The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6 Review

[00:00:00] This is The Last of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're talking about The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 6, The Price. I need you to not turn around. No. You can't do this to me. Joel. If you have last words for her, I'll pass them along. Last words for her? No, no, I need her last words! For me!

[00:00:32] I'm dying! I'm terrified! I don't need a view. I need Gail to see her face, please. Please let that be the last thing I see.

[00:01:01] If you love someone, you can always see their face. Welcome back, fellow survivors, to The Last of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries.

[00:01:28] We're talking about the penultimate episode of Season 2, Episode 6, The Price. I am one of your hosts, Derek. Hello there, fellow survivors. I am your other host, John. Yes, welcome to The Price is Right. Well, yes, or the second Last of Us as the penultimate episode of the second season of the show. Indeed. Did you hear Craig Mousen, apparently this week, has said that they can't complete the story in three seasons,

[00:01:56] that they have to have a fourth season to complete the story? Interesting. Very interesting. I know they'd always said that they'd spread the second game over at least two seasons, but I didn't imagine it was going to be over three seasons. Yeah, no, I mean, I guess structurally, complexity maybe around it, that there is a need for three seasons for the second game. And it's just interesting that, I guess in that sense,

[00:02:26] the first season is possibly a little simpler in terms of its story arc. And that's really focused on two characters in the first game, and they expanded on that a lot to fill out the first season, episodes with characters that didn't appear in the game at all. And in the second season, we're seeing a lot of expansion already happening. So I think they could easily expand it out to three seasons. Yeah, I mean, as long as the quality remains as it is now,

[00:02:55] I'm all for a fourth season of The Last of Us, to be honest. Because, you know, I guess as we get into our spoiler-filled discussion, well, I really, really enjoyed this episode. This was fabulous, wasn't it? A real quality, character-driven, tough old emotional stuff here. Yeah, absolutely. You know, going from the good times to, yeah, happy times,

[00:03:24] to growing pains, you know, to that divergence, and the bit of sweetness of what happens on New Year's Eve. So, yeah, can't wait to get into our spoiler-filled discussion, fellow survivors. Absolutely. But before we do, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, please pop on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com, where you can subscribe on any immune or infected podcast player of your choice. We do want to hear your thoughts as we get to the final episode of the season. Please email us into feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com,

[00:03:54] or pop on over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries. And a reminder, the second season of our World's End Pub Quiz is continuing. We have another question coming up later on in this episode. That'll be the 6th of 7th. And at the end of the season, email us in with the correct answers to all seven questions. And you could be able to chance of getting your hands on The Last of Us, part two for PlayStation or for PC, or a 50 euro Amazon voucher for the country of your choice.

[00:04:20] Yes. So, fellow survivors, and of course, fellow quizzers, get those answers coming in after the seventh episode to be in with a chance for those goodies. But I think with that, Derek, what are some of the episode details of The Last of Us, episode six of season two, The Price? Well, of course, it's based on the 2020 PlayStation game,

[00:04:46] The Last of Us, part two by Neil Druckmann and Hayley Wigger-Gross from game publisher Naughty Dog. The show is written and executive produced by Craig Mason and Neil Druckmann. And this episode was written for television by Craig Mason, Neil Druckmann and Hayley Gross, two of the game writers on board here for this penultimate episode as well. So, along with Craig Mason, who's written all the episodes so far this season. So, a really important episode as it spans so much time in between the end of the first game and the start of season two, the start of the game as well.

[00:05:16] Yes, it's a really interesting choice, isn't it, actually, to bring the original creators of the game and the writers of that game into these areas where it's building on the game. Exactly. So, a really good choice there. It's almost, you know, there's so much that's actually translated from the game directly that it's almost like if you left off one of their writing credits on this, it wouldn't be right because they wrote exactly the scenes, exactly the lines in the game itself. So, it makes sense to have them on board to tool them into the show itself as well.

[00:05:46] So, yeah. And this episode is directed by Neil Druckmann. He wasn't going to come back and direct an episode for the second season of The Last of Us, but felt this would be the episode that he would direct, if he's going to direct any, this episode with all about Joel and Ellie, really. So, great to have him directing this one. Yeah, really good stuff. Yeah. So, John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 6, The Price? Sure.

[00:06:12] Soon after moving into Jackson, Joel tries to make Ellie's 15th birthday special as he gives her a hand-restored guitar and a vanilla birthday cake for Eli. But after recovering from attempting to burn the bite mark from her arm, Ellie asks Joel to sing to her, agreeing that he doesn't suck. A year later, while Ellie's mind is firmly on getting out to patrol around Jackson, Joel insists that she take it slowly, trains with Jesse and learns the ropes

[00:06:41] as he surprises her with a visit to a museum to fulfil her dream of going to space. But after her amazing birthday, Ellie still has something on her mind. Another year on, and Ellie is growing up faster than Joel would like. She's smoking weed, kissing girls and getting a tattoo to cover her burned arm. But Joel just wanted her to stay the same. He eventually concedes that Ellie needs her own space and arranges for her to move out to the garage.

[00:07:11] By the time of her 19th birthday, Ellie wants to confront Joel about what really happened at Salt Lake City all those years ago. But when Joel takes her on her first patrol, she forgets all about it, as her reconnaissance of the woodland finds only a pair of amorous squirrels. After the uneventful start to the patrol, Joel is sent as an emergency backup for Adam and Eugene, who have gotten into trouble with some infected. Ellie insists on going with Joel,

[00:07:40] but when they arrive, Adam is already dead and Eugene has been bitten. Eugene just wants to see his wife Gail one last time before he dies. Ellie has Joel promise he'll keep Eugene alive while she goes to retrieve their horses. But despite this, Joel executes the infected man. An upset and betrayed Ellie realises this isn't the first time Joel has lied to her

[00:08:06] and tells Gail what Joel really did to her husband before separating herself from him. Nine months later, after Joel tries to defend her at the New Year's Eve dance, Ellie finally confronts Joel and learns all about Salt Lake City and that he did what he did because he loves her. She doesn't know if she can forgive him, but now that she knows the truth, she would like to try. But this is the last conversation the two will have,

[00:08:34] as within 24 hours, Joel will be dead, murdered at the hands of Abby. Back in present-day Seattle, following her brutal torture of Nora, Ellie returns to the theatre where Jesse and Dina are waiting for her. Excellent, excellent. What did you think of the structure of this one, John, before we get into our major points from the episode? What did you think of this idea of jumping from one march to another march every year to celebrate Ellie's birthday?

[00:09:00] I just think it's a really, really nice way of structuring it for a start. Like, I'm all kind of... I'm all about the structure of things in a lot of cases because I think you can really... It forms the basis of a book, of a TV show, of a series, however you play around with it. And I just think it's a really important moment in the life of Ellie,

[00:09:29] but also the life of Joel with the fact that Ellie is this surrogate daughter. So it puts an emphasis. You know, either if things are going good, things are great on a birthday. If there's strains, it gets potentially a little bit more awkward and so on. And I do like the way it kind of evolves the first birthday, you know, when she's 15, that it's good times,

[00:09:55] all the way through to where really you get this gradual sort of growing pains and divergence as she becomes more independent, but also wants to understand this niggle that is playing in her mind about Salt Lake City. And that strain is what blows up the birthday, in effect. Yeah, yeah. So... And there's a couple of things I really like about it as well.

