April 11, 2025 • 51 mins
Does it smell moldy in here? Be on the lookout for clickers! Jason and Rosie are here to guide you through season one of the HBO MAX series The Last of Us—just in time for the season two premiere on Sunday! Hey, it's like we planned that!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Worrying. Today's episode can dat spoilers for the Last of
Us Season one, streaming now on HBO and Max.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And also the first game, The Last of Us, because
it is adapting that game.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
So if you haven't played that.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Or watched the show, maybe don't listen to this, or
maybe do, but be warned there we'll be spoilers.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello. My name is Jason Sepsion and I am Rosie Knight,
and welcome back to X Revision, the podcast where we
dive deep to your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop
culture company from my Ora podcast. We'll read three episodes
a week every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, plus news.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
In today's episode, we are recapping season one of the
Last of Us. If you listen to the pod when
the first series was out, we were visiting that every
episode and talking about it, so you can listen to
those episodes. But if you don't want to do that
and you just want to listen to it in one episode,
we have that right here for you now. And remember,
(01:13):
our next book club will be focused on Thunderbolts Issue
one from nineteen ninety seven by Kurt.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Buziak and Mark Bagley.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
To prepare us for the movie in May, so you
just have to read one issue can read it, and
Marvel Unlimited can grab it from your local comic shop
potentially or maybe eBay. So yeah, check that one out
and join us in the X ray Vision book Club.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Let's talk the Last of Us. Okay, this is the
recap for season one of the Last of Us, and
we're here to get you ready for the Last of
Us Season two. Maybe you're doing a rewatch. Maybe you're
not doing a rewatch and you're just gonna jump in.
Maybe you're like, I don't want to miss the train.
I want to get on season two, but I didn't
(01:59):
watch all of season one. Well, we're here to be
your cheat sheet. Essentially The Last of Us, of course,
television show by Craig Mason of Chernobyl Fame and Neil
Druckman of Naughty Dog Creative Brain, Naughty Dog being the
studio that created the Last of Us game, and this is,
(02:21):
of course, the live action television adaptation of the Last
of Us, a groundbreaking third person action game, and it
opens with the real world the last hours basically of
the world as we know it. There is an outbreak
(02:44):
of some unknown virus or something that we will soon
learn is a fungus. A cordyceps outbreak which turns humans
into basically zombies kicks off a zombie outbreak that happens
lightning fast. We meet Joel, who is a construction contractor
(03:06):
with the single dad with a daughter. He is a
no nonsense, blue collar guy and when this outbreak happens,
he you know, must spirit his daughter Sarah to safety.
There is a chase through town. It is white knuckle stuff.
They are trying to escape as just like rioting and
(03:26):
violence is breaking out everywhere. But the car crashes, Joel
gets out. He's carrying Sarah. She gets shot by a soldier,
the soldiers who have been ordered to basically seal off
this town and kill anybody that gets out. And honestly,
seeing what this fungus is capable of, I sadly get
(03:47):
it like.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You know, like and it establishes essentially Joel's journey from
here on out.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
And also I just want to say, like, they did
such a brilliant job.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's a fasting Sarah and she is so fantastic and
is played by the daughter of the Wan de Newton
oh Nico Parker, uh, and she is so good and
the pair of them here have such a good chemistry
that even though perhaps we can understand the actions of
(04:23):
the government and the soldier who is very scared in
that moment, yeah, you feel the horror and heartbreak of
what happened to Joel here and how that will go
onto shape both his ass the rest of the Coast journey, we.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Flash forward twenty years. Society is hanging on by a
thread in various refuges that are like these military encampments
that are dotted around the country. We meet Joel in
one in Boston, where he is now basically a smuggler
of pill bills and other items we assume with his
(05:04):
smuggling partner in crime tests and we get the feeling
from Joel's demeanor and from conversation city as with tests
and from conversations you have throughout this series, that he's
done really bad things in the intervening twenty years. Murder,
a robbery, probably.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Probable torture to get information.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's whatever he needed to do, certainly in the in
the in the days when everything was falling apart, whatever
he needed to do to survive, including probably killing people
for their stuff so he could escape et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. He's dead inside now and one of his contacts,
a firefly leader, a leader of a group called the
Fireflies named Marlene, comes to Joel and offers him in
(05:52):
tests like a very very important smuggling job, and so
they take it. The cargo turns out to be a
girl named Ellie, who is you know, fourteen and very
sharp witted and cantankerous, and apparently, we learn immune to infection.
(06:12):
She's been bitten and it healed. This is a first,
This is shocking, and so the Fireflies want to get
her to their secret lab where they can study her
and hopefully get a cure to infection and save the world. Basically,
because outside of these military encampments, everything has fallen apart
and these fungal zombies are fucking everywhere and have mutated.
(06:34):
It needs to even stronger, more terrifying versions of just
the regular ones that are running around. They sneak out,
things immediately go sideways. They have to kill people. They
have to kill people, and this is where Tess and
Joel discover that Ellie has a bite but has not
(06:55):
become infected, and this is shocking. We go to Episode two,
Ellie her existence and the fact that she is immune
is incredibly shocking to them. They move through a ruined Boston,
surviving various encounters with zombies, including clickers. Clickers. Yes, Rosie,
(07:17):
would you like to tell us what the clickers are?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
The clickers are a terrifying variation of the mushroom zombie
that hunts you with sound, and if you played the game,
feels like it hates you personally, like.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You slept with its wife, Like this thing is going
to hunt you down in a way that feels so horrific.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And I want to say episode two of this series,
I think is really an incredible feat of adapting a
video game, because there are so many moments here where
you feel like you are playing those early parts of
the game where you are trying sneaking around and trying
to avoid these new versions of the zombies because you
just because you don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, one there they're very hard to evade and you
have to be very quiet. And two you're so right
because at this stage of the game when you encounter
the clickers, you really don't have the weaponry. No, you
should or are leveled up to deal with it like
you have you probably have max five bullets in your gun.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Basically I have to.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Spend is not going to do it.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
You're going to make.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Molotov cocktails and explode them to distract them.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
And I really like the There is.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
A kind of false dichotomy presented in the Last of
Us games, which if you've ever done this, I salute you.
But there is an early part of the game where
you believe, Okay, maybe I could get through this game
just by stealth. Maybe I don't have to kill a
federal soldier. Maybe I can you know, sure, I'll kill
a zombie, but they're like mutated, but.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
I don't have to kill any humans. And you learn
very quickly that's not.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Going to ask to be right, and that's part of
the game is to think, well, what would I do
in this situation?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Who would I sacrifice?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
And yeah, once the clickers get involved, I'm killing every
federick guy up there in the way because these people
you're not going to survive them, and they're so scary,
and the show does an absolutely incredible job of bringing
them to life with practical effects and also.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Just the way that they shoot and sound design.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
The sequences where we start to meet the clickers.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So Joel, Tests and Ellie get to the meet up
point where the fireflies are supposed to pick up Ellie
and the handoff is supposed to happen, but it gets
overrun by clickers and CORDYCEP zombies in general. Ellie's bitten again.
She's fine because she's immune. Test gets bitten and she
starts to.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Turn absolutely not fine.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And this is again the person that Joel has shared
a very fucked up existence with for the last decade plus.
And she goes out, you know, blaze of glory, and
Joel picks up Ellie and they leave. We go to
episode three, which is, you know, probably the standout, not
(10:09):
just the standout episode I think of the series, but
one of the best episodes of television in the last
five years, probably easy. Joel and Ellie come to a
town that is kind of like a booby trapped off
and they meet Bill, who is this kind of like
(10:30):
doomsday prepper type guy, and he's been living in this
bunker with power, with plumbing, with water, the whole thing
since the world collapsed. He's got food, he's got an
arsenal of gun and explosives, and we get the story
of how he came to be there. He in the
(10:54):
days after the world collapsed, set up all these defenses,
went to the local power station and made sure that
it was still running to deliver him power. He was
ready for it. He set up all these booby traps
for the Cordysceep zombies to fall in. And then one
day this guy, Frank, falls into one of his traps,
(11:15):
and Frank was escaping one of the like Fedra towns
that had gotten overrun, and they strike up a romance.
They fall in love with each other. Bill teaches Frank
about that he has inside of him the strength to
(11:38):
survive and fight, and Frank teaches Bill that like love
is possible in this fallen world, that and then is possible.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, it's worthwhile to help other people, not just the
hide in this bunker by yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
You know, that's right, that there's connections to be made,
that even in this degenerated, destroyed world, that there's an
importance in building connections and community and a life not
just with your within yourself or with your partner, with
other people. And they have as close to a normal
(12:18):
air quotes life as you can have in this town.
They they go shopping in the little boutique shops that
are they have little arguments, They have meals together on
the porch, and years go by, wonderful years that include
(12:39):
fighting off zombies, that include fighting off raiders, that include
you know, many moments of tenderness and dancing with each other.
