Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show! I’m your host, Paul, and in this video we’re breaking down Episode 8 of The Last of Us. This is the one I’ve been waiting for, and David in the game is one of the most memorable characters that you come across when playing. Voiced by Nolan North, he starts off as an apparent ally, but as you begin to learn more about him, you start to see his more sinister side. Though bloaters, clickers, and the infected were terrifying, I think one of the scariest things for me was playing as Ellie and moving around the restaurant as he walked around wielding a machete.
Normally boss characters in games are gigantic monsters or highly skilled characters, but there was just something so unnerving about a creepy 50-year-old cannibal walking around looking for you.
Now, as with all Last of Us episodes, the fact that we aren’t playing the game means that they can show things from the perspectives of others. In the Playstation counterpart, you were locked to the perspective of Joel and Ellie, whereas here we can see more of David’s backstory.
The Last Of US Episode 8 Breakdown
That’s how we begin as well, and we open by looking over his town, which is called Silver Lake in both the show and game.
We discover that David has taken it upon himself to become a holy man, and over the top of this, we hear him narrating Revelation 21. His opening line discusses the new heaven and new earth, and this very much reflects the new world that they’ve found in the midst of the apocalypse.
The verses in this chapter talk about how there will be no need for a physical temple in this new world because God’s presence will be everywhere. From here, we jump to Todd’s Steakhouse to see him deliver the sermon. Todd’s restaurant was what it was called in the game and it’s been transformed into a makeshift church.
We see how people have tried to find reason in what’s happened to the world, and you can totally understand why some would turn to religion. I didn’t want to spoil this episode all the way back in the first entry, but it’s even possible that Mrs. Adler could’ve foreshadowed people going like this.
Now, religion goes beyond things spiritually and also acts as a way to explain things. For example, thousands of years ago, people didn’t understand how the world was formed, but religions gave these answers while also outlining the best ways to live. Thus, people flocked towards them because science hadn’t given alternatives. I’m trying to explain this as best as I can without offending people, but basically what I’m trying to say is that in this once more stripped-back world, you can see why people would become religious. A lot of people don’t have the scientific tools to answer things, and thus preachers and so on could provide the answer and comfort to those that feel lost.
Revelations is also about the end of the world, and thus it’s easy to see why so many people would turn to this and David after the world had ended. It hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows, though, and due to long and hard winters, David has had to resort to cannibalism in order to keep people alive.
We see a sign hanging up saying that when we are in need, he shall provide, and this is playing Philippians 4:19, which states that God will provide for people.
When Ellie fights David later on in the restaurant, we actually see this sign hanging up at the back of the room.
He’s had to cross a line in order to do this, but David has hidden this from the people, whereas in the game I always kind of got the impression that the townsfolk were aware.
Now you might be wondering why they don’t just move somewhere warm. Well, the fact is that the people here feel safe, and they very much control their society. They’re not oppressed by Fedra, and the infected also tend to stick to warmer areas. Though you did encounter some in the snow when you first met David, the second game showed that exposure to the elements left them frozen.
We also discover that every time they bunkered down, the Raiders eventually showed up, and thus they had to find somewhere that wasn’t too appealing to others.
So Salt Lake City is probably the best place to be, though the cruel winters have meant that food has become scarce. Interesting little tidbit for you, mate. Did you know that the Vikings called it Iceland because it would put invaders off from going there? They called it Greenland because it was covered in ice and thus invaders would arrive there and be like, “F**ks sake!”
Anyway, he comforts a young girl there by saying that after the pain, God will make it so that there’s no more sorrow. We learn that this girl has just lost her father and that they want to bury him. I’ll go over who this guy was later on, but it’s important to keep in mind.
David calls himself her father, and it’s very much a perverted version of the father-daughter relationship that Joel has with Ellie. Whereas Joel will do anything to protect her, David smacks her in front of people, and they’re very much surrogate fathers at opposite ends of the scale.
Yes, David is one of them, and I think that’s what made the character in the game so creepy. I think this is obviously commenting on controversies surrounding the church, and pffftt…it’s going to be difficult not to offend people, but it’s definitely an important thing to address.
The entire holy man thing with David is something that wasn’t present in the game, and I think it adds a whole new dimension to it by making him a creepy religious figure that eats people and prays on children.
Now at this point, we get a quick cut of his right-hand man, James. In case you don’t recognize him, that’s Troy Baker, who actually played Joel in the game. Baker gave a seminal performance, and I think a lot of the success rests on his shoulders because of how much he knocked it out of the park with the main character. So far in the show, we’ve had Marlene’s voice actor playing her in the series, Tommy’s popped up as Perry, and now Baker is playing James. All that’s left is Ashley Johnson’s Ellie, so I can imagine that she’ll be popping up next for the finale. There are some rumors about who she could be playing, but we’ll not spoil that here.
Should I change the channel name to Not much of a spoiler, mate. I like the video.
Anyway, Baker actually looks a lot like Joel does in the game, and hey, as much as I love Pedro, I wouldn’t have minded him playing him in live action too.
Look, I’m trying not to offend people, and outside, we hear what a dire situation they’re in when it comes to rations.
In the game, we never saw this side of things, and after Joel fell off his horse at the university, you cut to Ellie hunting.
Now, whilst you were out doing this, you noticed a buck that you then shot an arrow into. This didn’t kill it, and thus you tracked it through the environment, trying to take it out for food.
It fled to an abandoned factor, which is when you found it dead, and at this point David and James stepped forward. Here we see the other side of it with James and David talking about how some of their spotters saw a deer the other day.
We see how their paths cross now from both sides, and to add to it, the doubt within James. He’s clearly wrestling with the fact that they’re crossing the line in order to keep going, and it adds lots more complexity to a character that was originally just pretty much an NPC with a couple of lines.
Now, this cannibalism in the snow could be a reference to the Donner Party, who were a group of American pioneers that migrated to California from the midwest. They got stuck in a snowy mountain range and also had to resort to cannibalism, like what we see here. James is starting to doubt whether this is God’s way, and it’s also possible he knows about the other stuff too.
In the game, when Joel ambushes the town, you overhear some saying that David’s leadership should be put to a vote again, so this sentiment was clearly felt amongst some of the other inhabitants. In the game, you didn’t really encounter any of the kids here, but you did hear a woman say that they were moving the children to a shelter.
David and Ellie waited until he went off and got medicine, and it was at this point that you were both swarmed by the infected. You had to make your way through an abandoned factory as they closed in, and you made your final stand there facing off against runners, clickers, and a blower. In the game, you had no idea what was up with David at this point, which allowed you to build some camaraderie with him. So far in the game, though you’d fought lots of hunters, the people that you’d met in cutscenes had ended up becoming your allies. This was the case with Marlene, Henry, and Sam, and of course, Tommy.
It lured you into a false sense of security with him, and when listening to the Kinda Funny podcast a couple weeks ago, they brought up a point that stuck with me. They said that Kathleen might have even hurt the David reveal a bit because we’d already experienced an evil leader figure. Though I don’t know if that’s fully the case, I do think having two characters like this in the show hurts the fact that David was someone you came across who was worse than the infected.
Now back with Ellie, we see her nursing Joel. The surroundings here are identical to those in the game, with him being on a dirty mattress with a blanket covering him to keep him warm.
The Last Of Us Episode 8 Game References. Who Is Troy Baker In The Last Of Us Episode 8?
We get a shot similar to the game where she examines his wound, and this is something she did upon returning with David.
Seeing how little food they have left, I did go back and forth over what the intention of this scene was. She holds a snap of it for a second, and I even thought that she might be wondering whether it’s worth giving this to him due to his being so close to death’s door. I don’t think that’s what was intended, and I’m sure that the HBO podcast will probably clear this up. We do these videos before they’re released, so I don’t really get to hear things. People, yeah. Some people genuinely think I watch an hour-long episode and listen to a 40-minute podcast and then get a 30- to 40-minute video out the minute after the show releases, which… they’re onto.
Nah, but like I said, I don’t think that’s the intention, and Ellie decides to get up and go hunting.
Here she comes across a rabbit like in the game, and I have to play the clip again.
Unlike her PlayStation counterpart, Ellie is pretty useless, and whereas she was taking out animals with ease, we see how she’s really struggling.
At this point, she comes across the deer, and similar to the game, she fails to down it. We have a moment mirroring the sniper scene from episode 6, and I did appreciate how they built off of that.
David and James come across it, and he does the typical religious preacher strategy.
Now David is well aware of who Ellie is at this point, and as we later learn, it was his men that went to the university. Now they go into one of the huts, which is similar to how they camped up in the game. Here we learn a bit more about David and discover he was a math teacher who converted to become a preacher after the world fell apart. I’m not even going down that rabbit hole with him. I’m avoiding that, but we do learn that he came from Pittsburgh. The QZ there fell in 2017 due to a war between the fireflies and Fedra, which is something that is sort of touched upon in the game. In the show, Ellie and Joel went to Kansas City, whereas in the source material, it was Pittsburgh where the whole Henry and Sam stuff went down. You arrived there to find it overrun by bandits and could piece together enough information to learn what had happened.
Fedra had been keeping the rations for themselves and starving people, and when they were ousted, the bandits rose up in their place. People like David ended up leaving, and they’ve run into the same problem in terms of food.
Now the dialogue in this scene starts to transform into how it plays out in the game.
I remember experiencing this for the first time, and my stomach dropped with the turn. This was a guy you’d just fought side by side with and had now inadvertently revealed yourself as being one of the people who has caused his town so much torment.
They have the added layer of the person Joel killed being the father of the girl at the steakhouse, and they are of course supposed to reflect Joel and Ellie.
We see how the stories have changed too, with Joel being described as a crazy man, whereas we know from our side that they attacked Joel and Ellie.
In the game, we never saw David and James sides after the conversation, but we can see the doubt in him once more resurface as he lets her go.
Now we return to the house and again see things play out similar to how they did in the game.
Originally in the game, this was the moment you learned that Joel was alive, and you’d played a large part of the game as Ellie, where you had no idea what his fate was.
Similar to the game, Ellie lies down with him, and whereas in the game we cut to the morning to see David’s forces coming in, here we cut to the town.
There’s a lot of focus given to the meat, with people clearly knowing what’s going on but keeping it to themselves because the truth is too difficult to bear. It’s said to be venison, but whether that’s actually true or not is another thing entirely. James does talk about the supplies earlier in the episode, but we know from their interactions that they use code with each other.
They could all be lying to themselves, but let me know below exactly what you think.
Now at this point, David and James arrive with the deer, and you could say they’re like David and James because they’ve saved a life…
David admits that they’ve found who killed Alec, and he slaps his daughter when she suggests killing them. It shows just how abusive he is, and he tells the girl that he’s her father now. The entire town sits in silence and allows it to happen, and I think it very much shows the grip that he has over everyone. When things often come out about figures like this, you’ll often hear about how many people were aware of what was going on but turned a blind eye to it.
It’s very much the idea that you don’t have to deal with something if you’re ignorant of it, and no matter how horrific it is, you can reassure yourself that everything is ok. The reason I question the venison is because this could very well be carried over to the food too, and we get a lot of focus on the townspeople wolfing it down.
They’re just happy to tuck into their food as speaking up is better than starving.
Now back with Ellie, we see that Joel looks slightly better. She injects him once more, and we get a slight deviation from the game as Ellie gets to go outside whereas in the game she spotted the people coming in from the basement.
We get a great scene with David and James, with the former clearly wanting to take her even though it will only cause problems back in their community. David wants to spare her because he has ulterior motives, whereas James sees it as God’s will that they should leave her to die.
This very much reflects Kathleen’s belief from earlier in the season, when she believed that it was Sam’s fate to die instead of getting the leukemia medicine.
Either way, in both versions, Ellie decides to head out and draw them away, giving us a big action scene.
Ellie leaves Joel with a knife, which he later uses to interrogate the people with.
In the game, Ellie took to her horse and rode through the streets as the hunters leaped out to grab her. Eventually the horse was shot, she fell down a cliffside, and she had to go into a hotel to try and escape. Here she was grabbed by David, which is when she was transported to the camp.
Here they shorten things a bit, with Ellie riding out and the horse getting shot by James.
David demands that Ellie be taken in alive, and I did find it interesting how much he mirrors Kathleen. Her need for revenge led to her making dumb decisions, and David’s need to have Ellie leads to him doing the same thing. He stops Ellie from being shot and even carries her away, similar to how Joel carried Sarah at the start. This sick and twisted father figure is pretty much the reverse Joel and he’s arguably the most dangerous person we encounter in the whole show. Outside of one other character, but moving on.
Now in the game, once Ellie was captured, we then switched perspectives to Joel, like what we get here.
When you first took control, you were stumbling around and a little worse for wear, which we also see here. The tension in the scene comes from the fact that Joel is almost out of it, but he manages to get the upper hand and take down David’s men.
The death scenes are terrifying, with a lot of the struggles feeling like they’re ripped right out of the game. The facial expressions especialy are something that I always spun the camera around to see and I guess…guess weve discovered I’m a bit of psychopath.
Now from here, we get the interrogation scene. I was so happy to see this playing out, as I was thinking that the scene with Graham Greene was going to be the show’s version of it. You might have seen this scene spoiled for you if you watched our breakdown for that episode, as I genuinely thought that was how they were going to play it. But why have they done something that basically amounts to what is essentially the same scene? Well, it’s for a good reason; here we are seeing the true side of Joel when Ellie’s not around and she’s in danger. In the cabin, we knew nothing was going to happen, as did the couple, because there was a little girl there. They were likely aware Joel wouldn’t do anything, which is why they were laughing. Here, though, Joel is free to do what he wants, and he will do whatever he can to get Ellie back.
Now let’s play the scenes from the game and show them so you can see how stuff lines up.
We also get a follow-up to this with Ellie and a moment that builds upon the original.
Ellie realizing they’re cannibals is so chilling, because they miss steak, and it was a mistake getting Ellie caged like this. This picturesque resort has turned into something where people have turned to cannibalism as a last resort and…
David recognizes the violent heart within Ellie, and he even talks about how Cordyseps showed him the truth of the world. It feeds and protects his children and that it actually loves. We realize at this point that the religion thing is a charade and that he lets the others believe it because it brings them comfort.
Now the Cordyseps loving is something that the show creators have talked about on the podcast, and they said that they even had the kiss with Tess to hammer home this idea. Love is laced throughout every aspect of the show, and we’ve seen both the positives and negatives of it. You have people like Bill and Frank and the couple in Episode 6, but then you have people like Kathleen and Joel, for whom it just causes pain.
David has a sick and twisted kind of love, and when he’s assaulting Ellie later on, he creepily says, “Don’t be afraid; there’s no fear in love.
The Cordyseps have very much made him believe that his sick and twisted view of the world is the right one, and it’s a chilling way to portray the character.
Though his plan with Ellie fails, it’s likely that he would’ve gotten her into the camp had things not gone awry. Taking out Joel would’ve all helped him because no one would’ve leaped to her defense because of what she and Joel did at the university.
Thus, Ellie would have been alone, and what people tend to do in abusive relationships is get people away from their friends and family. Thus, they have no one to fall back on, and with this safety gone, they can fully manipulate the person and control every aspect of their life.
Now back with Joel, we watch as the storm rolls in and he makes his way to Salt Lake City. This is a similar thing to the game, with you being able to use the environment to mask your movement. Inside a hut, he discovers belongings and bodies hanging up, which is similar to what happens when you enter it on the game. You also find Ellies back pack, which is ripped right out of it too, and he realizes just how much trouble they’re in.
This episode in general reminded me a lot of the movie The Road, in which the characters also come across cannibals. Also, it’s important to keep in mind that James is comfortable doing this with the chopping board, probably because he’s helped David kill people like this before. In the game, he even refers to Ellie as David’s new pet, showing how he views her.
We then get Ellie’s escape in another scene that’s ripped right out of the game.
The Last Of Us Episode 8 Ending Explained
Now you might be asking whether Ellie biting someone can actually infect them, and there’s a bit in the second game that clears this up. I’ll talk about that in the super spoiler section, but we at least know the answer to it.
Either way, they cut the sections down here and compress the scenes so that Ellie goes immediately into the restaurant. In the game, you made your way through the town and jumped back and forth between Joel and Ellie. I think it’s smarter to handle it like this, and we see Ellie throw a burning log, which ends up setting the place on fire. In the game, as you went to escape, David grabbed you, and eventually this knocked over a lamp, which started the fire.
Several lines from the game are pulled across directly from here, with the things David says being repeated.
Ellie burning down this quote-unquote church also symbolically shows how she’s burning down the facade of everything that David has built.
The pair battles it out with one another, with the struggle being exactly like how it is in the game.
We see the death with the focus on Ellie, showing how much overkill she’s giving to this wicked and evil man.
Joel comforts her, and we get a really important line dropped here where he calls her baby girl.
This is the same nickname that he gave Sarah, and at this point, he’s all in on this being his daughter. The pair walk off together with his arm around her, which is the complete opposite of how they were in episode 2. After Tess’s death, Joel just stormed away, leaving Ellie, whereas here, we see them closer than they’ve ever been. The pair have bonded over everything they’ve been through, and whereas she once was just Cargo, here he’s putting a coat around her to let her know everything is ok.
That closes out the episode, and we once again get a shot of the pair walking away. This is imagery that’s often used in the show and game to indicate that the characters are going on the next part of their journey.
Now again I thought this episode was really solid and there were some great performances in it. Scott Shepherd brought a lot to David, and at points he was even creepier than Nolan North due to some of the extra lines of dialogue that they added. It was really nice seeing Troy Baker too, and he gave a lot away with just minor facial expressions. Guy looked completely beaten up by the world, and his meek performance made me think that he very much represented the town citizens who refused to confront David about how bad he actually was.
I think this episode worked really well as an evolution for Ellie as well. It’s no coincidence that this is the chapter in the game in which you first take control of her, and I like that this section is very much about her having to fight to survive without help from others. So far, she’s relied on people like Fedra, Riley, Marlene, Joel, Tess, Henry, and Sam, but this is her way of showing that when she’s cornered, she can handle whatever comes her way. We also see that the character is realizing that this world isn’t as fun as it was first made out to be. Going back to that opening in episode 3, we’ve seen how she thought wielding a gun was something cool and exciting. Here, she is smashing David’s head in, like, the like button, and we see the relentless anger that she carries. Huge change in the dynamic and her growth as a character.
Now as for what I didn’t like, you already know what I’m going to say: I think the show has continued to underuse the infected, which has taken away from some of the most memorable scenes of the game. I think if we had something with David where they had to fight some of them, it would have made that turn as impactful as it is in the game, and with the episode being just 45 minutes, I think we could have easily gotten another 10 where they had something like that play out. I’m guessing that they’ve pulled back on showing the infected as much because of budget, but every week it seems like their major moment in each location is what’s left on the cutting room floor.
Minor nitpick, and yeah, obviously, the game is there if you want to see more of them, but I did kind of want an action scene like that with Ellie so we can see that she’s capable of surviving against those and the humans.
Now that takes us into the super spoiler section, and for the next part of the video, I want to go into some of the easter eggs that will probably give the game away.
If you don’t want things spoiled, then thanks for watching up until this point, and I hope to see you back for the finale next week.
Now the first thing I want to talk about is the interrogation technique. In Part 2, Ellie also ends up using this, and we of course needed to see her actually see it for herself to explain how she knows this.
We also discover that Silver Lake is a resort rather than just a town. I wonder if this line was thrown in to show how resorts had been changed across the country, as Part 2 ends with Ellie going to a resort on the hunt for Abby. This was controlled by slavers, and you see how these holiday locations have been twisted in this new world.
Now lastly is Ellie biting David. Was he infected or not? We don’t fully know.
However, Ellie does end up kissing Dina in the second game, and at one point, she also bites Abby when fighting her in the theater.
As we know, Abby doesn’t get infected, so I don’t think that Ellie’s bite could actually infect people. The infection seems to have stopped at her arms and not made its way to her salivary glands, so she doesn’t really pass it on.
Thus, I don’t think Ellie actually infected David, and she either didn’t know or she used it as a weapon. Throughout the series, she’s been told to hide it from people, but she pulls it out in this moment to further sow doubt and confusion. This throws James off a bit, and it adds to what he was experiencing before, allowing Ellie to escape.
Anyway, that wraps up the video, and I want to give a huge thank you for sticking with me until the end. I know that asking you guys to give up sometimes 40 minutes of your time to watch these things is a big ask, and I appreciate you sticking with me through it all.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the video, and now I’d love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments section below.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away three copies of the Rocky 4K boxset on the 15th of March. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on, and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month, and the winners of the last one are on screen right now, so message me at @heavyspoilers if that’s you.
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 want to know more.
With that out of the way, thank you for sitting through the video; I’ve been Paul, and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.