HBO’s The Last of Us is a bonafide hit right out of the gate and is praised for its acting, music, and action, and was HBO’s second most-watched debut since 2010–the first being 2022’s House of the Dragon. There are side-by-side comparisons of how the show was filmed and the footage from the game and it’s mostly spot-on.

Something that showrunner Craig Mazin wanted to include though was a cold opening that would act as foreshadowing of the events of the world to come and how fungi like cordyceps actually work in the real world. In the show, we see a talk show segment explaining the possibility of a worldwide pandemic and how a scientist, played by John Hannah (The Mummy), isn’t worried about bacteria, but actual fungi. The audience and the host laugh it off, but he goes into how cordyceps don’t kill but control their inhabitants. It’s an unlikely scenario since they only work in a host at a certain temp, but then there’s a moment of curious shock when the doctor proposes what if the world were to become slightly warmer.