5 shows to watch if you're already missing 'The Last of Us'
Goodbye Joel, goodbye Ellie, goodbye zombies.
The second season of HBO's acclaimed "The Last of Us" went out with a serious cliffhanger on May 25, and fans will have to wait an indeterminate amount of time until a promised Season 3 will resolve it. But just because we've had to say farewell to Ellie (Bella Ramsey) for now and Joel (Pedro Pascal) forever doesn't mean we have to leave the moody post-apocalyptic doom-and-gloom vibes behind.
While "Us" is a unique and excellent series, it's not the only zombie and dystopian show worth watching to stave off the Sunday scaries. Several others capture its essence, whether they also feature zombies, share producers or because the atmosphere and writing are just that good, too.
If you're jonesing for more "Us"-style TV, we've got five shows to fill the long hiatus between now and Season 3.
If you love the writing: 'Chernobyl'
"Us" co-creator Craig Mazin made his name with this devastating, brutal and hard-to-swallow 2019 HBO series detailing the real-life nuclear disaster in Pripyat, Ukraine, under the Soviet Union rule in the 1980s. The series is a chronicle of mismanagement and corruption, of a failed state and a broken government. Starring Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard, Emily Watson and Jessie Buckley, it turns the mundane and dull, like a court hearing or reading of data, into vital, tense TV.
How to watch 'Chernobyl'
Now streaming on HBO Max
If you like an aged post-apocalypse: 'Station Eleven'
"Station Eleven" has no zombies or spores, but the dystopian limited series, based on the award-winning 2014 novel by Emily St. John Mandel, looks and feels a lot like "Us" in its depiction of a world decades after a deadly pandemic. In "Eleven," which aired on HBO in 2021-22, the culprit is more mundane and more terrifying than zombieism: A bird flu that takes out the vast majority of the population. Told in multiple timelines and with lyrical and literary flair, the series asks deep questions about humanity as it follows the few people not just able to survive, but thrive. Shakespeare is involved.
How to watch 'Station Eleven'
Now streaming on HBO Max
Watch Station Eleven on HBO Max
If you just like great TV: 'Andor'
OK, hear us out. You could watch "The Mandalorian," a gritty "Star Wars" series starring Pedro Pascal, the leading man of "Last of Us," even though it's middling as far as the Disney+ "Star Wars" TV shows go. Or you could watch a much better "Star Wars" series with an equally dashing leading man (Diego Luna) with character and plotting as complex and thoughtful as "Last of Us." Other than its color palette and Rotten Tomatoes score, there isn't a lot on the surface that ties Disney+'s "Andor" (2022-25) and "Last of Us." But look deeper and you see both are about how we choose what's worth fighting for, and what makes us willing to give up our lives. It's "Star Wars" for grownups in the way that "Last of Us" is zombies for grownups.
How to watch 'Andor'
Full series now streaming on Disney+
If you love the sci-fi elements: 'Silo'
Amid its relationship dynamics, moral quandaries and religious allegories, "Last of Us" is also a really good piece of dystopian science fiction, and there is great pleasure in learning what makes its post-infection world tick. Apple TV+'s series "Silo," which premiered in 2023, is another sci-fi drama that thrives in world building and details, set in its own post-apocalypse where humanity is reduced to 10,000 or so people living in an underground silo. It's more of a puzzle-box mystery than "Last of Us," but it has the same kind of shocking deaths, head fakes and edge-of-your-seat-action.
How to watch 'Silo'
Seasons 1 and 2 now streaming on Apple TV+
If you love the horror elements: 'The Strain'
Based on the book by producer and horror maestro Guillermo del Toro, "The Strain" aired on FX for four seasons of stomach-churning viral terror from 2014-17. Following doctors battling an outbreak of a disease that has quite a lot in common with vampirism, "Strain" never said no to a gross-out moment or jump scare. It featured vampires instead of zombies, but the epidemic at the center of the story certainly puts it in the same genre.
How to watch 'The Strain'
Full series streaming now on Hulu