The live-action adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us has been able to live up to the massive expectations of the fandom. The second episode managed to garner great reception from fans, with a 22% increase in viewership on its opening night in comparison with the debut episode.
The show has been praised for being true to its source material and conveying the same atmosphere from the game to live-action. But after the success of the second episode, the creators revealed that initially, they had other plans for the second episode’s opening but eventually had to scrap them out.
This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us
The Creators of The Last of Us had to cut out the dark backstory of Tess
The Last of Us is garnering amazing reception from fans and has registered the record for the largest second-week audience growth for an HBO series. But the creators of the show shared that their initial plans for the second episode opening offered depth into the story of Tess.
In an interview, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed their initial plan for the episode 2 opening was scrapped because it didn’t serve any purpose to the story. The plan was to provide a dark backstory for Tess, which included her husband and son getting infected. Tess then would have shot her husband and wouldn’t have been able to finish her son, so she would have tied him up and locked him in the basement. The creators stated,
“It was a little bit of a backstory for Tess, and the fact that Tess had a kid, She had a husband and she had a son, and they were infected and she had to kill them. She killed her husband, but she could not kill the son.”
According to the creators, the episode would have begun with the camera pushing towards the door and we would have heard the pounding coming from the basement. And in the later half of the episode, Tess would have revealed her story to Joel and Ellie.
HBO’s The Last of Us made the death of Tess more gruesome
Even though the writers eventually cut out the disturbing past of the character, they sure did provide her with the most gruesome death among all the shows in the HBO lineup. The horrifying death of Tess in the recent episode has left the fans in pure disgust.
Even though the character of Tess dies in both the game and the show while sacrificing herself to help Joel and Ellie on their mission, the show sure made her death more traumatic. In the game, Tess sacrifices herself to the FEDRA soldiers, so that Joel and Ellie can make their escape. While in the show the character dies in an explosion, but before her death, an infected approaches her to provide the most disgusting smooch in television history.
In a terrifying display of calm domination, Tess freezes and the infected pushes its tendrils of fungus down her throat. Only after that terrifying moment, Tess was able to make her lighter work and perform the explosion, eventually sacrificing herself in the process.
With the Show garnering abundant praise and success, the removal of her disturbing past was a welcome decision, considering the already depressing and dark death of the character. After two extremely well-done episodes, fans can’t wait for the upcoming episodes and witness the journey progress.
The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Collider
