The Last of Us Recap With Spoilers: “When You’re Lost in the Darkness”

Spoiler Warning: This article will contain major spoilers for HBO’s The Last of Us and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us video game from 2013. 

HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us begins with a haunting scene not seen in the game: A fictional ABC talk show from 1968 featuring two epidemiologists talking about the threat of fungus against humanity. One of the epidemiologists, Dr. Newman, notes how certain fungi can control hosts and sort of zombify them, which begins to cause some distress amongst the audience and panel. The other epidemiologist notes that it’s extremely unlikely that this could happen within humans due to our internal temperatures, but Newman argues that if the world got warmer, the fungi could mutate and become capable of controlling humanity with no way of stopping it.

The show flashes forward to September 26th, 2003 where we are introduced to Sarah, the teenage daughter of a single dad named Joel Miller. Unlike the game, we get to spend quite a bit of time with her and follow her throughout her day. She’s clearly the one with her life together as Joel sleeps through his alarm on his own birthday and she cooks him breakfast while he rushes to put some clothes on with messy hair. Joel’s brother, Tommy, arrives to pick Joel up for their construction job and notes he’ll be working late to Sarah, but will pick up a cake to make up for it. As the trio gets ready to leave, the Millers’ elderly neighbors ask if Sarah will come visit after school and to keep an older woman named Mrs. Adler company. Mrs. Adler is unable to speak and seemingly has limited movement, as she sits in her wheelchair almost completely still.

After school, Sarah stops by a watch shop in the city where she has Joel’s broken watch repaired. As numerous police cars and emergency vehicles race through the streets outside, a woman comes out and urgently tells Sarah to go home because they are abruptly closing. Sarah stops by her neighbor’s house where she borrows a movie to watch with Joel, but out of her sight, the elderly woman begins to violently twitch and make disturbing facial expressions. As Sarah leaves the house, she notices the dog staring at the elderly woman in a strange way and then several fighter jets zoom over the neighborhood. It’s very clear that something bad is brewing, but it’s unclear what exactly. A few hours later, Joel arrives at home, but forgets the cake much to the dismay of Sarah. She gives him his repaired watch and then puts in the movie she borrowed from her neighbors. After Sarah falls asleep on the couch, Tommy calls Joel and tells him that he’s in jail after getting in a bar fight, meaning Joel has to come bail him out, leaving Sarah home alone.

The Outbreak

A few hours pass and explosions begin going off outside while helicopters fly over head, waking Sarah from her slumber. She eventually wanders over to the Adler’s home and finds the previously wheelchair-bound elderly woman seemingly eating her caretakers with some sort of tendrils that come out of her mouth. Sarah bolts out of the house while Mrs. Adler gives chase, but Joel and Tommy arrive in time to save the terrified teen and they kill Mrs. Adler. The trio escape the neighborhood in Tommy’s truck as the entire Adler household wanders out into the street and begin attacking the other neighbors.

As the family tries to find the best route out of Texas, they quickly realize they’re running out of options and start taking detours, hoping to get to Mexico and away from the chaos. Unfortunately, they end up in a town surrounded cars and civilians in the street, preventing them from being able to move much. After getting stuck in the street, a plane falls out of the sky and crashes behind them, flinging debris that crashes their truck which temporarily knocks them unconscious. Sarah is injured and unable to walk, forcing Joel to carry her. Tommy gets separated from the father/daughter duo, leaving them alone and vulnerable. As luck would have it, an infected man spots them and begins chasing them, but a soldier shoots the man and saves them.

However, the soldier notes to his commanding officer over the radio that Sarah is injured and is ordered to kill Joel and Sarah. The soldier opens fire as Joel turns his body with Sarah in his arms and tumbles over after getting hit. Joel lays on his back and begs for mercy from the man who is about to execute him. Thankfully, Tommy shoots the soldier, but it’s not all good news. Joel was just barely grazed by the soldier’s bullets, but Sarah was hit. Joel rushes to try and help her, but it’s completely out of his control and she bleeds out and dies in his arms while Tommy watches helplessly.

20 Years Later

The show flashes forward 20 years to 2023 and a child is seen wandering around in an unkempt version of America before stumbling upon a fortified city. A group of guards restrain them to a wheelchair before discovering that they appear to be infected, so they give the child a lethal injection. We then meet present day Joel doing odd jobs in a Boston quarantine zone where he is tasked with burning bodies, including the aforementioned child. It’s clear this is an oppressive city that is run by a militant group known as FEDRA willing to kill or brutally punish anyone that steps out of line or shows signs of infection.

