From its opening moments, the HBO Tv show adaptation of The Last of Us immediately attempts to reframe the events of the post-apocalyptic story in the own, more grounded way. Though in line with the 2013 video game series by PlayStation Studio, Naughty Dog, it's immediately clear that the show, compiled by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (creative director on The Last of Us video game), aims to focus more on the emotional drama and human conflict of the story.
In this recap of The Last of Us Episode 1, we'll recount and think about the events of the show, and supply some light analysis and context in regards to how well the HBO adaptation handles and portrays its interpretation of this story, and how it compares to the initial gaming.
For more reading around the HBO Tv show adaptation of The Last people, you may benefit from the following :
- A spoiler-free overview of the whole first season of The Last people HBO TV series
- The Last people HBO TV series: Cast and Character Guide
- The Last of Us HBO – Episode 2 Recap – 'Infected'
- The Last of Us HBO – Episode 3 Recap – 'Long, Long Time'
- The Last of Us HBO – Episode 4 Recap – 'Please Hold to My Hand'
Behind-the-scenes podcast recaps:
- Everything we learned in HBO's The Last of Us Podcast – Episode 1
- Everything we learned in HBO's The Last of Us Podcast – Episode 2
- HBO's All of the Us Podcast – Episode 3 Recap – 'Long, Long Time'
The Last of Us has become streaming on HBO Max in the US, and Binge in Australia.
The Last of Us HBO – Episode 1 Recap – 'When You’re Lost within the Darkness'
This episode was compiled by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, and directed by Craig Mazin.
The show opens around 1968, on the television talk show where two epidemiologists discuss the way the hypothetical prospect of a pandemic might unfold in the future – a subject that's perhaps a bit too around the nose in 2023. For a show exploring these themes, however, it's probably better to understand this out of the way immediately.
One from the guests starts to talk about the very real concept of parasitic fungi – organisms that infect, kill, and control the body of the host to help spread their existence. Though they only really have the capability to affect insects at this time (since the fungi can't withstand the larger temperatures of the body) the epidemiologist shows that fungi could evolve, because of the right conditions, such as the increasing temperature of the world. Furthermore, he suggests there is no way that humans could combat this.
On this grim note, the opening titles run. They feature the theme song, The Last people, as written and done by Gustavo Santaolalla, just like it was within the video game.
Post title credits, the episode then jumps ahead to some suburb of Texas in 2003, where single father Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), a building contractor, and the teenage daughter Sarah (Nico Parker), are starting their day. It's Joel's birthday, and Sarah tries to make him a nice breakfast before he rushes off and away to work. It doesn't go great.
Joel's brother and contracting partner Tommy (Gabriel Luna) enters to join them, and begins eating leftovers from the fridge in lieu of pancakes – Joel had forgotten to obtain pancake mix from the store. Joel is painted as being forgetful and preoccupied with his work and the have to keep his family afloat, though has a clear lighthearted side, and is very open to playfully jesting with Sarah and Tommy. Sarah, meanwhile, is portrayed as the smart one out of the family – she corrects Joel and Tommy's speculation on where in the world Jakarta is, after they hear news on the radio a good incident there.
Before Sarah leaves the home, she sneaks into Joel's room to steal a broken watch, as well as a little bit of cash. Because they ready the vehicle to leave, Joel and Sarah have a chat with their elderly neighbours – one of whom is old enough to require assistance and seems mostly immobile and uncommunicative – and Joel somewhat humorously makes a commitment for Sarah to pay them a trip in the afternoon.
As Sarah attends school, she's momentarily distracted by the twitching wrist of the classmate, which causes light to bounce off his metallic medic alert bracelet. After school, she hops on the bus to some watch repair center in order to fix Joel's watch, but as the Lebanese owner of the shop is friendly, his wife quickly enters. Following a terse conversation in Arabic, she attempts to rush Sarah out to close-up. Thankfully, the watch is bound.
Sarah returns home and honour's Joel's commitment by spending some time together with her elderly neighbours, doing homework and watching raisin cookies get baked. As she peruses their DVD collection to choose a movie to gain access to (something Joel likes, for his birthday), the eldest woman from earlier, deeply out of focus in the shot, begins to violently convulse.
Sarah takes her leave right after, but stops to see the neighbour's dog is staring at the elderly woman, who's now sitting perfectly still.
