5. Feel Her Love

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to the Last Cast, HBO's unofficial Last of Us
recap podcast. This show hosted each week by Me, Jack
and Andrew. Hello there, we'll take a deeper look into
the mega TV series event. We'll break down a sas
compare contrast, and have a little bit of fun as
we go. So grab yourself a couple of Joel's favorite
blend and let's get on with it. I have a

(00:45):
couple of Joel's favorite blend right here with me. Listen.
I don't know if you can hear that. I do
hear the mug. Yeah, the tapping just tappen on the mug,
A tap tap tapping. So we are not recording this
podcast until we while we're it right now, obviously at
we should be recording this.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I thought this was just ourticly. I thought this was
just our weekly sit down to talk about what we
thought of the episode that doesn't get recorded, then we
figure out what we're.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Going to say. Could you imagine? Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
I did imagine that for many years after the second
Game came out. I didn't have to imagine it. It
was a weekly, daily hourly tyree yah minutely maybe is
that a thing? Secondly, oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
But no, it is Friday at three forty six pm
when we are recording this, so it is well past
our normal record slash edit slash drop day. And it's
a combination of good reasons and not great reasons. So
Tuesday I had a six hour tattoo where I added

(01:58):
an astronaut onto my last of us leave just wonderful.
Oh yeah, and he looks amazing. And I've gone ahead
and named my astronaut Joel. Of course, I've actually gone
ahead already and reached out to Jason, our tattoo artist,
for the next smaller piece that hopefully I can get
in a couple of weeks because it'll be a lot
less money, which is nice. But yeah, So that basically

(02:20):
was all day Tuesday, and then you have been out
every single day this week on site on jobs, just
gone from like six thirty in the morning until like
sometimes six seven o'clock at night. And I'm not gonna
you know, I'm a very good partner. I'm gonna give
myself some cred here and I give you your space.
I'm not gonna be like, you need to get home

(02:41):
and we need to podcast so we could do this shit.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Man.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, that's just not problem is that I said yes
to a bunch of stuff a long time ago, and
then god damn it, here we are.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
All of the yes is caught up to me. My
my miy is that if it isn't the consequences of
my own actions, well, well, well how the turntables have turned? Yeah? No, yeah,
but it's it's all good though, good problem to have.
It's a very good problem to have. And Andrew's just

(03:15):
the most level headed, wonderful person in the world. So
he comes home with a smile on his face, and
you know, and we get to spend quality time together
that is unrelated to podcasting, and that's that's what's important.
I promptly and then I promptly fall asleep. Yes, So
it's a it's been a week and then today, you know,
we're supposed to record hours and hours ago, but we've

(03:36):
had severe thunderstorms rolling through because May is that month
that is, you know, with the tornado warnings and watches
and everything, and it's going to be me. Yeah, it's
gotta bay bye. So it is me, It is me.
And there was severe flooding our daughter's school. The power
was cut for two and a half hours, they were

(03:58):
running off of generators. I mean, it was just havoc.
And we know that if we were podcasting and that happened,
all of the audio would be lost. And I was
just like, well, I'm not taking that rest like risk.
We already lost the first episode, which is three and
a half hours, Like, I'm not fucking doing this again.
There are no more games being played with podcast recording

(04:19):
for the last guest, there are no more games. Okay,
there are no more games. We're not We're out of games.
And then after that, Andrew discovered that he had a
flat tire. So it was just that had to be
taken care of. And we're probably if it sounds janky
at some point in this episode, if it's like you'll
never know, you'll never know. You might know, but we're

(04:40):
gonna have to stop recording and go pick up the
car and then all that fun stuff, because yeah, it
wasn't a simple fix a flat kind of situation. So
we put the spear on and then had to drive
and get a whole new tire put on, which we
can't do at home because we don't have the machine
that puts a tire onto a rim unfortunately, or do
I want that machine.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Actually, So it's been a whole It's been a whole week, guys. Really,
that's what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
So we're here, We're still here, We're still showing up,
and I feel like the magic. Yes, the majority. I'm
not even going to fucking like pretend that this episode
is going to be a shining beacon of a review show.
We are very much going to tear to use an
expression from Wayfair and Strangers, We're tearing this down to

(05:32):
the ass whole asshole. Tear this down to the asshole. Yeah,
I knew. I was like, I'm not. I'm literally misquoting myself.
We're tearing this show down to its assholes, multiple assholes. Yeah,
well we I don't know, are we doing that or
I don't know. We'll see, we'll see from Kirk. Josh
Peck started in a hit series on Nickelodeon in the

(05:54):
early two thousands called Drake and Josh playing Josh, so
he didn't even have to play a character with a
different cool.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Josh playing Josh. You love it when an actor plays
a character of the same name.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
You're like, hey, it's easy. Yeah, I just again, I'm sorry,
I just don't care. You know, he had such a
minor role and it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
So well, then you're not going to love this one
because this one's from es Bernard, who says, Josh Peck
Andrew for you help me out, limit on words. I'm
reading this verbatim, so we're in this together. Just my
military and police officer perspective on situational awareness. In the game,

(06:39):
you're always first person, always having to clear buildings, check corners.
Not a game player, but willing to bet you got
to be on alert. Show watchers need that not to
happen so we can take in the setting and story
around us. Don't get to see it first person. We
need them to not be tactical all the time so

(07:02):
we can actually see them be the character.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
And then what is that a point? Yeah, it's like
two cents, just my two cents, oh penny for your
thoughts or my two cents or something like that. Got it? Okay,
you don't play the game in first person though, Yeah,
es Bernard, it's fine.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
I mean a first person game would be like Call
of Duty or any other major competitive shooter. Like most
competitive shooters, I guess the Last of Us is played
in a third person perspective, so it's kind of an
over the shoulder, behind the character thing. So you are
right to say that there's a fair amount of clearing

(07:40):
buildings and checking corners, but you also are seeing the
characters be the characters, like as in the first game,
as Joel, you are seeing Ellie alongside you, also hiding
when you're hiding and stuff like that. But I point
a little bit taken. I don't know what this is
actually in reference to, but like I get that they

(08:02):
you can't always be tacked. The show is not the
game for sure, it's not how you play the game.
The characters need to be portrayed in a separate way.
So yeah, thanks as Bernard.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, thank you for writing it. We appreciate your two cents.
And I like the little like the scent emoji, so nice,
nice little touch.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And yeah, it's also cool that again not a not
a game player, but somebody who's watching the show and
listening to us, So that's also like just super cool
to hear.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Sure, and bringing again a military and police officer perspective
specifically for situational awareness and how that could apply to
not the game but in the real world situation. That
we are being presented with on the HBO show. So
I listen. I love the various perspectives. You know, we

(08:48):
eat that shit up. Yes. So our next comment is
from Jess our and just throwback to last week. Jess
was actually the one, two, nine eight ellipsies number random
number person that we thought might have accidentally themselves. Okay, good,
wasn't the case perfect? Thanks Jess. Jess as loll random
number person here again, it was just randomly generated by Spotify,

(09:09):
So no worries. Hi, it's me, I'm the problem. It's me, Jess.
Officer our Andrew missed opportunity to bring up the importance
of grieves. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was hoping this just as a random aside everyone
on our other podcast, Wayfair and Strangers also Last of Us,
but Game Last of Us. I always bring up the
most important thing that you could possibly have in the
zombie apocalypse is just a pair of.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Grieves on your forearms, yep.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Because that's how you're going to stop a zombie from
biting you or an effected or anything.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And if you just.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Had protection there, it would it would literally mitigate I'm
willing to go on a.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Limb here and say ninety percent of bites. That's a
that's a staggering statistic.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, most attacks come from the front and most people
what do you do?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
You put your hands up and they go through. They
glomb right onto the forearm. But protective armware. We'll get
you through the apocalypse. It's true. You're not wrong, So
thank you for throwing that in, Jess.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Jess, I am thrilled that somebody else watched that scene
and thought of me.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
That's all I'll say. Isn't that wonderful? I pointed in
that you.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Know that Leonardo DiCaprio meme where he points to the
television that was me during that scene.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
That was we were like, uh, you know how that
would have been avoided? Yeah, wouldn't have happened to me.
Couldn't be me, couldn't be me. Continuing with Jess's comment,
any who can't say I'm a fan of Dina tagging
along after the reveal. I feel like that opens up
her fate to something unexpected and that worries me. Maybe
without merit, but still great episode. Per usual, every other

(11:00):
pod is glaringly positive. You guys bring an honest balance,
So I'm going to get to the honest balance real quick.
But what Jess is talking about here, Dina tagging along
after the pregnancy reveal, that was different in the game,
and like a lot different in the game, and we
will talk about that on our Patreon exclusive episode Game

(11:21):
Versus Frame, which will start up after season two concludes.
So if you're interested to know those differences and what
we think about it, just go to patreon dot com,
slash Telu podcast anyway, there you go. I do agree
that is a very un easy It's almost setting up
an unfortunate series of events. That's what it feels like

(11:45):
it's like. And this is from a logical standpoint, not
from somebody who knows anything that's supposed to happen, because
they fundamentally change so much of the story in certain
ways that we really do not know what's going to
happen with certain characters that we thought we knew what
was going to happen, which is both good and bad.
But when it comes to Dina, I'm with you, Jess.

(12:07):
I think it is concerning. It is shocking. As a
woman who has been pregnant and had a child, there's
no fucking way that I would have done something like that,
But that's my own personal opinion, and we will just
have to wait and see, you know, what plays out
now that she was hobbled with an arrow to the knee.

(12:30):
We don't know what's going to happen now with her character,
but I guess we'll figure it out before the end
of the season hopefully. And our last the last comment
of your your review here talking about how every other
positive I can't do the glaring positives. I'm not going
to do that because there is something inherently wrong with

(12:51):
every fucking story that's written, every movie that is filmed,
every song that is recorded, Like well, no, actually, I
think songs probably the most. If you want to talk
about flawless medium, I'd say they're probably at the top
because when I think about certain like like the cornstale
chase by Hans Zimmer from Interstellar is a perfect there's nothing,

(13:17):
there's no different. I do agree. I do agree with
Stairway to Heaven being perfect too.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Okay, yeah, yeah, there are there are people that are
right in that'll be like it is not, but that's
okay too.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, and yeah, Let it Be by the Beatles is
my favorite song of all time. I have it tattooed
on me and there is not a single moment in
that that doesn't like strike my soul. But all that aside,
I think when you come to like film and written media,
there's always going to be something that falls to the
wayside because time is of essence, money and a bottom

(13:53):
line has to be considered, and sometimes the things that
they cut or they change or this that or the
other is just it creates a ripple effect that you
can't recover from. And I think that that's part of
what is causing this season to suffer so greatly. And
I'm not going to hide that ever. So you know,
go listen to the Happy Go Lucky Last of Us

(14:14):
podcasts if that's your vibe, but it is not ours.
There it is, it's mostly mine, but not ours.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
So this comes from BK who starts off by saying,
damn it. Word limits. You can always email the show
and we give you that information at the end. If
you need to say more, please feel free to email us.
I believe it's t lou Podcasts at gmail dot com.
If I'm not mistaken. We have the end of the show.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
We have two podcasts and to podcasts. Either way, it'll
get to us, and we do have quite a few
emails already rolling in and I'm glad you brought that
up because they will be future episodes all onto themselves.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, so if you feel stifled by Spotify, please feel
free to just write an email. I know it's a
little bit more work, a couple extra steps, but either way.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Here we go. B Kay says divorcing the show from
the games listen, I'm human, Okay.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
I'm flawled, but I'm trying. I will say episode four
has been my favorite. Dina and Ellie's relationship is so
important to me, and the kinship I felt with Dina
when she explained why it took her so long, Jack,
what you said is just perfect for this beautiful scene
between them. I appreciated that moment so much. And of

(15:30):
course the guitar scene, I'm just happy, crying favorite scene
of the game. Also, Isabella, I fucking love her, that's kay.
Thank you b K so much.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
I think I will walk back some sentiments on one
section of that episode, and I'll do it very quickly.
I don't think I put it in here as a
footnote or anything, but the more that I slept on it,
the more time that has passed, and of course since

(16:03):
episode five, just you know, time passing. I do not
like Ellie's immediate acceptance of Dina's pregnancy. It is actually
so fucking different from the game, and I think in
that moment, I was just enamored by this happy bubble
and it was such a break and I think that

(16:25):
I was just trying so hard to enjoy something on
this show that I wanted to omit the source material entirely,
and I think that that did a disservice overall. So BK,
I hope that doesn't change how you feel about the
descriptors used for their Dina and Ellie's scenes, because they

(16:47):
were beautiful and very I'm very happy that Ellie had
had that moment of peace, but I do think that
her just immediately accepting this was a was not good.
And we are going to talk more about that obviously
on our Patreon shows where that will live because it

(17:07):
doesn't really have a place on the TV show podcast.
So yeah, our next review comes our next Spotify comment.
We keep saying reviews, I mean comments, but it's from
Michael R. Hijack and Andrew. I loved episode four of
the Last of Us, although I was caught off guard
with the intimate scene with Ellie and Dina, but overall
it's really good. I agree with Jack about it feeling

(17:28):
like another zombie show, even though the last of us
infected are zombies, as the fungus doesn't kill the host
but controls the mind. I also want to say that
I just love hearing Jack's views and Andrew's funny personality.
Keep doing what you guys are doing, and as always,
endurance survive. Yes, thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate

(17:49):
the commentary on just who we are as people and
the authenticity that we bring to the show, between Andrew's
humor and my absolute reddists to back down from a
fight or I.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Am the court jester and you are the adjudicator.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yes, that's pretty much how it goes. And listen, do
you need you need both? You need both for a
thriving courtship, I guess. But yeah, I think being caught
off guard by an intimate moment in the midst of
a revenge mission is absolutely understandable because again, it was different.

(18:29):
It was different in the game. It took place at
a very different moment with very little stakes on the line,
and that's part of the reason why I'm kind of
kind of dialing back my love, or at least my appreciation.
It was just wildly misplaced. It should have been somewhere else.

