The Last of Us 201 Review

[00:00:00] This is The Last Of Us on TV Podcast Industries. We're back talking about season two of The Last Of Us with the first episode, Future Days.

[00:00:45] Holy shit, you seen Gail? I'm not in therapy, Jesus. Go fix the main line. Saw out the cracked parts, pull the roots and we'll fill in the gaps with some ABS. Go on. It'll be okay.

[00:01:15] Welcome back fellow survivors to The Last Of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're back again with The Last Of Us talking about season two, episode one, Future Days. I'm one of your hosts, Derek. Hello there fellow clickers. I am one of your other hosts, John. I just thought I'd use my other language that I speak in. Very impressive.

[00:01:38] Some people say it's speaking in tongues. I just like to say it's the clicker. It's like Morse code but in fungus. Nobody translate the Morse code that John just said there. He might have said something offensive. He doesn't know Morse code. But welcome back indeed fellow survivors and indeed fellow clickers if you happen to like mushrooms. As we say on the podcast, make room for mushrooms. I can't take credit for that quote.

[00:02:07] Only the Mushroom Council of Britain, circa 1980 advertisement can do that. But it's such a great little saying for this show. Great to be back in the world of Last Of Us and really keen to get into this episode one discussion. Absolutely. Gosh, we're so excited to talk about The Last Of Us. We've been waiting so long for this. It seems it's been two years.

[00:02:34] And in that time, myself and John played through the entirety of The Last Of Us part one and part two again. But just a reminder, as we go into our coverage of this seven episode season of The Last Of Us, we aren't going to talk about game spoilers. We're going to avoid talking about that. We're going to just talk about what's presented on screen. We talk about things like how it compares to the game, that kind of stuff. Okay, thank goodness for that. Of course, because we know there is a game out there. But we absolutely won't be spoiling anything coming up with the game.

[00:03:00] And I would recommend anybody watching the show, if you haven't played the game, watch out for any of those sites that are going to spoil the game for you. Because lots and lots of people are trying to tell everybody we know what happened in the game, basically. But we're not going to talk about that. We're only going to be talking about what's presented on screen in the episodes of The Last Of Us season two.

[00:03:16] Exactly. Before we get into our spoiler-filled discussion, fellow survivors, please remember, if you're new to the podcast, we have season one of The Last Of Us available over on our podcast. You can subscribe at tvpodcastindustries.com, where you can subscribe to any immune or infected podcast catcher of your choice.

[00:03:43] You can also leave a voicemail over there if you wish to leave feedback in our feedback section. I'd love to hear that. Yes, and of course, the traditional routes of email to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. And also our spoiler-filled posts over on our Facebook group at facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash tvpodcastindustries.

[00:04:08] Yes, we love to get your thoughts, theories, observations and comments on everything to do with The Last Of Us. So yeah, please send them in. Absolutely, yes. The traditional methods that would have been available back in 2003 of the original outbreak of the infection in The Last Of Us, I guess, right? Email and Facebook. Exactly. Yeah, that's it. Nothing new. Facts, pager, you name it.

[00:04:34] But we will also be kicking off the second season of our World's End pub quiz for The Last Of Us later in the episode. What we do is we give out one question on each podcast and all you need to do is email us with seven correct answers at the end of the season to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com to be in with a chance of getting your hands on some Last Of Us Season 2 goodies. Yes, a nice big lion's mane mushroom for you. We are not sending out mushrooms to the boat. Definitely not. Definitely not. What we wanted to do was give you an opportunity to get your hands on the game.

[00:05:04] Last Of Us Season 2 has been made available on PC for the first time just before the season premiered. But we know that shuts down for some people that don't play games or don't want to play games. So if you want to get a copy of the game, we will organize that for you or we will send you a 50 euro Amazon voucher for your Amazon site of choice, which you can use for whatever you want to use for. Hopefully, Last Of Us connected. Indeed. Yes. A bit of Last Of Us merch. Yes. Exactly.

[00:05:30] Or you can go down and get a whole ton of different mushrooms from your local supermarket. You can get your own mushrooms, yes. And have some nice mushrooms on toast for breakfast. It'd be lovely. Well, yeah, but we're not sending a voucher for their local supermarket, John. I'm sure Amazon will do it. Amazon will deliver it from your local supermarket. Surely, in this day and age, Amazon deliver mushrooms. I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. Surely. They're doing everything else. Why not mushrooms? Exactly. But with that knowledge, let us get into our episode details.

[00:06:00] Derek, who gave us what, were, when, how and why? Again, I'm struggling on the how and why part of this piece I'm supposed to fill in. But this episode and this show, of course, is based on the 2020 PlayStation video game by Neil Druckmann and game publisher Naughty Dog. The Last of Us Part 2 and, of course, parts of it taken from The Last of Us Part 1 as well.

[00:06:24] Interestingly, and just to say it up front, the show is being split into two seasons to cover The Last of Us Part 2. So we'll get season two and these seven episodes as part of the adaptation of The Last of Us Part 2. And then season three will continue that story, which we've heard will hopefully be coming relatively soon. Hopefully less than two years in the future. Yeah. Yes. That'd be cool. That'd be cool. And the show was written and executive produced by Craig Mason and Neil Druckmann, once again, who produced season one of the show.

[00:06:53] And this episode was written for television by Craig Mason, the showrunner, and directed by Craig Mason himself as well. Very good. Craig Mason all the way. Yes, absolutely. I think we mentioned him many times last season. You know, I think now his credit is he did Last of Us season one when Last of Us season one was coming out. It was all about Chernobyl and how amazing Chernobyl was. But The Last of Us and Chernobyl, two massive things to have on his CV. And great to have him here doing full duties on this second season, first episode.

[00:07:19] And as we always say, you know, when the showrunner is involved and certainly as heavily as he is here in the opener and the ending episode for sure. And, you know, generally you're on to a winner because it's that kind of kickoff point as to the tone and where it goes. And also the sort of that wrap up or preparation for the following season.

[00:07:44] So generally in our experience, the showrunner being involved on writing duties or directing duties or both then is really, you know, it's a good sign. It shows they're involved. Exactly, exactly. Well, John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for the first episode of The Last of Us season two, Future Days? Sure.

[00:08:08] As they hike the final leg of their return journey to Jackson, Ellie insists that Joel's swear his story about the Fireflies is true. He swears and Ellie seemingly accepts his word. Meanwhile, in Utah, Abby and the last survivors of the attack on the hospital vow to kill Joel slowly for his part in the death of the Fireflies. Five years later, Joel is no longer the contractor, but he is the foreman for the expansion of Jackson, Wyoming.

[00:08:38] He and Ellie have grown apart and Joel is seeking therapy for the breakdown of their relationship. Meanwhile, Ellie goes on patrol with Dina and they come across a new variant of the infected, a stalker who bites Ellie, but she's still able to hide her immunity from everyone. After they've reported the anomalous infected to the town, Council Ellie and Dina join the rest of the Jackson residents at the New Year's Eve party.

