The Last of Us Episode 8

The Last Of Us gives us its scariest, most disturbing episode so far, and sets the stage for a powerful Season 1 finale.

In some ways, it really makes me believe even more strongly that the Kathleen subplot was a mistake and that fear—and lots more infected!—should have played a larger role up to this point. James and David come back and drag her to the butcher block when she refuses to join and cooperate. [I’ve argued has been missing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOiZWaCdSE&t=539s) in the last few episodes of the show. All told, a tremendous, if deeply disturbing, episode of The Last Of Us. Desperate, Ellie reaches out behind her and grabs the discarded. [a mistake to split episode 6 and episode 8 with an entire flashback episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Vx1oy0fck). Much is implied about David’s true intentions toward Ellie in the game, but the show makes it more obvious. Here, Ellie has killed a deer that David and James want and she holds them at gunpoint in order to get them to leave. One of the biggest differences between the show and the game is David’s role as preacher in the adaptation. He makes it increasingly clear that he wants Ellie, not just as a friend or follower, not just to help him lead, but sexually. It’s also about as close to a straight adaptation as you can get, hewing very close to how the events transpire in the source material. David suggests they trade with her and sends James to get penicillin.

It wouldn't be the apocalypse without a bit of religious zealotry and cannibalism, now would it? A recap of “When We Are In Need,” episode 8 of HBO's “The ...

In spite of the doubt he seems to have inspired, David sets out to make good on his promise the next day, and it doesn’t take long for him and his gang of followers to find the neighborhood in which Ellie and Joel are hiding. After capturing a pair of David’s men, Joel sets about interrogating them in a scene that appears to offer a glimpse of the Joel of years before: single-minded, merciless, and not shy about killing others to save himself and those he loves. (Though the creepy sexual undertones never come to the surface, they’re hard to ignore.) But when he gets too close, Ellie responds with an act of violence he can’t admire. David promises he’ll mete out justice tomorrow, but when Hannah, the daughter of the man Joel killed, angrily says David should kill both of them, he responds with a vicious backhand before reminding her she needs to respect him as her “father” even if her actual father is no longer with them. The meat goes into the stew, and the stew goes to David’s followers. They’re in dire straits, but things aren’t much better back at Silver Lake, either, where supplies are running low, and one of David’s lieutenants brings a tub of what he hesitantly calls “venison” to the kitchen. Maybe he is what he’s saying, and even if Ellie doesn’t believe in God, she does believe in a world in which people still care for one another. Thanks,” before asking David if he’s the leader of “some weird cult thing.” David shrugs it off as he explains, yes, he is a preacher in a tone that suggests he knows she has a lot of preconceptions about what that means, and he’s prepared to short-circuit them. Joel no longer seems to be knocking at death’s door, but death’s door is certainly in the same neighborhood as Joel at the moment, and Ellie knows it. “I believe everything happens for a reason,” David says, and though Ellie smirks, he offers proof in the form of a story. He’s kind and charismatic, and as they sit by the fire, he offers Ellie, who’s refrained from telling David her name, a place in his group that she wastes no time refusing, saying, “You’re inviting me to your hunger club? A soft-spoken man of God who seems like the real deal, he presides over his small flock in a converted steakhouse, and he’s clearly used to dealing with difficult times.

As an episode of television, all of the scenes and performances work, but the religious overtones revolving around the antagonist, David (Scott Shepherd), feel ...

We know he’s done bad things in the past, but now we’re seeing that he’s willing to let that dark side of himself out if it means protecting Ellie. When Joel tortures and murders David’s men in his search for Ellie, we can see that he is on a rampage to find her, but we also see that he’s clearly done this before. When it’s later “revealed” that David’s flock has been unknowingly chomping on their dead friends and family by Ellie spying an ear on the floor outside her cage, the shock of the cannibalism revelation has all but worn off already. When one of David’s men emerges from the bowels of the lodge kitchen and the camera fixates on the tub of sloppily butchered mystery meat he’s carrying…come on. Later, when Ellie meets David and James (aka Buddy Boy) out in the woods, he comes off like a reasonable, compassionate person. [The Last of Us](https://www.denofgeek.com/the-last-of-us/) in a vacuum, divorcing it from its immaculate source material.

In 'The Last of Us' Episode 8, voice actor Troy Baker makes a cameo appearance as James. Baker voiced Joel in 'The Last of Us' video game.

While his character may not appear beyond Episode 8, we’ll be able to hear Baker’s insight on the next episode of the The Last of Us podcast. In short: Baker is a legend. I was like, 'If you could go back 12 years to the version of me that walked into that audition on that sound stage, and go, 'Just to let you know, this is going to be the biggest thing you've ever done in your life, and you're going to be standing here on a set of what will be, I think, one of the greatest television shows ever,' I never would've believed it.'" [The Last of Us ](https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a42489695/the-last-of-us-release-schedule-hbo/)voice actor Troy Baker learned of HBO’s decision to cast Pedro Pascal as the live action version of his beloved bearded Joel, Baker [tweeted](https://twitter.com/TroyBakerVA/status/1359721510341021696) three lines: “F*ck. The show’s decision to include the original game’s cast in supporting roles underscores Mazin and Druckmann’s fidelity to the source material. The on-screen role is more or less the same; viewers are introduced to the character through Ellie, who comes across both James (that’s Baker) and David, the cannibal cult-leading pastor whom James follows.

