“What the fuck is wrong with Seattle?”
The Last Of Us is a show about how people survive the apocalypse, but it’s also a show about how places survive it. Season one started in the Boston QZ, where FEDRA kept the citizens safe but heavily restricted. Kansas City, meanwhile, saw a populist rebellion overthrow FEDRA only to turn coldly mercenary themselves. Ellie and Joel’s cross-country journey led them to horrifying places, like the cannibal religious cult in a Colorado resort town. But there were oases of hope too: Bill and Frank’s gated homestead, Florence and Marlon’s isolated cabin, those giraffes in Salt Lake City, and, of course, Jackson—the absolute best-case scenario for what apocalypse living can look like.
Now this season is adding a new location into the mix: Seattle, which seems less like a space our heroes are just passing through and more like a major setting for the rest of the season. In many ways, Seattle echoes the worst of what Ellie and Joel experienced on their road trip—a violent, warring space where two factions of zealots are locked in a never-ending war of retribution. Yet it’s also the backdrop for some of the most beautifully romantic scenes of the season, as Ellie and Dina finally admit their feelings for one another. Sometimes hell and heaven are the same place.
After last week’s gentle, transitional hour, this episode is a veritable rollercoaster of introductions, action, and reveals. But before I dive into the geo-politics of it all, let me get a more personal observation out of the way first: After three episodes of skepticism, I’ve now done a complete 180 on Dina and couldn’t love her more! I know a lot of folks got there much quicker with the character, but she was introduced as such a shiny, idealized Cool Girl that it was hard for me to see her as a three-dimensional person, particularly one who could exist within this apocalyptic setting. I needed to see more of her flaws and vulnerabilities to truly connect with her, and this episode totally delivers on that front.
The scene that really won me over is the one where Ellie and Dina hole up in an old music store. They’ve ransacked a pharmacy for supplies and made a plan to sneak into a W.L.F. base later that night. Now all that’s left to do is wait, so Ellie picks up a guitar and starts singing an acoustic version of a-ha’s 1984 hit “Take On Me.” Dina is so moved and awed by her friend’s unexpected talent that all she can do is sit and cry.
It’s a scene that pointedly calls to mind the breakthrough moment for season-one lovers Bill and Frank, who first connected on a deeper level when Bill performed Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time” on the piano. In both cases, music becomes a way for a character defined by defensive toughness to show a softer side of themselves, winning over a more extroverted companion in the process. Bella Ramsey’s rendition is genuinely lovely and Isabela Merced’s reaction is filled with such palpable affection and admiration that it kind of took my breath away.
Of course, we also know that 1980s songs are what Bill, Frank, Joel, and Tess used as a signal for “trouble.” So it’s a little bit ominous that Ellie chooses to sing a song from that decade. While this episode circles back around to sexy, moving romanticism in the end, it’s a long, tense road to get there. And that actually starts with a cold open that zooms back to 2018 to introduce us to future W.L.F. leader Isaac (Jeffrey Wright, who also played this role in the video game). Back then, Seattle was an official Quarantine Zone where cocky FEDRA officers (including a well-deployed Josh Peck) harassed civilians and laughed about it later. And Isaac was a FEDRA sergeant so disillusioned with the group that he not only defected, but murdered his whole platoon to prove his loyalty to W.L.F. leader Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach).
It’s shocking to watch Isaac throw a grenade into a truckful of FEDRA officers and coldly slam the door on them. But the most unsettling detail is the way he selects one random soldier to survive the attack—making a disciple out of him in the process. In the present, we’ll see Isaac torture someone for their religious beliefs, but it’s clear from this cold open he’s got a god complex of his own.
Indeed, I found the FEDRA betrayal to be a more successful villain scene than the later kitchen-torture sequence. Though Wright is a captivating actor (“strange benefits of the apocalypse…”) and the actual shot revealing the naked, chained prisoner is effectively shocking, a scene where a bad guy monologues about kitchenware and then uses it to torture someone feels like the sort of thing I’ve seen in dozens of movies and TV shows before. The Last Of Us tends to be at its best when it’s finding new riffs on familiar apocalypse tropes.
In this case, the torture scene exists to (sort of) help us understand the dynamics at play in Seattle. It turns out the wandering nomads we saw last week are part of a religious group called Seraphites, or what Isaac dismissively calls “Scars.” (Ironic, given how offended he was about FEDRA belittling civilians by calling them “voters.”) Last week’s group was a less extreme subsect who views “The Prophet” as an impactful spiritual leader who died 10 years ago. Isaac’s prisoner, however, is a true believer who sees The Prophet as an eternal god and will accept any level of torture to protect her cause. In either case, the Seraphites and “Wolves” are locked in an ongoing war in which one violation begets another. (“You train them to shoot at us.” / “Because your Wolves kill them.” / “Because you train them to shoot at us.” / “Because you broke the truce.” / “Because you broke the truce.”)
There’s a lot to unpack there, not least of all because game creator/co-showrunner Neil Druckmann was born in Israel and raised on a settlement in the West Bank, which feels like a likely metaphorical influence on this storyline. But I’ll save that for if/when the Seraphites and Wolves take center stage this season. For now, the groups are best understood as a heightened parallel for Ellie and Abby’s intersecting revenge quests: If violence is a cycle, where does it end?
