Ellie alone in winter, hunting, surviving in the exact mode she described in the suburbs — the fighter without Joel to defer to, the person the game has been building. The looking that stops seeing a stranger is the game's account of what has happened between Joel and Ellie across the sessions, but it is also what happens between Ellie and David in this episode: she looks long enough and stops seeing a hunter and starts seeing a predator, which is worse.

The stranger becoming known is not always a comfort. Sometimes the looking reveals something you would rather not have seen.