Speaker 1: Warning This podcast dates spoilers for the second episode of
Speaker 1: the Last of Us on HBO Max. Hello, my name
Speaker 1: is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosy Night, and welcome the
Speaker 1: next revision of the Crooked Media podcast, where we dive
Speaker 1: deep in your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 2: In this episode, in the Airlock, we're digging deep into
Speaker 2: the Last of Us episode Don't Eat the Bread, Don't
Speaker 2: Eat It, No Cake, and in nerd Out, we're doing
Speaker 2: a very relevant theory from Brandon. Let's go Brandon and
Speaker 2: if you want to supportive of the theories, if you
Speaker 2: want to jump around, as always, just check the show
Speaker 2: notes for the time stamps.
Speaker 1: Coming up the air lock, We're stepping out of the
Speaker 1: airlock into the overgrown and ruined halls of a colonial
Speaker 1: museum in Back Bay, Boston for the Last of Us
Speaker 1: Episode two.
Speaker 2: Titled Infected.
Speaker 1: Titled Infected show of course created by Craig Mason and
Speaker 1: Neil Druckman, creative director of the game for Naughty Dog
Speaker 1: Epeed by Mason, and of course this episode directed by
Speaker 1: game creative director Neil Druckman.
Speaker 2: Perfect timing as well, because Neil's about to introduce the
Speaker 2: big Bat, the Big Bat, the Big Boss, the big Boss,
Speaker 2: and he does it well.
Speaker 1: We open in Jakarta, Indonesia, September twenty third, two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, a place where Joel at this time was
Speaker 1: confused about its location, didn't exactly know where it was.
Speaker 1: A military man enters a restaurant, interrupting the lunch of
Speaker 1: a woman who is dining there. Her name is Ibu Ratna.
Speaker 1: She is a professor at the University of Indonesia specializing
Speaker 1: in mycology aka the study of fungi. The man takes
Speaker 1: her to the secure wing of a hospital and shows
Speaker 1: her some specimen under a microscope, and doctor Ratna is like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a op field cordy steps and dun dun dum,
Speaker 1: which is a fungus noted for its ability to take
Speaker 1: over and control ants. And she's like, where'd you get this?
Speaker 1: And he's like it came off of a human specimen.
Speaker 1: She's like, no, it didn't. That's an absolutely it didn't.
Speaker 1: That's impossible. Cut too a even more secure part of
Speaker 1: the secure wing of the secure hospital. Doctor Rata, now
Speaker 1: in full biohazard gear, is walking in to inspect the
Speaker 1: victim that this specimen was taken from the general very
Speaker 1: helpfully tells her, get what you need and get the
Speaker 1: fuck out of their.
Speaker 2: Don't go close, don't do it. It's just don't do it.
Speaker 2: That talk should come before I suit up. I feel
Speaker 2: like they're not ever fully transparent to the good doctor.
Speaker 2: They rub her out of lunch, they take us somewhere.
Speaker 2: She thinks she's being arrested. Then they're giving her, you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit of breadcrumb's news until she gets into
Speaker 2: this room and learns the true horror.
Speaker 1: And the horror is that there is a young woman
Speaker 1: lying on the slab there. Doctor Ratna goes up, inspects
Speaker 1: the victim, finds a what is apparently a human bitemark
Speaker 1: on her ankle, cuts it open with a scalpel. There's
Speaker 1: a spongy, fungal mushroom material in there. This is shocking.
Speaker 1: Doctor Ratna then reaches into the woman's mouth and pulls
Speaker 1: out a site we're all familiar with by now. Those
Speaker 1: all those wriggling worms, kind.
Speaker 2: Of tentacle fung guy poked their way out creepily, and
Speaker 2: she just freaks out.
Speaker 1: She's out, She's out, all my way out. Later on,
Speaker 1: she debriefs with the General. He tells her the victim
Speaker 1: was infected thirty hours ago in or around a factory
Speaker 1: that processes flour and grain. She says, oh, flour and grain.
Speaker 1: That's the perfect incubator for this fun guy. Now let's
Speaker 1: stop here.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's pause, because we're about to get to the big.
Speaker 2: The big theory there is.
Speaker 1: There has been a theory out there that obviously, this
Speaker 1: is this infection spread by bites, we've seen that, but
Speaker 1: how did it explode across the world at once? And
Speaker 1: one of the theories was bread. Yeah, it got into
Speaker 1: the flower supply and all these flower products that went
Speaker 1: out across the world carried it and that's how everybody
Speaker 1: got sick at once. On top of that, there is
Speaker 1: the cake theory.
Speaker 2: I love this because this is so in the game
Speaker 2: a lot of people like is the same as the
Speaker 2: game is. In the game, there's a mention of kind
Speaker 2: of infected crops, and that's really about as far as
Speaker 2: it goes. But the cake theory is great, and you
Speaker 2: are the one who introduced this to me. And the
Speaker 2: cake theory is if you remember, in that kind of
Speaker 2: heartbreaking cold open Joel forgets to bring a cake back
Speaker 2: for the birthday. Celebration with Sarah, and the cake theory
Speaker 2: expounding on the bread and wheat theory is that the
Speaker 2: reason Joel and Sarah didn't get infected is because they
Speaker 2: didn't get a cake, and this also does some Really
Speaker 2: it's so good our Discord brought this to our attention,
Speaker 2: and so thank you. I was going to say shout
Speaker 2: out because the Jakarta choice is really really intentional because
Speaker 2: in the first episode we hear Joel and Tommy trying
Speaker 2: to work out like Jakatis, so we realized this is
Speaker 2: happening so close, and it happened so quickly. But as
Speaker 2: one of our incredible Discord users pointed out, Indonesia is
Speaker 2: actually home and Jakarta to the biggest flower processing factory
Speaker 2: on Earth, So it's like a perfect place for this
Speaker 2: to have spread and for the wheat and flour theory
Speaker 2: faction to really kind of get a little bit of
Speaker 2: what seems like a confirmation, especially as like you said, Jason,
Speaker 2: the doctor basically confirms that that would be a great
Speaker 2: way for it to spread.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is in episode one, Joel jokingly
Speaker 1: tells the Adlers that he's on atkins, meaning he's just
Speaker 1: eating meat, no carbs, and everybody on Atkins made it,
Speaker 1: and day.
Speaker 2: We made it. You were just way. I just had
Speaker 2: a light I had a light. I had a light
Speaker 2: bulb moment. Just then when we meet the Adlers, the
Speaker 2: Sun is feeding his mother biscuits, and Sarah didn't meet
Speaker 2: the cook reason exactly, and then she was the first
Speaker 2: person that we saw who was infected. So I think
Speaker 2: the bread theory is really important, and as we will
Speaker 2: get to momentarily when we start to get in the
Speaker 2: rest of the episode, I think that it expands. He
Speaker 2: goes to a dark pas.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we learn again from the from the gen
Speaker 1: that an employee at this flower processing plant became violent
Speaker 1: or attacking her coworkers, bit several of them, one of
Speaker 1: whom is this dead woman here on the slab, and
Speaker 1: that at current time, fourteen workers are missing from refactory.
Speaker 1: Doctor Ratna is shook. She's horrified, she's horrified, she's on
Speaker 1: word by this. The general is like, Okay, so obviously
Speaker 1: we came to you as one of them. How do
Speaker 1: we fix it as one of the most foremost you know,
Speaker 1: experts in mycology in the world. We need a vaccine,
Speaker 1: We need a medicine. We need something to stop it.
