Seattle, WA

The Last of Us Recap: Seattle at Last

Published

7 months ago

May 5, 2025

Press Room

The Last of Us

Day One

Season 2

Episode 4

Editor’s Rating

4 stars

Ellie and Dina finally reach Seattle, only to be caught between its warring factions.
Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO

In case you’ve forgotten, what remained of the U.S. government and its military did not vanish with the onset of the Cordyceps outbreak. In fact, it’s still the dominant force in much of the East Coast, as far as we know. But Ellie and Joel left FEDRA, the blanket term for government forces, in their rearview mirror long ago. So it’s kind of a shock that this episode opens with a group of FEDRA soldiers yucking it up inside an armored vehicle. Where are we? When are we? The answer is Seattle in the recent past, where a seasoned soldier (Josh Peck) is holding court as he recounts a story of confronting “voters” with the help of a brutish, slow-witted comrade-in-arms named Greenberg who does not understand the word disseminating.

Why do they call them “voters,” Burton (Ben Ahlers), a fresh-faced recruit, asks. It’s here that a previously unheard voice of authority pipes up to clarify. “It’s because we took away their rights,” Isaac (Jeffrey Wright), their leader, says. We’ve heard of Isaac. He leads the WLF. But all that’s in the future as this scene unfolds. When the vehicle reaches a blockade, the FEDRA forces find themselves surrounded by voters. Isaac tells them he’s heading out alone to talk to them. This is true, but there’s more going on here. Pulling out Burton, Isaac first walks up to the leader of the citizens, then casually tosses a grenade in the back of the vehicle. He’s selling them out to join the WLF, to all appearances, because he believes in the WLF cause. Does Burton share this belief (or, at the very last, want to survive)? “Now make your choice,” Isaac tells him shortly before the opening credits kick in.

The Last of Us’s fourth second-season episode leaves Burton’s choice unresolved until later. Instead, it flashes forward 11 years to the season’s main timeline, where Dina and Ellie scavenge an already ravaged pharmacy for anything that might be useful. They don’t have a lot of luck, unless a long-expired jug of milk counts, but Dina spies something that might be useful (though what remains unclear at the moment).

Seattle looks strangely beautiful. Wilderness has already reclaimed much of the city (the parts spared from bombing, at least), and there’s little that appears ominous as they enter Capitol Hill, a neighborhood filled with rainbow flags and Pride symbols that Ellie and Dina don’t understand. But around the corner, they find skeletons, an overgrown tank, and other signs that the area once served as a battlefield. Ellie likens the burned corpses inside the tank to the doomed astronauts of Apollo 1, a reminder of her fascination with the space program (evident by the posters in her room back in Jackson), and that she has interests beyond revenge and survival.

Still, revenge remains pretty high on Ellie’s to-do list, and when Dina spots the letters WLF painted on the satellite dish of a local TV station, she’s eager to rush in. Dina suggests they exercise caution rather than rushing in, so they stash Shimmer and wait until dark inside a music store. This, too, speaks to Ellie’s other interests. Finding a well-preserved guitar, Ellie tunes it and plays a lovely acoustic rendition of A-ha’s “Take on Me” while Dina looks on tearfully. It’s a tender moment during a break in the action; it seemingly never occurs to either that they could walk away and leave this quest behind.

And what about Isaac? He’s still around, we soon find out, and he’s still a believer in the WLF cause. But any idealism he’s held onto is now coupled with sadism. We watch him waxing poetic about cookware he could never afford in the time before the infection, but it’s revealed that he’s now using these “strange benefits of the apocalypse” for destructive purposes. Copper might be ideal for cooking, but it’s also well suited for torturing “Scars,” the derogatory term for Seraphites, the scar-faced followers of a still-unnamed prophet we heard about in the previous episode. Though naked and defenseless, the Seraphite refuses to divulge any information about his people’s whereabouts, prompting Isaac to kill him. “Good,” Burton, now 11 years older and a hardened WLF soldier, says as he stands guard outside the door. “Scar got what he deserved, fucking animal.”

Though they don’t yet know it as they scope out the TV station, this is what Ellie and Dina are up against. Or at least part of what they’re up against. Inside, they find a horror show of slain Wolves, all hung from the ceiling and disemboweled. On the wall, Ellie finds a strange rune and the words “Feel Her Love” etched in blood. Ellie can’t know it yet, but she stumbled upon the aftermath of a confrontation between the Wolves and Seraphites, in which the Seraphites won. We’ve seen what cruelty the WLF can exact. Now here’s an example of what their enemies can do. “What the fuck is wrong with Seattle?” Dina asks, and it’s easy to see why.

