly Infected victim in the State House instantly alerted the fungus back in Faneuil Hall. The communication was so quick it was like the bullet sent a 5G text. Instantly the fungus in sent the mass of bodies back to Faneuil Hall to attack. In this version of The Last of Us, Cordyceps works almost like a hive mind.

Forget just running into a Clicker. Be very careful where you walk.

That’s obviously terrifying enough on its own, but the fungus’ ability to work together over long distances also revealed another horrible way the infection spreads. Both the show and the video game employ the traditional zombie method of passing on the infection via bites and saliva. But HBO’s The Last of Us provided us with an even worse form of physical transmission. Tendrils from one monster creeped out of its mouth into Tess’, in what is surely one of the grosses kisses in history. Compared to that The Last of Us fate, deadly airborne spores seem preferable.

It’s not entirely hopeless for The Last of Us‘ humans. In both the game and on the show, survivors can slow Cordyceps spread by burning the bodies of Infected. And those miles-long fibers of the series do eventually die and dry out, rendering them harmless. Pascal’s Joel had no concern about getting close to the dead, inactive fungus body he found stuck to a wall in the first episode. Nor did he fear breaking apart a dead fiber in episode two. Neither probably smelled great, but they won’t turn him into a zombie the way spores would his video game counterpart.

Of course, we won’t fault anyone on the show if they choose to wear a gas mask anyway. We know they don’t have to worry about spores in The Last of Us‘ world, but they might not. And we’d probably take every precaution we could if we were living with a deadly fungal disease. (Especially when it is already scarier than its video game counterpart.) It’s not like this mutated fungus can’t evolve again, either, especially with its ability to communicate over long distances. Cordyceps can speak to one another while having a whole lot of human brain power at its command. Who knows, it might figure out how to create spores eventually.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at  @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post How HBO’S THE LAST OF US Changed the Way Its Infection Spreads appeared first on Nerdist.

I’m no scientist, but I think a global apocalypse would be bad. Real bad. Like, probably one of the worst things that could happen to mankind bad. And an apocalypse where most of humanity becomes mind-controlled fungus monsters sounds like one of the worst ways armageddon could unfold. But, in my non-scientist opinion, the characters on HBO’s The Last of Us suffered in terrible ways that go well beyond the Cordyceps brain infection, the death of their loved ones, and the collapse of society. The timing of the outbreak—September 26, 2003—means survivors also had to live with the knowledge of everything they missed out on, as well as the dreams they never got to see come true. What does that mean? Basically, The Last of Us universe missed a lot of pop culture moments to come. Imagine being a Red Sox fan in Boston’s quarantine zone who never saw a World Series championship or how the Star Wars prequel trilogy ended.

You can’t lament missing something you never could have anticipated or known would happen. So we don’t have to feel bad for Joel, an action movie fan, never getting to see John Wick. He couldn’t have foreseen streaming making physical rentals obsolete either. Just as his daughter Sarah, whose bedroom featured countless music posters, didn’t miss out on Taylor Swift’s career. Even if she’d lived, Swift released her self-titled debut in 2006. We also don’t have to mourn The Last of Us‘ healthy humans never seeing the MCU or Mad Max: Fury Road. Ignorance, in these cases, is bliss. Zombie-apocalypse bliss.

But Joel might very well have been looking forward to seeing how The Matrix trilogy ended. Resurrections was set to premiere in November 2003, just six months after Reloaded. (Don’t feel too bad, Joel!) Meanwhile, poor Destiny’s Child fan Sarah never had a shot at hearing their last album, Destiny Fulfilled, which hit stores in ’04. Nor did she see Beyoncé go from mega star to Queen of America. Just like her uncle Tommy never got to witness bail reform become a real political issue.

A world-as-we-know-it ending pandemic breaking out in late September of 2003 was especially brutal for film lovers. In addition to The Matrix trilogy’s final film, it also means they never got to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (December ’03) or Revenge of the Sith (May ’05). It’s one thing to watch your best friend slowly become fungus and meld into a wall. It’s another to do so knowing the last new Star Wars movie you’d ever watch together was Attack of the Clones.

Living in a dystopian monster wasteland is bad. Doing so while realizing “I don’t like sand” is your final memory of Darth Vader is even worse.

Those people never got the chance to see Spider-Man 2 (June ’04), one of the best superhero movies ever. And imagine not getting Fox’s highly-anticipated follow-up to the fantastic X2. (Wait, that one’s not so bad when you remember the follow-up was X-Men: The Last Stand. I guess the Cordyceps outbreak wasn’t a total nightmare.)

And what a shame no one in that world ever got to see the day in 2008 when Guns N’ Roses finally released Chinese Democracy. Just as they never got to see America elect its first Black president, learn where Stonehenge’s stones came from, or read Ron Chernow’s tome on Alexander Hamilton, which eventually became a smash Broadway musical.

Of course, as a dedicated Boston sports fan myself, I feel the most pity for The Last of Us‘ New England survivors. Forget missing out on nearly 20 years of unimaginable, unmatched success with our local teams. I can tell you we thought October of 2003 would finally be our year. And while that world’s fans never experienced the ’03 season’s heartbreak, they also never got to see the Red Sox end their 86-year drought the following post-season. That’s even worse than it sounds, too. It also means Yankees-fans survivors didn’t have to live with their team’s historic gag job. (Good thing real New Yorkers always will. GO SAWX!)

Lots of other long-suffering fanbases also had to deal with the same unfulfilled dreams. In the world of HBO’s The Last of Us, White Sox and Cubs fans in Chicago never got their titles. The NHL’s St. Louis Blues never get their only Stanley Cup, either. (Though that means my fictional equivalent didn’t have to be in the arena to witness their win, either. Good for fake me.)

Do movies, music, books, fun scientific discoveries, and sports mean anything when everyone you’ve ever known is either dead or a walking fungus? I mean, I can’t say for certain (and hopefully never will), but I’m going to guess not. And yet, all those things do matter to us. The shared experiences of pop culture matter, just as rooting for a sports team does. When they all went away during our own pandemic we missed them and celebrated their returns.

I know that’s a serious way to end a silly thought experiment on what a fake apocalypse would mean for fictional people. But it’s true. And after the last couple of years it’s definitely more fun than thinking about what it would actually be like to live through the end of the world.

But in all seriousness, if I survived The Last of Us‘ outbreak I’d have been really upset I never got to experience my teams never winning a World Series or a Stanley Cup. An apocalypse I can deal with. But I couldn’t have lived with never seeing that.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at  @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post The Pop Culture Events That THE LAST OF US’ Survivors Totally Missed appeared first on Nerdist.

