Joel wasn’t bit by a “zombie” - he was wounded with a baseball bat/shiv. Joel’s wound had nothing to do with the Infected. If you didn’t know that then you’re not really paying attention to the show since that was the climax of episode 6.

In the game you don’t have the scenes of David and his group when Ellie isn’t around, so you don’t find out about the cannibalism until Ellie finds out, when she’s in the cage. Even if you’ve never played the game, watching these pre-cage scenes it’s pretty clear what’s going on with the “meat”.

In the game David and some members of his group are all-in on eating people.  When Joel is searching for Ellie he stumbles up on a walk-in freezer with human bodies hanging from the ceiling (like we saw in the episode).  He finds a note that lists all of the “meat” David’s group has found within the past few…

I loved this episode (as much as one can “love” an episode with a cannibalistic pedophile as the antagonist) but I feel the game did it better.

“The Mayo Clinic advises injecting penicillin into ‘muscles, usually in the upper buttock or hip area’—but ain’t nobody got time for that!”

“Surprised the cold open wasn’t Riley’s fate, then cutting to Ellie shaking off the horrible memory. Will we ever see it? Do we need to?”

“he reassures her the meal is deer meat. Riiiiight.”

In the game Ellie also kills David without any help from Joel.

Good fungus and bad fungus.

There’s nothing in the game about David’s group “developing a preference for people”. David tells Ellie that they do it to survive, as there is not enough food or wildlife for his group to survive on.

“The show introduced the idea that David is preacher with a flock of women and children he’s, ostensibly, providing for. There’s none of that in the game. It’s all men”

One rabbit and one deer wouldn’t sustain David’s group for very long.  There is wildlife in the woods but not a lot, and not enough to feed their entire group continuously.

Wow, you convinced me with your well thought out comment!

When Ellie saw the machete that David had dropped in the restaurant I was yelling “PRESS TRIANGLE!”

“There is no community of men, women and children, despite what he says to Ellie.”

David says that he sent his men to a nearby town.  So they likely go to nearby towns to hunt for human meat.

I think most of the men went to hunt for Joel. The only ones left at camp were David, James, and the women and children.

The game did it better in that it got you to trust David more at the start. When he’s first introduced you immediately distrust him, because it feels like the game is trying to replace Joel with David. Then the Infected attack and you have to work with David to defeat them - you save each other multiple times here. So…

“I wish she would have asked David why the violent thugs jumped them.” At this point (in the show but especially in the game) Ellie and Joel have met a lot of men that attack them at first sight. They know that in this world, men don’t need a reason to attack other people.