The Last of Us

The Last of Us (2023) is an HBO game adaptation series following Joel, a gun, drug and supply smuggler dealing with the brutal nature of the apocalypse 20 years after his daughters death. Meanwhile, 14 year old Ellie faces a shocking truth: she is immune to the ruthless apocalypse. As the only hope for a cure, Joel smuggles her through an incredible distance and the story begins. The show presents several dark and upsetting themes and images, and violence is never absent. Profanity is also present frequently throughout each episode. [EPISODE ONE] VIOLENCE: MODERATE Violence is occasional in this episode and not overly graphic or strong. There are numerous horror-related bloody images and a few scenes of violence, but only one of them is strong. In a very frightening and disturbing scene, a girl roams into a house to find a man lying in a pool of blood with a chunk bitten out of his neck. Blood is spattered everywhere as he struggles to breathe, meanwhile the woman next to him (presumably his wife) has her neck chewed on by her elderly mother. The elderly woman stands up with fungus protruding from her mouth and chases the girl out of the house. The woman (now a zombie) is then beaten in the face with a wrench or tool. A city is shown overrun by chaos with horror. People are shown running through the streets, people are shown being grabbed and thrown to the floor by zombies. A plane crashes into the street, exploding and creating a huge fireball. Debris flies into a car and flips it on its side. The people inside the car are shown crawling out. Zombies are shown eating and chewing on people, some alive and some dead. Cars smash into each other, massive fires erupt from vehicles and the street. A zombie chases a man and his wounded daughter through a restaurant. The zombie is shown crashing and smashing into objects as it lunges over furniture. The zombie is then shot in the head and killed instantly. A man and his daughter are shot by a soldier. They tumble down a hill and the daughter is shown shot in the stomach with blood seeping out. The soldier is suddenly shot in the head. The daughter cries in pain and horror, trembling and shaking from pain. Her father comforts her as she dies. A child is peacefully injected in the neck and killed as mercy. The death is painless and is quite saddening but necessary. Several dead bodies, including that of children, are burned in a pit. They are shown flaming and on fire, and later shown as ashes being shoveled. The scene isn’t meant to be violent but instead emotional or impactful. A wall explodes and several people on the other side are blasted and killed. Blood is shown running down a dead man’s face. Numerous dead bodies are shown strewn around a building. Blood is shown pooling the floors and splattered on walls. Several people are shown injured and soaked with blood on their shirts and bodies. One woman is shown with her ear missing. They are shown mostly unfazed and the scene isn’t heavy. During the most violent and brutal scene of the episode, a man is stabbed in the leg with a knife, tackled to the floor and then viscously beaten and punched in the face over and over and over again. He is battered and beaten in the face and eventually killed after a rather extended period of time. Blood is shown on his face and all over the killers hands. LANGUAGE: SEVERE “f--k” is used very frequently throughout the episode (30-40+ times), there are also uses of “s--t”, “motherf--ker”, “a**hole” and “b*tch”. SEXUAL CONTENT: NONE DRUG CONTENT: MILD A man is shown trading drugs. A bag of marijuana joints are shown and a bag of pills are shown as well. A man is shown popping one of the pills as well. A man is shown smoking a marijuana joint casually. OVERALL: 13+ for violence and bloody images, language throughout and some drug content [EPISODE TWO] VIOLENCE: MODERATE This episode is much less violent than the previous episode, as violence is exclusive to infected and is infrequent. The appearance of zombies throughout the episode is frightening and unsettling. A corpse is shown on the ground with its body torn with huge lacerations and blood slashes. Countless corpses are shown throughout the episode embedded into floors and lying in pools of blood. Three people are attacked by two zombies. The scene is very tense and frightening. The zombies are shot numerous times with an assault rifle and pistol with sprays of blood. The characters are tackled to the ground and pinned. One of the zombies is shot in the head bursting open the mushrooms covering its skull and squirting blood out onto the floor, the other is hacked in the face with a hatchet which gets stuck in its face. It is then shot several more times. Several dead humans are shown on the ground. One of them clearly has the back of his head blasted off as his brains are shown hanging out (very bloody) while others lay on the ground in bloody pools with bullet holes in their heads. A zombie is shot in the head and executed. A building full of zombies is exploded and some are shown on fire in the background. LANGUAGE: MODERATE 15+ uses of “f--k” and some uses of “s--t”. Language is still pretty frequent, but not as much as the previous episode. SEXUAL CONTENT: MILD A nude female body is shown lying on a table. Her pubic hair and her bare breasts and nipples are exposed throughout the scene. It is by no means sexual and it acts as a surgical-type scene. 