When HBO’s The Last of Us first redefined what trauma really means, it couldn’t have been more timely. Neil Druckmann’s celebrated video game came out in 2013, before the world experienced a pandemic firsthand. This wasn’t the case when the television series hit the streamer in 2023. Fresh from a global pandemic, The Last of Us was highly relevant, which made infected humans puppeteered by evil mushrooms even more terrifying. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be the most prophetic version of a virus.