They are like chestnuts like eggs, and at the same time they cannot be compared. “The Last of Us” is the last post-apocalyptic series (going on to be the most watched series in the history of HBO Max Spain) and “The Walking Dead” refers to the television fiction of the last decade in this zombie-driven endings of the world, both in relevance and length. Is there anything that joins the living dead (or the infected cordyceps, to be more precise), what else does it do, besides being available, or something above the other? Let us enter into a correspondence with these things. There is no doubt that the series of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey deserves to be in the best series of HBO Max 2023.
“The Last of Us” doesn’t reinvent the wheel in terms of itself and its context: the world is going to hell because of a viral pandemic (if in any case led by an active fungus) and after five minutes it turns military. What little remains of our humanity in fascist societies, where the remnants having no voice or vote outside the walls, are other people walking through the mountains and living badly. He who can save himself, but he who has arms, can save himself before others, because the law becomes more powerful than all things. Likewise, structures fall, are weakened, nature takes its course. Although this HBO series has shown us an unusual level of production, the narrative of the pandemic is still endless. Of course, many elements could remind us of ‘The Walking Dead’, which also had its own Atlanta destroyed, and its Georgia towns devoured by weeds, and more than one evil fascist who wanted to be a mambo king with a few subjects. under the wing command
HBO
But where “The Last of Us” differs from other similar fictions of the past is in the development of its character and the emotional arc that we pay attention to. Here “plots” are taken for the succession of events and connections, not as important as the emotional journey of Joel and Ellie, the two protagonists. Starting from him taking the girl as a “merchandise” into him and caring, to feel friends and somehow, the very existence of another is the reason for living for one, which is what this fiction is about. And it cannot be said that “The Walking Dead” did not have characters in which things also happened inside to kill one zombie and another. He did indeed, he had, but 1) there were more of them, leaving a more blurred portrait of them, and 2) their importance equaled the plot. If in “The Last of Us” the two protagonists depend more than what is possible, in “The Walking Dead” it was the other way around; so much so that any character would be dispensable and eventually all the initial protagonists would be ready and the series would continue.
And there we find a great difference: concretion and end. In nature, “The Walking Dead” was a “not going anywhere” show. What? Because it was born as an adaptation of some comics with many numbers and whose story did not have closure either when the series began or several years later. Not only: not that it had no end, did not have, and was not expected; that is to say, it was not devised, nor does it belong to him. Robert Kirkman’s macro-story was a plot, an open world, a world … and now a television franchise of several series. It gave infinity, but it also caused dispersion. No focus, no alpha and omega. It was a kind of new river where only in the compartmentalization of times over time do we find a clear narrative structure.
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but ‘The Last of Us’ emerges with the opposite mindset. Craig Mazin, co-creator of the series, made it very clear in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in which he appeared to look at “The Walking Dead”: “There is no point in a series of revolving plates that last forever. When the machine becomes perpetual motion, it cannot help but be small.. . stupid. Limits are important to me.” Concrete. Starting a journey that reaches its destination (in other words, the journey is more emotional than physical). Tell a story with meaning, a beginning and an end. Do not go further than necessary. Not to be, finally, like ‘The Walking Dead’.
And yes, “The Last of Us” will have a second season, but it doesn’t seem willing to stretch the gum until it loses its flavor. The first season covers the entire first game, while the second covers more than one season, although more than two seems unlikely. We won’t see Ellie and Joel lock themselves in a village or go around in circles because they are completing a bunch of episodes in the series. And no, “The Last Us” episode didn’t have a filler episode and it won’t be endless like “The Walking Dead,” which ended up dead tired when no one was watching anymore. For that, and for a digital deer, it seems that HBO will be worth a little more.
I was born Alvaro Onieva on Wisteria Lane, I was roommate with Anna Horvath and ‘Chicago’ played me crazy because Roxie Hart is me.
