The last of us
The path
Season 2
Episode 3
Publisher’s note
Photo: HBO
Although most of this episode takes place on the other side of a time jump, its opening illustrates the immediate consequences of the events of the previous episode via two scenes: one of calm mourning and one of resounding sorrow and rage. The first belongs to Tommy, whom we see gently taking care of Joel’s body and asking Joel to give her love to Sarah, the girl Joel lost at the start of the infection in Cordyceps. It is a moment all the more affecting by the slow pan that ends the scene to reveal a piece filled with corpses, a reminder that Joel was only a recently lost lives. The second belongs to Ellie, who wakes up in the hospital and takes a moment to achieve what brought her there. When she does it, she shouts.
After the credits, we return to Jackson after the three -month passage. The community is deeply in the reconstruction process after the infected assault, but it is not the same as to move on. Ellie physically recovered, but before she could be declared fit for the release, she must speak to Gail. As usual, Ellie tries to hide her feelings with sarcasm, but it does not really work with Gail (which is clever to do the same). Ellie’s attempt does not make no speed either through her therapy session and the fact that she and Joel ended their relationship with unresolved tensions. “Your last moment with someone does not define your time with him,” says Ellie, which seems reasonable. But it is not entirely convincing, especially after Gail noted that Joel said that he had wrong Ellie in one way or another. Ellie feigns not to know what she is talking about. Gail pretend to believe that Ellie is fine. Everyone knows that the other simulates, but also that there is nothing to say or to do on this subject.
So Ellie leaves and returns to Joel, who is in a way his house. But the room in which she lived contains a bed without mattresses, a recall that she had moved (even if she had not gone until the garage). As you would expect, everything here reminds him of Joel before she even finds the box placed on a bed containing her watch and her pistol. She assumes a determined look and then broke down, crying at the sight of one of Joel’s jackets. Ellie crosses a lot, and she has just enough time to hide her tears before going down to talk to Dina.
Dina’s All Business (after sharing cookies). She admits that she lied to Ellie, at least a little. She knows the names of Joel’s attackers and where they live, and she kept this to her friend. But Dina has an explanation: no one could do anything while the city buried their dead, and it was not better to let their enemies come back to their original base, where they could be easily found, rather than trying to find them? She then shares what she knows, including where they live: Seattle, where they are part of the Washington Liberation Front, or WLF, which explains the wolf’s head on the patch that Dina draws for Ellie.
First step: they consult Tommy, who understands their desire for revenge and even supports him but tells them to go through appropriate channels by speaking to the municipal council. Tommy also tells them where she can visit Joel’s grave, which Ellie says she will be on the way to Seattle.
The episode then jumps towards characters that we have never seen before. In fact, it is an entire subculture that we have never seen before, a group of wandering vagabonds and wearing weapons with scars on their faces which, they quickly become clear, communicate with each other on distances while whistling. This particular group is on the way for a new house, or at least they hope. A father and a daughter named Constance discuss the plan, referring to a prophet who no longer lives. When the girl says he was told that the Prophet is eternal, her father replied: “She is, in a way. He then gave her a hammer but promises the distance they travel to the guard even more security of the war they flee. At least he believes. A whistle warns against an imminent attack by an enemy with a now familiar name: “Wolves”.
Before the council meeting, Ellie trains with Jesse, who, at her embarrassment, does not assure him that he will support his plan to make a revenge trip to Seattle. During the meeting, Ellie and Dina can barely contain their boredom and frustration while a citizen named Scott (Haig Sutherland, whose character is listed in credits like “Boring Scott”) on corn before revealing that he “does not really have any opinion” on the “Seattle thing”. It’s a funny moment but also a revealer. Avengeing Joel has become Ellie’s attention, but it is difficult to assert that it serves Jackson’s best interest. And that’s about what another resident, Rachel (Erica Pappas), says in an attempt to dissuade the Council from sending a war party from 16 to Seattle. Why lose more, especially now? Then, the debate is heated, in particular once a Seth belligerent started how “they will come back because we did not pay them”.
This leaves it to make a fence argument. By reading notes, she recognizes that this is an inappropriate moment for this company. But, she argues, it is not a question of revenge. This is justice because justice and the ability to depend on each other are what makes Jackson more than a group of foreigners sharing space. It is a strong defense of his plan, but not strong enough to persuade the council.
Later, in a baseball match, Tommy speaks to Gail. The two fear that Ellie acts alone, Tommy because he sees Joel so in her, Gail because “she is a men’s”. Both are more or less good. But is Gail also just when she tells Tommy that “some people cannot be saved”? It seems that this is the question that weighs on the series following the death of Joel.
No answer will be imminent. In the meantime, Ellie is preparing to disobey the council and to leave alone. At least it is the plan. When Dina presents herself unexpectedly, Ellie finds that she has a partner who is better to plan such an expedition. Dina has a card and a list of supplies. It also immediately begins to use the word We. Dina will come with her, and the two will share Ellie’s horse as they head west. Her only condition: Ellie must leave her chuck Taylors behind and wear decent boots instead.
Outside the door, Ellie learns the identity of the ally who helped Dina with supplies: Seth. Ellie is not generous with forgiveness, and she does not vocalize him here, but it is obvious that this gesture means something for her, especially after she shakes the hand of Seth. With that, they left in the great stranger, but only after having paid tribute to the last place of rest of Joel who lets the emotion overwhelmed.
While Ellie and Dina cross the plains, they spend their time creating an alphabetical cannon of great musical artists before transforming on stories from their first murders. They live in a world that looks very much like ours in some respects, but nothing like ours in others. Ellie cannot even share her story (for painful reasons). When a storm strikes, they share a tent and Dina wants to know how Ellie would note it as a kiss. “You are gay, I am not,” says Dina, what Ellie retorts that she should return to Jesse. Dina informs Ellie that she already has, but it is clear that she does not say quite to Ellie.
Soon, they are on the outskirts of Seattle, where they discover what remains of the unfortunate group of travelers seen earlier in the episode. They were reduced to a bunch of corpses, even for young Constance. Whoever attacked them wanted to wipe their species on the surface of the earth. Perhaps it will not be as simple as walking in Seattle, killing Abby and the others, and to leave after all. But if Ellie recognizes it, she hides it by dropping Badass declarations, a Curtis and Viper Films, another of his own invention. Ellie does not see that the Seattle space needle is now an observation tower of the WLF. And it does not yet hear the armored vehicles roll in the street or the sound of walking boots. But that cannot stay true for a long time.
• This is an episode of transition in all directions. Its predecessor destined the old status quo. He sets up the new one, in which Ellie and Dina must now face various factions in Seattle and around Seattle while they are looking for Abby and his friends. But it happens more here. In truth, the argument of Ellie before the council is not so persuasive. It is sincere and moving, and she has a good time on how Jackson defines herself as a community. But even if she is right in principle, there is not much to win in Jackson by continuing the murderers of Joel. Even Seth’s argument that they will come back to make more ravages do not feel true. It is possible to see the choice of Ellie, as understandable, as fundamentally false. Perhaps all of the following is a cascade of errors arising from this decision.
• If nothing else, this episode provides a respite from all the gravity in the form of beautiful landscapes. It is not known how long Ellie and Dina spend in the desert. About 870 miles separate Jackson and Seattle, if probably a certain time. The time between seems to have tightened the link of Dina and Ellie but did nothing to keep them away from their mission.
