HBO's highly-anticipated series adaptation of Naughty Dog's groundbreaking video game, The Last of Us, premiered yesterday (today in the UK and Ireland), and while the first episode plays out in pretty much the same way as the game, one significant change arguably makes the already heartbreaking prologue even more devastating.
Spoilers follow.
The game begins by giving us control of Joel's daughter Sarah, a few hours before society starts to fall apart after the onset of the Cordyceps virus. The series premiere also plays out from Sarah's (Nico Parker) point-of-view, but we get to spend more time with the kind-hearted teen before her life is cut tragically short.
We follow Sarah as she goes to school, drops in on an elderly neighbour, visits a repair shop to get her father's watch fixed for his birthday, and returns home to watch a movie with Joel. Throughout the day, we get hints that something serious is brewing, but don't find out exactly what's going on until Sarah wakes up to the sound of helicopters and explosions later that night.
From here, we get a recreation of the game's pulse-pounding escape sequence, as Joel, Sarah and Tommy attempt to make it out of the city before all hell breaks loose.
Unfortunately, just as salvation seems near, Sarah is gunned down by a solider and dies in her father's arms.
In the "Inside the Episode" featurette below, co-creator Craig Mazin explains why he felt "it was important for us to present the audience with a Sarah that we thought we could follow for the rest of the series. She’s almost the protagonist, until disaster strikes."
If someone hadn't played the game and was going in to the show completely blind, it would be easy to be fooled into thinking Sarah was going to be our protagonist. Allowing us to get to know her better makes her death all the more difficult to witness, and easier to understand why Joel loses faith in humanity and heads down such a dark path in the years that follow.
What did you guys make of the season premiere of The Last of Us? Drop us a comment down below, and check out our verdict on the full season here.