Speaker 1: And the doctor's like, I got you.
Speaker 2: Here's what you do.
Speaker 1: You call up you're in the military, call up your
Speaker 1: fighter wing and just fucking bomb the city.
Speaker 2: Yep, she said what she said my whole life. I've
Speaker 2: worked on this, my whole life. There's no cure. We
Speaker 2: can't do anything. There's no study. Come on, there's nothing.
Speaker 2: And you know what, it's a really brilliant reflection of
Speaker 2: the first Cold Open, where the scientists sat on that
Speaker 2: stage of the talk late night talk show and said,
Speaker 2: if this happens, we lose. I hate a quitter. But
Speaker 2: it turns out she was right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She then tearfully says, hey, can I get a ride
Speaker 1: home just to spend the final moments here in Civilization
Speaker 1: with my family. We go back to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Ellie wakes up in a patch of sunlight and this
Speaker 1: beautiful kind of like idyllic patch of grass in the
Speaker 1: middle of this former It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: So it feels so unfless perfect mix of bleakness and beauty. Yes,
Speaker 2: story does so well.
Speaker 1: Joel and Tess are watching her like hawks. Joel has
Speaker 1: this right, right way to do it. He's like, show
Speaker 1: us your arm. Ellie does no change. Joel and Tests
Speaker 1: have never ever seen anything like this. But they're not
Speaker 1: all the way there to believing that Ellie is actually immune,
Speaker 1: and Joel is further away certainly than Test is. Ellie
Speaker 1: is like, hey, so we got this far. We're all
Speaker 1: the infected. I heard that they're just swarming out of
Speaker 1: here New city.
Speaker 2: You can't leave the quarantines out because you'll just die.
Speaker 1: And Joe was like, yeah, don't worry about that, which
Speaker 1: is Ellie rightly says, well, I'm gonna actually worry about
Speaker 1: it because it seems like a big deal. Test then
Speaker 1: is continuously pressuring Ellie to tell her what Marlene's plans were.
Speaker 1: What did Marlene want with you? Ellie says that Marlene
Speaker 1: found her after she was bitten, and then, rather than
Speaker 1: kill her, which is usually what you do, she and
Speaker 1: the fireflies watch her. They ran tests on her, you know.
Speaker 1: Test is like what tests? And she's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: held up my arm. I counted a ten except but
Speaker 1: mostly the thing that really impressed them was I didn't
Speaker 1: turn into a fucking monster.
Speaker 2: Bella Ramsey is just killing it, okay, and let's stop here.
Speaker 2: As well, because this leads to another theory, right that
Speaker 2: we spoke about briefly. Why didn't Marlene shoot Ellie? Now,
Speaker 2: this has to be directly tied to the fact that
Speaker 2: the first episode, Marlene tells Ellie that she was the
Speaker 2: one she played feder Military School when she was a baby.
Speaker 2: So that hints to me that there may be more
Speaker 2: than one kid who they were watching for this purpose,
Speaker 2: which would be very different from the way it is
Speaker 2: in what we know of the first of the Last
Speaker 2: of Us A game. But yeah, I think that's very interesting.
Speaker 2: And the fact that Marlene didn't like Marlene's brutal the
Speaker 2: fireflies are brutal, that's the point. The fact that she
Speaker 2: didn't just shoot an infected person in the head means
Speaker 2: she who she knew who she was, right, she says
Speaker 2: she knew her real name. She tells Ellie that in
Speaker 2: the first episode. So this is definitely a thread to
Speaker 2: keep watching. At the very.
Speaker 1: Least, it lets us know that this is not Marlene's
Speaker 1: first rodeo with seeing if someone was immune. Like she's
Speaker 1: done this, they had a system in place for exactly.
Speaker 2: They had a testing system. X ray Vision will be back.
Speaker 1: And we're back so Ellie goes off uh to do
Speaker 1: what one does when they wake up in the morning,
Speaker 1: and Testing and Joel have a little conversation. Test is
Speaker 1: trying to convince Joel that this could be real. What
Speaker 1: Ellie's Ellie's immunity, that might be a legit, and that
Speaker 1: they should just go forward with dropping her to the
Speaker 1: Fireflies and getting the truck from them so they can
Speaker 1: go find Tommy. This is probably their best shot at
Speaker 1: doing that. Joel is like, I don't know, this is
Speaker 1: like more than we bargained for when we drop her
Speaker 1: back at the QZ, and Testa's like, if she goes
Speaker 1: back to the QZ, she'll get tested at some point,
Speaker 1: she'll come up infected and then she'll get killed and
Speaker 1: then we get nothing, so we might as well do this.
Speaker 1: There's a funny moment that follows, which is actually pretty
Speaker 1: meaningful considering our cold open, where it's breakfast time. Tests
Speaker 1: and Joel are eating the most rancid looking jerky unknown
Speaker 1: meat source.
Speaker 2: It's so hot it's like cheering on a rulers, and
Speaker 2: they're really generous that like, oh, you know, you can
Speaker 2: have some of oz, and Ellie's like, don't worry about
Speaker 2: it and pulls out this like huge chicken salad sandwich
Speaker 2: on its massive bread. Let's talk about the bread.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's two There's kind of like two variables here.
Speaker 1: First option one, nobody knows that it was bread and
Speaker 1: flowers exactly.
Speaker 2: So they're just eating it, and they're just eating it.
Speaker 2: I guess like.
Speaker 1: Additionally to that would be the possibility that they know
Speaker 1: it's bread and flour but they figured it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they figured out how to fix it, which I don't
Speaker 1: buy all.
Speaker 2: The other option is that the fireflies know about the
Speaker 2: bread and they're feeding it to Ellie to check that
Speaker 2: she doesn't get infected or to build up a unity dum,
Speaker 2: which is incredibly bleak, but I also think very fitting.
Speaker 2: And I think it's really interesting because after that cold open,
Speaker 2: like the big chat in our discord was like why
Speaker 2: would they show her eating bread? So and you know,
Speaker 2: nothing in this show is unintentional, so I'm really interested
Speaker 2: to see where that goes. But I kind of love
Speaker 2: how we have that dramatic irony of us knowing that
Speaker 2: that bread is probably a death sentence if testing all
Speaker 2: eat it, but they're just that's all they want in
Speaker 2: the world, is just to eat this bread and they're
Speaker 2: eating then nasty little jerky and they want to eat that,
Speaker 2: and they're like, is that chicken? Like everything is so
Speaker 2: but that in itself is just completely wild, especially and
Speaker 2: it highlights on a base economy level how important she
Speaker 2: is to the fireflies, because this is clearly Joel and
Speaker 2: test the smugglers. They're out every single day's smuggling and
Speaker 2: they're like, where'd you get chicken? And she's like, from smugglers,
Speaker 2: but obviously like not you lot.
Speaker 1: I think that I think what is probably going on
Speaker 1: here is that there are certain people in the know
Speaker 1: who understand that bread and flour were the thing that
Speaker 1: sparked this, and maybe it's not widely known. And I
Speaker 1: think the fact that somebody can still make bread and
Speaker 1: get flour and stuff suggests again that there is, to
Speaker 1: your point, a kind of system in place to test people,
Speaker 1: because you're not going to fucking find wheat and make
Speaker 1: bread for one person like they're going to do it
Speaker 1: if there is a whole system going on of testing
Speaker 1: and finding out if people are immune. Test wants to
Speaker 1: know why Marlene found Ellie so important, and she says,
Speaker 1: you know, like and you better by the way, you
Speaker 1: better actually tell us or we're going to bring you back.
Speaker 1: Ellie shoots back, well then when you won't get your
Speaker 1: car battery, and Tests is like, oh, oh you heard that,
Speaker 1: then you must have heard that he wants to shoot you,
Speaker 1: and she looks at Jolan knows that it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll shoot you right now. And it's a really really
Speaker 1: chilling moment. And then we get this from Test where
Speaker 1: she says Joel and I we aren't good people, so
Speaker 1: answer my question.
Speaker 2: Here's so.
Speaker 1: Playing the game and watching the show, the game kind
Speaker 1: of goes into this more. But the the I started
Speaker 1: realized playing the game again that Joel and Tests were
Speaker 1: on their way to being.
Speaker 2: Robbered like they will. They were Robert was like their competitor.
Speaker 1: They were like moving up the ladder of like criminal
Speaker 1: kingpins in the QZ.
Speaker 2: If they didn't kill so many people, they would have
Speaker 2: had an army, but they killed everyone army because they
Speaker 2: kept killing everyone. But no, no, definitely, like I think
Speaker 2: that this episode and this series honestly just over these
Speaker 2: two episodes, like it's done so much to expand on Tests,
Speaker 2: who was essentially just like an outrageous like death dealer,
Speaker 2: kind of like serial total psycho and like, you know what,
Speaker 2: that's fine because in the game it serves a purpose.
Speaker 2: But even in such an emotional game, that's definitely one
Speaker 2: of those things where in the show you're just like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is someone who, no matter what they've done, suddenly
Speaker 2: feels hope and suddenly wants to imagine something a bit better.
Speaker 2: And you kind of don't really get to see that
Speaker 2: with tests in the game until her last last moments,
Speaker 2: but here she's really she's tired, and even.
Speaker 1: That in her last last moments in the game feels
Speaker 1: more out of desperation and like let's just like finish
Speaker 1: it and actual feud.
Speaker 2: And also realizing how valuable Ellie is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ellie tells them that what she knows is that
Speaker 1: there's apparently a firefly base camp somewhere out west where
Speaker 1: doctors are working on a cure, and Joel finishes her
Speaker 1: sense is whatever, he's heard all this shit before. The
Speaker 1: key to finding the vaccine is me, and he's like,
Speaker 1: come on, this is the test you're gonna this is
Speaker 1: what you're gonna buy. How many times have we heard this.
Speaker 1: There's no vaccine, there's no medicine, there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 1: He still wants to shoot her, but Test really is like, hey,
Speaker 1: listen again, the fireflies believe it, so let's just do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And also, I will say this is really
Speaker 2: where you start to get from this scene. You will
Speaker 2: getting now dialogue just directly lifted from the game. The
Speaker 2: first was more of a loose adaptation that brought things
Speaker 2: from the game. This episode is so close really, so
Speaker 2: what you see it's actually quite wild. Like I was
Speaker 2: playing the game, then I was watching it, then I
Speaker 2: was playing the game, and I was like, well, well,
Speaker 2: I'm really just seeing stuff being directly pulled, and this
Speaker 2: conversation is one of them, and kind of where the
Speaker 2: episode goes to these terrifying, nightmarish places that is just
Speaker 2: so brilliantly adapted.
Speaker 1: One of the lines that is ripped straight from the
Speaker 1: game is Ellie saying, hey, can I have a gun,
Speaker 1: which she asks about one hundred times in the game.
Speaker 1: They say no, because who wants to get shot in
Speaker 1: the back by a panicky like fourteen year old Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, I'll just I guess I'll just
Speaker 1: throw my sandwich at the infected, which I think they'll
Speaker 1: like it because it's, you know, part of their history.
Speaker 1: They then head off into the kind of like sunlit
Speaker 1: wreckage of Boston. They're passing bomb craters. Chess is telling
Speaker 1: Ellie that, as doctor Rottna.
Speaker 2: Suggested, they just bombed the city.
Speaker 1: The American government at least came came to the realization
Speaker 1: that their best course of action was just bomb the
Speaker 1: fuck out of cities. And it didn't work everywhere, but
Speaker 1: it appeared to work in Boston, where they managed to
Speaker 1: set up the quarantines. Now they come to like a
Speaker 1: place where a building is partially collapsed across the street.
Speaker 1: So this is the direct past path to the old
Speaker 1: State House. So what's left is the short path and
Speaker 1: the long path. And apparently the short path is like
Speaker 1: you will get killed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's the long path. Oh that you die.
Speaker 2: Papy's like, I think I'll just yeah, long path.
Speaker 1: So they go through this hotel, and here's a very
Speaker 1: telling moment that kind of dovetails nicely with what you
Speaker 1: were saying before about tests, the difference between game tests
Speaker 1: and and show tests, in the way that this test
Speaker 1: there's almost something vaguely parental about her and the way
Speaker 1: she talks to Ellie. Notice that Ellie walks next to
Speaker 1: her this whole time. Doesn't walk next Joel.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Joel did say like I will kill you, but he
Speaker 1: is walking next to Ellie this whole time, and there,
Speaker 1: you know. And then Ellie Tests is being very generous
Speaker 1: about telling her about the dangers of the open city.
Speaker 1: She asks how Ellie got bit. Ellie's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: went into the mall and the QZ that's blocked off
Speaker 1: and I got bit. Tess X, Did you go in
Speaker 1: there alone, Ellie, I think lies and says yes, I
Speaker 1: think she was in there with someone else, who we're
Speaker 1: going to find out was the person who was her
Speaker 1: significant other.
Speaker 2: And Test is impressed.
Speaker 1: And you can tell that Ellie is really feels she
Speaker 1: really feels good any compliments. She feels good about the
Speaker 1: fact that someone is.
Speaker 2: Like and I think where she sees in Test, that's
Speaker 2: someone that she would want to be like, you know,
Speaker 2: someone who can survive this for twenty years, who can
Speaker 2: kind of thinks it's bad ass to go into an
Speaker 2: empty mall and get bit just for the sake of it,
Speaker 2: like very chaoke behavior, but really it's a chaotic world.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I love to see that with tests, and
Speaker 2: also again they do a really good job while you
Speaker 2: get those moments in the game, but here there's a
Speaker 2: lot more kind of quiet time for them to walk
Speaker 2: and we get this really fun conversation about like the
Speaker 2: different kinds of zombies and like the threats that like,
Speaker 2: because all all Ellie's ever heard is rumors.
Speaker 1: So that's a really wonderful part of this scene because
Speaker 1: you know, Ellie is like looking at this, I mean,
Speaker 1: the city's in ruins, but it's beautiful, and she's like,
Speaker 1: what the she was She's almost disappointed that it's not
Speaker 1: as dangerous as everybody says.
Speaker 2: Where's the whole idea is they keep you in the
Speaker 2: quarantine zone by telling you the moment you get out,
Speaker 2: it's like it's like walking dead walkers. They're coming to
Speaker 2: the fences, they're gonna eat you. But when you get
Speaker 2: out there, it's beautiful. It's overgrown. Nature has kind of
Speaker 2: found its way, and so far she hasn't seen a
Speaker 2: single zombie, so she goes affected.
Speaker 1: So there aren't the ones with the split up and
Speaker 1: heads that's see in the dark, like bats and Tessandol
Speaker 1: are like.
Speaker 2: They don't they look at each other and They're like, I.
Speaker 1: Guess we came out at which point you hear the
Speaker 1: the trademark screen each yeah and infected, and Joel is
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, let's just keep moving and let's go.
Speaker 1: They come to the flooded lobby of a hotel, which
Speaker 1: Ellie recognizes because she reads books. She is really having fun,
Speaker 1: like she's turning this into an adventure. It's obviously very dangerous,
Speaker 1: but she's never again been outside before and she goes
Speaker 1: to the front desk, rings the bell. There's this whole
Speaker 1: little scene about checking into the hotel.
Speaker 2: And Joel's like, you are weird kid. He's like, you
Speaker 2: are true weirdo. But you know, it's really nice because
Speaker 2: in the game, Ellie's always she's like always singing and
Speaker 2: like being trying to teach us about to whistle and
Speaker 2: do in like weird shit because to her like little
Speaker 2: laughs when because it's not like she's getting to explore
Speaker 2: this world, but the horrors of the world and the
Speaker 2: fact that's broken down are not new to her, like
Speaker 2: that's all she's ever known. So that, yeah, I love
Speaker 2: that scene and Bella they just sell it so well.
Speaker 2: They're like kind of talking and checking in and Joel's
Speaker 2: just like, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Eventually, Joel and Ellie get their first moment alone when
Speaker 1: Tess has to find in an alternate path through another
Speaker 1: part of the building that's collapsed and Joel compliments Elie's
Speaker 1: switchblade killed with it. She asks where he's from. He
Speaker 1: says Texas she is. She asks where Tests is from.
Speaker 1: She says Detroit, which is in Michigan, and Ellie's like,
Speaker 1: I know that because I went to school. The parallels
Speaker 1: with Sarah and geography are right there. She then asks
Speaker 1: how Joel Tests and Tests know each other and how
Speaker 1: Joel got to Boston. Joel's like, no, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about me. No more questions about me. She then asks
Speaker 1: how long do you think infected live and he says
Speaker 1: a few months, but some have been around since this
Speaker 1: all started, since you know, twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are the ones you don't want to meet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And she asks if he's ever killed any and
Speaker 1: he says, yeah, a lot. And she asks is it
Speaker 1: hard knowing they were people once? And he says sometimes
Speaker 1: it was, And then she asks him, you know, how
Speaker 1: hard was it to kill that soldier? You know when
Speaker 1: he had that flashback? To the night on the riverbank
Speaker 1: with Sarah in his arms, and before he can answer,
Speaker 1: Test returns and she's got bad news that Hey, so
Speaker 1: the way we have to go it's just all infected.
Speaker 2: It's an infected party. You know, the long way that
Speaker 2: was supposed to be the safe way and now the
Speaker 2: long way is also the dead way, and there's just
Speaker 2: like infected everywhere, and it's it's all bad. But we
Speaker 2: do learn something very interesting here. This is a cool
Speaker 2: episode if you want to know about the cordyceps virus
Speaker 2: and that infected because we kind of get to learn
Speaker 2: through Ellie's eyes a little bit more about them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you see the sun kind of moving across the landscape,
Speaker 1: you know, as clouds kind of go across the face
Speaker 1: of the sun, and as this sunbeam moves across these
Speaker 1: kind of this lolling hundred crowd. Yeah, they all react
Speaker 1: to it in Unison, and Ellie's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're connected, and Tessa's more than you know, and she
Speaker 1: tells them that those fungal tentacles they grow underground too,
Speaker 1: and they're like a fungal web, like an internet for
Speaker 1: the ya. It creates like a hive mind yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you step on a patch of those tentacles, it
Speaker 1: can send a message miles away and murder alert the
Speaker 1: hores and here they come.
Speaker 2: And I believe that is new as well. That is
Speaker 2: very new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is very new and very terrifying. And Tess
Speaker 1: again is being very warm in the way she's delivering this.
Speaker 1: She's she's she even says something to the effect of listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you this to scary. I'm telling us
Speaker 1: because you need to know. Yeah, because you're immune, but
Speaker 1: but you're not immune to getting ripped apart.
Speaker 2: I love that line. She's like, yeah, you're immune to
Speaker 2: getting bitmed, but you're not immune to like a zombie
Speaker 2: coming and like tearing your limbs off, Like sorry, babe,
Speaker 2: but and then bad news. The short way is the
Speaker 2: only way now, baby, Through the museum.
Speaker 1: Through the museum a beautiful red brick colonial covered in
Speaker 1: fungal tentacles.
Speaker 2: The door is literally like lock hut.
Speaker 1: Joel goes over, touches one of the big tentacles it is.
Speaker 1: It's bone dry, and he.
Speaker 2: Says, well, you know, maybe feel positive.
Speaker 1: So they get ready to head in flashlights come out
Speaker 1: tests and Ellie, you know, have another talk. Test is like, listen,
Speaker 1: you just stay behind us. We're gonna move very slow.
Speaker 1: If anything happens, you get between me and Joel. And
Speaker 1: then the guns come out, and this is an interesting moment.
Speaker 1: So Test uses that alternating flashlight pistol overhand grip restore
Speaker 1: the wrist, and then later in the episode says at
Speaker 1: the very end, says to Joel, save who you can save,
Speaker 1: which is a very nine to eleven era first responder
Speaker 1: to say, and it makes me think Test was a cop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely some kind of first responder kind of situation.
Speaker 2: And also it fits in with what we know of Test,
Speaker 2: which in the game, the little things that we get
Speaker 2: to see about, she's usually the one who's giving Joel
Speaker 2: stuff to fix his wounds and wrap it up, and
Speaker 2: they do a nice inversion of that in this episode.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I thought that was a really great catch
Speaker 2: from you. And again, you know, Ellie just wants a gun. Yes,
Speaker 2: she's give me a gun. She's like, I've got and
Speaker 2: Joel's like, good for you. You know, hey, we're going
Speaker 2: to a dark building. Can I have a gun? I
Speaker 2: mean this is like, if you've played the game, never
Speaker 2: shot a gun, but can I have one. I mean,
Speaker 2: sure they won't they teaching you that they fed you
Speaker 2: military school, though I feel like they should. They probably
Speaker 2: didn't want the kids to have done so they could escape,
Speaker 2: but still I feel like that would have been probably
Speaker 2: a good idea in the context of this. So in
Speaker 2: here is where we get our first view of the clickers.
Speaker 1: Now, Joel and Tess are initially feeling pretty good. They
Speaker 1: find this like this group of dried up and dead infected,
Speaker 1: so they know good they're dead. But then flashlight pan
Speaker 1: over to the side and there's like a body that's
Speaker 1: been dead like two hours.
Speaker 2: And it's like it's like ripped apart, like it's throat
Speaker 2: stripped off. Ellie's freaked out because Ellie's like, I've been
Speaker 2: bitten and that's not some It couldn't have done that
Speaker 2: to me, Like this, what is this? And Tess's face,
Speaker 2: the fear on their on their faces is so good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the way she's like, maybe maybe he died outside and
Speaker 2: maybe he goes outside and and you know they know
Speaker 2: that that's not true. They don't want to see it.
Speaker 2: They don't want to, they don't want it. And it
Speaker 2: tells you if two badasses like this who have killed
Speaker 2: lots of efects and survived like twenty years. Yeah, are scared.
