Episode 1 - “When You’re Lost in the Darkness” lyrics

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Why won't you let me go?

Merle Dandridge (As Marlene): Because you have a greater purpose than any of us could have ever imagined.

["The Last of Us" by Gustavo Santaolalla plays]

Troy: Welcome to the official podcast for HBO's The Last of Us, I'm your host, Troy Baker. First, a little setup to help contextualize these conversations. The Last of Us is a new original series from HBO based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name. This game was made by the studio Naughty Dog and originally released in 2013. I'm joined by showrunners Craig Mazin

Craig: Hello.

Troy: And Neil Druckmann.

Neil: Hey Troy.

Troy: And as showrunners, Craig and Neil have remarkable insight into how each episode was made and what went into shaping the key moments that we're gonna unpack, but each of us have a unique perspective on this series because of our involvement with the game. Craig, writer and director, is approaching as a fan who was so moved by his experience that he wanted to adapt it for television. Neil, co-president of Naughty Dog, was one of the creators of The Last of Us. And myself, an actor, who played Joel in the game. Now, this is a weekly podcast which airs after every episode airs, so this will be a very spoiler-heavy conversation, so we definitely encourage you to watch the episode and then join us for the conversation afterwards.

[Music ends]

Troy: Before we get too into the weeds, maybe we could help kind of set up, Neil, your involvement and the games that we'll be referencing.

Neil: Yeah, so, my name is Neil Druckmann, I was the creative director and writer on the original Last of Us game that came out in 2013. The genre was a survival-action game, it's a story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has been ravaged by a Cordyceps outbreak. And we follow Joel Miller in the Boston quarantine zone, where Joel is a black market smuggler, and he gets tasked with transporting Ellie, who's special for some reason, across the United States. We wanted to make an experience that really explored the unconditional love a parent feels for a child. How can we construct a story that, through its interaction, through its characters, through their relationship, through music, through everything we have at our disposal, make you feel the wonderful and horrible things that can come out of love.

Craig: Yeah, you know, when we wrote that show bible—show bible's just a long outline, basically. Right there on the front page, I think we said "This is a love story." And that's not good, because what we wanted to dig into is the theme that came out of the game that mean— Naughty Dog, Neil's company, made The Last of Us, they made The Last of Us Part II, they made Left Behind which came out in-between those two games. Throughout those games, and I think throughout our series, we will continue to come back to the notion that love conquers all, and that's problematic that we think of love as this solely positive thing, a beautiful thing, and it is! But love, especially a love that a parent has for a child, is primal and it can lead to the most intense fear and the most intense fear can lead to the most intense behavior, including violence, and if you scratch the surface of tribalism, racism, xenophobia, you will find love. Love is not always good, and when we talk about the show and as we go episode-by-episode, we're gonna meet people that love each other over and over and over. And we're gonna see this dynamic play out over and over and over.
Troy: What brought this about? Was this kind of the agents talking to each other? Was this a Twitter romance? Like what— how did this come to be?

Neil: Actually it's our mutual friend for all three of us, Shannon Woodward. So while working on Last of Us II, she's one of the cast members of that game, she made an introduction for me and Craig. And you know, at the time, I'd already had one failed version of trying to adapt this into a movie, where it just, to put simply, it was too big, too big for a movie script. And no matter how hard I tried, I just could not crack it. So there's still conversation about "Is there no way to approach it a different way?" and so that conversation is happening, and then I eventually watched Chernobyl, and I'm blown away by it. It's one of the best TV shows I have ever seen. And then I found out, "Oh, it's this guy Shannon introduced me to that I haven't had a chance to have lunch with yet." So I immediately want to meet Craig now that I've seen Chernobyl.

Craig: After I played The Last of Us, I was just in awe, of the game, I was in awe of Neil, I didn't know him, so he just seemed like this mysterious sage on a mountain somewhere that I could not approach. But as the years go on, I become friendly with Shannon, I hear that she's working on The Last of Us Part II, I'm obsessed, and she says, "You know, you and Neil would be best friends." And I'm like, "Awesome!

[Neil laughs]

Craig: How do I do that?" And she goes, "Well, [Laughs] you know, he's sort of shy, he's kinda, hard to get through to him and he's really busy." And I'm like, "Okay, well, I would just love, you know, at any point to just sit down with him and just tell him how much I love what he's done." And at the same time, Sony had been talking to me about, "Hey, here are all these games we have, which one of these do you think could be a good game to adapt?" And I'm like, "Hmm, I don't see The Last of Us on here." And they're like, "Ehh, that one, Neil's doing that one." I'm like, "Eh, I get it." And then around the time that Chernobyl came out, the adaptation rights for The Last of Us reverted back to Naughty Dog and Neil, and he saw Chernobyl, and it all just kind of came together.