(18:51):
It does not really, it doesn't fit with a revenge mission.
There should not be that much happiness going into every
week of this show. It's just it's unbelievable, honestly, and
it makes me, uh sad. It makes me so angry. No,
it doesn't make me angry. It makes me sad because

(19:12):
that's not The game was extreme. The game was very
extreme and polarizing, and they have dumbed it down for
viewers and softened the blow at every single chance that
they can. And I think that, despite my dislike of
the Last of Us Part two's narrative, it's sad to
see that this is what has actually happened to it

(19:34):
interesting our next comment you always get Assi's comment.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
I'm sitting here and I'm like, why I know? And
then I'm like, is that why you took the first
comment so that you counted ahead.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
And you need it?

Speaker 2 (19:51):
I promise I didn't. I don't believe you, But that's okay, adjudicator.
This is from Lemon Condom condom. I definitely agree that
the Apollo comment by Ellie felt a little forced. I
like that they are reinforcing what she said in season
one about Ellie liking space. However, that comment by Ellie

(20:12):
did not sit well with me.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Thank you, Ozzie. I agree. I think we both.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
I think you certainly mentioned that, and I probably also
felt similarly ish, although I'm trying to maybe come up
with justifications as well to a really good Stuf'm like, okay, yeah, look,
good job. It felt for You're like, it felt forced,
and I'm like, that's true, but some people also require

(20:39):
that in order to just have something jogged that may
be important later.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Sure, so that's me. Yeah maybe. And listen, at the
most random inopportune times, I have thoughts popping in my
head and I'm like, oh, hey, have you ever heard
of this serial killer? You know? But if I'm I
don't know, just it it wasn't. It wasn't there for
any other reason than to allude to something coming. That's it.

(21:09):
That's all it was. And it could have been at
any other moment when they were at the theater talking.
When they were at the theater talking, there.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Was this other part where they were at the theater,
and then they were talking, and they could have been
talking about the Apollo mission as well.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Okay, hey,
fair enough.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
When you saw a big battle in the distance, ELI
could have been like, wow, that really reminds me of
the first Apollo mission.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
That wouldn't have worked either, although the smoke would have
been a better trigger. I guess I don't know anyway,
So our next comment comes from Jackson DoBeS or Well
Jackal Wyoming, Jackson, Wyoming, Yes, the town of Jackson, Wyoming,
rhode Us. Hi, Jack and Andrew, thank you for being
the reason I am able to get through this season.
I too, feel like this season is straying farther from

(21:58):
the game, and not in a way that benefits the story,
but transforms it into a walking Dead slash Game of
Thrones hybrid. My best friend Vicky has written off the
show as her love for the games have made it
impossible for her to get through. However, I remain hopeful
that HBO will turn this around. Episode four has been
my favorite, but constant plot holes leave much to be desired. Jackson,

(22:22):
I I'm one hundred percent with you. I don't think
I need to add anything to this comment because it
is turning to a hybrid. It is a wooded down
version that I mean, what happened? You know?

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I'm I am also with Jackson in that I remain
hopeful that HBO will turn this around.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
All right, So I'm Vicky here Jackson, and that is
our roles in this comment.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
And we will do the episode as these characters as well.
Let me get into character. I'm Jackson, I am jack
now me I am the jack Now.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
What does this going?

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Comes from Rachel k Rachel Kay says, Hya my favorite
episode of the season by far.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Maybe I'm thinking too.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Deeply, but the I'm going to be a dad scene
to me looks comic relief but ultimately reflected Ellie's experience
with caregiving. Joel, I'm not a gamer and I loved
season one because of the found family trope. I know
things are going to change, but the post revealed Dina
Ellie scene reminded me of the good old times. I

(23:32):
agree about the wardrobe. Dina in a nine hundred dollars jacket,
perfect hair and makeup more distracting than the zombie hordes.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean I want to talk about the comic
relief I'm going to be a dad and how that
is likely derived from her experience with Joel and his
level of caregiving. And I will admit that I didn't
actually think that. I do see how you are bringing
them together, though, and I like that. I do like that,

(24:04):
And I still stand by what I said last week
in that it was a joke and it's intended to
be a joke, but it's also Ellie being warm about
a situation that is wildly out of her control and
out of Dina's control right now too. Yeah, so it
was a bottle moment, and I think we just need

(24:25):
to take it for what it is. Yeah. But yeah,
the nine feetle dollar Jack and the perfect hair and makeup,
get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Listen, Isabellamer said looks better in a post apocalyptic world
than I have looked in our current day world where
I have access to everything.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
So I know, I know Isabelle is just the most
beautiful human in the world. Yeah. Our next comment is
from Eric H and Eric says, I'm sorry, but there's
no way Dina is getting it on with Ellie so
soon after seeing her get bitten could she still be
a carrier. If so, can it be transmitted through saliva?
How would Dina know? Nobody in that world has any

(25:01):
idea how Ellie's immunity works anyway. Regarding Disney Heel turns,
no less than four former Disney kids, zac Efron, Ross Lynch,
Peyton Liszt and Evan Peters twice have gone on to
play real life serial killers, and they say video games
are warping our children's minds. So wow, the first half

(25:23):
of this, I do agree. There would be a whole
lot of hesitation for me to just hop in bed
with someone who I saw getting bit and knowing that
it is transmitted through saliva into the bloodstream. Fluids are
a thing when it comes to intimacy, and if you like, okay, yeah,

(25:48):
we woke up and she's not turned, She does not
have any shakes. It appears that she's okay. The only
thing that I could think of is Ellie clear has
like as Dina. If I was Dina, I'd be like, Okay.
I know that she's had girlfriends in the past with
Kat at least, so I'm assuming that they might have

(26:09):
done X Y Z together. At the least they have
kissed and Cat didn't turn, But to put all of
that thinking power in that moment, I don't. I don't
think that that's what happened. I'm just trying to help
justify or so not. Everyone gets mad at every single

(26:30):
thing that happens on this show, including me.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
But I think it's just the heat of the moment thing.
You know, they weren't thinking about that at all. It
was It was very much a heat of the moment thing.
And unfortunately, there are many times where the heat of
the moment causes dire circumstances and consequences for people.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
And even in this show.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Me.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, maybe even in this show, but in real life.
I mean we're talking about STDs or pregnancies or fucking
AIDS HIV, like there is just they're so much can
happen because you were just wrapped up in lust, and
we can excuse that away. But at the same time,
if we were in a post apocalyptic world, I would
probably be like, you know what, Lust, I don't know

(27:13):
about you, bitch. I don't know. I don't know about
this bitch named lust anyway. But yes, it is funny.
Just the list of Disney of Disney kids who have
gone on to play very dark roles with serial killers,
and again, zach Efron was Teddy, not Teddy Teddy ted Bundy. Sorry,

(27:40):
I was thinking Bundy and Teddy. That's horrible. It was
Ted Bundy and Evan Peter has played Jeffrey Dahmer. I
don't remember who's the second serial. I mean some of
the stuff that Evan Peters has done on American Horror
Story has been an all out nightmare.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Is that what you're talking about? Maybe he was like
a killer on that show.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Oh, he was a killer on that show multiple times
in different seasons. But I still think. I mean, he's
a phenomenal actor. Evan Peters is just I'm oh god,
he is. I feel like he's very underrated, even though
he has been in some very big properties like X
Men and things like that. But I think his portrayal

(28:26):
and his range is so fucking massive. To think that
he started as a Disney kid is wild interesting.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Oh he played different. It looks like he played Jeffrey
Dahmer twice. Oh shit, Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer Story and
then Dahmer on Netflix. So Evan Peters was Dahmer twice.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Wow. I just looked it up really quick. That's crazy. Yeah,
And I just want to give a little warning about
Dahmer on Netflix. I watched that series when it came out,
and I will never watch it again. And this is
someone who loves true crime documentary, not loves you know
what I mean, Like, I'm a true crime aficionado, and
it was it was difficult. There were a moment there,

(29:12):
like and I'm a binge watcher too, where it's like
I ain't stopping this train, bitch. But there were many
episodes where I mean, there's only like seven or eight
episodes I think, and I would just be like, you know,
and I need to take like a two to five
day break after that one that was so bad. So
just you know, if you have somehow not watched it

(29:34):
yet and you want to prepare yourself, just prepare your mind.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Okay, Okay, yeah I won't. But thank you for the wording.
This one comes from Beck. Beck says, Andrew the audacity.
I would never slight you. Your optimism brings a phenomenal
balance to the show. But yes, Jack and I have

(30:01):
more similar views winky face. Speaking of thank you for
pointing out not only the ridiculousness of how Ellie handles
handles herself out in the world i e. The tank,
but also the extremely out of place ending to the episode.
Is Joel even a thing or are we watching a

(30:22):
teen pregnancy Hallmark movie. The level of maturity in the
show version of these two characters does not add up.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
Hard agree, hard hard heart agree. I don't know much. Listen,
we are going to talk extensively about how out of
character these some of these characters are, is particularly in
this episode, and how Dina is basically taking over as
the main star. She's basically Ellie, and Ellie is just

(30:55):
this like little puppy being dragged along who has no experience,
it is unrela and has no clue what the fuck
is going on. And that is just the opposite, the
complete fucking opposite of who Ellie Williams is. And to
see her dumb down is heartbreaking, is really fucking heartbreaking.
And we're going to talk about that so much throughout

(31:17):
this episode. So thank you for your comment back. I
want to dive in fully right now and just just
rip it open, but I promise you that we will
reinforce what you said here throughout the show. So here's
an update. Michael update Michael Wannamaker, who left that very

(31:43):
cryptic three emoji comment weeks ago with the hand with
an egg frying in it, the sun emoji, and then
the whole. Michael finally wrote in and wrote the three
same emojis again equals hen Day. However, so again we
talked about how Manny walked past Joel after he had

(32:05):
been murdered by Abby and called and called Joel a pendejo.
Now the proper spelling of pendejo is p et in,
so I rewrote the comment Michael with the pen emoji.
So with the penemoj the sun and then the whole,
it's like penn day, whole, like pendeho. So I see,

(32:26):
we see what you did that quickly I get it,
Penn sun hole. Got it. Yeah. I don't know if
Michael is calling us assholes are stupid, but no, I think.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
He's just quoting the show. I think you know, I
never assumed malice. Let's go there, let's go there.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
I grew up in Philly. I always assume malice.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
My optimism brings a phenomenal balance to the show, or
so I have.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Heard my adjudicator. I'll put my gavel down this thanks
one comes from Alex.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Are we disagree about the watch No Biggie, however, you
said during that discussion, this is a slap in the
face to the fans. For me, Ellie's reaction to the
pregnancy is the real slap in the face. Dina's pregnancy
interferes with their ability to carry out their original plans
in Seattle. Where is the misplaced anger to this news?

(33:22):
Her reaction makes it hard to believe she cares about vengeance.
I can't get behind the tone shift from the game
to the show. It's no longer capturing the essence of Ellie.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Alex one hundred percent agree. And this is why, just
earlier in this comment section I had mentioned I'm you know,
I was blinded by the temporary moment of happiness and love,
but taking a step back, having that time realizing this
is absolutely fucked. This is not why Ellie and Dina

(33:55):
are in Seattle. This is not a vacation for brand
new for a brand new relationship. This is that is
a slap in the fucking face that Ellie just immediately
was like, oh my god, cool, We're going to be
a family. It's gonna be great, and everything's gonna be wonderful,
like she just completely lost sight of what is going on.

(34:19):
And I don't blame I don't blame the actors anymore
at all. I one hundred. This is all writing. This
is all the failure, the absolute acute failure of proper, succinct,
consistent writing. And we'll talk about it. We'll talk, we
will talk about it shortly. Actually, our next comment from

(34:41):
Amy macattack, I like that name. I'm pretty sure they
forgot about Shimmer. Is she just going to die of
starvation in that music store? Really? Craig hashtag justice for Shimmer,
And I'm going to skip ahead just a little bit
because we're going to talk about Shimmer and how they
absolutely forgot about her and I can't stand it. I
went from oh my god, I love how well they're

(35:02):
taking care of the horse and bringing it indoors and
it has food and all that, and now Shimmer's just
literally been gone for the last two episodes, just gone
left at the music store, bye girl.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
See you.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
No, we didn't see it, but I have to assume
that Shimmer is at the theater, right or no?

Speaker 1 (35:17):
No? Is that not true? They came because she is
the subway. There was no way that Shimmer could have
gotten through there. There was plenty of grass in the
music store. We saw.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
It's fine, Shimmer is going to be Okay, I think
we'll talk about it. This next one comes in from
a user named Michael twelve Balls. Michael says, just a
show watcher, it was extremely obvious Dina was Pregger's winky face.
There we go. I think that's all that needs to

(35:49):
be said about that.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
That is our brother in law who texted us this
after he has watched the episode.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, Michael has a direct line to us, and so
that was after listening to the show. He texted that said,
it was extremely obvious to me, as not a game player,
that Dina was Preger's in the earlier episode.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
So there you go. Yes, hello Mike, we love you,
we miss you. We'll see you. Suhun I like it.
It was soon. So this is this is where we're
going to spend some time. I mean, we've almost spent

(36:34):
an hour talking about comments, and we actually thought about
putting comments at the end of the episode, but because
they referenced the previous show, I just felt like that
would disrupt the flow. Whatever. Okay, This next comment comes
from a wonderful friend of mine who we have been
friends in the community for about five years now. Everyone
knows Doomsday Dave. He creates amazing renders and Prince and

(37:01):
just his content is fantastic. Dave. Everyone loves you, We
love you, and thank you so much for listening to
the show always and supporting us. And Dave and I
have been talking about just how off the rails everything
has gone, particularly in regards to Craig Mason, and he

(37:24):
had sent me two clips from the official podcast because
he knows he's such a wonderful person. He knows that
I'm not going to listen to the official show and
we are going to discuss these two clips right here.
I'm not going to put them in because I don't
want to get our hands slapped by HBO. But on
last week's episode, meaning episode five's official podcast, an episode

(37:47):
for their official podcast, Craig Mason was wrong twice and
neither Neil Druckman or Troy Baker corrected him. And the
first time that he was wrong was an episode four
when he talks about the subway scene, and he says
on the podcast, the official HBO fucking podcast, the creator

(38:11):
of this show and the writer says Dina's mask broke,
so Ellie gave her her own misk, and that's how
Dina found out. That's what Craig Mason said happened in
the game. That is not what fucking happened in the game,
because if Dina's mask had broken, she would have fucking

(38:33):
got infected. What happened in the game. And this is
the only one of the few times I'll fucking spoil everyone.
Ellie's mask breaks, Dina notices it and goes to give
Ellie her misk, but Ellie rips it off and basically says,
do not do that. And that is the beginning of
how Dina finally believes that Ellie's truly immune.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, and we should say for the record, this is
this would be how they how she found out in
the subway. Spores were not present in the show until
the episode that we're watching right now. Yes, they've been
in the game since the first game, like they're ever
present in the games.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Oh exactly. And I'm sure everyone remembers me in season
one bitching about why they took spores out. And don't worry,
I'm going to have my little told you so moment
by the end of this episode. So Craig was wrong
about that. Neil Druckman didn't correct him, Troy Baker didn't
correct him, and that just proves to me that nobody
is nobody actually gives a fuck about what this person

(39:36):
is doing, because they've all been they all got their
pockets lined, everyone was bought and sold. Whatever Craig Mason
says goes, and it's bullshit because he's wrong. He's literally,
on a factual level, he's fucking wrong. And then on
the official episode five podcast, Craig is wrong again where
he talks about Ellie in the game again in the

(39:57):
Forest Slash the Park taking an arrow to her leg
and how in video games that doesn't hobble her because
it's a video game. But Dina takes the arrow to
the leg in the show and Jesse has to carry
her out of there, and that enables Ellie essentially to

(40:17):
be on her own and go to the hospital. And
once again Neil says nothing, Troy says nothing. Ellie was
not fucking shot in her thigh in the game. She
was shot in her shoulder and you gently wiggle it out.
It's literally a fucking prompt on your controller to hit
a button, a certain amount of times to get it

(40:40):
out otherwise the infections or the poison tipped arrows will
affect your health and take away from your health. Bar
she's shot in her fucking shoulder, but Craig says, well,
you know, she shot in her leg, but it doesn't
hobble her in the game because it's a video game.
You know, it's a video game. Way he was shitting

(41:00):
video games. You can that's not what fucking happened. And
I don't know why no one is correcting this man.
And I understand that we are such massive fans to
the point of we have these long ass shows, so
it's important to us. But Neil, open your fucking mouth.

(41:21):
Try open your fucking mouth. And if neither of you
remember enough to remember that Craig is wrong, get off
the fucking show because you have no place talking about
this shit because you don't even know it well enough
and it's your brainchild. They should have had Ashley on
the show. She would have been able to set the
record straight. Yeah, but they don't have women on the
show because who gives a fuck. It's just a boys club.

(41:44):
And this is why I'm just, oh, oh, we chan't
it's no longer in Craig We Trust. Would you like
to tell everyone what it is now? Andrew?

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Wow, I just suggested it and we can we can
workshop it. But I suggested on Craig we Bust. Yep,
maybe we go that direction.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, it's done. It's one hundred percent on. The faith
that I had had is completely gone this show. We'll
never recover with him at the Helm, unfortunately. But that's
that's all our comments for the literally an hour it
took us as well. It took us an hour, but
it'll probably be shorter by the time we edit this.
But it was a lot. We had a lot to say,

(42:26):
and now we have even more to say about the
actual episode.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yes, from a production point of view, our director is
Stephen Williams. That's Stephen with a pH, to be sure.
Stephen Williams has directed Watchman, Westworld, Walking Dead, etc. And
Craig Mason is our writer. Once again, just a quick note,

(42:50):
Stephen Williams, this dude has had such a prolific career
so far. I've pretty much enjoyed everything he's watched. You listener,
I'm talking to you directly. You're watching The Last of Us,
which means you have HBO, which means you have access
to Watchman and Westworld. If you don't like sci fi,

(43:12):
put west World aside. I'm totally okay with you doing that.
Watchman is easily one of the best things I've seen
in the past decade. It's nine episodes. It's a mini series.
You do not have to have watched the Zack Snyder
film for it to make sense. It's a standalone thing.
It's excellent. Do yourself a favor and watch Watchman either before, during,

(43:37):
or after the Last of Us.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
That's okay, Watchman. That's what the show sets out to answer.
Actually the movie answered that question, but it's okay.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Here we go.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Episode summary is the WLF makes a dangerous discovery at
a great cost. Later, Ellie must decide whether to continue
with her plan and risk push Dina in danger, or
give up on her quest for justice. Oh, I'm looking
at the show notes right now. Y.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
It's quite a bit and I'm going to kick us off. Here.
We are in Seattle with the WLF in this opening scene,
this cold open for this week's episode, and Hanrahan walks
the hospital hallways. She passes a bunch of WLF soldiers
who are just kind of standing around, and we see
that they are all kind of conglomerating around the basement

(44:32):
stairwell access, which is completely welded off and barricaded by
many layers of metal plating, so ominous, just right off
the bat ominous, and they all look to one another,
but no one is saying anything here. And then we
see hetty Ann Park, who again wonderful actor who was

(44:52):
on one of our favorite shows, Hannibal, and she's sitting
at a table portraying a WLF officer of some sort,
also named Park, and she's sitting and staring at a
pain chart on the wall that has information from a
very long time ago. She's smoking dirty and appears very
worse for the wear, and she is crying too. And
then Hanrahan enters and they go back and forth about

(45:12):
park soldiers and their loyalty to her, and talk of
execution goes back and forth. But Park knows that Isaac
would have done it himself, meaning execute her, if that's
the way things were meant to go. But Hanrahan corrects
and says Isaac is dealing with a broken treaty at
present and that's why he's not here. But he's wondering

(45:33):
why Park killed some of her own men, including Leon,
and Hanrahan didn't know that Leon was a part of
whatever it is that has happened. And finally the question
is asked what happened and Elise Park, that's the name
of the officer, talks, but Hanrahan cuts her off and
basically says, get to the point, and she says, well,

(45:55):
they've cleared all the floors up to the sixth and
I'm just going to side note right now, I'm gonna
soon that the wlf's presence at this hospital is relatively new,
because otherwise I feel like these levels would have been
cleared out a very long time ago, and it didn't
really seem like anyone knew what was going on down

(46:15):
in the basement until obviously it was too late. So
I would say, what do you think they've been there?
Maybe a couple weeks a month at the most.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know what the I mean based
on their just based on what the show is telling us,
it seems like they do these patrols and maybe the
goal was to like acquire this hospital as a place
to fortify, for instance. So that was my understanding of it.
At least is like, yeah, they just got here not
that long ago because they needed a hospital, right, and

(46:49):
this is a relatively new development.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah, all right, so we're all on the same page.
But only the basement levels were left untouched essentially or
on patrolled, cleared out, whatever you want to go with there,
and they were expecting the worst because of course it
is the basement, but they also know with these multiple
levels of B one, B two, and B three, this

(47:13):
was where the first cases of cortyceps and its patients
were brought back in two thousand and three. So this
is kind of ground zero for Seattle, this particular hospital,
the basement levels, it's just a shit show. And there
was an access problem on top of everything else that
Park talks about here. There were caves in stairwells, and

(47:35):
the elevator cars are stuck in their shafts at various positions,
so there really only was one stairwell that served as
an entry point. So Park sent a squad down there
and there was nothing on that first basement level, No rats,
no infected, absolutely nothing, which is also a little suspicious,
But doing her job, she repeated this exercise with her

(47:57):
squad again on B and she put Leon in charge because,
to quote her, he is her best. But Leon eventually
radioed back, saying that cordyceps is everywhere down there. It's
on the walls, it's on the floors. And then after
about a five minute loll he reports again and he's

(48:20):
struggling to breathe, and Elise begins to choke up here
and asks if you assumes that Leon was bit and
he says, no, it's in the air. It's in the air.
You have to seal us in. And Hanrahan swallows as
she listens to this information being recounted to her, clearly
affected as this is a very new revelation, but Alise

(48:44):
continues and she says, I it's not in the events.
Otherwise everyone would have been infected by this point. So
they did what they could. They scrambled, they locked the
doors to levels B two and B one, doing what
Leon had asked. Nothing else has gotten out, no one
else has gotten sick, and Hanrahan says the hospital is
a resource they cannot lose, but they won't share this

(49:06):
information beyond a need to know basis. And Hanrahan ends
here commending Park for what she's done and that they
owe her a debt which is very far from execution
earlier on in this conversation, and Park begins to cry
here as Hanrahan leaves, but before Hanrahan exits, she turns
and gives her regrets about Elisa's son, who turns out

(49:29):
to be Leon Park. And my personal opinions on this,
this was a very difficult cold open, but easily one
of my favorite parts, if not my favorite part of
this whole episode. It was another example of how this
show can branch away from the games and make it
work so incredibly well, apart from a shot for shot

(49:50):
or you know, dialogue for dialogue adaptation. And I really
wish at this point they would just go that route.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Like further, even further there they go further from the
source material, is what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Yeah, because they can't get back. They have gone so
far beyond it now that even the back pedaling they
did with the spores, which we will get to if
it feels like it felt like that, it felt like
a backpedal. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
So, yeah, I agree with you that this was an
incredibly strong cold open, and it's on the backs of
these just these two actresses in the room. Yeah, that's
when again, small scale is what The Last of Us
is actually about. It is a character driven small drama

(50:40):
that happens to have these infected things from time to time. Yep,
and this is an example of that. It's just two
people in a room talking, but the emotionality, the way
they're cutting back and forth, the way these two actors
are playing off of each other, it's awesome. Absolutely so
the title card Seattle Day two. We're in the theater.

(51:04):
Dina is working on triangulating the wlf's position while listening
to their loud ass open line chatter on the walkie talkie.
The lights suddenly go on and Ellie runs up the
steps with a toa da though Dina is completely oblivious
to this. Apparently there is a natural gas generator down there.

(51:24):
Gesturing down the steps, there's an awkward moment here. Ellie
has faith that Dina will figure out a safe way
to get them to the hospital, and some weird kind
of smiles are exchanged. Ellie then offers to help, but
Dina doesn't need it, not because Ellie is stupid, that's
what Ellie poses as to why her help doesn't need it,

(51:45):
but rather because Ellie is non school oriented, which is
a delightful way to rephrase that.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, but it's again, it's so fucking raw. This is
the dumbification of Ellie Williams. Ellie isn't school oriented? Are
you fucking serious? This? All they are doing is I
have to calm down. I can't even get my thoughts out.
All they are doing is distancing Game Ellie from Show

(52:14):
Ellie in every possible fucking way. And yet she throws
out random space facts about the failed Apollo mission and
understand some sort of level and can retain some sort
of information that proves that she does actually have a
brain in her fucking head, despite what her actions and
the direction and the scripts that Bella Ramsey are being

(52:37):
presented want us to believe. Ellie was incredibly fucking smart,
incredibly fucking smart in the Games, and she is so
stupid on this show. She's portrayed so stupid on this show.
And this is part one of the stupid, the stupidification
of Ellie. And we're going to talk about that later
when Jesse comes into the picture.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't love this either. I was like you,
there is a certain level of intelligence needed, both intellectually
and emotionally to survive and be and have lived through
what Ellie has lived through.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yes, right, And.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
I know that they've been in Jackson for a number
of years now and that's great, but that doesn't stop
when you have a perceived level of safety. So yeah,
I agree with you on this one. I do not
like that they are positioning her as like me, Earie
me smash and shoot.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
You know that's kind of the and.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Likewise positioned Dina as she this is the brains behind
the operation.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Yep, you know. It doesn't need to be one or
the others.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Ellie can be bad at triangulating without being a dumbass, exactly,
So yeah, exactly, I agree.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
With you on this one.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Dina then asks if Ellie understands triangulating.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
She doesn't.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
But they go back and forth about protractors and Ellie
hated math, et cetera. Again, that is just reinforcing what
we've said, you could be bad at math and still
be great at other things.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Right.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
She got the generator started, which is in and of
itself more engineering focused. There's there's another kind of flirty
smile and laugh here. As Ellie leaves Dina to do
this very important work.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
And again, if you're gonna have flirting, what are these moments?
What are these fucking Andrew? You and I have been
together forever, but even in the beginning of our relationship,
we weren't flirting twenty four fucking seven at every moment.
If you're if you were, weren't that. To be honest,
Andrew does flirt with me all the time still, and

(54:59):
it is kind of wonderful. I love it, and I
love you, but like, goddamn right, but yeah, I just it.
Just I mean, she's over a fucking map trying to
get through who knows how many soldiers using triang triangulation,
talking about protractors, and they're giving each other goo goo
gaga eyes. What what are we doing here? Like it

(55:24):
does Craig just he has no fucking clue what he's
doing with these characters anymore.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
I'm gonna I'll push back just a little gently on
this one and just say that this is literally day two,
so it's very new for both of them.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
I don't know, there's there's bedroom eies moments. Yeah, it's
a week, it's a week for us.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
But literally, at the end of the last episode, they
go up to the roof right, and they're like, oh shit.
And then the next time we see them, they're triangulating,
so they literally just came down from the roof, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
But isn't that okay, doesn't that kind of un do
your own argument? Because leaves them on the roof at
the end of episode four looking very somber and scared
and worried. And then their first scene in episode five
is Ellie charging up the stairs with a smile on
her face, Ta da, like what are we fucking doing?

