'The Last of Us': Fans reveal REAL REASON behind fungal zombie outbreak in popular HBO Max show

The real reason for the outbreak in 'The Last of Us', as per a fan, is a household ingredient
Pedro Pascal plays Joell Miller in HBO's 'The Last of Us' (IMDb)
Pedro Pascal plays Joell Miller in HBO's 'The Last of Us' (IMDb)

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: 'The Last of Us' weaved an ever thrilling and exciting story and now its HBO adaptation is expanding its post-apocalyptic scene. The eye of the episode 1 was a 30-minute standalone scene that shows Joel and his young daughter, Sarah, on the day a massive fungal zombie outbreak began in Jakarta and fastly spread around the world. But the real question is that how the cataclysm came to be?

In the game, the outbreak started with infected crops in South America, but a curious kelly on Reddit took out their microscope and hunted down a speculation by reading between the lines and giving us a different answer. The Reddit user has have given the audience a very shocking conclusion as how the outbreak started. The real reason for the outbreak as per the user is a household ingredient, flour. To understand the conclusion, you might have to examine the prologue a little in depth.

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Episode 1 begins with a scene in the morning where Sarah greeted Joel with a breakfast of eggs because they were out of pancake mix. Then, panning out of the scene, their neighbor offered them some fresh biscuits. Joel declined politely, saying he’s on the no-carb Atkins diet, as the diet restricts carbs while focusing on protein and fats).

That's two strikes that brings the Redditor's theory to fruition. Later in the scene when Sarah came back from getting Joel's watch fixed, she hung out with Adlers and helped them bake cookies but didn't seem too interested in eating any, because they had raisins. On the other hand, Joel forgot to bring a birthday cake after a hard day at work.

Sarah greets Joel with a breakfast of eggs because they were out of pancake mix. (Inverse)
Sarah greeted Joel with a breakfast of eggs because they were out of pancake mix (Inverse)

The real question is that if the outbreak didn't start with flour at all then why all the characters in the first episode are carefully choosing not to indulge in anything related to flour? The script is so carefully brought together making the lead characters avoid the ingredient all together. There are many evidences that point toward this speculation.

According to Inverse, in a post-episode podcast, co-creators, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, brought up the biscuits then swiftly told the host Troy Baker that “careful viewers of this episode will be rewarded repeatedly because little bits of breadcrumbs have been planted that will pay off later in interesting ways.” The coincidence is just too strong with this statement, but 'breadcrumbs' seems like a sly way the creators have approved of all the speculations. 

If it still doesn't sit well with you, then here's a shocker! We all know about the fact that the outbreak starts in Jakarta and in the first episode you can see Sarah reminding Tommy and Joel that it's the capital of Indonesia- and the country is home to 'Bungasari Flour Mills' - which happens to be biggest flour mill in the world. Now, factually it might be the easiest way for the contaminated sample to be shipped all over the world. 

You can check out 'The Last of Us' episodes available exclusively on HBO Max and Disney+ Hotstar.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.

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