[00:09:04] Dina kisses Ellie, but one of the townspeople, Seth, abuses them before he is knocked over by Joel. Angered by his overbearing over protection, Ellie tells Joel she doesn't need his help in front of the whole town and storms out. Later that night, as the drunken partygoers return home, infected tendrils of claudiceps have found their way inside the town through the drainage system,

[00:09:29] and Abby and her own party observe Jackson, Wyoming from the mountainside above. Excellent. So a nice little setup episode for the start of season two, mostly set in Jackson, Wyoming, the brand new home for Ellie and Joel. I just want to say to start off with, the city looks great or the town looks great. Joel's been doing a lot of work building this place out, leading it as the new foreman.

[00:09:53] Yeah, well, he was the contractor in season one, and now he's a foreman leading the entire planning for this place. It's very cool, though. The city looks really good, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, I guess they're just building on an existing town that's set in that valley and just adding a bit of CGI. But yeah, it's really well done how it looks.

[00:10:21] And it's the same for the previous season, you know? It's like when they go to the closest neighbouring town and it's just, you know, it's just really well produced and the set design is nicely done here. Yeah, it looks gorgeous. It looks gorgeous. Will we go in and talk about our points for the episode, John? Yes. Let us start with our point number one, which is five years ago.

[00:10:49] Yes. So we see that kind of recap of that last conversation between Ellie and Joel, which occurred at the end of season one. Yeah. But equally, then, it builds on that to show the consequences of Joel's actions in Salt Lake City in Utah after he's killed an awful lot of the fireflies at the hospital.

[00:11:18] And we're introduced to a number of new people here. Some of them by name, others the name they haven't yet, hasn't yet sort of come to light from the dialogue. Yeah. But equally, of those, there are kind of the leaders of that group in Abby and Owen. Yeah. And Abby being one of the main protagonists of this season. Yeah.

[00:11:47] And also, a lot of people who have listened to us in our coverage of Captain America 4 and our coverage of Falcon and the Winter Soldier would recognize Danny Ramirez in that group of five. Yeah. Stood around the grave crosses as another character called Manny, part of this group of surviving fireflies.

[00:12:41] Mm-hmm. And in choosing to protect Ellie or protect the world. And in choosing to protect the individual of Ellie. Yeah. And he has caused eruptions, you know, through that hospital, through the surviving fireflies effectively on a number of levels. So, it's actually quite intense, even with this opening.

[00:13:09] And that intensity coming from Caitlin Diva as Abby. Yeah. And it's small but mighty to me. Yeah. And this is what I remember from the game as well. Yeah. Yeah. And she brings this intensity. And just that moment where, you know, she kind of gets buy-in from Owen. That, you know, okay, if they go up to Seattle, regroup with people that he knows up there. Mm-hmm. Then we cannot get some resources.

[00:13:38] And then we can look to find him and kill him, says Owen. Yeah. And, you know, she's kind of happy around that. But just as sort of we near the end of our moment with this group, she just says slowly. And you hear Owen going, what did you say? And, you know, and she just then adds to it by saying, when we kill him, we kill him slowly. So, the intent here is, you know, vengeance of the highest order. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:14:07] And this is really interesting in itself as the opener for the episode. I thought just having that flashback of just Joel talking to Ellie and that one line of dialogue or two lines of dialogue where she's telling him to confirm for definite what he's told her about the fireflies is true. And that's the only thing they took out of a nine-episode season of the first season of the show. That's their recap is just that decision that was made and that he is lying to Ellie and that she doesn't really believe him, but she's going to stick with him.

[00:14:34] Yeah, hence the long, dramatic pause that, you know, she's trying to figure out what to say. Exactly. Doesn't quite believe him. Yeah. Despite trusting him. Exactly. And then the second half of this, which is Abby and the rest of the people affected by this, you hear the conversation between them where they allude. Due to the fact that they have overheard that Ellie may be immune, they kind of allude to that. They don't say it out loud because they think that's ridiculous. And even if it was true, they say it doesn't matter now anymore anyway.

[00:15:02] So that's all very interesting. And the extra thing that's added to this is if you remember back to season one, each of the first couple of episodes started with a flashback two years beforehand before the outbreak and how it got to the outbreak. How it led to this from a talk show in the 60s talking about cordyceps for the first time to where a whole city was overrun. They were going to drop a nuclear bomb on it before cordyceps overtook that. Here we have. That pathologist where she's investigating the cadaver. Yes.

[00:15:30] And you get those fantastic tendrils of the cordyceps coming out of the dead person's frame effectively. Exactly. I love that they touch on that again in this episode. Yeah. Yeah. And having those as the kind of flashbacks in the first season and now having this moment in Utah kicking off the episode, going to credits. And then we find out we're now five years after that, leading on to the rest of the episode.

[00:15:56] So they've kept that structure, I guess, of that flashback to things that happened in the past that will feed into the show. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you definitely get that sense that finding Joel is this huge priority for Abby. And it's also that, you know, there is an intimate moment where she hangs a chain around one of the crosses so that maybe someone close to her has, you know, been caught, whether it's her boyfriend or whatever, been caught in that.

[00:16:21] But certainly that moment where she is making it's making a point of that loss. Yeah. I like the conversation where she says we should have gone after him straight away. You know, we've given them a three day head start here. And Owen's kind of like, yeah, but we don't really know much about him. You know, his name is Joel. He's the contractor. And then she goes, nobody's six foot three. He's got a scar over his left eye.

[00:16:48] Did it be is graying and apparently attractive, you know, and laughs at it. There's just the disdain of it. So there's a nice little introduction here. And I like how as we when we come to our point five, you know, that there's a bookend of this group here on this episode. It makes sense. And it's really important. I think that and it's nicely done. Just that introduction of this group. Yeah.

[00:17:17] But also just that conversation. Small but hugely meaningful between Joel and Ellie. Exactly. This drives this season and it will drive the third season. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think that's it for our point number one. Let's move on to point number two. Now, five years later, Joel and psychotherapy. Because we have the introduction to a new character for the show, Catherine O'Hara playing Gail as Joel's psychotherapist. I thought we were back in Schitt's Creek.

[00:17:48] She's playing a role, I guess, as an actress. Yeah, absolutely. I love Catherine O'Hara. She, again, plays a really interesting character here. Joel, I love, you know, there's these moments kind of setting it up where we have Joel being interrogated almost by Dina. This other new character we'll talk a lot more about in a moment. But he's being interrogated as to why Ellie and him are having, there's a lot of animosity between the two of them, I guess.

[00:18:16] And Joel's then bringing himself to therapy for this issue that he's having with Ellie. And what an interesting conversation that's going on between him and Gail. Gail starts it off, it's their fifth session, and Gail starts it off taking notes and then puts the notebook away as soon as she hears Joel once again talking about the fact that Ellie's no longer treating him like her dad. He's just waving at her like a common stranger across the room.