(56:20):
And then like, while you bat your eyelashes at me
a little bit more, honey, you want to fuck like stop? Okay?
I yeah, I would just be like, now is not
the fucking time we are trying to avenge your dad?
Why are you looking at me like that? Put it
in your pants. It's just so it's so poorly done, okay.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Ellie enters the stage area next of the theater that
we're in, and we get this shot of a very
stunning chandelier along with all of the artwork that appears
to be pretty much intact and vivid despite the years
of disuse. Walking onto the stage, she meanders around the mike,
the instruments, and the amps, but spots a rack of

(57:04):
acoustic guitars and walks towards them. She grabs one, takes
a seat on the stool, and looks out to an
empty audience and tunes it. Then begins to play Future
Days by Pearl Jam. Look at the lyrics to Future
Days everyone, She sings the first line and abruptly stops.
The camera swings around on her expression as it changes, and.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Here is where we discuss the third egregious Craig Mazon
thing that we've talked about in this episode thus far.
So the first one was the mistake about the masks,
the second one was the mistake about the arrow to
the knee versus the shoulder. And now learning that Craig
Mason did not want to use Future Days as the

(57:53):
song in this moment, and Neil Druckman had to basically
from what I have learned, basically had to fight and
would not budge on this moment. He was like, this
is the song, and for one this is it, Neil,
this is literally it for one thing, Neil and I

(58:17):
are on the same side, because if Craig has had
gotten his way and Ellie did not play the literal
opening lyrics or the opening chords and then sing the
opening lyrics to Future Days, a song that is so
unbelievably vital to the Last of Us Part two and
to the fans of this franchise, which are one hundred

(58:39):
percent the reason why this show fucking exists because of
the fans and the love and the overwhelming praise for
this franchise. If he omitted that song and went with
something else, I'm telling you right now, I would have
canceled our Patreon page. I would have shut this podcast
down and we would have been done, because there is
literally no hope. There would be absolutely no hope. I

(59:01):
would have been done one thousand percent. So Neil, thank
you for standing up for this moment, for having a
fucking spine against Craig Mason and him losing the plot completely.
And I understand people who are just watchers of the
show do not understand. I understand that you don't understand
that we don't. I get it. The importance of the

(59:22):
song has not appeared yet, which is another reason why
this show is asked fucking backwards, because everyone should know
why Future Days is important to this entire fucking moment
that Ellie has here, and you see the shift on
her face and what happens at the end of this
scene that you're going to talk about in a second, Andrew,

(59:43):
And for Craig Mason to be so goddamn obtuse as
to suggest that any other fucking song should be in
its place. You're fired. You're literally fucking fired. I'm so angry.
It's like the biggest let down. Yeah, it's upsetting. I'm
like getting say that. I mean, I had no idea
about you. Obviously I don't. I didn't follow any of that.

(01:00:04):
Was that information gleaned from the official podcast or some
other source? I believe so it was sent to me
by multiple people. Got it okay?

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
It could have been an interview with Variety or any
number of outlets something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
So I believe it. It's sad. It's sad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
So after NOODLEI on the guitar and singing the first
lyric out loud, Ellie stands and leans the guitar against
an amp and that's that. Dina enters after this, and
Ellie asks if she's figured it out again. Dina says
that she thinks so, and Ellie's reply of good is

(01:00:44):
a much different tone than the Ellie we saw just
moments ago.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Yeah, and it appears that Rage has entered the chat.
After five, like almost four full fucking episodes, Rage has
finally entered the Chat in season two, which is wild,
just fucking wild, but there it is. But we're still
in the theater. So Dina is back over the map

(01:01:10):
again and she shares their travel plans and how they
will get to Lake Hill, and she says, the WLF
patrols up and down this particular road, this particular street,
this section, that section, but there's a big gap in
their patrol lines. And she talks about this quote long
ass building, but neither of them know what this building

(01:01:30):
is or what it might contain. But somehow both Dina
and Ellie agree that this is the best area to
go to because it could be a warehouse or anything
or something. And Ellie protests a bit here because they
deduce that the reason why it's off limits by the
WLF or not patrolled by the WLF is because it's infected,

(01:01:51):
and that's likely the reason. But you know what, Yeah,
let's just we threw the idea out there. But the
smartest plays to just outwit a mini military by seeking
to go to the one area they seem to very
actively avoid and common sense has just failed them both.
And I don't understand. I would be like, are you

(01:02:14):
fucking serious? Are you fucking Maybe we shouldn't go there.
Maybe the people with the fifty caliber machine guns who
don't go there know something that you and I with
our little pistols do not. But what do I know?
What do I know? I'm just watching from home. So Din,
you didn't you? This is the second time I've said

(01:02:35):
that in the last two episodes. Dina continues to break
down their plan. They'll pop up behind the patrols, and
once they are at the hospital, Nora should be on
the first floor, and Dina knows this because once again
the walkie talkie chatter, because these people never shut the
fuck up, and Ellie ritually here talks about how they're
in a war, and you'd think they wouldn't just air

(01:02:56):
their business for everyone to hear. But everyone alive in
this post apocalypse is apparently a fucking moron, including both sides,
and Dina brings up how the scars are quote culty
or religious, and then she throws in the Pennsylvania Amish,
which you and I Andrew are very well versed and
aware of they're.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Like twenty minutes away at the you know, you could
drive twenty minutes to our west and begin to run
into them and then continue to do so.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Yep, and they very much are off the grid. So
there's Mennonites and then there's Amish, and they are different.
I believe the Mennonites are the ones that are a
little bit closer to us, that can work in stores
with technology and cell phones and electricity and things like that.
But the hardcore Amish people everything is there is no power,

(01:03:49):
there is no communication system. Like they are just they're
building their houses, they're growing their food, they're tending to
their people. They leave them alone. Yeah, here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
If you're ever in Pennsylvania, you want a nice little
souvenir for yourself, buy some Pennsylvania Amish furniture because it
will be it is generational.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Yes, it'll last forever.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
You give that to your children and their children and
their children.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Yep. It is all real wooding. Everything is sourced locally
from their land, of which they have many many, many,
many hundreds of acres. Yes, yes, so just a good
just a thought. There's a shop about twenty minutes away
from us that we go to every once in a
while that has this whole furniture section and now just FYI,

(01:04:37):
a little bit of sticker shock, but it is one
hundred percent worth it, and we've talked about it. When
we get our dream home one day, it's just like,
that's going to be our dining table and it's going
to cost five thousand dollars. But guess what it's going
to be Belle's dining table, her kids dining room table set,
Like this is going to last forever yep. So yeah. Anyway,

(01:04:59):
but ellis she's never heard of them, meaning the Pennsylvania Amish,
and they put it together that the WLF assume that
no one is listening. Ultimately, once we get through the
Amish conversation, they do so that the wolf are just like, ah,
we're the only people around. But Ellie actually says they
are missing one mic from the dead female soldier at
the news station. But they're overconfident so they don't care

(01:05:24):
and they just continue to air their business and this
gives them an edge. But Dina acknowledges that what Ellie
and Dina are doing is reckless, so ultimately it's a wash.
They're breaking even and Ellie estimates that if they left now,
they'd reach the black hole of unpatrolled area by nightfall,
which is what would be best insofar as cover. So

(01:05:47):
they both agree to leave and be reckless.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
Yes, so we're outside now, walking the streets in broad daylight. Again, Yes, walking?

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
And why are we walking?

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
Andrew, Well, I guess Shimmer is just back in the
music store, just vibe and playing guitar, maybe listening to
you know whatever, the smiths, who knows, who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Ah, poor Shimmer was one hundred percent left behind because
even obviously they can get back to the music shop
without having to go through the subway. Yes, but it'll
be longer and they might run into more patrols. But
my thought here is by the end of this episode,
when Dina gets shot, the plan is basically scrap the

(01:06:37):
rescue mission, meet up with Tommy the next day, head
back to Jackson. The problem with that is they're going
to go back to the theater and then presumably stop
and get Shimmer and then continue on their way. However,
that's because Dina got shot, so she never got shot.
Does that mean they just continue on this mission and

(01:06:57):
get to the hospital and then find Abby, And what
if Babby's not there and they have to travel someone
else somewhere else, Do they just keep getting farther and
farther away from Shimmer. The farther away you get, the
less likely they're going to get back to that point
in time for Shimmer to be alive, like she was
very carelessly left behind. Here's what I'll say. Here's what

(01:07:18):
I'll say.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
We learn at the end of this episode that, you know,
by certain people showing up in Jesse, and we learn
of Tommy that they retraced Ellie and Dina steps.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
So it's possible they scooped up Shimmer on the way. Well, no,
they only knew where they were because Jesse found the
map in the theater. Yeah, but they had.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
To have followed the pathway based the same general path
that they took right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
So, yeah, but they would have already passed the music
shop to get to the theater to find the map.
So they would have already passed the music shop not
really realizing Shimmer's in there because they didn't have the
map information until they got to the theater.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
I think we're saying the same thing, but maybe I'm
not explaining it correctly. Is that Tommy and Jesse are
maybe on a horse or on their own horses, and
they say like, oh, this music shop looks disturbed over here.
Maybe they went in and then they then they go
in and they're like, well, Shimmer's here, and they take

(01:08:19):
Shimmer and then they're like, okay, let's continue on the
path that we were going on, and then arrive at
the theater with Shimmer in tow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
I only find them up. I don't buy that there
was no disturbance whatsoever at the music shop except for
the doors being closed. That's it. Yeah, there was would
be no reason for them. And that's if they took
the exact same street.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
If they're trackers, it's trackers sometimes, you know they're trackers.
That's all. I'll give them the benefit of potentially. I
just want Shimmer to be okay. I'll I'll just stretch
the longest stretch for Shimmer to be. Okay, it's snapped, okay,

(01:09:02):
not yet for me, not yet for me. So we
see smoke in the distance and sounds of gunfire and booms.
They are cautious as they go, walking past cars and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Ellie asks if this is safe.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
She trusts Dina, but not Seattle, but they have to
act like everything is normal, otherwise Dina will get anxious
and barf. They talk about the baby here and Dina
jokes about names Ellie and Elijah, which made me laugh.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Yeah, Ellie and eli essentially right, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
This comes to an abrupt stop as they find a
pile of dead scars beneath feel her love, and then
beneath that written in blood, I imagine, it says, feel
this bitch.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Well, feel her love was written in blood, I believe.
And then feel this bitch looked like black spray paint.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Yeah, okay, all the dead scars right right right, It's
basically a mural of a woman in a very kind
of traditional Christian imagery sense saintly says, feel her love.
Dina turns away and almost gets sick again. Ellie has
a come to Jesus moment about dragging a pregnant woman

(01:10:18):
out into the terrors of this mission with her. She
asks Dina if she wants to go back. There's a
moment where neither say anything, and Dina has this odd
stare again, but suddenly walks on and changes the subject.
Says that Ellie never asked about who the first person
Dina killed was and why, And so Ellie asks. Dina

(01:10:40):
begins to tell a story here from her childhood, that
when she was little, she lived in a cabin north
of Santa Fe in a forest, scattered families around, but
mostly it was just her and her family alone. It
was only her mom and her sister in her She
went outside against her mother's wishes one day with a
go in in to for safety, and Ellie and us

(01:11:03):
can likely guess the ending because Dina is here and
doesn't live in that cabin in Santa Fe any longer,
and she doesn't have a mom or sister anymore. Ellie
guesses it was raiders that caused everything, but the one
raider was still there when Dina got home and she
startled him, but she was slow to shoot because she

(01:11:26):
was eight. He was even more startled when she did
shoot him. Ellie talks in this soft voice of how
she's sorry and she didn't know, but asks Dina how
she got to Jackson. Dina turns around, hardened and sort
of reprimands Ellie here with it doesn't matter what happened then,

(01:11:47):
you know, referencing then, and she says, this is what matters,
whatever reason, Joel gave those people to do what they
did to him. He didn't deserve to die the way
he did, and Dina falls down the what if rabbit hole?
What if she hadn't snunk out that day? What if
she had to watch her loved ones die brudely in

(01:12:08):
front of her? Would it have made a difference if
her family had hurt his people first? And the answer
is no. Dina says something very in line with what
Ellie should be thinking, acting, and kind of feeling like
that had she not killed that man, Dina would have
hunted him down forever.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
It's interesting forever.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
So Ellie touches Dina's face here and Dina closes her eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Paul's real quick just to throw in another fucking zinger
that Dina is the Ellie of this show and Ellie
is so far out of character it's embarrassing. At this point,
it is literally fucking embarrassing how bad the writing and
direction is. As it continues to get worse, Ellie, I
literally don't recognize Ellie and it's all for the wrong reasons.

(01:13:01):
She either is being linked to this violent, feral psychopath
mentality or she's flip floppy with this soft almost like somber, loving,
affectionate voice for something that happened that Dina is still
so enraged over all these years later, that Ellie doesn't

(01:13:26):
feel even a breath of that rage towards Joel and
what happened to him, not towards Joel, towards Joel's murder,
and Dina is Ellie at this fucking point and what,
oh my god, like what are we doing? Seriously, what
is going on? Here's what I'll say.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
I like this as a character moment for Dina a lot,
and I like that this explains why Dina is so
gung ho to be here doing this, because she's seeing
it as a kind of redemption for something a past
perceived trauma. So Ellie has never gone on a revenge

(01:14:08):
mission before, but Dina is kind of more acutely aware
of like what the stakes are as it were, So
I agree that it kind of should, the roles kind
of should be reversed a little bit, but I don't. Again,
I don't want to bring too much of like what
I know of the game. I'm trying my very best
to keep these two things separate. So, like, as this

(01:14:29):
story from Dina and how she feels and how Ellie
feels about Dina is a great way for Dina's experience
to inform what Ellie should be doing. I don't know
if that's the best thing for the character. It doesn't
feel the best.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
But why does anybody need to be informed to be
rageful on a fucking revenge quest there, I would not
need someone to be like, oh, well, you know, Jack.
When my entire family was murdered in in front of me,
I had the choice to kill this man, and I

(01:15:04):
did because if I didn't, I knew that I would.
It would haunt me forever, and I would hunt him
until the day I died. I if somebody had taken
someone brutally from me, I would not need anybody else's
fucking sob story or revenge story to motivate me to
be full of rage. I would be like, stow your

(01:15:24):
fucking trauma. You are here because you loved Joel. That
is what we were led to believe. But now Diana
is here not because she just loves Joel, not because
she wants to be with Ellie, but because she has
her own fucking traumatic past, which is now fueling Ellie's
fucking fire. As a cautionary tale of what Dina immediately
killed the dude. She didn't have to go on a quest,

(01:15:46):
she didn't have to live with any kind of rage
or guilt beyond the actual event that happened that she
handled immediately. According to her story. Sure, as an eight
year old also though it's traumatic, but it's not. It's
not what Ellie should be. I get that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
And my only again, my only tiny pushback, is that
the events in the game and again just divorcing here,
just trying to divorce, but the events in the game
are like, we lose Joel and then the next day
Ellie sets out there is no three month recovery window.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Well wasn't the next day?

