The Last of Us Season 2 Wrap Up

[00:00:00] This is The Last of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries and we're discussing our final thoughts and feedback on The Last of Us Season 2 as well as rounding out this season with the World's End Pub Quiz results. He killed my friends.

[00:00:19] No, I did. I was looking for you. I didn't mean to hurt them. I know why you killed Joel. He did what he did to save me. I'm the one that you want. Just let him go. I let you live. I let you live. And you wasted it.

[00:01:04] Welcome back fellow survivors. Welcome back fellow fungies. This is The Last of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries where we will be announcing the winner of The Last of Us Season 2 Pub Quiz, The World's End Pub Quiz. It was. Indeed. And of course discussing our final thoughts and your feedback on Season 2 of The Last of Us. Welcome. I am one of your hosts, John.

[00:01:31] I am your other host, Derek. Just the two of us this time. It is. Chris has been taken by fungus. He is an infected and needs to be burnt, I guess. Well, it is one of those weird ones. We do mention Chris quite a lot on the podcast here and unfortunately he has not been able to join us for The Last of Us at all. It did not work out in the end.

[00:01:52] We were hoping he was going to be here for this particular episode. He was over with us at the weekend and we were chatting to him about The Last of Us today. Absolutely loved the series. He got to the end of it, got to the end of Season 2. Loved it so much. He finally went out and bought himself a copy of The Last of Us Part 2, the second game. Has already played it up to around the point that this season ended but he just wanted to know how the story continued so he's bought that. So I joked with him, is that the reason why he's not on the podcast? That he's just too busy playing the game and finding out what happens next? Is that why?

[00:02:20] But he was talking to me about it and he was saying that he loved the central performances of Caitlin Dever and Bella Ramsey and Isabella Mercad and Pedro Pascal. He really loved those and he wanted to see how the story played out differently in the game or whether the characters were a bit different. I just wish he was here to give us a different perspective on the season, that's all. But unfortunately. I guess so. Unfortunately you can't, fellow survivors. And so we will do our best.

[00:02:46] Yes, we got a little bit of feedback here and a couple of questions about our thoughts on the season as well, which we'll get to after we go into our pub quiz, John. Yes, I think we should start with our Last of Us Season 2, the World's End pub quiz. Give you a recap of the questions with the answers. And announce the winner.

[00:03:09] Thanks to all the fellow survivors and of course fellow quizzers who have come in with their answers for Season 2 of The Last of Us. Yep. And I think we should start off with Episode 1. Derek, kick us off. Of course there will be spoilers for the whole season because there's questions about each of the episodes. Some of them big spoilers, some of them tiny spoilers. But there will be spoilers so make sure you watch the season as a whole before we get into these questions.

[00:03:38] But the question on Season 2, Episode 1, Future Days, was what animal is the 2003 July Employee of the Month at the Abandoned Market that Ellie and Dina check out? And just like in the game, the answer was a dog who's a very, very good boy. Excellent. Every podcast I was listening to was talking about that. So if you listen to any other podcast other than ours, you're probably going, why are they talking about the doggy? I know, I know, I know. It was so good. Love that. Very good. Yeah.

[00:04:06] And I guess pets should be Employees of the Month because they help employees work. Well, they do. They calm us down. I wonder if it was just an indication that the Cordyceps had overtaken the market manager who was starting to give the dog a Best in Show prize instead of giving his employees Employee of the Month prize. Definitely.

[00:04:33] But I will get on to our Episode 2 question from Through the Valley. The question was, what is the maximum PSI on the flamethrower used by Tommy to take down the bloater infected? Ah, yes. The other scene in Episode 2. Not the scene where we lose Joel. Good. Good to focus on the other scene. Yes. What's the answer, John? The answer is 300 PSI. And I asked for a bonus point.

[00:05:02] What is the metric equivalent? So, it's quite large in Pascals. It is. Pedro Pascals. Pedro Pascals, indeed. And indeed, or bars of pressure, both metrics. So, Pascals, it was 2068380 Pascals or bars 20.684. Very good. Now you're talking by language. Yes. Talking numbers. Exactly. We do like a bit of metric in the end. We do. We do.

