Why did the zombie kiss Tess in The Last of Us episode 2? Warning spoilers ahead. The Last of Us is set in a dangerous world full of deadly zombie-like monsters who are driven purely by the desire to spread their infection further.
Yet in The Last of Us, episode 2, while Tess (Anna Torv) was buying time for Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to escape a large group of the infected, one of the runners did something extraordinary.
Rather than charging Tess or attacking her on sight, like it would any other The Last of Us character, the creature walked up to her, opened its mouth, and appeared to give Tess a big old tentacle-ly kiss. So what was going on? Why did the zombie kiss Tess?
Why did the zombie kiss Tess?
The infected runner wasn’t actually kissing Tess. Instead, it was allowing the mutated Cordyceps fungus to spread from itself into Tess.
The horror series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann told EW that the infected don’t get violent unless they’re prevented from spreading their disease.
“These things don’t have to get violent unless you’re fighting them from spreading [the infection] further,” Druckmann said. “That is realized in this beautiful yet horrific way with Anna.”
As Tess wasn’t running or trying to fight off the infected, the zombie saw no reason to attack her and instead passed on its infection without getting violent.
If you’re enjoying The Last of US Tv series and want to know more about this world, we’ve got guides to The Fireflies, FEDRA, Clickers, as well as Bill and Frank.