Speaker 1: Warning, this podcast couldast spoilers for the Last of Us
Speaker 1: episode seven and in our nerd out, pretty major spoilers
Speaker 1: I think for the Last of Us Parts one and two,
Speaker 1: the video game, and depending on what the Last of
Speaker 1: Us Season two decides to do, potentially for the Last
Speaker 1: of Us Season two as well, so be warned about
Speaker 1: that nerd out. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm Rosey Night, and.
Speaker 1: Welcome to x ray Vision, the Crooked media podcast where
Speaker 1: we dive deep to your fais movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 2: In this episode, guess what. It's the Lost of Us
Speaker 2: and it's gonna make you cry. Like every week in
Speaker 2: the Hallow Week, it's episode seven, and boy, if you
Speaker 2: haven't played the game, and if you have played the game,
Speaker 2: if you haven't played the game, you're in. You're in
Speaker 2: for some some sad times ahead. And in that doubt,
Speaker 2: listen to Robe tells us about a possible Lost of
Speaker 2: Us pop three. Dun, Dun, dun.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you want to jump around, check the
Speaker 1: show notes for time stamps. Coming up the air lock,
Speaker 1: we're stepping out of the airlock and into Ellie's feder
Speaker 1: orphanage past For the Last of Us episode seven, titled
Speaker 1: Left Behind, written by Neil Druckman and directed by E.
Speaker 1: Liza Johnson. We start somewhere in suburban Colorado. There is
Speaker 1: a bloody trail leading to the ruin of the suburban house. Inside,
Speaker 1: Ellie is desperately trying to keep Joel alive. She has
Speaker 1: them laid out on a mattress in the garage or somewhere.
Speaker 1: She's trying to keep pressure on his gut wound. Which
Speaker 1: same place Sarah is it? You know, there's mirror images or.
Speaker 2: Shadowing, And I think this is like a great moment
Speaker 2: to just kind of say the show is doing so
Speaker 2: many smart little things to make itself more believable, because
Speaker 2: compared to the game where Joel's like impaled, you know,
Speaker 2: this feels very real. It feels like a real small
Speaker 2: wound that could end a life, and it does have
Speaker 2: that impact of feeling like, is that where Sarah is it?
Speaker 2: It looks the same and Joel is not doing well.
Speaker 1: I mean, do we have Neo Sporan and the post
Speaker 1: outbreak feature. It's unclear if there's any less. Joel is gasping,
Speaker 1: you know, leave, just leave, trying to get Ellie to
Speaker 1: just save herself get out of there. And Ellie is saying, Joel,
Speaker 1: shut the fuck up.
Speaker 2: She is having any of it.
Speaker 1: No, she is desperately trying to save his life. Joel,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, wants Ellie to take the horse
Speaker 1: ride back to Jackson live out her life with Tommy
Speaker 1: and Marie. And Ellie covers Joel with his jacket because
Speaker 1: he's shivering so hard, and she heads upstairs, closes the
Speaker 1: door on the room where Joel is and starts thinking
Speaker 1: about the past, and we flash back there. It is
Speaker 1: her Federa school. We get to see Ellie at Federal
Speaker 1: School jogging in fizzed class, jogging around in a circle.
Speaker 1: She's wearing a walkman from like nineteen eighty eight and
Speaker 1: kind of loping around in a circle. And as she's
Speaker 1: doing that, a tall girl who we will soon come
Speaker 1: to learn is named Bethany snatches her headphones off her
Speaker 1: head and is like, hey, pick it up. Apparently, collective
Speaker 1: punishment is the rule at feder which is not surprising.
Speaker 1: And because Ellie is slow, everybody's going to have to
Speaker 1: run extra aps, and Bethany is tired of running extra laps,
Speaker 1: so Ellie's like, okay, then I'll fight you to get
Speaker 1: my walkman back. Bethanie says, you don't fight. Your friend fights,
Speaker 1: and she's not here anymore, is she? And then Ellie
Speaker 1: punches the girl in the face.
Speaker 2: It's great, It's really just a good moment. And I
Speaker 2: think as well, I feel like this is such an
Speaker 2: important moment in Ellie's story because what we see here
Speaker 2: is this transition from the girl who likes behind the
Speaker 2: girl's kind of in our own world, the girl who
Speaker 2: clearly was just protected by her friend, And in this
Speaker 2: moment we get that little bit of fierceness and agency
Speaker 2: and that Ellie that we kind of know now, which
Speaker 2: is the Ellie who's not afraid to just punch someone
Speaker 2: in the face.
Speaker 1: That's a great point because as we see over the
Speaker 1: course of this episode, and as we've seen over the
Speaker 1: course of this series, Ellie is often the person under
Speaker 1: the protection of the fighter, the more aggressive person, the
Speaker 1: stronger person, the more confident person, as she's been with Joel,
Speaker 1: and that has been the case with her friend, who
Speaker 1: we have yet to meet. We catch up with Ellie
Speaker 1: in Captain Kwang's office, Captain Quang's kind of the principle
Speaker 1: of this federal school. And in this meeting we learned
Speaker 1: that Ellie's been disruptive lately. It's been just the last
Speaker 1: few weeks that this kicked off. She's obviously very smart, brilliant.
Speaker 1: Even Captain Kwang notes that, but she's been in the
Speaker 1: whole several times over the last few weeks. When she
Speaker 1: offers to just go to the hole again for knocking
Speaker 1: Bethany out, Kuwang is doesn't take the bait. He's frustrated
Speaker 1: because again she is smarter than she's been acting. So
Speaker 1: he lays out a couple of passer He says, okay,
Speaker 1: path number one, you keep fucking up, and Bethany's going
Speaker 1: to make your commanding officer. How do you like that?
Speaker 2: Or two?
Speaker 1: Follow the rules. Become an officer. You get the better food,
Speaker 1: you get, the better housing, you get, the less dangerous work,
Speaker 1: and you get to give other people orders. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? And the truth is, though she
Speaker 1: doesn't say any here, Ellie thinks that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 2: Actually, so he sells her on it. In that moment,
Speaker 2: it has like an honesty here an adult who is
Speaker 2: just telling her how it is and who is basically
Speaker 2: like look, you can either let your bullies bully you,
Speaker 2: or you can rise up the ranks of this fascist organization.
Speaker 2: But then you can bully the bully and you can
Speaker 2: also be in like a safer space.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting. This scene starts with Ellie looking at
Speaker 1: Gwang's family photos. It's a wife and daughter, I'm assuming, right,
Speaker 1: and who knows if they're still alive or what. But
Speaker 1: thinking about this, this is our first real moment of
Speaker 1: like seeing Federick humanized. Because Gwang says right after that
Speaker 1: kind of lecture on the two pass, he says, quote,
Speaker 1: we're the only thing holding this all together. If we
Speaker 1: go down, the people in the zone will starve and
Speaker 1: murder each other. Now. And it's interesting because we've been
Speaker 1: framing the things that Joel or tom Me have done
Speaker 1: in the past as you did what you had to
Speaker 1: do to survive. And I think Kwang would say, not
Speaker 1: only am I doing what I have to do to survive,
Speaker 1: as distasteful and at times unfair as it is, but
Speaker 1: I'm also doing what I have to do so other
Speaker 1: people could survive.
Speaker 2: He believed, he's a believer, he's a believer in Federra
Speaker 2: and he kind of hints at this like, you know,
Speaker 2: no now what other people say about Fedro, like it's
Speaker 2: only us and you know what in the Boston QZ,
Speaker 2: I maybe maybe that was what was real. Maybe that
Speaker 2: was a version of that was true at least at
Speaker 2: some point, or that's what Quang believes. But like, I
Speaker 2: do think it's a really interesting comparison after we saw
Speaker 2: what Fedri did in you know, Kansas City.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that argument holds some weight. And it's
Speaker 1: also clear that there is no overarching command in control
Speaker 1: of federal like each the men and were like they've
Speaker 1: become their own little city states unto themselves without any
Speaker 1: kind of like oversight. But I think it's an important
Speaker 1: perspective to hear that despite the corruption of the rank
Speaker 1: and file soldiers, there are people at the top who
Speaker 1: are like this is I'm not saying this is perfect,
Speaker 1: but this is the best we got. And maybe he's
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he's necessarily wrong. Gwang then goes
Speaker 1: on to tell Ellie, you know, basically like I see
Speaker 1: you as a future leader. Now get your walk in
Speaker 1: and get the fuck out of here, and she leaves. Later,
Speaker 1: Ellie is in her room. She's reading an issue of
Speaker 1: Savage Starlight. It is raining, much like the night where
Speaker 1: she and Joel set out on their big adventure from
Speaker 1: the QZ. You see her knife on the table next
Speaker 1: to her. She stares across the room at an empty bed.
Speaker 1: She's frustrated, she's lonely, she's clearly not getting any kind
Speaker 1: of satisfaction from reading this issue of Savage Starlight. And
Speaker 1: eventually she falls asleep. And when she's asleep, late almost
Speaker 1: two in the morning, someone creeps into the room through
Speaker 1: the window and it is Riley. This is the person
Speaker 1: who is missing, This as the protector. This is Ellie's
Speaker 1: best friend, owner of the empty bed, and Riley has
Speaker 1: been missing for the last three weeks.
Speaker 2: And I will say this is a great bit of
Speaker 2: foreshadowing about is not sensible Riley is Yeah, because Riley
Speaker 2: creeps into this room and basically sneaks up on her
Speaker 2: armed friend, who obviously is like what the fuck and
Speaker 2: almost stabs her like and I think that is a
Speaker 2: really good kind of like. Riley is someone who has
Speaker 2: not been made more cautious by the post apocalypse. Riley
Speaker 2: is someone who has found that humor and pranks and
Speaker 2: kind of this lazzy affair, like reckless attitude is what
Speaker 2: helps her get by, and she even says it to Ellie.
Speaker 2: She's like, it was a joke. I thought you'd find
Speaker 2: it funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. Riley is where is Ellie is? I
Speaker 1: didn't of how she was raised. Is kind of a
Speaker 1: believer in what Federra is selling. Riley is looking for
Speaker 1: a cause and she has clearly found it. Ellie is like,
Speaker 1: are you okay? And Riley's like, I just ran away
Speaker 1: for a little bit, and then she flashes a gun
Speaker 1: a piece.
Speaker 2: Ellie loves a gun.
Speaker 1: Ellis nobody loves a gun more than Ellie. And Ellie
Speaker 1: is fucking shocked because you know, Riley has joined the Fireflies.
Speaker 1: Is what this means now, I would say for anyone
Speaker 1: who has been thinking of the Fireflies as like this
Speaker 1: freedom fighter organization fighting against the evils of Fedra, they
Speaker 1: just armed like a sixteen year old kid literally, and
Speaker 1: it as we learn to put her in charge of
Speaker 1: bombs spoiler moving out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of you learn a lot about
Speaker 2: Molly and I feel like, and I wrote a piece
Speaker 2: actually ign where I think this leans into some of
Speaker 2: our thoughts about like what does Molly know and how
Speaker 2: much is she kind of this kind of puppet Masstu.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they literally just armed a child who is
Speaker 2: clearly lovely but reckless. Af well, I mean, then she's
Speaker 2: a kid, you know, she.
Speaker 1: Is a kid. You know, there's almost no situation in
Speaker 1: which you can be like, we're we're an armed quasi
Speaker 1: military operation fighting to overthrow you know, despotic regime and uh,
Speaker 1: and we're trying to bring democracy and freedom, you know.
Speaker 2: Bad chilsages and that's and how.
Speaker 1: We're going to do that is by giving sixteen year
Speaker 1: old guns like it. It doesn't work. So Riley says,
Speaker 1: you know, she went and joined the Fireflies. She wants
Speaker 1: Ellie to come out with her for a few hours,
Speaker 1: doesn't say what they're gonna do and have basically the
Speaker 1: best night of their lives. Ellie is like, I gotta
Speaker 1: be a drill tomorrow, but she goes of course. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they head out to the street to the QZ. Riley
Speaker 1: wants Elie to stop fucking around with Bethany. Uh, she's
Speaker 1: it's interesting to your point. Riley has come away from
Speaker 1: this three weeks with the Fireflies and now she's acting
Speaker 1: like listen, kid, I've seen the world and as a
Speaker 1: as a mature adult now an owner of a firearm,
Speaker 1: I got a telegal Yeah, a little drama. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: little drama you have, it's small potatoes compared to what's
Speaker 1: really going out there in the big, big adult world.
Speaker 1: It's a little patronizing, just a little bit patronizing. Riley
Speaker 1: we learn as a fighter. She talks about how she's
Speaker 1: learned to kind of like focus her rage, her anger
Speaker 1: on the things that matter, meaning overthrowing turity and re
Speaker 1: establishing democracy under the aegis of the Firefly, and she
Speaker 1: gives Elle a little bit of a you can't fight
Speaker 1: everything again, this wisdom that she has gleaned in the
Speaker 1: three weeks. You gotta pick, you gotta pick Firefly traded camp. Listen,
Speaker 1: I've been firing at paper targets for the last two weeks.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, you can't fight everybody.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's also like me. I think this is
Speaker 2: a really interesting episode in terms of how it showcases
Speaker 2: the similarities because Federer is making child soldiers, that's what
Speaker 2: they're training people for, and they arguably probably armed some
Speaker 2: of those children. And guess what the Fireflies are doing
Speaker 2: exactly the same thing. It's kind of the Kansas City
Speaker 2: question of what do you replace something like Feder with.
Speaker 2: It has to be something better, it can't be the
Speaker 2: same thing. And are the Fireflies in a process of
Speaker 2: actually planning for something bad or are they just replicating
Speaker 2: the thing that they want to stop?
Speaker 1: Exactly what I was thinking so much about watching this episode.
Speaker 1: This is maybe this conversation time because maybe jumping ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit, but I think the downfall of the
Speaker 1: Fireflies of Feder, of the Kansas City freedom fighters if
Speaker 1: you could call them that, and people who fight for
Speaker 1: causes in the real world is this thought of, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're opposing the bad guys, therefore we are good, and
Speaker 1: when we get power, we will be good, when in
Speaker 1: actual fact, you will just become the thing that you overthrew,
Speaker 1: because no one has the clear eyed ability to look
Speaker 1: at themselves and go no, actually, the problem is not
Speaker 1: the people who are in charge. The problem is the
Speaker 1: corrosive effect of being in charge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if we.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the systems that we build, if we don't build
Speaker 1: a system that has oversight on the people who were
Speaker 1: in power, then we're just gonna be Feder Part two
Speaker 1: and this is not a thing that either the Fireflies
Speaker 1: or Riley or anybody is thinking about. Yes, that we've
Speaker 1: seen in this world.
Speaker 2: No, I think that only people who are thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Ironically is like Jackson Jackson, the Comnists. They took years
Speaker 2: to plan a system with from what we know like
Speaker 2: democratic oversight and like extreme planning. But what has that meant?
Speaker 2: That means it's a tiny society that's actually incredibly exclusionary.
Speaker 2: So there's this kind of like all these really interesting conversations.
Speaker 2: And the thing that so blew me away about this
Speaker 2: episode is like, look in our discord on the internet.
Speaker 2: The thing that is going to get you about this
Speaker 2: episode is the emotional arc of the characters, right.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I came away from it knowing so much more about
Speaker 2: the world and having so many more questions about the Fireflies.
Speaker 2: The piece that I wrote I cover this show every
Speaker 2: week at IGN, and the piece that I wrote this
Speaker 2: week wasn't even to do with Ellie and Riley. It
Speaker 2: was just all about Marlene because I was like, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, what does this mean? Because they will get
Speaker 2: to this later, but they changed so far, they haven't
Speaker 2: revealed something that's really important in the game. To understand Marlene,
Speaker 2: and without that knowledge, Marlene seems like a very sinister figure,
Speaker 2: and I find that to be a very interesting choice. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is just such a mind blowing episode because it
Speaker 2: is essentially like a fun Stranger Things esque like why.
Speaker 1: To a point it reminded me of I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's so very very modeled on the DLC in which
Speaker 1: Riley Oh years, it's like direct, but it also reminded
Speaker 1: me of the San Junipero episode of Black Men. Yes,
Speaker 1: very San Junipero. Yeah, two women together just living a
Speaker 1: life in.
Speaker 2: A night, which I also think is like probably completely
Speaker 2: intentional because I feel like the people felt like that.
Speaker 2: The third episode of the show, another great queer episode
Speaker 2: of TV. A lot of people I saw them being
Speaker 2: like the gaze, they have their Sand Junipero, like the
Speaker 2: Cis gaze, Like they have it, you know, the men
Speaker 2: have had They've they found their space. And I kind
Speaker 2: of think that they probably look to that a lot,
Speaker 2: that this idea of where can you find like joy
Speaker 2: in love and in queer love even in the face
Speaker 2: of like an apocalypse.
Speaker 1: X Ray Vision will be back.
Speaker 2: And We're back.
Speaker 1: So Riley leads Ellie over rooftops. They head up into
Speaker 1: a building. Ellie is winded. They find a dead body there,
Speaker 1: which apparently was not there the last time Riley has
Speaker 1: been through this building. They then take a closer look
Speaker 1: good time to time back, Yeah, I would imagine so.
Speaker 1: But then it's clear that the guy committed suicide. There's
Speaker 1: a bottle of pre outbreak liquor, I think next toom,
Speaker 1: which is clearly very expensive, as is the you know,
Speaker 1: there's also a baggy of pills, and we know the
Speaker 1: bag at least this is extremely expensive. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: this person went out with a bang. The hopelessness caught
Speaker 1: up to them and they have killed themselves, and they
Speaker 1: kind of like lean in close and they examine this person.
Speaker 1: They take the bottle of whiskey, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the floor under this corpse gives way and
Speaker 1: it just falls down. And it's a measure of how
Speaker 1: hardened you would be growing up in this world that
Speaker 1: Ellie just fucking laughs, just laughing hysterically at this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the roof, the girls sip from the bottle. Ellie asks,
Speaker 1: is that the first dead body you've ever seen? Riley? Is? Like, no,
Speaker 1: I saw my parents Ellie's like, oh, that's right. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I asked about that as a change of topic.
Speaker 1: Can I hold your gun?
Speaker 2: Could I please? She's like, I just love guns.
Speaker 1: Could I just feel the weight of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't love the trigger discipline here, but that's another thing.
Speaker 1: Ellie then asks, okay, well, why did you join the Fireflies?
Speaker 1: Like what wasn't a boy? Like? What was it this probing?
Speaker 1: You know? Clearly for what happens later on, Riley says
Speaker 1: that she was just out. She just snuck out. She's
Speaker 1: clearly was very frustrated with the kind of rules and
Speaker 1: regulations at FEDRA, so she had snuck out. She's running
Speaker 1: around on the streets. She ran into a woman who
Speaker 1: she doesn't define who it is here, but it's clearly
Speaker 1: Marlene who asked her, hey, what do you think of FEDRA?
Speaker 1: And Riley must have asked in the right way because
Speaker 1: next thing you know, Riley is in the Fireflies and
Speaker 1: Ellie here pushing back against this kind of clear, you know,
Speaker 1: romance that Riley is in, with this kind of like
Speaker 1: new mission that she has found in her life, pushes
Speaker 1: back with by by basically recycling Captain Wong's line, which
Speaker 1: is like, well, you know, Fedra, they're not perfect, but like,
Speaker 1: aren't they the only things holding it together? They're here.
Speaker 1: Riley doesn't argue with this now, she isn't not at
Speaker 1: this moment. She leads Ellie on to where they're going.
Speaker 1: They're standing on the rooftop. She's look over there, you
Speaker 1: see those new lights. Yeah, Fedra has been apparently running
Speaker 1: new electric lines to some of the vacant apartments, and
Speaker 1: it is like service and house the growing population. And
Speaker 1: now they have that argument, you know, Ellie's like, well, see,
Speaker 1: feder is not bad. They're not all bad, right, They're
Speaker 1: giving people a place to live. And Riley says, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're starving a portion of their population. And Ellie says, well,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be so difficult if the fireflies hadn't blown
Speaker 1: up the warehouse where all the food is kept. And
Speaker 1: then Riley's like, no, we didn't do that, and then
Speaker 1: Ellie's like, and also the fireflies are killing civilians when
Speaker 1: they get caught in the crossfire, get you know, or
Speaker 1: just happen to be around where these bombs blow up.
Speaker 1: And then Riley says, no, we're not doing that, and
Speaker 1: then she says the thing that is so literally ironic
Speaker 1: and she doesn't know it. It's you know, again with
Speaker 1: this incredible maturity that she's gleaned, like in the three
Speaker 1: weeks that she's a grutty way is you know, it's
Speaker 1: okay to admit that you don't know everything, the implication
Speaker 1: being I do kind of know not everything, but a
Speaker 1: lot more about the world, a lot more than you.
Speaker 1: You don't understand how it works, and of course that
Speaker 1: you know they're The tragedy of this is that they're
Speaker 1: both wrong. And she also says, Okay, we're here and
Speaker 1: it's them. All this building is supposedly sealed up because
Speaker 1: it's full of infected and Riley says, oh yeah, well
Speaker 1: if it's sealed off, then why is it sealed off?
Speaker 1: And they see there's a hole in the roof and
Speaker 1: they go inside. What they find in here is that
Speaker 1: the electricity is on. Riley turns it on and all
Speaker 1: the stuff is almost as it had been on outbreak day,
Speaker 1: like still the signs of looting at different stores, but
Speaker 1: electricity on. It's really fountains running.
Speaker 2: It's really amazing. And also I saw some people who
Speaker 2: were like, oh, how could you not see those lights. No,
Speaker 2: I've actually been to those American malls where the roof
Speaker 2: is completely solid, but it looks like there's skylights, and
Speaker 2: they're actually electrical lights and stuff. I believe that there
Speaker 2: is a version of the world where you could not
Speaker 2: see those lights coming on from outside. Now, do I
Speaker 2: think you should be like lasting Carousel music when there
Speaker 2: is a whole race of infected monsters who can only
Speaker 2: hear things. No, this is obviously a bad idea, but
Speaker 2: I will say I do believe that there. I do
Speaker 2: believe there's a version where people couldn't see the lights outside.
Speaker 2: I don't think the lights are what you should be
Speaker 2: worrying about.
