The Last of Us Special: Episode 7

Left Behind. Ellie flashes back to an innocent mall outing that ended in love at first bite, and wrestles with survivor's guilt in the present.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. Welcome to Stephane Never
told You Protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome to episode seven
of our nine possibly ten part mini series on the

(00:27):
Last of Us, the HBO Max series, which is not
a sponsor. And thanks to everyone who keeps talking about
to the other official podcast. I appreciate it, but man,
every time, is it a little dent my self? Team? No,
not really, I do love hearing about it. We are
not the official podcast, just fans. This is a love letter.

(00:51):
It really is to the game and show from Annie
Love Annie, Yes with Samantha supports yes with me as
a po like she's mad at you, That's what I'm
telling them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and Samantha it has been
lovely this whole time and has hosted our watch parties.

(01:12):
This one was a cheese event. It was very nice good.
Oh yeah, I ate all that garlic cheese, so much cheese.
I ate the garlic, man, you know those? Yeah? Yes,
I loved it. Um well this Yes, we'll have spoilers
for the most reason episode episode seven I left Behind

(01:34):
and everything that came before. Samantha is my guardian and
hopefully not spoiling anything else. I feel like we've done
a pretty good job. But it has been difficult. Um, yeah,
she has too much knowledge I do, and I forget.
I forget sometimes, but I feel I feel like we've
done it pretty good. So yeah, you should be fine.
And yes, this is a temporary thing. We're releasing on

(01:55):
Saturdays the week after the most recent episode and it
is replacing my Happy Hours, but we will return to
regular programming maybe. I think at some point this one
content morning for I guess general sadness, violence, trauma, trauma. Yeah,

(02:21):
I guess alcohol use potentially, especially among younger people. But suicide,
it's suicide. Yeah, So yes, this is based on the DLC,
the downloadable content called Left Behind, which I will talk
about more briefly in a second. But if you want
to know more about that, you can see our recent
Fictional Women episode on Riley for more information on her

(02:45):
portrayal on the games and comics, which is pretty much
the same but a lot more backstory, I would say
in that if you want it, you can also see
our Happy Hour on the remake that we did kind
of recently, the Last of Us Part one remake, and
I'll talk about why that matters in a second. But
in the meantime, Samantha, do you want to do your
wonderful recap? Yes, I can do this all right. So

(03:08):
we are opening scene of seeing bloody I guess tracks,
essentially going into an abandoned home and where we go
to all the way down to the basement and realize
that Joel is lying there still at this time alive
but barely, and then in a lot of pain bleeding out.
For some odd reason, Ellie keeps trying to make him

(03:29):
press against his own wounds like he's not bleeding out,
but okay, sure, why not. At this point they go
back and forth about how to do this. He finally
grabs her and says, you've got to go back. You
gotta go north and find Tommy. You gotta leave, save yourself.
She's like, no, I don't want to, and then he
has a strength to push her back, so I'm sure
that gushed out more blood there that is, and she
kind of looks at him in shock and looks back up,

(03:50):
and then she runs up the door, hand on the
door to get out, and then we go to flashback.
We're in a flashback where she is in the QZ
listening to her Sony Walkman, which apparently was a thing
in the comics, because if you have listened to that
episode you will find this out as I did. And
she is running around in the gym. A girl comes

(04:11):
and bullies her and says, you know, oh, your protector's
not here, what are you going to do about it?
They end up fighting. She ends up getting that girl
enough injury that that girl has to have seventeen stitches
while you know, Ellie has a black guy. She sits
in front of an officer who pretty much tells her, Hey,
we're trying to make you an officer. You're so good
at this. We want you to live the life, because
apparently it's not. There's like a hierarchy and if you're

(04:34):
an officer, you get all the good things while everybody
else doesn't get the good things. And so she's like, okay,
I choose to be an officer. Flashed forward to her
going to her room where she's in the Stark room
with all of her posters. In her room, she pulls
out a book. It turns out to be the first
pun book and Annie does not have this copy, and
it's a shame, and I'm disappointed in you just a
little bit yeah, but it's okay. But it's okay. We

(04:57):
turned to look that the roommate is not there. Her
side of the room is completely empty. We have some
moments of ahasad and then she goes to sleep. Next
thing we know, someone's crawling through the window. Who could
it be? And she tries to cover Ellie's mouth. Ellie
like jumps up, pushes her, kicks her, and ready to
stab her. Turns out it's Riley, the roommate that has left,

(05:17):
and she's been gone for three weeks and for all
that Ellie knew was that she was dead at this point,
but she's not. She's back, and she's like, where the
hell did you come from? Where have you been? A
little argument ensues because you know, they argue apparently all
the time, and then it turns out Riley has joined
the Fireflies, which Ellie thinks as a joke until Riley
shows off her handgun and she's like, oh my god,

(05:38):
you really have a little smaller argument ensues because you know,
Ellie's at now right now, like she's not pro pro fedra,
but she is more towards Fedra than fireflies. So we
have a moment or in exchange and all of these arguing.
Riley's like, if you will shut up, I've got a
surprise for you. Come with me, throws pants on, makes

(05:59):
Riley turn around to put pants on, where I was like,
this is so weird. Why do you always do this?
She's like to turn around. They get all their stuff,
they go down the stairs. They're like, you know, the
Federal don't know anything. And then as they're about to
go exit, a feder Chuck comes by. She's like, Ellie's like,
huh see there, they don't know anything. Huh whatever. So
they continue on. They escape through a building which is

(06:22):
so many stairs, and she does the things that many
of my friends do that I'm very upset about. When
they're like, it's not far and then like twenty minutes later,
you're like, where the hell am I? You're like, you
lie to me. But they finally go up all the stairs,
come up to oh, a body, and they go to
investigate a dead body. They have a conversation about seeing
dead bodies before. It turned out that Riley had because

(06:43):
of her parents. There, we find that the dude has
a very expensive bottle of whiskey that he had to
exchange a lot of cards I'm guessing that's the currency.
And then this assumption is that he had taken pills
and drank that did this on purpose, so it was
now deceased. During this time, he falls to the floors.
Very scary. It was a jump scary, y'all. We all

(07:04):
well went what we all had a moment. They grabbed
the whiskey, which is still fine. These young underage drinking
is a no no, but they drank. They're like, okay,
let's move on. So they move on and they come
to the roof and they have more conversations about how
she got discovered. Turns out Marlene is mentioned at this

(07:24):
point and she was impressed with how Riley was able
to sneak around in the in the show, and so
she was then asked to join. Then they go hopping
across roofs, which was like I would die because I
would fall down off every immediately. Yeah, Like then none
of them like these kids are courageous because I'm like
I would have died. It would have been over. As

(07:44):
they continue on, they finally make it to their place,
which is the mall, which apparently this whole area was
supposed to be quarantine and shut off, but it's not.
And she's like, you know, there's all these infected, but like,
really is there though? M And turns out that the
FEDRA had turned power on over there because to extend
their territories for more people to have apartments and such,

(08:07):
so this area has power. What ruh? So they go
into the area, they don't know where they're at, and
then Riley's like, shut up, I got a surprise for
you if you'll go this way, go take a right,
go through the door. Stand there, tell me when you
get there. All this zus. Finally Ellie's like, I'm here
and then she turns the lights on and oh my god,
it's the mall. Yeah, it's them all. And she's like,

(08:28):
oh my god, we're at them all. Where's the infected?
All these things won't they see? And apparently they're bunk
and a bunk are essentially so they can't see underground.
I guess they're low enough that no one can catch
the lights. So she says, I have all these wonders
for you, and we're going to call them the Five Wonders.
It took me a minute. I had to re like
remember where all these were, and we're gonna start off

(08:48):
with the electric stairs or the escalators, which is a
cute little scene of her trying to figure out what
they do and going She's like, I'm not moving, look
at me as she goes up a down escalator and
then they have fun. She almost does die because he
almost fell off of them, and that's the thing. So
they finally come to that and she's like, that's fine, yep,
I've got to four other wonders. Let's go so they

(09:09):
can walk down. They talk about how it was looted
at one point in time, um, and of course the
most important things were taken first and the unimportant things
like lingerie from Victoria's secrets. There's a lot of product
placement here, y'all. A lot of product placement, including a
spirit which does that? Is that still around store? I
would have been in like two thousand and three, right,

(09:31):
which yes, so I guess so I guess you're right.
There was targeting game spot which I think is still there.
So there's no b Dalton, Oh were there? Okay? Okay,
So we have a cute little scene about lingerie and
having lawhere and being laughing about that because there was

(09:51):
a song which really uncomfortable to me as well, it's
like why um. But then the whole time we're seeing
l a kind of trying to premp herself and like
cute because she had planned all these things, and it's like,
are we on a date? What? And she's like, close
your eyes and they hold hands and she takes her
to the next part, the carousel, which they have a
cute moment and have a conversation, and then they get

(10:12):
a little deeper into the conversation. They're not happy about it,
like things are happening about the Firefli's conversation, q Z
trying to be an officer, all these things, what are
you doing? Why are you doing this? But still sweet.
They move on to the next thing, which is the
photo booth, and she has a five dollar bill, which

(10:32):
is worthless because we see money everywhere. They take very
faded pictures with several different poses, which you have said
in our previous episode that you can play yeah these
things and all the poses are actually in the game.
So we have that moment and they come out and
they go to the next big thing, which is the

(10:54):
arcade Holy and she's come prepared. She's been working on
hours to break the machines so they can play. They
play their favorite game, Mortal Combat. It's very loud, he's
getting loud. They're having fun, and then they go down
to where she has a present for her, and they

(11:14):
come down. They find out that that's where Riley has
been sleeping. She's kind of hanging out there. That's where
Riley gives Ellie her the second pun Book ye volume two,
Volume two, oh, and so they start reading that off
a little bit. They don't understand one of them because
they have shot yeah, screen shows like, what's that real funny?

(11:38):
And then they find that there was bombs there, that
there's homemade explosives. Riley has been stationed there, and they
get into another big argument about you know, blowing up people.
Would you do this to me? This is you know, terrorism,
all these things, talking about how bad these things could be.
Why would you do this? Blah blah blah. So she's
about to leave, so she finally mets that this is

(12:00):
the last time she's going to see her. They're not
going to see each other because she's been reassigned to Atlanta,
and so she wanted to do this big thing for
her and she's asked if Ellie could go, but they
said no, So all this heartbreak is happening. This was
the big goodbye. Ellie's mad, and she's like, you know what,
go fine, and she leaves, and then of course she
comes back. They have a more conversation. She's like, I

(12:22):
do have one more surprise for you. She leaves, but
we do see a second shot of one of the
I guess the communicator zombies, which are they're stuck to
the wall, but I guess they're they're able to communicate
to other zombies to let them know that there are
people here. Oh my god, they're here. So that's what
we see. So we're all on the edge of our

(12:44):
seats thinking, oh, they're coming, They're coming. But then we
also hear all of a sudden screaming woman and Ellie,
here's a screaming woman. She runs screaming Riley Riley, and
she comes to a halloween store with one of those
prop graveyards, and Riley says, surprise, this is your finale.
I say this for last because I need you would
love it. They have another big conversation about, you know,

(13:05):
her leaving and whether or not she was sad and
mad and why you would do this, and then they
kind of make up when she sees the store and
everybody like whatever, and turned out Riley had taste stolen
her walkman gotten. She's like, you have bad taste the
music and puts on the Edda James, I got you
babe into the PA system and they put on Halloween masks,

(13:27):
get on top of the glass counter and start dancing,
at which time I'm like, they're going to fall and die,
but they didn't. It's okay, just in my head. They
have the best time and they're having a good moment.
And she takes the head off and she's like the
mask off and she's like, don't go, and Riley says okay,
and then Ellie kisses Riley and it's a sweet moment

(13:48):
and Ellie goes, I'm sorry, and Riley's like what for?
And they both smiled really big, and she's like, what
do we do now? She's like, I don't know, And
essentially they're going to talk about like staying together. It's
really beautiful moment, and then we hear some noises. We
hear those noises and then we find one clicker who
is very damn fast, goes after both of them, One

(14:10):
shoots at them, one throws things at them, they do
knife or and all these things. They finally kill them,
and then we see Riley looking at Ellie and Ellie
going holy, that was amazing, Like I really excited for
that moment until she looks down to where Riley is
looking down and sees that she's been bitten on the
arm and she has a panic attack. He's like, no, no, no, no.