Joel returns home from work late at night – later than he promised Sarah, and without returning a birthday cake, like he promised. Nevertheless, Sarah presents him the fixed wristwatch (inside a jovial interaction that appears to take its dialogue verbatim from the same scene hanging around), and also the two settle in to watch the film Sarah borrowed.
During the film, Sarah falls asleep, and Joel receives a phone call from Tommy – he's in prison after you have into a brawl with a violent man at a bar, and pleads for Joel in the future bail him out.
Sarah is awoken in early hours from the morning by explosions, and the sound of helicopters, but finds herself alone in the home. She's drawn outside by the appearance of the neighbour's dog, who she tries to return, although it breaks free from her grasp and runs off in to the previous night she will cope with the door.
Noticing the open door, Sarah cautiously investigates the house, and realises something is terribly wrong when she almost slips on a pool of blood in the kitchen area, and sees the once-immobile elderly neighbour now eating the necks of her family. She constitutes a run for it, with the infected neighbour frantically and clumsily making chase. As Sarah gets outside, Joel and Tommy careen to the scene in their pickup, and Joel kills the infected woman with a wrench, without hesitation.
There's confusion and desperation in equal measures as Joel, Tommy, and Sarah pile into the vehicle, yell at their neighbours, and careen from their street, getting a few of their now-infected neighbours along the way.
In a sequence that feels like it's pulled from the impactful prologue of the game, we're pulled in to the back seat of the car with the characters as they navigate the roads, come up with feeling of everything, drive past others pleading for help, and then try to discover a way from the city.
They eventually find themselves, unfortunately, in the midst of town, where crowds of confused people and confined streets halt their progress. Passenger jets also begin falling in the sky, and when you make a dramatic crash landing nearby, a bit of debris topples their vehicle. Sarah's leg gets pinned within the crash, and very soon after Joel pulls her from the wreckage, they're separated from Tommy in another vehicle accident.
Joel carries Sarah through the alleyways and shopfronts to try and regroup with Tommy by the riverfront, however the two attract the attention of a lone infected, who stumbles after them. Just like the monster is about to pounce, it's shot with a soldier, who then keeps Joel and Sarah at gunpoint.
As Joel attempts to explain that neither of them are infected, the soldier radios for instructions regarding how to handle the problem. As Joel slowly realises that the soldier continues to be ordered to kill them, he dives out of the way just like the soldier shoots, only for him and Sarah to tumble down an incline.
The soldier follows and raises his gun at Joel, but before he is able to fire again, he's shot and killed by Tommy, who's finally arrived on the scene. While Joel has escaped with only a graze, they quickly realise Sarah is way worse off, and in an elevated, emotional scene, she dies in Joel's arms.
The show skips ahead Two decades, after the day's the outbreak, focusing on the serenity of nature at first, after which reveals a devastated, post-apocalyptic cityscape – Boston in 2023.
A youngster stumbles through the scene, eventually finding himself in front of a walled city – a Quarantine Zone (QZ) – with American flags flying, heavily equipped guards on duty, and the word 'WELCOME' graffitied above its front gate. A guard notices the child, and rushes to assist as he collapses.
The child is brought in to the city, certain to a wheelchair, and that we get a peek at how society now deals with the condition that has seemingly wiped out most of the country's population. Like a friendly guard reassures the kid, another puts a tool for their neck to test them – which leads to a red screen.
Upon seeing this, the friendly guard explains that they're going to give the child some medicine, after which they will find new clothing, and feed them their favourite food. They're given an injection.
We cut to a scene within the city, where citizens are throwing corpses onto a fire. A truck pulls directly into bring more bodies, much to their dismay, along with a woman goes to begin unloading. She sees your body from the child from earlier – hooded, but whose identity is created clear by his distinctive sneakers, and tells her workmate, revealed to be Joel, that she can't bring herself to get it done.
With little hesitation, Joel picks up your body and tosses it onto the bonfire. The use of a dead child is really a grim, but somewhat necessary tool here – in the past Two decades since the death of his daughter, Joel has seemingly attempted to close up those kinds of emotions as a defence mechanism to survive this terrible ” new world “.
Joel collects his pay for the day, and asks about additional work from the FEDRA (Federal Disaster and Response Agency) officer in control, which paints a picture of how life in the QZ operates. We're given glimpses of the despondent citizens of the QZ, the heavily armed presence, the barter economy (which uses ration cards as currency) and strict curfew. It's a fascist dictatorship, basically. We're also given a short peek at a Firefly logo. We soon arrived at learn this is actually the democratic resistance group trying to turn things around.
