May 14, 2025 • 44 mins
What happens when a beloved video game makes the leap to television? In this deep-dive conversation with guest Justin, we explore the intricate relationship between The Last of Us games and HBO's adaptation, uncovering both the triumphs and growing concerns as the series progresses.
Season 1 earned widespread acclaim for its faithful recreation of the original game, even enhancing certain elements through thoughtful expansion. The Bill and Frank episode transformed a brief game sequence into one of television's most poignant love stories. However, Season 2 has already started diverging significantly from its source material, raising questions about creative direction and narrative integrity.
We dissect the fascinating differences in how the cordyceps infection functions between mediums—from the game's airborne spores and echo-locating Clickers to the show's interconnected fungal networks. Justin provides expert insight into the game's infected types, including Stalkers, Brutes, and the terrifying Rat King that may appear in future episodes. The conversation also explores how subtle changes to character development, particularly with Abby's casting and the altered relationship dynamics between Joel and Ellie, might impact the emotional resonance that made the games so powerful.
Beyond The Last of Us, we examine the broader landscape of game adaptations, from disastrous departures like the Halo series to successful translations like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. The tension between honoring source material and establishing creative ownership emerges as a central theme in adaptation discourse.
Whether you're a dedicated gamer or newcomer to this post-apocalyptic world, our conversation offers valuable perspective on storytelling across different mediums, the challenges of adaptation, and why certain changes evoke such passionate responses from audiences.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello everyone, welcome to Cotman Croft and the
Jersey Guy podcast.
How are you doing, Tom?
Good, I'm good.
Good, yeah, got a good podcasttonight.
Yeah, I invited someone herewith us, my stepson Justin, if
you lost the last episode.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You saw him pop in mid-episode.
Yeah, he popped in mid-episode.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
He's super nerd.
You saw him pop in mid-episode.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, he popped in mid-episode.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
He's super nerd, absolutely in our comfort zone,
for sure.
So I wanted to talk with himabout the Last of Us the show,
because I know you played thegames and everything.
By the way, this is Justin.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I did, yes, hi, hi everyone, Hi world.
Yes, I did play both of thegames.
(01:01):
Plenty to take away from seasonone of the game players right
now and the discourse that'shappening and the, the
conversations that are happeningthat are kind of like pulling
people in different directionswith how the show feels.
I remember a point in time,from like 2008 to probably 2016,
(01:21):
when a bunch of movies werecoming out and hollywood's
favorite thing at the time waslike these teen books about
dystopias right.
You had like hunger games,right, yeah, twilight, maze,
runner, divergent series, and Iremember even then as someone
who didn't read the books and itreally started with harry
potter yeah oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, as as someone who just watched
(01:45):
the movies, I remember thatdiscourse existing then, with
avid book readers of thoseseries being like, oh, it's
missing.
You know x, y and z and like, oh, it could have been so much
better.
At the time I was, luckily,ignorance is bliss and was like
these movies are great.
I love them.
They're all awesome.
They should keep making them.
I'm now the book guy.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Really A little bit.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I'm now the book guy a little bit.
With these game series gettingturned into shows.
I don't so with the book seriesthat have been turned into
movies and shows.
There's a lot to take away froma book.
You know you have to cut backplenty of stuff.
There's probably some stuff youdon't really need to there's.
(02:29):
There's plenty of stuff in therethat you probably don't need.
That's not necessarilyimportant to the plot that you
can get conveyed in a single 30seconds, right, right.
The problem that seems to behappening in Hollywood right now
is the writers that are makingthese series for these games are
(02:50):
just they're not relying on thesource material.
They're not honoring the game.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
No, so you mean the series that's going on right now
.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So I mean Nothing like the.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So, like the last of us, season one is the last of us
one.
It's the first game frombeginning to end.
Okay, it starts essentially thesame way.
It ends in the exact same spot,give or take.
This second season has alreadywildly deviated from the second
(03:20):
game.
Really, for the most part, yeah, like we're within the first.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Like like Mario Brothers movie deviated.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Not, no, not like insanely different, and I'm not
talking about the one.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm talking about the 90s, john Leguizamo yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
No, not like, not so insanely different that it's
unrecognizable.
It is very recognizable.
Spoiler alert joel dies withinprobably the first hour of the
second game okay in the exactsame way.
Essentially, the scenario is alittle bit different.
They kind of catch him on thefly instead of it being in that
(04:03):
panic situationoh, I see because he's doing the
right thing, kind of thingcorrect and that's good and fine
.
But a lot of that beginningeverything that had happened
right before that point wassuper different.
That whole first intro hour ofthe second game and the
storytelling that happens thereright quite different.
The relationship between Dinaand Ellie is way more tight-knit
(04:29):
.
It's like very clear that theyboth like each other and that
there's a relationship happeningthere that is a little bit
complicated because ofwhat's-his-name?
Gene Dean totally escaping meright now.
So it's like a weird sort oflove triangle situation.
Right off the bat it's clear asday that that's a situation
(04:49):
they're pretty much missing fromthe second season so far, like
it was there.
They did the kiss at the partysituation.
Right, love that.
Instead of joel just shovingthe guy out of the way, he
straight up like rocked him.
That was a nice little extraoomph on that one.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Right, he did.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So, yeah, I mean, there's things like that that
are just it's very quicklystarting to deviate.
They're kind of exaggeratingsome things.
Yeah, pretty far away from whatthe game was In the first
season it was.
It felt like a one-to-one formost of it, which was awesome,
and people loved it.
People who had no idea aboutthe game loved it because it was
(05:32):
an incredibly well-writtenstory.
So it could have been aone-to-one, no problem.
Yeah, yeah, no doubt they diddo some extra stuff with season
one.
That was really cool.
Some extra stuff with seasonone, that was really cool.
The whole situation at the verybeginning of season one with
tess the one who died and joel alittle bit of a different
(05:52):
scenario.
His daughter, right, tess?
No, no, tess was the, the olderwoman right when they do the
time skip right at the beginningof the show okay the, the woman
that was helping him find thefireflies.
Right and then she got bit bylike the third episode.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh, that's right, I remember that, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, and that was all basically one-to-one as well
, but that whole first episodewas like a little extra.
It was nice to see a little bitextra of their relationship and
the things that they were doingthe episode with oh boy, what's
their names?
Fred Frank, fred Frank Frank.
And the two survivors Okay, thetwo men that were.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
They were happily gay and sheltered down and they
died.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Already they're gone right, and they're already both
dead In the game.
That's a super short thing thathappens.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
They extended it more , they went into it more Way
more.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
That was that whole episode of like their life
basically in a single episodewas one beautiful, like one of
the best episodes of the wholeseries.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So you think some stuff is better.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Sometimes more is more, you know, and it's better.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So in both instances they're actually giving you more
backstory on stuff than yes,yes, absolutely.
Then that shows in the game, or?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
the the instance with sam, the deaf child, and his
older brother, whose name isalso escaping me right now from
season one okay in the game.
Sam's deaf, sam's just a normalkid, so that was a fun little,
you know.
Added a little bit of extra toit.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I wonder why they do that.
You think just to give it alittle bit more appeal.
It just makes it moreinteresting.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It makes for more screen time.
It's a pretty tight-knit sortof act of the game, the whole
Sam act.
They expanded on it In.
They expanded on it in the game.
Sam and his brother are lookingfor the fireflies.
They're not running away fromthem.
So looking for yeah and as in,to do damage to them or they
were looking to join thembecause they were just like out
(07:55):
and about in the wilds trying tolike find their way.
So they wanted help.
In the show they made it thatthey had already found them
Right by the time Joelel andellie meet them, but they had
run away from them at that pointbecause of cannot remember what
the situation was.
But and then the fireflies werelooking for both of them, right
well, the hope she needed to go.
(08:15):
He had to get it to that oneplace, yes, in order for them,
but he thought they were justgoing to take their blood or
whatever, yep, and instead theywere going to have to harvest
her brain, I think right, yeah,so basically, the procedure that
they were going to attempt todo had no way of guaranteeing
her life and was likely to takeher life, and that was and that
(08:36):
was on a roll of the dice chancethat they were going to be able
to make a pathogen that wouldactually be successful in making
everybody immune, right?
So yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
there was like yeah, I'm not having it yeah, no,
there was.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
some experts went into this where they were like,
hey, so that wouldn't be a thing.
Oh, there was basically like alike a joel apologist guy who
was an expert, who was like theywouldn't have to kill her to do
that, right?
So Joel was actually right forgunning all those people down,
exactly yeah.
(09:09):
And so, like there are things inseason one that they did
differently but in a fun waythat added to the story Right,
with a few minor deviations Inseason two, though it's like
Super serious in most of themit's pretty damning.
The people don't like thecasting for Abby, why?
(09:31):
I think she's perfect for her.
She is great for it.
There is an aspect of AbbyRight In the game.
She is jacked beyond belief.
I will happily pull up apicture for you guys.
The, the character model forabby is the most yoked woman,
right, you could imagine, andit's supposed to be a whole
(09:53):
thing for her.
She made herself as rough andgritty as possible, right to go
and hunt Joel down.
There's this whole unseen partbetween both games where we only
get a little bit of it.
