The Last of Us Season 2 Finale Review

[00:00:00] This is The Last Of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries and we're talking about the final episode of The Last Of Us Season 2, Episode 7, Convergence.

[00:00:10] He killed Abby's father and Joel shot him in the head. So that's why they came. Did you know who they were?

[00:00:47] But I knew what he did. We need to go home.

[00:01:23] Welcome back fellow survivors. Welcome back fellow fun guys. This is The Last Of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. And we're talking about The Last Of Us Season 2 Finale Episode, Episode number 7, titled Convergence. I am one of your Convergent hosts, John. I am your other host, Derek. We never actually got our full Convergence hosts this season. We never got Chris back. No, we didn't. Yes.

[00:01:50] Yeah, he unfortunately wasn't able to join us for this season. He has enjoyed it and he was hoping to join us for the finale. But work has taken him away from the country this time, so he's not even in the country to do it for this. Work and then a well-earned break as well. Yes, he's getting a couple of days off as well. Yeah. But he might be back for the wrap-up episode for this season's coverage of The Last Of Us. And of course, the World's End Pub Quiz.

[00:02:16] Yeah, because we might have to delay that a week. We might have no podcast next week because there's lots of stuff going on. And then the following week, we'll do our wrap-up, which means you have time to get all of your answers into the World's End Pub Quiz. So, get your thinking caps on. If you've missed any of the questions, pop on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com. And we will have our final question in our World's End Pub Quiz later on in this episode. And once you get all the correct answers together, email us to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com.

[00:02:43] And you could be in with a chance of getting your hands on The Last Of Us Part 2 on PlayStation or on PC. Or a €50 Amazon voucher for you to spend on some Last Of Us goodies. Yes, absolutely. Get those answers flooding in after this episode, fellow quizzes and fellow survivors. And of course, just a quick reminder, if you aren't already subscribed, please subscribe to the podcast.

[00:03:09] You can pop on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com, where you can subscribe on any immune or infected podcast player of your choice. Absolutely. And of course, as we said, we are doing a wrap-up podcast next. So we'd love to hear any thoughts you have on the entire season of The Last Of Us. If you didn't get the chance to send in your theory or thoughts on the season, we'd love to hear them for that wrap-up podcast. You can send them to that same email address at feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com.

[00:03:36] Or pop it over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries. There is a spoiler post up there now for every episode of this season of The Last Of Us. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Definitely. Speaking of which, we do have some feedback in for episode six that came in after we released our episode. So we're going to chat about that here, Don. Is that okay? Yeah, let's get a bit of feedback up front, first off. For episode six. Yeah, the one all about Joel and Ellie. So first up, Mindy Megan says,

[00:04:04] Oh, this episode absolutely destroyed me. It feels like a treat and a trick that we got another episode with Joel and saw so many special moments only to be reminded that we won't have any more. But more Catherine O'Hara as the saucy, literally and figuratively therapist makes it a little better. Absolutely. Catherine O'Hara has been such an excellent addition to the series, hasn't she? She really has. I mean, really, it's just cameos. Yeah. But it's just really important cameo.

[00:04:29] And, you know, pivotal moments that shine a light on this relationship as, you know, in her role as this psychologist and therapist for the town of Jackson. So, yeah, it's been a really good role here. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Mindy, for your thoughts. Yeah. You heard our podcast last week. We were pretty broken by that episode, too. It was a really excellent episode. And that is pretty much the last we're going to see of Pedro Pascal in the show as well,

[00:04:57] unless there's some other flashbacks to be revealed in the future. Doubtful, unfortunately. Yeah, probably not. Or at least if it is, it's going to be stuff that we've seen already. It'll be flashbacks. Yeah. But totally with you, Mindy, for sure. Thanks, Mindy. Yeah, thanks, Mindy. Also, we have Denise DiFlorio Lardi who said, wonderful, heart-wrenching episode. But it brings back a question that has been bugging me.

[00:05:26] If everyone practices Jackson justice and immediately shoots anyone who has been bitten, how do you find if there are other immunes? Ooh, very good. A very, very, very good question there, Denise. You know, that is really one of those things where, you know, they've got a therapist. They probably need a little bank of scientists or researchers. But you've got to do it in such a controlled way, I guess.

[00:05:55] I think the worst part about being a scientist or a doctor in a world where cordyceps and infection takes over is they're probably the first things to get eaten by the cordyceps of infected humans. So that's kind of the problem. The medical professionals are the ones that go pretty quickly. Well, or shot in the theatre. I mean, so, you know. I think part of the thing is probably that Jackson as a town has gotten to this point 20 years now into the apocalypse.

[00:06:21] Remember, Ellie's 19 years old and she was born during the apocalypse. So we're 20, 25 years into the apocalypse that there have been literally no other people that have been immune. But they've gotten to this point where there is a practice that you kill someone that gets bitten. And you're right. Maybe if they allowed a few extra people to live for a while and monitor them to see if the bike took hold. But the problem is the risk aversion that they have here. This Jackson justice thing. Yeah.

[00:06:50] As you called it, it's pretty much what everybody lives by. So that it doesn't overtake the town and the awful. Agreed, agreed. It is that whole thing that, yeah, the risk aversion is greater than the benefit of seeing if there's any additional immune. And then the issue here becomes about, well, how do you move that immunity over to other people?

[00:07:17] Does it require surgery on the host in order to find out and test? So I think, yeah, they've just gotten into the situation where there's never been any reports of immunity. Ellie absolutely is this real rare case. Not necessarily isolated, but incredibly rare. And hiding it, remember? Yeah. As well, yeah. So she's not even told anybody in town that she has immunity. So they think that nobody in the world has immunity to this because they've never seen anybody that has it. So it is.

[00:07:47] It's just one of those things where it's not really known, I guess, that there is the possibility of immunity. And I think you see that with Dina's reaction in this episode where she's told the truth about what happens, but also in terms of when she finds out about Ellie's immunity as well in previous episodes. Sort of that coming together of those two bits of information.

[00:08:14] You know, that's a shock for her. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Both times she's told about it. But here you go. That could be the kickoff for The Last of Us Part 3, the third game where there's a whole town of immune people and they have to find out how they got there or something. You know, maybe that's a story that could be explored in a future game. Absolutely. But at the moment, the only one, the last of us, the last person that's immune is Ellie. Yeah. Yeah. But great stuff. Thanks, Denise, for the feedback. Really good question. Absolutely. Thanks, Denise.

[00:08:44] And thanks for the feedback on the last episode. Let's go on to our chat about this episode, I think, John. Yeah. Derek, what are some of the episode details for The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 7? Convergence. Well, for the final time this season, I can say it was based on the 2020 PlayStation game The Last of Us Part 2 by Neil Druckmann and Hayley Wigern-Gross from game publisher. Naughty Dog. The show was written and executive produced by Craig Mason and Neil Druckmann. And this episode, once again, as I mentioned with the last episode, was written for television by Craig Mason, Neil Druckmann and Hayley Wigern-Gross.

[00:09:13] The director for this episode was not Neil Druckmann this time. Director this time was Nina Lopez-Carrado. She's been a working director in TV since 2012, including lots of shows we've loved like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Supernatural. And this is her first episode of The Last of Us. Good stuff. Hopefully she'll come back for the confirmed third season of The Last of Us. Excellent stuff. Yeah. And John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for The Last of Us? 207. Convergence. Sure.

[00:09:39] As storm clouds converge in Seattle, Ellie regroups with Dina and Jessie. Shaken by her own brutality against Nora, she reveals to Dina what Joel did at the hospital, prompting Dina to suggest they return home. Meanwhile, Isaac and Sergeant Park discuss the impact of the coming storm, their coming attack on the Seraphites, and Abby, who is supposed to take over as the leader of the Wolves, but has recently gone missing.

[00:10:06] Elsewhere, while waiting for Tommy to turn up at the rendezvous point, Ellie and Jessie intercept a WLF radio call about a sniper who has some Wolves members trapped. Jessie believes it's Tommy, so they pursue the source of the gunshots. But while searching for Tommy, Ellie sees the city aquarium and a Ferris wheel, and splits from Jessie to commandeer a motorboat to travel there, where she believes Abby is located based on information beaten out of Nora.

[00:10:35] But Ellie is thrown from the boat as the storm waves hit. She manages to swim to a nearby island that is the focus of the WLF's operations and home to the Seraphites. After barely surviving an encounter with a group of Seraphites, Ellie enters the aquarium and finds Owen and a pregnant male. She holds them at gunpoint and demands further information on Abby's whereabouts. When Owen grabs a gun, Ellie fatally shoots him.

[00:11:04] The bullet also strikes Mel, who begs Ellie to deliver her baby as she dies. But Ellie is unable to save Mel's baby, and she is rescued from the aquarium by Jessie and Tommy, and they return back to the theatre. But later that evening, Abby ambushes them at the theatre, killing Jessie and holding Ellie and Tommy at gunpoint. As Ellie, desperately pleased with Abby to release Tommy and take her, she reveals that she was the immune girl that Joel had killed for.

[00:11:34] As Abby processes this information, she turns the gun on Ellie, and a gunshot rings out across the theatre. Three days earlier, Manny wakes up Abby, informing her that Isaac has summoned them. Oh, not Jessie as well, John. Oh, I know, I know. Felt really sorry for Jessie. Yeah, me too. And I feel sorry for Dina as well, because interestingly, she wasn't there in the theatre.

[00:12:03] I feel sorry for Mel and Owen as well. I feel sorry for a lot of people in this episode. I feel sorry for Ellie as well, for everything that she's gone through. Yeah, it's a pretty brutal series, this series, putting everybody through the things they're putting them through as well. I think the cycle, the circle of violence really hits home. It's like this incessant wheel of violence. When is it going to stop? Can it stop? If it does, where will it stop?

[00:12:32] And it's really interesting how they play some of this violence. I think we'll come to it when we talk about Jessie's death. But I just thought this was a really interesting way of portraying it, actually, given a lot of the other focuses of people sort of dying or nearly dying.

[00:12:55] You know, kind of quite a range of dying methods and types and durations that are being fully explored here. Absolutely. But I think Jessie's one is really, there's a thematic, stylistic kind of aim at what it's trying to save there, I think, with Jessie's death and how he dies. Okay. Well, I guess that's a little teaser for what we're talking about later on, John. But let's get started with our top moments from the episode.

[00:13:25] Yes. First off, we do not get a flashback at the start of this episode because ultimately it's at the end of the episode that we will come to. It was just interesting to start this episode, the final episode of the season, differently to all the rest of them. We start off with the credits and this time we have Ellie again alone, the one figure. No Joel beside her this time in the opening credits. And we didn't get a flashback. So when I was watching the episode for the first time, I was going, okay, that's interesting. No flashback this time.

[00:13:54] I guess we're all caught up. And then, of course, we get the flashback at the end of the episode, which we will, of course, talk about them. But just wanted to call it out that there's no flashback to set it up. We're straight into that moment. And, of course, as well, last week's episode was all flashback, except for that final moment at the end when Ellie's in the rain. So that's where it starts out here. Ellie in the rain going into the theatre. So let's start our point number one then. Exactly. Ellie reveals all to Dina.

[00:14:19] Like, this is a really kind of interesting moment here between these two. And I'm not entirely sure it goes how maybe Ellie would think. I think certainly you get this sense of betrayal here from Dina running across her face.

[00:14:43] And I think it's what I was sort of mentioning around sort of Denise's point here, which was, you know, Dina's just got a real new piece of quite overwhelming information that Ellie is immune.

[00:14:59] Now she's hearing that not only that, but that's the reason why Joel did what he did to extract the cure would have killed her, but also ultimately brought on to Jackson the death of Joel, the attack by this group of people. Yeah. And she's suddenly realizing how much more complicated it is.

[00:15:24] You know, she left Jackson with that same, in a sense, righteous vengeance, which was they came here and killed one of ours seemingly for no reason that I can figure out. And now she knows the real reason and it changes. I think she didn't go into a huge attack on Ellie.

[00:15:52] It's more just the quiet look on her face and the quiet way in which she says, I think it's about time we should be getting out of this city. We need to go home. Yeah. We need to go home. We need to not be here. Because when Abby's kind of questioning Ellie about her perception and what she knows and what she doesn't know, she says to Ellie, do you know the people? Did you know Abby and the people that were there?

[00:16:19] And Ellie rightfully says, no, I have no idea who they are, but I know what Joel did and then explains everything that Joel did. And suddenly you can see it in Dina. As you say, the righteous aggression, the righteous anger that had led her to this point is all seeping out of her very quickly when she realizes everything that Joel has done. The punishment that Joel has meted on Abby's father, a doctor that could possibly have saved the world if everything had played out the way that, well, Joel had thought or the way that Ellie is explaining it.

[00:16:48] There could have been a cure created. Could have been lots of people that survived if this cure had come to pass. And this is all going through Dina, who thought she was going out to take vengeance on the people that killed her father figure. Absolutely. And also that, you know, it's preceded by something more akin to, I guess, how Dina thought that evening would be, you know, where Ellie is saying it was easy to keep hurting her. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. Yeah. You know.

[00:17:18] Torture came easy. Yeah. Just keep hurting her over and over again. And then eventually she'll give me what I want. Exactly. It's also then, you know, Dina saying, well, maybe she got what she deserved from what they did to Joel. And that's what sort of connects it in. She said, Ellie says, you know, comes back on this to say, well, maybe she didn't as she then tells Dina the story.

[00:17:42] And the other thing we hear as well is just that those two words, those two bits of information that Ellie did manage to beat out of Nora, which was whale and wheel. You know, again, I like how that plays out over the course of this, just those two words. I do as well, because there's so such similar words that I was wondering, has Ellie just misheard her and she said wheel twice or said whale twice?

[00:18:09] You know, but if she said whale, wheel, you know, you'd think maybe dolphin and wheel, something like that. Those two very different words. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So I was almost kind of going, why is, how does she know for definite that that's indicating the aquarium later on? You know, how does she know that those two things are two different words? Because they sound so similar, but it does turn out that that's, that is the case later on.

[00:18:30] But yeah, this is a really interesting moment because you see Abby turning away from Ellie as well after helping her with her wounds and being that kind of having that loving presence again with her, making sure she's okay. After she hears everything that Ellie's telling her, she turns away and says, we should go home and get some rest herself. And, you know, admittedly, she has just had an arrow taken out of her leg. So she's probably pretty tired too.

[00:18:54] But there was an interesting description from Craig Mason where he says that what Ellie's actually doing here is telling her all the bad things, everything bad that she's been keeping from her, from Dina, telling everything about her and saying, how could you possibly love me now? Because Ellie doesn't feel she deserves it after what she did to Nora. So that's an interesting perspective. Yeah. It's almost a bit like a self-immolation by Ellie here in a verbal sense.

[00:19:19] She's trying to punish herself for what she did by pushing Nora away, which if you know Ellie as the character that we've seen for the last two seasons, that is definitely something that she would do is push everybody away. Ellie's only had a really close relationship with Joel in the past. But she pushed him away as well for the previous two years, like we saw in the flashbacks. So, I mean, it's within her character here. As I say, I think the power of Dina's response is that it's understated.

[00:19:47] It's really in the look that she gives and in almost the disconnected response that we need to go home. Yeah. It's just so good because it actually just adds to the power of this. And again, she's there going and Jesse's here and Tommy's here.

[00:20:09] And like we've now embroiled four people from Jackson in this, which actually is something very different that was never revealed to the town council. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But I think on to point number two, Seattle, day three. Yeah, just to keep up the theme, as we saw in the last couple of episodes, they arrived Seattle day one. We've seen Seattle day two, which is when they went after Nora.

[00:20:37] And now we're in Seattle day three as Jesse and Ellie go out to the rendezvous point to try and meet up with Tommy, this local bookstore. He's hopefully going to be there because Jesse's found Ellie. They were supposed to meet up at the bookstore. So they have a chance to chat with each other while they go over there. Jesse's still pretty pissed off at Ellie, really. He doesn't even want to talk to her, really. But there is something that you need to talk about on that walkover, which effectively is that Jesse's put a couple of things together and learned that Dina's pregnant.

[00:21:08] Yeah. And then, you know, uses Ellie to confirm that suspicion, I suppose. I think it's a really interesting conversation that they have. I love that he's prodding at Pokegallery. He's saying, you know, about how Dina said to him, I can't die now rather than I won't die or I don't want to die. He's saying she's saying I can't die now. That's the first indication. And the second one was he offered her whiskey and did as a girl that never turns down a free drink and she turned down a free drink.

[00:21:37] So this means she must be pregnant. Right. That's that's kind of the way he's come around. Yeah. I mean, exactly. I like how he kind of teases out this information from Ellie based on his own suspicions, you know, his own working out effectively.

[00:21:55] But the other side of it as well here is, you know, we we start to get this sense which plays out a little bit more over this and about just the differences between Jesse and Ellie. You know, and so you see here a seraphite boy being cornered by the WLF. Ellie wants to help out.

[00:22:19] You know, Jesse makes it his absolute view to hold Ellie back while they take him away and is clear that this is not our war. And it's not something that we should be sort of putting ourselves in the middle of because we're not necessarily going to be seen as non-combatants or peaceful or neutral here. This is just they will point and shoot. Everyone will point and shoot. Yeah.

[00:22:49] Whereas Ellie wants to go after and protect this seraphite because despite what she saw in the park, what happened to the seraphite, she wants to protect this kid. Yeah. From death effectively. So that sense of justice coming through here, but equally, you know, held back by Jesse.

[00:23:15] And this is kind of this this the start of this little bit of tick-tacking between the two of them about their different philosophies, really, or how they would view the world, how they would respond to something. And I mean, even to the point we do hear that Jesse did not vote in favor of her proposal. That's right.

[00:23:39] So, you know, it all starts to sort of be a little tense between these. I'm just like a lot. And I think there's a really interesting way of looking at this as well. Like, you know, we've mentioned before that we've played the games and there's lots of choices that you can make in the game. One of those choices is you can run in and shoot everything in your way or the other choice is to stealthily walk around the things that actually don't matter to you to get to your objective.

[00:24:05] The objective in the game for what you're playing as Ellie is to get to Abby and kill her for killing Joel. And she goes about it whatever way she wants to. What they're telling you here between the conversation with Jesse and Ellie is effectively Jesse's in stealth mode. Jesse's going, no, our plan is to find Tommy. When we find Tommy, we can bring him back and then we can go home. That's the objective. Everything else that's going on in the city does not concern us because our objective is to get to Tommy and bring him home. Absolutely.

[00:24:35] And Ellie's kind of going, yeah, but go off on a tangent and say this kid over here and kill those two or three wolves because they're also bad people. And he's kind of going, but there's an entire army. We're not even at the Ronde Zoo point yet. And interestingly, it kind of continues in the bookshop, which is the Ronde Zoo point where they're supposed to meet Tommy. He's not there. And this conversation strikes up where, you know, in a sense, Jesse is kind of saying, I think of others.

[00:25:05] And what's implied back is that you don't. You're thinking always of yourself. And he talks about this group that was moving through the valley, stayed at Jackson, which I think is kind of interesting little touch point here as well. But it's almost like there are wanderers or nomads, caravan trains, whatever, moving through. Absolutely. And Jackson is not totally shut off to say that they won't sort of help them.

[00:25:33] But these traders moving through to go onwards to Mexico and a girl that he liked through there. And, you know, he says, this is the best two weeks of my life. But I stayed as Jackson raised me. And, you know, there's an expectation that I will take over from Maria to leave the town. And I chose to do that. I chose to put Jackson first, not myself, because I could have gone with Mexico.

[00:26:02] And as I say, could have gone with this girl on that onward journey. So, again, this implication is I'm there essentially for the greater good. And you do your thing for your thing. Absolutely. And there's also another, but there's two other elements to that conversation, that story that he's telling.

[00:26:28] Number one, he's telling Ellie that he doesn't love Dina as much as Ellie does because he sees the way the two look at each other. And that's the same way he looked at this girl that he decided not to leave for. So, again, he's kind of telling Ellie, you get the best of both worlds. You're living in a town with the girl you love. I like Dina a lot. I love her. But not in the same way as that girl that passed through. I don't have that look like you do. I can see it. Exactly. Yeah, like I know I had with this girl passing through.

[00:26:58] Exactly. Because you bought four paintings off her that were terrible. Even though they were really bad. Exactly. No, it was a good little point. Absolutely. But the other thing, I think this is also the group that came through and gave Joel the coffee that he talked about. Maybe, yeah. I think he'd mentioned that there was a group that came through from Canada. So just to mention that because I think it's interesting given that Ellie put those coffee beans on Joel's grave.

[00:27:20] Because the other point that Jesse's making is if I had gone with them, you'd be dead because I wouldn't have been there to save you. Yeah? Who would have been around if I had gone away with that group and followed my heart? I wouldn't have been there to save you, Ellie. And Ellie gets her back up completely there because he is playing the holier than thou card. Look at all the choices I've made to sacrifice myself for you and your life is made better because I've made those sacrifices. And Ellie's kind of...

[00:27:49] Yeah, and again... Pretty shunned by that, yeah. Yeah, but it escalates further because, you know, there then is some chatter over the radio about a sniper shooting WLF members. And they go to check it out on top of the building. And this is where Ellie sees then the wheel of the Ferris wheel and then the aquarium and suddenly puts the wheel and the whale together. Yeah.

[00:28:14] From what Nora says, wants to go after Abby, you know, says this to Jesse, who effectively says no. It almost pulls rank. You know, we must go after Tommy to save him. This is where they actually have a divergence here. And, you know, you can sense that Ellie is already tired from preachy Jesse from beforehand.

[00:28:38] But this then sort of really gets her back up because this is where he tells her he didn't vote in favour of them going out for justice or revenge as it wasn't in the best interest of the community. Yeah. And this is where she really tells him to F off and screams at him, well, what about my community? My community was Joel. Yeah. And he is dead.

[00:29:04] And kind of really saying, you know, when your community is the only community that does right and you lose perspective that there's other people out there and that maybe aren't like you. But it's not like they're a million miles away. You know, they're still human. They still sort of have emotions, care, love, hate, you know, get drunk, whatever it might be.

[00:29:30] But this sort of saying my community is effectively better than your community. Yeah. And look what we're seeing out in the streets. We've got the wolves on one side who are armed to the teeth, effectively taking over as a new government. And we've got the Seraphites on the other side, a religious group, a religious cult who believe that they're right, both killing each other in increasingly brutal ways. Because there are both members of communities that believe that they're right and the other is wrong at all expense. And Jesse's basically saying the same thing about Jackson.

[00:30:00] He's saying, I will do anything to protect that community because I believe that community is right. And he may be right. Yeah. But everybody believes that in their own community. But also the inference. It's the inference. It's the unsaid stuff of Jesse. It's that that's not your community. That's against your idea of how you fit in here.

[00:30:20] And I mean, and it's also it's the I think, you know, there was a talk with the creators of just the destructive concept that community can be when it becomes like this as a dividing point rather than actually what the word is.

[00:30:41] I guess what I've always thought it to mean is about coming together as a community, embracing all the differences, variations and whatever of that community. And seeing all the similarities. And it being used as a force for division rather than convergence, you know. So it's a really nice way of sort of exploring these two characters.

[00:31:10] And ultimately, Jesse wishes her good luck. But ultimately, you know, at this moment, looks like he's not leaving to follow her. And Ellie goes then after Abby and heads towards the wheel in the whale. Yeah. But he does wish her luck. And yeah, Ellie does say that she hopes he survives as well. So, yeah, there is there is a little bit of of the two of them going, look, we have to now choose our different paths. I'm on the path to save Tommy.

[00:31:40] You're now on the path to go after Abby and I can't follow you. And you obviously aren't going to go with me. Yeah. So and so, yeah, that kind of closes out the Seattle Day three part of the point. But let's move on to our point number three, the Sarah fight encounter. And this is as Ellie takes her boat or finds a boat to get her way across the aquarium across the across the Seattle Bay.

[00:32:01] And there's just an interesting little thing that's going on throughout the episode that I kind of think is a good point to put up here because the Sarah fight encounter itself is quite a small point. But one thing that's been going on throughout from literally the opening moment of the episode is there's some kind of attack that's being planned by Isaac. Yeah. So what we hear right at the start on the walkie talkies, if you if you noticed it, we hear the WLF saying comms are down.

[00:32:30] Isaac is saying nobody used the walkie talkies to communicate anymore. This is orders of Isaac. So something's happening quite significantly. We heard it around the season that the reason why why Dina was able to pinpoint everybody around there was because the WLF always use their walkie talkies everywhere. But they've obviously had this incident. I think it's with Ellie going in and getting Nora in the in the hospital. They've realized somebody is monitoring communications. So Isaac's decided to take that offline.

[00:32:56] But we do see a moment with Isaac in this episode where he's talking to Sergeant Park about a massive attack that they're staging and that this convergence of weather fronts as we see the rain and wind are getting worse and worse as the episode goes on. This convergence is going to cover an attack that they've been planning for weeks. And the big thing that's called out here is that Isaac mentions that both he and Sergeant Park will likely die by the morning. This is an all-late assault where many, many people will be lost.

[00:33:25] And the one person that he expected to be here for this big fight was Abby. And Abby is missing. Abby has disappeared. As well as her crew. And Park points out that a couple of other members of her crew have disappeared as well. So why is that important? And what we hear here is that Isaac has chosen, basically, Abby to take over this group from him. Abby is different to the rest of the team. She's not just a grunt that will go out and do missions. She's also a strong leader that he feels can take over from the current leadership.

[00:33:55] He says that she's there to secure our future when this offensive wins, this maneuver wins. And certainly if we are to die in the process. Now, I absolutely love Sergeant Park's retort to this. Well, she's effed off. So maybe she wasn't the one to secure our future. Because she's not there to secure our future. She's not even here right now.

[00:34:23] So I just thought that was great writing. Because, you know, that's the... I think you can just immediately think that someone would have that view. Like, well, she's not here. If she's the chosen one, the one to lead us into the bright, shining future. Where the hell is she? Yeah. So where is she? Why is she not standing in this room with us? Why hasn't she told us? Why has she gone missing? You know, what's going on?

[00:34:51] So I really loved that response from Sergeant Park. I do feel it would have been something I would have said. Just that honest sort of retort. Exactly. Exactly. One of the other ones I really liked from Isaac, though, as well, is where he goes, despite the badass name of our group, which is the Wolves, we need someone to lead the sheep. So despite them all calling themselves Wolves, he even knows that they just follow orders and just follow whoever the leader is. But if there isn't a strong leader, the group will probably disband. The Wolves themselves will probably disband.

[00:35:20] And they've all been rallying behind Isaac for this many years. So that was quite an interesting, interesting moment. One other touch really quickly that was in there as well about the Seraphite leadership or the old Seraphite leadership. There's a moment when Ellie looks up and sees the Feel Her Love mural on the wall. And it's a different face than the last time we saw the mural. She commented on it herself. She's kind of going, was there another prophet leader? Don't know what that means. Yeah.

[00:35:46] There wasn't much about the real detail behind the Seraphites in the game. It could be that it's passed by word of mouth. And this image that they have maybe of what someone perceives to be the prophet, I guess. Yeah. And even when we paused it, I wasn't entirely sure what that meant because the mural did still look similar to the one that we'd seen previously. Like for me, it did.

[00:36:11] Maybe it was just the style in which it was sort of drawn, you know, on the side of the building. I think it was more to do with that because I didn't immediately notice anything hugely different. But you're right. She does say maybe there was more than one. Yeah. I thought it was an interesting thing because I didn't necessarily see that difference. I just wonder if now in the third season, because we're going to be flashing out some of the other characters, maybe in the third season we will learn a bit more about the Seraphite prophets. Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so.

[00:36:40] The thing here as well is that as then how Ellie gets this Seraphite encounter, she's moving towards the aquarium and needs to get onto a boat. But we do see here as well then the start of the maneuvers of the WLF heading out towards the island. It was really good. Yeah, absolutely. As we saw the lights just flash up from them just as they arrived at the dock and then go off as they leave the dock. Yeah.

[00:37:06] It's almost like they're in cloaked ships because of the storm coming in overhead, kind of blocking the view. But I thought that was really cool. And then Ellie's really surprised by what's happening but gets there in time to get herself her own little speedboat to get out to the island or get out to the aquarium. I think the thing I liked about this is that she's no sailor. And you kind of got that sense. And that made a lot of sense to me that, yes, she's started the engine. She's pulled it away.

[00:37:34] But ultimately, rather than going perpendicular to the waves, she's gone parallel with them. So it's just lifted her up and turned that boat over. And I kind of like that idea that, well, she's a landlubber, basically. And that has shown in really stormy conditions that she is. She's not a captain of a boat. She doesn't have that kind of training or experience.

[00:38:03] And so gets washed overboard and manages to get herself to this island. You've got a good bit of experience with boats. And that is what they tell you to do, isn't it? Drive into, if you can at least, drive into the waves so it doesn't flip you over. It's the narrowest path. Yeah. And not only is she washed ashore, the boat itself is washed ashore, luckily, because that's how she's able to get away later on.

[00:38:26] But as she arrives, you can just see she's absolutely sodden, really finds it difficult trying to get up the beach, just out of the water and tries to get some help from a young child that's up there. But that young child, unfortunately, is seraphite. Yes.

[00:38:41] And equally twisted in the mind from his mother, because his mother does actually look to him to sort of almost for a decision on whether they should hang Ellie up. I mean, she's already got the noose around her neck, but cut her open with the side. Yeah. Because Ellie is saying, I'm not a wolf. I mean you no harm.

[00:39:08] And she's being sort of prepared for this ritual killing. Yeah. It's very Caesar-like, isn't it? Yeah. And the kid basically says, no, cut her open. Yeah. So, yeah. Pretty brutal looking. Guess you learned that at seraphite play school. Guess so. Yep. This is how you open up your enemies. Mm-hmm. And, but luckily then the attack by Isaac starts kicking off.

[00:39:34] And you have the alarm blurring through, which means that they just leave her, which I thought was interesting. I mean, it was the only part of it that really didn't make any sense to me, why they would leave her and not take her with them. Right. Like, as a prisoner. I mean, this is someone they don't know, isn't dressed like a seraphite, is dressed more like a wolf. Yeah. And has, um, there is on a boat.

[00:40:05] Yeah. And yet the alarm's going off, yet they just leave her. Yeah. So, that, that was the only bit of this that kind of made not a lot of sense. For me, I just kind of wish it had been done with, like, you know, tie her up to make sure she doesn't leave and will come back and get a lacer or something. Or, you know, you stay with her, tie her up, finish off thing as the majority of them go. So, then she is dealing with a one-on-one or a two-on-one escape situation. Yeah.

