Speaker 1: Warning, this podcast contains spoilers for the premiere of HBO's
Speaker 1: The Last of Us. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion
Speaker 1: and I'm Rosy Night, and welcome to X Revision, the
Speaker 1: Crooked Media podcast where we dive be to your favorite shows, comics,
Speaker 1: and pop culture.
Speaker 2: In this episode previously and we're going to be digging
Speaker 2: into that wild Mandalorian season three trailer, the Baby's Back,
Speaker 2: the Baby's Bay, Baby's Back, And in the airlock we're
Speaker 2: going to be talking about that unreal premiere of HBO's
Speaker 2: The Last of Us, which I just cannot wait to
Speaker 2: talk about because it look.
Speaker 1: I can't wait, it was so good. And of course
Speaker 1: this is an all at card podcast. And if you
Speaker 1: want to jump around and just pick the little bits
Speaker 1: you like, check the show notes and the timestamps for
Speaker 1: the topics that we talk about and where they are
Speaker 1: coming up. Let's get into that Mandalorian trailer in the
Speaker 1: previous sound first up, Okay, Mandalorian season three trailer debuted
Speaker 1: during Dallas Cowboys versus Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who which is
Speaker 1: why I tuned in also to see Tom Brady get stomped.
Speaker 1: But man looks great, not a lot of new stuff
Speaker 1: from compared to the trailer that had been out there,
Speaker 1: but really really fun. Looks great.
Speaker 2: The baby is back, The baby's back. Lots of vines,
Speaker 2: Mary Laurians.
Speaker 1: Here is some just like in no order, some things
Speaker 1: that popped out to me, grief, cargo, the come up continues.
Speaker 1: He looks great.
Speaker 2: I love call Weathers. I love to see it every day.
Speaker 1: No one has looked more delighted to be in a
Speaker 1: role than Carl, Like every time I watch him, you
Speaker 1: can see him being like, can you believe this is
Speaker 1: this great?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I love it. This is suer great. Hopefully he'll
Speaker 2: be directing some more episodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the robes, like the fact that he seems to
Speaker 1: be in control of a significant power structure now is
Speaker 1: really cool.
Speaker 2: That is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also the armorer was that like flashbacks, are they going
Speaker 2: to be a major role again? I'm hoping that it's
Speaker 2: the latter, But it's really interesting. It's weird to say, oh,
Speaker 2: a lot of Mandalorians, because like there really aren't a
Speaker 2: lot of them, but yeah, we see that dinn is
Speaker 2: basically he's in a position where he's trying to reimagine
Speaker 2: what the Mandalorians can be outside of progressive side of
Speaker 2: death like something. And he's got to, you know, go
Speaker 2: back to Mandalaw because he took off his took off
Speaker 2: his mask so he could go on the baby. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, so it will be very interesting to see
Speaker 2: for me. I love to see some weird alien races.
Speaker 2: So we had I have seen the a Kawakian monkey
Speaker 2: lizard aka Silatious Crumb. It wasn't Silatious Crumb probably, but
Speaker 2: I yelled Silatious be crumb. Uh. And then obviously I
Speaker 2: know in our discord people are like really excited, like
Speaker 2: is that Babu Frick? Is it Babu Frick? Well, there's
Speaker 2: two of them, but at least it's an Anzilin I
Speaker 2: believe is what they're called. So I love Babu Frick.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to see it. I love to see some
Speaker 2: weird alien creatures me too. Also, I'm very interested. You
Speaker 2: know you talked about let's talk about like Anakin and
Speaker 2: Order sixty six and also like temple.
Speaker 1: Uh we okay, so that's probably a battle droid that's
Speaker 1: cutting open the door. That said, I'm just going off
Speaker 1: of the color of the laser that appears to be
Speaker 1: cutting the door open. That's ITID I do wonder if
Speaker 1: we're going to see a de aged Anakin doing a
Speaker 1: lot of murder stuff, And it feels like to put
Speaker 1: that in the trailer sets up. We're gonna let you
Speaker 1: know how baby Yoda escaped. Of course, yeah, they know
Speaker 1: we're gonna tell you how.
Speaker 2: They know what that evokes when they put that in
Speaker 2: the trailer. It evokes horror and terror. And yeah, well
Speaker 2: you know, Hayden's back now, so we could see it.
Speaker 2: You know, we we saw what they did with Luke,
Speaker 2: it would be much easier to do it with Hayden.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm I'm very excited. I love this show.
Speaker 2: I love the baby, you know, I love Patro. I'm
Speaker 2: so happy things are going so well for him right now.
Speaker 2: Like back where did share the trailer? I was just thinking, like,
Speaker 2: good for him. I was like, coming off the back
Speaker 2: of like one of the best reviews, well, the best
Speaker 2: reviewed live action video game adaptation ever.
Speaker 1: We'll get it. Yeah, yeah, get okay, Actually, let's just
Speaker 1: do that up. Next to the premiere of HBOS Last Us,
Speaker 1: we're stepping out of the airlock and into the broken
Speaker 1: down streets of Boston, looking better than ever, if you
Speaker 1: ask me to talk about the premiere of HBO Max
Speaker 1: Is the Last of Us adaptation created by Craig Mason
Speaker 1: and Naughty dogg ep Neil Druckman, starring Pedro Pascal as Joel,
Speaker 1: Bella Ramsay as Ellie and A Turf as Tess, Gabriel
Speaker 1: Luna as Tommy, and more people that we haven't really
Speaker 1: seen yet. Let's talk about this first. You mentioned it
Speaker 1: in the previously on there's been you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of tagline for this, or at least the media narrative
Speaker 1: is here is the video game adaptation that has broken
Speaker 1: the curse. Now, some have said, well what about.
Speaker 2: So so I think the thing is to say animated,
Speaker 2: because like we've had.
Speaker 1: All K live action live action right right, and and honestly,
Speaker 1: that's that is a big deal, because when you're talking
Speaker 1: about something like Arcane, it's I'm not I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to undercut how cool it was and how legitimately equality
Speaker 1: and great it was. Even if like you're like me,
Speaker 1: you're not a League of Legends person, it was great.
Speaker 1: You're still talking about a computer generated visual medium to
Speaker 1: another computer generated visual medium.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, the medium is a similar. So
Speaker 2: it feels the cousins.
Speaker 1: I like that this is a completely different animal, and
Speaker 1: I was blown away. I was it to me, it
Speaker 1: was a lot like the House of the Dragon adaptation,
Speaker 1: in which we know a lot of the story. If
Speaker 1: you played the games, but both one and two you
Speaker 1: know where this goes. People have replayed the games. There's DLC,
Speaker 1: so people have played the games multiple times and for
Speaker 1: good reason. But this adaptation, it's not just like, you know,
Speaker 1: making the parts that wouldn't work as a television narrative work.
Speaker 1: It's that they everything is really really additive and like
Speaker 1: House to the Dragon, even if you know the story,
Speaker 1: there's a ton of surprises there for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really a great point. I'd say definitely.
Speaker 2: How so the Dragon comes to mind. Also, it reminds
Speaker 2: me kind of what they did with this Star Wars
Speaker 2: animated shows, where you're meeting these characters, but you're getting
Speaker 2: these huge moments of context and spending much more time
Speaker 2: with them. And I think, especially as we go in
Speaker 2: to the later episodes, that is going to be where
Speaker 2: this show really shines. But I thought the first episode
Speaker 2: was so brilliant. I mean, we've talked about that cold
Speaker 2: open in the game, you know, quite extensively, and to
Speaker 2: be able to bring that to life here and make
Speaker 2: it even more heart wrenching even when you are not
Speaker 2: in control. Oh, which was our biggest question is how
Speaker 2: does this story feel when you are not an active
Speaker 2: part of it? And you know what still feels as
Speaker 2: moving and engaging and exciting as ever.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the recap. Episode one, when You're
Speaker 1: Lost in the Darkness, written by Craig Mason and Neil Druckman,
Speaker 1: directed by Craig Mason. We open in nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: on a talk show kind of like a fictional version
Speaker 1: of firing Line. There's a host. He's talking to a
Speaker 1: pair of intellectuals about a parent, you know, pandemic threats,
Speaker 1: epidemiological threats, the kind of things that keep them up
Speaker 1: at night. One of them mentions, hey, commercial travels, is
Speaker 1: this really dangerous amplifying effect. You know, bacteria virus can
Speaker 1: be in Kenya and then it can be in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and it can go around the world very quickly. And
Speaker 1: the other one is a much more interesting and seemingly
Speaker 1: out of the box concern, which is fung guy. Unlike
Speaker 1: viral or bacterial infections. Fun guy, he said, as can
Speaker 1: actually hijack the nervous system, and he uses LSD as
Speaker 1: an example, which the ergot fungus, which is the kind
Speaker 1: of like a natural basis for lysergic acid, which many
Speaker 1: surmise has caused like various mass freakouts in medieval times.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody's ever looked into this, but
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, there's these various like dancing plagues
Speaker 1: where like an entire village in medieval like Germany, just
Speaker 1: like flip shared hysteria. So there's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of subposition that that ergot fungus caused that.
Speaker 1: And then he mentions these very specific funguses that attack
Speaker 1: ants and also wasps that hijack their their brains and
Speaker 1: basically turned them into puppets. And then he says, hey, yeah, obviously,
Speaker 1: like fungui can't survive temperatures at the the internal temperature
Speaker 1: of the human body and hotter. But what if the
Speaker 1: work got hotter. And of course we know that the
Speaker 1: world will get hotter as we are living through it
Speaker 1: right now. And Rosie I was really struck by the
Speaker 1: decision to go in nineteen sixty eight, because it was
Speaker 1: really that was the kind of like consensus, the mass
Speaker 1: American consensus, worst year in American history before any of
Speaker 1: the years that have happened in our recent lifetimes. You know,
Speaker 1: like you had obviously Vietnam and the tet Offensive, and
Speaker 1: that was going terribly opening American's eyes to how were
Speaker 1: they were not going to win that war? Not to
Speaker 1: mention the images of violence Street, you know, just like
Speaker 1: beamed into American households every single night. Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated that year.
Speaker 1: There are riots that ensued. There was the Democratic National Convention,
Speaker 1: which turned into a police riot as the police just
Speaker 1: like viciously beat down protesters in full view of cameras.
Speaker 1: Prague Spring. It was a really really chaotic and crazy year,
Speaker 1: and I think it makes sense that they would It's
Speaker 1: such a small detail, but really cool that they set
Speaker 1: that talk show in that year.