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us debuted in 2013. The action-adventure game quickly acquired devoted fans enthralled by its story focused on Joel and Ellie. Joel, a smuggler, and Ellie, a teenage girl, try to make their way across a post-apocalyptic United States. An infection has ravaged the country, but Ellie’s immune and could possibly help with a cure. The escort and teen duo encounter danger along the way in the form of violent humans and scary fungus-infected creatures. Players became invested in their story. And now, HBO is bringing The Last of Us of to the screen. The network greenlit the project in November 2020.

Here’s everything we know about the series.

Title

Like the game, the series is called The Last of Us.

The Last of Us‘ Plot

The series will span a cool 10 episodes and will follow the first game, at least initially. This means we can easily assume the story will follow the award-winning video game’s narrative. It’s set in the 2030s. Joel, a smuggler who has seen some s**t, gets Ellie out of a quarantine zone for their journey. They must depend upon each other for survival as they travel from east to west. By all accounts, it’s an intense and emotional story, so brace yourself.

Here’s how HBO is describing the series:

Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation platforms, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

In addition to this synopsis, the network also recently revealed the first footage from the show, alongside new images as well as a full trailer.

In celebration of the show’s attendance at CCXP, The Last of Us also offered us first looks at many of the series’ new characters. The new posters reveal everyone from Nick Offerman as Bill to Lamar Johnson as Henry to Anna Torv as Tess to Gabriel Luna as Tommy. Of course, we also see Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie once again. Take a look at who we can expect to see when The Last of Us airs on HBO Max.

Click To View Gallery

Most recently, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed their plans for the timeline of season one and the show as a whole.

Mazin noted, “The first season is the events of the first game—and you can tell, if you have played the game, from watching the marketing materials that we’re also covering the events of the Left Behind [downloadable content]… I think that the amount of story that remains that we have not covered would be more than a season of television. So assuming we can keep going forward, the idea would be to do more than just one more season. But this isn’t the kind of show that is going to be seven seasons.”

It sounds like, while there are more than two seasons planned for The Last of Us, the creators don’t intend for the show to go on forever or even past the games. Mazin further adds:

Unless some miraculous thing happened and the video game production was accelerated by 1000% and the third game magically came out… I am not interested in going beyond the existing source material. As a viewer, I have no problem watching shows that just keep going and going and going. No problem. But as a writer, I don’t want to be in the position of spinning plates to just spool out season after season of stuff. To me, it’s important that things are purposeful, and if they’re purposeful, that means they have endings. That means everything you do is carefully selected and chosen, not just there to keep going.”

There you have it, The Last of Us series will keep within the bounds of The Last of Us, the Left Behind downloadable content, and The Last of Us Part II. And it sounds like a solid plan is in place to make sure the show covers all of the material with purpose.

As the show begins, we’re eager to see how everything we heard in the lead-up to its premiere unfolds. To keep us at the edge of our seats, HBO Max released a ‘Weeks Ahead’ trailer for The Last of Us. The teaser takes us through the episodes to come and promises us compelling characters, harrowing scares, and a whole lot of zombies.

Behind the Scenes

Neil Druckmann, the writer and creative director of The Last of Us game, will write and executive produce the series. Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) will also write and executive produce. Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, and Naughty Dog are producing. The series, which is now in production, released its first look at Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey Joel and Ellie. Sure, we can’t see their faces. But the world Druckmann and Mazin are building looks incredible.

At the 2022 Summer Game Fest, Druckmann revealed he directed an episode of the series, which is set at a museum. Fans of The Last of Us will certainly recognize this as it’s from the game. HBO even released an image from Druckmann’s episode. The image is the classic HBO dark but it certainly looks like they’re hiding from someone—or something. Are those Clickers we see?

Gustavo Santaolalla, who composed both installments of The Last of Us video games, will bring his musical talents to the HBO series.

The Last of Us‘ Cast

HBO has already cast the two lead roles of Ellie and Joel. Pedro Pascal will portray Joel, which is perfect. And Bella Ramsey, perhaps best known for playing Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones, is set to play Ellie. That is also perfect. We can’t wait to see the duo together.

Additionally, Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Murray Bartlett, Nico Parker, and Nick Offerman will star, alongside a slew of actors from the games. Merle Dandridge, who voiced Marlene in the games, will play Marlene in the Series. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Pierce (Tommy in the games), Ashley Johnson (Ellie in the games), and and Troy Baker (Joel in the games) will appear in new roles, per HBO.

Most recently, The Last of Us cast fan-favorite game characters, Henry and Sam. These brothers eventually team up with Joel and Ellie in the games, helping them to dodge human and zombie threats. In the HBO series, Lamar Johnson will play Henry. In the meanwhile, Keivonn Woodard will play the younger brother, Sam.

Per IGN, a release notes more about the characters, offering “Lamar Johnson as Henry and Keivonn Woodard as Sam, brothers in Kansas City hiding from a revolutionary movement seeking vengeance.” This indicates a slight difference from the original game, where the brothers were introduced in Pittsburgh.

In addition, two new characters, original to The Last of Us show, have also been cast. They are “a married couple surviving alone in the wilderness of post-apocalyptic Wyoming.” Graham Greene and Elaine Miles will guest star as Marlon and Florence.

Among other guest stars is Storm Reid, who will play Riley, an orphan from post-apocalyptic Boston who survives alongside Ellie prior to the latter meeting Joel. Sounds like this cast really nails it.

Finally, Rutina Wesley has joined The Last of Us‘ cast as Maria. Entertainment Weekly describes Maria as “the leader of a settlement of survivors in Jackson, Wyoming. She has an expanded role in The Last of Us Part II, but it’s possible we will see more of her earlier in the series.

The Last of Us‘ Release Date

HBO’s The Last of Us series will release on January 15, 2023.

We’re excited to celebrate the new year with The Last of Us.

Originally published on March 18, 2021.

The post Everything We Know About HBO’s THE LAST OF US appeared first on Nerdist.

The TV series The Last of Us, based on the popular video game of the same name, shows us a version of post-apocalyptic America wherein society has fallen to a deadly, brain-altering fungus. But, while most of the population has died or become shambling zombie-like hosts for Cordyceps, control has not fully broken down. No, the Federal Disaster Response Agency, or FEDRA, have largely taken over, plunging America’s remaining cities into martial law. FEDRA dictate every aspect of life in their crowded QZs, or quarantine zones. But one group has sprung up to fight them: the Fireflies. But just who are the Fireflies, The Last of Us‘ rebel group? And what role do they play in the HBO series? Let’s find out.

