HBO breaks the curse of live action video game adaptations.
This article contains spoilers for the pilot episode of The Last of Us. Season 1, Episode 1 "When You're Lost in the Darkness" aired January 15, 2023.
It's been established that the HBO series will not be a 1:1 recreation of game, but the pilot was damn faithful to the source material. And covers a tremendous amount of ground in it's 85-minute runtime. Video game adaptations notoriously draw ire- deservedly, most times. It's clear to fans and new viewers when a studio simply wants to capitalize on the success of a given franchise. The product is usually a movie with a weak story, void of the elements that drew players in the first place. The Last of Us, relievedly, is none of those things. And it's clear why.
The new original series was adapted for HBO by showrunner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann, co-president of the game's parent company, Naughty Dog. Mazin was a fan of the game before coming into the conversation about the series, and it's evident.
The Last of Us was already structured like a TV show. Turning it into an actual series liberates the narrative to expand beyond the game's boundaries.
Utilizing the extra room the medium provides, The Last of Us sets up its impending cataclysm with a 60's talk show segment as its opening scene. Epidemiologists point out that a true world-ending biological event won't come in the form of a bacteria or virus; it would be fungi.
The audience laughs. The host prods. The scientists detail the unique horror of a (serious) fungal infection. It doesn't just kill the host; it controls them in the process.
But, humans needn't worry. There are few strains of mushrooms capable of such a feat, and most infections couldn't survive at our body temperature.
In the sixties.
OUTBREAK DAY
The most noticeable narrative changes occur early in the episode, but capitalize on and bolster the foundations set in the game.
The Last of Us begins in Austin, Texas on the eve of the apocalypse: September 26th, 2003. (Ten years before the game's time setting.)
Pedro Pascal plays Joel Miller; a hardworking single father raising his daughter, 12-year-old Sarah (Nico Parker). Their relationship is warmer in this iteration; breakfast banter, chats with neighbors, and the introduction of Joel's brother and construction partner, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), paint a comforting dynamic between the two of them.
The Last of Us masterfully turns the world upside down through Sarah's eyes. Emergency vehicles scream in the background. A shop owner sends her home after being spooked by some off-screen news story. A senile neighbor twitches in her wheelchair while Sarah's back is turned. Uneasiness creeps at the edge of every scene.
It coalesces in the middle of the night.
The house rattles as military aircraft fly over, drowning Sarah's room in light as they speed toward the city. An emergency message plays over the television. Her father is nowhere to be found. Sarah seeks out her neighbors, freezing as she enters the kitchen and steps into a blood trail.
The old woman bends grotesquely over her second victim. Sarah flees as she charges with inhuman speed, saved by her father and uncle as she bursts out of the house.
From there on out, HBO dutifully honors its source material.
TRUE FAITH
Visuals, camera angles, and even exact lines of dialogue are utilized. The game series is a gold-standard in the industry, a pinnacle example of narrative storytelling. The characters & relationships continue to grow outside of the huge dramatic scenes; small moments during gameplay all lend to Joel and Ellie's individual journeys. Mazin's trust and admiration for the game is evident all through the pilot. The major inciting event plays out beat-for-beat. (I was fortunate enough to catch an early screening of the episode. Very confident that all in attendance were fans of the game first, but that didn't stop myself or the three people around me from crying.) The show begins at the start of the pandemic, but leaps ahead 20 years after its onset. The real story begins in 2023, in an almost unrecognizable world.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE UNDEAD
To be clear, this is a story with zombies, but not about them. Nevertheless, the pilot manages to inject the same spine-chilling fear of the infected that the game evokes upon the player's first encounter.
Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of both the game and the show is its proximity to reality. The breed of zombies in The Last of Us draws inspiration from a real-world organism: the Cordyceps fungus.
The parasitic fungus, which normally only infects insects and other mushrooms, has mutated into a human strain. The cordyceps that influences ants to crawl to a high place to die becomes obscenely more dangerous when combined with a more enduring host.
The turning rate is 1-3 days. In early stages, individuals are lucid as the infection takes over. The fungus attacks the brain through its mycelium, erasing memories and modifying instincts down to one core goal: spread. These guys aren't shuffling toward our heroes. They're erratic, fast, flinging their bodies over and through obstacles with rabid intensity.
The show strays from its source material here; in the game, matured & deceased infected release spores. Characters wear gas masks in enclosed areas– which is probably why it was changed for small screens.
In addition to bites, transmission can occur through "tendrils;" writhing, living projections that seek out any nearby uninfected. This happens with ants, too, albeit on a much smaller and slower scale.
So far, only runners have made an appearance; tendrils spill from their mouths. Clickers aren't too far behind, and I suspect we'll see a new, horrible evolution of transmission with their introduction. Trailers also teased an encounter with a bloater later in the season.
IT'S THE NORMAL PEOPLE YOU NEED TO LOOK OUT FOR
The pilot mostly dedicates itself to building up the human factions born after the outbreak. Joel and fellow survivor Tess (Anna Torv) smuggle goods and barter for ration cards and other items in Boston under the noses of the country's new leading authority, the Federal Disaster Response Agency (FEDRA).
FEDRA controls many of the nation's main cities, designated "Quarantine Zones," (QZs) intending to restore government control. Under martial law, even minor criminals are subject to public execution.
Tommy's been gone for a while, living in Wyoming with the Fireflies; a rebel insurgent group revolting against FEDRA's military oppression in the QZs.
With no radio response from him in three weeks, Joel's determined to go find him– no easy feat when most vehicles are reserved for government purposes and QZ's have restricted entrance and exit policies. He and Tess devise a plan to head West.
After a deal for a car battery goes south, Joel and Tess stumble on an old friend- Marlene (Merle Dandridge), a Firefly leader. We're also properly introduced to 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey), an orphaned young girl born and raised in the QZ with a dangerous secret.
Since Marlene and her compatriot were injured in the battery firefight, Joel and Tess are begrudgingly tasked with transporting Ellie to a drop-off across the city. A run-in with a FEDRA agent reveals Ellie's positive infected status.
Her bite is three weeks old. And might just be the key to saving humanity.
It doesn't matter if Joel or Tess believe it. The three escape the QZ, running toward the crumbling ruins of downtown Boston. Check out the series trailer and episode 2 preview below:
Watch new episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Sundays at 9PM.
Stills accessed from Warner Media Pressroom. All rights reserved to Naughty Dog, Playstation, Sony Pictures, and WarnerMedia.
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