Neil Druckmann
Appearances
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
We have a few totems in the room. The jacket, obviously. There is his watch that has been now carefully placed inside this red tin. But it's not alone. There's another item in there, and that's Joel's revolver.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Tommy begins doing this beautiful cleaning of the body. And he says, give Sarah my love. What were both of your mentality going into this episode, obviously knowing what would follow after episode two? Was there hesitation? Was there trepidation? Was there excitement? What were you feeling going into episode three?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
That moment is, as you said, interrupted. The tears are cut off by hearing Dina downstairs, and Dina shows up with cookies. Peace offering. Peace offering. And we find out that Dina knows more than she's told Ellie.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Well, in order to get those other 12 people, though, we have to have, again, we go back to community and we see the town hall meeting. We get to see Seth again, which was a surprise, especially for the fact that now Seth is seemingly on the right side.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
To me, watching that, especially off of the advice that Jesse had given, saying, don't go in angry. They'll say no to angry. And she sees it on display. the chastisement, the admonishment that he gives to everybody in the room, the yelling, and the attempt to saber rattle the entire town into a lynch mob fails. Yes. And that's when we see Ellie pull out
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
The note, you say it's a democratic thing, but in some ways, and I don't know if this is intentional or not, but again, I think it's not a bug, it's a feature. It's something cool when someone can look at the scene in a different way. Jesse clearly indicates that there is something That he knows that he can't tell. She's like, what? You're my friend. Tell me what's going to happen.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
He's like, I can't tell you. All I can tell you is. So it seems as if she is going in knowing the cards are stacked against her. And she was able to convince only three.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
I'm just going to throw in here, I don't think it's obvious how Tommy voted.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Except for yours. I could see a version of this where Tommy's like, I now have to protect her. That was Joel's job. It's now my job to protect her. And if she goes out there, she's going to get killed. What would Joel want?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
We go from that scene to the baseball game, which is great. And Tommy joins Gail sitting there, of course, with an ice chest.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
We have the outcome of the vote. And as you said, Craig, it wasn't even close. It was an absolute shutout. But it's clear that nothing is going to deter Ellie from going out and seeking her revenge. And then Dina shows up.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
We've talked a lot about Seth and, you know, in the game he is kind of a one and done character. But here he does represent a lot more, seemingly. And he stands up, as you said, Neil, he defends Joel in a way that nobody else really has. And ultimately, Seth is the one that helps them escape.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Early in the episode, Tommy says, we buried them outside of town. And she says, I'll go see him on my way out. Well, on my way to Seattle is when I'll go see him. And we get that moment. First of all, I could ask you why so far away from town? Most towns have a graveyard inside. Yeah.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
We get this beautiful, as you said, this sun-kissed area. This is nice. This is where they would, quote, want to be.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
And we find Elliot Joel's grave. And she places something very specific at his grave. The coffee beans.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Welcome back to the official podcast for the HBO original series, The Last of Us. I'm Troy Baker, and I played Joel in The Last of Us video games. Here with me today, as always, are the series showrunners Neil Druckmann. Hello, Troy. And Craig Mazin.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Out of that beautiful line, give Sarah my love, the camera begins to move back. And we see that it's not just Joel and Tommy that are in this room, but there are the bodies of presumably everybody that died in that attack.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
It's actually almost a moment of levity. She's like, we're not even going to talk about that one because that's really fucked up. So the way that she addresses that, but then she goes into such specific detail about the second.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
There's a new danger. We were introduced in episode one and two to a new group of people that ultimately would bring about the destruction of Joel. And now there's a new group that we see lurking somewhere. They have scars on their faces. They carry hammers. They communicate with whistles. They are running from, as we see, the wolves.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Well, especially when we find them later in the episode, and we see the aftermath of these wolves... And what they did, and so much so that it causes a very interesting reaction to Dina. She throws up. She says, it must have been the smell.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
That's how we end this episode, actually, is seeing our first kind of look at Seattle in full force with the wolves on parade, tank and all, which is where we will pick up next week's episode. This has been the official podcast for the HBO original series, The Last of Us. Our senior producer is Emmanuel Hapsis, our producer is Elliot Adler, and Darby Maloney is the editor.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
This episode was mixed by Raj Makhija. Our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Barry Finkel. Special thanks to Becky Rowe, Alison Cohen, Aaron Kelly, and Kenya Reyes from the Max podcast team. Production music is courtesy of HBO, and you can watch episodes of The Last of Us on Max. Make sure to join us next week when we talk through Season 2, Episode 4. And until then, endure and survive.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
And we cut from there straight into another person that was deeply impacted by this death, and that's Ellie.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
It seemed to me like, Neil, this is kind of an opportunity to explore the psyche of the character that is impacted by that. Can you talk to me about the development of this specific scene of finding Ellie in the hospital? Because it's quite different than the game.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm excited to unpack episode three of season two. And just for those listening, there are spoilers ahead. So if you haven't watched the episode yet, please, by all means, stop listening to this. Go watch the episode and then come back and join us for the rest of the conversation. This episode is called The Path. It was written by Craig and directed by Peter Hoare.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
And we cut from that moment straight to three months later, where now Ellie is raring to go. But there's one more person that she has to see, and that's Gail.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
Gail keeps pressing this notion that Joel wronged Ellie. What is she getting at?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
You definitely see someone who is quite adept at working the system. This is a kid who has been in front of a counselor before, and I say this, then you say this, and then I say this, and you go, okay, and you get me out of here. That specific line that she says where your final moment with someone doesn't define your whole time with them. Let's talk about that as a thesis statement.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
And I want to point out, boy, we just get right into it. Yeah. Cool. So the episode starts with these epic shots of Jackson in the aftermath. Not only the attack on Jackson, but also the attack on Joel. Yeah. We see this very somber, almost ritualistic thing that's happening between Tommy and someone underneath the sheet that we can assume is Joel. We see the wrist and the watch.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 3 - “The Path”
We go from the hospital to seeing Ellie alone, going through Joel's house, the house that she shared with Joel. I'm curious for you, Neil, what was that like for you, again, kind of experiencing that? You had already done it for the game, and now we're going to put this, something that's very important to the game, now into the show. What was that like?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
We did see some people say, oh, Pedro's too popular. HBO will not let them.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
One thing I have to say. This is coming on the heels of the game where you, Troy, played Joel. You had to die in this very similar way. Ashley Johnson played Ellie, and she had to react in this very similar way. And, you know, we talk about, well, how do we feel about making this?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
I assume, Craig, you share this, but I have a nervousness of like, especially for the really important scenes that you guys did so well, Troy. that they won't live up to it, that somehow we'll fall short in the retelling of the story.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And I remember when I talked to Mark, I had a Zoom call with him before he was directing this episode, and I'm like, dude, man, you got this giant battle in front of you, and there's freaking bloaters and infected and explosions. Man, just the prep for that must be unnerving. He's like, yeah, yeah, that's all true. But I'll be honest with you, Neil, the thing I'm most nervous for is this death.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
because I watched that part of the game, and it's like, I saw the weight of it, and I'm like, I have to do this justice. And he said, like, it was keeping him up at night. And I got to give everybody their credit. They did it justice.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Um, yes, offense, because that's the one person you've been avoiding like the plague.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
As of when? Because last night... Yeah, I know what happened last night.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
I remember we talked all about numbers, because season one, we have this opening, and then we jump, and everything's already destroyed. The army's gone. All these things have happened. So you know it could get really bad, but we've never seen it really, really bad. And here, there was an opportunity to say, OK, when you saw one clicker, how dangerous that was in season one.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
When you saw one bloater, how dangerous that was in season one. Now what happens when you multiply that by some crazy number? And that's what they have to try to defend. And to a large degree, they fail because many, many people die.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
It's also worth noting that, you know, you have a lot of theories of how it should play out.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And often they prove out wrong or like you see first pass of something like, oh man, the bloater feels like the Incredible Hulk, like... That's incorrect. And we will start talking about, okay, what should actually, what would make it feel even more believable? Because the more believable it feels, the more you care about the stakes and the characters.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And then there's even stuff in the editorial where like, okay, how do we show the stakes of the kids in this town? And stuff was added later. And I even like just love the way just Tommy and Maria look at each other. And again, in the humanity of it all, every life here is important. But for Tommy, one life is more important than the other ones.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Yes. I mean, you're right, Troy, in that, right, all these people, right, Tommy is putting himself in harm's way for someone he loves. Ellie is putting herself in harm's way for someone she loves. And even Abby is putting herself in harm's way for someone she has loved and lost. Right? It's all a function of love. It just has different outcomes.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Something about that fence sequence as well, because we had a scene when, you know, Joel is escaping with Sarah in season one that was kind of inspired by that same sequence. We tried it. And now there's like, again, it's kind of like history repeating itself. It's here. But this was one of those sequences that I would pull people into my office at Naughty Dog and be like, check this out.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And they're like, oh, my God, you guys did it just like the game. Like, they were so excited to see their work again recreated in the TV show.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
