The Last of Us Episode 2 Breakdown is here! In this episode of the Last of Us, Tess makes out with the fungus and Joel gets his new quest: to get Ellie to the Fireflies and save all of humanity.

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Written and Hosted by Ryan Arey (  / ryanarey  )
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright and Randolf Nombrado
Special thanks to Pavel Terehovsky (https://pavel8866.wixsite.com/pavelt) [email protected]

#TheLastOfUs #EasterEggs #Breakdown

I’m going to run through all the connections to the game, but more importantly, we’ll talk about what they changed from the game, and why those changes made the sorry work for TV. And I want to talk about those opening scenes from the first two episodes, and how they include some hidden details that everyone has missed.

So let’s talk about the two opening scenes. In the first episode, it seemed like this Dick Cavett-esque talk show was just there to inform us about how the virus could spread [clip]. But what we didn’t realize is that this is actually setting up a theme for the episode–that all through the prologue, the outbreak is only seen through reflections and panes of glass. We first hear about the outbreak on a TV show. Then the infected twitching reflected off of a bracelet.

Then the ambulances through the watchmaker window–which has the added detail of looking like the face of a clock, showing time is running out. The cookies rising in the oven symbolize the global warming that allowed cordyceps to mutate, the old woman’s reflection is first seen on TV, and of course, the outbreak itself is first seen on television. The prologue of episode 1 begins light hearted and ends very seriously–just like the events on outbreak data.

Which, by the way, also ended and began with a radio warning the, of danger [clips, play jakarta second].

And Jakarta is the prologue to this episode, set two days before outbreak day. Now in the games, the origin of the fungus is fro mold found on crops from South America. But in the show, it is spread through flour in INdonesia. In 2003 there were over 200 million people in Indonesia, and Jakarta is the largest city in the country.

But the most important thing to note is that baking flour is the real cause of a virus spreading.

Well doug–our manager douf=g everyone–the outbreak begins at a flour factory. Dr Rabata even says [clip]. Now a substrate is basically an environment where an organism–like a fungus– can thrive. Yeast is a single-celled organism that thrives in flour. When it feeds on the sugars in flour, this makes bread.

Yup. and in hindsight, there were clues about this in the first episode. Ol lady Adler was eating biscuits. Joel said [I’m in adkins] which is a diet where you stay away from breads and grains, so Joel remains unaffected. The channel heavy spoilers did a great video theorizing about that, which I suggest you check out. Even if he is an. I ithe talks about how Tommy dind’t get pancakes and Joel didn’t geta briothday cake, and sarah doens;t eat the cookies. So no flour for Joel’s family.

The channel new rockstars even pointed out that series co-creator Craig Mazin even said that there were “breadcrumbs' ' that hint about the virus’s origins. So now, those rising cookies in the oven take on a whole new, creepy meaning. So does the oven timer, which indicated that time was running out.

And all of this symbolism is represented in this episode–when Ellie eats a sandwich. She doesn’t have to fear bread, because she is immune to the fungus.

Now, take this symbolism and use it to look at this prologue. We open on people having lunch–much like the infected will soon be eating one another. And the very first words spoken in the episode are [sorry about your lunch]. Very, very sneaky. Because the lunch was spreading the virus to begin with.

The protagonist of this prologue, Dr Rabata, is a mycologist, and that is the study of Fungi. These prologues have to be very efficient and self-contained with their story. So, they show that Dr Rabata is an expert right away, because she notices that the slide is prepared in a different way [clip]. This was such a clever piece of writing, because it accelerated the audience learning that the cordyceps virus was in humans.

At first, she is dubious, like the scientist from episode 1 [clips]. But then she examines the body. And I gotta tell you, her incision on the leg is so simple, but seeing that fungus break out is terrifying. And it foreshadows the full on body horror we see later on–especially the cordyceps in the mouth, setting up Tess's last kiss.