Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us episode 2 ahead
The Last of Us‘ second episode premiered just under 24 hours ago and fans are already praising the show and one scene in particular. The second episode was adored by fans and currently has a score of 9.5/10 on IMDb. This comes after the immense success of the show’s opening episode which had a 9.2/10 on IMDb and was HBO’s second biggest debut after the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon.
The episode had lots to talk about. We saw the development of Joel and Ellie’s relationship, we were introduced to the Clickers for the first time on screen and they were incredible, and to top it all off we were treated to the heroic sacrifice of Tess at the end of the episode that somehow managed to top the game’s original scene. Fans have been praising the adaptation and in particular, how Tess’s death was handled. While it’s certainly different from the way the game took it some viewers were able to spot the similarities between the way Tess acts both in-game and in the show.
The HBO companion podcast goes into a lot more detail about the scene itself and the implications of Tess’ sacrifice. Fans of the original game will know that Tess was originally shot by Fedra after being bitten as she stayed behind to cover Joel and Ellie’s escape. While she’s still covering their escape in the episode this time it’s infected that chase the others. This was a deliberate decision by both Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the show’s co-writers and producers, as they noted it would have been weird for Fedra to have been that far out of the Quarantine Zone. Despite this change, the scene is still as impactful as the game and the overall reasoning and implications of the scene are almost identical bar a certain creepy kiss.
The scene and episode also introduced us to a new element of the virus that wasn’t a part of the original game as well. We learn that the virus can communicate through fungal vines in the ground which is what causes a horde of infected to storm the group’s location at the end of the episode. Both Mazin and Druckmann go into more detail about this in the latest episode of HBO’s The Last of Us companion podcast and it’s well worth a listen.
