Last Of Us Episode 7 Features The Video Game's Fan-Favorite Twilight Jab

When you think of classic works of literature, you probably stick to the basics — Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, and what have you. Your mind probably doesn't go to Stephenie Meyer, unless you're a very specific kind of person. In any case, the "Twilight" novels can legally be called "books" when it comes down to it, but they've been derided plenty during their time in the pop culture spotlight... including in a wildly popular video game and subsequent HBO adaptation.

In "Left Behind," the seventh episode of "The Last of Us,"  which chronicles the doomed relationship between Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her first love Riley (Storm Reid), the two wander an abandoned mall before Infected monsters attack them, leading to a horribly tragic ending. Before all of that horror, though, the two pass a bunch of posters for a fictional franchise that seems to bear a striking resemblance to a real-world supernatural teenage romance series. Here's the little "Twilight" jab that "The Last of Us" fans probably loved in Episode 7.

Throughout Episode 7 as well as in the pilot (which prominently featured a teenage girl's bedroom), "The Last of Us" has included a bunch of subtle yet pointed nods to a fictional series set within this apocalyptic world called "Dawn of the Wolf." Particularly in "Left Behind," there's multiple references to "Dawn of the Wolf Part II," a franchise that would have taken off in a world where "Twilight" never got the chance to exist.

In case you spent the late aughts in an isolation chamber or with your arm trapped under a rock like James Franco did that one time, "Twilight" is one of the biggest franchises in literary and film history... and also one of the most dunked-upon franchises in both of those histories. Since the world in "The Last of Us" shut down in 2003, the first "Twilight" book (which came out in 2005) and movie (which came out in 2008) never existed, so Neil Druckmann and the Naughty Dog crew threw in a sly jab directed at the vampire teen romance.

"Twilight" gets its fair share of criticism, and years after it came out, it's still receiving dunks. "Left Behind" is available to stream on HBO Max now.