'The Last of Us': Tom Rutland on the zombie series inspired by a game
'The Last of Us: Season 2' | Image: © 2025 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved, HBO®
4 min read
Allow yourself to be bitten and become utterly infected by this brilliant post-apocalyptic zombie drama with a stellar cast
A country ravaged by a deadly pandemic. Throngs of rabidly focused individuals set on taking over every town and city. A population unsure of who to trust and at war with each other.
Not today’s America, but the terrifying, post-apocalyptic USA overrun with fungal zombies that is the setting for HBO’s smash hit The Last of Us, which has returned to our screens for its second season.
Zombie shows are hardly novel, but what’s unusual is the source material: a video game.
Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller | Image: © 2025 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved, HBO®
Growing up, you couldn’t move for films being turned into games: from the N64 classic Goldeneye to the Harry Potter series (flipendo!) and the X-Wing fleet of over 100 Star Wars games.
But with increasingly compelling storytelling in gaming – an inherently interactive media format, offering unrivalled immersion for the player – we’ve seen a reversal of the intellectual property media conveyer belt, with games being turned into movies and TV shows.
In 2023 The Super Mario Bros. Movie offered a family-friendly breakout for the world’s most famous fictional plumber, earning over $1bn at the box office despite mixed reviews, and Nintendo are capitalising on its success with a sequel and a Legend of Zelda movie on the way.
Zombie shows are hardly novel, but what’s unusual is the source material: a video game
HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us has defied the trend of commercially successful but critically panned game adaptations, aided by Neil Druckmann’s narratively rich original story, Craig Mazin’s (of Chernobyl fame) production skills, and the stellar cast’s outstanding performances.
Zombie stories are 10 a penny. What sets The Last of Us apart is the character development made possible by the format: high-end television lends itself to telling complex stories, escaping the truncated plots and shortcuts demanded by the runtime limits on movies (which The Last of Us was originally set to be).
Bella Ramsey as Ellie and Isabela Merced as Dina | Image: © 2025 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved, HBO®
The star of the show is not the fungal parasite: it’s the relationship between Pedro Pascal’s grizzled Joel and Bella Ramsey’s plucky Ellie. Joel’s father-like devotion to protecting Ellie as she comes of age – threatened by zombies and humans alike – is what keeps us coming back for more, as well as Season 2’s new antagonist, Abby, and her thirst for vengeance as she hunts down Joel.
Having never played the game, I’m unburdened by spoilers or the attachment to the source material that can leave fans of a franchise disappointed by any deviation from the original script.
The challenge for the team will be ensuring that when The Last of Us comes to an end, we viewers remain a horde of Cordyceps-infected clickers with an insatiable hunger for more, rather than develop an immunity to the fungus.
Too many shows stay long past their prime or underwhelm fans with their conclusions – just look at The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones – so it’s promising that Mazin has said the show’s narrative won’t go beyond the original.
So, for now, consider me bitten and utterly infected with an endless desire to consume it all. Watch it, embrace the fungus, and accept your fate as you get hooked on this brilliant show.
Tom Rutland is Labour MP for East Worthing and Shoreham
The Last of Us: Season 2
Co-creators: Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann
Broadcaster: Sky/NowTV
