Speaker 1: Warning. This podcast contains spoilers for the video game The
Speaker 1: Last of Us Part one, as well as spoilers for
Speaker 1: the first two episodes of The Last of Us on
Speaker 1: HBO Max.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: My name is Jason Concepsio.
Speaker 3: And I am Rosie Knight, and welcome.
Speaker 1: To x ray Vision, the Crooked media podcast where we
Speaker 1: dived e pet your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
Speaker 3: In this episode, we are continuing our discussion of the
Speaker 3: Lost of Us game and things are about to get spooky,
Speaker 3: spooky and in ned out. Guess is another theory. I'm
Speaker 3: so happy about this and this one's about the quantum
Speaker 3: Realm from the next installment of the MCU, the highly
Speaker 3: unto Diticipate at Amtmann and thest Quantumnia of Course. If
Speaker 3: you want to jump around, check the show notes for
Speaker 3: time stamps and feel free to unspoiler yourself. But really
Speaker 3: play The Last of Us.
Speaker 1: All right, let's jump into it. Let's get into the airlock.
Speaker 1: Books were stepping out of the airlock and back into
Speaker 1: the world of the Last of Us, the first installment
Speaker 1: of the Last of Us series. For our ongoing coverage
Speaker 1: of Naughty Dog's iconic video game, of Course, some quick
Speaker 1: facts behind the game. The game was published Last of
Speaker 1: Us was published on the Sony PlayStation three platform in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Began it. It really is vintage. I can still
Speaker 1: see it. I can still see that beautiful console.
Speaker 3: I still have one.
Speaker 1: I still have one. I still have two PS fours. Anyway,
Speaker 1: development began in two thousand and nine after the release
Speaker 1: and massive success of Entering Out two. Neil Druckman as
Speaker 1: the creative director, and he led development of the game.
Speaker 1: Creative directing, the writing of it, and the game is
Speaker 1: directed by Bruce Strayley. Voice acting and mocap performances in
Speaker 1: this game are fantastic. Troy Baker as Joel, Ashley Johnson
Speaker 1: as Ellie and he Wershing as Tests and Merle Dandridge
Speaker 1: as Marlene. Let's get into it. So this recap is
Speaker 1: going to cover the second chapter, starting at the second
Speaker 1: chapter the outskirts and the segments outside downtown, the museum
Speaker 1: and the Capitol building, and then we are going to
Speaker 1: end up at the Billstown chapter with the segments of
Speaker 1: the woods and safe house. And judging by the way
Speaker 1: the show's going, I think it's a perfect time to
Speaker 1: jump into this portion of the game. We open up
Speaker 1: with Joel and Ellie together, now heading off into the
Speaker 1: ruins of the open city. Ellie heard the shootout at
Speaker 1: the Firefly safe house. She asks Joel what happened? What
Speaker 1: the fuck do you think happened? Yeah, didn't you hear it?
Speaker 1: Joel says, Firefly, same thing that's going to happen to
Speaker 1: us if we don't get off the streets. We hear
Speaker 1: loud speakers carrying Fedra's warning that harboring criminals, including the
Speaker 1: Fireflies his grounds for immediate execution.
Speaker 3: I love to execute someone.
Speaker 1: They Fedra is very very keen to execute, and so
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie have to have to skidattle. They cut
Speaker 1: through some abandoned buildings. They head for Joel's place. Ellie
Speaker 1: asked Joel if this is the first time he's ever
Speaker 1: smuggled a person, a kid in particular. He said, no,
Speaker 1: that's a first. What's the deal with you and Marlene? Anyway?
Speaker 1: And we get some really interesting expo. Ellie says that
Speaker 1: quote she knew my mom and she's been looking after me.
Speaker 1: Ellie has no idea where her parents are now. Joel
Speaker 1: probed some more, but Ellie let's him know that she's
Speaker 1: under orders not to tell Joel anything that might be
Speaker 1: a clue as to why she is so important. But
Speaker 1: Joel would like to present himself as someone who actually
Speaker 1: doesn't give a shit. Yeah, he says, yeah, he doesn't care,
Speaker 1: he says, the one to know the best thing about
Speaker 1: my job. I don't got to know why I could
Speaker 1: give two shits what you're up to.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I think that that's not exactly true, but it's certainly
Speaker 1: the mask that Joel puts on. Just like in the show,
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie head back to his apartment, and the
Speaker 1: second after arriving home, Joel hits the couch and back
Speaker 1: to sleep again. We've got this really interesting inversion of
Speaker 1: the cold open of the game, where it was Joel
Speaker 1: awake and his daughter Sarah asleep on the couch, and
Speaker 1: now you've got Ellie awake and Joel tired old Joel
Speaker 1: meeting nap time. Ellie's like, what do I do? What
Speaker 1: am I going to do? And He's like, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you'll think of something, and then Ellie gives him that
Speaker 1: little stinger say again, same as in the show, A
Speaker 1: great dialogue. Your watch is broken, Joel wakes up. It's raining,
Speaker 1: Ellie is telling him that he mumbles in his sleep.
Speaker 1: It's a testament to how good the remastered version is
Speaker 1: and even how good the original was. Yeah, suggesting emotion
Speaker 1: that you really feel like Joel in that moment is
Speaker 1: wondering like what the fuck, Well, I wonder what I said,
Speaker 1: like a little concerned about what he might have said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you get a really great one of those visual
Speaker 3: moments too, of Ellie looking out of the window, which
Speaker 3: you know that you basically replicate directly in the show,
Speaker 3: which is so lovely, But I definitely remember that being
Speaker 3: one of those that was one of those visuals that
Speaker 3: you sort of couldn't escape on the internet. Ellie looking
Speaker 3: out of the rainy window kind of as and they're
Speaker 3: really setting up this great space where oh Joel, he's
Speaker 3: this reluctant you know, it's it's lone wolf, and Corbet's
Speaker 3: that classic thing. He doesn't want to be burdened with
Speaker 3: this child. But here she is, and she's got this
Speaker 3: wonder about the world, which I think people are starting
Speaker 3: to kind of get to see in the show, and
Speaker 3: we really start to get to see on the next
Speaker 3: part of their mission.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Pedro Pascal in two Lone Wolf
Speaker 1: and cub Inspired st This baby loves to move through
Speaker 1: a dangerous world with a child who depends on me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely is the king of that role. Ellie tells him,
Speaker 1: I hate bad dreams. And she is watching the battlements
Speaker 1: of the QZ as spotlights are kind of swinging to
Speaker 1: and fro out there right outside the walls, looking for
Speaker 1: any threats that might be out there, looking for anybody
Speaker 1: who might be sneaking out. And Ellie, of course has
Speaker 1: never been outside the walls of the QZ. Joel again,
Speaker 1: who just minutes earlier in our gameplay, hours earlier in
Speaker 1: the fictional reality of this story, claim to not give
Speaker 1: two shits actually might give a singular shit about Ellie,
Speaker 1: because he then asks again, so what the what are
Speaker 1: the fireflies? Wan't we what's the deal? But of course,
Speaker 1: before she can answer, Tess returns. Tess says, if you
Speaker 1: remember where we left off tests after the confrontation at
Speaker 1: Firefly HQ, Tess went to go scout the merchandise guns
Speaker 1: in the case of the game, a cachet of guns.
Speaker 1: And she has now come back and has seen the
Speaker 1: goods that Marleon promised them, and she says, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all there, it's legit. It's an impressive haul. We're good
Speaker 1: to go, Joe.
Speaker 3: She loves She's give me those guns. I want these guns, please.
Speaker 1: She loves guns almost much as much as Ellie loves
Speaker 1: asking for guns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is the perfect comparison. She stoked about these guns.
Speaker 3: She's like, I will smuggle this child because these guns
Speaker 3: are real.
Speaker 1: Joel is really worried about this mission. It's nothing like
Speaker 1: they've ever done before. It's it's human cargo, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't understand if why if Marlene is in command of
Speaker 1: the Firefly militia, they don't just use their own people. Now,
Speaker 1: apparently putting two and two together, they don't really lay
Speaker 1: out the details here, But I think what this suggests
Speaker 1: is that Feder's campaign against the Fireflies has been devastating.
Speaker 1: Yeah that you know, whatever manpower they have left, it's
Speaker 1: not a lot. Marlene needs Tess and Joel definitely.
Speaker 3: And also like there's this implication that the Federer is
Speaker 3: like sowing this cord among the survivors in the courting
Speaker 3: zone and the Fireflies by kind of creating these violent
Speaker 3: campaigns that kind of pit the Fireflies as these arrists
Speaker 3: when we know that feder are like fascists who are
Speaker 3: just you know, executing people, Willy Lilly. Even though the
Speaker 3: q's's great, there's there's problems on either side. And yeah,
Speaker 3: the fireflies, the fireflies and Marline need Joel and tests.
Speaker 3: It's very hard for a game like this where you
Speaker 3: know the narrative is headed in a certain direction to
Speaker 3: make you feel like the characters are making organic choices.
Speaker 3: But Joel questioning the fireflies feel so real. You're like, yes,
Speaker 3: he is right, Like why why is this? This is
Speaker 3: so different from pills, This is so different from guns.
Speaker 3: This is different even from murdering people. But you have
Speaker 3: to kill a lot of people to be able to
Speaker 3: be in a lone Wolphan club situation. So it fits
Speaker 3: the trope, but it's not. It doesn't make sense in
Speaker 3: the world and economy that they know. So I love
Speaker 3: that he's not just like, yeah, better do it because
Speaker 3: my daughter died. You know, they don't use the easy answer.
Speaker 3: They set it up in a way that makes you
Speaker 3: believe that Joel is wary, that Joel does not want
Speaker 3: to take on this burden.
Speaker 1: It's such a good rated wrinkle, but really wonderful generator
Speaker 1: of drama in both the video game and the show
Speaker 1: is the fact that Tommy has joined the Fireflies, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of the source of the of the
Speaker 1: of the the tear in the relationship between Joel and
Speaker 1: Tommy really the only people that each of them have
Speaker 1: left or each other, and the fact that they would
Speaker 1: be torn apart like this tells you that it was.
Speaker 1: It was really a big deal and dramatic, and it
Speaker 1: makes sense that Joel just would not fucking It's.
Speaker 3: An added great it's a great like personal wrinkle that
Speaker 3: makes this strange, unexpected gun run becomes something so much
Speaker 3: more complex.
Speaker 1: They head out, the three of them together outside of
Speaker 1: the walls. They take a tunnel get out beyond the wall,
Speaker 1: and now they have to sneak out from under the
Speaker 1: gaze of the feder spotlights and the various patrols. And
Speaker 1: Ellie is thrilled despite the danger, this is an adventure.
Speaker 1: Everything outside is like mud slicked because it's a downpour.
Speaker 1: There's like these huge craters and stuff and lots of wreckage.
Speaker 1: But she's having a fantastic time. She's never been beyond
Speaker 1: the walls before. Now they don't get far in their
Speaker 1: little sneak before a guard knocks Jowel to the ground.
Speaker 1: There's two guards, actually it's a two person patrol. It
Speaker 1: turns out they radio in for backups, and now the
Speaker 1: clock is ticking. They do the thing that they're trained
Speaker 1: to do by the book, and they test the people
Speaker 1: they've caught. Tests negative, Joel negative. They're about to do Ellie.
Speaker 1: Ellie knows that she's going to come up infected. She
Speaker 1: gets her knife out, she stabs the soldier, and unlike
Speaker 1: in the show, shit just immediately goes.
Speaker 3: Relationship between Joel and these Feder soldiers in the game
Speaker 3: is just you have to kill him. Yeah, you have
Speaker 3: to kill them. Tess is a murdered death delon machine,
Speaker 3: so she doesn't care. Joel is dead inside because of
Speaker 3: his loss, and so they're dead, and you better get
Speaker 3: ready because you're gonna you killed them. By this point,
Speaker 3: we've killed a lot of you know, Robert's men of
Speaker 3: drug dealers. Now we're gonna have to start killing some
Speaker 3: Feder agents. So if you ever wanted to kill some soldiers,
Speaker 3: this is it's about to be happening.
Speaker 1: So Joel takes down the one that Ellie's stabbed. Test
Speaker 1: takes out the other one, and you know, it's just
Speaker 1: interesting to think about. At this point in the game,
Speaker 1: it's been uh, you know, not counting the flashback to
Speaker 1: you know, whatever year that two thousand and three or
Speaker 1: whatever year that was. Yeah, the prologue, the prologue, it's
Speaker 1: been about a day. And your mileage may very depending
Speaker 1: on how you play. But Joel, it tesn't probably killed
Speaker 1: fifteen people a piece, yes.
Speaker 3: Well, at least at least, And I do think it's
Speaker 3: one of the most interesting things about the game and
Speaker 3: one of the most interesting things. You know, we talked
Speaker 3: about this. As you've probably noticed if you've been listening
Speaker 3: to our coverage and watching the show, we are getting
Speaker 3: into second episode territory here. Oh, we're about to venture
Speaker 3: into the real second episode. And what's very interesting is
Speaker 3: how Koy the show is playing it with how dangerous
Speaker 3: humans are in this world, because that is gonna be
Speaker 3: a gut punch to Ellie when it comes because in
Speaker 3: the game, you kill so many human people in the
Speaker 3: QZ before you ever kill a zombie. But in the
Speaker 3: show that is just not the case. We see destruction.
Speaker 3: It's such a smartness change because also in the game
Speaker 3: you have to kill people, because that's the nature of
Speaker 3: these kind of games. It's a shoot them up, it's
Speaker 3: an adventure game, it's kind of a combo almost a
Speaker 3: first person shooter. There's all different things that are built
Speaker 3: into the gameplay and that's just the nature of what
Speaker 3: you need to do. But in the show, it's really
Speaker 3: about grounding it in this humanity and also in Joel's
Speaker 3: journey of of coming to terms with how many people
Speaker 3: and how many zombies, how many clickers, how many infected
Speaker 3: he has killed. That's what we're getting to see in
Speaker 3: the show is a Joel and a Test who are tired.
Speaker 3: This is Joel and Tests who have already done the
Speaker 3: terrible stuff that you have to do in the game,
Speaker 3: and they're kind of sick of it. And I think
Speaker 3: it's really interesting, but yeah, here this is all out
Speaker 3: war Tests and Joel.
Speaker 1: Ellie is shocked by this.
Speaker 4: She's shably realizing that she's not in a good position
Speaker 4: as someone who just tested positive for infection with two
Speaker 4: strangers who love to kill.
Speaker 1: She is absolutely shocked by this violence. Joel and Tests
Speaker 1: realize that Ellie has tested positive. Ellie panicked now because
Speaker 1: she just watched these two people commit murder like without
Speaker 1: any compunction, without any adults ready to do it, pulls
Speaker 1: up her sleeve and she's like, look at this bike.
Speaker 1: It's three weeks it's three weeks old. It's healed. Like,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen this before? Like, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not sick. Do I look like a zombie? I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get you sick? And Joel has like heard
Speaker 1: this before, He's heard about people who have claimed to
Speaker 1: be immune before. He doesn't buy it at all. But
Speaker 1: they can't come to a decision in that moment because
Speaker 1: Feder the backup is here and they come out of here.
Speaker 1: So now they're they're back in that little moat proper,
Speaker 1: dodging the QZ forces, dodging the spotlights. Soldiers are everywhere.
Speaker 1: This is a really really fun, in tense uh sneak
Speaker 1: heavy portion of the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is like really that moment we kind
Speaker 3: of touched on it in the last episode when we
Speaker 3: were talking about this, but this is that moment where
Speaker 3: your gameplay strategy is going to start to come into play.
Speaker 3: Because I tried to go hot and heavy, killing every
Speaker 3: song Drysol and I died so many times. They set
Speaker 3: you up by the opening of the game being all
Speaker 3: about kill, kill, kill, kill kill. Then you get here
Speaker 3: and you learn actually, so often the easiest way to
Speaker 3: survive is to not kill and to use stealth and
Speaker 3: to sneak. And if you need to to sneak up
Speaker 3: on someone, grab them with a triangle and strangle them
Speaker 3: with a square. You know, we've done it many times
Speaker 3: at this point.
Speaker 1: But I think it's get this shakeout, Yeah, get this.
Speaker 3: Get the shift bob bop pop. But like it's a
Speaker 3: really it's a really good tone switch, and it's one
Speaker 3: of those smart stories telling where it almost kind of
Speaker 3: it sets you up for one thing and then pushes
Speaker 3: you into a totally different style of gameplay. And it's
Speaker 3: this is such a fun, spooky segment because you're kind
Speaker 3: of if you get caught by the you know, the
Speaker 3: the massive spotlights, then they'll find you and they send
Speaker 3: more soldiers, and you really got to be sneaking. And
Speaker 3: it's not just you, it's you, it's test if Ellie
Speaker 3: and sometimes if if you if you get seen, then
Speaker 3: they'll get seen and you have to kind of help them.
Speaker 3: Miscake extremely tense, so you want to be stealthy. That's
Speaker 3: the best tip here, stealth, stealth, stealth, X.
Speaker 2: Ray vision, will be back, and we're back.
Speaker 1: Eventually they get out of their exit through some ruined
Speaker 1: buildings and then it come out of a sewer pipe
Speaker 1: near what used to be an overpass. And it's here
Speaker 1: that Ellie, you know, again, surely concerned that these two
Speaker 1: could just murder her outright, tells them what the firefly's
Speaker 1: plan was. It was to get her out of the QZ.
Speaker 1: And apparently there's a secret lab somewhere out there to
Speaker 1: the west where scientists are working on a cure. And
Speaker 1: of course Joel and Test have heard all of this
Speaker 1: snake oil shit before, you know, they're not impressed by this.
Speaker 3: It's been twenty years, twenty years of no cure, no vaccine, nothing.
Speaker 1: When Ellie tells them that, you know, Marlene says, I'm
Speaker 1: whatever is making me immune is the key to the vaccine.
Speaker 1: Joel is like, Okay, that's it. I've heard enough. I've
Speaker 1: heard this before. It's very clear that there is no
Speaker 1: part of Joel that is willing or ready to hope again.
Speaker 1: And certainly, if even if there was a chance, it's
Speaker 1: much too slim to risk a trip across open country
Speaker 1: all the way to Wyoming or wherever the fuck they're
Speaker 1: going tests however, maybe somewhat surprisingly wants to try, although
Speaker 1: in the game, unlike in the show, it reads more
Speaker 1: as self interest.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, she wants she wants the guns.
Speaker 1: She wants the guns.
Speaker 3: Well, she was promised. But I like, this is the
Speaker 3: best thing about a good adaptation, right, is that it
Speaker 3: adds context to something that you already love, and if
Speaker 3: you don't love the adaptation, the other thing still exists.
Speaker 3: But I think in this case, when I've been replaying it,
Speaker 3: I was just from what I've seen in the show,
Speaker 3: Tess's decisions were seeming like they had this extra weight
Speaker 3: to them, like maybe it was a little bit of
Speaker 3: hope that she was scared to show Joel.
Speaker 2: It wasn't.
Speaker 3: It wasn't just these guns which she was gonna get
Speaker 3: from Robert anyway. So like suddenly she has to do
Speaker 3: this whole extra mission. Why would she want to do that?
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't she be just as reluctant as Joel. I
Speaker 3: love that it kind of adds this this elusive, kind
Speaker 3: of like moral complexity to her choices. But yeah, you
Speaker 3: when you're playing, from what you've seen of Tess. You
Speaker 3: think it's the guns. She wants those guns. She she
Speaker 3: wants what she's and and the Statehouse is the capital.
Speaker 3: You know, Capitol Building is not far away.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I feel like in the game,
Speaker 1: well it's in the show, the relationship with Tess and Joel.
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right. And I think episode two
Speaker 1: supports this and that this idea that Tess was really
Speaker 1: the more hopeful one all along, but it was high
Speaker 1: that part of herself from Joel. Yeah, because she just
Speaker 1: understands that Joel, like when she snaps. We talked about
Speaker 1: this in our Wednesday episode, when she snaps and says,
Speaker 1: can you just take the good news for once? You
Speaker 1: understand in that moment that that her frustration with Joel
Speaker 1: for never hoping, for never you know, holding out any
Speaker 1: kind of wish that the future could be better really
Speaker 1: kind of wears on her, but she's been keeping quiet
Speaker 1: about it. In the game, they're two peas in a pod.
Speaker 1: Like it's it.
Speaker 3: Seems like she's the leader, she's the beacon, and Joel's
Speaker 3: kind of this empty vessel.
Speaker 1: He's the follower. He is just lost and he just
Speaker 1: wants to do anything In the game that will deaden
Speaker 1: the feeling of loss and tragedy that he's carrying around,
Speaker 1: whereas Tess is just a creature of rage, just lashing
Speaker 1: out killing everybody. A good change, I think from games.
Speaker 3: It's a really nice expansion, and on someone who was
Speaker 3: essentially a side character that was given so much more
Speaker 3: weight that even people who knew Tessa's fate expected her
Speaker 3: to last longer in the show than she did.
Speaker 1: On the trek to the State House, we learn from
Speaker 1: Tessenjol's conversations that the military bombed Boston and most of
Speaker 1: the big cities in a kind of vain attempt to
Speaker 1: stop the infection. Although I guess you could argue in
Speaker 1: Boston it kind of worked.
Speaker 3: It worked, but it kind of just pushed the infected inside.
Speaker 3: That's kind of And also, I will say this is
Speaker 3: the moment in this in the game and in the
Speaker 3: second episode. This is when if you've played the game
Speaker 3: and you're watching the second episode, or if you've watched
Speaker 3: the second episode and now you're playing the game to
Speaker 3: catch up, you're going to start acting like Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 3: in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and pointing at.
Speaker 5: The screen and going, oh, because they just they are
Speaker 5: just absolutely just it's so wild to see something so
Speaker 5: die directly adapted, not just in visual aesthetic, but in writing,
Speaker 5: like to trust the writing of a video game to
Speaker 5: carry and oppress the ch TV show and to hear
Speaker 5: these lines, it's just so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you. Eventually they get to the
Speaker 1: Capitol building and it's here that our heroes encounter and you,
Speaker 1: as the player, encounter your first clickers, the first like
Speaker 1: really really dangerous boss level enemy. They are dangerous, they
Speaker 1: are super aggressive. Of course they cannot see, but they
Speaker 1: have pinpoint acoustical qualities akin to sonar and bats, and
Speaker 1: if you make any kind of noise, they will immediately
Speaker 1: key in on you and they will fuck you up.
Speaker 1: So now you, as the player moving Joel, have to
Speaker 1: move through these ruins and dead silence. And this is
Speaker 1: when in the game you will probably begin to really
Speaker 1: lean on distractions, bricks whatever to kind of throw bottle
Speaker 1: the clickers.
Speaker 3: Away, picking up like melee weapons to fight them with,
Speaker 3: like pieces of wood pipe stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Now, there was a you know, in our discord, we've
Speaker 1: been discussing this Kotaku article that takes the opinion that
Speaker 1: The Last of Us would be better if it was
Speaker 1: more like the game, basically saying, you know, why isn't
Speaker 1: there more crafting? I'm paraphrasing, and the and the piece
Speaker 1: is worth reading as a as a kind of perspective.
Speaker 1: You know, why isn't there more crafting? Why don't they
Speaker 1: turn a coke bottle into a silencer? Why don't they
Speaker 1: throw bricks to distract? I I take the point, but
Speaker 1: I actually love the way the clicker encounter went down
Speaker 1: in the show. It just felt like much more grounded.
