The Last Of Us debuted last Sunday to resounding applause, as the videogame adaptation starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey was celebrated for its faithful recreation of the source material as well as the performances of the cast. Every week, we are going to highlight the differences between the video game and the show, as we gauge whether The Last of Us follows the blueprint of another HBO smash in Game Of Thronesin respecting its source material before potentially setting it on fire. We begin Game to Screen with episode one of The Last Of Us, which only had one major difference with how the game opened but some subtle differences that may impact the larger story.
In Naughty Dogs’ The Last Of Us, we get a prologue where we see Joel’s daughter Sarah killed by a soldier, and die in Joel’s arms. That’s it, really. However, the show expands on her scenes so that the death hits even harder than it did in the game. In the show, we see her at Joel’s birthday party, visiting friends, baking, and being a more well-rounded character than we saw in the games. Nico Parker deserves a ton of credit for making such a lasting impact in such little screen time. Joel’s relationship with his daughter is deepened by these additional scenes in a very poignant manner.
Speaking of deepening relationships, the show does a great job of deepening the dynamic between Gabriel Luna’s Tommy and Pascal’s Joel. In the game, their relationship after the death of Sarah is virtually non-existent until they run into each other while Joel is taking Ellie to the Fireflies. In the show, we see Joel doing what all brothers do: spending time with each other and then bailing your brother out of jail over a bar fight. All in all, the changes are subtle but they do add more depth to someone who may play a bigger role down the line.
Another interesting difference between the game and the show is that Joel and Tess are explicitly romantically linked in the show whereas the game just toyed with the idea. In the games, she is his business partner who helps him smuggle things into Boston, but the show adds another layer to their relationship that really didn’t exist in the games. This makes a lot of potential future events that much more interesting, and it sets the stage for some hard decisions to have to be made by our characters given their new proximity to each other.
Lastly, a subtle change is how the virus is transmitted. In the game, the person who is carrying the virus has to bite someone or pass the virus through airborne spores. It’s why Ellie’s immunity is so impressive, in that she has both survived repeatedly being bitten and has not caught the virus via breathing. In the show, poison-ivy-like vines transmit the virus from a carrier to a victim, with the reasoning given that the showrunners loved the idea of each victim being connected by the host of the vine that infected them.
Based on the viewership of its premiere, HBO has its next major hit series on its hands with The Last of Us. The video game adaptation garnered 4.7 million viewers during its Sunday night premiere between the linear cable channel and the HBO Max streaming service. This officially became the second-largest debut for an HBO original series since 2010, with the Steve Buscemi-led Boardwalk Empire drawing in 4.81 million viewers in its debut.
Of course, the one series that drew in higher debut viewerships was House of the Dragon from this past summer. The Game of Thrones prequel debuted to a remarkable 9.986 million viewers between the HBO network and HBO Max. The monstrous debut drew in the largest audience in pay cable history.
Based on the Playstation video game series of the same name, The Last of Us follows Joel, a survivor of a mass societal apocalypse, being hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie away from a dangerous situation. From there, the series will follow a cross-country odyssey with the two characters in their struggle to survive the widespread infection.
The series stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as the two leads with the ensemble cast including Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, and Nick Offerman. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann serve as writers and executive producers for the series.
New episodes for The Last of Us premiere every Sunday at 9:00 pm EST. The first season will consist of nine episodes. You can read Murphy’s Multiverse review of the premiere here.
Fans of the award-winning video game franchise, The Last of Us, have been anticipating the arrival of the HBO Max streaming series since word of the project first circulated in late 2020. Led by Pedro Pascal, Anna Torv, and Bella Ramsey, the adaptation kicked off with an 80-minute first episode that covered a lot of ground (55 years to be exact), most of which was incredibly familiar to fans of the game and has fans of the game pretty fired up for more. But what about your average outsider? As a certified outsider, I have a lot of questions about just what the hell is happening at the end of the world in The Last of Us.
Science!
Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann came out swinging with some heavy science in the show’s opening scene. The science showdown between Quintus and The Swede was legit but it also really felt like HBO did a test screening of some portion of the series with a group of average IQ types and realized that without an explanation of what was going to happen 15 minutes later, they would have way too many questions. Then they went ahead and loaded it up with so much science that they may just have further confused the average IQ types. Fans of The Walking Dead spent several seasons trying to figure out how the end of the world began before getting over it, so at least there was some effort here.
D-Day
Pretty standard stuff for the day the music died, really. Pedro Pascal‘s Joel seems like a real dawg and the stuff with his daughter, Sarah, clearly exists to make you sad soon and open a spot in Joel’s heart later. Outside of that, Joel’s brother (that’s Gabriel Luna?!) is a rowdy Army dude–seems important. The Mycelium Mouths are just simply terrifying. Thankfully, Quintus’ pre-present-day exposition allowed for some understanding of how an otherwise decrepit old lady could become a WMD…oh my God he smashed her skull with a pipe wrench! Thankfully the failed escape attempt didn’t go on too long (I want to see what was going on in that plane; I feel like it was World War Z-level action with the Mycelium Mouths).
