In “The Last of Us” recap, Joel and Ellie start driving towards Wyoming but they soon run into resistance while trying to get through Kansas City…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
As emotionally draining as last week’s episode of “The Last of Us” was with Bill and Frank’s heartwarming and still heartbreaking journey through the apocalypse together, their shared sacrifice actually managed to give Joel and Ellie a little bit of hope.
Following a harrowing escape out of the Boston quarantine zone and then just getting through the ruins of the city, which cost Tess her life, Joel and Ellie were left walking on foot with a trip to Wyoming that would take them months to complete.
Thanks to Bill and Frank, they were able to get take a truck that allowed them to drive out of Boston and start making a very long trip that much shorter while also loaded to the teeth with weapons, ammunition, water and food — enough to keep them filled until they made it out west together.
Of course, driving across America in the wake of an infection that turns people into mindless killing machines and human survivors willing to do just about anything to actually survive, you had to know this wasn’t going to look anything like the usual road trip from Boston to Wyoming.
Joel and Ellie discovered that the hard way in the latest episode on Sunday night as they ran into resistance but not from clickers or people with mushrooms sprouting from their heads — instead they encountered a human resistance and it’s going to take everything they’ve got to make it out alive.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of “The Last of Us” titled “Please Hold to My Hand”…
Pun and Games
The episode begins with Ellie practicing with the gun she took from Bill and Frank’s home unbeknownst to Joel, who forbade her from taking a weapon. Given the dire state of the world, Ellie seems confident that she might need a gun — and sadly she’s proven right sooner rather than later — but for now she’s just practicing loading the weapon, and pointing it at a mirror while attempting to look intimidating.
Outside, Joel is siphoning gas from nearby cars — as he explains over time gas separates into more and more water, which means it’s not nearly as effective. So a full tank only lasts about an hour when that same amount of gas 20 years ago would allow them to drive all day without stopping.
Ellie curiously asks about how siphoning works and Joel can’t really explain it, which makes her laugh because he pretends to know it all. She then reveals an old joke book stashed in her backpack filled with puns that she uses in an attempt to break the ice yet Joel refuses to break his veneer of toughness.
Back in the truck, Joel starts driving again while Ellie peruses the back of the seats where she finds an old Hank Williams cassette and a magazine that belonged to Bill. Joel is shocked as he watches Ellie unfold the pages to reveal a centerfold — and he’s taken back when she asks why all the pages are stuck together.
Before Joel can stammer his way through an explanation, Ellie cracks up laughing while revealing that she already knows about those sticky pages before tossing the magazine out the window.
After driving for several hours, Joel declares they’ve gone far enough for the day and he pulls off the highway into a field and then eventually into a wooded area where they make some food bed down for the night. Ellie is all too excited to chow down on some 20 year old Chef Boyardee ravioli and even Joel can’t resist the mushy pasta and meat covered in tomato sauce.
Joel tells Ellie that he’ll sleep tonight and then tomorrow they’ll drive all day and all night, which should leave them just a day away from their destination in Wyoming.
When Ellie asks about lighting a fire because she’s cold, Joel quickly shoots down that idea but not because the light or the smoke would draw the infected. Instead, Ellie figures out that a fire would give away their position to any people nearby.
Ellie: “So what are they going to do? Rob us?
Joel: “They’ll have way more in mind than that”
The next morning, Ellie gets her first look at brewed coffee and comments that it smells like burnt shit (as one of the few people on Earth who don’t drink coffee, I agree with Ellie) but Joel loves sipping on the hot beverage from his thermos.
As much as Joel doesn’t want to form any kind of relationship with Ellie, she continues to break down the walls he’s built up — this time by asking about their destination near Cody, Wyoming, which is where his brother Tommy was last heard from.
Ellie asks about his brother and Joel explains that Tommy was a “joiner” — he always wanted to be a hero and that’s what drew him to join the Army and eventually fight in Desert Storm. But it didn’t take Tommy long to realize that serving in the military in a war will result in many things but he didn’t feel much like a hero when the work was done.
