Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Episode 4 of The Last of Us.After last week's incredible third episode, “Long, Long Time,” the fourth episode of The Last of Us finally gets us to the core of what makes this story so special: Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). For the first time, we get to spend quite a bit of time with this pair by themselves, as they make their way to Wyoming to find Joel’s brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna).
While not nearly as tragic as any of the previous three, this week's episode is doing plenty of important work in building the relationship between Joel and Ellie, as they learn to trust each other, start accepting each other, and begin to understand how important having someone else watching their backs can be. So much of The Last of Us as a story is about this bond, and this fourth episode is the first time we really begin to see this connection flourish.
Joel and Ellie on the Road
We start the episode with Ellie, alone in a gas station bathroom, admiring the gun she took from Bill and Frank’s place without Joel knowing. Ellie seems fascinated by the gun, pulling the trigger with an empty barrel, and smelling the weapon before she puts it away. We’ve already seen Ellie’s curiosity when it comes to violence, as she seemed intrigued by Joel in the first episode when he killed the FEDRA officer, and in last week’s episode, “Long, Long Time,” she stabbed a trapped infected, seemingly to see what it was like. Ellie was born in this world of violence, and outside the walls of the Boston quarantine zone, she seems to be accepting the world’s severity.
As she leaves, we find Joel siphoning gas for the truck that they also got from Bill and Frank’s home. While Ellie waits, she pulls out her joke book, “No Pun Intended Volume Too,” and starts reading them to an unwilling Joel. Later on, as they continue on in the truck, Ellie rags on Joel a bit more, as she finds a Hank Williams cassette that Joel puts on, and then after finding a gay porn magazine, she jokes about how all the pages are stuck together. Much like the game, these moments with the magazine and the joke book show that the barrier between these two is cracking. Ellie is already opening herself up to her protector, while Joel is starting to slowly but surely accept Ellie and her eccentricities, bit by bit.
While they drive down the road, we see that the world of man has lost to nature. Buffalo still roam in herds, whereas we see plenty of cars and military vehicles left on the side of the road, abandoned, with even a giant bridge giving out in the middle. Joel and Ellie pull off the road and into the woods to spend the night, and Joel cooks a meal of 20-year-old Chef Boyardee ravioli. Ellie likes the pasta, and Joel even agrees with her. As they eat, they discuss their plans, that they should reach Wyoming in just a few days, and Joel tells Ellie that despite the cold, they can't make a fire, as it could attract other people. Ellie asks if these other people would rob them, to which Joel says they’d have more on their minds than that.
As the two lie down in their sleeping bags for the night, Ellie gets out her joke book and asks Joel a serious question: “why did the scarecrow win an award?” To which Joel replies, “because he was outstanding in his field.” Ellie seems taken aback, surprised by this lighthearted side of Joel. As Joel goes back to bed, we see a rare smile on his face for just a second. Ellie then concernedly asks about those people, ensuring they won’t find them. Joel assures her they won’t find them, which Ellie accepts—another sign that there is already trust growing between these two. Almost as if he's second-guessing himself, or maybe just to make sure, we see that Joel stays up all night with his gun, protecting Ellie from strangers who may or may not be lurking out there.
Tommy and Joel's History
The next morning, the two pack up the truck and head back on the road—Joel manning the wheel with Ellie keeping an eye on the map. The topic of conversation heads toward Tommy, and Joel opens up, saying that Tommy used to be what he called a “joiner,” and that he dreamed of becoming a hero. Tommy enlisted in the Army after high school and then was shipped out in Operation Desert Storm, but that didn't make him feel like a hero.
