The Last Of Us Episode 4 Review
Credit to: Naughty Dog, Sony and HBOAlmost forgot other humans existed
Welcome back, y’all! This time around, we’re taking a look at the fourth episode of The Last of Us! Y’all already know how much I’ve been loving this series, and this episode has done it yet again for me. I don’t want to be so repetitive with my scores, buuut… tell this series to stop being so good, then I’ll stop. This review is gonna be short and sweet, as we actually have another review to push out for the next episode this week as well, which will be dropping on Friday instead of Sunday, due to the Super Bowl. Not complaining whatsoever! Just letting y’all know. But let me stop wasting time, without any further ado, let’s jump right into it.
Pros
I love the relationship building done in this episode. There’s a few ways that this is done in this episode, whether it’s Ellie annoying Joel with her jokes or… ahem, finding herself one of those kinds of magazines, if you catch my meaning. Now that Joel has no choice but to have Ellie stick with him, we see them having to make conversation and get to know each other better, even if Joel wants to try and maintain his hardened expression. I loved seeing these two have their talks before they sleep, especially with Ellie showing just how young she is with her sense of humor, the kind of humor that actually gets Joel to laugh some, which was really sweet to see. Something that I find to be great about the relationship between the two characters, is that while yes, the show follows the game for the most part, the actors really deliver the lines in their own way, or change them up a bit, and that really does affect the scene. There’s times where Joel here sounds a lot more stern or shows no reaction to Ellie compared to how lighthearted Joel can sound in the game, even early on. I take this as a way to show that the two still don’t fully trust each other to be super cool with one another, they simply tolerate one another. But, from the way this episode went down, it goes from just tolerating each other to actually talking about personal things and opening up to one another. We even see Joel show Ellie how to properly hold a gun after seeing hers for the first time. I love seeing them slowly build up into the inseparable adoptive father and daughter duo that we’ve grown to love in the video game.
Beyond these two, we actually see a couple of humans who have their own way of getting by in life. After driving near an abandoned checkpoint in the city, Joel and Ellie are hunted by a group of survivors armed to the teeth. They’re led by a woman named Kathleen (played by Melanie Lynskey), who’s actually a new character. I won’t say much about her, but it does look like she’ll be a thorn in our duo’s sides for a little while. I really can’t dive too deep into why this is in the ‘Pros’ section without spoiling things, so all I’ll say is that this situation winds up being a powerful part of unveiling more of Ellie’s past. It’s her past that gets Joel to loosen up a bit with her, as she’s clearly shaken and doesn’t want to dive into it yet. Beyond that, I do want to say that I’m really happy to see these two going up against humans now. There’s bound to be people who think their way is more right than yours, and there’s bound to be people who simply want to take what you’ve got to survive, it’s them over you, and in the Last Of Us universe, these kinds of survivors are far too common. This quite literally is the beginning of a rough series of events, you can all be very sure of that, and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.
Cons
I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry, I’m doing it again. I loved the episode. It’s almost perfect. Almost. While I’m extremely excited to see antagonistic survivors going up against Joel and Ellie, I gotta say that the introduction of Kathleen is a liiiiittle lackluster. She seems to be troubled, as she’s looking for a specific person that I won’t spoil, but honestly there wasn’t enough done with the character or even her followers to really make me feel too much interest. She kinda feels like she’s just a new character. I’m not sure what I expected to see from a brand new character, but again, there wasn’t a whole lot there in my opinion. She’s not a bad character at all, but it’s too early to really say. She has potential of course, I trust the showrunner and the writers, but as it currently goes, she and her followers are just a roadblock at the moment.
Final Thoughts
Don’t let the rating alarm you, it’s still a high rating, but I will say that this episode is a little weaker than the previous three. There’s nothing wrong with that, not at all, I mean I still loved the episode very much, but I wasn’t pulled quite as much as before. Again, that’s fine, it happens, I’m sure it’ll pick back up as we spend more time with these new characters. Beyond that, i loved seeing Joel and Ellie build up their friendship so much more. There’s a lot of wholesome content here, a lot of not so wholesome content here, but it all plays an important part in building up a bond between these two, a bond that’s literally iconic, and I can’t wait to see them get closer. But what did you all think? Let us know on our Instagram, and make sure you’re following to stay up to the latest entertainment news and reviews. That’s all from me, this has been The Wolf Den!
