Top 10 Things You Missed in The Last of Us Episode 8
#10: The Heroes Are Saved By Fungus
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While Joel managed to survive getting a nasty wound from an enemy, he still had to deal with the consequences of a nasty infection. Thankfully, Ellie was able to keep him stable until she traded for some penicillin. The fact that this medicine helped is incredibly ironic. Penicillin couldn’t exist without the help of fungi. As many viewers know by this point, the world of “The Last of Us” was completely wrecked by a not so fun guy that’s known as cordyceps. Outside of Joel, Ellie just managed to buy herself time by letting David know she was infected by fungi already. It looks like our heroes should recognize fungus as the true MVP of their perilous journey.
#9: Ellie Makes Bolder Moves On the Show
In both the game and the show, Ellie encounters David and James while she’s hunting for deer. When she finds her catch in the source material, the duo surprises her. But Ellie sneaks up on them on the show. Later on, David and James follow Ellie to her temporary hideout in hopes of slaying a weakened Joel. While she decides to lead them away in both mediums, she gets caught off guard by an enemy and has to improvise. The show sees Ellie intentionally give herself away and fire some shots for good measure. There’s no question that the heroine is brave in every version of the story. However, the small and active decisions Ellie made caused her to feel more dynamic on the show.
#8: Foreshadowing David’s Dark Diet
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Although David’s sinister demeanor and dialogue paint him as a bad guy from the start, there were subtle details that pointed to his sinister nature and the town’s extremely taboo diet. He eats and prays in a steakhouse. Before dinner there, a cook insists the meat they’re preparing is venison. In hindsight, the fact that David arrived with a deer after the meal was already cooked made us skeptical that the meat just came from an animal. He also pushed for Joel and Ellie to be captured at first. Additionally, he even prevents the heroine from being shot. Based on his actions, he didn’t want to risk getting a bullet into people he intended to turn into food.
#7: Ellie Proves That She Only Follows By Example
David attempts to recruit Ellie by saying that she has serious leadership potential. However, she rejects his rhetoric and refuses to work with him. Ellie’s disagreement with David mirrors a flashback scene where a captain told her she could be a leader if she followed the rules. Although his speech is more persuasive, she ends up breaking the military curfew after that conversation. While those leaders didn’t change her, Ellie shows that she’s been listening to Joel. She successfully shoots a deer by using the techniques he taught her. Additionally, she doesn’t light a fire to warm up Joel because he warned her against doing so if people could be around. These small decisions and more show that Ellie is growing by following Joel’s example.
#6: A Little Nod to a Big Game Location
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Joel and Ellie’s cross country journey almost perfectly mirrors their trek in the first game. However, while the series notably had them meet Henry and Sam in Kansas City, the heroes meet the brotherly duo in Pittsburgh in the source material. The cities were apparently changed because the show filmed scenes in Canadian locations that looked closer to Kansas City. But the series still managed to give a tiny shoutout to the Pittsburgh setting. During David’s backstory, he mentions that he originally came from that Pennsylvania city. It wouldn’t surprise us if we heard that he was actually kicked out for being a massive creep before the location ever fell.
#5: Scott Shepherd Has a Knack for Deceiving TV Protagonists
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It was incredible to see how good Scott Shepherd was at playing a bad guy. While many aspects of his performance should be praised, his most dangerous quality was his duplicitous nature. Shepherd made David seem trustworthy right up until the moment the villain revealed his true face. The actor used that knack for deception when he faced off against Jesse Pinkman in the “El Camino” movie. In that film, Shepherd initially appears to play a cop. However, it’s revealed that he’s actually an antagonist pretending to be an officer all along. This twist definitely caught us off guard the first time through. Shepherd’s clearly a master of the art of deception.
#4: The Show Leaves Out an Unlikely Team Up
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Fans of the series may find it impossible to imagine a scenario where Ellie and David fight side by side. But they actually worked together once in the game. Shortly after they meet in the source material, a bunch of infected enemies attack the human duo. Although David was supposed to be unarmed, he reveals that he has a second weapon and uses it to fight enemies. The two manage to take out a pretty impressive number of infected together. By contrast, the series completely skipped the team up. The omission of this action heavy story beat made it a lot harder for Ellie to believe she could ever trust David.
#3: Ellie Sends A Dish Back to the Kitchen On the Show
When Ellie was imprisoned by David, he offers her a heaping helping of…some kind of meat. Around the same time, she figures out that his group doesn’t mind making humans into literal snacks. That’s why we completely understood why Ellie skipped the meal on the show. Surprisingly, this scene plays out very differently in the game. After David reassures Ellie that the meal is kosher, she doesn’t hesitate to chow down. What makes this scene so unsettling is the fact that the villain is so manipulative to begin with. So, we’re not sure we’d take his word that we could trust his food or really anything he says.
#2: Joel Brings Back Something He Said to His Daughter
Throughout the episode, Joel makes it clear that he will stop at nothing to reunite with Ellie. After getting the information he needs, the survivor catches up to his charge at the Silver Lake Resort moments after she slayed David. Joel tries to comfort Ellie with a heartbreaking line of dialogue. Back in episode 1, he called his daughter Sarah “baby girl” several times. When she was shot by an officer, he tried to comfort her with that nickname. But his words were tragically the last ones she heard before dying in his arms. Hearing Joel use the last thing he said to his child to help Ellie proves that he truly sees the immune survivor as his own daughter.
#1: Ellie Technically Kills Joel
No, you didn’t miss a scene where Bella Ramsey’s Ellie decided taking care of Pedro Pascal's Joel was too much work and took him out. But the actress definitely did slay another actor who played him. Troy Baker provided the voice for Joel himself in the games. After playing a character who protects Ellie, he stepped into the role of James and hunted her on the show. Seeing Baker go from being a complex hero to becoming an irredeemable villain was fantastic. In the end, Ellie had to slay him in order to escape. We can’t deny that we were just a little sad to see the original Joel leave the show so soon.
