One of the coolest things about HBO’s The Last of Us series is that they have not only taken the story from the game and adapted it to a series, but they are adding more information previously unknown to players. The first episode, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” explored how the fungus starts, but in episode 2, Infected, we learn how and where the infection started. Here is what you need to know.
Warning: spoilers for The Last of Us show ahead
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Where and how did the virus start in HBO’s The Last of Us series?
As revealed at the beginning of The Last of Us show’s second episode, “Infected,” the infection that has taken over the world started in Jakarta, Indonesia, at a flour and grain factory. While we do not know who the first person to be infected was or what happened to them, we know that they began attacking and biting their coworkers. While the bite is the most recognizable way for the infection to spread, we would gather that the initial fungus that began branching out to humans started in the food. That first infected worker either ate contaminated food or breathed in a spore that caused them to turn.
While the Indonesian government had brought in a Professor of Mycology to look at the fungus growing inside one of the infected workers, they did not know that the food they were shipping worldwide would lead to the downfall of humankind. While she recommends bombing Jakarta and getting rid of every trace of infection, she doesn’t know it is already out there.
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In the first episode of The Last of Us, “When You’re Lost in the Dark,” Joel and his daughter Sarah avoid becoming infected with potentially tainted bread foods immediately before things go south. At breakfast, there is no pancake mix for Sarah to make. That night, Joel doesn’t buy a cake for his birthday. That being said, as Joel is getting Sarah into the truck to go to school, we see the neighbors pushing biscuits into their elderly mother’s mouth. It just so happens that later in the day, this woman is the first person in the show we see become infected.
With all of this evidence, we can point to the infection starting in the grain factory and infecting who knows how many people before these infected people began spreading the infection in new ways, like biting people and spreading the fungus.
