The Last of Us 203 Review

[00:00:00] This is The Last of Us Podcast on TV Podcast Industries. This time we're chatting about The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 3, The Path. What I want is what you used to give people. I want justice. Because it's either that or we do nothing. That's what everyone else out there is going to do for us. Nothing. A whole world of people who won't lift a finger if something bad happens to me or you.

[00:00:30] We have a word for these people. They're called strangers. Well, I don't think that we're strangers to each other. And I want to know that I can count on you. And I swear if someone hurts any of you or the people you love, you can count on me. That's what holds all this together. Not potluck dinners or New Year's Eve dances. Definitely not a wall because that thing got busted through. But Jackson is still here.

[00:00:57] I'll accept whatever the council decides. But I am asking you. Please. Do what it takes to see that justice is done. Not for me. Not even for Joel. I am asking you. Please. Do it for us.

[00:01:36] Welcome back, fellow survivors, to The Last of Us podcast on TV Podcast Industries. We're on to the third episode of Season 2, The Path. I'm one of your hosts, Derek. Hello there, fellow fun guys. Yes, I am one of your other hosts, John. Welcome back to the podcast. The mushroomiest podcast about The Last of Us you'll ever find, I think. Absolutely. What's not to like about mushrooms? Well, true. Yes. No, no. Unless they're attacking you and trying to eat your brains and gain your knowledge, I guess.

[00:02:06] Yeah. Yeah. Let's hope that doesn't ever happen. The mushroom uprising is not something we're looking forward to. No. That would be sort of from left field if we got a mushroom uprising. I'd love to know what would happen with an aubergine uprising. No, but quite literally, the mushrooms are in the left field. The aubergines are in the right field. So it would be the left field uprising. Yes. We almost had our third host along with us, John. I know, but he got waylaid by mushrooms.

[00:02:34] Well, no. Unfortunately, work got in the way. But we hope to have Chris joining us for the next couple of episodes of The Last of Us moving on since we finished off our Daredevil coverage last week. Officially, we finished our final wrap-up of Daredevil last week. We certainly did. One night a week free. And that night might be taken up with The Last of Us if he's able to organize his timing. Otherwise, we'll have to wait until another show comes to Wednesdays for Chris to join us.

[00:03:00] Yes, absolutely. Christoph, make room for mushrooms. I knew I'd get you there. I knew I'd get you there, John. But I hope our wonderful fellow survivors have been enjoying the second season of The Last of Us. After last week's episode, I think it was good to take a bit of a breather in episode three of the series to see kind of how everybody's dealing with the situations that are going on. No, definitely. I mean, I think you do need that sort of out breath. Yes.

[00:03:29] After what we saw in episode two, for sure. After the plunge, yeah. You know, it is really important to sort of take stock of that emotional high because it is really, really, really emotional. When you're dealing primarily with two principal characters, then it becomes much bigger. Yes, I get it. There's Maria. There's Tommy. There's a whole host of other characters.

[00:03:53] But the story primarily resolves around two characters, and that has gone down to one. Well, the first season was around two characters and went down to one, certainly. Yeah, absolutely. I think this season is really talking about the expansion to two very different characters and multiple characters in the show.

[00:04:11] What I mean is in that, even the opening credits, if you did spot in terms of all that mycelial sort of network opening credit, you only get one mushroom at the end representing Ellie. Yes. There are not two. So I thought that was kind of interesting. I thought it was really cool, actually, because you do realize then you're dealing with a production team that are really focused about detail. Absolutely.

[00:04:41] With the death of that other mushroom silhouette in the opening credits, which is Joel, he dies, they have removed it, and there's just a single one. Because I did say it as it was happening. You did? I wonder if we'll just have the one sort of fungus representing Ellie, and you were kind of a little bit skeptical. Well, I didn't have time to be skeptical. It was like 10 seconds later it appeared on screen. But that's the kind of quality you get from HBO.

[00:05:10] It's the kind of quality you get from these writers, these production people that are behind it. We all remember how the Game of Thrones opening credits changed every week to represent what the story was going to tell you that week, which is a huge event to work, but became really important. It became something that the fans are really excited to see every week, what area of Westeros we're going to be going and spending time in this week, with The Last of Us being a show about two characters traveling across the country in the first season and now in the second season expanding in a different way.

[00:05:38] This is the start of the new show is telling you, well, one of the characters is gone now. Now, Ellie's all on her own. It's being set up right there in the opening credits. So even the opening credits are feeding into the story, which I think is really cool. It's really cool. But before we get into our discussion about this episode, just want to remind you that you can go over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com and subscribe to the podcast on any immune or infected podcast player if you haven't already.

[00:06:03] There's 10 years, well, 11 years actually of TV Podcast Industries podcasts over there for you to listen to, including our coverage of season one of The Last of Us. You can also leave a voicemail for us over there. We'd love to hear your voice on the podcast for any of your thoughts on the shows that we cover. You can also send us emails to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or join us over on our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries where there's a spoiler post up for every one of the episodes of the shows that we cover.

