The Last Of Us introduces its most terrifying monster yet

The narrative motion of “When We Are In Need” depends on two elements that might irk persnickety plot-watchers and fact-checkers of fiction. Still, The Last Of Us aspires to a level of naturalism and we should take them (somewhat) seriously. They are: 1) Could Joel bounce back so fast and take down three healthy, youngish adversaries? and 2) Is David’s overture to Ellie plausible, even knowing his predilections?

Both are worth discussing, but neither plot point was a deal-breaker to me; I was too busy admiring the direction and acting.

Especially Scott Shepherd, whose David begins as a gentle man of god and ends as a cannibal pedophile who gets Lizzie Bordened by a berserker Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Dude’s got range. You may recognize the lean redhead with the folksy voice from Bridge Of Spies and as Jean Grey’s father in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but New York theatergoers have long been applauding the magnetic Shepherd in downtown shows. From his years doing avant-garde plays, Shepherd learned how to pull off even the most preposterous text with grace and gravitas. His portrait of David is masterful in its wry, understated charm. He draws you in until he reveals himself as the series’ most degenerate monster.

The actor who memorized every word of The Great Gatsby for a verbatim marathon performance of the novel recites from quite a different tome as “When We Are In Need” begins. It’s Revelations, chapter 21: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away…” Behind him a handwritten banner reads “When We Are In Need He Shall Provide.” We’re at a memorial service in what appears to be a Western lodge. A father has died, and his teenage daughter (Sonia Maria Chirila) weeps, finding little comfort in scripture. She wants to know when her father will be buried. “The ground is too cold to dig,” David replies sadly. “We’ll bury your father in the spring.” David assures the girl she still has a father. Presumably he means him, the others, god.

This would seem to be the first time faith has come up in TLOU. We’ve seen human communities organized around corrupt authoritarianism (Boston), anarchy (Kansas City), isolationism (Bill and Frank), and utopian socialism (Jackson), but here is a town held fast by faith and one decent, godly man.

Correction: David does not believe. Nor is he good. He should be nowhere near the grieving girl. And her father isn’t going to be buried; he’s going to be fricasseed. The narrative beauty of this 51-minute gothic thriller, written by Craig Mazin and impeccably directed by Ali Abbasi, is that you grow more horrified as you read it backward from the ending.

Our sermon this week is perverted appetite (the title’s “in need”). Whether it’s Silver Lake villagers resorting to cannibalism or David’s yearning for teenagers, hunger is a demon that must be controlled or destroyed. Life consumes life; it’s not personal. That’s David’s brutal, transactional creed; it’s why he admires Cordyceps. Ellie and Joel, despite all the gruesome violence they commit, are serving a higher purpose than their next meal.

Winter is relentless in Colorado and starvation is at everyone’s door. Silver Lake has perhaps two weeks of rationed meat. Famine is also creeping into Ellie and Joel’s safe house. Joel lies semi-conscious on the mattress, his wounds healing and not appearing to be infected. But he hasn’t spoken or opened his eyes. Ellie is at the end of her jerky. Hunger drives her into the snow to hunt a buck, and the wounded, dying animal is what leads Ellie to David and his lieutenant, James (Troy Baker), also stalking the snowy forest for game.

Again, the construction of this episode is fiendishly impressive. We think David is being gentle and fatherly with Ellie because he’s a man of god and doesn’t want to harm anyone. Instead, the sociopath has begun the process of grooming her. “I found god after the apocalypse, which is either the best time or the worst time to find him,” the preacher jokes dryly. It’s a good line. And you realize later: That’s all it is, a line. David’s deeply humane, thoughtful earnestness (in Shepherd’s delicately etched performance) is a nauseating ruse.

Here’s where the story (not just our stomachs) begins to turn. We learn that the dead father from the memorial service was killed at the end of “Kin.” He was among the raiders who attacked Joel and Ellie on the University of Eastern Colorado campus. David sent them there scouting for food. “Everything happens for a reason,” David tells Ellie, his folksy drawl turning sinister.

Our sense of unease only grows in a later kitchen scene, as a man enters with a tub of chopped raw meat and the woman who’s cooking asks, “What is it?” After a pause he replies, “Venison.” Perhaps you are sensing a faint Donner Party vibe. (What happened to the buck Ellie shot?)

The episode settles into action-adventure mode as David and a posse follow Ellie’s footprints in the snow back to the safe house. Seeing them approach, Ellie leaves the still-immobile Joel with a hunting knife on his chest and rides out on the horse. Drawing the posse away from the house, Ellie is quickly brought down when her horse is shot under her and she crashes to the ground. David lifts her unconscious body and carries her back to the village. Three others stay behind to locate and execute Joel.

