March 18, 2023 • 51 mins
Look for the Light. In the finale of our Last of Us mini-series, we break down the heartbreaking decision at the heart of the final episode and its implications.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
Never told you a protection of iHeartRadio. And here we
come to the end of our season one. I'm gonna
say I'm already gonna say it, of our last of
(00:25):
US mini series. We'll be back. Oh yes, yo, I'm
so excited. All right, this one is the big one,
the big boy, as my friend Katie describes the Bloaters.
Because today we are talking about the finale, I have
a lot to say. I've been agonizing over it. Oh my,
(00:45):
it's gonna be all over the place, but it's gonna
be fun. And this outline has been prepared since day one. Yes, yes,
I think I might have even done it before i'd
seen one episode. I think I already had this. I
don't think you did, because we didn't know for sure
we were going to do this until episode one, that
is true, And I am going to talk about some
of the stuff I alluded to in that episode before
(01:06):
I knew we were going to do this. But I
think sometimes I just make outlines with the hope that
one day I'll get to talk about it. And this
is something I have a lot to say about, So
do a lot of people. So it's going to be
doing my outlines I just randomly, don't you I do.
So there will be spoilers for all nine episodes of
(01:31):
the Last of Us HBO Max series. The finale aired
on March twelfth, so if you haven't watched it yet,
put a pause, go and do it. They are not sponsors,
which is a mistakes. It's just tryvasty, just like the
one that happened in this episode. So this is something
(01:54):
that thanks to Samantha and her encouragement, we just decided
to do where a week after the most recent episode
comes out, we react to we recap to it and
react to it. And it has been replacing my Happy hours,
so that's bi weekly thing. I know, our schedule is
a bit of a mess. It comes to that one
(02:15):
on Saturday. Yes, but this is the final one, so well,
you will be returning to our regular schedule, I think,
maybe with more Last of Us content disguise this happy hour. Yeah,
you know, I like to do that, you know, I
like to do that. Yeah. So we are talking about
mainly the finale in this one, which was called Look
(02:37):
for the Lights, which is the title is a mirror
of the first episode when You're Lost in the darkness
with the title was the title of that one. Let
just look for the light. Because we have come full circle,
you can see our upcoming episode on Marlene, who is
very pivotal in this episode. It will have spoilers as well,
if you don't mind season two slash Game two spoilers
(02:59):
because they've announced season two and three. I believe the
episode we did on Women in Survival Horror has more
on some of the stuff I'm going to talk about,
probably put more eloquently because this is just kind of
me throwing thoughts and an outline. So also the episode
we did on Allie, but that one will spoil everything
for you, so I wouldn't recommend it if you don't
(03:20):
want any spoilers, but if you, if you do, it's
available to you. Yes, content horning for this one. Suicidality,
brief mention of that, violence particularly like child endangement perhaps,
but overall, yeah, violence and suicidality I think are the
big ones this one. Yes, yeah, yeah, And thanks to you.
(03:44):
Samantha is always for hosting these watch parties at your
your home. It was great, it was fun. The last
one was Saint Patrick's Day themed with a Korean splashed
and bear. It was delicious. It was delicious, and I
cried a whole time. But she cried the whole time.
(04:06):
She brought decorations like it did freak decorations. I was
so ready. Well, Samantha, can you give us your excellent recap?
All right? So it's a short episode, but it has
so much in it, and it opens up with what
we see as a woman rolling through the woods. We
get the back of our head. There was a lot
of controversies who is that during the interview. I knew
(04:28):
because I AMDB. Anyway, so as we are watching, it
turns out to be a woman who is very pregnant
running into a farmhouse, saying hello, I'm here. Where are you?
No one's there. She runs into a room, she locks
the door and then shoves a chair there. If we
hear that, she is obviously going into labor real struggles.
At the same time, we see a clicker or a zombie.
What are they are? A runner? What are they called?
(04:50):
I guess that was a clicker? Infected? Infected? Oh, just infected. Okay,
So they run in and she is having an epic battle.
We see a knife that we've seen before, hit hint
and then we see an epic stabbing of the neck
which we saw before as well, and then her sitting
there and realizing, oh god, she gave birth at the
same time, oh god, I got bitten on my leg.
(05:12):
She quickly cuts in milk cord and she is talking
to the baby, talking about how tough they are. It
turns out it's Ellie and yes, this is mom mom Anna,
who was played by Ashley Johnson. Yes she is significant.
We love her, we love her voice. As time goes on,
it grows dark. We see Marlene and obviously some fireflies
coming in, realizing that the doors locked, but get in
(05:32):
go upstairs, finding Anna sitting by herself with a baby,
and then Marlene realizes quickly that she has been bit.
And at that point Anna was like, Ellie, this is
my baby. Take her to give her to someone who
would care for her. She was not infected. I was
bitten after I cut the inblical cord. And then once
you take her, you must kill me because she has
(05:55):
bitten Marlene. And it turns out that Marlene Anna have
been friends all their lives and they've known each other forever.
Marlene just says she can't do it. She can't kill her,
but Anna's pleading. We turned back around, Marlene gives the
baby to another firefly. Marlene comes back and executes her essentially,
and we jump to present day when we see a
traumatized Ellie walking about and just obviously looking into the
(06:18):
distance as Joel is trying to tell it to her.
Obviously very different conversations now because he's being very caring
and over the top, like hey, hey, hey, hey, how
are you finding a chef boyardi cant of food, hoping
that she would get excited as well as Boggle, which
I don't think was in the it was in the
actual game, right, talking about how you know this is
the one thing that he would get beaten by he
(06:40):
can't play it very well, and he's she's obviously in
the distance. He's like, would you like that? She's like sure,
why not? Talks about the guitar that he found and
thinking of hell and her that hey, what if I
found one and teach you how to play the guitar.
She's still distracted, but she's like sure, sure, sure. So
they go onto getting closer to their place. They have
this whole thing about like, okay, we're here, what are
we gonna do. She's like, I know you want us.
(07:02):
You want me to go in, Let you in, go
to the top and look for and scour out around.
Blah blah blah. He makes a joe. He's like, no,
we're gonna go and cause a big explosion and just
to run everything down. She's like really, He's like no,
so fun times they go in. He says, I'm gonna
lift you up there send the ladder down. And this
is a part of the game, by the way, that's
(07:23):
the whole thing. So he pushes her up and she
throws down the ladder and she's like, oh my god,
just look at you have to come see this, and
he's freaking out. He's like, at least they put stay put.
And then he runs all the way up and she
comes to a giraffe. Yes, And it is a scene.
I do remember the scene in the game where they
find a giraffe and she's like, wow, they can't beat this. View.
(07:43):
It's a very sweet moment. She's kind of coming back
to herself, giggling and having a good time feeding this
giraffe and having a moment together. As they continue the journey,
he kind of talks about all his trauma and what
he has gone through and talks about the fact that
he had you know. They came to a barracks where
the army had set up a medical tent for those
(08:05):
that could be possibly infected, and she was trying to like, oh,
who would have used this? He was like, I used
this And she's like, oh, is this when you and
Sarah got injured? And he's like no after that, and
she's like, oh, when that dude missed you shooting you.
He's like, well yeah, and then he tells the whole
story about how he had actually tried to shoot himself,
missed and flinched and that's the first time he'd ever
done it and he didn't know why, but he doesn't
(08:27):
regret it now, and she's like, yeah, I don't regret
it either. I know why you told me to do
the story just to keep going, and he's like, no,
we just know that I'm here blah blah blah. So
it was really bought good bonding experience that I just
blah blah blah. But it's okay. As they keep going,
they're having a good conversation about how we don't have
to go here. You and I could just do our
own thing, go back to Tommy's and we can go home.
(08:48):
And she was like, I have to do this. This
is my purpose. What was the point of everybody sacrifice
if I don't do this. But after this, I'll go
anywhere with you. We can do be sheet farmers or whatever,
but I will go with you after we get this done.
So they check through it all of a sudden, no, no,
we see a bomb and he's like, oh no, let
me throw myself in front of her and both of
them kind of get knocked out and he's like Ellie, Ellie,
and someone comes over and he gets kicked in the
(09:09):
head and then push his lights around. Next thing we
sees he's waking up in the middle of the hossible
room and Marlene is there and he's like, what is
going on. She's like, calm down, calm down. My people
attack you. They didn't know who you were, but now
you're safe. And he's like, where's Ellie And he's like,
she's here. She's getting prepped for surgery. He's like, I
want to see her. She's like, no, you can't, and
(09:30):
then says that the doctor says, oh, we can probably
get a cure by doing these things because she is
immune and they think she's already got cortoceps and they're
gonna do with these things. And he's like, wait, the
cortesps live in the brain. She's like correct. And at
that point he's like, how dare you can't do this
it'll kill her. She's like, you know, we have to
do this. This is for the humanity. And at this
(09:50):
point we know that no one's talked to Ellie. She's like,
I didn't tell her anything. I didn't want her to worry.
Had just you know, let her do her thing all
this stuff. She's like, you know, I can't believe he
made it. This something fall are you know one of
the few? How did you do it? Good job? But
now that you've done it, we're going to get followed
through with this. And she has her people escort him
out with a bag and says that if he does anything,
(10:12):
shoot him. So obviously like yeah, this is a really
tense moment. So he gets escorted out and we see
him doing some things, scauting some things, and all of
a sudden doing his little thing and then killing all
the people's So he turns the gun and he goes
through with the entire hospital just mowing people down. Real growsome,
Real grows real sad and coming to find where Ellie
(10:34):
is in the operating room, where the doctor pulls up
his scaple and he's like, what are you doing in here?
And he's like, unhook her and he's like, I won't
let you take her. The doctor says this, in which
Joel's responses to shoot him in the head, which makes
everybody scream, and then he tells the nurses to unhook her.
He grabs her. While he tells the nurses to turn around,
he doesn't shoot them, which is unlike the game. He
(10:55):
does shoot them in the game. But as he carries
her out, we see her in the l Vader and
he's having a moment of like obviously like a lot
of heart and a lot of thoughts going through his head.
And then we as he gets to the car that
he has found, Marlene approaches him, trying to reason with him, saying,
you know, we can fix this, we can do this.
