The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 5 Review: There’s Something in the Air

This review contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2 episode 5.

The Last of Us returns this week with another action-packed episode as Dina (Isabela Merced) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) continue their quest for revenge in Seattle. The stakes continue to be raised as the violence between the W.L.F. and Seraphites escalates and the infected find new ways to evolve, interrupting Dina and Ellie’s daydreams of a domestic future together.

This episode begins similarly to last week’s with a peek into the W.L.F. and what they’re up to. Alanna Ubach returns as Hanrahan, the W.L.F officer who helped Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) leave F.E.D.R.A., but this time in the present day. The hospital that Dina and Ellie are heading toward seems to have had a recent Cordyceps-related incident – a squad was sent down into the basement levels to clear out infected and presumably make the hospital more operational. However, when the squad arrives, the first few levels are eerily empty. Once they get further in, they discover that Cordyceps has adapted and become airborne, lying in wait for unsuspecting people to breathe in its spores.

Rather than watching this play out, we learn all of this second hand in a conversation between Hanrahan and Sergeant Park. They’ve done their best to seal off access to those levels to keep the threat contained, but doing so meant sealing in the soldiers Sergeant Park sent down there, including her son Leon. This scene is an ominous introduction to the episode, and another reminder that Cordyceps is still alive and thriving in Seattle amidst the factions in conflict.

When we get back to the theater that Ellie and Dina have taken shelter in, the two are preparing to make the trek toward the hospital. Dina listens in to the W.L.F radio that they stole to try and triangulate the best path that would avoid their patrols. She notices that they talk so freely on the radio that they must not be worried about the Seraphites listening in, deducing that the Seraphites are likely similar to the Amish in their shunning of modern technology.

Meanwhile, Ellie has restored power to the theater and done some exploring. She finds yet another guitar in well-enough condition to play, and starts to strum and sing the song “Future Days” by Pearl Jam, only getting through the first line “If I ever were to lose you” before stopping and putting down the guitar, as though the song triggered a painful memory she’s not ready to confront. In The Last of Us Part II, this is essentially her and Joel’s song. It connects them throughout the story in moments like this as Ellie struggles with losing him and reflects on their complicated relationship. Thankfully, Ellie doesn’t have to sit in this feeling for too long as Dina comes through the doors soon after she sets down the guitar, having found a viable path toward the hospital.

The two lovebirds set off toward a seemingly abandoned factory that turns out way too good to be true. Along the way, Dina and Ellie manage to avoid the W.L.F. patrols, but come across another violent display of bodies – this time it’s Seraphites murdered by the W.L.F. Ellie is visibly nervous, checking in with Dina to make sure that she’s okay to continue on the mission. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Dina, but her pregnancy and the future they’re now planning together does complicate Ellie’s once straightforward plan for revenge.

Dina gets serious, a darkness clouding her usual bright and sunny disposition as she tells Ellie about her first kill. She was eight and snuck outside to play despite her mom’s rules against it. When she got back home, her mother and sister were dead and the raider who did it was still standing over them. So she shot him and set off on her own, eventually making it to Jackson. She tells Ellie that she’ll stay with her if she wants, and she’ll go back to the theater if she wants, but if she dies, it’s on her, not on Ellie. Even Ellie is surprised by this revelation, seeing Dina’s resilience in a new light and admiring her for it. She agrees to keep going, and the two finally make it to the factory.

Dina and Ellie knew they would come across infected here. Why else would it be so unguarded by the W.L.F.? But what they soon come to realize is that this place is not just home to ‘normal’ infected – it’s become home to a group of stalkers, like the infected Ellie fought in the grocery store back in Jackson. It’s not long before they’re overwhelmed, and they may have been goners if not for a surprise heroic swoop-in by none other than Jesse (Young Mazino). It turns out that he and Tommy (Gabriel Luna) set off toward Seattle the day after Dina and Ellie left, not wanting to lose them too.

The three flee the factory only to find themselves in Seraphite territory. They watch as a Wolf is ceremoniously disemboweled, and do their best to avoid the same fate. In the chaos, Ellie finds herself separated from Jesse and Dina and decides to go to the hospital on her own. Once there, she confronts Nora (Tati Gabrielle), who admits that Joel deserved what he got. A chase ensues that inadvertently leads them both to the spore-filled basement levels Sergeant Park and the others are so terrified of.

Instead of violent, bloodthirsty infected, the basement is full of hosts melded to the wall by Cordyceps. They’re kept “alive” enough to breathe out spores, but that’s about it. It’s a creepy sight that doesn’t seem to phase Ellie as she is single-minded in her goal. As Nora struggles to breathe and starts to twitch under the influence of Cordyceps particles, Ellie gains ground and forcefully asks her where Abby is.

We watch Ellie’s intensity grow as Nora refuses to answer. Taking a page out of Joel’s book, she begins a more forceful interrogation, beating Nora as she succumbs to the fungus. But just as the violence starts to intensify, the episode cuts to a brief flashback of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie back home in Jackson.

Ramsey and Merced have once again done an impeccable job of carrying the show forward in Joel’s absence. Though his presence is very much still felt through their performances, Ellie’s song, and the flashback at the end, we also get to see glimpses of how Ellie might be able to move on once this is all over. Ellie worries about Dina not because she thinks the pregnancy makes her fragile, but because she finally has hope and love in her life again and is terrified of losing it.

But as caring and worried as she appears to be for Dina, it’s clear that avenging Joel is still at the forefront of Ellie’s mind. Instead of catching up with Jesse and an injured Dina, she goes after Nora first and succumbs to the cycle of violence. This episode is brutal and does a phenomenal job of setting up the stakes to come, both in Ellie and Dina’s quest and the greater Seattle area at large.

New episodes of The Last of Us season 2 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, culminating with the finale on May 25, 2025.

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