In the game you do do a sceneas Abby when she finds her dad,
(10:14):
who was the surgeon, dead.
Joel shot her father, who wasthe doctor who was going to kill
Ellie.
Right In that scene she's tiny,she's like the character in the
series, right, she's quitesmall and thin.
And then you do this crazy timeskip where she goes across the
country to hunt down Joel andshe's jacked out of her mind.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Right, she's like super it's part of the character
.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You know what I mean.
Like at that point that's partof the character's identity.
At that point that's part ofthe character's identity and
unfortunately in the series theythey picked someone who just
doesn't fit that part of thebill at all.
And it's hard, because in inthe second game this is actually
really interesting, I thinkyou'll like this you play only
(11:00):
for Joel for like an hour, right?
Joel dies, you immediatelystart playing as Ellie and then
after a little bit you startplaying as Abby and then the
story gets split and you playhalf of the game as Ellie and
half of the game as Abby.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So they could do that episode to episode or split the
episode.
So we do half an episode as.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
The killer there, and the reason why I'm saying her
character identity is importantis in the second game, when you
play as ellie, she's a lot moresly.
She's a lot more frail.
She has to be very smart abouthow you play with her.
Which sort of changes how sheinteracts with the world as
she's trying to go through itand hunt down everyone that was
(11:42):
there for joel's death.
When you're playing as abby, itis like playing as a soldier,
like she cleans house throughpeople, but I I don't know how
they're gonna do that part, youknow there are so many scenes
where you play as abby, whereshe is truly showing like the
strength and grit of theabsolute maximum capacity of the
(12:05):
female body, she's peakphysique and I don't see how
that character is supposed to orat least that actress is
supposed to fit that bill.
They're going to have to tone itback in some way, shape or form
, like I'm not saying thatAbby's like throwing cars around
at any point but, there'sscenes like that and that's just
not going to work for thatactress at all, unless they hit
(12:29):
it from us and she's absolutelyyoked coming up in one of these
next episodes, which I Becausethey take off right, they go.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Where do they head out Back?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
west.
They go as far west as possible.
I think they have to know thatthey're coming as spoiler free
as possible.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think they have to know that as spoiler free as
possible.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I believe abby makes it literally to the west coast,
right, and they get as far awayas possible.
They also making it harder forellie.
They disperse they're not allin the same place everyone that
was there for joel's death wentin different directions they all
.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That's probably the smartest thing you could have
done.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah and yeah.
You'll see as the show goes on.
It is a vexing story of thefight for justified revenge
versus the fight for keepingyour empathy.
Yeah, a lot of people when thegame came out, and this is the
(13:25):
other thing too.
There's so much discourse.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
This is great to have you like I'm listening to this
shit.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It's awesome there's so much discourse about this
right because now there'sdiscourse about the show
deviating from the right.
So at the time it's the samewith everything, though any,
yeah, it's, there's alwayssomething it will be what it
will be, but at the time whenthe game came out, there was a
bunch of discourse because Joeldies in the first hour.
Right.
We're freaking out about Joelnot being in the second game at
(13:52):
all.
And so when the game came out,you had all of these people that
were like giving the gamereally negative reviews, like a
very trending topic in thediscourse, that the game was
like really bad or sucked or thestory, and the people were
saying like the writing ishorrible.
(14:13):
The writing is incredible right.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
They just didn't like the fact that their guy it was
exactly right and it's just the,the gaming community when they
like.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
When there starts to be a consensus like that gets so
reactionary and like gross andinflammatory.
Yeah, oh, really, oh, yeah, Imean it's just like you know
everything else yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's just like everything else out there.
It's like when you hear theStar Wars discourse.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, right, well, anything really it's with Star
Trek, star Wars, any comic bookDC.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, all of them.
That's what art is supposed todo in many ways, right.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
It's supposed to be engaging.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Some people think a little too far, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But that's art.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's art You're going to have your extremists.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, that's art you do have a point.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
It'll always create discourse that way where people
feel one way about it and somepeople feel the other, and it'll
always go back to their youknow their political leanings
and their ideological leanings.
Right, yeah, exactly it.
Just it sucks when thoseleanings bring people towards
like attacking a masterpiece ofa game because they don't like
(15:26):
the.
What happened in the story?
right, because he dies so soonyeah, and then the the real
killer, without spoiling it foryou towards the end, is that
struggle of like am I going togo on a ruthless revenge path or
am I going to find a stoppingpoint where I have some empathy
and try and like, settle shitWith yourself mostly, mostly
(15:51):
with their self and I?
I hope that the series doesthat aspect of the game justice,
because and again withoutspoilers, it is ruthless.
Ellie becomes like borderlinepsychotic.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm I've already justifiably.
It was funny that you say thatbecause I already, as soon as it
happened and she saw it happen.
And then I, you know, I saw the, the next episode, and I was
like, yeah, she was already on awarpath, she's, she, she's
trying to make it like shedidn't want anybody to know it,
but she, you could tell, shelike absolutely and and, and.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You'll see, as long as they stick to the source
material, right, god willingthey, you'll see, almost
everyone around her thatactually cares about her is
going to be those, those momentswhere she like gets to lean on
the empathy of people being likehey, hey, what if we chilled?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
out.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know, like hey, what if we didn't murder
everyone that was present?
Yeah, and yeah, she just shetakes every single step towards,
like the darker path that youcould imagine.
Oh, she's pissed.
And again, without spoilersTommy, no better.
Tommy, arguably worse, really,mm-hmm, wow, oh, yeah, there,
(17:12):
and I hope they do this one.
There is a part of the gamewhere you're playing as Abby,
where Tommy decides to also havehis justifiable crash out and
Abby is taken through.
This isn't really necessarily aspoiler.
Abby is taken through a morgueof fireflies, or maybe it was
(17:36):
wolves, I can't remember one ofthe factions one of the factions
that abby was working with.
Okay, stacks of bodies, all tomm, all Tommy, on a war path.
He, I, they don't cover it.
Maybe they'll cover it in theseries.
They don't cover how he gets to, where he gets, but he goes to
(17:58):
a place.
It's not a good one.
And he finds the peopleresponsible and he kills anybody
wearing their symbol.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, hey, question symbol.
Yeah, hey, question Symbol.
Oh wait, but you didn't see thenext episode so I can't tell
you.
But you saw the game, all right.
Who are the people with thethings in their face?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Ah, the Scars.
Yes, yes, I believe they arecalled the Scars.
Okay, what's the purpose ofthat?
So they're interesting.
You have to actually, in thegame, you have to dig a little
bit to find more about them.
Okay, there's going to be acharacter very soon.
Is it like a religious factionof some sort?
It is that.
It's that they kind of fillthat post-apocalyptic role of
(18:38):
the.
What if there was religiousfreaks?
You know, they're always theone in the dystopian
post-apocalyptic, the one in thedystopian post-apocalyptic.
There's always the one factionthat's like kind of
religion-meaning sort of, butit's more about the person these
ones are like flat-outreligious freaks right, no not
flat-out.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
The way I got it not to ruin anything, but the way I
felt was it was more like Buddha, in a sense, where they didn't
say that the person had power,they were a god, but you were
following her practice and thatand and sharing with other
people and continuing it on,because it was the wisdom of you
know.
Yes, he was very wise.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yes, he was very wise it has that sort of occult
leaning deal it did to.
It definitely had that yeah,that's right, but they are like
it's and they got the sameproblem that every faction has
in the last of us hammer.
What's with the hammer?
What hammer?
Oh well, I'll have to watch tomake sure that I know exactly
(19:39):
what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Sorry, I'm ruining it for you.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I apologize no worries, it's no worries.
Yeah, the the scars are aninteresting faction.
They should be in this seasonright, a fair amount, because in
the game they're predominantlyone of the biggest enemies that
you're facing, as specificallyabby.
There should be anothercharacter coming up soon with
(20:01):
the next episode or two that isscar affiliated.
That is also plays a big rolein this game slash this season.
Hopefully they don't butcherthat character.
It's a very fun character thatthey had to do something with
abby to make her not instantlyhateable.
(20:21):
Play the whole first game asjoel and then you're gonna make
me play the person that killedhim and that character.
That scar character, is prettymuch the answer to playing as
abby and seeing her good sideokay, yes, gotcha yeah there
will be a bit of a a journeythere where you will see that
(20:41):
abby is not all horrible and youget plenty of chances to see
that she's also just anotherperson, admittedly kind of like
Joel.
And there's this beautifulthing with the game too, where
Ellie plays like Ellie, abbyplays like Joel, joel saved all
life.
Yeah, it's a rough go.
I personally love how it goes.
(21:03):
I love the blend of playing thetwo and I hope that the show
also does that blend of seeingwhat the two go through.
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, explain to me more about the actual infection
and how that works.
The cordyceps, okay.
So it's not like a mushroom, itis no it exactly is, it exactly
is a mushroom it.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, kind of they.
They do a fun thing in the gamefungus of some sort they exist
in real life, just not it's it's, it's really just to explain
that in the, in the in the verybeginning is is probably the the
best bit that you'll get out ofit for the show's sake.
In the game you you can findlittle bits of lore hidden in
places.
Right, it is full on a what-ifscenario where what if cordyceps
(21:55):
, which are able to take overanything organic, were able to
reach our temperature and takeus over?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
wow I'm freaking crazy yeah, normally die at our
temperature.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
They die a little bit under our temperature.
They need, like, a pretty cooland wet environment, and we are
just a little too hot A little.
However, cordyceps have beenknown to adapt to higher
temperatures over extensiveperiods of time.
That's mother nature for you,yeah.
So that was sort of the what ifthat was the basis for making
(22:29):
the game Right.
Someone was really interestedin Cordyceps and said I can make
a zombie series out of this.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's right Like that.
Interesting, yeah, veryinteresting, because you can see
what it does to insects andthings of that nature.
Yeah, it's crazy, completelyinfectious.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
There's a couple things that so far have been a
little bit missing on theCordyceps side of things in the
series.
That was in the game and wasreally cool in the game, and I
hope that they show us it morein the series.
In the game the Cordyceps arealso airborne, so there are
(23:10):
areas in the game where youwould not be able to go through
without a gas mask, otherwiseyou would get infected.
It's immediately airbornecordyceps right into your lungs.
Wow, that would be fucking suck.
Yeah, you're super screwed, andit brings up this fun mechanic
in the game too, because elliedoesn't need a gas mask, right?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
so when they're walking through those areas,
don't they sorry, no, no butdon't they communicate through
their like roots or something?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
like right, so communicate when they're
airborne.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yes, how does that work correct?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
correct.
Uh, it, uh, yeah, they, uh,they do.
They're a little bit in thegame.
Most of them don't have eyes,so they use echo location.
Oh, wow, so it's more hearingyou for the most part.
And also the root thing is moreserious thing.
Lesson in the game thing notreally a thing in the game.
It's in this are, yeah, in thegame.
It's in the, it's in a series.
(23:58):
I think in this, sorry, in theseries, the roots thing is a is
a thing right, game not so much.
That's not really like exploredas extensively as it is in the
series.
Gotcha in the game it's allecholocation you have to be
super quiet all the time andbecause they scream a lot.
That's how they gather eachother right, because they have
(24:18):
that very specific scream in inthe game.
They're called clickers becausethey click to sort of see
around them, because most ofthem don't have eyes.
You'll, you could be walkingthrough any given moment of the
game and then you start hearingclicking and everyone does the
same thing.
They just stop moving and theystart looking around.
For whatever the hell.
That was Right.
(24:38):
It's a very fun concept the waythey do it in the game, and I
don't know why they deviated sofar from it, but I like what
they're doing with the series.
Okay, this network thing issuper cool and should also be a
thing in the game.
It's more noise dependent andwhat they haven't really shown
yet in the series is that it is.
(25:00):
This is a fungus that is takingover sentient people, right,
right, and eating away at theirbrains.
They are losing their minds.
They have not fully lost theirmind.
In the game you will often findthat people who are infected
with cordyceps are, if you catchthem off guard, are often in a
(25:24):
corner crying or like weeping orin pain okay until they hear
something and then they go veryprimal and like the cordyceps
sort of kick, really like kickin and they become truly
infected.
Oh god, that's horrible.
Other thing in the game oftenwhen you get into melee with a
(25:48):
quarter step or even shootingthem, they will scream and shout
like a normal person would togetting shot.
It's not this weird, you knowzombie sounds and whatnot it's
you're hearing the human side ofit's real people getting
actually shot because there'sstill a person under the
mushroom right, yeah, yeah sothat's like a really fun thing
(26:09):
that they they do in the game alot.
That's like really eerie andscary yeah, it sounds, it sounds
bad yeah, that they're notreally exploring as much in the
in the show no, huh, that onebig one that was in the show the
big, the the brute.
Yes, the the quarter set bruteis a very fun and that is crazy.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
It is in the in the.
Was he like the like?
They followed him?
Was he like the?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
it's weird it's in the game, super, not like that.
They're not like like a sourcefor the hive in any way.
They're just a really fucked upperson that has a lot of
cordyceps on it, just a largerhost Gotcha, but they're not
necessarily like a commander inany way.
(26:54):
Right, okay In the game.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
If they had any hierarchy.
Yeah, you know what I mean Inthe game.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You almost exclusively, I think run into
brutes alone.
It's like a 1v1 scenario withthe brutes.
One of the scenarios in whichyou I think the first time you
fight a brute in the first gameis in a gymnasium closed off
space, and it sucks.
It's like really hard really.
Oh my god, it tries to truckthrough this gymnasium.
(27:22):
You have a very small space towork with.
They took away one of itsabilities for some reason.
The brutes are supposed to beable to take chunks of the
cordyceps off and throw it andit plumes into that.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And that's an airborne.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Because they took away the airborne factor.
I guess they kind of took awaysome of the abilities as well.
So now it's only the bitefactor.
It's just the bite.
It's just the bite and the likefull-blown frenzied madness.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
But there is ones that are a little bit more
intelligent in the game, justlike in the series right where
they were actually hivingtogether and keeping warm and
yeah they were, they were, andthen they're planning, planning,
hiding, sort of doing rightcloak and dagger tactics.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Those exist in the game there are ones that are
smarter.
I believe they're calledstalkers.
Yes, they are called stalkers.
Those ones also rough.
Go with those guys.
They're quieter, are they?
I think that?
I think they're stealth.
Hopefully no one called me onthis, right yeah no one called
me on this one, please out there.
(28:27):
But I believe that the stalkersin-game fundamentally are just
people with cordyceps who stillhave ears Okay, so they're just
inherently a little bit betterat being quiet and hearing and
finding their way around.
I think also they'repredominantly ones that have at
least one eye like visibleReally yeah, so that they can
actually see what.
They're predominantly ones thathave at least one eye like
(28:47):
visible yeah, so that they canactually see what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Okay, so they're a little more intelligent.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, they're like a hybrid.
There's a couple, there's oneshould be in season two.
I would be amazed if it isn't.
That is truly unique and I hopethey do not leave it out and I
hope that a lot of the budgetwent into making it, because it
is insane Really.
(29:13):
Yeah, I believe its namein-game is the Rat King the Rat.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
King yeah, okay, this is gonna be scary, yes, good,
oh, yeah, no, it's I'm lookingforward to it.
It's a bad go hello, how manygames were there?
There is only two.
Oh, there are only there isonly two how are they going to
be able to make any more storyafter this?
Speaker 3 (29:35):
do not know, I don't know if they're gonna continue.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Are the people?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I think it'd just be the two are the people who wrote
the video games involved inthis at all.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Neil Druckmann, so kind of like Walking Dead.
Where what's his name?
The creator of Walking Dead,right, yes, Neil Druckmann is.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
He was I can't remember what his title was on
the game, but he is also part ofthe team for the series.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Okay, so I wonder.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
People are currently ready to Molotov cocktail.
Neil drugman, because I don'tknow why he's.
He was part of the game.
Not sure why he's deviating sofar from something that he
helped write.
That was really good.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Freaking hollywood man, it has to be and it's or
they have to, you know make itwork for a tv series, because
sometimes it might not transferone might not, you know it might
.
It might be good for people whoknow the game.
I guess yeah to people whodon't know the game.
So they'd be like they alwaysfactor that shit right.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I feel like.
I feel like a guy like neildruckman has like a really hard
position too.
Yeah, because he has to appealto the people he made the game
for, and he has also appealingto whatever hollywood wants from
him and you know right whodon't know the game and for
people who don't know the game.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's like I.
I only knew the game because ofyou.
You've always you've spoken ofthe game.
I remember that, yeah, and thenthe series came out and you
were the one who actually had.
I watched it because of you,yeah, and as soon as I was like,
oh man, this is fantastic, Ilove this, is that right down my
alley truly one of the one ofthe best ones that there has
ever been.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
But, yeah, hollywood, they just I, I feel like it's
gotta be, because I don't thinkanyone that works on a game that
directly wants to deviate,right how?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
can we well look what they do with this, you know,
with the, with the superheromovies and yeah, I mean avengers
and and dc and yeah, you know,like they just marvel I mean
they, they, I'm sure they wouldlike to do it the way they want.
I mean Avengers and DC and youknow, like they just Marvel.
I mean they, they, I'm surethey would like to do it the way
they want.
Meaning the comic book itselfwould probably be like I don't
want to deviate, I want to keepthe story as is, or you know,
(31:35):
not crazy, but these guys wantto change it up.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
My, my initial thought is that the writers that
are working on these kinds ofthings they.
My thought is that they want todeviate from the source
material, so that it's actuallylike there's a little bit.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Like that's gotta be part of it, I feel.
Cause if you're just making itone-to-one from the source
material.
You're not really like doing ajob necessarily.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Like you're kind of just copy pasting Pretty much
Screen screen writing or gamewriting into screen play writing
.
You have a point there, so Ifeel like it's got to be part of
it.
They want to, like, put theirmarker on it somehow.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Sometimes it doesn't hurt, though I mean certain
things.
Just, you know they change thestories.
It's good, sometimes it.
Sometimes they do try to stayas close as possible when they
make them.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I mean you look at, like you know, the Batman series
.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Look how many different ones.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Different ones, but some of them have been worked
really well Like the Dark Knight.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
worked really well.
I like the Dark Knight.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You know playing this iconic.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Joker.