(11:16):
This has to happen, and he's like, you know, you
can't choose for her, and she's like, neither can you,
and then also saying, you know, this is what Ellie
would want, and you know, it's obvious this is what
Ellie wanted. Most likely, she would have wanted it even
if it did being her death, because she needed her
life to mean purpose. That's me reading into things whatever.
But as we continue on, they're having this back and
(11:36):
forth and he shoots Marlene. After Marline puts her gun down,
trying to be reasonable, runs to the car. Next thing
we see is him driving the truck with Ellie waking
up kind of drugged, and he's like, hey, hey, it's okay,
it's okay, you're with me. It's the drugs. It's the
drugs that she's like, what happened? And he was like,
you know, turns out there as others who had been
(11:57):
immune and nothing was working, so he just grabbed her
and he's like you know, and and they've got plenty
of more people to work with. It just doesn't work
where they don't need you. And she's like, well, did
anybody get hurt? And he's like yes, and then she's
like Marlene and he doesn't really respond, and then she's like,
why where's my clothes. He's like, well, raiders came throughs
or you know, we had to move real quickly and
(12:18):
I could barely get you out of there, and then
she just kind of after it and then she asked
the Marlene question. He doesn't answer, and she just kind
of rolls over and that's what we see. But come
back to the flashback and we realize that Marlene is
still alive after he shot her in the stomach and grunting,
and he's like, you know. She's like, you can You
don't have to do this, don't You don't have to
(12:39):
kill me, and he's like, you'll come after her if
I don't. So he shoots her, kills her dead, and
then we come back. Their car stalls out, and then
they are near the mountain. He's like, five hour hike,
we can do that. She's like, yes, we can do that.
And as they walk through they finally make it too.
He's talking about his daughter and about how much they
(13:00):
a lot would like each other and all these things.
It's very he's talking an awful lot, kind of like
he's talking out of guilt. And then right before they
hit they hit the village that you think and see
the town that is from the top and back. We
made it essentially, and before they get there, she was like,
I have to know you know, I want to tell
you about the first time I killed somebody, and she
(13:20):
talked about Riley, and then she was like, but I
need you to promise me, swear to me that what
you said to me about the fireflies was true, what
happened in the hospital was true. He goes, I swear,
and then she makes a face. She says, okay, ENSI. Oh.
There was a millent with a pun book. He was like,
I want more puns than Annie's favorite pun before they
(13:41):
get jumped was the grapes pun. He gave it at
three out of ten. Yeah. Yeah. And Annie's crying right now.
There's tears in her eye, dn't I tell you? Oh
my god. I want to say it's because of my
fantastic dramatic recap, but I believe it is. To start
thinking about it, it can be both think that was
(14:20):
a fantastic gramatic recap. Thank you Smith. It is interesting
because this is the shortest one, but the ending is
so pivotal, and there's so much to say about it
that they do pack in a lot in it. Um
they do. I feel it's very reminiscent of the game
because it goes which which which an end, But it
(14:41):
is impactful, but you're not gonna know why it's impactful
until season two. Yeah, that's part of the reason it
upsets me so much. I will have a few I
will have a few vacants to but no spoilers out all,
I promise. Um, yeah, but yeah, and it is in
the game. It is very very loyal to the game.
There are a few character differences that I have been
(15:02):
talking about. I'm going to talk about more in a second,
but like, pretty much that's what happens is like, after
this horrifying thing in Winter where Ellie goes is this
really traumatic experience, it cuts to Spring again. It's split
into seasons, and it just very quickly wraps up, like
to the point you're kind of shaken by it about
(15:23):
how quickly things go from oh, this could be a
hopeful ending to oh wow, what just happens? And as
you were kind of calling out, there were several callbacks
in this episode to earlier episodes. I think I'm pretty
sure Joel's wearing the same shirt at the end that
he was wearing like right at the beginning of the
(15:45):
outbreak in Boston. That can't deny that viewline five mile hike,
the guitar, the puns of course, Riley the chef Boyard,
and I feel like it was a really good way
to show this like journey that we've all been over
the past nine episodes. And I did want to call
out a few things before we get into the crux
(16:08):
of this, which is these choices made at the end.
One being Ashley Johnson, who played Anna, Ellie's mother. She
was amazing. She was amazing. We've said it before in
previous podcasts and episodes of this, but she was the
voice actor in motion capture person for Ellie. She kind
(16:31):
of like really embodied that role for a lot of
people became Ellie, and so when I was watching it,
you hear her voice and it's hard not to think
of Elliot first. But I do think they did a
really good job, and they talked about that with Bella Ramsey,
where that was one of the reasons they put the
scene in the game that in the show that is
not in the game. You don't see Anna giving birth
(16:53):
to Ellie, you don't see her dying, but kind of
this like playing the mother of the character sort of
giving birth to Allie and almost a passing up the torch.
But Bella Ramsey has become Ellie too in her own right. Like,
so I think they did like an excellent job with that.
But that was really really cool to see her, to
(17:15):
see her do it. Um. Also, no spoilers, but if
you know, you know pretty sure Abby wasn't in it,
you can see her. I've like it was an article. Yeah,
onn't you see it? You're like, oh, yeah, that was
probably her. Um. Also, the voice actor Laura Bailey is
(17:37):
one of the nurses at the end, so that's super
cool the voice actor of Abby. As I mentioned in
the last episode, one of my favorite things about this
section is how it starts. Where as you're saying Ellie
was very despondent, She's distant. I like that that she
doesn't just like bounce back from this horrible thing that's
(17:59):
happened to her and clearly impacts her and stays with her.
I do love this because I feel like I got
my TikTok friends, I got my Reddit friends. Katie, who
was part of our viewing parties, is my Reddit friend
one of them, and she was telling me about this
like really powerful thread she found about rape survivors who
(18:20):
found a lot of power in this depiction. Of Ellie,
So I thought that was really interesting. Through that, you
do see all of these instances of Joel trying to
cheer her up that are just kind of not working,
like she's playing along with it, but she's kind of
like um and the giraffe, it was a real giraffe.
(18:41):
It's so cool to see how they shot it. There
was some CGI, but it's a real giraffe. Oh, it's
so neat. And they were talking about how they had
to leave it in because it is one of those
like sweet scenes where you get to see Ellie still
have that kind of innocent curiosity that she has had,
and in the game you can watch that scene as
(19:03):
far as I know forever, like eventually the drafts leaves,
so you're just staring off into the distance. But you
have to make the choice to kind of as Joel,
to interrupt Ellie and be like, hey, we don't have
to do this if you don't want to do it,
and that's when Ellie has her like no, after everything
I've done, we have to see this through. But this
brings us to what I love. I have seen several
(19:26):
headlines calling it the great Joel Debate. Oh I love it,
and Bella Ramsey. We mentioned it previously, but she did
say she knew this was going to happen, as did
we who have played the game. It's it's been there,
but like a massive divide in the fan base about this.
It's kind of like the trolley problem but to the
(19:50):
nth degree. And I, well, I have a lot of
thoughts about it. I think that as I said in
the first episode, when I didn't know this was going
to be a series, I made the point that in
the final scene where you're making your way to Jackson
back to Tommy's after all of this violence has happened,
(20:12):
after Joel has lied to Ellie, you're playing as Ellie,
which I think is important that you're getting kind of
her POV. That they made that choice very deliberately, and
she's still very out of it, clearly wrestling with this
turn of events. But I just think that was purposeful
that they have that final scene that you're playing as her,
(20:34):
and it is one of the most haunting endings I've
ever played, Like it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
And they did that like that shot, it's just her face,
that's the final shot, and she's clearly like struggling with
what to do here and what to believe, and that
is that is a really big part of her story
as we've been talking about that survivor's guilt, and that's
(20:59):
when she's saying, you know, first it was Riley, and
then it was Tess, and then it was you know,
she's listing off all of these people who died specifically
from infected and her feeling like that's her fault. She
could she could fix this, that that is her fault,
(21:21):
and that is something she just struggles with so much.
And people, I'm telling you, people are interviewing philosophers, they're
interviewings that colleges, they're interviewing professors about this, about what
went down here, about what Joel did. And it does
(21:42):
go back to that question that they posed, we posed earlier,
and they posed earlier, and like the behind the scenes
of like what would you do for love? Like the
dark side of love? Taking it to the really far
and of that dark spectrum of love, like how many
will you kill? How many will you condemn? And one
of the things that keep going back to is that
(22:06):
I feel like there is also a conversation to be
had here around agency and loneliness and love because one
of the things I feel, and this is up for interpretation,
I know, but I feel like Joel he does love Ellie,
but I think he's more concerned about loneliness and what
(22:31):
will happen to him without her. I think a lot
of people, and I'm going to get into this in
a second, a lot of people try to really explain
his actions are like why they're they're okay, And a
lot of times it comes out always did it for love,
which is not an acceptable answer in my opinion. But
also I think there's also a layer of bit. I
think it's complex, but I do think he was really
(22:54):
there was a selfishness to it. I don't even know
if that's the right word. But he don't want to
be alone anymore. He didn't want to go through this
loss again. So it was that as well. And if
you go back and look at like the whole above me,
the way I want you to line with Bill and Frank,
and you know, Frank saying I've I've had a good life,
(23:17):
this is what I want, and Bill being devastated by that,
but ultimately doing as Frank wanted versus Ellie and Joel,
where I think Joel was too afraid to ask her
what she wanted. And you can bring in like she
is a child's I'm not saying he's her adult, but
she is a child who is traumatized, so she might
(23:38):
not make the healthiest decision. But also, who's making these
super healthy decisions in the apocalypse. I'm not sure anybody is.
But you also have, like you know in Bill's letter
where he's saying, this is what men like us do.
We fight to protect those we love, And it seems
(24:01):
like Jill sort of interpreted that in a way that
maybe wasn't what Bill exactly meant, kind of what he meant,
but not exactly what he meant because of what the
choice he made with Frank. But also if you look
at like Ellie and Riley and what happens when you
know they promise to die together versus Bill and Frank
(24:23):
versus Ellie and Joel, I think there's a lot of
interesting juxtapositions there. But I think this is where I
want to be very clear here, because I think this
is where my issue comes in is not even necessarily
the end, which I love the ending, but the fan
(24:45):
reaction to the ending, and especially in the gamer community,
because I do want to say I am talking a
lot about the game too, and maybe even more, and
I'll try to be clear about that, but that's where
a lot of my kind of like hesitation, like defensiveness
and anger comes up. And when I talk about it
is more the fan reaction to the ending than the
(25:07):
actual ending, which I like a lot. I think it's very,
very haunting, and I saw I saw a great article
that was like, it's not meant to be triumphants, It's
meant to be tragic, because I think a lot of
fans who played it felt triumphant at it, which I
don't think was intended at all. But you know, I
(25:27):
also think, as I was saying, a lot of people
do try to justify what Joel did. And there's some
plenty of good faith arguments, for sure, but they're plenty
of bad faith funds. I personally think the fight about
the vaccine miss is the point about whether or not
it would have worked. It's certainly implied that it would
have scientifically in our real world, I don't think so,
but it certainly implied definitely in the game that they
(25:50):
had run tests, they were pretty confident it was going
to work, So I think that misses the point. I
think if you're like going into outside like, well, I
don't know, because you know, in reality, in reality, even
though Courtceps could infect us, the likelihood is extremely small.
I hope that doesn't come back to bite me this
one day, but like, I don't. I don't think that
(26:11):
is like a good faith argument in my opinion, A
lot of people are trying to make it. I don't
think that's that's legit, because yeah, it's not. And I
remember I had this conversation with a good friend of
mine about it. You're not meant supposed to feel good
about what you've done at the end, at least that's
the vibe I got. You're supposed to be like, oh God,
(26:32):
what have I done? And people seem to be trying
to find these ways, especially as players of the game,
when you have been playing this character the whole time,
you are behind a lot of the actions that he
did as the player, that you try and find these
ways to make yourself feel better about what you just did,
which was like tragic. And I think another thing that
(26:54):
gets lost in this is we do see Joel change.
He does become you know, softer with Ellie. Like Kinder,
he's still very very violent that you do see him
become kind of this more caring person, but the fireflies
when he gets there, they have no way of knowing that,
(27:14):
like the last time they saw him, he was I'm
pretty sure he had killed some of their people, or
at very least was like violence towards some of their people.
And not to say that they weren't aggressors either, but
like they didn't have a good relationship, I guess what
I'm saying, And they'd seen him outright not want to
take Ellie, kind of throw her around in the show,
(27:35):
and so they don't know and he arrives, we do
as the viewers, and I get that can be hard
to separate, but they don't know that Marlene, you could argue,
especially in the game, has more claim to Ellie than
Joel does. But she does seem to sense and I've
been thinking of she kind of gets the understanding that
he does care about Ellie, and I think it's because
(27:56):
she's kind of taken aback that he went through all
of this effort to try across the country to get
her there, and so she has this sense of like, oh, Okay,
he's really grown grown to care about her, and a
lot of people, you know, say like they could have
just talked it out. I'm not sure. I personally don't think.
(28:17):
I mean, I think that could have been a good,
nice step, but I don't think anybody would have changed
their mind or it would have changed the action, as
(28:37):
we've been saying. Also throughout this, they did make Joel
softer in the show than in the game. They made
him more sympathetic, and in fact, somebody who doesn't who
I actually don't know, but I know through a friends
had just played the game, watched the first episode of
the show, and I'm like, wow, they made him so
much like nicer, So it's apparent. It's not just me,
(28:59):
it's apparent. And at the same time, they made Ellie
and Marlene harder, kind of harsher, which I think they
did for a lot of reasons, but one of the
big one is knowing this ending was going to be
so possibly very controversial, how are they going to stick
behind this character. There's also the whole conversation of him
(29:24):
of Joel replacing Sarah with Ellie, so at the end
when he's kind of comparing Ellie to Sarah and he
keeps making these like, oh, but you know, she was
a bit curlier than you. Not that that's a bad thing,
but you were like this, and she would have liked
you for this. Like it has that kind of vibe
if he's really trying to both both remember Sarah but
(29:46):
put Ellie in this role of being his daughter, and
that idea again of what would he do if he
lost another Sarah, if he loses Ellie, what he'll do
without her? And maybe in a way that is not
(30:06):
taking into account Ellie so much as compared to himself.
He is very traumatized about failing. In his mind, he
has failed. He failed Sarah, Tommy and Tess. So I
think that also got tied up in that. But you know,
as we said in that episode, episode six, he doesn't
have that conversation about like his anxiety around failing in
(30:27):
the game either. There's certainly the cycle of trauma. He
can't see past his own grief. But also, you know,
as I said before, the games do that so well,
and I think it show did it so well too.
But like when you see one character kills another character,
that character now has that trauma and they go on
(30:49):
to call us more trauma and then they go on
to call use more trauma. I do think and I
talked about this more and the Survival Women in Survival
Horror episode. I think that we do as a society
excuse men's trauma more easily, or like we accept what
they do because of trauma, like around violence and anger,
(31:09):
more easily, and I think Joel is certainly an example
of that. I haven't really dived into this with the show,
but in the game, absolutely absolutely, and people love Pedro Pascal,
so I would not be surprised at all. There's also
the juxtaposition which they hinted at in episode eight of
(31:31):
Ellie not really needing a father versus Joel realizing that
he does need a daughter, and that kind of coming
to a head, and that whole idea of the violent heart,
of Ellie having a violent heart, of Joel having this
violent heart, and we certainly saw that play out. There
is that around that discussion when he's talking about how
(31:53):
he almost took his own life and he flinched and
Ellie says, they said it behind the behind the episode
thing was, you know, Ellie thinks she's taken the lesson,
which is time heals all wounds, but Kagmis and the
show runner said, time fades people heal, and so Joel
(32:14):
is implying like Ellie has healed him, and again he
doesn't know what will happen if if she's gone. And
I also was kind of grappling with what do I
think about is he putting too much of his healing
on Ellie? Like I kind of get the message, but
it's also like he needs to do some he needs
(32:37):
to do some inner works. Yeah. Uh. And then I
think one of the biggest differences is how they portrayed Marlene,
which is interesting because she is like the same actress
in the game and the show. I don't think I
don't think she's like different too drastically. It's just more
(32:57):
of what they showed about her character to show versus
what they did in the game, because you do learn
a lot more about her in the game. She is
another example I think of women leading in these like
really difficult positions, because we saw that in episode two
with the scientists saying, you know, we've got to bomb everything,
realizing it's going to include her. We saw it kind
(33:18):
of with tests in the smaller sense of her kind
of trying to reign in Joel and his more violent tendencies,
And then you see Marline, who is having to make
this just horrendous choice when this is her best friend's
daughter and she was there when she was born and
promised to protect her and has been protecting her from
Afar and having being put in the position to make
(33:40):
that choice where it's waging that versus potentially the survival
of humanity. So I think my biggest thing is because
it does often evolve into who was right Marlene versus Joel.
I do think like you can see why they both
made their decision right, You can see what she made
her decision. You can also see that whole idea of her,
(34:03):
like experiencing loss, not being able to save the ones
you love. But I think she's thinking of it too
in terms of the pandemic, like what all the people
she's lost to this pandemic. What if there's a cure
you could save all of these people. It is pretty
clear that she knew Anna lied about like cutting the
umbilical cord before she got bitten, and kind of takes
(34:26):
the chance on Allie. But I do think people forget
that part of it too is people have lost, everyone
has but people have lost people to infected into the pandemic,
and that's one way to think about it. In the game,
she did save Joel, though Joel doesn't know that because
as if Fireflies, a lot of them wanted to just
kill him when he showed up because they didn't really
(34:47):
trust him. And I kind of wonder if one of
the reasons she acted the way she did is she
was worried he could talk her out of it, he
could talk her out of this decision, because in the game,
she's like, she doesn't she feels like she has no
choice at all. So she's the one that insists he
deserves no because he's the only other one who might
(35:10):
know what she's going But she's the one who insists
that Joel deserves to know, which is kind of tragic
given what happens. But she's very out of it, like
maybe he knows how I feel, and she didn't really
want to be alone. She's been struggling with all these
like feelings of inadequacy, of not being a good leader,
of depression. Again, if you've like just watched the show,
(35:31):
you're listening to this, like what they don't really show it,
but just to give you kind of some backstory of her.
And as we've said throughout this, like, there are no
easy answers in the Last of Us. That's kind of
the difficult thing is that there are no easy answers.
You'll leave feeling conflicted. And I'm pretty sure that's what
I'm pretty sure it was intended, the complexity and the nuance.
(35:53):
You'll lee feeling conflicted. It's this fan reaction where everybody
was like, oh, no, I love Joel though he did
the right thing. That kind of gives me anxiety. But yeah, again,
you get why people make the decisions they do because
they told these stories really well. You get the same
with Kathleen and Henry. You might not agree with the
(36:14):
decisions they make, but you get why they did. And
it is a hard proposition to base a whole game
on our story. Just protecting someone who is meant to be,
especially in this world, kind of the ultimate example of innocence.
And then you get to the end and you think
you've been doing that and it turns out you're delivering
(36:35):
her to her death. But I agree. I don't think
that Ellie would have wanted at all what Joel did.
She was struggling with survivor's guilt, so I think she
would have wanted to go through with the surgery, and
neither did ask Ellie what she'd want. I feel like
(36:59):
Marlene was like, you know what, we can wake her
up right now at the can ask her. But Joel
did not go through that didn't want to do that.
I think he knew, and Marley even said like, I
think you know it, and then Joel lies to Ellie,
like they build up this trust and then he lies
to her. I think it was more to protect himself
(37:20):
than her. Some people would I would disagree, but I
feel but maybe at least both are going on. But
he was definitely protecting himself, which breaks the trust. It
breaks the trust, and you can see it pretty clear,
like when she turns her back when he doesn't answer
about Marlene, and he does like, yeah, I think he knew.
That's why he couldn't tell her, and Ellie kind of
(37:42):
forces herself to believe this because the truth is too scary.