[00:05:32] As a scientist, I do like the SI metric. Uh-huh. I just think we probably had to do that, given that Pedro Pascal was the star, and given that we lost him in this episode particularly, we had to have the metric equivalent. In case you were wondering why we left it out, that was the reason. But it was 300 PSI is what's written on the side of the gun that Tommy's using. And it is the Pedro Pascal metric equivalent. It will be forevermore. I love nerdy-sized jokes. They're great, aren't they? Right, let's get on. I hope you do too, fellow quizzes.

[00:06:01] Yes, let's get on to The Path, Season 2, Episode 3. The question for that was, when Ellie arrives in Joel's house, there are two carved birds on his workbench. What birds are they? And another extra point here, what was the other carved animal in that room? The two carved birds were an owl and a duck. Quack, quack. Quack, right? And a horse was in the background. Nay. Nay, yes. Yes, it was. Okay. And really important because we do see Joel crafting a guitar or reconstructing a guitar

[00:06:31] for Ellie. So this is just showing the kind of passion he's moved into after he's been settling down. Yeah. It shows a woodwork. It shows he's got skills on toast. He does. Indeed. Always does. On Episode 4, Day 1, the question was, what are the surnames of the three astronauts that Ellie remarks about who burned up in their space capsule on their mission to the moon and reminds her of the three burnt corpses inside the old Fedra tank?

[00:07:00] I think there was another bonus question here about what Apollo mission it was as well. So the answer about the three astronauts, the surnames of the three astronauts were Grisson, White and Shafra. And, of course, the Apollo mission was Apollo numero uno. Apollo 1. Apollo 1. Yep. Yep. The reason why that isn't written in the directions is because you came up with that on the fly and didn't write it into my notes. I know. Sorry. Sorry. I forgot to copy it on the website and I forgot to copy it into the notes here.

[00:07:29] So we have awarded the points appropriately. Nobody's been left out. I promise that. Excellent. Excellent stuff. And speaking of which, on to episode five. We said we wouldn't penalize anybody, but it was just a fun fact that we couldn't talk about. So on season two, episode five, Feel Her Love. The question was, according to the Pinnacle Presents Marquee, what band were due to play the theater where Ellie and Dina were staying, according to the remaining letters?

[00:07:52] Now, we know that this band is Sick Habit because that was actually in the game and it was originally the name of Neil Druckmann's first company. It was one of his first animation companies. He called it Sick Habit and then used it for the name of the band that would play it. But on the marquee itself, it was Sick Ha. S-I-C-K and then H-A. So any variation of that, you did get a point. I promise. Yes, absolutely. It was a toughie, that one.

[00:08:22] Yeah, but it was a fun fact and we were happy to accept Sick Had. A couple of people that just popped that in there and a couple of suggestions as to what they could be. Nobody's been penalized, I promise. But it's a really interesting one. That's from Neil Druckmann's past. It made it into the game and then made it into live action as well. Absolutely. I think that's quite cool. I think you could work it out. It does spell out habit, but it's faded and it's really... It is difficult to spot, but you kind of... Or maybe because we know we fill in the blanks.

[00:08:51] Well, interestingly, I think actually on one of the speaker stacks that's inside the marquee when they go to the stage later on in the season, you actually see the full name Sick Habit as written on it. But we weren't asking that question. We were just asking about the marquee. Exactly. We're not going to penalize anybody. Oh, Sugar, I wanted to mention on the previous episode, on episode four, the reason why we were so excited about Ellie talking about the space capsule and that's where she mentions the astronauts is because we knew that episode was coming up later on in the series

[00:09:20] where we were going to see Ellie experience her dream of going into space. So it was a really exciting moment as a gamer, knowing that was a story point they were going to reference later on in the season. So we just wanted to call that out as part of the questioning there. But talking about that, John, do you want to pop on to the next episode? Episode six, that flashback episode. Yes. Episode six, the price. The question we asked was, what two flavors of cake does Joel get for Ellie's 15th and 17th birthdays?

[00:09:49] The answer, of course, is for the 15th. It's vanilla because it's easier. Exactly. And on the 17th, he goes all guns blazing with a chalky cake. And then walks in on his newly minted daughter, just trying everything out at the same time. Indeed. Yep. That's what happens when your kids turn 17, I guess. Yeah. All of the teenage things at the same time. But I do like that because the nod that's in that, and we didn't talk about the episode

[00:10:16] because of the question, but the nod that's in that is Joel's been planning this for a lot longer than he planned getting the vanilla cake for her 15th. He's taken the day off work. He's gone out and gotten the chocolate cake. So there's days and days of planning on into this rather than just walking in and getting something for the next day. Agreed. And it ends up working out really badly for Joel and for Ellie and their relationship. Well, interestingly as well, it's two years on from her 15th. I guess chocolate has become a lot scarcer in that time. Yeah, true.

