Two great new shows, each getting a lot of buzz. Both throwbacks to familiar genres, yet still somehow original, fresh, and compelling. Both center around rough-edged survivors traveling across the country (although for vastly different reasons). Both have a revolving cast of supporting characters and guest stars in each episode. And unlike many series, both live up the hype.
They each also highlight the importance of solid writing, limited exposition or filler content, pitch-perfect casting, and a spot-on soundtrack.
There are some spoilers ahead, but I tried not to reveal too much.
The Last of Us (HBO 2023- ): As one of the many fans who had become disappointed in the last few seasons of The Walking Dead, I was not expecting to get into another show about a zombie apocalypse so soon. But through the six episodes I’ve seen (out of nine), I’m all in. This brilliantly written and acted series is redefining the genre. It may actually be a completely different genre.
Based on the highly popular video game of the same name, the series opens in 2003, right before a rapidly spreading pandemic leads to the near total collapse of civilization. A mutated strain of the Cordyceps fungus (which usually attacks insects) causes a parasitic brain infection that turns humans into violently cannibalistic zombie-like creatures.
The show quickly jumps twenty years into the future, to 2023, when the U.S. government has become an authoritarian state, with the military ruthlessly controlling its citizens as it tries to deal with the ever-increasing population of monsters. This includes setting up quarantine zones, bombing major cities with infected populations, and killing innocent civilians outside the quarantine zones before they can become infected.
The series follows Joel (Pedro Pascal), one of the few characters we are introduced to before society collapses. He was traumatized by events that took place at the start of the pandemic, when he lost his daughter. During the 20 years since, he has become a hardened black-market smuggler, doing whatever is necessary to survive (while still trying to maintain his humanity).
One of the few people Joel lets into his new life is Tess (the terrific Anna Torv in an all-too-brief appearance), another hardened survivor who becomes his smuggling partner.
A resistance movement, whose members are called Fireflies, is determined to free the people from military rule arises, and its leader (Merle Dandridge) asks Joel and Tess to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of Boston’s quarantine zone. There is a lab in Wyoming where they are trying to find a cure for the fungal infection. Ellie appears to be immune, and her blood may be the key to developing a vaccine. They agree to transport her in return for a hard-to-come-by working truck. Along the way, they face numerous dangers across a post-apocalyptic America, both from the infected and from various groups of humans – some raiders, some military, and some communities that formed to fight the military or to just survive – all of whom are distrustful of strangers.
Joel is also searching for his younger brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), a former soldier who joined the resistance. Tommy did not return from a dangerous mission, and Joel wants to learn his fate.
Pedro Pascal is superb, portraying Joel’s weary (and wary) but seemingly self-assured intensity. The remarkable Bella Ramsey (best known for her recurring role as Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones) gives a riveting performance as Ellie. A sharp contrast to Joel, she’s quirky with a sardonic sense of humor, seemingly innocent and naïve but ready to take up arms and learn how to survive as they escape increasingly escalating threats. She more than holds her own with her more established co-stars, which is no small feat.
I’m not going to compare the series to the videogame (with which most viewers are probably unfamiliar), but the series stands on its own as a new take on life during an apocalypse. It’s actually not a zombie show per se (as fans of the videogame are quick to point out, they’re not zombies, they’re “the infected”). It’s more about survival, how to find something worth living for, how much you’re willing to sacrifice for those you love, and how much some people change (for good and bad) during catastrophic circumstances – there’s a reason it’s called The Last of Us and not The Walking Dead. It’s about us, not them.
It’s also about the journey and the growing relationship between Joel and his surrogate daughter, Ellie – as he slowly transitions from seeing her as “cargo” to accepting that they are family.
The infected are always a threat (often unseen), but humans can sometimes be far worse. When we do see the infected, they’re not like zombies in most other TV shows or movies – they’re faster, stronger, harder to kill, and scarier. Unlike most series in this genre, the undead don’t automatically rise up after they die, they have to be infected when they’re alive. There are different stages of infected creatures, based on how long they have been exposed to the fungus, each stage significantly more dangerous than the previous one. Unlike the zombies with which most of us are familiar, which eventually just rot over time, the infected just get stronger.
The most visible threats are called Clickers (those who have been infected for more than a year). They go blind as the fungus grows over their eyes, and they develop heightened senses of echolocation, generating clicking noises as they hunt their prey. They are much stronger, faster, and more durable than previous infection stages.