They did talk about in the behind the show thing
like the Link's parents go for their kids, the lies
they'll tell Marley and Angel two kids, the kind of
unconditional love of a parent that is this big thought experiment,
choosing one person you love over humanity. What would that
(38:03):
look like? I do like Pedro Pescal called it the
horror and the humanity of it, because you again you
get it, but you're like horrified by it that someone
could be capable of this in the name of something
that should be that we've been often shown to be
a good thing, like love and caring for a child.
I will say in the game, you don't, at least
(38:24):
I didn't. You don't want to kill the surgeon. In fact,
you can go through not have to kill too many
people in that final hospital stretch, but it's very difficult.
You have to kill the surgeon though it won't move
on until you do. And Neil Juckman, who is the
creator of the game, said, Joel would never have made
a different decision, and that's why they left that in there.
(38:44):
This is also why some of the gamers get mad.
It's like, well, my Joel would never have done that,
but you made me do it. But the fact is
Joel did it. It's also like how you did it
because if you go back to Tommy's Mine, he says,
you know, there were other ways we could have survived,
other than violence. We just weren't any good at them.
(39:06):
So this is kind of him, of Joel reverting back
into what he is good at, which is this violence,
because there are plenty of examples of people surrendering. As
you said, in the game, he does kill the nurses
as well. I love games that play with that formula
of making you question, like how games work and you know,
(39:27):
going back and looking at what you've done. I have
seen a lot of dudes defend Joel by saying basically
about Allie, like he stays her life, she should be grateful,
She should be thanking him, and the implication it is
almost like me, as Joel saved your life, he should
be thanking me. But these are games that make you
(39:47):
question your actions as a player and how games work
in general. And I think this show did a really
good job of again this is me. Maybe I felt
like capturing the horror of that part of watching something
unravel where you thought it was going to go this
way and then it doesn't, It goes not that way
(40:08):
at all. I do think that this story is more
nuanced than this, but it is still a pretty like
masculine coded way of surviving, Like it's a you know,
masculine dude protecting a young girl through violence, and it
is the apocalypse. But I do think, you know, ultimately
(40:31):
there are elements of that certainly, and there are yeah
fans who celebrate the ending because they see it as
the play of strength, which just like horrifies me. And
I've also I've said frequently like if you were playing
as Elliot, or if you were playing as Marline, which
I think for Marline's respect would be really cool because
she went through a lot of stuff to get over there,
(40:52):
would you feel the same way if they did that.
I don't think so. I think they wouldn't have gotten
the same like positive reaction if they had made this
choice that jolted and I will have more to say
about to that later. Yes. Also, like I think the
name is very fitting because the whole game they're kind
(41:15):
of looking for the light. There are a lot of
examples of like Ellie being in the light. I know
your partner pointed out in like episode two where there
she's on the kind of that mossy field and Joel
and Tests are in the darkness and Test kind of
takes a step forward to the light and Joel stays
back like that kind of looking for hope is a big,
big theme in it. And then you get there and
(41:36):
the fireflies are this like representative of hope, look for
the light, and you get there and it's just not
what you thought it was. And then what happens when
you lose that hope? What happens when you stop looking,
when you stop looking for the light, when you've given
up on hope altogether. And that's why the moth became
a big symbol of it, of like kind of always
chasing the light and then never ever ever being able
(41:58):
to find it. I will say they also gave Fedra
and the fireflies more complexity in this and more nuanced
because they I feel like in the first one, while
you didn't think the fireflies were perfect, they were much
more like Fedra is bad, fireflies are gold, whereas in
the show they were more quickly like Fedra's bad, but
(42:19):
it's not all bad, and fireflies are also bad but
not all bad. I mentioned in the last episode. I
have heard some complaints around, like I guess they like
it's too quick, it went too quickly. I think that
everything they cut out. I get why they cut it out,
(42:40):
because in a game, you have to quote do something.
I just feel like some people were just mad because
it didn't have literally everything from the game and the show.
But they are different mediums and there's reasons. I feel
like that I understood why things were cut out, and
there are reasons why things were added in. And I
(43:00):
did notice when I was looking through this, which didn't
surprise me. But the lowest rated episodes on IMDb are
the Queer ones. Yeah, I do have some stuff. When
we get to the second season, Um, that's She's ready.
(43:21):
And then I'm going to talk about because I know
some people like there's a lot of controversy good faith
in bad faith around that one. So I just know
that I know it, but well, we will talk about it.
(43:43):
I wanted to briefly go over some of my favorite
moments very quick. The performances were great. All the performances
were great. I loved Patre Pascal, I loved his anxiety speech.
I love Nico Parker storm read. I loved Belle Ramsay
and like when she has that massive breakdown, and eight
was amazing. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett so sweet, um
(44:08):
Lamar Johnson and cave On Woodwards, um As Henry and
Sam Verry moving, Gabriel, Luna, Routina Wesley, the voice actors
being on there was super cool. That was very very cool.
I loved the sets. I love the attention to detail.
I thought a lot of the shots were very beautiful.
Basically everybody that made it happen. I love the floaters
(44:30):
and the clickers. It sounds like just won the reward
for this show that you weren't involved so much. I
want to think, all the people, let me have my moment.
I love the music, which is also from the game,
but I also love the music they picked, like thepeesche
Mode very cool. Yeah. I loved like the opening of
(44:53):
the Apocalypse, the Bill and Frank thing, the puns, Henry
and Sam, I love Maria and Jackson them all, the draft,
the final shot, Oh my god. But mostly I loved
hanging out and sharing this with others. I loved hanging
out with you and having this experience. It was beautiful.
The joy for me outside of this show was the
(45:14):
excitement that you had. You looked like you were opening
presents on Christmas morning. Every day that you would come
over getting prepared, and you had to come in front
like before everyone else. And I felt like that was
for you to get into the environment of the house
so that you could acclamate people coming over. Is that
why you did this? That's what I felt like was
(45:36):
happening your excitement. It literally was like watching a kid
in the candy store for the first time. It was delightful.
You crying all through everyone like the episodes. And I
think Joey is going to put up a TikTok of
because I did record you throughout. I did a boomer thing,
which we were supposed to have completely diferent recording, but
(45:57):
then I came back with like recording you because you
were from Jump in the finale tears. It was phenomenal
and I looked over and I was like, well, damn,
she's read a deal. Love every part of that. Yeah,
and this the show was fantastic. I did love knowing
the behind the scenes. Thanks to you and your mini playthroughs, y'all.
(46:18):
She's played through this so many times, and she's done
it as if she is playing movies for other people,
like her family, her friends have come through to watch
her play. It's quite hilarious. And she's had my partner playing.
She could watch it like a movie as well. Like
the overall has been amazing. Oh and the FYI, did
you know that Bella Ramsay's scene where she comes out
(46:41):
to Pedro Pascal and like this almost happened was shot
before her actual kill scene, Like she had not even
done that emotional scene to come and react to it.
She reacted it before she even did it, Like that's
that caliber of acting. Holy crap like that. It wasn't
in like logical order for her to piece that together,
(47:02):
but it worked so well her flow. Have we talked
about it before, like she's gonna be winning Oscars soon
enough on her own, I'm sure. But yes, the joy
and you watching like it literally there's a New Girl
scene in which they talk about how much they love
watching someone else doing something else, and it goes from like,
is it's just I get it's much joy out of
(47:22):
this watching you watching this person watching this. It was
literally me watching me watching that. That's where I got
the joy was the show just watching you watching it? Well,
thank you. I appreciate so much that you shared it
with me. I offered up your home like I would
want it no other way. It better be with me
from now man. Yes, Oh my gosh, it was just
(47:48):
so nice. It was so fun. We did marathon it
and I recommend it. Um we did. And when we
say we, I mean her and I just walked in
and out all the time. And then I was supposed
to be doing other stuff but I got drawn in.
So but it's so good time. I just feel like
the book now that it's over, I needed like a it.
(48:09):
But it'll never be over for you, that's true. I'm
going to start the second game soon. Um, it's not
a call. And Jerry, I know this. It's kind of
like haphazard, just my thoughts all over the place. When
I tell you, I was lying awake at night trying
to think of like ways to phrase this. I just
don't want to turn it into too much of a thing.
But I might come back and like really lay it
(48:31):
out because people are fighting about this. A lot of
ways are funny. But I mean, I think we need
to do a spoiler Saturday about Last of Us two
and you can go into your theories of what's coming
and so that. Oh I can't Christina would have to
edit it. Who is watching it? So never mind? How
do we do this? We need to find in it.
Let's like Ramsey, who has been a part of our viewing, um,
(48:54):
he would have some fun. It's gonna cut and past
the make you look really bad just for his own sake. Yes, yes,
And I mean I've just had such a good time
sharing this with you two listeners of like people have
written in and even if you haven't watched it or
played it, and kind of having this thing where I
(49:14):
got to really just explode passion about something that I love,
and I do everything that you love has issues. And
I have talked about him in previous episodes, but this
is kind of more like I touched on some here,
but this was much more a love letter. But just
now those exists, I can point you in there in
(49:35):
their direction. I have a lot to say about the
Last of Us. And if you watched the making of
on HBO, which again and not a sponsor, if you
wait till like the very end, they do kind of
a in credit scene and then it cuts to Neil
Juckman and he's like, that's the end of the story,
(49:58):
and then it announces last of the season too, coming soon.
I also love they put this line in there, like
you've come to an end and you don't know what
to do next. Yes, I know I've come to an end.
I'm playing the second one, yes, but yes, we will
see you next time whenever that will be where I do.
I have a lot to say. And if you think
(50:18):
you're conflicted after this one, oh my goodness, I cannot wait.
I don't know if you're read. I don't know, I
don't know if you're ready. But thank you, yeah for
those of you who are like, this was so sad.
The second I'm making a face, I'm just making a
face as twice the opportunity for sadness and it makes
(50:42):
use of it. So thank you, thank you, thank you
to everybody. You can write to us at Stephanie a
Mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at momst podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok,
or you can see some of my crying about the
last of us videos trying at stuff Mom Never Told
(51:02):
You. You You can also find us on YouTube. Thanks as
always too, our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey. Yeah. Thank you, yes, thank you
so much for making all this happen, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told Us production of
I Heart Radio for More podcast for my heart Radio.