Speaker 2: No, I love that. I think this is such a
Speaker 2: great expositionary opening where you have these brilliant performances and
Speaker 2: it feels very chernobyl, it feels very on the nose.
Speaker 2: There's like a tiny liess and I absolutely love the
Speaker 2: way that you start with the first intellectual who in
Speaker 2: our world he was right because guess what we lived
Speaker 2: through COVID and this the reason that it spread so
Speaker 2: fast was very much to do with commercial travel. So
Speaker 2: you have that little nod without it feeling out of
Speaker 2: this world. But then you get to listen to somebody
Speaker 2: basically explain how the corterceps will work in a way
Speaker 2: that doesn't feel like an exposition dump later on. And
Speaker 2: I love the way that the beginning when he says fungi,
Speaker 2: people are laughing in the audience, but by the end
Speaker 2: when he makes the point about global warming and what
Speaker 2: if the world got hot, everyone just absolutely goes silent.
Speaker 2: And the talk show says to him, you know, well,
Speaker 2: what would happen if all of that happens? And he
Speaker 2: just looks him and he says, will we lose? And
Speaker 2: you know, that's what we know, and we should mention.
Speaker 1: I feel like I should mention. This is nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight fictional nineteen sixty eight, the first like official Exxon
Speaker 1: funded internal studies about what would happen when petroleum you know,
Speaker 1: byproducts are ejected hydrocarbon biproducts are rejected to the atmosphere
Speaker 1: at a mass rate. Appeared in nineteen seventy seven. Their
Speaker 1: internal documents where they basically were like, oh yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to get global warming like it predicted, and it
Speaker 1: was disbelievably surrealfically correct, Like those people have been looking
Speaker 1: at those studies again and they just knew and they
Speaker 1: did it anyway. Yeah, so that was only nine years
Speaker 1: in fictional world. After this, we open on Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, and here comes our cold opens.
Speaker 1: I'm sure fans of the video game now are like
Speaker 1: leaning in as soon as we go here. We meet Sarah,
Speaker 1: a teenager. She wakes up her dad, Joel. It is
Speaker 1: Joel's birthday. Sarah's making him breakfast because it's her birthday.
Speaker 1: We get this wonderful feel for their relationship in which
Speaker 1: Joel obviously the bread winner. You can tell he takes
Speaker 1: a lot of pride and feels a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: in providing for you know, this this family unit that
Speaker 1: they have here, but you can also tell that Sarah
Speaker 1: is taking care of him in a very particular emotional
Speaker 1: way and these kind of small moments and it's a
Speaker 1: really wonderful acted scene he's thirty six, which ages up Joel.
Speaker 1: I think a little bit from them, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: And also like, I really just want to shower out
Speaker 2: Nico Parker here, who plays Sarah.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I'm sad.
Speaker 2: She is so brilliant and they found all these little ways,
Speaker 2: from the T shirt she wears that's from the game,
Speaker 2: to the way they light her, especially once you get
Speaker 2: into the car where there are these uncanny moments where
Speaker 2: you feel like you're in the game just visually. But
Speaker 2: she's so wonderful. I love this moment where it's kind
Speaker 2: of this Joel. Yeah, he's the breadwinner, he goes to work,
Speaker 2: but really Sarah is taking care of herself. There's this
Speaker 2: great moment when she's cooking him breakfast where he's like,
Speaker 2: have you done your homework? And she just gives the
Speaker 2: scathing look.
Speaker 1: He's like, what was it? A fractions?
Speaker 3: And she's just looking at him like, you know, I've like,
Speaker 3: you don't even ask me this stuff because that's not
Speaker 3: your perview, Like you got to work till ten pm
Speaker 3: every night and you pay the rent and I make
Speaker 3: sure things around here get done, and it's that's those
Speaker 3: have such great chemistry.
Speaker 1: That's a good call. It. It reminded me. It really
Speaker 1: resonated with me because I think, you know, my mom,
Speaker 1: with the help of our grandma, really raised me and
Speaker 1: my brother. And I was when it became clear that
Speaker 1: she didn't need to be like are you doing your homework?
Speaker 1: She just like checked out of it because it was
Speaker 1: like not it was not gonna be a you know,
Speaker 1: a big priority in terms of like the things that
Speaker 1: she needed to do on a day to day level.
Speaker 1: What like I can't remember. I think she stopped looking
Speaker 1: at my report card, like in the fourth grade. She's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: got it, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to work now.
Speaker 1: Tommy arrives. Uncle Tommy arrives. Tommy a desert stored veteran.
Speaker 1: It's clear from this is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: fuck up. He works for Joel. Joel is keeping him
Speaker 1: employed via his contracting business.
Speaker 2: I mean it was also like a little bit late.
Speaker 2: He missed the.
Speaker 1: Brass it's the birthday bread like and also like Joel
Speaker 1: has like a time crunch. He needs to get out
Speaker 1: like at a certain time so that he gets felt
Speaker 1: time with Sarah. And here's Tommy fucking it up again.
Speaker 1: And as they're getting ready to head out, there's a
Speaker 1: news report on the radio, not a lot. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really mention anything other than the unressd in Jakarta and
Speaker 1: American citizens are being urged to leave, suggesting that whatever's
Speaker 1: happening is happening around the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love this. There's a great moment here,
Speaker 2: another great little bit of character building where Tommy and
Speaker 2: Joel try and work out where Jakarta is and they
Speaker 2: both just have no idea and I little least. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love the way that that shows, like this smallness
Speaker 2: of their life and before it has to expand into
Speaker 2: this kind of huge, epic kind of adventure of going
Speaker 2: across the country in this a totally new way. But
Speaker 2: of course Sarah knows, because Sarah is the students. Sarah,
Speaker 2: it's so good.
Speaker 1: This is how you do exposition. This is how you
Speaker 1: do character building in a way that doesn't feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're just telling me how these people are.
Speaker 2: Even a lot of dialogue, Like there's actually still a
Speaker 2: lot of and a lot of like eating and quietness
Speaker 2: and Tommy's putting something in. It doesn't feel like you're
Speaker 2: constantly being bombarded by prestige TV exposition. It very much
Speaker 2: feels like you're in the game. And something else that
Speaker 2: kind of blew my mind I wasn't expecting was the
Speaker 2: use of the handheld camera, which is such a huge
Speaker 2: part of the game and the visuals of the game.
Speaker 2: Is that feeling of that shaky camp And as soon
Speaker 2: as we kind of follow Sarah up the stairs, we
Speaker 2: really get into that and you feel like you're in
Speaker 2: the game and you're controlling that character.
Speaker 1: So Joel and Tommy head out to Tommy's truck. Sarah
Speaker 1: goes up to her dad's dresser. She gets a little
Speaker 1: bit of money out there. Maybe if you haven't played
Speaker 1: the game, you know, like Sarah, you wrap scallion, it
Speaker 1: takes a little bit money, but also takes his broken watch,
Speaker 1: a great recreation of the watch from the game, a
Speaker 1: kind of field watch style watch, military style watch. And
Speaker 1: then also and I thought it was like a wonderful
Speaker 1: artistic flourish, she takes out his folding knife, which has
Speaker 1: this wonderful engravement of like horses running on the on
Speaker 1: the blade. You know, something that we will game players
Speaker 1: will know from the second from the sequel is, you know,
Speaker 1: the addition of horses and she just kind of sits
Speaker 1: with it and considers it for a little while, and
Speaker 1: it feels like this wonderful, like almost magical moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that feeling as when you're a kid, you know.
Speaker 2: She runs her finger down the blade, like she's perceiving
Speaker 2: the knife and understanding in that moment, like everything's scary
Speaker 2: about it, everything about the danger of what it can do,
Speaker 2: but also the beauty. And it's just such a good
Speaker 2: childhood moment. And it also very much feels once again
Speaker 2: like you're in the game and you've picked something up
Speaker 2: out of the drawer and you're looking at it, and
Speaker 2: she kind of gets distracted by the knife and is
Speaker 2: just staring at it until Joel starts bibbing the horn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of get that.
Speaker 2: Whoa she and she breaks out of her revery, and
Speaker 2: it's just a really great moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just is really really cool. So Sarah comes
Speaker 1: out and we meet the next door neighbors, an elderly
Speaker 1: woman named Connie, who seems like she clearly can't move
Speaker 1: on her own and is probably, you know, it's certainly
Speaker 1: suggested by what you see in the kind of throws
Speaker 1: of like dementia or something of that sort, and her
Speaker 1: son Buddy Garrity from Friday Night Lights, who we all love.
Speaker 1: They it's very clear that they are lonely. They invite
Speaker 1: Sarah over that night to come just like hang out. Joel,
Speaker 1: you know, is lightly teasing her about it, and it's
Speaker 1: very clear that like neither of them want to spend
Speaker 1: any time over there, but also like Sarah through that,
Speaker 1: and it's a wonderful performance. Again, lets you understand what
Speaker 1: a warm and generous person. Yes, she doesn't want to go, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's hung out with them, She's kept them buy
Speaker 2: you know, she's kept them company, but she doesn't want
Speaker 2: to do it. Neither does Joel. I really feel for
Speaker 2: anyone watching this show who didn't know where this was going,
Speaker 2: because their report is such a brilliant fake out and
Speaker 2: they're so wonderful together.
Speaker 1: Later in school, Sarah is sitting in English class when
Speaker 1: she notices, because of the reflection from a student's bracelet,
Speaker 1: that he's got a tremor.
Speaker 2: Storytelling just really, don't do a seizure, you don't do
Speaker 2: anything again. It adds I love that use of the
Speaker 2: word magical that you say, because it really is this
Speaker 2: kind of magical realism that limin or space between, like
Speaker 2: is everything normal or is something huge about to change?
Speaker 2: It captures that feeling when you're a kid of like
Speaker 2: the the light in her face in class and I'm like,
Speaker 2: is it someone she's got a crush on is trying
Speaker 2: to communicate with her or something? And then I just see, well,
Speaker 2: it's like it's just a little trauma. They didn't go
Speaker 2: all out, and it's just that Sarah is beginning to
Speaker 2: notice that things are something is wrong right.
Speaker 1: And then as she as she leaves school and goes
Speaker 1: to get the watch fixed, here again is another hint
Speaker 1: of something big about to change. There are police cars
Speaker 1: racing around, and the repairman's wife comes out and basically
Speaker 1: shoes Sarah out of the shop. After only a few minutes.
