'The Last Of Us' Season 2, Episode 5 Recap And Review: It's In The Air

~ Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)

“Revenge is like the sweetest joy . . . .”

~ Tupac Shakur (1971 - 1996)

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Neil Druckmann, the creator of both The Last Of Us games and co-showrunner of the HBO adaptation, once said that the first game was about love, and the second was about hate. That’s a pretty good way to summarize the two games, and the shift in tone from Season 1 of HBO’s post-apocalyptic series into Season 2 and beyond. Spoilers ahead.

Two really big, really important things happen in tonight’s harrowing episode of The Last Of Us. First off, we learn that the cordyceps plague is evolving. Where it once required a bite for someone to become infected with the fungus, now spores carried in the air can infect humans. This is super interesting because in the games, this was always the case. The cordyceps were “nerfed” for the show, presumably because Pedro Pascal didn’t want to wear gas masks all the time, having spent so much time hiding his face for The Mandalorian.

Now that Joel is dead, face-hiding is less of an issue. I’m half-joking, of course, but it is curious to me that they’ve reintroduced air-born plague spread in Season 2. It makes sense. It’s a lot more dangerous and terrifying if you can get sick and turn just from breathing in spores. But it’s a little odd to make such a drastic change for the first season, only to walk it back in Season 2. Then again, it certainly adds a new layer of threat, and a very dramatic turn as we approach the Season 2 finale.

The second big moment comes at the end of the episode, when Ellie (Bella Ramsey) breaks off from Dina (Isabela Merced) and Jesse (Young Mazino) to lead the Scars on a merry chase while they make it back to safety. Dina has been shot in the thigh by an arrow and Ellie has to do something to save her, especially now that she knows she’s pregnant. Once she gets away, Ellie heads to the hospital on her own to track down Abby (Kaitlyn Dever).

Only, she doesn’t find Abby. She finds Nora (Tati Gabrielle) instead. Nora was one of the Wolves who joined Abby in her Joel-killing, and one of the names on Ellie’s kill list. Ellie finds her and demands to know where Abby is, but Nora won’t give her friend up. At first, she pretends to feel awful about what happened to Joel, but it’s just a distraction. She uses her little ruse to get away, though Ellie goes chasing after her, even as other Wolves come to Nora’s aid.

The problem Nora runs into is that she rushes down a hall to the elevators – an area that’s supposed to be sealed off after the Wolves discover that the basement levels are filled with air-born cordyceps spores. When the other Wolves realize this, they back off, terrified, and leave Nora to her fate. They understandably reason that it’s too late for both Nora and her pursuer. Nora thinks that, too, when Ellie finds her.

She’s in rough shape, coughing, dragging herself along, the sickness already taking hold. When she sees Ellie, she’s smug about it, telling her that they’re both doomed. Then she realizes that Ellie is the immune girl, the one from Salt Lake. She tells her what Joel did, the people he killed and why, and Ellie just tells her “I know.” Ellie has a singular purpose here. Where is Abby? When Nora won’t tell her, she finds a metal pipe. When Nora still won’t tell her, she introduces her to the metal pipe, beating her savagely.

I’m really glad that the show didn’t shrink from the sheer brutality of this moment, even though the circumstances are different from the game, obviously, since the cordyceps were always an air-born threat there, and here it’s presented as a new evolution. This is a major turning point for Ellie. She’s not theoretically on a revenge quest now. She’s fully locked in, unleashing awful violence against someone who has no way of fighting back. This will almost certainly take a terrible toll on her.

The rest of the episode is mostly about Ellie and Dina trying to track down Abby. Dina is good with math, good at triangulation and so forth, and figures out the best way for them to make the approach. We learn a bit more about her backstory also, and why her tragic childhood makes her so amenable to helping Ellie out with her own revenge quest. It’s a nice touch, giving Dina more depth and her reasons for accompanying Dina even more grounding.

Unfortunately, the route they pick is far, far more deadly than they anticipated. The building they come to isn’t just infested, it’s crawling with evolved clickers, the “smart ones” like the one Ellie was bitten by back outside of Jackson. They’re quickly overwhelmed. Thankfully, Jesse shows up just in the nick of time. And as silly as that is, on a certain level, as most “just in the nick of time” moments are, they really wouldn’t have made it out otherwise. He comes in guns blazing and the three escape, though the Wolves are in hot pursuit.

They flee into the park and this, it just so happens, is where wolves fear to tread. Soon, they see torches in the night. Strange whistles on the night air. They watch as the Scars appear in their goofy robes (sorry, the Scars are just so cheesy to me) and then watch as they disembowel one of their enemies in some kind of ritual sacrifice. You can really see why the Wolves are joining these friendly religious zealots. They get such a warm welcome!

Things go badly and the Scars somehow notice our heroes, shooting Dina and rushing after the three of them. This is when Ellie and the others break apart. By the end of the episode, we can only hope that Dina and Jesse made it back to the theater alive.

All told, another solid episode with some great action and terrifying zombie scenes. I wish I didn’t feel so down about the Seraphites, but as I’ve noted before, they’re just way too much like one of the silly factions in The Walking Dead for my taste. A premium HBO show like this should have more nuance. I’m not even against a religious faction, but I’d prefer something a bit less cartoonish and a bit more grounded. These are basically the Amish on PCP.

Still, I really like that the air-born plague is back in play and the final scene with Ellie and Nora was brutal and stomach-churning. I’m curious to see how this impacts Ellie. I have a few other questions:

We learn that Jesse and Tommy followed our heroes, setting out a day after them which is why they’ve caught up to them. Jesse tracked them to the hospital using the maps they left at the theater ( a bit far-fetched, but I’ll allow it). Will we see Tommy again this season? We have two more episodes, so this seems likely.

A bigger question is whether we see Abby. I’ve seen six episodes of this season, and I’m still only guessing when I say that I think we’ll see her next in the finale. I think this is where a very big moment will take place that will set Abby up as a much more central character for Season 3. I suspect that we will see Tommy and Abby around the same time at the end of this season, but that’s just a theory.

If this plays out like I think it will, then expect a lot more Kaitlyn Dever in Season 3 and a possibly diminished role for Ellie, not to mention her comrades in arms. Again, I wonder how this plays with the audience, especially since non-gamers are still coming to terms with the loss of Joel.

I discuss this episode and the “review-bombing” of the show in my video below:

In any case, overall I thought this was yet another strong offering in what has been a much better second half of the season than the first. What did you think of this episode? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.

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