When Mushrooms Decided Humans Were Their New Home
In the universe of The Last of Us, mushrooms abandoned their comfortable life as a pizza ingredient to become the most unwanted hosts in the human body. The cordyceps version of this story doesn't settle for infecting insects like any respectable fungus, but mutates to turn people into something between a zombie and a vertical garden. You'll never look at that mold in the shower the same way again.
"In this apocalypse, mushrooms don't just kill you, they redecorate your corpse"
The Science That Was and Then Wasn't So Much
The first season played the role of the diligent biology student, explaining pandemics and infection mechanisms with some scientific rigor. For the second installment, the science seems to have vanished like a secondary character in a zombie episode. What's left is:
- Mushrooms with better sense of direction than a GPS delivery driver
- Mutations that defy more laws than a corrupt politician
- An apocalyptic botany that would make any landscaper cry
The IKEA Catalog of the End of the World
The cities in the series seem taken from an extremist gardening contest. Buildings that seem more like giant flowerpots than abandoned, cars turned into planters, and parks that showed what happens when you stop pruning them for a few years. It's beautiful, yes, but it raises existential doubts:
- Would mushrooms really redecorate everything with such style?
- Where do they get those photogenic vines?
- Is there some mushroom in charge of interior design?
When Real Terror Was Enough
The irony is that nature already offers quite terrifying mushrooms without the need for fantastic mutations. From species that control insects like puppets to those that can seriously harm humans. But the series preferred the path of spectacle, as if someone turned a David Attenborough documentary into a mycological Power Rangers episode.
In the end, The Last of Us leaves us with a valuable lesson: mushrooms can be your allies in the kitchen, but in the apocalypse, they'll be the worst roommates you can imagine. And that's without seeing what they'd do with your security deposit 🍄