As the D-Day stuff comes to a close, it seems pretty clear that the only necessary piece was the death of Sarah. As the audience makes the jump 20 years into the future, there’s no understanding of how or why the Mycelium Mouths came to be, only that they did, leaving us to imagine that Sarah’s death will mark the beginning of Joel’s origin story as “The Governor” of some post-apocalyptic civilization.
What Are Fireflies? What a Mouthy Brat!
Joel is just…a grunt? He should be running this DMZ but instead, he’s willing to burn bodies and work in the sewers? All these FEDRA people are faceless goons and someone kicked the shit out of I-didn’t-recognize-her-but-that’s Anna Torv. Obviously, these Fireflys are a big deal; that brat they have chained up is mouthy as hell. If you’re already chaining her up, add a modified Hannibal Lecter mask to keep her from talking unless you need her to. Where’s a wight giant when you need one? I adored the abstract art on the wall in the subway tunnel; I could have stared at the blown-up Mycelium Mouth all day trying to figure out exactly what I was looking at.
Joel and Agent Dunham are sneaky! Joel’s brother is now estranged…hopefully Joel reminds him that he’d likely be dead if he hadn’t bailed him out of jail…and that Sarah would probably not have been shot and killed if Joel hadn’t spent the time bailing him out. At this point in the series, it’s tough to accept swapping out sweet Sarah, who fixed her Dad’s watch for his birthday, with the abrasive, vulgar Ellie but she’s apparently the Mycelium Messiah, so I guess she’s going to fill that hole in Joel’s heart with all sorts of cuss words.
The biggest outstanding question at the moment is why Joel is so terrifying. I assumed his 20 years of experience would have included murdering his way to the top of some group of survivors so he could lead a revolution against the government that took his daughter away from him. Murders, maybe some light torture, and developing some mild psychoses; instead, he’s just a dude who while resourceful, would seem to be no more or less threatening than any other dude. Surely his war vet brother would be scarier.
Next!
It seems like most of the people in this episode were faceless because we’ll never see them again now that Joel, Tess, and Ellie left the zone. Though it was nothing extraordinary, the closing shot of the episode worked as a really great tease for me. The thought of them heading into a completely ruined city full of loud, screechy noises might not be Rick riding into Atlanta on his high horse, but it definitely portends bad things man, I mean bad things…
Experiencing The Last of Us never gets any easier. It’s a painful, heartbreaking story that might feel gratuitous if it wasn’t so devastatingly good. Of course, the difficulty involved with balancing so much grief with a storytelling necessity for actual payoff is a huge reason why the game was so beloved, but it’s not a task so easily accomplished. That’s why, as with any adaptation of an iconic video game, fans were likely terrified of a live-action series that would fumble the chance to convey this unicorn act to a wider audience. Luckily for them, HBO’s revamped take on Naughty Dog’s 2013 classic hits all the same marks as its predecessor in a shockingly faithful premiere episode that even manages to improve on a few key moments in the franchise’s lore.
The series’ first 80-minutes are essentially broken up into two segments – a 20-minute prologue detailing Outbreak Day and the origins of the Cordyceps takeover, followed by a proper hour that introduces viewers to the show’s post-apocalyptic world and its grungy cast of characters. Truthfully, it’s hard to remember the last time a major adaptation converted its source material from format-to-format with such pinpoint precision. The story beats are all almost exactly the same, with the episode only straying from what previously existed in brief efforts to expand upon what fans were already expecting. Normally, a word-for-word translation could prove costly for a series of this caliber, but The Last of Us is, quite frankly, not normal.
Perhaps it’s because the video game previously existed as a somewhat cinematic experience, but the show’s surprising method of sticking to what works is admirable for multiple reasons. The obvious positive is that The Last of Us is still The Last of Us, and not an entirely new tale riding the original’s credibility. Those who played the games and loved them will be thrilled to see certain scenes play out exactly as they did on their PlayStations nearly a decade ago; those who are witnessing this story for the first time can take comfort in the fact they’re not “missing” anything the former group has raved about for years. As mentioned before, The Last of Us is special in large part because of its emotional tight-rope act, and series creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin clearly don’t want to mess with that wildly effective formula.
Both Mazin and Druckmann stated before the series premiered that there would be new elements and expanded segments throughout the story’s retelling, and the colossal first episode wastes no time in proving this to be true. Viewers are quickly treated to a 1960s cold open explaining the science behind Cordyceps, and a much longer tenure with Nico Parker’s Sarah and the pre-apocalypse Miller family. Thankfully, neither of these bits wear out their welcome and actually end up serving the overall plot rather well. Parker is so likable in her elongated stint on the show that Sarah’s ultimate demise becomes all-the-more tear-jerking, while the eventual collapse of society is made far more upsetting after an incredibly stressful sequence involving the Miller’s neighbors that will likely qualify as one of the most tensity-filled television scenes of the year.
Among the show’s greatest achievements, thus far, is how successful it is at conveying the brutality of The Last of Us without most of the gut-wrenching action. This is accredited mostly to the brilliance of the cast. Pedro Pascal‘s Joel and Anna Torv‘s Tess are more delicate than ever before, stripped of their near-superhuman survival abilities in a slightly more realistic version of the apocalypse than the game was allowed to portray. As such, the series is forced to show their capabilities through smaller moments, leaning heavily on the dramatic aspects of the story, and both performers are adept at meeting the challenge. Bella Ramsey, the biggest question mark leading into the series’ premiere, is outstanding. The most important part of bringing existing characters to life is capturing their essence, which they have in spades. The same goes for Gabriel Luna as Tommy, and, obviously, Merle Dandridge‘s Marlene.
