Watched the first episode of this last night and saw several comments saying there should be a thread but nobody actually making one, so, here.Have never played the game myself but have seen my husband playing it & may finally start it. Thought it was very easy to follow regardless of how you knew the game beforehand, which is top of what an adaptation needs to do. Superb cast as well.
― bit high, bitch (gyac), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 13:19 (two years ago)
Last of Us and Skinamarink have opened to wild success this year bc their style of horror doesn't rely on jump scares or gore but simply on showing audiences what it would be like to live in Alberta— Ibaka Shinji (@Cam_Oflage) January 18, 2023
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 13:39 (two years ago)
lol
Anyway, it's an interesting quandary: if you know where the (game) story is going, does that blind you to what the show may or may not be doing well? That's what make me interested in hearing from people that have never played the game; as far as this specific story goes, it's hard to convey what makes it different without, well, conveying what makes it different.
To that point, I read something on I think Kotaku that was more or less comparing in real time the game's progression to the show's, with a focus on the shocking episode one death. The author, iirc, called it manipulative, at least in the game, which ... yeah, of course it is! But it's also the game's prime mover, so it's got to be powerful. As far the TV show goes, though, I think the event serves a slightly different purpose. In a lot of these shows, from "The Sopranos" to "The Walking Dead," "who is going to die?" becomes a sort of ghoulish weekly parlor game. I find *that* manipulative and honestly kind of tired. In the show, as in the game, getting that over with in a big way in the first episode is kind of like ripping the bandaid off, but it's a trick that only works once. The rest of the game, and I imagine the rest of the show, is or should be about character (in every sense), and in this regard I suspect people that think they know where the story is going might be surprised at where it ends up.
Or maybe not! I know the game has its seen-it-all-before detractors, too. But there's a humanity beating at the heart of "The Last of Us" (the game) that many games of its ilk lack, just as (imo) "Children of Men" achieved more than the average post apocalyptic picaresque.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 January 2023 14:09 (two years ago)
I played approximately two hours of the first game before getting distracted so the tv pilot was almost exactly what I'd already seen
― mh, Wednesday, 18 January 2023 14:36 (two years ago)
This editorial makes the case for watching the show first and playing the game second, since playing the game second expands on the show (which, plot-wise, reportedly sticks to the game) with exploration, stealth, combat and other more interactive/world-building aspects. I can see that. As I noted, playing the game first makes the show more of a curiosity.
https://www.avclub.com/should-you-play-the-last-of-us-before-watching-the-show-1849998022
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 January 2023 15:30 (two years ago)
The only video games I play are Tetris and Mario Kart. I'll stick to watching the show as a TV show and stay away from what video game people say or think.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 15:37 (two years ago)
Jesus Christ
― bit high, bitch (gyac), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 16:58 (two years ago)
I'd argue this game is one of a handful that shifted the line between "video game people" and general consumers/critics of quality art/entertainment. A helpful example I've cited for a few folks is the game "Red Dead Redemption 2," which reportedly made over $700 million its first weekend alone. That's huge, and definitely positions "video game people" as a pretty big block comparable to or sometimes exceeding more familiar old people audiences for books, movies, music, etc. At a certain point, "not video game people" become kind of the outlier, and ignoring or avoiding games akin to someone in 1980 still talking shit about rock and roll or someone in 2000 deriding hip-hop. It's a huge, integral part of contemporary culture and entertainment.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 January 2023 17:13 (two years ago)
Or just acknowledge what a ludicrous opinion it is that the source material should never be mentioned, lol?
― can you still hit dinngers (gyac), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 17:14 (two years ago)
At a certain point, "not video game people" become kind of the outlier, and ignoring or avoiding games akin to someone in 1980 still talking shit about rock and roll or someone in 2000 deriding hip-hop. It's a huge, integral part of contemporary culture and entertainment.
That's inarguably true. And as someone old enough to have played games on an Atari 2600, I recognize that being totally out of touch with game culture makes me the minority. All I really mean is that if the show can't stand on its own, then it fails. So far, it very much does stand on its own, and I'm interested to see where it goes (much more than I was interested in/by The Walking Dead, for example), but I don't need to know what's different about this version. I own all six Resident Evil movies on Blu-Ray and have never played that game, either. The movies are their own batshit thing.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 17:18 (two years ago)
you can always ignore when people complain something's not faithful to the source material if you're uninterested in it!
I did lol at "video game people" though when that's like... 40% of the population that's not retirement age
― mh, Wednesday, 18 January 2023 17:25 (two years ago)
Who knew the world’s new oldest person was here and posting on ilx?
― can you still hit dinngers (gyac), Wednesday, 18 January 2023 17:28 (two years ago)
Anyway, I was one of many who completely missed that there was a clicker on the roof of the building in the closing shot of the opening ep(Mild spoiler because it's something in the game that hasn't come up in the show yet).
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 18 January 2023 17:32 (two years ago)
it took me more than 10 minutes of watching her character to realise that Anna Torv is in this. I'll watch just about anything with Anna Torv and Pedro Pascal in it as long as it isn't some Star Wars spinoff.
― calzino, Sunday, 22 January 2023 22:09 (two years ago)
glad the people responsible for video games' leap into the realm of quality art/entertainment are finally getting a chance to work in the medium they're interested in
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 22 January 2023 22:21 (two years ago)
^^^ the world's second oldest person
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 22 January 2023 22:22 (two years ago)
their pants legs dried awfully fast after wading through the lobby pond
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 23 January 2023 04:21 (two years ago)
I think the line about having to climb ten flights of stairs afterward was supposed to cover that.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 23 January 2023 11:59 (two years ago)
wet clothes instantly becoming dry is a scrupulously authentic video game trope tbh
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 23 January 2023 12:05 (two years ago)
Lol. I appreciated the mgsv thing where you have to shower constantly or else you remain smelly and covered in blood for this reason. Only bit of realism the whole game.
― can you still hit dinngers (gyac), Monday, 23 January 2023 12:12 (two years ago)
I just assume everyone in video games is constantly filthy and damp. Except Arthur in RDR2, who takes a lot of baths. But he gets filthy again pretty quickly.
Once again some shots and scenes that are exactly like the game; great sets/virtual sets/however they do it. Also some changes and tweaks that are noticeably different from the game, like the Indonesia stuff and the way the fungus spreads/communicates. The latter is imo less effective than in the game. In the game, the fungus largely spreads via spores. I get why they changed it here, but at the same time now it's less passive, more like the aggressive hive-mind creature in "The Thing" that wants to spread and survive at all costs; iirc they even gave the fungus spreading a scary sound. I don't know if this is meant to play up the threat, but I think it makes the clickers seem more like conventional zombies, which of course we've seen a lot. What I like about the game is the way the spores and slightly more aimless clickers are depicted pose a kind of constant ambient threat; they're dangerous obstacles as much as anything else. Here they're portrayed as more predatory than environmental.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 23 January 2023 15:05 (two years ago)
i am really digging this so farlove how the creatures are so grotesque but weirdly beautiful, like a del Toro movie and the tone of the show isnt just action/survival but this intense underlying sadness, it’s v good and i am into it i wanted to yell at anna torv “aaaaah omg jfc who gives a fuck abt the stupid lighter just pull one of the 20 fucking grenades on the ground”
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 05:01 (two years ago)
love u anna
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 05:02 (two years ago)
Honest question, why is everyone so into Anna Torv? She's fine in this, but I'm not sure I've ever heard of her before, and don't recognize her from anything else. Was she in a popular movie or show that I've never seen or something?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 13:13 (two years ago)
She was in Fringe and Mindhunter, two shows a lot of people liked. (Me included, though I wasn't raving/passionate about either.) She's got that kind of business-domme thing that lots of nerds go for.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 13:28 (two years ago)
I don't know what Fringe is, but I have been meaning to start Mindhunter, so I guess I'll see her there!
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 14:08 (two years ago)
She’s Rupert Murdoch’s niece apparently
― Mule, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 20:00 (two years ago)
oh ffs!
― calzino, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 20:30 (two years ago)
will always be olivia to me
― oscar bravo, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:35 (two years ago)
otm
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:45 (two years ago)
I still maintain that the dual universe plot in Fringe is the best sci-fi series stuff in decades. And yeah, the part of Olivia that isn't in any way at all and couldn't possibly be Rupert Murdoch's niece still rules!
― calzino, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:54 (two years ago)
I watched something where a zeppelin made an appearance recently and was disappointed anew that the alternate universe in Fringe didn't get more time/attention.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 22:24 (two years ago)
anna torv shouldn't be judged by her aunt's terrible life decisions!
― omar little, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 22:27 (two years ago)
She's got that kind of business-domme thing that lots of nerds go for.
...
Anyway, weird sexual dimension now with how the infection spreads, which is appropriate because that's how fungus reproduces.
― Rabbity Gainsborough (Leee), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 03:35 (two years ago)
dumb question here but wouldn’t the best place to avoid infection be the coastline? like that kinda fungus wouldn’t thrive/spread in a coastal environment right? or no?
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 03:44 (two years ago)
Anna Torv left her phone unattended. She returned to this photo. pic.twitter.com/iMg6xiWJQx— Bella Ramsey (@BellaRamsey) January 24, 2023
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 15:08 (two years ago)
Veg, how do you mean? I think that fungi can grow anywhere (even *in* the oceans).
I'm curious what people thought of the museum sequence (if they thought it was tense) and if they've played the game or not. I felt kind of bored by it even though in the game it's pretty stressful, I think because the stakes and outcome of the latter are actually up in the air and depend on my active interaction with it.
― Rabbity Gainsborough (Leee), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 18:21 (two years ago)
Just felt like Jurassic Park kitchen sequence. It was entertaining but needed to be a little more creative to actually be exciting.
― Evan, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 18:45 (two years ago)
Standard horror trope. We're moving through the empty house/haunted hospital/abandoned military facility...when (not if) will the creatures attack? I thought it was a little less tense than some other iterations I've seen but generally fine. And the fungus-headed monsters were kinda cool-looking. The best part of the episode was the Indonesia prelude, though.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 18:57 (two years ago)
horror games are always scarier than other horror media bc of the level of immersion. i found the scene very stressful though!
fungus makeout is the kind of ridiculous and awesome visual i needed to send this show home for me, having a great time
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 19:10 (two years ago)
Made the mistake of checking what the internet at large thought of that scene. Not surprisingly there's tons of confusion. Seemed clear to me? Tess trying to stand still so the zombies don't swarm her. She's infected and about to kill herself. She can't light the lighter. Oh god they're running right by now, it just won't light. Stay still. One is walking up to her. No sudden movements, just light it. In her face now. The spores are coming out of the mouth and reaching toward her. They would have attacked by now but something's different ...because it's also inside her this time. Kissing? No, not exactly... might look that way maybe, but no. Horrible. Doesn't matter, don't move, just light it.
However seeing lots of "what's the deal with the KISS?! wtf?!" comments
― Evan, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 22:14 (two years ago)
Yeah sure it didn't actually have to happen at all, but it was cool shock value but made in-universe sense to me!
― Evan, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 22:16 (two years ago)
and*
― Evan, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 22:17 (two years ago)
Fringe is available on HBO Max. I just re-watched the pilot and it's fucking bonkers.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 26 January 2023 01:06 (two years ago)
i love Fringe so much, even when it confused me utterly
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 January 2023 01:46 (two years ago)
I found the museum stalking scene writhingly terrifying (non gamer here btw).
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 26 January 2023 03:40 (two years ago)
Yeah clickers are as freaky in the game as they were depicted in the museum!
― octobeard, Thursday, 26 January 2023 05:21 (two years ago)
I Photoshop paddington into a movie, game, or TV show until I forget: Day 688 pic.twitter.com/GAYYrNbGRr— Jaythechou (@jaythechou) January 26, 2023
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 January 2023 06:43 (two years ago)
horror games are always scarier than other horror media bc of the level of immersion.
Definitely this. Had plenty of tense moments watching horror movies but nothing that compares to playing say Dead Space or Silent Hill 2.
― groovypanda, Thursday, 26 January 2023 08:16 (two years ago)
The cold openings for this show are stellar.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Sunday, 29 January 2023 18:54 (two years ago)
Yes they are and the rest (so far) leaves me cold. But I’ll hang in there even though fungus makeup gives me the willies.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Sunday, 29 January 2023 19:15 (two years ago)
Tonight’s episode 😭
Pleasantly surprised by the show so far. I was expecting a rote Cliff’s Notes version of the game but it’s proving to be very canny with its adaptation choices.
― latebloomer, Monday, 30 January 2023 05:07 (two years ago)
Yes! All the changes made for this episode were for the better.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 30 January 2023 05:38 (two years ago)
murray bartlett = deadset legend <3 and use of linda ronstadt was chef’s kiss great episode
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 30 January 2023 06:29 (two years ago)
Found myself looking at the phone during this one, kept waiting for the show to bring some feeling into this story or for the characters to feel real and it just kind of lay there as an abstract parable.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 30 January 2023 06:59 (two years ago)
Finding the right tune on which to hang Bill and Frank’s encounter presented Mazin with a unique challenge. In addition to something that could be played on the piano both well and terribly, the showrunner was searching for a song about “a long-term ache — the sadness of somebody saying, ‘I wish, but oh, well, I shall be forever alone.’“Man, I just couldn’t find the perfect song,” he continues. “I texted my friend Seth Rudetsky, who hosts the Broadway channel on SiriusXM radio. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of music. I said, ‘Here are all the things I’m looking for. Do you know a song that would fit the bill?’ Within 30 seconds, he texted back with ‘“Long Long Time,” Linda Ronstadt.’ I played it and was like, ‘That’s the song.’”
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 30 January 2023 07:06 (two years ago)
This episode was the rare example of something very different from the game that doesn't really alter the plot. Added a lot of stuff, albeit at the cost of some stuff. That said, sweet episode though it was, it also posed something of a curious detour. The story is about Joel and Ellie and the time they spend together. With a limited number of hours with which to tell that story, it's a strange choice to spend so much time on characters that have nothing to do with that story.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 30 January 2023 13:26 (two years ago)
Yeah this was a great episode. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time. I was not expecting that. Just so heartbreaking, every time the time skips forward and they’re still there, still in love, literally growing old together. Absolute cruelty.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 30 January 2023 22:57 (two years ago)
#TheLastOfUs spoilers---episode 3 may have been devastating but this line had me ON THE FLOOR pic.twitter.com/HaWFHNOoMS— kenny (@bvckystjames) January 30, 2023
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 30 January 2023 23:13 (two years ago)
I thought he was going to do Bill in when his guard was down singing Linda Ronstadt because I'm so good at predicting what happens in these shows!
― calzino, Monday, 30 January 2023 23:22 (two years ago)
I did too! It didn’t feel like it would go that direction, I was on edge until the time skip.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 30 January 2023 23:23 (two years ago)
Aw:
This morning, we lost Annie Wersching, who portrayed Tess in the game.Even though the HBO show is a new iteration of The Last of Us, our storylines, worlds and lives have become inextricably linked. We are a blended TLOU family now, and when tragedy strikes, we all feel it.We will be thinking about Annie tonight and always, but we know that it's her family who will miss her more than anyone.We’re talking with our respective employers about ways we can help as individuals and as companies. Those things will likely be handled anonymously. If you’re also interesting in helping, there’s a GoFundMe to support her boys: Freddie (12), Ozzie (9) and Archie (4).https://gofund.me/f915834eAnnie was a brilliant actor, a wonderful mother, and a bright light of a human being. We mourn for her and the children who are grieving her loss. Tonight's episode has become particularly poignant in a way we would have never hoped or wished for, and we are dedicating it to Annie’s memory. It may be too late to get that on screen for tonight, but we will work to get it done as soon as we can.Annie Wersching, and the Tess she originated, will live on in our hearts. May she rest in peace.--Craig & Neil
Even though the HBO show is a new iteration of The Last of Us, our storylines, worlds and lives have become inextricably linked. We are a blended TLOU family now, and when tragedy strikes, we all feel it.
We will be thinking about Annie tonight and always, but we know that it's her family who will miss her more than anyone.
We’re talking with our respective employers about ways we can help as individuals and as companies. Those things will likely be handled anonymously. If you’re also interesting in helping, there’s a GoFundMe to support her boys: Freddie (12), Ozzie (9) and Archie (4).
https://gofund.me/f915834e
Annie was a brilliant actor, a wonderful mother, and a bright light of a human being. We mourn for her and the children who are grieving her loss. Tonight's episode has become particularly poignant in a way we would have never hoped or wished for, and we are dedicating it to Annie’s memory. It may be too late to get that on screen for tonight, but we will work to get it done as soon as we can.
Annie Wersching, and the Tess she originated, will live on in our hearts. May she rest in peace.
--Craig & Neil
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 30 January 2023 23:41 (two years ago)
An aside, I don't remember how much the game leans into this stuff, but I like how the show keeps underscoring how this is Ellie's first time outside the QZ, first time in a forest, first time in a car, etc. (She doesn't even know what a seatbelt is, because why would she?). Helps show how she's not only just a kid, but she's a kid who has grown up literally gated away from the world. Hell, we're introduced to her locked in a single room. Her world is rapidly growing bigger. Really helps enforce that for all her world-weary affect, she's still pretty innocent.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 30 January 2023 23:48 (two years ago)
Yeah, the "you got to go up in the sky!" bit was great, and the car scene was almost a mini callback to that.
Really liked this episode a lot. I'm not a huge Nick Offerman fan but he was very good.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 00:32 (two years ago)
I highly recommend the official HBO tie-in podcast that follows each episode.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 01:47 (two years ago)
can’t believe i’m watching an hbo show and i don’t even get to see nick offerman’s hog
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 03:55 (two years ago)
Google "nick offerman three-quarter headshot"
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 04:18 (two years ago)
Offerhog* content
https://vimeo.com/70792622
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 04:32 (two years ago)
The story is about Joel and Ellie and the time they spend together. With a limited number of hours with which to tell that story, it's a strange choice to spend so much time on characters that have nothing to do with that story.
Have to disagree. This was a fantastic bottle episode but still had plenty of Joel & Ellie (and other) plot developments: Ellie's constant wonder at the outside world, Joel starting to change from seeing Ellie as a chore to someone he has to protect, they now have a vehicle, Ellie now has a gun, we saw raiders for the first time, we found out the infection originally spread through food supplies etc. By the end of the episode they're even wearing the same outfits from the game
― groovypanda, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 07:54 (two years ago)
Joel starting to change from seeing Ellie as a chore to someone he has to protect
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 08:47 (two years ago)
I honestly think that strawberries scene is so great and illustrative of what Frank says about loving by doing. Just thinking about him acquiring the seeds, cultivating the strawberries, keeping them secret until the time is right - all for that childish glee from Bill when they’re eating them? It’s too good, lads.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 10:20 (two years ago)
And that Bill never (that we see) says any of this to him, but can put it in the letter, leaves the world on his terms with him…🥹🥹🥹
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 10:21 (two years ago)
Like I said, this episode was good, and didn't alter the plot at all from where it needs to go, hence all the stuff groovy (and gyac) pointed out is otm. Just saying that all the stuff was very efficiently conveyed during the relatively limited screen time we had with Ellie & Joel, and not through any of the Bill & Frank story, lovely as it was. What the Bill & Frank story *did* do, which I have pretty quickly come to appreciate, is flip the version of their story from the game on its head. In the game, Bill's & Frank's fates are much different, and pose a different sort of lesson to Joel: if you stay bitter and untrusting and uncaring, your will waste your life. There's surviving, and then there's living. This episode showed what living looks like, which is a good message (if imo not necessarily needed for this particular story). My criticism was strictly practical; the relationship between Ellie & Joel is the crux of the story (at least in the game), so the less time we have with them, the taller the storytelling challenge of the show. Of course, TV storytelling is different from game storytelling, so I have faith they'll be able to do their magic, even if they do it slightly differently.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 13:14 (two years ago)
idk anything about the game but i feel the show is more broadly tackling "the way we live after a world-ending event" in a good, dramatically satisfying way that doesn't just necessarily revolve around the two main characters
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:12 (two years ago)
I was trying to think about post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve seen or read that does people living, rather than just surviving, and I think this is probably the best example of that theme (which I don’t think I’ve seen that often). There’s that inherent discomfort with “everyone’s dead, but I’m happier that I’ve ever been,” but I guess it does address that sticky issue that certain people would be happy if the world ended - underrepresented pro eschatology viewpoint (lol?)
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:17 (two years ago)
can’t believe i’m watching an hbo show and i don’t even get to see nick offerman’s hog― flamenco drop (BradNelson)
― flamenco drop (BradNelson)
Otm
In general tho this was a very well-scripted/acted/directed vitamin of a gay romance
― french testicle (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:25 (two years ago)
Did you cry? I was sobbing. No exaggeration.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:32 (two years ago)
Well, someone disagrees.
The episode, “Long Long Time,” follows Nick Offerman’s Bill, a gruff but meticulous survivalist who’s managed to make it through the Cordyceps plague by booby-trapping his home in the wilds somewhere outside of Boston. One day, he accidentally captures Frank (Murray Bartlett), a sweet, hunky guy trying to make it on his own. Depending on your tolerance for sentiment, their resulting romance is either sweet or incredibly obvious: They have a lovely dinner, Frank draws Bill out of his shell by complimenting his choice of rabbit paired with Beaujolais, they flirt over a piano, they have sex and grow old together in a sort of cottagecore postapocalyptic bear fantasy. By the end of the episode, Bartlett and Offerman are in old-age makeup, and an ill Frank has decided to die, having lived the best possible life in a world now run by fungus. Bill prepares a meal for him with poison served in the wine (pairs well with Beaujolais!), and the scene closes with Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” a piece of music deployed to signal big emotional catharsis in everything from Arrival (where it cost the movie Oscar consideration) to Castle Rock and The Handmaid’s Tale. Later, after the main characters Joel and Ellie discover Bill’s goodbye note, there’s a needle drop of the song they bonded over at the piano, Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time,” that’s — surprise — cued for dramatic, emotional weight.Like that use of Max Richter, nothing in “Long Long Time” is innovative. Television, especially if it’s genre, is fond of pairing off characters to grow old in some story line, often shunting them off to a cabin in the woods or a timeline separate from the main action. I’m fond of The Magicians’s “A Life in a Day,” where two male characters fall in love while stuck in a magical puzzle, and of Other Space (a Yahoo! Original that no one watched but I loved) sending up the “growing old on another planet” trope by having two characters bicker relentlessly as they age....“Long Long Time” positions Bill and Frank’s story as an alternate, happier vision of life among the mushrooms than the general misery of Joel and Ellie’s journey, but the plot is rote and the writing obvious. The show makes a lot of metaphorical hay of the notion that Frank is going to get Bill to open up by way of getting him to grow strawberries; as soon as the episode depicted them bickering over Frank trading for seeds, I let out a groan anticipating the moment where said strawberries would be dramatically shared as a symbol of emotional and actual growth. (That’s Pixar-style manipulation, a dark hybrid of Up and Wall-E.) The episode has the opportunity to subvert expectations somewhere along its hour and fifteen minute runtime but seems uninterested in providing anything unexpected, and Bartlett and Offerman seem at sea as actors, repeatedly hitting the same character beats, whether gruff and paranoid or angsty and flighty. They’re stuck in wooden roles acting out maudlin dynamics.The larger issue for The Last of Us, however, is that it’s bringing this kind of obvious and sentimental storytelling to a genre that’s been thoroughly worked over. We’ve seen plenty of postapocalyptic films and movies and games make the same points, from Children of Men (released in 2006, so The Last of Us characters, with their 2003 collapse, never have to acknowledge that they’re doing the same thing) through The Walking Dead, I Am Legend, The Road, et cetera. Station Eleven, just last year on HBOMax, took the premise of a pandemic and used it to unspool a series of existential meditations about how art survives and why. The Last of Us doesn’t feel as if it’s adding to the conversation as much as regurgitating what has already been chewed through.
Like that use of Max Richter, nothing in “Long Long Time” is innovative. Television, especially if it’s genre, is fond of pairing off characters to grow old in some story line, often shunting them off to a cabin in the woods or a timeline separate from the main action. I’m fond of The Magicians’s “A Life in a Day,” where two male characters fall in love while stuck in a magical puzzle, and of Other Space (a Yahoo! Original that no one watched but I loved) sending up the “growing old on another planet” trope by having two characters bicker relentlessly as they age.
...“Long Long Time” positions Bill and Frank’s story as an alternate, happier vision of life among the mushrooms than the general misery of Joel and Ellie’s journey, but the plot is rote and the writing obvious. The show makes a lot of metaphorical hay of the notion that Frank is going to get Bill to open up by way of getting him to grow strawberries; as soon as the episode depicted them bickering over Frank trading for seeds, I let out a groan anticipating the moment where said strawberries would be dramatically shared as a symbol of emotional and actual growth. (That’s Pixar-style manipulation, a dark hybrid of Up and Wall-E.) The episode has the opportunity to subvert expectations somewhere along its hour and fifteen minute runtime but seems uninterested in providing anything unexpected, and Bartlett and Offerman seem at sea as actors, repeatedly hitting the same character beats, whether gruff and paranoid or angsty and flighty. They’re stuck in wooden roles acting out maudlin dynamics.
The larger issue for The Last of Us, however, is that it’s bringing this kind of obvious and sentimental storytelling to a genre that’s been thoroughly worked over. We’ve seen plenty of postapocalyptic films and movies and games make the same points, from Children of Men (released in 2006, so The Last of Us characters, with their 2003 collapse, never have to acknowledge that they’re doing the same thing) through The Walking Dead, I Am Legend, The Road, et cetera. Station Eleven, just last year on HBOMax, took the premise of a pandemic and used it to unspool a series of existential meditations about how art survives and why. The Last of Us doesn’t feel as if it’s adding to the conversation as much as regurgitating what has already been chewed through.
I think this criticism is bullshit, ftr. Just because this critic has seen something done a thousand times, that doesn't mean a) the audience for this particular show has or b) that it's been done better elsewhere (the examples he cites sound insufferable to me).
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:37 (two years ago)
cottagecore postapocalyptic bear fantasy
you have to log off the internet if you write all of these words in a row, it's the rules
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:43 (two years ago)
and of Other Space (a Yahoo! Original that no one watched but I loved)
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 15:50 (two years ago)
I didn't dislike the episode (I thought it was okay, am I allowed to think something is simply okay in 2023?) but I agreed with a lot of this: https://www.primetimer.com/features/the-last-of-us-episode-3-queer-love-story-condescending
― Murgatroid, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 16:11 (two years ago)
xpost It's a subtle distinction. Bill obviously has had strawberries before, so it's reminding him of what he's missed or lost or had forgotten. In Ellie's case, it's what she has never experienced. Two different sides of wonder.
