Speaker 1: Warning this podcast could take spoilers for the Last of
Speaker 1: Us episode eight, and potentially some minor spoilers from ant
Speaker 1: Man in the Wasp Quantumnia in our nerd Out section,
Speaker 1: so be warned. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcio and
Speaker 1: on Rosey Night, and welcome to x ray Vision, the
Speaker 1: Crooked Media podcast where we dived Dee been to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 2: In this episode, hope you're hungry because in the.
Speaker 3: Hello Dinners, Dennis some delicious venison in the lock we're
Speaker 3: talking about the Lost of Us episode eight and in
Speaker 3: nerd Out it's a theory on I'm Man in the
Speaker 3: Wasp Quantumnia.
Speaker 2: You might have heard of it.
Speaker 1: If you want to jump around, as always, check the
Speaker 1: show notes for the time stamps. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Coming up next to the airlock, we're stepping out of
Speaker 1: the airlock and into the restaurant for the Last of
Speaker 1: Us episode eight, titled When We Are in Need, written
Speaker 1: by Craig Mason and directed by Ali Abassi, and we
Speaker 1: open with scenes of deep winter. We see a not
Speaker 1: quite frozen lake somewhere in Colorado. We see a sign
Speaker 1: for Silver Lake, Colorado, and over these wintry images, we
Speaker 1: hear the voice of a man saying, behold, the Tabernacle
Speaker 1: of God is with men. The preacher's name is David.
Speaker 1: He is the leader of a small Christian fundamentalist group
Speaker 1: whose motto is when we are in need, he shall provide.
Speaker 1: And David is reading these lines with sadness. It seems,
Speaker 1: you know, he's got this. He really projects this kind
Speaker 1: of like humility, but almost like he's trying to project
Speaker 1: this humility. He's so he's been, you know, he's been
Speaker 1: weighted down with this responsibility, and he's all too familiar
Speaker 1: with the sadness that that responsibility brings. There's a young
Speaker 1: girl and a woman we assume to be her mother,
Speaker 1: sitting close to the preacher. They look distraught. He then
Speaker 1: asks the girl if she remembers what comes next. She doesn't,
Speaker 1: so he finishes it for her, He says, and God
Speaker 1: will wipe the tears from their eyes, and there will
Speaker 1: be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. The former
Speaker 1: things are passed away. Do you know what that means?
Speaker 1: And basically it means Heaven is pretty good now this
Speaker 1: the daughter and the woman are the family of We
Speaker 1: are soon to find out of the course of this episode,
Speaker 1: the man who was killed in the previous episode when
Speaker 1: the group of raiders attacked Joel and Ellie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely very interesting. I really like the choice
Speaker 2: here to show us what happened, show that the raiders
Speaker 2: were the aggressors, and then to have this kind of
Speaker 2: opening where they want to flip that on its head.
Speaker 2: But there's always this creepy edge to it, where we
Speaker 2: know what really happened, we know what these people do
Speaker 2: to survive, we know they will go out and kill people.
Speaker 2: But here are the family, here's the fallout, and when
Speaker 2: it's again it's that question of what will we do
Speaker 2: to survive? But here we're not going to get an
Speaker 2: empathetic version of that story. This is something, as you
Speaker 2: will gain from the next line that David says, this
Speaker 2: is something much darker.
Speaker 1: Well, in the most empathetic reading of a situation like this,
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the you do what you
Speaker 1: have to do to survive formulation, right, you get killed
Speaker 1: taking another people's stuff. That will just kick off this
Speaker 1: cycle of retribution, you would imagine, And that's very much
Speaker 1: what this, not just this episode, but this series is about.
Speaker 1: On a certain level, and it really seems to no spoilers,
Speaker 1: but to be pointing ahead towards the themes and content
Speaker 1: of the sequel game too.
Speaker 2: It really does. From Kathleen to here, we're really getting
Speaker 2: a lot of hints towards what happens in the in
Speaker 2: the second part of the game.
Speaker 1: And it also like not to belabor it, but it
Speaker 1: also you know, when when that's your dad, you don't
Speaker 1: want to believe they do bad stuff, right, and he
Speaker 1: died doing something good. They did, They died fighting.
Speaker 2: He was a you know, I think that's really powerful
Speaker 2: and I think that they did a great job with
Speaker 2: this character. Is the young girl being your in character.
Speaker 2: She is ignorant to what is really going on in
Speaker 2: this colony, as we will find out, and also as
Speaker 2: we lay alone. David is a mini pulator. He is
Speaker 2: a groomer. He is he is a violent, horrible man.
Speaker 2: You know, this is this is someone who who is
Speaker 2: manipulating the people who follow him. And I love that
Speaker 2: we do get this one moment of somebody who truly
Speaker 2: believes that they have been wronged and they don't know
Speaker 2: the context, and obviously to her it's just a shocking loss.
Speaker 2: But like you said, I like that. It shows that
Speaker 2: seed of retribution, and we'll see the young girl trying
Speaker 2: to seek that out later.
Speaker 1: To the girl asks if they can bury her dad,
Speaker 1: and a look passes between David and a few picked
Speaker 1: men here in the What we are soon to learn
Speaker 1: is like the the restaurant of this former resort, and
Speaker 1: David is like, nah, you know the ground is, it's frozen.
Speaker 1: It's frozen solid folks until the springtime. Don't worry. Well, well,
Speaker 1: let's put a pin.
Speaker 2: In that, a burying thing.
Speaker 1: Let's say March April. We'll come back to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And as you will, if you've read The Road,
Speaker 2: if you've watched The Walking Dead, you probably understand that
Speaker 2: this point what is really going on in Silver Lake
Speaker 2: because when when she asks that and David shoots a
Speaker 2: look to his men, you know, including Troy Baker here
Speaker 2: in a new role who played Joel in the game,
Speaker 2: you know what's going on and it is creepy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you definitely feel it. And if you
Speaker 1: don't know right here, you get you certainly you certainly
Speaker 1: understand that something is a miss. Later on David business congregationbuye.
Speaker 1: They head back to their homes and James, his lieutenant,
Speaker 1: comes up. Uh this is the man that David exchanged
Speaker 1: the glance with. And they start talking about the stores,
Speaker 1: how much meat we've got left, Elk Venison all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and Jay is like, you know, one or two weeks
Speaker 1: some so somewhere thereabouts, uh we And and you learn
Speaker 1: that David has groups scouring the surrounding area for supplies,
Speaker 1: but there's really nothing to be found in in this
Speaker 1: in this region. David then tells James that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sensing some doubt here, and James's like, what no.
Speaker 1: The congregation like obviously, like it's tough, people are hungry,
Speaker 1: it's very very cold, but they they their faith remains unshaken.
Speaker 1: And David's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about you, bro,
Speaker 1: what about you? And James is like, no, I still
Speaker 1: believe the less. And it's always when someone says I
Speaker 1: still believe and then goes on to keep talking, you know,
Speaker 1: like that off the bot right, it's like there's no
Speaker 1: butt here, but it feels James. James says, I still
Speaker 1: believe now, and then you know, the last six months
Speaker 1: have been hard, but he insists that he's with David,
Speaker 1: but again it seems like a pretty weak assurance. Back
Speaker 1: with our friends Ellie and Joel, Ellie is checking on
Speaker 1: Joel's wound. You know, it's certainly not bleeding anymore after
Speaker 1: Ellie's kind of hasty and rough sewing up of the injury,
Speaker 1: but you know, infection and the regular yeah, is certainly
Speaker 1: a concern, and yeah, he and Joel is absolutely out
Speaker 1: of it. There's this wonderful like maternal moment, you know,
Speaker 1: with the rolls suddenly flipped, where Ellie choose some jerky,
Speaker 1: you know, almost desperately, and then leaves it on Joel's
Speaker 1: blanket for him to eat should he rouse himself and
Speaker 1: need to need to eat, and then she slips away
Speaker 1: to go hunt. She tries to tackle a rabbit, that
Speaker 1: doesn't work. She and then soon after that she spots
Speaker 1: a deer, takes aim, shoots it, but the animal it's
Speaker 1: not a kill shot, so the animal kind of runs.
Speaker 1: She has to go find it, and of course it
Speaker 1: drops dead right at the feet of David and James,
Speaker 1: who are in the area looking for forage, looking for supplies.
Speaker 1: Ellie gets the drop on him. She's like, drop your rifles,
Speaker 1: turn around, walk away. David goes right into preacher mode
Speaker 1: and he's ready. He's ready, specifically, as we are going
Speaker 1: to learn over the course of this episode. He sees
Speaker 1: a young girl by herself, and David is like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: here we go. Hey, you have ten seconds. Hey, just
Speaker 1: before you before you shoe us off your dear, you
Speaker 1: have ten seconds to talk about you know where you
Speaker 1: are spiritually.
Speaker 2: And you need to help us. We got all the people, women, children,
Speaker 2: you know, he's got trip and he really wants Sally
Speaker 2: to go back.
Speaker 1: With him now, and and and he and he offers
Speaker 1: a trade. He's like, maybe there's something we can help
Speaker 1: you with. You give us half the deer, and you know,
Speaker 1: we have stuff. And then before he can even like
Speaker 1: list anything, she just puts out, do you have medicine?
Speaker 1: And then David is like, aha, here is a vulnerability.
Speaker 1: Here is the thing that I can I sense I
Speaker 1: have leverage here. Uh. And David's like, oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: got uh, we got lots of medicine. You come back
Speaker 1: with us to where cabin Ellie's wisely, he's like no, no, thank.
Speaker 2: God, I was worried for a moment, you know, like
Speaker 2: she's not the most sensible person but for the first time,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, but I like that here she she
Speaker 2: trusts that guy. That's that instinct that when you're a kid,
Speaker 2: your parents are like, if you feel that, just follow that,
Speaker 2: Like if somebody gives you a bad vibe, don't go.
Speaker 2: And she does the right thing and she's like, I'm
Speaker 2: not going back with you.
Speaker 1: Then she does the slightly less unwise thing but still
Speaker 1: unwise thing, which is she lets James go back to
Speaker 1: get medicine. He goes. David is like, hey, go get
Speaker 1: two bottles of penicillin from Howard and a syringe. James
Speaker 1: is like he is speak in his eye like is
Speaker 1: this cold?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And David is like, it's not code, James, just
Speaker 1: do it now. When he says it's not code James,
Speaker 1: that should have been Ellie's first clue that like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Part of a group. I'm sending this guy back.
Speaker 1: He might tell somebody, yeah, I need to be I
Speaker 1: need to be on guard here.
Speaker 2: But it's about Joel's survival. I think Ellie has that
Speaker 2: tunnel vision this episode just about how can she help
Speaker 2: the man that she cas so deeply about come through this?
Speaker 2: How can she avoid being alone? Which you know she
Speaker 2: said to Sam was her greatest fear.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So David and Ellie end up in the ruins
Speaker 1: of this house. They've built a fire and they're sitting
Speaker 1: there with this deer carcass and Ellie's got her gun
Speaker 1: on David the whole time, and David is continuing his pitch.
Speaker 1: He's like, why don't you join us? Why don't you
Speaker 1: join our group? Uh? And Ellie's like, it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: that great, because you yourself said that you're starving. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like you're doing great. You're stealing my dear.
Speaker 2: I'm a child and I killed idea and now you
Speaker 2: are stealing it from me. I don't think it sounds
Speaker 2: like a good trade.
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, but I'm a decent guy and
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to do uh right by the people
Speaker 1: who rely on me. Uh. And she's like, okay, so
Speaker 1: you're their leader and he's like yeah, but but they
Speaker 1: chose that they wanted that to be the thing, and
Speaker 1: Ellie and this is good, this is actually great. That
Speaker 1: Ellie sniffs this out right away, like this is some
Speaker 1: weird cult thing. Like she's very very much.
Speaker 2: Yes, babe, Like one hundred yes.
Speaker 1: And David does not give the most authoritative and sir.
Speaker 1: When Ellie says, is this some weird cult thing? And
Speaker 1: David's verbatim answer his actual answer is uh. He starts
Speaker 1: with this very long uh, and he goes, ah, I'm
Speaker 1: just your basic Yeah, just your basic preacher, Bible preacher.
Speaker 1: That's it. What was the up, bro?
Speaker 2: Everyone in this colony needs to have better prepared answers.
Speaker 2: You're gonna see this at time and time again. I'm like, bro,
Speaker 2: you could have just said no. If somebody asks you
Speaker 2: if it's a cult, just say no. But then we
Speaker 2: will run that for some reason throughout this episode, probably
Speaker 2: his own delusional mind, but David sees something in Ellie
Speaker 2: that he thinks is a kindred spirit. So I also
Speaker 2: wonder if that's why he doesn't immediately lie to her.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe she likes you cults. I don't want to
Speaker 2: deny it in case she's into it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about this when we get to that,
Speaker 1: but let's talk about it now. I this is part
Speaker 1: of David's hitch to Ellie. I took that to be
Speaker 1: David's just a flat out is grooming he is, You're
Speaker 1: so special, like you're You're the only one that understands me.
Speaker 1: You know, all these people I'm with they don't get it.
Speaker 1: They don't get it the way you understand. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: you really understand what's going on here, and I feel
Speaker 1: like you're a kindred spit. Like I took that as Oh,
Speaker 1: David's an even deeper scumbag than than than we could,
Speaker 1: than we are than we know about right now.
Speaker 2: He definitely is, and you see that in the way
Speaker 2: that he approaches Ellie, Like the actor who brings him
Speaker 2: to life is.
Speaker 1: So terribly deeply unsettling role.
Speaker 2: It's so quiet and at no point. What I really
Speaker 2: love about this is they don't try and fake us out.
Speaker 2: They understand that we know the genre enough that they
Speaker 2: don't need to make us think, oh, maybe it is
Speaker 2: a good place, because if you think about it, like
Speaker 2: The Walking Dead, I think a lot about the Sanctuary storyline,
Speaker 2: which was actually one of my favorite storylines, where they
Speaker 2: seek out this place that's allegedly the safe place for survivors.
Speaker 2: They get there, they get fed this delicious meal lo
Speaker 2: and behold, oh, actually you're going to be dinner. Like
Speaker 2: season five Walking Down or whenever that happens. But like,
Speaker 2: I like here that from the outset, you are just
Speaker 2: given clues constantly, atmosphere clues, tone clues, visual clues, vibe
Speaker 2: clues that David is just bad news. And I think
Speaker 2: that's a really good way of building the creepiness and
Speaker 2: tension that kind of leads to this explosion of violence.
Speaker 2: At the end of the.
Speaker 1: Episode, X ray Vision will be back and we're back,
Speaker 1: so we get some of David's backstory. He says that
Speaker 1: he was just a math teacher, which again, bad vibes.
Speaker 1: Here's a good yeah, the bad vibes can continue, like
Speaker 1: this was a person working with young people. We should
Speaker 1: assume and consider what we learn over the course of
Speaker 1: this episode very troubling. And he says, you know, I
Speaker 1: was not even religious until after the end of the world.
