The Last Of Us Episode 4 Review - 6 Ups & 2 Downs

3. The Hunter Ambush

Now for the real inciting incident of the episode and another ripped straight from the games: the Hunter ambush in the middle of the Kansas street.

While I do lament the omission of Joel’s “he ain’t even hurt” line from the game, this is still a great action sequence. The blocking of the shootout following the car crash keeps the action legible while conveying the danger of the situation, with the sound design in particular selling the impact of each ricocheting bullet.

Likewise, Joel’s concern for Ellie is palpable, with Pedro Pascal's performance swaying from worried father to stone-cold killer without missing a beat.

However, this brings us to a major deviation from the game: Ellie’s first kill. Like in the source material, Joel is blindsided by an enemy who begins choking him out. Ellie nervously shoots the guy in the back, before immediately having to reckon with her actions as this man - this kid, actually - pleads for his life as he bleeds out.

Now I’ll talk about how this works as an adaptation in a second, but judged in a vacuum, this is an effective scene. Ellie saved Joel’s life, yes, but the writers don’t let her forget that she took another life in order to do that. This dying man's wails and immediate bargaining while face to face with his own mortality is heartbreaking, and Ellie’s face says it all as tears stream down her face.

Like the guard Joel murders in Episode 1, this is a great example of what Craig Mazin was getting at when he said he wanted to turn NPCs into people rather than obstacles. There’s no remorse for the man killed in the game, but here, both Joel and Ellie are faced with the human being they’re about to put down. One’s hardened himself to it, the other is new to it.