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The shambling undead of The Walking Dead may be known to fans as 'Walkers,' but creator Robert Kirkman admits he's never liked the term for a very personal reason. Setting itself apart from other zombie franchises, Walking Dead rarely uses the 'Z word,' and the original comics depict each group of survivors having their own terms for the risen dead. Not only does Kirkman dislike the term that ended up defining his undead antagonist, but there's another he really wishes he'd used more.

While zombies are most often called 'Roamers' in the comics, the AMC adaptation later coined the term 'Walkers,' smartly tying its zombie terminology into the franchise's title. However, one person who was never a fan of the term was Walking Dead writer and co-creator Robert Kirkman, who states in The Walking Dead Deluxe #92 that the term "always sounded weird to me."

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Season 2 of The Last of Us promises intense drama with high stakes as Ellie faces her demons in post-apocalyptic Seattle. The talented directing team, including seasoned professionals like Craig Mazin and Mark Mylod, will do justice to the complex narrative. Bringing in directors like Kate Herron and Stephen Williams ensures a perfect balance of spectacle and emotion in this highly anticipated adaptation.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.

The Last of Us season 2 is already one of the most highly anticipated upcoming TV shows, but the massively talented directing team hired to work on the series’ sophomore season makes HBO’s Last of Us Part II adaptation even more exciting. Season 2 will pick up where season 1 left off, with Joel and Ellie moving to Jackson with a huge lie hanging over them. When they run afoul of Abby, played by series newcomer Kaitlyn Dever,...

HBO’s adaptation of the popular PlayStation game, “The Last of Us,” is making waves in the award season. Recently, the series bagged eight awards at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. This is a big deal, especially considering the show is also lined up for more honors at the upcoming Primetime Emmys.

Let’s talk about some of the awards the show won. For starters, Storm Reid and Nick Offerman won the awards for Guest Actress and Actor in a Drama Series for their performances in episodes “Left Behind” and “Long, Long Time” respectively. It’s clear their roles left a lasting impression!

The show also stood out in technical categories. The episode “Infected” won the award for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup, with a team led by Barrie Gower. The skills of Alex Wang and his team in visual effects were recognized too, winning the Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a season or movie.

Saturday night at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Storm Reid (“The Last of Us”) won the trophy for Best Drama Guest Actress. She plays Riley Abel on the HBO drama series, and this marks her first career victory (on her first nomination) with the Television Academy.

After being delayed since September due to the writers’ strike and actors’ strike, the Creative Arts Emmys for scripted fare finally took place on Saturday, January 6, with more awards for unscripted programs being doled out on Sunday, January 7. The official Primetime Emmys ceremony will air on Fox next Monday, January 15 with Anthony Anderson serving as host.

Reid’s episode, titled “Left Behind,” is a flashback entry focusing on lead character Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) past. It primarily functions as a two-hander in which the tight-knit military school roommates realize just how deeply they care for each other while covertly spending a night alone in a deserted shopping mall.

This year’s Best Drama Guest Actress category at the Emmys is a tightly-knit affair with only two shows — “Succession” and “The Last of Us,” both HBO projects — reaping nominations. “Succession” landed three bids for Harriet Walter, Hiam Abbass, and Cherry Jones, while “The Last of Us” produced nominations for Melanie Lynskey, Storm Reid, and Anna Torv.

SEEPeter Hoar (‘The Last of Us’ director) on aligning ‘with a story that really talks to you and speaks from the heart’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Torv, like her co-star Reid and “Succession” contender Abbass, is a first-time Emmy nominee after working in the industry for years. She features in three episodes of “The Last of Us” as Theresa “Tess” Servopoulos. Her nominated episode is “Infected,” which is the second episode of the series and features the character’s climactic death (Torv also appears in the third episode during flashbacks). As such, this is an emotional Emmy...

Gold Derby can exclusively reveal the 48 episodes entered as 2023 Emmy Award submission for the eight Best Drama Series nominees. Each program submits six episodes from this past season. Television Academy voters are asked to watch each of the episodes entered for that category before marking their ballots.

SEEover 150 video interviews with 2023 Emmy nominees

The complete list of submission for this category below:

Andor (Disney+):

“Announcement,” “Narkina 5,” “Nobody’s Listening,” “One Way Out,” “Daughter of Ferrix,” “Rix Road”

Better Call Saul (AMC):

“Point and Shoot,” “Fun and Games,” “Nippy,” “Breaking Bad,” “Waterworks,” “Saul Gone”

The Crown (Netflix):

“Mou Mou,” “Annus Horribillis,” “The Way Ahead,” “Gunpowder,” “Couple 31,” “Decommissioned”

House of the Dragon (HBO Max):

“The Heirs of the Dragon,” “The Princess and the Queen,” “Driftmark,” “The Lord of the Tides,” “The Green Council,” “The Black Queen”

The Last of Us (HBO Max):

“When You’re Lost in the Darkness,...