[00:18:41] And Gail's going, let's just pretend you don't have the most boring problem in the world ever. Oh, no, my 19-year-old daughter is treating me like a stranger, like every single dad in the world has ever had, ever. But there's so much more behind this, isn't there? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, this is a really good interaction.

[00:19:03] And I do like how, you know, with Dina, you mentioned about Dina, you know, it comes across that Dina's kind of wanting to understand about circuit breakers when in fact she wants to understand why Ellie is angry at him. And then immediately is mirrored again with this meeting of Gail, the psychotherapist, and Joel at his, you know, regular therapy session.

[00:19:28] And in the end, she's like, you know, what, is this the fifth or the sixth therapy session? And like you say, you're asking the same questions. You know, you're looking for me to give you validation for what you've done. And she goes, you know, but you're lying to me. You're leaving something out. And I'm not going to validate that.

[00:19:53] Like, you know, I've been through enough therapy sessions to know when something is being left out. I just like how she approaches it. And she's like, I want you to tell me what it is that's happened that you've left out. And to be honest, because only then can we move forward if you recognize that.

[00:20:14] And I like then that she takes her own point of truth that she needs to get out when she says about Joel having shot and killed her husband, Eugene. You know, and the way she says it, she goes, I know you had no choice. I know you had to do it. Probably meaning that he got infected.

[00:20:38] But I can't forgive it because of how you looked when you did it. That look in his eye. And, you know, and she's like, right, that's in that's like in the that's in the ether now. And how I feel about you. Yeah, it's your turn. Tell me the thing that you think you shouldn't tell me so that we can move past this BS effect. Exactly.

[00:21:07] That you're telling me and get to the heart of the matter. And no matter what it is, no matter what you say, I can help you as long as you say it out loud, as long as you admit that you're scared of saying it out loud and then say it out loud to me. We can help. She pushes him thinking that it might be something really traumatic that he may have abused Ellie. He may have hit Ellie accidentally or not, which is the furthest thing from the truth for Joel. And Joel reveals just that tiny sliver, which is the absolute truth. He saved her.

[00:21:36] Just those three words is his only explanation for what it is that he's been hiding from everybody in the town, except for Tommy, I guess, is the only person that knows. Right. He saved Ellie. And that is the truth. That's all Gail gets out of him before Joel leaves. So he still has to admit that not only did he save her, he doomed the world or he chose her over the cure for the virus. Effectively. Yeah. Effectively. Yeah.

[00:22:02] You just don't know how anyone, despite what they say, would react to that. Exactly. Even though, you know, an absolute professional would have to keep that confidential. But still, it's huge. And I suppose, interestingly with Gail, you know, we have these moments here where she's, you know, she's knocking back whiskey throughout the conversation. Joel's saying, you know, this isn't the first one you've had when she gets so aggressive at the fact that, you know, she's sitting across the table from the guy who killed her husband.

[00:22:31] I mean, she is really angry about it. She hates him for it. She says it, you know. So in the strictest sense of the word, she's not a professional. She's already doing unprofessional things. So would she keep this to herself if she finds out? And again, you know, I know there was lots of talk about at the end of last season about this saving that this decision that Joel made to save Ellie when he realized she would have to die if the cure is to be be created in the world of the game and the world of the story here. They would have created a cure for the virus out of Ellie in the game in this in this story.

[00:23:00] So Joel made that choice thinking he was doing the world but saving Ellie. And if he tells anybody else that, their reaction is going to be you could have saved the world, right? That's the kind of choice that's there. Yeah, absolutely. And the potential for, you know, being ostracized for, you know, maybe something even worse, being tried for something, you know.

[00:23:26] So like it's a huge sort of secret, you know, one in which it seems Ellie is aware of right back when she first asked the question five years ago or were maybe, you know, there's been some more confirmation around that. Like she's asked again and he's hesitated a bit more or something, whatever it might be. Potentially, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:56] It feels like that might have been the new wedge. Like, you know, you saw the flashback. You saw how hesitant Ellie was to accept what Joel said back then five years ago she was accepting. And it seems like maybe recently she's rethought about it and that's why there's that wedge between them. Maybe she no longer believes what he said to her back then. Yeah, exactly. She's growing now. But there is this wedge between them. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. John, is there anything else about Joel from the episode you wanted to talk about here? That's kind of his point in being in psychotherapy.

[00:24:24] But is there anything else about him in the episode you want to talk about? I think the only thing I kind of wanted to sort of briefly mention was just the interaction between Joel and Maria, played by Rutina Wesley. Yeah. I just thought this was a nice, interesting, I guess, topical chat between the two around letting refugees into Jackson, Wyoming.

[00:24:49] Maria ultimately saying how, well, we were all refugees at one stage. Well, very pointedly, you were a refugee, Joel. But it's also that balancing of resources. It's that age-old question of how many do you let in and what resources do you have to support them whilst also supporting people who are already there? Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:15] You know, I think even Maria says, oh, this window is not keeping the cold out any longer. And it's like, yes, because the caulking has gone from it. And you're like, it's something that would be readily available as it stands at the moment. Suddenly, is this scarce resource required for the maintenance of the properties in the whole town? New people coming through.

[00:25:40] You know, and they're talking about school roofs and other buildings that aren't going to really get around to being fixed until the summer. Certainly not at the height of winter. And yet there are people coming in that need to be housed and fed. And so it's this expansion of the resource base of Jackson that is proving really difficult to do. You know, partly because of, you know, trained personnel.

[00:26:09] Secondly, maybe the lack of the actual raw materials needed. And maybe because they are in a high mountain environment. So, you know, it's more difficult to travel. You've got to go along the valleys. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, it may be a little more scarce and sparse. Hence why they've been able to survive for longer. So it's all linking into those little nods, you know, around that there's more clickers coming up the valley.

[00:26:40] As well as more refugees kind of gradually being moved into this more remote location. And one thing I really liked in this episode here with this, you know, this discussion between Maria and Joel is talking about expanding and bringing in more refugees and, you know, continually saving people from outside. Whereas in season one, we had that moment with Joel where he was living in the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve area. And there, any refugees that came in were immediately tested.

[00:27:08] And if they failed the test, they were immediately killed. And Joel was on duty to burn the bodies. That was his job back then. Here, kind of jumping off from where from his job before the apocalypse where he was a contractor and a builder. He's now back being a builder and being the leader of this whole build expansion of Jackson to bring in more refugees. So there's so much more hopeful side of things, even though Joel's not in a very hopeful place.

[00:27:35] No, and I think the good thing about that conversation, it does also speak to the hardness that can come about living in a hard, tough world. Yes. And for Joel and for others, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to lose empathy. And in some ways, I don't think he necessarily does. You know, his point is, if our lifeboat is swamped, we don't sink it effectively.

