If you aren't watching 'The Last of Us' what are you even doing
HBO Max debuts 'Sunday Nights with HBO Max', giving any viewers that grew up watching a show week to week a nostalgia trip
The Last of Us: the show everyone is talking and tweeting about. For those that live under a rock, The Last of Us is a television adaption of a 2013 video game by Neil Druckmann that features killer zombie-like creatures that have cannibalistic cravings due to a fungus infection. I guess you can say that both the game and the show are a little intense.
I never played the original game. In fact, I’ve never played a narrative video game in my life. But I have watched my beautiful and talented husband play many games, especially during the strict COVID lockdown that kept us in our Brooklyn apartment for close to 7 months in 2020 which led to him buying a PS4 on eBay. The first game he invested his time in was The Last of Us so I already knew the essence of the story when the first episode debuted in January.
For those of you who are completely oblivious that The Last of Us exists, I’ll catch you up:
In a time long, long ago (aka 2003), a mass infection of a Cordyceps fungus turns humans into man-eating monsters. Joel is a bit stoic from the very beginning but he allows himself to be emotionally vulnerable with his daughter, Sarah.
SPOILER!!!!!!!!! DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU CARE!!!!!
After Sarah’s death and twenty years of horrific events that only a zombie apocalypse can manifest, Joel has become impassive. This ability to push away emotions comes in handy when living in a dangerous world. Couple that disassociation with intelligence and it is no big mystery how Joel survived the last twenty years of hell on Earth.
The main plot surrounds his task to deliver Ellie, a 14 year old girl who is immune to the virus, to some people who can hopefully use her natural resistance for a cure. Ellie is plucky. She is also impulsive and annoys the hell out of Joel. Slowly, Joel starts to connect to this surrogate daughter-figure as they fight against not only the fungus zombies but evil people (because, of course, there are still horrible humans even during the zombie apocalypse).
As if the storytelling from the game wasn’t going to be good enough for the HBO series, the powers that be cast two talented Game of Thrones alums to play Joel and Ellie: Pedro Pascal (the internet’s daddy) and Bella Ramsey.
The series first debuted in January 2023 and has already made me cry three times. “Why would a horror story make you so emotional????” is what you’re probably thinking if, again, you just came out of the bunker you went into in 2020 when there was a slight chance our own society was going to spontaneously turn into colossal mutated parasites that feed on human flesh. Well actually, thanks for asking! Here is my thesis:
‘The Last of Us’ is really just a study on how disassociation is a trauma response that is sometimes necessary for survival.
Yes, I did in fact tweet this exact sentiment this past Friday.
But it’s true! The Last of Us is not just a horror story. It is an observation on trauma responses and human connection that hits very close to home.
NOTE: If you that think the horror genre is just a bunch of jump scares and ghosts, please note that a majority of scary movies are attempting to comment on some aspect of the human experience. I recommend keeping this in mind when watching the horror genre. You might thank me later.
Let’s Get Personal
Humans are complex. We have inherent survival instincts even if the need for hunting our own food and building our own shelter is less important than centuries ago. And in the face of potential harm, each individual is going to develop our own ways that, both practical and subconsciously, that will assist us to defeat the threat. It is actually kind of neat when you break it down like this.
I’ve been open about my mental health and the struggles that have come with a PTSD due to childhood trauma diagnosis for about a decade. My anti-depressant has been a lifesaver, my support system is stronger than ever, and finding the therapist I’ve now been seeing for nearly three years has led me to some big realizations. One of these major ‘AH HA!’ moments has been that trauma leads our brains to do some funny things in an attempt to protect itself. My brain loves to disassociate. While some people might use their memories to dig up the root cause of certain actions they want to change, my original damage happened in infancy. My theory is that because that was prior to having the ability to be present and therefore have no memories of the hard times, my brain learned that was an option.
“You’re not going to feel pain if you aren’t completely present and can’t remember shit!” - My Brain
This leads to a bunch of questions that I can’t necessarily answer. Like…
Is trauma the reason I have a fear of raw chicken?
Is something in my past the reason I am really obsessed with the color yellow?
Would I still overshare to random strangers, acquaintances, and friends if I hadn’t experienced severe loss at as a baby?
How am I supposed to improve my memory if my brain has purposely gotten very forgetful?
That last one is the only one of these four questions I sort of have an answer for. Improving my memory is about being patient and not forcing my mind to remember anything it has purposely pushed away. While frustrating, my therapist taught me that it is important to remember that my big ole brain has protected me from painful shit that maybe I was and still am unable to process. If anything, I should be extra nice to it because it has looked out for me during some hard times.
Still, my ability to remember even the littlest of everyday information is hurt by the fact I learned so young that holding onto experiences is not necessary. Disassociation. To combat this, I workout my memory like a muscle — reading more, making sure to write, talking about good parts of the past with family or my husband, etc. But the most important part of this routine is to be patient and to thank my brain for looking out for me.
What isn’t cool is the reoccurring nightmares. You know, the ones where you wake up in a complete panic to find our you sweat through your favorite cat pajamas. I also am not a fan of anxiety attacks, intrusive thoughts, or the extremely heightened and constant fear of being abandoned. Learning to hold space for myself, including these trauma responses that have helped me more than I will probably ever realize, is a process. While space is important, also equipping myself with the tools so that if/when the emotions from the event I disassociated from hits I am ready to face it instead of letting me knock me out.
In The Last of Us, characters survive because of the skills their trauma has equipped them with. Joel’s tough guy persona is very different from the playful dad we saw at the very beginning. Sure, he has probably always been a little more rugged than the typical finance bro you see weekdays in the Financial District but losing Sarah really built a wall up around his vulnerability.
Would Joel have had the same senses had he not experienced this profound loss? That’s not a question that can be answered, in the same way I still don’t know if my hatred for my hands being wet is because my brain senses imminent danger or because I just don’t want to do the dishes. Questions like these are not practical and just waste time (though I do recommend gloves for anyone that is like me with the whole wet hands dilemma).
Ellie longs for connection. Her background is full of loss that has shaped her into being spunky yet caring. The moments when Joel and Ellie discover a bunker with brothers Sam and Henry is really when the audience is forced to remember she is still a child. Her and Sam, who is quite a bit younger than Ellie, play around with the toys and laugh. This is the first time we get to see Ellie be a kid. She has been forced to grow up even quicker than other children in this harsh world because of her circumstances.
SPOILER: When Sam dies, there is a moment that Joel stands by the graves of both him and his brother while Ellie walks away. She is ready to put this emotion to the side and return to the task at hand. She has put that grief and hardship somewhere secret that allows her to move forward. That, my friends, is disassociation. It isn’t like she has processed Sam’s death. But she also subconsciously understands that bigger risks are at hand and that moving forward with the mission that could lead to a freaking cure could save someone like Sam in the future.
Of course, disassociation isn’t the only trauma response. Sometimes people can only focus on their pain to the point it consumes them. This isn’t always bad but just look at how that ended up for Kathleen (who I’m not explaining anything about because maybe that’ll motivate those who aren’t watching the show to do so!)
Here’s to the next five episodes of The Last of Us. I know I’ll at least write one more piece about this show and maybe even a third. To be honest, I originally was going to write a whole long essay about the Bill and Frank relationship in the third episode and how it made me appreciate life but I think I need to simmer in those thoughts a little longer.
Happy Sunday.
I really appreciated you thoughts on this! To be honest, I've never been a huge fan of the Horror genre, but both you and my husband explained it the same way. This show is so magical. It truly has made me think and feel things that I've pushed down and tried to not confront. Some of the best artistry I've watched in a long time. I'm excited to read more of your interpretations!