(14:31):
And then we look up at Riley and realize that
Riley has been bitten on the hand. So both of
them are like oh. And then Ellie loses it and
start busting at all the glass, screaming angry at all
these things, knowing that this is the end. And you
see Riley just sitting against the counter, and then Ellie
comes over his hits and she's like, oh my god,
what are we gonna do? At this point, Riley says,

(14:53):
you know, we have we have these options. We can
kill ourselves, be we could just be real poetic and
and and then she was like, well, what's the third option.
She's like, there's not one. So but I've choose to
take different people, take different times. I've seen it. It
could be two hours, it could be two days, and
I choose to make the best of that time. So essentially,

(15:16):
I think and I think it'd be poetic to lose
our minds together a quote unquote, and you see them
just holding in each other. Coming back to the current
moment where Ellie was about to walk out the basement,
she looks down, runs out the door to look for supplies,
scrambles everywhere, looks for things. One comes back and has
a needle and thread essentially and is sewing him up.

(15:37):
She gives a nod, he nods back, and we see
them sewing each other up, and it was super gross.
They hold each other's hand and still super gross. Oh yeah,

(16:00):
oh thanks again. It's not always excellent recap this. This
episode has a lot to talk about it. I just
recommended I think we haven't seen you should watch it.
But whatever, it does have a lot of Easter eggs,
I will say, especially like in Ellie's room and then
things in them all. They have a lot of call forwards,

(16:21):
which is what I'm calling them. It's not a callback,
it's call forward to what's to come. So that's very fun.
And in the like post show thing, they talk about
how this is you know, what what was it like
to be a kid in this world? And what was
it like to skip school. So before we get into it,
just very quickly again cere recent episode we did on

(16:41):
Riley for Fictional Women around the World for more information.
But this episode is based on the DLC Left Behind
plus the comic book American Dreams. DLC stands for downloadable content,
So basically the game came out in twenty thirteen on
Valentine's Day. In twenty four team they released this thing

(17:02):
that you could download that was like, i'd say, two
hour gameplay that you could add on and it was
more to the story. And I know the next day
I told you, Samantha, but I was kind of laughing
because a lot of people were arguing about where this
came from. They were like, what, what was this? This
wasn't in there? Yes it was. It certainly was more

(17:27):
on that in a second two. I do want to
say the game mechanics of it are very different. As
I said in that Riley episode, it is interspersed, it's different.
The main difference I would say is that it's interspersed
with Ellie add an abandoned mall, trying to find medical
supplies to save Joel. It also kind of shows you

(17:49):
how she got him to that house, and she's having
these flashbacks to what happened with Riley interspersed between that.
But the game mechanics, as I said in that Riley episode,
are very different. They're very sweet, Like you're literally playing
you have like a water gun fights, and you choose
which pose you want to do in the photo booth,

(18:13):
and you are reading puns to each other and you
can do that at kind of any time until you
run out of puns, which I definitely did so so
it's kind of like a very sweet thing. But over
the whole of it is you know how it is,
So there's the anxiety throughout. So I think the way

(18:33):
they did that in this, even though, like if you've
been paying attention they've mentioned Riley several times already, is
that when they show you the zombie in the basement
against the wall, is when you're like, oh gosh, this
is not good. This is not going to end well.
So that kind of that anxiety hanging over. If you

(18:57):
want more of Riley's backstory, the comic The Last of
Us American Dreams has a lot of it. As I said,
there was a big backlash to this when it came out,
so it was. That was one of the reasons I
kind of chuckled to myself even though it's not really
really funny the next day when people were arguing about,
like where did this come from? Because I think a

(19:18):
lot of those people would be like the so called
fans who were just so mad at that they didn't
even play it or either ignored it. But people were mad.
People were med. Not everybody, but there was a pretty loud,
small group of people, but very loud who were angry
about it. But yeah, let's talk about Riley, who this

(19:42):
was kind of her big story. She has been mentioned
several times in the show, in the first episode, second one,
third one, I think the sixth one. Arguably, I don't
think like directly, but if you know who Ellie's talking about,
then you're like, oh, okay, yeah, she is somebody who
can stand up to ell As you said, they argue
a lot, and like that scene where she's like telling

(20:06):
Elliot what to do, like what the stairs taker right
and out the door and tell me when you're there.
Like very strong personality, but it's it's very sweet. It's
like the game is very sweet, and this was very
sweet because it's sort of a innocent young love, like
the mall date, you know. Yeah, And so when you

(20:30):
see especially as you know, as who I don't know,
I grew up with that. Ye. When you see like
Ellie's face when the lights come on, she's like tier
yead because they've never seen anything like that. She had
never seen anything like that. Um and Riley having this
like date planned even though it's like not really a date,
but it's pretty much a date. Like I'm going to

(20:51):
show you like the best parts of the mall and
I've planned it out. Um. I love that part with
Ellie's like you planned things and rather it's like it's
just very sweet. It's very sweet. Like their first kiss
is very very sweet, like you can tell it's kind
of their first kiss a sort of clumsy. And then

(21:11):
they laugh really loud, all really hard. It's just really adorable.
And then when they're like playing Mortal Kombat and they
like or just exuberant at the chance to do this
which they probably had just you know, read about magazines
and scene had never done. And there were so many
instances of that in this of like you know, Ellie's
reaction to the Escalatorum. And then again, yes, I think

(21:35):
I've said this in a couple episodes ago, but their
reaction to the Lingerie where they're kind of like, what
were people up to? What is this? And then I
mentioned also there's a poster for this, like I think
it's called that Dawn of the Wolf, which is definitely
a Twilight rifle right right that it was coming out

(21:56):
and Joel in there's a lot of conversations in the
game that you can miss. They're very easy to miss,
and one of the ones you can have is where
Ellie looks at that poster and it's kind of like
what is this? Sential says, Oh, my daughter loved it.
I took her to see it and all this stuff,
So that's sort of another connection there. I did notice

(22:18):
one of my multiple rewatches that went in kind of
like zooming into the zombie. Oh they infected in the basement.
It's like an American girl doll store or something. Oh,
it's not I don't think it's that, but it's essentially that, okay,
And it says every story has the beginning over the
cross of it, like, oh, yep, okay, then then I do.

(22:43):
I didn't want to say I have the I didn't
buy this, but it came with something else I bought
that was last of us related, But I have the
polaroid of Ellie and Riley on my bridge. Very very cute.
One thing that they did differently that I don't know
that I necessarily like get better in the game, but
it's a very cool thing in the game. And it's

(23:05):
a big difference is in the arcade because, as I
said in that Riley episode, Warner Brothers owns the rights
to Mortal Kombat, so they played Mortal Kombat. But in
the game, it's this game called Turn the Turning, and
when they get to the arcade, it doesn't work, and
Ellie is so disappointed, and Riley tells her like close

(23:28):
your eyes, and it's a very beautiful sequence of Riley
just describing like he chees his knives, what are you
gonna do? And Ellie's like kick like it. You can
hear like the sounds in her head of what it
sounds like, and the the lights are kind of on
her on her face, and I think they're going to

(23:48):
do that. There's another sequence when they do that, so
I think they're saving it for that, but I do
I do love that part in the lighting. I thought
the whole set was really cool, and like the lighting up,
it was really really cool. The masks that they wear,
the Halloween masks are exactly from the game. Exactly. Yeah, yes,

(24:13):
and this is actually Ellie hates Halloween stuff, by the way,
because of this, because she associates it with this and
you do encounter it in the games a lot, because
you know, Outbreakday was the end of September and so
they already had their Halloween stuff out, but she hates it.
But one of the other things I wanted to talk

(24:35):
about was this whole idea of goodbye, because you see
Ellie really not wanting Riley to leave, but sort of
struggling with like, well, what how do I get her
to stay? Or should I let her go? Or what
does she want? And a lot of internal thoughts. There's
one scene on the carousel that I think is super

(24:56):
cute where you could tell she like almost reached out
to hold her hand and then didn't when she's trying
to hold her there, and so she that's she kind
of has this fight like, oh, you don't care about anything,
like leave whatever, I don't care I'm leaving, and then
she says like I'm your best friend, if this is
what you want, I'm gonna let you do it. I

