Animation
Thomas & Friends
Over 24 seasons, Thomas & Friends has taught young viewers important lessons about being helpful, teamwork and admitting your mistakes.
“Dude, the world, like, ended …”
An ominous statement, especially coming from a 13-year-old. But it’s true nevertheless. Jack Sullivan is a self-proclaimed post-apocalyptic action hero, a tough-guy survivor. Forty-two days ago, his town was invaded by zombies and monsters. He escaped, but only just. A few of his friends did, too. But Jack doesn’t find them for weeks.
With no adults to be found and desperate to survive, Jack makes the best of a bad situation by turning the apocalypse into a survival game, creating “feats of success” designed to help him stay safe and have fun. Steal a hat off a zombie—feat complete. Ride a monster—feat complete. Floss your teeth (because dental hygiene is still the second-most important form of hygiene)—feat complete. Rescue the damsel in distress—well, he’s still working on that one.
Jack kicks off the apocalypse with the enthusiasm you’d expect from a middle schooler who just found that out he has the house to himself for the weekend. He stays up late, eats a ton of junk food and plays video games nonstop. However, after a few weeks of zero human contact, Jack realizes he’s lonely.
Despite his bravado and generally snarky humor, what Jack really wants is a family. As an orphan, he grew up going from one foster home to the next, never really belonging. And he isn’t the only one.
Eventually, Jack connects with a couple of other friends who managed to survive, too. Quint (Jack’s ultra-smart inventor best friend) chooses to believe that his parents might still be alive since they were out of town when the monsters invaded. June, Jack’s crush, joins their team after realizing that it might take some time for her parents to return and rescue her. And even Dirk, a reformed school bully, works hard to drop his habit of teasing and threatening them in order to stay on the squad.
Based on graphic novels by Max Brallier, The Last Kids on Earth feels like Diary of a Wimpy Kid meets The Walking Dead. However, unlike most zombie apocalypses, Jack doesn’t want to kill his shambling foes—after all, it’s not their fault they’re undead. Monsters, on the other hand, that’s more of a kill or be killed situation.
There are a few friendly monsters, though, such as Rover, the large-but-lovable almost-a-dog. Then there’s Blarg: He’s 40 feet tall, has razor-sharp claws, acid saliva and stinks like “three-day-old flu barf.”
Armed with a baseball bat-turned-sword, hockey sticks and science (Quint has invented a plethora of post-apocalyptic survival tools), these kids really shouldn’t stand a chance. “We’re bad at this,” Jack says. “Simply awful, friend,” is Quint’s reply. Despite that fact, Jack, Quint, and the rest of their crew defy the odds and defeat the monsters hunting them left and right.
It’s a strange, new, “cuckoo bananas” world where Jack not only gets to be a hero, but also finds a real family in his friends. Netflix seems to be aiming at a middle school audience here, with Jack’s misadventures likely seeming too juvenile for older teens and maybe a tad too intense for younger kiddos.
Six weeks after his town gets invaded by monsters and zombies, Jack searches for his best friend, Quint, and his crush, June, hoping to join forces with them and survive the apocalypse.
Jack and his friends narrowly escape being eaten on several occasions. A giant, purple monster with multiple eyes, green acid drool and wickedly sharp claws and teeth hunts Jack down. On his first encounter, he calls the monster “ugly” and hits it with his baseball bat—which splinters. However, Jack manages to escape by using the sharp edge of the bat as a sword and stabbing the monster in the eye.
The kids also manage to trap one of the beasties beneath falling rubble, causing monsters to crash into each other and the buildings around them. They also stab a nasty creature through the forehead with the sword-bat.
Decaying zombies roam the town, too, but Jack avoids killing them, resorting to hitting, kicking, smashing, and bulldozing over them with a ping-pong table battering ram. After accidentally pulling the arm off one undead person, the dismembered limb continues to crawl towards Jack on its own.
In a flashback, June barrels down her field hockey teammates and even accidentally breaks her coach’s arm. In another flashback, Dirk, the school bully, steals Quint’s sandwich and threatens to punch Jack in the face. Quint has a skull candle, and in a homemade movie called “Attack of the Killer Yo-Yo,” yo-yos with skulls on them attack Jack and Quint.
Dirk, Jack, Quint, and June all hurl insults including “dork,” “dingus,” “weanie,” “doofus,” “nimrod,” “lame-o” and “Einstein.” Dirk mentions that a sandwich smells like “squirrel butt” and Jack compares Dirk to a rotund panda. Jack uses the phrase, “Mother of crudballs” twice. The words “crud,” “freaking,” and “heck” are used as well.
We see one of Jack’s female classmates wearing a hijab.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Over 24 seasons, Thomas & Friends has taught young viewers important lessons about being helpful, teamwork and admitting your mistakes.
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