The virus had a No Body Left Behind aspect
Something about this "virus" completely eradicated the infected. It made so much sense to the characters (whatever the story), that it wasn't worth bringing up or talking about.- Jossed: The show explains that most people died at home, or in quarantine zones. Both would be out-of-sight of the survivors.
- Also, Mike sees a parking lot lined up with (presumably filled) body bags. He briefly occupies one.
The title refers to Phil being the last MALE HUMAN on earth
.A title like Last Man on Earth can easily say there's quite a few FEMALE survivors, and they're all going to trickle into Tuscon. Phil will, essentially, have a harem, and while all the children will be related to him, there will be enough genetic diversity between them due to multiple mothers that inbreeding won't be a problem for a while... If it ever becomes one.- Disproven after Todd shows up. Though ironically Todd later briefly forms a harem out of the group's women, with Phil even giving him permission to have sex with Carol in order for her to get pregnant.
Melissa hasn't been there for a few weeks, as she stated.
Or if she has, she hasn't been paying much attention to anything for some reason (locked herself in a house/maybe high on a stash of drugs...) Between Phil's car bowling and explosions, Carol's fire, Phil's hair burning and flamethrower antics there has been smoke in the air. Phil had been using a gun to open doors. Those sounds carry!- This can be explained with the geography of Tucson. Where Carol and Phil are living and hanging out it's really in the far, far outskirts of town and Melissa may have been out in the main part of the city.
Melissa is the mannequin
January Jones is attractive, but very stiff and lifeless. She's the perfect casting choice for a mannequin come to life.- That also explains why she goes out of her way to make her dislike of, or indifference about, Phil clear: She resents having to listen to his awkward pick-up lines without being able to tell him off, so now she takes the chance every time it comes up.
There will be Cerebus Syndrome
It takes place After the End and has a running narrative. It's only a matter of time.- Arguably confirmed. Season 3 deals with some rather dark themes, and the ironically titled episode "If You're Happy and You Know it" is perhaps the darkest one yet, though it's still not without some moments of levity. "Got Milk?" is also quite dark.
Phil's brother will be important later
From the picture we can see that he's played by Jason Sudekis. Either there will be a flashback episode heavily detailing his relationship with Phil or he survived and will eventually meet up with him.- Confirmed in the season one finale. Phil's brother is alive on a space shuttle orbiting the earth.
Phil is imagining the other people.
Phil is still the last man on Earth. The other survivors are all hallucinations. Or this is all a Dying Dream as he deliberately smashes his car into the rock in the first episode. Phil is in an asylum and the people are other patients
Except Phil #2, who is an orderly. That's why Phil #2 can do almost everything (carpentry, plumbing, electrician, etc.) Phil is literally in Hell.
Or at least Purgatory. He's the one who died, not the rest of humanity, and he's stuck here until he repents and becomes a better person. Each season will begin with a character who thinks he is The Last Man on Earth
Thus keeping the title. ZOMBIE PLAGUE
The virus takes control of people, but doesn't make them aggressive, and makes the walk away to a place. Maybe it's South America or something. If you asked about the characters about it all would say "You should avoid South America, that's where everyone who turned undead went!" The Tuscon survivors will tear themselves apart following Phil Miller #1's departure
Phil was certainly a massive jerk to his fellow survivors, but they were unified in their dislike of him. When he wandered away for a few hours or days at a time, small arguments seemed to crop about amongst the residents of Tuscon. Without Phil to give them a mutual foe, the Tuscon residents will start turn on one another. Phil #2 will cause the remaining survivors to form a Mad Max style group
Up until now, the survivors had been making a rather unenthusiastic attempt at trying to keep things as they were, and all times Phil is tempted with turning on his fellow man ultimately ended with him deciding against it. With the much more traditional action hero Phil #2 showcasing that he has no qualms sentencing a man to death out in the wasteland, his new found leadership could lead to the other survivors adopting a much more brutal "every man for himself" mindset. Phil was The Unfavorite in his family
From what little we know of Phil's life before the end of civilization, he was between jobs and down on his luck. From what little we know of his brother, he was an astronaut. Phil's tendency towards jealousy and Inferiority Superiority Complex can probably be linked back to the resentment he felt while trapped in his brother's shadow.- Confirmed As of "Fourth Finger," by Phil himself.
Phil is in his own Personal Purgatory
No bodies littering the streets, all world changes have involved Phil somehow, the Universe is determined to make Phil its personal chew toy, yet he is learning to be a better man, each other survivor almost seems designed to fuck at him. The bomb from the stealth bomber will go off at some point
Then Mike will see it (or something else Phil blows up) from space and it will give him hope that there are survivors on the ground. Phil/Tandy has an unexpectedly useful skill that will become important later
All we know at this point about his pre-virus life is that he was an underachiever and worked as a temp. We don't know what line of work he was a temp in, so maybe that will come up? There's at least one large community out there
To avoid a Downer Ending with a doomed human race, the end of the show will reveal that there's some large community somewhere outside of the United States that will contact our survivors. Maybe Phil's status as the President of the United States will come up again. The drone is controlled by some Nebulous Evil Organisation.
Said organisation engineered/weaponized the Virus to wipe out the human race, not foreseeing the possibility of any survivors.- Disproven in season 3.
Mike is still alive, and his skills as a scientist will be needed later
On multiple occasions attention has been drawn to the fact that Mike was on the the space station as a researcher, not a regular pilot. So far, this detail has not been particularly relevant to the plot, other than to show his reluctance to get in the escape pod (even then his main concern was flying back without help from mission control). Thus, the writers probably wouldn't have included it if they were just planning to kill him off. This troper thinks he will disappear for awhile and be revealed as still alive at a later time.- Seconded. I was about to post the exact same thing. I think the writers did a very smart thing by leaving Mike almost certainly dying, yet not actually showing him die. He will be back later, having survived the virus and having found or perfected a cure. I think he will come back at a time (probably around the series' finale) when one or both of the babies (Erika's and Tandy and Carol's) have become sick with the virus, thus curing them and saving humanity.
- Confirmed as of "The Blob".
Erica's ability to identify pills will be used to identify the pill Melissa took in "Hair of the Dog"
Pretty self-explanatory. Tandy will eventually demand to be called Phil again, citing that the other Phil is dead.
But everyone else refuses to, stating that the memory of the other Phil must be upheld. Pat was right about the virus.
It was indeed engineered and released by the government. The people who emerged from underground at the end of "Barbara Ann" are a group of civilians selected by the government at random to live underground and ride out the virus, then emerge, repopulate the Earth, and "start over" under one nation, in hopes of freeing the world from the evils of war.So there you have it. The virus is an American world domination plot, but in a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Utopia Justifies the Means sort of way.
The series actually ended on a Downer Ending.
Our heroes were viewed by the colony as infected due to their lack of gas masks, and were killed as a result. But when they examined them and found that they weren't infected and had actually built up an immunity, they were horrified, having missed the opportunity to make a vaccine. They then turned on and killed each other, until none were left.- Disregarded by Word of God since the the plan for Season 5 was actually to have the colony slowly learn to trust the main characters and eventually agree to live together before the main characters ended up infecting and killing all of the others as carriers of the virus.
