This article contains spoilers for the premiere of “The Last of Us” season 2.
“The Last of Us” has an interesting approach when it comes to video game adaptations. For the most part, the show plays like a shot-for-shot remake of the video game of the same name directed by Cruce Straley and Neil Druckmann and developed by studio Naughty Dog. Except the series does something unexpected every so often, from dedicating an episode to telling the backstory of a minor character whose nuance most gamers miss, or wholly original prologues that show how the Cordyceps fungal infection started abroad.
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When it comes to meta references to the games, “The Last of Us” finds a good balance between winks at the audience and just loving tributes to the people who helped make the game. Take the casting of Ashley Johnson as Ellie’s mom, a beautiful cameo that works on many levels because of Johnson’s portrayal of Ellie in the video games — while Joel’s original actor, Troy Baker, got cast as the right-hand man of a cannibal killer. Metatextually, Ellie’s original actor giving birth to Ellie is a phenomenal choice, and if you haven’t played the games, the show doesn’t really call attention to the casting choice at all.
In the season 2 premiere, the homages continue with a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo that even gamers might not notice but is another metatextual homage to the people who made “The Last of Us” such a special video game series. No, it isn’t Neil Druckmann or Laura Bailey, but rather the man responsible for the phenomenal sound of the two games and also the TV adaptation — composer Gustavo Santaolalla.
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Who is Gustavo Santaolalla?
Gustavo Santaolalla was already a music legend in his own right before he became a part of “The Last of Us.” The Argentinian musician was part of the early wave of Spanish rock in Argentina as part of the band Arco Iris in the late ’60s. Then, in the ’80s, Santaolalla became integral in the rise of “rock en español” by working as a producer for some of the biggest artists in the Spanish rock genre like Café Tacvba, Los Prisioneros, Molotov, Juanes, and many others. As a composer, Santaolalla composed fantastic scores for “Amores perros,” “The Motorcycle Diaries,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Book of Life” in addition to “The Last of Us.”
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Santaolalla is responsible for giving “The Last of Us” its emotionally impactful and distinct guitar-heavy sound, so it makes sense he’d show up in the season 2 premiere playing a guitar.
In the premiere, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) go to a New Year’s Eve party in Jackson, the community Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) helped found. We see a band playing at the party and a familiar-looking man with long gray hair shredding the classic guitar. It’s Gustavo Santaolalla himself as the guitarist, paying homage to his own role in the making of the “Last of Us” games.