Speaker 1: It's like three o'clock. They close at seven. She's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're shutting down. She clearly seems panicked, but in a
Speaker 1: way where she doesn't want to alarm Sarah. Luckily, the
Speaker 1: repairman has finished his work and she just tells Sarah,
Speaker 1: go home, go home, Go home, Go home. Sarah ends
Speaker 1: up at the neighbors. Now as she's going to the
Speaker 1: neighbors there's military jets that kind of do a quick
Speaker 1: boom overhead, which, depending on what part of the country
Speaker 1: you live in, is maybe not a strange site, but
Speaker 1: you know, these kind of like clues are It was.
Speaker 2: Definitely I was definitely catching some jokes about that they do. Again.
Speaker 2: They do such a good job this kind of walking
Speaker 2: through the suburbs with these huge jets booming. But as
Speaker 2: someone who has lived the last seven years in like
Speaker 2: the South Bay of LA, that's just my everyday life
Speaker 2: helicopter jet, I was like, I will never know when
Speaker 2: the zombie apocalypse is coming because it will just sound
Speaker 2: like normal. I'll just be like, oh, it's they're right again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even in La proper up where I am, you know,
Speaker 1: where the entire county is nestled between several huge military
Speaker 1: bases and there is constant traffic over so again we
Speaker 1: would not probably know I.
Speaker 2: Would, but Sarah knows. And again I love, I really
Speaker 2: love you know. What I thought was so cool. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of times in movies, if you see
Speaker 2: a singular person, especially a child, and they're walking and
Speaker 2: above them are these kind of military jets that feels
Speaker 2: almost like a triumphant top gun esque victory moment, you know,
Speaker 2: and they subvert that. Here she's just so alone and
Speaker 2: terrified and she knows in our heart like something bad
Speaker 2: is going on, but just nobody else has noticed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again this is an example of how additive
Speaker 1: this show is. In the game, of course, we only
Speaker 1: get the scene where, you know, Joel wakes Sarah up
Speaker 1: and she presents him with the watch and he asks
Speaker 1: how she got it fixed, And you never really know this.
Speaker 1: The show uses the game almost as an outline to
Speaker 1: drop story beats in between these other beats which we
Speaker 1: already know about, and it does it in this really expansive,
Speaker 1: wonderful way. So over at the neighbors, the Adlers, you know,
Speaker 1: she asks, hey, have you noticed anything that Miss Adler's
Speaker 1: daughter asks, have you noticed anything a strange going on?
Speaker 1: The woman essentially says no, and then it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: making cookies, raising cookies. It's God again, clear Sarah doesn't
Speaker 1: want those, but she's very, very kind and nice.
Speaker 2: Okay, I need to say so, they're making the raisin cookies, right,
Speaker 2: Sarah goes into the living room. In my opinion, what
Speaker 2: is the scariest moment of the season. Very she starts
Speaker 2: to look at the DVDs right something that obviously we're
Speaker 2: meant to guess like it's two thousand and three, but
Speaker 2: she's kind of into them and she wants she wants
Speaker 2: to borrow a DVD. This is obviously part of the
Speaker 2: reason that she's core with going over there, oh the hangover. Look,
Speaker 2: they have the hangover, And as she's picking a DVD,
Speaker 2: she is in focus and behind her, out of focus
Speaker 2: is the mother is Yea, and she begins to have
Speaker 2: a seizure, and you see just blurry in the background,
Speaker 2: and if you're not paying attention, you might not even
Speaker 2: see it, because Sarah is right there, in full focus
Speaker 2: looking at these DVDs with all the excitement of a
Speaker 2: teenager looking at DVDs. And in the ground we see
Speaker 2: the mother's mouth open and kind of you know if
Speaker 2: you played the game what this means, But it's it's
Speaker 2: looking bad. It's looking bad, but Sarah, Sarah missed it.
Speaker 2: And Sarah gets out of this moment unscathed and asks
Speaker 2: to borrow the DVD, escapes the raisins, and heads out
Speaker 2: the house.
Speaker 1: What she does notice is that the Adler's dog has
Speaker 1: taken a very keen interest in uh in missus Adler
Speaker 1: and is staring at her in a very unselling way. Later,
Speaker 1: Joel arrives home from work. He is an hour late.
Speaker 1: He seems very tired. There are issues at work that
Speaker 1: he's like, you don't care about this. He didn't bring
Speaker 1: the cake that he had promised to bring home. He
Speaker 1: had promised to bring it. He then promises again listen
Speaker 1: on my Life, I will get one tomorrow, which is
Speaker 1: just so brutal. Sarah then pulls out the DVD, which
Speaker 1: is some kind of ninja action movie. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know it's one that he very clearly, you know, it
Speaker 1: was eager to watch. So they settle in to watch it.
Speaker 1: Sarah falls asleep. While she's a sleep, Joel gets a
Speaker 1: call from Tommy and Tommy has been arrested very clearly
Speaker 1: again and he needsbody to bail him out because it's Friday,
Speaker 1: and if Joel doesn't come bail him out tonight, that's it.
Speaker 1: He's in there for. She's in county for lock up
Speaker 1: for you know, the entire weekend. And Joel leaves, leaving
Speaker 1: Sarah at home in the gathering dark. And it's in
Speaker 1: that time about two am, little after two am that
Speaker 1: shit really starts to go wrong. Sarah wakes up to
Speaker 1: the sound of helicopters, the sound of you know, various
Speaker 1: electrical infrastructure exploding, other explosions. She Carl alarms, dogs barking.
Speaker 1: She wakes up, turns on the TV only the emergency
Speaker 1: broadcast message, which is very concerning. Yeah, and then things
Speaker 1: just happen with a gathering and terrible momentum. The Adler's
Speaker 1: dog shows up. Sarah's like, what you know, it's panicked.
Speaker 1: It runs away from her. She goes to check on
Speaker 1: the neighbors. They are dead or mortally wounded. And Connie Adler,
Speaker 1: the seemingly elderly and infirm woman, is like hunched over
Speaker 1: her daughter or daughter in law, just doing something horrible
Speaker 1: with strange tentacles coming out of her mouth. Sarah flees
Speaker 1: right into the path of Joel in Tommy's truck. They
Speaker 1: are pulling up clearly like they are very panicked as well.
Speaker 1: Tommy has a fucking rifle out, so he's yeah.
Speaker 2: Joel hits Missus Adler with a massive wrench like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they know something is going down. I think this is
Speaker 2: a really smart When Sarah wakes up, we're talking about
Speaker 2: something that is almost directly taken from the game. That
Speaker 2: is the moment when you were in this is the
Speaker 2: part where this is the part and you're walking around
Speaker 2: the dark house and you're looking for your dad. In
Speaker 2: the game, she's woken up by a phone call from Tommy.
Speaker 2: But I really like this added context that they bring
Speaker 2: to Joel and Tommy's relationship here where the reason Joel
Speaker 2: is out is not because of work, it's because he's
Speaker 2: getting Tommy, and she's woken up just by the general
Speaker 2: chaos of what occurs. But in this moment that she
Speaker 2: gets outside and you see Joel and Tommy come together
Speaker 2: to protect her, you see a different side of that
Speaker 2: brotherly relationship. These two can do anything together, including just
Speaker 2: like absolutely wreck someone like this is not the first
Speaker 2: time they've done that, though, it is the first time
Speaker 2: they've probably done it to his zombie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Tommy ends up shooting Missus Adler, which is shocking
Speaker 1: to Sarah and certainly shocking to Tommy and Joel, who
Speaker 1: have no idea what is happening. They flee in the truck.
Speaker 1: Various things happen, the truck ends up, and this is
Speaker 1: the part, and this is so this is the part Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the part of the episode that is like
Speaker 1: ripped almost directly from the game. There's the one shot
Speaker 1: where they're driving up to an intersection and and Tommy
Speaker 1: is saying, what do we doing, Joel, and Joel's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take seventy one, We're gonna get out of town,
Speaker 1: and that it is almost shot.
Speaker 2: Yes, shot, And then when you see and when you
Speaker 2: see Jimmy's house on fire, yeah, that's exactly Jimmy's house.
Speaker 2: And then you get to that moment that we were
Speaker 2: talking about so much on our last Last of Us
Speaker 2: episode where we're talking about the game, where Tommy's trying
Speaker 2: to navigate his way through these crowds of people who
Speaker 2: are trying to survive and Joel is just saying, kill them,
Speaker 2: run them over, don't care to do it.
Speaker 1: We got to do it.
Speaker 2: Same as that moment that we talked about that says
Speaker 2: so much about Joel where he won't help the family
Speaker 2: with the kids. You know that happens in the show.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting and much to the show's credit, how
Speaker 2: well they have managed to cherry pick the moments that
Speaker 2: make you feel like you're directly in the game. Just
Speaker 2: as you might be getting a little bit out of
Speaker 2: the direct canon of the game. They just go boom,
Speaker 2: throw back in to a moment and this is so
Speaker 2: well done, and you get that Sarah shots of her
Speaker 2: looking all around, seeing everything that's going on.
Speaker 1: Play it off her face really wonderfully, and it's a
Speaker 1: testament again how high quality that game is that you
Speaker 1: can scoop an entire scene out and have it be
Speaker 1: you know, Triple A television.
Speaker 2: And they set up something here that I feel like
Speaker 2: really comes through in the car that then is definitely
Speaker 2: brought through to the kind of the next part of
Speaker 2: the show, which is that they begin to start lighting
Speaker 2: it very much like the game in that moment. You
Speaker 2: feel there are moments when you're looking at Nico Parker's
Speaker 2: face and it just feels like you're in that uncanny
Speaker 2: space of being in the game because of the way
Speaker 2: that they light it. And as this kind of continues
Speaker 2: and then you get to that you know, the time
Speaker 2: jumper we're going to get to from then on, there
Speaker 2: are so many moments where if you pause your TV.
Speaker 2: It was like watching Sin City for the first time.
Speaker 2: When I watched that movie, it would pause it and
Speaker 2: it would just look like the comic and this is
Speaker 2: like that, where, especially in this moment and then later
Speaker 2: when Joel and Test begin to kind of go around
Speaker 2: and look around the quarantine zone. There are so many
Speaker 2: moments where if you pause them, you're like, is it
Speaker 2: just from the game? Is it just from the game.
Speaker 2: They're so good at building the me's un scene in
Speaker 2: the cinematography and then adding this kind of lighting and
Speaker 2: I'm sure filters that make you feel like it without
Speaker 2: it ever feeling too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know that it unfolds slightly differently. If
Speaker 1: we get a big plane crash that is what causes
Speaker 1: the Tommy's truck to wreck, Joel and Sarah are separated
Speaker 1: from Tommy. Sarah is injured, Joel has to carry her.