Neil: Uh, and we meet up for lunch next to Naughty Dog and we just chat and compliment each other, I get to gush about his work. And then, you know, I'm really curious about the process of how he was able to make this TV show at HBO, I'm a huge HBO fan, like, The Wire, The Leftovers, the Six Feet Under, some of my favorite shows of all time. So I asked him just like, offhandedly, "You know, let's just assume we wanted to make this as a TV show at HBO. What would that look like?" And he said, "Oh, it'd be very easy. We go across the street and we meet with them and I tell them I want that to be my next project and we make it my next project." [Chuckles] So I'm going to this meeting not knowing what to expect, so I just kind of sit there and I let— I follow Craig's lead, and he launches into a pitch for the story for the executives that are in the room. And then I'm like, "Okay, do I jump in? Do I help out?" I was like, "What if I don't? What if I just lean back in my chair, and watch someone else pitch the story that I've pitched a million times." And I'm finding that he's going through it beat-by-beat and first, I'm impressed just how well he knows it. I'm being moved by a story that has become so wrote to me at that point because I've told this pitch so many times and I'm paying attention to this emotional reaction I'm having. And again, I feel the passion this guy has for the material, and then he finishes the pitch and then, Casey stands up and he's like, "Well Craig, I told you whatever your next project is has to make you float. This is clearly it." And he turned to me and he's like, "It was a pleasure meeting you. Let's make this show." And we all shake hands right then and there, and then we're off to the races, making this TV show.

Troy: Let's talk about the cold open.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Josh Brener (As Murray): And Dr Neuman, you're also an epidemiologist. I presume the prospect of a viral pandemic keeps you up at night as well.

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): No.

Josh Brener (As Murray): No?

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): No.

Josh Brener (As Murray): All right, well, that's our show.
[Audience shortly laughs]

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): No, mankind has been at war with the virus from the start. Sometimes, millions of people die, as in an actual war. But in the end, we always win.

Josh Brener (As Murray): But you— Just to be clear, you do think microorganisms pose a threat?

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): Oh, in the most dire terms.

Josh Brener (As Murray): Bacteria?

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): No.

Josh Brener (As Murray): You like saying no?

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): Yes.

[Audience shortly laughs]

Josh Brener (As Murray): Not bacteria? Not viruses? So

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): Fungus.

[Audience murmurs]

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): Yes, that's the usual response. Fungi seem harmless enough. Many species know otherwise, because there are some fungi who seek not to kill, but to control.
Troy: Who came up with the idea of doing this?

Neil: It was Craig.

Troy: Okay. When you pitched that to him

Craig: Yeah

Troy: Are you going—?

Craig: Well, I pitched it twice.

Troy: Okay

[Troy and Craig laugh]

Craig: Twice.

Craig: The first time I pitched it he was like, "Eh, or we can you know, we can do the video" Because there's this great video. You can see it on YouTube. It's Planet Earth. You can watch this beautiful demonstration of how Cordyceps works, how it takes over an ant. It's quite horrifying. And it tells you everything you need to know. So, what we had decided to do was make our own little video like that. Which is interesting, but not necessarily compelling. It was a bit of an intellectual argument.

Troy: Okay.

Neil: You're being kind. It was kind of boring.

[Troy, Craig and Neil laugh]

Craig: It was a little boring. It was a little boring— it was a little boring to watch, and it was a little bit like, "Oh ,we're in social studies class." And I had written this thing actually like early-early-early. As if I had found a transcript of an old di*k Cavett from 1969.

Troy: I love di*k Cavett, yeah.

Craig: And I remember showing it to Neil and he was like "It's a little weird." Then we— we go make the whole show and we're about, I don't know, three or four weeks away from wrapping. I'm like "Dude, I am not thrilled with this opening" and so I sent it to him again, and this time he was like, "Ooh!"

[Troy and Neil laugh]

Neil: Seeing the final version. Seeing it edited, I loved it. As a fan, it catches you off guard, and already signals to you, "Everything you think you know about this"

Troy: Right.

Neil: "You don't know about this."

Craig: Yeah.

