If the finale doesn’t contain a certain scene containing some specific wildlife, then what was the point of making this show?

If you played the game you may have noticed that Ellie very much does NOT stab Riley there either.

“I guess you make certain levels of allowances for the narrative”

Everyone seems to have missed the point of this episode. The only reason this episode exists is because it’s the origin story of the joke book.

You would think that the unedited episode would have been just what OSN wanted: teenage girls try lesbianism, are immediately attacked by Infected, one of them is killed. The lesson they want to tell their viewers: “choose to be gay and karma will immediately kill you”.

Well, removing that one kiss turned this episode from a lesbian romance to a heterosexual friendship. Because there are no other moments in the episode that indicate that Ellie likes-likes Riley instead of just liking her.

I LOL’d at Riley telling Ellie to “just mash the buttons” when playing the arcade game, considering that’s how a lot of people play TLOU game.

The “Dawn of the Wolf Part 2" poster is in the game. It can be seen at multiple locations as you explore various cities.  It was a new film when the apocalypse hit, and is a reference to the Twilight films.

“Their horse chills in the living room”

“only to have it torn away by a clicker and the specter of death.”
“and finally come to rest on a clicker (Ian Rozylo) splayed on the floor.”

I’ve jokingly said that one of the biggest plot holes in the game is that after you leave Bill’s Town and Ellie gives Joel a cassette tape to play, Joel puts it into the truck’s cassette player. I can accept a fungal apocalypse and mushroom zombies, but a 2013 truck with a cassette player? Come on!

Riley only had 1 night to spend with Ellie and seeing a movie would have eaten up 1.5-2 hours of that time. Better to do a bunch of things that only took ~30 minutes each.

That wasn’t a Clicker.  It could see.

The show has said “Infected” many times to describe the infected.  Most of the infected we have seen on the show have not been Clickers.  They are the most “famous” infected, since they have the most unique look and abilities.

Druckmann has said he wanted to use Mortal Kombat in the original game but they couldn’t afford it, so they created the fake The Turning game.  But with HBO money they could afford the rights to MK here.

“Seemed to me that statement confirmed that Ellie killed Riley when she turned. That poor kid has been through the wringer.”

As already mentioned, in the main game you go from Joel being stabbed to a time jump of a few months and then Ellie is seemingly on her own. For awhile you don’t know what happened to Joel as Ellie doesn’t tell you.

This was not a game spoiler - it was referencing that for those that played the DLC they already knew that Riley was going to get bit and that Ellie would have had to stab her when she turned.

I loved her taking a few extra seconds to check her hair in the window before going to catch up with Riley.

As others have pointed out, this was not a Clicker. If it has fungus completely covering its head (and is therefore blind) then it’s a Clicker. This Infected had some fungus but not covering its head and could still see. It was a Stalker.