In a few weeks, Showtime sensation Yellowjackets throws the gauntlet down against the HBO juggernaut known as Succession. In this week’s The Last of Us, we get the smallest glimpse into that future event in the form of Emmy-nominated Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey, stepping up to the Home Box Office with gun in hand, for the aptly titled episode, “Please Hold My Hand.”
Anyone who experienced the first season of Lynskey’s cannibalistic survival horror drama knows not to underestimate Shauna Shipman, slayer of lovers, killer of rabbits, and taker of mushrooms. (In fairness, Shauna’s mushroom trip was probably safer than the fungus sweeping the Last of Us nation; it was a deadly trip all the same.) Unfortunately, the denizens of the Last of Us universe have not experienced that show, and as such, do not know better.
Case in point: the doctor who delivered Lynskey’s character, Kathleen, into the world. A lot has happened since her infancy: decades of history, including an extinction event that’s apparently driven Kathleen into the position of resistance leader. We know very little about Kathleen other than what’s implied: she and her allies in Kansas City were once under the thumb of the military-government known as FEDRA, but now, she’s the one with all the firepower. But she’s not necessarily winning the war.
Something has happened to Kathleen, something that’s preventing her from seeing past the color red. There’s a man out there named Henry, who did something very bad to Kathleen recently, and potentially the rest of her community. He’s “a collaborator,” she says, implying that he traded information with FEDRA in exchange for his safety. Now, the shoe’s on the other foot, and Kathleen’s out for blood, consequences be damned—even if that means interrogating and ultimately killing the only doctor in town, the last doctor alive for all she or we know, and certainly the very same person who brought Kathleen into this world.
Welcome back to The Last of Us, where you root for people who make it hard to root for them. It’s a central trait of the video game Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are adapting, at least, and if it’s not apparent yet, the creators are doing their best to clarify the theme by casting the immensely likable Lynskey as a complex person making complex choices—catastrophic ones, possibly. While she has her eyes so firmly focused on a vengeful vendetta against this enigmatic Henry, Kathleen willingly averts her gaze from a more pressing concern: the fungus among us, as some form of horrid creature lurks beneath the surface of the Kansas City QZ.
“Seal the building for now,” Kathleen tells one of her most trusted soldiers, upon discovering what essentially amounts to a breathing basement floor in a condemned building. “We’ll deal with this after. After.”
Ignoring some sort of cordyceps creature in favor of settling a score. Denying the needs of the many in the face of satisfying the needs of the self. It’s a hallmark of so much human history (perhaps not the cordyceps part; then again, perhaps the cordyceps part), and certainly, one that echoes throughout The Last of Us. As Kathleen, Lynskey’s just the latest embodiment of this idea.
But look at us, channeling our inner Kathleen. Her debut comes after a whole lot of before with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), road-tripping away from the late Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in search of someone else: Joel’s estranged brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). Even without Bill and Frank, and even with Tess (Anna Torv) dead and gone, Joel’s eyes remain fixed on his ever-dwindling family—a classification that does not currently include Ellie, who he sees as “cargo,” less than human.
Of course, Joel’s relationship with Ellie is already starting to change. And how could it not, now that Ellie’s armed with such deadly weapons as “No Pun Intended: Volume Too,” not to mention a literal deadly weapon in the form of a handgun? Jokes and ammo fuel the relationship between Joel and Ellie this time around, as they continue their cross-country trek toward Tommy’s last known whereabouts in Wyoming. As much as it’s a joy to see Lynskey’s Last of Us debut, “Please Hold My Hand” accomplishes something just as great, and indeed, something even more important: Joel and Ellie as a pair, the defining duo at the heart of this story.
Josh Wigler
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