But then Frank get sick, and he gets sicker and
sicker and sicker, and he wants to die on his
own terms. So he and Bill engineer like one perfect day,
(13:02):
last perfect day together, after which he will take pills
and they will crush up pills together, and then they
will eat them together, and then they will pass away
slowly and die. We go back to Joel and Ellie
their interactions with him. They you know, basically find the
(13:23):
house like as Frank left it, with Bill in there
kind of a shell of himself, and Bill basically decides,
you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna help you guys.
I'm going to give you the truck that I had
and some supplies and you guys can get out of here.
(13:44):
It's an incredible episode. If, like our super producer are Boo,
you're like, I don't know about this show through the
first two episodes, just get to episode three, get to
episode three and decide if you want to.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Continue, and then you realize this, this is they do
a great job in this show of essentially again, this
is like a moment in the Games where you need
to go and collect supplies that they expand out into
this kind of exploration of humanity in the face of
greatest horrors that you can imagine, in the face of
(14:21):
the fall of the world as we know it. And
it's just such an unbelievable episode with two incredible performances
and just generally a wonderful, wonderful piece of TV, even
if you don't care about the show and it after
Joel kind of sees this great act of love and
(14:41):
understands because he had an existing relationship with with Bill
and Frank, he begins to understand that maybe there is
a little something worth living for.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Maybe maybe maybe.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Maybe let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we are back episode four. We're road tripping now.
(15:20):
There's Ellie and Joel are eating like chef boy r
D as they're on the road in Bill's truck, which
you know is like the stinkiest, most ft ridden gassy
truck of basically all time, Ellie's been practicing with her gun.
(15:45):
She's in fact kind of obsessed with getting a gun
from Joel, and they got a bunch of supplies, including
weaponry from bill uh. They eventually arrived in Kansas City,
where they get ambushed by raiders. I guess you could
(16:07):
call them raiders.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I think that want to be raiders. Are they very
successful raiders? Unclear?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
But they are people trying to survive who want to
take what Joel and Ellie have, and obviously that cannot happen.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Joel kills them. Meanwhile, we also learned that Joel is
has a brother. He tells Ellie about his brother, Tommy,
and that Tommy was a Joiner he dreamed of becoming
a hero. Last Joel heard, Tommy had quit the Fireflies
and was just kind of like floating off on his own. Elsewhere,
(16:44):
we see another kind of like feder facility where we
meet a woman named Kathleen who is now this leader
of this armed group in this area. She's interrogating a
prisoner who is like a doctor. Her group is fucking brutal,
brutal brutals. She used to be a soccer mon. Now
she's like basically a warlord, and she assumes that Joel
(17:06):
and Ellie are working with this guy that she's looking for,
this doctor, but they're not. But now they have Kathleen's
fucking army like on their tail, and the it's just
it goes bad. We go to episode five, Joel and
(17:26):
Ellie team up with Henry, the guy Kathleen is looking for,
and Sam as they are trying to escape from Kansas
City because Kathleen really wants to kill him. Henry is
a former Federan former and he has a bounty on
his head. Sam is his little brother who just wants
(17:48):
to be a kid, and he and Ellie there's like
a spark in terms of them being kind of around
the same age, being young and trying to find normalcy
and happiness in a world that is just insanely violent
and stuff. They managed to make it past Kathleen's forces,
(18:08):
but then Sam gets bitten. He hides it and by
morning he's turned. Henry emotionally psychologically can't deal with it.
He kills his brother, then he kills himself. This is
insanely sad, particularly for Ellie, who had tried desperately to
(18:33):
pass on some of her immunity to Sam, but was
unable to lie. I mean that was so that was
just like you don't understand how people could live in
this world, Like it was very very sad. And she
writes I'm sorry on Sam's grave and then she and
Joel just continue the journey. And by this episode you're
(18:56):
starting to get now the rhythm of the show, which
is kind of like adventure Monster adventure of the episode, Yeah,
this kind of like road journey that moves from place
to place, and I think it's a really brilliant way
to adapt this video game.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, by now I agree.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
And also the thing that is so wild about this
episode is there is like an intense zombie fight can
like Kansas Escape. They're trying to, you know, snipe people
out the windows, snipe zombies out the windows, snipe Kathleens
people out the windows. It really heavily adapts the game.
(19:35):
But and you get to see new, bigger zombies here.
I think this is where we get to see the Bloaters.
But all you are left with is the story of
Sam and Henry, who are just two kids trying to survive.
And you get this unbelievable moment whereas you know Ellie
and Sam are in the bedroom trying to kind of
(19:58):
solve this problem where Ellie's trying to pass on her immunity.
Henry and Joel are bonding and talking, and you start
to feel like maybe this could be this found family
situation where all of them try and make something better
in this world. And obviously it doesn't end that way,
and it is like, so so heartbreaking. I think it's
(20:21):
absolutely wild to be able to have an two episodes,
episode three and episode five that are so heartbreaking and
also very This is a very trail blazing episode because.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
We Sam and Henry.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Henry has actually played Sam is actually played by a
young deaf actor, and I think that that is portrayed
so well here, and then also definitely influence the fact
that season two on HBO will have ASL translation for
the whole of season two, which I think is really cool.
But yeah, this was the heartbreaking episode. This is in
(20:58):
preparing for Covering Seas two. This was the one I
found hardest to watch again. It was really hard Billy,
at least with Bill and Frank, they get this happy time,
they get this kind of love in the face of
everything so terrible, But Henry and Sam, they don't get
that anything. And it's a huge moment episode four and
(21:21):
five for Ellie because in four we see her shoot
somebody for the first time, and she doesn't kill him
and Joel has to finish him off, and then obviously
this horrific thing happens. So I think we start to
get to see her happiness and her constant kind of
cheer and bad jokes sort of starting to wear away
as she starts to see the reality of living outside
(21:44):
of a federer kind of stronghold.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Next episode six, three months have passed since Kansas City
and the deaths of Henry and Sam. They're in Wyoming somewhere,
Joel and Ellie learn from a couple they.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Take hostage briefly again, Joel getting into his old tricks
again that Tommy, if he is alive, he is.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Somewhere out there to the west, but not too far,
not past the river. If he's past the river, he's
probably dead. They go to the river. They're talking about
what's going to happen when they get to the fireflies
and save the world, and how Ellie's going to feel
like being this spark of immunity that could bring the
(22:37):
world back. Did they get They learn like about each other.
Ellie's like, what you know? What did you? You can
go anywhere you want? What do you what do you
want to do after the world comes back? And he
says that he wants to set up himself somewhere away
from everybody on a like a sheep ranch or something.
Because they're quiet, Joel asked Ellie what she wants to do.
(22:59):
She says she'd go to the moon. Her favorite astronaut
was Sally Ride, which she says the best astronaut ever.
And then they fall asleep, and when they wake up,
he finds that Ellie has is like watching over him,
and we learn we see that like she's beginning to
take on some of Joel's traits. She's getting tougher, She's
like understanding the danger out here. Eventually they come into
(23:22):
contact with a bunch of folks on horses and guess
what this is? Like? A community living out here of
which Tommy is a member, and they live in a
basically like a socialist post armageddon utopia with running water,
(23:42):
with night with movie nights, with kids running around with electricity,
and I gotta tell you when you find when you
see this place, you're like, never leave here.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Never leave.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
This is a good day.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
He leave the child, do not take her to the
rebel Like you guys can just stay here with your
brother and his wife and you can just have a
new life and you can help out here, because part
of how they have managed to keep this place secure
is by these terrifying rumors.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
If you can't cross the river, you can't go over there.
It's full of.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Zombies, you know, so they need people to protect them.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Joel, you could have a role here.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
But no, he does not know how to live in
a functioning society at all.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Tommy is has a partner named Maria. They both are like, Ellie,
you're not like the other kids here, because in the
whatever few months that you've been out in the wilderness,
you've turned into like a real hard ass with a gun,
which kids around here don't carry guns, and they're not
like fucking hard ass. Yeah, the raiders are apparently still
(24:53):
a big problem, but kind of a declining one. Infected
or out there, of course, but they're easier to deal
with and Tommy is like former army sniper is like, yeah,
we're good at dealing with them. Joel comes to realize
that he's been a half crazed, smuggling, semi criminal, anti
(25:13):
murder for so long that like he's not civilized anymore,
Like he's got what I think we would call post
traumatic stress stat syndrome or current traumatic stress syndrome and
is just unable to deal with a civilized situation like this.
So he tries to pass off Ellie on Tommy because
he's afraid like that he's gonna he's gonna let her down, essentially,
(25:38):
And she's like, no, you're not gonna leave me here,
like absolutely, Like you're not just gonna pawn me off
on strangers and then leave. So Joel is like, fine,
I'll stay. But then later Joel teaches Ellie to shoot
she's bad and she blames the gun and they make
(26:00):
their way. They leave for Colorado because they're going to
like we're going to keep going on this journey. They
make Colorado in five days. Joel tells it Ellie that
when he was younger, he wanted to be a singer.