Earlier today, The Television Academy revealed the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards nominees. Succession emerged as the clear victor. The HBO Max comedy-drama TV series secured the leading position this year with an impressive 27 Emmy nominations. The Last of Us is closely behind, with 24 nominations, The White Lotus with 23, and Ted Lasso with 21.

Related: 74th Primetime Emmy Awards Winners: The Full List

Emmy nominee Yvette Nicole Brown and Academy Chair Frank Scherma disclosed the nominations for the 75th Emmy Awards during a live virtual ceremony on Emmys.com/nominations.

Find the complete list of nominees for the 75th Emmy Awards 2023 below.

Outstanding Animated Program

Bob’s Burgers • The Plight Before Christmas • Fox • 20th Television Animation

Entergalactic • Netflix • Netflix / Mad Solar / Khalabo Ink Society / Edelgang

Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal • Shadow Of Fate • Adult Swim • Cartoon Network Studios

Rick And Morty • Night Family • Adult Swim • Rick and Morty LLC, Williams Street

The Simpsons • Treehouse...

Scream VI was named best movie on Sunday night at the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards, which pivoted at the last minute from live to pretaped due to the writers strike,

The film also won best fight for Courteney Cox (as Gale Weathers) and the killer Ghostface, the latter of whom accepted both awards via pretaped video.

Accepting best movie, Ghostface quipped that there is finally an answer to the question, “What is your favorite scary movie?” — a reference to a classic line of dialogue from the franchise.

The Last of Us also was a big winner, taking three awards, including best show. Star Pedro Pascal was named best hero, while he and Bella Ramsey also were named best duo. Stranger Things won two awards.

The show was held amid the ongoing writers strike, which led host Drew Barrymore to drop out in a show of support for the striking scribes.

The timeline for HBO’s The Last of Us season 1 encompasses decades despite most of the action happening toward the tail-end of the story. The Last of Us is based on the Naughty Dog video game of the same name and tracks the events of a Cordyceps outbreak that begins in 2003 and wipes out most of the civilized world, turning people into brutal, violent infected. The length of time between the outbreak and Joel and Ellie’s story is a significant element of their tale. What happens at the beginning of the outbreak shapes Joel into who he is when he meets Ellie.

Ellie was born after the outbreak and only knows a world with infected. The viral outbreak happens mostly off-screen and society’s collapse occurs before Joel meets Ellie. HBO's The Last of Us flips the game's timeline, which begins in 2013 and then jumps to 2033 for the main story.

This post contains spoilers for "The Last of Us" Season 1

"The Last of Us" has concluded its nine-week victory lap, and while we're all still picking up the pieces from the intense finale, it won't be long before plenty of folks jump into full-season rewatches to see what they missed. One of the many things that make "The Last of Us" one of the greatest video game adaptations ever made is that the source material isn't abandoned in the transition to televised storytelling. Since the series was co-created by creative director Neil Druckmann and includes direct input from game developer Naughty Dog, a serious effort has been made to bring as much of the game and its surrounding universe to the show as possible in good faith, including some amazing details. 

If you know what you're looking for, there are tons of fun Easter eggs to be found, referencing both...

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Last of Us, Season 1 Episode 8, “When We Are In Need.”]

HBO’s new series The Last of Us premiered to the approval of fans of the video game and viewers who are new to the franchise. Though the thrilling story has just begun, the first episode established the importance of the soundtrack in setting the mood for the post-apocalyptic world.

Created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (the latter also wrote and directed the video game), The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal as grizzled survivor Joel and Bella Ramsey as a teenage girl named Ellie. Taking place after a fungal plague has ravaged the globe, it centers around Joel fulfilling his task of smuggling Ellie beyond a quarantine zone in Boston.

Depeche Mode’s 1987 hit “Never Let Me Down Again” played a significant role during the series premiere. After Joel and his partner Tess (Anna Torv) set out for their journey with Ellie,...

This Post Contains spoilers for this week’s episode of The Last of Us, “Look for the Light.”