[00:40:32] Which is more, and because she's been, you know, she's got her feet back firmly on ground rather than being strung up. So, I kind of wish they had played it a bit more like that because, to me, like, that made no sense. Yeah. And that's the only bit that just didn't really quite make sense to me. And, technically, if you cut the scene out and just have Ellie maybe washing ashore right beside the aquarium and getting in, there's nothing really changed about the story of the episode here.

[00:41:00] I think you just get the, you just get the realization that the attack, the boats that you saw, has now attacked that island where it is a Seraphite island. Well, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, that's the only real thing that you take from it is, uh-oh, that thing that's been threaded through the background. So, kind of in the way that Jesse was saying earlier on, there's all this stuff going on in Seattle that shouldn't be concerning them, that should be on mission. It just intersects here for this moment.

[00:41:28] It converges, to use the title of the episode, with what's going on with Ellie. She's not really supposed to be here. She's not really involved. The fact that she landed on this island, she got strung up, almost got killed by the Seraphites, but is released and let go and goes back down to the boat. And takes the boat on here. But, interestingly, this was supposed to be in the original game. It wasn't in the game. We don't have an interaction where Ellie gets to that island. She never goes there in the game at all.

[00:41:54] So, interestingly, it was planned to be in there, but they decided to come back and add it into the TV show. Partly, I guess, because there's only seven episodes this season and there's going to be quite a while before they come back. So, to have another moment with the Seraphites and basically show how brutal they are as well is probably something they wanted to keep in the season. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Shall we get on to our fourth point? Yeah, let's do it. The whale and the wheel. Ellie arrives at the aquarium. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:24] I mean, really interesting that how Ellie gets into the aquarium before we get on to the sort of meat of this point is straight from the game with the broken skylights that she manages to sort of repel down through. That's right. Yeah. But, I mean, this for me is – I felt this hit home really hard.

[00:42:51] I mean, this was a really big moment with the encounter of Owen and Mel. Yeah. And, ultimately, you know, the big thing here is the realization of what's happened here, you know? And it kind of comes back to Nora. It comes back to all of that. But, equally, you know, she promises that she won't kill them.

[00:43:21] I get she's self-defense with Owen, but the collateral damage here and innocent is taken. And that isn't necessarily Mel. It's her baby. Yeah. Who – her unborn baby. Absolutely. Is the innocent here. Close to giving birth, you know? She's got a good bump on her. And, you know, it's actually really tragic where she says, hurry, I have 30 – because she's the doctor. Exactly.

[00:43:50] I have 30 seconds left. Make the incision and take out the baby, you know? And Ellie cannot do it. She doesn't have that skill to do it. Or, you know, as the blood drains from Mel, she becomes more and more incoherent. Yeah. As she loses her blood and dies and the baby along with her. Yeah. And so we have three deaths here. Yeah.

[00:44:18] And it's like – I mean, it's played so well, but it's such a hard-hitting moment. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's so brutal. The way it happens, you can see how much it gets Ellie. How much she sees, how far she's gone, I suppose. Yeah. Not that she would have been able to do anything here. It was self-defense alone. He was reaching for a gun. He was going to pull a gun out. Ellie was trying everything she could.

[00:44:46] She used the old technique, for example, that Joel had taught her on those days traveling across the U.S., where she was going to get one of them to point at the map to say where Abby was. If the other one points to the same place, she probably would have left them alive, maybe tied them up so that she could get away and find Abby. But Owen is convinced she's going to kill both of them, so he pulls a gun on her. And it's accidental. And it's self-defense that she kills Owen, but it gets Mel as well.

[00:45:16] They're kind of lined up, really. So it goes straight through his throat as well. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, it's just brutal as Mel realizes that that bullet's kind of gone through the side of her neck, sort of grazed it, but taken the artery there in her neck. Exactly. And, yeah, I mean, this is kind of, this is probably hard-hitting.

[00:45:40] You know, you see Ellie being really distraught here, and it's only with the arrival of Tommy and Jesse to really pull her away. Yeah. And take her back to the theater, but ultimately to take her back to Jackson. Yeah. That, you know, gives her that sort of refocus. Because up till then, she is a hot mess, really. Well, yeah.

[00:46:07] Because of what she's done, how far it's gone. Mm-hmm. And it couples to the conversation, really, at the start of the episode with Dina, to some extent. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, well, I found it easy to do. This isn't. Absolutely. And wasn't. Even though it was in self-defense. Yeah. It wasn't raged.

[00:46:31] It was her trying to possibly be more calm, collected, logical about it. And in the end, despite that, the collateral damage that happens from violence is innocent people get hurt or killed. Exactly. Whether it's a war, whether it's a one-on-one, whatever. Yeah.

[00:46:56] And here, we have the collateral damage with Mel and her, you know, soon-to-be-born baby. Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely, I would agree with you there. I think you're absolutely right that Ellie wasn't going in there to kill them. If Abby was there and they attacked alongside Abby, I'd say absolutely Ellie would have killed anything in her way to get to Abby in that moment. But she believed Abby was going to be there. She finds Mel and Owen. She hears them talking about Abby.

[00:47:23] And I think that's Mel saying something about her not wanting to join Abby or something like that. And Owen's trying to convince her that he has to do whatever Abby tells him to do, basically. So there's some kind of conversation going on there. I'm sure we'll most likely learn about that in the next season. Because we will learn a bit more about these characters, I think, as the third season comes up. At least I hope we do. I hope they follow that from the game, at least, that we learn more about these characters prior to this day.

[00:47:50] But that almost makes it even more gruesome that Ellie isn't going on the rage path after she beat Nora to get the information out. She's not going out to beat the next person. She's trying to hold herself back, trying to follow the things that Joel laid out for her. But she's being even worse. She's gone even further. And it's the cycle of violence, you know. They've gone after Joel. And now this is part of the consequence of this revenge, effectively.

[00:48:19] Even though she's tried to do it in a way that is calm and collected. At the end of the day, Owen has the fight or flight response. And it is the fight response. And that can always happen. So, yeah, it's a real big moment. It's a real hard-hitting part of this.

[00:48:45] And, you know, a real tragic, really powerful emotional impact from this scene. And I'd probably say that if somebody else was at Ellie's side there, if Dina was with her, or if Jesse was with her, or if even Tommy was there, or Joel was there in a moment like this, it wouldn't have turned out the way it turned out. Because the other person there would have helped calm down the situation. Maybe they would have been holding a gun as well. So, yeah. So, Owen wouldn't have pulled a gun on two of them.

[00:49:14] It wouldn't have been as tragic. But because Ellie's rushed in here to do all this on her own, without Jesse, even. Yeah. This has all turned out the way it has. But, yeah, that's it. That's the price that we're paying here for the vengeance kick that she's got on. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think on to point number five. It's the cycle of violence. Yeah, you wasted it.

[00:49:38] Because this is where the cycle of violence comes to the theatre here in Seattle. As, in essence, Tommy, Jesse, and Ellie have been tracked back here by Abby. And, you know, you have Tommy and Jesse who are sort of, you know, preparing this plan to leave, to head back to Jackson.

[00:50:11] Mm-hmm. I think. It's the same night. Anyway. It is. The other side of it is Dina is incognito here, in a sense. She's not visible. So, she could be out back, still resting up from having the arrow through her leg. Mm-hmm. You know, Ellie thanks Jesse for coming back to help her.

[00:50:40] And he kind of says, it could have been Tommy giving me the order to do this. Yeah. But equally, that, you know, you're a part of my community now. And knowing that if I was out there alone, there'd be someone who'd have my back and would set the world on fire to come after me and save me, help me, whatever. Then that's why I've done it.

