Once again, this season 2 of The Last of Us has created some discrepancies with its source material: the famous video game from Naughty Dog, winner of the Game Award for best game of the year 2020.
Warning, this article contains SPOILERS on episode 5 of season 2 of The Last of Us, but also on the history of the video game. We advise you to turn back if you don't want to discover the plot.
The Last of Us season 2 episode 5, the series gets straight to the point
Seattle, Day 2. It is with this wink addressed to the players that HBO begins this fifth episode of its season 2 of The Last of Us. For those who haven't played it, this is a way of including the story in time. Dina and Ellie therefore begin their second day of hunting in Seattle. While the series follows the same narrative as Naughty Dog's title, namely the objective of infiltrating the hospital, co-creators Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin went straight to the point, wrapping everything up in one episode: the passage in the suburban Hillcrest - deleted in favor of a more horrific sequence - the walk in the Seraphites' park, and finally the chase with Nora.
With 5 episodes out of 7 already released, HBO doesn't have much time left to bring its story to the climax of the video game. While there is still a lot to tell to wrap up the season, the masterminds of the project are not taking the risk of getting lost along the way (as was the case in the first season), this one being unfolding like a hunt, which adapts a much denser source material. A pace that may have put off some, however, who wanted to see a longer hospital sequence (one of the most distressing passages in the game), or a less rushed trip to the Seraphites' park.
#3 Dina doesn't stay at the theater and accompanies Ellie
This is what was foreshadowed in the previous episode. Dina does indeed accompany Ellie in her second session in Seattle. Although she is pregnant, Dina intends not to leave her sweetheart alone to face the infected and find Abby. And to justify this presence, HBO decides to pull a plot twist out of its hat: her tragic personal story, which shaped the character she is today, bringing her closer to Ellie. In short, Dina understands the loss of her friend and wants to help her, because she has also experienced the loss of a loved one and this feeling of hatred.
We recall that in the game, Dina remains locked in the theater to leave the player alone in control of Ellie, without an ally. However, we suspected that the character played by Isabela Merced would be forced to abandon. Here again, HBO manages to create a maneuver to connect the wagons with the game: In the park, Dina takes an arrow from a Seraphite. Jesse, who found the group earlier, retreats with her.
#2 The Hillcrest area replaced, Jesse as the great savior
Jesse therefore does not join Ellie in the same way as in the game. At Naughty Dog, he finds his friend's trail. It is in Hillcrest, a residential area that has become one of the WLF territories, that he arrives to save Ellie. An infiltration sequence with dogs trashed by HBO.
The network opted for a scene in a building filled with prowlers. The new creatures of this season, presented in the first episode (one of them bites Ellie in the supermarket). Unlike the first season, HBO is focusing more on the threat of the infected. This is a way to show that the virus is more than ever at the heart of the series and to play on an escalation that reinforces its horrific side. Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin displayed their will during the promotional campaign. While the two teenagers seem doomed to die, Jesse arrives as a great savior. But he didn't come alone: Tommy is also in Seattle. In the game, Joel's brother has already been there since day one.
#1 The Spores, finally!
Announcement from the series creators, official trailer, then final trailer for episode 5, the famous spores are one of the new features that HBO is banking on a lot. Remember that this aerial transmission of Cordyceps introduced in the first episode was not previously included in the script. Here it is. Gradually revealed from the first minutes of the episode as a new threat that no one controls, the Spores are plaguing the basements of the Seattle hospital. Ellie will discover this when she pursues Nora deep into the building. A superb filmed sequence, almost silent, except for the breath of an infected person stuck to the wall spitting out spores.
Like Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill, Ellie checks off a first victim on her list. A crucial scene since she has just learned the terrible truth about Joel from a member of the group responsible for his elimination. We eagerly await the last two episodes, and to see if Ellie will fall a little further into darkness.
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