HBO’s new hit series “The Last Of Us” placed lots of faith on the source material’s writing. The TV adaptation doesn’t veer far from the script set by the video game.

HBO’s take on the video game finally answers the question: What if a big-budget TV or film adaptation stayed faithful to the source material, even repeating the same scenes, lines, and big story beats? The result has shown to be a beautiful on-screen adaptation of the beloved game.

Directors Ali Abbasi and Jasmila Žbanić have done well at implementing these moments full of nostalgia while still delivering new ideas to the series.

The result of being true to the source material and introducing new ideas that don’t change the core of the story is a show with 9/10 on IMDB, 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and has amassed over 30 million views.

The series opens with a clip of scientists in 1968 talking about the prospect of a viral pandemic. One scientist suggests that bacterial and viral infection will be the biggest threat. Epidemiologist Dr. Neuman, played by John Hannah, disagrees saying the fungi are really the greatest threat.

“Viruses can make us ill, but fungi can alter our very minds,” Neuman said. “There’s a fungus that infects insects. Gets into an ant, for example, travels through its circulatory system to the ant’s brain, and then it floods it with hallucinogens, thus bending the ant’s mind to its will.” 

This serves as a partial explanation to how the fungus will work, basing it on a real fungus called cordyceps unilateralis. Neuman finishes his explanation saying that if the world were to get hotter, cordyceps would have to adapt to survive in hotter temperatures. He argues that the ability to survive in higher temperatures would allow it to infect humans.

After this scene, it jumps to a scene of Joel (Pedro Pascal) eating breakfast with his daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) in 2003. They talk about how something is happening in Indonesia but they don’t really understand what’s happening and Joel promises Sarah that he’ll be home by nine.

Before leaving, Sarah steals Joel’s watch and some money to fix the watch. They go to leave and talk to their neighbors who were sitting outside eating biscuits.

After school, Sarah goes to a clock shop. While there, in the background, sirens and firetrucks are speeding past. Soon the owner’s wife comes in and says something is going on and they are closed, warning Sarah to go home.

Sarah instead goes to her neighbors house, where she asks about what’s happening – but the neighbors brush it off. While at the neighbors’, it becomes apparent that something isn’t right with the grandma, and the dog stares nervously at her; so Sarah decides to leave.

Once home, Sarah gives Joel the fixed watch and shortly after goes to sleep. Joel then goes to bail his brother Tommy out of jail, after Tommy stopped a man from attacking a waitress.

After awakening, Sarah sees all TV channels are giving warnings to stay inside, and the dog is at the door begging to be let in. Sarah investigates the neighbors house, finding them both injured and the grandma infected. Joel and Tommy show up soon after to save her.

The three frantically drive away, creating a scene that is framed exactly like the game. They drive away until a plane crash destroys their vehicle and leaves Joel and Sarah separated from Tommy.

While trying to regroup, Joel and Sarah are attacked by an infected. They desperately try to make their escape,  thinking they are safe after a soldier shot the infected.

After the soldier relays the situation to command, the soldier receives his orders, and is clearly disturbed as he asks for the orders to be repeated. After they are repeated, the soldier slowly raises his weapon and fires upon Joel and Sarah.

 The soldier walks to  stand over them, and says he is sorry before raising his gun at Joel once again. Before the soldier can finish Joel off, he is shot by Tommy.

Soon after, Joel realizes Sarah was shot multiple times in the abdomen. She dies in his arms as he helplessly tries to stop the bleeding.

Jumping 20 years into the future, Joel is in the Federal Disaster Response Agency (F.E.D.R.A.) quarantine zone (QZ) in Boston, and has met a woman named Tess (Anne Wersching) over these years,  along with doing small jobs for F.E.D.R.A.

F.E.D.R.A is the main authority in the U.S following the outbreak of cordyceps, effectively replacing the former government after the collapse.

The fireflies slogan, “Look for the light,” is seen painted in several spots. The fireflies are rebels who look to overthrow F.E.D.R.A. The penalty for being one of these fireflies is death. 

