What the Hell Is Going on with Jeffrey Wright's Character in 'The Last of Us'?

After three episodes spent ripping our hearts out while laying the groundwork for its new status quo, The Last of Us settled into a sort of normalcy this week in the aptly titled “Day One.” The episode even kicks off with a flashback! Set in 2018, the opening sequence introduces us to the origins of Isaac Dixon, the present-day leader of the Washington Liberation Front. Back then, the WLF was a small underground faction, rebelling against FEDRA’s authoritarian grip on Seattle. Isaac was a FEDRA lieutenant who defected to the WLF in a showy display of loyalty by killing his own team, tossing grenades into their armored truck with a blasé flip of his wrist. It’s a striking introduction, aided in no small part by the fact that Jeffrey Wright returned to play the character he originated in the video game (similar to Merle Dandridge portraying Marlene in both the game and the show’s first season).

(I also should mention that Josh Peck played one of the FEDRA bozos Isaac blows up, because it turns out that’s all anyone Googled about the show in the last 24 hours. I sometimes use Google Trends to figure out which questions I should answer in my recaps, but this time I was the one learning something, because I had no idea who Josh Peck was! He’s from Drake & Josh, The Wackness, and that Turner & Hooch show, according to Dustin, who is a big Josh Peck fan apparently. Don’t worry, I verified those credits on IMDb. You may also recognize the lone FEDRA dude Isaac spared, because he’s played by Ben Ahlers from The Gilded Age.)

When we see Isaac again in the present, the situation in Seattle has shifted. Ellie and Dina wander through a seemingly empty city, encountering the remains of FEDRA agents scattered in the streets. Now the WLF militia is the party in power, though they’re in a war for control of Seattle against a religious cult known as the Seraphites - the Wolves vs. the Scars, as they call each other. As Isaac tortures a Seraphite for information about the cult’s next attack, we learn a lot about their history. There was a truce, though each side claims the other broke it. They each kill children (which Ellie and Dina witnessed on their way into Seattle). The difference between the factions, according to Isaac, is strength, and the superior firepower of the militia. Still, the hostage claims the Wolves will lose. Every day, he says, Wolves defect from the WLF and join the Seraphites, but never the other way around. By the time the hostage willingly holds out his hand for another scalding hot Mauviel saucepan to the skin, Isaac realizes he will never get any information out of this guy - so he shoots him. Though Isaac doesn’t seem nearly as weary as he did eleven years prior, he retains the same calm demeanor while assessing the situation and doing what he thinks he must do. He runs cold, unlike Ellie, whose rage has her planning a solo frontal assault on a WLF outpost until Dina talks her out of it. With still no Abby in sight, I have a feeling there’s a reason we’re learning so much about her boss this week. Ellie is going to have her work cut out for her if she has to outmaneuver Isaac.

Not that Ellie knows anything about Isaac yet. She and Dina are still getting the lay of the land, and after their quiet tour of the city (complete with a beautiful musical number straight from the game, as Ellie serenades Dina with an acoustic rendition of “Take On Me”), they decide to infiltrate that broadcast tower emblazoned with “WLF” at night (thank you for stopping her, Dina). Inside they discover a Wolf riddled with arrows, and then a bunch more dead Wolves, disemboweled and hanging by their necks. Ellie quickly realizes that this is the work of the same religious cult they’d found dead in the woods and that there’s more going down in Seattle than they realized. Turns out the WLF isn’t alone in their brutality, but they’re still bad news - and just as Ellie is putting this all together, more Wolves arrive to see what happened in their station.

Ellie and Dina are able to make a getaway, but not without having to kill two soldiers and drawing attention to themselves. They’re chased into an abandoned subway station, where the WLF nearly has them cornered, until a horde of Infected comes rushing out of the tunnels. Props to director Kate Herron (Loki season one), who stages a tense escape as Ellie and Dina race through a subway car with Infected right on their heels. They make it all the way to the turnstile, which is rusted and refuses to budge, trapping Dina, and just as an Infected is about to bite her Ellie shoots her arm out and takes the bite instead.

Actually, you know what? Props to Kate Herron for the entire episode. She had to balance a lot this week, from our first real look at the WLF and Isaac to that serenade and the subway attack, but it all leads up to the moment of truth between Ellie and Dina that we’ve been waiting for. The pair retreats to an abandoned theater, where Dina pulls her gun on Ellie, expecting to shoot her best friend in the head until Ellie confesses that she’s immune. For so long, that was a secret only Joel knew, and they’d worked hard to keep it hidden for Ellie’s safety, but now Joel’s gone and Ellie has to reveal it to the next most important person in her life. It’s practically a love confession, the way Ellie says she’d die for Dina, but that’s not what just happened. And after some time passes, and Dina realizes Ellie truly is fine, she drops her own truth bomb: She’s pregnant. Then she kisses Ellie passionately, and the two make love.

The morning after is filled with beef jerky-flavored kisses and more honesty, as Dina admits she always knew how Ellie felt about her, just like she always knew she didn’t feel that way about Jesse (who, yes, is the father - though Ellie’s gonna be the daddy). When Dina explains that her early admission of bisexuality was shut down by her mother, that earlier scene where Ellie and Dina speculate about what all the rainbow flags in Seattle might mean takes on more weight. It’s not a throwaway joke but an insight into how much culture was lost in the apocalypse, and what that might mean for kids like Ellie and Dina who never knew what life was like in the before-times. Surviving a zombiepocalypse won’t change your sexuality, but it will change how much community and support you have around you.

Their time basking in their newly confirmed romance and planning their upcoming parenthood is short-lived, however. They hear a WLF radio burst that mentions Nora, one of Abby’s crew, and a location. Ellie is still going to continue her mission, but isn’t sure she wants Dina to take the risk alongside her. Dina, on the other hand, is quite sure that she’s going along no matter what. And like, love is great and all - big fan of love! - but now that the “will they or won’t they?” is out of the way, will Ellie be able to focus if Dina is around when the sh*t hits the fan?