The previous episode of The Last of Us ended with Joel, purportedly the main character, being brutally murdered by Abby, someone we'd never met before. It's a hell of a way to start the season. Where do we go from here?
As in The Last of Us Part II video game from Naughty Dog, Joel's death is the event that jump-starts the story. I feel like it's only now, in Episode 3, that the adventure truly begins. This episode explores some of the interstitial moments we don't get in the game, and finds gold there. It's the quietest episode of the season so far, but also my favorite.
The Last of Us review: Season 2, Episode 3, "The Path"
In the video game, after Joel's death, we more or less skip right to Ellie and Dina leaving on their mission of revenge. The show slows things down. The episode opens in the immediate aftermath of the zombie attack on Jackson, with the town still burning and Ellie waking in a hospital to a horrible new reality: Joel is dead, she never fully patched things up with him, and it will never get better. She screams as we head into the intro.
Ellie is still holding onto that pain three months later, but she's gotten better at concealing it. Before she can leave the hospital, she has to talk to Gail, the therapist Joel was seeing before his death. Ellie obviously has revenge on her mind. She's not well and Gail knows it. But Ellie says the things you're supposed to say to a therapist, so Gail has no choice but to let her go.
Gail is a character invented purely for the game, but I'm very glad she's here. An alcoholic pothead who's clearly dealing with her own trauma, Gail is funny — casting Catherine O'Hara pretty much guaranteed that — but also insightful; she provides a sounding board for characters like Joel, Ellie and Tommy. Tommy seeks her out later during a pee-wee baseball game, the best ticket in town now that the zombie apocalypse has disrupted the world of professional sports. He's worried that Ellie is going to go down a destructive path. He's probably looking for advice on how to stop her, but Gail warns him that, in her professional opinion, some people just "can't be saved."
Is Ellie beyond saving? Or is getting revenge the obvious and natural thing to do under the circumstances? Those questions play out during a town meeting, where Ellie tries to convince the town council to send out a posse of 16 residents to hunt down Abby and execute her. She's not alone. Seth, the cook who slurred Ellie and Dina in the premiere episode, is in her corner: he wants vengeance, reasoning that whoever did this to Joel will be back sooner or later. But there are great points made on the other side too: with Jackson in shambles, everyone needs to help rebuild, and to defend the town while it's at its weakest.
Wisely, Ellie doesn't talk off the cuff but reads a prepared statement that I thought was pretty convincing: lying through her teeth, Ellie says that she's not after vengeance, but justice. She's unusually composed, but it isn't enough to convince the town council, who vote down the proposal by a tally of three to eight.
If you only describe this scene in words, like I just did, you might think it's boring; a courtroom drama here in this zombie show, a roadblock on the path to action. But I thought this was where the episode, and even the season, came alive. It shows Ellie as a multidimensional character; she wants nothing more than to blow a hole in Abby's head but is smart enough to rein in her rage and make a more level-headed argument for why Jackson should spare her a posse in a moment where it needs all hands on deck. I also liked how the show is using Seth. In a show like this, sometimes a character who has a homophobic outburst is doomed to be seen as an unsalvageable villain. But The Last of Us treats him as a rounded character who made a mistake and is tryin to make it better; after Ellie leaves Jackson to hunt Abby on her own, Seth provides her with supplies.
I am a complete sucker for scenes about solidarity. Show me any movie where people who don't see eye to eye at first somehow find common ground, and it's over. So I was all about the bit where Ellie and Seth reconcile, shaking hands before she sets out on her journey. I was all about the town meeting in general. It gives the show more scope and depth. The first season of The Last of Us focused very closely on Joel and Ellie's journey across a ruined United States. The second season is expanding; it's still about Joel and Ellie, but also Dina and Jesse and Gail and Tommy and all the people who live in Jackson. They all have a stake in this. The Last of Us is growing, and that's exciting.
That said...