Speaker 1: First of all, there are so many more things in
Speaker 1: the world, yeah, literally everywhere all around our characters that
Speaker 1: could have been used to distract clickers. When Joel runs
Speaker 1: past the display case and pushes it over, you can't
Speaker 1: do that in the game, right, You can only interact
Speaker 1: with like fucking bricks, bottles and.
Speaker 3: Play add to your yeah, your pack. I think that's
Speaker 3: a really great point. And also I do think personally
Speaker 3: that there are so many moments, especially in the second episode,
Speaker 3: you know, where we see like Joel binding up Test's foot,
Speaker 3: which is essentially the same as using a medpack. We
Speaker 3: see Joe. That's what I was going to say, which
Speaker 3: is such a big moment, and sometimes you can get
Speaker 3: glitchy if they don't give you the boost option, you know,
Speaker 3: so I was really liking that. I believe as we
Speaker 3: get further into the season, we will definitely see multiple
Speaker 3: like brick and bottle moments, even they won't be like
Speaker 3: no one's going to be collecting them and putting them
Speaker 3: in the pack. But do I think that we'll see
Speaker 3: tests or Joel use a bottle and slash a brick,
Speaker 3: And do I believe that we'll probably get some kind
Speaker 3: of modied melee weapon that is kind of of like
Speaker 3: like you would make in the game. I do. I
Speaker 3: also think that they translated the tension of the clickers
Speaker 3: so well, because like as we're about to get into
Speaker 3: so you can see the state House in the distance,
Speaker 3: but you're not quite there. You got to you've gone
Speaker 3: through an office building. That's where you first meet them.
Speaker 3: They're terrifying. You can kind of sneak around them. We're
Speaker 3: about to head into like some we've got to climb
Speaker 3: outside the office building on this terrifying like window washing carriage.
Speaker 3: Then you're going to go into the subway. There's multiple
Speaker 3: different parts because this is a game and you want
Speaker 3: to get that long term gameplay. But in the show, right,
Speaker 3: they just send you right into the museum because they
Speaker 3: know that they need to have that impact and instead
Speaker 3: of the tension of you must craft something, the tension
Speaker 3: there just all comes from the cinematography and the hiding.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. And again, you like, you know,
Speaker 1: people can have different opinions.
Speaker 3: And the best thing is the game still exists. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the game, so you can still go and you can
Speaker 3: still craft, and you can still experience that part.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure as a viewer that the ex
Speaker 1: experience of watching our characters stop for twenty minutes to
Speaker 1: tape a coke bottle onto a gun is like the
Speaker 1: best most thrilling television like that you could watch. You
Speaker 1: want to watch them get right into it. And so
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think all the changes they've
Speaker 1: made have been for the better, and I actually think
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a conversation for another day, but
Speaker 1: I think one of the reefs so to speak, that
Speaker 1: the ship of video game adaptations has crashed on over
Speaker 1: the years has been this idea that we need to
Speaker 1: translate the game to the to.
Speaker 6: The translate the game play with fidelity, right, we need
Speaker 6: to like, we need to have that moment in Doom
Speaker 6: where all of a sudden, the rock goes into POV
Speaker 6: first person and you see the gun.
Speaker 1: No, you don't need that, you don't, you really don't
Speaker 1: need that to tell the story. The trio navigate to
Speaker 1: a window washing carriage still hanging from its cables after
Speaker 1: twenty years. Great your moment, really fun moment, and then
Speaker 1: eventually to a subway station which is just absolutely fucking
Speaker 1: riddled with it.
Speaker 3: You've got to be shooting some monsters in the head.
Speaker 1: Actually, I guarantee you will die.
Speaker 3: You will die so many times. But this does it
Speaker 3: in This introduces probably my favorite crafting thing, which I
Speaker 3: do believe we'll see in the show at one point,
Speaker 3: which is the Molotov cocktail. And it's so cool because
Speaker 3: if you when when you're in a subway, you learn
Speaker 3: how to make a Molotov cocktail and you collect the
Speaker 3: bits to make it. As this game is very much
Speaker 3: about collecting, which kind of funny because it made me
Speaker 3: realize how much it's like a cozy game. It's like
Speaker 3: murder animal crossing. It's like you have to collect all
Speaker 3: the things to do your recipes, but when you have
Speaker 3: the Molotov cocktail. The best, most satisfying part of the
Speaker 3: programming of this game is that if you hit a
Speaker 3: clicker with it, it will draw any other clickers with
Speaker 3: its screams, so you can kind of draw them and
Speaker 3: use it to sneak past and I found that to
Speaker 3: be a very useful technique, and that really first comes
Speaker 3: through in the subway. I'm excited to see if we'll
Speaker 3: see a version of the subway this subway sequence, and
Speaker 3: then you know, later on in the game, as we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about, they kind of go in subway again.
Speaker 3: I'll be interested to see if we get a subway
Speaker 3: setting in the show, because it feels like it is
Speaker 3: quite a memorable part of the game. But there's so
Speaker 3: much to fit into this first season.
Speaker 1: There really is. In the subway station, they find a
Speaker 1: body of a firefly, and at this point our heroes
Speaker 1: begin beginning to wonder if they're even going to be
Speaker 1: any fireflies. At the drop off point, with Ellie test
Speaker 1: leads the way. She gets them through a short cut
Speaker 1: through other ruins that take them to the place they
Speaker 1: need to go. Joel gets a one of those rolling
Speaker 1: garage doors open just in time to avoid You gotta
Speaker 1: fucking be tapping.
Speaker 3: It'll be holden.
Speaker 1: And here is where we get some fun modding. When
Speaker 1: if you're playing, you get to now, you've probably unlocked
Speaker 1: some other modding perks by the point, and your mileage
Speaker 1: may vary again, but you're probably making health. You're probably
Speaker 1: moddeling your weapons. Ellie tells Tess about how she was infected,
Speaker 1: same as in the show. She was hanging out at
Speaker 1: the mall in the QZ. No one's supposed to go
Speaker 1: in there, but she got attacked by a runner, not
Speaker 1: a clicker, and in her panic, she went to go
Speaker 1: see Marlene, who, rather than execute Ellie, just decided to
Speaker 1: wait and see if the infection would take its course. Now, eventually,
Speaker 1: our heroes find themselves in a museum and the building
Speaker 1: is fucked. It is an advanced case.
Speaker 3: Scary. Is really scary.
Speaker 1: Is collapsing around them in different stages. And a collapsing
Speaker 1: beam separates Joel from Tests and Ellie, and then you
Speaker 1: hear Test scream Joel, they're here, and then they run
Speaker 1: off and who knows what's happening with them? Joel? You
Speaker 1: as Joel player as Joel now has to fight their way,
Speaker 1: you know, through different infected sneaking around them, fighting them
Speaker 1: when necessary to pick again. Your mileage may vary. I
Speaker 1: don't know how good you are at the game, but
Speaker 1: I barely made it out several times.
Speaker 3: This was the funniest thing time.
Speaker 1: Many times here.
Speaker 3: I was thinking a lot about like why they chose
Speaker 3: the museum, because there's so many different segments that didn't
Speaker 3: make it in. But then I was thinking like, well,
Speaker 3: it took me a long time, and there's like a
Speaker 3: lot of strategy that you have to work out for
Speaker 3: like the runners and the clickers and kind of the
Speaker 3: time that they come in and the clickers in berserk
Speaker 3: mode and everything. And I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: in there, because I know that no matter how good
Speaker 3: you are at games like this, you googled how to
Speaker 3: get out of the museum at least once. Every single
Speaker 3: person who played this game did that.
Speaker 1: And by the way, here's another thing that hasn't been
Speaker 1: adapted for the television show. Joel's incredibly precise ability to
Speaker 1: hear where enemies are through walls.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love this. Yeah, he needs to be doing
Speaker 3: this more in the game.
