The first episode of HBO’s adaptation spends a lot of time worldbuilding and setting things in motion for Joel and Ellie’s journey.

—“I’m taking a ride with my best friend.”

The first episode of HBO’s The Last of Us is finally here, and not unlike the early hours of the game it’s based on, this section largely serves as table-setting and prelude for the true heart of the story: Joel and Ellie’s long journey together. However, this is television, and there are some minor yet meaningful deviations from the game that shed light on how the people leading this adaptation the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin approached the task of adapting the story to a new medium.

Let’s talk about fungus

The episode begins in a slightly different place, opening with a scene set at the taping of a talk show in 1968 in which a smug interviewer talks to two scientists. One suggests we should begin worrying about a global pandemic accelerated by international travel patterns that have made distance and borders irrelevant. (Sounds familiar.) The other warns of a different sort of plague, one in which humans might become prey to brain-controlling fungi that could turn the population into “billions of puppets with poisoned minds permanently fixed on one unifying goal: to spread the infection to every human alive by any means necessary.”

Meeting Joel and Sarah

The day begins well enough for Sarah, an Austin, Texas, teen. It’s her father Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) birthday, and she has plans for the two of them, starting with a nice breakfast. (Well, nice enough. There’s an issue with some shell bits in the egg.) It’s clearly not the first time Sarah has fended for herself or played parent to her single dad. And when he tells her that he and his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) will need to work a double shift to keep the construction project on schedule, she’s disappointed but not surprised.

Sarah’s a good kid. She takes the time to have her father’s watch repaired for his birthday, knowing he’d never do it himself. True, she uses his money, but that’s not that big of a deal. It’s a nice gesture, though she does start to grow a little worried when one of the shop owners whisks her out because they have to close early for unexplained reasons. (Could the sirens she’s been hearing all day have something to do with it?) And she’s helpful with the Adlers, the family next door with the nice dog and a senile, wheelchair-bound mother (named “Nana” in the credits) who never talks. Sarah doesn’t even roll her eyes when Mrs. Adler tells her, “People out there need to get right with Jesus.”

An outbreak of tragedy

Joel and Sarah get enough time together that night for her to give him the gift of the watch—here a repaired keepsake as opposed to the brand-new watch it is in the game—and, as in the game, Sarah jokes that she got the money for it from “Drugs. I sell hardcore drugs.” Soon, though, Joel has to go bail Tommy out of jail and Sarah wakes up alone in the middle of the night to heightened unrest: helicopters, the neighbor’s dog losing it, general pandemonium.

Now we get our first glimpse of the real threat: the docile, elderly woman next door, who earlier in the day we saw convulse frighteningly, has strange fungal strands protruding from her mouth and is on a mindless, bloody rampage.

Soon, the three find themselves trapped by stationary vehicles and crowds of panicking people, and while in the game their truck is sideswiped by another vehicle, the show ramps up the explosiveness of the moment by having a jumbo jet plummet nearby, hurtling wreckage that flips the truck and leaves Sarah injured. Carrying her in his arms, Joel darts through an empty diner while pursued by a very fast-moving infected, further helping to establish the terrifying dangers of the new world our characters suddenly find themselves in. A soldier shoots the infected and saves them, but, of course, infected aren’t the only threat here. Institutions are, too. After a distressing order from his commanding officer, the soldier opens fire.

FEDRA’s got Boston on lock

After 20 years, the first person we follow after the jump isn’t Joel or anyone else known to us, but a young child, ragged and stumbling. The poor boy looks out on a decimated Boston and collapses in sight of a FEDRA quarantine zone. He’s wheeled into a makeshift hospital where signs on the wall give viewers some important contextual information about how the infection works, that we can file away in the back of our minds for the moments when it becomes relevant: an infecting wound on the leg or foot will result in full-blown infection in 12-24 hours; one in the torso or arm area 2-8 hours, and one on the head a mere 5-15 minutes. It’s a smart way to convey important details to viewers organically, without the need for clunky expository dialogue.

Before Tess is introduced, we see shoelaces being traded for ration cards and people painting over Firefly graffiti (though in the show, we don’t yet know what the Fireflies are), while Joel walks past a public execution to secretly meet up with a FEDRA officer in a small expansion of the game’s narrative. They have an arrangement: the officer gives Joel ration cards, Joel gives the officer pills. The officer warns him that the Fireflies—apparently some kind of insurgent organization—are causing trouble at night and he’d be safer staying off the streets.

Meeting Ellie at last

And now, just over 45 minutes in, at last we meet Ellie (Bella Ramsey), in a situation that marks another significant tonal departure from the game. In the game, when we first see Ellie, she and Firefly leader Marlene (Merle Dandridge) have something of a bond, with Ellie showing concern for the injured Marlene and professing that she’d rather stay with her than go on the cross-country journey without her. Here, Ellie’s a prisoner. Marlene and the Fireflies have her chained up in an empty house, and when a Firefly asks Ellie to count slowly from one to ten to make sure her mind is still functioning properly and not ravaged by infection, she ends her count with a middle finger and a “Fuck you.” Teens, amirite?