Isabela Merced Thinks This Big Last Of Us Change Is 'Intense'

Put down the flashlight and stop exploring if you haven't watched "Day One," the May 4 episode of "The Last of Us." Spoilers lie ahead!

Isabela's Merced's Dina goes through a lot in "Day One," the fourth episode of the sophomore season of "The Last of Us" — to say the least. Now that she and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are officially in Seattle to hunt down Ellie's new nemesis Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) — who, you may recall, brutally murdered Ellie's surrogate father Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) in the season's second episode — Dina realizes she's been getting sick quite a lot. (While not every single pregnant person has morning sickness, film and TV fans know it's the surefire way to express that someone is pregnant if you just keep making them puke on-screen.) Off-screen, Dina takes a pregnancy test ... and then, after she and Ellie escape a Washington Liberation Front squad and get attacked by infected cordyceps zombies, Ellie gets bitten.

Dina, naturally, is devastated, particularly because she was almost the bite victim (Ellie, Dina believes, sacrificed herself to save Dina). Ellie finally has to confess, to her best friend, that she's immune; Dina understandably doesn't buy it and stays up with a flashlight trained on a sleeping Ellie. Once she's convinced, Dina reveals that she's pregnant, and the two take their relationship to the next level, sleeping together for the first time in an abandoned theater where they've found shelter.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Merced discussed the major differences between this moment on screen and how it plays out in the game "The Last of Us Part II." In that game, Ellie and Dina have sex before Joel dies, so it takes place earlier in the narrative, and Dina learns about Ellie's immunity because of spores, not a bite. Plus, the pregnancy reveal is different; it happens after Ellie gives Dina her gas mask to protect her from said floating cordyceps spores. Merced, for her part, thinks the show's version is a little more amped up. "I think it's more of an intense sequence," she told Entertainment Weekly. "The game is a little bit more casual. She finds out in a completely different setting and it's too fast, so she doesn't really get to fully process it."

As Dina waits to see what happens to Ellie, we don't see her face, and Merced said that helped. "I was able to ramp myself up because the scene starts in an already emotionally charged place. I was kind of nervous to get myself there and then stay there throughout the whole day, but luckily, every take my face was hidden," Merced said. "We knew it would be hidden, and we were very smart and careful with the choreography of the lantern versus the flashlight versus the walk and the speed. I always had to end up at the same point right before I tell her that I'm pregnant. It was really calculated."

In that same interview, the episode's director Kate Herron brought a saying from the game (and the first season of "The Last of Us") into focus: specifically, "When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light." Obviously, this refers to Dina's flashlight that she keeps focused on Ellie until she can be sure that her best friend — and, as we learn, the person she truly loves — won't turn into an infected zombie. "I wanted it to feel like we were as in the dark as Ellie was on how Dina felt in that moment," Herron said. "That was very important, so when the scene does have that turn and they kiss, it catches you by surprise."

This all ties back to Dina and Ellie's blossoming love, which initially became a possibility in the season 2 premiere "Future Days" after the two share a kiss at Jackson's New Years celebration. (It's also important to note that both Herron and Merced do identify as queer women, which helps this particular episode's perspective represent Dina's experience honestly.) Still, Merced thinks Dina's approach is simple: Ellie is the person she loves, and labels don't come into it. We see her lack of knowledge about queer symbols and imagery elsewhere in "Day One," when the two encounter rainbows throughout Seattle and wonder if they were just painted by optimists. (Dina's conspicuous rainbow jacket, Merced says in the interview, was a happy coincidence.)

"I don't think it's so clear cut," Merced explained, speaking to the fact that Dina has been closeted for much of her life after attempting to come out to her mother — something she shares with Ellie in this episode — and spending time in relationships with men like Jesse (Young Mazino). "With Dina, it was important to show the contest within her, whereas Ellie's way more assured," the actress continued. "Ellie's always been sure about it. In this world where it doesn't really exist, Pride and all the LGBTQ+ community, she's navigating it blind with no guidance. She probably doesn't even know the word bisexual. There's really no such thing as labels here. So without having that roadmap, I don't even know if she thinks it's an option, which is fascinating."

Something that's truly beautiful about "The Last of Us" is that it prioritizes small, tender moments between its characters just as much as huge action setpieces; season 2 features one of the biggest battle scenes ever depicted on the series and, just a few episodes later, gives Bella Ramsey room to perform "Take On Me" by A-Ha on guitar as Dina watches adoringly, tears in her eyes. (It harkens back, honestly, to season 1's standout episode "Long, Long Time," which tells the love story of Murray Bartlett's Frank and Nick Offerman's Bill across decades.) As Kate Herron said, this pit stop in an old music shop was deeply important to the story. "Yes, there are action moments in my episode, but at the same time, you don't get moments like you do in the music shop very often in a world like 'The Last of Us,'" Herron revealed. "It's about cycles of violence and Ellie's decision to go on this path. It is a heavy story. So for me, it was about letting the characters have those moments of relief."

There's also a particularly heartwarming moment later in the episode, after Dina and Ellie come clean about pregnancies and immunities. Ellie says she's "gonna be a dad" in one of the show's few adorable moments, and Isabela Merced loved it. "It's really f—ing cute," Merced said, praising Bella Ramsey's perfect delivery of the line. "It's so sweet. I also wanted Dina to be a little bit nervous about what Ellie was going to say, and Ellie being Ellie just immediately alleviates any tension or doubt and absolutely embraces this information." 

"I don't know anything about that, but I will say from the people that I've seen procreate, they all inherently become these people who no longer live just for themselves," Merced went on, speaking to the fact that Ellie, like Joel, will now be a protective "dad" who looks out for the safety of a young child in this dangerous world. "In a post-apocalyptic situation, God, I can't imagine how much more exacerbated that is and how scary it could feel and then, therefore, scary someone could become in order to protect who's theirs."

Season 2 of "The Last of Us" continues on Sunday nights at 9 P.M. EST on HBO and Max.