Capitalism appears to be an everlasting idea even after the world has ended, as HBO’s The Last of Us continues to demonstrate with its sly name drops of some of the world’s most recognizable brands. First, it was Starbucks in episode four, and in the most recent episode, “Left Behind,” we’ve got confirmation that 7-Eleven survived the apocalypse.
As Ellie and Riley sneak out of Boston’s FEDRA Military School for their escapade in the abandoned shopping mall, they walk down an alleyway and discuss their previous altercations with classmates, and various sticky situations the pair have ended up in. They then bring up something called ‘the 7-Eleven’ incident.
While we can only speculate what exactly happened in the 7-Eleven, the fact that the convenience store exists at all is pretty amusing. You can’t help but picture Joel or Tess walking into the store and picking up a couple of expired snacks and a cheap cup of coffee (because they’re running late for their duties and the line at Starbucks is too long).
Granted, there were a fair few recognizable brands such as Foot Locker seen in the abandoned mall later in the episode, but it looks like the sneaker industry didn’t quite make it through the end of the world.
We’ll have to wait and see if the existence of stale Big Macs at a McDonalds in your local FEDRA-controlled quarantine zone is confirmed when The Last of Us returns next Sunday on HBO Max for its penultimate episode.
Update: Feb. 26 11:00pm CT: On HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast which airs after each week’s episode, showrunner Craig Mazin was discussing ‘The 7-Eleven Situation’ and confirmed that the convenience store in question is an abandoned building. As such, it would appear that Starbucks remains the sole global franchise to have survived the apocalypse.