Speaker 1: He needs to be doing that more. After the fight,
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie share a moment looking at the State House.
Speaker 1: You know, they're on the roof. Now there's a fresh sunrise.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. Tests is like, hey, let's let's fucking go, guys,
Speaker 1: Let's pick it up. Joel says, yes, ma'am. They come
Speaker 1: across more firefly bodies.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: One of them is carrying orders, which you, as the player,
Speaker 1: can read, and indeed you should. They say, quote ensure
Speaker 1: no military presence before moving the girl to the next
Speaker 1: safe house, and then scribbled in handwriting underneath the typed orders,
Speaker 1: quote make sure the girl is well fed and in
Speaker 1: good health. Her safety is of the utmost importance. Now
Speaker 1: they're moving through Boston Commons, which is like a flooded
Speaker 1: swamp now, and eventually they get to the State House.
Speaker 1: They find all the fireflies dead. Test searches the bodies,
Speaker 1: you know, hoping that there's a clue, a map, something
Speaker 1: that says where they're going, so that they can finish
Speaker 1: this deal and get the guns and all the you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what else. You know, where's that? Lab Ellie
Speaker 1: just says, somewhere out west. She doesn't know. Tests and
Speaker 1: Joel now argue and just like an episode two. Test
Speaker 1: reveals that she has been bitten somewhere in the museum
Speaker 1: during that fight. Oops, right, she says. Test grabs Ellie's arm,
Speaker 1: rolls Ellie's sleeve up, shows it to Joel and says, look,
Speaker 1: that's a three week old bite versus my bite from
Speaker 1: an hour ago.
Speaker 3: This is real.
Speaker 1: This is real, Joel, this is fucking real, real. You've
Speaker 1: got to get this girl to Tommy's. And it's so
Speaker 1: a truck of fedra show up at this moment. But
Speaker 1: it's actually really interesting. I find myself wondering if that
Speaker 1: truck doesn't show up, I kind of think Joel says, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think so too. I think I think
Speaker 3: that Joel would have probably waited, or he would have
Speaker 3: had to Test, would have had to shoot him, or
Speaker 3: he would have had to shoot Tests like it was
Speaker 3: not He wasn't gonna leave like this is. This is
Speaker 3: just going to be another unrelenting loss.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I certainly don't think he escorts Ellie any
Speaker 1: further west with Tests out of the picture. I think
Speaker 1: he goes back to the QZ and just decides to
Speaker 1: become an even more aggressive and dedicated murder, smuggler, criminal
Speaker 1: to kind of like numb the pain.
Speaker 3: He say he's the next Robert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't. I certainly don't think he's going to
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, what the fuck, I'll take Ellie.
Speaker 3: I also think it's really interesting because that in that moment,
Speaker 3: that's the first time that we see Tests have hope,
Speaker 3: and it's just before she's about to die. She's like,
Speaker 3: this is real. Get this girl to Tommy's. Like the
Speaker 3: implication there is like you can fucking save the world,
Speaker 3: Like this is the cure we've been waiting for. This
Speaker 3: is actually real. I feel like when they were making
Speaker 3: this show, I feel like Drugman and Mason and the
Speaker 3: crew they were probably that was the moment they probably
Speaker 3: to expand on Tessa's character because it feels so true
Speaker 3: to who she is in the show. And then we
Speaker 3: get this really interesting moment because, like you said, Fedra,
Speaker 3: I love that they changed this in the show to
Speaker 3: the infected. I think it's really affected. We've seen the
Speaker 3: evils of Fedra, but in the game it is horrific.
Speaker 1: Test spends her last moments begging Joel to take Ellie,
Speaker 1: and then when he does and they exit the area
Speaker 1: holding off the feder troops. She dies.
Speaker 3: You hear her screaming as you run away, and you
Speaker 3: hear them shooting her.
Speaker 1: So Joel takes Ellie through a door and now you're
Speaker 1: on the other side of it, like a in a
Speaker 1: large fourier or something. And Ellie is absolutely shocked that
Speaker 1: they left us. She can't fucking believe it. She's like,
Speaker 1: we left her to die. She's just met Tests and
Speaker 1: watch Test commit a murder, and it tells you a
Speaker 1: lot about Ellie. Again, we mentioned this in our previous
Speaker 1: episodes about the show and the game, how Ellie is
Speaker 1: the only person that you encounter in this world who
Speaker 1: actually cares about other people.
Speaker 3: And yeah, value, just baseline, just baseline is like, we
Speaker 3: can't just leave her.
Speaker 1: I know she was in fact, well, we can't just
Speaker 1: leave her to die. And I think that it's important
Speaker 1: to remember that as we move towards the ending of
Speaker 1: the Last of Us game, because everything we know about
Speaker 1: Ellie in this game is that she wants to help
Speaker 1: people and have given the full information.
Speaker 3: About how she might be able to cure, how.
Speaker 1: A cure could be developed from her. I think there's
Speaker 1: no question she says, I'll do it. No matter the cost,
Speaker 1: I will do it. And it's hard to remember the
Speaker 1: Joel never like he's doing what Tess said here, but
Speaker 1: he's kind of forced into it, and at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, he kind of doesn't respect Ellie's agency.
Speaker 1: As much as he loves her, he doesn't respect her
Speaker 1: point of view.
Speaker 2: X Ray Vision will be back and we're back.
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie have to evade the Federer to escape
Speaker 1: the state House, and it's more fun action. It's here
Speaker 1: that the player as Joel, acquires the hunting rifle for
Speaker 1: the first time. Yeah, it's also here that Ellie starts
Speaker 1: asking for a gun, of course.
Speaker 3: And also like this is the really this is the
Speaker 3: really head fuck moment, which is like you've just they've
Speaker 3: just killed Tess. So narratively and emotionally, you just want
Speaker 3: to kill all of the soldiers because you know that
Speaker 3: they just killed her, but you have to stealth to
Speaker 3: survive that you cannot. There is like a number of
Speaker 3: soldiers and the only soldier you really really have to
Speaker 3: physically kill is the one who's like guarding the doors
Speaker 3: so you can't get out. Otherwise you can really stealth
Speaker 3: and occasionally, you know, to strangle people are you killing
Speaker 3: You can decide, you can say you're just you're just
Speaker 3: doing a relanked choke that they're just gonna wake up,
Speaker 3: but probably killing him. But like, it's really interesting because
Speaker 3: they set you up again to be in this emotional
Speaker 3: angry state that Joel would be in, which is like,
Speaker 3: fuck them, they killed this one person who was my partner.
Speaker 3: And then the game's like, Nana, no, if you want
Speaker 3: to survive and gal of this statehouse alive, you gotta
Speaker 3: you gotta just ignore them. You got to just focus
Speaker 3: on survival. It's so interesting.
Speaker 1: As they're escaping, they encounter a cloud of cordysop spores
Speaker 1: and Joel puts his gas mask on. Ellie just breathes it,
Speaker 1: just breathes it. And if and if Joel was you know,
Speaker 1: had doubts before, surely they are now fading away because
Speaker 1: he is just watching her with his eyes, just breathing
Speaker 1: in spores that should cause her to get infected as
Speaker 1: absolutely zero effect. They eventually get above ground and Ellie
Speaker 1: tries to apologize for tests, and Joel says, here's how
Speaker 1: this is going to play out. You don't talk about
Speaker 1: test ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our
Speaker 1: histories to ourselves. Most importantly, here Joel stresses to Ellie,
Speaker 1: and she's heard this before, but now it's Joel's turn
Speaker 1: to tell her that she can't tell anybody about her
Speaker 1: immunity because that will probably mean her death. And also,
Speaker 1: by the way, you got to do exactly what I say.
Speaker 1: You've never been out here before. You don't know what
Speaker 1: it's like I do. It's gonna end back, Yeah, just
Speaker 1: just do what I say. Joel, in need of a
Speaker 1: of a next move, a vehicle would be helpful, decides
Speaker 1: to steer them towards a town called Lincoln, uh, an
Speaker 1: independent town where Joel says, quote, someone owes him some favors.
Speaker 1: So they make the move to Lincoln through the woods,
Speaker 1: and Ellie is just reveling in nature, in the in
Speaker 1: the in the Emerald leaves.
Speaker 2: It's so it's.
Speaker 3: Such a juxtaposition to the kind of ruins, even the
Speaker 3: overgrown of Boston. This is just pure nature, and Ellie
Speaker 3: is so happy to be there.
Speaker 1: One of my like Pavlovian responses to this game happens
Speaker 1: when I think of or hear like at Ellie laughing
Speaker 1: somewhere off on the map. You know you're playing I've
Speaker 1: got headphones on. I'm playing as Joel. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: a thing or I'm scavenging, and I hear Ellie kind
Speaker 1: of laugh. And then you go over and she's looking
Speaker 1: at something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, giggling or singing, yeah, trying to teach herself how
Speaker 3: to whistle, which she's always doing, and it sounds like
Speaker 3: she's turning into an infected So Joel's always really stressed
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: So there's one of these moments right here where you
Speaker 1: find Ellie kind of like reveling in a swirl of
Speaker 1: actual fireflies, real fireflies, and then she says, sorry, I
Speaker 1: lost myself there for a moment. It's a wonderful, really
Speaker 1: magical moment. Now, apparently this town is inhabited by guy's
Speaker 1: got His name is Bill. He lives somewhere in the town,
Speaker 1: which is riddled with booby traps all along the way.
Speaker 1: Now they can see kind of a single fire or something,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe half a mile maybe three quarters a
Speaker 1: mile into the town, and that's probably where Bill is.
Speaker 1: There's a moment here where Joel and Ellie have to
Speaker 1: be briefly separated, which is really fun. Now, on the
Speaker 1: way to Bill's Joel tells Ellie about Tommy. He says
Speaker 1: that Tommy is I don't know, it's unclear at this point,
Speaker 1: like what his status with the fire.
Speaker 3: He was maybe a former firefly, he was a firefly once.
Speaker 3: It's unclear, but he was there, and that makes Joel
Speaker 3: believe that he'll know what to do without Yeah.
Speaker 1: He's Tommy will know what to do. Meanwhile, Ellie continues
Speaker 1: to you know, communicate wonder about everything she's seeing. They
Speaker 1: pass by like an old garden store.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can dig around and ye contact the stuff.
Speaker 3: And Ellie just fucking loves Godden gnomes.
Speaker 1: It's so cute. She says, man, I had an art
Speaker 1: book filled with these. I always thought they were super cute.
Speaker 1: And then later she finds an arcade game.
Speaker 3: Was like a cool like Wolverine style character on the
Speaker 3: front had abandoned pizza parlor, and.
Speaker 1: He's like, did you play this? How do you know
Speaker 1: this game? She's like, no, but I had a friend
Speaker 1: that knew everything about this game. Apparently there was a
Speaker 1: character called Angel Knives whose like Mortal Kombat esque finisher
Speaker 1: Combo was like a gut kick decapitation, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I wish I could play it so. As we noted,
Speaker 1: Bill's town is just booby trapped to the gills, land
Speaker 1: mines up everything. Yeah, he is a guy who knows
Speaker 1: how to acquire things, which has made him helpful to
Speaker 1: Joel and Test in the past, and of course they're
Speaker 1: hopeful that he'll be helpful to them now Here. On
Speaker 1: a bread truck heading into the town, Joel finds a
Speaker 1: bow and arrow, which is extremely It is probably the
Speaker 1: thing I use the most.
Speaker 3: It's really good for headshows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great, great, great.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, said a bread truck exclamations. Folks, careful, careful,
Speaker 3: don't eat that bread.
Speaker 1: Ellie is like, hey, I'm good with the bow and arrow.
Speaker 1: It turned out by the way, you know, and as
Speaker 1: the game progresses into the sequel that she is quite
Speaker 1: good at true, not untrue. But of course Joel is
Speaker 1: certainly not ready to uh to trust this girl he
Speaker 1: just met with a deadly weapon that you know, will
Speaker 1: probably end up stuck out of his back if he
Speaker 1: choos it to her. As they get closer to the
Speaker 1: smoke plume, Joel tells Ellie, uh, hey, just be when
Speaker 1: we find Bill. Just be chill. Yeah, just be chilly.
Speaker 1: He's he's weird. He is not going to be trusting
Speaker 1: of strangers. Uh, you know, and he says he closes
Speaker 1: by saying, you know, he's a good guy, but you know,
Speaker 1: let me do the talking. Ellie agrees. Joel leads Ellie
Speaker 1: to what looks like an old mechanic's garage, and here
Speaker 1: is where one of Bill's traps strikes with really really
Speaker 1: dangerous and cool effect. This is one of the kind
Speaker 1: of this is one of the most unique action scenes
Speaker 1: in this game. It is really fun. So there's a
Speaker 1: loud bang, a rattle of chains, and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: you as Joel are upside down, hanging by your leg
Speaker 1: from the ceiling. En snarreted one of Bill's traps anchored
Speaker 1: on the other side by a refrigerator. Joel is like, Ellie,
Speaker 1: get getting on top of the refrigerator and cut the
Speaker 1: rope and cut me off of this. Now while Ellie
Speaker 1: is doing that, of course the infected are coming. They've
Speaker 1: been drawn by the sound and they are swarming everywhere.
Speaker 1: And so now you, as Joel, hanging upside down, have
Speaker 1: to shoot these infected really as best you can with
Speaker 1: your limited.
Speaker 3: And there's like it starts off with runners, who do
Speaker 3: you think you can deal with? And then the clickers come.
Speaker 3: You know, it is so intense and you're at Lea's
Speaker 3: probably gonna die a couple of times before you succeed,
Speaker 3: oh for sure.
Speaker 1: And clay on easy and folks, the cutting takes fucking
Speaker 1: for Ellie because the two sections.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first she starts cuying it and it kind of fools,
Speaker 3: and then she has to properly ci and that's when
Speaker 3: the clickers start, and you're really fucked, like you're in trouble.
Speaker 1: And now the clickers are here, the infected, the fast
Speaker 1: ones are here, and they're chasing Ellie all around the
Speaker 1: fucking garage. Joel is is like, hey, hey, come over here,
Speaker 1: look at me, like doing his best to draw their
Speaker 1: attention and shoot them and reload. Finally, Ellie cuts the rope.
Speaker 1: Joel lance head first on the ground with an infected
Speaker 1: on top of him, and you're thinking, I'm getting ready
Speaker 1: to jam on this square baby, I'm gonna be hitting
Speaker 1: this square button. But the infected is killed and you
Speaker 1: look up and there is bill Uh and it's you know,
Speaker 1: shades of twenty eight days later. Yeah, that moment where
Speaker 1: they chased by the infected go into the apartment building.
Speaker 1: They're trying by the lights. They crawled to the top
Speaker 1: of the stairs and it's Brendan Gleeson in like a
Speaker 1: full butcher smock and like it's like.
Speaker 3: You have the gas mosque and Bill has this long hair.
Speaker 3: He's going to be played by Nick Offerman in this series,
Speaker 3: which I think is a very exciting casting. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's a really good scary moment. Like you think
Speaker 3: there's relief, but it's it You're not really relieved when
Speaker 3: you see him.
Speaker 1: In the game. Bill is voiced by w Earl Brown,
Speaker 1: who you might remember from Deadwood, another classic fantastic show Deadwood.
Speaker 1: Bill leads them to relative safely with the infect it
Speaker 1: always just like a step behind and you're having to
Speaker 1: fight your way out. Now, really fun segment. Eventually you
Speaker 1: get to something like a safehouse that's like a brick
Speaker 1: building that's been kind of like reinforced with metal plates.