[00:28:03] And, you know, he is like, I would let them in if I could. I'm working night and day to try and make that happen. But it also just, it kind of just connects into, I guess, you know, the hard or the toughness of Joel in terms of, it just reiterates the toughness to make the decision he did back in Salt Lake City. Yeah.

[00:28:26] It's the toughness that the world has imparted on him that has made him maybe a little more, well, no, we just don't let them in. And I also wonder if he's hardening up a little bit more again because of the relationship with himself and Ellie. Exactly. But we do see a lovely moment with him and his new nephew, Benji. We didn't get to meet last season because Maria was just pregnant with him. It's a lovely moment with him playing with his nephew where, you know, he's having fun again.

[00:28:53] It is that Joel who seems a little more lighthearted. Like it weighs on him. You can tell this world, this life. Absolutely. And this, in a sense, substitution that Ellie provides as well. You know, there is that moment with Gail where she says, but she's not your daughter. You know, that actual objective reality. But she is. Yeah. But do you know what I mean?

[00:29:18] Like it just, that strain, the grind of this world. Exactly. Grinds you down to the point where you're looking after yourself. Yeah. This town has afforded the opportunity or the space for people to also think about others still. And for people to relax into that. But for some, it's not necessarily fully gone away. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:29:48] Pedro Pascal looking great again, but he has been aged up another five years on from where he was in the last season. As you say, a lot of that pressure wearing on him. He's got much grayer hair. He's got much grayer skin almost. You see more wrinkles on him than you did last season. So he is significantly older and there is that weight to bear on top of him. And this relationship problem with Ellie that's happening isn't helping at all either. But let's talk about Ellie.

[00:30:17] Let's go on to our point number three. Yes. Supermarket sweep. Yes. Or the Green Place market sweep. Indeed. Yes. Yes. And I just wanted to mention a couple of things because I think this is some really interesting setup. It's really good setup, I suppose, of what is happening in this town. Ellie's in quite a privileged position here because Joel is her dad, even though they're having relationship problems at the moment. Just some interesting little touches that you hear in the way people deal around her.

[00:30:46] The introduction to Ellie in the episode is the fight between her being watched over by Jesse. And then she learns at the end, a pretty brutal fight, but she learns at the end that her opponent was pulling his punches because nobody wants to tell Joel that they've knocked her on her ass and knocked her out. Yeah. And you can see that riled with Ellie. You know, don't pull your punches. Exactly.

[00:31:06] And again, it's even like, you know, she's gotten that hard edge from Joel as well in how she can get her way, you know, how to influence. Well, yeah, absolutely. And like, so, you know, as we say, she's not licked it off the pavement. Exactly. And she's got it from, you know, her time with Joel. And I like that, you know, you see Jesse and then the guy that she's been brawling with. They listen to her.

[00:31:34] Okay, we won't, you know, won't pull punches again. All that. You see the brawler's smile fade when she kind of gives him the hard stare. Exactly. So I really like that. It was quite a nice introduction as well. Yeah. Just to Jesse as well as a new character. I like the fact that in this opening as well, you get that sense of Ellie playing a bit loose and fast with some of the rules.

[00:32:01] So, you know, the guy's tapping out after she's got him in this sort of, you know, killer wrestling hold. Yeah. And she doesn't release. And Jesse is like, you know, when I say release, it means release. She's like, well, I was in the moment. Yeah, but you have to release. Yeah.

[00:32:19] You hear it later as he's given the instruction for them to go on the Alpine recon and going to the market sweep and looking for clickers and strays. And, you know, again, she is like, well, yeah, I know this. There's a slight arrogance to it. But also that knowledge, at least in going external beyond the walls of Jackson, that she is immune. Well, absolutely.

[00:32:49] And you hear in the conversation she has with Tommy when they're out doing their sniper shot, you know, where she's going, why do people think I have to follow the rules? Because I'm immune. You know, she shouts out to the valley as Tommy's trying to shut her up because they've made the deal that nobody should know that she's immune. But she has that callousness about her. She knows that if she goes out and gets bit, she's not going to die. Like all the rest of them are going to die. All the rest are going to get cordyceps inside them and they're going to turn. That's not going to happen for Ellie. So she does do rash things.

[00:33:19] But she does make the point. And we see it from Dina, this other new character that is a great addition to the show here. We'll talk about her in a second again. But she talks about Dina going, well, Dina goes out and does all this stuff all the time and nobody gives out to her. But the reason that Tommy says everybody gives out to Ellie when she does it is because, again, Joel is overprotective. Joel is set it up that if she does anything wrong, she gets pulled straight off those patrols and put onto fence watch. She's put onto gate watch.

[00:33:47] So, again, another example of Joel having control, even though Ellie's in a pretty privileged position because everybody's scared of Joel, the boundaries that he's set for her, she seems to be bumping up against quite a lot. And this is carrying through why there's a relationship problem between the two of them. And even Tommy says you're the same person. Yeah, exactly. She says that to her. And I do like that she says, well, then you know how this plays out. I'm going to win.

[00:34:15] And indeed, Joel, but also because Tommy is Joel's brother, also on the Jackson's town council. So he's able of all the people to go against Joel's will. So he puts her on the Alpine run that takes her to the Green Place market sweep, ultimately. So she is in a privileged position, but she plays fast and loose with that privilege. Yes, she does.

[00:34:44] She probably doesn't realize how much more of a privileged position she's in, I suppose, being able to kind of get her way around other people. That's kind of her way at the moment. But, yes, we have the patrol where they go out. What they're supposed to be doing is just recon. I love that the person who's leading the team, who Ellie has absolutely swore she will obey every order that she's given.

[00:35:10] The minute they see blood on the road, they go, right, we better go back and report this to the tent. And Ellie and Dina just take off straight away on their horses to go and investigate. I love that. I love the fact that they're straggling. They were on the two horses, maybe about 10, 12 meters behind. And the other three in the patrol, they come across the blood.

[00:35:33] But they hear the commotion of them finding this sort of bloody patch and then canter up on the horses to it. As soon as they see it, we better go off and investigate further. And you see the huge grin on Ellie's face. Yeah. And I was like, well, this is recon, isn't it?

[00:35:56] And I like when they then get to the market where they find the grizzly bear that's gotten into the fight with the infectives. You have Dina kind of say, well, now you know how many infected it takes to take down a bear, which I thought was quite good. I've read that to the other joke. Oh, really? Yeah. You know, what are grizzlies ribs called? Burbeque. Burbeque. So, yeah, I love that. But you see, you like jokes. I do. Ellie likes puns.

[00:36:25] And this is showing, just like in season one, that Ellie loves puns. And that's the first thing that Dina decides to do is try and give her a pun that she'll enjoy. Exactly. So I really like that. But I like the fact that Ellie and Dina kind of play off one another. So they go because they see the blood trail going up the van and by the sort of depot hatch and through into a window. And so they say, we'll go and investigate. It's recon. We're reconning. Yes.

