6 Things You Didn’t Know About 'The Last of Us'

There's more to this post-apocalyptic hit than just zombies.

This article contains spoilers.

There are 21 million people who watch The Last Of Us every week – and that’s just in the US. The HBO series has in only a few short weeks become the biggest show on television, bringing in an audience beyond those who were familiar with the story from the video game that the show is based on.

One of the reasons why The Last Of Us has become so popular is that the story goes far beyond the zombies and post-apocalyptic terror that the marketing relies on. At the heart of the television show is the story of an unlikely pair: Joel, still grieving the death of his teenage daughter Sarah on the first day of the outbreak, and Ellie, the young woman whose safety he has been charged with protecting. The two must traverse a terrifying US America that's crawling with Infected people (or worse) and over time their bond grows deeper.

As the first season draws to a close, we thought we’d do a rundown of some interesting key facts you might not know.

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1. The main cast of the series was tasked with not playing the game

When they were cast in the show, stars Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian) and Bella Ramsey (also… Game of Thrones, Catherine Called Birdy) were told not to play the video games.

The idea was to protect them from feeling like they had to copy or mimic the actions of the original and to make sure that they approached the series as its own thing. The most surprising thing, though, is that in certain sequences – even without playing the games – Pascal and Ramsey hit upon the same mannerisms, movements or behaviours as in the video game, such as in the sequence in episode six where Joel and Ellie fight over whether or not he can take her any further on her journey.

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2. The cast is very familiar

A lot of the faces on the show will be familiar to you. Take Pedro Pascal, for example, who stars as Joel. He’s currently also starring on The Mandalorian – so he’s basically the king of television right now. You probably know him best for playing the prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne in Game of Thrones, but he’s been acting for years on shows including The Good Wife and Law & Order. Bella Ramsey, who stars as Ellie, is also from the Game of Thrones world, where she starred as Lady Lyanna Mormont.

Some of the other notable stars including Australians Anna Torv as Tess and Murray Bartlett of The White Lotus season one fame as Frank, Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation as Bill, Nico Parker, who aside from being Thandiwe Newton’s daughter was the star of Dumbo, who played Joel’s daughter Sarah in the first episode, and Storm Reid who starred in Euphoria as Gia plays Riley.

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3. It’s bringing Linda Ronstadt back

Remember how Stranger Things made Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill a huge hit last year? Well, The Last Of Us is doing that with Linda Ronstadt’s Long Long Time, which Nick Offerman’s character Bill plays on the piano for Frank in episode three in a beautiful rendition, and which is later played through the truck stereo system as Joel and Ellie leave on their journey. According to Spotify, streams of the song jumped almost 5000% after the episode aired.

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4. The original actor who voiced Tommy in the video game is in the show

The actors who voiced the characters in the video games are still part of The Last Of Us family, even if they’re not playing the same roles that they played in the original game. Jeffrey Pierce, who plays Tommy in the game, makes a cameo in the series in episode four and five as Perry, the right-hand man to Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), who has staged a coup against FEDRA in Kansas City.

Some of the other voice actors are still involved in the series too. The original Joel, Troy Baker, is the host of the official The Last Of Us podcast, which offers a lot of tidbits about the series and a great behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show. Troy has also just made his debut in the show, in episode eight as James, a cynical member of a cult that Ellie stumbles upon.

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5. The score in the series is the same as the video game

Fans of the video game are thrilled that the soundtrack and score of the show, created by Gustavo Santaollala, is the same throughout. Several of the key riffs and themes from the score have been carried over, creating a thread between the video game and into the television show.

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6. A second season is coming

HBO have confirmed that a season two of The Last Of Us is in the works, and will follow the action of The Last Of Us Part 2, which was released in 2020. For those who don’t want to be spoiled on the forthcoming plot of the television show, we highly recommend that you don’t read ahead on what happens in part two of the video game. Suffice to say, some fans had a strong reaction to where the video game went.

That’s not to say that the second series of the show will follow those same lines. As we have already experienced in season one, the creators of the show are not against taking the storyline in new directions. See for example episode three, which is one of the best episodes of television we’ve seen, in which the storyline of Bill and Frank was expanded to include their beautiful love story. We may very well see more of that in the second season of the show.

Just don’t expect any more episodes beyond season two. Creator Craig Mazin has said that he wants this to be a contained story that finishes up where the game ends in season two. So we’ll be bidding farewell to the world of The Last Of Us next season, one way or another.