The Last of Us 202 Review

[00:00:00] This is The Last Of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries and we're talking about The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 2, Through the Valley.

[00:00:48] Welcome back fellow survivors, this is The Last Of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries and of course we are talking all about The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 2, Through the Valley. You don't get to rush this fellow survivors, I am one of your hosts John. Welcome back fellow survivors, I'm one of your other hosts Derek. Oh yeah, I don't know whether we do get to rush this, do we? They can play it on 12 speed if they want to. Exactly. I know, what a line, what a line.

[00:01:17] I know, I know. Is everybody okay out there? Are all our fellow survivors okay? It's a tough one. It's like, yeah, it certainly is and then there's like ding-a-ling-a-ling, it's like the dinner bell being rung. Mushrooms on toast. Nice fried mushrooms actually. Yeah, with a bit of flamethrower action going on. Yes, don't be eating those mushrooms, John. I wonder if they are edible. I don't think so. After they've been cooked. I don't think so.

[00:01:47] I know that there's a good old flame grilled version in this episode isn't there? Like slice it, you know like cauliflower steaks, kind of just slice the head of a dead clicker and then sort of fry it in butter. I kind of feel like you'd spend a couple of years making sure the cordyceps were completely gone just in case one of them underneath it all was allowed. Spores, isn't it? They kind of, they infect through spores. Spores in the game, in the TV show, it's the cordyceps, little tendrils, that's what does the infection. Well, that's true, that's true.

[00:02:15] Yeah, because we saw that kiss back in season one, do you remember? Yes, yes, yes. Which is passing the cordyceps. That was amazing, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, but fry them off and again if they're dead. Maybe. I'm not going to try it, I'll let you try it first. I don't think they can cope with hot sizzling butter. Well, enough of the cooking tips for this episode, I think we need to get in and talk about it. Probably the worst kept secret of what was going to happen in the show. I guess so.

[00:02:43] But I am very surprised when I've seen a lot of comments saying that they didn't know this was going to happen in the episode. So, I guess we've just been spoiled since the start because there were so many people, like we obviously have played the games, we knew it was going to happen, but there were so many people who are willing to jump into any conversation and say they knew exactly what was going to happen. Yeah. They knew what was going to happen in the episode. And of course, the reason why we're not saying is, in case you clicked on the wrong episode and haven't seen episode two of season two of The Last of Us, make sure you watch it before we continue. Well, indeed. Yeah.

[00:03:12] I mean, I guess there's just still some places in the world that don't have any internet. Well, yeah. Yeah. Or, but you know, I mean, it's just the pure TV watchers, you know? Yeah. That they've not played the game, they never have done, and they just don't follow that kind of media. Yeah. And, but they're fans of the shows. I guess, yeah, you can absolutely still be surprised.

[00:03:38] I think more for me, it was just, you know, I did have that overriding feeling because part two of Last of Us was split into two seasons, and there'll be a season three. I felt this would come later. Right.

[00:03:52] And certainly because they were setting up an attack on Jackson and so on, but nonetheless, I think with the arrival of Abby and her crew there in the first episode to Jackson, I thought it was probably going to be an episode three or four. So maybe a mid-season, I thought it would be drawn out, but I'm glad they did what they did. It surprised everyone. Yeah. And I think it was the right time to do it, but we will talk about it as we get into our spoiler-filled discussion on this episode. Yes. Indeed.

[00:04:22] And fellow survivors, if you are just joining us, then please head on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast on any immune or infected podcast catcher of your choice. And, and of course we love your feedback, thoughts, theories, observations, or comments on all things to do with The Last of Us. So send your emails to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com.

[00:04:51] Or of course you can join our Facebook group over on facebook.com forward slash groups, forward slash tvpodcastindustries, where you can respond to our spoiler posts, uh, in the group, uh, for each episode of The Last of Us for this season. Mm-hmm.

[00:05:10] And of course, if you are quizzing it to the max, and then please also head on over to our website, uh, where you can find all the questions, uh, as we move through this season of The Last of Us. And of course, question two will be coming up, uh, after we have gone through our top five points. Yeah. Um, for this episode. Absolutely. Yeah. Give it one question, an episode for the seven episodes, uh, for our World's Ends pub quiz season two.

[00:05:40] If you get all the correct answers into us at the end of the season to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com, you could get your hands on a copy of The Last of Us season two or a 50 euro Amazon voucher. So either way, it's winner, winner, chicken dinner. Well, one or the other. Yeah. Yes. For the, for the person who. Either way. If you're not a gamer, you get a 50 euro voucher for, uh, Last of Us, uh, merch. Goodies. Yes.

[00:06:07] Or you can get the, uh, Last of Us game, uh, the part two of the game. Exactly. Or indeed part one if you don't have part one. Uh, yeah, you can buy that with a veggie. Exactly. But yes, winner, winner, chicken dinner, either way. Um, or maybe fungus dinner. Oh yeah. Either way. Let us get into our spoiler-filled discussion of The Last of Us. Episode two, Through the Valley. Derek, uh, what are some of the episode details?

[00:06:35] Well, the show is of course based on the PlayStation game, The Last of Us part two by Neil Druckmann and also written by Hayley Wigand-Gross, uh, from game publisher Naughty Dog. I'm guessing Hayley Wigand-Gross is one of the writers for the, uh, for the game because she now has that credit, uh, as of the second season. I actually don't know when she started working on The Last of Us, whether she was involved in season one or involved in the first game, uh, but she does now have a credit, uh, as writer of The Last of Us part two. Um, so I will ensure that she's, she gets the correct credit for her contribution, of course.

[00:07:05] Uh, the show is written and executive produced by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann and written for television by Craig Mazin. This episode, of course, again, written by Craig Mazin. Yes. Although, uh, just to, to note, it's, you know, the publisher is Naughty Dog. There are a lot of good dogs in this episode. There are some very good dogs in this episode. Good doggies. Yes, there are. Yes, there are. And this episode was directed by Mark Millard, who directed six episodes of Game of Thrones across season five, six, and seven, and also directed the excellent movie The Menuse,

[00:07:35] which starred, uh, Ralph Fiennes. That's a really, really good movie. I really enjoyed that one. Oh yeah. It was, it was really good. Very unexpected. It is. It is. Uh, he was also executive producer of 37 episodes and director of 16 episodes of the other excellent show, Succession, uh, starting in season one as well. And he started off on UK TV on loads of shows, including The Fast Show, Cold Feet, The Royal Family, and Shooting Stars. The Dove from Above, I believe.

[00:08:02] I, I often wondered, was there anybody that directed those shows? But somebody has to tell the cameras where to point while the madness went on in that game show, I guess. There's always a director involved in any sort of TV show, even if, however nominal that might be. But it's all about bringing in the sound and so on. And I guess you always had to direct and cue The Dove from Above. Absolutely. And one of the scorers, George Doors. Yes. Exactly. Absolutely. Not making any sense to anybody outside of the UK. No, it's probably not.

[00:08:30] But really interesting director to have on board, someone especially that had worked on Game of Thrones, another massive HBO property with massive sequences in it as well. That's it. A really good sort of number of nice properties banked there. Succession, Game of Thrones. And I think he also was involved with Entourage and sort of brought, sort of co-directed, co-executive produced the US version of another UK show that we like in terms of Shameless.

[00:09:00] Oh, of course. Yes. So, yeah. Kind of some interesting properties that he's been involved with, I think. Brilliant. Brilliant stuff. Well, John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 2, Through the Valley? Sure. After taking shelter in a mansion near Jackson, Abby remains steadfast in her mission to kill Joel. But her friends are more concerned about the town's size during daytime and the security contained within its walls. While Abby goes outside to keep watch, Owen informs the others that his plan is to convince

[00:09:30] Abby to leave and return to Seattle. In Jackson, the town council has put the town on alert after a patrol reports of the infected using other infected as insulation under the snowpack and being able to attack in the cold. With the events of New Year's Eve behind everyone, Jessie wakes up a sleepy alley to go on patrol. She had her mind to go out with Joel for a daddy-daughter session, but Jessie informs her that he has already left with Dina.

