The Last Of Us's HBO adaptation is now two episodes old. Episode two has sparked all sorts of new discussions, but you probably didn't expect one of those discussions to revolve around the cameo of a piano-playing frog.
Okay, to call the amphibian a piano player might be a stretch. The frog is shown hopping between keys as Joel, Ellie, and Tess wade through a waterlogged hotel lobby. The musical frog has inspired a fair few memes since its debut, prompting Neil Druckmann to give fans a little background on the animal.
Turns out its brief appearance as a Last Of Us cast member was initially supposed to be far more harrowing. Druckmann revealed the frog was supposed to be tinkling the ivories with a bird, and in turn, that bird was supposed to eat the frog. As if having to see a zombie's tendrils creep into Tess's mouth via the worst on-screen kiss of all time wasn't bad enough, viewers were also supposed to see a frog get maimed moments earlier.
It wasn't Druckmann thinking a live-action frog death would be a little much for The Last Of Us viewers to stomach, but the bird's inability to do its job which allowed its lunch to survive. “Piano frog wouldn’t be a thing… if piano bird did its job! I guess everything happens for a reason,” Druckmann tweeted, adding that the frog you can see in the photo, which the bird was supposed to eat, is a fake one.
Since the frog wasn't killed on-screen, we viewers can blissfully assume it is still alive, and that any frog we see in the show from here on in is the same one that played a little tune in episode two. Lucky for the frog, its species doesn't eat flour-based food. It was confirmed in episode two that contaminated flour caused the outbreak in the show and led to the virus spreading so fast.