Arts and Culture Artist Showcase: Teagan Crye ‘25

The Last of Us is a new hit show on HBO based on a PlayStation video game that takes place 20 years after a zombie apocalypse. Despite video game adaptations rarely being high quality, The Last of Us has completely changed the way in which we view video games and storytelling. Four episodes have aired, with the first two nearly identical to the original game and story. The small changes include the zombie-inducing infection being a fungus instead of a virus, but one can even take side-by-side shots from the game and show, and the dialogue and scene look the exact same. However, this changes in episode three. It begins with our protagonists carefully traversing to their friend Bill’s house. Bill, in the video game, is a nihilist doomsday prepper that lives on his own with traps protecting his house from zombies. The protagonists meet Bill and he helps them get parts to get a car working and fight through hordes of zombies. In the show, this never happens. The show gives us the opportunity to go back in time and experience how Bill handled the apocalypse. As others flee the town for quarantine zones, Bill continues to live in his house, grows and cooks his own food, and steals from abandoned businesses for anything else he may need. So far, this all lines up with what is known about Bill in the game.

The story deviates when Bill meets another