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May 31, 2025 160 mins

The Season finale begs many questions. Why do we fight? Who are we fighting for? How much are we willing to lose in the pursuit? With a gigantic cliffhanger, maybe we'll find out what makes BOTH Abby Anderson and Ellie Williams so special.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
We are squawking dead, a podcastpulverizing programs beyond The
Walking Dead universe. Sometimes we give you news.
Sometimes we make you laugh. Most times we go deep.
I'm your host, Steve Cammy, and I was joint.
I am joined by me. Tells my mom, 09.
Lazy Gardner. Bridget, you can find me at
youtube.com, slash at Punky Brewster.
That's PUNKYBRUISETER. And Karina of Etta Karina art.

(00:42):
You can find me on Instagram at at CARINAE under Score D and
Etta Karina Art and everything else.
And of course we're here to talkto you with you about you
against you outside you inside you about the Last of Us is
season 2 finale titled Convergence.

(01:03):
We have a lot of if a bit of a housekeeping because we just
came back from the camp this Memorial Day weekend in the
United States of America. And I don't know about you, but
I had a pretty damn good time, which such is the case every
time we go into the camp. Essentially, we always have
these concerns beforehand and then all of a sudden they are
melted away. But I wanted to get your read on

(01:25):
the room. We should talk about the camp
for a little while because I know that a lot of people were
asking about it and I wanted to know what you guys thought.
What you guys what what were your highlights and low lights?
Let's start in the order of our saying hellos.
So like Rachel, how about you? What was your highlight?
Well, forget all the low lights,just the highlights.
Just the highlights. The highlight of my weekend was

(01:46):
obviously meeting Gino. Bridget was gracious enough to
bless me with some tickets to his special effects
demonstration, which was absolutely fantastic, and then
afterwards I somehow mustered upthe courage to go talk to him at
his table. Which was, but what is?
His last name again. Shut up.

(02:07):
No. It's an opportunity.
It wasn't how you said it. No, it wasn't.
But they Adina. What's the name?
Davina, Davina, I always say it wrong, Davina, said Krugnale.
Davina. Who is Davina?
Just for anybody out there. Davina was his like.

(02:30):
Like. Handler kind of person, his like
agent person. Yeah, OK.
His official person? Yeah, it was does.
She know that she's saying it wrong.
I think she's saying it right. She knows him so.
If she were. Wrong.
I think he would correct her, don't you?
Well, actually. Maybe he's just being nice.
Dave's just saying. Here's why is it.

(02:50):
Wrong, Gina, I. Know here's why.
Here's why she's wrong. Here's why she's wrong.
No, it was. It was incredibly validating to
be able to watch him work and ask questions about his process,
his products, what he was doing.That you were doing things
right. That I was doing that I'm doing
things right in my own work yes I mean we use we use the same

(03:14):
products we use the same brands.So it was it was very validating
to know like you know I got it right.
I, I don't know why, but for some reason I thought we would
be in a room full of other makeup artists, right?
Like everyone is there for the same reasons I am.
That was, that was most definitely not the case.

(03:35):
Everyone's asking like, what wasit like to work with this person
and that person and and I'm like, what brush are you using?
And why is that a good brush to do for that specific thing?
Why do you choose that brush? What are you diluting that with?
Asking real industry questions. Yeah.

(03:56):
He was like, I'm 50% more into this chick with the pink hair
and you introduce yourself to you later.
No, no, but. Stranger thought I.
Was asking all the right questions.
Apparently Davina can't, you know, found me later.
I ran into her later and she wasvery impressed with the
questions I was asking so. Neo.

(04:18):
Neo. The One asks before we continue.
Did anyone get the Camp Conflu? I hope not.
No. No, the Korean did you get it
by? Proxy.
I woke up with a very today, so I did.
Oh I have a cough but it's from pre convention sickness which

(04:40):
has never happened to me but didthis time.
Psychological. What is it called Psychosomatic.
Like you knew it was coming so you just pre did it.
Got sick? No, it's, it's real.
It's. Real.
Didn't know the camp had that ability.
Mitchell wasn't even there this year.
Rob Luke Casey's in the chat as well.
To bring me his mutation. To sleep in my bed.

(05:00):
Canadian. Dreams not sick weird but Rob
Luke Casey hi thanks for the shout out on TikTok Yes and he
says he's watching the big screen but commenting here lol
hi guys so oh so charity highlight.
My highlight Oh. She's going to make me sound
like a jerk now. As is always is hanging out with
you guys OK, like we always That's my main thing of course.

(05:22):
But aside from that, it was it was hanging out and talking to
Garrett, just chit chatting withhim for a little while.
Oh yeah, awesome. Garrett Dillahun from You're The
Walking Dead and Beyond My Mom. Made him a Bert Chance doll, so
I gave that to him and we just, you know, I think to him again
for always participating and donating to our benefits and

(05:44):
stuff and we just chatted a little bit.
It was nice. Bridget Highlight.
Actually, one of my highlights is meeting people who listen to
our podcast because that's it's always like this really surreal
thing where you're like, dude, why do you do that?
But I, I was really thankful to meet Rob and his family in
person. So thanks, Rob, Rob's.

(06:06):
Releasing the chat on Facebook who has his own TikTok presents
whom I encourage you all to check out and get cut off
because I got distracted by Rob Matthews saying hello.
I got in touch with today. I was happy to and just I'm
happy to see you here. And as is the case, one of the

(06:28):
things that happened when we metRob Lucasey and his family,
which which is just great because just so everybody else
knows, I'd already been following Rob on TikTok ahead of
time. But then his wife had contacted
me to follow Rob. And then I was doing the thing
where I was checking. I was like.
I'm already. Following this guy, but you're
the sweetest. I'm going to follow you now
because you're just incredible. And I hope you knew about that.

(06:50):
Rob, by the way, but in additionto that, when we got there, Rob,
he basically pulled us aside andhe pulled a gun on us and he
said sign it. And I said, excuse me, Sir, what
do you mean by sign it? I don't know what you mean.
And he gave us a pen while holding us at gunpoint, said
sign this sticker that you just gave me.
And I said, Sir, you could have just asked nicely.

(07:12):
And then we did, which is real street.
Just some dovetail to Bridget's thing.
He did not pull a gun on us. Everybody, obviously, I tell
tall tales for a short person. So that was fun.
That was a cute little thing that we did.
Oh, I guess it's my turn. My highlight, which is pretty
easy actually, is the number onething I did.

(07:33):
The first thing I did, it's probably the only thing I like
doing, is going up to Sookie andgoing up to her vendor tables.
Sookie Martinson, who's an incredibly talented artist whom
you should check out, just like Karina, you should check her out
as well. I'm being very aggressive about
this, but you shouldn't. If you haven't, shame on you.
And I'm going to pull a gun on you and make you sign it and you

(07:55):
pull a Rob, Rob Lucasey, who definitely did that to us.
And we when we signed that bumper sticker that we gave him.
And you should visit Sookie. And when I did, she and I, of
course, walk the floor as we do.She gives out her own prints to
the talent in on the autograph Alley area where people get

(08:15):
their photo op, but not their photo OPS, their selfies and
their autographs. And she does this so that
hopefully she she can get them to sign things for them to give
away or for her to get back so that she can give it away for
charity for people like us, people like us when we have
charities. She has a bunch of signed prints
from these talents and then she can contact people like us, not
just us, but other people too, and hopefully raise money on

(08:39):
behalf of many charities. And one of those people was
Alana Masterson, who played Taraon The Walking Dead.
And the best part about that forme was she started going off on
the idea that, first of all, it's a crime.
Rob Lucasey knows this, obviously, because part of his
shtick on TikTok is to highlighthis collection and most of which

(09:00):
is Funko Pops. Again, follow Rob Lucasey, I'll
hold you. But at some point, and the
criminal thing is that Tara doesnot have a Funko Pop Dog has two
Funko Pops, but Tara Chambler onThe Walking Dead does not have
even 1. And so she started going off

(09:21):
obviously riffing. She's like, you know what, You
know what, why does dog have twoand I have none?
And I said not even a stick on ahead on a stick for the like the
Pike seat. It's like not even that.
It's like not even worth that. And we started going back and
off, you know, and Carl McKinnonhas one and she's just like, F
that guy. And if I ask, you know what, F
that like, we're going back and forth saying F you to Carl

(09:41):
McKinnon. Who played?
Who did he play on the show? Richard.
Richard, Right, Richard. Richard has one, And you?
Know F the Dog 2. Times because he got 2 Funko
Pops and she and I were just, she was laughing hysterically at
just us basically F you and CarlMcKinnon in real life.

(10:04):
You know, she's like, and he's such a nice but you know what?
F that guy and she's like you know what?
She grabs me by gunpoint, by theway.
Also, what is with all the guns in Georgia?
I, I, I don't own a gun. I don't know the culture.
And she she says take a selfie with me and we took a bunch and,
and then Google Photos made a jiff out of one of them.

(10:25):
I just wanted to say Jiff. OK, Jandalf.
Exactly. You see, Karina knows, Karina
knows. And I'm so I want to just say
I'm so sorry that Karina wasn't there.
And I wish she was because it would have been great because we
like Karina. That would have been fun, but I
was at a BBQ so I was still doing stuff.
So but you don't like gun? Thankfully, no.

(10:46):
No gunpoint. Oh, thank goodness it's Memorial
Day in gunpoint. What's happening in the United
States. Oh, my goodness, mainly in
Georgia. So he is the one who says, I'm
going to go back to the chat really quickly.
And then Bridget, I'll hand overthe reins.
But I go over, I go to the couple cons a year and I get it
like half the time. And he is the one who gets the
conflu right. Matthew says, probably.
Casey says, absolute pleasure meeting all of you, too.

(11:09):
That gun thing though, man, comeon.
You just have to ask nicely, Sharon.
He says hello. Rob Matthews says good to see
you all, good to see you too, Rob Matthews.
And Rob says kind of frame the sticker and the gun laughing
emoji. I mean, yeah, I should have
signed the gun. Why didn't we sign the gun guy?
This is what I. Thought you were saying at first
when I was like you pulled. Out a gun, he said.
Sign. It I was like, sign the gun.

(11:30):
That seems like something you would do at a Walking Dead
convention. Like, very aggressive.
You know, I should have told thestory where the where his wife
pulled out the gun and pulled this aside to sign the bumper
sticker. I actually was sitting here
thinking I didn't sign a gun. It was a.
Anyway, anything else we want toadd about the camp before we

(11:51):
move on? Because Rachel had done some
pretty cool events. The glowy Okie MCM seeing,
right? I guess that would be
technically, yeah. And then the halfway to
Halloween party, basically not without its pitfalls, which we
went through extensively. If you want to find out more
about that, we'll have a Discordchannel dedicated to it.

(12:13):
No, we won't. It's fine.
It's fine, everybody, it's fine.I enjoyed seeing all of the
creativity that people had in intheir costumes.
It was a lot of fun seeing all the creative things people came
up with. I know, like I was saying to
Karina earlier, they had a group, the Relishing the Dead
group did the production company.

(12:35):
I just thought that was really clever and funny.
Like each person was dressed up like a different person, the
production company, and it was like they were filming the star
walking in. I just thought that was that was
really cute and I loved the the Hannibal Lecter and the nurse
too, so that was a lot of fun. They were the bat.
I mean, I'm glad they won too, That, that was pretty awesome.
Well, you know, there were tons of votes that Rico and I had to

(12:56):
go through. Just kidding.
Yeah, damn. I was just like, did I just did
I miss a whole chunk of that napwhere there was like rigorous
debate? Over.
No, Rico and went well, who do you like?
Who do you like? I like that one and then that
one and then, and then we pickedour.
Favorites and then. We picked our favorites and then
pulled them up front and then let everybody cheer for the for

(13:18):
the winner. And basically almost everybody
got equal amount of cheers. Oh yeah.
No, there was a lot. Of difference well.
Yeah, he was the clear winner. Very clear.
The highlight of the glow Yoki party was Rachel and Paola
singing a song together, which was it was what more than words
and not what you guys did? No and and also the other

(13:42):
highlight was Tom Paine doing jump around because boy did he
get everybody poem. Holy crap.
It's so funny because when we heard him sing, I was like, hey,
I was just like, what is happening?
But B, then I'm like, I'm an idiot because he and his wife
are in a band and I'm like, I just completely mind erase the
fact that they are talented musicians and singers and like.

(14:04):
Oh, yeah, OK, yeah, it checks out.
Yes. You know, Yeah, Yeah.
What else? What else?
Rob Matthews says. Hey, Punky, good to see you.
Nice to see you. Any other housekeeping?
Oh well, let's just say this because in the interest of time,
I posted a short and also socialmedia social media clips about
this. I said because of the interest

(14:25):
of time we're actually going live tonight.
Obviously we did we went live for the Last of Us for the
entire season 2. Thank goodness, but in addition
to that, we're going to be goinglive tomorrow.
Question mark yeah, probably talking about The Walking Dead,
Dead City. Same time, same bat time, same
YouTube channel talking about The Walking Dead Dead Cities
fourth episode of season 2, which I have not even gotten a

(14:48):
chance to see. I'm sure most of you haven't
either. question mark Bridget says no and also coughs a lot
just narrating. And so we're going to go a lot
to discuss that too and hope andwell in all this to say actually
is that since we got a late start on The Walking Dead, Dead
City and we want to get these episodes out before Sunday,

(15:09):
we're trying out something new. And that is we're going to try
to very minimally edit these twoepisodes.
Bridget getting me sick. It's not you.
We're minimally, we're going to get these episodes minimally
edited to get these out on time.The key here is what I'd like to

(15:30):
do is see, and this is for the hardcore people listening and
this is mainly for podcast platforms.
So I'm talking to you, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, all the
other podcast platforms. If you enjoy this over the
lovingly and thoughtfully editedpodcasts that we've had for the

(15:50):
past 7 1/2 years. At first it was aggressively
edited, I will admit that, But in the last few years, five or
four or five years, they've beenlovingly edited.
If you prefer the unedited episodes, largely, please, if
you're listening to what on whatever platform you're
listening to, if there is a comment section, leave a comment
saying you do or don't. Actually, if I get 10 positive

(16:11):
reviews of the unedited episodes, I will minimally edit
these episodes. That will allow us to do a lot
more. It'll depending on how that
works out. It could leave the door open to
possibility in what we can do. Simultaneously, we could see how
things go from there. I can have a life that's great.
I think that's great. I what do you think there?

(16:35):
There are positives and this is only if you like it, if you
prefer the edited episodes. I am more than happy going back
to that because what we want is what you want.
Don't do this. Don't do me any favors.
This is all for you. I, I do this out of love.
So again, wherever you're listening to, if they don't have
a comment section or a review section or, you know, we put the

(16:57):
five stars in the thing, go to ratethispodcast.com/walkingdead
and say something nice at first.You know, obviously do the
thing. You're going to do the thing.
Then tell us, hey, I much preferthe this unedited episode.
It sounds great. And please do that from now on
and that'll be enough. So let us know.
Rachel says, I feel like I saw avery good spread of a lot of

(17:20):
characters in response to, well,stuff.
Why did? You make me sound like that.
Because you're here, you could say it out loud.
So what was that in response to Rachel?
You said. They somebody asked if there was
there a walking to cosplay people did the most.
Neo's the one. Bridget said in most years,
Princess has been maybe the mostpopular.
This year I do. This year I do feel like I saw a

(17:41):
lot of a lot of different characters.
I I I can't say I saw. Mostly.
This or mostly that? Yeah, there was even somebody
even dressed up like Stephanie with the ice cream cones.
Yes, you know which. Costume you actually like the
best? The Severance costumes.
Yeah, it was and. Now that you know it, yeah.

(18:03):
Isn't that great that you now understand it, Rachel?
Yeah. Helly, R and.
Mark S. Mark SI was going to be Scott,
Adam S. Adam S.
Was it the winner of the cosplaycontest?
Someone who dressed up as the comic book.
Yes, I didn't get to see it but I heard it was.
I can talk about it. I was there.

(18:23):
Oh yeah, Paola. Not Paola.
I was at the cosplay. Comic book version No.
No, no, she didn't win. She had a great costume.
Oh, no, yeah, no. The girl who won the cosplay
competition was dressed as the final issue of The Walking Dead.
So it just looked when she walked in, she looked like a
cereal box because like she knows she was like.

(18:46):
It does kind of look like a Wheaties box, but.
Like, yeah, it was just like a. Soviet Russia.
Wheatie Box. Anyway, so it's like the front
and then the back and and then she did like a spin blah
RuPaul's Drag Race and then likeopened up this comic book and in
it was a full dress that was black and white, the comic like

(19:08):
print. And then it was inside of the
box that she had made into the comic book.
So it was just a really cool, very impressive costume.
And she won and the other personI just.
Want to be clear? No Who?
Who is she dressed as? The.
Comic book She was dressed as the comic book.
I saw a picture of it so it makes sense to me.

(19:28):
So even though I wasn't. There, Dave is really not
getting it. She was.
Dressed like a comic. She was dressed as an issue of a
comic book. OK.
No, it was the dress thing that threw me off.
Like I thought she might have looked like somebody.
OK. No, because you like open it and
it's the comic inside. OK, OK.
Does that make sense? You know, it was the dress
thing. Is there something about the
dress that was there? Anything particular about the

(19:49):
dress? No, it was.
It was the print of the comic book.
I feel like you're not understanding what I'm saying.
No, it's pan dress. It was pan.
The. Dress was made out of Prince.
That's all you have to say. I don't understand because you
have to describe the things for the podcast audience.
I was you weren't it just wasn'tworking.
I. Disagree, I think.

(20:10):
Anyway I. Was.
Trying to mention the other costume that I thought was
really cool, which was a Cherokee rose in a beer bottle,
and that girl made that dress and it was beautiful.
Now is the Cherokee. I'm kidding.
It's the show. Calm down everybody.
It was it. Was very nice.
You might have asked is her. Dress the bottle.
Oh my gosh, it's fine. It's fine.
Yes, it was actually. But only the lower half.

(20:34):
But don't say that out loud, because then Dave will get
really confused. Wait, what the lower half wait
is then is her head the Cherokeerose?
Is it? Was it actually or did she wear
like a hat with a flower? You know what, I have a picture.
I will send it to you. No, I don't want it.
Good. He doesn't want to know.
My imagination ran wild. It's fine.
I love it better. All right, read the chat.

(20:55):
Oh, that was very sudden. It was very aggressive.
Oh, my goodness. All right, Rob Matthews says.
I don't know about anyone else, but I started to find Daryl
Dixon incredibly frustrating, frustrating during season 9 of
The Walking Dead, especially when he fell in the hole with
Rick. Rob, I love you, but I am going
to disagree with you because I am ride or die for Daryl.

(21:18):
So, but I love you so much. I love you so.
Much by the way, Rob, I felt theway you did at the time, but we
talked about it on the podcast, which I suggest you listen to.
When we talked about that episode, my mind changed because
you know what? That's what this podcast is all
about because you talk about thestruggle of wanting Carl's

(21:39):
vision to be in fruition. But then you realize, well,
especially after episode 5, which I hope you got into.
Yeah. Well, I'm about to sort of talk
about it now, actually. What a convergence of ideas.
Because is it worth the cost? Is it worth the price?
Continuing the episode title from the last episode.

(21:59):
But yeah, if it if it's worth losing everyone in the pursuit,
is it worth Carl's vision or I? Just panicked so much.
I thought you were saying that we were covering Dead City and I
was like, Oh my God. You got a Rachel moment, I.
Was like, Oh my God, I'm not OK,I didn't watch that.

(22:20):
OK, OK. I'll, I'll tag onto this.
Rob Matthews. I I suggest you watch.
Well, first of all, keep watching The Walking Dead.
I'm sure you've watched all of it.
But anyway, watch The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon, if you
haven't already. Is it he just fleshes out
Daryl's character so much more. You get such a better
understanding of his character that you may never have gotten
from the show because it's. Crunch.

(22:42):
A lot. Olive oil and yeah, whatever.
All right, big mad, Daryl's big mad all the time, right,
Bridget? She shakes her head
disapprovingly, but smiling. Well, then, the time is 9:00 to
discuss the title of this episode, which may get annoying
because it's called Convergence.Did you know that?

(23:04):
Waiting around the room? Oh wow.
OK, everybody knows the title. I actually did.
I made a note before we talk about.
It for once in my life. Slight divergent from the
convergence is that in the titlesequence it went it did go back
to the single fungus. Going back to the title.
Now what does convergence? How does Convergence relate to

(23:24):
this episode starting with Rachel?
Oh wow. Always.
Rachel Yeah, There's of course the obvious thing.
Right? Where, you know, Ellie and maybe
finally converge, right? Yes.
Boom. Nailed it.
Exactly she. Got it.
Careful with that gun holster. No, not the boys.
Holster those pals just. Holster them.
Come on with your finger guns. Oh my goodness.

(23:47):
Spin move. I have a Rob Lucasey on her
hands. Jeez, Louise.
All right. Shall we move on?
Does anybody else have anything?Nailed it.
Yes. That's it.
Nothing can beat it. Nothing can beat these
convergence with shimmer. We finally.
I get answers about shimmer, yes.
God, she's still OK. She's fine.
In the music store for now, listening to her.

(24:09):
Records. I don't even, I don't care.
Keep going so. I'm kidding.
Ellie converged with the Sarah fights.
I'll just let me just step in because because I I just.
I agree. Actually, I am.
I was glad to hear that Shimmer was safe.
Yeah. OK, You got me fine.

(24:29):
It's OK to care about animals. I don't wanna though.
I don't know, it's like he feelslike it makes him weak or
something. Secret.
They feel like I'm in like a human supremacist group, but I
secretly have feelings for animals.
I'll tell you guys like a littleEaster egg.
Humans. A human supremacist human.
Supremacist group? Yeah, yeah.

(24:50):
I was not aware this existed. Yeah, this is not the first
time. That's what PvP is.
It's people, people, people. Where's my card?
Where's my card? Passport was revoked.
They found out you cared about animals.
The Walking Dead season 6. Pets.
Pets. Pets.
Oh no. Season 7, anyway.

(25:12):
Say, Shimmer's fate in the series is much better than her
fate in the game. She gets blown up by a landmine
in the game, yeah. That's pretty.
Awful. You see, you had said something
ominous about Shimmer in a priorepisode.
And I was like, that's why I wasworried, because I was like, Oh
my God. Well, In the day is still young.

(25:32):
She can still get blown up. Thanks.
I don't have to go forward to I'm.
Hoping considering the way this episode ended, like they're
they're moving past the possibility of Shimmer getting
hurt. So, you know, I mean, it's
always. Possible, but I don't know.
Why they would do that to us? But to delay gratification quote
UN quote like. It's a big part, it happens in
like 2 seconds and we forget about it in the game because.

(25:53):
I hope it does actually going on.
Shimmer does nothing but stand in the rain for them and carry
them both halfway across the country.
Like, why do you have? What do you have against
Shimmer? That's all she does.
No, no, I'm just saying the feelings came anyway.
I don't know if getting blown upor just getting left in a
building by herself forever is worse.
She's alive at least, she's got music, she's fine.

(26:19):
What about food? Well, she was snacking on the
things. I have one, who knows?
And it's only been three days. She has plenty of food in there
for three days so far. Awkward.
There was the convergence of thebullets with Owen and what's her
name? Mel yeah, the convergence of
like, yeah, that was. It was horrible.
It was horrible and I hated it. It was really.

(26:40):
Rough. I really hated it.
Hello, hello Shannon new here everyone say hi to Shannon from
London, England from. London.
Sorry to. Shannon.
I'll give you a special shout out.
We'll come back to the comments.And what does she say, by the
way? She said post apocalyptic series
do not like horses. No.
Or doctors for that matter. We've doctors.

(27:02):
Horses don't Sherry. On Fear The Walking Dead and her
problems with horses. Season 6 horses and doctors
always seem to get the short endof the stick in the post
apocalypse. Yeah, no kidding.
Angelia also says love you, Rachel boy, it's taking
everything not to post them pics.
Ha ha ha. Why wouldn't you?
Well, maybe, maybe not. Maybe I was there.

(27:23):
Well, at least the pictures didn't have the things we said,
which was constantly. Oh, what was it again?
What? No there.
Was no video, it was just pictures.
Just I. Think so much Why didn't we take
videos? Because we're not crazy, we're
not that suicidal. Like that's evidence in a court

(27:44):
of law. Also at the at the time I did,
we didn't know whose phone it was.
So right I was like let's be semi respectful and but if I
knew it was you I would have also have been taking video.
Because if you want to post those photos of us, please do
you. Have every right.
Just tag every individual including or just friends.
My favorite is the whole world like this.

(28:05):
So like, whatever you want to do, just put them out there,
yeah. Tag our employers also.
Oh, I don't care. That's fine, it's cool.
I already told them today I cameinto work and they said how was
your vacation? I said there's only one thing I
can tell you and that is hoochie, Daddy, hoochie.
Daddy. All right, well, let's go to the
chat. Christy also new to the stream.

(28:27):
I was trying to avoid the chat so we could keep on track.
Dave and Dave just kept reading it.
I can keep on. Track.
All of it. So let's just move on.
Yeah, pretty much. Well, then there you go.
Okay, Convergence also literallyrefers to the two storm fronts
convergence, which is interesting because yeah,

(28:48):
exactly making a Superstorm, right, right And one of the
things I wanted to say about that was, well, we get the
return of Sergeant Kim. Oh, sorry, Sergeant Park, right,
Whom we saw in that flashback question mark.
Yeah. How much of A.
Flashback. It was, yeah.
We don't see Hanrahan. We don't know.
There's more than one profit, apparently, yeah.

(29:09):
There's more than one. What?
We'll talk about that. What Convergence profits?
What? OK, maybe there's more than one
Seraphight group. What?
I don't know. Anyway, so you see the WF
staging at a Costco of all places, which good on them.
She meets with Isaac Dixon and she says Melissa and Christy are
saying the Stormfront, the Stormfront's a convergence zone.

(29:30):
And I looked it up, and it's a region in the atmosphere where
two prevailing flows meet and interact, usually resulting in a
distinctive, distinctive weatherconditions.
So yeah, obviously storms, obviously hurricanes meeting,
creating a crazy weather phenomenon.
And she says it's going to get even bigger.
What's your face, Rachel? OK, Gotcha.
Gotcha. Yeah.

(29:51):
And what is that if not two things in this episode, at the
very least, if not the entire second season, it's two forces
converging like the seraphights in WLF.
It's 2 protagonists to female figures that have an equal ish
story converging at the end of the episode and they're both

(30:12):
forest fires to be reckoned with.
I know why I said it like that, so there's that.
I think there was one more thingI wanted to mention in terms of
convergence. Well, actually, when I searched
for the term, it is these two ideas butting heads and it is
greater responsibility for one'sloved ones and personal

(30:37):
satisfaction or individual pursuit even, because that will
show up at hopefully in our breakdown and which is more
important. And you could say they have
equal weight. And, you know, personal
satisfaction does have a role inour lives.
And there will be a point at which, in some of these
instances, you'll see that, well, having personal agency can
trump someone else's designs area greater responsibility if it

(31:02):
means losing your identity. Jesse lost the ability to have
the love of his life, let's say potentially in service of his
family. And she did the same.
She went off. She didn't stay.
She had. She felt like she had to go with
her family. So it was equal.
But that came with the price he sacrificed.
Ellie didn't. Small scale, leaving the kid to

(31:24):
be taken by wolf. You're trading off like, your
humanity and your compassion forothers to save your own life.
So it's, yeah, I I could see that kind of woven throughout
the episode. Yeah, and if there's no more
convergences, I'd like to hit onone more evidence of that what I
contend Isaac Dixon feels like, but I know isn't like, or I

(31:45):
don't know, maybe I don't know. The Joel figure for Abby feels
like. However, the way he puts it is
rather than seeing Abby as special in wanting to give her a
better life so that she can pursue her own path, whatever
that may be, he feels like what his version of that for her is
to carry on his legacy, to be the leader that they'd so

(32:07):
desperately need to carry on thefight.
And it's like an opposite mirror, like seeing that these
two forces of nature converge. They both came from different
sacrifices, let's say, one for the greater good and one for
individual liberty, or right, wecan call it that, individual
agency, personal pursuits. So I think that's pretty

(32:27):
interesting. And they're both human
tragedies. But does anybody disagree with
that or did you get the feeling that Isaac Dixon to Abby was a
different thing when she when hewas sitting down talking with
Sergeant Park? You would love with this old man
this. It's not weird that an old man
and a girl right get together. Understand what you're saying
about like him feeling like a Joel.

(32:50):
It did kind of feel that way, right?
Like that. What is this personal connection
to this young girl? So I I mean, yeah, it's fair to
say. Like, how do you endure?
You wouldn't be the first old man.
Civilization's gone. There's no rules.
Yeah. Gross.
She's of age. Too, by the way, so it's like
she's. Still gross.
Still gross. Still gross.

(33:10):
Yeah. So I could see that kind of
being the the story that you're selling a little bit, I guess.
But but she had a Joel and by that jet that I mean a dad.
Yeah, actual dad. Blood, dad.
Blood dad. Right, Rachel?
Blood dad. Flesh dad.
Flesh dad. You're mute.
No blood dad. Blood Dad makes more sense.
Yeah, not flesh, children, Flesh.

(33:31):
Children also makes sense, but most dads are made of flesh, so
blood dad. Makes sense?
Most dads. Most just.
Most most dads have blood. I don't know.
About you but I had a ghost dad so.
Well, I I. Do by that I mean he wasn't, he
wasn't around. I was going to.
Say I do. I feel that, Bridget.

(33:53):
Wow. I mean, how?
I'm sorry, I missed that. What was that?
Yeah, Dad. Dad's club.
Oh, never mind. How much no one wants to be part
of. How much older than Ellie is
Abby? You know, like is she, she was
she pretty? So this is a 5 year time jump.
So Ellie was what, 14? How old?

(34:13):
How old was Abby at the time that her father was killed?
19. Was she still very young?
She was 19. Yeah.
I mean, if you're dealing with grief or whatever, then yes,
Isaac could have been someone who stepped in as her father
figure after her father was killed.
Or did they meet? Did they meet with him later?
I think so. My opinion of it is obviously

(34:37):
colored by my knowledge of the game and what we see we are
going to see in Season 3. I think Isaac and the WLF are a
replacement of the Fireflies andwhat that represented to Abby
and her group more so than a replacement of her father.
Now, I'm not saying it it wasn'tthere altogether, like he might

(34:57):
have seemed like a father figure, you know, certainly a
leader. But I think it's more a
replacement of having a purpose for them because their purpose,
this was taken away once the Fireflies disbanded.
So I think they kind of just latched on to this new group as
a new purpose. It's.
So funny because not it's not funny at all, but.

(35:18):
Laughing because. But I'm laughing because it's
also in Abby is what Ellie so desperately desires, his purpose
and with. And perhaps we'll find out in
the next season. Maybe in Ellie is something that
Abby so wishes she does, she had, which is agency.
Maybe. Maybe.
I mean, you're not far off. Certainly when you get to see

(35:41):
Abby's story, I think you will be very close.
I think you are very close with that assessment.
I'm in the neighborhood. Am I in the neighborhood with
Shimmer in it? Probably.
I mean, I don't know what happens.
In uncharted territory with the horse.
Oh no, now she's back that. Like it's like Shimmer's fate is
not decided yet, the series isn't over.
So Landmine. Pretty sure she's probably fine

(36:03):
if they. Haven't.
Blown her up yet? It's probably not going to
happen, right? We don't.
But Dave, we don't know. We don't.
We just don't know. They made it past day one,
that's all. I'm happy about you, True.
I am too, I'll admit it. I know about what my group is
going to say about it, but when I get back, I know where we
meet. But apparently it's online a
little. Sometimes we have monthly
meetups. The human supremacy group.
Yeah, people, People the. Camp Rachel He.

(36:25):
Was like, what is he people? For people by.
People, right? Like formally.
Oh. Yeah, I think it's weird.
Too, so we call ourselves flesh.OK.
All right. Well, is anybody any any, does
anybody else have anything to say about that relationship?

(36:49):
Abby to Ellie, Dixon to Joel, the vice versa or whatever.
Every time you say Isaac. Dixon I get confused and I'm
like, who is that? Takes a second, Takes a second
every time. You know the WL leader.
Guy. Miss Bridget.

(37:09):
Anyway, sorry is. That Terry's brother, We don't
know yet. Yeah, that's, yeah.
Is that? Another gravestone.
They're going to find in France.Uncle Isaac.
So. I can't.
I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't.
That's another Dixon, actually. I wonder.

(37:31):
All right, well what can I just say this actually, because for
an episode that is just pregnantwith parallels and Mirrors, I
found that it felt like it went by fairly quickly in a sense
that not much happens. Is that fair to say?
Did you feel that too, event wise?
I think. The things that did happen were

(37:51):
big, but there wasn't a lot of, I guess build up to them.
Day three in the game is largelyfilled with traveling across
flooded areas in a motorboat and, you know, getting, making
your way to the aquarium. That's mostly what day three is.

(38:12):
And then of course, what happensin the theater afterwards, you
know, that's, that's all of it. So as far as big events, it is
one huge big event, but there's not a lot of actual story going
on in day three. So I'm not surprised that they
added a few things like Ellie come in contact with the
Seraphytes completely for the series only that does not happen

(38:35):
when she gets knocked over in the boat in the wave that
happens in the game. But you just, you know, she's
like frigate. I'm just going to swim the rest
of the way. And that's what she does.
She just swims to the aquarium after that.
So the entire scene with Seraphytes was added.
And I think it's purely to give you something to be interested
in for what the heck was going on on that island, because

(38:57):
that's part of Abby's story. So we'll figure it out.
Are we supposed to? Assume this is like a media
literacy question and maybe I missed it because, you know, I
can't be perfect all the time. I'm going to cough.
I'm going to cough. I can feel it.
I was, I was waiting for you to argue with me.

(39:17):
It's kind of like a backyard cough.
You are. Perfect.
All the time. I'm just kidding.
So was it. Meant.
To like, was that scene insertedto make you assume that the
scenes with Isaac were happeningright now?
Because that's how I felt. Yeah, I think so, Yeah, I think.
It was good to, but then I was like every other.
Scene that we've had so far we've thought was maybe a

(39:40):
flashback. So it's like, is this actually a
flashback? And that was just put in there
to like fool you. No.
So it was I didn't think. That any of those are
flashbacks, right? But I didn't see it that way
because I. Also know the timeline of the
story of the game, which is those events with Isaac are
happening at the same time on day three so that is a current

(40:00):
event. So possibly they did insert
those so that you would know that they were happening at the
same time, you know, well and just.
The storm metaphor, you see the storm happening from Ellie's
vantage point, so you're meant to think that.
Which again. So actually, that's actually
funny because it's why I thoughtthe flashback with Hanrahan
again, who we haven't seen, was in the past date.

(40:22):
The setting was date time. We don't have too much context
of her in the present other thanthe flashback which we
originally received. So This is why my brain was a
little confused and now I completely think I don't know
what to think of her as a prophet at this point.
Me neither. I just realized.
Something, I'm sorry, it's not related to what you just said
and it's. Not something you can.
Say I know something I can say because we've seen all of it.

(40:44):
I just now having played these games who knows how many times,
realize that Abby confronts and attacks Joel during a snowstorm
and Ellie confronts Owen and attacks Owen and Mel
accidentally during a storm. Like that's also a convergence
of of things that I just realized and did not even

(41:05):
realize because the storm in daythree to has such a different
connotation. It's masking the wolves approach
on the island. So like that's where you kind of
think of it. But at the same time something
is happening with Ellie where she thinks she's about to
confront Abby, but you know, shedoesn't find her there.
She finds somebody else. That's some heavy.

(41:25):
Handed symbolism there, right? Which I didn't even notice until
just. Remember.
A. Storm.
Doesn't make you think about badthings.
Wow. Talk about I don't know if it's
meta or whatever, but Jesse doessay it out loud.
You and me again in a storm. It's like what he actually says.
Yeah, that was weird. You and me.
Again in bad weather. And bad weather was what I was.

(41:47):
Interesting SO. Do you want to go to that
screenshot now? Then yeah, if you have it and
you. Can show it Absolutely.
I can get, so it's a. Little bit.
Of an Easter egg that I noticed for the gamers.
The gamers. Which?
Is very very. Innocuous, I guess for just
regular viewers, you probably only noticed it as just, you

(42:10):
know, world building in a way. So I'll set it up.
Ellie and Jesse are heading out to try and find Tommy and there
is right after the scene where she says, oh, there's two of
them now talking about the profit so.
Yes. So this scene.
Here, I'm so sorry for the quality if it's the one that I

(42:31):
sent you. No, I, I.
Took a screenshot, it's fine. This one I had was terrible.
Yeah. So this this this crane?
That's. Fallen across the buildings
here, that is something that happens to Abby on her day 2
adventure. So they're sort of foreshadowing
that I think in this image here.And it would seem like nothing

(42:54):
to people who don't know what's going on with Abby for.
Me, I thought it was a really cool.
Like foreshadowing. They're doing a lot of that,
actually, in this episode, the foreshadowing of what's going
on. In Abby's story.
Showing Isaac, the scene with Isaac, Ellie getting intercepted
by the Seraphytes 100% just to point you towards something

(43:15):
they're going to explain later because as I said, that doesn't
happen in the games. Also there was another one, I
wrote it down, so wait. But you went straight to that.
So that so you're saying that wasn't in the games, but Ellie
washing up in the shore and encountering the Sarah fights
and almost getting strung up anddisemboweled?
That is not. But it's meant to, hopefully.

(43:35):
Highlight something from the games, it's actually very
similar. To something that happens to
Abby. I'm assuming well because of
context clues. I don't know if anyone noticed
that Abby has a rope burn on herneck when you see her at the
very end. So that event does happen to
Abby in the future. I did not notice.

(43:57):
That she has a rope burn on her neck, yes.
I did notice. It's gone because.
Because at the very end. When you see her, she does not
have it right when it's the flashback to day one.
And I was like. Oh.
Yeah, I did notice. I did notice.
So she has a rope burn on her. Neck because of a similar thing
that happens to her. So slightly spoilery, but like
they kind of already hinted at it.

(44:17):
I just want to say it's. Kind of a side effect of
watching this in Dead City at the same time, but when I saw
the crane, it made me think of Herschel talking about the
twisted bridge between the two buildings that had fallen.
I know what you're talking about.
I mean that was. Exactly that.
Was what I thought. About first because I noticed, I
noticed the crane falling too. But yeah, that was what it made
me think about. And I know it's just because

(44:38):
we're watching both, both at thesame time.
Well, even Dead City season. One had those elements of
people. Zip line.
Across buildings, you have that kind of in your head if you're a
Walking Dead lover, not a Walking Dead hater.
I did find my last note, so when?
Ellie is going through the aquarium and she comes through

(45:01):
the room that has all like the remnants of the surgery that
happened there, all the surgicalinstruments and the bloody rags
and stuff like that. That's also a hint towards
Abby's story, so they're hintingthey're foreshadowing a lot.
Of Abby's. Quest and you know her three
days a lot a lot happens to her and she goes through a lot in
those three days that Ellie's been searching for her.

(45:23):
So I did like all of those, those little additions to kind
of call forward in a way or parallel if you think about it,
because her story's happening concurrently with Ellie.
We just don't get to see it yet.But yeah, down to the like you
said. The whole I did not notice the
rope burns on Abby's neck, and if I'm I didn't even notice if

(45:44):
Ellie had rope burns on her neckfrom having been Yeah, I didn't
notice I almost. Strung up to that, either.
I did. Notice she's wearing exactly the
same clothes that she does in that last part of the scene,
which I hadn't noticed before inthe series, which I, I could, I
mean, she could have been in thesame stuff, I just didn't notice
it. But I guess that scene is so

(46:05):
pivotal. What she's wearing in it just
has burned itself into my brain.So she's in the exact same
outfit that Alien game was in. OK, well, and you know what?
By the way, just to correct the record for those who are only
listening on audio, the person who has posted all the set
photos and prosthetics, her nameis Anne Foley.

(46:26):
I do show on the videos on Spotify video and not even the
live streams and dot Foley on Instagram.
Just I say that only because shehad posted to Ellie's wardrobe
or concept art of what these people will wear before they get
on set and they have the side byside of concept versus them on
set. It's kind of cool, which they've

(46:46):
modeled obviously from the game.Clearly, if they want to have
these little visual beats of thecharacters from the game, Dina
gives Ellie a bracelet of some kind.
I was going to mention that I did not notice.
I couldn't, yeah. I couldn't.
Tell on the screen on when I waswatching it if it had the same
symbol on there, but I did writedown that it is that symbol in

(47:08):
the game. So, and I apologize if I'm
pronouncing it wrong. It's what is it that Hamsa hand?
Hamsa hand. Yeah, It's the, it's the.
Hamsa. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. So her.
Protection. Her little bracelet of
protection. So we know Dina is Jewish.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anne Foley. Is the one who had the picture
of Dina's bracelets, you know, comparing it to the game and the

(47:30):
show and she made several of them.
Just you know, obviously you make several props for an actor
to in case they break them or one cause production in a pocket
you have. The hero 1 you have the fake.
One the Yeah, Isabella Merced took plenty of them.
I'm. Jewish guys, I guess, But well,
actually that's one something I wanted to touch on because we

(47:52):
had talked about I think at the end of the first episode or
somewhere in the middle of the first episode, whether or not
they would actually get into anyof that.
And I'm actually not surprised because I said they probably
wouldn't because of the limited episode run, but they really
wouldn't get into her faith at all.
Or background, let's say, aside from the story about her mom,
which I'm glad they actually gave us at the end because you

(48:14):
had said it prior to and probably in anticipation of not
receiving that story. So just to give you cover, I
wouldn't have thought they wouldhave gone through it already
anyway. So in she does it in town rather
than on the road because that's,I remember the context of you
telling us that story about her mom.
Yeah. So yeah, she told the story.
About the mom in that, and there's also on day one when

(48:34):
you're kind of set loose in the game to kind of just walk around
on horseback and kind of exploreand look for something.
You go into a synagogue and thatthey had set up as like a food
distribution center in the, the QC, the quarantine zone.
So they had taken all of the interior like chairs or seating

(48:59):
or whatever you would have in a synagogue and kind of gotten rid
of all of that and put up like these barricades and things like
that. But you can go upstairs and you
find. Wow, my mind just went.
Blank the scroll. Oh, the Torah.
Thank you. Oh my gosh, I.
Feel stupid. That's OK Yeah.
They find the Torah in there. And, you know, Ellie and Dina

(49:21):
get to have just these short little conversations about
Dina's faith and does she pray and all this other stuff.
So I really like that part of the game because you get just a
little bit of a glimpse into Dina's spirituality.
And, you know, and Ellie also questioning because in season 1,
when the kid gets infected and he's asking her, like, you know,

(49:45):
do you believe in God and do youbelieve in afterlife and stuff
like that? And she's saying, you know, I'm
not really sure. Go back and forth.
So, you know, we kind of now getEllie questioning Dina because
Dina seems very secure in her faith where Ellie isn't.
So she kind of doesn't have a footing that way.
So I like I really like that scene and I'm I'm sad that we

(50:07):
don't have it in the series, butI'm glad we still have the call
back, especially with the bracelet protection bracelet.
So and you know you saying. That now, first of all, thank
you for that, because I can see why they didn't put that in the
game in the show, because it's like you could probably do it in
short mentions if that, but it just seems like it could be

(50:27):
something that they could take out of the game.
I like how they've been focusingon mirrors of the two groups and
well, all the groups basically. But before we get to the hamsa
and like what that means, Rachel's raising her hand
because I was going to say we'regoing to go to the chat.
Can we go to the chat before we go to you or is this directly in
reference to or if it's 8:00? Oh, it's 8:00.
All right, so let's say goodbye to Rachel, everybody, pumpkin.

(50:52):
Rachel. Rachel.
Good night, Rachel. I'm an old lady.
And I go to bed at early. Well, you also.
Had. I'm glad that everybody came out
to say. Hello and goodbye.
I did, but I still got up. At 4:00 and went to the gym this
morning. Yeah, well are.
You back to normal yet? And the body had never mind the

(51:15):
answer's no. Good night, Rachel.
The better way to put. That is, are you at your
baseline right that way? You leave normal.
Animal is. Yeah, that's kind of what I
meant. That yeah, I'm.
I'm. Much more comfortable answering
that question. Yes, yes.
OK. All right, I.
Love you guys. Love you, love you bye bye to
the chat, yay to. The chat because we saw Christy.

(51:36):
Luccio, this was the first time here too.
Is that is that the last? Time did anything with.
Red. OK.
Well, no, no, there were things above that.
No, no, no, no, he said. There wasn't anything more.
No, no, no. Rob Lucasey said.
Love the episode. Hate that I have to wait an
uncertain amount of time for Season 3.
Yeah, Which is fair. Very fair, yeah.

(51:57):
And. Neo said, blown up about
Shimmer. No, I.
Mean wait, I'm sorry, it should have been.
More dramatic. And then what?
He said. It's not graphic.
You don't see much of it, you just kind of get well unless
they decide to show it blown. Off the horse and like the horse

(52:19):
is. Like upset and you can tell
there's definitely something wrong so.
But yes, blown up. Unfortunately.
Then, then. He says if anything happens to
shimmer coming after you, Dave, like human supremacy group, I'm
sorry, I couldn't. Stop it.
Just wanted to dovetail it. Yeah, you made me lose track.
Of where I was shimmer No, it's OK it's OK it's OK all right OK

(52:39):
so then Christy is here and hi Christy and I I said thanks for
being here but like seriously, thank you for being here.
And then Shannon said there's somuch hate about the season
finale on the Last of Us hundreds of videos as well.
And apparently Bella is suing anyone who makes fun of her.
I'm going to be a dad line. I did not.
Hear about that? It is.
Wild that's. Wild to me I've never seen.

(53:02):
That We'll have to look that up.I.
Don't know, That's crazy. Do not think that that is true.
Yeah, you can't sue people for making fun of a line on a show.
I mean you can. Win in England, by the way.
She's also, I don't feel like she's the type that's going to
do that. No.

(53:23):
She also left social. Media because she's tired of
seeing like like it's giving hera negative self-image of herself
seeing all this negative stuff about herself.
So she just left social media, which is the smartest,
healthiest thing that she could have done Yes it is and I still
gonna I'm gonna. I'm going to call some some
light BS on that claim. I don't believe that whatsoever.

(53:43):
That sounds like something that somebody started on the
Internet, right? Yeah.
And I'll say Shannon. To your point, really I we went
through a significant awakening as a result of the last episode
because in. In seeing.
The flashback with Joel, it contextualized that line for

(54:04):
Ellie and it made that line so much cooler than it originally
came off as, which I mean, we didn't mind to begin with.
It would just sounded like Ellie, like, oh, I'm going to be
a dad. What a silly thing to say.
But then this at the last episode made it so much cooler
than it was. I really just want to say that
people need. To lay off of Bella Ramsey,
she's an actor. She's playing a part that was

(54:26):
written. She's not the one making these
decisions. We've said it every.
Episode. Right.
I mean, it's you got people. People, you really need to stop.
I mean, it is stop, stop. And you know what?
We can't. Keep litigating this every
single episode. So I I think we're going to move
on from that point, But I appreciate your comment.
Shannon, is it Shannon or Sharon?
I, it's Shannon. Thank you.

(54:47):
It is. Shannon Neo said if anything
happens to Shimmer, we're comingfor you, Dave.
See, Dave? I would have gotten to it,
Robert. Casey said.
Did Ellie get? Captured briefly by Sarah
Fights. We already discussed that, so
I'm going to move on. Kayla says hello.
Hi, Kayla. Hey Kayla.
Sorry I. Didn't get to see you at the
camp. I saw you from a distance and I
knew you were there. And then Shannon?

(55:08):
Says you definitely can't sue anyone, but this was all over
Twitter. I'm not sure if this was a
rumor, but God knows if that's true just because it's on.
Twitter also does not make it true.
Yeah. No, no.
No, I no. I think that's what Shannon is
saying. She just read it online and she
was sharing, which is an interesting piece of
information. Yeah, I often really like going
on Twitter at the height of like, crazy.

(55:29):
Yes, because some of this stuff people say is so wild and so
funny to me. Entertainment values.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Like there should be disclaimer on Twitter for.
Entertainment purposes upset. Yeah, exactly when.
People got really upset about Norman saying you wanted to film
the Daryl Dixons went off in France and then Melissa wasn't
going to be on it and people lost their minds to me.

(55:51):
And that was. Very.
Very funny to me. We've talked about it in
numerous times because it's one of my all time favorite beefs on
Twitter. Second only to Kanye and Wiz
Khalifa. Second, that makes sense that.
Makes sense because the Kanye. The Kanye.
Wiz Khalifa drama just so good. It's.
More in the popular zeitgeist. Too, if you think about it.

(56:12):
Whereas the Norman Melissa thingand people making up wild untrue
stories about their personal lives.
She's just jealous because blaming Norman's blaming.
Norman's trying to get between them, yeah.
But I know. Melissa wasn't going.
People #1 they're, it's wrong. They're not a couple.
No, we don't need. To get into it, we.

(56:33):
Don't need to get into it, you're right.
You're right and. You're welcome.
Shannon, girl, I got you. I got you.
Context is everything. Let's.
Go to Well, let's go back to thehamsa bracelet because Hamsa is
technically an Aramaic word is is Hamish, which means 5 in

(56:53):
Hebrew and hamsa is in Arabic isfive.
A lot of words in Hebrew and Arabic are from the same root,
usually from because Hebrew in modern Hebrew is derived largely
from Aramaic, which even there there's derivations of Arabic
Aramaic and Hebrew Aramaic. Most modern words in Hebrew are

(57:14):
from different languages, kind of like English too in a sense.
Bottom line, it's from the Aramaic of five, symbolizing the
five Books of Moses, AKA the OldTestament.
But in the hand is deliberately drawn to be an open palm because
that's why the sides are curled out at the ends, meaning to
receive the gift of the five Books of Moses and the five of

(57:34):
the five fingers. Five books and that to remember
that this is a privilege that you've been given this gift in
that when you're out in the world and you look at this, just
remember that to act accordingly, you know, and that
this was given to you. This wasn't forced upon you.
This was open hand. This is a gift.
But what's often found in a Hamza is the evil eye, right?

(57:55):
The little eye in the center. Now the evil eye wards off the
evil eye, which in plain terms is, oh, it wards off evil.
Well yes, but the way in which it wards off evil is it reminds.
You of. It reminds you to not have
negative thoughts towards othersand for others not to have

(58:16):
negative thoughts towards you. Because there's a big kind of
kabbalistic or spiritualistic belief that when you have bad
thoughts towards someone, they can manifest, especially the
harder you believe. It's kind of like the if you
have your inner desire to have something happen.
And why I even say this, why even go into this?
Well, who cares, Dave? Who the hell cares?
I'll tell you why you should care, because if you want

(58:38):
something badly enough, you might just get it.
But you might also get other things that you don't want that
you never thought you would havewanted, but you didn't think of
not wanting. And that happens in this
episode, and it's heartbreaking.It's.
Heartbreaking how? Ellie desperately.
Wanted to find Abby and oh, she found her, but you know the cost
of finding that, you know? Yeah.

(58:58):
Worst part? About it was that Abby found her
Yeah, exactly she. Didn't even find Abby.
They were going to leave, but nothe Lord can I have delivered
Abby in a. Package.
Can I ask a question? Absolutely freaking lutely.
Because I don't want it to be true.
And I'm a big believer in no one's gone until they're gone.
Are you a big believer in that? I like to.

(59:19):
Hold on to it. I like to hold on to it for TV.
'S TV. 'S TV's for TV shows is what I
meant to say for TV's. Is.
Jesse dead. Yeah.
Are we to believe that Jesse is dead?
I'm so sorry. Yes, he got shown in the face.
He's dead. We never got the.
Same. Jesse's girl because it's sad

(59:41):
and it's. So cool Wick and unceremonious
too. And it happens exactly the same
way in the game. He just runs through the door
and he's gone. Yeah.
Run through the door and he's gone because Abby shoots.
And I didn't like that. It was like just.
At that moment, they would like.I hate.
I would burn the world for you, yeah.
To save you. Yeah, I love.
That you brought up. No ones gone until they're gone

(01:00:04):
because when Abby walked out on the ledge at the end of the
episode in the Before and the day one, my God, I was like
stadium. I didn't even put that together,
but. Yes, 100% yeah for those, for
those. Missing contacts Madison in
Madison Clark in Season 4 of Fear The Walking Dead, looks out
upon What is it called? Not the diamond.

(01:00:26):
Well, it's called. They call it the diamond.
It's a baseball stadium. It's Alicia residing.
Alicia opens the curtains. In her in her room and looks out
over the stadium. And I was like, man, it was
almost the exact same thing. Yep, right, right.
Figure what that was called, what was called the diamond,
What was the team called? The armadillos, Yeah.
Well, in the. Yeah, doesn't matter, but yes,

(01:00:47):
yes. I also in that.
Scene She's reading a book called City of Thieves and I
found out something very interesting.
About that book. It is written by David Benioff,
who was one of the showrunners of Game of Thrones, and Craig
Mason said that it was one of his inspirations for the game

(01:01:08):
was this book City of Thieves. And it's a cool little tie in
because we have Pedro Pascal andBella Ramsey who were also on
Game of Thrones. I just thought that was a neat
little. Tie in.
I also read what the book was about but I didn't see a whole
lot of maybe maybe like to season 1 because it's about two
boys who are are set during NaziGermany and two Jewish boy and a

(01:01:32):
Russian boy are sent to find eggs.
Or just higher up? Guys, daughter's birthday and
it's they have like a road trip kind of thing or they run into
all these different problems. So behind enemy lines, right?
Right. Yeah.
Well, just to give you. A little bit.
More of of meat on those bones on the show, the book's title.
First of all, the book title andthe author are disambiguated.

(01:01:54):
So on the show, the title of thebook is called Thieves of the
City. Meanwhile, the book is called
City of Thieves. The author's name in the fake
book is called Ben Davidoff and in real life it's David Benioff.
So I thought that was cute like Chung, tongue in cheek.
Craig Mazin, very nice. Also licensing.
Also, you were in the backgroundof that last episode.

(01:02:16):
However, I did mention this at the end of that last episode in.
So for those of you who are watching on YouTube, this is
going to be exclusive for you. In the published version of the
show. They re released it and.
CGI. Foliage over the person that was
in the background of that scene.I did include the screen cap

(01:02:39):
that we got from the screeners because they didn't erase it
from there. I.
Included that in the clip for which will eventually come out
because I'm way behind. And also for Spotify video, you
got to see that there as well. So I thought that was kind of
cool. But anyway, going back to the
book, I'm going to the Independent actually to for the

(01:03:01):
reference of this book. The book on Abby's lap is titled
Thieves of the City by David BenDavidoff.
It's a fictional title and a play on David Benioff's 2008
book City of Thieves, a World War 2 coming of age novel set
during the siege of Leningrad. And just to touch on that a
little bit, the the plot is likeSharon, he said it was a
fictional novel coming of age story set in World War 2.

(01:03:22):
Siege of Leningrad follows the adventures of to use as a
desperately search for a dozen eggs at the behest of a Soviet
NKVD officer, a task that takes him far behind enemy lines.
It was released by Plume on May 15th, 2008.
The audiobook is narrated by Fallouts narrator Ron Perlman,
released by Penguin Audio on January 8th, 2009.

(01:03:43):
I thought that was a cool tidbitof information.
One of the characters is named Lev.
Thought I throw that out there because I don't know, forget
that anymore. Yeah, I mean, oh.
OK in season 3, you know how I know OK, because they included.
The scene of her. Finding.
The bloody rags and stuff like that.

(01:04:04):
And it's connected to that, thatpart of Abby's story.
So yeah, I'm for sure we're going to get that character.
Yeah. Oh, that's.
Interesting. Oh, that's very interesting.
OK, fine. I'm so sorry.
I thought she was of a differentfact.
See, this is what happens when you when you shoot from the
hippie. My.
Little boy, oh Lev hee. Gotcha, gotcha.
Oh, Wilson, then Here, put thoseaway.

(01:04:25):
Sorry. I'm so sorry, but that's what I
was saying. Like there.
Are so many. Characters in Abby.
Story that I love so much, including Lev, that I was so
hoping we would get and we will,you know, next season.
Indeterminate amount of time we'll get those characters
eventually, yeah. Yeah, well, it's just to kind.

(01:04:45):
Of go back to Robb comment on onwaiting for season 3.
I'm actually OK I feel like I'm going to touch on this and
hopefully we'll go away really quickly.
But there were parts in this episode that actually made me
mad. Why?
What parts do you have to? You have to.
Elaborate now, but it's not a bad thing.
It's just a thing which makes iteasier for me to go.
I can wait. I can wait till the next season.

(01:05:06):
What made you mad? Well, as a matter of fact, this
is something that kind of appears in the shows that we
cover. And that is oh.
We talked about. Daryl Dixon and Carol Pelletier
on The Walking Dead. What was my major frustration
with Carol's character in The Walking Dead season 10?
And you guess the pursuit towards Alpha at the cost of

(01:05:27):
people who are alive the like, unrelenting.
Seeking the unrelenting vengeance plot, right?
Seeking A vengeance for personalsatisfaction.
Well, and you know, I get it. I get it.
The desire to burn the world on behalf of the people you love or
the people you lost, right? The people you love who are
still here and the people you lost who are gone.

(01:05:49):
I get that, who doesn't? It's the whole point of the
show. However, when Ellie just to take
it back to Ellie in this moment,Jesse and Ellie, Ellie are at
the top. They see that Tommy is firing a
sniper rifle. We don't know why we'll find out
in season 3, but Ellie is. Like but.
That's where Abby is. Abby.
The wheel Wheel whale. Whale wheel.

(01:06:10):
Well, it's the aquarium. OK, well, then my deal is that's
what that really put a bad tastein my mouth because that's Uncle
Tommy. And that really bothered me.
Wow, what am I getting emotionala little bit?
She was willing to at that moment because I get it.
Sometimes that flash is like, oh, I'll never get another
chance. Oh, I get that.
I get that. But when Jesse's calmly
explained to her, that's Tommy, that's he needs us, right?

(01:06:35):
He's alive. How would you feel if if us not
going there might have been the very thing that would have saved
him? Turns out that he's fine anyway.
That's fine. That that idea that that you
would sacrifice even a little the chance, the little chance
that you have of the living, thepeople that you actually still
love and care for, for a chance of getting it back at somebody
who wronged you in this world. Bad news for you?

(01:07:01):
That's. That's kind of lesson in this
story for Ellie, Like she keeps making this decision to
relentlessly go after this, thisrevenge.
I saw the. Not even just that.
But even further down in the story we still see her making
the same choice over and over and over again.

(01:07:22):
And it's like so frustrating to watch her do it, especially as a
gamer playing the game because you don't get to control her
mental decision making process. You only control her physical
actions. So to watch her continually and
it's worse in the game. It is so much worse how driven
and focused she is because even to the point of in the series

(01:07:46):
they have made her a lot more caring to her friends and the
people she loves. Even to the point of revealing
what Joel did to Dina in the game she does not tell anyone
what Joel did. They never discuss it.
She keeps it a secret because she knows that if they knew what
Joel did that they would immediately not be part of this

(01:08:07):
anymore. I and when which is.
What kind of Dina kind of says when you said Joel did to Dina,
I'm like, did I miss something? Did Joel do something to Dina?
It's the way it was phrased. I was like that.
Sorry. I meant no, no, no you.
Didn't. Reveal.
No, you murdered. Worded that perfectly to.
She doesn't reveal what Joel did.
To the Fireflies, to Dina or anyone else.
And at least in the series, she does make that clear.

(01:08:29):
And of course, Dina's like, we got to go home right now.
Because if I had known this fromthe start, I never would have
done this kind of, you know, in so many any words.
And what does Ellie do? What does?
Ellie say immediately to that I was like, I agree yeah, let's go
exactly. And that's something else.
She. In the game, never does she
never agrees to go home the the line when they're all gathered
together, Tommy and Jesse and Deena's asleep.

(01:08:51):
But you know Tommy, Jesse and her and she's sitting on the the
edge and they're like, we're going to take this route home or
whatever. And she's like, but Abby just
gets to live. And Tommy's like, like, are you
OK with that? And he's like, it's going to
have to be OK. Can you live with that?
It's like. I'm going to.
Have to and in game as well you have to remember that Tommy is
the one who went first to get this revenge and they were going

(01:09:14):
after to find him. So once they found him their
mission was technically over so that they were going to leave.
But of course, Ellie was also wanting to get revenge on Abby
and all the other. Sacrifices that Ellie.
Made or how should I say? Going through.

(01:09:35):
Abby's list of friends wasn't really part of the plan.
She only ever wanted Abby. What she ended up doing was
getting rid of everybody except for Abby, and that wasn't
originally the plan. And ultimately it's what brought
Abby to them, right? So all the little things that.
Happened along the way. All of her friends.
Getting hurt. By Ellie.

(01:09:55):
And and Tommy trail of dead crumbs.
Exactly that's. Exactly why Abby showed up in
the 1st place. And of course you'll get to see
that in season 3. Exactly how that transpired.
So yeah, this. Relentless pursuit of revenge

(01:10:16):
that's frustrating for you to watch.
It only continues to happen. Like she just keeps doing it.
You know you. Saying that tells me something
very interesting because, OK, first of all, I like that they
do it this way because there is more of an emotional impact when
one is vacillating between wanting to protect their friends

(01:10:36):
and just snapping and seeing redand saying there's only chance
I'll get. That's more realistic to me.
The constant drive for revenge does not seem realistic to me
because a Because Do you remember what I said when it
came to the span of time that itwould take to get from Jackson
to Seattle? You have time to think, you have
time to digest, you have time tolive, you have time to turn back

(01:10:57):
if you want to. At this I'm saying in general as
people, right, you have time to rethink your decision to go
after these people, I think. That's why we see.
This ally partially, partially also having sexish, wait, an
intimate encounter with Dina, asyou said in an earlier episode,

(01:11:18):
because then that's what isn't what is life for if not for
having the people you love and being with them and finding
them? Well, Jesse, poor Jesse.
Yeah. And especially, you know, now.
That Ellie was so quick to say oh I'm going to be a dad.
Like she never once questioned starting a family with Dina.
Like she absolutely was on boardwith it 100% from the start.
Shouldn't that be enough for her?

(01:11:40):
It's not she decided to. Stay even.
After learning that she. Decided to stay and get revenge.
Now I will say Dina made a pointto tell her that it was
important to her too to get revenge for for Joel which is
again something that does not happen in game.
So Dina is there specifically for Ellie, I mean in the game.
She's there just. To help Ellie, because she cares

(01:12:01):
about Ellie. It's not really suggested that
she had any kind of relationshipwith Joel.
So there's different dynamic in the series.
I think they're doing it very, very well.
I like that. And Ellie, again, as you said,
oscillates between wanting to protect her friends and then all
of a sudden deciding that getting Abby is the most
important thing to, you know, she has this back and forth.
She has a struggle with it. She's struggling with it whereas

(01:12:23):
in game a lot. Of it is.
And I was going to mention this anyway, that in the series,
they're not focusing as much on how much PTSD Ellie has from the
incident with Joel, watching himget killed.
So in game, it's mentioned several times that she doesn't

(01:12:44):
eat and she doesn't sleep and that she, you know, is
struggling every single day withthis.
And she believes the only way tofix it is to get rid of Abby, to
make her pay for it. So that's part of the drive of
her constantly going forward andmaking, you know, sacrifices of
her friends and her own well-being.

(01:13:04):
And, you know, the smart decision because she feels like
this is the only way she's goingto be whole again.
So they haven't really, they touched on that in the series.
So I I don't know if they're going to focus on that later,
because there's something that happens in the prologue portion
that's pretty intense. That's that shows Ellie's
struggle that they may show, youknow, in season 3 or season 4,

(01:13:27):
depending on, you know, what we're doing.
Yeah, to give you a little bit more.
Context about why she suddenly flips Yeah yeah and seeks.
That revenge they. Haven't been showing a story,
been concealing it or if they just.
It hasn't manifested for her yetpossibly in in the series, but I
said in the game it's it's definitely something that they
mentioned quite often and she often has.

(01:13:47):
It's represented by her staring out like with 1000 yard stare
and the camera zooms in on her hand shaking.
That's a common recurring image that happens in the game to kind
of suggest that she's strugglingwith this situation.
She's she's lost her sense of like, steadiness.

(01:14:07):
You know, that's interesting too, because isn't.
That one of the symptoms of infection.
Infection. Yeah, it is.
And she can no longer hold her. Hands steady because she's got
this constant like burden weighing on her soul because of
what happened with Joel. So which?
And we all know. Stress can leave you
immunosuppressed, right, Right. Yeah.
So that's. Interesting.

(01:14:29):
OK, good to file away one of thethings.
I questioned. Speaking of lowering your
health. You know.
Resistance. She came back to Dina and
didn't. Question the.
Possibility that she might have spores on her even though she

(01:14:49):
was just down in there and she'sgoing to go and sit next to an
open wound. And next, you know, yeah, she
does tell her to take off her shirt.
So I don't know, I just cover. I also think.
It's pretty sad that even after she sees what revenge leads to,

(01:15:11):
IE the baby dying because I can't remember the lady's name.
She died Mel's baby. Mel's baby.
Died. But she was also the one that
was just yelling at Jesse for letting a kid die.
And then she has to turn her. She has to do her turn around
and do the same. Well, she doesn't have to.
But it's it's just, it's sad that she doesn't learn.
I mean, so the Sarah fights got her.

(01:15:32):
She almost died. She didn't learn from that.
She's just like, oh, I got to keep going.
And then she finds out what happens That isn't even to her.
Something terrible happens to aninnocent child, and she still
doesn't learn from that. Yeah, she didn't mean obviously.
For that to happen, it's very clear in the series that that
was an accident. Whereas in game she does
deliberately kill Mel, although she again did not know that she

(01:15:55):
was pregnant, so that remained the same that she was unaware of
that until what a. What a.
Crazy one. What a crazy scene, I know, but
yes. That she she lives long enough
to bleed. Out yes and and and and as brain
death happens like the blood is not reaching her brain she's
repeating the oh is is the baby OK or you're doing great you're

(01:16:17):
doing. Great things.
She's probably said 100 times toother patients, like, you know,
I wanted Ellie say. Yes, yes, tell her the baby is
out. Ellie, just give her that little
bit of relief. And I got to tell you, that
scene was so. Much harder in the series than
it was in because I agree Ellie does have a panic attack after
she finds out that she's killed a pregnant woman.
Like she she freaks out over it and she's like inconsolable.

(01:16:40):
Basically, when Tommy and Jesse come to get her, they have to
drag her away. But the events of the game are a
little bit very similar against the same but different.
You know, the same conversation happens with Owen where she's
trying to get them to like she'strying to use the the tactic
that Joel and Tommy taught her about how to get information

(01:17:01):
from people. So she's trying to accomplish
that where the difference is Melis the one that's closer to her.
So she's having Mel point out where it is, and then at some
point, Owen goes for Ellie's gun.
She shoots him, and then Mel in the game attacks her to try to
get the gun away from her. And Ellie decides the best thing

(01:17:23):
because she's like, you know, getting overpowered.
She ends up using her switchblade and stabs Melon in
the neck. And yeah.
And then Owen dying on the flooris, like, trying to plead with
her, like, he's got blood comingout of his mouth and everything.
He's trying to tell her she's pregnant, like, and he can't
quite get the words out. And then then Ellie figures out
she unzips Mel's jacket. Mel is already dead.

(01:17:45):
She got stabbed in the throat and she realizes that Mel is
pregnant and she starts freakingout.
An interesting change too. The reason that Abby finds them
at the theater in game is because Ellie drops her map, the
one that she was using this whole time to figure out where
to go. And she's been making notes and

(01:18:07):
everything, and she marked down their base of operations on her
own map, you know, so that she can find her way around.
Well, in the chaos and her having this panic attack, she
drops this map and leaves it in game.
Yes. In game.
OK. And so that is the reason that
Abby is able to find them later.So I'm curious to know how she.
Finds House. Doesn't here?

(01:18:27):
How does she find? Them why I'm glad you because I
was like are you going to say something we shouldn't know No,
I'm curious because I. Don't know how she finds them.
I mean, you see myself. In my face I was like, no, I'm
not. Why are you saying?
This. So no, that's you're saying.
This, this thirst for revenge might be a sick habit.
Oh. My gosh, yeah, it might.

(01:18:49):
Be. That's so great.
Good. That's really good.
I did look at it. I thought that.
Was a movie, and I did look at it like I thought it was a movie
title until I went to try to look it up.
Yeah. And somebody had pointed out
that it was not, But yeah, yeah,it's her band.
Her favorite band? I think you let slip that it's.
Abby's favorite band too. Is it or something?
I have no idea. I don't know, I thought maybe

(01:19:11):
that was another thing. They're shared.
Like hated. Sick habit.
No, Yeah, but. To go back to the the scene in
the TV series is so much harder and so much more brutal in a
way, because Ellie clearly did not mean to kill Mel.
Where in game, I don't think shedidn't go in there intending to
kill either of them, but it justsort of happened that way.

(01:19:32):
She was defending herself because Mel was attacking her.
But you know, it's it's so much sadder here.
I feel like yeah, it's it's less.
Gruesome, yeah. It's less gruesome.
But it's more just one more impactful.
It was so difficult. To watch that scene.
It was a little bit foreshadowedin.
The book that Ellie picks up in the bookstore, The monster at

(01:19:54):
the end of this book. Because if you're familiar with
this book, you know that when you get to the end, it's a
mirror. You're the monster at the end of
the book. I was going to say I have it.
I have it if. You would like me to go get it?
I had it too as a kid. I have it.
Here in my house, she she takes that book.
And of course, by the end of this episode, she is the monster
at the end of the of the of the,of course, when you finally

(01:20:17):
realize it. Yeah.
Well, can I go into that? Because I went through the
bother of actually getting a synopsis of that book.
But wait, Bridget is the same before you do.
I'm so sorry. But I am fading super fast.
I did not get much sleep becauseI didn't get home until like
1:00 AM and then I had to go to work and then I had to go to
work this morning. So I'm just, I'm, I am so sorry.
I normally would just like, suckit up, soldier up, but you?

(01:20:39):
Can tell I'm like. Zoning.
You guys were talking just like this.
You're a consummate professional.
I could thank you. Thank you.
I'm trying. I'm really trying, but I like.
I'm so close to being like like.Like I, yeah, I'm like.
I'm so. Sorry, I just, I, I cannot make

(01:21:02):
it much longer. I don't think so.
I think I'm going to go ahead and and call it quits here.
I love this episode. I think this was a really nice
end to the the second season. It makes you excited for Season
3, but it's not a giant cliffhanger.
So you're not like, ow, I'm going to have to wait until

(01:21:23):
season 3. And we don't even know when
they're going to film. Like, it doesn't, it's not like
that. It's more like, OK, this is this
is good storytelling and I I want to see more.
And the I, yeah, the part with Mel, I hated.
I hated it so much. I hate it.
I was. Like screaming at the TV that
for personal reason. Yeah, it hit it.

(01:21:44):
But I was just like, just caughther belly, dude, it doesn't
matter. She's dying and the baby's
dying. And so really any, any chance
you take right now is better than nothing.
Yeah, exactly. I think the.
How I felt about it, yeah. It was worth it.
But she didn't, and that was really, really heartbreaking to
see, and I almost wish that it had been an obvious panic attack

(01:22:04):
instead. Yeah, instead of, Because then.
Like paradise, fear. That she had of.
Like doing anything. So she didn't.
Then I could at least be like, oh, OK.
Get that totally totally understand that that was it was
a rough watch. I think it's pretty sure that.
They haven't had any like super great medical or surgical
training because they bandaged Dina's leg over the jeans.

(01:22:25):
I was not going to bring it up. So.
Angry like I was so. Mad every time I saw him like
what is this? Yeah, that's a movie for sure.
Interesting choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But oh, let's take. This arrow out and now let's
bandage up her bloody dirty jeans right on top of the arrow
hall. Nothing could go wrong.

(01:22:46):
It's interesting, but I'm not. Interested.
What a great way to sign off Bridget.
I'm go. Jesse knows where the arteries.
Jesse knows where the. Arteries are, yet he doesn't
know how to dress a wound properly.
Yeah, yeah. It's like basic first.
Aid Anybody who's taking a course can teach you, but it's
fine it's well he knows how to take the.

(01:23:07):
Arrow out, which I noted in my head again.
He knows, he knows. Where the arteries are
apparently really and how to repair.
A an arrow wound. But anyway, Bridget, I love you
guys and and I'm. Glad I got to be here at least
for a little bit, and I appreciate.
I'm so sorry that I can't. Stay longer, but I'm going to go
crash. Feel better.
OK, yeah, bye, guys. And then there were three.

(01:23:31):
OK. And then there were three.
Knuckleheads yes. Let me just jump to what Bridget
just said about the belly thing,and then we'll go back to the
book because I I, I identify with Bella Ramsey's version of.
Ellie. Having that panic attack because
I've been in that situation before and I have frozen in the

(01:23:51):
midst of it and I, you can tell I'm kind of like, I'm sort of
doing it now. I'm having like a flashback of
some kind because that's what happens to me.
I, my mind kind of goes blank. You try to be in the moment, but
you're kind of trapped between being in the moment and crying
for help. But the there's all these things
happening at once and you can mymind kind of shuts down.

(01:24:11):
And so that really that really got me.
Like not got me as in like emotional, like so crying for
Ellie. No, they really got me because
it hit a nerve of a similar experience.
And so I get what why she didn'tplunge.
A knife. Haphazardly in this woman's
belly because hey, I just killedthis woman.

(01:24:34):
I don't want to for sure kill this child.
But then again, if I leave, see again, panic attack.
But if I leave the baby in therewithout taking it out, I'll for
sure kill this child. Either way, do it.
Can you kill something twice? You know this.
Again, this is all happening in my head as Ellie.
I'm feeling what she's feeling. Also kudos to Bella Ramsey.
Which Egiff? Yep, I don't know if I'm saying

(01:24:55):
this right. Yes, says in the chat, I love
Bella. Very, very love.
Hello Bella and I say hello geekEgiff or Egich.
Yep, in the chat and all these good nights temperatures.
Bella Ramsey. Since Game of Thrones because
she was a little on that show, Ihave never played the game.
So when I saw she was cast and this I was like I will love her

(01:25:17):
in it and I do so definitely portrays Ellie.
Because the clip that I sent to the group chat earlier today, I
see the way Ellie talks in that in the game, and that's she's
just very like powerful, straightforward, like, you know,
badass, you know, through the whole thing.
So I think she's portraying Ellie very, very well and

(01:25:41):
keeping a little bit more of Ellie's humanity more in the
series than in the game. Because I think, as I mentioned
before, in game, she's very traumatized and her personality
does not show through as often, if at all.
And I think that they're doing abetter job of that in the
series. I think trauma manifests in that
way. Too.

(01:26:01):
Or PTSD. More to your point, because it's
you trying to live a life. Yeah.
To act like everything is normaland it's not.
But it really isn't. And that's seems more accurate
to me. She writes in a lot of it, like
I said. Is is just quick little phrases
like Dina tries to offer her food and she's like, I really
don't, I'm really not hungry. Oh no, we lost Sharon D.

(01:26:22):
There were. 2. And I don't mind this.
At all. OK, No, I I don't really.
I guess we'll see if she comes back and maybe she'll say it in
the thing, which probably explains her experience on my
end. Maybe, yeah.
There you go. But yeah, it it, you know, you
hear her just say, oh, I'm not really hungry.
She never eats through the wholething.

(01:26:43):
She doesn't. She talks about not being able
to sleep. She writes in her journal,
Everyone expects me to be fine. Everything's not fine.
How can everyone, you know, I can't.
I haven't slept for however manydays.
You know what I mean? And you have.
Those are all things that are miscible.
If you don't read the journal, you won't know any of those
things. But yeah, so.
Right. Because it's not.
You can't see it in the games. Yeah, it just in the process of

(01:27:03):
playing the game creates new. Hi, welcome back.
You know, she just creates new journal entries as as things
happen. So, you know, well, I, I'm sad
that. Bridget isn't here because it
mirrors something that Bridget has said and that was in the
process of grief. She complaints, which no, she
doesn't stop treating me differently.
And at the same time she goes, Iwish people would understand

(01:27:26):
that I'm crazy. You want it but.
That's what. Yeah.
That's what pulled up in my headwhen you said that.
What a great example. So I clicked a little.
It's definitely AI. Just going to say this right
now. It's definitely it's it's
Nightwater dot e-mail is the website slash monsters Dash
Grover Dash explained anything that says monster, anything that

(01:27:49):
says explain at the end is definitely definitely AI, or at
least they have like stock SEO. It says the truth about Grover
explains You don't like that sort of thing anyway.
So. But let me read the whole thing
this way you'll get the big picture of why.
Oh, I guess it's not. I don't know unless Adam, Cecil
or Cecil is a is a AI pseudonym.This Who's the author of this

(01:28:12):
thing? The monster at the end of this
book ending explained 5 decades later, The ending of the
monsters again, 1971. Was this when this book was
written? This children's book 5 decades
later, The ending of the monsterat the end of this book
continues to vex readers. No, it doesn't.
No, it doesn't. Media literacy, people, Media
literacy. This is why.
This is why I wanted to. Read this So funny to fully

(01:28:33):
explain the complex self referential plot driving the
monster at the end of this book.Colon starring lovable furry old
Grover, which is literally the title of the book, is no easy
feat. Published in 1971, the monster
at the end of this book is a crucial piece of metafiction
Canon. This is getting wild.
Part of the Sesame Street universe self a subset of the
MCU, right? The Muppet.

(01:28:54):
Cinematic. Universe.
The Monster at the. End of this book is known for
See, This is why I want to read this.
The monster at the end of this book is known for being an early
vehicle for superstar Muppet Grover and its commercial and
critical success. It's also known for its
confounding twist ending that continues to baffle and confront
audiences to this day. No it doesn't.
Media literacy. Luckily, the five decades since

(01:29:16):
the Tome tome really was released have given us plenty of
time to fully explore the meaning behind the monster at
the End of this book. You're struggling with the
Monster at the end of this book.Keep reading for a full analysis
of the plot and ending explained.
I'm making a face audience warning.
This is why it's so funny putting major spoilers for the
Monster at the end of this book ahead.
You've been warned. Another subtitle, What happens?

(01:29:37):
In the monster at the end of this book, while you should
never judge a book by its cover and there's a link to it, let me
just click this link. That's another thing.
Let's judge some books by their coverage is the link.
Anyway, the story of the monsterat the end of this book begins
right here with Grover, the popular blue fuzzball that lives
on Sesame Street, saying hello to readers with a wave right
from the get go. Grover is breaking the 4th wall
and directly engaging with the reader that that's literally the

(01:29:59):
book. He's engaging with you as the
reader of the book, and I'll explain in a second.
And the title page. Inside the book, we find Grover
already grasping the corner, ready to turn the next page of
your book, a choice he quickly regrets.
OK, let me just do the Grover voice because I do have a good
Grover voice. Did that say there will be?
A monster at the end of this book.
Grovers. Was that OK?
Pretty. Good.
OK, OK. Grover asks on next page.

(01:30:21):
I am so scared of. Monsters.
OK, next. Luckily, Grover has a plan for
avoiding the monster. If the reader does not turn the
pages, he'll they'll never reachthe end and won't have to face
the monster. Grovers plan falls apart almost
immediately as the reader continues.
Reader since polite. Since polite negotiation didn't
get him anywhere, Grover sets upa series of obstacles.

(01:30:42):
This is why I'm reading this, tostop readers from turning the
page. A cluster of intertwined ropes
and knots, a structure of wood boards and nails, and finally a
solid brick wall. These obstacles are easily
demolished by the reader. Obviously, they're just turning
a page. I'm going to get back to this in
a second, because that's why I'mreading Mother of God.
See, I guess Grover was the one who pounced Charity in the last

(01:31:03):
ditch attempt to avoid the monster.
Grover begs the reader not to turn the page.
A request that the reader does not honor.
Of course not. Because again.
You yourself are telling Ellie to stop.
Yes, at some point in the game. In the show, I guess it doesn't
really matter. Game mostly.
But yes, you're like. Please stop like it's it's.
You know what we talk a lot about the Milgram The Walking

(01:31:26):
Dead being the Milgram, the Stanley Milgram Milgram test,
which is like to test your ethics like it's the appeal to
authority fallacy. When an authority figure tells
you to push the button to punisha test subject for being wrong
about a thing, you see the subject is suffering.
The idea is does someones humanity outpace the appeal to
authority meaning because an authority figure is telling you

(01:31:49):
to punish the subject. Do you at at some point does
your ethics kick in and say I can't do this anymore?
The sad part is that the Milgramexperiment finds that most
people appeal to authority. Now I'll say this meaning the
the test subject suffers. First of all, the test subject
doesn't suffer, they're just acting.
Second though, there have been some debunkings about that

(01:32:09):
Stanley Milgom experiment, but it still kind of stands a bit
though, because it's it's kind of a warning to people step in
on the final pages. Where one might expect to meet a
horrible monster, there is in fact only Grover.
Grover admonishes the reader forbeing afraid of of him.
They're so afraid of Grover. I told you and told you there
was nothing. To be a friend of that wasn't
quite good. You get the idea in a postscript

(01:32:32):
Grover had in his hands. Mutters under his breath.
I am so. Embarrassed the monster at the
end of the book ending. Explained at the start of The
Monster. At the end of this book, we're
led to believe that the monster and Grover are two separate
beings. After all, Grover is our furry
friend, Ellie is our furry, she's not furry friend, and
monsters are typically big, scary creatures.
This turns out not to be the case.
It is revealed in the final moments that Grover is the

(01:32:53):
monster all along. Looks at audience This twist may
appear to come out of left field, but the clues for it laid
down from the very beginning. Just look at the subtitle
starring lovable, furry old Grover.
Grover was not starring in the monster at the end of this book,
but as the monster at the end ofthis book, most readers will be
forgiven for missing this clue. Well, again, they're children.
But then also you're the adult. Why are you reading this?

(01:33:15):
While Grover is a possible popular Sesame Street character,
most would think of him as a Muppet, not necessarily monster,
though of course we know that the categories are not mutually
exclusive. See also Cookie monster.
This literally says in Prince. So Cookie Monster.
In fact, this possibility is not.
Even clear to Grover, who does not consider his intersectional
identities until he stands aloneat the end of the book.
At the end, Grover, that was a little, that was a little weird.

(01:33:37):
At the end, Grover asserts that it was a reader who was actually
afraid of the monster the whole time.
Like the player, like the watcher?
This doesn't make any sense on the surface.
Readers will likely remember Grover's multiple feudal
attempts to stop them from turning the page in parentheses,
which will all will fail becausebeing mere illustrations is not
physical obstacles. The postscript, however,
provides A worthy provides a clue for why Grover should would

(01:33:59):
say this. He's embarrassed by his own
hysterics, and to save face, he attempts to gaslight the reader.
How that's I didn't. Maybe this is valuable.
I didn't think of that. That's interesting.
Now I'm like heartfelt sub sub sub sub sub subtitle Is Grover
really a monster at the end of the monster at the end of this
book? When asked to explain the ending
of the monster at the end of this book, most people would
agree that Grover is a monster. But some scholars posit a theory

(01:34:23):
that scholars that the monster at the end of the monster at the
end of this book is actually thereader.
Oh OK I did. I don't regret reading this.
Who forces Grover toward the endof the book against his will,
going so far as to destroy property?
Great message. For Grover to clean.
Up later. That is wild how similar this is

(01:34:44):
to this story, right? Because if you're of the type
who doesn't, who doesn't want all this to stop, who loves the
carnage, or is using the game asan appeal to authority, right?
Gives you permission to do the horrible acts.
I can see that, Karina, as you're playing the game, I can
see people not wanting to stop. They want to see more.
They want to see it not because they're horrible people, but
they're appealing to the authority of the game that there

(01:35:06):
are rails on this roller coasterride that means I can't get
hurt. Exactly.
You can choose to put the. Game down at any point and
similarly as I mentioned before,even just the way you navigate
the game, you are free to cause as much carnage as you would
like in these games as you have in your.
Gameplay on, you know, believing.
That I need to take out every enemy on the field, which is

(01:35:27):
just not true. You don't have to do that.
And I just started playing that way and I was like, this makes
way more sense to just get through as quietly and and
quickly as possible with this few casualties as possible
because that's not your goal. Your goal is to get to a
specific person or through a specific area.
There's a whole section that I just skipped out because it's
not required. And I used to always stop and

(01:35:47):
engage the enemies for no reasonother than they were there.
And I'm learning now as I've played through this game so many
times. I'm like, wait, this is
completely has nothing to do with me.
I can just go right past this and that's what I'm going to do
so and it just cuts out a big. Portion of.
Your time and and frustration and just to sink on your
supplies and everything because why?

(01:36:08):
Because the game has provided anopportunity to shoot enemies.
Or. Whatever, because we're
conditioned as gamers to to wantto shoot the enemies, you know
what I mean? Even though it's to kill the
monsters. It's not even really necessary.
In that, in that moment, and yetto your point, you can choose to
put down the controller and not play it, as many people chose to

(01:36:29):
do as soon as they saw that Joelwas gone out of the game.
And they're like, Nope, I'm done, I'm done.
I don't need to. I need to play this game.
So I guess in both. Respects.
Okay, maybe in a not capitalistic sense, but maybe in
an ethical sense for the people who decided to put the game
down. It gives me hope for humanity.

(01:36:51):
They're thereby validating me. Who says that people are
inherently good? Thank you.
Goodnight, everybody. Anyway.
No, but. That's actually kind of a.
Win when you think about it. I mean, it's not really for the
same reasons. Obviously they're not stopping
to play the game because are good people don't want to see
more people die or meet more people they love die.
He just sucked that he lost. Their main character is, well,

(01:37:13):
from the first game essentially.In a way, I guess you could draw
a parallel. Of continuing to play the game
even after Joel is gone. After that happens, choosing to
play the game because you want just as much as Ellie to see
Abby get her comeuppance for what she's done.
Oh boy, you know what I mean? Versus people who are willing to
say, you know what, I'm done andjust let it go.

(01:37:34):
Which is exactly what Ellie couldn't do.
Which is why this is what Druckman wants you to do.
So I think. That's a good parallel to to
draw from it like you know myself has chosen to play
through enough times that I've now come around to appreciating
Abby and not just wanting to seeher get what she deserves or
what I felt like she deserved from the first time I saw it

(01:37:55):
happen. So wow.
Wow. Yeah, I'm so glad I went into
this. Let me go to Bridget in the
chat, who has been struggling toget on but had can't really, she
says. I can't get back on.
I want to say in the context of the literary clues, there is a
phrase on the bookstore called Everything has a Moral, if you
can find it in quotes. This is from Alice in
Wonderland. I was thank you because I I was

(01:38:18):
going to look that up, but I didnot have time.
I was rushing to get here for the live stream.
She says her statement resonateswith Alice's understanding that
everything she encounters would result in a lesson of some kind.
Alice fails to recognize that her preoccupation with the rules
resembles the duchess's preoccupation with the morals.
OK, yes. Which again, appeal to authority
versus appeal to ethics, right? Because you think, well, we're

(01:38:41):
saying it now. Anyway, let me finish the end of
this thing because maybe there'sanother brain nugget that this
surprisingly great insight gets us back to.
Think back to the full title of the book.
The reader, despite having the equal part in the story to
Grover right, is not mentioned at all.
Strange. Unless you consider that the
reader is in fact the monster inthis play for two.
Because right, you're both engaging with this book, but it

(01:39:02):
may not be the most popular theory for the ending.
It's food for thought. I agree, begrudgingly, and shows
why the monster at the end of this book continues to be a rich
text for analysis. I was am pleasantly surprised.
I was going to read a few lines as a lark, and then I just was
like, wait, this guy sucked me in with SEO and I'm a complete
rube. And it actually makes sense to

(01:39:23):
compare it to the series as a whole.
I guess these writers know what they're doing.
I guess in a sense to. Compare it with this game
series. If you as the player were the
monster at the end of the story,you would be the one choosing to
continue on, rather than Ellie being the one choosing to
continue on. But it's not that kind of game.

(01:39:44):
You don't get to make those moral choices she's making.
Like I said, she's making the mental and the moral choice.
You're just controlling the action.
So there are plenty of games that give you the moral choice
to do something or not do something.
And there were. Moments in this game.
When I really wanted to have that choice, but it does not
provide it for you. Ellie ultimately is making that

(01:40:04):
choice. So that's where I think it
diverges from the game. At least I don't know about the
series. Well.
Yeah. And I guess we don't have that
choice, which is why I'm glad they made the show at least less
gratuitous but more dramatic to illustrate the resonance of
those decision decisions. OK, look, Dina is back there

(01:40:27):
with a baby in tow, however developed that baby is.
And I could easily see a situation where she instantly
thought of Dina as this was happening.
Again, all of these happenings that were these stops invading
her as these things are happening.
And Charity says as Abby and Ellie are both preocco, both
preoccupied with revenge. Actually I don't think Abby is
preoccupied with revenge until she finally sees Ellie.

(01:40:51):
She's like, what is going on here?
Why are my people dying? I think that she was
preoccupied. With revenge leading up to the
point where she killed Joel because if you remember that
Owen was trying to have a conversation with the rest of
the group saying like, we just got to convince her to leave
because this is too dangerous now.
So. And Abby was the one who was
pushing forward regardless of what her friends thought and

(01:41:11):
whether or not it put them in danger.
So she did do exactly what Ellie's doing right now.
The difference is that we're at the point in the story we're in.
Ellie has not succeeded in her revenge mission and Abby was
successful in her revenge mission.
So Abby is further along in her story revenge mission wise than

(01:41:32):
Ellie is, if that makes sense. Well, and that's a cautionary
tale because. Let's say you look at look at
how this all happened. Isn't the Seraphytes in the WLF
thing a cautionary tale? Of course you kill our children.
It's because you train them to be fighters.
So we killed them because you killed them.
Yeah, you kill our children. And it's like if you lead if if
you lead everything to its logical conclusion, the cycle

(01:41:52):
never ends. And what is they'll be off doing
in this episode but trying to completely eliminate the
Seraphights, who happen to have tons of children.
They've already been at a war, but now it's come.
To a complete like climax, as you can see happening in the
background of, you know, this island assault, which is
basically it sounds like the. Seraphights HQ, essentially this

(01:42:14):
island. They haven't really mentioned it
a lot in the. Series but yes, the Seraphytes
have an island they're meant to be confined to it as per the the
treaty treaty and they don't they don't stay on the island
and that's why you keep seeing them get captured because
they're sneaking past the the borders I.

(01:42:34):
Guess. Into wolf territory.
So they keep getting captured every time they do that.
But my assumption is that they don't have everything they need
on the island. And also knowing what I know
about what their thought processis about this world that they
live in now, they will. Which we get a glimpse of.
They were. Never going to stay on the
island. So right they give us.

(01:42:57):
A glimpse of that in the lines that one Seraphyte, they
captured the W left actually theone guy that was converted as
AW, well, he was formerly Federer.
Dixon converted him because he obviously came on board.
And that's the guy who's torturing or dragging the
Seraphyte out. It's the guy with the floppy

(01:43:19):
hair, with the floppy mid part hair who didn't have that at
first or whatever. But and you see he's completely
on board with WLF. So the Seraphyte.
Himself. Says something to the effect of
the world is not in balance. But I've done my part to write
it. She has led me through the
storm. Now I must rest.
She may she guide me basically. So that's that's interesting.

(01:43:41):
Do you think we'll get more into.
I have to assume we'll get more into.
Yeah, I think we're going to thethought.
Process. We're going to see a.
Lot more. Of the Seraphytes, because Abby
is part of the WLF, they are much more involved in what's
going on with the relations between the Seraphytes and, you
know, all that kind of stuff. So you're going to definitely
see a lot more of that they're. Giving us such great drips and I

(01:44:03):
would I was also going to. Mention too, like, from what
little we've gotten to see of Mel, that addition to the
interaction that she has with Elia, she's dying so much about
her character. The way she's talking about, OK,
you're going to have to cut intome.
And she's using words like bilateral and things like that,
which leads you to believe that she has some kind of medical
training, which, you know, I know all of these things, but

(01:44:26):
the audience doesn't. But it conveys so much about who
she is in that short amount of time that her first thought is
not, Oh my gosh, I'm about to die.
It's you got to get this baby out of me.
Like, you got to save the baby right away.
Like mirroring Jesse in. A sense because she thinks of
others first. Being somebody who is in the
medical field, she's focused on the patient, not herself.

(01:44:48):
Exactly. So I love.
All these little ways that they're introducing these
characters and, and these this other faction that we just sort
of seen peripherally, just with the things that they've said,
you know, in the little murals that they paint on the walls and
things like that. Such a great use of storytelling
without saying it to you, you know what I mean?

(01:45:08):
Without just talking at you, No,I agree.
Right show. Don't tell.
Right. It's a form of show don't tell.
When you give somebody just enough, exactly like, do you get
it? Maybe you don't, but you will.
You will later. It'll make sense.
It'll make sense, I promise. I promise, peak your curiosity.
And start saying, I wonder what that was about even for me,
because like I said, what do youmean there's two, There's more

(01:45:30):
than one profit. This is new.
This is news. This is information that's not
suggested that at all in the game.
So I'm curious to know what that's leading to.
Yeah. And Rob Lucchesi.
Even says she even gave her a time limit of 30 seconds till
the fetus. Yeah.
Dies. Yes, exactly, Rob boy.
Yeah. Little details like that.
A lower lateral incision. Yeah.

(01:45:51):
Well, so you touching on the Seraphytes HQ or where they were
supposed to be confined? I'm gonna say this but not get
into it, but I find this part ofthis knowledge drop very telling
for the times in which we live because it does touch on a
current events scenario that is going on currently.
Still after a year and a half. For those who know, like me, who

(01:46:13):
are have intimate knowledge of those current events, who are
constantly wondering how this will shake out, it does tie
intimately into that. And it does make me wonder
sometimes when or where or how scenarios like the ones that are
being depicted on the show will end.
And so for those who know, they'll know who I'm what I'm

(01:46:35):
talking about without getting into it, because I don't want to
get into it, But it just goes toshow that what's happening on
the show is a lesson to be learned and that there is
obviously blame on both sides. And everybody comes from a place
and comes from a side. But the thing that I really
wanted to hone in on, and the thing I actually said about the
book is the following. And it's something that we said
on Dark Winds, a lesson that wasbrought home very brilliantly.

(01:46:57):
On Dark Winds, there are no suchthings as monsters, actually.
It's just people doing bad things and the and good people
doing bad things to stop them. And based and depending on your
perspective, one can view the other as the monster, of course.
And that's kind of the big take away I got from the book,
really. I even though I'm very glad that

(01:47:19):
we read that thing, because that's because you, the reader
watcher slash game player is actually the monster.
I love that part, but but but the bigger part of the lesson is
it is just it's not monsters, it's people.
It's people. People aren't inherently
monsters, not born monsters, notborn evil.
And the things that they do. Again, you've said it very well

(01:47:40):
on the show that that the. Game kind of makes.
It out to be that people are in this immense Gray space and it
really depends on how far you'rewilling to go.
That makes you the monster, really.
But doesn't make you the monsterbecause who can blame you?
Well, it's just, I mean the same.
And we've said it 100 times already, like with The Walking

(01:48:01):
Dead, like depending on whose story you're following will kind
of color your opinion of the antagonist or the protagonist.
The same thing is happening here, and we've already started
to see it. Right now, you know, Abby is the
antagonist of this group. We're going after her.
We're going to see her side of the story, and you are not going

(01:48:21):
to. I guarantee that you will not
feel the same way about her by the time you finish the story.
I didn't. Even after the first playthrough
I I felt differently about her, which is why I played the game
again and had a little bit more respect.
Yes, and actually came to reallyenjoy Abby's story and Abby's
character, as well as the humanization of the WLF, the

(01:48:44):
humanization of the Seraphytes. Like right now, all we've seen
of them are these horrific acts.Who are they as people?
Like what drives them to do this?
Like and the kid given. Given Ellie the axe while she's
in the news, by the way. Whoa.
It blew my mind. Which is what what made me think
of the other thing actually. Because that's that's how this.

(01:49:06):
Escalates. Yeah.
It's like where did it? Start.
It doesn't really matter where it started.
This is where we're at right now.
How do we move forward like that, you know?
Agreed. Agreed.
Actually, this this actually takes me to another point that I
want to make about that because because it does take us back to
the book. What is Grover doing in the
book? He's throwing up obstacles.
He's trying to get you to stop. And what is what are those

(01:49:27):
obstacles? But like one of the biggest ones
is the big wave that knocks Ellie off her boat.
That was the biggest hell for me.
I mean, I'm sure people have theirs in this episode.
Like what was the thing? Like there's so many little
roadblocks that are put in Ellie's path to get her to stop,
to come back. That was one for me.
And then, of course, when the wave didn't work, it's very

(01:49:47):
biblical, right? It's almost like a flood, right?
This flood's happening. If not the wave, then the
Seraphytes. You're lucky to be alive right
now because it had the WOF not started their assault at that
very moment, you would be not only dead, but disemboweled with
no hope of a return. So that should have gotten her
to stop. And then because she didn't
listen to the two warnings and she proceeded anyway.

(01:50:09):
Well, it's what is the expression.
Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it right.
And I said it earlier, but I don't know why I forgot it.
Nora mentioned that they let hergo.
Owen mentioned they let her go. We let you live.
Abby. Mentioned we let you.
Live like all of them have reminded her.
We let you live, and here you are, still pursuing Abby despite

(01:50:34):
all of those things because Ellie can't see the gift.
That it was that they. Let her live that she can't see
past the trauma that happened. And I understand that, I get it.
But there's been many opportunities for her to stop
and think about it and she has not taken any of them.
Right. And how did?
It start, does it matter how it started?
Because it started with Joel, right?

(01:50:55):
If you want to, yeah. I mean Joel started.
I mean the. Fireflies.
It started. Did it start with fireflies?
Did it start with Joel's act? Yeah.
Did it start with Federer? Did it start with the infected?
Like who? Who actually started it doesn't
matter what events LED up to that point.
Some point you have to make a choice to break the cycle or
continue on the cycle. And Ellie right now can't see

(01:51:16):
past the cycle. I think she's just.
Well, yeah. Stuck in it?
Stuck in it, right? And I like the fact that you
brought up that every one of theeveryone of Abbys crew is saying
we let you live. We were precise.
We had a surgical strike. We only got the one we wanted
and no one else. And it's interesting.
It was a. Very much a disconnect.
You could tell that Ellie wasn'tlistening to what Owen was

(01:51:37):
saying because Owen said we let you go and she and then he was
like, oh, she'll just kill us when she gets what she needs.
She's like, no, I'm not like you.
Owen just said that they weren'tlike that.
Like we didn't. Do that.
We could have killed you and we did it.
So she's already trying to say, oh, I'm not like you, but but I

(01:51:58):
am like you. I mean, that's true.
She. Isn't like that, but she isn't
like them in a positive way. She isn't like.
She's kind of. Like, not like Rick Grimes.
On The Walking Dead. Unintended consequences.
But really, if you'd stop to notgo after Negan, maybe this would
have been better. And again, I don't.
Killing Owen and Mel was not theintention and it it never was.

(01:52:19):
But she definitely went in therewith the thought in her mind, if
they don't give me what I need, I can always just kill them.
Same thing with Nora. She wouldn't give her what she
needed, so she beat her to death, you know?
Well, mostly she let the infection take hold afterwards,
but yeah, well, I'll say this and then.
We'll go but go to the chat for a SEC because there's some funny
stuff going on because Sharon D's in it.

(01:52:41):
This is funny, but it goes to what I love how we're kind of
going backwards words in time, which goes to show that it's so
realistic. We're going backwards of time.
Because when Dina tells her to take off her shirt and does the
injury things and literally literally Ellie reflects while
looking at a mirror and how easyit was to get the information

(01:53:02):
out of Nora in horror because she even says what if she didn't
deserve it right? What if she didn't?
To Dina Who? Says she.
Deserves it, yeah. And in the end, it flips because
when Ellie tells Dina about why they went after Joel, Dina is
like, oh, you, Joel started it. So that's why this happened.
That's this is all happening. He got what he deserved.

(01:53:22):
According to them, you know, andthat's why we're even.
Here, we didn't need to be here,right?
You're to blame. For this if Ellie.
Would have mentioned. That to Dina ahead of time, she
probably would not have allowed her to go right, right.
But I love. That little moment of her at
before all that I love that little moment of her saying
maybe she didn't deserve it. It was too easy.

(01:53:42):
The. Value of human life.
Right. Yeah, well, let's read the.
Chat for a second. OK, so yeah, I think Sherry said
something about yeah, because we're saying the monster at the
end of the book. She was saying, oh, the the
monster is Fungus Stein, meaningFrankenstein.
But Frankenstein isn't the monster.
Frankenstein is that doctor Frankenstein is a monster
anyway, or Frankenfung he and then Rob Lucchesi goes fungi

(01:54:04):
Stein. You know, everybody's kind of
laughing at the fungi Stein or Franken fungi Sharon.
He says, Abby, we let you live. Negan I I would have killed you
all. This is like season 11 Negan
though. But but to your point, the Negan
of the past was just one, just one.
So wait, you all can live, right, Right.

(01:54:25):
Make an example. But Sharon D Abby is now like I
let you live and you wasted it and she's turned into Negan,
right? And she now at this point, has
decided. Like it wasn't worth it to let
you live in the 1st place. Like you should have just gotten
rid of you. I mean is is that not fair
though? Thinking about the reason that

(01:54:46):
Abby must be there because she said he killed my friends and
Ellie is like, actually, it was me.
I'm the one who did that and it was an accident.
Doesn't matter that it was an accident.
They're dead just the same. You're you're literally.
A force of nature if if you're. Even to be believed.
Right, because truth, Right? Right.
Who knows the truth? Rob Lucasis says fungi.

(01:55:08):
Stein's Bloater. If only, Rob.
If only. Because then they're blameless.
They just work on instinct. No, we have intentions.
So. Oh, that reminds me in game
another. Obstacle that comes up on day
three is a bloater she has. To take care.
Of them so glad I hate. Those.
Things I hate those things so much.
They just seem so like Hulk likeI think they don't want to
overuse the bloater so they. Just left it out.

(01:55:31):
I agree and. So you.
Could see why at the end of thisepisode I I'm wondering if you
feel the same way as much as youwant to see season 3.
Because obviously they leave so many threads hanging for you to
want to. It's like a it's like the little
mycelial ends that infect you right?
They are infecting you to want to watch season 3.
Who can blame them? But can you see it from my point

(01:55:52):
of view that there's a part of you that is a bit disgusted that
I can wait? I need to get over this episode
between not immediately going after a living uncle to.
Help and save him. 2 By the end of it, obviously seeing Abby's
point of view a little bit, she's grief stricken and we saw
her in the beginning of the season, she's grief stricken,

(01:56:14):
she's vengeful. She's just like Ellie in this
vengeance quest. There's a part of you that does
feel bad for her. I mean, you're at a freaking
grave site at the beginning of the very beginning scene of this
season and that's what you're exposed to is Abby's suffering
and torment. I mean, granted, she says some
things at the same time, who canblame her?
Joel was very callously. She'd have to shoot the doctor.

(01:56:35):
We don't know that he was going to attack him with a scalpel.
We don't know Karina, okay? We don't know that you wait long
enough. He does.
Yeah, but in the game, but we. Don't notice new audience
viewers same time. He was very callous.
He did the Negan thing. He did just one, just so that
the other nurses wouldn't get any bright ideas.
But I don't know, just to say that, that seeing Abby's torment

(01:56:56):
at the end, even having killed Jesse, which also bothered me
too, because I blame Ellie for that, right?
I'm terrible. I mean, I don't know if I'm
telling her. I just feel feelings.
I have feeling a big feelings, everybody.
Why are any of them there? Because Ellie brought them
there, versus in game they're there because they're going
after Tommy. But Ellie and Tommy were going
to go there anyway, you know what I mean?

(01:57:17):
So technically, Dina and Jesse being there are a result of, you
know, Tommy's actions and Ellie's going yeah, in game.
So. You know, in this none of them.
Would be there if. It weren't for Ellie and but
mostly Ellie going. In the middle of the.
Night to, you know, go on this revenge quest when nobody else

(01:57:38):
wanted to do that or voted do that.
Yeah, I know it's upsetting thatJesse dies so quickly, but
again, looking at. Abby, her point of.
View and it only gets more heartbreaking when you see the
relationship saying that it's. Just relentlessly.

(01:57:59):
Bleak, I keep telling you, when you get.
To see the. Relationship that Abby actually
had with these characters that you have, you know, interacted
with as Ellie, You know that we've seen Ellie interacting
with. When you go get to go back and
see Abby's relationship with them, it gets worse because now
you have retroactive guilt for the things that happened earlier

(01:58:21):
that you thought you were doing as the good guy.
You know what I mean? At least in game Quote UN quote
the good. Guy, Yeah, and.
That's why I kept telling Bridget especially like I feel
like the bad guy more playing asEllie because of how many dogs
you have to kill. Like as her.

(01:58:42):
Because the WLF uses dogs, right?
Whereas the. WLF are the dog owners.
Gosh, yeah. And then then you go.
Play. Through as Abby and then you get
to meet and you like find out the dogs names and everything
else. I'm like, oh gosh, Oh my God,
they had lives. And owners, they all had like,
oh, they. Were so cute and.
But yeah, you, you're going to get to see Abby's relationship

(01:59:06):
and Abby's side of this whole story.
It's going to humanize the WLF even more.
So it's going to have more of an.
Impact. Later on than it even has right
now. And so the things that you're
upset about now might get worse or might get better.
I don't know. Slightly.
I know your frustration with herchoosing to go after Abby at the

(01:59:27):
expense of Tommy's is pretty high, which I agree.
And it's meant to make you feel that way because you know, we
can. See Ellie.
Making the wrong choice over andover again.
And like, that's part of the frustration and the saddest part
about this story is, is seeing all the times, all the
opportunities that she had to make a better choice and she

(01:59:48):
just never did. So again, I don't.
Blame her too much. And I want to couch my
sentiments by saying when I say that it I'm disgusted or when I
and I am, I was disgusting. It's the strongest mechanism.
It's the strongest emotion is disgust, not love, not hate.
It's disgust. It's the thing that turns you
off. It gets you immediately on the
other side. When I say that it, it upsets

(02:00:09):
me. And when I say I need a little
time to process this season finale, it's not because I hated
it, by the way. It's because I was riveted.
I'm invested and it did something to me.
It made me feel a certain way. I can't hate that as a show,
right? And I I don't hate individuals
on the show. I don't hate actors or crew
members or writers. Maybe a little of the writers,

(02:00:31):
but then again, I don't hate them because they created
something that made me feel a certain way.
So when I say that, I'm just saying I need a minute, right?
Right. I just need a minute.
To process all. This I did mention.
Something in my notes. So a couple things.
So that instance where they havethe the crossroads, so Ellie
going to the aquarium and Jesse,he's going to find Tommy in

(02:00:55):
game. That interaction is even more
calloused because Ellie in the series gives a very good a
speech about going after and protecting her, her people.
And she's like, and guess what? My people got beaten to death
right in front of me. That's a really good my
community, my. Community and because.

