Season 2, Episode 4
It's so nice to know that certain television cliches last long after civilization fell apart. Like: If a woman unexpectedly vomits in one episode, the next episode shows that she is pregnant.
So after stumbling over a human body last week, she went with Dina, who stole her from last week's “The Last of Us,” and pointed out that her reaction was unusual. Sure enough, in this week's episode, Dina finds several pregnancy tests at a drugstore in Seattle and try a few. They all become positive.
Dina doesn't say anything to Ellie – or after the two of them have slightly escaped multiple waves of wolves and zombies until near the end of the episode. Her confession gives retrospective weight to everything these two women have just experienced. They are taking more risks now.
As in last week's case, a significant portion of this episode is spent watching Dina and Ellie's relationship blossom. They bouncing back and forth through deadpan parties on the sardonic. (Erie, when Dina is exploring herself: “If something is going to kill you, shout, sigh.” Dina: “That's the plan.”) They share stories from the past. They also fall into each other's arms and create passionate love.
Overall, there are three major revelations that Dina and Ellie share. One is pregnancy. The other is that they have feelings for each other. And Ellie reveals that, due to the extended situation, Dyna is also immune to her from keratin infection. (I'll come back to it later.)
Unlike last week, all the charming Chitchat is balanced with miserable action. Dina and Ellie's expedition to Seattle started off quietly. It was highlighted on a trip to an abandoned music store. There, Ellie serenates Dina with a lovely acoustic turn of Aha's “Take on Me.” The scene is beautifully staged and illuminated, with sunlight flowing through the weed and moss-covered holes on the wall. Finally, Dina says that Joel taught Ellie well. In a quiet voice filled with meaning, Ellie replied, “He did it.”
Then it's time to start business. Finding a busted second-floor window that looks like a wolf's main headquarters (former television studio), Dina and Ellie sneak in, finding half a dozen dead wolves, hanging from the ceiling. The cult logo seen at the intersection last week is painted in the blood of the wall, along with words praising the prophet. (“Feel her love.”) Before Dina and Ellie have time to gaw, another group of wolves race with guns and our heroes have to scramble to find a place to hide.
This is the first of two consecutive thrilling chase sequences. The first Dina and Ellie run away from the TV studio. Once they return to the streets, the women will crave gaps that are too big for their pursuers to fit. This leads them to an old Seattle Transit Tunnel where they find an old rusty train hidden.
As mentioned before, I have never played the “The Last of Us” video game. You can imagine that this is the scene that most of their charm. Ellie and Dina wiggle their arms out of the train window and fight against a number of monsters squeezing holes they can find. As always, it is the mercilessness of zombies that makes these moments terrifying. (It's true that players in the game have to kill a lot.)
There are two other big sets this week. Both include new characters. I'm Isaac Dixon (Jeffrey Wright), one of the wolves' leaders. (Wright voiced the characters from the game.) We met him at the start of the episode in a prologue set in 2018, when Seattle was still a quarantine zone managed by Fedora. Isaac was a soldier of the Fedora of the time, and while he was ironically calling it a “voter,” he was tired of the way the organization restrained civil rights. He signs a deal with Hanrahan (Alana Ubach) of the Washington Liberation Front, leading Fedora's colleagues to a fatal ambush.
Eleven years later, we catch up with Isaac again, interrogating one of the wounded cult members, Malcolm (Ryan Masson), in a flashy kitchen, and stripped naked. Isaac and the wolves call these people “scars,” but the term is used in a denudalagation way. Malcolm rebelliously claims to be called “Ceraphyte.” Isaac gives a lively speech about how he loved cooking in the past, and how he always wanted good copper cookware so that he could access it now. (“The strange advantage of the apocalypse” he muse.) He then uses a hot pot to threaten Malcolm.
Isaac says he wants to know where the “scars” will attack next. He also suggests that he wants revenge on the wolf children that the cult has killed. (Malcolm fights back on the fact that the wolves first killed Cerafite children. It's clearly an endless cycle.)
But what Isaac really seems to want is for this true believer to admit that his prophet is fake and his lifestyle is a joke. “We have automatic weapons and hospitals,” Isaac says. “Your madman has bolt-action rifles, bows, arrows and superstitions.” Before Isaac shoots him dead, Malcolm smiles and says, “One of your wolves will come and see the truth and bring her to your heart.”
There is a lot to be talked about about wolves and cerafite. There are only three episodes left this season, and the number of expanded flashbacks that we haven't seen yet is piled up.
I'm not complaining. It's good to know that there is plenty of fertile ground to be harvested in “The Last of Us” either this season or the next season. What's more, now that Dina has taken Joel's position as the person who cares her the most, it makes sense to spend a lot of time developing the chemistry between Ellie and Dina. They are a winning pair. Outwardly, they exist as very young and very serious. Inside it is made of steel.
This brings me back to the reason Ellie has to reveal her immunity. Dina and Ellie are finally able to escape the transit tunnel by forcing Ellie to thrust her arms out like bait, not before she lets her arms stick out, but rather the zombies from devouring Dina. After they take shelter in the lobby of the old theatre, Dina reluctantly raises a pistol and shoots Ellie. Ellie urges Dina to watch over her while she is asleep, and promises that she will wake up to the same thing.
“I'll die for you,” Ellie says. “But that wasn't just happening.”
Ellie is after it is proven that they will make the rest of their confession as they cuddle together and admit that Ellie will respond, “I know how you feel about me.” When Dina tells her about her pregnancy, Ellie says, “That's why we're giving birth to a baby. I think we and us are Jesse too.” With adorable attitude, she adds, “I'm going to be a dad.”
Once the episode ends, Dina and Ellie listen to chatting on the radio and recognize the name of one of the wolves in Jackson. They cross the horizon and look at Lake Hill, where a radio message was born, and they hear gunshots as they see the explosion. “Together,” Dina said, nervously making her decision as Ellie took her hand as she headed for the next stage of her adventure. The stakes are now high. Dina's two murders.
Side Quest
It is in the wild that fragments of cultural memory do not survive the apocalypse. For example, when Dina and Ellie see the rainbow flag and pride graffiti around Seattle's Capitol Hill area, they don't know what that means.
Ellie's appeal to NASA comes back again when she and Dina meet three burning skeletons, urging the perhaps less excited Ellie to say, “Like Apollo 1!”
The theatre marquee where Ellie and Dina take the shelter read as “ha of the ill” and have a faint outline of the missing “bit.” This is clearly a reference to the fictional band from the “The Last of Us” video game.
At the music store, Ellie looks at some vinyl records. Which do you think she would enjoy more? Bob Marley's biggest hit collection, “Legend,” is extremely timeless and popular. But the terrifying “The Burting” tears are an angry classic and perfect for teens who carry a lot of guilt and regret.
In 2018, Isaac offended me with the Fedora for calling ordinary people “voters.” Eleven years later, he derivatively calls his enemy “scars.” The power is damaged.
