The Last of Us Season 2, episode 5 finally brings in the big guns: SPORES!
Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann's HBO adaptation of The Last of Us has stuck pretty close to the Naughty Dog games, making changes where it makes sense for TV.
However, one major element has been missing from the series, one deliberately omitted from both seasons so far: spores. But as of Season 2, episode 5, the airborne threat has landed.
In The Last of Us games, characters must constantly don masks to avoid inhaling infectious spores produced by the Cordyceps infestation. Spores play a major role in The Last of Us Part II, mainly for how Dina finds out Ellie is immune to infection; in the show Ellie (Bella Ramsey) gets bitten defending Dina (Isabela Merced) in the subway beneath Seattle, while in the game Ellie's gas mask gets broken in the spore-filled tunnel and she miraculously breathes it all in without harm.
Druckmann and Mazin decided to leave spores out of the show for more realism. "If we wanted to treat it realistically, and there are spores near, characters would wear gas masks all the time," Druckmann told Polygon of Season 1. "Then we lose so much, which is maybe the most important part of the journey, is what’s going on inside behind their eyes, in their soul, in their beings. For that logistical reason, we were like, Let’s find a different vector."
I'd argue that I can envision conversations around the questionable action of encasing Pedro Pascal in yet another helmet as a main character on TV, but that's just me making shit up.
However, in Season 2, episode 5, Mazin and Druckmann change the game for the series, unlocking a basement full of Cordyceps spores in Seattle's Lakeville Hospital, right beneath the feet of the Washington Liberation Front (WLF).
We first learn of the spores through a conversation between Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach) and WLF commanding officer Elise Park (Hettienne Park). The latter recounts a mission gone wrong in the hospital basement, in which her unit — led by her son, Leon — discovered Cordyceps all over the walls as usual, but also floating in the air. Alas, a coughing Leon ordered his mother to seal himself and other obviously Infected officers in, which she did.
Elise confirms the spores are not in the vents or the unit would have been Infected weeks ago — but then Ellie chases Nora (Tati Gabrielle) into the second basement floor at the end of the episode, meaning certain doors are prised open that Elise's unit had painfully sealed.
Cordyceps has found its way into Jackson's pipes and now into Seattle's air. This is not looking good, folks. Cordy's evolving.
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