The Last Of Us (HBO Series)

About

The Last Of Us (HBO Series) is a live-action adaptation of the popular game franchise The Last of Us that airs on HBO Max starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. The show takes place within the story narrative of the first game in the series. The series launched to high reviews and calls for more video game adaptations to be made on a similar level, leading to a God of War live-action series being confirmed as in the works.

Background

With rumors of a live-action adaptation of The Last Of Us being in the works for years, things were finally confirmed to be completed when the trailer for the series released on September 26th, 2022, which gave a first glimpse at Pascal and Ramsey's acting in various action sequences. The trailer was uploaded to YouTube by the channel One Media,^[1] where it gained over 2.2 million views in five months (shown below).

As part of the promotional work for the show prior to its release, both sets of actors and voice actors for the game met on stage to talk a little about the series and present the award for best action game. This scene was uploaded to YouTube by the channel SpottinGames^[2] on December 8th, 2022, where it gained over 18,000 views in one month (shown below).

Release

The show's first episode released on January 15th, 2023, and it was given generally favorable reviews, with Pedro Pascal being the focus of attention from fans, especially in memes. On January 17th, 2023, two days after the release of the episode, an image comparing Joel from the games with Pedro Pascal acting as Joel in the series was uploaded to the /r/TheLastOfUsHBOSeries/ subreddit by the Redditor^[3] LoretiTV, quickly gaining over 10,000 upvotes in two weeks as fans praised the look of Pascal in the role (shown below).

As the episodes kept releasing, more people began to make memes and compare it to other contemporary TV shows, most notably The Walking Dead, for both feature a post-apocalyptic zombie world to survive in. Fans of the show have praised its handling of the zombies within the show. One meme posted to Reddit^[4] by iwasafookenLegend on January 30th, 2023 recieved thousands of upvotes (3,400) within a day for poking fun at The Walking Dead (shown below).

Related Memes

10 Miles West Of Boston

In Season 1, episode 3 of The Last Of Us, Joel and Ellie are seen trekking through a forested terrain "10 Miles West Of Boston." Discussions following the release of the episode noted that 10 miles west of Boston is still urban and developed, and not mountainous forested land. On January 29th, Twitter^[5] user @hannahgais posted a tweet that read, "getting belligerently angry when “the last of us” tries to claim that a mountainous terrain that’s clearly northwestern is “10 miles west of Boston," gathering over 17,000 likes in three days (seen below, left). On January 30th, Stephen King took to his Twitter^[6] account to tweet something similar, saying "THE LAST OF US. Episode 3: Do you really want to tell me that’s 10 miles west of Boston?" and gathering over 30,000 likes in nearly two days (seen below, right).

Various memes about what could be 10 miles West of Boston began to circulate on Twitter in the following days. On January 31st, Twitter^[7] user @ConorRyan_93 posted a still from Lord Of The Rings, adding that he was going to tell his kids this was 10 miles west of Boston (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References