theresa "tess" servopoulos

"Tess eventually gets the lighter to work and drops it on the gasoline below, but not before the infected forcibly kisses her. The cordyceps fungus is already taking away her entire personhood, and the show takes that a step further by sexualizing an already horrific scene and replacing whatever agency she had with another form of violence. The argument can be made that the infected has no actual intention, but the imagery it invokes and that the audience has to witness is unmistakable. Whatever lore concept the show is trying to illustrate, it didn’t have to do it in a way this heinous. In HBO’s The Last of Us, Tess doesn’t go out on her own terms, she goes out in one of the most baffling, dehumanizing creative choices the adaptation has made thus far.

The world of The Last of Us is a brutal one, and no one is really free from that in any of its extended media, but Tess was a character who at least got to confidently stand for something in her final moments in the game. But in HBO’s portrayal of her, Tess lacks one of the main things she held onto most closely: her dignity. There are more changes to come as the series continues, and not all of them are bad, but whatever comes next, it’s going to take a lot to wash the taste of Tess’ story out of my mouth."

- Kenneth Shepard, "HBO's The Last of Us Does Tess Dirty"