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.

What was David going to tell Alec's family? How long have David and his followers been cannibals? How long was Joel injured? Is this the first time Joel has run ...

With that in mind, will Ellie be okay by the time The Last of Us’ forthcoming season 1 finale begins? While she quickly embraces Joel once she realizes it’s him standing in front of her, it’s clear that whatever was left of Ellie’s innocence has been taken away from her by the events of The Last of Us episode 8. Those two details suggest that The Last of Us episode 8 picks up with Ellie and Joel several days, if not a few weeks, after viewers last saw them. Picking up an unspecified amount of time after the events of the series’ seventh installment, [The Last of Us episode 8](https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/the-last-of-us-episode-8-trailer-troy-baker/), titled When We Are in Need, follows Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as she fights to survive a series of interactions with a priest-like madman named David (Scott Shepherd). His right-hand man, James, is also, notably, played by Troy Baker, the actor who portrayed Joel in the original Last of Us games. David is, just as he is in the original Last of Us, the predatory leader of a group of post-apocalyptic cannibals.

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.

David and his Silver Lake cannibal clan. · Joel is in dire need, so when Ellie learns there's medicine to be traded, she takes the chance of doing business with ...

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 Episode 8 of The Last of Us, "When We Are in Need," Ellie faces a terrifying foe by herself, and the bond between Joel and Ellie grows stronger.

Ellie says he should look at her arm, and David sees the bite, to which Ellie says, “everything happens for a reason, right?” James and David can’t believe it, and as they debate it, Ellie grabs the butcher knife and stabs James in the side of the throat, and she runs while David shoots at her. David says to imagine the life he and Ellie could build, as he puts his hand on hers. As we cut back to Ellie, David and James have come to get her, and she screams and fights them, even biting David in the process. Ellie runs out of the room she’s been held in, and we see she’s in the steakhouse from before, and she grabs a burning stick from a nearby fire. David asks her to think of what they could do together, as he puts his hand on one of the cage’s bars. Ellie contemplates this, as David states that they do what they tell him to do, they follow him…and they would follow both him and Ellie. David gets closer to the cage, telling Ellie he can tell the others to stop looking for Joel, and they’ll listen to him, as long as Joel leaves them in peace as well. David says it was a last resort, and it shames him, but what was he supposed to do, let his people starve? Ellie puts a knife in his hands, saying she’s going to lead the men away from him, and that if anyone comes downstairs, he has to kill them, but it’s hard to tell if he can even comprehend what she’s saying. Ellie is unresponsive and David says it’s a four-mile roundtrip to the settlement, so they’ll be waiting for a while. David says they’d settle somewhere, but then raiders would come, and they’d have to move again, and they’d find new people along the way until they ended up here. Inside the old steakhouse they’re meeting in hangs a banner that reads “When we are in need, He shall provide.” David says he’s read this passage too many times, and the girl says she doesn’t remember what comes next.

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

That's why in Episode 8, we are introduced to a new cannibal community of survivors led by the preacher David (Scott Shepherd). And while Jackson had no central ...

In the resort community, on the other hand, fear and desperation put a violent man in charge, who ends up leading everyone to their doom. After David’s death, the resort community will be forced to reflect on what they want to do with their lives. David had to be killed for the sake of Ellie but also to free his people from his tyrannical rule. While spending some cozy time in a cage at the resort, Ellie discovers David is not a believer and only acts as a preacher to manipulate his people. [Ellie's exposure to the darker side of this dystopian world](https://collider.com/last-of-us-episode-5-ellie/). At the same time, it’s a dark exploration of how only true communion with other people can ensure humanity survives the apocalypse. The fateful encounter allows us to see the university brawl through different eyes, as we soon learn David sent the four men Joel and Ellie met to gather resources. Of course, David also believes he should make this kind of decision in everyone’s name, which means the resort community has been eating people without knowing about it. Because the lesson in Episode 8 is that people need to trust each other to thrive in the post-apocalyptic world instead of unleashing their primal, violent impulses. Still, the series is determined to leave a mark in our memory, which is why Episode 8, “When We Are in Need,” pulls no punches when exploring the horrible lengths people will go to survive in a world infected with [Cordyceps](https://collider.com/the-last-of-us-cordyceps-infection-explained/). [The Last of Us](https://collider.com/tag/the-last-of-us-hbo/) wraps, we are already sad to see Joel ( [Pedro Pascal](https://collider.com/tag/pedro-pascal/)) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) fade into the horizon for who knows how long. That’s why David begins to serve human meat to the community, a terrifying secret only his inner circle knows.

A review of the season's second-to-last episode "When We Are in Need," which introduces another villain in a brutal winter. [Spoilers]

It’s a neat counterbalance to the ugly vision of fatherliness the scenes at the lodge show. David is content to sit at the heart of the room where all can see, with a bowl seemingly overflowing with his portion. After weeks of hearing from Henry and Tommy about the nature of fatherhood and family, this is Joel embracing that responsibility in his own way. The smoke and flames behind her (and the theoretically splatter on the lens) wash everything out as she loses herself in a haze of stabbing. It’s through Joel and Ellie (and the threats they face) that “The Last of Us” has maintained a throughline, even during the episodes that veer off the main timeline. “When We Are in Need” is another case of the show looking to the global film community for directors to come and make their own imprint on the series. From the top of the episode, as David and his congregation are working through anger and grief, the big sign behind him gives the other unspoken half of the episode’s title: “WHEN WE ARE IN NEED, HE SHALL PROVIDE.” The longer the hour goes on, that last pronoun feels more and more intentionally vague. David is the latest in a line of Joel and Ellie’s obstacles taken from the original “The Last of Us” game, a ruthless, enigmatic leader who’s found a way to bend a new world to his whims. Even with their dire situation, “When We Are in Need” paints the picture of a group of people who have managed to survive this long while being effectively stripped of alternatives. David begins with the false promise of a communal fire, where he details his supposed past and his stated reasons for embracing a life of faith. Others — like this figure with a group of rigid, zealous followers hiding out at an abandoned winter resort — use it as a chance to make a hierarchy in their own image. One of the gradual throughlines of the series has been the recognition of when people try to bring out their own.

The newest character quickly changed in front of our eyes, but what exactly was he planning to do? Here's everything you need to know about 'The Last of Us' ...

Now, Joel can take Ellie the rest of the way and show her what a trustworthy adult looks like. He signals to her that he’s interested in running the group together with her. Ellie gets away, but she realizes the group is after her and they’re looking for Joel. He offers to make a trade, and Ellie demands medicine in return for a share of the meat. All things considered, David seems on the up-and-up, and Ellie lowers her guard a bit. David makes his case: he’s the leader of a group of survivors who are starving, and Ellie can’t carry all that meat herself.

Scott Shepherd gives a masterful, delicately etched performance in “When We Are In Need”

She fails, David bashes her head against the bars, and leaves to get James and the recipe book. “They need god, they need heaven, they need a father,” the fake holy man continues, referring to his flock. The ensuing contest of wills between David and Ellie is the episode’s most satisfying set piece. Ellie, acting like she’s falling under his spell, holds hands with David through the bars, only to break his fingers and go for his keys. For the simple pleasure of tension and release, of course we love when a raider goes down into the basement and Joel is not on the bloody mattress. (He wouldn’t be the first cult leader to prey on underage girls.) He want Ellie to be his—what? Trying to escape, testing out the nuts and bolts around the lock, she catches sight of a dreadful object lying on the ground: a severed human ear. Hunger drives her into the snow to hunt a buck, and the wounded, dying animal is what leads Ellie to David and his lieutenant, James (Troy Baker), also stalking the snowy forest for game. He knifes the guy in the back of the neck and faster than you can say “Savage Starlight” Joel has two more of them tied up and ready for torture to find out Ellie’s location. David lifts her unconscious body and carries her back to the village. (What happened to the buck Ellie shot?) Ellie is at the end of her jerky.

