Speaker 1: Warning this podcast today spoilers for the Last of Us
Speaker 1: episode six and light spoilers for aunt Man in the
Speaker 1: Lost Pontomania in our nerd Out section. Hello, my name
Speaker 1: is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosy Night and welcome the next
Speaker 1: revision the Crooked Media podcast, where we dive deep into
Speaker 1: your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 2: In this episode, in the Airlock, we will be getting chili.
Speaker 2: In the Last of US episodes, say heading to Wyoming
Speaker 2: and in nerd Out, it's a theory from Listen to
Speaker 2: Eli about a soutam part of ant Man in the
Speaker 2: Wasp Quantumnia.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you want to jump around, check out
Speaker 1: the time stamps in our show notes. Up next, let's
Speaker 1: go to a Beautiful Jackson that Chris, Beauty Thin Mountain
Speaker 1: air We need to dive into the Last of Us
Speaker 1: episode six. Folks were stepping out of the airlock and
Speaker 1: that's right. The altitude is hitting us differently now getting
Speaker 1: less oxygen, but also a red blood cell count is increasing,
Speaker 1: and that's because we're in Beautiful Jackson, Wyoming for the
Speaker 1: Last of Us episode six, titled Kin written by Craig Mason,
Speaker 1: directed by Yasmila Zabinich. Another wonderful episode, and let's dive
Speaker 1: into it. Three months after Joel and Allie escape from
Speaker 1: Kansas City, we find them in Wyoming somewhere. It is
Speaker 1: winter now. Joel and Ellie have broken into a hunting
Speaker 1: cabin and there they briefly take an Indigenous couple hostage.
Speaker 1: And I'll just say, it's wonderful to see Elaine Miles again,
Speaker 1: who I yeah in the in the show Northern Exposure.
Speaker 2: Two icons here, and it's really fun to see Graham
Speaker 2: Green too. Like it's so great to see like two
Speaker 2: indigenous actors that I love. How chill they are about it,
Speaker 2: They're like, we're fine. The worries.
Speaker 1: Elayne Miles bringing the the vibe of her character from
Speaker 1: Northern Exposure Florence to this episode. I will say asterisks.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Northern Exposure since I was a child,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it holds up. So if
Speaker 1: it doesn't hold up, I feel like I'm happy to
Speaker 1: see but I'm happy to see Elaine back. Joel tells
Speaker 1: the couple, Hey, I'm looking for my brother. He looks
Speaker 1: a lot like me. And this is a really brief
Speaker 1: kind of scene, but we learn a couple of important things.
Speaker 1: One this couple has not seen Tommy, and two, anywhere
Speaker 1: that people used to live in any kind of sizeable
Speaker 1: population is now a no go zone. That includes former reservations,
Speaker 1: that includes small towns, et cetera. And then thirdly, if
Speaker 1: you go west of this river that's right over here,
Speaker 1: you die. There's just bodies there. There, You see dead
Speaker 1: infected there. You said see dead people there. Whoever it
Speaker 1: is that's living on that side of the river kills
Speaker 1: everyone that crosses it. And the couple tells Joel and Ellie,
Speaker 1: if your brother's west of the river, he's gone, which
Speaker 1: is not good.
Speaker 2: But you know what, I really loved this sequence, not
Speaker 2: just because two great actors, really nice character moment. It's
Speaker 2: very good like representation of two people who've just survived,
Speaker 2: but it really contradicts a usual zombie movie or comic
Speaker 2: book trope. If Charles Xavier had turned up at this house,
Speaker 2: or if Rick Grimes had turned up at this house,
Speaker 2: nobody would have survived. From I love that they leave,
Speaker 2: and they leave this couple to just keep surviving. That
Speaker 2: was like a nice unexpected twist in this kind of opening.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you bring that up because I also think
Speaker 1: that this is the influence of certainly Ellie, maybe even Tess.
Speaker 1: An earlier version of Joel would have just killed everybody
Speaker 1: in the cabin.
Speaker 2: He would have been like, you haven't seen my brother,
Speaker 2: I don't believe you. Time to die and we'll kind
Speaker 2: of see how this is a big episode, which is
Speaker 2: really interesting because in a way, it's a very small, intimate,
Speaker 2: kind of almost like a bottle episode, but it is not.
Speaker 2: It's like it's this huge character moment for Joel where
Speaker 2: we really get an expansion on his journey and where
Speaker 2: it's left him, and we get to see something introduced
Speaker 2: here that was kind of teased in the prologue of
Speaker 2: the game that will obviously become like a major part
Speaker 2: of the story going forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, you know to the bottle episode part
Speaker 1: of it this cold open, I guess you would call
Speaker 1: it kind of is it What makes it kind of
Speaker 1: feel like a bottle is that, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that there's like a way of looking at like television storytelling,
Speaker 1: or you'd look at this scene and go it kind
Speaker 1: of doesn't need to happen. You learn a couple of
Speaker 1: things about the river, but you never meet these these
Speaker 1: characters end up not mattering, and you could have just
Speaker 1: like had them show up at Jackson across the river
Speaker 1: and then get and then get taken in. But I
Speaker 1: think the thing that's cool about it is, unlike other
Speaker 1: post apocalyptic shows, zombie apocalypse shows, you're getting a you're
Speaker 1: getting a wide cross section of people who survived and
Speaker 1: the different ways they survived. It's not just like this
Speaker 1: group of survivors and everyone else that they run into
Speaker 1: who they kill. It's all of these disparate groups spread
Speaker 1: out across the country who have been making their way
Speaker 1: in different in different you know, kind of ways, different
Speaker 1: journeys they're taking to survive. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: really cool.
Speaker 2: That's a great point, and I think it's something that
Speaker 2: got definitely, like our discord, very excited, because after this
Speaker 2: episode a lot of people were talking about, like, well,
Speaker 2: if you did a spinoff, what you saw all different
Speaker 2: people all over the country and all over the world
Speaker 2: how they survive, which again direct you back to Max
Speaker 2: Brooks World war Z, which we've talked about because that's
Speaker 2: a great example of it. But there is really something
Speaker 2: very special about getting to see different kinds of people survive,
Speaker 2: especially when in a lot of post apocalyptic stories you
Speaker 2: see one kind of person, you see one.
Speaker 1: You see one, you do a group of people that
Speaker 1: made it. I because our discord has been talking about
Speaker 1: World war Z, and because you bring it up here,
Speaker 1: it brings the following question from World war Z to mind,
Speaker 1: which is how does cold interact with the infected in
Speaker 1: World war Z. Just for those of you haven't read it,
Speaker 1: this is a slight spoiler from the book World Warz,
Speaker 1: which is a really fun read. Winter time was the
Speaker 1: time to kind of go on the offensive against the
Speaker 1: zombies because they would freeze, and they would they would
Speaker 1: lack the kind of mobility that they had in the summertime,
Speaker 1: so you could just go out and just kind of
Speaker 1: like spear them while they were frozen there on the ground.
Speaker 2: And also you want freeze under the ice, and you're
Speaker 2: trying to have these layers of ice that would melt.
Speaker 2: And I'm very interested in this. I think there was
Speaker 2: a really interesting discussion in the discord about basically like
Speaker 2: would the cordyceps virus be able to essentially drive forward
Speaker 2: like a frozen body and kind of because it's not
Speaker 2: the same as a zombie, but it is still kind
Speaker 2: of similar because of its only controlled by its brain.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that as that heat does
Speaker 2: exactly how does it not freeze?
Speaker 1: I guess is my main question.
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing that I would say is, I
Speaker 2: do think that while this episode does not do like
Speaker 2: a direct it does not give us a direct answer.
Speaker 2: I do think it hints that living out in the
Speaker 2: cold seems to be easier than living in like an
Speaker 2: urbanized city where there's not a lot of snow. So
Speaker 2: maybe there is a way that it finds. I mean,
Speaker 2: think about it. Think about the ones that we saw
Speaker 2: early on in Boston that were all laid on the
Speaker 2: ground kind of connected to the hive mind. If they
Speaker 2: got snowed over, surely they'd get frozen under that right,
Speaker 2: right right.
Speaker 1: And and surely like if that was if they're all
Speaker 1: frozen up, now's the time you kind of go out
Speaker 1: and try and kill them so that when the springtime
Speaker 1: comes maybe you can just kind of like expand your
Speaker 1: livable area. But who knows. Clearly the fact that that's
Speaker 1: maybe not being done or has been tried and has
Speaker 1: failed tells you that the cordysps is a lot more
Speaker 1: hardy than maybe the show is telling us. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie head out. Ellie steals a couple of rabbits,
Speaker 1: which is not cool. I don't think that's cool, but
Speaker 1: that's okay. I guess I don't.
Speaker 2: I think they would have given them to them probably, honestly,
Speaker 2: I think they.
Speaker 1: Probably would have given them to but it shows. It
Speaker 1: also kind of gives you the this relationship, this budding
Speaker 1: relationship between Joel and Ellie. They're rubbing off on each other.
Speaker 1: Joel is slightly mellowed, right, but also Ellie is, in
Speaker 1: the words of Joel, doing what she had has to
Speaker 1: do to survive, like, and she's impressed her. That's around it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of reluctant.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, you shouldn't have done it, but really
Speaker 2: he's gonna eat those rabbits, you know.
Speaker 1: And as they head out, all of a sudden, Joel
Speaker 1: is struck by some kind of episode, which we eventually
Speaker 1: learn is a Tony soprano style panic attack and anxiety attack.
Speaker 1: And I think a really quite a good depiction of
Speaker 1: an anxiety attack if anybody's ever had one. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot what it's like you're like, I'm not breathing. Well,
Speaker 1: now I'm scared. Am I having a heart attack?
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm having a heart attack. And they're like, well,
Speaker 2: I can't breathe. If I think about I can't breathe,
Speaker 2: then I'm not going to be able to breathe.
Speaker 1: And now I'm a little sudd I'm so conscious of
Speaker 1: my breathing and my fur aid and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm freaking out. And that is exactly what it's like.
Speaker 2: It's horrible, terrible, and they did a really good job.
Speaker 2: And something I find really interesting about this is in
Speaker 2: the prologue of the original Lost of Us Part one game,
Speaker 2: you see that Joel is on like a number of
Speaker 2: different meds and one of them is anxiety EMDs, And
Speaker 2: then I feel like that's just a that's something that
Speaker 2: was kind of like, Okay, that happened. But I always
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of people who played it
Speaker 2: always thought like how much would that suck? Like if
Speaker 2: you're you already have anxiety and then you're in the
Speaker 2: fucking apocalypse, like that would just suck. And so many
Speaker 2: of us struggle from anxiety or or suffer from PTSD
Speaker 2: or all different kinds of kind of terrible things that
Speaker 2: affect our day to day life when there's not you know,
Speaker 2: infected hunting us down. And I'm very I was very
Speaker 2: interested and surprised and kind of happy with the fact
Speaker 2: that they decided to lean into this, and I.
Speaker 1: Found it very interesting too.
Speaker 2: I find it very interesting that this is where Joel's
Speaker 2: anxiety comes out. It's about his family, it's about Tommy,
Speaker 2: It's about Ellie. Like we've seen him do, fight against bloaters,
Speaker 2: all this crazy stuff we saw Sam and Henry, but
Speaker 2: it's something in him about finding Tommy or being with
Speaker 2: Ellie that's kind of bringing it to the forefront again.
Speaker 1: We will discuss this more further into the recap. X
Speaker 1: Ray Vision will be back. Exciting news. What is it.
Speaker 1: We just dropped some brand new merch for all of
Speaker 1: you X ray Visions fans out there. It's a very
Speaker 1: very cool X ray Vision was Right t shirt inspired
Speaker 1: by the iconic Magneto was Right imagery from the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's run of Marvel comics The X Men. Shouts
Speaker 1: to my guy Magnus, he was right, and he's been
Speaker 1: right for quite some time. And this is also a
Speaker 1: reference not just to that but to the fact that
Speaker 1: all our predictions are basically depending on how we interpret them. Right, obviously,
Speaker 1: head to crook dot com slash store to get your
Speaker 1: shirt now, and we're back now. As Ellie is watching this,
Speaker 1: she's freaking out and she says, man, if you die,
Speaker 1: I'm fucked. And Joel, you know, luckily manages to together.
Speaker 1: It's just an anxiety attack. You just kind of waited out,
Speaker 1: and they're fine. They camp at the river. Joel lets
Speaker 1: Ellie have a little nip of the old alcohol, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know she's already committed murders and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and see people like he shows somebody, Yeah, come on,
Speaker 1: give her a little nip of the of the juice.
Speaker 1: And they have a little bonding conversation. Assume we meet
Speaker 1: the fireflies and managed to save the world. Ellie asks, uh,
Speaker 1: what do we do then? You know, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can go anywhere you want, you can
Speaker 1: do anything you want. What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: And uh, Joel is like, well, that's never been an option.
Speaker 1: But eventually, in one of the more vulnerable moments I
Speaker 1: think up to now, he volunteers that he'd like to
Speaker 1: set up away from all people, which is not a
Speaker 1: surprise to the surprising part comes, which is he'd like
Speaker 1: to run a sheep branch, have some sheep out there
Speaker 1: grazing on the hillside, and Ellie jokes that it's romantic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joel gets some he gets some good Ellie shade
Speaker 2: where he's like, they're quiet and they do what they're told.
Speaker 2: Like he's like, always did this this. You could tell
Speaker 2: that little crankiness between them, but really it's becoming that
Speaker 2: loving banter.
Speaker 1: Joel then asks Ellie the same question, and she gazes
Speaker 1: up at the moon hovering above them, and that is
Speaker 1: her answer, the moon outer space, And then they start
Speaker 1: talking about astronauts. Apparently Ellie has a great interest in astronauts,
Speaker 1: which makes sense, you know, the world being what it is,
Speaker 1: you'd think about escape and when she was being raised
Speaker 1: at the Federal Orphanage, she read all she could about
Speaker 1: astronauts and she says, you know, my favorite astronaut is
Speaker 1: Joel guesses Sally Ride. She's best astronaut name ever, and
Speaker 1: then really pregnant pause here. Then Ellie wonders about her
Speaker 1: immunity and the vaccine that could possibly be created from
Speaker 1: her blood, and she says, you know, do you think
Speaker 1: it would actually work? Would it work? And then she
Speaker 1: heartbreakingly Now, and it's important to remember this is three
Speaker 1: months later. Now, it's taken three months for her to
Speaker 1: talk about this. She then tells Joel how she tried
Speaker 1: to cure Sam by rubbing the blood into his wounds,
Speaker 1: and she says, I know it was stupid, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to save him. Joel then tells Ellie listen, Marlene,
Speaker 1: for whatever, you know, whatever else she was, she was
Speaker 1: really smart. If she says the firefly scientist can make
Speaker 1: a vaccine, they can do it. Now. I don't truly
Speaker 1: believe Joel means this, but I think it's also a
Speaker 1: pretty big indicator of his growth as a person. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's not previous to this before his experience with Ellie,
Speaker 1: been the type of person who would like sugarcoat a thing.
Speaker 1: But I think here he is, in a very dad
Speaker 1: like way, trying to kind of sand the rough edges
Speaker 1: off the truth, which is we don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he's really moved by what Ellie
Speaker 2: tells him about Sam. Yeah, And I think he kind
Speaker 2: of wants to He wants to make it a little
Speaker 2: bit easy for her to give her that little bit
Speaker 2: of hope that he doesn't have. It's kind of the
Speaker 2: inversion of when he just wouldn't believe at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Now he wants Ellie to believe, even if he's not
Speaker 2: sure if it's true or not.
Speaker 1: Here's a really small moment, but I thought one was
Speaker 1: really evocative of like what's going on with Joel right now.
Speaker 1: So they're going to sleep. Ellie is like, I'll take
Speaker 1: the second watch. Joel is like, mister dad, mister tough
Speaker 1: guy is like, no, no, I'll take both. And then
Speaker 1: he says, hey, why don't you while you're sleeping dream
Speaker 1: about sheep branches on the moon. She says she will,
Speaker 1: and then of course when Joel wakes up, what happens.