[00:10:46] Like that's the thing. So it is a more luxurious or exclusive item. That's true. At 17 as opposed to 15. That's really interesting. Unless they started a cocoa bean growing plantation down the road from that. But not in a high mountain environment. But not the high mountain. With snow in a temperate world. Yeah, it depends on the time of year. It's not always snowing in Jackson Hole. No, I agree. But I don't think they grow cocoa beans. They probably don't. They have to wait for coffee to come through. They do, yeah.

[00:11:16] They do in South America? They do. Not North America. Unless it's really far south. Maybe that troop of people that came through with the coffee beans also came through with cocoa beans. With chocolate. Yeah, and that would make sense. There you go. There you go. We've sorted it out. Neil Druckmann, if you want to fill in the blanks around the corners of your story, come to us. Our final question on Season 2 for Episode 7, Convergence, was what is the name of the children's book that Ellie picks up in the bookstore?

[00:11:43] The book that she picks up is The Monster at the End of this book. Just like Ellie, who's the monster at the end of the story, but this book features Grover from Sesame Street. A very well-known book for lots of parents. I think lots of parents have picked that up. I just love that little comment from Jesse where he goes, oh, I really should have picked that one up before you. I'm going to make myself look a much better parent. Now he's left with the only choices on the shelf other than The Monster at the End of the book. Yeah, very cool. And congratulations to everybody who got the questions, right?

[00:12:13] Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much, fellow quizzers and, of course, fellow survivors, for submitting your answers to the podcast. I think we should ask our e-tombola, aka HeyGoogle, to give us a number between 0 and 12. Chris, of course, is not here, so he can't do the honors, so we have brought in our own Google e-tombola here.

[00:12:40] So, HeyGoogle, give us a random number between 0 and 12. Six. Excellent stuff. The winner of the World's End pub quiz for Season 2 is Michael Dill. Congratulations, Michael. Yeah, congratulations.

[00:13:05] And well done as well to all the other entries who sent in your answers following the end of Season 2. It's really good. I'll be having fun. Yeah, definitely. Lots of fun questions this time. I like that we avoided some of the major disturbing questions that we could have asked for things that were happening in other areas of the episode, which is good. I hope you enjoyed playing along. And Michael, I'll be in contact with you over the next couple of days.

[00:13:32] The Last of Us Part 2 is available on PlayStation 5, the most recent version, the updated version of that. It's also available on PC. But if you don't have access to PlayStation 5 or PC, we will organize an Amazon voucher for you to use for any Last of Us goodies that you want to get. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But congratulations again, Michael Dill, the winner of Season 2's World End pub quiz.

[00:13:59] And of course, fellow quizzers, fellow survivors, thank you so much for entering into our pub quiz. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's weird, isn't it? The pub quiz, the end of the world pub quiz was based on the movie The End of the World, which came out much more recently to the first season of the show than the second season. We're quite a long way away from that movie. Exactly. It's about six or seven years now, I think. Yeah, I think so. It was still quite top of mind when we came up with that for the first season. Exactly.

[00:14:28] Exactly. But there's a little bit of feedback in from our wonderful fellow listeners. First up, we got an email in from Keith Murray, who entered the pub quiz. Thanks very much for your answers to the pub quiz, Keith. Absolutely. Thanks, Keith. He says, Hi, TV Podcast Industries crew. Thanks for the amazing podcast. It's great to hear fellow Iris talking about these different shows. I liked this season of The Last of Us, but felt really frustrated with the actions of Ellie. I know I'm probably supposed to feel that way about her, which is a testament to the writing of the show. Thanks so much for all you do, Keith. Absolutely, Keith.