As we come to the end of an utterly fantastic debut season of television, it’s worth looking back to note that of these nine episodes, only three of them (the premiere, “Infected,” and “Endure and Survive”) featured lots of infected, several others didn’t include them at all, while the rest only had one or two of the creatures, and usually briefly, at that. For all that the creators of zombie...

“The Last of Us” takes place 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed by a fungal outbreak. Joel (Pedro Pascal) is a hardened survivor who is hired to smuggle Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

Episode 1 sees Joel and Ellie leave the Boston quarantine zone.

Their journey is just starting, so if you’re eager to know exactly when you can see new episodes, we’ve assembled a handy guide to the Season 1 release schedule and what time new episodes air.

When Did “The Last of Us” Season 1 Premiere?

HBO premiered the first episode of “The Last of Us” on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023 on HBO and HBO Max.

What Time Does “The Last of Us” Come on HBO?...

From the haunting opening credits to The Last Of Us' most heartbreaking deaths, the Cordyceps infection is a crucial element in the hit HBO series. The highly-acclaimed adaptation of the Naughty Dog video game of the same name, The Last of Us is an emotionally captivating take on the post-apocalyptic genre, boosted further by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s performances as middle-aged drifter Joel and infected teenager Ellie. On their interstate journey, the duo comes across all sorts of people and, of course, those who turn into zombie-like creatures due to the Cordyceps fungal epidemic that leads humanity to a state of chaos and anarchy.

While other fictional works delving into zombies often focus on viral infections, The Last of Us is unconventional in the sense that it focuses on fungi as a potential threat to humanity. Revealed in the first two episodes and later by Joel, the Cordyceps...

The word "Zombie" was banned from being used on the set of The Last of Us during filming in order to prioritize the show's true focus, according to series cinematographer Eben Bolter. The hit HBO series is an adaptation of Naughty Dog's hit franchise, with season 1 covering the events of the original 2013 PlayStation video game. In the world of The Last of Us, humanity is suddenly overwhelmed by a mutated strain of the Cordyceps fungus that turns those it infects into rabid, cannibalistic killers, with Pedro Pascal's Joel Miller being tasked to escort Bella Ramsey's Ellie Williams across the remains of the United States of America.

Cinematographer Bolter revealed on The Credits podcast that the word Zombie was banned from being used on-set during the 4 episodes of The Last of Us he worked on. While the various terrifying forms of Cordyceps victims share similarities with typical zombies in film and television,...

Warning! This article contains major spoilers for both The Last of Us episode 3 and the original game.

The Last of Us episode 3 is close to a perfect hour of television, ironically creating a significant problem for the show moving forward. The Last of Us has been a major hit so far for HBO, with showrunners Neil Druckmann (who also created The Last of Us game) and Craig Mazin (Chernobyl creator) building a blockbuster show with impressive production values and captivating lead performances in Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. The show also gracefully toes the line between being faithful enough to appeal to game devotees and being accessible to casual (and new) fans.

The Last of Us is not a copy-and-paste adaptation of the game by any means. Several notable additions help broaden the TV show's scale and deepen its story in its opening two episodes. Episode 2, "Infected,...

The Performer | Anna Torv

The Show | HBO’s The Last of Us

More from TVLineThe Last of Us' Biggest Diversion From the Game Makes For a Gorgeous, Near-Perfect Episode -- Read RecapThe Last of Us Renewed for Season 2Pedro Pascal to Make SNL Hosting Debut in February

The Episode | “Infected” (Jan. 22, 2023)

The Performance | To say Torv made the most of her brief time on The Last of Us would be quite the understatement. In just two episodes, the Fringe vet crafted such a complex, multi-dimensional character that we were genuinely heartbroken when Tess was killed off in Sunday’s tense hour.

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for The Last of Us season 1, episode 2.The Last of Us actor Anna Torv provides insight into her character’s tense ending in season 1, episode 2, “Infected.” Torv plays Tess in the new HBO adapted series, in which she and Joel (Pedro Pascal) were tasked to take Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to a Fireflies' location in exchange for resources needed to search for Joel's brother, Tommy. However, Tess' journey was cut short after she was bitten by an infected and sacrificed herself to allow Joel and Ellie time to escape from the incoming horde of infected and clickers. Torv's powerful performance earned raved reviews, given the character's growth just before her fateful end, which will likely precipitate Joel and Ellie's relationship moving forward.

In an interview with TVLine, The Last of Us actor Anna Torv has opened up about her character Tess and her death in “Infected.