[00:09:59] While scoping out Jackson, Abby sees two horse riders and as she tries to get closer, she accidentally awakens a large horde of infected hiding under the snow. She escapes into a nearby compound but is attacked again by the horde, only to be saved from one of the infected by Joel. Knowing who she has been saved by, she immediately suggests they escape to a nearby lodge where her friends are taking shelter from the cold.

[00:10:25] As they flee the compound on horseback, the chasing horde suddenly stops pursuing them. Meanwhile, Ellie and Jessie are holed up in a 7-Eleven that was previously used by Eugene as a farm to grow weed for sale back in Jackson. As the storm gets worse outside, they receive broken and intermittent radio messages from Jackson, informing them that Dina and Joel have not returned. Ellie and Jessie head out to scout the mountainside in separate directions to try and find them before

[00:10:53] they are taken by the cold, the infected, or worse. In Jackson, the infected tendrils are discovered. As the tendrils assess their new surroundings, the horde are redirected to Jackson. A large battle ensues at the walls of Jackson and the inhabitants appear to have the upper hand until a bloater breaches the wall, which leads to a battle inside Jackson. Heavy damage and casualties are suffered, and as the bloater looks to go after Maria,

[00:11:21] Tommy saves his wife from the bloater by drawing it away and killing it with a flamethrower. Abby brings Joel and Dina to the mansion, where Dina is sedated, and Abby reveals herself to be the daughter of the Firefly Doctor who Joel killed at the hospital in Salt Lake City. She shoots Joel in the leg and brutally beats him with a golf club. As she continues to use Joel as a punchbag, Ellie arrives at the lodge. As she enters the main hall to see Joel bloody and being beaten viciously by Abby,

[00:11:50] she is restrained by Abby's party and forced to watch helplessly. Owen orders Abby to finish it, and Ellie watches as Abby fatally stabs Joel in the neck with a broken golf club's handle. Ellie promises to kill Abby, and Abby's group leaves the lodge heading back to Seattle, as Jesse is seen approaching the lodge from the other direction. As Jackson begins to recover from the battle, Ellie, Dina, and Jesse return home with Joel's body.

[00:12:19] Oof, moment's silence for the death of Joel. Well, absolutely, yeah. I mean, it's really... Like, it is vicious. It's very brutal. But it's, you know, that sort of premeditation of Abby is really clear to see. And I think they do some really interesting stylistic choices around his death, which I just thought worked really well.

[00:12:49] Because I think it's so emotional anyway. Yeah. In the lead up to, you know, the event. I guess we'll come to this in our point. But, you know, I just think some good stylistic choices made here. But I think we should get into our top points for this episode. Episode two, Through the Valley. Do you want to say that in a Welsh accent? Through the valley. I have to say that.

[00:13:15] Although, I guess it's not filled with daffodils like we'd be in Wales at this time of year. They're filled with mushrooms. And snow. And lots and lots of snow, yes. And lots of frozen mushrooms, shall we say. Mushroom heads, frozen, sticking out of the snowpack. We only see one. You are right, Derek. But I did like the visual. And the mouth. It was very good. But I digress.

[00:13:44] It wasn't why I had one held up. I had one held up to make you move on to point. Yes, I do digress. Yes, and whatever that one finger meant, let's get on to point number one. Abby and friends at the lodge. Sounds a bit Disney, doesn't it? Whatever. But yes, this is Abby and all her sort of friends, the team, Owen, and all the others that have sort of overnighted at this old ski lodge.

[00:14:13] Yes. And we're initially sort of brought into this through reliving the attack at Salt Lake City, or at least sort of those initial moments where Abby is going through the corridors just after the attack. And Abby effectively is speaking to Abby to say, you don't want to go in there. I've seen the room. His brains are all over the walls. Yeah.

[00:14:39] You know, a warning that if she goes in to that room, to that operating theatre, she will be forever changed. Exactly. And this is a broken and an unbroken Abby talking to each other. It's the current Abby in this current timeline trying to reach back through her dreams to herself effectively to stop her from going in. And because she knows that's the moment that she breaks and becomes the person she is now.

[00:15:07] It's such an interesting way of opening the episode. We've talked about it before that in season one, every episode had this kind of flashback to an earlier time, which sets up something or has a commentary on something that's happened in the episode. And this season here we have this is kind of your flashback at the start of the episode. It's Abby looking back to the previous Abby. Yeah. And I think it's really important.

[00:15:33] I think they do it in particular in this episode, in the end, you know, she's the instigator of what happens in those final moments. Oh, yeah. To understand that trauma, to give her context as to why she's doing that. I mean, you know, and I think that's it's the trauma of seeing it again.

[00:15:55] And it's that warning through her dreams not to proceed because the trauma will be too much and you will change without recognition. Exactly. And so it's a really good way of doing that. And then... Yeah. I think even seeing that Abby crying after she gives the warning and knows she can't heed the warning because she's not actually talking to her past self and knows what's coming up for herself, you know, in that moment of a dream, you know. So it's a great...

[00:16:24] It's just to see her cry as well is showing how much it still affects her to this day. It's the sort of... It's the maze that she knows she's in and that she can't get out. Exactly. And want that, you know, once she's done that, there's no turning back and she can't change the past. So, but this is her attempt within her dreams to, I guess, to have, you know, those conversations still about what she's doing and why.

[00:16:54] And, you know, she wakes up and you have that they've overnighted at the lodge. And I do, you know, in the spirit of Star Wars, that is no moon. I like the fact that you have all the members of the team sort of having full, you know, the morning daylight to realize that Jackson is a bigger entity and proposition than what they thought at night where they just saw some, not necessarily all lights on.

[00:17:24] And they suddenly see this is like a fully functioning town with defensive walls, with patrols that go out in a sequence overlap. You've had Owen who's been out scouting, looking at it, seeing that, you know, they're an organized bunch. Mm hmm.

[00:17:45] And that it's fed by sort of power grid and that as such, as a result of all that, you know, it's a completely different proposition. This team cannot just attack it. Yeah. And from their perspective, you know, the night before they thought, oh, we've reached our goal. We know where we're going. We found it here. It's kind of that, you know, closer far away thing where they looked out and saw a few lights on and went, oh, place must be tiny. It's probably like I think even one of them says, oh, I thought it was like a tented village. Yeah.

[00:18:13] And then we look over and see and see this massive town. I love the ongoing joke when each person wakes up and looks out the window. So first it's Owen's already awake. Abby wakes up and goes, oh, wow. Well, she says the effort, of course. Then it goes on to Manny who walks in beside her and says the same thing. And then one of the girls wakes up and goes, oh, shit, as she looks out the window and the next one wakes up and has the same reaction as well. So as each one of them wake up, they go, oh, no, there's that bad thing.

[00:18:41] But as you say, Owen's done his due diligence. He's gone out and had a look, seeing if there's any possible way in. And it's kind of a call back to episode one here, which I liked. The fact that this is a really well organized Jackson is very important and becomes more important later on in the episode. But Owen talks about it here. And what we saw last episode when the patrols went out, we saw Jesse hand out two flags to the teams going out and saying to them today it's orange.

[00:19:09] I think it was if the flags that are hanging up are orange. That means we're under attack, which is something that nobody would know unless they were given the briefing by Jesse. So everybody would think if it's a green flag up, it means everything's fine. So they're well organized and it's being called out again here and that will become really important later on in the episode. They have a system in place and even a cursory sort of lookout from Owen.

[00:19:34] He can recognize, you know, as we know, you know, they've got some sort of tactical training with their previous alignment with the Fireflies. Yeah. And it's been a further five years in Seattle. So even then he can spot that in a sense quite initially. But as such, you know, there's doubt creeping into the whole team here. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:00] And, you know, but Abby is still very, very insistent that, you know, we need to get him. You know, maybe they take a patrol. They question them, interrogate them. But like, where does that lead? Does that lead to torture? And in the end, you have Owen sort of trying to sort of break the ice in a sense. No pun intended.

[00:20:23] By saying, you know, look, Abby, you go out on Next Lookout and see just to make sure that no one's coming up this way. But, you know, I have sort of a knob of a plan here. I have written down here that he has 12% of a plan like Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, absolutely. That's not even a plan. And, you know, that's enough to sort of placate her. It's also, you know, the other members of the team kind of go, okay.

