Since HBO first announced that a TV series based on Naughty Dog’s critically acclaimed 2013 video game The Last of Us was in the works, many people have held their breath waiting. it finally came, and with great poise and promise too. While the video game series definitely offers one of the best experiences in the genre, the new TV show is brilliantly detailed and a remarkable original creation.
The first episode takes its time as lays out the world, characters, and personal bonds that will bind the series together in future episodes. Indeed, it was the emotional and interpersonal relationships that made the game such an immense critical success. HBO’s The Last of Us will be no different if it continues as it began.
What Happens In ‘The Last Of Us’ Episode 1?
In 1968, a television talk show about the nature of the disease in the future was filmed in a crowded studio. The interviewer and presenter of the show talk to two scientists with opposing opinions on the subject. One of them claims that humanity is at the greatest risk from a contagious virus that could easily be spread worldwide through international air travel and could lead to a pandemic. However, other scientist claims that what could be deadlier than viruses is fungi because fungi have a controlling effect on their host bodies. If the world gets any hotter, the scientist warns, it could potentially lead to a plague in which fungi burrow into human bodies and take control of their minds, turning them into mindless, zombie-like creatures with a single purpose: infect the whole world. Around 35 years later, in 2003, this premonition seemed to come true. In Austin, Texas, Sarah Miller is a young teenager. Despite her relatively young age, Sarah is used to taking on household chores. With only her single father Joel to accompany her, Sarah somehow runs the house and keeps things in place.
Sarah was pretty excited because it was September 26th, which is Joel’s birthday. The young woman wants to celebrate with a birthday cake, but Joel soon tells her that he and his brother Tommy have to work double shifts. to complete the construction work in which they are currently involved. After school, Sarah takes the bus to the capital, which is some distance from her neighborhood and visits a watch shop to buy a present for her father. She had noticed that Joel’s watch had stopped working, so she had it fixed for him as a birthday present. She then also visits her older neighbors, the Adlers, with whom Sarah seems to have spent a lot of time as a child. his father wasn’t home. But something seemed wrong all day: there were more police cars than usual, the Adlers’ dog was scared of something, and at night the television news showed that there had been more allegations of violence. in the city than usual. When Joel gets home it’s ten o’clock in the morning and he forgot to bring cake. Any celebrations have to be put on hold, and instead, Sarah simply gives Joel her repaired watch and also one of her favorites. Movie DVDs. Later that night, Joel gets a call from Tommy to help him get out of jail where he ended up in a little bar fight. Joel leaves after putting Sarah to bed. Sarah wakes up after a while, disturbed by the loud sounds of torches and sirens.
She turns on the television and finds that a national emergency call is being broadcast. Then her neighbor’s dog startles her, apparently screaming for help. Without knowing what’s going on, Sarah tries to bring the dog back to the eagles’ house. , but the animal runs away in fright. It’s only when Sarah enters the place that she realizes what the dog was afraid of the elderly couple who lived in the house was severely injured and died, while the now paralyzed grandmother apparently bit her daughter-in-law’s neck. Sarah immediately runs out of the house but alerts the infected woman, who is now chasing after her with eerie mushroom tendrils sprouting from her mouth. At that moment, Joel drives in his car and Tommy is by his side as well. with a gun in hand. The two men now reveal that some kind of infection was turning people into aggressive, zombie-like creatures, and it was mostly the people of the city who got infected. No idea if any of them were infected. In this, Joel and Tommy attempt to devise an escape plan that involves getting out of town and possibly out of state as well. main streets of the city. Here the disaster is even worse as a plane crash leaves everyone injured and their car damaged beyond repair. Now Joel desperately carries an injured Sarah in his arms while Tommy tries to ward off any danger but soon becomes separated from the two. An infected man then tries to attack Joel and Sarah only to be killed by army personnel who then stop Joel. In this time of need, the military has no way of understanding who is infected and who. not, and he doesn’t want to take any chances at all. The soldier is given orders to kill every human he finds and starts shooting at the protagonists just as Joel starts running. Tommy arrives at the scene of the crime just then and kills the soldier, but the damage is already done. Although Joel is not seriously injured, Sarah was fatally shot. When the father desperately tries to help his daughter by any means necessary, Sarah succumbs to her injuries.
The year 2023
Twenty years have passed since then, the year 2023, and the world has evolved into a very different place. Nature and nature had taken over most civilized spaces, and the remaining humans now lived in heavily guarded quarantine zones. The number of those infected has increased dramatically, and they continue to swarm mindlessly toward humans to further increase their numbers and spread the fungus that controls them all. A military entity called the Federal Disaster Response Agency or FEDRA has now taken over government quarantine zones, observing regular curfews and following strict protocols to monitor for new infections. To date, a device has been invented that easily checks and determines if a human has been infected with the fungus, as it takes some time before visible signs of infection appear, which can range from fifteen minutes to twenty-four hours. If humans are found to be infected but have not yet turned into a zombie, they are immediately killed and their bodies discarded as no cure for this fungal infection has yet been found. In the midst of such a scenario, in the Boston quarantine zone, Joel Miller is still alive, somehow surviving the events of that tragic night in 2003. Now he’s a hardened man, ready to do whatever it takes to survive and get involved in maintenance work Works named by FEDRA to earn cards corresponding to money.
