The Rise of Isaac and his Controversial Reign in Seattle
Isaac gets a hell of an introduction via a prologue set in 2018 – ten years before the events of this season. A disillusioned sergeant with FEDRA, the Federal Disaster Response Agency, he is visibly irritated by his reports using "voters" as a slur for civilians. He tells the men riding with him in the armored vehicle that the term dates back to when the federal government took away the public's right to vote in response to the threat of the cordyceps infection. "Voters," then, became a cruel joke, a linguistic reminder of authority's slide into fascism.
It seems like Isaac has had enough of all that. When his transport is stopped by a bunch of civilians, he instructs all but one—the youngest of the soldiers, the only one who doesn’t understand how “voters” became a slur—to stay in the truck, which he then tosses grenades into. Isaac subsequently shakes hands with a woman who came out to meet him, and tells the boy beside him to make a choice: join or die. This is where the WLF is born, or at least, the version of it that Ellie is about to meet. And Isaac is now at the very top.
If past Isaac seemed principled, modern-day Isaac seems shockingly cruel. We are re-introduced to him mid-interrogation, as he rhapsodizes about the difference between copper and cast iron cookware for retaining heat. He's doing this because he’s holding hostage a Seraphite, nude and restrained, whom he intends to burn until he learns the cult's next target. It's a mean snapshot of how things are in Seattle: Both the WLF and the Seraphites are locked in a conflict that neither side can remember the origin of, an endless cycle of violence that no one in charge seems interested in ending.
To a certain extent, that's all you really need to know. In the video game The Last of Us Part II, Isaac (also portrayed by Wright) gets a lot of backstory divulged in documents you can find throughout the game. Players can piece together how he co-founded the WLF with four others who were dissidents fed up with FEDRA's tyrannical rule over Seattle, eventually expelling the government by force and consolidating Seattle's population in the SoundView Stadium (based on Lumen Field, the real-life home of the Seattle Seahawks). He is controversial for his bloodthirsty warmongering over the Seraphites, and his iron grip on Seattle's population doesn't seem that different from FEDRA's overreach. But Isaac has also undeniably kept the people of Seattle safe, and that uncomfortable mix of fear and reassurance is what keeps him in power.
Once again, due to the structure of The Last of Us Part II, and how the HBO show is mirroring it, none of this is going to become clear until the story swings over to Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) perspective further down the line. Isaac is, after all, her commanding officer—and it's also through her eyes that viewers might have the opportunity to see how the regular, non-militia citizens of Seattle are living under the WLF regime. (The SoundView Stadium is an interesting counterpoint to the community in Jackson.)
Because our picture is so incomplete, this episode feels like a lopsided, shaky one. It's good, then, that the rest of it is focused on the budding romance between Ellie and Dina (Isabela Merced). The two are now within city limits, scrounging for supplies. Each finds something of some consequence: Dina gets some pregnancy tests to privately confirm a suspicion that she’s expecting, thanks to her brief fling with Jesse (Young Mazino). And Ellie finds a guitar, sweetly playing "Take on Me" as Dina joins her for a private concert.
Joel, Ellie tells Dina, taught her how to play—which gives the close viewer a moment to consider the things about the pre-apocalyptic world that these young people are and aren’t familiar with. Ellie, for example, knows about the Apollo space missions in great detail, and tells Dina all about them. She does not, however, know what a Pride flag is, and neither does Dina. These details—and the aforementioned A-ha song—all come straight from the game, and are great bits of heartbreaking contextualization. Both of them are kids, you
