America is now a graveyard. A bedraggled, bearded, gun-toting survivor wanders the land, looking for fellow humans in this post-apocalyptic hell. He wonders, who was the lucky one? Him, surviving the near-genocide of humanity, or those who mercifully died and do not have to endure this utter loneliness? And so, this suffering last man, grappling with both the reality of his plight and the deeper metaphysical challenges it presents, does what anyone would in his situation.

7 Last Man on Earth Movies Worth Checking Out



Bowling. With fish tanks.

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He goes bowling. With fish tanks. Because, why not? It’s the end of the world, after all.Will Forte stars as the last man of the title, Phil Miller (surely a play on the names of The LEGO Movie helmers and Last Man producers/directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord), an average -- or perhaps slightly below average -- guy who has just happened to survive the end of everything. An unexplained “virus” has seemingly killed off all of humanity, with the exception of Phil for some reason. Or at least, as we see in the first few minutes of the series, it’s killed off all of America. For Phil has been driving his RV from state to state to state, looking for other survivors but always coming up empty. Finally, Phil returns to his home of Tucson, sets up shop in a mansion, and tries to get back to living some kind of life. Which brings us back to the fish-tank bowling.But Phil Miller’s bad luck is our good fortune, because if these first two episodes are any indication, The Last Man on Earth is a funny, weird, existential trip that is taking the end-of-the-world trope and doing something new with it. In many ways, this is the anti-Walking Dead, a show that refuses to be dour and glum despite being about the worst possible thing that could happen to humankind. I mean, I laughed at the end of life as we know it here. A lot.Which isn’t to say that Last Man doesn’t get serious, in its way. Forte (who also created the show, produces and wrote tonight’s episodes) brings a smidgen of pathos to Phil, as he celebrates his birthday with a Twinkie but flashes back to glimpses of his family, his mom and dad, or when he engages in Are You There God? It’s Me, Phil conversations that skirt the line between hilarious (he apologizes for all the masturbation) and pathetic (finally giving up, he tells God, “You win”).Because, yes, we’d all probably give up eventually if we found ourselves in Phil’s situation. Yeah, he now lives in the nicest house in town, has amassed priceless treasures from around the country (a rug from the White House, Van Gogh and Picassos, the most expensive wine you can find, etc.), but his loneliness and lack of meaning in life is crushing. Even his “friends,” a group of Wilson-like balls with faces painted on them Cast Away-style, cannot alleviate his pain. “You guys were the best friends that I could ask for,” he says to the balls. “But you’re not people.” From that emptiness, it’s a short trip to a tequila pool (it’s so much more awful than it sounds) and eventually, the contemplation of suicide…

Last Man on Earth Photo Gallery: The Last Man on Earth: "Alive in Tucson/The Elephant in the Room" Photos 13 IMAGES

Where are all the dead bodies? I know it’s been a couple of years since the mysterious virus, but still.

A gun for a door opener. Why didn’t I think of that!

The bowling-escalation culminates in using a runaway, exploding car as the ball and another car as the pins. Because, of course.

Phil’s rendition of the Ghostbusters theme is simply sublime.

Remember: The first rule of last man on Earth stories is that the last man on Earth is never actually the last man on Earth.

Of course, Phil’s killing himself in the first episode wouldn’t make for much of a show. And in fact, it’s public knowledge that several other actors and actresses have been cast in Last Man, including Flight of the Conchords’ Kristen Schaal and Mad Men’s January Jones. How most of these characters will show up is unclear at this point, be it by flashback, dream sequence, divine intervention or other means, though without giving anything away, Schaal does appear in the second part of the premiere… somehow… and only elevates the material further with the Odd Couple/battle of the sexes riff that she engages in with Forte.Some notes: