How HBO's The Last of Us Adapted the Most Iconic Scene From the Video Game

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the series premiere of The Last of Us! Read at your own risk]

The Last of Us is finally here. The series premiere of HBO's adaptation of the award-winning 2013 PlayStation game arrived on Sunday and set fans of the game and those who've never played it on a whirlwind journey through a world where a particularly nasty kind of fungus has evolved to take over human brains and control its hosts with one objective in mind: to spread the infection. The premiere began with a 1960s talk show that set up the science of the impending outbreak before jumping to 2003 in Austin, Texas, to introduce us to Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) going to work on his 36th birthday despite the protest of his teenage daughter Sarah (Nico Parker), who wants to have a proper celebration for her dad. In the background, a radio report mentions a crisis in Jakarta, Indonesia, that the Millers are completely unaware will burn their world to the ground in less than 18 hours. 

Red flags begin popping up throughout Sarah's day as she goes to get a watch repaired for her father's present, but the shop closes early in a rush with no explanation. A little while later, Sarah is baking cookies with her next door neighbor and eagle-eyed audience members notice something has gone terribly wrong with Grandma Adler. It is not until that evening, when Joel has to go pick his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) up from jail, that we realize the infection has reached the Austin suburbs, and an infected Grandma Adler has taken out her whole family. 

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The action revs up from then on as Joel, Tommy, and Sarah try to make their way out of the panicked town. The military has already shown up, taking out any stragglers as major cities are bombed to stop the spread of the disease. The trio is forced to move on foot after their truck crashes, but tragedy strikes when a military officer confronts Joel and an injured Sarah and shoots on sight. Joel makes it out with a graze, but Sarah is critically injured and dies, concluding the prologue of the game and perhaps the scene video game fans were most anticipating in the new series. 

"That was great because as somebody that's played the game, I sat there and I went behind the monitor, I'm like, 'Wow' because we're even kind of framing it in the same way," Gabriel Luna told TV Guide and fellow Fandom brands GameSpot and Metacritic during a digital junket promoting the show. "I remember being struck by the similarities in the way they were framing it... There's a lot of expectation on that scene, but what I could see on the monitor and the way we were handling it, we were being really, really true to the game. Tommy, of course, has seen a lot of death in his experience, and I think that what I was trying to get across was that I know what's done; I can see this wound and I know what's about to happen. And so a lot of it is just trying to be there for my brother when he tries to come to terms with what's happening." 

It's a gutting sequence as Joel cradles his blood-covered daughter in his arms and wails in agony. Executive producer and pilot director Craig Mazin gave both Parker and Pascal the same advice as they prepped the scene, despite Joel and Sarah being in different predicaments. 

"I remember Craig came over to us as a last prompt, and he turned to me and he goes, 'This is the most pain that you've ever been in in your entire life. This is the most excruciatingly painful thing that's ever happened to you,'" Parker explained. "And then he said the same thing to Pedro. And for me, there's more of a physical aspect to it, but for Pedro there's more of an emotional pain. But I think the fact that it was the same sentence could be completely applicable to both of us. I was carrying that with me with every take that we did or anything. I tried to emulate that in what was happening." 

What makes the scene so heartbreaking is that the first 15 minutes of the episode make it immediately clear how much Sarah and Joel mean to each other. They, along with Tommy, have a tight-knit family unit and watching that get torn apart so violently at the start of the series sets a very specific tone for what's to come. 

"The way we wanted to portray it is just how much they care for one another," Parker added. "I think the bond between them is so strong and so important, and you see Joel carry it throughout his story and his character arc, and I think it was something we all wanted to treat respectfully and also to execute it in a way that – because the game does it so quickly and so beautifully and we had more time and more space, and I think we all just wanted to achieve that same level of importance that Sarah has to Joel."

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The scene is the last time we see Sarah in the premiere, and potentially for the rest of the series, but her death is just the beginning for Joel. Suffering such a traumatic loss on outbreak day shapes who he is and how he'll interact with the disease-torn world for the rest of the series, which is something Pascal was very aware of as the scene was being shot. 

"It was an incredible opportunity for me to get started in that way. To have Nico Parker, who is amazing, that was an instant father-daughter bond, and fun and a perfect way to start. With Gabriel Luna playing Tommy, my brother, and this little family, essentially, that is instantly torn apart by outbreak day, an iconic moment that exists in the game that fans are all very aware of that basically shapes who this man is for the rest of his journey," Pascal said. "So, it was incredibly intimidating, but also very exciting. I think we both relate to different moments that, for us, were very scary to face in terms of how loved these moments are in the original game or the original story." 

After Sarah dies, the premiere jumps 20 years to present day where we find Joel living in a QZ (Quarantined Zone) in Boston. Tommy has gone missing and Joel is teamed up with a woman named Tess (Anna Torv). They end up meeting the foul-mouthed Ellie (Bella Ramsey) when they're tasked with taking her beyond the Boston city limits to a safe house belonging to the rebel group the Fireflies in exchange for a truck battery they desperately need in order to travel across the country to find Tommy. 

We immediately see that Sarah's death still haunts Joel when the trio run into a guard just outside the QZ boarder. When he points his gun at them, Joel immediately flashes back to outbreak day and the soldier that shot him and Sarah. Needless to say, the guard does not survive the interaction. Joel kills him in front of Tess and Ellie, and then the trio head into Boston proper as the audience is warned that severe danger is ahead. 

The series creators previewed that there will be times in the season ahead where the show strays from the video game, but the premiere episode goes above and beyond in not only showing game fans how committed they are to telling the story of the game, but also showcasing to new audiences why the game was as groundbreaking as it was. It looks like the series might be the same. 

The Last of Us Season 1 continues Sundays at 9/8c on HBO. Episodes will also stream on HBO Max.