You know, it’s almost like travelling to an unfamiliar city that’s operating under circumstances you don’t understand to get revenge on an enemy you know next-to-nothing about isn’t the best idea. Dina’s meticulous planning for the journey was rock-solid, but Seattle is turning out to be a different beast altogether.
Then again, all’s well that ends well, and for Ellie, things on The Last of Us end pretty darn well this week (in Cordyceps-adjusted terms, anyway).
But first, let’s jump back to 2018, where a FEDRA soldier played by Josh Peck — or for all we know, actual Josh Peck, making the best of it when the acting roles dried up after the infected took over Studio City — relays a knee-slapping story about assaulting some “voters” while on patrol.
A wide-eyed new recruit asks why citizens are called that, and the sergeant in charge interjects to explain that it’s a mocking term after FEDRA took away their voting rights. And if his forbidding tone wasn’t enough to kill the joking mood inside the transport, the school bus blocking the road in front of them finishes the job.
The sarge (Jeffrey Wright) grabs the newbie (Ben Ahlers), Burton, and hops out to approach the grim, silent citizens filling the street.
“You Isaac?” the woman in charge (Alanna Ubach) asks, and the sarge replies, “Hanrahan?”
Identities confirmed, Isaac turns and tosses grenades into the troop transport, sealing the doors, and shooting the driver when he tries to escape. Hanrahan welcomes him to the fight, and Isaac turns to Burton and tells the kid to make his choice. Preeeeetty sure Isaac just made it for him.
Eleven years later, Dina (Isabela Merced) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) spend day 1 in Seattle searching a picked-over pharmacy. They call out their finds from different parts of the store: no pain meds, but Dina finds a box of Monistat 7 and Ellie finds — hork! — a gallon of milk. Then Dina spots something that halts her in her tracks, and she tells Ellie she needs a second to pee.
We don’t see what she’s holding, but both the audience and Ellie notice that she’s a little off when she emerges to mount Shimmer.
As they make their way through the green, foliage-choked streets of Seattle, they’re surprised to see no evidence of the rumored bombings of the city, and Ellie comments that the FEDRA corpses scattered around look like they died fighting one another.
When they come across an overgrown, long-abandoned tank, Ellie scales it to check inside. Nooo, Ellie! That went so badly for Rick! The hatch falls open with a bang that has Dina on high alert, but not a living (or semi-living) soul emerges.
Good thing, too. Ellie’s risky movie yields nothing more than three burned skeletons inside, although it does give her a chance to name-check the astronauts who died on the launchpad in Apollo 1. (Game-Ellie is light on specifics about this spacefaring tragedy, so kudos to show-Ellie’s education and/or extracurricular reading in pursuit of her love of space.)
When Dina’s handy binoculars reveal a building on a hill with WLF sprayed on one of the rooftop satellite dishes, she convinces Ellie to wait until nightfall rather than charging in on horseback in broad daylight.
They hole up in a music shop to pass the time, and Ellie wanders the store, undoubtedly thinking about how much Joel would’ve enjoyed flipping through the dusty vinyl albums with her.
While Dina delightedly tries out a drum set, Ellie heads upstairs and finds a case holding a beautifully preserved guitar. With a lush wall of greenery as a backdrop, she starts to play a-ha’s “Take On Me.” As Ellie sings the lyrics, Dina drifts upstairs, her face lit up like she’s gazing at the sun. A shy smile slides across Ellie’s face when their eyes meet.
Isabela Merced in ‘The Last of Us’. Liane Hentscher/HBO
As the last delicate notes fade away in this mossy, magical place, Dina swipes at her tears and tells her that Joel taught her well. “He did,” Ellie softly agrees. (Fingers crossed that part of Joel’s guitar lessons involved trying to explain to Ellie how wildly original the “Take on Me” music video was back in the day.)
Dina breaks the wistful moment by asking Ellie if she’s hungry and goes to fetch their road jerky. Say what you will about Seattle, but at least Shimmer has copious food, both indoors and out.
Okay, let’s check in on present-day Isaac, who stands in front of a gas range, waxing poetic about finally getting to use the Mauviel saucepan of his dreams. “The strange benefits of the apocalypse,” he says almost to himself. But the show’s quick to disabuse us of any fine-dining notions when he mentions the utility of copper cookware in interrogations, and the camera pans across to room to a naked, bloody man chained to the wall.
It’s one of the members of the religious cult from the forest, and when Isaac asks where the Scars are attacking next, the young man hisses a correction: “Seraphites.”
In response, Isaac sets the flaming-hot pan on the back of the Seraphite’s hand. In the hallway, an unseen WLF guard barks at his squeamish companion (Vince Song) to ignore their captor’s screams while Isaac works.
