Season 1, Episode 5 - "Endure And Survive"

Summary

HBO's The Last of Us Podcast: Season 1, Episode 5 - "Endure And Survive"

Release Date: February 11, 2023
Host: Troy Baker
Showrunners: Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann

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Introduction

In Season 1, Episode 5 of HBO's The Last of Us, titled "Endure And Survive," host Troy Baker engages in an in-depth discussion with showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. This episode centers around key narrative and production elements, exploring the adaptation's fidelity to the original video game while introducing new dimensions to enrich the storytelling.

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Character Development: Henry and Sam

Exploring New Perspectives

One of the standout discussions revolves around the expansion of Henry and Sam's characters. Unlike the game, the show delves deeper into their backstory and motivations, providing a richer understanding of their relationship and survival strategies.

• Neil Druckmann highlights, “...we can only do it from Joel or Ellie's perspective” (01:15), emphasizing the adaptation's shift to explore viewpoints beyond the main protagonists.

• Craig Mazin adds, “...what if we could see that? ...placing Henry and Sam in that” (01:41), indicating a deliberate narrative choice to focus on these characters' involvement in the uprising.

Sam's Deafness: Enhancing Representation

A significant alteration from the game is Sam's character being deaf, portrayed by Keevon Woodard. This change not only broadens representation but also deepens the emotional resonance of Sam and Henry's bond.

• Troy Baker questions, “Where did that come from? Why make that change?” (03:27), prompting Druckmann to elaborate on the creative impetus behind this decision.

• Neil Druckmann explains, “What if Sam was deaf? It automatically brings a certain kind of intimacy to those scenes...” (04:07), showcasing the intention to add layers to character interactions through silent communication.

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Casting Process: Finding Keevon Woodard

Challenges and Triumphs

Casting a young, talented actor capable of portraying a deaf character presented significant challenges due to the scarcity of suitable candidates.

• Craig Mazin recounts, “We were in trouble... looking for a black kid between the ages of 8 and 11... fluent in American Sign Language” (07:00).

• Neil Druckmann shares the serendipitous discovery of Keevon Woodard, stating, “...we just went on Twitter, and I just said, here's what we're looking for... One of them was Kevan. Now, Keevan wasn't just the best of the five. He was astonishing” (08:09).

Impact of Casting

Keevon Woodard's performance not only met but exceeded expectations, bringing authenticity and depth to Sam's character.

• Craig Mazin praises, “He's incredible” (09:20), while Neil Druckmann expresses hope for Keevon’s future opportunities, “I hope that people in Hollywood think about casting Kivan again...” (09:37).

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Production Insights: Set Construction and Visual Effects

Building the Kansas City Uprising

Creating the intricate setting for the Kansas City uprising required extensive collaboration and innovative set design.

• Craig Mazin details, “We needed to build it... we built this” (35:39), highlighting the construction of a large-scale neighborhood set.

• Neil Druckmann emphasizes the rapid pace, “the speed of how all those sets came together was incredible” (37:29), showcasing the production team's efficiency.

Weta FX and the Bloater

Special effects play a crucial role in bringing the infected to life, with Weta FX leading the charge.

• Neil Druckmann commends, “If you study it carefully, there may be moments where you're like, okay, that one's VFX, but that one's real. But I guarantee you won't get it” (42:21), praising the seamless integration of practical and digital effects.

• The introduction of the Bloater—a formidable infected variant—is discussed with enthusiasm, “...we brought on vendors... nobody does creature work the way Weta does” (40:36).

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Storytelling Choices: Adapting and Expanding the Narrative

Diverging from the Game for Television

While maintaining the core essence of the game, the showrunners took creative liberties to enhance storytelling suited for a television format.

• Neil Druckmann reflects, “If you're trying to reflect the worst possible outcome for a parent... then you have to take it all the way” (60:37), explaining the departure from the game's original narrative to heighten emotional impact.

• Craig Mazin concurs, “...let's definitely do a bloater,” stressing the commitment to expanding the lore beyond the game's boundaries (47:22).

Key Scenes and Emotional Beats

Several pivotal scenes underscore the themes of loss, protection, and the moral ambiguities of survival.

• The interrogation scene with Kathleen introduces a nuanced antagonist whose motivations are rooted in love and vengeance. Neil Druckmann notes, "...love is stupid. Punishment is how we are going to win the day" (16:16), illustrating Kathleen's complex character.

• The burial of Henry and Sam is a significant departure from the game, providing a poignant closure to their storyline. Troy Baker remarks, “Sam couldn't hear... it was still him inside” (57:28), highlighting the enduring humanity amidst tragedy.

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Themes: Parental Honesty and the Cost of Survival

Balancing Truth and Protection

A recurring theme is the delicate balance between honesty and protection in parent-child relationships amidst dire circumstances.

• Neil Druckmann states, “you can lie to keep your children comfortable and happy to a point, but then there comes a point where you need to tell them the truth in order to keep them safe” (13:43).

• Craig Mazin further explores, “When Henry has to tell Sam the truth, it's because he has to tell him the truth, not because he wants to” (14:01), emphasizing the utilitarian approach in survival.

Violence and Its Consequences

The episode also delves into the ramifications of violence as a means of survival, questioning the moral costs involved.

• Neil Druckmann muses, “when you are dealing with the citizen brigade... these are people” (16:40), humanizing the antagonists and blurring the lines between good and evil.

• Craig Mazin reinforces this notion, “when you are dead set on using violence to settle the score... you are going to probably get subsumed by that yourself” (49:21).

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Notable Quotes

• Neil Druckmann: “I wish that I had thought of that” (05:57).

• Craig Mazin: “My name's Henry. It's my brother Sam, and the most wanted man in Kansas City. Although right now, my guess is you're running a close second” (18:15).

• Neil Druckmann: “These violent delights have violent ends” (49:11).

• Craig Mazin: “I can't go through this again.” (61:44).

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Conclusion

Episode 5, "Endure And Survive," masterfully balances homage to the original video game with fresh storytelling elements tailored for television. Through meticulous character development, innovative production, and profound thematic exploration, the podcast episode reveals the depth and complexity that The Last of Us brings to its adaptation. Showrunners Mazin and Druckmann, alongside host Troy Baker, provide listeners with valuable insights into the creative process, underscoring the show's commitment to authenticity and emotional resonance.

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For those who haven't listened to the podcast, this summary offers a comprehensive overview of the discussions and creative decisions that shaped "Endure And Survive," enriching the viewing experience of HBO's The Last of Us.

Transcript

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[Unknown Character]

Welcome to Killer City.

No, Fedra.

Not as of 10 days ago. No. You always heard Casey Ephedra was monsters, savages. Yeah, you heard right.

[Neil Druckmann]

Rape.

[Unknown Character]

Been tortured and murdered people for 20 years. And you know what happens when you do that to people. The moment they get a chance, they do it right. Back to you.

[Troy Baker]

Welcome to the official podcast for HBO's original series, the Last of Us. I'm your host, Troy Baker, and today I'm here with showrunners Craig Mason.

[Craig Mazin]

Hello.

[Troy Baker]

And Neil Druckmann.

[Unknown Character]

Hey, Troy.

[Troy Baker]

Today we're going to be discussing episode five of the series entitled Endure and Survive. We've had different kind of openings. We've had the intellectual, we've had the emotional, and this one is pure violence. Why was that important to put that on display from the onset?

[Unknown Character]

Well, this is one of the things I love about this adaptation is, you know, in the game, we explored similar things, but we can only do it from Joel or Ellie's perspective. So Kansas City is Pittsburgh, but you get to see the aftermath of Fedra. Haven't fallen. This group of antagonists toward Joel and Ellie have taken it over and you find, like, bodies that have been hanged of the previous soldiers, and you could tell there was this uprising. And here we said, okay, what if we could see that? Because again, we're not married every moment to Joel and Ellie's perspective. Like, what if we could see it? And to tie it to character, what if we placed Henry and Sam in that and tie it to that which, you know, is a change from the game. In the game, there were travelers like Joel and Ellie, and they end up being being stuck in the city. Here they were a part of this uprising, and they're connected to the politics of it. And I think there's a lot of kind of richness to talk more about what happened here and eventually get to the other side, the other perspective of, like, well, why did they have this uprising and who led that uprising and what does it mean for the people that have remained now?

[Troy Baker]

So here we get to learn more about Henry and Sam. Sam's played wonderfully by Keevon Woodard, and Henry is played by Lamar Johnson in the game, they are two brothers that have somehow survived. And we learn more about what has helped that survival, the choice that Henry specifically has made to protect his little brother. But there is something different about the version of the characters that we see in the show, namely with Sam, who, like Kivan, is deaf. We gotta talk about it. Where did that come from? Why make that change?

[Neil Druckmann]

It started with a bit of a weird worry I had. I became nervous that there was a mode of communication between Joel and Ellie that I didn't want to feel like.

[Craig Mazin]

I was repeating between Henry and Sam.

[Neil Druckmann]

Because, as Neil points out in the game, you don't spend time with Henry and Sam on their own ever. But if they are on their own.

[Craig Mazin]

And we knew we wanted to do.

[Neil Druckmann]

That, well, what do those discussions sound like?

[Craig Mazin]

And it could very easily fall into.

[Neil Druckmann]

The trap of exasperated father figure and.

[Craig Mazin]

Curious concern, scared child figure.

[Neil Druckmann]

And so I was looking for a way to change that mode of communication. We'd also talked a little bit about making Sam younger because we liked the idea that Ellie would have somebody that could look up to her, you know, the way that she looked up to Joel. It may have happened because it was sort of on my mind a little bit. So I'd been watching this show called this Close By a woman named Shoshana Stern and a guy named Josh Feldman, who co created it and wrote it and acted in it.

[Craig Mazin]

And they're both deaf.

[Neil Druckmann]

And it is about two best friends navigating the world and what it's like when you're both trying to find love in your own life. And Josh is gay and plays a.

[Craig Mazin]

Gay character, so there's no romance between them.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's about their friendship and how they navigate, but also how they navigate the world as deaf people when they're dealing with other people who aren't deaf. And I became friendly with Shoshanna, so.

[Craig Mazin]

It was just sort of like banging.

[Neil Druckmann]

Around in my head. And then I was like, well, so this was one of those moments where I called up Neil and I'm like.

[Craig Mazin]

I have a radical suggestion.

[Neil Druckmann]

So I said, what if Sam was deaf? It automatically brings a certain kind of.

[Craig Mazin]

Intimacy to those scenes because they're quiet, which I love.

[Neil Druckmann]

This is a lot of talking. This is a very verbal show. And Ellie talks a lot.

[Craig Mazin]

And it was interesting to sort of.

[Neil Druckmann]

See what would it be like if it were just quieter.

[Craig Mazin]

And also put Sam and Henry in.

[Neil Druckmann]

This bubble that had to expand to include Joel and Ellie because it had been so quiet between the two of them since obviously they Used sign language. And Neil said, go fuck yourself.

[Unknown Character]

Basic. Basically. I believe I said, you motherfucker. I wish I had thought of that.

[Troy Baker]

It's a term of endearment.

[Neil Druckmann]

Oh, no question. It's when Neil's like, oh, Oh, I wish I'd done that. Then I'm like, okay, we're onto something. And it was important for us. I just want to be clear. Like, as we went through it, I had my guesses as to how these things would work, but I actually. Then we hired Shoshana to review the scripts and make sure that it worked correctly, that we weren't making mistakes. And it was the same thing I did with Chernobyl, you know, showed it to people that grew up in Soviet Ukraine and say, how does this all look? And it's almost like a cultural review. And she was incredibly helpful in that regard. And then we. Kevon, we'll just take a moment. I think was eight incredibly young. Let's just talk about how we even found him.

[Craig Mazin]

We were in trouble.

[Neil Druckmann]

I mean, we had created.

[Craig Mazin]

It was one thing to say on the phone, hey, Neil, here's an idea.

[Neil Druckmann]

Why don't we cast this kid? And so now we're like, okay, here's the casting call. What we said to Vicky Thomas, our casting director. We were looking for a black kid between the ages of 8 and 11. We'd like him to be shorter than Ellie, who's. I mean, Bella is not a tall person, and he has to be deaf, and he has to be fluent in American Sign Language, which not all deaf kids necessarily are.

[Craig Mazin]

Some of them have been trained more to read lips, but most of them are.

[Neil Druckmann]

Or B A S L, by the way, because there's black American Sign Language, which is actually different than American Sign Language. And guess what? Not a ton of people. And you're like, oh, it's frustrating because I know the problem is the pipeline. It's a pipeline problem. It's not a are there kids out.

[Craig Mazin]

There who can do it?

[Neil Druckmann]

Problem. So we're running out of time. The traditional methods are not working.

[Troy Baker]

I would also point out one really important component to that casting call is they have to be able to act well.

[Neil Druckmann]

Then there's that.

[Troy Baker]

Find someone that fits the demographic is one thing. Found someone.

[Neil Druckmann]

Then they also have to be able to act and act really well. And so after a certain point, we were, like, really up against it. We needed to cast somebody. And I just went, ah, fuck it, and made, like, a Google email for our casting and just went on Twitter, and I just said, here's what we're looking for. Open to the world, send us stuff. And I thought we were going to get 80 auditions. I think we got five.

[Troy Baker]

Wow.

[Neil Druckmann]

And one of them was Kevan. Now, Keevan wasn't just the best of the five. He was astonishing. I mean, this is where you start to think maybe this is a simulation, because, I mean, I have never been in a circumstance where a kid who.

[Craig Mazin]

Has never really acted on film before.

[Neil Druckmann]

Shows up and is so naturally good at it and is a joy to have around. He was just a dream. Still, to this day, I just. I'm kind of puzzled by it.

[Unknown Character]

Oh, he's brilliant.

[Craig Mazin]

He's incredible.

[Neil Druckmann]

And I cannot wait to see more from him. I hope that when people watch this.

[Craig Mazin]

Episode here in Hollywood, in our business.

[Neil Druckmann]

That they don't just stop at the.

[Craig Mazin]

End of it and go, boy, that kid was really good.

[Neil Druckmann]

Playing the character of Sam, I hope that they go, that kid ought to be in a lot of things. The fact that he's deaf is a fascinating aspect of representation that is underrepresented on television. But more importantly, his story in our show wasn't about him being deaf. In fact, the biggest factor to his character was that he had had leukemia. That was a bigger deal for Sam. And I hope that people in Hollywood think about casting Kivan again and not.

[Craig Mazin]

In stories about being deaf, but just.

[Neil Druckmann]

In stories about people. Because he's.

[Craig Mazin]

Boy, is he good.

[Unknown Character]

The word I think about is it enriches.

[Troy Baker]

Enriches.

[Unknown Character]

It's like it adds this extra layer to this tale from the game. I was rewatching it last night in preparation for this. And when they're hiding out in the attic, there's this moment where Henry reveals to Sam that Edelstein is not coming back, that in fact, he's dead. And Sam just. His instinct is he reaches out and he needs the comfort of his older brother. And that scene just really resonated with me in a way that even when I was working on a game did. My son is not the same age, and I've had those situations where my son is either scared or upset or just distraught in some way. And he just needs that hug. And that hug felt so real and authentic. Man, it hits me right to my core.

[Troy Baker]

Lamar Johnson, who plays Henry, I met him, and I don't know if you. This resonates with you, but you feel like you've just known him forever. Like, he's a friend.

[Craig Mazin]

He's one of the nicest people.

[Neil Druckmann]

Now, this is not. Shouldn't come as a Surprise. Because he's Canadian.

[Troy Baker]

That's what it is.

[Neil Druckmann]

Canadians are incredibly nice people. But he. Lamar has this. He's humanity forward, right? Like, you can just. You feel his spirit the moment you meet him. He's just.

[Craig Mazin]

There's decency.

[Neil Druckmann]

That's what hits you first, is just how obviously decent he is. He is also fiercely intelligent, and he also just quickly learn sign language.

[Craig Mazin]

Our first scene with Henry and Sam.

[Neil Druckmann]

I believe, was in their hiding space in the attic. And I believe it was a Monday, and I'm pretty sure that he had.

[Craig Mazin]

Learned it over the weekend.

[Neil Druckmann]

I shit you not. So C.J.

[Craig Mazin]

Jones was working with us on set.

[Neil Druckmann]

He was sort of the head of asl, and I met him also through Shoshana. He's also deaf and is an acting teacher.

[Craig Mazin]

And so he served this interesting role.

[Neil Druckmann]

Of being both a liaison, a communication liaison between us and Sam, but also coaching Keevan along and also helping Lamar.

[Craig Mazin]

Learn sign language and then watching.

[Neil Druckmann]

And after Jeremy Webb, as the director would say, Cut. C.J. would go over to Lamar and either congratulate him or berate him for not getting the signs quite right or for not signing with the proper speed or fluidity. It was really important to Lamar that.

[Craig Mazin]

Anyone watching this who was deaf and fluent in ASL or not deaf and.

[Neil Druckmann]

Fluent in ASL would not point their finger and go, nope, fake. And he just was that smart and that good. It was almost scary.

[Troy Baker]

As dads, all three of us are dads, there's this bizarre desire to protect our kids, and sometimes we will do that by employing lies. Henry, this is a paternal relationship, and he's being brutally honest. We're out of food. We need to leave. Did they kill him? Probably, yes. As a father, are you writing this as a truth for yourself or are you espousing an ideal?

[Neil Druckmann]

My point of view is that you can lie to keep your children comfortable and happy to a point, but then there comes a point where you need to tell them the truth in order to keep them safe.

[Craig Mazin]

The reason that Henry tells Sam the.

[Neil Druckmann]

Truth, that the doctor isn't coming back.

[Craig Mazin]

They did probably kill him. And we have to move because there.

[Neil Druckmann]

Is no more food, is because if they stay there one more hour, they're going to get caught and then Sam's going to die anyway. So it's all about in the moment, what will keep this kid safe. It is never, and I wish that I had a more noble answer, it's never about feeling obligated to be super honest with your kid when you are in situations of Stress, obviously, when you're not, you want to be honest with your children. But when there's danger afoot, you become, I think as a parent, very utilitarian in your approach. What will work the best to keep my kids safe. And when Henry has to tell Sam the truth, it's because he has to tell him the truth, not because he wants to.

[Unknown Character]

Because again, and this will come back later in the season, anything you could do to take the pain away from your kid, you will do that as a parent.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

But sometimes you got to be brutally honest with them in order to protect them. It's the same exact motivation.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah. Which will ultimately get us to the.

[Craig Mazin]

Most brutal repudiation of that by Melanie Lynskey's character, Kathleen.

[Troy Baker]

Well, let's rewind a little bit in our episode to the interrogation scene with Kathleen.

[Unknown Character]

You're informers inform. Where is Henry? I guess they don't know. Kill him.

He's with Edel's team.

[Troy Baker]

This scene is entirely new.

[Neil Druckmann]

Melanie Lynsky was perfect because I could describe her as like this. Like, what if a kindergarten teacher were.

[Craig Mazin]

In charge of the terror of the French Revolution?

[Neil Druckmann]

It's this kind of, just because you're sweet on the outside doesn't mean you don't have the capacity for terrible anger.

[Craig Mazin]

And vengeance in your heart.

[Unknown Character]

But the way she justifies it is love.

[Neil Druckmann]

Love. I mean, the theme of us versus.

[Craig Mazin]

Them is always there. This notion of tribalism is always there. It was important for me and for.

[Neil Druckmann]

Neil to not npcize these people. We didn't want them to just be bad guys.

[Troy Baker]

Can you just define a little bit what you mean by that?

[Craig Mazin]

So NPCs are non player characters.

[Neil Druckmann]

If you play D and D like.

[Craig Mazin]

I do, and I know you do, you run into those things from time to time. And they're monsters, bad guys.

[Neil Druckmann]

And in video games, NPCs are the enemies that typically aren't named. They don't have much in the way of dialogue. And they are there for you to kill. Typically. Then the tough part is if I'm playing Joel or Ellie and I need to kill these people to get through this level, I can't connect with them too much as a player. I need to be able to sneak up behind them and kill them without feeling like, oh God, I just killed Linda. You know, that would be really hard to deal with if I felt a lot for them.

[Craig Mazin]

But when you're making television and there.

[Neil Druckmann]

Isn'T the gameplay aspect, we wanted as best we could to give these people.

[Craig Mazin]

A sense of justification. And this is, again, what happens when regimes fall.

[Neil Druckmann]

The retaliation that comes after can be terrifying.

[Troy Baker]

We have this wonderful blending of moments now, something that happened in a previous episode where we have the truck ambush scene where they crash into the laundromat. And now we have the other side of that where we're seeing the same thing happen from a different perspective now, from Henry and Sam's perspective, which kind of helps inform who these people are to Henry. And what Henry sees is two desperately vicious people. There's this great quote.

[Unknown Character]

My name's Henry. It's my brother Sam, and the most wanted man in Kansas City. Although right now, my guess is you're running a close second.

There's a change here pretty significant from the game, which is in the game, you're playing alongside Henry and Sam and Ellie, and you come across these enemies, and therefore, we needed Henry to be able to fight and kill with you. And we try to give a certain morality in the game to Henry that even Joel wouldn't have, which was like, there's a part where, like, Sam tries to steal this toy from this toy store, and Henry says, no, we only take what we need and no more. It was just a way to kind of separate him here again, because we don't need Henry to kill. There's this beautiful choice of, like, I've never killed anybody.

Right now I know where to go, but I don't know how to make it through alive. Not if it's just me and Sam.

You seem capable enough. You're harmed. Yeah.

Wrong and wrong. Never killed anyone. And pointing an unloaded gun at you is the closest I've ever come to being violent.

Think it just immediately separates him from Joel. And you understand why Henry is so reliant on this man that he just spotted kill a bunch of people. It's like, okay, if I need someone to protect, essentially, Sam. His entire motivation is, Sam, I gotta team up with this killer.

[Troy Baker]

I can do this. You can do that. Are you wanting to catch the audience off guard? Are you wanting them to constantly remind them that this is something different? Or are you just in a sandbox playing because you can?

[Unknown Character]

You mean different from the game?

[Troy Baker]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

No, I don't think we ever, like. I don't remember any conversation. We're like, oh, let's show them how this is different. It's more like what's best for this medium and what's best for where we are in the story. That has already kind of evolved and kind of changed in some ways.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Neil Druckmann]

There were areas where we knew we.

[Craig Mazin]

Wanted to hue really closely and then.

[Neil Druckmann]

There were areas where we thought, okay, actually we're going to wander off a bit.

[Craig Mazin]

Well, once you decide to wander off.

[Neil Druckmann]

Because you think it's going to give us an opportunity to make a better show, then you do what you always do, which is to make the scenes interesting and to create a little bit.

[Craig Mazin]

Of a sense of mystery.

[Neil Druckmann]

I mean, who is Henry?

[Craig Mazin]

Why is he on the run? Why is Kathleen so interested in hunting this guy down to the point where.

[Neil Druckmann]

Even her right hand man, played by.

[Craig Mazin]

This guy you might know named Jeffrey.

[Neil Druckmann]

Pierce, is saying, hey, whoa, you know, we have other fish to fry, including.

[Craig Mazin]

The possibility of something terrible underground that.