At the campus, they find the firefly markers. This used
to be a firefly lab. Apparently there were monkeys here
that they're working on, and now the monkeys are running
(26:21):
around wild. They find a map which suggests that the
Fireflies pulled out of Colorado to Salt Lake City. There's
a screeching of monkeys outside and that's when they realize
there's raiders out there. Joel and Ellie head for their horse,
which is how they've been traveling since they left Tommy's encampment.
A raider attacks Joel as he's untying the horse. Joel.
(26:44):
There's a big fight and basically Joel takes out some
of the raiders, but he also gets stabbed and it's
pretty bad. Ellie tries to save him, but Joel is
clearly dying and Ellie is very upset and she's like,
I can't do this without you. We go to an
episode seven after a word from our sponsors, and we're
(27:17):
back episode seven, still in Colorado. Ellie has dragged Joel
to like a house where she's like just desperately trying
to keep him alive. He's like, get out of here.
She's like, just shut the fuck up. No, I'm not
gonna do that. We flash back to a Federal school
and we learn about Ellie's life at FEDRA and a
(27:40):
very important moment for her was growing up in this
feder school society where she's been disruptive. She's like one
of the bad kids. The Fedra supervisor of the school
basically is like, listen, here's your options. If you keep
being a fuck up, you end up like one of
(28:04):
the low level like Fedra grunts under this girl who
you're having trouble with, Bethany, and you probably die or
because of like the hard work that you're gonna have
to do. Or you follow the rules, you become an officer,
you get better food, you get better housing, you do
less dangerous work, and you give Bethany orders. And it's
(28:24):
clear that, like, uh, you know, feder for all its shortcomings,
is like the best option currently out there, and it's
something that even though it sucks, people care about it
and they're trying to make it good. Later, Ellie is
in her room and she's reading an issue of Savage Starlight,
the comic. Yes the Sam and Yes Sam and Henry,
(28:48):
who we met previously, also loved it. She has a
best friend named Riley. Riley went to join the Fireflies.
Ellie is shocked by this. Riley wants Ellie to come
with her for a few hours so they can have
the best night of her life. Their lives before she
joins the Fireflies. Ellie's like, I don't know about this.
They sneak out. They sneak into a.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Mall, Yes, an abandoned.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Beautiful, abandoned mall, which has apparently been sealed.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Up and all the electric still works. This is obviously
something Riley has learned from the Fireflies, and they take
her on, like we get like a really gorgeous kind
of date episode where the two of them just get
to have fun and play more or combat and dance
and almost be normal kids.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
That's right. They go inside there, it's marvelous, like escalators.
There's all these things from a world that are that's
like gone. Riley's like, don't worry, there's no infected here.
They've been lying to us, like outside they lie to us.
They say that like all the infected have been stuffed
up in here, been really like all the It's like
(29:56):
this wonderful time capsule of a former world. And they
they're running around looking at all the shops, they're looking
at the victorious secret like they're having this wonderful time together.
They go to this carousel which is right next to
a game stop, which is a nice fun nod to
the origins of this of this story. They find some liquor,
(30:19):
they start drinking and they go to a photo booth.
They go to that arcade. As you mentioned, they are
entirely unaware throughout this wonderful time that a very very
nasty looking Corry Steps has woken up nearby. They discover
(30:41):
pipe bombs which Riley has been building for the fireflies,
and this makes Ellie very very upset. She's like, what
are you doing? Like you're gonna be one of these
like firefly terrorists, Like you're gonna blow people up, Like
that's what you're gonna do. And this is where, uh,
you know, Ryley basically admits that like she's leaving. This
(31:02):
is her last night in Boston. She's going with the fireflies,
and she brought Ellie here because she wanted to say goodbye.
This is heartbreaking for Ellie. She like basically is like
fuck you and leaves. But then she's like you know, no, no,
what I want to go back? She goes back, and
long story short, Riley gets bitten by the fucking Cordy Steps,
(31:26):
but so.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Does Ellie after they kiss.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
After they kiss, and this is where Ellie gets bitten.
The infected pins her down and she stabs into the guts,
but it doesn't stop like coming for her, and it's horrible.
We cut back to Joel, who is on the floor
in the present timeline, shivering, looking real bad, and it's
(31:49):
clear that this is what Ellie is thinking about. Another
person that she loves is dying in front of her
eyes and she can't and there's nothing that she can do.
She thinks again about the last moments of Riley, where
it's like Ellie is in a rage, she's like destroying everything,
and Riley apologizes to her and they like lean on
(32:10):
each other. And back at the house, you know, Ellie
has come back with supplies and a sewing needle and
she starts working on Joel to try and save him.
We go to episode eight.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Woo, episode eight.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
This is It's actually wild how many standout episodes this
series has, because as soon as I'm like, oh my god,
we haven't even got to David yet.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
This is such a crazy episode.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It is It is nuts. Episode eight. It is deep winter,
Silver Lake, Colorado. We hear a voice read from the
Book of Revelations. This is a preacher. His name is David.
He is the leader of like this extremist survivalist group
whose motto is when we are in need, he shall provide.
(33:00):
And what basically he's going to provide is like cannibalized
human bodies. Even though he's telling people that he's not
telling people that this group is starving, they've been sending
out hunting groups, and unbeknownst to anybody but a very
very tightly held circle around David, these hunting groups have
(33:21):
not been successful. Instead, what they've been doing is carving
up human bodies that they have hidden away in town. Meanwhile,
Ellie is checking on Joel's wound. Time has passed, it's
looking better, but Joel is very weak. She's like trying
to nurse him back to health like a you know,
(33:43):
like a little baby bird. She goes out to hunt
with the rifle, the three to eight that she now
knows how to shoot. She sees a deer. She takes
aim at the deer, but she hits it and it
injures it. But it's running off and David and his
loot tennant James, find the deer. Ellie gets the drop
on them. She's like, you know, drop your rifles, turn around.
(34:10):
They She also bluffs that she's like and I'm with others.
David and James offer a trade. They're like, we can
give you medicine. Ellie is very excited by the idea
that there might be medicine. She's like and they're like, yeah, yeah,
we gotta you know, we got it. We got medicine.
David is like, go get the penicillin. He tells his lieutenant,
go get it and bring it back here. James drags
(34:33):
the deer as he and Ellie takes shelter nearby. Ellie remains,
you know, watchful of these guys. Eventually, the medicine arrives.
They give it to Ellie. She returns to Dole. It
just kind of injects the antibiotics Wherever listens to and
lays on his chest, and one is one of the
(34:54):
most like warming scenes I think of the series. Back
at the extremist group, they're cooking up venison and folks,
we get these really disgusting shots of this food that
you know that by now you know that there's something wrong, yes,
but you don't know what. David announces that the rumors
(35:18):
are true. He's found a girl who is with a
man who killed one of them, and tomorrow morning they're
going to send out a search party and quote bring
that man to justice. The next day, Ellie goes out
to you know, just check things out. She sees people coming,
five or six men, including David and James, and clearly
(35:39):
they're ready to kill Joel and bring Ellie back with them.
Ellie tries to wake up Joel. He's not ready for this.
She fires a shot at David and them. Eventually David
takes her prisoner. She's in a holding cell. David's there,
He's being an absolute fucking freak.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
He's like, yeah, he's there's obviously like pedophilick overtones here.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
About cultish, over his need for like young women girls,
and also you know, they need more women so they
can have babies, and also, you know, wouldn't she love
to be part of his.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Like in a circle.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
He can see she's a survivor, like very gloomish, strong,
like we.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Need your strength, all this kind of stuff, and she
rejects him pretty strongly, which enrages him.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah, she bites his hand. I believe he puts it.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
She's like, okay, and then she bites his hand and
he kind of rears back.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
And meanwhile, Joel, who has killed. The guy who David
has sent to kill him is has followed them back
to their camp has and is going like, fucking John Wick,
where is his daughter? Where is his surrogate daughter? He
is just killing, killing, killing. He drags a guy into
(37:06):
a house and tortures him until he tells him like
where the town And.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
That's when we get a glimpse of like who Joel
has become. And that's really important because we're heading to
if you've played the game, the ultimate kind of big
moral quandary at the end of the game, which all
of this has been leading to, and you need to
see this side of Joel to truly understand what it
(37:35):
means to him to protect he can.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Go fully, fully dark. Now he's doing it now to
protect someone he loves and that we love, from absolutely
depraved fundamentalist cannibals. But the suggestion and the truth of
it is that he plied these violent sides of himself
(37:58):
against many different against me, many many people who were
not bad folks, and we know that. Meanwhile, David is
admitting to Ellie that yeah, we're eating.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
People, so what yeah, yeah, yeah, baby, well you do
so what By the way, you should still join us,
because like, you're smart, you're loyal, You're like a, what
do you think about it?
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Why don't you join us?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
What does she think about it?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
She is like hard no, She asks about Joel. David
is like, you know what I can, I'll spare him.
I won't continue to hunt him if you will join us.
