The Last of Us, Episode One

First, I'm not familiar with the video-game, but I knew HBO's The Last of Us had Zombies, though I expected more -- more monsters and more action. However, talking in hallways with guns does work better than just talking in hallways.

The opening scene -- where the coming Fungal Apopocalypse is blamed on Global Warming -- succeeded in lowering my expectations (I'd have gone with an escaped pathogen from Dr. Anthony Fauci's basement lab -- after consulting legal counsel, of course). I'm glad I hung around for Depeche Mode's "Ride with my Best Friend" over the end credits.

Though I enjoyed the extended normal-life setup that followed the opening obligatory lecture, it should have been half as long with twice the ominous overtones. I assumed the delightful and precocious daughter was 14 or 15, so her picking up much of the household burden while Joel, her dad, operated a small business was OK. That doesn't work for a twelve-year-old -- apparently her age in the video game. I did not know she would die in the first episode, so, surprise! I enjoyed the panic, mayhem, and death caused by the sudden onset of the disease. Does that make me a bad person?

Fast forward twenty years and Joel is in a walled-off portion of Boston overrun by "girl bosses" within and zombies without. Given that it's Boston, the superfluidity of girl bosses makes sense. We don't see many zombies but I assume they are the bigger threat. How Joel got to Boston without the help of his daughter isn't explained. Joel isn't exactly "Pale Rider," but nonetheless Tess, his significant other and immediate supervisor, compares him to Clint Eastwood. Still, he has room to grow (or shrink) -- if he can escape the ever-present, domineering forces of the matriarchy. Given that Elle, the young girl he is supposed to accompany on her cross-country journey, is an alpha-diva aspiring girl boss, his chances don't look good. I thought there would be a threat from airborne spores since a fungal infection is the cause of this worldwide distress. However, when they came across a human victim "molded" to the wall in the abandoned Boston subway, I was surprised by how casually they treated the danger. They even seemed to step on some of the protruding growth.

Overall, I thought the first episode was good but could have been better with mo'violence. They showed the bloody aftermath of one violent fight. Why not show the fight? The series is, after all, based on a shooter game -- unless it was a feminist consciousness-raising effort that I thought was a shooter game.