The latest episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, “When We Are In Need,” portrays Joel and Ellie’s run-in with David and his band of survivors at the Silver Lake resort. This is one of the most iconic sections of The Last of Us video game from Naughty Dog, and once again the show totally nails it.
All that said, there are some interesting differences. Before we get into them, be warned that there will be SPOILERS for this week’s episode of The Last of Us as well as the video game below.
Were David and his group cannibals in The Last of Us game?
Let’s start out right at the top by saying that, scene-for-scene, “When We Are In Need” is up there alongside “Left Behind” as one of the most faithful episodes of the show. Just about every scene involving Joel or Ellie is drawn right from the game. Some, like Ellie and David’s ominous fireside chat about how “everything happens for a reason,” had extra lines thrown in; others, like Joel’s torture of the two Silver Lake cult members or Ellie biting David’s hand and confessing that she’s infected to get away from him, were pretty much taken from the game word for word.
Most of the variations involve David, James and their group. Basically, any scene that doesn’t feature Joel or Ellie was new; we didn’t get any scenes of the cult on their own in the game, instead just seeing them through the eyes of Joel or Ellie.
That means all the backstory about Silver Lake is new. This includes David’s history as a teacher-turned-preacher. In the game, we really don’t know anything about David’s past, just that he has an almost dogmatic view about fate and is fine eating people if it means his own followers survive. The show gives David a new religious fanaticism. Ellie offhandedly refers to the Silver Lake group as a cult, and it fits. But in the game they’re never referred to this way, and generally don’t give off the same cultish vibes.
They are, however, cannibals in both versions of the story. The game highlights this even more, with Ellie outright witnessing them chopping up a body. In the show, it’s hinted that most of David’s followers are unaware that they’re eating human flesh; it’s only those in his inner circle, like James, who know the truth. In the game it’s much more apparent that the whole posse is in on it.
What else was different in Episode 8 from The Last of Us game?
Aside from the backstory with David’s group, there’s one other big change that the show made in this episode. In the game, after Ellie meets David and he sends James to go get penicillin, they get ambushed by infected. David then reveals that he actually had a second gun all along, as he and Ellie team up and fight for their survival. It’s only after this that the two hunker down by a fire and he reveals that she and Joel killed some of his companions at the University of Eastern Colorado.
This makes it more believable that David would want Ellie to be part of his group, as he sees more of what she can do. During the fight she basically proves that she’s more skilled than most of his followers. Instead, David claims he wants to spare Ellie for reasons that seem a little strange. He wants an “equal” to help him rule over his fanatical flock…or so he says. It’s hard to imagine him actually wanting to share any power.
The Last of Us Episode 8: Easter egg round-up!
Now that we’ve talked broad strokes, let’s run through some of the easter eggs in the episode! It’s bullet point time:
- The biggest easter egg was the inclusion of Troy Baker, the same actor who portrayed Joel in the video games. He played David’s right-hand man James.
- Baker’s involvement added a nice meta layer to things; James shoots Ellie’s horse, leading to her capture, something Joel would never do. He was also the first Silver Lake cultist to die at her hands when she chopped his throat with a cleaver.
- Pretty much all the settings, from the Silver Lake resort to the abandoned neighborhood where Joel and Ellie were hiding and even the run-down building where David and Ellie wait for James are all perfect recreations of settings from the game.
- David tells Ellie he was from the Pittsburgh QZ, which is a nod to the QZ which featured Sam and Henry in the video game instead of Kansas City.
- They played up the idea of Ellie being a “violent person” more than they did in the game; I suspect they did this to help set up her much darker plotline from The Last of Us Part II, which the show will adapt next season.
- Joel’s stealth takedown of the marauder in the house is filmed very similarly to how he does stealth takedowns in the game, except Joel actually has a hunting knife instead of the makeshift shivs he uses in the game.
- Joel’s torture scene is the first time we really see him go fully off the rails, both in the game and the show. The show recreated it extremely faithfully, right down to Joel saying “I believed him” before beating in a prisoner’s head with a pipe.
- Joel also finds Ellie’s backpack at Silver Lake in the game, but there he has to fight off some of David’s followers when he arrives. He has a bit of an easier time on the show.
- Ellie and David’s final confrontation is another shockingly accurate adaptation. In the game, David functions as a kind of last boss fight for Ellie; she must sneak around to try and get the jump on him. The show recreates this sequence right down to David eventually pinning her down while she scrabbles to grab his cleaver before killing him. There are some minor differences, most notably in the dialogue since David didn’t have the same religious streak in the game, but on the whole it’s another faithful homage.
The season finale of The Last of Us premieres next Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.
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