Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us to follow.
Continuing to show off its ability to mix marked warmth with excruciating heartbreak, The Last of Us has impressed yet again with “Left Behind,” the seventh episode in the show’s first season. Adapted from a piece of downloadable content for the original game, also titled Left Behind, the episode reveals the origins of the bite that Ellie received, which just happened to be during an impromptu best friend-date with Storm Reid’s Riley (who just may have been quite a bit more than a best friend).
After Riley convinces Ellie to sneak out of her dorm with her, she takes her on a magical journey through an abandoned shopping mall, which for Ellie isn’t a far shout from an alien planet given her viscerally giddy reaction to stepping on an escalator.
The “electric stairs” paled in comparison to her opportunity to play Mortal Kombat II during their trip to the arcade; after only getting to read about the historic game over the course of her life, one can imagine the mind-blowing effect of actually getting to touch a working arcade cabinet.
When asked during the seventh episode on The Last of Us‘ official podcast why they chose Mortal Kombat II specifically, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann gave an answer to the effect of “screw you, that’s why.”
“First of all, Mortal Kombat II is the best. Not every cabinet arcade game worked like that; sometimes the first one was the best; in this case, Mortal Kombat II, I think, was the best.”
They would follow up such an answer, however, by noting that Mortal Kombat II‘s key position in the “video games and violence” conversation ties in with Ellie’s obsession with violent media, as alluded to by the poster in her dorm room.
“The reason we did Mortal Kombat II is there’s this evolution of games, and violence in games, and with Mortal Kombat II, there was this whole conversation around it, with violence in the media. So there was a lot of interesting political things that happened with video games with that specific game. These girls would have had an obsession with this game because Ellie just has this obsession with violent media.”
It was just as well, too, considering that the fatalities in the episode probably weren’t limited to Ellie and Riley’s gaming session; sometimes, tragedy is made worse when the specifics are left to the imagination.
The Last of Us is available to stream on HBO Max, with new episodes releasing every Sunday until the season finale on March 12. A second season has been announced.