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Well yeah, I mean, but you know, let's call it
a week total. In the timeline of the show, we
had this three months of downtime for Ellie where she
had to rest and recuperate, and where Dina was scheming
and doing all of these things and planning in her.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
Head and turning to Jesse, right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
And Ellie is also in this moment that we're watching
right now, processing new feelings for this person that she
loves and has only been able to entrust a long,
dark secret too. And so there's a lot swirling around,
and I can understand. So basically, I could understand Ellie's

(01:17:11):
softening here in service of trying to protect someone she loves. Like,
I don't ever think when Ellie suggested, should we go back,
I don't ever think that it was Ellie goes back.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
Let's not do this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
It's like Ellie would escort Dina bag and then go
do the mission on her own.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Yeah, but she's clearly incapable because they're making her stupid.
And what is her motivation. She's not full of rage,
she's not full of anger. She's just loping along as
she's dragged by Dina. Dina is the one leading here. Yeah, well, no,
I think it kicks. I think the guitar scene should

(01:17:49):
have kicked. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
The guitar the good When she says good, that a
switch is flipped visually for the character are singing the
first few words and understanding.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
And why isn't she leading? Why she knows? Yeah, I
mean I get, I don't know, all right, I mean, hey,
that's it. None of this works. It's ass backwards, okay.
And and folks, we're not we're not fighting. I'm just
I just I can't. I I'm so pissed off at

(01:18:25):
this show that I actually am having a really nasty
time like recording this episode because I don't fucking care
about it anymore. Like I'm I'm literally on the verge
of tears because the writing is so goddamn bad that
it's like, literally Dina is just being just tied a
fucking leash around Ellie and is like, come on, come on,

(01:18:46):
come on, keep up this. This is why I am
the way that I am. This is my backstory, and
so I understand what it is to lose family in
a vicious manner in front of me. Yeah, and you
are not acting the way that you should. Maybe Dina's
calling her out on that, and I would be willing
to bet that that is more or a better interpretation

(01:19:07):
than what we've talked about here, because if I was Dina,
I'd be like, what's your fucking problem? I think that okay.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
I mean, we have two episodes left in the season,
and I kind of know where I have a sense
of where we're going to go in the next one,
So I don't know if hopefully we'll get what you're
looking for.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
I think we'll see see.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
Dina at this point offers Ellie a choice that she
will go back if that's what Ellie wants, or she
will continue if that's what Ellie wants. So Dina's like, look,
if you want me here, I'm here. If you want
me to go, I'll go. But it's the ball is
in your court. The key thing, and we as audience
members also feel is probably pretty acutely, is that there

(01:19:49):
is no right answer here, at least in the given
the circumstances. Dina says her death is on her, not Ellie,
like it's on me. Ellie looks beyond Dina and then
looks back to her and whispers keep going.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
So we know, and Dina does, and again like, how
unbelievably selfish do you have to be to not only
abandon mentally at least abandon the root reason as to
why you are out here, which just in case anybody
forgot to avenge Joel, but to not do what's best
for the person you claim to love. A pregnant woman

(01:20:26):
in any iteration of an apocalypse, excuse me of a
post apocalypse has no fucking business being thrown into a war.
And if one fucking person protests me on this, I
will not acknowledge you. I will not talk about your
comment whatsoever because I don't want to fucking hear it.
I like there. This is happening in real time in

(01:20:50):
several and many places around the world, where pregnant women
are thrown against their fucking will into a war, and
that is a goddamn night. That is a failure on humanity,
and all of us should feel shamed to a degree.
We can't live in that every single day, unfortunately, and
that comes with first world privilege. I understand that. But

(01:21:11):
Dina has a fucking choice here. Ellie has a choice here,
and both of them are making the wrong one, and
it is just mind boggling. So I'm not going to
sit here and put the onus completely on Ellie because
she gave these options, obviously negating that she had an
option to be like, listen, I have to go back.

(01:21:32):
I love you and I love Joel, but I have
to go back. But she's not doing that here. She's
leaving fate and choice to Ellie, and Ellie whispers, doesn't
even say it with like a gut guttural response. Just
keep going. And I could you imagine if Joel was alive.
All That's what I think about here. If Joel was

(01:21:54):
alive and knew that Dina was pregnant and Ellie was like, no,
we need to keep going together, he would be like,
are you fucking serious? In what world? In what world
would this be? Okay, it's interesting, it's upsetting. It's just
so upsetting. And this is not a new theme whatsoever
to the list of us part two, and I'm not

(01:22:15):
going to say anything more about that, but there were
choices made in the game that I was just like,
this is a fucking joke, right, Like, this is a
fucking joke. Yeah, it's it's it's just so, it's so selfish,
and here's it, okay, Because I know people might be
upset and push back with well, maybe Dina really didn't
want to be a mom, maybe she doesn't really care

(01:22:35):
about this, maybe the it's so new, her pregnancy is
so new that it doesn't really matter, or if she dies,
it's fucking cares, you know, And maybe she is feeling
that way. But just the night before, no, just the
morning of, her and Ellie were talking about how excited
they are to have a family together. I would go
out on a limb and say that Dina's pretty excited

(01:22:56):
to be pregnant, So are you excited to be a mom?
Because with that comes to decisions that a mother has
to make for her body and the unborn child that's
still inside of her. And if you are willing to
be a mother, that means you are willing to do
whatever it fucking takes and putting yourself in these situations,
ain't it? As much as I love you, as much

(01:23:16):
as I love my father. Whatever. If I was pregnant
and presented with a situation where it was like, well,
you know, what are you gonna do, Jack, I'd be like,
I made the decision that I'm going to keep this
child and be a mom, so I cannot go Sorry,
please come home. Okay. I only can base it off

(01:23:37):
with what I saw on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
I mean, I agree with you that somebody should have
said something, But by the end of the episode we
have what I presume is Dean is out from this mission.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
I hope so, I genuinely hope so. And also why
pregnancy is a part of this story at fucking all? Right,
So it's nighttime now and we are approaching the warehouse,
so we see an overview of the area at night,
patrol lights shining back and forth. Ellie peeks through a
gap of a container door that's partially open, and they

(01:24:11):
wait for the light to pass, but they don't see anything,
and so Dina and Ellie run for it, just barely
being missed by the watchers on the wall. Close Close
one yes. Dina moves up to cut the fence, with
Ellie covering her, and they run through and ha lee lujah.
Dina closes the fence behind her, but after entering through

(01:24:32):
a plywood panel. So, I mean this place is boarded
up for a reason, and that reason does not deter
Dina and Ellie what's whatsoever. But once inside we see
that it's an office building of some sort, at least
this part of it, and they sneak around through the
first room. They go through their limited positives that the
light the search light won't reach them because the windows

(01:24:55):
are high up and there is one door open, and
nothing has come running out after them just yet, And
Dina instantly tries to take the lead, but Ellie points
her light directly into Dina's face and makes a quip
about how Dina shouldn't go because Dina can get infected
whereas Ellie cannot. And once again Ellie and those wonderful
leadership skills, just Dina clearly just wants to take the

(01:25:19):
lead because she's reliable. Anyway, Ellie takes a quick look
into the darkness and says haunted but empty, and Dina
just huh, just like us. And I cannot stress enough.
And this is not a talking point, it's a statement.
I cannot stress enough. How these one liners need to
be written out of the fucking scripts forever. This is

(01:25:40):
not a dark comedy. This is not a Zinger type
TV show. It is a revenge filled, mania induced murder
missionful of mutated monsters that are literally trying to kill
you at every point, not even including the military, malicious
and fucking religious cult groups that are all around them.

(01:26:00):
And yet we're going to pop these one liners. Stop it,
please stop it. That said you gotta admit, you gotta
give it up, Isabella crushed the line, I'm not giving
anything up because I don't like it. Okay. They assume
there will be infected somewhere beyond this door, but logic
tells them at least it will not be a hord,

(01:26:21):
because a horde would not ignore all the lights and
the sounds and such from outside. Of course, they would
have chased after it, so they deduced that there's strays
and a few clickers that can be easily handled. However,
Dina begins to stress that no gunfire is to be
used here because the army around them will inevitably be

(01:26:41):
up their ass, so they institute this run only and
use your firearms as a last resort. And Ellie protests
here with AO so you think I'll just start firing
and Dina says, yeah, literally every single time, and again
this is just putting Ellie as the brute force behind everything.
But I want to put out a little tiny addendum

(01:27:03):
to this comment by Dina that says every single time
is not actually true because in the supermarket Ellie did
not actually kill that first clicker on the second floor
with a firearm. Instead, she knifed it to death. So
every single time not actually true. But who cares about facts.
Dina tells Ellie not to get angry here because listen,

(01:27:25):
face it, Ellie, you are a little crazy, but it
is something that Dina loves about her, and Ellie appears
to not have heard anything after the L word is
dropped because of course that becomes the focus here. And Ellie,
you love me, and Dina just smiles, and then she
begins to say I read, but Dina says, oh, I know.
And now again, what are we doing? What are we

(01:27:47):
actually do? Andrew? What can you tell me what we're doing?
We're declaring love for one another in this in this space,
right here, right now, We're just we're gonna flirt at
inappropriate moments. We're going to declare our love for each
other at the most ran them of times. After she
called you crazy, which is fine. I get that. Andrew
knows I'm a little crazy and kooky and he loved
that about me. It's probably what drew him to me,

(01:28:09):
like a wall to a flame, and I get that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
Well, you remember when I had saved you from that
burning building, and that's when you told me that you
loved me while we were in the burning building.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
Yes, And I was like, well I ran in here
because I love fire and you were like, wow, bitch,
you crazy, but I love you anyway you love me?
And I was like I do, yeah, yeah, And then
we decided to commit to each other forever and ever
and ever. That's what happened. Look at this is just
a treatment.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
This is just a treatment for you know, getting things
out there. You know, I think, I think, if I may.
The things that you are bristling up against is that
you are seeing colloquial least you're seeing the seams right,
I'm seeing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
It's not necessarily the seams. It's you are constantly taking
me out of the moment. The tension is building, the
caution is mounting, the hazards surrounding, and then you fucking
pop the balloon every goddamn time with some flirty, stupid

(01:29:16):
smile or some love declaration or inside communication between lover. Listen,
I love Deli, I love Deli. I love Dina and
Ellie together. I want them together. I love their love.
This is not the fucking way to do it. This
is not normal, and it's pissing me off. Let me

(01:29:39):
be scared. Let me be afraid of what's beyond that door.
I don't want to hear someone tell me that they
love me. If I'm about to get fucking shanked by
teeth of the infected, can you save it? Can you
stow it? Hun? What are we doing? I don't know,

(01:29:59):
I don't It's maddening. It's so maddening and I'm tired,
like I'm literally becoming exhausted the longer we do this podcast.
But I'm here, I'm in it. We're in it, We're committed,
we're doing it. We're good anyway, so smile smiles, eh.
But their plan gets affirmed here it's knives or they run,
that's it. And from there they stand. They set off

(01:30:22):
and Ellie goes through the door first, and we are
in a long, dark hallway and it's damp, and Ellie says,
so far, so good, but Dina's face, in her kind
of disposition, is saying otherwise, and she stops them, and
Ellie asks if she can hear something, because we know
that Dina has listened mode of course, we figure that
out on episode one, but she doesn't hear anything, which

(01:30:44):
is also a little bit odd, and once again we
are showing that Ellie needs to be guided every single
step of the way, and asks this by saying, so
this way, then, yes, Ellie, straight down the narrow hallways
the way to go. They continue on and Dina checks
behind them, good job, check in your six until they

(01:31:06):
come through another set of double metal doors and we
are now in some sort of industrial area with lots
of windows, and the search light pierces through and gives
us kind of a peak a boo vibe of what's
going on in this space. But things are not right here.
There's a mutilated corpse on the floor by some sort
of industrial belt like what are they called. It's a belt,

(01:31:32):
a conveyor belt, thank you, yeah, And unfortunately the conveyor
belt actually shields that corpse from view of Dina and Ellie.
But up ahead, Ellie spots this first dead scar that
is ripped in half, so it's not looking good. And
then a whimpering sound fills the area and we look up,

(01:31:53):
or they look up, excuse me, and a stalker is
on top of a few stacked palettes of goods, and
the flashlight once again catches its eyes and it's watching them,
and Dina and Ellie drops somewhere after this infected drops
off the back out of you, and Ellie thinks it's
one of the quote smart ones, just like the one
she encountered in the supermarket outside of Jackson. But Ellie

(01:32:16):
killed that one, and Dina brings that up here, and
Ellie reveals that she was bitten in the process, though,
and Dina is surprised by this reveal, and Ellie bites
back with a was I supposed to tell you you
would have? And yes, we realize that Dina would have
killed Ellie right then and there. But they're interrupted by
more sounds of infected as they begin to form this

(01:32:36):
flaky plan, and it's similar to the other one that
they will be fast and sneaky and they will try
to flank Dina and Ellie, so it's best to get
the jump on them first. They're going to split up
and whomever this particular infected follows the other one will
take it out from behind. But once that conversation concludes,

(01:32:57):
Dina shines her light up in the direction of where
that infected previous was, and now it looks to be
there are three up there, and they dropped out back
down in a panic. They know that their plan is
a bust and neither of them knows what to do.
And the ineptitude I could go, I could complain. I
think I'll give a little bit of benefit of the

(01:33:18):
doubt here because it is a new type of infected
for them. But it is a pickle of a situation
that they are in. However, they put themselves in this situation,
deciding to come to a warehouse that was when they
got there discovered was boarded up and chained. By the way,
Remember Dina broke the chain off the fence and so