I find a lot of post-apocalyptic things (aside from truly, truly bleak stories like The Road, or It Comes at Night or whatever) feature fleeting moments of happiness or positivity. What sets this episode apart is that it's a *sustained* depiction of happiness in the post-apocalypse. Whether that works or not is really moot, since it more or less ends in the same place, story-wise. In the game the message iirc is "be careful or you will end up like me," in the show it's kind of "be careful or you might not end up like me." Both boil down to the same message. How it's delivered ultimately probably ultimately comes down to preference, but this episode gets plenty of points for the novelty of tilting positive. I wouldn't expect many more like it this season, but you never know! It's nice to be surprised by big changes now and then.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 16:15 (two years ago)
I annoyed my girlfriend by predicting most of the plot points in this episode, from the romance itself to the romeo and juliet ending, so while I can grant that maybe the story wasn’t particularly fresh or challenging, it was nicely executed I thought
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 31 January 2023 16:22 (two years ago)
I disagree with Juan Barquin’s assessment, but maybe there is an overabundance of gay bear romance films/TV through the past 20 years that I have somehow been unaware of
― french testicle (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:31 (two years ago)
In fact I definitely felt when I saw Murray Bartlett kissing Nick’s giant Jim O’Rourkey beard: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen two hot 50+ bears make out before, in the context of reputable entertainment”
― french testicle (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:34 (two years ago)
they don't mention them being bears even once? are you confusing the two pieces that've been linked recently
― Murgatroid, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:45 (two years ago)
Did you cry? I was sobbing. No exaggeration.― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:32 AM (two hours ago)
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:32 AM (two hours ago)
yeah I was crying too
my question is how did ellie know about Mortal Kombat II? i'm guessing one of the older kids in her fedra camp told her about it. did they have old consoles? zSNES and ROMs?
― 龜, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:26 (two years ago)
Pretty sure said detail will be explained this season ...
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:30 (two years ago)
Need to catch up on the thread but this:
I was trying to think about post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve seen or read that does people living, rather than just surviving
Station Eleven (both the book and the series) grapple with art in the age after apocalypse (and the book makes hay out of the slogan "survival is insufficient").
― John Mayer McCheese (Leee), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:36 (two years ago)
I'm not a crier anymore because Effexor effectively shut off that function, but let's just say I felt the emotions w/ ep 3 that would have triggered such an episode in the past.
i had trouble settling into the show, at first, because apocalyptic fiction is something I've dove into so much, that any trope in the genre feels 'familiar' to me from the jump (I didn't have any experience w/ the game).
but once I just let myself take it in, i'm very much enjoying it now. not least because the 'zombies' are more of a pre-Romero definition of zombie (via fungus mind control vs undead-reanimation), as well as the character work and the sheer look of towns with actual pronounced fungi growth serving as also a graveyard for the world.
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:45 (two years ago)
From Juan Barquin:
Watching the episode, it feels as though the writing became stuck in 2003, which is when the fungal pandemic hits in the show, resulting in the kind of gay love story that would have been groundbreaking TV back then, but is now just wearisome.
That's what I was referring to. I haven't seen any convincing onscreen older gay male romances, me. Not now and not since 2003. "Happy Together" is convincing but they're not older. That Jane Fonda show with Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, I mean, it's fun to watch them I guess but they're not at all convincing by any measure; that's more the kind of TV to which I'd apply Juan Barquin's criticisms.
― french testicle (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:46 (two years ago)
the performances were very important to the quality of the ep too. Offerman is getting a lot of the credit but Murray Bartlett's performance is perfect, just the little choices he makes. the astonished look of gratitude plus surprise at the meal placed in front of him, the moments where he's fighting through excruciating pain to be present for Bill but can't hide the toll it's taking on him.
cynical side of me was expecting Frank to be not who he said he was and one of the two to wind up murdering each other, or (like apparently in the game) Frank bolting and Bill coldly lamenting his loss for the latter half of the episode, was pleasantly surprised to see it be exactly what it was.
and lord, the Ronstadt moments. I wonder if her discography will see a bump.
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:58 (two years ago)
yes perhaps we can finally find some of her records in record stores now
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:03 (two years ago)
Need to catch up on the thread but this:_I was trying to think about post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve seen or read that does people living, rather than just surviving__Station Eleven_ (both the book and the series) grapple with art in the age after apocalypse (and the book makes hay out of the slogan "survival is insufficient").
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:03 (two years ago)
the whole 'living, not surviving' is always what I'm thinking of when I watch apocalyptic fiction. like if every one of my days involved eating dead roadkill, watching people around me die, being unable to sleep for fear of being eaten/dying of infection, and having PTSD put everyone at each other's throats, I'd probably just let a zombie/virus take me.
or as the band All put it, 'not alive, just living'
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:19 (two years ago)
OK maybe this is super-obvious but is the fungus - which eats away its victims' brains but connects them into one hyperaggressive consciousness - a metaphor for social media ... which kind of really kicked off around 2003, the year zero of the end times of The Last of Us?
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:19 (two years ago)
it's a metaphor for how the fungus is among us
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:25 (two years ago)
but in seriousness, it makes sense at least for teh show's presentation
And to this episode... beyond all the stuff already discussed, I really liked it just as a signal very early into the show's run that it was going to do interesting things with storytelling. I like being told clearly in Episode 3 that this show will take its time and pacing, that it will tell side-stories, that many characters we get to know and like will die, that it will ruminate on the philosophical questions that arise from living in a world in decline (questions that feel less and less academic). The whole eye-rolling (from critics quoted, not so much from people on the thread) about this being somehow familiar or same-old same-old is pretty different from how it hit me.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:33 (two years ago)
quite honestly I was refreshed because if every moment of the show is just the two taking their journey, it'll get old. I enjoy watching flashbacks to the world as it is collapsing and other people's stories in addition to the main thrust.
now granted I have no idea how the game handled that but
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:39 (two years ago)
That's the (neutral) criticism I had, that a limited single season adaptation of the first game doesn't necessarily have the luxury of taking its time with side characters, as there are a finite number of episodes with which to tell some very important story beats. That said, given that this episode was very different from how it played out in the game, maybe there is other stuff from the game that they will cut, though iirc they said that this episode was the only significant deviation from the game. I can only assume there will be other small details added here and there that will similarly get us to the same endpoint.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:42 (two years ago)
Exactly. The more I think about it, the more I want every subsequent episode to be like this one. I don't care that it's Not How It Was In The Game — it's a more interesting and expansive show if every week we get to see someone else's life, someone else's version of the apocalypse, and then see how that life intersects with Joel and Ellie as they come driving/trudging through on their quest. Because honestly, so far, neither Joel nor Ellie are super-fascinating characters. They're vehicles for plot advancement/goal achievement. So if they're used to bracket smaller, more interesting stories, I'm all for it.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:43 (two years ago)
Yeah - the talk show and the Indonesia vignette were compact versions of that willingness to explore the edges of the world too. I'm not someone who knows anything about the game so I may be wrong, but it feels like this type of digressive storytelling would be tougher to do in gameplay focused on the central quest. Unless there's a whole part where you have to hide strawberry seeds and secretly plant them for your survivalist bear life partner segment in the game.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:47 (two years ago)
the Indonesia vignette was great. just the realization by the scientist that cordyceps has been pulled from a human being
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:49 (two years ago)
To Josh's point - do we know yet whether the plan is to tell the whole story of the original video game this season? Gameplayers would know better than I if it's on track to do that in 6 more episodes.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:54 (two years ago)
my biggest inability to suspend disbelief so far relates to gasoline, which goes bad after a year or two. the fact that everybody's driving around surely means that one of the QZ's is drilling for and refining gas, yeah?
― 龜, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:57 (two years ago)
xpost On track? Sort of. Again, it depends on how they tell the story. To that point:
Because honestly, so far, neither Joel nor Ellie are super-fascinating characters. They're vehicles for plot advancement/goal achievement.
And honestly, this is why I'm enjoying the discussion, especially among those unfamiliar with the game. There's a reason the game is beloved, and it hinges 100% on the relationship between Joel & Ellie. I'd argue that should the show fail to make them compelling to anyone not familiar with the game, then the show fails as an adaptation (or at least as an adaptation of the game's story). Unless it does indeed go different directions than the game went in, but there is no indication that is the plan. Every piece on it says it follows the first game to its conclusion. (The second game will supposedly be broken up into two seasons.)
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 19:59 (two years ago)
also, bella ramsey is generally good as a secret britisher but her accent does leak through a few times imo.
― 龜, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 20:03 (two years ago)
xpost lol when Frank was taking a shower I was like DUDE THERE'S NO MORE PURIFICATION OF THE WATER SUPPLY ARE YOU NUTS.
i always wind up having to give a Jedi-handwave away on post-apoc shows/movies where people are grabbing obviously perishable food that is probably ten years past expiry and eating it and not dying from the bacteria pouring out of it. or in Terminator, where there seems to BE no food in a nuclear contaminated land, like what the fuck were they eating, rats (as seen in the segue in the first Terminator)?
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 20:04 (two years ago)
re: characters... Ellie's got potential to be pretty compelling - weird mix of sheltered and feral, with a cruel almost sociopathic streak (which might be a pretty reasonale response to her environment). She's pretty interesting already, especially for a potential saviour figure. Joel started strong but could use some more character development at this point.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 20:09 (two years ago)
tbf with post-apoc shows you're never going to get a satisfying amount of that in the first few eps, because they're settling a baseline, usually showing you what this person was like before things went south, and their new, grizzled demeanor, and naturally folks in this situation tend to be have little motivation other than getting to the next day alive, which makes them boring to the viewer.
i can already see Joel opening up a bit, with him getting excited about Linda Ronstadt. Ellie seems to be dripping with personality but nobody to latch it onto since Joel's been closed off, so Joel's opening will help w/ that.
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 20:13 (two years ago)
right, their whole relationship stakes are that he's terrified to open himself to the relaxed affectionate dynamic he had with his daughter in episode one because he couldn't take another loss like that... but we know the ice will melt eventually. Must be killing him keeping all his dad jokes under wraps.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 20:20 (two years ago)
Anyway the strawberries scene is as much about Bill’s childish giggle (that is reflected back by Ellie’s later wide-eyed wonder at the plane and the car) as it is a metaphor.― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:50 AM
You get either the Offerman hog or the giggle--not both.
― Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 21:41 (two years ago)
this will sound super dumb but I already buy that there *will* be a relationship btw Joe & Ellie even if there’s not much of one yet, mainly bc Pedro Pascal pulled off a relationship aship with an animatronic puppet while wearing a mask & i bought that shit hook line & sinker. also as he proved w Chernobyl, imo, Mazin can be a patient storyteller. He showed w that that he has a good sense of character & a confidence in the bones of a story. he’s not trying to quickly hamhandedly exposition you into caring for ppl: he’ll show you stuff you think you don’t need that serves the moments better, and that serve thd overall story better & (hopefully) give you a much more emotional, memorable payoff.
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 22:24 (two years ago)
And I have no reason to believe the whole team won't pull it off here. After all, Neil Druckmann wrote and (essentially) directed the game and had a huge hand in every last detail. It's great thanks to his efforts, instincts and diligence. He's almost as involved with the show, as a director, writer, all around co-creator and overseer, so the idea that given his track record he would suddenly allow the ball to be dropped is pretty much out of the question. For example, I'm not entirely sold yet on Bella Ramsey, but I know she was cast for a reason.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 22:32 (two years ago)
That Beaujolais really would have been past its best
― Number None, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:01 (two years ago)
I just figure in all these post-apocalyptic stories that standards have been lowered to a few pegs below the bare minimum. Like, everything, from medicine to wine, is expired, so the question is, how expired? There's no way that dog food that Max digs into at the start of "Road Warrior" is still any good, even assuming it ever was "good" to begin with.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:07 (two years ago)
Twinkies remain Twinkies, though.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:25 (two years ago)
i'm just sayin, it's gotta be hard to quest on when yr shitting into a bucket 1 out of every 3 days
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:42 (two years ago)
I'm fine with keeping the bacteria-related bucket-shitting and depictions of spoiled food and sewage water bathing related illness at the current low levels in the show myself, even if credulity is strained.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:57 (two years ago)
swear to god if you guys digress into a whole sidebar about shitting i will burn this thread down
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:59 (two years ago)
I heard they went to the spread via bites vs spread via spore inhalation because they didn't want the actors hiding behind masks for teh duration of the show. it's a good move but I wonder how much of that is also Pedro Pascal saying "I ain't doing another show where you can't see my face, fuck you"
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:01 (two years ago)
i'm kind of hoping for flashbacks to Joel and his daughter. I'm expecting Ellie will accidentally drag that out of him one episode, because I'm sure that's the main thing that shattered him
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:02 (two years ago)
xpost lol that seems v otm
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:05 (two years ago)
"Pedro - the good news is they've agreed to get rid of the masks. Bad news is they won't budge on all the shitting scenes."
― Brio2, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:13 (two years ago)
That's the (neutral) criticism I had, that a limited single season adaptation of the first game doesn't necessarily have the luxury of taking its time with side characters, as there are a finite number of episodes with which to tell some very important story beats.
When you can make your episodes as long as you want, this seems a non-problem. First and third episodes were movie-length, while the second was only 50 minutes.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:15 (two years ago)
huh, there's another set of media based on a Cordyceps infection?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_All_the_Gifts_(film)
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:21 (two years ago)
I enjoyed that movie; check it out if you have time. I think it's on Netflix.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:32 (two years ago)
Cool!
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:35 (two years ago)
Not quite - first episode was 81, third was 76, the future six episodes reportedly run an hour or less - but point taken.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 00:46 (two years ago)
Because honestly, so far, neither Joel nor Ellie are super-fascinating characters.
This is how I'm feeling with the show currently, though I'll say that even at this point in the game, they're still very vibrant and engaging. Maybe the indifference I feel to the show characters right now is premature, but partly knowing some of the big story beats drains the dramatic tension (like the death in episode 2). That's why I found episode 3 so riveting, because it's a 180 from the game.
As, apparently, do bears.
― John Mayer McCheese (Leee), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 01:15 (two years ago)
what survival tactics guy is not drinking filtered well water, is what I am asking you weird haters thinking he is in municipal water. natural springs, bitches
― mh, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 03:23 (two years ago)
Anyone who complains this recent episode somehow violated video game lore should notice:
Video games are very loot focused, and the entire denouement of this episode was the note reading “I didn’t like you but I respected you, here is the code to the loot”very video games
― mh, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 04:30 (two years ago)
Not quite - first episode was 81, third was 76RULED: Dumbo and Run Lola Run are NOT movies.
― more crankable (sic), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 05:29 (two years ago)
lol, I thought of Petite Maman (72 min) when he posted that
― The Terroir of Tiny Town (WmC), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 16:03 (two years ago)
Tbf, "Run Lola Run" is about as close to a video game as you can get. But yes, there are short movies. And long movies, too! And movies that are both, like "A Short Film About Killing."
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 16:29 (two years ago)
yeah mh, I watched this episode and aside from being touched, laughed at the videogameness of it when the end of the episode was basically "Item unlocked! TRUCK"
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 16:37 (two years ago)
The most video gamey moment of it was imo when they passed some beat up lockers and shelves. I turned to my wife and told her that's a big part of the game.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 16:39 (two years ago)
it was nice that all the ingredients to juice up the truck battery were in one spot. it'd be bad television if he had to hunt for the components across several locations and complete side quests
― mh, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 17:41 (two years ago)
And then there's a power cut and he has to go back to Bill and Frank's again
― I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THE DIAPER GOT LOOSE (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 February 2023 18:07 (two years ago)
https://www.boston.com/culture/entertainment/2023/01/30/the-last-of-us-10-miles-west-of-boston/
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 22:59 (two years ago)
i liked the third episode a lot, and i haven't seen anyone really mention this, but i am curious to see how the show continues to dialog with video game storytelling tropes. for example, plotwise, this week's episode amounted to an arsenal upgrade lol, the part of the game where the player goes from struggling to survive to wielding a bit more firepower. i haven't played either game, but it seems to arrive at a similar point in the plot as where you get the gravity gun in half-life 2.
but obviously they made a beautiful, character-driven story out of it. seems like a pretty ideal way to make a video game adaptation.
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Thursday, 2 February 2023 22:50 (two years ago)
― 龜, Tuesday, January 31, 2023 2:57 PM bookmarkflaglink
loling that they address this in the first five mins of this week's ep. unexpected coincidence
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 03:48 (two years ago)
They are clearly reading this thread and tweaking as necessary.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 03:51 (two years ago)
Anyway, another good one, and another quality example of sticking closely to the game (sometimes extremely faithfully) while simultaneously adding and changing little things. One of the biggest changes of course is the way violence is being handled. In the game it does the very game-y thing of throwing a bunch of NPCs at you, which makes you come off like Rambo as you fend them off. Here they scale things down, which allows it to play out more realistically, and makes the impact of the violence (which you get kinda numb to in the game, at least in the first one) more jarring.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 03:55 (two years ago)
I very much am interested that, Offerman aside, no major characters are played by Americans in this very American show. Or was the Firefly leader an American actor? I can’t remember.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 6 February 2023 04:13 (two years ago)
Pedro Pascal was born in Chile and lived there briefly but grew up in Texas and California and went to NYU. If Wikipedia can be trusted he's a US citizen. Dude is an American actor!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 6 February 2023 05:15 (two years ago)
Have to admit my interest is flagging a bit and the suggestion that this is going into a "bare-bones society built by survivors is Actually Bad" direction is somehow none too thrilling -- I think what I'm learning is that the character in this show I find really interesting is the fungus, and the fungus hasn't been very present in the last two episodes. More fungus!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 6 February 2023 05:23 (two years ago)
enjoyed this ep - i like how a lot of the tension is in not seeing so much of the fungi whatevers and yeah just having one or two sparse survivor encounters adds to that, vs randos around every corner which would def get boring xxposts re Josh’s observations plus i just like how ellie has her shit together but am also intrigued & concerned by that
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 February 2023 06:12 (two years ago)
Appreciate them giving Pedro Pascal more personality, 12% more warming up to Ellie. A little more fungus would be fine but battling through a horde of fungo-zombies every episode would get dull real fast.
I haven't played the Last of Us game but the Telltale Walking Dead game with basically this same story was the second-most affecting video game plot ever IMO (most - the love between a man and his horse in Red Dead 2).
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 February 2023 06:25 (two years ago)
played by Americans in this very American show.
Don't forget that America itself is being played by Canada.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 13:12 (two years ago)
This felt closest to the "Walking Dead" the show has gotten so far, but maybe that's a bit unavoidable. I like the casting of Melanie Lynskey. The character reminds me a little bit of her traumatized soccer mom/potential cult leader character in "Yellowjackets" but hey. The bit with her questioning the doctor with a list of names - suggesting an endless cycle of revenge killings - was intriguing. Looking forward to learning more of the Kansas City backstory.
― Brio2, Monday, 6 February 2023 13:43 (two years ago)
Bryan screaming for his mother and wailing to be spared was gut-wrenching. this particular civilian army (which they took pains to explain weren't Fireflies) seems to be forcing or at the very least highly encouraging very unwilling young people to participate, as Bryan seemed in over his head. most of the Fireflies or even FEDRA that are killed sort of just seem to accept it in their dying moments as part of the territory.
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 15:18 (two years ago)
the hesitancy to kill the doctor shows this is probably more of a fledgling operation, unlike the Fireflies.
Bryan screaming for his mother and wailing to be spared was gut-wrenching.
Yeah, that was rough — it reminded me of Unforgiven, honestly.
I like the way this show nudges right up to the edge of the expected and then fakes you out, like when they were in the woods and Joel was like, "Don't worry, nobody will find us," and then...nobody finds them. (Which is of course a fakeout leading up to the cliffhanger ending, but it was well done.)
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:06 (two years ago)
it also is another depiction of his warming up to Ellie. if he was sleeping outside by himself, with no Tess, he probably woulda just slept, but he responded to Ellie's very visible anxiety of being found.
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:21 (two years ago)
is a shame he spent multiple episodes getting to Bill and Frank's for working battery/vehicle, only to like, have his truck tires shredded days later and in a dangerous area where he can't realistically use it anymore.
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:25 (two years ago)
similar to that BBC show Survivors (the one from 2008) where it seems like every episode, someone's car is blowing up or getting the tires shot out and they just go "ok we'll just get another one' and pick another off the street. which they can't do in this show because the batteries are all dead and fuel degraded
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:27 (two years ago)
As far as subtle character beats go, it's of course implied Joel didn't sleep in the woods at all, and stayed awake vigilant, but in the later scene, having grown a little more comfortable with Ellie, he *does* fall asleep, and *that's* when they get caught.
The game, fwiw, is told more or less exclusively from the perspective of Joel and Ellie. I do appreciate how this show, while not opening super-wide, does open up enough to offer some stuff from other perspectives. Kathleen, for example, is not depicted in the game, but it's definitely plausible that she still "exists" in that world of militias and whatnot, even if we (players) didn't see her operating.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 16:31 (two years ago)
they should be looking for bicycles
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:38 (two years ago)
lol otm
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:44 (two years ago)
it's too bad in the show the outbreak occurs before E-Bikes were big, could have been hilarious bottle eps of someone trying to figure out how the unlock the damn things
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:46 (two years ago)
I always thought that back when I even bothered with the Walking Dead. I want to say I've only ever seen one zombie thing where they had bicycles, and it might have been ... World War Z? Like, the dumbest one.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 16:53 (two years ago)
scores and scores of people evading zombies in pedicabs
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 16:54 (two years ago)
One thing I liked about the Stand was how much time King spent on them getting the power working again, but there's limits to how interesting you can make that narrative. Not that I wouldn't watch a series that just focused on utilities and infrastructure in a post-apocalyptic world and didn't have zombies or lawless marauders.
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Monday, 6 February 2023 17:40 (two years ago)
Like, where is my Sim City: Fallout Edition
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Monday, 6 February 2023 17:41 (two years ago)
also easier to do successfully in a novel where you just read fragments at a time and stop when you feel like it. actually watching this is often less interesting (and as we've seen from all attempts, adapting The Stand has been a challenge, even though it's my favorite King book).
honestly I prefer post-apoc fiction where there isn't a group of semi-undead monsters chasing you because that gives survivors a common enemy that they can still rally to fight - yeah, there are still 'other humans' that are a problem, but it's easier to build coalitions when you're constantly facing off against thousands of zombies/similar. much more interesting watching society breakdown and all of niceties and social order of before crumbling and trying to navigate that, like how do you rebuild anything when you can't trust anybody's motivation?
(I still do like post-apoc w/ monsters, mind)
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 17:44 (two years ago)
and yeah there's plenty of that still present in TLOU, but remove the funguspeople and you'd probably see way more rogue survivalists, splinter factions, etc all competing for control, as well as naive folks who somehow want to reconstruct the neighborhood watch program or something
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 17:46 (two years ago)
Agreed. I gotta admit I got more psyched for the episode when Joel said they were too isolated to worry about the infected, it was "people" they had to worry about. Smart to lay off the zombies for a couple of episodes now.
― Brio2, Monday, 6 February 2023 18:01 (two years ago)
I would like an infrastructure-focused post-apoc video game because I think the widespread assumption that humans will descend in violent chaos is to some degree a myth. What you see in actual disasters is people coming together and helping one another. The whole Mad Max thing is just not what happens.
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Monday, 6 February 2023 18:07 (two years ago)
In Florida after a hurricane people usually rush to Twitter to complain Disney is closed
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 18:11 (two years ago)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 February 2023 18:23 (two years ago)
I think the widespread assumption that humans will descend in violent chaos is to some degree a myth. What you see in actual disasters is people coming together and helping one another. The whole Mad Max thing is just not what happens.
I dunno, if it was something that happened not just to Florida or Texas but to literally the entire planet? We have people in this country living like this right now, stockpiling weapons and food and flags and whatnot, and we don't even have fungus people. Hell, if all cell phone and internet service stopped tomorrow, how long until the looting and panicking starts? Plus, this show takes place 20 years after the disaster, so maybe things have had time to get better *and* worse.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 18:27 (two years ago)
‘Petty warlords’ does not seem an unlikely model in the event of total societal/governmental collapse
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 February 2023 18:56 (two years ago)
Even now, in the event of natural disaster we have 20% of the population with raging hard-ons for shooting looters and they’re the ones with most of the guns.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 February 2023 18:58 (two years ago)
In more positive news:
Over the end credits, we hear Lotte Kestner’s cover of New Order’s “True Faith.” Interestingly, this cover was the basis for a version of the song that (REDACTED) sang in a commercial for The Last of Us Part II, which prompted Kestner to tweet about the unauthorized use of her cover. Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann soon tweeted an apology for the “oversight” and said they were working to rectify it and that Kestner deserved recognition for her work. Hearing it featured here is a nice coda to the story, and hopefully gets Kestner’s lovely cover more recognition still.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 19:07 (two years ago)
in even more positive news, next episode comes out early! Out Friday, to avoid Superbowl on Sun.
― Brio2, Monday, 6 February 2023 20:24 (two years ago)
But doesn't that mean a longer wait for the episode after that?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 20:28 (two years ago)
I watched this week's episode over lunch today, on a Monday! Imagine the possibilities.
― mh, Monday, 6 February 2023 20:29 (two years ago)
HBO's adapting another iconic game pic.twitter.com/YtsIswwSBb— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) February 5, 2023
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 February 2023 20:42 (two years ago)
Very interesting video; Pascal guest hosted Inside The Actors Studio and interviewed Willem Dafoe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wrCxo_42eg
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 6 February 2023 21:26 (two years ago)
I am utterly certain that there was a decent Cracked piece including a good digression on bicycles.
Although I can't find the piece that first called this to my attention, there is now a rich literature of "why don't they use bicycles" that is beginning to rival "why didn't the Hobbits just use eagles" for rectonny fanwankery.
Still. Bicycles. It's become a tvtrope.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoBikesInTheApocalypse
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 6 February 2023 21:40 (two years ago)
More proof, if needed, of how good The Expanse is
― groovypanda, Monday, 6 February 2023 21:51 (two years ago)
I mean ultimately you're going to have the same petroleum-based problem with bikes, no replacement rubber tires available.
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Monday, 6 February 2023 21:52 (two years ago)
f. hazel, I read an extremely dreary science fiction series 30ish years ago where a time traveler went to medieval Europe and developed most of the technology required to make a bicycle, but still needed rubber, and embarked on a perilous expedition to Africa and etc. etc.
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 6 February 2023 21:59 (two years ago)
Clearly you don't know your bike history.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/8f/50/018f50376cfa03268374657ee4773219.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 February 2023 22:04 (two years ago)
like i said, society breaks down, i'm walking into the ocean
i ain't riding around town on a unicycle with no tire and just the rim
― sanguisug boggy bogg (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 February 2023 22:15 (two years ago)
I would merely make a run for the upper midwest and live on bison meat, they seem to be doing pretty well based on the last episode.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 February 2023 23:24 (two years ago)
right!?
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 February 2023 23:38 (two years ago)
Yeah, so boring fanwankery about bicycles aside, good episode, yes?I liked the dad jokes recurring through the episode. Really warmed to both main characters a lot.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 6 February 2023 23:44 (two years ago)
the jokebook stuff was great - i was similarly obsessed w a jokebook at ellie’s age & drove my family crazy w dumb jokes on car tripshim cracking up at the end was cute as hell
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 February 2023 23:47 (two years ago)
The jokebook, fwiw, is in the game, too.
Like I was saying earlier, Joel and Ellie are key to this, so it was so nice to get some time with the two alone.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 00:02 (two years ago)
agree
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 00:14 (two years ago)
Yeah, solid episode for sure - felt a tiny bit straight-ahead after the last couple, but I don't see how that could be avoided. Nice character development for Joel and Ellie, and I want to know more about this whole Kansas City post-FEDRA situation. Kinda hoping we'll get a flashback to what exactly went down. Seems like they've freshly liberated the city and are settling scores, maybe becoming the oppressors they just defeated a bit? Interesting dynamic. Is the Melanie Lynskey character in the game, or a show-only thing?
― Brio2, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 00:37 (two years ago)
Show only, and I wouldn't get your hopes up for much of a backstory of this location. In the game there are lots of locations like this one, run by militias or people otherwise independent of whatever government exists.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 01:25 (two years ago)
I love Melanie Lynskey! I hope there is more to her character than this “i have seen the face of the devil and his name is Henry” thing
― french testicle (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 05:27 (two years ago)
Also if there is a place in Georgia that is capable of making smuggleable drugs up to Boston as was indicated in the first episode, I would hope that humanity had the wherewithal to also make contraband canned ravioli while they’re at it
― french testicle (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 05:30 (two years ago)
found what I was looking for
https://www.cracked.com/article_19325_6-technologies-conspicuously-absent-from-sci-fi-movies.html
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 14:03 (two years ago)
A couple of those things can be sort of hand-waved away, but definitely not the absence of bikes.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 February 2023 14:16 (two years ago)
Someone should make a thread about that so people interested in boring on about it can go there.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, 7 February 2023 14:26 (two years ago)
Something that had been underwhelming about the series was Joel and Ellie, as in the game, the way they interact in the game is electric from the start. With the show, Joel is so much more muted that I found him dull to watch (maybe he just needs more sleep), and Ellie just didn't have anyone tip bother off of. Thankfully he's letting loose more, and the back and forth with the puns is charming. Lovely episode, with loads of nice little touches, like how when they go top sleep in the woods their backs are to each other, but in the office building she's facing him and he ends up facing her.
I also really appreciate when the show goes off script, since then I'm watching something for the first time. That said I was looking forward to the magazine gag.
― Shartreuse (Leee), Thursday, 9 February 2023 05:54 (two years ago)
sigh
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Thursday, 9 February 2023 06:08 (two years ago)
xpost That was the only issue I was having, especially knowing there are so few episodes left (relatively speaking). And going counter trends, it looks like the final episode is ... a shockingly short 40 minutes. But this episode showed how quickly TV can catch up, Joel and Ellie relationship-wise.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 9 February 2023 13:10 (two years ago)
looks like there's some twitter bullshit going on about Melanie Lynskey's character/type as being insufficiently post-apocalyptic: https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/melanie-lynskey-last-of-us-criticism.html
― Brio2, Thursday, 9 February 2023 19:08 (two years ago)
twitter is full of reactionaries now
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, 9 February 2023 19:19 (two years ago)
i wish petty fans like that could somehow be banned from watching the show
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Thursday, 9 February 2023 19:20 (two years ago)
"you could have, you know, not posted it" good advice for about 95% of the world including me
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Thursday, 9 February 2023 19:21 (two years ago)
When a show gets popular it becomes grist for everyone and their bullshit. Like the organized downvoting of the episode with the gay couple.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Thursday, 9 February 2023 19:22 (two years ago)
It's maybe not a coincidence that the few things that have attracted objection in this show so far are the things/characters new/different from the game. Just wait until you see their reaction to season/part 2, lol. They'll be complaining that the show is too faithful to the game.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 9 February 2023 19:52 (two years ago)
I do feel a bit like "single out a dumb tweet" is basically part of every PR strategy now... but Lynskey's comeback was pretty good, and I think does offer some insight into what's interesting about the show in how it imagines who and what would thrive after things fall apart.
― Brio2, Thursday, 9 February 2023 20:04 (two years ago)
Did people complain about Aunty Entity? I never questioned her qualifications. https://media.gq.com/photos/55a0142fdab0df6312e267b3/3:4/w_1256,h_1675,c_limit/mad-max-thunderdome-01.JPG
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 9 February 2023 20:09 (two years ago)
that dress seems very practical for the desert, unlike Lynskey's grim late fall yard work style
― Brio2, Thursday, 9 February 2023 21:32 (two years ago)
Well, that was fun.
They give Lynskey's character that much setup and backstory for...that? And was that King Kong Fungus-y dude in the game? Cause he felt more Resident Evil to me.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 11 February 2023 03:25 (two years ago)
Groot went evil
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 February 2023 03:35 (two years ago)
This was def more an action EP but the pursuit at the end was epic.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 February 2023 03:36 (two years ago)
I liked Lynskey's death because it illustrated that the monster she became rotted her and her resistance out from the inside. It was no longer about giving people freedom, it was about settling vendettas, and by needlessly pursuing Henry above all else, almost her entire army got overrun and killed.
I was very not ready for the downer ending
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 February 2023 03:45 (two years ago)
Big Fungus is in the game, but in a different context (one of the changes from the Bill story). Lynskey ... that's one of the challenges of this TV show. All the extra color not in the game is just that, extra. And all the setup and backstory not spent on Joel and Ellie is exactly that, too. Scenes from next week imply a few more tweaks as well.
I thought the actors playing Henry and Sam were great, very compelling.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 03:53 (two years ago)
lol boss fight
― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, 11 February 2023 06:54 (two years ago)
i know what they're trying to do here, but it's starting to feel a bit black mirror-ish when trying to fit so much backstory and emotional beats into 1-2 episodes (and i say this as a fan of ep. 3)... unavoidable defect of the medium i suppose
― 龜, Saturday, 11 February 2023 12:17 (two years ago)
I don't think it's a defect of the medium, I think it's a problem (relatively speaking) with how they are telling this story. That is, the emotional beats are very important, but the backstory/stories ... not so much. Bill and Frank, Lynskey, Indonesia, none of them are important to the story. They're nice or lovely or important or sad or all sorts of things, but they are secondary to the story of Joel and Ellie, who have gotten shockingly little one on one time for a show at the 50% (!) mark. I totally get that they are telling the story a different way, but that way seems a little rushed. I really liked this episode, but mostly for letting us watch Ellie have fun and be happy and be a kid (and also because the encounter with Henry and Sam *is* important, at least in the game). I know Ellie will be foregrounded soon enough, but a lot of the times in the show so far she and Joel almost seem like secondary characters.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 14:21 (two years ago)
I think i like this version of the story more than the one you’re describing from the game
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Saturday, 11 February 2023 17:07 (two years ago)
It may very well end up better! It all depends on how it, well, ends up.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 17:11 (two years ago)
Really it's because in the game you are, of course, playing as the central characters, so everything is more or less exclusively from their perspective. On the one hand, that generally doesn't allow for much development of other characters, as they pop up. But it does allow for a deeper development of the central pair, possibly in a way that this show can't achieve, which may explain the deviations. Little asides, conversations, interactions, discoveries. The biggest complaint I've heard about the changes to the Bill storyline is that in the game, Ellie and Bill have a really funny, character-building rapport. Likewise iirc Joel and Henry.
As far as gameplay goes, it's a weird brain thing, where you're playing *as* these characters while simultaneously recognizing them as something outside of you. So they don't win, the story doesn't move forward, there is no success, as such, without your input. And yet, the plot is preordained and totally external to you. A scripted show is obviously totally passive, so the experience becomes pretty different.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 17:19 (two years ago)
This is kind of the impression I'm getting too. Like, if I wanted to watch a playthrough of the game, I bet there's one on YouTube. This Andrea Long Chu piece, which delineates in some detail the way the game apparently limits the player's options the better to drag them toward the creators' desired finish line, makes me think they could have gotten a two-hour movie out of its action beats and big dramatic stings, but to do it at series length you need to create a wider world, which they seem to have done a really good job of doing.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 11 February 2023 17:20 (two years ago)
I'll have to watch that, but that's almost the exact opposite of my feeling. First, and I don't know how much difference this makes, I've been pretty careful not to spoil the game, and by extension spoil the show, so while it may not change your opinions, don't go by my mentions of the game as somehow indicative. But second, these games, and these in-game stories, are very carefully designed to get you to that desired finish line a very specific way, which by necessity limits the wider world, forcing you to focus on very specific things (including character development). You are constantly being channelled and directed, and in this case, the game is very very smart about it. (As I talked about on one of the game threads on another board, I just played the Last of Us sequel, after staying spoiler free for two years, and belatedly looking into reviews and whatnot, I was shocked/surprised at how closely my reactions were to the creators' specific intentions, happening exactly when and where they designed them to be. It was kind of uncanny.) So if anything, this show is an interesting experiment in disassembling a perfectly calibrated video game story and reconfiguring it into a more conventional show. Which tbf is a solid creative compromise; TLOU game takes maybe 15+ hours, so a movie would be too short. Whether the show, with its detours and new characters, pulls it off is tbd, though who knows, it may pull it off again, just differently. It's definitely been good so far.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 18:48 (two years ago)
I haven’t played the game and have no intention to. I’m mildly interested in how the show contrasts but honestly I’d love more takes that ignore the game.
As such the thing I’m most cautious about in the show is that they’ve done the same trick four or five times now, in only five episodes—which is to introduce characters who seem like central protagonists or antagonists, only to kill them off right away. It was powerful in episode one, surprising in episode two, predictable yet heartbreaking in episode three… now we’re at episode five and I guess this will just happen every time. It’s impacting my investment in the show. Even if the overarching framework is necessarily Joel and Ellie’s picaresque journey, does every character have to meet the same fate?
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Saturday, 11 February 2023 21:40 (two years ago)
I'm quite enjoying that aspect of it. If Lynskey and her cronies stuck around all season it would just feel like The Walking Dead.
― groovypanda, Saturday, 11 February 2023 22:37 (two years ago)
I honestly appreciate all the takes from people that have not played the game as well. Interesting to see how or how not the story hits differently.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 22:43 (two years ago)
yes I was just complaining about the “single use” characters, particularly given how good Henry and Sam were.
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 11 February 2023 23:02 (two years ago)
A Corpse of the week show
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 February 2023 23:09 (two years ago)
In the game (sorry), it's mostly been a long, lonely journey. The arrival of Henry and Sam offers the promise of companionship, friendship, opening up, which Ellie of course likes but even Joel seems to appreciate (iirc), only to have those hopes dashed. It's pretty impactful in the game, but I thought perhaps a little less so in the show, because yeah, it's done that a few times now.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 11 February 2023 23:14 (two years ago)
I'm a game player, and it is in fact my favorite game full-stop, but yeah, I wouldn't mind talking about the show on its own merits!
That said, I do want to note that the show is illustrating the different effects that each medium has, and even though the game leverages the same storytelling techniques of live-action films/tv, it has access to other avenues of audience connection that go beyond anything possible in film/tv (which I'm finding that the official podcast also delineates, albeit from a more film/tv perspective).
Speaking of which, having a slightly angle to the basic story shows is really starting to distill/outline the fundamental bones of the story, which in all incarnations never been particularly novel, but the execution is where it comes to life.
― Shartreuse (Leee), Sunday, 12 February 2023 01:21 (two years ago)
Game-free post for a change.
I've been thinking about the timing of episodes 3 and 4, and how that plays into the building relationship between Joel and Ellie, and how frozen it is in the first couple episodes, but how quickly it thaws. It might've felt unearned because of how quickly it starts to happen, but we're primed to it because the warmth of the Bill and Frank story lays a lot of the emotional structure that eases us into the next phase of Joel and Ellie's relationship. It feels organic, like strawberries.
― Shartreuse (Leee), Sunday, 12 February 2023 05:48 (two years ago)
On the topic of their thawing relationship, I still chuckle at Ellie’s diarrhea joke in episode 4, after the crazy intense day they had.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 12 February 2023 06:03 (two years ago)
that was a great episode. adaptations should be different from their source material. the end
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 12 February 2023 15:59 (two years ago)
one thing post-apoc shows can struggle with is endless journeying in an empty world, which can be interesting if there's stakes or at least some sort of rumination over the collapse of society, but it can get old fast. But this didn't.
Besides the great casting of Henry and Sam, the pursuit was well done and built perfectly in intensity. Joel hearing Lynskey on the radio indicating they were nearby was a great touch, as well as the anxiety of the moments where he's shooting their attacking fungus people to try and clear their way to safety.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Sunday, 12 February 2023 16:06 (two years ago)
Big mistake killing off ALL the new characters we've learned about AGAIN.feels very video game-y - level complete, on to the next, no looking back.They really gotta stop pulling the same trick every single episode. Almost felt self-parody this time.
Loved elements of it, but this was the first episode that really made me doubt the show.
― Brio2, Monday, 13 February 2023 18:39 (two years ago)
feeling a little like charlie brown and lucy with the football at this point - especially since the likeable characters die at pretty much the same narrative beat in every episode.
― Brio2, Monday, 13 February 2023 18:46 (two years ago)
I liked this episode. Get what you’re saying about the repetitive killing off of characters but…it’s nice to see a post apocalyptic setting where they mean it, you know? Probably the most video gamey feeling part of it was Ellie scrambling through the infected horse while Joel tries to pick them off. (If that’s in the game, don’t bother telling me, I don’t care.) I wish Sam had survived though, that was terrible. But let’s see where they go.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 13 February 2023 19:00 (two years ago)
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 13 February 2023 19:04 (two years ago)
I asked my wife (who loves the show but knows nothing about the game) what she thinks of them killing off all these characters she's just met, and she sort of shrugged and said "it's the post apocalypse, it makes sense that people would be dying all the time."
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:08 (two years ago)
I don't see why the characters inherently have to survive a long time. if it was that easy to stay alive, probably more significant rebellions would have squashed FEDRA and some semblance of restoring government on a less "military dictatorship" level may have begun gaining traction. FEDRA can keep control because it's difficult to avoid turning into a mushroom so it's easier for them to exert power.
not to mention in that ep, teh odds were pretty stacked w/ the rebellion against 4 civilians, a Cordycep army was probably the only thing springin Joel and Ellie to safety
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 13 February 2023 19:11 (two years ago)
If nobody dies then it's just another no-stakes feel-good episode of Doctor Who.
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 13 February 2023 19:20 (two years ago)
Coming to the show from a game-naive point of view, I don't know if it matters in the narrative if our pov characters leave an area with the impression the people they've met there are going to make it long-term. We're on a quest to get somewhere and there's no indication we're going to revisit any of these places. I don't need a spin-off show about the Kansas City rebellion.
If anything, we're seeing the different ways that people are not going to make it. The Bill/Frank episode was the happy ending, two people finding love, creating social bonds outside of their lonely community, and making it to what passes for old age in the post-apocalypse. That was, comparatively, a triumph compared to the FEDRA-controlled camps and the vengeance-fueled KC faction
― mh, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:33 (two years ago)
I kinda like that take. Not who is going to go, but how are they going to go, and on what terms?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:36 (two years ago)
It's right there in the title
― mh, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:38 (two years ago)
y’all ever read Roadside Picnic, Dhalgren, things of that nature?
― mh, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:55 (two years ago)
tbf I’ve never gotten around to The Road so I’m missing that part of the post-apocalyptic narrative milieu
― mh, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:57 (two years ago)
The Road is like Last of Us without the sense of humor.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 February 2023 19:57 (two years ago)
I don't have an issue with people dying, and it has been effective and of course it's logical for the world. Just feeling structurally that the deaths are coming with such a regular rhythm in the storytelling it just feels formulaic. Never a great sign when you can envision what the SNL parody of a show would be.
― Brio2, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:02 (two years ago)
I, for one, welcome the idea of the cast of SNL being infected with zombieshrooms and dying horribly
(Now that Vanessa Bayer has left. I liked her and so do not want her to die of shroomzombiness.)
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:06 (two years ago)
also the incessant death around them has the unintended and maybe surprising effect of making Joel and Ellie seem invincible, rather than vulnerable. They're Kirks in a sea of red shirts.
― Brio2, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:10 (two years ago)
xp sounds like a Sarah Sherman sketch tbh
― mh, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:10 (two years ago)
It IS formulaic, the video game is an extended riff on the escort mission video game trope, so at the end of every "chapter" you're going to see all the NPCs die or otherwise leave the narrative so the next chapter can begin with Joel and Ellie alone again.
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:11 (two years ago)
I don't think Dhalgren would make a very satisfying video game.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:12 (two years ago)
I don't feel like Joel and Ellie are invincible because I've only known these characters for a few hours of screen time, and we were introduced to Joel + Ellie + Tess who were together for two episodes of the five we've seen, and Ellie's already been bitten once. She just happens to be the magical child.
― mh, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:14 (two years ago)
i kinda like the way the show operates in dialog with the conventions of video game plot, ephemeral "missions" and all. because in the game (which nb i have not played), joel and ellie are not invincible, and in fact die horribly dozens upon hundreds of times per playthrough. it's fun for me to think of the series as a compilation of all the successful playthroughs, and all the times that joel accidentally fell off a building are on the cutting room floor.
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:16 (two years ago)
turns out every action movie ever made is just a cheater's speed run
― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:18 (two years ago)
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:20 (two years ago)
unrelated, but i just learned that the actress who plays marlene (in the game and the show) also played alyx in the half-life series. mind blown!
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:21 (two years ago)
Travels With Charley: Post-Apocalyptic Remix
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:21 (two years ago)
huh - I hadn't thought of the (obvious) fact that the protaganists inevitably die horribly again and again in the game whereas that can never happen in a regular narrative, kind of an interesting difference narratively.
Any way didn't mean to harp on and on about the deaths. It's really more of a pacing/narrative construction thing than anything. Maybe I just wanted to see Ellie and Sam hang out a bit more, that was nice.
― Brio2, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:27 (two years ago)
it's fun for me to think of the series as a compilation of all the successful playthroughs
the protagonists inevitably die horribly again and again in the game whereas that can never happen in a regular narrative, kind of an interesting difference narratively
This is literally the plot of "Edge of Tomorrow" - a film that was not adapted from a video game but borrows video game tropes. I am not a gamer (of this sort_ myself but I can see the same tropes nodded at in "Groundhog Day," "Ready Player One," and "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
Infinite tries to achieve a goal, frequent catastrophic disappointments, frequent tragedies - video game culture imports and adapts the preexisting epic and picaresque plot structures.
In a chicken/egg way I do believe that games and scripted entertainment and reality TV are on a collision course to eventually be all one type of product. Not sure exactly how this will play out but additional syntheses seem inevitable as long as the audience with disposable income is congruent with the audience for this sort of entertainment.
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:29 (two years ago)
I re-watched Edge Of Tomorrow this weekend. It really deserves more love than it gets; I think it’s one of Tom Cruise’s best movies.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:31 (two years ago)
It's great, Cruise makes a surprisingly great loser (acting!).
Was it the New Yorker piece on "The Last of Us" that brought up the issue of dying and dramatic stakes? I think either Mazin or Druckmann note the dynamic of video games is indeed "dying" and again and again, and the same goes for NPCs who are killed again and again and then reset for another round. Of course that doesn't work in a TV show, and they apparently put a lot of thought into the depiction of violence (vs. the game's more ... generous approach to the same).
A funny easter egg that game people liked about this episode is that when Perry is killed by the big monster fungus, his death is a direct nod to the way Joel repeatedly dies to the monster in the game.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:37 (two years ago)
NPCs who are killed again and again and then reset for another round
Kinda the job description of a zombie tbf
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:38 (two years ago)
xp the nymag piece by andrea long chu definitely brought up that issue
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Monday, 13 February 2023 20:44 (two years ago)
"Probably the most video gamey feeling part of it was Ellie scrambling through the infected horse"
I like this typo because of the specific alternate universe of video game tropes it imagines
― Evan, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:47 (two years ago)
lol I actually was like woah I missed the infected horse!
― Brio2, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:52 (two years ago)
Which is the bad Romero sequel where they realize the zombies might be perfectly happy eating animals rather than people? "Survival of the Dead"?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 February 2023 20:55 (two years ago)
"Groundhog Day," "Ready Player One," and "Everything Everywhere All at Once."
― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 13 February 2023 22:23 (two years ago)
Bandersnatch
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 13 February 2023 22:28 (two years ago)
man that ending wrecked mei think i hate the apocalypse, it’s TOO SADbut yeah re characters dying each episode, i mean it’s hard to invest to have them go out like that each time but i like it for the reasons mh noted upthreadand realizing that lynskey’s character wanted henry so that she could kill sam in front of him and just yknow get down with her old testament self was *shudder* … i was glad to see her go at that point, nowhere to go but down from there
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 06:18 (two years ago)
Just one more person saying "Edge of Tomorrow" has been underappreciated
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 06:24 (two years ago)
Melanie Lynskey has been killing people since 1994, y'all
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 07:12 (two years ago)
First episode of this was nice enough - did a good job of recreating the opening parts of the game (which is all I've played). I've been reticent about this because I mean, zombies AGAIN? But it seems to at least be trying a few new tricks at least.
I don't know if this is a problem with me and my dwindling attention span but I find a lot of American action-dramas like this a bit slow-going a lot of the time. Westworld was the first time I noticed this - lots of time being used so that caharacters can gaze into the middle-distance while dramatic music plays. I'm a busy man with things to do.
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 11:49 (two years ago)
How do you get to be like the huge fungus monster guy who came out of the pit?And why did he rip dude's head off I thought they were all just wanting to infect and assimilate?
― nashwan, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 12:16 (two years ago)
boss level portobello has achieved sentience and is a reet nasty one
― calzino, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 12:23 (two years ago)
zombies AGAIN?
In your headIn your headThey're still biting
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 12:41 (two years ago)
How do you get to be like the huge fungus monster guy who came out of the pit?
The game mythology is you get infected, then you go a little nuts, then you start to sprout, then you go full mushroom head, but if left alone for years or however long, the mushrooms cover your entire body in layers, making you pretty tough (in both senses). Why you would then turn into a rage monster, I have no idea. Maybe it was just mad to have been locked in the basement for so long.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 13:03 (two years ago)
there is def no thought put into it beyond “what if there was a really big guy,” this was the case with resident evil as well, it’s fine
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 13:08 (two years ago)
lol for sure that was the case with Resident Evil games/movies.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 13:13 (two years ago)
Yup working backwards from the game developer incentive to make a "boss" style zombie enemy.
― Evan, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 13:13 (two years ago)
I was listening to the official podcast, and it provides a pretty fascinating glimpse into the choices they made for the show. For example, why Sam, who is not deaf in the game, is deaf in the show. As they point out, in the game you never spend any time with just Henry and Sam, it's always those two along with Ellie and Joel. So Mazin thought to himself, hmm, how do we distinguish the relationship between Henry and Sam so that it's not more or less replicating the parental dynamic of Ellie and Joel? Their decision was to make Sam deaf, to give their relationship a different sort of intimacy, but also one less reliant on standard chatter or banter.
And then the next step was to find an actor who worked for what they wanted to do, which as you might expect, was kind of tough. They needed a black actor between the ages of 8-11 who was smaller than Bella Ramsey (who is not big), fluent in ASL (which is not a sure thing at that age, and also not Black ASL, which is also a thing), who, at the end of all that, could also act. They were striking out everywhere, so much so that Mazin eventually had their casting person put out an open call over *Twitter*. They thought they would get dozens of responses, but apparently they got ... five.
I love this kind of nuts and bolts stuff that reveals just how much thought and work they put into this adaptation. On the game thread I posted a keynote from Neil Druckmann that was filmed right after the game came out in 2013, and it was similarly illuminating.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 21:36 (two years ago)
That's fascinating. And the actor they got was so good!
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 00:06 (two years ago)
he was so good
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 00:12 (two years ago)
Okay first two episodes were big standard zombie fare, E3 hooked me right in. I'm a fan now
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 01:12 (two years ago)
I'm finding the podcast to lift the veil a little too much, like I'm reading along with the Cliff's Notes, which makes me feel dumb and lazy. I don't mind putting in some work when the text is as good as this is!
― Shartreuse (Leee), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 02:41 (two years ago)
So big mushroom guy is called a "bloater" in the game. The normal path of infection is runner->clicker->bloater (as discussed above). Yes it's a pretty obvious addition that solves the need for the game to have some diversity in foes and additional challenges. Also, when the body dies, the fungus continues to consume the body and spread a bunch of spores, however the show eschews this aspect of reproduction for some reason (get rid of masks? honestly curious why...), which is weird because I'm unaware of a single cordyceps fungus that doesn't reproduce via spores! What's confusing to me is it's somewhat implied that spores are what got in the food supply (in the show), causing the initial spread, but it's not mentioned or depicted since. This omission has diminished the utility of bloaters as well. In the game, they actually throw spore bombs at you from a distance.
Honestly, if the game or film was to depict cordyceps in humans realistically, they'd be runners for a bit, and then kamikaze in a crowd of humans and their body would spontaneously sprout appendages that would explode in spores very quickly. Would be super gross, but probably manageable, preventing the pandemic as it is depicted in game and film.
― octobeard, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 02:59 (two years ago)
if the game or film was to depict cordyceps in humans realistically
Yeah "realistically" isn't my favorite term when we are referring to murderous TV zombies.
How about "Non-Fun Fungals"?
"Shroomericans"?
"Sporesfans"?
"Shiitheads"?
"Those who have become Portabelligerent"?
― serif don't like it (rock the typeface) (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 03:25 (two years ago)
Fun Guys
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 03:33 (two years ago)
Fun Gals too!
― octobeard, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 03:43 (two years ago)
In the game, they actually throw spore bombs at you from a distance.
OK, this is the one thing I am now desperate to see incorporated into the show. Does this happen while you're climbing up a rickety scaffolding that tilts back and forth and eventually gives way, or running across a pathway over a lake of molten lava?