Neil: And— and I thought it achieved what we were trying to achieve with that other opening in a much more effective, dramatized way. That starts giving you clues, or like theories of like, "Maybe this is how it started?" We're not saying definitively, but this is a pretty good theory.

Craig" Yes.

Neil: 'Cause then you're going to these like quote-unquote mundane moments with the Miller family. And this elevated all those scenes because now— because of that opening, there's a tension that's just like hanging in the air. So when they're having breakfast, it's tense. When they're driving to school, it's tense. When she's in that watch shop. Everything became more tense and more captivating because of this opening.

Troy: You contextualized it.

Neil: Yeah.

Craig: Yeah, and there was also a chance to address the elephant in the global room. Which is, we all just went through a viral pandemic.

Troy: Mm

Craig: And I thought it was important to say to people, "We are not a show that's asking you to share some of your own personal horror about the viral pandemic with us. We're not drafting off of it. We're here to tell you there's actually something much worse." That viral pandemics will happen again. They have happened before. There will be millions of people who will die again. This is part of the natural cycle of the planet, but what has not happened, yet, is a fungal pandemic. And if it does. It is— we're— we're not making that up, it's going to be terrible and possibly unrecoverable because fungi are far more complicated and far more integrated into the life and death cycle of the earth than viruses are. So we wanted to sort of acknowledge that everybody went through this, And then dig in a little underneath it and say, "Sorry to tell you, but there's something worse behind it."

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

John Hannah (As Dr. Neuman): Viruses can make us ill, but fungi can alter our very minds. There's a fungus that infects insects. Gets inside an ant for example, travels through its circulatory system to the ant's brain and then floods it with hallucinogens, thus bending the ants mind to its will.

Troy: 'Cause you're making this for two audiences right?

Neil: Mhm

Troy: There's two people that are sitting down and watching this.

Neil: People who played—

Troy: People who have played the game

Troy and Neil: People who haven't.

Neil: Right.

Troy: So, this feels like it's taking the people to have no idea what the story is about and helping to contextualize what the story is really about .But then also saying to the people who have played the game

Craig: Get ready.

Troy: Yeah.

Craig: Be on your toes. Yeah, and I think that it is value added for people who have played the game. Because I've played the game and I was always sort of on alert for that. If something comes in that's wildly different and new, would it feel to me as somebody played the game like I'm getting to see awesome new stuff as opposed to just different or pointlessly different? One of the things that the opening does is place everything also within the context of a longer time span. It was important to me that this opening take place many many decades before cordyceps comes around. Because I like the idea that these things that come and get us don't just show up when we need them to because we're starting to air a television show. Somebody knows thirty, forty, fifty years ago.

Troy: It's a slow burn.

Craig: Today happens to be the day it finally happens, but it was waiting out there. And we were told. And that's a very s— you know, kind of Chernobyl thing that I'm obsessed with, is the idea that we know things and we all agree that they're going to happen. And then we pretend they're not.

Troy: For what this show is really about, you really took your time to show a single infected, you know what I mean?

Craig: [Laughs] Yeah.

Troy: Like the first time that you do see someone infected it's the wonderful, you know, neighbor next door

Craig: Yes, Nana.

Troy: Which was horrifying.

Craig: Good. [Chuckles]

Troy: And the thing to me that was so horrifying is, this is— to me it's not a cliché, it's a very useful tool. When animals pick up on stuff before we do.

Craig: Yes.

Troy: That moment with the dog is just terrifying.

[Troy and Craig laugh]

Craig: I remember experiencing the prologue of the game and when that neighbor shows up and Joel has to shoot him. It's terrifying. And we thought, well, we have an opportunity to meet that person first. If you know somebody and you see them smiling and talking to you and then you see what they look like. It's that much more scary, and then the question is, "Well, what's scarier than a middle-aged next door neighbor guy" How about an incredibly elderly person who can't even move?"

Troy: Right.

Craig: Because once the fungus gets inside, we like the idea that it could just simply root around whatever had gone wrong in your brain and led to catatonia or Parkinson's or any of these kinds of neuromuscular disorders and essentially started to animate her again. That seemed the scariest of all.

Neil: There's a contradiction of like the infected being beautiful and incredibly scary at the same time, here's this the weird contradiction of like it's fixing her.

Craig Yeah.

Neil: Right, it's fixing what's broken inside of her

Craig: Right.

Neil: But it's taken her mind with it.

Craig: Yes. That this person who essentially was the kind of you forget about them, right? "She tries to feed her Jell-O. Why am I talking to her she's deaf?" She's kind of comic, we made a point of making this sort of joke about how she couldn't even eat biscuits.

Troy: Alright.

Craig: By the way, a lot of little details are going to come back around. We don't want to give spoilers but I will say this; careful viewers of this episode will be rewarded repeatedly because little bits of breadcrumbs have been planted that are going to pay off later in interesting ways.

Troy: Both of you have a separate attachment to these characters, and for you, Neil, this is a story that you helped create, you helped shape these characters, how do the two of you create a new story that remains true to the one that brought you to where you're at now?

Neil: So, Craig and I started working while we were at Naughty Dog finishing Last of Us Part II. So Craig would come over for lunches and we would start breaking the season, and I think one of the first things we did is just talk about "What stays? What are the things that we should absolutely keep?" And like, he outbreak being from Sarah's POV, that felt like an important thing to keep. And I think we just started putting a bunch of pins in things and then you started looking at, well, where are the gaps? Where are the things that we felt like the game is doing something that would not work on the show? And usually, it was surrounded with a lot of action, because, for the game, you need that kind of gameplay and you have to have enough gameplay to understand how it works and works on an instinctual level to create certain emotions that you just cannot create in this other medium. But there's a lot of other pros that you could do, you could expand on things like when we're saying you're going to be with Sarah for a while.

Craig: Right.

Neil: You could really stretch that out and get to see more of the dynamics of this family in a way we could not do in the game.

Troy: But you're coming in it as a fan, right?

Craig: Yes.

Troy: So how do you take the story and translate that story into a medium that it was not originally intended for?

Craig: I really enjoy playing stealth-based action games. Always have and The Last of Us provided some really cool stealth-based stuff. And then obviously there's sequences where it's just full on crazy. And then, completely separate from that, was the experience I had of watching what, I hesitate to use the word cutscene, because it diminishes, I think, what you guys did, which was to create a passively experienced work of art with narrative and character relationship that I could watch like a show or like a movie.

Neil: It's more than a— A cutscene is a non-interactive moment in the game where you get to watch, like a TV show, a sequence that's played in front of you cinematically. Usually, it's one to five minutes long.

Craig: Yes, so when I sat down with Neil, part of that process of like, "Okay, what do we keep?" was really— to me, it was all about figuring out what I experienced passively, that I loved. And the very first thing I remember Neil and I talking about that was "Okay let's step aside from the way the game works and let's just talk about what we would do." and I remember we were talking about how to quickly and effectively dramatize how different Joel was after 20 years. We meet him. We see this traumatic event occur. We jump ahead in twenty years. How do we show in this— the most visceral way, unburdened by teaching people how to walk, move, jump, and crawl.

Troy: Right.

Craig: How do we show how different he is? And that's when we came up with this notion that after experiencing his daughter dying in his arms and how broken that made him. Twenty years later, he's the one who has no problem picking up another dead body of a child and dumping it into the fire because he's closed off completely.

Troy: The mirroring of that for me, when I'm watching the episode because you go from a father holding the child, to the twenty years later. You start on this boy walking mindlessly almost, seeking asylum.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah (As Kind FEDRA Soldier): What if I told you that after we gave you some medicine, we're gonna find you your favorite food to eat. Would you like that? And then we'll get you some new clothes and toys, as many as you want to play with.

[Other FEDRA soldier walking]

Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah (As Kind FEDRA Soldier): It's just a little needle. It's okay.

[Needle injecting]

Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah (As Kind FEDRA Soldier): You're safe.

Craig: I thought we did a really good job there.

Troy: Mhm.

Craig: Because there's all the stuff we want to teach people, just like, you know, in the video game you teach them, but you have to teach them in a different way because they need to move around. Here we're not moving around, we're watching. And we wanted to show that FEDRA was not an easy villain, but also certainly not the good guys. We wanted to establish the scanner.

Troy: It's important.

Craig: Because that scanner comes back later. Just a little simple practical thing like that matters a lot when you're watching. To show what it means when the light turns red. And what the cost is when the light turns red.

Troy: Right.

Neil: Yeah, this is actually a great example of a change made from the game, 'cause the equivalent of the scene in the game is right after the twenty years later. You are walking around as Joel, and you see people lined up.

Troy: Right.

Neil: Getting scanned and one of them tests positive and gets shot.

Troy: Right.

Neil: Which let's you— tells you a lot about how FEDRA operates and what the scanner is. Which also, again, serving similar functions, but in a more immersive way that feels— it feels like something you could miss.

