Looking for a recap of season 2, episode 3? We have you covered.
Now, I don’t expect that any of you have had the misfortune of reading my TV recaps since 2020. Truly, I do not. But. If you live in the extremely small cross section of readers who followed my batshit Westworld recaps and my current stint on The Last of Us, you’ll know that this Sunday night is a huge moment for me.
I’m inordinately happy that Jeffrey Wright is on HBO once again.
The man has frequented the Home Box Office for years, from Boardwalk Empire to Angels in America. But his previous Sunday-night residence was with Westworld, which once had such a crazy, nonsensical plot about mind-swapping brain orbs that I wrote a full breakdown outling which character was in another character’s body. If none of that made sense, don’t worry—it didn’t at the time, and it still doesn’t now. If you search “Westworld Bernard brain orbs,” Google’s AI Overview mistakenly cites my breakdown, treating my lovingly teasing coinage of “brain orb” as literal fact. Anyway, Westworld‘s cancellation broke me.
Back to The Last of Us episode 4! The series finally introduces Wright’s villain, Isaac Dixon—the actor also played the same character in the video game—and it does so in pretty shocking faction. Let’s jump right into it. Sadly, I’ll have to save the last chapter of the story—where I went to Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s apartment for an interview and talked to them about all of this—for another day.
Sing it, Ellie!
You’re All Greenberg
Nobody… asked…. you? Jizz boy? What in the gratuitous Josh Peck cameo is this? For the love of God, don’t hug me, brotha, because episode 4’s cold open is pretty fucking weird!
Please pity me, for I am about to unpack a scene in this Very Serious HBO Series that inked the word splooge into its script. The Last of Us episode 4 throws it back to the Seattle Quarantine Zone in 2018. A group of FEDRA henchmen are driving merrily along when a militarized Josh Peck decides to tell the “Greenberg story.” This particular yarn is all about some FEDRA commander who thought the word “disseminate” means, uh, ejaculate. As the tale goes, he told a protestor, “What?! You fucking perverts are out here jerking off and splooging on our streets?” Then, he smashed the guy’s head on a wall. The end! To be absolutely clear, I love Josh Peck—he’s a delightful guy!—but a cameo like this rips me right out of mushroom world. It feels like a Marvel post-credits scene, but at the front of the movie.
Anyway, this is all a means to introduce us to The Last of Us‘s latest and greatest Big Bad: Isaac Dixon, played by Wright. He explains why Seattle’s noncompliant residents are called “voters”—Fedra took away their rights—and then he dunks on Josh Peck. “You’re all Greenberg,” says Isaac. Then, he stops the truck because of some locals clogging the road. Turns out, Isaac arranged this intrusion, for some reason. He saves the least-douchey soldier in the truck, then tosses a grenade inside of it and kills that little portable locker room.
And if that didn’t tell you that this particular Bernard brain orb was extremely homicidal, then Isaac’s next appearance will. We see him at a Kitchen Nightmare-looking stove, talking about—and this is why we love the chaos of a Jeffrey Wright performance—Williams Sonoma. Isaac, I also love a nice trip to Williams Sonoma for Burger Bomb seasoning, but it’s not where I cook up interrogation tactics. He heats up a copper pan on the stove before the camera violently cuts to a naked, beaten Seraphite. Isaac tortures the poor guy, wanting to know where the scars are attacking next. He won’t relent. The Seraphite claims that W.L.F. members join the Seraphites all the time, but Seraphites never join the ranks of the W.L.F. Isaac has enough of it all and shoots the Seraphite.
Oh, and I guess the weenie guy—the one who didn’t know who a voter was—is a hardass now? Better than a Greenberg.
This was a heckuva scene.
So Much For Happy, Proud Rainbow Town
For a brief few scenes, The Last of Us finally returns to its core DNA: a show about two people who deeply care about each other and how they navigate a changed world. Early in the episode, Ellie and Dina explore Seattle—it’s very video-game of them to ransack a near-barren store for medical supplies and then happen upon a music store. It’s nice to see The Last of Us stop and smell the fungus like this; Dina bangs on some drums and Ellie finds a guitar in mint condition. She seizes the opportunity to recreate a gem of a moment from the video games. Ellie covers A-ha’s “Take on Me” while Dina watches with extremely foreshadow-y affection. Do “Free Bird” next!
As I always find myself writing in these recaps, peace is fleeting in The Last of Us. Ellie is still out for blood, after all, so she makes the incredibly shortsighted decision to scope out the W.LF. base without much of a game plan. And if you thought Isaac’s Williams Sonoma-inspired interrogation was gnarly, then woo boy, take a look at what the Seraphites do to their enemies! Ellie and Dina stumble into a dark, open room to find several W.L.F. goons hanging from the ceiling with their guts falling out of their sliced-open bellies. On the wall: the Sepaphite logo, along with the words, “FEEL HER LOVE.” If you’re in desperate need of a primer on the Seraphites right now, I highly encourage you to bookmark our primer on the religious cult.
If you didn’t think Ellie and Dina would find their way in the middle of this zero-sum war, think again. A bunch of W.L.F. wolves wander into the room, loudly remarking on the Seraphites’ de facto method of killing. But they hear Ellie and Dina scampering around, and so the soldiers chase them right into the depths of Seattle’s transportation system. I have to say—what follows is easily one of the best video-game adaptation moments I’ve ever seen. Dina counting the