With 'The Last of Us,' HBO gets its own 'Walking Dead'

A rough around the edges survivalist and a sassy teen are tasked with trekking across a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic America in "The Last of Us," HBO's smart, scary and at times lyrical adaptation of the hit video game.

Yes, video game, but "Resident Evil" this isn't. At some point the generational stigma that greets video game adaptations needs to fall, and "The Last of Us" is helping to bridge that gap. If you didn't play it you probably wouldn't realize it was based on a video game at all, and helmers Craig Mazin ("Chernobyl") and Neil Druckmann (creator of the original video game) raise the stakes going forward for video game-based tales and storytelling.

Pedro Pascal plays Joel, a resourceful Texan who survives a nasty 2003 fungal outbreak that pretty much overnight decimates the human population, turning the infected into ravenous, well, zombies. They're connected to one another through a sort of hive mind and their connection to the Earth makes them an allegory for our relationship with nature but yeah, for all intents and purposes they're zombies, with giant growths on their heads that look like they've been attacked by a batch of cauliflower.

Twenty years later, Joel is in Boston, or what's left of it, which has been turned into a militarized quarantine zone. He's teamed up with Tess (Anna Torv), a fellow smuggler, who we learn came to Boston by way of Detroit, and the show's timeline means most of the Tigers' miserable 2003 season still happened. Joel and Tess have carved out their own way of life on the fray of the occupied area, and they make occasional trips outside the city walls to brave the wicked badlands.

Joel and Tess are sent on a mission to deliver precocious middle finger-waving teenager Ellie ("Game of Thrones'" Bella Ramsey) out West, where doctors might be able to study her condition. It seems she has some sort of immunity to the cordyceps — that's the name of the outbreak — so her survival across the wasteland that is the U.S. is paramount to the future of the human race.

So off they go, and if you say to yourself, "wait, so it's 'The Walking Dead?'" well yes, it kind of is "The Walking Dead," and also "I Am Legend," "Last Man on Earth" and a number of other recognizable End Times yarns.

But the high production values and the series' ability to pivot its storytelling — the third episode is a lovely and quite moving distraction from the main plot — keep it fresh, even as the show's familiarities and the rudimentary bickering between characters ("you sure do ask a lot of questions!" Joel crankily remarks to Ellie, as he'd rather walk in silence) ring all sorts of bells.

Which is to say: yes, you've seen a lot of "The Last of Us" before. But just like the pesky walking undead, it's hard to keep a good zombie show down.

'The Last of Us'

GRADE: B

9 p.m. Sunday on HBO

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama