on zombie cliches in media

21st Apr, 2025

So, I watched the first couple episodes of The Last Of Us tonight.

I sorta wanna write this as a lite-review, talk about how I felt about it without going particularly into the content... but a lot of things happened today, so I dunno how true I'll stay to my title.

First, a twofold guilty acknowledgement;
I am wholeheartedly a fan of zombie media. I watched roughly 8 seasons of The Walking Dead, only stopping because of a falling out with the people whom I was watching with, and I never quite got back into it. Nevertheless, it does remain one of my favourite shows and introduced me to two of my favourite actors.

I also have read World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide cover to cover, many times. I had my phase of planning in detail how I would prep myself for a zombie outbreak. I'm fanatically obsessed with the concept of necromancy and raising zombies in every videogame that enables it.

Despite all this, I probably was never gonna watch or play The Last Of Us. It was just... too overhyped by the time I became aware of it. I tend to stay away from The Thing Everyone Is Talking About, for a variety of reasons I won't get into here.

So yeah, I didn't particularly get into it because I thought I'd enjoy it. Hell, I barely knew anything about it. In fact, I resolved to finally dive into this series because a pretty girl mentioned it, and said she'd watch season 2 with me if I did. Alas, I am ever a fool for love.

But hey, it worked out! Cause I am fucking loving it so far.

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I think the best way to summarise my feelings about The Last Of Us, alas somewhat inaccurately, is with the message I sent to a different friend midway through episode 2:

It's like TWD, but with actually decent pacing.

Thats a gross understatement of course; the two shows are actually so unalike, aside from containing zombies and (initially) a rugged male protagonist, that I hesitate to compare them at all. Still, it probably is accurate simply in the sense that The Last Of Us delivers on many of the things I wish The Walking Dead did a little better, especially in its later seasons¹.

But then again, they are different shows, made in quite different real-world periods and with different goals and intents for the story they were telling, so I'll cut poor TWD some slack.

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One of my favourite points so far is very simply how they've handled the infection itself. As established in the opening scenes of the first episode, it does not have the standard zombie virus... but instead a zombie fungus.

Most zombie media wants you to exist in a state of suspended disbelief about the possibility of the zombie virus existing in the first place. It ushers you quickly and firmly through the initial explanations, keep your eyes forward please, don't ask unnecessary questions. Undeath is simply the new influenza, haven't you heard? Ah! and now look at all the cool lore we wrote for how it works after the infection has happened, yes...?

The Last Of Us does precisely the opposite of this. It actually provides an entirely believeable and reasonable explanation of this zombie fungus coming to exist, in a way that barely requires suspension of disbelief at all.

And then it tells you almost nothing about any of the other weird stuff that happens! I mean, the closing scene of episode two is WILD, y'all. What the fuck?²

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Hey by the way, have I ever told you how much I like mushrooms?

About 3 years ago now, I came up with a character for an online roleplay who had a very strong mushroom aesthetic. Her name was Mallea, and my role in this particular play was one of two guides the other players could choose to side with. My best friend at the time was the other guide character, and we had this fun plot where, depending on who's plans the players decided to go along with, the other guide would gradually become more and more inhuman in their attempts and ultimately desperation to bring things back in line.

The fun irony of this was our alleged moral roles; I would play myself off as the Lawful Good, For The Good Of The Many, Selfless option, while my bestie initially seemed like a selfish, chaotic brat. In reality though, things are never so black and white; both potential story arcs could be perceived as the morally 'good' or 'bad' option - the whole point is that the players had to decide, not just 'figure it out'.

We never really got anywhere with this, as is the fate of so many roleplaying sessions. But if we had, I was quite looking forward to the direction our potential inhumanity would go:

The chaotic brat, who when denied would become more and more unrecognisable emotionally, shedding pretenses(?) of moral humanity for something more callous and surgical.

And my refined, tasteful, Morally Superior Mallea, who would stick to her virtues and morals (flawed as they may be) all the way to the end... while physically giving in to the infection she'd been carrying all along and becoming something inspired by this picture of a skull (which I believe may have actually been inspired by The Last Of Us game? unsure, but isn't it beautiful when things come full circle!)

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All of this is basically to explain that The Last Of Us couldn't have created a more perfect storm to enthrall me if it had tried, no matter that I've actually been quite squeamish about observing several of the specific fungal goings-on so far. They certainly are cool and grotesque, exactly as I was warned.

I think my current plan is to get through season one as soon as is practical and practicable, and then go nab the first game and give that a go too. I am deadly curious about the world that this show is building, and I have heard so far that the show is relatively quite faithful to its parent game. I think the dual experience could be very fun, but first I gotta get through the show so I dont get spoiled by the game!

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I'm gonna sign off here, as I'm getting SO eepy sleepy and nearly passed out a moment ago lmao. But!!! writing about media I enjoy does feel good, and once again I may do more of it soon.

Goodnight, dear friends and friends yet-unmade. If I have nightmares tonight, you can fuckin bet they'll be grotesque AND cool <3