'The Last of Us' season 2, episode 4 recap: Seattle Freeze

Seattle is as unwelcoming to outsiders as ever as the show's revenge quest begins in earnest

For those who are unfamiliar with The Seattle Freeze, it goes like this: people in this city have garnered notoriety for not being friendly. When I moved here, it was one of the first things people warned told me about.

“It doesn’t rain as much as everyone says, but The Freeze is real,” they would say.

I don’t mind when people leave me alone, and I certainly don’t mind not having to exchange forced pleasantries. Turns out, I fit in pretty well here.

The main characters of The Last of Us do not fit in very well in Seattle, and were introduced to a very different, zombie-apocalypse-and-martial-law-infused version of The Freeze this week.

Let’s get to it.

Jeffrey Wright has entered the chat.

'The Last of Us' season 2, episode 4: Day One

After a weak third episode,¹ The Last of Us was back in its wheelhouse this week. Escaping the half-assed political maneuvering in the Jackson settlement, ‘Day One’ largely focused on two characters, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina (Isabela Merced), beginning to explore Seattle as they search for information on the Washington Liberation Front (WLF).

The propulsive episode, written by co-showrunner Craig Mazin and directed by Kate Herron, featured a zombie chase sequence, a hammy-but-still-cute musical performance, an infection scare, and a ruthless human leader performing barbarism. Like I said, back in its wheelhouse!

‘Day One’ begins in 2018 with a kind of origin story of the WLF through the eyes of Isaac (Jeffrey Wright, reprising his role from the video game). As with Boston (and, presumably, much of the rest of the country) in the first season, the Pacific Northwest was under martial law at the hands of a heavily armed government military group called FEDRA after the zombie infestation.

As America splintered, FEDRA became more violent and oppressive. The scene we see with the Seattle faction shows a unit in the back of an armored vehicle; one soldier, Janowitz (hello, Josh Peck), gleefully tells a newer recruit, Burton (Ben Ahlers), how they get to detain people on a whim while patrolling.

Josh Peck has entered and quickly exited the chat.

I spotted Wright’s Isaac, the unit commander, in the back of a wide shot stoically listening to this story (we call that screen presence!), but his real introduction comes when he interrupts Peck’s character. Janowitz doesn’t know why they refer to the civilians they brutalize as “voters,” but Isaac does: Because FEDRA took away their right to vote, and it’s a mocking reminder.

The episode’s cold open takes a brutal, surprising turn when a group of “voters” starts to assemble around the FEDRA vehicle. Isaac tells the soldiers to hold while he investigates, bringing Burton with him “to learn something.” Out of the crowd of people comes another familiar face, Alanna Ubach!² Her character (which IMDb tells me is named Hanarahan) and Isaac exchange a solemn glance before he unceremoniously returns to the vehicle, tosses a live grenade in the back, and locks the back door to prevent anyone from escaping.

Alanna Ubach has briefly entered the chat and appears to rejoin next week.

He shoots the surviving FEDRA driver, shakes Alanna Ubach’s hand (I’m not calling her Hanarahan until I have to, lol), and tells Burton he has to make a choice… join what is presumably the early stages of WLF, or die. Cue opening credits!

Isaac will return later in the episode in a vicious torture sequence that sheds a little more light on the conflict raging in modern-day Seattle. Wright makes a meal out of his short monologue about fancy French copper cooking pans, heating one on a gas stove to flay the skin of a nude, shackled prisoner at a WLF facility.

This man bears ritualistic gashes on his cheeks just like the group that was massacred in the woods in last week’s episode; we learn that they call themselves Seraphites, while the WLF derogatorily calls them Scars.

It appears the WLF has taken over FEDRA’s job of maintaining brutal order over the region. They have also acquired FEDRA’s heavy weapons, tanks, and facilities, while the Seraphites use bows and bolt-action rifles. Still, Isaac is deeply frustrated by this cultish group, and this prisoner unmoors him further by telling him that their numbers grow by the day, while the WLF wavers despite all their hardened equipment and advanced training.

Wright displays a masterful control of tone during this scene, letting the character’s confidence slowly diminish until he boils over. As much as he may first appear to enjoy debasing his enemy, in reciting his prepared speech about his fancy skillet, his eyes tell a different story: this is a man who is exhausted and starting to get a little bit desperate. Next week’s episode hints at more WLF drama, including, thankfully, more of Ubach.