[00:20:52] But Manny's a bit dubious. And after Abby's gone out on Lookout, he says, well, you don't really have a plan, do you? You can't have. And he says, well, I do. But the plan is to convince Abby to drop this. Exactly. And leave here and return back to Seattle. Yeah. Because if we attack that, we're dead. Absolutely.

[00:21:14] And it's also really important that the other side of it, not only are they unable to attack a giant city like Jackson, the other part of it is, all of the other plans that they're coming up with could lead to somebody else dying. And we hear it a couple of times. The agreement with this group is they get to kill Joel for what he did, but nobody else gets hurt. Nobody else dies. Yeah. So even when Abby's suggesting we take a patrol, the reason they push back on that is because they'd have to kill the patrol.

[00:21:42] They can't let them go back out there because they've learned who's out looking for Joel. So even that plan falls flat. So that's just a little touch that they're really making sure is clear with everybody here. And equally, as we see in this episode, they would know pretty quickly that a patrol has gone missing. Mm-hmm. So that's how organized they are. Exactly. And, you know, you're not allowed to just go out and wander effectively. So, yes, I think that's our point one.

[00:22:13] Our point two, which kind of relates into that, the 8 a.m. patrol. Yeah. Doesn't even get the day off because it's New Year's. I know. All right. Like, you would think we'd have a public holiday. In the apocalypse. Somebody still has to wake up in the morning. And not only is it somebody, it's Joel, Dina, Ellie, and Jesse all having to go out and patrol on this particular day. Yeah. And Jesse is coming over to wake up Ellie. Yeah.

[00:22:41] Because, actually, Joel had said, well, leave her, let her have a little bit of a lion, as it is New Year's Day. And given the events of New Year's Eve. Uh-huh. So, he's the one that wakes her up. I do like him sort of messing around with her about, you know, well, I know what happened last night. And she's like, oh, the kiss. And it was like, well, no, it was everything that went down with Seth. Yeah. You know, there was the Barney and Joel pushed him to the ground and so on. But what's this about the kiss?

[00:23:12] So, I liked how that all kind of worked out. Like, I'm really enjoying Jesse's character. Yeah. He's really good. But, again, remember, last week we heard Jesse and Dina are constantly getting together and breaking up, getting together and breaking up over and over again. So, that's why Ellie's kind of going, oh, God, I can't believe you think I've cheated on, with Dina behind your back kind of thing. And Jesse's like, I don't really care at all. It's fine. Dina told me everything about it. Yeah. Don't even worry about it. But, yeah, I really like Jesse.

[00:23:39] I really like that he's got that sense of humor about him, even though he's also the one that follows every rule that's laid out. Yeah. He's the one that I think even Ellie says in this episode, you're going to be running Jackson in one day in the future, but you're not running it yet. You know, because he's so strict on the rules when he's talking to her. No, agreed. He's kind of, you know, he's in that sort of lead role.

[00:24:03] You know, he's he and he's in on the decision making here as well. You know, so he is the one that kind of just, you know, normally mentions to Ellie that, you know, the town is on alert. Yeah. As well.

[00:24:19] But I think, you know, what I really liked here as well was just sort of the whole relationship between Ellie and Joel being given a brief mention, but also just the way it was. And given this episode. And I guess, you know, the things left unsaid element that you could you would have here and between Ellie and Joel.

[00:24:47] And I do like also this kind of reality that Ellie brings in to all the kind of chit chat or, you know, gossip, even rumor around why there is the strange relationship between her and Joel. You know, Jesse's kind of sort of niggling at her again. And she's like, you know, we have a complicated relationship. Things aren't going that well at the moment.

[00:25:15] But, you know, I'm still Ellie and he's still Joel. Yeah. And like, where is he? And we'll have our daddy and daughter day out on patrol. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But still delivered in an Ellie way. So it doesn't sound like she's too excited about it. She kind of just wants Jesse to stop bloody talking about it and prodding him. You know, she rolls her eyes. Yeah. As she says, we'll have the daddy and, you know, a daddy and daughter day. Yeah. Out on patrol. Yeah. But there's two other things that I think play into this.

[00:25:43] Number one is, yes, she wants to go out with Joel because of what happened the previous night. I think she realized she overstepped with Joel, telling him in front of everybody to just step off. Yeah? I think that's the first thing. Yeah. The second thing, he's also chosen to take Dina out with him. So I wonder whether Ellie's very jealous of the fact that he's chosen to take somebody else of his age group out with him, making a good bond with Dina now.

[00:26:08] Good enough that even though she was also very central in that whole thing the previous night, Joel's taking Dina out with him. So is Ellie going, hang on a second, I want to go out with him? Well, maybe later. I mean, I assume that she only found out that he had gone out with Dina after this moment because she's going, I want daddy and daughter day. And it's Jesse who said, well, you can't be stuck with me because he's already out on patrol with Dina.

[00:26:37] So yeah, after that, maybe she's wondering what that's about. But I didn't really get that sense. I thought it was more like you were saying. I think it was kind of just bringing a bit of reality to some of the hype of their relationship to other people. Even if that is overselling what she did, their own position.

[00:27:02] I think it's also about, yes, she realizes she's overstepped the mark from New Year's Eve. Yeah, I think it's that. I think she kind of realized, co-light of day, probably should apologize to Joel. And if I go out with him on patrol, I'll be able to have a moment to apologize to him without anybody else looking on, without anybody else taking notes or finding out and getting all the juicy gossip. And then can't do it because he's already out with Dina. Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly.

[00:27:31] Interestingly, this is the opening of the game of The Last of Us Part 2 is Ellie being woken up by Jesse to go out and patrol. We have the walk around the town. As you're playing as Ellie for the first time, they have a little snowball fight. So you can learn how to throw things with Ellie, isn't that right? So this is how the game opens, not the way we had the whole of the last episode or anything like that. So a lot of the last episode was flashbacks later on in the game.

[00:27:58] So I just think it's interesting that it's almost, it's not shot for shot. There's different conversations going on. But a lot of the things that happen that they're talking about, I guess, in the conversation, we haven't seen in the game at this point. They're all things that we see in flashback later. So we didn't see the party until much later in the game. We don't know about why Ellie and Joel have been fighting. Just the conversation that Ellie has here until later on in the game. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:28:27] But we have effectively Jesse and Ellie heading out on their patrol. And I think that brings us into our point number three. A storm is brewing because literally as they're leaving the gates of Jackson, you see the dark clouds up the valley forming over the mountainside. And you have Ellie say, I hope we're not going to get caught in those.

[00:28:55] Jesse doesn't seem to think they will because they'll just stay up on the mountaintops. It does though, doesn't it? The storm does stay on the mountain quite literally for the episode. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's true. But also it comes down into the valley. The storm is everywhere. Metaphorically and literally. Yeah. It is everywhere. So I kind of really like this. And I mean, we get this little precursor.

[00:29:21] We saw the Macondral sort of tendrils sort of in at the end of episode one. But also, you know, we have Jesse alluding to this to Ellie before they go out on patrol. And we have here then, you know, that Jackson is on alert and we have Tommy outlining that plan

[00:29:45] because not only do we have that Ellie has reported back this, you know, super intelligent ghost of an infected that is starting to circulate around. But also another patrol was out around a place called Seven Cabins where they saw a bunch of frozen infected in the snowpack but thought nothing of it.

[00:30:13] But 30 sort of moving and living infected jumped out from underneath their own dead. So sort of using their own dead. Jesse kind of alludes to it as insulation from the cold but also as cover and attacked them. Now, I think they were able to get away and report it. They were, yeah. Yeah, he says they sent out a patrol to take them all out. But it could be significantly more than those 30 that they found. Yeah. That could be underneath.

[00:30:42] So they're really worried now that maybe there's a lot of infected under the winter snowpack that they have not really accounted for previously. And so Jackson is on alert. You see the preparations happening. And you have Tommy outlining the plan to the townsfolk of Jackson. Yeah.