Baker opened up to ET about the "unique experience" he had watching Pedro Pascal take on the role he originated.

"It's way more interesting to me to find the empathy in someone and try to understand their perspective," he added. "But if Neil has a story that he wants to tell, and he wants me to be a part of it in any way, I am there, seven days a week and twice on Sunday." "I'm one of those people that subscribes to the theory that there are no villains," he explained. The actor appears as a member of a group of skeptical -- and heavily armed -- settlers that Joel and Ellie come across on their travels. "They brought him back to do this beautiful tribute to the musical, and they lined up every person that played Jean Valjean, starting with him," he said of an anniversary celebration of the musical. The actor played Joel in The Last of Us video game franchise, a role that required much more than mere voice acting.

'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.

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.

Ellie and Joel must resort to extreme violence to survive in the darkest episode of The Last of Us yet. This one gets grim. Our review:

“When We Are In Need” is a peak episode of The Last of Us anchored by outstanding performances from Ramsey, Shepherd, Pascal and Baker. - That said, it’s kind of messed up that Baker’s character shoots Ellie’s horse and is ultimately responsible for her capture, and that she kills him later in the episode. “When We Are In Need” is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the Winter section of The Last of Us game, but it also improves the story and dialogue in a number of small ways. Normally in a story like this you’d expect Joel to show up at the last minute and save Ellie; the show even sets this up by having Joel arrive at Silver Lake right before Ellie’s battle with David. It all leads to an edge-of-your-seat showdown between Ellie and David in the main hall of Silver Lake resort while the building burns down around them. This is another iconic scene from the game, and my did the show pull it off, right down to Joel’s brutal “I believed him” line as he clubs in the head of one of his prisoners. We learn that the cultists are cannibals who have been eating the dead and those unfortunate enough to cross their paths, which sheds a sickening new light on earlier shots of them chowing down on food. He’s the guy some of the cultists were grieving at the beginning of the episode…and they’re none to happy to learn that Ellie and Joel are still alive and nearby. A lot of the dialogue is taken straight from the game, including David’s chilling “everything happens for a reason” line. They’re also grieving the loss of one of their number, which we’ll circle back to in a second. David sends James to get penicillin to trade for the deer and then has a long conversation with Ellie that takes a sinister twist. This episode was basically everything I hoped it would be and more, adapting some of the most iconic scenes from The Last of Us video game.

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.

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.

There's always a tendency in post-apocalyptic media — especially zombie apocalypse media — to show that the true villains aren't the undead monsters coming ...

We’ve seen how heartless the post-apocalypse can be, but this is a new level of the kind of evil that is not only prevalent in this environment but respected as a leader. Of course he has to kill Joel, he killed one of his men and it doesn’t matter that it was self-defense. Somehow, the show finds a way to make David something worse than a cannibal — he’s also a child predator. The raiders Joel and Ellie have encountered over their entire journey were just looking to make ends meet and survive, as Joel can attest from his shady past. Episode 8 follows Ellie as she encounters David, a teacher-turned-preacher who’s now the leader of an extremely religious community. But even in a crowded genre,

'The Last of Us' episode 8 finds Ellie facing her greatest challenge yet, pit against a terrifying foe. Here, Bella Ramsey breaks down the episode for GQ.

[[Co-showrunner] Craig [Mazin]](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-making-of-scary-movie-3) was there every day, and the crew were there every day. And the shift in her as a result of that — I just found that really interesting, and heartbreaking. There was pressure, but I didn't feel it as much — I think when you're supported and surrounded by such a phenomenal crew, and I'd been there for several months already, I felt grounded in the process. While out looking for dinner, she stumbles across two male survivors from a struggling nearby settlement, David (Scott Shepherd) and James ( [Troy Baker](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-last-of-us-part-ii-neil-druckmann-interview)); seemingly friendly, they offer much-needed medicine in exchange for half the deer that Ellie has managed to hunt. And I mean, it's a real shifting point for Ellie as a character. “I think she's always felt violence and rage in her, but she's never expressed it quite in the way she does in this moment,” Ramsey tells GQ.

