Warning: Light spoilers for The Last of Us episode 3 ahead.
Now that the third episode of The Last of Us has come and gone (spoiler: it’s incredible), people are more interested in the show than ever. One of the more interesting tidbits of info that we’re getting includes a jettisoned attempt to do something really special from the game and put it in the show.
In the third episode of The Last Of Us Podcast, which is a deep dive into the episode and a highly recommended listen if you can’t get enough of the show, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann reveal something that would’ve directly referenced the game in a surprising way for the streaming age.
Quick aside: The podcast is hosted by none other than video game voice-acting legend Troy Baker, who voices Joel in the PlayStation source material. Okay, so the info comes around the 45-minute mark of the podcast, close to the end.
Baker starts talking about iconic moments in the show that call back to the game, and he starts describing that ending scene in the episode when Ellie and Joel ride off in the truck that Ellie says “is like a spaceship.”
“One last iconic thing,” Baker said. “As we are following the truck as it heads off into the horizon, and we pull back and we’re now into presumably the bedroom where Bill and Frank are and we see the beautiful painting next to the wilted flowers – and the open window next to the curtains blowing in the wind.”
That last bit is a reference to the opening screen of the game. Here they are side by side:
“Was that intentional?” Baker asked. “Oh yes,” Druckmann answered. In fact, there was more they wanted to do with the window. Mazin said while “this podcast makes it seem like we only thought of the good ideas,” that wasn’t the case.
“We had this idea that we were going to open every episode with a window. So you know when you’re watching on streaming and the intro button comes along and says ‘skip intro?'” Mazin explained. “We were going to change the words of skip intro to “press play.”
If they had done it, a viewer would be able to look at the window as long as they wanted just like in the game. “Every episode would have a different window reflecting a different circumstance in that episode,” Mazin said. “Then you’d press play and the episode would begin.”
So why didn’t they do it? “As many windows as we filmed it just never made sense,” Mazin said laughing. “It just never came together but the plus side of the misfire there was that we did have this ending.”
The Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO Max.