I like the one with.
I like the one with which bythe way.
Keaton.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah.
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, but youknow the fan theory and I still
think it checks out.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
The.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Joker, who did the Dark Knight?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
It's for Nolan.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
The Nolanverse Joker is supposed to be probably like
a psychotic black ops guy.
He knows demolition.
He knows psych ops.
He knows how to recruit people.
He's got this whole plan psychops, he knows how to recruit
people.
He's got this whole plan.
And my theory, my theory is Igo even deeper into that theory-
I'm sorry, I don't want todeviate too much.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
I'm sorry, I have a tendency to do this.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
But is that he?
It's, it's just a character,it's?
It's like he's he's doing thesame thing bruce wayne is doing
with he when he's, he's incharacter, but behind the scenes
, oh, so that's his like, that'shis superhero.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah, yeah, he's like , he's like a true operator, but
that's his like he's not like.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
That's my side behind the scenes.
Right like that man okay, yeah,I get it, totally get it,
that's a fun theory makes sense,goes out and beats the joker
for the theatrics right the planright.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
That's a fun theory.
I like that.
That's crazy yeah so anyway umno, no, you're good, you're good
.
There was, I was gonna say,because of that, the
screenwriting situation.
Like you have to make itdifferent in some way, or at
least maybe that's what'shappening yeah make it more
appealing, like you said earlierthere's ways to do it good,
like season one, where theyadded all of this fun stuff.
(34:01):
That was pretty good.
It was a deviation, sure, butit was fairly well received one.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
This was a little bit more dark and serious.
Yeah, well, what about theshrink?
I don't mean to cut you off,but shrink in the book, I mean
in the game, not in the game notin the game not in the game.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Nope, nope, and that was actually.
That's probably the otherbiggest deviation a lot of the
time that they spend in jacksonbefore joel dies, right like
ellie and joel actually talklike they fully flesh out their
feelings.
Okay, where she's like hey, Idon't fucking believe you.
And he's like I did what Ineeded to for you.
And she's like can you just saythat you did it?
(34:36):
And he goes I did what I neededto for you there's like a whole
conversation that just getsskipped.
No idea why they did that one.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That was probably the biggest one okay, um, yeah,
killer, okay, and those are oneof the things we're talking
about.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That something was added into his story yeah, okay,
we, we take time with joel witha shrink, not having a
relationship with ellie, whenthey could have just made their
complex, their relationship,more complicated in the game.
That's kind of part of thereason that playing ellie feels
(35:09):
weird.
Their relationship at the veryend was very complicated.
She was fucking really mad athim and he was just not able to
tell the truth like he.
He shells it up the whole timeuntil he dies with his lie right
.
And for ellie to go on a warpath like that it's tough
(35:32):
because even she knows that it'snot really all that justified,
you know, and they, they go intoit as you progress through the
game.
She really struggles with thatwhole part of like man, he, he
butted heads really bad at theend and what was?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
what was it again that he was?
Speaker 3 (35:49):
he was actually hiding, like that he, so she
doesn't know what happened atthe hospital, right, he killed
that to this day, she doesn'tknow what happened at the
hospital.
He just took her, and when shewoke up he said it wasn't gonna
work and so I took oh so beforethey did anything about that,
yeah, so that was like the biglie.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Is that he killed a bunch of people.
He doesn't tell anybody, hedidn't even tell the shrink,
nope yeah, and they just kind offully dodged it for some reason
.
Wow, there's so.
Do you remember after the party, when he was outside?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
on the porch and she just kind of stares at him and
then walks inside right rightpast him.
Yeah, that's where theconversation happens.
Oh, really, conversationhappens right there.
Did he have the guitar in thegame too?
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I was like, oh man, they're about to fucking go at
each other for so they decidedto go the other way with it.
Yeah, they went like a totallydifferent direction with it,
where it was just like no, she'sjust super mad at you.
I feel like they did that sothat it's not as polarizing for
people.
If she's just oh, I got you,you know what I mean.
Like if she's just oh, I'm somad at herself as well, because
(36:56):
she didn't square everything upwith him, whereas in the game
it's a lot more gray becauseit's like she, they, they go at
each other, they're mad at eachother.
She knows something's up, he'srefusing to budge and then he
(37:18):
dies.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And she's kind of just left with what do I do next
?
And it's, and it's a superscale balancing thing.
And then she just decides yeah,no, fuck it, I'm going to go
kill all these people.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
And that's where it takes us.
She has that mindset already.
She was like that from thebeginning of the first season,
even when she was little.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
You know she didn't give a shit.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I mean, she's pre -programmed that way a little
bit because she was.
She was in that firefly academywith those kids and the
fireflies were teaching them tolike how to survive in a really
tough world, so yeah, you'reright it's, it's just part of
who she.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
She is brought up, as do you think with this series
they might split it up, like ifthey want to make another season
out of it.
I'm saying like if they doanother one, will they be able
to take anything from the second, second game still to make the
other one?
Speaker 3 (38:10):
I mean there's a lot of content in the second game,
so maybe we won't get all theway through it right, maybe we
only get, oh, they'll split that.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
They'll split the into two seasons maybe because
there's because there's not athird game, there's a lot yeah,
a lot to cover.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Okay, I mean they, they go like across the country,
you know she, she chases allwhat six of them across the
country really, to differentplaces too.
There's a lot to cover sheain't playing, no no, she, yeah
she.
I mean travel time.
You're talking there's a bunchof white space that isn't
covered in the game because it's.
(38:46):
You know she's going out, Iwon't spoil anything and then
you just pick up at you know acity or a place where she found
out that there's fireflies andshe's like I'm going to find
that person, I'm going to findone of them here because there's
fireflies here, right?
And it's just that severaltimes she goes across the
country.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, it's was the other younger girl with her as
well, but they're both stilltogether.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, dina is with her through most of the game,
okay, some of the game.
There's a turning point whereplenty of stuff happens, where
Ellie does end up completelyalone still chasing people down.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's plenty of fun.
Really messed up stuff on itsway.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
So maybe they will go and do something.
I'm thinking, would they reallystop at the second game and
that would be it, second seasonand you're done?
Yeah, no, I feel like there'sprobably more to talk about.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I feel like they could stop at quite a few points
and then call it for anotherseason.
I mean, obviously she's goingto go on this war path where she
starts trying to eliminate them.
You could really stop at anyone of the people she gets to.
There's enough time and spacefor her to get-.
To have more stories, maybethis season she gets one or two
(40:02):
of them and then next season Tohave more stories.
Maybe this season she gets oneor two of them and then next
season she gets the other four.
Right, I gotcha Something likethat.
But it's a little up in the airright now because they're
starting to deviate quite wildly.
And it's a little scary whenit's this early on in the season
that it's deviating, becausethen it's like okay, well, if
you're making deviations.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Maybe they're deviating because they want to
be able to make another seasonPossibly, possibly.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
That could be another reason.
It's a great theory because youknow, when it's that different,
that early, that's usually fora reason, and that's because
they want to change more andmore as it goes on.
So, yeah, I think it will endup getting changed pretty wildly
.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
That's why I hated when they did original Walking
Dead?
Yeah, when they did, I was justlike they changed it.
Oh yeah, yeah, they also justdragged it yeah yeah yeah, now
they.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
They branched off another series on it too, didn't
they?
Oh?
Speaker 3 (40:55):
they've done several now, yeah, yeah, there's like
three series now.
It's ridiculous, yeah.
So that's what I mean, there'sa right way to do it, which I
would consider season one of theLast of Us, probably one of the
better adaptations from a videogame Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
Right, it's an anime on Netflixsingle season.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Incredibly good.
Probably my favorite video gameadaptation of a game game being
Cyberpunk.
Absolute wrong direction.
The Halo series on Paramountthat just came out the last two,
three years.
That was horrible.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Really.
But I remember you playing thatgame when you were younger.
I mean, you've been playingthat for how long now?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
As long as I could remember, as long as I could
pick up a control.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
So it got worse.
It didn't get better, Like thefirst Xbox.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
It was bad within the first two episodes.
I don't know how it got asecond season.
It deviated.
That was, it is like literallytake what I'm complaining about,
about the Last of Us, andmultiply it by 30.
Okay, they went so the wrongway.
They went the 1990s super mariobrother it was the 1990s.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yes, yes, exactly that it was like, which was
horrible, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
it's just insane.
They and the biggest thing, too, is that the screenwriters came
out and made a statement wherethey said source material, not
worried about it, we're going torely on a couple of the books.
That was a statement that theymade.
Wow, just the wrong direction,yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Let's deviate from what it came from.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Right from what it actually is about.
That makes no sense.
Why would you do that?
You know what I mean, yeah.
There's a right way to do it,and a wrong way to do it, and
now we have exactly what thatlooks like and, of course,
everybody is going to be, youknow, having their own view and
comment, and some verypassionate more than needed
obviously sometimes thediscourse will be everywhere.
(42:57):
It will continue.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
It will continue.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Anyway, Justin, thank you so much for being with us.
I appreciate you doing thiswith us.
This was good.
I got a lot of informationabout the show, tom.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, I know, I got to pick it back up now.
I think you should Right.
I do I do, you know?
It's just I have a habit where,if I lose too much time, I'm
just like I forget about it, Iforgot it exists, or or or like
I'll just not that I forget toexist because people mention it
and I'll go yeah, yeah, last ofus.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I gotta, I gotta gotta back up on that.
I never do.
There's so many to watch.
That's the problem.
I'm going to try to.
I'm going to try to.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I'm going to put it because you know what you got
time to kill.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah Right, exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
That's the prime time .
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Well, that said, thanks again.
This was a good podcast.
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
What are we saying?
Are we saying our usual shtick?
Nah, should we say Something?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
different.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
What's Kenny's thing?
Oh, love peace and hair grease.
Live long and prosper.
Thank you people.
Hello everyone, welcome to Cotman Croft and the
Jersey Guy podcast.
How are you doing, Tom?
Good, I'm good.
Good, yeah, got a good podcasttonight.
Yeah, I invited someone herewith us, my stepson Justin, if
you lost the last episode.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
You saw him pop in mid-episode.
Yeah, he popped in mid-episode.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
He's super nerd.
You saw him pop in mid-episode.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, he popped in mid-episode.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
He's super nerd, absolutely in our comfort zone,
for sure.
So I wanted to talk with himabout the Last of Us the show,
because I know you played thegames and everything.
By the way, this is Justin.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I did, yes, hi, hi everyone, Hi world.
Yes, I did play both of thegames.
(01:01):
Plenty to take away from seasonone of the game players right
now and the discourse that'shappening and the, the
conversations that are happeningthat are kind of like pulling
people in different directionswith how the show feels.
I remember a point in time,from like 2008 to probably 2016,
(01:21):
when a bunch of movies werecoming out and hollywood's
favorite thing at the time waslike these teen books about
dystopias right.
You had like hunger games,right, yeah, twilight, maze,
runner, divergent series, and Iremember even then as someone
who didn't read the books and itreally started with harry
potter yeah oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, as as someone who just watched
(01:45):
the movies, I remember thatdiscourse existing then, with
avid book readers of thoseseries being like, oh, it's
missing.
You know x, y and z and like, oh, it could have been so much
better.
At the time I was, luckily,ignorance is bliss and was like
these movies are great.
I love them.
They're all awesome.
They should keep making them.
I'm now the book guy.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Really A little bit.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I'm now the book guy a little bit.
With these game series gettingturned into shows.
I don't so with the book seriesthat have been turned into
movies and shows.
There's a lot to take away froma book.
You know you have to cut backplenty of stuff.
There's probably some stuff youdon't really need to there's.
(02:29):
There's plenty of stuff in therethat you probably don't need.
That's not necessarilyimportant to the plot that you
can get conveyed in a single 30seconds, right, right.
The problem that seems to behappening in Hollywood right now
is the writers that are makingthese series for these games are
(02:50):
just they're not relying on thesource material.
They're not honoring the game.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
No, so you mean the series that's going on right now
.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So I mean Nothing like the.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So, like the last of us, season one is the last of us
one.
It's the first game frombeginning to end.
Okay, it starts essentially thesame way.
It ends in the exact same spot,give or take.
This second season has alreadywildly deviated from the second
(03:20):
game.
Really, for the most part, yeah, like we're within the first.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Like like Mario Brothers movie deviated.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Not, no, not like insanely different, and I'm not
talking about the one.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm talking about the 90s, john Leguizamo yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
No, not like, not so insanely different that it's
unrecognizable.
It is very recognizable.
Spoiler alert joel dies withinprobably the first hour of the
second game okay in the exactsame way.
Essentially, the scenario is alittle bit different.
They kind of catch him on thefly instead of it being in that
(04:03):
panic situationoh, I see because he's doing the
right thing, kind of thingcorrect and that's good and fine
.
But a lot of that beginningeverything that had happened
right before that point wassuper different.
That whole first intro hour ofthe second game and the
storytelling that happens thereright quite different.
The relationship between Dinaand Ellie is way more tight-knit
(04:29):
.
It's like very clear that theyboth like each other and that
there's a relationship happeningthere that is a little bit
complicated because ofwhat's-his-name?
Gene Dean totally escaping meright now.
So it's like a weird sort oflove triangle situation.
Right off the bat it's clear asday that that's a situation
(04:49):
they're pretty much missing fromthe second season so far, like
it was there.
They did the kiss at the partysituation.
Right, love that.
Instead of joel just shovingthe guy out of the way, he
straight up like rocked him.
That was a nice little extraoomph on that one.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Right, he did.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So, yeah, I mean, there's things like that that
are just it's very quicklystarting to deviate.
They're kind of exaggeratingsome things.
Yeah, pretty far away from whatthe game was In the first
season it was.
It felt like a one-to-one formost of it, which was awesome,
and people loved it.
People who had no idea aboutthe game loved it because it was
(05:32):
an incredibly well-writtenstory.
So it could have been aone-to-one, no problem.
Yeah, yeah, no doubt they diddo some extra stuff with season
one.
That was really cool.
Some extra stuff with seasonone, that was really cool.
The whole situation at the verybeginning of season one with
tess the one who died and joel alittle bit of a different
(05:52):
scenario.
His daughter, right, tess?
No, no, tess was the, the olderwoman right when they do the
time skip right at the beginningof the show okay the, the woman
that was helping him find thefireflies.
Right and then she got bit bylike the third episode.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Oh, that's right, I remember that, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, and that was all basically one-to-one as well
, but that whole first episodewas like a little extra.
It was nice to see a little bitextra of their relationship and
the things that they were doingthe episode with oh boy, what's
their names?
Fred Frank, fred Frank Frank.
And the two survivors Okay, thetwo men that were.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
They were happily gay and sheltered down and they
died.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Already they're gone right, and they're already both
dead In the game.
That's a super short thing thathappens.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
They extended it more , they went into it more Way
more.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
That was that whole episode of like their life
basically in a single episodewas one beautiful, like one of
the best episodes of the wholeseries.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So you think some stuff is better.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Sometimes more is more, you know, and it's better.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So in both instances they're actually giving you more
backstory on stuff than yes,yes, absolutely.
Then that shows in the game, or?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
the the instance with sam, the deaf child, and his
older brother, whose name isalso escaping me right now from
season one okay in the game.
Sam's deaf, sam's just a normalkid, so that was a fun little,
you know.
Added a little bit of extra toit.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I wonder why they do that.
You think just to give it alittle bit more appeal.
It just makes it moreinteresting.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It makes for more screen time.
It's a pretty tight-knit sortof act of the game, the whole
Sam act.
They expanded on it In.
They expanded on it in the game.
Sam and his brother are lookingfor the fireflies.
They're not running away fromthem.
So looking for yeah and as in,to do damage to them or they
were looking to join thembecause they were just like out
(07:55):
and about in the wilds trying tolike find their way.
So they wanted help.
In the show they made it thatthey had already found them
Right by the time Joelel andellie meet them, but they had
run away from them at that pointbecause of cannot remember what
the situation was.
But and then the fireflies werelooking for both of them, right
well, the hope she needed to go.
(08:15):
He had to get it to that oneplace, yes, in order for them,
but he thought they were justgoing to take their blood or
whatever, yep, and instead theywere going to have to harvest
her brain, I think right, yeah,so basically, the procedure that
they were going to attempt todo had no way of guaranteeing
her life and was likely to takeher life, and that was and that
(08:36):
was on a roll of the dice chancethat they were going to be able
to make a pathogen that wouldactually be successful in making
everybody immune, right?
So yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
there was like yeah, I'm not having it yeah, no,
there was.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
some experts went into this where they were like,
hey, so that wouldn't be a thing.
Oh, there was basically like alike a joel apologist guy who
was an expert, who was like theywouldn't have to kill her to do
that, right?
So Joel was actually right forgunning all those people down,
exactly yeah.
(09:09):
And so, like there are things inseason one that they did
differently but in a fun waythat added to the story Right,
with a few minor deviations Inseason two, though it's like
Super serious in most of themit's pretty damning.
The people don't like thecasting for Abby, why?
(09:31):
I think she's perfect for her.
She is great for it.
There is an aspect of AbbyRight In the game.
She is jacked beyond belief.
I will happily pull up apicture for you guys.
The, the character model forabby is the most yoked woman,
right, you could imagine, andit's supposed to be a whole
(09:53):
thing for her.
She made herself as rough andgritty as possible, right to go
and hunt Joel down.
There's this whole unseen partbetween both games where we only
get a little bit of it.
In the game you do do a sceneas Abby when she finds her dad,
(10:14):
who was the surgeon, dead.
Joel shot her father, who wasthe doctor who was going to kill
Ellie.
Right In that scene she's tiny,she's like the character in the
series, right, she's quitesmall and thin.
And then you do this crazy timeskip where she goes across the
country to hunt down Joel andshe's jacked out of her mind.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Right, she's like super it's part of the character
.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You know what I mean.
Like at that point that's partof the character's identity.
At that point that's part ofthe character's identity and
unfortunately in the series theythey picked someone who just
doesn't fit that part of thebill at all.
And it's hard, because in inthe second game this is actually
really interesting, I thinkyou'll like this you play only
(11:00):
for Joel for like an hour, right?
Joel dies, you immediatelystart playing as Ellie and then
after a little bit you startplaying as Abby and then the
story gets split and you playhalf of the game as Ellie and
half of the game as Abby.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So they could do that episode to episode or split the
episode.
So we do half an episode as.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
The killer there, and the reason why I'm saying her
character identity is importantis in the second game, when you
play as ellie, she's a lot moresly.
She's a lot more frail.
She has to be very smart abouthow you play with her.
Which sort of changes how sheinteracts with the world as
she's trying to go through itand hunt down everyone that was
(11:42):
there for joel's death.
When you're playing as abby, itis like playing as a soldier,
like she cleans house throughpeople, but I I don't know how
they're gonna do that part, youknow there are so many scenes
where you play as abby, whereshe is truly showing like the
strength and grit of theabsolute maximum capacity of the
(12:05):
female body, she's peakphysique and I don't see how
that character is supposed to orat least that actress is
supposed to fit that bill.
They're going to have to tone itback in some way, shape or form
, like I'm not saying thatAbby's like throwing cars around
at any point but, there'sscenes like that and that's just
not going to work for thatactress at all, unless they hit
(12:29):
it from us and she's absolutelyyoked coming up in one of these
next episodes, which I Becausethey take off right, they go.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Where do they head out Back?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
west.
They go as far west as possible.
I think they have to know thatthey're coming as spoiler free
as possible.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I think they have to know that as spoiler free as
possible.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I believe abby makes it literally to the west coast,
right, and they get as far awayas possible.
They also making it harder forellie.
They disperse they're not allin the same place everyone that
was there for joel's death wentin different directions they all
.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That's probably the smartest thing you could have
done.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah and yeah.
You'll see as the show goes on.
It is a vexing story of thefight for justified revenge
versus the fight for keepingyour empathy.
Yeah, a lot of people when thegame came out, and this is the
(13:25):
other thing too.
There's so much discourse.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
This is great to have you like I'm listening to this
shit.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It's awesome there's so much discourse about this
right because now there'sdiscourse about the show
deviating from the right.
So at the time it's the samewith everything, though any,
yeah, it's, there's alwayssomething it will be what it
will be, but at the time whenthe game came out, there was a
bunch of discourse because Joeldies in the first hour.
Right.
We're freaking out about Joelnot being in the second game at
(13:52):
all.
And so when the game came out,you had all of these people that
were like giving the gamereally negative reviews, like a
very trending topic in thediscourse, that the game was
like really bad or sucked or thestory, and the people were
saying like the writing ishorrible.
(14:13):
The writing is incredible right.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
They just didn't like the fact that their guy it was
exactly right and it's just the,the gaming community when they
like.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
When there starts to be a consensus like that gets so
reactionary and like gross andinflammatory.
Yeah, oh, really, oh, yeah, Imean it's just like you know
everything else yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's just like everything else out there.
It's like when you hear theStar Wars discourse.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, right, well, anything really it's with Star
Trek, star Wars, any comic bookDC.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, all of them.
That's what art is supposed todo in many ways, right.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
It's supposed to be engaging.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Some people think a little too far, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But that's art.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's art You're going to have your extremists.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, that's art you do have a point.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
It'll always create discourse that way where people
feel one way about it and somepeople feel the other, and it'll
always go back to their youknow their political leanings
and their ideological leanings.
Right, yeah, exactly it.
Just it sucks when thoseleanings bring people towards
like attacking a masterpiece ofa game because they don't like
(15:26):
the.
What happened in the story?
right, because he dies so soonyeah, and then the the real
killer, without spoiling it foryou towards the end, is that
struggle of like am I going togo on a ruthless revenge path or
am I going to find a stoppingpoint where I have some empathy
and try and like, settle shitWith yourself mostly, mostly
(15:51):
with their self and I?
I hope that the series doesthat aspect of the game justice,
because and again withoutspoilers, it is ruthless.
Ellie becomes like borderlinepsychotic.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm I've already justifiably.
It was funny that you say thatbecause I already, as soon as it
happened and she saw it happen.
And then I, you know, I saw the, the next episode, and I was
like, yeah, she was already on awarpath, she's, she, she's
trying to make it like shedidn't want anybody to know it,
but she, you could tell, shelike absolutely and and, and.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
You'll see, as long as they stick to the source
material, right, god willingthey, you'll see, almost
everyone around her thatactually cares about her is
going to be those, those momentswhere she like gets to lean on
the empathy of people being likehey, hey, what if we chilled?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
out.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
You know, like hey, what if we didn't murder
everyone that was present?
Yeah, and yeah, she just shetakes every single step towards,
like the darker path that youcould imagine.
Oh, she's pissed.
And again, without spoilersTommy, no better.
Tommy, arguably worse, really,mm-hmm, wow, oh, yeah, there,
(17:12):
and I hope they do this one.
There is a part of the gamewhere you're playing as Abby,
where Tommy decides to also havehis justifiable crash out and
Abby is taken through.
This isn't really necessarily aspoiler.
Abby is taken through a morgueof fireflies, or maybe it was
(17:36):
wolves, I can't remember one ofthe factions one of the factions
that abby was working with.
Okay, stacks of bodies, all tomm, all Tommy, on a war path.
He, I, they don't cover it.
Maybe they'll cover it in theseries.
They don't cover how he gets to, where he gets, but he goes to
(17:58):
a place.
It's not a good one.
And he finds the peopleresponsible and he kills anybody
wearing their symbol.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, hey, question symbol.
Yeah, hey, question Symbol.
Oh wait, but you didn't see thenext episode so I can't tell
you.
But you saw the game, all right.
Who are the people with thethings in their face?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Ah, the Scars.
Yes, yes, I believe they arecalled the Scars.
Okay, what's the purpose ofthat?
So they're interesting.
You have to actually, in thegame, you have to dig a little
bit to find more about them.
Okay, there's going to be acharacter very soon.
Is it like a religious factionof some sort?
It is that.
It's that they kind of fillthat post-apocalyptic role of
(18:38):
the.
What if there was religiousfreaks?
You know, they're always theone in the dystopian
post-apocalyptic, the one in thedystopian post-apocalyptic.
There's always the one factionthat's like kind of
religion-meaning sort of, butit's more about the person these
ones are like flat-outreligious freaks right, no not
flat-out.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
The way I got it not to ruin anything, but the way I
felt was it was more like Buddha, in a sense, where they didn't
say that the person had power,they were a god, but you were
following her practice and thatand and sharing with other
people and continuing it on,because it was the wisdom of you
know.
Yes, he was very wise.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yes, he was very wise it has that sort of occult
leaning deal it did to.
It definitely had that yeah,that's right, but they are like
it's and they got the sameproblem that every faction has
in the last of us hammer.
What's with the hammer?
What hammer?
Oh well, I'll have to watch tomake sure that I know exactly
(19:39):
what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Sorry, I'm ruining it for you.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I apologize no worries, it's no worries.
Yeah, the the scars are aninteresting faction.
They should be in this seasonright, a fair amount, because in
the game they're predominantlyone of the biggest enemies that
you're facing, as specificallyabby.
There should be anothercharacter coming up soon with
(20:01):
the next episode or two that isscar affiliated.
That is also plays a big rolein this game slash this season.
Hopefully they don't butcherthat character.
It's a very fun character thatthey had to do something with
abby to make her not instantlyhateable.
(20:21):
Play the whole first game asjoel and then you're gonna make
me play the person that killedhim and that character.
That scar character, is prettymuch the answer to playing as
abby and seeing her good sideokay, yes, gotcha yeah there
will be a bit of a a journeythere where you will see that
(20:41):
abby is not all horrible and youget plenty of chances to see
that she's also just anotherperson, admittedly kind of like
Joel.
And there's this beautifulthing with the game too, where
Ellie plays like Ellie, abbyplays like Joel, joel saved all
life.
Yeah, it's a rough go.
I personally love how it goes.
(21:03):
I love the blend of playing thetwo and I hope that the show
also does that blend of seeingwhat the two go through.
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, explain to me more about the actual infection
and how that works.
The cordyceps, okay.
So it's not like a mushroom, itis no it exactly is, it exactly
is a mushroom it.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, kind of they.
They do a fun thing in the gamefungus of some sort they exist
in real life, just not it's it's, it's really just to explain
that in the, in the in the verybeginning is is probably the the
best bit that you'll get out ofit for the show's sake.
In the game you you can findlittle bits of lore hidden in
places.
Right, it is full on a what-ifscenario where what if cordyceps
(21:55):
, which are able to take overanything organic, were able to
reach our temperature and takeus over?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
wow I'm freaking crazy yeah, normally die at our
temperature.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
They die a little bit under our temperature.
They need, like, a pretty cooland wet environment, and we are
just a little too hot A little.
However, cordyceps have beenknown to adapt to higher
temperatures over extensiveperiods of time.
That's mother nature for you,yeah.
So that was sort of the what ifthat was the basis for making
(22:29):
the game Right.
Someone was really interestedin Cordyceps and said I can make
a zombie series out of this.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That's right Like that.
Interesting, yeah, veryinteresting, because you can see
what it does to insects andthings of that nature.
Yeah, it's crazy, completelyinfectious.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
There's a couple things that so far have been a
little bit missing on theCordyceps side of things in the
series.
That was in the game and wasreally cool in the game, and I
hope that they show us it morein the series.
In the game the Cordyceps arealso airborne, so there are
(23:10):
areas in the game where youwould not be able to go through
without a gas mask, otherwiseyou would get infected.
It's immediately airbornecordyceps right into your lungs.
Wow, that would be fucking suck.
Yeah, you're super screwed, andit brings up this fun mechanic
in the game too, because elliedoesn't need a gas mask, right?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
so when they're walking through those areas,
don't they sorry, no, no butdon't they communicate through
their like roots or something?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
like right, so communicate when they're
airborne.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yes, how does that work correct?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
correct.
Uh, it, uh, yeah, they, uh,they do.
They're a little bit in thegame.
Most of them don't have eyes,so they use echo location.
Oh, wow, so it's more hearingyou for the most part.
And also the root thing is moreserious thing.
Lesson in the game thing notreally a thing in the game.
It's in this are, yeah, in thegame.
It's in the, it's in a series.
(23:58):
I think in this, sorry, in theseries, the roots thing is a is
a thing right, game not so much.
That's not really like exploredas extensively as it is in the
series.
Gotcha in the game it's allecholocation you have to be
super quiet all the time andbecause they scream a lot.
That's how they gather eachother right, because they have
(24:18):
that very specific scream in inthe game.
They're called clickers becausethey click to sort of see
around them, because most ofthem don't have eyes.
You'll, you could be walkingthrough any given moment of the
game and then you start hearingclicking and everyone does the
same thing.
They just stop moving and theystart looking around.
For whatever the hell.
That was Right.
(24:38):
It's a very fun concept the waythey do it in the game, and I
don't know why they deviated sofar from it, but I like what
they're doing with the series.
Okay, this network thing issuper cool and should also be a
thing in the game.
It's more noise dependent andwhat they haven't really shown
yet in the series is that it is.
(25:00):
This is a fungus that is takingover sentient people, right,
right, and eating away at theirbrains.
They are losing their minds.
They have not fully lost theirmind.
In the game you will often findthat people who are infected
with cordyceps are, if you catchthem off guard, are often in a
(25:24):
corner crying or like weeping orin pain okay until they hear
something and then they go veryprimal and like the cordyceps
sort of kick, really like kickin and they become truly
infected.
Oh god, that's horrible.
Other thing in the game oftenwhen you get into melee with a
(25:48):
quarter step or even shootingthem, they will scream and shout
like a normal person would togetting shot.
It's not this weird, you knowzombie sounds and whatnot it's
you're hearing the human side ofit's real people getting
actually shot because there'sstill a person under the
mushroom right, yeah, yeah sothat's like a really fun thing
(26:09):
that they they do in the game alot.
That's like really eerie andscary yeah, it sounds, it sounds
bad yeah, that they're notreally exploring as much in the
in the show no, huh, that onebig one that was in the show the
big, the the brute.
Yes, the the quarter set bruteis a very fun and that is crazy.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
It is in the in the.
Was he like the like?
They followed him?
Was he like the?
Speaker 3 (26:33):
it's weird it's in the game, super, not like that.
They're not like like a sourcefor the hive in any way.
They're just a really fucked upperson that has a lot of
cordyceps on it, just a largerhost Gotcha, but they're not
necessarily like a commander inany way.
(26:54):
Right, okay In the game.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
If they had any hierarchy.
Yeah, you know what I mean Inthe game.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You almost exclusively, I think run into
brutes alone.
It's like a 1v1 scenario withthe brutes.
One of the scenarios in whichyou I think the first time you
fight a brute in the first gameis in a gymnasium closed off
space, and it sucks.
It's like really hard really.
Oh my god, it tries to truckthrough this gymnasium.
(27:22):
You have a very small space towork with.
They took away one of itsabilities for some reason.
The brutes are supposed to beable to take chunks of the
cordyceps off and throw it andit plumes into that.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And that's an airborne.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Because they took away the airborne factor.
I guess they kind of took awaysome of the abilities as well.
So now it's only the bitefactor.
It's just the bite.
It's just the bite and the likefull-blown frenzied madness.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
But there is ones that are a little bit more
intelligent in the game, justlike in the series right where
they were actually hivingtogether and keeping warm and
yeah they were, they were, andthen they're planning, planning,
hiding, sort of doing rightcloak and dagger tactics.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Those exist in the game there are ones that are
smarter.
I believe they're calledstalkers.
Yes, they are called stalkers.
Those ones also rough.
Go with those guys.
They're quieter, are they?
I think that?
I think they're stealth.
Hopefully no one called me onthis, right yeah no one called
me on this one, please out there.
(28:27):
But I believe that the stalkersin-game fundamentally are just
people with cordyceps who stillhave ears Okay, so they're just
inherently a little bit betterat being quiet and hearing and
finding their way around.
I think also they'repredominantly ones that have at
least one eye like visibleReally yeah, so that they can
actually see what.
They're predominantly ones thathave at least one eye like
(28:47):
visible yeah, so that they canactually see what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Okay, so they're a little more intelligent.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, they're like a hybrid.
There's a couple, there's oneshould be in season two.
I would be amazed if it isn't.
That is truly unique and I hopethey do not leave it out and I
hope that a lot of the budgetwent into making it, because it
is insane Really.
(29:13):
Yeah, I believe its namein-game is the Rat King the Rat.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
King yeah, okay, this is gonna be scary, yes, good,
oh, yeah, no, it's I'm lookingforward to it.
It's a bad go hello, how manygames were there?
There is only two.
Oh, there are only there isonly two how are they going to
be able to make any more storyafter this?
Speaker 3 (29:35):
do not know, I don't know if they're gonna continue.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Are the people?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I think it'd just be the two are the people who wrote
the video games involved inthis at all.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Neil Druckmann, so kind of like Walking Dead.
Where what's his name?
The creator of Walking Dead,right, yes, Neil Druckmann is.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
He was I can't remember what his title was on
the game, but he is also part ofthe team for the series.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Okay, so I wonder.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
People are currently ready to Molotov cocktail.
Neil drugman, because I don'tknow why he's.
He was part of the game.
Not sure why he's deviating sofar from something that he
helped write.
That was really good.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Freaking hollywood man, it has to be and it's or
they have to, you know make itwork for a tv series, because
sometimes it might not transferone might not, you know it might
.
It might be good for people whoknow the game.
I guess yeah to people whodon't know the game.
So they'd be like they alwaysfactor that shit right.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I feel like.
I feel like a guy like neildruckman has like a really hard
position too.
Yeah, because he has to appealto the people he made the game
for, and he has also appealingto whatever hollywood wants from
him and you know right whodon't know the game and for
people who don't know the game.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's like I.
I only knew the game because ofyou.
You've always you've spoken ofthe game.
I remember that, yeah, and thenthe series came out and you
were the one who actually had.
I watched it because of you,yeah, and as soon as I was like,
oh man, this is fantastic, Ilove this, is that right down my
alley truly one of the one ofthe best ones that there has
ever been.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
But, yeah, hollywood, they just I, I feel like it's
gotta be, because I don't thinkanyone that works on a game that
directly wants to deviate,right how?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
can we well look what they do with this, you know,
with the, with the superheromovies and yeah, I mean avengers
and and dc and yeah, you know,like they just marvel I mean
they, they, I'm sure they wouldlike to do it the way they want.
I mean Avengers and DC and youknow, like they just Marvel.
I mean they, they, I'm surethey would like to do it the way
they want.
Meaning the comic book itselfwould probably be like I don't
want to deviate, I want to keepthe story as is, or you know,
(31:35):
not crazy, but these guys wantto change it up.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
My, my initial thought is that the writers that
are working on these kinds ofthings they.
My thought is that they want todeviate from the source
material, so that it's actuallylike there's a little bit.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Like that's gotta be part of it, I feel.
Cause if you're just making itone-to-one from the source
material.
You're not really like doing ajob necessarily.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Like you're kind of just copy pasting Pretty much
Screen screen writing or gamewriting into screen play writing
.
You have a point there, so Ifeel like it's got to be part of
it.
They want to, like, put theirmarker on it somehow.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Sometimes it doesn't hurt, though I mean certain
things.
Just, you know they change thestories.
It's good, sometimes it.
Sometimes they do try to stayas close as possible when they
make them.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I mean you look at, like you know, the Batman series
.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Look how many different ones.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Different ones, but some of them have been worked
really well Like the Dark Knight.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
worked really well.
I like the Dark Knight.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You know playing this iconic.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Joker.
I like the one with.
I like the one with which bythe way.
Keaton.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah.
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, but youknow the fan theory and I still
think it checks out.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
The.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Joker, who did the Dark Knight?
Speaker 3 (32:47):
It's for Nolan.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
The Nolanverse Joker is supposed to be probably like
a psychotic black ops guy.
He knows demolition.
He knows psych ops.
He knows how to recruit people.
He's got this whole plan psychops, he knows how to recruit
people.
He's got this whole plan.
And my theory, my theory is Igo even deeper into that theory-
I'm sorry, I don't want todeviate too much.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
I'm sorry, I have a tendency to do this.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
But is that he?
It's, it's just a character,it's?
