What will survive of human civilisation when pandemics have stripped back the population, or the sun has swallowed our planet? A Hank Williams CD, perhaps, or Mortal Kombat II? These are the artefacts that survive the end times in Sky’s hit zombie thriller The Last of Us, which comes to its brutal denouement this evening. But for all the acclaim – all the gushing editorials about its place in the pantheon of TV shows that should be preserved from the apocalypse – can The Last of Us deliver an emotionally satisfying conclusion?
Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are approaching their destination. Having dispatched the cannibalistic leader of a survivalist cult with a meat cleaver in the final minutes of last week’s episode, Ellie is struggling to stay upbeat. “Everything I’ve done,” she tells Joel, “it can’t be for nothing.” Out now on the West Coast, there are moments of beauty: a stray giraffe who eats from their hands, a rooftop of abundant vegetation. But this tranquillity is fleeting – soon enough, they’ve rendezvoused with the Fireflies and it becomes clear that Ellie is not intended to survive the process of synthesising a vaccine. Cue Joel’s moral conundrum and a whole lot of bloodshed.