[00:36:52] So Dina is kind of as bad as Ellie, at least within this patrol. Yeah. And they're up for pushing the boundaries of the rules. Yeah. And I think they're up to push each other as well. Yeah. Keep pushing each other on as well. How do you think this was done, John? Because you know this from the game. This is one of the big early moments in the game as they go into the supermarket. How do you think this transferred?

[00:37:16] Because I could definitely see exact moments from the game when they're climbing up the truck going in through the window. Yeah, exactly. I just thought this was really well done. Like, I mean, it's also because, you know, it's our first reintroduction to the clickers, you know? So, and, you know, in some ways they are the star of the show as much as anyone else. And in particular because they're not overutilized. So it is good to see them. Yeah.

[00:37:44] I really kind of like, I liked how as well Ellie and Dina worked together to take out the clicker that we've seen before. Where effectively it's just run at them from behind. Yeah. A great moment there, which is definitely from the game, of the utilization of bottles to smash and cause that noise distraction for the clickers. Because they can only attack on the basis of sound, not sight. They haven't seen it anymore yet.

[00:38:14] So that was really good. And then it was good just sort of, you know, the sort of gestures and hand signals as to how they're going to take it out. And, you know, sort of with the stabby, stabby knife, knife, sort of hand gestures. I just thought it was really good. Absolutely. It was. But I will say, I don't think we ever tried to take down a clicker with a knife because I'm too terrified of clickers. I needed to have a shotgun or some kind of gun to take them out of the game. Like jumping on its back and taking a hit with a knife.

[00:38:43] I didn't know that was an option based on the game. That's all I would say. Find more ammo. I knew you could stave them off if you were having to sort of tap triangle a lot in order to make sure you weren't bitten. Yeah. You'd get an option for a knife or a sheath in order that you could get them in the head. But also, yeah. So I never thought this was an option. I just thought it was to sort of run wildly around the room, trying to avoid them being bit while shooting and not hitting anything. I mean, that was how I played the game anyway.

[00:39:12] And you did finish it. So that's good. I did finish it as well. You know, I think it was really good. I liked this. Again, I liked the introduction of the new clicker as well. Almost to me, it was like from behind with the way the fungus was coming out of the head. It was almost like this elf princess. Right.

[00:39:36] Like kind of vibe until then it turned, the camera turned to the face where the nose had gone. Yes. And again, this is where you got that really kind of just the freaky loveliness of the tendrils coming out of the nose or the mouth. And to almost like. Well, it's coming out of the hole in the face where the nose would have been. And to almost like taste the air.

[00:39:59] And I thought what was really good was, you know, after she realizes she's not alone down in the basement that she's fallen into. And, you know, because you see this infected, this stalker infected sort of in the background. And she's working away with the torch, with her shotgun, you know, along each of the aisles, looking down the aisle.

[00:40:27] And as she moves to the next one, just the way the camera is positioned, you just see this stalker infected sort of creeping along in the background. You see a little shadow of a limb here and there. I just thought that was really, really nicely done. I think what was really good was having that moment with the town council report where you have Tommy saying, well, you say it was intelligent, you know, or smart.

[00:40:53] And she goes, well, it wasn't smart like they could do mathematics or anything. But it was the fact that they would take cover and they would lure me in and they would follow me. They wouldn't run at you. And they would do the stuff like we would do. You know, they would stalk you as prey. Exactly. And lure me in.

[00:41:14] Yeah, that was really, really as freaky as seeing it because it's kind of just putting that description as, oh, yeah, this is what's different from the clicker above, which kind of has to go on sound. Here, the eyes are open. You know, it's not covered with that head plate of fungus like you get with the clicker. Yeah.

[00:41:38] Because with the clickers, it's kind of like their eyes have exploded outwards when the cordyceps have infected them, whereas this just has them, as you say, almost like a crown on their head. Yeah, I thought it was really intriguing. Yeah. And what I love about this, you know, this is the development within the two games in The Last of Us Part 1 and 2. There are these two different types or there's multiple different types, but stalker is something that's in the second game as well.

[00:42:00] And what I love about it is, unlike zombies in the zombie movies and TV shows, they're just zombies. They eat human flesh or they eat brains. That's kind of it. And they'll rot, but they are just skeletons and former humans. Whereas with the cordyceps infecting humans, killing them, taking them over, and then them forming part of this group, I suppose, they eventually continue to develop. They continue to develop over years.

[00:42:29] We're now talking, what's it, almost 20 years since the original outbreak, 22 years, maybe a bit longer since the original outbreak. So they have developed and there continue to be new versions of The Infected that they're coming across here. Nobody else has ever seen a smart infected before, like the stalker. Ellie's come across this and she's reporting back to the town that it's a new version of The Infected, which is really interesting. So that gives even more opportunities for even more infected to be seen in the show as well, which is cool. Absolutely.

[00:42:59] Absolutely. So I thought this was really good. And again, we have this where she actually gets bitten. Yes, she does. But seemingly is okay. Yeah, she is. I think what's really nice about this when you see the bite immediately after it's happened is one of those little tendrils. It's kind of, I think it's just by the wound. I don't know whether it's gone in. It's kind of coming out of it, it seems. Yeah.

[00:43:24] So it's kind of interesting they show that because, again, if it's an evolved form, does her immunity extend to that? And that's kind of the interesting thing here because there have been some developments beyond what the game had, such as the whole mycelial network through the ground.

[00:43:46] And that's how then any of the infected can sort of pick up where people are walking because it's being fed back to them through this network of mycelial tendrils that run through the ground. So this is really, really kind of great to see a new form of infected.

[00:44:12] But also, does that have any implication for Ellie here? You know, the kind of razzmatazz arrogance of, well, I'm immune. Does it maybe give almost like a fungal flu because it is slightly more evolved, maybe more developed, and whatever the immunity was was for that earlier thought? Like, I don't know. And it might not. It might – nothing might come of it. But it might just show that, well, she's still immune here. Right. And certainly –

[00:44:41] Yeah, I think that's what it's trying to show. It's trying to show that even if she gets bitten again, it wasn't just the original bite that she was immune from. It's this bite now that she's immune from as well. But it just had been wondering. Yeah, yeah. I kind of felt like it was almost falling out of the wound, whereas if anybody else got bit, it would be going into the wound and would be taking over the body over the course of the day, whereas this looked like it was kind of falling out. And I think the other thing that it just shows is Ellie's secrets. Yeah.

[00:45:11] You know, to the likes of Dina and so on. Mm-hmm. And, you know, they've all, in some respect, have got their secrets that they hold back. Absolutely. And I love seeing her trying to – you know, by joining up the bite marks with the knife so they didn't look like a bite. Yeah. Just looked like a horseshoe scar. Well, that's what I was wondering. Was she just tattooing herself again? We see Ellie has a tattoo over the bite on her arm now.