[00:14:57] I mean, I think you're absolutely right. Yeah. I think in a sense, everyone feels that Ellie should be the hero of the piece and in the end becomes a much more complicated and, dare I say it, divisive and actually frustrating figure because you're kind of going, why are you acting like this? It's keeping, you know, for example, say, keeping that circle of violence going. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:26] And as you get from Abby. Yeah. And Abby's frustration, you know, I let you live, yet here you are. You've killed my friends, keeping the cycle of violence going effectively. So I think she is. I think it comes down to, it's that, the foibles, the pettiness, the rash decision-making of people, of humans. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:54] And this is what I think this show captures is, you know, and it's a position that she's put in that's in some ways not of her making, but she still makes those decisions and I totally agree with you. Like, it's really frustrating to see someone who you want to do the right thing or the good thing or however you want to sort of rationalize it,

[00:16:18] but in the end does stuff that equally is as bad as the people who, you know, murdered Joel. Yeah. And in a sense, Joel equally with what he did to protect Ellie. So it's, it is, it's that wheel, it's that wheel of violence. It is, it's that cycle of violence, yeah.

[00:16:45] It becomes very difficult to disentangle in the end. And it's such an unusual thing, you know, we play video games all the time. We have PlayStation and Xbox, all that kind of stuff. We play lots of video games. And the interesting thing about what The Last of Us story and what Neil Druckmann and the team at Naughty Dog have done with The Last of Us was, yeah, they created a pretty good game in the first game as a game. And yes, they created a very good looking game for the second one.

[00:17:14] But what they asked you to do in the narrative is step into the shoes of people that you don't necessarily like. You know, even in the first game, he didn't necessarily think Ellie was the greatest person in the world and Joel was the greatest person in the world. Joel comes in as, in the opening, a caring father who loses his daughter. So you give him a bit of leeway. But at times he's really gruff and really aggressive with how he deals with the people around him. And the second game, they do something similar. They put you in the shoes of Ellie.

[00:17:40] And I definitely found a point in that game where I was going, I don't really want to play as Ellie. I want to play as Joel. And I want to play them with this beautiful gameplay and this beautiful scenery. I want to play them shooting zombies. That's not the game they're giving you. They're giving you a really strong narrative where you don't like Ellie at times in the game. And you don't like Abby at times in the game. And you don't get to play as Joel, who was the character you played with for 20 hours in the first game, you know, they kind of make you and they force you to do something different than you'd want to do.

[00:18:10] I think, I think the problem is, is that's not the problem. But I think the, the, the really interesting thing is season two makes you have to live over the course of the game and equally over the course of the season with people making decisions that aren't necessarily or don't necessarily fit. or, or sit comfortably or in a position of sort of virtuous rightness, I guess, in a sense.

[00:18:40] Season one was always like, you know, Joel is set up as this protector who lose his daughter, who then in a sense adopts and protects Ellie, this surrogate daughter. And the protection is done in a harsh world whilst they're on the road. Yeah. But the bombshell that drops is right at the end where you realize how much he is willing to go to protect. And that includes effectively killing a lot of people in a hospital, including doctors.

[00:19:09] And on the basis of it, him making a decision for all of humankind. Exactly. And, and the thing is with that knowledge and then with what transpires in season two, you're then, you become torn between these two camps. Mm-hmm. And you have to live with that, with the decisions that are made by these characters in game as you play them.

[00:19:38] And that becomes a much more unsettling thing. Now, I think in the game, you are also confronted with having to deal with a lot more infected. Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, for me, it was, you don't necessarily think about it in the same way because I'm screaming trying to fire a gun at clickers, bloaters, intelligent, you know, stalkers and all that kind of thing. Plus. Plus the WLF, plus the Seraphite. Yeah.

[00:20:06] So, like, you're, you're kind of in survival mode. But actually, when it comes down to those big story beats, you kind of go, oh, well, I've been playing this person who ultimately has just killed someone who's pregnant. Well, exactly. And you're like, okay. In fact, I had a discussion about this with a couple of my friends over in the Zed Heads group, the podcast group who are also podcasting about this. I had a discussion with them the other day and I wondered whether the perspective is different for people that don't play video games at all.

[00:20:34] Because if you don't play video games at all and you hear that this is the story, I would presume with a basic knowledge of video games, you would be going, well, if you're playing as Ellie, why didn't you stop Joel from getting killed? Because that's what you do in video games. You're the hero. You stop bad things from happening, right? But all of those choices are taken away from you. And you have to just watch the narrative play it in front of you.

