How can The Last of Us possibly rip viewers’ hearts out any more in this week’s episode, “When We Are In Need?” With one episode until the season finale, your guess is as good as mine…
I Still Believe | A group of people are holed up in a steakhouse with a man named David (Scott Shepherd) reading bible verses to them. One girl in the audience bursts into tears and asks when her father will be buried and David tells her they will have to wait until Spring. David then talks to James (Troy Baker, who played Joel in the video game) and they confirm that they’re running out of food.
Ellie (Bella Ramsey) tends to Joel (Pedro Pascal), before taking his rifle and going out hunting. She sees an adorable rabbit and aims for it, but trips over a branch. She then sees a deer and shoots it, but the deer limps off into the woods. David and James find the corpse of the deer and try to take it, as Ellie catches them. David offers Ellie medicine in exchange for the deer, which Ellie reluctantly agrees to as David sends James to pick up penicillin.
Everything Happens for a Reason | David tells Ellie that they’ll need to make camp as they wait for James and they make a fire in an old house. He introduces himself as a preacher and tells her that after the world ended, he found God. He also tells her that he sent four men to the town Ellie and Joel were at and only three came back. Game’s up, as James arrives pointing a gun at Ellie. David orders James to give Ellie the medicine regardless as Ellie runs for it.
RELATED | “The Last of Us” Episode ‘Left Behind’ Recap: Good Things Don’t Last
Ellie makes it back to Joel and injects penicillin into his wound. David returns to his group and tells them about Ellie and that they’re going after her in the morning. When the daughter of the man Joel killed demands that they kill her, David slaps her across the face before leading the room in prayer.
The next morning, Ellie sees birds flying away nearby and sees David, James and his crew heading their way. Ellie gives a knife to the barely awake Joel and tries to distract them, but James kills her horse and is about to finish Ellie off when David intervenes. David carries the unconscious Ellie back to town and orders his men to find Joel. One man enters the house where Joel is and Joel manages to wake up and kill him.
Fight for Your Life | Ellie wakes up in a cage with David watching and asks her to trust him with helping her survive. Joel takes two of the men captive and tortures them to get Ellie’s location, after which he straight up kills them both. As David gives Ellie food, she sees a severed ear on the floor and he confesses to feeding people to his flock without telling them. He offers to call off his men searching for Joel if Ellie joins his crew, but Ellie breaks his finger and he calls her the C Word.
As Joel enters the town and finds headless bodies hanging from a barn’s ceiling, David and James arrive to finish off Ellie. She grabs their butcher knife and kills James and runs into the steakhouse. David follows her, gets the upper hand and tries to rape her, but Ellie grabs his knife and stabs him about a thousand times. She gets rescued by Joel outside and they walk off together.
The Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO.