HBO’s The Last of Us has released its fourth episode and unlike Long, Long Time, the show’s latest episode, Please Hold My Hand, tosses its audience, alongside Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), back into the dangerous wilderness the continental U.S has become in the aftermath of the Cordyceps infection outbreak. The journey to get to Wyoming has seen our heroes arrive in a “liberated” Kansas City, and it’s a dangerous task getting out alive.

Discussing the latest episode in a new featurette, Pascal opens the conversation with what in his eyes, makes the show unique. “I think what’s narratively fascinating about The Last of Us is it’s a new kind of apocalypse,” he says. “And the story of our compulsion to dominate.” Throughout the runtime of the episode, one could sense the growing comradery and bonding that was beginning to form between Joel and Ellie. “For the first time you get the sense that they were a team,” co-showrunner Craig Mazin says about the pair traveling together. Despite this new relationship, Joel is quick to note Ellie’s “cargo” tag in his life. Regardless of Joel’s cold shoulder, Ellie constantly seeks to cheer up the grumpy man with her constant jokes. “Joel secretly loves Ellie’s humor,” Ramsey says. “And her jokes. And her puns. He pretends he doesn’t, but he does.” While Ellie enjoys tormenting Joel with the jokes, he does “secretly” enjoy them, cracking off a smile when he lies with his back to his teenage companion.

The series had made a couple of deviations from the game, the biggest coming last week. This week, there is yet another, this time one of location, changing from Pittsburgh in the game to Kansas City on the television show, but one thing is clear – it is not any less violent. Soon upon their arrival, “Ellie has to trust Joel,” Mazin says, as her “protector.” Joel’s ability to be violent is well known to Ellie, but she has never had to fully grasp how “ugly that violence is.” Soon she has to embrace that violence to save his life, and in the aftermath, Mazin explains that Ellie “is just like him.”

With the removal of FEDRA, the new terror of Kansas City is its own resistance force. Co-showrunner Neil Druckmann explains that they sought to “humanize” these fighters making them “a people with a real goal, a real motivation and humanity.” And to lead this group is the “ruthless” leader Kathleen, whom Melanie Lynskey describes as “a tough woman” and “a very principled woman” who equally has “a dark side.” Kathleen and her people are that force, so familiar throughout history, who have liberated others from oppression only to become oppressors themselves. “I love humanizing villains,” Druckmann says. “And so much of The Last of Us is about people who have to make choices. And whether they are heroes or villains, really depends on your perspective.”

The Last of Us airs on HBO and HBO Max at 9 PM ET every Sunday. Watch the featurette below:

via Collider