The wait is nearly over. HBO Max’s The Last of Us will debut its nine-episode season on January 15th of 2023. The first season will occupy the 9 pm ET/PT slot and it’ll run until the middle of March. Since its first announcement, fans of the franchise have anxiously awaited a release date.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the leads of the series, have posted teasers and status updates on their social media profiles since the confirmation of their casting. A few weeks ago, the first official trailer was released. Hardcore fans of the game recognized some of the iconic lines of the first installment, such as “you have no idea what loss is”. Since then, things were relatively quiet until yesterday when HBO Max dropped the news of the first episode releasing January 15th.
The Last of Us Official Synopsis
The synopsis of the The Last of Us show reads as follows:
“THE LAST OF US takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”
The Last of Us By The Numbers
The show is based on the wildly successful video game developed by Naughty Dog. The PlayStation exclusive has sold more than 17 million copies since its release. The video game also holds other impressive records such as over 1.58 million hours of logged gameplay by fans. During the first week alone, The Last of Us Part I sold 1.3 million copies, skyrocketing to 3.4 million just two weeks later. If you think that is impressive, then you’re correct. However, it doesn’t stop there. The franchise has received over 80 gaming awards combining parts 1 and 2, not counting the literal hundreds of thousands of viewers watching streams of the game on Twitch.
The Last of Us Cliff Notes
So The Last of Us is just another zombie show? Not quite. I wouldn’t call them zombies. Humans got infected by a mutation of the cordyceps fungi. In insects, this fungus takes over their body. Over time, spores and sprouts will grow out of the insect, taking over its body, and manipulating it until it eventually dies. In the video game, this fungus takes over the human brain.
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This hostile takeover turns humans into rabid versions of themselves whose only purpose is to kill and infect other humans. Some of the hosts develop further mutations, becoming even more dangerous than a regular infected being. Usually, when a show is about zombies, a cure is a subject that comes up every now and then. In “The Last of Us”, the possibility of a cure is front and center, at least for the first installment of the franchise.
The Last of Us premieres on January 15, 2023. Let us know in the comments how you’re feeling about this one! I am super excited to finally watch this in live-action. Sure, you could argue that the acting in the original game is indeed outstanding and just that alone would suffice.
Yes, but I still would’ve liked to have seen it in a live-action adaptation. Now I get to do that. It’ll be slightly off-putting during the first episode since the face and voice won’t match the characters to a T, but if the writing, and most importantly, if the essence of the game is there, then we have nothing to worry about. Don’t forget to follow us on social media as we keep dropping exclusives. It’s sort of what we do. Until next time!
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Sources: WarnerMedia, Levvvel
