The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 4’s most shocking scene is inspired by hidden game moment

The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 4 begins with a shocking bang, one that was inspired by a tiny moment from the game.

With The Last of Us game creator Neil Druckmann overseeing the TV adaptation alongside co-showrunner Craig Mazin, the show has largely stayed true to the source material.

Scenes have been moved around, characters have had their roles reduced or expanded, and big reveals have been tweaked for dramatic effect.

But the core story has pretty much remained the same, while a new medium means that moments that are merely mentioned in the game can be more fully explored. This is the case for the dramatic scene that opens Episode 4 of Season 2. SPOILERS ahead…

How the game inspired shocking TV scene

The Last of Us Season 2 sequence in question kicks off with a group of FEDRA soldiers – including Josh Peck in a surprise cameo – laughing and joking in the back of a truck, before their commanding officer throws a couple of grenades into the vehicle and blows them up, which is certainly a dramatic way to kick off proceedings.

“That entire sequence was inspired by a moment you have where you’re wandering around in the game,” explains Mazin on the show’s official podcast. “Neil, you put all these little moments inside the game, these little stories that are optional, people can find them or not. And one of them is these notes that are left behind by some FEDRA officers who are long dead.

“But you understood that in Seattle, there was a moment where FEDRA officers started turning on FEDRA because it was not working well and that there was in fact a kind of internecine warfare. And you also do find a FEDRA truck at one point that you can climb into. And so all those things were bopping around my head.”

Druckmann continues: “In the game, there’s a lot of what we call environmental storytelling. As you’re exploring the city, we give you evidence that, you know, FEDRA used to rule this Quarantine Zone just as you’ve seen in Season 1 or game one. And then they fell.

“And they fell to these two groups that had an uprising. One were the Seraphites; the Scars… and one was the WLF. And to Craig’s point, there is a truck that you find that has been blown up with the people still inside as part of this uprising.”

Mazin adds: “So then, in my weird head, I start thinking, well, how did that happen?”

Introducing Isaac in The Last of Us Season 2

Isaac is the commanding officer who throws that grenade, and in the show – like in the game – he’s played by Jeffrey Wright. And Mazin saw this moment as the perfect way to introduce the character.

“He’s the leader of the WLF when you meet him in the game, but there isn’t necessarily a sense of where he came from,” says the showrunner. “So this was one of those mornings where I call Neil and I say, ‘I’ve got a crazy idea.’ And this is, to me, a very fun way to open an episode. It’s very contained.”

“It also allows us to begin to tell a separate story, which is the story of this rookie, this kid who’s played by Ben Ahlers. And it’s clearly his, what, I don’t know, first week on the job?

“His helmet doesn’t fit very well. He doesn’t quite understand this brutal nature that these guys have, this ‘us versus them.’ You know, ‘the people are beneath us.’ And perhaps that is why Isaac chooses to give him a choice, as opposed to just fragging him like he does the rest of these guys.”

Druckmann adds: “This is a conversation that we have a lot about these factions and how sometimes they’ll see people within a warring faction, a different tribe, and they’re too far gone. ‘I cannot bring them back, so the only choice I have left is to kill them in order to save my tribe.’

“Here is someone that is fresh enough, they’re still malleable, ‘I could give them the choice to come around.’ And Isaac makes that calculation in that truck.”

For more TLOU coverage, find out if Abby dies in The Last of Us game, when The Last of Us takes place, why Ellie left coffee beans on Joel’s grave, and what happens to Shimmer in the game.