[00:20:57] And then you have to play the character through things like you're talking about, John, where you could go a whole day without actually moving the story forward, where you're fighting all the elements around you. And the story comes back and hits you over the head. Sorry. Excuse poor Joel. But it's over the head and tells you what's actually happening to the character. And you're coming at it from a perspective of how you're playing the game. So there's some people that were in the group that we're talking about, they played Ellie as a massively intelligent character.

[00:21:24] She was able to get around every situation very well. And I was kind of going, well, I wasn't playing her like that. I was playing her the way I play a game, which is just get out of the situation as quickly as possible. So you bring your own personal perspective to the character that you're playing through in a video game as well. So my perspective on Ellie in the TV show is quite similar to my version of Ellie that I played in the game because she's massively frustrating at times. And the decisions that she makes are not the decisions that I would make. But that's the decisions that the narrative is telling me. And absolutely.

[00:21:53] And if it wasn't a game or if it was a game with just one chance, you know, like Squid Game, then I would have killed Ellie plenty of times through The Infected. So she would have ultimately have gotten, say, her comeuppance in that sense. I don't think she would have made it out of Jackson. I think she would have fallen off the horse on the way out of Jackson.

[00:22:10] And I think the other interesting thing is, you know, we frequently on the podcast in different shows or movies that we cover talk about, you know, good or evil, that black and white or the areas of grey in between. And I think this is absolutely a prime example of where you get greyness hitting so well. I don't mean in terms of it being boring.

[00:22:38] I mean the fact that this is someone who goes from a journey of being good, innocent to bad and making decisions that I would say a lot of people wouldn't agree with. And the writing around that and equally around Joel, equally around Abby, they are absolutely the antithesis of being either in column good or column bad.

[00:23:07] They are in between because they are put into a situation where no one at this current time living, certainly in Western Europe, you know, over the last kind of 10 to 20 years has had to encounter a situation that is that desperate. You know, people in Ukraine are and who knows what decisions you make when put under those pressures, those stresses or whatever, like Gaza or whatever.

[00:23:37] This is not that, but it's that pressured situation of where you make decisions that mean, in a sense, the previous value system, the previous norms go out the window. Yeah. And because you're dealing with a different set of circumstances. Yeah. And this isn't nine to five.

[00:23:57] This is, I have to be on edge, on guard all the time because if an infected doesn't get me, it could be some rival faction. It could be Fedra or it could be a bear or a wolf. Well, exactly. But interestingly, from the mouth of Neil Druckmann, go listen to the official podcast where he's interviewed every week on each of the episodes. He's Israeli-American himself.

[00:24:25] His attitude coming into this story when he was telling it 10 years ago and when he's telling it now throughout the series is everybody's got a perspective. And until we realize that everybody else's perspective is just as valid as our own and we get to work together because all of our perspective aren't going to align. We will never get to a point where everybody's perspective is going to be exactly the same. Until we realize that we're all going to have different perspectives and start to work together. We will never be safe. We will never all have a society that works together.

[00:24:55] That's the point. That's the point of everything here. We can just go into a cycle of violence where everybody goes, well, 200 years ago, such and such happened. And therefore, I'm going to kill you and your family. We will get in that cycle of violence over and over again. Or in this case with Ellie saying, well, you killed Joel and Abby saying, well, he killed my dad and Joel saying, well, your dad was about to kill my daughter. And then in the past, Fedra killed my daughter.

[00:25:20] You know, all of that stuff, all building up in this story is supposed to represent exactly what's going on in society. Everybody can justify continuing the cycle of violence, but who can justify stopping it? Who can find that way between us all to work together to stop that cycle of violence? Absolutely. Yes. Excellent stuff. Thanks, Keith. Thanks, Keith. It really set us off there. Also on email, Brock Mitchell says, love the podcast. Thanks for continuing to be so thorough and thoughtful.

[00:25:50] Look forward to it each week. I'll have to find another show you do to keep in touch, Brock Mitchell. Well, thanks very much, Brock. Absolutely, Brock. Glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, we've got lots and lots of other shows that we cover. Probably our biggest show over the course of the years. We've covered all the Marvel TV shows. We've covered some DC TV shows like Gotham and Watchmen.