And Ellie then is makes it seem like maybe she's
(38:44):
going to accept this David, who is again just like
a disgusting human being. Groomer is like whoa, And he
like reaches through the bars to like caress pet her hair,
and it's discussed, and she instead takes his finger and
like breaks it and grabs the keys, and it says
(39:05):
to him, like, why don't you tell your like little
followers that like Ellie is the little girl who broke
your finger. Joel arrives in town. He breaks into one
of the storehouses there to kind of warm up a
little bit. He finds Ellie's stuff and the dead people
that these folks have been eating. It's Chris, David and
(39:28):
James drag Ellie out of the cage and they're clearly
just like about to butcher her for meat. When she yells, hey,
I've been infected and now so are you because and
they're like they see the scar and now they're like
freaked out, They're scared. They're like, oh no, like what
the what you know? And while they are in this
(39:48):
state of confusion, Ellie kills James with a cleaver in
his head. She runs, David runs after her. One thing
leads to another in what is I think one of
the most suspenseful and scariest scenes in not just the show,
but like in the game. It's a really scary moment
where David is hunting her through this building that is
(40:12):
like a former diner that is now burning like all
around them, and he's saying this scariest, most disgusting stuff
to her while he's called the shit while he's hunting her,
and there's like a physical fight, but ultimately she defeats him.
And then when she goes outside of this burning building,
(40:32):
she finds Joel who embraces her and our Friends are
back together, which leads us to episode nine, the heartbreaking
and violent finale of season one of the Last of Us.
They arrive at this Salt Lake City firefly, a refugeed
(40:55):
a laboratory that is the last place that they knew
the fireflies were, and we see all of this evidence
of the kind of medical experiments and the research they've
been doing into the cordyceeps, including the X rays of
people's brains they find. So they get to they get
to the firefly base, and the fireflies are so excited.
(41:19):
They're like, oh my god, we're going to save the world.
This is it. We've gotten the person.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Actually have like a pretty legit hospital set up.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
It's it's like it.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Looks it looks that way at us.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
It looks good. The setup looks very legit. And they're
putting Ellie under anesthesia. They're going to do the thing
where they go in and they have to like go
into her brain because that's the part that like where
you know, where the heart of the infection is and
where for some reason, her brain is like fighting the infection.
(41:50):
And they tell Joel, probably a mistake to tell him this.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah, they take him aside and.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
They take him in mind and they say listen. They say, listen,
we have to into her brain, and we don't know
how to do it without killing her, but listen, this
is we're gonna save the world. Like God, I'm gonna
save the world from infection. Joel does not accept that,
and he just fucking kills everybody in this heart like everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yes, now, let's talk about this because in the game,
you the whole time you've been following Joel, you've been
playing as him. Sometimes you've been playing Zelli. Sometimes you've
had to do terrible things, but you are doing it
for the greater good of saving the world, right, that's
what they want us to think. And then you end
(42:40):
up in a scenario where suddenly you have to decide
whether you're gonna kill a lot of people and not
save the world in order to save this child, and
the game takes on a very different stance. And I
think something they did here that is really incredible, and
(43:03):
I know that makes some people very angry, but I
think was the right choice.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
They made. This incredibly hard to watch.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
This is not a heroic John Wick going to save
his daughter.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
This is.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Watched.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
It feels like you're watching a mass shooter go into
a hospital and kill a bunch of people. And I
think they made a very brave stand with that by
saying this is horrible.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
This is the reality.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
And if you want to say that Joel made the
right choice, that's fine, but here's the choice.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
That he made, and this is what he did to
save Ellie.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
And I was honestly shocked by just how horrific this
episode is, but also how much it aligns with everything
we know about Joel and how even in that moment,
you are now invested in that relationship, so you do
want him to save Ellie.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
But yeah, I mean, fireflies never should have told Joel.
You should have just been it's a.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Dangerous it's a dangerous situation, like maybe she'll survive, maybe
she won't, and he could have watched through the window, which,
by the way, when when he does get to Ellie,
you do that kind of thing like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
They didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Because they just have all these like rusty kleavas and shit,
and you're like, guys, this looks like a horror movie,
Like I don't know if you have the chops to
do this, Like it's an incredible moral dilemma because from
Joel's perspective.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
You get it, like and you understand it. And I
think a lot of people you're playing the entire game
basically as Joel, with occasional moments as Ellie, and so
you when you and the and the show is from
the perspective of Joel and Ellie the whole time, so
you understand it, you completely understand it. At the same time,
(44:54):
I think anyone is able to put themselves in the
shoes of every literally everybody else in the world and say,
I mean, she's it's sad, but so many people have died,
and if but if this, if we have the chance
to save everyone else, then don't we have to do it?
And it's an incredibly ruthless situation and a terrible moral dilemma.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
And it's also really heartbreaking because you know that if
Ellie had the choice, she would actually.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
She would do it.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
She would say, We'd do it.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
That's they have given and that's another Firefly mistake. They
should have given her the choice and let her make
that choice.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Now, would Joel have listened to her? Probably not. He
should have at least had that conversation.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I think the thing that that makes it what's coming
for Joel a sort of justice in season two. That's
not a spoiler, but you know.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Is that you actions have consequences, guys, actions have called.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
And you and you made the point you just said
that I think something that was important. I think joel
By now understands Ellie enough to know that if Ellie,
if he asked, Ellie, would you sacrifice yourself for a
chance that we could cure infection and cure the world,
she would say unabashedly yes. He is unable to give
(46:14):
her that choice, so he kills everybody, and just.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
As bad as the fireflies in that way, he doesn't.
He also doesn't ask how what she wants.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
He kills everybody in the fucking building, brutally, ruthlessly, going
through this tire.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
In the back, like shooting anyone who comes par.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
He gets Ellie, he carries her out of the building,
and then when she wakes up, she's like, what happened?
He says, it didn't work. It didn't It just didn't work.
They tried.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
They said you could just come home.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, you could just come home, and it's over. She
doesn't quite believe him, but it's also clear that she
really wants to believe him. She does, and she makes
him promise. She says, swear to me, game by the
way ends in the same way, Swear to me, every
thing you said about the fireflies is true. And he
looks her dead in the face and he and he's like,
I swear, and she it's also clear again that she
(47:10):
is struggling with we or believe him, but she accepts
it and boom, this season ends. Due it is insane.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
It's like making me feel like I'm gonna cry just
thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
I think it's honestly like a.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Travesty that Pedro didn't win for this series, because there
he has to do so much with so little, because
Joel is not a talkative person. And I think so
much about in episode eight where he he finds her
afterwards and he's like, it's okay, baby girl, and he's
(47:45):
kind of like holding her, and there's just this innate
understanding that he is never gonna let what happened to
Sarah happen to her.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
And it's so so hard to watch this episode.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And I understand why people were mad because also some
people in the game who played it, which I think
is a misreading of the situation, but they didn't think
Joel did anything wrong. They felt like they were the
hero saving Ellie. And I think, sure, that's wild, but sure,
and I it's so horrific to see what Joel will do.
But you are so invested, and you so understand how
(48:18):
he got to that place and how Ellie is there
that it is this like truly heart wrenching, kind of
so crushing situation. And I love what you wrote in
your recap where you're like, suddenly the story shifts. What
started as a mission to save the world becomes a
mission to save one person at any cost.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
I think the thing about the thing that is so
to me affecting about the last of us the game
and by extension, the show, is it's it's in a
way an examination of the things that make games so
emotionally satisfying, but also such a like swamp of toxicness
(49:06):
and bad shit that has since seeped out into the culture.
And it's because they are a place where it's purely
about what people now call like main character syndrome. Joel believes,
because he has found this person who has now become
(49:26):
the surrogate daughner in his life, that like any amount
of violence to protect her in a way that he
couldn't protect his daughter previously, is is justified killing any
amount of people. It's it's justified, And you know that's
what that's what games are. Anything is justified because I'm
the main character in the game. I can act as
(49:46):
shitty as I want, I can talk, I can do it. Yeah,
I can do all these terrible things because like games
are about satisfying me, and Joel is about in this
moment is about It's again not even and about what
Ellie wants, what Ellie wants, It's about what he wants,
and what he wants is to somehow push the trauma
(50:08):
that has been haunting him for years like away and
make all the deaths worth it because you save this
one person. And I understand why people like empathize with
Joel because they're like, I do anything for my daughter.
This is first of all, not his daughter, and second
of all, I understand that. And at the same time
(50:29):
you have to acknowledge that, like the other message of
this story is like violence begets violence, begets violence, begets violence.
So I'm so excited for the Last of US season
two coming soon. I can't believe that it's here. And
what an incredible and fucking bleak season of television. The
Last of US Season one was.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Yeah, it was just unbelievable, and I'm yeah, I'm really
excited to dig into season two with you and kind
of explore. Yeah, how the show deals with what happens
in the second game, because it's somehow even.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
On tomorrow's episode of x they Were Not for beired.
On tomorrow's episode of x RA Vision, we're diving into
the eighth episode of Dared Were Born Again. It's it
for this episode. Thanks for listening, Farewell bye. X ray
Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Knight and
is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Our supervising producer is Abusafar.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay wag.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and
Heidi our discord moderator.
