The Last Of Us – Season 1 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Please Hold Onto My Hand

Episode 4 of The Last Of Us starts with Ellie in a bathroom alone, playing with the handgun she found. She pulls the trigger, loads and unloads it, before heading back to see Joel. The pair are at an abandoned truck stop and Joel fills up the gas ready for them to move. There’s some nice little bits of banter between them, as Ellie reads out her puns from the comic she found earlier in the series.

There’a also some great dialogue ripped from the games too, specifically those moments that were initially intended for Bill’s town. Ellie picks up a male magazine and quips that the pages are stuck together. Eventually she throws it outside and the pair press on, eventually deciding to make camp in the middle of the forest.

Joel warns that they need to be careful because people may come and get them, so as the night draws on they put on a big lamp for a while and eventually sleep outside under the stars. “No one’s gonna find us” Joel reassures her as they turn in for the night. However Joel stays up and keeps watch, which seems like the sensible thing to do to be honest.

The pair continue on in the morning and come to Kansas City but the way forward is blocked, forcing them to go around, deeper into the city. Ellie struggles to read the map and even worse, a man feigning injury shows up and starts attacking them. They press on, driving over spikes on the road and getting stuck inside an abandoned shop.

Joel orders Ellie to slip through a hole in the wall nearby and hide while he takes care of their attackers, who show up and begin firing. In the games there’s a good deal of them but here there’s only 3. Ellie is the one who saves Joel from a guy choking him out, shooting him in the back. Joel orders her back through the gap in the wall before killing the guy with a knife, putting him out his misery.

Over at the Fedra department, a woman called Kathleen is trying to find a man called Henry. They know he’s in the city and are dead-set on hunting him down. Kathleen puts a gun to the old man’s head, a guy who happens to be her doctor, and demands answers. He doesn’t given them but a loud horn blast from outside brings Kathleen out to check what’s happened.

A whole rabble of people are here, watching as the soldiers bring in 2 dead bodies (belonging to the men from the firefight). Kathleen orders everyone to find who did it and make them pay.

Kathleen finds evidence of Henry and Sam hiding out inside an attic, with drawings and an abundance of empty cans. Unfortunately, the basement holds something far nastier, as the cracked ground begins lurching and rumbling. Kathleen decides to seal off the building and hide this from the others.

This lot aren’t Fedra and they’re not Fireflies either, instead they happen to be ordinary people eking out a living. Joel and Ellie happen to be inside a bar, with newspaper over the windows, watching as the people search through the nearby apartments.

Whilst inside, Joel apologizes to Ellie for her having to shoot someone but she admits it’s not the first time she’s had to kill. He teaches her how to hold the gun properly before the pair prepare to make their move. “We’l get through this.” Joel promises, as they both make their move.

Joel and Ellie make it to an apartment complex and begin walking up the stairs. As they camp out, there’s a really nice moment where Joel starts to soften to Ellie’s puns. When they wake up though, there’s no more laughs. Henry and Sam are there, holding them at gunpoint.

The Episode Review

One of the better parts of this episode comes from the building camaraderie between Joel and Elie, which is really focused on here with the pun comic book and the repurposed Bill dialogue inside the car with the magazine. All of that stuff is great, with the pair slowly starting to trust one another.

The little change with Ellie shooting one of the men and Joel having to eventually finish him off is a nice way of showing the trust the pair have for one another and it’s definitely a welcome inclusion.

Unfortunately, this sequence inside the shop shows one of the biggest problems with this show – the action. The Last Of Us gam managed to balance action, suspense and character-driven drama beautifully but here, the show has almost completely abandoned the action and suspense, instead gunning for much more of a standard drama.

There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but it’s now starting to affect the pace a bit, which seriously drags in places The attack on Joel and Ellie in the games is absolutely insane and wracked with tension. Here though, we have a grand total of 3 people attacking and there’s barely any suspense. It’s especially damning because then we meet this Kathleen and find out she has a small army at her disposal. Hell, even The Walking Dead handled this idea of invaders with more gravitas, especially in seasons 3 and 4 with The Governor.

We’ve also had 2 whole episodes now with very little in the way of infected. Sure, we’ve seen the ground shake a little but given we’ve been told the infected are everywhere and have been shown that in episode 2, it’s a little disappointing to find the entire world almost completely barren and scarce of threats.

This isn’t a bad adaptation though and the characters are definitely growing into their roles. However, it’s also not the best zombie show out there. Given how many other contenders are in this field – especially in Asia with dramas like Happiness, All Of Us Are Dead and Kingdom – this one’s good but it’s certainly not perfect.