All-in-all, it would appear that HBO has a bona fide hit on their hands.The Last of Us recaptures magic in a bottle, mixing sorrowful, awe-inducing set pieces with the damaging beauty of the human condition, and finally revealing to the greater world why they should be so invested in the journey of Joel and Ellie. The premiere does an excellent job of pacing itself through its own expository chapter and leaves off on an intriguing-enough note that promises a thrill ride when viewers return next week. If the first episode is any indication, newcomers to the franchise are in for a treat, and longtime fans should be excited about what they already know comes next.
I don’t know what day it is. I spent 20 years of the apocalypse keeping track. Funny I would die not knowing.
Let’s just get it out of the way – this is probably my final journal entry. I thought I could talk to people, help them understand what the world needed to heal. Make them see the light.
I was wrong.
We raided a Hunter settlement. Tried to bring them into our fold. We severely underestimated how many of them there were. They killed everyone in my mission, and now I’m in a cage on the way to sacrifice. Well, execution really. Being “thrown to the beasts“, an example for anyone else who might dare oppose them. Sacrifice just sounds better in my head. Doing it for the cause, and all.
I haven’t slept in… a while? So, I apologize if any of this sounds delusional. It’s hard to sleep when you know you only have a little time left. They took all of my things, but one of the guards left me my journal. Maybe he’s just curious what I’ll write. Like an insane social experiment. Obviously, he doesn’t know what I’ve got in here. The second half of my life. A series of events you clearly shouldn’t replicate.
If this is the last hurrah, though, I guess I’d better make it count.
I started this survival guide when I was only 22 years old. So much hadn’t happened yet. I didn’t know how humanity would change, or what might happen on a planet filled with monsters. I was just scared, and alone. I told myself I didn’t care if I died, that I wasn’t afraid of death. But that was bullshit. A lie to make myself feel better, while I listened to gunshots every night. Never sure if they were aimed at people or the infected. Never sure when they’d be aimed at me.
Now, they are. Metaphorically, of course. Literally, I’m being fed to a herd of Clickers. I’ll try to fight back – of course I will – but like I’ve said before, that fungus ain’t just for looks. It’ll hurt, I’m not looking forward to that, but maybe I’ll manage to get one last laugh in before I go. Of all the ways I thought this world might take me, gladiatorial combat against the undead was NOT on the list. It’s sorta hilarious if you’ve got a morbid sense of humor like mine. If you don’t, I suppose it may come across as tragic.
Either way, I’m trying to keep my spirits up. I think I had a pretty good run, all things considered. And, if you’ve somehow found even just a handful of my rules, I’d like to think I saved a life or two during the ride. Based on what I’ve heard, I should have just enough time to get one more lesson down on paper, and I’m not really doing anything else at the moment, so why not?
It’s an obvious one, keeping the circumstances in mind. However, now that I’m old (in apocalypse years), I’m gonna try to throw a little wisdom in there as well. Really flesh out the topic. It’s the antithesis of my current situation, the solution to the mistake that finally did me in. I believed in something, and for the first time, I wasn’t afraid of dying for it. I knew it could get me, but somehow I never really thought it would. So, please, if you’d like to avoid becoming plant bait, do the following –
Rule #88, Don’t Be A Martyr
What I’ve come to learn is that people aren’t designed to be satisfied. Survival is not based around ideals. Its foundation is simply the next thought, the next need that must be met. That’s where this country has landed, and that’s where it will likely stay. Honestly, there’s a good chance it was always headed towards this – whether a fungus took us there or not.
Humanity will always run towards perfection, just to throw it away. We get bored. Salvation is too easy. We make our own problems because deep down, we love the chaos. We love the sensation of hating something from the bottom of our stomachs. It makes us feel better to think everything else is terrible because then we don’t feel as bad about ourselves. It’s sickening, but it’s just how things are. I thought I could fight against that, change it even, and instead I learned the world has become exactly what it was meant to be.
Society was too complicated for us to handle. It was overstimulating. We were always supposed to live in tribes, hunting for basic needs. That’s what we have now. No borders, no government, no money. Just animals, roaming the land. Anyone who allows themselves to think higher thoughts, or commit to something bigger, has already written their future on the wall. People, as we know them, will never change.
I remember when we were still concerned about “Global Warming.” Someone told me it was narcissistic to think we would kill the Earth. That it was more likely the Earth would kill us, like the parasites we are. And, they said, that it was most likely a meteor would take us all out before any of that happened. The universe would hit the reset button, the only true method of bringing about peace.
Maybe a meteor is what we need. We’re too full of hate and greed to let anything else in the door. So many stories end with people being too stubborn to let their feelings go. To do what’s right in the name of the bigger picture. But you have to let go if you ever hope to move forward. Move forward, or you’ll die with the past. Don’t be a martyr. Just hold your loved ones close and keep yourselves alive.
