The Last Of Us season 2 is approaching, so now’s the time to binge-watch season 1 and reminisce about all the emotional and terrifying moments. The show is one of the best video game adaptations ever and a great zombie series on its own (something Alex Garland agrees with, too). TLOU season 2 will see the return of Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, among other side characters we loved. However, some new people are coming, too, and the question is – will they be behind some of the scariest moments of season 2?
As with other popular zombie series (like The Walking Dead), TLOU also has a mix of terrifying creatures but even scarier humans. Surviving a zombie virus isn’t enough; the characters have to survive other people, as well. As the clock counts down, it’s worth remembering some of the greatest and scariest moments from the first season.
The Last Of Us
- Release Date
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January 15, 2023
- Network
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HBO
10
The 1968 Cordyceps Lecture
Episode 1, “When You’re Lost In the Darkness”
Starting off light (and not so light) with a scene that’s unique to the series – it wasn’t featured in the game. The scene is introduced with a title card saying “1968” and proceeds to show an evening talk show with three men. One of the guests is a mycologist who calmly but convincingly explains how a fungal pandemic could wipe out humanity one day. The audience laughs at first when he says “fungus,” but his retorts about climate change and a potential virus make everyone take him seriously. No one’s laughing by the end of it.
This monologue was based on real cordyceps fungus behavior, which makes it all the more powerful. It introduces slow and grounded dread that turns into terror the moment terrible things start happening some 35 years later. This is one of the best cold opens of an episode, maybe ever, and it’s scary because it might as well apply to reality.
9
The Clicker Kisses Tess
Episode 2, “Infected”
We see Tess (Anna Torv) as an integral part of TLOU at first – she lives with Joel (Pascal), they’re together, she is a skilled and careful survivor, and she has great motherly instincts towards Ellie (Ramsey). That’s why Tess dying in episode 2 was one of the most shocking moments of the show, which really showed that nobody’s actually safe from the cordyceps virus. This scene was unforgettable, and it sparked some debate online because it never happened in-game.
Episode 2 follows Joel, Tess, and Ellie traversing deserted Boston. An exciting and pulse-raising scene happens when they enter a museum and realize there are a bunch of clickers (people infected with the cordyceps fungus). As they run, Tess realizes she must stay behind to save Ellie and Joel. When she’s caught, a terrifying clicker grabs and “kisses” her with its tendrils. This is a scary example of an invasion horror, where privacy and intimacy are lost amid a shift that doesn’t choose its methods of taking over. It shows how the cordyceps will infect even the most vulnerable parts of a human.
8
Ellie and Riley Get Chased
Episode 7, “Left Behind”
While we learn more about Ellie, we realize she’s still just a child, forced to grow up in terrible conditions. Common knowledge about Ellie is that she got infected by a clicker but never turned, showing her blood to be a sort of antidote for the virus. Episode 7 shows how she got infected but also captures the show’s core fear, which is a fleeting happiness in a world that no longer allows it. The emotional stakes here are higher than the physical ones.
In the flashback, Ellie is shown several weeks before meeting Joel. She is with Riley (Storm Reid), her former classmate who escaped the military school they’re in and joined the rebels. The two explore an abandoned mall and bond over a quiet and fun evening, but then, disaster strikes. A clicker attacks them, and though Ellie kills it, it manages to bite both girls. The night of joy is interrupted by the horror of getting bit, though the real horror lies in knowing what comes after. Ellie survives, but Riley, whom she loved, doesn’t.
7
The Bloater Rises
Episode 5, “Endure and Survive”
The Bloater is the nickname for the largest clicker shown in the series (and the game), and it appears in episode 5. In the TLOU universe, Bloaters are at the deadliest stage of the cordyceps infection, possessing immense strength and thick fungus armor. In episode 5, the appearance of this ugly creature ups the ante in the fight against the infected, and it’s terrifying to know that one day, all clickers will reach that stage.
Episode 5 is about Joel and Ellie meeting brothers Henry and Sam (Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Woodard) and joining forces with them to escape the wrath of a woman looking for Henry, Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey). As Kathleen’s troops find them, their attack goes wrong when a horde of clickers, including a massive Bloater, charges at them, killing Kathleen and her crew very brutally. The Bloater is a clicker you can’t really fight; you can only try to escape, and Joel, Ellie, and the brothers escaped very narrowly in one of the heaviest episodes of season one.
6
The Diner Chase With Joel and Sarah
Episode 1, “When You’re Lost In the Darkness”
All the episodes are great, but episode 1 of TLOU was something else. Filmed with tension and horror at the core, the entire episode more or less has the most scary moments of all. The initial terror of an uncontrollable infection spreading at a rapid pace is truly terrifying, until it just becomes part of reality for its protagonists. In this episode, we see Joel having a daughter before the outbreak, Sarah (Nico Parker), and he does his best to save her.