[00:10:23] You know, we're talking about the period of time from when Ellie and Joel move into Jackson and they have their own home together. This is the first time they're really a family. They're not on their mission anymore. They've settled down and they've got their roots here. So every year we're checking in with them. I think that's a great part of the structure, as you say. But the other thing I really like is that on every single situation, Joel has an intent that he's coming to, to, you know, celebrate her birthday, to do something special for Ellie. And he's missing something going on in Ellie's life.

[00:10:52] She's focused on something else every single year. And only occasionally does he realize what she's focused on when he's trying to just celebrate her birthday and have time with her as a kid. And she's focused on other things outside of it, which we'll get to as we go through each of the years. But yeah, really, really great idea. And again, this is something very similar to how it plays out in the game as well. These years go by as you play through this time with Joel. It's great to have Pedro Pascal back. Definitely, definitely.

[00:11:20] After we lost Joel earlier on in the season. There's some really amazing emotional scenes here and double acts between Joel and Ellie. For me, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey here together are just a tour de force. And I mean, we'll come to it as we go through each of the moments. But it's just really, really superbly done, I think. You're totally right with that, John. Let's get into our moments from the episode.

[00:11:49] Let's start out with the flashback sequence for this episode. I'm almost convinced now that that sequence at the start of last week's episode is supposed to be a flashback episode because every single episode has had a flashback at the start of it this season. Unlike last season, everything has gone back a few years. So here in this flashback sequence, we get some time back in 1983 in Austin, Texas with the young brothers, Tommy and Joel. Tommy once again in trouble.

[00:12:17] It just reminds me that in that first episode of The Last of Us Season 1, how it opens is Tommy's in prison and Joel has to go and help him out. Here we are in Season 2, Episode 6, the penultimate episode of Season 2, and we've got Tommy getting himself into trouble once again and Joel being the one that has to save him. He's going to take the blame for it because apparently their father is very violent and is going to take the belt out on Tommy and Tommy doesn't want to get punished for the thing he actually did. So Joel's going to take the punishment for him.

[00:12:45] He's saying to him, I'll explain it to him. You go into the room when Dad gets home. I'll sort it out. And that leads to a really interesting conversation with Joel and his dad. Yeah, no, I really, really enjoyed the scene. And I think I really enjoyed it because of the dynamic of the conversation about someone realizing where and how he was brought up and realizing that he needs to sort of do something better

[00:13:13] than what his father had done or what Tommy and Joel's grandfather had done to him. Yeah. Not that he's perfect, not that he is saying, I'm not doing, I'm not going to sort of discipline my child with a belt or a slipper or a smack or whatever it is, but not to the point where, as he says, he has a broken jaw. That's not sort of a disciplining.

[00:13:42] That is a full-on punch that he describes that his grandfather gave to him that broke his jaw. It was wired shut for, what, two months? And this is the story he tells. And he goes, maybe I go too far, but I don't know. I don't know, but I'm doing a bit better than my father did. And when it's your turn, I hope you do a little bit better than me.

[00:14:10] It's just that tiny increment that he talks about. That's probably what's so frustrating and what works so well in the conversation. He's trying to justify the fact that his kids are terrified of doing anything wrong because they'll get beaten by him. And that's what makes it such a difficult conversation. Joel's dad here is saying, look, I don't always get it right, but at least I'm a little better than my father. I never broke your arm. I never broke your face. I never broke your jaw. So I'm doing a little better. And I know it might not always be right, but Joel's response to him going, but you know what it's like.

[00:14:40] You understand what it's like. How can you do this to us if you know what we're going through? And he's going, but you didn't go through what I went through back then. Everybody knew for two months when my jaw was wired shut that the reason that was wired shut was because I stole some candy and my father broke my jaw. You'll never experience that. So I'm a little better than my dad was and hopefully you'll be a little better than I am. And it's kind of, it's not taking responsibility, but it's also saying, at least I'm not as bad as what I had to put up with. It's that attitude of, well, I'm better,

[00:15:09] I'm slightly better than the previous generation, but not learning enough that I'm a great dad. You know? I mean, yeah, it's, I just like the back and forth because I do think, you know, we kind of look going, we want it to be perfect. We want it done now. But I think a lot of things in life are incremental. I'm not saying that his dad is right to have that view, but if it gets to Joel being the good father, where he doesn't hit, that's,

[00:15:39] that incrementality, you know, sometimes just passes through the system and it's that collective effort of little increments. It is, you know, as much as laws being passed or more widespread societal view, but that's ultimately what leads to it, is that little by little, the idea that violence is a good means of disciplining children and what level that is,

[00:16:09] gets reduced. And I think, you know, so in a sense his father's, he's wrong, but there's an element of right in him that's coming out as well. And I really like that because I do think it's a really complex story that is often overlooked, you know, in these tales. It's just that he's bad. I mean, the interesting thing is he doesn't hit them in this case. He's had that conversation. So maybe after that, it changes.

[00:16:37] And I think the other side of this that's really interesting is that on the flip side is it, the scene is so incredibly tense. Like I think when he gets up to go for the beers in the fridge, I just thought, I thought it was going to clip him, hit him. all the time, the tension that really plays through with this as to whether he's going to beat Tommy. The other side of it is, I guess, being in the police. You know,

[00:17:07] that side of it is an interesting dynamic in this situation. Yeah. In that, he does ask, what have you done? He does give them the opportunity to say the truth. And he lies and he knows that. So I mean, the other side of it is, like, I guess, is that element as well. You know, I've spoken to the colleagues that picked up the guy that you hit and I've spoken to him. Yeah. Don't treat me like a fool. Exactly.

[00:17:36] And I'm not coming in here half-baked around, you know, what's happened. I know what's happened. I want you to tell me the truth. And it's interesting and I think this whole point here and this flashback, it resonates to, I guess, what ultimately is our final point of this podcast around the nine months later, you know, around the incremental change, but also the fact that you have

[00:18:08] Joel telling the truth rather, but it's being forced out of him again, this time by Ellie, not necessarily his father. Well, exactly. Exactly. I suppose in a more simplistic way, it really resonates with everything that Joel's gone through. He's someone that has lied multiple times and will continue to lie. That's kind of something that's been built into his character all the way from back when he was a kid. Even though his father is a police officer, knew what happened, he still lied to his face to him. And so that's something that continued on

[00:18:37] for the rest of his life until he eventually changes his mind and finally tells the truth, which we will get through later on. But what a great performance here from Tony Dalton who plays his father. This is the second time Tony Dalton. He was in Daredevil Born Again playing the Swordsmaster once again. He played that role in Marvel's Hawkeye as well. So seeing him twice this year in two very different roles is really interesting. But what great casting. He feels like he could be the father of Pedro Pascal. Definitely.

