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This article contains spoilers for the The Last of Us season two. Please do not read unless you have seen episodes one to four.
It’s natural to think of Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as the most direct character in The Last of Us. Her immunity to the infection that has everyone else on edge combined with the inherent rebelliousness of a 19-year-old means she is rarely the most tactful of speakers. But sometimes it is Ellie’s incorrigible crush Dina (Isabela Merced) who gets straight to the point. As the pair gaze up at the grisly sight of bodies strung up with their intestines ripped out, Dina makes a very salient observation: “What the fuck is wrong with Seattle?”
It’s certainly not been a very relaxing city break. At the end of last week’s instalment, Ellie and Dina (and Shimmer the horse) were moseying into Seattle expecting minimal resistance as they continued to hunt down Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her Washington Liberation Front (WLF) cohort. By the end of episode four, the pair have gatecrashed an escalating conflict between the WLF and the mysterious Seraphim cult, triggered a horde of infected in a claustrophobic rail tunnel and – perhaps scariest of all – spilled their guts to each other. At least there was time out for a Radio 1 Live Lounge-style acoustic cover. But it all starts with a flashback.
Enter Isaac
We begin in the Seattle Quarantine Zone in 2018, trapped in the back of an armoured truck crammed with Fedra soldiers in riot gear. One is telling a long-winded anecdote packed with off-colour jokes about a community policing incident that ended in brutal violence (from season one, we know that Fedra spearheaded the official response to the outbreak but soon became a self-serving authoritarian force). The squad’s imposingly bearded sergeant Isaac Dixon (Jeffrey Wright) does not seem to see the funny side.
When the Fedra vehicle is surrounded by unarmed locals, Isaac opts to go to talk to them alone, only taking a single raw recruit for backup. But this seems to be a prearranged meeting with a woman named Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach). Isaac is clearly looking to switch allegiances, and he underlines his point by tossing a couple of grenades into the back of the truck, killing his entire troop except for the panicked rookie. “Now make your choice,” Isaac growls at him.
Cut back to the present-day – 11 years later – and after a fruitless search for supplies in a pharmacy, Ellie and Dina are clopping through Seattle’s Capitol Hill district, trying to intuit what all the faded rainbow flags symbolise. When they spot WLF graffiti on top of a TV station, Ellie’s first instinct is to charge in all guns blazing. But the more strategic Dina suggests waiting until dark, and the pair (and Shimmer) hole up in a dusty record store. It’s there that Ellie discovers a relatively pristine acoustic guitar and starts playing a-ha’s Take on Me, a heartfelt rendition that moves Dina to tears. “All those lessons from Joel,” muses Ellie. He may have prioritised teaching her survival skills, but passing on a love of music is a sweeter way to remember him.
Kitchen confidential
We cut to Isaac, still bearded but somehow looking even more burdened than in the opening flashback, as he potters at a gas stove. He rhapsodises about the high-quality Mauviel copper pans he has accrued (“The strange benefits of the apocalypse”) but this is not a cooking demonstration. Isaac has a naked, maimed man shackled to the wall and is in the process of interrogating him with a skin-searingly hot pan. We learn the name of the shaven-headed, whistling cult we first saw in episode three: the Seraphims, nicknamed “Scars” by the WLF. The two factions have been at war since the fracturing of a previous truce and while Isaac’s side has the technological upper hand, it sounds as if the Scars are winning the psychological battle, attracting disillusioned WLF soldiers to their cause. Despite being horribly tortured, the Seraphim does not give up any intel. Isaac concludes the interrogation with a single gunshot. It’s not the most sympathetic of portrayals, although it does paint Isaac as a weary pragmatist rather than a sadist.
Night moves
Under cover of darkness, Ellie and Dina infiltrate the TV station and discover that the WLF troops there have been killed, their mutilated bodies on deliberate display in the main studio. While Dina is throwing up, Ellie follows a blood trail and discovers the Seraphims have signed their work with an all-caps exhortation to “feel her love”, presumably a reference to their late prophet. Dina scoops up a WLF radio but it’s not long before a backup squad of soldiers arrives.
Outnumbered and outgunned, our heroes attempt to slip away but end up engaging (we get to see Ellie do some of the martial-arts moves she was honing in episode one). The only viable escape route is into a gloomy transit tunnel that looks like territory claimed by the infected. What follows is another headlong action sequence, atmospherically lit by the WLF’s fizzling red emergency flares. As an agitated horde bashes at the windows of a tilted train carriage, Ellie and Dina hustle through the interior, clambering up through an emergency hatch in the nick of time. But a rusty exit turnstile looks like it will be Dina’s downfall as a rabid clicker catches up to her. To Dina’s horror, Ellie jams her arm through the turnstile and takes the bite instead.
No more secrets
They have escaped the WLF and the infected but at what cost? As they shelter in a nearby theatre, Dina keeps her gun fixed on Ellie, expecting her to turn at any moment. That’s when Ellie reveals her immunity, explaining that she has been bitten before and has been fine. Dina is understandably sceptical but after a few tense hours have passed and Ellie still seems to be Ellie, she shares a secret of her own: “I’m pregnant.” Perhaps because of these heightened emotions – or their recent near-death experiences – Ellie and Dina finally make a non-drunken physical connection, making out passionately on the floor.
The next morning the young couple open up about everything over some breakfast beef jerky. Ellie shows Dina the previous bite on her arm, subsequently disguised by a burn scar and then a tattoo. Dina tips out the multiple pregnancy tests she lifted from the pharmacy at the opening of the episode: every one has a positive result. Her stoic ex Jesse (Young Mazino) is the father but as Ellie puts it, only half jokingly: “I’m gonna be a dad.”
During this intimate conversation, their original mission to get payback for Joel’s murder feels a million miles away. But that’s when the WLF radio crackles into life, and they hear mention of Nora, one of Abby’s allies, being directed to a hospital in the middle of a war zone. Ellie snaps back into revenge mode. It feels like a pivotal moment, especially when Dina takes Ellie’s hand and says they’ll do it together. Season two is only seven episodes long so we have just passed the halfway stage. But is it also going to be the point of no return?
Notes and observations
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The soldier telling the long-winded story in the opening flashback was played by Josh Peck, familiar to US audiences as one of the teen stars of 00s Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh. He also popped up in Oppenheimer in 2023.
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Take on Me previously featured in a notable flashback episode of season one. That was where we learned the fate of Ellie’s first love so the song may hold a special meaning for her.
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Debuting The Last of Us director Kate Herron has previous experience of abrupt time jumps: she directed the entire first season of Loki.
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If the hacked-open WLF bodies hanging from the roof seemed horribly realistic, it’s probably because they were actual stuntmen in harnesses rather than dummies. That’s just one intriguing revelation in this behind-the-scenes featurette.
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A shoutout to Ryan Masson, the young actor who played the naked prisoner tortured by Isaac. He made a huge impact in a single scene; his bloodied but unbowed devotion made the Seraphim cult seem genuinely terrifying.
What did you think? What are your hopes for the rest of season two? Will Shimmer the horse be OK in that record shop? Have your say below, but please avoid spoilers from the game …
