THE LAST OF US is a show about the end of the world, right? Except we've seen that. And zombie ends of the world maybe more than any other at this point. So, quite frankly, who the fuck cares?
A lot of movies and TV shows would shake their head that response. The point is, I don't know, a thrill ride, or some new wrinkle that supposedly changes everything. These zombies can shoot machine guns!!
But the underlying question remains: Who cares? Which is really at heart a question about theme. What is this story really about?
A lot of TV stories, in my humble opinion, never crack the theme question. They're about plot and character. Someone like David Simon, on the other hand, is clearly thinking about theme or metaphor in every single episode he's creating. Theme becomes a way of fine tuning the focus on each arc within each episode, of taking it from something cleverly and thoughtfully plotted to something truly crafted, if that makes any sense.
Mazin and Druckman take a somewhat gentler version of the same approach. As far as I can tell, you're not generally going to get a new thematic metaphor or idea in each episode. But there is one abiding idea for the season which they use to elevate the story out of the realm of the typical "Survive the end of the world" obstacle course. Druckman talks about it in the post-game interview for 103. The story, he says, is about "Where love can take you."
Once you have that theme in mind—and I often think good theme-ing is kind of like invisible ink code; it shouldn't make itself known overtly. Instead it's the kind of thing that is revealed through some kind of key that you're given near the end—an image, a line of dialogue, a metaphor. You gain that and then suddenly you look back through that lens and holy crap you see this whole through line you missed.
And that's how "Where love can take you" works. You can watch 104 and 105 and just think of them as about this crazy vendetta being played out across this entire city. But really it's about what two different people do for love: Henry sacrifices the heart of the community, Kathleen's brother; Kathleen burns the whole community down, basically, looking for him.
Joel's story has always been about what he's willing to do for love: really that's the opening, him doing everything he can for love of his daughter. Then he agrees to take Ellie all the way across the country for love of Tess. And in 106, he's willing to give Ellie up for love of her.
With that theme in mind other things snap into focus, too: like how the opening of 106 stays focused on the relationship of that Native couple Marlon and Florence even as Joel and Ellie threaten them. Or how the Joel and Tess moments in the Bill and Frank episode end up, in the light of that love, highlighting their care for each other.
Again, this is how theme works, and what makes it such an asset to have worked out. If I know my story is all about expressions of love, then every time I introduce new characters, I know part of what I need to do is to give them their own expression of love, whether good or bad, healthy or dark. I have questions to help me focus in on them as characters: Who does this character love, and how do they express it?
THE LAST OF US has another theme or idea running through it, too. Kathleen describes it as fate, but really it's about karma. What you put into this horrible universe, you will get back out again in spades. Henry and Sam can't escape because of what Henry did to save Sam. Same with Kathleen. Meanwhile the guys from 103 get a happy ending because they put good into the world. And Maria spent her pre-apocalypse life putting bad guys in jail, and now she's part of the leadership of this great community.
Theme: done poorly, it reduces character and story to sermons. But done well it brings out interesting notes in a story, and becomes a way for we the writers to hone in on the key elements of our material.