But Ellie and Dina barely have time to consider this before trouble starts to arrive in the form of Wolves responding to a call for backup. It doesn’t take long for this to go south, forcing Ellie and Dina to fight Wolves and then flee in the rain. They find shelter, but not safety, in a dilapidated subway line, where they again have to evade the Wolves searching for them. When the soldiers find themselves fighting infected, they turn this chaos to their advantage and escape, but just barely. There’s one other issue: Ellie is bitten in full view of Dina as she attempts to save Dina’s life.

This, understandably, freaks out Dina. After they take shelter in a nearby theater, Dina pulls a gun on her best friend with every intention of putting her down. It’s confession time. “I’m immune,” Ellie tells her, then promises she will wake up unchanged and that Dina can hold a gun on her for as long as she feels is necessary. Dina goes along with this, and when it becomes clear that Ellie is telling the truth, two dramatic events happen back to back: Dina reveals she’s pregnant, and the two begin making out. When they wake up, each eats some jerky to counteract morning breath before kissing again. Postapocalyptic life clearly has its downsides.

As the sun comes up, Ellie tells Dina the whole story, about how she’d been bitten before and why she covered the bite with tattoos. Then Dina makes her own confession: She has wanted to be with Ellie for a long time. In fact, she’s imagined a future in which the two make a life together, with kids and everything. Dina has wanted this for a while, despite the complicated relationship with Jesse that led to her pregnancy. “We’re all having a baby,” Ellie concludes. Then a message on the WLF walkie-talkie they’ve stolen prompts both Dina and Ellie to leave these thoughts aside. They know where to find WLF headquarters and Abby. Ellie suggests Dina stay behind, things being different now. But Dina won’t be left behind. The episode ends with her saying a single word to define their situation: “Together.”

• The conflict between the heavily armed WLF and the less resourced but still dangerous Serpahites, a deeply religious group not averse to violence, doesn’t map directly onto any real-world situation, but it’s hard to ignore parallels between current global hot spots. Specifically, Neil Druckmann has spoken about how he drew inspiration from growing up in Israel and witnessing the cycle of violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s a heavy topic for a zombie show to take on, of course, but the series so far seems to be following the example of the game, which attempts to immerse players in the middle of morally knotty situations. We see that both the Wolves and the Seraphites are capable of atrocities. We also see that each side has its own reasons for what it does. In some ways, it’s an expansion of themes that the series has already introduced. We love Joel, but it’s just as easy to see why Abby would think him a monster. And why Ellie would think Abby a monster. And on and on. That Ellie and Dina repeatedly put their feelings for each other to the side in the interest of vengeance is one of this episode’s saddest details. Sometimes hate takes precedence over everything else, no matter the cost.

• Ellie is too young to remember “Take on Me” being a hit the first time around. Then again, she’s too young to remember anything being a hit the first time around. Globally, it’s the biggest song ever recorded by the Norwegian pop group A-ha, but A-ha enjoyed a long career after that breakthrough, finding consistent success in Europe. They’re still around, though, apparently, they’ve become one of those bands whose members don’t really interact with one another when not onstage.

• If you put money on Josh Peck (a) showing up in an episode of The Last of Us and (b) playing a huge jerk, well, you just had a big payday.

• You know what’s always a good thing? When Jeffrey Wright shows up. He’s reprising the role he played in The Last of Us Part II (the game, in case there’s any confusion).

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Seattle, WA

Seahawks Notebook: Christian Haynes to start if Grey Zabel out

Published

3 hours ago

November 19, 2025

Press Room

Seahawks Notebook: Christian Haynes to start if Grey Zabel out

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INGLEWOOD, CA – JANUARY 05: Seattle Seahawks guard Christian Haynes (64) walks off of the field after an NFL game between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams on January 05, 2025, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. (Jordon Kelly / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)

RENTON, Wash. – Coming off his first appearance for the Seahawks, Christian Haynes will get the start at left guard for Seattle this weekend against the Tennessee Titans if rookie Grey Zabel isn’t able to recover from a knee injury in time.

Head coach Mike Macdonald confirmed on Wednesday that Haynes would get the nod to make his first career start after playing only in relief during his rookie campaign last season.

“We’ve seen it on our football team, if somebody can’t go for a certain amount of time, whether it’s practice or games, the standard stays the same.” Macdonald said. “We expect you to go in and go rip it for us and he did that. He didn’t bat an eye, and there’s things he’s going to learn from the game, and we’re going to need him to play at a high level if he needs to play this week.”

Zabel didn’t practice on Wednesday due to the left knee injury he sustained late in Seattle’s 21-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday. While the Seahawks received good news about Zabel’s status, they still might be without him this weekend.