(25:17):
let you go. You should go, and then has this
moment after they're dancing of like no, please stay, I'm
asking you to stay, and Riley says yes, and then
they say like, oh, we'll figure it out together what
it is, and it kind of goes back to her
fear of being alone, as she said. But one thing

(25:38):
I also wanted to mention, as I've told Samith, I've
recently learned in the last episode, they were watching this
movie right and we didn't know what it was. We
just really whatever. But it's called a Goodbye Girl, and
she leaves before the ending. And I haven't seen The
Goodbye Girl, but basically the plot is Richard Dreyfus's character

(26:01):
comes into the lives of this woman and her daughter,
and the woman has had a lot of men come
and go in her life, and so the girl, the
Goodbye Girl, has really gotten used to people not staying
around and is expecting this guy to leave all the time.
And she in the end sort of learns like that

(26:26):
goodbye doesn't mean that's the end, or that that that's
it doesn't have to be this horrible thing, and she
leaves before she sees the ending of it, so that
I feel like that was very purposeful. And this is
one of the times where you kind of see Ellie
trying to say goodbye but then having that fear of

(26:47):
being alone. And then also this is like her first crush,
like this is the one person she has. She's very isolated,
and she doesn't want to let this person go, and
she asked her to stay, and Riley says yes, and
then of course, because it's the last of us, you can't,

(27:07):
you can't. They both get bitten, and then we get
to see the difference between how Ellie reacts, which, in
the words of Craignising, the showrunner, is very dark and
violent and angry, versus how Riley reacts. And he says
that's because you know, Riley has experienced loss and Ellie

(27:30):
hasn't at this point, or at least not to a
degree where she can really remember. And so because Riley,
I mean, she talked about like what happened with her
parents and this feeling of belonging, wanting that back, and
then you know, you see them talk it through and
like every second counts and if I can be with you,
I want to be with you as long as I

(27:51):
can be, because if you think about it, that was
a big question people had when we knew we had
like Riley's name, we knew they got bitten at the
same time in the first game, but they were like, well,
so why didn't they die or like why what? How
would this come about? Right? And so the answer is

(28:12):
that they have this like pact where we're going to
stay together as long as possible, but they both thought
they were going to die, like when they would have
no reason not to think that. And I guess that's
another thing where I almost asked you about this before,
but ap barely. Some people are arguing about whether or
not Riley dies. Um, really she did? Yeah, yeah, well

(28:35):
she says it. Yes, she said it in the first episode. Yeah,
the very first episode. Yes. But I guess some people
can't pick up on it, but I I know. I
was I was like literally like, well now do I
what do I do? But no, she dies, She's dead?
She did? Like sorry he real did they said it

(28:56):
in the first episode. I'm pretty sure they like when
she in six when Ellie's like, I've lost people too,
that's she was talking about Riley, right, and Riley does
hang over all of the show, so she's not that's
not the end of her, but it is certainly, like
I said, that building of tension, because when you're playing it,
you know that that's how it ends. It was very

(29:18):
very moving. It was very very sad Samantha to get
us tissues, me and my friend Katie. I think it
was sadder than the game because in the game it's
less it's the same conversation, but they're more like tired, um,
They're kind of more like, well, here's what we do.
And it does cut away before you see them die,

(29:42):
which it didn't the show, but in the show it
was just kind of I think they've they've made it
more emotional. So Riley's death does hang over Elliott. It

(30:07):
has shaped her worldview. It is this traumatic event or
somebody she cared for, had this crush on, maybe loved
died and they thought they were going to die together
and they didn't. Because Ellie survives this whole thing, and
so she this is part of her survivor's guilt where

(30:28):
every time someone she loves dies, and even not even
someone she loves, every time somebody dies she has a
guilt about it because she didn't. So you see that
with Joel after she flashes back to what is going
on because she's opening door and she's thinking about leaving it.
Then she's remembering what Riley did for her and how
Riley stayed there and didn't let her die or kill herself,

(30:53):
held her hand, and so she's remembering all of that.
But it is like one of the biggest shaping events
for Ellie, something that she just just hangs over and like,
like I said, when he plays her, you look in
the backpack and she just has all of these like
she still has the Firefip London, she has the pun book,

(31:15):
she has all these things. And you know it hasn't
been that long at this point, like maybe a couple
of months, but you did want to shout out Storm
Reed who nailed that performance amazing. Was so good, Yes,
and like honestly like she made it her own, but
was exactly like the characterization in the game, so good.