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During the interrogation, we learn that the Wolves and the Scars have been locked in a war with atrocities on both sides. WLF children have been killed, but so have Seraphite children. The Seraphites broke their truce, but so did the WLF.
The Seraphite clutches the hideous burn on his hand and calls for the Prophet, then tells Isaac that the Wolves are going to lose. Isaac is unconvinced. “We have automatic weapons and hospitals, and you lunatics have bolt-action rifles, bows and arrows, and superstition. So tell me, how are we going to lose?” Listen, I’m far from a student of history, but lesser-equipped underdogs prevailing in battle isn’t the wildest thing to ever happen.
The suffering Seraphite tells Isaac that it’s a matter of numbers. Every day, Wolves defect to join the Prophet’s cause, but no Seraphites are quitting to slap a WLF patch on their chests.
This enrages Isaac, but when the Seraphite holds out his trembling, uninjured hand to receive the next burn, Isaac realizes that he can’t torture information out of him and ends the man’s life with a bullet.
Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac Dixon on ‘The Last of Us’ season 2, episode 4. Liane Hentscher/HBO
“Good,” the formerly unseen guard spits out. “Scar got what he deserved.” It’s Burton, hard-eyed and unflinching. He most definitely picked a side.
It’s night now, and Ellie and Dina lurk outside the WLF stronghold, ascertaining that not long ago somebody got inside by jumping from a shed to a downspout to a second-story window, where they cut themselves on broken glass on the way in. You and I hear “nightmarish parkour challenge that a rational person would never attempt,” but Ellie and Dina hear “yay, convenient entrance!”
Before they head in, Dina asks what happens if they encounter Wolves who weren’t in Jackson, and Ellie’s level look is answer enough. “Agreed,” Dina says after a beat.
Interesting that Abbie’s crew made her swear that only Joel would get hurt on their Jackson mission, while Ellie’s traveling companion is on board with her quest for vengeance at any cost.
Once inside, they creep through a dark hallway and stumble across a newly dead WLF soldier, his chest full of arrows. Gee, which group was very recently accused of relying on antiquated weapons? Also, is one of the WLF’s technological legs-up over the Seraphites an embroidery machine? Because that dead Wolf is sporting a nice patch on his uniform.
But this lack of technology clearly hasn’t hindered the Seraphites’ ability to kill; when Ellie and Dina move further into the building, they find five Wolves hanging from the ceiling, their hands tied with barbed wire and their intestines spilling from their bodies.
Dina turns to puke — relatable! — and Ellie spots the sigil from the bodies in the woods painted on the wall in blood along with the words, “FEEL HER LOVE.” Not the recruitment message I would send, and Dina sums it up nicely: “What the f— is wrong with Seattle?”
Isabela Merced as Dina in ‘The Last of Us’ season 2, episode 4. Liane Hentscher/HBO
She grabs a walkie-talkie from one of the bodies just as a team of Wolves bursts in. They definitely are not feeling the Prophet’s love, and their leader barks at them to ignore Isaac’s orders to keep any Seraphites they capture alive for questioning.
So the good news is, Ellie and Dina don’t have facial scars, which should clear them of the murders. The bad news is, the Wolves don’t seem to be in an “ask questions first” state of mind.
Sure enough, Ellie is caught as they try to escape, and she and Dina have to kill the two Wolves who’ve cornered them so they can leap out a window to freedom. This alerts the rest of the team, who follow them into the transit tunnels, which are reportedly clear of infected.
So the bad news is, the transit tunnels are definitely not clear of infected. The good news is, the Wolves are almost immediately overtaken by a horde that was alerted to human presence when one of the soldiers dropped a flare onto a mess of tendrils.
Dina silently counts on her fingers as one by one, creatures begin clicking and screaming their way toward fresh prey, but she runs out of digits way too quickly. And then she’s just plain running when she and Ellie become their next targets.
Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced in ‘The Last of Us’. Liane Hentscher/HBO
The women drop into the nearest train car, which turns out to be full of skeletons. (Talk about a bad commute.) As horrifying as this is, it’s still preferable to the ravenous bodies clamoring to get in from outside. And they do get in, of course, forcing the pair to shoot and run as they navigate the tight space.
Thankfully, Dina spots a ceiling hatch, and without stopping to discuss it, Ellie boosts her up, continuing to fire into the mass of bodies until Dina can pull her to safety.
On the run again, they scale a gate, then force their way through a rusted turnstile. Ellie makes it to the other side, but Dina gets trapped mid-turn, and as one of the infected closes in, Ellie thrusts her arm through the bars, taking the bite that was meant for Dina.
