There are only a few truly compelling stories coming out of the video game industry for the past 30 or so years in my opinion. I remember the first time I played Halo: Combat Evolved and how I really wanted to kill those covenant bastards. I remember Mass Effect 2 and 3 and how intricately the relationships were woven into the story and how I anguished over who to help and who to disregard. And then there was Naughty Dog and the Uncharted series. The Uncharted series was one of the first times where the story took the front seat and the gameplay was right there with it. The writing, acting, and heart in these games made them a truly consuming experience. They were exciting, funny, and suspenseful and I never skipped a cutscene. Then, they stepped up the emotional and gameplay notch with The Last of Us.

The Last of Us came out in 2013 for PlayStation 3 and it was another heart-wrenching tale with intense gameplay. They did such a good job seamlessly transitioning from gameplay to story and back that there was never a time when you felt like you were not personally engaged. This was the case for the Uncharted games as well. They hid their rendering times behind incredible story breaks and gave you a movie-like experience that really felt revolutionary. When I found out they were making a TV show I was as skeptical as anyone would be in today's up-and-down world of video game adaptation flops. The Uncharted movie, Doom movie, and Assassin's Creed movie, all come to mind as really disappointing cash grabs that didn't capture the experience gamers had during their playthrough. Admittedly it is a difficult task to recreate something interactive in a no interactive medium but a compelling and relatable story can immerse a viewer just as emotionally and physically as an exciting video game sequence.

The Last of Us on HBO is once again proving that in order to make a proper novel or video game adaptation you need two things: money and time. Most video game storylines run into the 10 and up hours and trying to condense that to a 2-hour or so movie just doesn't seem to work very well. But if you spend the money to slow down, and hire great writers and actors and directors and such that you can make something that lives up to the hype. After watching the first four episodes of this long-awaited show I can say that I am delightfully impressed and entertained. They picked some great actors and the look of the show matches the game's dower tone very well. Let's get into it.

Episode one is excellently crafted to mirror the original game and really starts the series off with the right weight and drama. The show adds something the game doesn't have which is some backstory about the preconditions of the fungal invasion. In the game, we start off in a world about to be infected but in the show, we see how years earlier we had the recipe to see this coming. This gives the audience a bit of foreshadowing and science to help us understand what the show is about from a premise standpoint.

Then, we see how fast it all turns bad. In a blink, the world goes from happy-go-lucky American civilization to a brutal kill or be killed in the new world order. Joel's daughter is killed by a military man just obeying orders which introduces us to the dichotomy of governance. This will become a major theme in the show as the quarantine zones are controlled by a dictatorship-style government and the fireflies seem to want to create a more free world. As in most post-apocalyptic tales the world is full of new monsters and regular ol' human monsters.

By the end of episode one, we find out how Joel is living in the twenty-year aftermath of the outbreak. We see him living in a quarantine zone and that he is part of a group of scavengers and smugglers dealing under the nose of the governing body. He has a female companion who is extremely hardcore and we are introduced to the other main character Ellie, who is very important and if you played the game you already know why. We learn about the resistant rebels known as the Fireflies and we see how brutal life is in these "safe zones." One thing to note is that there are quite a few people still alive and that means there are plenty of people out in the world. Obviously, there are shit tons of infected fungified people as well and we will meet these sickos soon enough.

We also learn that life has become cheap as the government hangs people for breaking the rules and we see how the underground economy emerged beneath the surface. People seek freedom from oppression and fight to survive in whatever way they can. They sneak out to scavenge and barter on the black market because the government can't control everything and death is only a spore or car bomb away. I am always curious why post-apocalyptic stories, where humans are so few, always seem to relish in the deaths of those few people left. I would like to think that as the population dwindles to almost nothing life would be treated with more care but it seems to be an opportunity to portray humanity as more animalistic and dog-eat-dog when resources get low. The thing is that resources wouldn't necessarily be that low as they would have plenty of food and water because those things weren't affected that badly.

Episode two starts with another flashback to a mixology scientist learning of the cordyceps mushroom infecting its first humans. It's pretty gross stuff. She informed the military that they should just bomb everything, which is what they presumably do. I don't understand why she and everyone else is so pessimistic about finding countermeasures, treatments, and potential cures. Almost everything in our environment can be manipulated in one way or another and humans are good at adapting and innovating. The whole world should have gotten its best scientists to figure out something to do. That might be unrealistic as well but a complete lack of hope seems to disregard our natural creative tendencies. We have antifungal sprays and creams and fire kill almost anything. If people have to be bitten then why not give everyone leather or metal armor?

In this episode, we learn that Ellie has been bitten but isn't showing any signs of being infected and they hope that she can offer some kind of a cure so that's why they're bringing her to where they're bringing her. We also learn a little bit more about the fungus-infected people and we find our first clickers. This show does a great job with its special effects and production and it looks a lot like the game and it's very creepy. The main environmental theme is that nature is taking over the city with its greenery and the color grading and saturation bring a kind of beauty to the darkness befalling humanity. It's as if the feeble attempts of humans to survive in this world are futile as the world is given back to a pre-human existence.