Speaker 1: I think the story will bear you out. Riley notes
Speaker 1: that hey, looks like there's no infected in the mall,
Speaker 1: like they've been telling us. Score one for Feather being
Speaker 1: absolute liars. She tells Ellie again that some of the
Speaker 1: stores are empty because of the looting. They stand in
Speaker 1: front of a victorious secret store and they're kind of
Speaker 1: just talking about like what they're experiencing, and then Riley says,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to imagine you wearing that, pointing
Speaker 1: at one of the pieces there Ellie blushes extremely strongly,
Speaker 1: and then Riley is like, Okay, are you ready for
Speaker 1: I've got several wonders that you're going to experience tonight.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for the first one? And she takes
Speaker 1: her to a carousel and it's it's gorgeous, one of
Speaker 1: the old school carousels with the carved wooden horses, you know,
Speaker 1: galloping in full gallop, the beautiful lights and mirrored pieces
Speaker 1: all around the outside. Riley turns it on, it starts
Speaker 1: spinning around. It's I love the touch that it's like
Speaker 1: right across the way from a game stop, like there's
Speaker 1: a game stuff right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just I just want to say as well,
Speaker 2: I love this because Ellie is like Riley kind of
Speaker 2: in her jaded firefly new persona. The carousel that's like
Speaker 2: a wonder to her and she can't even see it.
Speaker 2: But like when Ellie sees an escalator, Ellie is like
Speaker 2: moving stairs, like is this a wonder? And you really
Speaker 2: learned so much about like what Ellie doesn't know. There's
Speaker 2: loads of great moments like that, like after the the
Speaker 2: Victoria's Secret moment with this lingerie, you know, Riley walks
Speaker 2: ahead and Ellie's kind of checking her hair in the window,
Speaker 2: and you start to really see that Riley and Ellie
Speaker 2: are not just friends, or at least Ellie would like
Speaker 2: them to be something more.
Speaker 1: They both would like the exactly to be something more,
Speaker 1: but they're both like afraid, nervous about and.
Speaker 2: That's why you know, it's so cute. And I have
Speaker 2: to say, storm Read is just so incredible hair.
Speaker 1: She's incredible now.
Speaker 2: She's incredible in the Man. She was really really great
Speaker 2: in Wrinkling Time, which I know people think is really
Speaker 2: weird movie and it is, but she's brilliant in it,
Speaker 2: Like she is just such Oh she's great in Euphoria,
Speaker 2: Like she's such a great actress. And something that this
Speaker 2: show has done so well is like they bring in
Speaker 2: cast members for one episode and you just would do
Speaker 2: anything for them to stick around, you know. But this
Speaker 2: is a flashback, so you're already aware that that's not
Speaker 2: necessarily going to be the case. And if you remember
Speaker 2: what Ellie told Tess about getting bitten, Ellie claimed that
Speaker 2: she was in there by herself. So I think you're
Speaker 2: starting to get a vision for what this is gonna be.
Speaker 2: But I love this idea that Riley is like, they're
Speaker 2: just friends. But Riley's planned like this date night in
Speaker 2: an abandoned wall, which, by the way, is the kind
Speaker 2: of thing we should see more in these post apocalyptic storytelling.
Speaker 2: I remember playing DLC. It's like, oh, this is what.
Speaker 2: Why don't we see this? Why is there never a
Speaker 2: moment where people take advantage of the emptiness and do
Speaker 2: something cool and fun. It's like in The Walking Dead,
Speaker 2: how is there never a moment where somebody like goes
Speaker 2: to old movie there or something, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I love this idea of like trying to seek out
Speaker 2: the human nature of having fun and bringing fun into
Speaker 2: someone else's life, even if, as we are sure to learn,
Speaker 2: this was a very reckless choice.
Speaker 1: The carousel stops and the conversation about the firefly starts
Speaker 1: back up again. Riley and Ellie kind of argue about
Speaker 1: like whether they think the fireflies will make a difference,
Speaker 1: and clearly Riley does. Riley says, hey, they freed other cuesies,
Speaker 1: this is probably not true, Like, clearly this is I
Speaker 1: think firefly propaganda. It feels like something would be to
Speaker 1: join the fireflys. I agree. Ellie says that if you know,
Speaker 1: like if you stay with Fedra. I mean Captain Wong says,
Speaker 1: I'm a leader. I think we could be running things
Speaker 1: in a few years. And Riley says, forget that Guang
Speaker 1: had me on sewage detail, like that's what I would
Speaker 1: have been doing. They you know, like that's why I
Speaker 1: ran away, which made me think again that Quang kind
Speaker 1: of has a point in the sense of listen, sewer detail.
Speaker 1: Is it anything that anyone wants to do? No? Is
Speaker 1: it absolutely necessary for like the functioning of a civilized
Speaker 1: society where people live together and scale. Yes, Like maybe
Speaker 1: you could argue in the top three most important jobs
Speaker 1: that you could have is making sure we don't drown
Speaker 1: in our own waist, Like that's a vital job. But
Speaker 1: because it's not framed as this adventure, this grand fight
Speaker 1: against against tyranny, there's no romance in it. It's not
Speaker 1: something that you could use to groom young people to
Speaker 1: get excited for. You know, they want to have old
Speaker 1: guns and fight the bad guys. They don't want to
Speaker 1: go into the sewer and clean it out. So the
Speaker 1: twenty thousand or forty thousand how many people live here,
Speaker 1: don't die of some disease that is preventable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think as well. Like that is also partly
Speaker 2: Federer's fault because it's clear that they use these they
Speaker 2: use it as punishment, So if you don't follow the rules,
Speaker 2: you're going to get the bad thing. But you're right
Speaker 2: like that in a post apocalyptic well, that is a
Speaker 2: heroic job because that is something everybody needs to do
Speaker 2: every single day and needs to not die and not
Speaker 2: get you know, sick, and be able to go to
Speaker 2: the bathroom. And and I love that because it's such
Speaker 2: a good smart point. There's something true in what he's saying.
Speaker 2: But it's not all about presentation. They're not present They
Speaker 2: use these roles as punishment and slight reward if you
Speaker 2: become a commander. But the Fireflies, they promise a mission.
Speaker 1: They promise a store, romance and adventure and fighting against
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to do it and you get
Speaker 1: all the gun. It's gonna be great. X Ray Vision
Speaker 1: will be back, and we're back. They move on to
Speaker 1: the next wonder And it is a photo booth. And
Speaker 1: as a person who loves a photo booth, I'm looking
Speaker 1: into my office, I see numerous pictures of from various
Speaker 1: times with various friends, and other people. I fucking love
Speaker 1: a photo booth. It cost five dollars, which of course
Speaker 1: Riley has, she's been waiting to use it. And this
Speaker 1: evening there's a wonderful moment where you know, they're hanging
Speaker 1: on each other. It's like, you know, like and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Ellie gets a little uncomfortable by
Speaker 1: like the closeness, and so they they sit very chastely
Speaker 1: like next to each other and they look at the picks,
Speaker 1: and Ellie's like, oh, I love that one. And Riley,
Speaker 1: let's Ellie have the lunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's and it's this is a great like direct
Speaker 2: from the gate where they're doing these kind of scary
Speaker 2: faces and there's so much childlike wonder here. I just
Speaker 2: love it and I love that. As we go along,
Speaker 2: the five dollars is your first hint the fact that
Speaker 2: Riley knows about this at all. You start to realize
Speaker 2: that Riley has like planned this, Riley has spent time
Speaker 2: working present this for Ellie.
Speaker 1: Next, the arcade. Gotta gotta go to the arcade old school.
Speaker 1: I love I get this cabinets coin up arcade.
Speaker 2: When I go to the mall and they have an
Speaker 2: arcade which, by the way, I am blessed with because
Speaker 2: a lot of I am as excited as they are
Speaker 2: in the post apocalypse just in a normal day. So
Speaker 2: I love this moment. I feel like it's very representative.
Speaker 2: It encapsulates that excitement, and obviously for Ellie, this is
Speaker 2: that game that we know that Riley told her about.
Speaker 1: The game I remember as a kid, like being taken
Speaker 1: to the mall and just hearing the sounds in the
Speaker 1: distance as you got close to like the change machine
Speaker 1: going and the like, and just being like, oh fuck,
Speaker 1: I want to go to the arcade. I want to arcade.
Speaker 1: I want to be there. I remember, like I remember
Speaker 1: the first time I ever cashed in five dollars for
Speaker 1: quarters and just being like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 1: like a jew I'm going to be here for twelve
Speaker 1: hours playing.
Speaker 2: This is like the most English situation. But like they
Speaker 2: didn't relate moors, didn't really exist that way when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, or like arcades and mores. But if
Speaker 2: you went to the seaside, the British seaside as we
Speaker 2: call that the side, the British seaside, if you went
Speaker 2: towards start to broad Church, don't know you know it
Speaker 2: could to Brighton or with the ball, Like if you
Speaker 2: went there, especially Brighton Pier, it was like they're just
Speaker 2: huge arcades and there would mostly be ones to win
Speaker 2: money and toys, but you would get a couple of
Speaker 2: stand up cabinets and it's that same thing hearing that
Speaker 2: noise and that like chink chink, chink chink chin of
Speaker 2: the coins. It just makes you feel like a little kid.
Speaker 1: And they just love it.
Speaker 2: They encapsulated it so well. Here.
Speaker 1: The excitement that Ellie feels is just palpable again. You know,
Speaker 1: what a great job by Bella Ramsey. And the first
Speaker 1: thing she wants to do is play Mortal Kombat too, because,
Speaker 1: as we've seen from previous episodes, she has heard a
Speaker 1: lot about this game.
Speaker 2: There's even a more combat to banner in that bedroom,
Speaker 2: like this is like Riley's hyper fixation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they play Raydon versus Molina. Riley wins round one.
Speaker 1: Riley then wins round two and man, this hit because
Speaker 1: anybody who's ever played Mortal Kombat knows that when you
Speaker 1: win the bout, you get to hit the finisher, your
Speaker 1: your character.
Speaker 2: You can hit you if you can, if you can
Speaker 2: press the button, if you can.
Speaker 1: You can execute your your character's fatality slash finishing move,
Speaker 1: and in this case it's Molina's man eater move where
Speaker 1: she eats the opponent. But the thing that I that
Speaker 1: really resonated for me was like playing Mortal Kombat against
Speaker 1: other people and being like mad if they were going
Speaker 1: to hit the fatality, like you better not hit the dude,
Speaker 1: don't do it and don't do it.
Speaker 2: And also because I I love More Kombat. That's like
Speaker 2: one of the video games and the series I play
Speaker 2: more than any other. I even love the movies. I
Speaker 2: love More Kombat. But I tell you I'm terrible at
Speaker 2: a fatality, that horrible feeling if you miss it and
Speaker 2: your character just goes like.
Speaker 1: And then falls over.
Speaker 2: So I also love again. If we talk about Riley
Speaker 2: and how much she cares about Ellie and the planning,
Speaker 2: I know she was in there playing that game practicing.
Speaker 2: She basically admits it, like yeah, she knows where the
Speaker 2: money is, because how does she get the coarse? She
Speaker 2: breaks open a change machine.
Speaker 1: She's like up, up, down, and then you have to like,
Speaker 1: come on, you've been.
Speaker 2: Practicing a bottom. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Now as they are playing camera drifts off, and our
Speaker 1: friends are unaware of the fact that a few stores
Speaker 1: over somewhere here close by in the mall, there is
Speaker 1: an infected heavily you know, scaled with cordy steps mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Who is just now stirring into consciousness. Ellie finally wins about.
Speaker 2: I just want to say, yeah, if we're talking about
Speaker 2: fireflies and they're bad, training, yeah, like sweets them all,
Speaker 2: sweet them all. How is that not like the first
Speaker 2: thing that they taught her that makes me mad? You
Speaker 2: haven't got you could have. You could have just gone
Speaker 2: and shot that infected in the head and this would
Speaker 2: not be a problem because it's I like as well,
Speaker 2: it touches on that thing like you said, I love
Speaker 2: that moment where you said they're both wrong. That's the
Speaker 2: sad thing. They're both wrong. Mark. You know, Ellie is
Speaker 2: wrong about Fedra and Riley is wrong about the fireflies.
Speaker 2: And I love this because this is a great moment
Speaker 2: of that fireflies were not wrong. Fedra has been lying.
Speaker 2: The mall is not overrun with infected, but Fedra was
Speaker 2: not completely wrong. They are infected in the mall. So
Speaker 2: it's that great gray area of like, what is the truth?
Speaker 2: And in this moment, the most important thing is just
Speaker 2: that there's a single infected in them all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to your point, one, let's secure them all
Speaker 1: if you're going to have a child you've been so long, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's secure them all number and tell her how to
Speaker 1: secure them all and don't have her do it on
Speaker 1: her own. Have teams. And then seconds to your point,
Speaker 1: the Fireflies want to overthrow Federer and they want to
Speaker 1: re establish a government. You know that that I ostensibly
Speaker 1: they would run, and everything that we've seen from them
Speaker 1: tells us that they wouldn't be good at it, like
Speaker 1: they Marlene and the Fireflies have have executed one fuck
Speaker 1: up after another throughout the course of this show. And
Speaker 1: here they are doing it again, tasking a child with
Speaker 1: like securing like a large sensitive space while sitting on
Speaker 1: a cash of I guess like important munitions, Like that's
Speaker 1: her child making and they have a child doing it.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Ellie finally wins. They get There's this moment
Speaker 1: where she and Riley get close to each other, but
Speaker 1: nothing happens. Ellie is then like, hey, I gotta go
Speaker 1: back soon. I don't want to get in trouble. Riley
Speaker 1: is disappointed, but then she decides to speed up her
Speaker 1: timetable of wonders to really get to all the things
Speaker 1: that they want to get to. Riley takes Ellie to
Speaker 1: a spot in the food court and we see that
Speaker 1: she has been sleeping there. We also see the pipe bombs,
Speaker 1: as you said, and she gives Ellie the gift. It's
Speaker 1: the no pun intended Volume two book.
Speaker 2: Dun dun d It's going to be the cost of
Speaker 2: Joel's life.
Speaker 1: Yes, six weeks so as they're trading puns, this is
Speaker 1: when Ellie discovers the pipe bombs that Riley's been building,
Speaker 1: and Ellie is upset. She realizes that Riley didn't discover
Speaker 1: them all, that she's been posted here by the fireflies
Speaker 1: to make bombs and to guard this like arsenal that
Speaker 1: she is creating. Then Riley again shows her naivete by saying, hey,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, like the fireflies number one. She's like,
Speaker 1: Ellie's like, so what happens if the fireflies blow me
Speaker 1: up with fedra right? And Riley is like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't let them do it. And it's
Speaker 1: almost tragic. The naivete that Riley has here. She's so
Speaker 1: I mean, who hasn't at a young age, especially been
Speaker 1: entranced by the feeling of belonging somewhere, like finding a community,
Speaker 1: and they're being like a real it's like almost like
Speaker 1: falling in love. You realize around people who are like me,
Speaker 1: and we have a you know, she really believes that,
Speaker 1: oh everyone's like me, and they therefore love and value
Speaker 1: Ellie and they understand that though she is in Federa,
Speaker 1: she's good and they wouldn't hurt her. And it's so
Speaker 1: childlike and sad in understandable that she would think like
Speaker 1: this in.
Speaker 2: And brainwashing.
Speaker 1: That's exactly it, because I would argue to your point,
Speaker 1: the fireflies are counting on people being this knave or
Speaker 1: exact Why approach a sixteen year old to do this.
Speaker 1: You're counting on the fact and that they don't know
Speaker 1: about exactly and.
Speaker 2: Also not just that, you're counting on the fact that
Speaker 2: they're reckless, because think about this in a world where
Speaker 2: Fedra hangs people for like going against them for the
Speaker 2: smallest infractions. We even saw this in Boston, so we
Speaker 2: noticed the case where Riley grew up. Riley a random
Speaker 2: woman in the street asked her what she thought about
Speaker 2: feder and Riley started chatting shit and bad mouth in Fedra.
