Extra Warning: This article has spoilers for The Last of Us Season 2 episode 3. If you’re still processing that episode 2 heartbreak and haven’t recovered enough to continue the story yet, you may want to bookmark this one for later.
The Last of Us Season 2 came flying out of the gate. After briefly setting the stage in Jackson, everything hit the fan in episode 2 as the post-apocalyptic stronghold in western Wyoming came under assault from a horde of infected. At the same time, the story dove right into Joel’s final horrifying moments as he faced the vengeful Abby and her less-than-enthusiastic but faithful group.
Jump forward a single episode, and The Last of Us‘ story has shifted three months into the future, and Ellie and Dina are in Seattle. Wait, what the heck? Remember, this is the apocalypse. No planes. No trains. And no automobiles (or at least not a lot of them). How did two stone-cold killers from Wyoming manage to get to Seattle on horseback within an hour of storytelling on The Last of Us? How far is that, anyway?
Just How Far Are The Last of Us‘ Jackson, Wyoming, and Seattle, Washington Locations?
Let’s start by nailing down locations. Seattle’s pretty easy. It’s a big city, and it’s the same in the game and show as it is in real life. But Jackson, Wyoming? It turns out the town of Jackson, Wyoming, is a real place, but it’s not in Jackson County. It’s a resort town in Teton County, on the extreme western side of the state. (You can see a cool photo from a local inhabitant comparing the real terrain to the game here.)
Popping the two The Last of Us locations into Google Maps gives us a grand total of 860 miles from Jackson to Seattle. However, this includes a huge initial bend south through Twin Falls and up through Boise. While this saves time when you’re cruising along at 80 miles per hour on a rural freeway in Idaho, the truth is, on foot or horseback, the route wouldn’t need to go that far out of the way. So, how far is it on foot? Switching the instructions from driving to walking does cut the southern portion of the route down, but it actually ends up adding 10 more miles to the overall route, bringing the total to 870 miles.
Checking against Apple Maps leads to a similar estimate. Waze Maps does, too. Ellie and Dina leave around the 40-minute mark in the episode and reach their distant vista of the Emerald City by minute 52. That means Ellie and Dina trek nearly a thousand miles in 12 minutes of storytelling on The Last of Us season two as they get from their Jackson location to Seattle.
Episode 3 Slows The Last of Us Season 2’s Story Down A Lot
By the time episode three of The Last of Us season two came out, everyone and their mother were ready to see how both Jackson and Ellie were going to respond to the individual and community-wide trauma that they had witnessed. Yet, despite the leftover tension, things actually picked up slowly. Very slowly. Sure, by the end of the third episode, Ellie and Dina have traveled halfway across America, but for the bulk of that third installment of Season 2, things slow down to a crawl.
The episode opens up with everyone processing the horrors and grieving their lost ones. Then, just as it feels like things are going to keep going at breakneck speed, we get the title sequence, and the story picks up three months later. Jackson is in full rebuild mode, and the survivors are mundanely thriving again.
We also see Ellie clearly faking her recovery and then resorting to playing politics to try to get a party sent out to strike back at Abby and her crew. It isn’t until Ellie’s motion for vengeance is shot down that the momentum truly picks up again. The back and forth of the momentum gives the entire episode a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feel. Things flip from fast-paced to slow as molasses and then right back to super-speed.
Hopefully, the pace will level out now that Ellie and Dina are officially in Seattle. After all, the emotional strain and whipsaw timeline of the season already have everyone on edge—and this thing still has a long way to run before we get to the finale.
Content shared from nerdist.com.