The Last of Us TV show on HBO is full of Easter eggs and nods to fans of the franchise — everything from weapons to dialogue pulled straight out of the game in episode 8 with the cannibals.
HBO’s The Last of Us is a way to revisit the iconic and beloved video game of the same name — to revel in the ways it’s both unchanged and entirely different. For dedicated fans of the game, the appeal of The Last of Us is not necessarily in being surprised by twists and turns of the story; rather, it’s to see the franchise in a new light, picking out the little details that point back to the original media.
There’s plenty to see in that regard. Video games are known for their Easter eggs, the small and obscure references hidden as little surprises in the game. And so it makes sense that HBO’s The Last of Us would do the same, to make subtle (and not-so-subtle) nods to all the The Last of Us-heads out there. The Last of Us Part 1 felt like it so badly wanted to be a movie or show, and now the TV show is switching that up — at least in one way.Episode 8Meeting the cannibals
Ellie meets David (Scott Shepherd) and James (Troy Baker) in nearly the same way she does in the games: They’ve found the deer she’s hunted, they ask if they can share the meat since they have a lot of people to feed, and David sends James off to get some antibiotics for a trade. They sit around the fire after dragging the deer in, and he gets creepy talking about how “everything happens for a reason” during this “especially cruel” winter.
As far as Last of Us adaptations go, episode 8 is one of the more consistent ones. Ellie gets captured and breaks David’s finger when he tries to come on to her. David and James try to kill her only for her to pretend to infect them and then kill James. She runs into Todds Steakhouse (though in the game it’s “Todd’s”) trying to get away, where David finds her and they ultimately fight while the place burns. Much of David and Ellie’s dialogue is used verbatim. Even David’s banner has been faithfully re-created for the show.
There’s a few differences: It’s unclear if David actually does have a group of women and children in the game like he purports. And it being a video game, Ellie and David fight off some infected together, including a clicker. Oh hey, it’s Joel from the games
Episode 8 features another star-studded cameo from game: Troy Baker, who plays cult disciple James in the show and voices Joel in the games. “Mark it on the map”
When Joel does come to, he goes on a rampage, killing members of David’s flock and torturing them for information on Ellie’s whereabouts. He tells one of the cult members to mark the resort’s location on the map, and tells him it better be the same as his friend’s. It’s a tool The Last of Us utilized in episode 6 with the incredible grumpy couple they meet in the opening. But the game used it first in the cannibal chapter.
The torture scene is more or less one to one between the game and the show: When Joel goes to the other guy, he delivers the killer line: “It’s OK. I believe him.” An emotional reunion
Ellie and Joel reunite at the end of the cannibal chapter in both the game and the show. Both scenes have Ellie violently stabbing David and splattering blood everywhere, and Ellie at first shrugging Joel off, saying “Don’t you fucking touch me!” when she’s not sure who came up behind her.
In the show, however, Joel shows up in the aftermath. His game counterpart is actually the one who pulls Ellie off of David while she’s still traumatized and hacking. The result is the same — Joel comforts Ellie like she’s his daughter and calls her “baby girl” — but the small change feels telling. In the video game, so much of Joel and Ellie’s bond comes from the actually playing the game, with Ellie being just as violent as Joel out of necessity. Here, Joel only sees how much trauma she’s gone through, positioning him (just before the final episode of the season) as much more clearly the father figure she needs to protect her in this world. Episode 7Left behind
Episode 7 is pulled right from The Last of Us Part 1’s Left Behind downloadable content and it plays out just like the extra content does — the HBO episode is even named after the DLC. The episode is just as heartwarming and heartbreaking as the extra content, the majority of it playing out inside a Boston-area mall with both Ellie and Riley. But just like the DLC, “Left Behind” is punctuated with Ellie attempting to take care of Joel after he suffers a pretty bad wound at the university.A-ha cassette
Ellie’s got a few cassette tapes hanging around, and the HBO camera lingers on one for a bit: It’s from A-ha, the 1980s synth-pop band. What’s the relation to The Last of Us? There’s a sweet moment in The Last of Us Part 2 where Ellie sings A-ha’s “Take on Me” for Dina, her girlfriend. It’s also used in a trailer for the show.Halloween masks
Ellie and Riley visit a Halloween store in The Last of Us Part 1’s DLC. As Ellie, you can walk around and explore — and if you choose, put on the wolf mask. There’s a whole bunch of cute, silly dialogue that’s unlocked when picking up and trying on different masks in the store.Water pistol
There’s a nod to the DLC in the show when Riley mentions she’s got a gift for Ellie; Ellie asks, “Is it a water pistol?” Riley says that it’s something better, but in the game, Riley actually does have a water pistol for Ellie, and they end up having a water-gun fight. The water-gun sequence isn’t in the show, but it’s an important moment in the game: It’s the event that leads directly into their kiss, which otherwise plays out the same way it does in the series. Mortal Kombat 2
Ellie and Riley don’t actually play Mortal Kombat 2 or any video game in the DLC — the arcade cabinet for the fake Mortal Kombat-like game doesn’t actually work. Instead, Riley has Ellie close her eyes imagine how a fight in the game would go based on her descriptions. You press the appropriate buttons through the imagined fight in Left Behind, but those actions don’t translate as well to TV.Is that Twilight?