Speaker 2: That in itself that is like stealth, like this is
Speaker 2: a problem, but it shows that the anger and hatred
Speaker 2: towards Fedra, I think probably very understandably being raised in
Speaker 2: a federal orphanage. It bubbles to the top in Riley
Speaker 2: and they can take it of that. And I think
Speaker 2: this is such a heartbreaking narrative revealed because I think
Speaker 2: they do such a good job seeding how much Riley's
Speaker 2: planned it. And I do believe that Riley planned this state.
Speaker 2: But the date is secondary and just the offshoot of
Speaker 2: this mission that she has. And that's heartbreaking because to Ellie,
Speaker 2: it proves to Ellie that she second she ran away
Speaker 2: for three weeks, she didn't know where she was, she
Speaker 2: thought she was dead, and then she did this beautiful, huge,
Speaker 2: like romantic gesture. But it was really just an offshoot
Speaker 2: of this mission that she took her away from Ellie.
Speaker 2: That's so heartbreaking because two things can be true. It's romantic,
Speaker 2: it's kind, she put thought into it, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: the purpose of her being in the mall. This wasn't
Speaker 2: something for the two of them.
Speaker 1: It's not just Ellie she's in love with She is
Speaker 1: in love with being a firefly. Truly. It's a great point.
Speaker 1: Ellie is now furious and rightly so honestly, and she's notes, Hey,
Speaker 1: none of this shit was even about me. You were
Speaker 1: already here. They ordered you to do this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm out. Uh. Riley tells Ellie that, well, if you're leaving,
Speaker 1: this is it just so you know, like I'm leaving too,
Speaker 1: Like Marlene is giving me my posting, I'll be leaving Boston.
Speaker 1: Tonight's my last night here. Ellie asks why did you
Speaker 1: bring me here then? And Riley's like, because I wanted
Speaker 1: to see you. I wanted to say goodbye. Ellie leaves,
Speaker 1: then doubles back. Just the thought of leaving Riley under
Speaker 1: these circumstances it brings her up short. And here's the
Speaker 1: show has been doing this all season, which is subvert
Speaker 1: giving us these little fake outs where you think prospect
Speaker 1: to happen, and it's always based around some point of
Speaker 1: the game that the game players would be expecting. And
Speaker 1: here is that moment she comes back. You here, screams,
Speaker 1: She runs up panicked. Riley are you, okay, but it
Speaker 1: isn't Riley. It's one of those Halloween decorations and it's like.
Speaker 2: Ah a, a's like waking up and saying back, and
Speaker 2: it's they're in this halloween store.
Speaker 1: She finds Riley just kind of sad moping in this
Speaker 1: halloween store, and Riley says, surprise, it's the Fifth Wonder
Speaker 1: and it's the store she thought Ellie would love it,
Speaker 1: so she saved it for last. Riley gives Ellie the
Speaker 1: Book of Puns. Ellie tells Riley that basically she doesn't
Speaker 1: think that she understands what the fireflies are really about,
Speaker 1: and Riley again says, like you think you know everything,
Speaker 1: but you don't know everything. But then she kind of
Speaker 1: admits that Ellie is right. She basically says, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you don't understand what it's like to feel like I'm
Speaker 1: part of a mission, part of a community. They chose me.
Speaker 1: I matter to them, and it's a way of saying, yes,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know everything that the fireflies are doing,
Speaker 1: but they want me so I will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how they make me feel as more important? Also,
Speaker 2: I think it's really there's a really interesting thing here
Speaker 2: where you know, Riley is not callous to her feelings
Speaker 2: about Ellie or Ellie's feelings. Riley asked Marlene if Ellie
Speaker 2: could go with her, and Marlene said, no, she stays
Speaker 2: in Fedra. She stays in that Boston orphanage. Now, like
Speaker 2: I say, I'm not going to get into spoiler territory,
Speaker 2: but in the game and in the TYE, in comic
Speaker 2: and in the DLC, there is like there is a
Speaker 2: reasoning behind why Marlene cares for Ellie and and kind
Speaker 2: of does these makes these choices, that is a human reason.
Speaker 2: I feel like in the game. I understand that they
Speaker 2: may likely show this later, but currently it feels like
Speaker 2: a conspiracy to me. I feel like Marlene wants Ellie
Speaker 2: in Fedra for a reason. Whether it's because she thinks
Speaker 2: maybe they have a bunch of kids who were born
Speaker 2: after the Fall and they think that they could be
Speaker 2: immune and they want to see, or maybe it's because
Speaker 2: she wants a plant within Fedra. I don't know what
Speaker 2: it is, but I found this announcement even knowing what
Speaker 2: the game reasoning is. I feel like it's so interesting.
Speaker 2: We've heard r Ellie has asked Marlene about her mom.
Speaker 2: Ellie asked malleyne, are you my mom? There was a
Speaker 2: chance there for a conversation that could lean into what
Speaker 2: happened in the game, but instead this just makes Morlene
Speaker 2: seem like she has some kind of shadowy oceans.
Speaker 1: Definitely, And don't forget Marlene basically intimating earlier in this
Speaker 1: in episode one, that she's been keeping eye on Ellie
Speaker 1: for a long time.
Speaker 2: So actually you in that orphanage like it was me,
Speaker 2: and it's like, so she's there a season and I
Speaker 2: find that really interesting.
Speaker 1: Ellie basically is unhappy with Riley's decision, becomes to a
Speaker 1: place where she accept it, accepts it. Riley tells Ellie that, Okay,
Speaker 1: we have one last surprise left. She gives Ellie a
Speaker 1: werewolf mask. Riley puts on a scary clown mask and
Speaker 1: they play on They play on Ellie's walk and a
Speaker 1: cover of I Got You Babe by Edna James, and
Speaker 1: they dance and then at the end of the dance,
Speaker 1: the masks come off. Ellie desperately says to Riley like
Speaker 1: that she doesn't want her to leave. Riley says, okay,
Speaker 1: and then they kiss and it's a wonderful, tender, nervy moment.
Speaker 1: Ellie then apologizes, but of course it's fine.
Speaker 2: Like they both wanted this. It's like they this is
Speaker 2: a world where maybe in this night, it feels like
Speaker 2: they can make something great happen between the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then before you know what, the infected is there.
Speaker 1: They hear it before they see it, and Riley has
Speaker 1: her gun out. She says, get ready to run. It
Speaker 1: feels like something Joel would say. Also, which which it
Speaker 1: really does. The contrast is so stark, you know. Then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden the affected is with insight Ley
Speaker 1: opening fire on it, hits it a couple of times.
Speaker 1: The infected, of course, does not go down. It's like
Speaker 1: almost like to clicker level something of like heartiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also like again, I feel like the three
Speaker 2: weeks did not was not spent well. They did not
Speaker 2: think like, listen, let's make sure she can. She needs
Speaker 2: to know or shift something like that. They need to know.
Speaker 2: She needs to know how to kill a zomb because
Speaker 2: she's protecting these I'm sure very you know, expensive in
Speaker 2: the relative terms of the last of US economy, munitions
Speaker 2: that could kill many people. Uh, maybe it would have
Speaker 2: been good to have one of those around in case
Speaker 2: there was an infected. Riley has clearly been told there
Speaker 2: is no infected. Riley is not ready for this, and
Speaker 2: it is like really heartbreaking to see this. Also, just
Speaker 2: want to shout out the fact that throughout this episode
Speaker 2: from the beginning, they're playing eighties music, So if we
Speaker 2: know what Bill's code is, we knew where this was
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 1: Go, and it's going exactly here. So there is a struggle.
