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Generally talking, The Last of Us has taken a whole lot of care to be a self-sufficient adaptation—a TV sequence that even somebody unfamiliar with the online game can comply with alongside simply superb. But that sturdy feeling has began to slide a bit in the previous few episodes of season two, because the present launched the Seraphites and the troopers of the WLF with no entire lot of context. As mentioned in earlier weeks, it is perhaps a really lengthy whereas earlier than that context comes—making current episodes really feel somewhat missing.
But Sunday’s episode, “Feel Her Love,” is the primary time this season that it’s actually felt like figuring out the supply materials could be genuinely useful. So a lot occurs so rapidly—within the shortest episode of the season to date—that it is genuinely somewhat disorienting, even in case you’ve performed the video games.
As author/co-showrunner Craig Mazin is keen on doing, the episode begins with an authentic vignette by which a WLF officer (performed by Hetienne Park of Hannibal fame) is being interrogated for killing the boys below her command. She explains it wasn’t that straightforward. After looking down some contaminated in Seattle’s hospital, she despatched a workforce all the way down to its basement ranges, the place they disappeared. She then despatched one other workforce after them, led by her finest soldier, Leon, who radioed again with horrible information: The cordyceps progress beneath is uncontrolled, filling the basement with spores. She listens to Leon’s final moments: The spores are choking him, and he is aware of he is doomed, so he tells his commander—his mom—to seal everybody in. As the interrogation concludes, the WLF officer is recommended for her sense of obligation, and given condolences for her loss.
Here’s the primary little annotation value making: This scene is not simply organising the episode’s ending, which takes place within the hospital’s basement ranges. It’s additionally revisiting the present’s most substantial change from the online game. In the PlayStation model of The Last of Us and its sequel, the cordyceps an infection spreads by way of spores, very like different real-world fungi. As you realize by now, issues are a bit completely different on the present; the an infection spreads by way of tendrils that penetrate hosts, normally by way of bites. When the TV model of The Last of Us launched, Mazin and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann talked about this variation at size with out totally leaving spores off the desk. Now right here they’re—but it surely’s probably not clear why, aside from as additional proof that the cordyceps an infection is altering. Those adjustments, and the hospital basement, are additionally organising one in every of The Last of Us Part II‘s most memorable monsters—however we probably will not get to see the HBO model of it till the present’s third season.
After the chilly open, we then rejoin Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) within the theater the place they’re holing up. As Dina works out a secure path to sneak into the hospital, Ellie roots across the theater stage, discovering a rack of guitars. She picks one up, performs the primary few bars of a track, after which appears to get too emotional to do extra. It’s somewhat unusual, contemplating she simply completed enjoying all of “Take On Me” final episode—however this episode particularly feels prefer it’s attempting to cram in a whole lot of related bits of plot from the sport in a really restricted span of time.