If you’ve played the game, you knew how season 1 of The Last of Us was going to end on HBO. But while the final episode, “Look for the Light,” mostly mirrored The Last of Us Part I, there were a few changes. So let’s discuss all the differences between the HBO The Last of Us show in the episode 9 finale, “Look for the Light,” and the original video game.
A List of All the Differences Between The Last of Us Show Episode 9 Finale and the Game
“Look for the Light” wraps up the season and the events of The Last of Us Part I. There weren’t an awful lot of differences between the game and the show, but at least one of them made Joel’s rampage look even worse and his lie to Ellie more significant.
Here, then, are all those differences between the episode 9 finale and The Last of Us the game:
- We see Anna, Ellie’s mother, attacked and bitten by an infected, giving birth to Ellie during the attack. Marlene promises to look after Ellie and, at Anna’s request, shoots her. In the game, we learn about Marlene’s friendship with Ellie’s mother, but it’s never shown.
- Compared to in the game, Joel really dials up the dadness in his relationship with Ellie. We half expected him to pull out Sarah’s bloodied T-shirt and ask Ellie to wear it.
- The triage area they walk through is a military one, and Joel points out that it’s not FEDRA. In the game it’s clearly FEDRA, down to the logos around the area.
- Joel confirms that he tried to commit suicide, whereas in the game this was only implied.
- The Fireflies discover Joel and Ellie as they walk towards the hospital. In the game, they come across the pair when Joel is trying to revive a drowning Ellie.
- Marlene offers a more detailed explanation of how Ellie is immune and how that can help create a cure. Fans sometimes insist that Joel was right to do what he did because the Fireflies had no real hope of creating a cure. This makes it sound more plausible and suggests Joel’s murderfest does really rob the world of a cordyceps cure.
- Joel talks about the infection growing in the brain, when in the game he says it grows on the brain. This might seem like a minor distinction, but in the latter case, there’s at least the faintest hope of taking a sample without hacking away at Ellie’s grey matter.
- Some Fireflies attempt to surrender, but Joel kills them anyway. In the game, no one attempts to surrender.
- One person gets away — some people have claimed this is Abby from The Last of Us Part II, though we’re not convinced.
- In the game, he blocks off a door so the Fireflies can’t follow him. In the show, he kills everyone apart from the nurses in the operating theater and maybe Abby.
- Like in the game, Joel tells Ellie that there were dozens of other immune people and none of them worked out. But in the show he compounds this lie by saying that raiders attacked the hospital. It’s uncomfortable to watch because, going by Ellie’s reaction, she knows right then that he’s lying. Two lies are always less believable than one.
Those are all the differences between the The Last of Us episode 9 finale, “Look for the Light,” and the original video game it’s based on, concluding season 1.
