Ok so The Last Of Us Episode 1 is now out and I’m so excited to talk about it. The first game is my favourite of all time and I’ve bought the ps3 version, the ps4 remaster and even the ps5 remake that released a couple of months. This is a game I’ve completed numerous times on grounded mode and the series is something I’ve been desperate to do a deep dive on.
Throughout this video we’re gonna be breaking down the first episode scene by scene and talking about all the easter eggs, hidden details and what they did differently to the game. If you haven’t played it then don’t worry because we won’t be spoiling what happens down the line as I want you to enjoy the twists and turns as much as I did on my first playthrough.
However I may need to touch upon certain things due to characters that get name dropped here but I’ll only bring them up in a spoiler section at the end of the video which I’ll give you a heads up on. I’m nice like that.
Now unlike the game, the series starts off in 1968. Originally we watched as Sarah woke up in her bed and ventured about the house but here they do it differently. Rather than throwing us in at the night of the outbreak we get some backstory that wasn’t even filled in in the source material. The game told us very little about the virus beyond it being cause by Cordyceps which had mutated to infect humans. These real life fungi exist in the jungle and the parasite infects insects and anthropoids. Beginning in 1968 though we see a tv show in which two scientists do a big theory time about what the biggest threat to humanity is.
The first one goes off about how we may have a pandemic level event that’s caused by a strain of influenza. Both games were made before Covid 19 and the creative team have kinda retroactively added this into the show to comment on it I think. The scientist mentions how airplanes are a new element that will help viruses like this spread easier and later on we see several planes flying overhead as Sarah, Joel and Tommy make their escape.
They add a lot of focus to them during the car scene and actually change up how the crash happens. Originally it was caused by another car hitting them but they do a fake out in the episode and instead have plane debris causing it.
Now the second scientist played by John Hannah talks about the treat of Cordyceps and how climate change could allow the fungi to spread from the more tropical regions of the world to human population centres. He talks about how Cordyceps work and this is something that scientists have studied in the wild. The fungi infect their host and they then fill them with hallucinations that cause them to act in a certain way. A lot of the time they’ll get ants to climb high up trees and then from here they can kill the host and spread the spores.
One thing I thought was so creepy about the game is that we’d often stumble across the infected whilst they were unaware that we were in the area. You’d often catch them sobbing in corners and the creative team said it was horrendous being one of them due to the parasite basically infecting your brain. Similar to how the spore plants were set up there were also the infected that would lay down somewhere and die and they’d become points of infection that could fire spores out into the air.
We see one of these later on in the episode but the episode stays its hand a bit and they don’t reveal the later stages of the infected in this entry.
The character also says this very important line: “There’s no cures.”
That’s why Ellie becomes so important later on because she seems like the last hope to dig humanity out of this hell hole.
They end the speech by clearly setting up the stakes and showing why the world ends up the way it does: “We lose”
That’s another thing I love about the game and whereas we’d normally watch the outbreak and go from there, we get a massive time jump to see humanity far far far in the future.
Now after this we cut to the title sequence which is presented in a similar way to the black and white one that started the game.
There’s lots of symbolism here with the fungus rising up to create a skyline showing how its become the dominant force in the word. We also see one creating a face before finally settling on the silhouettes of Joel and Ellie.
The theme tune used here is pulled directly from the game and it instantly sets the tone of this solitary and bleak storyline.
Now if you’re enjoying the video so far it’s about to get a lot better but please hit the thumbs up button to help us out. Also make sure you subscribe as we’ll be covering the show weekly and you definitely don’t want to miss any of our breakdowns.
With that out the way, huge thank you for clicking this, now let’s get into the Last Of Us.
When is The Last of Us set?
Ok so originally the game took place in 2013 which just so happened to be the year of it’s release. We then got the 20 year time jump like what we have in the show which took us to 2033. The game was littered with calendars marking this date and in the second game you could even find a PlayStation 3 with a copy of uncharted 2 beside it.
However the series changes things up in order to have the main parts take place in 2023. We start off here in 2003 and much like how the game opens we see things from Sarah’s perspective. Now originally that had the player waking up on the night of the outbreak which also happened to be Joels birthday.
