‘When You’re Lost in the Darkness’: Breaking down ‘The Last of Us’ episode 1

WARNING: Heavy spoilers ahead. Please watch the show first before reading this.

It’s now safe to say that more than two years of waiting for this post-apocalyptic show was worth the wait. The 83 minutes of the first episode (77.5 minutes of the show and five and a half minutes of “Inside the Episode”) have successfully set the stage for what’s to come in this season full of despair, hope, violence, and tenderness—the confusing mix that I swear will make sense later on in the story.

To read more about “The Last of Us,” just click here.

In this post, I’m going to break down the scenes from the first episode, titled “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” from that cold open with the television interview with experts, to the additional storylines added in the show that were not in the game, up to the importance (and the danger) of that last scene when Ellie (Bella Ramsey) watches Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) kill a soldier with his bare hands. Let’s start with the climate crisis.

1968: Warning of the Climate Crisis’ Effect

There’s a cold open with the television talk show in 1968. In the show, epidemiologists Dr. Neuman and Dr. Schoenheiss were discussing the possibility of a pandemic. Note that this is in 1968 while infection day was in 2003, so scientists have known of the possibilities of an outbreak 35 years before the world prevented an outbreak. Kinda like how we have always know how there was going to be a possibility of COVID-19.

Dr. Schoenheiss warned about a viral infection through air travel, but Dr. Neuman said that humankind will always win against the virus and bacteria. He said they should instead worry about fungus, which he said would be able to control their hosts’ anatomy (by devouring it and replacing its flesh) and minds (by making it their puppet).

Dr. Schoenheiss disagreed and said that such infections will only happen to animals, not in humans. And that was when the conversation really got interesting. Dr. Neuman then said,

True, fungi cannot survive if its host’s internal temperature is over 94° and currently, there are no reasons for fungi to evolve to be able to withstand higher temperatures, but what if that were to change? What if, for instance, the world were to get slightly warmer? Well, now there is reason to evolve.

Dr. Neuman, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” “The Last of Us” Episode 1

This part of the show was not in the game, and it’s such nice addition to the story. That scene is there to blame the climate crisis and the world’s failure to stop it from causing fungi to evolve. It is always through science that we are made aware and we are warned about the things to come, but do we always listen? This makes “The Last of Us” more relevant than your regular zombie apocalypse story.

It’s important to note as well that the show isn’t saying scientists are always right. Dr. Neuman said that it’s not possible to create a vaccine (he used the word “preventative”) and that humanity will lose, but later in the episode, it’s heavily implied that Ellie might give the world a cure or a preventative. More on that later.

The Opening Theme

We can’t really talk about HBO shows without talking about the opening theme songs. Some of my favorite opening themes are from “The Night Of,” “The White Lotus,” “True Detective,” “Succession,” “Peacemaker,” and of course, “Game of Thrones,” but this show’s opening theme song, written by Gustavo Santaolalla, is probaby going to be another one I will never skip. Take the Skip Intro button off now, HBO, because I will not commit a crime.

Santaolalla, by the way, also wrote the music for the original games and he even received awards and nominations for it.

The opening theme features fungi spreading, so nothing really special about the video. In the end, the fungi were shaped like Joel and Ellie.

2003: Sarah and Joel Miller

As I mentioned in my previous post, it’s interesting to note that Sarah (Nico Parker) has photos of her in the daylight when in fact, in the games, she wasn’t seen outside in the morning. Now we see the necessity of those scenes.

If you’ve played the game, you know Sarah’s ultimate fate early on in the game. She dies after a soldier blindly follows an order to kill the father and daughter even if there were no evidence that they were infected. What you see in the game is Sarah giving Joel the watch as a gift.

With the show adding more screen time for the character Sarah, audiences who are both familiar and not familiar with the game invest more on the relationship that the Millers have.

Sarah and Joel are the perfect father and daughter tandem. Sure, Joel earns for both of them, but he can’t survive without his daughter. He forgets to buy pancake mix, he forgets to buy a cake, he wears his shirt inside out, and he can’t even go to the shop to have his watch repaired cheaply for $20—something that can be done in just a few minutes.

(Speaking of that watch repair shop, the repairman and his daughter were the first two characters we saw who were actually cautious about the whole pandemic. If we somehow get a clue that they survived infection day, I’m gonna be so damn happy.)

