The latest episode of The Last of Us explored the fallout of Joel's brutal death. The show is heading into new territory now as Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) head to zombie-infested Seattle to hunt down his killers.
That's where we'll find them when the fourth episode of season 2 airs this Thursday, and HBO has released a bevy of new images. Let's check them out, starting with Ellie and Dina surveying their new surroundings:
These are a ton of shots of Ellie and Dina in this new drop, which makes sense; with Joel (Pedro Pascal) dead, Dina is Ellie's new traveling companion. "I really loved working with Bella," Isabela Merced told L'Officiel Magazine. "They are super generous and very receptive, and since I’m older, I also felt as though I could give them some advice. We had each other’s backs, and with that relationship already being so strong, [our scenes] were even better."
"Overall, Dina is Ellie’s ride-or-die. To have somebody that committed and understanding, even through tough times, is special. It taught me something about the relationships that I plan to have in my life...Everyone deserves a Dina, and everyone deserves an Ellie."
Ellie and Dina also share a bubbling romantic attraction, something that hasn't quite blossomed fully yet. If you've played The Last of Us Part II video game, you'll probably recognize these photos, where Ellie plays a song for Dina in an abandoned music shop:
These images seem plucked right from the game, although Merced assures fans that she and Ramsey are doing something different with the characters: "Bella and I portrayed them as completely different human beings than they are in the game. I think the relationship turned into something a lot more fleshed-out. It’s a full-on story with twists and turns. It’s also something that young gay people can really get invested in, because it’s not just a side story; it is one of the stories in the show."
"I’ve never gotten to fall in love in such a length of time on screen--it’s usually been kind of rushed...but this was such a beautiful slow burn. I’m very excited to torture, but also please, the audience with this build-up."
But it can't all be lovey-dovey. Ellie and Dina also have a job to do. It looks like they'll also get into some serious situations come Sunday:
In the video games, "Feel her love" is a favorite slogan of the religiously fanatical Seraphites, who we met briefly in the latest episode. Believe it or not, things get even creepier for the pair. Here they are in a hellish red underworld:
Gamers may recognize these images too, from a sequence where Ellie and Dina take on infected in an abandoned subway station.
Finally, we have an image of Dina and Ellie so intense I'm surprised HBO released a picture of it. Beware SPOILERS below!
This appears to be Ellie pointing a gun at Dina! To my knowledge this does not happen in the video game. We can't be sure what it means, but I'd guess it has something to do with Ellie getting and Dina fearing that Ellie might turn into a cordyceps zombie; remember, very few people know about Ellie's immunity to cordyceps, and Dina isn't one of them.
Let's hope those two can work it out. Obviously they have a very eventful episode ahead of them.
Meet Isaac
Although Ellie and Dina dominate this episode, there are other characters in it. For instance, we'll meet Isaac (Jeffrey Wright), who in the games is the leader of the WLF, a paramilitary organization based out of Seattle. Abby, the woman who killed Joel, belongs to the WLF, so you can bet that Dina and Ellie will have some run-ins with the organization.
That said, in these shots, Isaac is wearing an outfit bearing the mark of FEDRA, the facistic government agency that took control of the country after the zombie apocalypse. In the games, Isaac is very much not a part of FEDRA, so I'm guessing this is a flashback or something.
In this same scene, Isaac meets with a woman played by Alanna Ubach. I'm not sure what her deal is yet.
Isaac will be in at least two scenes. Here he is looking more like himself from the game:
It looks like he's talking to...a brutally beaten naked man. I'm not sure I want to know.
Did Tommy vote to get revenge for Joel?
While we chew on these images from this Sunday's new episode, let's take a quick look back at last Sunday's episode, "The Path." Ellie and Dina set out on their journey of revenge only after the town council in charge of Jackson voted down Ellie's proposal to send out a posse to bring Joel's killer to justice. We don't know how everyone on the council voted, but we know there were votes each way.
Speaking to Today, Gabriel Luna — who plays Joel's brother Tommy — said that Tommy “absolutely” voted to assemble a group to sent to Seattle. “I already told her I got her back,” Luna said.
"She’s mine now. She’s my responsibility The weight of of all that, the weight of the burden that she’s taken on, her pursuit of ‘justice’ and revenge is one that she doesn’t go on alone. I can’t let her."
That sounds like Tommy may eventually join Ellie and Dina on their quest, which is what happens in the games. Stay tuned.
Bella Ramsey reveals the hardest scene to do from The Last of Us season 2
Finally, Bella Ramsey talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the most difficult scene they had to play in this season, and we've already seen it: it's the bit in the third episode where Ellie breaks down in Joel's bedroom months after his death, smelling his jackets.
“Oh God, in the closet, that was the hardest [scene],” Ramsey said. “So I really struggle with crying in scenes. I can get a tear out, but that’s different to crying. And even getting the tear, it doesn’t come easy for me. I don’t cry in front of people in my everyday life. A very, very limited amount of people in my life will see me cry. And so having to do that on a set full of people with the monitor and then more people watching the monitors…it’s virtually impossible for me. So I was really worried about that scene, and that was the toughest one for me to shoot.”
"I’ve tried [before in crying scenes] to think about something really sad in my own life and try and evoke emotions that way. That doesn’t really work for me because it takes me out of the truth of the situation for Ellie. So I was remembering the happiest of memories that I have with Pedro.
The thing that is always the saddest for me is remembering the happy things. I was remembering us the first few times that we met and the whole of shooting season one together, and the funniest moments. I was remembering all of that and through the lens of losing him — not just Joel and Ellie, but like me and Pedro — because the memories of me and Pedro and Joel and Ellie are so intertwined for me."
The new episode of The Last of Us will air this Sunday night on HBO and Max.
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