Joel gets to a public hanging, where individuals that have attempted to sneak up or from the QZ are being executed – with several citizens attending. A guard catches the eye of Joel, who meets him inside a back alley, and we learn that Joel has become a smuggler – he provides the guard with a small amount of pills. The guard warns Joel the Fireflies have been increasing their activity lately, and for that reason, the protection is being extra vigilant.
The show then detaches from Joel, and that we cut to a couple of new characters: Tess (Anna Torv), who has been visibly beaten, and it is being held and apologised to with a man called Robert and the goons. Tess continues to be searching for a car battery, coupled with paid Robert for just one, but he'd mistakenly sold it to someone else. We presume that Robert's goons had beaten Tess up after she objected, and Robert is attempting to make amends – lest Joel, Tess' partner, involves take revenge.
Before they are able to agree with a strategy, they're interrupted by a surge, which takes out the wall of the building they're in. Tess escapes to see that the FEDRA vehicle continues to be bombed, which a sniper is on a nearby rooftop, firing on FEDRA soldiers. She sees an incoming squad of FEDRA soldiers, surrenders to them, and it is detained.
In the next scene, we see Ellie (Bella Ramsey) the very first time – earlier than we all do within the events of the sport. She's chained up in an area, being watched by guards, and being asked with a woman to count to ten and answer a number of questions, presumably to assess her faculties. She's angry, and has been there for several days.
We rejoin Joel because he visits an invisible service, with people lined up to send messages to their loved ones across the nation. Joel cuts directly into speak to the operator to ask about Tommy – he's been gone for weeks, and Joel continues to be looking to get in touch with no success. He was last seen in Denver. Joel returns home, checks on his secret stash of weapons, and tries to estimate how far it's to travel to Denver. There's a shot of Joel's watch – now broken, but he still wears it – and he drinks himself to sleep. Tess joins him sooner or later during the night.
In the morning, Tess tells Joel concerning the kerfuffle with Robert and the battery – Joel is devastated while he was relying on the battery to travel across the country to find Tommy. The two make a plan to find Robert and confront him in order to find out in which the battery ended up.
As Joel and Tess find Robert's whereabouts, we're introduced to Marlene, the best choice from the Fireflies in Boston. We join her as her annoyed subordinates begin questioning the fact that they have been seemingly bombing random locations and holding a woman – Ellie – within their headquarters. Marlene reveals that they have been slowly diverting FEDRA attention from their location, in an effort to escape the QZ and take Ellie west across the nation. Marlene hands one of her subordinates a message from a radio tower, which stuns and motivates her.
Marlene meets Ellie and hands her the backpack that carries her possessions, together with a switchblade. Marlene unchains Ellie and formally introduces herself, climax revealed that Marlene has known Ellie for a lot longer than she realises, having put her in FEDRA military school for safety. Marlene explains that Ellie can't go home, because she has a far greater purpose that any of them could've ever imagined. She goes to tell Ellie the reason, under the condition that they never tell anyone, for anxiety about death.
We rejoin Tess and Joel because they enter an abandoned subway tunnel, arm themselves, and move to infiltrate the building where Robert has supposedly holed himself up, discovering a long-dead infected person in route there. Interestingly, the characters don't wear gas masks as they do in the gaming – regardless of the virus being rooted in fungus. The lack of spores, which is inherently tied to the nature of fungus, is one of the compromises the creators have made here.
After some light banter about Joel's construction background – showing that there is still some lightheartedness during these characters, they infiltrate the building, only to discover that Robert and his men have all been shot dead, and also the car battery that Robert promised them is defective. The two turn the corner to locate Marlene and her subordinate in the previous scene, injured, but not before Ellie attempts to ambush Joel together with her switchblade, and is promptly disarmed. As it turns out, Marlene needed the vehicle battery too, but the deal obviously went bad once they discovered it had been defective.
Now they've been injured and also the Firefly squadron has been scattered, Marlene instead convinces Joel and Tess to escort Ellie from the Boston QZ, and rendezvous with another group of Fireflies in the Massachusetts State House, where they will be provided with weapons along with a vehicle.
Ellie is cut back to Tess and Joel's safehouse, and as the adults discuss the very best plan of action, Ellie uncovers a magazine – a listing of chart-topping pop songs throughout history, along with a coded note – and quickly deciphers the radio can be used like a communication device between the pair along with a couple named Bill and Frank, with 1960s, 70s, and 80s songs denoting differing meanings. A 1960s song means they have nothing in, a 1970s song means new stock, but Ellie can't exercise exactly what a 1980s song means.
