Seattle, WA

The Last of Us Recap: Seattle at Last

Published

11 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

Why the potential return of the Sonics to Seattle has never felt closer

Published

50 minutes ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

Why the potential return of the Sonics to Seattle has never felt closer

A fan hold up a sign in the stands urging the former Seattle Sonics basketball team to return to Seattle before a preseason NBA basketball game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Portland Trail Blazers, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)

SEATTLE — October 25, 2006. April 18, 2008. May 15, 2013.

March 25, 2026?

Those dates on the calendar — three in the past, one still yet to come — represent four seminal moments in the history of NBA franchise stability as it relates to Seattle.

The first three are dates fans of the green and gold would rather forget.

The first was the day Clay Bennett’s purchase of the SuperSonics was approved by NBA owners. The second, the day his relocation request to move the franchise from Seattle to Oklahoma City was given the OK, prior to the lawsuit and subsequent settlement that finally allowed the organization to bolt.

And the last was the day Chris Hansen’s efforts to purchase and relocate the Sacramento Kings were thwarted and voted down by the league.

Three moments that went to define the opinion of the NBA in the minds of many sports fans in the Pacific Northwest.

But that last date — Wednesday — might end up being a date that gets circled and remembered in a different light. The NBA Board of Governors will wrap up two days of meetings in New York on Wednesday with the expectation that the league’s owners will give the green light to start conversations with interested ownership groups who want to bring expansion franchises to Seattle and Las Vegas.

After years of posturing, and fits and starts, the return of the NBA to Seattle has never felt closer. But there are significant questions that remain. Here’s a look at a few of them with Wednesday’s meeting on the horizon.

Is this real or just another tease?

It sure seems real.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver set the stage for what seems likely to happen next when he unexpectedly announced at the NBA Cup that expansion was going to be addressed sometime in 2026.

What comes from the meetings Tuesday and Wednesday is expected to be a vote of approval from the league’s owners allowing Silver to start holding substantive talks with potential ownership groups in Seattle and Las Vegas that could lead to a vote for expansion approval later this year. For the initial vote and for the final approval, 23 of the league’s 30 owners must vote in favor for approval.

Industry sources have told the Seattle Times that the buzz during All-Star weekend in Los Angeles last month was momentum quickly growing behind the thought that expansion was going to take place. With word emerging earlier this week of the pending vote, it would seem highly unlikely for that kind of information to leak without an expectation that a vote of approval is coming and would allow Silver to start the real conversations.

Assuming that approval comes, the next few months will be filled with conversations and negotiations, and ultimately a final decision on whether to formally expand or not. The vote for that could come as soon as the NBA Summer League owners’ meeting that’s held in Las Vegas in July. If there are delays or hiccups in the talks, the vote on formal expansion could be pushed to the annual BOG meeting held in September. Either way, as long as the vote is sometime this year and the league gives the thumbs up, the expansion franchise should be able to start in time for the 2028-29 season.

Is this going to become a bidding war?

That is one of the significant unknowns about how many parties are going to get involved in the bidding. To date, the only group locally to express their interest in pursuing expansion once the league gives the green light is the Kraken ownership group. They have decided advantages over any other group as a stakeholder in Climate Pledge Arena and the owner of the primary tenant that uses the facility. But questions remain about who all would be involved in any sort of investment group that would put forth a bid. To date, there have been behind-the-scenes conversations, but reserved public-facing campaigning by the Kraken group in jockeying for the lead position.

That has created a little bit of that uncertainty about whether another group could swoop in and get involved. The NBA likely wouldn’t mind that. The more groups, the more demand. The more demand, the more likely the expansion fee could be pushed upward.

Does the Seahawks sale factor into all of this?

Just like with the question about the bidding war, the fact the Super Bowl champions are for sale and in the same market adds a wrinkle to the situation around the NBA. The primary figures in each situation are likely committed to staying in their lanes — the folks who will be providing most of the money in the pursuit of each franchise likely should not change. But the money that comes in on the fringes could be a little in flux. Ultimately, it’s a small piece of the much larger pie.

The higher likelihood is whoever is committed at this point to being financially involved in either potential transaction isn’t changing.

What about the Sonics history?

Should this continue in the direction it seems to be heading, yes, the history of the SuperSonics would return to the expansion franchise. That was part of the settlement agreed to when the team moved to Oklahoma City in 2008 — when a team returned to the market, the 41 years of history that accompanied the Sonics time in Seattle would be reinstated and no longer claimed by the Thunder franchise.

Many of the stars of the past — Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp to name a pair — have stated they did not want their past accomplishments in Seattle recognized by the Thunder franchise.

What’s the Vegas angle to all this?

