May 3, 2025 • 45 mins
The Path. In the aftermath of Jackson being devastated and the death of a beloved character, Ellie sets her sights on getting justice. Council meetings, unexpected allies, a new group and a new city all lay the groundwork for a new path.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Sandy and Samantha and all your stuff
Never told You production by Heart Radio, and welcome to
another edition of our special mini series on the season
(00:25):
two of the Last of Us. Huh, I could have
said that much better. But basically, season two of The
Last of Us, the first season, we did a little
mini series where we recap every episode and then talk
about the themes, and we're doing it again for season two
and it's been a delight so far, even if the
subject matter is not so delightful. Sometimes that is something
(00:49):
that I love. Apparently there are spoilers for the most
recent episode two have come out as this episode comes
out a week before, and also that previous episodes season one,
the first game and parts of the second game, so
(01:12):
not necessarily plot points that are going to relate to
the second season. It's very complicated, but we we were
very careful and honestly, they've changed a lot of things up,
so I've got some questions myself. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I would turn around with some questions doing it. I'm like,
did this happen in the game? Like no, I'm like,
who are these people?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So we are being careful, but we also don't quite
know ourselves, even though I have played the game a lot,
as Samantha has watched me play it and heard me
talk about it a lot. But yes, so basically we
go over the plot of the episode and then I
(02:01):
mostly talk about my thoughts about it. I have been
forgetting to mention we are pausing our sex and the
city segments and our fiction just for the duration of
this because those are harder things for Christina in to do.
But well, once this is over, it's only seven episodes,
and then we will pick back up with those things,
(02:23):
so we haven't forgotten those things. But if those are
things you're really into, do not worry. Also, hopefully you
enjoy these things even if you haven't played the game
or watched the show. Also, if you're still mad after
what happened in the last episode, because I know some
of you are heard from some of you, Samantha, can
(02:45):
you give us a recap? Yes, I will.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And by the way, a lot of writers are very
upset too. When I was looking up, like I need
to go back and recap just to make sure I
don't miss things, and the people all were like, well
without Pedro Pascal, like well, damn, they really didn't see
it coming. Okay, here it is, but yes, here we go.
So we are back and we are Pedro Pascal less.
(03:09):
Sorry yeah, sorry, And we get to witness Ellie who
has been admitted to the hospital with many others and
she wakes up during at the beginning against a hospitalization
in her trauma, still witnessing in her mind Joel's death
and wakes up screaming, and then it has to be
back under. Then we also see Tommy working with Maria
(03:32):
to get the town back to where it was. We
see people like reconstructing the town. We have a really
great shot of Jesse being so manly with his you know,
giant hammer.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
We love it.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Anyway, moving on, and we also see a touching moment
between Tommy and him saying goodbye to Joel, uh cleaning
him off and saying say hey to Sarah for me,
the daughter that died in season one. That's not a spoiler.
So with all of that heartbreaking scene, Ellie does finally
(04:08):
wake and during this time she has to go through
all the things in three months and everybody's like, okay,
she good to go. She has to talk to Gail.
Great interaction between her and Gail and which She tries
to give the perfect answers to be released, even to
the fact that Gail was trying to figure out what
(04:28):
she was met at Joel for and Joel she was
trying to figure it out what Joel insinuated when he
said I saved her, and Ellie plays, you know, ignorant
to this. She's like, I don't know, what do you
say to you? Trying to also get information, but that's
all we get. And she gets the clear and she
goes home. She goes to see all these tributes on
(04:48):
the fence of the home of Joel's, and we get
the heartbreaking scene of her going through all his stuff,
crying at the scent of his shirts, and at the
same time we hear come in or not to come in.
She brings her some cookies and she's like, oh for me.
They have it back and forth for a second. She's
like just for nothing, and she's like, well, I'm about
(05:09):
to piss you off, in which at that point she
talks about the fact that at first, when she came
to the hospital, Dina had lied and said she didn't
know anything about the people, when actually she knew a lot,
including the fact all of their names Essentially, she knew
where they were part of the WLF or Washington Liberation
Front all right Wolf as you will see, and that
(05:31):
they were going to Seattle. She knew it all, well,
not all, she knew a good chunk and she even
knew enough information that Eugene had mentioned Wolf before uh,
that Federa had fought them and to the to their knowledge,
they had been pretty much wiped out. Doom Doom, doom.
And so of course Ellie is pissed off because she's like,
(05:54):
we lost all this time I needed, we could have
gotten to have gone after them and all these things,
and and Dina was like, you would have because you
need a treatment. She was very injured. So that goes
back and forth. We also see Tommy talking to Gil
as well at one point, talking about is Ellie okay?
What do we need to do? Should I be concerned?
(06:14):
And She's like, yes, you should be concerned, and yes
Ellie is not okay, and yes Ellie is a liar.
So this interaction between the two of them. We also
see a moment between Jesse and Ellie. Ellie's training real
hard on the punching bags, so we have that moment
and he's helping her. We also find out that Jesse
(06:35):
is now part of the council, I guess, after the
death of so many and they will be making a
decision on whether or not that you get a posse
together to go after those who had killed Joel. And
he gives her a word of advice. He's like, write
it down. You're not great at convincing people, and you're angry,
and it's obvious, he's like, and you're not gonna get
your anger is not going to motivate people like Maria
(06:57):
who is on the council. So she's like, okay, I'll
get it ready. And so we go through and they're
having all huge town hall meetings, starting off with the
silliest things like planting things. I think they talk about,
okra or is that corn corn?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Okay, So the back and forth on that, and then
we have her people talking and one woman talks about
the fact that they've lost a lot julement a lot,
but everybody's lost in one at this point and they
need help and getting themselves together and can't be sending
off a lot of people, especially their best people. When
we just went through this thing at Jackson Hole's what
(07:33):
she says, So Carlisle gets up and says, you know,
we need to move on mercy, all these things, forgiveness,
blah blah blah. And then Seth goes on the best bullshit.
We have been attacked. These are our people, and we
have to show force. This has to be about our
you know, protecting our own all these things. We can't
be weak. And then we have Elie stand up with
(07:55):
her piece of paper that she had written out and
she goes from not vengeance but justice, and remembering that
Maria was a prosecutor, She's like, all right, here's what
we're gonna do. We need justice. This is about coming
to terms with understanding that this is what is right,
and not necessarily because I'm angry. That's a great speech.
And so they do a whole vote and it's three
to eight three yes, eight no. So it's a no,
(08:18):
and everybody's like, who are the ones who said yes?
The aftermath seems to take that Maria said yes.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yes, it seems to be Maria, and Tommy said yes,
and Jesse said no. People have really tried to dig
into the way the paper was collected. But I don't
think that makes sense because if they were there's no
two yeses in a row. And Tommy and Maria were
sitting next to each other, and I do believe they
both said yes, but I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
In interesting anyway, so we have this and Ellie is not
having it. She goes home and you see in hersha
she is getting already. She's got her gun, she's got
the gun from Joel, she got a pack, and she's
got her determination. And then at the same time we
hear Dina at the door like let me come in,
and Ellie scrambling like, oh god, oh God, and finally
(09:10):
that's her, and and Dina, being the Dora the Explorer,
which has been a whole meme in my world, comes
with a backpack, a map, and a requirement of boots,
which is if you know, you know, she is the
well prepared person and trying to remind her how to
go about things, what they need to do, the supplies,
all the things that make sense, and is well prepared
(09:32):
for a backpacking trip, backpack, backpack anyway, and she says
she has a guy who can help with guns and
maybe a horse shimmer. Yeah, and anyway, moving on, and
as they're getting ready to go, they meet at three am.
They meet up and Seth is the guy that is
helping them, gets them a gun, a better gun with
(09:55):
a scope, and they have a good old handshake and
like you know, obviously they're they're all the same page here,
but still Ellie doesn't like him rightly so but he
is very much blessing them in this travels and tell
them good luck essentially as they move on. Tommy had
told Ellie earlier where Joel was buried. Uh, And so
(10:15):
she goes out to give to pay respects and with
a handful of coffee beans, which I have a feeling
maybe they will see more about later, it drops coffee
beans on his grave and says goodbye. They ride off
into the beautiful sunset. Is very glorious scene sends the
(10:36):
I guess all the graves stories beautiful as they go off.
We also have a snippet of another group, the Seraphites
or the Scars. You see the scars on their face
talking about war and talking about their prophetess who died
but told them to move, and then that they're fleeing
the Great War. They have nothing but hammers and sticks
(10:58):
on them, it seems their defense and they communicate by
whistling in the way, and they travel as a pack.
But during the time, as he's trying to explain everything
and the little girl gets her first hammer and they're
having kind of a sweet father daughter moment, we hear
the whistle that's like, oh, go hide, and so they
all go hide. And then we go offscreen. We have
(11:19):
Dina and Ellie coming together, and I thought we were
going to have maybe the scene that I thought would
happen in the previous episode in this episode, but it
didn't believe that at that But they do have a
moment of flirtatious moments of talking about the kiss and
whether it meant nothing, and then found out that Dina
had gotten back together with Jesse during the time, I
guess she was in a coma or in the hospital.
(11:40):
Interestingly enough so that back and forth happened there for
a second, very cute thee interaction. And then we wake
up to them traveling and finding the spot where the
Scars or the Seraphites have been attacked. Finding that area
and we see all of them dead, including the little girl.
Dina throws up ooh, thinking that that maybe it is
because of whatever whatnot because of the bodies and all
(12:03):
the stench. As they move on, they kind of talk
about the wolves and again, how a little small of
a pack there are that we have a very infamacy
of them coming up on Seattle, which any gasps and
have some good moments in these moments, and they get
prepared to go to the wolf encampment, I guess. And
then we get to a cut scene where it's just
(12:24):
like a large group of people marching together with giant
tanks with the patch w LF or wolf n scene.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, yeah, and then you see many in the space
needle and.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Oh yeah, right, people, that's true, and he is trying,
he's on the lookout and he misses them by barely
two seconds. Yes, because of the way they ask for
coordinations of what he was supposed to be looking out for.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yes, it's kind of going back to like the whole
Joel could have avoided death in so many ways. There's
a lot of instances of that kind.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Of thing circumstances.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, I have to say, like I think, I don't
think this is a spoil that we're gonna learn more
about a lot of these characters. And I do kind
of feel bad for Manny's character because he they kind
of amalgamated him with another character named Jordan who's not
in the show, and I think it makes sense. But
(13:28):
Jordan was pretty much of check and Manny. I was like, oh,
I could get on board, like I might, I might
not like some of the stuff you've done, but I
see the friendliness and all that. But now he's sort
of like, but he's not right. I don't know. We'll
see what happens, but at this current moment, he's he's
much douchier than he was in the game. It's full.
(14:04):
Thanks as always, Samantha for the wonderful recap. Also wanted
to thank you for this episode. We do these watch
parties and Samantha really through a wonderful wake. We made
funeral food.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I made research because I would assume it's similar to
what I know in Georgia, and that's kind of what
I was basing it on. But I did look up
Texas funeral food foods and the number one was fried chicken.
It's like, that makes sense, so we we went and
grab some fried chicken. But then I was like, and
then obviously all the cast roles a limp salad, and
I'm not sure why it has to be limp. Maybe
it's because they sat out there for so long.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
It was good.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So that's the sound though I got was was on point.
I was like, oh, this is tasty. Maybe I just
really craved vegetables. I don't know, it's been a minute,
but yeah. So we had three different types of cast
four different types of cast roles.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Uh, for very small amount of people.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
We had funeral potatoes, which.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
That was new to me. I've never had before, so
that was new to me. That cooking that finding that
recime was interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's green bean castle always a classic mac and cheesemento
mac and Cheesemo mac and cheese a golf pun because
we're terrible people, the Masters. If you don't know, pamenta
cheese is really highly associated with the Masters golf tournament.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
It was a lovely evening. Oh and we also had
coffee and whiskey.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yes. So my partner does great cocktails and he was
prepared with his coffee whiskey cocktail and I made an
espresso bourbon glaze to go over these. I did not
make these about about these like cinnamon chip cupcakes or
muffins as a drizzle so that we can be on theme.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yes, and we nailed it. We discussed in the previous episode.
We've been off with every one of our themed meals
by a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
But we were on this time. I feel like it
was obvious, but.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
But I'll take the win. I'll take it. And we
were really like, you know, the one thing we kept
saying that we knew Joel loved was coffee, and this
episode bore that out. We'll talk about that in a second,
all right, So here we go. This episode is called
(16:34):
the Past. Interestingly, they changed the title from the previous title,
so they're really messing with me.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Now, maybe they do listen to us, because you do
predict a lot of based on titles, and they know this.
I'm sorry to think we may have a listener.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I remember last time we did this, something strange happened
where I was like, somebody might be listening. Probably not,
but that's a little interesting that that happens. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I do find delight in annoying, like I know secrets
because I can you divulge and they don't know. I
know your secret is this way. Yeah, I can find
delight in that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah. Well, it was supposed to be called Something's Got
a Hold on Me, which is an Eda James saw
about love, and Ellie has an Eda James poster in
her room. But the New Final Destination Movie, which none
(17:34):
of these are sponsors, by the way, I should have
said that at the top, the New Final Destination Movie
has that song as the trailer song and it takes
place in Seattle, and so I was like, what is this?
Is this some kind of connection or is it some
coherence that was happening. Maybe that's why they changed it,
or maybe they realized I'm reading too much into these things.
(17:56):
Maybe it was very much me. But anyway, so this
is what it is called the path, and I think
that works in a variety of ways because we have
the path that Joel took that Gail and Tommy talk
about together you'r Gaale being the therapist played by Catherine O'Hara, uh,
(18:18):
And then we have the path that Ellie is going on,
and then we have the path more in a religious
sense that we're going to learn more about with the Seraphytes.
So there's a lot of paths, and there's even a
lot of path imagery. They were on kind of a
hiking trail, both Ellie and Dina and the seraphytes at
(18:40):
a certain point, so that's what it's called a I
even gave a speech at Joel's wake and it was terrible.
Your partner called me out. And later somebody texted me
and was like, did you at least say the nurses
thought he was hot? And I was like, ah, I.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Think we all mentioned that because we were talking. We
taught a TikTok. Everybody's like if the nurse.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
The nurse, well, after he's murdered, everyone like, but he
was hot.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I mean, but he was super hot even after He's
like really, but uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
But anyway, one thing that I find is interesting about
the sort of if things were reversed arguments that people
get into. Myself included about this is Ellie says, if
it was me or you, Joel would be halfway to
Seattle already, and Tommy says not. If we had lost people,
(19:41):
he would be there to save my wife, but he
wouldn't be And that's interesting because I would think he
would want revenge. But I also think, on the other hand,
he wouldn't want Ellie to do it because he wouldn't
want her to be in danger. He wouldn't want her
to do it for him, So I I don't know
quite what I think, because he just seems like a
(20:04):
very vengeful person to me. But I do agree he
wouldn't want Ellie to do it, and that's kind of
an interesting flip of the whole agency conversation. Because Ellie
didn't want Joel to kill all the fireflies, he, I
would argue, did it largely for himself. I'm not saying
he wasn't thinking about Ellie, but I think he just
(20:24):
really didn't want to lose another daughter figure. And now
she's not really thinking about what Joel necessarily would want,
but what would make her feel better and sort of
this vengeance idea. I am going to talk about the
whole justice versus vengeance thing because that's interesting. Also, the credits,
(20:47):
the opening credits, gotta twist the knife, because not only
is Pedro Pascal's name not in there anymore. At the end,
when there's two so wits there used to be, now
there's only one because she walks the path alone. Oh
(21:09):
my gosh, I didn't notice that when we watched it.
But man, all right, so this is a I feel
like the first season did this too, but they did
it in the opposite where there is a very action
packed episode and then a more establishing episode and then
(21:30):
an action packed episode and sort of that balancing act.
