The Last of Us: A scene from the series even sadder than the video game

Warning, spoilers. It is recommended that you watch The Last of Us Episode 5 before you continue reading this article.

Created by Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin, The Last of Us is a television adaptation of the famous video game of the same name. A true phenomenon, the series has captivated neophytes as much as fans, even though many changes have been made to the video game artwork.

That’s the case in Episode 5, titled “Endure and Survive,” which takes an iconic sequence from the video game: Joel’s sniper mission. After escaping the infected from the sewers, Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam make their way to a residential suburb, where they are pursued by the Hunters. They find themselves in a dead end and are targeted by a sniper positioned above.

After sneaking into several buildings, Joel manages to overpower the sniper and take his place, then destroy the rest of the hunters so Ellie, Henry, and Sam can sneak in and join him.

In The official podcast dedicated to The Last of UsCo-showrunner Craig Mazin explained that it was difficult to recreate the same intensity of this sequence on screen: “Watching the sequence on screen, there was a lot of dodging and ducking and ducking and ducking. That’s not the point of the show. But I was obsessed with the backstage idea and the idea. The sniper.”.

Why is the order of snipers in the game different in the series?

And indeed, we find these two main ideas in episode 5 of the series. On one side, Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey), Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Kevon Woodard) hit a dead end and are chased by the Hunters, led by new character Kathleen. (Melanie Lynskey) .

On the other hand, Joel reaches a tall building where a sniper was stationed and he takes that sniper’s place to kill the Hunters and save Ellie, Henry and Sam are also in the game!

To bring more intensity and flavor to the sniper sequences in the series, Craig Mazin chose to inject a little more emotion and sadness into the story, including moving Joel more quickly into a firing position, which he botched for a simple reason: “The answer is he’s really old. He can’t see. And that’s unfortunate, because when you’re dealing with a citizen’s brigade, that’s often what you’re dealing with.”.

The co-showrunner explains his idea by saying that Kathleen’s militia does not exist “Trained soldiers are normal people” : “And this guy has seen a lot because – let’s say he’s 80 years old. That means sixty years of his life has been in the normal world, and the last twenty years have been horrible. He’s sad out there. God only knows how much heartache he’s been through.”

In the HBO series, Joel meets this old gunman and doesn’t want to hurt him. He tries to understand that they don’t need to be lethal and that he needs to put the gun down. Unfortunately, the old man, with nothing left to lose, tries in vain to kill Joel.

This modification, simple but relevant, makes it possible to cunningly adapt the memorable sequence of the video game, while bringing even more emotion and humanity to it.

The Last of Us series is available on Prime Video.