[00:19:07] I mean, it's just so well done. I found it fascinating and I think the fact that it links to that final emotional moment as well is just, you know, a point of genius really for me. I really like that book ending of this episode with this flashback and then, you know, in a sense, the flashback to New Year's Eve that we saw at the start of this second season. But I do, I think it's a real fascinating

[00:19:37] dynamic around family dynamics, around the use of, you know, physical disciplining around the idea of lying, telling the truth as opposed to trying to cover it up and just the difficult generational struggles that, I guess, parents, families can have. You know, and again, we see that, you know,

[00:20:06] around the 19th birthday point that we'll come to. You know, the difficulties there for Joel. Exactly. So it's just really great opening and it weirdly sets up, you know, other aspects throughout this journey through the birthdays. Yeah. Yeah. And something that we didn't see in the game, we never saw any kind of flashbacks to the youth of Joel. We never saw any information about what he was like when he was a kid or about his father. So, and you added peace for the show here which we liked as a flashback.

[00:20:36] I think the other quick interesting thing before we go on to our next point is that Joel is back in the opening credits. Yes, he is. So there are two fun guys representing Ellie and Joel there. Yeah, I suspect that's the last time we're going to see that in the opening credits. I think so. I think from now on it'll just be the one. But yes, great to see that back just for this episode as it's all about Joel and Ellie's relationship. Let's go on to our point number one then since we had a flashback point there.

[00:21:06] It's got to point number one which is Ellie's 15th birthday. So, as I mentioned earlier on this is just a couple of months I think two months after they moved into Jackson Hole. It starts out with Joel going to the bar. Seth, the bar owner who plays a pivotal role towards the end of the story. But he's behind the bar and he's going to be making a birthday cake for Ellie in exchange for some Lego that Joel's been able to source. Just like that little moment when Joel says to him where he found it

[00:21:35] and Seth says I wasn't able to find it I checked all those houses before and he goes yeah, but I'm a smuggler I know exactly where people put stuff and you're a whatever you are and Seth goes well, I was a police officer before a bartender. It's like, you know, a little bit of a cops and robbers kind of thing between the two of them there maybe. Yeah, no, absolutely. Definitely. It was a great little vibe actually to see Seth here. I like the fact that as well he goes oh, I need something else from you

[00:22:03] you've got a lot of that because he also gets a bone which he uses then to craft this new string bridge for the guitar and I really enjoyed this you know, one of our questions was about some of the the different animals that had been carved from wood by Joel so here we see Joel in action crafting this new string bridge for the the guitar from the bone

[00:22:32] cleaning up the guitar as well as personalizing the guitar with the carving of a moth into into the arm of the guitar so I just I thought this was really nicely done and then you have it kind of being interrupted with Ellie coming in in pain because she's burnt her arms because again nice little nod backwards and she just wants to wear short sleeves again

[00:23:02] you know it's you know these scenes are so good you can see the love of Joel here where he's refurbishing the guitar all of the time he's putting into it he wouldn't do that for anybody else we know Joel Miller is not a person that does anything for anybody else at all really by Ellie and here he is finally when they've settled down he's putting in all of this work for this beautiful birthday gift for her I love that

[00:23:32] you know the fact they just took some time to watch him refurbish the guitar I think it was a beautiful choice absolutely loved watching it and then yeah when Tommy comes back in with Ellie in her burnt arm I love that she's completely out of it she's been put on painkillers pain meds to take care of the pain that she's put herself through but the way she describes it where she was standing over a hot pot and then kind of just made this decision and then just did it you know how did this happen well I said I was going to do it and then I did it that's basically

[00:24:02] how it happened smells like yes and the reason she's doing it is because for the entirety of her life since she got bitten at 13 years old she's had to cover up her arm in case somebody saw this bite mark and killed her because instantly you would think if someone's bitten they're going to turn and no matter what they say to you they're usually dead before they get any words out at all so Ellie's gone through her entire life for the last two or three years having to hide this so that nobody questions her and now she's burning her arm to try and cover up that scar that she has

[00:24:31] that mark that she has yeah no absolutely I do like that it comes back a bit later where he says you know he understands why she did it in the end exactly so that was kind of nice little moment there as well and this is what I meant back at the start of this this continues throughout each of the years Ellie is focused on something else and Joel's not aware of it Joel and herself haven't sat down to talk about how she feels with the bite in her arm she's just gone and done it without talking to him so in this year this was

[00:25:01] what she was focused on he was focused on getting a beautiful guitar and not a great birthday cake but a birthday cake all the same well I love I mean the birthday cake's great it's happy 15th birthday Eli I love that they say I hope Seth bakes better than he spells as he goes to get a knife but Ellie's just dug into the cake straight off with her hands and she's like oh he does and he gets the guitar for her as well it's a little

[00:25:31] reference her digging into the cake is a little reference to when they first went to Jackson Hole and she was literally throwing all the food into her mouth not using any utensils at all and they were saying she just ate like a wildling basically and here she is two months later still going in with her hands for food rather than waiting for a knife and fork I mean so and then she gets her guitar the promise of lessons but I have to say I do like this kind of neck sequence for a number of reasons where she asks Joel

[00:26:00] for a tune because I like his awkwardness where it's like he kind of he's the person that does it privately more than anything else he might do a bit of around the campfire action with it but the guitar is this personal instrument for him to go through the songs that he likes but I just I'm there then going I know she's you know as he reels off Pearl Jam's future days and she goes that

[00:26:30] didn't suck it was lovely absolutely but I was just there but why not happy birthday yeah it's her birthday and whilst it didn't suck it's quite the party kill like that so I know it's a beautiful moment it is it is I'm not saying it's not and I love the scene but the sort of my mischievous side of myself was like why don't you just do happy birthday I know you know and then I was like well we're gonna

[00:26:59] party after that gee might don't burn my other arm after that no I think it's an absolutely beautiful song and it is all about the lyrics it's all about what what's in Joel's heart that he's singing through his voice and singing through the guitar you know we I can't remember whether we know from the game or whether we know from the show that Joel had said that what he'd always wanted to do with his life was to become a singer he wanted to be in a band he wanted to be a singer he knows how to play guitar really well so that's

[00:27:29] always been something he was interested in and this song is about him being able to see the future days together just the two of them now that they're settled down have their own home he's singing this song to her about the fact that he can see a future together wasn't that long ago that Joel was burning the body of a child absolutely come into town he'd lost all connection with humanity he then lost everybody that he loved and the only person left with him was Ellie and then he killed for her so now he's settled in a town

[00:27:58] with a house and can see the future days with her I think it's a beautiful moment where he's just channeling that love directly out through the guitar with Ellie it's beautiful yeah it's really interesting to say that you know the fixation is on Ellie because in the town is his brother and it kind of plays to that conversation that he has with Tommy's wife a bit later on which we don't see originally in season one so that you know this is another perspective point of view during that time at

[00:28:28] the dance on New Year's Eve where she's kind of trying to remind him that you're our family as well yeah exactly you know we're family well that bit was closing out the conversation that Maria had with him in episode one of maybe I misspoke I didn't mean to say something bad we will always be here if you need us

[00:28:58] and at that point she's comforting because of the separation from Ellie as well at that stage but it is great to have those birthday John yeah again just really good and I mean certainly the trip

[00:29:28] to the museum the dinosaur statue and the whole space capsule all straight out of the game they do stumble upon this in the games well it's exactly the same it's Joel brings her here Joel has kept this a secret from her found it and decided these are things that he

[00:30:21] in but equally there is a memory triggered in this moment as well for Ellie that is then effectively going to bring them down the slope into the trough from this high of her 16th birthday which is really good I really just like the thing where he says do you want to go into space and gets into that opens up the

