New The Last of Us gifs make a mockery of one of the series' most pivotal moments

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"Here's Joel!"

The Last of Us Joel in The Shining
(Image credit: Naughty Dog)

In honor of The Last of Us Day, Naughty Dog has released a series of new GIFS, and one of them is very unexpected. 

If you didn't know, Naughty Dog has a bit of a reputation for releasing GIFs that mix The Last of Us with iconic memes and movie scenes. We've got several great ones this time around (you can see them all here) but one of them takes an extremely important moment in the first game and turns it into a scene from The Shining. 

If you haven't played through the entire first The Last of Us game, you may want to skip the next couple of paragraphs to avoid spoilers as we attempt to explain this one. 

Still with us? Okay, so if you've played The Last of Us, you'll already know what happens to Jerry the surgeon who is attempting to operate on Ellie towards the end of the first game. So what did Naughty Dog do? It decided to take this moment and put it in the context of The Shinning's "Here's Johnny!" scene meaning Joel is Jack Torrance and Jerry Anderson is Wendy Torrance. 

This is, of course, hilarious if you know the context but also a little heartbreaking if you've played The Last of Us 2 and know all about Jerry's life before this very moment.  Either way, it's a great GIF and you can see it for yourself below.  

The Last of Us Joel and Jerry GIF

(Image credit: Naughty Dog)

In other news, to also celebrate The Last of Us Day - a day where the game's community comes together to celebrate all things The Last of Us - we finally got the first trailer for the upcoming The Last of Us TV show which is set to release sometime in 2023. Thankfully, from the look of this trailer, it seems like the show is shaping up to be a faithful adaptation with Pedro Pascal taking on the role of Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. 

Have you recently picked up The Last of Us Part 1? Take a look at our The Last of Us Part 1 guide for help surviving in the apocalypse. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.