(31:37):
And she's already spoken out about like the review bombing
the response, and it's been like, I back up what
Bella Ramsey said. If that's what you're worried about, you
need to straighten up your priorities. Yes, agree, Uh. Something
else I wanted to touch on briefly is I think,
and I'm going to have a lot of thoughts about

(31:58):
this the last episode that we do, but they are
they're definitely setting up fedro versus Fireflies in a way
that they didn't in the game, or at least not
as in depth because that was always there. But they've
they've really built it up, and that's all I'll say.
And also, I did I think they had that kind

(32:21):
of chilling comparison to Kansas City when Riley's like, when
if we, you know, free this place and we take over,
it'd be so much better. And then we saw what
happened in Kansas City when that happened, and that that
you know, that's not necessarily to say that would have
happened here, but it was kind of I think a
chilling pointed comparison. Something else I wanted to talk about,

(32:44):
and I'm going to talk about very briefly too because
no spoilers, but I will say I didn't mention this
in the last one, but Joels injury. He falls on
a pipe and get stamped through and it's a really
cool scene. Word I mean, it's very up saying, but

(33:04):
it's very cool where Ellie's like taking charge and having
to lead him out and he's kind of passing out,
so it's a different injury. Also, Joel's anxiety medication. I
didn't know this, but they added that into the remix,
so you can see it before the pandemic, before the outbreak.
It's on his bedside table, so I guess they kind
of did that as a nod as to what was coming.

(33:27):
But there have been a lot of articles about it
about like, oh, this is exactly like that's how anxiety
feels to me, of kind of like your heart stopping,
it hit suddenly whenever, and all this stuff. So that's interesting.
As I mentioned in a recent Daddy episode, there's also
been a lot of articles about single parent based on
this and something we'll have to come back to that.
I have seen a lot of stuff written lately about

(33:49):
Bella Ramsay's comments about chess binding, because I think she
said she spent ninety percent of this with chess binding filming,
and she was talking about like how you needed you
that safely and all that stuff. But there's been a
lot of conversation about that. Interesting, yes, so what is
to come And honestly, this one's I'm no spoilers here,

(34:11):
even if you've seen the trailer, I want to tell
you scary stuff is coming. I think it's the scariest
part of the game, but that's up for interpretation as
always and debates. I was wondering if they're gonna put
the infamous rabbit scene in there, and I don't think
they are. I don't think they are. We were waiting.
I don't think they can. I've thought about it, of course.

(34:32):
Well technically I'm trying to figure out how they would
do it. Everyone who doesn't know it's like, what are
you talking about? This as an insight? Yes? Between us?
Uh not y'all who have not seen what's going on.
I don't know. I think they still have time. It's
technically we don't know how Joel is doing and they're
going to be in that uh no, I mean stuck

(34:54):
for a while. I agree, but I don't know. I've
just I'm not sure how they pull it off with
a fantasy. But oh, I see, I see what you're saying. Now, Okay, okay, okay,
like strategically on no, yeah, okay, okay. If they can
do it, they did it. Oh man, I can't wait
to talk about it. Everyone's like, what is it going on? Um,

(35:16):
there are only two episodes left? Can you believe it? Who?
I hope it's always that here enjoying this whether you
have seen the show or not, whether you've played the
game or not. And yeah, we love hearing your thoughts
about it. I am excited for the next couple of episodes.
You can contact us at step Media, mom Stuff at

(35:38):
iHeartMedia dot com. That is our email. You can find
us on Twitter at momst Podcasts, or on Instagram and
TikTok at steff I Never Told You and YouTube now
if you just want to listen to us there. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina. Thank you Christina, Yes,
and thanks to you for listening. Steffine Never Told You
the protection of I Heart Radio for whole podcast for

(35:59):
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