[Neil Druckmann]

We are now responsible to hold back since Fedra's gone. And yet somehow Kathleen is just monomaniacally.

[Craig Mazin]

Fixated on finding Henry.

[Neil Druckmann]

What did he do? And when Henry says I'm the most.

[Craig Mazin]

Wanted man in Kansas City, why that mystery?

[Neil Druckmann]

That's just how you keep people engaged. I don't think we ever thought like, let's show em how different we can be. I think we were always scared to either be too close to the game or too far away from the game.

[Craig Mazin]

And the only way to get around.

[Neil Druckmann]

The fear was to ask what would make the best story and the best scene.

[Unknown Character]

Yeah, again, going back to like red, we want to show more of these quote unquote hunters, these people that have taken over the quarantine zone. And it's like, well, if we just do that and it's completely removed from our main characters, then I don't think it would have worked. It was the tying it of Henry and Sam so that all these things are interconnected that made it all gel.

[Troy Baker]

It's starting to look like these characters are all somewhat of the Night of Mirrors for Joel. We have Kathleen who is obsessed, but we do see this mirroring of this relationship that Joel and Ellie have in different versions, Henry and Sam and also Kathleen and her brother.

[Unknown Character]

But by the way also Kathleen and her entire group. Because I don't know if we've ever talked about it. In my mind it's like she's operating from a place of like, I have to bring this person to justice, to set the foundation of this thing that I'm building now where Fredre used to be.

[Troy Baker]

That to me was a really interesting point that again, Jeffrey Pierce, my boy who played Tommy in the game, now plays Perry in the show. Every time I give him a compliment about his performance, he's like, you know, the beard did 90% of the work.

[Unknown Character]

He looks Wore his muscles.

[Troy Baker]

I mean, he just only does what is necessary. But there's so much happening underneath the surface, and he still stands in opposition. And we see this kind of.

[Unknown Character]

Well, he does and he doesn't. Right. That, to me, helps flesh out Kathleen even further, is the fact that he loves her and looks up to her.

[Craig Mazin]

They all do.

[Neil Druckmann]

I mean, he is questioning what she's.

[Craig Mazin]

Doing in regard to Henry, but he understands it. And when he has this moment with.

[Neil Druckmann]

Her, he comes to see her, and we've seen him be nervous about her course of action a couple of times, and she presumes that he's there to say, you gotta pull back here. We have other stuff to do. And she talks finally about her brother and what he meant for her.

[Unknown Character]

Michael told me that this wasn't a room at all, that this was actually just a big wooden box. A big wooden box that nothing could get inside of. And it didn't matter if there was lightning or tornadoes or gunfire. He said, as long as we were together in our perfect box, we would be safe. He did that for me.

[Craig Mazin]

And what her brother meant for her was safety.

[Neil Druckmann]

Her brother was her Joel. And her Joel died. And when her Joel died, she kind.

[Craig Mazin]

Of lost it and needed to kill.

[Neil Druckmann]

The people that killed her Joel. If this sounds vaguely familiar to anybody, there might be a reason. So she is saying, essentially, my brother was rather Christlike. He told me to forgive. And she is not Christlike. She has a darkness in her. And her point of view is, forgiveness is stupid. Punishment is how we are going to win the day. And you expect Perry to say, well, and he doesn't. What he says is, your brother was a great man. We all loved him, but he didn't.

[Unknown Character]

Change anything you did.

[Craig Mazin]

We're with you, and they are free. Because somebody with darkness in her said.

[Neil Druckmann]

We'Re going to do whatever it takes.

[Craig Mazin]

And when somebody frees you like that, you tend to trust them and you.

[Neil Druckmann]

Tend to follow them all the way.

[Craig Mazin]

To the bitter end.

[Unknown Character]

It also kind of sets the rules for this world of, like, these are the people that survive. These are the people that have the tools to survive in this world. And this is why Joel lives.

[Troy Baker]

One of my favorite moments in the game was when we're in the tunnels with Henry and Sam.

[Unknown Character]

We talked a lot about how the show enriches the game. This is one of those where the game enriches the show, definitely where there's, like, a story. And again, this talks about just a collaboration of how these things are built. There were all these environments that were built, including this, like, underground school, and where, like, this, like, a small group, a small tribe lived there and survived on their own. And in the game, you have this mechanic where you walk around, you could find these notes and read them, and it told you the whole backstory of this guy, Ish, and how he, like, started this community and he recruited other people. And you can find this whole story of, like, the height of how they survived here and their ultimate downfall. And we just couldn't tell the story in the show. There was just no way to do it. But we wanted to honor that this place existed. And it felt like there's a way to reflect back on these characters in the journey they're going through now. Especially where kids lived here and, like, you saw Sam sketching and drawing stuff before, and now you could imagine there would have been, like, a dozen kids here, and now they're all gone. So I just love, again, it's this moment that honors it. And it's like these two almost like, parallel dimension of the same story lived side by side and kind of help talk to one another and enrich the other.

[Craig Mazin]

So much of adaptation comes down to.

[Neil Druckmann]

Instinct, and reasonable people can disagree, But I remember being so surprised and delighted by discovering that underground colony, the abandoned.

[Craig Mazin]

Underground colony in the tunnels. So there was no question that we.

[Neil Druckmann]

Needed to see it.

[Craig Mazin]

It was important.

[Neil Druckmann]

The fact that Ellie and Sam can play soccer and that Joel and Henry have a chance to have a dad talk in this weird, brief respite of safety and sanity was incredibly important to me.

[Craig Mazin]

I needed to see it.

[Neil Druckmann]

When it came to the story of Ish, which is awesome. There's something about the epistolary nature of.

[Craig Mazin]

That in the game.

[Neil Druckmann]

The way that you learn about it through letters, communication, environmental storytelling, it makes it better.

[Craig Mazin]

We could absolutely do a standalone ish.

[Neil Druckmann]

Episode, but I think where we landed was it's better to tip our hats to ish and then have people play the game. Or if they're not gamers, there are.

[Craig Mazin]

Places on the Internet where they can.

[Neil Druckmann]

Go and read every one of those.

[Unknown Character]

No, no, no. Buy the game. Don't listen to Craig.

[Neil Druckmann]

You don't need to buy this game, guys. You don't need to spend a dime on it.

[Troy Baker]

They've done okay.

[Unknown Character]

To the edge of the universe and back. Endure and survive. Endure, survive.

[Troy Baker]

This is where one of the mottos or mantras of the game we really get to display. And it's in this moment with the Endure and survive.

[Neil Druckmann]

You just did the ASL for asl.

[Troy Baker]

I hope that. That catches on. And I want people. I would love for people that just to become a standard greeting for people walking around. Good morning to you. Oh, good morning to you, sir. As they start survive.

[Unknown Character]

Fun. Quick tangent. When we were scouting Edmonton for episode two, we went to like a random restaurant and there's like a bunch of us there, and the waitress comes over and is like, oh, what are you guys here for? We're like, oh, we're shooting a tv. She's like, what shows like Glassflights. I go, oh, my God, I love that game. She pulls her sleeve and she has a tattoo that says endure and surv. I'm like, oh, my God.

[Craig Mazin]

One thing I should mention, since we've.

[Neil Druckmann]

Talked about how people literally tattoo the words endure and survive on their skin is that at one point, not in the game, but in the show, Henry sort of makes fun of it.

[Unknown Character]

What's that comic book say? Endure and survive.

Endure and survive. That shit's redundant.

Yeah, it's not great.

[Neil Druckmann]

I just have this instinct sometimes to kind of pop the balloon a little bit. And I hope that nobody that does have endurance, survive on their skin or doesn't think that we are mocking them. It's really just a kind of a self deprecating moment.