Speaker 1: Ellie is like, oh, man, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: showing up when you did, and you know that you
Speaker 1: really saved our ass. And then before she can really
Speaker 1: even finish that, Bill has her handcuffed to a pipe
Speaker 1: and he's got his gun out and.
Speaker 3: His gun punk. Why would you bring that here?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Honestly, fair play to Joel. I would be pretty fucking
Speaker 1: paranoid too. And you know, Bill rightly says, hey, you
Speaker 1: come here, you come to my house, you set off
Speaker 1: all my traps, You damn your break my arm? What
Speaker 1: the fuck is going on? And who is this girl?
Speaker 1: Ellie's fierceness, which has been hinted at before and flashes
Speaker 1: during the game, most only that the first meeting of
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellie flashes now. She says, I'm none of
Speaker 1: your goddamn business, and we're here because you owe Joel's favors,
Speaker 1: and you can start by taking these things off she
Speaker 1: means to. And Bill is like, favors, What the fuck?
Speaker 1: What favors could I possibly? Oh, Joel? And here we
Speaker 1: get Joel's ask, and Joel's ask, honest is pretty uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty shocking to hear. He's like, I need
Speaker 1: a car.
Speaker 3: He's like, hey, can I just have like a car,
Speaker 3: just a whole call?
Speaker 1: Can I have a working car? I've a live battery
Speaker 1: and some gasoline.
Speaker 3: Not too much, not too much.
Speaker 1: Bill is like, first of all, if I had a
Speaker 1: working vehicle, why the funk would I give it to you?
Speaker 1: And to know, Ellie, completely ignoring Joel's earlier warning to
Speaker 1: like not get into it with Bill, gets into it
Speaker 1: with Bill, and Joel has to be like and settle
Speaker 1: her down. Joel then notes, Hey, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like wrecked cars around here, Like couldn't you You're very handy, Bill,
Speaker 1: you could like assemble something.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Bill has that kind of know how, and he kind
Speaker 1: of comes around and decides to do it. He shows
Speaker 1: Joel and Ellia map of his town showing important locations.
Speaker 1: He says, Okay, here's what's going to happen, Joel, you
Speaker 1: and Ellie for all I care. I don't give a shit.
Speaker 1: Gather the stuff that I need from these places marked
Speaker 1: on the map, and then bring it back, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens. Maybe I can put together something
Speaker 1: that runs. But after this, he says, I owe you nothing,
Speaker 1: and he gives Joel the handcuff key to unlock Ellie
Speaker 1: and he leads them through the booby trapped town. Bill
Speaker 1: is like, worst tests. You guys are thick as thieves.
Speaker 1: Usually where's she at? Joel's like, oh, you know, she
Speaker 1: not heroes and this is just a simple drop off job.
Speaker 1: The stuff Bill needs is on the other side of
Speaker 1: his town. So the first place that we stop is
Speaker 1: the armory, which is a very useful area for the
Speaker 1: players because now you're restocking on ammo, on fucking health,
Speaker 1: on shit bricks, fucking pipes.
Speaker 3: Which was until this point you've only been able to
Speaker 3: do by shiving your way into like random locked rooms,
Speaker 3: which waste one of your weapons that you really need
Speaker 3: to kill clickers. So it's it's a it's a double
Speaker 3: edged sword. But this is a great moment of relief.
Speaker 3: They're lumbing us into a false sense of security.
Speaker 1: Is there's a great moment that tells you who Bill
Speaker 1: is right. There's a there's an infected that has been
Speaker 1: ensnared in one of his traps, and Bill is just
Speaker 1: casually like, hey, you didn't answer my question about where
Speaker 1: Tess is while decapitating infected. You know, it's so good.
Speaker 1: There's another here. As they're moving through these kind of
Speaker 1: like dead vehicles in the middle of the street, there's
Speaker 1: another infected swarm that that you as the player have
Speaker 1: to fight off. Really fun moment, and eventually they get
Speaker 1: past that. Bill tells Joel about why he chose this
Speaker 1: town because Joel is like, this is kind of you're
Speaker 1: kind of vulnerable here. No, And Bill says like no,
Speaker 1: because the infected are really predictable. And he says, and
Speaker 1: this will be you know again, and every zombie movie
Speaker 1: foreshadowing this is the Every zombie movie has this hypothesis.
Speaker 1: Bill says, quote, it's normal people who scare me. You
Speaker 1: of all people should understand that. And that's twenty eight
Speaker 1: days later.
Speaker 3: Walking Dead. It's like post apocalyptic but not zombies.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's always the people that are the worry.
Speaker 3: This is a very interesting thing that he says. I
Speaker 3: think they do a really good job here of setting
Speaker 3: up some kind of history. Bill keeps asking where Tests is.
Speaker 3: Bill says, you should understand that, Bill kind of talk.
Speaker 3: There's this illusion of a history between Bill, Joel, and
Speaker 3: Tests that we know that they're going to expand on
Speaker 3: in the series. But here is just these really interesting illusions.
Speaker 3: Is he saying you have all people should understand that
Speaker 3: because humans did something terrible to Bill? Or is he
Speaker 3: saying it because Joel's a murderer? Like It's a really
Speaker 3: interesting bit of writing.
Speaker 1: At the Armory, Ellie yet again is like, hey, I
Speaker 1: need a gun. I give me a gun. Bill and
Speaker 1: Joel have a side conversation. Bill is like, hey, just quick,
Speaker 1: FYI like, I think that this is crazy what you're doing.
Speaker 3: Don't do it.
Speaker 1: And I think you should take this girl back wherever
Speaker 1: the fuck you found her and leave her there.
Speaker 3: Again. Interesting moment because like Bill is this kind of
Speaker 3: prepper survivalist who doesn't give a shit, who doesn't owe
Speaker 3: Joel anything, but then suddenly wants to share his insight
Speaker 3: into this relationship with Joel and give him this warning.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Bill later tells Joel that, you know, once upon a
Speaker 1: time he had a partner, someone he had to look after.
Speaker 1: I highly suspect that we're going to learn more about
Speaker 1: this in the show. Uh, this is this is all
Speaker 1: we kind of get of this in the game. And
Speaker 1: if if episodes one and two are any guide to
Speaker 1: the kind of philosophy that Mason and Druckman have taken
Speaker 1: with this adaptation, it's that they're going to pull on
Speaker 1: these little threads that are left hanging in the video
Speaker 1: game narrative and they're going to flesh him out. So
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to see that but he says,
Speaker 1: you know that slowed me down being with another person,
Speaker 1: being attached to another person, it put me in danger.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't really say what happened, but he's essentially
Speaker 1: says that he ditched this person. In what manner that
Speaker 1: ditching took place, we don't know. Again, I will assume
Speaker 1: that we were going to find out Sunday night. Joel
Speaker 1: is like, okay, okay, enough lectures, I'll take a shotgun.
Speaker 2: He takes it.
Speaker 1: Bill then shows Joel how to make a nail bomb
Speaker 1: out of a soup can, which is a very wonderful
Speaker 1: pne You need a fantastic and useful recipe for Joel's
Speaker 1: crafting menu. And then Bill tells Joel where they're going.
Speaker 1: There's a Federer truck on the other side of town.
Speaker 1: They used to come through here. They come through here
Speaker 1: regularly scavenging, looking for things, and that federal squad was
Speaker 1: overrun by a horde of infected and the truck is
Speaker 1: still there and it probably still works, probably still has
Speaker 1: a working battery because it wasn't that long ago. Joel
Speaker 1: is like, okay, this might work, and the trio head
Speaker 1: off through a church out of stained window towards the
Speaker 1: local high school in the feder truck and we'll pick
Speaker 1: it up in chapter three of our Last of Us
Speaker 1: video game, du Dah. And it feels like just the
Speaker 1: right place to stop, because again it feels like we're
Speaker 1: heading right into what's going to happen yeah Sunday, And
Speaker 1: it feels yeah.
