Entertainothe Last of Us: What happens in the fourth episode of Season 2? Ellie and Dina arrive in Seattle, but find several obstacles before they can go to Abby – and even more problems than they expected to work

This text contains spoilers about the fourth episode of the 2nd season of The Last of Usnow available in Max.

The story of the fourth episode of Season 2 of The Last of Us It starts in Seattle, United States, in 2018 – a somewhat distant past for us, but right in the middle of the world ruined by Cordyceps for the characters in the series – while we know Isaaca soldier who has just given up on the post in the Federal disaster response agency (Pallus).

He takes his fascist colleagues to an ambush, kills them all except one, and joins a resistance leader called Hanrahan* To form what will become known as Washington Liberation Fronta WLF – Group also called Wolves to which Abby and your friends belong.

*Isaac and Hanrahan are interpreted, respectively, by Jeffrey Wright and Alanna Ubach. This is now the fourth production of HBO with Wright in at least one recurring role. Ubachin turn, it has been in two other series, but has never played a fixed role before.

Due to the change of time and focus, it is easy to ask for a moment if the episode will be a new version of “For a long time, a long time”the episode of the first season awarded the Emmy about the post-apocalyptic love story of Bill and Frank.

But Isaac There is only another great scene after the opening credits, a very cliché situation of a villain (or at least one antagonist) uttering an autobiographical monologue while preparing to torture someone. In this case, the victim is a captured member of the Serafitesthe religious sect presented in the episode last week, which is not shaken by torture, convinced that his cause is just and that his side is intended to win because members of the WLF often become Serafitesbut never the opposite.

In addition, our focus is totally in Ellie and Dinapassing what is indicated as its first day in the hometown of Frasier Crane. As well as in the brief view of Serafites last week and in the previous scenes involving Abby, Tommy and others, it is part of this season to expand its point of view beyond Ellie (And before you die, Joel) is up to.

So far, success has been mixed. There are excellent actors involved in these changes in focus, such as Wright or Kaitlyn Dutybut these scenes are so brief and intermittent that all these new characters (or those previously smaller as Tommy) seem much more fragile and less essential to this point than Ellie – and now Dina.

Not coincidentally, this episode – the midpoint of season 2, but not the story that will have a third lead of chapters – is stronger when it emphasizes Ellie and the person who succeeded Joel as your travel companion and the most important relationship of your life.

After the pair managed to reach Seattle without incident from Jackson, the city quickly proves to be dangerous. They find a group of Wolves that were massacred and mutilated by Serafites so they are persecuted by others Wolves

Even a subway tunnel that ends up full of infected. The ingenuity of Ellie and his understanding that it can be bitten without transforming badly removes them alive, and forces it to tell the Dina

the truth about your immunity. Although the scale of this scene is not as large as the siege of Jackson, it is still larger than much of the actions of season 1, with dozens of infected by attacking our heroes in an agile and relentless way. And as, in this case, the potential victims are the two protagonists of the series (one old, one younger), the feeling is much more intense than when it was just a bunch of glorified extras in danger in Jackson – even though our rational brains can tell us that the series will not kill another main character anytime soon after what happened to what happenedJoel

. If the production had remained only with the point of view of Ellie For now, perhaps the vision of all those bodies would have been even more horrifying and scary, as we would know as little about their origins as Ellieand Dina. On the other hand, it was quite dark with context and made it a little easier to understand the attacks of

Wolves . Between the prolonged sequence of persecution, the initial flashback and Isaactorture the Serafite it seems that The Last of Us He is trying to compensate for the relative calm of his previous episode. Still, the show remains in its most powerful form when it focuses on relationships rather than a simulated flow; There are some exceptional scenes here between Ellieand

Dina . When the pair finds a quiet part of the city to hide, they are confused by the LGBT+ flags and signals in the neighborhood. Ellie It was always queer, and Dina He reveals later that he always knew he was bisexual, but he repressed that part of herself because her mother convinced her. But while both know certain things about the world before cordyceps – we remember that

Ellie It is a spatial nerd; Here she compares the burnt skeletons they find in an abandoned tank to the condemned crew of Apollo 1 – there are many familiar ideas of our lives that are absolutely foreign to them. If Dinahad grown in a place with rainbow flags and parades, perhaps she could have contested her mother or would not have felt so determined to stay with Jesse ; She likes him, but doesn’t love it. But while she is sitting at the record store listening Ellietouch “Take on me” classic Synth-Pop of the band’s 80s a-ha she looks so in love with Ellie

As for the character was for Dina During the debut of the season. “Take on me” He has always been a favorite of musical supervisors and writers of a certain age. It was used memorably earlier this year in the final episode of the series Adolescence from the Netflixand already has some story in

HBO for your appearance in the last season of The Leftovers . And once Dina accept that EllieIt really is immune to Cordyceps, all her feelings overflow with news that should change everything:DinaIt’s pregnant. She is pregnant and is in love with

Ellie ; They start talking about the idea of ​​creating this baby together. ( Ellie : “Damn! I’m going to be a father!”) It would be adorable if it wasn’t so absolutely stupid of their part. Stay there after it was clear that the Wolves They were much larger and more dangerous than imagined. But when pregnancy becomes apparent – a pregnancy that

Dina It really wants to materialize – the only option is to climb the Shimmer and ride the thousands of kilometers back to Jackson. Go straight there. Do not stop. It’s not as if The Last of Us It was the first story about tragic failures leading to unwanted consequences. If Joel He was around somehow, he would order to leave. But this confusion with

Abby It started because he did something terrible and impulsive that he knew that Ellie It would not approve if it was awake. People hurt hurt other people. Even those excited about becoming parents.The fact that they insist on staying is not necessarily a failure of the series. We know how much Ellie AMAV Joel. We know she is young, impulsive and irrational. It is totally plausible that she is too blinded by revenge to see the right course of action, even now. And in just four hours, the writers drew Dinawith sufficient clarity that we understand why your love for

Ellie

as well as its own bond with

Joel

would overcome your common sense.

But if it is believable in the way these characters have been built, it is still frustrating because it is the only real story of the season. And if revenge in a post-apocalyptic world already seemed irrelevant, now it seems exponentially more.

Article published on May 5, 2025 at Rolling Stone. To read the original in English, click here.