[Unknown Character]

I could talk a little bit about that. Like, the whole idea for this comic book was very much inspired by Watchmen, how there's a comic book inside the story that reflects back on what's happening in the world. So we wanted to do something similar where there was like this sci fi comic that speaks to the same themes of relationships and love and all that. And I was like, it should have a catchphrase that the main hero says. And I'm like, what could be kind of like a cheesy catchphrase? Okay. Our game is about survival. I'm like. And I just went on the source.com typed in survival and endure came up. And I'm like, endure and survive. There it is.

[Troy Baker]

To the edge of the universe and back.

[Neil Druckmann]

I mean, it is. It's very meaningful. It obviously has great thematic resonance. We're being cheeky about it, but I just. I don't want anybody to think that we.

[Unknown Character]

No, no, no. You hate everybody that got a Last of Us tattoo. Let's stick with the. Well, let's stay honest here.

[Neil Druckmann]

Since Neil and I are about to get a Last of Us tattoo. Can we talk about that on this show? Yeah, I got two. You have two of them. So Neil and I made a deal early on in prep, and the deal was if the show does well and we sort of loosely defined does well, then he and I will both get a tattoo of Ellie's switchblade.

[Unknown Character]

Yes.

I will say this is the third time I've made this deal. I've made it on the Last of Us one.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah, I'm gonna make it then Last.

[Unknown Character]

Of Us Part Two. And I've always backed out of it. I guess now we're making it pretty public.

[Neil Druckmann]

Oh, no, no, no, it's not.

[Troy Baker]

No, this absolutely stays in it.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's public record. Yeah, it's happening.

[Troy Baker]

One of my favorite sequences in the game, the sniper.

[Unknown Character]

Stay here.

What?

If you don't move, he's not gonna hit you. I'm gonna go around, try to get in the house through the back, and then I'll take him out.

But if you go out there, he's gonna kill you.

It's dark and he has shit aimed. Nobody's gonna kill me.

[Neil Druckmann]

Then he's gonna kill us.

[Unknown Character]

Do you trust me?

[Craig Mazin]

So in the game, the sniper is.

[Neil Druckmann]

Really good, and he's not alone. There are six or seven other guys with him that you have to clear out, at least. Yeah, at least. So there's quite a good action sequence where you're sneaking behind houses and ducking and trying to.

[Unknown Character]

It's actually the way we wrote that sniper was that he would antagonize you. He yells at you to kind of rile you up, to make you angry. So when you get in that house, you unleash on him. This was a very different approach.

Put the gun down, slide it over to me, and then stay up here for another hour. That's all you have to do. Please don't do it. Please.

[Craig Mazin]

And this wasn't us going, hey, we're.

[Neil Druckmann]

Going to subvert expectations. It was really more like, well, what if there is a sadness to this? Because we understood a we weren't gonna get the same value from presenting the.

[Craig Mazin]

Action the way that the gameplay did.

[Neil Druckmann]

That watching it on television. If there was a lot of ducking and shooting back and ducking and shooting back, it just sort of isn't the show. But I'm obsessed with the cul de sac and I'm obsessed with the sniper. So then the thought was, well, what if he stinks?

[Craig Mazin]

What if this sniper is really bad.

[Neil Druckmann]

And all Joel has to do is just get around and get in there? And then the next question is, well, why is he bad? And the answer is, he's really old. He can't see. And this is sad, because when you are dealing with the citizen brigade. This is often what you're dealing with. It's not trained military soldiers. These are people.

[Craig Mazin]

And this guy, one can imagine, has.

[Neil Druckmann]

Seen a lot because let's say he's what, 80? That means 60 years of his life.

[Craig Mazin]

He was living in a perfectly normal world, and then last 20 went to shit.

[Neil Druckmann]

The last 20 went to shit. And the sadness there. God only knows what amount of grief he's gone through.

[Craig Mazin]

When Joel walks in there, I think Joel can already see it in the guy's eyes.

[Neil Druckmann]

He's going to commit suicide by cop here.

[Craig Mazin]

This guy doesn't want to be here anymore.

[Troy Baker]

Got it?

[Neil Druckmann]

And he's begging him not to because he doesn't want to.

[Craig Mazin]

He doesn't want to kill this guy.

[Neil Druckmann]

He doesn't want to hurt this guy. But this guy's had it. He's done.

[Rocket Mortgage]

At Rocket, we believe everyone deserves their shot at the American dream. So if you're feeling locked out of home ownership, we're here to give you back the.

[Troy Baker]

The keys.

[Rocket Mortgage]

We're opening doors, breaking down walls, and doing everything we can to turn renters into owners. And we're not going to stop until we help everyone home. To find out more, visit rocket.com Rocket Own the Dream.

[Unknown Character]

In the game, there's a scene where Joel. They find this person had committed suicide. And Joel talks to Ellie and he's like. And Ellie says, like, oh, he took the easy way out. And Joel says, it's not easy.

[Troy Baker]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

The thing that Craig was just talking about, Joel recognizes that, and that's why he sees it immediately in this. Man.

[Troy Baker]

I remember walking onto set and I just kept saying, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

[Neil Druckmann]

I remember that day.

[Troy Baker]

Well, it's night. We're back in Calgary, and you said, come here. I want to show you this. And we walked from base camp, and all of a sudden, we're in a neighborhood.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Troy Baker]

You built this.

[Neil Druckmann]

We built this.

[Craig Mazin]

This was a massive undertaking.

[Neil Druckmann]

There was this large empty lot next to the main stages where we were shooting CFC Calgary Film Center. And we knew we were going to be making this big cul de sac scene, and we needed to control it completely. So we needed to be able to do gunfire, we needed to be able to do burns. We needed to do an explosion of a truck. We needed hundreds of extras running around backlit by fire. Lots of stunts, Motor vehicles racing and driving and all of this. And it needs to be lit. There's no way to do that practically.

[Craig Mazin]

On a regular street.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's just not going to work. We needed to build it. Also, we couldn't find a street that was going to be perfect the way that one was. So we turned to our beleaguered, overworked art department, led by John Paino, our production designer, and Dom McCauley, our art director. And just as important as those two.

[Craig Mazin]

Guys, in this case was a gentleman.

[Neil Druckmann]

Named Dino Centani, who is our head of construction. And we said, we want to build a pretty big street, and we want it to look roughly like this. We had some images for inspiration, both.

[Craig Mazin]

From the game and also from some.

[Neil Druckmann]

Actual neighborhoods in Kansas City. And they didn't have a lot of time, and they worked at lightspeed. They didn't just bring in people who were really good at constructing for film and television.

[Craig Mazin]

They brought in actual house builders, home.

[Neil Druckmann]

Builders, to get these things up. Obviously, the interiors were not finished by any stretch of the imagination.

[Troy Baker]

But it's important to point out, when I left, they were pouring foundation. And a month later, I came back and that neighborhood was there.

[Unknown Character]

The speed of how all those sets came together was incredible, because I've never done live action. It's the first time I got to see it.

[Troy Baker]

You get to build it in polygon. I'll just do this much easier.

[Neil Druckmann]

Much easier. Way fewer nails.

[Troy Baker]

We're talking, like, this is about an eighth of a mile long.

[Neil Druckmann]

And we used every inch of what.

[Craig Mazin]

We had going all the way back to the end of the lot.

[Neil Druckmann]

First of all, the sequence originally was.

[Craig Mazin]

Going to take place during the day.

[Neil Druckmann]

Just like it does in the game.

[Unknown Character]

Well, let's talk about that, because we met with Jeremy Webb and Santa Monica in a restaurant. We just, like. We're brainstorming, like, okay, what should happen in the sequence? What do we want to see? The thing that was really exciting for me is, like, in the game, you're just Joel. So everything you're seeing is really far.

[Troy Baker]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

And, like, Henry, Sam, Elliot, like, these tiny figures running. And you're trying.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

Here you get to jump in perspective back and forth, back and forth. So you get to see it from afar. And then you're in it with, like, as they're. As they're running. And then as we're brainstorming, Craig goes, I got it. It's gotta be nighttime.

[Neil Druckmann]

And I'm like, that is not what I said. This is what I said.