Speaker 2: Then this is serious.
Speaker 1: Joel then tells Ellie, Okay, listen from this point forward, silence, silence.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that movie with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt?
Speaker 1: All right, you see that one, But no, that didn't
Speaker 1: come out yet.
Speaker 2: It didn't come out. Ye never came out. Okay, but
Speaker 2: it's like that. Yeah, not quiet, silent side, no quips,
Speaker 2: no like strange bits about being in a hotel. Just
Speaker 2: fucking do it and don't say shit.
Speaker 1: So they go forward and they're you know, they creep
Speaker 1: their way forward, and at one point, Ellie steps on
Speaker 1: a dried vine and they're just like, oh ship. And
Speaker 1: then there's like a building collapse on the stairs and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh shit. They eventually get into kind of
Speaker 1: one of the display halls and behind them as they
Speaker 1: go up, the staircase collapses behind them, which draws the
Speaker 1: attention of a clicker. You hear it screech first, and
Speaker 1: then you hear the as it's searching, you know, with
Speaker 1: it's audio waves.
Speaker 2: It comes up and.
Speaker 1: Ellie is crazy with her you can see it on
Speaker 1: her face. How absolutely terrified she is. And then there's
Speaker 1: another screech, and now it looks like, oh shit, there's
Speaker 1: two of them. Joel gestures to Ellie. He says, like,
Speaker 1: you know, saying essentially, hey, they're blind, but they can hear,
Speaker 1: they can hear. Such she's freaking out. The monster is
Speaker 1: coming close, coming closer, coming closer, and then when it
Speaker 1: turns to them, we get this incredible view of really,
Speaker 1: how what a great job they did on the creature design,
Speaker 1: like aporting the design over from the game, but then
Speaker 1: obviously the detailing, the scariness, the way it looks like
Speaker 1: something out of a Gearmann del Toro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so good. Like I was just
Speaker 2: saying this to Vascilla's before, like our super sound guys
Speaker 2: like that. When you play the game, you see the
Speaker 2: yellow outline, you see the implication of a fungus, but
Speaker 2: you're so busy trying to kill it and it's scary,
Speaker 2: and a lot of times you see them outside though,
Speaker 2: I have to say the Museum they adapted it perfectly.
Speaker 2: This was the first time when I played the game
Speaker 2: that I got scared and they really translated this is
Speaker 2: directly from this is directly and it's that moment where
Speaker 2: you go more into that classic horror video game style.
Speaker 2: You're in a dark space, you're lighting it with a flashlight.
Speaker 2: You gotta be stealthy. But I didn't expect them to
Speaker 2: be able to pull off the clickers and make them
Speaker 2: something so horrific, Like Giamo del Toro is a great pole.
Speaker 2: It's very resident evil. The kind of only sign of
Speaker 2: their humanity is just like gaping more with broken teeth,
Speaker 2: and then on top of their heads are these like
Speaker 2: it's fungus, but it's also you pointed out, it's like plating.
Speaker 2: It's almost like a dinosaur, like a triceratops, but like
Speaker 2: with fungus growing on top. It's truly horrific stuff. Even
Speaker 2: though I have to say pretty much everyone that I've
Speaker 2: seen loves this show. But if you were waiting for
Speaker 2: the episode where it becomes like a scary zombie show,
Speaker 2: this is the episode.
Speaker 1: So it's it comes close, it swings its face towards
Speaker 1: them into the beam of the flashlight, which whoever did that?
Speaker 1: Don't do that? And please, and Ellie gasps, and now
Speaker 1: it's fucking on. And one thing we could say about
Speaker 1: this these version of the clickers is they are way
Speaker 1: heardier than the video game. The video version, they take
Speaker 1: some gunshots, but if you get like two head shots,
Speaker 1: it's going to go down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I'm depending on your difficult
Speaker 2: I was gonna say I'm very bad at heeadshots, more
Speaker 2: of a four or five person. But you know what
Speaker 2: I will say, I'm going to be very interested to
Speaker 2: see how the clickers take it later on, because what
Speaker 2: I ended up finding was very easy, and my difficulty
Speaker 2: saying is once you start modeling your melee weapons, you
Speaker 2: can kill them in a couple of swipes. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to get close to one of the clickers
Speaker 2: to know how that would go. Like Arendus, Yeah, they
Speaker 2: they super charged them and that kind of bizarker mode
Speaker 2: where after you shoot them once and then that is
Speaker 2: just horrific.
Speaker 1: Care So, uh, the fighters on the first clicker, the
Speaker 1: one that's closest to them.
Speaker 2: Takes like four or five like, oh, it's directly the
Speaker 2: tour Zoe.
Speaker 1: No reaction is fighting with Jewel like nothing happened, which
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense you think.
Speaker 2: About it, because if it's if it's just the body
Speaker 2: is essentially a shell. Yeah, that's why would it damage it?
Speaker 2: You know, you have to get to that that cerebral
Speaker 2: cortex or wherever the main fungus is. Shoot ahead like
Speaker 2: everything exactly. Movie. That's the rule.
Speaker 1: Test and Elly run big, big fight. At the end
Speaker 1: of it, they do take down both clickers and Tests
Speaker 1: is okay.
Speaker 2: Except for it twisted. Great, She looks good, fine, she says,
Speaker 2: I'm fine. I twisted my ankle. That's it. Okay, let's
Speaker 2: move on. Ellie got bit again and she's like, well,
Speaker 2: at least it was me if it had to you
Speaker 2: one of us.
Speaker 1: Right, We're fine, and they go out over the roof.
Speaker 1: They get on the roof, Tessa's looking at Joel sadly
Speaker 1: as he's taping her up.
Speaker 2: I love it. You get and you get this like
Speaker 2: these moments. Something that I love about this show that
Speaker 2: it understands about the game is these like moments of
Speaker 2: like empathy and compassion and comfort and these tiny moments
Speaker 2: that people can have together, like when he's wrapping her
Speaker 2: foot and they're kind of talking. And again you go
Speaker 2: from this deep, dark, horrific hauls where you're kind of
Speaker 2: chased by this nightmare monster onto this beautiful, sunlit rooftop
Speaker 2: with this broken down city scape. It's such wonderful juxaposition,
Speaker 2: but it never feels kind of jarring. It's just like
Speaker 2: a really nice, breathing kind of spot. And we get
Speaker 2: another you know, Joel and Tessa have in this moment,
Speaker 2: and then you get this unbelievable shot of Ellie kind
Speaker 2: of as they traverse the piece of Wood, which again
Speaker 2: is one of the most memorable scenes from the from
Speaker 2: the video game.
Speaker 1: Now, there's a there's a small interaction here that I
Speaker 1: think tells you a lot about Joel and Test's Joel
Speaker 1: is like, hey, so you know, maybe we don't know
Speaker 1: what happened with that first bite. Maybe this is the
Speaker 1: bite that's gonna it's gonna get and Test snaps, She's like,
Speaker 1: can you just take the good news, you know, and
Speaker 1: maybe this time we can actually win? And it what
Speaker 1: it suggested to me and I thought this was great writing.
Speaker 2: Is that.
Speaker 1: Contra the game, Test was the more hopeful one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in their relationship.