You can check out there Heartradio, ap Apple Podcast, wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
Never told you a protection of iHeartRadio. And here we
come to the end of our season one. I'm gonna
say I'm already gonna say it, of our last of
(00:25):
US mini series. We'll be back. Oh yes, yo, I'm
so excited. All right, this one is the big one,
the big boy, as my friend Katie describes the Bloaters.
Because today we are talking about the finale, I have
a lot to say. I've been agonizing over it. Oh my,
(00:45):
it's gonna be all over the place, but it's gonna
be fun. And this outline has been prepared since day one. Yes, yes,
I think I might have even done it before i'd
seen one episode. I think I already had this. I
don't think you did, because we didn't know for sure
we were going to do this until episode one, that
is true, And I am going to talk about some
of the stuff I alluded to in that episode before
(01:06):
I knew we were going to do this. But I
think sometimes I just make outlines with the hope that
one day I'll get to talk about it. And this
is something I have a lot to say about, So
do a lot of people. So it's going to be
doing my outlines I just randomly, don't you I do.
So there will be spoilers for all nine episodes of
(01:31):
the Last of Us HBO Max series. The finale aired
on March twelfth, so if you haven't watched it yet,
put a pause, go and do it. They are not sponsors,
which is a mistakes. It's just tryvasty, just like the
one that happened in this episode. So this is something
(01:54):
that thanks to Samantha and her encouragement, we just decided
to do where a week after the most recent episode
comes out, we react to we recap to it and
react to it. And it has been replacing my Happy hours,
so that's bi weekly thing. I know, our schedule is
a bit of a mess. It comes to that one
(02:15):
on Saturday. Yes, but this is the final one, so well,
you will be returning to our regular schedule, I think,
maybe with more Last of Us content disguise this happy hour. Yeah,
you know, I like to do that, you know, I
like to do that. Yeah. So we are talking about
mainly the finale in this one, which was called Look
(02:37):
for the Lights, which is the title is a mirror
of the first episode when You're Lost in the darkness
with the title was the title of that one. Let
just look for the light. Because we have come full circle,
you can see our upcoming episode on Marlene, who is
very pivotal in this episode. It will have spoilers as well,
if you don't mind season two slash Game two spoilers
(02:59):
because they've announced season two and three. I believe the
episode we did on Women in Survival Horror has more
on some of the stuff I'm going to talk about,
probably put more eloquently because this is just kind of
me throwing thoughts and an outline. So also the episode
we did on Allie, but that one will spoil everything
for you, so I wouldn't recommend it if you don't
(03:20):
want any spoilers, but if you, if you do, it's
available to you. Yes, content horning for this one. Suicidality,
brief mention of that, violence particularly like child endangement perhaps,
but overall, yeah, violence and suicidality I think are the
big ones this one. Yes, yeah, yeah, And thanks to you.
(03:44):
Samantha is always for hosting these watch parties at your
your home. It was great, it was fun. The last
one was Saint Patrick's Day themed with a Korean splashed
and bear. It was delicious. It was delicious, and I
cried a whole time. But she cried the whole time.
(04:06):
She brought decorations like it did freak decorations. I was
so ready. Well, Samantha, can you give us your excellent recap?
All right? So it's a short episode, but it has
so much in it, and it opens up with what
we see as a woman rolling through the woods. We
get the back of our head. There was a lot
of controversies who is that during the interview. I knew
(04:28):
because I AMDB. Anyway, so as we are watching, it
turns out to be a woman who is very pregnant
running into a farmhouse, saying hello, I'm here. Where are you?
No one's there. She runs into a room, she locks
the door and then shoves a chair there. If we
hear that, she is obviously going into labor real struggles.
At the same time, we see a clicker or a zombie.
What are they are? A runner? What are they called?
(04:50):
I guess that was a clicker? Infected? Infected? Oh, just infected. Okay,
So they run in and she is having an epic battle.
We see a knife that we've seen before, hit hint
and then we see an epic stabbing of the neck
which we saw before as well, and then her sitting
there and realizing, oh god, she gave birth at the
same time, oh god, I got bitten on my leg.
(05:12):
She quickly cuts in milk cord and she is talking
to the baby, talking about how tough they are. It
turns out it's Ellie and yes, this is mom mom Anna,
who was played by Ashley Johnson. Yes she is significant.
We love her, we love her voice. As time goes on,
it grows dark. We see Marlene and obviously some fireflies
coming in, realizing that the doors locked, but get in
(05:32):
go upstairs, finding Anna sitting by herself with a baby,
and then Marlene realizes quickly that she has been bit.
And at that point Anna was like, Ellie, this is
my baby. Take her to give her to someone who
would care for her. She was not infected. I was
bitten after I cut the inblical cord. And then once
you take her, you must kill me because she has
(05:55):
bitten Marlene. And it turns out that Marlene Anna have
been friends all their lives and they've known each other forever.
Marlene just says she can't do it. She can't kill her,
but Anna's pleading. We turned back around, Marlene gives the
baby to another firefly. Marlene comes back and executes her essentially,
and we jump to present day when we see a
traumatized Ellie walking about and just obviously looking into the
(06:18):
distance as Joel is trying to tell it to her.
Obviously very different conversations now because he's being very caring
and over the top, like hey, hey, hey, hey, how
are you finding a chef boyardi cant of food, hoping
that she would get excited as well as Boggle, which
I don't think was in the it was in the
actual game, right, talking about how you know this is
the one thing that he would get beaten by he
(06:40):
can't play it very well, and he's she's obviously in
the distance. He's like, would you like that? She's like sure,
why not? Talks about the guitar that he found and
thinking of hell and her that hey, what if I
found one and teach you how to play the guitar.
She's still distracted, but she's like sure, sure, sure. So
they go onto getting closer to their place. They have
this whole thing about like, okay, we're here, what are
we gonna do. She's like, I know you want us.
(07:02):
You want me to go in, Let you in, go
to the top and look for and scour out around.
Blah blah blah. He makes a joe. He's like, no,
we're gonna go and cause a big explosion and just
to run everything down. She's like really, He's like no,
so fun times they go in. He says, I'm gonna
lift you up there send the ladder down. And this
is a part of the game, by the way, that's
(07:23):
the whole thing. So he pushes her up and she
throws down the ladder and she's like, oh my god,
just look at you have to come see this, and
he's freaking out. He's like, at least they put stay put.
And then he runs all the way up and she
comes to a giraffe. Yes, And it is a scene.
I do remember the scene in the game where they
find a giraffe and she's like, wow, they can't beat this. View.
(07:43):
It's a very sweet moment. She's kind of coming back
to herself, giggling and having a good time feeding this
giraffe and having a moment together. As they continue the journey,
he kind of talks about all his trauma and what
he has gone through and talks about the fact that
he had you know. They came to a barracks where
the army had set up a medical tent for those
(08:05):
that could be possibly infected, and she was trying to like, oh,
who would have used this? He was like, I used
this And she's like, oh, is this when you and
Sarah got injured? And he's like no after that, and
she's like, oh, when that dude missed you shooting you.
He's like, well yeah, and then he tells the whole
story about how he had actually tried to shoot himself,
missed and flinched and that's the first time he'd ever
done it and he didn't know why, but he doesn't
(08:27):
regret it now, and she's like, yeah, I don't regret
it either. I know why you told me to do
the story just to keep going, and he's like, no,
we just know that I'm here blah blah blah. So
it was really bought good bonding experience that I just
blah blah blah. But it's okay. As they keep going,
they're having a good conversation about how we don't have
to go here. You and I could just do our
own thing, go back to Tommy's and we can go home.
(08:48):
And she was like, I have to do this. This
is my purpose. What was the point of everybody sacrifice
if I don't do this. But after this, I'll go
anywhere with you. We can do be sheet farmers or whatever,
but I will go with you after we get this done.
So they check through it all of a sudden, no, no,
we see a bomb and he's like, oh no, let
me throw myself in front of her and both of
them kind of get knocked out and he's like Ellie, Ellie,
and someone comes over and he gets kicked in the
(09:09):
head and then push his lights around. Next thing we
sees he's waking up in the middle of the hossible
room and Marlene is there and he's like, what is
going on. She's like, calm down, calm down. My people
attack you. They didn't know who you were, but now
you're safe. And he's like, where's Ellie And he's like,
she's here. She's getting prepped for surgery. He's like, I
want to see her. She's like, no, you can't, and
(09:30):
then says that the doctor says, oh, we can probably
get a cure by doing these things because she is
immune and they think she's already got cortoceps and they're
gonna do with these things. And he's like, wait, the
cortesps live in the brain. She's like correct. And at
that point he's like, how dare you can't do this
it'll kill her. She's like, you know, we have to
do this. This is for the humanity. And at this
(09:50):
point we know that no one's talked to Ellie. She's like,
I didn't tell her anything. I didn't want her to worry.
Had just you know, let her do her thing all
this stuff. She's like, you know, I can't believe he
made it. This something fall are you know one of
the few? How did you do it? Good job? But
now that you've done it, we're going to get followed
through with this. And she has her people escort him
out with a bag and says that if he does anything,
(10:12):
shoot him. So obviously like yeah, this is a really
tense moment. So he gets escorted out and we see
him doing some things, scauting some things, and all of
a sudden doing his little thing and then killing all
the people's So he turns the gun and he goes
through with the entire hospital just mowing people down. Real growsome,
Real grows real sad and coming to find where Ellie
(10:34):
is in the operating room, where the doctor pulls up
his scaple and he's like, what are you doing in here?
And he's like, unhook her and he's like, I won't
let you take her. The doctor says this, in which
Joel's responses to shoot him in the head, which makes
everybody scream, and then he tells the nurses to unhook her.
He grabs her. While he tells the nurses to turn around,
he doesn't shoot them, which is unlike the game. He
(10:55):
does shoot them in the game. But as he carries
her out, we see her in the l Vader and
he's having a moment of like obviously like a lot
of heart and a lot of thoughts going through his head.
And then we as he gets to the car that
he has found, Marlene approaches him, trying to reason with him, saying,
you know, we can fix this, we can do this.
