After the massacre of the Seraphites that Dina and Ellie stumbled across in last week’s episode, it would be easy to automatically see Isaac as a villain – and the show isn’t necessarily trying to argue otherwise thus far. But this episode is also quick to remind us that there’s no such thing as heroes and villains in this world, just people doing their best to survive and defend the ones they love. According to the Seraphite captive, the W.L.F. broke a truce the two groups had long ago, but according to Isaac, the Seraphites are the ones who broke the truce, and thus the two groups have been locked in a cycle of violence ever since.
Dina and Ellie stumble into this conflict during their search for Abby and the Wolves, making their search all the more perilous and challenging. While investigating an old TV station that the W.L.F. have claimed as their base, they find that the Seraphites have killed and disemboweled a number of the Wolves there. A W.L.F. response team arrives soon after, and Dina and Ellie have to fight their way out.
Dina and Ellie’s dynamic has been one of the highlights of this season so far, and episode 4 only enhances that. Before they find themselves running from Wolves and infected, the two find shelter in an abandoned music store. Ellie finds a guitar and starts playing “Take on Me” by A-ha while Dina sits and listens lovingly. It’s an important scene from The Last of Us Part II because it not only gives Dina and Ellie a quiet moment amidst the violence and chaos they encounter in Seattle, it also shows us Ellie mourning and trying to reconnect with her memory of Joel through music. In the show, this song also has connections to Riley (Storm Reid) and their last night together at the mall. Overall it’s a beautiful reminder of Ellie’s softer side that she hasn’t let many people see.
This touching moment also raises the stakes when Dina and Ellie have to run from the W.L.F. and a horde of infected later on in the episode. In another sequence ripped almost straight from the game, Dina and Ellie find themselves in an abandoned subway tunnel. The W.L.F. soldiers mistakenly think that the tunnel has been cleared out, and are ambushed by infected. Dina and Ellie try to use this distraction to make a break for it, but have a number of close calls as they run through and over subway cars toward the exit.
This sequence is one of the scariest in the series thanks to the eerie red lighting from the W.L.F.’s flares and the tight quarters of the subway cars. Even as someone who knows The Last of Us Part II’s story from front to back, I don’t think I fully exhaled until Dina and Ellie were on the other side of the turnstiles.
And even then, the tension doesn’t quite subside. As they’re escaping, Ellie and Dina get stuck in the turnstiles, with Dina nearly getting bitten. Ellie instinctively throws her arm in front of Dina, taking the bite for her (on the same arm as her first bite, which is surely not a coincidence). Once they find shelter in an old theater, Dina points her gun at Ellie, thinking that she’s about to turn. Ellie admits that she would die for Dina in a heartbeat, but that’s not what she was trying to do. She tells Dina that she’s immune and pleads with Dina to give her the night to prove that she won’t become infected.
