The Last of Us Episode 1 shows the horrifying aftermath of Cordyceps and a dead, infected man pinned to a wall, which begs the question what happened to him. In this episode, Joel and Tess plan to pay a visit to Robert, the man who sold the Fireflies a car battery that was originally meant to be sold to them. After Tess is attacked by Robert's men, Joel and his partner go looking for Robert to get the battery back and punish him for tricking them.
To do this, Joel and Tess must reach a building that has been marked with a red flag, meaning it's off limits to citizens of the Boston quarantine zone. However, thanks to Tess and Joel's work as smugglers, they know a way to get to the building through the former subway tunnel and get inside from underground. While doing so, Joel and Tess encounter a man seriously affected by the Cordyceps virus from The Last of Us, although not in the zombified form that was presented in the heartbreaking opening sequence of the first episode.
Cordyceps in The Last of Us does not always spawn infected monsters
The dead man under Robert's building demonstrates how Cordyceps can infect people in other ways. Although the most common way is to invade the brain of a person and lose all their higher brain functions, turning them into zombified people who only do what they spread the infection, the first episode The Last of Us demonstrates the deadly side of Cordyceps to the wearer. Sometimes the Cordyceps virus can kill the host it infects instead of parasitizing it. When this happens, the host dies while the fungus continues to grow.
This is shown in the first episode. The Last of Us with a dead man against the wall. Instead of creating an infected host or one of the clickers The Last of Ushinted at in the trailer, the host was killed and fungus began to grow up the wall around it. This process usually results in the former person's body becoming skeletal and fragile. This particular Cordyceps virus process usually takes place underground, as the body and its surrounding growth will die if exposed to sunlight.
Dead man from The Last of Us Episode 1 Creates Another Threat
Apart from the obvious threat of infected creatures such as runners and clickers, this dead man in the first episode The Last of Us heralds another kind of threat posed by the Cordyceps virus. If left for a long time, these growths around dead hosts can form tendrils. The tendrils are confirmed to replace the spores from the original game, which transmitted the virus through the air to anyone who inhaled them. However, the HBO tendrils will provide the infected with a beehive-mind aspect missing from the games, which will surely spell trouble in the first season. The Last of Us from HBO.
New episodes The Last of Us air every Sunday on HBO.
Recommended: The All-Seeing Eye Ending Explained: The Truth Was Always There