The rarest zombie variant seen through episode six is called a Bloater. It is by far the biggest, strongest and most dangerous,– the fungus has grown to the point of acting as body armor, and the creatures are enormous and have incredible strength, being able to effortlessly rip a human to shreds with their bare hands.
The show’s first episode has a genuine creepiness and feeling of foreboding. From the ominous atmosphere that indicates something might not be quite right, to the brief background scene (if you blink, you miss it) that indicates things are about to go dangerously bad, the suspense continues to escalate.
It’s unusual that a new series would diverge from its main storyline so soon, but episode three is as brilliant and touching as it is unexpected. In a flashback to 2003, we are introduced to paranoid survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman in a rare but great non-comedic role), who lives in a deserted New Hampshire town. After years of preparing for doomsday, he is stocked with food and weapons to last a lifetime. He’s happy to be on his own with no people around, and spends much of his time fortifying his home and turning it into a virtually impenetrable fortress.
Then in 2007, Frank (Murray Bartlett) stumbles upon Bill’s booby-trapped home compound and Bill reluctantly takes him in. They develop a romantic relationship, and form a wary alliance with Joel and Tess, to trade supplies. In a flash-forward to 2023, Joel and Ellie arrive in town to meet with Bill and Frank on their way to the lab, but instead discover a letter Bill left for Joel to find.
The terrific Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjacket) highlights episodes four and five as Kansas City militia leader Kathleen, a revolutionary whose soft-spoken and friendly demeanor belies the ruthless terrorist she has become. After overthrowing the fascist military authorities and mercilessly dealing with those who collaborated with them, she obsessively searches for one who escaped her wrath. Joel and Ellie were not aware of any of this when they entered town. When one of Kathleen’s men attacks them, Joel kills him. Now Kathleen is hunting them too.
Most of episode five focuses on Kathleen and her men searching for one of the collaborators, Henry (Lamar Johnson) and his eight-year-old brother, Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard), who are trying to escape town. When Joel and Ellie stumble upon them, they form a temporary alliance – Henry knows the only way out of town through underground tunnels, and Joel has the skills to fight any of infected (or Kathleen’s men) they might encounter. Or as Henry puts it, “I’ll show the way, you clear the way.”
Just as Kathleen and her men get the drop on Henry and Ellie and are about to shoot them, the Clickers and a very scary Bloater burst up from underground and swarm them all. A battle ensues between the Clickers and Kathleen’s forces. Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam narrowly escape, but not without a tragic cost.
Episode six elevates the show to an even higher level, with superb acting by both Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Events toward the end of episode five started to make Joel feel that he is not as strong as he once was, and we start to see fear for the first time, as he questions whether he is still capable of protecting Ellie. At the same time we start to see cracks in Ellie’s tough exterior, as she starts to question whether a vaccine is actually possible, and is afraid that if anything happens to Joel (the only person she’s ever cared about who hasn’t died or left her) she can’t make it on her own. Their relationship is shifting, and both seem more uncertain about the future than ever.
They encounter an older couple living alone in the Wyoming wilderness (Graham Greene and Elaine Miles), who warns them not to travel any further west. There are dangerous people living across the river, which they call “the river of death,” who leave dead bodies in their wake. Joel and Ellie ignore their advice.
They come upon a secret settlement of about 300 (including children) across the river in Jackson, Wyoming, where Joel is reunited with his brother Tommy. Here we discover that Tommy left Joel to join the Fireflies partly because he couldn’t deal with the “things” he and Joel did to survive during the first 10 years of the pandemic (which apparently included killing a lot of people). He then left the Fireflies to join this community, where he married Maria (Rutina Wesley), one of the settlement’s leaders. The scenes between Joel and Tommy and between Joel and Ellie alternate between heated, touching, strained, and emotionally draining, as all their hidden fears and doubts come out into the open. Brilliant writing and acting from all involved. Maria, who seems to know all about Joel’s past, doesn’t believe he has changed, and warns Ellie to be careful, saying “you can only be betrayed by people you trust.” Ellie shoots back that Tommy did all the same things as Joel.
Joel and Ellie leave the next day in search of the Fireflies’ lab at the University of Eastern Colorado, where more surprises await.
