The Last of Us Episode 4

Why does it feel like such a shock when The Last of Us Episode 4 is devoted strictly to Joel and Ellie? Either way, it's a welcome change.

In the game, Joel was more determined and action-driven, knowing that every person he killed equaled one less enemy to fear. Anyway, a solid episode overall, one that added to the mythos without deviating too far off course. In the game, Joel and Ellie brutally murder countless hordes of people without giving them much thought. - There were plenty of nods to the game in Episode 4: Ellie’s joke book chief among them. Instead, Ellie shoots young boys in the back and conceals her feelings over engaging in such atrocities. The show gave her something to do for the first time, and the young actress delivered.

After last week's bold adaptation, HBO's series gives us an episode packed with moments from the game.

But just as the show’s Ellie is different from the game’s in a few key ways, so too is the show’s Joel different from this game counterpart. [Lotte Kestner’s cover of New Order’s “True Faith.”](https://youtu.be/girKHerKXUg) Interestingly, this cover was the basis for a version of the song that Ellie sang in [a commercial for The Last of Us Part II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzlzA2El6Ps), which prompted Kestner to tweet about the unauthorized use of her cover. (In the game, Joel has supernaturally keen hearing, letting him pinpoint the locations of enemies through walls and at great distances.) His poor hearing in his right ear may be related to the time a bullet grazed him, but if there’s more to that story, we’ll have to wait to hear it. Ellie asks Joel how he knew the guy asking for help wasn’t hurt, and he says he’s been on both sides, that he and Tess and the crew they ran with “did what we needed to survive.” In both cases, Ellie asks Joel if he killed innocent people. You get the feeling that he’d go to the ends of the earth in support of Kathleen’s crusade, regardless of his own feelings, and that makes him dangerous. Hiding out in an old bar, Joel and Ellie get to talking about how she just saved his life, and it plays out very differently from the game. She instantly links the presence of these “mercs” to him, saying maybe he used a radio to “call these guys in.” Driven by the deaths of her own men, she goes back in to kill the doctor, then comes back outside to rile the crowd up by lying through her teeth. But before, people dying was okay, when you were safe and protected and ratting on your neighbors to FEDRA.” When he protests that FEDRA put a gun to his head, she does the same and asks, “Have I satisfied the necessary conditions for you to talk?” In the game, we know that the hunters of Pittsburgh have effectively liberated the city from the local FEDRA branch, which was a cruel and oppressive institution, denying people rations and brutally keeping citizens in line. Ideologically, I’m not a fan of how ubiquitous the idea is in video games and grimdark movies and TV shows that killing is often just a given, a necessity, once the world collapses. “You don’t like coffee?” Joel asks with a hint of understated humor as she recoils in disgust from the bubbling pot. Whereas Ellie in the game is still constantly reacting with shock and horror as Joel offs bad guys at this point, her TV show counterpart still seems excited by it, and perhaps anxious for a chance to prove she can effectively dish it out.

HBO's The Last of Us is a mostly faithful adaptation of the hit PlayStation game. But just how close to its source material does it get? We've gathered images ...

Simon Cardy is reviewing The Last of Us for IGN. But just how close to its source material does it get? HBO's The Last of Us is a mostly faithful adaptation of the hit PlayStation game.