‘The Last of Us’ season 2, episode 3 recap: scarred for life
Ellie and Dina make the journey to Seattle to avenge Joel, but new adversaries present themselves
By 
Hold on, read our recap of last week’s episode of The Last of Us here before you proceed.
BY NOW, the internet is doing what it does best in the spoiler department. Since last week’s fateful episode, my TikTok feed has been chock full of The Last of Us Part II game footage – cut and spliced with added music and effects so as not to be taken down for copyright. Users post these ‘fan edits’ of the game with captions like, “We’ve had to keep our mouths shut since 2020!”, displaying the near identical scenes of episode 2 and that of the game side-by-side. Show theorists have also taken to using the medium by comparing stills from the trailer with those in Part II to predict the events of the five remaining episodes.
I will not share any more of my spoiler findings, but it does bring to mind the response when Princess Rhaenys Targaryen died in House of the Dragon season 2 after falling from the sky astride her dragon. Also a traumatic death, HoTD readers posted illustrations that depict passages from the book about each main character’s eventual death. These edits have the opposite effect of what you might think; instead of spoiling the remaining plot, they’re taken as a courtesy, completely embraced. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism to not want to be hurt again. Because will anything top Joel’s death? (On a red carpet interview before episode 2 premiered, Pedro Pascal was asked if anything could surpass his Game of Thrones character Oberyn Martell’s grisly death. “There’s a chance something could top it,” he said.)
Another time jump: three months later
It would be too painful to dive too much deeper into the fallout of Joel’s death. (For a brief scene, Bella Ramsey delivers a ear-splintering performance as Ellie wakes up in the hospital reliving her father’s murder.) We pick up productively three months later as the town also recovers from the siege. Businesses are reopening, the wall is being rebuilt one log at a time. Ellie has spent this time under the watchful eye of doctors and Gail, who are monitoring her mood and health as she deals with the aftermath. As Gail observes, the 19-year-old is remarkably well-adjusted.
She’s released and heads to an empty home frozen in dust and afternoon sunlight. Everything was left exactly as it was the day of the attack; Joel’s woodwork project of an owl sits half-finished on his desk. Dina drops by, too, but not “just ’cause” as Ellie eagerly receives her, but to drop off some baggage about the W.L.F. (Washington Liberation Front) and their whereabouts. They make plans to head for Seattle, where the faction is based. The two friends bring this to Tommy, who it’s often forgotten in Ellie’s taste for vengeance, is mourning a brother. He supports the idea but needs to get approval from the council.
Forgive and forget?
Naturally, the motion isn’t carried to allow 16 of Jackson’s finest and strongest to leave town and avenge Joel. What it does reveal, though, is the moral fork in the road Ellie now faces. By killing another person’s father, Abby has inflicted the same pain onto someone else, someone who not only happens to mirror her but is comparable in terms of sheer will. It’s pointed out that for Ellie to go out and kill Abby won’t bring Joel back. “People came and killed Joel. So why wouldn’t we wanna take our vengeance?” one Jackson resident offers up. “Well, because we’re not supposed to. Forgive and be forgiven. No grudges. No revenge.” Ellie rolls her eyes to this. “And I’m not even a Christian. I’ve always seen the wisdom in that . . . Our capacity for mercy.”
Seth, who you would remember as the bigot from the NYE dance, disagrees, saying that forgiveness and mercy is victim behaviour. Coming from an unlikely ally, this persuades Ellie to move on with her plan, with or without the numbers. As she and Dina leave town in the dark, Seth opens the gate for them and trades his much better rifle for Ellie’s novice one.
Is there still time for romance in The Last of Us?
With all that going on, will there be space for Ellie and Dina’s blossoming romance? Spending their first night keeping warm in a tent, they talk battle strategy and eventually get to their kiss at the NYE dance. Ellie was supposedly drunk, Dina was apparently very high. Her first time kissing a girl as someone curious, Dina asks Ellie to rate it from one to ten. “Six,” says Ellie, acquiescing. “Fuck you, ‘six’.” Dina reveals that she’s resumed things again with Jesse, much to Ellie’s disappointment. But this time Dina is unsure of his affection, citing his perpetual sadness. Maybe it’s her, she voices to Ellie. Okay? The lights are off and she leaves one nugget of hope for Ellie. “I wasn’t that high.”
Who are the people with scars in The Last of Us?
The cultish people in matching green rain ponchos and Joker-like smile scars are the Seraphites. The men are shaved bald while the woman wear matching braided hair styles. They only use hunting weapons like bows and arrows, no guns. All Seraphites, including children, bear a ‘Glasgow smile’, parallel scars that run up their cheeks. As we’re introduced to them this episode, they follow the ways of Prophet, who has been dead for a decade at this point, keeping her teaching alive by seeing and revealing the truth no matter the cost.
A quick search on TLoU FanWiki reveals that the Seraphites are an antagonistic faction whose main enemy are the W.L.F. They live off the land in an egalitarian community, originating from Seraphite Island on Seattle. For the ones we encounter on the trail, their primitive weapons were no match for, presumably, the W.L.F. As Dina and Ellie encounter their bodies, the two wonder if Abby and her small crew were capable of killing the men, women, and children.
As they arrive in the city, they wonder how they’ll be able to find this needle in an urban haystack. By their estimates, Dina and Ellie thought the W.L.F. only comprised of Abby and her comrades. On the other side of the city, tanks and armoured soldiers come marching back to their base, and we wonder how the duo will get out of this one.
Related:
