The Last of Us: What is a Bloater?

The latest episode of The Last of Us largely followed the likes of Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard) in heartbreaking fashion, while also bringing Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) back into the mix. It also did a significant amount to further flesh out the post-apocalyptic world in which the hit HBO show lives in. That includes the viewers’ first glimpse at a Bloater, a massive boss-type stage of those infected.

While characters like Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) are original to the show, Bloaters are involved in the source material, appearing in both iterations of the Naughty Dog game series. In short, Bloaters are effectively the last stage of evolution amongst those infected, a stage that reaches years to obtain after infection.

In the games, Bloaters are the rarest of the infected, which makes them particularly hard to kill when they do show up. Within the show, viewers have only seen one Bloater, which ripped a human’s head off with its hands, setting a horrifying status quo as the show moves forward.

Does the Bloater use practical FX on The Last of Us?

While there is some visual effects involved, the live-action version of the Bloater is largely practical, including a massive suit crafted by Barrie Gower. According to Gower, the suit weighed roughly 80 pounds, so they had to find a sizable actor to wear it. Game of Thrones alumnus Adam Basil, who stands at 6’6″, eventually won the job of playing the show’s Bloater.

“We had a whole copy of his body that we modeled the bloater prosthetics over in modeling clay,” Gower said in a recent chat with Variety. “We cast it out of a foam rubber and foam latex, which is very lightweight. It’s almost like an upholstery foam, a very spongy sort of material. That was all molded and cast in separate sections: top half, head, arms, legs. We had a team who fabricated all these parts together. We had a zipper up the back and around the waist that we could zip them together. He had all these pendulous folds of fungus which hid zippers and poppers.”

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 Last of Us airs on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. Eastern every Sunday with The Last of Pods debuting immediately following each show.