Warning: spoilers ahead for The Last of Us episode 2.
In this fictional tale, The Last of Us is continuing to offer insight on how the breakout of a parasitic, fungal virus caused ruin to the globe, with episode 2 providing more definite explanations about how the pandemic began.
The TV show, based on the video game franchise of the same name, follows a smuggler named Joel (Pedro Pascal) who is charged with transporting a young girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the United States since she has immunity to the illness and could thus be the key to finding a cure.
Joel meets Ellie for the first time in the first episode, along with his smuggling partner Tess (Anna Torv), when they take Ellie out of the Boston QZ (Quarantine Zone) where they dwell.
As the gang faces life-threatening perils in the major metropolis, Ellie learns more about how the world has changed over the past two decades.
Flashback to beginning of outbreak and horrific origin
The second episode begins with another flashback, this time to September 24, 2003 in Jakarta, Indonesia, when authorities sought the advice of Ibu Ratna (Christine Hakim), a professor of mycology at the University of Indonesia.
After inspecting a specimen, Ibu explains that it is ophiocordyceps, but she is sceptical when told that it was obtained from a human, stating, ‘Cordyceps cannot exist in humans.’
When she examines a dead body, she cuts into the cadaver’s leg to discover fungi inside before plucking fungal threads out of their throat.
According to the professor, the woman in issue ‘became violent’ and bit three coworkers before being shot by police about 30 hours ago at a wheat and grain factory. While the people she bit were also executed, the person who bit her remained at large, and 14 industrial workers were missing.
While officials hoped Ibu could assist, she stated that there was no medicine or vaccination available, before advising that they ‘bomb this city and everyone in it’ and begging to be brought home to be with her family.
Several viewers were taken aback by the revelation that fungus in flour was most likely the source of the infection’s spread, especially after hints were dropped in episode one, such as when Joel and Sarah (Nico Parker) refused to eat pancakes for breakfast and also refused to eat biscuits offered to them by their neighbours.
‘The end of the world being caused by FLOUR is wild,’ one person tweeted, while another wrote: ‘So the flour theory is true then.’
Joel and Tess take Ellie into city after discovering her arm bite
Joel and Tess were taken aback in episode one when a technology used on Ellie appeared to show that she was contaminated.
She did, however, explain to them that, while she had been bitten, the incident had occurred three weeks prior and, unlike everyone else they’d read about, she had not turned into a horrible beast.
Tess is more certain than Joel that they will complete their task, so they press on with their plan to bring Ellie to a squad of Fireflies.
When Ellie inquires about the crater in the centre of the road, Tess says that during the outbreak, the city was bombed in an effort to slow the spread of the sickness.
Meanwhile, Ellie recounts how she was bitten, claiming she went wandering alone in an abandoned mall when she came across an infected individual who bit her.
Ellie mentions spores in the air transmitted by infected at one point, which appear in the game but are not depicted in the TV version.
She also learns about how the infected are linked, because the fungus produces long fibres below, and stepping on Cordyceps in one spot could wake up a dozen infected people elsewhere.
Trio face terrifying Clicker attack in museum
Joel and Tess take Ellie into a museum on their way to the state house, where they assume the Fireflies are located, because there is a route at the top that goes to another structure.
They walk in and see a massive clump of diseased dead people, but the fungus has dried up.
Nonetheless, they are not entirely alone, as the group encounters a couple of Clickers – infected humans who are blind but use echolocation to find their prey and are extremely strong.
Joel and Tess fight off the Clickers, with Joel shooting them both dead, and while Ellie is bitten, it does not turn her into an infected.
Firefly plan left in tatters – while Tess reveals her doomed fate
Joel, Tess, and Ellie arrive at the Firefly base at the state house… But everyone there is dead, and Joel realises that there was a struggle between the squad’s healthy and sick members.
Tess, who has been acting increasingly rashly, urgently hunts for a radio amid their equipment before Ellie realises she’s frantic because she’s infected after being bitten on the shoulder.
Tess begs Joel to take Ellie to two men they know named Bill and Frank, claiming to him, ‘I never ask you for anything, not to feel the way I felt. This is your opportunity to get her there. You keep her alive and make things right.’
Joel shoots an infected guy on the ground when he starts moving, but this signals other infected in the area to their location due to the connection of the fungi in the ground.
Joel grabs Ellie and takes her out, as Tess struggles to light her lighter, which she intends to use to produce an explosion of gasoline and grenades when the swarm of infected arrives.
As the infected enter the premises, one of them approaches Tess and plants a horrifying kiss on her, complete with fungal strands in his mouth.
Tess ultimately manages to set a fire, and the building explodes, Joel appearing calm as Ellie’s eyes well up.
The Last of Us is available to watch on Sky and NOW, with new episodes released on Mondays.