“The Last of Us” is an action-horror series as much as it is a drama, so this episode’s writer-director, Craig Mazin, does not let all the relationship complications run on too long before shifting to a few good scares. Ellie and Dina join a patrol, checking into the increased presence of the infected in the area. The mission leads them to a crumbling old grocery store, with a gutted bear and several dismembered corpses out front.
We get a good taste of Ellie and Dina’s dynamic during their trip into the Wyoming wilds. They talk about their love lives, with Dina urging Ellie to take their patrol-leader Kat (Noah Lamanna) to the New Year’s dance. (Dina says of Kat, “She’s the other one,” meaning the only other out gay young woman in Jackson.) Then they ignore Kat’s orders and barge into the grocery store to go monster-hunting; and while tracking the infected’s hideous sounds, they make goofy little jokes and hand gestures, showing absolutely no fear.
Because this is “The Last of Us,” their heedlessness has consequences. While acting all casual after killing a “clicker,” Ellie falls through the floor to a lower level, where a new kind of infected creature stalks her. This beast looks like a young girl (surely not a coincidence, symbolically speaking), with antler-like protrusions. Rather than attacking Ellie immediately, it holds back, as though developing a strategy. Ellie ultimately gets bit on the belly; and since her immunity from infection is still a secret, when she gets home she cuts around the wound so that it looks less like a bite-mark.
The supermarket sequence is the sensational center of this episode, full of suspense and excitement — everything this show does well. These scenes matter to the larger plot too, because what the patrol finds outside the walls — savage mutilations and a new kind of mutated monster — is concerning.
But in this show, small details matter as much as pulse-pounding standoffs, so the final scenes back in Jackson are also important. At the New Year’s dance, Dina and Ellie end up together, smooching passionately in the middle of the dance floor. The moment is reminiscent of Season 1’s beautiful flashback episode “Left Behind,” as we once again watch Ellie’s face light up, realizing the person she is crushing on likes her back.
Alas, the magic fades. Someone complains that this is “a family event” where two queer women (not the words this yokel uses) should not publicly display affection. The ever-protective Joel rushes in to give this yahoo a hard shove. Ellie, rather than thanking Joel for caring, yells, “What is wrong with you?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/arts/television/the-last-of-us-season-2-premiere-recap.html