Speaker 1: Riley is knocked out for a little bit, Ellie is
Speaker 1: on her own. Then Riley comes back to knocks the
Speaker 1: infected off of Ellie. Ellie finally kills it with a
Speaker 1: head stab sumb and they are both so high on adrenaline.
Speaker 1: Ellie is like particularly like flushed with victory, and then
Speaker 1: she looks at Riley and Riley's got this devastated look
Speaker 1: on her face and they realize they've both been bitten
Speaker 1: and so they're dead essentially. We go back to the house.
Speaker 1: Joel is shivering on the floor. Ellie is still standing
Speaker 1: on the door. All of these thoughts have flashed through
Speaker 1: her mind in the seconds that she had been standing
Speaker 1: on the other side of the door, and it steals
Speaker 1: her for what comes next. She thinks, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to lose Joel the way I lost Riley. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. She runs upstairs looks for any supplies she
Speaker 1: can find to try and stabilize Joel. We go back
Speaker 1: to the mall, and Ellie, in her rage at the
Speaker 1: hopelessness of their situation, is just smashing everything in sight.
Speaker 1: Riley is like, go ahead, there's more stuff smash over there.
Speaker 1: She's really kind of resigned to this happening. I will say,
Speaker 1: both of them are acting like there's no more zombies
Speaker 1: in this building, like, you know, like if you saw one,
Speaker 1: that would tell me there might be more. But that's
Speaker 1: for another time. Riley is really resigned to this being
Speaker 1: In the end, she says that, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: we could kill ourselves, but I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: think what we should do is go into whatever comes next,
Speaker 1: hand in hand. We squeeze every last good moment out
Speaker 1: of the moments that we have left. And it's just
Speaker 1: really I read it as this very young you know,
Speaker 1: the passion and strength of young love. Is this feeling
Speaker 1: like even as infected, we'd know who each other are,
Speaker 1: you know, like that It's almost that kind of that
Speaker 1: kind of statement of like, yes, but we'll be together exactly.
Speaker 2: Actually, I really love how in this final moment, Riley
Speaker 2: actually has like this immense amount of wisdom, Like we've
Speaker 2: kind of joked about this three weeks of wisdom that
Speaker 2: she got from the fireflies, but in this moment she
Speaker 2: has a recognition that like no one else really has
Speaker 2: had apart from Sam. So it's kind of that childlike
Speaker 2: wonder of you know what. One, we could still have
Speaker 2: four or five hours together in this moll where we
Speaker 2: remember each other, so let's make the most of that.
Speaker 2: And two, who knows what happens? Who knows what happened
Speaker 2: when we turned You never know, we might just be
Speaker 2: both living in here being infected together. And I love
Speaker 2: that is such an out of the box, different hopeful
Speaker 2: outlook than what we usually get, which is this you've
Speaker 2: got to kill them, you got to kill someone. It
Speaker 2: brings me back. I'm really happy to see a lot
Speaker 2: of people in the discord reading The Girl with all
Speaker 2: the Gifts and starting to watch the movie, and I
Speaker 2: feel like this is really playing into those questions like
Speaker 2: we don't really know what the cognizance of a zombie is,
Speaker 2: We don't know how the infected experience life, and I
Speaker 2: love that Riley has this kind of you know, kind
Speaker 2: of that mind blowing moment where she's just like, well,
Speaker 2: we could just enjoy each other and spend time together.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't imagine how horrific that would have
Speaker 2: ended up being for Ellie, because we know who survived
Speaker 2: and who didn't.
Speaker 1: Yes, so they grasp hands and lean on each other
Speaker 1: and go forward into whatever comes next. We go back
Speaker 1: to the house. Ellie has come back to Joel. She
Speaker 1: has a sewing needle, and she kind of grits her teeth,
Speaker 1: steals herself and goes about the really really hard work
Speaker 1: of binding up Joel's wounds. He passes out from the
Speaker 1: pain of it, and we fed to black.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just before Joel, just before he passes out,
Speaker 2: there's this great moment where, like she put she's pressuring
Speaker 2: the wound right, putting pressure on it, and Joel allows
Speaker 2: her to hold his hand, Yeah, and their fingers like intertwine.
Speaker 2: And it's this first moment of vulnerability, real vulnerability that
Speaker 2: Joel's shown Ellie. And also I think that marks a change.
Speaker 2: If Ellie asked Joel if she was family now, he
Speaker 2: would say yes. It wouldn't be your cargo. You know.
Speaker 2: This is she's willing to save him and he can
Speaker 2: feel that, and he's willing to be saved in that moment.
Speaker 2: What an episode.
Speaker 1: What an episode, and an episode that really underlines Ellie's
Speaker 1: growth from a person who has kind of been the
Speaker 1: sidekick and a lot of the important relationships in her
Speaker 1: life until now and now she's really standing up on
Speaker 1: her own t feet and being the person who saves
Speaker 1: the other people. Really beautiful and also, I got to say,
Speaker 1: is an episode that makes you see the fireflies in
Speaker 1: a very very different light.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really interesting world building episode. Like I said,
Speaker 2: like this as the potential emotional theft of like episode three,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that for a lot of people it's
Speaker 2: going to hit that way. And it is storm Read
Speaker 2: and Bella Ramsey is so brilliant together.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the thing that really blew me away as a
Speaker 2: viewer and as a kind of somebody who's always enjoys
Speaker 2: looking at these narratives, it was that world building. It
Speaker 2: was this idea of like, who are the fireflies really?
Speaker 2: What does Marlene know? What could happen that would explain
Speaker 2: away this behavior and will it come too late, does
Speaker 2: it matter? And also, like you said, our main children
Speaker 2: putting them in charge of munitions. This is not some
Speaker 2: great hope for the future. Currently, this is like dangerous.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, we'll be continuing our coverage of the Last
Speaker 1: of a Show here on the Xtra Vision podcast. Up next, nerd.
Speaker 2: Out Spoiler, spoiler. This nerd Out contains spoilers for the
Speaker 2: video game The Last of Us Part two, which would
Speaker 2: make me say, probably just skip past this if you
Speaker 2: have not played the game or care about spoilers, because
Speaker 2: this will likely come into play or there will be
Speaker 2: characters mentioned he who would come into play in a
Speaker 2: second season.
Speaker 1: I would say, Also, secondarily, yes, if you are a
Speaker 1: show watcher who has never played the game exactly, I
Speaker 1: would also stay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm saying like I'm saying, just generally, don't do it.
Speaker 1: Probably don't listen to this, and you have played the
Speaker 1: Last of Us one and two.
Speaker 2: If you do, do not be googling anything about these characters.
Speaker 1: Also, don't do that.
Speaker 2: Don't do that. In today's nerd Out, where you tell
Speaker 2: us what you love or why or a theory that
Speaker 2: you're excited to share. Rob pictures us the Last of
Speaker 2: US Part three video game, which I think introduces something
Speaker 2: that the first Last of Us was arguably missing, though
Speaker 2: I understand why it was missing.
Speaker 1: So here is Rob's pitch for a Last of Us
Speaker 1: three game and how it would end. Quote. The third
Speaker 1: act would end with Ellie traveling with Abby back to
Speaker 1: the new Firefly HQ. I would love to be able
Speaker 1: to switch from Abby to Ellie on their journey, using
Speaker 1: each one's different skill sets or play skill sets to
Speaker 1: move the player along towards the goal and survive. I
Speaker 1: would also make Ellie's choice to sacrifice herself up to
Speaker 1: the player, So, in other words, unlike the Last of
Speaker 1: Us one and two, but I would love to have
Speaker 1: that be the choice, be the potential savior of mankind
Speaker 1: or act like the father figure of her life Joel,
Speaker 1: and tear down the fireflies once again. So in other words,
Speaker 1: Rob's pitches a Last of Us three ending with a
Speaker 1: choice as Ellie, you can either A sacrifice yourself, save
Speaker 1: the hear and race, or b kill all the fireflies.