Speaker 1: Chased by infected, they rush down to the riverside where
Speaker 1: they all agreed they would they would meet Uncle Tommy
Speaker 1: there and a gunshot rings out taking down the infected
Speaker 1: that's chasing Joel and Sarah and it's a soldier. And
Speaker 1: here is the moment again almost played directly from the game,
Speaker 1: where you know, Joel and carrying Sarah like we're not sick,
Speaker 1: we need help, and the soldiers like, no, don't move,
Speaker 1: and then radios for confirmation about what to do. And
Speaker 1: I thought this was whoever this voice actor is great
Speaker 1: performance from this person because you get a little bit
Speaker 1: more of the When the soldier gets the order and goes,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, could you say that again? You at least
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, this is really fucked up, and everybody
Speaker 1: understands how fucked up this is. But also a testament
Speaker 1: to how really dire this situation is that the only
Speaker 1: thing that anybody can come up with is don't let
Speaker 1: this infection spread by any means necessary. You take people down.
Speaker 1: And so gunshots, you know, the soldier opens fire. Joel
Speaker 1: is grazed, but of course Sarah is mortally wounded. Tommy
Speaker 1: shoots the soldier and we get a really heartrending scene
Speaker 1: of Sarah expiring in Joel's ars almost before and this
Speaker 1: is another great, another great little moment. She dies and
Speaker 1: he misses it. Yeah, he's like he looks away and
Speaker 1: he doesn't see it. And it's such a microcosm of
Speaker 1: their relationship exactly.
Speaker 2: And the thing that I love again, if we're talking
Speaker 2: about like character beats in moments, Look, Tommy might be
Speaker 2: the fuck up, but at every point, it is Tommy
Speaker 2: who is coming in clutch. At the last minute, Tommy's
Speaker 2: the one who shoots the soldier. The soldier is about
Speaker 2: to shoot Joel just in the face. Tommy shoots him,
Speaker 2: and then it's Tommy who notices that Sarah dies. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's Joel who's holding her. Joel's just he's trying
Speaker 2: to get her up. He's gonna save her. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be okay, and she's on his shoulder and he misses it.
Speaker 2: But Tommy sees just so many interesting that could seem
Speaker 2: like I do have so that you know, Joel doesn't die,
Speaker 2: but it never reads like that. It just says, these
Speaker 2: are this brother's relationship and it is extremely fucked up,
Speaker 2: but this is just how it's always been. And in
Speaker 2: that moment again, like you said, Joel misses this huge moment.
Speaker 2: It's that it's the note from the game. You know,
Speaker 2: it's be back later, dad, without the love. It's all
Speaker 2: the little things he did that didn't that are going
Speaker 2: to haunt him after Sarah's untimely death. Just huge. Just
Speaker 2: shout out to Nico Parker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a cool detail.
Speaker 2: I'm like, please please bash flashbacks like she is so brilliant,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I would love to see it.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision will be back, and we're back. We
Speaker 1: jumped to Boston twenty years later, twenty twenty three. A
Speaker 1: young boy in what we are going to discover is
Speaker 1: kind of mid stages of infection, staggers to the gates
Speaker 1: of the Uarantine Zone formerly Boston's North End, one of
Speaker 1: several areas run by the FEDRA authorities what's left essentially
Speaker 1: of the US government, and after some very cursory tests,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's clear by looking at the kid, they
Speaker 1: show a sign about like the timeline of infection, which
Speaker 1: is basically, you're infected and then a day later you
Speaker 1: are a full on, raving zombie. And there are various
Speaker 1: stages along the way where you can tell by tremors
Speaker 1: in the limbs and etc. And it's clear that this
Speaker 1: boy is in the throes of this, and a soldier, Nils,
Speaker 1: tells him some you know, wonderful platitudes and then they
Speaker 1: inject him with some killing serum and bye bye.
Speaker 2: I was absolutely just flabbergasted, is the only word. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is like the only word. How do you follow
Speaker 2: the Sarah Cold open, which is we've talked about everyone's
Speaker 2: talked about one of the best cold opens of all time.
Speaker 2: How do you follow something that heartbreaking with this double
Speaker 2: gut punch of one of the most horrific It's it's
Speaker 2: so sad and it's so well done. Like you said,
Speaker 2: you know this soldier, this kind of federate agent who
Speaker 2: seems to be like part cop fuck part kind of soldier.
Speaker 2: You know, we see this test and it goes red.
Speaker 2: You know, red is bad, green is safe, Red is danger.
Speaker 2: And she stands and she says, you know, once you're better,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get you all these toys. What's your favorite food,
Speaker 2: You're gonna be able to eat it. Don't worry. He's
Speaker 2: just given you an injection. Medicine's medicine, and then you know, boom,
Speaker 2: he's just a dead body in the back of the
Speaker 2: van about to get burnt. I mean, that was that
Speaker 2: to me, was the kind of grim and gritty, like
Speaker 2: bleak reality of the apocalypse, this kind of post apocalyptic
Speaker 2: world that the Walking Dead often strove for, but it
Speaker 2: was very rare that they would hit it in that
Speaker 2: way emotionally to me, And I just thought that was
Speaker 2: so well done and just absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1: Not to make this a Walking Dead criticism fest. But
Speaker 1: you can't help in that moment where the boy comes
Speaker 1: to the top of a rise and you see Boston
Speaker 1: spread up before him, to not make the comparison. I
Speaker 1: it in my mind immediately flash back to the Walking
Speaker 1: Dead television show, of course, and I thought, the one
Speaker 1: detail there, it's small again, but it's so good, and
Speaker 1: shouts to the production designers and the wardrobe people. His
Speaker 1: taped up shoes. Yeah, we're not making new shoes, you know.
Speaker 1: And so here are these like scavenged pair of basketball
Speaker 1: shoes with the soles taped to the upper using packing
Speaker 1: tape that he's shuffling forward in.
Speaker 2: And then like, you know, that was such an intentional
Speaker 2: choice that like super produced. A soldier said, when we
Speaker 2: see his body, the shoes are the thing that let
Speaker 2: us know it's the kid. It's like the size of
Speaker 2: his body, his red T shirt. But those shoes, that's
Speaker 2: when you really know, like, oh, they just they murdered
Speaker 2: that kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so after we and honestly, what choices they have.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a complex conversation, but let's let's put a pin
Speaker 2: in it. Slash. Let's remember this moment because this is
Speaker 2: a this is a moment that this is.
Speaker 1: The central conversation of the central conversation.
Speaker 2: Of this show. Who decides who gets to live and
Speaker 2: die in a zombie apocalypse? Is this virus a dangerous
Speaker 2: thing that is killing humans? Yes? But is it also
Speaker 2: an evolutionary part of nature? Is this just kill or
Speaker 2: be killed? Is this Darwinism? And who gets to make
Speaker 2: those decisions? And also, as we'll know when we meet
Speaker 2: Ellie soon, we don't necessarily know how everyone's gonna respond
Speaker 2: to a bike, so they it's a really brutal moment.
Speaker 2: But like you said, this has kept the quarantine zone
Speaker 2: relatively safe for twenty years.
Speaker 1: So when next we see this young boy's body, it's
Speaker 1: it's being carried from a truck by Joel and dropped
Speaker 1: into a fire to incinerate it, along with dozens, it
Speaker 1: seems of other bodies, people who have died from infection
Speaker 1: and from other reasons. And there is Joel. He's now
Speaker 1: fifty six, and this is how he earns his ration cards,
Speaker 1: which are the currency of the quarantine zone. You go out,
Speaker 1: you go out for daily work, whatever needs to be
Speaker 1: done around the quarantine zone, whether it's you know, going
Speaker 1: down on the sewer and cleaning it out or street
Speaker 1: sweeping or what have you. But of course Joel, also
Speaker 1: on the side, has a thriving criminal enterprise with his
Speaker 1: now obviously lover changed from the game, it's only suggested
Speaker 1: that she's his romantic partner with his partner Tess, who
Speaker 1: together they you know, are active in the kind of
Speaker 1: like smuggling networks that keep the QZ going, and that
Speaker 1: clearly happen with the connivance of various members of the
Speaker 1: quarantine zone authorities, as we see later when Joel sells
Speaker 1: some hydro pills manufactured in a FEDERA facility down in
Speaker 1: Atlanta to a guard in exchange for cigarettes and some
Speaker 1: ration cards plus a car battery to be delivered later
Speaker 1: that Joel needs for something we're not sure now. Of course,
Speaker 1: Federa is not the only force in the zone. There's
Speaker 1: also the Fireflies. We see their graffiti all around, and
Speaker 1: they are an armed militia dedicated to where later to
Speaker 1: find out, bring back democracy again. Their aims are kind
Speaker 1: of just like feder is evil and we need to
Speaker 1: overthrow them, and they actually what they're their political agenda
Speaker 1: is hard to pin down. Similarly, but the hints that
Speaker 1: we get are tantalizing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fed is basically a fascistic dictatorship that is keeping
Speaker 2: the people in these quarantine zones because it's easier for
Speaker 2: them and they can make money off it, and they
Speaker 2: can run their little you know, uh executions, and they
Speaker 2: can run their little you know, smuggling rings and everything.
Speaker 2: And Fireflies are kind of just at this point like
Speaker 2: a general revolutionary militia. Like we know, if you've played
Speaker 2: the game, you know kind of what their main names are.
Speaker 2: But like you said, this idea of kind of a
Speaker 2: generic idea of democracy coming back and the idea that
Speaker 2: there is something that Federer hiding from people.
Speaker 1: The guard later warns Joel to stay off the streets
Speaker 1: because apparently feder is really going to start cracking down
Speaker 1: on the Fireflies very very soon. And the guard essentially says, hey,
Speaker 1: mistakes happen, We're going to just shoot anybody we see,
Speaker 1: so stay off the street. Elsewhere we meet tests, and
Speaker 1: in a great reconfigure of the storytelling from the game,
Speaker 1: test is being held by Robert, who is another one
Speaker 1: of these kind of you know catches, catch can criminals,
Speaker 1: and the QZ zon a smuggler. He's got his henchman,
Speaker 1: uh you know, standing around her. She is sitting on
Speaker 1: a chair, she's got a fresh black eye, clearly bruised up.
Speaker 1: They tuned her up significantly. But the dynamic is fascinating.
Speaker 1: Robert has very clearly ripped Tests off on a deal
Speaker 1: for a car battery not delivered the car battery, you know,
Speaker 1: clearly the one Joel was interested in. But here's the dynamic.
Speaker 1: Robert has Test prisoner, but he's very very obviously frightened
Speaker 1: of her and her retribution, frightened of what tests end. Joel.
Speaker 1: He just says, you know, the person you're with, what
Speaker 1: they might do if they harbor this grudge on this
Speaker 1: on the on the on the deal that he is
Speaker 1: double cross them on. And he's basically saying, okay, Test, listen,
Speaker 1: can we just can you just forgive me that I
Speaker 1: fucked you over? Because just do it please, like walk
Speaker 1: out of here and we're fine. And Tessa is basically like,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. Yeah, sure, sure, it's fine, listen,
Speaker 1: like you know, and he's like Robert. It's really funny
Speaker 1: because at one point Robert is like, but my guys,
Speaker 1: they beat you up and she's like yeah, but like.
Speaker 2: Just fucking yell it's done, man, it's done.
Speaker 1: Yell at you reprimand them yell at him, like, go
Speaker 1: yell at him right now, you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know.
Speaker 1: The discussion, however, is cut short when there is a
Speaker 1: huge explosion that blows out the wall of this dungeon
Speaker 1: that that that Robert is this basement of an apartment
Speaker 1: complex that Robert is holding tests in and this is
Speaker 1: a firefly attack against federal forces. Test escapes but then
Speaker 1: is quickly scooped up by FEDRA and we cut to
Speaker 1: elsewhere for a firefly safe house in which we see
Speaker 1: a young girl chain to a radiator. And this is
Speaker 1: Ellie going under the name of Veronica, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to hide her identity somewhat real name Ellie, but telling
Speaker 1: everybody that her name is Veronica right now. And these
Speaker 1: various people that are coming in are testing her for
Speaker 1: the symptoms of infection. Do you you know count to ten?
Speaker 1: Do you know, put your arm out and hold that
Speaker 1: no tremors her. Her thinking is completely clear. She flips
Speaker 1: them off and it's a really really cool, unexpected introduction
Speaker 1: to one of the main characters of this show, and
Speaker 1: I thought that, you know, the same thing with the
Speaker 1: Tests and Roberts scene, where very very smartly, Mason has
Speaker 1: giving you the beats of the things that happen in
Speaker 1: those first few chapters of the game before you think
Speaker 1: you're gonna get them. The explosion doesn't happen at the checkpoint.
Speaker 1: It happens right there when Robert and Tess are having
Speaker 1: their discussion, and you don't even you know, in the
Speaker 1: game you find Robert at the end of like this
Speaker 1: kind of long string of fights and missions, but you
Speaker 1: get it early, and then here you meet Ellie early.
Speaker 1: It's really really well paced and well done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love those. I also love this because we
Speaker 2: know that this is another great sleight of hand. We
Speaker 2: know from playing the game that both Tess and Joel
Speaker 2: are killers. They have to be to survive, and Tess
Speaker 2: especially seems to have a very brutal outlook on what
Speaker 2: you need to do. They do a really smart thing
Speaker 2: where once again they sellb your expectations. Oh, these are
Speaker 2: the heroes, even if they have to do things that
Speaker 2: you know, sell drugs, those things that now we know
Speaker 2: are not some morally wrong things. They're just to do
Speaker 2: with situation. And the way that you live. And this
Speaker 2: is a very interesting exploration of this new economy and
Speaker 2: what people have to do is to survive. But we
Speaker 2: know that when things get going, we're going to see
Speaker 2: this different side of them. And I find that very
Speaker 2: interesting because this is a kind of even after that
Speaker 2: wild opening, this is a very slow burn episode in
Speaker 2: the Quarantine film. This is knowing where things are. That
Speaker 2: explosion that happens. Test just takes that in her stride.
Speaker 2: You know, this is happening a lot like these attacks
Speaker 2: are happening, and it is so interesting just and that
Speaker 2: moment of you know Tests, you know, yeah, yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: talk about in a minute.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, the it's wonderful
Speaker 1: how they set up how deadly Tests and Joel are
Speaker 1: just by Robert being fucking exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: It's so smart. We don't need to do a ten
Speaker 2: minute chasing. We don't need to kill fifty people in
Speaker 2: the first opening of the show.
Speaker 1: That scared. Also, he has this woman in his clutches
Speaker 1: and he's kicked chair and he's scared.
Speaker 2: I will say as well, something I think is very
Speaker 2: smart about this first episode that I think is very
Speaker 2: interesting and quite a brave choice to not focus on
Speaker 2: that POV shoot him up aspect of this game.
Speaker 1: I agree, it goes away from that very consciously in
Speaker 1: various moments when you think it's gonna go to.
Speaker 2: That, and it's very interesting, and then I'm sure you
Speaker 2: know we will get those moments in later episodes because
Speaker 2: this is an apocalypse that is similar to what we
Speaker 2: would know as zombies. It's this Quarter Sceps apocalypse, So
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to kill some monsters, You're probably gonna
Speaker 2: have to kill some soldiers, which we know from what
Speaker 2: we've seen in the opening Joe won't have a problem
Speaker 2: doing because they killed his kid. But I love that
Speaker 2: instead of it going straight there, which I have to
Speaker 2: say so many action games, that is often the focus
Speaker 2: of the adaptations that we've seen in live action, which
Speaker 2: I think can be part of the problem, and instead
Speaker 2: we get this ultimate world building that brings in the
Speaker 2: characters early on Ellie test Robert in new ways. But
Speaker 2: that still feels very much in line with what we
Speaker 2: love about this game.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's so good. We see Joel skipping a huge
Speaker 1: line of people waiting to go sit down with a
Speaker 1: Ham radio operator, which is apparently the only means of
Speaker 1: communicating beyond the walls of a really really wonderful bit
Speaker 1: of world being Hey, you're skipping the line, but nobody
Speaker 1: does want nobody wants to step up to Joel is
Speaker 1: clear that he just has a very very dangerous aspect.
Speaker 1: He sits down with the operator, who clearly knows him
Speaker 1: and has talked to him quite a bit. The cigarettes
Speaker 1: that he bartered for are for this guy, and the
Speaker 1: guy basically says, hey, nothing, no messages from Tommy. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I've been sitting here when I'm not sitting here. My
Speaker 1: wife is sitting here, wife sitting here, my son is
Speaker 1: sitting here, and not the stupid one, the smart one
Speaker 1: is sitting here, and there's been no messages at all.
Speaker 1: And the operator pinpoints for Joel the last known position
Speaker 1: that Tommy had, which was this radio tower that was
Speaker 1: communicating with Boston, and it's all the way out in
Speaker 1: fucking Wyoming, and Joel's like, great, I'm going there. I
Speaker 1: guess I don't have to go there and find out
Speaker 1: what happened to Tommy. And the operator is like, no, no, no, no, Joel,
Speaker 1: what it's three the way yeah, across the country. And
Speaker 1: he says the thing that is, you know, the the
Speaker 1: basic thesis of every single zombie story. There are worse
Speaker 1: things out there than the infected. And it's us. It's slavers,
Speaker 1: it's raiders, it's the various depraved human beings that, either
Speaker 1: because of their own needs for survival or because any
Speaker 1: kind of societal check on their depravity has been removed
Speaker 1: currently run things in those wastelands out there, don't go.
Speaker 1: And Joel's like, well, I think I'm gonna go. So
Speaker 1: he goes home. He goes to a hiding place and
Speaker 1: takes out his map and a crowbar and an axe,
Speaker 1: some various weaponry that he needs. There's a great moment
Speaker 1: where the camera switches from Joel kneeling at his hiding
Speaker 1: spot to the bed, and then it pans down and
Speaker 1: you see that the bed is on cinderblocks, and it's
Speaker 1: a really cool small moment where it's telling you that
Speaker 1: all kind of steel that can be repurposed for weapons
Speaker 1: or anything like hard metal has been scavenged from this.
Speaker 1: It's gone. It's gone. Joel has certainly repurposed that stuff himself.
Speaker 1: And then Joel downs a bunch of oxy and a
Speaker 1: bunch of zone alcohol and he passes out and I'm like, Joel, man,
Speaker 1: you're fifty six, bro, you.
Speaker 2: Need take a break.
Speaker 1: You need to slow it down. Please. When he wakes
Speaker 1: up Tests there, he sees her injuries and he's alarmed.
Speaker 1: She lies to him about some of the details about
Speaker 1: what happened, but then tells him, hey, I was also
Speaker 1: locked up by by Fedra and then says, okay, now
Speaker 1: here is the thing that happened, and basically tells him that, yeah,
Speaker 1: Robert double crossed us for the battery, which means no truck,
Speaker 1: which means no going to get Tommy. And Joel is
Speaker 1: fucking irate. But Tess and here you're getting a wonderful
Speaker 1: understanding of their interplay, and it's a good subversion of
Speaker 1: the game, in which Tests is the psychomaniac killing everybody.
Speaker 1: Here is Tess being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Joel, calm down.
Speaker 1: If you walk out of here half cocked looking for Robert,
Speaker 1: he's terrified of you. He is going to freak out
Speaker 1: and he is going to flee and we're never going
Speaker 1: to fucking find him. So to cool down, act like
Speaker 1: nothing is wrong, nothing is bothering you. So that we
Speaker 1: can find out where Robert is and we can fucking
Speaker 1: kill him.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's again a wonderful kind of subversion of the
Speaker 1: test character where she's kind of like the headier one
Speaker 1: but also a killer, still a killer.
Speaker 2: I love that she like you. It starts at this
Speaker 2: really tender moment where she gets into the bed and
Speaker 2: like Spoon and Sam and you kind of see this
Speaker 2: cuddle and then they just quickly get to that talk
Speaker 2: about it. That's the that's the pillow talk in the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We go back to the safe house and we
Speaker 1: meet Marlene, the Firefly leader uh, played by Merle Dandridge, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, the same voice actor and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know mocap actor from the game. So really cool moment.
Speaker 1: They yeah. Yeah, she gets some very very tough questions
Speaker 1: thrown at her by her lieutenant Kim. Why are we
Speaker 1: attacking the Feds for no reason? This is pointless, you know,
Speaker 1: like why is there a random girl chain to a
Speaker 1: radiator in there? Marley is like, Okay, everybody, get out
Speaker 1: of the fucking room. And then she tells Kim that
Speaker 1: the attacks on Federa are to lure Federer away from
Speaker 1: the safe house. That they are at right now. They're
Speaker 1: happening all over the zone but not here. And secondarily,
Speaker 1: the girl is important and here's why. And then she
Speaker 1: hands Kim a note that was I guess sent from
Speaker 1: another firefly safe house, not in the zone, but like
Speaker 1: across the state, which we're gonna guess right now, is
Speaker 1: like some sort of laboratory, you know, like there are
Speaker 1: scientists involved with the fireflies.
Speaker 2: There's somewhere there's a lab where people are moving towards
Speaker 2: this idea of a cure. But then not feder people
Speaker 2: that fireflies.
Speaker 1: Right, and so whatever is in that note, it's clearly
Speaker 1: big because him is like, oh shit, whatever you need,
Speaker 1: like I get it now, Like we'll do it elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Tess gets the location for Robert's battery deal and it's
Speaker 1: a building that they remember and they know how to
Speaker 1: get to, is accessible via the subway tunnels. Back at
Speaker 1: the safehouse, Marlene gives quote unquote Veronica, who we knew
Speaker 1: was Ellie her pack back. Here's this wonderful peace offering. Right.
Speaker 1: The pack contains her switchblade, which Ellie eagerly leaps to,
Speaker 1: gets it right in her hand, telling you this is
Speaker 1: what this world is. This is a girl that knows
Speaker 1: nothing other than.
Speaker 2: This literally grew up.
Speaker 1: This is.
Speaker 2: This, well, this is it.
Speaker 1: And Marlene then explains to Ellie that it was she
Speaker 1: that placed Ellie at the Fedra Military Academy, basically an
Speaker 1: orphanage where they train kids to eventually be federal soldiers
Speaker 1: slash cops all those years ago. And this brings up
Speaker 1: some really really fascinating questions like is Marlene ex Federa
Speaker 1: or the Fireflies ex fed Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Are they a breakoff group of a Federa that was
Speaker 2: trying to find a cure and then feder kind of
Speaker 2: went corrupt and changed and changed, so they broke off?
Speaker 1: And has have the Fireflies been earmarking kids for something
Speaker 1: like this? Suggestion that they are involved in some way
Speaker 1: in Ellie's life from the very beginning is fascinating and
Speaker 1: it feels like a thread that we're gonna unschool more
Speaker 1: and more like is is this firefly mission towards a cure? Has?
Speaker 1: Is it more planned out than this seemingly ad hoc Oh,
Speaker 1: we found this girl and now we we need to
Speaker 1: move her someplace? Is there a plan that has been
Speaker 1: kind of in motion for a while? It suggested here
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really important thing to note, especially
Speaker 2: because this is a very interesting addition. Again, I will
Speaker 2: point people towards the girl with all the gifts that
Speaker 2: came out kind of contemporary to this. This sounds almost
Speaker 2: directly inspired by the setup of that book, where we
Speaker 2: meet a bunch of kids in a school classroom who
Speaker 2: are being taught in a kind of military school, and
Speaker 2: then you come to learn something about them. So I
Speaker 2: love this. I think, as we know where this is
Speaker 2: going because we played the game, and the game is
Speaker 2: heartbreaking and amazing, are we very interested to see what
Speaker 2: the implications of this are because they could be really
Speaker 2: really massive, and they could also either add to or
Speaker 2: take away a little bit from that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a dangerous play for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm very interested, but I'm excited to see it,
Speaker 2: especially because Marlene is so great just in this week.
Speaker 2: This is like really the first time we've gotten to
Speaker 2: meet her, and you really get that connection between Ellie
Speaker 2: and I want to know more. I want to know
Speaker 2: if they were picking kids, if there was some kind
Speaker 2: of study they did, some kind of DNA that they
Speaker 2: were looking for it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: We get to mention here from Marlene of Riley, who
Speaker 1: is a character from the Last of US DLC and
Speaker 1: who we know from that game had a very close
Speaker 1: relationship with Ellie, and it's very clear that Riley has
Speaker 1: has died somehow. Marlene is using Riley's example to say, hey,
Speaker 1: was Riley a terrorist? Because you know Ellie' is like, oh,
Speaker 1: the firefly terrorist. She's like, what was Riley a terrorists? Like,
Speaker 1: we're not terrorists, and then she later tells Ellie the
Speaker 1: reason for all this trouble. Ellie is the only known
Speaker 1: person who has been infected with the Cordysps fungus who
Speaker 1: has not become a zombie, did not fall ill, is
Speaker 1: seemingly immune. Huge huge deal Elsewhere Tess and Joel or
Speaker 1: in the subway tounnels, where we see what happens to
Speaker 1: you after the kind of zombie phase of the cordyceeps
Speaker 1: infection has run its course. You basically just turn into
Speaker 1: a mushroom, a disgusting mushroom that explodes out of your
Speaker 1: body and glues you to whatever surface your corpse happened
Speaker 1: to explode next to. It's this very body horror thing again.
Speaker 1: This very aliens alien kind of like look of being
Speaker 1: like molded into a surface and it's super super gross.
Speaker 1: And notably Tess hard Ass is terrible, like is jump
Speaker 1: scared when she sees it.
Speaker 2: She is jump scared. It's it lets you know that
Speaker 2: even within the quarantine zone, where these people are battle
Speaker 2: hardened for twenty years, there are things that can shock them.
Speaker 2: There are things that being chilled to kill a man
Speaker 2: for some pills, that's not going to stop you being
Speaker 2: scared by the fact that there is a nightmarish mushroom
Speaker 2: fungus that could take you and turn you into a
Speaker 2: wall decoration. You know. It's it's terrific. And I love
Speaker 2: this because I also think it leans in again to
Speaker 2: that question that we talk about, which is like this
Speaker 2: nature evolution, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is also this scene great addition by subtraction.
Speaker 1: So in the game here, this is your first encounter
Speaker 1: when they go into the tunnels, your first encounter with
Speaker 1: the spores and what to do. Your characters take out
Speaker 1: gas masks and you walk through the spores and you're
Speaker 1: non infected, which never made sense because like the spores,
Speaker 1: you take off the gas mask, the scores are still
Speaker 1: all over your close hair, you're gonna still gonna breathe
Speaker 1: them in. So very wisely, Mason and drug Ben for
Speaker 1: the adaptation, have done away with the fucking gas mask
Speaker 1: and now it's zombie stuff direct bite, but like right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Seems like from Ellie's arm and from what we see
Speaker 2: that it's some kind of bite, some kind of blood situation,
Speaker 2: like like well classical zombies.
Speaker 1: Yes. Tess and Jol arrive at the building and guess what,
Speaker 1: it's the Firefly safehouse.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: They discover that a gunfight has broken out and Robert,
Speaker 1: along with a number of Fireflies have been killed. Robert
Speaker 1: died man doing what he loved, trying to fuck it,
Speaker 1: double cross somebody. It turns out the busy tries out
Speaker 1: a bust and battery.
Speaker 2: It turns out to the battery didn't work.
Speaker 1: And and the Fireflies were like, hey, we're not buying this,
Speaker 1: and a gunfight broke out and they all died except
Speaker 1: for Marlene, who is gut shot very seriously wounded, and Kim,
Speaker 1: who doesn't have an ear anymore. Folks, these are not
Speaker 1: exactly the Navy seals. The funnest like why just a
Speaker 1: quick aside, big you know, top secret safe house. We're
Speaker 1: launching attacks all across the zone to draw federal away.
Speaker 1: Why are you doing this here?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: An your battery has like your shitty high dout that
Speaker 2: just got blown up, Like go there, Like why did
Speaker 2: you bring this man who loves the double Cross people
Speaker 2: to your secret safe house where you're keeping the salvation? Please?
Speaker 1: Hey, let's let's do the deal. Let's do the deal
Speaker 1: in the hallway outside where we're holding Ellie, Like, let's
Speaker 1: do it. Do What the fuck are we doing anyway?
Speaker 1: With the fireflies based at this safe house, there's other fireflies,
Speaker 1: but they, you know, the ones based here now apparently
Speaker 1: wiped out, Marlene has no choice but to offer Joel
Speaker 1: and Tess, who she knows are hard asses, very capable,
Speaker 1: She says, offer them a deal. If they will take
Speaker 1: Ellie to a group of fireflies waiting across the city
Speaker 1: at the old state House outside the Quz, she will
Speaker 1: provide Joel with a truck with gas, with the fucking
Speaker 1: fresh battery in the truck, guns whatever they need to
Speaker 1: make their journey to Wyoming to go find Tommy. Now,
Speaker 1: Joel tests is like, do you trust her? And of
Speaker 1: course no at all. In this world clearly does not
Speaker 1: trust her. But we get a few pieces of information.
Speaker 1: One that Marlene knows not only knows Joel from reputation,
Speaker 1: but knows them because Tommy was a firefly. And this
Speaker 1: is a point of contention between Joel and Marlene, who
Speaker 1: Joel feels turned his brother against him in some form
Speaker 1: of fashion. Oh we should also mention that in this moment,
Speaker 1: Ellie comes bursting out and gives you an idea of
Speaker 1: the fight fierceness that she has. It comes bursting out
Speaker 1: of her room, switch blade at the ready, and Joel
Speaker 1: just like throws her into a wall. She just.
Speaker 2: Like he does not care. She is nothing to him,
Speaker 2: a sandbag. He just throws her in and then Joel's
Speaker 2: like toying with her, keeping her knife. You know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't set up a particularly great rapport between the two,
Speaker 2: but it shows us a lot about Ellie. And another
Speaker 2: thing this episode does is keeping one of everyone's favorite
Speaker 2: things about Ellie, which is like she curses like a
Speaker 2: drunken sailor, and they kept that in there. And to
Speaker 2: see Bella Ramsey who's just was so great as Leanna
Speaker 2: Mormot and is now just bringing that same attitude. But
Speaker 2: even more so. It's it's just wonderful to see it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, when Joel throws out against that wall, I
Speaker 2: mean you feel the impact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are wonderful in this role, and I like that.
Speaker 1: Just like the introduction of Ellie and Joel in the game,
Speaker 1: the show kind of throws the moment away a little bit,
Speaker 1: like maybe in Lesser Hands there'd be this instant Joel
Speaker 1: looks at Ellie. Yeah, it's a girl about the age.
Speaker 1: Joel's seen teenage girls before, like you've seen children the
Speaker 1: age of his his daughter. There, it's it's a throwaway moment.
Speaker 1: I think that makes the relationship that grows between them
Speaker 1: even more impactful later on. So yeah, Test smells desperation,
Speaker 1: understands that Marlene needs them and also has access to
Speaker 1: shit that they want. So Test steps up, makes the deal, says, Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: here's what we're going to do. We're going to take her.
