The Last of Us Will Show Torture Onscreen—But Not a Woman With Bad Hair

Dinaâ??s perfect curtain bangs and softly tousled waves don't exactly match their apocalyptic backdrop.

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There have been many times when I’ve sat down to watch a Sunday night HBO lineup and thought “Damn, I want that character’s hair.” I have screenshotted Carrie Bradshaw’s highlights in And Just Like That… and presented them to my stylist. I fear and respect Kate’s ability to serve bob on The White Lotus. But I never expected to covet the curtain bangs and artfully placed waves on Dina, Isabela Merced’s character in the post-apocalyptic series The Last of Us.

The show, based on the video game franchise of the same name, is nearing the end of its second season, which takes place five years after the events of its first, decades after a viral fungus turned much of humanity into deformed, zombie-like creatures. Though the show’s main characters have joined a peaceful, secured settlement in Jackson, Wyoming, the Infected, as they’re known, still pose a huge threat to the town and its people, including protagonist Ellie and love interest Dina, who leave this civilization for a cross-country journey (I won’t spoil why for those who somehow still don’t know), sharing a single horse and a whole lot of beef jerky.

Roaming pretty much everywhere that’s not Jackson, the Infected are starved for human flesh, and most of them are very fast. And if so-called “Runners” or “Clickers” don’t rip you limb from limb or turn you into a zombie yourself, a heavily armed independent militia could shoot you on sight, or you might find yourself abducted by a cannibalistic cult. Characters face countless obstacles in the endlessly dangerous and hopeless landscape of The Last of Us—but imperfect hair, weirdly, is not one of them. Amid this hellscape, Dina seems to have somehow found a Dyson Airwrap and a miraculously functioning electrical socket because her hair is perfect at just about every moment.

Isabela Merced as Dina

Photo: Courtesy of HBO Discovery

Allow me to direct you to this on-set interview with Merced, shown in full costume, hair, and makeup. Her hair falls in luxurious, shiny waves subtly curled away from her face. That sculpted style is not what one expects to see in a universe where its heroes may live peacefully one moment and have to destroy flesh-eating monsters with a flamethrower the next. And yet, I can practically smell the hairspray wafting through the screen. This is not hair that air-dried after a maybe-weekly wash with foraged doomsday ingredients, and it’s definitely not hair that hasn’t seen running water for weeks, as would be the case after Dina and Ellie’s departure from Jackson.

The Last of Us fans, who have notoriously strong opinions about the creative direction of the show, have also noticed the discrepancy between Dina’s world and her appearance—in fact, it’s kind of ruining the show for some of them. “Why does Dina’s hair look fresh out the salon?” asks the subject line of one frustrated Reddit thread. “Might be grasping for straws here but who the fuck is cutting people’s hair in The Last of Us? Everyone should look disheveled and gross,” one commenter recently wrote on X. "My immersion in The Last of Us season 2 is getting ruined because Dina's hair shouldn't look that good," wrote another. This post just about sums it up for me: "Dina having her hair perfectly curled is driving me insane. It's the apocalypse."

When dealing with a show that dials in on details like exactly how much of an infected human's eyeball is taken over by fungal growth, maybe it’s unfair to assume that Dina’s hairstyling is an oversight. Dina was born after society collapsed, presumably taking the mass-market beauty industry along with it. If your hair had never been touched by hot tools, would it be that shiny and frizz-free, too? I suppose if you’re blessed with a cooperative hair texture, maybe so. Plus, Jackson has a functioning hospital, a school, a butcher shop, and a therapist, so it’s possible that someone in the community has taken up the task of cutting and/or styling hair. (Someone is also coloring Catherine O’Hara’s character Gail’s hair, a blatantly man-made shade of blonde that should be wholly inaccessible, but that’s a nitpick for another day.)

Isabela Merced as Dina

Photo: Courtesy of HBO Discovery

Maybe—OK, definitely—the fans and I are overthinking this. Or maybe, in a world where you can control very little and might die by the end of each day, Dina made the not-senseless decision to allow herself a bit of bouncy-haired frivolity. As one Redditor put it, “Yeah she’s a badass but she’s still gonna take care of herself.” Also, it’s pure fiction based on a video game, so there’s that.

Those who’ve played the video games have noted that Dina’s animated counterpart consistently wears her hair in a ponytail or bun, usually with pieces falling in her face—which makes a lot more sense for this post-apocalyptic setting. Nevertheless, I can’t be surprised that the show’s creators chose instead to leave Dina’s hair down; female action stars always seem to be fighting with their hair in their faces for the sake of sex appeal. So much of this season involves extremely detailed and thoughtful visual recreations of the game: “The walls are covered with screenshots from the game, with concept art from the game…they’re pouring over the original material,” co-creator Neil Druckmann said of the production designers who built the show’s Jackson set. With this much care put into every decision, it’s clear that Dina’s Farah Fawcett hairstyle was purposefully chosen but the reason itself remains unclear. It’s a bummer that a show so careful about its decisions would find it important to change a character’s signature appearance to adhere more closely to traditional beauty standards—that especially goes for a queer character such as Dina.

Just like its source material, this series is engineered to confront viewers with the darkest sides of humanity in grotesque and intentionally angering ways. We’ve seen innocent hospital workers shot to death before getting a word out. Children are killed both offscreen and on. In the same episode where we see a man stripped naked, tied up, and tortured, we also see Dina’s perfectly cut curtain bangs blown softly away from her face on a gentle Seattle breeze. Just give the woman a damn hair tie. If the showrunners trust that viewers can stomach the show’s brutality to learn lessons about the virtues and flaws of human nature, we should also be considered brave enough to face a woman in a messy bun—or God forbid, one with a tangle or two in her hair.

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