I wasn’t able to do any of that. I let my emotions get in the way. I thought too much. Now the universe has cut my rope short. Thankfully, I have my writings. A legacy. Something for you to remember me by. In a weird way, my life has become devoted to you. The ones who can still make it. If I have to be a martyr, I’m hoping it’s worth something. That I can make you among the last of a drowning breed – those who decipher between good and evil, and know when to use both.
So, if you’ve found this journal, use it well. Enter this world knowing how it works, and learn to survive. I’ll see you sooner or later. Let me know how it goes.
“When you’re lost in the darkness… Look for the light. Believe in the Fireflies!“
Sounds pretty hokey, doesn’t it? I used to think so.
Back in Buffalo – almost 20 years ago now – we hated the Fireflies. That stupid slogan was everywhere. Inescapable. Alex and I would snicker about it in the Quarantine Zone, come up with some fairly solid riffs on our self-proclaimed saviors and their righteous mission. We couldn’t understand why they’d want to tear down what little we had left. We were so young and so selfish.
Sure, the QZ was far from perfect. A borderline fascist environment, honestly. But at the time, at least it kept us safe – or, as safe as we felt we could get in a world post-society. Democracy was gone, we thought. Accept it, and let us trudge through life. Stop trying to tear down our walls. FEDRA’s walls. I’ve been through a lot since then, though. I’m different now. Maybe you see it in my writing? I don’t joke like I used to. I’ve stopped trying to sugarcoat the reality of our situation. It’s bad, and yeah, someone should probably do something about it.
It’s not enough to live behind walls anymore. It’s not enough to spend decades cowering from existence, one mistake away from losing everything. That’s not the future I want. Not for me, and not for you. It’s certainly not what I wanted for Sweet Pea. It’s been a couple years since we left Jackson, and since then, I’ve started to see what I’d been missing this whole time.
Believe it or not, the Fireflies give us our best chance at a life worth living.
If you’ve been keeping up with all my entries, you’ll remember we were waiting for someone named Tommy to pick us up from Jackson and ferry us back to the Fireflies’ base in Salt Lake City. I almost didn’t go with him. The community in Wyoming was beautiful, and I couldn’t think of a real reason to leave it behind. Then, not long before Tommy made it to us, Jackson had to fend off a Bandit attack. Five men, all of whom I’d come to know, gave their lives to keep their families safe. To make sure their children would have enough supplies to make it through tomorrow.
I realized, at that moment, how important the Fireflies could be. Jackson was only allowed to be tranquil some of the time when the apocalypse wasn’t forcing death down its throat. The Fireflies had the potential to build a world where it could flourish. Where it would only be one of many thriving communities. I didn’t have anyone to protect anymore, nobody else to look out for but myself. So, I decided my best use was to leave Jackson and dedicate myself to crafting a world where its residents could sleep soundly at night.
I joined the Fireflies, and I haven’t looked back. Ironically, Tommy went back to Jackson after dropping us off. He wanted to stick to his word; get us there safely. But he found something special in that county, running that dam. He found love, so he left the Fireflies. I suppose you could say I took his place. I don’t regret it. First decision I’ve made in a while I can say that for.
You might think it’s some culty bullshit, but I’ve never felt more secure. I have a purpose again, and I feel good doing it. It’s been a really long journey, but if I had to enter another rule in this journal – in ‘Apocalypse 101’ – it would be to find whatever it is that makes you feel this way too. You might be thinking it’s a weird thing to put in a survival guide. That joining a militia feels like a surefire way to get yourself killed. But there are other jobs here, aside from being a grunt. There are doctors and caretakers and cafeteria workers. All of them LIVING. Being truly ALIVE.
So, literally or metaphorically, I encourage you to abide by the following rule.
Rule #73, Look For the Light
Before you join the Fireflies, however, let me give you a brief history lesson. It’s not like school, where you sign up for classes and they teach you everything you need to know. It’s more of a “pick it up as you go along” situation. Lucky for whoever has found this journal, though, I have sorta been treating it like school. ‘101’, and all. So I’ll give you the rundown and hopefully, you’ll be good to go by the time you join up. Hell, maybe by when you find this we’ll have already done it and nothing I’ve ever written will matter anymore. That would be something.
Anyway, best I can tell, the Fireflies came about sometime in the early 2010s, not long after the apocalypse started. As I’ve covered a couple times, their goal was to restore a democratic government and remove FEDRA and the QZ’s from power. In their early days, they didn’t have much support. They’d try to start riots or coups from inside QZ’s, but it didn’t work. Eventually, they went further than FEDRA was comfortable with, and six Firefly members were publicly executed. That was a mistake on FEDRA’s part. Really stirred the people up.
After that, things started to take off. Their numbers grew, people started to see the light. They were able to organize. You could identify members from their clothing – always yellow and green, like the glow of a real firefly (Get it?True fashion). That’s what I wear now, too, which is great because I’ve always looked good in Earth colors. We also wear cool, fancy pendants as an identifier. A way to weed out the spies from actual believers.
The Fireflies’ base of operations has moved around a few times, before they landed in Utah. I’ve heard the last spot they called home was at the University of Eastern Colorado. They were there for a while, but I’m glad I missed that era. It ended poorly. Bless their hearts, the militia was searching for a Cordyceps cure in the University’s science labs. Trying to bring the world back by ridding it of monsters altogether. Testing all sorts of wacky vaccines on monkeys, until one got loose. It bit a doctor, and everything fell to shit from there*. The labs were no longer viable. They had to move elsewhere.
