The premise of The Last Man on Earth raises interesting sociological questions about mankind. What happens when our social and legal structures are stripped away, if civilization is essentially erased? Those who survived, would they cling to the humanity and rigidity of what life was like in the modern world, or would they just regress to the worst, most animalistic versions of themselves? It’s a question The Walking Dead often struggles to convey, even after five seasons of practice: through three episodes, The Last Man on Earth is proving to be a much more fascinating take on their shared explorations.
“Raisin Balls” is less an episode about a wedding, as it is an observation of social function: even though humans probably best operate in the animal kingdom alone, we are always pre-determined to seek out the company of others. Even a prisoner of war would likely admit that being in a prison cell guarded by someone is better than being dropped off into a dungeon alone – a journey Phil Miller experiences first-hand after his lackluster effort in his own marriage, an event he was pushed into by Carol, who he assumes (and turns out is not) the last woman on earth. Phil’s conflict may be obvious – Carol annoys him, and he doesn’t want to marry her – but the existential crisis Phil deals with after visiting the wedding reception she set up for him is whether he wants to be with her, or just be alone.
He realizes he was worried about her when she didn’t answer her walkie-talkie; that empathy is what brings us together. He might think he’s happier alone, but there’s that desire to seek out human connection ingrained in our instincts, to find others we can relate and feel relatable to, to share the experience of life with. Shoot, Phil spent two years looking for that on the road alone, only able to find comfort in his “masturbatory” (the way he pronounces that in the pilot remains hilarious) magazines, hardly a satisfying way to spend the rest of his life. Carol might not be perfect (or even remotely close to wonderful), but she’s a human being, as flawed as Phil is himself – and after he hurts her feelings at their wedding (which was looked over by Carol, in the form of a cassette playing her voice on a small boombox), he finally sees the value of finding someone else in the world, and realizing that sometimes, compromise is the ultimate path to happiness, the only solution to loneliness and saving humanity.
It’s an important lesson, one often lost among the perfection/instant gratification-seeking generation we exist in, a group of people told we can have the dream girl and the dream job, and quickly realizing that these things don’t actually exist. Society crowds that with a bunch of unnecessary noise, pushing certain ideals and thought systems upon us: with those removed, The Last Man on Earth is a contemplation on what might happen, placing Carol and Phil neatly on opposite ends of the existential spectrum, uniting them in their journey to restart the world together. They both accept their union as fate – with great resignation, but they still embrace it, their instincts to survive remaining as strong as ever, even as they continue to annoy each other. It touches on something they can’t verbalize; part hope, part desire to not be alone – and on top of it all, the pursuit of being a good human being with a purpose, something every human searches for, regardless of what surrounds them.
Phil’s eventual (though still uncomfortable and reluctant) embrace of this idea makes the last ten seconds such a fantastic framing device for the twenty minutes that preceded it (Carol did tell him to pay attention to traffic), when a strange woman (January Jones) suddenly appears and gets T-Boned by Phil’s pick-up. Will he feel the same way about his new “marriage” with Carol now that there’s a third human being in the world? It’s no surprise this happens right after him and Carol spend their honeymoon having weird intercourse (forest metaphors, Carol?) and saying farewell to Phil’s first post-virus crush (that poor, poor one-armed mannequin).
The presence of another woman is going to throw Phil’s newfound worldview for a spin: it’s the first real test for our surrogate Adam and Eve characters, the tugs of normal civilization threatening to beat the both of them down into the lesser people they were – and continues The Last Man on Earth on this interesting path of character exploration through comedy, at what happens when two slightly obnoxious, self-serving human beings find themselves desperately seeking out the company of another, even if it’s somebody we don’t necessary like. There will always be things (events, personality traits, shared experiences) that bring us together as human beings, even if we don’t necessary like each other. As Phil says, it’s better to eat rotten raisin balls with another human being, then suffer through the worst moments of life alone. The Last Man on Earth is built on this idea, and so far, is doing a terrific job exploring it.
[Photo via FOX]
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