[00:26:13] But our biggest show by far has been The Boys on Prime Video, where we covered The Boys all of the seasons so far. That show finishes next year. We've covered the spinoff, Gen V, which had its first season a couple of years ago. And its second season is coming out later on this year. We've also covered the animated spinoff of that as well, which was great fun. So that's probably the biggest stuff that we've done. But I think at last count, we're on 77 seasons of TV that we've covered, which would include, you know, four seasons of The Boys, that kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:43] And lots of movies. So there should be something already there that you have watched if you want to see some of that coverage. But coming up, we've got Ironheart. So we're going back to Marvel next month. We've got Gen V. We've got Sandman coming up. So lots more to come this year. And if you do want to find anything, pop on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com. You'll see our list of upcoming stuff. Absolutely. And we still do have to cover Wheel of Time Season 3. Wheel of Time Season 3, yes.

[00:27:08] Well, that unfortunately got a little waylaid by us with things going on and so on. But yes, we will also be going into the world of Wheel of Time Season 3, which, to be honest, I'm really looking forward to. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing it. You know, we never got the chance to actually watch the episodes either because of everything else going on. But we will get there. Things are going to ease off a little bit. Not all shows are released at the same time in the future.

[00:27:37] So we will get back to Wheel of Time Season 3. Looking forward to chatting about that one. And thanks so much, Brock. And great to have you on board for the last of us Season 2. Yeah, great stuff. Thanks, Brock. And thanks for entering into the pub quiz as well. Absolutely. We got a message over on Facebook from Corey who said, I didn't have the chance to actually enter the pub quiz, but I did have some questions for you on Season 2 of The Last of Us. He says, What are your thoughts about the way the season ended concerning the expected wait for Season 3?

[00:28:05] I hear they won't be filming it until at least next year. Also, with supposed tariffs to come on movies filmed outside the US, how long until there's an attempt to extend that to TV as well? And if so, how will that affect a series such as The Last of Us, House of the Dragon or even The White Lotus? Corey, interesting questions, Corey. Let's take it first, first, with a question on how do you think the series ended considering the expected wait for Season 3? What do you think, John?

[00:28:32] You know, it's an interesting ending with the wait that is going to happen, for sure. Mm-hmm. And, you know... They have confirmed this week that Caitlin D will be the lead for the next season. Abby's story will be the lead story, which is the way that the show ended. And it's the way the game works as well. The way the game worked, too. I mean, I think, you know, the production values now on a lot of TV are so great.

[00:28:59] It's not like Friends, where it's filmed in front of a live studio audience. Or, you know, from our point of view, from, say, UK and Ireland, where it's a soap opera, where it's literally three times a week, you know, the turnover is rapid. These are really detailed production. Yeah. They're five sets. They're one between five sets. Yeah. Exactly. You know, a lot of people, it is small movies that we're talking about now.

[00:29:28] Like, the quality that you can get. I guess, yeah, they're making that more efficient, quicker all the time, but it still takes time to pull it together. And I think, you know, it would have been nice if it was a little closer, but I would always say that no matter what. Yeah. Like, you kind of... It's why the Netflix model of binging works so well. It was that it'd be nice to have all the episodes closer together, literally one after the other.

[00:29:57] And now you say that, and remember, I always caveat that one, because I hear that a bit, but I always caveat that one with Stranger Things is finishing this year. That show's been going on for 10 years and supposed to be around a group of young teenagers, and they're all in their mid-20s now. They're all in their early 20s, let's say, finishing that show. That show has been, and it's only five seasons, it's extended on so far because of the amount of time it takes to make. And because of the money they pump into it, it's extended on so far beyond what they originally intended when they started out those stories. Agreed.

[00:30:27] And I mean, there's COVID and writers and director strikes and all that as well thrown in. And the money. And the money. So, yes, would I have liked season three to follow sooner after season two? Yes, absolutely. But nonetheless... Would you think this is the right place to end season two? Yeah, I do. Because I think it's that natural transition point in game two, for sure. Yeah.

[00:30:53] Like, I think going any other way would have shortened season two, effectively. Or it would have compressed it. Or you would need a longer season two anyway, just to cover that. Yeah. I think overall my feeling on it would have been, you could have done season two in ten episodes and then not had a season three. That would be the way you'd do it.

[00:31:17] Because getting the quality of storytelling that's delivered in these seven episodes, which I did really think they did a great job translating that story into these really detailed, really in-depth episodes for the seven episodes that we got. You couldn't have gotten that quality and that level of storytelling and told the story with a different end point. Let's put it that way. This end point is the natural end point from the game. This is the one where I remember going, what's happening?

