Heart Wrenching Television: ‘The Last Of Us’ Review

Dakota Motley
Business Manager

ENTER-TV-MTV-AWARDS-MCT — Pedro Pascal, left, and Bella Ramsey in the season finale of “The Last of Us.” (Liane Hentscher/HBO/TNS)

“The Last of Us’” is a television series released on Jan. 15. The show is an adaptation of the popular PlayStation game by the same name, released in 2013 by Naughty Dog.

Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a pair connected through the harshness of the world they live in, are forced to endure brutal circumstances and ruthless killers on a trek across a post-outbreak America.

As the pair travel, they form a sort of father-daughter relationship without being related at all. Joel and Ellie connect on a level that is not often shown on television. Ellie lost both of her parents before she was even a few hours old, and Joel lost his daughter at the start of the breakout.

At the start the two don’t get along, Joel only doing the job to get back to his brother and Ellie only doing it to help out the woman who raised her, but surviving countless attacks by, what they call Clickers and infected, and traveling across multiple states they can’t help but form some type of relationship

By the second episode viewers have formed a bond with Joel, Ellie and Tess (Anna Torv), but are surprised by the gory and unsuspected way that Tess dies. The viewers don’t get a break from the heartache as the next episode follows Joel’s friends Bill and Frank and how the two connected and lived through this apocalypse, only to commit suicide at the end of the episode.

The show had 4.7 million people watch the first episode and by the eighth and final episode aired the viewers were up to 8.1 million. The excitement and demand for the show only increased after that.

HBO has renewed the show for a second season which will move its focus to the second game, “The Last of Us Part 2”. In the game the viewpoint moves from majorly Joel to all Ellie’s perspective as she deals with life growing up outside of the Quarantine Zones.

Viewers are excited to see how the new season comes out having high expectations from this previous one. The show is only streamable on HBO Max, with a subscription, and has a 8.9/10 on IMDB making it the most popular tv show of 2023 so far.