[00:06:31] I know the other thing that we're going to be covering later in the week, we're going to go into the cinema again to cover Thunderbolts. So we'd love to hear your thoughts about Thunderbolts. Absolutely. If you're getting a chance to see that. Yeah. Definitely. And the last thing to remind you of, we are continuing our World's End pub quiz for season two of The Last of Us later in this episode. We'll have a question on each podcast and all you need to do at the end of the season is email us with your seven correct answers to feedback at TV Podcast Industries. And you could be in with a chance of getting your hands on a copy of The Last of Us season two

[00:06:59] or a 50 euro Amazon voucher which you can put towards The Last of Us goodies. Indeed you can. So fellow quizzers and fellow survivors slash fun guys, yes, please get involved with the World's End pub quiz. But I think with that, let us get on to some of the episode details of The Last of Us episode three, The Path. Derek, who gave us what, where, when, how and why?

[00:07:29] Well, the show is of course based on the 2020 PlayStation game, The Last of Us part two by Neil Druckmann and Hayley Wigman-Gross from game publisher Naughty Dog. You were surprised, John, that the game came out in 2020. Despite the fact that I've said it the last two episodes, I'm not going to hold you to the coals for that. You sometimes ignore what I say. It's fine. But this is the big thing that this game came out in a time when the world was going through a massive pandemic.

[00:07:54] And this sequel to one of the most well-known games about a realistic type of pandemic taking over the world. The sequel came out in, I think, July of that year. So a couple of months after everybody was in lockdown, they suddenly had to deal with this game about the worst case scenario of a nightmare. Well, absolutely. I think I just probably blocked it out of my mind, to be honest. You kind of think of the remastered date, like 2021 or 2022 when it was remastered on PlayStation 5 maybe as the real release date.

[00:08:25] Yeah. Yeah. But the show, of course, is written and executive produced by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. This episode, once again, written by Craig Mazin, who wrote the first two episodes of the series. And this episode directed by Peter Hoare. We know Peter Hoare so well on this podcast. We've covered so much of his stuff, but particularly on The Last of Us. He directed episode three of last season, which has been well-known as the Bill and Frank episode. I think it was nominated for lots and lots of awards, as it should have been an excellent episode of the show.

[00:08:51] But we've also talked about him here because he directed episodes of The Defenders shows. He directed episodes of Daredevil, Iron Fist, directed some of the other Marvel shows, like The Runaways. Oh, absolutely. Runaways, Cloak and Dagger as well, which I loved. Yeah, that was really cool. But he also worked quite closely with Russell T. Davis. Obviously, he's been directing episodes of Doctor Who over the years, including two episodes for the brand new season of Shooty Gatwa's Doctor, which has been excellent so far. I've absolutely loved that.

[00:09:18] But he's also directed many episodes of the Russell T. Davis show, It's a Sin, which won awards around the world. An excellent story about the AIDS crisis and the AIDS pandemic in the 80s. Yeah, we love Peter Hoare on this podcast. And so well done, Peter, for being involved on The Last of Us. We absolutely love this director's stuff. Yeah, he's just got a really good touch with the drama between people.

[00:09:47] And that's really the core of what he directs well. And there's a lot of that in this episode. Absolutely. Obviously, the Bill and Frank episode had a lot of that as well. But it's great to have him back on this show, along with all the other shows he'd been doing. So thank you, Peter, for your contributions to all the stuff we talked about in TV podcast industries. But John, do you want to tell us what they gave us with your synopsis for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 3, The Path? Sure.

[00:10:12] While Tommy says goodbye to Joel in the morgue, Ellie has to recover from the injuries Manny inflicted on her. Three months later, Ellie is finally released from hospital and Dina tells her that the group who killed Joel are members of the Washington Liberation Front Wolves that are from Seattle. Before setting out for vengeance, Tommy convinces Ellie to bring the case to the townspeople of Jackson. But despite her best efforts, the council deny their support.

[00:10:40] Later that night, Dina teams up with Ellie to pursue Joel's killers on their own. When they arrive in Seattle, it looks deserted and Ellie and Dina note the lack of WLF members. Meanwhile, a convoy of dozens of soldiers marched through the streets of Seattle with several armored vehicles. Yes, a little army, I think. Or a big army. Or a medium-sized army. We don't know yet. It really connects to that moment.

[00:11:08] And I'm sure we'll talk about lots of this stuff as we go through our points. But it really does connect to that moment when Ellie goes, well, nobody's ever really talked about the wolves before. So they must be a really small force. And then they get down to Seattle and it's like, oh, there's going to be a much bigger force than they think. Yeah. I mean, it's also one of those things where, yes, maybe in the scheme of things, say, compared to the Fireflies, it is small. Yeah. But it's a city-wide thing. That's what it seems like, yeah.

[00:11:37] I mean, it's almost a bit like the city-states of Renaissance Italy where it's just like, except, you know, they've developed all these armies to survive the apocalypse and to survive the infected. But in effect, they've all got these standing armies. Each city are like these contained because they don't move very far.

[00:12:04] You know, they have a limited field of range. Then they're all there serving to defend this one city. So they might not be small, but they're dedicated and they're big for if you're going into that city. And also it depends on how quickly they overran the FEDRA agents that were in the city, the government agents that were in the city, and took their equipment and took their supplies and took their armored vehicles. Yeah.

[00:12:31] And we've seen this before in season one, really, where you have Ellie and Joel leaving Boston and ending up in Kansas City, where there's also kind of a militia there. Yeah. That is defending Kansas City. And they've overthrown FEDRA there. Yeah, exactly. It might be fireflies, but, you know, how connected they are, you don't know. You know, again, it's just it's almost like these city states have developed in order to protect or survive effectively in these areas.