[00:45:38] It's kind of a full-sleeve tattoo that she has covering it up. And now she's cutting into her skin in this horseshoe shape to cover off the bite mark. I wonder whether she was going to draw in a horseshoe and say it was for luck or say it was for her horse shimmer to remember or something to cover it up in case anybody sees it in the future. But she gets bitten. She does shoot the infected in the head, does take it out. It is dead. So at least they know they can kill it as well. It's not as difficult to kill as one of the other infected types. Still, a bullet to the head will take it out.

[00:46:08] And that's kind of the end of the supermarket sweep there and our point number three. Yeah. Absolutely. I think on to point number four. Yes. New Year's Party. New Year's Party. Yeah. I'm always a bit concerned when they throw a New Year's Party because all the goodwill, the vibes of the party, you know, the dancing, the laughing, the music, the high spirits.

[00:46:37] It's kind of setting it up for an absolute crash at some point. It does. Whenever you have a party in a horror, it does feel like the whole place is going to be surrounded by infected when they come outside all drunk and have no idea how to deal. Have to shoot a gun. Have to shoot a gun. We shoot each other by mistake because they're all drunk, that kind of stuff. But no, this one is a New Year's Party. This is more about the town of Jackson, which is secure. It has got its walls around. It does have people watching the gate at all times. It is in a safe place, in a safe zone.

[00:47:07] So they're able to kind of let their hair down. But it is mandatory, as we learned a little earlier on. I think at the opening of the episode, we learned that it's mandatory for everybody in town. And in order to develop the community, everybody must be here at this party. And Ellie, of course, standing off to the side watching on as Dina is dancing with everybody in the place. Dina really enjoying herself. Yeah, absolutely. I really like this. Again, this is straight out of the game as Ellie's watching on.

[00:47:36] And you can definitely tell there's some kind of feeling between Ellie and Dina. I think even in that conversation when they're on horseback and Dina's asking, you know, who's Ellie taking to the party? Is she taking Kat? The other one from the town. As if there's only two lesbians in the town. So Ellie must be only able to date Kat. But we see that they have a little kiss between the two of them. Ellie and Dina dancing together in the crowd. I just really enjoyed the translation of this from the game.

[00:48:04] Ellie is totally overwhelmed almost by the fact that maybe Dina's interested in her. As Dina's cuddling into her, you can see Ellie wondering whether this could possibly be true. Could Dina be interested in her? Especially because Dina and Jesse had had a relationship previously. They've broken up again for the 25th time. You can tell that Ellie doesn't want to push this. But I think it's beautifully told on screen how the two of them are getting closer and closer. And how Dina's willing to get closer and closer with Ellie. Well, that's it.

[00:48:33] I mean, it's even just, as I say, Ellie being uncomfortable where she's like, everyone's staring at you in the room. And she's like, Dina's kind of, you know, got that social confidence. Yes. That Ellie doesn't have, which is, well, maybe they're staring at you, not me. And she's like, but I'm not a threat.

[00:49:00] And Dina is like, they should be terrified of you. Yeah. Wow. Interesting line from Dina, isn't it? Yeah, because it's almost like she knows that she's some kind of linchpin. Almost that she knows that she is immune, that she knows that. Okay.

[00:49:22] I'm not saying she does, and I'm not saying, but it's like she knows that she has something about her that is above most other people. Even if it's just the cut of her jib, her swagger, you know, that kind of thing. Well, I think to Dina, that's exactly the point. Dina's probably just saying they should be afraid of you because I am so attracted to you. And they've all been dancing with me, and they've all wanted to be with me, but I want to be with you. It's kind of what's in Dina's mind, but it could mean so many other things. Exactly. That's what I mean.

[00:49:50] It works on a number of levels with the show. But it is. Ultimately, it's about the two of them and their relationship. Yeah. And then, of course, the a-hole has to come in and ruin it all. Seth, oh, this is a family affair. What are you doing kissing each other? And then calls them a slur. You know, just to ruin the whole moment between the two of them after all this time, Ellie and Dina, and then gets knocked on his ass by Joel.

[00:50:16] It's the great uncle or the granddaddy's had a bit too much to drink, or not, maybe. But, yeah, it comes in hard on the younger folk. He's just an a-hole. Can you imagine going through the apocalypse and still having to deal with people like this going, oh, you're here in a church. How dare you kiss? It's a family affair. You know, you must belong to this particular ideal of what I feel is right in this group. You might not have to deal with that after the apocalypse.

[00:50:43] I do think if Joel hadn't come in, Ellie would have knifed him. Though, I think she was getting really, really angered by him. Like, you see her going after Seth after he calls them that slur. Only for whatever she was intended on doing was finished off by Joel. Again, the two peas in the pods syndrome. I'll start. You finish off while I was going to start.

[00:51:10] And then, I guess, the most public dressing down, you know, that Ellie says is, you know, she goes, I don't need your effing help in front of everyone. You know? Yeah. But, effectively, leave me alone. I didn't ask for this. You're overprotecting, overbearing, all of those. And I can fight my own battles. End of conversation. That's it.

[00:51:40] Yeah, exactly. You know? And I think, as we kind of mentioned earlier on, this has been going on in multiple ways. This is Ellie pushing back, going, she can handle herself. You see, she can absolutely handle herself. She could definitely handle some drunk guy at a party. Without a date, this guy, Seth, abusing them. She could easily have taken him out. I don't think Joel needed to be in there. But him being dressed down, him being told, I don't need you anymore. Yeah. Is a big moment for their relationship.

[00:52:09] Is, you know, at the core, I suppose, of what's been going on between them. We had a moment just before the party earlier on in the day when Joel popped over to the house to see if she was going along. And their conversation between each other is so cold. I don't think Ellie even turns around to look at him while he's in the place. She stays writing in her diary or writing in her, yeah, writing in her diary when Joel comes in. He picks up the guitar and then suddenly thinks, oh, I can be useful here. I can change the strings on her guitar. Maybe she'll be thankful for that. You can tell that that's what's going on in Joel's head.

[00:52:39] But he gets nothing from her. I don't think she even directly answers the question whether she's going to go along to this New Year's party to him. She kind of says, yeah, might, maybe, sort of. And then we see them. I think that's the only scene that they have in the episode together. And considering what the entire season one was. Exactly. Of Joel warming up to her and carrying her across the country and sacrificing the world to save her. Now he's at a loss as to why she's pushing him away. Yeah. No, absolutely.

[00:53:08] And I think, you know, that's the great jolt of this opener, I think, for season two. Yeah. And I suppose we should say, you know, as game players, that the big jolt of the second game versus the first game. This first game was you playing as Joel ushering Ellie. And, you know, she couldn't even swim in the first game. You had to find ways to carry her across water. And she's always there in the background beside you. In the second game, you are controlling Ellie from the outset of the game.

[00:53:37] She's the character whose viewpoint you're following. You're no longer controlling Joel at the beginning of the game. So it is quite a jolt for you as a gamer when you take it out and suddenly you're the wisecracking younger kid versus the hardened, battle hardened Joel in the first game. So in itself, that is the jolt you're getting at the beginning of the series. That Ellie and Joel, even though they were so close, are no longer those same characters. Exactly.

