The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 4 Review: Please Hold My Hand

The Last of Us season 1 episode 4 leaves us on the edge of our seats but the journey to get there was met with wonderful bonding moments between Ellie and Joel. The comedy is always present, but the heart Joel is slowly showing Ellie is heartwarming.

It shows the guilt that he feels for her and the children who have to grow up in this world so quickly. He comes from a different time when children got to be children and were shielded from the harshness of the world.

Ellie plays around with her gun while admiring it. It’s a good thing too because it’s going to come in handy when she has to use it.

She is still so profoundly proud of her find, much to Joel’s dismay later on. The banter we had last week with Joel and Ellie comes on just as strong in “Please Hold My Hand”, as Joel is siphoning gas from vehicles and Ellie asks how it works.

He tries to explain it to her the best way he knows how but he’s no scientist. She teases him over the fact that he doesn’t know.

She is sassy but there is softness to her when it comes to Joel. Ellie proceeds to drive Joel crazy with a book of very bad jokes.

The scenery in this episode is so identical to the game, that we really need to give props to everyone down the line from mastering this game to television adaptation.

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The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 4 – Please Hold My Hand

In the game, Joel and Ellie are making their way to Pittsburgh but in this story, they will be making their way through Kansas City. We see the famous truck scene that was in the game, as Ellie picks up a mature magazine after she finds an old Hank Williams cassette tape to put in.

I do love how every episode title is being depicting from music. Not just any music but some of the greatest vocalists of all time.

This week it is Hank Williams who became the first superstar of country music. Ellie loves to tease Joel and she’s smart and mature enough to know what it all is, but it’s not going to stop her from freaking him out.

She can play the man like a fiddle. I still can’t get over the detail of the imagery.

The Last of Us has raised the bar in the cinematography department, never to be touched again. The two make a stop before they get to Kansas City and camp out in the woods.

Ellie eats ravioli for the first time and loves it. She eats like it’s a race as any typical teen would.

Ellie wants to have a fire, but Joel explains the dangers of it. The area is too remote for the infected but the infected are sometimes a small thing in the big picture of it all.

Just like with any post-apocalyptic world, it’s people you have to worry about. People who will not only rob from you but murder you without a second thought.

That is something they come across very soon.

The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 4 – If you don’t think there’s hope for the world why bother going on?

Ellie becomes curious of where Tommy is and why they clearly aren’t on speaking terms anymore. Joel admits that Tommy has a hero complex.

He joined the military but even he couldn’t fit it there. After the outbreak, he joined a group heading up to Boston and Joel joined him, mostly to keep him alive.

It’s how he met Tess. One day Tommy meets Marlene and got talked into joining the Fireflies, once again jumping in to try to be the hero.

He fit in perfectly with the Fireflies with the savior mentality. From what Joel knows, he is on his own out there somewhere after leaving the Fireflies.

This is why Joel wants to go and find him. Now that Tess is gone it’s all he’s got left.

He is still hardened from this world, but when Ellie asks why he keeps going, he tells her he keeps going for family. She bluntly reminds him that she’s not family.

Joel still sees her as cargo, a job, a promise to Tess to fulfill. He halfheartedly admits that Tess was his family.

Even though she may be gone, his love for Tess is what drives him.

The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 4 – Heart of America is not so loving anymore

Trouble doesn’t take long to rear its ugly face in Kansas City. The good people of Kansas City attempt to trap them, until Joel crashes into a laundry mat.

This is another scene depicted right from the game and performed to perfection. Joel tells Ellie to get in the hole and stay there until the gun fight is over.

He has to take down the threat before they can figure out their next move. The ambush was strong, but Joel nearly single-handedly took care of it.

Ellie does a lot of things on impulse but stealing the gun back at Bill and Frank’s was a move that saved Joel’s life. She soon comes out of the hole as Joel is struggling in the fight, being choked out with a gun.

She comes up from behind the man and shoots him. The man pleads for his life but Joel finishes the job, though he does shield Ellie from watching.

He does take her gun back, not too thrilled she took it in the first place. But deep down you can sense he is grateful for the assist.

Ellie’s wish back in the truck, to see tanks came true quickly. Kathleen is the leader of this outfit, played by the fabulous Melanie Lynsey.

We first see her talking to a doctor, reading off names of people he is responsible for killing but revealing too much information to FEDRA. She is looking for a man named Henry, who is trapped somewhere in the city’s walls trying to survive.

We know Henry and Sam from the game as two people who went from foes to friends with Ellie and Joel but did not have a happy ending. Henry is a man responsible for killing Kathleen’s brother and she is on a mission of revenge no matter how much it costs her group.

It is sure to one day, be her downfall.

The Last of Us Season 1 Episode 4 – It was my fault, you should not have had to

Joel felt bad that Ellie had to put down the man who attacked him. He didn’t want her to carry that burden.

He knew it was his fault and she shouldn’t have had to do that. Joel knows what it feels like to hurt a man for the first time, and it isn’t easy.

But Ellie admits it’s not the first time she’s had to do that.

In the next moment, we see Joel pull Ellie’s gun back out and hand it to her while giving her pointers on how to handle the gun. He lets her have it back and she smiles like a kid on Christmas.

He tells her to put it in her bag, but of course she defies him and puts it in her pocket. Joel assures her they will get through this, and by working together they just may have a chance.

Kathleen may be on Henry’s heels, but Joel and Ellie have no idea Henry is on theirs. The two walk up a long flight of stairs to find some safety for at least the night.

Along the way, Ellie asks Joel if he killed any innocent people. He couldn’t give her an answer as he’d been on both sides of the fight and it’s a main reason why he has survived so long.

33 flights later they finally make it into a room. The two share another nice moment before bed with some more bad jokes and even some laughter.

Ellie is slowly breaking down his walls. Unfortunately, the two wake up with guns to their faces and the world meets Sam and Henry.

This was another fantastic episode for The Last of Us. While it may not have had the impact of the previous episode, it’s a steppingstone to a much larger story.

With the threat of Kathleen, both Ellie and Joel and Sam and Henry are on a clock to escape the city. It’s a lovely parallel about two men desperately trying to keep their kids alive.

Though Joel is refusing to see Ellie as family yet, the closer they get, the more it is felt. Episode 4 went up 17% to reach 7.5 million views in the USA which surpassed last week’s 6.4.

Keep expecting these numbers to rise. The sky is the limit for The Last of Us. 

How did you feel about the latest episode of The Last of Us? Let us know in the comments below, we would love to read them!

The Last of Us season 1 episode 5 will stream early this Friday on HBO Max at 9 PM.