Okay, that stressed me out! But at the same time, Day One was also warm enough to make me all misty. How do they do that? How do they make you feel the crisis of someone being hunted for sport and then immediately drown you in a sea of wholesome hopes? Anyway, I’d rather not question the blessing too much. Besides, The Last of Us episode 4 has given us plenty to ponder over.
Spoiler Alert
Day One
The opening sequence of The Last of Us episode 4 is a window to a lot of things that are all the more potent for not being spelled out. War is cruel. FEDRA Sergeant Isaac Dixon didn’t have to say that out loud. We’re in 2018, Seattle. In the van full of boneheaded soldiers, Sergeant Isaac is suffocated by the agony of the war. The story of how one of their dumbest guys humiliated and killed the pathetic “voters” doesn’t amuse him. If anything, it makes him finally break his silence and give the storyteller a dose of bitter truth. The FEDRA military mocks civilians by calling them “voters.” It’s a joke they crack about the loss of democracy. But Isaac’s protest against this kind of oppression isn’t limited to his insults. When the van’s stopped by a group of people, and Isaac wants to take a more diplomatic approach and talk it out, at first it looks like Isaac is just being smart and compassionate. But things start to look a bit dicey when he gets one of the nicer guys to come out with him.
Luckily, The Last of Us doesn’t make us wait much longer to find out what clarity looks like for someone like Isaac. We’re only starting to get to know him. So when he switches sides in the war and wipes out his team in a matter of seconds, you know that he isn’t totally disillusioned. He only partly understands the demons of war because he sympathizes with the side they’ve been oppressing so far. And judging by the fact that he shakes hands with the woman who’s seemingly the leader of the group he has now defected to, Isaac doesn’t mean to give up the life of violence at all. The group may not look like the militia we’ve been seeing in the second season, but they’re definitely an earlier, less fortified version of Wolves. Hanrahan, the woman who’s evidently one of the founding leaders of the Wolves, isn’t a character from the game. We’ll probably get to know her alongside Isaac. This whole stint must’ve been the test that Isaac had to pass to join the Wolves. And together with Hanrahan, he’ll go on to turn the humble group of insurgents into the ruthless, terrifyingly powerful militia we now know as W.L.F.
Ellie and Dina are in the thick of it
Seattle’s a whole new world for Ellie and Dina. It isn’t just their first time. This journey, however concealed from us most parts of it are, has the intensity of being one of the very few times these two have seen anywhere new in years. But they’re not on vacation. So don’t expect that intensity to show up in the form of bright eyes and awestruck noises. You realize how new they are to all this when they’re taken aback by all the rainbows and Pride flags. I guess Pride hasn’t made its way to Jackson, so Ellie’s confused by what she thinks is Seattle’s peculiar optimism in an apocalyptic world. But what baffles her even more is the amount of dead FEDRA soldiers and their deserted vans in the area. She doesn’t know it yet, but these massacres were the work of Isaac. 18 years have passed since Isaac took over the pack. People like Isaac are blind to the irony of their hate. They’ve justified their bloodthirst for so long that they’re practically beyond help. And Isaac’s issues have only gotten worse. It’s disappointing really.
For a man who’s amused by the turn of fate that demolished the power of wealth and societal hierarchies, he’s awfully blind to the fact that he’s enforcing the same predator-prey dynamic on his surroundings. It has to be some unhinged, sociopathic tendency that makes him the kind of guy who gets a kick out of torturing people. The person he’s now abusing under the formal title of an interrogation is Malcolm, a Seraphite. It’s also rather daunting how Isaac doesn’t pick up on his own hypocrisy when he calls Malcolm by the slang they have for Seraphites, Scars. This is the same man who was bothered by the name FEDRA had for people. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t mind oppression as long as he’s not on the receiving end of it. The Seraphites have their own issues, but that doesn’t quite justify how condescending and snobbish Isaac is towards them. There’s talk of a truce that once kept the Seraphites and the Wolves in harmony. And now, neither party is ready to take accountability for breaking the truce and letting violence engulf their lives. But at the end of the day, none of them are trying to figure out who’s at fault. The kind of evil instincts that make for warmongers don’t leave much space for productive contemplation. So they’re stuck pointing fingers and guns, and they’re twisted enough to even throw their children in harm’s way. So yeah, Ellie and Dina better be careful. They’ve located the building W.L.F operates out of. And thankfully, Dina has the good sense to suggest that instead of taking the very obvious bait right away, they go at night. While not as organized and armed as the Wolves, the Seraphites aren’t any less terrifying. They kill in the name of the Prophet, long after her death. And as far as Isaac’s lunacy goes, shooting Malcolm to death isn’t even something he’d lose sleep over. So Dina and Ellie are in for a brutal initiation into this violent part of the world they’ve walked into.