So this episode is the we're dealing with the fallout
of what happened in the very action packed, dramatic, dramatic
previous episode. And if you've watched any behind the scenes
at all or heard any interviews at all, you'll know
(21:53):
this is not really in the game at all, none
of this rebuilding, none of this dealing with grief. It's
very interesting because they have plenty of things that are
like shot for shot exactly, line for line exactly, and
then they have things that are just completely not in there.
But this was one where the showrunners were talking about
(22:16):
in the game. It essentially cuts from Joel is dead
to you're at his graveside, and then you're leaving to
get revenge. Like that's it's quick and the differences we'll
get into in a second, but like it happens very quickly,
(22:36):
So this is much more of a moment to grieve
this character and to sit in it for a second.
But it's still kind of I feel like for Ellie,
because Ellie was in the hospital for so long, she
didn't she didn't really have that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think she's this whole time just been consumed with
I want to get out of here, whereas other people
have been working to rebuild the town or whatever it
is Bury the Dead, but she hasn't had that. I
do think it's interesting when Gail comes in to clear
Ellie and Ellie does say as you mentioned, she says
(23:20):
like the right things. It's very obvious she does not
believe anything she's saying. I think she's kind of baiting Gail.
She's like, oh yeah, yeah, and Gail's like, oh, if
only everyone was as healthy as you. She knows she's lying,
and she cleared her anyway, and that I think that
(23:41):
goes back to a line she has later when Tommy
comes to her for help and it's like, I'm really
worried about her, worried she's going to do something like
Joel would do where he would justify things, but he
was really lashing out. And Gail says, some people just
can be saved. And one of our friends we were
(24:03):
watching it with who works in the healthcare industry, was
very much like, yeah, she had like a visceral reacal,
so yeah, yeah, But that whole idea too of Gail
being like, oh, you're a Ellie is a liar. Ellie
is not just lying, she is a liar. And I
(24:25):
think that does relate back to Joel of his lie
that he told Ellie. And it's another way that they're
very similar, going back to the first episode of the
season when Tommy said, you and my brother you're the
same person. But Gail makes the point that this is
(24:46):
ultimately Ellie, like Joel had very little influence on who
she is. This is her And I like that because
it feels like a way of giving her age. See,
even if it's not what you would want for a
character that you kind of grew up with you y'all,
dang it. But I think that's true and that can
(25:13):
be really hard to accept. And also, yes, I'm very curious.
We've mentioned it several times. We don't know this Eugene
storyline that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It doesn't happen to be someone who knew a lot
and talked a lot.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yes, And my theory is like, because he's part of
the Fireflies, this isn't a spoiler because I literally don't
know that Joel. Maybe Eugene realized something and Joel killed
him preemptively before Gail could say goodbye, like maybe he
(25:48):
was still turning or something, but there was time that
he killed him fast. I don't know, but there's a
part of me that thinks as Gail does. One of
the reasons, she kind of pushes on, what was that
last conversation you had or what was what was this
thing that where he wronged you by saving you? I
(26:08):
don't know. We'll see meat shot see and then yeah,
I guess I should have said this earlier. But set
the bigot. I said in the last episode he died
because I thought he had. He was one of the
flamethrower guys that didn't run, and you see him getting
knocked over by what I thought wasn't infected. But in
(26:28):
this episode it says friendly fire. But anyway, he's not dead.
And even though you don't see him in the game
after that first interaction, as far as I can remember,
he has a big role in this. Suddenly is on
(26:49):
Ellie's side, is getting all the supplies for Ellie and Dina.
But that being said, I feel like when I personally
watched this, I felt it was more of a kind
(27:10):
of shaking hands with the devil situation, because if you
listen to his speech to me, it feels very xenophobic,
very US versus them, and he did call Ellie and
Dina pretty terrible thing. And so it's just this, like
Ellie clearly doesn't want to align with him, but she
does because no one else is really helping her. But
(27:33):
I think that that is like one sign of the
links she's willing to go in this journey for justice
and or revenge however you fall on. That Also, I
didn't I didn't realize this. I should have, but there
was a whole online backlash about how Billie Ramsey was
(27:59):
never could never be strong enough to be Ellie, and
I didn't realize that's why, or at least probably one
of the reasons why they've already had like two scenes
where Ellie is like fighting, like punching training. The very
first scene you see of Ellie and the first episode
(28:21):
is of her fighting Caleb, so clearly they're trying to
to combat that. But I think one of the big
things about this episode and especially this part in the game,
is that whole idea of what do you do after
someone dies, and the whole scene where she's going through
(28:45):
Joel's house. She's looking at his stuff, she's smelling his jackets.
It's absolutely devastating. And in the game, they're all optional.
There's so many optional things in the game that it's
just if you miss it, I feel like you're missing
so much, except for you do have to pick out
the gun. You have to get the gun, but everything else,
(29:07):
like if you want kind of a fun easter egg
that I know is going to pay off, Like she
would go around the house and she'd pick up this
dinosaur booklet. There's been a dinosaur in the background of
every episode at one point because they are they're leading
up to it. But she just has these memories. She
would she would see an item and have this memory
(29:32):
and oh, it's usually like when when I first played it,
me and my friend would go outside and we would
just be like, Oh, that's because that's what you do.
That's what you do. But she does. Ellie does pick out.
She picks up the gun, and not the watch. The
(29:56):
watch is the watch Joel was wearing when his daughter
Sarah was shot and was killed, and the time has
been stopped and the watch was something she had fixed
for him for his birthday. So it's very symbolic of
both the loss of life and I think how time
stopped for Joel at that point and also PTSD. But
(30:21):
Ellie does not pick up the watch. She picks up
the gun and leaves the watch where it is. Also,
you can see how beloved Joel is because in the game,
as I said, it happens immediately almost this is three
months later, and he still had a bunch of like
flat fresh flowers and gifts outside his house. He was
the head of construction, so that's a pretty big loss.
(30:44):
That's a pretty big loss when your town has just
been destroyed. So he was beloved, and you can really
see it in when Dina and Ellie go to visit
his grave and Ellie puts the coffee beans on top.
By the way, this is the scene I broke down in.
(31:07):
But yes, it will be if you're kind of confused,
I they will explain I believe the coffee and why
she put that on his grave, and the discussion of
also the last moment you have with someone that Gail
and Ellie have. I think that's going to play out
(31:28):
more and how much influence it has on their memory
and what you do in the future. And it's interesting
for me because, as I said, I relate this a
lot to when my dad died. It was kind of
close in time, and you know, Samantha, Now, every anniversary
(31:48):
of his death, I have a shot of vodka because
that's the last thing we talked about. And did he
really like vodka that much? No, but it's the last
thing we talked about, so I remember it, and it's
I've never visited his grave for a couple of reasons,
but watching watching that scene always gets me. We've alluded
(32:11):
to it, and I think it's clear in this episode
Ellie is lying when she says that the last she
didn't go back to the fort, so that there wasn't
one more conversation we haven't seen because she had the
guitar back in her apartment her garage the next day.
(32:32):
So that's where I think the coffee thing will be explained.
But it is one of the final scenes in the game,
so I don't know when it will come, but yes,
(32:53):
it's another big theme of all of this, of this
whole game, of this whole show, is how trauma and
the fallout of it impacts all of our relationships. It
changes all of our relationships, and you can see that
in this with Ellie and pretty much everyone in her life.
But also we're going to see it more later with
(33:17):
Abby and her crew because they kind of witnessed her
do this thing and I have to deal with it.
And that does bring us to Seattle, where Abby and
the crew is based, and it was cool to see.
I got very excited. That was I'm so glad we
(33:40):
went to Seattle and did all the things before this,
including in the in the like on the next episode
they had the theater. But oh, I'm so excited. I
really hope they have the equarium in the wheel. I
don't know if they will because I'm not sure quite
how they'd filmed it, but I really hope they do. Yes,
(34:05):
we are introduced to two warring factions in Seattle, the
WLF and the Seraphytes, which does that scene with the
seraphys does kind of continue the father daughter theme. It
also is going to be a continuing example of how
different communities dealt with the infected and the all of
(34:27):
the fallout, because we've already seen a bunch of ways
that it's happened, so we're going to continue to see that.
