re: The Last of Us S1 EP2 Thread - "Infected" - NO GAMER SPOILERS

Saw an interesting theory that seems too well put together not to be true. I haven’t played the games, maybe this is a spoiler? Doesn’t seem like it would be too big of one, it’s just about how the infection spread started. If you don’t want to read it, here’s your warning…


Indonesia where it started is a bread/yeast factory. The theory is that the fungus grew in the yeast and spread out over the world through exports.

In episode 1, Joel’s daughter can’t make pancakes because they don’t have any mix. Joel and his daughter decline the neighbors biscuits for breakfast while Joel says he’s on Atkins. Joel forgets to come home with a birthday cake. Joel’s daughter goes to the neighbors but doesn’t eat the cookies because of the raisins. All were seemingly throwaway/meaningless lines/scenes but together seems like a plausible explanation for how the neighbors got infected and Joel and his daughter didn’t.

If so, pretty good job by the show to incorporate all of that in so subtlely

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All were seemingly throwaway/meaningless lines/scenes but together seems like a plausible explanation for how the neighbors got infected and Joel and his daughter didn’t.

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It's an interesting theory, and somewhat confirmed by the prologue to Ep. 2 when they mention that the first case was reported at the yeast factory, but we don't know if the neighbors were infected other than the grandma who was recently at the hospital.

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If you have a vehicle and bypass large cities, how many would you run into?

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Well, it's a game right? So in that context, you'd run into enough to keep the action flowing. In reality, *shrug* who knows. We know that it was mostly in the cities at the early stages. But we also know with real-world epidemics/pandemics that the outbreaks do eventually work their way outwards. 20 years would seem like long enough for them to be widespread, but ofcourse then you have to take into account that people in rural areas will have had days/weeks/months of warning in advance seeing what happened in the big cities, so those folks might be much much more cautious, atleast in the first few years. Hard to say.

The show already mentioned raiders and slavers in the outside world.

Grownup Mormont is definitely not as cute as kid Mormont. That forehead is huge. Not sure what I think of her American accent acting yet.

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I don’t care about the game so much, but one deviation was that in the game, they were also fighting FEDRA at the statehouse. In Mazin’s view it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for them to be out there. In his view they’d patrol the QZ and the buffer zone, but they wouldn’t be out in the open city as what’s the value?

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I wish they had kept it as Fedra. I understand why they changed it but it makes more sense to keep it Fedra.

In the game, it wasn’t a random patrol. Remember, in the show and the game, Joel and Tess just murdered some Fedra officers. They’re out there looking for those murderers. Also it helped cement why they can’t easily just go back

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I think they are going to have explain that apparent contradiction at some point. "Once one gets infected, they all turn on each other" just doesn't cut it.

I had a similar concern about the plot of the game in this regards.

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Man, maybe I'm being a whiny bitch but for frick's sake can y'all keep this game discussion out of this thread since it's for....you know....no gamer spoilers and all.

Having to wade through the:

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"Infected" - NO GAMER SPOILERS

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..thread to avoid game discussion is annoying as frick.

I watched Fantastic Fungi again after watching ep2. Such a kick arse documentary.

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But I love this show so far. I can’t remember who said it in this thread, but I agree, this was probably a “boring” episode (hopefully relative to the rest of the season) and kind of like the beginnings of a game that’s just overtly explaining and demonstrating everything, and it’s still NOT THAT BORING. At all!

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this was probably a “boring” episode (hopefully relative to the rest of the season)

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i think episode 3 is going to be another "boring" episode because its likely going to be back story heavy. it will still be excellent and i think action wise/intensity thinks are going to ramp up after that.

Yeah, this thread wants to talk about what happened in the episode and have the non-gamers theorize on where they think the show is headed.

Most posters in this thread don't really want to know about the differences between the show & the game, regardless of how minor the change is, because it can unintentionally lead to spoilers or expectations.

Basically post as if the game never existed and we're all watching the story unfold together for the first time. It'll take the gamers out of the predictions conversation, obviously. But any discussions about what has actually happened on screen and what you like/dislike so far is fair game. Just don't compare it to the game.