We find the stark opposite of Jackson's communist society in David's totalitarian one. The Last of Us Scott Shepherd David Image via HBO.

Sure, he will couch it in some sort of vague philosophizing about the good of all, though that feels more and more like a flimsy front the more he speaks. The cruelty and callousness is not a bug in the system. There is almost a relish in his voice as he discusses how everything went to pieces and how he found his place in the rubble of the old world. As its leader delusionally shouts about how good he is, continuing to think only about himself to the very end, what little they have left is being destroyed all around him. When Ellie starts a fire by throwing a still burning log at David, he looks back to see it starting to consume the entire building. This predatory behavior encapsulates all the ways that this town is the antithesis of Jackson. The story he tells of how they traveled far to get to this place feels more like it was driven by his own desire for how he could control them better here than it was for the good of all. This is not something he does out of kindness, quite the opposite, and we soon realize just how despicable he truly is. At the forefront of this is the terrifyingly creepy David ( [Scott Shepherd](https://collider.com/the-last-of-us-david-image-scott-shepherd/)) who spends the episode terrorizing not just Ellie ( [Bella Ramsey](https://collider.com/last-of-us-series-bts-images-bella-ramsey/)) but the entire group he oversees while proclaiming that he is actually a good person who just knows better than everyone else. When Ellie is subsequently captured and held by the group, he is the one that spares her. He uses both this fear and faith to rule, caring little about what it is that anyone has to say as believes he is the one anointed to lead them. By showing how far one has fallen into disarray while the other is thriving highlights how any hope at a future depends upon coming together.

Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers about the eighth episode of “The Last of Us,” which premiered on March 5. CNN —.

She also brilliantly leveraged her immunity to the virus as a means of buying herself time when David was about to kill her, before cathartically saving herself with a visceral outburst of violence. These last several chapters have been notable for the gradual evolution of the Joel-Ellie relationship, underscored when he finally found her at the hour’s end, telling the emotionally drained youth, “It’s OK, baby girl,” with a tenderness that stood in stark relief to the brutality on display otherwise. [Pedro Pascal)](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/entertainment/pedro-pascal-sarah-michelle-gellar-buffy/index.html) still ailing, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) encountered David (Scott Shepherd), the leader of a starving community that he presides over as its spiritual guide as well as on a more basic level.

The Last of Us episode 8 is intense as it focuses on Ellie (Bella Ramsey) trying to survive on her own while Joel (Pedro Pascal) recovers from his injury. But ...

David may be the creepiest member of this community in both the series and the game, but thanks to his posthumous contributions, Alec is now arguably one of the most important. Regardless, Alec has become a crucial member of this community’s story and his role in the series is far greater than one of the many nameless NPCs that gamers have to fight against, even in death. A man brings a tray of meat to add to a stew being made by Alec’s wife and another community member. David tells her that they won’t be able to bury him until the spring because the ground is too frozen to dig a hole, but unfortunately David actually has other plans for Alec’s body. David and his right-hand man James (played in the series by original Joel actor Troy Baker) are key characters in both the show and the first game as they serve as Ellie’s primary interactions with this community. [The Last of Us episode 8](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-last-of-us-episode-8-review/) is intense as it focuses on Ellie (Bella Ramsey) trying to survive on her own while Joel (Pedro Pascal) recovers from his injury.

The 8.1 million viewers who tuned into Episode 8, titled “When We Are In Need,” contributed to a 74% increase from the viewership of the series premiere, which ...

