Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Episode 2 of The Last of Us.The Last of Us is a series about loss and how you learn to carry on from it, so it’s only fitting that the story is filled with some gut-wrenching deaths. Sarah’s (Nico Parker) death in the prologue is perhaps the most iconic for the devastation it causes characters and players alike but there’s another, crucial and impactful death that takes place early on in the story: Tess (Anna Torv). Her death serves as a catalyst to get the rest of the story moving, a force that drives Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) together, and imparts the quintessential message of the story to, in Tess’s words, "save who you can save."
HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us follows the sequence leading up to Tess’s death almost beat-for-beat until we get to the manner of death itself. Switching out her death by firing squad to her making her final stand against a zombie hoard is a decision that just fits the character and the scenario better.
Tess’s Original Fate Is Too Bleak
It’s a bold, even sacrilegious, claim to say an adaptation improves upon the original but in the case of Tess’s death, this change just generally makes more sense. In the game and the show, things play out much in the same way — up to a point. The group is attacked by Clickers as they make their way through the museum and while they’re separated, Tess gets bit. She soldiers on and keeps it to herself while they make their way to the Capitol Building where they find the Fireflies all dead (though seemingly not killed due to infection). Upon seeing this, Tess quickly falls into panic and starts searching for a map or some clue as to where to head next but when she finds nothing and continues panicking, Ellie realizes that Tess is infected.
From here, things split between the two versions of the story, though only slightly. At this point in the game, Tess begs Joel to get Ellie to his brother Tommy who might know where the Fireflies research base is. They have little time to say their goodbyes or even agree on a plan before FEDRA soldiers arrive outside, seemingly to take the three of them in. Tess tells Joel and Ellie that she’ll hold the soldiers off while the two of them get a head start. As they run away we hear gunfire and Tess yelling as she’s shot down. She only manages to kill a few soldiers before she dies and the FEDRA soldiers continue to pursue Joel and Ellie as they escape.
The Show Gives Tess a Blaze of Glory
The TV adaptation removes the soldiers from this scenario entirely, switching the cause of panic and Tess’s demise to a hoard of zombies attracted to their location. This not only makes sense in that it gives purpose to the exposition given earlier in the episode about how the Cordyceps is connected and can “feel” through each other, but it also just makes more sense than FEDRA managing to track down some smugglers in such a dangerous place in such a short time. This change also helps to explain how the Fireflies died, as they took themselves out in the midst of infection spreading rather than being mowed down assumedly by FEDRA guns, only to leave and come back for a second ambush at the same location.
But even more than just making more sense logically within the story, changing Tess’s manner of death has also made her end more empowering. Originally, she gets the mercy of a swift death before she can succumb to infection and manages to help Joel and Ellie by taking out a few goons with her, but it doesn’t really amount to much. It’s fitting for the dire tone, but this death allows Tess one last triumph. Rather than being taken down by some random soldiers, she gets to go out in a blaze of glory fighting back against the very thing killing her. There is no way for Tess to overcome the infection, so instead, she just refuses to let it consume her. As the zombie hoard is attracted to their location, Tess forces Joel and Ellie to flee as she covers the floor in gasoline. When the hoard arrives Joel and Ellie have escaped and in her final moments, Tess manages to set the building ablaze taking the zombies and herself out in the process. She struggles to get her lighter to work but even as an infected person faces her down with gross, writhing tendrils coming out of its mouth she manages to hold out until the last second and finish the job. That final moment for her is distressing and uncomfortable, it’s a violation of her person right until the end. The infected “kissing” her is a grotesque reminder of what she could become. Tess’s fear is written all over her face, but she manages to succeed at saving Joel and Ellie as well as saving herself from becoming one of them.
It’s not as bleak as her end in the game and that’s for the better. Tess’s story is so short and so tragic that she deserves this one final moment of spite and victory. She still does not allow herself to be consumed by the virus but does so in a way that symbolically fights back against the infection itself. She will not see herself becoming a zombie, and torches a building with herself in it if it means protecting the one person she cares about and the one glimpse of hope she’s seen in years.
Tess’s final stand is not significantly different from what it was in The Last of Us: Part 1. Some could even claim that changing it is pointless since she ends up dead either way. But that ignores what this change means for Tess’s characterization. We all know there's no changing her fate but allowing Tess a confrontation with the thing consuming her, a decisive victory that helps Joel and Ellie rather than a short-lived shootout with some nameless soldiers gives her a sort of karma. There’s nothing wrong with bleak, but Tess has never been one to go gentle into that good night, so if her fate’s the same either way, why not allow her this victory? The FEDRA soldiers aren’t relevant for a while after Boston anyway, so this change serves not only to let Tess get the sendoff she deserves but to remind Joel and Ellie what they’re doing all of this for.
New episodes of The Last of Us premiere every Sunday on HBO and HBO Max.