Stephen King calls geographic shenanigans on The Last Of Us
Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman dine as far from a Dunkin as humanly possibleCredit: Liane Hentscher (HBO)
Last week’s episode of The Last Of Us was a watershed moment in queer television, depicting a compassionate, painful, and rewarding romance played out by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett to resounding success. This same website thinks it could earn Offerman his first Emmy. The spoils and pain of human connection against the backdrop of the end of the world, the episode celebrates life surrounded by death, giving viewers a reason to hold on in dark times. Sadly, it all came to naught because, let’s be honest, Neil Druckman and Craig Mazen think we’re stupid. It is impossible that this episode happened outside of Boston.
The episode is said to have taken place in “Lincoln, Massachusetts”, but you would never know that by observing the mountainous terrain of the episode. Maine’s favorite son, Stephen King, gets it. It’s not Lincoln, you asshole.
“The Last of Us. Episode 3,” King tweeted. “Do you really mean to tell me this is 10 miles west of Boston?” Yeah, uh, Mr. Druckmann, that doesn’t sound like no part of Waltham that we saw.
Seriously, if HBO wants to tell us that, of course, this episode took place in Worcester, we’ll buy it. But come on, 10 miles from Boston, with these landscapes and so few Massholes? Forget. If Red Sox fans can survive the curse of the Bambino, they can endure the end of the world. King, who liked the episode “well,” doesn’t care about the tenderness of the love story, which isn’t at all close to a Legal Seafood. Maybe it’s Woburn. May be.
King is not alone. Per Variety, Boston.com declared the episode “a mockery of Boston-area geography” in a Neil deGrasse Tysonian trolling piece that everyone loves, especially Bostonians. Quite simply, Matt and Ben would never do it. You’d never know by the critics, who uniformly praised the episode for telling such a moving gay love story on a big-budget mushroom zombie TV show. Our own reviewer said: “If The Last of Us is about the love that grows between a grieving father and the daughter in his care, its parallel is the bond between Frank and Bill, which Mazin’s screenplay traces with great heart and humor.” It’s such a shame that an apparent gap in geographic knowledge has tainted this kind of screenwriting. Seriously, what part of I-95 did this episode take place on? We want outings.
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Everyone knows that this episode took place in Lynn, the city of sin (you never leave as you entered).