[00:30:51] hatch and goes you going to need a helmet pick one because when he went and picked up the rock I was like what's he doing but it's to smash the glass so she can pick one so

[00:31:22] I and like in and in a sense this almost idea of childlike imagination of of um of what it's like to pretend to be going

[00:31:48] into space except she's in a real rock rocket capsule and you you've got the the audio of of nasa's countdown and it's just really really um so well um kind of just done i mean i i was kind of beaming thinking this is such a cool present it would be great um you know to to get something like that hint hint derrick um it just feels so real and like it reminds me of my

[00:32:18] childhood memories of you know the exploration of space that you kind of were told about through nasa and all that so it was really really good absolutely and again this is just another build on joel's love for ellie you know this is another year on they spent another year living together and we we learned in season one about ellie's love for space she loves comic books that are set in space that's the thing that she collected all the time um we know that she loves

[00:32:44] sally ride that's the person that she that that she loves most and sally ride was an astronaut so joel's built out a picture of her over the course of this year of all the things she absolutely loves and is taking her to this place which has all of those things and making it really special even though it's very unlikely that humans in this world will ever get back to go to space again he wants to give her this kind of experience i think is just fabulously put on screen you know there's a the balance between the two things as well in the background ellie's talking to him

[00:33:14] about why can't she get out on patrol um she's really strong she's able to fight like she was when the two of them were out on their own on her 16th birthday she's asking joel for the present of being allowed to go out on patrol with a gun and go out and take care of infected and joel's able to clamp all that back down and put her into her special place where she's able to use her imagination to go out into space so that's so cool that he's able to do that and get and get her back to

[00:33:41] that childhood wonder exactly as you say john and that's really cool yeah i do like the awkward conversation as well as they go there you know um where joel thinks that jesse and ellie are an item and they've got something going for one another and he says what about the birds and the bees and you mean what the dicks and vaginas um it's just so so good he's like what the f um it's just that

[00:34:09] stumble and that turnaround that look that he gives her when he hears that coming out of her mouth yeah i love that he says you know i've seen the way you look at jesse i know there's something between the two of you i can tell these things and ellie just kind of looks at him going you have no idea what you're talking about yeah i promise you i won't get pregnant if you allow me to train with jesse because she knows exactly who she is she knows she's a lesbian she knows she has no interest in jesse at all and she knows that uh that joel can't see a thing even though he's pretending that

[00:34:36] he can't and that's another point you know that part of her life it's just cloudy for joel yeah she's never talked about it yeah she's never talked about the death of death of riley and the fact that she had to kill her first girlfriend the first person that she kissed um that she had to kill her she's never told joel that so while he might be getting to know her really well and they are really really close in this in in these moments there are bits that are separating them and you mentioned it already john as they go home uh from this wonderful trip to the museum um ellie's

[00:35:06] beaming she's really delighted by herself but then she sees fireflies over to over to her left and suddenly stops and goes very quiet and joel does notice it but she doesn't say anything about it but it is that moment of seeing fireflies and remembering a little bit what happened in salt lake city to the fireflies and not knowing what happened i suppose absolutely um and it's a great little sort of pause there as she yeah that that kind of moment is triggered yeah um with seeing the fireflies so

[00:35:35] yeah really good should we get on to um the 17th birthday yeah absolutely let's get on to another year on john yes it's point three and it's another year later on ellie's 17th birthday and i think what's interesting here is we have this growing pain situation and ultimately where you have joel rocking

[00:35:58] back to their house with a cake like he had done two years previously you know um but stumbling into something very very different and it's this growing pains this idea for independence um and sort of moving apart because you're growing up you have your own ideas your own interests and so on or you're doing

[00:36:25] your own thing ultimately and here i love the fact that um you know in the the shock of it all that joel is kind of like you did all the teenage things at once and you know drugs tattoo experimenting with girls sex you know all this all happening at once and it's kind of like the tsunami has rocked his

[00:36:49] world that it's not this sweet innocent ellie yeah that reminds him of the daughter that he's lost because she is frozen in time in his memory at that age yeah ellie is dynamic because she's getting older and older and again i think it's to the point of the birthday motif it's like this is no longer

[00:37:11] sarah yeah um from season one yeah um but that's what's frozen in the memory of what sarah was and it's really interesting that you bring sarah up because in that first episode it was joel's birth then he was supposed to be taking time off he said he would definitely be home at a certain time to be with sarah to bring bring home cake with him that was his job he never brought home the cake to her so here he is taking time off work the reason why ellie is disturbed at this moment is because

[00:37:41] he's supposed to be out on patrol and he skipped patrol to have a surprise birthday with uh with ellie yeah i absolutely love this fight um because it's probably the fight that i had with my parents around this age as well uh where the expectation of joel is so much different to ellie's actual life you know the fact that he even says to her you're experimenting with girls again we know ellie's long since known who she is she knows she's a lesbian she has had girlfriends before

[00:38:06] she's not experimenting she's fooling around just like anybody else would be just happens to be with a person of the same sex um so that's the instant pushback and then you have that oh that phrase the parents around the world say you're living under my roof um this is my house these are my rules and ellie's pushback and that is fantastic in this situation where it's like no it's not it's our house they gave us this house you've done nothing for it both of us have an equal right to to set the

[00:38:35] rules in this place and there's a really interesting sort of way an attack it's like you know we were given this um by the community and this is not yours and this is ours and you've done nothing you didn't you know never bought this and so on it's also as well you know immediately after cas has left

[00:38:58] and all that and she goes you know she runs through i'm sorry i did that except i'm not like you want me to say that but i'm not sorry for this so you've got to change your um viewpoint here as to why you're angry and what you will permit exactly now ellie of course is pushing boundaries there are things that that of course joe should be pretty angry about her smoking weed in the house you know that's probably not

[00:39:24] probably not something that he's going to put up with anyway but they do need to work together and again this is something really interesting when they were on the road together and it was ellie and joel side by side there were moments that they became partners where they worked together and they were um watching each other's backs the whole time they were on the road like remember back in season one ellie had to save joel's life joel wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for ellie she had that responsibility of of taking care of him until he got well again and here she is being treated like a child when

[00:39:53] she feels she should be able to be the partner of joel uh at this stage the children should be treated that conversation uh sort of explicitly stated uh later on um you know when joel um goes to rescue eugene so it's it's a really good moment but you know as a result of all this ellie you know sees that natural progression well it's time for me to get a place of my own which because the garage is

[00:40:20] so bloody huge it can be the garage i love that she tries to move out in the middle of the night yeah and it's pouring down as well yeah exactly they'll kind of go right okay just get the mattress inside there's no point in going outside that there's no heating out there it's raining outside so it's just the absolute frustration of ellie thinking that this person is is trying to control everything that she does she's trying to push back against it but they do have a conversation and then joel kind of realizes maybe i should give her her own space maybe i should set up the garage so

[00:40:47] that she can move out there yeah and i i just like think you know is this the little bit better than me element you know where he does sort of just allow her that space you know that's what he permits i know in the first episode there is that talk that well i did that and you know maybe it was too much too soon but in this moment you know he does through that conversation go yes maybe you do need but let

[00:41:17] me fix that up you know so yeah you've got water heat light because at the moment it doesn't um so i i do kind of like that that conversation yeah and the other thing that comes out over this is that the tattoo that cat is drawing on her is of a moth yeah and he gradually gets the meaning of that moth um with the conversation with gail which again they're the psych psychologist which is just

[00:41:43] superb it absolutely yes like catherine o'hara is just so fantastic and i wonder how long she spent on set because she gets you know a moment here and there each episode you know she gets a couple of minutes here and there but i love how they're up in you know i love that in last episode we had tommy or the episode before we had tommy walking up to her while she was at the baseball game and sitting down beside her having a beer getting some psychotherapy from her uh here we have her

[00:42:08] reading her book in the coffee shop and joel walks up to her going um do you know anything about moths about you know dream theory about moths is it you know is it about rebirth is it about moving on and changing it's like no no no if you believe in that crap um like the stupider members of of our of my kind of uh medical profession yeah if you believe in that kind of crap well then moth means

[00:42:30] death um so yeah but i like that there is the confusion here so um his kind of understanding dreams 101 is that it's actually um a symbol of change metamorphosis and growth um and she's like well no that's a butterfly yeah a moth um is a symbol of death yeah of course if you believe in that

[00:42:57] shit effectively yeah so i i like that i do also like their initial sort of introduction there in the coffee shop where he comes up to her straight out the blue and she's like do i have a doctor in sign uh around my neck um yeah like so really good but ultimately what he learns here then you know it's a darker meaning than what he thought it was yeah um for him it is about death that she

[00:43:25] you know uh not growth and change yeah absolutely and um if you saw the stuff that ellie's packing up um some of her drawings when she's packing them up in her room um one of the drawings that she has or one of the pages of drawings of moths written on that is you have a greater purpose um you know and that's something that plays out uh later on when she has her conversation with joel you know she believes that she could have had a greater purpose uh maybe she should have died at some point when she

[00:43:54] got bitten and back in the past so what's her greater purpose is kind of the thing she's struggling with and i guess a lot of people struggle with that during their teenage years as well you know what is my purpose what am what am i here for uh as well so that's what that's what ellie's going through yeah absolutely and let's get on to our fourth point and two years later this time yes we have ellie's 19th birthday yeah it seems like that move out of the garage has helped ellie and joel's

[00:44:21] relationship she has her own space now she's not seeing as much as she was in the past really um but it does open here with ellie thinking about salt lake city once again this is now five years on um from salt lake city yeah absolutely like she wants to understand it and she she's writing down her thoughts she's writing out the questions that she's wanting to understand um from that moment in

[00:44:49] salt lake city yeah and which in that moment is interrupted by joel knocking on the door for this time on her 19th birthday she has taken this advice of patience and so on and and training um to go on their first patrol together yes i do like the moment those two on the road in a sense out on their own yeah and he asks her if they can do more stuff like this because it's like

[00:45:18] before you know yeah it's almost like a nostalgia yeah absolutely to where they were sort of on the road fighting for their life uh day in day out and that camaraderie that happens as a result of that and that by becoming sedentary now he's that divergence that drifting apart he feels that possibly more

[00:45:43] acutely than um than ellie so yeah yeah and i kind of get in the writing itself as well that you know it's not explicitly said but we've said it it's been three years since ellie asked to go out on patrol yeah and she's not been allowed by joel she's been prevented from going out on patrol yet five years ago she was his partner right there on the road yeah two of them side by side

[00:46:10] two of them had each other's backs two of them protecting each other on the road and he's there going oh wouldn't it be great if we could do this more often and ellie's probably going but i've wanted to do this the whole time and now you're telling me it's okay yeah because you're getting old and because you've been sitting at home on your own or you've been going out on uh on patrol with other people that you don't like and now you're allowing me to come out here so she is probably going yes finally i'm allowed to go out and patrol she's ignoring all of his commands like

[00:46:36] he's basically brought her on this this simple loop out of the town and back in again even though she's faced off against you know sometimes hundreds of infected before but he's taking on the simple road saying you know get your binoculars out and look over there and see if you can see uh all of the points check out your corners all that kind of stuff and ellie's just ignoring everything he's saying kind of going i know all this stuff you know she's very cocky of course as well which which always comes across but i do like that even though they don't say it ellie is probably

[00:47:04] going yeah i know this because we did it we did it five years ago i know it's nostalgic for you but it's not for me i should be should have been out here years ago when i asked you yeah no exactly it's just kind of so well done um and then you know you get that moment of um fisher you know that turning point where you have the radio message from hq talking about another

[00:47:32] patrol uh that's headed by adam and eugene in difficulty that have been pinned down uh from the infected and you have joel saying ellie you go back to jackson i'm going off to see if they're all right and she's like you know this is where she says no i'm not your kid joel i'm your effing partner we stick together or we don't do it it is that thing of in a sense as he's settled down he's

[00:48:02] infantilized her again to the memory of what xera was rather than as you say the fact that she was as much a part of them surviving to jack to get to jackson as he was yeah so it's just a really uh sort of that great hinge point really here yeah that happens with then um them coming across the

[00:48:24] decimation ultimately of eugene and adam's um patrol group yeah and i love how this is directed or they leave the horses behind the two of them are kind of creeping up going you know what does joel say you're my back and i'm yours um you know where the two of them are kind of going back to back effectively covering all the points as they get there and then out of the distance i think i wrote a 10 as adam exit stage left dragged by horse i presume that was adam face down as well

[00:48:52] it's being dragged behind it yeah i mean it's really eerie because it comes out of the mist it almost felt headless horseman type of thing yeah um and not only that it's just because you know when you're in a forest that that the the clicking certain certainly like where it's echoey so that that that sort of distant roaring of the infected that they hear as well is really eerie and it's just so well done

[00:49:19] it's so atmospheric in terms of you know you're not going to come across a great situation and whilst they don't really linger on any of the other dead bodies that much you know you do see them sort of within the margins of the shot and but you just see eugene up against the tree and when asked how you know he is has he been bit and he's like you know he he has yeah and and it leads to this moment

[00:49:47] where you know joel just goes straight into protocol in a sense yeah and it's like there are rules to obey if you've been bitten and like we saw with the big attack on jackson that means essentially you're going to get put down yeah and and that's what he is sort of ramping up to do here to eugene but ellie because of eugene's plea that he just wants to see gail again you know please just take me to the

[00:50:17] outskirts of jackson so i can see her and speak to her she's there going well put out your hands count to 10 slowly he's not shaking there's time yeah there is this moment and from from marlene uh back in fedra back in episode one of season one as well and that's what what ellie would have learned um back in those times you know what i mean so have yeah and and as a result of that she's like we can grant him his dying quiche if we're going to have to kill him we can let him see his wife for that

[00:50:46] one last time and you know yeah i think what i love about this as well is just that eugene knows his fate he absolutely knows he's going to die you know he's um when joel's questioning are there any more infected out there and he says other than me no i'm the only infected here i know i'm going to die um and then ellie goes off to get the horses uh making joel promise to her that he will keep

[00:51:11] eugene alive he will he has agreed to allow eugene to go back to the outskirts of jackson to meet up with gail uh so that he can say his goodbyes and ellie makes joel promise to her that he will keep him alive i mean they go through the plant and we'll tie him up and we'll bring him back behind the horses um and you have ellie just pleading with him you know uh for him to promise yeah and he does