Here though we get a full day in the life of and the entire time I was wishing I could sit and watch this with someone who had no idea about the games to be like…does he know.
Sarah is very much a reflection of Ellie and they’ve even given her a backpack which wasn’t in the game to make her more closely mirrored to her. She also wears a Halican Drops t-shirt which Sarah too wore in a game. That had the 2012 tour whereas this is the 02 one so that it doesn’t mess too much with the timeline.
Neat little easter egg on it and all of the locations that Halican Drops toured at are in the order of places that the characters visit in the game.
We pick up the scene by starting at Sarah’s window and this is important iconography as an open window is also something that’s on the games menu screen. It also ties into something else that we’ll talk about in the spoiler section and this window shot could become something defining down the line.
Now in Sarah’s room we see band posters for the Clash and Destiny’s child. This is similar to her room in the game in which she had a halican drops poster and also one for the in universe movie dawn of the wolf.
The Destiny’s Child poster says survivor and it’s not this child’s Destiny to be a survivor ey having that.
Too soon too soon.
Now interestingly the calendar says August but the outbreak happened on September 26th in the game. Cos of the date we get later she’s forgot to change and I kinda think this was just left like this to show she’s a carefree kid. They also picked to set it around summer because the heat would help with the spread of the Cordyceps and it adds to the idea of the seasonal storyline that the last of us has.
Joel says he’s 36 making him 56 when we join him later. Over his left shoulder we can see a football on the rack…we’ll not say soccer ball you chumps and this is actually an important bit of iconography. In the game there’s a photo of Joel and Sarah together celebrating her winning a trophy and the character goes back and forth over whether to acknowledge this or not. We get a brief glimpse at her on the team when we cut to the news report on the radio and we can see a photo of them all together to the right of it.
Later on when we see Sarah moving about the house we also get a good look at the football again alongside an acoustic guitar on the other side of the room.
Joel is a keen guitar player and we learn in the game that he even wanted to become a singer at on point. However he and his wife had Sarah when they were very young and she ended up leaving him which is when he took on the responsibility of raising her by himself.
Now at this point walks in Tommy played by Gabriel Luna. He sounds exactly like Tommy does in the game and I actually closed my eyes and couldn’t tell the difference.
We know that Joel and Tommy worked as carpenters and unfortunately due to a job he has to work a double shift for the day to get stuff finished up.
At this point a news report goes out over the radio and we hear mention of Jakarta. We don’t know where the outbreak originated from due to the game not telling us but it’s possible that this is the show filling in the backstory of how it came about. It’s of course a very hot country and this would tie back to the climate comments made by the scientists earlier on.
Joel’s t-shirts inside out and I like how they have him donning the grey one that he had at the start of the game. This is reflected in Tommy too who’s wearing a salmon…I wanna say Salmon shirt like how he does in the intro.
Sarah goes to Joels room and takes his watch out the draw so that she can get it fixed. In the game she just bought him it but here she’s using his money to get it fixed up cos she’s a cheapskate, she’s a bloody cheapskate. Joel’s watch is extremely important as it breaks on the night that the infected rise up but he keeps it with him as a memento. Though he completely shuts himself off from talking about Sarah there are points where he can be seen staring at it longingly as a reminder of what he lost. She also finds a knife in his drawer hinting at him potentially having a darker past and outside we see that his truck has combat veteran on it.
From this it’s possible that he might have been part of operation desert storm however this could actually belong to Tommy as well…he’s the one driving it. Captain Obvious here. Bit of theory time theory time theory time but Tommy did end up joining the fireflies when it all went down and his experience in the army could’ve led to him being the reason why he got so high up the ranks. Joel says to Marlene later that she turned his own brother against him and we might see more of the group from Tommy’s perspective.
Anyway that’s the end of theory time, theory time, not in the game so it’s not a spoiler so I don’t wanna hear you complaining.
Now we also meet their neighbours at this point and in the game this is where the first infected attacked from as well. However it wasn’t an old lady and instead it was a man that first attacked them called Jimmy Cooper.
At school we see a picture of George W Bush who would’ve been president at this time due to him being in the job from 2001 – 2009.
