Episode 7 of The Last of Us features a small shot of Dawn of the Wolf Part 2, a holdover from the original game that evokes the Twilight movie franchise, in the Left Behind flashback.
2003 was a helluva time, both for our world and the world of The Last of Us. Reality got The Return of the King, the Iraq War, and the completion of the Human Genome Project. The Last of Us-verse got a zombie pandemic and the second installment in a Twilight ripoff. You might miss the latter for the former in all the hubbub, but episode 7, “Left Behind,” certainly nods to the in-universe lore of the (we’re guessing) great franchise Dawn of the Wolf with a tiny blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg.
As Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her friend and would-be paramour Riley (Storm Reid) go on their tipsy escapade that Riley has prepared for them, there’s plenty of details to admire around the Boston mall they’re wandering in. That includes a movie poster and marquee for Dawn of the Wolf Part 2, a movie that — like any piece of media referenced in just about any piece of media — feels important. But also important to this story: It’s not a real movie.
Dawn of the Wolf Part 2 (and probably Part 1, if I had to guess) is a totally in-universe movie for the world of The Last of Us, seen in glimpses of the poster or billboard.
