In The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 4, a quiet strum of an old guitar hits harder than any clicker ambush. What might seem like a nostalgic wink to longtime fans—a soft, haunting cover of A-ha’s “Take On Me”—is actually something much deeper. This isn’t just a throwback for the sake of fan service. It’s a moment of raw, vulnerable storytelling pulled straight from The Last of Us Part II, reimagined with aching intimacy. Ellie doesn’t just play a song—she unearths a memory, a grief, a flicker of hope. And in doing so, the show once again reminds us why it’s not just surviving its video game roots—it’s transcending them.
The Last of Us season 2
Let’s break it down:
In the HBO show, Ellie and Dina find shelter in the abandoned Valiant Music Shop (which—fun fact—is also explorable in the game, complete with Pearl Jam Easter eggs and all). When Ellie finds a pristine acoustic guitar, it’s not just a scavenged treasure—it’s a tether to Joel, her past, and everything she’s lost.
Joel once promised to teach her to play, and even though their relationship had become complicated before his death, that promise, and the act of playing music, becomes Ellie’s way of grieving, remembering, and coping. That guitar is a ghost in wood and strings.
So when Ellie softly strums out “Take On Me,” she’s not just serenading Dina. She’s soothing a wound the world keeps tearing open.
The lyrics of “Take On Me” are deceptively bright. Sure, the melody is ‘80s pop sugar, but the lines Ellie sings hit different in a post-apocalyptic world:
“Needless to say / I’m odds and ends / But I’ll be stumblin’ away / Slowly learnin’ that life is OK…”
That’s Ellie in a nutshell—traumatized, fractured, but surviving. And in Dina’s smile, we see the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, she can still make real human connections.
This scene mirrors an optional guitar-playing sequence in The Last of Us Part II. Yep, you can skip it entirely in the game if you don’t explore the music shop. But Naughty Dog hid some of its most tender storytelling in these quiet corners, and the showrunners are doing the same here.
In the game, Ellie begins with Pearl Jam’s “Future Days”—Joel’s song. But when Dina walks in, she pivots to “Take On Me,” as if she’s trying to separate the grief of Joel from the possibility of a new connection with Dina.
Bella Ramsey’s performance is raw, minimalist, and emotionally faithful to the source. The fact that they sing it live (no pre-recording) gives it that unpolished, vulnerable quality that makes the moment land even harder.
Remember the iconic A-ha music video? The one where the comic-book hero pulls the girl into his illustrated world?
That’s exactly what this scene does.
Dina watches Ellie, captivated, as if being pulled into her post-apocalyptic comic panel—a moment of escape, beauty, and vulnerability in a world that doesn’t usually allow any of that. It’s Ellie’s sketchbook come to life, and Dina’s heart responding.