Worrying. Today's episode can dat spoilers for the Last of
Us Season one, streaming now on HBO and Max.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And also the first game, The Last of Us, because
it is adapting that game.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
So if you haven't played that.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Or watched the show, maybe don't listen to this, or
maybe do, but be warned there we'll be spoilers.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello. My name is Jason Sepsion and I am Rosie Knight,
and welcome back to X Revision, the podcast where we
dive deep to your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop
culture company from my Ora podcast. We'll read three episodes
a week every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, plus news.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
In today's episode, we are recapping season one of the
Last of Us. If you listen to the pod when
the first series was out, we were visiting that every
episode and talking about it, so you can listen to
those episodes. But if you don't want to do that
and you just want to listen to it in one episode,
we have that right here for you now. And remember,
(01:13):
our next book club will be focused on Thunderbolts Issue
one from nineteen ninety seven by Kurt.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Buziak and Mark Bagley.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
To prepare us for the movie in May, so you
just have to read one issue can read it, and
Marvel Unlimited can grab it from your local comic shop
potentially or maybe eBay. So yeah, check that one out
and join us in the X ray Vision book Club.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Let's talk the Last of Us. Okay, this is the
recap for season one of the Last of Us, and
we're here to get you ready for the Last of
Us Season two. Maybe you're doing a rewatch. Maybe you're
not doing a rewatch and you're just gonna jump in.
Maybe you're like, I don't want to miss the train.
I want to get on season two, but I didn't
(01:59):
watch all of season one. Well, we're here to be
your cheat sheet. Essentially The Last of Us, of course,
television show by Craig Mason of Chernobyl Fame and Neil
Druckman of Naughty Dog Creative Brain, Naughty Dog being the
studio that created the Last of Us game, and this is,
(02:21):
of course, the live action television adaptation of the Last
of Us, a groundbreaking third person action game, and it
opens with the real world the last hours basically of
the world as we know it. There is an outbreak
(02:44):
of some unknown virus or something that we will soon
learn is a fungus. A cordyceps outbreak which turns humans
into basically zombies kicks off a zombie outbreak that happens
lightning fast. We meet Joel, who is a construction contractor
(03:06):
with the single dad with a daughter. He is a
no nonsense, blue collar guy and when this outbreak happens,
he you know, must spirit his daughter Sarah to safety.
There is a chase through town. It is white knuckle stuff.
They are trying to escape as just like rioting and
(03:26):
violence is breaking out everywhere. But the car crashes, Joel
gets out. He's carrying Sarah. She gets shot by a soldier,
the soldiers who have been ordered to basically seal off
this town and kill anybody that gets out. And honestly,
seeing what this fungus is capable of, I sadly get
(03:47):
it like.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You know, like and it establishes essentially Joel's journey from
here on out.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
And also I just want to say, like, they did
such a brilliant job.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It's a fasting Sarah and she is so fantastic and
is played by the daughter of the Wan de Newton
oh Nico Parker, uh, and she is so good and
the pair of them here have such a good chemistry
that even though perhaps we can understand the actions of
(04:23):
the government and the soldier who is very scared in
that moment, yeah, you feel the horror and heartbreak of
what happened to Joel here and how that will go
onto shape both his ass the rest of the Coast journey, we.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Flash forward twenty years. Society is hanging on by a
thread in various refuges that are like these military encampments
that are dotted around the country. We meet Joel in
one in Boston, where he is now basically a smuggler
of pill bills and other items we assume with his
(05:04):
smuggling partner in crime tests and we get the feeling
from Joel's demeanor and from conversation city as with tests
and from conversations you have throughout this series, that he's
done really bad things in the intervening twenty years. Murder,
a robbery, probably.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Probable torture to get information.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's whatever he needed to do, certainly in the in
the in the days when everything was falling apart, whatever
he needed to do to survive, including probably killing people
for their stuff so he could escape et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. He's dead inside now and one of his contacts,
a firefly leader, a leader of a group called the
Fireflies named Marlene, comes to Joel and offers him in
(05:52):
tests like a very very important smuggling job, and so
they take it. The cargo turns out to be a
girl named Ellie, who is you know, fourteen and very
sharp witted and cantankerous, and apparently, we learn immune to infection.
(06:12):
She's been bitten and it healed. This is a first,
This is shocking, and so the Fireflies want to get
her to their secret lab where they can study her
and hopefully get a cure to infection and save the world. Basically,
because outside of these military encampments, everything has fallen apart
and these fungal zombies are fucking everywhere and have mutated.
(06:34):
It needs to even stronger, more terrifying versions of just
the regular ones that are running around. They sneak out,
things immediately go sideways. They have to kill people. They
have to kill people, and this is where Tess and
Joel discover that Ellie has a bite but has not
(06:55):
become infected, and this is shocking. We go to Episode two,
Ellie her existence and the fact that she is immune
is incredibly shocking to them. They move through a ruined Boston,
surviving various encounters with zombies, including clickers. Clickers. Yes, Rosie,
(07:17):
would you like to tell us what the clickers are?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
The clickers are a terrifying variation of the mushroom zombie
that hunts you with sound, and if you played the game,
feels like it hates you personally, like.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You slept with its wife, Like this thing is going
to hunt you down in a way that feels so horrific.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And I want to say episode two of this series,
I think is really an incredible feat of adapting a
video game, because there are so many moments here where
you feel like you are playing those early parts of
the game where you are trying sneaking around and trying
to avoid these new versions of the zombies because you
just because you don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, one there they're very hard to evade and you
have to be very quiet. And two you're so right
because at this stage of the game when you encounter
the clickers, you really don't have the weaponry. No, you
should or are leveled up to deal with it like
you have you probably have max five bullets in your gun.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Basically I have to.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Spend is not going to do it.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
You're going to make.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Molotov cocktails and explode them to distract them.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
And I really like the There is.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
A kind of false dichotomy presented in the Last of
Us games, which if you've ever done this, I salute you.
But there is an early part of the game where
you believe, Okay, maybe I could get through this game
just by stealth. Maybe I don't have to kill a
federal soldier. Maybe I can you know, sure, I'll kill
a zombie, but they're like mutated, but.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
I don't have to kill any humans. And you learn
very quickly that's not.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Going to ask to be right, and that's part of
the game is to think, well, what would I do
in this situation?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Who would I sacrifice?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
And yeah, once the clickers get involved, I'm killing every
federick guy up there in the way because these people
you're not going to survive them, and they're so scary,
and the show does an absolutely incredible job of bringing
them to life with practical effects and also.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Just the way that they shoot and sound design.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
The sequences where we start to meet the clickers.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
So Joel, Tests and Ellie get to the meet up
point where the fireflies are supposed to pick up Ellie
and the handoff is supposed to happen, but it gets
overrun by clickers and CORDYCEP zombies in general. Ellie's bitten again.
She's fine because she's immune. Test gets bitten and she
starts to.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Turn absolutely not fine.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
And this is again the person that Joel has shared
a very fucked up existence with for the last decade plus.
And she goes out, you know, blaze of glory, and
Joel picks up Ellie and they leave. We go to
episode three, which is, you know, probably the standout, not
(10:09):
just the standout episode I think of the series, but
one of the best episodes of television in the last
five years, probably easy. Joel and Ellie come to a
town that is kind of like a booby trapped off
and they meet Bill, who is this kind of like
(10:30):
doomsday prepper type guy, and he's been living in this
bunker with power, with plumbing, with water, the whole thing
since the world collapsed. He's got food, he's got an
arsenal of gun and explosives, and we get the story
of how he came to be there. He in the
(10:54):
days after the world collapsed, set up all these defenses,
went to the local power station and made sure that
it was still running to deliver him power. He was
ready for it. He set up all these booby traps
for the Cordysceep zombies to fall in. And then one
day this guy, Frank, falls into one of his traps,
(11:15):
and Frank was escaping one of the like Fedra towns
that had gotten overrun, and they strike up a romance.
They fall in love with each other. Bill teaches Frank
about that he has inside of him the strength to
(11:38):
survive and fight, and Frank teaches Bill that like love
is possible in this fallen world, that and then is possible.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, it's worthwhile to help other people, not just the
hide in this bunker by yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
You know, that's right, that there's connections to be made,
that even in this degenerated, destroyed world, that there's an
importance in building connections and community and a life not
just with your within yourself or with your partner, with
other people. And they have as close to a normal
(12:18):
air quotes life as you can have in this town.
They they go shopping in the little boutique shops that
are they have little arguments, They have meals together on
the porch, and years go by, wonderful years that include
(12:39):
fighting off zombies, that include fighting off raiders, that include
you know, many moments of tenderness and dancing with each other.
