Hello Dystopian Drama Lovers,
The Last of Us series on HBO represents a masterpiece of conversion from video game to a scripted series that superbly brings the action of the game to viewers who may have never played the game. Our grade for the first two seasons is a solid A+ for converting game play action, drama, and sheer excitement to a superb science fiction series!
Created by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, the HBO series is based on is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Entertainment for the Playstation gaming console. The Last of Us Part One sold over twenty million units on the Sony Playstation platform and more when the game was ported to the Windows 10 platform in 2023. Despite relatively poor sales on the Windows platform (the game was never allowed by Sony to be on the X-Box). With the release of The Last of Us Part Two game, a total of over thirty seven million units have been sold to date for the Playstation.
In the game Players control a primary character named Joel, an individual escorting a teenage girl named Ellie exactly like the series. Through the post-apocalyptic landscape of the United States that is devastated by a mutated fungus turning its victims into grotesque creatures from a real life fungal virus known as Cordyceps that mutates from an insect disease jumping to infect human hosts.
The conversion of The Last of Us (TLOU) to a streaming series is an ongoing effort of bringing popular video games to streaming series and movies. Tracing gaming roots to computer video game success as in the 1990’s, two examples are Wing Commander (1999) and Doom (2005) both were released as movies subsequent to computer video game mania in the last decade of the twentieth century. Joined by Silo on Apple TV in 2023 based upon a trilogy of books, and Fallout on Prime Video in 2024 based on the wildly popular video game. TLOU represents a trend for streaming series enjoyed by the general public worldwide.
Originally, WormholeRiders News Agency watched season one of TLOU because it featured two celebrities that we have admired for many years, Anna Torv as Theresa ‘Tess’ Servopoulos and Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller. We soon enjoyed the entire main cast of Bella Ramsey as Ellie Williams, Gabriel Luna as Tommy Miller, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Rutina Wesley as Maria Miller, Catherine O’Hara as Gail Lynden, Kaitlyn Dever as Abby Anderson, Maurice Dean Wint as a cult priest, Kendra Anderson as The Priestess, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen Coghlan, Lamar Johnson as Henry Burrell, Storm Reid as Riley Abel, and Jeffrey Wright as Issac Dixon, leader of the Washington Liberation Front (WLF). Additionally, both seasons feature a fine supporting cast, crews and creators across the first two season’s story arc.
Season one of TLOU chronicles the journey of Ellie and Joel twenty years after the viral outbreak as they struggle to survive the Cordyceps infection that has decimated the world. Traveling from the ruins of Boston, then Kansas City, Joel is seeking his brother Tommy while protecting Ellie during their journey. Along the way viewers learned that Ellie is immune to the disease which leads to her being captured by a group of survivors known as Fireflies.
During the ending of TLOU season 1, Joel chooses to save Ellie from a Salt Lake City hospital where she is being held captive. Here the doctor, Abby’s father we learn later, planned to perform surgery on Ellie that would have killed her in order to create a cure for the Cordyceps infection sweeping the world. Joel kills everyone in the hospital to save Ellie who was unconscious during the massacre.
Unfortunately, Joel lies to Ellie about what happened at the Salt Lake City hospital, claiming that the Fireflies, a revolutionary militia group in the series that opposes the authoritarian government organization known as FEDRA (Federal Disaster Response Agency) stopped looking for a cure. FEDRA a takeoff on the real world FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).
After Joel tells Ellie after her rescue from the Fireflies that they had stopped looking for a cure, they leave Salt Lake City. This development sets up a destructive dynamic in the relationship between Ellie and Joel that will erupt with catastrophic consequences in season two.
The Last Of Us Season Two:
The second successful season is based on the characters from season one with some changes to game character actions. However, the series emotional intimacy, the consequences of human moral ambiguity and life in a post-apocalyptic society are the foundation making TLOU an enjoyably, intense story.
Season two begins with episode one “Future Days” where we find the TLOU survivors five years later living near Jackson Hole Wyoming. Here the epidemic survivors have been able to effectively barricade the city of Jackson living somewhat normal lives amid the dystopian chaos. Here we find Joel’s brother, Tommy, as a member of the Jackson council. The mostly happy survivors not infected by the Cordyceps virus who have scavenged food supplies including copious amounts of whiskey and wine from the surrounding communities that lubricates their life in the city.
Referred to generally as the city of Jackson in the series, the inhabitants have created a mostly pleasant community replete with electricity, hunting, farming and family developments. The Jackson city council trains and deploys Jackson citizens to patrol the surrounding environment searching for other survivors as well killing any as infected Cordyceps victims that threaten their city. However, two things happen; First the city is attacked by the fungal monsters, and two; it is noticeable that Ellie is estranged and distant from Joel. In the process, Ellie befriends a woman named Dina who become best friends and lovers.
Meanwhile, unknown to Ellie and Joel, Abby has vowed to hunt down and kill Joel for the murder of her father. Abby and her gang find and lure Joel to a mountain lodge while he was on patrol outside Jackson in the third episode “The Path”. Despite being saved by Joel, Abby vows that when she finds and kills Joel, it will be as slowly as possible as punishment for her father’s murder.
