'The Last of Us' Season 2: Who is Hanrahan?
The Last of Us Season 2 is moving from Jackson to Seattle, and with that move come several new characters.
We've already met Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her crew, but Season 2, episode 4 introduces other major players in Seattle, including Washington Liberation Front (WLF) leader Isaac Dixon (Jeffrey Wright, reprising his role from The Last of Us Part II).
Gamers already know Isaac, but episode 4 also introduces a character who will be new to gamers and show-only fans alike: Hanrahan (Alanna Ubach).
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Hanrahan is a character created solely for The Last of Us show, meaning we don't have any in-game lore to guide us on her role. However, based on her brief appearance in episode 4, we have enough context clues to piece together key aspects of her character.
Episode 4 opens with a flashback to Seattle in 2018. Back then, the city was still under FEDRA rule, and the WLF were an underground resistance group, as opposed to the militia they are in The Last of Us' present-day.
The flashback (which features an appearance from Josh Peck as a FEDRA soldier) primarily serves as an introduction to Isaac, then a FEDRA Sergeant. The truck he and his soldiers are riding in stops in front of a school bus blocking the road, at which point a group of WLF members begins walking to the bus. Dressed in civilian clothes and without a weapon in sight, they're a far cry from the military force we see by the end of episode 4.
Leading the pack is Ubach's Hanrahan. When Isaac gets out of the truck to speak to her, all she says is: "You Isaac?"
He nods and replies, "You Hanrahan?"
When she nods back, Isaac throws a grenade into his truck, killing all his men and officially defecting to the WLF.
"Welcome to the fight," Hanrahan tells him.
That's the extent of Hanrahan we get in this episode, but even that small interaction gives us a lot of insight into her relationship with Isaac. Clearly, Hanrahan was a leader of the WLF in its early days, and while Isaac occupies that role now, she may still hold a position of power in the current WLF.
Hanrahan also likely served as one of Isaac's point people within the WLF as he was planning to leave FEDRA. They may not have seen each other's faces, but the fact that they know each other's names suggests prior communication. Perhaps the two of them collaborated on the plan for Isaac to kill his men, or maybe Hanrahan arranged it as one last test for Isaac to prove his loyalty to the WLF.
Either way, The Last of Us presents both Hanrahan and Isaac as faces of the WLF, so you can bet we haven't seen the last of them this season.
New episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 premiere on HBO and Max Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
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Topics The Last of Us
Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.