[Troy Baker]

I said, you motherfucker.

[Neil Druckmann]

I said, ah, shit. Because I suddenly realized that. So the Infected, they are scarier in the dark.

[Troy Baker]

Yeah.

[Neil Druckmann]

And fire's cooler in the dark.

[Craig Mazin]

And fire is awesome in the dark. And I said, oh, shit.

[Neil Druckmann]

Because I knew that the sequence was gonna be about three weeks to shoot.

[Craig Mazin]

Everybody now has to work at night.

[Neil Druckmann]

The nights were getting shorter. And yet, because it was Calgary, it.

[Craig Mazin]

Also occasionally would snow in the middle.

[Neil Druckmann]

Of the night, so we would lose some time to that. But mostly it's just working at night.

[Craig Mazin]

Is hard on everybody.

[Neil Druckmann]

If you do it two or three nights in a row, you get over it. Three weeks, it starts to really get into you mentally. I mean, even as your schedule shifts mentally, you start to wear down. The episode of Game of Thrones, the famous one in the last season, they.

[Craig Mazin]

Shot, I think, 11 weeks of night. And I remember Dan Weiss telling me.

[Neil Druckmann]

That people were literally losing their minds. Obviously, people can successfully work at night on night shifts and things, but we shoot long hours. So we would get there, we would rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, wait for Eben Bolter, our wonderful cinematographer, to say, it is time. And then we shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.

[Craig Mazin]

And this is not easy shooting.

[Neil Druckmann]

This is explosions, fire, stunts, gunfire.

[Craig Mazin]

Safety is our most important priority.

[Neil Druckmann]

And it's exhausting. And yet everybody was there for it. I mean, we had a gazillion stunt actors, all of whom were running and crawling as fast as they could with prosthetics. With prosthetics, with prosthetics. It was an army. And we're also doing things like driving a truck into cars for real. It was the most complicated thing I've ever done, for sure, in terms of production difficulty. And while you're doing it, you are.

[Craig Mazin]

Always aware that you are creating what's.

[Neil Druckmann]

Going to work out to be a few minutes. And that's where we have to talk about Weta Weta fx, which, of course.

[Troy Baker]

Is the digital visual effects company. It's based in New Zealand.

[Neil Druckmann]

So backing up Alex Wong, who's is our VFX supervisor, is, you know, becomes, over the course of the production, one of the most important people on the.

[Unknown Character]

Team, by the way, to talk about how much he loved the material. Right. He left ilm.

[Craig Mazin]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

To come work on this show because of how much he loves the game.

[Neil Druckmann]

Wow. And that actually carried forth to his then bringing on vendors, because right now.

[Craig Mazin]

The world is kind of dealing with a visual effects shortage.

[Neil Druckmann]

It doesn't seem like it, because everything has visual effects, but everybody is using.

[Craig Mazin]

More and more visual effects to help.

[Neil Druckmann]

Produce and tell stories to the point.

[Craig Mazin]

Where there aren't enough artists on the planet to fulfill all the demand of.

[Neil Druckmann]

Content, especially as content has exploded on television. So when you reach out to these companies, you are not necessarily just haggling over price. At some point, you're just like, do you want to work on this?

[Craig Mazin]

Because they have their choice.

[Neil Druckmann]

And then there obviously are levels of expertise within companies. One of the great things for us is that all of these places we talked to were like the last of us. I mean, huge overlap in visual effects and gaming. And so we got the best of the best. And in this sequence, nobody. Nobody does creature work the way Weta does.

[Craig Mazin]

Nobody.

[Neil Druckmann]

They are the best. And what they did here is so phenomenal. If you study it carefully, there may be moments where you're like, okay, that one's vfx, but that one's real. But I guarantee you won't get it.

[Troy Baker]

All right.

[Unknown Character]

It's really hard to tell.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's really beautifully blended.

[Troy Baker]

Got it. We saw in the previous episode that you have these. Something is looming literally underneath the surface, both metaphorically and literally. Can you talk about that? Like, what is that?

[Neil Druckmann]

When we were talking about this section, we definitely knew we wanted to have this massive set piece involving a lot of Infected. So it was a bit of a challenge. We thought, we have all this story we want to tell in Kansas City, and we know that we have this.

[Craig Mazin]

Big thing waiting for us at the.

[Neil Druckmann]

End in the cul de sac. But prior to that, the story is.

[Craig Mazin]

Really about Kathleen, about Henry and Sam.

[Neil Druckmann]

About Joel and Ellie, and the threat is humans here. So we found this.

[Craig Mazin]

It was really inspired by the tunnels from the game that the infected seem to be underground.

[Neil Druckmann]

Well, what if we added this additional.

[Craig Mazin]

Twist, which is that Fedra drove them underground here?

[Neil Druckmann]

And what was interesting about that is that we come to understand that even though Fedra was terrible, they were providing this one service.

[Craig Mazin]

And now that Kathleen has effectively eliminated.

[Neil Druckmann]

Them, it's Perry who is saying, this.

[Craig Mazin]

Should probably be something we jump on right away.

[Troy Baker]

Someone still needs to do this job.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah, someone needs to do this job.

[Craig Mazin]

And here's an indication we see at.

[Neil Druckmann]

The end of the fourth episode, here's an indication that it's beginning to already be a problem. Just the fact that it's been two.

[Craig Mazin]

Or three weeks since we overthrew Fedra, and we're already seeing this.

[Neil Druckmann]

That's bad news. So we put it in the back of your head. Then Henry makes it explicit.

[Unknown Character]

So you want us going into a tunnel.

Everyone thinks that it's full of Infected, including Kathleen, which means that we're not gonna be running into any of her people. You see, what I know is it's empty.

You've been down there?

No, but the Fedra guy that I worked with told me that it's clean. Completely clean. They cleared it out, all of it.

When?

Like three years ago. Okay, maybe there's one or two, but you handle it.

[Neil Druckmann]

We think when they go into that tunnel, uh oh, there. Nope, there's nothing. And I was particularly fond of the way that in our show, Henry is like, told ya, told ya, told you. Every step of the way, he's like, my plan is great. And Joel's like, shut up. And then at the very, very end, tying into that moment in the game when there is that crash and the infected come out of that house. Well, here we've set it up that they are all underground. Not some of them, all of them. And we kind of imagine the idea of like an ant colony where there's these tunnels and things, and if you pop it open in one spot, they can all just start coming up. And it was terrifying to me. There was a moment in the Fellowship of the Ring.

[Craig Mazin]

The Fellowship is in the minds of.

[Neil Druckmann]

Moria and seemingly thousands of. I think they're goblins. I don't think they're orcs at that point. I think they're goblins anyway, come like skittering down these massive columns like spiders. And I thought it was so beautiful.

[Craig Mazin]

When I saw it and terrifying.

[Neil Druckmann]

And so I was thinking a little bit about that, of just what it would be like if they just came.

[Craig Mazin]

Belching forth out of the Earth. And particularly some of the larger infected.

[Neil Druckmann]

That we deal with here, like the introduction of Senior Bloater, we've used this.

[Troy Baker]

Term, but it's probably important to point out what is a bloater.

[Unknown Character]

When we worked on the game, we. We came up with like the. The lifeline, all these stages of when someone's infected, what could happen to them. So, you know when you first get infected, there's this thing called a runner, which is just a recently infected in the show. It's the one that you see like tendrils coming out. Nana in episode one. Then if you've survived long enough, eventually the cordyceps grows through your face, cracks it open, takes away your eyes, your vision, and you become what's called a clicker because now these infected use echolocation to find their way. And then we're saying, okay, there's gotta be some people that again, because this thing is eating away from your inside. Eventually when they know they're going to die, they go to like underground, like a dark place, and they settle against a wall, they settle in the corner, and the infection just. They become part of the environment. It grows all over the walls and the ceiling and the ground. But there are certain people that are just so strong and big that could survive even longer. And those are the bloaters. And that's why you're seeing this person is so tall and massive in their. In their strength. And it just becomes that much scary again as we go forward. There's just these. These new types of Infected, and they're like, should we do bloater? Should we not do bloater? Should we do bloater? Should we not? And we've had this, like, back and forth for months before we just said, let's definitely do a bloater.

