March 11, 2023 • 42 mins
When We Are In Need. In the dead of winter and deprivation, with hope dwindling, Ellie is captured by a religious group. Their leader preaches to Ellie about her violent heart, and she reaches a traumatic breaking point.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stepan
never told her your protection to iHeartRadio, and welcome to
what is probably the penultimate episode of our Last of Us,
(00:25):
a mini series special wherein we react and discuss the
HBO Max series, which is not a sponsor. And thank
you to everyone who is lovingly pointed that out to me.
I mentioned that there's an official podcast that they listen to.
That's all right, I understand. I haven't listened to it.
(00:46):
Does that make you feel better? I only listen to
you Annie. Oh thanks, but I do have to remind
you that, yes, we are not sponsored. So yeah, no,
it's all friendly. It's all in good fun. I'm sure.
I'm sure you hope. Yeah. I do appreciate you've been hosting.
We've been having watched parties. They've been a lot of fun.
(01:08):
So as always, there will be spoilers for episode eight,
called When We Are in Need, the most recent episode
of the Last of Us, and all of the episodes
before that. Samantha was very good, has been very good
of trying to get me to not spoil anything else.
So I think I think we can do it. This
(01:28):
one thing we got this we do but I oh,
I want to be like, let off the leash. I know, um,
I will wait, but we know even with this finale,
you still can't be fully off the leash. I know,
I know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put some annoying teaser
baked teaser things at the end of this one. If
you don't want to hear them, you can skip it,
but I have to put them in, Okay, And if
(01:51):
you know what I'm talking about, then you know. Um.
So these are coming out every Saturday after the most
recent episode has aired on Sunday, and they are replacing
my bi weekly Happy Hours, which you've probably noticed have
been classics. That will we'll go back to our readily
scheduled scheduling programming once this is over, probably probably probably.
(02:16):
They have announced a season two and three, but I
think that'll be at least two years from now. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
content morning on this one. We're not going to go
two in depth on these because this sounds really dire,
and this episode is really dire, but we are going
to be talking about them. Some pedophilia, sexual assault, attempts, cannibalism,
(02:41):
child abuse, and torture. This is the seconds. There's only
one more episode left, and I just saw headline that
it was record breaking with seventy four viewership increase from
the premiere. It was a lot. It was huge increase,
So a lot of people watched it, and it was
quite disturbing. I'll say that I got a lot of
(03:04):
once again angry text. Well sorry, so with that teaser,
if you haven't seen it, can you give us your
excellent recap of the episode's Amantha? Well, before we do that,
I need to know, I need to do a check
in because there's one episode left. One episode. How are
(03:24):
we doing? Anny? Well, you saw I'm like excited. Now
it's Tuesday. It doesn't come out till next Sunday. I'm
very very excited. I think it's going to be absolutely bonkers.
I did get spoiled on one thing. I'm all mad
about that, but that's okay. Did I do it? Kind
(03:45):
of yeah? Did you did it? Nod? But it had
in conjunction with something else that happened together. It's something
I do think. It's it's only forty three minute song.
I think it's going to pack in a lot. I
think there was a recent article with Billy Ramsey where
she said this is going to really divide the fandom,
(04:08):
and I think that it will, and that's one of
the big things I've been wanting to talk about since
the beginning. Yeah, so I'm like, I'm very very excited.
I like that kind of like angsty conversation that's going
to come out of it. I'm worried there's gonna be
a lot of like anger and hate, but that's kind
of part for the course for gaming, so that's unfortunate.
So I'm nervous as well, but I am very sad.
(04:30):
I'm excited. Oh and are you doing okay? Knowing that
your Sundays are about to be a little bit emptier
without festivals. I am going to miss them. It's been
really fun. We hang out, we have like a meal,
we drank, we talk, and then we watch it together
and then I watch it again. It's like you and
my partner. I have a new tradition where you watch
(04:50):
it immediately after and I go to bed after everyone
is left in Samantha's gun to bed, we start again,
and I just like picking up on things that like,
I don't really watch TV that off and I on
in the background a lot, but I don't really like
sit and watch, especially in a group, very often. So
it's been fun to do that be like, oh, look
at that Easter, I go look at that thing. I
(05:10):
am I'm gonna miss it a lot. And two years
and like I said, you know, I would say, even
if I have, you know, critiques about it, I wish
I will talk about and I've heard some from my
friends about it, like oh it's too short, it's moved
too fast, or all that stuff. I think it's good,
like undeniably, it's very good. And that has been very
(05:34):
nice to like just watch something and we have this
kind of feedback of people like, oh wow, I'm watching
it now and I love this and this scared me
so much or whatever it is. From people in person
and from people online. It's been very fun. Good. I'm glad. Yes,
now that we've done the check in, let's do this
(05:55):
recap very ready. So we open up watching a new
group of people sitting together reading a verse from Revelation.
It seems that they are very churchy, very religious group
of people. They are mourning at the same time they're
worshiping together. A young woman, young lady, probably teens, is
crying and cannot stop from crying. During that time in
(06:19):
which he comes over, he being the pastor or the
leader as we know, find out his name is David
and if you know, you know warning. He comes over
to talk to her, talking about you know, letting, letting
the dead rest, and knowing that it's hard to lose
people we're together, all these things, and then she says,
can we at least bury him? And he's talking about
(06:41):
her father who had gotten killed, named Alec Man. He says,
everybody stops, we look around, and he looks over at
probably the secondhand man, who is played by Troy Baker,
And if you don't know who that is, we'll explain
in a minute. But it is important that we've we've
talked about him before and his name is James. And
(07:01):
they kind of give each other the face and David,
the leader comes around and he's like, you know, we
we've talked about this. We can't bury him because the
ground is too cold. It is a wintry, wintry, wintry mess,
ice and cold and snow. Everywhere. You feel it. You
feel in the colors, you feel it in their faces.
As they walk out after the meeting, David goes to
(07:21):
speak with James and there's like, oh, there seems to
be a lot of doubt there, and James is like,
people are just scared. He's like, no, I'm not talking
about them, and rut row not a good sign. Then
we hear him saying, you know, come on, we're gonna
go try to find dear, which people have said that
have been seen out around. We cut two. Ellie is
(07:42):
in the basement with Joel still who was still unconscious,
and she's freaking out trying to give him some water
because she's like, are you thirsty? And then she splits
us two bites of food I guess a jerky and
places one on his chest, hoping that he will eat.
Then she takes his rifle decides to go hunt. She hunts,
and he actually gets a deer. There is a moment
(08:03):
that you think she's about to kill a rabbit, which
if you've played the game, you know you know beaty dubs.
She does not. We go on to see that she's
following the track into the bloody deer because she take
it a shot off. Then we come back to James
and David, who has discovered this dead deer looking around.
They're like, well, they're not here, so maybe we can
grab it, we can go quickly, which Ellie pounces and
(08:26):
she's like, step away from the deer, put down your rifle.
And David turns around. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We don't want to rob you. What if we give
you a trade? Let me put down the rifle. Both
of them put down the rifle, and he's like, we
got a whole village of people we need to feed.
And she's like, so do why and then he's like, well,
how about you know, we do a trade. And she's like,
(08:48):
we've got food, we've got boots. And she's like do
you have medicine and he's like, well, yes, we do.
And so she's like, okay, well why don't your buddy
boy go and grab the stuff. If you stay with
me and if he brings it, we can split the deer.
Which I still can't understand how that was going to happen.
How is she even going to drag the deer? How
is she going to cook the deer? There are so
(09:09):
many questions, but I get it. But during this time,
and you know, James is like, oh am, I supposed
to kill her or what it was? And he's like, no,
it's not code. Go get penicillin, Go get syringes. Go now,
we'll stay here Ellie and hit them hang out for
a minute. Ellie empties the guns and he's like, why
don't we go into that shelter. I've got supplies to
make a fire, and we'll just hang out until James
(09:30):
comes back. Cool. Cool, Cool. They go and sit and
there's this a lot of philosophical conversation happening in this moment,
very important conversation in which she talks about you know,
it's all about luck or whatever. He's like, I don't
believe in luck. For instance, let me tell you this.
I sent a bunch of men to a village to
go see if they can find supplies, and turns out
(09:52):
they were murdered by this really crazy man. And get this,
this crazy man had a little girl with him shoot
to see. I don't this is what I mean. This
is fate. And then we see that James has got
a gun on her, and which David says stop. Given
the syringes, she can go. Essentially, he's like what you know,
Like yeah, he's like, I can help you. You're not
(10:13):
going to survive here out in the cold, alone, and
again she's like, you know, I'm not alone. It'll be fine.
He's like, we can help you, but whatever, whatnot. She
takes the medicine, runs away, comes to Joel, and then
she gives him a shot of venison into his wound,
which our friend Marissa, who is in the nursing field
(10:33):
who will you have heard from, had a lot of
critique on this, the way that she was putting the
medicine in, but she does it does well, keeps going.
This time, David and James returned to the village. They're like, look,
we got venison. But before they get there, all of
the towns people are eating some kind of yummy meat
and everybody kind of sis there and goes what are
we eating? And they're like venison And then they're like wait,
(10:56):
but the venison wasn't there, how m But David comes back,
trying to be joyous, like, look we got dear, we
got meat. And there they are all somber and quiet,
and he's like, if you've heard this rumor that, yes
we did find that man. We did. I did let
her go, but we will go back and track them down.
(11:16):
At that point, the same young teenage girl gets up
and says she should kill them. You should kill both
of them, at which point David comes over and violently
slaps her and says, you know, you act like you
don't have a dad. I'm your daddy, and that's not
in the internet way we were talking about. I don't know.
So as we was down, we realize, oh, he's not cool.
(11:39):
This is not cool. So he does take a group
of men and they go on their way to hunt
him down. While she's singing in with Joel. She goes
back out, trying to look around to see I guess
either maybe get the breath of fresh air or a situation,
and she hears oh, noise like oh, fluttering of birds.
Obviously something's disrupted the atmosphere. Goes and sees that the
(12:00):
men have come back, followed her to the house. So
she goes downstairs, gives Joel a knife and says, I'm
gonna try to lead them away, but if they do,
come down here and kill them. And so she does that.
She puts a bookshelf against the door, runs away, takes
the poor horse, shoots off at them, tries to distract them.
(12:21):
As she does, the horse gets shot. Very sad. I
hated that and she falls off falls unconscious, and David
and James and another man take her back to the
village while three others stay behind to hunt down Joel,
and which David says, if you want your vengeance, go
get it, so we'd go to They go away and
(12:41):
Hu and we see that she is locked up. She
wakes up and she's like, what's going on? Why am
I in a cage? And then he goes through all
of these conversations about how, oh you know I can
he be here to help you. We're one and the same.
I have a violent way and so do you. I've
always known this and I see it in you. We
(13:04):
are much alike. We can do a lot together. And
then does that creepy thing where he touches her hand
and be implying things, not good things, in which at
that point he's like, what's your name and she's like,
I don't care, like trying to talk to him, and
then she breaks his finger and this ruckass happens and
she tries to grab the keys and he bangs her
head against the door and she falls back and he's like,
(13:26):
I try to help you, because at that point he
was bargaining everything from like you'll be helped, you won't
be alone. We'll let Joel go, will I'll tell the
men to stop hunting them. They listen to me. I'm
a leader, you're a leader. And at that point, because
he's bad, he goes, now, what do you what's going
to happen to you? Now? What's going to happen to him?
You know this is on you. Essentially, I'm gonna go
(13:46):
take care of things. So he runs out after calling
her media words which would be bleeped on here, so
I won't say it. Flash back to oh No, the
men are hunting Joel down and one of them discover
where he is is. But Joel woke up, realizes he
has to get into survival tactic, kills one man real hard,
(14:07):
and then tortures another man oh and knocks out both men,
essentially ties him up, put him in the same area,
talks to one man who's tied down, who wakes up
when he was unconscious to see Joel like covering over him,
saying where is she? Where did they take her? All
the tricks of the torture. He's like, if you don't
tell me, I'm gonna blow off your kneecaps. He just
(14:28):
goes like, man, man, you don't have to do this,
and then he stabs his knee and we hear him
scream and the buddy boy scream in the background, and
so he says, point to where she is on this
map and if your partner doesn't agree, y'are both dead,
in which the dude does he do do dude, I'll
tell her. I tell you here she is, and then
he kills him. Anyway, the other dude was like, man,
(14:49):
what are you doing? Why did you do that? I'm
never gonna tell you. Now He's like, that's fine, I
believe him, and then he kills him too, and then
so he goes after Ellie. At this point in time,
James and David come back grab her out of the cellar.
Oh big key point. She had seen ears on the
floor and realizes they have been eating people and she
(15:12):
accuses them of being monsters and she would never she
asked him are you going to chop me up in
tiny pieces? Previously? And now he comes back and he's like, yeah,
I'm gonna chop you up in tiny pieces. So they
grab her put her on the butcher block, essentially ready
to go to town. She starts screaming, no, don't do this,
don't do this. I'm infected, and they both stopped and
they're like what, because he had at this point gotten
(15:33):
bitten by her and had a bloody, bloody nub of
a hand. She's getting just bloody hand, and she's like,
roll up my sleeve. Look you'll see, you'll see I'm infected,
and now so are you. So they pull up her
sleeve and James is freaking out and David's trying to
figure things out. He's like, there's no way, there's no
way you'd have turned by now. You'd turned by now.
(15:54):
And this gives her enough time to grab the axe
and hack James and the neck which he died, eyes
violently while she rolls off and runs away, and David
is shooting at her and chases her down into a
restaurant of that little area. She throws a burning branch
stick at him, which hits the curtain, sets the place
(16:16):
on fire slowly, and he's like, you know what, I
am gonna take you. It doesn't matter. You are going
to live. And so am I all of these things,
and I am good. I decided you do need a father,
and I will be your father. That feels very threatening,
and then he does a whisper I'm coming to get you.
Where are you? Ellie does all of that stuff, and
she's hiding in the background. She jumps on him. He's
(16:38):
able to take her down. At this point, we know
things are getting grows because he is implying that he's
about to rape her at that point, but she's able
to grab a knife jams it in his neck. He
flips off. She pounces on him and repeatedly stabs him.
Repeatedly stabs him in a very violent and malicious way, screaming,
and then she runs out the door, traumatized bloody. When
(17:02):
Joel comes around and grabs her, she's freaking out, thinking
to someone else until he captures her face and says
it's me, it's me as she stops to look, and
he hugs her and says I got you, baby girl,
as she's saying he was about too, and then they leave. Yeah, insane.
I like how you always ended with it. I feel
(17:23):
like it has to happen. Yeah, excellent as always, Thank you, Samantha.
I do want to a couple of like housekeeping at
(17:46):
the top. Number one is in the last episode, we
kind of made a very vague, weird dimension of the
rabbit scene. Yes, if you've been like turning over your head,
what could they have meant about that? So there's an
infamous scene in the game where Ellie there's like a
(18:09):
pretty rabbit. It like literally goes. It goes from like
you think Joel has died hard cut. You are now
Ellie and you're hunting, and then there's no other explanation.
You were playing as Ellie now, which I'm going to
talk about more in a second, and you see this
(18:30):
rabbit and it's so pretty, it's like snow is glistening
in the light. You're like, oh, rabbit, and then an
arrow comes from right through the neck, blood everywhere. And
the reason why it's kind of infamous is because a
lot of those like YouTube videos where a guy is
usually a guy is like, hey, girlfriend, come watch me
(18:52):
play this, or come play this. Look how cute, and
then they're shocked and horrified at what happens. And so
that's what we were talking about that and that's why
I was like, I don't think with the effects it
would have been worse the cost of what are taken by.
They had a nod at it, They had a little
like they had a nod and they did switch up
(19:13):
our weapons. So in the game she has a bow
and arrow, but they gave her a rifle for the show,
and I'm assuming they'll never have her using a bow
and arrow in especially in season one, because that's not
being introduced at all. Yes, and I think that is
because what I'm going to talk about more in a second,
(19:34):
but there because these are video games, I've seen a
lot of arguments about like why did they cut this?
Why did they cut this? There's a whole scene where
you're playing as Ellie where you have to work with
David when you first meet him, and there are clickers,
there are bloaters. You have to fight all of them.
And in the game that's meant to endear you to him,
like you have to work together. He does protect her,
(19:56):
he gives her weapons like you know you do you
have to work with him, And a part of that
is she only has the bow and arrow and he
gives her the rifle. It's not Joel's rifle because she
leaves that with him thinking something maybe he'll need it.
But it's also because you have a whole scene, as
I said in the last one, this is the scariest
section of the game in my opinion, because suddenly you're
(20:17):
playing as Ellie. Ellie is much smaller, She has like
no weaponry other than a couple of things, and is like,
whereas Joel can take a lot of good hits, she can't,
but she's stealthier, Like, she has things that she's better
at than Joel, and like I said, one of them
is she can kill it clicker and one hit. Joel
can't do that generally. But the bow and arrow is
(20:39):
like the compromise because they can't hear you use the
bow and arrow, So if you're really good at it,
it's like my favorite weapon. Then you can take out
a lot of people and they'll never hear it, so
you're still kind of being stealthy but taking people out.
But yeah, I don't think they'll introduce it at all
in this season. Oh gosh, I have so much to
say about this one, but I do want to start
with Also, yes, Roy Baker, who's on the podcast is
(21:05):
the voice actor of Joel and also a lot of
other Like if you've played any video game in this Realm,
you've probably heard him. He does do a lot of
these kind of gruff fatherly figures. It turns out I'm
telling you about that TikTok. People have been sending me
about people cosplaying his quote Troy Baker's daughter, because in
so many video games he plays that role. He was
(21:27):
James who is the Creeper number two, and you can
watch the you know, behind the show afterwards where he
talks about like how amazing this was or rewarding it
was for him. He never thought he'd do this. He
thought maybe he'd be a clicker at most. It was
cool too, It's like we talked about Samantha. It's cool
to see that they're including the voice actors in it,
(21:47):
at least some of them. And it was kind of
a bit. It kind of messed with my mind about
because in the game he's Joel, yeah, and he's protecting
Ellie and he looks like Joel. And then we all
had a bet about who was gonna end up killing
James and so many people. I was like, it's gonna
be Joel and Joel, but it was Elian Joel, which
(22:09):
was almost the worst. I know. I was like sitting
and then he's the one that shoots the horse um
and puts her in this like really dangerous situation. So
that was a really interesting right and he also knew
about the cannibalism. Oh, I've forgot that part where Joel
sees the dead bodies without their kids hanging upside down,
real creepy. Yeah, they're like hang like curing like meat
(22:31):
in their plastic grass. And oh they're the dead, including
the father. Yeah they did not bury. Yes, And so
David is sitting in front of this poor girl who
he just slept as she's eating, and she is eating
her father, who she's so worried about it wants to
burry and she doesn't though, and it's like one of
the most disturbing thing disturbing and bat doves. We did
(22:54):
not mean to, but we do have food during our
before us, and we ended up having like a meat stew.
And I did not think about it until my partner's
sister because she knows we have these them things and
typically it's not just themed on the last of us.
It could be like something's happening that week, but we're
just gonna make it this thing. And we she asked,
(23:16):
did you have beef stew? And we were like, oh
my god, we did. And I did not even think
about it until the I thought about it, but then
I was like, I'm not going to mention it because
I don't want anybody to feel like nauseous. It's nauseating,
but I thank you for that. It wasn't. After thought,
I was like, oh, shoot, we did well. They don't
really show that in the gate, like you know what's happening,
(23:38):
but you don't have like such a visceral graphic scene
of everybody eating it and not knowing. Yeah. But also
our lovely friend that aforementioned, Marissa, she made this wonderful meal,
but I did not know there was going to be
a beef stew. I wouldn't have told her no, but
I didn't know that was going to be part of it. Yeah,
it was so delicious. Let us left and I'm eating
(23:59):
as still as one of my favorite things. We were
telling how it feels like just a homie huge the
slop does. But then you think about in that context,
you're like, oh, never mind. Yeah, well, there's something about
all of them because they're so hungry and there's like
the clanking of the spoons against the only if you
have to know this is human and it's a friend
Alec that they're all crying about that this morning. Oh
(24:23):
my gosh. Anyway, moving, okay, anyway, Yes, so I did
want to go back to the point of playing Allie
during the game. So, as I said in the previous episodes,
the first game is divided by seasons, and they get
progressively shorter hints. Why there's only one episode left, and
you do play as Allie during the winter section, and
(24:43):
I think it is a scary section. As I've said,
you don't know that Joel has survived the first hint.
You get that he has survived when she's like medicine, medicine,
and then like, oh, maybe he's still He's still there.
But um, if you've listened or watched the behind the shows,
if you've read some of the articles about this game,
this whole section is what inspired the game. What Neil Druckman,
(25:06):
the creator, inspired him to do. It was because he
writes about this game he played where where in it's
a very traditional game where you're playing the kind of
like a gotta rescue the princess and the castle situation
as a male protagonist, and then it turns out not
only does she not need rescuing, she rescues you. So
(25:28):
it really flips and then you're playing as her. So
this was what he really wanted to explore. And it
kind of like I was thinking about this last night
when I was trying to get over the nightmare I
had about a spider long story. But whatever, it's unfortunate,
but I don't know too many games who have done that.
Like a lot of times you do just play, you know,
(25:51):
your your traditional hero character and he saves your younger
innocent character, usually a woman or a girl. And where
to talk about that more in the finale episode and
we have talked about it in our episode on Survival
Gaming because that's still there in this as well. But
it was like a new thing, like suddenly you are
(26:12):
playing as Ellie, this young girl, and it's like totally
up to her to save Joel, and in fact it's
interspersed with Joel waking up. He does do this torture scene.
Like I said in the last one. I know this
sounds strange, but it's a really cool game mechanic because
he's still sick, so he can't like aim as well.
He'll fall over like he's not doing well, but you
(26:34):
still think he's going to save her, and then he
doesn't it's just like the timing of it, but it's
the way it's cut. You still think, oh, okay, but
that's not what happens. And that's what they said in
the behind the show things that that was like the
opposite of what they wanted was for him to come
in and save her, but that you're still expecting it
because that's the story we see all of the time,
(26:55):
and even you know, to an extent, you want it
to happen, like you don't want Ellie to have to
deal with this, this horrific thing. And one of the
things I love about this game, which I'm going to
have a lot more to say about this in the
final episode, but one of the things I do love
about it is this event does not leave Ellie. She
(27:17):
is traumatized after this, like she it changes the way
she interacts with you and with the world. She is
notably despondent and like just gets distracted, kind of doesn't listen,
Like I really like that they didn't just put under
the rug, like, oh, she she went through this horrible
thing and it killed this guy. No, it stays with
(27:39):
her for a long time in the game, and there
are kind of big cuts in the game which has
been I think the source of some people's like wait
a minute, because it just it'll just cut the spring
or I'll just get to winter or whatever, and you
miss kind of a section of them traveling. But and
that's also like it's unclear how long Joel has been
(28:01):
very sick in the game, but it's it's not like days,
it's longer than that. And she the whole like DLC
left behind, she had all already kind of exhausted these
efforts of healing him. So it's not like a couple
of days. But you know, it's not clear either. All right,
But we got to talk about this cannibal group. Okay,
(28:22):
so they really leaned into the religious aspect, which I'm
going to come back to in this. In the game,
there is that, but it's like not nearly as prevalent,
but it is another example, as we've talked about throughout
this of like humans are the worst, Like you've got
your infected, but what's the real horror here is humans?
(28:49):
And so the big gosh, the big thing with David
he is so creepy, oh my gosh, because you do
work with him, he identifies with those zombies. He does.
He has a whole speech where he's like, they are fruitful,
they multiplied, they provide, and they protect using violence when necessary.
(29:14):
He does have this strange They kind of played it up,
especially between him and James. People were starting to doubt
him because there was no food, they were being deprived
of food. They were starting to doubt his leadership, and
he was getting more and more angry at his own
group and especially around Ellie. Ellie was kind of like
this blowing up of like, no, I think we need her,
(29:36):
and they were like, what are you talking about. We
can't even provide for the people that we have. But
that whole like his big line is everything exists for
a reason. And when I tell you that gives me chills.
I was so annoying when we were watching. I was like,
here it, Cobbs, he's gonna say it because in the game,
that's when you're like, oh, no, they know that we
killed those people. Yeah yeah. But him kind of like
(30:00):
he says he turned to religion after the apocalypse and
in part because the Cordios ups. He almost makes it
sound like that's his God is not God, but like
Cordio shops showed him the way you see all these
like signs he shall provide hanging around and I think,
you know, his constant discussion around fatherhood and oh you
(30:24):
need a father, I'm your father. In his head, he's
taking up this role and it's like a real power
trip for him, absolutely, And he has so many like
petty lines that we can you know, we're not talking
about cannibals, and but we can connect to of like, oh,
you know how it hurts to be embarrassed, elliot, Like
you've really humiliated me, Like all of these kind of
(30:45):
like petty Oh, you're a guy who's not used to
being rejected or in a kind of like somebody questioning
your authority. And then he has also like this whole
thing where he's like, I'm only the leader because they
want me to be the leader. They need a god,
they need a father, they need heaven. They're just basically sheep.
(31:06):
Well he says sheep, but you know, and he's like,
I want to an equal. But he's just very condescending
of the people that he's supposedly supposed to look after,
which I do think it's a lot of commentary on religion.
There's also a lot of commentary of daughters with missing fathers.
And this was interesting in the behind the show thing
(31:29):
where they were talking about like, oh, he you think
he's going to be like a good person and a
good father and he turns up like the worst, which
I guess I don't know. I don't think I ever
put it in my mind like that, but I suppose
it's supposed to be some kind of Oh. I think
he is meant to look like he could be a
good guy, but he's so creepy. Oh anyway, I feel
(31:51):
like he's a lot creepier in the game from John,
but immediately in the game, whereas in the show he's
like not as creepy and then oh god, worse. Yeah,
So this is speaking of. This has caused a lot
of conversation because some people are like, David was never
(32:12):
pedophilic in the game, and I told you the voice
actor who played him always intended for him to be
read that way, and it certainly can be read that way.
I think it was more overt in the show, but
it's not like it's there if they're in the game
as well, Like he does the whole like holding of
(32:34):
the hand scene, he does the whole like basically become
my wife thing with Ellie in the game as well.
I think, what really like watching it again, it really
like struck me as I hate. He has this line
where he was a teacher and he taught kids about
your age, so upsetting. But he also has a lot
of lines like I'm a decent man. You don't know
how good I am. You do need a father, Like
(32:55):
you said, I can protect you. It's mercy to protect her,
Like he's very much painting himself, like you need me
to protect you. But if you do anything wrong, anything
that is not like in my favor, what I think
you should do, then I'm going to do like the
very worst things, calling you the very worst things like
And there's definitely like again commentary, I think about the
(33:18):
whole like preacher father thing happening here. But he, I mean,
he's terrified. Like this scene where you're in the restaurant
in the game is one of the scariest things I've
ever played, because you it's burning down. He can hear
you stepping on glass. He's so much bigger than you.
(33:41):
He's got like this huge cleaver and you have to
sneak up on him and he's saying like these horrible things.
It's it's just like a really upsetting, upsetting scene. Well,
you're saying all this and we are all like, yeah,
this is her favorite gameal I know, we haven't really
fun idea to maybe compare us playing our favorite games,
(34:02):
which I think would be great. Well, so all of
(34:23):
this is juxtaphosed with yes, Jules waking up. He's realizing like,
oh no, Ellie is in trouble, and so he uses
the old map trick which we talked about in episode six.
He does that a couple of times where he has
somebody point to a spot on the map and then
the other person has to confirm it to make sure
(34:45):
that they're not lying. This like really horrendous torture scene,
and then him you know, struggling through to find her
and seeing those dead bodies, seeing her backpack away. And
I do think it's interesting that the previous episode no.
Episode six set up his anxiety and so much worry
(35:06):
of failure, whereas they didn't do that in the game,
Like he was definitely desperate and you could tell by
like how he tortured these men and killed them that
he was definitely desperate, but it didn't set up kind
of that like which I felt you could feel in
his performance of the oh God, I'm failing again and
here it is. But as all this is happening, we
(35:27):
see Ellie. Yeah, she gets he threatened. David threatens her
with sexual assaults. She gets the clever and just like
completely is screaming stabbing him over and over and over again,
which does happen in the game. And I saw the
(35:49):
next day a lot of people were like, this is
she should get an Emmy for this, this performance, and
it was very you know, I think the first time
I watched it, I was like, oh, so caught up
in but I have cried at other other watches because
it's so upsetting, Like it's so like seeing her so
visceral about it. It's so hurt. And he did have
(36:11):
that David did to have that conversation with her where
he's like, you've got a violent heart. I have one too.
I see you in me like I see me and
you and all of this really upsetting stuff that you
can tell is like getting in her head. And does
he say there's no fear in love, which is such
(36:32):
an upsetting, upsetting line. Um, but this was like, you know,
again Ellie didn't need saving. They did say in the
after the show thing like you know she it was
like an emotional saving but not like this, and I
do love she uses that infected trick. It's so smart
(36:57):
like that she was. It was a very show of
intelligence during a very horrific time when they're about to
chop her up into pieces and eat her. I love
the guy and Ellie Elliot is the girl who broke
your finger. That's one of my favorite lines, the little
girl who broke your finger, because he was so embarrassed,
like what am I going to tell the others? What
will I say? And she's like, oh, tell him? But
(37:19):
then you know, you have the line from the showrunner,
Craig Meisen, who was like, you know, as much as
we love her, we have to be a little scared
of her. And that is something I've said a million times.
Ellie is so she's got a lot of like curiosity
and innocence, and she's a child, and I think it's
important people remember she's a child, because I think they forget.
And I'll have more to say about that as well.
But she's terrifying, like I wouldn't mess with her. She
(37:42):
will kill you. She will kill you. And then yeah,
you do see kind of this is another example of trauma.
What does it take to survive in this world? And it,
as they said in that like aftershow thing, it scars
her in a way that forever changes her. It's kind
of like Riley when Riley died. This is the thing
(38:03):
that stay with her and this whole idea that they
are very very much hammering home of like Ellie having
this violent heart of being turning to violence or that's
the only way she can survive, or or things like that.
And again, just like Joel and the big thing that
happens here's you know, finally Joel calls her baby girl,
(38:25):
which is something that he called his daughter. He hasn't
used it for twenty years. This is the first time,
and that's just like the turning point of all He's
finally okay, this is like a daughter figure to me.
She clings to him. It's like I need some kind
of comfort. It's a very it's one of my favorite
scenes in the game. It's very upsetting, but it's very
(38:46):
well done. And you know, after again that kind of
whole talk about what I can't fail and seeing this
that's definitely definitely setting somethings up. I also want to
just call out the sets. This was really on point
with the game. It was very beautiful, slash terrifying, kind
(39:08):
of wintry landscape was really good. But yeah, that's it's
so funny because it's like only sixty minutes, but they
packed so much into the sixty minutes. It was full
of actions, very quick, it was. It was and so
many like there was a lot of like exclamations of disgust.
(39:29):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. It cost a lot of conversation.
I do have a couple of random things. One is,
did she lose her pun book in the game. She
doesn't lose her pun book, but he did not pick
up her backpack, so I don't know about that. I'm
sure they grabbed it. I hope so. And also, Samantha
(39:50):
and I took a BuzzFeed quiz, very legitimate, yes, BuzzFeed
quiz about what character we would be, and I got
frank oh and I was Tess, Okay, I'll excellent. Actually,
everyone I've talked to about this has gotten a different character.
That's interesting. Mum. I didn't mention in the previous episode
how important that Aha song is take on me to
(40:13):
the series, but just to mention that in there. Here's
my up next. If you don't want anything, I'm not
gonna spoil anything, but if you don't want anything, you
can you can click off and return. Next time, there
will be a certain animal appearance per hips. Maybe Ashley Johnson,
who I realized in the like previous episode, I just
(40:35):
said her name and didn't say anything else about her.
She's the voice actor of Ellie. Just know Ashley Johnson,
and she's somewhat infamous. She is a child actor that's
been around for a very very long time. She was
in very quickly for the original Avengers as a waitress.
But she is a very distinctive voice. Yes so, and
(40:57):
it's never like she's had it since childhood. Like there's
a very distinct way that you when you watch these
family sitcoms, you know you've heard this voice. Yes, yes,
and if you know after this ends and you're looking
for more kinds sometime or mentioned it before. But you
can see a lot of like them filming, and she
does the filming the games and she does the like
(41:18):
acting and body movements and everything. But it's really cool
to see her do it. And she's great. She's great.
Um yeah, apparently she's a huge d and yes, I know,
yes I do. Also, look, this is my vague hand.
I promise that they are setting some things up. Okay,
like they are really setting but yeah, it's the end
(41:42):
of the next episode. Is that's it? I know I
would cry. I know we will have another clip of that.
That's what you're into. No, it's gonna be oh my gosh,
it's gonna be great. But we hope that you have
been enjoying these You've watched the show, played the game,
none of the above, because we have. I have, definitely.
(42:05):
I hope we have loved doing that. Yes we have,
and I'll miss them. I'll miss them greatly. Um. But yes,
we will be back next week with our final litution.
In the meantime, if you would like to contact us,
you can Our email is stephaniea mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
(42:25):
Stuff Podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff Mom
Never Told You. Also, you can listen to us on
YouTube now if that's something you'd like. Things. As always
to our super producers Data, thank you and thanks to
you for listening. Stephane Never Told you His protection by
her radio. For more podcast on my heart Radio. You
can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or where
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stepan
never told her your protection to iHeartRadio, and welcome to
what is probably the penultimate episode of our Last of Us,
(00:25):
a mini series special wherein we react and discuss the
HBO Max series, which is not a sponsor. And thank
you to everyone who is lovingly pointed that out to me.
I mentioned that there's an official podcast that they listen to.
That's all right, I understand. I haven't listened to it.
(00:46):
Does that make you feel better? I only listen to
you Annie. Oh thanks, but I do have to remind
you that, yes, we are not sponsored. So yeah, no,
it's all friendly. It's all in good fun. I'm sure.
I'm sure you hope. Yeah. I do appreciate you've been hosting.
We've been having watched parties. They've been a lot of fun.
(01:08):
So as always, there will be spoilers for episode eight,
called When We Are in Need, the most recent episode
of the Last of Us, and all of the episodes
before that. Samantha was very good, has been very good
of trying to get me to not spoil anything else.
So I think I think we can do it. This
(01:28):
one thing we got this we do but I oh,
I want to be like, let off the leash. I know, um,
I will wait, but we know even with this finale,
you still can't be fully off the leash. I know,
I know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put some annoying teaser
baked teaser things at the end of this one. If
you don't want to hear them, you can skip it,
but I have to put them in, Okay, And if
(01:51):
you know what I'm talking about, then you know. Um.
So these are coming out every Saturday after the most
recent episode has aired on Sunday, and they are replacing
my bi weekly Happy Hours, which you've probably noticed have
been classics. That will we'll go back to our readily
scheduled scheduling programming once this is over, probably probably probably.
(02:16):
They have announced a season two and three, but I
think that'll be at least two years from now. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
content morning on this one. We're not going to go
two in depth on these because this sounds really dire,
and this episode is really dire, but we are going
to be talking about them. Some pedophilia, sexual assault, attempts, cannibalism,
(02:41):
child abuse, and torture. This is the seconds. There's only
one more episode left, and I just saw headline that
it was record breaking with seventy four viewership increase from
the premiere. It was a lot. It was huge increase,
So a lot of people watched it, and it was
quite disturbing. I'll say that I got a lot of
(03:04):
once again angry text. Well sorry, so with that teaser,
if you haven't seen it, can you give us your
excellent recap of the episode's Amantha? Well, before we do that,
I need to know, I need to do a check
in because there's one episode left. One episode. How are
(03:24):
we doing? Anny? Well, you saw I'm like excited. Now
it's Tuesday. It doesn't come out till next Sunday. I'm
very very excited. I think it's going to be absolutely bonkers.
I did get spoiled on one thing. I'm all mad
about that, but that's okay. Did I do it? Kind
(03:45):
of yeah? Did you did it? Nod? But it had
in conjunction with something else that happened together. It's something
I do think. It's it's only forty three minute song.
I think it's going to pack in a lot. I
think there was a recent article with Billy Ramsey where
she said this is going to really divide the fandom,
(04:08):
and I think that it will, and that's one of
the big things I've been wanting to talk about since
the beginning. Yeah, so I'm like, I'm very very excited.
I like that kind of like angsty conversation that's going
to come out of it. I'm worried there's gonna be
a lot of like anger and hate, but that's kind
of part for the course for gaming, so that's unfortunate.
So I'm nervous as well, but I am very sad.
(04:30):
I'm excited. Oh and are you doing okay? Knowing that
your Sundays are about to be a little bit emptier
without festivals. I am going to miss them. It's been
really fun. We hang out, we have like a meal,
we drank, we talk, and then we watch it together
and then I watch it again. It's like you and
my partner. I have a new tradition where you watch
(04:50):
it immediately after and I go to bed after everyone
is left in Samantha's gun to bed, we start again,
and I just like picking up on things that like,
I don't really watch TV that off and I on
in the background a lot, but I don't really like
sit and watch, especially in a group, very often. So
it's been fun to do that be like, oh, look
at that Easter, I go look at that thing. I
(05:10):
am I'm gonna miss it a lot. And two years
and like I said, you know, I would say, even
if I have, you know, critiques about it, I wish
I will talk about and I've heard some from my
friends about it, like oh it's too short, it's moved
too fast, or all that stuff. I think it's good,
like undeniably, it's very good. And that has been very
(05:34):
nice to like just watch something and we have this
kind of feedback of people like, oh wow, I'm watching
it now and I love this and this scared me
so much or whatever it is. From people in person
and from people online. It's been very fun. Good. I'm glad. Yes,
now that we've done the check in, let's do this
(05:55):
recap very ready. So we open up watching a new
group of people sitting together reading a verse from Revelation.
It seems that they are very churchy, very religious group
of people. They are mourning at the same time they're
worshiping together. A young woman, young lady, probably teens, is
crying and cannot stop from crying. During that time in
(06:19):
which he comes over, he being the pastor or the
leader as we know, find out his name is David
and if you know, you know warning. He comes over
to talk to her, talking about you know, letting, letting
the dead rest, and knowing that it's hard to lose
people we're together, all these things, and then she says,
can we at least bury him? And he's talking about
(06:41):
her father who had gotten killed, named Alec Man. He says,
everybody stops, we look around, and he looks over at
probably the secondhand man, who is played by Troy Baker,
And if you don't know who that is, we'll explain
in a minute. But it is important that we've we've
talked about him before and his name is James. And
(07:01):
they kind of give each other the face and David,
the leader comes around and he's like, you know, we
we've talked about this. We can't bury him because the
ground is too cold. It is a wintry, wintry, wintry mess,
ice and cold and snow. Everywhere. You feel it. You
feel in the colors, you feel it in their faces.
As they walk out after the meeting, David goes to
(07:21):
speak with James and there's like, oh, there seems to
be a lot of doubt there, and James is like,
people are just scared. He's like, no, I'm not talking
about them, and rut row not a good sign. Then
we hear him saying, you know, come on, we're gonna
go try to find dear, which people have said that
have been seen out around. We cut two. Ellie is
(07:42):
in the basement with Joel still who was still unconscious,
and she's freaking out trying to give him some water
because she's like, are you thirsty? And then she splits
us two bites of food I guess a jerky and
places one on his chest, hoping that he will eat.
Then she takes his rifle decides to go hunt. She hunts,
and he actually gets a deer. There is a moment
(08:03):
that you think she's about to kill a rabbit, which
if you've played the game, you know you know beaty dubs.
She does not. We go on to see that she's
following the track into the bloody deer because she take
it a shot off. Then we come back to James
and David, who has discovered this dead deer looking around.
They're like, well, they're not here, so maybe we can
grab it, we can go quickly, which Ellie pounces and
(08:26):
she's like, step away from the deer, put down your rifle.
And David turns around. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We don't want to rob you. What if we give
you a trade? Let me put down the rifle. Both
of them put down the rifle, and he's like, we
got a whole village of people we need to feed.
And she's like, so do why and then he's like, well,
how about you know, we do a trade. And she's like,
(08:48):
we've got food, we've got boots. And she's like do
you have medicine and he's like, well, yes, we do.
And so she's like, okay, well why don't your buddy
boy go and grab the stuff. If you stay with
me and if he brings it, we can split the deer.
Which I still can't understand how that was going to happen.
How is she even going to drag the deer? How
is she going to cook the deer? There are so
(09:09):
many questions, but I get it. But during this time,
and you know, James is like, oh am, I supposed
to kill her or what it was? And he's like, no,
it's not code. Go get penicillin, Go get syringes. Go now,
we'll stay here Ellie and hit them hang out for
a minute. Ellie empties the guns and he's like, why
don't we go into that shelter. I've got supplies to
make a fire, and we'll just hang out until James
(09:30):
comes back. Cool. Cool, Cool. They go and sit and
there's this a lot of philosophical conversation happening in this moment,
very important conversation in which she talks about you know,
it's all about luck or whatever. He's like, I don't
believe in luck. For instance, let me tell you this.
I sent a bunch of men to a village to
go see if they can find supplies, and turns out
(09:52):
they were murdered by this really crazy man. And get this,
this crazy man had a little girl with him shoot
to see. I don't this is what I mean. This
is fate. And then we see that James has got
a gun on her, and which David says stop. Given
the syringes, she can go. Essentially, he's like what you know,
Like yeah, he's like, I can help you. You're not
(10:13):
going to survive here out in the cold, alone, and
again she's like, you know, I'm not alone. It'll be fine.
He's like, we can help you, but whatever, whatnot. She
takes the medicine, runs away, comes to Joel, and then
she gives him a shot of venison into his wound,
which our friend Marissa, who is in the nursing field
(10:33):
who will you have heard from, had a lot of
critique on this, the way that she was putting the
medicine in, but she does it does well, keeps going.
This time, David and James returned to the village. They're like, look,
we got venison. But before they get there, all of
the towns people are eating some kind of yummy meat
and everybody kind of sis there and goes what are
we eating? And they're like venison And then they're like wait,
(10:56):
but the venison wasn't there, how m But David comes back,
trying to be joyous, like, look we got dear, we
got meat. And there they are all somber and quiet,
and he's like, if you've heard this rumor that, yes
we did find that man. We did. I did let
her go, but we will go back and track them down.
(11:16):
At that point, the same young teenage girl gets up
and says she should kill them. You should kill both
of them, at which point David comes over and violently
slaps her and says, you know, you act like you
don't have a dad. I'm your daddy, and that's not
in the internet way we were talking about. I don't know.
So as we was down, we realize, oh, he's not cool.
(11:39):
This is not cool. So he does take a group
of men and they go on their way to hunt
him down. While she's singing in with Joel. She goes
back out, trying to look around to see I guess
either maybe get the breath of fresh air or a situation,
and she hears oh, noise like oh, fluttering of birds.
Obviously something's disrupted the atmosphere. Goes and sees that the
(12:00):
men have come back, followed her to the house. So
she goes downstairs, gives Joel a knife and says, I'm
gonna try to lead them away, but if they do,
come down here and kill them. And so she does that.
She puts a bookshelf against the door, runs away, takes
the poor horse, shoots off at them, tries to distract them.
(12:21):
As she does, the horse gets shot. Very sad. I
hated that and she falls off falls unconscious, and David
and James and another man take her back to the
village while three others stay behind to hunt down Joel,
and which David says, if you want your vengeance, go
get it, so we'd go to They go away and
(12:41):
Hu and we see that she is locked up. She
wakes up and she's like, what's going on? Why am
I in a cage? And then he goes through all
of these conversations about how, oh you know I can
he be here to help you. We're one and the same.
I have a violent way and so do you. I've
always known this and I see it in you. We
(13:04):
are much alike. We can do a lot together. And
then does that creepy thing where he touches her hand
and be implying things, not good things, in which at
that point he's like, what's your name and she's like,
I don't care, like trying to talk to him, and
then she breaks his finger and this ruckass happens and
she tries to grab the keys and he bangs her
head against the door and she falls back and he's like,
(13:26):
I try to help you, because at that point he
was bargaining everything from like you'll be helped, you won't
be alone. We'll let Joel go, will I'll tell the
men to stop hunting them. They listen to me. I'm
a leader, you're a leader. And at that point, because
he's bad, he goes, now, what do you what's going
to happen to you? Now? What's going to happen to him?
You know this is on you. Essentially, I'm gonna go
(13:46):
take care of things. So he runs out after calling
her media words which would be bleeped on here, so
I won't say it. Flash back to oh No, the
men are hunting Joel down and one of them discover
where he is is. But Joel woke up, realizes he
has to get into survival tactic, kills one man real hard,
(14:07):
and then tortures another man oh and knocks out both men,
essentially ties him up, put him in the same area,
talks to one man who's tied down, who wakes up
when he was unconscious to see Joel like covering over him,
saying where is she? Where did they take her? All
the tricks of the torture. He's like, if you don't
tell me, I'm gonna blow off your kneecaps. He just
(14:28):
goes like, man, man, you don't have to do this,
and then he stabs his knee and we hear him
scream and the buddy boy scream in the background, and
so he says, point to where she is on this
map and if your partner doesn't agree, y'are both dead,
in which the dude does he do do dude, I'll
tell her. I tell you here she is, and then
he kills him. Anyway, the other dude was like, man,
(14:49):
what are you doing? Why did you do that? I'm
never gonna tell you. Now He's like, that's fine, I
believe him, and then he kills him too, and then
so he goes after Ellie. At this point in time,
James and David come back grab her out of the cellar.
Oh big key point. She had seen ears on the
floor and realizes they have been eating people and she
(15:12):
accuses them of being monsters and she would never she
asked him are you going to chop me up in
tiny pieces? Previously? And now he comes back and he's like, yeah,
I'm gonna chop you up in tiny pieces. So they
grab her put her on the butcher block, essentially ready
to go to town. She starts screaming, no, don't do this,
don't do this. I'm infected, and they both stopped and
they're like what, because he had at this point gotten
(15:33):
bitten by her and had a bloody, bloody nub of
a hand. She's getting just bloody hand, and she's like,
roll up my sleeve. Look you'll see, you'll see I'm infected,
and now so are you. So they pull up her
sleeve and James is freaking out and David's trying to
figure things out. He's like, there's no way, there's no
way you'd have turned by now. You'd turned by now.
(15:54):
And this gives her enough time to grab the axe
and hack James and the neck which he died, eyes
violently while she rolls off and runs away, and David
is shooting at her and chases her down into a
restaurant of that little area. She throws a burning branch
stick at him, which hits the curtain, sets the place
(16:16):
on fire slowly, and he's like, you know what, I
am gonna take you. It doesn't matter. You are going
to live. And so am I all of these things,
and I am good. I decided you do need a father,
and I will be your father. That feels very threatening,
and then he does a whisper I'm coming to get you.
Where are you? Ellie does all of that stuff, and
she's hiding in the background. She jumps on him. He's
(16:38):
able to take her down. At this point, we know
things are getting grows because he is implying that he's
about to rape her at that point, but she's able
to grab a knife jams it in his neck. He
flips off. She pounces on him and repeatedly stabs him.
Repeatedly stabs him in a very violent and malicious way, screaming,
and then she runs out the door, traumatized bloody. When
(17:02):
Joel comes around and grabs her, she's freaking out, thinking
to someone else until he captures her face and says
it's me, it's me as she stops to look, and
he hugs her and says I got you, baby girl,
as she's saying he was about too, and then they leave. Yeah, insane.
I like how you always ended with it. I feel
(17:23):
like it has to happen. Yeah, excellent as always, Thank you, Samantha.
I do want to a couple of like housekeeping at
(17:46):
the top. Number one is in the last episode, we
kind of made a very vague, weird dimension of the
rabbit scene. Yes, if you've been like turning over your head,
what could they have meant about that? So there's an
infamous scene in the game where Ellie there's like a
(18:09):
pretty rabbit. It like literally goes. It goes from like
you think Joel has died hard cut. You are now
Ellie and you're hunting, and then there's no other explanation.
You were playing as Ellie now, which I'm going to
talk about more in a second, and you see this
(18:30):
rabbit and it's so pretty, it's like snow is glistening
in the light. You're like, oh, rabbit, and then an
arrow comes from right through the neck, blood everywhere. And
the reason why it's kind of infamous is because a
lot of those like YouTube videos where a guy is
usually a guy is like, hey, girlfriend, come watch me
(18:52):
play this, or come play this. Look how cute, and
then they're shocked and horrified at what happens. And so
that's what we were talking about that and that's why
I was like, I don't think with the effects it
would have been worse the cost of what are taken by.
They had a nod at it, They had a little
like they had a nod and they did switch up
(19:13):
our weapons. So in the game she has a bow
and arrow, but they gave her a rifle for the show,
and I'm assuming they'll never have her using a bow
and arrow in especially in season one, because that's not
being introduced at all. Yes, and I think that is
because what I'm going to talk about more in a second,
(19:34):
but there because these are video games, I've seen a
lot of arguments about like why did they cut this?
Why did they cut this? There's a whole scene where
you're playing as Ellie where you have to work with
David when you first meet him, and there are clickers,
there are bloaters. You have to fight all of them.
And in the game that's meant to endear you to him,
like you have to work together. He does protect her,
(19:56):
he gives her weapons like you know you do you
have to work with him, And a part of that
is she only has the bow and arrow and he
gives her the rifle. It's not Joel's rifle because she
leaves that with him thinking something maybe he'll need it.
But it's also because you have a whole scene, as
I said in the last one, this is the scariest
section of the game in my opinion, because suddenly you're
(20:17):
playing as Ellie. Ellie is much smaller, She has like
no weaponry other than a couple of things, and is like,
whereas Joel can take a lot of good hits, she can't,
but she's stealthier, Like, she has things that she's better
at than Joel, and like I said, one of them
is she can kill it clicker and one hit. Joel
can't do that generally. But the bow and arrow is
(20:39):
like the compromise because they can't hear you use the
bow and arrow, So if you're really good at it,
it's like my favorite weapon. Then you can take out
a lot of people and they'll never hear it, so
you're still kind of being stealthy but taking people out.
But yeah, I don't think they'll introduce it at all
in this season. Oh gosh, I have so much to
say about this one, but I do want to start
with Also, yes, Roy Baker, who's on the podcast is
(21:05):
the voice actor of Joel and also a lot of
other Like if you've played any video game in this Realm,
you've probably heard him. He does do a lot of
these kind of gruff fatherly figures. It turns out I'm
telling you about that TikTok. People have been sending me
about people cosplaying his quote Troy Baker's daughter, because in
so many video games he plays that role. He was
(21:27):
James who is the Creeper number two, and you can
watch the you know, behind the show afterwards where he
talks about like how amazing this was or rewarding it
was for him. He never thought he'd do this. He
thought maybe he'd be a clicker at most. It was
cool too, It's like we talked about Samantha. It's cool
to see that they're including the voice actors in it,
(21:47):
at least some of them. And it was kind of
a bit. It kind of messed with my mind about
because in the game he's Joel, yeah, and he's protecting
Ellie and he looks like Joel. And then we all
had a bet about who was gonna end up killing
James and so many people. I was like, it's gonna
be Joel and Joel, but it was Elian Joel, which
(22:09):
was almost the worst. I know. I was like sitting
and then he's the one that shoots the horse um
and puts her in this like really dangerous situation. So
that was a really interesting right and he also knew
about the cannibalism. Oh, I've forgot that part where Joel
sees the dead bodies without their kids hanging upside down,
real creepy. Yeah, they're like hang like curing like meat
(22:31):
in their plastic grass. And oh they're the dead, including
the father. Yeah they did not bury. Yes, And so
David is sitting in front of this poor girl who
he just slept as she's eating, and she is eating
her father, who she's so worried about it wants to
burry and she doesn't though, and it's like one of
the most disturbing thing disturbing and bat doves. We did
(22:54):
not mean to, but we do have food during our
before us, and we ended up having like a meat stew.
And I did not think about it until my partner's
sister because she knows we have these them things and
typically it's not just themed on the last of us.
It could be like something's happening that week, but we're
just gonna make it this thing. And we she asked,
(23:16):
did you have beef stew? And we were like, oh
my god, we did. And I did not even think
about it until the I thought about it, but then
I was like, I'm not going to mention it because
I don't want anybody to feel like nauseous. It's nauseating,
but I thank you for that. It wasn't. After thought,
I was like, oh, shoot, we did well. They don't
really show that in the gate, like you know what's happening,
(23:38):
but you don't have like such a visceral graphic scene
of everybody eating it and not knowing. Yeah. But also
our lovely friend that aforementioned, Marissa, she made this wonderful meal,
but I did not know there was going to be
a beef stew. I wouldn't have told her no, but
I didn't know that was going to be part of it. Yeah,
it was so delicious. Let us left and I'm eating
(23:59):
as still as one of my favorite things. We were
telling how it feels like just a homie huge the
slop does. But then you think about in that context,
you're like, oh, never mind. Yeah, well, there's something about
all of them because they're so hungry and there's like
the clanking of the spoons against the only if you
have to know this is human and it's a friend
Alec that they're all crying about that this morning. Oh
(24:23):
my gosh. Anyway, moving, okay, anyway, Yes, so I did
want to go back to the point of playing Allie
during the game. So, as I said in the previous episodes,
the first game is divided by seasons, and they get
progressively shorter hints. Why there's only one episode left, and
you do play as Allie during the winter section, and
(24:43):
I think it is a scary section. As I've said,
you don't know that Joel has survived the first hint.
You get that he has survived when she's like medicine, medicine,
and then like, oh, maybe he's still He's still there.
But um, if you've listened or watched the behind the shows,
if you've read some of the articles about this game,
this whole section is what inspired the game. What Neil Druckman,
(25:06):
the creator, inspired him to do. It was because he
writes about this game he played where where in it's
a very traditional game where you're playing the kind of
like a gotta rescue the princess and the castle situation
as a male protagonist, and then it turns out not
only does she not need rescuing, she rescues you. So
(25:28):
it really flips and then you're playing as her. So
this was what he really wanted to explore. And it
kind of like I was thinking about this last night
when I was trying to get over the nightmare I
had about a spider long story. But whatever, it's unfortunate,
but I don't know too many games who have done that.
Like a lot of times you do just play, you know,
(25:51):
your your traditional hero character and he saves your younger
innocent character, usually a woman or a girl. And where
to talk about that more in the finale episode and
we have talked about it in our episode on Survival
Gaming because that's still there in this as well. But
it was like a new thing, like suddenly you are
(26:12):
playing as Ellie, this young girl, and it's like totally
up to her to save Joel, and in fact it's
interspersed with Joel waking up. He does do this torture scene.
Like I said in the last one. I know this
sounds strange, but it's a really cool game mechanic because
he's still sick, so he can't like aim as well.
He'll fall over like he's not doing well, but you
(26:34):
still think he's going to save her, and then he
doesn't it's just like the timing of it, but it's
the way it's cut. You still think, oh, okay, but
that's not what happens. And that's what they said in
the behind the show things that that was like the
opposite of what they wanted was for him to come
in and save her, but that you're still expecting it
because that's the story we see all of the time,
(26:55):
and even you know, to an extent, you want it
to happen, like you don't want Ellie to have to
deal with this, this horrific thing. And one of the
things I love about this game, which I'm going to
have a lot more to say about this in the
final episode, but one of the things I do love
about it is this event does not leave Ellie. She
(27:17):
is traumatized after this, like she it changes the way
she interacts with you and with the world. She is
notably despondent and like just gets distracted, kind of doesn't listen,
Like I really like that they didn't just put under
the rug, like, oh, she she went through this horrible
thing and it killed this guy. No, it stays with
(27:39):
her for a long time in the game, and there
are kind of big cuts in the game which has
been I think the source of some people's like wait
a minute, because it just it'll just cut the spring
or I'll just get to winter or whatever, and you
miss kind of a section of them traveling. But and
that's also like it's unclear how long Joel has been
(28:01):
very sick in the game, but it's it's not like days,
it's longer than that. And she the whole like DLC
left behind, she had all already kind of exhausted these
efforts of healing him. So it's not like a couple
of days. But you know, it's not clear either. All right,
But we got to talk about this cannibal group. Okay,
(28:22):
so they really leaned into the religious aspect, which I'm
going to come back to in this. In the game,
there is that, but it's like not nearly as prevalent,
but it is another example, as we've talked about throughout
this of like humans are the worst, Like you've got
your infected, but what's the real horror here is humans?
(28:49):
And so the big gosh, the big thing with David
he is so creepy, oh my gosh, because you do
work with him, he identifies with those zombies. He does.
He has a whole speech where he's like, they are fruitful,
they multiplied, they provide, and they protect using violence when necessary.
(29:14):
He does have this strange They kind of played it up,
especially between him and James. People were starting to doubt
him because there was no food, they were being deprived
of food. They were starting to doubt his leadership, and
he was getting more and more angry at his own
group and especially around Ellie. Ellie was kind of like
this blowing up of like, no, I think we need her,
(29:36):
and they were like, what are you talking about. We
can't even provide for the people that we have. But
that whole like his big line is everything exists for
a reason. And when I tell you that gives me chills.
I was so annoying when we were watching. I was like,
here it, Cobbs, he's gonna say it because in the game,
that's when you're like, oh, no, they know that we
killed those people. Yeah yeah. But him kind of like
(30:00):
he says he turned to religion after the apocalypse and
in part because the Cordios ups. He almost makes it
sound like that's his God is not God, but like
Cordio shops showed him the way you see all these
like signs he shall provide hanging around and I think,
you know, his constant discussion around fatherhood and oh you
(30:24):
need a father, I'm your father. In his head, he's
taking up this role and it's like a real power
trip for him, absolutely, And he has so many like
petty lines that we can you know, we're not talking
about cannibals, and but we can connect to of like, oh,
you know how it hurts to be embarrassed, elliot, Like
you've really humiliated me, Like all of these kind of
(30:45):
like petty Oh, you're a guy who's not used to
being rejected or in a kind of like somebody questioning
your authority. And then he has also like this whole
thing where he's like, I'm only the leader because they
want me to be the leader. They need a god,
they need a father, they need heaven. They're just basically sheep.
(31:06):
Well he says sheep, but you know, and he's like,
I want to an equal. But he's just very condescending
of the people that he's supposedly supposed to look after,
which I do think it's a lot of commentary on religion.
There's also a lot of commentary of daughters with missing fathers.
And this was interesting in the behind the show thing
(31:29):
where they were talking about like, oh, he you think
he's going to be like a good person and a
good father and he turns up like the worst, which
I guess I don't know. I don't think I ever
put it in my mind like that, but I suppose
it's supposed to be some kind of Oh. I think
he is meant to look like he could be a
good guy, but he's so creepy. Oh anyway, I feel
(31:51):
like he's a lot creepier in the game from John,
but immediately in the game, whereas in the show he's
like not as creepy and then oh god, worse. Yeah,
So this is speaking of. This has caused a lot
of conversation because some people are like, David was never
(32:12):
pedophilic in the game, and I told you the voice
actor who played him always intended for him to be
read that way, and it certainly can be read that way.
I think it was more overt in the show, but
it's not like it's there if they're in the game
as well, Like he does the whole like holding of
(32:34):
the hand scene, he does the whole like basically become
my wife thing with Ellie in the game as well.
I think, what really like watching it again, it really
like struck me as I hate. He has this line
where he was a teacher and he taught kids about
your age, so upsetting. But he also has a lot
of lines like I'm a decent man. You don't know
how good I am. You do need a father, Like
(32:55):
you said, I can protect you. It's mercy to protect her,
Like he's very much painting himself, like you need me
to protect you. But if you do anything wrong, anything
that is not like in my favor, what I think
you should do, then I'm going to do like the
very worst things, calling you the very worst things like
And there's definitely like again commentary, I think about the
(33:18):
whole like preacher father thing happening here. But he, I mean,
he's terrified. Like this scene where you're in the restaurant
in the game is one of the scariest things I've
ever played, because you it's burning down. He can hear
you stepping on glass. He's so much bigger than you.
(33:41):
He's got like this huge cleaver and you have to
sneak up on him and he's saying like these horrible things.
It's it's just like a really upsetting, upsetting scene. Well,
you're saying all this and we are all like, yeah,
this is her favorite gameal I know, we haven't really
fun idea to maybe compare us playing our favorite games,
(34:02):
which I think would be great. Well, so all of
(34:23):
this is juxtaphosed with yes, Jules waking up. He's realizing like,
oh no, Ellie is in trouble, and so he uses
the old map trick which we talked about in episode six.
He does that a couple of times where he has
somebody point to a spot on the map and then
the other person has to confirm it to make sure
(34:45):
that they're not lying. This like really horrendous torture scene,
and then him you know, struggling through to find her
and seeing those dead bodies, seeing her backpack away. And
I do think it's interesting that the previous episode no.
Episode six set up his anxiety and so much worry
(35:06):
of failure, whereas they didn't do that in the game,
Like he was definitely desperate and you could tell by
like how he tortured these men and killed them that
he was definitely desperate, but it didn't set up kind
of that like which I felt you could feel in
his performance of the oh God, I'm failing again and
here it is. But as all this is happening, we
(35:27):
see Ellie. Yeah, she gets he threatened. David threatens her
with sexual assaults. She gets the clever and just like
completely is screaming stabbing him over and over and over again,
which does happen in the game. And I saw the
(35:49):
next day a lot of people were like, this is
she should get an Emmy for this, this performance, and
it was very you know, I think the first time
I watched it, I was like, oh, so caught up
in but I have cried at other other watches because
it's so upsetting, Like it's so like seeing her so
visceral about it. It's so hurt. And he did have
(36:11):
that David did to have that conversation with her where
he's like, you've got a violent heart. I have one too.
I see you in me like I see me and
you and all of this really upsetting stuff that you
can tell is like getting in her head. And does
he say there's no fear in love, which is such
(36:32):
an upsetting, upsetting line. Um, but this was like, you know,
again Ellie didn't need saving. They did say in the
after the show thing like you know she it was
like an emotional saving but not like this, and I
do love she uses that infected trick. It's so smart
(36:57):
like that she was. It was a very show of
intelligence during a very horrific time when they're about to
chop her up into pieces and eat her. I love
the guy and Ellie Elliot is the girl who broke
your finger. That's one of my favorite lines, the little
girl who broke your finger, because he was so embarrassed,
like what am I going to tell the others? What
will I say? And she's like, oh, tell him? But
(37:19):
then you know, you have the line from the showrunner,
Craig Meisen, who was like, you know, as much as
we love her, we have to be a little scared
of her. And that is something I've said a million times.
Ellie is so she's got a lot of like curiosity
and innocence, and she's a child, and I think it's
important people remember she's a child, because I think they forget.
And I'll have more to say about that as well.
But she's terrifying, like I wouldn't mess with her. She
(37:42):
will kill you. She will kill you. And then yeah,
you do see kind of this is another example of trauma.
What does it take to survive in this world? And it,
as they said in that like aftershow thing, it scars
her in a way that forever changes her. It's kind
of like Riley when Riley died. This is the thing
(38:03):
that stay with her and this whole idea that they
are very very much hammering home of like Ellie having
this violent heart of being turning to violence or that's
the only way she can survive, or or things like that.
And again, just like Joel and the big thing that
happens here's you know, finally Joel calls her baby girl,
(38:25):
which is something that he called his daughter. He hasn't
used it for twenty years. This is the first time,
and that's just like the turning point of all He's
finally okay, this is like a daughter figure to me.
She clings to him. It's like I need some kind
of comfort. It's a very it's one of my favorite
scenes in the game. It's very upsetting, but it's very
(38:46):
well done. And you know, after again that kind of
whole talk about what I can't fail and seeing this
that's definitely definitely setting somethings up. I also want to
just call out the sets. This was really on point
with the game. It was very beautiful, slash terrifying, kind
(39:08):
of wintry landscape was really good. But yeah, that's it's
so funny because it's like only sixty minutes, but they
packed so much into the sixty minutes. It was full
of actions, very quick, it was. It was and so
many like there was a lot of like exclamations of disgust.
(39:29):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. It cost a lot of conversation.
I do have a couple of random things. One is,
did she lose her pun book in the game. She
doesn't lose her pun book, but he did not pick
up her backpack, so I don't know about that. I'm
sure they grabbed it. I hope so. And also, Samantha
(39:50):
and I took a BuzzFeed quiz, very legitimate, yes, BuzzFeed
quiz about what character we would be, and I got
frank oh and I was Tess, Okay, I'll excellent. Actually,
everyone I've talked to about this has gotten a different character.
That's interesting. Mum. I didn't mention in the previous episode
how important that Aha song is take on me to
(40:13):
the series, but just to mention that in there. Here's
my up next. If you don't want anything, I'm not
gonna spoil anything, but if you don't want anything, you
can you can click off and return. Next time, there
will be a certain animal appearance per hips. Maybe Ashley Johnson,
who I realized in the like previous episode, I just
(40:35):
said her name and didn't say anything else about her.
She's the voice actor of Ellie. Just know Ashley Johnson,
and she's somewhat infamous. She is a child actor that's
been around for a very very long time. She was
in very quickly for the original Avengers as a waitress.
But she is a very distinctive voice. Yes so, and
(40:57):
it's never like she's had it since childhood. Like there's
a very distinct way that you when you watch these
family sitcoms, you know you've heard this voice. Yes, yes,
and if you know after this ends and you're looking
for more kinds sometime or mentioned it before. But you
can see a lot of like them filming, and she
does the filming the games and she does the like
(41:18):
acting and body movements and everything. But it's really cool
to see her do it. And she's great. She's great.
Um yeah, apparently she's a huge d and yes, I know,
yes I do. Also, look, this is my vague hand.
I promise that they are setting some things up. Okay,
like they are really setting but yeah, it's the end
(41:42):
of the next episode. Is that's it? I know I
would cry. I know we will have another clip of that.
That's what you're into. No, it's gonna be oh my gosh,
it's gonna be great. But we hope that you have
been enjoying these You've watched the show, played the game,
none of the above, because we have. I have, definitely.
(42:05):
I hope we have loved doing that. Yes we have,
and I'll miss them. I'll miss them greatly. Um. But yes,
we will be back next week with our final litution.
In the meantime, if you would like to contact us,
you can Our email is stephaniea mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
(42:25):
Stuff Podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff Mom
Never Told You. Also, you can listen to us on
YouTube now if that's something you'd like. Things. As always
to our super producers Data, thank you and thanks to
you for listening. Stephane Never Told you His protection by
her radio. For more podcast on my heart Radio. You
can check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or where
you listen to your favorite shows.
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