[00:31:06] That, you know, children, elderly and carers go into the basement, barricade themselves in. Yeah. And whilst the men and women who are able and can fight, can use the firearms, either go up onto the roofs or man the walls. And from this point onwards, they have to carry the guns with them because it could happen at any stage. I really like this with Tommy. Yeah.

[00:31:35] It's cool seeing him getting this moment of being in charge of the group. I think he works really well as the kind of leader here, telling them all what they need to do. I suppose just it was Joel the previous day who's the leader of the construction crew. He's the one that told them they have to continue working on these pipes and clearing all that crap out of the pipes so that they can get the water flowing through them again. So his direction has led to somebody now breaking into another pipe and revealing the mycelial network in the town.

[00:32:03] But then we have Tommy on the other side of it kind of setting up these plans. Everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing. I even said while I was watching this, John, in the game, it's Tommy and Joel that go together on their patrol that particular morning. And in this case, it's Dina and Joel that go. And I remember saying to you that it's such a shame the way they're using Gabriel Luna in the show playing Tommy when they keep moving him away from the scenes that he should have. He had that amazing scene in the first episode of the first season of the show.

[00:32:33] And then from then on, he's in the background as a background character. And I thought they were pulling him away from having his scene with Joel in this episode. But he gets a significantly bigger role here as the leader of Jackson as it comes under attack, you know? Yeah, no, absolutely. So a great way to use Gabriel Luna. He's such a good actor. Really enjoy him here. Yeah, no, definitely. But the other thing that he says as he outlines the plan is don't be like Earl.

[00:33:00] So, you know, we have this storm brewing down in Jackson. And then you see the sort of genesis of the storm brewing up in the mountains where you see Abby is on lookout and she sees two horse riders. And, you know, is scoping them through a gun, is scoping them through the binoculars that she has.

[00:33:27] Can't see at all that it would be Joel or anything like that. But effectively, you know, is starts to track them and follow them at a distance is looking to sort of get down onto a lower level.

[00:33:40] As she does, she kind of falls down this relatively steep snow slope into this kind of lovely, I would say, a production team's absolute joy to create, you know, frozen, infected sticking up out of the snow. The infected graveyard, yeah. Yeah, the infected graveyard. She falls into this.

[00:34:06] I just thought the clicker with its head and shoulders just above the snowpack looking out but completely frozen was just great. And I love then that it looks like it's moving but effectively it's twisting with the movement of the snow as then this really significant horde begins to wake up. So cool.

[00:34:32] As they've heard her crash onto the surface of where they're kind of hibernating or taking shelter or taking cover, whatever it is, you know, this horde is woken up by Abby falling into the middle of this infected graveyard, at least on the surface. Yeah.

[00:34:53] And then his chase to this compound were, I mean, again, just really good scenes where she's sort of making that way between the hut and a chain fence. Oh, yes. And the horde's already within the compound and just comes crashing against it, sort of making the crawl space narrower and narrower.

[00:35:18] You have that moment where you see one of the infected sort of trying to grab and reach her. Yep. And the chain, the metal is just sort of cutting between down into the palm of the hand between the fingers. Like, just really, really kind of, and just that claustrophobia that is generated here. You know, one finally makes its way through, manages to break into that crawl space and follows Abby.

[00:35:48] And Abby is fighting her off as it's then shot in the head. And lo and behold, just that really sort of great moment for the audience. And you know the hand is Joel's, like, but she's saved by the person who she's looking to kill. Exactly. In this compound. But it's a great use, again, they use sand really well in this episode.

[00:36:10] It's a great use of the sand because it's the gunshot that has been used to kill the infected that makes her ears ring so she can't hear Joel's voice. So we're not supposed to know it's Joel for a couple of seconds, but it's spoiled by the subtitles, but it's fine. So he is there. He's the one that saves her. The fact that it's the person that she's been looking for is really interesting. And it was only when I saw it the second time. It just didn't work, I suppose, the way the showmakers probably wanted it to work.

[00:36:40] But actually, when Abby's looking out over the two horses that are coming up, we're supposed to think as the audience that Jesse and Ellie because Jesse and Ellie just left from the compound. And they're also out on horses at the moment. And they literally had just left as Abby's looking out and seeing the two horses come towards them. You're supposed to think, oh, maybe she's going to take Ellie hostage because she just talked about taking riders hostage. Yes. So you're supposed to think that that's the way it's happened. And also because we played the game when you roughly what was going to happen here.

[00:37:09] So it is interesting that that was the kind of sleight of hand they were trying to play with the audience. So I wonder where other viewers watching are thinking, oh, is she going to take Ellie hostage and then use Ellie and interrogate Ellie to get Joel out? Yeah, I mean, I think because time is, I mean, sometimes it depends how TV uses time and how consistently it uses it. And I think because this was the next day after New Year's Eve, you know, they weren't speeding it up.

[00:37:38] It wasn't a few days down the line or anything like that. So I did, I didn't think it was Jesse and Ellie because just simply because they had just literally left the town. So I was thinking it was more likely to be Dina and Joel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:59] Because this would be the only conceivable way you could ambush Joel without having to go anywhere near Jackson. It was whilst he's out of patrol. And so I kind of assumed it was Dina. But I thought because Abby had relayed her plan of we need to capture some people who are out of patrol and then torture them that I was going, oh, actually, I wonder here if they've got Ellie or at least that's just supposed to think.

[00:38:28] And there's only half an hour between when Joel left and when Ellie and Jesse left. And we hear that they take shelter because they've gone too far away from Jackson. And we hear that they're taking shelter. So it's not that far behind. So, yeah, I think it was an attempt to try and throw us off the scent that Abby would actually catch up with Joel that quickly.

[00:38:50] I mean, I kind of wondered whether Abby got kind of taken by it because she thought I could enact this plan of interrogating someone without them knowing. Exactly. She has no idea that she's actually going to run into Joel here at all. No, she doesn't. And I just think it's a really good moment the way that it happens. I mean, even her ears are still ringing. But she catches Dina shouting up, Joel, you know, what's happening?

[00:39:20] We need to get out of here. You know, as he's like locking the sort of and bolting the big metal door behind. And you see her go for her gun and it's it's fallen out. And she's like both of her guns on the way down there, hasn't she? On that pole down the hill. I have to say that the way that plays out as as she's being chased down by by all of the infected. I could do think with Abby, the scenes work really well. By now, just two episodes in, you know that she's very well trained.

[00:39:50] She's very well equipped, even going out to the overpass to look out over over Jackson to to create her new plan. Now that she knows how big the place is. She looks really well equipped for that at the beginning there. And then she falls down the hill, loses all her weapons and gets chased down by infected. Like as if this is happening five years beforehand, like as if she's regressed herself back to 19 years or five years beforehand. And she is just another person being chased down by infected and being saved by somebody else.

[00:40:18] That person happens to be Joel. It's like, you know, it's like she's fallen back down the down the valley, I guess, back to back to who she used to be rather than this highly skilled military person that she was at the top of the hill feeling that she could take on the world. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, she goes for the gun and all that. It's not there. But I like the fact that she then thinks on her feet.

[00:40:43] She engineers it so that it's like, you know, come back to the lodge. My friends are there. We were armed. They will be able to help us sort of deal tackle with the horde that is chasing them out of this compound whilst they're on horseback. So, you know, she's kind of she's managed to engineer where they're going where she wants them to be, even though she's not armed. So it's more than just that she's highly trained.

[00:41:13] She's, you know, she's good at being able to sort of switch it up. And then as they head on up towards there, they see, you know, all of a sudden the horde stops following them and changes direction. And that's where, you know, in this third point of the storm is brewing.

[00:41:32] You see, as you mentioned a bit earlier, the guy who's working on the clogged drainage with all the tree roots, you know, breaks another section of it, is pulling out the roots with a pick.

[00:41:51] And then, you know, but sees the mychondrial, the cordyceps and sort of network that has come through this pipe work. Exactly. And so, you know, goes to warn Tommy and Maria, just as then one of the lookouts sees this horde having changed direction, all charging towards Jackson.

[00:42:21] Yeah, I love this. It's like as if the mycelial network, I think I was joking about it again when we were watching. It's like as if the mycelial network is going, why are you chasing after those three people and two horses when you've got an entire village to feed upon down here? You know, come on, everybody get together. Come on. And the two hordes joined together. The one group that was chasing after Abby and the other group that's even bigger coming down the mountain. Exactly.

[00:42:44] And even then, you know, as they're getting closer to the lodge and Joel looks behind and sees the start of this battle happening down in Jackson, Abby's like, but we're just close to the lodge. If you come back here, we've got guns. We can pick them up. We can go and help because Joel was about to just turn full circle and go back down towards Jackson in order to help out to defend the town. Yeah. And family are all there, you know? Yeah, exactly.

[00:43:13] So I think on that, it's point number four. Enact the plan. Yes. As we have Jackson attacked by this horde and following sort of the network informing this horde. This is so cool to see. You know, we've seen epic battles in shows like HBO's Game of Thrones before.

[00:43:38] These type of things, you know, where I think Hardhome is the one where we have the White Walkers coming to attack. Yeah. Isn't that the Frozen one? I can't remember all the battle names. So they have done this before in other HBO shows where you have these big battles, but it's great to see one in The Last of Us. I didn't think we were going to get something as big as this. And it does last a good portion of the episode. You know, as we see the kind of wave after wave of the infected arriving towards Jackson and Tommy's making the plan.

[00:44:08] You see him call out to send out the canisters full of gasoline. They shoot the canisters and then they set fire to them. So they do it at a point when as many infected are around the barrel as possible. So you can blow as many away and set fire to as many others in the surrounding area as well. You know, it's a tool you use in loads of video games. The barrel that you choose is. But you always shoot it when there's five or six people around rather than one. Definitely. Definitely.

[00:44:36] No, I mean, I think the whole battle sequence around Jackson was really, really well done. I mean, and it was kind of nice. It was that sort of mix between, you know, a medieval sort of castle siege because of the walls and the towers and the ramparts and, you know, all that kind of thing. But they're all with guns.

[00:44:59] And, you know, instead of boiling tar, it's barrels of gasoline being sent down to then sort of be shot at and then lit up. So I really, really enjoyed this kind of, you know, in a dystopian world where you've got to forage not just for food but parts. You know, like we were saying about the caulking seal for the window in episode one.

[00:45:27] This is kind of the warfare here is both partly primitive in that it's almost like a castle. Yeah. But at the same time, they still managed to forage guns. I think I really just love the shot of all the shell casings hitting the ground. It's just a nice depiction of just how many shots have been fired, how many are in the horde that are attacking Jackson. So I really, really like this. Yeah.

[00:45:56] And I just I really like seeing Tommy kind of, you know, take up that mantle of leadership, leading the people on the ramparts and, you know, with the chant and also with the, you know, the leadership to attack the infected. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, what I like here is you have a bloater and the breach. Oh, yeah. So it's good to see a bloater back in. Yeah. It's interesting now. I know they're powerful, but you do.

[00:46:25] So I'm there going, you know, it is interesting that I guess it is strong enough to go through sort of the big logs making up the fence and the perimeter. I think there's a moment when you're watching it with the 10 members of Jackson Hole when they're looking over the infected and they all start moving to the right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:51] And it's almost like the bloater has found a breach or they found somewhere that's a little bit weaker than the rest of the walls, you know, because they're still building them. They're still expanding the town. But it's like as if they found a spot a little further down that the bloater can run through the wall. This is how it's introduced in the second game. The way the bloater arises, it runs through the wall of a building. So here it's a much bigger wall. Yeah. Of course, because it's blocking a whole town. But it's almost like as if it's able to find a way to break through. But they are very powerful.

[00:47:20] Oh, I remember getting bashed at the head quite a few times in the game by these things and not surviving very well. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly exploited. I mean, I wonder whether, again, whether it's something to do with the mycelial network that can pinpoint this weakness. Maybe. Maybe it's a little rotted, the wood or something like that. Or it was on the repair list. This place has been around for quite a few years now. So, you know. But it's interesting as well with kind of the whole siege mentality and, as I say, castles.

[00:47:47] You then start to go, oh, but wouldn't it be nice if there was like, you know, they had dug a slight moat. Yeah. And that's where they, to slow them down. Yeah. That's where they could fire the canisters. But then the ramparts aren't all the way around either. So it's like, yeah, it's just, you know, it's not giving out. It's just that you start to go, oh, if you could do this, you could do that. That's what I always do in these kind of things where it's like the defensive situation. Exactly.

[00:48:15] You know, how can you defend it even more? But like they do what they can and they're making a good sort of kill zone there. But, yeah, you see the infected peeling away as this bloater manages to get the wool breached and they start piling in. And they enact the plan. I mean, you know, it is that they're well rehearsed. They're well trained. They're well prepped. Even if it was 130 days without incident, you know, that was racking up.

[00:48:44] But they're still always at a heightened state of alert. Absolutely. Because it is still, you know, it's dangerous country. So the world is dangerous and they've all been through, you know, at some point in their history, they've all been through the moment when the world turned and millions and millions of people died in one day, you know. So it is really interesting to watch.

[00:49:09] There is a lot of people here that die in these moments. You know, there are people that get into those basements and you see the breaching from just the regular infected breaking through their doors. So they probably haven't survived in there. That's what makes this battle even more, even bigger, I suppose, is because you do get to come back after the fact, see all the bodies on the ground, not just of the infected, but also of the members of Jackson.

[00:49:39] There's even a moment when you see camera pans to a guy that's still up on the ramparts and he has a bite in his hand and his colleague takes the gun from his hand and then shoots him in the head. So you see them sacrificing people who've just been bitten by the infected as well. But I suppose the biggest part of this, for me anyway, was when Gabriel Luna's Tommy, who, again, has been left behind here and wasn't in the game, when he's attracting the attention of a bloater that's looking towards his wife Maria.

[00:50:09] And he takes it on one-on-one. You see him lining up and getting the flamethrower attached to his back beside three other members of the flamethrower crew, it seems like. Two of them run away pretty quickly when they see that bloater coming. The third one is killed very quickly. And then Tommy distracts the bloater and makes him follow him down, well, I guess, a blind alley. Well, it's ultimately, yeah, down to a cul-de-sac.

[00:50:34] I mean, anyone who says that it is like the game is wrong because Tommy survived that bloater. If it was me, I wouldn't have. I think the other thing is, and I get it. We didn't many times. It's a different form of this story. But certainly in the game, the bloater's charge. Yeah. This one, I think whether it sensed he was cornered, was taking his time,

[00:51:04] but he took his time so long that literally his head was flambéed. Eventually. Eventually, by the sort of emptying of the flamethrower into the bloater. But what I love about it is this isn't even an instruction Tommy could give to somebody else. Oh, I found the way you kill bloaters. If you get yourself cornered in this situation, all you need to do is unload every single piece of your flamethrower's juice or gas into its face

[00:51:33] and eventually just mice burn through to its brain and that will kill it. If you're lucky. Otherwise, you're going to die while it's halfway down, the tank's halfway down, or you'll die before it burns through its head. It was a very exciting sequence. I was on the edge of my seat. It really was. I absolutely thought because they changed the characters out, I thought Tommy was dead here. I thought they were killing him. I'm really, really worried about Tommy surviving this blotter.

[00:52:02] But I'm really glad that he did. Absolutely. And it made it more exciting, though. It made it even more exciting. If it had been someone like Joel or someone like Ellie that was in the scene, it's a moment where you go, oh, well, they're going to survive here. But they do need to figure out how to kill a blotter efficiently because it is like the hard crust of fungus around it protects the organism from within. Exactly.

[00:52:29] From bullets or what's left of the person. But, yeah, a good old sizzle seemingly does get it, but it still needs a long old sizzle. It does. It does. I feel like that, you know, I think this weapon probably used in so many instances in these type of movies, but the weapon that Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator had in Terminator 2, the one that it fires, lands on something and then explodes.