[Neil Druckmann]

Let's do a bloater. And this is sort of one of.

[Craig Mazin]

Those differences between television and games. When the bloater comes out in the.

[Neil Druckmann]

Game, you understand you have to kill it.

[Craig Mazin]

So in the game, you meet a bloater in the school gymnasium with Bill.

[Neil Druckmann]

And the point is, you gotta kill.

[Troy Baker]

It with nail bombs.

[Neil Druckmann]

Nail bombs. And keep the shotgun ready in case you run out.

[Unknown Character]

I like to throw Molotovs so it's on fire. Then I blast it with a shotgun as it's coming out.

[Neil Druckmann]

Molotovs also work terrifically well.

[Troy Baker]

We don't have those things at our disposal.

[Neil Druckmann]

We do not. And we also thought, look, whatever this thing is. And however it got that way, there.

[Craig Mazin]

Was this notion that it might be.

[Neil Druckmann]

Scarier if at some point you realize you're not killing it.

[Craig Mazin]

No one's killing it.

[Neil Druckmann]

Ever.

[Troy Baker]

And not only that, but it's also going to. We're going to see them rip apart two of the most fearsome people that we've seen in this episode so far.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah. And that was something where I was overly ambitious. So I had this thing where I.

[Craig Mazin]

Wanted the bloater to pick Perry up.

[Neil Druckmann]

And rip him in half, like, at the waist, you know? And Neil was like, well, okay. I mean, is that gonna be realistic? And I'm like, I think so. And then the more Weta tried to do, the more you realize, like, people.

[Craig Mazin]

Don'T rip along the waist.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's just really hard to do.

[Unknown Character]

There's a really cool animation of it, though, that, again, it's for that. Realistic.

[Neil Druckmann]

It came close. But ultimately, Neil prevailed and was correct in suggesting that something that felt more.

[Craig Mazin]

Grounded anatomically would be more effective.

[Neil Druckmann]

And then, of course, we were like, well, the bloater has this head rip that is. It's iconic and it's great. And it's terrifying.

[Troy Baker]

We see Perry meet his fate, but also we have this standoff moment for Kathleen where why was it important for her to meet that end?

[Neil Druckmann]

Let me crib a line from Westworld. These violent delights have violent ends. I think it's important to show that.

[Craig Mazin]

When you are dead set on using.

[Neil Druckmann]

Violence to settle the score and win the day, you are going to probably get subsumed by that yourself. And the fact is, Kathleen is a moral criminal. She's done terrible things.

[Craig Mazin]

Does she deserve to die?

[Neil Druckmann]

I don't really get into that. I just know that the odds that you are going to die by this sword go up dramatically if you live by it.

[Unknown Character]

She's also so obsessed with this idea of justice that it could end one of two ways. Either she succeeds or she fails.

[Neil Druckmann]

Right?

[Troy Baker]

She could have run. She could have gotten away.

[Neil Druckmann]

Well, that's the thing. He told her to run, and she couldn't help but chase the white whale.

[Craig Mazin]

To the very end.

[Neil Druckmann]

And this is where we, you know, in talking about this new variant of Infected, the child clicker, shout out to.

[Unknown Character]

Hyung Nam, the original designer of the clicker, at Naughty Dog. Because we were like, debating, like, do we had certain sketches, and we're like, okay, we just need to go back to the source. And we brought him onto the show to help design this clicker.

[Neil Druckmann]

And so he just whips up a little illustration that makes us all go, oh, my God.

[Troy Baker]

Terrifying.

[Neil Druckmann]

And then it was a combination of this, actually this kid named sky, who's this fantastic contortionist actor.

[Unknown Character]

Oh, man. Remember those audition tapes? We got all these contortionist kids.

[Neil Druckmann]

Oh, yeah, she.

[Craig Mazin]

But she was the most nightmare fuel.

[Neil Druckmann]

She's like spider girl.

[Unknown Character]

So creepy.

[Neil Druckmann]

And she's this beautiful little girl, but she's truly like, it's so creepy how she can move her body like that. And so it was a combination of her performance and then Weta kind of creating, taking, drafting off of what Barry Gower had created with prosthetics and then making this little girl. And I insisted that our child clicker wear a Blue's Clues shirt because I'm really sick. And I just loved the contrast of innocence and horror. But it was important for me also that Kathleen is killed by a child, because what she says, it's one of my favorite lines in the series is when she's saying that Henry has to.

[Craig Mazin]

Die and so does Sam. And Henry says, he's just a fucking kid. And she says, well, kids die, Henry.

[Neil Druckmann]

They die all the time. And she's not wrong. The thing is, a lot of what.

[Craig Mazin]

We talk about when we're talking about the moral conundrum of the last of us is, why does my kid's life matter more than yours? Does my kid's life matter more than your mother's?

[Neil Druckmann]

Does my kid's life matter more than.

[Craig Mazin]

An old man's life? And so the idea that she ultimately.

[Neil Druckmann]

Is killed by a kid felt sort of like a circular completion of that story. You're not supposed to feel good, you're not supposed to feel bad. If people struggle a little bit with how they feel about that moment, then I think we probably did it correctly.

[Unknown Character]

Sometimes it's a zero sum game, which is like, you think back to that first episode, you know, when Joel drives by that family.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

And he chooses not to help them. And maybe they died afterwards or like, maybe that kid died afterwards.

[Troy Baker]

We have this moment after this where Ellie and with the help of Joel, they get to team up and Joel's providing cover. Ellie gets Henry and Sam out of there. They shoot. They barely escape. Kathleen and Perry beat their ends. And then we have this moment between Sam and Ellie. What are you afraid of? The use of childlike things, which are normally the representation of innocence, is very prominent, probably the most by the magic slate. And I just want to talk about that a little bit.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's easy to say, well, if you're.

[Craig Mazin]

Deaf, your older brother is going to learn how to sign asl.

[Neil Druckmann]

But Ellie doesn't know sign language other than endure and survive and awesome and promise, which she learns in the scene.

[Craig Mazin]

Which she learns in the scene.

[Neil Druckmann]

So then the question is, how do you communicate? And I love those things. Like I. I just remember having them, you know, the little same. And it was that thought of like, well, in the post apocalypse, it's the low tech, ultimately, that is the most valuable. If you have to move through life as a deaf kid and there isn't.

[Craig Mazin]

Technology and there's limited resources. You don't have a thousand pencils and.

[Neil Druckmann]

You don't have a thousand pads. That thing makes a lot of sense.

[Troy Baker]

Yeah.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's just an endlessly renewable way to.

[Craig Mazin]

Communicate with people that don't sign.

[Neil Druckmann]

So it made sense that he carried it with him everywhere he went.

[Troy Baker]

It's around his neck.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's around his neck. And I really liked that it was the Woody Woodpecker version. It was so great. And so Justin and Ofrachuk, who's our prop master, this is where he would just get so delighted and never disappointed.

[Craig Mazin]

He would always Bring these things.

[Neil Druckmann]

And you'd go, it's perfect. I mean, that scene, that conversation they have is very close to what it is in the game.

[Troy Baker]

It is important to note, though, that there is a huge revelation that happens in the show version, which is that Sam confesses that he's been bitten.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yes.

[Craig Mazin]

So that is a different thing. So in the game, they have a conversation.

[Neil Druckmann]

What are you afraid of? Do you think that people who are.

[Craig Mazin]

Infected are still them inside?

[Neil Druckmann]

Ellie does not reveal that she's immune.

[Unknown Character]

And Sam doesn't reveal that he's spitting.

[Neil Druckmann]

And Sam doesn't reveal that he's bitten.