But then Frank get sick, and he gets sicker and
sicker and sicker, and he wants to die on his
own terms. So he and Bill engineer like one perfect day,
(13:02):
last perfect day together, after which he will take pills
and they will crush up pills together, and then they
will eat them together, and then they will pass away
slowly and die. We go back to Joel and Ellie
their interactions with him. They you know, basically find the
(13:23):
house like as Frank left it, with Bill in there
kind of a shell of himself, and Bill basically decides,
you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna help you guys.
I'm going to give you the truck that I had
and some supplies and you guys can get out of here.
(13:44):
It's an incredible episode. If, like our super producer are Boo,
you're like, I don't know about this show through the
first two episodes, just get to episode three, get to
episode three and decide if you want to.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Continue, and then you realize this, this is they do
a great job in this show of essentially again, this
is like a moment in the Games where you need
to go and collect supplies that they expand out into
this kind of exploration of humanity in the face of
greatest horrors that you can imagine, in the face of
(14:21):
the fall of the world as we know it. And
it's just such an unbelievable episode with two incredible performances
and just generally a wonderful, wonderful piece of TV, even
if you don't care about the show and it after
Joel kind of sees this great act of love and
(14:41):
understands because he had an existing relationship with with Bill
and Frank, he begins to understand that maybe there is
a little something worth living for.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Maybe maybe maybe.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Maybe let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
And we are back episode four. We're road tripping now.
(15:20):
There's Ellie and Joel are eating like chef boy r
D as they're on the road in Bill's truck, which
you know is like the stinkiest, most ft ridden gassy
truck of basically all time, Ellie's been practicing with her gun.
(15:45):
She's in fact kind of obsessed with getting a gun
from Joel, and they got a bunch of supplies, including
weaponry from bill uh. They eventually arrived in Kansas City,
where they get ambushed by raiders. I guess you could
(16:07):
call them raiders.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I think that want to be raiders. Are they very
successful raiders? Unclear?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
But they are people trying to survive who want to
take what Joel and Ellie have, and obviously that cannot happen.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Joel kills them. Meanwhile, we also learned that Joel is
has a brother. He tells Ellie about his brother, Tommy,
and that Tommy was a Joiner he dreamed of becoming
a hero. Last Joel heard, Tommy had quit the Fireflies
and was just kind of like floating off on his own. Elsewhere,
(16:44):
we see another kind of like feder facility where we
meet a woman named Kathleen who is now this leader
of this armed group in this area. She's interrogating a
prisoner who is like a doctor. Her group is fucking brutal,
brutal brutals. She used to be a soccer mon. Now
she's like basically a warlord, and she assumes that Joel
(17:06):
and Ellie are working with this guy that she's looking for,
this doctor, but they're not. But now they have Kathleen's
fucking army like on their tail, and the it's just
it goes bad. We go to episode five, Joel and
(17:26):
Ellie team up with Henry, the guy Kathleen is looking for,
and Sam as they are trying to escape from Kansas
City because Kathleen really wants to kill him. Henry is
a former Federan former and he has a bounty on
his head. Sam is his little brother who just wants
(17:48):
to be a kid, and he and Ellie there's like
a spark in terms of them being kind of around
the same age, being young and trying to find normalcy
and happiness in a world that is just insanely violent
and stuff. They managed to make it past Kathleen's forces,
(18:08):
but then Sam gets bitten. He hides it and by
morning he's turned. Henry emotionally psychologically can't deal with it.
He kills his brother, then he kills himself. This is
insanely sad, particularly for Ellie, who had tried desperately to
(18:33):
pass on some of her immunity to Sam, but was
unable to lie. I mean that was so that was
just like you don't understand how people could live in
this world, Like it was very very sad. And she
writes I'm sorry on Sam's grave and then she and
Joel just continue the journey. And by this episode you're
(18:56):
starting to get now the rhythm of the show, which
is kind of like adventure Monster adventure of the episode, Yeah,
this kind of like road journey that moves from place
to place, and I think it's a really brilliant way
to adapt this video game.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, by now I agree.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
And also the thing that is so wild about this
episode is there is like an intense zombie fight can
like Kansas Escape. They're trying to, you know, snipe people
out the windows, snipe zombies out the windows, snipe Kathleens
people out the windows. It really heavily adapts the game.
(19:35):
But and you get to see new, bigger zombies here.
I think this is where we get to see the Bloaters.
But all you are left with is the story of
Sam and Henry, who are just two kids trying to survive.
And you get this unbelievable moment whereas you know Ellie
and Sam are in the bedroom trying to kind of
(19:58):
solve this problem where Ellie's trying to pass on her immunity.
Henry and Joel are bonding and talking, and you start
to feel like maybe this could be this found family
situation where all of them try and make something better
in this world. And obviously it doesn't end that way,
and it is like, so so heartbreaking. I think it's
(20:21):
absolutely wild to be able to have an two episodes,
episode three and episode five that are so heartbreaking and
also very This is a very trail blazing episode because.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
We Sam and Henry.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Henry has actually played Sam is actually played by a
young deaf actor, and I think that that is portrayed
so well here, and then also definitely influence the fact
that season two on HBO will have ASL translation for
the whole of season two, which I think is really cool.
But yeah, this was the heartbreaking episode. This is in
(20:58):
preparing for Covering Seas two. This was the one I
found hardest to watch again. It was really hard Billy,
at least with Bill and Frank, they get this happy time,
they get this kind of love in the face of
everything so terrible, But Henry and Sam, they don't get
that anything. And it's a huge moment episode four and
(21:21):
five for Ellie because in four we see her shoot
somebody for the first time, and she doesn't kill him
and Joel has to finish him off, and then obviously
this horrific thing happens. So I think we start to
get to see her happiness and her constant kind of
cheer and bad jokes sort of starting to wear away
as she starts to see the reality of living outside
(21:44):
of a federer kind of stronghold.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Next episode six, three months have passed since Kansas City
and the deaths of Henry and Sam. They're in Wyoming somewhere,
Joel and Ellie learn from a couple they.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Take hostage briefly again, Joel getting into his old tricks
again that Tommy, if he is alive, he is.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Somewhere out there to the west, but not too far,
not past the river. If he's past the river, he's
probably dead. They go to the river. They're talking about
what's going to happen when they get to the fireflies
and save the world, and how Ellie's going to feel
like being this spark of immunity that could bring the
(22:37):
world back. Did they get They learn like about each other.
Ellie's like, what you know? What did you? You can
go anywhere you want? What do you what do you
want to do after the world comes back? And he
says that he wants to set up himself somewhere away
from everybody on a like a sheep ranch or something.
Because they're quiet, Joel asked Ellie what she wants to do.
(22:59):
She says she'd go to the moon. Her favorite astronaut
was Sally Ride, which she says the best astronaut ever.
And then they fall asleep, and when they wake up,
he finds that Ellie has is like watching over him,
and we learn we see that like she's beginning to
take on some of Joel's traits. She's getting tougher, She's
like understanding the danger out here. Eventually they come into
(23:22):
contact with a bunch of folks on horses and guess
what this is? Like? A community living out here of
which Tommy is a member, and they live in a
basically like a socialist post armageddon utopia with running water,
(23:42):
with night with movie nights, with kids running around with electricity,
and I gotta tell you when you find when you
see this place, you're like, never leave here.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Never leave.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
This is a good day.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
He leave the child, do not take her to the
rebel Like you guys can just stay here with your
brother and his wife and you can just have a
new life and you can help out here, because part
of how they have managed to keep this place secure
is by these terrifying rumors.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
If you can't cross the river, you can't go over there.
It's full of.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Zombies, you know, so they need people to protect them.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Joel, you could have a role here.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
But no, he does not know how to live in
a functioning society at all.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Tommy is has a partner named Maria. They both are like, Ellie,
you're not like the other kids here, because in the
whatever few months that you've been out in the wilderness,
you've turned into like a real hard ass with a gun,
which kids around here don't carry guns, and they're not
like fucking hard ass. Yeah, the raiders are apparently still
(24:53):
a big problem, but kind of a declining one. Infected
or out there, of course, but they're easier to deal
with and Tommy is like former army sniper is like, yeah,
we're good at dealing with them. Joel comes to realize
that he's been a half crazed, smuggling, semi criminal, anti
(25:13):
murder for so long that like he's not civilized anymore,
Like he's got what I think we would call post
traumatic stress stat syndrome or current traumatic stress syndrome and
is just unable to deal with a civilized situation like this.
So he tries to pass off Ellie on Tommy because
he's afraid like that he's gonna he's gonna let her down, essentially,
(25:38):
And she's like, no, you're not gonna leave me here,
like absolutely, Like you're not just gonna pawn me off
on strangers and then leave. So Joel is like, fine,
I'll stay. But then later Joel teaches Ellie to shoot
she's bad and she blames the gun and they make
(26:00):
their way. They leave for Colorado because they're going to
like we're going to keep going on this journey. They
make Colorado in five days. Joel tells it Ellie that
when he was younger, he wanted to be a singer.
