The Last of Us Episode 2: What did they change from the game?

The anatomy of a clicker

There’s one more big scene to cover before the zombie horde comes into play: the clicker attack in the abandoned museum. The show combines elements from two different sections of the game: the first appearance of the clickers, which happens in the abandoned highrise I mentioned earlier; and Tess getting bitten during a scuffle with the infected at the museum and then hiding it.

Rather than having these variant zombies appear multiple times throughout the episode, “Infected” distills the terror into one edge-of-your-seat sequence at the museum. The clickers themselves are very game-accurate; they’re even voiced by Misty Lee and Phillip Kovats, the same actors who voiced them in the games.

There are lots of nods to the games in this sequence; notice how the clickers ignore Joel’s flashlight or how he crouch-walks over to Ellie and then has her sneak after him around an exhibit. Joel alerts the clicker by stepping on broken glass, and Tess embeds a hatchet in one of the clicker’s heads; all of this is taken from the games, since broken glass would alert clickers if you stepped on it and you could eventually wield axes against the zombie hordes.

Of everything in the show so far, the clicker attack is probably the single most faithful scene yet. Even if you haven’t played the game, if you watched that scene, you know how scary the clickers were in the game. The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann directed this episode, so it makes sense that he would get the details just right.

Tess’ last stand

After the clicker attack, we get another scene that’s straight from the game where Joel and Ellie walk across a board bridging two buildings and then take in the view of the city. Then we’re off to the state house and the explosive finish.

The reveal that all the Fireflies are dead and that Tess has been infected is another scene taken from the game. The show takes its time a bit more, explaining how the Fireflies were killed when one of their number was bitten and turned on the rest, but many of Tess, Joel, and Ellie’s lines in this scene are lifted directly from the video game. Even the set is similar.

However, we get a big change when Joel kills an infected and we see that small filaments attached to it alert the horde we saw earlier. After Tess admits she’s infected, they rush into the building. Tess stays behind, blowing up the building as a zombie puts its gross tendrils into her mouth.

In the game, it’s FEDRA that shows up at the state house, once more back on our heroes’ trail. Tess’ last stand is far less helpful; after Joel and Ellie flee, Tess is gunned down by FEDRA. Joel can catch a glimpse of her body in the foyer below as he and Ellie sneak out of the state house’s upper levels with FEDRA still in hot pursuit. In the show, by contrast, Tess causes an explosion that wipes out all pursuers, giving Joel and Ellie time to get away.

“Infected” may not have been an exact carbon copy of this section of The Last of Us video game, but it was so close that nitpicking feels almost redundant. It’s another solid episode that makes it clear the people making this show love and respect the source material.

Will that continue to be the case? We’ll find out when The Last of Us premieres its third episode this Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.

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