The Big Baddies of HBO are the Haves, Not the Mushrooms

My unpopular opinion on Liberal Identity Politics

Having finished Season 1 of The Gilded Age, I watched Episode 3 of The Last of Us and saw some similarities. Both shows exude liberal identity politics and ignore the problems with capitalism and wealth hoarding. Expect some spoilers for both from this point.

The Gilded Age is based on the nineteenth-century epic battle between old name New York and the upstart Vanderbilts. Descendants of New York’s first Dutch settlers and Mayflower passengers who had hoarded wealth since colonial times couldn’t bear the wealth hoarding of the new robber barons with more money but shorter American family trees. Patriarchs and matriarchs interfered with their children’s happiness, purchased politicians, conned investors, suppliers, and customers, and made public spectacles of themselves to preserve their status. Perpetually shocked crotchety old widows who had married for dwindling assets and lived confined lives, policed morals, and kept up appearances.

The Gilded Age deals with identity politics more than the vast wealth differences between the rich and everyone else. The only Black characters, Peggy Scott and her family are wealthy and more accepted than reality dictates. The dad is as much of a social climber as the Mrs. Vanderbilt character, Mrs. Russell. The old Van-Aunt, who employs Peggy as her assistant, lets Peggy go, siding with a prejudiced lady’s maid because one must keep their lady’s maid. The show says nothing about the plight of post-Civil War sharecroppers, New York’s Jim Crow laws, the era’s frequent lynchings, or the fact that old New York socialite probably wouldn’t have treated Peggy with the minimum of respect that she did. An unsympathetic, already wealthy gay couple argues over who will seduce the young rich maiden for her family wealth. Civility is only for show as the old and new schools work to outdo each other’s evil, but the whole thing ends with a ball, a quadrille in 17th-century formal dress, good French food made by the not French French chef (shocking if it came out), and wine flowing.

The Last of Us is based on a 2013 video game, not the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s the game developer’s answer to the most recent iteration of zombie myth in the twenty-teens. In Episode 2, a prologue scene and much exposition confirmed that contaminated flour and grain infected large numbers of the human population. In 20 years, the fungi created vast underground communication networks. Infected zombie-like creatures terrorize and infect those wandering between too few quarantine zones. Episode 2 ended with a strange infected zombie kiss, and the showrunners suggested that the fungi had more loving ways of reproduction if the victim surrendered. Like the moms and old aunties of The Gilded Age, it's all for their own good. In The Last of Us, the Earth is already lost because no one came up with a solution; they were too busy turning on each other. In The Gilded Age, nineteenth-century old New York was lost too because corporations were proclaimed people and new money flowed, not to mention the boatloads of immigrants seeking asylum from Eastern European pogroms and bad jobs down in the mines of Great Britain — including parts of my family. Watching the zombie carnage in The Last of Us, I imagined the first fungi of Boston bragging they came over from Jakarta on the first piece of whole wheat bread and lording over the newer converts.

In Episode 3, Joel, the Mushroom Mandalorian, and his new, less green charge, Ellie, leave Boston to find transportation to his brother’s home in Wyoming and the Fireflies’ medical facility to see if anything can be done with Ellie’s possible immunity. The Fireflies are a militia/rebel group fighting the series’ military government known as FEDRA — famous for genocide, a play on FEMA — famous for late and insufficient responses to natural disasters, including bad trailers that get taken away when still needed. But whose fault is that? FEMA’s or the right-leaning, sometimes liberal, never progressive government that underfunds it and the people who keep voting the same people into power?

There are fewer fungi-people biting or kissing others into submission in Episode 3 because it’s a love story—the story of Bill and Frank. Bill is an anti-government supply and munitions hoarder who carefully guards his compound and possessions against all until Frank happens upon one of Bill’s traps set in the surrounding ghost town. Bill decides to go against his first instinct and feed rather than kill him — but just him. Bill warns Frank against telling anyone else. We get the sense Bill was relatively content before Frank but feels happier with him around. Frank insists they make brunch friends, and Joel and Tess happen by. They make a trade deal over a multi-course meat and vegetables dinner with wine. Oh, and Bill and Frank happen to be gay, sending liberal audiences swooning on social media — ignore the blocks of empty homes and the field of skulls and bones next door, move on, nothing to see here.

