REVIEW: The Last of Us – Season 1, Episode 6, “Kin”

Television Reviews

The turn, the twist, the revelation, and the unmasking of HBO’s The Last of Us has finally occurred. The creatives’ disdain for the source material and all its characters is now evident. This week’s episode, “Kin,” is not only as poorly written and CW-esque as all its predecessors, but the show has now crossed from being poorly written into the territory of woke propaganda that makes no attempts to hide its biases. The once again bloated and majorly pointless “Kin” is brought to a screeching halt multiple times to allow the characters to spew forth blatant and tactless propaganda without even the most basic of finesse or skill. This episode exists for only three reasons, as it accomplishes nothing save these objectives: to be a massive virtue signal, a propaganda piece, and a tool to desecrate every masculine character possible.

**Spoilers**

There is very little point in talking about the plot of “Kin,” as what little of it there is, is as mid as it gets, barely achieving the low bar of the CW, its dialogue not even reaching that bar. Joel and Ellie wander around and meet up with Tommy at his self-proclaimed communist compound before leaving together. That’s the plot. If this had been a well-written character piece, the thin story would have been entirely forgivable. As it stands, it does not develop the characters in any positive way whatsoever. The few that get any characterization are portrayed as horrible people, yet the story wants you to relate to them and care about them, resulting in a broken tell vs. show.

For example, Ellie is even more insufferable and aggressive than ever, yelling and swearing at every opportunity. The story wants you to believe that she is an intriguing character that the audience is supposed to like. However, the constant berating, scowling, and snarling completely contradicts the tell. The show is that she is an insufferable character, but the tell is that she’s the bestest ever. The same is true for Maria, a newly introduced character that bears zero resemblance to her game counterpart. Tommy and Joel’s characterization is the same; they’re both spineless and subservient to the women in their lives, soft-spoken, self-declared weak, and incompetent. These are not the characters from the video game, and they are not positive characters whatsoever.

“Kin” see the final desecration of Joel’s character. The revelation in a previous episode that this Joel had been aged-up compared to his game counterpart was an odd decision, but the motivation behind it has finally been revealed. The showrunners wanted him to be weak, incompetent, and so void of any skills whatsoever that he breaks down in tears to Tommy about how he can’t take care of Ellie. They aged him to make him incompetent. That is a massive issue and a slap in the face to the incredibly strong and competent character portrayed in the source material. Joel has an entire monologue where he tearfully explains how pathetic he is and how no one should like him at all. Neil Druckmann has finally been able to destroy the character he so clearly hates. This television show was not meant as an adaptation of the video game. It was meant to fix the perceived mistakes of the source material that Neil Druckmann despises and to update it for a modern audience.

Unlike its predecessors, “Kin” is unequivocally woke. The beginning of the episode, which could be cut entirely without losing anything like, the beginning of every episode of this show, exists only for Native American and fat representation. “Kin” temporarily introduces a character who is 300 pounds overweight, requiring hourly visits to McDonald’s to get so large, before abandoning this character entirely. In an apocalypse where much of the food was contaminated by the fungus, as confirmed by the writers, there is no possible way that a person could get so insanely massive. It only exists for body positivity representation. This is a minor example of the clear and blatant political motivations behind every decision made in “Kin.”

Rather than being a relatively normal survival group living off a dam, as was the case in the video game, Tommy’s community is a veritable communist utopia. Calling it a communist utopia is not hyperbole. In the middle of a conversation which could finally lead to some character development and tension as Joel endeavors to ask for Tommy’s help, Tommy grinds the conversation to a halt, insisting that they take a tour. On this tour, the conversation is full of communist propaganda. Maria, Tommy’s wife, says they are communists and they live in a commune. Additionally, in response to the age-old argument about communism not working, Ellie slack-jawed says, “Holy shit. This place actually works.” There is literally a 10-15 minute section of this bloated episode spent entirely on attempting to prove how amazing communism is. This is political propaganda and wokeness on par with some of the most blatant wokeness ever, endeavoring to rival even the pointless socialist remarks of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

The Last of Us has an entirely inappropriate obsession with the menstrual care of a 14-year-old girl. From a previous episode going out of its way to show Ellie getting tampons to this episode showing her receiving a diva cup. Just randomly, “Kin” takes a 5-10 minute detour from the already bloated runtime to talk about how special the diva cup is, to show technical pictures of it getting inserted, and other such entirely inappropriate and borderline perverted moments. It is completely unnecessary, and it does not progress the plot, develop the characters, or do anything other than virtue signal about menstrual care.

This entirely inappropriate detour comes by way of the character of Maria. This new addition is an insufferable know-it-all girl boss who rivals even Ellie in aggressive personality. Even when Ellie and Maria are fighting each other, they have to do the politically correct thing of girls affirming girls. Maria says that Ellie would make a good lawyer just out of the blue for no reason whatsoever. Swearing and yelling at someone doesn’t make you a good lawyer, but girls got to affirm girls. Maria is a pointless character that only exists in this story for political propaganda.

From an adaptation standpoint, with the exception of episode 3, this is the show’s least accurate adaptation of the game so far. Only one scene even remotely resembles the source material. However, a poorly acted exchange between Joel and Ellie with dialogue lifted from the video game does not make a good adaptation. With only one scene from the video game and none of the characters, this episode could barely be called 5% accurate.

There is no point in talking about the plot, characterization, or dialogue of this episode beyond what has already been mentioned, as it falls prey to the same pitfalls of writing ineptitude as its predecessors. Without the rampant wokeness and propaganda, “Kin” would get a rating similar to a low-tier CW show. However, as it stands, the motivation behind this show’s inception is clear because of this episode. These motivations affect the quality of the story, as they destroy immersion. Grinding multiple scenes to a complete halt to spend several minutes virtue signaling is a writing flaw, resulting in a lower grade. Any façade of care for The Last of Us has finally slipped away as Neil Druckmann’s loathing for it has been revealed. The utter hate perpetuated against Joel’s character ruins him utterly. This is not The Last of Us, the video game. It is self-professed communist propaganda meant to desecrate every masculine character to the furthest degree imaginable. It is not well-written or acted. Beyond the always stellar technical side of things, there is nearly nothing of quality and nothing redeeming about this utter abomination.