What to stream this week: The Last of Us plus five more shows to add to your list

This week’s picks include the return of HBO’s hit series The Last of Us, Netflix’s take on a medical drama and Kevin Bacon in a bananas Southern horror series.

The Last of Us ★★★½(Max)

The first season of HBO’s grim post-apocalyptic drama asked what it cost to stay alive in a world filled with the undead. The answer was too much. As smuggler Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his teenage cargo Ellie (Bella Ramsey) travelled across the ruins of an America felled by a mutated fungal infection that turned people into ravenous zombies, they bonded meaningfully in ways the source material – the hit video game of the same name – only sketched out. Joel killed other survivors to keep Ellie alive, then hid the truth from her.

Ellie (Bella Ramsey) may be the only immune human on the planet.Credit: HBO Max

With the team of Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann returning, the second season of The Last of Us examines the ramifications of their journey. Five years have passed, taking Ellie from 14 to 19 years old, and the pair have a measure of safety in the walled Wyoming city of Jackson, but they’re at odds emotionally and pursued by the past.

A driven young soldier, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), wants revenge on Joel. Acts he considers justified are heinous crimes to her.

This is a shorter, sometimes more contemplative instalment; sombre conversations in derelict rooms are frequent. There’s no stand-alone episode unfolding supporting characters, a triumph last time around, but the expanded scale with which the snarling, swarming Infected are depicted is thrilling and horrifying.

In many ways, it’s a Western: long journeys by horseback across a deadly frontier in an all-consuming quest for vengeance. “I want justice,” demands one character, but no one can agree what that actually is.

Pedro Pascal as Joel in season two of The Last of Us. Credit:

In taking Ellie from sheltered teen to defiant young woman, the show changes its core DNA. She remains wilful, blithely sarcastic, but also calmly open about her sexuality and slowly becoming involved with her best friend, Dina (Isabela Merced), even as she grows disillusioned with Joel’s compromises.

The performances remain deeply felt, including an unexpected but telling turn by Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek) as Jackson’s resident shrink. Dever is particularly compelling. She makes you see how Joel is Abby’s nightmare.

There are still nods to gameplay, as Infected are stealthily stalked and ruins traversed, but there are points where it feels as if the story wants more time with newer elements, including a conflict in the streets of Seattle between a liberation militia and an uncompromising religious cult.

But as much as the creators have factored in a third season, the second one stays true to the ethos that underpins The Last of Us: leading an honest life is no game. Premieres Monday, April 14.

Pulse ★★½ (Netflix)

With its intubation tubes and emergency surgery, Pulse initially suggests ER and its sutured successor The Pitt. But the show this medical drama owes the most to – for better and definitely worse – is one that’s still going strong after two decades: Grey’s Anatomy. Pulse is most interested in the doctors working at Maguire Hospital, Miami’s crucial trauma centre, especially in terms of their personal entanglements and sexual mores. The most serious case treated is a problematic dynamic between two young doctors.

Willa Fitzgerald as Danny, Chelsea Muirhead as Sophie Chan and Colin Woodell as Xander Phillips in Pulse. Credit:

Created by Zoe Robyn (Hawaii Five-0), the show tries to dazzle with disorientation. The early episodes unfold helter-skelter within two huge storms: a hurricane lashing the city and the sexual harassment claim resident doctor Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) has filed against her boss, Dr Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell). He’s suspended, she gets his job, but he literally can’t leave the building – then the flashbacks begin to show their consensual affair.

There’s so much happening, including a raft of intriguing but underdeveloped supporting characters, that Pulse tries and mostly misses in its attempt to be various versions of a good medical drama. Someone needed to triage the competing storylines and themes.

A he-said/she-said conflict, exploring power and deception, is a worthy approach, but in this genre nothing should overshadow the life-and-death immediacy of the next patient coming through the door.

Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years ★★★★ (Disney+)

Bill Burr on stage for his one-hour stand-up special Drop Dead Years.

Leading American stand-up comic Bill Burr has been professionally expansive these past few years, whether guesting on podcasts non-stop, making his own movie (Netflix’s Old Dads), or even starring on Broadway in a Glengarry Glen Ross revival. But that doesn’t mean his live work is slipping. If anything, Drop Dead Years is one of his best stand-up specials, drawing meaningful humour from Burr’s caustic but nonetheless genuine appreciation of exploring middle-age and working on his marriage. In an era of dismissive jibes among stand-ups, Burr makes compromise funny.

The Daily Show ★★★★ (Binge)

The Daily Show cast (from front left): Jon Stewart, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, Jordan Klepper and Desi Lydic.Credit:

As Binge looks to recover from the HBO catalogue departing for Max, the replacements are starting to appear. One notable addition is the rights to the benchmark American satirical news show, which will air Wednesday to Saturday with episodes dropping at 8.30pm.

The Daily Show is in its 30th season, mixing satire and commentary as the new US presidential administration provides a surplus of material. Long-time host Jon Stewart, who set the show’s trademark tone in a 16-year run that ended in 2015, is even back as one of a series of revolving weekly anchors.

The Bondsman ★★½ (Amazon Prime Video)

Kevin Bacon as Hub Halloran and Beth Grant as Kitty in The Bondsman. Credit:

The always reliable Kevin Bacon stars in this southern horror series, playing a newly dead bounty hunter (and country musician) sent back to his hometown by the Devil to collect errant demons; it’s like a supernatural work-release scheme. With Damon Herriman (Justified) as his human foe Lucky, Bacon’s Hub Halloran goes from one gory scrape to another – like Ash in Evil Dead, he wields a chainsaw – but the show can’t find the energy and the twists to further the initial concept, even as it opens up Hub’s past and his penchant for playing gigs.

Pawno ★★★ (Netflix)

Malcom Kennard (left) and Mark Cole Smith in Pawno.Credit:

Last week brought an unexpected but welcome development: this micro-budget 2015 Australian feature was sitting at No. 3 on Netflix’s movie chart. Set in and around a pawnbroker’s shop in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray, Paul Ireland’s film tells a tender cross-section of stories, navigating street philosophy, romantic hope and dashes of violence, overseen by the veteran usurer Les (John Brumpton). It’s probable more people watched Pawno in a few days online than during its film festival and brief cinema run, which raises a question: can Netflix please use such power more often?

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.