Troy: As well as— also because Joel just walk— you can just walk past there. It is something that is happening as you're moving. It is a pedestrian borderline banal thing. Like, people get lined up. People get pulled out. People can test positive. People get shot. It happens

Craig: Which is a tonal thing.

Troy: Yes.

Craig: Because the other thing is, the— when you are playing a game, I can't necessarily explain why, but somebody getting shot in the street in the QZ and then other people going "Move along". And people move along, feels acceptable. When you are shooting live-action with people-people. If someone gets shot in the street, people are going to scream. And there's going to be blood and brains and horror. And It's upsetting and children are going to cry and people are going to run. It's just a different thing, so we have to start to think also about violence because violence in video games is far more palatable, I think.

Troy: Yeah.

Neil: One thing like, if we want to talk about things we didn't get right.

Troy: Yes!

Craig: What?

Troy: Yeah.

Neil: This, episode one, used to be episode one and episode two.

Craig: That's right.

Troy: 100% we should talk about that.

Neil: So, like, it used to just end on the twenty years later and seeing the kid, and seeing Joel throw the kid in the fire, and that was it. That was episode one.

Troy: Why the change?

Craig: Well, HBO, I think correctly— and this is where you want good partners at the network, right? Like, I always feel like the best network executives are there to honestly represent the audience. That's what they could do best. They're not supposed to write things for us. They're supposed to tell us how they feel, and we are supposed to have faith in their proxy ability. In this case our proxies there, Casey Bloys and Franny Orsi were saying "It's not necessarily going to make me want to come back." Right? Like, the whole season, the whole story of The Last of Us is about Joel and Ellie. Well, if we only get like a little glimpse of her at the end of episode one. We don't bring them together and we don't understand their journey, and it just ends with a kid dying and then another kid dying and then credits. People may just not want to come back. And it was important for them because they love the show.

Neil Right.

Craig: And they were like, we need— we— it will hurt all of us in our hearts if they don't want to come back.

Neil: And in hindsight, the feedback makes complete sense.

Craig: Yeah, they were right

Neil: Because we had a version where we ended on Ellie and looking out the window and you see that she's changed. And you're like, "Oh, there's a mystery here," but like, we haven't established why you should care about this kid, we care about this kid because we know where this journey is going and how important this kid is. I remember when I worked on the game, this was always like a test for people, I would be like, "What's the inciting incident?" And they'd be like, "Oh when Sarah dies." Obviously I'm like, "Nope, it's when Joel runs into Ellie. That's the thing that changes his life."

Troy: Right

Neil: And I'm like, "Oh, we didn't get to that moment! We have to get to that moment. That's the start of this journey." So that's why, again, in hindsight, that feedback makes complete sense, and the episode is so much better for it.

Craig: Yep. I mean, the plot of our show, obviously, is going to relate very closely to the plot of the game, and if you want to boil the plot of the game down to its simplest, it's, man takes girl from A to B.

Troy: I could even— The log line is "I need a battery."

[Troy, Craig and Neil laugh]

Craig: That's the thing. So the question is like, we really di— in the game, because you're spending so much time in the beginning learning how to play. The game could not put plot on you. If they put a bunch of plot on you it would have felt like "Oh my God, but I'm still learning how to duck. I'm still learning how to listen and throw a bottle". We didn't have that constraint and we felt it was important to create an urgency for our protagonist that was not at all connected to Ellie. That meeting Ellie was something that interrupted this urgency. And that that urgency, which in this case was sort of a simple invention but I think it works pretty well. He talks to Tommy via this, we created this kind of

TroyNetwork of—

Craig: Yes, network of ham radio operators, which made sense to us. It felt realistic. And Tommy and he would exchange messages and he hasn't heard back from Tommy in three weeks. And he's panicked and he needs to go save his brother. Because in that, in and of itself, is an interesting thematic choice for Joel that gets paid off. But in his desire to get a truck battery, to put in a truck, to be able to drive, to get out to Wyoming. He gets thrown into the path of this, essentially this crime that occurs between Robert and Tess and Joel.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Anna Torv (As Tess): What do you want?

Brendan Fletcher (As Robert): I want you to forget this ever happened.

Anna Torv (As Tess): Done.

Brendan Fletcher (As Robert): D-don't do that.

Anna Torv (As Tess): What? it's just a truck battery. I paid you for it, you sold it to someone else, and you spend my money. I mean, you think I've never done sh*t like that?

Brendan Fletcher (As Robert): My guys f*cked you up.