[00:52:56] So it could explode from the inside out, taking the blotter with it. That might be one. He uses that quite a lot in Terminator 2. And I always liked it. I've never seen it in any other movie. It definitely needs grenades. Like a grenade. Or it needs to be caught in a trench outside of the walls that's got the gasoline fire going on. Exactly, yeah. Slows it down. Dice it in gasoline, set it on fire or something. Or it needs the most powerful incentive bullet. Yeah.

[00:53:24] I just feel like one-on-one is not the way to go. No, no, no. And Tommy was very, very lucky here. Very lucky indeed. But let us get on to our point number five, because someone who was less lucky, shall we say. Wow. Point number five, you don't get to rush this. Yes. Yes. So we have this group of three, Dina, Joel, with Abby,

[00:53:52] finally making it back to the ski lodge. And you have Abby saying, yes, this is Dina. And then telling all her crew, and this is Joel. And it still doesn't know until Dina is grabbed by Manny with a gun to her head. And she ultimately gets sedated here, knocked out for an hour.

[00:54:19] So she doesn't need to see what happens next. And Abby even says, look, honestly, she should be knocked out. This is not going to be good for her. So you'll be happy. I'm promising you she will be safe if you do what I say. If you say what I say, she will be safe. It's better for her that she's knocked out. And I have to say the intro to this scene when Abby takes off her jacket and introduces each member of the team to Joel. And he's kind of going, no, no, we're here to get the guns and go back to Jackson.

[00:54:49] He's so unaware of the danger that he's in. It's such a great moment. She's taking off her jacket. This this moment is we're here now, old man. I've got you in the room where I want you to be, basically. Yeah, definitely. Like it is. It's just. It is just really, really good. I mean, I think I just think that power play between Joel and Abby as well. You know, really, really good.

[00:55:18] I mean, you have Abby recounting everything that happens. You know, she asks, well, when did you last see the firefighters? And, you know, he says it was in Salt Lake City. And she goes, well, at least you're honest. Yeah. You know, and effectively blows off his kneecap and to incapacitate him. Yeah. But, you know, I think before that as well, she kind of repeats that description that you've got in episode one about, well, you are about six foot.

[00:55:47] And, yeah, you've kept your looks, you know, good on you. You're a good looking guy. Yeah. All this kind of stuff. And she's even saying, well, you know, in the original description, he was 55, mid 50s. Now he's early 60s. So that all it all makes sense. It's all tying in. But she's effectively not that anybody would question her at this stage. But she's saying that all out loud to make sure the rest of the crew know she's absolutely 100 percent sure this is Joel right in front of her. Yeah, exactly. Like it's just really good.

[00:56:14] And I think, you know, there's a lot of Abby laying it out in front of Joel as he's incapacitated. Like you find out that, you know, the chain that she hangs over the cross is linked to her dad, the doctor, the Joel shot.

[00:56:38] And you get that little flashback, just little almost like memory recall being flashed on the screen of Joel killing the doctor. Yeah. And, you know, this talk of the code then about, you know, you don't kill people who can't defend themselves like you.

[00:57:01] But, you know, I'm going to kill you because whether you're someone like me or someone like you, there are things that are just plain wrong. And you killed a doctor. More my father, like on a personal level, my father. An unarmed man. An unarmed man. And I think, you know, you have that moment of Joel just listening.

[00:57:27] But then she goes over to get the golf club and is like, just effing kill me, get it over with. And I just thought Abby coming back, that line written for the character. Yeah. You know, you stupid old man, you don't get to rush this. You know, if you think I'm just going to put a bullet between your eyes because you try to rile me up, it's not going to work.

[00:57:52] You know, I've had a long time to think about this and you're not going to have this over with quickly. And so I just thought it was really, really good interchange. And, you know, yeah, it's pretty brutal. Her sort of smashing the golf club on his sort of blown off kneecap. You know, you can see, like Manny seems to be agreeing with it.

[00:58:20] You have Mel who's really less sort of certain about this, you know. She's crying, isn't she? Yeah. And like she's asked to tourniquet sort of his leg immediately after the kneecap has blown off. Yeah. And, you know, Abby is shouting at her to sort of do what she's told. And she just seems less sure. Yeah. And I think in her mind, it was going to be a shot in the eyes, you know, I think.

[00:58:50] I don't. And you even see, you know, Nora then, you know, being uncomfortable with what is playing out. I think of them all. It's not to say that they weren't expecting him to die, but whether they're just taken aback then as to the intensity and the veracity of Abby's treatment on it. I hate to do the rhyming words thing, but the reality of the brutality is a bit much. I think it's what's happening. And that's what's happened with Mel and Nora.

[00:59:19] I think with Manny, you definitely get the sense that he's on board with it. But again, even with Owen, as it moves through, as Ellie comes in, you know, it's like, just finish this. Yes. And I think you've had your moment here. Well, I think it gets down to the point of torture. Yeah. Abby's lost herself to it.

[00:59:46] And I think given the flashback we saw at the beginning of the episode, Abby is completely broken. She's certainly no longer the 19 year old she was at the time when she saw her father's body. But she is now caught up with this man after searching for him for five years and is completely lost in the murder of this guy. She sat on him punching him. Yeah. I mean, that's really what you see.

[01:00:11] Like, I really like that moment where you see that, but through the main sort of window of that area, you see Ellie arriving on horseback as you just hear the punches crashing in on Joel. Exactly. Yeah. You know, she creeps in and then sees what's happening here. And that's where you then get Owen saying, look, you have to end this now. Yeah. You know, this has to finish.

[01:00:38] And like you say, you've crossed over from it being revenge to it simply being, yeah, torture and you're enjoying this. Exactly. I think then, you know, again, everything else, kind of Ellie watching on, seeing what Abby has done to Joel.

[01:01:10] Mm-hmm. Don't end him after, you know, Owen said that. Yeah. And I do, as I said at the start of the podcast, I think that choice were when Abby lands the killing blow, effectively using the sharpened sort of handle end of the golf club, that you just hear the kind of metallic slide in. Yeah. Yeah. But it's enough given the emotiveness of everything else. Mm-hmm.

[01:01:40] And the emotion that is happening with Ellie, which you just see silently. Yeah. You know, you see them leave, finish up, pack up and go. Yeah. Or in silence as Ellie is, you know, realizing what has just happened to effectively, you know, the person who saved her back in the day, Joel. And her dad, no, at this stage. Yeah, and her dad, yeah. Yeah.

[01:02:10] Yeah. I think, yeah, all that's on the soundtrack is some much more muted noises of the conversation, I guess, that's going on. And then a little bit of the score from Gabriel Santalala, his score in the background, some few notes of that. But it is such an interesting choice from the sound design, I suppose, to just have that focus of that moment.

[01:02:33] And, yeah, it's even the fact that the piece of the golf club that Abby uses to kill Joel, we saw that same golf club used to hit him in the head, hit him in the knee, excuse me, at the beginning. And what you're getting from this is she was hitting him so hard with that golf club, it snapped in half. And now she uses the end of it to kill him. So her being on top of him punching him is probably after she's broken the golf club over his head.

[01:03:00] That's, you know, that's the brutality she's gotten to off screen. But it's all there. It's all shown in its own way how brutal she got with this situation and how much of a reaction is coming from her friends in those moments as well. You're seeing people who were on her side, who knew what she was going to do and are still shocked by how far Abby went. Yeah. What a big moment. Absolutely.

[01:03:26] And I think just that final thing of Ellie crawling over to Joel, you know, taking out the bit of golf club, almost trying to hug him, the overhead shot of all of that, you know. And then you see, you know, Abby's team sort of rolling out from the lodge, sort of walking away from it with it slightly in the distance as you then see Jesse coming from the other direction. Yeah. That they had planned.

[01:03:55] Too late to do anything about it. And then ultimately, like you say, it's they're dragging Joel's body back to Jackson with Dina and Jesse on horseback. And Ellie sort of, I guess she's pretty beaten and bruised up as well because she did manage to get a knife slice in on Manny. Yeah. Because Manny seems to be going after her, you know, wants to shoot her.

[01:04:22] And then is content with sort of giving her a massive wallop in the midriff with his foot. So, you know, she's kind of distressed, injured and all that, you know. So it's a huge, huge moment in this series. Yeah. And sets up an awful lot. Well, it sets up the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. It sets up everything.