When the world fell apart, Tommy was once again trying to play hero, which is what took him to Boston and Joel essentially followed along to keep an eye on his younger brother. That’s where they met Tess for the first time and it was the same place where Tommy got drawn into the Fireflies after he encountered Marlene.
This time, Tommy was all in on the Fireflies resistance movement, which is what took him out to Wyoming but last Joel heard, he got fed up with that outfit as well before quitting. The only problem now is Joel has no idea where his brother has gone and he needs to find him.
Joel doesn’t seem to have much hope for the world and Ellie can’t help but question why he bothers to keep going — and he answers that he’ll always fight for his family. That’s why he’s going to Wyoming to search for Tommy.
It’s the same reason Joel is transporting Ellie across the country with him — because in his eyes she’s nothing more than cargo but he made a promise to Tess and she was like family to him.
Kansas City
The drive eventually takes Joel and Ellie to the outskirts of Kansas City but unfortunately the highway is blocked by burned out trucks and cars left on the road. With no way to move them or get around, Joel decides that they’ll have to drive into the city as a detour to get back on the highway.
After exiting into downtown, Ellie is struggling to find the right road to get back to the highway from the map she’s reading and Joel is growing more and more concerned because he knows people live in the cities and that’s just a recipe for disaster. As they drive down the street, Ellie shouts for him to stop and they both turn to find the abandoned Kansas City quarantine zone.
The gates are open and FEDRA is nowhere to be found.
Joel knows that can’t be good so he mashes down the gas and tries to get out of the city but like clockwork, a man comes stumbling out of a building begging for help. Ellie asks if they’ll stop but Joel already knows this is a trap — and his hunch is soon concerned when cinderblocks start falling from a nearby rooftop to smash up the truck and they drive over a set of spikes that pop their tires.
Joel is forced to crash the truck through a laundromat and a split second later, they are being bombarded by gunfire.
Inside the laundromat, Joel grabs his rifle and tells Ellie to go hide behind a wall as he deals with the attackers. A moment later, Joel shoots one of the people outside and he hears his partner scream back at him. The partner makes his way into the building as Ellie tries to peer around the corner and a moment later she hears a gunshot ring out as Joel kills the man coming for them.
Just when it looks like the coast is clear, a third attacker bursts through the back door and comes after Joel, who struggles to fight him off.
The attacker eventually gets the upper hand, landing on top of Joel and crushing down on his throat with the shotgun in his hands. Joel is kicking and wailing trying to break free but it appears he’s met his match — and then Ellie remembers the gun in her bag.
She cocks the weapons, steps out from the hole in the wall and fires at the man on top of Joel. The attacker falls to the side as Joel looks back at sees the 14-year-old girl trembling with a gun in her hand after shooting somebody.
As Joel gets back to his feet, the attacker identifies himself as Brian as he begs for his life while apologizing and asking if they’d like to trade with his family. Ellie is almost catatonic as she stares back at Brian before Joel takes the gun and tells her to go back into the other room.
A moment later, Joel uses Brian’s own knife to kill him.
Joel and Ellie quickly grab some supplies before heading back out into the city to try and see what they’re up against in order to escape. As they jet across streets and through back alleys, Joel begins to realize that they’ve managed to wander into a bigger fight than they’re capable of winning so avoiding another confrontation is key but they still need to get out of the city.
After making it to a bar and peeking out a window to see trucks spray painted with words like “We The People,” Joel realizes what they’re up again.
Ellie: “They’re not FEDRA and they’re not Fireflies, who are they?”
Joel: “People”
That’s when we’re introduced to Kathleen (played by Melanie Lynskey) for the first time.
She’s the leader of this resistance army that obviously overran FEDRA and took back the city but that doesn’t mean all of their problems have been solved. In fact, Kathleen is currently interrogating her former doctor, who she’s accusing of ratting out the resistance to FEDRA, which got her brother put in a cell before he was beaten to death.
Now Kathleen is determined to find the rest of the collaborators but the doctor isn’t giving up any information. It seems right now, Kathleen is focused on finding a man named Henry, who she’s convinced fed information to FEDRA before the resistance was finally able to rise up and take over.