Speaker 1: We learned that he was at the Pittsburgh QZ, which
Speaker 1: fell due to ongoing battles between Fedra and the Fireflies,
Speaker 1: and then he and some people started heading west and
Speaker 1: they'd find a camp and that raiders would attack the
Speaker 1: camp and then they'd have to move on and picking
Speaker 1: up people along the way, and that's how they came
Speaker 1: to be here in Colorado and He believes that all
Speaker 1: of that, all of that constant kind of movement to
Speaker 1: the west, attack, a search for peace, the death on
Speaker 1: every side, all of that was as it should be,
Speaker 1: because it's what brought them here. All of this happens
Speaker 1: for a reason. Don't believe it. Check this out. And
Speaker 1: then David tells Ellie recently, I sent out a forging
Speaker 1: party of four and winter. It's been hard. Food's been scares,
Speaker 1: people have been starving. Only three men came back. Now
Speaker 1: the man who died was a father, and he was
Speaker 1: killed by a crazy man traveling with a little girl.
Speaker 1: And now Ellie's like, oh fuck, and she stiffens. But
Speaker 1: before she can even think about pulling the trigger on
Speaker 1: her rifle, David's saying, James, lower, you're going to realize
Speaker 1: that they've already got to drop on her. James, for
Speaker 1: his part, recognizes that Ellie was the girl who was
Speaker 1: with the man who killed their companion and their friend.
Speaker 1: And David is like, yeah, but forget all that. Just
Speaker 1: give her the medicine. James is like what it's like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just give it to her. And then David again offers
Speaker 1: to take Ellie and he's like, I can protect you
Speaker 1: you know you're out here alone. This is no place.
Speaker 1: You know, this world is not safe, or a young
Speaker 1: girl alone. Ellie takes the medicine and runs off, and
Speaker 1: James is like, I can't believe that you're just gonna
Speaker 1: let her get away. But of course he's not going
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is a good sign as well
Speaker 2: that David is clearly not like a very trusted leader.
Speaker 2: Even though he has this power, he kind of rules
Speaker 2: through this fear, as we'll find out in a couple
Speaker 2: of scenes. And also I just find it very interesting
Speaker 2: that that's James's first thought. It's not like, oh you oh,
Speaker 2: obviously we're gonna follow her, or what's the plan next
Speaker 2: that he just thinks like, oh, you saw a young
Speaker 2: girl and you gave her what you wanted because you're
Speaker 2: a creep. Like it's really interesting. They show you so
Speaker 2: many dynamics in these small moments.
Speaker 1: I think that that's right, and I think that it's
Speaker 1: even more insidious than that, because it tells you that
Speaker 1: David has, even from his followers, a secret side. Yes,
Speaker 1: because James is like the fact that James doesn't understand
Speaker 1: of course David's not gonna leave it here. This is
Speaker 1: not the end of it. You think he's that was
Speaker 1: just like largees, it was just generosity. Nor the fact
Speaker 1: that James doesn't pick that up lets you know that
Speaker 1: David has a deeper, more secret side from the people
Speaker 1: who you know he's ostensibly in this like intimate leadership rule.
Speaker 2: With I love that actually, because that is a great
Speaker 2: read where it's like David's falsification of who he is
Speaker 2: and this kind of kindness and generosity. He has actually
Speaker 2: sold that to them so well that James could believe
Speaker 2: that he would just give this away because he thinks
Speaker 2: it's the right thing to do. And I love I
Speaker 2: love that pickup that I almost kind of didn't even
Speaker 2: realize when I was watching that he wasn't a preacher before.
Speaker 2: When you read it in the context after a couple
Speaker 2: of rewatches and then talking about it with you, that
Speaker 2: is just so creepy because that is a man who
Speaker 2: picked up the beliefs of others in order to become
Speaker 2: a cult leader to make the most of a post
Speaker 2: apocalyptic situation for himself. That's so horrifying. And I think
Speaker 2: that I wrote about this ign this week about this episode.
Speaker 2: I think that is the notion of why these kind
Speaker 2: of characters are always presented as the scariest thing you
Speaker 2: can come up against inever apocalypse. What if it wasn't
Speaker 2: the best of us who thrived at the end of
Speaker 2: the world, but the worst of us. Yeah, and David
Speaker 2: is absolutely that a man who knew how to manipulate
Speaker 2: the end of the world into a situation that now
Speaker 2: he is incredibly happy with because he's surrounded by women
Speaker 2: and children who he is in control of. Very scary stuff.
Speaker 1: This is a great point now. In that opening scene
Speaker 1: where you see David with his flock in that restaurant,
Speaker 1: the first thing that struck me was one the women
Speaker 1: and the men were separate. You saw a mother with
Speaker 1: a young daughter, You saw another mother with a young
Speaker 1: daughter who we didn't meet them too much. But then
Speaker 1: all the men sit at their own tables and it's
Speaker 1: really only David that addresses the women and.
Speaker 2: Who walks among them.
Speaker 1: I just feel, Yeah, immediately You're like, this is there's
Speaker 1: something not right here. This is not good. Whatever is
Speaker 1: going on here is not right now. It's just not
Speaker 1: It's certainly it's awesome.
Speaker 2: Very soon even more of that really nightmarish dynamic.
Speaker 1: So Ellie returns to Joel. She just kind of guesses,
Speaker 1: like where to inject the antibiotics. She does it right
Speaker 1: into the wound, you know. Pad choice like good choice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good as good a choice as any. We go back
Speaker 1: to silver Lake and the short dinner is getting cooked up.
Speaker 1: It looks like very very red meat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks very fresh, seeing as well, they just
Speaker 2: very very frunning out of meat that surely you would
Speaker 2: have jerkied, etc.
Speaker 1: We're putting this in tomato sauce that we have because
Speaker 1: because that's what we have, but also like it'll help
Speaker 1: cover up any kind of the redness.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Folks are kind of sitting around with their plates of
Speaker 1: this meat and there's a great moment. So the moment
Speaker 1: was being cooked up right where the woman who is
Speaker 1: stirring all, you know, everything into the pot, uh, says
Speaker 1: to the guy who brings this tray of meat, well
Speaker 1: what is it? And he just goes, well, first there's
Speaker 1: a long pause two to three, like a very very.
Speaker 2: Long get a quicker on inside in your head, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then he just goes venison. Its like it's a question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it has the little little ven.
Speaker 1: So you know, everybody's h sitting around eating there or
Speaker 1: getting ready to eat their plates of and you could
Speaker 1: see there's a there's a really great, kind of very
Speaker 1: very small moment here where you see various people eating.
Speaker 1: Some of them are tearing into it, Others are like
Speaker 1: just nibbling at it. Others seem wary of it, like
Speaker 1: openly wary. And that is when David and James return
Speaker 1: with this big deer that they took off Ellie and
Speaker 1: David could not be happier to be bringing this meat in.
Speaker 1: But then he sees that, oh, people are like, wait,
Speaker 1: what are we eating?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Everyone else is like you just showed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just showed up with the meat. What am
Speaker 1: I eating right now? And David's like, hey listen, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: wait wait wait. This is one of the great fake
Speaker 1: outs in this episode too, where David and David says, okay,
Speaker 1: hold on, let me I need to say something. I
Speaker 1: know there are rumors going around the camp. Okay, and
Speaker 1: they're true. I found the girl who was with the
Speaker 1: guy who murdered what our friend. It's so good because
Speaker 1: you're like, I really thought like he's about to say,
Speaker 1: hey listen, yeah, we're starving.
