Staying Alive

As Joel and Ellie suffer a rude awakening, the intro this week rewinds to allow us insight into recent events in KC – that’s ‘Kill City’ to the rest of us. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in… you know the rest.

Kathleen is a ruthless leader who orchestrates a takedown of FEDRA in the city and demonstrates that she quite literally takes no prisoners. We learn why her uprising was quite so brutal, coming as it does after two decades of torture and abuse by the Federal Disaster Response Agency. Kathleen’s takeover of Kansas City is merciless, but it’s also personal. As is her vendetta against Henry and Sam.

There is so much to applaud in this episode. So much horror and viciousness, so much sadness and loss. It’s deeply moving to see such a real portrayal of deafness, such a real portrayal of a clever woman driven to do dreadful things by hardship and grief. I can see why people follow Kathleen, and her brother before her, from the testimonies we hear.

I don’t know how they packed so much in, to be honest. There’s enough space for us to learn exactly what we need in order to feel deeply for characters we’ve only just met, while ramping up the tension in dark, dank tunnels where behind every door lurks either death, or a deserted playschool haven. There’s clearly the need and the screen time to expand the universe of the game, and from all accounts from gamers, every opportunity to enrich this works on the screen is being taken, which I heartily approve of. It’s not just about the end of the world as we know it, it’s a portrayal of society, of humanity, and how we might collectively act if the unthinkable happened and we didn’t bounce back from the next pandemic. Sadly, from the events of this episode, I think it’s a fairly accurate depiction of what would likely go down.

Character-wise, there are mirrors between Henry and Sam’s relationship and Joel and Ellie’s nascent one, as Henry shows he clearly has the measure of Joel. We see a previous scene from Henry’s point of view that shows us why Henry makes the choices he makes – and I think I’d do exactly the same.

But where are the fungus non-zombies in this programme about the world after the fungus non-zombies have taken over? Just as I started to wonder this, they burst forth back onto the radar in the most horrific fashion. Someone learns that revenge never pays, and an error of judgement leads to poetic justice as the devastating unfairness of the world doesn’t let us escape.

Verdict: Hey little brother, what have you done? 9/10

Claire Smith