The Last of Us episode 2 spoilers follow.
The Last of Us is the kind of show that's determined to wring out the last of your tears as you helplessly watch your faves fight to survive in HBO's fungal hellscape. Episode one established that grim tone early on, but episode two is when the heartache really starts to kick in.
The cold open, set in Indonesia, quickly reminds us that the Cordyceps infection is not just an American problem. People around the world are attacking each other and the worst thing of all is that "There is no medicine". At least, according to a professor named Ibu Ratna.
Following that revelation, those disgusting yet gorgeous opening credits return before throwing us back into 2023 with Joel, Tess, and Ellie. Clickers, fallen skyscrapers and one adorable piano-playing frog all come into play, but even with all that going on, nothing will quite prepare you for how this episode ends. And that's true even if you do already know the video games that Last of Us is based on.
The Last of Us episode 2's ending explained
Across these first two episodes, Joel and Tess fight to bring Ellie somewhere safe, a place where the Fireflies can use Ellie's immunity to find a cure. But when this makeshift family arrive at the Capitol building, all the Fireflies they were supposed to meet there are dead. It turns out that clickers got to them first.
Tess desperately looks for a map among the bodies, something that can help them pick up the mission themselves, but Joel's not interested. Understandably, he just wants to go home. "It's not my fucking home," Tess replies before revealing that she's not going anywhere. "Our luck had to run out sooner or later..."
Yep, Tess is infected. She was bitten on the shoulder during their earlier skirmish, and it's already getting worse.
It's a lot to process, and not just for us either. But Tess understands exactly how important Ellie's survival is, so she pleads with Joel to bring her the rest of the way. "You get her there, you keep her alive, and you set everything right."
Before Joel can protest this further, one of the not-so-dead bodies lunges up and attacks. Joel kills it, but not before the fungus alerts others sleeping nearby. This is our first tangible demonstration of how the infected are actually connected via tendrils underground that form one large mycorrhizal network. Science!
In a matter of seconds, hordes of runners and clickers race towards the Capitol building. With just a minute or so to spare, Tess pours gasoline everywhere. "Joel, save who you can save," she says, and with that, he runs off with Ellie, pulling her to safety.
There's no time for a proper goodbye or heartfelt exchange. It's painful, it's harrowing, and it's also quite realistic. Would you hang about to reminisce when fungal zombies are banging on the door outside?
Foregoing the sentimental route, we instead stay with Tess as she processes that these are her final moments. Her lighter, the one she plans to use when the clickers arrive, isn't working. It's still not working when they all burst in either. And at first, it's still not working when one of the infected comes right up to her face and extends tendrils out of its mouth into hers. Ew.
But then, just as their macabre kiss begins, Tess finally gets her lighter to work and drops it on the gasoline-soaked floor. That kiss of death has now become a kiss of death for them all as the Capitol explodes, taking everyone inside with it.
We then cut to Joel and Ellie, who hear the explosion from a safe distance knowing that Tess sacrificed everything to keep them alive.
Actually, no, we're not crying. You're crying!
Tess' fate in The Last of Us was almost very different
The Last of Us loves to play around with what we know of the games. One minute, the show will be an almost exact, shot-for-shot remake of the original story, and then suddenly, a giant twist or surprise will derail all that.
The same is absolutely true of these final moments in episode two. Yes, that last interaction between Tess and Joel is almost identical to what happens in the games, but there's one key difference: it was soldiers who originally killed the Fireflies, not the infected. And it's soldiers who come back to attack them again too.
When those grunts arrive outside, Tess tells the others that she can buy them some time, "but you have to run". She knows it's a suicide mission, but as she's infected anyway, Tess reckons she can stay alive just long enough to help Joel and Ellie escape.
During this talk, soldiers can be heard outside, demanding that they drop their weapons. "We know you're in there!"
And so, just like he does in the show, Joel runs off with Ellie. Except, there's no explosion or grotesque kiss or even one final look at Tess before she dies. Instead, we just hear the firefight offscreen as the player takes control of Joel and Ellie again to move them out of harm's way.
Upon reaching the balcony above, players discover that the "target" has been "neutralised" due to an overheard conversation between the soldiers. But at least Tess managed to take two of them out before she died.
This scene is still powerful in the game, don't get us wrong, and of course, playable moments like this are needed. It is a video game, after all. However, it's safe to say that Tess' death is far more moving in the show because we're no longer just tied to Joel's perspective.
With this newfound freedom to explore other viewpoints onscreen, we get to see the fear in Tess' eyes right before she ends it all. We feel everything she's feeling in those final moments, and it's excruciating to watch.
Switching out human soldiers for more of the infected was also a genius move. Not only are they far more unsettling, but their appearance here also helps provide new insight into how the infection actually works.
Bites aren't the only way to transmit it, it turns out. Freaky mouth tendrils can also do the job just as well, plus you know those underground fungal networks will definitely be playing a big role in the show moving forward. Watch out where you're walking, Joel. Just saying.
But there was a point when none of this would have happened in any adaptation of the game, let alone this one. And that's because Tess was almost very different in the games themselves.
Four days after the first game was released, Naughty Dog studio collaborated with Dark Horse Comics to release a book featuring concept art and character designs from behind the scenes. And within The Art of The Last of Us, there's a section that reveals Tess almost went on a very different path: "Very early on in development, Tess was actually the main antagonist of the game before the final narrative had been established."
There's one piece of concept art that even shows Tess holding a knife to Joel's throat after she's tied him up. And no, not in a kinky kind of way. Check out a screenshot of this for yourself towards the bottom of this Fandom page.
Creator Neil Druckmann, who also co-runs the show, expanded on this idea at 2013 IGDA (via YouTube) where he explained that Tess was once going to have a brother who would be killed in crossfire with the military.
Because this was supposed to happen when she and Joel were smuggling Ellie out, Tess would go on to blame Joel for her brother's death. From that point on, Tess was then going to chase Joel and Ellie across America with her henchmen. Eventually she would catch up to Joel, capturing and torturing him until Ellie kills her to save Joel.
This idea was abandoned after it was decided that dragging this storyline out over the space of a whole year would feel too unrealistic. However, there are some elements to this storyline that were integrated later on into Abby Anderson's arc in the sequel.
If the writers had stuck with that, then this second episode, and the show as a whole, would have looked very different. And we might have cried a few less tears too.
The Last of Us is available on HBO in US. In the UK, The Last of Us is available on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW with an Entertainment Membership for just £9.99.