(02:01:16):
They essentially saying Joel wasmy whole community, like I felt
most connected to him, you know what I mean?
And he's gone now, you know? So that was a really good point
that she made in the series. In the game, they're they were
going to the aquarium to begin with.
Do you remember? They're not out there looking
for Tommy, They're out there going to the aquarium.

(02:01:36):
Because in game Nora tells them it's the aquarium.
She doesn't give a vague answer.She says it's the aquarium.
So they're going to the aquariumtogether to confront Abby and
then in the process of that, they overhear on the WLF radio
so that there is a sniper at theMarina.
And Tom, I'm sorry, Jesse assumes that it's Tommy.

(02:01:59):
He's like, it's got to be, it's got to be Tommy because earlier
on in a previous flashback, you are training with a sniper rifle
with Tommy as Ellie. So showing the show too Ish.
Yeah, sort of so. You kind of make that connection
that Tommy is a good sniper so you know it, it must be him.
And that's when Jesse's like, oh, we got to go get Tommy and

(02:02:21):
Ellie's like we're going to the aquarium and she's like, I'm not
going to come and save you again.
Like basically she just puts it all on Jesse, like I'm not
rescuing you again. Which isn't really what happened
the first time she met him in the 1st place like.
She's just sort of. Putting that on him as if she
rescued him, which is not at allthe case.
It's not the events that. Happened.

(02:02:42):
I mean sort of, but not really like.
OK, so in game Jesse was pinned down by the WLF and she he kind
of snuck up behind her like she didn't know he was there.
And that's when she sort of found out that Jesse was there.
She thought it was Tommy. It was not Tommy and Jesse had
injured his ankle, which is the reason she goes to the hospital

(02:03:03):
by herself. So I see.
Yeah. So.
I see everything up slightly. Differently, like I said, the
story beats are the same in the series, they're just set up
slightly differently in the game.
So yeah, she kind of why that scene had to happen the way.
Exactly so in. The game she's kind of calling
back to the fact that she rescued Jesse from the WLFI mean

(02:03:27):
she did help him get out of the situation that he was in and
take him to the safe house and everything.
But I don't I would not necessarily have described it as
her rescuing him. Right, right.
They had equal, you know, life saving.
They had. A contribution Contribution to
what happened there. Yeah, So, yeah, so it's a lot

(02:03:47):
more harsh for Ellie to, you know, tell him like, I'm not
coming to rescue you again if you go after him.
Like whatever happens is on you,I don't care.
And which is a very different sentiment that then Tommy.
I mean that Jesse gets, you know, when they're having the
conversation in the theater afterwards.
He's like, if it were me, I knowyou would burn the whole world
down coming to look for me. They do have a.
Nice conversation. In the theater, but it's not

(02:04:09):
really about that specifically. I don't remember exactly what
they what they say, but essentially they kind of smooth
things over like, and I know that Ellie makes a joke about
how sappy he is or something like that.
And he's like, oh, you know so well, that's the third thing.
By the way, because remember I said there.
Was obstacles. Right.

(02:04:29):
The first one was really, if youthink about it, her not going to
save with Jesse to save Tommy inthe show at the very least.
And it turning out OK because Tommy and Jesse swept in after
that whole ordeal went down withEllie and both got her out of
there because in a way they kindof save her.
I don't know how long she would have.
She would have stayed there. She had been paralyzed there
until Abby. Showed up or something like

(02:04:50):
that, you know what I mean so she's.
Lucky at every step of the way and could have stopped every
step of the way, but it's three strikes.
Well, I'm going to read the chata bit and then go to a specific
point about Mel. Rob says I want to see the Rat
King. We will.
I'm sure we will, yeah. Sure we will.
And you won't describe it. I would love to see a shambler
also. That would be super, super fun.

(02:05:13):
It's like a Bloater but worse. It's like a Bloater, but just a
bit different. It's already bad, Already bad.
I will say yeah, I don't want todescribe it because there's
there's the idea like if you want to look it up yourself, you
could find it and you'll see it and you'll see it move and blah,
blah, blah. My thing is, the way they're
going to show on the show, I kind of want to see that for the
first time for the real like just because it's always great

(02:05:36):
to see that really some shock value to it as.
Well, because. It's I was not expecting.
It Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of.
A dream I had about actual cluster of rats.
Oh gosh. Tied together by a.
Tail. Bursting out of a of a the
cabinet. Under the sink that.
Alone sounds creepy. Yeah, exactly.
Imagine. If it was 8 1/2 feet.
Tall. Yeah, she already says they.

(02:05:58):
All need to listen to Mr. Spock.The needs of the many outweigh
the needs of the few or the one,right?
Yeah. Yeah.
If only they had Star Trek. But maybe probably did.
Then again, she watched that movie.
Something in Viper Curtis and Viper Curtis.
And Viper. Which is all about violence and
how it's cool. Rob says love the show enough

(02:06:18):
that I am impatient. I get it.
But like, who said patience and what episode?
Oh yeah, Joel did in the last episode.
You must have patience. You'll be rewarded.
Rob also says I may have to playthrough the games again while I
wait for season 3. Well, don't play all the way
through. You don't want to get spoiled.
I mean, you played it already, but you know, still.

(02:06:38):
But maybe you could you could weigh in.
I want to speak something to something specific about the
moment. Ellie has that freeze up moment
and she's stuck there. And because we kind of just
talked about it was Tommy and Jessie scooping her up, having
to tear her almost away from Mel, take her away.
Yeah, like. Like we got to go.
I think it really. Mirrors and this also was the

(02:07:00):
last episode of the last season.We finally get to see Ashley
Johnson playing her mom. I think that was the last
episode. I might be wrong, but I think
I'm right and you see that that's kind of the same in a way
she's infected with with child and Marlene and Joel make an
arrangement or I don't know. No, it wasn't Joel.
It was Marlene make she makes anarrangement with her mom to keep

(02:07:22):
her safe. And there is a mirror there that
Mel and I don't know the I see the danger.
See, I keep wanting to ask aboutsome of these scenes to flesh
them out in game, how that happened in game, what we I want
to wait to see what happens. But I have this idea and that's
the only thing I wanted to talk about.
The whole conversation between Mel and Owen and Mel being
pregnant indicates to me that I you don't have to say yes or no.

(02:07:45):
I feel like Mel wants a better future for her child.
I'm also willing to say, becauseagain, I don't know how this
turns out, that Isaac Dixon not being able to find Abby's crew
is deliberate, but maybe Abby istrying to get agency or Abby and
her crew are trying to get agency for themselves.
Because where is Abby? Where's my future leader of the
WLF? The things that I want to put on

(02:08:06):
her for her future rather than Joel freeing Ellie to have a
future for herself, Where are they but nobody be found,
especially with this big campaign.
But Owen in that scene is talking about going behind enemy
lines as ordered by Abby technically.
And Mel is saying I don't want you to go because of Abby.
And I keep thinking that Mel herself wanted to have her baby,

(02:08:27):
to have a future and she won't have it in this conflict or this
scenario. All I want to know is, am I on
the right track at the very end?Would it be bad to even ask that
question? It's not bad to ask the
question. And depending on the I mean, I
could, I could answer this question for you, or you can
wait for that answer to come as you watch Season 3, because that

(02:08:48):
is another hint at, you know what that I was mentioning
earlier, these little hints thatthey've dropped about Abby's
story, why is Abby? Gone.
Why is she Mia? Why is Owen Mia?
Why is Mel Mia? Why are all these people gone?
Why is Manny, who's part of the group, not gone?
You know all of those things. Do get.

(02:09:08):
Answered in Abby's. Story.
At least in the game I'm sure that they will.
It's one of those things like ifwhat is it Chekhov's gun if you
don't, if you don't intend to use it while you're putting it
in there. So I'm sure then calling
attention to. All of these.
Things are going to be answered at some point.
And yeah, look at you with the restraint I.
Love it trying, I would love to just tell you.

(02:09:30):
Because I. Tried not to say.
Juicy. But yeah, the.
The whole dynamic and also the major change from the reveal
that Mel is pregnant happens. Should have happened at.
Least if they were following thegame when we first meet Abby at
the very beginning in Jackson. We should have known about that

(02:09:53):
then. But they didn't.
They chose not to mention it. So wait.
That, but that's actually interesting because we find out
about Dina's pregnancy on the way to Seattle and could
wouldn't that have been the samefor Mel?
It could have been on the way, yeah.
Similarly. Yeah, yeah.
Similarly, back to Seattle. Also like what is it about going
to Seattle that makes you pregnant?

(02:10:14):
I guess it's a long. Trip it's not a lot to do.
It's a long, beautiful. Trip which could have happened
on the way too. Yes, you're correct because.
They at least revealing it to Abby and therefore the gamer
happens when they're already in Jackson or near Jackson when
they're already in the midst of being in this situation.

(02:10:37):
You know, they've committed to same thing with Dina.
Like it doesn't get revealed until they're already there.
They're already in the middle ofit.
So the question is, do we turn back or do we not?
So choosing to not reveal that about Mel and that was something
I did mention before. There was like there was
something that they didn't talk about the pin, one of the pins.

(02:10:58):
That you mentioned, yeah, wow. And I don't know if they're
gonna. Omit it or not, because I was a
little worried that they were gonna like, be too sheepish and
not kill a pregnant lady. Go there.
Yeah, like they. Did, because that's what.
The Last of Us does. He's generally Druckmann is not
afraid to make decisions that piss people off.
So I didn't think that they weregoing to cut it, but I was like,

(02:11:20):
why didn't they reveal it? I think it was just to make it
the the reveal even more shocking because there was no
build up to that. Because if you had been told
that Mel was pregnant and only three months have passed since
then, you could assume that she did not have the baby yet.
Or, you know, there would be a question of Oh no, she's dying
and she's pregnant. But instead they chose to reveal
that in the moment as she's bleeding out.

(02:11:41):
So I think it was more effectivethat way.
So much more effective like. Because that's not poisoned in
your head this entire time. Exactly.
Wait, Ellie, stop. No.
But I could tell Ellie does the.Thing I could tell and then
you're the awful person as soon as I saw.
Her in that. Giant coat.
I was like, oh, she is. She's really I could.
Tell I. Love that.
Yeah, I could tell because. She's also in a.

(02:12:03):
Large coat in in the game, like she's wearing like a puffer
jacket where you and she's a small framed character.
So she's, she's very tiny even compared to Ellie so.
And Ellie's also very small, so Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah. It's so interesting.
God damn. Well, I remember the actor who
plays her. I don't have her name up on the
screen, but yeah, she posted a picture, I think it was a Vanity

(02:12:26):
Fair article. And she's she was on The
Runaways. Marvel's The Runaways on well, I
know I got it from Hulu, but I think it was on Fox.
She played one of the charactersthere.
She was much younger, but she isshe takes, she has these photos.
I feel like this is very shallow, but she has these
photos, this photo shoot of her and she's just so amazingly thin

(02:12:48):
and just very, very beautiful. And I'm saying this as a
compliment to the pregnant bellythat we see in the show.
And it's just kind of like just goes to show that what you see
on the surface is concealed by ajacket, obviously.
But then and you finally get thereveal, who can blame you for
not actually knowing, right? Exactly.
For not seeing in the first scene or the 1st with Abbys
episode 2. Really.

(02:13:10):
So it's just very interesting. Yeah.
Everything that led up to that made it so you would never think
that she was pregnant. Yeah, exactly.
No, I agree. It is questionable.
Like just some of the things that you see that character go
through during Abby's story, it makes you question a little bit
because like I said, they're going to they're going to

(02:13:30):
humanize the WLF and the Seraphytes, but you're also
going to see where these groups are lacking severely in moral
compass, both of them. So to my point, the WLF is a
military group and Mel is a military doctor.
So as a pregnant woman, at leastin the game, they they put her

(02:13:51):
in the field, she's pregnant andthey clear her for duty.
Which is. Crazy.
To think about. I think that I wonder.
Yeah, I wonder. If that they're going to expose,
they're going to play with that,Yeah.
Oh that would be really cool if they do the point of your
question. It's not crazy to ask, is she
fighting for a better life, a better future for her kid?

(02:14:12):
Because. What kind of group allows a, you
know, however many months pregnant lady to go into a war
zone? You know, wow, you're so small.
You figured. Out a great.
Way to answer that question without saying anything from the
future. Oh I love it.
That is so good, so good. Small Easter egg.
The bookstore we briefly mentioned, there was an Alice in

(02:14:34):
Wonderland quote. There was also a mural and they
had fake mushrooms on the wall, which when you go through the
bookstore in the game, it's moreof a pass through.
It's not like a because again, they're not looking for Tommy.
They're just passing through thebookstore.
They do make it a point to say it's weird to use fungus as like
a kids decoration, right? And they're, and they're having

(02:14:54):
a little conversation back and forth, like, well, you know, it
meant something different back then, like, you know what I
mean? And it wasn't scary.
And then there is just a small Easter egg.
So as they're leaving the bookstore to go after Tommy,
there's a giraffe plushy on the couch.
Let me show a picture. Of the plushy it's not a really
great screen grab but here's theplushy it's so fast yeah it's

(02:15:17):
like a. Little giraffe.
Plushy which I always. Catch because it's a recurring
image as well as the moth. You know, the moth or the
giraffe? Well, what is that supposed to
remind you of? Yeah, I mean, the giraffe is
that the Seminole Ellie moment that she just runs past this
beautiful depiction of? Of life and how life continues
on despite disaster. You know giraffes.

(02:15:38):
Who would you think you wouldn'tthink that in this post
apocalypse that a family of giraffes is thriving in Salt
Lake. You know what I mean.
They're not where they're supposed to be, but they're
they're thriving there. And then in this series and the
game, the moth is the overarching image.
Yes, Jeff. Yeah, it's very, very.

(02:15:58):
But it's so beautiful. Yeah.
Well, I. Mean it can be.
You guys didn't think so last. Time we talked about it, I did
want to mention that the sound. Effect for the boat motor and
her cranking it are exactly as they just reused the one from
the game Foley. Wait, there's one more thing
that we wanted to talk about. Well, I'm sure.
You have another thing. But let's just pull this up on

(02:16:18):
the screen. I wonder if we'll get to the
significance of this. And what I'm showing up on the
screen is the other process is the first one was an elderly, I
would say elderly, maybe 60s, a matron, white woman.
Yeah, yeah, of, of a certain maturity.
This isn't all that different. It's a black woman with dreads,
you know, You have to depict them obviously differently from

(02:16:40):
each other, to note, to note a difference.
Ellie says. She looks up, she goes, There's
a second one. There's more than one of them
which I was also like. Because when I saw the mural, I
was like, that's weird. They didn't really get the image
of the prophet exactly right. It didn't occur.
To me that they were making it deliberately different.
Until she pointed it out, I was like, oh, I guess they are

(02:17:01):
supposed to be different. I'm like that.
That's that's new. That's a new thing.
I don't know what that's about, but that's interesting to me.
Yeah. I can't wait to see what they.
Do with this and how it might illustrate power dynamics and
why people to choose continue fighting what people are willing
to believe to continue fighting like that beggars belief, right?
You know when somebody says something, but because you're on

(02:17:21):
their side, says something unbelievable or incredulous, yet
you still believe them because you're on their side.
They can't be wrong, right? They can't be wrong about this.
Who's grifting me? Why would they grift me?
We're on the right side. I think maybe this is one of
those things I can't wait to find out.
OK, I'm. I'm on your side.
Rob Lukasey. I now I'm now I'm back in.

(02:17:41):
I'm in. Why won't Season 3 be?
Why isn't he here already? Why can't?
Why can't I Just so frustrating.That's which led me.
To another thing where you were like, I need a break from this.
And so at the end of the episode, of course, we have the
the cutaway with the gunshot andwe don't know what happened
exactly. I mean, I know what happens, but
the audience? Is not supposed to know what

(02:18:02):
happens. That happens in game.
That is a natural break in the game.
So the exact same thing occurs. We get a cutaway with the
gunshot and then it cuts to a flashback, which they have
omitted from the series for obvious pacing reasons.
I understand why they omitted it.
So I imagine we're going to get that flashback on the first

(02:18:25):
episode of season 3, which should be a flashback to Abby at
19 years old. So I figured, OK, cool.
So pre Joel. Arriving in Salt Lake like very
pre like. Right.
Before so and I'm curious to seethat because I would love to see
that because it's it's similar to to the scene that.

(02:18:47):
Joel and Ellie. Has but for Abby, so it has
similar themes, similar imagery,that kind of thing.
So I'm curious to see if they'regoing to open it with that
flashback. I would love it if they do, but
like I said, it sort of gives you a palate cleanser.
You're like, I need a break because that's what it does for
you. It ramps up all this like
adrenaline and like, Oh my gosh,this is finally happening.
It's finally here. We're going to get this, the

(02:19:09):
showdown between Ellie and Abby.And then we just tone it way
down. We're like, oh, we're in a
forest, We're in a flashback. We're we're not there anymore.
Like we're going to calm down for just a minute and kind of
take a breather. So and then you start to
realize, oh, I'm playing as Abbynow at day one, which I was
annoyed about it the first time I played it, I was very upset.

