I've been surprised by the popularity of HBO"s 'The Last of Us' as in many ways it's just another show about the end of the world. Of course, this is precisely why I have been watching it - post apocalyptic shows have always appealed to me, perhaps as I'm intrigued not only by how people use their personal resources to survive (exactly why I love Alone) but that the world has this opportunity to reconstruct itself. I'm also interested in the emotional action of this series which really culminates in Episode 5. Twenty years on from the outbreak of a zombie fungus cordyceps, the world isn't particularly doing a great job at this.
As Paul Stamets, the father of fungi, says, cordyceps can't jump to human beings, but that doesn't make the show any less interesting. Like most shows of this ilk, you have to suspend disbelief and get on with seeing what the characters do in the face of mass scale disaster. Despite losing his teenage daughter during the outbreak, Joel still must do what he can to survive, even if it's killing people. Here's a man immensely traumatized, so much so that it is more of a risk connecting to other human beings than it is fighting the infected. Time has stopped for him, symbolized by his broken watch in episode 1, a gift from his dead daughter. In episode 5, we return to this fact, as Joel's brother snaps that just because time has stopped for him, doesn't mean it has to stop for other people. Tommy is about to become a father, something Joel struggles to come to terms with as he can only define himself, and his relationships, around terrible loss. He can't show any happiness for his brother in the same way he could not show grief at Tess"s passing. His brother may have moved on and emotionally progressed, knowing 'there is another way' from the violence that has always been his go to.
Episode 5 seems to really get to the heart of who Joel is The title, 'Kin", isn't just about finding Tommy, it's about other relationships too, the ones we have with the dead (Tommy has the names of his wife's son and his dead niece on the mantelpiece, Tess, everyone that has died or left Ellie alone to survive herself) but the ones we have now and are yet to be (Tommy's unborn child, his wife, Joel and Ellie). Of course, nearly every relationship in this show is Joel and Ellies - the couple alone in the woods, for example.
Last week's episode was also about kin and betrayal are a mirror of Joel and Ellie, with Henry and his son Sam on the run because Sam had to betray his community for medical treatment for his sick son. The action fulfilled our curiosity about the infected that are on the periphery - and indeed underneath - the surviving human communities. Here we get more world building and exploration of the different types of infected, from the echo locating clickers to giants. Sam's infection quickly undoes all the work done by Joel and Ellie to help the pair and the brutal ending shows just how losing someone - or being the cause of their death - can totally unravel someone. Henry, unable to face his son's infection nor the fact he had to shoot him to protect Ellie, pulls the trigger on himself. It removes the sugar from the usual arc of a show like this, where in any other show, Henry and Sam would survive due to the heroism of it's main characters. We also get a sense that Henry's failure is also Joel's, something he grapples with constantly.
As he tells Tommy, he dreams of loss - whilst he hope Ellie can dream of something more hopeful, like a sheep ranch on the moon - a combination, perhaps, of Ellie's desire to be an astronaut and his own hope to settle down somewhere quiet and be a shepherd?
All the way through the series so far, you can see how Ellie will eventually wear Joel's defences down. It's something we have seen before, and I could roll my eyes over it, except it's so tender and sweet in places, like when Ellie tells Joel a lame joke and he can't help but break up laughing at it because, perhaps, it catches him unawares in the dark, after a difficult day. Joel's clearly done everything he can to keep Ellie at arms length emotionally, and for him, it's about money - deliver the girl to the Fireflies, and he'll get his reward. As viewers, we know from the outset that the reward is his humanity, redemption perhaps, even the capacity to love more freely, but Joel doesn't allow nor entertain that possibility. He's also so preoccupied with his own failure he can't see how good he has been to Ellie and how much he means to her, and vice verse.
That's what episode 5 does - it begins to crack his exterior, and by golly, it's painful. The clutching of his heart as he semi collapses, breathless, agonized, seems to be less about his physical heart than his emotional one. I don't imagine he will die of a heart attack any more than I imagine he'll die from a wound to his gut - both physical ailments symbolize the death of the old Joel and how bloody painful it can be to keep going against the odds.
The most beautiful scene is when he reveals his anxiety to his brother. It's such a vulnerable scene where he expresses his weakness in such a poignant, open way, and of course the only person he can reveal this to is Tommy. His brother's wife is wrong - the person you trust the most doesn't have to betray you, and Tommy certainly doesn't, showing his willingness to help his brother and of course the whole human race by bringing the cure to the Fireflies.
Joel, of course, overcomes his moment of doubt and turns up with a horse in the morning, saying Ellie has a right to choose. It takes a microsecond to throw her stuff in the horse. The horse allows them a physical closeness that hasn't been allowed before, Ellie wrapping her arms around him and resting her cheek against his back. There's no sign of heart trouble and anxiety - perhaps Joel is setting up with a little more hope, as he certainly only 'borrows' his brothers gun and 'is counting on' coming back, but plenty of other threats clearly await.
A few notables
- The diva cup and the sisterhood! I mean, I don't think I've seen another show that mentions PERIODS, like, coz woman have them... and none with a moon cup.
- I really hoped Joel wouldn't break into a cowboy croon as they went through the university. But to be sure we'll get a Hank Williams tune at some point and I am secretly looking forward to it. I think Joel could be a shepherd AND a singer, by the way.
- The monkeys are bloody terrifying. I just watched the movie Nope with a murderous chimp so I expected them to attack 🤣
- Ellie's inability to conceive that girls in the past only worried about boys and dresses points to our own frivolous concerns when there are bigger things going on
- I really like how the show isn't scared to name or express emotions: grief, stress, anxiety, guilt, love. It really isn't just about killing zombie
- The "river of death' and the frozen landscape is truly beautiful, but it's a possible home for them when all this is over, a working 'commune" in contrast to the totalitarian like state Joel has been living in when the series opens.
- Joel's dream of becoming a sheep farmer is a bit of a running joke through the episode and culminates as they enter the university. The humour that threads it's way through this series is certainly a nice touch and makes it far more refreshing than something as humourless as The Walking Dead. It also makes it more believable - what human being hasn't used a joke or black humour to get through a tragedy, and surely it's a coping mechanism in the face of it just like any other tool in our survival kit?
To be honest, episode 5 is the episode that has cemented this series as really worth watching for me. Before I could take or leave it - enjoyable, but not something I'd waste emotional energy on. The fact I'm writing this review suggests I'm pretty keen for what happens next.