At the campus, they find the firefly markers. This used
to be a firefly lab. Apparently there were monkeys here
that they're working on, and now the monkeys are running
(26:21):
around wild. They find a map which suggests that the
Fireflies pulled out of Colorado to Salt Lake City. There's
a screeching of monkeys outside and that's when they realize
there's raiders out there. Joel and Ellie head for their horse,
which is how they've been traveling since they left Tommy's encampment.
A raider attacks Joel as he's untying the horse. Joel.
(26:44):
There's a big fight and basically Joel takes out some
of the raiders, but he also gets stabbed and it's
pretty bad. Ellie tries to save him, but Joel is
clearly dying and Ellie is very upset and she's like,
I can't do this without you. We go to an
episode seven after a word from our sponsors, and we're
(27:17):
back episode seven, still in Colorado. Ellie has dragged Joel
to like a house where she's like just desperately trying
to keep him alive. He's like, get out of here.
She's like, just shut the fuck up. No, I'm not
gonna do that. We flash back to a Federal school
and we learn about Ellie's life at FEDRA and a
(27:40):
very important moment for her was growing up in this
feder school society where she's been disruptive. She's like one
of the bad kids. The Fedra supervisor of the school
basically is like, listen, here's your options. If you keep
being a fuck up, you end up like one of
(28:04):
the low level like Fedra grunts under this girl who
you're having trouble with, Bethany, and you probably die or
because of like the hard work that you're gonna have
to do. Or you follow the rules, you become an officer,
you get better food, you get better housing, you do
less dangerous work, and you give Bethany orders. And it's
(28:24):
clear that, like, uh, you know, feder for all its shortcomings,
is like the best option currently out there, and it's
something that even though it sucks, people care about it
and they're trying to make it good. Later, Ellie is
in her room and she's reading an issue of Savage Starlight,
the comic. Yes the Sam and Yes Sam and Henry,
(28:48):
who we met previously, also loved it. She has a
best friend named Riley. Riley went to join the Fireflies.
Ellie is shocked by this. Riley wants Ellie to come
with her for a few hours so they can have
the best night of her life. Their lives before she
joins the Fireflies. Ellie's like, I don't know about this.
They sneak out. They sneak into a.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Mall, Yes, an abandoned.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Beautiful, abandoned mall, which has apparently been sealed.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Up and all the electric still works. This is obviously
something Riley has learned from the Fireflies, and they take
her on, like we get like a really gorgeous kind
of date episode where the two of them just get
to have fun and play more or combat and dance
and almost be normal kids.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
That's right. They go inside there, it's marvelous, like escalators.
There's all these things from a world that are that's
like gone. Riley's like, don't worry, there's no infected here.
They've been lying to us, like outside they lie to us.
They say that like all the infected have been stuffed
up in here, been really like all the It's like
(29:56):
this wonderful time capsule of a former world. And they
they're running around looking at all the shops, they're looking
at the victorious secret like they're having this wonderful time together.
They go to this carousel which is right next to
a game stop, which is a nice fun nod to
the origins of this of this story. They find some liquor,
(30:19):
they start drinking and they go to a photo booth.
They go to that arcade. As you mentioned, they are
entirely unaware throughout this wonderful time that a very very
nasty looking Corry Steps has woken up nearby. They discover
(30:41):
pipe bombs which Riley has been building for the fireflies,
and this makes Ellie very very upset. She's like, what
are you doing? Like you're gonna be one of these
like firefly terrorists, Like you're gonna blow people up, Like
that's what you're gonna do. And this is where, uh,
you know, Ryley basically admits that like she's leaving. This
(31:02):
is her last night in Boston. She's going with the fireflies,
and she brought Ellie here because she wanted to say goodbye.
This is heartbreaking for Ellie. She like basically is like
fuck you and leaves. But then she's like you know, no, no,
what I want to go back? She goes back, and
long story short, Riley gets bitten by the fucking Cordy Steps,
(31:26):
but so.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Does Ellie after they kiss.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
After they kiss, and this is where Ellie gets bitten.
The infected pins her down and she stabs into the guts,
but it doesn't stop like coming for her, and it's horrible.
We cut back to Joel, who is on the floor
in the present timeline, shivering, looking real bad, and it's
(31:49):
clear that this is what Ellie is thinking about. Another
person that she loves is dying in front of her
eyes and she can't and there's nothing that she can do.
She thinks again about the last moments of Riley, where
it's like Ellie is in a rage, she's like destroying everything,
and Riley apologizes to her and they like lean on
(32:10):
each other. And back at the house, you know, Ellie
has come back with supplies and a sewing needle and
she starts working on Joel to try and save him.
We go to episode eight.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Woo, episode eight.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
This is It's actually wild how many standout episodes this
series has, because as soon as I'm like, oh my god,
we haven't even got to David yet.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
This is such a crazy episode.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It is It is nuts. Episode eight. It is deep winter,
Silver Lake, Colorado. We hear a voice read from the
Book of Revelations. This is a preacher. His name is David.
He is the leader of like this extremist survivalist group
whose motto is when we are in need, he shall provide.
(33:00):
And what basically he's going to provide is like cannibalized
human bodies. Even though he's telling people that he's not
telling people that this group is starving, they've been sending
out hunting groups, and unbeknownst to anybody but a very
very tightly held circle around David, these hunting groups have
(33:21):
not been successful. Instead, what they've been doing is carving
up human bodies that they have hidden away in town. Meanwhile,
Ellie is checking on Joel's wound. Time has passed, it's
looking better, but Joel is very weak. She's like trying
to nurse him back to health like a you know,
(33:43):
like a little baby bird. She goes out to hunt
with the rifle, the three to eight that she now
knows how to shoot. She sees a deer. She takes
aim at the deer, but she hits it and it
injures it. But it's running off and David and his
loot tennant James, find the deer. Ellie gets the drop
on them. She's like, you know, drop your rifles, turn around.
(34:10):
They She also bluffs that she's like and I'm with others.
David and James offer a trade. They're like, we can
give you medicine. Ellie is very excited by the idea
that there might be medicine. She's like and they're like, yeah, yeah,
we gotta you know, we got it. We got medicine.
David is like, go get the penicillin. He tells his lieutenant,
go get it and bring it back here. James drags
(34:33):
the deer as he and Ellie takes shelter nearby. Ellie remains,
you know, watchful of these guys. Eventually, the medicine arrives.
They give it to Ellie. She returns to Dole. It
just kind of injects the antibiotics Wherever listens to and
lays on his chest, and one is one of the
(34:54):
most like warming scenes I think of the series. Back
at the extremist group, they're cooking up venison and folks,
we get these really disgusting shots of this food that
you know that by now you know that there's something wrong, yes,
but you don't know what. David announces that the rumors
(35:18):
are true. He's found a girl who is with a
man who killed one of them, and tomorrow morning they're
going to send out a search party and quote bring
that man to justice. The next day, Ellie goes out
to you know, just check things out. She sees people coming,
five or six men, including David and James, and clearly
(35:39):
they're ready to kill Joel and bring Ellie back with them.
Ellie tries to wake up Joel. He's not ready for this.
She fires a shot at David and them. Eventually David
takes her prisoner. She's in a holding cell. David's there,
He's being an absolute fucking freak.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
He's like, yeah, he's there's obviously like pedophilick overtones here.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
About cultish, over his need for like young women girls,
and also you know, they need more women so they
can have babies, and also, you know, wouldn't she love
to be part of his.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
Like in a circle.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
He can see she's a survivor, like very gloomish, strong,
like we.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Need your strength, all this kind of stuff, and she
rejects him pretty strongly, which enrages him.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Yeah, she bites his hand. I believe he puts it.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
She's like, okay, and then she bites his hand and
he kind of rears back.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
And meanwhile, Joel, who has killed. The guy who David
has sent to kill him is has followed them back
to their camp has and is going like, fucking John Wick,
where is his daughter? Where is his surrogate daughter? He
is just killing, killing, killing. He drags a guy into
(37:06):
a house and tortures him until he tells him like
where the town And.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
That's when we get a glimpse of like who Joel
has become. And that's really important because we're heading to
if you've played the game, the ultimate kind of big
moral quandary at the end of the game, which all
of this has been leading to, and you need to
see this side of Joel to truly understand what it
(37:35):
means to him to protect he can.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Go fully, fully dark. Now he's doing it now to
protect someone he loves and that we love, from absolutely
depraved fundamentalist cannibals. But the suggestion and the truth of
it is that he plied these violent sides of himself
(37:58):
against many different against me, many many people who were
not bad folks, and we know that. Meanwhile, David is
admitting to Ellie that yeah, we're eating.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
People, so what yeah, yeah, yeah, baby, well you do
so what By the way, you should still join us,
because like, you're smart, you're loyal, You're like a, what
do you think about it?
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Why don't you join us?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
What does she think about it?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
She is like hard no, She asks about Joel. David
is like, you know what I can, I'll spare him.
I won't continue to hunt him if you will join us.
