IR TV Review: THE LAST OF US - EPISODE 8 (“When We Are In Need”) [HBO]

The idea of the protector and the protected shifts in certain perspectives of responsibility. The journey of Ellie is what needs to be known versus what she can control in any given situation. With Episode 8 of "The Last Of Us" entitled "When We Are In Need", the darkness arounds these continues to permeate but it is interesting in the sense of its wrapper. This episode specifically puts her to the test. It is an undeniable approach that is handled in an interesting way (though overwrought in certain terms -- especially with one actor's performance). However the episode shows how Ellie has grown but in many ways how she is still a child. Her progression in the episode is logical but at one point, she simply rages and she sees the violence in herself.

The scary aspect is the person who actually points this out to her despite the fact that she denies a certain part of it while subtly admitting its truth. Joel (as in the last episode) has a secondary structure here which is nicely played because the whole texture of this as it goes on is balance. Ellie and Joel are passing each other in the night in terms of how they are becoming. Joel's build in the episode but also his repercussions at times though seem unbalanced and not necessarily in line with logic. The dread though of the town they visit and the people they find is ironically the kind of psychology that might push certain modes of survival past a breaking point. Ellie and Joel have been put through the ringer but who does that make them to their lives, their future and who they might be destined to be? B

By Tim Wassberg