This is another one of those moments that I've, I mean, obviously this all the way to the Joel's death. Laura Bailey did such an incredible job in the game as Abby, right? that as good as I know Caitlin in, there's a nervousness that we won't capture that same essence. And again, it's like to see someone deliver on that sequence is just a very gratifying feeling.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
You know, there's certain things that are in the game, or actually, in this particular instance, the way we came across the song is when we made a trailer to reveal the existence of The Last of Us Part II. So I wrote and shot a scene that was never actually in the game of Ellie... In the middle of this, like, room where she's murdered several people, she plays this song on guitar.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And I was looking for the right song, and I searched for, like, Johnny Cash, and I found this band that did a cover of Johnny Cash, this guy Sean James, and I found one of his original songs, Through the Valley. And there's something about the lyrics of that song that spoke very much to the theme of what we wanted to get into in the story of the game.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Well, it's what she promises all of them in that room. Yeah. And it's like to go back, I think is one of your earliest question in this episode of Why did we do it at this moment? Why kill Joel episode two and not later? Again, these are conversations that we had early on when we were constructing the season. And it's like, because this is the beginning of the story.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
This is where the story starts in earnest.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
The whole thing is so surreal. I don't even know how to quite get into it. You know, there's something worth noting that when we made game one, we didn't know there was going to be a game two. So there was a long search to even find that storyline.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
How do you continue the story about love when, you know, if you just kind of examine season one or game one, it's like we go kind of like to the end of like the kind of sacrifices people would make for love. But it felt like there's somewhere further to still go. which is the idea of justice.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
There's something I really enjoy of working with Craig and working with everybody else on this show and just seeing how they've interpreted the game. I loved making that game so much, even though it's dark subject matter and you have to hurt characters you really love, but that's sometimes my favorite thing as a writer is to be cruel to characters. Well, the world is cruel. Yeah.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
But it's also you get to see who they are and who are the people around them based on these things that happened. It wasn't chasing some shock value. It's what the story needed. But I just really enjoyed doing this deeper dive. And one of the things that we couldn't do in the game, and it was... one of our earliest conversations of how we're gonna achieve this moment.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
In the game, we talk about things happen to Jackson. There are certain attacks, whether it's infected or raiders, but we never get to see it. Here, because we're not playing any one particular character, you could jump between this attack on Jackson and this situation that Joel found himself in.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And then again, showing the kind of loss you could experience in this world, both on a very personal, intimate level and on a community level. And that is something that we'll visit again in this season.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Well, there's something about grief plus injustice that is driving her a little mad, where it's like, right, it's infecting even her dreams. It's a sort of infection.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Well, it's like, you know, we're so, I think, used to certain narrative structures, especially like Hollywood movies, where there's like a karmic justice. It's interesting, you know, you hear Craig talk about it. He's like, you're not rooting for Joel. But I know many of our audience do. And me watching the show, actually, I am rooting for Joel.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
Well, in a way, because I've often, right, and then making this story, I would think about what I wish I could do in Joel's position. And I wish I could act like Joel and save my daughter. And that whatever it takes. And I would try to do whatever it takes.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
But then the thing that we know we almost never get to see is like, okay, what about the other side? What about the doctor that is trying to save the world? And what about everybody that's close to him? Again, we just tend to paint these characters as good guys and bad guys, and they're just survivors. They're just, each person has their own motivation and
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
their heart is kind of in the right place, right? Joel's trying to save Ellie, this doctor is trying to save the world, and Abby feels like an injustice has been done, and it must be corrected for the world to feel right.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 2 - “Through the Valley”
