“The Last of Us” (2023)
Depeche Mode and a whole lot of love.
Depeche Mode and a whole lot of love.
“I’m taking a ride with my best friend
I hope he never lets me down again
He knows where he’s taking me
Taking me where I want to be
I’m taking a ride with my best friend
We’re flying high
We’re watching the world pass us by
Never want to come down
Never want to put my feet back down on the ground”
Chapter One — Father and Son
As I was trying to start this article this morning I was gazing into the far distance and probably with a look of consternation across my face when I caught the eye of my teenage son not five feet away from me. I was in my writing world, he in his PlayStation alternate reality, but I reassured him I was ok and purely thinking and mulling over how to commence this article. I told him I was struggling to start yet I had a lot to say and he responded that he understood and he often felt the same way when writing and composing his own fan fiction. It was a brief if heart warming conversation as until recently I had no idea my autistic teenage son had started writing and I could not be any prouder if I tried.
My son, the PlayStation obsessive, is trying his hand at fiction writing?
I couldn’t be more proud if I tried.
I’d like to believe there’s a crossover from seeing me writing this past decade but I’d be even prouder if he’s simply following his own passion and writing desires. Time will tell but there’s certainly a more pertinent crossover here (as well as the obvious crossing over from platform game to television series) and that is my lapsed gamer status and my son’s picking up of the PlayStation mantle. I certainly introduced my son to the wonders of the gaming world and for good or ill, he’s a masterful obsessive and a wizard with a PlayStation controller in his hand! Numerous other crossovers have come and gone again in our joint time together from Lara Croft and Tomb Raider through to last year’s Uncharted and suffice to say we’ve enjoyed the best of them and endured the rest!
This particular crossover from the gaming universe to a wider television audience is already a resounding success with both of us and one hopes that this optimism isn’t misplaced as I write this after watching three of the initial run of nine scheduled episodes in a presumed Season One of many and a presumed ten episodes per season rather than the current nine. Episodes entitled “When You’re Lost in the Darkness”, “Infected” and “Long, Long Time” have come and gone in a brilliantly unhurried and well told fashion, with episodes four through to nine scheduled from the day of writing (1st February 2023) through to 12th March 2023.
We’ve exchanged memories as to when and where we bought the game initially and whether it was a present for Christmas or a birthday. I’m certain I bought this for him as a complete Christmas surprise but who needs the truth when we can enjoy the enigma? We noted the eponymous use of flashlights in a game, now television series, such as this and I’ve noted the presumed homage to the game whereby scenes often end with a sarcastic or snide comment that segues into the next scene. We haven’t noted as yet a huge correlation with the game in terms of re-enacting exact scenes or incidents but rest assured, we’re ready to exchange notes once more as soon as “Please Hold My Hand” airs for the first time on 5th February 2023.
“I’m taking a ride with my best friend
I hope he never lets me down again
Promises me I’m safe as houses
As long as I remember who’s wearing the trousers
I hope he never lets me down again
We’re flying high
We’re watching the world pass us by
Never want to come down
Never want to put my feet back down on the ground
We’re flying high
We’re watching the world pass us by
Never want to come down
Never want to put my feet back down on the ground”
Chapter Two — Nick Offerman
Isn’t it just wonderful to see Nick Offerman in such a prominent role once more? I’ve always seen his screen presence as one of reassurance even if here he’s a singular “prepper” living and railing against the “Jackboot of the New World Order” before sharing the rest of his life with a love he never knew existed. Whether it’s his well known appearance in the long running television series Parks and Recreation or Fargo or my particular favourite big screen film roles in 2016’s The Founder or the very underrated The Kings of Summer from exactly a decade ago, the presence of the laconic man from Illinois is so often a reassuring one of things being ok and that everything will turn out for the best.
Here Nick is simply known as “Bill”, a doomsday prepper who seems, despite the ridicule of “Frank” (Murray Bartlett), to have been correctly paranoid all along. Bill’s ingenuity sees the rest of his town cleared of all human habitation but climbing up from his secret bunker he now has an entire town to himself until the love of his lifetime arrives and the end of the world never tasted so bittersweet. Their joint scenes dominate episode three as the cascade of early 21st Century years are shown in flashbacks and of the joys of growing and eating strawberries, living their fiercely independent lives and the piano scene that will long be seen as a high watermark for the series so far.
“Never let me down
Never let me down
Never let me down
Never let me down
See the stars, they’re shining bright (never let me down)
Everything’s alright tonight (never let me down)
See the stars, they’re shining bright (never let me down)
Everything’s alright tonight (never let me down)
See the stars, they’re shining bright (never let me down)
Everything’s alright tonight (never let me down)
See the stars, they’re shining bright (never let me down)”
Chapter Three — Musical Delights
As you may well have noticed, the lyrics quoted throughout this article come courtesy of a London band by the name of Depeche Mode and boy did the inclusion of “Never Let Me Down Again” please this musical child of the 1980's! Employed as a musical closure to episode one, the use of music is predominantly a safety feature and code for the last amongst us and the stars of our ongoing drama “Joel” (Pedro Pascal) and “Ellie” (Bella Ramsey), more of whom in my end of season article later in March 2023.
For now, the musical choices are so key to a television series/franchise such as The Last of Us, and as with the songs of The Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead in Peaky Blinders or the wonderful 1980’s soundtrack to Stranger Things, the inclusion of Depeche Mode here is a brilliantly left field choice as is the renaissance now given to the music of Linda Ronstadt and the inclusion of her song “Long, Long Time” that bookends the beginning of a love affair for all time as well as the long, lingering shot from the lovers bedroom window that ends episode three in such a magnificent way.
Afterword
If you’ve reached this far and still have no real idea as to what The Last of Us pertains to, it was originally a PlayStation game from a decade ago set in the fallout of a post apocalyptic world bombed into the stone age to kill of a fungal infection virus that sees the infected mutate into living dead zombies. Amid “QZ’s” or “Quarantine Zones” are quite literally the last of us, the last surviving remnants of humanity under constant surveillance, a military dictatorship and strict 12 hourly curfews to combat “Infection and Insurrection”. Picture The Walking Dead combined with the 2006 film Children of Men for there is a global pandemic as well as a global panic and perhaps, just perhaps, the fate of humanity rests on the shoulders of a cock sure 14 year old acting way beyond her years. A vaccine is needed and if the themes of curfews, quarantine zones, pandemics, mutations, infections and insurrections ring a doorbell far too close to home for comfort, then you’re clearly as beautifully paranoid as Bill.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film and television articles are linked below or there’s well over 200 blog articles (with 400+ individual film reviews) within my archives from which to choose:
“Babylon” (2022)
End times fun. Without the fun.medium.com
“The Beatles: Get Back” (2021)
“Rehearsed until lunchtime. Left The Beatles. Went Home”.medium.com
“The Master” (2012)
“We record everything. Throughout all lifetimes”.medium.com