The Fireflies in The Last of Us, Explained

Now, the one thing you need to know right away about the Fireflies in The Last of Us is that their “war” is largely very unsuccessful. FEDRA sees them as nuisances at best and terrorists at worst. The second thing, while The Last of Us’ Fireflies may have started as a group of citizens intending to reestablish civilian government, after a while, they were just an organized militia group. Worse than that, when their first war against FEDRA failed, they turned to pseudo-religious zealotry. As we see in The Last of Us series’ first episode, the Fireflies try to recruit people who are lost and despondent. Their slogan, “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light,” is as much a rallying cry as a prayer. Although, of course, the infected are the chief “bad guys” in the show and game, we can’t exactly call the Fireflies good guys in The of Us‘ universe either.

Joel (Pedro Pascal) has no time for Fireflies. He sees them as a pain in his butt. Moreover, he resents them for convincing his younger brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) to join. Because of this, he specifically has a grudge against Marlene (Merle Dandridge), the Fireflies’ leader. He calls her “Queen Firefly” derisively. Maybe the thing he resents the most is that they preach about hope. They believe they can find a cure for the fungal infection that has leveled the entire world. Joel, probably reasonably, thinks after 20 years, were a cure possible, someone would have found it by now.

But, as the premise of the show and game show us, Joel and Tess (Anna Torv) have to make a deal with Marlene to transport Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to the Fireflies base in Boston. The aim was for the militia to give Joel and Tess a car battery so they can look for Tommy in Wyoming.

The Importance of the Fireflies in The Last of Us‘ Universe

And while smaller, more brutal rebel groups will be their main consternation from Boston to the Rocky Mountains, the Fireflies are everywhere. Look around in The Last of Us game, and in the backgrounds of the first TV episode; you’ll see the Fireflies’ logo, a, you guessed it, stylized firefly, graffitied on walls and fences. The Fireflies are omnipresent, even when they aren’t physically around. Hell, the Fireflies symbol is practically also The Last of Us‘ unofficial logo.

The Fireflies may be the MacGuffin necessary to get The Last of Us started, but the context for them and their war against FEDRA and the infected create the backbone for the entire adventure.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.

The post Who Are the Fireflies in HBO’s THE LAST OF US? appeared first on Nerdist.

One of the many things that makes the The Last of Us video game special is that it features the most realistic zombie outbreak in pop culture. The actual science of the Infected—victims of a mutated parasitic fungal Cordyceps infection—is why The Last of Us‘ monsters are also pop culture’s scariest. They’re grounded in a real natural phenomenon, and, therefore, believable, in a way their sci-fi counterparts aren’t. But HBO’s new live-action adaptation opened with an unexpected scene that not only expanded on the franchise’s science-based horror, it made it more terrifying than ever. The Last of Us show made its zombies far more chilling by making their creation far more timely.

HBO’s The Last of Us began not with the nightmarish Cordyceps outbreak of 2003, but with a 1968 talk show where two epidemiologists discussed the threat of a global pandemic. We all know what it’s like to live during such a deadly event. But the scene didn’t focus on the dangers of a virus. Dr. Newman said that while a viral pandemic might kill millions of people, ultimately humans would win. Millions might die in the war, but ultimately our species defeats all viruses. The microorganism that worries him is fungus.

Sure, “Fungi seem harmless enough,” he said. “But many species know otherwise, because there are some fungi who seek not to kill but to control.” And that’s when things got really scary on The Last of Us.

Dr. Newman discussed how some fungi, like the kind used to make LSD, can alter our minds. But while that’s a specific, temporary drug made by humans for their own consumption, there are types of fungi that are far more monstrous. A fungus-like Cordyceps, The Last of Us explains “turns creatures into a marionette, controlling its behavior before it starts to devour the host from within.” What awaits the victim is a fate worse than death, though. The fungus doesn’t kill its victim, as there’s no actual decomposition. Just as we get penicillin from fungus, fungi can keep its host from decaying. And it wants its host alive.

The Real Science Behind the Fungi and Infected of The Last of Us

This is the real science behind the video game franchise. The zombie-like Infected of The Last of Us suffer from a mutated Cordyceps invasion that seeks to consume all mankind. It uses human hosts to expand on its mission. If HBO’s show had simply explained all of that and nothing more, it would have still delivered pop culture’s most realistic, most horrifying zombies. But where the video games never offer a “how” and otherwise harmless fungus destroyed mankind, the TV show provided an explanation that hits close to our own current world.

The other epidemiologist scoffed at Dr. Newman’s fears, and not without reason. As Newman admitted, fungi can’t survive in hosts whose internal temperature is above 94 degrees. That’s why they aren’t a threat to humans and our higher body temps. But Dr. Newman provided the exact scenario where fungi would pose a threat to humanity. And it’s a scenario that sounds far too plausible.

“Currently, there are no reasons for fungi to evolve to withstand higher temperatures,” he said. “But what if that were to change? What if, for instance, the world were to get slightly warmer? Well, now there is reason to evolve,” he added. And if any of those types of real, mind-controlling fungi mutate? They could “become capable of burrowing into our brains and taking control” of billions, he explained. “Billions of puppets with poisoned minds permanently fixed on one unifying goal: to spread the infection to every last human alive by any means necessary.” Don’t expect a miracle vaccine to save the day, either. “There are no treatments for this, no preventatives, no cures,” Dr. Newman said, “They don’t exist. Its not even possible to make them.”

And what happens if the world gets warmer and a deadly fungus evolves to the point it can take over a human body? “We lose.” We lose everything and everyone.

Our planet is getting warmer, and—if we haven’t already—could soon hit a tipping point of no return. What will a warming planet mean for humanity? How bad will things get? How unlivable might we make our only home because we refuse to save ourselves from ourselves? Will we run out of fresh water? Will sea levels continue to rise so high we don’t have enough livable land to go around? Might vital crops wither and die in the heat while more severe storms ravage dated infrastructure? Just how bad will things get? And how many of us will die while the few survivors fight each other for scant resources?

And those are just the outcomes we can anticipate. Surely there will be consequences we won’t see coming. Could that include how a microorganism, one previously harmless to humans, will adapt to survive a changing world in a way that dooms humanity, just like on The Last of Us?