Speaker 1: He fell asleep during second watch and Ellie had to
Speaker 1: do it. And it's just this very small microcosm of
Speaker 1: what's going on with Joel in this episode, which is
Speaker 1: he's getting older, he's losing a step, or certainly he's
Speaker 1: worried that he's losing a step and is not able
Speaker 1: to be the man that he was. But he's also
Speaker 1: not comfortable about letting Ellie know just how scared that
Speaker 1: he is that he is getting older and losing it,
Speaker 1: and he gets into her about the fact that he
Speaker 1: was angry' that's his way of hiding his fear. He's angry,
Speaker 1: he's pissed off.
Speaker 2: I'm responsible for you liked And she's like, don't don't
Speaker 2: want to sleep that? Yeah, come on that point at
Speaker 2: this point, like that's what he doesn't want to admit,
Speaker 2: and then she tells him all the things that she
Speaker 2: learned from him that she did while he was asleep.
Speaker 2: I checked my six I looked for tracks, I went
Speaker 2: to the highest point to set up my watch. And
Speaker 2: she says, what can I say, I'm a natural, And
Speaker 2: again Joel kind of remains pissed, but you can also
Speaker 2: tell he's a little impressed. There's not He's reluctantly impressed.
Speaker 2: They then set up on the river for a while
Speaker 2: and watch it for what I would imagine was you know,
Speaker 2: an hour, a couple of hours, just to see what
Speaker 2: would happen. Joel fires a shot just to see if
Speaker 2: anybody's gonna come investigate it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what's gonna happen. Nothing happens. So they
Speaker 1: cross the bridge. Ellie is is whistling as they cross
Speaker 1: the bridge, and she's thinking about, you know, like what
Speaker 1: would it take to be a good hunter. She thinks
Speaker 1: she'd be good at it. They come to a hydroelectric dam.
Speaker 1: Joel kind of explains the principle of what it used
Speaker 1: to do, and they kind of move on, and at
Speaker 1: this point Ellie raises the posse. They come to another river,
Speaker 1: at which point Ellie raises the possibility that one they
Speaker 1: don't quite know where they are.
Speaker 2: She's like, which one is the river of two?
Speaker 1: Is this the river of death? And then it's only
Speaker 1: moments after that that they are completely surrounded by armed
Speaker 1: figures on horseback. The horse folks bring a dog out
Speaker 1: and the dog will test whether Joel and Ellie are infected. Uh,
Speaker 1: and there are some really tense moments Joel, of course,
Speaker 1: Joel has another panic attack right here. Then they send
Speaker 1: the dog at Ellie and it is it's extremely fraught,
Speaker 1: but Ellie comes up clean and not only that, but
Speaker 1: the dog seems to really like her. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I found this really interesting because it kind of like
Speaker 2: it tells us so much about the the state of
Speaker 2: Ellie's infection without really telling us anything. The fact that
Speaker 2: the dog can't smell it means that she is truly clear, right, right.
Speaker 1: What theate whatever the amount of fungus in her system is,
Speaker 1: it's an amount that cannot be detected by a dog,
Speaker 1: and it's certainly not enough to get her to get
Speaker 1: her sick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so interested in it because I'm like, would
Speaker 2: she still come up positive on the federal tests? And
Speaker 2: how outdated were those tests and how many people did
Speaker 2: they miss? You know, it's I just think it's so interesting,
Speaker 2: and I love that moment where yeah, like the dog
Speaker 2: just loves her, Yeah, and there's just this instant connection.
Speaker 1: Then Joel is like, hey, I'm looking for my brother,
Speaker 1: and then a woman rides up and says, wait, what's
Speaker 1: his name? And next thing you know, the group is
Speaker 1: taking Joel and Ellie back to their home. Jackson, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: now a fortified town with this big palisade wall around it,
Speaker 1: and the places is buzzin'.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like it's like pre full civilization in there.
Speaker 1: Let's look it up right now, the population of Jackson, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: it is apparently ten thousand, let's call it eleven. There's
Speaker 1: certainly not a li seven thousand people there, but it
Speaker 1: looks that's a lot like it looks like an active
Speaker 1: town with kids and men and women of all ages,
Speaker 1: all wandering around doing stuff, going to and fro, certainly
Speaker 1: not wanting for anything. The hydroelectric dam, it turns out,
Speaker 1: is supplying this town with all the electricity it needs.
Speaker 1: They have hot water, they have everything they could possibly want.
Speaker 1: And as they're walking in, who does Joel see working
Speaker 1: on a scaffolding, like working construction as he used to
Speaker 1: do his brother Tommy, And they embrace and Tommy's like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you doing here? And Joel is like,
Speaker 1: I came here to save you. By the way, it
Speaker 1: looks like Tommy doesn't need saving.
Speaker 2: He's fine, It's like and Joel and Ellie are like
Speaker 2: in shock because this is yes, this is not just
Speaker 2: as we'll come to find out, this is not just
Speaker 2: like a great place in the context of post fedra.
Speaker 2: This is a great place pre like this is something
Speaker 2: here that is really special and feels very sustainable, but
Speaker 2: as we learn, it's at the cost of being like
Speaker 2: extremely exclusionary because you call them risk letting other people in.
Speaker 1: Later on, they're at the cafeteria, Joel and Ellie are
Speaker 1: eating what looks like a delicious stew under the watchful
Speaker 1: gaze of Tommy and his partner Maria, the woman who
Speaker 1: was in that party that surrounded Joelinellie previously, Ellie kind
Speaker 1: of like snaps at a girl who's like watching her.
Speaker 1: It's like very interest her, and then Maria is like, hey,
Speaker 1: like they're just curious because kids around here don't look
Speaker 1: her talk like you at which and this was like, listen,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a really fun episode of
Speaker 1: of a great show. This was the one line where
Speaker 1: I was like, do they not look her? First of all,
Speaker 1: who has heard Ellie talk like she just got here?
Speaker 1: Second of all, she honestly looks like every other kid here.
Speaker 2: I think it's because she's swearing, Like is what they mean?
Speaker 2: Like she's like aggressive and like I swear.
Speaker 1: Other kids not traumato.
Speaker 2: I guess maybe they they say I think they say
Speaker 2: they've been there for like seven years or something, So
Speaker 2: I guess I guess there who've never seen infected, but.
Speaker 1: Their parents are out there like slaughtering the raiders who
Speaker 1: crossed the river and like posting their corpses on the
Speaker 1: banks of.
Speaker 2: Right, I think, But yeah, let's talk about quickly. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about the girl because this girl who's staring at
Speaker 2: Ellie has like become a huge talking point and on
Speaker 2: the podcast, Mason and Druckmen were very coy about this.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people think this.
Speaker 1: Is Dina, I think from the Last of.
Speaker 2: Us Part two, and I think I think so too.
Speaker 2: Dina is a huge part of the part two of
Speaker 2: the game who will come into Ellie's life, and I
Speaker 2: think that that that is probably where we just met her.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I thought that it was line was very
Speaker 2: interesting too, And that was actually I can't tell if
Speaker 2: they were red herring us like, because that line gave
Speaker 2: me like a creepy like, oh, maybe this is going
Speaker 2: to be like a Walking Dead style like accountibals. Well
Speaker 2: they recall but exactly I think, But that was like
Speaker 2: the moment when she said that, I was like, what
Speaker 2: does she mean?
Speaker 1: Like just one line that kind of stuck out as
Speaker 1: like I don't quite understand, Like I also got the
Speaker 1: kind of cult vibes, yeah, because it's like what is
Speaker 1: what exactly does that mean? Like Ellie asks for a
Speaker 1: gun back and she and Maria's like, oh, that's another thing.
Speaker 1: They don't carry guns, which one Ellie didn't come into
Speaker 1: town with her gun, like they'd taken her gun from her.
Speaker 1: And two, you tell me, these people that live out
Speaker 1: here killing raiders all the time don't teach their kids
Speaker 1: to like control. I am pro gun control, but I
Speaker 1: guarantee you these people are teaching little kids how to
Speaker 1: shoot out definitely. Anyway, Ellie asked for her gun back.
Speaker 1: It's a no dice situation there. It's getting a little tense.
Speaker 1: Tommy tries to kind of cool everybody down. Ellie notes,
Speaker 1: kind of literally and truthfully that hey, you know, before
Speaker 1: they brought us back here, Maria and your friends were
Speaker 1: quite ready to like line us up and shoot us.
Speaker 1: And Tommy says, hey, you know, like you can never
Speaker 1: be too careful to your point, like, it's this we've got.