[00:31:44] It goes to black and then continues on with Abby's story on day one. And it was going, oh, no, you can't take that away from me. And it was ages until we found out what happened in the theater. It might have even been a couple of months. I can't remember whether it's because we went away on holiday and we weren't continuing playing the game the next day. But we didn't catch back up on that story for quite a while afterwards when we moved on to Abby's story. So it feels similar.

[00:32:10] But one of the big things I've had to readjust my expectations when we started covering shows like Watchmen, shows like this, when we started covering our shows, every show that we were covering was about how will they prolong this for as long as they possibly can have it. So when it was Daredevil, how can they get to five seasons, 10 seasons of the show?

[00:32:31] So when it was Gotham, how could they go on forever telling stories in this city of Gotham where they reduce production budgets to get it down, where they recast characters to keep the stories going, where they pulled in minor characters from comic books from 60 years ago to keep the story going. The difference with the HBO shows is they have a clear idea of how they want the story to start, have a start, middle and end because it's based on a property that they're trying to translate to the screen and keep it as close to the original as possible. And the entire story is out there.

[00:33:01] So in a way, HBO don't really care if you like Abby as a character or don't really care if you like Joel as a character or Ellie as a character. They're the characters and they're going to present them in the story that they've already told in the game. Yeah. So they're not trying to make the characters more likable for a TV audience or more attractive to a TV audience or anything like that, like you would do if you were making a show out of a book and wanted it to last for 20 years like the old days.

[00:33:29] It's one of the things I've had to adjust my expectations on. So they are going to tell the story. It's going to continue in about a year and a half time, two years time. You're right. Yeah. Apparently the filming is going to start in 2026, which would mean probably 2027, even 2028, I've heard, for the final season. I mean, that feels a little long, to be honest. But, and that's a shame. Yeah.

[00:33:51] I guess at the moment my main thing is how will Abby appear in mushroom form in the opening credits? Oh, yeah. And equally, I mean. Will she? Yeah. I think one of the problems of leaving it too long is that people are like, well, they fall off the property. Or it doesn't build that or maintain that momentum.

[00:34:18] So, I mean, I guess we just need to really see from that sense. But that's kind of the thing. HBO, I don't think that matters to them. I think they're more interested in keeping the show creator on board to do the next show he's going to do after this. Oh, maybe, yeah, yeah. And they've committed to making a third season for him. That's the deal. They've certainly pulled in the numbers of viewers for this season and last season. That's true. And by the time it comes back, it's also a lot of people will have forgotten whether they really loved or really hated this season.

[00:34:48] And we'll come back and watch the third season. And come back and watch it, exactly. See if it works for them. And Michael's going to find out how the story ends when he gets his copy of The Last of Us. I think lots and lots of people went out and bought The Last of Us Part 2 when they realized the story has still got quite a bit to go. And I mean, in terms then on your tariffs, Corey, I mean, it'll be interesting. Hopefully it doesn't extend to TV because it to me just seems a bit of a weird kind of thing, really.

[00:35:14] I guess films in the US by US production houses will need to start to find places around America that look like wherever they would need to be in the world. Can you imagine? Do large sets like Ben-Hur or something in their studios. The only option actually is everybody uses the volume, which is the screens that Lucasfilm set up to do things like The Mandalorian, which just won't work for every production.

[00:35:44] I think if you look at it, I'm not going to get into politics of it, but I think if you look at it, the whole suggestion that a tariff would be put on every movie that's filmed outside of America came to distract people from what was really going on and how much money was being stolen by. A certain person that said that particular phrase, who I don't want to mention on the podcast because all of our podcasts are transcribed and search words come up out of it. So I'm not going to mention his name, but it's total crap.

[00:36:09] I don't think we'll ever get tariffs on movies made outside of the US because the movie making industry is a worldwide industry. You have to make a film set in London in London. You have to do something like that or something approximating it. And not every single landscape exists in the US for every single type of film. At the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure that the US film industry is suffering particularly much.

[00:36:33] They're certainly the global dominant film and movie production with the exception of maybe domestic Chinese films. Wasn't the one where we saw the top movies of the year? The number one movie of the year has made two and a half billion dollars and was mostly only released in China.

[00:36:51] So it's a problem out of nothing to, as you say, distract or just browbeat certain portions of, I guess, industries and sectors in a country because they don't necessarily... Well, they have outspoken people, I guess. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully it won't affect TV in the same way as it affects film.