And it's also important to note here that Abby could have just shot Joel and it would have been over. But that wouldn't have been enough for her because she had felt all this intense pain for all these years. Somehow, and I think we all do this to some degree, when someone wrongs us, when someone cuts us off on the highway, we have to make the other person pay in as much, if not more so.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Mm-hmm. Her approach to violence is different from Joel's. Where Joel is like, he's good at it, but he doesn't like it. He doesn't get any joy out of it. It's a very pragmatic solution to a horrible world. There's a thrill that Ellie has and she seeks it. It's why she wants to go on patrols.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
It's why she, like, she could have a different job at Jackson, but she's purposefully going after putting herself in situations where she will have to use violence. Like, it's almost like there's something that's missing from her life if she doesn't have it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Yeah, it's another way to get control in this unpredictable world. If you're more powerful, and again, this violence, this martial arts that she's studying, it allows her to have more power in this world and thereby have more control over her life.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
I think last season we talked about how wide is humanity. In season one, a lot of it is just Joel and Ellie. And the fear Joel had in taking Ellie on is that, oh no, If I have these same feelings I've had before in my past, I have something to lose. And Jackson is this really special place. And, you know, as Craig is saying, maybe the only place that is this special.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Now there's something to lose. There's also something to fight for.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
You know, in the game, Dina talks about her relationship with Joel, but we actually never see it. So this was one of those changes we decided to make very early on, is like wanting to show that relationship. And through that relationship, we get to see how both of these characters feel about Ellie. And Joel is good at a few things, whether he knows it or not. He's good at surviving and killing.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
He's good at fixing things and building things, which is maybe where he's most comfortable. But he's a good parent, like, with some dark elements mixed in there. Sure. But he can't help but, like, mentor this girl that is drawn to him because he is this figure in this community.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
But he probably has an ulterior motive, which is, like, Ellie won't talk to him, so he could find out how Ellie is doing through this other character who has become a really good friend to Ellie.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Bella and Isabella, like... It's one of those gambles, you know, when we first cast her, like, you're hoping, you're praying that the chemistry will be there, they'll get along. And so to see it come to fruition like that... That was the first day...
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
I had weird fears, which was like, I wanted to work on this and I knew we would change certain things. I was just very curious how would a TV audience would react? Is it going to be a different reaction? So there's just like a curiosity of like, what's going to happen here? So that's why I really kind of like relied on Craig in those instances to just say, what's best for the show?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
If I may say one other thing about Catherine O'Hara, this is the thing the viewer will never see, but it's like when we say cut and she's just there hanging out, she's kind and generous and is just there to play and try things and just throw herself at this role.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Like really kind of let's hold each other accountable to do what's best for the show.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Yeah. And I think the thread you're starting to see here between like Abby and her reaction to Joel, Ellie and her reaction to Joel and Gail and her reaction to Joel is that there are certain actions that have consequences and we're starting to feel the ripple effects of those actions.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
I'll try not to do this too much on this podcast, but that's one of those moments. I mean, I wasn't there for the filming of that, but I saw it right afterwards. And you just get emotional because you could feel the love that people had for the source material. Since season one came out, people have asked me, like, oh, what's the secret sauce to making an adaptation that works?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Now I know, having finished season one, which is, like, find someone that loves it as much as you do. That's Craig Mazin, and that's Ksenia, is one of those people who's played the game and loves it so much, it's in her bones. Like, she knows the game inside out. So when it's trying to capture something almost identically, it's not quite the same shot. It feels like the same shot.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
It feels like the same shot. And all the work, again, for the set design, for like the extras that are there, again, trying to capture this moment. So much work goes into something that feels simple when you're viewing it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
I feel something that the rest of Naughty Dog, the studio that made the game, feels, which is like a respect and love for the source material that can only come if you really cared about and appreciate it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
One other fun note here, you know, when we made the game, I wanted there to be a band. But, you know, when you make a game, every character you make, you have to model them. You have to, like, model them from scratch. So it's actually really expensive to add new characters. And we're just running out of time, so we couldn't make a band playing this music.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
So we just had a record player that's playing on some speakers, some AV system. Here we brought Crooked Still, are the ones playing there, and they're sitting there with Gustavo Santolalla, our composer.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Yeah, there's a lot of really beautiful stuff that's happening in that moment, which is like Ellie's insecurity. Ellie's feeling like she's not worthy of someone like Dina. And then, you know, there's Joel who's hanging... in the sidelines. He's trying his best to give Ellie the space that she's wanted, but he's controlling her from afar.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