Joel meets with one of the guards in secret and sells him some drugs while also inquiring about access to a vehicle. After making a deal for a truck, Joel walks away and the show transitions to a new character named Tess. She’s being held captive by a man named Robert who sold a truck battery that she had already paid for to someone else. The two are trying to figure out how to move on from the situation when the wall behind them explodes. An extremist group known as the Fireflys are raising hell in the streets and battling with FEDRA, resulting in Tess getting captured by FEDRA amidst the chaos.

Joel enters an apartment building and sits down to talk with an older man who controls a radio to communicate with people outside the QZ. He asks the old man for an update on Tommy’s whereabouts after losing contact with him several weeks ago, but there is no news. Joel then makes a plan to go searching for Tommy across the country in Wyoming. Tess joins Joel in his apartment where she reveals that the truck battery that he needs was sold to someone else, resulting in the two going on the hunt for it.  

A Foul-Mouthed Teen Named Ellie

Elsewhere, we’re introduced to a foul-mouthed teenage girl who has been chained up in a room and is being evaluated by Fireflies to ensure she’s not infected. She claims her name is Veronica, but her real name is actually Ellie. It’s unclear why she’s being held here, but it’s clear she isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

In another room the leader of the Fireflies, Marlene, outlines a plan to leave the QZ with the little girl they have chained up. Marlene meets with Ellie and gives her a backpack with a knife. She emphasizes that Ellie must stick with the Fireflies and leave the QZ with them because she has a greater purpose.

Joel and Tess eventually track the truck battery to the Firefly HQ where Robert, his men, and a bunch of Fireflies lie dead. The battery is deemed unusable before Joel encounters an injured Marlene and Ellie, who lunges at Joel with her knife, but is quickly disarmed. Joel notes that he needs the battery to go find Tommy, who is also a Firefly, and Marlene makes a deal to give him a new battery, truck, and guns if he can get Ellie to another group of Fireflies for a hand-off at the State House.

Joel nor Ellie wants to do this, but out of desperation, he agrees. Joel, Ellie, and Tess go back to the apartment and kill time until nightfall so they can sneak out of the QZ under the cover of darkness. After successfully getting beyond the wall surrounding the city, the trio is stopped by the guard that Joel sold drugs to. Due to the recent Firefly terrorist attacks, FEDRA is on high alert and the guard refuses to turn a blind eye. He begins testing the group to make sure they’re not infected, but Ellie stabs him in the leg when he scans her. Joel steps in front of her as the guard points his gun at both of them, which triggers Joel’s PTSD from the night his daughter dies. In a fury of rage, he beats the guard unconscious with his bare hands. 

Tess then sees the infection scanner and realizes Ellie’s been infected, though she contests that she’s not actually sick. Regardless, here’s no time to talk as more FEDRA guards are on the way, so the group goes through a chain link fence that leads into an unprotected part of the city. The episode closes with Depeche Mode’s Never Let Me Down Again playing and a shot of the decrepit city as screams from infected can be heard, highlighting the imminent dangers that are waiting to be encountered.

Differences Between Game and Show

So naturally, as an adaptation, things between the game and show aren’t one to one. The biggest changes really revolve around everything up until the outbreak in the first half of the episode. In the game, players are dropped into the night of the outbreak. The scene with the epidemiologists is an entirely new addition that helps make it clear out the gate that this isn’t just a traditional zombie virus. It’s something that is based in reality, though expanded upon to create a fictional outbreak. The only time we ever leave the POV of Ellie and Joel in the game is also in the introduction, which is also expanded upon. 

In the game, it starts right when Joel comes home from work and Sarah gives him his watch. In the show, we get an entire day with Sarah that creates a tense build up to the outbreak and also helps us connect more with her so the tragedy that follows hits harder. Everything after this is largely as was seen in the game, with a few minor tweaks and additions.

Joel is a drug dealer in his QZ, Tess and Joel have a slightly more overt romantic relationship than in the game, we get to see Tess’ encounter with Robert before she meets up with Joel, and Joel’s overall motivations are a bit changed. In the game, Joel and Tess go after Robert because he stole a weapons cache from them and then sold it to the Fireflies. In the show, however, Robert is meant to sell a truck battery to them, but he gives it to the Fireflies. The truck battery would be used to power a vehicle for Joel to go searching for Tommy who he lost contact with. Marlene then offers him a battery in exchange for transporting Ellie cross-country. This change from the game allows for a more character and emotionally-driven motivation for Joel than some weapons.

The Last of Us will continue to air every Sunday on HBO at 9PM ET. What did you think of the first episode? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder. For more Last of Us content, check out ComicBook and Entertainment Tonight’s new podcast: The Last of Pods. The podcast will include breakdowns of each episode, interviews with special guests from the show, and more. The podcast will release after every episode of the show on Sunday nights.