Will Ellie and Dina go on the mission together?
Gail really couldn’t have been more wrong about Ellie. She’s far from a hopeless cause. The most obvious sign that she’s gonna be alright is her ability and instinct to seek joy. Her eyes light up when she finds a guitar in the old record store. Still in its case, so this one still works. When she picks it up, she goes in knowing that it will bring up a lot of Joel. But she’s not scared of feeling these feelings. So I think she wasn’t totally lying on her psych evaluation with Gail. Ellie’s actually able to cherish the good memories she’s made with Joel. And all the heart she pours into the song she sings could only fully be appreciated by someone like Dina, someone who knows them both closely. But the good times had to come to an end.
At night, Ellie and Dina break into the building marked by W.L.F. It’s not an immediate battle. But what they see sure isn’t much better than that. The Seraphites have brutalized a group of Wolves military. Now, you gotta remember that Ellie and Dina don’t know anything about the Seraphites or their war with the Wolves. Hell, they don’t even know how big W.L.F. is. They have the good sense to take cover when the radio they find on one of dead bodies alerts them of incoming forces. But not knowing the place they’re in is a big disadvantage. So when the circumstances inevitably force them into a confrontation with the Wolves, they have only their training to fall back on. That only works out until the tunnel they get into leads them to a place which the Wolves haven’t gotten the chance to clean up yet. So far, Dina and Ellie haven’t seen a single clicker around. The Wolves keep a clean house. But you can only be so thorough clearing out hordes. And it looks like Ellie and Dina are now in the grasp of a huge horde that even the Wolves didn’t know about. Ellie may be immune to Cordyceps. But she isn’t immune to the threat that such a massive, hungry horde poses. Dina doesn’t even know that Ellie’s immune. So in her mind, the stakes are much higher than they actually are. But it looks like Dina’s about to find out the truth about Ellie. When the horde gets too close, there’s a moment when Ellie’s forced to make an obvious decision. A rabid clicker is just about to take a bite out of Dina when Ellie offers up her own arm instead, just to buy a few extra seconds that will help them escape.
It takes time for such big things to actually hit you. So it makes sense that Dina doesn’t have an immediate reaction to what she has just witnessed. Considering she doesn’t even know that someone can be immune to the world-destructing fungi, she obviously thinks that Ellie’s just sacrificed herself to save her life. When they do get to safety, and Dina’s mind is just out of the terror it’s been feeling, the realization hits her. The gun in her hand means that she’s accepted what she thinks is the reality of the situation. But even then, she’s desperate to keep an open mind when Ellie breaks the truth that she’s been hiding from Dina all along. There’s no profound declaration of relief when enough time passes, and Dina finds out that Ellie really is immune. But you still know just how relieved Dina is by what she does next. She’s been holding on to a big personal secret for a while. Almost losing Ellie must’ve really terrified Dina. In their world, it is especially important to speak one’s heart out. Death’s waiting around every corner. But for now, Dina and Ellie have a future to look forward to.
It turns out, Dina doesn’t have a weak stomach. She’s been throwing up at the sight of corpses because she’s pregnant. She has a lot to lose now. So she doesn’t want to waste any more time hiding how she feels about Ellie. Ellie’s so obvious with her feelings that even Dina didn’t have any doubt about her reciprocation. We don’t know a lot about Jesse. But he seems like the kind of guy who’d be good at handling their unique situation. He’d be happy to share the dad duties with Ellie.
In The Last of Us episode 4’s ending, Ellie’s already taken on a protective partner and parent role. She doesn’t want her pregnant girlfriend to risk her life for a mission that is mostly Ellie’s. But Dina would never leave Ellie’s side, especially when they’re about to face the unknown enemy. Speaking of the enemy, Ellie extracts a crucial piece of information from the radio transmission. The message was about the Wolves who’ve been hurt by the Seraphites, and it was sent to Nora, one of Abby’s friends. In the next episode, Ellie and Dina are likely to find their way to the building that Nora is in. I just hope that they don’t meet worse people first.