Speaker 1: But if we get to the spot and the fireflies
Speaker 1: then want to take us to another place to give
Speaker 1: us the shit, we kill Ellie right there. The fireflies
Speaker 1: that we're meeting need to have the truck, the guns,
Speaker 1: the battery, everything right there, so we can leave right
Speaker 1: there and if that isn't ready again, we execute Ellie
Speaker 1: and Marlene's like great, good, yes, and Elly's like wait,
Speaker 1: hold on that sorry, So they all leave. Joel takes
Speaker 1: Ellie to his apartment and puts her inside, while Tests
Speaker 1: and Joel stay outside the hallway to kind of discussed
Speaker 1: like what happens next. In that brief time, Ellie breaks
Speaker 1: Jewels smuggling code that he has hidden in a book
Speaker 1: of pop music hits. The only part of the coach
Speaker 1: she doesn't figure out in this moment is what eighties
Speaker 1: music means. Joel comes back, Test goes off to get supplies,
Speaker 1: and Joel immediately falls asleep, a nice inversion of the
Speaker 1: you know the opening scene in which it's Sarah that
Speaker 1: falls asleep and Joel Let's says away Joel immediately nods off.
Speaker 1: When he wakes up, Ellie is telling him that he
Speaker 1: mumbles in his sleep, uh, And she's looking out at
Speaker 1: the rain and kind of reflecting on how she's never
Speaker 1: been beyond the walls of the QZ. She asks Joel,
Speaker 1: have you been out there? And she's he's like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Test and I go. The last time we went is
Speaker 1: about a year ago, so Ellie is somewhat put at
Speaker 1: ease by this, feeling like, Okay, I'm with people who
Speaker 1: theoretically know what they're doing. And then she very very
Speaker 1: capably bamboozled Joel into revealing what the eighties code means.
Speaker 1: She says, oh, by the way, oh sorry, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention when you're asleep the radio came on,
Speaker 1: What does wake me up? Before you go?
Speaker 2: Go mean?
Speaker 1: And Joel his head goes down and he's like fuck,
Speaker 1: And that is how Ellie realizes, Aha, eighties music means
Speaker 1: trouble letting, you know that. Like for for the obvious
Speaker 1: kind of like naivete and lack of experience that she
Speaker 1: has in this world, she's also very very capable, fierce
Speaker 1: and as thinker, smarter than Joel in a.
Speaker 2: Lot, very cunning, and she's definitely had to work out
Speaker 2: ways to survive that. Yeah, Belie her kind of small stature.
Speaker 2: You know, she has the knife, but really it's the
Speaker 2: smarts that have probably gone this far.
Speaker 1: So Test returns and everybody heads off, and of course
Speaker 1: we understand from an earlier scene that you get caught
Speaker 1: outside the wall, you get hung. It's no trial. They
Speaker 1: string you up. Outside, it's raining. It's a dark and
Speaker 1: stormy night. They encounter pissing against the wall, the same
Speaker 1: guard that Joel has been selling pills to. And now
Speaker 1: the guard decides, you know what I'm doing, shit by
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 2: Now I know that I like it, and I.
Speaker 1: Understand that I've been involved directly involved in various smuggling
Speaker 1: schemes throughout the zone. But now we're bringing you in. Neil,
Speaker 1: put your hands behind your head, et cetera. I'm going
Speaker 1: to test you in for infectually. He tests Tests Green,
Speaker 1: then he tests Joel Green, and we can see the
Speaker 1: panic rising in Elley. She doesn't want she knows she's
Speaker 1: going to test red, and she doesn't want her cover
Speaker 1: blown about what's going on with her. So as he
Speaker 1: places the device to her neck, she takes out the
Speaker 1: switch plate and stabs him right in the fucking thigh.
Speaker 1: Shit pops off. Joel is and Tests are trying to
Speaker 1: talk him, hey, like, don't don't do anything rash, don't
Speaker 1: do anything crazy, and Joel flashes back. Because of the
Speaker 1: direct parallels, here is this guy in soldier gear again.
Speaker 1: He's flashing a light in his face, holding a gun
Speaker 1: to a child. The child is right here with him,
Speaker 1: and he just snaps and he kills a guy. Uh after,
Speaker 1: right after that happened, test notices that on the handheld
Speaker 1: testing device that Ellie tested red and now Ellie and
Speaker 1: now everything is out in the open, and and Ellie
Speaker 1: is showing them the scar from the bite that is
Speaker 1: healed over and now three weeks old. And she's saying, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not if I was gonna get sick, it would
Speaker 1: have happened a long time ago. I'm not sick. I
Speaker 1: know what that looks like. But look this held and anyway,
Speaker 1: we need to get out of here because Fedro's coming.
Speaker 2: Test wants to turn the head but Ellie, Ellie talks
Speaker 2: away out of it.
Speaker 1: It talks away out of it, and the three head
Speaker 1: off into the darkness as the camera kind of pans
Speaker 1: up and you see the destroyed skyline of Boston's back
Speaker 1: Bay with like the I think that's the insured, the
Speaker 1: famous like the insurance building like toppled into another building.
Speaker 1: And they head off into this really gathering darkness that
Speaker 1: just feels terrible and dangerous just by looking at this skyline.
Speaker 1: And we go to Joel's apartment where never let me
Speaker 1: down by Depeche Mode nineteen eighty seven comes on the radio,
Speaker 1: and you know that wherever whoever is sending that it's
Speaker 1: going wrong, it's going very, very wrong. And we head
Speaker 1: into episode two woo whoa, that's how you do it.
Speaker 2: That's how you do it. It's so good and I
Speaker 2: love I love the ending where they use this musical
Speaker 2: beat that just set up a moment ago as a
Speaker 2: funny character moment to just tell you they're like they're fucked,
Speaker 2: like this is going badly. Whether it's not just from
Speaker 2: the people that they're getting these messages from, which I
Speaker 2: think people will be really excited about. It's like I
Speaker 2: think they were talking about Bill and Frank, you know,
Speaker 2: so this is kind of stuff that people really want
Speaker 2: to see. But also just as a tone setter for
Speaker 2: the show, like this is gonna end badly, something that
Speaker 2: I will say Joel does say many times he knows
Speaker 2: the way it's going, he just doesn't know which way
Speaker 2: it's going. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I've said this many times, right,
Speaker 2: I no surprise thing. I love a lot of video
Speaker 2: game adaptations. I think there's a lot of fun ones.
Speaker 2: I think I think there's ones that are quite actually
Speaker 2: quite good. I think that I love the campiness of Conic,
Speaker 2: but oh, oh my god, well, I will say, actually,
Speaker 2: I just Sonic would generally be seen as that. I'm
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of the great I love the Nighties,
Speaker 2: More Combat Movie, I love Double Dragon movie with Marke
Speaker 2: like those are really fun. Well, but this as a
Speaker 2: feat of adapting a story and a tone, we haven't
Speaker 2: really seen anything like this in live action. It's pretty
Speaker 2: spectacular and I'm really excited. We got a little bit
Speaker 2: of it in the quarantine zone, you know, those quiet moments,
Speaker 2: the overgrown weeds of kind of the in the city.
Speaker 2: But I'm really excited when we get to see outside
Speaker 2: the quarantine zone with these fallen buildings and the overgrown wildlife,
Speaker 2: and getting to have a few more of those quiet
Speaker 2: moments of nature overcoming and nature coming back even after
Speaker 2: this terrible thing. I think they did an unbelievable job
Speaker 2: with this, and I'm also really glad that they didn't
Speaker 2: drop more than one episode because I think this is
Speaker 2: like a really great water cooler. Everyone will be talking
Speaker 2: about it. It's been very nice.
Speaker 1: It's in it raced by Oh my god.
Speaker 2: I was shocked.
Speaker 1: I did not realize.
Speaker 2: I just assumed it was a normal episode and I
Speaker 2: was like, what, and it's It's been really cool to
Speaker 2: see people in our discord who've never played the game
Speaker 2: who just loved it, And it's been nice to see
Speaker 2: that online as well, to see people who were just
Speaker 2: like I just gave it a try because of Pedro Pascal.
Speaker 2: I just gave it a try, because of Bella Ramsey.
Speaker 2: I gave it a try because I like zombie stories.
Speaker 2: And to see how drawn into this world they've been,
Speaker 2: even if they've never played the game, I think that's
Speaker 2: really a testament to how good the storytelling is if
Speaker 2: you can make it accessible to an audience who has
Speaker 2: no idea what Fedra is or Cordyceps or all of
Speaker 2: that stuff. The storytelling here is so smartly done and
Speaker 2: kind of sparse, but just tells you what you need
Speaker 2: to know. Yeah, I just I'm blown away by how
Speaker 2: good it is.
Speaker 1: It did everything that an opening episode needs to do
Speaker 1: in it. It did. It's just in a way that
Speaker 1: just draws you in. It told you, in various dribs
Speaker 1: and drabs andvarious moments, what the emotional generator of the
Speaker 1: story is going to be, what the story itself is
Speaker 1: going to be how the world works, what the relationships
Speaker 1: with these characters are, what the economy like it fleshed
Speaker 1: it out in really wonderful ways. The casting, we have
Speaker 1: to say, I mean we've talked about it with Nico
Speaker 1: Parker obviously, with Pedro Pascal, with Anaturv again, who she's
Speaker 1: so good.
Speaker 2: That brought so much nuance in humanity to this like
Speaker 2: really brutal characters.
Speaker 1: And the way that that first of all loved her
Speaker 1: and Fringe loved her in My Hunter, you know, like,
Speaker 1: but the way that time and time again, the first
Speaker 1: episode just subverts what you expect if you know the game,
Speaker 1: you know, tests again, you know, we we were set
Speaker 1: up to think that she's a psycho, but she's kind
Speaker 1: of the smarter one, kind of like the headier one,
Speaker 1: giving you moments that happened before you respect them. The
Speaker 1: thing that you pointed out I think that was so smart,
Speaker 1: which is like you get these moments where they arrive
Speaker 1: at the Firefly safe house test and dol they take
Speaker 1: their packs out. This feels like the game. They're getting
Speaker 1: all their stuff out of the pack, their guns, they're
Speaker 1: getting it right, and then they never do anything there's
Speaker 1: never the fact that there's no real moment of holy
Speaker 1: shit action with Tess and Joel at all, but you
Speaker 1: feel propelled for it, and you understand what hard asses
Speaker 1: they are, how fierce, and how dangerous they are, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that you never see a single fucking thing.
Speaker 1: It's all about how they moved through the world and
Speaker 1: how people relate to them.