Speaker 2: Joel Joel and in the in the game, he's dead inside,
Speaker 2: but it's like he's dead inside and he just follows
Speaker 2: Tests and does whatever she wants. But here he's dead
Speaker 2: inside and that allows him to do the terrible things
Speaker 2: that need to be done, whereas with Tests, Test can
Speaker 2: take it, but she's tired of giving it out. She
Speaker 2: wants that little bit of hope. She doesn't want to
Speaker 2: be killing people. She wants to imagine that this time
Speaker 2: they can actually win. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This this felt like a window into their relationship that
Speaker 1: maybe Tests is the person who's like, oh, maybe it's
Speaker 1: real this time, maybe we can do this, maybe we
Speaker 1: can do that, whereas Joel's like, this is never changing.
Speaker 1: This is what we're doing right now.
Speaker 2: Joel goes over to Ellie.
Speaker 1: Tests stays behind to kind of tape herself up, and
Speaker 1: you can see the State House across the way. It's
Speaker 1: beautiful under the sunlight. And as they move out, there's
Speaker 1: a great moment where Joel glances at his watch and
Speaker 1: just like takes one look at the broken watch. They
Speaker 1: get to the state House, firefly convoy is there in
Speaker 1: front of the building. No sign of the firefly themselves.
Speaker 2: Suspicious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not good.
Speaker 2: Joel goes up.
Speaker 1: He checks the truck gets streaked with blood. There's's dead
Speaker 1: bodies all around, torn apart by infected blood trail that's
Speaker 1: leading up into the State house, and Ellie's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they went inside. Test now grabs Ellie by the arm
Speaker 1: and rushes in because she's ready to like she's done,
Speaker 1: she's ready to find out, like is it real?
Speaker 2: What's next?
Speaker 1: Probably, you know, depending on you know, probably because of
Speaker 1: the reveal it's about to happen, because she is one
Speaker 1: she is inspired by and buoyed by and really deeply
Speaker 1: by like this sliver of hope that she's feeling, and
Speaker 1: also like, hey, if there is a cure.
Speaker 2: But can we cook it up real quick? I maybe
Speaker 2: have it? How's it going? How's it going?
Speaker 1: So they get in there and everybody's dead, and Joel
Speaker 1: reads the situation. One or more of the fireflies got infected.
Speaker 1: There is a fight as the healthy ones fought the
Speaker 1: sick ones, and then everybody lost. In Joel's words. Tests
Speaker 1: is then like okay, well there's got to be a
Speaker 1: fucking map or a radio or some kind of indication
Speaker 1: about where Ellie was supposed to go.
Speaker 2: And Joel's like, okay, we did it done, Yeah, we
Speaker 2: dropped ahead. Let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go home, he says, and then Test snaps it's
Speaker 1: not my fucking home, which is like a hugely revealing
Speaker 1: comment again from Tests who all the while, you know again,
Speaker 1: it suggests all the while, all the while, all the way,
Speaker 1: Test has been like hoping for a real place, a
Speaker 1: real end to this.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then she says, you know, my luck had to
Speaker 1: run out, sooner or later, I'm going to stay behind.
Speaker 1: And Ellie gets it Test was bitten.
Speaker 2: Uh. Joel is shaded by this.
Speaker 1: Test shows him the wound which is on her neck
Speaker 1: and it's already like fung this out.
Speaker 2: And she's like, look at Ellie's this is like three
Speaker 2: weeks ago, Like what the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: This is this is real because look at this exact
Speaker 1: dialogue from the game where she her reaction is like oops, right,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah yeah. Test then begs Joel in an
Speaker 1: increasingly emotional appeal, to take Ellie West to find Tommy
Speaker 1: and his group and.
Speaker 2: To stop this, to cure this. She's like, your brother
Speaker 2: was a fly, firefly, like if anything he knows.
Speaker 1: Joel is like, they won't listen to me. They're not
Speaker 1: going to listen to me, Like I don't I've never
Speaker 1: been a firefly person, and I don't.
Speaker 2: Want to do this, Like I have no investment in this,
Speaker 2: this is like your thing.
Speaker 1: And Tess is like, you can do it because they'll
Speaker 1: listen to you, and you need to keep her alive
Speaker 1: and set everything right, and please say yes, Joel. In
Speaker 1: that moment, an infected corpse you know, shakes to not
Speaker 1: life after life, whatever you call it. Joel walks over
Speaker 1: shoots it. But that corpse happened to be laying in
Speaker 1: a pile of the cordy SIPs fungal net, which transmits
Speaker 1: the signal to a nearby horde, and you can hear
Speaker 1: them screeching, growing louder, and they'll be there in about
Speaker 1: a minute. Test is like, okay, I'm going to stay
Speaker 1: and hold them off. And this is when she says
Speaker 1: to Joel, save who you can save. You know you
Speaker 1: can save her, I can save you, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stay here. Joel then races with Ellie out of the bill,
Speaker 1: drags her out. Ellie is like, no, we're not again.
Speaker 1: This like naive innocence the child, like why can't we help?
Speaker 1: Kind of feeling the same thing that Sarah displayed on
Speaker 1: the night and everything broke out, which is like why
Speaker 1: aren't we stopping for that family behind them? The building
Speaker 1: explodes as Tests with her last strength, ignites her cigarette lighter,
Speaker 1: which sends up barrels of gasoline and loose hand grenades,
Speaker 1: and Joel heads off in the direction they need to go,
Speaker 1: with Ellie just kind of shocked staring at everything. X
Speaker 1: Ray Vision will be back, and we're back without spoiling
Speaker 1: how this is gonna go For people who haven't played
Speaker 1: the game, I think one thing that's important to get
Speaker 1: here is how much everybody but Joel wants to save
Speaker 1: the world and help people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. Joel's relationships are defined
Speaker 2: by the people closest to him.
Speaker 1: That he's he's a selfish guy, but it is cool.
Speaker 1: He's selfish, but in a really an understandable and humane.
Speaker 2: In a way that you can relate. It expands almost
Speaker 2: like a like a force field, like an invisible woman
Speaker 2: force field around those he loves. And yes, it's gonna
Speaker 2: be really important and I'm very interested to see where
Speaker 2: this goes. Because so let's talk about test dying. This
Speaker 2: is almost identical to the video game, almost an accept
Speaker 2: in the video game, she's killed by federal soldiers. So
Speaker 2: I love this choice because I think that it's really
Speaker 2: interesting that now we have the two people Joel's loved.
Speaker 2: One was killed by soldiers, one was killed by infected.
Speaker 2: So it adds that and I'm very interested in the game.
Speaker 2: Joel does not take this death well and he and
Speaker 2: he takes it out on Ellie kind of like in
Speaker 2: a way that he sees her as the reason that
Speaker 2: this happened. Ellie apologizes profusely in the moments in the game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: after this happens, and Joel's like, you cannot talk about it.
Speaker 1: Don't talk about Tests. We're not talking about Test anymore.
Speaker 1: Don't say her name.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to see if if they go the exact
Speaker 2: same route, because that's a really it's a really rough,
Speaker 2: like emotional journey for the two of them. I agree,
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm just like I so many people in
Speaker 2: our discord were just so upset that Test died. Anatov
Speaker 2: is so good, so good that even though I knew
Speaker 2: where was going it, it still kind of shocks you
Speaker 2: because you're just like, she was so good. Didn't you
Speaker 2: want to keep her around, didn't you want to take
Speaker 2: her to Billstown? Didn't you just want to imagine what
Speaker 2: that role would be? But she Billstown? If you watched
Speaker 2: the end you know, if you that that may be
Speaker 2: the name of the next chapter of the game. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm very I just think she was just so
Speaker 2: brilliant in this role. And also, now, somebody in our
Speaker 2: discord did say that they think the first season is
Speaker 2: going to be the first game, and that that had
Speaker 2: been confirmed. I have not read it, but I will
Speaker 2: say the speed that this is occurring does make that
Speaker 2: seem like it could be possible. Yeah, I agree, the
Speaker 2: speed that we are going through the events of the game.