Speaker 1: They've got a good thing going in here, and the
Speaker 1: last thing they need is letting people in who want
Speaker 1: to either destroy it or want to share it with
Speaker 1: people who destroy it, So they have to be very,
Speaker 1: very careful. And then Maria says, well, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like we do kill raiders, and we absolutely display their
Speaker 1: bodies on the banks of the river as a warning
Speaker 1: to others, confirming what the indigenous couple told them earlier
Speaker 1: in the episode.
Speaker 2: Tommy says something like just because you have a bad
Speaker 2: reputation doesn't mean you're bad. And there's this kind of
Speaker 2: like really knowing look between like Maria and Joel and
Speaker 2: Tommy and Joel about like what Joel's reputation obviously is,
Speaker 2: and that kind of comes into play as the episode
Speaker 2: goes on. So I found that very interesting. But yeah,
Speaker 2: this was like a very unexpected It's very different from
Speaker 2: the Tommy's Damn segment in the first game. But as
Speaker 2: Masillis was kind of mentioning, it kind of seems to
Speaker 2: be taking more from a version that we see in
Speaker 2: in part two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll get back to this when it happens
Speaker 1: in the recap. But to your point, the fact that
Speaker 1: Joel has a reputation in this context, in this context
Speaker 1: where a woman just very casually is like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: kill people and we throw their fucking corpses out there
Speaker 1: so everyone can see them. The fact that to them
Speaker 1: Joel is a fucked up guy exactly exactly. He did
Speaker 1: some stuff, He did some crazy, really bad shit. Joel
Speaker 1: then says, hey, Marien, can can I talk to my brother?
Speaker 1: And like this is a family affair, and Tommy's like, well, actually,
Speaker 1: Maria is family and ps. As we will soon learn
Speaker 1: in the episode, she's pregnant with his child. Then Maria
Speaker 1: and Tommy take them on the tour. Maria tells Joel that,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, they've been here about seven years. Town
Speaker 1: has been steadily growing since then. Raiders are a problem
Speaker 1: basically all the time, infected less so, and then Tommy
Speaker 1: braggs that, like, hey man, I've still got it, Like
Speaker 1: I can shoot infected, headshot him from half a mile away,
Speaker 1: it's no problem. Ellie is like, oh, I would love
Speaker 1: to learn how to headshot effected from half a mile away.
Speaker 1: Maria then tells Joel that, you know, you know, as
Speaker 1: we discussed previously, we need to keep this as quiet
Speaker 1: as possible. We don't let people know what we have,
Speaker 1: we don't discuss our presence on the radio, and when
Speaker 1: when we venture out, we make sure we're not followed,
Speaker 1: all those kind of things. And then she says, kind
Speaker 1: of giving us a window into the culture of the town.
Speaker 1: This is a multi faith democracy. There's a ruleing. Ruling
Speaker 1: is probably not the word that they would use, but
Speaker 1: I'll just use it here. It's like a ruling board
Speaker 1: that sets you like a democratic he voted all democratically
Speaker 1: voted in. There's about three hundred people that live here
Speaker 1: now and they live according to communal principles. There's a school,
Speaker 1: there's a laundry, We're about to see a movie theater.
Speaker 1: Power comes from the hydroelectric jam. And then this is
Speaker 1: really really funny. Joel is like, uh, see, all are communists.
Speaker 1: And then Tommy, who again you know, fought in the
Speaker 1: in the Gulf War One and was a US soldier
Speaker 1: and has you know, has some very very American centric
Speaker 1: views on what the word communism means.
Speaker 2: It's like, man, he's like nothing.
Speaker 1: Literally in a commune communists literally there literally every piece
Speaker 1: of property here is basically public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like everybody's shed ownership.
Speaker 1: Well, so I saw tweet.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to the whoever tweeted this, but I felt
Speaker 2: like it really summed up the power of this show,
Speaker 2: where it was like The Walking Dead took twelve seasons
Speaker 2: to tiptoe around the fact that the only way to
Speaker 2: rebuild after his zombie apocalypse would be communism, but they
Speaker 2: never said it, and six episodes in the Last of
Speaker 2: Us was just like communism, that's the only way you
Speaker 2: could survive.
Speaker 1: Afterwards, Maria sets Joel and Ellie up with a beautiful home,
Speaker 1: like a beautiful house, and then Maria takes Ellie to
Speaker 1: go kind of like see the house so that Joel
Speaker 1: and Tommy can catch up. Tommy takes Joel to a
Speaker 1: bar gives him some apparently real tasting liquor. Wow, and
Speaker 1: then it's like, hey, so what's gone on with tests
Speaker 1: where she and Joel lies. He says, oh, she's fine,
Speaker 1: he's not ready subject, Let's talk about something else. Ellie. Oh,
Speaker 1: she is the daughter of some high ranking firefly person,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's like I'm reuniting with her family.
Speaker 1: Tommy is clearly suspicious, but he tells his brother that
Speaker 1: the Fireflies are kind of nearby. They're about a day's
Speaker 1: ride away at the University of Eastern Colorado and they
Speaker 1: have a base there. Uh and like this needs saying,
Speaker 1: but of course we got to say it. It is
Speaker 1: fucked up country between Jackson and the campus, of course.
Speaker 2: And he says, he says, it's like bad bad, this
Speaker 2: is like very bad hit.
Speaker 1: And then Joel's like, well, you know, it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: quite so bad if you came with us, because mister
Speaker 1: like I can snipe targets from half a mile away,
Speaker 1: Like if we had your skills at our side, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a problem. And Tommy's like, I can't because
Speaker 1: and now here comes the Reviewal Marie is pregnant with
Speaker 1: my baby, and I gotta be around. I got to
Speaker 1: be a present father. And Joel's like what Joel's like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, like like a parsonal slight.
Speaker 2: It's very painful to him.
Speaker 1: Now that is perfectly reasonable and in fact, healthy, non toxic, wonderful,
Speaker 1: egalitarian thing to be, like, Hey, I don't want to
Speaker 1: My wife is pregnant. She's gonna be dealing with a
Speaker 1: lot during that time, and I want to help make
Speaker 1: that burden easier. And Tommy, now you can tell like
Speaker 1: a door is opened to things that Tommy has been
Speaker 1: dying to talk about with someone that he's close to.
Speaker 1: And so he says, yeah, man, I wonder if I'll
Speaker 1: be a good dad. You know this whole that is
Speaker 1: that is the doorway to a very big, substantive conversation
Speaker 1: that Tommy is ready to have. And then Joel is
Speaker 1: just not ready to have. He is completely emotionally unavailable,
Speaker 1: and he just says, well, I guess we'll find out.
Speaker 2: Tommy is like heartbroken, like he is like as he's
Speaker 2: ready to knoock him out, Like yeah, but I will
Speaker 2: say I will say, look, one thing that we haven't
Speaker 2: really touched on here. Yeah, Joel has been worried about
Speaker 2: Tommy for like a really long time, and he's come
Speaker 2: halfway across the country and Tommy's just living the high life,
Speaker 2: watching movies in the theater. There's a Christmas tree, you
Speaker 2: know in it. Ironically, he is doing what Joel always says,
Speaker 2: which is do what you have to survive. And for
Speaker 2: Tommy that meant not being on the radio and not
Speaker 2: telling Joe what he was. But Joel can't see it
Speaker 2: that way. Joel almost sees it as like a betrayal.
Speaker 1: Well, you know it's interesting. Well Tommy snaps back, you know,
Speaker 1: just because life stopped for you doesn't mean as to
Speaker 1: stop for me. And then Joel's like, we'll be out
Speaker 1: of your hair in the morning, Classic Joey, Classic Joel.
Speaker 1: And you bring up something you know, really interesting, I think,
Speaker 1: which is that one? And we'll talk about this more
Speaker 1: because there's a and yet another question about why Joel
Speaker 1: is in such a rush to leave someplace that is clear.
Speaker 2: Truly, like please, they could have stayed here for a
Speaker 2: good couple of months. The world doesn't vaccine that much.
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about the thing Test said, which is
Speaker 1: can you just take the good news from once? Literally?
Speaker 1: That is Joel's personality. He is so traumatized. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a thing that can happen. I think when when
Speaker 1: you're when you're deeply unhappy or you've experienced to trauma
Speaker 1: and you don't quite know how to process it, you
Speaker 1: don't know how to live with it, where it becomes
Speaker 1: we're living with it, suffering from it, becomes an identity.
