May 6, 2025 • 33 mins
Things are getting very video gamey over on The Last of Us season 2, Jason and Rosie are recapping the episode and discussing their feelings. Is the show doing more than the games? Do we prefer action-heavy episodes that feel like a game or emotion-driven episodes that help us connect with the characters?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wording. Today's episode contains spoilers for episode four, season two
of the Last of Us.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hey, it is Jason Catepcio and I'm Rosie Night and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome back to x Ray video of the podcast where
we dive the to your Babe shows, movies, comments, and
pop culture. Coming to you from My Art podcast, where
we're bringing you three episodes a week every Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday plus news.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
In today's episode, we're talking about It.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
It's the fourth episode of the Last of Us season two.
We are now officially over halfway through the Last of
Us season two, and it's making me and Jason feel
some things. I think the Internet is feeling some things too,
So we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Let's get into it. We open on a flashback twenty
eighteen the Seattle quarantine Zone. We're in a Federa van
and the Federa dudes are assholes. They're talking shit about
the residents of the quarantine zone, who they call voters.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Because they're no longer allowed to vote yes.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And they're talking about like a particularly brutal Federra commander
who is also very stupid, who is beating these residents
ruthlessly because they're handing out pamphlets, which we later find
out are like proto Serahphyte pamphlets, and all these federal
(01:40):
soldiers are laughing about how brutal this dummy is. And
then one of them, Isaac answers one of the younger
feder you know, why do we call them voters? And
to as you said, Rosie, it's because, as Isaac says,
we took away their ability to vote, and now we
jokingly call them voters. Their patrol vehicle stops because there's
(02:01):
a bus that's been pulled across this like suburban street,
and they're like, oh, oh, what does this mean? Could
it be the WLF, could it be somebody else? And
Sergeant's like, I'm going to go out. I'm going to
talk peacefully to them. Okay, So everybody's stay in the van.
You new guy, come with me.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, he's like you who asked about the voters, who
seems to have not necessarily found the right you haven't.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Been molded by the brutality yet. Come with me. And
there's a bunch of civilians in the street. They're unarmed,
but they seem very you know, prepared for a confrontation,
despite the fact that they're unarmed. Their leader is Hanrahan
Alana Youbach, the wonderful usually comedic.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yes, shocking to see, just a little bit of just
a little.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Bit of sad face acting.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And she really like sucked me in, Like you can
tell she's tired.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
She's tired and is shit. She she has been waiting
for Isaac, and apparently they've been, you know, expecting each other.
So Isaac is like, you Handrahan. She's like, yeah, it's
like you Isaac. Yes. They shake hands and then Isaac
turns back towards his patrol vehicle, pops two grenades out
of his vest, throws them in the van, shuts the
(03:09):
van door, blows up all the guys inside, Wow, kills
the driver as he tumbles out, and then turns to
the new guy and is like, okay, I make your choice.
What do you want to do?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, tricky, And he makes this really interesting comment where
he kind of says he throws in the grenades and
then he shuts the door, and he's like, it's.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Because you're all that guy.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
You're all that same guy who will smash someone's face
against a wall and laugh about it.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And laugh about it.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Also absolutely hilarious to see Drake from Drake and Josh
theare that was, whichever one it was. I was like,
great character casting.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Like I love to see this. This throws me back.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Also kind of terrifying to see a kid actor and
someone that you kind of grew up with as just
like the worst person you could ever know in and.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Apocolypch feels very real. But yeah, he does have that.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
He does have that like punchable popular kid face exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And I thought this was just such a fantastic cold
open and definitely, like, I think it's probably the strongest
part of the episode because it really establishes just how
much okay, yeah, how much of a kind of crazy
space Seattle was back then in twenty eighteen, and why
it is no longer under feder Come on.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, So we go to the present. Dina and Ellie
are scouting. They see a w WLF. Oh wait, I've
fast forward. Sorry, we flashed back to the present. It's
now eleven years later. Dina and Ellie are scavenging around
buildings very much like the video game. Dina finds something
(04:44):
which we will later find out what it is because
she's in like a drug store or prescription drugs. They
then ride into the Capitol District and this it. They're
surprised at how intact it is because it was supposedly
bombed out. There's gay pride symbols and flags everywhere, but
(05:07):
the girls don't know what that means. They think. Ellie
wonders if it means that they were just like happy
and optimistic. There are skeletons of feder soldiers everywhere and
tank but burned out tanks that have been overgrown with moss.
Clearly there is a battle here. Ellie investigates the tank,
(05:28):
doesn't find anything but makes a loud noise. Luckily, No,
I'm gonna give you any quick slap, like you have
to be.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
The one in control here. You are the Joel in
this situation. She's very much Ah, you are not, but
you need to be for Dina. I'm for you to
survive like that was such a I'm not gonna lie.
Would I also do that in the apocalypse, Yes, but
that's why I would die like five years ago, I
have nice I'm no understanding, I'm no misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I would die. I can't run, I'm not quiet, I'm clumsy.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But Ellie like, come on, I know you're immune, but please, babe,
do not make the ringing fucking like gong.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Noise to let people know where you are.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
They spot a tower on a hill that has a
WLF marker on one of its no longer operational satellite dishes,
and Ellie's like, great, let's go, let's run in again.
Kind of a weird characterization of Ellie is like the
tumble into kind of reckless. Yeah. Dina is like, wait
(06:30):
a second. They're on an elevated position, they're in a tower.
They'll see us coming. We're going to ride up on
a horse. Two people like, let's wait until dark. So
they go and find a place to hold up until dark.
It's a record store. They are looking around. There's guitars
and stuff. Upstairs. Ellie finds an acoustic guitar that is
in unrealistically good.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
That shit would be warped as well, because this room
had to be so humid for all those plants.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
This is the Pacific, this is a Pacific Northwest, Like, it's.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Very what it would be warped.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And we get it, like, you know, we get it,
and you get some beautiful shots of the guitar, but
come on, I'm saying is this is something I will
bring up throughout our discussion. This is the first episode
of the Last of Us where I kind of got
a little pushed out of the logic of the show
in a way that kind of this usually just immerses
(07:23):
me emotionally and vibes wise, and this was the first
one where there was a few different things that kind
of took me out. Now, this it took me out
a little bit, but I'm willing to accept it because
I know the importance of the guitar. But the next
choice they make.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I just want to say before I continue the recap,
but I think that this is I think what we're
both reacting. Certainly, what my thoughts watching this was this
is the most explicitly video game loyal episode that we've
seen for me, and I think that's kind of what
pushes you out of the reality of it is some
(07:58):
of these video game moments that butt up against the
reality that has been established in the show version of
this story.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I think that's a great way of putting it.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So Ellie plays take on Me by Aha. But like
the whole song, the entire thing, it's only seven episodes, guys,
can we anyway Dina comes upstairs and sees this and
hears this and is like, oh, ship, now I'm already.