It's like he's he's doing thesame thing bruce wayne is doing
with he when he's, he's incharacter, but behind the scenes
, oh, so that's his like, that'shis superhero.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah, yeah, he's like , he's like a true operator, but
that's his like he's not like.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
That's my side behind the scenes.
Right like that man okay, yeah,I get it, totally get it,
that's a fun theory makes sense,goes out and beats the joker
for the theatrics right the planright.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
That's a fun theory.
I like that.
That's crazy yeah so anyway umno, no, you're good, you're good
.
There was, I was gonna say,because of that, the
screenwriting situation.
Like you have to make itdifferent in some way, or at
least maybe that's what'shappening yeah make it more
appealing, like you said earlierthere's ways to do it good,
like season one, where theyadded all of this fun stuff.
(34:01):
That was pretty good.
It was a deviation, sure, butit was fairly well received one.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
This was a little bit more dark and serious.
Yeah, well, what about theshrink?
I don't mean to cut you off,but shrink in the book, I mean
in the game, not in the game notin the game not in the game.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Nope, nope, and that was actually.
That's probably the otherbiggest deviation a lot of the
time that they spend in jacksonbefore joel dies, right like
ellie and joel actually talklike they fully flesh out their
feelings.
Okay, where she's like hey, Idon't fucking believe you.
And he's like I did what Ineeded to for you.
And she's like can you just saythat you did it?
(34:36):
And he goes I did what I neededto for you there's like a whole
conversation that just getsskipped.
No idea why they did that one.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That was probably the biggest one okay, um, yeah,
killer, okay, and those are oneof the things we're talking
about.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That something was added into his story yeah, okay,
we, we take time with joel witha shrink, not having a
relationship with ellie, whenthey could have just made their
complex, their relationship,more complicated in the game.
That's kind of part of thereason that playing ellie feels
(35:09):
weird.
Their relationship at the veryend was very complicated.
She was fucking really mad athim and he was just not able to
tell the truth like he.
He shells it up the whole timeuntil he dies with his lie right
.
And for ellie to go on a warpath like that it's tough
(35:32):
because even she knows that it'snot really all that justified,
you know, and they, they go intoit as you progress through the
game.
She really struggles with thatwhole part of like man, he, he
butted heads really bad at theend and what was?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
what was it again that he was?
Speaker 3 (35:49):
he was actually hiding, like that he, so she
doesn't know what happened atthe hospital, right, he killed
that to this day, she doesn'tknow what happened at the
hospital.
He just took her, and when shewoke up he said it wasn't gonna
work and so I took oh so beforethey did anything about that,
yeah, so that was like the biglie.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Is that he killed a bunch of people.
He doesn't tell anybody, hedidn't even tell the shrink,
nope yeah, and they just kind offully dodged it for some reason
.
Wow, there's so.
Do you remember after the party, when he was outside?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
on the porch and she just kind of stares at him and
then walks inside right rightpast him.
Yeah, that's where theconversation happens.
Oh, really, conversationhappens right there.
Did he have the guitar in thegame too?
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I was like, oh man, they're about to fucking go at
each other for so they decidedto go the other way with it.
Yeah, they went like a totallydifferent direction with it,
where it was just like no, she'sjust super mad at you.
I feel like they did that sothat it's not as polarizing for
people.
If she's just oh, I got you,you know what I mean.
Like if she's just oh, I'm somad at herself as well, because
(36:56):
she didn't square everything upwith him, whereas in the game
it's a lot more gray becauseit's like she, they, they go at
each other, they're mad at eachother.
She knows something's up, he'srefusing to budge and then he
(37:18):
dies.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And she's kind of just left with what do I do next
?
And it's, and it's a superscale balancing thing.
And then she just decides yeah,no, fuck it, I'm going to go
kill all these people.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
And that's where it takes us.
She has that mindset already.
She was like that from thebeginning of the first season,
even when she was little.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
You know she didn't give a shit.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
I mean, she's pre -programmed that way a little
bit because she was.
She was in that firefly academywith those kids and the
fireflies were teaching them tolike how to survive in a really
tough world, so yeah, you'reright it's, it's just part of
who she.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
She is brought up, as do you think with this series
they might split it up, like ifthey want to make another season
out of it.
I'm saying like if they doanother one, will they be able
to take anything from the second, second game still to make the
other one?
Speaker 3 (38:10):
I mean there's a lot of content in the second game,
so maybe we won't get all theway through it right, maybe we
only get, oh, they'll split that.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
They'll split the into two seasons maybe because
there's because there's not athird game, there's a lot yeah,
a lot to cover.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Okay, I mean they, they go like across the country,
you know she, she chases allwhat six of them across the
country really, to differentplaces too.
There's a lot to cover sheain't playing, no no, she, yeah
she.
I mean travel time.
You're talking there's a bunchof white space that isn't
covered in the game because it's.
(38:46):
You know she's going out, Iwon't spoil anything and then
you just pick up at you know acity or a place where she found
out that there's fireflies andshe's like I'm going to find
that person, I'm going to findone of them here because there's
fireflies here, right?
And it's just that severaltimes she goes across the
country.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, it's was the other younger girl with her as
well, but they're both stilltogether.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, dina is with her through most of the game,
okay, some of the game.
There's a turning point whereplenty of stuff happens, where
Ellie does end up completelyalone still chasing people down.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's plenty of fun.
Really messed up stuff on itsway.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
So maybe they will go and do something.
I'm thinking, would they reallystop at the second game and
that would be it, second seasonand you're done?
Yeah, no, I feel like there'sprobably more to talk about.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I feel like they could stop at quite a few points
and then call it for anotherseason.
I mean, obviously she's goingto go on this war path where she
starts trying to eliminate them.
You could really stop at anyone of the people she gets to.
There's enough time and spacefor her to get-.
To have more stories, maybethis season she gets one or two
(40:02):
of them and then next season Tohave more stories.
Maybe this season she gets oneor two of them and then next
season she gets the other four.
Right, I gotcha Something likethat.
But it's a little up in the airright now because they're
starting to deviate quite wildly.
And it's a little scary whenit's this early on in the season
that it's deviating, becausethen it's like okay, well, if
you're making deviations.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Maybe they're deviating because they want to
be able to make another seasonPossibly, possibly.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
That could be another reason.
It's a great theory because youknow, when it's that different,
that early, that's usually fora reason, and that's because
they want to change more andmore as it goes on.
So, yeah, I think it will endup getting changed pretty wildly
.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
That's why I hated when they did original Walking
Dead?
Yeah, when they did, I was justlike they changed it.
Oh yeah, yeah, they also justdragged it yeah yeah yeah, now
they.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
They branched off another series on it too, didn't
they?
Oh?
Speaker 3 (40:55):
they've done several now, yeah, yeah, there's like
three series now.
It's ridiculous, yeah.
So that's what I mean, there'sa right way to do it, which I
would consider season one of theLast of Us, probably one of the
better adaptations from a videogame Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
Right, it's an anime on Netflixsingle season.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Incredibly good.
Probably my favorite video gameadaptation of a game game being
Cyberpunk.
Absolute wrong direction.
The Halo series on Paramountthat just came out the last two,
three years.
That was horrible.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Really.
But I remember you playing thatgame when you were younger.
I mean, you've been playingthat for how long now?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
As long as I could remember, as long as I could
pick up a control.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
So it got worse.
It didn't get better, Like thefirst Xbox.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
It was bad within the first two episodes.
I don't know how it got asecond season.
It deviated.
That was, it is like literallytake what I'm complaining about,
about the Last of Us, andmultiply it by 30.
Okay, they went so the wrongway.
They went the 1990s super mariobrother it was the 1990s.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yes, yes, exactly that it was like, which was
horrible, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
it's just insane.
They and the biggest thing, too, is that the screenwriters came
out and made a statement wherethey said source material, not
worried about it, we're going torely on a couple of the books.
That was a statement that theymade.
Wow, just the wrong direction,yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Let's deviate from what it came from.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Right from what it actually is about.
That makes no sense.
Why would you do that?
You know what I mean, yeah.
There's a right way to do it,and a wrong way to do it, and
now we have exactly what thatlooks like and, of course,
everybody is going to be, youknow, having their own view and
comment, and some verypassionate more than needed
obviously sometimes thediscourse will be everywhere.
(42:57):
It will continue.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
It will continue.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Anyway, Justin, thank you so much for being with us.
I appreciate you doing thiswith us.
This was good.
I got a lot of informationabout the show, tom.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, I know, I got to pick it back up now.
I think you should Right.
I do I do, you know?
It's just I have a habit where,if I lose too much time, I'm
just like I forget about it, Iforgot it exists, or or or like
I'll just not that I forget toexist because people mention it
and I'll go yeah, yeah, last ofus.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
I gotta, I gotta gotta back up on that.
I never do.
There's so many to watch.
That's the problem.
I'm going to try to.
I'm going to try to.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I'm going to put it because you know what you got
time to kill.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah Right, exactly.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
That's the prime time .
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Well, that said, thanks again.
This was a good podcast.
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
What are we saying?
Are we saying our usual shtick?
Nah, should we say Something?
Speaker 2 (43:53):
different.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
What's Kenny's thing?
Oh, love peace and hair grease.
Live long and prosper.
Thank you people.
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