All right, Big game differences quickly I mentioned in the
last one, Tommy and Dina have pretty much been switched.
Tommy was the one that was with Joel when he died,
not Dina. In the game, Tommy kind of lies to Ellie.
(34:54):
I guess that's up for interpretation. I've always figured he
kind of lied, but he basically Ellie's like, let's go,
and Tommy's like, we can't go. We don't have the
people to spare, but I'll try to convince Maria to
do something. And then Ellie wakes up the next day
and Tommy has taken off and said, I can't let
this stand. I'm going, and Maria says, I need you
(35:18):
to go get my dumb husband, and so she gives
kind of the okay for Dina and Ellie to go
and gives them some equipment. So it's no Seth is involved.
Maria and Tommy's already ahead. I am very interested what
they're going to do with Tommy's plotlight. I kind of
have a theory, but I will see because it's completely
(35:41):
changed right now. Dina's relationship with Joel also is different,
because they liked each other in the game, but they
weren't that close. But this is very much making it
like no, I loved him too. I want to get
revenge too for Dina and Jesse being on the council.
That's one the thing that Samantha was alluding to. At
(36:05):
this point in the game, Dina and Elliot are together
and have had sex, and so I don't know, I
don't know, we'll see. I think they're gonna get together,
but I'm not sure. I definitely got a good laugh
out of the there was only one horse, Ellie's like, oh,
only only shiver. It also made me start thinking about
(36:29):
love triangles because I guess I've always thought about the
love triangle from Dina's perspective because Ellie's not interested in Jesse.
Jesse's not interested in Ellie. They're both interested in Dina.
So it feels like Dina has the power. But I
would really love to come back and think about that
because I guess usually there isn't a queer and a
(36:50):
lot of stuff I've consumed, there isn't a queer aspect
of the love triangle, so I always see it from
usually the one woman's perspective because she's the one that
gets to decide. I don't know, but I just realized
when I was rewatching it. I was like, oh, I've
always seen it from her point of view, and we
(37:12):
will talk about more. I had some other realizations, but
I must wait until some future episodes come out. Oh
and one of those things is this is not in
the game. The whole thing where Dina is like, do
you ever think like Jesse is sad? And Ellie's like yes, uh,
and Dina has that moment of like, well, I feel
(37:34):
like that's just who he is. But what if it's me.
I think that's going to be relevant later, Okay, And
just yeah, Probably one of the biggest differences to reiterate
is that Ellie wasn't hurt, the town wasn't destroyed. They
left immediately. But in this other people watch someone too,
(37:58):
the whole town is recuperating and Ellie had to recuperate herself.
And this brings us to the random at the end,
just random thoughts I have. So I just think that
this is such a creative choice to kill off your
(38:20):
main what people thought would be the main character so early.
The development team of the game actually like really bagged
the writers to change the story because it was so depressing,
which we have talked about in previous episodes, but they
were leaned in and I also didn't really reiterate this
in the last episode. But apart from Abby's monologue, Joel's
(38:43):
death scene was pretty line to line shot for shot,
including Abby's iconic line you don't get to rush this.
In my opinion, she has a more iconic one later,
but to wait for that. Also, this whole idea about
asking for help, it's a recurrent theme and Dina brings
it up in this episode, and it comes up later
(39:06):
in the game at least where people are like, you know,
you could have just asked for help, and I think
that's important. Another big theme is women and revenge, which
we have done several episodes on. We did one that
was kind of specific to the Last of Us, which
I don't recommend listening to if you don't want to
(39:28):
be spoiled. But a part of me does think the
reason people hate Abby so much is that she's a woman,
and is that Joel is so beloved. And also, as
we've discussed before, I think people were really on board
with Joel because he was protecting a young girl. So
even though he was doing these things that were pretty awful,
(39:51):
we were like, yeah, but it's for her, but it does.
It sparks a lot of argument, including the whole justice
for is revenge sing But it's just such a it
just spins out so quickly to me because then you're like, well,
Abby was getting justice and now she's put other people
in danger because of that. Was she really getting justice
(40:14):
or was it revenge justifications versus lasting out, which is
what Tommy is talking about with Joel. And one thing
that we are going to see is the fallout of revenge,
not just trying to but revenge to or justice. I go,
so I'll let you have it for now, to everyone
here in their lives and even outside of that, because
(40:36):
if you remember, Tommy left Joel because of the violent
things that they had to do to survive. He got
out as how he says it, I'm not sure how
it's going to play out on the show because they
have changed his story, but I suspect that Ellie is
going to pull Tommy and maybe other people back into
this violent world that they were trying to get out of.
(40:58):
But we shall see. Also, Abby, Abby, Abby. We got
to hear Ellie say it in the tone she says
it in the game where she's like Abby woo. I
love it so much. But I did see a lot
of post after that episode about Abby and about how
(41:21):
they tried to minimize the backlash against her that the
game experienced. One of the things was Pedro Pascal took
a lot of selfies with her that showed that they
were like very close and like he's like, oh, I
love her, Like please, she's.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
A person, this is acting, this.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is acting, and she did. That's like one of my
favorite things I've seen so far is like, I hate her,
but she nailed it, so I can't be too mad.
I like that because you are supposed to hate her.
I'm not saying you're not supposed to at this point
right now, you I did believe me, But I think
(42:02):
that I appreciate people who could recognize like, wow, I'm
so angry at this character, but this actor really did
an amazing job. And I'm not going to harass them
in any way. Is that too much to happen? But
I do think that's why her monologue exists. I think
that's also part of the structure of the show versus
the game, which we've discussed. Also, I read an interesting
(42:24):
thing about how they changed Joel's death a little bit
where she stabs him with the golf club and then
show his body being dragged back because so many characters
come back in franchises. And I thought that was really
funny because I talked about how I went in the game.
I was like, he can't be did. I wouldn't never,
I don't believe it. But they went out of their
(42:45):
way to like, Nope.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
No, he really did.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
He did.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Watches the body, nothing's happening move.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
But another theme I just want to highlight at the
very end here is there is going to be a
lot of exploration and to empathy and the lack thereof.
And one of the things that I really love about
video games is a storytelling medium, is that you really,
(43:15):
if it's a good game, connect to it in such
a way. And this game I just connected to so
hard because it felt like, you know, Ellie wasn't too late,
I was too late. Like it makes you complicit almost
in a way. So it's really impactful. But that's definitely
(43:36):
something that's going to be explored. I think this whole
idea that they keep bringing up in different ways of
strangers versus helping outsiders is going to come up and
in terms of empathy with that because you know, in
the first episode we had Maria being like, you know,
you were a refugee to Joel, but then you see
kind of Joel. You have him both saying we can't
(43:58):
let everybody in, but then helping Abby, and you have
Seth giving this whole speech show. I think they're going
to We're going to see more of that. Also, if
you picked up on it in Ellie's room, there was
a matrix poster prominently prominently placed. I think that's about enlightenment.
I think it's about like going through the whole journey
and at the end maybe coming to a different realization
(44:20):
than you thought. Another thing I know that they're playing
on is this whole idea of the youth inheriting the
earth and what are they going to inherit and what
is it going to look like? And so that scene
where Tommy is, you know, kind of using the hammer
to hammer in mistakes and then Jesse's like, you want
(44:41):
me to do it and he takes over. Like there's
a lot of instances of seeing younger, younger people take over,
So I think that's gonna be another thing. But Abby's
fury is a part of that, and the choice she
made is a part of that, and the choice Elly
has made is a part of that too, So we
shall see. But yes, I'm so excited for the next episode.