Now I'm really falling in love. And you know, Ellie
(08:30):
is like, there was Joel. Joel taught me how to
play guitar, and you know they're they're both in that
moment very thankful for their past relationships with Joel. Elsewhere,
Isaac now the leader of the wolf, or a leader,
we should say, it's it's unclear what the same hierarchy is.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
He's at least that he's allowed to torture people, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So he lights a stove and he's giving this monologue
about how in the past, you know, when he was
wooing a woman, he would lean on his culinary skills,
and how back then he always wanted this specific brand
of French cook wear that was very expensive, but now
that like le apocalypse has happened, he can just have
(09:14):
it because it's free.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
That would be like me with Lacrousete.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I'll be living in the Lacrosse life before I get
hit by his zombie. I have a cook at least
at least once stew and at lacrase, I have.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
A couple of pieces of Lacrousette and I do love them.
And you know, he's heating this beautiful bronze pan copper
pan on a gas stove, and it turns out that
he's interrogating a naked and chained Seraphyte who has been
beaten brutally. And this Seraphyite is a fanatic, and Isaac
(09:46):
is burning him with the pan, saying like, where are
you going to attack next? What's happening? They get into
this kind of brief argument about like who broke the
there's a truce apparently, so who broke the truth? Did
this Serifices break the truce by killing a child, the
WLF child with an arrow? Or did the WLF break
(10:07):
the truce by killing various members of the scars in
other ways? And they go back and forth about this,
and I Wasac's like, I don't care about that, Like,
just tell me where you guys are attacking next. And
then it becomes very clear that this serified is not
going to talk. Offers his other hand even offers up
like go ahead, burn the other hands. So then Isaac,
(10:29):
finally fed up, shoots this guy.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I found this really hard to watch, which I do
think is meant to be the point, but again when
it comes with the logic of the show, and also
like the choices they've made, for example, like the way
they chose to show Joel's death compared to how we
get it in the game.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I thought that was a really.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Thoughtful, evocative, scary, leaves up to your imagination kind of moment,
even though we did see the moment of death. This
to me felt almost like in the torture porn realm.
And I understand and that it is leaning into what
we can evocative of real things we've seen in war,
but it didn't work for me in the context of
the show.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It was too much.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I think the show has been is cognizant of that,
and they always add in scenes like this. They'll have
like the younger member of the WLF, Like they have
that scene the torture is going on outside and there's
a guy, there's a younger guy outside and he's like,
this is really fucked up. This is really fucked up.
(11:30):
The other guy is like, Isaac knows what he's doing.
This is great. It was Francois Truffaux, I think I
believe who said, you know, there's no such thing as
an anti war movie, and I think that's true. I
think that I think that's how the scene made me
feel like that there's no even though we're meant to
understand the brutality, the horror of the inhumanity of this scene,
(11:50):
it left me wondering, are we not elevating it anyway?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
You know, you're not still having Jeffrey Wright do it
while giving a full monologue about, you know, the life
he led before.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I'm also very interested.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
This is more of a conversation I want on discord
to have and i want to see what the Internet thinks.
I'm very interested in the difference in representation of the
Serophytes and the WLF and the way that they're kind
of representing them here compared to the game. I do
think there is an added complexity to the to the wh.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
No, for sure, I think both sides, even the Seraphytes,
like this. The Seraphytes says something to the effect of,
you really get the feeling of how deeply they're they
really believe their religious feeling for this for this profit
is very deep. And this person who's being tortured says,
you know, every day you're going to lose because every
(12:41):
day we get stronger and every day you get weaker
despite the fact that you have tanks.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And the irony is seeing him torture this guy, Like
this kind of proves that in its own way, right.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It made me feel a lot of the way I
felt about playing the game, which is like I'm getting
worn out by this violence.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, this bleakness.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, So I did feel a little bit like that
with this.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I think it's I.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Think it's the nudity, the skinniness of the actor. It's
very evocative of people in war camps, things we've sin
in real life. Things are going on right now. So
it's like, yeah, it was a bit too much for me,
and I think you're right. This is the first time
where I got that same I had that same feeling
with the game of like the bleakness. But I think
that actually might be something this episode is struggling with
because you know what in the game, and this is
(13:29):
bleak because your action in the game it's killing people.
Like by the time in the game you get here,
you've killed so many people. But like there is that
in part of the game that actually engages your brain
and is like, now you.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Have to go and do this. Here's an activity.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Here's the little bit of dopamine that you get from
playing this game. You don't necessarily get that in the
same way as you do in a video game.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Here, because you're just now, you're just watching.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Ellie and Dina at night sneak up to the tower.
Dina funds sees the way in. There's a broken window
and you can get in there. But what do they do?
Dina says, if we encounter other wolves, like wolves who
weren't responsible for Jackson and for Joel's death, what do
we do if we find them? And Ellie just like
gives her a look like obviously we fucking murder these people.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, like we're gonna kill him. Don't you have a guard?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
We're gonna kill them, right and uh And Dina's like,
oh yeah, I get it, Like yeah for sure. So
inside they go in and immediately in a hallway they
find one of the w lf riddled with arrows, and
they're like, oh, this is those people on the trail
who are responsible. This is who did this. And then
they go in to like a larger room kind of
like like.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Theater or a kind of like way I think it
was as it was a news studio I think like
a so like a you know, a broadcast studio, and
there's several WLF bodies mutilated in Hannibal Lecter style.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
There hung up, the guts are falling. Now, it's very dramatic.
I feel like the Seraphites have too much time on
their hands. I'm not gonna lie when you've got to
make a ritual to you know, for your dead profit. Sure, okay,
I get it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
So they look around, Ellie finds the radio and they realize,
oh shit, the backup is the wolf. Backup must be coming.
So they hide and now it becomes the video game,
right They have to escape from the wolf. They get
separated for a brief period of time, but then Ellie
(15:40):
goes to choke out one of these wolf guys in
one of the most explicitly like video game action sequences.
She sneaks up, she jumps on his back, just like.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I loved how hard they made it look.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I have to say that bit really brought me back
into the game again, and also into the reality of
the world, which is Ellie as a teenager and leverage
is great. And while real naked choke holds are great
and she is, it's still an adult man.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You know, so I thought they did a good job
of making that fight look real. Do you know she's
just out killing people now too.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
She killed Love, she kills another, and they escape into
what we learn is one of these walled off tunnels
that lead underground. The wolves follow them down there, and
they're throwing flares all around so they can see around,
and these trigger the cordy steps tendrils, and next thing
(16:32):
you know, there's a fucking horde in here and it's
real mad.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, and it's like in some basically in a metro
train kind of yeah, and yeah, but it's bad times.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
There's so many of them and it's not looking good
for for any of them. And this is where I
will say again, a little bit of a little bit
of plot armor is coming in there for Stick in
this episode without Joel, you do start to question, mostly,
I think because to me, they are trying to balance
(17:03):
this kind of light hearted Ellie with Dina, which I'm
really happy.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
I want her to be happy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
That's our girl, but like I don't feel like she
is making the kind of serious decisions that make you
think in the game, well, okay, she's actually going to
be able to survive this here, it's a lot, there's.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
A silliness to it.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
There's kind of like a recklessness that really have me thinking,
like these two are dying, Like there's no way they
don't die.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
If this is a real situation.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
There's a reality that has been established over one season
of this show, plus these epis, plus the episodes preceding this,
that I think has been heightened certainly, like noticeably heightened
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Anyway, Ellie and Dina are fleeing. They flee into a
train out of a train, on the top of a train.
They run. There's so many up the stairs out of
the train tunnel. They get kind of hung up on
this turnstile as they're trying to get through. Ellie gets through,
and then Dina's trying to get through and she's kind
of trapped in there for a second, and one of
the infected runs up and is about to bite her,
so Ellie puts her arm out unless the infected bite it,
(18:07):
and crazy Dina is shocked by this, but there's no
time to really think. They escape. They get to the theater,
which is one of the famous havens from the Last
of Us Too, and when they're in the lobby of
the theater. Ellie is thinking nothing really that dramatic, other
than their escape has happened. But when she turns around,
(18:27):
Dina has her gun out and she's about to blow
Ellie's brains out.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Why didn't Ellie tell her this before?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I will say, big, big mistake, Ellie, You're silly, gun.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Says, somewhat unrealistic. I think that Dina wouldn't just blow
her head.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I know that's what I think too. I think Dina.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Probably would have shown her in the head from the
back so she didn't have to look at her.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
But this is I don't think you would get this
kind of emotional I think you would have been.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
She's so clearly been trained by Joel, so easy to
shoot someone down. I did find this to be a
little a kind of little again plot or coming out.
We know Ellie is not going to die in this moment,
but I do think that there was different discussions that
could have been had also, And I think we'll talk
about this more.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
But when you are a teenage.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Girl, or when you in real life, or when you're
reading teenage girls in a Ya novel or something, guess
what teenage girls always do.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
They always tell their best friends their secrets.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
There's no fucking way that Ellie lived there for five
years being friends with Dina and Jesse and didn't fucking
tell them she's immune. I that just doesn't make sense,
and it would have made this make more sense.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
But I get it. They want a little dramatic moment.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And I'm sure you guys can guess that she does
not shoot Ellie.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
That would be crazy, though, that would be a crazy twist.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So Ellie is like, oh, this little thing, this bite,
did I never tell you about the immunity thing? So listen,
here's the deal. I'm immune. I understand that you don't
believe me right now, but I'm gonna go over here,
bandage this up, and fall asleep. And you're just like,
keep your gun on me and watch me. If I turn,
you shoot me. But I won't. So when Ellie wakes up,
she's like, ha ha, look at this. I am immune.
(20:03):
Look I unbandaged my arm and the and the bite
looks nasty but it's not clearly not forceps infected. And
Dina's like, this is fucking amazing. And since we're sharing secrets,
I am pregnant Jesse's baby okay, and and Ellie's like, well,
how do you know, Like that's a really old and
(20:24):
that was what she found in the pregnant bodego was
a pregnancy test. She's like, well that was a really old,
like at least twenty year old pregnancy test. How do
you know? And then I.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Was like she was she was paying for a long
time and.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
That shows you a lot of people. They then make
out and you know, all this vulnerability, this newfound vulnerability
with each other has like leveled up their relationship.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, and also the hawniness that Dina's being pregnant from
the hormones. Suddenly they having sex and I love that
for them, Good for them.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I support this relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Also, I feel like maybe this is my own like
fear of viruses.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Thank you. I was gonna say the same thing.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
But for me, I'm like, listen, I want to make
out with you, obviously have I'm falling in love with you,
but let's give it another dick. Can we just let
it go.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I'm like, I'm not a couple.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
They might be inside of you still likes type situation.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
You're spitting in my mouth. I'm turning into a fucking cortersps.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Like, I don't know what's going on, Like, come on,
I know it that again that teenage girls. But I
think I think in this episode, and we're kind of
talking about this a little bit before, like I think
in this episode, I am lacking I'm lacking a little
bit of teenage girl noess. I actually think this is
(21:53):
both kind of weirdly acting like that they're kind of
sillier than teenage girls would be in this city situation,
but while also kind of not giving them a lot
of the complexy in depth that we could have seen.
We've seen a lot of YA stories, We've read a
lot of YA stories. Those are the stories that have
really pushed forward blockbuster movies for the last twenty five
(22:15):
years pre MCU. You know, Hunger Games, Twilight, Maize Runner,
and now you know, there is this wave of really incredible, thoughtful,
deep YA from all different kinds of writers that has
kind of exploded onto the scene. So I think here
I was just feeling a little of like the shallowness
of this representation of two teenage girls. But again, and
(22:36):
this is both a problem and a excuse or an answer,
is there's only seven episodes. This season, and I feel
like a lot of the time that was taken up.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
This episode didn't feel as urgent to me as some
of the other episodes we've seen.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I will I will acknowledge that I think that Listen,
I thought this episode was fine.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
But that's the first time we've used the word fine
for this show. We are usually great.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I don't think it's bad by any means, but I
will acknowledge that I think my looking ahead towards seven
episodes is does partially is hanging over my perception a
great episode anyway. They talk about Adina talks about why
she and Jesse broke up, and it's typically complicated.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
She also reveals that she had been like she was bisexual,
but her mom had told her, you can't like girls,
you can only like guys, and it sounds like with
Jesse she did like him, but she was also kind
of trying to make herself like him because he was
a good guy and he was someone that.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Would keep her safe.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And yeah, I thought that was an interesting a little
bit more of that depth that I was hoping. I
honestly could have probably watched a whole episode with just
Ellie and Dina in the theater kind of trying to
navigate out this relationship and give us a little bit
more about what this relationship means to them, because the
show has definitely given us a little bit more than
the game where you're kind of just thrown into it.