12 years later, after the outbreak, Tommy convinced Joel to join a group heading to Boston—which Joel did primarily in order to keep Tommy safe and alive. There, they met Tess, and they formed a crew. But then, Tommy met Marlene, who talked him into joining the Fireflies, with dreams that he could save the world. Joel says that Tommy and the Fireflies' hopes of saving the world are a pipe dream and that they're delusional. But last Joel heard, Tommy also left the Fireflies, and now he’s on his own, which means Joel has to go get him. Ellie questions Joel’s lack of hope, saying that we have to try, but Joel rebuts that she hasn't seen the world yet, so she doesn't know. But, Joel says you keep going for family, and that's about it. When Ellie says that she's not family, Joel says, “No, you're cargo. I made a promise to Tess, and she was like family.”
Trouble in Kansas City
Further down the road in Kansas City, the interstate goes through a tunnel that is blocked by wrecked trucks and cars. Instead of backtracking further, they take an exit off the highway with plans to get on at the next exit. As they drive through the city, we see piles of bodies that they manage to miss, and they see a quarantine zone that has been deserted. Soon after, they see a man walking in the street doubled over, calling for help. Joel tells Ellie to put her seatbelt on and the two drive towards the man, with Joel saying they're not going to help him. As they pass the man, another man drops a cinder block on their windshield, their tires are popped by a spike strip, and another man appears with a gun. Joel and Ellie crash the truck into a laundromat as they’re shot as from the street.
Joel tells Ellie to crawl into a hole in a nearby wall and to stay there until he gets her, promising her that she won’t get hurt. Once she's there, Joel hides behind the useless truck and shoots at their attackers. Joel believes all the men to be dead, but then another man sneaks up behind him, knocking Joel to the ground, and pressing his gun up to his neck, slowly killing him. Knowing she has no other choice, Ellie sneaks up on the man and shoots him with her secret gun. But the man isn’t dead, crying and begging Ellie not to shoot again. Joel takes the gun from Ellie, takes the begging man’s knife, and tells Ellie to get back into the wall. From her hiding spot, we hear Joel stabs the man to death. With all the men gone, Joel and Ellie leave the laundromat, and head to the streets, hoping to find higher ground and a path out of danger.
Kathleen and the Hunt for Henry
We then leave Joel and Ellie and meet Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), who is interrogating an older man in a FEDRA lockup, asking him where she can find the people she's looking for. The list ends with the name Henry, and Kathleen can tell the man is lying about not knowing Henry’s whereabouts. Kathleen then looks at the cell they're in, and questions whether this was the FEDRA lockup where her brother was beaten to death. The man says that Kathleen was wronged and that he's sorry, but she's gone too far and this has to stop. But Kathleen points out that of course, it has to stop, now that the man doesn’t feel safe and protected, but it didn't matter when he was safe and ratting people out to FEDRA. As Kathleen holds a gun to the man’s head, we learn that he was the doctor that delivered her, and the doctor promises that he never told FEDRA anything about her brother. But Kathleen states that Henry did and that they know he’s still in the city, and she believes the doctor knows where he is. She holds the gun up to his head, and the man once again reiterates that he was her doctor. Even though Kathleen says, “You don't think I will do it?,” we can see that this bond does hold some weight with her. When she hears a truck horn from the streets, she leaves the cell and the doctor unharmed.
On the street, her team has found the men that Joel killed. The leader of the squad, Perry (Jeffrey Pierce, who plays Tommy in The Last of Us video games) says that the people who did this were outsiders, heavily supplied and not from FEDRA—but they could be mercenaries. Kathleen posits that maybe Henry called these mercs in, and then asks if any of the men would live with the help of a doctor, to which the men reply there is no chance. Kathleen turns around and immediately returns to the doctor’s cell with purpose, pulling out her gun and shooting the doctor dead. Kathleen returns to the street and claims that the death of these men is Henry's work, and that he won't stop until they find him. Her people must find Henry’s collaborators and kill them all. As they go on their mission, we see Kathleen’s team is heavily armed, with guns, trucks, and plenty of men to enact a building-by-building search with ease.
