Last Night's Episode Of The Last Of Us Was The Weakest One So Far

It's always tough to follow greatness. Carl Yastrzemski was the next left fielder after Ted Williams retired. He wound up being a first ballot Hall of Famer just like Teddy Ballgame. Last week's episode of The Last Of Us was brilliant television. The guest casting, the amazing love story and bittersweet conclusion was perfect. This week's episode? It felt more like Didi Gregorius replacing Derek Jeter. Didi was perfectly fine but could hardly hold a candle to Cap'n Jetes.

The best parts of this episode were in the first half. Small things like getting gas or camping overnight had a cloud of dread surrounding out. You weren't just nervous the Clickers (I'm not going to call them zombies even though they basically are) were going to sneak up on Joel and Ellie; but that humans could as well. The show does an amazing job not just showing us Joel and Ellie are never safe but having us feel that way watching them as well.

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The episode loses its footing when we meet Melanie Lynskey's character Kathleen. Lynskey is fantastic in Yellowjackets on Showtime. If you haven't had a chance to check that series out, you should. It's a cross between Lost, Alive and Grosse Pointe Blank. In Yellowjackets, Lynskey is really strong playing a suburban housewife who is capable of dangerous things. Here, she's supposed to be a ruthless leader and I don't buy it. She's a very good actress but take Robert De Niro. He may be a great actor but I don't think he'd be very good as Steve Urkel. Lynskey is poor casting here.

It doesn't help that her motives and her entire world are shrouded in mystery. I understand the show is setting us up to learn more about this Kansas City faction but it was either confusing or oddly predictable. The pavement crumbling was odd but then before we could know anything about it, they seal the building off. I am sure it's Clickers in there but why introduce that at all?  That felt like network TV bullshit. As far as being predictable, you knew that Lynskey was going to shoot her doctor to show what a badass she was. It was no surprise having the episode end with guns in the faces of Joel and Ellie. Also, why aren't they sleeping in shifts?

After a season of being the weakest link of this show, this was Bella Ramsey's best episode. I spent most of the first three episodes wondering why they didn't just cast the girl who played Joel's daughter in the first episode. She seemed like a much better and more natural actress. Ramsey does a solid job this week. We're not talking Edie Falco in The Sopranos but she finally held her own with Pedro Pascal (who is great) and with a script that was asking a lot out of her, that's not a small task. 

Finally, this was the first time we hadn't seen a Clicker or had a flashback. I really missed both. The flashbacks have been the most powerful part of all three previous episodes. I really hope they bring those back. I also understand they don't want this to be a zombie show so they want to focus on "bad humans" but I hope we get some of our fungus friends next week.

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This show has been running on a Bret Saberhagen cycle where every other episode (or season in Sabes case) is great and the next one is just OK. This was still an hour of television worth watching. But I didn't like the direction of the Kathleen character and the generic feel of the last half of this episode. I'm going to give this a B-. 

Episode One: A

Episode Two: B

Episode Three: A+

Episode Four: B-