(24:01):
But I also think that because you're not just thrown
into it, it also is giving us a little bit
more to question, like how.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Deep is this? Like how close are they? You know?
Again time issues.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
The radio that they took from the Wolves comes to
life and they realize the Wolves are close by and
they're calling out patrol points, which Dina, because she has
a map and stuff, is like, oh, I think I
recognize where that is. Let's go to the roof and
go check it out. So they go up there and
they look across town and there's basically like a war
going on. Like I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I was like, like, who's dropping a bomb over?
Speaker 1 (24:36):
That?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Isn't Like that's got some problems, guys.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
There's like full on artillery explosions, like obvious machine gun fire,
like parts of buildings like exploding. I guess they're shooting
at the seraphytes, but with such an amount of hardware
and artillery for like what is essentially like a and
(25:00):
of cult members who have bows and arrows that it
kind of doesn't make sense that you use.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
This stuff, like uh, they still just robin hooding it
out here, because otherwise it seems kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Because it's you see, I mean ten twelve artillery shells
go off as there as they're watching, which, like, if
you do the math is like how many how much
artillery do they have? Like using two hundred shells a day.
That's kind of to get the sorrow fights, I know. Anyway,
so Dina points out, She's like, Okay, see that building
(25:36):
like across that maybe war that's going on, that's where
we need to go. And they look at this and
it looks really scary and it's a mirror of when
Abby and her group were looking at Jackson and seeing
how built up it was. And Ellie's like, Dina, you
don't need to go, like this is actually I'm sorry
(25:57):
I brought you here. This is actually insane, like you're pregnant,
you're pregnant, Like you stay, I'll go, But of course
Dina's like, no, I'm.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Going, as if that was never gonna act.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Come, So let's talk about it. Yeah, I think it's
a I think it's fine, but this is the episode
(26:29):
where it's the there. It's so heavily built on the
video game style action sequences that it begins to feel
like something of a shift from the more character driven
stuff that we had seen previously, and which is why
(26:52):
I'm like lukewarm on this episode. It it feels a
little bit like to me because like action is it's
I'm not saying I don't love I love action, love action,
but it feels a little bit like filler, and.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
That's what I felt like, And I feel like you
can't have filler in a seven episode show, Like I'm sorry,
you just you just can't. Even if it was ten episodes,
maybe one filler. I also think obviously incredibly hard to
come back after a show where like the Last of
Us Season one, that was essentially seen and acclaimed as
like a perfect show that elevated your game, that questioned
(27:29):
choices your game made.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I think it's very hard to come back.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I think it's really hard when you obviously have to
kill your one of your leads.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, you know, two.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Episodes, there's always gonna be there's always gonna it's gonna
be balancing. I just don't currently I would have loved.
I felt like last episode they did a great job
of kind of upending my expectations where I expected that
bleakness to immediately just be back and that kind of
unrelenting depression, but instead we got to see how Jackson
(28:03):
functions as a town, and that was that kind of
brilliant world building that we got from episode three of
season one with Bill and Frank, And I think like
this to me just felt like it kind of stalled
the flow of the show.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I didn't really get a lot from it.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I felt like things like the really big things like
the pregnancy and Ellie revealing that she's immune, they felt
kind of like they just happened at the end. So
I just for me, this was the first one where
I was kind of like, oh, yeah, it's fine, which
is fine. Every show is allowed to have a fine episode.
But I do think it's a shame because I think
there's another.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
World where this episode, with.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
The final gay kind of the real acknowledgment of Ellie
and Dina and that romance, like the kind of sex
scene in the theater and everything, I feel like there's
another world where that would have been one of those
big beautiful moments and this kind of like this kind
of beacon of hope or but I felt like it
just kind of again, it just kind of happened, and
(29:03):
we move on to the next thing.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I think for there is a I think one of
the things that I'm reacting to also is we get this,
you know, this really nice scene of vulnerability between these
two characters where Ellie is admitting her immunity and then
Dina just spills out with you know, that she's pregnant
and her relationship with Jesse and all these other things,
(29:25):
and and I it doesn't quite ring true to me
that Dina, who has been digging, digging, digging for information
from Ellie this ride out here, wouldn't then be like,
tell me more about this immunity thing.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
Yeah, they just drop it, and and so I feel
like I feel like my first question would be, like,
is that what happened in Salt Lake?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Like you all know that they just randomly came back
and then suddenly we're.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
There, you know, Like, yeah, I just think they just
drop in and I get I think I understand from
a production standpoint that, like, you don't want to retread
on overground that the audience already knows. But it feels
to me like a wasted opportunity to not find out
more about what Ellie thinks about it, because like, we
(30:16):
actually have that very little idea about what Ellie thinks
about her immunity, if she has any survivors guilt about this,
what she feels about the things to your point, Salt
Lake and the things that she's been through because of
this immunity, And it feels like a real miss And
(30:37):
it feels like something would have happened in season one.
They would have explored that emotional.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Landscape, that moment.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I think a lot about another absolutely stunning episode from
season one where they meet the brothers and they get
to spend that time with them, and you have this
moment where Joel is kind of breaking through and imagine
a world where he could help other people. He's talking
about motorbikes, he's you know, and obviously it gets thrown
(31:06):
up in the air and it has this really tragic ending.
But I feel like this Ellie and Dina deserve the
moment like that They deserved the night making coffee like
shitty coffee over a fire, talking about what happened in
Salt Lake, talking about Dina's relationship with Jesse, talking about
the fact Yea that her mum was homophobic, talking about
(31:27):
the fact of Ellie being immune, what does that mean
to her? Also, first question is that why you were
with Joel, Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
What? Like?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
We I want to know more about the fucking immunity.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
And also, let's be real, someone like who has lived
in somewhere like Jackson, like Dina, I feel like there's
a chance that the first thing she would have said is,
oh my god, we have to go back and tell
the council we.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Could change everything.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Why are you out here fighting like you could be
the cure. I think that would be most people's response.
I just feel like Ellie and Dina are little bit
underwritten here. I think hopefully, you know, looking for silver linings.
I hope that Game lovers who have been feeling like
that's the show is not as focused on the game.
I hope they love this. I hope it gives them
(32:12):
that feeling again. I hope it gets them ramped up.
I think you pulled up a great thing. I think
it's to do with This episode struggles with the juxtaposition
of being really true to the mechanics of the game
and staying within the reality that the show has established
for it.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
So I think that's that's what you touched on that
was really great.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And tomorrow's episode of X ray Vision re recapping the
next batch of and Or episodes which are fantastic, and
then we'll be gathering the Joy Council for another roundtable
on Friday. For this episode, Thanks for listening, goodbye. X
ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Knight
and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Korfman.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wack.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and
Heidi our discord moderator.
Wording. Today's episode contains spoilers for episode four, season two
of the Last of Us.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hey, it is Jason Catepcio and I'm Rosie Night and.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome back to x Ray video of the podcast where
we dive the to your Babe shows, movies, comments, and
pop culture. Coming to you from My Art podcast, where
we're bringing you three episodes a week every Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday plus news.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
In today's episode, we're talking about It.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
It's the fourth episode of the Last of Us season two.
We are now officially over halfway through the Last of
Us season two, and it's making me and Jason feel
some things. I think the Internet is feeling some things too,
So we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Let's get into it. We open on a flashback twenty
eighteen the Seattle quarantine Zone. We're in a Federa van
and the Federa dudes are assholes. They're talking shit about
the residents of the quarantine zone, who they call voters.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Because they're no longer allowed to vote yes.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
And they're talking about like a particularly brutal Federra commander
who is also very stupid, who is beating these residents
ruthlessly because they're handing out pamphlets, which we later find
out are like proto Serahphyte pamphlets, and all these federal
(01:40):
soldiers are laughing about how brutal this dummy is. And
then one of them, Isaac answers one of the younger
feder you know, why do we call them voters? And
to as you said, Rosie, it's because, as Isaac says,
we took away their ability to vote, and now we
jokingly call them voters. Their patrol vehicle stops because there's
(02:01):
a bus that's been pulled across this like suburban street,
and they're like, oh, oh, what does this mean? Could
it be the WLF, could it be somebody else? And
Sergeant's like, I'm going to go out. I'm going to
talk peacefully to them. Okay, So everybody's stay in the van.
You new guy, come with me.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, he's like you who asked about the voters, who
seems to have not necessarily found the right you haven't.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Been molded by the brutality yet. Come with me. And
there's a bunch of civilians in the street. They're unarmed,
but they seem very you know, prepared for a confrontation,
despite the fact that they're unarmed. Their leader is Hanrahan
Alana Youbach, the wonderful usually comedic.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yes, shocking to see, just a little bit of just
a little.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Bit of sad face acting.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And she really like sucked me in, Like you can
tell she's tired.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
She's tired and is shit. She she has been waiting
for Isaac, and apparently they've been, you know, expecting each other.
So Isaac is like, you Handrahan. She's like, yeah, it's
like you Isaac. Yes. They shake hands and then Isaac
turns back towards his patrol vehicle, pops two grenades out
of his vest, throws them in the van, shuts the
(03:09):
van door, blows up all the guys inside, Wow, kills
the driver as he tumbles out, and then turns to
the new guy and is like, okay, I make your choice.
What do you want to do?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, tricky, And he makes this really interesting comment where
he kind of says he throws in the grenades and
then he shuts the door, and he's like, it's.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Because you're all that guy.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
You're all that same guy who will smash someone's face
against a wall and laugh about it.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And laugh about it.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Also absolutely hilarious to see Drake from Drake and Josh
theare that was, whichever one it was. I was like,
great character casting.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Like I love to see this. This throws me back.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Also kind of terrifying to see a kid actor and
someone that you kind of grew up with as just
like the worst person you could ever know in and.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Apocolypch feels very real. But yeah, he does have that.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
He does have that like punchable popular kid face exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And I thought this was just such a fantastic cold
open and definitely, like, I think it's probably the strongest
part of the episode because it really establishes just how
much okay, yeah, how much of a kind of crazy
space Seattle was back then in twenty eighteen, and why
it is no longer under feder Come on.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, So we go to the present. Dina and Ellie
are scouting. They see a w WLF. Oh wait, I've
fast forward. Sorry, we flashed back to the present. It's
now eleven years later. Dina and Ellie are scavenging around
buildings very much like the video game. Dina finds something
(04:44):
which we will later find out what it is because
she's in like a drug store or prescription drugs. They
then ride into the Capitol District and this it. They're
surprised at how intact it is because it was supposedly
bombed out. There's gay pride symbols and flags everywhere, but
(05:07):
the girls don't know what that means. They think. Ellie
wonders if it means that they were just like happy
and optimistic. There are skeletons of feder soldiers everywhere and
tank but burned out tanks that have been overgrown with moss.
Clearly there is a battle here. Ellie investigates the tank,
(05:28):
doesn't find anything but makes a loud noise. Luckily, No,
I'm gonna give you any quick slap, like you have
to be.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
The one in control here. You are the Joel in
this situation. She's very much Ah, you are not, but
you need to be for Dina. I'm for you to
survive like that was such a I'm not gonna lie.
Would I also do that in the apocalypse, Yes, but
that's why I would die like five years ago, I
have nice I'm no understanding, I'm no misunderstanding.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I would die. I can't run, I'm not quiet, I'm clumsy.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But Ellie like, come on, I know you're immune, but please, babe,
do not make the ringing fucking like gong.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Noise to let people know where you are.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
They spot a tower on a hill that has a
WLF marker on one of its no longer operational satellite dishes,
and Ellie's like, great, let's go, let's run in again.
Kind of a weird characterization of Ellie is like the
tumble into kind of reckless. Yeah. Dina is like, wait
(06:30):
a second. They're on an elevated position, they're in a tower.
They'll see us coming. We're going to ride up on
a horse. Two people like, let's wait until dark. So
they go and find a place to hold up until dark.
It's a record store. They are looking around. There's guitars
and stuff. Upstairs. Ellie finds an acoustic guitar that is
in unrealistically good.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
That shit would be warped as well, because this room
had to be so humid for all those plants.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
This is the Pacific, this is a Pacific Northwest, Like, it's.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Very what it would be warped.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
And we get it, like, you know, we get it,
and you get some beautiful shots of the guitar, but
come on, I'm saying is this is something I will
bring up throughout our discussion. This is the first episode
of the Last of Us where I kind of got
a little pushed out of the logic of the show
in a way that kind of this usually just immerses
(07:23):
me emotionally and vibes wise, and this was the first
one where there was a few different things that kind
of took me out. Now, this it took me out
a little bit, but I'm willing to accept it because
I know the importance of the guitar. But the next
choice they make.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
I just want to say before I continue the recap,
but I think that this is I think what we're
both reacting. Certainly, what my thoughts watching this was this
is the most explicitly video game loyal episode that we've
seen for me, and I think that's kind of what
pushes you out of the reality of it is some
(07:58):
of these video game moments that butt up against the
reality that has been established in the show version of
this story.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I think that's a great way of putting it.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So Ellie plays take on Me by Aha. But like
the whole song, the entire thing, it's only seven episodes, guys,
can we anyway Dina comes upstairs and sees this and
hears this and is like, oh, ship, now I'm already.
Now I'm really falling in love. And you know, Ellie
(08:30):
is like, there was Joel. Joel taught me how to
play guitar, and you know they're they're both in that
moment very thankful for their past relationships with Joel. Elsewhere,
Isaac now the leader of the wolf, or a leader,
we should say, it's it's unclear what the same hierarchy is.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
He's at least that he's allowed to torture people, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
So he lights a stove and he's giving this monologue
about how in the past, you know, when he was
wooing a woman, he would lean on his culinary skills,
and how back then he always wanted this specific brand
of French cook wear that was very expensive, but now
that like le apocalypse has happened, he can just have
(09:14):
it because it's free.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
That would be like me with Lacrousete.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I'll be living in the Lacrosse life before I get
hit by his zombie. I have a cook at least
at least once stew and at lacrase, I have.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
A couple of pieces of Lacrousette and I do love them.
And you know, he's heating this beautiful bronze pan copper
pan on a gas stove, and it turns out that
he's interrogating a naked and chained Seraphyte who has been
beaten brutally. And this Seraphyite is a fanatic, and Isaac
(09:46):
is burning him with the pan, saying like, where are
you going to attack next? What's happening? They get into
this kind of brief argument about like who broke the
there's a truce apparently, so who broke the truth? Did
this Serifices break the truce by killing a child, the
WLF child with an arrow? Or did the WLF break
(10:07):
the truce by killing various members of the scars in
other ways? And they go back and forth about this,
and I Wasac's like, I don't care about that, Like,
just tell me where you guys are attacking next. And
then it becomes very clear that this serified is not
going to talk. Offers his other hand even offers up
like go ahead, burn the other hands. So then Isaac,
(10:29):
finally fed up, shoots this guy.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I found this really hard to watch, which I do
think is meant to be the point, but again when
it comes with the logic of the show, and also
like the choices they've made, for example, like the way
they chose to show Joel's death compared to how we
get it in the game.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I thought that was a really.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Thoughtful, evocative, scary, leaves up to your imagination kind of moment,
even though we did see the moment of death. This
to me felt almost like in the torture porn realm.
And I understand and that it is leaning into what
we can evocative of real things we've seen in war,
but it didn't work for me in the context of
the show.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It was too much.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I think the show has been is cognizant of that,
and they always add in scenes like this. They'll have
like the younger member of the WLF, Like they have
that scene the torture is going on outside and there's
a guy, there's a younger guy outside and he's like,
this is really fucked up. This is really fucked up.
(11:30):
The other guy is like, Isaac knows what he's doing.
This is great. It was Francois Truffaux, I think I
believe who said, you know, there's no such thing as
an anti war movie, and I think that's true. I
think that I think that's how the scene made me
feel like that there's no even though we're meant to
understand the brutality, the horror of the inhumanity of this scene,
(11:50):
it left me wondering, are we not elevating it anyway?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
You know, you're not still having Jeffrey Wright do it
while giving a full monologue about, you know, the life
he led before.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I'm also very interested.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
This is more of a conversation I want on discord
to have and i want to see what the Internet thinks.
I'm very interested in the difference in representation of the
Serophytes and the WLF and the way that they're kind
of representing them here compared to the game. I do
think there is an added complexity to the to the wh.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
No, for sure, I think both sides, even the Seraphytes,
like this. The Seraphytes says something to the effect of,
you really get the feeling of how deeply they're they
really believe their religious feeling for this for this profit
is very deep. And this person who's being tortured says,
you know, every day you're going to lose because every
(12:41):
day we get stronger and every day you get weaker
despite the fact that you have tanks.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And the irony is seeing him torture this guy, Like
this kind of proves that in its own way, right.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It made me feel a lot of the way I
felt about playing the game, which is like I'm getting
worn out by this violence.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, this bleakness.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, So I did feel a little bit like that
with this.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I think it's I.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Think it's the nudity, the skinniness of the actor. It's
very evocative of people in war camps, things we've sin
in real life. Things are going on right now. So
it's like, yeah, it was a bit too much for me,
and I think you're right. This is the first time
where I got that same I had that same feeling
with the game of like the bleakness. But I think
that actually might be something this episode is struggling with
because you know what in the game, and this is
(13:29):
bleak because your action in the game it's killing people.
Like by the time in the game you get here,
you've killed so many people. But like there is that
in part of the game that actually engages your brain
and is like, now you.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Have to go and do this. Here's an activity.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Here's the little bit of dopamine that you get from
playing this game. You don't necessarily get that in the
same way as you do in a video game.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Here, because you're just now, you're just watching.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Ellie and Dina at night sneak up to the tower.
Dina funds sees the way in. There's a broken window
and you can get in there. But what do they do?
Dina says, if we encounter other wolves, like wolves who
weren't responsible for Jackson and for Joel's death, what do
we do if we find them? And Ellie just like
gives her a look like obviously we fucking murder these people.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, like we're gonna kill him. Don't you have a guard?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
We're gonna kill them, right and uh And Dina's like,
oh yeah, I get it, Like yeah for sure. So
inside they go in and immediately in a hallway they
find one of the w lf riddled with arrows, and
they're like, oh, this is those people on the trail
who are responsible. This is who did this. And then
they go in to like a larger room kind of
like like.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Theater or a kind of like way I think it
was as it was a news studio I think like
a so like a you know, a broadcast studio, and
there's several WLF bodies mutilated in Hannibal Lecter style.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
There hung up, the guts are falling. Now, it's very dramatic.
I feel like the Seraphites have too much time on
their hands. I'm not gonna lie when you've got to
make a ritual to you know, for your dead profit. Sure, okay,
I get it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
So they look around, Ellie finds the radio and they realize,
oh shit, the backup is the wolf. Backup must be coming.
So they hide and now it becomes the video game,
right They have to escape from the wolf. They get
separated for a brief period of time, but then Ellie
(15:40):
goes to choke out one of these wolf guys in
one of the most explicitly like video game action sequences.
She sneaks up, she jumps on his back, just like.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I loved how hard they made it look.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I have to say that bit really brought me back
into the game again, and also into the reality of
the world, which is Ellie as a teenager and leverage
is great. And while real naked choke holds are great
and she is, it's still an adult man.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You know, so I thought they did a good job
of making that fight look real. Do you know she's
just out killing people now too.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
She killed Love, she kills another, and they escape into
what we learn is one of these walled off tunnels
that lead underground. The wolves follow them down there, and
they're throwing flares all around so they can see around,
and these trigger the cordy steps tendrils, and next thing
(16:32):
you know, there's a fucking horde in here and it's
real mad.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, and it's like in some basically in a metro
train kind of yeah, and yeah, but it's bad times.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
There's so many of them and it's not looking good
for for any of them. And this is where I
will say again, a little bit of a little bit
of plot armor is coming in there for Stick in
this episode without Joel, you do start to question, mostly,
I think because to me, they are trying to balance
(17:03):
this kind of light hearted Ellie with Dina, which I'm
really happy.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
I want her to be happy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
That's our girl, but like I don't feel like she
is making the kind of serious decisions that make you
think in the game, well, okay, she's actually going to
be able to survive this here, it's a lot, there's.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
A silliness to it.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
There's kind of like a recklessness that really have me thinking,
like these two are dying, Like there's no way they
don't die.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
If this is a real situation.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
There's a reality that has been established over one season
of this show, plus these epis, plus the episodes preceding this,
that I think has been heightened certainly, like noticeably heightened
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Anyway, Ellie and Dina are fleeing. They flee into a
train out of a train, on the top of a train.
They run. There's so many up the stairs out of
the train tunnel. They get kind of hung up on
this turnstile as they're trying to get through. Ellie gets through,
and then Dina's trying to get through and she's kind
of trapped in there for a second, and one of
the infected runs up and is about to bite her,
so Ellie puts her arm out unless the infected bite it,
(18:07):
and crazy Dina is shocked by this, but there's no
time to really think. They escape. They get to the theater,
which is one of the famous havens from the Last
of Us Too, and when they're in the lobby of
the theater. Ellie is thinking nothing really that dramatic, other
than their escape has happened. But when she turns around,
(18:27):
Dina has her gun out and she's about to blow
Ellie's brains out.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Why didn't Ellie tell her this before?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I will say, big, big mistake, Ellie, You're silly, gun.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Says, somewhat unrealistic. I think that Dina wouldn't just blow
her head.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I know that's what I think too. I think Dina.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Probably would have shown her in the head from the
back so she didn't have to look at her.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
But this is I don't think you would get this
kind of emotional I think you would have been.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
She's so clearly been trained by Joel, so easy to
shoot someone down. I did find this to be a
little a kind of little again plot or coming out.
We know Ellie is not going to die in this moment,
but I do think that there was different discussions that
could have been had also, And I think we'll talk
about this more.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
But when you are a teenage.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Girl, or when you in real life, or when you're
reading teenage girls in a Ya novel or something, guess
what teenage girls always do.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
They always tell their best friends their secrets.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
There's no fucking way that Ellie lived there for five
years being friends with Dina and Jesse and didn't fucking
tell them she's immune. I that just doesn't make sense,
and it would have made this make more sense.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
But I get it. They want a little dramatic moment.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And I'm sure you guys can guess that she does
not shoot Ellie.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
That would be crazy, though, that would be a crazy twist.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So Ellie is like, oh, this little thing, this bite,
did I never tell you about the immunity thing? So listen,
here's the deal. I'm immune. I understand that you don't
believe me right now, but I'm gonna go over here,
bandage this up, and fall asleep. And you're just like,
keep your gun on me and watch me. If I turn,
you shoot me. But I won't. So when Ellie wakes up,
she's like, ha ha, look at this. I am immune.
(20:03):
Look I unbandaged my arm and the and the bite
looks nasty but it's not clearly not forceps infected. And
Dina's like, this is fucking amazing. And since we're sharing secrets,
I am pregnant Jesse's baby okay, and and Ellie's like, well,
how do you know, Like that's a really old and
(20:24):
that was what she found in the pregnant bodego was
a pregnancy test. She's like, well that was a really old,
like at least twenty year old pregnancy test. How do
you know? And then I.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Was like she was she was paying for a long
time and.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
That shows you a lot of people. They then make
out and you know, all this vulnerability, this newfound vulnerability
with each other has like leveled up their relationship.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, and also the hawniness that Dina's being pregnant from
the hormones. Suddenly they having sex and I love that
for them, Good for them.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I support this relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Also, I feel like maybe this is my own like
fear of viruses.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Thank you. I was gonna say the same thing.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
But for me, I'm like, listen, I want to make
out with you, obviously have I'm falling in love with you,
but let's give it another dick. Can we just let
it go.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
I'm like, I'm not a couple.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
They might be inside of you still likes type situation.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
You're spitting in my mouth. I'm turning into a fucking cortersps.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Like, I don't know what's going on, Like, come on,
I know it that again that teenage girls. But I
think I think in this episode, and we're kind of
talking about this a little bit before, like I think
in this episode, I am lacking I'm lacking a little
bit of teenage girl noess. I actually think this is
(21:53):
both kind of weirdly acting like that they're kind of
sillier than teenage girls would be in this city situation,
but while also kind of not giving them a lot
of the complexy in depth that we could have seen.
We've seen a lot of YA stories, We've read a
lot of YA stories. Those are the stories that have
really pushed forward blockbuster movies for the last twenty five
(22:15):
years pre MCU. You know, Hunger Games, Twilight, Maize Runner,
and now you know, there is this wave of really incredible, thoughtful,
deep YA from all different kinds of writers that has
kind of exploded onto the scene. So I think here
I was just feeling a little of like the shallowness
of this representation of two teenage girls. But again, and
(22:36):
this is both a problem and a excuse or an answer,
is there's only seven episodes. This season, and I feel
like a lot of the time that was taken up.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
This episode didn't feel as urgent to me as some
of the other episodes we've seen.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I will I will acknowledge that I think that Listen,
I thought this episode was fine.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
But that's the first time we've used the word fine
for this show. We are usually great.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
I don't think it's bad by any means, but I
will acknowledge that I think my looking ahead towards seven
episodes is does partially is hanging over my perception a
great episode anyway. They talk about Adina talks about why
she and Jesse broke up, and it's typically complicated.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
She also reveals that she had been like she was bisexual,
but her mom had told her, you can't like girls,
you can only like guys, and it sounds like with
Jesse she did like him, but she was also kind
of trying to make herself like him because he was
a good guy and he was someone that.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Would keep her safe.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And yeah, I thought that was an interesting a little
bit more of that depth that I was hoping. I
honestly could have probably watched a whole episode with just
Ellie and Dina in the theater kind of trying to
navigate out this relationship and give us a little bit
more about what this relationship means to them, because the
show has definitely given us a little bit more than
the game where you're kind of just thrown into it.
(24:01):
But I also think that because you're not just thrown
into it, it also is giving us a little bit
more to question, like how.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Deep is this? Like how close are they? You know?
Again time issues.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
The radio that they took from the Wolves comes to
life and they realize the Wolves are close by and
they're calling out patrol points, which Dina, because she has
a map and stuff, is like, oh, I think I
recognize where that is. Let's go to the roof and
go check it out. So they go up there and
they look across town and there's basically like a war
going on. Like I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I was like, like, who's dropping a bomb over?
Speaker 1 (24:36):
That?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Isn't Like that's got some problems, guys.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
There's like full on artillery explosions, like obvious machine gun fire,
like parts of buildings like exploding. I guess they're shooting
at the seraphytes, but with such an amount of hardware
and artillery for like what is essentially like a and
(25:00):
of cult members who have bows and arrows that it
kind of doesn't make sense that you use.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
This stuff, like uh, they still just robin hooding it
out here, because otherwise it seems kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Because it's you see, I mean ten twelve artillery shells
go off as there as they're watching, which, like, if
you do the math is like how many how much
artillery do they have? Like using two hundred shells a day.
That's kind of to get the sorrow fights, I know. Anyway,
so Dina points out, She's like, Okay, see that building
(25:36):
like across that maybe war that's going on, that's where
we need to go. And they look at this and
it looks really scary and it's a mirror of when
Abby and her group were looking at Jackson and seeing
how built up it was. And Ellie's like, Dina, you
don't need to go, like this is actually I'm sorry
(25:57):
I brought you here. This is actually insane, like you're pregnant,
you're pregnant, Like you stay, I'll go, But of course
Dina's like, no, I'm.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Going, as if that was never gonna act.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Come, So let's talk about it. Yeah, I think it's
a I think it's fine, but this is the episode
(26:29):
where it's the there. It's so heavily built on the
video game style action sequences that it begins to feel
like something of a shift from the more character driven
stuff that we had seen previously, and which is why
(26:52):
I'm like lukewarm on this episode. It it feels a
little bit like to me because like action is it's
I'm not saying I don't love I love action, love action,
but it feels a little bit like filler, and.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
That's what I felt like, And I feel like you
can't have filler in a seven episode show, Like I'm sorry,
you just you just can't. Even if it was ten episodes,
maybe one filler. I also think obviously incredibly hard to
come back after a show where like the Last of
Us Season one, that was essentially seen and acclaimed as
like a perfect show that elevated your game, that questioned
(27:29):
choices your game made.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I think it's very hard to come back.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I think it's really hard when you obviously have to
kill your one of your leads.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Yeah, you know, two.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Episodes, there's always gonna be there's always gonna it's gonna
be balancing. I just don't currently I would have loved.
I felt like last episode they did a great job
of kind of upending my expectations where I expected that
bleakness to immediately just be back and that kind of
unrelenting depression, but instead we got to see how Jackson
(28:03):
functions as a town, and that was that kind of
brilliant world building that we got from episode three of
season one with Bill and Frank, And I think like
this to me just felt like it kind of stalled
the flow of the show.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I didn't really get a lot from it.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I felt like things like the really big things like
the pregnancy and Ellie revealing that she's immune, they felt
kind of like they just happened at the end. So
I just for me, this was the first one where
I was kind of like, oh, yeah, it's fine, which
is fine. Every show is allowed to have a fine episode.
But I do think it's a shame because I think
there's another.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
World where this episode, with.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
The final gay kind of the real acknowledgment of Ellie
and Dina and that romance, like the kind of sex
scene in the theater and everything, I feel like there's
another world where that would have been one of those
big beautiful moments and this kind of like this kind
of beacon of hope or but I felt like it
just kind of again, it just kind of happened, and
(29:03):
we move on to the next thing.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I think for there is a I think one of
the things that I'm reacting to also is we get this,
you know, this really nice scene of vulnerability between these
two characters where Ellie is admitting her immunity and then
Dina just spills out with you know, that she's pregnant
and her relationship with Jesse and all these other things,
(29:25):
and and I it doesn't quite ring true to me
that Dina, who has been digging, digging, digging for information
from Ellie this ride out here, wouldn't then be like,
tell me more about this immunity thing.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
Yeah, they just drop it, and and so I feel
like I feel like my first question would be, like,
is that what happened in Salt Lake?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Like you all know that they just randomly came back
and then suddenly we're.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
There, you know, Like, yeah, I just think they just
drop in and I get I think I understand from
a production standpoint that, like, you don't want to retread
on overground that the audience already knows. But it feels
to me like a wasted opportunity to not find out
more about what Ellie thinks about it, because like, we
(30:16):
actually have that very little idea about what Ellie thinks
about her immunity, if she has any survivors guilt about this,
what she feels about the things to your point, Salt
Lake and the things that she's been through because of
this immunity, And it feels like a real miss And
(30:37):
it feels like something would have happened in season one.
They would have explored that emotional.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Landscape, that moment.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I think a lot about another absolutely stunning episode from
season one where they meet the brothers and they get
to spend that time with them, and you have this
moment where Joel is kind of breaking through and imagine
a world where he could help other people. He's talking
about motorbikes, he's you know, and obviously it gets thrown
(31:06):
up in the air and it has this really tragic ending.
But I feel like this Ellie and Dina deserve the
moment like that They deserved the night making coffee like
shitty coffee over a fire, talking about what happened in
Salt Lake, talking about Dina's relationship with Jesse, talking about
the fact Yea that her mum was homophobic, talking about
(31:27):
the fact of Ellie being immune, what does that mean
to her? Also, first question is that why you were
with Joel, Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
What? Like?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
We I want to know more about the fucking immunity.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
And also, let's be real, someone like who has lived
in somewhere like Jackson, like Dina, I feel like there's
a chance that the first thing she would have said is,
oh my god, we have to go back and tell
the council we.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
Could change everything.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Why are you out here fighting like you could be
the cure. I think that would be most people's response.
I just feel like Ellie and Dina are little bit
underwritten here. I think hopefully, you know, looking for silver linings.
I hope that Game lovers who have been feeling like
that's the show is not as focused on the game.
I hope they love this. I hope it gives them
(32:12):
that feeling again. I hope it gets them ramped up.
I think you pulled up a great thing. I think
it's to do with This episode struggles with the juxtaposition
of being really true to the mechanics of the game
and staying within the reality that the show has established
for it.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
So I think that's that's what you touched on that
was really great.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And tomorrow's episode of X ray Vision re recapping the
next batch of and Or episodes which are fantastic, and
then we'll be gathering the Joy Council for another roundtable
on Friday. For this episode, Thanks for listening, goodbye. X
ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Knight
and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Korfman.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wack.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and
Heidi our discord moderator.
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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