May 31, 2025 • 50 mins
Convergence. In the finale of our Last of Us season two reaction series, Anney and Samantha break down a heartbreaking and shocking episode that culminates into a climactic cliffhanger.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I never told you, protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
the finale our Last of US season two mini series
(00:26):
reaction podcast. Again not a sponsor. I think it's ridiculous,
but all right, I guess they've got their old podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
But what.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
So, Yeah, this is our finale until season three. Remember
that shall be. But that being said, spoilers for all
of season two now season one first game. I am
going to hint at some things that happen in the
game that I'm just going to give you some kind
(01:02):
of like leading questions at the end, but nothing too spoilery.
But if you want to avoid all of that, then
when I get to the end and be like goodbye.
But yes, basically, this is my favorite game of all time.
So when they made the show, we were like, we've
(01:25):
got to do it. I was like, we got to
do it. Samantha had been pretty supportive of me doing
it the first season, so we're back.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
He was very for both because I knew it was
going to be good.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, so much stress, but this is the last one
and then we'll get back to fiction pieces that we've
been not doing this month. And sex and the city
that we haven't been doing just because of the workload
and to balance things out so Christina doesn't kill us.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, we don't kill Christina with too much work exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, we try to. We try to not do that
around here. But yes, the way these work is. Samantha
gives the recap on the most recent episode, and then
I break down all of my thoughts, and I gotta say,
I got a lot of thoughts about this one.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So, oh, I'm sure we do. I see how many
pages you got here? Oh yep, what all right? So
are you ready to jump in for my wonderful recap? Yeah?
Tell me usually correct? All right. So if you remember,
we have left Dina who had just gotten shot by
(02:49):
a serified arrow, and we come back to her and
Jessee in the theater. They made it back, and they're
having a whole back and forth about how to get
the arrow out, and even at one point like putting
alcohol on everything. He's being a real pro trying to
give her alcohol. She's like, no, I can't, and talk
about how.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
She can't die there.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
They can't die there, cut saying to real horrible pain,
painful scene, and then she's asleep, and we see Ellie
has made it back to the theater trying to get in,
and they're like, you know, what's the name of your horse?
Shimmer turns out Shimmer Swine, that's the lasting Shimmer has
made it through the season people. As this happens, we
(03:27):
also find out that Abby is missing from the Wolf
headquarters and Elisa's back, who had lost her son previously,
and he's very upset by this whole situation because that
whole little crew that happened to be the you know,
Joel Killing group crew are pretty much missing except for Manny,
and he doesn't give off about Manny's what he says
(03:51):
Isaac the leader, And then turns out he's trying to
bring Abby in to be a leader and they really
want her back all these things, and they're doing some
things about boats. I didn't catch this till later, like
boats and going out and doing things that we're like, okay,
So all that aside. We come back at the theater
and it turns out Jesse's like, we've got to go
find Tommy whatever whatnot. So he and Ellie have a
(04:13):
whole plan. They have Dina stayed behind. Obviously she can't
be limping about. So they go off to do their thing,
and here we find out that Jesse tricks pretty much
Ellie into telling him that yes, Gina's pregnant, He's got
a child, and he goes on and on about how
he will not die there. He needs to get his
kids back to Safety's people, back to the safety, how
he's the responsible one. We also find out that he
(04:35):
voted no about going to go after Joel's killers. So
many things. So all of that, they go out and
do their thing and trying to find Tommy at do.
While they go, they run into an area to the
bookstore to try to see they can find Tommy because
that's the rendezvous rendezvous place. Don't find Tommy, so they
(04:56):
go out to look even further, and we witness the wolves.
It's a torturing a serified boy, and Ellie has his
moment of trying to save him and which Jesse said,
this is not our war, it's a row.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
That happens, and then at the same time they hear
over the radio that there are sniper. There's a sniper.
There's a sniper going after the wolves. They assess that
this is Tommy and they need to go find Tommy.
But at the same time, Ellie looks off into the
distance and he's a well and a will. So the
affairs will from Seattle which we did ride, yes, as
well as the aquarium which you went to. But we
(05:30):
saw the well from Afar and she figured out that's
where Abby is and so she loses it. Ellie's like,
I gotta go, I gotta go get him, and Jesse's like, no,
we gotta go home, or do you do it? What
is wrong with you? And again he says this is
where he says, I vot didn't know. And so they
go back and forth about you know, who's better than who?
And no, no, no, no, no no, and why are you doing this?
And then finally Ellie goes her own way while he
(05:51):
goes to get Tommy. Ellie, we have all big water
scene heard going in the boats and as a person
who's never been on a boat, so I don't know
if I would figure out how to use a boat,
but hey, she apparently can. She's better than me. Anyway,
she gets to an island it turns out to be
the Seraphied Island, and there she is discovered by a
Seraphi kid who they drag her in and like she's like,
(06:13):
I'm not one of them, I'm not them, blah blah blah,
and the dude and the kid's like, no, gut her.
So they get ready to hang her, and then oh,
hear guns off in the distance, assuming that it's Isaac
and the wolves, you know, coming after the seraphits, They're like,
leave her. So she gets back in the boat, goes
back and instead of going by like oh, I almost died,
I'm going to go and be with my people, know,
(06:33):
she still keeps going to the area where she thinks
Abby is. Upon getting there, she does not find Abby,
but who she does find is Owen and mel who
was a part of the crew. They're fighting about finding
Abby and they're having this moment, and of course Ellie
comes with guns ablazing, being like, where's Abby. Tell me
where Abby is? Show me on this map, and if
(06:55):
I'm going to ask both of you and one of
you are lying, you're dead essentially if you don't find
point at the same place on the map. We remember
this line from season one, but also so Owen leaps
for a gun, Ellie shoots. Not only does she kill Owen,
but it slices the neck essentially of mel who fall
(07:15):
back and she starts rambling, and Ellie's trying to fare
was happening. You're trying to tell her, get her to
tell her what Abby is, and that's when they she
shows that she is pregnant all these things, so like
she's trying to kill her to cut out the baby.
Real heartrenching scene, and like as she's dying, thinking that
it was happening, even saying you're doing great job, keep going,
(07:39):
and then she dies, and this is when Tommy and
Jesse come back and find her and take her back,
and Tommy's like, it's fine, You're fine. You had to
do what you had to do. They killed they killed Joel.
You had to do what you had to do. Going
back as the first book, it did happen before all
of this, where Ellie goes back to see Dina because
that's all she's thinking about when she had returned and
(08:00):
from finding Nora there, she tells Dina everything, including the
fact that Nora told her where they were, which was
the Will and the Will, as well as the fact
that Joel had killed everyone, including Abby's father, and Dina
has a moment of like, oh God, you need to
go sit over there scene. But then right before Ellie
and Jesse leave, she gives her her bracelet to give
(08:21):
her a lucky charm and is obviously like, she's like,
you know, come back to me this, you know, all
these things. So that had happened previously. FII. Now we're
back with Jesse and Tommy bring Ellie back and they're
all talking, trying to get together. Jesse and Ellie have
a really sweet scene about how you know, yeah, I
can't be too mad because I know you would go
to the ends of the earth and you would set
(08:42):
the earth off fire for me to come get me
all these things, and then we hear bang bang ord Heir,
and so they run out the theater without even taking
any cautions, like, come on, you would at least look
out the door before you run out, but no, they
run out really fast, and Jesse gets immediately shot in
the face, and uh oh, there's Abby. Abby's here pointing
a gun who has shot Tommy in the leg, obviously,
and Tommy's like, go run get away whatever, And Ellie
(09:05):
comes out and Abby realizes who she was. She was
like you and this is where she screams, we let
you live and you wasted it, and Ellie's like, you're
trying to find me. I'm the one who did this.
I'm the one who killed your friends. Because she's like,
y'all he killed my friends. I was like, no, I
did all these things, back and forth, and then we
hear a bang in scene. All of a sudden, we
(09:29):
come back to this was day three, by the way,
it says Seattle day three, and then all of a sudden,
it says Seattle day one. And Abby comes out after
falling asleep reading a book, and you look over at
what is probably the I guess, the main wolf station,
and there's all these people there and Many's talking to her,
and that's how it ends yep in scene finale.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Okay, so this episode is called Convergence because it's got
a lot of pieces that are coming together, but also
because of the storm. The storm is actually a pretty
big piece of the plot. The reason the wolves are
going to attack the Seripied Island is because they're using
(10:25):
the storm as cover. So it was really cool because
when we watched the episode, it was actually swarming.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, I started thundering.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah. And Peaches, Sweet Peaches math style does not like storms,
but she provided a lot of comfort for us on
the couch, which is unfortunately not so like evicted you
from your own couch. But she was like behind my
back at one point over on a friend of ours.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It was very cute she was laying on them.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, but the storm is a big piece of this
whole thing, and I just kind of feel it's pretty iconic.
I mean, you know, like the storm's coming, that's a
very clear foreboding thing. But when I think about this game,
like a lot of these scenes happen in this episode
are some of the most iconic to me. And then
(11:20):
when we go to the start, you're hearing Dina before
you see her, and it almost sounds like she's giving birth.
And I think they did that purposefully because it's foreshadowing
what's going to happen with mel but it's also kind
of a throwback to Ellie's mom and how Ellie was
born because we were not really sure what's happening. But
(11:43):
that's the sound she's making when Jesse's trying to get
this arrow out of her. And then you have Ellie
returned to the theater. This is also a scene that
really stands out to me, where Ellie goes to check
on Dean, and then Dina sees that Ellie's hurt and
(12:05):
asked her to take off her shirt, and Ellie's like
just beat up in her back, like it looks horrible
and she's bare, and I think it's sort of a
you know, like she's bearing her truth and her secrets
in this scene, and it's also sort of the like
(12:28):
damage on her body and her mind. But she We're
going to talk about this throughout Ellie's characterization in the
game versus the show is it's becoming increasingly different, not
in a way that has me mad in any any sense,
but this scene is one of the ones that's pretty different.
(12:50):
But that kind of Dina taking care of her and
her talking about Ellie talking about how easy it was
to Nora and expressing remorse over it and even questioning
her revenge because this is when she's like Dina says, oh,
(13:12):
did she deserve it? Maybe she deserved it, and Ellie's like,
maybe she did it, And she tells Dina the truth,
which at this point she has not told anybody. This
is the first time, and she never tells her in
the game, or if she does, we don't see it,
but her revealing what Joel did and Dina having this
(13:35):
moment of realization, we should not be here now that
I have the full context of this, this was a mistake.
And the actress who plays her is Bill Emer said
said she's kind of processing. She's having a moment similar
to how Ellie had that moment. Her relationship with Joel
(13:57):
is different than it is in the game as well,
as we've said that she's closer with Joel, but I
mean that does change things when you learn the depth
of what Joel did and what you're walking into. So
that's not in there. And Ellie is visibly traumatized in
(14:20):
the game, but she's not necessarily remorseful, but I feel
like she's remorseful in the show. Yeah, And I think
this is a difference that we're starting to see between
her and Joel, because Joel never really shows remorse. He's
only worried that he'll lose Ellie. He never says he's
(14:43):
sorry or anything like that. So, going back to Gail's
line of whatever path Ellie is on, it's her own,
it's not Joel's. I think we're going to start to
see more and more instances of that. And one of
the reasons it was so easy for Joel to kill
people outside his community. Is that he doesn't. It's just
(15:09):
only the people in this little circle that he cares about,
and anyone else doesn't matter to him. That's fine. He
doesn't feel any guilt about it. He was doing what
he had to do. But anyway, so we have this
relevation and Dina is like, we need to go home.
(15:30):
This is this is and she's I mean, she's got
a wounded leg, she's pregnant, Like, there's a lot of
reasons why Ellie has clearly had all of this pain
inflicted on her, like, and I think Dina's honestly worried
about her mental state. I think she's like, oh, I
(15:52):
think I might lose you to this. And so she
kind of lays down and cries, turns her back to
Ellie and cries, and Ellie's sort of like she nods,
but then we see that she's not quite on board
throughout the episode. But the next day, it is Seattle
(16:14):
day three. As we said, this is how the game
is set up. It'll have the text at the bottom
and it tells you this. It's kind of like the
Ring in that way. So Ellie and Jesse are packing up.
Dina comes and gives Dina her bracelet that she's been
wearing the entire season, by the way, and it's like,
(16:38):
this is for good luck to prevent you from harm,
and Ellie kind of teases her and she's like, it
doesn't look like it's done you that well, and Dina says,
it's kept me alive. And then Ellie and Jesse go
to meet Tommy at this rendezvous point and this is
in the game. This is where you get a lot
(16:59):
of interaction between Ellie and Jesse and you kind of
build their relationship. You learn more about how they see
each other. But it's also one of those missible things.
So many things in this game are missible, but if
you just like talk to him, you can really learn
a lot. But you don't have to enter these conversations.
A lot of them are voluntary, which I think some
(17:21):
people don't particularly care. And that's fine. So I, you know,
I get it, but I liked, I want to know everything,
like tell me, tell me all about it. But so
we kind of get that section here where Ellie and
Jesse have all of these moments, including the revelation that yeah,
(17:43):
Jesse realizes Tina's pregnant, and now he is thinking about
being a father and how he needs to survive. And
he has like a line later that I always loved
where he says Ellie kind of makes fun of him
for being a sap, and then he says, well, my
(18:04):
friends can't get out of their own damn way, And
I've always liked that because they do obviously care about
each other, even though they like they shafe against each
other and argue with each other and all of that.
But then you get to the bookstore, and this is
a beautiful scene in the game. I love this, and
it was great in the show as well. And there's
(18:26):
a lot of fun Easter eggs in here, including there's
like a stuffed giraffe on the couch where Ellie's sitting,
which is a throwback too, a very scene scene, innocent
scene in the first season. But you also have so
that this is where they're trying to meet up with Tommy,
so they're just waiting out the storm. You also have
(18:51):
Ellie go through these books, Edie's children's books, and she
picks up the monster at the end of this book,
which is a Sesame Street book, and in it it's Grover,
who's telling the reader like, stop reading. There's a monster
at the end of this book. Please stop, please turn back,
like please, don't do this, And then you get to
(19:11):
the end and there's no monster at the end of
the book.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Grover's the monster.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
He's just like, no, there's no monsters, just men. Yeah.
But I think like the point being because I read
it in preparation, but the point was more like, yeah,
there's not really a monster there because it's Grover's the monster,
then he's not really a monster.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Just because I called a monster doesn't mean they're bad, right,
It doesn't need to be scared.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yes, yes, exactly, which very I'm sure it's very fitting
for how this goes because Ellie's kind of chosen this
journey to get revenge. There's nobody telling her she has
to do it, and we're all like, stop, don't turn
the next babe, It'll do the next thing. And when
(20:05):
you get to the end, who guess what. There's also
in the background there's an Alice in Wonderland kind of mural,
but there's also like statue mushrooms, and in the game,
Ellie and Jesse have a conversation where they're like people
(20:26):
used to think this was okay, Like this is not cool,
So I like that that was in the background. And
then also you can see on top of it, everything
has a moral if only you can find it, which
at first I thought was a mushroom pun which it
could be. But the point I think they're making is
(20:48):
that a lot of things in this story are justified violence.
So you can find the moral. You can tell yourself.
Will they did this to Joel, so I'm justified doing this?
But everyone everyone has a version of that, and that's
how people have become so brutal and justified it to
(21:10):
themselves as they have found this moral. So then we
get to them hearing that there is a sniper. They
both guess that it's Tommy. They run out, they try
to get to higher ground so they can maybe see
where he is, and that's when Ellie sees the ferris
(21:34):
wheel and then the aquarium with the wheel and the whale,
and she's like, Ah, that's the way I need to
get a boat, and Jesse's like, what, we need to
go that way. That's where Tommy is. And they get
to this big fight about community, and I skipped over
the part where they got into a fight about saving
the seraphite boy who was being tortured by the guy
(21:57):
that Isaac saved kind of the for not being fascist,
but has now become essentially the new Josh Peck character.
But yeah, it's interesting because you have Jesse saying things like,
I put other people first because I was raised in
(22:20):
Jackson and that's they took care of me. I voted
no because you only think about yourself, which I'm sure
burned because she yelled at Joel the same kind of
thing about him being selfish, and she kind of has
this breaking point where she says, your community because it's
(22:43):
essentially it divides us versus them. You're you let this
kid die today because they're not in your community. And
that kind of goes back to Joel's whole thing where
he's in the first episode didn't want to let more
refugees in because it's outside of his circle. And that's
going to be a big that's going to be a
(23:05):
big theme next season. So but yeah, they have this
big fight and then Jesse says, I hope you make it,
and he goes after Tommy and she goes after Abby
and she chooses this. This is the second time we've
seen it where Ellie chooses this revenge over saving somebody
(23:26):
in her life or even just looking back, like she's
stuck in the past instead of thinking about the future.
And so she she takes the boat. She takes this
boat out and she gets stuck on the serap Fhight
Island for a minute. This kid turns her in. She's like, no,
(23:49):
I'm not one of you, kind of using this community fight.
What she did call out is she knows it's hyper critical,
but she's saying, like, you hypocritical too. But anyways, they
are going to hang her, and this alarm goes off
and they leave her to go see what the alarm
(24:10):
is going on with that, and she gets back in
the boat, gets to the aquarium and this is when
she has her confrontation with Owen and Mel. And Owen
and Mel are having this fight about Abby, and when
Owen pulls a gun on Ellie, she shoots him kind
(24:32):
of on reaction, but then kills Mel as collateral damage,
and she's kind of collateral damage for both Ellie and
Abby at this point. But it's also really sad because
this is a loss of knowledge because Ellie, as Mel's
trying to coax her through doing this emergency c section.
(24:55):
Ellie doesn't know how to do it, and Mel did.
And now Mel's gone. And Nora was also in the
medical field and now she's gone. Abby's dad was in
the medical field and now he's gone. And we talked
about this with Gail in the book she was reading
in the last episode about set the last person in
who had to read, and then he was gone. So
(25:17):
we're seeing a lot of this, like loss of knowledge.
It's also pretty symbolic. I think that she has her
mom's knife and that's how she's trying to save this baby.
And this is when as Mel dies, it's horrible, so sad.
This is when Ellie realizes how far she's fallen and
(25:40):
the gravity of her actions in the game, she kind
of freezes. She has more of a freeze reaction, but
in here she's really like, oh no, I mean, we're
I'm thinking, we're meant to assume she's thinking of Dina
and like, oh, this is what could have happened. And
(26:02):
she didn't. I mean, she didn't mean to kill me,
but she did, and she killed she killed a baby.
And this is also one of the parts in the
game that always gets me is because as the player,
you're like, I remember you remember playing her when she
was like a kid and she had all this, when
(26:23):
her life wasn't this and now you see her and
you're like, oh wow, this world has really really devastated
you and this is how you are. And this I
also thought this was interesting that Bella Ramsey said, you know,
(26:43):
in the last episode, Joel's dad had said I hope
you do better than me, and then Joel said that
to Ellie and then Bella Ramsey said, no, Ellie did worse.
So I don't know it's comp located because I don't
want to come. I don't want to spoil things. But
(27:04):
she does feel she does feel as she should, pretty
bad about this, and this is when your question like
can she come back from it? As she'd gone too far?
Is this going to change her? She's going to keep
doing the same old things. And she did go out
of her way to make sure she had Joel's gun
(27:26):
and make sure she had the bullets for Joel's gun,
like she was really going for this. So that's they
died by that gun. And you know when you hear
when Tommy finds her, Tommy and Jesse and later he's
trying to comfort her, and he says, like they made
their choices, which they did, but they also didn't want
(27:47):
to go. We saw that in the first episode that
they wanted to convince Abby to turn back, and now
we've got Ellie's people who didn't want to go and
they can for Ellie. So it's another parallel, which does
bring us to a said very sad moment because Ellie
(28:10):
and Jesse kind of makeup and Jesse implies like, yeah,
I understand you would You're would come for me, and
she says, oh, yes, I would, and that sort of
confirms like their family or their community or this whatever
it is. And then they hear all these sounds and
(28:31):
they run out and then Jesse's just shot dead. Immediately
Ellie dives to the side and we get Abby, who's
threatening Tommy, and Ellie gives herself up because at this moment,
I think she realizes this I have what have I wrought?
(28:55):
And Ellie and Abby have a moment where they're just
kind of looking at each other and Abby is like, oh,
it's you and this is all after Ellie says I'm
not like you to Owen and mel But I think
in this moment she realized like, no, I think maybe
(29:17):
I am. But you know, whether Ellie just can't let
it go. She can't let it go. I'm saying that dismissively,
but I'm just saying, like, that's kind of her whole
thing is, she just can't move on, she can't let
it go. That does bring us to Abby, Abby, Abby,
(29:48):
which I realize, like the Ferris Wheel, I'm so glad
they put it in there in the game. That's your
kind of like your north star to where Abby is
because it's next to the aquarium. But there were so
many mentions of like breaking the wheel in the interviews
of The Wheel of Revenge, and I was like, Okay,
I see, I didn't think of that. But yeah, we
(30:15):
do have a scene where we hear Isaac talking about
Abby and saying she's a leader, also calling everybody else
almost like a sheep that has no mind for themselves,
a sheep in wolf's clothing. But he's saying like, we
need a leader to leave the wolves after I'm gone,
(30:38):
and he's like, oh, I'm going to die. You probably will.
He's talking to Alize at this point too, You're probably
gonna die too, So we need a leader. It was
supposed to be her. It's just kind of like how
Jesse is supposed to be the leader of Jackson and
now he's gone and we don't know. He doesn't know
(30:58):
where Abby is, and he says, you know, the whole team,
they're called the Salt Lake City Crew or the Salt
Lake Crew. The whole team has been missing pretty much
except for Manny. Except for Manny. This is so interesting
because I actually don't, like I said, I don't know
(31:19):
what the show will do in the game except for Manny.
And now knowing the day one reset, I will tell
you that Ellie and Abby have been orbiting each other
this entire time. It's kind of like pieces of a
puzzle that I love. But if you notice, I didn't
(31:43):
notice the first time I watched it, Abby has bruises
around her throat, indicating she too was almost hung by
the Seraphytes. But yeah, the wl F I recommend to
(32:03):
rewatch as always. The WLF is the outfit that at
the first episode that Owen mentions where he's like, it's
run by Isaac and the remaining fireflights went there. So
they've been there for a minute and they have risen
up the ranks. But this does bring me to my
iconic Abby line, which is we let you live and
(32:23):
you wasted it. That's what we have on some glasses,
who so good and her having that whole you know,
you killed my friends full circle moment, and Ellie trying
to be like, yeah, it was me, don't kill my friends.
But they're not seeing that. They're the same They're doing
(32:45):
the same thing. And then you get the cut to
black and the flashback, which I'm going to talk about
in a second, but I cannot tell you how shocking
this was the first time I played the game. Oh
my god. Oh. We also have more parallels. You've got
the Dina and mel bothing pregnant thing. You kind of
(33:09):
have Ellen and Jesse, which we'll get into more in
season three. There's three beds in the aquarium, by the way,
just to point that out. You've got the science museum
that Ellie loves and the aquarium that Abbey loves. It's
very important to Abby and it's such a pain to
(33:32):
get there in the game. It's such a pain. And
it's a great build up too, because you think you're
going to have to have this confrontation finally, and you
had to fight so hard to get there and nope,
just more trauma for you move on. You also have
both Abby and Ellie having a solo journey that they
have to do because people were not the people in
(33:54):
their group were like, no, I'm not doing this anymore,
and then weather ruining them. So for Abby was the
appalanche and for Ellie the storm. You also have Abby's
choice to save Ellie and seeing that a couple of
characters of selflessness leading to death. She also Spardina too,
(34:15):
and that's when you first see that Mel is a medic.
As I pointed out in our reaction to the first episode,
she is wearing a watch. Abby is similar to Joel
and just this whole idea has been big this season
of cycles, getting stuck in cycles, justifying things, being very hypocritical,
(34:38):
and so Ellie's whole thing of like you think I'm
good and you're good and I'm bad. Like that's going
to play out more now that if we're moving into
Abby's territory. But also that's kind of a piece of
the seraphytes in the WLF conflict that we'll see And yeah,
(34:58):
like there are things that I'm very interested how they
play out on the show. But there are things where
the wl LF attack on the island saved Ellie. Like
there's a bunch of little pieces of what is going
on in Abby's story that influence Ellie's story, And it's
(35:19):
really fun when you get the whole thing and you're like, oh, okay,
I see some game differences to run through Shimmer, I'm
just gonna tell you Shimmer died in the game.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm really glad they didn't kill Shimmer.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
They did not kill Shimmer. I was waiting for it,
I know. So they talked about this in the like
post interviews of the episode, but Ellie doesn't go to
the serified island. The kind of the different versions of
the prophet that Ellie mentions that's not in the game.
(35:56):
But I think that's really interesting because it's implying that
she's been around so long no one really remembers or
knows what she looks like, and in the way that
religion often does is that it's sort of up for
interpretation or whoever is making the art. Tommy, We've been
saying this whole time. Tommy had a completely different story,
(36:17):
but he in the end he did. That's how he
ends up is with Ellie pretty much line for line
that whole scene why Jesse came. So Jesse's actually more
reckless in the game than he is in the show
because he comes by himself, but in here he was
very much like made plan, came with Tommy, this is
(36:39):
why I'm here, and they have the whole explanation of
how he found them, how Mel dies. So when this
confrontation happens Ellie, it's similar with Owen because he tries
to shoot her first, and so Ellie kind of acts
(37:00):
and shoots him. But then Mel comes from the side
and tries to stab her, and Ellie grabs her wrists
and stabs her with her own knife and she dies
there and Owen is still alive and he's like his
last words are like, she's pregnant, And that's when Ellie
realizes she's pregnant, and she just goes into complete she
(37:22):
freezes completely. And this is one of the big differences
in the game. Ellie doesn't actually know the full truth
of why Abby killed Joel in the game. In the show,
she does. In the game, she's just like, you're a firefly,
but she doesn't know kind of the father connection, so
(37:44):
that that's a difference. Obviously, As I said, Dina didn't
know any of this, so that's a difference. I also
think that's another way that Ellie's different than Joel is
that she did tell Dina like you should probably know this,
but okay, I just have to talk about this because
it was so shocking the first time I played it.
I'm sure some of you are a little shocked. But
(38:06):
when you get to this scene, you've been trying to
find Abby this whole time, it's just like build up,
build up, build up, and we let you live. Then
you wasted it and it cuts to black. Okay, In
the game, it goes to a flashback as Abby as
a child and you see her with her dad, and
(38:28):
this is kind of us being like, oh no, so
Joel killed her dad because we didn't know it. We
didn't know it as the player yet as opposed to
the show. But I was playing it and I'm still mad,
and I'm all like, this horrible thing, all these traumatic
things have just happened, and I'm like, I know I'm
going to have to fight Abby. So I think it's
(38:52):
going to be a short flashback to be like, Okay,
I see this is why Abby is the way she
is and then it cuts to black again and it
says Seattle day would and I freaked out. I was like,
no way, no way, They're not gonna make me play
(39:14):
this whole thing guys. Abby. Yep, they make you play
the whole thing as Abby. And it's a very I've
talked about it in previous episodes. It is a shocking
creative choice, but wow, the like empathy of can you
(39:34):
now you get her side of it? Can you be
empathetic toward it? And also it like digs a knife
in more because you start in that stadium which is
in Seattle, and there's a dog that you know you
killed as Ellie. That Abby is like petty, it's her dog.
(39:58):
They didn't kill the dog, so the dog would have
died at the aquarium, but it was such a moment
of oh, no, I have to examine my actions. So
it makes you do it kind of as the player,
and I'm going to say as the viewer, I don't
(40:20):
think it would be quite the same, but oh that
when that dog showed up. And then there's like another
part where you see all these bodies and they're like, oh,
it was the trespasser that killed them. And you're like,
oh no, that was me, but okay. The book that
(40:42):
Abby's reading when she wakes up is a major influence
for the Last of Us, and it's pretty much Joel
and Ellie's relationships. It's about like two characters and Apocalypse
that don't like each other and they have to fight
like campbells and stuff, but then at the end they
of course become really close. Abby hasn't finished the book yet.
(41:02):
This is also where we get our first, our biggest
look at how big the WLF is. And you do
hear from now on, you're gonna hear a lot more
about when we heard them talking about Tommy beating the
sniper as a trespasser. Since you've already played Ellie's part,
(41:25):
now you're gonna hear it and know who they're talking
about largely, which is a cool It's upsetting, but it's
like a cool, Oh I remember when I did that.
But the song that ends on as a sound Garden
song the Burden in My Hand, which is a band
from Seattle, and it's about not finding any resolution. One
(41:51):
of the lines is I lost my head again, Would
you cry for me? And it's like falling into the
same cycles over and over, and so even this setup
of like now we're back at day one, that's a cycle,
and it kind of reminds me of the whole Moth
and Light motif of like Ellie always looking for this
and trying to find meaning or purpose or what have you,
(42:14):
and not being able to find it, and in fact
being kind of angry and confused about how it seems
to her. No one else understands how hypocritical they're being,
But there is no resolution for Ellie at this point.
There is no resolution for us at this point because
we were waiting for this whole conversation. We don't get it.
(42:35):
As I said, they've called this their Empire strikes Back season,
so the Empire strikes Back doesn't in a pretty low place.
But because you know how a return of the Jedi is,
you're like, okay, that's fine, but yes, we are going
to see Abby's POV next season and we're going to
(42:58):
go through the days from her, and it's really cool,
like the ways they were so close to each other
so many times, really really cool. So this brings me
to my list of random things and if you don't
want any like hints at what might happen I'm just
asking questions that you can think about. I'm not spoiling,
(43:19):
but if you don't even want that, this is where
you should click out. Okay, one is this is a
stupid one. But why does everyone have the same flannel shirt.
I'm trying to figure out if I should be picking
up any meaning from that. But Ellie, Joel, and Jesse
all I have the same blue Fanel shirt. I thought
it was making it up, but I've seen it enough
(43:41):
that I know. If you want to go back to
the last episode of season one, you can see someone
who looks like Abby running in the hospital. I'm pretty
sure that they're never going to say that was her,
but they were clearly trying to be like, we know
Abby exists and is here, and we talked about it
in our reaction to that episode. But if now that
(44:05):
you've seen Abby and you want to go back, it's
very brief, but you can see her running by when
Joel is going on his rampage. And now that we
are going to start Abby's POV and we are going
to learn the answers to some questions that I'm sure
at least some of you have. One what did the
(44:27):
Salt Lake crew say, when Ellie's ears were ringing, because
all of them said, if we let you live some
version of that. Every one of them said it what
was happening with the village when the alarm went off?
And you know, when you go back to Abby's point
of view on day one, Manny says, Isaac's waiting for us,
(44:51):
So clearly like they're preparing for this assault. Why was
Abby missing when she knew at that point looked like
she was on board and planning on showing up the bandages?
So in the aquarium there's a bunch of bloody bandages,
which when you see them, when Ellie sees them, she
(45:13):
immediately assumes the worst about wl phone, like what they've done.
And so this is another reason I can kill them
and not feel bad. So what's going on there? How
did Abby even find them? Anyway? Which, believe me, I
was asking when I was how did she even get in?
(45:35):
Where's Dana? What we're owing and Mel fighting about? Why
is Mel Matt at Abby? What was going on with
Tommy and the sniper at the marina? Uh? And I
think it's worth noting that Abby says he killed my friend,
so she is she thinks it's him the bridges. So
(45:56):
there are some bridges you can see in the skyline,
and I think that's going to be one of the
scariest parts of the game. People who are afraid of heights,
they always tell me that part is like the scariest
part to them. Obviously the gunshot we hear before we
switch to Abbey's POV. What happened there? The rat King
(46:16):
who I've been talking about over and over you have
and now we'll learn hopefully, Oh, I think so. And
then kind of like on a deeper level we talked
about before, this is a lot of questions in this show,
(46:37):
game or like who won't inherit the earth when it's
like this, and we have a lot of instances of
Children of War, of these vengeance cycles of people trying
not to be trying to make something better or make
something for the future and then being punished for it.
(47:01):
Will they break the cycle? Who will? If anybody? There
have been instances a few instances of Ellie trying to
break free already, I think from just based on like
at least from the cycle that Joel might have set
her on by telling Dina this thing, by feeling the
truth and by feeling remorse about what she's done. Now
(47:24):
does it stay or does she get stuck in it again? Okay,
those are some things to think about as we wait.
A shout out to the creators, because that's a lot
to keep in mind of, kind of having two storylines
that you're telling at the same time, but you have
(47:44):
to film separately and write separately. But yeah, I know
a lot of you probably angry, and I'm telling you
I was too, I remember, but I promise you it's
worth it and it's so fun. We have the complete story.
It's a rewarding, complete story. Like there are literally things
(48:05):
you see in the background and be like, oh happy
that was Abby or oh yeah, Ellie kills all of them.
So if you go back to the first episode where
you see the Salt Light crew, you're like, oh, yep,
sorry about that, my bad. But yeah, thanks so much
(48:28):
listeners and Samantha for coming along this journey with me.
I've had a good time. I hope you have as well,
even if you don't play or watch, which I'm sure
this must be wild for you listening to this commitment.
If he's not watched, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you,
and won't be back one day for season three and
(48:52):
Abby Happy Abby.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I mean I think we need to be back to
do a recap of everything everything.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Yeah, after I've watched, like done my whole.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, I feel like you need to watch first season
and the second season and bring it in together, and
then we'll come back and as a review of like
what has happened in your after thoughts. I guess what
needs to happen.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, you know, I would love to do it. You
know I would love to do it because I told
Samantha I did have to cut out. I know these
are long, but I cut out stuff from them because
I just want to talk about every all of it.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I think, well, I think we're going to return, Yes, okay,
I think we have one more. We have one more lessons.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
That feels like at the end of I was wondering
if they were going to do something like you know
how the marvels like Marvel like Horribile return and I thought,
I was like, well they do that for last time.
It was just to be like it will come back.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Seems still kitching now because it's such a marvel thing.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Well, anyway, Samantha and any will be back, Yes, we
will with one Yes, all right. But in the meantime,
that is what I have to say for you. You
can email us any of your thoughts at Hello at
stuff onever Told You dot com. You can also find
us on Blue Sky at mom Souf Podcasts, or on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff Whenever Told You. We also
(50:15):
have a t popic store, We're on YouTube, and we
have a book you can get where you get your books.
Thanks as always too our super producer Christina, executive producer
and tricker Joey. Thank you O, thank so you for listening.
Stuff Whenever Told You is prediction of my Heart Radio.
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I never told you, protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to
the finale our Last of US season two mini series
(00:26):
reaction podcast. Again not a sponsor. I think it's ridiculous,
but all right, I guess they've got their old podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
But what.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
So, Yeah, this is our finale until season three. Remember
that shall be. But that being said, spoilers for all
of season two now season one first game. I am
going to hint at some things that happen in the
game that I'm just going to give you some kind
(01:02):
of like leading questions at the end, but nothing too spoilery.
But if you want to avoid all of that, then
when I get to the end and be like goodbye.
But yes, basically, this is my favorite game of all time.
So when they made the show, we were like, we've
(01:25):
got to do it. I was like, we got to
do it. Samantha had been pretty supportive of me doing
it the first season, so we're back.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
He was very for both because I knew it was
going to be good.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, so much stress, but this is the last one
and then we'll get back to fiction pieces that we've
been not doing this month. And sex and the city
that we haven't been doing just because of the workload
and to balance things out so Christina doesn't kill us.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, we don't kill Christina with too much work exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, we try to. We try to not do that
around here. But yes, the way these work is. Samantha
gives the recap on the most recent episode, and then
I break down all of my thoughts, and I gotta say,
I got a lot of thoughts about this one.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So, oh, I'm sure we do. I see how many
pages you got here? Oh yep, what all right? So
are you ready to jump in for my wonderful recap? Yeah?
Tell me usually correct? All right. So if you remember,
we have left Dina who had just gotten shot by
(02:49):
a serified arrow, and we come back to her and
Jessee in the theater. They made it back, and they're
having a whole back and forth about how to get
the arrow out, and even at one point like putting
alcohol on everything. He's being a real pro trying to
give her alcohol. She's like, no, I can't, and talk
about how.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
She can't die there.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
They can't die there, cut saying to real horrible pain,
painful scene, and then she's asleep, and we see Ellie
has made it back to the theater trying to get in,
and they're like, you know, what's the name of your horse?
Shimmer turns out Shimmer Swine, that's the lasting Shimmer has
made it through the season people. As this happens, we
(03:27):
also find out that Abby is missing from the Wolf
headquarters and Elisa's back, who had lost her son previously,
and he's very upset by this whole situation because that
whole little crew that happened to be the you know,
Joel Killing group crew are pretty much missing except for Manny,
and he doesn't give off about Manny's what he says
(03:51):
Isaac the leader, And then turns out he's trying to
bring Abby in to be a leader and they really
want her back all these things, and they're doing some
things about boats. I didn't catch this till later, like
boats and going out and doing things that we're like, okay,
So all that aside. We come back at the theater
and it turns out Jesse's like, we've got to go
find Tommy whatever whatnot. So he and Ellie have a
(04:13):
whole plan. They have Dina stayed behind. Obviously she can't
be limping about. So they go off to do their thing,
and here we find out that Jesse tricks pretty much
Ellie into telling him that yes, Gina's pregnant, He's got
a child, and he goes on and on about how
he will not die there. He needs to get his
kids back to Safety's people, back to the safety, how
he's the responsible one. We also find out that he
(04:35):
voted no about going to go after Joel's killers. So
many things. So all of that, they go out and
do their thing and trying to find Tommy at do.
While they go, they run into an area to the
bookstore to try to see they can find Tommy because
that's the rendezvous rendezvous place. Don't find Tommy, so they
(04:56):
go out to look even further, and we witness the wolves.
It's a torturing a serified boy, and Ellie has his
moment of trying to save him and which Jesse said,
this is not our war, it's a row.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
That happens, and then at the same time they hear
over the radio that there are sniper. There's a sniper.
There's a sniper going after the wolves. They assess that
this is Tommy and they need to go find Tommy.
But at the same time, Ellie looks off into the
distance and he's a well and a will. So the
affairs will from Seattle which we did ride, yes, as
well as the aquarium which you went to. But we
(05:30):
saw the well from Afar and she figured out that's
where Abby is and so she loses it. Ellie's like,
I gotta go, I gotta go get him, and Jesse's like, no,
we gotta go home, or do you do it? What
is wrong with you? And again he says this is
where he says, I vot didn't know. And so they
go back and forth about you know, who's better than who?
And no, no, no, no, no no, and why are you doing this?
And then finally Ellie goes her own way while he
(05:51):
goes to get Tommy. Ellie, we have all big water
scene heard going in the boats and as a person
who's never been on a boat, so I don't know
if I would figure out how to use a boat,
but hey, she apparently can. She's better than me. Anyway,
she gets to an island it turns out to be
the Seraphied Island, and there she is discovered by a
Seraphi kid who they drag her in and like she's like,
(06:13):
I'm not one of them, I'm not them, blah blah blah,
and the dude and the kid's like, no, gut her.
So they get ready to hang her, and then oh,
hear guns off in the distance, assuming that it's Isaac
and the wolves, you know, coming after the seraphits, They're like,
leave her. So she gets back in the boat, goes
back and instead of going by like oh, I almost died,
I'm going to go and be with my people, know,
(06:33):
she still keeps going to the area where she thinks
Abby is. Upon getting there, she does not find Abby,
but who she does find is Owen and mel who
was a part of the crew. They're fighting about finding
Abby and they're having this moment, and of course Ellie
comes with guns ablazing, being like, where's Abby. Tell me
where Abby is? Show me on this map, and if
(06:55):
I'm going to ask both of you and one of
you are lying, you're dead essentially if you don't find
point at the same place on the map. We remember
this line from season one, but also so Owen leaps
for a gun, Ellie shoots. Not only does she kill Owen,
but it slices the neck essentially of mel who fall
(07:15):
back and she starts rambling, and Ellie's trying to fare
was happening. You're trying to tell her, get her to
tell her what Abby is, and that's when they she
shows that she is pregnant all these things, so like
she's trying to kill her to cut out the baby.
Real heartrenching scene, and like as she's dying, thinking that
it was happening, even saying you're doing great job, keep going,
(07:39):
and then she dies, and this is when Tommy and
Jesse come back and find her and take her back,
and Tommy's like, it's fine, You're fine. You had to
do what you had to do. They killed they killed Joel.
You had to do what you had to do. Going
back as the first book, it did happen before all
of this, where Ellie goes back to see Dina because
that's all she's thinking about when she had returned and
(08:00):
from finding Nora there, she tells Dina everything, including the
fact that Nora told her where they were, which was
the Will and the Will, as well as the fact
that Joel had killed everyone, including Abby's father, and Dina
has a moment of like, oh God, you need to
go sit over there scene. But then right before Ellie
and Jesse leave, she gives her her bracelet to give
(08:21):
her a lucky charm and is obviously like, she's like,
you know, come back to me this, you know, all
these things. So that had happened previously. FII. Now we're
back with Jesse and Tommy bring Ellie back and they're
all talking, trying to get together. Jesse and Ellie have
a really sweet scene about how you know, yeah, I
can't be too mad because I know you would go
to the ends of the earth and you would set
(08:42):
the earth off fire for me to come get me
all these things, and then we hear bang bang ord Heir,
and so they run out the theater without even taking
any cautions, like, come on, you would at least look
out the door before you run out, but no, they
run out really fast, and Jesse gets immediately shot in
the face, and uh oh, there's Abby. Abby's here pointing
a gun who has shot Tommy in the leg, obviously,
and Tommy's like, go run get away whatever, And Ellie
(09:05):
comes out and Abby realizes who she was. She was
like you and this is where she screams, we let
you live and you wasted it, and Ellie's like, you're
trying to find me. I'm the one who did this.
I'm the one who killed your friends. Because she's like,
y'all he killed my friends. I was like, no, I
did all these things, back and forth, and then we
hear a bang in scene. All of a sudden, we
(09:29):
come back to this was day three, by the way,
it says Seattle day three, and then all of a sudden,
it says Seattle day one. And Abby comes out after
falling asleep reading a book, and you look over at
what is probably the I guess, the main wolf station,
and there's all these people there and Many's talking to her,
and that's how it ends yep in scene finale.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Okay, so this episode is called Convergence because it's got
a lot of pieces that are coming together, but also
because of the storm. The storm is actually a pretty
big piece of the plot. The reason the wolves are
going to attack the Seripied Island is because they're using
(10:25):
the storm as cover. So it was really cool because
when we watched the episode, it was actually swarming.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, I started thundering.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah. And Peaches, Sweet Peaches math style does not like storms,
but she provided a lot of comfort for us on
the couch, which is unfortunately not so like evicted you
from your own couch. But she was like behind my
back at one point over on a friend of ours.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It was very cute she was laying on them.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, but the storm is a big piece of this
whole thing, and I just kind of feel it's pretty iconic.
I mean, you know, like the storm's coming, that's a
very clear foreboding thing. But when I think about this game,
like a lot of these scenes happen in this episode
are some of the most iconic to me. And then
(11:20):
when we go to the start, you're hearing Dina before
you see her, and it almost sounds like she's giving birth.
And I think they did that purposefully because it's foreshadowing
what's going to happen with mel but it's also kind
of a throwback to Ellie's mom and how Ellie was
born because we were not really sure what's happening. But
(11:43):
that's the sound she's making when Jesse's trying to get
this arrow out of her. And then you have Ellie
returned to the theater. This is also a scene that
really stands out to me, where Ellie goes to check
on Dean, and then Dina sees that Ellie's hurt and
(12:05):
asked her to take off her shirt, and Ellie's like
just beat up in her back, like it looks horrible
and she's bare, and I think it's sort of a
you know, like she's bearing her truth and her secrets
in this scene, and it's also sort of the like
(12:28):
damage on her body and her mind. But she We're
going to talk about this throughout Ellie's characterization in the
game versus the show is it's becoming increasingly different, not
in a way that has me mad in any any sense,
but this scene is one of the ones that's pretty different.
(12:50):
But that kind of Dina taking care of her and
her talking about Ellie talking about how easy it was
to Nora and expressing remorse over it and even questioning
her revenge because this is when she's like Dina says, oh,
(13:12):
did she deserve it? Maybe she deserved it, and Ellie's like,
maybe she did it, And she tells Dina the truth,
which at this point she has not told anybody. This
is the first time, and she never tells her in
the game, or if she does, we don't see it,
but her revealing what Joel did and Dina having this
(13:35):
moment of realization, we should not be here now that
I have the full context of this, this was a mistake.
And the actress who plays her is Bill Emer said
said she's kind of processing. She's having a moment similar
to how Ellie had that moment. Her relationship with Joel
(13:57):
is different than it is in the game as well,
as we've said that she's closer with Joel, but I
mean that does change things when you learn the depth
of what Joel did and what you're walking into. So
that's not in there. And Ellie is visibly traumatized in
(14:20):
the game, but she's not necessarily remorseful, but I feel
like she's remorseful in the show. Yeah, And I think
this is a difference that we're starting to see between
her and Joel, because Joel never really shows remorse. He's
only worried that he'll lose Ellie. He never says he's
(14:43):
sorry or anything like that. So, going back to Gail's
line of whatever path Ellie is on, it's her own,
it's not Joel's. I think we're going to start to
see more and more instances of that. And one of
the reasons it was so easy for Joel to kill
people outside his community. Is that he doesn't. It's just
(15:09):
only the people in this little circle that he cares about,
and anyone else doesn't matter to him. That's fine. He
doesn't feel any guilt about it. He was doing what
he had to do. But anyway, so we have this
relevation and Dina is like, we need to go home.
(15:30):
This is this is and she's I mean, she's got
a wounded leg, she's pregnant, Like, there's a lot of
reasons why Ellie has clearly had all of this pain
inflicted on her, like, and I think Dina's honestly worried
about her mental state. I think she's like, oh, I
(15:52):
think I might lose you to this. And so she
kind of lays down and cries, turns her back to
Ellie and cries, and Ellie's sort of like she nods,
but then we see that she's not quite on board
throughout the episode. But the next day, it is Seattle
(16:14):
day three. As we said, this is how the game
is set up. It'll have the text at the bottom
and it tells you this. It's kind of like the
Ring in that way. So Ellie and Jesse are packing up.
Dina comes and gives Dina her bracelet that she's been
wearing the entire season, by the way, and it's like,
(16:38):
this is for good luck to prevent you from harm,
and Ellie kind of teases her and she's like, it
doesn't look like it's done you that well, and Dina says,
it's kept me alive. And then Ellie and Jesse go
to meet Tommy at this rendezvous point and this is
in the game. This is where you get a lot
(16:59):
of interaction between Ellie and Jesse and you kind of
build their relationship. You learn more about how they see
each other. But it's also one of those missible things.
So many things in this game are missible, but if
you just like talk to him, you can really learn
a lot. But you don't have to enter these conversations.
A lot of them are voluntary, which I think some
(17:21):
people don't particularly care. And that's fine. So I, you know,
I get it, but I liked, I want to know everything,
like tell me, tell me all about it. But so
we kind of get that section here where Ellie and
Jesse have all of these moments, including the revelation that yeah,
(17:43):
Jesse realizes Tina's pregnant, and now he is thinking about
being a father and how he needs to survive. And
he has like a line later that I always loved
where he says Ellie kind of makes fun of him
for being a sap, and then he says, well, my
(18:04):
friends can't get out of their own damn way, And
I've always liked that because they do obviously care about
each other, even though they like they shafe against each
other and argue with each other and all of that.
But then you get to the bookstore, and this is
a beautiful scene in the game. I love this, and
it was great in the show as well. And there's
(18:26):
a lot of fun Easter eggs in here, including there's
like a stuffed giraffe on the couch where Ellie's sitting,
which is a throwback too, a very scene scene, innocent
scene in the first season. But you also have so
that this is where they're trying to meet up with Tommy,
so they're just waiting out the storm. You also have
(18:51):
Ellie go through these books, Edie's children's books, and she
picks up the monster at the end of this book,
which is a Sesame Street book, and in it it's Grover,
who's telling the reader like, stop reading. There's a monster
at the end of this book. Please stop, please turn back,
like please, don't do this, And then you get to
(19:11):
the end and there's no monster at the end of
the book.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Grover's the monster.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
He's just like, no, there's no monsters, just men. Yeah.
But I think like the point being because I read
it in preparation, but the point was more like, yeah,
there's not really a monster there because it's Grover's the monster,
then he's not really a monster.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Just because I called a monster doesn't mean they're bad, right,
It doesn't need to be scared.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yes, yes, exactly, which very I'm sure it's very fitting
for how this goes because Ellie's kind of chosen this
journey to get revenge. There's nobody telling her she has
to do it, and we're all like, stop, don't turn
the next babe, It'll do the next thing. And when
(20:05):
you get to the end, who guess what. There's also
in the background there's an Alice in Wonderland kind of mural,
but there's also like statue mushrooms, and in the game,
Ellie and Jesse have a conversation where they're like people
(20:26):
used to think this was okay, Like this is not cool,
So I like that that was in the background. And
then also you can see on top of it, everything
has a moral if only you can find it, which
at first I thought was a mushroom pun which it
could be. But the point I think they're making is
(20:48):
that a lot of things in this story are justified violence.
So you can find the moral. You can tell yourself.
Will they did this to Joel, so I'm justified doing this?
But everyone everyone has a version of that, and that's
how people have become so brutal and justified it to
(21:10):
themselves as they have found this moral. So then we
get to them hearing that there is a sniper. They
both guess that it's Tommy. They run out, they try
to get to higher ground so they can maybe see
where he is, and that's when Ellie sees the ferris
(21:34):
wheel and then the aquarium with the wheel and the whale,
and she's like, Ah, that's the way I need to
get a boat, and Jesse's like, what, we need to
go that way. That's where Tommy is. And they get
to this big fight about community, and I skipped over
the part where they got into a fight about saving
the seraphite boy who was being tortured by the guy
(21:57):
that Isaac saved kind of the for not being fascist,
but has now become essentially the new Josh Peck character.
But yeah, it's interesting because you have Jesse saying things like,
I put other people first because I was raised in
(22:20):
Jackson and that's they took care of me. I voted
no because you only think about yourself, which I'm sure
burned because she yelled at Joel the same kind of
thing about him being selfish, and she kind of has
this breaking point where she says, your community because it's
(22:43):
essentially it divides us versus them. You're you let this
kid die today because they're not in your community. And
that kind of goes back to Joel's whole thing where
he's in the first episode didn't want to let more
refugees in because it's outside of his circle. And that's
going to be a big that's going to be a
(23:05):
big theme next season. So but yeah, they have this
big fight and then Jesse says, I hope you make it,
and he goes after Tommy and she goes after Abby
and she chooses this. This is the second time we've
seen it where Ellie chooses this revenge over saving somebody
(23:26):
in her life or even just looking back, like she's
stuck in the past instead of thinking about the future.
And so she she takes the boat. She takes this
boat out and she gets stuck on the serap Fhight
Island for a minute. This kid turns her in. She's like, no,
(23:49):
I'm not one of you, kind of using this community fight.
What she did call out is she knows it's hyper critical,
but she's saying, like, you hypocritical too. But anyways, they
are going to hang her, and this alarm goes off
and they leave her to go see what the alarm
(24:10):
is going on with that, and she gets back in
the boat, gets to the aquarium and this is when
she has her confrontation with Owen and Mel. And Owen
and Mel are having this fight about Abby, and when
Owen pulls a gun on Ellie, she shoots him kind
(24:32):
of on reaction, but then kills Mel as collateral damage,
and she's kind of collateral damage for both Ellie and
Abby at this point. But it's also really sad because
this is a loss of knowledge because Ellie, as Mel's
trying to coax her through doing this emergency c section.
(24:55):
Ellie doesn't know how to do it, and Mel did.
And now Mel's gone. And Nora was also in the
medical field and now she's gone. Abby's dad was in
the medical field and now he's gone. And we talked
about this with Gail in the book she was reading
in the last episode about set the last person in
who had to read, and then he was gone. So
(25:17):
we're seeing a lot of this, like loss of knowledge.
It's also pretty symbolic. I think that she has her
mom's knife and that's how she's trying to save this baby.
And this is when as Mel dies, it's horrible, so sad.
This is when Ellie realizes how far she's fallen and
(25:40):
the gravity of her actions in the game, she kind
of freezes. She has more of a freeze reaction, but
in here she's really like, oh no, I mean, we're
I'm thinking, we're meant to assume she's thinking of Dina
and like, oh, this is what could have happened. And
(26:02):
she didn't. I mean, she didn't mean to kill me,
but she did, and she killed she killed a baby.
And this is also one of the parts in the
game that always gets me is because as the player,
you're like, I remember you remember playing her when she
was like a kid and she had all this, when
(26:23):
her life wasn't this and now you see her and
you're like, oh wow, this world has really really devastated
you and this is how you are. And this I
also thought this was interesting that Bella Ramsey said, you know,
(26:43):
in the last episode, Joel's dad had said I hope
you do better than me, and then Joel said that
to Ellie and then Bella Ramsey said, no, Ellie did worse.
So I don't know it's comp located because I don't
want to come. I don't want to spoil things. But
(27:04):
she does feel she does feel as she should, pretty
bad about this, and this is when your question like
can she come back from it? As she'd gone too far?
Is this going to change her? She's going to keep
doing the same old things. And she did go out
of her way to make sure she had Joel's gun
(27:26):
and make sure she had the bullets for Joel's gun,
like she was really going for this. So that's they
died by that gun. And you know when you hear
when Tommy finds her, Tommy and Jesse and later he's
trying to comfort her, and he says, like they made
their choices, which they did, but they also didn't want
(27:47):
to go. We saw that in the first episode that
they wanted to convince Abby to turn back, and now
we've got Ellie's people who didn't want to go and
they can for Ellie. So it's another parallel, which does
bring us to a said very sad moment because Ellie
(28:10):
and Jesse kind of makeup and Jesse implies like, yeah,
I understand you would You're would come for me, and
she says, oh, yes, I would, and that sort of
confirms like their family or their community or this whatever
it is. And then they hear all these sounds and
(28:31):
they run out and then Jesse's just shot dead. Immediately
Ellie dives to the side and we get Abby, who's
threatening Tommy, and Ellie gives herself up because at this moment,
I think she realizes this I have what have I wrought?
(28:55):
And Ellie and Abby have a moment where they're just
kind of looking at each other and Abby is like, oh,
it's you and this is all after Ellie says I'm
not like you to Owen and mel But I think
in this moment she realized like, no, I think maybe
(29:17):
I am. But you know, whether Ellie just can't let
it go. She can't let it go. I'm saying that dismissively,
but I'm just saying, like, that's kind of her whole
thing is, she just can't move on, she can't let
it go. That does bring us to Abby, Abby, Abby,
(29:48):
which I realize, like the Ferris Wheel, I'm so glad
they put it in there in the game. That's your
kind of like your north star to where Abby is
because it's next to the aquarium. But there were so
many mentions of like breaking the wheel in the interviews
of The Wheel of Revenge, and I was like, Okay,
I see, I didn't think of that. But yeah, we
(30:15):
do have a scene where we hear Isaac talking about
Abby and saying she's a leader, also calling everybody else
almost like a sheep that has no mind for themselves,
a sheep in wolf's clothing. But he's saying like, we
need a leader to leave the wolves after I'm gone,
(30:38):
and he's like, oh, I'm going to die. You probably will.
He's talking to Alize at this point too, You're probably
gonna die too, So we need a leader. It was
supposed to be her. It's just kind of like how
Jesse is supposed to be the leader of Jackson and
now he's gone and we don't know. He doesn't know
(30:58):
where Abby is, and he says, you know, the whole team,
they're called the Salt Lake City Crew or the Salt
Lake Crew. The whole team has been missing pretty much
except for Manny. Except for Manny. This is so interesting
because I actually don't, like I said, I don't know
(31:19):
what the show will do in the game except for Manny.
And now knowing the day one reset, I will tell
you that Ellie and Abby have been orbiting each other
this entire time. It's kind of like pieces of a
puzzle that I love. But if you notice, I didn't
(31:43):
notice the first time I watched it, Abby has bruises
around her throat, indicating she too was almost hung by
the Seraphytes. But yeah, the wl F I recommend to
(32:03):
rewatch as always. The WLF is the outfit that at
the first episode that Owen mentions where he's like, it's
run by Isaac and the remaining fireflights went there. So
they've been there for a minute and they have risen
up the ranks. But this does bring me to my
iconic Abby line, which is we let you live and
(32:23):
you wasted it. That's what we have on some glasses,
who so good and her having that whole you know,
you killed my friends full circle moment, and Ellie trying
to be like, yeah, it was me, don't kill my friends.
But they're not seeing that. They're the same They're doing
(32:45):
the same thing. And then you get the cut to
black and the flashback, which I'm going to talk about
in a second, but I cannot tell you how shocking
this was the first time I played the game. Oh
my god. Oh. We also have more parallels. You've got
the Dina and mel bothing pregnant thing. You kind of
(33:09):
have Ellen and Jesse, which we'll get into more in
season three. There's three beds in the aquarium, by the way,
just to point that out. You've got the science museum
that Ellie loves and the aquarium that Abbey loves. It's
very important to Abby and it's such a pain to
(33:32):
get there in the game. It's such a pain. And
it's a great build up too, because you think you're
going to have to have this confrontation finally, and you
had to fight so hard to get there and nope,
just more trauma for you move on. You also have
both Abby and Ellie having a solo journey that they
have to do because people were not the people in
(33:54):
their group were like, no, I'm not doing this anymore,
and then weather ruining them. So for Abby was the
appalanche and for Ellie the storm. You also have Abby's
choice to save Ellie and seeing that a couple of
characters of selflessness leading to death. She also Spardina too,
(34:15):
and that's when you first see that Mel is a medic.
As I pointed out in our reaction to the first episode,
she is wearing a watch. Abby is similar to Joel
and just this whole idea has been big this season
of cycles, getting stuck in cycles, justifying things, being very hypocritical,
(34:38):
and so Ellie's whole thing of like you think I'm
good and you're good and I'm bad. Like that's going
to play out more now that if we're moving into
Abby's territory. But also that's kind of a piece of
the seraphytes in the WLF conflict that we'll see And yeah,
(34:58):
like there are things that I'm very interested how they
play out on the show. But there are things where
the wl LF attack on the island saved Ellie. Like
there's a bunch of little pieces of what is going
on in Abby's story that influence Ellie's story, And it's
(35:19):
really fun when you get the whole thing and you're like, oh, okay,
I see some game differences to run through Shimmer, I'm
just gonna tell you Shimmer died in the game.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm really glad they didn't kill Shimmer.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
They did not kill Shimmer. I was waiting for it,
I know. So they talked about this in the like
post interviews of the episode, but Ellie doesn't go to
the serified island. The kind of the different versions of
the prophet that Ellie mentions that's not in the game.
(35:56):
But I think that's really interesting because it's implying that
she's been around so long no one really remembers or
knows what she looks like, and in the way that
religion often does is that it's sort of up for
interpretation or whoever is making the art. Tommy, We've been
saying this whole time. Tommy had a completely different story,
(36:17):
but he in the end he did. That's how he
ends up is with Ellie pretty much line for line
that whole scene why Jesse came. So Jesse's actually more
reckless in the game than he is in the show
because he comes by himself, but in here he was
very much like made plan, came with Tommy, this is
(36:39):
why I'm here, and they have the whole explanation of
how he found them, how Mel dies. So when this
confrontation happens Ellie, it's similar with Owen because he tries
to shoot her first, and so Ellie kind of acts
(37:00):
and shoots him. But then Mel comes from the side
and tries to stab her, and Ellie grabs her wrists
and stabs her with her own knife and she dies
there and Owen is still alive and he's like his
last words are like, she's pregnant, And that's when Ellie
realizes she's pregnant, and she just goes into complete she
(37:22):
freezes completely. And this is one of the big differences
in the game. Ellie doesn't actually know the full truth
of why Abby killed Joel in the game. In the show,
she does. In the game, she's just like, you're a firefly,
but she doesn't know kind of the father connection, so
(37:44):
that that's a difference. Obviously, As I said, Dina didn't
know any of this, so that's a difference. I also
think that's another way that Ellie's different than Joel is
that she did tell Dina like you should probably know this,
but okay, I just have to talk about this because
it was so shocking the first time I played it.
I'm sure some of you are a little shocked. But
(38:06):
when you get to this scene, you've been trying to
find Abby this whole time, it's just like build up,
build up, build up, and we let you live. Then
you wasted it and it cuts to black. Okay, In
the game, it goes to a flashback as Abby as
a child and you see her with her dad, and
(38:28):
this is kind of us being like, oh no, so
Joel killed her dad because we didn't know it. We
didn't know it as the player yet as opposed to
the show. But I was playing it and I'm still mad,
and I'm all like, this horrible thing, all these traumatic
things have just happened, and I'm like, I know I'm
going to have to fight Abby. So I think it's
(38:52):
going to be a short flashback to be like, Okay,
I see this is why Abby is the way she
is and then it cuts to black again and it
says Seattle day would and I freaked out. I was like,
no way, no way, They're not gonna make me play
(39:14):
this whole thing guys. Abby. Yep, they make you play
the whole thing as Abby. And it's a very I've
talked about it in previous episodes. It is a shocking
creative choice, but wow, the like empathy of can you
(39:34):
now you get her side of it? Can you be
empathetic toward it? And also it like digs a knife
in more because you start in that stadium which is
in Seattle, and there's a dog that you know you
killed as Ellie. That Abby is like petty, it's her dog.
(39:58):
They didn't kill the dog, so the dog would have
died at the aquarium, but it was such a moment
of oh, no, I have to examine my actions. So
it makes you do it kind of as the player,
and I'm going to say as the viewer, I don't
(40:20):
think it would be quite the same, but oh that
when that dog showed up. And then there's like another
part where you see all these bodies and they're like, oh,
it was the trespasser that killed them. And you're like,
oh no, that was me, but okay. The book that
(40:42):
Abby's reading when she wakes up is a major influence
for the Last of Us, and it's pretty much Joel
and Ellie's relationships. It's about like two characters and Apocalypse
that don't like each other and they have to fight
like campbells and stuff, but then at the end they
of course become really close. Abby hasn't finished the book yet.
(41:02):
This is also where we get our first, our biggest
look at how big the WLF is. And you do
hear from now on, you're gonna hear a lot more
about when we heard them talking about Tommy beating the
sniper as a trespasser. Since you've already played Ellie's part,
(41:25):
now you're gonna hear it and know who they're talking
about largely, which is a cool It's upsetting, but it's
like a cool, Oh I remember when I did that.
But the song that ends on as a sound Garden
song the Burden in My Hand, which is a band
from Seattle, and it's about not finding any resolution. One
(41:51):
of the lines is I lost my head again, Would
you cry for me? And it's like falling into the
same cycles over and over, and so even this setup
of like now we're back at day one, that's a cycle,
and it kind of reminds me of the whole Moth
and Light motif of like Ellie always looking for this
and trying to find meaning or purpose or what have you,
(42:14):
and not being able to find it, and in fact
being kind of angry and confused about how it seems
to her. No one else understands how hypocritical they're being,
But there is no resolution for Ellie at this point.
There is no resolution for us at this point because
we were waiting for this whole conversation. We don't get it.
(42:35):
As I said, they've called this their Empire strikes Back season,
so the Empire strikes Back doesn't in a pretty low place.
But because you know how a return of the Jedi is,
you're like, okay, that's fine, but yes, we are going
to see Abby's POV next season and we're going to
(42:58):
go through the days from her, and it's really cool,
like the ways they were so close to each other
so many times, really really cool. So this brings me
to my list of random things and if you don't
want any like hints at what might happen I'm just
asking questions that you can think about. I'm not spoiling,
(43:19):
but if you don't even want that, this is where
you should click out. Okay, one is this is a
stupid one. But why does everyone have the same flannel shirt.
I'm trying to figure out if I should be picking
up any meaning from that. But Ellie, Joel, and Jesse
all I have the same blue Fanel shirt. I thought
it was making it up, but I've seen it enough
(43:41):
that I know. If you want to go back to
the last episode of season one, you can see someone
who looks like Abby running in the hospital. I'm pretty
sure that they're never going to say that was her,
but they were clearly trying to be like, we know
Abby exists and is here, and we talked about it
in our reaction to that episode. But if now that
(44:05):
you've seen Abby and you want to go back, it's
very brief, but you can see her running by when
Joel is going on his rampage. And now that we
are going to start Abby's POV and we are going
to learn the answers to some questions that I'm sure
at least some of you have. One what did the
(44:27):
Salt Lake crew say, when Ellie's ears were ringing, because
all of them said, if we let you live some
version of that. Every one of them said it what
was happening with the village when the alarm went off?
And you know, when you go back to Abby's point
of view on day one, Manny says, Isaac's waiting for us,
(44:51):
So clearly like they're preparing for this assault. Why was
Abby missing when she knew at that point looked like
she was on board and planning on showing up the bandages?
So in the aquarium there's a bunch of bloody bandages,
which when you see them, when Ellie sees them, she
(45:13):
immediately assumes the worst about wl phone, like what they've done.
And so this is another reason I can kill them
and not feel bad. So what's going on there? How
did Abby even find them? Anyway? Which, believe me, I
was asking when I was how did she even get in?
(45:35):
Where's Dana? What we're owing and Mel fighting about? Why
is Mel Matt at Abby? What was going on with
Tommy and the sniper at the marina? Uh? And I
think it's worth noting that Abby says he killed my friend,
so she is she thinks it's him the bridges. So
(45:56):
there are some bridges you can see in the skyline,
and I think that's going to be one of the
scariest parts of the game. People who are afraid of heights,
they always tell me that part is like the scariest
part to them. Obviously the gunshot we hear before we
switch to Abbey's POV. What happened there? The rat King
(46:16):
who I've been talking about over and over you have
and now we'll learn hopefully, Oh, I think so. And
then kind of like on a deeper level we talked
about before, this is a lot of questions in this show,
(46:37):
game or like who won't inherit the earth when it's
like this, and we have a lot of instances of
Children of War, of these vengeance cycles of people trying
not to be trying to make something better or make
something for the future and then being punished for it.
(47:01):
Will they break the cycle? Who will? If anybody? There
have been instances a few instances of Ellie trying to
break free already, I think from just based on like
at least from the cycle that Joel might have set
her on by telling Dina this thing, by feeling the
truth and by feeling remorse about what she's done. Now
(47:24):
does it stay or does she get stuck in it again? Okay,
those are some things to think about as we wait.
A shout out to the creators, because that's a lot
to keep in mind of, kind of having two storylines
that you're telling at the same time, but you have
(47:44):
to film separately and write separately. But yeah, I know
a lot of you probably angry, and I'm telling you
I was too, I remember, but I promise you it's
worth it and it's so fun. We have the complete story.
It's a rewarding, complete story. Like there are literally things
(48:05):
you see in the background and be like, oh happy
that was Abby or oh yeah, Ellie kills all of them.
So if you go back to the first episode where
you see the Salt Light crew, you're like, oh, yep,
sorry about that, my bad. But yeah, thanks so much
(48:28):
listeners and Samantha for coming along this journey with me.
I've had a good time. I hope you have as well,
even if you don't play or watch, which I'm sure
this must be wild for you listening to this commitment.
If he's not watched, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you,
and won't be back one day for season three and
(48:52):
Abby Happy Abby.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I mean I think we need to be back to
do a recap of everything everything.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Yeah, after I've watched, like done my whole.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, I feel like you need to watch first season
and the second season and bring it in together, and
then we'll come back and as a review of like
what has happened in your after thoughts. I guess what
needs to happen.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, you know, I would love to do it. You
know I would love to do it because I told
Samantha I did have to cut out. I know these
are long, but I cut out stuff from them because
I just want to talk about every all of it.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I think, well, I think we're going to return, Yes, okay,
I think we have one more. We have one more lessons.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
That feels like at the end of I was wondering
if they were going to do something like you know
how the marvels like Marvel like Horribile return and I thought,
I was like, well they do that for last time.
It was just to be like it will come back.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Seems still kitching now because it's such a marvel thing.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Well, anyway, Samantha and any will be back, Yes, we
will with one Yes, all right. But in the meantime,
that is what I have to say for you. You
can email us any of your thoughts at Hello at
stuff onever Told You dot com. You can also find
us on Blue Sky at mom Souf Podcasts, or on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff Whenever Told You. We also
(50:15):
have a t popic store, We're on YouTube, and we
have a book you can get where you get your books.
Thanks as always too our super producer Christina, executive producer
and tricker Joey. Thank you O, thank so you for listening.
Stuff Whenever Told You is prediction of my Heart Radio.
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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