Here we see that the infection has started to hit humanity as we can see a student twitching away which we later see at the FEDRA camps is one of the signs of infection. The cordyceps attach to someone’s brain and effect their nervous system which is why these little mannerisms start before it takes control. Love the little detail as Sarah steps off the bus and we can catch an advert for a Nokia 3310 which I think I probably had in 2003. Snake 2 reigning champion you f**k.
Anyway Sarah gets the watch fixed and we start to see that something might be off due to the amount of sirens and the fact the shop owners close up. They’re likely making a run for it like we see people doing later on and ey, I appreciate the little blind thing was a clock face.
Sarah visits her neighbours the Addlers and Sarah asks to borrow the DVDs Curtis and Viper 2.
This is a game that popped up in the Last Of Us 2 during a conversation. It has some big spoilers that kinda riff on this that I’ll save for the super spoiler section and I’ll also go through what was said in that about the plot of the movie.
She later gives this to Joel and the reviews say one of the best performances I’ve ever seen.
Little bit of a funny story here that always makes me chuckle but Johnathan and Paul Ross both used to be massive movie critics and they had a bet with each other about who could get on the back of the box for Batman Forever. They both wrote really stupid reviews and that’s why the back of the VHS tape for it has the quote from Johnathan saying One Of The Greatest Movies Ever Made.
Anyway something is clearly off with the neighbour and the dog is acting strange too. Dogs were used as a way to sense whether someone had cordyceps or not and for the bandits they were how they detected to infection due to them not having the fancy tech that FEDRA did.
Now at this point we get Joel and Sarah having a conversation on the sofa which is pulled directly from the game.
Love how they do stuff verbatim and this father and daughter moment is the last real conversation they have.
Cut to Sarah asleep and this plays out similar to how it does in the game only this time they make the pair a bit closer by having her do it on his lap.
In the game I don’t think we found out why Joel left but we did see texts on his phone asking where the hell he was.
Here we see the phone call with us learning that one of the infected started attacking people at a bar and Tommy got locked up for fighting them. Joel has to bail him out and he puts Sarah to bed which is when we then see her waking up which is how the game properly starts.
In it you take control of her and walk through the house as you see news reports that are documenting some of the attacks. They have an explosion happen which then appears on the news as well whereas here she’s woken up by the sounds of passing choppers and dogs barking. The little pooch Murphy jumps up at the patio which I think is playing on the dog we hear barking that we hear yelping as Sarah gets the door
Sarah visits the Addlers and here she finds that the elderly old woman is now up and about eating people. I got a lot of flashes here to the first zombie that you come across in Resident Evil with her hair loss making this appear really similar. They’ve actually added something to the infected her and we see that the cordyceps come out of her mouth which wasn’t present in the game. In nature these try to get as high as possible so they can spread the spores easier and I love this addition to the infected that makes them even more horrifying.
Joel and Tommy arrive with Joel winging a wrench similar to how you use melee weapons in the game.
They jump in the truck and I love how we can see the Addlers in the street now showing how quick the infection spreads once someone is bitten.
Now this truck ride is really similar to the with it being word for word at points. We also have them approaching the signs for Austin one way and the hospital the other which is ripped right out of the game with those being the two directions.
They head towards the hospital and this is of course where most of the outbreak would be at it’s worst due to people being taken there after they got sick. We learn the Addlers actually went there to get medicine for the elderly one and this is likely how she picked up the infection in the first place. Anyway enough of me talking, lets play the scenes side by side so you can see how close they are.
Now after the truck is thrown off the road Sarah’s unable to walk and Joel has to carry her. This is where we take control of him in the game and it leads to them running through a restaurant chased by infected like what we see here.
Now at this point we get what’s probably the most devastating part in the whole story. Normally in post apocalyptic stories when characters run into soldiers and the army it’s a sign of safety. They’re often used as way to show that people have someone looking after them but here it’s the complete opposite. Ordered to shoot Joel and Sarah he fires upon them and kills Sarah.
Now I’ve watched this scene a tonne of times in the game and it was only upon this watch through that I realised that they did this because Sarah was injured and they might have suspected a bite.
Anyway it completely rips your heart out and as always I’m gonna show you how it works side by side with the game.
Completely gut wrenching and it’s the defining moment in Joel’s life that changes him for the worse.