Speaker 1: And I think that has happened for Joel, where he
Speaker 1: is so unhappy and used to being unhappy and heartbroken
Speaker 1: that he is more comfortable being heartbroken and being pissed
Speaker 1: off and being sad and being angry at other people
Speaker 1: than he is just being in the presence of his
Speaker 1: brother who's about to have a baby who he hasn't
Speaker 1: seen in x amount. He can't just enjoy it. He
Speaker 1: can't just sit here for an hour or two hours
Speaker 1: or a day an extra day and like catch up
Speaker 1: up and feel good. It feels so alien to him.
Speaker 1: Feeling good that he would rather feel bad. And that's
Speaker 1: just a very sad, very relatable, I think to a
Speaker 1: lot of people, and very sad place to be at.
Speaker 1: Joel just can't literally can't allow himself to feel good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do it. You're so smart to throw
Speaker 2: it back to that test moment too, because it's almost
Speaker 2: like that is his biggest weakness at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I love the way that every episode we're kind
Speaker 2: of getting these different reflections for Joel. And last time,
Speaker 2: you know, we saw it was Kathleen, and we had
Speaker 2: Bill who let somebody in. And now we have Tommy,
Speaker 2: who legit says to him like, just because your life
Speaker 2: stopped doesn't mean like the rest of us can't move on,
Speaker 2: you know, And that is like, this is what if
Speaker 2: imagine if Joel just was like, they've got something really
Speaker 2: good here. These are the skills I could bring me
Speaker 2: and Ellie could just live here. I don't trust the fireflies,
Speaker 2: like it would it be the most selfless thing to
Speaker 2: do when Ellie he could save the world. No, but like,
Speaker 2: could there be a conversation about it? Could you choose
Speaker 2: to have a life with people that you loved? But
Speaker 2: that's not something all Joel knows how to do is
Speaker 2: to basically like push through every situation like a bulldozer
Speaker 2: and just keep going through.
Speaker 1: He just keeps moving, almost like a shark.
Speaker 2: It's like he can't stop because then he would have
Speaker 2: to think about the things that he's lost.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like such a simple thing. You know,
Speaker 1: if it was actually simple, then no one would need
Speaker 1: to go to therapy. But it's like the thing about
Speaker 1: baggage that's easier to forget is that you can put
Speaker 1: it down. And Jel just, yeah, he literally can't because
Speaker 1: he is he doesn't know how to be a person
Speaker 1: who is happy. He can he can only be a
Speaker 1: person that is suffering.
Speaker 2: That's why, like in that moment, and we're so in
Speaker 2: Joel's mindset in this episode and throughout the show, so
Speaker 2: seeing things through his lens that I felt when Tommy
Speaker 2: told him that, Like I felt that pain for Joel, like,
Speaker 2: oh my Sarah died, but you're gonna have a baby,
Speaker 2: and actually you're so right. That shouldn't have been our
Speaker 2: first reaction. The first reaction should have been like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is joyful, hey, this family continuing, like even in
Speaker 2: this terrible situation. You and your wife are going to
Speaker 2: be able to bring new life into it in a
Speaker 2: place that could be safe. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Why go to the can? I just and I would
Speaker 1: also say why why why go to the fireflies?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Can we first find out if there are any doctors here?
Speaker 1: Are there any scientists here? And he's pretty good? Have
Speaker 1: we even been a firefly.
Speaker 2: The whole like six months that you've been on this
Speaker 2: journey or whatever?
Speaker 1: We stay here and see if there are any scientists here,
Speaker 1: you know, like and let's but Joel needs the presence
Speaker 1: of danger. He needs the heartbreak. It's more than even
Speaker 1: a mission. He needs to put himself in danger because
Speaker 1: he deserves that. He is he thinks he does thinks
Speaker 1: he needs pain. He deserves to have pain and to
Speaker 1: carry pain around. And he has to put himself in
Speaker 1: situations where it's possible that he will feel pain. That's
Speaker 1: just who he is. One more thing about this, So
Speaker 1: Tommy says that he couldn't radio Joel because this is
Speaker 1: the rules of commune. You know, they took me in.
Speaker 1: I have to respect their rules. And I think that
Speaker 1: that is a great reason and a very meaningful reason
Speaker 1: in this world with you know, people share the generosity
Speaker 1: of safety and companionship with you, and you kind of
Speaker 1: have to respect the rules that they have. At the
Speaker 1: same time, a part of me wonders if Tommy, if
Speaker 1: there isn't on some level, because Tommy seems very at
Speaker 1: peace with that, yeah, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: I do wonder if on some level Tommy doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like whether he is able to verbalize this or not,
Speaker 1: that Joel brings drama like John brings that shit with him.
Speaker 2: You know what the real truth is if think about
Speaker 2: if Joel, if he told Joel about them seven years ago,
Speaker 2: five years ago, two years ago, whatever he got there
Speaker 2: a month ago, you know when it was he Joel
Speaker 2: would probably have gone there with test guns blazon Oh
Speaker 2: I got to go there if.
Speaker 1: I killed a bunch of people on the way there.
Speaker 2: And they would have been like, oh, I've got to
Speaker 2: see if we can do a deal. And suddenly he's
Speaker 2: telling Bill about it. Oh, but you know, you know
Speaker 2: they have some stock there that you can use. Everything
Speaker 2: is a bar or a trade. And I think Tommy
Speaker 2: was right to not trust the jol that he knew then,
Speaker 2: the jol he knows now.
Speaker 1: Joel would never tell anyone I know.
Speaker 2: When Joel leaves this place, as angry as he is,
Speaker 2: he is a different person because of Ellie. He would
Speaker 2: not ruin that safe place or that sanctuary. But before,
Speaker 2: when everything was a transactional exchange, he definitely could have
Speaker 2: used that knowledge as a way to try and gain
Speaker 2: something rather than becoming a part of that community.
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Speaker 1: Saveamerica dot com to get started, and We're back. Ellie
Speaker 1: is at the house that she's going to be sharing
Speaker 1: with Joel. She comes out of the shower and finds
Speaker 1: that Maria has left some new clothes for her and
Speaker 1: a note saying, hey, come meet me across the street,
Speaker 1: and has given her a menstrual cup, which is this
Speaker 1: wonderful to you? Forget that, like Joel, Yeah, doesn't know women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also love why that Ellie needs this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really I love it. Ellie's response is like
Speaker 2: she squeezes it and sees the instruction and then she's
Speaker 2: like gross. And I'm just like, that's such a good
Speaker 2: teenage thing, like it's really useful in the apocalypse, really usable,
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about finding tampons anymore. But also
Speaker 2: as gross, Like I get it. I love that response.
Speaker 2: It was such a natural response from Bella.
Speaker 1: So she goes over to Maria and Tommy's. She's a
Speaker 1: chalkboard over their fireplace, their hearth, which commemorates the lives
Speaker 1: of a boy named Kevin and a girl named Sarah,
Speaker 1: who both died in the early days of the outbreak,
Speaker 1: very close to each other. Kevin, who he learned very
Speaker 1: soon as Maria's son, was not even three years old. Yet.
Speaker 1: Maria comes in. She's got a coat for Ellie. It's eggplant,
Speaker 1: not purple. Don't be saying purple around her, and we
Speaker 1: see that Maria is just incredibly generous and that like
Speaker 1: the that is the culture of Jackson right now, is
Speaker 1: this kind of generosity for everybody who is here. And
Speaker 1: she's like, let me trim your hair. When's last time
Speaker 1: the split ends have been trimmed and her hair and
Speaker 1: they talk about life. Maria's like, I used to be
Speaker 1: a prosecutor back in the day, which Ellie kind of
Speaker 1: doesn't quite know what that is, butch She's like, I
Speaker 1: used to put bad people away. And then she inadvertently reveals,
Speaker 1: thinking that Ellie knew this, that the Sarah from the
Speaker 1: chalkboard was Joel's daughter, and Ellie says, I guess that
Speaker 1: explains him a little. Ellie, I think that explains him
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: I think it explains him a lot. But thinking about
Speaker 2: the coat, right, the eggplant coat, I just want to say,
Speaker 2: I also wonder if that line that we were kind
Speaker 2: of like, oh, they don't look like you. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: wonder if part of it is like Maria is so
Speaker 2: ensconced in this little world where everyone has these like
Speaker 2: clean clothes and wears the right clothes for the season.
