'The Last of Us' review: 'When you're lost in darkness' is how you start a TV show

[Editor's Note: The following review contains spoilers for "The Last of Us" Episode 1, "When You're Lost in the Darkness".]

Let's take a minute to consider the "Last of Us" prologue, a heavy bit of work done with such elegance and tact that it takes a few viewings to fully appreciate it. At the very top, it touches on the biggest meta-element working both for and against the series, the idea that the word “pandemic” has been turbocharged in the years since the original game was released ten years ago. He drops the idea of ​​the cordyceps as an occasional possibility rather than pointing it out with a giant red pen. He hands over to the scientists to hint at the turmoil that's about to unfold, rather than letting some FEDRA lackey do it in retrospect.

It shouldn't work, have, and describe the stakes of societal collapse that we'll see in waves throughout this season. But that combo of "We Lose" and the staggered reaction from the cut to the commercial break that weaves itself right into the opening credits is a deft framing of television, one that should put as much faith in a viewer as it does. anxiety. /p> Related Related

Although the game has found success in following the natural outgrowths and aftermath of this collapse, this opening episode finds a lot of value in setting Outbreak Day to 2003 and what might come from it. Of course, a high school student living in Bush-era paranoia would greet the possible end of the world with "Is that terrorists?" Of course, The Last Normal Breakfast Ever soundtrack would be a song by Dido. Everything is normal until it's not, a reality this show effectively draws from our last years together.

In directing this episode, Mazin is smart about what to take away from past collapse stories. The gradual cracks in the dam before it all erupted, the police cars crashing through nearby windows, the neighbor giving someone a try on how to deal with “the enemy”. But the really effective touches here are what it leaves out. To have even the slightest glimpse of what happens to the neighbors after Tommy (Gabriel Luna) runs them over is terrifying. It does a better job of telling you everything you need to know about how this thing is spreading than seeing what Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Tommy saw in town or getting a clunky newscast spelling it all out.< /p>

It's also an incredible kick-off for that doomed van ride, a very clever way to embrace the game's visual language without sacrificing tension or storytelling power. This is perhaps the most effective 360-degree in-car camera work since the "Children of Men" ambush scene, and placing it at night really adds to the feeling that the three people in this car are driving in hell.

"The Last of Us"

Liane Hentscher/HBO

When they get there, it's a carefully orchestrated chaos that escalates, even though the audience knows all hope is lost before they even get there. The trip into town offers drops of dread: the house on fire, the family trying to hitchhike (barely hearing what they are screaming...