I'm Still Obsessing Over All The Last Of Us' Video Game References In The Season 2 Premiere, With Two In Particular Keeping Me Giddy

Spoilers below for the Season 2 premiere of The Last of Us, so anyone who hasn’t yet watched on HBO or with a Max subscription should be warned!

To be expected, The Last of Us’ Season 2 premiere set the stage for heart-shattering and brain-melting outcomes, many of which I covered as they happened in my live Last of Us watchalong coverage on Sunday night. In the days that have since passed, I haven’t stopped thinking about some of my favorite moments. As a Kaitlyn Dever fanatic, her debut as avenger-in-mourning Abby comes close to the top spot, but the sheer abundance of video game references really took the cake. (The cake is not a lie.)

As it went with the first season, The Last of Us’ various teams of set designers, propmasters and more have again excelled at bringing live-action magic to previously digitized locations, outfits and even horses like Ellie’s go-to steed Shimmer. It would probably take more than a few obsessive viewings of “Future Days” to identify even the majority of game references, much less all of them. But I don’t think anything else would make me giddier than the two gamer-friendly scenes discussed below.

Ellie Using The Old "Throw A Beer Bottle To Distract The Clicker" Tactic

For anyone who didn’t watch, I’m of course referring to the scene where Ellie and Dina’s patrol run takes then into Greenplace Market, which is the exact location they visited in the game. All the studio heads behind any upcoming video game adaptations should use this scene as a pace-setter for how faithful movies and TV shows should be.

Because more often than not, live-action adaptations are crafted with the idea of addressing the biggest and most memorable sequences, but without paying attention to so many of the smaller details that gamers are necessarily immersed in for hours on end. And while the first season of The Last of Us didn’t put its characters though many situations where stealthy elements were key, Mazin and Druckmann thankfully added this nod to one of the game’s go-to pick-up weapons and noisemakers: the glass bottle.

As a huge fan of the games, I know I’ve used bottles as weapons more times than I’d used certain guns, since they’re meant to be utilized as both noisemaking distractions and as neck-stabbing weapons. It’s a common enough trope in games where traversing areas silently is a good way to save both ammunition and one’s life.

Yet this is exactly the kind of game-specific detail that gets left out of a lot of high-profile adaptations, perhaps even because it’s such a recognized chestnut of the genre. But I legitimately cheered as soon as Ellie caught sight of the glass bottle on the ground, knowing that we would finally see that easter egg utilized. Granted, all she did was throw it to draw the Clicker’s attention, but I’m hoping we get to see Ellie (or another character) jam a broken bottle into one of the monsters’ oversized heads.

Of course, now we absolutely HAVE to see a similar scene in Episode 202 involving a brick, since that’s The Last of Us’ non-stabby counterpart to glass bottles.

Oh, and this sequence also features a direct reference to the four-legged employee of the month whose video game placement is key to opening a safe in the market.

This show rules.

Ellie And Dina's Adorably Flirty Dance

While the bottle bit was definitely more of a smaller-scale reference to The Last of Us video games, the premiere's entire final sequence was nearly a 1:1 copy of the same scene from the game. Not just in terms of visuals and dialogue, but also with its emotional impact.

But let's not take all the mirrored visuals and dialogue for granted. The second we got the shot seen above of Ellie looking around the party crowd with her back to the camera, my stomach flipped over how close it was, and my hands almost instinctly reached for a phantom PS5 controller.

For the most part, Ellie and Dina's flirty dance and kiss were spot-on iterations of the moments in the source material, albeit with additional flourishes from the two actors. Even though we'd spent less than an hour with these two characters by that time, it still so successfully connects their dots that the kiss feels entirely natural, despite Dina only hours prior hinting that she might jump back into dating Jesse. And all without adding a bunch of extra chemistry-building moments between Ramsey and Merced.

Of course, the aftermath of their kiss is also largely the same, albeit with Pedro Pascal's Joel getting more physical with Seth than it went down in the game. Suffice to say, the episode ended by giving Ellie another reason to be mad at Joel, but that specific reference to the games is not one I'll be celebrating. I just want them to be happy and cool with each other again. Sigh.

Here are some other excellent moments that came straight out of the pair of Last of Us video games.

• Ellie and Tommy sniping Clickers (even if the time-frame was changed for the TV show)
• The Savage Starlight poster on Ellie's wall is the same as the one from Part II
• Dina bringing up the movie Curtis and Viper, which is a series that Joel loves
• Eugene's weed connection (which will probably be explored in the next episode)
• Ellie detail-cleaning her gun, which happens each time the player upgrades a character weapon
• Ellie writing in her journal
• The banjo player at the party is musician Gustavo Santaolalla, who has crafted music for both the show and games, and was also in Part II himself, also playing a banjo

The Last of Us will continue giving fans epic moments from the video games in the weeks to come, as well as moments that were crafted specifically for the TV show. (Such as the second episode introducing Joe Pantaliano as Gail's husband Eugene, who only existed via photograph in the game.)