It doesn’t matter if that last possibility seems the most remote or even improbable. It’s scary because it sounds plausible. The mere idea, rooted in the very real existential crisis facing our species, is enough to make HBO’s The Last of Us truly terrifying. As is the fact the people living in that zombie dystopia had decades to deal with the problem. The science was there, warning them while there was still plenty of time to do something.

The Last of Us franchise has always featured the best zombies because they’re based far more on science than fiction. But by finally giving us an explanation that is more timely and relevant than we want to think about, HBO’s series has given us something to truly worry about—the inevitable. Because while it might not be a fungus and zombies that come for us, we’re creating a world that will turn on us sooner than later.

Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.

The post How THE LAST OF US Made Pop Culture’s Scariest Zombies Even More Terrifying appeared first on Nerdist.

HBO’s long-anticipated adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is airing on the small screen January 15 after almost a decade of dogged adoration by its loyalists. Transforming a videogame into a nine-episode television series is no small feat. This adaptation will certainly have some liberties within its story. No one better explains the world changes better than Neil Druckmann, Naughty Dog president, creator of The Last of Us, and executive producer for the series. He spoke with IGN, stating: “Things sometimes stay pretty close… And sometimes they deviate greatly to much better effect because we are dealing with a different medium.”  

Nevertheless, the world that houses both The Last of Us game and the series is rich with detail and background. Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve played through the game. Or maybe you’ve never touched a PlayStation controller in your life. We’ve got your back here at Nerdist. This post gives you everything you need to know about the universe and overall lore of The Last of Us. This includes The Last of Us‘ most important characters, themes, locations, timelines, and general facts that will equip you to watch the HBO series. Here’s what you need to know about the universe of The Last of Us. Beware of game spoilers ahead that could show up in the series.

Jump to: The World of The Last of Us // Plot and Timeline // The Last of Us Main Characters // The Last of Us Prominent Groups // The Last of Us Locations

The Overall World Setting of The Last of Us

The Last of Us takes place in a world where a species of cordyceps fungus mutates and gains the ability to infect human beings. In the game, the infection reaches critical mass on September 26, 2013, a.k.a. “Outbreak Day.” This was the year of The Last of Us’ original release; however, the show’s production confirmed that Outbreak Day would occur on the same day but a decade earlier in 2003 for the HBO series. 

The game is culturally thought of as set in a zombie apocalypse. But The Last of Us sets itself apart by the speculative science fiction of its world. Those with the infection are not dead but are merely being controlled by the fungus that rapidly takes over their bodies. The infection courses through their blood vessels, invades tissues, and sprouts through their heads. It is gruesome and also terrifying considering the fence that the story straddles when it comes to possibility. However, the infected behave generally like classic Hollywood zombies, with some exceptions and modifications. 

The mythology of the infected is subject to change with the show; however, in The Last of Us Part I, there are a few different classifications of infected, corresponding to disease progression. These classes include Runners, Stalkers, Clickers, and Bloaters. The most distinguished are Clickers and Bloaters. They embody very advanced disease states, with fungus covering most of their bodies. They sense the world through echolocation, as they are functionally unable to see. You can learn more about these creatures and their specific behaviors and looks in our handy guide.

A Brief Plot Synopsis and Timeline Comparison of The Last of Us 

Now that you have a general handle on the world, let’s get into the actual plot that we will see in the TV show and how it compares to the game. In both mediums, the main events of The Last of Us occur 20 years after Outbreak Day. In the game, things took place in 2033; however, the show changing the outbreak to 2003 means these events will take place in 2023. Very timely, indeed. The United States is run down with reduced local governments, starvation, murder, and desolation by this time. So, the core plot of The Last of Us cinches on hope and possibility with the promise of a cure.

The show will track a cross-country adventure between two unlikely travel companions, Joel Miller and Ellie Williams. The duo grow close and reluctantly evolve into a father-daughter pair that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. These are the same main characters from The Last of Us‘ game world as well. The original story is rife with loss, violence, humor, and love, and we can expect similar themes in the series. There is one ultimate question that sits on everyone’s mind throughout the run: Will there truly be light at the end of the tunnel? 

Jump to: The World of The Last of Us // Plot and Timeline // The Last of Us Main Characters // The Last of Us Prominent Groups // The Last of Us Locations

The Main Characters of The Last of Us 

There are quite a few characters in The Last of Us that you need to know. While their characterization and other details may end up being a bit different in the show, here’s what you need to know about their general history.

Joel Miller

Joel Miller, played by Pedro Pascal in the series, is the father figure out of the two main characters we follow throughout the story. In his late 40s-50s, Joel is broken after losing his daughter Sarah on Outbreak Day. Sadly, she is on the wrong end of a soldier’s machine gun. Present day, he lives in the Boston Quarantine Zone (ZQ) and works as a smuggler with his partner Tess. The wristwatch he wears is a birthday gift from Sarah. But it gets shattered the very same night during the Outbreak. The pain of losing his daughter has haunted him for 20 years. This history will complicate Joel’s responsibility of crossing the country with a girl the same age as his daughter at the time of her death. But it may also be healing.

Ellie Williams

Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey in the show, is a fourteen-year-old orphan who has spent her entire life within the Boston QZ. She has spent her life in the FEDRA (more on them later) military school. She is cheeky, scrappy, and hardened by the circumstances of her life without family. She likes comics, puns, and knows her way around a knife for someone of her age. Ellie is also functionally immune to the cordyceps fungus, which is why she becomes the object of the Fireflies’ interest when looking for a cure.  

Other Important Characters in The Last of Us 

Marlene 

Marlene is the head of the Fireflies within the Boston QZ. She has known Ellie since her birthday, as she knew Ellie’s mother, Anna. Marlene is with Ellie when she discovers that she is immune to the cordyceps fungus, which is when she organizes to have her transported across the country to the Fireflies lab, where they are looking for a cure. She had a relationship with Tommy Miller, Joel’s brother, when he was working with the Fireflies in the past. Merle Dandridge will play Marlene in the show.

Theresa “Tess” Servopoulos

Tess is Joel’s smuggling partner in the QZ, but is also his best friend, and more than likely something more than that as they share an apartment, but they don’t use any extra labels. Tess is the brains behind their 2-person operation on The Last of Us, but can also hold her own in a fight. She is fierce and unyielding but dedicated to her partner. It is her dying wish that acts as the driving factor for Joel to embark on his journey of transporting Ellie across the country. Anna Torv will take on this role in The Last of Us TV show.