(02:19:31):
Because we're girding. Your loins for Season 3.
Folks, I know, so I. Wonder if they'll play it like
that. Because if you think about it,
oh man, there is a cruelty to having this kind of cliffhanger
and not sort of going back to the people who from your
perspective are affected most, the people you've been with,
etcetera. It would make sense on a film
level to actually go back to those people in some form or

(02:19:52):
fashion before switching over toAbby.
Abby. But listen, let's roll the dice,
baby. Let's, let's see.
Let's see if what we're about todo works on a television level,
if if they follow the game beatsright and well.
And also too. Let's mention that they they
took a scene that happens at thevery end of the game, after both
sides of the story play out. And the then we get that scene

(02:20:16):
at the there, it's almost the very last scene.
Almost. And they pushed it way earlier.
For the purposes of the audience, I would not be
surprised if they did not push the result.
Yeah, well, the. Not the flashback.
But the results of the convergence of Ellie and Abby
together, you have to wait in game till the end of day three

(02:20:37):
and Abby's story to see it from her perspective.
And then we continue and we findout what happens.
So I don't know if they're goingto leave that for the season
finale of Season 3 or if we willgo ahead and get that story much
earlier for the TV audience who has been waiting however long to
see what happens. I think it might upset some

(02:20:57):
people to have to wait an entireseason to find out.
That's what I'm saying, yeah. Yeah.
So I don't know if they're goingto.
Change it or not. So I know in game you have to
wait until the end of day three and we enter and approach that
scene from Abby as Abby as Abby.Yeah, and.
And you end, you know, being Abby when that plays out.
So. And that was something I didn't

(02:21:18):
expect. Yeah.
That was something I. Didn't expect when I first.
Played the game. So yeah, it was really cool to
see it that way. And like I said, I don't know
how they're gonna do it for Season 3 because they did make a
lot of changes in this season. I don't hate the changes.
I understand why they made the changes.
I didn't understand the purpose of some of the changes until a
little bit later. Like Ellie being excited to

(02:21:40):
become a dad, you know, like she's gonna be a dad.
And they added a scene that madethat make more sense to me
because they changed it drastically from the game.
Again, I keep saying it's it's simultaneously exactly like the
game and completely different from the game at the same time.
So I was gonna ask you if this is.
Kind of like how the game shouldhave been, but like, no, not

(02:22:02):
necessarily. I think the game.
Plays kind of went through it, yeah, I think.
The game plays out. And it's a beautiful story.
The way they tell it for the medium they have it in and the
way they're changing it for the TV series, I don't think is
subverting the story at all. I think Neil Druckman is very
particular about being true to that narrative and making sure

(02:22:23):
that the narrative is sound in the way that they tell the
story. And I understand the medium is
totally different. Again, you know, playing a game
is more immersive in ways that watching a series never will be.
But there are some things that just simply don't translate to
watching ATV series the way you experience it in game.
You don't have the the suspense of sneaking.

(02:22:44):
Around an infected. Area, you know and and making
your way through you know miles and miles of rugged terrain
filled with infected you don't have that in ATV series you have
that in the game to see the struggle like you were saying in
day three not a lot actually happens in day three that's
because in game a lot of it is you just getting there and

(02:23:05):
there's a lot of trials and tribulations involved with that
right right well and. This is the thing I'm trying to
actually find. Yep, I was right about it.
To your point, like you said, Neil Drucken is very intimately
involved in the series, TV series.
To your point, he directed The Price, the last episode to get
that 100% right. Yes.

(02:23:26):
I saw a post of it earlier todayand I remembered seeing it when
we when I watched it the other week, but wanted to be sure.
I looked it up, actually directing it, yeah.
And I saw a photo of him with with.
He and Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the on the porch just
seemed kind of like, say, I'm sohappy that I got to do this and
have this in this, which kind ofgoes to show it's kind of like

(02:23:48):
the Kirkman effect as well. Kirkman himself has admitted
that. I'm not saying this is about
Druckman, but Kirkman has himself admitted that he liked
some of the changes in The Walking Dead TV series because
it allowed them to do a lot morehaving not taken away things
right. If like Rick's hand is the
biggest example. Yeah, it's.
Things that that could be made, you know, the argument was made

(02:24:09):
that it would be too expensive to have him missing his hand
throughout the whole series. So they kind of gave that to a
different character that wasn't on screen as often, but could
also turn into a happy, you know, bonus or or plus for
storytelling purposes for other reasons, you know, not that are
not related to budget, you know,right.
And also gaslighting. The audience to thinking, oh, is

(02:24:30):
this when it happens? This when it happens, they're
like Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope.
I mean the same thing was happening to.
Me, I'm like, are are they goingto are they going to reveal that
Mel is pregnant or are they not doing that?
Like, you know what I mean? Like talk.
About it because I don't want. To spoil anything if they
decided to change it or if they reveal it the way that they did.
You know, I would have ruined that for people if I had
mentioned, oh, they didn't say that she was pregnant.

(02:24:52):
You know what I mean? So good at this.
Karina. Damn.
You so good, so good. I personally.
Hate getting things spoiled. I want to experience it fresh.
I want to experience it new. It's the reason that I've
avoided everything possible about Thunderbolts, because I
haven't seen it yet. I'm going to go see it tomorrow.
I'm going to go see it tomorrow,but I've avoided all of the the

(02:25:12):
spoilers possible because I justdon't like getting spoiled.
Hilariously with The Walking Dead, anytime we were behind
schedule on watching it or if our friend Jeff Wagoner was
filming on something he would love to drop spoilers on unasked
for unprovoked spoilers and I would get so upset with him.

(02:25:34):
I'm like, I didn't want to know.I didn't want to know about it,
damn it. But he would find.
It hilarious. Then he would spiral be like.
Should I do? Something wrong and then he'll
do it all over again. Son of a bitch.
So funny. Oh man, Yeah.
Well, let's go to the chat for abrief moment because I we should
probably wrap this up in 2 hoursand 45 minutes according to

(02:25:54):
YouTube and hopefully in the audio podcast.
I will be cutting for Spaces. Won't be cutting for time
necessarily, but of things to discuss it.
Was season finale and then come on, Yeah, I'm so glad that we
didn't get. Into some of the things that we
knew would be revealed in season3.
I was very conscious of that fact, except for that one thing
that was just I was wondering, which you answered brilliantly
in the end. It was like, well, I can't talk

(02:26:15):
about it. Well actually I can say this one
of the pins that I dropped the 1st.
I can. Answer.
I'm not going to answer it, but.I'm going to.
You know, steer you in a direction, you know, maybe
you're right, they'd be wrong. But.
Hey, remember that thing I told you about the second episode?
Yeah, as. Logical as she wants anyway.
Rob says I wonder if there will be different factions of

(02:26:36):
Seraphytes. That's Rob.
It's what I was kind of thinkingexactly.
We each with a different profit.Yeah, that makes that could
make. Sense too, Yeah, I could see
that. I don't know if I said.
That when I was saying that, butI think I'm no, I may have said
I don't know doesn't matter. Rob said it.
Now that's easy. Could take credit to Rob.
I wonder, will the show definitively say that her dad
could have made a vaccine? Oh, I don't know if the show

(02:26:57):
will, but I know that, Neil. Druckman said that he felt like
the fireflies would have made a vaccine, but he also said that
it was purposefully ambiguous inthe game and in the series.
So I don't know if the series will definitively say that they
could have done it. I think the point is that you
are supposed to be conflicted about it.
But in his mind, which I guess we could take as Canon, they

(02:27:19):
they would have made a vaccine. He said that on I saw it on
Instagram. I don't know where he said it
originally. I see, I see.
I. Yeah, and I feel like I'm glad
because his point really is thatit doesn't matter.
Exactly. It doesn't matter.
The whole point is the ethical dilemma and what we're supposed
to take from it too. I mean, isn't that the whole
series? Yeah.
I mean, just like we. Discussed in episodes previous.

(02:27:40):
Like even if they did make a vaccine, there's no guarantee
that everyone would have got it.There's a very similar story in
Fallout, in Fallout 3, where thewhole point of, you know, you
going to find your father and everything.
Yes, that is the thing of Fallout 3 and as well as the
series was that they were tryingto create clean water that would

(02:28:02):
be distributed free for everyone.
And there were plenty of people who were like, no, it shouldn't
be free for everyone. It should just be for us.
And that was so. Exactly.
So I fully believe the same thing would have happened.
And would Ellie's death have been meant less because they're
withholding this vaccine or thiscure from, you know, everyone

(02:28:23):
except for the ones that they deem worthy, which I'm sure
would just be a select few. It certainly wouldn't be for
everybody on a whim. Exactly.
Well, the last thing I want to talk about is all Jesse related,
because he kind of mirrors his righteousness.
He also says, OK, so like in thebookstore, he says it mirrors

(02:28:45):
what I love, that scenes kind ofmirror each other.
Isaac tells Sergeant Park that you you're entering this thing
knowing that you're not you. They're the likelihood of you
surviving this campaign is very low.
And he says it's even lower for me, which, again, this is
something that hopefully they'llget into in the third season.
But it immediately goes into thebookstore where Ellie is picking

(02:29:06):
up the baby book. And he says, great choice.
I would have picked that. Just beat me to it.
He didn't say that. I'm thinking that, actually.
Yeah. But he says this scene
immediately mirrors last. He says maybe we'll all be dead.
It's kind of like a foreshadowing for himself but
also for Ellie. Here's another roadblock to stop
what you're doing. And then the sniper radio.
This is after making radio silence, by the way.

(02:29:28):
The WLF finally gets into their head.
Let's not use the radio because somebody may be listening
openly. Fear The Walking Dead.
Come on man. By the way, speaking about Fear
The Walking Dead season 8, I love how that was, Listen, you
can criticize season 8 all you want to fear The Walking Dead,
but one of the things that was hilarious was that Troy Otto was
able to find our Fear The Walking Dead gang because the

(02:29:49):
constant joke was that you're talking on the radio on an open
channel. And it's been a constant thing
throughout the series. And that I felt like it was a
nod to us because we kept talking about it like God.
Of course, they found talking onthe radio in an open channel.
So this show does the same thing.
As like they know. We keep being.
Casual about it, that does bringme up just.

(02:30:09):
Quickly I will mention because Isaid I don't know how Abby found
them in the theater if not for Ellie leaving the map because
she didn't in the series. They did make it an awful good
point of Jesse pointing out how he located them at the theater.
He's like it took two days. Maybe it wouldn't take as long
for Abby because she is familiarwith the area.

(02:30:32):
Also too, in the game you turn on the power and the whole place
is lit up like no. In the show too, Yeah, No.
Places are lit up with. Lights and everything else.
So it's like a beacon for Oh yeah, people are staying here.
Like, I wonder if they're in thetheater.
I can't believe I I I. Had made a note of that.
Yeah. I don't know if it was in my
notes or like it was a mental note.
I was like, why are you turning all these lights on?

(02:30:52):
Don't you have to put screens onthe windows at the very least?
Gosh, this is so obvious. Yeah, yeah.
That's like apocalypse logic, right?
You're not really thinking aboutthat until somebody is.
And then it's like, well, like amoth to a flame, like when he
was telling her. About the love of his life and
how he sacrificed being with herfor the sake of his quote UN

(02:31:14):
quote family or community, right?
Like are you trying to be a better person than he?
He puts it back in her face and says, had I not then that I
would have been here for you to get you out of this situation.
And in a way, he continues that sacrifice by by throwing himself
in front of a bullet. Yes.
Knowingly, I don't think he knew.
That that was going to happen, but I.
Mean he did run through those doors first.

(02:31:34):
With no caution. At all.
Like he blasted right through right?
Narratively had Ellie. Ran through first because he
wouldn't have been there exactly.
So again, another roadblock, another roadblock, yet another
roadblock that enabled her to. We don't know actually, because
that'll have to be the next season.
So if you like what you heard, head on over the rate to
thispodcast.com/walkingdead. Leave his five stars and a was a

(02:31:59):
book. I really like that book.
It's all we need. To know that you love us.
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Make sure to mention if you likethe unedited version of this
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(02:32:21):
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(02:32:43):
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I was rushing to get here on therecording studio.
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(02:33:04):
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basically my notes on this. Like the baby book.
There's links in there too. There's links to the Soundgarden
song that happens at the credits.
It's a burden in my hand. What a great song.

(02:33:26):
From a. Great, great album which follow
me into the desert. As thirsty as you are.
Like, you'll go so far to get the thing that you want that
you'll risk your life to get it.Because a story about addiction,
but still I mean. Yeah, poster.
Of Chris Cornell in the background from his solo album,
his first solo album. It was called Euphoria Morning

(02:33:48):
1999. What does 90s mean?
What does 1990s mean, Karina? I don't know.
We don't remember in like 60s. 70s and. 80s No 90s shame.
Rest in peace, Chris Cornell. And now I'm wondering if this
episode aired the day Chris Cornell passed.
Oh, was the Yeah, the anniversary.
I think it was around this time.In May I would be interested to

(02:34:10):
know that and if you know let usknow in the comments and
ratings. I would really much appreciate
having that when we actually publish this on podcast platform
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(02:34:31):
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(02:34:52):
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(02:35:14):
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to be there and we will make sure that you are there and if
you can't be there and you say go on without us, we'll do that
but we won't do it unless you'rethere because you get to help us
take shape the. Course of this podcast.
I've been here with David Cameo and I was joined by Cosmo 09

(02:35:35):
Rachel Burke. OK, big lazy.
Gardner and Bridget wait. Not in Bridget because Karina is
going next. You can find me on youtube.com
Slash at Punkybrew. So that's PUNKYBRUISETER or
ko-fi.com/punkybrew. So that's PUNKYBRUISETER and
Karina. At CARINAE under Score D on

(02:35:57):
Instagram and at a Karina Art oneverything else that was that
made me a little winded. All the voice and I'm Grover.
I'm so embarrassed. Excuse.
Me. Thank you.
News the one you guys rock. Thank you.
Thank you Sharon. I love you guys.
I love you too. I'm so sadly weren't able to be
here till the end, but probably probably.

(02:36:18):
For the best. Because we'd be on for longer.
Because, friends, we have too many cooks in the kitchen.
In that case, I maybe have turned to see again.
The podcast changes our minds a little bit.
Maybe I'm a little bit more eager to see Season 3 after
having this conversation. You should be.
It'll grow. On you I am.
It'll grow on you. I am I feel like I've healed a
little bit from the disgusted bad feelings that I had in my

(02:36:40):
tum tum. Or was it because I was like
just get used to it because it gets?
Worse, a little bit of that too.It's.
All. Part of the sauce this this pot
of Stew that is bubbling currently that we're working on
and eating and it's great and I love it and I love you guys and
I love you Karina and I love youRachel, Bridget and Charity.
And I really am happy that we got to do this together live for

(02:37:00):
every single episode. And I hope you enjoyed it very,
very much audience. And I love for you to be on
these episodes again. Again, when we are not in a live
stream in the chat, please join our studios, follow our Kofi or
Patreon account so that you get notifications for when we're in
studio again so that you could join our closed sessions.
You will not get that link if you follow us on social media.
Although I really encourage you to do that because we don't post

(02:37:22):
our Kofi stuff on social media and we don't post our social
media on our Kofi. But Kofi is the only place, or
Kofi or Patreon, they're the only places that we do post our
schedules. And when you follow, it's free.
When you join us in the studio, it's free.
We just keep it for the real ones who happen to follow there.
You don't have to buy us a tip. You don't have to join a
membership tier. When you follow, you'll get the
stuff. That's all.

(02:37:43):
Take care, everybody. We'll see you tomorrow night for
our breakdown of The Walking Dead, Dead City, 4th episode,
second season. I don't know what it's called
because I haven't watched it yet.
I haven't taken notes. So we'll see here this time.
Tomorrow night, 7:00 PM Eastern US time.
Take care, we'll see you soon. Bye everybody.
Thank you so much for making it to the end of yet another
episode of Squawking Dead, this one the Season 2 finale of The

(02:38:06):
Last of Us. I know this is a bit of a long
one, but as I said earlier, thisis a new experiment into
figuring out whether you enjoy the uncut versions of these
episodes with all its flubs, noises, etcetera.
We did cut a little bit for content, but really not that
much at all actually. And it's up to you to decide

(02:38:27):
whether or not you want to keep this version of our podcasts or
whether we should continue doingthe work, making these episodes
a little bit more clear, both inaudio quality and in content, in
speech. So I really appreciate it if you
weighed in good or bad. It's no skin off my nose because
I do this for you. And if you prefer one over the
other, definitely weigh in. If we do get 10 or more comments

(02:38:50):
saying that you like the unedited episodes, be it in the
YouTube comments on the audio podcast or more video podcast,
or in Spotify, there's a commentsection as well.
And if there isn't a comment section or rating system where
you're listening, head on over to
ratethispodcast.com/walkingdead and you can find a place to
write a little review saying howmuch a you like this podcast

(02:39:12):
because that really helps us a lot.
But also to weigh in and whetheryou prefer the edited or
unedited episodes. If we get enough saying that you
like the unedited episodes, wellthen maybe we'll just switch to
that. Any case, we'd like to thank our
great M survivors and Whispers tier members in that order,
starting with the great M tier, the greatest this year we have
at Real Ryan GM on Instagram NX skipping the survivors tier

(02:39:34):
because we don't have any members there And moving on to
the Whispers tier, we have at Skylar Rose PW on Instagram NX
as well at Kim dot Rowley, the number one on Facebook.
It's been quite a journey havingKarina on, weighing in on the
differences between the game andthe show and actually some
really, really great insights from her as well.
Going deep every now and again, which I love very much,

(02:39:57):
encouraging you all to go deep as well.
I would love to hear more from you in the comments and ratings.
But where we've gone wrong or where we've gone right and if
we've made you move in a particular direction that you
might not have otherwise, it's always a great thing to hear for
us because it means that we're doing something right.
And if we're doing something wrong, well, of course we want

(02:40:17):
to hear about it because it helps us become better because
it's all about you, really. I mean, it's all about us.
It's all about we because. We are squawking dead.
So just remember that. Stay tuned for our coverage of
The Walking Dead. Dead Cities 4th episode of its
second season titled Feisty Friendly, which we finally
covered. So we know the title and looking
forward to closing out that season, getting back to

(02:40:38):
developing the show on the back end to give you something even
better. So take everybody.
We'll get back to you real soon.And again, I remind you, we are
squawking dead.
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