Steven Spielberg Loved One Episode Of The Last Of Us In Particular

If you’re making movies or TV shows, there’s a good chance yours favorite directors–creators that you look up to and whose work you watch. It’s a big deal when someone like that notices your work. That’s how the team behind The Last of Us felt when they got a letter from Steven Spielberg himself complimenting their work on the show, particularly on the famously emotional third episode, “Long, Long Time,” according to the episode’s director, Peter Hoar, in a roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter.

“I didn’t get it directly, but [an actual Spielberg letter] came to Craig Mazin, the writer of my episode on The Last of Us — the writer of all the episodes,” Hoar said. “He shared it with myself, [co-stars] Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett and [cinematographer] Eben Bolter. Basically, a whole group of middle-aged men started squealing because their idol had realized who they were. I think he probably knew who everyone else was, but he didn’t know who I was. And now he’s probably forgotten.”

Despite the tone of that last line, it doesn’t seem like people will be forgetting that episode anytime soon. Succession director Mark Mylod and Dahmer director Peter Barclay both responded to Hoar’s admission. Mylod called the episode “the most extraordinary tonal switch in a series” he’d seen in his life, while Barclay called it “one of the most moving things I’ve seen in my life” and “a moment in history for television.”

The episode Hoar directed received massive response when it first aired, with both praise and backlash eliciting responses from actors from both the show and the game. Check out Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s breakdown of the episode as well as our review of the series. HBO ordered The Last of Us Season 2 back in January, though the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike has halted casting on that season, so there’s no premiere date for the next chapter in Joel and Ellie’s story.