The Last of Us Episode 4 Introduces Melanie Lynskey's Character

02/02/2023 08:10 pm EST

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Last of Us season 1.] "If I'm taking you with me, there's some rules you gotta follow," Joel (Pedro Pascal) told Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to end episode 3 of The Last of Us. Rule one: no bringing up Tess (Anna Torv), ever. Rule two: Ellie doesn't tell anyone about her Infected bite mark or her immunity to the Cordyceps infection. Rule three: "You do what I say when I say it." Those rules just might save her life when Joel and Ellie encounter Kathleen (Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey). 

Last we saw them, Joel and Ellie left behind Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank's (Murray Bartlett) town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, to reconnect with Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) in Wyoming. From there, they'll find the Fireflies who can get Ellie to the lab Marlene (Merle Dandridge) said is working on a potential CBI cure.

But when the dysfunctional duo gets turned around and wind up in Kansas City, Missouri, they find themselves in the crosshairs of Lynskey's Kathleen: described by HBO as "the ruthless leader of a revolutionary movement."

See the new look at The Last of Us episode 4 below. The images also show Jeffrey Pierce, who played Tommy in the video games, as another show-only character named Perry.

Is Kathleen in The Last of Us Game?

Kathleen is an original character created by showrunner and writer Craig Mazin, who expanded upon and deviated from the source material with an entirely new story for Bill and Frank in episode 3. Kathleen's faction is inspired by the video game's territorial Hunters, named for hunting "tourists" who trespass in the former Pittsburgh QZ.

"[An original character] that Craig came up with was the character of Kathleen, who was the leader of who in the game of these guys were the hunters, and they take a slightly different role here," Neil Druckmann, writer and co-director of The Last of Us video game, told ScreenRant about Lynskey's character. "Because I love the idea that there aren't just good guys and bad guys. Everybody's trying to survive, everybody's trying to live life to the fullest way they can. But often, the goals are competing with each other, and that's where the interesting things happen and the different philosophies of how to survive or do the ends justify the means, speak to what the story is really about in new ways than we did in the game."

Added Mazin, "We didn't have to fulfill a need that the video game had, which was to send NPCs at you. You have to kill a lot of people in that video game, but for us, violence was quite serious, and we didn't want to numb people to it. And so when enemies come, it was important for us to ask the question, 'Well, why are they enemies? What do they want?' They're not just evil people. From their point of view, this all makes sense, and it's justifiable, and that was an interesting thing to explore."

The Last of Us Episode 4: "Please Hold My Hand" Images

New episodes of The Last of Us premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max. Follow for more The Last of Us on ComicBook.

Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of Paramount. Sign up for Paramount+ by clicking here.