[00:51:35] he tells her you know to go as you say get the horses and then you have this moment um you know where i i just love the fact that you know comes out from the forest into a clearing you've got this lake and the mountain vista and it's absolutely gorgeous and you have eugene saying oh it's so

[00:51:59] beautiful and then it's like oh yeah this is my final resting point in a place that it's beauty before the beast in effect of being um put down executed and but i i do like that you know part of this conversation is not just he wants to speak to gail for the the last time but he wants to hear

[00:52:23] what she has to say to him whilst he can still remember and comprehend it he wants the last thing to see to be the face of his wife and he wants to hear her final comforting words to him because he is terrified um this is the whole thing about everybody's story mattering you know the character here eugene is played by joey pantoliano a very well-known actress and so much so much stuff and the

[00:52:49] reason why you get someone with that much experience in there to play a role that's only on screen for a couple of minutes is because he adds an extra layer to the character that you wouldn't get from somebody else that you've never heard of before or you may not get let's say um here you've got eugene who has all the lived experience of being an older person with a wife where they've spent their entire lives together and it's in every margin of every word that he says that he just wants to see

[00:53:15] his wife's face one more time and get her comforting words for him it's just a beautiful moment and you can tell that joel's heart is breaking but he has to do it in his mind that is the protocol that's what he agreed to by being in jackson and if they'd gotten too close and gail had gotten bitten and then the infection had spread within jackson and many people had died it was all joel's fault that's the way he is

[00:53:39] he is to everybody else other than ellie he's uncompromising yeah and he's right to be risk adverse in this situation he is holding the line it's like yeah you hold the line outside of jackson and it's but it's just heartbreaking and that tension between and no these are the rules i'm really sorry

[00:54:04] and it is hurting joel but he has the hard heart of having done this plenty of times i mean as you say season one he was putting people who had been killed into the fire yeah you know so he is used to this kind of protocol yeah and since the fedra and in boston from the first season yeah absolutely absolutely

[00:54:30] one of the things i also loved about the staging of the scene is as the camera is looking from behind the trees we don't see joel shoot the shot kill eugene we do see eugene's body afterwards but we don't see him shoot the shot we don't even hear it we just see the birds flying up as he's obviously pulled the trigger yeah and then ellie arrives um learning that joel has gone against his promise and then they on the way back to jackson with um the body of of eugene behind the two horses just

[00:55:00] like joel's will be in a couple of months time um they go back and he's trying to explain to ellie well we're not going to tell gail exactly what happened we're going to tell her exactly what she needs to know and only that and he makes up a story yeah he makes up a story that he tells her that firstly her husband uh eugene was very brave uh that he chose to not put anybody in danger and that he killed himself um all three of those things loved her yeah and that was true though of course yeah no

[00:55:28] absolutely wished he could say goodbye to you in person he wasn't scared and everything to sort of buffer um gail from the reality of the death of her husband yeah you just have ellie coming straight out and contradicting everything that joel says um and saying he promised us both me and eugene you know

[00:55:55] that he would come back to see you and he shot him in the head you know and she mails to him you swore and this is the kickoff point this is you know it's that realization that the same expression the same kind of vibe or feel or gut feeling or whatever around joel promising something to be true uh or something

[00:56:24] that he would hold to be true keep true ends off not being true and he goes against it and that's the that ellie knows yeah that's the moment that ellie absolutely knows that what happened in salt lake city is completely different to what he swore to her actually happened all of the questions that she had at the start of this uh this day the 19th birthday all the questions she had she's right to have them because none of it was true and i think what's really like this whole thing is really really

[00:56:54] difficult to watch as well because you have gail hugging into joel because of what he says to her and then recoiling when you have ellie's sort of interjection and contradiction of everything joel still said it yep you know she slaps him it it goes back to that moment earlier in the season of her saying to him that she hates him yeah and the reason why exactly and even though you know

[00:57:19] with time not say that she's necessarily forgiven him but she knows that it was the protocol of jackson she does and what she's saying is if he had come back and done what eugene had said given him an opportunity to talk to his wife and then even if joel had shot eugene in front of gail when they came back to jackson i think gail would have been okay with that because she knows the protocol yeah but promising her husband that he'd bring her back and then shooting him in the head and promising ellie

[00:57:45] uh all those things are just wrong you know exactly her mind no i totally agree but it's it's interesting that ellie instantly flips on joel um she doesn't want anybody else to go through the questioning that she's gone through for these five years either so it's not it's not really for gail's benefit it is for her she is absolutely um on fire here with the idea that joel has lied

[00:58:13] to her for this long and she gave him those multiple opportunities if you remember back to season one and the reason why it was shown at the beginning of season two as the opening for this season she gave him multiple opportunities to tell her what really happened and to swear to her that what he's telling her is the truth and he did and when he eventually swore to her when he eventually said everything behind him said to her i swear what i'm telling you is the truth ellie went well okay

[00:58:38] then as long as you swear then whatever questions i have i'll put them to the back of my mind yeah but here she is now it and it's been confirmed to her that he's been lying to her all of these years he's been trying to make this beautiful life for the two of them been trying to make these great birthdays for her every year and been trying to keep her like his little baby girl the whole time yeah yes underneath it all he's been lying to her about uh about the situation and that's it for ellie and joel for

[00:59:04] nine months yeah um let's go on to our final point point five nine months later new year's eve and the final confrontation between joel and ellie yeah no absolutely um you know i think this is really sort of you know it's the bittersweet sort of start of reconciliation um in that nick of time but

[00:59:27] ultimately doomed given what happens um on new year's day but um you know i like that i like the fact that that scene where she comes back from the new year's eve party and he's on the uh veranda sort of playing the guitar they then comes from his position and she comes back to effectively confront him

[00:59:56] on the questions that she's got that we saw her um jotting down on her 19th birthday yeah and and i love the fact that it's done effectively with the silence of joel yes and i mean it's just such an emotionally charged scene um like the two of them just knock it out of the park in terms of

[01:00:23] just how they portray this yeah it's almost like joel starts to do like small talk around dina and she's like she just pushes back she kind of um you know she recognizes this yeah and she's like you know you're such an a-hole um in this moment and she kind of brings it back to really the reason why she's there you know you lied to me um and you know i think i know and i've known all the time

[01:00:52] but this is your last chance you know what happened with the fireflies and you know she goes through these series of questions around were there other immune people there and you know he shakes his head were there raiders actually attacking the hospital and he shakes his head you know could they have made a cure and he nods you know and she says did you and she doesn't even ask the full question yeah and he

[01:01:18] he nods and she's like and marlene yeah and he nods you see just in that moment um she's devastated with what she in a heart of hearts knew but it is now being confirmed to her and like this was just so so so powerful and you know to the point of um you know the moth you know joel's kind of coming

[01:01:46] back you know you would have died um you know i'd do all over again you know and he says because she goes because you're selfish and he's you know because i love you but it's also just the fact that you know she comes back with you took it away from me my purpose yeah and everyone's you know yeah her purpose me and everyone else the death that she has missed that she has dodged by what joel