(45:05):
Oh but in the dreamtime listeners, if you have any thoughts,
anything to add, please let us know. You can email
us at Hello at Stuffanevertold You dot com. You can
also find us on Blue Sky at Momster podcast, or
on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store,
and we have a book you can get wherever you
(45:26):
get your ricks. Thanks as always too, our super duce Christine,
our executive producer and contributor Joey, Thank you, Thanks to
you for listening stuff I Never Told Yous fiction by
Heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio, you
can check out the heart Radio Apple Podcasts wherever real
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Sandy and Samantha and all your stuff
Never told You production by Heart Radio, and welcome to
another edition of our special mini series on the season
(00:25):
two of the Last of Us. Huh, I could have
said that much better. But basically, season two of The
Last of Us, the first season, we did a little
mini series where we recap every episode and then talk
about the themes, and we're doing it again for season two
and it's been a delight so far, even if the
subject matter is not so delightful. Sometimes that is something
(00:49):
that I love. Apparently there are spoilers for the most
recent episode two have come out as this episode comes
out a week before, and also that previous episodes season one,
the first game and parts of the second game, so
(01:12):
not necessarily plot points that are going to relate to
the second season. It's very complicated, but we we were
very careful and honestly, they've changed a lot of things up,
so I've got some questions myself. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I would turn around with some questions doing it. I'm like,
did this happen in the game? Like no, I'm like,
who are these people?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So we are being careful, but we also don't quite
know ourselves, even though I have played the game a lot,
as Samantha has watched me play it and heard me
talk about it a lot. But yes, so basically we
go over the plot of the episode and then I
(02:01):
mostly talk about my thoughts about it. I have been
forgetting to mention we are pausing our sex and the
city segments and our fiction just for the duration of
this because those are harder things for Christina in to do.
But well, once this is over, it's only seven episodes,
and then we will pick back up with those things,
(02:23):
so we haven't forgotten those things. But if those are
things you're really into, do not worry. Also, hopefully you
enjoy these things even if you haven't played the game
or watched the show. Also, if you're still mad after
what happened in the last episode, because I know some
of you are heard from some of you, Samantha, can
(02:45):
you give us a recap? Yes, I will.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And by the way, a lot of writers are very
upset too. When I was looking up, like I need
to go back and recap just to make sure I
don't miss things, and the people all were like, well
without Pedro Pascal, like well, damn, they really didn't see
it coming. Okay, here it is, but yes, here we go.
So we are back and we are Pedro Pascal less.
(03:09):
Sorry yeah, sorry, And we get to witness Ellie who
has been admitted to the hospital with many others and
she wakes up during at the beginning against a hospitalization
in her trauma, still witnessing in her mind Joel's death
and wakes up screaming, and then it has to be
back under. Then we also see Tommy working with Maria
(03:32):
to get the town back to where it was. We
see people like reconstructing the town. We have a really
great shot of Jesse being so manly with his you know,
giant hammer.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
We love it.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Anyway, moving on, and we also see a touching moment
between Tommy and him saying goodbye to Joel, uh cleaning
him off and saying say hey to Sarah for me,
the daughter that died in season one. That's not a spoiler.
So with all of that heartbreaking scene, Ellie does finally
(04:08):
wake and during this time she has to go through
all the things in three months and everybody's like, okay,
she good to go. She has to talk to Gail.
Great interaction between her and Gail and which She tries
to give the perfect answers to be released, even to
the fact that Gail was trying to figure out what
(04:28):
she was met at Joel for and Joel she was
trying to figure it out what Joel insinuated when he
said I saved her, and Ellie plays, you know, ignorant
to this. She's like, I don't know, what do you
say to you? Trying to also get information, but that's
all we get. And she gets the clear and she
goes home. She goes to see all these tributes on
(04:48):
the fence of the home of Joel's, and we get
the heartbreaking scene of her going through all his stuff,
crying at the scent of his shirts, and at the
same time we hear come in or not to come in.
She brings her some cookies and she's like, oh for me.
They have it back and forth for a second. She's
like just for nothing, and she's like, well, I'm about
(05:09):
to piss you off, in which at that point she
talks about the fact that at first, when she came
to the hospital, Dina had lied and said she didn't
know anything about the people, when actually she knew a lot,
including the fact all of their names Essentially, she knew
where they were part of the WLF or Washington Liberation
Front all right Wolf as you will see, and that
(05:31):
they were going to Seattle. She knew it all, well,
not all, she knew a good chunk and she even
knew enough information that Eugene had mentioned Wolf before uh,
that Federa had fought them and to the to their knowledge,
they had been pretty much wiped out. Doom Doom, doom.
And so of course Ellie is pissed off because she's like,
(05:54):
we lost all this time I needed, we could have
gotten to have gone after them and all these things,
and and Dina was like, you would have because you
need a treatment. She was very injured. So that goes
back and forth. We also see Tommy talking to Gil
as well at one point, talking about is Ellie okay?
What do we need to do? Should I be concerned?
(06:14):
And She's like, yes, you should be concerned, and yes
Ellie is not okay, and yes Ellie is a liar.
So this interaction between the two of them. We also
see a moment between Jesse and Ellie. Ellie's training real
hard on the punching bags, so we have that moment
and he's helping her. We also find out that Jesse
(06:35):
is now part of the council, I guess, after the
death of so many and they will be making a
decision on whether or not that you get a posse
together to go after those who had killed Joel. And
he gives her a word of advice. He's like, write
it down. You're not great at convincing people, and you're angry,
and it's obvious, he's like, and you're not gonna get
your anger is not going to motivate people like Maria
(06:57):
who is on the council. So she's like, okay, I'll
get it ready. And so we go through and they're
having all huge town hall meetings, starting off with the
silliest things like planting things. I think they talk about,
okra or is that corn corn?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Okay, So the back and forth on that, and then
we have her people talking and one woman talks about
the fact that they've lost a lot julement a lot,
but everybody's lost in one at this point and they
need help and getting themselves together and can't be sending
off a lot of people, especially their best people. When
we just went through this thing at Jackson Hole's what
(07:33):
she says, So Carlisle gets up and says, you know,
we need to move on mercy, all these things, forgiveness,
blah blah blah. And then Seth goes on the best bullshit.
We have been attacked. These are our people, and we
have to show force. This has to be about our
you know, protecting our own all these things. We can't
be weak. And then we have Elie stand up with
(07:55):
her piece of paper that she had written out and
she goes from not vengeance but justice, and remembering that
Maria was a prosecutor, She's like, all right, here's what
we're gonna do. We need justice. This is about coming
to terms with understanding that this is what is right,
and not necessarily because I'm angry. That's a great speech.
And so they do a whole vote and it's three
to eight three yes, eight no. So it's a no,
(08:18):
and everybody's like, who are the ones who said yes?
The aftermath seems to take that Maria said yes.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yes, it seems to be Maria, and Tommy said yes,
and Jesse said no. People have really tried to dig
into the way the paper was collected. But I don't
think that makes sense because if they were there's no
two yeses in a row. And Tommy and Maria were
sitting next to each other, and I do believe they
both said yes, but I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
In interesting anyway, so we have this and Ellie is not
having it. She goes home and you see in hersha
she is getting already. She's got her gun, she's got
the gun from Joel, she got a pack, and she's
got her determination. And then at the same time we
hear Dina at the door like let me come in,
and Ellie scrambling like, oh god, oh God, and finally
(09:10):
that's her, and and Dina, being the Dora the Explorer,
which has been a whole meme in my world, comes
with a backpack, a map, and a requirement of boots,
which is if you know, you know, she is the
well prepared person and trying to remind her how to
go about things, what they need to do, the supplies,
all the things that make sense, and is well prepared
(09:32):
for a backpacking trip, backpack, backpack anyway, and she says
she has a guy who can help with guns and
maybe a horse shimmer. Yeah, and anyway, moving on, and
as they're getting ready to go, they meet at three am.
They meet up and Seth is the guy that is
helping them, gets them a gun, a better gun with
(09:55):
a scope, and they have a good old handshake and
like you know, obviously they're they're all the same page here,
but still Ellie doesn't like him rightly so but he
is very much blessing them in this travels and tell
them good luck essentially as they move on. Tommy had
told Ellie earlier where Joel was buried. Uh, And so
(10:15):
she goes out to give to pay respects and with
a handful of coffee beans, which I have a feeling
maybe they will see more about later, it drops coffee
beans on his grave and says goodbye. They ride off
into the beautiful sunset. Is very glorious scene sends the
(10:36):
I guess all the graves stories beautiful as they go off.
