Dear old Audre Myers e-mailed Ponty and me a couple of Sundays ago recommending the HBO Max series The Last of Us, based (albeit, I suspect, somewhat loosely) on the video game of the same name.  I’ve never played either of the two TLoU games, but I am quite familiar with the controversy surrounding the sequel, which went fully woke.  It is a classic scenario:  a hugely successful cultural phenomenon gets hijacked—willingly or otherwise—by the Cultural Marxists and becomes a pitiful version of its former self.  The Cult Marxists hope to trade on the popularity of the intellectual property or franchise by shoehorning their bizarre beliefs into it, thereby reaching a massive audience before everyone sours on it.

It’s a fundamentally vampiric, parasitic relationship:  the healthy host rapidly loses whatever cultural cache it enjoyed, becoming an insufferable, withered husk of its former self.

I was not surprised in the slightest that Ponty reacted so negatively to Audre’s request that one of us review the show.  As an avid gamer who (it seems) enjoyed The Last of Us video game and despised its woke sequel, I knew the suggestion would touch a nerve.  Poor Audre had no idea; I hope Ponty wasn’t too hard on her!

So, I proposed that Audre write a review.  I’ll check out the show when I’m able, but she is the queen of television reviews around here.

With that, here is Audre Myers’s review of the television series The Last of Us:

I finished watching The Last of Us yesterday. I almost didn’t finish it. First of all, the language is horrendous. Shudder. They even use the ‘c’ word! Disgusting! The first three episodes are random and have a lot of characters but they come and go quickly and the viewer doesn’t really know who the protagonist is. There’s a lot of brutality that seems just excessive and pointless and a lot chaos that, in these early episodes, isn’t really defined. What would, in other movies, be zombies, is something off-putting and bizarre in their actions and speed. There is a ‘virus’ – cordyceps – which is transfered by bite (like zombies) but it affects the human brain first. The other similarity to zombies is that a head shot is the only thing that will kill them.

I gave it one last look and watched episode 4 and the leading characters became more defined and the reasons for their actions and reactions became clearer and the direction of the story came into focus. It was still brutal but now the viewer understood better the whys and the wherefores. I liked it better at episode 5 and it caused that ‘I want more’ feeling at the end of the last (ninth) episode.

The lead actor, Pedro Pascal, plays Joel. Joel is ex-military and a man who gets things done with minimal to-do. He’s blocked off emotionally and in the early episodes, his face never changes. It’s odd to watch someone not smile – smiling is what humans do, it’s something we instantly respond to; but it’s thought-provoking, a face that doesn’t smile. He has a mission, to deliver a 14 yr. old girl to a medical facility for reasons I won’t discuss – don’t want to spoil it for you. The 14 yr. old is played by Bella Ramsey. She has an interesting face – she’s not beautiful and she’s not homely but her face is sort of fascinating. It’s a perfect face for the part she plays.

I tried to task 39 Pontiac Dream and/or ours Portly to write a review of The Last of Us but 39 got down right miffed and absolutely refused to do it. I’m laughing because 39 is such a sweetheart, I was taken aback at his reaction. Turns out, The Last of Us started life as video game and while he had enjoyed it’s first iteration, he absolutely detested TLoU ll. Port declined – a little more gently – as he hadn’t played the game nor seen the series. His girlfriend, however, has HBO (the company that produced the series) and he hopes to watch it the next time they are together.

If HBO creates a second season, I’ll probably watch it. But it sure is tough to watch.