What happens in the fifth episode of season two, ‘Feel Her Love’?
WARNING: Major spoilers for season two episode five ahead.
At Lakehill Hospital, Hanrahan walks past a barricaded door and steps into a room with WLF Sergeant Elise Park. Hanrahan informs her that Isaac is preoccupied with Seraphite attacks since their truce was broken, but many assume she will be executed for effectively killing her own soldiers and asks for her version of the events.
Park tells her that, tasked with clearing the lower floors of the hospital, her team – led by an officer named Leon – made a discovery in the second basement. Communications were limited, but one of their final messages was that “It’s in the air.” After that they ordered Park to seal them in and block all access to the lower floors, which she complied with.
Far from being punished, Hanrahan commends Park’s decision and tells her they owe her a debt of gratitude. However, this intel must remain known to a very limited few, as the hospital is too important a resource to abandon.
On leaving, she shares her condolences for the loss of Park’s son, Leon.
The route to the hospital
On their second day in Seattle, Dina is hard at work at the theatre, monitoring WLF communications over the walkie-talkie and marking patrol routes. Thanks to the loose-lipped nature of the WLF units chatter, she has been able to triangulate Nora’s location in the hospital. She surmises that the Seraphites, or “Scars”, may be similar to the Amish communities before the outbreak. As they seem to eschew modern technology, they do not use radio to communicate – allowing the WLF free use of the airwaves without fear of anyone intercepting their comms, until now…
While Dina works on their plan, Ellie finds a generator and turns on the theatre’s power. Now fully lit, she checks out the stage to find several guitars set up and ready to play. She picks one up and sings the first line of “Future Days” by Pearl Jam but stops abruptly. Unable to continue, she leaves the stage.
On planning their route to the hospital, Dina finds one blindspot the WLF patrols don’t cover, conspicuously marked by a long building which they guess may be a warehouse. They know there must be a good reason for them staying clear of it – assuming it is an infected area – but Dina deduces that there is unlikely to be a horde above ground, and as they know it will be dark by the time they reach it, they decide to be reckless and leave.
En route, they find a “Feel Her Love” mural, but at its base lie another pile of massacred Seraphites. Disturbed, Ellie questions whether she should have brought Dina, and offers to take her back. Dina responds by telling Ellie about the first person she ever killed – a single raider who murdered her mother and sister. She said she didn’t see the murders happen, but if she had, and the raider had escaped, she would have stopped at nothing to hunt him down and kill him. No matter what Joel did, no one deserved what happened to him, and she reiterated her commitment to bringing Abby to justice. She says she will go back if that’s what Ellie thinks is best, but Ellie asks that they push on together.
The Warehouse
Dodging WLF searchlights, Ellie and Dina reach the long building they were aiming for. Breaking in, they proceed through in the darkness, with Dina warning Ellie only to use her firearm as a last resort, lest they attract the attention of infected or the WLF. Soon, a wailing noise breaks the silence. Taking cover, they spot an infected – one of the smart “stalkers” that attacked Ellie in the supermarket in Jackson.
Ellie confesses to Dina that she did not get away unscathed from the last encounter with a stalker, having hidden her bite from everyone to preserve the secret of her immunity. However, that time she was alone. With two of them, they hatch a plan to allow the stalker to follow one of them, while the other takes them out. But breaking cover, they see the stalker has been joined by a second. Looking again, four are now visible. They look to escape via the way they came in, but yet more stalkers have appeared. They’re surrounded.
Knowing that she can survive bites while Dina can’t, Ellie orders her to run and lock herself in a gated breaker room while she fires off shots to attract their attention. Dina locks herself in while Ellie fights off the infected, but the numbers are too great, and the gate protecting Dina is not strong enough to keep out the attackers. All hope seems to be lost, when high calibre rifle shots ring out. Jesse has arrived and is able to thin out the infected numbers enough for Ellie, Dina and himself to make a run for it.
The Park
Fleeing the warehouse and now spotted by a WLF searchlight, the three are pursued into an overgrown park, where the WLF suspiciously halt their chase. Jesse explains that he and Tommy followed them to Seattle, knowing they were out of their depth and looking to bring them back to Jackson. Upon reaching Seattle, they split up to look for them, looking to rendezvous in the morning. Jesse found the theatre and worked out their location via Dina’s maps. Now that he’s found them, he’s bringing them home.