We also have a snippet of another group, the Seraphites
or the Scars. You see the scars on their face
talking about war and talking about their prophetess who died
but told them to move, and then that they're fleeing
the Great War. They have nothing but hammers and sticks
(10:58):
on them, it seems their defense and they communicate by
whistling in the way, and they travel as a pack.
But during the time, as he's trying to explain everything
and the little girl gets her first hammer and they're
having kind of a sweet father daughter moment, we hear
the whistle that's like, oh, go hide, and so they
all go hide. And then we go offscreen. We have
(11:19):
Dina and Ellie coming together, and I thought we were
going to have maybe the scene that I thought would
happen in the previous episode in this episode, but it
didn't believe that at that But they do have a
moment of flirtatious moments of talking about the kiss and
whether it meant nothing, and then found out that Dina
had gotten back together with Jesse during the time, I
guess she was in a coma or in the hospital.
(11:40):
Interestingly enough so that back and forth happened there for
a second, very cute thee interaction. And then we wake
up to them traveling and finding the spot where the
Scars or the Seraphites have been attacked. Finding that area
and we see all of them dead, including the little girl.
Dina throws up ooh, thinking that that maybe it is
because of whatever whatnot because of the bodies and all
(12:03):
the stench. As they move on, they kind of talk
about the wolves and again, how a little small of
a pack there are that we have a very infamacy
of them coming up on Seattle, which any gasps and
have some good moments in these moments, and they get
prepared to go to the wolf encampment, I guess. And
then we get to a cut scene where it's just
(12:24):
like a large group of people marching together with giant
tanks with the patch w LF or wolf n scene.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, yeah, and then you see many in the space
needle and.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Oh yeah, right, people, that's true, and he is trying,
he's on the lookout and he misses them by barely
two seconds. Yes, because of the way they ask for
coordinations of what he was supposed to be looking out for.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yes, it's kind of going back to like the whole
Joel could have avoided death in so many ways. There's
a lot of instances of that kind.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Of thing circumstances.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, I have to say, like I think, I don't
think this is a spoil that we're gonna learn more
about a lot of these characters. And I do kind
of feel bad for Manny's character because he they kind
of amalgamated him with another character named Jordan who's not
in the show, and I think it makes sense. But
(13:28):
Jordan was pretty much of check and Manny. I was like, oh,
I could get on board, like I might, I might
not like some of the stuff you've done, but I
see the friendliness and all that. But now he's sort
of like, but he's not right. I don't know. We'll
see what happens, but at this current moment, he's he's
much douchier than he was in the game. It's full.
(14:04):
Thanks as always, Samantha for the wonderful recap. Also wanted
to thank you for this episode. We do these watch
parties and Samantha really through a wonderful wake. We made
funeral food.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I made research because I would assume it's similar to
what I know in Georgia, and that's kind of what
I was basing it on. But I did look up
Texas funeral food foods and the number one was fried chicken.
It's like, that makes sense, so we we went and
grab some fried chicken. But then I was like, and
then obviously all the cast roles a limp salad, and
I'm not sure why it has to be limp. Maybe
it's because they sat out there for so long.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
It was good.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
So that's the sound though I got was was on point.
I was like, oh, this is tasty. Maybe I just
really craved vegetables. I don't know, it's been a minute,
but yeah. So we had three different types of cast
four different types of cast roles.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Uh, for very small amount of people.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
We had funeral potatoes, which.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
That was new to me. I've never had before, so
that was new to me. That cooking that finding that
recime was interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's green bean castle always a classic mac and cheesemento
mac and Cheesemo mac and cheese a golf pun because
we're terrible people, the Masters. If you don't know, pamenta
cheese is really highly associated with the Masters golf tournament.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
It was a lovely evening. Oh and we also had
coffee and whiskey.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yes. So my partner does great cocktails and he was
prepared with his coffee whiskey cocktail and I made an
espresso bourbon glaze to go over these. I did not
make these about about these like cinnamon chip cupcakes or
muffins as a drizzle so that we can be on theme.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yes, and we nailed it. We discussed in the previous episode.
We've been off with every one of our themed meals
by a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
But we were on this time. I feel like it
was obvious, but.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
But I'll take the win. I'll take it. And we
were really like, you know, the one thing we kept
saying that we knew Joel loved was coffee, and this
episode bore that out. We'll talk about that in a second,
all right, So here we go. This episode is called
(16:34):
the Past. Interestingly, they changed the title from the previous title,
so they're really messing with me.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Now, maybe they do listen to us, because you do
predict a lot of based on titles, and they know this.
I'm sorry to think we may have a listener.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I remember last time we did this, something strange happened
where I was like, somebody might be listening. Probably not,
but that's a little interesting that that happens. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I do find delight in annoying, like I know secrets
because I can you divulge and they don't know. I
know your secret is this way. Yeah, I can find
delight in that.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah. Well, it was supposed to be called Something's Got
a Hold on Me, which is an Eda James saw
about love, and Ellie has an Eda James poster in
her room. But the New Final Destination Movie, which none
(17:34):
of these are sponsors, by the way, I should have
said that at the top, the New Final Destination Movie
has that song as the trailer song and it takes
place in Seattle, and so I was like, what is this?
Is this some kind of connection or is it some
coherence that was happening. Maybe that's why they changed it,
or maybe they realized I'm reading too much into these things.
(17:56):
Maybe it was very much me. But anyway, so this
is what it is called the path, and I think
that works in a variety of ways because we have
the path that Joel took that Gail and Tommy talk
about together you'r Gaale being the therapist played by Catherine O'Hara, uh,
(18:18):
And then we have the path that Ellie is going on,
and then we have the path more in a religious
sense that we're going to learn more about with the Seraphytes.
So there's a lot of paths, and there's even a
lot of path imagery. They were on kind of a
hiking trail, both Ellie and Dina and the seraphytes at
(18:40):
a certain point, so that's what it's called a I
even gave a speech at Joel's wake and it was terrible.
Your partner called me out. And later somebody texted me
and was like, did you at least say the nurses
thought he was hot? And I was like, ah, I.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Think we all mentioned that because we were talking. We
taught a TikTok. Everybody's like if the nurse.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
The nurse, well, after he's murdered, everyone like, but he
was hot.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I mean, but he was super hot even after He's
like really, but uh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
But anyway, one thing that I find is interesting about
the sort of if things were reversed arguments that people
get into. Myself included about this is Ellie says, if
it was me or you, Joel would be halfway to
Seattle already, and Tommy says not. If we had lost people,
(19:41):
he would be there to save my wife, but he
wouldn't be And that's interesting because I would think he
would want revenge. But I also think, on the other hand,
he wouldn't want Ellie to do it because he wouldn't
want her to be in danger. He wouldn't want her
to do it for him, So I I don't know
quite what I think, because he just seems like a
(20:04):
very vengeful person to me. But I do agree he
wouldn't want Ellie to do it, and that's kind of
an interesting flip of the whole agency conversation. Because Ellie
didn't want Joel to kill all the fireflies, he, I
would argue, did it largely for himself. I'm not saying
he wasn't thinking about Ellie, but I think he just
(20:24):
really didn't want to lose another daughter figure. And now
she's not really thinking about what Joel necessarily would want,
but what would make her feel better and sort of
this vengeance idea. I am going to talk about the
whole justice versus vengeance thing because that's interesting. Also, the credits,
(20:47):
the opening credits, gotta twist the knife, because not only
is Pedro Pascal's name not in there anymore. At the end,
when there's two so wits there used to be, now
there's only one because she walks the path alone. Oh
(21:09):
my gosh, I didn't notice that when we watched it.
But man, all right, so this is a I feel
like the first season did this too, but they did
it in the opposite where there is a very action
packed episode and then a more establishing episode and then
(21:30):
an action packed episode and sort of that balancing act.
