The Last Of Us' premiere's dog hailed as MVP of episode one

Spoiler warning: this article contains spoilers for the first episode of The Last of Us. If you’ve not seen it yet… what are you waiting for?

I don’t know about you, but I’m still processing everything that happened in episode one of The Last of Us. Despite the fact that I’d already played the game and knew how everything was going to pan out, seeing it all unfold on screen still had me on the edge of my seat.

Any fears we might have had about the series becoming one of many awful video game adaptations have certainly been quelled now - the first episode took an already incredible opening sequence and somehow improved it even more. What’s more, showrunner Craig Mazin has hinted that the show is only going to get better, so strap yourself in for that.

Take a look at what’s coming up next in The Last of Us series below.

Over on Reddit though, fans are praising one of the first episode’s new characters, Mercy the dog. This good boy wasn’t included in the original game, but his brief role in the show genuinely did so much to add to the first episode’s events.

“Just a shout out to this good boy’s performance. Not even joking. This scene added so much tension,” wrote MissTeeny27, referring to the part where Mercy is seen looking uneasily at the old woman next door to Joel and Sarah, clearly noticing that something is wrong with her.

“I really loved the addition of these scenes. When you're not playing as Sarah, you need to find a different way to create tension for the audience, and they did this really well by having a dog communicate fear without Sarah noticing or understanding why,” added ArtOfFailure. “The dog not wanting to go into the house and just noping out of there created so much tension. They really did a great job of making people that played the game feel it. Obviously we had a pretty good idea of what we were going to get, but it was fresh enough to still be dramatic,” replied themightiestduck.

Sadly, we never saw Mercy again after he ran away during the start of the outbreak, but I’m personally choosing to believe that he lived a happy life out in the wild during the time-skip years. It’s what he deserves.