Speaker 2: This time we're eating some people. Yeah, I love I
Speaker 2: love that note that you made as well, Like it's
Speaker 2: so well done to see the way that some people
Speaker 2: are just eating it so heartily. Some people are wary,
Speaker 2: some people are nibbling because, like we can tell just
Speaker 2: from the narrative storytelling of one episode that David is
Speaker 2: off key, and that that glance he gave to James
Speaker 2: meant her Dad's getting eaten. So of course the people
Speaker 2: in the room would feel the same way. I like
Speaker 2: that respect of the intelligence of the characters and the
Speaker 2: intelligence of the audience to know that it's not realistic
Speaker 2: that every single person in there would just be yamming
Speaker 2: down the food, acting like it was completely normal. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be people who are starting to cotton on to
Speaker 2: what David and James are doing.
Speaker 1: And here we see how David keeps control of these people.
Speaker 1: He does it one through his generosity sharing this food communism.
Speaker 1: It turns out it turns out to be you know
Speaker 1: people spoiler two, by creating these external threats. He says, Hey,
Speaker 1: I found the man, I found the girl. I know
Speaker 1: where she is. We're gonna send a search party out
Speaker 1: tomorrow and we're gonna get revenge. He's out there, We're
Speaker 1: gonna get him. And then three through outright fear and violence,
Speaker 1: the girl whose father was killed is like, I want
Speaker 1: them both dead? Why not kill the girl too? Like,
Speaker 1: why are you gonna bring her back here?
Speaker 2: It seems like a good point. And also, like I
Speaker 2: will say as well, I think this is another great
Speaker 2: narrative choice, because surely that seems like what the leader
Speaker 2: would want, and that would have been a great moment
Speaker 2: for David to be like, you're right, my child, like
Speaker 2: we will get justice and vengeance, just like an eye
Speaker 2: for an eye in the Bible or whatever. But that
Speaker 2: is not the way David reacts, and it tells us
Speaker 2: so much about him and this colony.
Speaker 1: He slaps this young girl to the floor. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: off her chair, off her chair. Nobody moves, No, everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody stays nailed to their seat. And he says, you know, basically,
Speaker 1: I'm your father. Now you have to respect me, or
Speaker 1: this is what happens. Now, let's say grace, uh and
Speaker 1: eat dinner, which is probably your.
Speaker 2: Dad sadly, like yeah, it's so creepy. He's like, you
Speaker 2: think you've lost your father, but you still have a
Speaker 2: father and he's oh, so creepy, and then he's like,
Speaker 2: and now eat your father. There's lots of fun.
Speaker 1: Now your father, he'll be part of you forever. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: The next The next day, Joel hard to tell if
Speaker 1: he's getting better or not. Ellie goes outside to get
Speaker 1: some air, and she sees a flock of crows go
Speaker 1: up maybe half a mile away, very very close, and
Speaker 1: she realizes that something is coming from that way. She
Speaker 1: sneaks around and she spots them. This is five maybe
Speaker 1: six men, including David and James, and of course they
Speaker 1: are here to kill Joel if he isn't dead already,
Speaker 1: and David orders them to bring Ellie back. She is
Speaker 1: not to be harmed. James is like just another mouth
Speaker 1: to feed. No, like, what do we have to Maybe
Speaker 1: we'd let her stay here and die, or we kill her.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that's God's will. Yeah, I and
Speaker 1: David gives James the most chilling stare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so scary. And I also love this moment
Speaker 2: because after watching it again, Look, I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: make any justification for James's behavior, and Troy is so
Speaker 2: great in this character, Like it's so believable. This kind
Speaker 2: of weird like weakness, this like tweaky weakness of following David.
Speaker 2: But I also wonder, like does he have an inkling,
Speaker 2: Like do these men think Ellie would be better off
Speaker 2: to just be shot in the street than to go
Speaker 2: back and be with David like that? Maybe he doesn't
Speaker 2: want to kill another person to actually feed them to
Speaker 2: someone else, Like there's something here that I think is
Speaker 2: actually more than this idea of a mouth to feed, Like,
Speaker 2: I think that there is a deep down somewhere there
Speaker 2: is a slight act of mercy as he sees it,
Speaker 2: to just shoot her in the snow instead of taking
Speaker 2: her back.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting read as well. It's you know, certainly
Speaker 1: that idea of well it's better this way, mingled with
Speaker 1: the sincere vengeance that he's seeking. She certainly would make
Speaker 1: doing the young girl a lot easier. Ellie tries to
Speaker 1: rouse Joel no Bueno desperately. She puts her knife in
Speaker 1: his hand and is like, listen, I'm gonna try and
Speaker 1: lead them away. But if I can't, this is for
Speaker 1: anybody that comes down here. Joel is like just barely
Speaker 1: with it. He does not seem all the way conscious.
Speaker 1: Ellie then seals up the house like puts a puts
Speaker 1: a piece of furniture in front of the cellar door,
Speaker 1: gets on the horse and goes galloping down the street.
Speaker 1: She you know, runs up on the guys says, hey, motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: She shot at them, and then rides off. Uh, And
Speaker 1: they're ready to shoot her, but David is like, no, alive, alive, alive,
Speaker 1: I want her alive. James then shoots Ellie's horse out
Speaker 1: from under her. Rip horse. We didn't know your name,
Speaker 1: but it was really sad to see you go. Ellie
Speaker 1: is gets the first of several concussions that she will
Speaker 1: get over the course of this episode. Oh man, I
Speaker 1: mean she's like legitimately unconscious for like an hour, like
Speaker 1: a long time. It's actually medically concerning. They capture her easily.
Speaker 1: James is about to kill her when David shoots in
Speaker 1: the air and is like no. Then he carries her
Speaker 1: off himself, which is fucked up, and then it's like
Speaker 1: you all, I'm gonna take I'll take her back by
Speaker 1: myself to our camp. You stay here and you look
Speaker 1: for Joel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's like, if you venge get it that way,
Speaker 2: get your hands here, and sorry to them. They don't
Speaker 2: realize that essentially going up against the terminator, Like if
Speaker 2: you take a kid from Joel, if you take a
Speaker 2: little girl from Joel, if you take a baby from
Speaker 2: Pedro Piscal as we know, you're gonna be in trouble.
Speaker 2: So is not gonna go well for them, but good
Speaker 2: good for them for trying to get their vengeance. Let's
Speaker 2: see how that goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, what follows is Joel Wick.
Speaker 2: Joel Wick exactly instead of the little puppy.
Speaker 1: He you know, the first victim sneaks into the house
Speaker 1: that Joel is in, drags the obstacle away from the
Speaker 1: cellar door, creeps down there, sees the bloodstained mattress. It's like,
Speaker 1: who's down here? And then Joel stabs him in the
Speaker 1: shoulder slash neck and in classic Joel fast squatsco is
Speaker 1: like joking him out so you can't cry out, and
Speaker 1: you get this really stark shot of the light going
Speaker 1: out of this guy's eyes and you stare at it
Speaker 1: for a long time, like you just see this man
Speaker 1: the dead man's face, you watch him die.
Speaker 2: They value life so much, the creators of this show,
Speaker 2: and I think it's something that really makes this stand
Speaker 2: out from pretty much any other post apocalyptic storytelling, even
Speaker 2: the game. I think it's one of the smartest choices
Speaker 2: they made in adapting it. You feel every death. Every
Speaker 2: time somebody dies, it's horrific. It's it's terrible. Every time
Speaker 2: someone is hurt, it's horrific, even if they've done something.