Riley 

Riley is Ellie’s best and only friend. The Last of Us: Left Behind centers on Ellie’s story with Riley and how they got infected together. But Riley is not immune to the fungus, so she dies shortly before the modern-day events of the story. Riley originally was attending military school with Ellie but left to be one of the youngest of the Fireflies in Boston. Storm Reid will take on the role of Riley in The Last of Us.

Tommy Miller

Tommy is Joel’s younger brother. They were close prior to Outbreak Day and he saves Joel and Sarah from a shooting death. At some point, Tommy and Joel venture from Austin up to Boston, and there are hints that the two of them lived as Hunters before arriving at the Boston QZ.  When in Boston, Tommy became one of the Fireflies and had some relationship with Marlene. At some point, he leaves Boston after a falling out with Joel and moves across the country to Jackson, Wyoming, where he meets his future wife, Maria. The two of them live and work in a fully-functional commune. Gabriel Luna will portray Tommy in the series.

Bill 

Bill is a paranoid and bitter survivalist who lives in a town on the outskirts of Boston. He has traps and trip wires set up on the perimeter to keep out Infected and raiders, and Joel explains to Ellie that he doesn’t take too kindly to strangers. His interactions with Ellie in the game provide comedic relief amidst the horror. There are hints that Bill is gay, as Ellie steals one of his male porn magazines. His relationship with his “partner” Frank could get expansion in the world of The Last of Us with Murray Bartlett taking on a larger role. 

Henry & Sam

Henry and Sam are brothers whom Joel and Ellie meet in Pittsburgh when trying to get through the city. Henry is the elder, in his 20s, and Sam is just a year younger than Ellie. Henry is very protective over his younger brother, and they ultimately ally themselves with Joel and Ellie in their travels. Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Woodard will be the show’s Henry and Sam, respectively.

Jump to: The World of The Last of Us // Plot and Timeline // The Last of Us Main Characters // The Last of Us Prominent Groups // The Last of Us Locations

Prominent Groups Within The Last of Us 

There are different collectives, both formal and informal, that function within the story of The Last of Us, both antagonistically and not. They form as a result of the Outbreak and have been ongoing for close to 20 years, with variability in their different locations.

FEDRA

When the outbreak of cordyceps hits the United States, FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency) usurps the central government, declares martial law, and takes control of the military. They are incredibly militant and authoritarian and are generally seen as monsters in the eyes of common folk for the actions that they take in the name of protecting the people. They act locally by moving uninfected people into Quarantine Zones within major cities. In the QZs, they regulate food rations, work stations, and execute civilian escapees. 

The Fireflies

The Fireflies arise as a revolutionary militia group in response to the barbaric actions of FEDRA; their ultimate goals are to dissolve FEDRA and strive for a more centralized government. Like FEDRA, there are many different factions of the Fireflies, acting in different Quarantine Zones throughout the country. They are most notably known for their bombings and attacks on FEDRA officers, but they also organize in other various ways, like smuggling resources into the QZ. Cynics like Joel see their actions as inconsequential and misdirected.

Hunters

Hunters are a general term for hostile survivor-types who murder innocent, uninfected civilians to obtain more resources like clothing or food. They have little regard for human life other than their own and will murder with little to no provocation. 

The Last of Us Road Map: Important Locations and Settings

As The Last of Us embodies an Odyssey-like adventure, there is a litany of different settings featured within the story. The cross country roadtrip begins in Boston and ends in Salt Lake City, with stops along the way. Here are the locations that show up in the world of The Last of Us.

Boston

The events in Boston take place between the Boston QZ and Downtown Boston. The Boston QZ is where the journey begins as Joel, Ellie, and Tess sneak out of the Quarantine Zone, risking their lives.

Jackson, Wyoming 

Jackson houses the commune that was started by Maria and her father. They are fully functional, harnessing energy from the dam for electricity, growing food, and purifying their own water. At some point, it is mentioned that 20 families live within the commune. So, this location proves to be the hope that civilization could restart after the apocalypse. 

University of Eastern Colorado

The University of Eastern Colorado, though only a fictional institution, is where the Fireflies were rumored to be researching the vaccine against cordyceps.

St. Mary’s Hospital, Salt Lake City

This hospital encompasses another of the Fireflies’ labs, as there was a need to abandon the first due to a mass influx of Infected. This is the endpoint on the roadmap, where the main events of the final leg of the story occur.

Now here is where we leave you! Go forth and into the HBO series with a solid background in The Last of Us and its dark yet hopeful world.

Jump to: The World of The Last of Us // Plot and Timeline // The Last of Us Main Characters // The Last of Us Prominent Groups // The Last of Us Locations

The post A Guide to the Infected World of THE LAST OF US appeared first on Nerdist.

We only have a few more days to wait before HBO’s The Last of Us. We’ll get Ellie and Joel, played by Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, respectively, on our screens in a new way. But if you just can’t hold out any longer, now you can go ahead and sub the Ramsey’s likeness into the video game. This fan-made mod to Naughty Dog’s popular The Last of Us Part II, which we already loved, shows actor Bella Ramsey as Ellie. It may not be a perfect update, but as the video below shows, it’s still a fun act of fan service. Plus, it means you can see your favorite moments even if they don’t end up appearing in the show. There’s no word yet on whether the fan is working on a mod to add Pedro Pascal to the video games, but we’d love to see it. 

The user who created the model, Vontadeh, shared some insights on the modeling in the video’s YouTube comments. They weren’t able to adjust to all of the character’s facial expressions, so there’s a slight aspect of uncanny valley. It’s still a cool concept, though. The mod, which we learned about from GameSpot, dropped just a week in advance of the much-anticipated show. 

The HBO Max series The Last of Us premieres January 15, 2023. Check out everything we know about the series to get prepped for the fungus zombie post-apocalyptic world. There’s also a tabletop version of the game coming later in 2023.

The original Last of Us video games are definitely worth checking out. Even if you’re not great at playing the games, as Pascal himself admitted to in an interview, the storytelling is amazing. Thankfully, the game’s creator is working on the TV version of The Last of Us.

Melissa is Nerdist’s science & technology staff writer. She also moderates “science of” panels at conventions and co-hosts Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. Follow her on Twitter @melissatruth.

The post Bella Ramsey Is Ellie in This New Mod for THE LAST OF US appeared first on Nerdist.

If someone gave you the opportunity to have any two Game of Thrones alums co-star on a new show, it would be hard to top the pairing of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. So no surprise the network did exactly that. HBO knows a lot of us will watch any series with those two as leads. But it doesn’t hurt that their upcoming show together also looks absolutely fantastic. Because the latest trailer for The Last of Us has everything we’d want from an adaptation of the popular video game. And we’re already prepared to be absolutely devastated by it.