Episode 8 of HBO's The Last of Us gives Joel's original voice actor, Troy Baker, a very different role by making him James, David's right-hand man.

It’s marvelous to see Baker flex his live-acting muscles in The Last of Us, and it is curious that HBO decided to give him a villain part. However, Baker's interpretation of James is so memorable that we hope HBO brings the voice actor back to play a different role in Season 2 of The Last of Us. While James was already part of The Last of Us - Part I game, he looks and sounds completely different in HBO’s series adaptation. So, while the story remains pretty much the same, Baker’s version of James shows new shades of the character’s psyche. [The Last of Us](https://collider.com/tag/the-last-of-us/) approaches the end of its first season, Joel ( [Pedro Pascal](https://collider.com/tag/pedro-pascal/)) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are forced to face the brutality of their ways and the coldness of the post-apocalyptic world. So, even though Pascal was chosen to play Joel in the series adaptation, HBO gave a nod to Baker's stellar performance

The cliffhanger at the end of Episode 7 left us with questions about whether Joel (Pedro Pascal) is going to recover from being stabbed, or if Ellie (Bella ...

In "The Last of Us" episode 8, Ellie meets David and his flock of cannibals, in an adaptation of the famous winter section from the video game.

- Troy Baker is clearly a talented actor, but his Southern drawl here sounds a bit close to the original Joel from the game. The show mimics the gameplay of Ellie sneaking around silently and arming herself to attack David. While he was easy to hate in the game, he is unforgivably detestable in the show, all while seeming more benevolent early in the episode. David tries to work his magic, aiming to convince Ellie to join his group. Distracted by how “real” her infection looks, James gets a butcher knife to the neck as Ellie escapes into the steakhouse. This is the moment where it becomes crystal clear to the audience that Joel isn’t exactly a wholesome father. He immediately murders one of the men who was able to find his location. If Jackson is the picture of success, David’s group is a portrait of a failing society. Ellie arms Joel with a knife; he still seems out of it and unable to fend for himself. The same seems to apply to the rest of David’s flock. Ellie quickly returns to Joel to inject his injury with penicillin. This entire hunting sequence is lifted from the video game, giving both players and viewers an opportunity to see Ellie awkwardly transition from prey to predator.

As Ellie reaches her most desperate moment, darkness comes knocking in an outstanding eighth episode of HBO's The Last of Us.

Despite the episode ending in a flurry of violence as David is dispatched and Baker is butchered (leaving us only a candlestick maker short of the set) much of this chapter is dedicated to the ever-winding tension that plays out between David and Ellie. In the game, Ellie and David build their bond over an extended period of time as they fight off hordes of infected in a Resident Evil 4 shelter-defence homage. The way the group silently eats in the cold, lifeless surroundings of the restaurant is in sharp contrast to the welcoming warmth that Joel and Ellie experienced in Jackson two episodes ago. It’s a flash of brutal fury that we needed to see from Pascal’s Joel too, who on the whole has felt like a softer interpretation compared to Troy Baker’s rendition in the game. We've heard whispers of Joel's questionable past throughout the series, but the way he dispatches his two hostages is the first time we see him fully step over that moral line and a crucial moment in us realising that he will do anything to keep Ellie safe. This is shown in the highly impactful final moments of the chapter when Joel holds her in a display that proves neither is ready to forfeit the love they’ve discovered for each other.

Bella Ramsey as Ellie holds a sniper rifle in a moment from HBO's The Last of. Screenshot: HBO. With just one episode to go, we're ...

By putting both characters in such desperate circumstances, and then having them finally come back together in the end, this episode and this stretch of the game are the cementing of the connection between Joel and Ellie that the story needs before it heads into its final chapter. In the show, which continues working to make David more overtly disturbing than he is in the game, he tells her that she’s in a cage because “you’re a dangerous person, you’ve certainly proven that,” and there’s an unmistakable hint of amusement and even admiration to his comment. When the second man declares that he won’t tell Joel anything, both the game and the show give us the chilling and memorable line in which Joel, referring to the man he just killed, says “That’s okay, I believe him.” Ellie rides through the neighborhood on her horse—the neighborhood which, in the game, has a small army of David’s men on the streets—and eventually, her horse is shot out from under her. And in both cases, it’s immensely cathartic and satisfying to see her finally kill him, and not just kill him but stab him again and again until she herself is a blood-spattered survivor, a Carrying her off himself and ordering a few men to haul the horse carcass, he tells the remainder of his men to go door to door hunting Joel. In the show, she presses a knife into his hands and tells him to kill anyone who comes into the house, though he doesn’t even look like he has the strength to sit up. Both the game and the show have Ellie talking tough when she sees David and James near the deer she killed, with her calling James “buddy boy” and saying that if David tries anything, she’ll “put one right between your eyes.” The show, however, foregrounds David’s role as a preacher in their first conversation far more than the game does. One of the luxuries of HBO’s adaptation has always been that it can leave the perspective of Joel and Ellie behind entirely when it wants to, and here, we get more development of David’s congregation. When she takes a moment to focus with the deer in her sights, we can sense her recalling Joel’s words and trying to draw on what he taught her. The episode begins with him reading scripture to his flock, in the old steakhouse he’s converted into a church and town hall of sorts, a place where the abundant food of the pre-cordyceps past is sharply contrasted with the desperate circumstances of the present. It continues to be interesting to me how, in the game, combat is perhaps prioritized as the most important element, while in adapting the game to a series, it becomes the least important.