The last decade has been spent trying to get as many people and communities on the Fireflies’ side as possible. A lot of the QZ’s have now fallen to Firefly insurgency, a nice change of pace after so many years of failure on the militia’s part. Unfortunately, as soon as people get a little taste of freedom, they get spooked. They think the Fireflies will turn out to be just another dictatorship. So, after the QZ’s topple, the folks there reject us and make the cities their own. I can respect the idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Apparently, this is how the Hunters got their start. QZ’s that fell to the Fireflies just became hotbeds for “survival of the fittest.” A shame. So much wasted potential.
Now that I’m here, I’m hoping I can put an end to the mistrust. Alex always said I had a way with words. A way with people. So maybe, after I help end FEDRA, I can be a peace broker. Make up for all that time of simple killing. Stand up and convince the citizens of this country to play along. To unify. To build better lives for themselves. Maybe I can at least do that.
When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light. And look for me. Don’t be afraid to say hi.
*(That was in 2028, just before I made myself known. I still hear whispers there’s a lead on a cure, but as far as I know, nothing all that miraculous in terms of actual progress has been made. We’re led by a woman named Marlene. She’s a fighter, and she knows how to rally the troops. She’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. Marlene is convinced her and the surgeon here, Dr. Jerry Anderson (real nice guy), can change the world. I hope she’s right, because if she’s not, it could be the end for all of us…)
In the before times (as I like to call them), we couldn’t get enough of it. We took comfort in it. It gave us an excuse to screw up.
“I’m only human.” “People make mistakes”. “Nobody’s perfect.”
We had a safety net. A set of rules everyone understood. Cops, news reports, families. Consequences for our actions. Sure, there was always the occasional intrusive thought. An urge that frightened us. But, for most folks, that’s all it was – a thought. Nothing we’d ever act on. There was too much at stake. Too much contentment we might lose. With that system in place – society intact – we knew thoughts would stay thoughts. We could keep pretending we were good. That we weren’t capable of being the thing that bumps in the night.
It only took the end of the world to show us how terrifying we really are.
When you strip the comfort away – remove the rules – all that’s left is the truth. Raw impulse. Nothing stopping you from letting whatever’s inside out of its cage. An inherent evil. Boiling up, festering, waiting to do the unthinkable. Whether you want to admit it or not, it’s there. All of us have it. Some are just more in touch than others.
Two years ago, I lost my last chance at peace. Alex, and Sweet Pea…both gone. I didn’t give myself enough time to mourn. I taught myself not to feel, and I kept moving – directly into the lion’s den. Pittsburgh, as it turns out, had fallen into a bit of a civil war. The gunshots probably should have been a good clue, but at the time, they sounded a lot kinder than the screeching clicks coming from behind me. A sane person might have thrown themselves into the pit of infected and gotten it over with, but I wasn’t sane. I felt like I had done wrong. Like I needed to be punished. So I ran towards pain.
The city (don’t go to cities) was mostly full of humans. Regular, non-infected humans. At first, it was almost a relief. Finally! People who aren’t dead! Others of my own kind! Beings who spoke words instead of noises! Yippee!!!
Luckily, I was smart enough to watch before I engaged. I followed the sounds of gunfire downtown, hoping I might find another group of survivors. A happy little clan, clearing the area of Runners, that I could run to with open arms. Comrades I could use to soothe my broken soul. But that’s not what I found there. Where I thought I might finally find companionship – a reprieve from apocalyptic isolation – I only saw more monsters.
People who let their evil win. The worst of mankind, running the streets. I hid in a dark, quiet storefront, and watched them ambush innocent (stupid, but innocent) travelers with no mercy. A truck rolled through, on its way to God knows where, and the folks inside couldn’t even make it down the block. They were run off the road, pulled from their vehicle, and slaughtered. A couple, it looked like. Their truck was stripped for parts, and the killers practically danced over their bodies. Smug, dirty looks on their faces.
I lost it.
There weren’t many, and I had the drop on them. They left some of their guns on the ground, too far behind them, secure in their tasteless victory. I don’t know what came over me, but I couldn’t take it anymore. If I wasn’t going to be punished, I’d make sure they were. It didn’t take long for me to kill them all. To drop to my knees and start sobbing. To let my evil win.
That was my first time being a murderer. It didn’t feel good, but it did have surprising results. My tears (and also probably the gunfire) attracted some unwanted attention from the infected. I was going to let them nab me, but before they could, a collection of knives took them all out. A new group of survivors, ones who didn’t want to kill me, had seen everything. They saw what I had in me, and they saw I used it “the right way”.
Two years later, I’m still with them. They aren’t family, but they’ll do. They were en route to join the Fireflies when I met them, and I had nothing better to do. So I guess that’s what I’m doing now too. We’ve stopped for a bit in Jackson County, Wyoming, but it’s been a long journey. I didn’t realize how differently parts of the country reacted to all this. One thing has been made abundantly clear though, and it’s time I make it official in the journal –
Rule #58, People Aren’t Better Than Monsters
Don’t trust anybody. Even among my current crew, I sleep with one eye open. Or I just don’t sleep. Truthfully, it’s killing my hygiene. But I’m not trying to impress anyone anymore, am I?