[00:13:01] Yeah, yeah. But overthrowing FEDRA in your local state and taking it over makes you seem like a pretty powerful group as well. So what an interesting way to close out the episode. But before we get to closing out the episode, let's get into our top points for this episode. Let's start right at the beginning. Our point number one, Joel's body. I think this opening of the episode is kind of the breath that you need after how last episode closed. Yes. I liked how it was set up.

[00:13:26] There was the reverential side of the mortician effectively cleaning Joel's body. His head is covered. You only know it's him because of the watch that's on his hand, which he's had right back from the first episode given to him by his daughter, Sarah. But there's just this there's just a lot of reverence being paid to Joel here when he's laid out. I just thought it was a nice way to start the episode.

[00:13:50] I'd say if you're watching these back to back, if you were binging them, you would feel that breath after the way the last episode ended. Oh, yeah, definitely. I think, you know, as you say, it's just that point to see that, you know, Jesse, Dina and Ellie made it back from the ski lodge to Jackson.

[00:14:13] So it's not only that, but you also see the extent of the aftermath of the Battle of Jackson as well outside the front gates. You see all the clickers sort of, you know, after they've sent the sort of barrels of petrol and gasoline over the walls. You see the damage that that's inflicted on the infected. Yeah.

[00:14:36] And like the scale of that, yet they also still breached and like huge numbers got through into Jackson. And I do like the fact that actually the clickers and I only clocked this the second time I watched it. I think the first time I watched it, maybe it was a little light. But the second time was at night. So it was a bit darker. But the clicker looked like Groot.

[00:15:03] So all I could think of was that they'd killed Groot. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the clicker looked like Groot. It was very disconcerting, really. Just a bit. But nonetheless, you know, all jokes aside. Yeah. You have that reverence of, you know, someone having died. But it's just taking care of, yeah. And all that. And literally as well, we do get a bit later about, you know, they have a burial ceremony.

[00:15:33] We don't see any of that. But these bodies are being prepared, not just for a mass grave, not even, dare I say it, which is kind of the way I was thinking that they would be burnt. Because I have to say that initial thing, the initial scene of seeing sort of the clicker Groot at the start, because it was so light, I was like, oh, is that inside Jackson?

[00:16:01] And then I was thinking, oh, is this like a mass sort of infected grave pit? Because I just was expecting then to see it just set alight. Yeah. And but that wasn't the case. It was outside.

[00:16:17] But equally, I was like, you know, they're spending the time showing the cleaning, the washing and the preparing for burial of Joel's body because him, along with other members of Jackson who died in the attack, are being buried. You know, it's that time on a tradition that even in amongst this apocalyptic world, they, you know, where you can give time. Sometimes you don't see that.

[00:16:46] It's almost the opposite. It's like we haven't got time to mourn the dead because, you know, we're being chased by a ton of it. But this Jackson is different. There's a semblance of the previous world. And so they're able to provide that time to have this sort of burial and ceremony and process protocols and tradition take place. And so I kind of like that. Oh, absolutely.

[00:17:15] And what I loved about it was the focus that's been given to it by the director and the writer here. You know, it's focused on Joel's body. He's the body that's being cleaned as Tommy walks into the room. And we do get that moment where Tommy kind of notices the watch again on Joel's wrist and instantly says to him, give Sarah my love, knowing that he's now gone to the afterlife with his daughters is what Tommy's saying here. It's a lovely moment between the two of them and for us, the audience who spent time with Joel.

[00:17:43] But it's the way the camera pans back and shows the morgue room with other with many other dead bodies in there that have all gone through the same process. It's allowing us to process the death of Joel with Tommy seeing him for the first time. But it's also saying he's not the only one. Agreed. And that's something that is repeated throughout the episode here. Everybody's in mourning. Everybody has been affected by the attack on the city.

[00:18:08] But there is a little bit of reverence, I suppose, towards Joel because of his leadership position in the town. But lots of people have lost people that were very close to them as well. So it's something that becomes really important. But I think just the eye of the director on the top of that saying to us as the audience, yes, one person has passed. But look how many people have and look how many people are left almost. But that's not the only part of this scene.

[00:18:31] The other part is Ellie waking up from the pain that she's been in when she's been brought in by Dina and Jesse. We see her waking up being treated by a doctor here. I didn't realize how serious her injuries were back in the first episode. We saw her sitting up on the horse coming back with Jesse. She wasn't on her own horse. So we knew she couldn't ride her own horse back. But here we see that she's in massive pain.

[00:18:57] She can hardly breathe from the injuries, like as if she had a punctured lung from the kick that she got from Manny. Yeah, or broken ribs and punctured lung. Like it looks like the draining fluid from the side. But I mean, this to me was kind of, yeah, you know, sometimes you'd go, you see that kick to the guts and you think, you know, nothing as such comes of it. But it's like, you know, it's with a heavy boot. It's a hard kick and it causes damage. Exactly. And this is the damage here.

[00:19:28] And, you know, it's also that Ellie in hospital, you know, having just been administered. The other thing is, like in the morgue, it's a different kind of reflection of what's happening at this moment in Jackson. It's not just focused on Ellie.

