Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season one finale, “Look for the Light.”
While the references to The Last of Us Part II were laid on the most heavily back in episode six (titled “Kin”) of HBO’s The Last of Us, there was one particular easter egg nestled in the depths of the season one finale “Look for the Light” that fans of the game will almost definitely have missed, without insider knowledge.
When Joel reaches the operating theater at the peak of his rampage through the Firefly hospital, he murders the surgeon, as expected. What you almost definitely didn’t catch, is that original Abby actress Laura Bailey was hiding in plain sight as one of the nurses in the room, conveniently hidden behind her surgical mask, revealed Neil Druckmann on this week’s HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast.
Druckmann’s co-showrunner Craig Mazin went on to detail how Bailey ended up getting involved in the show in her sneaky cameo capacity:
“This is how cool Laura is, I’m like, ‘Look – we’re down to the final days of our production, it’d be so awesome to get you in there. Here’s what I got – What I got is a nurse, but the nurse is wearing a surgical mask.’ She’s like, ‘That’s even better – I’ll just be, like, the secret cameo that no one knows about, and now everyone does.’ So Laura flies to Calgarie and hangs out with us, and puts the mask on…”
Druckmann then goes on to spice up the cameo even more, by revealing that Bailey actually played one of the nurses in the operating room in the original video game, as well as a news reporter at the start of the game. Mind-blowing!
Of course, what went on in that operating room (and in the corridors preceding it) was definitely something that is mind-blowing in a very different manner, one which gets us questioning morality and humanity in general, we broke down the thought process beneath Joel’s murderous rampage.
You can now stream all nine episodes of The Last of Us season one on HBO Max.