The Last Of Us Finally Shows Us How Evil FEDRA Can Be

"The Last of Us" is a bit of a deceiving game. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be any immediate thing that separates this from, well, any of the other dozens of zombie shows and movies from the past few decades. This is no groundbreaking mix of genres like "Juan of the Dead," or "Shaun of the Dead," or even an inventive romp like the zombie musicals "Anna and the Apocalypse" and "The Happiness of the Katakuris." The game doesn't necessarily add something drastically new to the mythology of the zombie like the fast zombies in "28 Days Later" or giant mutant ones from "Resident Evil."

And yet, the games, and now the HBO adaptation, take what you know about the zombie genre and make small but significant changes that quickly add up to a very special and unique story. "The Last of Us" is more than a story about surviving the apocalypse, it is a story about connections, about what we do for and to each other, set in a rather bleak world ravaged by terrifying science-based zombies created by a very real infection.

The latest episode also brings back a seemingly small but significant change that makes "The Last of Us" different from other zombie stories — FEDRA. We had heard bits and pieces about FEDRA since the first episode, but kind of glossed over their role in making the post-apocalyptic world of the show suck so much. Now, it is made clear that they are the worst — though their successors are not perfect either.

The Federal Disaster Response Agency, also known as FEDRA, is inspired b the real-life Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which coordinates the response to a disaster on U.S. soil. In the world of "The Last of Us," FEDRA coordinated the response to the Cordyceps brain infection, but it quickly organized a coup, took control of the government and the military, and declared martial law. As we learned in episode 3, FEDRA rounded up survivors across the country and relocated them to Quarantine Zones in the major cities, which they controlled like an authoritarian government. 

FEDRA has been a kind of quiet and unseen villain throughout "The Last of Us" so far, with many of their horrors being mostly implied. There was Ellie complaining about poor education under FEDRA, or Bill joking about the government being all nazis. But then there's Joel telling how FEDRA would outright execute healthy civilians if there was no room for them at a QZ, or Ellie saying that she learned to shoot a gun from FEDRA schools. 

Episode 5 makes things worse. We learn from Henry and Kathleen that FEDRA used to just kill and rape people for decades in Kansas City. They had citizens inform on their neighbors and loved ones, leading to their executions. After 20 years of hell, no wonder a resistance rose up, with Kathleen leading a militia that took FEDRA down. 

And yet, the episode also makes it clear that replacing one dictatorship with another is not good. Kathleen executes all collaborators, and even wants to kill 8-year-old Sam, because of the sins of his brother. This hits at a major theme from the games about abuse of power, and how all types of post-apocalyptic governments inevitably fall to violence and oppression. 

The idea of FEDRA being in charge is one of the many small things that makes "The Last of Us" a different kind of zombie experience. Most zombie movies and shows rarely show the actual government, and when they do, they're very much improvised and makeshift. 

More often than not, we see post-apocalyptic settlements led by militias or organized survivors, with movies like "Land of the Dead," and "28 Weeks Later" portraying impromptu governments led by military commanders, with their governments taking unsurprising turns to violence and oppression. In "The Last of Us," however, it is an actual government entity that takes control and quickly falls apart. Granted, by the time we meet them FEDRA is still a military dictatorship, but the idea that it was originally a part of the federal government, not the army, is what makes it stand out.

There's also the idea that, as Joel tells Henry, each city has different levels of FEDRA-led horrors, with Kansas City being a particularly bad place for some reason. This brings to mind the post-apocalyptic world of the "Fallout" games, in which people went underground to avoid the nuclear apocalypse and lived in massive vaults. Soon, it becomes clear that these vaults were not a safe haven, but were instead the home of various sadistic experiments which completely failed and killed most people inside them. 

There are many horrors in the world of "The Last of Us," from raiders to the infected, but with FEDRA the show also presents a bigger kind of evil: institutions of power. At least the zombies can't lie to your face and stab you in the back.