In <i>The Last of Us,</i> Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen Introduces an Important Perspective Shift

The Last of Us, as imagined in the 2013 video game, is not exactly a parable about empathy. (The Last of Us Part II, on the other hand… Anyway, that’s a discussion for another time.) But HBO’s version of the beloved story is taking a noticeable departure in its approach to character perspective, one designed to wrench the audience away from the singular POV of the game. The result is that we can’t look at old or new characters in quite the same way.

In the PlayStation original, we experience Joel and Ellie’s cross-country adventure almost exclusively through the perspective of Joel. As such, he—and we—are all too happy to pull the trigger on any trespassers between Joel and the Fireflies, rebels intent on lifting a cure to the cordyceps pandemic from Ellie’s miraculously immune blood. The allies we meet along the way might be beloved supporting characters, or temporary enemies in the path of Joel’s Molotov cocktails, but regardless they never get a seat behind the wheel. HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation has already changed this equation twice: First in episode 3, when Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett offered up a love story for the ages, and now in episode 4, with the introduction of Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen.

There’s not much The Last of Us co-showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are willing to reveal about Kathleen just yet. There is no Kathleen in the video game, which makes her an invention solely for the benefit of the show. She appears without prologue or explanation, Lynskey’s radiant face soured with the weight of vengeance. We learn only a few things within the first minutes of her introduction in Kansas City, where Joel and Ellie seek their escape: 1) She’s the leader of a band of militarized populists, who’ve apparently secured the city from the clutches of the government-backed Federal Disaster Response Agency; 2) She’s on the hunt for Henry Burrell, a name fans will recognize from the game, and his little brother, Sam; and 3) She wants revenge. Henry is supposedly responsible for the death of her brother, though how we can’t be sure.

Grief has hardened Kathleen, if she was ever even soft to begin with. She only hesitates once before doubling back on the doctor who delivered her, shooting him in the head when she realizes he’s no longer of any use. But Mazin and Druckmann give us good reason to believe she’s not as confident as she comes across to her loyal comrades. When her right-hand man, Perry (Jeffrey Pierce), shows her a drooping sinkhole undoubtedly housing some hungry infected, she backs away, terrified, and chooses to ignore it rather than face the danger head-on.

When Joel and Ellie kill several of Kathleen’s friends as they attempt to flee the city, she’s visibly emotional at the sight of the dead bodies, one of which belonged to the young boy who begged for his life earlier in the episode. “This is Henry’s work,” she tells her crew. “Find every collaborator, and kill them all.”

As Joel and Ellie hatch their escape plan, Kathleen goes after a lead on Henry and Sam’s location. The most recent sign of them is in an attic, where Kathleen and Perry discover Sam’s superhero drawings and some empty cans of corn and baked beans. She surmises the brother duo must be out of food; to draw them out of hiding, Kathleen’s band of revolutionaries will double the guards around their provisions. Perry doesn’t seem so convinced of the humanity behind this tactic. Kathleen doesn’t seem to care.

These scenes, however few, reveal that the most important aspect of Kathleen’s introduction is not her backstory but her perspective. In the game, we never get to know the names—let alone the motivations—of the so-called “hunters” that attack Joel and Ellie when they crash-land in Pittsburgh (as opposed to Kansas City). When we, as the players, meet Henry and Sam, we know nothing of them but their goodness, their humor and humanity. Whatever horrors they’ve witnessed—or created themselves—are relegated to the past. They get a fresh start as supporting characters in Joel and Ellie’s narrative. But in the HBO series, Mazin and Druckmann have yet to even introduce Henry or Sam on-screen before we hear of the accusations surrounding the eldest Burrell. We see Kathleen’s pain before we can understand Henry’s. We’re forced to pay witness to the POV of a hunter, that entity we were once supposed to hate (and kill). And with an actress like Lynskey in the role, it’s even more impossible not to care for Kathleen’s cause, however misguided.

We’re guaranteed to learn much more about Kathleen’s revenge mission in episode 5. But Mazin and Druckmann are already forcing us to recognize that Joel and Ellie are our protagonists not because of the righteousness of their cause, but only because the story has placed them in that position. Kathleen could be our hero in another version of this show. There is no one “right” perspective, no singular correct choice, in The Last of Us. That will be an important lesson to remember going forward.