[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 4. For previous coverage, check out last week’s review.]
Episode 4 begins with a easy, if stunning, selection: two males change their minds.
Again in 2018, Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) is driving in an armored truck with a gaggle of FEDRA chucklefucks, sitting in silent judgment as Josh Peck’s super-bro-y soldier tells an terrible story about another asshole named Greenberg who beat the shit out of an harmless man as a result of he thought the phrase “disseminating” meant “jerking off.”
After the cackles of laughter subside, the nervous new man among the many the caravan of douchebags dares to ask a query: Burton (performed by “The Gilded Age’s” Ben Ahlers) needs to know why they hold calling residents “voters.” Clearly aggravated that this child isn’t appreciating the humor in his horrific story, Peck’s “inconsiderate” storyteller brushes it off — “As a result of that’s what we fucking name them, who cares?”
However Isaac needs to reply.
“As a result of we took away their rights,” he says. “We took away their proper to vote, and any individual began calling them voters to mock them.”
Earlier than he can say a lot else, the motive force alerts Isaac to a gaggle of individuals gathering within the street. The crew within the again instantly assumes they’re W.L.F. — or wolves, as they have been labeled within the earlier episode — and begins making ready for a struggle. However Isaac tells them to face down. He is aware of they’re “all Greenbergs,” and moderately than allow them to go assault some random strangers for the enjoyable of it, Isaac will get out on his personal to greet the unknown “voters.”
Besides, they’re not unknown. Isaac greets their chief by identify. “You Hanrahan?” he asks, after she identifies him as Isaac. The 2 nod at one another, and Isaac promptly turns round, walks again to the armored car, and tosses two grenades inside earlier than locking the door. All of the Greenbergs are lifeless — all however the brand new man. Isaac pulled Burton out when he went to fulfill Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach), paying attention to his naivete and deeming it a key distinguishing issue. The remainder of them have been a misplaced trigger, however Burton, perhaps, might nonetheless suppose for himself.
So he asks him to: “Now make your selection,” Isaac says. And Burton does. The younger scared soldier could not have had a lot of a selection — clearly, Isaac would kill him if he didn’t be part of up — however he nonetheless modifications his thoughts, similar to Isaac did, and their motivations are nonetheless aligned. Isaac determined to go away FEDRA and be part of the wolves lengthy earlier than he heard the Greenberg story, however one will get the sense he was influenced by listening to it one too many occasions from one too many individuals. He activates his fellow FEDRA brokers as a result of he’s disgusted by what they’re doing. He sees a greater path, and he chooses to stroll it. Burton simply follows in his footsteps.
Eleven years later, as Isaac tortures a Scar prisoner, we see Burton once more. Now, the wide-eyed lamb is a hardened wolf. Like his savior — and in contrast to the opposite, greener officer guarding the door — Burton has change into desensitized to the violence inflicted on the “animal” inside. The bare man chained to a wall getting seared and overwhelmed with a burning saucepan is simply getting what he deserves, very like Josh Peck’s soldier received what he deserved over a decade prior. Burton discovered to suppose this fashion from Isaac, and Isaac discovered this from his personal yet-to-be-shared expertise.
Way back, they made their selection, and look the place it’s gotten them. Burton isn’t who anybody needs to be. His face, very like Abby’s (Kaitlyn Dever) dour, unforgiving countenance, shouldn’t be that of a cheerful man. His selection stored him alive, bodily, however his soul could have died in that armored truck. Isaac isn’t any higher off. Regardless of feigning nonchalance in the course of the interrogation, his personal comic story betrays his true distress. He tells the Scar prisoner that when he was younger, he was shy; he didn’t know the right way to speak to ladies, so he cooked for them. As he received higher at it, he vowed to someday personal a Mauviel saucepan — the very best of the very best. At this time, he does, “simply not how I deliberate.” As a substitute of utilizing Mauviel to make dinner for folks he likes, he makes use of it to scorch the flesh from his enemies’ limbs.
Isaac took a gesture of affection and turned it right into a weapon of hate — a recurring theme in “The Final of Us,” whether or not it’s Abby utilizing the love she has for her lifeless father to gasoline her vengeance in opposition to Joel (Pedro Pascal), or Joel utilizing the love he has for Ellie to justify his killing spree to avoid wasting her. Love could be stunning, however it may also be harmful. Love can change you, and it may well change inside you. The query (which Catherine O’Hara’s Gail posed so pointedly final week) is whether or not our particular person nature leaves us at love’s mercy, or if now we have extra of a selection within the matter.
