Now that The Last of Us is one of the most popular television shows around, people are starting to notice a few differences from the video game, including just how the outbreak started spreading around the globe as quickly as it did. While things were fairly clearly laid out in the video game, it's a bit vaguer in the HBO Max series, but the creators are now confirming some fan theories sprouted from the second episode.
When it comes to The Last of Us tv show, the fungus that takes people over and then attacks others to spread are most often using tendrils instead of spores. To make the outbreak more of a global issue than it might be, the HBO Max show's creators changed something up about how the global breakdown first started. They're now admitting that the theories from Episode 2 are spot on, even going so far as to say it's not supposed to be a mystery at this point.
The Last of Us television adaptation creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann recently talked to Variety about the opening sequence and how it explained how the fungal outbreak took over the world as fast as it did and at roughly the same time. It turns out that flour was the key way in which the cordyceps was able to spread its reach all over the world and the opening sequence in Episode 2, titled "Infection" laid it all out.
That was the scene where the viewers were taken to Jakarta and a scientist talks to a military leader about how workers at a flour plant were exhibiting odd behavior. In the real world, the factory referenced in The Last of Us is the largest in the world and exports its products all over the globe. Mazin and Druckmann made it clear the situation was the same in the show. It's here where the cordyceps began and where it too was exported all over the world.
In the Variety interview, Mazin and Druckmann were asked about little signs that viewers noticed, including that in The Last of Us show, Joel and Sarah both repeatedly and sometimes by accident avoided eating foods that have flour in them including pancakes that were supposed to be made, a cake that was supposed to be bought and biscuits and cookies that were from the neighbors. When asked whether those theories were correct, Mazin responded, "I think it’s pretty explicit." Druckmann added, "yeah, we pretty much said yes."
By making flour be the starting point for the infection, the series came up with a believable replacement for the spores that were the problem in the video game. That's one of the reasons why The Last of Us on HBO has been so well received since it started airing.
New episodes of The Last of Us air every Sunday on HBO Max.
Source: Variety
