The Last of Us Ep.2 ReCap: The Jakarta Jumble
We are two for two on flashbacks to start an episode. I, for one, am here for all of it. This The Last Of Us timeline is two days before the outbreak in Episode one. The cold open from the pilot predicted what would happen if Cordyceps got into humans- this flashback shows us the theory in action for the first time. In the first episode, we hear about the trouble in the capital of Indonesia(Jakarta, you uncultured swine). Now the show goes there to show how that unrest looks.
Ibu Ratna, translated to mother Ratna, is enjoying a lovely beef on a stick. She's not eating bread which is good for her short-term health; more on that later. Some military guy with a nametag that reads Agus Hidayat reveals that she is a Professor of mycology. I looked up Agus Hidayat for clues but came up empty. You may have heard of Mycoprotein which is used to make Quorn. My pescatarian-ass wife is a big fan of this meatless protein alternative. Ibu Ratna is brought to a secret lab to look at some Ophiocordyceps, the hottest google search on the internet right now.
Alright, a hazmat suit Mycologist and a naked Ophiocordyceps cadaver walk into an exam room.
Ratna is shaken up seeing the slide but seeing it in action freaks her out. The body has a bite mark on the ankle, which tells us she isn't patient zero. The corpse looks like she's got gooey packing peanuts inside her leg when she cuts it open. I could have sworn the mushroom lady was gonna bite down on her finger when she pulled the mushroom tendrils from her mouth.
Well, that was unsettling—time for some therapy and tea. The victim was an employee at a flower and grain factory and lost her shit, biting and chasing people. The military dude lets her know 14 workers are missing, which makes Ibu Ratna's tea shake in her hand.
This cold open ends much like the first one, with the intelligent person in the room realizing we are, in fact, fucked. There is no vaccine, no medicine, and as she says, the only thing to do is bomb it all. It doesn't seem like they did that, given where we are 20 years later, but perhaps we will find that out in a future flashback.
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