(11:16):
This has to happen, and he's like, you know, you
can't choose for her, and she's like, neither can you,
and then also saying, you know, this is what Ellie
would want, and you know, it's obvious this is what
Ellie wanted. Most likely, she would have wanted it even
if it did being her death, because she needed her
life to mean purpose. That's me reading into things whatever.
But as we continue on, they're having this back and
(11:36):
forth and he shoots Marlene. After Marline puts her gun down,
trying to be reasonable, runs to the car. Next thing
we see is him driving the truck with Ellie waking
up kind of drugged, and he's like, hey, hey, it's okay,
it's okay, you're with me. It's the drugs. It's the
drugs that she's like, what happened? And he was like,
you know, turns out there as others who had been
(11:57):
immune and nothing was working, so he just grabbed her
and he's like you know, and and they've got plenty
of more people to work with. It just doesn't work
where they don't need you. And she's like, well, did
anybody get hurt? And he's like yes, and then she's
like Marlene and he doesn't really respond, and then she's like,
why where's my clothes. He's like, well, raiders came throughs
or you know, we had to move real quickly and
(12:18):
I could barely get you out of there, and then
she just kind of after it and then she asked
the Marlene question. He doesn't answer, and she just kind
of rolls over and that's what we see. But come
back to the flashback and we realize that Marlene is
still alive after he shot her in the stomach and grunting,
and he's like, you know. She's like, you can You
don't have to do this, don't You don't have to
(12:39):
kill me, and he's like, you'll come after her if
I don't. So he shoots her, kills her dead, and
then we come back. Their car stalls out, and then
they are near the mountain. He's like, five hour hike,
we can do that. She's like, yes, we can do that.
And as they walk through they finally make it too.
He's talking about his daughter and about how much they
(13:00):
a lot would like each other and all these things.
It's very he's talking an awful lot, kind of like
he's talking out of guilt. And then right before they
hit they hit the village that you think and see
the town that is from the top and back. We
made it essentially, and before they get there, she was like,
I have to know you know, I want to tell
you about the first time I killed somebody, and she
(13:20):
talked about Riley, and then she was like, but I
need you to promise me, swear to me that what
you said to me about the fireflies was true, what
happened in the hospital was true. He goes, I swear,
and then she makes a face. She says, okay, ENSI. Oh.
There was a millent with a pun book. He was like,
I want more puns than Annie's favorite pun before they
(13:41):
get jumped was the grapes pun. He gave it at
three out of ten. Yeah. Yeah. And Annie's crying right now.
There's tears in her eye, dn't I tell you? Oh
my god. I want to say it's because of my
fantastic dramatic recap, but I believe it is. To start
thinking about it, it can be both think that was
(14:20):
a fantastic gramatic recap. Thank you Smith. It is interesting
because this is the shortest one, but the ending is
so pivotal, and there's so much to say about it
that they do pack in a lot in it. Um
they do. I feel it's very reminiscent of the game
because it goes which which which an end, But it
(14:41):
is impactful, but you're not gonna know why it's impactful
until season two. Yeah, that's part of the reason it
upsets me so much. I will have a few I
will have a few vacants to but no spoilers out all,
I promise. Um, yeah, but yeah, and it is in
the game. It is very very loyal to the game.
There are a few character differences that I have been
(15:02):
talking about. I'm going to talk about more in a second,
but like, pretty much that's what happens is like, after
this horrifying thing in Winter where Ellie goes is this
really traumatic experience, it cuts to Spring again. It's split
into seasons, and it just very quickly wraps up, like
to the point you're kind of shaken by it about
(15:23):
how quickly things go from oh, this could be a
hopeful ending to oh wow, what just happens? And as
you were kind of calling out, there were several callbacks
in this episode to earlier episodes. I think I'm pretty
sure Joel's wearing the same shirt at the end that
he was wearing like right at the beginning of the
(15:45):
outbreak in Boston. That can't deny that viewline five mile hike,
the guitar, the puns of course, Riley the chef Boyard,
and I feel like it was a really good way
to show this like journey that we've all been over
the past nine episodes. And I did want to call
out a few things before we get into the crux
(16:08):
of this, which is these choices made at the end.
One being Ashley Johnson, who played Anna, Ellie's mother. She
was amazing. She was amazing. We've said it before in
previous podcasts and episodes of this, but she was the
voice actor in motion capture person for Ellie. She kind
(16:31):
of like really embodied that role for a lot of
people became Ellie, and so when I was watching it,
you hear her voice and it's hard not to think
of Elliot first. But I do think they did a
really good job, and they talked about that with Bella Ramsey,
where that was one of the reasons they put the
scene in the game that in the show that is
not in the game. You don't see Anna giving birth
(16:53):
to Ellie, you don't see her dying, but kind of
this like playing the mother of the character sort of
giving birth to Allie and almost a passing up the torch.
But Bella Ramsey has become Ellie too in her own right. Like,
so I think they did like an excellent job with that.
But that was really really cool to see her, to
(17:15):
see her do it. Um. Also, no spoilers, but if
you know, you know pretty sure Abby wasn't in it,
you can see her. I've like it was an article. Yeah,
onn't you see it? You're like, oh, yeah, that was
probably her. Um. Also, the voice actor Laura Bailey is
(17:37):
one of the nurses at the end, so that's super
cool the voice actor of Abby. As I mentioned in
the last episode, one of my favorite things about this
section is how it starts. Where as you're saying Ellie
was very despondent, She's distant. I like that that she
doesn't just like bounce back from this horrible thing that's
(17:59):
happened to her and clearly impacts her and stays with her.
I do love this because I feel like I got
my TikTok friends, I got my Reddit friends. Katie, who
was part of our viewing parties, is my Reddit friend
one of them, and she was telling me about this
like really powerful thread she found about rape survivors who
(18:20):
found a lot of power in this depiction. Of Ellie,
So I thought that was really interesting. Through that, you
do see all of these instances of Joel trying to
cheer her up that are just kind of not working,
like she's playing along with it, but she's kind of
like um and the giraffe, it was a real giraffe.
(18:41):
It's so cool to see how they shot it. There
was some CGI, but it's a real giraffe. Oh, it's
so neat. And they were talking about how they had
to leave it in because it is one of those
like sweet scenes where you get to see Ellie still
have that kind of innocent curiosity that she has had,
and in the game you can watch that scene as
(19:03):
far as I know forever, like eventually the drafts leaves,
so you're just staring off into the distance. But you
have to make the choice to kind of as Joel,
to interrupt Ellie and be like, hey, we don't have
to do this if you don't want to do it,
and that's when Ellie has her like no, after everything
I've done, we have to see this through. But this
brings us to what I love. I have seen several
(19:26):
headlines calling it the great Joel Debate. Oh I love it,
and Bella Ramsey. We mentioned it previously, but she did
say she knew this was going to happen, as did
we who have played the game. It's it's been there,
but like a massive divide in the fan base about this.
It's kind of like the trolley problem but to the
(19:50):
nth degree. And I, well, I have a lot of
thoughts about it. I think that as I said in
the first episode, when I didn't know this was going
to be a series, I made the point that in
the final scene where you're making your way to Jackson
back to Tommy's after all of this violence has happened,
(20:12):
after Joel has lied to Ellie, you're playing as Ellie,
which I think is important that you're getting kind of
her POV. That they made that choice very deliberately, and
she's still very out of it, clearly wrestling with this
turn of events. But I just think that was purposeful
that they have that final scene that you're playing as her,
(20:34):
and it is one of the most haunting endings I've
ever played, Like it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
And they did that like that shot, it's just her face,
that's the final shot, and she's clearly like struggling with
what to do here and what to believe, and that
is that is a really big part of her story
as we've been talking about that survivor's guilt, and that's
(20:59):
when she's saying, you know, first it was Riley, and
then it was Tess, and then it was you know,
she's listing off all of these people who died specifically
from infected and her feeling like that's her fault. She
could she could fix this, that that is her fault,
(21:21):
and that is something she just struggles with so much.
And people, I'm telling you, people are interviewing philosophers, they're
interviewings that colleges, they're interviewing professors about this, about what
went down here, about what Joel did. And it does
(21:42):
go back to that question that they posed, we posed earlier,
and they posed earlier, and like the behind the scenes
of like what would you do for love? Like the
dark side of love? Taking it to the really far
and of that dark spectrum of love, like how many
will you kill? How many will you condemn? And one
of the things that keep going back to is that
(22:06):
I feel like there is also a conversation to be
had here around agency and loneliness and love because one
of the things I feel, and this is up for interpretation,
I know, but I feel like Joel he does love Ellie,
but I think he's more concerned about loneliness and what
(22:31):
will happen to him without her. I think a lot
of people, and I'm going to get into this in
a second, a lot of people try to really explain
his actions are like why they're they're okay, And a
lot of times it comes out always did it for love,
which is not an acceptable answer in my opinion. But
also I think there's also a layer of bit. I
think it's complex, but I do think he was really
(22:54):
there was a selfishness to it. I don't even know
if that's the right word. But he don't want to
be alone anymore. He didn't want to go through this
loss again. So it was that as well. And if
you go back and look at like the whole above me,
the way I want you to line with Bill and Frank,
and you know, Frank saying I've I've had a good life,
(23:17):
this is what I want, and Bill being devastated by that,
but ultimately doing as Frank wanted versus Ellie and Joel,
where I think Joel was too afraid to ask her
what she wanted. And you can bring in like she
is a child's I'm not saying he's her adult, but
she is a child who is traumatized, so she might
(23:38):
not make the healthiest decision. But also, who's making these
super healthy decisions in the apocalypse. I'm not sure anybody is.
But you also have, like you know in Bill's letter
where he's saying, this is what men like us do.
We fight to protect those we love, And it seems
(24:01):
like Jill sort of interpreted that in a way that
maybe wasn't what Bill exactly meant, kind of what he meant,
but not exactly what he meant because of what the
choice he made with Frank. But also if you look
at like Ellie and Riley and what happens when you
know they promise to die together versus Bill and Frank
(24:23):
versus Ellie and Joel, I think there's a lot of
interesting juxtapositions there. But I think this is where I
want to be very clear here, because I think this
is where my issue comes in is not even necessarily
the end, which I love the ending, but the fan
(24:45):
reaction to the ending, and especially in the gamer community,
because I do want to say I am talking a
lot about the game too, and maybe even more, and
I'll try to be clear about that, but that's where
a lot of my kind of like hesitation, like defensiveness
and anger comes up. And when I talk about it
is more the fan reaction to the ending than the
(25:07):
actual ending, which I like a lot. I think it's very,
very haunting, and I saw I saw a great article
that was like, it's not meant to be triumphants, It's
meant to be tragic, because I think a lot of
fans who played it felt triumphant at it, which I
don't think was intended at all. But you know, I
(25:27):
also think, as I was saying, a lot of people
do try to justify what Joel did. And there's some
plenty of good faith arguments, for sure, but they're plenty
of bad faith funds. I personally think the fight about
the vaccine miss is the point about whether or not
it would have worked. It's certainly implied that it would
have scientifically in our real world, I don't think so,
but it certainly implied definitely in the game that they
(25:50):
had run tests, they were pretty confident it was going
to work, So I think that misses the point. I
think if you're like going into outside like, well, I
don't know, because you know, in reality, in reality, even
though Courtceps could infect us, the likelihood is extremely small.
I hope that doesn't come back to bite me this
one day, but like, I don't. I don't think that
(26:11):
is like a good faith argument in my opinion, A
lot of people are trying to make it. I don't
think that's that's legit, because yeah, it's not. And I
remember I had this conversation with a good friend of
mine about it. You're not meant supposed to feel good
about what you've done at the end, at least that's
the vibe I got. You're supposed to be like, oh God,
(26:32):
what have I done? And people seem to be trying
to find these ways, especially as players of the game,
when you have been playing this character the whole time,
you are behind a lot of the actions that he
did as the player, that you try and find these
ways to make yourself feel better about what you just did,
which was like tragic. And I think another thing that
(26:54):
gets lost in this is we do see Joel change.
He does become you know, softer with Ellie. Like Kinder,
he's still very very violent that you do see him
become kind of this more caring person, but the fireflies
when he gets there, they have no way of knowing that,
(27:14):
like the last time they saw him, he was I'm
pretty sure he had killed some of their people, or
at very least was like violence towards some of their people.
And not to say that they weren't aggressors either, but
like they didn't have a good relationship, I guess what
I'm saying, And they'd seen him outright not want to
take Ellie, kind of throw her around in the show,
(27:35):
and so they don't know and he arrives, we do
as the viewers, and I get that can be hard
to separate, but they don't know that Marlene, you could argue,
especially in the game, has more claim to Ellie than
Joel does. But she does seem to sense and I've
been thinking of she kind of gets the understanding that
he does care about Ellie, and I think it's because
(27:56):
she's kind of taken aback that he went through all
of this effort to try across the country to get
her there, and so she has this sense of like, oh, Okay,
he's really grown grown to care about her, and a
lot of people, you know, say like they could have
just talked it out. I'm not sure. I personally don't think.
(28:17):
I mean, I think that could have been a good,
nice step, but I don't think anybody would have changed
their mind or it would have changed the action, as
(28:37):
we've been saying. Also throughout this, they did make Joel
softer in the show than in the game. They made
him more sympathetic, and in fact, somebody who doesn't who
I actually don't know, but I know through a friends
had just played the game, watched the first episode of
the show, and I'm like, wow, they made him so
much like nicer, So it's apparent. It's not just me,
(28:59):
it's apparent. And at the same time, they made Ellie
and Marlene harder, kind of harsher, which I think they
did for a lot of reasons, but one of the
big one is knowing this ending was going to be
so possibly very controversial, how are they going to stick
behind this character. There's also the whole conversation of him
(29:24):
of Joel replacing Sarah with Ellie, so at the end
when he's kind of comparing Ellie to Sarah and he
keeps making these like, oh, but you know, she was
a bit curlier than you. Not that that's a bad thing,
but you were like this, and she would have liked
you for this. Like it has that kind of vibe
if he's really trying to both both remember Sarah but
(29:46):
put Ellie in this role of being his daughter, and
that idea again of what would he do if he
lost another Sarah, if he loses Ellie, what he'll do
without her? And maybe in a way that is not
(30:06):
taking into account Ellie so much as compared to himself.
He is very traumatized about failing. In his mind, he
has failed. He failed Sarah, Tommy and Tess. So I
think that also got tied up in that. But you know,
as we said in that episode, episode six, he doesn't
have that conversation about like his anxiety around failing in
(30:27):
the game either. There's certainly the cycle of trauma. He
can't see past his own grief. But also, you know,
as I said before, the games do that so well,
and I think it show did it so well too.
But like when you see one character kills another character,
that character now has that trauma and they go on
(30:49):
to call us more trauma and then they go on
to call use more trauma. I do think and I
talked about this more and the Survival Women in Survival
Horror episode. I think that we do as a society
excuse men's trauma more easily, or like we accept what
they do because of trauma, like around violence and anger,
(31:09):
more easily, and I think Joel is certainly an example
of that. I haven't really dived into this with the show,
but in the game, absolutely absolutely, and people love Pedro Pascal,
so I would not be surprised at all. There's also
the juxtaposition which they hinted at in episode eight of
(31:31):
Ellie not really needing a father versus Joel realizing that
he does need a daughter, and that kind of coming
to a head, and that whole idea of the violent heart,
of Ellie having a violent heart, of Joel having this
violent heart, and we certainly saw that play out. There
is that around that discussion when he's talking about how
(31:53):
he almost took his own life and he flinched and
Ellie says, they said it behind the behind the episode
thing was, you know, Ellie thinks she's taken the lesson,
which is time heals all wounds, but Kagmis and the
show runner said, time fades people heal, and so Joel
(32:14):
is implying like Ellie has healed him, and again he
doesn't know what will happen if if she's gone. And
I also was kind of grappling with what do I
think about is he putting too much of his healing
on Ellie? Like I kind of get the message, but
it's also like he needs to do some he needs
(32:37):
to do some inner works. Yeah. Uh. And then I
think one of the biggest differences is how they portrayed Marlene,
which is interesting because she is like the same actress
in the game and the show. I don't think I
don't think she's like different too drastically. It's just more
(32:57):
of what they showed about her character to show versus
what they did in the game, because you do learn
a lot more about her in the game. She is
another example I think of women leading in these like
really difficult positions, because we saw that in episode two
with the scientists saying, you know, we've got to bomb everything,
realizing it's going to include her. We saw it kind
(33:18):
of with tests in the smaller sense of her kind
of trying to reign in Joel and his more violent tendencies,
And then you see Marline, who is having to make
this just horrendous choice when this is her best friend's
daughter and she was there when she was born and
promised to protect her and has been protecting her from
Afar and having being put in the position to make
(33:40):
that choice where it's waging that versus potentially the survival
of humanity. So I think my biggest thing is because
it does often evolve into who was right Marlene versus Joel.
I do think like you can see why they both
made their decision right, You can see what she made
her decision. You can also see that whole idea of her,
(34:03):
like experiencing loss, not being able to save the ones
you love. But I think she's thinking of it too
in terms of the pandemic, like what all the people
she's lost to this pandemic. What if there's a cure
you could save all of these people. It is pretty
clear that she knew Anna lied about like cutting the
umbilical cord before she got bitten, and kind of takes
(34:26):
the chance on Allie. But I do think people forget
that part of it too is people have lost, everyone
has but people have lost people to infected into the pandemic,
and that's one way to think about it. In the game,
she did save Joel, though Joel doesn't know that because
as if Fireflies, a lot of them wanted to just
kill him when he showed up because they didn't really
(34:47):
trust him. And I kind of wonder if one of
the reasons she acted the way she did is she
was worried he could talk her out of it, he
could talk her out of this decision, because in the game,
she's like, she doesn't she feels like she has no
choice at all. So she's the one that insists he
deserves no because he's the only other one who might
(35:10):
know what she's going But she's the one who insists
that Joel deserves to know, which is kind of tragic
given what happens. But she's very out of it, like
maybe he knows how I feel, and she didn't really
want to be alone. She's been struggling with all these
like feelings of inadequacy, of not being a good leader,
of depression. Again, if you've like just watched the show,
(35:31):
you're listening to this, like what they don't really show it,
but just to give you kind of some backstory of her.
And as we've said throughout this, like, there are no
easy answers in the Last of Us. That's kind of
the difficult thing is that there are no easy answers.
You'll leave feeling conflicted. And I'm pretty sure that's what
I'm pretty sure it was intended, the complexity and the nuance.
(35:53):
You'll lee feeling conflicted. It's this fan reaction where everybody
was like, oh, no, I love Joel though he did
the right thing. That kind of gives me anxiety. But yeah, again,
you get why people make the decisions they do because
they told these stories really well. You get the same
with Kathleen and Henry. You might not agree with the
(36:14):
decisions they make, but you get why they did. And
it is a hard proposition to base a whole game
on our story. Just protecting someone who is meant to be,
especially in this world, kind of the ultimate example of innocence.
And then you get to the end and you think
you've been doing that and it turns out you're delivering
(36:35):
her to her death. But I agree. I don't think
that Ellie would have wanted at all what Joel did.
She was struggling with survivor's guilt, so I think she
would have wanted to go through with the surgery, and
neither did ask Ellie what she'd want. I feel like
(36:59):
Marlene was like, you know what, we can wake her
up right now at the can ask her. But Joel
did not go through that didn't want to do that.
I think he knew, and Marley even said like, I
think you know it, and then Joel lies to Ellie,
like they build up this trust and then he lies
to her. I think it was more to protect himself
(37:20):
than her. Some people would I would disagree, but I
feel but maybe at least both are going on. But
he was definitely protecting himself, which breaks the trust. It
breaks the trust, and you can see it pretty clear,
like when she turns her back when he doesn't answer
about Marlene, and he does like, yeah, I think he knew.
That's why he couldn't tell her, and Ellie kind of
(37:42):
forces herself to believe this because the truth is too scary.