[00:19:46] It shows you everything that those people in Jackson who happen to have the knowledge, the skills to be a doctor, a nurse or have are volunteering or having to deal with a whole rake of different injuries. Massive triage hospital for everything that's gone on. And then you focus in on Ellie where you see, you know, whatever the fluid, the pressure being released from her lungs. It's just a breathing.

[00:20:14] You know, you can tell that she's labored, but it's not that that's causing the real pain that's inside her. We see the flash where she's seeing Joel be killed. And then it's just a primal scream that she releases at the thought that Joel's got and that she couldn't save him and that she's here strapped up and in pain. And they have to knock her out because she just can't stop screaming at the loss that she's just experienced. This is the biggest emotional moment for Ellie that we've seen all the way throughout season one.

[00:20:43] She's someone that covers up her pain with sarcasm all the time. She never really allowed herself to experience that type of emotion before. But this loss is so massive for her that she just releases it in this primal scream. It's an amazing moment. And then leading into the opening credits. But this is kind of the flashback for the episode. Once again, we're starting a few months before the time when the rest of the episode will take place.

[00:21:08] And this is where then we see now only one person in the opening room credits. Yeah, exactly. At the end. But I think on to point number two here, which is three months later. Yeah. We have Ellie getting checked out of the hospital. She seems to be able to give a good old puff into that lung capacity tester thing that I always remember from the GP. Oh, yeah. I don't know what it's called.

[00:21:35] Yeah, he gives a three-letter acronym for it and I just didn't take it down. And then I do like the fact then that we get Gail. Yes, we do. I'm really pleased we just got this little moment back with Gail in this episode. Because I was thinking that, you know, we were only going to get that moment between her and Joel. And a bit of, you know, we see her at the New Year's Eve dance and with all the commotion.

[00:22:03] We do see her again here as well at the town council. I'm really glad we've got a bit more of Catherine O'Hara here. Yeah, and in particular, you know, you have actually, you know, Gail's sarcasm marries really nicely with Ellie's kind of pop therapy here. You know, or playing along with Gail's questions.

[00:22:31] Yeah, they're both just being sarcastic at each other and they both know, I think. Ellie's saying all the right things that she probably read, you know, herself in a psychology book at some point. And Gail knows the game that Ellie's playing. Yeah. Of course she does. She's had people like this throughout her entire career. I love the line that she says where she's like, how would I get any alcohol or weed if everybody was as healthy as you are, Ellie? You know, it's like, I know which game you're playing, but I think you're good enough. You've had enough time now.

[00:23:01] Agreed. But I also like the moment she kind of slightly puts Ellie off kilter where she asks her about Joel's argument and informs Ellie about what he said to her in that last therapy session. You can see that touches something, but then she soon recovers to hide it. Oh, the defects, yeah.

[00:23:25] And I think this is the great thing about the acting here is just you really spot that just purely through the nuance of Bella Ramsey's performance. They're so good in this role. Just Bella Ramsey commits to the character so well and just the little nuances in the performance throughout the show, but particularly in an episode that hangs on Ellie like this does. Oh, yeah. They're excellent. Yeah. Just so good. So well done.

[00:23:55] It's so well observed. And as you say around Peter Hall's kind of real knack of focusing in on this interaction between two very strong people. Yeah. And sort of knowing the both knowing those tricks of the trade that have gotten through probably way more intelligent, you know, and adversarial towards one another than they really think.

[00:24:23] So I just really enjoyed this little sort of check in of Gail in order for Ellie to check out. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It's almost like Gail saying, well, I guess Ellie's got her mind about her enough that she'll be okay in the world now. Yeah. That's about as far as I can get. I know. I know Ellie's traumatized, but she can get out of here and leave the hospital. I think it's about as far as Gail gets.

[00:24:50] But we have another, I think, amazing performance from Bella here when she goes over to Joel's house. Well, her house. Well, yes. Yes. No, she has moved out of the house, which is the moment where she walks into the. Yeah. But where she walks into her old bedroom and it looks like her 14, 15 year old bedroom. Yes. Which is different from the place that we've seen Ellie live in the first couple of episodes.

[00:25:14] But there's just so much emotion in the character walking into the former home she lived in with Joel. I absolutely loved it. There's just a breakdown when she sees the coat that Joel wore. Well, pretty much throughout season one, all the time that she spent with them over the years when they were over the year when they were traveling together to eventually get to Jackson. The breakdown just at seeing that one item of clothing, it just is so realistic.

[00:25:41] And so I've lost a lot of people over my life. There is that moment when you see an item of clothing that just spurs those feelings inside you. And Joel was so important to Ellie. And this overwhelming emotion that she's feeling at his loss is just perfectly played by Bella. And interrupted by Dina downstairs. And I was kind of going, God, if Dina just hadn't arrived, you would actually have Ellie being able to experience and sit in that emotion for a minute, which we all need.

[00:26:11] You know, we all need to mourn the loss of a loved one and have that time to do it. And it feels like Ellie is going from place to place with this revenge in her mind, with this anger behind her. And maybe if she had been able to release the emotion here, she wouldn't be as cocky as she is going off later on in the episode. I don't know. But it feels like she just needed another couple of minutes to be in that moment of mourning. Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:38] I mean, I think, you know, it's great now to get Dina's arrival here. I think, you know, I love the fact she comes with cookies. I love the fact that they're a peace offering. And kind of you see Ellie saying, what's that about? You know, and it's ultimately that, you know, in the hospital, Ellie had been asking about information that Dina remembered.

