After a pretty good start, the last two episodes -- this one in particular -- have officially won me over.
The best thing about The Last of Us is people having believably like people actually would in these situations. In this episode, Joel reveals his fears and his weaknesses. This is no wooden action hero, this is a three-dimensional human being. The drama over whether he and Ellie would part ways was not overplayed, but just as it needed to be, with realistic emotions, reactions, and changes of heart.
The next best thing about the show: there is real suspense. And this doesn't come from zombies popping up around every corner, a la The Walking Dead, this comes from precisely the opposite. Six episodes in, there have only been a few choice scenes of infected attacks. That actually *enhances* the dread when you're watching the show. My wife and I cringed the whole way as Joel and Ellie took their five day ride to find the Fireflies, watching through our fingers at the same time we laughed with them and enjoyed watching as their ersatz father/daughter bond deepened.
As a reviewer for The Verge put it, "Sometimes you don't need violence and zombies. Sometimes you just need human beings hanging out at the end of the world."
The Last of Us is the first series -- or movie -- that I'm aware of, brave enough to do this. It took some risks at the beginning, and there was some necessary set up. But once Joel and Ellie got rolling, it's only gotten better with each episode.
(Not so much for the people Joel and Ellie encounter, though, who tend to almost always wind up dead.)
Great show, can't wait to see where it goes from here.
