The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 details David’s storyline truthfully to the game, while also giving the voice of a Joel a great cameo.
The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 finally gives fans the long awaited cameo role by the video game voice of Joel, Troy Baker. He is one of David’s men and actually has quite a bit of screen time. That means that yes, David’s time has come. Those that are fans of TLOU video game have likely been waiting for this showdown, and it does not disappoint.
This is a details The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8, which has just a 51 minute runtime, recap and review, which means that spoilers are ahead, so be warned if you have not yet watched the episode.
Warning: Spoilers for The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 Ahead
As we near the finale of The Last Of Us season 1, video game players are surely wondering when certain characters will pop up, and where the cut off in the story will be. Will it line up with the gameplay or not? So far this series has been extremely loyal to the source material, and that does not change with the introduction of David in The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8.
As soon as a man can be heard reading scripture to a room full of survivors, fans of the game will know what this episode is about. There is a sign hanging up that says “When we are in need, he shall provide” and it quickly becomes clear this is a funeral. A young girl, about Ellie’s age, is crying over the loss of her father. She asks when they will bury him, and the preacher, who we find out is David, tells her the ground is too cold to dig and they can in the Spring.
As David is walking out of the room where they were all gathered, James (played by the video game voice of Joel, Troy Baker) talks with him. David tells him that he sense doubt and James says they are just scared.
Flash to Ellie and Joel now, and he is still recovering. She wets his lips with water and puts some food on his chest, making it clear they are running out of it. She whispers that she will be right back and takes the gun to go hunting. Ellie finds a rabbit but trips in the snow trying to get to it. Then she hears a deer and uses the skills Joel taught her to shoot it. It runs off injured and she goes after it. But James and David find it first.
David and Ellie Meet
In a scene that is ripped right out of the video game, The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 has Ellie and David meet. The two men are about to take the deer when Ellie comes out of the woods and points the rifle at them. David asks to make a trade for half the deer because he has a large hungry group with women and children. Ellie says she does too, but then asks if they have medicine for infections. David sends James to the settlement to get penicillin and syringe. He tells Ellie they can make camp and wait since it will be a while.
The place they go looks just like the game, and those that have played know what is about to happen. David and Ellie talk and he explains that he used to be a teacher but is a preacher now. He found God after the apocalypse. But then his attitude seems to change. He says this group chose him as a leader and he now has many mouths to feed.
David says everything happened for a reason. There was a man at his settlement that was killed by another man. A man who was traveling with a girl about her age. He is clearly talking about the man that stabbed Joel at the university. It seems the other men survived and went back to tell David’s settlement about what happened. David then tells James to lower gun — revealing that he is behind Ellie with a gun pulled on her. David tells James to give her the medicine and they let her go. James is not thrilled about it, but David has a plan.
Ellie gets to Joel and injects the penicillin right into his wound — a gruesome scene. She then lays down on him and falls asleep.
Back at David’s settlement, they make soup from the venison of Ellie’s kill. David says that if they heard a rumor, it’s true. They found the girl and when there is light they will follow the tracks and bring the man to justice. The daughter of the man Joel killed (named Hannah) says they should kill them both and David slaps her. He says you might not think you have a father anymore, but you will always have one and you should respect him when he’s speaking. Then David says grace, and everyone joins in before scarfing down their food.
Now, The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 goes back to Ellie and Joel. She’s by his side and we see her injecting him with medicine again. She goes outside and all the birds are flying away from something so she goes to look and sees David, James, and a group of men, clearly looking for them. David says they will kill the man and take the girl back to the settlement. James questions that, saying she will be just another mouth to feed. Tensions are getting tight between the two men.
Ellie tries to get Joel up but can’t. He is going in and out of it. She puts a knife on his chest and barricades the door. She tells him that there are men coming and she’s going to lead them away. But should anyone get down there, she needs Joel to kill them. Ellie then takes the horse and shoots at the men, trying to lead them away. David reiterates to keep her alive as the group runs after her.
