Ellie has a gun. This may seem like an unnecessary detail in a world that lies in ruins. But in the fourth chapter Last of usis a reflection of the reality to be faced and the forms that fear takes. The girl looks in the mirror and does not look so young anymore. With the naturalness of a survivor, he points to his reflection. He doesn’t think about killing or being killed, not yet.
However, the fact that he finds it necessary to protect himself is a small and painful nuance in the reality in which he lives. Last of uswhat about this focuses on the first leg of the characters’ journey west, also does something else. Analyze the desert landscape left behind by the fall of civilization.
Until now, Joel and a little girl face the latest signs that the world has succumbed to an infection caused by the fungus Cordyceps. The argument also touched on the stories of some of the survivors and their traumas. From the human past after every creepy clicker (Snapper), to the apocalyptic love story of Bill and Frank.
However, the new episode goes beyond the remains of cities and towns in order to go beyond them for a while.
Last of us This is the premiere of the year and you can only see it on HBO Max.
In the footsteps of the dead world Last of us
Storyline by Craig Mazin Let the tragedy be left behind V Last of us. Or at least to become part of a landscape that reminds us of the transience of life and the power of the wild.
Rusty ruins, battered by two decades of neglect, are used as symbols of a layer of the past, which at that moment is unimaginable. Despite this, it is a vast expanse of beautiful fields, valleys full of intricate and hostile flora, and huge, endless trees.
The girl who had never left the quarantine zones before her escape contemplate all this with amazement. It is this innocence of the newly discovered that allows Last of us remember the best of Naughty Dog material.
Who is the generation born of tragedy? Someone who has never heard a plane fly and hasn’t had a cup of coffee in the morning? screenplay Craig Mazin remember that the loss of everything known is much greater than bombed buildings or empty cities. It’s also about cracked roads, with weeds growing through the concrete.
A story that starts with an old tune
Joel and Ellie drive a classic Chevy S10 pickup truck. Not just looking for Tommy but how to understand each other. Similar Last of us begins to delve into the already thin thread that unites both characters.
Between conversations in an undertone and while the song Lonely and abandoned Hank Williams is heard both describe their vision of what surrounds them. The contrast is obvious. What is surprising and new for her, sour memories for him. But somehow, this parallel perspective allows us to understand the whole emotional experience of the story.
In the source material premise Last of us Its effectiveness is based on the credible closeness of its protagonists. Thus, his adaptation seeks a way to explore the emotional world of both without feeling artificial. The series depicts their bond as reluctant accomplices and at the same time traces the first signs of mutual affection.
Nevertheless, the plot takes special care not to give the impression that Ellie needs to be replaced by Sarah Miller. At the moment, the girl is a “burden”, as the man pragmatically comments. A job to be done, a promise to be kept.
The wild world that waits beyond the walls
But Ellie also knows how to feel. A fragile life lost in the vast and hostile world that surrounds her. Gradually, Joel allows himself to experience emotions, anxiety, and even joy while listening to another person..
The forests become endless, but stories between the two main characters Last of us they become more personal. “How was it before?” the girl asks, in awe of the rutted roads through flowering fields that no one else cultivated. “What happened when there were people?” he says. But there is no concrete answer to the question, which covers twenty years of suffering and death of millions of people. Joel, at least not.
Feeling unsettling not because the plot Last of us designed to intimidate, but to the delicacy of the message underlying the images. There were men and women among the hills covered with tall grass. Stories, the past and the possibility of the future. “I can’t tell you how things used to be,” Joel says as they enter Kansas.
Violence with a familiar face
Maybe that’s why it’s confusing. the immediate danger that Ellie and Joel faced was not clickers (clickers). Suddenly they suffer a violent attack, sudden and without question. Aggression is human, organized and manifests itself in the middle of the street.
Both run away the threat is imminent. The city around him is a ruin of gray walls, deceptively empty rooftops and boarded up doors. As well as shots and nameless figures ready to kill.
Directed by Jeremy Webb, who previously used vast landscapes to chronicle loneliness and exile Last of us, turns post-apocalyptic Kansas into a prison. The gray streets darken and turn into a labyrinth of creeping shadows. Again and again, Joel and Ellie have to hide not from the infected, but from some terrifying cruelty with a human face.
Finally, Ellie uses the gun she took from Bill’s empty house.. The girl remains standing, looking at the corpse of the man she killed and who attacked Joel earlier. The tension turns into a meaningful silence. Not only because the little girl had lost the last traces of innocence. Joel suddenly realizes that this is not a burden. He is a person who accompanies him and tries to protect him just like himself.
Craig Mazin’s decision to turn violence into a bridge that unites the main players Last of us. However, there is perhaps no other way to show the complicity that is beginning to unite them.
In the same time, emphasizes the nascent affection that is born from the need to find an equal. Both the one and the other are lonely and abandoned, lost in the fragments of the world cracking at the seams. Surrounded by monsters with human faces.
Enemies that wait in the shadows Last of us
Night falls slowly in Kansas. A woman comes out of the darkness to order what to do next. “It’s a girl and a man,” explains Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), a uniformed figure. first character created for adaptation Last of us. Craig Mazin’s script makes the sensible decision to generalize the rebellion of those who disobey no order through a grim figure.
Between the authoritarian defense of the forty zones and the subversive idealism of the Fireflies, there are groups determined to kill. The reason is not clear, and the chapter is not generous with explanations. But one thing is clear: the danger lurks everywhere and the infected do not always incarnate.
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Kathleen listens, furious and gun in hand. “You have to find them, no one can kill here without my permission,” he says. The city is not just a dangerous point on the map. At the same time, this is where the most brutal survivors define a sinister region. The harbor is perhaps as hopeless as the vast, unnamed territory that Joel and Ellie crossed to get there.
Source: Hiper Textual
