Content Consumed: The Last of Us, Break Point, and more

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Content Consumed

5 min readJan 30, 2023

Hello! Happy Monday! It’s chaotic out there. Take care of yourself. Find balance. I’m trying really hard to find balance this week. No need for more emotional rollercoasters than necessary. Gotta take the good with the bad.

In today’s edition of Content Consumed…
💔 The Last of Us broke my heart
🎾 Break Point demonstrates Netflix’s formula
📚 Book review: All The Light We Cannot See
🪱 Okay, I watched Dune

Still sobbing over ‘The Last of Us’

Okay, time to start watching The Last of Us if you aren’t already. It’s more than a zombie show now. I take back (some) of my bitching and moaning from last week.

This week on The Last of Us, the audience was treated to a cinematic story, a gay survivalist love story, told eloquently and intensely and with purpose. Nick Offerman (Parks and Rec) stunned; Murray Bartlett (White Lotus, S1) tore my heart up. A survivalist choosing to die with the love of his life? The one who made it all worth it and expanded his horizons beyond belief? That strawberry scene? Tragically poetic and heartwrenching.

“I’m old. I’m satisfied. And you were my purpose.” I spent about 20% of this episode trying to see the screen through my tears.

That’s right! No purposely covering my eyes due to fear of zombies this episode!

I know this was a one-off, capsule kind of episode. We won’t see Bill and Frank again, most likely. But it proves that there’s a lot more story to tell in this show than Joel and Ellie trekking across the U.S. and fighting the undead.

Starting ‘Break Point’

I watched the first episode of Break Point! Think of it like another version of Drive to Survive, but tennis instead of Formula 1.

And you know what, Netflix has a lot of flaws, but they’ve built a winning formula for intense parasocial athletic episodic docuseries.

Excellent editing and unbelievable behind-the-scenes footage is now an expectation for this kind of Netflix show. One episode in and I already want to follow the sport of tennis more (which is exactly their intention, I know). Maria Sharapova describing the stadium atmosphere of a big match… shivers!

Anyways, the first episode focuses on the ever-controversial Nick Kyrgios. The show immediately paints him as a villain, ending his intro montage with a photo of him as a child pointing his middle finger to the camera. But he embraces that image for sure—otherwise he wouldn’t keep breaking racquets on the court, avoiding training sessions, cursing out refs and opponents and crowds… you get the point.

Hilarious bit: the girlfriend of 2.5 months (yep!) getting as much camera time as humanly possible. The forced chats between Kyrgios and that girlfriend and his other buddy were the only annoying/unnecessary parts of the episode.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the show, especially getting Netflix-level access to legends like Rafa Nadal.

Book review: ‘All The Light We Cannot See’

When people talk about “sweeping epics, of many narratives”, I’ll think of this book. It’s suspenseful, long but devoured in quick bites via small chapters, and deftly constructed despite multiple timelines and character POVs.

One matter the author nailed was the setting. I felt the desolate Ukrainian sunflower fields, the manic Parisian energy, and the haunting Breton gloom. The atmosphere too — from Nazi training schools to hidden attics — was described impeccably. I felt truly nervous, on edge the entire time I read.

The author also, in my inexperienced and uneducated opinion, portrayed Marie-Laure’s blindness with expertise. When characters’ chapters switched — say, from Marie-Laure to Werner — I had to reset my brain to remember that I/the main character could see again.

My main critiques would be… well, just read my full review here!

Okay, I finally watched Dune

Here’s where I struggle with sci-fi and fantasy. If I have to pause the movie 7 times in the first 30 minutes to ask questions… it just turns into less of an entertaining experience and more of a homework session.

This is a good movie!!! Don’t get me wrong. But as I consume more content, I’m really developing a sense of what I like and what I don’t. And I truly, from the bottom of my heart, can’t get fully into sci-fi and fantasy flicks.

Timothee killed it. I actually saw more of Zendaya than expected, given what everyone had said about her barely making an appearance in this first film of the series. The cinematography was beautiful as expected; the pace was less boring than expected.

Glad I checked it off the list, at least. Normalize being a culture writer and not liking certain genres!!