For the simple pleasure of tension and release, of course we love when a raider goes down into the basement and Joel is not on the bloody mattress. He knifes the guy in the back of the neck and faster than you can say “Savage Starlight” Joel has two more of them tied up and ready for torture to find out Ellie’s location. Yes, we get a heroic thrill akin to Agent Dale Cooper finally coming to his senses in Part 16 of Twin Peaks: The Return, but how did Joel go from semi-coma to one-man-army? When Ellie left him, it was hard to imagine him even sitting up. How are those thread stitches not ripping when he rears back with the pipe? Pascal does sell the pain. Let’s move on.

Back in Silver Lake, Ellie is caged. Trying to escape, testing out the nuts and bolts around the lock, she catches sight of a dreadful object lying on the ground: a severed human ear. Perfect timing for David to arrive with meat stew on a tray. Realizing that Ellie has clocked the auricular organ, he reassures her the meal is deer meat. Riiiiight.

The ensuing contest of wills between David and Ellie is the episode’s most satisfying set piece. Even when it comes to David’s villain-talking-to-imprisoned-hero palaver. Paraphrasing, but: “I see myself in you. We are the same. Join forces with me and we will rule the [whatever].” We’ve seen the tropey boilerplate from Star Wars to MCU. Still, an actor as subtle and smart as Shepherd pulls it off. Fact is, David is driven by more than power. He wants Ellie, and that makes him careless as well as loathsome.

“You’re smart, a natural leader, loyal, violent,” David says, echoing Captain Kwong from last week’s “Left Behind.” This reinforces the motif that Ellie has an important future ahead of her—not only as source for a vaccine, but to save civilization. Also like Kwong, David makes a morally repugnant argument. Kwong justified fascist FEDRA as the only thing standing between civilians and chaos. David articulates a quasi-religious belief in Cordyceps as a force that humans should emulate, perhaps even worship: “What does Cordyceps do? Is it evil?” he purrs hypnotically. “No. It’s fruitful. It multiplies. It feeds and protects its children. And it secures its future with violence if it must. It loves.”

Ellie is freaked out but plays it cool. “They need god, they need heaven, they need a father,” the fake holy man continues, referring to his flock. “You don’t. You’re beyond that.” It’s here we realize that David is a pedophile on top of being a faithless fraud. (He wouldn’t be the first cult leader to prey on underage girls.) He want Ellie to be his—what? Child concubine and co-cultist? Ellie, acting like she’s falling under his spell, holds hands with David through the bars, only to break his fingers and go for his keys. She fails, David bashes her head against the bars, and leaves to get James and the recipe book.

What follows—sensationally acted by Shepherd and Ramsey, who was pushing herself to the damn limit—was pure horror brilliance. Opening shock: Ellie grabbing the meat cleaver and chopping James in the neck. Then a cat-and-mouse chase, attempted rape, more cleaver action, and Joel showing up as a bloodied, frantic Ellie escapes the burning lodge. Talk about fire and brimstone.

When he grabs her from behind, Joel is exceedingly fortunate Ellie did not hold on to that cleaver. “It’s okay, baby girl, I got you,” he murmurs, throwing his arm around her shoulder as they stumble away. Bad father is gone. Good father is back. God is still dead.

Next week it’s all over. I’ve read spoilers from those who know how the game ends (hard to avoid). I have no idea how Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are going to pack everything into one episode. But I am so hungry for it.

Stray observations

• Rejected sponsor tag: “This week’s episode brought to you by Field And Stream and Broadway’s Sweeney Todd.”
• Surprised the cold open wasn’t Riley’s fate, then cutting to Ellie shaking off the horrible memory. Will we ever see it? Do we need to?
• Does Ellie have a compass or incredible sense of direction, because hunting in the woods without leaving markers is a good way to get lost.
• David orders James to fetch penicillin and says, “It’s not code.” So when they talked earlier about “venison, elk, rabbit” supplies, that was (gag) code.
• Only Pedro Pascal could make us thirsty with the line, “You focus right here or I’ll pop your fucking kneecap off.” Yes, zaddy, pop it.
• The Mayo Clinic advises injecting penicillin into “muscles, usually in the upper buttock or hip area”—but ain’t nobody got time for that!
• Director Ali Abbasi’s camerawork in the David-Ellie showdown is a great example of ratcheting tension by cutting to closer and closer shots until it’s unnervingly intimate.
• Last ten minutes goes hard on The Shining vibe: Colorado lodge in winter, injured “father” hunting child, holding weapon, calling out “Ellieeee…”
• Joel’s lewk is fire, but before leaving for Silver Lake, he should have borrowed some dead goon’s winter hat and gloves. It’s cold out there!