Man cannot live on cordyceps-infected hordes alone. As The Last of Us approaches its season two finale, David Michael Brown is here to offer some other bleak but entertaining visions of the future to add to your watchlist.
The dawn of the apocalypse is upon us. Dystopian post-apocalyptic thrillers are all the rage. Especially after the huge success of the adaptation of PlayStation game The Last of Us—starring Pedro Pascal as Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting teenage girl Ellie (Bella Ramsey), immune to the Cordyceps brain infection that has turned humans into vicious fungal infected mutations. If the pair’s epic quest inspires you, there are plenty of bleak end-of-the-world dramas out there.
Not all of the shows below feature the human race regressing into the flesh-eating undead, not all of them see the human race bunkering down underground… actually a lot of them do. But what they all share is a dynamic depiction of the human spirit, with all its strengths and frailties, in the face of devastating global trauma.
And the fact that man indeed, is the biggest monster of them all.
All of Us Are Dead
Think Train to Busan given steroids by Zach Snyder’s 2004 remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. All of Us Are Dead propels itself at breakneck speed as high school students in the fictional South Korean city of Hyosan find themselves in a battle royale with hordes of rampaging zombies.
Based on the Naver webtoon of the same name by Joo Dong-geun and starring a host of young talent including Squid Game’s Lee Yoo-mi, this high octane ultra-violent actioner kicks off at ground zero thanks to a hapless science teacher who creates “The Jonas Virus” to help his son deal with bullies. It’s an outrageously gory thrill ride which more than makes up for the over-familiarity of the material, with the exuberance of its performers and the delight in which the characters are bloodily dispatched.
Silo
In a distant dystopian future, a community of 10,000 inhabits a giant silo that extends 144 levels underground. The society is bound by strict regulations they believe are meant to protect them but in reality, are designed to confine and control. In a show created by Speed scribe Graham Yost (the man behind Justified) and based on the Silo trilogy of novels (Wool, Shift and Dust) by author Hugh Howey, the show boasts an impressive ensemble including Rebecca Ferguson, David Oyelowo, Common, Tim Robbins and Succession’s Harriet Walter.
Like Bong-Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer, the show uses the fantastically, albeit cautionary, elements of its storyline to discuss class inequality, social stratification and the consequences of unchecked capitalist power.
Fallout
Another dystopian video game adaptation, Fallout may share some broad themes with The Last of Us but they are very different shows. Set in a future post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, 200 years after the nuclear decimation of World War III, the survivors lived in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation and the mutants and bandits who roam the irradiated hellscape. Now, the denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to what is left and reassimilate into life above the ground.
The show stars man-of-the-moment, The White Lotus S3 MVP Walton Goggins as a pre-War Hollywood heartthrob turned bounty hunter known as The Ghoul, who has been living in the apocalyptic wastelands of Santa Monica since the big blast. The show’s more traditional hero? Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell as Lucy, a vault dweller searching for her father.
Paradise
It’s not all about rotting diseased flesh, rampaging zombies, pestilent infections and desolate landscapes. From This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman, Paradise—which conceals its reveal until the end of episode 1—focuses less on what has happened to the human race and more on the surreal predicament that the privileged chosen few find themselves in. Playing like a twisted version of Stephen King’s Under The Dome fused with The Truman Show by way of House of Cards, the central conceit sees the human race decimated by a world-encircling megatsunami caused by an Antarctic super-volcanic eruption.
The “privileged” survivors turn out to have relocated to a top-secret underground city built inside the mountains in Colorado in preparation for the extinction-level event. Starring James Marsden as the President of this brave new world and This Is Us alum Sterling K. Brown as the secret service agent charged with protecting him, Paradise proves to be anything but as the political conspiracies unfold.
The Walking Dead + spin-offs
The Walking Dead: Dead City - Season 2
One of the biggest horror franchises on the planet, if you love the infected of The Last of Us, then The Walking Dead is your one-stop-shop for bloody dismemberment, splattered brains, meaty mouth feels, rotting flesh and shuffling undead. Across 11 seasons and 6 spin-off series (the latest of which is The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2), the show—inspired by the graphic novels of writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore and created by The Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont—is an epic undertaking but worth the endurance test.
What starts out as a linear fight for survival against the desiccated, flesh-hungry enemy—courtesy of FX legends Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger—transforms into a complex power play between the various warring factions of mankind who have survived. The franchise’s menacing machinations constantly provoke the audience to question: “Who are, in fact, the walking dead?”