Seattle is known for its great public transit system

The main focus of this episode, though, is Ellie and Dina.

‘Day One’ finds them riding around Seattle on horseback, exploring a record store, an old TV news building, and fleeing to an abandoned Metro tunnel.

Much of the character and relationship development that I felt was missing during last week’s episode happens here. Although they’ve traversed a sizable chunk of the country to get here, Dina and Ellie seem to just be starting to bond. Ramsey and Merced have a natural chemistry, both uneasily navigating the beginnings of their romance while on a decidedly unromantic mission.

The episode’s funniest moment comes when they wander into Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood (where I live, btw) and discover tattered Pride flags and chipped murals. They have no idea what they’re looking at, as the world ended 20 or so years ago, and they’ve been too busy to learn about LGBTQ history. Perhaps if/when they return to Jackson, they and Seth the Homophobe can start a queer book club.

Gay rights!

The pair eventually discovers a WLF outpost at an old broadcasting station. They wait until nightfall to sneak in, and make a horrifying discovery: WLF soldiers hanging from the ceiling, their torsos slashed, with their entrails spilling out. Dina and Ellie barely have time to register the scene, and the Seraphite symbol written in blood on the wall, before WLF reinforcements show up.

Here, The Last of Us blessedly returns to action movie mode. For better or worse, the show thrives when it’s built around a set-piece like this; as we saw last week, it can flounder when it relies too much on yapping. (Gail exempt).

Herron’s direction is very strong in this stretch. There’s a short but tense game of cat and mouse that quickly turns violent when Ellie jabs a WLF soldier in the neck with her knife. From here, it becomes a full-blown chase sequence, out of the TV station, into the rain, and underground into an abandoned train tunnel. The soldiers follow Dina and Ellie, illuminating the tunnel with red flares.

To no one’s surprise, these flares awaken a horde of zombies, who make quick work of the WLF. Dina and Ellie use a decrepit train car as a barrier between them and the Infected, running through it as the zombies start breaking through on all sides. The way Herron shoots this sequence reminded me of the van ambush in Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men; the camera stays inside the train and makes us feel every desperate shot.

They barely escape the train and make it out of the station; just as they’re about to emerge unscathed, Ellie saves Dina from a charging Infected by shielding her with her arm just as it chomps down. Dramatic!

From the train tunnel, the two make their way to Seattle’s historic Paramount Theater, which was recreated in Vancouver, BC, and, I’m assuming, a bit of computer animation. After they bar the doors, Dina pulls her gun on Ellie, assuming she has to kill her before she turns.

After a brief, emotional standoff, Dina is convinced to let Ellie live for a little bit to prove she won’t become a zombie. Ellie is almost a goner when water from the Paramount’s leaky roof causes her to flail awake; I really had a laugh when Dina immediately hit her with the blinding light from her flashlight and raised the gun again in this moment. You will not catch Dina slipping.

Once it becomes clear Ellie won’t turn, Dina has some news of her own to share: She’s pregnant! That’s why she’s been barfing sporadically, not because of the horrors she’s witnessing. The two celebrate their collective good (I guess?) news the only way that’s appropriate: By having sex in the lobby of a once bustling Seattle landmark.

This reprieve is short-lived, as reports from a stolen WLF walkie-talkie indicate their next destination. Nora, one of the people they’re trying to hunt down to avenge Joel’s death, is in the Lakehill area. They run to the roof and use a map to locate it; there is a not-small amount of explosions and gunfire happening between the theater and there. In a departure from the game, Dina decides to join Ellie on her pursuit rather than remaining at the Paramount and resting her pregnant ass.

Of all the changes made between the game and the show, the ones to Dina’s have been my favorite. She is a much more interesting and proactive character here, thanks in no small part to Merced’s scene-stealing performance. She even managed to sell Dina’s outsized reaction to Ellie’s acoustic guitar rendition of “Take On Me” early in the episode. It was corny in the game, and slightly less corny here. What more could you ask for in a cross-media adaptation?

What did you think of this episode? Do you think Alanna Ubach will be my new Gail, or will she be more sinister and less charming than that?

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I hope Ubach tells Jeffrey Wright to take a Percocet at some point, just as she told Elle Woods those many years ago.

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