Inti Navia 
Early in “The Last of Us,” fans were not expecting the show to get any sadder after Bill and Frank. After the season one finale, boy, were they wrong.
If you’re not already familiar, “The Last of Us” is a show on HBO Max based off of the video game. Starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsay as Ellie, it follows the duo as they navigate a post-apocalyptic world filled with fungus zombies and even more dangerous humans.
The season definitely went out with a bang, as those fresh-off of the Oscars had to watch Joel kill dozens of people in order to keep his found-daughter, Ellie. With “The Mandalorian” and “The Last of Us,” Pascal can pretty much be safely crowned as the king of found family.
It should have come as no surprise that Pascal was on a presentation team at the Oscars. “The Last of Us” premiere drew in over four million viewers, and according to HBO, that number only represents around 20 percent of what the show’s views will actually get later on. The show did “House of the Dragon” numbers without a pre-existing series to get attention from.
One of the highlights of the season was definitely the moments where we saw the darker sides of Joel and Ellie. In episode eight, Ellie broke the creepy youth pastor’s fingers and stabbed him to death, and of course, we all remember what Joel did in the finale.
Even bigger ones were the sad, gay love story episodes. Episode three starred Nick Offerman as Bill and Murray Bartlett as Frank, a kind of one-off episode that explored their life in the apocalypse. Arguably the most beautiful episode of the entire show.
The other one centered around Ellie and Riley, Ellie’s girlfriend that turned into a clicker. Storm Reid did an amazing job portraying her, even if it was just for one episode. That episode is gonna stick around in fan’s minds for a while.
Two other one-off performances are Nico Parker as Joel’s now-deceased daughter, Sarah, and Keivonn Woodard as Sam. Nico Parker made us truly care about her character for the little time that we knew her, so it hurt even more than the game when she was killed. Ah, speaking of hurting when a character was killed, poor, poor Sam. Sam was so sweet and Keivonn did an amazing job playing him. This show really is one punch in the stomach after another.
Are you ready for more stomach punches? Season two is confirmed to be on the way! It will cover “The Last of Us: Part Two” and continue starring Bella Ramsay as Ellie. Without spoilers, the second game is even sadder than the first, but also so, so good, so buckle up.
Are you excited for season two? What was your favorite episode of the season? Let me know!
By Inti Navia, Senior, ChiArts
Every Platform: @intinavia
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