13+ for horror violence, language, and brief nudity [EPISODE 3] VIOLENCE: MILD This episode isn’t very violent at all and focuses on being an extremely emotional, heartwarming and important story of love. This isn’t to say it doesn’t have its scenes of violence. A girl finds a zombie trapped under rubble with only its head sticking out. She takes out a knife and slices its forehead open exposing the parasite on it and causing some blood to run down. She then quickly stabs it in the head. A zombie is shot in the head and killed instantly after tripping a wire trap. Brief and not graphic. Numerous raiders are killed by traps. They are set on fire and flail around, shot at and possibly electrocuted. None of this is graphic, however, due to the quick movements of the camera and brief nature of the scene. A man is laid onto a table with a bullet in his stomach (blood was shown on his shirt) the bullet hole is shown seeping blood and he has alcohol poured onto it. He survives, but the scene makes it look like he dies (although he doesn’t) this is more emotional than graphic. Two men take a deadly amount of pills at the end to kill themselves, but only because they wanted to die together peacefully. LANGUAGE: MILD There is much less language on this episode than the previous two, with “f--k” said 9 times, “s--t” said 6 times and other milder language used. This episode is also very long, therefor language isn’t present for most of the episode. SEXUAL CONTENT: MILD The episode mostly follows two homosexual men. Towards the beginning of the episode, they are shown kissing heavily and then getting into bed with each other. One of the men is shown undressing in front of the other getting naked in front of him (nudity isn’t shown) before he gets into bed with the other man. The other man asks if he's “ever done this before” and the man says “with a girl once). The man lowers his head down the other man’s body and the man’s pleasured face is briefly shown implying oral sex. The scene quickly cuts. The sensuality at the beginning of the episode is not graphic, strong or heavy. It is very brief and is not shown as a sex scene as it cuts very quickly. 12+ for some language, brief sensuality, and some violent images [EPISODE 4] VIOLENCE: MILD Most of the violence in this episode happens off camera, and it could have been much more violent than it is. A man and a girl are ambushed in their car, having a cinder block thrown at their windshield causing them to crash into a storefront. They get out in blazing gunfire and the girl hides. The man shoots one of the raiders in the distance (no blood). Another man is heard getting shot and killed and then his bloodless corpse is shown, and then another man runs into the room which the man whips with his gun. The man is tackled, but the girl leaves hiding and shoots the man in the back. He falls and begs for his life realistically but he is heard being stabbed off camera. This sequence is not strong or graphic at all although it could have been much more intense and explicit. A man is shot and killed off camera. LANGUAGE: MODERATE 20+ uses of “f--k”, 7 uses of “s--t” and several other swears. SEXUAL CONTENT: MILD There is a scene where a girl pulls out a male pornographic magazine and reads it. She asks “how could that guy walk around with that thing” and “why the pages are all stuck together.” She throws it out the window and the scene ends. It is a joke and not very bad. 12+ for brief violence and language [EPISODE 5] VIOLENCE: SEVERE Violence, although still infrequent, is much stronger and more disturbing in this episode, especially in its final minutes. In the opening seconds of the episode, dead bodies are shown strewn throughout the streets being dragged around, people are viscously clubbed to death and beaten, a man is strangled with a snare pole, another man is shot point blank in the face (shown up-close), someone has a bottle smashed over their head. A man is hung with a rope. A body with countless knives and cutting tools stuck into it is shown being dragged by a car connected with a rope. Several armed gunmen walk into a room in order to execute numerous captured men and women. This is not shown but their screams are heard after they (presumably) realize they will soon die. A man is shown shot and killed instantly. We hear a man get shot and killed, then see his corpse on the ground afterwards. There is a prolonged and violent sequence of human and zombie violence towards the end of the episode. At first, countless zombies are shown being shot and killed with blood spraying out left and right. They are shot in the head, hit with cars and slammed around, at certain points the zombies brain matter spurts out from their heads. Numerous humans are also shown being eaten and killed by zombies, being bitten on the necks and presumably devoured. A massive zombies emerges from the rubble, picks up and slams a human onto the ground and then tears a man’s head clean off of his body with viscera visible dropping from his severed head which is slightly blurry but graphic. In the final scene of the episode, which is likely the most disturbing scene of the show, a young boy is infected. He lunges onto a girl and begins attacking her and screaming. The girl begins screaming historically and the boys brother takes out a gun and hesitates to shoot and kill the young boy to save everyone else. In a panic, he shoots the young boy in the head splattering blood against the wall and then causing it to blood and spill out onto the floor. Then, out of sorrow and horror, the man turns the gun on himself and shoots himself in the head. We do not see this directly, only him turning the gun and then a loud gunshot. The scene is incredibly sad, disturbing and effective but necessary to show the horrors of human decision in the apocalypse. LANGUAGE: MODERATE 25-30+ uses of fu--k, 5-10 uses of s--t, and use of milder language. There is casual use of strong language during the episode as usual. 