We don’t know if we envy viewers unfamiliar with The Last of Us games or not. This is a fantastic trailer that conveys just how intense, dangerous, and emotional this story truly is. We’re definitely jealous of those about to experience it for the first time. However, we’re also glad we’re mentally preparing to watch it in a way newbies can’t. (Well, they can probably get ready for Clickers. They look absolutely terrifying and speak for themselves.)

For those unfamiliar with what’s happening, here’s the show’s official logline from HBO:

The Last of Us takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival. 

In addition to Pascal and Ramsey, the series also stars: Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Anna Torv as Tess, Nico Parker as Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Storm Reid as Riley, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, and Elaine Miles as Florence. The show also features video game voice actors Ashley Johnson (that’s her giving birth to Ellie!) and Troy Baker (a member of David’s gang).

Will we survive this difficult trek across a monster-filled wasteland? Emotionally? No. Physically? Maybe not. But after this The Last of Us trailer we really can’t wait to start it anyway. These two actors in these roles make us too excited.

The Last of Us‘s nine-episode first season begins its journey at HBO on Sunday, January 15.

The post THE LAST OF US Trailer Heads West on a Dangerous Journey appeared first on Nerdist.

Video games, even the best of the best, don’t always translate well to live-action. We’re not worried about HBO’s upcoming The Last of Us series living up to expectations, though. It has an absolutely amazing cast to bring its incredible story to life. And everything we’ve seen from the show so far looks amazing. But if it doesn’t live up to the hype, it won’t be the end of the world. We’ll soon have another new way to get our fill of Clickers. Naughty Dog has announced it has partnered with Themeborne on a new The Last of Us: Escape the Dark board game.

The Kickstarter for Naughty Dog’s new The Last of Us board game will go live on November 9. We’ll have to wait until then for more specifics on the game, including its supporter tier prices. But we have some idea of what to expect. Naughty Dog’s announcement cited Themeborne’s previous Escape the Dark entries, which include Escape the Dark Castle and Escape the Dark Sector.

Naughty Dog also highlighted how Themeborne’s series “values cooperative and easy-to-understand gameplay” and features “seriously beautiful black-and-white illustrated chapter cards that players work to resolve together, overcoming challenges and creating new paths each time they play so no two games are quite alike.” The co-op element is a fitting one for this story. And the black-and-white aesthetic will make for one gorgeous The Last of Us board game. (Who knew a world overrun by disease and monsters could look so good?)

The game will also include the franchise’s two most important characters. The tabletop adventure will provide a “fascinating take on Joel and Ellie’s adventure.” So expect to cry at the game’s conclusion.

If you’re eager for yet another way to explore this post-apocalyptic world, get in early. The Kickstarter will give fans an opportunity to buy an exclusive collector’s edition of The Last of Us‘ board game. And if HBO’s The Last of Us is everything we hope it will be, that will be quite an unexpectedly delightful combo for video game fans.

The post THE LAST OF US Board Game Will Bring Clickers, Ellie, and Joel to Tabletops appeared first on Nerdist.

After many brief teases, glimpses, and hints, we finally have something meaty to sink our teeth into when it comes to HBO Max’s upcoming series adaptation of the beloved gaming franchise The Last of Us. Video game adaptations can go in many different ways, so fans of The Last of Us can sleep a little easier tonight knowing the teaser trailer for the show looks incredible. (That is if images of the show’s zombies don’t keep them away.) The Last of Us teaser even includes nods to DLC goodies from the games. What more could anyone ask for?

 “Save who you can save.” The description for The Last of Us‘ teaser trailer ominously notes. And the logline for the show gives us even more of a reminder of what the core of the show. It shares:

The Last of Us story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

“Brutal and heartbreaking” is definitely the vibe of this trailer. Though we have only seen a glimpse of them acting together, we already feel totally sold on the relationship between Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie. We just know this one will tear our hearts out and stomp all over them.

We’re also more than ready to meet Melanie Lynskey’s character. Odds are she isn’t playing Yellowjackets‘ Shauna here, but given the context, whoever her character is may not be that far off either. A release for The Last of Us‘ teaser trailer does not yet reveal who Lynskey is playing. But according to TV Line, Lynskey’s character is “Kathleen, the ruthless leader of a revolutionary movement in Kansas City.” That actually does sound a bit like Shauna to us.

All in all, though, we’ve had many renditions of zombie stories over the last few years. But HBO Max’s The Last of Us still excites us. So many kudos to the series for that. We can’t wait to hear more about when the show will release. For now, all The Last of Us‘ teaser trailer reveals to us is that we can expect it in 2023.

The post THE LAST OF US Teaser Reveals Zombies and So Much Suspense appeared first on Nerdist.

Hardcore HBO fans know why big premiere nights are extra exciting. When the network knows lots of viewers will be tuning in for a highly anticipated show they use that as an opportunity to promote their other projects. That’s exactly what the cable station did ahead of House of the Dragon’s first episode. HBO aired a reel teasing its many upcoming series. And that promo provided our first look at HBO’s upcoming adaptation of The Last of Us. Which in less than 20 seconds, already looks emotionally devastating.

HBO and HBO Max just got the hype train running on the backs of dragons with a jam-packed trailer. The teaser included quick looks at a ton of returning and debuting shows, including hits like Succession and The White Lotus. As well as sneak peeks at new miniseries like The White House Plumbers and Love & Death. But clearly, someone over there knows what we’re most excited for because it ended with a longer glimpse at The Last of Us.

The footage focuses on Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, who are first seen walking across a snow-covered bridge. But the promo also shows him training her. And they two talk (or in Joel’s case, argue) about how much they’ve lost. While that happens, we get some flashbacks of why they’ve both had it so bad along with teases of the terror that still awaits them. Finally, the trailer gives us a glimpse of Nick Offerman’s Bill. He’s seen removing a gas mask.

As far as first looks go, it’s not much. But it’s plenty to get us even more excited for the video game adaptation. If this is your introduction to the franchise, though, it’s probably not possible to know exactly what’s going on. But the series’ official synopsis can fill in the many blanks. From HBO:

Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation platforms, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

The show will not feature dragons. But we appreciate them flying in this preview of The Last of Us.

The post HBO Shares First Footage From THE LAST OF US appeared first on Nerdist.

