HBO The last of us is a way to revisit the iconic and beloved video game of the same name – to revel in how it is both unchanged and entirely different. For devoted fans of the game, the appeal of The last of us is not necessarily to be surprised by the twists and turns of the story; it’s more about seeing the franchise in a new light, picking out the little details that hark back to the original media.
There is a lot to see in this regard. Video games are notorious for their Easter Eggs, the small and obscure references hidden away as little in-game surprises. And so it only makes sense that HBO The last of us would do the same, to give subtle (and not-so-subtle) winks at all The last of us– heads there. The last of us part 1 I felt like he wanted to be a movie or a show so badly, and now the TV show is changing that – at least in a way.
Episode 1 Easter Eggs
Halican Drops
Picture: Shane Harvey/HBO
Halican Drops is the name of the band on the t-shirt that Joel’s daughter Sarah (played by Nico Parker) wears at the start of the show – and the game. There isn’t really any significance to the band in the game, other than a few posters, but the back of the t-shirt foreshadows how the game will unfold: each stop on the tour is a different location that Ellie and Joel will visit throughout their journey.
In addition to Sarah’s T-shirt, there are also Halican Drops stickers in the windows – at least according to the set pictures.
Rear driving
When Joel, Tommy and Sarah attempt to escape Austin during the chaos of the initial outbreak, the show’s makers cleverly use the camera angle to make The last of us feel like the video game. It’s all in the third-person view, with the camera in the back seat. That’s exactly how the game is shot from the truck – you’re still playing as Sarah at this point, and she’s in the back seat. Several of us immediately noticed that it was just feels like a video game during these shots, a trick that serves much better here than in other TV adaptations of games, like Halowho tried the first person view, including player UI.
Sarah wakes up
Sarah wakes up in her bedroom in the middle of the night in both the game and the TV show, stumbling sleepily in the dark to see what’s going on. Both scenes provide a bit more context but in different ways. In the video game, you control Sarah, and she stares into her house in the dark. You’re not on a set path, and you can pick up things around the house, which provide a bit more context – an article is a log detailing how admissions to local hospitals have increased by over 300%. In the video game, an infected person walks through the glass door, but Joel shoots them, before they run outside and Tommy shows up, just in time.
The last of us In the TV show, Sarah wakes up, alone, because Joel went to break Tommy out of jail. She ends up at the neighbor’s house, bringing their frightened dog home. That’s when she gets a very clear glimpse of what’s going on: the infected old lady is snacking on her roommates. This scene portrays the horrors of the infected in a different way, giving a bit more context to show viewers what’s going on.
Joel’s Key
Tommy and Joel stop at their neighbor’s house just as Sarah is attacked by the infected old lady, but luckily Joel has a deadly weapon: a wrench. The heavy key appears to be forearm’s length and probably quite handy when escaping the city, but Joel drops it right away.
Why not save it for later use? Throw it in the back of the van and you won’t even have to hold it. Our best guess is that it’s a nod to gaming – in The last of us part 1 and The last of us part 2, you get a maximum of three hits on your daily melee weapons. They break all the time, and that’s by design. The last of us is a game about survival, and you have to collect everything, including bullets and, yes, keys to hit infected objects.
Marlene
Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Does Marlene in The last of us Does the TV show sound familiar? This is because the same actor plays both roles. Merle Dandridge plays Marlene in The last of us part 1 and The last of us part 2taking the role a third time for the HBO adaptation.
When you’re lost in the dark
Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO
The complete sentence, When you’re lost in the dark, look at the light, appears several times in the series, and it is pasted all over the games. The phrase is graffiti on walls in Boston (and probably elsewhere), a symbol and motto for the revolutionary Fireflies group – the people who fight the oppressive military in the country’s quarantine zones. Marlene is one of them, and an important one at that: she is the leader of the Boston faction and the person who entrusts Ellie to the care of Joel and Tess.
Curtis and the Viper 2
Curtis and the Viper 2 is the movie that Sarah picks up from the neighbor in The last of uspulled out of a shelf alongside Pink Panther and murder ball. Unlike these two, Curtis and the Viper 2 It’s not a real movie, but it’s still important. people who played The last of us part 2 will remember it in tears – it’s alluded to in Game 2 as a corny movie from the 80s, but one that was going to mean a lot to the two people watching it.
“The Long and Winding Road”
When Ellie and Joel are waiting for Tess to seek escape from Boston’s Quarantine Zone, Ellie picks up Music Hits Book #1 and flips through it. There’s a page marked with a piece of paper – the radio code for Joel and Tess’ smuggling operation. The page it opens to is easy to miss, but may be a nod to the franchise – “The Long and Winding Road” by the Beatles. It could refer to the long, winding road that will take Ellie and Joel across the United States, or perhaps the long, winding road it’s been on for a while. The last of us the film adaptation was announced in 2014.
Bigwig’s Daughter
In the same scene where Joel and Ellie are discussing the radio code, Joel begins to question Ellie about her own life – why Marlene and the Fireflies are having such a hard time smuggling her out of Boston. No one yet knows Ellie’s true condition – that she is immune – and she is sworn to secrecy. Joel asks if Ellie is a “big shot girl” or something, and Ellie replies that it’s “something like that”. These few lines are taken straight from the game, but in these scenes, it’s Tess talking to Ellie as they escape the area.
Get out of the quarantine zone
Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Ellie, Joel, and Tess’ escape from the Boston Quarantine Zone has a few hits that are heavy references to the game – the overgrown world is dark and gnarly with cars and buses to crawl under and through. But there’s one scene in particular that stood out for its similarities to an iconic level of The last of us part 1: Chapter 3, “The periphery”. As they crawl through tunnels and debris, the trio must dodge the searchlights and flashlights of the military guarding the Quarantine Zone wall – places in the game where it’s essential to play the game as stealthily as possible. Visually, the show does a smart job of emulating that feeling.
