The blockbuster first season of HBO Max’s adaptation of The Last of Us features a high-stakes post-apocalyptic story arc that centers on the possibility of quite literally saving humanity. The unstoppable spread of a malevolent fungal strain called cordyceps has ravaged the global population and turned ordinary human beings into zombies who survive only by feasting on the flesh of the uninfected, thereby plunging society into an unimaginable nightmare. In this hellscape, we meet Ellie (played grittily and intensely by Bella Ramsey), a teenager with an unprecedented immunity to bites from the infected.
An obscure guerrilla group resisting the oppression of a largely ineffective remnant of the federal government engages the services of a farmer and mercenary named Joel (a disarmingly noble Pedro Pascal) to spirit Ellie across the country to a secretive laboratory, where her tissues can be analyzed and replicated to inoculate the rest of the remaining population.
The first season traces Ellie and Joel’s perilous journey, punctuated by attacks by the infected, the depredations of groups of raiders, and betrayals galore by would-be allies. In the finale, Joel confronts an impossible moral choice, and while he and Ellie fail to save the world, they at least find comfort in the warm embrace of a well-defended and friendly community of uninfected in Jackson, Wyoming.
The very survival of humanity hangs in the balance in the first installment of the series, but its second season (which takes place more than four years later) foregrounds quests and themes that, while every bit as visually stunning and heart-racing as those of the previous season, seem smaller-scale and less consequential. My initial impression of the second season was an overwhelming feeling of being underwhelmed.
How mistaken I was.
In place of the prospect of turning the tide against a global menace, we have regional skirmishes, internecine squabbles, town hall debates, and a seemingly unbreakable cycle of violence. But as the second season unfolded, I gradually came to appreciate the nuanced but critically important lessons it imparts about justice, vengeance, and mercy.
Most prominently, after a shocking murder devastates Jackson, the town elders convene a community-wide meeting to debate whether or not to dispatch a team to avenge his death. “I’ll be quick,” a townsman named Carlisle promises at the outset of deliberations. “‘Cause this one’s simple to me. Why wouldn’t we wanna take our vengeance? Well, because we’re not supposed to. Forgive and be forgiven. No grudges. No revenge. And I’m not even a Christian. I’ve always seen the wisdom in that. That’s what separates us from the Raiders and the murderers: our capacity for mercy.”
“Those sons of bitches don’t deserve our mercy!” exclaims an outraged villager.
“Well, of course they don’t deserve it,” Carlisle rejoins. “That’s what makes it mercy!”
In contrast, another Jacksonian named Seth adopts a more pragmatic approach. “What the hell are we all talking about here?” he demands. “What, we gotta forgive everybody when they show up and piss in our eye? They came into our house. They took one of ours. My God, somebody shoots your brother, you wanna take the locks off your doors? Grow up! You idiots, they’ll come back. They’ll come back because we didn’t make ’em pay. And when they come back, they’ll be laughing. And you’ll all deserve it. Bunch of goddamn victims.” Without adequate deterrence, especially in a post-apocalyptic struggle of all against all, the values of justice and mercy are utterly irrelevant.
Finally, Ellie appeals to a different sensibility when arguing on behalf of the attacking party. “It’s not about revenge,” she insists. “What I want is what you used to give people. I want justice.” As opposed to strangers, who care little to dispense justice, members of a community owe duties to one another. “I don’t think we’re strangers to each other,” Ellie argues, “and I want to know that I can count on you. And I swear, if someone hurts any of you or the people you love, you can count on me. That’s what holds all this together.” Communal bonds, and the mutual commitments they entail, must transcend abstract notions of the good — and they must supersede any obligations we may have to those outside the community.
The debate is worthy of the best of Athenian deliberative democratic tradition, fairly and completely showcasing starkly contrasting arguments in favor of competing notions of the public good. Carlisle’s, Seth’s, and Ellie’s impassioned pleas each have much to commend them, even as they separately resonate in different ways with different townspeople.
JON HAMM 10 YEARS AFTER DON DRAPER
The outcome of these weighty conversations about revenge, justice, and mercy will decide the future of humanity every bit as much as a possible cordyceps vaccine. Will Ellie lead a ruined world toward a descent into a purely Hobbesian dystopia of endless bloodshed? Or will she guide human beings toward recognizing their commonality and forging a path forward that requires cooperation and painful compromise? It turns out that how a post-apocalyptic society navigates these challenges makes even more compelling drama than a quest for the cure.
The latest installment of the series contains myriad other charms: superb cameo appearances by Jeffrey Wright, Catherine O’Hara, and an almost unrecognizable Joe Pantoliano; thoughtful discursions on parenthood, immigration, tit-for-tat warfare, and the attractions of extremist movements; bigger, stronger, and smarter zombies; the evolution and maturation of Ellie in physical, emotional, and even spiritual ways; and, in the second episode, one of the most gripping, bloody, and powerful hours of television in recent memory. In short, a worthy successor season indeed.
Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and writer in Israel, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of Like Silicon From Clay: What Ancient Jewish Wisdom Can Teach Us About AI.