[01:02:15] did was her purpose but also everyone has lost the cure yeah and and i just like that you know unbeknownst to ellie that's a realization that her and abby have you know um that a cure was lost yeah but abby's known it for much longer it's something that nora refers back to her when she realizes you are the immune girl yes you know this notion that it's real that it was this real possibility that

[01:02:45] it's a possibility absolutely yeah yeah and i think i think in this situation it is joel going he knows or at least he knew in his mind when he took the action he took that it's a very real possibility they could have made a cure but she would have been dead and you know we've talked about this conversation back and forth would it be possible is it possible you know in that particular situation would they have been able to create a cure out of out of ellie well it's not about the rational thought as to whether it could be possible in the scientific improbability of it

[01:03:12] happening it's about the fact that joel made his decision knowing in the room that someone that he has been told can make a cure he chooses to kill that person and kill everybody else around them just to save ellie's life and says to her he would do it again um no matter what even if he has to pay the price which is she will cut herself off from him at least she's alive and he has kept her that way

[01:03:37] that's what he says um it's an amazing um distillation of everything that's been going on and they were like over the course of the years and over the course of the two seasons it's fabulous it's just it's phenomenal i i love as well then you know if you understand one day when you have one of your own i hope you do a little better than me and like to me i say that distillation of both

[01:04:01] echoing his dad's comments to him yeah to also um implicitly that this is all happened because i lost my daughter yeah as well yeah yep it you know the that's another huge driver here yeah and

[01:04:23] that as a father of a kid but in this case a daughter very much like you yeah who never got to ellie's age as well you know and i you know and i think just the response then from ellie again it's just it's such great writing it's like you know i don't think i can forgive you for this and there's just that pause and it pans to you know um joel's face and i mean pedro pascal

[01:04:51] like i don't know he must have chucked vick vapor rub in his eyes the amount of like welling up he's doing so phenomenal and but i just like that little pause that focus on him and then she says but i'd like to try it's like it's like an element of hope in a doomed situation yeah that i now know the truth i've probably known it for some time you're a douchebag an a-hole all that kind

[01:05:21] of stuff you're selfish yeah i don't know whether i can forgive you because forgiveness requires some level of understanding it requires that empathy but i'm willing to give it a go and let's see how we get on and if you remember the follow-up to this conversation actually happened in episode two when ellie's woken up by jesse to go out and patrol the next day after the new year's party and after everything that happened and all jesse had seen was joe and herself had a massive fight in front of

[01:05:48] the whole town and ellie's telling him well sometimes that happens but i think we're on the path to being better again and all ellie wanted to do was go out on patrol with joel that day so this is the moment of hope between the two of them but also more than that this is the moment where ellie reveals that she has grown into an adult over all of those years when joel has just wanted her to stay the same little girl that he's there to protect she's become an adult she's able to understand what happened she's able to take on board even though she may have known a little bit in the back of

[01:06:18] her head she's able to take on board all of the choices that he made to get her here and the choice that he made in that day while she can't instantly forgive him she's not going to fly off the handle now that she knows the truth she's going to try and accept him now again i'm going to try and build on that relationship but she's not going to have the opportunity to do that no exactly you know the the tragedy is the hope is taken away by abby yeah but it's not known at that moment yeah i

[01:06:43] think it's also you know it confirms um when ellie says to nora i know i know what he did effectively he's told me exactly um you know through a series of shakes and nods and i do think that's what i really like about this story from the last of us there's no i don't know there's no world's breaking revelation in the story the way that it's told there's no moment where you go oh my

[01:07:10] god the big cliffhanger this week is that joel tells ellie something that she's never knew happened well no she knew it happened but she's willing to forgive him for it that's the big revelation that she's grown to a point where even when he tells her the worst thing that happened he's told her and that in itself has built a bridge with her but the big moment of the story is she can't continue to reconnect with this person that she loves because it was all taken away by abby yeah yeah yeah and then

[01:07:38] the episode ends really cutting to present day in seattle with her in the rain returning to the theater after whatever happened with nora um we saw last week that she was going to get whatever information she was going to get out of nora by torturing her um and now we can i guess next week we'll see what happened we'll find out uh what information she got from nora but this is all led to explaining why ellie is on such a vendetta against abby yeah it's nice in a sense that it ends the back in seattle

[01:08:06] after this um to be honest probably needed that because it was just so emotionally draining um in terms of this crescendo of emotions and i think you know it's as you say it's it's a lesson in writing about complex situations and characters and relationships and yeah sometimes that's overlooked

[01:08:36] um and this is done in a way that is really the complexities of it and i think with the flashback at the start you know it's just adding and layering in new elements exactly which is great yeah yeah yep um any notes about the episode anything else we hadn't mentioned that you want to pull out and talk about um no just to say that um tommy's nephew calls him uh mr grumpy

[01:09:02] uncle grumpy uncle grumpy yes yes so uh good night uncle grumpy i like that little touch there i think a couple of my nephews might call me that as well i like that little touch there um no i don't think i do actually i probably missed a ton of stuff but i mean i do think um it was really uh just so so well done yeah yeah um i had just a couple of little things uh that i wanted to mention i love that moment in the uh space module or space capsule uh the tear that that comes down

[01:09:31] pedro pascal's face when he realizes he's done something even more special than he thinks he's done uh how how proud he is in that moment with ellie i think it's just a absolutely beautifully captured and then one other thing that i that i noticed on my second watch um i'm wondering if the decision that chile made to kill eugene which isn't the point of the episode of course but he makes a decision to kill eugene on the way home i think it's just when eugene's walking in front

[01:09:57] of him and says you know they make you cold the cordyceps make you cold and then goes which way do i go from here it's almost like the cordyceps are starting to infect his brain as we know that's that's how the cordyceps take over they they go through the human brain eugene is someone that's been here a very long time we know he's the one that set up the um the in the 7-eleven he set up the uh the weed stash there right so he's been been down all of these paths all the time and i wonder

[01:10:23] in that moment when eugene's saying which way do i go and joel says go to the right it's almost like joel's made a decision going oh oh that's a sign he's already turning i'm gonna send him down here kill him before anything bad happens i think that's a really interesting point i think it's one yeah i think that could be right yeah yeah because i do think joel acts on instinct a lot of the time so he may not have been actually lying to ellie in that moment when he says to her that he's gonna keep

[01:10:52] um eugene alive he doesn't he doesn't go out of his way to keep eugene alive but he could have killed him a couple of seconds after after ellie left that's all he was waiting for was just ready to go but the minute he saw a sign that eugene was turning it looks like that's the moment he chose to to kill yeah no i i think that's a good point yeah there you go there you go excellent so overall john what did you think of the penultimate episode of season two of the last of us i absolutely thought

[01:11:19] this was fantastic i really really loved it i'd give it five barney birthday surprises out of five and any birthday surprises the dinosaur very good i'm on the dinosaur yeah absolutely and i just i love this from top to tail and even though it was a toughie i think it's a real tour de force of exploring this relationship yeah and i loved as well

[01:11:44] how the relationship just goes through the generations back to joel and tommy as kids in that flashback so like you know the culmination of what's led joel on this path to lie and so on and to the point where he is confronted to tell the truth in silence and you know so that in a sense ellie

[01:12:08] doesn't hear him say it and you know it's just so so interesting and so many great performances here um in particular pedro pascal and bella ramsey um but all but also i think um eugene here played by joey pantiliano and gail played by katherine ahara yeah like just so so like well done and real moments of

