Details Overlooked in Season One of The Last of Us

The Last of Us, which was released by Naughty Dog in 2014, attracted much more attention than expected. The sequel to TLOU, which was the most popular game of the period in a short time, was also released in 2020. This year, the series with the same name broadcast on HBO Max in the world and on BluTV in our country blew the minds of almost everyone who had played the game and had not yet had the opportunity to play it, with its story and breathtaking scenes that remained connected to the game.

The series, whose first season lasted 9 episodes, completed the story of the first game with the season finale published last week. Despite its almost the same story as the game, The Last of Us has many details and easter eggs that can be overlooked by even the hardest fans. We have brought together these details that you may have overlooked for you.

Note: Contains spoilers!

The actress who plays Ellie’s mother in the final episode is actually Ellie from the games.

We had the chance to see Ellie’s mother Anna, whom we have never seen in the games and know very little about, in the final episode of the series. The successful actress who plays Anna, Ashley Johnson, is the name that gives life to the character of Ellie with her voice in the first and second games. Showing a successful performance in the final episode, where he participated as a guest actor, Johnson’s role in the series is among the details that many fans overlook.

Ellie’s immunity may be due to her mother.

Playing a central role in the story of the first game and the first season of the series, Ellie’s immunity was unfortunately never fully disclosed in the games and series. However, Anna, who we saw running away from the infected in the final episode of the series, was bitten just before Ellie was born. The presence of this theory, which some actors have thought about for a long time, is also in the series, “I wonder if Ellie has immunity because she was bitten before Anna gave birth?” This caused the question to be asked more often.

Evaluating the allegations on the subject in a podcast he attended, producer Craig Mazin signaled that this theory might be possible and that more information on the subject would come to light in the second season.

We see Shimmer, Ellie’s second favorite pet, much sooner than expected

The horse named Shimmer, which Ellie and Dina rode with in TLOU 2, appeared before us as an adult and strong horse in the story. In the 6th episode of the first season, we witness that Ellie met Shimmer when she was still a colt. This is how we witnessed how Ellie’s relationship with Shimmer started, especially when she had emotional attachments to Shimmer and saw him as more than a mount. .

For those of you who don’t know, we should mention that a friendship like Geralt and Roach in Witcher 3 is also for Ellie and Shimmer.

Adapting a mechanic we often use in the game to the series?

In episode 7, we see Ellie and Riley trying to make their way through the abandoned mall. At this point, we see that Ellie’s flashlight suddenly breaks down and Ellie tries to fix it by shaking it. Of course, this scene, which is quite ordinary for the audience who has not played the first game, actually emerged as a result of transferring a mechanic frequently used in the game to the series.

In the first game (especially if you’re playing on PlayStation), when your flashlight ran out of battery, you could charge the flashlight if you slightly shake your controller up and down. Flashlights, which broke down out of nowhere, especially while trying to fight the infected, caused many players to sweat for seconds.

Is it a dinosaur?

In episode 7, our character literally showers Riley with questions when Riley tells Ellie she has a gift for her. Trying to find out what the gift is, Ellie’s last question is “Dinosaur?” had happened.

We see a similar scene in TLOU 2. In a flashback about 3 years before the game, Joel tells Ellie that he has a birthday present for her. At this point, Ellie is showering Joel with questions, and again her final question is “Dinosaur?” is happening. Moreover, this time his gift is really a dinosaur.

You can also see in episode 3 of the series that Ellie’s interest in dinosaurs has existed for a long time. In a flashback showing Ellie’s days at FEDRA, you may notice several dinosaur drawings in Ellie’s room.

Ellie can’t swim in the show either.

As The Last of Us fans who have played the first game well know, Ellie can’t swim. In fact, just for this reason in the game, Joel constantly has to carry Ellie on the water with pallets. In the second game, this issue is humorously reminded several times between Ellie and Joel, who learned to swim.

In the show, when Joel, Ellie and Tess enter the flooded hotel, Ellie says she couldn’t swim. Although it does not have as much effect on the story of the series as in the game, this scene, which is a small reference to the game, makes the players who carried Ellie on pallets for hours smile.

The voice-over of Abby in the second game also appeared in the final episode

Abby, the villain of the second game, (to tell without any spoilers) turned into a character hated by almost all TLOU fans for some reason. In fact, the voice of the character, Laura Bailey, received death messages and threats from fans for a while, and was lynched on social media.

In the operating room scene in the season finale of the series, Laura Bailey plays one of the two nurses to whom Joel points a gun. Of course, when there are caps and masks, it’s kind of hard to tell which is Bailey. However, the producer of the series, Craig Mazin, stated in a statement that one of the two nurses was played by Laura Bailey and that it was a small cameo.

“The real Joel” became the villain.

Although many people watching the series have identified Pedro Pascal with Joel, according to Naughty Dog and the actors, the real Joel is actually Troy Baker. Known as the golden boy of the voice-over world, Baker’s voice may be known as Talion in Middle Earth games, Pagan Min in Far Cry 4, Samuel Drake in Uncharted series, Kai Leng in Mass Effect 3, and Joel in The Last of Us. He has also portrayed characters such as Hawkeye, Batman, Joker, Geo-Force and Noah van Helsing in many DC and Marvel animated films.

We see Baker, who played Joel in The Last of Us 1 and 2, as one of the villains in episode 8 of the series. Playing James, David’s right-hand man, the head of the cannibal team, Baker plays a character who, ironically, wants to kill Joel but doesn’t want Ellie to die.

Although it is not clearly explained how the fungus took over the world, all the clues point to one point: Flour.

Although the Cordyceps mushroom, which is the main focus of the movie and the series, appeared in South America in the game, we learned in the first episode of the series that the mushroom appeared in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta. In the following episodes, the information that the mushroom first appeared in a local botanical garden is shared with the audience.

However, the reason for the spread of the fungus in the series is not flowers, but flour. In addition to its botanical gardens, Jakarta has the world’s largest flour mills and production facilities. Also in the first episode, we can see the uninfected Joel and Sarah not eating the baked goods. While Sarah doesn’t eat the cookies her neighbors offer, Joel forgets to eat the cake Sarah made for him. The two also have to eat eggs for breakfast instead of making pancakes (since they run out of ingredients).

This detail, noticed only by attentive viewers, is also implicitly confirmed by Craig Mazin towards the middle of the season. So you see, taking a bite of Joel’s birthday cake might actually have ended the story before it even started.

We may have seen Ellie’s girlfriend in the second game, Dina, in the first season.

It was a matter of curiosity whether Dina, one of the important characters of the second game and known as Ellie’s girlfriend, would join the series in the second season. In the sixth episode of the series, in the scene where Joel and Ellie are having dinner at Jackson, Ellie realizes that a girl is watching her in a corner of the cafeteria and scolds the girl. Although it seems like a simple scene, this girl is thought to be Dina due to some of the dialogues in the second game.

In the second game, Ellie tells Dina that when she first came to Jackson, she was ready to run away at any moment, even storing food in her pocket. Dina, on the other hand, states that she saw him and admits that she has actually followed Ellie since she first came to Jackson. Many actors who remember this dialogue are almost certain that the girl in the cafeteria scene is Dina. It should also be noted that the two characters are very similar to each other.

In addition, Craig Mazin answered the questions on this subject, “Theoretically, it could be. Those who wonder if that girl is Dina have to wait for the second season”, partially confirming the claims that the character we see could be Dina.

It is currently unclear when the second season of The Last of Us, which took 200 days to shoot the first season, will be released. However, if the production team follows a similar route as the first season, it seems unlikely that the second season will be released before the summer of 2024.