The Last of Us soundtrack doesn’t just have interesting incidental music, it includes a compilation of songs from the 1980s as well. The pilot ended with Depeche Mode‘s Never Let Me Down and reaching almost half of the season brought an acoustic version of True Faith, one of the classics of the band New Order.

True Faith has some controversy in its composition. Part of the 1987 album Substance includes a disagreement between the musicians over its meaning. Substance – which is essence or substance – is also a reference to drugs in English and True Faith is a song in the first person about a chemical dependency and his relationship with drugs. In the case of The Last of Us, there are several clear quotes about the relationship between Joel and Ellie.

the value of destiny comes to nothing
I can’t tell you where we’re going
I guess there was just no way of knowing

In the fourth episode, the connection between the two characters begins to become clearer, but Ellie keeps more secrets than Joel. She saves him from an attack and is eventually forced to confess that she has killed before, without saying who or when. Joel lets her carry on armed, but she doesn’t reveal that she already had a pistol.

The PlayStation game was a mega hit because it’s always felt like a TV series and the screen transfer has been good because it’s stayed true to the source material. In a more intimate episode, Ellie is breaking down Joel’s emotional wall, but both are in constant danger. They are surprised by brothers Sam and Henry, who are being hunted but we still don’t know why. If in the game Ellie learns to play the guitar from Joel and inherits his taste in music, we’re not there yet on TV. And we’ll still have A-ha‘s Take on Me, as we saw in the trailer. The calm they are finding in hiding will be fleeting. Did you expect something different?