Pedro Pascal stars as Joel, while Anna Torv appears as his smuggling partner Tess (Picture: HBO)

Warning: spoilers ahead for The Last of Us episode 1.

The Last of Us, one of the most highly-anticipated TV shows of 2023, has finally launched – and episode one does little to ease viewers gently into the post-apocalyptic world in which it’s set.

Based on the video game series of the same name, the first instalment introduces viewers to lead characters Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who become a reluctant duo when they begin their journey across the US while trying to evade humans who have been contaminated by a fungal, parasitic infection.

Released on HBO in the US and Sky in the UK, the premiere episode transports its audience to the day 20 years ago when the Earth’s population was turned on its head by the spread of the illness, before revealing how people in the present day are continuing with their desperate urge to survive.

A devastating death has left distraught viewers sobbing, while others have already showered the drama with praise for its faithful adaptation of the original story.

A normal day turns into outbreak doom

The Last of Us begins with a flashback to the year 1968, when an epidemiologist warns during a TV interview that if a fungal infection were to infiltrate the human population, humanity would ‘lose’.

While it appears like a far-fetched likelihood according to the scientific experts, fast-forward to the year 2003 in the show, and that’s exactly what happens.

Sarah (Nico Parker), Joel’s teenage daughter, notices certain happenings that appear out of the ordinary during her day, such as a classmate whose hand is twitching uncontrollably and a number of emergency vehicles on the road.

Having taken her dad’s watch to be fixed after school for his birthday present, she then heads to her elderly next-door neighbour’s house – but doesn’t notice the old woman’s body jerking in an eerie manner behind her.

Later on in the evening, Sarah falls asleep while watching a movie with Joel, during which he receives a call from his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) asking if he can be bailed out of jail.

Sarah is taken aback by the sight of fighter jets in the sky (Picture: HBO/Warner Media/Shane Harvey)

In the night, Sarah wakes up on her own in the house at the sound of various disturbances, including explosions outside.

The neighbour’s dog scratching at her door prompts her to go into their house to investigate, which is when she discovers the old woman – who’s now in an infected, zombified state – devouring her relatives.

The teenager flees the house, and is met in the street by Joel and Tommy, who are both armed and have rushed back to collect Sarah in the hope that they can escape.

Joel suffers devastating loss of daughter Sarah

Joel and Tommy have heard that some sort of virus is causing all of the chaos they’re witnessing, but at this moment in time, information is scarce.

Joel tries to do everything in his power to protect Sarah (Picture: HBO)

They attempt to drive out of their neighbourhood, but the highway has been blocked, the army is patrolling up above and the streets are being run over by panicked people and murderous, infected beings.

A passenger plane crashing into the road causes their car to flip over, resulting in Joel having to carry Sarah on foot after she sustains an ankle injury, as they run away from an infected man who’s chasing after them at full speed.

The infected man is shot down by a soldier, who subsequently turns his gun on the father and daughter after receiving orders to do so, despite Joel insisting that they’re not infected.

The soldier shoots and grazes Joel on his side, before being shot dead himself by Tommy.

However, Joel then realises in a horrifying, tear-jerking moment that Sarah’s been shot in the stomach, and after trying to pick her up and assure her she’ll be ok, she dies in his arms.

Flash-forward to 20 years later

In the present day of the show, set in the year 2023, Joel is living in a QZ (quarantine zone) in Boston.

Joel has become even more hardened over the years following the loss of his daughter (Picture: HBO/Sky)

He’s first seen carrying out his job of throwing dead bodies onto a fire – including a child who recently walked into the QZ on their own, but turned out to have been infected when tested using a gadget.

The lead character is clearly a man of means, as he cuts a deal with an officer for extra payment in exchange for pills that he’s managed to source through his skills as a smuggler.

What he’s really after is a car battery so that he can drive away in search of his brother Tommy, who’s been missing for three weeks.

Joel is in a relationship with a woman called Tess (Anna Torv), his smuggling partner, who’s first seen in a beaten up state after being duped when attempting to purchase the car battery that they need.

Ellie discovers she has a higher purpose

Ellie makes her first introduction while chained up by a group called the Fireflies, a resistance movement who are fighting to gain freedom from the military forces who run society, called Fedra.

Ellie is kept captive at the start of the show, and she doesn’t understand why (Picture: HBO/Sky)

Pretending her name is Veronica, Ellie is made to regularly count slowly from one to 10 and hold out her arms, so that her captors can test whether her mind and body appear to be working as they usually would.

The young girl meets with the head of the Fireflies, Marlene (Merle Dandridge), who explains that she not only knows Ellie’s true identity, but she was the one who placed her in Fedra military school when she was a baby, an institution for orphans.

Marlene stresses that Ellie can’t be taken home because she has a higher purpose – which is yet to be revealed to viewers – and the Fireflies have organised for her to be transported elsewhere.

Joel reluctantly embarks on mission with Ellie and Tess

While the Fireflies planned on setting out as a squad in their mission to take Ellie to another location, that doesn’t go to plan when several of their group are killed in a shootout with the man who Tess had tried to buy the car battery from.

Merle Dandridge reprises her role as Marlene from the video game series (Picture: HBO)

Marlene, who’s been injured, crosses paths with Joel and Tess in their building, and informs them that they must be the ones to smuggle Ellie out, and will receive a fuelled vehicle and weapons in exchange.

Joel and Tess manage to get Ellie out of the QZ walls, but bump into the same officer that Joel had been making deals with earlier on and fail to bargain with him, having broken the rules by making an unauthorised exit from the quarantine zone.

The sight of having a gun pointed at his face triggers Joel, as it reminds him of the moment a soldier had a gun pointed at himself and his daughter Sarah, and so he lashes out at the officer.

After the officer is beaten unconscious, Tess points out that the gadget he used to test if they were infected lit up red when used on Ellie, meaning that she supposedly carries the fungal infection.

However, Ellie unveils a healed scar on her arm, confessing that it’s from three weeks ago, when usually people who have been infected don’t last more than a day before transforming.

Joel, Tess and Ellie continue their escape into the darkness, as glimpses of the destroyed city are revealed ahead.

The Last of Us is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and NOW, with new episodes dropping on Mondays.

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