Speaker 2: There is a cathartic nature to what Joel is doing.
Speaker 2: But I like your john Wick reference because there's that moment.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously love John Wick, like the stuntman movie
Speaker 2: of all time, and I love Keanu and there's that
Speaker 2: great moment where it's like he's like, yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: you could say I was back, And this is definitely
Speaker 2: like all Joel is back. This is that Joel that
Speaker 2: we are about. This is that Joel. Everyone. Oh, Joel
Speaker 2: did so many bad things.
Speaker 1: Ellie.
Speaker 2: You can't trust him, you can't. You don't know the
Speaker 2: things that he did. We've seen reluctant Joel. We've seen
Speaker 2: tired Joel. But this is assassin Joel. This is going
Speaker 2: to kill you no matter what you tell him. Joel.
Speaker 1: Where is the thing that I want? Yeah, tell me
Speaker 1: where it is? And and we've we've spent the last
Speaker 1: several episodes talking about Joel's lack of comfort with anything
Speaker 1: that seems like peace or happiness, or the potential for
Speaker 1: happiness or the potential to grow new bonds. It's the
Speaker 1: hard ways, which Hardway's is like something to be taken from.
Speaker 1: This is Joel in his element. This is Jewel doing
Speaker 1: the thing that he is comfortable doing, and that's dealing
Speaker 1: out pain to people, and it's not daring the cost himself,
Speaker 1: bearing the cost on his own body. Ellie comes to
Speaker 1: in a holding cell. David is there. He's been watching
Speaker 1: her sleep and he's like, listen, I'm the only thing
Speaker 1: keeping you from being torn apart by my followers. They
Speaker 1: want to kill you. But I'm tears saying no, no, no,
Speaker 1: let's give her a chance. Uh so, why don't you
Speaker 1: just tell me your name? And she's like eat shit.
Speaker 1: David really really wants Ellie to join up, and he
Speaker 1: keeps on pitching this story about I can protect you.
Speaker 1: He's offering her a new life. He's like, listen that
Speaker 1: whatever you did before your life is before this day.
Speaker 1: It's over. Your relationship with that man. That's done. It's
Speaker 1: coming to an end. This is your new life at
Speaker 1: starting right now. Back at the town, joel Is continues
Speaker 1: to go full jowel Is. He takes out two more
Speaker 1: of David's men. He takes some captive, drags him to
Speaker 1: a house, and tortures them until they point out. One
Speaker 1: of them points out where Ellie is on a map.
Speaker 1: Then he kills that guy, and then he picks up
Speaker 1: a pipe and he beats the fucking other guy's brains in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is one of those moments where
Speaker 2: I just think we're constantly blown away by Petra. He's
Speaker 2: such a brilliant act a light. We've seen him. We've
Speaker 2: seen how brilliant he is in The Mandlurian. We've seen
Speaker 2: this kind of quiet, stoic, tortured man that he can
Speaker 2: be in the Last of Us. He's also brilliant comic actor.
Speaker 2: You know, we've seen so many brilliant sights to him.
Speaker 2: But there is such a determination and violence in this sequence,
Speaker 2: like he is going to pop a man's kneecap off
Speaker 2: with his knife.
Speaker 1: There's a comfort too that easy, specifically the way he
Speaker 1: like when he jams that his knife into the into
Speaker 1: the you know, right behind the guy's Kneecappin says I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna pop it off. You understand in that moment
Speaker 1: that Jewel's done all this before. So he's done this.
Speaker 1: He's gotten people to tell them the thing that they
Speaker 1: don't want to tell.
Speaker 2: It's a routine, and it makes so much of the
Speaker 2: earlier episodes makes sense. I mean, imagine how uncomfortable it
Speaker 2: was for him to sit with Bill at the house
Speaker 2: and pretend to be civil when he knew that what
Speaker 2: he could really do was killed Bill and take what
Speaker 2: he wanted. You know, this is the way that Joel
Speaker 2: gets things, and to see him I thought it was
Speaker 2: really one. As game players will know, this was needed
Speaker 2: in the series to show what Joel could do because
Speaker 2: Joel is not going to stop doing this and we
Speaker 2: needed to understand that because we have not seen this
Speaker 2: kind of explosion of violence from him in this way yet.
Speaker 2: And that moment where the guy tells him, you know,
Speaker 2: he's in agony. He points out the map and this
Speaker 2: kind of with the knife on the blood on the knife,
Speaker 2: Joel just kills him and that's when his friend realizes,
Speaker 2: oh shit, I'm gonna die and he.
Speaker 1: And the guy and the guy begs for his life.
Speaker 1: He's like, why did you do that, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Told it, but he did, yeah, And I think Joel
Speaker 2: says something like he's like, don't worry, he did tell me.
Speaker 2: And then he just beats his head in with a
Speaker 2: pipe and it is just like this, something is flicked
Speaker 2: a switch in his head. And Ellie is Sarah. Sarah
Speaker 2: is Ellie. Ellie is his door.
Speaker 1: Sarah is his door.
Speaker 2: This is you fucked up, and there's no going back.
Speaker 1: X ray vision will be back, and we're back. We
Speaker 1: go back to Ellie. She's alone in the case. She's
Speaker 1: trying her darnness to escape. She's trying to unscrew little
Speaker 1: pieces of the fencing of the gate hardware itself. And
Speaker 1: as she's doing that, she sees something across the room
Speaker 1: that absolutely shakes her. She goes white. And that's when
Speaker 1: David comes in with a tray of food. He slides
Speaker 1: this food under the cage and then we see what
Speaker 1: Ellie is terrified of. This is like this smear of
Speaker 1: blood on the floor and a human ear. And David
Speaker 1: realizes he's caught, you know, to a certain degree, you know,
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, this is just dear meat, I swear, yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Then he and then he switches tactics. This is how
Speaker 2: which is this man is a master manipulator. He's like, now,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna kind of make a joke about it.
Speaker 2: This is dear meat, like, I'm giving you the good stuff.
Speaker 2: Don't worry.
Speaker 1: This is when. This is when the true grooming really
Speaker 1: takes place. He's like, hey, listen, I'm letting you in.
Speaker 1: You're in the inner circle. Now only a few people know.
Speaker 2: That we're eating pop and what is there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you join us and you're gonna be part of that.
Speaker 1: You're gonna this is.
Speaker 2: So scary because this is the ultimate first step of
Speaker 2: any kind of grooming and any kind of behavior that
Speaker 2: you don't want a kid to follow, which is an
Speaker 2: adult telling a kid I know something secret and you
Speaker 2: can't tell anyone. This will be our secret. So they
Speaker 2: do this here, but they pose it as him telling
Speaker 2: her about them being cannibals, but we know what it
Speaker 2: really is. He's bringing her into his confidence. He wants
Speaker 2: her to feel like she owes him. He wants her
Speaker 2: to feel like there is something she knows that nobody
Speaker 2: else knows. It's so creepy and so well done.
Speaker 1: He says, listen, I'm not proud of the fact that
Speaker 1: we're cannibals. But but you also get the sense that
Speaker 1: he'll do anything to keep himself in control. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of his group. That's what this is all. Really, it's
Speaker 1: not about surviving this, it's just about control. It's about
Speaker 1: maintaining his iron control over the people that fall under
Speaker 1: his sway and using them to satisfy himself.
Speaker 2: However, exactly, I also think it's really important to point out,
Speaker 2: like one, eating you know, scientifically people know that eating
Speaker 2: human meat makes people sick because you're not supposed to
Speaker 2: do it. You can catch brain infections, things like kuu whatever.
Speaker 2: So he's not really protecting people. And the bigger issue
Speaker 2: here as we talk about grooming is consent. David admits
Speaker 2: that most people who are eating the meat do not know.
Speaker 2: He did not go out of his way to tell them.
Speaker 2: He'd not pose this as some kind of democratic solution.
Speaker 2: Let's be real, in a post apocalypse, you're.
Speaker 1: Do what you have and also at least you do
Speaker 1: bring it up exactly, hey, what do we think, what
Speaker 1: do we think should.
Speaker 2: We do this? And also as well, realistically in Cannibal,
Speaker 2: in a post apocalyptic situation, there would actually probably be
Speaker 2: many cannibals. There might even be a cannibal black market
Speaker 2: of meat and jerky and all different kinds of things.
Speaker 2: But David doesn't care. He doesn't want to democratize it,
Speaker 2: doesn't want to have a conversation. It's about manipulating people.
Speaker 2: It's about making people do something that is so taboo,
Speaker 2: so horrific, and keeping it from them. This is all
Speaker 2: part of his game. He enjoys. I mean, look, also,
Speaker 2: let's be real, do we really think all the deer's gone.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Ellie found one so easily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, this is.
Speaker 2: This is control. But this is something that he is
Speaker 2: choosing to do because he enjoys it. And he kind
Speaker 2: of gets into that as he as he keeps trying
Speaker 2: to groom early, and.
Speaker 1: He keeps saying, you know, you're you're a natural leader,
Speaker 1: you're smart, you're loyal, And then he says, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always had a violent heart. I struggled with it,
Speaker 1: but then the world ended and I was shown the truth.
Speaker 1: And here you you really get the sense that he's
Speaker 1: actually coming clean on a certain level. He is actually
Speaker 1: telling her a secret that the rest of the group
Speaker 1: doesn't know. The rest of the group thinks, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: after the fall of the world, David found God. No David,
Speaker 1: but David's God is the cordysteps and he says, look
Speaker 1: at look at the way. First of all, it's it won.
Speaker 1: And look at the way it won. It's fruitful. It
Speaker 1: multiplies all over the place. It protects itself, it protects
Speaker 1: its children, and it secures its future through violence. Uh.
Speaker 1: And Ellie's like, why are you telling me all this?
Speaker 1: Because you can handle it the way the others can't
Speaker 1: now and you know. He then tells her like, oh,
Speaker 1: I see this an equal you know we're going to
Speaker 1: be partners in this. Ellie asks about Joel, and David says,
Speaker 1: you know, I can I can tell the others to
Speaker 1: stop looking for him. They'd spare him. They do that.
Speaker 1: I have that kind of poll I can do that.
Speaker 1: He places his hand on the bars. Think of what
Speaker 1: we could do together. We could make this place perfect,
Speaker 1: and she moves towards him place. He places his hand
Speaker 1: on hers. Imagine the life we could build. And Ellie says, whoa,
Speaker 1: and then bends his finger back and breaks it. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's stunned. She snaps it. There's a satisfying little pop
Speaker 1: too in the in the in the in the sound mix.
Speaker 1: And then she as he is stunned and kind of
Speaker 1: dealing with this immediate pain, she is trying to grab
Speaker 1: the keys off his belt. He grabs her, knocks her
Speaker 1: head into the bar's concussion number two and she goes
Speaker 1: down and he says, you, let's see what I go
Speaker 1: tell the others. Now this petulant side, now the anger
Speaker 1: coming out. And Ellie says, like, I'm you can tell
Speaker 1: that I'm the little girl who broke your fucking finger. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Joel one of the great performances through injury in the
Speaker 1: history of of of sports and performance. He's like Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's flu game. He's got a gut full of penicillin,
Speaker 1: a stab wound in his abdom but he's going for it, folks.
Speaker 1: He manages to make it a silver lake. He breaks
Speaker 1: into what turns out to be the storehouse that the
Speaker 1: group is using, and he finds some of Ellie's stuff
Speaker 1: and he knows that she's there, uh. And then he
Speaker 1: looks in the other room he sees their horse, May
Speaker 1: she rest in peace. And then he turns the corner
Speaker 1: and sees some boats and then just pass the boats,
Speaker 1: he sees a couple of headless corpses that are just
Speaker 1: hanging waiting to be butchered. Oh shit. Meanwhile, David and
Speaker 1: James drag ally out of their cage and they're about
Speaker 1: to cut her up for real, like that, this is about.
Speaker 2: To Yeah, this is we didn't talk about this yet either,
Speaker 2: like one of my favorite things about this episode. So
Speaker 2: they're in the steakhouse, right, this old restaurant, and they
Speaker 2: actually it's this brilliant piece of production design that outside
Speaker 2: Ellie's cage there's this huge wooden kind of butchering table
Speaker 2: that's just covered in little bloody nicks and it's so horrific,
Speaker 2: but it's so mundane in the context of being in
Speaker 2: this butchering steakhouse until you realize what they've been butchering
Speaker 2: on it and they're putting on her and I guess
Speaker 2: she's fighting them, I think that, and that's when she
Speaker 2: bites him, right, yes, he picks up the cleaver and
Speaker 2: she bites him and she's fighting her life.
Speaker 1: And as they are about to bring this cleaver down
Speaker 1: and start cutting her up, she screams, I'm infected and
Speaker 1: now so are you, and David looks at the bite, saying,
Speaker 1: she's like, hey, roll up my sleeve, take a look
Speaker 1: at this, and they see the trademark. Cordy steps looking
Speaker 1: kind of scar but it's also it's weird, right, it's
Speaker 1: clearly healed, and James is clearly absolutely fucking freaked out.
Speaker 1: He's freaking out, and Dave is like, but yeah, but
Speaker 1: this doesn't make sense. She hasn't turned. She would have
Speaker 1: turned already. And then suddenly, in this moment of confusion,
Speaker 1: it's this is really great. Like if this is just
Speaker 1: a well paced scene where you don't know, like you know,
Speaker 1: usually if something like this has not done well, the
Speaker 1: distraction is very obvious. It seems like there's too much time.
Speaker 1: Ellie just strikes and she grabs the cleaver boom right
Speaker 1: into James's head. James is now dead, uh, and then
Speaker 1: she flees as David is shooting at her. Ellie finds
Speaker 1: herself in the restaurant of the old resort, and for
Speaker 1: people who've played the game, they recognize this setting and
Speaker 1: they recognize this boss battle. I think, for me, probably
Speaker 1: the hardest, it's the hottest actual fight, and for me,
Speaker 1: the hardest fight in the game. Just because I mean,
Speaker 1: it was one very very scary and to that this
Speaker 1: boss incongruously for what the game is just like had
Speaker 1: like clicker level headpoints.
Speaker 2: That's yea, even though he's just a human, just a guy.
Speaker 1: So uh. Ellie now finds herself in the restaurant. She
Speaker 1: arms herself with like a smoldering log. She throws it.
Speaker 1: It lights the building on fire. Now it's starting to
Speaker 1: go up. Uh. And meanwhile, David is completely unfazed by
Speaker 1: the fact that his this place is burning down all
Speaker 1: around him, and he is calling to her. He's talking
Speaker 1: to her in this creepy way. He's just obsessed like Boston,
Speaker 1: that this is just like the fight in the in
Speaker 1: the video game. And he's saying, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: he's like calling her name. The fire is spreading. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's he tells her he's going to keep her, you know,
Speaker 1: like now you know what, no one's gonna die. I
Speaker 1: was gonna kill you, You're not going to die now
Speaker 1: now I'm going to keep you. I'm going to teach you.