2003: The Neighbors

Aside from Sarah’s demise, what was heartbreaking about infection day was the fate of their neighbors, the Adlers. A few moments ago, they were just there being nice to Sarah and her dad. Connie Adler misses Sarah because she never visits anymore, said her husband Danny. The grandma, who is completely deaf and immobile, has to be fed by Danny. And then a few moments later, Joel had to kill the now fast and jumpy infected grandma.

This is a formula not unique to “The Last of Us.” Every zombie apocalypse story has that part when someone has to kill someone they know. It makes each blow, each gunshot, more meaningful and heartbreaking.

Unlike those from the watch repair shop, the neighbors don’t give a shit about what’s happening.

Connie even dismissed Sarah’s worry about all the “police and stuff on the road today.”

“Well, it’s true every day, isn’t it? People out there need to get right with Jesus,” she said. Fucking conservative fucks.

Our first scary moment was when Sarah was browsing the Adlers’ shelf of DVDs. Behind her, the grandma was twitching, an early sign that she was infected (like the twitching of her classmate’s left hand). Mercy, the dog, was the only one who could sense that the grandma wasn’t who she was anymore.

The episode actually explains why the grandma was the first to get infected. Sarah said that the Adlers take her to the city, where most of the infections in Austin, Texas started. Probably because she was old and her body couldn’t fight the fungus infection, she was the first one to transform.

2003 and 2023: Joel and Tommy Miller

Tommy (Gabriel Luna) is Joel’s younger brother who lives with them. Over the episode, their relationship has devolved.

In 2003, Tommy is Joel’s workmate as well. They do jobs that Joel doesn’t want to split with his younger brother, who’s a war veteran and a part-time troublemaker it seems. On the night of infection day, Tommy gets jailed after assaulting a guy who’s probably also infected.

So that his younger brother won’t be in jail all weekend, Joel rushes to bail him out in the middle of watching his favorite “Curtis and Viper 2.” Three hours later, all hell broke loose. Sarah woke up from the sound of passing helicopters. Mercy knocks on their door and was too afraid to go back to the Adlers’ residence, where grandma Adler has already bitten and infected Danny and Connie.

Tommy and Joel arrive and then all three of the Millers try to find a way out of Austin, Texas. At one point, Tommy wanted to help strangers who were stranded after their car broke down. Joel prohibited him from pulling over. While Tommy fully regrets not helping, Joel could only say, “Somebody else would come along.”

In the city, Sarah and Joel were separated from Tommy. When the soldier shot Sarah and tried to kill Joel afterwards, it was Tommy who neutralized the soldier.

In 2023, Tommy is nowhere to be found. It’s implied that due to the resistance group Fireflies (I’ll talk about them below), Tommy has grown distant from Joel. Interested in looking for a battery for a truck so he can drive to his brother’s whereabouts, the search led Joel to Ellie.

Boston, 2023

Twenty years after infection day, Joel is in Boston, Massachusetts, some 3,000 kilometers away from Austin, Texas.

Boston has turned into a quarantine zone with the military governing everything. Some jobs are normal. In exchange for food ration cards (what seems to be their new currency), people paint over graffitis by the rebel group Fireflies. But the martial law is brutal. There are public executions and good-paying jobs are rare. People found to be infected are mercy killed (with some “medicine”) and their bodies are burned.

Joel sometimes works as a body burner. In one scene, he nonchalantly throws a boy’s body to the fire. This is a different Joel than who we were introduced at first. The first Joel cared about Sarah and Tommy, but this one is showing no emotion at all, obviously because he has lost both Sarah and Tommy.

There are a lot of other clues this Joel doesn’t care about most things anymore. When he was dealing drugs to a soldier in exchange for ration cards, the soldier warned to kill him, but he answered, without looking at the soldier, “Yeah, but then what would you do?” (Speaking of that soldier, they had a conversation about a plant in Atlanta, Georgia that only creates pills and bullets. That information would be important soon enough, or the writers wouldn’t include that in the dialogue.) There’s also a scene in which Joel skips a line and he doesn’t care that people were complaining about it.

Boston has hardened Joel. In fact, Robert, whose men “fucked up” a deal with Tess (Anna Torv) regarding a battery was afraid of what Joel was about to do to them. I don’t exactly know what the story behind Tess’ face injuries is, but it doesn’t really matter now, does it?