14+ for strong violence, disturbing content, and language [EPISODE 6] VIOLENCE: MILD There is no violence in this episode until it’s final minutes, and even that violence is tame and brief. A man is grabbed, slammed into a tree and headbutted before being grabbed and having his neck snapped. After this, the camera moves down and focuses on a broken piece of a bat stuck in a man’s stomach. He pulls it out gushing some blood, and he collapses to the ground. The scene ends in brief shooting. The episode ends under the assumption that a main character died. LANGUAGE: MODERATE 23 uses of f--k, 10 uses of sh--t and some uses of other profanity such as d--k, a--hole, etc. Normal language for the show, and not to severity is decreased due to the length of the episode. OVERALL: 12+ for language and brief violent images [EPISODE 7] VIOLENCE: MODERATE While all of the violence is brief and not graphic, it is quite intense and therefor moderate rather than mild. A man’s open wound is stitched up. The wound is bloody and the detail is severe, albeit length. There is an intense zombie attack at the end of the episode. Two girls are chased by the zombie, one is knocked out while the other falls into objects to escape. The scene ends with the zombie being stabbed in the head with a knife, the knife is pulled out and blood spurts and pours out of its head onto the ground. After, it is revealed both the girls were bitten and their bloody bites are visible. LANGUAGE: SEVERE 44 uses of f--k, 27 uses of s--t, some uses of a--hole, d--k, g-ddamn, and other language. This episode has the strongest language by far. OVERALL: 12+ for language throughout and some bloody images [EPISODE 8] VIOLENCE: SEVERE This is likely the most violent and disturbing episode in the season. There is a constant feeling of dread, suspense and brutality throughout the episode which never dies down, and the violence is often graphic and strong. We see a needle slowly being stuck into a bloody stitched wound. This goes on for quite some time and is pretty graphic. A deer is shot. It leaves a trail of blood and lays in the snow dead. Its corpse is shown several times throughout the episode. A horse is shot and killed and the girl riding it falls off. Blood is shown around the horse. A man is suddenly jumped and stabbed in the neck with a knife. He falls to the ground and lays there with the knife still in his neck as he dies slowly and painfully. Blood seeps through his teeth and neck and he lays limp, dead. This is graphic. Two men are knocked out, tied up and brutally tortured. The one man, who is sitting in a chair, is violently punched in the face multiple times as he cries in pain and blood cakes his face. After, he is stabbed in the leg with a knife and cries out in pain. The knife is twisted and pushed into his leg further, then pulled out (in bloody detail) and placed between his teeth so he can hold the bloody knife up to a map. After, the knife is taken and the man is shanked, killing him. The killer approaches the other man and beats him over the head with a lead pipe and kills him, yet the camera cuts away when he swings down. This scene is very brutal and very violent. A girl locked in a cage grabs a man’s fingers and breaks them. As a result, he grabs her head and viscously slams it against the iron bars of the cell while calling her a “cunt”. Blood runs out from her nose. While a girl is forced onto a table where she is due to be chopped up, she quickly grabs a cleaver and hacks a man in the neck with it. He falls against the wall, dead. Afterward, the cleaver is pulled out of his neck and blood pours down his body. Three naked human bodies are shown hanging from the ceiling, wrapped up and bloody, to be prepared for food. Throughout the episode it is also grossly implied that an entire community eats this human meat. This is presented in an in-your-face manner, all while just being cleverly implicated. A man is stabbed in the stomach, and as a result he throws his attacker, a teen girl, to the ground. The man gets on top of her and appears to prepare to rape her, taunting her with creepy terms, before the girls grabs a cleaver and hacks him with the neck with it. He falls down and she grabs the cleaver before brutally and viscously hacking him with it around twenty times while screaming in agony and horror. The hacking is slightly below the camera, but blood sprays up against her face and noises are heard. The scene is extremely brutal, upsetting and frightening. LANGUAGE: SEVERE 23 uses of f--k, 6 uses of s--t and 1 use of c--t. There is other milder language as well. SEXUAL CONTENT: MILD Naked bodies are shown hanging from the ceiling. Any genitalia is very difficult to make out due to lighting. A man attempts to violently rape a teen girl, but he fails when he is brutally murdered. OVERALL: 14+ for brutal violence, disturbing/bloody images, and language

Based on first 3 episodes: I loved the game and have had no problem with my teenage son playing it and watching the show until the last episode. Though, it is a bit much, foul language is a part of life as is love and sex, however, I DO NOT SEE A NEED FOR SEX IN THIS!! This is an amazing show so far. The sets and cinematography are amazing, the characters well played and the best parts of the game are featured "Drugs, I sell hard core drugs" one of my favorite lines. The sex scene was nothing but shock value. I was fine with the homosexual love aspect. I felt it well written and the compassion displayed, so sweet. But them laying in bed together then sliding down alleging oral sex, why? For what? And to be clear, I would have had a problem had it been heterosexual as well. Sex is not needed everywhere, "Hollywood" quit shoving it down our throats.