The Last of Us review: It’s the most gripping hour of telly I’ve seen in ages

The Last of Us feels like the new Game of Thrones

Is  The Last of Us (Sky Atlantic from April 14 and NOW) the new Game of Thrones?

Maybe. It has relentless zombies who can infect humans with a bite and recruit them to their army of the undead. We have snow-covered battlefields where the living fight for their lives. There is a determined young woman on a mission, teamed up with a father figure who likes to kill. 

New characters arrive into the story, twisting the plot so that we don’t stop guessing. And season two has a gruesome murder that I can’t discuss but suffice to say it is very Game of Thrones.

A quick recap if you didn’t see season one. The show is based on a video game, following a smuggler called Joel escorting teenager Ellie across the US.

Ellie is in demand because she is immune to the virus that is turning people into zombies who like biting non-zombies. There is a lot of shooting zombies. At the end of season one, Joel rescues Ellie from a medical team who are about to perform an operation that will kill her in the hope of discovering a vaccine. And here we are in season two.

I lost faith towards the end of season one.

It’s like they had enough money for three huge zombie battles and the rest of the episodes ambled along as a kind of filler.

Ellie is in demand because she is immune to the virus

There is none of that at the start of season two. It’s the most gripping hour of telly I’ve seen in ages.

The uninfected are holed up in a town called Jackson, which is zombie-proofed with the kind of walls and watchtowers you’d see in a 1950s western. A small, mysterious group of people is keeping an eye on things from a ski lodge above the town. They are almost ridiculously photogenic in an indie band way, but I still want to know who they are.

We’re told that the zombies are taking shelter under the bodies of their dead zombie-mates, and then popping up and causing mayhem.

This is more funny than terrifying — my wife and I were giggling at the way the zombies ran head-first into the walls. However, things take the turn with the
arrival of a new super-zombie and suddenly the people of Jackson are in a lot of trouble.

It’s riveting stuff and, as with Game of Thrones, there is a sense that anything could happen to anyone at any time, so it’s easy to get hooked. The second episode is more low-key, but it’s good to take stock after the breathless opener. Give this a watch.

• The Last of Us, Sky Atlantic, from Monday, April 14.