And we get to hear that from some of the conversations she's having with Jesse. And then he can't help himself. When the Seth moment happens, the dad part of his brain just completely takes over and he's gotta act. And he acts the way that he knows how he's learned in this world, which is violently. Get the hell out of here.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
What is wrong with you? I don't need your fucking help.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
We didn't talk about the conversation Ellie's having with Tommy, and clearly people are aware there's something going on between Ellie and Joel, but it's like under the surface, and now it's explicit. And now I think the humiliation is like, I've just made it worse.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Okay, so one-on-one. I've done that before. If you'd rather let the men handle it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Yes. And then they're quiet. They run away, which is like, they've never seen anything like this before.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Swear to me that everything you said about the fireflies is true.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
You know, when we finished season one, one of our livelier debates was, what is the final shot? Yeah. Do we end it just like the game, you know, when Ellie says, okay, and we cut to black? Or do we go to this wider shot where we see them walk off towards Jackson? And we actually even see Joel's reaction to that okay, which didn't happen in the game. We were kind of batting this back and forth.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
And, you know, our process is always very open. Just because something was done in the game and it was successful in the game doesn't mean it's the best choice for the show, best choice for these characters. So we will try multiple edits.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Our philosophy, too, when we shoot stuff, we try a lot of different things, get a lot of coverage, because we don't quite know all work when we're in the editing room, so we just want to have as many of those pieces as possible to play with.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
And ultimately, the conclusion we came to is like, there was something ending about the unresolved note when Ellie says, okay, that worked best for season one in the same way that it worked for the game. But now we had this footage.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
We could literally pick it up right from then and there and see Joel's reaction and kind of feel this tension because again, that conversation is so important for everything that's about to come. It felt appropriate to start there.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
The fact that Abby is a firefly is something we withheld in the game for a very, very long time, and it comes in much later in the story. But here, we just decided to reveal it very early and to just lean into it and show who she is, because, again, it wasn't a huge surprise.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
So those are the kinds of conversations we're having about where should certain things go, and then where should certain things be expanded? What else can we learn about these characters? And is there any opportunities to dig deeper and find out more of who they are, what makes them tick?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
When you're playing as the character, you have this immediate empathy towards them. Like, you don't have to have as much quote-unquote writing or drama or show as much relationships. That is more of like the fuel for how the game moves forward. We don't have that, so then we have to rely on other things. Yeah, that's a great point. Let's talk about Caitlin Deaver.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Caitlin was involved in the world of The Last of Us going back many years when it was going to be a movie. Ended up not happening, but she was in the running to play Ellie. And then when we made the show in season one, she kind of aged out of that role, so it wasn't really a consideration.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
But then when we thought about the season and her name came up and we started discussing it, Caitlin is so talented. And I had the privilege of working with her a little bit on Uncharted 4 video game.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
It was very easy to just close your eyes and see her as this character and see that because this character, going back to what Craig was saying earlier, just has this drive, this passion, this intensity, this intense pursuit of justice. Anne has to be extremely vulnerable at the same time and have all these other facets that we haven't even seen yet.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
It didn't take much imagination to view her in that role.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 1 - “Future Days”
Well, I can obviously take a punch, so who cares? Fucking hard, by the way.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
I will say it's another one of those instances that was scary how close it was to the game, walking onto that set.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Even looking at the carpet and it would match the game.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
What's nice for me is there's also a lot of heavy lifting that's happening in the writing that seems also effortless, but I know all the mechanics of it because we had a lot of conversations around it. And part of the fun of my job is to get a scene like this from Craig. Because what that scene needs to do is not only eventually Isabella has to sell us that she has these convictions.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
She needs to convince the audience that even though she's pregnant, she has reason to keep going. There's something about this backstory that it's like a trauma that she has. And that's why she knows how Ellie feels because she's been there.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Well, there's also this other quote from season one that's in the back of our minds, which is from Tess to say, you're not immune from getting ripped apart. Right. And so I think even though Ellie is saying, I can get bit a lot, you can't.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