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 15 February 2023 12:50 (two years ago)
Ha, no, you're stuck in a relatively small space, running around for cover.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 13:11 (two years ago)
Good essay about the fundamental differences between the game and show, for those interested:
https://www.vox.com/culture/23598009/prestige-tv-hbo-play-game-last-of-us
It's basically spoiler-free, but this part I think conveys the crux of it:
The strength of the story is wholly dependent on how you feel about its two main characters. The game’s special trick is that it doesn’t need to convince you of their relationship, because it gives you custody over it.Take the events at Bill’s compound, which highlight two very different approaches. The show, operating from the prestige TV owner’s manual, must imagine Bill (Nick Offerman) as a fully realized human person, and basically succeeds. The only caveats are that Joel and Ellie are relegated to the episode’s margins and that Bill’s most colorful characteristic — his practical knowledge of shockingly sophisticated booby traps — is presented as a funny quirk, on par with his capable wine pairings.In the game, Bill and his traps are part of the same bravura set piece: a series of close calls in which Joel increasingly relies on Ellie. On your way to meet Bill you stumble, as Joel, into a snare trap that hoists you 10 feet into the air upside down, your POV flipped. As Ellie attempts to cut you loose, a wave of infected appear. You’re out of reach — but she’s not. They sprint to her. Your heart in your ears, you force yourself to adjust to this new position and dispatch the fungified threats to your surrogate daughter with a wobbly 9mm.Those five minutes make a masterclass of the game’s major modes: improvisation, disorientation, and dread. They also hint at an advantage inherent to the medium. In the game, Ellie’s survival is structural: you literally can’t go on without her. In the show, you merely expect her not to die. Death is the hallmark of any honest tour through post-apocalyptic America, and the game knows how to leverage it in ways the show cannot. There are, to be sure, dozens of deftly written and consistently grim cutscenes over the game’s roughly 15-hour runtime. But so much of its lingering power transmits through lightly scripted gameplay, and the constant low-grade suspense elicited any time you point Joel’s flashlight or pull his trigger. Even moments of relative peace or boredom feel freighted with anticipation, like when you rummage through a drawer for supplies and find a letter instead, or when you gingerly step through the rubble of a bombed-out metro station.
Take the events at Bill’s compound, which highlight two very different approaches. The show, operating from the prestige TV owner’s manual, must imagine Bill (Nick Offerman) as a fully realized human person, and basically succeeds. The only caveats are that Joel and Ellie are relegated to the episode’s margins and that Bill’s most colorful characteristic — his practical knowledge of shockingly sophisticated booby traps — is presented as a funny quirk, on par with his capable wine pairings.
In the game, Bill and his traps are part of the same bravura set piece: a series of close calls in which Joel increasingly relies on Ellie. On your way to meet Bill you stumble, as Joel, into a snare trap that hoists you 10 feet into the air upside down, your POV flipped. As Ellie attempts to cut you loose, a wave of infected appear. You’re out of reach — but she’s not. They sprint to her. Your heart in your ears, you force yourself to adjust to this new position and dispatch the fungified threats to your surrogate daughter with a wobbly 9mm.
Those five minutes make a masterclass of the game’s major modes: improvisation, disorientation, and dread. They also hint at an advantage inherent to the medium. In the game, Ellie’s survival is structural: you literally can’t go on without her. In the show, you merely expect her not to die. Death is the hallmark of any honest tour through post-apocalyptic America, and the game knows how to leverage it in ways the show cannot. There are, to be sure, dozens of deftly written and consistently grim cutscenes over the game’s roughly 15-hour runtime. But so much of its lingering power transmits through lightly scripted gameplay, and the constant low-grade suspense elicited any time you point Joel’s flashlight or pull his trigger. Even moments of relative peace or boredom feel freighted with anticipation, like when you rummage through a drawer for supplies and find a letter instead, or when you gingerly step through the rubble of a bombed-out metro station.
I've also been learning more about the gaming concept of “ludonarrative dissonance," of which "Last of Us" has played a major part of the discourse.
Anyway, psyched for another episode!
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 19 February 2023 20:47 (two years ago)
Good article, thanks! I got a PS5 in December (my previous console was an Xbox360) for 2 main reasons: to have an Ultra-HD disc player and to play TLOU. I completed Part 1 about a month ago, and Part 2 about a week ago; both destroyed me, emotionally - no other games have come anywhere close, regarding emotional impact (although I don't play a ton of games, maybe 2 a year on average).Yes to "improvisation, disorientation, and dread" - the dread in both TLOU games hit me like very few movies have ("The Wages of Fear" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" come to mind) and it's sustained for long periods of time. Other factors in the game vs. TV show experience:** Feeling of accomplishment from the game (puzzle solving, or defeating a tough enemy)** Relationship building - you're spending dozens of hours with these (fictional) people. I'm reminded of the study about friendships that said it takes 40-60 hours to form a "casual friendship". When playing as Joel, Ellie will help out during combat situations, and you're thinking "aw, thanks for stabbing that guy, kiddo, that's sweet of you." I'm also reminded of Bioshock Infinite, where Elizabeth constantly is giving you money or ammo that she finds.** 1st person empathy (playing as a character, not just viewing), to understand irrational or unethical behavior - taken to its extreme in Part 2, particularly. Spoilers: there's the "trolley problem" ethical dilemma aspect of Part 1, and we see the flip side of that dilemma more in depth in Part 2, and morally ambiguous behavior (e.g. killing Abby's father, rather than maybe just tying him up or knocking him out? Or Ellie killing Owen and Mel, kinda of out of self-defense but not really because she was the instigator and would have killed them even if they cooperated?) from people we want to root for.
― ernestp, Sunday, 19 February 2023 22:34 (two years ago)
When the zombiepocalypse comes, I am really hoping that at least some people will still be choosy about wine pairings. We are not savages, after all.
― nat king cole slaw (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 19 February 2023 23:30 (two years ago)
goddamn mushroom zombie show making me cry all the goddamn time wtf
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 04:58 (two years ago)
when all of the monkeys were roaming freely outside the labs I thought Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe were gonna show up
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 20 February 2023 05:01 (two years ago)
bring on twitchy brad pitt
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 05:29 (two years ago)
I did enjoy the kids at the movie showing looking only semi-enthused. anybody born after 2003 has no frame of reference for movies made about normal lives they never had.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 20 February 2023 05:45 (two years ago)
what was the movie they were watching?
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 06:10 (two years ago)
It’s a commune… we’re communists honey.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 20 February 2023 06:41 (two years ago)
Yeah the reductivist binary explanations of socioeconomic life certainly project present day worldviews more than anything I've seen so far this season
― octobeard, Monday, 20 February 2023 09:44 (two years ago)
Herbert Ross'/Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl." Every kid's favorite.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 20 February 2023 13:30 (two years ago)
Anyway, another really good episode, with a surprising number of subtle details from the game's sequel sneaking in there. However, seeing what next week's episode seems to be, and knowing there are only three more episodes left, I remain surprised that they didn't try to squeeze a 10 episode season out of this, because I know what the final two episodes have to be after next week's and it feels a bit rushed. Or maybe it's just that the show is really good and I want it to last longer, lol!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 20 February 2023 14:42 (two years ago)
Best episode since the first two in my opinion (maybe surprising since I've been a "more fungus" guy but I didn't love what they did with more fungus in ep 5.) I think this show is better when it's low-key and funny and worse when it strives for big emotional beats -- like in this one, the "no you take it from here brother I can't lose my daughter AGAINNNNNNN" business felt set-up and forced but there were so many small good, moments, especially with Ellie, who was kind of unleashed this episode. Like when she sees a dam and quietly says "Dam."
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 20 February 2023 14:52 (two years ago)
word for word. recreating one of the best most emotional scenes in tlou. pedro and bella are hands down the perfect joel and ellie. DOWN TO THE TONE THEYRE INSANE #TheLastOfUs pic.twitter.com/10JRmUKLrr— joel miller defender tlou era (@ellievjoel) February 20, 2023
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 20 February 2023 15:01 (two years ago)
And, and totally missed the visual pun of Joel breaking down as he struggled to repair his cracked ... sole.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 20 February 2023 16:11 (two years ago)
This episode was pretty good. The "We're communists" part made me laugh, as did Ellie's excitement when they got to campus. "First time seein' a monkey?" "First time seein' a monkey."
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 20 February 2023 17:05 (two years ago)
looking forward to the eventual payoff when Joel finally singsfingers crossed for merle haggard
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 17:20 (two years ago)
Spoiler question for people that know the game: assuming next week is Left Behind, does that mean they are going to make people wait two weeks to find out Joel's fate? Or do you think next week will be largely Left Behind, with bits of Ellie helping Joel?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 20 February 2023 18:09 (two years ago)
I'm hoping it's all flashback. Very enthusiastic about the idea that they'll show (not tell) some of Ellie's QZ history
― Blessed Bloated Burdened (flamboyant goon tie included), Monday, 20 February 2023 18:42 (two years ago)
Response to Josh's question (spoilers): my guess is that they'd want Joel in every episode, at least a little (e.g. Ep 3). The Wiki page for the TV show has the next episode's title as "Left Behind" - they could even mirror the DLC, bouncing back and forth btwn Ellie/Riley and Ellie/sick Joel in the mall setting. I like the changes the show has made so far, diverging from the game; it seemed implausible in the game for Ellie to steal a horse and escape a fortified compound, so they changed that in Ep 6 and made it just as emotionally effective.
― ernestp, Monday, 20 February 2023 19:43 (two years ago)
A very nice touch in this episode is that when you first see Tommy he's setting up a scaffold that LOOKS a lot like the nooses we saw set up for public FEDRA executions in the Boston QZ (or was that KCQZ?) but it's just a headfake and when you see it closer up he's just doing some kind of normie construction.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 20 February 2023 19:49 (two years ago)
yes otm, i def thought it was a noose at first
― la vie wokisme (voodoo chili), Monday, 20 February 2023 19:58 (two years ago)
part of me was ugh Joel you fucking idiot why are you pushing tommy away this place is DOPE you both could just stay here & like maybe live a life & trade for shoes & board shorts & fucking pizza even who knows but noooo you have to be the world’s biggest stubborn grump who rejects love in all forms because you love mushrooms & sadness most in life i guess idk
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 20:07 (two years ago)
The contractorWhat a great episode. I really liked all the emotional to and fro, and also Rutina Wesley! What the fuck was that ending though, I said “what the fuck, how is this the end,” and my better half said, “HE’S NOT DEAD.”They tied together a lot of obvious but so far implicit stuff - Ellie as Sarah replacement or not, Tommy and Joel and their whole relationship and differences, and also we got some classic upskilling. The horse must be well trained to not try bolting at the sound of gunfire.Having said all that, I could do without the wispy John Lewis ad covers. Just do an instrumental!
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Monday, 20 February 2023 22:44 (two years ago)
people loved contractors
― la vie wokisme (voodoo chili), Monday, 20 February 2023 22:47 (two years ago)
I know! Loved that whole interlude
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:03 (two years ago)
that was great, a+ comedy no notes
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:32 (two years ago)
oh shit also ELAINE MILES aka the goat aka Marilyn from Nothern Exposure + Graham Greene the other goat!!! so awesome— also Ellie’s behaviour in their presence would qualify her as being, to paraphrase Rez Dogs, a shitass
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:36 (two years ago)
Omg the menstrual cup and her reaction 🤭
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:52 (two years ago)
YES I KNOW
I didn’t recognize either of them on first viewing but I said “I know those two… like they’re a comedy duo or a real-life couple or something” and then saw their names in the credits. (It’s been a long time since I watched Northern Exposure!)
― pee change (flamboyant goon tie included), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:52 (two years ago)
xp to VG :)
I recognized Graham Greene right away but I've seen him in a million things. The woman I had only ever seen in one or two episodes of Northern Exposure so I knew I recognized her face (and especially her voice) but not from where. They were hilarious. "Did you tell them the truth?...Are you telling me the truth?"
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:56 (two years ago)
can’t believe I didn’t connect her
Northern Exposure was one of many reasons I almost didn’t pass Calculus 2 in college, because I’d do the homework an hour before class at 3pm and Northern Exposure was in syndicated reruns at 2pm
― mh, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 00:21 (two years ago)
Great job maintaining a sense of dread waiting for the town's big evil secret to be revealed ("kids don't talk like that here" - oh are they psycho fundies?!?! - oh no they just have normal kids) but no, just a pretty sweet setup.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 00:31 (two years ago)
lol me too. the moment Ellie walked into Tommy's wife's house I was expecting her to discover something (and she did, yes, that Joel's daughter's name was Sarah, but that isnt' what I was thinking she might find out).
i wouldn't mind living in a town like that right now tbh
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 00:33 (two years ago)
I found myself mulling over lots of tedious questions about their power supply and apparently functional sewerage system and its maintenance and whatnot. The wrong way to watch it obv.
― calzino, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 00:48 (two years ago)
I guess it’s easier to keep the sewers from overflowing when 99% of people are dead
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 01:22 (two years ago)
I admitted I was doing it wrong! But lots of sewer networks rely on pumps and constant maintenance and fatberg removal or maybe blocked by thousands of corpses. I know a lot of hydro-generators can run for decades unmaintained after the collapse of human civilisation, but the electrical grids they feed need a lot of maintenance and repair work. Yes I am doing this wrong!
― calzino, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 01:57 (two years ago)
LolI just handwave all that, if they don’t mention it I don’t care
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 02:09 (two years ago)
i didn't realize the random girl in the camp that joel sees when he has another panic attack was supposed to remind him of sarah until they showed a sarah flashback later on. it's been a while!
― 龜, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 02:12 (two years ago)
I'm really glad they have been sparing with the flashbacks of her, cos it helps illustrate just how far Joel has had to shove her into the recesses of his brain to just wake up every day.
if this was a Paramount Plus Original she'd have been popping up every episode with Charlie Puth "See You Again" playing each time she comes on screen
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 02:16 (two years ago)
they should’ve played the smashing pumpkins cover of “never let me down” instead of the weepy piano cover at the end. otherwise another excellent episode
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 02:56 (two years ago)
otm! i love the pumpkins cover
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 03:11 (two years ago)
Stayed up way toooo late last night watching e4 + e5.. I'm hooked.
Loved Kathleen as a performance - like a sadistic primary school teacher. We didn't see her die, and her onscreen fate was unsatisfying, so I hope that's not the last of her
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 09:54 (two years ago)
In pretty much everything she's been in, she was one of the best things about it.
― nat king cole slaw (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 13:06 (two years ago)
I didn’t think that scene left any ambiguity about Kathleen’s survival!
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 13:11 (two years ago)
If it's possible without major spoilage - do we know where this season ends narratively? Will this season for sure take us up to the end of the first game?
― Brio2, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 13:49 (two years ago)
Yes.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:10 (two years ago)
Game 2 will apparently be split into two seasons, iirc.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:11 (two years ago)
Interesting. I imagine they'll be tempted to milk it for more than 3 seasons. Kind of surprised they didn't split the first game into two seasons, feels a bit rushed already. That said, I do like that it isn't open-ended and they're working toward a conclusion of sorts unlike The Walking Dead sprawl. (I gave up on WD after two seasons or so, so what do I know... just seems to have gone on way too long).
― Brio2, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:19 (two years ago)
I didn’t think that scene left any ambiguity about Kathleen’s survival!― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, February 21, 2023 1:11 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, February 21, 2023 1:11 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
Hehe, well to me it looked like one of those screen "deaths" that point towards "aha, gotcha, she survived!"
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:23 (two years ago)
On reflection I think "People loved contractors" might be the best line in the show's entire run so far.
Not just because it's funny -- but because it speaks to the way that when everything's broken you have to / get to create a new world, and part of making up a new future is making up a new past
And this has something to do with parenting, too -- lots of people in the show insist in dialogue that Joel doesn't get to revise or forget his years as a murderer/thief/raider but .... maybe he actually does? Maybe Ellie gets to grow up in a world where Joel was a good guy doing what he had to do and people loved contractors.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:34 (two years ago)
xp i mean it would undermine the premise of the whole show (ellie must be protected because she is the only one immune to the cordyceps) if kathleen survived as anything other than a fungus monster
― la vie wokisme (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:38 (two years ago)
I am not sure we watched the same scene, Kathleen got fairly obviously mauled and the only reason there’s a cut there is cos it’s clearly a fairly gruesome death.
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:43 (two years ago)
It was pretty late at night when I saw it, so I may have just been being dozy. I was actually hoping for a slower more serendipitous demise considering what a terror she was - too good a character to just knock-off in just one episode, but if that's the way it is that's the way it is
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 15:00 (two years ago)
It's another example imo of spending a bit too much time on a character that is totally inconsequential, good actor/character or no. Because I do feel this season has been rushed, or at least has not been spending time on the more important stuff, which makes the more important stuff seem rushed. Not that this matters, everyone on this thread seems to be enjoying it!
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 15:05 (two years ago)
Xp I don’t necessarily mind that personally, sometimes a relatively small part like that can pack an extra punch precisely because the screentime is so short.
― better than whoever you are (gyac), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 15:16 (two years ago)
it was a great episode, but two minor things just pulled me out it a little:
1) they just had two empty horses for Joel and Ellie when they were out on patrol? none of them were doubled up when they got back to down2) at the campus, Joel just lightly looped the horse's reins over a branch without even attempting a basic know. good thing nothing happened that might have startled the horse!
(obvs tiny nitpicks, I'm really digging this show!)
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 15:21 (two years ago)
was annoyed that joel left the horse without his backpack
also, those are in general awfully small backpacks to have backpacked across the US with... guessing REIs/patagonias were the stores that were first looted?
― 龜, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 16:37 (two years ago)
This is why I hate posting from my phone, "got back to TOWN" and "a basic KNOT", obvs.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 21 February 2023 16:41 (two years ago)
Probably reading too much into it but was wondering if that that was a videogame type nod as in TLOU, Red Dead Redemption etc, hitching your horse basically entails just throwing the reins over a pole, branch, whatever
― groovypanda, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 17:09 (two years ago)
I think I read somewhere (and maybe horsey people know) that horses can more or less be trained to stay put if you just throw the reigns on the ground or in a tree, the same way a dog can be trained to heel.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 17:15 (two years ago)
Just found out that one of the creators of The Last of Us rooted the story in his perspective on Israel’s occupation. He grew up as a settler in the West Bank and the story is largely rooted in a settler’s perspective on the futility of “cyclical violence” and I hate it so much.— James Ray ☭ (@GoodVibePolitik) February 20, 2023
― 龜, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 17:38 (two years ago)
Caught up last night, and it was good, although the best scenes were where it introduced new material (as has been the case for the whole series IMO).
― Shartreuse (Leee), Thursday, 23 February 2023 01:25 (two years ago)
jon wrote:
1) they just had two empty horses for Joel and Ellie when they were out on patrol? none of them were doubled up when they got back to down
Right, that seemed odd, but to me, and this may or may not have been intentional, it symbolizes the level of closeness right before and after Ep 6's emotional peak. Before, they're each alone on separate horses; after, they're sharing a horse and Ellie is clinging to Joel.
― ernestp, Thursday, 23 February 2023 04:51 (two years ago)
at the campus, Joel just lightly looped the horse's reins over a branch without even attempting a basic know. good thing nothing happened that might have startled the horse!
Watched it back and he kind of pushes the reins into the vee of the branch, which might have been deep enough to prevent the horse from getting away.
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Thursday, 23 February 2023 07:23 (two years ago)
every time Gabriel Luna shows up I want to scream "look out, he's a Terminator!"
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 24 February 2023 02:22 (two years ago)
I assumed he did it to keep the horse from wandering off by itself, but also to let it get away if something really bad happened. Surely you'd want the horse to be able to escape if there's proper danger?
― trishyb, Friday, 24 February 2023 13:33 (two years ago)
^ that was my thought also
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 24 February 2023 15:47 (two years ago)
Yeah, that makes sense too I suppose, I just was prepared for something to happen on that campus and, watching him do that, I couldn't help put picturing the horse getting spooked and leaving them well and truly fucked.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 24 February 2023 15:49 (two years ago)
Wow, great episode.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 27 February 2023 03:18 (two years ago)
Would love to actually see it if the HBO Max app weren't glitching/freezing. Internet connection speed testing fine but ep continually freezing
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 February 2023 03:30 (two years ago)
Here we go.
Lol @ the "back in 5 minutes" sign
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 27 February 2023 04:04 (two years ago)
boring ep imo
― k3vin k., Monday, 27 February 2023 04:34 (two years ago)
I think we can all agree it was an episode.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 27 February 2023 05:25 (two years ago)
whatevs you two bummertowns i’m w Josh this was a great episode lots of feels! and i really enjoyed seeing Ellie so happy, seeing what she lost etcmr veg and i had a wry lol at ellie listening to pearl jam’s riot act on her walkman. the apocalypse setting prob improves that album’s mood significantly lol
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 27 February 2023 06:43 (two years ago)
and am i crazy or was the carousel playing some kind of calliope version of the cure’s just like heaven?
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 27 February 2023 06:44 (two years ago)
Yeah it was
― nate woolls, Monday, 27 February 2023 08:57 (two years ago)
Yes, it’s from one of those indie-music-for-babies albums.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 27 February 2023 10:39 (two years ago)
My wife actually thought this was maybe the tensest episode yet. That's what happiness on this show has trained us to expect.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 27 February 2023 13:04 (two years ago)
Did only late 80s/early 90s music survive the zombie apocalypse?
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 27 February 2023 15:01 (two years ago)
Tbf, she was listening on a Walkman, right? So that means cassettes, which means the era of peak cassette, which means '80s and early '90s, right? Anyway, she was listening to early '00s Pearl Jam on her Walkman.
Would have been funny if all they had to listen to was copies of REM's "Monster," though.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 27 February 2023 15:22 (two years ago)
This was the first episode I got bored and skipped forward through. Yeah, yeah, they're having fun, romance is blooming...when do they get attacked? Skip, skip, skip...OK, here we go.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 27 February 2023 15:47 (two years ago)
lol, doubling down on the "we need *more* zombies!" side of the debate.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 27 February 2023 15:53 (two years ago)
That's the thing — I'm not someone who wishes this show was The Walking Dead. I hated that show. It was more like, given the essential nature of this show, where everything always ends tragically, it was inevitable that they were gonna get bit, so I found myself sitting there thinking "when are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?"
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 27 February 2023 16:11 (two years ago)
not to be one of those people – but how long would a cassette reasonably last for? some of the ones i had in the 90s do not sounds very good anymore (yes i went back and listened to them a few years ago).
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 27 February 2023 16:59 (two years ago)
I dug it, though the post-apocalyptic queer romance angle of it can't help but suffer a bit in comparison to the tremendous Episode 3. But I bought their chemistry and liked seeing them have as close to they could to the best night of their lives. Like Episode 3, the strongest moments to me were in showing the power of small shared joys in this world.
I think there's o ne could make a fair critique of these episodes both falling into the "Bury Your Gays" trope where queerness, especially queer happiness = death. Though everyfuckingbody dies on this show so maybe not as much of a thing here as elsewhere. HBO does lean into this a lot though.
Otherwise, I liked the world-building of Kwong making the case for FEDRA, while acknowledging it's still a pretty miserable existence. Would have liked to see a bit more of that inside FEDRA perspective: the culture of the military school, and the anti-Firefly propaganda that Ellie's been steeped in, etc.
― Brio2, Monday, 27 February 2023 18:16 (two years ago)
Speaking of 90s music
"we need *more* zombies!"
In your head, in your head
― nat king cole slaw (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 27 February 2023 18:48 (two years ago)
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, February 27, 2023 bookmarkflaglink
Interesting, I thought it was the least tense because the conclusion was inevitable. Other than wondering when and how the jump scare was going to come, there was nothing to anticipate here.
Mixed feelings on this episode. Because the acting is still top notch and I really felt the dynamic between the two characters. So as a character study it was great.
On the other hand this is kinda turning into Tragic Gilligan's Island, with a special guest star joining the cast in their weekly plight... only in this case the guest star will absolutely get murdered by the end.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 27 February 2023 18:52 (two years ago)
Thought the FEDRA vs Fireflies debate bits were boring, neither side is going to be fleshed out enough to be interesting and the conflict seems mostly irrelevant to the core story anyway.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 27 February 2023 19:26 (two years ago)
empire vs rebels template
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 27 February 2023 19:48 (two years ago)
ok then
― Brio2, Monday, 27 February 2023 20:21 (two years ago)
Feel sorry for anyone who didn’t like this.
But I bought their chemistry and liked seeing them have as close to they could to the best night of their lives. Like Episode 3, the strongest moments to me were in showing the power of small shared joys in this world.
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 27 February 2023 22:24 (two years ago)
Love the fact they showed one of the best fatalities in Mortal Kombat II but would an arcade in 2003 have had that game and errrr Joust? Maybe? MKII was easily ten years old by then.
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 27 February 2023 23:40 (two years ago)
I’m almost always into coming of age stories about people who are living much different lives than I’ve lived tbh
― mh, Monday, 27 February 2023 23:42 (two years ago)
I like the idea of this one as a mirror/inversion of ep 3, nicely said
― Brio2, Tuesday, 28 February 2023 00:23 (two years ago)
Sweet episode, superbly acted, but I agree with unperson that it maybe wasn't the most exciting because we knew where it was heading.
That said, I know it's an old trope but this show really hammers home the fact the least scary thing in zombie films are the zombies themselves. They just look a bit silly when you finally see them, so I'm glad their screen time is left to a minimum
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Tuesday, 28 February 2023 00:25 (two years ago)
Technically if it was a 2003 era abandoned arcade there should a been a DDR machine with cobwebs.
I loved the ep though.
It wasn't entirely like EP 3 in that it explored the pain of two young women who either didn't know or barely knew normalcy, both having been brought up through a creepy fascist military regime, and having different reactions to it
Ellie's programmed responses aren't shocking as she's never been outside of that bubble.
We all knew what was coming, but that wasn't really the highlight of the episode
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 28 February 2023 03:25 (two years ago)
Well, whoever dressed the set for the arcade scene knew the pinball heads who were watching would get a kick out of the conspicuously placed Medieval Madness machine
― lurching toward (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 28 February 2023 06:10 (two years ago)
what the arcade really needed
https://www.videoamusement.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Top-skater-skateboarding-Arcade-Game-rental.jpg
― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, 28 February 2023 07:49 (two years ago)
Has anyone watched any of DMZ, the other HBO post-apocalyptic virus show?Thoroughly trashy Warriors/Escape From NY retread with a 2020's virus/civil war fixation update. Kind of horrible, but possibly fun hot garbage from what I saw of the first episode.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 28 February 2023 18:35 (two years ago)
If it had been released much earlier I'd have been intrigued, but the people working on the show had to qualify they were deviating strongly from the (not great, tbh) source material by a writer who had a number of me too-style allegations. After the reviews for the show were kind of meh, I didn't feel like navigating that quandary
― mh, Tuesday, 28 February 2023 18:46 (two years ago)
aw jeez did not know any of that, it's definitely missable
― Brio2, Tuesday, 28 February 2023 18:51 (two years ago)
I just listened to the podcast recap episode, and remarkably, most of that mall was FX! They had a tiny little part of a decommissioned single-story mall in Calgary that was basically the escalators and not much else. So the entire view of the mall coming online, that was all FX. Not only that, the entire second floor was FX, so every time you saw the second floor, even from the single-story soundstage set, that was apparently all created as well. Pretty incredible.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 28 February 2023 20:24 (two years ago)
I actually thought Riley was a bit of a weak point in the acting when the scene calls for solemnity; I think she handles the fun scenes a lot better. Bella Ramsey making puppy dog eyes at her on the carousel was extremely powerful, though.
