The new HBO series The Last of Us is shaping up to be a solid cinematic experience. Based on the wildly popular video game—one which thoroughly captivated this seasoned gamer’s imagination—and which felt like a superb movie experience in its own right—The Last of Us has largely risen above the sad list of failed game-to-movie adaptations.
The opening collapse of society is tense, the main characters are believable, and the one hundred million dollar budget offers up strong visuals. This isn’t to say that there aren’t a few missteps here and there, but on balance, it’s a quivering, but relatively stable thumbs up—assuming, of course, that episode three remains a rainbow anomaly.
You may or may not have heard (depending on how closely you follow the movie nerd sphere) that episode three is either the greatest thing to ever have occurred in the history of the world, or it is a woke dumpster fire causing grunting men to gnash their teeth in fury and agitation.
Here’s a simple breakdown in case you missed it.
A lone survivalist named Bill creates a little utopian outpost in a post apocalyptic world. Years of prepping has paid off—big time. He has a massive generator, enough guns to arm a small country, high grade defenses, and stores of tasty delicacies. Several years pass. Then Frank shows up. He’s a congenial, jovial, good-natured fellow who, after fleeing a dire situation, falls into one of Bill’s zombie-catching pits.
Fast forward to a formal dinner, a soulful piano playing moment, and then, you guessed it, sex. As the years pass in romance, they pick strawberries together, fend off a group of bandits (well, one of them does), grow old, and eventually commit suicide together, due to Frank having contracted some kind of life degenerating disease. They both drink wine loaded with enough Vicodin to drop an elephant. Then they lay in bed waiting for death.
Setting aside the fact that all this clearly agenda driven, it’s a fairly well-crafted tale. Various virtues are exhibited throughout: sacrifice, faithfulness, courage, love. It makes sense why some find it compelling.
Allowing for these congenial concessions (and here I am still ignoring the five hundred pound gorilla in the room), it simply doesn’t make sense why so many critics think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But then again, maybe the sheer willingness to loudly applaud what is at best a side quest to the main storyline highlights a deep gravitational force at play in society.
Duh, right?
After listening to about ten reviews on YouTube, and after perusing a handful of online reviews, the amount of over-the-top gushing can scarcely be viewed as anything less than a deep gravitational pull.
Supercuts Delight proclaimed: “The Last of Us Episode 3 is HBO’s Magnum Opus.”
Forbes declared that it is a “Television Masterpiece.”
Add to such headlines various images of women weeping on their YouTube thumbnails, along with media outlets comparing episode three to the opening of Pixar’s Up, and you have what can only be described as a motivated desire to see glory in it. I say that, because, to stress again, and with as much objectivity as I can muster, it wasn’t that good (still ignoring the gorilla, folks). The acting and script was solid but not that compelling. If it was a heterosexual couple experiencing essentially the same things, would these reviewers have hailed it as a masterpiece? They’d likely note its quality and undoubtedly praise it, but to this extent?
Frankly, I doubt it.
Interestingly, the development of this love story was completely absent from the video game. It utilized Bill in a far more interesting manner, in my opinion. Therefore, its addition to the HBO series, which has very closely followed the game, reveals their true objective: they wanted to insert a gay love story because such things ought to be celebrated.
That’s the clear agenda.
Now here’s the thing. I actually don’t fault creators for pushing certain agendas. I do it. And I happen to believe that the Creator of all things has a capital A agenda as well.
So, no, there’s nothing wrong with advancing what one believes is beautiful and good. The central question that has to be answered is this: What is the true and the beautiful and the good? When we answer that question, the rest slides into place. We’ll then have a foundation from which to adequately judge what is true and right and good.
Worldview is everything.
This brings me to a few final thoughts.
When Hollywood produces a well-crafted story that also harbors elements of virtue, the Christian’s task of disentangling what is laudable (in the abstract) from what is not laudable can prove challenging when trying to explain such things to unbelievers. There are praiseworthy elements in the episode, and outsiders are correct to want to prize such things. But when said elements are couched in a sinful context, the virtue is soiled. Muslim terrorists, for example, exhibit tremendous courage and conviction at times. But their zeal is misplaced. Sex and love and faithfulness and courage and sacrifice are all beautiful things, but like all good things, they have to operate within certain confines, lest they bleed into unrighteousness.
Here I am reminded of a conversation between Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro. Rogan couldn’t understand why Shapiro would insist on heterosexual unions when a segment of the population clearly experiences same sex-attraction.
“Why do you care so much?” asks Rogan. “How are they bothering you?”
Sadly, Shapiro didn’t have a good response. Neither did Matt Walsh.
Unless we back up and talk about our relationship to God as Creator and how it is an affront for humans to say “No, I don’t think what you’ve established is best, or most beautiful, or most fitting as a picture of greater realities,” then we’re not going to be able to disentangle what appears to be wholesome in the eyes of some. Human autonomy with all of its fateful consequences has to stand in the foreground, along with the Fall, and the groaning of creation, since only in the light of those truths can we make sense of disordered, sinful desires.
None of this, of course, guarantees that we’ll prove persuasive. But it ought not come at the expense of trying to provide a thoughtful, rational, and yes, persuasive explanation for why episode three of The Last of Us falls grievously short in what it tries to portray as beautiful.