Speaker 1: I mean we're already at this point about fifteen levels
Speaker 1: into the game, you know, fifty missions exactly.
Speaker 2: Your this is the end of chapter three, and there's
Speaker 2: twelve chapters in the game. So I'm I'm very interesting.
Speaker 2: Did because I would, I think that would be one
Speaker 2: of the bravest choices that we've seen in TV for
Speaker 2: a long time, to not stretch out to five seasons,
Speaker 2: to just not do that expansive kind of wide world,
Speaker 2: long term storytelling that The Walking Dead did to get
Speaker 2: to a point, and to instead understand that that game
Speaker 2: has one of the most heartbreaking storylines and to just
Speaker 2: tell it in one season and what you do after
Speaker 2: that is what you do after that to deal with
Speaker 2: the fallout.
Speaker 1: Now, I think people are surprised at how quickly test
Speaker 1: went out, even though as you mentioned, she does go
Speaker 1: out in the same exact portion of the story the
Speaker 1: game version of the story that she does in the
Speaker 1: television version.
Speaker 2: Of the story.
Speaker 1: But well, first of all, it feels like you spend
Speaker 1: a lot more time with her one because she kills
Speaker 1: about a hundred people, and.
Speaker 2: The predominant experience of tests, and you.
Speaker 1: Know, depending on how good you are at the game,
Speaker 1: you could spend you could have by that time have
Speaker 1: spent anywhere from five from three hours to ten hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: Somebody in our discord had a really funny comment that
Speaker 1: that alerting the first clicker, Ellie Gasping, validated his play style,
Speaker 1: which is being bad at stealth.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I have to do stealth. I've been
Speaker 2: playing the game, and like, if I try and go
Speaker 2: chaos mode, I'm the opposite because if I go chaos mode,
Speaker 2: I lose. I lose every time, whether it's a clicker,
Speaker 2: especially if it's a soldier. But yeah, it's really fun.
Speaker 2: This is just such a good show, and I think
Speaker 2: they're making a lot of really interesting choices. Agree because
Speaker 2: also as well, this is a show where twice now
Speaker 2: within the first two episodes, they faked you out on
Speaker 2: who your main cast is going to be. Because when
Speaker 2: the first episode, you think it's going to be Tommy,
Speaker 2: and you think it's going to be Joel. That's true,
Speaker 2: and you think it's gonna be Sarah that was not true.
Speaker 2: Then you think it's gonna be Tess and Joel and Ellie,
Speaker 2: and again you lose one of them within that episode.
Speaker 2: So I think it's going to be very interesting to
Speaker 2: see how they keep people on the edges of their seat.
Speaker 2: And the best thing is, as someone who's played the game,
Speaker 2: the show is still completely engaging, and it's really fun
Speaker 2: to see how closely they're adapting it. But I've seen,
Speaker 2: and this is my thing that makes most excite. I've
Speaker 2: seen so many people who've never played the game in
Speaker 2: our Discord online reviewers who just are absolutely invested. It's
Speaker 2: really well the two episodes.
Speaker 1: It's really well done in a great story, and I
Speaker 1: think one of the things two episodes in that we
Speaker 1: can kind of count on is how they're going to
Speaker 1: fill in the blanks of the game. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: significant blanks in the game.
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 1: There's a lot about the fireflies we don't know. There's
Speaker 1: a lot about how federal works that we don't know.
Speaker 1: You know next to nothing about how the fungus spread.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you know, episode one, you get
Speaker 1: all this interesting backstory. You follow Sarah for a lot
Speaker 1: longer than you initially think that, you know, considering how
Speaker 1: long you follow a drole. Episode two, you get how
Speaker 1: the fungus broke out. I think that is going to
Speaker 1: be is going to continue to be how this show
Speaker 1: improves on what is already an excellent story told through
Speaker 1: through video games, which is by filling in all these
Speaker 1: blanks with flashbacks, with all the stuff you didn't see
Speaker 1: in the game, and really keeping the stuff that's ripped
Speaker 1: directly from the game as the more kind of like
Speaker 1: suspenseful yeah yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Stuff, which is what the game does, so replicating those
Speaker 2: moments of like real horror. Yeah. I'm very interested as
Speaker 2: well to see if every cold open is going to
Speaker 2: be a different scientist, because they've kind of set that
Speaker 2: up and I'd really love to see maybe how it
Speaker 2: impacted people all over the world, you know, Chernobyl was
Speaker 2: very much about like showing how things break down in
Speaker 2: this kind of human bureaucracy, like slow time, and I
Speaker 2: feel like these cold opens are kind of interesting touches
Speaker 2: of that, so I'm really excited to see what happens
Speaker 2: in the cold open for episode three.
Speaker 1: Later this week, for our Friday episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: be covering the video game and second installment of our
Speaker 1: coverage of the Last of Us video games, so check
Speaker 1: back for that, and of course we're going to be
Speaker 1: covering the Last of Us on Hbox every Wednesday. In
Speaker 1: your Headphones Up next nerd Out.
Speaker 2: In today's nerd Out, where you tell us what you love,
Speaker 2: am why, or as you have been doing recently, share
Speaker 2: a theory with us that makes you excited, which is
Speaker 2: obviously we love theories. The tim foil Hattier the better,
Speaker 2: But so far, I have to say we've been getting
Speaker 2: a lot of very sensible theories. And yes, we have
Speaker 2: a new theory from Brandon that is about how a
Speaker 2: real life incident could possibly inspire the way that the
Speaker 2: MCU chooses to introduce mutants. So Jason joinerated the theory.
Speaker 1: Sure, Hi, Jason and Rosie, Hi, I've been behind on
Speaker 1: podcasts and catching up and every time you talk about
Speaker 1: mutants needing to be hated and feared, I have thought
Speaker 1: and forget to send it in. I think there's a
Speaker 1: really great and effective way to do it that the
Speaker 1: audience would buy immediately. Make it a pandemic. Agents of
Speaker 1: Shield kind of use this idea with terogenesis during they're
Speaker 1: in Humans ARC, and I think it would work really
Speaker 1: well in our post pandemic time. My two sense things.
Speaker 1: That's a fun, fun theory brain so that agence of
Speaker 1: Shield ARC is ripped from the comics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Humans pterogenesis and kind of the way that
Speaker 2: they get their powers, which is you have to go
Speaker 2: through this process where the terodymis brings out your powers.
Speaker 2: There's definitely a way with mutants because terogenesis is very
Speaker 2: similar to like the mutant gene being activated. We know
Speaker 2: that in the Weapon X program, and even if even
Speaker 2: in like the Deadpool movies, which everyone's really familiar with,
Speaker 2: there's this idea that you can activate a mutant gene.
Speaker 2: So they could definitely do something where an illness or
Speaker 2: a global pandemic activated people's mutant genes, so you don't
Speaker 2: have to deal with that kind of analogy of mutation
Speaker 2: is an illness, but you could talk about like how
Speaker 2: it be, how it coming out of an illness could
Speaker 2: affect people, make people scared of it, and also be
Speaker 2: a very interesting way to bring real life into it.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are ready to see
Speaker 2: TV and film that actually deals with or talks about
Speaker 2: the pandemic that we have lived through, that we are
Speaker 2: living through, you know. So I think this is really interesting.