So this episode is the we're dealing with the fallout
of what happened in the very action packed, dramatic, dramatic
previous episode. And if you've watched any behind the scenes
at all or heard any interviews at all, you'll know
(21:53):
this is not really in the game at all, none
of this rebuilding, none of this dealing with grief. It's
very interesting because they have plenty of things that are
like shot for shot exactly, line for line exactly, and
then they have things that are just completely not in there.
But this was one where the showrunners were talking about
(22:16):
in the game. It essentially cuts from Joel is dead
to you're at his graveside, and then you're leaving to
get revenge. Like that's it's quick and the differences we'll
get into in a second, but like it happens very quickly,
(22:36):
So this is much more of a moment to grieve
this character and to sit in it for a second.
But it's still kind of I feel like for Ellie,
because Ellie was in the hospital for so long, she
didn't she didn't really have that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I think she's this whole time just been consumed with
I want to get out of here, whereas other people
have been working to rebuild the town or whatever it
is Bury the Dead, but she hasn't had that. I
do think it's interesting when Gail comes in to clear
Ellie and Ellie does say as you mentioned, she says
(23:20):
like the right things. It's very obvious she does not
believe anything she's saying. I think she's kind of baiting Gail.
She's like, oh yeah, yeah, and Gail's like, oh, if
only everyone was as healthy as you. She knows she's lying,
and she cleared her anyway, and that I think that
(23:41):
goes back to a line she has later when Tommy
comes to her for help and it's like, I'm really
worried about her, worried she's going to do something like
Joel would do where he would justify things, but he
was really lashing out. And Gail says, some people just
can be saved. And one of our friends we were
(24:03):
watching it with who works in the healthcare industry, was
very much like, yeah, she had like a visceral reacal,
so yeah, yeah, But that whole idea too of Gail
being like, oh, you're a Ellie is a liar. Ellie
is not just lying, she is a liar. And I
(24:25):
think that does relate back to Joel of his lie
that he told Ellie. And it's another way that they're
very similar, going back to the first episode of the
season when Tommy said, you and my brother you're the
same person. But Gail makes the point that this is
(24:46):
ultimately Ellie, like Joel had very little influence on who
she is. This is her And I like that because
it feels like a way of giving her age. See,
even if it's not what you would want for a
character that you kind of grew up with you y'all,
dang it. But I think that's true and that can
(25:13):
be really hard to accept. And also, yes, I'm very curious.
We've mentioned it several times. We don't know this Eugene
storyline that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It doesn't happen to be someone who knew a lot
and talked a lot.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yes, And my theory is like, because he's part of
the Fireflies, this isn't a spoiler because I literally don't
know that Joel. Maybe Eugene realized something and Joel killed
him preemptively before Gail could say goodbye, like maybe he
(25:48):
was still turning or something, but there was time that
he killed him fast. I don't know, but there's a
part of me that thinks as Gail does. One of
the reasons, she kind of pushes on, what was that
last conversation you had or what was what was this
thing that where he wronged you by saving you? I
(26:08):
don't know. We'll see meat shot see and then yeah,
I guess I should have said this earlier. But set
the bigot. I said in the last episode he died
because I thought he had. He was one of the
flamethrower guys that didn't run, and you see him getting
knocked over by what I thought wasn't infected. But in
(26:28):
this episode it says friendly fire. But anyway, he's not dead.
And even though you don't see him in the game
after that first interaction, as far as I can remember,
he has a big role in this. Suddenly is on
(26:49):
Ellie's side, is getting all the supplies for Ellie and Dina.
But that being said, I feel like when I personally
watched this, I felt it was more of a kind
(27:10):
of shaking hands with the devil situation, because if you
listen to his speech to me, it feels very xenophobic,
very US versus them, and he did call Ellie and
Dina pretty terrible thing. And so it's just this, like
Ellie clearly doesn't want to align with him, but she
does because no one else is really helping her. But
(27:33):
I think that that is like one sign of the
links she's willing to go in this journey for justice
and or revenge however you fall on. That Also, I
didn't I didn't realize this. I should have, but there
was a whole online backlash about how Billie Ramsey was
(27:59):
never could never be strong enough to be Ellie, and
I didn't realize that's why, or at least probably one
of the reasons why they've already had like two scenes
where Ellie is like fighting, like punching training. The very
first scene you see of Ellie and the first episode
(28:21):
is of her fighting Caleb, so clearly they're trying to
to combat that. But I think one of the big
things about this episode and especially this part in the game,
is that whole idea of what do you do after
someone dies, and the whole scene where she's going through
(28:45):
Joel's house. She's looking at his stuff, she's smelling his jackets.
It's absolutely devastating. And in the game, they're all optional.
There's so many optional things in the game that it's
just if you miss it, I feel like you're missing
so much, except for you do have to pick out
the gun. You have to get the gun, but everything else,
(29:07):
like if you want kind of a fun easter egg
that I know is going to pay off, Like she
would go around the house and she'd pick up this
dinosaur booklet. There's been a dinosaur in the background of
every episode at one point because they are they're leading
up to it. But she just has these memories. She
would she would see an item and have this memory
(29:32):
and oh, it's usually like when when I first played it,
me and my friend would go outside and we would
just be like, Oh, that's because that's what you do.
That's what you do. But she does. Ellie does pick out.
She picks up the gun, and not the watch. The
(29:56):
watch is the watch Joel was wearing when his daughter
Sarah was shot and was killed, and the time has
been stopped and the watch was something she had fixed
for him for his birthday. So it's very symbolic of
both the loss of life and I think how time
stopped for Joel at that point and also PTSD. But
(30:21):
Ellie does not pick up the watch. She picks up
the gun and leaves the watch where it is. Also,
you can see how beloved Joel is because in the game,
as I said, it happens immediately almost this is three
months later, and he still had a bunch of like
flat fresh flowers and gifts outside his house. He was
the head of construction, so that's a pretty big loss.
(30:44):
That's a pretty big loss when your town has just
been destroyed. So he was beloved, and you can really
see it in when Dina and Ellie go to visit
his grave and Ellie puts the coffee beans on top.
By the way, this is the scene I broke down in.
(31:07):
But yes, it will be if you're kind of confused,
I they will explain I believe the coffee and why
she put that on his grave, and the discussion of
also the last moment you have with someone that Gail
and Ellie have. I think that's going to play out
(31:28):
more and how much influence it has on their memory
and what you do in the future. And it's interesting
for me because, as I said, I relate this a
lot to when my dad died. It was kind of
close in time, and you know, Samantha, Now, every anniversary
(31:48):
of his death, I have a shot of vodka because
that's the last thing we talked about. And did he
really like vodka that much? No, but it's the last
thing we talked about, so I remember it, and it's
I've never visited his grave for a couple of reasons,
but watching watching that scene always gets me. We've alluded
(32:11):
to it, and I think it's clear in this episode
Ellie is lying when she says that the last she
didn't go back to the fort, so that there wasn't
one more conversation we haven't seen because she had the
guitar back in her apartment her garage the next day.
(32:32):
So that's where I think the coffee thing will be explained.
But it is one of the final scenes in the game,
so I don't know when it will come, but yes,
(32:53):
it's another big theme of all of this, of this
whole game, of this whole show, is how trauma and
the fallout of it impacts all of our relationships. It
changes all of our relationships, and you can see that
in this with Ellie and pretty much everyone in her life.
But also we're going to see it more later with
(33:17):
Abby and her crew because they kind of witnessed her
do this thing and I have to deal with it.
And that does bring us to Seattle, where Abby and
the crew is based, and it was cool to see.
I got very excited. That was I'm so glad we
(33:40):
went to Seattle and did all the things before this,
including in the in the like on the next episode
they had the theater. But oh, I'm so excited. I
really hope they have the equarium in the wheel. I
don't know if they will because I'm not sure quite
how they'd filmed it, but I really hope they do. Yes,
(34:05):
we are introduced to two warring factions in Seattle, the
WLF and the Seraphytes, which does that scene with the
seraphys does kind of continue the father daughter theme. It
also is going to be a continuing example of how
different communities dealt with the infected and the all of
(34:27):
the fallout, because we've already seen a bunch of ways
that it's happened, so we're going to continue to see that.
