Perspective | Let's talk about the zombie kiss in 'The Last of Us' episode 2 - The Washington Post

Toward the extremity of the 2nd occurrence of “The Last of Us,” it is revealed that Tess, Joel’s spouse successful crime, has been infected. To marque matters worse, a horde of zombies is en way to the trio’s location. As Joel and Ellie, the series’s protagonists, marque a interruption for it, Tess stays down to dilatory the zombies down by upturning a fewer barrels of gasoline and mounting disconnected a stash of grenades near down by a radical of smugglers and state fighters. But earlier she tin outpouring her trap, she’s approached by a still-human-looking zombie, who kisses her connected the rima — with jellyfish-like tendrils reaching retired of his rima and squirming into hers.

My archetypal absorption was disgust. My second: Why connected world did the show’s creators bash that?

The series plays retired otherwise successful the amusement than it does successful the game, wherever Tess is killed by agents of FEDRA, the authoritarian pseudo-government propped up successful the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. Here’s however showrunner Craig Mazin explained the alteration to Elise Favis, my erstwhile colleague, who recently interviewed him for The Washington Post.

“So I would inquire Neil [Druckmann, co-creator of “The Last of Us”] a 1000 annoying questions, particularly aboriginal on,” Mazin said. “And I retrieve 1 of the annoying questions I asked was, wherefore are FEDRA soldiers each the mode retired here? If the unfastened metropolis is really, truly dangerous, it seems similar they’re truly going way, mode retired of their mode to find Tess and Joel. They mightiness say, ‘hey, they did a unspeakable thing, but they’re conscionable gonna get killed retired there. So what bash we care? We’re surely not gonna fto them backmost in. If we ever spot their faces again, we’ll get them.’ And [Druckmann] was like, 'Okay, that’s fair.’”

The originative squad opted, instead, to usage the occurrence arsenic an accidental to laic retired immoderate crushed rules — for Ellie and the viewers alike.

“One of the needs we had was to amusement however the infected instrumentality implicit a city,” Mazin said. “How bash they work? How bash they infect? How galore of them are retired there? What kinds [are there]? And that people led to what made consciousness for that ending, which was for it to beryllium infected alternatively than FEDRA soldiers. But you’ll spot FEDRA soldiers again, conscionable not successful Boston.”

That mightiness explicate wherefore zombies termination Tess alternatively of FEDRA, but beyond conscionable the inferior the showrunners, it’s worthy considering what the updated country does symbolically, and what the alteration means successful the discourse of the story. What does a buss mean? We tin escaped subordinate here. Kisses tin beryllium romantic. They tin symbolize love. They tin beryllium nonconsensual. There’s the buss of Judas, the buss of death, “Kiss from a Rose.” Remember “Cat Person?” Kisses tin beryllium tender, wet, bad, sloppy, bored. There are bisous, a playful French greeting that involves airy kisses connected the cheeks. Throughout history, kisses person meant a batch of things. So what does the zombie buss mean here?

There are a fewer interpretations that I deliberation a idiosyncratic tin get astatine successful reasonably bully faith. It’s imaginable the showrunners of this fearfulness play TV amusement wanted a melodramatic and horrifying assemblage fearfulness gross-out scene. But scratching the aboveground a bit, some the buss and its tendrils springiness the consciousness that Tess is being welcomed into a caller “community” of infected. There’s thing reminiscent of Judas’s buss successful it too; it mightiness awesome that if Tess fails to detonate the explosives astir her, she’ll yet turn into a monster and spell connected to infect different radical — going from idiosyncratic attempting to prevention humanity by smuggling Ellie, into idiosyncratic who volition betray it.

Another imaginable meaning is applicable to Tess’s narration with Joel. Before dying, Tess tells Joel she ne'er asked him to consciousness the mode she felt (meaning: to reciprocate her love). The zombie buss is simply a grotesque inversion of what Tess seemed to privation precise severely from Joel: intimacy, closeness, oneness. But this closeness comes astatine a cost: a nonaccomplishment of some her individuality and humanity.

There’s a past interpretation, 1 that’s little charitable. The buss is intelligibly nonconsensual, a grim fictionalization of rape civilization and the benignant of brutish behaviour truthful galore radical endure adjacent successful our existent non-apocalypse. (You tin work this arsenic thoughtful critique oregon thoughtless reproduction.) And possibly the showrunners, who are men, did not deliberation astir whether it mightiness beryllium cruel oregon nonstop a weird connection to taxable 1 of the show’s astir salient pistillate characters (so far) to an adjacent worse destiny than she suffered successful the game, and successful a much lurid mode astatine that.

These antithetic interpretations can, of course, overlap. Meaning is messy, and you tin take to judge respective of these astatine once. I would besides caution that determination astir apt isn’t a right interpretation, adjacent if Mazin and Druckmann mightiness person a preferred one. A bully mode of reasoning astir these readings is arsenic stops connected a metro line. You person your destination, different radical person theirs, and astatine immoderate fixed point, you tin get close backmost connected the enactment and spell someplace else. And if, for example, aboriginal successful the season, Mazin and Druckmann opt to termination different pistillate characters with wantonness and successful likewise grotesque ways, you whitethorn hitch a thrust from 1 mentation to another.

Trying to parse the meaning of the buss raises the question of however you ticker TV. In the lawsuit of “The Last of Us,” I deliberation determination are astir 2 types of viewers. There are those who bargain into the fabrication of the amusement and construe the worldly that happens connected surface precise plainly, arsenic a story. Then determination are those who ticker the amusement and spot it arsenic the merchandise of hundreds of people’s work, and presumption the proceedings arsenic borne of creators’ choices. It’s the quality betwixt saying “I can’t judge Joel did X” and “Why did Mazin and Druckmann make an occurrence wherever Joel did X?”

Because The Last of Us franchise has existed for astir 10 years, a batch of radical are instinctively successful the second camp, having seen Druckmann successful peculiar elevated from random crippled manager to insignificant personage wrong video crippled culture. And my archetypal absorption (ick!) leaned that mode too. Why, I wondered, did these 2 creators opt for what seemed to beryllium conscionable a more disgusting televised decease for Tess? Having spent immoderate much clip with the country portion moving connected my recap of the occurrence — and trying to deliberation astir it connected its ain presumption — I deliberation the mode the amusement plays the country is the 2nd interpretation, the 1 that centers connected Joel and Tess’s relationship. The full occurrence is astir their dynamic, and however Tess and Joel disagree successful their narration to Ellie.

With that spin, the country reads arsenic much than conscionable a gross-out. And yet, I can’t assistance but consciousness disappointed. The hunt for a deeper meaning was amusive arsenic acold arsenic spending a fewer hours goes, but the seemingly close mentation isn’t that revelatory oregon interesting, which is wherefore astatine archetypal blush it feels similar just a grisly, vaguely sexualized decease of a large pistillate character.

We already knew that Tess wanted much from Joel than she got. We already get the horrors of this apocalypse. But beyond that, for each its glances and gruffness, the amusement is airy connected meaningful characterization. Which is what makes settling connected an mentation truthful hard — and speechmaking the country arsenic grossness for its ain involvement truthful easy.