― Shartreuse (Leee), Wednesday, 1 March 2023 04:04 (two years ago)
Yeah, I'd agree. Charismatic and likeable, and very believable that Ellie would crush on her - but a bit wooden in the dramatic parts.
― Brio2, Wednesday, 1 March 2023 18:14 (two years ago)
I thought this episode was interestingly complicated but by the end I was confused and thought maybe I wasn't *supposed* to take it as interestingly complicated? Like, that whole opening scene when Riley breaks in read very tensely to me -- Ellie has boundaries that she expresses and Riley just steamrolls her -- their entire dynamic is Riley saying "You don't know what you want, I know what you want." And then she brings Ellie to a place Ellie's not supposed to go, a place which is very dangerous, and where -- if not for a miracle immunity nobody in the story knows about -- Ellie would have been killed. Obviously Riley has sympathetic aspects too, just as the Fireflies do, but I understood her to be a sort of personification of what's morally ambiguous and kind of nervous-making about the whole Firefly project -- it's exciting, it appeals to the part of you that wants to feel you Matter, but at the same time, you know, people get killed, and to what end is not totally clear.
But I think what I saw when I watched this was probably not actually what was in it.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 1 March 2023 19:34 (two years ago)
I think she thought the mall was safe. She was living there or temporarily camping out there. She turns on all the lights and makes as much noise as she wants. The stray zombie was a total surprise.
Ellie mentioned what she was told - that it is full of infected, but that wasn't true. The dangerous part was supposed to be the trip there sneaking around patrols.
― Evan, Wednesday, 1 March 2023 20:01 (two years ago)
Also she broke into her own room (at least as of just two weeks ago according to their exchange).
― Evan, Wednesday, 1 March 2023 20:04 (two years ago)
If you're keeping up with "The Last of Us," you definitely remember last week's ethereal, gorgeous but you-know-it-won't-last carousel scene featuring Ellie and Riley.If you recognized the music as the melody from The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," you might have accurately clocked it as a Rockabye Baby! cover. Or if you didn't recognize it right away, you might have been one of the people that helped shoot the RBB song to #1 on Shazam's most discovered songs.
If you recognized the music as the melody from The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," you might have accurately clocked it as a Rockabye Baby! cover. Or if you didn't recognize it right away, you might have been one of the people that helped shoot the RBB song to #1 on Shazam's most discovered songs.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 2 March 2023 18:07 (two years ago)
Confession: we had a bunch of those Rockabye Baby CDs back in the oughts. When we had babies and a CD player.
I remember feeling embarrassed, because I'd been successfully target-marketed. "You are a parent, but you still like rock music. No 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' for you, no; your offspring should drift off to sleep to the pleasant sounds of Smashing Pumpkins being played by a plinky celesta synth patch."
But I am a sucka and fell for it. I remember the U2 and Cure ones being kinda cute.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qwkAAOSwQaZexicK/s-l500.jpg
But it has the same energy as that Onion piece: https://www.theonion.com/cool-dad-raising-daughter-on-media-that-will-put-her-en-1819572981
― nat king cole slaw (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 2 March 2023 18:17 (two years ago)
I had a bunch for free. I want to say go-tos were Depeche Mode, Rush, AC/DC. They were most useful because as toddlers our kids liked us to stay in the room until they fell asleep, so these let us listen to lullabies that didn't drive us nuts.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 2 March 2023 18:39 (two years ago)
uh adored this episode but i love lesbians
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 4 March 2023 19:47 (two years ago)
This show has less whining than that piece of shit “Fishsman is in trouble” so
― calstars, Sunday, 5 March 2023 01:33 (two years ago)
holy fuck that was darkterrifying emotionally drainingi need to take a sad nap now i love this show so much but GOD
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 March 2023 06:39 (two years ago)
Felt sort of blunted by how short that was, felt like it could have been two episodes
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 March 2023 08:40 (two years ago)
Fwiw, this is the first episode that didn't really hold my wife's attention, because the baddie is such an obvious villain, and very akin to similar villains we've seen in countless similar scenarios. Posted on the other thread, but this episode did feel weirdly rushed, as has the season as a whole, imo, which really does feel like it needed an extra episode in there somewhere to flesh some stuff out. I'm a little surprised, since the creators seem to have had carte blanche, and while I see why they'd want to tweak and expand the story the way they have, I'm not always sure why they compressed it where they did. Anyway, still great stuff, looking forward to reactions to the final episode.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 March 2023 12:18 (two years ago)
I didn't feel all that rushed to me, beyond maybe Joel's healing. But I had the opposite experience as Josh's wife, I thought this one was gripping as hell. Of course you knew he was the bad guy from the start, but how they just kept peeling back layers of how awful he really was - first assaulting the grieving girl, then the cannibalism, then Ellie.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 6 March 2023 15:52 (two years ago)
Yeah, it was pretty intense.
FWIW, in the game (and this is not really a spoiler but just in case) you play this section as Ellie, and initially you and David team up to fight a bunch of mushroom monsters, which builds trust before the reveal, and might have at least temporarily averted this show's character introduction tropes/traps. But it also provides an extended period of time spent with Ellie on her own, surviving solo, which thematically might have deserved more emphasis in the show. Without changing anything about this episode, I would have extended it or split it into two, the first with Ellie surviving, then David, then captured; the second with Ellie fighting for herself/escaping and Joel, separately, desperate to find her. Otherwise, a lot of the scenes in this episode were almost beat for beat straight from the game.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 March 2023 16:13 (two years ago)
I knew David was evil as soon as I saw the Bible
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 March 2023 17:04 (two years ago)
he didn’t seem like an obvious villain to me (and please dont pile on w how obvious it was or i’ll chop you all up myself) the religious stuff seemed benign initially but assaulting the daughter definitely gave the scary vibe & “keep him til spring” uh but in terms of his dealings w ellie and how SHE perceived him, the way he tried to put ellie at ease by talking about himself as a schoolteacher who found god after the apocalypse, it’s ~just~ enough to seem like a regular weirdo, vs Villain. allowed for her to think ok maybe he’s a weird guy who’s lost his way and she briefly pushes her doubts down just a little etc etc like to me there was enough of a ramping up to the cage scene to make it scary. she HAD believed him a little bit (which is a LOT for her) & relaxed briefly (again, not her style w strangers), but even just that moment for her, that was enough to be currency of the betrayal when she realized exactly what he wanted & was doing anyway that’s what i saw
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 March 2023 17:47 (two years ago)
She never trusted him enough to put down her gun, right?
For David they really piled on the disgusting. The strong implication is that he was a terrible person *before* the mushrooms, and the apocalypse further enabled him to even more easily prey (in every sense/meaning/pun) on those around him.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 March 2023 18:56 (two years ago)
I thought David was the best villain of the series, no disrespect to Melanie Lynskey, because he was complex. He clearly wanted to be a good leader, he clearly wanted to be a real man of God, not just twisting Bible passages around to get himself laid, or whatever...but at the same time his own dark side would not permit him to be that guy. And sometimes he was able to control it and be the person he wanted to be, like when he traded the medicine to Ellie for the deer, and sometimes he did things out of desperation — like, do we think he wanted to be a cannibal? — but then stress him enough and the demon comes out. And I do think he genuinely admired Ellie's strength and self-reliance, he just went back and forth on whether that made her a thrilling potential ally/partner or an enemy to be destroyed. He had a lot of conflicts going on and the actor conveyed all that very well.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 6 March 2023 19:05 (two years ago)
For all the talk of it being a lean winter and resources being sparse, you'd think that they would have figured out how to plan ahead for that given it's been a long-ass time since the zombie plague hit. You know, unless their leadership is hell-bent on maintaining control through isolation and scarcity.
I think "I'm not going to let you kill these people because we have religion and rules" was less about morality than it was control. You can kill them, but only when I say it's ok. Also, we might eat them.
― mh, Monday, 6 March 2023 19:07 (two years ago)
He was also attempting to manipulate Ellie big time. This "oh, we're equals talk" really sounded more like "btw I want a child sex object and need to coerce you into our way of life before you'll either take that role willingly or have lose all ability to resist"
― mh, Monday, 6 March 2023 19:09 (two years ago)
have lost, that is
Didn't David say that the group kept getting attacked by raiders, and each time moved further and further west, one presumes with fewer and fewer people/resources? He's a long way from Pittsburgh.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 March 2023 19:14 (two years ago)
The idea that they were a group of benevolent, god-fearing folk who were hounded across the country and driven to desperation, becoming violent and cruel is what we're told, but I am not sure that David guy was the most reliable of narrators
"Ah, so, uh you said the cult word. I guess people might see us as a cult. Also, I recently smacked someone so hard they fell out of their chair when they dared to speak out of turn."
― mh, Monday, 6 March 2023 19:24 (two years ago)
Oh, for sure, the guy was a master manipulator, which means an expert liar. That's why I wished *this* was the baddie we got more build up with, as opposed to ... I already can't remember the character Lynskey played. This is a good example of expanding on something in the game to no real narrative benefit while compressing something to its (again, relative) detriment.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 March 2023 19:27 (two years ago)
David is the embodiment of the famous lyric from the musical Into the Woods, "Nice is different than good". He speaks calmly and softly, comes across as friendly at first glance, but he actually rules through carefully controlled menace. like the "everything happens for a reason" soliloquy, where he uses his Cat Stevens voice to distract Ellie long enough to allow his partner time to return and draw his gun on Ellie, while implicitly stating that he knows who she is, and who Joel is, while lulling her to think it's only Joel he's after.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 March 2023 19:37 (two years ago)
it's not beating people with a big stick, but having one and the constant threat that it could be used.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 March 2023 19:38 (two years ago)
his henchmen were well-cast -dudes looked hungry af
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 March 2023 19:54 (two years ago)
I'm pretty sure the narrative benefit of having the earlier two episode Missouri encounter -- which, I agree, could have been a little shorter -- was to establish and further the Joel/Ellie dynamic while taking a breather on the road. The second part was everything the first part set up: who is Henry, why is this Kathleen person so adamant on finding him, what was his sin of collaboration that was so bad?
I think one common thread is the examination of what people are living for, as opposed to surviving, and what governs their actions. If your city overthrows FEDRA, ok, what happens after that? Kathleen's motivation is vengeance. David and his group are completely governed by fear and the power he wields by telling them that it's actually faith.
― mh, Monday, 6 March 2023 20:03 (two years ago)
xp what living on starvation rations without a beard trimmer in a snowy excluded area does to a mf'er
― mh, Monday, 6 March 2023 20:04 (two years ago)
His right hand man, btw, is the actor that plays Joel in the game!
BTW, now that we're past this episode, here's a darkly funny meme that made the rounds after a Twitch streamer played the game and reached this point (note her demeanor after so many hours already spent with this story).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09cpCqkFwa8
Bunny had a cameo in the show, but a better fate.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 March 2023 20:09 (two years ago)
interview with Troy Baker, who played David's right-hand man James in the episode:https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/6/23627597/the-last-of-us-troy-baker-interview
his read on his character's motivations ring true to me
― mh, Monday, 6 March 2023 21:29 (two years ago)
Not sure I like anything more than a cannibal nonce getting an axe in the head. Some good and obvious foreshadowing of what a liar the creep was - the girl desperately upset they wouldn’t bury her father, the mystery meat they added to the pot before the deer had been butchered, the fact he tells Ellie it’s a secret even though there’s butchered corpses just hanging around…ok.I can’t remember if it came up in an earlier episode, but can the fungus survive the cold? Is that why they’re safe in this resort town?Anyway, it was a really solid ep, felt for Ellie, Bella is so fucking great, excited for the finale.
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 6 March 2023 22:44 (two years ago)
lol yeah "what's this? venison" and then seeing the deer come in was like, eerie foreboding
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 6 March 2023 22:45 (two years ago)
So glad to see a horror series/movie where they FINISH THE JOB. Cannibal cult leader will not be showing up in season 2 with scars but still deadly.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 6 March 2023 22:46 (two years ago)
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 6 March 2023 22:51 (two years ago)
Oh yeah and the fact his plate of food was like four times the size of everyone else’s! Hope there was enough left to barbeque you, prick!
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 6 March 2023 22:55 (two years ago)
^ yes! meant to mention that earlier, just not even trying to be subtle about taking more than his fair share
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 6 March 2023 22:56 (two years ago)
Okay wow that was... intense
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Monday, 6 March 2023 23:43 (two years ago)
FINISH THE JOB
Was browsing a forum, and this came up a couple of times, people frankly relieved to have each episode (more or less) resolve itself rather than propel a villain forward by rote.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 00:42 (two years ago)
also i already love the character of Joel & absolutely stan Pedro in all things but i love how hard Joel goes in this episode, like he’s pushing through a ton of pain clearly to just be upright but he doesn’t halfass anything ever … pedro gave a great performance ellie the star of this ep of course especially that final scene, she really bailed the splitsecond tornado of emotions
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 00:48 (two years ago)
I'm impressed that each episode has apparently been getting better ratings than the one before it. Proper appointment television.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 01:08 (two years ago)
That is not how you prepare venison!
― lurching toward (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 02:19 (two years ago)
well that's the show ruined for me
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 02:23 (two years ago)
Edit: never mind
― lurching toward (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:01 (two years ago)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:06 (two years ago)
venison is the new long pork
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:07 (two years ago)
"No you see, his name was Ven E. Sonn."
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:08 (two years ago)
what were all the followers doing while their quaker meeting house was burning down?
― 龜, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:47 (two years ago)
Was wondering that. You’d think there be a bunch of people gathering outside, what appears to be, the only restaurant in town
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:53 (two years ago)
They were all reading Roberts Blossom poetry and cutting each others hair in the style of his author photo
― Cinta Kaz is comin' to town (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:57 (two years ago)
also, via mefi, the actor who played the cannibal cult leader has a history of partner violence, which makes his performance a lot more disturbing in retrospect
― 龜, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 03:59 (two years ago)
Crazy how Joel had the strength to kill off the Fleet Foxes one by one.
― Evan, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 05:43 (two years ago)
newly added to my list of places i never want to end up:a cage with a tiled floor
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 06:17 (two years ago)
In the game a lot of this episode is set during disorienting, white-out blizzard conditions, which lets you be more sneaky. You've also pretty much single-handedly killed all David's armed people by the time you reach him.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 11:49 (two years ago)
Does the game make you torture people for information?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 14:57 (two years ago)
Yes. Or at least it does as a cut scene. The second game requires a greater degree of participation.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 15:00 (two years ago)
I liked it overall and Ramsey in particular, the cage scene in particular was tense and had a lot going on in it. Pretty great performances from both actors.
but some plot stuff felt clunky, like Joel going from semicomatose to ubermensch again on demand, the apparently plentiful deer and and rabbits in the woods around the cannibal cult village, the villain calmly strolling around the burning building. Some details felt a little tossed off in contrast to the strength of the overall narrative and world-building to me. I'm just being picky, nothing major.
That said, I am really going to miss this show after next week! I would have loved two more episodes, but probably smart of them to keep it really lean and leave us wanting more.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:19 (two years ago)
xp Whoa, weird. I have of course played lots of games in my life where you blow away tons of enemy NPCs but that seems... different to me somehow?
I wonder if the use of Mortal Kombat in the show is meant as a reference to the fact that the show is based on a game where you similarly just kind of destroy living people's bodies in an intimate way. Not unlike eating them! Wait, in the game do you have to eat anyone? Or is that a spoiler?
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:20 (two years ago)
Anyway, I am still in the camp of not enjoying this show as much as I thought I would after the first two eps, but I am enjoying it enough to keep watching it!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:21 (two years ago)
the apparently plentiful deer and and rabbits in the woods around the cannibal cult village
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:25 (two years ago)
now that I think about it... maybe showing the availability of deer and rabbits was intentional, the psycho cult leader had developed a preference for cannibalism?
― Brio2, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:26 (two years ago)
“why wait for a deer to show up when we have all of this meat right here” ~gestures to henchmen~
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:27 (two years ago)
xxxpost You'd don't eat anyone in the game. But I do think Mortal Kombat was a commentary on violence. I think they referenced it in the podcast, how Ellie is entirely a product of this fucked up world of death and violence. That's really all she's seen and knows. So of course the violence is cool. They also laugh when that corpse they find falls through the floor.
Re: Joel ... antibiotics can be pretty effective! You can feel better in just a couple of hours, probably faster if it's literally injected into the infection site. With David's burning-building behavior, though, in the game at least he thinks he's been infected by Ellie and has nothing to lose. Dunno why they changed it here.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:33 (two years ago)
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:34 (two years ago)
I don't get it, I think the human bodies hung up for meat were people who died in other ways (e.g. the guy killed by Joel) not people they intentionally killed for food!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:37 (two years ago)
What's the proper wine pairing for human?
― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:37 (two years ago)
https://64.media.tumblr.com/0817dd7cb43dc5d80dcdd3b5fd471cde/e1d75d128dfc608c-48/s540x810/35493fe81b329a9b8c3442f2e840643837806a08.gif
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:38 (two years ago)
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:41 (two years ago)
I guess I thought they set that up in order to establish the circumstances whereby they get their meat people.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:42 (two years ago)
Also, what was David's endgame for spring? Like, the crocuses are out, the birds are singing, the kid is like "can we bury Dad now" and David is going to be like.. "Sorry kid I forgot where we put him"??
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:43 (two years ago)
I think the chief creep and his lieutenants were out there intentionally killing people for food in addition to eating Dad and others who die from their own clan, while keeping it a semi-secret from his sheep. They tried to kill Joel right away at the University. I got the impression the bodies they were bleeding out were from others they'd found and killed for food.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:45 (two years ago)
There’s no necessity for his actions, he’s a predator that is thriving in this exactly the same as the fungus. They are not eating people out of pure need!
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:46 (two years ago)
The way he tucked into that big ol' plate did suggest he was pretty into it.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:47 (two years ago)
and he was definitely trying to serve up some Dad to Ellie.
― Brio2, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:48 (two years ago)
And of course he had the biggest portion.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 18:50 (two years ago)
I got the impression the bodies they were bleeding out
those stew chunks looked pretty bloody, pretty fresh
― 龜, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 19:04 (two years ago)
One detail that was really chilling was when David stopped screaming while Ellie was hacking away at him.
― Shartreuse (Leee), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:34 (two years ago)
it seemed fairly clear to me that at least some of the group were at least suspicious about the source of the meat, cue the one woman's doubtful face when they guy told her it was venison. unclear just how "secret" the cannibalism was to the general population of that town.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:37 (two years ago)
i was kind of annoyed they just left the dead deer lying around eat the irl venison you craven dicks
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:42 (two years ago)
gotta eat the other stuff before it goes bad.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 21:46 (two years ago)
well then at least clean and hang up the deer, ffs!
― mh, Tuesday, 7 March 2023 22:28 (two years ago)
EXACTLY
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 8 March 2023 00:07 (two years ago)
David, the floor is not a meat locker
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 8 March 2023 00:08 (two years ago)
“how about instead of grooming teen girls you go and dress this fuckin DEER that’s lying around HMMM”
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 8 March 2023 00:10 (two years ago)
this is how accidents happen, David.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 8 March 2023 00:11 (two years ago)
Just caught up with last week’s episode. It definitely felt like multiple folks were in on the cannibalism (even if just from desperation) and that’s why they so quickly tried to kill Ellie and Joel in the earlier episode. But if the cannibalism was indeed preferable, why did David agree to trade for the deer? Like to the point where he said to his henchman “that’s not code, go get some medicine.”
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Sunday, 12 March 2023 22:08 (two years ago)
They wanted her to lead them to Joel and figured she'd probably sacrifice herself for him if they tried to for ever at gunpoint?
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Sunday, 12 March 2023 22:43 (two years ago)
Yeah, it was a ploy: as he later revealed, he knew who she was and wanted to get her under his influence through persuasion, since force was tricky.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 13 March 2023 01:58 (two years ago)
Finale was...pretty good. The violence was surprisingly brutal.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 13 March 2023 02:52 (two years ago)
Joel just couldn't handle losing another 'daughter' and went back to his old ways. dammmn.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 13 March 2023 03:14 (two years ago)
lol Joel Wick
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 13 March 2023 03:21 (two years ago)
i’ll be in my blanket fort goddamn it this show
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 04:27 (two years ago)
That ending was… abrupt.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 13 March 2023 04:34 (two years ago)
It was heartbreaking playing that out in the game. It took me a while to just do it. I didn't want to. And it was a weird feeling being forced to act out the very thing you don't want to do.
― octobeard, Monday, 13 March 2023 11:37 (two years ago)
Second game even more so. Speaking of which, for those that have played the second game, was the farmhouse at the beginning of this episode the same farmhouse/location/layout of the farmhouse from the second game? That had to be intentional, right? Though I have no idea to what end.
Fun fact for newbies: the actor that played Ellie's mom is the actor that does her voice and motion capture in the games.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 March 2023 11:58 (two years ago)
weirdly thought she looked kinda like her too
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 13 March 2023 13:54 (two years ago)
she really did!
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 14:38 (two years ago)
xpost - So did I.
Yeah, the violence was really brutal. My wife just kept muttering "jesus christ" every time he fired another shot.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 13 March 2023 14:38 (two years ago)
In the show, at least, it reminded me a little of the end of "Unforgiven." A story spent alluding to how bad a character used to be, only to reveal that maybe that character hasn't changed as much as we've been led to believe. Or as my wife said at the end, Joel is "complicated."
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 March 2023 14:42 (two years ago)
The actress playing Ellie's mom looked enough like her that for a moment I thought maybe it was a flash-forward, that we were seeing a pregnant future Ellie breeding a generation of cordyceps-immune humans.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 13 March 2023 14:51 (two years ago)
nobody told me that Ellie had the same origin story as Blade
― mh, Monday, 13 March 2023 15:23 (two years ago)
that was the big reveal
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 13 March 2023 15:37 (two years ago)
I thought it was a great ending. Non-gamer here, and studiously avoided spoilers.
Really pulled together the big themes of the show but kept it complex and messy. If the show's central question is "what would you do to survive and protect your loved ones?" - this ratchets up the stakes all the way to "would you betray all humanity to protect your loved one?"
And I think the sneaky thing about it is it gently points to the fact that almost all of us of any means are constantly doing that on one level or another, that our self-interest blinds us to the suffering of the many. On some level, I see the story as a critique or at least an examination of love and loyalty as being inextricably bound up in self-interest. Not a theme I think gets examined much.
I think there's interesting irony in that the old "bad" selfishJoel would have no problem dropping the kid off to her fate which potentially saves humanity, but the new "good" healed empathetic Joel does the selfish thing... So don't quite see it as "this is who Joel was all along".
― Brio2, Monday, 13 March 2023 16:43 (two years ago)
both versions of Joel are selfishly trying to protectfrom suffering loss again but in very different ways this time he’s finally allowing himself to experience a kind of parental love again & it’s softened him so you expect good choices but trauma is a bitch! it makes him try to protect himself in an even more extreme way but cloaked in saving her the irrational place we’re now at with him is hugely compelling & for me personally, weirdly relatable
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 18:23 (two years ago)
feel like regardless of the outcome, visiting the hospital was going to irrevocably change the nature of Joel and Ellie's relationship
her face had the strong "I don't believe you but I'm going to try to live as if I do so I can move on"
― mh, Monday, 13 March 2023 18:48 (two years ago)
Reading a summary of the events of the second game I assume S2 will bear way less resemblance
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 13 March 2023 18:50 (two years ago)
Weird how little the infected played a role in this. Heck, they even went out of their way to explain the way they're all connected, and that comes up ... once? The whole world is the way it is because of the infected or threat of infection, yet aside from a couple of isolated set pieces they really rarely made their presence known.
Tempting though it may be, I highly recommend fans of the show avoid spoilers for the second game, where things get *really* messy, both in-game and in real life. Unless you can't wait, of course!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 March 2023 20:20 (two years ago)
Always Read Spoilers
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 13 March 2023 20:22 (two years ago)
I feel like the show is saying "the real monsters are YOU and ME, maaaaaaaaaaaan"
have to imagine lots of the 'infected' are dying out, sans the ones that make it to stage 3 and 4
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 13 March 2023 20:30 (two years ago)
went back & started listening to the official podcast - it’s quite good, lots of interesting insight
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 20:31 (two years ago)
I guess there were a lot of legitimate questions Joel could have had about the Ellie procedure such as:
*How would Fireflies circulate the cure, would FEDRA distrust the research/order it destroyed/block distribution?
*Would FEDRA be willing to cede their authoritarian power in favor of restoring traditional representative government?
*Would life ever return to a semblance of what it was even with a cure?
And would probably use those to justify his decision , even though that clearly isn't why he made it
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Monday, 13 March 2023 20:45 (two years ago)
Also, of course, would they even be able to develop a cure? Plus, you don't exactly engender trust by knocking someone unconscious, kidnapping his charge, telling him she's going to die and then abruptly sending him on his way under threat of execution.
I believe Neil Druckmann was inspired in part by "Children of Men," which has a similar structure and degree of distrust/paranoia in who exactly has Clive Owen's or his own charge's best interests at heart.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 March 2023 20:51 (two years ago)
I think Season 2 should totally abandon the game and lean much more into the Kung Fu traveling-the-country/adventure-of-the-week model.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 13 March 2023 21:01 (two years ago)
Lone Joel and Cub
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 13 March 2023 21:21 (two years ago)
Was the violence as brutal as all that? The music and the slow pace gave it a very dreamy kind of feel, like he was doing it in a trance. A difficult ending, it felt strangely anticlimactic but I think it will grow on me. Ellie’s face at the end is incredible, this show has never needed to be about the monsters or the action to be great. Joel when he was just talking about his daughter and Ellie and trying to separate the two of them in his mind and to Ellie - really painful to watch. And you could almost feel Ellie pulling away from him ever so slightly.Scene with giraffes was a nice little bit of wonder before all the horror.I’ll miss watching this every week!
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 13 March 2023 22:26 (two years ago)
yeah the more he opened up to Ellie about his daughter the more you could feel the disappointment (?) & trepidation growing in her
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 22:38 (two years ago)
“It wasn’t time that did it” - this scene also said a lot with very little!
