Why HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Is Such a Masterful Serialization
And the 10 ways novelists and memoirists can learn from it
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I had no intention of watching HBO’s The Last of Us. I’d never heard of the bestselling video game the series is based on. The Post-apocalypse-mutant/zombie genre isn’t my go-to. Gore isn’t my thing. But I’d heard so much about it, and a friend told me that an acquaintance of ours from New York was in it (Scott Shephard, episode 8), so I did—and I’m soooo glad.
The show is scary (to me) and violent (to most people) but not gratuitously so. Plus, if you close your eyes and turn down the volume every time you hear the gurgling sound of the mutants, it’s much, much less scary and violent.
The Last of Us blew me away, not just the storytelling and the acting—both of which are excellent—but the serialization. It’s brilliant. It’s the kind of serialization we all want: each episode is a self-contained world, yet each is integrally part of the whole.
Can Serial Novelists and Memoirists Learn from TV?
As you know, I’m a purist. Genres keep things nice and tidy: books over here, television over there. We separate them. The best way to learn to write in one genre is by studying those who’ve mastered that genre. Period.
I get uneasy when craft books on writing suddenly give examples from Star Wars or Mad Men. Words on the page enact subjective images and sounds in the reader’s mind, whereas film and television shows them to us. One is active, the other passive. Written and visual mediums may share similar archetypal figures (the hero, the mentor, the shapeshifter), but visual mediums (typically) lack narration, the sense that we’re perceiving a narrator’s (or multiple narrators’) thoughts. And although text and film/television engage the same plots (the quest, rags to riches, rebirth), visual mediums require less effort (on our part) to enact them.
People often compare serial novels and memoirs to television series. Both have installments/episodes that adhere to an overall arc. But TV shows exist in a complex industrial system. They’re complicated by financing, renewals, and cancellations. Often, creators and writers don’t know how long the overarching narrative will need to go on—two seasons? six? As a result, shows can feel repetitive (Six Feet Under), resolution-less (Twin Peaks), and drawn out (Breaking Bad). True, novels can be or become part of a series (Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, Attica Locke’s Highway 59 series), but a whole series is rarely serialized in print.1
Limited TV series—those intended to have one season—have the most in common with serial novels and memoirs. The creators and writers have to achieve the same things: an overall arc with riveting plot points that create character change, plus a compelling narrative arc and character change within each episode/installment.
I originally thought The Last of Us was a limited TV series, but it’s been renewed for a second season. Seems the video game even had a sequel, so we could see a lot more of The Last of Us in the years to come—for better or worse.
Still, this season—on its own—has a lot to teach us about successful serialization in the twenty-first century.
Why The Last of Us Is a Masterful Serialization Worthy of Study
It comes down to one thing: You can watch episodes 1 to 9 of The Last of Us or enter at any point and not miss anything. You’ll also become fully immersed either way. That’s why it’s a masterful serialization.
There are other reasons—ten of them.
1. A Title that Says It All
Even if you don’t know what it’s about, The Last of Us will give you a big clue. Read the word post-apocalyptic, and you’ve pretty much got the whole story. For more on titles, go here.
2. A Simple, Recognizable Premise
The Last of Us is a classic quest story. Joel and Ellie have to leave the world they know (the quarantine zone) and embark on a road of trials to reach the place and people who will save the world. They meet one obstacle after another.
3. Few Recurring Characters
Traditionally, when writing single-volume novel or memoir, we’re taught to create a protagonist, an antagonist, and minor characters, most of whom stay with us for much of the book. But The Last of Us makes us rethink this. The show has few recurring characters, which makes every episode accessible to someone new to the show. Joel’s brother returns in episode 6, but even if I hadn’t seen him in episode 1, it wouldn’t matter. His story in episode 6 is all I need.
4. Not Relying on Backstory
As novelists and memoirists, we rely on backstory. Serializations actually flounder when too much depends on a character’s history. In The Last of Us, the backstories of the joint protagonists—Joel and Ellie—matter little. We don’t need to have seen Joel’s daughter Sarah die in his arms. We know almost nothing about Ellie’s past until the final episode. And it doesn’t matter.
5. Perfect Plotting Within Each Installment
In The Last of Us, the overarching plot is simple: a man and a young girl with immunity must make it to a certain location to save the world. That’s it. No big twists and turns. The larger plot matters less than the plot within each episode. And every episode follows the simple, tried-and-true Freytag’s triangle: inciting incident, rising action, climactic decision. Memoirists, also go here. Novelists, also go here.
6. Character Change
In a serialization, each the plot is only as successful as the character change it produces. Unlike in a video game, where the action drives the player’s experience, how the protagonist changes as a result of the action engages readers and viewers.
For the first three episodes, Ellie is alternately a sarcastic and scared teenager who wants to be more adult than she is. Episode 4 forces her to act. To save Joel’s life, she shoots a man and is overcome by what she’s done—at first. Joel kills him. She wipes away her tears and keeps going—tougher, changed.
For more on character development, memoirists, also go here. Novelists, also go here.
7. Integrating the Synopsis into Your Story
Episode 1 gave us a lot of information. Although episode 2 (and every episode) has the standard recap, the writers elegantly weave in an additional segment.
Episode 2 opens in flashback, before the outbreak. Dr. Ibu Ratna, Professor of Mycology at the University of Indonesia, is picked up by the military police and brought to Jakarta’s center for disease control. In a lab, she’s asked to evaluate a specimen (cordyceps), which is responsible for the outbreak. Wearing a hazmat suit, she then examines the corpse of a woman, one of the first mutants affected by the outbreak. (If you’re squeamish like me, this is when you’d close your eyes and turn down the volume. If you were to keep watching—which I don’t recommend—you’d see Dr. Ratna pull from the woman’s mouth live, squiggling cordyceps. That may not sound disturbing, but trust me, it is.) Dr. Ratna runs from the room.
Later, she’s questioned by a military officer, who wants her help developing a vaccine. She says there’s no medicine and no vaccine to stop it. He asks, “So what do we do?” She responds, “Bomb. Start bombing. Bomb this city and everyone in it.” In a beautifully understated moment, Dr. Ratna cries, then stops and asks the military officer to take her home to be with her family. So compelling.
The viewer who’s seen episode 1 knows a bit more of the backstory, and the viewer who missed episode 1 is completely caught up, even without the pre-show recap.
For more on synopses, go here.
8. A Longer First Installment
The first episode is longer than the others, which makes it even more immersive.
9. The Self-Contained Installment
If you haven’t heard about episode 3, stop reading, watch it, and come back. We’ll wait.
Episode 3 is an extraordinary, heartbreaking, stunning episode that seems to come out of nowhere. It’s a standalone that doesn’t cut off the rest of the story. We become immersed in the love story between Bill and Frank and can get right back to the Joel-Ellie plotline when it’s over.
If hearing Linda Ronstadt singing “Long, Long Time” doesn’t make you cry, watch the episode and it will.
10. To-Be-Continued and Cliffhanger Episodes
Every episode ends on a to-be-continued note—or a cliffhanger—even episode 3. For more on cliffhangers, go here.
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Watching The Last of Us made me realize that successfully serializing a novel or memoir today requires that we learn from the genres that are doing it best: television and podcasts. Stay tuned for an upcoming post on what true crime podcasts can teach us.
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Full disclosure: I watch very little popular TV and even fewer Hollywood movies. In comparison to the average American who watches one to four hours of TV every day (!) and a hundred-plus movies each year, I’m ignorant of the way TV and movies function in popular culture. But I do teach undergraduate film and literature courses and have mastery over the stylistic and analytical elements that make TV and movies so affecting.