[00:54:05] Let us get on to our point number five. Yes. As we said about point number four, New Year's party. It is the new year and future threats, shall we say. Welcome to the new year. Brand new threats are coming. Oh, yes. Love this. Yeah, it was really good. That innocuous looking drain that was filled with roots that we saw right at the start. Does that happen often? The roots grow all the way up. Pipes like that.

[00:54:32] If they break the pipe, then they'll start sending roots out. Right, right. It's a bit like when we were in Mexico visiting the cenotes and you'd see the big tap root of, I think it's of the ceba tree. Oh, yeah. That can puncture through the limestone rock. That's right. Through into these underground caves and then its fibrous roots go into the water. Right.

[00:54:58] And it's kind of, you know, if it punctures the clay pipe like it does here, then it just sends out the roots through. And so, you know. It blocks up completely. It blocks up completely. So that innocuous looking sort of construction issue, you know, trying to bring old infrastructure back in that, you know, 20 years odd where the roots have managed to puncture through.

[00:55:23] You know, it looked a little bit innocuous at the start, whereas by the end, the little wriggly cordyceps are being lovingly sort of front-lit by a sparkler from the New Year's Eve celebrations. So this is kind of back to, as we said in season one, the mycelial network that is picking up information and sending it down the tendrils of the cordyceps.

[00:55:51] So here it's the revelers going back from their party. They drop the sparkler and that kind of maybe it doesn't awaken the cordyceps. Maybe they're already awakened, but it's kind of enacted by that sparkler. It's also suggesting that's why in any case you've got these stragglers coming up the valley that Tommy is talking about with Ellie, why they go out on the Alpine patrol. Yes.

[00:56:18] You know, it's all because, you know, there's increased frequency of the clickers and the infected coming up the valley. Yeah, exactly. And that is probably down to then this mycelial network of the cordyceps and it's just showing up in the pipes here. Yeah. So it'll be interesting now to see how that plays out for Jackson. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:56:48] Because it's just the fact that it's been mentioned throughout the episode you hear even Ellie was not overrun, but she was attacked by two infected on a clicker. Yeah. Which she took out on her own, but that seems really unusual that they would have encountered that many. So the more that people separate and go off on their own, the more they seem to be surrounded a bit more. So there does seem to be more and more coming across in here. And the bear attack is the same kind of thing. There's enough up there to take down a bear now. Yeah.

[00:57:18] And what we'd heard back in season one, when they were going to Jackson in the first place, it was described as nothing survives going across the river to Jackson. Once you go over there, you'll die was the perception that they had. Yeah. But there's not very many infected that got across to Jackson back then. Now we're seeing they're being drawn in. So that's really interesting. And there's another big threat that's mentioned and shown right at the end of the episode. Abby, who we met at the beginning, and her group, we see Owen, also hooded, are pretty close to Jackson.

[00:57:48] They seem to be looking out over Jackson from a bit of a distance, but it's above in the hills. They're looking out over Jackson. And there's a little smile at the corner of Abby's face, I thought, as it goes to the final credits. They've arrived at Jackson, where we know Joel is, and we know she's looking for Joel. So, yeah, I thought there was a little smile that played across her lip that she was finally going to close to her goal. Yeah, a little sort of turn up there as she realizes.

[00:58:12] And, you know, they've made their way to Jackson, and that's where at least their intel is saying that Joel is. I think actually there's quite a good number of people there, and they're all armed. So I don't know whether it's just that original five from Salt Lake City that we saw, or whether there's a few more.

[00:58:33] But equally, what will that mean for Jackson, potentially, or at least for an ambush of some description? And it's also been five years as well. Yeah, exactly. So with Abby's arrival here to Jackson, yeah, it's been a long time. So, yeah, so those are the future threats. These are the things that it's setting up for season two of the show. So we'll be looking out for those ones as the season goes on. And that's it. That's our top five points. Any notes for the episode that you wanted to mention, John?

[00:59:03] The only note I've got is the sniper target practice that Tommy and Ellie do. I like it when shows kind of, you know, show it right, which is, you know, you're either with the shooter and you hear the bang of the gun and just the time it takes, even at the velocity it's traveling.

[00:59:26] You know, but it seems long enough for it not to be real that then the bullet hits. In this case, it was a clicker or you're coming at it from the victim's point of view and you just see the bullet hitting the leg of that clicker that was going uphill and then you hear the sound. Infected. Yes, exactly.

[00:59:51] So I thought that was a nice little treat in terms of accuracy. Yeah, the choice for this is like the TV show The Jackal showed what it's like to have a sniper shot at a long distance and very long distance in that show. But it's great to see other shows taking either inspiration from shows like that or having the same kind of realism attached to it. I think that's quite cool.

[01:00:16] So the whole point in the training session between Tommy and Ellie is that Tommy's telling her the tricks you need to do to hit a target at a distance as well. And that's it. Even in an unreal world, there's got to be a realism to it. Exactly, yeah. It's always nice to add something to it, isn't it? And on Earth, it's still got to follow physics. Exactly. And all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Talking about a bit of added realism for season two, here's one of my notes for this episode.

[01:00:44] The episode titled Future Days is a song by Pearl Jam, based on a song by Pearl Jam. In the game, Joel sings that song to Ellie on the guitar. He sings the song Future Days. But that song was released in 2013. But the TV show has relocated the outbreak to 2003. So the song wouldn't have been released. So Joel wouldn't have known the lyrics. So they've just kept the title for the episode title and not been allowed to play the Pearl Jam song. Yeah, there you go. Very good. Yeah.

[01:01:10] I think that's also the reason why we get the Nirvana song at the beginning, the 1988 song from Bleach on there. And talk about a little bit of unrealism. My final note for the episode. If you look at IMDb for the cast list for the episode, the stalker, the new infected that we see in the episode, it's showing is being played by Rebecca Ferguson. Now, Rebecca Ferguson is a pretty well-known actress. She was in Dune. And she was also in the Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise.

[01:01:40] She was the British agent, I think. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So I don't think it's the same Rebecca Ferguson that plays the stalker in this episode. It might have been under heavy prosthetics. It really could have been. But it's difficult to know with the prosthetics, as you say. I mean, even the CGI of the nose being removed. Yeah. It doesn't look like her when I watch it again. Yeah, I couldn't get it from the eyes. But again, the eyes are supposed to be kind of dead looking. Yeah.

[01:02:05] So it would be very cool if this was kind of like her day off and she decided to sit in the makeup chair to get herself made up. Maybe, yeah. Like a stalker. But it would be nice if this was also her Daniel Craig Star Wars moment. Oh, yeah. But in a fungal zombie sort of computer game horror. Everybody wants to be in The Last of Us. It may be. Yeah, it could be that. She might be a massive fan of the game.

