‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Just Introduced a New, Even More Terrifying Breed of Infected
Season 2 of The Last of Us may have just begun, but it’s already spelling trouble for Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her friends further on. In “Future Days,” she goes on a patrol with Dina (Isabela Merced) and ends up stranded inside a locked supermarket. At first, she thinks she’s alone, until some strange, guttural sounds start coming from the back. What she finds isn’t good: it’s none other than a stalker (Becky Ferguson). No, not a creepy guy with an unhealthy fixation on her, but actually a new kind of infected that gives her a lot of trouble until she is finally able to shoot it. They are making their debut in the series, but stalkers come straight from the games, where they are equally annoying and tough to beat.
Stalkers Are Faster and More Intelligent Than the Average Infected
Ellie has killed countless infected in her life so far, but the stalker at the market challenges her in a new way. As she tells the Jackson Council later, “it took cover, planned, waited,” and lured her in until it had an opening to attack her. That’s because stalkers aren’t like the other kinds of infected, but are actually faster and smarter, and can quietly hide from their prey, something that runners or clickers just can’t do. Simply put, stalkers can hunt.
In the supermarket scene, Ellie and Dina are already defying their patrol leader’s orders, and things get worse when the floor falls under Ellie’s feet, taking her straight to the first floor inside the market. All this noise is more than enough to attract the attention of most kinds of infected, but while runners, clickers, and whatnot will attack her immediately, the stalker hides instead, which is why she tells Dina that she thinks there’s no one there with her. As Ellie wanders the corridors of the market, we can see the stalker quietly crawling in parallel a few meters away. Then, it makes a guttural sound to lure her in and, finally, attacks. Its strategy works, as it’s even able to bite Ellie.
What’s even more troubling than that single stalker inside the market is that, apparently, there was a whole group of them outside, too, and they tried to kill a bear. The one in the market was probably the sole survivor of that fight (it even has scratch marks on its face), seeking refuge inside the abandoned building and biding its time until an opportunity to eat presented itself, a modus operandi that also comes straight from the games. Ellie is strong and able, but she was reckless in entering that market with Dina; if she weren’t immune, that stalker would have killed her, and if it were Dina in her place, she would’ve died.
‘The Last of Us – Part II’ Is Infested With Stalkers
The series does a good job with its depiction of stalkers, because, in the games, they are every bit as annoying. They appear in the first game only twice when Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie are traversing Pittsburgh: first, in a hotel basement, and then later on in the sewers. Ellie’s first confrontation with them happens in the Left Behind DLC, though. After Joel is wounded on the university campus in Colorado, she tracks a fallen military helicopter to a mall, where she finds a medical kit. Sure enough, she isn’t alone there, either, and is attacked by a band of stalkers as she tries to activate a generator in a water-filled hall. Because of this, people associated them with water, until The Last of Us – Part II changed this perception.
Throughout the second game, the player finds stalkers in many locations, but Seattle is particularly infested with them. They can be found in abandoned buildings, subway tunnels, woods… Pretty much every poorly lit location can hide a couple of stalkers. Because they are quick to hide, using Listen Mode to try and identify them isn’t very effective, which makes beating them even more difficult. They jump on the player out of nowhere, and, if you’re not quick to defeat them, it’s easy to get swarmed by them, as they usually hunt in packs. Another thing about them that Part II introduces is that stalkers may get attached to walls. The fungus growing them eventually calcifies, giving the impression that they have died, and some even do, but this is usually a trap, since players usually approach them to investigate, only to end up being attacked.
Stalkers Are the Second Stage of the Cordyceps Infection
The stalker that attacks Ellie in “Future Days” has a particularly unsettling appearance, with fungi growing through its skull and even nose, but that’s in league with how they are usually depicted in the games, too, as if the cordyceps infection hasn’t completely overcome the host’s body. Because of this, stalkers are generally said to be the second stage of the infection, between runners and clickers. Runners still have their body’s senses and motor functions still pretty much available. After a few weeks, they become stalkers, with the fungi spreading around their skulls, but retaining speed and senses.
It’s almost as if stalkers became accustomed to hunting after being infected for so long, leading them to develop survivalist and strategic instincts, which would be why they are able to hunt and organize in groups. As the infection spreads, however, their eyes are covered; in the games, stalkers are usually depicted as having only one eye, with the other one being lost to the fungus. With both eyes gone, they turn into clickers, relying on sound for navigation and hunting. They also lose the ability to hunt in groups, and are effectively “lost” to the infection. So stalkers may be the deadliest of the infected, but they tend not to last more than a year, too. Still, you wouldn’t want to come across one of them.
Season 2 of The Last of Us is streaming on Max. New episodes are released weekly on Sundays.
