Reviews

The Last of Us is essential viewing for Christians – if you can stomach the gore

By 2023-04-12T16:40:00

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The hugely popular post-apocalyptic HBO series is morally ambiguous, but full of Christian themes, says Rebecca Chapman

Not being a huge fan of on-screen gore, I’ve never been one for zombie movies. However, HBO’s latest pandemic-themed post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us had me hooked from the very first episode.

You’d think pandemic-themed shows would be the last thing to be popular right now, but with 30.4 million viewers across season one, The Last of Us has achieved the biggest cumulative audience for an HBO series since the final epic season of Game of Thrones in 2019. Like Game of Thrones it is violent (perhaps no surprise given its video-game origins) with some strong language. Written and directed by Craig Mazin (HBO’s Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (creator of the original video game), it balances grief and despair with wit and warmth as it explores how humanity responds when civilisation has collapsed.