[01:12:37] tension real moments of confrontation of strife and i like how it just you know it goes from these good times of happy birthday kiddo and happy times through to just this you know gradual divergence and fracture and with the death of eugene but the death of a promise um that she realizes is part

[01:13:03] of joel's makeup in a sense and just that return to hopefulness at the end absolutely and the return to hopefulness because i just think it's a real intricate thing of like the the forgiveness side of it i think this idea of the you know step by step that you do a little better than me

[01:13:25] and all those things are just really ignored a lot of the time yeah and it actually adds a huge amount of complexity to how people behave and and why they do certain things yeah and that they're not the perfect human being that is like this that and the other but they are trying and they might not be

[01:13:51] perfect but this leads them to sometimes hurt the people that they do love because of how they're trying to navigate their own way through i don't know their own feelings life society whatever it might be yeah um but in in the end at heart there are good intentions there and i think on the forgiveness side you know i just think that's really interesting to hear a character say i don't know if i can but

[01:14:20] i'm willing to try because it is you know i think from my side my parents always said we'll try and try again but if you don't do it or if you can't do it fine but at least you've tried exactly you know and so i think unlike stupid yodas as there is no try yeah but that's yoda i've never liked that character and so i i think you know shock revelation and i think um you know it's just a really

[01:14:51] interesting kind of rule i guess that is i you just don't hear more of i guess in shows like this it's just you know she kills him it would be the joe gets killed by her because she can't deal with it or whatever you know or just gets really angry and never speaks to him again now in the end it's abby that's killed him and that's again that's just the tragedy of this and the tragedy of their relationship of what's come before yeah with him and his father but also with what happens to his

[01:15:20] daughter sarah and ultimately what happens once this reconciliation this hope is seeded yeah and is the tragedy so yeah uh absolutely loved this episode um from performances the writing the direction five barney birthday surprises out of five fantastic oh after that john i definitely need a drink let's

[01:15:47] get down to the uh world's end pub quiz uh for our penultimate question for the season john it certainly is fellow quizzes and fellow survivors yes and we are on the penultimate episode and so we're on to question number six which is what two flavors of cake does joe get for ellie's 15th and 17th

[01:16:12] birthdays um yes fantastic an easy question we needed an easy question for this one i think so so for eli's birthday and for ellie's birthday what type of cake is it yeah and just simple ones not don't want to get all the ingredients uh just what what we saw on screen and what was mentioned on screen john doing it trying to give us the question one more time yes what two flavors of cake does joe get for ellie's 15th and 17th birthdays fantastic that's your sixth question of seven uh next week you'll get

[01:16:40] seven question after that send us in your correct answers to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com and you could be able to chance of getting a copy of the last of us part two on pc or playstation or an amazon voucher uh depending on what's what's better for you um looking forward to hearing your answers yes uh good luck fellow quizzers and fellow survivors but moving on from the world's end pub quiz we

[01:17:05] move to our feedback uh first up on email we have john daniel who says hello survivors i have to confess this might be the first post-apocalyptic show i've given a real chance i think i didn't want to imagine a world like this so i avoided it i realize i have been missing out this show is a masterclass in characters and storytelling i think the single tear going down joel's face in the space

[01:17:34] capsule says it all for me and this episode so much love so much heartbreak when ellie says he lied to you he lied to us i think i may have forgotten to breathe for a long long time i've been listening to the official podcast too and it sounds like they're well into what the story will be in season three so i'm not expecting much in the way of resolution in the finale but i'm certain it will be gut-wrenching

[01:18:02] see you next week john from chicago excellent john great to get your thoughts um on uh this show and uh this episode and i could not agree with you more so much love so much heartbreak yeah absolutely you know we we know we're not going to get the entire story resolved next week and it sounds like we might even get another season after that but that doesn't mean there isn't going to be something big happening at the end of next week i feel like it might be a big cliffhanger about

[01:18:31] what happens or a big uh a big story moment um before it moves on to the next uh season um so i'm i'm i'm concerned about next week i do think it's going to be gut-wrenching as you say john i think it's going to be a bit of a dark uh a dark ending for this season uh since we know a third season is coming back so um they don't have to they don't have to pull their punches and and expect that we're not going to turn up for it we will turn up for a third season um but yeah it's been a been an amazing show it's interesting there's the first post-apocalyptic show um i think

[01:19:01] i've been such a big fan of shows like the walking dead which went on for 12 years with multiple spin-offs that i've had a lot of uh post-apocalyptic stories uh we even covered uh why the last man um on here which which is another post-apocalyptic comic book um yeah show so i quite like a good old post-apocalyptic show um yeah i do yeah it's just it's just the idea of taking society away and seeing what people are like uh without all the trappings of uh of the day-to-day life is a really interesting

[01:19:30] idea for a show winded well of course i mean even like fallout um you know yeah that's a great one yeah yeah there's quite a lot of them there certainly is there certainly is thanks so much john yeah thanks john we also have some feedback in from philippe over facebook who says is it humanly possible to cry more than i did watching this episode the museum scene was chef's kiss and it's great that they had eli realize it was a lie through the eugene situation rather than by having

[01:19:58] them go back to salt lake that's a really good point you know having ellie go back to i love that you very good philippe uh but having ellie go back to salt lake city and investigate the situation would be a standard way of doing it wouldn't it in some of their shows she'd go back and find remnants of you know the the battle that went on and find out that all the bullets came from joel's gun or something you know that would be a way to find out but here it's done in the conversation between

[01:20:25] them and in her realization that he's lied to her again using the same way that he lied to her in the past you know um it's really it's it's a really interesting way to do it no definitely yeah and philippe i totally agree and museum scene was a chef's kiss i think the veranda scene was a chef's kiss as well um just for for different reasons yeah and and just sort of at those different

[01:20:49] ends you know or towards those different ends of the spectrum of you know sheer happiness to sheer just um heartbreak yeah uh so yeah i think lots of chefs kisses um in this yeah absolutely and of course these are the final scenes that pedro pascal would have filmed for the show as well um i think in behind the scenes stuff that we watched we saw him saying goodbye to the to the crew and the and the

[01:21:14] people behind the scenes uh in the scenes in the museum so it looks like they filmed that museum scene as one of the final times that pedro pascal was with yeah with the group so at least they left with a happy moment um to film with uh with the cast and and the rest of the crew uh that those moments in in the museum might have been the final things that pedro films that makes a lot more sense than having him uh do all of those really uh gut-wrenching scenes um as his final scenes yeah

[01:21:39] definitely yeah great stuff thanks philippe yeah thanks philippe thanks so much if you want to send your feedback to us you can email us to feedback at tv podcast industries dot com or pop on over to our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tv podcast industries we'll be doing one more episode of course on the last of us last of a season two episode seven next week and we will be of course wrapping up the season as well so if you haven't got any thoughts to us throughout the season so far

[01:22:04] we'd love to hear from you for that finale wrap-up episode as well but thanks so much again for joining us for this episode we'll speak to you again next week yes thank you so much fellow survivors for joining us for this penultimate podcast on the penultimate episode of the last of a season two uh but until next time of course keep watching keep listening and of course keep surviving that didn't suck good night uncle grumpies bye bye you you