And alongside reaching another then-series high of 6.4, Episode 3 received major acclaim from critics and fans alike for the [guest performances of Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/the-last-of-us-episode-3-bill-frank-nick-offerman-murray-bartlett-1235505272/), jumpstarting conversations about awards potential for the actors and the show as a whole. It should be noted that when Episode 4 racked up its solid 7.4 million viewers, it premiered in competition with the Grammys. Those 4.7 million initial viewers scored the network its [second-most watched debut](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/the-last-of-us-premiere-ratings-hbo-1235491303/) in over a decade — only behind “Game of Thrones” prequel series “House of the Dragon.” The series then built on that launch with 5.7 million viewers of its next installment, [HBO’s largest ever increase](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/the-last-of-us-episode-2-ratings-viewers-1235499252/) between a launch and a second episode, leading to an [early Season 2 renewal](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/the-last-of-us-renewed-season-2-hbo-1235504485/). According to Warner Bros. [The Last of Us](https://variety.com/t/the-last-of-us/)” Season 1 reached an impressive 8.1 million viewers on Sunday night.

The Last Of Us was also the top title overall on HBO Max for the 8th consecutive week, with all episodes ranking among the week's top 10 individual assets. The ...

According to Nielsen’s streaming charts, The Last of Us hit a milestone the week that Episode 5 debuted. The series was streamed for more than 1B minutes during the week of January 30 to February 5, which included just a few hours of availability for Episode 5. The Last of Us is written and executive produced by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. This is the first time in about a month that HBO has released updated viewership metrics for The Last of Us. The average audience for the series’ first five episodes is now approaching 30 million viewers across all platforms, according to HBO. That’s up 74% from the series debut night in January and sets a new series high ahead of next Sunday’s season finale, per Nielsen and HBO.

Sunday's penultimate episode also marked a 72% uptick from January's series premiere, which brought in 4.7 million viewers across its linear and HBO Max ...

The first season also features a wide slate of guest stars, including Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah, Bartlett and Offerman as Frank and Bill, Storm Reid as orphan Riley and Jeffrey Pierce as rebel Perry. Sunday’s penultimate episode also marked a 72% uptick from January’s series premiere, which brought in 4.7 million viewers across its linear and HBO Max platforms. Episodes 1-8 are available to stream on HBO Max.

Joel and Ellie try to survive the bleak midwinter – then encounter David and his strange meat-eating club. What unbelievably horrifying viewing.

That verse David was reading from the Bible was from Revelation 21:1, concerning the New Jerusalem and the foundation of “a new heaven and a new Earth”. Where exactly they were heading to at the end of the episode was uncertain, but let’s assume Joel and Ellie were going to get as far from that town as they could and see out the winter with the rest of that penicillin for company. The most obvious change came at the end, when Ellie killed David: in the game, Joel arrives as she’s hacking away and he drags her off, whereas here she stopped of her own accord. So often used in fiction as a symbol of innocence, the rabbit vanished once it was startled, just as any scrap of innocence Ellie was clinging on to has now disappeared. And just as she has softened Joel and reawakened parts he thought were dead, she has absorbed some of his ruthlessness, and will learn that there are parts of her personality she has to close off if she wants to survive. It was a frenzied attack that matched the level of violence about to be inflicted on her, but there was more to this, too – all of Ellie’s angst and rage was coming out in each wave of the cleaver. Ellie escaped, after lying about being infected and killing James, and took on David in the burning saloon, inflicting a stab wound before being overpowered. David either knew who Ellie was all along or worked it out as they were talking, and realised that if he let her go, she would lead him and his men to Joel so they could get their justice. He broke off from his reading to console a sobbing girl and her mother – we later learned they are the family of the attacker Joel killed at the university. In the basement, we got out first glimpse of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Back in the basement, Ellie administered antibiotics, and if you listened closely, you might have heard Alexander Fleming rolling in his grave. The way David spoke to Ellie later, expressing his admiration for cordyceps and mocking his followers for believing in the good lord, made me think the He refers to him, David, rather than Him, God.