'The Last of Us' Season 1, Episode 8: Troy Baker, who voiced Joel in the game and plays James in the show, discusses that final scene.

This is a transformative moment for Ellie, and I don’t think that what we did was wrong. I think that James in a lot of ways the way that he mirrors Joel, he was a good guy and what these people…these people are not evil people. And the thing that he doesn’t realize, or that he comes to slowly realize, is that while David is looking for an equal, James is not it. Because he realizes that David is the Devil, and it’s better to be on the right hand of David than to be on the wrong end with him. In the game, though not in the show, part of Ellie and Joel’s conversation is covered by music, and we don’t hear what he’s saying to her. As someone so intimately connected to the game, I’m wondering if you can address the fact that in the game, Joel pulls Ellie off David after she’s killed him. And yeah, when we shot that scene originally, there was a lot that I said. And for me that’s a secret that stays between Joel and Ellie. But for me, I was excited about being on the sidelines and in the stands as opposed to on the field. When I’m trying to figure out who this character is, to me he’s a pragmatist, and James is definitely someone who wants to be the right hand of David. (Joel’s secret dream to be a singer, for instance, was born of Baker’s experience as a guitarist and vocalist.) Those who watched Episode 8, which aired Sunday, will recall that James was the right-hand man to a preacher presiding over a flock of cannibalistic outbreak survivors.

First off: a fun easter egg. David's pal, James, is played in the HBO series by Troy Baker—who voices Joels in the video games. With co-creator Neil Druckmann ...

The effect this encounter has on Ellie is severe, and audiences will see it play out on screen in the Season One finale next week. Killing David is also a quick-time event, with the game forcing you to press a button on the controller in time—or you won’t reach the knife. [fungus monsters](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42760795/last-of-us-fungus-cordyceps-mycologist/) while David and Ellie wait for James to return with the medicine. The fateful battle also goes down in the burning meeting house, though with some small changes. With co-creator Neil Druckmann at the helm of the series as well, it’s just nice to see that so many people who were involved in the game worked on the HBO series. David’s pal, James, is played in the HBO series by Troy Baker—who voices Joels in the video games.

In "The Last of Us" episode 8, Joel (Pedro Pascal) calls Ellie (Bella Ramsey) "baby girl". Here's why that's so important.

[the cold brutality of Ellie and Joel's confrontation in episode 6](https://mashable.com/article/the-last-of-us-episode-6-joel-ellie-argument-hbo), when Joel tells Ellie, "You're not my daughter, and I sure as hell ain't your dad." It's OK. It's me. "Baby girl" is actually the nickname he had for his daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker), who was shot and killed by a She's covered in blood, and then she just looks him right in the eye. Traumatised and covered in blood she stumbles outside and straight into the arms of Joel. She leans forwards and hugs him. "She's just so broken, and she doesn't know what to say. Now, Joel no longer sees Ellie as "cargo," or the sarcastic girl who [likes to tell jokes](https://mashable.com/article/the-last-of-us-ellies-joke-book-episode-4) — he now sees her as family. This is the first time Joel has referred to Ellie as "baby girl" in the show, but it's not the first time he's said those words. It's OK, baby girl. [traumatic](https://mashable.com/article/the-last-of-us-episode-3-final-song) [episodes](https://mashable.com/article/the-last-of-us-episode-5-ellie-sam-im-sorry), [The Last of Us](https://mashable.com/category/the-last-of-us) episode 8 may well have been [the most traumatic so far](https://mashable.com/article/the-last-of-us-episode-8-david-cannibalism).

HBO's The Last of Us episode 8 has arrived and this time we see Ellie tangling with David and Joel stepping up his torturing game. But how close does the show ...

Check out the slideshow, or watch the video above to see the scenes from both the show and the game in action. HBO's The Last of Us episode 8 has arrived and this time we see Ellie tangling with David and Joel stepping up his torturing game. A chapter that explores the depraved depths humanity will plummet to in order to survive, it’s endlessly engaging and hard to turn your eyes away from, even when you want to.