Warning: Contains potential SPOILERS for The Last of UsThe first trailer for HBO's TV adaptation of The Last of Us has already teased the game's saddest death. Like the game, the show will center on survivors Joel and Ellie (Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, respectively) as he escorts her across the post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us show is closely related to the game, having been written and developed by Chernobyl's Craig Mazin alongside the original game's director, Neil Druckmann.
The Last of Us trailer displays just how close to the game the television adaptation will be. The show's depiction of the Cordyceps fungal infection looks to be horrifically game-accurate, especially in depicting the terrifying Clickers. The trailer also teases what looks to be a stunning recreation of the game's opening, even replicating the game's third-person camera with Joel framed from behind while carrying his daughter, Sarah.
However, a recreation of The Last of Us' opening sequence must therefore mean that the show will adapt the saddest death in the game. Set 20 years before the rest of the game, the opening sees Joel, and his brother Tommy, try to protect his 12-year-old daughter, Sarah, from the chaos enveloping their town due to Cordyceps infections. Unfortunately, before the three can escape with their lives, Sarah is shot by a soldier ordered to eliminate any survivors. Before he can kill Joel, Tommy kills the soldier but not before Sarah sustains terminal injuries and dies in Joel's arms shortly afterward. Sarah's early death helps to launch Joel's character arc, and explains his actions throughout the game, which the HBO Last of Us looks to be adapting accurately.
Why HBO's The Last Of Us Must Show Sarah's Death
While the sequence is undeniably tragic, HBO's The Last of Us must depict Sarah's death in order for the rest of the story to ring true. Although Joel and Ellie initially dislike one another when they first meet, over the course of their journey they develop a close bond. Ellie helps Joel to open up again after he becomes cold and stoic due to the horrifically tragic loss of his daughter. By the time they reach the end of their journey, when they finally reach the Fireflies, a rebel militia group, in Utah, Joel sees Ellie as a surrogate daughter.
Without Sarah's death early in the game, which HBO's The Last of Us' trailer looks to adapt, Joel's actions at the end of the first The Last of Us game simply do not ring true. Joel kills the doctors who could use Ellie to discover a cure for the Cordyceps fungus, because he discovers that their operation will be fatal for Ellie. After his massacre of the Fireflies at the hospital, he then lies to Ellie that the Fireflies could not make a cure so that he would not lose another daughter. HBO's The Last of Us has to adapt Sarah's tragic death, so that the rest of the show will ring true, like the game.