"We'll Get Through This"
We cut back to Joel and Ellie who are hiding out in a bar, watching as Kathleen's men search the apartments for Henry and his “collaborators.” They also see a tall building a few blocks away, which they plan to head to once things die down. In a moment of quiet, they both ask each other if they're all right. Joel then confides that he feels bad that Ellie had to save him from the man who snuck up on him, getting choked up by the idea that a kid had to do that to protect him. Joel says he knows what it's like, the first time you have to hurt someone like that, and that it was Joel’s fault, that Ellie shouldn’t have had to shoot the guy, and Joel apologizes to Ellie. But Ellie confesses that it wasn't her first time, without delving into details. After that, Joel gives Ellie the gun back, making sure she knows how to use it, and tells her to put it in her bag, but instead, Ellie puts the gun in her jacket. It's a touching moment of compassion between the two, showing that maybe Joel is starting to care for Ellie, and maybe even consider her more than just cargo. As they get ready to leave the bar, Joel promises “we’ll get through this,” to which Ellie replies, “I know.”
Back to Kathleen, Perry says that they found signs of Henry. Perry takes Kathleen to a crawlspace in a nearby building. Inside, they find crayon drawings of superheroes, empty cans of food, and a place where people were clearly sleeping. As they leave the space, Kathleen points out that they’re out of food and that Henry won’t let Sam starve, and that they must be close. Perry then takes Kathleen to another room where it looks like a crater has hit the ground. The caved-in ground starts to move, and they both leave the room, frightened by what's underneath. Kathleen says that they should seal off the building and not tell people what is going on down there until after they’ve found Henry.
To the Childhood I Lost, Replaced by Fear
We rejoin Joel and Ellie entering the tall building, with plans to climb as many of the 45 floors as they can to get a better look at the city. As they climb floor after floor, Ellie asks Joel how she knew the guy with fake injury was going to ambush them. Joel admits that he’s been on both sides and that a long time ago, they did what they needed to survive—the “they” meaning Joel, Tess, Tommy, and the people they were with. Ellie asks if Joel killed innocent people, and Joel ignores the question, yet the silence answers the question nonetheless.
The pair makes it up 33 floors before Joel is too exhausted to keep going. Ellie calls Joel a lazy ass, and Joel jokes that he's “56 years old, you little shit.” The two find a room to stay in for the night, with Ellie creating a makeshift bed out of cushions, while Joel breaks glass and spreads it near the door, so they’ll know if anyone tries to come in. Ellie asks if he’ll hear the glass, to which Joel says of course he will, that's the point.
The two lay down for the night, but before they go to sleep, Joel asks Ellie what she meant that it wasn’t her first time hurting people. But this time, it's Ellie who doesn't want to talk about her past. Joel accepts it, saying she doesn't have to talk about it, but it isn't fair at her age to have to deal with this. Ellie asks if it gets easier when you’re older, to which Joel says it doesn’t, but still. Ellie follows up on the glass, saying she asked because she noticed Joel doesn't hear too well on his right side. Ellie asks if it’s because that’s where he was shot, and Joel says it's probably more from him shooting. To lighten the mood, Ellie tells another one of her bad jokes, and the two laugh with each other, overcome by the ridiculousness of a terrible joke about diarrhea. In the matter of one episode, we can already see how much closer this pair has gotten to each other, both trusting in each other, knowing that they have each other's back, and feeling a camaraderie that neither of them has felt in quite some time.
But Ellie was right to worry about Joel not hearing the glass, as in the middle of the night, Ellie wakes up Joel with a start, as she is being held at gunpoint by a young man, and Joel discovers that a child with a drawn-on superhero mask is holding a gun on him as well. As the credits roll, we hear a cover of New Order’s “True Faith,” which was used in promotional material for The Last of Us Part II, with the game’s Ellie, Ashley Johnson, singing a version based on Lotte Kestner’s own cover. While it's a nice reference to the game, the song is also from 1987 — which, once again, like Tess and Frank’s radio code, means trouble.