Ellie hustles Dina into the nearest building, but her efforts to secure the formerly posh music venue is interrupted by a shaky Dina holding a gun on her.
Yep, it didn’t occur to Ellie that the oozing bite on her arm would need to be addressed ASAP — let’s blame adrenaline — and she now lifts her hands slowly in the air and says, “I would die for you. I would. But that is not what just happened.”
Dina (Isabela Merced) fights for survival in the Seattle subway on ‘The Last of Us’. Liane Hentscher/HBO
Dina is skeptical (understatement!), but when Ellie begs her not to shoot, she reluctantly agrees to watch from a distance as Ellie curls up in a nearby chair, promising that she’ll wake up as herself.
Wait, so Ellie gets to sleep the sleep of the innocent while Dina has to stay awake for hours, clutching her gun and waiting in terror and anguish for her favorite person in the world to turn into a monster? That’s an extremely lopsided bargain.
Ellie does eventually wake up to rainwater dripping on her face and a flashlight shining in her face. But when it’s clear that Ellie’s still Ellie, Dina — who’s likely just spent her worst night ever, and that’s saying something in this new world — inches forward, shakily opens her mouth, and blurts out, “I’m pregnant.”
She drops the lantern and lunges forward to kiss Ellie, and the women sink to the floor to finally finish what they started on New Year’s Eve. Let’s hear it for life-affirming, we-faced-down-death-and-somehow-survived sex!
After a night being sleepless in Seattle, Ellie and Dina wake up entwined. (Dina’s the little spoon.) They take care of their morning breath with some beef jerky, then kiss and cuddle back up to talk. Dina realizes that Ellie’s chemical burn and tattoo cover where she was bitten before, and Ellie jokes, “I wanted to wear long sleeves again.”
Ellie then asks why this all happened now, which is fair; Dina’s been hot and cold and evasive as heck about their relationship. But thinking that she’d never have the future she imagined of the two of them raising a kid spurred her to act, and she apologizes for taking so long when she knew how Ellie felt about her.
“How?” Ellie asks incredulously. “I was hiding it really well!” Oh, baby girl.
Then we get a little Dina backstory. As a kid, she knew she liked both boys and girls, but her mother refused to hear it. And even after her death, Dina tried and tried to make it work with Jesse. But then — Ellie.
There’s more kissing after that, and in a tale as old as time, we learn that Dina took not one, not two, not three, but four different pregnancy tests. (Ellie’s unaware and a little grossed out that peeing on the stick is how you do that.) “So we’re having a baby,” Ellie says in wonder. “I’m gonna be a dad.”
Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Isabela Merced as Dina on ‘The Last of Us’ season 2, episode 4. Courtesy of HBO
Explosions outside and a burst of chatter on the stolen WLF walkie pull them back to reality, and they perk up when they hear the name Nora, assuming she’ll lead them to Abbie.
The news that the wounded Wolves are being sent to Lakehill has them racing to the roof so Dina can grip the map and do some finger-based astrolabe navigation.
Once she’s identified the building in question, Ellie suggests that she stay behind because it’s different now. Dina agrees that things are different and takes Ellie’s hand, saying, “Together.”
Spores for Thought
- Indeed, things are different now. Seattle’s much more occupied (and much more terrifying) than anyone realized. Dina’s pregnant, and she and Ellie have the chance to build a happy life together. Is it cowardly to suggest that together, the two of them saunter on back to Jackson and let Seattle sort itself out?
- In terms of adaptive changes, the immunity reveal is far more dramatic than the game version, and the pregnancy reveal is far more loving and supportive. With apologies to game purists, both scenes pack more of an emotional wallop in the show’s version. Oh, and let’s also say a quick thanks for 90 percent fewer scavenging scenes, too.
- We’re accustomed to Ramsey turning in stellar performance after stellar performance, but what a delight to watch Merced knock it out of the park with every new episode. Dina experienced the full range of human emotions this week, and Merced delivered each one with deft nuance that never quite dimmed Dina’s usual joie de vivre.
- Kudos also to Kate Herron (Loki, Sex Education), the latest in this season’s powerhouse lineup of directors to deliver genuinely terrifying action sequences bookended by humor, tension, and big emotions.
- Speaking of emotions, I hope you’ve all adjusted to the new credit sequence, which now ends on one lone figure when there used to be two.
- Okay, let’s end on a bright note this week: The exchange of the episode happens as Ellie and Dina trot through Seattle’s LGBTQ-friendly Capitol Hill neighborhood. “What’s up with all the rainbows?” “I dunno. Maybe they were all optimists.”