This scene is the key to understanding the character and it sets up basically everything that’s to come.
Time jump in The Last of Us Episode 1
Now from here we get a time jump to twenty years later and get a big section that wasn’t in the game.
Here we watch a child on their own out in the wilderness making their way to the FEDRA camp out in Boston. The red shirt reminded me a lot of the girl in Schindler’s list that we see moving through the devastation and later on her body is cast aside similar to what we see Joel doing. This is very similar to the Stand with there being body disposal crews that had to get rid of the dead after the world had destabilised.
Now this child is found to be infected and the FEDRA soldiers end up euthanising them.
FEDRA is basically the remnants of the Federal Government but they were seen as fascists in The Last Of Us universe. They had strict rules that sentenced people to death for very little and we’re first introduced to them forcing people to their knees and shooting the infected. Now because of their strict rule, many resistance groups rose up including the Fireflies. Several bases were stormed that propped up their own leaders up whether they were better or not is another question entirely. I think here they’re painted out in a better light and though they kill the kid they do it mercifully and even lie to make it seem like they’re gonna be taking care of them. Now what’s very bleak about the Last Of Us is that there’s barely any kids in the entire thing. Most of the people we follow are middle aged and as they say children are our future. The fact that there’s so few children shows how doomed humanity is and Ellie represents not only hope in the cure but also in the fact that children can make it in this world…even though the two we meet early on here are killed.
But moving on.
We also see a poster that breaks down the full time to infection and we can see that Ellie’s bite would be roughly 2-8 hours with one in the foot giving someone a day. Ones in the neck and face give someone 5-15 minutes which explain why the Adders got up so quickly.
The child is killed after the scanner flashes red on them and this very much foreshadows the fate that would’ve come to Ellie had Joel not saved her life. It’s heart-breaking because we don’t really know what the red symbol means and part of me was hoping that the kid made it out after the guard said you’re safe. Sadly though we see their body in the back of a truck and it’s how we’re re-introduced to Joel and where he is now.
He carries the body almost like how he did with Sarah and dumps them on the fire showing no attachment at all. Now at this point we see the ration cards being handed out. These also appeared in the game and they look identical to how they did in that. We cut to shots of the city and also see a curfew sign. This pops up in the game as well and it’s identical to the one you see when you first walk around Boston.
We see some of the citizens and can catch a guy in an Al Gore Lieberman campaign shirt from the 2000 election campaign. Dunno why he’s wearing this but they could possibly be reminiscing about a world in which Gore was in charge cos of all his Climate change stuff or it might be the only clothes they’ve been able to get a hold of in the last 20 years.
Firefly symbols are covered up because they could cause dissent and we see how people are hanged for leaving the QZ.
This is something that Joel does regularly and he works as a smuggler. We catch a FEDRA soldier twitching but it’s not because he’s infected and Joel in fact sells him pills. In the game this is something that Tess is coming back from when we first meet her.
This guard pops up later on as the person who catches them outside and I loved this addition to the series for when he pops back up. We pretty don’t spend any time with the guards beyond choking them out and it shows that they’re all working in shades of grey with them wanting people to exit the QZ whilst also killing those that do.
He brings up the firefly attacks which are what ends up freeing Tess from her captives. We see a big bit of graffiti for the fireflies on the wall and this is similar to the radio messages that Marlene was putting out in the game.
Now from here we jump to Tess in a moment that we weren’t privy to in the game. In that we start with Joel waking up and she shows up to the apartment beaten up after two people were sent after her by Robert. Joel and Tess had sold him guns that the fireflies were also after. Here though it all centres around a truck battery. I actually prefer it with the battery being something they can use on a car to get out of there.
Now they do change things up a lot from the game and the first part in the future follows Joel and Tess as they hunt Robert down. Eventually they catch and kill him which is when Marlene arrives and it’s this that leads into the Ellie mission. Interestingly Marlene is played by Merle Dandridge who just so also happened to play her in the game.
Here we pick up with Tess tied up and Robert begging her to let things goes. It shows how much of a G she is and in the game she killed the captors herself.
The firefly explosion allows her to escape and this is riffing on the scene in the game when they go to cross a checkpoint and one blows off which makes Tess and Joel flee through the tunnels.