Speaker 2: That is great, It's really cool, and it also is
Speaker 2: a really nice understanding of the difference between storytelling and
Speaker 2: a video game and storytelling and a TV show. You
Speaker 2: don't need to see them do all of that in
Speaker 2: the TV show constantly in the game. It is part
Speaker 2: of the action that keeps you going and not The
Speaker 2: choice I thought was so interesting was to have Joel
Speaker 2: kill the cue guard, not by shooting him, even though
Speaker 2: because you know bullets they're very rare. In this game,
Speaker 2: you start with four, five, six, and you have to
Speaker 2: find them. You're looking through every door to find a bullet,
Speaker 2: you're picking it up and Joel's raw anger. Instead, he
Speaker 2: beats him to death, and that is again something that
Speaker 2: is directly taken from the game. You can regularly beat
Speaker 2: people to death and strangle them. But what I love
Speaker 2: here is instead of it just being like, oh, he's
Speaker 2: just that kind of guy. This is a moment of
Speaker 2: it's emotional breakdown. This is a horrific act where he
Speaker 2: has killed someone that he had a vaguely chill relationship
Speaker 2: with because of this horrible memory.
Speaker 1: It's it's a really it's a great point. And I
Speaker 1: love the way they throw it to to Bella's face there.
Speaker 1: Oh and you see how one how staggeringly violent this
Speaker 1: thing she had just seen, is how this thing Elliott
Speaker 1: just seen is, but also how it kind of cements it, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm in. I'm not going to say safe hands. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say good hands, but I'm in the
Speaker 1: kind of hands that you need in.
Speaker 2: A way get me there. Let's just hope the fireflies
Speaker 2: have what they want because they will also kill me.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, I definitely want to see I want
Speaker 4: to just say, like I was really happy when I
Speaker 4: was reading the reviews after I watched the screen as like,
Speaker 4: I was really happy to see everyone shouting out Bella's
Speaker 4: performance because they're facerafting in this the news of.
Speaker 2: What they put across with their eyes, the way they're
Speaker 2: able to embody this kind of teenage awkwardness and this
Speaker 2: kind of that faux confidence you have to have as
Speaker 2: a teenager to make it through the world. Let alone.
Speaker 1: I think I'm own up already. I believe that I'm
Speaker 1: an adult already when it's very clear to everybody else
Speaker 1: that you're not.
Speaker 2: Exactly. There's so much nuance in it. And Pedro's obviously,
Speaker 2: he's so amazing, like Petroscal, Like, no one's like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's not showing up next to Bella. No, he's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2: But for Bella to be able to shine the way
Speaker 2: they do next to him, that's just unbelievable. And I'm
Speaker 2: so excited to see that relationship, you know, enemies to
Speaker 2: parental figures or whatever the trope would be. I'm so
Speaker 2: excited to see that expanded as we go on. Who
Speaker 2: doesn't love a lone wolf and cub type story, you know,
Speaker 2: and this is going to be such a special representation
Speaker 2: of it. And Yeah, I was just really blown away.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to talk about this series as it
Speaker 2: goes on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the thing that you talked about because
Speaker 1: you know, when I was thirteen fourteen, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a grown up now, I'm an adult, like I'm actually
Speaker 1: smarter than most adults. And then now when I see
Speaker 1: people who are thirteen, I'm like, you're a baby.
Speaker 4: When I said twenty, I think that now because I'm
Speaker 4: so old, like it really, you know, what I.
Speaker 2: Always think about that when I was a kid is
Speaker 2: like when you're in you know, in England we call
Speaker 2: it secondary school, but when you're in like middle school,
Speaker 2: and you see someone who is above you, who's like
Speaker 2: a senior or whatever, who's about to go to high school,
Speaker 2: and you think, oh, they're an adult. And then you
Speaker 2: get to that age, everyone above you looks like an adult,
Speaker 2: and it just that constant cycle. And what I love
Speaker 2: about Bella's performances with Ellie, Ellie is always in that
Speaker 2: space of I can hold my own I'm an adult,
Speaker 2: I'm doing it, I'm old. But every so often there
Speaker 2: is a moment where she sees one of the adults
Speaker 2: doing something so horrific or so strange, and you get
Speaker 2: that look in her eye where she knows she's still
Speaker 2: a child, just in this world. Also, I think it's
Speaker 2: very very interesting to start a show like this and
Speaker 2: start a story like this, same within the game, but
Speaker 2: to see it on TV of a character who remembers
Speaker 2: the old world and a character who's only a reference
Speaker 2: is the zombie. I think that is such a cool
Speaker 2: space in The Walking Dead. That took them years to
Speaker 2: get to the place where you can have a child
Speaker 2: who was built born there because of the way they
Speaker 2: told the story. Another thing I really loved about this
Speaker 2: first episode. We talked about it, you know in your
Speaker 2: great recap is like the Ham Radio. I love this
Speaker 2: idea that in the economy of the post apocalypse, different
Speaker 2: people with different skills suddenly rise up the ranks in
Speaker 2: this world. The man with the ham radio, who can
Speaker 2: talk to people's families all over the world, he becomes
Speaker 2: like the most important man, the kingpin. You know, I
Speaker 2: watched this. I read this absolutely brilliant Walking Dead comic
Speaker 2: by Tillie Walden, who's one of my favorite cartoonists, called Clementine,
Speaker 2: and there's a great bit in there about a man
Speaker 2: who makes prosthetics. He trained himself how to make prosthetics
Speaker 2: because in the zombie Apocalypse that suddenly became something that
Speaker 2: everybody needed, especially in the Walking Dead, because you can
Speaker 2: chop off your limb and can survive the virus, so
Speaker 2: I love these kind of ideas of economy, like how
Speaker 2: does it work, what becomes valuable, what becomes Yeah, sure
Speaker 2: you can kill people. Actually that is a skill that
Speaker 2: a lot of people are getting Joel tests. But what
Speaker 2: are the more mundane skills that you can bring that
Speaker 2: would you survive the zombie apocalypse? There's lots of memes
Speaker 2: like that, what are the five things you'd bring to
Speaker 2: like a post apocalyptic society? Like can you make bread?
Speaker 2: Can you farm? Do you know how to run a
Speaker 2: ham radio? Like a lot of us would be fucked.
Speaker 2: But I love those choices that slow burn world building choices.
Speaker 2: I am so excited to see that expanded as we
Speaker 2: get outside, especially because I think that one of the
Speaker 2: things that we know from the reviews, from the way
Speaker 2: people are talking about this, this is a show that
Speaker 2: isn't afraid to move away from Joel and Ellie. We're
Speaker 2: going to get to see the wider world, the different people.
Speaker 2: We're going to get to see stories and characters expanded
Speaker 2: on who are just in the game for a moment
Speaker 2: and get to see them be brought to life. So
Speaker 2: I'm just really excited for it.
Speaker 1: Same here, we're going to be covering The Last of
Speaker 1: Us on HBO Max a week to week, And of
Speaker 1: course we're going to be returning to our coverage of
Speaker 1: the video game The Last of Us video Game in
Speaker 1: weeks to come. That's it for this episode, Rosie. Anything
Speaker 1: to plug Just you.
Speaker 2: Can hear us here two times a week. That's very cool.
Speaker 2: I will also be covering The Last of Us at IGN.
Speaker 2: I'm writing all those kind of good explainers. Obviously we're
Speaker 2: getting very close to Quantumania time. Yeah, so I got
Speaker 2: lots of theories about that, you know is I got
Speaker 2: some cool deep dives coming up in to you know,
Speaker 2: Polygon regarding Quantumania and the comics it's drawing from. Also,
Speaker 2: I just want to say Quas. You know, people are saying,
Speaker 2: could it be Quasar? It's the one for William Jackson Harper.
Speaker 2: I think that is still a Richards who's just hiding
Speaker 2: his He's got to hide that, you know, his name,
Speaker 2: his place from Kang in the Quantum Room. So he
Speaker 2: made up a cool name, Quas. I still believe he's
Speaker 2: a Richard. Maybe read I'm moving towards.
Speaker 1: It with you.
Speaker 2: I think that would be really cool. So yeah, that's
Speaker 2: my theory.
Speaker 1: Plug catch the next episode of X Revision Friday, January
Speaker 1: twenty said, is this Friday or a week catching up
Speaker 1: on the bed? Betch folks?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it. Subscribe to us on YouTube,
Speaker 2: follow at XRV pod on Twitter where we're always retweeting
Speaker 2: cool stuff, responding to theories and call tattoos. So send
Speaker 2: us all of those. Check out discord. The discord is
Speaker 2: so much fun. We reference it a lot because me
Speaker 2: and Jason are always in there. There's a ton of
Speaker 2: great fans talking about all this cool stuff, breaking down theories,
Speaker 2: given book recommendations. It's a total joint. There's also like
Speaker 2: sports in there, so really covering everything. If you're a
Speaker 2: Jason fan, you'll love our discord.
Speaker 1: We had a watch party. We had a watch party
Speaker 1: for the last of Us where we were in there
Speaker 1: the reacting with people on West Coast time mostly who
Speaker 1: were watching the show along with us. Five star reviews,
Speaker 1: five star ratings. We need them, we gotta have them,
Speaker 1: we want them. Here's one from Nematon, the real world
Speaker 1: impact of our stories. Jason and Rosie are two of
Speaker 1: the most humble, funny, and kind creative storytellers in the business.
Speaker 2: I'm blushing.
Speaker 1: From the latest blockbuster, the super niche comic Deep Dives.
Speaker 1: These two cover plot synopsis, easter eggs, theorizing, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: the real world impact of the stories we're currently watching
Speaker 1: a reading. Thank you so much, Nematon's.
Speaker 2: Lovely and also we love nedouts. They're some of our
Speaker 2: favorite things. We love them. The Discord loves them. But
Speaker 2: we also know that, like us, you have a lot
Speaker 2: of theories and want to share them. We get them
Speaker 2: when we do mail bags, we love to hear them,
Speaker 2: we get them in our dms. So now nodouts will
Speaker 2: also be a place for you to share your theories
Speaker 2: as well as your favorite you know, shows, movies, comic books.
Speaker 2: More So, send us your weirdest, most tinfoiliest fan theories
Speaker 2: in a two minute or left voice memo to x
Speaker 2: ray at cricket dot com and we will discuss them
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by Chris Lorden Sol Rubin. The show is
Speaker 1: executive produced by myself and Sandy Grohard are editing in
Speaker 1: Sound designers by Vascillis Fotopoulos, Dylon Villanueva and Matt de
Speaker 1: Group provide video production support. Alex Rella for handle social media.
Speaker 1: Thank you Brian Vesquez for the music That's it. See
Speaker 1: us Friday.
Speaker 2: Bye,