The Last Of Us Episode 4 Recap: Melanie Lynskey is formidable.

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The Last Of Us Episode 4 (of the season's total 9) takes Joel and Ellie to Kansas City, where they face Melanie Lynskey's Kathleen, get Ellie's first real taste of combat, and meet their new allies, Sam and Henry.

Note: The Last Of Us Episode 5 (Endure and Survive) will air this Saturday, February 11 at 2am GMT on Sky Atlantic.

If you've had time to recover from last week's episode of The Last Of Us, featuring this decade's most tangible, heartwrenching LGBT love story, then buckle up. This week's episode follows Joel and Ellie backpacking through Missouri on their way to Wyoming. Wait, what?

If you know Ellie's full storyline (all the way to The Last Of Us 2, anyway), you'll know how important the symbolic breadcrumbs are. Every character in the series could be argued as a foil to Ellie; not fully developed, she's left to inhabit or reject the characteristics of her role models. And although she has her own unique set of characteristics, including a penchant for puns, the adults guiding, observing or threatening her, all serve to mould who she could potentially be.

This week's episode not only develops the bond between Joel and Ellie, but highlights how important choices are in a post-apocalyptic survival landscape. And, as The Last of Us game was built to change with player choice, meaning that even small decisions have the potential of setting up entirely new situations - we can see that come to life.

So when Ellie embodies Robert De Niro's 'ya feelin lucky, punk?' scene from Taxi Driver while pointing her stolen handgun in the mirror, while saying 'pew, pew', this show once again works wonders in expressing the dichotomy between ruthless violence, and innocent childishness. It foreshadows a choice to be made, to leave behind imagination and games, and to join the adult world. On their journey, Joel opens up about his brother Tommy and revealing his concern for his flighty brother's fate. They also bond over an ancient tin of Chef Boyardee (our equivalent would be Heinz Beef Ravioli).

Ellie and her guardian Joel take a risky detour through Kansas City , where they are ambushed by bandits. Here, Ellie gets her first real taste of human-human combat. Joel manages to pick off two of the assailants, but the third manages to overpower him before Ellie rushes into the room. Using Frank's pistol, she steps into adulthood far too early, and shoots the bandit. Joel, aware of this, directs Ellie to leave the room as he finishes the bandit off. When he rejoins her, they bond over the chaos and Joel allows Ellie to keep her gun after coaching her on how to hold it, and they escape.

Enter: Kathleen, embodied marvellously by Melanie Lynskey, who arrives with her henchmen to discover the bodies and lead the pursuit against them. Kathleen is not an original character from The Last Of Us game (cue groan of disappointment), but she seems to serve an interesting purpose, aside from being another NPC brought to life. She leads a group of survivors in Kansas City, which seems to settle somewhere between FEDRA and the Fireflies, using the former's rules as a mocking bargaining chip for their hostages. Seeking information, Kathleen weighs one life against another, and rules by vengeful instinct. This character could easily be Ellie in a number of years, and it's important to keep this in mind.

This note from the original game mirror's the arc in the show.

Now, if you remember this point in the game, Joel and Ellie did in fact run into a band of Hunters and narrowly escape before running into Sam and Henry. The Hunter's leader, and more importantly, group motive was never fully materialised. And Sam and Henry were never linked to the Hunters in the original game. Series co-runner Craig Mazin, said (of Kathleen's role) "it was important for us to ask the question, ‘Well, why are they enemies? What do they want?’ They’re not just evil people.” But what we come to discover is that Kathleen harbours not only a grudge towards Sam for supposedly killing her brother, but also a dark secret. Taking her second in command out on patrol, she shows him a room with a gurgling, cracked floor ready to burst. Concealing this from her people, she prioritises the manhunt for Joel, Ellie, Sam and Henry. 

Joel and Ellie, meanwhile, are settling down in a high-rise building rigged with glass as an auditory alarm for intruders. They set up for the night, in awkward cameraderie, and we're almost expecting there to be no more to it until Ellie delivers her killer joke: "Joel, did you know diarrhoea is hereditary? Yeah, it runs in your jeans." This one seals the deal for Joel, as we see him (and slowly, ourselves) begin to crack and guffaw. It's gross, it's human, and it's sorely needed. Ellie might have become an adult too early, but she's choosing to maintain her childishness to make other people happy. 

Sometime in the night they wake up, held at gunpoint by an adult (Henry) and a child (Sam) who has a superhero mask painted on his face. In the game, Joel and Ellie come across the two by accident, fleeing from the Hunters patrolling the streets. But with everything we know already, it's safe to assume their story will take a different turn from here.

9/10