[00:27:03] She didn't say anything because she wanted to let Ellie recover. Because if she had told her what she knew, you know, out would come all the tubes and it would be pandemonium, basically. But she even explains it like, I could see you pulling the tubes out of your wrists with your teeth and crawling along the ground to get after the people. If I didn't let you recover, you never would have recovered.

[00:27:27] And I think there's two moments in this episode where you just see that kind of grounding that Dina provides. I mean, firstly, she knows how to deal with Ellie. Yeah. Hence the cookies, the peace offering and so on. And, you know, later on, you get Ellie pushing the cookies back to her so that she can take one. Yeah. And you have one later on, which we'll come to in one of our other points where they head off on the road. Yeah.

[00:27:55] And I just really like this calming influence of Dina. But she does, you know, she gives up a number of different elements here. Well, it's the big list. She gives up the names of everybody and where they are and what group they're affiliated with. She has enough information for Ellie to go on to find the people that killed Joel. It's a huge map of what's going to happen and what Ellie now needs to do.

[00:28:22] She now has that list, you know, just like the revenge flicks of the 80s. She now knows exactly who she has to go after, who killed her dad. You know, that's the idea of this here. Dina just does such a great job, as you said, of prepping Ellie for it so that Ellie doesn't fly off the handle at her. She gets information from me. Yeah, she gets to say it. But she also, at the end of the explanation from Dina, goes, oh, you can have a cookie now. We're okay. Well, as Dina says, I wasn't going to tell anyone before you. Yes. Yes, I'm telling you three months later. Yeah.

[00:28:52] But I've not told anyone. She gets into trouble from Tommy for that. Yes, she does. Don't you ever, like, hold back any information like that from me again. Otherwise, you'll be on rendering duty. Yeah. You know? But also... I was trying to work out what rendering duty is in this time when we're in the post-apocalypse. Is it rendering waste products into water? Because that's the thing that I'm going is something really bad. That's all I have. Like, sort of tanning and, like, leather and... Maybe. I don't know.

[00:29:22] It's either a really boring job or a really disgusting job. It has to be one or the other, doesn't it? I think basically it does. But, I mean, also, I think I did like Dina's sort of moment of, you know, she knows that they're heading to Seattle. And she goes, but what's the point in us going after them when the thing that we know is where they're heading to? So let them get there so that we get there and then we find them in Seattle.

[00:29:51] Brilliant justification from Dina there. Yeah. I think Dina's really showing her smarts there. And I just like how this plays out between the two of them. Honestly, Isabella Mercado is such a great addition to the show. She's so great on screen. She's perfect with Ellie. She's perfect with Tommy. She can manage everybody around. She's great with Jesse as well. So, yeah, really, really happy that she's joined the season in this role as Dina. Really, really good.

[00:30:19] We move on to our next point because it really does kick off from there, from Dina's reveal, I suppose. Yeah. And, I mean, it's the Jackson vote. I think just before that, you know, they do tell Tommy. So it's Ellie's the first person that Dina tells and then they both go to Tommy. I love this. It is really good, isn't it? Because I like how this kind of ebbs and flows throughout. It's like, you know, as he says, I'm not saying you shouldn't do this, but we have to do it properly.

[00:30:48] You know, this has got to go to town council and everyone has got to have a say in whether we go. And actually, you realize the brutality a bit of it, even though there's talk of justice.

[00:31:27] Mm-hmm. And I like the way he says, you know, don't make it out as though I didn't know him. He was my brother. Absolutely. Again, Gabriel Luna is such a great actor. He's someone that I really want to see more of in the show. I want to see so much more of him in The Last of Us. But even these little moments that he gets. It's such a great line. Which show his power. But it's not just a line. It's more than that. It's that Ellie's going, why don't you follow me like Joel would?

[00:31:56] Why don't you go after me like Joel would go after the people that murdered me? Tommy's saying, I wouldn't do that because that's not me. I'm not Joel. But also, don't tell me I don't know my brother. Every time we've lost someone in the past, Joel took it on board himself. It was a pain on his back. He didn't go out for revenge on someone that had already been lost effectively. That's what they say. He never went after the people that killed the people they lost. He just took it as a pain that it was his fault that he lost them.

[00:32:26] And that's not what Ellie's doing here. Ellie's not taking that pain on board that she's the one that got Joel killed. She's saying she wants to make the people pay that killed Joel. And Tommy's going, that's not something he'll do. He's wanting it to go through the process of Jackson. And I think it's a really good thing that comes from it. Because I think the whole council meeting is really important. It is. And there's also just one little touch that I love that they included in the episode.

[00:32:55] Because I know, John, myself and you watched The House of Cards when it was on Netflix. Their first show that was on. All about the machinations behind the scenes of Washington. Where, you know, if you want to vote, you have to scratch this guy's back. And you have to talk to this guy. And have to talk to this woman. And get their votes before the vote. And there's a great moment here where Ellie tries to do that with Jesse. Where she gets Jesse over to teach her and do some training with him. And show him how strong she is. So that she can get an idea of what way he's going to vote.

[00:33:24] And Jesse pushes back against her and goes, You're not going to learn what way I'm going to vote in advance of the vote. We don't do that here in Jackson. I just think it's really interesting that she's trying to use some manipulation on Jesse. But it's me. We're best friends. We're really close together. I just want to know what way you're going to vote. But, you know, that's Ellie's perspective. And Jesse looks at her and goes, Write down everything you want to say. Because if you go in there and speak in anger, They're going to vote against you. Because nobody is going to vote with anger in Jackson. So he gives her some advice.