They did talk about in the behind the show thing
like the Link's parents go for their kids, the lies
they'll tell Marley and Angel two kids, the kind of
unconditional love of a parent that is this big thought experiment,
choosing one person you love over humanity. What would that
(38:03):
look like? I do like Pedro Pescal called it the
horror and the humanity of it, because you again you
get it, but you're like horrified by it that someone
could be capable of this in the name of something
that should be that we've been often shown to be
a good thing, like love and caring for a child.
I will say in the game, you don't, at least
(38:24):
I didn't. You don't want to kill the surgeon. In fact,
you can go through not have to kill too many
people in that final hospital stretch, but it's very difficult.
You have to kill the surgeon though it won't move
on until you do. And Neil Juckman, who is the
creator of the game, said, Joel would never have made
a different decision, and that's why they left that in there.
(38:44):
This is also why some of the gamers get mad.
It's like, well, my Joel would never have done that,
but you made me do it. But the fact is
Joel did it. It's also like how you did it
because if you go back to Tommy's Mine, he says,
you know, there were other ways we could have survived,
other than violence. We just weren't any good at them.
(39:06):
So this is kind of him, of Joel reverting back
into what he is good at, which is this violence,
because there are plenty of examples of people surrendering. As
you said, in the game, he does kill the nurses
as well. I love games that play with that formula
of making you question, like how games work and you know,
(39:27):
going back and looking at what you've done. I have
seen a lot of dudes defend Joel by saying basically
about Allie, like he stays her life, she should be grateful,
She should be thanking him, and the implication it is
almost like me, as Joel saved your life, he should
be thanking me. But these are games that make you
(39:47):
question your actions as a player and how games work
in general. And I think this show did a really
good job of again this is me. Maybe I felt
like capturing the horror of that part of watching something
unravel where you thought it was going to go this
way and then it doesn't, It goes not that way
(40:08):
at all. I do think that this story is more
nuanced than this, but it is still a pretty like
masculine coded way of surviving, Like it's a you know,
masculine dude protecting a young girl through violence, and it
is the apocalypse. But I do think, you know, ultimately
(40:31):
there are elements of that certainly, and there are yeah
fans who celebrate the ending because they see it as
the play of strength, which just like horrifies me. And
I've also I've said frequently like if you were playing
as Elliot, or if you were playing as Marline, which
I think for Marline's respect would be really cool because
she went through a lot of stuff to get over there,
(40:52):
would you feel the same way if they did that.
I don't think so. I think they wouldn't have gotten
the same like positive reaction if they had made this
choice that jolted and I will have more to say
about to that later. Yes. Also, like I think the
name is very fitting because the whole game they're kind
(41:15):
of looking for the light. There are a lot of
examples of like Ellie being in the light. I know
your partner pointed out in like episode two where there
she's on the kind of that mossy field and Joel
and Tests are in the darkness and Test kind of
takes a step forward to the light and Joel stays
back like that kind of looking for hope is a big,
big theme in it. And then you get there and
(41:36):
the fireflies are this like representative of hope, look for
the light, and you get there and it's just not
what you thought it was. And then what happens when
you lose that hope? What happens when you stop looking,
when you stop looking for the light, when you've given
up on hope altogether. And that's why the moth became
a big symbol of it, of like kind of always
chasing the light and then never ever ever being able
(41:58):
to find it. I will say they also gave Fedra
and the fireflies more complexity in this and more nuanced
because they I feel like in the first one, while
you didn't think the fireflies were perfect, they were much
more like Fedra is bad, fireflies are gold, whereas in
the show they were more quickly like Fedra's bad, but
(42:19):
it's not all bad, and fireflies are also bad but
not all bad. I mentioned in the last episode. I
have heard some complaints around, like I guess they like
it's too quick, it went too quickly. I think that
everything they cut out. I get why they cut it out,
(42:40):
because in a game, you have to quote do something.
I just feel like some people were just mad because
it didn't have literally everything from the game and the show.
But they are different mediums and there's reasons. I feel
like that I understood why things were cut out, and
there are reasons why things were added in. And I
(43:00):
did notice when I was looking through this, which didn't
surprise me. But the lowest rated episodes on IMDb are
the Queer ones. Yeah, I do have some stuff. When
we get to the second season, Um, that's She's ready.
(43:21):
And then I'm going to talk about because I know
some people like there's a lot of controversy good faith
in bad faith around that one. So I just know
that I know it, but well, we will talk about it.
(43:43):
I wanted to briefly go over some of my favorite
moments very quick. The performances were great. All the performances
were great. I loved Patre Pascal, I loved his anxiety speech.
I love Nico Parker storm read. I loved Belle Ramsay
and like when she has that massive breakdown, and eight
was amazing. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett so sweet, um
(44:08):
Lamar Johnson and cave On Woodwards, um As Henry and
Sam Verry moving, Gabriel, Luna, Routina Wesley, the voice actors
being on there was super cool. That was very very cool.
I loved the sets. I love the attention to detail.
I thought a lot of the shots were very beautiful.
Basically everybody that made it happen. I love the floaters
(44:30):
and the clickers. It sounds like just won the reward
for this show that you weren't involved so much. I
want to think, all the people, let me have my moment.
I love the music, which is also from the game,
but I also love the music they picked, like thepeesche
Mode very cool. Yeah. I loved like the opening of
(44:53):
the Apocalypse, the Bill and Frank thing, the puns, Henry
and Sam, I love Maria and Jackson them all, the draft,
the final shot, Oh my god. But mostly I loved
hanging out and sharing this with others. I loved hanging
out with you and having this experience. It was beautiful.
The joy for me outside of this show was the
(45:14):
excitement that you had. You looked like you were opening
presents on Christmas morning. Every day that you would come
over getting prepared, and you had to come in front
like before everyone else. And I felt like that was
for you to get into the environment of the house
so that you could acclamate people coming over. Is that
why you did this? That's what I felt like was
(45:36):
happening your excitement. It literally was like watching a kid
in the candy store for the first time. It was delightful.
You crying all through everyone like the episodes. And I
think Joey is going to put up a TikTok of
because I did record you throughout. I did a boomer thing,
which we were supposed to have completely diferent recording, but
(45:57):
then I came back with like recording you because you
were from Jump in the finale tears. It was phenomenal
and I looked over and I was like, well, damn,
she's read a deal. Love every part of that. Yeah,
and this the show was fantastic. I did love knowing
the behind the scenes. Thanks to you and your mini playthroughs, y'all.
(46:18):
She's played through this so many times, and she's done
it as if she is playing movies for other people,
like her family, her friends have come through to watch
her play. It's quite hilarious. And she's had my partner playing.
She could watch it like a movie as well. Like
the overall has been amazing. Oh and the FYI, did
you know that Bella Ramsay's scene where she comes out
(46:41):
to Pedro Pascal and like this almost happened was shot
before her actual kill scene, Like she had not even
done that emotional scene to come and react to it.
She reacted it before she even did it, Like that's
that caliber of acting. Holy crap like that. It wasn't
in like logical order for her to piece that together,
(47:02):
but it worked so well her flow. Have we talked
about it before, like she's gonna be winning Oscars soon
enough on her own, I'm sure. But yes, the joy
and you watching like it literally there's a New Girl
scene in which they talk about how much they love
watching someone else doing something else, and it goes from like,
is it's just I get it's much joy out of
(47:22):
this watching you watching this person watching this. It was
literally me watching me watching that. That's where I got
the joy was the show just watching you watching it? Well,
thank you. I appreciate so much that you shared it
with me. I offered up your home like I would
want it no other way. It better be with me
from now man. Yes, Oh my gosh, it was just
(47:48):
so nice. It was so fun. We did marathon it
and I recommend it. Um we did. And when we
say we, I mean her and I just walked in
and out all the time. And then I was supposed
to be doing other stuff but I got drawn in.
So but it's so good time. I just feel like
the book now that it's over, I needed like a it.
(48:09):
But it'll never be over for you, that's true. I'm
going to start the second game soon. Um, it's not
a call. And Jerry, I know this. It's kind of
like haphazard, just my thoughts all over the place. When
I tell you, I was lying awake at night trying
to think of like ways to phrase this. I just
don't want to turn it into too much of a thing.
But I might come back and like really lay it
(48:31):
out because people are fighting about this. A lot of
ways are funny. But I mean, I think we need
to do a spoiler Saturday about Last of Us two
and you can go into your theories of what's coming
and so that. Oh I can't Christina would have to
edit it. Who is watching it? So never mind? How
do we do this? We need to find in it.
Let's like Ramsey, who has been a part of our viewing, um,
(48:54):
he would have some fun. It's gonna cut and past
the make you look really bad just for his own sake. Yes, yes,
And I mean I've just had such a good time
sharing this with you two listeners of like people have
written in and even if you haven't watched it or
played it, and kind of having this thing where I
(49:14):
got to really just explode passion about something that I love,
and I do everything that you love has issues. And
I have talked about him in previous episodes, but this
is kind of more like I touched on some here,
but this was much more a love letter. But just
now those exists, I can point you in there in
(49:35):
their direction. I have a lot to say about the
Last of Us. And if you watched the making of
on HBO, which again and not a sponsor, if you
wait till like the very end, they do kind of
a in credit scene and then it cuts to Neil
Juckman and he's like, that's the end of the story,
(49:58):
and then it announces last of the season too, coming soon.
I also love they put this line in there, like
you've come to an end and you don't know what
to do next. Yes, I know I've come to an end.
I'm playing the second one, yes, but yes, we will
see you next time whenever that will be where I do.
I have a lot to say. And if you think
(50:18):
you're conflicted after this one, oh my goodness, I cannot wait.
I don't know if you're read. I don't know, I
don't know if you're ready. But thank you, yeah for
those of you who are like, this was so sad.
The second I'm making a face, I'm just making a
face as twice the opportunity for sadness and it makes
(50:42):
use of it. So thank you, thank you, thank you
to everybody. You can write to us at Stephanie a
Mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at momst podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok,
or you can see some of my crying about the
last of us videos trying at stuff Mom Never Told
(51:02):
You. You You can also find us on YouTube. Thanks as
always too, our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey. Yeah. Thank you, yes, thank you
so much for making all this happen, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told Us production of
I Heart Radio for More podcast for my heart Radio.
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