Even if you haven’t watched HBO’s The Last of Us or played the games yet, you probably know the basic premise—factions of survivors navigating a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies possessed by a mutant Cordyceps fungus. Sounds like a pretty run-of-the-mill survival horror narrative, right? When I decided to start watching the show, I was anticipating gritty violence, impressive action sequences, a little bit of gore, and the occasional jump scare. I was not prepared for the most romantically heartbreaking hour of television I’ve seen in a long (long) time. Episode 3 of The Last of Us cleverly starts off by continuing Joel and Ellie’s journey through the clicker-infested territories of what used to be Massachusetts. They need a car, and the show gives us no reason to believe this episode will be anything other than a series of predictable plot-advancing scenes that end up with them acquiring the thing they need. Yes, they do get the car in the end, but the journey toward that goal is a moving story within a story that pulled the emotional rug out from underneath thousands of fans. Keep scrolling for some of the best reactions to the best episode of The Last of Us so far, “Long Long Time.”
