Right now I'm looking at the internet from behind my fingers. The devastating finale of The Last of Us aired over the weekend but I haven't been able to stream it yet, and while I know how it ends – I've played the original game and its remaster so many times I reckon I could recite Ellie and Joel's dialogue from memory – it's a testament to how good the TV show is that I still don't want any spoilers. I know what's going to happen, in all its sickening inevitability. But I don't know exactly how it'll be done on screen.
The Last of Us is exactly the kind of show you want to binge on, and waiting a whole week for a new episode has been really frustrating. But now the whole series has aired, every episode is available immediately – and if you haven't seen it, you should. It's beautiful, bloody and brilliant. It's a masterpiece.
Where can you stream every episode of The Last of Us?
Here in the UK it's on Sky Atlantic and in the Now TV app. In the US it's on HBO Max. Our guide to how to watch The Last of Us gives you all the details.
I'd really recommend this show to two kinds of people: people who've played the game, and people who haven't. I'm not being funny. If you're familiar with the game the show tells the same story, but it does it in a really breathtaking, gripping and different way. I don't just mean in the obvious sense, so for example you don't spend hours seeing Joel positioning planks, bins and floating wooden pallets to help Ellie get around. I mean in the sense of it take everything that was great about the game and everything that's great about the very best TV dramas and melds them together.
It's not an easy watch by any means – I've been variously horrified and ugly crying throughout – but it's an extraordinary achievement.
And if you haven't played the game? Then I'm jealous, because you get to experience all of this for the very first time. I'm not going to give you any spoilers but there are things in the show and in the game that will variously break your heart, make you laugh, have you watching from behind your fingers and vowing never to eat a mushroom ever again.
And if you think its tale of people trying to survive in a post-pandemic world is pretty bleak, I need to warn you that season 2 has been greenlit. Having played The Last of Us Part II, I can promise you that by comparison to the second game, season one of the show is an absolute laugh riot.