If you’re going to be making your way around the States, it would be helpful for you to know who you’re dealing with. Over the last 24 months (ish), I’ve taken notes on every group of survivors we’ve encountered or heard tell of. I’ll list them all here, for your convenience, in the hopes it helps you make heads from tails the next time a stranger offers you their hand.
So, here they are – The Known Survival Groups of the Infected States of America
F.E.D.R.A. (Federal Disaster Response Agency)
I covered these guys in my earliest “Apocalypse 101” entries, but just in case you don’t have the whole journal (who knows where these pages end up) or you’ve forgotten, I’ll go over them again. FEDRA is all that’s left of the United States government, and at this point, they’re really just power-hungry, militarized tyrants. They set up and run the Quarantine Zones with an iron fist, acting as a militia with the goal of “keeping the peace”, and sometimes fly around the country looking for people to force under their rule – or “infected” to kill. One perk of having government support? They’re the most heavily armed group you’ll ever meet in the apocalypse. Tanks, high-powered weaponry, you name it. Probably best to avoid a violent encounter if you can.
Smugglers
Alex used to be a Smuggler. These are the people who really run the world these days. They sneak supplies, weapons, and all kinds of contraband around the country, and are maybe the only folks who can move in and out of QZ’s with ease. The Smugglers have a massive underground network connecting multiple cities and settlements across both coasts. Sometimes, when people have had enough of the outside world, they even pay Smugglers to sneak them into QZ’s and slip them ration cards. For the most part, these guys won’t hurt you unless you do them dirty. Bad business to cause a ruckus, but if you do cross them, they won’t hesitate to end your life.
(One of the most legendary Smugglers is a man named Bill, who lives outside of Boston. He’s got a whole town to himself, rigged with endless traps for infected and unwanted trespassers that only he knows how to get past. A little extra? Likely. Still kinda cool? Yep.)
Hunters
These are the creeps I dealt with in Pittsburgh, but really, they’re all over. We’ve heard of Hunter attacks in Kansas City and here in Jackson County, as well. They’re some of the most hostile survivors you’ll find, and normally, you’ll find them in what’s left of major cities. Hunters overthrow existing communities – often QZ’s – and feast on their remains. Anyone who enters their territory will be brutally murdered, without remorse, for their clothes, supplies, weapons, and/or food. You can tell you’re in the presence of Hunters from their complete lack of empathy, and the way they call you “tourist“. They think they’re funny. You should kill on sight.
Bandits
A lot like Hunters, just with a different method of taking your things. Bandits don’t take over cities or lay traps for unassuming passersby, but instead leave their own smaller encampments to attack bigger communities nearby. They’re a little more feral, and they’ve spent more time living in the woods and away from civilization. We’ve seen a lot of these guys since arriving in Wyoming. A massive, dangerous nuisance if you’ve managed to create any kind of settlement in their vicinity.
Cannibals
Yeah, they exist. Remember when I said people aren’t better than monsters? This is what I mean. Infected eat people, and as it turns out, people eat people. They look sickly, but they’re well-fed. You don’t have to hunt if you’re willing to eat one of your own, and if they’re willing to eat their own kind, what else do you think they’re willing to do? The majority of reports regarding cannibals have come from Colorado, near the Silver Lake area, but I’d bet money there are more out there.
Fireflies
Like FEDRA, we’ve covered the Fireflies before – but for the sake of the survival guide, let’s run through it again. The Fireflies are a revolutionary militia group with a goal of returning the world to it’s former state and removing the borderline-fascist FEDRA agents from power. They believe in democracy, and if the rumors are true, they’re after a cure for the Cordyceps fungus. They’re based out of Salt Lake City, in Utah, but have encampments all over the nation. The Fireflies are great with propaganda, too. You’ll see their logo and slogan spray painted everywhere – “Remember, when you’re lost in the darkness.. Look for the light. Believe in the Fireflies!“*
Rattlers
You didn’t think the apocalypse would end slavery, did you? The Rattlers exist in California – Santa Barbara, if word is accurate – and thrive on forcing other people to do their dirty work for them. They capture unassuming travelers and use them to keep whatever type of community they have over there running. We met one escapee on our journey, and she said they even capture infected and tie them up out front as guard dogs. Wild stuff.
Ravens
Ok, hear me out on this one – polygamist FEDRA deserters who’ve couped up together in New Mexico, who believe in themselves as “defenders of the Constitution”. Never met one, but found a document on my travels from someone who had. I’d say it’s hard to believe, but I’ve seen a lot worse.
Seraphites
I sorta hope I never have to cross paths with the Seraphites. They’re a religious group, out of Seattle, Washington, who pray to a false prophet and believe the Cordyceps fungus is a God-sent punishment for humanity’s sins. They don’t use any advanced technology or weaponry, and have “returned themselves to the Earth”. Live off the land, treat women poorly, don’t believe in sexuality as a spectrum, all that fun stuff. To be honest, though, they can be nasty, and they’re pretty set in their ways. Weird vibes overall. We found this prayer in someone’s bag, once. We think it’s theirs –
“The world is not in balance
But I have done my part to right it You have led me through the storm Now I must rest May the current be calm May you guide me home“
Washington Liberation Front
The Seraphites’ rivals, and the other major group living in Seattle. They’re maybe the one civilian militia to overthrow FEDRA and not become Hunters. The Washington Liberation Front are often called “Wolves” by other communities, and they’re not afraid to go the extra mile to get what they want. Currently, they’re involved in a minor Civil War for control of Seattle. Could take a long time for that one to be settled.
