<em>The Last of Us</em> Season 2, Episode 5 Recap

Looking for a recap of season 2, episode 4? We have you covered.

Pedro! I had a multitude of questions, comments, and concerns about The Last of Us season 2, episode 5—but it took one mere "Hey, kiddo" from Pedro Pascal to vanish them all in an instant. Of course, we will dive into the episode properly, but yes—series co-creator Neil Druckmann's tease that we hadn't seen the last of Joel has finally come to life. Cue that GIF of Pascal dancing with a clicker on the SNL set.

Esquire's favorite man aside, episode 5 is a little bit of a grab bag of everything season 2 has thrown at us so far—Wolves, Seraphites, Ellie and Dina's romance, and nasty brushes with the evolved clickers. And it's not necessarily a good thing. I mean this as the lightest criticism—I'm enjoying the season so far—but The Last of Us is clearly still struggling to find its identity in its post-Pascal reality. The Last of Us video games had the same issue after Joel's death, but I'm feeling the story's identity crisis a little more this time. There's simply no replacing an actor of Pascal's caliber, as much as I've enjoyed Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced's performances this season.

Instead of doubling down on Ellie and Dina's love story—which would could bring back the magic of season 1's character study of Joel and Ellie—The Last of Us hurls a lot of subplot at the wall. As interesting as it is to watch Ellie and Dina unwittingly wade into the Seraphite-Wolf war, I feel like it's losing the thread when we just follow either faction. Cordyceps in the air? Terrifying! I just would've rather learned of the development during Ellie's end-of-episode rampage, rather than from two W.L.F. characters I know nothing about.

That said, since episode 5 is just shy of 45 minutes long, I'll move on to the recap—and what Joel's return might mean for next week's episode.

I’m so happy the days of "nobody asked you, jizz boy" are behind us.

As I just mentioned, this episode opens with two Wolves—you may recognize the one leader from episode 5's flashback sequence with Jeffrey Wright's Isaac. (She's seemingly the founder of what would become the W.L.F. movement.) The TLDR of their conversation is this: You can now catch the cordyceps virus from spores in the air. So, uh, mask up! Or just don't find yourself in the same ward where doctors treated the earliest cordyceps patients. Just a thought!

Then, we pick back up with our two favorite lovebirds, who are still listening to W.L.F. FM and plotting a safe course to wherever Abby is hiding out. While "triangulating," Dina teases Ellie's "non-school-oriented" thinking, which is such a fun and flirty way to call someone a total dumbass. Learn how to use a protractor, Ellie! Our hero is so sad about it that she finds yet another conveniently-placed guitar, begins to sing, then gives up before the chorus. She rejoins Dina, who surmises that the Scars must be like Amish people—spoiler, they are nothing like Amish people—because they don't use technology. I assume this is a position they'll both back away from when they see a Scar empty the internal organs from a man's body.

Anyway! They finally decide to hit the road again, where the duo has another walk-and-talk so we can learn a little bit more about Dina's origin story. It seems as if when cordyceps first plagued the world, Dina and her family bunkered down in a remote cabin in Santa Fe. "Now, you already know how this story ends," Dina tells Ellie, "because I don’t live in a cabin north of Santa Fe anymore, and I don’t have a mom or sister anymore. But since everyone’s past is fucked and we’ve all heard everyone’s fucked stories, how do you think this one goes?"

In short: A raider killed her mother and sister, then Dina killed the raider. But Dina uses this moment as a moral lesson to Ellie; revenge is revenge, no matter who started the beef. "Would it make a difference if my family had hurt his people first?" Dina asks. "No. No. And if I hasn’t killed him, if he had gotten away, I promise you, I would have hunted him down forever. Forever."

Dina and Ellie make it back to Camp Wolf, where those hide-and-go-seek clickers are hanging around. After sharing their first I love yous, they attempt to take on a room full of the evolved monsters, but are quickly surrounded and overmatched. Who saves the day... but... Jesse! And not only is the return of the stellar Young Mazino a huge pick-me-up for The Last of Us as a whole, but he also leads them out of trouble. He explains that Jackson didn't send him to save the escaped duo; instead, he and Tommy embarked on their own search-and-rescue mission, with the goal of taking Ellie and Dina back to camp in the morning.

Before they can bicker about it too much, they stumble upon the Seraphites—who suddenly make Isaac's Williams-Sonoma routine look like a slap on the wrist. They're interrogating and/or punishing a Wolf, whose guts end up on the ground. They hear the Jackson trio rustling in the bushes, and chase after them. Damn, Ellie. Maybe you should go home in the morning.

In episode 5, we learn more about Dina’s backstory—and it isn’t pretty.

Honestly, I feel like I'm recapping to the tune of "Yakety Sax" (shoutout Boots Randolph) because there's so much running and darting around in this episode. Next up—inhale, exhale—Ellie lands back in W.L.F. territory, where she sees Nora. She was part of Abby's crew the day she killed Joel. Nora plays nice with Ellie for a second, then hard pivots to evil TV villain in an instant. "It was a terrible thing, the way he died. Yeah. Yeah, the little bitch got what he deserved." Nora, chill!

Cue "Yakety Sax" again! Nora runs right into the cordyceps splash zone. Ellie follows her and kindly turns on the red lights in the joint, just so you know that Ellie is big mad. She pauses to marvel at The Last of Us's truly Emmy-worthy set design—including a clicker who is stuck to the wall, encased by overgrown fungi, breathing cordyceps into the room. Nora is quickly infected, while Ellie, of course, is immune. Ellie finds Nora and tries to bully her into revealing Abby's location. "Don’t you know what he did?" asks Nora, referring to Joel. "He killed everyone in that hospital. Including the only fucking person alive that could make a cure from you. That was Abby’s father. And Joel… Joel shot him in the head. That’s what he did."

Ellie's response? "I know." We'll have to wait at least an episode to see if she's bullshitting or not—the game answers this, but I won't spoil anything here. If she is telling the truth, we have to majorly rethink Ellie's screen time in this season thus far. She bludgeons Nora and the screen cuts to black.

But that isn't the end of the episode. Ellie wakes up in her bed at Joel's house, looking bright and happy. Joel opens the door and says good morning with a sweet, "Hey, kiddo." We should assume this is a flashback sequence—one that may continue in the next episode—but regardless, it's just nice to see Pascal again. Let's hope that we see more of the actor and get some answers about whether or not Ellie knew of Joel's fateful choice.