[00:37:21] And maybe in the end, it won't really affect film because it seems as though the tariffs come and go depending on how much it actually impacts the person who's setting them. Because, and that seems to be the issue. Anyway, enough of that. Exactly. Exactly. Thanks so much, Corey, for your question. Good stuff, Corey. And thanks for all those questions, even the challenging ones. Because, to be honest, yeah, the White Lotus is really good.

[00:37:52] I want to see it go around the world, which is kind of the concept of it, really. Well, absolutely. But could you imagine, like, you know, the reality shows like Survivor that have bought an island, basically. So, oh, no, would they have to pay a tariff because their films are on Fiji? Or do they have to film on an island off the coast of North Carolina to not get tariffs on them? And maybe White Lotus will be like Ocean City or Myrtle Beach. Maybe. White Lotus, Myrtle Beach, where everybody goes and plays golf every day. Excellent stuff.

[00:38:22] Thanks so much for your feedback. And thanks so much for your thoughts on the season. We do want to hear more from you about The Last of Us. If you want to send in your thoughts at all, you can send them in to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. Or join us over in our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries. If you haven't joined us before, I do need to mention that there is a quick question, which is what shows are we covering that you're interested in? Just make sure you put in a show that we do cover.

[00:38:44] The only reason for that is just to make sure it does stay as a group amongst all of you, our wonderful fellow listeners and fellow fun guys and gals. And indeed. And survivors. Absolutely. Also, please write a review on Apple Podcasts or, of course, share the podcast because sharing the podcast is, of course, sharing the love.

[00:39:07] We are also on patreon.com forward slash tvpodcastindustries or buymeacoffee.com forward slash tvpi if you wish to donate to the running costs of the podcast. But as always, you can subscribe over on our website at tvpodcastindustries.com. Lots of shows over there. There's a nice search function over there as well. If you're looking for any of the shows that we've covered, you can search for any episode. Indeed.

[00:39:34] As Derek previously hinted at, we will be back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Ironheart later this month. Yes. And The Hood as well. That's right. That's right. One of my favorite characters. So looking forward to seeing how The Hood translates into and onto TV. We also have The Eyes of Wakanda coming up. The animated series are about Wakanda. Yep. Yeah.

[00:40:03] A couple of mentions that's an anthology series that we'll see different versions of Wakanda over the course of the generations, including, apparently, we're going to see a new Iron Fist in The Eyes of Wakanda. Excellent. Yeah. Kind of fun. Good stuff. And, of course, we have the Fantastic Four movie. Mm-hmm. Pedro Pascal comes to the Marvel Universe after leaving The Last of Us, I guess. Yes. Yeah. He's everywhere all at once. Yeah. Really excited to see Fantastic Four. Yes.

[00:40:33] Most definitely. And, of course, we will be back with animation with Marvel Zombies before we round off with Wonder Man in 2025. That's our Marvel offering. But we'll also have Wheel of Time as well as Gen V. Yep. And there is the second and final season of The Sandman on Netflix as well. Yeah.

[00:41:00] Really intrigued to see how they close out the story of Morpheus. The Sandman, they're going to be focusing just on his story rather than all of the stories that are in The Sandman books. There's 75 issues, I think, of The Sandman. So, they're just going to focus on the Morpheus story for the second season. Interesting they're splitting this over three parts. So, we're going to get six parts of the start of July, six at the end of July, and then one final part, which is Death, the High Cost of Living.

[00:41:24] An excellent graphic novel being translated to Netflix to close out the series. Yeah. It will be out on the 31st of July. So, over the course of four weeks, we're actually going to get all 13 episodes of the final season of The Sandman. Yeah, absolutely. Really looking forward to that. Yeah. But, fellow survivors, fellow quizzers, fellow fungies, thank you so much for joining us on this journey of The Last of Us Season 2. We really hope you enjoyed it. Absolutely.

[00:41:53] And we cannot wait for you to join us on our other shows, as well as three years down the line for Season 3 of The Last of Us. Yeah. We will see Abby's journey. Yeah. Or go watch it on YouTube, and then come back and watch the excellent TV show adaptation, or go play the game. I'm going to do that. Yeah, exactly. But, of course, until next time, keep watching, keep listening, and, of course, keep surviving.

[00:42:23] Bye. Bye. Bye.