[01:02:31] It could be like what, Cate Blanchett wasn't she in Hot Fuzz and under a complete mask so you never saw her face? Exactly. Could be something like that. Could be. So you never know. But whether it is, I'm not too sure. It seemed like it was more likely that her name would have been attached to the actress's name. Would have been attached to Rebecca Ferguson's name by mistake. But it is in the credits as Rebecca Ferguson on the TV show itself. Not just on IMDb. But there may be two Rebecca Fergussons in the world as well. There may very well be. But go and ask her a question if you're interviewing her for her next movie.

[01:02:59] We ask her, was she in The Last of Us as a stalker? But John, overall, what did you think of this first episode of Season 2 of The Last of Us? Future days. Yeah, I thought this was a great opener, actually. I'd give it four and a half hot piles of garbage out of five. What do I smell like? What do I smell like after two hours in the podcast room, John? Yeah, hot pile of garbage. That's why I love you. Yeah, I just thought it was really good.

[01:03:27] I liked the introduction of Abby, even though it's really fleeting. Because it's like, I'm glad they're keeping her back here because she's so important moving forward. And I like the touch point back to the end of last season and just how that plays out five years later. With the very awkward situation between Ellie and Joel in Jackson, Wyoming. Have they drifted apart?

[01:03:57] Has Ellie grown up too much, too quickly? Or is it something more to do with that opening? That the truth or in her, you know, in those five years, she's understood more the truth as to what may have actually happened. So I really like that. I liked, you know, the exploration of that with Catherine O'Hara's Gale in the psychotherapy session.

[01:04:24] I like it being looked at through, you know, in a sense, Ellie playing out with people, even though there's this really dangerous world, you know, out there that can take the other members of her patrol quite easily. And I like the fact that, you know, the ending with the cordyceps in the pipes. Yeah.

[01:04:50] And Abby sort of in the mountains and above the town closing in on the town. And then sort of the supermarket sweep was just really good getting a glimpse of the stalker infected. And I also kind of liked, you know, just seeing Dina and Ellie's sort of unspoken flirting, sort of, you know, birds of a feather type thing, both pushing one another to sort of, you know, annoy the leader of their patrol.

[01:05:20] Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, this was, I think this, you know, really sets up a lot of the, that, that inter-character issues that will happen through, through the season. Absolutely. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So for me, yeah, four and a half hot piles of garbage out of five. Derek, what about yourself? Very good. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I will say it is down to the new cast as well for the show. I really love Bella Ramsey as Ellie.

[01:05:50] I love Pedro Pascal as Joel and Gabriel Luna returning as Tommy as well and Regina Wesley returning as Maria. They're great. But what struck me when I was writing the notes out for the first episode was how few characters are returning from season one. Those are the four. Everybody else is new. Dina's brand new. Abby's new. Jesse, Manny, Gail. They're all brand new. And they've done such a good job of the casting. They all fit in this world really well.

[01:06:17] They've all been around for five years in the ongoing lives in Jackson. And they feel like it. They feel like they've been around. There's even just a little moment that Dina and Jesse both make the same joke about what Ellie looks like when she's getting ready to go out. They both say she looks like Curtis the Viper, which is Joel's favorite movie character. So telling you that not only are Dina and Jesse really close because they make the same joke, they're both really close with Joel as well.

[01:06:45] He's made them part of their family. They've watched movies together. You know, all those little things in the background, how this episode is written show you there is this running world with all these brand new characters, all these people that live together. And that's what's really important when you're setting up a second season of a show with only two major characters and two minor characters carrying on from the previous season into a new story. And it's how you go about it.

[01:07:07] I mean, it's Joel fixing the circuit breaker, that whole thing, and then transposed immediately with the conversation with Gail, where he almost suggests, well, Dina speaks to me as a human being, treats me well. Yeah. And you've only had that interaction where she's asking to be taught and to understand how to fix these things. I wonder how... And you totally get it. Exactly. You know, it's really good writing, great acting, and the visuals are fab.

[01:07:36] And I wonder how many mothers and fathers have had that exact same conversation. Oh, but their friend seems to treat me the way I want them to treat me. You know, they're much nicer. Their parents must be so much more proud of them than I am with my child who's ignoring me now. No, every single parent goes through it with their own children. And every other child treats you with more respect when they're not your child. I think that's it. But no, really love this. Cannot wait to get into the next episode next week.

[01:08:01] But for now, John, I think we need to get down to the pub, throw the knees up, listen to the band, grab a whiskey from somebody else, and go to the World's End pub quiz, John. Yes, don't use that whiskey, though, to disinfect your knife or needle for sort of in-bathroom surgery. No. For sure. No, just use water for that.

[01:08:20] But yes, welcome fellow quizzers, fellow survivors, fellow clickers to our Last of Us World's End pub quiz. It is the first episode of season two. So, of course, it is question one. And the question is, what animal is the 2003 July employee of the month at the abandoned market that Ellie and Dina check out? Very good. Very good.

[01:08:49] I think everybody probably caught that one. So, an easy one to begin with. John, do you want to give the question one more time? Yeah. What animal is the 2003 July employee of the month at the abandoned market that Ellie and Dina check out? And we did check. There's no name, place or anything like that. So, it is an easy answer for the first one. But that is the first question of seven. Email your seven answers at the end of the season to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. Hopefully, all correct. And you'll be in with a chance of getting your hands on some Last of Us goodies.

[01:09:19] Excellent stuff. Shall we get into our feedback? Yes, we should. We just got one piece of feedback in from Victor Von Doom because we're recording just after the episode came out. He says, so glad to have them back. The episode buildup kept me hooked. Ellie seems to have grown, Joel. Been there, dude. It's just 19. Hang in there, Joel. Trouble coming from all sides. The good people of Jackson better quickly get over their hangups. Thanks, Victor. Yeah, you're probably right. They are going to be attacked from all sides pretty soon.

[01:09:47] So, I think they need to knuckle down and work together to overcome what's coming. Yeah, good stuff, Victor. Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I think it's going to be at them from all sides. But, yeah, also great to have the two of them back in Joel and Ellie. Yeah, it's just unfortunate that they seem to be kind of separated at the moment. Yeah, yeah. But we'll see. I might grow out as the season goes on. Thanks so much, Victor. We do want to hear from you for the rest of the season.

[01:10:15] If you want to email us, you can email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. And, of course, pop over to our Facebook group. I will be putting a spoiler post for each episode over at facebook.com slash groups slash TV podcast industries as well. And we hope to hear from you as the season goes on. Thanks so much for joining us. We are also covering Daredevil Born Again each week with just one episode left to go. We'd love to love if you joined us over on TV podcast industries for that. But otherwise, we'll see you next week for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 2. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:10:43] Thank you so much, fellow survivors, for joining us. We'll be back with Episode 2 of Last of Us next week. But in the meantime, keep watching, keep listening, and, of course, keep clicking. Bye. Bye. Wasn't quite as good. Wasn't quite as good at the end. Bye.