Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Last of Us.The Last of Uscertainly has its work cut out for it when it comes to world-building. It needs to set up the intricate ins and outs of an entire alternate reality quickly while still seamlessly easing us into the complex heart of the story. Yet, in just the first two episodes, viewers have gotten a lot of information in a way that has felt organic; we barely even noticed them delivering it to us.
Of course, there’s a lot of effort and skill that goes into accomplishing this as quickly and smoothly as they have thus far, but there is one choice, in particular, that has had a major effect on what viewers have come to understand about the pandemic at the story’s core. This lies in the opening scenes. The opening scenes of both of these first two episodes actually had a lot in common, and their similarities have been very important to what we know about the main characters and their dire circumstances.
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‘The Last of Us’ Opening Scenes Show Without Telling
Exposition is notoriously difficult to deliver smoothly in a series full of world-building. As viewers, we want to have the backstory we need to know about without the tedium of having it explained to us and without being taken out of the story that’s gripping us. SinceThe Last of Usis tasked with getting us up to speed on a fictitious version of the last two decades,teaching us about the fungusand the domino effect it started to get the world to the series’ present day, and helping us get to know and care about its characters, there’s a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time. By the end of Episode 2, however, we know a lot already. In fact, we knew quite a bit just by the end of the series’ first scene, but it wasn’t presented to us in the way that anyone might have anticipated.
Most people wouldn’t imagine a calm, laid-back 1960s talk show interview to be the best opener for a tense action series. Yet this setup for the series' first scene set the stage perfectly for what was to come. This scene showed the potential for the fungus to take over, even though it was far enough in the past that it was being discussed in an entirely hypothetical sense. It explained exactly how this fungus could take over, how deadly it could be, and how unlikely this idea was for most of the people who heard about it in this world. Viewers quickly got to know what would happen and how, yet it managed to do so by jumping back in time rather than forward.
This scene did its job well and set the groundwork for the story that would unfold over the course of the episode that followed. The choices made in this scene, however, were made all the more interesting by the first scene of the next episode. The opening scene of Episode 2 took place in Indonesia. The very act of showing viewers the point-of-view of somewhere far across the globe gave the audience a greater grasp of the scope of this outbreak. It’s one thing to see a post-apocalyptic version of a U.S. suburb, but to think of it sweeping the entire world and causing mass destruction gives the story a different kind of impact.
Taking Us Back in Time to Show Us the Future
It was unexpected for the second episode to take us back in time again, but in doing so, the audience was able to see even more about exactly how dire this outbreak was. By the time we reached the start of Episode 2, we already knew quite a bit about this fungus. We knew what it was, how it spread, and the effect it had on the infected. Yet, this scene showed it through a different lens.
An expert on the fungus itself believed that an outbreak among humans was impossible. When she discovered that this was, in fact, somehow transpiring, she scoffed at the idea of a vaccine or cure. In actuality, in the eyes of an expert — one of the best authorities on the dangers at hand — this fungus outbreak among humans was so incurable and dangerous that the only reasonable course of action was to bomb the city with everyone, including her and her family, in it. As clear as it already was to viewers just how out of control the world spun after the fungus began to take over, this shows another layer of gravity to the outbreak and deepens the threat of what we already know will ultimately ravage the world.
Setting the Scene With Unrelated Characters
Opening scenes are vital for setting the scene for the episode ahead, so for obvious reasons, this is especially important for a series’ early episodes. What’s interesting about the success of these two pre-credits scenes is thatneither of them has any immediate relationship with the story’s main characters. The opening scenes for both of the first two episodes take place in the past and set a much broader context for the illness at the heart of this series. While this doesn’t have a direct relationship with the characters whose story the series follows, it builds the world around them in a way that gives viewers a better understanding of their struggles. The first episode’s first scene explains the concept of how a fungus could take over and just how deadly that would be. The first scene of Episode 2 shows us the start of the virus’ spread in a global sense and just how extremely dire this situation was right off the bat from the perspective of the person who could best understand it.
Opening these episodes with smooth exposition and information about how the virus began from experts’ perspectives helps to immerse us in the world of the series. This gives it more weight than simply being able to transport viewers into the story that’s playing out between the main characters. It makes the stakes and circumstances feel far more real. Beginning both episodes from experts’ perspectives rather than the main characters also builds a much greater context, allowing the show to zoom in on its main characters after we’ve got an idea of the scope.
The Last of Ushas a lot of explaining to dowhen it comes to showing its viewers how the world got to where it is, but so far, it’s managed to do so in a way that’s seamless and has only added to the story and suspense. The time jumps have only aided in the series' storytelling thus far, and it’s interesting to imagine what will be accomplished by continuing to play with this world’s timeline as the season progresses.