All right, Big game differences quickly I mentioned in the
last one, Tommy and Dina have pretty much been switched.
Tommy was the one that was with Joel when he died,
not Dina. In the game, Tommy kind of lies to Ellie.
(34:54):
I guess that's up for interpretation. I've always figured he
kind of lied, but he basically Ellie's like, let's go,
and Tommy's like, we can't go. We don't have the
people to spare, but I'll try to convince Maria to
do something. And then Ellie wakes up the next day
and Tommy has taken off and said, I can't let
this stand. I'm going, and Maria says, I need you
(35:18):
to go get my dumb husband, and so she gives
kind of the okay for Dina and Ellie to go
and gives them some equipment. So it's no Seth is involved.
Maria and Tommy's already ahead. I am very interested what
they're going to do with Tommy's plotlight. I kind of
have a theory, but I will see because it's completely
(35:41):
changed right now. Dina's relationship with Joel also is different,
because they liked each other in the game, but they
weren't that close. But this is very much making it
like no, I loved him too. I want to get
revenge too for Dina and Jesse being on the council.
That's one the thing that Samantha was alluding to. At
(36:05):
this point in the game, Dina and Elliot are together
and have had sex, and so I don't know, I
don't know, we'll see. I think they're gonna get together,
but I'm not sure. I definitely got a good laugh
out of the there was only one horse, Ellie's like, oh,
only only shiver. It also made me start thinking about
(36:29):
love triangles because I guess I've always thought about the
love triangle from Dina's perspective because Ellie's not interested in Jesse.
Jesse's not interested in Ellie. They're both interested in Dina.
So it feels like Dina has the power. But I
would really love to come back and think about that
because I guess usually there isn't a queer and a
(36:50):
lot of stuff I've consumed, there isn't a queer aspect
of the love triangle, so I always see it from
usually the one woman's perspective because she's the one that
gets to decide. I don't know, but I just realized
when I was rewatching it. I was like, oh, I've
always seen it from her point of view, and we
(37:12):
will talk about more. I had some other realizations, but
I must wait until some future episodes come out. Oh
and one of those things is this is not in
the game. The whole thing where Dina is like, do
you ever think like Jesse is sad? And Ellie's like yes, uh,
and Dina has that moment of like, well, I feel
(37:34):
like that's just who he is. But what if it's me.
I think that's going to be relevant later, Okay, And
just yeah, Probably one of the biggest differences to reiterate
is that Ellie wasn't hurt, the town wasn't destroyed. They
left immediately. But in this other people watch someone too,
(37:58):
the whole town is recuperating and Ellie had to recuperate herself.
And this brings us to the random at the end,
just random thoughts I have. So I just think that
this is such a creative choice to kill off your
(38:20):
main what people thought would be the main character so early.
The development team of the game actually like really bagged
the writers to change the story because it was so depressing,
which we have talked about in previous episodes, but they
were leaned in and I also didn't really reiterate this
in the last episode. But apart from Abby's monologue, Joel's
(38:43):
death scene was pretty line to line shot for shot,
including Abby's iconic line you don't get to rush this.
In my opinion, she has a more iconic one later,
but to wait for that. Also, this whole idea about
asking for help, it's a recurrent theme and Dina brings
it up in this episode, and it comes up later
(39:06):
in the game at least where people are like, you know,
you could have just asked for help, and I think
that's important. Another big theme is women and revenge, which
we have done several episodes on. We did one that
was kind of specific to the Last of Us, which
I don't recommend listening to if you don't want to
(39:28):
be spoiled. But a part of me does think the
reason people hate Abby so much is that she's a woman,
and is that Joel is so beloved. And also, as
we've discussed before, I think people were really on board
with Joel because he was protecting a young girl. So
even though he was doing these things that were pretty awful,
(39:51):
we were like, yeah, but it's for her, but it does.
It sparks a lot of argument, including the whole justice
for is revenge sing But it's just such a it
just spins out so quickly to me because then you're like, well,
Abby was getting justice and now she's put other people
in danger because of that. Was she really getting justice
(40:14):
or was it revenge justifications versus lasting out, which is
what Tommy is talking about with Joel. And one thing
that we are going to see is the fallout of revenge,
not just trying to but revenge to or justice. I go,
so I'll let you have it for now, to everyone
here in their lives and even outside of that, because
(40:36):
if you remember, Tommy left Joel because of the violent
things that they had to do to survive. He got
out as how he says it, I'm not sure how
it's going to play out on the show because they
have changed his story, but I suspect that Ellie is
going to pull Tommy and maybe other people back into
this violent world that they were trying to get out of.
(40:58):
But we shall see. Also, Abby, Abby, Abby. We got
to hear Ellie say it in the tone she says
it in the game where she's like Abby woo. I
love it so much. But I did see a lot
of post after that episode about Abby and about how
(41:21):
they tried to minimize the backlash against her that the
game experienced. One of the things was Pedro Pascal took
a lot of selfies with her that showed that they
were like very close and like he's like, oh, I
love her, Like please, she's.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
A person, this is acting, this.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is acting, and she did. That's like one of my
favorite things I've seen so far is like, I hate her,
but she nailed it, so I can't be too mad.
I like that because you are supposed to hate her.
I'm not saying you're not supposed to at this point
right now, you I did believe me, But I think
(42:02):
that I appreciate people who could recognize like, wow, I'm
so angry at this character, but this actor really did
an amazing job. And I'm not going to harass them
in any way. Is that too much to happen? But
I do think that's why her monologue exists. I think
that's also part of the structure of the show versus
the game, which we've discussed. Also, I read an interesting
(42:24):
thing about how they changed Joel's death a little bit
where she stabs him with the golf club and then
show his body being dragged back because so many characters
come back in franchises. And I thought that was really
funny because I talked about how I went in the game.
I was like, he can't be did. I wouldn't never,
I don't believe it. But they went out of their
(42:45):
way to like, Nope.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
No, he really did.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
He did.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Watches the body, nothing's happening move.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
But another theme I just want to highlight at the
very end here is there is going to be a
lot of exploration and to empathy and the lack thereof.
And one of the things that I really love about
video games is a storytelling medium, is that you really,
(43:15):
if it's a good game, connect to it in such
a way. And this game I just connected to so
hard because it felt like, you know, Ellie wasn't too late,
I was too late. Like it makes you complicit almost
in a way. So it's really impactful. But that's definitely
(43:36):
something that's going to be explored. I think this whole
idea that they keep bringing up in different ways of
strangers versus helping outsiders is going to come up and
in terms of empathy with that because you know, in
the first episode we had Maria being like, you know,
you were a refugee to Joel, but then you see
kind of Joel. You have him both saying we can't
(43:58):
let everybody in, but then helping Abby, and you have
Seth giving this whole speech show. I think they're going
to We're going to see more of that. Also, if
you picked up on it in Ellie's room, there was
a matrix poster prominently prominently placed. I think that's about enlightenment.
I think it's about like going through the whole journey
and at the end maybe coming to a different realization
(44:20):
than you thought. Another thing I know that they're playing
on is this whole idea of the youth inheriting the
earth and what are they going to inherit and what
is it going to look like? And so that scene
where Tommy is, you know, kind of using the hammer
to hammer in mistakes and then Jesse's like, you want
(44:41):
me to do it and he takes over. Like there's
a lot of instances of seeing younger, younger people take over,
So I think that's gonna be another thing. But Abby's
fury is a part of that, and the choice she
made is a part of that, and the choice Elly
has made is a part of that too, So we
shall see. But yes, I'm so excited for the next episode.
(45:05):
Oh but in the dreamtime listeners, if you have any thoughts,
anything to add, please let us know. You can email
us at Hello at Stuffanevertold You dot com. You can
also find us on Blue Sky at Momster podcast, or
on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store,
and we have a book you can get wherever you
(45:26):
get your ricks. Thanks as always too, our super duce Christine,
our executive producer and contributor Joey, Thank you, Thanks to
you for listening stuff I Never Told Yous fiction by
Heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio, you
can check out the heart Radio Apple Podcasts wherever real
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