The season finale of The Last Of Us on HBO Max races to the finish line in an erratic and unsettling way that seems to encapsulate the style of the series as a whole. Feeling like a checklist of plot points that the show runners forgot to cover in the previous 8 episodes, this brisk 44 minute episode did manage to stir up some feelings.
By the end of this episode of The Last of Us I had tears in my eyes, an elevated heart rate and renewed faith in the state of streaming entertainment in 2023. HBO Max can consider their investment in adapting a decade old video game into live action, money well spent. This penultimate installment was definitely a winner.
Bella Ramsey has proven herself time and again to be the breakout star of The Last Of Us and wisely the show runners dedicated an entire episode to Ellie’s youthful adventures, which disproves the notion that there can be too much of a good thing.
If there’s one thing The Last Of Us knows how to do, it’s upset me. It’s not too violent or too vulgar, too boring or too predictable. Perhaps it’s just too…unconventional? Episode 6 of The Last Of Us was possibly the most jarring bit of television of I’ve seen.
Coming off the creative achievement of the amazing third episode of The Last Of Us, it was inevitable that the fourth installment of “The Adventures of Joel & Ellie” would have a hard time achieving the same artistic high note of its predecessor. Having established now that the series can detour completely into poignant, self-contained storytelling, would they simply return to tales from the road to en route to rescue Joel’s brother, Tommy? As it turns out, yes.
I must admit that going into episode 2 of The Last Of Us, I was looking forward to gaining a greater understanding of the world in which fungus reigned supreme. Though I had some trepidation as the last time a fungus was featured in a big budget production as part of the live action Super Mario Bros movie in 1993, the results were less than stellar. In that bizarre film, the duo of plumber siblings were constantly being reminded to “trust the fungus”, a sentient goo, that by the film’s end was revealed to be the de-evolved monarch of the mushroom kingdom. Given the praise I heaped upon the first episode of The Last Of Us in my first review, I suppose there was no reason to doubt the power of the entertainment to come, though in the end, episode 2 may ultimately be considered filler, as opposed to a standout in the HBO Max series.
HBO’s The Last of Us is a phenomenal show, but you likely already knew that. if you’re not watching it yourself, you know numerous people who constantly tell you how good it is. And if you don’t have that, you at least have me to pester you. WATCH THE LAST OF US, DUDE.
Reviewer Disclaimer: I am not a gamer. Let me rephrase that, I’m not a modern gamer. If anything, I could be classified as a retro gamer in that I still have an original Nintendo Entertainment System hooked up to a tube TV and a stack of game cartridges that I play regularly. I bought a Playstation 3 in 2012 to use solely as a blu-ray player and when I got adventurous 10 years later and picked up a used copy of Batman Arkham Asylum, I couldn’t get past the first level. As a result, I resigned myself to 20th century video game technology once again. All that is to say, that I definitely have not played The Last Of Us video game or it’s sequel. I’ve heard it praised and debated in the general pop culture, but know very little of it’s plot, other than it is a game that could be classified as a post-apocalyptic, cinematic experience.
Given how most Hollywood adaptions of video games turn out, you might not have expected the moon from HBO’s The Last Of Us — but let me tell you something, it has delivered the moon plus Mars and Jupiter and maybe a few asteroids. Granted, only two episodes have been made public, but just judging by those two, it’s not only the best video game adaption we’ve ever seen, it’s one of the best shows of the decade period. Episode 3 is rumored to be even better.
Catherine, Called Birdy, is a Prime Video original, written and directed by actress Lena Dunham. It is an adaptation of a Karen Cushman novel of the same title. During the 1290s, child marriage was common in medieval England. The moment a young girl has her first menstrual cycle, she is eligible for marriage. Child marriages were shockingly the norm back then because women have no say on how to live their lives. It is nagging skeleton in every person’s family history. Bella Ramsey who got a lead role in upcoming the live action adaptation of “The last of us” snatched the role of Birdy.