The Last of Us: The Zombie Kiss Explained (It’s Much More Terrifying Than You Think)

After a record premiere, the TV series The Last of Us has reached the second episode visible as always on HBO Max. The title is taken from the successful video game of the same name which at least so far seems to do justice to the original product. The TV series The Last of Us faithfully reproduces the story from which it is taken despite some modifications necessary for practical issues. As usually happens in the transpositions of work, the destinies of some characters may be completely or partially modified. This is what happened in the second episode of the TV series The Last of Us. In addition to changing a part of the plot compared to the video game, also included a scene that caused fans to discuss a lot.

The Last of Us: The Zombie Kiss of Episode 2 Explained

The scene takes place after Joel (Pedro Pascal), Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Tess (Anna Torv) arrive at the meeting point with the Fireflies to deliver Ellie to them, but they find that they all died when one of them became infected. Tess, who was bitten in a previous encounter, knows that she does not have long to live and makes Joel understand the importance of Ellie, being the only one immune to the fungus, making him promise to keep her safe. After the infected sense, the presence of trio, Joel, and Ellie escape, and Tess stays behind to blow up the building they are in. It is there that an infected sees her and calmly kisses her, introducing her tentacles into her mouth.

The Last of Us: Why Does an Infected Kiss Tess In The Second Episode

The scene in which the infected kisses Tess and puts the tentacles of the fungus into her mouth is terrifying because of the calm way in which one of these creatures behaves and invades the body of a human. These tentacles are not part of the original video game, although series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, (who wrote the PlayStation classic) explained that it makes sense in-universe and from a scientific approach. Speaking to Variety on January 22, 2023, the creators said that the idea of ​​mushroom tentacles in the mouth of the infected came about to get as far away from the common idea of ​​zombies as possible.

“We had many conversations about what else we can do with the vector besides bites. We look at concept art (from the video game) where there is this implication of the fungus growing under the skin. What if that was the thing? It’s not so much about the bite, they just need these tentacles to go from one host to another and that’s how the infection spreads,” said Neil Druckmann.

However, in the case of the kiss that the infected person gives Tess, Mazin explained that it is all because the fungus itself is not violent and only seeks to spread, but when someone refuses to be infected that is when it attacks them.

“We already had conversations about (the infected) growing tentacles and we asked ourselves philosophical questions: ‘Why are infected people violent? If the point is to spread the fungus, why do they need to be violent? We landed on that they are not. They are violent because we resist, but what if you don’t? What would it look like if you just stood completely still and let them infect you?”

The Kiss of Death

In the finale of episode 2 of The Last of Us, we witnessed Tess’s death which happens differently in the video game. In that context as far as the TV series is concerned, Tess is approached by one of the particular creatures featured in The Last of Us. That instead of attacking or biting her, to infect her, he literally kisses her on her mouth. A scene of strong impact, considering that the infected filaments of fungus came out of his mouth. Which comes into contact with Tess’s mouth, still alive and aware of what is happening to her. In an interview with Variety, The Last of Us creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann spoke about the scene in question.

While we were doing some research to understand how mushrooms develop in real life compared to the game, we came across an image that struck us. An artist portrayed a person who was infested with a fungus and also had mushrooms in his mouth. We had already dealt with the issue of the ramifications they have on mushrooms in general, so we reflected on the issue of contagion. ‘Why do infected people have to be violent, if they just want to branch out? What if things go differently?’

 Druckmann continued the discussion about Tess:

The change related to Tess’s death got us thinking about this point. Because the title of the episode itself is ‘Infected’ and we wanted to show in detail what the contagion means. We wanted to give her a tragic death for her departure from the scene. She got lost because the lighter didn’t work and she saw the horror until the end before she finally could start the fire. That was her release.

From the words of the two authors of The Last of Us, it can therefore be deduced that this type of virus is really scary in all ways and in all its forms. And a person like in the case of Tess even comes to “prefer” to burn alive, rather than have such close contact with a monstrous being. A being who, however, before becoming such, was just a person like her.