Welcome to the QZ.
A smirking host speaks with a pair of epidemiologists about the possibility of a pandemic.
(In a wry nod, 1968 is the yearNight of the Living Deadwas first released.)
Nico Parker as Sarah.Shane Harvey/HBO
It’s all quite portentous for today’s audience, who know exactly where this is all going.
One question lingers: Would there be a cure if such an event were to happen?
He scoffs at the idea.
Nico Parker and Pedro Pascal as Sarah and Joel.Shane Harvey/HBO
It wouldn’t even be possible to make one.
Should this hypothetical event ever happen, he says with grim finality, “we lose.”
Now, with that moldy knot of dread turning in your stomach, let’s fast forward to 2003.
Anna Torv and Pedro Pascal as Tess and Joel.Liane Hentscher/HBO
Joel (Pedro Pascal) is the single father of Sarah (Nico Parker).
Meanwhile, something is off.
Sarah flees to the yard.
Natasha Mumba and Merle Dandridge as Kim and Marlene.Shane Harvey/HBO
Joel and Tommy pull up frantically in their truck.
Nana emerges, no longer the infirm woman from before, and sprints towards Joel with an open mouth.
He knocks her out, then loads Sarah into Tommy’s truck.
Bella Ramsey and Anna Torv as Ellie and Tess.Liane Hentscher/HBO
“They’re saying it’s a virus, some kind of parasite,” adds Tommy.
She learns the radio is down, as are the cell towers.
The highways are blocked, too, with military forces attempting to enforce some kind of quarantine.
When they spot a family broken down on the road, Joel tells Tommy to drive on.
“Someone else will stop,” he mutters.
The trio’s offroading leads them to a downtown in disarray.
Buildings burn, cars careen, and scared locals sprint around abandoned fire trucks.
A helicopter falls from the sky, triggering an explosion that destroys their truck.
Joel, Tommy, and Sarah survive, but not everyone is so lucky.
All around them, the infected feast on their former neighbors.
One chases them through doorways and alleys.
A military officer saves them by shooting the creature, but their safety is short-lived.
The officer is given orders to kill the survivors, despite them showing no signs of illness.
Joel tries to stop him, but Sarah is shot in the struggle.
She dies in his arms.
Fast forward 20 more years (what is this,House of the Dragon?)
and the world looks very different.
Signs of infection include coughing, slurred speech, muscle spasms, and mood change.
Also of note: Infection sets in quickest (within 5-15 minutes) for those wounded (i.e.
It’s a quick process.
It’s a miserable place, the “QZ.”
Public hangings unfold in the town square for everyone to see.
Their conversation is interrupted when an explosion rocks the street outside.
The Fireflies detonated a car bomb and are trading bullets with the gathering FEDRA forces.
The car battery, it turns out, relates to Joel’s current mission.
They vow to track down who he sold the battery to and steal it for themselves.
“You have a greater purpose than any of us could have ever imagined,” she tells Ellie.
When they arrive, they find Robert dead and Marlene and her cohorts injured.
Robert, apparently, was going to sell the battery to the Fireflies instead of Tess.
The problem: it doesn’t work.
When Marlene refused to buy the broken battery, a firefight erupted.
Now, FEDRA, alerted by the gunfire, is on the way.
This, coupled with their injuries, puts a big wrench in their plans.
Joel isn’t interested, and not only because this is a distraction from his efforts to find Tommy.
Joel and Tess agree on this condition: If the Fireflies screw them, Ellie’s dead.
These are not people who value human life, not after the last 20 years.
“Joel,” Marlene says, “don’t f— this up.
Joel and Tess bring Ellie back to their apartment to wait for the sun to go down.
He wants to know what makes her so special.
“You some kind of bigwig’s daughter or something?”
She deflects: “Something like that.”
As he sleeps, she learns that Joel and his smuggling contacts use the radio to communicate messages.
If a song from the ’60s plays, that means there’s no new loot.
If a song from the ’70s plays, that means there is.
“’80s means trouble,” she realizes.
He doesn’t appreciate her curiosity.
She tells him his watch is broken and he doesn’t appreciate that, either.
It’s the same one his daughter had fixed for him two decades prior.
Ellie stabs him when he tests her, causing the soldier to draw his gun.
As he bloodies his fists, Tess notices that Ellie’s test came up positive.
Ellie asserts that she’s not sick.
She shows Joel and Tess a wound on her arm that she claims is three weeks old.
“No one lasts more than a day,” she says.
So she’s immune?
No time to discuss that now.
FEDRA is closing in.
The trio slips through a fence and into the urban wilderness beyond the quarantine zone.
Meanwhile, in Joel’s apartment, the radio turns on.
What plays is Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again,” released in 1987.
That can’t be good.