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 13 March 2023 22:43 (two years ago)
also YES that giraffe scene was the coolest
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 22:54 (two years ago)
dawning realisationhttps://i.postimg.cc/13m1LZ8f/41-F91-C07-839-D-4-BA3-A52-A-B59-F625-F0402.jpg
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:05 (two years ago)
he’s finally allowing himself to experience a kind of parental love again & it’s softened him
Softened him? It hardened him! Moving him to simplify life down to a rigid "save Ellie" and enabling him to heartlessly mow down dozens of people!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:16 (two years ago)
i meant it *visbly* softened him with Eliie in those scenes ~before~ the hospital- you expect him to make good choices bc of that and then bodies bodies bodies
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:19 (two years ago)
xp complete quote was
both versions of Joel are selfishly trying to protectfrom suffering loss again but in very different ways this time he’s finally allowing himself to experience a kind of parental love again & it’s softened him so you expect good choices but trauma is a bitch! it makes him try to protect himself in an even more extreme way but cloaked in saving her
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:21 (two years ago)
oh good point fair enough!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:23 (two years ago)
they even went out of their way to explain the way they're all connected, and that comes up ... once?
― assert (matttkkkk), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:34 (two years ago)
Would be pretty funny if all they had to do was find one of those guys that's rooted to the ground and pour herbicide down his throat. "Shit, why didn't we think of that 20 years ago?"
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 13 March 2023 23:43 (two years ago)
giraffe scene was so dope. loved the ending, cutting it off at the moment of greatest emotional complexity. great show
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 00:37 (two years ago)
That line went straight to my heart.
― Shartreuse (Leee), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 04:58 (two years ago)
yeah that killed me <3
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 05:01 (two years ago)
i don’t get why joel just doesn’t tell ellie the truth about what happened. unless her dourness in the first half was meant to be taken as some sort ptsd death drive after the horrendous experience with the cannibal guy? it’s not like ellie had a great love for the fireflies, she was raised in fedra, when she was taken in they chained her to a radiator. i guess maybe it was more not wanting to acknowledge their yearlong journey had been for naught?
― 龜, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 13:06 (two years ago)
that and the fact that her death might have (might, admittedly) saved millions of other people, and while it was indeed fucked up that this choice was dishonestly made for her by the Fireflies, it's fairly equally fucked up that Joel also made the opposite decision on her behalf. Chances are, she may have wanted to sacrifice herself.
also suggests that Joel's decision-making is compromised due to Joel essentially wanting to replace his daughter with Ellie and all of his decision-making stems from keeping her alive, no matter the course. He's become the monster he was from the early days of the pandemic.
I feel like Ellie would leave him if she knew the truth. or worse.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 13:51 (two years ago)
After we finished the finale, I put on the ending sequence from the game— ended the same, shot for shot, and nearly line for line. I admire their commitment to preserving the (pretty much perfect) denouement that the game offered
― touche pas ma planète (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:05 (two years ago)
I don’t think the metric here is human-monster, and that “Joel’s monstrous personality is revealed”. Throughout the series we’re seeing individuals/groups prioritizing “the lives of the few” over “the lives of the many”. Joel’s entire experience (from his daughter’s death, to Tess’s death, to Ellie saving his life) has effectively programmed him into being an Ellie-saving machine.
― touche pas ma planète (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:14 (two years ago)
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, March 13, 2023 6:43 PM (yesterday)
fungicide iirc
― mh, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:16 (two years ago)
i don’t get why joel just doesn’t tell ellie the truth about what happened. unless her dourness in the first half was meant to be taken as some sort ptsd death drive after the horrendous experience with the cannibal guy?
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:17 (two years ago)
the fireflies were doing the ethically questionable thing by not telling Ellie exactly what they were doing and robbing her of agency in the decision, and Joel was doing the morally wrong thing by killing everyone instead of just the people necessary to escape with Ellie
― mh, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:24 (two years ago)
how did ellie end up being raised by fedra when Marlene took her at birth?
anyway don't know why they can't just take some mushroom juice and inject into babies at the right time or something.
have they tried microdosing?
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:28 (two years ago)
I mean, the biggest “idgi” of the end is that I don’t understand why Marlene, knowing what she knew, knowing what was about to happen to Ellie, didn’t either restrain Joel after capturing him or outright kill him
― touche pas ma planète (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:32 (two years ago)
same reason she didn't initially want to kill Ellie's mother imo
just let the social and moral nature of people take its course and let her soldiers shoot him if the need arises
nobody expects Joel to be the terminator
― mh, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:34 (two years ago)
xxpost yeah, the shooting the doctor in the head wasn't even necessary - the doctor was defending himself with a mere surgical tool, Joel could have easily incapacitated him non-lethally (and quickly, at that). unlike the Fireflies, he wasn't armed, and Joel knew it.
granted, I'm sure he was trying to get Ellie out quickly in case of Marlene, but he was fueled by rage nonetheless. the "I won't let you take her" is what drew the bullet.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:36 (two years ago)
pretty obvious that he eliminates everyone who would have the motivation to follow him, and the doctor who specifically wants to dissect Ellie
Marlene's basically saying "we'll find another doctor, we have more people" but it's unclear whether the other firefly chapters know about this scheme. With Marlene and the doctor gone, they're going to have trouble tracking their goal
― mh, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:39 (two years ago)
she was raised in fedra, when she was taken in they chained her to a radiator.
Now that I think about it, why did the Fireflies have Ellie chained to a radiator? Marlene knew about her immunity — she was there when Ellie was born.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:41 (two years ago)
xxpost also, consider what Marlene knows of Joel. when he took Ellie, he was reluctant to take her, was doing so only for remuneration, and he kept people at a distance (even Tess). she has no idea that Joel has formed such an intense bond with her. she probably thinks Joel has developed a mild case of protectiveness due to their long journey together, not realizing it's now a deeply-seated bond that will lead him to Charles Bronson anybody that threatens to harm her.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:42 (two years ago)
― 龜, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:43 (two years ago)
"where's Ellie?"
"she died so others could live"
"so there's a cure?"
"no, unfortunately the doctor revealed after the surgery that he was a veterinarian"
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:45 (two years ago)
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:46 (two years ago)
I don’t understand why Marlene, knowing what she knew, knowing what was about to happen to Ellie, didn’t either restrain Joel after capturing him or outright kill him
I best read of it I've seen is that she hasn't seen Joel's journey/transformation, and more or less still thinks of him as a mercenary guy that would throw a kid's body on the fire without pause.
As for Ellie and her immunity, Marlene would have had no reason to believe Ellie was immune until she was bitten.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:48 (two years ago)
She saw that Joel was upset but had no way of knowing just how attached to her he became, and even if she did nobody would have guessed that he could successfully fight his way through a small army of soldiers to rescue her by himself, or that he would be dumb enough to try in the first place. Hindsight is 20/20
― Evan, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:52 (two years ago)
also, the firefly doctor developed this theory of how ellie’s immunity works in the time joel was knocked out (what, 24 hours max?) and decided to proceed to surgery - with no testing? just a gut feel? idk, just feels like a rushed/contrived setup so we can get some Good Acting and Do You See moments from the two at the end. and it was good acting, don’t get me wrong, but wish it had been more earned.
― 龜, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:56 (two years ago)
There was clearly a working theory about this before they travelled across the country in the first place, the cure is mentioned very early on????
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 14:59 (two years ago)
I mean idk, I feel like most pandemic media always takes massive shortcuts with the depiction of vaccine/cure development (even Contagion did this a little bit), and this is a society that barely exists anymore, the doctor barely has a staff or many of the tools available to do the rigor that would have existed pre-pandemic. i get the impression patience isn't something any of the Fireflies have either.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:01 (two years ago)
I thought it was their plan all along. She just explained it to Joel after he woke up.
― Evan, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:01 (two years ago)
Joel replies instantly “cordyceps grows in the brain” idk lads but I feel a non-medical guy like himself having this kind of working knowledge might indicate that the infection’s site and spread factors are fairly well known about by survivors? I mean granted I was only watching the show 50% of the time with my eyes open.
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:02 (two years ago)
Still he may have assumed they'd be running tests and taking blood to use to develop a cure from the info they'd gather.
― Evan, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:05 (two years ago)
they know how the cordyceps spreads but what theories do they have about ellie’s immunity, when they only knew about it for a few days before they were forced to move x-country and without having a chance to do any testing on her?if there plan all along was to vivisect ellie for her valuable brain fungus on the dream of one doctor (just couldn’t do it early on via fedra coming after them in boston) i suppose i don’t really feel bad that they all got merked
― 龜, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:06 (two years ago)
The infection shows itself within a day or two, they’ve got a whole planet of that data. Since she made it alive and well to the other side of the country, add that to the pile.
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:11 (two years ago)
the theory of immunity that marlene seemed to be working with was very similar to the idea behind inoculation/vaccination. i guess they would try to use her stem cells to synthesize a vaccine.
― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:18 (two years ago)
yeah i’m not disagreeing that they know ellie is immune, i just don’t understand what the basis for their theory for her immunity is? they leapt immediately to the “we must extract her brain” theory… on what basis exactly?we’ve got a whole planet of people who’ve had covid, we know how it spreads, but that doesn’t put us any closer to understanding why certain people seem to have a natural immunity?
― 龜, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:19 (two years ago)
tbf in the show they're 20+ years post outbreak, and presumably research has been carried out by FEDRA/etc.
they said that cordyceps had been growing in her since birth so that the cordyceps transferred to her from a bite thought she was cordyceps rather than human and ergo didn't move to 'attack' her.
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 15:29 (two years ago)
we’ve got a whole planet of people who’ve had covid, we know how it spreads, but that doesn’t put us any closer to understanding why certain people seem to have a natural immunity?
― 龜, Tuesday, March 14, 2023 10:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
haven't extracted enough brains yet, obviously
― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 16:31 (two years ago)
yeah i’m not disagreeing that they know ellie is immune, i just don’t understand what the basis for their theory for her immunity is? they leapt immediately to the “we must extract her brain” theory… on what basis exactly?
― 龜, Tuesday, March 14, 2023 11:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
Hmm yeah see Neanderthal's post above for the answer, but this post makes me think that maybe you left the room during the scene that explained this along with the opening scene?
― Evan, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 16:57 (two years ago)
They knew she was immune, they didn’t know she was full of cordyceps until they examined her. Presumably some of the time Joel was unconscious was spent MRIing her, etc, and finding this out.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 20:59 (two years ago)
This was such a pleasant surprise, especially for an adaptation. I'd seen a bunch of videos about the game and so was spoiled for a lot of the story, especially the ending, but seeing it fleshed out in such a competent way, all the way through, was so great!
Episodes 3 and the penultimate were my favorites. It was nice to see so much of 3's time given over to people building a life together instead of going overboard with grimdark apocalypse tropes - I especially liked that they gave the raiders barely any screen time as frankly they didn't deserve the attention. It would have been stupid to devote ten minutes or half the episode to some rote house-to-house fighting or nine different survivalist gimmicks; having "the fence" finish the marauders offscreen instead was a perfect conclusion to their shitty lives.
The cannibal episode was also a stand-out: the foreshadowing with the line about Jesus and 'knowing' him by eating his body, the 'venison,' the leader getting to eat so much more than everyone else, Ellie peeling off his fake-ass folksy 'Midwest-nice' outer layers to reveal the monster he's been all along...I got the feeling at least some of the characterization for David was new and not simply a beat-for-beat retelling of the game's story, and it all works here.
The show has been great about laying a foundation for the decision Joel makes in the finale, arguably better than the game itself. It's also great at showing how all kinds of people choose to live their lives in a world that can be - but does not have to be - unrelentingly brutal and cruel. In that respect, those two episodes are perfect bookends.
― MoominTrollin, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 21:18 (two years ago)
Didn't like the final two episodes much really. I guess I wanted more to be happening around the main two although the focus on them and the power it generates makes story sense. I probably feel the same about The Mandalorian season 3 so far ha.
― nashwan, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:29 (two years ago)
My only complaint about this series is that it really could have used a bit more one on one time between Joel and Ellie. The actors are good enough to sell the relationship, regardless, but I don't think a few more beats/scenes would have hurt, especially considering the relatively modest run times. I wonder if the total of just Joel and Ellie together (not including incapacitated Joel) is less than the total of Bill and Frank?
Also prolly could have used a pinch more infected, even if just in passing, to underscore a pervasive threat that I don't feel this adaptation quite conveyed. But this is minor stuff.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:16 (two years ago)
No fantasy infected giant boss fight at the end, no cred
― calstars, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:30 (two years ago)
Good interview:
https://www.vulture.com/article/last-of-us-craig-mazin-season-finale-ending-interview.html
Neil has said when they were testing the game, parents almost 100 percent of the time said, “He did exactly what he was supposed to do,” and a lot of times, people who weren’t said, “He’s a monster.” I’m a parent. I straddle the line. We cut a line out of episode five and I regret it. I wish I could put it back in. It was when Henry says to Joel, “I did a bad-guy thing.” There was an exchange where Joel says, “So you’re saying if you had to do it all over again, you wouldn’t?” and Henry says, “I’m saying if I had to do it all over again, I would try really hard not to. And then I probably would.” If I were in that situation as a parent, I would try really hard not to, but I probably would. If Joel walked away without regrets, if Joel walked away without shame, that would be different. Then I would say he’s a monster. But you don’t lie unless you know you’ve done something wrong.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 23:37 (two years ago)
on the ellie / immunity / doctor tip upthread: i am not a doctor & barely understand biology/medicine but why would ellie being in surgery entail them killing her & taking her whole braincan they not take a biopsy sample to get enough cordyceps to test? or is this like, we don’t have tech anymore we either take her whole brain & save the world or b) everyone dies
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 01:30 (two years ago)
A comment on the interview I just posted:
Joel's decision is also rational. This doctor has one patient who is immune, and he's going to kill that patient trying to make a cure. What if he fails? What if he isn't smart enough to make the cure, but some other doctor later would be? He should study her for years before he commits to an irreversible course of action. That would be rational; instead, the doctor surrenders to his fear and misery and pride.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 01:48 (two years ago)
lol internet dork, that isn't why he did it. he gave Ellie the opportunity to tap out, and she wanted to go to the finish line, and he didn't object, so he clearly had some faith they could find a cure. he probably wasn't expecting a prolonged, multi-year study either. he didn't gaf about the success of the procedure, he literally said "find someone else", meaning 'let someone unimportant that I don't care about die'.
lol @ the idea of a doctor trusting that they have 4 years to study someone who could be killed at any moment by FEDRA or scavengers - being immune to cordyceps doesn't mean being immune to
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 01:54 (two years ago)
*dying
I thought they'd got you midsentence
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 02:35 (two years ago)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 02:37 (two years ago)
If you were like me and wondered if the giraffe was real, it was: https://www.polygon.com/23639876/last-of-us-giraffe-real-cgi
― Shartreuse (Leee), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 03:11 (two years ago)
The most significant difference between the show and the game is that the game has SO much literal (and I mean *LITERAL*) backstory: hundreds of letters, notes, bulletin boards, post-its, diaries, journals, posters, graffiti, voice memos, overheard dialogue... it's just hours and hours of this stuff you encounter while you're scavenging for crafting materials, health kits and ammo. It's what gives the game so much depth is just these unending layers of tragic missives forced back into handwritten form now that technology has taken ~1 century backstep. None of that made it into the show (aside from some critical main characters dialogue).
And while I enjoyed it (and cried!), the gratuitously fanfic ep 3 was OTT enough to trigger both game loyalists and homophobes (the intersection of which is probably larger than I imagine)... An epic counter-troll by the show producers perhaps? In the game Bill plays a significant plot partner for Joel & Ellie while you only briefly encounter Frank post-mortem hanging from the rafters in a warehouse a few beats after you've parted ways with Bill. Again, I enjoyed the artistic freedom taken but it was clearly a departure from the game leaving short-shrift for the more essential plot-driven episodes. Maybe they're shopping for a spin-off a la Better Call Saul... Last Of Us universe DLC expansion.
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 05:08 (two years ago)
Also there's no way any vaccine is going to be produced & distributed without computers, massive clean labs, cold chain air-conditioning, rapid transit (air/trucks)... that's all a pipe dream.
Just the way the show treats the threat of the infected being significantly less than the threat of fellow mankind, the vaccine's importance is lessened.
I need to rescreen the whole season to see how often the logic shifts and changes, hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 05:18 (two years ago)
xp I think expanding Bill and Frank is a substitute for the backstory of artifacts you mention, a way to sheet the disaster home to its effect on people and relationships.
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 06:08 (two years ago)
Joel clearly did it because he wasn't going to lose Daughter The Second but that doesn't make the plan (or their stated reasons for cutting out her brain stem) any more coherent. Her microdose of cordyceps from the knife had 13 years to develop in her body - so why couldn't everyone microdose a little and develop it? Or if it's because she was an infant, stem cells, etc. then adults can't develop the immunity anyway late in life. Cutting out her brain stem cordyceps and, uh, growing it in a vat for everyone to vaccinate themselves with... wouldn't that cordyceps just attack them?
Who cares, it's a story about fungus zombies that's not entirely coherent about how it even spreads (the first wave involves bites rather than airborne spores... but grandma goes zombie without being bitten) but I don't think 龜's questioning is dumb or means they weren't paying attention.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 06:10 (two years ago)
but grandma goes zombie without being bitten
They addressed that in one of the early episodes:
"Best guess… cordyceps mutated and some of it got into the food supply — probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar," Joel says. "There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere. All across the country, across the world. Bread, cereal, pancake mix. You eat enough of it, it'll get you infected."
And apparently if you rewatch the premiere, there's several occasions where Joel & his daughter narrowly avoid eating pancake mix, cookies etc
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 08:03 (two years ago)
Maybe they're shopping for a spin-off a la Better Call Saul... Last Of Us universe DLC expansion.
This is now HBO's most watched show since Game of Thrones apparently - finale had almost twice the number of viewers as the premiere - so I guess HBO milking it for all it's worth is sadly a distinct possibility.
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 08:08 (two years ago)
the gratuitously fanfic ep 3 was OTT enough to trigger both game loyalists and homophobes (the intersection of which is probably larger than I imagine)... An epic counter-troll by the show producers perhaps? In the game Bill plays a significant plot partner for Joel & Ellie while you only briefly encounter Frank post-mortem hanging from the rafters in a warehouse a few beats after you've parted ways with Bill. Again, I enjoyed the artistic freedom taken but it was clearly a departure from the game leaving short-shrift for the more essential plot-driven episodes
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 08:17 (two years ago)
"I wish the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies were more faithful to the amusement park ride."
― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 11:45 (two years ago)
Again, Bill and (to an extent) Frank are in the game. That episode is not some total deviation, just kind of ... a distraction? Because the story is about Ellie and Joel, and I felt it detracted from that story a bit, in the literal sense, strictly minutes. Same with Kathleen. I get (and liked!) what they did and why, but I think it might have been better balanced with more Ellie and Joel, who, like the hundreds of documents you explore in the game, also interact more in the game, and not just in cut-scenes. The game is more than its cut-scenes (many/most? of which made it into the show more or less line for line/scene for scene);if you try watching just the cut scenes it's a bit like dozing off in the middle of a movie and only catching bits and pieces of the story. For example, the (non cut-scene) interaction between Bill and Ellie in the game is a highlight, iirc, and for obvious reasons none of it made it to the show.
Re: the infected, one of the few big changes from the game, probably to the show's detriment, is the way the infection spreads, not just through bites but also via spores. So there are a lot of scenes in the dark or damp where the threat is literally hanging in the air. Having a mask fail or break is about as bad as being bitten.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 12:22 (two years ago)
(Honestly, the show is a surprisingly faithful adaptation! That is, pretty much the entire "game" is in the show. Any quibbles I've had are really re: small tweaks and changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes less successful, imo, but generally always small.)
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 12:52 (two years ago)
There is significant creative license to change Frank from an unanimated corpse who hung himself from a bite and turn him into fighting a lengthy Lifetime channel battle with MS and have he and his caring lover kill themselves together in solidarity. In the game Bill and Frank don't even interact but more importantly don't even like each other. Bill makes an offhand negative comment about his former partner Frank in passing dialogue and in Frank's page-long suicide letter you find next to his hanging body it contains a sentence or two about Bill, mainly that he hated his guts and was a waste of a life. There is innuendo that their bad blood may have stemmed from a possible lover's quarrel or misplaced feelings, but the show turns less than 30 seconds of obscure references in a 12 hour game into the bulk of a 75 minute episode. Even Jack Sparrow would be confused.
I do enjoy that the show's producers flipped the script on the long-besotted trope of fanservice in video games where you normally encounter oversexualized young women and instead offers this soft focus middle-aged bear seduction spending their days pairing wine surrounded by watercolors. But as many people ITT are confused about SOP of dystopian vaccine manufacture/distribution in a society that's turned into paranoid Goth tribe factions, the threat of which after 20 years is much more a threat to daily life than cordyceps. While the (non-game) Jakarta doctor 20 years earlier offered the solution of total annihilation, Ellie's (also non-game) approach to the vaccine was to become blood siblings with Sam (unsuccessful but perhaps a foreshadow that she cannot undo the virus despite theories that she was "the one"). I'm rambling but there was a lot left of the world and plot to explore and esp.after the last few episodes being so light on storytelling and the all-to-familiar panic rush to wrap things up makes the casual lingering in earlier eps 2 & 3 feel a bit superfluous.
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 13:19 (two years ago)
I wouldn’t personally judge a show on its unexplored plot points or opportunities by the things people in a TV thread get hung up on tbh.
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 13:26 (two years ago)
I mean, I would like to see the argument that episode 3 - about how people can not just survive but thrive in this world (adding even more fuel to Joel’s decision, the knowledge that people can not just live for the sake of living but live for the sake of someone else) offers less to this show than, idk, actors dead-eyed reading out detailed logistics descriptions for the satisfaction of people who miss the wood for the trees? The fact that even in a world without a cure people can carve out their own little slice of happiness? No? The show is about potential as much as it’s about anything. Joel saves Ellie for the potential of how her life - their life together - might play out, we are shown in every episode her childish happiness at something, and the show giving us Sarah’s future and those of so many others suffocated by the cordyceps contrasts sharply with what Joel sees as his rare opportunity. They survived and they can be happy. It is selfish like Bill and Frank’s survival is selfish, but it’s also completely understandable. That’s the stuff that’s interesting about this show to me. The show does not remotely need to have a ready to go vaccine rollout plan for it to matter, it’s total nitpicking and again, show me the argument that this adds more to the show than the stuff you feel was fanservice (for whom btw? You already made the point that a lot of homophobic fans had a problem with it.)
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 13:36 (two years ago)
Lol while thinking about corrupted tropes I just remembered in the second game, there is a (hetero) sex scene that is so OTT cringe/ick, awkward, unnecessary and unflattering (to all parties involved). It just comes out of nowhere and you're forced to endure it...
I can't wait to see what the producers do with that, probably turn it into a 3 episode sidebar?
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 13:40 (two years ago)
The (hetero) sex scene in the second game is totally cringe/ick/unnecessary to a distracting degree. I forgot it even existed.
I'm willing to bet the expansion of Bill and Frank is this season was done with an eye potentially on specific events/plot points/parallels in the second season/game. Describing that episode as "about how people can not just survive but thrive in this world" is fair but maybe underscores a disconnect. Or perhaps an even greater thematic question: is there really a place for happiness in this (fictional) world? Or might that happiness be a fiction as well? For sure Joel envisions some sort of happy, or at least happier, future, but it's based on a lie.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 13:53 (two years ago)
Wait do you have to press buttons during it
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 14:08 (two years ago)
I am very upset about that final episode
― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 14:27 (two years ago)
the guy who created the game is also working on the show. he is completely open to exploring ideas not in the game! and making changes to minor characters that expand the universe in a different way!there’s this vibe like “a bunch of non gaming snowflakes wanted to adapt a game and made it too gay” ~frowny face~bill still ultimately serves the same purpose for joel at the end of episode 3 i don’t see what the problem is beyond “it’s not the game” if you gave even a tenth of a shit about good storytelling (which if you played the game surely you do) this episode would stand as good storytelling! oh they spent a whole episode living a life and having feelings how terrible give me a goddamn break
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 14:29 (two years ago)
― giant bat fucker (gyac), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 14:36 (two years ago)
the show telegraphed from the very first episode that it would not just be about joel and ellie. episode three just hammers it home. i'm honestly grateful i haven't played the game bc i had no problem getting on board with this
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:15 (two years ago)
again, haven't played, prob never will, but everywhere the show has diverged from the game it has done so for the better imo (especially re: bill/frank's original relationship, and finding fucking letters everywhere)
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:16 (two years ago)
as a video game adaptation, for me it never reached the meta-heights of the paul w.s. anderson resident evil series (not that it was ever going to), but it was a really beautifully conveyed character study about the way the world and your relationships with the people in it change you, often unaccountably, especially when said world is largely dead and hostile
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:19 (two years ago)
There's no reason to get angry or defensive about the show. The show is great! But there is a reason the source material, a masterpiece of a game, was chosen for adaptation, and I don't think it's harmful to discuss how maybe it falls short a little. They are different mediums, and they achieve their goals different ways. Saying that the game is better or trying to explain why doesn't detract from the achievements of the show, especially for those that have not played the game and are experiencing the show on its own terms. I find that aspect of the discussion very interesting.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:20 (two years ago)
i did like that i was able to like... understand why the game is so acclaimed through isolated sequences, especially the joel terminator rampage sequence, bc you're installed in his perspective and understand why he's doing it even though he's doing all of these horrible things and you can't stop him
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:21 (two years ago)
josh do you have strong feelings about the video game, yes or no
if nothing else - creating a shooter game with a storyling whose ultimate goal is to make you think "maybe shooting everybody is potentially possibly really a bad thing to do" is a pretty neat trick
― Brio2, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:26 (two years ago)
Also if there was any fault with Ep 3 was that it was so fucking good the rest of the (very good) season felt like a bit of a letdown, any debate about whether that episode or important or a success seems completely bonkers to me.
― Brio2, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:30 (two years ago)
xxpost I can't tell if you are trolling me or not, but yes, relatively so? But not in a "this source material should never be changed" sense.Oh, and in case it's unclear, Bill and Frank are gay in the game, so that wasn't changed. I suspect any anti-gay discourse flying around out there stems in no small part from lingering (over) reactions to the second game. And it's quite possible the extended Bill and Frank episode of the show was a reaction to *that*.I think Bill and Frank in the show was indeed good storytelling, but standalone storytelling. If you tried to describe the show to someone, or the story, they probably wouldn't come up at all.Another example of a change from the game, subtle, with slightly different effects: the game pretty clearly takes place over the course of almost a year. I didn't get that feeling from the show. Not sure it matters.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:30 (two years ago)
urgh typos
meant to say:
Also if there was any fault with Ep 3, it was that it was so fucking good the rest of the (very good) season felt like a bit of a letdown, any debate about whether that episode was important or a success seems completely bonkers to me.
― Brio2, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:31 (two years ago)
I am very glad I haven't seen any of the "ick, too gay" criticism. It has not escaped my notice that the show has a nonbinary actor playing a lesbian character.
I hasten to note that this would still be salient even if it were not personally relevant to me... but it is personally relevant to me.