He also has a connection to a soldier, and Joel also sells drugs when they are available to make a little extra. Gradually it turns out that the man has been working on a big plan for some time. His brother Tommy had also survived the night of the apocalypse and had moved west of the continent. However, there has been no response or report from Tommy for the past three weeks, which is highly unusual and Joel suspects his brother is in danger. He plans to take a truck to Wyoming, Tommy’s last known whereabouts. Resources are as hard to find in this new world as cures for diseases, and Joel desperately needs a battery to get his truck running again. To do this, he and his close associate and collaborator Tess make a deal with a black market vendor. However, this deal goes awry when the salesman tries to trick them, and Joel and Tess decide to rob him. In this trader’s dugout, however, the two find that the man and his group have already been killed. The assassins are none other than the rebel faction calling themselves the Fireflies. In the face of Phaedra, the Fireflies do not believe in military control and are constantly engaged in armed conflict with them. While Joel attempted to leave Boston, the Fireflies held a young woman named Ellie hostage at their base. It is not yet known why Ellie is being held captive, but she appears to be someone very important. As faction leader Marlene tells her closest associate, this secret is one worth guarding, and Ellie must protect it at all costs. Now Marlene is meeting up with Joel and Tess at the black market trader’s hideout, and the two parties already know each other well from their previous confrontations.
At that moment, Marlene asks Joel to help her with a vital task: the Fireflies would give him and Tess all the resources and vehicles to get from Boston to Wyoming, but in exchange, he would have to take Ellie with them. their next safe house, where other members of the rebel group would be waiting for them. Marlene explains that in Boston, she and her team were preparing to take Ellie away, but the constant threat of Phaedra made their escape too risky. On the other hand, Joel wasn’t a prime target for FEDRA, and he eventually agreed to the deal. That night, Joel, Tess, and Ellie sneak out of the quarantine zone only to be caught by a soldier. Even though this is the same soldier who bonded with Joel before, he doesn’t want to give them a break and tests them all for infection. Ellie stabs the soldier with her knife, which she always keeps nearby, and in the ensuing fight, Joel beats him to death. However, at that very moment, the scanner shows that Ellie is indeed infected with the infection. The young woman asserts that she was bitten two weeks ago and still has not. He turned into a zombie, which indicated that something was wrong with the scanner. With no time or resources, Joel and Tess take Ellie with them for now just to make sure the fireflies help them find Tommy.
What Makes The First Episode Stand Out?
Whether it’s the performances or the gruesome prosthetic details of the infected, The Last of Us has got off to a truly impressive start. Those familiar with the video game version of Naughty Dog might say that the best parts were in the small, small details that made the storytelling quite compelling. It’s safe to say that this effect seems intact in The Last of Us series as well, perhaps due to the active role of Neil Druckmann (the creative director of the video game franchise) in writing it. In the day of 2003 depicted with Sarah at the center of the narrative, there are numerous things that continue to portend impending death. Some of these happen behind Sarah’s back, meaning she doesn’t notice them, while others happen to her. Like back then, when the grandmother in the Adler house was attacked by the fungus, and her face was somehow distorted. Of course, this will be the most telling sign of things to come, but perhaps nothing could have prepared him for Sarah’s death. While she appeared to be the lead for the first half of the episode, towards the end we realize that maybe Ellie will take her place instead.
Ellie is a very likable character so far, played efficiently by Bella Ramsey. She is goofy most of the time and then very intense when she wants to be. Like a teenager her age, she is also quite cunning and intelligent for the most part, probably due to her life as a lonely orphan growing up in the Phaedra military school. After she sneaks out of this school, the fireflies capture her, and Marlene later tells her that she was the one who caught them. Ellie enrolled in school so she could have a better life than being on the streets. Marlene also mentions Riley’s name when Ellie calls the Fireflies a terrorist organization. Ellie is smart enough to get information about the radio signal codes and what they mean from Joel. He realizes that Joel’s watch is broken: the same watch Sarah got him as a birthday present. Perhaps this links Ellie as a replacement for Sarah, who we see at a similar age. The idea of community and connectivity is still very important in this world, even if it’s post-apocalyptic. People line up outside an office to communicate with loved ones living in other quarantine zones via a radio operated by a specific family. As well as resources and materials, which are currently very rare, messages and communications also feel like important business items, if you will. These aspects make this world extremely compelling despite the bizarre setting that is presented.
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