(01:33:39):
you did this to yourself. Just FYI. They got themselves
in this situation that they know nothing about without expecting
to be I don't know, maybe this new infected there.
Who But they're not quiet here whatsoever. From now until
the end of this scene, they're just talking like no
one is around, like nothing is hunting them, and everything

(01:34:00):
is hunky dory. But Dina asks to go back the
way they came because there is really no other option here,
and Ellie agrees that they can't run because if they run,
these stalkers will chase them. But Dina stops Ellie and
we see that there are literally now stalkers everywhere. Because
once again the show can't do one or three, It
has to just do a dozen or two dozen. They

(01:34:20):
just constantly inflate every chance that they get. But Ellie
spots a secure fenced off area ahead that is open
and orders Dina to go there and lock herself in
because Ellie can get bit, she can get bit a lot.
Dina cannot, so they share this intense quick kiss and
Dina runs for it like haul's ass, towards that fenced

(01:34:42):
off area. Yeah, and Ellie immediately stands and runs and
fires off her pistol, distracting and bringing the infected towards her.
Dina secures herself behind the fence and takes a few
of them with her weapon while she's back there as well.
But after a moment or so, Ellie is overrun, and
by a moment so I mean literally like ten to
twenty seconds, Ellie is overrun by these stalkers and down

(01:35:04):
on the ground, and Dina's not faring well either, as
the infected begin to break through the fencing, ripping it
up and off the posts, and she's out of AMMO,
which is fucking crazy, like you're out of ammo? Like
does she literally have no more AMMO? Gone gone? Or
is it back with Shimmer? Do we have to have
the Shimmer conversation again? But panic sets in across the
board as Ellie is bit probably repeatedly and attacked on

(01:35:28):
the floor and then loud shotgun booms sound in the
near distance as an unknown person enters the fold and
lo and behold Jesse saves the day. We paused this
episode because we had to go and run an eron
real quick, but I like had to get a big

(01:35:48):
hug from Andrew going back into the remaining of this
the remainder of this show, because it's just I take
this stuff very seriously in general, and it's affecting it
is I think I've reached the point in the season
where it's affecting my mental health, Like I'm not burned out,
but I also don't want to do this anymore because
I thought the material was going to be better and

(01:36:10):
I feel like the disappointment is so overwhelming in so
many different ways. And now this particular subject is for
me one of the biggest disappointments because there is a
female representation at the helm of The Last of Us

(01:36:32):
Part two from multiple perspectives, strong female characters, and now
I can tear that down in the video game in
certain ways because of attributes and circumstances and things like
that which kind of nullify the representation are in certain respects.
But we're not going to do that because it's not
the game. But this is the most outward example of

(01:36:56):
failing strong female characters. We've collectively talked this whole or
I've collectively talked about the disappointment in Ellie being dumbed
down and having zero leadership skills and Dina basically being
the main female protagonist on this show and usurping Ellie,

(01:37:17):
and now we get to this point where they've walked
themselves into a situation that they cannot get out of
unless it's through death or being rescued by a man.
And how any woman who watched this see this sequence unfold,
should be deeply disappointed because really we needed Jesse to

(01:37:42):
come and get us out of this because they were
Dina and Ellie were so ill prepared and overrun from
their poor planning to their lack of execution and escape
prowess or whatever, like I don't I actually, I don't
know if I have the words, but it's offensive. It's

(01:38:02):
offensive to Ellie's character, it's offensive to Dina's reliability and
strength that she's presented up until this point. And we
didn't need this. This wasn't a moment. Jesse could have
been introduced in any number of ways, but being the
token hero, male savior was completely unnecessary and out of

(01:38:23):
all the moments that I have disappointment over this is
the one that just makes me feel the most sad,
not even that mad, because it's just the continuation of
this gaze that women are incapable and I vehemently disagree
with it and I can't fucking stand it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
Yeah, I think this is probably why they set it
up earlier with the line this is reckless. I think
they were trying to maybe pad the blow a little
bit and without saying anything specific whatsoever, Sure, something similar

(01:39:03):
ish happens in the game, similar ish.

Speaker 1 (01:39:08):
But nowhere near, nowhere near this level of dire streets.

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
No, there's like Anna, there is an intense sequence in
the game ad that ends in a similar ish way,
but the pieces are like moved around a little bit,
like it's not quite it's not quite this. So my
thought is like, again they're taking I can it's it's

(01:39:34):
it's funny. As as I said it earlier, I think
that it's part of the thing that I'm grappling with too,
is seeing the seams where I'm like, if you were
to look at the game and break it down into
these things happened right like this happens, so like X
person arrives and saves why person it's like, Okay, we're

(01:39:58):
gonna take that and we're gonna lift it up and
we're going to put it on a card on the board,
and then this thing they go here, and then they
learn about this and lift that and then you put
it on the board.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Right, I see what you're saying. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
So it's like we got to get all of these
things that are on the board need to be in
the show, but we just were Now we're going to
like just grab them off the board and put them
and lay them down in the right order. So it's
like this didn't need to happen like this, but it
might have been the issue might have been that they're

(01:40:32):
trying to be maybe maintained too much of the spirit
of the game, right, Like this didn't have to happen
in this way because something similar ish happened in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
Does that make sense, Yeah, I do understand what you're saying.
I just think it was the I think they're having
like there people have mentioned the tone is way off
in the show, and I think they're serving two masters.
I think is what it is that it's they're serving.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
Yes, they're trying to serve game people and serve television
people and it's just getting lost and they might not
be serving anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:41:11):
Yeah. I think that's that's that's the perfect way to
put this, because even if let's say I never played
the games, okay, and and I and I know of
course the moment that you were talking about that involves
Jesse's character, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and how he's reintroduced into
this moment, but it was a lot different than what

(01:41:33):
is happening now and right, it's not even necessarily yeah, yeah,
it was just a reintroduction. It wasn't the doc doc
kind of bullshit that they pulled in the TV show.
And I think you know, the Superman moment that they
threw into episode five this past Sunday was very was

(01:41:54):
a it really is. It's it's serving the master of
the TV audience. It's like, this is what people expect
because this is what's always been done. And we know
we have to reintroduce this character at or around this part, right,
So what can we do to get our two main

(01:42:15):
female protagonists into dire straits that would justify people allowing
or accepting Jesse coming in with his big bad shotgun
as the big bad man rescuing the tiny little women
and not leave people pissed off, and that equates to

(01:42:36):
will we add more infected? Dina decides to continue to
go with Ellie, knowing she's pregnant and disregarding that. So
Ellie is not only preoccupied with her own life, but
she's distracted thinking about Deni's distracted thinking about Ellie. She
runs out of AMMO, like all of these situations have

(01:42:56):
to happen so that Jesse can have his hero moment,
and instead of it being something believable and acceptable, it
was so overdone that it's sad and disappointing because all
of the problems have been set up this entire season
leading to this moment, So we shouldn't be surprised, And

(01:43:17):
I'm not surprised. What did I say to you before
we saw Jesse come into focus? And I was like,
it's Jesse. I was like, I literally looked at you.
I was like, it's Jesse. I was like, I would
love for it to be Tommy, but it's going to
be Jesse. I kind of would have liked it to
be like WLF, you know, that would have been different.
That would have been a big, big difference and completely

(01:43:39):
caught us off guard. I hate to do I hate
to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:43:43):
I really don't like doing this because we've all heard
this before, probably from me, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:43:49):
But there was this show called Breaking Bad.

Speaker 2 (01:43:51):
And if if you haven't watched it, that's okay, you're
still going to understand this. I was obsessed with that show,
probably to an unhealthy degree. Not I think it's an
excellent show and maybe an example of something that didn't
even have a bad episode. I'd hear an argument if
you were like, well, that one was pretty weak, but

(01:44:13):
I don't think anything.

Speaker 1 (01:44:16):
Wasn't in service of moving the story forward.

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):
There was never an episode where I was like, nothing
happened on this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:44:22):
That's so put that out there.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
But Vince Gilligan in his writer's room, and he credits
the writer's room even when an episode is written by
Vince Gilligan or Peter Gould or the showrunners or anything.
He always it has always noted that it is a room.
There was never an end goal, per se, and they

(01:44:45):
would often write themselves into very sticky situations, and then
what they would have to do is find the smartest
imaginable way to write themselves out of the situations.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
Like they didn't do the easy thing.

Speaker 2 (01:44:59):
They always leaned into the hardest imaginable thing to try
to get out of sure, and sometimes it meant like
a character death, and sometimes it meant a character doing
a thing that you were like, I I think I
hate this person now. Yeah, but it always made sense,
Like that's the thing that as far as the show pushed.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
Things, it always made sense. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:24):
And so there's a there's an example of a show
that was yearly, and so they were like they would
finish their run of twelve twelve episodes most of the
like towards in the middle the middle seasons had twelve
episodes and then they'd have the rest of this and
they would they would be like grinding, like how do
we figure this out? Yeah, because there isn't there's not

(01:45:49):
a two year hiatus, right, There isn't like this long
period to And so I found it very impressive. And
I don't know if it's here's the thing, and we
see written by Craig Mason at the beginning of these
I don't know if he has a team of people
with him or if it is written by Craig Mason.

(01:46:10):
I don't either fully. And if it is the latter
of the two. If it is just written by Craig Mason,
I don't think it would hurt to have a couple
of their eyes on this stuff. These are all solved
everything that we've brought up, especially you, and not to
call you out, but like, no, okay, you're calling out
like very real things that are affecting you, right, And

(01:46:32):
it's like these are all solvable problems with like another
set of eyes and another perspective, you know what I'm saying.
Like we might not agree on how Neil Druckman and
Haley Gross delivered the narrative of the game, but there
were two of them, yes, And like it or not,
the game has a very clear perspective throughout.

Speaker 1 (01:46:55):
It always makes sense. And that's the thing that the
game that the show here is.

Speaker 2 (01:47:00):
I'm like, I don't know if these characters should act
like this, Like as much as I loves Isabellahmer said
and what she is doing with Dinam, this isn't her story, no,
and she is front and center for the kind of
past handle of episodes. So yeah, so there's conflicting things
that I'm feeling, But it seems like just a couple

(01:47:21):
extra people in the writing stage, would really maybe be
a helpful thing to have I.

Speaker 1 (01:47:28):
Hire me, hbo, I would love to sit down. I
have plenty of fucking ideas. Let's go. Yeah, that was
a very big negative point for me on this episode.
And after I had called out who I knew it was,
I think I just kind of slouched in the couch
and I was just like, everything that you want me

(01:47:49):
to believe after this point becomes less becomes less likely
and harder for me to buy as an audience member,
knowing who the these characters are and were and what
they've now become. Because if it is just Craig writing
all of this, he is a man and he does

(01:48:11):
not understand these characters on a basic fundamental level, and
he's yeah, it's unfortunate, It's very unfortunate. And I think, here,
here's a little bit of a in my own side tangent.
I remember reading because all of us were very excited
about Craig Mason at the beginning of this project, and
even at the beginning of this season, we were still
very in Craig. We trust and blah blah blah. And

(01:48:34):
I fully admit that Chernobyl sold Craig for me. In
a very big way, or Craig doing Chernobyl sold him
leading the last of us on HBO in a very
big way. I think it was what I meant to say. However,
when I pulled back the curtain on the Chernobyl series
on HBO, which was excellent, we watched it. I think

(01:48:56):
we've watched it several times. It's a fantastic, tight, concise,
emotionally heartbreaking, gut wrenching series, and that will never take
away from that experience. However, when I did some digging
on the actual facts behind Chernobyl and what was presented

(01:49:17):
to us in the show, and I feel like I
might have talked about this last week, or maybe I
talked about it with you privately. I don't know, but
a lot of people were like, this was so poorly done.
All he had to do was read history books. All
he had to do was pull from actual fact. But
instead he took fact and either overinflated it and made

(01:49:37):
it so much worse or completely negated things that were
vital to the timeline of Chernobyl's disaster. And many, many
people were basically scorning Craig Mason, who were history professors,
people who were avid history buffs who have read every

(01:49:57):
fucking thing they possibly could on Chernobyl. And I've been
in the middle of a book for like a year
and a half now, which is excellent. And I did
read that he was he used this book as inspiration,
and I can see where he pulled from and it
was by So the book's name is Midnight in Chernobyl,

(01:50:17):
and it is It is very intense, It is heartbreaking.
It gives you the background information on the people who
were in charge of the building of the Chernobyl plant,
from the first iterations in the minds of people to
its execution. And you know, the absolute deplorable materials that

(01:50:37):
were used to build the plant, which contributed to the disaster,
like on and on and on. You can see, you
can literally see, to use the last of us, the
tendrils that connected everything leading to reactor number fours, just
absolute meltdown. And then of course just the Russian KGB
and everything that overran everything, and the hiding and the

(01:51:00):
secrecy and all that. But there was so much more
to the story. All I'm saying is there was so
much more to the story. There was so much more
to certain characters that were either killed off too quickly
or made to be absolute fucking villains when they weren't
really that, you know what I mean. So he has
a tendency to be involved in very big projects and

(01:51:21):
then tweak the information like several degrees that people who
know about actually the source material, or have studied this
their entire lives, or are giant fans of something inevitably
leave disappointed. So he's not banking on people like us.
He's banking on people just watching the show and liking it.

(01:51:43):
So all I'm saying is there seems to be a
track record where people who are not in the know
can enjoy his work, his body of work, but the
people who are in the know are deeply disappointed. And
that's a little that's sad.

Speaker 2 (01:51:58):
Hey, I'm not comparing us to historical scholars, not at all,
as a person, as a person who did not know
much about Chernobyl beyond that it exploded, yeah, you know,
not even that it exploded, that it happened. Sure, I
found that show to be incredibly compelling to watch. I

(01:52:20):
thought the characters were great. I thought the directing was great.
Not done by Craig Mason, of course, obviously, but all
of the discrete components of that show were very good,
very bleak, but very good. So I can't speak to
the you know, I'm not the person who's going in
and being like, well, that's not.