[00:51:07] Because you're a part of the community as much as anyone else. And he knows that he's now part of Ellie's community. Yeah. Because she's with Dina. They're having a child together. And he's the father of the child. So, he knows that Ellie will take that as meaning that Jesse's now part of her community. He's obviously had some time to consider it. Yeah. It's a really good chat there. And there's also a little bit of danger to it as well, where he's saying that she'll burn down the world to get there.

[00:51:37] He knows what she's just done, remember. So, she won't let anything stand in her way to save the people that she loves or to help the people that she loves or take revenge on the people that hurt the people that she loved. And that's it. It's like I really enjoyed this kind of to and fro between Jesse and Ellie.

[00:51:57] And it's to the point then of how, you know, on hearing the kerfuffle out in the lobby of the theatre in the foyer and where Abby has gotten in, has knocked Tommy to the ground, has him at gunpoint. And you have Jesse and Ellie rushing forward because they think they're under attack. And, you know, Jesse runs through and is shot and just falls. It's just the unceremoniousness of it.

[00:52:27] It's the abruptness. It's the matter-of-factness that, which ultimately is the way that most people will go in a sense, certainly in a war situation when you've got thousands upon thousands of people, whether it's landing beaches in Normandy, whether it's this offensive in Seattle in a computer game. It's that the majority of people will just be struck down and it's gone. The light has gone in an instant.

[00:52:57] There's no 30 seconds of your eulogy being allowed to be played out or whatever. And it's the same with Owen, really. Exactly. It's these where it's just, it's quick, it's unceremonious. There's no ifs or buts. It's just happened. It could easily have been Ellie taking a ricochet or getting the full bullet.

[00:53:22] But in this case, the outcome is slightly different is that one still survives, Ellie. Yeah. Mel didn't in the similar situation. But it is that abruptness for this character that, as well, just because we've had the moment to get to know him even more and his relationship with Ellie. And it's that abruptness that I just found really affecting. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:53:48] Especially, I suppose, with just that added stuff that we get from Jesse here, you know, his excitement about being a father in the future. You know, he's willing to understand that Ellie and Dina are now in their relationship. But he wants to get his child home to Jackson. He knows he's got a future now that he wants to protect and wants to take care of. I mean, he says at one point previously as well, I can't die now. Because I'm going to be a father. I can't die now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really affecting moment, the way that it plays out on screen.

[00:54:19] And I think the conversation that Abby and Ellie have here is a really powerful one. Because despite what Abby did, and we haven't seen Abby very much at all in this season. We've only seen her in that little bit of the first episode, a lot of the second episode. And now here she arrives in the seventh episode and kills Jesse. So she's killed two people, basically, in the show so far. Two very good people.

[00:54:45] But she wanted to kill Tommy for killing her friends, thinking it's the brother of the person that she killed that went on his revenge. Spree has Tommy on the ground looking to kill him. And then Ellie steps out and says, no, it was me. I did it. I'm the one that went after your friends. And then this moment of kind of realization from Abby. She is effectively saying to stop that cycle of violence, she let Ellie live. She allowed Ellie to go.

[00:55:13] And she's saying, you wasted it. You wasted this opportunity at life outside of this cycle of violence that I've given you. You decided that you would go back on this revenge spree even after everything he did. He killed my dad. I killed your dad. Now you're out to kill me because I killed your dad, basically. So we're back in that cycle of violence. I love that with Abby saying, you know, just repeatedly saying, I let you live. I let you live. And I say, well, you wasted it. It's so good.

[00:55:43] And then you hear or you see her raise her gun to Ellie. You hear the gunshot and this fade to black. Yeah. And then, yes. I mean, as I say, we don't know where Dina is here. So that gunshot may not necessarily be anything. And be Abby's. Yeah. Or it could be.

[00:56:09] But she's aimed in a different direction despite the gun being drawn up. Or Tommy's in the room. He could have knocked her off course in the shot. Something like that. Yeah. Exactly. Lots of options there. Lots of options here. There's something that happens in the game, of course. But we're not going to tell you exactly what happens there. Because all you will say is this is exactly how it plays out in the game. Exactly at this moment. You don't know what's happened. And you don't know for a very long time. In this case, it's going to be two years, I think, until we see season three of The Last of Us.

[00:56:38] But there's one final tag that we get here, which is three days earlier. The flashback that we didn't get at the beginning of the episode, we get now. We go back to day one in Seattle. The same day that Ellie and Dina arrived to find Abby. We have Abby waking up on a couch and being woken by the other member of the group. I think the last member of the group that we haven't seen for ages. Manny's the one that wakes her up and tells her that Isaac has a message for her. And she needs to go and meet Isaac. And then we get that massive reveal.

[00:57:08] I guess that's the Seattle Seahawks stadium. I guess one of the stadiums, yeah. I guess either for the NFL or maybe baseball, I guess. It looks like American football. No, it does. It does, yeah. I mean, I guess one of those, yeah. But it's absolutely massive and filled with this huge army. You know, remember back to episode two or episode three where Ellie was going to go on her revenge mission. And it's like, well, there's only five people that she has to go and kill. It's just these five people. Oh, there are members of the Wolves. Nobody ever talks about them. They must be a tiny group.

[00:57:38] And here we have this huge army filling up an entire stadium full of people. So I don't think Ellie's fighting her way through them if she does continue her revenge mission in season three. No, not at all. But yeah, a nice little wrap there for this final episode of Last of Us season two. I just wish that like next week we would see Abby's side of it. Yeah, no, I agree. And we see her first day of those three days. It's going to be a long time, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:58:07] Like two years. Yeah. But Derek, any notes for this episode? No, I don't have any notes. I think we've covered everything in depth there in our chat. Yeah. No, I mean, the only thing I like was just a little touch where Dean is like, I'm going to say snoring in the dressing room after she's recovering from having the arrow pushed through her leg.

[00:58:35] So that it doesn't cause any more damage by being pulled out. So I like the fact that she was kind of heavy breathing, shall we say. Yeah, that's a story. It's all right. It's all right. Oh, we should call it the Soundgarden song that closes out the episodes. It's really good. I'm a big fan of grunge music from the early 90s and Soundgarden are definitely one of those big bands. If you're going to sell a show in Seattle, your soundtrack has to be things like Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden. Absolutely. Soundgarden are kind of that third pillar from the early 90s. So it's great to hear one of their songs on there.

[00:59:04] And we happen to have the subtitles on, as we always do when we write the notes. Some of those lyrics are very on the nose of Soundgarden as to who's just killed whose friend and whether they're going to be punished for it. So, yeah, it's a good choice for a song. Definitely. Definitely. But overall, Derek, what did you think of Last of Us Season 2, Episode 7, Convergence? This was a really tough episode. I'm glad before the season started that we heard that we're going to get a third season of the show.

[00:59:32] So if they'd left it here and gone, you know what? If you want to know how the story ends, go and buy the game or go and replay the game. I think that would have been a big disservice to people who only watch the show. Because there's lots of ways to see it. Maybe go on YouTube and watch the playthrough from this point onwards. Because this is pretty much exactly where the first half of The Last of Us Part 2 finishes. Pretty much exactly here. And then you move on to a brand new game almost, which tells the next part of the story.

[01:00:01] So that's what we're going to get. And that's what we're going to get in two years' time, probably. But I thought the execution of the episode itself was excellent. The scenery was incredible. The money pumped into the show is just unbelievable. It's absolutely massive. This one episode felt like a movie. The level of production that was in it, I thought was incredible. The acting is just brilliant.

[01:00:26] You mentioned Isabella Mercad, how she acts as Dina with just a look rather than the way that she delivers her lines. I think she's been excellent all season. And particularly in this episode when you see her heart almost break at the idea of what she's just learned from Ellie. And Bella Ramsey once again having some of the most difficult challenges in this season going. From Ellie's vengeance trip to being captured by the Seraphites to having that awful accidental killing of Mel and being unable to save the baby.