Now from here we jump to Ellie chained up. She’s currently being observed due to being bit and we see her standing in front of a window again calling back to this iconography. Naughty Dog have added in their own little uncharted Easter egg and Ellie is wearing the same shirt that Young Nathan Drake had on in Uncharted 3.
Joel goes to a radio operate and we learn that he’s been trying to reach out to Tommy which is what the truck battery is for.
He returns back to the apartment and digs out and falls asleep on the bed hearing echoes of his brother screaming.
Joel, Tommy and Tess had to do horrendous things in order to survive and we might even get the backstory filled in beyond what we got in the game.
Cut to Joel waking up which is where we pick up after the time jump and we see Tess telling him about Robert in a scene that echoes how we first meet her.
They mount up and decide to head out which is when we cut to Marlene. Leader of the fireflies we see them planning attacks with a map on the table. Her forces are starting to ask questions about why their people are dying and why there’s a random girl locked up. Marlene is wearing clothes similar to the game and they’re planning to move every firefly out of the city because of Ellie’s immunity.
We even see one trying to recruit Joel and I love watching these two sides slowly get on a collision course with each other. Also worth pointing out that Tess is wearing the same clothes that they have on in the game. When Joel stands against the all we can also see several posters including one in the bottom left for Curtis Viper 2.
The Last of Us Episode 1 Ending Explained
Now, at this point, Marlene goes to Ellie and she throws her bag over. This is exactly the same as the game and it even has a little cyclops head on it like what the characters has in the game.
We also see her pull out her flick knife which is something that she uses throughout the original work.
Marlene gives her the keys to her handcuffs and she brings up FEDRA military school. Future spoilers that we’ll talk about later on in the video and how this ties into parts of the story coming up.
Now it’s sort of touched upon here but Marlene had Ellie drafted into a FEDRA programme as a child and this was to keep her safe. She knew her mother and wanted her away from Fireflies. She also brings up Riley which….shhhhhh save that.
Anyway she warns Ellie that she’ll be killed if people know about her and this comes to be true. Joel and Tess make their way through some buildings and they move underground which is a similar thing to what they did in the game. Now they come across an infected person who’s grown into the wall. Absolutely love the look of it and it hints towards the more mutated ones that appear. Everything is spot on here including the green wall which looks like it’s ripped right out of the PlayStation classic. When you’re moving through the tunnels you encounter someone stuck to the walls and I was kinda hoping they’d pull the gas masks out for this bit. Those stuck on the wall would attach and then fire spores into the environment but sadly they cut it out here.
Anyway it leads them to the firefly base which is where they find Robert dead. In the game it was Tess who shot him but either way he gets capped in the same place.
At this point they come across a wounded Marlene similar to the source material and Ellie attempts to attack Joel which is how she’s introduced in the original work. Joel and Tess are tasked with transporting Ellie to bunch of Fireflies and in exchange they’ll get a whole truck. They agree and we get a scene in which they rest up in a room whilst the rain pours down. This is similar to how it played out originally with them all laying low here for the first time and Joel getting some shut eye.
Ellie finds a note detailing codewords and throughout the game you’d often come across notes with crude scribblings in them detailing things like safe codes, back stories and information about the groups you’d encounter. This is inside a billboard book and it details how songs from each decade detail whether there’s new stock or nothing in. The 80s have a big X next to them and we learn that this means danger. This is very important as come the end of the episode we hear a song detailing the danger they’re heading into. We can see that the page is open on the 1970s and at the top you can catch The Long And Winding Road / For You Blue. Released by the Beatles this single had For You Blue as the B-side to it and…the long and winding road could be a little nod to the big journey ahead of them.
Bit of a reach but it’s been left behind by Bill and Frank who we’ll talk about in that spoiler section I’ve been teasing.
That night they sneak through the streets and I remember playing this and it being so intense as trucks moved past and spotlights reigned down outside the wall. You sneak underground and then pop up like what we see and have to avoid the search lights as they piece the surroundings. Love the juxtaposition of the big sign that says Welcome which is of course something that the shadows of the FEDRA soldiers completely go against.