Jackson Community
This is where we are now. Maybe the most peaceful place I’ve seen since leaving the QZ. It’s a self-sustained community in picturesque Jackson, Wyoming, led by a lovely woman named Maria and her father. They get their power from a hydroelectric dam, and basically function as if there’s no apocalypse happening at all. It’s gorgeous, and the people are actually friendly. Horses, farms, markets, etc. I’m still waiting for the “BUT”.
We stumbled across this place in Jackson on the way to meet the Fireflies. We’re supposed to meet one of their members here, someone named Tommy, so he can escort us the rest of the way. I’m not really sure what the plan is. Almost wish I could stay, but the last few years and my time in Wyoming had started to make me feel like I might have a bigger purpose in all this.
*(I used to think the Fireflies were foolhardy, but now, after everything I’ve lost, they kinda sound like the best option out there. If I’m going to be fighting for my life, I might as well fight for everyone else’s too. The community in Jackson is so tranquil. It’s what I’d always hoped I could find with Alex and Sweet Pea. If the Fireflies are offering a chance to do that, for the whole country, I want to help them. I’m not afraid to do what I must for that future anymore. Not after Pittsburgh…)
Y’know, I once wrote a story about a little girl. She dreamed up a magical universe, as an escape.
Her reality was abusive. She needed somewhere to go, but she didn’t have the power to leave on her own. So she used her imagination. She created someplace special, just for her. A place to be happy. A place to be free. The story was occasionally charming, sure, but it was dark. And the ending was crushing.
The little girl, despite all her best efforts, succumbed to the pain of her reality and died in search of her wonders. It probably hurt more to write it than it did to read it. I even attempted to give the story a happier ending, to appease my future audience, but I couldn’t do it. What I had already written felt right, and anything else would just rob it of its weight. It would take away its truth.
I was afraid my friends and family would question my mental health if they read it, so I never shared it with anyone. Looking back on it now, I realize I didn’t want to share the story because what I put on paper scared me just as much as I thought it might scare others. It had become my own personal scripture, with a demon on each page.
It’s lost forever now, likely rotting in the rubble of a house I grew up in. But it still rattles around my brain from time to time. I’m 35 years old now, and it’s rattling again. Only this time it’s different. This time, I’m not scared of it. I have a new perspective, and I understand what the story really means – It was an outlet. A way for me to express what I knew about the world without confronting it directly. I couldn’t find a happy ending because I couldn’t see my own.
I never cried over losing my family. My old family, the one I had before all this. I know that sounds terrible. It’s not like I didn’t want to cry, it just never came. I couldn’t force it out. It’s strange, I’ve always been someone with big emotions. But whenever something really bad happened, something unspeakable, I would just buckle down and choose not to feel it. A defense mechanism, like if I processed it I might explode.
I’m a survivor. That’s how I’ve made it this far. Dropping to my knees and crying wasn’t going to help. Head down, move forward. On to the next.
But then the next was Alex. And after that, our little Sweet Pea.
I made a mistake. I started feeling again. I felt so much. For years, I didn’t think about that little girl or that horrible story. In a world that wanted so desperately to prove me right, I just thought about my loves. My new family. I could see my own happy ending.
We had to leave Buffalo. The snow was too much in the winters, and the buildings couldn’t handle the banks piling up all over. We barely made it to spring a few years ago, so our family moved south. Outside the city, somewhere in hickland, we found a stable of horses. The folks inside the house nearby had kept them healthy and well-fed. They couldn’t do the same for themselves. Their bodies were fresh, but they weren’t infected. So we took what we needed from their place and left on horseback.
Pittsburgh became our new home. A nice little suburb outside the city. Plenty of empty houses*, canned food, and supplies. Alex and I cleared the block of infected. Set up a homeschool for Sweet Pea. Lived with smiles on our faces. Nearing a decade together.
I came up with a stupid idea to celebrate mine and Alex’s anniversary. There was a little trail, not far from our house and right next to the river, where we loved to spend evenings. Sit, talk about life, admire the city skyline. At the end of that trail was the entrance to the sewage system, locked with two great big doors. One morning, while Alex was teaching Sweet Pea at home, I snuck away and painted a mural of us on them.
It wasn’t for anybody else to see. Just for them. I wanted the reveal to be an event, something they talked about for days. Something that made Sweet Pea giggle. But it wasn’t that. It was a disaster.
Alex loved it so much. He told me it was amazing, and I didn’t believe him. Then suddenly, I saw his eyes, and it really was special. The way they were sparkling. Lit up. Sweet Pea laughed, her lovely little laugh, and they were all I cared about. A moment separate from reality. A happy ending.
I was too distracted to notice Sweet Pea open the doors. In all the time we’d been there, Alex and I had assumed they didn’t open. Locked. Stagnant. But child minds think differently. She found a way. A curious little hand pushing too hard on a rusted bolt, perhaps. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I just remember the clicking sounds we heard as soon as those creaky doors swung open.
