The Last of Us 2×04 Review: “Day One”

The Last of Us season 2 episode 4, titled ‘Day One’, struck a nice balance between action, gore, and intense emotions as Ellie and Dina continued their journey to locate Abby.

The latest episode opened back in 2018, with us following a group of FEDRA soldiers. One of them was telling a joke about the civilians they’re supposed to protect, calling them Voters. Sergeant Isaac wasn’t a fan of the insensitive joke, explaining to a new recruit about why civilians were called Voters. Apparently, someone gave them said name as a way to make fun of them because the military took away the civilians’ right to vote.

Noticing people on the road, the truck stopped, with Isaac deciding to talk to the leader himself. She introduced herself as Hanrahan, and we got a scene where Isaac threw a grenade in the truck to kill the rest of the soldiers, except the new recruit.

It was a nice way to introduce Isaac to the show. Sticking with his role in the video game, Isaac’s supposed to be very involved in upcoming events. Jumping ahead 11 years to the present, ‘Day One’ had an entire sequence where we got to learn about Isaac’s love of cooking and high-end cooking utensils while he interrogated a member of the nomadic group we saw in the previous episode. Apparently, they were called Scars, and the war between the Scars and WLF has been ongoing for quite some time now.

There was talk about who broke the truce first and how each group had killed innocents, including children. Isaac wasn’t a fan of the religious fanatics. I could be wrong, but I think the Prophet the Scars followed could end up being Hanrahan. She’s a show-original character. So, I don’t know what to expect from her storyline.

Even though WLF soldiers were well-equipped compared to the bows and arrows the Scars used, the Scars were confident they would win the war because members of WLF were converting to what the Scars believed in, instead of any of the Scars defecting from their religious beliefs and surrendering to WLF.

I couldn’t help but smile at how confidently the imprisoned Scar shared said information. Isaac was, understandably, gagged. He quickly realized further interrogation (involving torture) to learn where the Scars were going to attack next wasn’t going to work on his prisoner. Such a group of religious fanatics wasn’t playing around. They were okay with being tortured and dying for their cause.

As for Ellie and Dina, they continued to travel through Seattle to locate WLF HQ. The scene where the duo rode into a Seattle block featuring Pride imagery and Pride flags without realizing what it all meant was an interesting creative choice. Of course, Ellie and Dina wouldn’t be familiar with the concept of Pride (the way we know it). Having said that, I do feel someone in Jackson would have tried to bring Pride back. Ellie and Dina can’t possibly be the only queer people in all of Jackson. There’s got to be a Drag Queen or two ready to put on a show and educate people about Pride in Jackson.

Not realizing what they were walking into, Dina and Ellie found themselves breaking into a WLF building only to come face to face with a gruesome scene. Like I said, the Scars weren’t playing around. They had hung a bunch of WLF soldiers and used their blood to write (on the wall) about accepting their Prophet’s love. Like Dina said, WTF is wrong with Seattle?

Running away from WLF soldiers led Dina and Ellie to sneak into an abandoned train station. As expected, it wasn’t abandoned, with the Cordyceps mycelium reacting to a flare and sending a horde toward our heroines and the WLF soldiers. I think the writing team did a good job of depicting the intensity of the moment from the game as Ellie and Dina ran for their lives.

I was looking forward to Dina’s hesitation to shoot Ellie after the bite, and ‘One Day’ brought that nicely to life. It’s a good thing Dina loved Ellie because that could have ended very badly for her main lead. Realizing that Ellie was telling the truth about being immune helped a highly emotional Dina to act on her romantic feelings for Ellie. She also (as suspected) told Ellie she’s pregnant.

While I’m glad the two don’t have any huge secrets between them anymore, I was expecting Dina to at least ask a question or two about Ellie’s immunity. Even a simple “How?” would have made sense for Dina to ask, even if Ellie didn’t have the answer. The talk about immunity was ignored in favor of Dina’s pregnancy.

It also allowed Dina to be open about her bisexuality and how, to her, it felt like being told by her mother from an early age she was only supposed to like boys had forced Dina to be stuck seeking “heteronormative” relationships instead of reaching out to Ellie a lot earlier. Some fans weren’t happy about Dina telling Ellie she wasn’t “gay” in the previous episode. But I think learning about Dina’s homophobic mother helped add some much-needed context to their previous conversation. Being with Ellie had helped Dina be more truthful about who she was.

Being okay with involving Jesse in raising the baby was a welcome touch. Ellie liked Jesse. It would have been unfair to him as well as the unborn baby not to have a father/child relationship. Also, considering the post-apocalyptic setting, the more people to love and look after a kid, the better.

Knowing where they had to head next to get to Nora (a member of Abby’s crew) and how dangerous things were going to become, it made sense for Ellie to worry about Dina. However, she refused to return to Jackson. Wherever Ellie went, Dina followed. Her being pregnant wasn’t going to change that.

As for keeping Joel’s memory alive, we had Ellie sing ‘Take on Me‘ while playing a guitar. It was an enjoyable rendition of an iconic song, with Dina praising how Joel had taught Ellie well.

I get that Joel’s a famous character. But frankly, I didn’t really miss him much in the latest episode. If things continue being as intense as they were this week, I think we’re in for an engrossing sophomore season with Ellie and Dina being more than capable of shouldering the responsibility of leading such a show while assisted by some well-written supporting characters.

What did you think of The Last of Us season 2 episode 4 ‘One Day’?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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