The Last Man on Earth (TV series)


The Last Man on Earth is an American post-apocalyptic comedy television series created by Will Forte. It aired on the Fox television network from March 1, 2015, to May 6, 2018. In addition to Forte starring in the title role, the series also starred Kristen Schaal, January Jones, Mel Rodriguez, Cleopatra Coleman and Mary Steenburgen as a small group of survivors.
Originally introduced as a mid-season replacement, the series aired 67 episodes over four seasons. It ended with a cliffhanger episode, to be resolved in the fifth season, but was canceled the week after the fourth season ended.

Plot

In late 2020, almost a year after a deadly virus sweeps the world, Phil Miller is seemingly the only human survivor in the United States. As he searches for others and paints signs in every state saying he is alive in his hometown of Tucson, Arizona, he finds no one. After years of being alone, he decides to run his truck into a rock to die by suicide. He happens to look off to the side right before he hits and sees smoke; he ends up discovering another survivor, Carol Pilbasian. Despite being annoyed by each other, Carol believes it is their job as the last two survivors to repopulate the world, but insists Phil marry her so their children will not be born out of wedlock. Although Phil thinks that it is ridiculous to hang on to traditions from the "old world", they marry for re-population purposes. Five more survivorsMelissa, Todd, Erica, Gail and another Phil Millereventually trickle into Tucson, creating a small group. When Phil's irritating attitude leads to his banishment from Tucson, Carol leaves with him.
In season two, Phil and Carol continue their road trip in the middle of 2023. They discover the group has relocated to Malibu, California, and travel there to reunite with them and rebuild trust. Meanwhile, Phil's astronaut brother Mike Miller crashes down to Earth and finds his way to Malibu, where he joins the small group briefly before getting sick; he is ostracized by most of the group for seemingly having been infected with the virus.
In season three, following a threatening encounter with paranoid and violent survivor Pat Brown, the original group moves to a self-sustaining office building in San Jose, California, where Melissa struggles with mental instability and Carol discovers a young boy living in the woods, whom they name Jasper. As time passes, Erica gives birth to a girl named Dawn, and the group decides to leave the United States for Mexico after seeing a nuclear facility meltdown close to the office.
In season four, Pamela Brinton, a rich woman living in a bunker, discovers the group via a drone. The group ends up on a boat and first meet Pamela after she kills Pat. Pamela kidnaps Phil, stranding the rest of the group on an island. Here, they meet Glenn, who has been on the island since before the virus broke out. Pamela's guilt over abandoning the group becomes too much, and they sail back to the island. The survivors move to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and while there, Carol gives birth to twin daughters and becomes pregnant again a few weeks later; Erica becomes pregnant again with Todd's first child; and Mike temporarily rejoins the group, having recovered from what was actually a weakened immune system, before leaving to search for a way to start his own family. During a hunt for the missing Jasper, Phil and Todd end up meeting Karl at a jail, who poses as a jailer, but is in fact a cannibal. Karl terrifies them until they decide to kill him, but are spared that task when Karl finds a Rubik's Cube that, once solved, explodes. Following a brief reunion with a recovered Mike, the original group then moves to Tapachula, only to be found and surrounded by dozens of underground survivors.

Intended plot continuation

Although the series was cancelled in May 2018, four days after season 4 ended, an August 2018 interview with series creator Will Forte revealed that the plan for the subsequent season was to have both groups of survivors live together and gain one another's trust before the original groupas asymptomatic carriers of the virusinadvertently infected and killed the survivors who had quarantined for years underground.

