This just in, HBO has released their newest show: The Last of Us! While I have never played the game but only watched cutscenes on YouTube, I came in with high hopes and let’s just say I was impressed with the TV show.

While I could not take my eyes off of Pedro Pascal’s acting as Joel Miller in the first and second episode, I was mainly impressed with Bella Ramsey as Ellie because we can see how her character has changed so far over the course of the show. It’s like she went from a wreckless 14-year-old who wants nothing to do with Joel, to becoming a vulnerable yet determined kid who lives in a post apocalyptic world and just wants to survive no matter what. But she later realizes that she can not do it alone because she needs Joel to survive. I also love how convincing Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal’s American accents were. They were so good, I was convinced that they were from Texas and Boston.

In all honesty, I thought that the whole cinematography for episode 1 and 2 was amazing because I felt a lot of dread when the setting changed from being bright and sunny in the beginning, to being dark and gloomy later in the series. I also loved how the set designers made the entire sets look messed up and vandalized so we can see the destruction that the virus has caused to Joel, Ellie and the gang because we are supposed to feel the sense of dread and gloom with them. The costumes are also amazing because it looks like they also took notes from the video game and were very determined to make sure that the costumes were accurate to all of the characters. I felt my blood run cold in episode 1 when the pandemic began and everything started running amok.

For episode 3, I enjoyed the memorial at the beginning which was dedicated to the late Annie Wersching who we sadly lost in late January of this year. She voiced the character Tess in the original video game. I won’t go into a lot of details for episode 3 but this was the perfect episode that was dedicated to her memory and I’m pretty sure that she would have loved it. Episode 3 is also going to pull at your heartstrings more because they have decided to add in the Linda Ronstandt’s song “Long, Long, Time” which makes it very emotional for the viewers watching at home, especially with how the song fits into the bittersweet episode with Bill and Frank because Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett put on amazing performances as their characters in that episode.

In episode 4, of The Last of Us, I am once again impressed with Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal’s performances as Joel and Ellie because while it does show them butting heads at certain times, they start to become more caring, playful, and affectionate towards each other. When Joel and Ellie come face to face with another freedom fighter group, they know when to step into action, protect and look out for one another which is what I find to be very heartwarming. I also feel like I’m there in the cold post-apocalyptic setting because it gives off a cold-windy vibe.

As I’m saving the best for last, episode 5 seems to be the best out of the following episodes so far because they finally introduced a disabled character. The disabled character that they introduced in episode 5 is named Sam who’s played by real life deaf child star Keivonn Woodard. While Sam is not deaf in the games, I thought it was a good start to have disabled characters to be the heroes in horror fiction and not have them play the disabled villain trope just like we see in every horror movie.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my review of HBO’s The Last of Us!