Twenty years later, Joel resides in a closely fortified quarantine zone when he’s tasked with escorting a teen lady named Ellie (performed by Recreation of Thrones alum Bella Ramsey) throughout the zombie wasteland… and she or he’s useful cargo, for some mysterious purpose. Pascal and Ramsey instantly have a powerful, spiky dynamic as the 2 reluctant journey companions, and the horrors they face collectively are very actual. The zombies listed here are vividly grotesque — the panorama is plagued by fungally contaminated corpses, with mushrooms rising out of the eyes, ears and mouths — and extremely deadly, too.
The Final of Us treads acquainted territory at occasions — it virtually can’t assist it, because of the sheer explosion in zombie content material over the previous decade — however there’s an class right here, a melancholy magnificence that units it aside. (The hollowed-out cities with deserted skyscrapers overgrown with wild vegetation are simply so gorgeously unhappy.) The third episode, specifically, is a tiny jewel, dramatizing a standoff between a paranoid survivalist performed by Nick Offerman and a wayward traveler performed by Murray Bartlett. Their story is a giant detour and takes some surprising turns, but it surely works fantastically, underlining how important the human factor is to a present like this.
Actually, The Final of Us isn’t for everybody: It requires a powerful abdomen, for one factor. (I can’t think about binge-watching multiple episode at a time.) However for many who are up for it, it’s a extremely compelling and artfully crafted step ahead for the zombie style — and for tv on the whole.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: HBO’s The Final of Us revitalizes the zombie style with gruelingly intense motion and deeply humane storytelling.