I may have mentioned that my elder child is 15 and nonbinary; my younger child is 11 and nonverbal. His name is Sam. He communicates using a whiteboard or tablet.
So then this frkn teevee show serves up an episode in which: the nonbinary actor playing the 14ish lesbian teenager serves as a temporary big sibling to the Deaf/nonverbal kid whose name is Sam and communicates using a magic slate.
So yeah I needed a lot of time to recover from that one.
― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:36 (two years ago)
holy shit... that's wild.
― Brio2, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:37 (two years ago)
I was once bitten by a museum employee who smelled bad so yeah sometimes TV gets too real
― Evan, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:40 (two years ago)
hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha
Didn't he grow up in Texas? Does his accent go funny on Mandalorian as well? Speaking of, both shows are bizarrely following the same trajectory...At any point in the game, does Ellie develop mushroomchlorian force powers?
Having never played the game, I'd imagine I'd find it unbearably tedious as a narrative-delivery mechanism, given that I gave up on slogging through cutscenes and dialog in Castlevania and went for Vampire Survivors instead, which has the narrative content of a slot machine.
A game based on Ron Swanson macguyvering death traps, procuring meds and homesteading with a bickering partner with a dwindling health meter, might be fun though -- some kind of cross between tower defense, animal crossing, and sims.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:43 (two years ago)
Anyway I wanted to tell elder kid how that episode gave me ALL THE FEELS, and the conversation went like this:
"Sky, are you familiar with 'The Last of Us'?"
"Well, kinda. Most of what I've heard about it is that it's zombies, plus gay."
Take from that what you will.
― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 15:48 (two years ago)
I'm willing to bet the expansion of Bill and Frank is this season was done with an eye potentially on specific events/plot points/parallels in the second season/game.
Maybe you have something in mind from the game, but how could there be a parallel more relevant than the one between Bill/Frank E3 and Joel/Ellie season 1? The episode is still about Joel and Ellie, giving us a letter that could have been written by Joel at the end of season 1. It is also about the game, a way to make the "finding and reading of a letter" game mechanic work for television.
― Cinta Kaz is comin' to town (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:14 (two years ago)
Could see the writers getting to the finale and thinking "this is all too sudden, but we can't have Joel explaining his transformation in real time" and then coming up with E3 as a solution exactly for telling the story of Joel and Ellie better. (And adding to it. Bill and Frank's story is also interesting and important in itself). So not being salty but seeing it as subtraction from the Joel/Ellie story time seems wrong!
― Cinta Kaz is comin' to town (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:33 (two years ago)
Maybe you have something in mind from the game, but how could there be a parallel more relevant
Relevant spoilers from the second game:
In the second game, Ellie is in a stable, loving relationship, and she is eventually given an explicit choice: live in apparent domestic bliss with her girlfriend, together alone in an isolated house, very much akin to Bill and Frank, or return to her previous ways. When the show (presumably) gets to that inflection point, viewers will have an even better idea of what happiness can look like, or even that it truly is possible, making Ellie's decision that much more distressing. I think having seen Bill and Frank the way we have in the show will make that conflict even more powerful whenever we see it, which does make it an improvement, but mostly imo in the context of what is to come.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:35 (two years ago)
That whole bit with Bottom the Weaver and all really subtracts from the main action of "Midsummer Night's Dream," yo. I mean, why not just focus on the main characters the whole time?
― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:36 (two years ago)
xp maybe that possible future parallel is making it harder for you to accept the season 1 parallels as the episode's main function. I get what you are saying with the season 2 stuff, but I don't think it's necessary to explain or feel good about the writing decisions in season 1 alone.
― Cinta Kaz is comin' to town (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:42 (two years ago)
I agree! Just part and parcel in comparing the game and show. Obv. not an issue for anyone that has not played the game (which, of course, is best known for its story, not gameplay).
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:45 (two years ago)
fwiw I've seen some people complain a little about tiny tweaks to Ellie's character that may have a slight impact on the story going forward, but I don't think I have problem with what the showrunners intentionally shifted.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:50 (two years ago)
which, of course, is best known for its story, not gameplay
The gameplay is outstanding!
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 16:58 (two years ago)
I think so, but it's a common complaint I've seen from some. I mean, the gameplay in the second game is so good I think that's why they remade the first game!
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 17:05 (two years ago)
having only watched the show i found myself now pretty impressed with the game that it had such deep storylines already built in, like that the ending is part of the game blew my mind a bit. it’s cool to know that gaming can allow for a nuanced, challenging emotional experience like that
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 19:40 (two years ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oSFFSu57yU
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 20:27 (two years ago)
The most-affecting aspect of the game that I felt vaguely-but-not-actually disappointed didn’t make it into the show was maybe interesting:
I remember there was this fairly terrifying sequence where Joel is having to navigate a school environment where airborne spores are a danger. The ambient light in the environment was precise, it had that “being in school after hours” feeling, which was already scary as shit.
Up until that point in the game, you’d confronted clickers and other mobile fungazombies, but it was exactly in this environment, navigating through it, that you started to see an increase in the prevalence of wall-bound fungal tendrils, leading to the discovery of a full-tilt immobile human fungus flower, head opened into mushroom growth, sitting against a wall. It was the closest visual depiction of a Lovecraft description as I’ve ever seen (and imo likely inspired similar imagery within the movie Annihilation)
― touche pas ma planète (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 22:15 (two years ago)
I think they discovered those immobile human shitheads in the show but it didn’t happen as balletically as it did in the game, it was really something
― touche pas ma planète (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 22:16 (two years ago)
Re: spores. For the last 3-ish years, lots of tv shows and movies have - understandably - not wanted to film sequences with a lot of masks; it interferes with showing emotions. Plus you don't pay a kabillion dollars for the face of Tom Cruise or whomsoever and only get his eyebrows.
So a future historian looking only at our entertainment from this period would be hard-pressed to find evidence of the times in which many of us walked about with half our faces obscured. Which would be at odds with the news coverage of the time.
― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 22:48 (two years ago)
Yeah, it's kind of fascinating. I think on one of the covid threads I noted some TV or movie person's conflicted reasoning. Show people with masks, like the real world, and you break the illusion of escapism. Show people without masks and you introduce a kind of cognitive dissonance scraping against the way the world is. Anyway, given the popularity of "The Mandalorian," or the success of "For All Mankind," this show prolly could have easily tossed in a mask or two. Seeing Pedro put on a mask for a scene probably wouldn't have been that confusing. If anything, it might have made for a pretty claustrophobic sequence!
It was odder to bring up the interlocked infected thing only to never mention it again, but maybe they will in the future.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 23:19 (two years ago)
As I mentioned up thread, can't imagine Pedro wanted to do another show with his face covered up
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 15 March 2023 23:24 (two years ago)
"No brown M&Ms, clean towels/socks, bottle of Maker's Mark, no covering my face."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 16 March 2023 00:12 (two years ago)
seeing this as some mid noughties Flash game on the HBO website as part of this series 2005 marketing push.
― my opinionation (Hamildan), Thursday, 16 March 2023 14:50 (two years ago)
Flew through the 9 episodes in the last three days - an incredible show. Part of me wishes I had gotten to play more than 30 minutes of the game at my friend's house before watching to see the differences between the show and game, but I guess it made my show-watching experience much tenser not knowing what would happen. I was convinced Joel would be dead by the end of the season
― Vinnie, Sunday, 19 March 2023 00:41 (two years ago)
Finally listened to the last official podcast episode, and while I stand by my (modest) reservations about the show, the podcast provided excellent closure.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 26 March 2023 21:28 (two years ago)
“While everything at this moment is pencils down, I’m hopeful that we can come to terms sooner than later. Otherwise we will have to assess what is the end of the 24 schedule, what are the shows that are going to be delivered for 2025,” Orsi said. “At this point, those shows that I’m looking to air wouldn’t necessarily be ready if this strike last six to nine months. So yes, that’s a big question for us, but I think we’ll cross that road once we come to it.”It’s “too early to tell” how the scheduling plans for specific shows will being impacted by the writers work stoppage, Orsi said. “We were looking at The Last Of Us for some time in 2025. And The White Lotus was ideally looking to go in 2024 but there’s some question about timing of the strike.”
It’s “too early to tell” how the scheduling plans for specific shows will being impacted by the writers work stoppage, Orsi said. “We were looking at The Last Of Us for some time in 2025. And The White Lotus was ideally looking to go in 2024 but there’s some question about timing of the strike.”
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 26 May 2023 23:36 (two years ago)
Watching this again with my teen, who had never seen it, and while it holds up I maintain my criticism that there is not enough time spent traveling across the country with Ellie and Joel, and the two biggest comments I keep hearing from my kid are "everyone keeps talking about raiders but we never see any raiders" and "how are we supposed to care about any of these characters if they just immediately die?" Fair enough, the show does constantly introduce new characters/villains just to immediately kill them off (typically in the same episode), which gets a little distracting. If they had another episode of just Ellie and Joel traveling/solving problems/fighting it might have offered a bit more narrative breathing room.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 5 February 2024 16:12 (one year ago)
I really enjoyed The Last of Us as it aired, but it has not remained in my mind whatsoever since finishing it. I'll definitely watch the next season but if you told me it was still two years away I wouldn't really be bothered.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 5 February 2024 18:41 (one year ago)
It's two years away.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 5 February 2024 18:43 (one year ago)
OK theory tested and confirmed.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 5 February 2024 19:00 (one year ago)
Pascal getting a SAG award for his role in an upset over the Succession candidates and coming to accept it looking like this and saying “I’m a little drunk. I thought I could get drunk" is now all-time great award ceremony material.
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GettyImages-2036530546.jpg?w=850&h=638&crop=1
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 25 February 2024 05:09 (one year ago)
Long game campaign paid offhttps://absurdink.com/cdn/shop/products/voteforpedro_2048x.jpg?v=1663771136
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 25 February 2024 14:37 (one year ago)
dammithttps://www.cantonrep.com/gcdn/-mm-/0dd9230c6c4a30f8962f38e8bb74b16d3186694c/c=184-0-2515-1317/local/-/media/2019/03/11/USATODAY/USATODAY/636879209675940780-e0-napoleon-2shot-phenom-wkcov-12.JPG?width=1320&height=746&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 25 February 2024 14:39 (one year ago)
Wait, wut? Dead link de-deaded itself?
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 25 February 2024 14:40 (one year ago)
A group of researchers in India have discovered a mushroom sprouting from the side of a golden-backed frog. https://t.co/GEUU19gmCg pic.twitter.com/V8PEGONJHa— ABC News (@ABC) March 2, 2024
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 March 2024 14:06 (one year ago)
D:
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 2 March 2024 17:58 (one year ago)
Teaser time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOsAJ7oe2QE
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 27 September 2024 02:11 (nine months ago)
It's a great trailer/teaser that conveys so much without giving away any real specifics. The second game is absolutely devastating, so my brain was extrapolating more than those snippets of scenes reveal.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 27 September 2024 02:14 (nine months ago)
Yes! I wonder if series 2 is all of game 2, or just the first half.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Friday, 27 September 2024 06:25 (nine months ago)
Reportedly it will be split into at least two parts/seasons, maybe even three. Supposedly, many of S2's episodes are both surprisingly short and, like S1, contain material not in the game (the trailer confirms this).
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 27 September 2024 12:13 (nine months ago)
Trailer! And date!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylovT43x3yo
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 7 January 2025 05:19 (five months ago)
I have no idea how they are going to misdirect people from huge spoilers. Which is to say, a lot of the game hinges on some big surprises - the millions that have played the game know that, the showrunners and writers know that - so I wonder how or if that will change how they tell this story. Something else I'm curious about, a lot of the power of the second game (which has stuck with me as an uneasy, queasy masterpiece) really hinges on the player *playing* it, even more so than the first game, and I'm curious how the show will (or can) pull off the same dynamic, gut-churning shifts. It's telling that they've said the second game will be split into *at least* two seasons, as there sure is a lot to unpack.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 January 2025 13:40 (five months ago)
Feel the same about Minecraft
― Grape Fired At Czar From Crack Battery (President Keyes), Tuesday, 7 January 2025 13:48 (five months ago)
Freeze that "Last of Us" trailer at :22 for this easter egg a lot of people have missed:
https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/66d8f59fb38e9562ec477541/The-Minecraft-Movie--starring-Jack-Black/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&crop=3634,2045,x116,y51,safe&width=1440
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 7 January 2025 13:52 (five months ago)
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTXwKSTgv4advd1KbMGbzDqLDQAO0ry6UqnwQ&s
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 7 January 2025 16:53 (five months ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zHPsmXCjB0
― Mrs. Ippei (Steve Shasta), Sunday, 9 March 2025 08:05 (three months ago)
anyone watching the new season?
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 14 April 2025 05:02 (two months ago)
I enjoyed it but I do worry that the 'safe town' setting for a season is going to pivot this directly into walking dead territory.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Monday, 14 April 2025 13:12 (two months ago)
Safe young town ain’t safe no more
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, 14 April 2025 13:39 (two months ago)
I'm watching, I liked the first episode a lot and it set up some promising stuff. I did say the exact thing to my wife at the end of the episode about this feeling a little too Walking Dead, but I'm hopeful they can pull it in a different direction.
Things I liked: Elle blasting Nirvana, Elle's developing romance, Joel being completely unable to ever switch out of protector mode, the supermarket tension
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 14 April 2025 15:56 (two months ago)
My problem with the season premiere is that while in season 1, Elle was important because she was immune and therefore represented a potential cure, that possibility was cut off in the finale, so now she's just one more member of the community, and frankly, she's a huge asshole who's very hard to like or root for. If it came down to her survival or the larger community's survival, it wouldn't be a hard choice.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 14 April 2025 16:24 (two months ago)
Shows have to cut it out with the two year breaks - was disconnected from this kind of like Severance. Even with the recap (which highlighted that I don't really remember much aside from the Nick Offerman episode) it feels like starting a new show that has to prove itself rather than a continuation of the thing I liked before.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 14 April 2025 16:52 (two months ago)
Not gonna happen when the star is as busy as Pascal
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, 14 April 2025 17:37 (two months ago)
xpost to unpersoni guess i understand that perspective, but i don’t find that for myself at all. if anything i am rooting for Elle as much or more, just bc of the character they’ve established & the journey we’ve been on with her? I mean, hey, Joe isn’t exactly “likeable” either except that he’s played by Pascal who brings soft heart to the character, and Bella Ramsay does the same for Elle imo
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 14 April 2025 18:47 (two months ago)
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 15 April 2025 04:40 (two months ago)
I saw this ep described as "Everybody Hates Joel," lol.
I do know the game so will not spoil anything, but this was a good first episode that introduced some new important people and loosely lays the groundwork for where things go from here. Though given they are splitting the second game into at least two seasons, there's plenty of room for surprises.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 16 April 2025 01:37 (two months ago)
why they’d spend 5 years hunting Joel
were five years supposed to have passed? I can't even tell now
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Wednesday, 16 April 2025 01:56 (two months ago)
It’s almost like their culture is in a permanent holding pattern.
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Wednesday, 16 April 2025 02:02 (two months ago)
The kids are still listening to Nirvana. Don’t they have their own music?
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Wednesday, 16 April 2025 02:03 (two months ago)
1) Didn't they have a "5 Years Later" title card?2) Joel is a big Pearl Jam, it would make sense that his surrogate daughter would be into that scene, too. Also: some oblique foreshadowing.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 16 April 2025 02:15 (two months ago)
Yes there was a “5 Years Later” card after they introduced Denver’s character at the beginning.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, 16 April 2025 03:24 (two months ago)
HBO should have known most people would be looking at their phones and had characters keep saying things like “Joel, you’ve been living here for five years, right?”
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Wednesday, 16 April 2025 03:29 (two months ago)
They have an ASL version streaming, there is probably another one with descriptive narration for the visually impaired.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 16 April 2025 14:53 (two months ago)
Thinking about Ellie's mandated social isolation in the context of Joel being (understandably) paranoid about people finding out what happened, which was underscored by her yelling about her immunity with Tommy when there was on one around.
Also the barn dance scene got a big lol out of me because it opens in the exact same way as the game.
― Baroque Obama (Leee), Sunday, 20 April 2025 20:14 (two months ago)
Let’s fuckin goooooooooooo
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 21 April 2025 04:22 (two months ago)
This is really... strange already.
Not just the whole Helms Deep meets TWDs2 adaptation deviation, not the reappearance of the omniscient tendrils, but the mixing up of Joel & Dina patrol pairing vs. Joel & Tommy/Dina & Ellie which makes the [REDACTED] payoff a bit duller than the game (which is far more gruesome tbf).
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Monday, 21 April 2025 08:09 (two months ago)
someone else please chime in so i can gripe some more lol
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Monday, 21 April 2025 16:44 (two months ago)
ie: infected hivemind, the show writers' decision to create a "fall of eden" (and how it will effect the characters setting out on their quest) is all so... strange.
also reverse DEI of casting Catherine O'Hara as Eugene's wife (she's African-American in the game) was very off-brand... yet on-brand to take some brief short side quest and create some big scene (or possible episode?) out of it.
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Monday, 21 April 2025 16:47 (two months ago)
As someone who does not give the tiniest fuck about the video game, this was an enjoyable episode of television.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 21 April 2025 16:48 (two months ago)
Same
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 21 April 2025 16:51 (two months ago)
And in the game, you have no idea who Abby is nor her motivations until ~10+ hours of gameplay, it's a really amazing payoff and here it's very dumbed down and handed to you on a plate.
also Dina being put to sleep was weird and unnecessary, esp. compared to how Tommy was treated.
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Monday, 21 April 2025 16:56 (two months ago)
never played tlou ii, enjoyed the episode overall. i do see where this is going, i think: they're gonna try to make ellie and abby mirror images of each other, but they haven't done anything to make abby seem anything else besides a monster broken by the world. perhaps foreshadowing for ellie, but idk how they're gonna stretch 2 seasons out of that
― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Monday, 21 April 2025 17:00 (two months ago)
they haven't done anything to make abby seem anything else besides a monster broken by the world
Ellie was less of an asshole this episode than in the season premiere, but I could still easily find myself rooting for Abby in their upcoming conflict.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 21 April 2025 17:03 (two months ago)
Yeah, never played a second of the games and loved this episode. Was genuinely not expecting that twist.
Does the game explain the larger than human sized infected? Like I spent too much time trying to figure out that Oogie-Boogie looking dude from the invasion scenes.
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 21 April 2025 17:04 (two months ago)
Does the game explain the larger than human sized infected? Like I spent too much time trying to figure out that Oogie-Boogie looking dude from the invasion scenes.― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, April 21, 2025 10:04 AM (sixteen minutes ago)
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, April 21, 2025 10:04 AM (sixteen minutes ago)
yes, the bloaters are first hinted at on a flier you pick up and in some dialogue/journals/recordings, their evolution is mostly due to time of infection but serves as a boss for big skirmishes. in this ep, it's just fan service, much like the one encountered in S1 of the show.
https://i.imgur.com/wXaSNP1.png
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Monday, 21 April 2025 17:25 (two months ago)
A bloater is considered to be one of the end stages of infection for victims of the cordyceps fungus ravaging the world of The Last of Us. Unlike the more common clickers, people who have reached bloater stage are pretty much entirely encased in the fungus that grows from out of an infected’s head. This happens when the victim’s been infected for years and has somehow managed to “survive” that long. As Joel mentions in episode two, most infected only live around a month or so, but clickers and bloaters have been infected so long that the fungus has desecrated their eyes and they have to use echolocation to navigate.
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Monday, 21 April 2025 17:31 (two months ago)
Thanks!
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 21 April 2025 17:33 (two months ago)
I guess this show will never be quite as fun to talk about online because so many people already know what’s going to happen next.
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, 21 April 2025 18:30 (two months ago)
I sincerely thank every person who has ever played this game and managed to not spoil this twist. I truly have no idea where this show is going now.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 21 April 2025 20:23 (two months ago)
they've really gone for right off the bat this season, yikes.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 21 April 2025 20:27 (two months ago)
gone for it*
pgw otm, I'm impressed that it wasn't spoiled
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 21 April 2025 22:14 (two months ago)
*pgwp, obv
i knew what was coming and it still wrecked me(i have not played the game)steve i am sorry u r disappointed and that this was dull for u for me, that was a fully harrowing and gruesome hour of tv. no notes yet. still dazed. sidebar: i will not eat be eating any barbecued mushrooms again any time soon D:
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:05 (two months ago)
Was reminded of Game Of Thrones a bit, with the ice and the wall and how it was filmed.
I thought it was refreshing for a show to go straight into the action rather than drag out for ten episodes and end with that one.
One thing that's a bit weird is like, the Fireflies know Ellie is immune, right? Wouldn't they have wanted to take her with them, again? Or have the just memory-holed the goal Abby's father died in pursuit of?
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 06:49 (two months ago)
Yeah, never played a second of the games and loved this episode. Was genuinely not expecting that twist.Does the game explain the larger than human sized infected? Like I spent too much time trying to figure out that Oogie-Boogie looking dude from the invasion scenes.― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, April 21, 2025 1:04 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, April 21, 2025 1:04 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
can someone explain how that is a twist? she literally says in the opening episode of this season that twist is going to happen!
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 07:57 (two months ago)
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, April 22, 2025 1:49 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
they either don’t know or think that there’s no way to use her immunity without the team of dead scientists and doctors
― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 12:59 (two months ago)
The latter is the bigger reason Joel's actions are so fucked up.
The possible end to the pandemic was there and he destroyed the possibility entirely, not just delayed it
― Neanderthal, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 13:06 (two months ago)
that's one area the show differs from the game to its detriment; the game puts you into Abby's prospective without any hint at who she is or what she is up to until they are back at the lodge with her people and she confronts Joel.
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 13:07 (two months ago)
xxxp villains in TV shows and movies go "I will destroy [insert main character/protagonist here]!!!" all the time, it's a cliche and rarely do said TV shows/movies actually go through with it, viewers unfamiliar with the plot of the game are right to assume the show would not actually go through w/ it
― Murgatroid, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 13:14 (two months ago)
Feel like Joel's actions were sort of morally complicated, like they did want to basically sacrifice Ellie. Perhaps they could have decided that maybe there are others like this, let's not be hasty but it became an either/or.
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 13:19 (two months ago)
Yeah, my response is basically what Murgatroid said. Very rarely does a villain's stated intent end up being followed through with, nor do we know how long it might take even if it proves true. From the outside, also a surprise that HBO would sacrifice easily the biggest star on the show who seems to have had a big cultural meme impact in the last few years. Not exactly unprecedented, but also not usually two episodes into a new season. So I'd consider it a twist.
― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:12 (two months ago)
xpost the issue though is it seems like he denied agency to Ellie in that (although to be fair the doctors didn't exactly tell her exactly what they were doing either). but he also lied about it and has taken no opportunity to clarify things with her later, to even find out how she felt about what truly happened.
probably because he's afraid she would say "I would have gladly sacrificed myself, wtf is wrong with you"
― Neanderthal, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:13 (two months ago)
xpost yeah that's how I read your initial post as well. the game's the game, tv is tv, and one of the fatiguing things about US television is that anytime there is a big bad who is pursuing the protagonist, there's often a fatiguing tug of war between building to something major happening and then U-Turning at the 11th hour, over and over again, until the end of the season.
this ep was structured at the beginning like a pretext for a season-long pursuit of Joel, with the usual buildup (discussion of how near-impossible infiltrating Jackson is, "My plan is to tell Abby to turn around and go home"), and the focus being more on Ellie, and also Abby triggering the impending James Cordy invasion.
so it's more that 'oh, we're doing this ALREADY' was the twist than the outcome itself.
― Neanderthal, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:19 (two months ago)
What I like about the show so far is that Abby is very much the hero of her own story. She was sadistic at the end but she’s not exactly a villain either, in the Hollywood sense. Joel killed her dad and she went on a vengeance quest. I can envision the rest of the season complicating this episode by making you root for Abby going forward, even if she and Ellie remain antagonists.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:42 (two months ago)
The casting works very well in that regard. Everybody loves Kaitlyn Dever!
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 14:57 (two months ago)
Deaver rules, love her so much
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 15:05 (two months ago)
he also lied about it and has taken no opportunity to clarify things with her later, to even find out how she felt about what truly happened.
Feel like some of this lack of effort felt a bit "they have not dealt with this for five years and it has never come up, don't ask why", but such is the nature of a big jump in time I guess.
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 15:49 (two months ago)
too bad Kaitlyn Dever didn't get to also maim Tim Allen
― Neanderthal, Tuesday, 22 April 2025 15:53 (two months ago)
The time jumps are the thing I find most annoying about this series. There's no reason for Season Two to take place five years after Season One. One year would have been plenty, and made sense.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 16:00 (two months ago)
https://i.imgur.com/YZI1cFH.png
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 21:07 (two months ago)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 April 2025 21:41 (two months ago)
― Neanderthal, Tuesday, April 22, 2025
I maybe have a very skewed memory of the first season, but they were going to sacrifice Ellie, weren't they? And they didn't seem like good people, like they were going to use the knowledge they gained nefariously, and even though she maybe didn't care to be saved, he wanted to save her. I never saw the video game and I'm not paying that much attention to this show and I'm probably not remembering everything, but I thought I could understand his action at the time, and it didn't seem to me morally complicated at all in the context of this show
And I can't root for Abby going forward, sorry
― Dan S, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 00:07 (two months ago)
100% certainty that Ellie would die for only the possibility of a cure + Joel didn't really believe a better world (ie a cure) was possible
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 00:15 (two months ago)
Xpost not sure where you're getting the nefarious part? Obviously the politics of what they were doing weren't kosher by the standard of pre-collapse society, but Joel was driven by entirely unhealthy feelings towards Emily, wanting her to outright replace his daughter.
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 00:26 (two months ago)
the moral dilemma has no teeth if you equivocate like that. joel chose to doom the world to save one person.
xp to dan s
― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 00:27 (two months ago)
I don’t think you can say he chose to doom the world either!
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 00:43 (two months ago)
I don't think those people were going to save the world, just themselves. And he did what I would have done, save the person you love
― Dan S, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 00:56 (two months ago)
yeah you are rationalizing just like joel did, which is why the moral dilemma has teeth
― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 01:12 (two months ago)
Dan S OTM, this was not a "Greater Good Of Humanity", she was trafficked for cash (drugs/weapons) to help one faction.
I mentioned it in upthread:
Also there's no way any vaccine is going to be produced & distributed without computers, massive clean labs, cold chain air-conditioning, rapid transit (air/trucks)... that's all a pipe dream.Just the way the show treats the threat of the infected being significantly less than the threat of fellow mankind/tribes, the vaccine's importance is lessened.I need to rescreen the whole season to see how often the logic shifts and changes, hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha*― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, March 14, 2023 10:18 PM (two years ago)
Just the way the show treats the threat of the infected being significantly less than the threat of fellow mankind/tribes, the vaccine's importance is lessened.