Speaker 1: Because she gives.
Speaker 2: Ellie this outfit that's like warm gloves, like clothes. Before
Speaker 2: Ellie's wearing like five layers of like ratty, you know, whodies.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if it was something to do with that,
Speaker 1: because her giving.
Speaker 2: Out these clothes yea like makes her look like she's
Speaker 2: part of this town, right, It's like this visual safety
Speaker 2: of like you're wearing the right clothes for winter, you're
Speaker 2: there's a Christmas tree in this town. I mean, like,
Speaker 2: I wonder if Maria is so in that mindset that
Speaker 2: to Ellie. To us, Ellie looks like all these other kids.
Speaker 2: But to her, she can like see that she's like dust.
Speaker 2: She had a hat, she her clothes are old. You know.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. Maria then kind of by the
Speaker 1: things she's saying, you can tell that she's suspicious, or
Speaker 1: at least is full of worry. She's full of worry
Speaker 1: about Ellie's situation with Joel. Is this safe for Ellie?
Speaker 1: What kind of situations is Joel getting Ellie into? Ellie says, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I know about Joel's past. I know that he was
Speaker 1: you know that he committed murders. And Ellie, I think
Speaker 1: quite fairly says, you know Tommy was involved in all
Speaker 1: that too, but you don't seem to worry about Tommy,
Speaker 1: which again I think calls back to the thing we
Speaker 1: were discussing earlier, which is man Joel. For all the
Speaker 1: bad stuff that they were all involved in tests Tommy,
Speaker 1: Joel and others, Joel must have been on a level
Speaker 1: yeah the worst like it. He was doing what.
Speaker 2: He thought he needed to keep the people he loved alive.
Speaker 2: But we the more we learn, the.
Speaker 1: More it must have been. It must have been quite savage,
Speaker 1: and I you know, you know, if there was any
Speaker 1: kind of processing of the tragedy of his daughter's murder,
Speaker 1: it probably was done through him committing violent acts on people.
Speaker 2: I also wonder if like the choice, the smart choices
Speaker 2: that they have made that I think is why this
Speaker 2: show has such a wide appeal to not make Joel
Speaker 2: the Joel that we see in the game. I wonder
Speaker 2: if it feels at times when they talk about what
Speaker 2: Joel did, it feels at times as if they're talking
Speaker 2: about Joel that you play as in the game. You know.
Speaker 1: You're killing in the game, you kill hundreds of people.
Speaker 2: You constantly just have to murder people at all times
Speaker 2: to get Ellie and tests until Test is there no
Speaker 2: longer to this new place, and then different people that
Speaker 2: you meet, and I just I feel like there's this
Speaker 2: really smart Jewel storytelling where if you've played the game,
Speaker 2: you can kind of connect your own complicity and those actions.
Speaker 1: And it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: We know where this story is going if we played
Speaker 2: the game right, and they need to build up this
Speaker 2: idea that Joel has committed terrible crimes because there is
Speaker 2: a there's an explosion of violence in the future that
Speaker 2: will likely happen, and I find it very interesting.
Speaker 1: That's a actually really really really smart point. Maria notes that, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Tommy was just following the stuff that Joel
Speaker 1: was doing, Yeah, just as you know, just as Ellie
Speaker 1: appears to be. And then Ellie's like, well, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: smarter than Tommy. No offense, Maria. Basically, the whole crux
Speaker 1: of this conversation is Maria just wants to tell Ellie, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: the only people that can betray us or the people
Speaker 1: that we trust, and Ellie is not receptive to this.
Speaker 1: She doesn't know Maria. But Maria's like, Okay, well, this
Speaker 1: conversation is going nowhere. Let's go to the movies. So
Speaker 1: they go.
Speaker 2: That line is so it has so much weight when
Speaker 2: you know where the story is going. Y and Retina Wesley,
Speaker 2: who plays Maria Tara from True Blood, it's just like
Speaker 2: so good in this role. You just want to stick
Speaker 2: around and like you want Ellie to have this like strong,
Speaker 2: brilliant woman in her life who's like looking out for her.
Speaker 2: But all Ellie wants is grizzled old Joel.
Speaker 1: Grizzled old Joel. So the movie is nineteen seventy sevens
Speaker 1: The Goodbye Girl, written by Neil Simon, starring Marshall Mason
Speaker 1: and Richard Dreyfus in the role that would make him
Speaker 1: the youngest to that point. Us were winner for Best Actor.
Speaker 1: Ellie is watching this movie. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: she is connecting with this movie, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of looking around, like what's going on, guys,
Speaker 2: Like this is how she's alive.
Speaker 1: She sees Tommy kind of scurrying across the room, and
Speaker 1: so she goes off and she follows him. Tommy go
Speaker 1: is going to meet Joel. Joel is working on his
Speaker 1: his torn up boots. He's like taping him shut, trying
Speaker 1: to fix him. Trying to resole them. Tommy brings him
Speaker 1: a brand new parrot, well, not a brand new to
Speaker 1: Joel pair of boots. They look good to Joel's boots.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And he's got an apology too, just about like the
Speaker 1: previous conversation and how it went, even though Tommy truly
Speaker 1: doesn't have nothing to apologize for. Joel then opens up
Speaker 1: all the fears that he has been kind of harboring
Speaker 1: over these last few months. He says, Listen, I don't
Speaker 1: this journey to Colorade. I don't think I'm gonna make it.
Speaker 1: Ellie had to kill a guy, and that's because of me.
Speaker 1: That's because I wasn't strong enough to do what had
Speaker 1: to be done. If I had, if I had been
Speaker 1: a younger man, if I had been five years older,
Speaker 1: even if my hearing had been back, I would have
Speaker 1: if I had the superhering from the game that I
Speaker 1: don't have anymore. If somebody could just press the square,
Speaker 1: if I had square, I could have heard him. I
Speaker 1: would have heard him, and Ellie would have needed she
Speaker 1: would not have needed to do that, and it's my
Speaker 1: duty to protect her. But I can't. I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to fail. I think i'm going to fail, and
Speaker 1: every time I go to sleep, I have a dream
Speaker 1: that I failed, and somehow even in my dreams, I'm
Speaker 1: fucking up. I need you to do it, Tommy. I
Speaker 1: need you to take her to Colorado. And Tommy is
Speaker 1: swayed by this, really swayed by this, and he says,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. I'll do it for you. I'll take
Speaker 1: her out. At dawn, Joel goes back to the house.
Speaker 1: He finds Ellie, and clearly Ellie has overheard this conversation
Speaker 1: and she's pissed. First, she finds Ellie reading the journal
Speaker 1: of the girl that used to live there, and she's
Speaker 1: just like, there is this incredible like cultural dissonance of
Speaker 1: is this really what life was like girls my age
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? They were just like worried about boys
Speaker 1: and clothes and stuff. And then she gets to it,
Speaker 1: she's like, well, I guess it's Tommy. Then fuck you, Joel,
Speaker 1: And she's furious. She says, Joel, why are you even
Speaker 1: like hang out like where we have a conversation. Just go,
Speaker 1: just do whatever you want to do, just leave. Why wait?
Speaker 1: Joel actually makes a strong point that like, listen, I
Speaker 1: get it, but Tommy knows this area to say nothing
Speaker 1: in the fact that he's younger than me. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter because bottom line, Ellie doesn't know Tommy, she
Speaker 1: doesn't trust Tommy. She has spent the last three months
Speaker 1: with Joel. She has a level of comfort with Joel,
Speaker 1: and she wants to go with Joel. That's it. And
Speaker 1: she says, like, what are you afraid of? And she
Speaker 1: brings up Sarah, which was probably the wrong thing to
Speaker 1: do in this conversation because Joel immediately that you just
Speaker 1: see the door, Peja Pascal is amazing, because you just
Speaker 1: see the door close shut whatever door he had opened
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, I'm I'm I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: good enough to take you the rest of the way.
Speaker 1: That immediately shuts and he tries to like basically get
Speaker 1: into a suffering a trauma pissing contest with Allie, and
Speaker 1: Ellie says, hey, everyone, you're going through shit. Everyone I
Speaker 1: cared for has either died or left. Everybody except you,
Speaker 1: and she pushes Joel really hard, but he's unmoved by this.
