TL;DR – Today, it feels like we have hit the point of no return, that moment when you can not undo what you have become.

Disclosure – I paid for the Max service that viewed this show.

End Credit Scene – There is a trailer and behind-the-scenes making-of.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

The Last of Us Review –

It has been said that “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”, a phrase often linked to the philosopher Confucius, but I think he never actually said it. But I digress. The phrase is as evocative as it is because you can understand how that drive for revenge can push out all reasonable thought and make you act in ways that actively hurt yourself. Literature is full of revenge narratives, from simple calling, like you hurt an old lady whom I liked, or you killed my dog. All the way to convoluted messes like we don’t like your politics of fear, so we are going to kill you. But no matter the narrative, there is always a tipping point, and I think we have hit one of them today.     

So, to set the scene, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced) have firmly planted themselves in Seattle and are actively hunting down the ones who killed Joel (Pedro Pascal). Thankfully for them, a war has broken out between the WLF and the Scars. It provides a lot of coverage and a lot of information. People can help but chat over the radio, and Dina hears everything on Day Two. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

One thing I loved from this episode is how Ellie and Dina talked strategy, because I loved how it showed how smart they were. They talked about tactics maturely, the apparent flaw in their plan, and that everything they were doing had a hint of recklessness. They worked out a lot about the two sides just because of how they used the radio. It can be frustrating when people blunder into errors because they were acting stupidly. Here, there are mistakes, but that is just because of a lack of information. Or in the case of the park, it was a last-minute do-or-die situation.

One of the changes this season that I have appreciated is the work they have put into the character of Dina. This started from a narrative perspective back in Through the Valley, when they changed who was there in the cabin to give Dina more of a drive as to why she would join this expedition. When I played through the game initially, it felt like Dina was there to impede the story, or the gameplay, or the characterisation. Not so in the series. Part of that must come from the writing; however, a lot of it has to come from the performance of Isabela Merced, who has nailed the character and what drives her.

The narrative that bookends this week’s episode is what is going on in the hospital, which gives us the first major course correction from Season One. One thing people noticed was missing from the first season was the lack of spores as a plot device. Honestly, that was one change that I did kind of like, because we had just gone through COVID, and had a better idea of how respiratory diseases worked. This season, they had brought spores back, but in a precise way, and I liked that choice. They exist, but in minimal, contained locations, most likely where concentrations of the first ever infected ended up. This is also the location of the final stop for Nora (Tati Gabrielle). It is here where Ellie has a choice; in fact, she has several off-ramps that she could have used to save herself from walking down a perilous road. Instead, she commits, and it is hard to watch.    

In the end, do we recommend The Last of Us: Feel Her Love? I continue to like just how strong this season has been so far. Even if this might not have been the strongest episode overall, it still had moments that stood out and character beats that made it thoroughly engaging to watch. Have you seen The Last of Us yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Last of Us
Directed by – Stephan Williams
Written by – Craig Mazin
Created by – Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann
Based On– The Last of Us Part II by Neil Druckmann, Halley Gross and Naughty Dog
Production/Distribution Companies – Naughty Dog, PlayStation Productions, Sony Pictures Television, The Mighty Mint, Word Games, HBO & Max
Starring – Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Isabela Merced & Yong Mazino with Alanna Ubach, Tati Gabrielle, Hettienne Park & Pedro Pascal and Maurice Dean Wint & Cheonguk Park