Speaker 1 (01:52:39):
How it happened. No, I know, but that's what I'm saying.
People who are just watchers of the show probably might
be listening to us and feel similarly. They didn't play
the games, so they don't care about the things we
care about, and they don't understand why we're angry.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
There are a couple other people it seems like maybe
the Internet has also taken a turn on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:53:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
I don't keep too much honest, but yeah, so it
might not just be people who have played the games.
It might actually be actual, you know, just television watchers
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
So yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I mean, and again, like
our tattoo artist is not a gamer, but he watches
the show and he is just like, I do not
like this season. He's like what is He's like, really,
what is going on? Are they on a revenge mission?
Or are they on like a monthly getaway finding their

(01:53:33):
true love? Like he's like, I really don't understand what's happening.
And I don't know the characters of the world enough
to know that what's important to them. And I'm like,
and there it is, like you and me both brother Yeah,
like there it is, you know. But anyway, Okay, So
I just wanted to talk about the disappointment with Jesse

(01:53:55):
coming in to be the hero to save the tiny,
little incapable women and how sucky that is. So to
finish up this scene, Jesse asks Ellie if she got bit,
and Dina runs out at that moment to affirm Ellie's lies,
because Ellie says repeatedly, I didn't get bit. I did
not get bit. And you know, Dina's coming to her

(01:54:17):
rescue here, so I guess, I guess that's one rescue
we can get behind. And they all race out of
the warehouse and right into a firestorm essentially. But that's
all for you to talk about, Andrew.

Speaker 2 (01:54:30):
So now we are in the park and we are
going to meet some new people kind of as we're
exiting the warehouse, they don't stop to wait for the
searchlight to pass them by or try. They're just being
shot at from all sides from the WLF. At this point,
they race under a bridge and away heading towards a

(01:54:53):
dark park up ahead. Jesse says they can lose the
WLF if they go in there, and they do. The
WLF actually stop at the gate to this park, not
running inside, but keeping guard out there in case any
of the three leave the park through that exit, And
once again they're in a location the WLF decidedly steers

(01:55:14):
clear from. Dina notes this with great more infected. But
this is where they are now and they can't go back,
so they slink deeper into the forest and Ellie asks
Jesse how he found them, and he said that he
used the map they left behind in the theater.

Speaker 1 (01:55:32):
Okay, talking point number one. Why would they leave the
map behind? They don't need the map. They literally have
had the map since Jackson, and even Dina scolded Ellie
for not having a map when they were still in
Jackson because she was just packing weapons. But beyond the

(01:55:53):
map being the vehicle to which Jesse would be able
to find Dina and Ellie, there is no other plausible
reason for it to be left behind, Absolutely none. And
I have tried. I thought, I'm like, okay, well, maybe
they thought we're going to get to the hospital and
then just come back and what if we get capp.
There is no reason, like apart from Jesse needed to

(01:56:15):
find them, so we left the map behind.

Speaker 2 (01:56:17):
Yeah, I think I would have liked this better if
it was chalked up to Jesse being a good tracker. Yes,
I thought that would have been a much clearer plot device.
I guess sure. As it stands right now, it's literally
that like up I found the map. I mean I
would have bought that he found their stuff, like they

(01:56:38):
didn't bring their entire equipment bag, yes, at the theater,
and so he knew he was close at the theater,
then track them the rest of the way. My only
thought is like they didn't need the map because it
was basically like a straight line, if that was the thinking.
But even then, they knew the building they were going
to and they knew the direction, So maybe the map.

(01:56:59):
They're in a city, it's a grid.

Speaker 1 (01:57:00):
I don't know. I didn't think too much about it,
but there was just no reason left it behind apart
from Jesse. Yeah, it's just silly.

Speaker 2 (01:57:08):
So at this point, Jesse is impressed by the triangulation work,
and Ellie says it wasn't her, it was all Dina
and the reply from Jesse, here is one that I
think you'll want to talk about, or he says, trust me,
I didn't think it was you.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
And this goes back to a lot of the bitchen
that I've been doing throughout this entire episode, and even
in some of our previous episodes of just Ellie is
clearly perceived as not smart from her peers, her friends.
They don't see her as capable or expect much from
her in that regard, and it is for the umpteenth time,

(01:57:48):
wildly out of character. I'd literally go so far as
like this is the antithesis of who Ellie is at
her core. She loves books, she loves reading, she learns
extremely quickly. Clearly we know she loves space. And in
the Games she went so far as to saying as
to say that she wanted to be an astronaut. That
would be her dream job. And I don't know if

(01:58:10):
people are aware of this, but to be an astronaut
you have to be one of the very few smartest
people on earth to actually reach that pinnacle of exploration
and science. And yet in this unhinged, unfounded, basic bitch show,

(01:58:31):
Ellie can't even be relied on for triangulation. I don't
even know what more to say beyond this point. That
hasn't that I haven't already said numerous times already, and
it'll just be repetitive. It's just disappointing. It's just disappointing,
that said.

Speaker 2 (01:58:45):
Ellie keeps on with the questions, but Jesse fires back
with a do I look like I want to fucking
talk to you right now? Dina asks if he came alone,
and though he turns away, he answers her fast enough.
He said that he came with Tommy and they split
when they got to the city, but Jackson didn't send
Tommy and Jesse. They had to sneak out the following night,

(01:59:06):
just as Ellie and Dina had. Ellie tries to push
back and defend her inability to do just about anything,
but Jesse calls her on it, and we all know
that both girls would be dead without him. There's a
rendezvous in the morning with Tommy scheduled, so the plan
for tonight is to get back to the theater, get
some rest, meet up with Tommy, and then leave for Jackson.

(01:59:28):
Ellie stops at this point and says no. Dina replies
with Ellie, but The conversation is cut short when the
whistles begin to sound and no one knows what that is.
A torch is lit behind them, and then we see
the Scars or Seraphyites depending on who you are, walking
and communicating. Jesse, Dina and Ellie follow along kind of

(01:59:53):
parallel to them, then crouch and get closer. We see
a wlf being shrung up, begging for his life, but
the scars do their CULTI speak as a big bald
man grabs a scythe and cuts the buttons off of
this guy's shirt, and you're likely things not looking good
for this guy. He is nested in sin and we

(02:00:16):
see Dina turn away. At this point. The scar this
was crazy. I'll just say I've never seen anything like this.
This was pretty gnarly. The scar stabs the blade into
the man's gut, and another pulls the rope to raise him,
which disembowels him and hangs him simultaneously. I was like, yo,

(02:00:39):
these people are next level, you know. And then they
all say I think they say, is this the man?
The main man says, now he is free.

Speaker 1 (02:00:49):
Now he is free.

Speaker 2 (02:00:50):
Their post murder ceremony gets cut short, however, when another
Scar whistles and another Scar who's noticed that they aren't
alone in these woods? Right? You got me with this
when I read ahead. So and though she used to
be an adventurer, Dina takes an arrow to the knee.

Speaker 1 (02:01:10):
I had to bring some levity because I knew I
was going to be bitching this whole episode. But if
y'all do not get this joke, I am very sad
for you. I'm happy that I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:01:18):
I mean, we've said arrow to the knee so many
times this episode, and I bought every instinct in my
body not to not to say this. So I'm happy
that it got me. Just me reading ahead, so that
was good.

Speaker 1 (02:01:32):
It wasn't. It was more her thigh than her knee.
But of course I'm going to make this about Skyrin
of course you gotta.

Speaker 2 (02:01:38):
Ellie offers to lead them away as Jesse carries Dina away,
So they make a plan to return to the theater,
and off Ellie runs. So our arrows are flying as
Ellie runs, and she trips and falls. At one moment,
she spots something up ahead in a tree, and that's
that the Scars get to where she just was, but
they don't find anything, and then they all say may

(02:02:00):
she guide us, and that's it. They walk off like
nothing happened.

Speaker 1 (02:02:05):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:02:07):
This is actually I kind of thought this was a
little funny because it is kind of like video game
AI behavior.

Speaker 1 (02:02:13):
You know, it's like, we found this guy and he's dead.

Speaker 2 (02:02:16):
It's like, let's look around, and then you know, a
couple of minutes later after that, it's like, must have
been the wind, you know. Yeah, yeah, again, I thought
that that was pretty charming for me. Ellie slips free
from her hiding spot where she was, which was inside
the trunk of the tree. Pretty good spot. She spots
an exit a head just right ahead of her, and

(02:02:37):
it leads to the hospital where they were headed.

Speaker 1 (02:02:41):
Now very very convenient.

Speaker 2 (02:02:44):
She decides, I am going to take a little detour
and heads to the hospital, leaves the park.

Speaker 1 (02:02:52):
Yes, so we are now outside of Lake Hill Hospital
and there are WL left guards posted with high caliber
automatic weapons. Ellie sneaks up and spots the hospital very
close up ahead, and once again she's just staring at
What all Ellie slash Bella Ramsey seems to do in
this season is just stare ahead like a fucking weirdo.

(02:03:15):
And I don't know what kind of direction that is,
but I'm not blaming Bella Ramsey anymore. I'm actually letting
the actors off the hook at this point because this
is just poor direction. But she begins to move through
the grass, and this ultimately triggers a guard dog who
begins to bark and tries to advance on where she is.
The guard who is holding the least two said guard

(02:03:35):
dog says nothing but radios to someone else that he
will check it out, and the grass moves slightly here
and they kind of follow along. But we see Ellie
dragging her backpack through a sizeable hole in a wall,
you know, some random wall of the hospital with a
big fucking three foot hole in it, and the WLF
guard gets there, shines his flashlight. He doesn't even bend

(02:03:57):
down to investigate, but just reports back that it must
have been a critter or something. And again, I understand
we're living post apocalyptic times, but isn't a creator, like,
wouldn't that also be something to concern yourself with going
into the hospital. I don't know, I just could be
a raccoon, you know, we don't know what we don't know. Yeah,

(02:04:17):
it just be a possum something we don't know. You
have some WLF soldiers like the ones before the subway,
as Elli and Dina run out of the news station
and they chase Ellien Dina down through the hole or
ultimately they go into the hole into the subway, and
those guys, like one of them bent down and shined
in and was like, oh, we're gonna go around. But

(02:04:40):
now you have this moment and the guy just kind
of like it's a curder, doesn't even doesn't even bend down,
like nobody knows what they're fucking doing on either side,
and it's it's funny at this point, I'm just gonna
start laughing from here on out, I think. But we
are officially inside the hospital and Noorra is bandaging a
man's leg, being very very gentle and working slowly. After

(02:05:02):
she is finished, she grabs the bloody basin of rags
and walks out of the room, down a hallway and
into a supply room of some sort. She pours water
or alcohol. I'm not really quite sure what she pours
into there, but it's from a gallon jug and she
fills this basin with the bloody gauze and looks to
be like she's going to wash it, which I guess,

(02:05:24):
you know, short supplies? Do you got to reuse gaus?
I don't know, I just do not know. But Ellie's
voice comes from behind with a very sinister put that
shit down. And there's an instant knowing that shifts on
Nora's face, and yes, it is already clear that she
remembers Ellie, and she turns and they go back and
forth about Abby here. But Nora says that if you

(02:05:47):
shoot me, every WLF soldier in this building will come
running for you. But Ellie says that Nora will still
be dead, and sometimes that is enough in the moment,
especially when you're just so full of rage and hatred.
And Ellie offers here to let Nora go if she
tells her where Abby is. Nora begins to reason and

(02:06:07):
tries in her own way to I guess talk Ellie
down with a we let you go. But Ellie sees
through this and doubles down with him. Maybe you shouldn't
have or maybe you should have stayed the fuck out
of Jackson, Nora, And there's a glimmer of something that
passes over Nora's face when she realizes that Ellie likely
knows all of their names, but she still doesn't give

(02:06:30):
anything up. And she apologizes that Ellie saw quote it happened,
meaning Joel's death, that no one should ever see something
like that happen, and she leads Ellie on here at
first with what seems and sounds a little bit a
lot of bit like empathy, but it turns very quickly
into yeah, that little bitch got what he deserved, and

(02:06:51):
Ellie's momentary faltering is gone fully replaced with shock that
Nora just actually said that. It's a subtle shock, but
it's still there. And after this, Nora throws the dirty
bin tub little mini tub thing basin full of bloody
water and gaus and everything else at Ellie and then
runs off, and we get a classic motherfucker from Ellie

(02:07:15):
as she rubs her eyes. So I'm assuming again it
might not have been water. Maybe it was some sort
of water alcohol solution. I don't know, But have you
ever actually put alcohol in or near water? It doesn't
mesh well, so I don't I don't really know what
that would be anyway, But Nora races down the hallway
or continues to race down the hallway, and she screams intruder,

(02:07:38):
alerting the surrounding WLF on duty. Ellie chases her down
and begins to fire her own pistol towards Nora, but
Nora screams for the guards to shoot her, and they
begin to do just that, but of course the band
guys always miss, and then Noor pitifully uses a wheelchair
as some sort of deterrent, which stops Ellie for about
point four seconds, and in that time, Nora has run

(02:08:00):
herself into a dead end and there is only one
way out of this, which is the elevator shift or
n elevator shift, and she hesitates, but more gunshots inspire
her enough to go through and out onto the top
of an elevator, and just like we heard in the
beginning of the show from Elise Park, the officer that
unfortunately lost her son, the elevators were trapped in between

(02:08:23):
floors and no one knew what was going on with them.
And as a result of those elevators being trapped for
god knows how long, this one falls two floors down
to B two, and with it Nora actually kind of
floats suspend it in space for about zero point two
seconds before she falls down and That was a very
cool scene. I will give that. Yeah, that was a

(02:08:46):
very cool looking scene. But she is in the bad place.
She's in level B two. Ellie is above and fires
off two shots, and though her flashlight is pointed almost
directly onto Nora, she somehow misses the wlf that we're chasing.
Ellie have finally caught up, and because of that, she
goes into the elevator shift after Nora and uses the

(02:09:08):
access ladder to climb down and continue her pursuit. The
guards see where both of them have gone, and we
hear background chatter that they know they can't chase beyond
this point. They have to seal off the shift because
they know what is down there, and that is what
they do. This is pretty great.