I need to rescreen the whole season to see how often the logic shifts and changes, hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha*
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, March 14, 2023 10:18 PM (two years ago)
Bella's American accent is starting to get real iffy as well... figured they could AI some yank-ist tonez in post-prod at this point.
― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 01:40 (two months ago)
"joel was right to protect ellie because the fireflies probably wouldn't have cured humanity" makes the story much weaker. for the decision and the scene to have any import, we have to assume a serious ability for that faction to create a cure that would at least help curb the pandemic threat and potentially lead to the rebuilding of society. otherwise, it's just a selfish decision against another selfish decision, and there's no real dilemma there
― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 02:36 (two months ago)
if that's the idea that the last of us part ii leads us to, i am beginning to understand why some critics have serious problems with that game's nihilism
― gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 02:37 (two months ago)
I'm not going to gripe, per se, because this was good television, and I've made sure to watch it with someone unfamiliar with the game. But they made a few changes here and there that, despite more or less getting us to the same place the same way, kind of throws things off a bit. That was a problem/challenge with the first season as well, how do you translate all the time you spend with/as someone in the game to a more traditional 3rd person POV. The challenge is even more pronounced with the second game (for pseudo-spoiler reasons) so I'm extra curious how they handle it.
Anyway, taken on its own terms, this second episode felt like a season finale. And even though I know where it is going, I want to see what other choices they make, even if I end up disagreeing with them.
What ever happened with the sentient roots, did they do anything but writhe?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 02:43 (two months ago)
Neither the Fireflies nor Joel were right (or wrong). Joel damning the human race forever doesn't make for a stronger story, it just makes Joel an irredeemable monster (which is not very interesting narratively).
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 02:51 (two months ago)
Given the daily presence of violent, horrifying death sacrificing one child for a 1 in a million chance at a cure is a defensible choice - at the same time, if that child is your (surrogate-)daughter who you only bonded with because of your dead partner and who wasn't informed that she was being sacrificed... it's probably a defensible choice to rescue her.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 02:57 (two months ago)
Xxxposts most post apocalyptic media doesn't present the ability to find a cure on realistic, grounded terms. If they did, every one of them would just be a Threads sequel. Even Contagion, which is one of the most grounded disaster films in the bunch, took extreme shortcuts in depicting vaccine development.
So I don't much think that can be used to suggest the doctors weren't after a cure or even likely to succeed. It's video game/TV logic. Medical instruments don't have to be sterilized. The impossible can be done after a montage. Fungus are sentient.
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 03:38 (two months ago)
That being said, Abby isn't heroic for doing what she does. She's basically transformed into a monster now that her own people are terrified of
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 03:42 (two months ago)
Abby is doing the same thing Joel did. She chose her Dad over everything else. Joel chose Ellie. Everyone loses.
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 23 April 2025 03:56 (two months ago)
the moral dilemma has no teeth if you equivocate like that. joel chose to doom the world to save one person
Don't think this is true, they could be incompetent or have had selfish designs for their cure but don't forget, he still murdered them all. Or most of them. He chose to murder a bunch of people to save a person he loves. But it's not morally fine for them to have been planning to kill that person. We have no way of knowing if this doomed the world. This gives it even more teeth as it adds more dimensions to the discussion. It would only have no teeth if it turned out they just wanted to kill Ellie and she wasn't immune, or something. It would be more boring if it was more clearcut, not less.
It is a classic, almost cliched, moral quandary with no real definitive way of taking a side, which is why the characters and their motivations and their confusion at their situation allow us to do so a bit more than when people discuss pop morality dilemmas like this in the abstract.
― LocalGarda, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 07:05 (two months ago)
love a good hbo show arugment
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 07:22 (two months ago)
sad you aren't into philosophy
― LocalGarda, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 07:56 (two months ago)
https://i.redd.it/4sssjzhx34we1.jpeg
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 April 2025 13:38 (two months ago)
Last season, right outside of SLC Ellie says (paraphrasing), "It can't all be for nothing," meaning that she doesn't want all the deaths that accompanied her along the way to bringing her to the Fireflies to be for naught. This on the heels of an assault by a cannibal with pedo overtones, so heap another layer of trauma on top of that.
― Baroque Obama (Leee), Sunday, 27 April 2025 04:49 (two months ago)
Once again not entirely convinced by the choices and changes being made by the show, but again, it's well made and acted so I'm curious where (or really how) they take it forward.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 April 2025 12:45 (two months ago)
Started playing the Last of Us II video game this week and boy is it boring. I don't get this trend in video games of having 90% cinematic animations and 10% gameplay. Two hours in and so far I've strummed a guitar and ridden a horse.
― bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Monday, 28 April 2025 16:19 (two months ago)
Give it time!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 April 2025 16:21 (two months ago)
Looking forward to pressing the square button to open a can of beans in hour four!
― bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Monday, 28 April 2025 16:23 (two months ago)
Spoiler alert.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 April 2025 16:28 (two months ago)
Maybe it's like the Scandinavian slow TV thing. 90% of life is waiting for the next wave of zombies
― zydecodependent (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 28 April 2025 17:46 (two months ago)
Ingmar Bergman's Ghost Recon
― bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Monday, 28 April 2025 18:41 (two months ago)
Not as boring as all the talk of discrepancies between the TV show and the game in this thread xps
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 21:24 (two months ago)
really enjoying this season, was surprised to see so few comments.
― LocalGarda, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 21:36 (two months ago)
yeah i am into it, a little bit jarring to whip ahead in time after everything that happened in ep2 but: i go where the show takes me! even it means going to Seattle, a tank-equipped heavily armed CITY, on a lil horsey with (waynes world voice) ~A~ GUN with two teen girls who are surely trotting merrily to their doom like this is a terrible, horrible no good very bad idea but also AVENGE JOEL
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:23 (two months ago)
Grunge was responsible for cordyceps
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:34 (two months ago)
lol, i know like realism is not the point of this show but i read today the distance they would have had to travel is 900 miles. pity the horse.
i am enjoying this season's balance from episode by episode after the mini-movies or varying lengths last time, though i liked that as an intro to the world too.
i worry for dina, maybe because i find it hard to root for or trust ellie. for basically the main character i feel there isn't much charisma there. or much acting besides eye-rolling, but idk.
― LocalGarda, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:43 (two months ago)
xpost
― LocalGarda, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:44 (two months ago)
Part of me wondered if the big bigoted Christian conservative militant asshole supporting her at the town hall might give her pause ("fuck, THIS is the only guy on my side? Maybe I'm wrong"), but Ellie is too headstrong.
Enjoyed the ep but I always love the shots of foliage growing over former cityscapes to be my favorite bits in any of these shows
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 22:53 (two months ago)
yeah that poor fuckin horse having to walk all that way lol ughlol localgarda i kind of am the opposite! i worry for ~ellie~ that ~dina~ is going hurt her, like she’ll catch all ellie’s feels and just stomp them or laugh at them or change her mind & go off with a dude or whatevershe can feel unserious at times which sets off my introverted trust no one klaxons lol
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 30 April 2025 23:29 (two months ago)
warning, spoilers
Ellie is the protagonist now that Joel has died, and fwiw she has her own charisma. I don't think Dina will hurt her, I think she loves her. I do think it's going to be a whole new ball game when they get to Seattle
― Dan S, Wednesday, 30 April 2025 23:49 (two months ago)
In the game, Dina and Ellie stumble into Kurt's grave and if you manage to play Teen Spirit without mistakes, they reconsider their vengeance quest and go back to Jackson.
― Baroque Obama (Leee), Sunday, 4 May 2025 03:39 (one month ago)
Is there a video of this? Haven't heard or seen anything about that as a possible ending...
― octobeard, Sunday, 4 May 2025 18:48 (one month ago)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
― Baroque Obama (Leee), Monday, 5 May 2025 05:50 (one month ago)
The episodes so far haven't been short but they feel a bit narrative-light? Like a video game where you're just moving from cutscene to cutscene on rails.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 5 May 2025 07:38 (one month ago)
xp 😑
― octobeard, Monday, 5 May 2025 08:48 (one month ago)
bob marley
― LocalGarda, Monday, 5 May 2025 12:50 (one month ago)
really enjoyed the very specific and almost perfectly typical 'actor doing a monologue' vibes of jeffrey wright's french cookery youtube
― LocalGarda, Monday, 5 May 2025 12:54 (one month ago)
a combination of 'actor acting a monologue' and 'writer writing a monologue to be acted in the style of an actor doing a monologue'
not trashing it here it just exuded this quality.
I can't believe there are only three episodes left this season.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 5 May 2025 13:29 (one month ago)
That subway scene was so tense
― groovypanda, Monday, 5 May 2025 19:46 (one month ago)
I desire them fancy embossed copper bottomed saucepans just as much as jeffrey wright's character did!
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 5 May 2025 20:07 (one month ago)
$3k for a 10-piece set iirc
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 5 May 2025 20:12 (one month ago)
I can make some magnificent bhunas in my dirt cheap aluminium pans, but fuck, they looked like some good kitchenware!
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Monday, 5 May 2025 20:47 (one month ago)
i've seen those around on the odd kitchen site for sure. tho when he said they need hardcore cleaning i was a bit like fuck that.
i'm really enjoying this season, but i have to say it's a bit weird how stupid the 'plan' for ellie and dina is. i know it's been established they're brash or whatever but just wandering through a city when it is fairly clear they are massively outnumbered, not to mention bashing through places filled with infected, it doesn't really tally with them being intelligent as well as effective. i don't really care about some deeper plot realism or whatever, it just makes them seem really dumb, which they clearly are not supposed to be.
separately i also felt a bit like 'acoustic cover version revealing the heart behind the electronic pop song' was a bit 2005, even if it was a nice moment. especially with 'take on me', like one of the most exuberant pop songs imaginable reduced to we are all going to die but i love you.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 5 May 2025 23:04 (one month ago)
not to take away from the heartfelt and tearful vibes of the scene in question
― LocalGarda, Monday, 5 May 2025 23:06 (one month ago)
For some reason it really bothered me that she didnt put the guitar back in its case.
― Kim, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 00:00 (one month ago)
It was a nice guitar, too!
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 00:50 (one month ago)
"This character is a teenager in an alternate future America, but she has the pop-cultural tastes of a middle-aged, mostly white, mostly male writers' room. Because shut up, that's why."
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, 6 May 2025 01:11 (one month ago)
Hmm, I wonder if she had an influential white middle-aged man in her life, a mentor or father figure, who might have introduced her to a few musical things. Maybe we'll meet him in a future episode?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 01:15 (one month ago)
I usually hate sombre acoustic covers of upbeat 80’s pop songs (like I have been ALLERGIC at least since Chris Cornell did Billie Jean) but this was a really layered, beautiful performance that really served the story and provided a little bit of extra (and needed) catharsis. I liked how much time they gave the scene too.
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 6 May 2025 01:17 (one month ago)
Joel was a contractor from Texas, she should have been playing “Jesus Just Left Chicago” or “The Road Goes On Forever.”
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Tuesday, 6 May 2025 01:19 (one month ago)
Ellie picks up guitar“MOM GOT DRUNK AND DAD GOT DRUNK/AT OUR CHRISTMAS PARTY/WE WERE DRINKIN CHAMPAGNE PUNCH/AND HOMEMADE EGGNOG…”
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 6 May 2025 01:23 (one month ago)
I did like this episode overall, and Ellie saying "I'm gonna be a dad!" was great.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Tuesday, 6 May 2025 02:13 (one month ago)
i know they deeply love each other and obv dina is pregnant but the instant pivot to wanting kids felt odd to me, aged 19 or whatev in a zombie apocalypse.
on the music, reading the posts upthread and when you consider that joel taught ellie how to play the guitar, the idea of him recounting his love for aha is fairly amusing and weird. reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4aD_dZzYpI
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 08:18 (one month ago)
The A-ha thing always made perfect sense to me. After all, here we are in 2025 and people still really like the song. Anyway, I figure, hey, you've got unlimited time and probably limited listening choices, who knows what you might come across in the apocalypse. There's also the possibility that Joel, after striking out teaching Ellie the classic rock standards he loves, picked that one in an attempt to bond. Or that Ellie picked it as an act of rebellion.
It's also a callback to the first season, where an '80s song on the radio meant trouble.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 12:30 (one month ago)
Yep. Why wouldn't you put it back in its case? Not least for security reasons. You don't want to leave a sign that you've been there, surely?
just wandering through a city when it is fairly clear they are massively outnumbered, not to mention bashing through places filled with infected, it doesn't really tally with them being intelligent as well as effective.
I keep wondering the same thing as they're ambling along on their one horse. Which was also a decision that didn't make sense to me. To save resources? Do you see all the greenery around for the horses to eat? What if something happens to your one horse?
― trishyb, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 20:18 (one month ago)
And now that they love each other and Dina is pregnant but the decision is "wow this incredible moment of revelation and human joy and connection against the odds really makes me want to double down on a doomed mission to murder someone in which we both might die"
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 20:33 (one month ago)
Those silica gel packets really earned their keep. 20+ years of Pacific NW humidity cycles in one of those cases that's barely an improvement on cardboard lined with carpet, the neck wasn't completely fucked and the strings weren't even tarnished.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Tuesday, 6 May 2025 20:34 (one month ago)
Like would it not already be even more screamingly obvious that their town is incredibly superior to anything else out there?
― LocalGarda, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 20:35 (one month ago)
They've done a pretty poor job depicting both how driven Ellie is, and also how they are both but particularly Ellie hardcore killers.
The guitar being left out may be setting up the final shot of the show.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 21:21 (one month ago)
I think what would have cleared it right up for me would've been one incident where they dispassionately and easily despatched some infected without anyone getting bitten or anything. But right before Joel was killed, they ran into some whole new type of infected that seems smart, and yet they're like "oh well, no problem, nothing to worry about here, off we go."
Anyway, I do still really like the show. Just having a little whinge about it.
― trishyb, Tuesday, 6 May 2025 22:36 (one month ago)
goddamn this ep jfc
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 12 May 2025 05:28 (one month ago)
if you do an acoustic cover of Take on Me, you have to do the falsetto...
thems the rules....that's the price you pay to sit at that table..
― my opinionation (Hamildan), Monday, 12 May 2025 15:51 (one month ago)
Best thing about this episode was the opening scene. Fuck Ellie and Dina, I want a whole Day Of The Dead-style show about the Wolves.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 12 May 2025 16:01 (one month ago)
kind of a weak episode i thought.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 12 May 2025 18:37 (one month ago)
seriously? dang, tough crowd
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 12 May 2025 18:53 (one month ago)
i think i felt like just sort of lots of running around but not much movement onwards in what was happening? i still enjoyed it, it's a good series generally, but felt last week was stronger.
kinda weird the wlf were like 'sure it's airborne but we are two floors up, it'll be grand', though questions like this are not at the root of me thinking it was not as good an ep as some of the others, just sort of funny.
also how bad a shot is everyone?
the sets in the spore basement were v cool.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 12 May 2025 18:57 (one month ago)
The sets rule. For what it's worth, in the games (sorry) spores are the primary way it spreads, but the showrunners knew they couldn't have everyone running around unrecognizably in gas masks. It's like watching an alternate cut of the show, anyway, so here is the sequence in the game with the masks where Ellie reveals to Dina that she is immune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pGY3t6AAmE
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 14 May 2025 12:55 (one month ago)
I think I might leave this show to its own devices. I'm just not sure I'm in the right mental state to watch people in precarious situations viciously clobber the shit out of each other over tiny differences rather than banding together to clobber the shit out of zombies. (I also bailed on The Walking Dead at the start of the Negan years, for similar reasons.) Like, there's a certain kind of dystopian/post-apocalyptic struggle that I can handle, and I'm not sure this is it. The most recent episode just made me depressed.
― trishyb, Wednesday, 14 May 2025 14:43 (one month ago)
I can see that take for sure.
It's also a bit like... people would be evil and cruel I'm sure in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but maybe there are ways of existence that don't just mirror other shows, even within that.
I guess I am watching this for the spectacle, to an extent.
― LocalGarda, Wednesday, 14 May 2025 15:09 (one month ago)
loved this episode, cried a lot (as per usual)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 May 2025 05:29 (one month ago)
Feels like a mistake to have not spent more time in the town tbh. I'm way more interested in the sardonic psychiatrist than the scar cult.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 19 May 2025 05:47 (one month ago)
Fun fact, this episode (and apparently the next one will as well) brought in the co-writer from the second game, Halley Gross, and I suspect her presence made a big difference (for the positive). The game's director and other writer Neil Druckmann directed this one, too, which might have further helped. There were also some things I think it once again needlessly belabored, which makes me think that's what Craig Mazin is bringing to the table. However, if that's what attracts top notch day players like Tony Dalton, Joey Pants and O'Hara, that's fine with me, even if I think their characters are unnecessary.
Season finale next week. I haven't been watching the scenes from next week, but I suspect I know what will go down. I also suspect, based on what season 3 must entail, that we may get a season 4 as well after all.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 19 May 2025 12:16 (one month ago)
what did we gain by this episode coming as the penultimate one? feel like it would have been even more powerful and devastating if this was just ep2 then events transpired after.
seven episodes feels so short for this season, kinda mad it'll be two and a half years before more.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 19 May 2025 17:39 (one month ago)
Didn't realize either of these things and taken together they're gonna make it very easy for me to walk away.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 19 May 2025 17:44 (one month ago)
fairly sure i read 2.5 years anyway.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 19 May 2025 17:46 (one month ago)
This season has moved a lot of things around a lot from the game, with no appreciable gain, imo, including this episode (as much as I liked it), which in the game arrives allllll the way at the end, to devastating effect.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 19 May 2025 17:47 (one month ago)
was certain it was going to be 'space oddity' when he handed her the tape in the shuttle, but i guess they eventually exhausted their 'rock classics' spotify playlists.
how good would it have been if joel played limp bizkit 'break stuff' when she asked for a birthday song?
― LocalGarda, Monday, 19 May 2025 18:02 (one month ago)
And indeed, Mazin just said in a new interview that the second game requires three seasons, that he can't finish the story by the end of season 3, so a season 4 is all but a sure thing. They better get cracking.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 20 May 2025 00:34 (one month ago)
― from…Peru? (gyac), Sunday, 25 May 2025 16:19 (one month ago)
I do like it when a show gives you the chance to say, *out loud*, "Why the fuck am I still watching this shit?" So thanks, THE LAST OF US. All done with you now.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 26 May 2025 02:48 (one month ago)
The only episode of this season I'm going to remember in a month is the Jackson flashback.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 26 May 2025 02:51 (one month ago)
idg the point of the last scene
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 26 May 2025 05:08 (one month ago)
The last scene of ep 6 or 7? Some game and possible light season 3 spoilers, but the last scene of ep 6 is the closing scene of the game, and it's curious if not a bit disappointing that it's been bumped up and presented here, but I can understand it - but it leaves one to wonder how they'll close the show. Last scene of the season is basically the opening scene of the 2nd half of the game, where you actually play as and see the perspective of Abby and see what he does over the course of the 3 days in Seattle when Ellie is there
― octobeard, Monday, 26 May 2025 08:14 (one month ago)
and I meant to type "she" there. oy
― octobeard, Monday, 26 May 2025 08:16 (one month ago)
xxp meant to show that S3 will mostly be the timeline of S2 but from Abby's perspective
― Murgatroid, Monday, 26 May 2025 13:00 (one month ago)
xxxpost I assume by the last scene in episode 6 you mean the scene on the porch with Joel, not the scene after that where Ellie walks back to the theater?
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, 26 May 2025 14:21 (one month ago)
― from…Peru? (gyac), Monday, 26 May 2025 14:31 (one month ago)
thx murgatroid for the explanationthat makes more sense!
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 26 May 2025 15:32 (one month ago)
Honestly I think I will like this show much more if Kaitlyn Dever becomes the lead
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 26 May 2025 16:32 (one month ago)
Yeah that’s stupid
― from…Peru? (gyac), Monday, 26 May 2025 19:36 (one month ago)
i am not so anti-Ellie as to be really all that heavily invested in that, i guess. Like I’m interested but i’m not all like oh fuck yes finally. And i get that that all ties to the game. Fine, sure whatever. but that leads me to my biggest ongoing rant about this season & this show in general: i fucking hate the way that the show is so heavily idk, “policed” by gamers like UGH THATS DIFFERENT THE CHARACTERS CANT BE DIFFERENT ITS NOT INTENSE ENOUGH ITS TOO GIRLY ITS TOO Y-A IT SHOULD BE X Y Z? as though the tv show cant be its own thing is truly endlessly exhaustinglike have these ppl ever read a book adapted to a movie? THEYRE DIFFERENT MEDIUMS GUESS WHAT IT LETS YOU TELL DIFFERENT STORIES like were you just born? shut! up! it has been exhausting in this way since the Bill & Fran ep in s1 and tbh if i stopped watching the show it wouldnt be because of characters or story choices in the show itself it would be bc the discourse is fucking! stupid! and tiring! (sorry to ppl itt who played the game, i’m not lumping you in w that)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 26 May 2025 19:47 (one month ago)
The gamer reaction is kind of the producers' fault though - they're hewing close to the game rather than taking "shroom zombies" as a starting point. When it's 90% the same (to the detriment of the show) that 10% is going to get some nerds riled up.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 26 May 2025 19:50 (one month ago)
The nerds are driven by being misogynists. Let’s just not pretend they have a point, ok? They’re upset because Bella Ramsey doesn’t look like the character they wanted to fuck.
― from…Peru? (gyac), Monday, 26 May 2025 20:02 (one month ago)
There are some of those game difference nerds here and I haven't seen their criticism being about Ramsey's fuckability.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 26 May 2025 20:24 (one month ago)
VG otmThis season has been a big drop off in quality from S1 though. A lot of episodes wouldn't have been out of place on The Walking Dead
― groovypanda, Monday, 26 May 2025 20:43 (one month ago)
the fall of a cliff each episode this season has been vast tbf. never played the games, it's just got worse and worse. the writing is terrible and that hangs the acting out to dry. and bella ramsey isn't a good actress anyway, nothing to do with the game, but they aren't helping her here at all. one minute she's feeling bad about shooting the people who were part of the group that killed joel, the next she's furiously remembering oh yes must kill abby.
also for a second season that took about two years they managed to bodge together about a ninety minutes longer than a film by the time you take all the ads out. and even within that they still built to a 'finale' where someone gets on a boat, goes somewhere, gets into trouble and has to drive away again. the writing is unbelievably slapdash by now. couple that with them folding in characters we've seen say about ten lines each as the final cast, and it makes it even worse.
it's frustrating because the show had potential. even first few eps this season i thought were really good. but i genuinely was close to turning this off before the end.
p much otm.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 26 May 2025 20:49 (one month ago)
off*
A lot of episodes wouldn't have been out of place on The Walking Dead
and yep, this.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 26 May 2025 20:50 (one month ago)
― from…Peru? (gyac), Monday, 26 May 2025 20:51 (one month ago)
even within that they still built to a 'finale' where someone gets on a boat, goes somewhere, gets into trouble and has to drive away again
That scene had me internally shouting "What the fuck was the point of that?" as it ended. Five minutes (maybe longer) that could have been spent on literally anything else. Oh, but I bet that matriarch character will return in Season 3 and we'll be expected to remember her, and give a shit.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 26 May 2025 21:02 (one month ago)
we've prob all watched enough fail prestige tv now that it becomes really apparent really soon when they haven't a fucking clue what they're doing, and this season/this finale have felt more and more like that. this episode, for a final episode of a show that prob cost more than nearly any other tv show that exists, was just completely shambolic bullshit. the minute the opening scenes were like oh hello, welcome back love triangle part three, it was obvious the whole thing is going nowhere. also like, it seemed like ellie would progress through the hospital basement at one point, and things were moving that way, but repeatedly everyone just goes back to the cinema, over and over.
also the big siren when ellie was captured and they're like 'leave her', even tho they were about to kill her, presumably fairly swiftly. like 'nope we don't have time now, let her get back on the boat which she learned to drive in a storm a few minutes ago, and also got hit by a wave in but didn't die cos we thought why not keep making this character die so often that it is even more clear they will not die'
― LocalGarda, Monday, 26 May 2025 21:06 (one month ago)
Abby is a monumentally uninteresting character at this point, and the actress seems bad. Maybe people like her from some other thing she was in?
― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, 26 May 2025 21:19 (one month ago)
Also, could they have hung a bigger THIS CHARACTER WILL DIE BY EPISODE'S END sign around Jesse's neck? "Oh boy, I'm gonna be a dad!" is up there with "I've got a week till retirement" as a harbinger-of-doom cliché.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 26 May 2025 21:20 (one month ago)
Kaitlyn Dever was in Justified - she played a good character but it wasn't really an acting tour de force.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 26 May 2025 21:22 (one month ago)
i said ellie above, but i mean abby.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 26 May 2025 21:22 (one month ago)
no wait, i don't.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 26 May 2025 21:23 (one month ago)
'got myself a new boat, it's called the live forever'
The hill on which I'm willing to die is that they should have had an entire season at Jackson - the love triangle (pregnancy in general) has little weight because the show had to tell you all of that.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 26 May 2025 21:24 (one month ago)
Jesse, the ex-cop bartender, the angry shrink, Joel's brother, Joel's brother's pregnant wife, Joel's nephew (or niece, whichever) - just zipping on past so we can find the only mint condition Martin acoustic after 25 years of 98% humidity.
― Lady Sovereign (Citizen) (milo z), Monday, 26 May 2025 21:26 (one month ago)
Yeah agreed really. Season one was given so much leeway they did 90-minute bottle episodes, and really good ones. This season they somehow cobbled together seven 40-minute ones, and even at that just burnt characters away as you say.
― LocalGarda, Monday, 26 May 2025 21:29 (one month ago)
And locations
A lot of us who played the game are taking that discussion to the game thread and I think that's the best place for it.
At least on this board a lot of us who are criticizing the show are coming from the perspective where it felt the game was better at presenting the story and characterizations of the ensemble (if it ain't broke, etc).
That said I feel the last two episodes were the best so far this season but perhaps not coincidentally they were the only ones not wholly written by Mazin.
― octobeard, Monday, 26 May 2025 23:39 (one month ago)
Excited to see how they handle the next season. As has been remarked above, the set pieces are incredible!
― octobeard, Monday, 26 May 2025 23:41 (one month ago)
it wouldn't be an HBO genre show if everyone online hated it but somehow returned each week/season (see also: Game of Thrones) (see also: True Blood) (etc.)
― Murgatroid, Tuesday, 27 May 2025 01:22 (one month ago)
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Tuesday, 27 May 2025 02:50 (one month ago)
can confirm re: Kaitlyn Dever acting (and whoever was downplaying her perf in Justified upthread is high, she was so fucking good in that season!)
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 27 May 2025 03:25 (one month ago)