[Craig Mazin]

Now, Sam is older in the game.

[Neil Druckmann]

And it makes sense in this context. We thought that because of the nature of the relationship between our Sam and our Ellie, which is that he looked up to her, that it made sense that he would trust her.

[Craig Mazin]

And he's so scared.

[Neil Druckmann]

And then we really wanted to show Ellie starting to believe that she could do something special.

[Unknown Character]

There's also something about knowing what the audience is asking right now. It's like, okay, if she's immune, couldn't she just give her blood? Like, I've seen since the game came out, people ask that. I'm like, let's answer it.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

And the answer is no.

[Neil Druckmann]

No.

[Troy Baker]

There is this moment where Ellie offers a solution. I can fix this. We're starting to see what it was like for Joel.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yes, exactly.

[Troy Baker]

I can fix this. I will do this. Then there's this moment where Ellie has a crisis of conscience. What if it's not true? And there's this moment of doubt again.

[Unknown Character]

It'S the parent lying.

[Troy Baker]

Yeah, the parent is lying.

[Neil Druckmann]

Lying.

[Craig Mazin]

And in this case, I think lying.

[Neil Druckmann]

To herself as well, because she has.

[Craig Mazin]

The same thing that Joel has, which is this desire to save the person you love.

[Neil Druckmann]

And we are going to get into.

[Craig Mazin]

Ellie's past a little further as the season goes along.

[Neil Druckmann]

But we already know from a conversation she's had with Joel in the prior episode that when she killed that guy in the laundromat, that was not the first person she killed.

[Craig Mazin]

There's something that's happened in her past, which means there is loss.

[Neil Druckmann]

And what Bella is showing us, there.

[Craig Mazin]

Is this longing for redemption now that.

[Neil Druckmann]

I know I can fix it.

[Unknown Character]

There's also a naivety that a kid would have of, like, we're invincible. Like, I'm not gonna experience this tragedy. We're gonna get past this.

[Craig Mazin]

I didn't. So you won't.

[Unknown Character]

And this is, like, part of Ellie's journey. Is this, like, one. Like this Violent corruption through her interaction with Joel. But two, a loss of innocence. Every step of the way, there's a loss of innocence.

[Troy Baker]

What I witnessed was someone going from solution to experiment to prayer.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yep, that's a great way of putting it.

[Troy Baker]

And then there is the promise. Yeah, the promise to stay awake when she wakes up in the morning. Man, there's still some moments just really hit me. Sam couldn't hear.

[Neil Druckmann]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Troy Baker]

And what that says is, it was still him inside.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yep.

[Troy Baker]

And that is. What a powerful thesis.

[Neil Druckmann]

Everybody can kind of create their own theory about what it must be like in there. And it's reasonable, I think, to say, well, if you've been infected for a week, a month, five years, you're not your gun. And it's also. People would also say, look, he's physically. His ears, the eardrums, the nerves, they don't work the way that they do in people who can hear, so why would they work now? But I think it's still him. I think in that moment where it's.

[Craig Mazin]

Just beginning, there's just confusion.

[Neil Druckmann]

It's a little bit like being on a bad trip. You can't stop yourself. You don't know what's happening, and you're reacting like you're in a dream.

[Craig Mazin]

And you may even realize in moments like, I'm trying to hurt somebody that I love, but I can't stop.

[Unknown Character]

Which, by the way, goes further to Henry, because then he enters this almost like a nightmare, like, state where he's behaving in a way that he can't even control himself, and then has a realization like, oh, my God, what have I done? And like, again, the game has an almost identical moment for Henry, but even though the lines of dialogue are different, but he's just saying in the game, he says, it's all your fault. Here, he's like, what have I done? Same subtext of like, holy shit, I can't believe I just shot my brother.

What did I do? What did I do?

[Neil Druckmann]

What did I do?

[Unknown Character]

Give me. Give me the gun. Give me the gun. Give me the gun, Henry. Give me the gun, Henry.

[Neil Druckmann]

He has every desire to keep his brother safe here. He knows that Joel will get the.

[Craig Mazin]

Gun and shoot him. So he gets the gun first. He shoots at the ground to keep.

[Neil Druckmann]

Joel from running over there and pulling Sam away.

[Craig Mazin]

And then there's this thing in his mind that takes over that he.

[Neil Druckmann]

And I think it's almost a spinal reaction to say, as a decent human being, I have to stop somebody from killing a kid.

[Craig Mazin]

And in this Case the someone is his own brother and the kid is Ellie.

[Neil Druckmann]

So he doesn't even understand he's done it until after he's done it. And we had a long, long conversation. I even wrote other versions where I was really nervous about this ending in the game. It was so shocking and so brutal. But I also knew, like, I remember the screen goes black and then we.

[Craig Mazin]

Move ahead and it's a different season.

[Neil Druckmann]

And I go, and I'm just breathing, but I'm watching the two of them in a different moment, a different time and place. And then I can keep kind of going, but we don't let you keep going. We know we have to stop this episode. And so the question is, should Henry kill himself or not?

[Unknown Character]

We had a lot of long conversations. I don't know if we should get into the alternatives because people might get mad at us that there were alternatives.

[Craig Mazin]

Sure.

[Unknown Character]

But it's almost an identical process to what we went through in the game, because in the game initially, Henry didn't die. But again, it's like if you're trying to reflect the worst possible outcome for a parent. I felt like we had to take it all the way to show, like, then you have nothing left. There's nothing left.

[Troy Baker]

In the show, we have the opportunity to show the aftermath of tragedy, which is the burial. We see the magic slate with two words written on it. I'm sorry.

[Unknown Character]

Yeah.

[Neil Druckmann]

And there you see the end of something, because just a couple of scenes earlier, Joel was saying to Henry, it's easier for them. They don't have anybody relying on them. But there was somebody relying on Ellie. But even more profound, I think, is what Joel begins to think here, which is, I can't go through this again.

[Craig Mazin]

I just saw somebody lose their kid.

[Neil Druckmann]

And that's the thing that happened to.

[Craig Mazin]

Me 20 years ago that I swore I would never allow happen to me again. And this is a warning from above.

[Neil Druckmann]

That whatever is connecting me to this kid, I am now in the most.

[Craig Mazin]

Dire emotional danger possible.

[Unknown Character]

You know, in the game, we hinted that they buried Henry and Sam. Here we get to see it. And there's a change that's happening in Joel as well, which is Joel is such a pragmatic survivor, he wouldn't spend time burying someone.

[Troy Baker]

Right.

[Unknown Character]

He's not doing it for himself, he's doing it for Ellie.

[Neil Druckmann]

Yeah.

[Unknown Character]

The father daughter bond is now there. And that's to what Craig was saying. The fear that a parent has is the most intense fear one can have.

[Troy Baker]

I can't think of a better place to end it, but we will pick this back up next week. For now, thank you both Craig and Neil.

[Neil Druckmann]

That was great.

[Unknown Character]

Troy, Always fun.

[Troy Baker]

This has been the official podcast for HBO's the Last of Us, where you can stream new episodes every Sunday on HBO Max. Podcast episodes are available after those episodes air and you can find those wherever you listen to podcasts, please like and follow HBO's the Last of Us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And until next week, keep looking for the light.

[Unknown Character]

This is the official companion podcast for HBO's the Last of Us, hosted by Troy Baker. Our producers are Elliot Adler, Bria Mariette and Noah Camuso. Darby Maloney is our editor. The show is mixed by Hannis Brown. Our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Bari Finkel. Production music is courtesy of HBO and you can watch episodes of the Last of Us on HBO Max.

This podcast is sponsored by Rocket. The American dream of homeownership feels further and further out of reach. For many people, homeownership feels impossible, but Rocket is on a mission to help everyone get home. They've got a range of products and services designed to turn renters into owners, from lowering down payments to to as little as 1% to helping turn your rent check into a forever home. Find out [e-mail] Rocket Own the dream.