[00:33:54] Yeah, no one's going to vote for anger. And that's it. It's a really good moment. I think it's... Love Jesse. It shows a really nice element of Jackson around, you know, Hearing everyone's voice. And that's really important. It's funny. You know, like we have the guy sort of waffling on about we should be, you know,

[00:34:21] Corn whilst it's difficult to sort of grow. So, you know, it grows well and it produces a lot. And in the end, it's like Maria's just like, Right, no, hang on a second. We'll move on to the next point, which is why everyone's here. Which is the proposal that we send 16 people out to, you know, Find these people and execute them. But it's like, Scott, look, The whole point of you getting an opportunity to talk here is that you talk about this.

[00:34:51] Oh, I have no real opinion on the Seattle thing. But the point is that everybody has a chance to speak about this particular issue. If you look at the sheet that's in front of Maria, There's about 15 people that have gone before Scott as well. And there's another four or five. And then eventually it's going to get to Ellie, Who's going to be able to stand up and make her case. But everybody has an opinion about this. And Scott is taking the opportunity to talk about crops. No, absolutely. And I mean, you know, I just like how it progressed. You know, you had Rachel who was talking about, you know,

[00:35:20] She lost her own husband, you know, lost lots of people that were lost. And, you know, there's a need for sort of regrouping, Building back up the strength. And like, we know you're hurt, but we're too hurt too soon. You know, that's what she says. You then move on to Carlisle. He's like, no, we need to forgive and be forgiven. Turn the other cheek. You know, there needs to be mercy here. And this is then where you get Seth intervening, who opposes that, you know,

[00:35:49] Saying, you're acting like children. You're acting like victims, in a sense. You know, we need to make them pay. So that nothing like this happens again. Otherwise, you know, what happens? And then you have Ellie who sort of reads out her thoughts. You know, she has taken Jesse's advice on board here, which I thought was kind of interesting. Absolutely. I loved the fact that their biggest supporter was Seth, the guy beforehand.

[00:36:16] He's the guy that threw the home phobox lure at the two of them at the New Year's party. But it's also the fact that he's the one that does speak in anger. He says everything. I think that Ellie probably would have said if she hadn't taken Jesse's advice and hadn't written it down. It's like, what the hell is wrong with you people? Somebody attacked us. Somebody killed Joel. We need to pay them back or else we need to go out and take revenge on them or they're going to come back again. They know we're weak now because they got to Joel. That's what Seth says.

[00:36:44] But Ellie takes a really good stance on it going, well, you know what? If you lose someone that you love, I will be there to defend them. I've lost someone that I love. We need to stand up for each other or else we're nothing. And she also brings it back to possibly, you know, quite an old school thought or, you know, pre-infected. The notion of courts and that we have justice now. Yes.

[00:37:10] And it's partly why I was taken aback and maybe this is a difference in sort of concepts of justice about then when Maria kind of reiterated, send these people out, you know, to regret them and execute them. Okay. So that's justice rather than necessarily. Because, of course, the interesting thing about all of this is that only Ellie has the strongest suspicion as to why Abby and her group did what they did. Yes.

[00:37:40] Absolutely. And after Abby, it's Gail who has some idea that something happened between these two based on the therapy. No one else has any notion as to the causes for this attack on Joel. Yeah. Except for Tommy. Yeah. You know? And so this is the interesting dynamic at play. You know, as the audience, we're armed with that information, that knowledge. Yeah.

[00:38:08] Yet we're seeing a discussion played out in all good faith. Yeah. And doesn't necessarily have all the facts to hand. And whether that would change something. So it's all really interesting. Absolutely. It's also not let's send 16 people out to capture these people, bring them back to a trial where we will decide who's guilty and who's innocent. That's my notion of justice. Exactly. Yeah. But Ellie has a very different notion of justice here. We're back in the wild, wild west right there. It really is. Yeah.

[00:38:36] And so, you know, but ultimately then, despite that fairly measured, and I thought it was a really good speech from Ellie. Me too. I like just how it went down. I was pretty proud of her. You know? To get to that point, you know? And well, she says, we do this or we do nothing. Like, you know, these people are strangers and there is an element of justice that needs to be served here. Yeah.

[00:39:04] Do we want to be left in a world where of people that do nothing for us and we do nothing for each other? You know, it feels like a strong speech and it does feel like a moment when Ellie's going to get her way. Maybe not 16 people. Maybe they'll go, well, we can't spare 16. We can spare four. Something like that. But it turns out that it's an overwhelming majority that says no. It's eight to three. It's eight to three. Yeah. Massive.

[00:39:29] Also, you're looking at the group around the group of the council and going, okay, well, we know Maria. We know Jesse. We know Tommy. Are those the three votes? Or did one of those people vote against and somebody else voted for, you know? Did Maria and Tommy and Jesse go on the side of Ellie? Or did one of them say no? One of them say maybe this is not the way to do it.

