There are some gaming moments that just… stick with you, you know? Like, twenty-plus years of playing games and certain scenes still make my palms sweat when I think about them. The winter section in The Last of Us is absolutely one of those. I remember sitting in my basement game room, probably way too late on a work night, frantically mashing buttons as Ellie fought David in that burning restaurant. My wife actually came downstairs to check on me because I was making too much noise – apparently I’d been muttering “come on, come on” at the TV for like ten minutes straight.
So when HBO’s version got to episode 8, “When We Are in Need,” I had this weird anticipation thing going. I knew exactly what was coming, but I also had no idea how it would hit me watching instead of playing. Turns out, it’s a completely different kind of torture when you can’t control what’s happening.
The show gets the desperation right from the start. That brutal winter cold that feels like it wants to kill you, Ellie trying to hunt deer with a rifle that’s too big for her, Joel basically dying from his injury… it’s that same hopeless atmosphere the game nailed. I actually turned up the heat in my living room during this episode, which my wife noticed. “Are you seriously cold watching a TV show?” she asked. Yeah, well, atmospheric immersion is a thing, okay?
What really got to me was how they introduced David. Scott Shepherd plays him with this… I don’t know how to describe it exactly. He’s soft-spoken and seemingly helpful, but there’s something fundamentally wrong underneath. My friend Dave – yeah, also named David, which made watching this extra weird – texted me halfway through saying “This guy is absolutely going to try to eat Ellie isn’t he?” The dread just builds from his first scene.
And man, Shepherd’s performance is genuinely unsettling. When he tells Ellie “You’ve got a lot of heart,” it sounds like he’s sizing her up for dinner. Which, spoiler alert, he basically is. It’s different from Nolan North’s more obviously unhinged version in the game, but equally creepy. This David feels like the kind of predator who’s really good at seeming reasonable until suddenly he’s not.
The cannibalism reveal hits different in the show too. Instead of Ellie finding body parts like in the game, David just casually mentions she’s already eaten human meat, like he’s telling her about the weather. The way he delivers it – so matter-of-fact, like it’s just a minor lifestyle choice – made my skin crawl. I actually paused the episode to text my gaming buddy Mike: “Holy crap this is more disturbing than the game.” His response was just a bunch of vomit emojis, which pretty much summed it up.
But here’s the thing – Bella Ramsey’s performance through all this is incredible. Watching her go from terrified kid to someone calculating how to survive to absolute fury in the final fight… it’s a masterclass in showing trauma and resilience. There’s this moment when David touches her hand through the cage, and you can see Ellie’s revulsion even as she’s pretending to consider his offer. That’s some seriously sophisticated acting for someone portraying a teenager.
The restaurant fight scene though… Jesus. Even knowing it was coming, I found myself holding my breath. The fire, the chaos, the brutal physicality of it – they didn’t just recreate the game sequence, they made it work as television. My buddy Chris watched it with his sixteen-year-old daughter, and he told me later she was literally hiding behind a couch cushion. “It’s worse than the game,” he said. “At least in the game you feel like you have some control.”
That’s exactly it. Playing the game, you’re stressed because you’re responsible for getting Ellie through this. Watching the show, you’re stressed because you can’t help at all. It’s this horrible helplessness that creates a totally different kind of tension.
What really gets me about this whole storyline is how it shows Ellie changing. Up to this point, she’s killed to survive, but this is different. This is rage and trauma expressing itself through violence. When she finally gets the upper hand and starts stabbing David repeatedly, Ramsey shows us something new in Ellie – not just self-defense, but this raw, primal need to destroy the thing that hurt her. It’s disturbing and completely understandable at the same time.
Then Joel finds her, and Pedro Pascal just… man. “It’s okay, baby girl” while he pulls her away from David’s body. After all that intensity, his gentle voice is like a release valve. The contrast between David’s fake concern and Joel’s genuine protectiveness is just perfectly executed. Pascal’s holding back his own rage at what happened to her because comforting Ellie is more important. That’s some quality acting right there.
I’m not ashamed to admit I got a little choked up during that scene. My girlfriend caught me wiping my eyes and gave me this look. “Really? You’re crying at the zombie show?” “It’s not about zombies,” I mumbled. “It’s about found family and trauma and…” She just laughed and handed me tissues. Whatever, she cried during the Sarah opening episode too.
The whole episode raises these uncomfortable questions about survival morality. David’s people eat humans to survive, but David himself is clearly a predator using survival as an excuse. Ellie’s violence against him is obviously justified, but it’s also way beyond what’s necessary for self-defense. The show doesn’t try to make these moral calculations simple, which I appreciate. Real life is messy, and post-apocalyptic life would be messier.
My friend Teresa, who’s a therapist, actually texted me after watching about how accurate Ellie’s dissociation is after killing David. “That thousand-yard stare, the way she’s mentally somewhere else? That’s exactly what happens with extreme trauma,” she wrote. The show’s willingness to sit in that uncomfortable space instead of just moving on to the next action sequence is what elevates it above typical genre television.
David’s predatory behavior is more explicit in the show than the game, but they handle it carefully. The grooming, the way he positions himself as a father figure while clearly seeing her as something else… it’s stomach-turning without being exploitative. Shepherd makes those moments almost more disturbing than the actual violence because they’re so recognizably manipulative.
The episode also gives us more of Joel desperately searching for Ellie, including some brutal interrogation scenes that remind us who he used to be. Pascal shows us this man capable of extreme violence and extreme tenderness, sometimes minutes apart, and somehow makes it feel like natural facets of the same personality. That’s the Joel I remember from the game – someone who will torture information out of strangers and then gently comfort a traumatized kid.
What’s brilliant about this adaptation is how it works as both a standalone horror story and a crucial piece of the larger narrative. You could watch this episode knowing nothing about Joel and Ellie and still be completely horrified by this girl trapped by a cannibal cult leader. But knowing their journey makes it hit so much harder – this is the moment when Joel’s protection becomes unconditional and Ellie’s trust in him solidifies completely.
I sat quiet for probably five minutes after the credits rolled, just processing what I’d watched. There’s something uniquely powerful about experiencing a familiar story through a different medium. You’re seeing the same emotional beats but from new angles, with different emphasis. The Last of Us has always been about human monsters and the connections that help us survive them. This episode captures both sides perfectly.
Next time I replay that winter chapter – and let’s be honest, I definitely will – I know it’ll feel different. I’ll be thinking about Ramsey’s performance, about Shepherd’s quietly menacing David, about how the visual storytelling added layers to what I thought I already understood completely. That’s when you know an adaptation really worked – when it doesn’t replace the original but starts a conversation with it.
Just like Joel and Ellie themselves, the game and show are stronger together than apart. Each version makes you appreciate the other more, and honestly, that’s about the best outcome you can hope for when translating something you love into a different format. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check that my basement door is locked. David may be fictional, but winter nights still make me paranoid.
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