Pedro Pascal is a busy man. He recently starred in the Judd Apatow film The Bubble and soon fronts The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent alongside Nicolas Cage. And that’s not to mention the impending season three of The Mandalorian. But in addition, the booked and busy Pascal will also lead the much-anticipated adaptation of The Last of Us. The Naughty Dog game is especially lauded for its striking storytelling and stunning visuals. But while Pascal feels incredibly impressed by the games, we likely won’t hear much about his journey playing The Last of Us. Because, quite simply, Pedro Pascal is not good at the game.

In a recent interview with GQ, the interviewer revealed themselves as a massive fan of The Last of Us. This prompted Pascal to share that he just doesn’t have It when it comes to the game.

“It’s so sad, I haven’t any skill,” Pascal said. “I tried, you know. And then it was only a matter of minutes before I had to hand it over to my nephew. It really takes a specific kind of skill, and I don’t have it.”

The post THE LAST OF US Star Pedro Pascal Is Bad at the Game appeared first on Nerdist.

To say that the first installment of The Last of Us was a landmark in video game narration is a gross understatement. Decorated with countless accolades, the 2013 video game weaves in a raw and tender story about the companionship between Joel, a fortysomething emotionally broken man who lost his daughter, and Ellie, an abandoned adolescent girl with a curious immunity. Together, they embark on a cross-country adventure twenty years into a post-apocalyptic world. In The Last of Us narrative world, the whole of modern society crumbles in the blink of an eye. An outbreak of the Cordyceps fungus tears through the human population, the infection creating zombie-like beings out of its Homo sapien hosts.

Editor’s Note: The Last of Us videos contains explicit language. 

The premise is undeniably thrilling with Joel and Ellie’s relationship providing a beating heart within the game’s high octane stakes. The rapport they have—initially tense, strife with grief and pain—quickly morphs into that between a parent and child. This blossoming familial love is reparative for both of them. But so is the sarcasm, along with the ongoing banter that will undoubtedly translate directly into the HBO series. It’s what makes Ellie and Joel, well, Ellie and Joel. In the adaptation, there should be a good dose of the whimsical, as there definitely will not be a deficit of somber and heart-wrenching elements. 

What is equally impressive is the game’s ability to deliver an entire other dimension to the character’s narrative arcs, all through subtleties. These plot efforts are so subliminal that you can almost miss them if you aren’t paying attention to every utterance and shot of motion-capture. But, if noticed and well received, their circuitous delivery makes them that much more enriching. However, in the show adaptation, strict adherence to the passivity of these arcs is not needed, nor is it opportune. A cinematic adaption will focus more on the stories of the characters. There is no involvement of a third-party gameplayer. Therefore, the narrative will likely prioritize more showing versus telling.

A prime instance of this subtle storytelling in the first game, which is my personal favorite part of the narration, is the relationship Joel has with Tess. She’s his work partner and the brains of their smuggling operation. On the surface, we are not privy to any explicit omissions from either of them. And Tess isn’t in the game very long before a bite on her neck settles any ambiguity in her relationship with Joel. However, HBO’s best interest, from a cinematic perspective, is to expand the relationship between Tess and Joel. This can be done through retrospective flashbacks or the combination of more explicit body language and dialogue.

It will help the audience fully understand why Joel’s dedication to Tess is so unrelenting. And it will explain why Tess’s dying words are the ultimate driving force for Joel to carry out his mission with Ellie. Tess’s final moments in the game leave so many unspoken details to unravel. So the show has a rather ample reserve of material to siphon from for a deeper narrative. If anything, a further fleshed-out romantic arc would only better contribute to Joel’s character development. Viewers can see how he defaults to putting his walls up, in light of his emotionally debilitating history. The production could tap into the million-dollar question: Is Joel still capable of intimate vulnerability?

Other instances of this storytelling mechanism appear throughout the game. The development of Bill’s identity comes out in an offhand admission about how he and his “partner” had a falling out. The word  becomes a double entendre. The game includes something resembling a vicious break-up note addressed to Bill along with Ellie taking items that strongly suggests his sexuality. If the showrunners chose to make Bill’s sexual orientation explicit, there would be an added comedic layer between Bill and Ellie’s hostility. It would be rather ironic considering they are not heterosexual. Also, on a deeper level, give the arc of Ellie figuring out her sexual identity richer development. 

There is also the subtle implication of David’s cannibalism. Frankly, I would not be upset if the show decided to keep this as implied rather than explicit. The game does not try to masquerade the foul and macabre practices of David’s collective; however, amplifying this part of the plot could detract from its nascent eeriness. This could, in a way, disrespect the source material by changing the story’s tone. I suspect that HBO will favor violence just going by its history. And as long as they keep the heart rates high, I will welcome whatever way the showrunners adapt this section. 

These aspects of The Last of Us are rich and make the game what it is; they also allow for players to engage outside of the game. They have been making connections and backstories for these beloved characters and allowing for implications to be treated as canon. Whether HBO will preserve these treasures is to be seen. But there is a good chance that the creators of the show will lean into many subtleties in a more cinematic way.

It may dive into background to the smuggling network in Greater Boston, exhibiting the origins of the relationship between Tess and Joel through flashbacks. And, the possibility of nonlinear storytelling is high. Murray Bartlett has been cast in a speaking role as Frank. In the game, he is never featured alive. At any rate, it would be of great narrative interest to shed light on the background as an homage to the game’s implicative storytelling.

When it comes to an adaptation, there will always be concern for the work’s fidelity to the source content. I believe that these densely layered arcs that are oh-so precious within the game is in good hands. Maybe even the best of hands. The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann is playing a large role in the writing of the series, as well as directing one of the episodes. We can spend from now to eternity speculating on how to properly adapt the game. And the game’s narrative opulence ultimately is what ignites those brilliant ideas.

The post How HBO Can Expand THE LAST OF US in a Powerful Way appeared first on Nerdist.

Many actors made an impression over Game of Thrones‘ eight seasons. But maybe none so much as Bella Ramsey. The young talent portrayed the ferocious, no-nonsense Lyanna Mormont. She first appeared as the leader of House Mormont in season six and commanded any scene she appeared in. Her men followed her with reverence and Ramsey absolutely sold it. And now, according to The Hollywood Reporter, she’s landed the lead in HBO’s The Last of Us TV series. Bella Ramsey will play Ellie.