And that goes back a conversation months prior to when we're concepting the stalkers and talking about, oh, how the cordyceps eats away parts of the eye. It's almost like having cataracts. You see people that have certain eye conditions. Their eye behaves in that way. So it's going back. It's based in science.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
He said it's in the air. See, listen. I knew it wasn't an event where we would have all been infected weeks ago. So I scrambled my other team and we locked the only door to B2 and we locked the only door to B1. And we did what Leon said.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
I don't remember the conversations around this part, but we did something similar in the game at a different moment in time where Ellie's really traumatized, a moment that we'll see in episode seven, where in that moment as well, we had Ellie mistaken a different character for Joel.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
So this just felt very natural to me of just Ellie's state of mind and that wishful thinking of wanting, wanting something so bad that you start to see it. of Joel coming to rescue her.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Yeah, and he's rescuing her with one other person that also has a lot of those same qualities, which is Tommy. This is where you find out Tommy's also in Seattle, also looking for them. And they've disobeyed orders back in Jackson to come out here and save them.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Yeah, he does in the game in hopes that Ellie will not go to let her know, I've gone, so you stay.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
There's this shame that's starting to wash over. The realization is like, now I've put Jesse and Tommy's life in danger as well. The cost keeps going up.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
There's this feeling. I remember we thought about this a lot when we made the game. We talked about this when we made the show. When you're a teenager, specifically your teenage years, you feel invincible. You think whatever is killing and hurting anybody else is not going to happen to me.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
And then as you get older, you start realizing it could happen to me, and it's happening to people close to me. And I think this is that wake-up moment for Ellie, which is like, yeah, if Jesse shows up five minutes later, they're both dead.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
I'm right in it. You're in it. I just want to touch on the whistling because it talks about our process. I have to give credit to Magid and the rest of our audio team here at Naughty Dog that, you know, we had this idea in the writing that the scars, the seraphites should communicate through whistles. Mm-hmm.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
The function of the spores in the game, why we had them in the game, is we wanted something to show that Ellie is immediately a mutant. Because when she gets bitten, you don't know... and how we showed in the show over and over again until the whole night has passed. Hours have passed and you see that the person hasn't turned because that's how long it takes some people to turn.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
And then they developed a whole language of like those whistles have specific meanings, almost like Morse code that the Seraphites can communicate with themselves. So then the audio team on the show got together with the audio team of the game and they explained it to them. They sent them all the assets. We needed to re-record it for certain rights and stuff.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
But that's why it's so close to the game. And again, I have to say this over and over again, the people making the show love the source material. And this is just one more example of that.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
But it's important to note because unlike the game, you know, in the game you need to start paying attention to those whistles and they tell you how to play it. Right. Here, emotional truth is more important than that.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
It could take up to two days. So we needed another mechanic, a narrative mechanic, to show with evidence Ellie is breathing this stuff and nothing happens to her. So there's a scene coming later that's, you know, from the game that we needed, I guess I'll jump ahead with spoilers, we needed Nora to know immediately that Ellie is that girl. And that was the impetus to start the conversation.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
There's something else that's very chilling about this revelation that, you know, when we're watching Elie and Dina at the TV station and you see the aftermath of what the Seraphites are capable of and you're like, okay, to Craig's point, these people are scary. And then to see them and to see how cold they are when they commit these acts, there's no anger. There's almost a celebration.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
It's a ritual for them. To me, that is the most chilling part, to see someone commit violence and to, it's not even pre-calculated, it's just like ingrained into their daily life. And again, the degree that they've dehumanized the WLF, It's just staggering. And again, this is what Ellie, Dina, Jesse, and Tommy and this unborn child have now been put into the middle of.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
You know, we talk a lot about love, and love is not inherently good or bad. It's powerful and can lead you to all sorts of acts. Faith is very similar. Yes. It's not inherently good or bad. It's powerful and in the wrong hands and under the wrong leadership can lead to atrocities.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
