Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us.
OPINION
What makes people tick? Trying to find out is the best bit about interviewing people for a living. You will be surprised, delighted and, on occasions, so maddened you find yourself pleading, “Please tell me you don’t believe the world is run by shape-shifting lizards.”
Some turn the tables, making you interrogate what you think. A few years ago, there was a conversation for the Listener with esteemed writer Lloyd Jones. In his novel, Hand Me Down World, a photograph from World War II plays a central role. The scene: a Nazi Einsatzgruppen death squad in Eastern Europe, shooting Jewish men, women children, into open pits. Incomprehensible, I said. Jones disagreed. Given extreme conditions, any of us could do it. Surely not, I said. Not innocent people. Not babies. “You’ve got to be joking,” he said.
I still disagree. People resist, rebel, refuse. But it’s a haunting discussion, like one of those philosophical, safely hypothetical thought experiments students and annoying people at dinner parties like to launch. If you had the power to save many by letting one person die, would you do it? Could you? Ethically, should you?
We’ve been having these discussions thanks to a television drama, The Last of Us, based on a 2013 video game, that I refused to watch. Another zombie apocalypse, another world turned blasted wasteland. This time the zombies are the result of a pandemic not caused by a virus but a fungal infection. Mushrooms or something possess your brain. Another thing to worry about. No thanks.
Of course, I watched it. Neon’s The Last of Us turns out to present gruelling, confronting, sometimes devastatingly tender stories of brute survival, heroism, and the terrible power of love. We soon find out what the Infected and looting, murdering survivors, the raiders, are capable of. For those clinging to their humanity, it’s more of a slow burn. Our anti-hero, Joel, has been unable to save his daughter. He is, in his own way, the walking dead. He ends up on the road with young, orphaned Ellie, who has lost everyone. As played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, their tentatively deepening relationship as they become family amid ruins and carnage is subtle – this is not your average zombie series - and unforgettable. Spoiler alert: there are giraffes. You will cry.
More spoilers: Ellie, born amid horror when her mother is attacked by an Infected, is immune to the disease. Her body may contain an answer. With Joel she sets off to find the Fireflies, a group that spends its time rebelling against the inevitably fascist government. The Fireflies also seek a cure. Spoiler alert: the price for Ellie, with her valuable immunity, would be high. Will she be given a chance to decide her fate? When does trying to save someone become an act of betrayal?
The series ending has set off a heated debate. Thought experiment: how far would you go, dear Lord, to save your child? Experts have weighed in. A neurosurgeon questioned the science of the presented scenario where finding a cure involves great sacrifice. A bioethicist has said that sometimes the sheer number that might be saved morally counts. Random dude on Twitter says, “I am sorry but f*** Joel.”
It’s a television show. Does any of this matter? In a world where apocalypses of various stamps seem less and less hypothetical, these discussions may morally count. Covid presented many ethical dilemmas, from potential rationing of care, lockdowns versus let-it-rip, vaccine distribution, mandates ... Climate change presents more. Soul searching over ethics when facing an existential crisis isn’t going away.
Ultimately, and more intimately, The Last of Us is about how our profound primary relationships, like that of parent and child, make us hostages to fortune in unimaginable ways. No wonder Joel resisted for so long taking on Ellie. Do his increasingly desperate choices make him a character we can still travel that blasted road with? Roll on season 2.