The interrogation is cut short when Kathleen is called outside after some of her people find Brian and his team dead in the street. Her top lieutenant is a man named Perry (who apparently played Tommy in the video game version of “The Last of Us”) and he realizes that their men can’t be saved — even if the doctor is allowed to help them.
So Kathleen takes that as a sign before marching back into the building, opening up the cell door and shooting the doctor dead. Back outside, Kathleen is briefed on all the possibilities about what led to their men being killed — Henry could have used a radio to signal for help or called in mercenaries to do the dirty work for him.
Realizing that her people aren’t going to be safe until the killers are caught or killed themselves, Kathleen orders a door by door search of every building until they’re found.
“Find who did this. Find every collaborator and kill them all”
~ Kathleen
Back in the bar, Joel feels terrible that Ellie was forced to pull the trigger to save him but she informs her protector that this isn’t the first time she’s had to kill someone. Nothing more is revealed but rather than admonish Ellie for taking the gun that saved his life, Joel decides to impart some wisdom on her instead.
He teaches Ellie how to hold the gun properly so that the weapon won’t slip from her grip and nobody can just snatch it away from her. Joel lets Ellie keep the gun but tells her to put it in her backpack so she doesn’t shoot herself in the ass.
Of course, Ellie doesn’t listen and puts the gun in her jacket pocket while Joel scouts for a path to get to a nearby tall building, which will allow him a vantage point to help them escape the city. First things first, they have to wait for all these trucks to roll by so they can move without being discovered.
Henry and Sam
As the search continues, Perry finds Kathleen and leads her to a building where they’ve found a little hideout where Henry has been staying and it turns out he’s caring for a young child named Sam. The pair have exhausted all their food supplies and moved onto another location but Kathleen is convinced Henry is near and she’s determined to find him.
That’s not the only news that Kathleen receives, however, as Perry then leads her to another part of the building where they open the door and find the ground caved in. A second later, the conclave portion of the floor starts moving and almost breathing — a shocking revelation for Kathleen but she tells Perry to keep this quiet and quarantine the building. They’ll deal with this after finding Henry and Sam.
What exactly is happening in that basement room is unknown — is there some kind of giant fungus growing underneath the floor and it’s rising up through the ground? Hard to say but something strange is down there and that will definitely come back to haunt Kathleen and her people at some point.
As for Joel and Ellie, they finally make it to the skyscraper later that night after the sun has gone down.
After getting inside, Joel says that they’re going to climb as many steps as possible to get them to a higher floor so he can begin looking for a path to escape the city. Along the way, Joel is forced to stop and rest, which gets him to reveal that he’s 56 years old and doesn’t move as quickly as he once did.
They finally make it to the 33rd floor and that’s high enough for Joel to look out into the city while also giving them a place to hide until morning. Joel and Ellie unpack their stuff and lay out some cushions from a couch to give them somewhere soft to sleep.
As they lay down, Ellie asks Joel about the ambush they experienced down on the street and how he knew what was happening. Joel explains that it’s not his first time in that same situation — but he also admits that he may have been the one dropping bricks on people during a previous encounter because you do whatever it takes to survive.
Ellie asks Joel if he had to kill innocent people but he refuses to answer — and she does the same when he asks her about the first time she was forced to kill somebody. Joel still wishes that Ellie didn’t have to endure this kind of trauma at her age but he also confesses that it doesn’t get any easier to pull the trigger when you’re older.
Before finally falling asleep, Joel lays down pieces of broken glass near the door as a warning system in case somebody tries to get the jump on them. Ellie then offers Joel one more pun involving diarrhea and this time he can’t help but crack up laughing while commenting that the joke was so goddamned stupid.
Still, Joel probably hasn’t laughed like this in years.
Judging by what happens next, Joel might not be smiling again because when he opens his eyes again it’s to the sound of Ellie’s voice urging him to wake up. When Joel rolls over, he sees Ellie being held at gunpoint and then he finds a little boy doing the same to him.
It appears we’ve just met Henry and Sam.
“The Last of Us” returns with a new episode next week on HBO.