Speaker 1: He says, you're not my daughter, and I sure as
Speaker 1: hell ain't your dad. Come Dawn, we're going our separate ways.
Speaker 2: Joel talk top top top top.
Speaker 1: And then Joel spends the night thinking about Sarah. Next morning,
Speaker 1: Ellie is like ready to go before dawn, before anybody
Speaker 1: knocks on her door. She is packed, she has her
Speaker 1: shoes on, she has her new coat on. She's ready.
Speaker 1: Tommy comes. They go to the stables and there they
Speaker 1: find Joel saddling up a horror just getting a horse ready,
Speaker 1: and he says, you know what I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I spent the night thinking about it, and you deserve
Speaker 1: at least to have a say, to have some agency
Speaker 1: in her life to make the choice about who you
Speaker 1: want to take you the rest of the way, Me
Speaker 1: or Tommy. And she's like you okay Tommy, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: haven't said she.
Speaker 2: She literally like just smashes her bags into Joel and
Speaker 2: she's like, let's go.
Speaker 1: It's time Tommy. Uh. Then says, hey, listen, when you
Speaker 1: get back, Jackson is here for you. We've got a
Speaker 1: place here. Uh. And then Joel asks that I would,
Speaker 1: And then Joel asks Tommy first hunting rifle. Tommy gives
Speaker 1: it to him. Uh, and they set off and again,
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about it earlier, but this is
Speaker 1: why doesn't Joel, stay. It makes so much sense to stay,
Speaker 1: even if you're gonna go, don't go and Winter go.
Speaker 1: He's some spending time. Yeah, why go now? It's just
Speaker 1: that Joel doesn't know any other way but the hardest way,
Speaker 1: because that is the life he's been living. He can't
Speaker 1: let himself off the hook. He just can't. Later on,
Speaker 1: on the way on the trip down, Joel teaches Ellie
Speaker 1: how to shoot the rifle, and she's bad it. She
Speaker 1: blames the gun and we see Joel do it and
Speaker 1: he's fucking great at it. He tells her about his
Speaker 1: previous life as a contractor, which is like building stuff.
Speaker 1: We see her lean her head against his back as
Speaker 1: they're riding on the horse, and she and he tells
Speaker 1: her how American football worked, which is the down system,
Speaker 1: which is her good. They make Colorado in five days,
Speaker 1: Joel tells Ellie.
Speaker 2: And they were also like, wait a minute, this wasn't bad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: everyone was like this is so terrible. This was like
Speaker 2: the worst journey. It's so fucked. It's the most scariest
Speaker 2: place and you're fucked if you're on the way there.
Speaker 1: And they're like, wait a minute, that was really easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they there's another really nice, vulnerable Joel moment where he
Speaker 1: tells Ellie that when he was younger he wanted to
Speaker 1: be a singer. Ally that's say you got to sing now,
Speaker 1: yeah you got, just like he loves Ellie. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: There's no question. If there was any moment that needed
Speaker 2: you to know that he was fully committed to Ellie,
Speaker 2: it was when he decided to tell how he wanted
Speaker 2: to be a singer when he.
Speaker 1: Was younger, and not how that means we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to see him sing.
Speaker 2: I feel like they are setting us up for that.
Speaker 1: So they find the university campus overrun by monkeys that
Speaker 1: I guess were being experimented on, or maybe there was
Speaker 1: a local zoo nearby, and now they're now they're set free.
Speaker 1: They find lots of evidence of lab work, and they
Speaker 1: follow the firefly symbols UH to to find the facilities
Speaker 1: where this lab work was being done. But there's nobody here.
Speaker 1: There's no fireflies here, there's nobody. Ellie sees a map
Speaker 1: and says, hey, they must have pulled out to hear Look,
Speaker 1: there's this little pin on the map. They pulled out
Speaker 1: to Salt Lake City and then they hear some monkeys
Speaker 1: screeching out. They look out the window and guess who's here.
Speaker 2: It's raiders.
Speaker 1: Oh shit. They head for the horse. As they get
Speaker 1: to the horse, a raider pops literally out of the
Speaker 1: fucking ground. Where did this guy come from? And attacks Joel. Joel,
Speaker 1: like in the game, chokes the guy out. I felt myself.
Speaker 1: I felt myself gripping the controller at this moment, chokes
Speaker 1: the guy out. But when the guy drops, we see
Speaker 1: that there is a shank sticking out of Joel's guts.
Speaker 1: Ellie gets Joel on the horse and they get out
Speaker 1: of there as quick as they can, with Ellie, you know,
Speaker 1: firing shots in the raider's direction, and they get quite
Speaker 1: a ways away to like a somewhere around like a
Speaker 1: railroad trestle, before Joel can't be His strength is fading
Speaker 1: now and he's bleeding out and he falls off the
Speaker 1: horse to the ground. Ellie jumps off. She tries to
Speaker 1: put pressure on the wound, but Joel is clearly dying,
Speaker 1: and Ellie says heartbreakingly, I can't do this without you,
Speaker 1: and then we cut to Black Wolf. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have to say one of the most impressive feats
Speaker 2: that this show has achieved is most people watching this
Speaker 2: show do not know if Joel is going to live
Speaker 2: or die, Like so much of the response from audiences
Speaker 2: believes should we.
Speaker 1: Even say this is.
Speaker 2: I know right, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm like, look,
Speaker 2: that is how believable it is. Who knows.
Speaker 1: We don't know how closely.
Speaker 2: They're going to adapt the game, but I think that
Speaker 2: we really don't know. Incredible things about this moment is
Speaker 2: you feel it. You feel so scared for Joel, and
Speaker 2: even as a game player, whether the story may diverge,
Speaker 2: you believe that this could be it because these are
Speaker 2: the dramatic sweeps that the story is taking, and this
Speaker 2: ending is so heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: That's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: I just love how small the moment is because in
Speaker 2: the game, the version of this is like much more
Speaker 2: dramatic and there's so many more people attacking Joel. And
Speaker 2: but I really like the horrific almost of it because
Speaker 2: the reality is that in this world, even though you're
Speaker 2: going up against all the infected and all these different
Speaker 2: people shived to the gut, that could be what takes
Speaker 2: you out. Just one person who gets a lucky shot
Speaker 2: landed And that makes it like so much more horrible.
Speaker 2: I just, yeah, I thought that was like such a good,
Speaker 2: shocking kind of moment.
Speaker 1: It really was. And I can't help but think as
Speaker 1: I watch Joel laying there, that this in a really sad,
Speaker 1: in a really sad and a sad way that is
Speaker 1: again I think, evocative of someone who's really like suffering
Speaker 1: with trauma and with depression. This is almost, in a
Speaker 1: weird way, what Joel wanted. He wanted it. Not that
Speaker 1: he wants anything bad to happen to Ellie, but he
Speaker 1: is so defined in his mind by failing to keep
Speaker 1: people safe that he wants on some level, he wanted
Speaker 1: to put himself in a situation where he would fail
Speaker 1: to keep her safe and die in the process. And
Speaker 1: here he is doing it, And it's really really sad
Speaker 1: that he's can't just hang out with his brother for
Speaker 1: an extra week, just like literally, you could have just
Speaker 1: done that.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe if you'd have told Maria the truth of
Speaker 2: the situation about Ellie, she would have wanted Tommy to
Speaker 2: go with you, like she probably wants a better world
Speaker 2: for her kid and for her community. Like there's so
Speaker 2: many different versions, but I love your kind of point
Speaker 2: where it's It's like Joel's way is the hard way.
Speaker 2: Joel's way is always hard.
Speaker 1: And that's punishment, like you said, and it's always a
Speaker 1: way too in which he has to you know, his
Speaker 1: brother gives him the rifle without any kind of without
Speaker 1: even blinking. Joel would not do that. His brother after
Speaker 1: having this huge blow up argument with with Joel, who
Speaker 1: didn't literally shit on him, when he was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I wonder this huge moment in my life. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have kids soon. I wonder if I'm gonna be good
Speaker 1: at it, and his and Joel is just like who
Speaker 1: gives a ship? After all that, he basically is like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I will go in your stead. I
Speaker 1: will go risk my life, risk the quality of life
Speaker 1: of my partner and my unborn child, and I'll take
Speaker 1: this the kid because you need this. I can tell
Speaker 1: you really need me to do this. And he and
Speaker 1: Tommy was just like, yeah, you do that, but Joel kids,
Speaker 1: Tommy has had so much growth, Like even in lest
Speaker 1: we not forget, yeah.