“It was definitely a surreal moment, but just being ready and locked in,” Haynes said of playing on Seattle’s final drive. “That’s what they need me for, to be ready, to be locked in at all times so I was ready to go out there and then go get a game-winning drive going.”

Haynes missed the first nine games of the season due to a pectoral injury sustained during the team’s joint practice with the Green Bay Packers in mid-August ahead of their preseason matchup.

“I already hurt it once before that and then the joint practice, it got worse,” Haynes said.

Haynes was a right guard in college at the University of Connecticut before becoming a third-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft by Seattle. Haynes has been working at both guard spots, as well as center, during his time with the Seahawks.

“I’ve been playing a lot of left guard, practicing both, and then I played preseason games at left guard. So it wasn’t nothing new to me when I was out there,” Haynes said.

Haynes played ten snaps for Seattle on their final drive of the game as they were able to move to the edge of field goal range for a last-second, game-winning field goal attempt from 61 yards away for Jason Myers.

“It felt good being back out there,” Haynes said. “I felt confident, and I just felt like I go out there and play my best ball I could possibly play. I felt pretty good out there. I felt in my groove. One thing like Coach Mike always says, like, just be loose and focused, and I felt loose and focused out there. Just go out there and block it and play my game.”

Haynes couldn’t crack Seattle’s lineup last season, unable to unseat veterans Laken Tomlinson or Anthony Bradford, and even fellow rookie Sataoa Laumea had better showings when called upon. But Haynes was challenging Bradford for the starting job at right guard in the preseason before his injury put him on the shelf for two months.

“:Faster with everything I’m doing, with my calls, with my steps, and just seeing things faster as a player,” Haynes said. “Just seeing things before it comes and just then being confident every time in everything that I’m doing.”

Notes:

– Nose tackle Johnathan Hankins won’t play this season for the Seahawks due to a back injury that has kept him out all year. Hankins was placed on the non-football injury list prior to the start of training camp and isn’t progressing to the point of being able to play.

“I’ll probably leave it private right now, what’s going on with his health, but yeah, he won’t be with us this year,” Macdonald said.

“The back is tricky. If it’s not working, it’s not a fun situation to be in, so we wish him the best.”

– Rookie defensive end Rylie Mills is getting close to being able to start practicing with the team. Mills, a fifth-round pick out of Notre Dame in April, has been recovering from an ACL injury in his right knee sustained last December.

“I think we’re getting within a couple weeks now of him starting to practice,” Macdonald said.

Mills would need multiple weeks of practice to get up to speed as he hasn’t been on a football field since college, but he’s getting close to becoming an option.

– Guard Grey Zabel, wide receiver Tory Horton, linebacker Tyrice Knight, and fullback Robbie Ouzts were the four players that did not participate in practice on Wednesday.

Knight sustained a concussion on Sunday, and Horton is still working back from a shin injury that’s kept him out the last two games.

“Some other guys limited that we’re taking care of with reps, but those are the guys that won’t practice,” Macdonald said.

While Ouzts is dealing with an elbow injury, his absence was for non-injury reasons.

Macdonald said Horton’s chances of playing this week will come down to if his shin injury improves in the coming days.

“We’ll see. Really just a matter of calming down, so it could happen tonight, it could happen, not tonight,” Macdonald said.

The Source: Information in this story came from FOX 13 Seattle reporting.

MORE SEAHAWKS NEWS FROM FOX 13 SEATTLE

Mike Macdonald says Grey Zabel’s knee injury showed “nothing significant” for Seahawks

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Seahawks fall to Rams 21–19 after last-second missed field goal

Sam Darnold throws four interceptions as Seattle Seahawks lose 21-19 to Rams

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Seattle, WA

Seattle Seahawks ‘optimistic’ about rookie Zabel’s injury

Published

2 days ago

November 17, 2025

Press Room

Seattle Seahawks ‘optimistic’ about rookie Zabel’s injury

Head coach Mike Macdonald is optimistic that Seattle Seahawks rookie left guard Grey Zabel avoided a season-ending injury during Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams.

Stacy Rost: A Seattle Seahawks problem cost them against Rams

Zabel, Seattle’s first-round pick in the 2025 draft, exited Sunday’s loss in the final minutes of the fourth quarter with a knee injury and did not return. The North Dakota State product was injured on a Kenneth Walker III touchdown run with 2:23 left in the game when left tackle Charles Cross was pushed into Zabel’s left knee.

Zabel was tended to on the ground by trainers before they helped him limp off the field. Second-year pro Christian Haynes played left guard in place of Zabel on the Seahawks’ final drive.