And Ellie then is makes it seem like maybe she's
(38:44):
going to accept this David, who is again just like
a disgusting human being. Groomer is like whoa, And he
like reaches through the bars to like caress pet her hair,
and it's discussed, and she instead takes his finger and
like breaks it and grabs the keys, and it says
(39:05):
to him, like, why don't you tell your like little
followers that like Ellie is the little girl who broke
your finger. Joel arrives in town. He breaks into one
of the storehouses there to kind of warm up a
little bit. He finds Ellie's stuff and the dead people
that these folks have been eating. It's Chris, David and
(39:28):
James drag Ellie out of the cage and they're clearly
just like about to butcher her for meat. When she yells, hey,
I've been infected and now so are you because and
they're like they see the scar and now they're like
freaked out, They're scared. They're like, oh no, like what
the what you know? And while they are in this
(39:48):
state of confusion, Ellie kills James with a cleaver in
his head. She runs, David runs after her. One thing
leads to another in what is I think one of
the most suspenseful and scariest scenes in not just the show,
but like in the game. It's a really scary moment
where David is hunting her through this building that is
(40:12):
like a former diner that is now burning like all
around them, and he's saying this scariest, most disgusting stuff
to her while he's called the shit while he's hunting her,
and there's like a physical fight, but ultimately she defeats him.
And then when she goes outside of this burning building,
(40:32):
she finds Joel who embraces her and our Friends are
back together, which leads us to episode nine, the heartbreaking
and violent finale of season one of the Last of Us.
They arrive at this Salt Lake City firefly, a refugeed
(40:55):
a laboratory that is the last place that they knew
the fireflies were, and we see all of this evidence
of the kind of medical experiments and the research they've
been doing into the cordyceeps, including the X rays of
people's brains they find. So they get to they get
to the firefly base, and the fireflies are so excited.
(41:19):
They're like, oh my god, we're going to save the world.
This is it. We've gotten the person.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Actually have like a pretty legit hospital set up.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
It's it's like it.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Looks it looks that way at us.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
It looks good. The setup looks very legit. And they're
putting Ellie under anesthesia. They're going to do the thing
where they go in and they have to like go
into her brain because that's the part that like where
you know, where the heart of the infection is and
where for some reason, her brain is like fighting the infection.
(41:50):
And they tell Joel, probably a mistake to tell him this.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah, they take him aside and.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
They take him in mind and they say listen. They say, listen,
we have to into her brain, and we don't know
how to do it without killing her, but listen, this
is we're gonna save the world. Like God, I'm gonna
save the world from infection. Joel does not accept that,
and he just fucking kills everybody in this heart like everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yes, now, let's talk about this because in the game,
you the whole time you've been following Joel, you've been
playing as him. Sometimes you've been playing Zelli. Sometimes you've
had to do terrible things, but you are doing it
for the greater good of saving the world, right, that's
what they want us to think. And then you end
(42:40):
up in a scenario where suddenly you have to decide
whether you're gonna kill a lot of people and not
save the world in order to save this child, and
the game takes on a very different stance. And I
think something they did here that is really incredible, and
(43:03):
I know that makes some people very angry, but I
think was the right choice.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
They made. This incredibly hard to watch.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
This is not a heroic John Wick going to save
his daughter.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
This is.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Watched.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
It feels like you're watching a mass shooter go into
a hospital and kill a bunch of people. And I
think they made a very brave stand with that by
saying this is horrible.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
This is the reality.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
And if you want to say that Joel made the
right choice, that's fine, but here's the choice.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
That he made, and this is what he did to
save Ellie.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
And I was honestly shocked by just how horrific this
episode is, but also how much it aligns with everything
we know about Joel and how even in that moment,
you are now invested in that relationship, so you do
want him to save Ellie.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
But yeah, I mean, fireflies never should have told Joel.
You should have just been it's a.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Dangerous it's a dangerous situation, like maybe she'll survive, maybe
she won't, and he could have watched through the window, which,
by the way, when when he does get to Ellie,
you do that kind of thing like, oh, maybe.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
They didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Because they just have all these like rusty kleavas and shit,
and you're like, guys, this looks like a horror movie,
Like I don't know if you have the chops to
do this, Like it's an incredible moral dilemma because from
Joel's perspective.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
You get it, like and you understand it. And I
think a lot of people you're playing the entire game
basically as Joel, with occasional moments as Ellie, and so
you when you and the and the show is from
the perspective of Joel and Ellie the whole time, so
you understand it, you completely understand it. At the same time,
(44:54):
I think anyone is able to put themselves in the
shoes of every literally everybody else in the world and say,
I mean, she's it's sad, but so many people have died,
and if but if this, if we have the chance
to save everyone else, then don't we have to do it?
And it's an incredibly ruthless situation and a terrible moral dilemma.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
And it's also really heartbreaking because you know that if
Ellie had the choice, she would actually.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
She would do it.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
She would say, We'd do it.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
That's they have given and that's another Firefly mistake. They
should have given her the choice and let her make
that choice.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Now, would Joel have listened to her? Probably not. He
should have at least had that conversation.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I think the thing that that makes it what's coming
for Joel a sort of justice in season two. That's
not a spoiler, but you know.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Is that you actions have consequences, guys, actions have called.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
And you and you made the point you just said
that I think something that was important. I think joel
By now understands Ellie enough to know that if Ellie,
if he asked, Ellie, would you sacrifice yourself for a
chance that we could cure infection and cure the world,
she would say unabashedly yes. He is unable to give
(46:14):
her that choice, so he kills everybody, and just.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
As bad as the fireflies in that way, he doesn't.
He also doesn't ask how what she wants.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
He kills everybody in the fucking building, brutally, ruthlessly, going
through this tire.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
In the back, like shooting anyone who comes par.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
He gets Ellie, he carries her out of the building,
and then when she wakes up, she's like, what happened?
He says, it didn't work. It didn't It just didn't work.
They tried.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
They said you could just come home.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, you could just come home, and it's over. She
doesn't quite believe him, but it's also clear that she
really wants to believe him. She does, and she makes
him promise. She says, swear to me, game by the
way ends in the same way, Swear to me, every
thing you said about the fireflies is true. And he
looks her dead in the face and he and he's like,
I swear, and she it's also clear again that she
(47:10):
is struggling with we or believe him, but she accepts
it and boom, this season ends. Due it is insane.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
It's like making me feel like I'm gonna cry just
thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
I think it's honestly like a.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Travesty that Pedro didn't win for this series, because there
he has to do so much with so little, because
Joel is not a talkative person. And I think so
much about in episode eight where he he finds her
afterwards and he's like, it's okay, baby girl, and he's
(47:45):
kind of like holding her, and there's just this innate
understanding that he is never gonna let what happened to
Sarah happen to her.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
And it's so so hard to watch this episode.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And I understand why people were mad because also some
people in the game who played it, which I think
is a misreading of the situation, but they didn't think
Joel did anything wrong. They felt like they were the
hero saving Ellie. And I think, sure, that's wild, but sure,
and I it's so horrific to see what Joel will do.
But you are so invested, and you so understand how
(48:18):
he got to that place and how Ellie is there
that it is this like truly heart wrenching, kind of
so crushing situation. And I love what you wrote in
your recap where you're like, suddenly the story shifts. What
started as a mission to save the world becomes a
mission to save one person at any cost.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
I think the thing about the thing that is so
to me affecting about the last of us the game
and by extension, the show, is it's it's in a
way an examination of the things that make games so
emotionally satisfying, but also such a like swamp of toxicness
(49:06):
and bad shit that has since seeped out into the culture.
And it's because they are a place where it's purely
about what people now call like main character syndrome. Joel believes,
because he has found this person who has now become
(49:26):
the surrogate daughner in his life, that like any amount
of violence to protect her in a way that he
couldn't protect his daughter previously, is is justified killing any
amount of people. It's it's justified, And you know that's
what that's what games are. Anything is justified because I'm
the main character in the game. I can act as
(49:46):
shitty as I want, I can talk, I can do it. Yeah,
I can do all these terrible things because like games
are about satisfying me, and Joel is about in this
moment is about It's again not even and about what
Ellie wants, what Ellie wants, It's about what he wants,
and what he wants is to somehow push the trauma
(50:08):
that has been haunting him for years like away and
make all the deaths worth it because you save this
one person. And I understand why people like empathize with
Joel because they're like, I do anything for my daughter.
This is first of all, not his daughter, and second
of all, I understand that. And at the same time
(50:29):
you have to acknowledge that, like the other message of
this story is like violence begets violence, begets violence, begets violence.
So I'm so excited for the Last of US season
two coming soon. I can't believe that it's here. And
what an incredible and fucking bleak season of television. The
Last of US Season one was.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
Yeah, it was just unbelievable, and I'm yeah, I'm really
excited to dig into season two with you and kind
of explore. Yeah, how the show deals with what happens
in the second game, because it's somehow even.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
On tomorrow's episode of x they Were Not for beired.
On tomorrow's episode of x RA Vision, we're diving into
the eighth episode of Dared Were Born Again. It's it
for this episode. Thanks for listening, Farewell bye. X ray
Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Knight and
is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Our supervising producer is Abusafar.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay wag.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
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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