Well, at least things didn’t get quite this bad. In a new post-apocalyptic series, it takes just 48 hours for a pandemic to turn most of the world’s population into rabid, brain-dead hosts for a deadly fungus.
The Last of Us is the much-anticipated HBO adaptation of a video game widely considered to be one of the greatest ever made. Praised for its elevation of a zombie horror into something emotive and artful, it now has a fitting counterpart in the form of this beautiful, brutal nine-part dramatisation by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, writer of the original.
As the creator of Chernobyl, Mazin knows how to cultivate and sustain a queasy sense of doom. Here, foreboding quickly explodes into outright terror, not least in the series opener when a mysterious parasite sweeps through the globe, transforming every street into a Boschian hellscape.
Most of those who survive the outbreak are herded into militarised quarantine zones. Twenty years on, in totalitarian Boston, a grieving father and smuggler, Joel (Pedro Pascal), is tasked with delivering a teenage orphan to a resistance group outside the city limits. She is Ellie (Bella Ramsey, terrific), a precocious girl and precious piece of human cargo who is apparently immune to infection.
The first couple of episodes may not entice newcomers. There’s initially an overly neat, level-like structure to escapees’ journeys, while one example of extreme body horror is enough to put anyone off mushrooms for life. But those who persist will be rewarded with a wonderful, near-standalone third chapter that follows two men (Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett) building a solitary but love-filled life together in an isolated safe haven.
From that point on, The Last of Us balances cold terror with warm humanity. As focus shifts back to Joel and Ellie, we see them developing a tender, mutually protective rapport in face of constant peril. It’s one thing to make the end of the world seem terrifying, another altogether to convince us that life is still valuable and worth fighting for, even in the most desperate circumstances.
★★★★☆
On Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK from January 16 at 9pm, and on HBO Max in the US
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