To be honest, after the disqueting, semi-apocalyptic weirdness of the COVID pandemic, my appetite for journeys into the darker side of humanity’s soul, and the cataclysmically devastating way it affects the world around us, has diminished significantly.
Strangely during the lockdown height of the pandemic, when it psycholigically felt like the world was ending (on my worst days, anyway), I read and watched a lot of apocalyptic and dystopian stuff which ran the gamut from alien invasion to, naturally, pandemic, to climatic change to, well, everything.
I guess during the worst of the pandemic, and let’s face it, it’s far from gone, there was a visceral comfort in knowing that even though reality was bad, these fictional people had it far worse, and while as noted my need for that strange reassurance has dropped to almost nothing, that is likely what will drive me to watch The Last of Us.
That and the fact that, from this trailer alone, and no, I’m not a gamer so I have no experience of the source material for the show, it strikes a substantial emotional blow, evoking a world lost to horrific, zombie-creating disease, leaving lost and traumatised survivors in its wake.
Too many apocalyptic shows focus on the violence and the drama but at the end of the day, or is that the world, it’s the innate harrowing humanity that really captures my attention and keeps me watching.
As an empathetic person, it’s what connects me to anything I watch and read, and I suspect, even allowing for my apocalyptic story exhaustion, it’s what will make me tune in when The Last of Us starts streaming on HBO Max in 2023.