Speaker 3: I will say this is a very good point that
Speaker 3: we're at because you can listen to this without worrying
Speaker 3: the episode three will be spoiled for you. That's what
Speaker 3: I will say. This is we are going to get
Speaker 3: that expansion Jason talked about, and oh boy, I can't
Speaker 3: wait to talk to you about that episode up next.
Speaker 1: Nerd Out.
Speaker 3: In today's nerd Out, why you tell us what you
Speaker 3: love and why, or as you have so kindly been
Speaker 3: doing recently, sharing a theory with us, Elizabeth pictures us
Speaker 3: a theory about a location from the upcoming Quantumnium movie,
Speaker 3: And I'm very glad Elizabeth sent this in because I
Speaker 3: know she has been very excited about this theory and Jason,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let you read it because I think this one.
Speaker 3: I think this is a very astute suggestion.
Speaker 1: I think so too. I think there's something to it. Morning,
Speaker 1: Rosie and Jason. Hello, Okay, So here it is. It
Speaker 1: starts with Quantumnia the media when they are in the
Speaker 1: quantum realm. She's talking about the shots from the trailer.
Speaker 1: It really reminded me of the TVA. You can pull
Speaker 1: both areas up and they aren't identical. But to me,
Speaker 1: it looks like the TVA is underground and the quantum
Speaker 1: realm is above ground. So here it is, the TVA
Speaker 1: and the quantum realm are the same place. Furthermore, there's
Speaker 1: a possibility the TVA was set up in the quantum
Speaker 1: realm to contain Kang, and that's why he needs so
Speaker 1: much help to escape. So from here you can open
Speaker 1: up the ideas like the is it the Illuminati who
Speaker 1: helped Doc and Kang? The possibilities are endless. Enjoy, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: I like this a lot. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: that there is something to it. I think that there's
Speaker 1: something to whatever it is that Loki unleashed. That was
Speaker 1: unleashed at the end of Loki. It created this branch
Speaker 1: universe where Kang is free, quote unquote free, and it
Speaker 1: would not surprise me at all if, for instance, when okay,
Speaker 1: so when Loki comes back at the end of you know,
Speaker 1: the very stinger of the final episode of season one,
Speaker 1: and we see the statue of Kan. I bet you
Speaker 1: that takes place after Aunt Man in Quantumania.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I love that. That makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 3: And I will say I remember that. I think that
Speaker 3: this visual nod that Elizabeth is seeing is not unintentional,
Speaker 3: because do you remember when they went to the the
Speaker 3: well at the end of time. I'm like, where he
Speaker 3: who remains lives? Everyone was like, oh, this kind of
Speaker 3: looks like, you know what we were, the quantum realm,
Speaker 3: the microverse. It looks like it could be in there,
Speaker 3: So I think there's a definite connection. I also think
Speaker 3: it would make sense that if Kang established the TVA
Speaker 3: in you know, the timeline as we know it, that
Speaker 3: one version of Kang. That would mean that any Kang
Speaker 3: would have the knowledge to establish the TVA, or maybe
Speaker 3: one of the Kangs who is trying to stop Kang
Speaker 3: the conqueror we're guessing who's in the who's in the
Speaker 3: quantum realm, could have established a version in the TVA.
Speaker 3: I love your read that that Loki season two takes
Speaker 3: place after and that's what we're seeing because I want
Speaker 3: Kang to get out. I want to see every Kang.
Speaker 3: I want to know where he is. And we just
Speaker 3: have to say here that I'm very happy to see
Speaker 3: people finally saying what I've been saying all along, that
Speaker 3: the ten rings are obviously in that man and the
Speaker 3: Quantumnia trailer that looks like that kind of thing. And also,
Speaker 3: can I just say, I know no one else is
Speaker 3: saying this, but I am saying it, and please uh
Speaker 3: Fastos obviously made the ten rings in Eternals. We saw it.
Speaker 3: It's the same circle, like there is a connection between
Speaker 3: these different artifacts, and we're going to find out it's
Speaker 3: only a couple of weeks now. I can't believe it,
Speaker 3: just a few weeks. Thank you, Elizabeth. Yes, yeah, if
Speaker 3: you have theories or passions that you want to share,
Speaker 3: and we know you do, you can always hit us
Speaker 3: up at x ray at crooked dot com instructions in
Speaker 3: the show notes and then we'll read them out and
Speaker 3: talk about them, especially you know, we love to hear
Speaker 3: a theory, so yeah, so send them over.
Speaker 1: All right, that's it for our show today. Stay tuned
Speaker 1: for a continuing coverage of the Last of Us. The
Speaker 1: show and the Game, and of course we're going to
Speaker 1: check in on The Bad Batch and other shows as
Speaker 1: they pop up. Rosie plugs, plugs, plugs, plug plug, plug, plugs,
Speaker 1: what do you have to plug?
Speaker 3: You can find me on letterbox and Instagram. Rosie Marx
Speaker 3: m R. I've been writing about Last of Us at IGN.
Speaker 3: I will have some really cool man Quantumania stuff coming out,
Speaker 3: and obviously you can hear me here because this is
Speaker 3: really now the home of most of my theories and
Speaker 3: my outrageous tinfoil off the hat thoughts. So yeah, just
Speaker 3: check us out every Wednesday and Friday wob double vision
Speaker 3: so lucky.
Speaker 1: Catch the next episode on Wednesday, February first for more
Speaker 1: of the Last of Us on HBO and remember we're
Speaker 1: bringing you to two two two two episodes a week.
Speaker 1: That's twice the everything else. Don't miss it Wednesday and
Speaker 1: Friday in your podcast feed.
Speaker 3: And if you want to read a transcript of the show,
Speaker 3: they're posted beneath the show notes on the Crooked website
Speaker 3: for each episode within forty eight hours of release. And
Speaker 3: do not forget subscribe on YouTube, where you can now
Speaker 3: watch four episodes of the show, including us in the
Speaker 3: Crooked studio together ir Olt. Please follow X i'llb pot
Speaker 3: on Twitter and join our discord. Lots of you have
Speaker 3: been joining. It's great, tons of amazing people in that bands.
Speaker 3: It's all kinds of media, all kinds of cool spaces
Speaker 3: in that to hang out, and me and Jason are
Speaker 3: in that. And if you're loving the Lost of Us,
Speaker 3: we've been doing some really fun watcher loves.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the discord. In our discord, we're giving away
Speaker 1: a really cool Last of Us Activation pack. It is
Speaker 1: a Last of Us branded car Heart backpack containing a
Speaker 1: Last of Us car Heart jacket, much les, which is
Speaker 1: really where it's really cool, a little toolkit so that
Speaker 1: you can craft your items and weapons, a poster, a
Speaker 1: QR code that allows you access to unique the Last
Speaker 1: of Us social media filters, and more stuff in there.
Speaker 1: It's really cool. Join our discord and head over to
Speaker 1: the giveaways channel to learn more and to sign up,
Speaker 1: and we'll be doing a random draw next week in
Speaker 1: our discord to see who will receive that really cool
Speaker 1: Last of Us Activation pack. Five star reviews, five star ratings,
Speaker 1: five five five five. We gotta have them, we need them,
Speaker 1: we love them. You gotta give them to us. Here's
Speaker 1: the one Deliver you Gotta do it. Here's the one
Speaker 1: from Greenman. Always upbeaten fun, thank You, thank you. This
Speaker 1: podcast is always upbeaten fund. The point of view is
Speaker 1: always why you should like a movie, TV show, comic,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and never tear it down. The hosts and
Speaker 1: guests heaven encyclopedic knowledge of geekdom, and it is fantastic
Speaker 1: to listen to.
Speaker 2: Thank You, green Man, Thank You.
Speaker 3: That's definitely a x ray.
Speaker 1: Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced
Speaker 1: by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced by myself and Sandy Gerhard are editing and sound
Speaker 1: designers by Vascilli's Photopoulos. Dilon Villanueva and Matt De Group
Speaker 1: provide video production support. Alex Reller for Handle Social Media.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Brian Vasquez for our theme music. See you
Speaker 1: next time.