Speaker 1: And he's saying all these really horrendous things to her.
Speaker 1: She lunges. When his back is turned, he swings the cleaver.
Speaker 1: She gets below it stabs him in the side. He
Speaker 1: is leaking. He's really hurt now, but Ellie is also stunned.
Speaker 1: This is her now her third concussion after being knocked
Speaker 1: out for like, you know, an hour and a half
Speaker 1: of something. He then climbs on top of her. He's
Speaker 1: he's choking her. He's clearly going to assault her. He says, Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought you already knew. The fighting is the part
Speaker 1: I like the most.
Speaker 2: And he's saying, really, He's like, you don't need to
Speaker 2: be scared of my love, my love, it's love.
Speaker 1: You don't need to be here a real guy, you know,
Speaker 1: all the artifice, all the kind of like this good
Speaker 1: warm smiles and Bible verses. Here is the real guy
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 2: This is who he wants.
Speaker 1: He really is what he enjoys.
Speaker 2: This is what he lives for. This is why he
Speaker 2: thinks everything happens for a reason, because he's set himself
Speaker 2: up in a society where he can do this again
Speaker 2: and again and again, or so he thinks.
Speaker 1: What's so insidious and evil about this guy is that
Speaker 1: he knows that even in this fucked up world, the
Speaker 1: things that he wants will not be accepted by people.
Speaker 1: So he has to use the things that are accepted
Speaker 1: by people to get control of them so he can
Speaker 1: get the things that he wants. He understands this is
Speaker 1: all put on to him so that he can get
Speaker 1: to this moment where he's taking whatever he wants from whoever.
Speaker 1: And then in that moment, Ellie just snaps. She grabs
Speaker 1: a cleaver, stabs him with it, and then proceeds to
Speaker 1: chop him up for like a solid five second like
Speaker 1: at least she chopping him up.
Speaker 2: This is like directly from the game too, like she
Speaker 2: is chopping him to the feet from the game like pieces,
Speaker 2: she's getting covered in blood again in the game. We
Speaker 2: have seen Ellie more decisively murder people before this, but
Speaker 2: this is a very smart choice to essentially have her
Speaker 2: first real kill be this huge ex explosion of violence
Speaker 2: that is vengeful, that is righteous, that is horrific.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely right. You know what could be more righteous, yeah,
Speaker 1: than defending your own life and body. And she's doing
Speaker 1: it in this moment and in a state that you know,
Speaker 1: you can imagine the adrenaline that's running through and not
Speaker 1: to mention, as we you know, mentioned several times she's
Speaker 1: she's had Yeah, she's not like, she's not okay, you know,
Speaker 1: she's not fully with it. It is just truly fight
Speaker 1: or flight, and she chooses fight and she chops the
Speaker 1: ship out of this guy. She flees, goes outside the
Speaker 1: burning restaurant and Joel finds her, grabs her from behind.
Speaker 1: She's still in fight mode, but he says, look, it's
Speaker 1: it's me. It's me, it's me, and then they embrace
Speaker 1: and he says it's okay, baby girl. And you get
Speaker 1: this the final like it feels like a stone in
Speaker 1: this bridge between them. You know that it truly a
Speaker 1: father and adder kind of relationship. Now the father she
Speaker 1: never had, the daughter that he lost, and you feel
Speaker 1: that like has been built now and through these horrible circumstances.
Speaker 1: And then they head off together. What a terrifying and
Speaker 1: really disconcerting and powerful, really powerful episode.
Speaker 2: Definitely the most horrifying episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah oh yeah yeah, and it really like, first of all,
Speaker 1: an incredible performance by Scott Shepherds, where you really, you
Speaker 1: know that feeling of if it's too good to be true,
Speaker 1: it must be he the you know, the way he speaks,
Speaker 1: his pattern, the way he would only show his rage
Speaker 1: a few times, his secrecy, and yet like here he
Speaker 1: is this, this man of God who's so secretive. This
Speaker 1: is a great performance in a really, really eerie performance.
Speaker 1: And I do like the way this show and series
Speaker 1: has been structured, much like the game, where we go
Speaker 1: to a place, you know, we vanquish it, we move on,
Speaker 1: and then we never see these people again. But I
Speaker 1: do I also wonder man it would have been. It
Speaker 1: would be nice to have a villain, you know that
Speaker 1: like pursues, but it is it's really created this interesting
Speaker 1: tenor and tone and texture of this show where it's
Speaker 1: like one horrifying existential obstacle after another.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also think there's such an interesting kind of
Speaker 2: skill that the creative team have showcased here, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, they created Kathleen as a new character, right,
Speaker 2: and that is arguably our first big like, oh, the
Speaker 2: most dangerous thing isn't the clickers, you know, it's the humans.
Speaker 2: But it's such a different tone and tenor and story
Speaker 2: to what we see with David, even though arguably you're
Speaker 2: sending out the same message, and that to me, that
Speaker 2: nuance between Kathleen still had a righteous vengeance of righteous
Speaker 2: anger that she perceived and she knew she was lost
Speaker 2: in it. There was a self awareness there that was
Speaker 2: more of a tragic even though she was a horrific,
Speaker 2: cold blooded killer in the end as we saw. It's
Speaker 2: so interesting to me that you can do that storyline
Speaker 2: and then three episodes later you can have another human antagonist,
Speaker 2: but that is so different and so scary and so
Speaker 2: completely evocative of a different kind of fear. And I
Speaker 2: just think that is such a compliment to the way
Speaker 2: they're telling these stories to be able to do that twice.
Speaker 2: The Walking Dead would do that, but it would be
Speaker 2: in different seasons.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: This is one season where we go from someone like
Speaker 2: Kathleen and then we meet David and we see a
Speaker 2: completely different kind of person. And I think something that
Speaker 2: I think you're totally right, Like the chapter narrative is
Speaker 2: almost sequential in a way that you know, we talk
Speaker 2: about that with Star Wars, like the story of a week.
Speaker 2: Here it's the location of the week, which is very
Speaker 2: much and then we move on exactly, and I it's
Speaker 2: really interesting because definitely David is so scary and that
Speaker 2: community is so horrifying, but so kind of interesting as
Speaker 2: a psychological study. You could have had three or four
Speaker 2: episodes there, you could have David be recurring, but that
Speaker 2: narrative choice to just keep moving, to recognize that part
Speaker 2: of the game where you kill someone, you leave, you
Speaker 2: move on, you go to the next town. I think
Speaker 2: it's quite a brave choice for prestige storytelling, and it
Speaker 2: really is nice. I'm still every day surprised that they
Speaker 2: chose to just do the game in nine episodes. And
Speaker 2: it makes me so happy because you could have we
Speaker 2: could have been just getting to Kathleen. They could have
Speaker 2: milked it three seasons, you know, and I just I'm
Speaker 2: always impressed by that choice, and I think it's really
Speaker 2: paying off.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I the other thing about this episode, you knew,
Speaker 1: you know, I never asked myself where the fuck is everybody?
Speaker 1: Else where the hell is? For one, the most of
Speaker 1: David's like fighting men had been chewed up by this engagement,
Speaker 1: you know, like had do you know, like Joel Cara. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the rest of them, as we saw from James,
Speaker 1: who was you know, in many ways David's closest confidant.
Speaker 1: They were probably they were on some level waiting for
Speaker 1: some sign that they don't have to do what this
Speaker 1: guy is saying. Anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: Imagine that anybody coming. I think it was. It's actually
Speaker 1: evocative of like his leadership style, that nobody is like
Speaker 1: running towards this brain building to figure out like what's
Speaker 1: gone wrong. Yeah, and I'm probably like, oh good, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I know it's true.
