The action gets amped, confrontations get intense, the infected get creepier and a line gets crossed in latest episode of ‘The Last of Us’

Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, streaming now on Max.

Revenge is a core theme of “The Last of Us”: what sparks it, how it corrupts, the ruin it leaves in its wake. That thematic element further sinks in its poisonous hooks in this week’s episode, as Ellie makes a fateful choice when finally confronted with her first shot at vengeance against those who killed Joel. It’s a point of no return; Seattle seems to be full of them.

When last we left off, Ellie and Dina, fresh off confessing their feelings for each other, had their eyes set on Lakehill Hospital, having heard over radio that a member of Abby’s crew was heading there. When Episode 5 begins, we’re shown the interior of that hospital, and the dangers that lurk there. (It’s never a good sign to see a haphazardly welded-shut door, much less in a zombielike apocalypse.)

It seems the Washington Liberation Front has cleared the hospital’s main floors of infected. Turns out, the basement levels are another story entirely — “It’s in the air,” a dying man says to his commander as he succumbs to the infection, foreshadowing a pivotal scene later in the episode.

Read the full review at The Seattle Times.