Cast

Main

  • Will Forte as Philip Tandy Miller, an average, socially challenged man and seemingly the only human survivor after a virus wiped out nearly the entire population about a year earlier. He moves back to his hometown of Tucson, Arizona, after having painted "Alive in Tucson" on billboards and highway signs in all 50 states, hoping others might see the message. In his pre-virus life, he worked temp jobs and lived in a studio apartment for which his parents paid the rent. Out of loneliness, he draws faces on various sports balls as his "friends", begins speaking to them, and gives them such names as Terence, Trent and D'Arby. In season 1, to avoid confusion with the second Phil Miller, Phil claims his middle name is Tandy, which the other characters use to address him despite finding it unusual. Phil is married to Carol and they have twin girls together. Forte describes him as "a selfish person who sometimes borders on being a flat-out sociopath". Jacob Tremblay portrays young Phil, who appears to his brother Mike in multiple visions in the episode "Pitch Black".
  • Kristen Schaal as Carol Andrew Pilbasian Miller, a notary from Delaware who sees Phil's "Alive in Tucson" sign and travels there to find survivors. She pressures Phil to marry her so they can work towards repopulating the Earth with "legitimate" children, but they are a poor match early on as Phil is not attracted to her and Carol spends most of her time badgering Phil for his bad behavior. Carol is shown to be compassionate and is good friends with Melissa and Todd but can hold grudges and be stridently moralistic. Carol and Phil divorce in the middle of the first season, but Carol chooses to leave with Phil after he is banished from Tucson and they subsequently remarry. In the second season, she and Phil regain the survivors' trust, and she becomes pregnant with Phil's child after he finally tells her he loves her. In the fourth season, she gives birth to twin daughters Bezequille and Mike, the latter named for Phil's brother.
  • January Jones as Melissa Chartres, a former real estate agent from Akron, Ohio, who used to be married to the late Greg until he cheated on her with a police officer. She meets Phil and Carol after they crash their pickup truck into her limousine. She saw Phil's original "Alive in Tucson" sign and traveled to Tucson before Carol. Phil is initially very attracted to her and frequently vies for her affection despite having just married Carol, but Melissa does not like or trust him. She begins dating Todd after he joins the group. In the second season, Melissa decides she does not want to have children and breaks up with Todd, but when she changes her mind, she and Gail eventually agree to simultaneously date Todd. In season 3, Melissa kills Darrell, one of paranoiac Pat Brown's crew, and consequently starts acting strangely, ultimately forcing Todd to lock her in a focus-group room to stop her from jumping off a building. The survivors help cure her condition using Clozapine, and Melissa marries Todd near the end of the third season.
  • Mel Rodriguez as Todd Dimas Rodriguez, another surviving man who, while on his way to Mexico, finds Phil and company after he sees some fireworks set off by Phil. Kind and selfless, Todd's nature leads to him becoming the most likable member of the group, much to Phil's increasing annoyance. He and Melissa become very close and begin a romantic relationship shortly after they meet. In season 2, Todd's love life becomes increasingly complicated: he finds himself torn between Melissa, who breaks up with him for a while; Gail, who starts dating him simultaneously with Melissa; Erica, who tells him that the late Phil II chose him as a surrogate father for her baby; and even Carol, who approaches him with a surprise request to impregnate her when she thinks Phil is sterile. In season 3, when Gail breaks up with him, Todd hopes to win back Melissa until he is frightened by her strange behavior resulting from killing Darrell. He is eventually able to cure her condition using Clozapine, and they marry. In the fourth season, after Melissa decides once again that she does not want to have children, Todd struggles with baby fever until Erica agrees to have a child with him, and she announces her pregnancy with his first child at the end of "Designated Survivors".
  • Cleopatra Coleman as Erica Dundee, an Australian woman and self-described "political nerd." After the outbreak of the virus, she met Gail at the White House and the two became traveling companions. They discover Phil upon spotting a fire he started, then move in with the rest of the survivors. In the second season, Erica becomes pregnant with Phil II's child but decides to not involve him in their child's life when he openly flirts with Carol. In "Smart and Stupid," she tells Mike, whom she is dating, that she was imprisoned for armed bank robbery before traveling to the United States and getting a job at the State Department under an assumed name. Toward the end of season 3, she gives birth to her daughter, whom she names Dawn. She later starts a romantic relationship with Gail and they get married in season 4.
  • Mary Steenburgen as Gail Klosterman, a chef and former restaurant owner from Wilmington, North Carolina. After the outbreak of the virus, she met Erica, and the two became traveling companions. Gail mentions having had a husband but does not reveal what happened to him. In season 2, she develops a relationship with another survivor named Gordon, but after Gordon dies of a heart attack, she has trouble finding closure and even dresses up a mannequin to look like Gordon, until she starts dating Todd. In season 3, she tells Carol, who wants Gail to adopt her so her child can have a grandmother, that she also had a child who died before the outbreak of the virus. To avoid being annoyed by Carol about their newly formed family, Gail finds solitude in an elevator, but the elevator loses its power and traps her inside until Phil restores the power in "The Spirit of St. Lewis". She begins a romantic relationship with Erica during the six months after the episode "Name 20 Picnics...Now!", which continues into the season 4 and leads to them getting married.