The Last of Us episode 5’s sniper scene and Joel’s takedown of the shooter get analyzed for their accuracy by a real special ops sniper.

The Last of Us episode 5’s sniper scene gets assessed for accuracy by a real sniper expert. Based on the video game of the same name, the HBO series follows the hardened survivor Joel (Pedro Pascal) as he is tasked with escorting the immune teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic United States. After leaving Kansas City in episode 5, they are targeted by a sniper in an upper-story window. Joel sneaks up and kills him, but not before he is able to radio Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), who arrives with her militia as Joel defends Ellie from the sniper perch.

In a new video from Insider, the former special-operations sniper Nicholas Irving assessed The Last of Us episode 5’s sniper scene for its accuracy. All in all, Irving doesn’t take too many issues with the scene, other than pointing out how the characters could have acted more effectively. In the end, Irving rated the sniper scene a 6/10 for its realism. Read his full commentary or watch the portion of the video below, starting at the 9:00 minute mark:

To stay still when you’re pinned down by a sniper, it’s almost a death wish. It’s just a matter of time before he’s going to figure something out to make those bullets impact. Running zigzag patterns, getting out as fast as you can is probably your best bet.

To prevent an enemy coming in to do what just happened here, sneak up behind you, in sniper school they teach you no more than two or three shots – your sniper hide is burnt. You would want to move ideally to a new location. Once you have a good sniper hide set up, the odds of you like getting out after that second shot, third shot, it’s slim, but there are countermeasures to deter people from entering that sniper hide like, for us, we might put up a claymore or some booby traps or something like that behind us and even a guy with the machine gun is usually watching our back.

That actually wasn’t too bad, and it’s at nighttime with no night vision, so I’ll give him that. We hit targets at nighttime, but the distances are extremely close. We had a sniper scope that was mounted with a PVS 14, I believe, which is a night vision attachment that goes on the front of your scope. Bolt guns, bolt rifles, they jam all the time, especially in dusty conditions. That bolt gun when you pull it back, it’s exposed to the elements, and it’s such a slower process as opposed to a semi-automatic where the bolt is coming back extremely fast, so it’s more prone to collect dust and things of that nature that would cause it to jam up.

Man, this is getting tough. I don’t know. I’d give it a six because realistically shooting at nighttime like that I can see you missing that much.

How Realistic Is The Last of Us?

For an action-adventure video game, The Last of Us is actually quite grounded, with several aspects of the game designed to create a sense of authenticity and immersion. As a faithful adaptation, HBO’s Last of Us was immediately imbued with those same qualities. The show even makes several strides to be more realistic than its source material. For instance, in the HBO show, Joel is a war veteran who fought in Operation Desert Storm, which helps explain how he was able to sneak up on the sniper and use his bolt-action rifle so effectively, even at night.

However, as indicated by Irving’s average rating, the action scenes in HBO’s Last of Us, of which there are actually few, aren’t the most realistic part of the show. The show made several changes to the Cordyceps brain infection from the game that makes it realistic in live-action, mainly basing it on a real-life fungal infection that affects ants. HBO’s Last of Us also begins with a harrowing cold opening of a scientist explaining the dangers of fungi, which sets an unsettlingly authentic tone for the entire series.