Tess and Joel

Now let’s talk about Tess, a smuggler who partners with Joel in some jobs. It is also implied in some scenes that Tess and Joel have some kind of relationship. She’s helping Joel get the batteries that he needs.

Joel is getting more worried that his brother Tommy hasn’t responded to his messages through the only communication medium that they have—a tower in Boston communicates through radio to other towers in other quarantine zones. Joels skips the lines and then asks about Tommy’s location. He ignores the radio guy’s warning about raiders and slavers outside the quarantine zones and plans his route while drinking and taking drugs.

He dreams of Tess baby-spooning him and then wakes up to see that her face has been injured and learns that she was locked up by the military after being mistaken as a member of the Fireflies.

The Fireflies

The Fireflies in Boston are led by Marlene (Merle Dandrige), who thinks the two decades of war against the military dictatorship have gone nowhere. A radio tower in Salem, Massachusetts has informed them about something (that isn’t revealed yet in the show).

The Fireflies are responsible for the slogan, “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light,” which are graffitied all over Boston (and probably in other quarantine zones, too). The title of the show is from the first half of the slogan.

Joel hates the Fireflies because he believes that they were the reasons why Tommy became distant. When one recruiter approached him, his answer was, “You tell me to ‘look for the light,’ and I’ll break your jaw.”

The Fireflies have chained up Ellie. Marlene reveals to her that she was the one who put her in the military school when she was a baby.

The Last Hope

This leaves us with Ellie, the last hope in finding a cure or a vaccine or both. Three weeks before we meet her in the show, Ellie was bitten by the infected. She was chained up by the Fireflies so they can observe whether she was going to turn or not.

After realizing that she wouldn’t, Marlene has decided to bring her to a facility where people can help.

While looking for Robert, Tess and Joel soon enters the Fireflies’ headquarters where they are keeping Ellie. After failing to attack Joel, Ellie then finds herself on the other end of his gun. Joel doesn’t hesitate to point a gun at a child, another proof that the dude’s totally messed up.

When Tess and Joel arrived, a shootout between Joel’s people and the Fireflies has just taken place after a failed transaction. Robert tried to sell the battery to the Fireflies, Marlene didn’t take the “bad merch,” and gunfires just went off. Robert was already dead, Marlene had a gunshot wound, and the other Fireflies were dead except for Kim Tembo (Natasha Mumba), Marlene’s right hand.

When Marlene suggested to Joel that he smuggles Ellie outside of the quarantine zone, Kim Tembo was quick to say, “I can do it,” which made me scratch my head. There is definitely something going on with this new character.

Marlene offers Joel battery, fueled-up truck, guns, and supplies, so naturally, dude’s gotta accept. While trying to get out of the quarantine zone, Joel, Ellie, and Tess were spotted by the same soldier who Joel sold drugs to.

When he pointed a gun at them, Joel remembers the night of the infection day when his daughter was shot and killed, so he goes berserk and kills the soldier with his own hands. All while this is happening, Ellie was watching and she didn’t seem afraid.

When Sarah witnessed Joel smash the infected grandma Adler to death, she was terrified. Ellie, who did not grow up knowing what the world before the pandemic was like, did not have the same reaction. This is the danger that the show is warning us about. The showrunners said that they want to talk about love in this show, but they said that love isn’t always positive. There is a kind of love that makes you do bad things. Joel loves his brother Tommy, so he’s willing to risk everything just to see him again. In the process, he might be turning into a bad role model for Ellie. But this is where all the layers of this show really gets interesting—who’s to say that what Joel did was wrong?

The episode ends with the radio turning on and playing the late ’80s song “Never Let Me Down Again.” Prior to this, Ellie cracked the code that if the radio plays an ’80s song, it means there’s trouble, so there’s definitely some more shit to come. (I am saying the obvious here. No danger, no story.) But the trio didn’t hear the warning before they left so they don’t know what’s about to greet them.

Overall, this episode was perfect in introducing to audiences familiar and not familiar with the game the world of “The Last of Us.” Removing the spores from the game was an intelligent decision because then the actors don’t have to be on their face shields the whole time. This isn’t a sentai series after all.

I look forward to the rest of the episodes. All of its joys and all of its heartbreaks.

To read more about “The Last of Us,” just click here.