HBO

HBO announced their intent to adapt Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us video game nearly a year ago. Released in 2013, The Last of Us is an action adventure following Joel and Ellie. The latter is a teenage orphan. Joel escorts the teen through a post-apocalyptic United States rife with hostiles—human and otherwise. A deadly pandemic ravaged the country (too real) and Ellie may be the key to the cure. Intense is the word that comes to mind.

But after seeing Ramsey step up in Game of Thrones, which had its own brutalities, we have no doubt she can carry the role of Ellie with gravitas and earnestness. I’m already imagining a future full of sharp lines and the resulting gifs. Lyanna Mormont has no shortage of those.

HBO/Naughty Dog

And as far as Joel, Deadline reports none other than Pedro Pascal will take on the role. After seeing him in a father role in The Mandalorian, we have no doubt he’ll absolutely crush it as Joel. It’s unclear what this will mean for Din Djarin though. The character does wear frequently wear a helmet and other performers step in for Pascal. Maybe there’s a way he can balance both?

Naughty Dog/Lucasfilm

Neil Druckmann, The Last of Us‘ writer and creative director, is serving as executive producer alongside Craig Mazin. The latter will also pen the script. Kantemir Balagov will direct the pilot.

Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist and the author of The Jedi Mind, available now. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Originally published on February 10, 2021 with updates on the same date.

The post Pedro Pascal to Play Joel in THE LAST OF US TV Series appeared first on Nerdist.

When The Last of Us was released in 2013 it quickly became nothing less than a cultural phenomenon. Gamers around the world fell for the gritty and emotional post apocalyptic tale that centered on a smuggler, Joel, and his young charge, Ellie. After seven years and lots of rumors HBO has finally announced that they’ll be adapting the award winning game into a series which will see Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin team up with The Last of Us creator and writer Neil Druckmann to bring the beloved and critically acclaimed game to the screen, and potentially the upcoming sequel too.

HBO and Sony shared an update on the series on November 20, 2020 confirming Mazin’s and Druckmann’s roles. They’ve given a series order to the drama.

Twitter

If you haven’t played The Last of Us it follows Joel (Troy Baker) who is hired to help get a young girl across the post-apocalyptic landscape of the United States. The reason for this strange assignment is all very Children of Men, see it turns out that Ellie (Ashley Johnson) is immune to the infection that has wreaked havoc on the nation and she could be the key to a potential cure. Though The Last of Us is ostensibly a survival action game it was the close relationship between both the core playable characters that made The Last of Us such a runaway hit.

As huge fans of the game we have a few ideas about who the core cast could be brought to life by and now that a series is in the works we thought it was the perfect time to share them!

Joel – Oscar Isaac

NBC/Sony

After winning all our hearts as Poe Dameron we only had one choice in mind for Joel. Oscar Isaac has all the gruff heroism that the character needs, he can do action, heart, and heroics, plus he’s still to have that true leading man moment. We also have to give a notable mention to Troy Baker the prolific and talented voice actor who brought Joel to life, if HBO were willing to take a little risk it could be very cool to see him get to bring Joel to live action too.

Ellie – Dafne Keen

HBO/Sony

There was a lot of controversy around the design of Ellie in the original game as she was quite clearly based on Elliot Page, who was not involved in The Last of Us and ended up asking for an apology from the game creators. Even with that inspiration in mind, Ellie is 14 so we were thinking of young action experienced actresses who could bring a gravitas and power to the role and our minds immediately went to Dafne Keen. After her stunning debut as Laura Kinney in Logan she recently expanded her fanbase as the lead in HBO’s lauded His Dark Materials adaptation, and we’d love to see her take on the co-lead in The Last of Us.

Tommy – Pedro Pascal

Netflix/Sony

Everyone’s been waiting for best buds Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal to share the screen in a truly epic fashion. We think casting Pascal as Joel’s brother Tommy could be the perfect moment. Tommy and Joel share a special bond but it’s one that is complex and often tough, outside of Ellie he is the character who knows Joel best and the only one who has a shared past with him. Pascal has the perfect rugged looks and emotional range to expand on this key character who will certainly show up in the upcoming adaptation.

Tess – Ruth Negga

AMC/Sony

Tess’ role is relatively small but completely vital in the game. It would be interesting to see it explored more in this adaptation, especially depending on the way that the creative team decides to adapt Joel’s life before he meets Ellie. Tess is Joel’s smuggling partner and isn’t afraid of doing whatever she needs to get the job done. It could be interesting to see Tess survive to help Joel and Ellie and if the show makes that change then we’d love to see Preacher’s brilliant Ruth Negga take up that place as part of the core trio. It would be a big change so we won’t count on it but even so, if we’re to see an expanded version of Tess we’d love to see Negga turn her talented hand to this action heavy role.

Bill – W. Earl Brown

HBO/Sony

W. Earl Brown has showcased his talents as a voice actor and screen talent and that’s the reason we’d be incredibly excited for him to reprise his role as the paranoid and fearful ally of Joel and Tess in the live action adaptation. Bill is a business partner of the smuggling pair but lives in constant terror of the infected surrounding himself booby traps and weapons. Though Bill seems to play into some classic zombie / outbreak tropes he suffers a tragedy which plays a key part in Joel’s journey, so it’ll take a seriously talented character actor to bring him to life.

Marlene – Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Paramount/Sony

The leader of the militia group known as the Fireflies, Marlene plays a large role in the wider story of Joel and Ellie. Her organization is attempting to free the quarantined from the military. But there’s something even more vital here, as Marlene was a close friend of Ellie’s mother who asked her to take care of her daughter. Now we’ve just seen HBO adapt a classic property with a subversive and strange take that changed much of what we knew, so there’s a chance that Joel might not be the one to help Ellie fight her way to freedom… if they were looking to change we’d be interested in seeing Marlene taking that place. But either way we’d love to see the awesome Gugu Mbatha-Raw take on the radical and complex role of Marlene.

David – John Hawkes

Roadside Attractions/Sony

Every story needs a secret villain and David plays that role as he appears as an ally to Ellie only to reveal that his survival instinct has fostered a horrific dark side. Not only does veteran character actor John Hawkes bear a striking resemblance to the character in the game, but he also has the ability to be both charismatic and creepy, scary and safe, and most importantly the power to be a truly terrifying foe for Ellie and Joel.

We’ll have to wait and see what HBO has in store for The Last of Us, but be sure that we’ll be keeping our ears to the ground to get all the news on the adaptation as and when it hits!

Featured Image: Naughty Dog

Originally published March 5, 2020.

The post Let’s Fan Cast HBO’s THE LAST OF US Series appeared first on Nerdist.