Pulse-pounding Season 2 finale is the season’s strongest episode by far, as Ellie races toward a much-anticipated confrontation

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

When it rains, it pours — and in the final, Seattle-set episode of “The Last of Us” Season 2, it’s downright torrential. (And not an umbrella to be seen; Seattleites would be proud.) In comparison to the very necessary but very dialogue-heavy plot dump that was Episode 6, the finale is about action: for Ellie, for Abby and for everyone trapped in their orbit of revenge.

Last we left off in the present, Ellie was making her way back to the Pinnacle, fresh off beating Nora for information about Abby’s location. Jesse and Dina, a crossbow bolt still stuck in her thigh, have made it to the theater. Said bolt is painfully removed, Ellie shows up, Jesse demands to know where she’s been: It’s a tense situation all around. 

But Ellie only has eyes for Dina and the baby. The two share a quiet moment before a traumatized Ellie reveals what she did to Nora — “I made her talk. I thought it would be harder to do. But it wasn’t.” — and the truth of what Joel did in Salt Lake City. “We need to go home,” an equally distraught Dina says. Ellie agrees.

Read the full review at The Seattle Times.