James shoots and kills her horse and she is thrown on the ground, knocked out. He is about to shoot her, with the others besides David all there, and then David shoots in the air to stop them. David picks up Elie and tells two of the men to go with him, taking the horse for meat, back to the settlement. He tells the others to go door to door and if they are so hungry for vengeance to deliver it.
Joel hears a man above him in the house he’s in and musters all of his energy to get up. We don’t see him as the man comes down the stairs, but all of a sudden Joel is behind him with a knife. He stabs him in the neck and kills him.
The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 now brings us back to David’s settlement, where we see Ellie waking up inside a cage. David is right there, watching her. He says he is offering her a new beginning. He wants her to join the settlement, since she cannot survive alone, and will soon be alone.
Back to Joel. we see that he is able to come out of the house. He knocks two men out and takes them captive. He’s interrogating them about where Ellie is. Torturing them, even. They are facing away from each other and he uses that same trick he did on the old people. He tells one to point to where they are, and where the silver lake resort is (David’s community, where Ellie was taken). He says other man better point to the same place or they are both dead. But then kills the first one after he points it out. The one left says he’s not telling him anything and Joel says it’s ok, he believes the first guy, and then kills him too.
David brings Ellie a bowl of stew, but Ellie shows David that she found an ear in the cage with her. David says for what it’s worth the bowl he gave her is just deer meat. David says only a few know they eat people and that he would have told her eventually. David says it was a last resort because he had to keep his followers alive and fed. He says Ellie reminds him of himself — smart, loyal, and a natural leader. He says she also has a violent heart. Like him.
A Showdown
David then explains that it is not really God he found, but Cordyceps (the fungi that started the outbreak). It loves, but it defends with violence if it must. He says his followers need God and heaven. They need a father, but Ellie doesn’t. She’s beyond that. David claims to be a Shephard surrounded by sheep and all he wants is an equal.
David says he can tell his people to leave Joel alone and they will, because they always do what he tells them to. He says she should join him as he rubs her hand. He says imagine the life we could build, clearly coming on to her. Ellie goes to take his hand but instead she was tricking him. She breaks his finger and bites his hand. As he rushes out to get the others, she tells him to tell them Ellie is the little girl that broke his finger — she had not yet told him her name. As he leaves he threatens to cut her into tiny pieces.
We then see Joel in a snowstorm trying to get to Ellie and it appears he has arrived. Inside the settlement he finds their meat storage where he sees the horse and several hanging bodies with no heads. This is when he knows what these people are and it seems to make him want to find Ellie even more.
David and James come in to kill Ellie but she yells that she’s infected in order to stop them. She even says sorry for biting him. The two men check her arm, distracting them as they argue over if it is real or not. James clearly is worried about David being infected so David kills James. The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 is clearly going to tell the whole story of David, rather than drag it out over another one.
They go to the bar and Ellie must sneak around — just like the game — in order to surprise David. He yells out to her as he searches for her, again, just like the game. He says that neither one of them is dying because he decided he is going to keep her and teach her. He keeps calling out her name, which is extremely creepy and gives this scene a very high stakes feel.
Ellie sneaks up on him and stabs him. David kicks her and climbs on top her. He says that biting is his favorite part and it seems like he is going to rape her. She fights back, and is able to grab a knife and knock him off her. She then goes crazy with adrenaline, and stabs him to death. It should be noted that the building was on fire through this whole scene.
When Ellie gets outside, a man comes behind her and she starts screaming and fighting back until she realizes it’s Joel. He holds her and says it’s ok baby girl, I got you. The two walk away – well hobble away, holding each other.
Overall Thoughts
The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 8 tells the fan favorite story of David, and it truly delivers. Allowing Troy Baker to be a part of this is the perfect fit for him. It was nice to see him get a lot of screen time, with the only complaint being that we did not get any Joel on Joel fights.
The way this story plays out is very similar to the game and while it feels like it was a little rushed, being crammed into just one episode, that is what The Last Of Us season 1 has been doing all along — so at this point it was expected.
Rating: 5 out of 5
NEXT: The Last Of Us Season 1 Episode 6 Recap and Review
About The Last Of Us
THE LAST OF US story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
The Last Of Us season 1 episode 8 is now streaming on HBO Max.
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Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.