There are plenty of things that fans of HBO’s The Last of Us have been in unanimous agreement about. Are Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey killing it in their respective roles? Yep. Is it doing the source material justice? Check. Did a number of character arcs succeed in shredding our hearts to pieces? You betcha.
However, as with anything, it isn’t without its points of contention – and matters got a little bit heated after a tweet sharing some behind-the-scenes information about the rules on the show’s set was shared on The Last of Us subreddit:
While the matter of using the word ‘zombie’ on the set of the show set the stage for the discussion, the thread ultimately devolved into whether The Last of Us should be categorized as a zombie show altogether – and it got kind of ugly. Folks were getting downvoted into oblivion no matter which side of the fence they stood on.
On the one hand, comparisons were drawn between The Last of Us and The Walking Dead in the sense that both have a heavy focus on human relationships (or lack thereof), with shambling, undead humans used as a backdrop. On the other hand, the nature of the fungal cordyceps infection and the discourse around whether infected hosts are still sentient was an argument used to disqualify the show’s vanquished populace as ‘zombies’.
In any case, if there is truth to the above tweet, The Last of Us’s showrunner’s stance on the matter is quite clear – there are no zombies on the show. Though there’s an argument to be made that if it walks like a zombie, relentlessly pursues like a zombie, and rips and tears like a zombie, well… you can make up your own mind.
There’s one thing we can likely still all agree on, which is that the wait for the next episode of The Last of Us is agonizing – you can catch it on HBO Max this Sunday.