[00:39:55] It wouldn't surprise me if that's something that we learned later that one of them voted against Ellie being involved or sending 16 people out to murder other people. Agreed. Agreed. In the eye for an eye way. Yeah. But I really loved it again. Again, it's more color to add to this world of The Last of Us. Something that we probably didn't see much of in the game because you're trying to play a game. You're trying to get back to being in control of a character. So sitting in a room listening to speech is probably not something that they would have had time for in the game very often.

[00:40:23] So it's a really good color to add what happened here at the Jackson vote. I think we need to move on to our fourth point, though. Yes. It's another moment with Gail, but this time with Tommy. Yeah. As he visits her. Yeah. Watching a baseball match and sharing a beer with her that she's also gotten from her therapy. I kind of like the start of this. You know, who does therapy on the therapist?

[00:40:53] Well, absolutely. I like that element. And she goes, that's why I'm an alcoholic. You know, kind of straight up. Well, it's massively important. It's part of the learning process when you become a therapist is that you must have a session yourself every month. So you're not taking on board everything. But now she is in a post-apocalyptic world where everybody's lost someone in a horrific way. And she's being told, not only do you need to keep that work up after you've lost the closest person in your life, you're the only person that does it.

[00:41:22] And you can't talk to anybody else about it. So, yeah, of course she smokes weed and gets drunk. No, exactly. But I liked how Tommy came, you know, trying to pretend it was about something else. Gail kind of sees through it. I just want to see if you're okay. Yeah, and Tommy kind of comes clean with, you know, you just see things that others don't. Yeah, yeah. And he doesn't want Ellie to lash out like Joel would have done. Yeah.

[00:41:51] But I like that Gail's kind of really frank with him and just says, well, her speech was a lie. And he kind of almost like trying to protect her. But liar is a very different thing from a liar. Yeah. You know, and. She's like, Ellie's a liar. She will tell an untruth to get what she wants. That's what she does. It's just, I think it's such a great interaction between these two characters when Gail's effectively telling Tommy, yes, I know. You want to take the place of your brother.

[00:42:21] Protect Ellie, just like he did in the past. And you're trying to guide her in the best way to live in the future. And she kind of goes, well, you probably can't do that. Because the reason why Joel was able to have that relationship with Ellie is because the two of them walked the same path from the start. It wasn't the nurturing that Joel gave Ellie that created her into the person she is today. It's that the two of them were always on the same path. And the two of them bonded because of that. Not because he gave her the best guidance in the world, but because the two of them were probably peas in a pod. Yeah, but it was birds of a feather, peas in a pod. Exactly.

[00:42:51] They walked side by side from the start, I think is her version of it. Yeah, she says nurture only will get you so far, maybe 20%. The rest of it is nature. Yeah. And she says, you know, she came to this on her own. That's her thought. Yeah. And she was walking side by side with Joel, as you say. Mm-hmm. And she says some people can't be saved. Yeah. It is in their nature to be a liar, self-destructive, whatever.

[00:43:20] And this is the truth that is being given by Gail to Tommy about the nature of Ellie. Yeah. Can she save herself? Because other people can't. And Joel wasn't able to. Exactly. And we've seen this with the fact that she knows she's immune. So from a physical point of view, putting herself into danger because of her, you know, that's what she goes.

[00:43:48] She runs into the burning building. Yeah. You can either be the arsonist or you can be the fire man. Or you can be the fire brigade. You know, it's one or the other. Exactly. Yeah. Or it can be the people trapped in the building burning. I guess the arsonist would be running out actually rather than running in. But yeah, you're either the fire starter or the fire extinguisher. There you go. You know? Yeah.

[00:44:17] But I really enjoyed this conversation between Tommy and Gail because it just felt so frank. It felt like the therapy session with Joel that was had in the earlier episode. Absolutely. And it also just shone that light a bit more onto Ellie as a person because that's the thing. You know, you see the grown up and the teenager and you go, well, the grown up is protecting the teenager.

[00:44:44] But actually, you know, they're, as you say, peasing apart. They're there. They're together. They're working together. They've got this relationship for a reason. Not, you know, whether it's that they accept the foibles, the weaknesses, the negatives or whatever. More readily than others. And I think, I'm sure we talked about it in season one of the show as well. But Gail repeats what Joel said to her when she's talking to Ellie. Are you on the episode?

[00:45:12] Joel said he saved Ellie. And that's what caused the problem. That's what's caused the estrangement between the two of them. But what we probably mentioned in season one was Ellie saved Joel because after the death of his daughter, he was never the same again until Ellie broke down all of those barriers and made her someone worth saving to Joel. Yes. So that's kind of the big difference. Tommy just can't walk in there and go, well, I'm Joel's brother. And, you know, you had such a good relationship with him.

[00:45:42] Why don't you have it with me? I'll tell you what to do because that's never been Ellie. Ellie had the relationship with Joel because she saved him first and then Joel couldn't possibly live in a world without her. That's the big difference. It's the moments aligned. Yeah, exactly. It aligned. And there were not just the moment, not just the situation, but it was also there was that similarity as well. Exactly. Exactly. I love the addition of this character to the show.

[00:46:12] She's just added so much. And, you know, in the hands of Catherine Hart are fantastic. Really, really good. Just one tiny thing I wanted to mention about the start of the scene when she's watching the Little League team with a beer in her hand. Absolutely loving it. Cheering them on. Tommy walks over to her and is like, oh, no, you like baseball? And she's like, yeah, yeah, this is my team that I used to follow before the apocalypse. Yeah, they're about as good as this Little League team as the boy who's doing his run to first base falls over on his face.