Speaker 2: That when Joel is in the stables when they go
Speaker 2: and find him, he was there to steal a horse.
Speaker 2: And then he got on the crisis of conscience and
Speaker 2: Tommy it was like, I would have just given you
Speaker 2: the horse, bro, but that's not how Joel is. Always
Speaker 2: has to be the hardest way. So you bring that
Speaker 2: up and it's like that tragedy of his need to
Speaker 2: always put himself in danger. It comes to fruition here
Speaker 2: in a really brew away that is gonna put Joel
Speaker 2: and Ellie in an incredible amount of danger. And I
Speaker 2: think it's like quite well known now that the next
Speaker 2: episode is gonna be the the DLC episode, the left
Speaker 2: Behind episode we get into.
Speaker 1: The Ellie stuff, So I think it's gonna be.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be, it's got it's got an episode three
Speaker 2: level of heartbreak potential, and I think it's gonna be
Speaker 2: really interesting because it's also probably gonna leave Joel's fate
Speaker 2: in a pot to do I know, right, especially because
Speaker 2: we know what happens next in the game.
Speaker 1: It's just like one of the scariest parts of the game.
Speaker 1: It's very very well. We'll be back here uh for
Speaker 1: episode seven and next week, and stay tuned for our
Speaker 1: ongoing coverage of not just The Last of Us and
Speaker 1: to be a Max, but the Last of Us game
Speaker 1: up next. Nerd out.
Speaker 2: On this week's nerd out. I'm gonna begin it with
Speaker 2: a little spoiler war The blow theory has a minor
Speaker 2: it's like a minor major spoiler for m Man in
Speaker 2: the West Bontomania, depending on what you're interested in. So
Speaker 2: listen or not with that in mind. So you know
Speaker 2: this segment, that's where you tell us what you love them,
Speaker 2: why you're excited to share. Now Eli is sharing a
Speaker 2: theory that not only is Eli excited to share it,
Speaker 2: but me and Jason are excited to share it because
Speaker 2: this shit blew our minds.
Speaker 1: I didn't blow my mind. It was one of those like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, this better be what this is because oh
Speaker 1: it's so.
Speaker 2: Good that he doesn't really do this, or I'm just
Speaker 2: like higher Eli, because this has to good.
Speaker 1: It's certainly on the table for something that could happen,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years from now. Anyway, here's
Speaker 1: Eli Montoya. Hey, X ray crew, here's a theory I've
Speaker 1: become obsessed with after seeing the techie ant army in
Speaker 1: aunt Man in the wast What if Hank Pim justin
Speaker 1: indvertently created the MSU's interpretation of the annihilation wave, Those
Speaker 1: highly evolved ants recta conqueror's army with ease. Since time
Speaker 1: works differently in the quantrum, is it possible they could
Speaker 1: keep evolving, become more mechanized, and eventually bust out of
Speaker 1: the microsverse to consume all. First of all, let me
Speaker 1: just say so, the annihilation wave is a an insectoid
Speaker 1: like invasion of of these kind of like cybernetic, part machine,
Speaker 1: part biological cosja beings. They're called bugs, and they are
Speaker 1: they are like spreading out across the universe just like
Speaker 1: like locusts, just like destroying everything in their midst and
Speaker 1: they are led by Annihilists. Who is this bug like
Speaker 1: foe of the Fantastic Four? Now I gotta say it
Speaker 1: really does.
Speaker 2: It feels like what it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like what it is, the annihilation
Speaker 1: you could create and not I think you could make
Speaker 1: like one of the big ants can just like evolve
Speaker 1: into annihilists.
Speaker 2: Exactly like there's no reason and also as well like
Speaker 2: it's so it feels even though in the movie we
Speaker 2: felt like the ant Army was such a good like
Speaker 2: dux Mark and a gag and it really leaned into
Speaker 2: Hank Pim's kind of history of loving ants What I
Speaker 2: really love about it this is like this makes sense,
Speaker 2: Like narratively, it does make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: The annihilation wave has.
Speaker 2: Like extremely advanced technology and weapons.
Speaker 1: It's stoppable. They just are rolling over like very very
Speaker 1: advanced civilism, and they have so.
Speaker 2: Many they have like unbelievable numbers. That was where their
Speaker 2: biggest power came from, which obviously ants have. I think
Speaker 2: this is so exciting and I wouldn't see it, especially
Speaker 2: because we know that this over like a thousand years
Speaker 2: in the quantum realm. This group of ants became this
Speaker 2: like highly mechanized, like technologically advanced communist society. That doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that there couldn't be one ant who wanted to
Speaker 2: rise up and take over into fired by Kang. I
Speaker 2: mean that could be who takes over the quantum realm
Speaker 2: now Kang is gone, you know, it could be Annihilistan.
Speaker 2: I love this.
Speaker 1: This is blind.
Speaker 2: I also think it would be the coolest, like one
Speaker 2: of the biggest I think one of the biggest critiques
Speaker 2: I love MCU fans had about Am and the Lost
Speaker 2: is like the stakes didn't they felt higher than a
Speaker 2: normal movie, but they didn't necessarily feel like world ending.
Speaker 1: If you weren't already deeply familiar with the Kang law.
Speaker 2: So I would love for what seemed to be like
Speaker 2: a kind of funny Hank Pim joke to actually end
Speaker 2: up being like a huge part of the MCU going forward.
Speaker 1: That would just be such a good me too. I hope,
Speaker 1: like higher Eli, because this is the one really good
Speaker 1: Now we should add as we head into Guardians three,
Speaker 1: that the Annihilation event was the thing that spurred the
Speaker 1: formation of the famous Guardians of the Galaxy roster. It
Speaker 1: basically got quilled together with Uh, with Grud and with Rocket.
Speaker 1: And if there is to be which we would assume
Speaker 1: there's going to be another roster of Guardians after Guardians three,
Speaker 1: and this current roster kind of like exits stage left,
Speaker 1: I wonder if the Annihilation wave would be some kind
Speaker 1: of that's a really event that causes another formation, another
Speaker 1: team of Guardians to come out.
Speaker 2: It's a really smart cool And also the other thing is,
Speaker 2: so we were kind of wondering about, like the how
Speaker 2: did the ants end up in a part of the
Speaker 2: quantum realm that they spent a thousand years in when
Speaker 2: everyone else was only in there for like a few
Speaker 2: days or whatever. So in the comics, Annihilis is in
Speaker 2: the negative zone, so I do still wonder if this
Speaker 2: could be that space where where they fell into that's
Speaker 2: like the negative zone part of the quantum realm, which
Speaker 2: we kind of wondered for a long time, if those
Speaker 2: would be connected again, that connection to Fantastic Four, which
Speaker 2: we already have with Kang. I love this theory, Eli
Speaker 2: off this since we first heard about it.
Speaker 1: I think it's really good.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks Eli. If you have theories or passions you
Speaker 1: want to share, hit us up at x ray at
Speaker 1: cricket dot com instructions or in the show notes. That's
Speaker 1: it for us and this episode. Rosie any plugs.
Speaker 2: Plugs, Fox plugs, Uh yeah, you can find me here
Speaker 2: twice a week. I'm on Instagram, Rosie marks letterbox the same,
Speaker 2: and just my writings are around in the world. I've
Speaker 2: been writing a lot of DC dot com recently, writing
Speaker 2: about some cool comic book history. I did a cool
Speaker 2: piece about Day McDuffie. I've got a really awesome piece
Speaker 2: coming out next week about like a really underread Mark
Speaker 2: Bright Christopher prescreen Latin run. So yeah, just lots of
Speaker 2: fun stuff and obviously the usual spots too, and yeah,
Speaker 2: just happy to be here with you talking about all
Speaker 2: this cool stuff.
Speaker 1: Catch our next episode on Wednesday, March first, for where
Speaker 1: we'll be covering episode seven of the Last of Us.
Speaker 1: And remember we're bringing you two episodes a week Wednesdays
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Speaker 1: twice the Deep Dives, twice the everything else. Catch us
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