The Last of Us may be TOO big for 2025
If you've played The Last of Us games, you know that we also spend a lot of time getting to know Abby and her circle, although the show isn't quite there yet. However, we do stop in with a group of Seraphites, members of a fanatical religious order who follow the teachings of a dead prophet. A bunch of them are traveling to an unknown destination, trying to flee a war. They are depicted far more sympathetically here than at pretty much any point in the video games.
Later, we find out that the lot of them have been killed by the Washington Liberation Front, aka the WLF, the paramilitary organization that Abby and her friends are a part of. This is more world-building, more expansion, more lore. In season 1, Joel and Abby went from place to place taking on challenges as they came. In season 2, we have a whole new set of factions to learn about.
And that's great; this episode especially felt meaty — there was a lot of new information to sink our teeth into. However, with only seven episodes to work with this season and a lot of introductions to make, I wonder how far we're going to get into the story before the whole thing is over. We're guaranteed a third season of The Last of Us (and maybe more), but I worry this season won't have enough room to really break into a run.
I wouldn't worry about this is we had 10 or so episodes this season, or if I could be sure that the third season would come out next year. But in an age when new seasons of prestige TV shows take an age to produce, I can't see season 3 premiering anytime soon. I don't want to have to think about these sorts of problems when watching TV, but it's hard not to. The sooner some studio figures out a way to give us both quality and quantity, the better.
Ties that bind
Back to the episode itself, I love what Dina adds to the show. In the premiere, we saw her drunkenly mack on Ellie during the New Year's Dance; she's clearly nursing a crush on Jackson's tiniest badass. Dina is immediately ready to leave with Ellie after Ellie is released from the hospital, although she does wait to reveal what she knows about Abby and her posse. It's Dina who tells Ellie about the WLF. They're based in Seattle, so that's where Ellie and Dina are going.
Ellie is a lover of bad puns and an all-around goofball, but in the wake of Joel's death, she's got her game face on. Dina picks up some of the slack. She brings Ellie cookies. She asks Ellie to rate their kiss on a scale of 1 to 10 (and is scandalized when Ellie gives it an 6). She insinuates herself into Ellie's journey by pointing out how hopelessly unprepared Ellie is to do anything but shoot people. It'll take more than guns to take down Abby; you're gonna need supplies and food and maps and plans, and that's before they even reach Washington.
Actress Isabel Merced brings a lightness to her performance as Dina that contrasts beautifully with Bella Ramsey's dour Ellie. Not only would Ellie not have made it two days out of Jackson without Dina, but it would have been a miserable two days. Instead we get banter and coy glances. Dina helps us remember the softer, gentler Ellie who's still there underneath all that scar tissue.
The game pretty much skips over Ellie and Dina's journey from Jackson to Seattle; we blink and we're there. It happens quickly on the show as well, but we do get a beautiful montage of Ellie and Dina crossing over purple mountains majesty. It reminded me of the breath-taking landscape photography from season 1. The United States may be infested with infected, but the countryside is still gorgeous.
I love how many tones we got in this episode. It starts with Ellie's hellish scream of pain. But we also get natural beauty. We get flirty love young. We get Mr. Smith Goes to Zombie Washington in that town council scene. And at the end, we get a glimpse of the WLF marching in lock-step behind a real-life tank, hinting at the challenges that lie ahead for Ellie and Dina. The Last of Us served us a full meal with this one!
The Bullet Points of Us
- We have heard a lot about Eugene, Gail's husband whom Joel had to kill for some reason; he's the one who told Dina about the WLF. At some point this season, we're going to get that story in flashback form, with Eugene played by Joe Pantoliano. Pantoliano is an excellent actor and I'm sure that episode will be terrific, but I again worry about how much time we're going to have to spend on things that don't push the story forward. Seven episodes, that's it?
- In the game, Joel's brother Tommy goes to Seattle before Ellie and Dina can set out. He's intent on revenge. In the show, he's much more level-headed. This version of Tommy wants to move on.
- I really like Young Mazino's laconic performance as Jesse and the chemistry he has with Bella Ramsey. That's it.
Episode Grade: A-
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