[01:00:54] And they were absolutely brilliant in all of those scenes. Everybody here has just been excellent. Really, really good. Those are just two of the best performances out of it. And yeah, really sad to see some of the characters go here like Jesse. Really sad to see Mel and Owen go the way that they went in this episode. I'm hoping that the next season of the show will continue to deliver this level of standard that we've seen in these first two seasons of the show. Really excellent. How about yourself, John? What did you think of this as the finale for season two? Yeah, it was really, really good.

[01:01:22] I'd give it four and a half stormy nights out of five. I mean, I think for me, this final episode really comes around the affecting deaths of Mel, Owen, Mel's baby and Jesse. They're really big moments. And I think Jesse's one is more sort of under the radar in the sense that it's very quick.

[01:01:51] It's very abrupt. And because of the immediate interaction between Ellie and Abby, there's no lingering on the death of this character that has been there throughout the season. But in particular, where you get to understand his dynamic and relationship with Ellie much more. Absolutely.

[01:02:12] And it kind of comes full circle of understanding of where they are, his understanding that he's going to be a father. And so it's all really very tragic in the same way that Mel is. And it's both of them in different ways, you know, will not see their baby. And as well, Mel's baby is dead because she is and is unborn.

[01:02:41] So they're huge moments. And I'm glad we got sort of that introduction to the attack on the Seraphites, because I think that will play out in season three much more. Absolutely.

[01:02:54] But equally, then, you know, again, it's just this circle cycle of violence that we have then Abby sort of screaming at Ellie about, you know, you having wasted your chance after I let you live. And so in some senses, you kind of go, I can see it from Abby's point of view. I let you live and you wasted your chance.

[01:03:22] But you can't take that away from somebody else. If you went on your cycle of violence for someone killing your father, you can't say to them, well, I left you alive, so you shouldn't have come after me. Well, that's not down to you if you've already gone on that cycle of vengeance. It does take a choice of somebody to break that cycle. But it's the choice of the person that... But it's...

[01:03:43] Yeah, I think, though, the thing is, it's almost accidental, because she's only understanding that Ellie is the girl that Joel set the world on fire to protect and to rescue. She let this person live. Yes, that's true. But to her, that was an unknown. Someone in Jackson, along with Dina, ultimately, let both of them live. They were only ever going to get Joel. Yeah.

[01:04:12] And they've taken it upon themselves to continue, then, the cycle of violence. Yes. But it's even more. And that's why she's screaming at her. Yeah. Because she knows that that seemingly, in a sense, almost charitable decision is an even bigger consequence, because she's the whole reason for Joel's actions that killed her father.

[01:04:40] So, like, it's really, really powerful.

[01:05:12] Mm-hmm. Where it goes three days earlier. As you say, I just wish, then, next week, we could be teeing up that start of looking at the world from Abby's point of view. Yeah. But for me, this was four and a half stormy nights out of five. Really enjoyed this.

[01:05:34] As you say, even though it is a real tough, heavy watch with a lot of big themes, a lot of death, and really affecting moments. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, with that said, I think we need a drink, John. I think we need to get down to our local pub for our Last of Us World's End pub quiz. Definitely. Fellow quizzes, fellow survivors, welcome to the Last of Us World's End pub quiz.

[01:06:01] Knock back that drink as we rattle off question seven, the final episode of this series, questions. What is the name of the children's book that Ellie picks up in the bookstore? Fantastic. Yes, her first gift for the future child of Dina. Exactly. Yes. I do love the response from Jesse where he goes, oh, that's a good one. I should have got that one. I should have got there first. Yeah, I know. Exactly. I really like that.

[01:06:30] There's not much choice in the post-apocalypse of books that are still able to be read. John, do you want to get the question one more time? What is the name of the children's book that Ellie picks up in the bookstore? Very good. That's our seventh question of seven. Email your seven answers into feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. If you get them all correct, you could be at the chance of getting your hands on The Last of Us Part 2 and find out what happens after this scene before the TV show gets there.

[01:06:56] Or alternatively, we will get you an Amazon voucher out if you don't have the ability to play the game. Exactly. Now, good luck, fellow quizzers and fellow survivors, on your entry into this pub quiz. Absolutely. Let's get on to some feedback on this episode. First up, we got a message in our Facebook group from David Mr. Writer who says, Okay, so I'm finally all caught up on Daredevil Born Again. Great coverage on that show, by the way, guys. Now, on to The Last of Us. I managed to catch up before the finale.

[01:07:26] I enjoyed your coverage, as always. Props to the actors for the incredible job. Disclaimer, I didn't play the game, so everything is new to me. In the first episode, I hated Ellie. She was an absolute a-hole. Not just to Joel, but to almost everyone. Credit to her acting to bring that out. Episode 2 was a crusher, somehow expecting Joel to be saved or make it. But, urgh, the performance from both of them. The gut punch from Ellie crying and then the invasion. Probably the best episode of the whole season. The rest of the episodes were also great, though.

[01:07:54] Episode 6 gave us a great insight and it was a nice send-off for Joel, giving them a full episode together. Now, for the finale. I liked that it wasn't so jam-packed with action, but managed to maintain the suspense throughout the whole episode. I'm glad how realistic it was that Ellie didn't end up delivering the baby. The whole scene showed me that even though she acts tough, she still has a soul and isn't fully capable of taking a life. The way she flinched when she shot them and clearly didn't intend to kill them. Poor Jesse going out like that, too. I really liked him as a character.

[01:08:23] Abby has shown that she's tougher than we thought. I thought this was going to be dealt with, but somehow she has managed to take down the strongest person. My prediction of the cliffhanger is that Abby gets shot by Dina. And the end scene is a flashback of Abby's life and how she got to be in a powerful position. Always appreciate your work. Also, need more feedback from the Facebook group. Come on, guys. Thanks, David. Mr. Eddie. Excellent. Thanks, David. Really like your thoughts there.

[01:08:52] Yeah, I mean, it is like a real shame. Poor Jesse going out like that. I'm totally with you. I knew it was going to happen as well, but even having played the game, a lot of the stuff through this story from the first season through into the second season still absolutely kicks a punch and is really powerful emotionally and really gets me.

[01:09:22] So that's the thing. Even though I'm aware of what's coming down the track, it's still really powerfully done by this group of actors, by the writing and just by everyone involved in the project. And even parts of the writing as well that maybe are a little bit of a throwaway in a sense or is maybe not as focused on sort of the big players like Jesse or Ellie or Tommy or Abby.

[01:09:52] Abby, as I say, you know, for me in this episode, this final episode, Sergeant Parks was a real brutal retort to Isaac about, well, she's not here. Is she the chosen one? You know, effectively, you know, she's effed off. So what are you talking about? Like get to grip and focus on effectively our attack on the Seraphites.

[01:10:14] Like I just think it's really good writing because it's like with no Urza or Graces, she's not afraid of Isaac even though you are afraid of Isaac because you've seen how bad he is. Absolutely, how brutal he was, yeah. He's brutal but not necessarily towards his allies. You know, they can still give frank, honest input like Park does here.

[01:10:37] And I just really like that sense coming from that line of that relationship and that she's able to deliver something like that. You know, get a grip, focus on the job at hand. She's not here. She's clearly not the future. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. My son's down in a basement in a hospital currently sort of breathing out fungal spores. Yeah, yeah.

[01:11:06] So, you know, she's got a bit of perspective, I guess. Absolutely. Sergeant Park has not had good days over the last couple of days. Excellent stuff. Thanks so much, David. And as David said, we do want to hear more feedback and we do have a wrap-up episode. So keep sending it in to us. We will talk about it on our wrap-up episode in a couple of weeks' time. Thanks, David. Yeah, thanks, David. Also on Facebook, Joe Herbers says, As a non-gamer player, this season was a big disappointment. Episode 6 was great.