With Isaac, his murky previous makes it exhausting to inform if he’s at all times had a coldness to him or if he’s tailored to the coldness throughout him with a view to survive, like so many different characters we’ve met. However Burton’s previous is obvious. The person within the armored truck and the person guarding the door usually are not the identical particular person. The previous discovered to behave just like the latter, and his prominence within the episode, paired with Isaac’s story implying an identical transformation, is instrumental to understanding what’s at stake for Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced), as they face their very own potential turning level.
In Episode 4, circumstances change dramatically for our two leads. Dina finds out she’s pregnant. Ellie finds out Dina is pregnant. Dina tells Ellie she’s in love along with her, and Ellie doesn’t have to inform Dina the identical factor as a result of Dina already is aware of. Nonetheless, rapidly, these two patrol buddies are dedicated to one another in a complete new manner. They’re in love. They’re beginning a household collectively. “Holy shit,” Ellie says. “I’m going to be a dad.”
However is it sufficient to alter their thoughts? Ellie is nearer than ever to discovering Abby, nearer than ever to avenging Joel’s demise, nearer than ever to embracing the darkish flip her love for him has taken. Dina is, too, and she or he refuses Ellie’s suggestion that she keep behind to guard herself and her child. “Collectively,” she says, holding Ellie’s hand and staring out on the metropolis the place Abby waits. However is that… proper? As soon as once more, showrunner and co-creator Craig Mazin is reframing an motion sometimes seen nearly as good and proper as, doubtlessly, dangerous and fallacious. As a lot as we wish to see Ellie and Dina stick collectively — to struggle for one another, to guard their love for one another — they’re risking all the pieces they’ve simply gained for revenge, and revenge has been repeatedly proven to be as harmful as it’s unrewarding.
We noticed as a lot in Abby’s face after she killed Joel, and we see it once more in Episode 4. Isaac and Burton are at conflict with the Scars. The alternatives they’ve made, beginning in 2018, have led them to a spot of heartless unhappiness. However they stand by these selections. Their inflexible conviction is their armor; they must consider that though they’re looking, hurting, and killing folks, there are worse folks on the market, doing worse issues, for worse causes. In the event that they cease believing that, in the event that they query it even for a second, they might not just like the solutions. They might take a look at what they’ve executed and see ache, worry, and break. Wanting again at them within the mirror, they might see the face they despise essentially the most: Greenberg’s.
On the finish of Episode 4, Ellie and Dina must resolve which path to take. They’ll press on with the mission they’ve agreed to; they will hold chasing vengeance, hold chasing Abby, hold following Joel’s footsteps till they change into his hardened, savage successors.
…or they will change their minds.
Grade: B+
“The Final of Us” Season 2 releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.
Stray Tendrils
• Except for the parallel narratives framing Ellie and Dina’s story this week, there are further omens of doom scattered all through Episode 4 — like after they discover these lifeless our bodies contained in the armored truck, and Ellie instantly compares them to the deceased Apollo 1 astronauts. Whereas I’m undecided why she’s received NASA on the noggin, Ellie evoking three lifeless explorers close to the outskirts of Seattle doesn’t bode effectively for the three explorers (Ellie, Dina, and Dina’s child) heading deeper into town. That Seattle doesn’t show to be all that hospitable is hardly a warning — only a few locations in “The Final of Us” are welcoming — however supposed for Ellie or not, the disemboweled our bodies hung for all to see positive really feel like a message. Lastly, name me cynical in the event you should, however I’ve at all times discovered a-ha’s “Take On Me” to explain a tragic romance — you higher get pleasure from love whereas it lasts, as a result of it’ll be gone in a day (or twooooooooo).
• That tune was very candy, although. So enjoyable to see Dina completely swooning over her dreamy guitarist (soon-to-be) girlfriend.
• “What’s up with all of the rainbows?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they’re all optimists.”
• Somebody begin the petition to alter Seattle’s official motto to “Joyful Proud Rainbow City.”
• Good to see Ellie’s hand-to-hand fight coaching turn out to be useful.
• Holy shit, that subway escape was tight! The purple flare set such an ominous visible tone, and watching the tendrils crawl across the flame — realizing it will draw a horde of the contaminated down upon the W.L.F. troopers — whereas Dina counted those she might hear on her fingers (till she ran out of fingers) actually amped up the strain. As soon as the rabid not-zombies confirmed up, there have been just a few less-convincing moments — not one of the contaminated attempting to tip the subway automobile scrambled on prime? Just one received shut sufficient to chew Ellie earlier than they pushed by means of the turnstile? — however the acute claustrophobia mixed with the killer location made it an exciting, memorable sequence general.
• “It’s just a little factor, however while you begin to disguise little issues they change into large issues,” Ellie says, referring to how aggravated she received sporting lengthy sleeves to cover the scar on her arm… but additionally what’s the little factor she’s hiding now?