[01:04:50] Because as Ellie says, you know, I'm going to kill you, kill you all. You're all going to die. And so it's the meeting of vengeance. Well, that's the two revenges, really. Yeah. In essence, here. Yeah. It's the parallel. It can't be denied. You know, the fact that I'll be saying in her and her telling what happened to Joel, she's saying I was 19 years old when I saw what you did to my father. Ellie's 19 years old right now.

[01:05:20] And has just seen the person kill her father in front of her eyes, basically. It's the parallels. Exactly. Yeah. So all big things. Again, I would say, as we're talking about these scenes here, the choice to have it in the second episode of the show, I think, is the right choice to make. And in fact, game wise, this happened so early on. It could have been in the first episode of the show because this is not the end point of the show. This is not the cliffhanger going into the second half of the game. It's nothing like that.

[01:05:49] This is what sets up the entirety of the game, partly for gameplay reasons, partly because they want you to play as Ellie. And if you're it's a brand new character, if Joel's there, you're going to want to spend the whole game playing as him like you did the first game. Right. So for gameplay reasons, you take Joel off the table and now you're playing as Ellie. But from a storytelling point of view, having. The person that you played for maybe 15 hours in the first game being taken out really early in the next game.

[01:06:18] I'm certain I'm 100 percent certain loads of people put down the game at that point and went, I'm not going to play it anymore. Yeah, maybe. Because not everybody was playing it for the storytelling reasons. It's also a really well done game. A lot of people were playing it because they enjoyed playing as a character like Joel. So I would be shocked if there weren't loads of people who played it for the first time and went, oh, I don't want to continue playing the game now because they just killed off my favorite character. So I get it. But that wasn't the purpose of it. That was just a kickoff point.

[01:06:46] There's about 40 hours of amazing storytelling after that point as you play it in the game. It is. Which we're going to see as the rest of the show goes on. But the game dynamic is different because it's done as a story. Yes, that's right. So, I mean, you know, there was never going to be, you know, and now, I mean, like say Assassin's Creed, it's not like, and now, you know, the 10th installment of the long lasting game, Last of Us. Yeah.

[01:07:14] This was a story very much centered around Ellie and Joel. And part two centers on that story where one of them has been lost from the other's life. Exactly. Yeah. And this is, yeah, where it kicks off. Yeah, exactly. Excellent. Good stuff. I think that brings us to the end. Are there any notes that you have? A couple of quick notes.

[01:07:43] One was about the episode title because we mentioned it last week's episode title was from a Pearl Jam song. This week's episode title comes from Through the Valley by Sean James. That song was actually used to promote the game when it was coming out, Last of Us Part 2. And in the episode, there is a version of that song played towards the end of the episode, but sung by Ashley Johnson, who played Ellie in both Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2. And we saw her in season one as Ellie's mother in the show.

[01:08:11] So you can tell her voice pretty instantly as well, I think, because we spent so many hours playing as the character of Ellie as well. But hearing her voice singing that out show to the episode, I think, was a really good choice. It was really good to see, really good to hear. Yeah. And one of the notes for the episode, apparently lots of this episode was shot and filmed, at least in the ski resort in Whistler, John. Excellent. Yeah. We were there. We certainly have. We were twice in Canada. Yeah. Really nice spot. Yes.

[01:08:43] Less mushrooms infected than I remember when we were there last time. A little less snow than we had last time, than we were there. We saw a little less snow down. Yes, there wasn't a massive storm. No, less infected. There was snow because it was the ski season. It was February. But not as heavy snow as the big storm was pushing into the place as all about. So there weren't like 30 or 40 skiers underneath the snow when you were coming down the hill. That's all. Which is good. It's a good thing.

[01:09:12] A very good thing. Yes. Not a thing you would see much of in a ski resort. Probably that. Probably that. But anyway, yes. Excellent little Easter eggs there. Yeah. It's nice. The little song names that are coming in as the title names for the episodes here. At least for these first two. So yeah. Keep an eye out on that for the next episode.

[01:09:41] Overall, what do you think of episode two of season two of Last of Us through the valley? And this was a brilliantly put together episode. I think having a very tough scene, let's say, you know, Pedro Pascal has been so great as Joel.

[01:09:56] Having this very tough scene in this episode where he gets killed by a new antagonist, someone that we don't know much about, or a new protagonist even, someone that we don't know much about like Abby, is very difficult to put on screen for an audience. Having it paired up with this massive attack on Jackson makes a lot of sense because we have the survival of Tommy. We have the survival of whoever is going to survive out of Jackson in this massive scene.

[01:10:25] We have that going on while we have to deal with the loss of a major character. So there's two really big things going on. One, a small, quiet, but very brutal moment. Brutal, intimate. Yeah. Personal, in a sense. Yeah, but the other, a massive, epic, HBO-style war being fought at Jackson. So the two of those together really work.

[01:10:51] I think the director of the show must have taken something from his time in Game of Thrones and his shows here. Really excellent. Probably the best episode so far, I think, of the show. And that's saying a lot because I'm loving the show. How about yourself, John? What's your overall final thoughts on The Last of Us? Yeah. I absolutely thought this was a great episode. Give it five rounds of golf out of five. Yeah, no, it was just really superb.

[01:11:19] I mean, I don't think I've had a situation where, you know, that the analogy of the storm is brewing has been so aptly put down into an episode of TV. You know, at one end, as you're saying, the small, the personal and the intimately bloody and visceral with Abby's revenge on Joel for what he did to her father.

[01:11:46] But then the wider, higher level type thing around, you know, the existence of a community of humans, you could say, in this, you know, cordyceps, mycelial sort of infected world with the infected humans and defending that outpost of humanity. So I just thought that was really good.

[01:12:13] I loved going between the sort of battle at Jackson to then the lodge. I like how the fact that a lot of this stuff as well, it happens because of a breakdown of communications caused by the storm. So it was really nicely done.

[01:12:29] I like the, you know, as you said, just that whole thing of, you know, this is playing out because of what Joel did to Abby's father when she was young, impressionable, and went into the room and saw what actually had happened.

[01:12:51] Had heard the nurses who survived it say, you know, something like, well, he just walked past and got the girl, you know, didn't, there was no thought about not killing the doctor. Yeah. And yet you have Ellie here witnessing the same thing, but actually witnessing it, not even the aftermath. Well, exactly. Exactly. And so that kind of parallel is quite nice.

[01:13:21] But Joel would say it all started because the doctor was going to kill Ellie. And he was going to kill the doctor. So the doctor, if you remember the scene, the doctor takes the scalpel out to try and block Joel from taking Ellie. It's not going to stop the gun. Agreed. Agreed. Well, it's the continuation of that. Yeah. Of that perpetuation of violence. No, completely. But it's also why Joel has lied to Ellie about it. So, I mean, it's mixed up. It's the reason why there is a war called the Hundred Years' War.

[01:13:50] Because it just kept going around different generations. This has a similar notion to it in that sense. So I just thought this was, yeah, absolutely superb. The other thing I should add is just the 7-Eleven that Jesse and Ellie hold up in. It is Eugene. We heard about Eugene in the last episode when Joel went in for his therapy session.

[01:14:16] We do hear, actually, Jesse talking about that it was Eugene's old weed factory. You know, that he would grow his buds for sale back in Jackson. But he talks how Eugene used to be a firefly but was sick of killing. But Joel had to put him down. He couldn't be saved. So there's a little extra snippet of Eugene's life here, which I thought was quite nice as well. Yeah.

[01:14:45] I should have brought that into the notes, to be honest. But anyway, I mention it now. Exactly. So, yes, for me, I absolutely thought this was a fantastic episode of TV and five rounds of golf out of five. Oh, fantastic, John. I think we need to get over to the ski lodge and get a nice drink. I think. A nice apres ski drink. Yes, we need a drink for sure here.

[01:15:10] Yes, fellow survivors, fellow quizzers, we are here with The Last of Us World End Pub Quiz. We are on to question number two for this week's episode. And it is, what is the maximum PSI on the flamethrower used by Tommy to take down the bloater infected? Very good. Very good. I'm glad you didn't ask what golf club was being used. No. I don't think I saw that. I don't want anybody to have to watch that scene again.