Anna Torv (As Tess): Yeah, so discipline them. You can cut off a finger or whatever the f*ck you want. I don't care, they're your f*ckin' guys.

Troy: From the onset, you have different characters. Robert is different.

Craig: Yep. Tess is different.

Troy: Tess is different.

Craig: Yep.

Troy: Of course, she's played by Anna Torv. There's a hardness to her that really really speaks to this version. There was one moment that we have in the game where you can see that Tess is the one who's leading Joel and Joel is the muscle. There's some stuff that makes me angry that Pedro does because it's so good. Even his reaction when Tess says he got the battery.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Anna Torv (As Tess): Nothing's lost. Now, sh*t like this is gonna happen. Now we just shake it off and we go get our cards back, or the battery.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): I need the battery, Tess.

[Joel slams his hand on a table]

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Truck's no good without one, and if I don't get to Tommy soon, he's gonna die out there.

Troy: His reaction sells the desperation of a simple thing.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Anna Torv (As Tess): I need you to take a breath.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Who'd he sell it to?

Anna Torv (As Tess): Don't know.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Well, where is he?

Anna Torv (As Tess): Don't know, yet. But we're going to find out, quietly. Understand? Now, I promised Robert that you wouldn't hurt him. But I would very much like for you to hurt him. So let's go hunt that mοthеrfսckеr down, and get our battery, and our truck, and then we'll go find Tommy. All right?

Neil: She's kinda treating him like a child

Troy: "I need you to take a breath"

Craig Yep.

Neil And that makes him feel so dangerous. And I love that. I love that dynamic between them. Like she's one of the few that can control him. She's the Joel Whisperer.

Craig: I'm so glad you said that. That scene was Anna's first day.

Troy: Oh Jesus.

Craig: And I was directing, and she was very kind of like anxious and hyper. And she kept telling me "This is just first day Anna, it's first day Anna." And I thought "Well, first day Anna is pretty damn good" because she nailed exactly what Neil's talking about the notion of Joel as a little bit of a Frankenstein monster. It is more dangerous to know that there is something volatile in him. That, if she doesn't calm him down, he will go out there and hurt people. Now this is not the same man we saw at the beginning of the episode. Something profound has changed. But what is interesting about the relationship as it progresses, and we will see more next week when, hopefully people return to watch the next episode that Neil directed. That relationship is more complicated than we think. But the way she gently took control of that situation tells us everything we need to know. She is smart. She is insightful. She cares about him. Clearly there's a love there which is quite beautiful, and she is the only person that ultimately— I guess she's been sort of using him when she wants to let the genie out of the bottle. She says "I would very much like for you to hurt him," well that's how you know. That when the time is right, she's going to release him.

Troy: And that was a command.

Craig: Yes.

Troy: "So here's what I want you to do."

Craig: Yes.

Troy: We're working our way kind of towards the end and there's another divergence that's speaking to— before, we just kind of stumble upon Ellie. We really get the opportunity to establish Ellie well beforehand. We see this unique relationship that Marlene has and the involvement there.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): So can I go?

Merle Dandridge (As Marlene): No.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): I won't tell anyone about any of this. I swear.

Merle Dandridge (As Marlene): Where are you gonna go? Back to FEDRA military school? You that anxious to be a soldier?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): You think I chose that place? They put me there when I was a baby. It's for orphans.

Merle Dandridge (As Marlene): They didn't put you there. I did, Ellie.

Troy: I'd love to talk a little bit more about where that came from and why not just stumble upon Ellie like we did in the game?

Neil: Part of the reason we would have had to wait that much longer to see Ellie.

Craig: Yes, and also, there was something in the game that felt natural about discovering her in this process as Joel because you are Joel in the game. But we are not Joel watching the show.

Troy: Yes.

Craig: And so, it felt almost diminishing if we just happened to just land on this kid. We wanted a chance to meet her alone. And we also thought we had an opportunity to explain something interesting that Neil couldn't have done in the first game. Because he hadn't done Left Behind yet.

Troy: Talking about Riley?

Craig: Yeah, so what happened to Ellie? And who's Riley? And why was Marlene the person that found them? And also, how does Marlene even know her name? And what does this mean that Marlene put her there? There's this rich history that we are hinting at that will become perfectly plain and clear as the season goes on. And the relationship between Ellie and Marlene in the game was sort of like "Look, just take this kid, I need you to take this kid, it's important." Here, you get the sense that Marlene has this profound connection to Ellie, which will be something that we're going to pay off and pull on quite a bit later on.

