THE LIVE-ACTION adaptation of the critically acclaimed video game is streaming now on HBO Go. The first episode just dropped, with new ones to arrive every week. With The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin at the helm of this series, could this be a live-action adaptation that actually doesn’t suck?
But for everyone who's played the video game, perhaps the biggest concerns on their mind are: What changed? Which parts stayed the same?
In a nutshell, all of the notable cinematic moments in the game have been accurately depicted in almost a shot-for-shot take, at least in this first ep. As expected, gameplay-specific battles and missions have been condensed to progress the plot at a quicker pace. (Hey, do we really need a dedicated sequence of Joel walking around while crouched down, collecting scraps of paper, and picking up planks?) The episodic format also provides an opportunity to see the POVs of other characters outside of Joel and Ellie.
Read on to find out what went down in the first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us. Warning: Spoilers ahead!

The opening cinematic of Last of Us will give you the eye sweats
The show opens, as the game does, with an epic shot-for-shot live-action remake of the Cordyceps outbreak sequence with Joel (Pedro Pascal), Tommy (Gabriel Luna), and Sarah (Nico Parker).
In the HBO show, however, we go even further back than the year of the outbreak with a 1960s television interview featuring a scientific expert (John Hannah), who helpfully explains the cordyceps’ parasitic behavior and the possibility of infecting humans.
And then we get to see more of Sarah’s backstory as we follow a typical day in her life in the year 2003. The series gives us time to get invested in the father-daughter relationship of Joel and Sarah and see the pre-outbreak world.
We even get to see brothers Joel and Tommy hanging out a bit, as well as the creepy neighbor who eventually goes zombie.
What happens next goes exactly like the game (minus the quick-time event prompts, of course). The same dialogue was also repurposed for the adaptation and deliberately used to hit us right in the feels, especially in that scene.
You are now entering the Boston Quarantine Zone
After the prologue, we get a 20-year timeskip, just like in the game. But since the Cordyceps outbreak happened earlier in the show, the events of TLOU already take place in 2023. There’s a lot more world-building in the series before you get to the actual plot. And since you can’t grab a controller and start effing about the environment, the show does the exploring for you.
By following Joel’s daily life in the Boston Quarantine Zone, from shoveling corpses to smuggling contraband pills, you get to see the brutality of the new regime — public executions, (literal) crap jobs, and people struggling for rations. You also find out that Joel has been trying to earn enough funds to fix his ride so he can search for his missing brother Tommy.
A particular military guard also gets more screen time and speaking lines in the show, so you know he’ll be plot-relevant later on. He’s a regular customer of the aforementioned drugs, and often provides intel for Joel.
You are also shown a bit of what happened to Joel’s smuggling partner, Tess (Anna Torv) before she ends up at his place — which is the game’s first scene after the timeskip.

You would not believe your eyes, it’s those freaking Fireflies
The revolutionary group called the Fireflies are a strong presence in The Quarantine Zone. Spray painted signs all over the walls is their slogan, “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light."
In the game, you get an earful of NPC chatter about the military-versus-Fireflies war. In the series, you already get scenes with Marlene (played by Merle Dandridge, who also voiced the character in the game), the leader of the Fireflies, as she plans with her crew.
There’s also one member who is foolish enough to approach Joel and attempt a recruitment pitch, complete with the light-and-dark song-and-dance number, which does not end well for the dude. You even get to see Ellie (Bella Ramsey) way earlier through her interactions with Marlene.
The “Robert Mission” a.k.a. “F**k around and find out!”
In both game and show, Joel and Tess will have to touch base with sleazy arms dealer Robert and his greasy ponytail. He eventually double-crosses them and sells the goods to the Fireflies.
In the game, the deal-gone-wrong pushes Joel and Tess to visit Robert’s hideout and greet him with their guns and fists. This serves as a framing device to enter tutorial mode so you can learn the controls and combat mechanics. You also get to hear some Robert trash talk. When you finally catch up to Robert, the guy isn’t even sorry for his betrayal, and so he receives a brutal beatdown, then a headshot for good measure.
The show cuts out the entire mission, immediately bringing Joel and Tess to the aftermath of a shootout with Robert already bleeding out on the floor. The pair still do a bit of exploring beforehand which leads to that encounter with an infected body. The show puts more emphasis on this reveal with a disgusting closeup of all the ’shrooms sticking out.
S**t still happens either way, and an injured Marlene shows up and dangles the stolen merchandise as incentive for Joel and Tess to do her bidding and transport special “cargo.”
The difference, however, is the actual stuff being bartered. The video game version has Joel and Tess, ahem, gunning for weapons, while the series features a truck battery. The latter will be used to fix Joel’s truck so he can continue searching for Tommy.
Meeting Ellie as she’s about to go stabby and escaping the city
As we said, the show offers you a glimpse of Ellie, long before Joel meets her in the game. In this scene, Ellie acts hostile... and with good reason: She’s been chained to a freaking radiator for days.
However, after a brief conversation connecting Marlene to Ellie’s past, she eventually warms up to the rebel leader.
When Joel and Ellie finally meet, we get a delicious live-action version of one of the best things about the video game franchise: the banter between Joel and Ellie. After she surprise-attacks him with a switchblade, she starts pestering him, as the universe intended. She even trolls him before they pull off their great escape.

It’s also another shot-for-shot moment from the game as Joel climbs up from an underground passageway while avoiding the roaming spotlights of the military government.
But before they could move on to the next part of the story, Joel’s guard frenemy blocks their way and checks their vitals. Ellie goes stabby-stabby once again, which almost gets her killed. A great addition to this encounter is a brief flashback of his long-dead daughter Sarah, which activates Joel’s dad mode. The rest of the scene follows the game's sequence where Ellie reveals her bite, freaking out Joel and Tess while she frantically explains her immunity.
The episode ends with a glorious shot of the skyscrapers that look straight out of the game.
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