The Last of Us Review - Episode 4 Recap: I wanna hold your hand
Joel and Ellie finally bond. We meet ruthless villains and learn that sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not in fact a friend, but someone hell bent on your destruction.
As Episode 4 picks up, we are no longer living in a romantic utopia with Frank and Bill. This story has moved on. Joel and Ellie have hit the road to travel West in Bill’s car to find Jimmy (Joel’s brother) and to drop off Ellie with the Fireflies so they can get cracking on a cure to prevent the end of humanity from happening.
But, wait, it’s already the end. If we didn’t see the clues in prior episodes, this one leaves little to the imagination in the way of the depths of depravity and destruction some of “the last of us [humans]” are leaving in their wake. And by “some,” I mean Melanie Lynskey, as the ruthless Karen, Kathleen. I mean gosh, she has dark hair, a furrowed brow and a nondescript blue/green/brown L.L. Bean coat. She could be me after finding out that the Starbucks by my house has once again changed their hours of operation leaving me without my morning tall iced DoubleShot.
In some good news (SGN):
Joel and Ellie’s relationship progresses in this episode to the point that Joel can now tolerate the teen. This is an improvement on the silence and accompanying grunts he threw her way in previous episodes in between spatters of “No,” “We clear?” and “My rules.”
Joel and Ellie listen to Hank Williams on the road and make small talk. The Williams’ song (a cassette), a prophetic reminder that in “the last of us,” all are indeed alone and foresaken.
Alone and forsaken by fate and by man
Oh Lord, if you hear me, please hold to my hand
Oh, please understand
As was the case with the Linda Ronstadt lyrics (Long, Long time) last episode, the lyrics here inspire the name of the episode, “please hold my hand.” But in keeping with the budding friendship of Joel and Ellie, I went with another famous hand holding song reference in my recap title to relay the intimacy of these two. And yes, specifically the Hamish Patel and Lily James version and not the original Beatles version just so I could have a reason to plug the movie, Yesterday, which is an all-time favorite of mine. If it’s not your watchlist, then add it.
Moving on…
Ellie finds a joke book called, “No Pun Intended” by Will Livingston and this becomes a lifeline for her and Joel. And who are we kidding? Puns are just funny. Period. It was only a matter of time before Joel’s icy facade started to crack.
Exhibit A:
How the episode started: (Ellie tells joke Joel while he’s siphoning gas. Joel tells her to scram and sit in the car and wait for him):
What did the mermaid wear to math class?
An algae bra.
How it’s going by the end of the episode: (Joel laughs till his belly aches from Ellie’s bedtime joke share)
Did you know that diarrhea is hereditary?
It runs in your jeans
While there’s a fermenting of a connection in this episode, it comes with its share of heartache too.
An introduction to violence (or a coda):
After being ambushed in Kansas City by heavily armed hooligans with more arms and booby traps wired than in an episode of Velma, Ellie ends up shooting one of Kathleen’s squad in the back, a kid, to save Joel from being murdered. Joel has to reconcile with his inability to protect Ellie in that moment (introducing her to committing an act of violence) and he feels shame and sends Ellie away to hide. She also technically betrayed his, ‘We clear?’ from an episode back when he forbade her from taking a gun from Frank and Bill’s house. Luckily, this stolen gun also saved Joel’s life and later on, he allows her to keep it once he shows her how to properly use it.
Ellie alludes to this not being her first time shooting someone. She doesn’t want to talk about that though. Joel gets it and doesn’t press her.
Next up, we have Kathleen who managed to get like 150 dudes in KC formerly part of the KC QZ to follow suit behind her in a brutal militaristic regime, “if you’re not with us, you’re against us and we’ll murder you” kinda way. Still, she singlehandedly dismantled the KC Quarantine Zone and took down FEDRA to create KATH-DRA and it’s working for her.
Another plot line: Kathleen seems hell bent on killing a guy named Henry whom she is convinced killed her brother and even kills her childhood doctor because she thinks Joel and Ellie are colluding with Henry and somehow the doctor is involved which led to the killings of the dudes that came for Joel and Ellie. It’s complicated.
Kathleen and Mr. Robot have one thing in common and it starts with a p-
New Character Alert: Kathleen’s right hand man, Perry:
And a reminder of who Kathleen is:
By the end of the episode, Joel is finally sleeping. He and Ellie are being actively hunted by Kathleen and co. so they climb 32 flights of stairs to sleep in a room with some body cushions on the floor (2 to be exact) which should signal to them that this might also be someone else’s hiding place. Either way, Joel shatters some glass and tosses it in front of the door to alert him in case someone sneaks up on them in the middle of the night. Unfortunately for Joel, his bum ear which got him into trouble once before when he couldn’t hear the bad guy coming to kill him from behind and Ellie saved him, once again disappoints him when he wakes up to 2 new people in his space (Henry?) and Ellie screaming for him to wake up.
My fortune cookie says that Kansas City (KC) as a locale will be like another character in the show with the cinematic attention to detail to the cityscape displayed in this episode alone.
Another very good show that features KC prominently: Fargo, season 4 with Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, Jessie Buckley, and Timothy Olyphant.
And oh, yeah, in case you didn’t have another reason to root for KC. This weekend they are in the Superbowl. And yes it’s a must win. Duh.
I laughed out loud at the L.L. Bean jacket and Starbucks lines because saaaaame. 😂
Re Ellie shooting the kid, I found it sweet that Joel still thought there was an innocence to protect. Since she’s the same age as his daughter was, he defaults to that same level of shielding, when in reality, Ellie was basically being groomed by Fedra to be a soldier (I’m guessing). Her revelation of already having shot someone snaps him back to the reality of the situation, and he lets her keep the gun.