"There Had To Be A Dramatic Reason": Why One Crucial TLOU Scene Needed Spores

While HBO's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us adaptation often hemmed so close to the games it 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:recreated scenes shot for shot, it also took 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:some creative liberties - the most obvious being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:expanding Bill and Frank's story. We're going to see more of that this season, with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a less-muscular Abby and the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:likely removal of Dina's faith. But we're also going to see more of the game bleed into the story, with the 🔯return of spores.

In the game, spores are one of the main ways the disease that eradicated most of humanity is communicated. In the show, this was downplayed, replaced by tendrils. Spores are obviously tricky to shoot, as they obscure vision and dirty the lens, while they also force the actors to wear gas masks, making it harder to emote. However, we now know that in season two, spores wi🅘ll play a much bigger role. Series creator Neil Druckmann says it's because "there had to be a dramatic reason of introducing it now," and I suspect there is one scene in particular these spores have been brought back for.

The Outbreak Is Less Important In Season One

While you can argue the botanical sense of tendrils ove🦋r spores, they don't really change the narrative. There's less crouching for Pedro Pascal to do, but the plot is the same. This plant-based disease turns you into not-zombies, and you don't want it getting close to you. What and how you avoid it doesn't matter, because often, the cordyceps virus is just a roadblock for no-go zones so the characters can encounter the worst of humanity brought forth by the end of the world.

Very little of the first game is actually about surviving the outbreak. Though the TV show plays u♐p its impact for the grotesque visuals, most of the dangers Joel and Ellie face, and most of the deaths they cause and witness, are the result of violent human beings. Even the finale, though motivated by a desire to find the cure, sees 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Joel saving Ellie from other humans, not from any danger directly caused by the dis♑ease.

This changes in the second game. There are still human enemies - Ellie is forced to explore hostile WLF territory, while avoiding Seraphites, and Abby is forced to explore hostile Seraphite territory, while avoiding the WLF. It's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:almꦡost as if their stories mirror each other or something. And yet they both face very obvious disease-based danger. Ellie must navigate the spore-filled subway tunnels and rotten arcade, while Abby must make her way through a disease-ridden hotel and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:fight the Rat King𝐆 in the depths of the hospital. But it'sꦚ the subway tunnels that cannot have the same impact without spores.

Ellie's Biggest Choice Is Caused By Spores

While in the tunnels fleeing from infected, Ellie gets a crack in her mask. Since she's immune, this doesn't matter - she only wears the mask to avoid drawing suspicion. However, she's travelling with Dina, who does not know this. Dina immediately tries to remove her mask🔥 and offers to share it, so they both get some protection, and Ellie has a split second, heart-breaking decision to make.

From Dina's perspective, sharing makes logical sense. She clearly loves Ellie and thus wants her to survive, but also෴ needs her protector if she is to survive herself. Ellie cannot (as far as Dina knows) make it through the tunnels with a broken mask. If they share, tactically holding their breath while unmasked, they might just make it. But more likely, swapping masks would mean trapping spores in the mask with them, and both dying from inhaling the disease.

Ellie stops Dina and chooses to tell her she is immune, but this isn't the straightforward decision it seems. Joel knowing that about her led to his death, and the seemingly irreparable fracture in their relationship that Ellie will never be able to heal. And her immunity also 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:ca﷽used her to lose her last girlfriend, Riley, after the two seemed to be set for a poetic death. Ellie choosing to reveal it to Dina is a necessity to save Dina's life, but there is stil꧃l an emotional weight to that decision. In that moment, she decides that opening herself up to hurt, betrayal, judgement, and estrangement is preferable to hoping Dina's plan works, which she knows it will for her a🌼nyway.

Sharing her secret with Dina rather than sharing her mask is the moment Ellie and Dina go from young kids in love to something deeper... which only makes what comes later even harder. And while I trust the show to ad🌼apt rather than reshoot the game, this moment is a crucial part of their shared arc, and it seems unlikely the tendrils cꦗould offer a similar moment of sacrifice. The spores are needed for this scene to exist, and this scene needs to exist. Long live the spores.