On January 15th 2023, HBO Max released a show based off of the game The Last of Us which was developed by Naughty Dog. After playing a little bit of the game, doing a lot of research about it and watching many YouTube videos, I decided to watch this show, and I was really excited for it to finally release. Set in the United States in an apocalyptic world, this show has a great plot, lovable characters, lots of action, drama, and comedy. Needless to say I was very impressed with it. So here is my review of The Last of Us (Tv Series). Warning, there will be a couple spoilers for both the TV show and the video game.
Two of the main actors in the show are Pedro Pascal who plays Joel Miller and Bella Ramsay who plays Ellie Williams. I personally could not think of two actors better fit to play these characters and both of them did such an amazing job. Before watching this show Pedro Pascal was already one of my favorite actors, but this show just made me love him even more. You can really see the chemistry and dynamic both Pascal and Ramsay have with each other and a couple fun and comedic moments in the show that seem so natural for both actors.
Something I find funny with Pascal’s character is that he is playing another “father figure” type character, as he does in the show The Mandalorian. I think he plays these types of characters very well. I personally think his character has some of the biggest development throughout the entire show as he begins to warm up to Ellie and I think Pascal does an amazing job of conveying this to the audience while keeping Joel’s serious and undemonstrativeness demeanor.
Ramsay also did an amazing job with portraying their character Ellie. For such a young actor they show the character’s personality perfectly. Ramsay does an amazing job of showing Ellie’s humor, stubbornness, curiosity, sass, and fight that Ellie has. I can’t wait to see how they show Ellie’s development that she has in the second game in the second season of the show.
One very important aspect of the show is that many of the scenes exactly resemble the game which to me was truly amazing. Even many small little details like how in one episode you can see a cassette tape on Ellie’s desk for the song Take On Me by A-ha and they even play this song during a flashback scene with Ellie. This alludes to a scene in the second game where Ellie plays a very pretty acoustic version of the song on her guitar. I absolutely love this version of the song that I learned how to play the song on guitar myself; so I enjoyed this small detail. Another detail from the game to the show I really enjoy is how some of the actors from the video game are featured in the show. Two of the very notable ones are Troy Baker who plays Joel Miller in the game and James on the Show. Another one is Ashley Johnson who plays Ellie Williams in the game and Anna, who is Ellie’s mom in the show. Some others include Merle Dandrige who plays Marlene in both the game and the show, Jeffery Pierce who plays Tommy Miller in the game and Perry in the show, as well as a couple other subtle cameos.
Each episode is very well thought out, matching the game as closely as possible including exact cinematography and even exact lines of dialogue. The show also allows you to clearly see the character development of the protagonists. One thing I really love that some shows do is that they develop their characters in such a way that allows the person watching to fall in love with the characters very easily. So as the viewer watches the characters grow closer to each other, the viewer also feels like they are growing closer to the characters as well. Considering all of these things, The Last of Us has probably become my favorite show at the moment. It has some absolutely stunning scenes, amazing characters, fantastic plot, top tier actors, wonderful dialogue, and is just overall an amazing show. I had such a great time watching it that I started to play the entire game from the beginning and I’m very excited to continue playing it. I rate the show a 10/10 and I very highly recommend it to anyone who may be looking for something new to watch.