The fourth episode of The Last of Us‘ sophomore season dove back into horror in more than a few ways, aiming to further the character development. I’d say that one of these themes worked out, but the other stumbled pretty hard, unfortunately.

Where the show stumbled this week was the relationship between Ellie and Dina. The two have been very “will they, won’t they” all season, so it’s not per se a surprise that they finally got together, but the manner of that revelation was very abrupt. After saving Dina from the infected and getting bitten in the process, Dina is naturally very scared that Ellie is about to turn. After some convincing at the receiving end of a gun barrel, Ellie is able to get Dina not to shoot her after revealing her immunity. Hours later, Ellie still hasn’t turned. Instead of asking questions about the immunity, Dina shifts towards her pregnancy, and the two end up shacking up, with Ellie now declaring how excited she is that she’s going to be a dad. It felt very rushed and unearned. Those two characters only just got their feelings out, and they’re already talking about their family (without Jesse being around, no less) while Ellie’s immunity never goes beyond her tattoo that covers up her original bite mark. Considering how googly-eyed Ellie is for Dina in this episode, it does make me worried for storybeats to come, and that’s as cryptic as I’ll be.

The episode did tap into horror a lot this week, including the aforementioned Infected attack, which occurred in an underground subway station. But we also had the hanging and disembowelled bodies of the WLF soldiers at the hands of the Scars, which unfortunately lacked all tension, as we knew who the Scars were due to them being introduced needlessly last week. Then, we also got Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) torturing a Scar for information on their next attack. This interrogation really tapped into the central theme of the second game, being the cycle of violence, and it seems like neither he nor his victim really knew how this conflict started. The episode actually opened with a flashback in 2018 with Isaac, who used to be Fedra but betrayed his unit (including Josh from Drake and Josh) and joined the WLF. Between the WLF and the Scars, we see this tribal warfare based on ideology and beliefs that has spiralled out of control, with members of each faction willing to do anything to other humans in a time where there are infected zombie-like creatures they should be rallying against together.

The show continues to flex its production design, with the sets looking very similar to their video game counterparts in both detail and scope. I really liked the music shop set, complete with old vinyls, and nature reclaiming the space. Ellie plays A-ha’s Take On Me with an acoustic guitar here, her skills as a musician vastly improving thanks to lessons from Joel. That said, Bella Ramsey’s auto-tuned vocals did distract me. It may not seem it, but scenes like that are very important thematically for the end of this story, so bookmark that scene mentally.

I think something that is bugging me with season two of The Last of Us is the dialogue. It feels very simple and direct, as if there’s no room for interpretation or nuance. Everyone says what they’re feeling, as opposed to using body language or deflection, which allows us, the audience, to second-guess things. But in this show, the writing this season has been telling us how to feel and how to react, and it’s feeling very robotic and lifeless at times. I know the game had its fair share of controversy, but at least the game had better control of the character development to date.

Likewise, being familiar with the source material, Ellie is so consumed with hate and fury in this part of the game due to the loss of Joel. She spirals, and the hate does consume her, so Joel’s death ends up casting a massive shadow over the plot and characters. In the show, his death almost feels like an afterthought, with show Ellie continuing to be snarky and quippy, with a bit of gloom on the side for measure, but the lack of urgency is quite jarring. The two renditions do not feel very similar to each other.