The Last of Us fans are loving the potential Part 2 cameo in this week's episode

Bella Ramsey as Ellie in The Last of Us
(Image credit: HBO)

This week's episode of HBO's The Last of Us might just feature a cameo from a character in The Last of Us Part 2, and fans can't contain their excitement over it. 

As we continue getting weekly episodes of The Last of Us, fans are finding more and more things to get excited about. This week, it seems viewers are mostly happy about a very possible cameo from a character we didn't expect to see so early in the series due to them being introduced in The Last of Us 2.

It's not too much of a surprise to see this familiar face, as The Last of Us has already been renewed for season 2, and series creator Neil Druckmann did reveal that Part 2 was being adapted for HBO. It seems the episode fills in the gap between Part 1 and Part 2 though, giving the character in question more of a backstory and connection to the other characters in the game/show.

Needless to say, if you don't want to know what happens in The Last of Us episode 6 - we suggest you don't read any further to avoid spoilers.

If you hadn't figured it out yet, the character we're talking about is Dina - Ellie's close friend and eventual partner in The Last of Us Part 2. It hasn't yet been confirmed whether or not this character is in fact Dina, but the actor playing the role of the mysterious girl does resemble Dina and her backstory does match up with the events in episode 6 of the HBO show. 

We won't go into too much detail but the scene in which "Dina" shows up sees Ellie eating a meal alongside Joel, and his brother Tommy. Whilst tucking into the first proper meal the duo has probably had in days, Ellie makes eye contact with someone across the room who's staring at the young girl whilst trying to look inconspicuous behind a pillar. As pointed out by fans on Twitter, this lines up with a voice line from Part 2 in which Dina recounts when she first met Ellie in Jackson.

"I was overwhelmed by all the food," Ellie explains during The Last of Us Part 2, "I remember my first week just gorging myself. Stuffing food in all my pockets for later like it was gonna run out." To which Dina responds: "I saw that! [...] I remember thinking 'who is this string bean girl stealing all the jerky?" Which does sound pretty similar to the scene mentioned above. 

According to The Last of Us news on Twitter, on the topic of whether this mysterious girl is Dina or not, Druckmann said: "In Part 2, there is a story about the first time Dina met Ellie that is very similar to what happens here." Showrunner of the HBO show Craig Mazin then adds: "That doesn't mean that that's Dina, but it doesn't mean it's not." So basically, we're going to have to wait and see if we get confirmation on this one. 

As you can imagine, even the possibility of this character being Dina has got fans overjoyed, especially since she plays such a big role in Ellie's life later in the game's story. Shortly after the episode aired, several fans took to Twitter to share their excitement over seeing more of Ellie and Dina's origin story. So much so that, as Neil Druckmann pointed out, the term 'WAS THAT DINA' was trending following yesterday's episode. 

Want to keep up to date with the HBO series? Take a look at our The Last of Us release schedule guide.  

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.