‘The Last of Us’ Episode 8 ‘When We Are in Need’ Review: A Thrilling Story That Fleshes Out the Game’s Most Sinister Villains
The Last of Us has treated us to multiple stories about how people might survive a “zombie” apocalypse — we’ve seen a city governed by a fascist organization ruling on fear and order, another city where its civilians overthrew their oppressors, a lone doomsday prepper find love, and a socialist commune prosper in the countryside.
All of our antagonists so far have been fleshed out to varying degrees so we might better understand what drives them in a more sympathetic light. However, the eighth episode, When We Are in Need, takes a set of villains that appear completely irredeemable in the game and attempts to give them the same treatment while also faithfully adapting one of the game’s more horrific storylines.
While perhaps the majority of this new group are presented under a more sympathetic light, merely sheep following a shepherd, as their leader describes them, the villain of the piece is just as twisted and perverse as he is in the source material. Those expecting an antagonist as relatable as some of the others seen so far will likely be disappointed, but those who love the game as much as I do will be incredibly satisfied. Not every antagonist needs to be sympathetic; some people are just assholes, especially after the world has ended. There’s nothing wrong with showing those people too.
Some memorable scenes from the game are adapted almost word-for-word here, and while there are no infected to speak of and no prolonged shootouts, there is plenty of drama and tension to go around as Ellie and Joel do their best to keep each other alive one more week.
The episode does a lot to reinforce the bond the two share, and by the end, you get the sense that there’s nothing the two wouldn’t do for each other. That’s the dynamic they need to have going into the season finale next week, and while perhaps the show skipped some formative moments earlier in the season, it finishes forging that bond in the most dramatic of fashions just in time.
Spoilers ahead…
Scott Shepherd in episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us.
The show adds a few details to try and flesh out the Silverlake community a little more than it was in the source material. That’s easier to do when you’re not bound to the POVs of Joel and Ellie like you are in the game, so we can see they’re not one-dimensional after all. That’s fine in the game, as you don’t need to know their background, but I appreciate that they took the time to add more in the adaption.
The first change is to make them religious. It’s a familiar angle that The Last of Us hasn’t explored yet — there are plenty of apocalyptic stories of people finding faith after the world ends — though it doesn’t lean too heavily into it. We don’t really get too deep a look into how their community works, and the religious aspect is really just used to explain how this group has ended up in David’s thrall. It’s not much, but it does give them more flavor (pun somewhat intended), which is appreciated. I have to note how happy I was to see Troy Baker — the actor behind Joel in the games — playing James, David’s right-hand man.
Troy Baker in episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us.
The second change is centered more around David himself. In the game, David initially comes across just as kind and reasonable as he does here — though the additional backstory that he used to be a maths teacher made my heart sink as someone who knew where this was going — before later revealing the bandits at the university were part of his group, along with the cannibalism and pedophilia of it all.
In this adaption, we learn that David was forced to turn to cannibalism during an especially harsh winter that saw them running dangerously low on food supplies. In the source material, they’re just cannibals. You don’t get any other explanations, and while it’s a fairly predictable line of logic, I do appreciate the work put in here to explain why.
Scott Shepherd in episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us.
The show isn’t exactly subtle in hinting that David and his inner circle are feeding them humans. Admittedly, I didn’t pick up on the initial tease that this was why he decided not to bury the father’s body, but as soon as one of the men lied that they were serving them venison after a ridiculously long pause, the game was up.
Scott Shepherd’s performance isn’t quite as creepy as Nolan North’s in the video game, though perhaps it is more believable. Any creepier in this adaption would probably have bordered on cartoonish. We see him strike a teenage girl early on to let us know that he’s a wrong ‘un, but the show waits a little while before revealing the true extent of David’s depravity. His contempt for his followers is laid bare amid his admission that he is a violent man. By the time he stroked his hand along Ellie’s from the other side of the cell, I was sick to my stomach.
Bella Ramsey in episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us.
The big showdown in the burning diner — which was perfectly reconstructed to look almost exactly the same as it does in the source material– is a great adaption of the game’s big boss fight, and Shepherd cuts a menacing figure. Watching him pin Ellie to the ground is just as horrifying as it is when you’re holding a controller, and I felt every visceral swing of the cleaver as she violently cut him to pieces.
Bella Ramsey is once again fantastic in this episode. The highlight is of course the big cathartic moment when Ellie overcomes David in the diner, but her tearful reunion with Joel had me going as she tried to overcome her trauma just enough to explain what David tried to do to her. Add to that her other crowd-pleasing moments, like breaking David’s finger and furiously taunting him from her cell, and it really is a standout episode for her.
Scott Shepherd and Bella Ramsey in episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us.
We get much less of Joel in the episode, as it wouldn’t be particularly believable watching him mow down enemies like he does in the video game after waking up from a serious injury, and frankly, this is Ellie’s story, not his, but I was delighted that we got his torture scene; one of my favorite scenes from the series, where we get to see what Joel is truly capable of as he reveals the darkness inside him.
It also acts as a fine way of illustrating the lengths he will go to in order to protect Ellie. It’s absolutely brutal and another of way of showing just how dark this world is; even one of the protagonists is capable of torturing someone and then killing them anyway after he gets what he wants. But as the ends justify the means — saving his surrogate daughter from a pedophile cannibal — it’s easier to swallow.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of us.
While I don’t know if the Silverlake community were really fleshed out all that well — if their main reason for killing Joel and Ellie was vengeance for the man Joel killed back at the university, how could they also be the kind of people willing to attack a stranger and a teenage girl completely unprovoked in the first place? — I was still thrilled with David’s depiction, and it made for a gripping episode of TV as we saw Ellie overcome her most sinister challenge yet without Joel’s help.
The show has done a great job of getting Joel and Ellie where they need to be before the season finale. I’m confident that The Last of Us will stick the landing when the season 1 finale arrives next Sunday.
Josh is a huge a fan of Star Wars, superheroes and video games. He spends most of his time wondering who would win in a fight between Boba Fett and Star Lord.