The war is also there to throw more complications into the mix as Ellie and Dina try to complete their mission. The Last Of Us’ desire to be a Serious Show About Trauma And Humanity sometimes sits a bit awkwardly alongside its desire to be a Fun Action-Thriller About Zombies. And while the Isaac scenes try to embrace the former tone, Ellie and Dina’s attempt to infiltrate the W.L.F. base leans towards the latter.
Still naively empowered by the sense that they can do anything, Ellie and Dina stumble upon so much more than they bargained for when they discover a group of Wolves strung up and disemboweled inside the base—handiwork of the Seraphites. And then the Wolves reinforcements get more than they bargained for when their attempt to track down their intruders accidentally unleashes a zombie horde, which sends Ellie and Dina scrambling through a broken subway train to escape.
This is a harrowing ordeal all around—so much so that Ellie and Dina murdering two Wolves happens so fast there’s barely time to process it. It’s also the most video game-y the show has felt this season, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. Yet the terrifying subway escape sequence is ultimately there to get us to a cathartic, romantic endpoint. While pushing through a rusted turnstile, Ellie sticks out her arm to let an infected bite her instead of Dina. And though she does the WORST JOB IMAGINABLE explaining the fact that she’s immune, she finally convinces Dina to let her sleep through the night and prove she won’t turn into a Mushroom Zombie.
It’s another chance for a wonderful bit of vulnerability from Merced. Dina is simultaneously grateful, angry, and distraught about Ellie taking the bite for her. So when she discovers that Ellie actually is immune, all she can think to do is confess that she’s pregnant with Jesse’s baby and kiss her. After all the stress, adrenaline, and repressed longing between them, the two collapse onto the floor of an abandoned movie theater lobby to finally make their emotional connection physical. It’s such an unexpectedly sweet, sexy, tender direction for the episode to take, one that elevates Ramsey and Merced’s already strong chemistry. Though Seattle is a much more dangerous place than Jackson, there’s also an intimacy and freedom to this life-or-death mission that allows the two women to connect in a way they couldn’t under the prying eyes of smalltown life. Their “morning after” scene is filled with such joy and affection, as Dina opens up about her repressed bisexuality and teases Ellie over how unsubtle her crush was. Ellie, meanwhile, gets the line of the episode as she smiles, “Holy shit, I’m gonna be a dad.”
Ramsey, who was already doing a fantastic job evolving Ellie as a character this season, takes things to a whole new level here. Stepping into the role of romantic lead really unlocks something new in their performance, which I’m excited to see unfold over the rest of the season. Yet there’s also something about this joyful romantic breakthrough that feels so at odds with Ellie and Dina’s violent revenge mission—a cognitive dissonance I’m assuming is intentional on the part of writer Craig Mazin.
It’s easy to imagine a version of this story in which Ellie and Dina are far more broken and rage-filled, a more overt parallel to the way Kaitlyn Dever played Abby. But it feels like Ellie and Dina are burying whatever heavier emotions they’re dealing with in favor of leaning into an almost delusional sense of romantic adventure instead. Despite discovering how insanely outmatched they are in Seattle, they continue on with their mission anyway—using a radio call that mentions the name “Nora” to locate the next W.L.F. base they want to infiltrate: a tall white building called Lakehill.
That they clasp hands and promise to finish the mission “together” is sweet on the surface, but also reckless and stupid in so many ways too. While they’ve only seen a glimpse of the horrors of the W.LF.-vs.-Seraphite conflict bubbling around them, this episode helps us understand just how in over their heads they actually are. Seattle is the place that brought Ellie and Dina together. Now it remains to be seen if they can make it out alive.
Stray observations
- • I had some real HBO whiplash when I realized that Isaac’s loyal disciple also plays the footman who invented an alarm clock on The Gilded Age. Now that’s range!
- • Ellie and Dina’s afternoon in Seattle is rather ominously labeled “Day One.” It’s not a format the show has used before, so we’ll have to wait and see what it means.
- • This episode is directed by Loki season-one head director Kate Herron, and I thought she did some really strong work here. She nails big moments like the torture reveal, the subway chase, and the sex scene, but I also just generally love the performances she gets from her actors. Little choices like Ellie resting her hand on Dina’s knee in the morning make the dynamics feel so lived-in and natural.
- • Without any reference point for LGBTQ+ Pride, Ellie and Dina assume the rainbows in Seattle must just mean they were all optimists.
- • On the other hand, Ellie has an impressive knowledge of NASA history—citing Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee as the three astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire. It’s a continuation of her love of space from season one, where she named “Sally fuckin’ Ride” as her favorite astronaut.
- • Between the tampons and Diva Cups last season and the Monistat and pregnancy tests this season, The Last Of Us has a welcome commitment to depicting the gynecological logistics of the apocalypse!
- • “You peed on it?” / “That’s how it works, I don’t just randomly piss on stuff.” / “Oh, okay. That’s good.”
- • Look, do I realistically think this season about violent revenge is going to end with Ellie, Dina, and Jesse happily co-parenting a baby? No. But it’s nice to dream!