Speaker 2: And I think as well that for the women, the children,
Speaker 2: the kind of the citizens, they're too scared. They don't
Speaker 2: do anything unless he tells them to. And I actually
Speaker 2: think that's really interesting, because you're right, it's evocative of
Speaker 2: the leadership style. But also a lot of times when
Speaker 2: men groom younger women and groom children groom teenagers, it's
Speaker 2: because people their own age will not interact with them,
Speaker 2: will not respect their behavior, their abusiveness. And I think
Speaker 2: in that way as well, David knows that James doubts him,
Speaker 2: he knows that these adult men are kind of turning
Speaker 2: against him, so he's looking to Ellie. He's saying, we
Speaker 2: can start something new. You can be my confidence. And
Speaker 2: in that way it evokes that too. I thought the
Speaker 2: writing on this was was so well done and so
Speaker 2: kind of devastating and just horrific, but never in a
Speaker 2: way that felt inauthentic. Like it felt true to who
Speaker 2: David is in this show, and yeah, just wow and Bella,
Speaker 2: Bella really going for that, Emmy. I feel like at
Speaker 2: this point, once we get into like episode eight page obviously,
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like he's a shoeing after this.
Speaker 1: Well up, next, let's go into nerd Out, and of
Speaker 1: course we're going to continue our last of US coverage
Speaker 1: right up until the finale. Stay tuned, yea.
Speaker 2: In today's nerd Out, where you tell us what you
Speaker 2: love and why, or share a theory that you're excited
Speaker 2: about which you know we love theories, Seth offers an
Speaker 2: intriguing Quantumania X Men crossover theory, which obviously we're incredibly
Speaker 2: happy to share because we bloody love the X Men.
Speaker 2: So Jason, I will allow you to do the honor.
Speaker 1: Hello, Jason Rosie. Since watching ant Man in the Last Quantumedia,
Speaker 1: I've been wondering about the rebels that we meet in
Speaker 1: the quant Real. Is it just me or does it
Speaker 1: feel like we have been introduced to the MC's version
Speaker 1: of the X Men. Quaskads would be a code name
Speaker 1: for Professor X. There's a Cyclops character who blasts energy
Speaker 1: from his face, a character who uses blades and has
Speaker 1: regeneration skills. And there's also a character that is a
Speaker 1: blob Aka. I'm saying this not Seth. You know, I
Speaker 1: immediately thought, oh, that's fucking glob hertman. Yeah. I would
Speaker 1: love your thoughts, Seth. I think while I don't think
Speaker 1: that those are the X men, I think you're onto
Speaker 1: something in that the power set fuelks. Yeah, it did
Speaker 1: feel very pointed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, I mean when you in a Marvel context, when
Speaker 1: you introduce a character who can read everybody's thoughts, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I think, you know what you're doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think as well, something I was really
Speaker 2: interested in. They talked a lot about this being a
Speaker 2: kind of Wizard of Oz inspired story where they venture
Speaker 2: into this alternate world, this kind of multiversel plane, you know,
Speaker 2: the quantum realm being so in space and time. I
Speaker 2: do wonder and I would love this, Seth. You inspired this.
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought about this before, but maybe there's a
Speaker 2: world where William Jackson Harper is our MCU Charles and
Speaker 2: that was just an alternate universe version of him. You know,
Speaker 2: in every universe he has the psychic powers. You know,
Speaker 2: I think as well, I think it's really great that
Speaker 2: you caught onto this, because the truth is they do
Speaker 2: this for fans. They put these analogs in. They say, oh,
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be fun if we had you know, Oh wait,
Speaker 2: isn't this kind of like the Giant sized Crew? Like, oh,
Speaker 2: what if we just added one more character? So I
Speaker 2: love that. I don't necessarily think that those are going
Speaker 2: to be the final versions, but I would love to
Speaker 2: see a world where we get some kind of recognition
Speaker 2: that perhaps this was some foreshadowing or seeding or some
Speaker 2: multiversal plane. If not, I just want to see William
Speaker 2: Jackson Harper come back again because I just think I
Speaker 2: just put him in more stuff, and also him as Charles.
Speaker 1: I would love to see it, actually, I think that
Speaker 1: would be fantastic. Thank you so much, Seth. And of
Speaker 1: course course, if you have any theories or passions you
Speaker 1: want to share, hit us up at x ray at
Speaker 1: crooked dot com instructions in the show notes. That's it
Speaker 1: for us, Rosie any plugs plug blog blog, blub blub
Speaker 1: blok blug.
Speaker 2: You can read my last of US coverage at IGN.
Speaker 2: I have some cool stuff coming up at Polygon. You
Speaker 2: can check out my website Rosie Night dot com. Wait
Speaker 2: can find all my work and read some cool comics.
Speaker 2: I am Rosie Marx on a box and Instagram and
Speaker 2: then obviously here twice a week.
Speaker 1: Catch the next episode on Friday, March tenth for episode
Speaker 1: two of The Mandalorian. And remember we are bringing you
Speaker 1: to episodes a week every Wednesday and Friday on your
Speaker 1: podcast deliverer of choice. That's where you can find us twice,
Speaker 1: the Pedro Pascal twice, the babies twice, the Pedro escorting
Speaker 1: children across a wasteland. Find us every Wednesday and Friday
Speaker 1: in your ear.
Speaker 2: Holes and if you want to see us with your
Speaker 2: eyeballs as well as listen with your holes, you can
Speaker 2: subscribe on YouTube. We have a very good amount of subscribers.
Speaker 2: I'm very impressed as thanks to Jason and bringing that
Speaker 2: channel over. So if you go there subscribe, you can
Speaker 2: watch full episodes. Stiland does a great job with those.
Speaker 2: Follow us at xrvpod on Twitter where we're always sharing
Speaker 2: core stuff, retweeting a lot of Pedro Piscal love at
Speaker 2: the moment, and check out a discord. You can meet
Speaker 2: tons of amazing fans, all kinds of rad people there
Speaker 2: talking about all kinds of rad stuff. Some of the
Speaker 2: stuff is outside of the realm of X ray too,
Speaker 2: So if you're a little bit of a newcomer to
Speaker 2: the way we talk about, it's just a place to
Speaker 2: hang out and there's all different kinds of conversations going
Speaker 2: in there, and me and Jason are in there all
Speaker 2: the time. It's linked to my letterbox, so there's a
Speaker 2: whole channel where you can just laugh at all my
Speaker 2: bad movies that I watch, which people have a lot
Speaker 2: of fun doing. It's rather joyful. And of course, let's
Speaker 2: not forget about the need for five star reviews.
Speaker 1: Five star ratings, five star reviews. We gotta hell them,
Speaker 1: we need them. We desperately plead for him. Every episode
Speaker 1: you got to give him to us. Here's one from
Speaker 1: jan Hart The Last of Us. I discovered your show
Speaker 1: through Crooked Media and found the episode about the Last
Speaker 1: of Us so good and informative. I watched the HBO episode,
Speaker 1: then listen to your podcast, then go back and watch
Speaker 1: the episode again with you guys. Five stars all around.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jay.
Speaker 2: I watch Jacks.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced by myself and Sandy Rhard are editing
Speaker 1: in sound design, Who's by Vascillis Photopoulos. Dylon Villanueva and
Speaker 1: Matt De Group provide video production support Alex Rella for
Speaker 1: Handle social Media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for theme music.
Speaker 3: See you next time for Bye