When we were working on the game, there was a conversation Hallie and I would have often, and it came over to the show, which is in many ways, Ellie is like an addict. That this is a relapse, that this thing that she wants so badly, that's, again, the way she's programmed. She must pursue it. And like an addict, she's neglecting the people that love her.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Well, we really do need spores. How do we do them? How do we almost reinvent them in some way, even from the game? And there's a really cool mechanism there of how the air gets filled with spores that I love. It's one of those that I'm like, oh, goddammit, I wish we did that in the game.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
I'll say one other thing, which is just like the, sometimes you get these happy accidents of like, we didn't do spores because, you know, a lot of different reasons that we talked about in the past, like not wanting to have our actors constantly in gas masks and, But now we have this season an escalation of the outbreak because of that. We see the stalkers. We see that they evolve.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
It is fighting to stay alive. It's gorgeous. The team did such an amazing job of building the set. And there's this concept in horror that in the big scheme of things, death is not that scary. You need a fate worse than death. And this idea that it will not only capture you and put you here and then put you to work until there's nothing left of you just to spew out these spores.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
This is a new concept that Craig came up with and I loved. But the horror of it, again, this person, and now we know who this person is. It's the sun that's now frozen here. Until there's nothing left of him, he's just an engine to spew spores out.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
And animals do it to each other. In our civilized society, we're so protected from how cruel nature can be. The amount of suffering that animals experience, it's staggering in its volume.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
And now there's this new threat. And it's like this thing is not static. It's constantly fighting back as people feel like are becoming complacent. And they feel like, oh, we could live under these conditions. It changes underneath them. In this instance, literally underneath them.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
It takes a certain willpower to do what Ellie does at this moment. And Ellie would like to believe she is like Joel. Because Joel is another one of those people that we saw in season one can torture people to meet some kind of ends. And for Joel, it was to save Ellie. For Ellie, it's to find out where Abby is hiding. But is Ellie like Joel? Can she commit this act and just be okay?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
This is one of the questions that we asked ourselves when we were working on the game and now the show. Is there ever coming back from doing something like this? Or does it change you forever? We're going to explore that.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Just one other thing, which is that we talked about, you know, there's this contradiction in Nora and how she thinks she has the moral ground, how she's just and justifies doing this horrible thing to Joel. And yet she's doing her best to not give up her friend's position because that's her tribe. That's her community.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
By the way, also important to note that, you know, episode one, We see this tension between Joel and Ellie. You never see them happy like this. And yet here they are. So what happened?
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Wait, before we move on, I have a question. I'm going to take over this from you, Troy. Go for it, buddy.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
We're off the rails. Craig, when you were writing that scene, were you channeling Chernobyl? Because I get a very Chernobyl vibe from it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
A threat underneath, you have to go underground to like almost an invisible threat.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Everywhere. That's it, Troy. You may continue. Thank you.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
By the way, the answer is usually, here's why it didn't work for us. Now let's interrogate it. Maybe it could work in this version, in this medium. Right. That's where we kind of just unearth things that, again, maybe we can make it work, but now we have a second chance at doing it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
I'm not sure that we ever have gotten that far down like that. Well, once we've gone pretty far, like let's say editing, we might say, hey, I have an idea of what could make it better. Right. I think so then it's more like kind of tweaking. And there's actually something in this episode that we had a lot of conversation about, which is the song Ellie plays.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
And that was something that, you know, we changed pretty late in editing based on multiple conversations Craig and I had.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
Yeah. Absolutely. That's the reason why we're here. There was a moment in time where I wanted to do web comics because that was a thing. My website was sickhabit.com because I just had this like, I felt like this compulsion to create was just a sickness that I just can't get rid of. I think every artist kind of feels that way. Anyways, years later, we needed a name for a band in the game.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
I'm like, oh, I got something. Sick Habit. So now it made it into an HBO show. It's canon.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 5 - “Feel Her Love”
It speaks to this process, which is like you always have to be open to a new, better idea. Always. Until it's taken away from you, you have to keep being open. Can I iterate it? Can I plus it? And that's what we do just over and over again until it's done, is we just keep plussing it and plussing it and plussing it.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 4 - “Day One”
That's a very Craig-ish sort of thing to do. You know, when I was a younger man and I wanted to impress a woman, well, you have to know your strengths and I was kind of shy. I didn't know how to talk to women. It made me nervous. So what I would do is cook for them. And I was good. Good enough to deserve quality tools. But did I have the money for that? No, I did not.
HBO's The Last of Us Podcast
Episode 4 - “Day One”
I would go into Williams-Sonoma. It's a cookware store. You wouldn't know.