Everything happened so quickly. I made eye contact with Alex, and the happiness had vanished. Just fear. We weren’t prepared. We let our guard down. Stupid. The infected came pouring out of that dark cavern-like ants. Sweet Pea was right there. We couldn’t get to her in time.
I wanted to let the monsters take me. I watched her sob. I started sobbing too. I couldn’t make my legs move. Alex managed to get to her, pull her out before she suffered. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it out either. He took charge, pushed me forward. We ran for a while. I lost them both in the chaos. Now I’m here alone. Crying over losing my second family. Thinking about Sweet Pea. Wishing she didn’t have to be the little girl from my story.
What I have left is this journal and a reminder why I started writing it in the first place. I was right. Happy endings don’t exist. Life always ends in death. No matter how hard you try to fight it. So I’m officially putting down my next rule in “Apocalypse 101”.
Rule #49, Learn Not To Feel
I don’t know where Alex and Sweet Pea are, but I know I’ll probably never see them again. I don’t envy Alex, either. If they both escaped those infected, he still has Sweet Pea. And she still has a bite mark on her shoulder. I hope he’s able to do what he has to for the both of them. He won’t read this, but I hope he doesn’t need it. If you want to keep living in these times, you have to learn not to feel.
You can’t stop to mourn the bodies at the stable. You can’t grow attached to one place. You can’t be afraid to kill. You can’t love so much you forget where you are.
When you feel, you open yourself up to death. I don’t know what’s next for me, but I know I’ll do it on my own. Consider doing the same. You see what being vulnerable got me.
*(Our suburb was pretty empty, but the city itself had a lot going on. Infected, yes, but also large groups of people. Lots of shooting. We stayed away as a family, but now I might not have a choice. Cities are bad, but there are too many infected in the other direction for me to take on alone. Maybe if I keep to myself, I can sneak through undetected…)
HBO’s The Last of Us is still a week away, but showrunner Craig Mazin already has his sights set on the future. The live-action show is set to adapt the events of 2013’s iconic video game, and based on marketing, it looks like the entirety of Naughty Dog’s groundbreaking story will find its way into the network’s 9-episode series.
Luckily for Mazin and the fans, there is an equally acclaimed sequel ripe for adapting should HBO want more seasons. The Last of Us Part II was released in 2020 and takes place several years after its predecessor. The game is notably longer, and features more characters than the first installment, meaning Mazin and franchise creator Neil Druckmann could likely get multiple seasons out of it.
In an exclusive interview with Comic Book, Mazin revealed he’s fully on board to adapt Part II:
Personally, I don’t have a great desire to go beyond what’s there currently but I know that the story of the second game is way bigger and far more complicated than the story of the first game which means there’s more story to adapt.
Craig Mazin
He did go on to clarify, however, that he would not take the story past the end point of the games. The Last of Us Part III has been rumored to be in development for some time, but as of now, has not been officially announced. As such, it could be a while before fans see any live-action The Last of Us past two or three initial seasons.
So, if folks show up and watch this season of The Last of Us, everybody on our side and on HBO is excited to keep going and tell that story but, again, I’m a believer in endings. I don’t want to feel like we’re suddenly just treading water. I think every episode of television, if you’re going to make a television show, it’s kind of a crazy, arrogant thing to do, to expect people to watch your show. Every episode has to deliver. Every single one.
When HBO first announced their high-profile adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, it was made clear that not everything from the games would carry over into live-action. Neil Druckmann, creator of the franchise and one of the series’ leading producers, stated changes would have to be made to the story in the process of adapting it. Now, fans are getting their first idea as to what will be different when Joel and Ellie make their iconic trip across the country on television.
In an exclusive interview with Comic Book, series showrunner Craig Mazin revealed HBO’s take on The Last of Us will not include the infamous spores that helped spread the Cordyceps infection so quickly in the acclaimed video games:
Obviously, there are some big things that we know we’re keeping, of course, but then there are challenges from the game to the show that had to be considered. For instance, little things like the spores. In the game, there are these where you encounter spores and you need to put a gas mask on. In the world that we’re creating, if we put spores in the air, it would be pretty clear that they would spread around everywhere and everybody would have to wear a mask all the time and probably everybody would be completely infected by that point.
Craig Mazin
As Mazin mentions, both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II feature sections of gameplay where the players encounter Cordyceps spores floating in the air. The spores make it difficult to see clearly and are usually accompanied by loads of monsters. They also force the protagonists to use protective masks and flashlights to traverse infected areas. Mazin‘s reasoning for altering this aspect of the game’s aesthetic makes sense, and the creative went on to assure fans that he and Druckmann have come up with some sort of fitting alternative instead:
So, we challenged ourselves to come up with an interesting new way for the fungus to spread but mostly I think we just connected with the soul and spirit of the game. He, as the creator of the game, and me, as a fan of the game, we were caretakers on behalf of all the fans but also on behalf of all the people who haven’t played the game who need a television experience that is holistic and connected to itself and doesn’t feel like you ned to play a game to understand.
Craig Mazin
The Last of Us premieres on HBO on January 15th. It stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, with Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, and Merle Dandridge rounding out the recurring cast.
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