The Monitor is a weekly column dedicated to every part taking place within the WIRED world of tradition, from motion pictures to memes, TV to Twitter.

The Last of Us is bumming everybody out. Mostly as a result of the HBO sequence’ juggernaut first season ended on Sunday, starting the lengthy arduous look ahead to a second season. But additionally as a result of The Last of Us is de facto freaking unhappy. The sequence started with a person watching his daughter die, and ended with him taking pictures his approach by way of a makeshift hospital to make sure one other child didn’t meet the same destiny. In between, everybody died or killed (or ate) somebody, and wanting some gay gardening, there have been few odes to pleasure. 

And really, regardless of chatter on-line decrying the present’s dour denouement, that was the purpose. 

Look, I get why curling up on the sofa to stare at an enormous pile of bleak isn’t everybody’s favourite factor to do. Banks are collapsing, Joe Exotic desires to run for president—doubling down in your Sunday scaries with The Last of Us will not be a selection everybody desires to make. But this isn’t a shortcoming of the present or its storytelling. It’s a matter of desire.

Also, regardless of the darkness, The Last of Us stays a type of escapism. Bleak as it’s, it’s nonetheless fiction—fiction a couple of pandemic worse than the one presently raging that’s supposed, on some degree, to present viewers the chance to consider one thing else. Granted, it largely makes them ponder what occurs when humanity decides the one option to save lots of people is to slaughter many extra, however nonetheless.

In different phrases, The Last of Us doesn’t commerce in darkness for darkness’ sake. It’s not a DC Comics movie attempting to be edgy. It’s not even Squid Game, which in a approach was much more miserable in its “oh yeah, that could happen”-ness. As it stands, the world will not be contaminated with a zombifying fungus, nevertheless it’s full of people that will do something to remain alive and/or earn money. If something, The Last of Us is a parable for what may occur when that Cordyceps fungus is launched into a spot that always prizes rugged individualism over neighborhood.

Yes, there are most likely scriptwriters on the market who would have recommended to Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin that they inject a bit of emotional reprieve, one episode that ends on a cheerful observe. But in case you consider, as Vulture’s Roxana Hadadi does, that The Last of Us is a commentary on the numerous flaws of American exceptionalism, then these searching for slivers of hope are destined to be left at the hours of darkness.

All of this got here to a swirling conclusion in Sunday’s finale. In the ultimate moments, Joel (Pedro Pascal) discovered that the Fireflies would doubtless kill Ellie (Bella Ramsey) looking for a treatment for the Cordyceps fungus. He shot almost each Firefly in sight to save lots of her. Some people argue he went too far, slaughtering many individuals to save lots of one; others really feel his actions had been justified. But the purpose isn’t to determine whether or not he’s “right” or “wrong.” The level—as my colleague Adrienne So famous over Slack this week—is {that a} society that may kill a baby to save lots of itself possibly isn’t price saving. Anyone who learn Ursula Ok. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is aware of this.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether or not Joel is a hero or villain. What issues is what his actions mirror. As Hadadi famous, “The Last of Us has painted a portrait of an American identity incompatible with drastic change.” When the pandemic hit, all the nation’s selfishness and individualism reworked into one thing much more virulent than earlier than. It’s bleak, nevertheless it additionally feels that approach as a result of it’s acquainted.