In a show like The Walking Dead, Joel and Ellie’s new friends (Bill and Frank and Henry and Sam) would have become part of their group and battle the Kansas City militia for an entire season or more. And this new seemingly peaceful community would have presented an underlying threat that also would have covered much of a season. Here, each takes up just a single episode. In The Last of Us, allies and adversaries alike are quickly killed or left behind, and our heroes just move on to continue their journey.
The murky morality of what’s right or wrong and who is good or bad in a world where humanity is forced to use any means to endure and survive is on full display here. Are you a bad guy if you collaborate with a murderous fascist military who tortures and kills civilians so you can get the life-saving medicine your eight-year-old brother needs (as Henry does)? Are you a war criminal if you ruthlessly murder those collaborators who provided information that led to your friends and family being killed (as Kathleen does)?
From Linda Ronstadt to Hank Williams to Depeche Mode, the soundtrack is spot on for the situations they find themselves in during each episode.
Obviously this type of show is not for everyone. The infected are kind of disgusting to look at, there’s violent and sudden death and destruction, and even those with whom you sympathize and root for display morally ambiguous behavior. But Joel and Ellie remain a compelling duo, and if you like dystopian, post-apocalyptic dramas, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better one.
The Last of Us was renewed for a second season soon after its highly-rated and critically acclaimed premiere. It’s one of those rare series that has gained viewers through each of its first six episodes.
Poker Face (Peacock 2023- ): Charlie Cale (the wonderful Natasha Lyonne), has an extraordinary ability to read people and determine whether they are lying – a handy skill for a former poker hustler to have. A powerful casino boss (Ron Perlman) has her banned from playing for money in Nevada, but he takes a liking to her and hires her as a cocktail waitress at one of his casinos. But when her lie-detecting skills unmask the cassino boss’s son (Adrien Brody) and his enforcer Cliff (Benjamin Bratt) as murderers, it puts a target on her back and she goes on the run. As the unseen gangster boss tells her over the phone, “There’s no place off the grid that’s far enough off the grid that we can’t find you.” That’s an assertion she plans to put to the test.
As she hits the road in her Plymouth Barracuda, she comes across a new cast of characters each week, along with a new murder mystery she can’t resist investigating. The description blurbs for each episode on the Peacock guide ends with, “Charlie suspects foul play.” That’s basically what every episode is about.
Clearly inspired by classic 1970s and 1980s network procedurals such as Columbo and Murder, She Wrote (with elements of The Fugitive thrown in), this modernized retro comedy-drama is what they call a “howcatchem” (rather than a “whodunnit”).
Starting in the second episode, the formula is basically the same – we see the murder of the week at the beginning of each episode, then we flash back to see how Charlie comes to town and gets a dead-end job where the crime just happens to occur. She is the only one who suspects the real criminals, and sets out to solve the crime.
Just like those procedurals from the ‘70s and ‘80s, each week has well-known guest stars as either perpetrators or victims. Through the seven episodes I’ve seen (out of 10), the weekly guest stars have included, John Ratzenberger, Stephanie Hsu, Brandon Michael Hall, Lil Rel Howery, Danielle Macdonald, Chloe Sevigny, Judith Light, S. Epatha Merkerson, Simon Helberg, Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, and Jameela Jamil,
Part of the appeal of Columbo was Peter Falk’s charisma, instantly recognizable voice, and the surety he is going to solve the crime every week – despite (or because of) the fact that the criminals never take him seriously until it’s too late. The same is true for Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face. Just like sitcoms, these are situation dramas – people aren’t tuning in for the plots, but rather to see the stars in slight variations of the same situation week after week (which is a good thing, because some of these plots are ridiculous).
Since each episode is a self-contained story with a new supporting cast, some episodes work better than others. And the only real drama is whether Cliff will catch up with Charlie. We know she’s going to solve each week’s murder. The singular device of how she solves each crime – not based on highly honed detective skills, but rather simply because she can tell when someone is lying, should get tiresome (but somehow doesn’t). It also stretches credulity that an unarmed woman can confront murderers every week and tell them she knows they are guilty, yet continue to be unscathed (a stranger in town with no local connections should be relatively easy to dispose of).
Yet despite these shortcomings, the show is enjoyable and eminently bingeable. No brilliant writing here, just some tasty comfort food. It's been renewed for a second season.
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