The Last of Us – When We Are in Need review S1 E8
In the rare instances when The Last of Us has a two-part style episode we can count on that second installment massively delivering.
When We Are In Need would probably be the best episode of many series but it has to “settle” for being third best just because of the overall quality of the show.
We start with a church gathering where Pastor David (Scott Shepherd, Bridge of Spies) is getting the congregation together. A sign hanging from the ceiling reads “When we are in need He will provide.”
Pastor David comforts a girl whose father recently died. They can’t bury him just yet because the ground is too cold. They’ll handle that in the spring. Hopefully they’ve got a great refrigeration system.
The church settlement is running low on supplies. What do these communities do when their food supply runs dry? Some questions are probably best left unanswered…
Elle sets off to go hunting too and after a little bit of stalking, manages to shoot a deer. Only problem is Pastor David and his right hand man James (voice actor royalty Troy Baker who voiced Joel in the video game) get to the deer first.
Elle is rightfully leery — she and Joel haven’t had the best luck trusting people — but she agrees to trade half the deer for penicillin.
While James goes back for the medicine, David chats with Elle explaining he was a teacher before the apocalypse. And then he found God.
David mentions everything happens for a reason like when he sent four guys out to find food and a crazy guy killed one of them. Uh-oh. That guy had a girl with him around the same age as the girl who lost her father. Ohhh. That was a nice twist.
James did retrieve the medicine, but is ready for payback for Joel killing his pal Alex. David let’s Elle go, but tells the church they will have Justice for Alex and they will bring the two perpetrators back.
While Elle starts dosing Joel with the penicillin, David and James lead a posse to get them, James questions bringing Elle back with them as she’s just another mouth to feed, but David won’t hear about letting her die.
Elle spots them and arms Joel with a knife before running out to distract them. James quickly takes out the horse providing the church with at least another couple of meals.
David seems on the verge of fighting off a mutiny. He takes Elle and has two guys grab the horse while the others do a door to door search for Joel.
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Turns out waiting a night was a bad call. Joel goes super commando killing the guy who came through and takes another two hostage to interrogate. Geesh, Joel wasn’t messing around! “It’s ok. I believe him.”
David seems to have the roles reversed as he’s in serious confession mode to Elle revealing they’ve been cooking their dead for survival. Was that a toenail? And while he’s pretty good at playing the role, David isn’t quite as religious as he presented himself.
It seems weird that he’d try this big recruitment pitch to a teenager especially since James seems like he falls in line with whatever David plans. Ah, he’s doing all this to impress Elle to hook up with her. Ewww.
Elle isn’t down for this proposal and bites him. She reminds him of this when David returns with James. Elle uses the distraction kill James and runs off from David.
David chases Elle to the main hall and doesn’t flinch when she sparks a fire. Where’s everyone else though?
She stabs David, but he’s still got the upper hand and overpowers her to rape her in the burning hall. Boy this heated up quickly. Literally.
Elle grabs a knife and just stabs and stabs away until she’s tired. Well looks like that’s it for Pastor David. Hopefully Elle left enough of him for appetizers for the church at least.
Emerging from the burning hall, Elle is shaken and rattled to the point she doesn’t immediately recognize Joel when he grabs her.
He tells her “It’s ok baby girl, I’ve got you,” a nod to Joel’s dynamic with his daughter, Sarah.
It was nice to see Elle finish off the main threat in this two-parter as this was more her big moment than Joel’s.
After another traumatic encounter, Joel and Elle are reunited but it’s becoming clear of the weight their journey has taken them. It’s going to be real interesting to see how everything turns out come the season finale.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Photo Credit: HBO