Cutting back to Tess, she is tied up by a man named Robert who sold her a bad car battery then spent the money before she could get it back. The car battery is needed for Joel to reunite with his brother Tommy, who is in trouble in Wyoming.

After a lot of debate, they decide to let Tess go, but upon hearing what happened, Joel is extremely angered and wants his revenge.

After looking for the people who stole their money and beat Tess, they come across the aftermath of a gunfight. When sweeping the building, they run into Marlene, (Merle Dangridge) the leader of the fireflies. Marlene has been shot and convinces Joel to take a young girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey).

Marlene says Ellie could be a potential source of a cure, and tells them the fireflies will be at the Capitol building outside the QZ, ready to transport them to a hospital to develop a cure.

They escape the QZ, but are forced to kill a soldier on patrol as he goes to test them. Coincidentally, it’s the same soldier he sold pills to earlier.

The first half of this episode is very good. The second half is much slower, but is focused on developing the plot for later episodes. This pilot episode perfectly grabbed people’s attention with the first half then used the second half to set the plot and character build.

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Episode two opens with another flashback taking place in Jakarta, Indonesia. It follows an Indonesian professor of mycology as she is approached by a General and told she must leave to do testing.

When autopsying a man’s body from a grain mill in Indonesia with a bite on the lower leg and a bullet wound in his head, when opening the leg wound with a scalpel she sees a fungal growth inside. Looking into the man’s mouth she pulls out living cordyceps tendrils, in reaction she runs out in a panic.

The General asks what to do, but the professor says there is nothing that can be done but to bomb the city and everyone in it. She leaves to be with her family as the General sits in astonishment.

It is shown later that governments would eventually turn to bombing large outbreak zones, but it would be in vain as it was too late to stop the spread.

These flashbacks tell the story of the origin of the outbreak: the first time this virus was seen was in a grain processing plant in Indonesia. Multiple workers were bitten, and 14 were able to flee the scene, allowing the infection to spread.

Starting with a shot of Ellie asleep, the three had taken shelter for the night in an old shop. Joel and Tess argue about whether or not Ellie’s immunity is the real deal, but Tess has become a full-on believer by this point.

When traveling to the Capitol building, they scout from a building and see that the infected block the easy route there so they must take the harder route through the museum.

When going through the museum, they encounter the first kind of special infected, known as the clickers.

Encountering two clickers, the group originally opts to sneak past them – but Ellie breathes too heavily and alerts them as one follows Joel and Ellie, and another chases Tess. Eventually, they take them both down after a coordinated effort, but Ellie was bitten in the struggle.

When arriving at the Capitol building, they see an abandoned armored vehicle with blood around it. Advancing inside, they see numerous dead fireflies.

While Joel checks to make sure they are dead, an infected springs to life and Joel shoots him. Live cordyceps in the ground connect to the infecteds hand and alerts other infected in a wide area around them.

This is the show’s way of working around the decision to not use spores in the show. Insead, the no longer sustainable infecteds form wire-like connections of cordyceps that can form up to a mile long. This growth alerts the infected inside that radius when stepped on or stimulated in some way.

This is one of the biggest changes to the cordyceps in the TV adaptation. The directors opted not to use the spores because that would require our characters’ faces to be covered a majority of the time. This lowers an audience’s ability to connect with the characters.

Many were skeptical of this change as it’s a core piece of the virus and how it infects but the hive mind-esque connection is also very interesting and after the show was released many fans’ worries would cease on this issue. 

Joel estimates they have about a minute to escape but Tess reveals that she was bitten during the previous encounter with clickers.

Tess starts knocking down gas barrels and tells Joel and Ellie to leave as there is no saving her now and they must leave, the infected break through the door and Tess pulls out a lighter but struggles to light it. 

Eventually she gets the lighter to ignite and drops it, killing herself and the horde in the blast.

This episode further develops the plot; Tess dying makes Joel try to put an emotional barrier up against Ellie yet he is stuck with her as he promised Tess he would take Ellie to Bill and Franks. 

