Kyle and Andrew dissect The Last of Us TV premiere

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New episodes of The Last of Us will air on HBO every Sunday night, and we'll recap them here every Monday morning. For this extra-long series debut, reviewers Kyle Orland and Andrew Cunningham dive deep into the differences between telling a compelling apocalyptic story in games versus doing so in a TV series and will consider whether the source material ends up helping or hindering this adaptation. /p>

While we don't delve into every plot point of the premiere episode, there are obviously some major spoilers contained inside, so go watch the episode first if you want to. go fresh.

Kyle: Before we dive in, we should probably establish our story with The Last of Us universe. The first game was one of the first major Sony exclusives I reviewed for Ars Technica, and it blew me away with its moving narrative, top-notch world-building, and skilled survival combat. I was less enamored with some of the wild narrative turns of 2020 Part II, but the sequel still had its share of moments that will stick with me.

Andrew: I've never played the game! That's why I'm here, of course. I didn't avoid it on purpose, it's just that I play maybe half a dozen games a year at this point, and the vast majority of them are either Nintendo's hard-hitting 2D action platformers , or games about capturing pocket monsters. Every six months or so when they release a new remastered version of The Last Of Us, I think "Maybe this time", but it just didn't happen.

I have a general Wikipedia-level knowledge of the main plot beats. I also have a few touchpoints for apocalyptic fiction adjacent to a pandemic or contagion (leading: HBO's Station Eleven, but not the book, the book World War Z by Max Brooks but not the movie) which I think will serve me well here.

Enlarge / A behind-the-scenes look at an Infected-centric leadership.

Kyle: Speaking of plot beats, I was really looking forward to HBO's take on the game's iconic opener. ANDREW You're talking about the 60s talk show here?

Kyle: No, that part was completely new actually, but I liked the way it set things up. Probably helpful given how much more "pandemic aware" we all are now than in 2013 when the game was released. I was referring to the whole outbreak sequence that led to Sarah's death. As they expanded things and fleshed out some characters a bit, I was really struck by how familiar some of the key moments were. It's not just the games dialogue, but even the camera angles and background elements were eerily familiar at many points. Even these days, I feel like there aren't too many video game cut scenes that could make the transition to "prestige TV" so intact.