DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. “The Last Of Us” is a current HBO series based on a hit video game of the same title. It stars Pedro Pascal as a grizzled smuggler who’s transporting a teenage girl played by Bella Ramsey, across a pandemic-ravaged America. Our critic-at-large, John Powers, enjoyed the first two episodes, but says it really kicks into gear with the third episode this coming Sunday. Here’s John.
JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: I’m not exactly sure what started it, 9/11, maybe, or perhaps the 2008 financial crisis. But our culture has grown increasingly drawn to notions of apocalypse. From our politics to our pop entertainment, we’re flooded by visions of social collapse, the rapid disintegration of a civilization that may have been unjust but at least felt stable and reasonably safe.
The world falls apart yet again in “The Last Of Us,”…
