Last of Us Episode 4

If they're going to survive Melanie Lynskey's Kansas City, Joel will need to trust Ellie more. A recap of “Please Hold My Hand,” episode 4 of HBO's “The ...

They’re less a focus of the show than the characters and the human elements of the ruined world they inhabit. • Hank Williams never recorded a finished studio version of “Alone and Forsaken.” The recording used in the episode — which was released as a single in 1955, two years after the singer’s death — is from a late-’40s radio performance. The episode ends as it began, with a kid hovering over Ellie with a gun. [Tess fall victim to a fatal Cordyceps kiss](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-last-of-us-tess-infected-ending-explained.html) and other gruesome images, but they’re awful in a different way from Brian trying to talk his way out of his doom. Then, perhaps understanding there’s no going back for her, perhaps sensing she could be an asset in future conflicts, Joel shows her the proper way to hold a gun. After Joel crashes the car into an abandoned laundromat, a firefight breaks out — one Joel hopes to spare Ellie from by telling her to hide in a hole in the wall. The Infected can be blamed for the current state of the world, but much of the destruction and cruelty within it predates the Cordyceps making the leap to humans. Where it was once ruled by FEDRA, it’s now ruled by Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), the apparent leader of a recent insurgency. As they drive, Joel tells her she’ll most likely see tanks and helicopters at some point, machines designed to “fight the wrong enemy,” and describes Hank Williams as a “winner” when Ellie finds a tape of his greatest hits. Ellie tosses it out the window after getting a glimpse of “what the fuss is all about.”) When we last saw the two making a stop, it was part of a plan, a visit to a convenience store that Joel used to stash weaponry and other supplies. They have the whole of the Midwest’s highway system to themselves and plenty of time on their hands.

The Last of Us seriously ups the stakes as Joel and Ellie head into Kansas City and meet one very pissed off Melanie Lynskey.

The closing moments of the episode give a bit of insight into both Joel and Ellie’s pasts. Joel and Ellie getting ambushed in Kansas City (changed from Pittsburgh in the game) and crashing their truck into a laundromat is a nod to a memorable encounter from the PlayStation classic, but what ensues in the aftermath is new. One ominous sign of things to come is the gurgling sinkhole Kathleen and her right hand man Perry (Jeffrey Pierce) find in the storage room of the abandoned building Henry and Sam have been holed up in. So far, the developments surrounding Kathleen and her group haven’t been nearly as compelling an addition to the story as Bill and Frank’s were, but there’s still time to see how Kathleen impacts events moving forward. The other object that acts as a symbolic through line is Ellie’s joke book, which underlines the fact that she’s growing on Joel, and that he definitely doesn’t see her as “cargo” anymore—he’s beginning to truly care about her. Back in episode 2, Tess’ last stand was changed from the game to involve infected as opposed to soldiers.

After last week's tragically beautiful diversion from the main plotline of HBO's The Last Of Us, we're back on the road with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie ...

I often compare The Last Of Us to The Walking Dead, simply because that was the last major zombie show that captured the hearts of audiences and because I wrote about it for so long. I think it would have been a better show with more of that. This was yet another terrific episode of The Last Of Us. We know very little about Henry other than that he’s in charge of someone named Sam who appears to be a child given all the superhero drawings Kathleen and her thugs find when they discover their former hideout. It probably didn’t hurt that during an encounter with three bandits, Ellie saves his life with the gun she spirited off from Bill and Frank’s. I also love that we’re getting so much humor and all these little personal moments. Her brother was killed after being ratted out by someone named Henry who she’s so hellbent on finding, she’s willing to kill her own doctor—the man who delivered her as a baby—when he won’t give up Henry’s location. The humor takes the form of a book of jokes that Ellie has happened upon. By the end, when he’s telling her that it’s not fair that she has to deal with so much violence and pain so young, it’s obvious that he really does think of her as family already—or if not quite family, then something close. He think about it and replies: “Because he was out standing in his field.” Get it? I think the most controversial thing about it was portraying ‘ten miles west of Boston’ as the Rocky Mountains. At least one missing piece from the game was rectified in tonight’s episode: As I suspected, Ellie still found the gay porn magazine in Bill’s truck.

The star-studded cast of the HBO show keeps growing as Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) continue their journey to Wyoming. Scroll to continue with ...

Episode 4 is another great episode of The Last of Us that grants Joel and Ellie valuable bonding time that they've rarely been able to find time for so far ...

For now, though, Joel and Ellie are granted a small moment of respite in the middle of the storm they’ve stumbled into. There’s little time to dwell on it at this juncture, however, as the pace keeps up and the duo find themselves in the middle of a siege with half of the cast of Mad Max pouring into the streets. This isn’t a damning criticism, as slowing the pace down and allowing for relationships to grow can be valuable when paid off further down the road, but it doesn’t make for the strongest single episode when taken individually. Her one-track-mindedness leads to the prioritising of a hunt for her supposed brother's killer over the safety of her people when she discovers signs of nearby infected. Episode 4 of HBO’s The Last of Us grants Joel and Ellie valuable bonding time that they’ve rarely been able to find time for so far in the series. It’s another example of the classiness on display in every aspect of the show’s production, all the way down to its nail-biting fight choreography.

Anyone who experienced the first season of Lynskey's cannibalistic survival horror drama knows not to underestimate Shauna Shipman, slayer of lovers, killer of ...

As much as it’s a joy to see Lynskey’s Last of Us debut, “Please Hold My Hand” accomplishes something just as great, and indeed, something even more important: Joel and Ellie as a pair, the defining duo at the heart of this story. Her debut comes after a whole lot of before with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), road-tripping away from the late Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in search of someone else: Joel’s estranged brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). It’s a hallmark of so much human history (perhaps not the cordyceps part; While she has her eyes so firmly focused on a vengeful vendetta against this enigmatic Henry, Kathleen willingly averts her gaze from a more pressing concern: the fungus among us, as some form of horrid creature lurks beneath the surface of the Kansas City QZ. We know very little about Kathleen other than what’s implied: she and her allies in Kansas City were once under the thumb of the military-government known as FEDRA, but now, she’s the one with all the firepower. Anyone who experienced the first season of Lynskey’s cannibalistic survival horror drama knows not to underestimate Shauna Shipman, slayer of lovers, killer of rabbits, and taker of mushrooms.