Speaker 2: The Marvel comics don't have a great history of doing
Speaker 2: like illness analogies and mutation, but I would love to
Speaker 2: see a thoughtful way. And I do think that there's
Speaker 2: something in that idea of taking inspiration from terror genesis
Speaker 2: and making it something where the mutant gene is actually
Speaker 2: accelerated and then you can have mutations in all different
Speaker 2: ages as well, if they have the mutin gene but
Speaker 2: it hadn't been activated yet. You know. That's what happens
Speaker 2: to DePaul in the movies. They kind of activate the
Speaker 2: gene through this horrible process of like torturing them and stuff.
Speaker 2: So the idea of some kind of pandemic that, rather
Speaker 2: than giving people powers, just activates a mutant gene would
Speaker 2: be I think really interesting and also you know, the
Speaker 2: mc I like the weirdest stuff. Everybody knows that, But
Speaker 2: the MCU has long been grounded in this kind of
Speaker 2: idea of finding real ways to bring And also I
Speaker 2: think that there's something really interesting to talk about about,
Speaker 2: like superheros and disability and superheroes and chronic illness and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, and that's not often really
Speaker 2: deeply explained. So again, if it was through an illness
Speaker 2: or something, there's lots of interesting kind of connotations and
Speaker 2: ripe ground for exploration there.
Speaker 1: Now, fun fact, the Terrogen bomb and Terror Genesis, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of elevator pitch of that storyline was that
Speaker 1: a bomb filled with terrogen miss was detonated in the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: causing lots of people who have the latent in human
Speaker 1: gene to develop, including Kamalakon, including Kamalicon. Now, fun fact,
Speaker 1: this was done in Marvel Comics pre Disney's acquisition of
Speaker 1: Fox as.
Speaker 2: A way to bring the mutant to the screen with
Speaker 2: because they didn't own the IP at that exactly, so
Speaker 2: at the time there was it was quite hard to
Speaker 2: find a Fantastic Four comic because they didn't own the IP.
Speaker 2: It had been licensed away, and it was very hard
Speaker 2: to find a comic that was solely focused on the
Speaker 2: X Men and the terror gen Bomb and the Cherogian
Speaker 2: myst and people like Kamala Khan who was originally pitched
Speaker 2: as a mutant but then became an inhuman. In the
Speaker 2: comics through that it was basically hilarious editorial edicts to
Speaker 2: basically say, look, look we do have them. We got
Speaker 2: this guy who can't talk, voice is too loud. We
Speaker 2: got a cool dog. Everybody loves that. Everybody loves I
Speaker 2: actually would love to see I would love to see
Speaker 2: love during Like in Miss Marvel season two, Petavengers talked
Speaker 2: about it. You know, we have superstars, but you know
Speaker 2: what the real truth is. We all saw how the
Speaker 2: Inhuman's TV show went down like a level of and
Speaker 2: if you even remember that it happened, you can watch
Speaker 2: on Disney Plus. Though, yeah, it's very strange, has unbelievable cast,
Speaker 2: but it didn't badwigs means. Also, they shaved off Medusa's
Speaker 2: hair in the first episode. Her power is literally that
Speaker 2: she has hair, So as soon as they did that,
Speaker 2: you know there was going to be a problem. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I would be very interested. I wanted. A lot of
Speaker 2: people thought that Miss Marvel was going to introduce in humans.
Speaker 2: I was always hoping it was going to be a
Speaker 2: mutant story. But I'm very interested to know if the
Speaker 2: inhumans have a future in the MCU. After we saw
Speaker 2: Ants and Mount again, great casting, come back for that
Speaker 2: really memorable moment in Multiverse of Madness. I'll be very
Speaker 2: interested to see if there's a universe, whether in humans
Speaker 2: are the major heroes, and whether or not that comes
Speaker 2: into play as we get to this kind of inevitable
Speaker 2: secret Wars convergence, kind of like multiple universes in one,
Speaker 2: just no legacy virus type exactly. That's not what we want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, thank you, thanks for and if you have
Speaker 1: theories or passions you want to share, hit us up
Speaker 1: at x ray at crooked dot com. Instructions in the
Speaker 1: show notes.
Speaker 2: That's it for us, Rosie. Anything to plug uh. You
Speaker 2: can follow me on Instagram and let the box. That's
Speaker 2: my only social media, Rosie Marx with an X. I
Speaker 2: will be writing a bunch of stuff in the lead
Speaker 2: up to A Man and the Wasp Quantumania, which obviously
Speaker 2: we are very excited about, and we'll be getting more
Speaker 2: excited about In the upcoming weeks. You can check out
Speaker 2: my writing at IGN, Nerdict, Polygon, Den of Geek, all
Speaker 2: kinds of good places. I've got a big Den of
Speaker 2: Geek cover story coming out soon for our currently unannounced
Speaker 2: cool thing. Jason, What about you? Let people find you?
Speaker 1: You can find me in your podcast reet every Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Every Wednesday, right here, right here, mut And that's about
Speaker 1: it right now. I'll watch Primo when it comes out
Speaker 1: on Amazon freebe sometime I don't know, in the spring
Speaker 1: end or summer of twenty twenty three, and we'll catch you.
Speaker 2: On the flip side. Five star reviews, five star ratings.
Speaker 2: We want one.
Speaker 1: No, we want two, No, we want three, no, four,
Speaker 1: keep going five? Yes, perfect, we want five star ratings.
Speaker 2: We want five.
Speaker 1: Five star ratings. On your podcast review rating platform of choice.
Speaker 1: Here is one from Bills Preston. Love this pod, Thank you,
Speaker 1: Bill x Ray is at the top of my list
Speaker 1: of awesome pods. I love listening to Jason and Rosie.
Speaker 1: The depth of their comics and pop culture knowledge. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: super pumped. The show is coming twice a week in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: That's all right, it is. Let's do it twice a week.
Speaker 2: We're pumped too, And if you want to read a
Speaker 2: transcript of the show something I'm very excited about, they
Speaker 2: are posted beneath the show notes on the Crooked website
Speaker 2: for each episode within a forty eight hours of you
Speaker 2: being able to listen. Says a great way for more
Speaker 2: people to be able to experience the show.
Speaker 1: Catch the next episode on Friday, January twenty seventh, and
Speaker 1: remember we're bringing you two episodes a week, two to
Speaker 1: two two two episodes a week. That's twice the episodes twice,
Speaker 1: the deep dives two times, the everything else. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: us on YouTube, where you can now watch full episodes
Speaker 1: of this show. Plus follow the at XRV pod handle
Speaker 1: on Twitter and check out the discord. Come to the discord, folks.
Speaker 1: It's great, the water's nice. It's a great place to
Speaker 1: meet and hang out with tons of amazing fans and listeners.
Speaker 1: Plus Rosie and I are there. X ray Vision is
Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris
Speaker 1: Lord and Salrubin. The show is executive produced by myself
Speaker 1: and Sandy Rhard are editing in sound designers by Vacillis Phatopoulos.
Speaker 1: Dylon Villanueva and Matt Degroup provide video production support. Alex
Speaker 1: Rellaford handle social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for o
Speaker 1: theme music by Bye Bello