What happened to the neighbors? In some short scenes in Episodes 2 and 3, we learned that a 100% unaccountable government bombed cities, and FEDRA committed genocide in the suburbs and exurbs. While audiences cried over Bill and Frank, who led pretty nice and long lives despite the pandemic, no one seems to have mustered up any tears over the genocide of the less fortunate, turning the episode into the Armageddon Gilded Age. Worse, it’s the Covid-19 pandemic where the rich hoard wealth and fight against health care and reasonable pay, and everyone else bears the cost of it.

Here’s are a few real comments from Twitter:

The Last of Us episode 3 just told one of the most beautiful, moving, fulfilling love stories I’ve ever seen. And they did it in one episode.

I’m not really sure how I’m suppose to go on with my week after the giggly strawberry patch scene from The Last of Us????

The idea of loving someone so much that you can’t envision a world w/o them & the feeling of wanting to keep your hope alive during a time of epic tragedy is very personal & moving. Portrayed so tenderly that I almost couldn’t finish the episode. Creators did great. #TheLastOfUs

After a quick survey of social media, I saw nothing about the field of skulls. The right complained about the “woke” story. Liberals focused on the heartwarming old gay couple. The killing field moved no one. Some people hate everyone who’s different, while others are coldly indifferent to hate on the most enormous scale.

I don’t care Bill and Frank are a gay couple. I have nothing against gay people, and while I think it’s important to tell stories about everyone, including gay people, in this story, I believe the hoarding and apathy were more to the point. Economic and healthcare issues belong to everyone in the real world, but no one’s paying attention. Republicans distract their followers with fake culture wars and racism. Democrats distract their followers with heartwarming anecdotal stories about various groups. In liberal circles, you’re a bigot if you point out that Black people, Americans of different religions and national origins, and LGBTQ+ people live, work, eat, and get sick like everyone else. It’s a great way to avoid criticism of an economic policy that’s impoverishing everyone except the very wealthy and has created hoards of violent fascists. Democrats fight progressives like the old-school New Yorkers fought the rising masses. Republicans hate Democrats, maybe at least in part because they see Democrats having little difficulty eating brunch over their picked carcasses.

As an aside, the story of Bill and Frank was ridiculous. With menacing mold people wandering around, they would not have managed to hoard 20 years of food, particularly when the source of the infection was grain. I can see a year or two, but 20? A cow can live over 20 years, but what would they feed it? Remember the vast network of fungi below the Earth’s surface? Wouldn’t that infect everything grown above? What about supplies? Twenty years of ammo and fuel? A working shower with no water and sewer from the municipality? But, suspending reality to go with the show, at best, their endless supplies demonstrate profound inhumanity when two people get 20 years of the good life amid mass murder and suffering. We all know what happened when a few people hoarded supplies in 2020. You couldn’t get toilet paper or cleaning products for months. With our Covid experience, we should ask whether everyone would be better off working together to find better solutions.

At first glance, The Last of Us seems to be about humankind’s fight against treacherous, brainless former people crawling with tendrils resembling frisée lettuce. The series seems the diametrical opposite of The Gilded Age, but I think it’s all the same show. Both series are about human’s inhumanity toward other humans. The fungi and old and new society combatants are beside the point. Each series pats itself on the back for minority representation, allowing viewers to forget the genocide and ignore the poor.

Stories affect our outlook on the world, but if you think I’m nuts to bring this up, please consider a television series telling a better story. Star Trek Deep Space Nine had a better version. At the end of the Dominion war, the planet Cardassia lay in ruins with 800 million dead at the Dominion's hands. After the Federation allied victory, Captain Sisko and Admiral Ross meet up on Cardassia with Klingon Chancellor Martok, who had promised earlier that they’d drink blood wine on Cardassia within the year. Martok came thorough with an entire case of Klingon blood wine for their victory celebration. Sisko and Ross each take a glass, but after a moment’s thought, they can’t drink and pour their wine on the ground. Martok is surprised, calling the carnage “poetic justice” to Cardassia’s earlier victims, but Sisko says he won’t share a toast over the bodies. In DS9, they knew what you leave behind matters.

Nothing and no one matter in The Last of Us and The Gilded Age. The haves play the game and win every time. Everyone else, human or fungi, is the target. In both series, everyone is solely for themselves. No one acknowledges that the hard political and economic questions wouldn’t be so hard if we started from the place of looking out for each other. But, if we looked out for each other, it would be harder to eat a hearty meal next to a field of skulls.