The massively successful first season of The Last of Us TV show is almost over as we wait for the finale episode that will air in India on March 13, Monday morning. Critics and viewers have hailed HBO’s adaptation of the video game from Naughty Dog with the same name as one of the best video game story adaptations to live action yet.
HBO’s production moved past the initial doubt with the success of the adaptation when they named their cast for the show. Pedro Pascal plays the part of Joel and Bella Ramsey dons the avatar of the young girl Ellie as they travel across a post apocalyptic America trying to get to their objective.
The adaptation has been highly rated by critics and viewers and HBO already renewed the show for a second season back in January 2023. Proof that the show is successful is that the pilot episode managed to get 4.7 million viewers. And the viewership increased with each successive episode. Neil Druckmann who wrote and co-directed the game is one of the executive producers of the TV show and credit to him for the success of both.
The Last of Us Season 1: Recap
Episode 1
The first episode of the show called “When You’re Lost in the Darkness”, starts off by describing the cordyceps fungus that could possibly evolve into an invasive species for humans and we cut to a a time when that happens. The year is 2003 and the mass fungal infection of mutated Cordyceps sparks a global pandemic. A younger Joel tries to escape the city with his teenage daughter Sarah and his brother Tommy. While escaping they come across a soldier who kills Sarah. We skip forward in time 20 years and join Joel in the Boston QZ where he and Tess are successful smugglers. The city is torn apart by the government representatives FEDRA and the rebel group Fireflies. They need a car battery to escape and find Tommy who has gone missing, and stumble into an injured Marlene who urges them to take Ellie to a Firefly camp outside city. They agree to it and while getting out come across three soldiers and come to know Ellie is infected but immune.
Episode 2
The second episode is titled “Infected” and shows patient zero and how this whole pandemic started in Jakarta, Indonesia. Back to the present Ellie, Joel and Tess must find a way through the State House that is swarming with infected where Ellie and Tess get bitten. Tess sacrifices her life to let the other two escape and asks Joel to take Ellie to Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Episode 3
Third episode called, “Long, Long Time”, is directed by Neil Druckmann and was a massively popular episode which takes a detour from the main story shown in the games. This episode deals mainly with the relationship of Bill and Frank, and how they found each other after the pandemic started and lived their lives these twenty years. They were friends with Joel and Tess and both of them die shortly before Joel and Ellie reach their estate and find a truck to travel ahead to find Tommy.
Episode 4
The fourth episode is titled, “Please Hold to My Hand” where Ellie and Joel take a detour through Kansas City and run into trouble with a group of local bandits led by a woman named Kathleen. She believes Joel and Ellie are in league with a man named Henry and orders a manhunt for them. Joel and Ellie hide out in a high-rise and wake up in the middle of the night with Henry and his younger brother Sam holding guns to their faces.
Episode 5
On to the fifth episode titled, “Endure and Survive” where Ellie and Joel make a truce with Henry and Sam. They try to get out of Kansas with Kathleen and the thugs after them and while on their way out, they get pinned down by a sniper at the end of a street. Joel takes care of the Snipers but the others are caught by Kathleen and the goons but in a turn of events a crater opens up in the ground and infected pour out and they manage to escape. This is also when we see the hulking Bloater infected for the first time. Sam gets infected and Henry kills him and then himself.
Episode 6
The sixth episode is called, “Kin” where Joel and Ellie arrive in Jackson, Wyoming to find a thriving settlement and Tommy alive. Tommy’s pregnant partner Maria tells Ellie about Sarah while Joel insists Tommy to take Ellie to the Fireflies. In the end he changes his mind and takes her himself and they run into thugs at the University of Eastern Colorado where Joel is stabbed and they escape.
Episode 7
The seventh episode is titled, “Left Behind” and show Ellie taking shelter with an injured Joel in an abandoned house. Joel ask Ellie to leave him and escape and Ellie is reminded of the time she escaped FEDRA school with her friend Riley who had joined the fireflies. They go to an abandoned mall and have a fun time but get bit by an infected. This is where Ellie is bit for the first time. Back to the present, Ellie finds a sewing needle and stitches Joel’s wound.
Episode 8
The eighth episode that aired this week is named, “When We Are in Need” and follows Ellie as she goes out looking for food and kills a deer. She runs in to David who is a cult leader and gets some Penicillin from him. David and his goons later come back to hunt Ellie and Joel and capture Ellie. Meanwhile Joel wakes up and realizes Ellie is missing and in danger. Ellie manages to escape and finally kills David before being found by Joel.
Episode 9
This brings us to the ninth and the final episode which will air on March 13 in India and will lead to the second season which will follow the events of the second game.