The Last of Us’ Boston area mall has a movie theater and marquee inside it, and it’s showing a Twilight-esque ripoff called Dawn of the Wolf Part 2. Because, after all, Twilight isn’t a movie that was out in 2003; Twilight wasn’t released until 2008. There are movie posters and billboards all over the first game, and Joel mentions is being a cheesy teen drama. But after playing The Last of Us Part 2, some people started to think that it was a reference to the second game — it’s Part 2, naturally, but also brings in a group called the Washington Liberation Front, or the Wolves.Ellie’s pun book
Episode 7 has a vital origin story for the series: It’s where Ellie gets her precious copy of No Pun Intended: Volume Too. As in the DLC, the book is a gift from Riley, and Ellie reads some puns aloud to both of them, including some quoted in this episode. (The game allows you to continue reading and has a truly impressive amount of puns, which delight Riley and Ellie whenever they understand enough of the old world to appreciate them.) Losing our minds together
Ellie and Riley’s moment together after they were bitten plays out in HBO’s The Last of Us as it does in the video game. It’s a tender and heartbreaking moment where Ellie and Riley try to come to grips with their fate — that they’re infected and will eventually turn. Of course, we know that Ellie is immune and won’t turn after all.Episode 6Astronaut dreams
Ellie spends a lot of time in episode 6 thinking about her future. As a kid growing up in Boston’s quarantine zone, she said, she was forced to look at the jail-like walls or the ocean. Shunning those, she decided to look upward, into space. Ellie tells Joel she wants to be an astronaut, like “Sally fuckin’ Ride.” This comes up in The Last of Us game, but is really fleshed out in The Last of Us Part 2, which has a touching moment between Joel and Ellie inside a run-down science and history museum.Is that Dina?
Once inside the Jackson, Wyoming, compound, Ellie and Joel sit down for some food — their first proper meal in a while. While they’re eating, a young girl peeks from behind a bannister to catch a glimpse of Ellie and Joel. Ellie scares her off with a look, but we can’t help but wonder: Is that Dina? The Last of Us Part 2 fans will know who Dina is, since she’s a huge part of the second game — she and Ellie share a kiss that then develops into a real relationship.Shimmer
Regardless of whether it’s Dina, there’s one The Last of Us Part 2 cameo that’s for certain in the show: Shimmer. During the tour of the commune, Ellie’s introduced to a newborn horse, who Maria tells her is named Shimmer. Shimmer is Ellie’s horse in The Last of Us Part 2.Sniper lessons
With a powerful sniper rifle from Tommy, Joel and Ellie head out of Jackson in search of Fireflies. In The Last of Us Part 2, in a flashback, Joel’s brother Tommy teaches an older Ellie to shoot with a sniper rifle. First, she starts shooting at targets, like some wooden signs. Then she upgrades to infected. There is also a moment in The Last of Us game where Joel teaches Ellie how to shoot a rifle, something she says she’s only shot at rats… with BBs. Of course, the game scene is much less heartwarming — it’s a do-or-die situation.Not my daughter
HBO’s been playing up Joel and Ellie’s father/daughter-like relationship for the whole show, a mirror to his relationship with his biological daughter, Sarah. And it all comes to a head during an argument between Joel and Ellie in Jackson.
The scene between the two plays out almost identically to the game, in a pink room that’s reminiscent of Sarah’s. (The actual location of the room is different in the game and show, however: Ellie runs off to a random, far-off house in the game, but in the show she’s in the house assigned to her and Joel in Jackson.) Joel wants to leave Ellie with Tommy; he thinks she’s better off getting to the Fireflies with him, that he himself can’t keep Ellie safe. That tension, of course, is because he feels like he failed Sarah, so when Ellie brings it up, he snaps: “You’re right, you’re not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain’t your dad.”Dam!
Ellie and Joel skip right over the dam, which is a significant mission with lots of fighting in the game. But they do stop to take a look at it, and Ellie makes a pun — but she’s no Will Livingston, a reference to her pun book, according to Joel.Joel’s singing aspirations
Can you believe it? Joel wants to be a singer. The lines here are pulled straight from the video game. But does Joel ever end up singing for Ellie? Perhaps you’ll have to play The Last of Us Part 2 for that.Monkeying around
Ellie and Joel explore the medical lab at the University of Eastern Colorado, and that’s where they see a bunch of escaped lab monkeys. They find ’em in the game, too, in the same scenarios. But the game explores that context a bit more through a voice recorder left by a Firefly.