"The Last of Us" continued this week with its intentional balancing of new and adapted elements from the game's story. While not a super eventful episode until the third act, significant departures from memorable aspects of the game revealed themselves this week. Joel, Ellie, and Tess made it to the Capitol in this episode in accordance with the original plot, but the details surrounding their arrival (and departure) from this chapter were altered to better fit the narrative intricacies of television. Episode 2, "Infected," was directed by Neil Druckmann, the co-creator of the HBO series and the original video game. But without gameplay to worry about, the series has more time to introduce exposition that didn't exist previously.

Discovering Origins

Similar to the start of episode 1, we're given a flashback at the start of episode 2 that provides an exposition. We learn that the cordyceps brain infection (Cbi) began at a grain factory in Jakarta,...

The Last of Us continues to grow in popularity as episode 2, "Infected," yields a massive increase in viewership from last week's series premiere. HBO's hugely anticipated adaptation of the beloved PlayStation game of the same name has received widespread acclaim, already establishing itself as one of the network's foremost series alongside its Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon. The power of word-of-mouth has bolstered viewing figures as the show proves to be a worthy adaptation of the apocalypse-set game.

A recent Nielsen report (via Variety) documents the very impressive debut ratings that The Last of Us generated in its first episode, "When You're Lost in the Darkness," which opened to 4.7 million viewers in the U.S. across HBO and linear telecasts. The report has revealed a whopping episode 2 jump of 22 with a total of 5.7 million viewers, the largest ever increase for an HBO original drama series between its first and second episodes.

This article contains spoilers for "The Last of Us" episode 2, "Infected."

"The Last of Us" is an HBO Max original series that lives up to its depressing name. Based on Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed video game of the same name, the series is created and written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. Mazin, who helmed the HBO miniseries "Chernobyl," has proven himself a fan of video games in the past, having co-written the script for an as-yet-unreleased "Borderlands" film under Lionsgate's purview. As for Druckmann, well, he's the co-president of Naughty Dog and the original creative mind behind "The Last of Us" and "The Last of Us Part II" (that's right, there's more and it's somehow far darker than "Part I"). 

Narratively speaking, their HBO adaptation seems to be in safe hands. That's not just speculation, either. As of this writing, the first two episodes of Druckmann and...

After achieving HBO’s second-most watched series premiere in more than a decade, “The Last of Us” is now reaching an even bigger audience and breaking a new record for the pay TV channel.

According to measurements by Nielsen combined with first-party data from Warner Bros. Discovery, Episode 2 brought in 5.7 million viewers across linear airings on HBO and streams on HBO Max. That marks a 22 increase from last week’s record-breaking 4.7 million, a number that Warner Bros. Discovery later reported had already jumped to 10 million after two days of availability.

Per HBO, the jump from the initial premiere viewership to Episode 2’s debut audience is the “largest week 2 audience growth for an HBO Original drama series in the history of the network.”

The network also offered yet another update regarding the series premiere’s viewership, stating that “after one full week of availability, Episode 1 is now tracking at 18 million viewers,...

Editor's Note: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us, Season 1 Episode 2, "Infected."Fans are still dealing with the deadly aftermath of The Last of Us Episode 2 from this past weekend. Like the game that inspired it, this saw Joel (Pedro Pascal), Tess (Anna Torv), and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) make their way through an infected post apocalyptic Boston. During their terrifying city trip, there were many Last of Us Easter Eggs for eagle-eyed fans. However, Last of Us was not the only major Sony game franchise referenced in the latest episode. The biggest example being that Tess’ lighter is the same lighter that Nathan Drake’s brother Sam used in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Episode 2, “Infected.”]

It’s an easy shortcut to start unpacking an episode with the opening sequence and I promise that’s not going to be the case for the next two months. But it’s worth pointing out the first two cold opens in “The Last of Us” do just as much to build a sense of global unease as any overheard news report or Oval Office address or TV test pattern could. In “Infected,” the series’ second episode, the late-’60s public affairs roundtable gives way to Dr. Ibu Ratna (a magnificent Christine Hakim), a scientist and professor shown as one of the first people to recognize that humanity was in real trouble.

If last week’s first episode didn’t do enough to prime a viewing audience for a short supply of hope early on in “The Last of Us,” here’s an expert...

This post contains spoilers for “Infected,” the second episode of HBO’s The Last of Us.

For the second episode in a row, The Last of Us opens with a flashback, though this one is set very close to the events we witnessed early in the series premiere. It is September 24, 2003. The zombie apocalypse is days away, and the government of Jakarta is finding this out before anyone else. We follow Ibu Ratna (Christine Hakim), a mycologist who has been asked to investigate a violent incident at a flour and grain factory.