Before they can give this any further discussion, whistling breaks out through the trees. Reaching a clearing, they witness a group of Seraphites ritualistically hanging and gutting a captive WLF solider.
More whistling rings out, causing the Seraphites to look up from their sacrifice. An arrow flies out of nowhere and hits Dina in the leg. They’ve been spotted. With the Seraphites closing in, Ellie tells Jesse to take Dina back to the theatre and creates a diversion, leading the murderous group away.
Ellie is able to reach safety, and notices that Lakehill hospital is close by. Rather than head back to the theatre to meet Jesse and Dina, she presses on alone.
Lakehill Hospital
Despite being heavily guarded by WLF soldiers with guard dogs, Ellie is able to infiltrate the hospital. Inside, Nora is tending to injured WLF soldiers and heads into the supply room. There, Ellie corners her at gunpoint. Unarmed, Nora is defenceless.
Ellie asks her about Abby’s whereabouts, but Nora pleads that she does not know. Ellie asks if she recognises her, and Nora does. She apologises for the brutality of Joel’s death and is sorry that Ellie had to witness it. But, playing the one card available to her, she taunts Ellie by saying “the little bitch got what he deserved.” Ellie flinches, and Nora uses the opportunity to hurl cleaning fluid on her and bolt it out the door.
Running for her life, Nora alerts the guards that there is an intruder. However, Ellie is in hot pursuit and, caught on the back foot, the guards are too slow to react. Nora is chased past the blocked entrance we saw in the prologue, and with no other option, squeezes into the elevator shaft, dropping down into the basement area. Ellie follows her, finding the basement almost entirely covered with the Cordyceps fungus and the air filled with spores. Along the way, she finds bodies of WLF soldiers imbedded into the walls. They’re still breathing, but each breath pumps out another cloud of spores. One of the bodies bears the nametag “L. Park.”
Finally, Ellie finds Nora, collapsed at a dead end. She tells her that she’s killed them both, as the spores will have infected them both. Ellie tells her that isn’t the case. Realising who Ellie is, Nora tells Ellie how Joel killed the Fireflies at Salt Lake, including the one surgeon in the world who could have made a cure from Ellie’s brain – Abby’s father. To Nora’s surprise, none of this is news to Ellie. Unmoved, Ellie proceeds to pick up a nearby pipe, and repeatedly strikes Nora in the leg, torturing her for information on Abby’s location. The scene cuts to black.
On a sunny morning in Jackson, Ellie wakes with a smile to find Joel greeting her. “Good morning, Kiddo.”
Who plays Nora in The Last of Us?
The WLF soldier Nora is played by American actress Tati Gabrielle. You may recognise her from roles in series like The 100, You, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina . She’s also appeared in several films with a video game slant to them, including The Emoji Movie, Uncharted and is set to star as Jade in the upcoming adaptation of Mortal Kombat 2. She’s also slated to provide her voice and mo-cap performance for The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog’s upcoming video game title, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
What are the differences between the episode “Feel Her Love” and the video game?
While the episode cuts quite a bit of content from the game in between the theatre and the hospital locations, the story follows its source material pretty closely this episode.
One thing this episode finally addresses is how the Cordyceps infection can be passed by breathing in spores. In the games, this was the main method of infection (other than getting bitten) from the very start of the first game. Any time a character entered an enclosed space with spores present, they would put on a gas mask. However, this is the first time this has come up in the series, with infections until now being caused by bites or exposure to Cordyceps tendrils.
What is the song Ellie begins to play in “Feel Her Love”?
The song that Ellie almost plays is title ‘Future Days’ and is originally by Pearl Jam. The song also appears in the video game The Last of Us -Part II and provides one of the most poignant themes of the story.
Where was the episode “Feel Her Love” filmed?
While the episode wasn’t filmed in Seattle, it wasn’t far off. Just head up the West Coast and over the border to find good old Vancouver, Canada – famously popular as a shooting destination. Whole streets in Downtown Vancouver and Gastown were taken over with overgrown plants and the wreckages of cars to represent the dilapidated streets of Seattle, while Stanley Park was used for the scenes featuring the Seraphites.