Finally the day has come. The second episode of The Last of Us is now available on HBO Max for us to enjoy the adaptation of the Naughty Dog title. We can still see the journey they have started joel Y Ellie, as we first saw 10 years ago in the PS3 play. Now, it’s time to take a look at all those details and references that more than one has overlooked.
Warning spoilers: from this point on, the plot of the second chapter and the game will be openly discussed.
References, details and secrets of the second episode of The Last of Us on HBO
- The beginning takes us once again to the past. In this case we are in 2003, the year in which the cordyceps outbreak broke out and specifically we are located in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. If we remember the first episode, on the radio that Joel, Sarah and Tommy listen to, it is mentioned that there are riots in the city.
- the so vaunted and crazy flour theory that the community fostered has turned out to be true. The mycology teacher confirms that flour is the perfect substrate for fungi to spread and we know the origin of the infection, unlike the game. A flour factory in the west of Jakarta is the trigger for chaos.
- We have returned to the present, to 2023, and Tess, Joel and Ellie continue on their way. To return to the street, Joel moves a bookcase that blocks the door of the place where they are. Surely some of you have recognized the moments in which we had to move furniture to clear the way, hitting buttons.
- Tess asks Ellie how she got it. and she narrates the events of The Left Behind DLC. She doesn’t elaborate too much and omits Riley’s presence in that circumstance.
- Ellie asks if there’s some kind of super-infected that shoots mushrooms, to which Tess replies, “we were just missing that.” It is confirmation that in the series we will not see the swollen, the infected who have been infected for the longest time and who, indeed, shoot fungi with spores.
- At one point they arrive at a hotel whose lobby is completely flooded. this stay powerfully reminiscent of the Pittsburgh hotela city they visit later in the game.
When someone finally understands what an ADAPTATION is. 👏👏👏 #TheLastOfUs #TheLastOfUsHBO #TLOU pic.twitter.com/srDaxlS8OZ
— Arch. Daniel (@DanSnow_) January 23, 2023
- Ellie claims that she can’t swim, which we know perfectly well from video games and often creates difficult situations to solve. Of course, Joel in this case is not forced to use a wooden pallet.
- we can see Ellie playing with her razorsomething that Ashley Johnson, the actress who played the young woman in the video games, did.
- One of the big differences with respect to the spread of cordyceps is that it does not spread through the air in the series. Another substantial change that is added is the fact that the infected are interconnected, resulting in that if you step on an area full of mushrooms, a signal will be emitted to the infected. Your destiny will be to see you doomed to an avalanche of humans thirsty for meat.
- The museum is perfectly recreated compared to the video gamewith all the elements and the theme dedicated to the colonizers of the United States.
- For the first time we can see the fearsome clickers, infected who have had their condition for years and have lost their sight. The recreation is fabulous in every way, both visually and audibly. Of course, in the video game they appear before, in the collapsed building that the trio crosses.
Not me holding my breath the entire scene as if I were there with them #TLOU #TheLastOfUs pic.twitter.com/t9Aizw5Y8a
—Kaitlyn Red Wing (@KaitlynRedWing) January 23, 2023
- Joel steps on some glass on the ground causing a clicker to pounce on it. This same thing happens in the PS3 game museum.
- Unlike the Naughty Dog title, Ellie gets scratched on her arm again, proving once and for all to Joel that she is immune to cordyceps.
- In the game we spend the whole holy day collecting resources to have supplies. Precisely Joel leaves a handkerchief for Ellie to bandage the scratch and it is a very common method with which we heal ourselves in the game.
- A faithful recreation of the video game is also found at the moment when Ellie passes through the wooden plank at the top of the museum and when she and Joel look towards the horizon.
The Last Of Us has got to be the best Video Game to TV adaptation so far 😍🔥 pic.twitter.com/Fchd2ygCxF
—KCP Matt Ness (@MattNess_) January 23, 2023
- In the HBO series we see that the City Hall Fireflies have died from the infection contracted by one of them. In the video game they die because of Phaedra, who shoots them.
- One of the bodies we see on the ground, which is close-up, appears to be Neil Druckmann, although nothing is confirmed. The director of The Last of Us Part II and this episode of the series seems to star in a small cameo.
- In the game, Tess decides to stay at the town hall to fight Phaedra. She is shot to death, but in the series she opts to dump fuel on the ground, as well as grenades. A tremendous explosion is the ending she has in the adaptation.
- Tess tells Joel to take Ellie to Bill and Frank’s. As we well know, Frank is not alive in the PS3 title and we will see him for the first time in the flesh and blood version of him.
- It has always been assumed that the infection comes only from bites, scratches or spores, but the series introduces one more method. Specifically with a kiss from a stalker to Tess, causing the cordyceps threads to enter through her mouth. We see this kind of infected for the first time in the second video game.
I was so tense since I don’t play, I don’t know what to say
neil druckman vc pay me #TLOUpic.twitter.com/90wNYZjj6I— bel. (@joelmlier) January 23, 2023
- Finally, we can see Joel leaving behind the disaster of the fire, while Ellie is not able to accept what happened. Although they don’t speak, we can interpret this as a reference to the scene in the game where Joel tells Ellie that they are not going to talk about what has happened. The Allowed to be Happy theme from the second game plays at the end.