By the end, Joel has to decide to honor his lover's last wishes and get Ellie to the scientists or to head back to the QZ. He obviously chooses to go on the adventure that the entire thing is based on and Ellie and Joel head out as an unlikely duo to brave the harsh world or the fungal fanatics.

Episode three is not what anyone would have expected I assume, especially if you played the game. In the game, Bill is a survivalist who has taken over a large part of an area within the city that Joel and Ellie are passing through. He has the means to get a vehicle but they have to get to it. Joel has to navigate elaborate boobie traps and fungal friends and in the end, Joel leaves bill to rebuild his traps and continue his ornery isolated life. This is not far off from the show's portrayal with a few important exceptions.

In this episode, the writers got really clever and instead of having a flashback at the beginning they made the whole episode a flashback, mostly. After a prelude where Joel and Ellie are traveling, we go back to the beginning of the outbreak and meet Bill in his prepper hideout as the military is taking the rest of the community away to their untimely deaths on the side of a road. Bill is the last one left in his small town and he takes advantage of the departed residents and goes about making his fortress. This is the prepper’s wet dream and he thrives in this environment. He turns the gas back on, and fences in the area build defenses that are very effective and can hunt and grow food.

Then, one day he meets a random dude stuck in a pit he dug as a trap for potential intruders. This is where the story begins and the viewers are taken on an unexpected tangent from the rest of the story. Bill is not gay in the game and my first reaction to him being gay in the show was to be pissed that they changed the character in such a dramatic and unnecessary way. I actually don't know if Bill is gay in the game but I had assumed he wasn't and because it never came up it seemed like a ploy by the writers. To get ratings or to be controversial or to appeal to the LGBT community in a way that was for its own sake instead of for the sake of the adaptation of the game. Then the story continued and I kept watching.

Within just a few scenes I realized that this wasn't about the game. It was about the world in which this story takes place. It was about freedom, acceptance, love, friendship, and how even in the worst of times there is hope. These men had to wait for the end of the world, for everyone to die, and for safety to be placed into their own hands to find love. They exemplified the strength and contentment that comes from companionship, even with its imperfections. They spent twenty years essentially with just themselves and worked together to live in a way that they both found fulfilling. With the exception of a few dangerous encounters, they both died with a kind of peace that most would envy.

This tangential story was a great way to surprise the audience with something that brings heart to the world that we inhabit while we watch. It shows why humanity is worth preserving even if only for the few who might find happiness and love. It highlights the bonds we make in trying times and how our vulnerability can be rewarded with emotional stability. This bond is not unlike the bond between a father and a daughter even if the daughter is not your daughter. I'm eluding to Joel and Ellie's relationship here, which will continue to deepen as the story continues.

Episode four bucks the trend as there are no flashbacks, just forward plot movement as Joel and Ellie travel the highway toward their destination. This episode follows the game pretty well during a great moment after Joell and Ellie get their vehicle from Bill. In the game, you get snared by a small group of raiders and wreck your truck and have a good gunfight. The show replicates this very well. What the show adds is some context to the group that attacks Joel and Ellie. They are a fairly large group led by a woman who seems both strong and troubled but not necessarily evil.

When they encounter the trap Joel recognizes it but he decides to run headlong into it. I don't remember if he does this in the game but it is really dumb. He should have gone back into known territory instead of forwards to where the bad guy came from and presumably wants him to go. Either way, they crash and have to kill a couple of dudes. In the game, it's a bunch of dudes and it's just a fun challenge but this is a show and it's all about drama so each violent act has weight and significance. The young bad guy pleads for his life after Ellie shoots him but he was about to kill Joel a second ago so he has to die.

Ellie and Joel lose their truck with all its gear and so are now in an unknown city trying to evade a group that wants revenge for killing their men. In the game, you just kill anyone who isn't you but the show gives life to the guys and shows that they are just another group of people trying to survive. This makes it more significant when Joel and Ellie have to interact with them instead of just killing shit tons of nameless bad guys who all travel predictable routes. Also, we are teased about an enemy strong enough and big enough to lift the concrete above like an earthquake. Spoiler, it's a huge fungus freak.

Joel starts to let down his guard around Ellie and they really bond over the course of the episode. It becomes apparent that they are in this as a team. Joel even lets himself laugh at a dumb joke Ellie tells. Then they are taken hostage by a man and his son to end the episode with a cliffhanger.

I am really impressed with this show and can't wait to watch the last 5 episodes. They did a marvelous job (so far) in staying true to the game's tone and style while taking the story and turning it into something worth watching. Something with heart. It is compelling and engaging and fun. I'm going to go play Dying Light 2 now and wait for the next episode.

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