Joel ignores Ellie, and requires a nap to bide amount of time in another scene that's nearly shot-for-shot such as the gaming version (you'll recognise the 'Your watch is broken' line). When Joel wakes, the 2 possess a short conversation, and Ellie mentions the radio played an audio lesson which had the lyrics 'wake me up before you go-go', and realises with Joel's reaction that a 1980's song means trouble. Ellie smugly reveals that she's successfully deceived him, to Joel's dismay, before he is able to say anything, Tess arrives plus they get ready to depart the QZ.
After a tense scene where the trio successfully sneak from the zone, hide within the shadows, and dodge spotlights, they carelessly reveal themselves in front of a guard relieving himself. Fortunately, as it turns out, the guard is the one Joel provided pills to earlier in the episode.
Regardless, he orders these to surrender and begins to follow protocol by scanning all of them with the unit that checks if they are infected. As Tess and Joel are scanned and cleared they struggle to bargain with him. Ellie, however, looks concerned. As the guard starts to scan Ellie, she pulls out her switchblade and stabs him in the leg.
In the chaos, the guard points his rifle at Ellie, and Joel jumps among them, unarmed, to talk him down. Because the tension ramps up, Joel begins to get flashbacks of the situation together with his daughter Sarah at the outset of the episode, and that he suddenly attacks the guard, knocking him down, and beating him to death, his knuckles bloodied.
As soon as he's done, Tess quickly draws Joel's attention to the guard's scanner – which shows that Ellie is infected, and Ellie frantically shows them a healed bite on her arm and attempts to explain that she's not sick – the bite continues to be there for weeks.
As additional guards converge on their location, Ellie urges these to trust her, Tess hurriedly grabs Ellie and rushes to leave, and Joel remains in a bit of a dazed stupor, trying to process everything that's happening. Eventually, he grabs the guard's assault rifle, and they all flee together.
The episode ends back at Tess and Joel's safe house. Radio stations suddenly involves life, and starts to play a 1980s song: 'Never Allow me to Down Again' by Depeche Mode, because the trio incurs the night time, and also the sound of infected could be heard. The lyrics:
I’m taking a ride with my mate.
I hope he never lets me back off.
He knows where he’s taking me,
Taking me where I want to be.
I’m taking a ride with my best friend.
Stray observations and additional analysis
- This episode was written by both Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, which can be felt in the manner this episode mixes brand-new scenes (specially in the opening half) with those that are extremely faithful towards the game.
- The episode was directed by Craig Mazin, and also the 1968 cold open from the episode, and subsequent 2003 sequence really highlight his experience directing Chernobyl. It does a fantastic job of making an ominous, unnerving atmosphere where you know precisely what will occur to the characters under consideration (particularly if you've played the game), but you're fraught with nervous anticipation regardless. The prolonged sequence and knowing 'gotchas' within the opening – the automobile that rams the car in the game seems to stop short in the show – only adds to that.
- The host of the 1968 talk show is portrayed by Josh Brener, who you probably know from his role as Big Head within the HBO comedy, Silicon Valley. It's nice to see him again.
- Even though there are many scenes that appear almost exactly as they are doing hanging around, HBO's The Last of Us also shows that it is extremely willing to detach itself from the central characters and have fun with chronology, along with other techniques, operating of telling a much more interesting story suitable for the medium.
- There's a definite shot of dust within the light within the first scene in Joel's apartment. In the game, these shots are a frequent reminder of the constant threat of fungal spores that carry the problem. Within the show, these spores don't seem to be an issue (as evidenced because the characters don't wear gas masks, even just in enclosed areas with infected activity).
- While likely a compromise to be able to more clearly showcase the dramatic performances from the actors, it's strange how although the show constitutes a big effort to try to ground the hypothetical virus in real, scientific principles (that is fantastic), it nevertheless throws out one of of the most popular facts around fungi – that fungi and spores go hand-in-hand. It's how they reproduce.
- If you're a fan from the gaming version of The Last of Us, you might have gotten chills hearing and seeing the title sequence for the first time – I know I did.
- Line of the show: When Marlene lets on that she's known Ellie for a very, very long time, Ellie has a small moment where she dramatically says inside a hushed voice: “…are you my fucking mom or something?”
What did you consider the first episode of HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us? Tell us on Twitter, @GamesHubDotCom, and let us know what you'd like to see for future recaps.
