“The Last of Us” has officially wrapped up its first season, and boy oh boy was it a wonderful rollercoaster of emotions.
The seventh episode, “Left Behind,” covers the video game’s downloadable content side story of the same name. It functions as a sort of prequel to the main series and shows how Ellie got infected with the cordyceps fungus and how she ended up encountering the Fireflies.
The episode, a faithful recreation of the DLC, attracted backlash due to its depiction of a kiss between Ellie and her best friend, Riley. In fact, the episode was censored in certain regions, with the kiss totally removed from the episode.
Episodes eight and nine take viewers through the last act of the game, including Joel and Ellie’s run-in with the sinister Silver Lake cult and regrouping with Marlene and the rest of the Fireflies.
It is here that the show demonstrates that oftentimes, other human beings are the bigger threat. The handful of clickers that do make an appearance pale in comparison to the horrific human antagonists the duo take on. Content warning — there is an attempted sexual assault, as well as much more of the show’s trademark guts and gore.
However, amongst all the ugliness, there were several moments of beauty interspersed throughout the rest of the city. The iconic scene where Joel and Ellie encounter a giraffe in Salt Lake City is a treat for the eyes, and audiences finally get to see the pair finally open up to one another fully.
Fans of the game will be pleasantly surprised to see Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson — the voice and motion-capture actors for Joel and Ellie in the games, respectively. Baker plays James, the right-hand man of cult leader David, while Johnson has a smaller — but no less important — role as Ellie’s mother, Anna.
While there is still no news on when season two will premiere, there have been teasers and other crumbs dropped by people connected to the franchise. On March 19, series creator Neil Druckmann posted a graphic to his Twitter page depicting a scarred arm wielding a hammer. It is a promotional graphic from 2017, which foreshadowed Abby, the polarizing dual protagonist of “The Last of Us Part II.”
Druckmann has confirmed that season two of the show will follow “Part II,” and while there has not been an announcement about casting, Abby is guaranteed to be a significant part of the show. It remains to be seen if the previous controversy will get stoked up again.
“The Last of Us” is available for streaming exclusively through HBO Max, and the first episode is available for free. Fans can also tune into the official companion podcast and listen to the official soundtrack on Spotify. The first game, originally a Playstation exclusive, will release on Windows PCs on March 28, 2023.