This episode also shows the first special infected in a high tension scene, displaying the clicker in a very authentic way that has pleased fans. The fans have also shown to be okay with the series not showing spores as a way of infection.

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Episode three primarily follows different characters in Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Barlett) and their love story that’s distinctly different from the game.

A flashback shows how Bill survived the outbreak, while the F.E.D.R.A. evacuates people Bill  hides in a secret basement within his home until the soldiers leave as he doesn’t trust the government

This proves to be a good choice as it’s shown that those civilians were later executed by the F.E.D.R.A. soldiers because there was no more room in the QZ.

As a rugged survivalist, Bill gets right to work. Once the town is evacuated, Bill has the entire town to himself. Bill goes to a hardware store to get supplies, and then goes to the gas plant to get natural gas running again.

Multiple years pass, and it’s shown that Bill has been living pretty well in the post-apocalyptic world, fortifying his town with an electric fence and traps to stop raiders which he hasn’t even seen yet. As well as having fresh meat from cattle he raises, he is self-sufficient and safe from the horrors around him.

One day, a man falls into one of Bill’s pit traps. Upon realizing it’s a person, not an infected, Bill tests him using the tester used by F.E.D.R.A. – and it shows negative.

Bill helps the man out, and the man tells Bill his name is Frank in an attempt to make it harder to kill him. Frank soon after asks if he can have some food and stay for the night.

“If I feed you, then every bum you talk to about it is gonna show up here lookin’ for a free lunch, and this is not an Arby’s,” Bill said.

Frank snaps back, saying that Arby’s didn’t give out free food. Quickly, Bill is persuaded to let him in to eat and take a shower.

Bill cooks a meal for Frank, and Bill finds it hard to deal with all of Frank’s compliments. Eventually, they start playing the piano, and play “Long Long Time” by Linda Rondstadt. The lyrics of this song are used to mirror their relationship.

The story jumps about three years into the future, as Frank starts to talk to more outsiders because he was going crazy from Bill’s isolated paranoia.

These outsiders are Joel and Tess, who Bill is not so happy to have as company, Joel shows his value by saying he can get Bill things he doesn’t have from the QZ.

Joel takes note of the wire on Bill’s electric fence starting to rust, and Joel offers high tensile aluminum wire which will last much longer. Before they leave, Joel warns Bill that raiders will eventually attack them.

Another jump takes us to a shot of Frank asleep in the bed alone, as he awakes to the sound of gunshots and fire from Bill’s traps.

Frank arms himself with a pistol and runs outside. Bill is in the middle of the street, sniping at the raiders in the rain.

Bill kills a few before the raiders return fire and hit him in the abdomen. Frank quickly rushes him inside and stops the bleeding. While Frank takes measures to save his life, Bill says the fence and traps should get the rest.

Another jump in time shows that Frank and Bill are both clearly aged, and Frank is bound to a wheelchair. Something is different though, as it’s unusual for Frank to be up earlier than Bill. Soon after, Frank told Bill this will be their last day on Earth together; he believes he has lived all he wants to.

They live out their final day together before enjoying the exact same meal as when they first met, paired with the same wine. 

Frank’s wine has medication in it for him to overdose on, and after their meal, Bill reveals he also spiked his own drink and wants to die with Frank.

Bill, who was a loner with no one for the beginning years of the apocalypse, found someone he loves – and would rather die on his own accord with that person than live on without him. Their death is truly poetic and they give their belongings to Joel and Tess in a letter they leave behind.

Joel and Ellie come through some time later, and gear up with equipment and Bill’s truck before driving off, ending the episode.

This episode has an amazing twist on Bill and Frank’s story in the game, as the story of Bill and Frank in the game is extremely tragic. With the upcoming stories of characters like Henry and Sam, the TV adaptation required a more upbeat episode.

While you can hardly call this a happy ending to the story, it is heartwarming and a beautiful way to tie off this beautiful story.

The next segment will cover episodes 4-6, as Joel and Ellie make their way through Kansas City trying to get to Tommy.