Speaker 2: That would actually be such a nice reflection of that
Speaker 2: first game, and it would give us that It would
Speaker 2: how much has Ellie changed over these games, and what
Speaker 2: choice would the player make. It would give us back
Speaker 2: that agency that we never had, and it would give
Speaker 2: Ellie the agency to make the choice that so many
Speaker 2: people wanted her to make. I think that is like
Speaker 2: that could be a really deep, interesting way.
Speaker 1: I think this is great. Here is a pitch because
Speaker 1: I feel like this choice it's already a video game.
Speaker 1: You've likely you know, by the time you get to
Speaker 1: Act three, you've replayed certain levels several times because you
Speaker 1: didn't make it through, and now you're here. It seems
Speaker 1: to me almost too easy to make the save Mankind
Speaker 1: choice right now. I wonder if you can add some
Speaker 1: stakes to it, like if you save Mankind. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you do it, But if you save Mankind,
Speaker 1: you can't just play is your next playthrough? You have
Speaker 1: to start all over again. I can't you know what?
Speaker 2: I like?
Speaker 1: You know how like when you finish a game and
Speaker 1: end game, Yeah, you can like jump back in and
Speaker 1: play certain levels. If you save Mankind, it wipes.
Speaker 2: I was gonna you either you don't keep because dies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know all your achievements. But the next time
Speaker 1: you play, you have to play from the beginning. Now,
Speaker 1: if you decide as I would imagine either Abby and
Speaker 1: Ellie together or just Abby or just Ellie. If you
Speaker 1: decide to wipe out the fireflies, then you keep all
Speaker 1: your saves, you can play, you can jump back into
Speaker 1: different levels and keep all that stuff. You keep all
Speaker 1: your DLC regardless of what choice you make. But I'm
Speaker 1: thinking there has to be right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the one thing I'll say is the
Speaker 2: writers of these games are like so brilliant at telling
Speaker 2: these stories. I also think that there is a version
Speaker 2: of this where they get you so invested in this
Speaker 2: story that there are people who will make the other
Speaker 2: choice also as well, it's the it's the joker thing.
Speaker 2: There's people who just want to see the world burn.
Speaker 2: So I think there's that interesting thing of like knowing
Speaker 2: that you're making the wrong choice and the human appeal
Speaker 2: to make this horrific choice, and also the tradition of
Speaker 2: the game, which is to make the terrible choice. So
Speaker 2: I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: What about this If you choose to sacrifice yourself, there
Speaker 1: is no post you know how usually you win the
Speaker 1: game and then there's like a post game montage. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Nothing get you just said, you just go back Black Faith,
Speaker 2: Black done. Yeah, I think that's it. You don't get
Speaker 2: any cut scenes, you don't know how to if it works,
Speaker 2: if you don't know if the rest of the world
Speaker 2: keeps going on, you have no idea because you're dead.
Speaker 2: I think that is like such a belief.
Speaker 1: I know it just yeah, faith are black.
Speaker 2: You never know, and that's I just have people talking
Speaker 2: for like a million years.
Speaker 1: I do love the idea, Rob. I think it's really great.
Speaker 1: My here's the thing I wonder is Naughty Dog so
Speaker 1: invested in their style of storytelling, which is in these
Speaker 1: big moments, you don't have agency. We have agency. We're
Speaker 1: telling our story. If you want to know about our story,
Speaker 1: you can play through and that's it. But don't expect
Speaker 1: to be like, well, now Joel's not going to do this,
Speaker 1: or Ellie is not going to do this, and Ellie's
Speaker 1: going to decide to, you know, not get involved in
Speaker 1: this fight. Abby is going to decide to walk away
Speaker 1: and live peacefully like and so I wonder.
Speaker 2: If they howitch it up.
Speaker 1: I do wonder if they would ever decide if they
Speaker 1: do decide to go back for a last of Us
Speaker 1: part three, which is I would can't imagine they won't
Speaker 1: if they ever do decide to hand over the keys
Speaker 1: in a key moment to a player. Yeah, I wonder.
Speaker 2: It's so exciting to even think about. Thank you, Rob.
Speaker 2: If you have theories or passions you want to share,
Speaker 2: hit us up at x ray at crooked dot com.
Speaker 2: Instructions are in the show notes as always.
Speaker 1: Well that's it for us, Rosie. Anything to plug plug
Speaker 1: plug pok.
Speaker 2: You can read my coverage of this show, which is
Speaker 2: a weekly article that I write about a certain part
Speaker 2: of the show that speaks to me. At IGN you
Speaker 2: can read I wrote a lot of articles for DC
Speaker 2: dot Com DC Comics now known as DC dot Com.
Speaker 2: Ever heard of them?
Speaker 1: Superman, Batman, I wrote Manhunter, Fanplastic Man.
Speaker 2: I actually got to write a Plastic Man article which
Speaker 2: was very fun about Kyle Baker's brilliant Plastic Man, like
Speaker 2: one of the weirdest best comics I ever made. I
Speaker 2: wrote a lot of articles there this month. You can
Speaker 2: check them out. I have a really cool one maybe
Speaker 2: I don't know what days are. I think it will
Speaker 2: be out by the time this comes out about a
Speaker 2: really underrated, underread Green Lantern arc by Christopher Priest and
Speaker 2: Mark Bright that was really cool that ran us backups
Speaker 2: in action comics, so those are fun. Uh yeah, like
Speaker 2: lots of articles online you can I just when this finishes,
Speaker 2: I will be sending the much toiled over next draft
Speaker 2: of this secret project that I have. I'll be able
Speaker 2: to share soon, so that's cool. And yeah, I'm here
Speaker 2: twice a week Rosie marks on Instagram and letterbox and
Speaker 2: obviously here.
Speaker 1: Catch our next episode Friday, March third, where we'll be
Speaker 1: talking about the premiere episode of Mandalorian Season three, Big brand,
Speaker 1: the Baby.
Speaker 2: Bring them back the baby. We want to see him.
Speaker 1: We want to see the beautiful now fifty three year
Speaker 1: old baby. And of course remember remember we'll bring you
Speaker 1: two episodes twice a week Wednesdays and Fridays on your
Speaker 1: podcast platform of choice.
Speaker 2: Check us out and if you want to see us
Speaker 2: as well as hear us, you can subscribe on YouTube
Speaker 2: where you can watch full episodes of the show. Now,
Speaker 2: follow us on Twitter where xrv pod, and check out
Speaker 2: our discord. We talk about it a lot because we
Speaker 2: have a lot of fun in that a bunch of
Speaker 2: amazing fans, people who love all the same cool stuff
Speaker 2: as we do. And me and Jason pop in there
Speaker 2: every now and again. If you want to do watch parties.
Speaker 2: Those are popping off at the moment. We're gonna have
Speaker 2: them for the last of us.
Speaker 1: From Mandalorian five star ratings, five star reviews. We need them,
Speaker 1: we gotta have them, you gotta give them to us.
Speaker 1: Here is one from melligator Family Bonding. I love and
Speaker 1: learn from Jason and Rosie so much. Thank you, so much,
Speaker 1: Thank you, melligaate. They're very entertaining and occasionally I can
Speaker 1: mention something to my sixteen year old and shocker, thanks
Speaker 1: for making me a sometimes cool mom.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. Wow. That's the power of X ray Vision.
Speaker 2: I really love it.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by Chris Lord and Sal Rubin. The show
Speaker 1: is executive produced by myself and Sandy Garhard are editing
Speaker 1: and sound design who's by Vascillas Fatopoulos, Dylon Villanueva and
Speaker 1: Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex Roller for
Speaker 1: handle social media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for the music.
Speaker 1: See you next time, ms M