WARNING: Plot Spoilers.
In a time where the traditional idea of family is constantly shifting, “The Last of Us” stands out as one of the most emotionally honest portrayals of found family on TV.
The HBO series, adapted from the beloved video game, isn’t just another post-apocalyptic survival story—it’s about connection, vulnerability, and the unexpected ways people come together when everything else falls apart.
Mike Marsland/Getty Images for Sky & NOW
At its core, “The Last of Us” follows two broken souls: Joel (Pedro Pascal), a grieving father hardened by unimaginable loss, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a teenage girl who’s never truly known safety or love. Thrown together by circumstance, their bond transforms from obligation to something deeper—something fierce and quietly life-altering. What makes their connection so powerful isn’t a neat emotional arc; it’s how raw and real it is. Joel is violent and closed-off. Ellie is impulsive and stubborn. They don’t fix each other—they confront each other.
Found family in “The Last of Us” isn’t a trope, it’s a necessity. With institutions in ruins and the old world gone, it’s intimacy and trust that become essential for survival. Whether it’s Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), Marlene (Merle Dandridge) and Anna ( Ashley Johnson), the characters on the show demonstrate how love can be forged outside bloodlines. These relationships are flawed and complicated. Sometimes they require sacrifice. Sometimes they end in heartbreak. And sometimes, like Joel’s decision to lie to Ellie, they cross moral lines out of love that feels impossible to live without.
With Season 2, Episode 2 depicting Joel’s brutal death at the hands of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever)—a decision rooted in grief and revenge—the show deepens its exploration of what we’re willing to do for the ones we call family. Abby’s world was already teetering from her father’s death, and now, after taking Joel’s life, her own emotional compass is unraveling. She’s unmoored, without the support system that might’ve kept her grounded. The show doesn’t frame her as a monster—it frames her as someone who’s lost her family and doesn’t know how to live without it.
Meanwhile, Joel and Ellie’s relationship was already on shaky ground. Ellie had stopped talking to him, still grappling with the truth about the Fireflies and what he took from her. But in death, Joel’s presence lingers. The grief Ellie carries the love left unspoken makes it clear: their bond wasn’t just deep, it was defining. Found family doesn’t always offer closure. Sometimes it leaves us aching, unfinished, haunted by both love and regret.
This kind of emotional complexity mirrors what so many people experience in real life. As chosen families become more visible whether because of queer identity, estrangement, cultural shifts, or simply the need for safety and care—The “Last of Us” feels incredibly of-the-moment. It speaks to anyone who’s had to build a life outside the framework they were given. The best friend who becomes your ride-or-die. The mentor who steps into the role a parent never filled. The partner who helps you feel safe in your skin again. These are the families we fight for and the ones that save us.
Fewer than 20 percent of U.S. households now resemble the traditional nuclear family. That shift is more than statistical—it’s cultural. I saw it firsthand during the pandemic: when patients were isolated, nurses, doctors, and staff became their family, offering comfort, holding hands, being lifelines in the darkest moments.
When my own brother died, it was my friends who stepped into that space not out of obligation, but out of love. They showed up in ways that reminded me family is not always who you’re born to, but who’s there when everything else falls apart.
Much like the Cordyceps fungus fractured reality in “The Last of Us,” COVID dismantled our sense of normal. It forced us to rethink what survival means, who we count on, and how we define family when the systems we’ve always relied on suddenly collapse. The pandemic became a crash course in emotional triage: we had to figure out, quickly, who we could turn to when everything else failed.
Characters like Ellie and Abby are representations of this theme. Both lose their fathers—violently—and must navigate a brutal world without that foundational support. Their arcs are shaped by grief, anger, and the need to hold onto or rebuild emotional bonds. Ellie, especially, grapples with identity, trauma, and her sexuality in a world that offers little safety or affirmation. As a queer character in a hostile environment filled with monsters, she mirrors the real-world struggles of LGBTQ+ youth who are forced to forge their own families after being rejected by their own. Her connection with Riley (played by Storm Reid), and later with Joel, becomes more than companionship—it becomes essential to her survival and growth.
Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) gives us another angle on found family. Motivated by Joel’s memory, he rises to protect his community with the same stubborn love Joel gave to Ellie. Especially in a showdown with a horde of Cordyceps-infected monsters, including an enormous “Bloater,” Tommy’s selflessness is on full display as he risks everything to protect his wife, Maria (Rutina Wesley), and their community in Jackson, Wyoming. Their life together represents a semblance of normalcy and unity, an example of how rebuilding and finding peace is possible, even after unimaginable loss.
Right now, we’re starved for stories with real emotional weight. We’re living in a time of disconnection, political volatility, and social reinvention. So when a show like “The Last of Us” dares to tell us that love doesn’t have to be tidy, or moral, or even mutual—that it just has to be honest—we feel seen. We cry. We carry it with us.
Because found family isn’t a convenient plot device in “The Last of Us.” It’s the beating heart. It’s a philosophy that says: no matter how broken the world gets, we still get to choose love. And sometimes, that choice is everything.
Felipe Patterson is a freelance writer and entertainment journalist who has written for Watercooler HQ, Taji Mag, GQ South Africa and other outlets. He writes about film, television, and culture.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.