Joel and Sarah are shown fleeing the chaos that takes place around them with the increase in infected people and one scene in episode 1 really creates a sense of urgency and anxiety like none other. Joel carries Sarah in his arms, running as fast as he can. He enters a diner while escaping a freshly-turned, insanely fast infected person, leaving viewers breathless as Joel and Sarah narrowly escape death. The infected is just about to put its hands on them, but gets shot; this just makes you belt out a nervous chuckle of relief. Still, the scene then tragically turns into one of the darkest moments of the entire show.
5
The First Clickers Appear
Episode 2, “Infected”
While they’re called clickers throughout the series, they actually first appear in episode 2, when Joel, Ellie, and Tess enter the museum where Tess dies. The scene of the initial encounter is breathtaking, filmed without music and only the sound of the creatures making ungodly noises. This scene introduced a generation of non-gamers to the franchise’s scariest creatures, with the sound design team using the original game audio and bringing the game’s sound team to evoke some nostalgia and stay true to source material.
As the scene shows Joel, Ellie, and Tess entering the museum in Boston, there’s already palpable tension. As soon as everything quiets down, we hear the clickers before we see them, which contributes to the horror of the reveal being even more impactful. What could be making a noise like that?! The first encounter with the universe’s toughest and most terrifying monsters is truly one of the scariest moments of the show.
4
The Horse Riders
Episode 6, “Kin”
Here’s a scary moment that doesn’t include monsters and the infected but rather the scariest animal on Earth – humans. Episode 6 follows Joel and Ellie as they try to reach the Fireflies’ headquarters in Colorado. They encounter people Joel knows, and Ellie learns more about his past and Sarah, his daughter; after a confrontation, Joel and Ellie continue, but while they travel, a couple of raiders approach them and start asking (unwanted) questions. Suddenly, all appearance of safety disappears and turns to danger, showing there’s horror in feeling helpless, too.
Joel tries to fend off the raiders, and he successfully kills one, but not before he stabs him. They narrowly escape their fate, but Joel is wounded and unable to go on; Ellie needs to find a way to go on – with or without him. This confrontation delivers a gut-punching cliffhanger at the end, rewriting the dynamic between Joel and Ellie. This scene changed how Joel got injured in the game, but it still makes sense within the universe, as not all survivors are good people.
3
The Airplane Fall
Episode 1, “When You’re Lost In the Darkness”
Another scene from episode 1, this time one before the diner chase that starts the entire run, is the scene when an airplane that was just in the sky crash lands behind Joel, Sarah, and Joel’s brother Tommy’s (Gabriel Luna) car, feet away from where they were. The scene is sensory overload, and the camera filming from the backseat perspective puts us into the chaos. We observe the airplane from the back seat as it flies, seemingly, into the car but crashes several feet away from it.
The shockwave of that event still lingers, but there’s no time to process it as new things just keep happening in the mess. The fleeing segment of episode 1 feels like War of the Worlds; it’s all very sudden, loud, and scary, sending ripples of fear across the entire scene. This scene alone cemented the pilot episode as one of the greatest in modern TV horror, and when you learn how it was made, it’s all the more impressive and terrifying.
2
Mrs. Adler
Episode 1, “When You’re Lost In the Darkness”
Another episode 1 moment, but this one is bone-chilling. It’s also the first time the viewers see an infected person turning into a, well, monster, and it’s none other than the sweet and quiet Grandma Adler, Joel and Sarah’s neighbor. While Sarah is staying with the Adlers, a nurse takes care of Mrs. Adler, who’s in a wheelchair and senile. While Sarah browses books on her shelf, Mrs. Adler starts contorting in the background, turning the scene into a chilling horror you can’t take your eyes off of. It’s the perfect use of the background behind a close-up of a vital character, showing how the danger sneaks in and attacks when you least expect it.
The actress portraying Mrs. Adler did the body twisting and contorting herself; her name is Wendy Gorling, and she’s an actress and a movement choreographer from Vancouver. She shows up in another scene later, set in the evening, when Sarah realizes Mrs. Adler killed someone, and the now-infected woman moves quickly and looks at Sarah menacingly. This showed that the brutal infection can reach inside homes, too.
1
The Fight With David
Episode 8, “When We Are In Need”
While some people may not find Ellie’s confrontation with David scary, as a woman, I found it terrifying. It’s the heaviest example of real-world horror, in psychological and physical ways. Though the game makes this moment feel a little more important for Ellie and Joel, the show makes it all about Ellie – the girl we’ve been watching is gone, and the real world and trauma it carries with it have now caught up with her. She’s with us, aware and primed to become a warrior. The scene is traumatic and quite haunting, especially with everything the pair went through in just an episode before (Joel’s stabbing).
All of episode 8 leaves Ellie on her own; Joel’s wounded, and she’s out there, by herself. In an attempt to trade for medicine, Ellie ends up at a youth pastor, David’s (Scott Shepherd) community; David strikes up a conversation with Ellie, touching her and insisting they have a relationship. As events unfold, Ellie escapes David, ending up in a burning diner; there, David makes his last attempt at destroying Ellie’s psyche, but her anger overpowers both of them. She hacks away at him with a knife, leaving her old self behind and showing nothing forces kids to grow up as much as trauma does.