[01:15:40] I don't think I saw that. I know it was an iron. I knew it was an iron. I think it was a nine iron or a six iron. Well, you see, I don't want to speculate because I don't want to look it up. Anyway, that is not the question. Okay. What's the question? I'll give you the question one more time, fellow quizzers, fellow survivors. What is the maximum PSI on the flamethrower used by Tommy to take down the bloater infected? And dare I say it, for a bonus point, what is the metric equivalent?

[01:16:10] Oh, interesting. A little bit of mathematics in there as well. Well, a bit of, yeah. Conversion. Unit conversion. Yes. That's kind of math. It's numbers as well. PSI is pounds per square inch. Very good. So it's the imperial measure of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Right. That is the second question of seven for this season. If you get your correct answers in at the end of the season to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com, you could be able to chance to get your hands on The Last of Us Part 2 for PC or PlayStation

[01:16:39] or a 50 euro Amazon voucher for the country of your choice, I guess. Thanks so much for joining us for the pub quiz for this season. I hope you're enjoying playing along with us. Absolutely. I think we have a little bit of feedback in for this episode, John. We do. We have our fungi feedback. We do. First up on Facebook, John Higley says, My wife and son adore the show and have to watch every episode together.

[01:17:06] I watch it with them too, but it is an especially big deal for my wife. It's a whole thing. I am the only one to have played the games from season one through to now. I have not given even the smallest bit of a spoiler. When asked questions in the moment, whether I know the answer or not, I've said nothing. Not even a sound or a shrug. I think I deserve a medal for not coming within a mile of letting anyone know what happens to Joel. Ah, John Higley.

[01:17:35] I hope you were watching the expressions on the faces of your wife and son when they see what happens to Joel. I reckon that could be rather shocking. Absolutely. But well done for keeping shtum. Yes. For sure. It does take a lot of discipline to do that. It does. It does, John. Well done. Or you just do it in their face and say, I know what's going to happen. I know what's going to happen. Oh, like the way you did with Game of Thrones when you were reading the books and I wasn't. No, I didn't do that.

[01:18:03] I just said I know what's going to happen. Excellent. Until we went outside of the books. Right. And in fact, stuff happened in the books that never happened on the TV show. That's true. That's true. Eventually. Eventually. Great stuff. Thanks so much for your feedback, John. Yeah. Thanks, John. We also got some feedback in from Becky Anderson who says, I've never played the game so everything that happens is brand new to me. I did not know that ending was coming and it broke my heart. Oh, Becky. Yeah. It broke Joel's legs.

[01:18:33] It did. For sure. Oh, definitely. It's definitely a toughie. It almost kind of reminds me of The Walking Dead with Negan and his trusty baseball bat and Glenn who was married to Maggie. Yeah. Yeah. Like in terms of, you know, actual impact of seeing something that you knew was coming

[01:18:58] from the comics in the case of The Walking Dead, in case of the game, you knew it was coming if you'd play that game. And I think we had played the game, what, two times, three times maybe? And that scene always hit hard in the game as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I suppose the difference I would say is that we were all on the side of Glenn's character. We didn't know who Negan was and he was killing them for this frivolous reason.

[01:19:26] He was just doing it because that punishes the people around them, gets them all in line. Here, we don't know much about Abby. We don't know much about her motivations. But there has been seeded since the first episode of season one that both Joel and Tommy have done absolutely terrible things and now landed in positions where, for example, Joel's got Ellie and he's now in a respected position in Jackson and Tommy's now a leader in Jackson.

[01:19:51] But the two of them had done apparently despicable things between the point when they, when Joel lost his daughter in the first scene or the first episode of season one from that point up until they were in the Federal Zone in episode one as well. That time that had passed there was a time when they would have made a lot of enemies and a lot of people would have been out for their blood. So I suppose it's what's shocking here is how early it's happening.

[01:20:20] But there were always going to be people that would be coming looking for Joel at some point in the game. We didn't know why and what the motivation was behind this person, Abby, who killed Joel. We know Joel. We know a little bit more in the TV show than we did in the game. But yeah. But absolutely, Becky, like it's a massive ending. It's really emotional.

[01:20:43] And so I definitely hope you're going to continue watching despite Joel being effectively taken out really here. But thanks for the feedback, Becky. Felipe over on Facebook also says, my oh my. I knew that was coming and I still got shocked. I thought they'd save this for a mid or end season to build it up. But they stayed true to the game and crushed us in episode two.

[01:21:11] A bogey on a par four out of five. Excellent stuff, Felipe. Yes, I do like the golfing puns being thrown around here. But yeah, agreed. You know, it's still a shock. I think it's partly when is it going to happen? Because I think yourself, I thought it was going to be towards the end of this run just because I thought season three would be sort of looking at the aftermath of this.

[01:21:41] But actually, I am pleased that they've done it like the game and brought it in early. Yeah, me too. Because they've still got five episodes here. And I suspect, you know, two of these could easily be sort of the mop up of all of this. Because there's two big things. It's the death of an individual. And it's, you know, the attack and the casualties of Jackson. Exactly.

[01:22:07] So I think I'm glad they've done it early, though, in the end. But yeah, still shocked, for sure, Felipe. Great stuff. Thanks for the feedback. And what I'll say for myself, the reason why I like it being early is because there is so much story to tell from that second game. There really is so much to get through if we're going to tell the whole story of everything that goes on following his death. It's a big game, isn't it? It's massive, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:22:33] And so many facets to it and so much to tell. So there's lots more story to come as the show goes on. Great stuff. Thanks, Felipe. Also on Facebook, we got some feedback in from Victor Von Doom, who says, Boss fights rule. Way to go, Tommy. Who let the dogs out? Maria. Yeah. Those puppies are feasting. And Abby swings a mean short iron. RIP Jill Miller. Indeed. Indeed, Victor.

[01:23:02] I wouldn't want to be anywhere near her with a set of golf clubs. No, absolutely. Well, you've already had that pleasure. I have, yes. I did get a golf club in the face when I was about 14 years old and had to go to hospital to get some stitches. Thankfully, that was all that happened. A little bit of rattling of my brain. But it was only one hit. Yes. There was no Abby involved. Maybe that's why I identify with Joel so much. That's all it is. It didn't get your knee. It didn't. It didn't, thankfully.

[01:23:32] Yeah. But great stuff. Thanks for the feedback, Victor. Indeed, who let the dogs out? I thought that was quite good where Maria released the hounds. I was hoping they didn't get infected when they bit in. They don't. That's the cool thing about The Last of Us universe. They don't get infected at all. No animals get infected. It's only humans or human kinds. So they can be used as a weapon against the cordyceps. That's quite cool. That's true.

[01:24:01] They don't get infected, but they may get taken as a quick lunch. Or a very long lunch like the bear in the first episode. Well, exactly. Exactly. But good stuff. Thanks, Victor. Absolutely. Thanks, Victor. And thanks, everybody else who sent in your feedback on this episode. We want to hear from you. Keep emailing us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or pop on over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash TV podcast industries. Or you can leave your thoughts on the spoiler posts over there as well.

[01:24:29] Thanks so much for joining us for this episode. Yes. Remember to stay subscribed. And, of course, you can support us by sharing the podcast. Because sharing the podcast is, of course, sharing the love. Yes, it is. Indeed it is. We're also on Patreon and Buy Me A Coffee as well. Just search for TV podcast industries. That's it. That's it. We have just finished our coverage of the first season of Daredevil Born Again or the fourth season of Daredevil, which will every way you look at it.

[01:24:59] Yeah, we just got a wrap-up episode to go on our pub quiz for Daredevil coming up. So you can join us over there on TV podcast industries for that as well if you want to catch up with us. It has been a week for crushing heads, isn't it? Yes, it really has been a crushing week of heads and knees and other bodily parts. Yes, absolutely.

[01:25:20] But, yes, until next week, fellow survivors, where we will be rattling into episode three of The Last of Us season two. But until then, keep watching, keep listening, and, of course, keep surviving. Bye. Bye.