Neil: One of the biggest changes between the game and the show is, the game is hardcore, that everything you're experiencing, everything you're seeing is either completely from Joel's perspective, Ellie's perspective, or for a tiny bit, Sarah's perspective. That's it. In the game, Tess tells you that she got jumped by Robert's men. Here you get to see it. It's hinted at the in the game that there's a romantic relationship between Joel and Tess. And here we see her crawl into bed with him, like again, we don't explicitly say it, but it's like it's pretty much there. You know that at some point Marlene found Ellie and she found out these particular circ*mstances. Here you get to see more of that. Of like, "Okay, how was she held? How did they decide to eventually leave with her?" You're coming into the game post-all-those-things. Here, we get to dramatize and see them. So, in a way, this is doing— like, it's making the game richer because these events that are referred to offhandedly. You get to experience what they were like.

Troy: The way the Fireflies show up in this series is very different than the games, let's talk about the Fireflies for a minute.

Craig: Well I would drive Neil crazy with my questions. I mean I would. Like, "Okay, how do you join the Fireflies? How do they know who to trust? How many are there? Where do they live? Is there one building? Is there multiple buildings?"

Troy: "How are they painting graffiti inside of here if they exist outside?"

Craig: All of these questions, I'm constantly asking these questions.

Neil: Often, I can refer to facts like, for example, we had some information of how Riley was recruited, so we could talk about that. And then I would tell them, here are things we've talked about while making the game but never made it into the game. So that's that this was our thinking this was our internal logic. And here are actual facts of what we saw in the game. So, whenever we could we would lean into the facts and then whenever there was a chance to elaborate or make something even more grounded we would jump at that opportunity.

Troy: So, we have to talk about Bella Ramsey, who of course plays Ellie.

Craig: You know, we always said, Neil and I said, we know the character of Ellie as it was inspired by the game. We have put that into the page. We are going to put that into our actors as we direct. They will perform. They don't need to play the game and see it. They probably shouldn't. And yet they just had Ellie-ness. That combination of wisdom, and sass, and fear.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): You guys go out there a lot?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): I guess.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): When was the last time?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Maybe a year, what's it matter?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): But you know where to go. So we're gonna be okay.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Yeah. So, what's the deal with you anyway? You some kind of bigwig's daughter or something?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Something like that.

Craig: I love that scene because, when he wakes up, she's afraid. She doesn't want to show him she's afraid, but she asks questions that indicate that she's afraid. Which catches him, and this is where Pedro is amazing, leaning forward to put her at ease. Because no matter how closed off he insists he is. He's not.

Troy and Craig: When she says—

Neil: He's a dad and he will always be a dad.

Craig: He will always be a dad. It just kind of comes out, right? He can't help himself but he's certainly not gonna be demonstrative about it. He's certainly not going to go over there and say, "Listen it's going to be—"

Troy: Right. This is as good as it's gonna get.

Craig: And if he had, she would have been like, "Oh, hey, who the f*ck are you?" But of course, then, after he does that, she turns around and gives him sh*t, because she's Ellie and she's paying him back for him being a j*rk when he walked in the room in the first place.

Troy: There's another moment specifically between Joel and Ellie right towards the end. They come out of the tunnel.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 1 plays]

Max Montesi (As Lee): You've got to be sh*tting me

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Okay, let's talk this out.

Max Montesi (As Lee): Turn around.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Okay, hold on

Max Montesi (As Lee): Get on your f*cking knees. Get on your f*cking knees

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Now, hold on

Max Montesi (As Lee): What did I f*cking tell you, man? I said stay the f*ck home. Get on your knees

Troy: Ellie pulls at the knife. she stabs him. The use of flashback is a really—

Craig: Dangerous.

Troy: It's a dangerous trap, right? Most people I think use a flashback as a cheap way of exposition. That's not what this was. The flashback was—

Craig: A flashback.

Troy: You need to see what's happening inside of his head.

Craig: Like a traumatic flashback, like a proper one.

Troy: And you see that this man has PTSD. And he doesn't get angry, there's no even sense of survival. It is pure rage.

Craig: Well, it's it is pure rage when it manifests, but right before its pure rage. If you look at Pedro's face, and he's so wonderful in this moment, it's this crushing sadness. Before the anger, is mourning and grief. You can see his heart breaking all over again. And he's very close in the frame. And I remember on that day, we had gone through a bunch of those things. And we were still kind of finding Joel because it was early in the process and making this first episode. And one of the things that I kept saying to him was, "Because you're so naturally tough and gruff and masculine and Joel. The more you can show me a scared, sad, frightened kid inside of you. The more I will connect with you and feel everything else." And that was the moment where he came to me goes, "I got it I got it I got it". That's it, there's Joel right there. It's that moment before he goes crazy and then when he goes crazy, I understand why. It's not to punish this guy. It's because his heart is just blown open.