Nine months ago, the momentum behind Las Vegas wasn’t dead, but it certainly had quieted significantly. There was uncertainty about possible ownership groups, including whether LeBron James’ longstanding want to be involved with a Vegas expansion team was still there. There were major questions about the arena situation and if T-Mobile Arena — home of the NHL’s Golden Knights — would be the home of an NBA team as well or if a new building would be in the offering.

Clearly a couple of those questions have been answered. There appear to be at least two ownership groups positioned to be involved in the bidding, although the most prominent name linked to team ownership there seems to be out. The Athletic first reported and James later confirmed that he and his partners with Fenway Sports Group would not be involved in the bidding process for a Las Vegas franchise.

The other two groups, per reporting from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, are a group that includes Magic Johnson and another that includes Golden Knights owner Bill Foley.

The arena … well that remains perhaps the biggest unknown in Sin City. The NBA has indicated upgrades to T-Mobile Arena might be good enough to satisfy needs. But the building is already home to the Golden Knights, UFC and concerts, and there are valid concerns about congestion and potentially a viable path toward a new building. Whether a building could be ready in two years should the reported 2028-29 timeline be applied to both teams is unknown.

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Seattle, WA

Seattle Weather: First Spring storm arrives on Tuesday

Published

13 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

Seattle Weather: First Spring storm arrives on Tuesday

Seattle – The weekend brought a much-needed break from the rainy atmospheric river. We enjoyed a mainly sunny and dry sky. Monday will see a few more clouds around the area ahead of our next rainmaker, which is forecast to arrive on Tuesday.

Increasing clouds on Monday, but still dry.

After enjoying a dry an mainly sunny weekend, more clouds will move inland throughout the day Monday.

Grab an extra layer on Monday morning as morning lows will be chilly, near freezing in some spots. Partly cloudy and slightly cooler in the afternoon with highs near 50.

Forecast highs Monday around our region.

Afternoon highs remain cool to start the week.

After the latest atmospheric river sent snow levels up near 8000 and 9000 feet, much of the beneficial snow we picked up was melted. This next round of will lower snow levels back down, where a light dusting of snow is forecast to fall.

Cooler air will force snow levels to lower beginning on Tuesday with a light dusting of snow.

Winds will be gusty next week when the next system arrives on Tuesday. Some spots may see gusts nearing 45 mph.

Gusty winds picking up on Tuesday with speeds nearing 45 mph.

Hard to believe, but the new season of Mariners baseball starts this Thursday. The home open is looking good so far with an even nicer weekend ahead.

The extended forecast for the Seattle metro area.

Lowland rain and mountain snow early in the week with a dry weekend ahead.

Weather

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Seattle, WA

Seattle Mariners make 5 more roster moves as opener nears

Published

1 day ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

Seattle Mariners make 5 more roster moves as opener nears

With spring training wrapping up and opening day just a few days away, the Seattle Mariners continued to whittle down their roster on Sunday.

Drayer: Mariners to go with Garver as backup catcher

The Mariners optioned catcher Jhonny Pereda, right-handed reliever Cole Wilcox and right-handed reliever Yosver Zulueta to Triple-A Tacoma. They also re-assigned first baseman/outfielder Connor Joe and infield prospect Brock Rodden to minor league camp.

The Mariners’ spring training roster is now at 31 players.

Pereda, 29, was acquired from the Minnesota Twins for cash in January. He was brought in to compete for Seattle’s backup catcher role, but Mariners insider Shannon Drayer reported earlier Sunday that veteran Mitch Garver will break camp as Cal Raleigh’s backup. Pereda batted .200 in 25 Cactus League at-bats this spring.

Wilcox, 26, flashed potential this spring after he was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays for cash last November. He struck out 11 batters across 8 1/3 innings in eight Cactus League appearances, while allowing four runs, six hits and four walks. Mariners manager Dan Wilson said earlier this month that “his stuff has been tremendous” and he “has opened some eyes.”

Zulueta, 28, struck out 10 batters across seven innings in eight Cactus League appearances, while allowing three runs, six hits and three walks. He was acquired from the Cincinnati Reds in a January trade.

Joe, 33, signed a minor league contract with Seattle in February. The six-year MLB veteran had a strong spring, batting .362 with one home run, one triple and six doubles in 47 Cactus League at-bats.

Rodden, 25, is ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Mariners’ No. 18 prospect. A 2023 fifth-round draft pick out of Wichita State, Rodden hit .361 with two homers, one triple and one double in 36 Cactus League at-bats.

More on the Seattle Mariners

• Randy says he apologized, Cal says WBC drama ‘in the past’
• ‘Torpedo 2.0’: Seattle Mariners release another new commercial
• Seattle Mariners re-assign Colt Emerson to minor league camp
• Seattle Mariners’ Cole Young blasts 478-foot moonshot home run
• 3 standouts from Seattle Mariners’ Spring Breakout game

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