Warning: This article contains mild spoilers about the storyline and, most importantly, differences from the game.
Well, there it is: the first episode of the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us. With a running time of 77 minutes, it’s almost the length of a feature film. I liked it a lot, I felt most of it to be round and faithful to the work. One thing in particular, and probably the most important, she does perfectly: sell us Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie. Pascal in particular, with a graying, disheveled shock of hair, is already close to being the video game daddy par excellence, he even comes across as a little more tortured. No less determined to do what was necessary, but still as if he’d just buried his scruples rather than worked them out.
The ageless Ramsey, on the other hand, combines the acting experience of a seasoned woman with the looks of a fourteen-year-old. Her smarts, bite and naiveness come across perfectly in the opening episode, even if she doesn’t exactly resemble old Ellie. In this respect: Great casting, especially since Tommy (Gabriel Luna, “Terminator: Dark Fate”, but don’t take that wickedly) and Tess (Anna Torv) are excellently cast. The latter does the same as Pascal and gives the original a refreshing touch of its own with an unpretentious performance. She seems warmer and yet more devious than in the game. Cool.
The question of why remains and it is justified, even if it seemed to me a little more valid in front of the pilot than afterwards. Because the film adaptation already takes its liberties. So she goes further at the beginning and shows more of the initial outbreak, she even anticipates a talk show segment from the 1960s about the danger of epidemics. One of the guests predicts the fungus apocalypse, a bit too fitting and exact for my liking. Then again, through this clip, they manage to make our interventions in the climate and nutrition part of the downfall, which I think is legitimate.
The rest of “Prelude to the End of the World” is also cleverly done and, in addition to some beautiful ominous moments that set the mood (the twitching classmate at school!), even had one of the most goosebump-worthy moments I have seen in film or in a long time watched TV (keyword: grandmother!). Nice use of depth of field, leaving just enough to the imagination here that what I was seeing was really disturbing to me – and Sarah wasn’t. And when it comes to the moment that every player of the template fears – shortly before the 20-year leap in time – Pascal’s acting really took me away again. I would say more intense than the first time I played The Last of Us.
Scene design and equipment are then what you would expect from HBO: You can recognize various elements incredibly close to the game. The waving curtain at the beginning, the shattered streets of the Boston quarantine zone under military dictatorship, the ringing of an alarm clock, the places where Joel is patching his backpack with duct tape. Such things. Little things that nobody should have taken time for, but someone thought it was important enough to work a few hours of overtime here. And since the music is also by Gustavo Santaollalla, what’s happening here doesn’t seem a bit artificial.
And above all, it is by no means softened up, which Mazin and Druckmann probably wanted to signal sooner rather than later when they open the present level with the euthanasia of a small infected boy. Here the FEDRA authority, which rules with an iron fist, is portrayed as uncompromising, but not completely heartless. The soldier holds the hand of the unsuspecting boy, promises him that he is safe and obviously has in mind to make the necessary evil as painless and fearless as possible. The scene also creates a nice organic connection to Joel, who makes his living burning corpses at the beginning of the series.
Another change from the original is the confrontation with Robert and the reason Tess and Joel do business with him in the first place. Joel hasn’t heard from Tommy for a long time and wants to look for him, for which he needs a car battery. He and Tess paid for them too – and Robert sold them to the Fireflys anyway. I like this kind of change, it surprised by not giving unnecessary space to the hunt for Robert – Marlene’s people move him out of the way when it’s clear the merchandise is unfit. Another facet that ensures that players of the original do not already know every beat without significantly sawing the cornerstones of the plot. It’s not just rehashing the story while stripping the interactive side. So why watch this series when you already know the game: Because it’s different enough that it still arouses your own feelings.
In general: So far there have been no concessions to the actually quite involved playful side of The Last of Us – it was removed with surgical precision, which is very much in the interests of the series. So far, everything has happened organically here, based on the motivations and goals of the characters. And we even get to see a little more of Joel’s “work” as a fence. If I had to gripe, I’d say I’m not entirely sure I like the mouth-tentacles the infected try to infect others with. On the other hand, I really liked that they don’t just lash out at their victims like mad, but just seem to fixate on them until the pathogen does its thing. That seems even more disturbing, so I can live with the change.
The other thing that puzzled me a bit is how quickly Tess and Joel just accept Ellie’s infection at the end of the episode and continue their journey without many words. But that may also be due to the situation – they had just killed a Fedra guard – and the approaching end of the runtime. I think Ellie will be confronted more extensively right at the beginning of episode two and then it all falls into place again.
So overall: Yes, this series is, at least in the pilot, everything one could hope for from it. It does the material justice by taking it seriously from start to finish and never giving up five because the bar for video game adaptations is so low. It was exciting, scary and at least I had a lot of fun discovering differences and similarities with the original. I’ll admit it’s hard for me to rate the show in a vacuum – and I understand anyone who doesn’t necessarily want to relive this story after two or three runs through the game. For now though, I enjoy watching these talented people reinterpret this great game story.