Seattle’s head coach addressed Zabel’s status during The Mike Macdonald Show on Seattle Sports with Brock and Salk on Monday.

“I’ll say it’s optimistic right now,” Macdonald said. “So initial news is really positive, but let’s get out of the fog here before I start making any declarations.”

Macdonald said his optimism was based off of initial testing done on Zabel. The rookie offensive lineman was scheduled for imaging on his knee Monday morning.

The Seahawks picked the 23-year-old Zabel at No. 18 overall in April out of North Dakota State. The 6-foot-6, 316-pound lineman had played nearly every snap at left guard this season before the injury.

Zabel ranks 68th out of 79 guards with a 49.3 grade, according to Pro Football Focus. That grade does not include Sunday’s performance. He had allowed zero sacks on 267 pass-blocking snaps entering the matchup with Los Angeles.

The Seahawks are already playing without starting center Jalen Sundell, who was a college teammate of Zabel. Sundell was placed on injured reserve Saturday with a knee injury.

Listen to The Mike Macdonald Show at 9:30 a.m. on the day after every Seahawks game. Hear Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

More on the Seattle Seahawks

• Seattle Seahawks find fault in more than Darnold’s 4 picks
• Observations from Seahawks’ 21-19 loss to Rams
• Instant Reaction: Turnovers doom Seahawks in loss to Rams
• Roster Moves: Seahawks place center Jalen Sundell on IR
• Hall of Fame Seahawks safety Kenny Easley dies at 66

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Seattle, WA

Observations from Seattle Seahawks’ 21-19 loss to Rams

Published

3 days ago

November 16, 2025

Press Room

Observations from Seattle Seahawks’ 21-19 loss to Rams

Despite four interceptions by Sam Darnold, the Seattle Seahawks somehow still had a chance to pull off a last-second victory in Sunday afternoon’s NFC West showdown against the Los Angeles Rams.

Instant reaction | Box Score

However, Jason Myers’ 61-yard field goal on the final play sailed wide right and the Seahawks suffered a 21-19 road loss to their division rival as the Rams took Round 1 between these two Super Bowl contenders.

The loss dropped Seattle to 7-3 and allowed the Rams to move into sole possession of first place atop the NFC West at 8-2.

Here’s a look at what stood out from the game.

Darnold’s interceptions prove costly

In a clash of two evenly matched teams, turnovers had the potential to be a differentiating factor. The Seahawks, despite all their success on offense this season, entered the week tied for the second-most turnovers in the league. The Rams’ defense, meanwhile, was tied for the fifth-most takeaways.

And sure enough, it ended up being the story of the game.

Darnold, who entered with just six interceptions this season, was picked off four times by the Rams’ defense. As a result, the Rams began four of their possessions in Seattle territory, and they converted two of those short fields into touchdowns.

For most of this season, the Seahawks were good enough to overcome their high turnover rate. But they essentially handed the Rams 14 points on Sunday, which they simply couldn’t afford to do against one of the league’s elite teams.

A gutsy defensive performance

It’s a major testament to their defense that the Seahawks still had a chance to win this game in the closing moments.

Seattle completely suffocated Los Angeles’ high-scoring offense for most of the afternoon, holding Sean McVay’s crew to just 249 total yards, which was the Rams’ second-lowest mark of the season. Matthew Stafford completed just 15 of 28 passes for a season-low 130 yards, while averaging a season-low 4.6 yards per pass attempt.

And for the final two-thirds of the game, the Rams simply couldn’t move the ball at all. The Seahawks limited the Rams to just 105 total yards and five first downs over their final eight drives, none of which spanned more than 25 yards.

Again, the Rams scored 14 of their 21 points on a pair of drives that started at the Seattle 3 and the Seattle 25. The fact that the Seahawks lost the turnover battle 4-1 and still nearly won should be at least somewhat encouraging.

Settling for field goals

Darnold’s interceptions were by far the biggest problem for Seattle’s offense. But they weren’t the only problem.

The Seahawks drove inside the Rams’ 15-yard line three times over the first two and a half quarters. But all three times, they settled for field goals.

Seattle’s first red-zone drive stalled at the 12-yard line after a pair of incompletions. Seattle’s second red-zone drive – a 15-play, 89-yard march at the end of the first half – stalled at the 3-yard line after Darnold was forced into a third-down throwaway.

And in the third quarter, the Seahawks drove into the red zone again but settled for another field goal. That came after back-to-back plays where Kenneth Walker III had a TD run called back by a holding penalty and Darnold missed a potential go-ahead TD pass by underthrowing an open Rashid Shaheed down the sideline.