TheLast Of Usseries learned a lot from its source material games. The things the creators chose to replicate from the game often were the punchiest and most emotionally charged content in the game.
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One thing that was spot on with the series compared to the show was the tension and overall horror that pervaded the whole experience. The infected, and more often the monstrous people that inhabit the world of The Last Of Us, all make it a dark and scary place. But which of these moments in the show was the most terrifying?
Spoilers for The Last of Us TV Show on HBO ahead
10The Horse Riders
Anyone fond of post-apocalypse stories knows that running across other survivors isn’t always a good thing. As often shown, The Last Of Us' universe is no exception to that rule.
As Joel and Ellie explore the frozen and abandoned fields of Wyoming, being suddenly surrounded by a handful of horse-mounted strangers with rifles aimed at them is far from the most encouraging sight. Not to mention when they send a dog that can smell infection towards the duo. The tension and fear permeating the scene had so many people on the edge of their seats.
9Bomb The City
The first episode in the series is there to show just how grim the world of The Last Of Us really is. It does a great job of setting the tone for the show and what a tone it is.
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One scene we got in the show that we didn’t get in the games showed a bit of background for how the infection started. Seeing the mycologist investigate the corpse of the recently infected woman was eerie enough. But that feeling multiplies when we see her professional demeanor crack, and she begins to suggest that the authorities destroy the city as the only hope of stopping the outbreak.
8The Kiss
We get a good sense of what the infected are pretty early on in the series. As Joel, Ellie, and Tess all explore the area outside the Boston QZ, we see just how pervasive the infection is.
Sadly, Tess chooses to make a last stand after becoming infected herself to save Joel and Ellie. What was expected was a fireworks show of explosions and burning infected. What we didn’t expect was the all-too-creepy kiss scene between Tess and an infected that seemed to understand that the fungus was taking her over.
7He Needs Help
Kansas City brought a whole new array of challenges to the show’s protagonists, with infected being the least of their worries.
True enough, their introduction to KC was a rough one as they ran across an apparent survivor in need on one of the city streets. Joel, in his own wisdom, knew the trap on sight. The fight that follows is a rough one, seeing Ellie shoot one of the ambushers to save Joel. It is a gruesome scene and one that had tensions definitely rising.
6The First Clickers
The normal everyday infected are already scary enough, but learning after all this time from the fall of society that they’ve been mutating further almost makes you want to see Joel and Ellie just stay home.
The tension building towards the first run-inwith the clickerswas masterfully done, especially the dialogue with Ellie asking about all the rumors. Seeing them in the museum was something else entirely. How fast they were and utterly ruthless had everyone wondering if there would be an early end to the show’s protagonists.
5The Bloater
Speaking of special infected, the clickers aren’t even the final form of the cordyceps virus in humans, as we all saw mid-way through the series in the form of the bloater.
Seeing it wade through gunfire, surrounded by its smaller and often more agile infected, and all to rip the head off Perry in a horrifically gruesome end to his and Kathleen’s rule of KC was quite the scene. It made the whole show and the idea of the journey ahead just that much scarier for everyone involved.
4Fight With David
Often times though, the most horrifying things in The Last Of Us universe is the people themselves.
This is just the casewhen it comes to David. He is shown at first as a seemingly normal leader in Colorado, but as the show develops, he just gets darker and darker. It all culminates with a fight between him and Ellie that means dinner or a wife for one of them or survival for the other, making for one of the darkest moments in the series.
3Sam Turning
The show was far from conservative with its darker moments, though, as it had a way of giving the audience hope just to dash it away soon after.
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This was readily apparent after seeing the duo leave KC. Seeing Sam reveal he had been bitten to his new best friend and the heartbreaking moments of him and Ellie trying to find a way out of it was one of the few moments of innocence we get in the show. Just to be instantly turned on its head as we see Henry have to kill his own brother.
2Nana Addler
After the end of season 1, it can be hard to go back and remember all the terrifying events, especially those from the earlier episodes.
One of the bigger scares in the show actually happened pretty early on. In the first episode, when Sarah checks out the Addler home, we get a small sneak peek at the infection taking over someone. As the elderly Nana Addler slowly stares into the distance and begins shaking as the infection roots through her body, we can only wait to see how the world falls apart from there, and oh does it.
1Planefall
That wasn’t the only big scary moment in the first episode. The chaos seen in the game’s outbreak scene was perfectly captured in the show as well.
There have been a lot of apocalyptic shows out there, but none have done such a job of making the first few hours of an apocalypse as hectic and scary as The Last Of Us. People were dying, cars were crashing, infected were everywhere, and even planes were falling from the sky. Through all of it, a father tries to protect his daughter.
Next:The Last Of Us: Biggest Differences Between The Show And Game