Speaker 2 (02:09:28):
I like that as a way to separate them from
Ellie Eliora. You know, it was a good that's actually
a great The setup at the beginning really pays off
this moment right here, and I like that.

Speaker 1 (02:09:40):
Yes, that was that prime example of excellent writing. Yeah, yeah,
one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (02:09:48):
So Ellie walks slowly through the door that Nora escaped from,
and we see floating spores in the air, and so
like we had heard infection is everywhere down here. It's
on the walls, the floor, the ceilings, the air, everywhere.
Even Ellie is pretty much astounded by the level of
growth and how absolutely terrifying it is. We hear struggling

(02:10:10):
breaths and someone, a doctor or a medical professional wearing scrubs,
is nearby, like kind of part of the wall, and
he exhales spores, which I was inspired. That is an
inspired way to spread that, just to utilize the mechanism

(02:10:33):
of the creature to be a spreading agent. I love that.
I thought that was awesome too, very creepy, extremely creepy.
There's another abrupt sound and Ellie spins around to a
young man caught in the growth, becoming part of it,
and we discovered that that is Leon Park, Elisa's Park's son,
as mentioned earlier. He struggles to breathe but also exhales

(02:10:56):
spores just as the other man did, and it is
it's haunting, it's crazy. Ellie walks past him as she
hears a sound nearby, a coughing, choking sort of sound.
There's a power switch in the electrical room and Ellie
flips the handle, which is emergency power, and red lights
fill the hallway and surrounding area. She follows the coughs

(02:11:17):
and approaches a dying Nora, who is down on all
fours by a set of double doors. Nora calls Ellie
a stupid bitch. Spores were breathing, spores were infected. You
killed us, oath, but Ellie keeps the gun trained on
her with a did I love that? Nora has the

(02:11:38):
realization you're her the immune girl?

Speaker 1 (02:11:41):
You're real.

Speaker 2 (02:11:43):
Ellie gets back to business, asking where Abby is? But Nora,
did you know what he did? Ellie doesn't care, and
this somehow shocks Nora. She tells the story. We all
know that Joel killed everyone in the hospital, including the
only fucking person who could have made a cure from Ellie,
who turned out to be Abby's father, and Joel shot

(02:12:04):
him in the head. That's what Joel did. Ellie tilts
her head up slightly within I know. Then sheaths her
pistol and kneels before Nora. She looks menacingly on here
and asks where Abby is.

Speaker 1 (02:12:17):
Again. Nora just says no.

Speaker 2 (02:12:19):
So Ellie looks around and spots a lead pipe behind
her grabs it as Nora twitches on the ground and
the infect as we know, the infection is taking hold,
the muscle spasms and all that is kind of the
first steps. Ellie stands above Nora and asks one more time,
where is she? Then she swings the pipe down, and
Ellie beats Nora's legs and keeps asking throughout, spiraling into

(02:12:44):
rage and fury and screaming at Norah after each subsequent swing.
It's crazy. And the scene cuts to black and then ends.

Speaker 1 (02:12:53):
So first we're going to talk about spores, because I'm
going to give myself the biggest pat on the back
because I had a big fucking problem with them removing
spores in season one and vocalize that. And I remember
everyone talking about the tendril system being instituted as a
replacement of sorts and how cool it was and different

(02:13:16):
and smart and so and so. But looky, lookie what
we have here. This feels very backpetally because if you
think about this moment couldn't happen the way it did
without spores, and they had to have known that. So
all of the now, remember I listened to season one

(02:13:38):
of the official Last of Us podcast. I think I
got through two episodes before I pieced out, So I
don't remember I don't, I can't. I'm not going to
sit here and quote verbatim anything that was talked about
with the spores. But everybody made it seem like everybody
involved with making the show made it seem like spores
were unnecessary, and I completely disagreed with that, and I

(02:14:03):
remember hearing pushback from fucking everyone all the tendril system
is cool, the tenral system. The tendril system could do
jack shit in the hospital, so they had to bring
back spores, and I fucking low. The spores are the
most organic, like the most organically correct way for this

(02:14:26):
infection to be spread. And it was accurate. It was
constantly in the game. The characters always had masks. They
were always put on before they had to go into
a sport section because it wasn't like there were just
spores fucking everywhere. It was like very specific sections with
like a deep overrun of the infection present. And I

(02:14:46):
felt like this was a good moment to be like
I told you also, that's all.

Speaker 2 (02:14:51):
Yeah, this is I mean, it's very visually striking too,
like the presentation ever, Yeah, the presentation of it, like
when they the way they visualize it with like the
flashlight and you see them hanging in the air, you
feel like watching it, you're like, man, my chest is tight,

(02:15:11):
Like that must be. Like even Ellie who is immune,
is like it's still tough to breathe.

Speaker 1 (02:15:18):
It has to be, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:15:20):
And so that's kind of the uh, that's kind of
the feeling that I had the entire time watching, and
I was like, Wow, that's really really well done.

Speaker 1 (02:15:27):
It's even hard for us to breathe at home sometimes
when we are That's what I mean by the immersive
nature of what this show and its potential could have
done for us. And if they get rid of like
the Quippi bullshit one liners and the misplaced flirty and
love moments and kept the tension like almost to within

(02:15:51):
snapping range or like snapping levels every single time it
is appropriate, this could have been such a fantastic stick show,
but they ruined it with shitty dialogue and poor acting
because of poor directing. Anytime there's like shitty acting, I'm like,
that's the director of fault. I'm there are very few

(02:16:12):
actors that I can be like, listen, I know they've
worked with incredible directors. They are legitimately just bad actors
who somehow made a name for themselves and are beloved
by millions of fans, And I don't fucking get it.
But are you sure? Are you sure? Okay? Because I

(02:16:33):
have two ready to fucking go, and one of them
you are not gonna like, so how god damn dare
you so? Yeah? I mean, it certainly is. It's it's
just talent all the way down. If it's not there
at the top, it's not going to be there at
the end of the day in the final product. And
the immersion of this particular scene was executed so flawlessly,

(02:16:57):
the chase through the hospital, the guards have to turn
back nor you know. Again, the exposition has been a
constant problem with this season. It's always handholding, like it
is what it is. We've I guess we've accepted that,
but we're still gonna call it out. But it just
makes me sad that I feel like so much potential

(02:17:17):
has been thrown out for dumb writing, and in that
vein Ellie's rage and going past the point of no return.
This is certainly a turning point for Ellie and ultimately
this is who I've been waiting to see since Joel's death.
Literally three fucking episodes ago, three fucking episodes, three hours.

(02:17:42):
I've been waiting to see this Ellie and she has
just been living the high life, fall in love with
her girlfriend, having this sexy times, traveling, leaving her horse behind,
not giving a single fuck, not understanding what any anything
is about in this world, giving no fucks about sound

(02:18:03):
and how it travels. I can keep going, but like,
this is who Ellie was in the last of Us
part two, and it has been sorely lacking, And now
I think we have an idea of where episode six
is going to go. So once again that tension, that
immersion snapped, It's gone, and now we're gonna have to
wait until the season finale and god knows what they're

(02:18:25):
going to fucking do.

Speaker 2 (02:18:25):
Then maybe yeah, I agree with you that this was
really some next level acting from her part and in
general this entire I would describe set piece from the
time we're down the elevator until now you know, the
red light goes on, we have the spores, that very
dramatic lighting. I think about recently, I watched a what

(02:18:52):
did I watch? Daredevil Born Again on Disney Plus, and
they did some really interesting things with red light. Also
on that show just at a no spoilers, just like
kind of a foreshadowing type thing, and this did this
gave me that feeling.

Speaker 1 (02:19:09):
Obviously I saw this in the game.

Speaker 2 (02:19:10):
This is almost exactly how it happened in the game,
and I thought it was amazingly done there. I was like, wow,
really really well done. So I got to give flowers
to everybody who was involved in this particular sequence because
I was like, yeah, that's some strong stuff right there.

Speaker 1 (02:19:29):
Yeah, it was executed very well, and I am glad
for that. The beginning of this episode was very strong,
and the end of this episode was very strong, and
everything in the middle was a waste of time. But
finishing everything out, we are clearly in some sort of
flashback in Jackson. Ellie's asleep in bed. Initially, we see

(02:19:50):
the breeze from the window blowing behind her, and she
wakes as we hear a door open, and then suddenly,
lo and behold, Joel is standing there and he smiles
at her and says, hey, kiddo, and she sits part
way up. She smiles back warmly at him with a
high and the episode ends here.

Speaker 2 (02:20:09):
M hm.

Speaker 1 (02:20:10):
So it's safe to say that that's where we are
going next week in some sort of flashback with Joel
and Ellie. And my question for you and everyone listening,
after everything that I said on this episode, whether you
disagree with me a whole lot or a whole little,
or you agree with me a whole lot or not

(02:20:30):
at all, whatever, but is this the right moment for
a flashback directly on the heels of a rageful spiral
into madness or is this another example of Craig Mason's
violence tether and that's why it was placed where it was.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:20:51):
I'll have to see the episode, okay, and where it goes, right,
because we get this and I think it's safe to
assume here's the deal, everyone, full transparency. I don't watch
on the next episode of the Last of Us, So

(02:21:11):
as soon as the credits start, I just walk out
into our kitchen and Jack you watch the next time
on the Last of Us.

Speaker 1 (02:21:20):
Yeah, and Andrews in the kitchen going.

Speaker 4 (02:21:21):
La la la, la la la.

Speaker 2 (02:21:23):
Yeah, and I do a little dance in a circle,
and I'm like, Dicky's gonna hit this.

Speaker 1 (02:21:29):
Dicky's gonna hit this. Gotta record an episode no no hate, no, okay,
some hate.

Speaker 2 (02:21:38):
Yeah, So it seems like one way or another, we're
going to get this flashback sequence where we learn a
little bit, and it might contain information that is useful
for us as the viewer to figure something out. Right,
I'm open to that idea where I don't know exactly
how they're gonna make it work, but you know, I

(02:21:59):
gotta wait and see. It is a great Here's what
I would tell you realistically as a show watcher, as
a person who enjoys when a show or movie is
well paced. Right, if this was a constant ramping up
to this point where we arrived and we came face

(02:22:20):
to face with Nora, if it was like we started
at zero and then like Jackson, and then it goes
and then they sneak out, and then we're in Seattle
and we meet some seraphytes and it was a boiling pot, right,
that started on a simmer and it's bubbling over. Cutting
back to a flashback at this point would have been
an amazing way to release the release the pressure, you know.

(02:22:44):
But as it stands, it's been a little uneven up
to this point, and so it's okay, if this feels misplaced,
you would feel, right, it's correct to feel like, Eh,
I don't know if this deserves if we earned it,
we earn it is the question really, and I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:23:03):
If I don't know if we did that. I will
comment on next week.

Speaker 2 (02:23:07):
Yeah, I'm happy to if that flashback is just a
little seed. And then the beginning of next week picks
up right where we left off and Ellie is somehow
sneaking out of the hospital and then she goes back
to the theater and takes a nap and we're in
a dream or a flashback or a flashback dream. Cool,

(02:23:28):
We'll see, That's what'll That's what I'll say.

Speaker 1 (02:23:30):
We will see. But until then, that is our episode
this week. Thank you for making it. If you listen
this far, thank you. And if you would like to
follow us, you can do that on Instagram at Telou podcasts,
or over on Blue Sky at Telou podcast or YouTube
by looking up I think Wayfair and Kiss or Teelu
Podcasts or Wayfair and Strangers. It'll lead you to us again.

(02:23:54):
We have Wayfair and Strangers, the last of us podcast
where we talk about the games and rate depth and
we are going to be finishing Left Behind, which is
the DLC. After part one the last of us Part
one shortly and we are very excited to get back
to that. If you'd like to follow me and Andrew,
you can do that on Instagram at Jaded Vader or

(02:24:16):
through a Wilderness which is thhru Wilderness or Dark Driving.
And if you would like to comment and be featured
on the beginning of next week's show, you can do
that over on Spotify. And we appreciate y' all and
love having this conversation at the start of every show.

(02:24:37):
And I am so sorry last week I did not
include our Patreon shout out. I am so, so so
sorry to everyone, but a very a very heartfelt thank
you to Ozzy barb Atreus Late nine ten and Craig S.
And because I forgot last week, I'm going to give
you a double shout out, so thank you again for joining.

(02:24:59):
Even though I know our comment our content is very
limited over there at the moment because we are still
ongoing with season two. But thank you so much to
Ozzie Barbetreo's Late nine ten and Craig S. We appreciate
you guys so so much, and we do have so
much coming in the following weeks and months and so on.

(02:25:19):
And so forth, So be sure to head over there,
and you can subscribe as a free member for the
time being and get access to some free posts. I
actually just posted there yesterday, just thanking everybody for joining
as a free member or paid wherever you're at, and
looking ahead to what we're excited to do and all
that good stuff. So thank you for yeah supporting our

(02:25:43):
show and listening to the madness each week. And I
know that this was probably the most fervent and angry
I've been this season. It seems to be episode five
as a turning point for me, because I'm pretty sure
I went off the handle last season starting on episode five,
So blame me.

Speaker 2 (02:26:02):
Four good episodes out of you and then all bets
are off.

Speaker 1 (02:26:06):
I don't know. I don't even know if they did
that much to pratically honest from the amount of complaining
of do you know what it is?

Speaker 3 (02:26:11):
What it is to keep it authentic? Keep it authentic?
So I don't know this Patreon patron. I don't know,
Craig season that's interesting, Craig. Guess no, it's not that Craig.

Speaker 1 (02:26:27):
I know.

Speaker 2 (02:26:29):
If it was, he probably won't be a patron after
this episode.

Speaker 1 (02:26:33):
Bye, We'll be back.

Speaker 2 (02:26:36):
Next week, keeping clean of conveniences and nightmares as they
visit the second level of lake Hill Hospital.

Speaker 1 (02:26:43):
And that's that.

Speaker 4 (02:26:44):
Bye, in

Speaker 1 (02:27:09):
In in

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