They also sneak through a pipe which is a lot like the sewer ones that you crawled through.
At this point they come across the soldier whereas in the original they were caught by two. In the game she attacked them upon being scanned and Joel and Tess jumped and shot them respectively.
Here though he gets a PTSD flashback of Sarah’s death which triggers him into attacking. I actually think this works better especially with the soldier returning and it shows that Joel’s even willing to attack people they know if it rubs him the wrong way.
They discover Ellie’s bite and she says that it’s three weeks old.
The alarms ring and the group head through the fence which is when we cut to the radio to hear the song Never Let Me Down Again by Depeche Mode. It contains lyrics like I’m taking a ride with my best friend, sort of playing into the show. Now this signals the incoming Danger as we watch the group head to the twin skyscrapers from the game. Over the top of this we hear the cry of an infected and we end the episode with a lingering shot on them.
Now we can hit that long awaited spoiler section and we will be covering things from both games so if you haven’t played them then thanks for sticking with me and I’ll see you next week. You better be back mate, you said you said.
Anyway yeah spoilers…just wait…just wait for everyone to leave.
Ok so the first point is Joels guitar that we see at the beginning of the episode.
This is how the second game opens with him strumming away on it. It’s also how the second game ends with Ellie strumming away on that too but she’s unable to properly play the one thing that reminds her of him due to losing her fingers.
We also get a lingering shot on a window to close the game out which is very reminiscent of how the scene on Sarah opens which of course ties in with the menu.
Now in the episode there’s a mention of Riley as well. Didn’t wanna spoil it for those that didn’t know but if you’re here now you don’t care and this was the girl that Ellie was with on the night she got bit. This is all chronicled in the Left Behind DLC which is basically a night in which Riley takes Ellie to a mall before she’s shipped off with the fireflies to another based. The pair end up kissing and Riley agrees to stay but the peace is interrupted by the infected who swarm the area and bit the pair. Riley dies and Ellie of course survives which she carries a lot of guilt over.
The scientist talks about how the fungus devours its host from the inside and when we look at the clickers we can see that the entire top part of their head has been replaced by the fungi.
The scientist also explains how due to the fungi being something we use for penicillin that it can maintain a host for a prolonged period. In the game we meet the infected decades down the line and see how far they’ve mutated.
Now there’s also mention of a radio tower in the episode which I’m guessing is where they’ll head to after they meet Henry and Sam. This was the location they camped out at and it’s probably gonna be somewhere that appears later on in the series along with the Riley stuff.
Not really an easter egg but Sarah is played by Nico Parker who is also the daughter of Thandiwe Newton.
Also the show runners have said there are gonna be no spores or gasmasks in the series.
Neil Druckmann said it’s because if there were spores in this world they would spread everywhere and everyone would have to wear masks all the time.
That kinda sucks cos I loved the aesthetic they brought and I think people could have suspended their disbelief or probably not have even had that cross their mind. Would’ve given the infected encounters a sort of Upside down from Stranger things feel but alas tis no more.
Now as for Curtis and Viper 2 this is the movie that Joel and Sarah were going to watch together the night she died. He never got to see it and in a bitter twist of Irony it’s also the movie that Joel and Ellie were going to watch the night that he died. Joel and Ellie had had a falling out due to her discovering the truth but she had decided to see if she could forgive him by inviting him over to watch a movie.
That night they were gonna watch it and here’s what Ellie had to say.
Lastly is Bill and Frank, the former of which we know will be played by Nick Offerman.
He’s someone Joel and Tess have had a long standing relationship with and upon reaching him Joel and Ellie are escorted to a school in order to get a car battery. They don’t get it but in the end they do find frank who we discover was bit and thus he unalived himself which I have to say cos YouTube’s been ridiculously strict with demonetisation recently. The pair were lovers but they grew apart and Frank fled in order to get away from him.
Anyway I think that’s all the spoiler easter eggs too and I really hope you enjoyed the breakdown. I had a blast putting this together and I’m so glad that HBO have done justice to the game. I was worried they might mess it up and though it’s very very very early days, I think this first episode was great. Really recaptures the feel of the source material and as a fan I couldn’t have asked for more.
Obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts and whether you agree or not.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
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