[01:11:35] But reminded us of what made the first season so good that is lacking here. Their relationship. And trying to accomplish something good. This season, Ellie was not just unlikable. She was so self-centred, leaving Uncle Tommy in danger so she could continue her revenge quest. And dumb. Wanting to take on six armed wolves. Her boat trip was unbelievable. And her short capture by the scars pointless.

[01:12:01] And now we're supposed to wait two years to replay the same time period from Abby's point of view. Joe. Thanks, Joe, for the feedback. Yeah, real shame. The season is disappointed. Certainly, yeah, I'm totally with you though around episode 6. Really good with the flashback to Joel.

[01:12:23] And I think as well, you know, the evolution of this story is one where, you know, I guess one of the big characters does get taken out in Joel. And it's also, in a sense, that shows the guiding hand that he has.

[01:12:44] And I think a lot of this, whether it's Dina sort of trying to do the tactics, whether it was Jesse saying, you think you're ready, but you still need more training. A lot of this has been about how, yes, she's good in a fight. She weighs too heavily on possibly being immune. But she has a lot to learn and does go running in head first.

[01:13:10] And it's tragically shown in this episode with Owen and Mel's death and the unborn baby. And Ellie's good, not great in a fight though. She's not like Jesse is always commenting on that she goes too far and gets herself into trouble over and over again. That is her character, you know. I don't think you're supposed to necessarily think of Ellie as the hero. This is the character that we're following. It is her story that we're following. Flaws and all. You know, I don't think throughout the season you're supposed to like her in every scene.

[01:13:40] But you're supposed to understand her more by the end of the season and how she got to this point and what's been driving her. What makes her want to go on this mission to take out Abby? That's one of the big things. But what drives her and what got her to this point by the end of the season? You're definitely supposed to understand that throughout the storytelling.

[01:13:59] But in fairness, Joe, I could see another version of this show where they completely disregard everything about the game part of it where Joel dies and just have a story where Joel and Ellie travel together across America. And it goes on for four or five seasons. It becomes like The Walking Dead where you don't know when a character is going to die and when they're not. But this was always intended to be a limited series.

[01:14:21] And while there is talk about a four season arc to get the full story out there, the big beats that are there is setting up the two characters that disliked each other at the start. Joel was treating Ellie as cargo at the beginning of the first season. By the end of the first season, they have become a family. And then she loses her father. That's the story of the second part of this arc, effectively, is that she loses her father figure, the person that she's opened up to and loved.

[01:14:50] But it's that relationship as well. And the same faults of Joel as identified by the therapist. She's also got those same traits as Joel. That's why they worked as a team. But those are the storylines that build out of the fact that she's lost her father figure. But also something that you probably can't tell from the way the show has actually done this. And, you know, in the game, the way they do it is you're never in control of Joel in the game for the second game.

[01:15:20] But in the show, if you noticed, Joel is very old by the time that he is killed by Abby. He's out of breath when he saves Abby. Yeah. Himself and Tina when they save her. I think he's in his early 60s. He's about 62, I think, in this time period. So that's part of the reason why he's being relegated and being pushed out of the scene. Because he is a much older man. He's supposed to be the guy that's back in the office doing design plans for the building of an expansion of Jackson.

[01:15:49] Not the person that's supposed to be the action hero in this season. Yeah, no, agreed. And I mean, I think. Sorry it's not working for you though. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think specifically for this episode, I think, you know, the Seraphite element with Ellie. I can definitely see your point there.

[01:16:12] I do think that that felt like a way of just showing the island where ultimately Isaac and his wolves are on the way to. Which is actually what you would get from the next part of this. Yeah. From Abby's point of view. So, yeah. I mean, it's certainly one of those things where the capture and then suddenly she's released was a little clumsy. Yeah. To be honest.

[01:16:41] As for the two-year wait for the next season. Oh, yeah. For your pain. That's premium TV now. It really does suck. You know, things like House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones. They were all taking years off because of how much it costs to make these shows that look like cinema. And it absolutely sucks. You're waiting such a long time. It feels like for the show to come back. So you have to watch it three times so that you understand it and remember it. And then eventually it comes back.

[01:17:06] But the good thing is, as I keep telling myself as I get older, time passes much, much quicker as you get older. So suddenly you're on, we're on season five of that show that we used to wait two years in between and ten years have gone by. Wow. Okay. Well, that's the final season of the show. And now it's all finished and all wrapped up. And then they reboot it and put it back on Disney Plus like Daredevil. So, yes. It will get there. It does suck. But the story is out there. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they do in season three. Yeah. One thing I will say, though.

[01:17:37] Remember, Abby's other side of it from day one in Seattle. Well, she's not on the same kind of mission as Ellie and Dina were. We have no idea what Abby's plan for those three days was. We just know that she started out going to a meeting with Isaac on day one. And by day three, she's at the theater. But there's lots of other things that will be going on in season three. It's not just a rehash of the same three days. There you go. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Joe.

[01:18:03] And then finally on Facebook, Felipe says, loved it. It was amazing to see my wife go through the same emotions I felt playing the game while she watched the season's final scene. The small changes they did still kept the story as powerful as the original. Also, so happy for Shimmer and Alice. I'd be devastated to see their game storylines on TV.

[01:18:29] For those who haven't played the game and are unsure about season three, endure and survive. It will be worth it. There you go. Excellent stuff, Felipe. Yeah, no, definitely. Yes, we didn't mention that. But Shimmer does get an honorable mention that both Tommy and Jesse had found where they had been left and sort of housed.

[01:18:54] Whilst Dina and Ellie were looking for the group that killed Joel. Absolutely. And I love Jesse's character being so pissed off with Ellie the whole time he's having a conversation with us. Like, and Shimmer's fine. Not that you even asked to make sure that she was okay. Yeah, no, I'm glad they mentioned it. It's really funny. There's lots of people who have concern for these animals on TV shows because it's so often in things like The Walking Dead, which went on for years.

[01:19:23] You know, if you ever saw them with an animal, the animal gets killed first by the zombies and then they go after the humans. So it's nice to have little updates on our characters. We've seen Shimmer all the way back to when she was a foal back in season one. So it's kind of cool to have her there. Yeah, definitely. Excellent stuff. Thanks, Felipe. Absolutely. Thanks so much for all of your feedback. As I mentioned, we will be doing a wrap up of the second season of The Last of Us in a couple of weeks time. So get in any thoughts you have on all of the episodes to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com

[01:19:51] or pop on over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries to leave your thoughts over there. Excellent stuff. Yes, we'll be back with The Last of Us Season 2 wrap up podcast in the next week or so and to announce the winner of our World's End pub quiz. But also, fellow survivors, remember to share the podcast because sharing the podcast is, of course, sharing the spory love. The spory love, yes. Yes, indeed.

[01:20:22] Looking forward to that wrap up a couple of weeks time. But other than that, we have got some other podcasts that are coming up. We will, of course, be covering the next Marvel show, Ironheart, which is coming out in June. It's a couple of weeks time now. I know. Very close. We do still have The Wheel of Time penciled in despite the bad news of its cancellation. We are going to cover Season 3. So, yeah, plenty of stuff coming up as well as the Fantastic Four film coming up. Yes, with Joel himself in there as well.

[01:20:52] Yeah, definitely. See, we get to see some Pedro Pascal instead of seeing him on the small screen getting brutally killed. We'll see him on the big screen, hopefully being a big hero. Definitely. Excellent. Excellent. Looking forward to that. Thanks so much for joining us. We will talk to you again next time with our wrap-up podcast on The Last of Us Season 2. Yes. Looking forward to speaking with you on the wrap-up podcast. But in the meantime, fellow survivors, keep watching, keep listening, and of course, keep surviving. Bye. Bye. Bye.