Ellie is also captured by Abby and her minions, witnessing when Abby stabs Joel to death after whacking him with a golf club. In the TLOU2 game, Joel is also killed in The Last of Us Part Two by Abby. However, there is a major difference from the game story arc in that Tommy was the witness to Joel’s execution setting out to follow Abby to Seattle, not Ellie. In this series scene, Abby does not immediately connect Ellie as the person who is immune from the fungal epidemic that killed her father.
The change of Ellie being the witness elevates Tommy to major character status when Ellie loses a vote in the Jackson council to establish a posse to hunt down Abby for killing Joel. Ellie and her best friend Dina set out to follow Abby and exact revenge. We learn later that Tommy and Jesse following them cross country to Seattle Washington.
Flashbacks are eloquently employed to fill what has happened between Joel and Ellie since they arrived in Jackson Wyoming not far from Jackson Hole in the real life Teton county area.
Significantly, the sixth episode “The Price” features Joel and Ellie celebrating her sixteenth birthday as a flashback. In the episode viewers flashback to a museum for astronauts located in Wyoming at the Museum of Science and History that is featured as a location featured in TLOU2 video game. In the series the abandoned museum is where Joel Miller takes Ellie as a surprise for her sixteenth birthday. The museum has been recreated for the series as the flashback Ellie recalls.
When Joel takes her to see an Apollo space craft that she sits in, the flashback features good times between the two main characters where Joel has restored a guitar that he made for Ellie before Ellie confronts Joel about what happened at the hospital in Salt Lake City. Eventually Joel breaks down in tears admitting to Ellie that he murdered Abby’s father in order to save Ellie from being butchered as an ingredient for the Cordyceps infection fungal virus cure. Ellie states that she will try to forgive Joel with tears again welling up in his eyes.
Subsequent to Ellie and Dina leaving Jackson to track down Abby, we later learn that Tommy and Jesse decided to follow and protect them. Viewers also learn that Dina is pregnant with Jesse’s child. Along the way viewers learn about a religious extremist group known as the Seraphites, a primitivism cult that lives on an island in the Seattle Washington area.
Living without technology, the Seraphites instead use knives, bows and arrows as weapons. The Seraphites group is filled with obsessed cultists led by priest perfectly portrayed by Maurice Dean Wint. The cult followers believe that Cordyceps is God’s retribution to humanity for their sins. The Seraphites are observed torturing and often murdering anyone that strays from what they deem as the proper path unless they swear allegiance to the Seraphite cause. Known as Scars, this is a reference to religious fanatics such as Islamic Terrorists that plague the real world today.
In the Seattle area during season two, viewers also meet The Washington Liberation Front (WLF) known as ‘Wolves’ in the Seattle area in episode four named “Day One”. The Wolves are sworn enemies of the Seraphite’s often hunting them down to protect their base located at Lumen Field, formerly known as Seahawks Stadium (2002–2004), Qwest Field (2004–2011), CenturyLink Field (2011–2020).
In the TLOU2 game once in Seattle, Ellie and Dina find a grisly trail of dead bodies that Tommy left in his wake, tortured and interrogated for information that reflected a dark side of Tommy’s character. In the series second season, Tommy and Jesse wisely decide to follow Ellie and Dina. This yields results that ultimately end up saving both the girls lives in the city overrun by the WLF and the sickening Seraphites.
In the TLOU season two series finale “Convergence” Ellie, Dina, Tommy and Jesse are reunited in Seattle. Internalizing the consequences of staying in Seattle, Tommy, Ellie, Jesse and Dina decide to return to Jackson Wyoming, but only after Ellie decides to kill Abby.
However, before they could do so, Abby caught Ellie, killed Jesse, and shot Tommy in the head on “Day Three” in Seattle during the seventh episode “Convergence”. Abby did not share Ellie and Tommy’s sentiments and has no intention of allowing Ellie to obtain her revenge for Joel’s death.
In TLOU2 game play, it is revealed that Tommy survived his head shot by Abby, but not without permanent scars both to his mental health and physical body. The final episode sequence depicts Jesse dead, Tommy shot with Abby firing on Ellie as the screen fades to black with a segue to “Day One” with Abby at the WLF Lumen Field encampment.
The WLF is featured again in the season finale, episode seven “Convergence” when Abby flashes back to “Day One” at Lumen Field.
Questions for TLOU season three to address will likely surround around the following items that need to be resolved:
Will Tommy survive just as he did just like in the TLOU2 game?
Does Ellie survive Abby on Day Three is Seattle? We suspect the gunshot sound is Dina shooting Abby.
We also suspect the sequence is homage to this famous scene in an ending that is similar to the “Who Shot JR” cliffhanger episode “Who Done It” from the famous Dallas television series circa November 21, 1980.
The answers to these questions and more will be determined in the already approved The Last of Us season three on HBO. See you then!
We look forward to The Last Of Us season three in the future and hope that panels and Press Rooms will be featured at San Diego Comic-Con in July later this year. In the meantime, please feel free to share this article with your friends, co-workers and or your family!
We look forward to you visiting our dedicated review and analysis web site here in the future! Or as many of our readers and visitors often do, visit TeamWHR on X, or visit me on Twitter by clicking the text links or images avatars in this news story. I and TeamWHR look forward to Seeing You on The Other Side!“
Thank you. 
Best Regards,
Kenn of #TeamWHR