Troy: Then there's also the moment after.

Craig: And then there's the moment after.

Troy: To me, the moment is "I did it again". That's almost look of apologetic and realizing "I just did this in front of a girl," and he looks, and then there's the look from Ellie.

Craig: Yeah, it's my favorite, that's my favorite

Troy: Any fourteen-year-old girl would be mortified by what she saw, and she's leaning in.

Craig: Yeah, look earlier in the episode when Joel hits the old lady in the head with the wrench. Sarah is horrified, and cries even though that woman was trying to kill her basically. And she says, "You killed her," she can't believe what she just saw. She just saw her father murder someone. Ellie sees something that isn't one swing, and that guy wasn't even threatening Joel's life. And he beats him to death, punches him over and over and over, and Ellie is activated. And this is going to echo forward. This is something that Neil and I talked about a lot. Which was understanding where Ellie goes. And understanding what the connection is between Joel and Ellie. That there's a thread between them that is more than just "I used to have a kid, and you're also a kid." There's something else. That there's the connection already between Joel and Ellie that is different from his connection with his own daughter. And perhaps potentially stronger and certainly potentially more dangerous.

Neil: Right, there's a looking up to what this man is capable of that Ellie wants for herself.

Troy: I want to take on one last thing and Neil I know how much music means to you with this story specifically. So, we end the episode on the Depeche Mode.

Craig: Yeah, Never Let Me Down Again.

Troy: Yeah, Never Let Me Down Again. There's a couple of different things throughout this series that people will see where music plays a part, and there's different versions of it. Obviously, we establish there's a code of music, which is really cool that, again, I love that Ellie picks up on the fact that this is what this means and she kind of tricks Joel into thinking that. I love the juxtaposition of a song that's '80s and happy is signaling something horrible. Where did that song come from?

Craig: There is a grand tradition of '80s music in The Last of Us, and The Last of Us Part II. And '80s means trouble. I love that line because one of the things that Neil has done so beautifully in the work at Naughty Dog that he does, is hurt you for the things you love and taking things that are bright and beautiful and cheery and optimistic, and getting this dark undertone. And a lot of '80s music is chipper and fun, but Never Let Me Down Again, what I was looking for was an '80s song that felt, at least initially like, "Oh it's an up-tempo '80s song," but lyrically had a darkness to it. And what it's about is, "I'm taking a ride with my best friend." Now, what he was singing about was drugs. It was a song about addiction. Well, Ellie's about to take a ride with her best friend, and Joel is a dangerous man. and Joel is about to take a ride with his best friend, he doesn't know she's his best friend yet, she's a dangerous little girl. and the whole point is, you're never going to let me down. Now, they are going to let each other down, and then they're not, and then they are, and then they're not. And that, I thought was a really interesting way in. We are going to hear that song again. I won't tell you when or how, but it will be in a very different way and in a very different context.

Troy: We are just at the start of their journey together, the music comes up and this episode ends with the huge reveal that Ellie has a bite mark. She tests positive on the FEDRA scanner and she may not be showing signs of being infected now, but Joel and Tess know that it's just a matter of time.

[Outro music plays]

Troy: So wherever we're going we're definitely heading into trouble, which I can't wait to talk about in next week's episode. Craig, thanks a million, man, for being here.

Craig: Thanks, Troy.

Troy: And of course, the same to you Neil.

Neil: Goodbye.

Troy: We will talk to you both next week.

Troy: This has been the official podcast for HBO's The Last of Us. I'm Troy Baker, joined as always by showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. You can stream new episodes of the HBO original series The Last of Us, Sundays on HBO Max, and then this podcast episode will air after that episode airs. And you can find that wherever you listen to podcasts. Please like and follow HBO's The Last of Us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and remember, when you're lost in the darkness, look for the light.

Narrator: This is the official companion podcast for HBO's The Last of Us, hosted by Troy Baker. Our producers are Elliott Adler, Bria Mariette, and Noah Camuso. Darby Maloney is our editor. The show is mixed by Hannis Brown. Our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Bari Finkel. Production music is courtesy of HBO, and you can watch episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Max.