[00:46:39] They're about as good as that's the team that I used to support before the apocalypse. As a Carolina Panthers fan from American football, I totally understand that feeling, Gail. Yeah, that's about the level of my team. A different sport. But still, I understand. We move on to our final point, John. Point number five. On the road again. This time off to Seattle. Indeed. Yes.

[00:47:03] The setup of this, that no matter what the Jackson vote had said, Ellie is going to be going off on the trip to Seattle. She knows where her targets are. The fact that Dina arrives at the door, is banging on the door on her own, knowing that Ellie is packing up to go. And as you mentioned a little bit earlier on, John, Dina's there because she knows Ellie will go off half cocked with a bag full of guns and one shirt. And that's it. I love this.

[00:47:33] And it was like, well, what route are you going? What kind of Northwest? Do you have any medical supplies? Like, literally, Ellie has a tin of beans and a lot of weaponry. And she goes, you're going in effectively like Converse. No. No chucks. You need boots. We travel smart. We travel light. We can be at the East Gate for 3 a.m. I've gotten the route planned.

[00:47:58] You know, effectively, Dina helping Ellie to prep and going along with her to support. And we'll go out 3 a.m. in the East Gate between the different sort of guard shifts and patrols that are happening to keep the Jackson safe. And I like the fact then that you have Seth back here helping with the provisions.

[00:48:25] And in fact, which is such a great line, given the history, actually, that they've developed between Seth and Ellie in just such literally such a short period of time. There he goes, I'd come with you, except I caught friendly fire on New Year's Day with the Battle of Jackson. And like Ellie going, are you sure it was friendly? Did somebody take the opportunity of the infected overrun in the city to give you a shot? Exactly.

[00:48:55] So good. I really liked it. But importantly, I will have to give credit to Ellie. Eventually, she does stretch out her hand, does shake Seth's hand after all the things he's done here and all the standing up that he's done. Truly proving that he's apologised now. You know, we had a discussion, I think off air, actually, I don't think we included in the podcast, but we had a discussion that Ellie was under absolutely no obligation.

[00:49:18] In my perspective, anyway, that she was under no obligation to accept the apology of Seth after what he said to her on at the New Year's party. Just because somebody, Maria in this case, had set up Seth to apologise to Ellie. It's not about the words that anybody says to Ellie. It's about the actions that they make. And that's why she chose this moment to accept his apology and understand that he didn't mean to go as far as he went, let's say, on New Year's or regretted what he did on New Year's.

[00:49:46] That's what matters to Ellie. Those earlier moments when he said, oh, I'm sorry what I said last night. I was a bit drunk. And her response was, oh, yeah, everybody says things they would never say when they're drunk. You know, she knew exactly what was in Seth's heart. And I think he's changed and he's understood how bad he was. And that's the moment when she says, I accept your apology and understand what you've done. Yeah. Or it's understanding the crux of the person, you know.

[00:50:14] And in this moment, because he is helping her, he advocated for action at the town council. He's gone completely out of the way for her. He has, he is effectively supporting what she wants to do. And it's that kind of more objective action. It's not about dividing people up based around sexuality, skin color, da, da, da, da, da. It's ultimately about just the actions from a day to day.

[00:50:43] And whether that's right or wrong, I'm not saying, you know, I'm not making a judgment. Like they're going against Jackson council. But still in that sense, the rules of Jackson, they're doing something wrong. But he is of the same mindset as to why someone needs to go out and get justice. Yeah. Administer a lesson to the wolves or whatever it might be in order that Jackson is safer.

[00:51:12] And he's also directly supporting Ellie here as well. That's why she forgives him. And, you know, I really like this whole section of the episode as they, as they head out. It would have been quite easy to have the first opening of the episode where Ellie wakes up three months later and then she gets on a horse and gets out on the path to Seattle. But taking a bit of time in these scenes, in these moments, I think is really important for the show to do.

[00:51:41] It's a big undertaking and reminds me of things like Game of Thrones, the first five seasons. When they made decisions on that show of where they were going to go and things they were going to do, it was always two episodes from the point to which they made the decision to the point that they reached the destination of what was going to happen next. It was part of the reason why the final season, because it was so A to B, B to C, C to D, you know, and so on.

[00:52:06] It was like we could have spread this over three more seasons by having people travel at the same speed they traveled in the first five seasons. But we've invented teleporters somehow. It's magic. So the last season was just all condensed and felt weird in comparison to the previous couple of seasons. But the reason why you have these moments is not just to stretch out a series. The reason you have these moments is so that you can touch on things with characters and have them spend time together.

[00:52:33] I think that's always really important in shows that I watch to have moments where characters aren't just in action, that they're having moments together. So here we have Ellie visiting Joel's grave for the first time. We heard Tommy say that it's 10 miles outside the town, and she said she wouldn't visit there until she was on the way to Seattle. So we have her visit the grave, putting some coffee beans on the grave. It took me a minute to realize why.

[00:53:00] But, John, do you remember when we played the game, there was this whole kind of banter between Joel and Ellie where Joel was saying the one thing he misses from the before times was coffee, because he was absolutely obsessed with coffee every single morning. And eventually there's a moment when Ellie tastes coffee for the first time. And I was like, oh, my God, what is this crap? Because it's bitter. So she would never have experienced it before. And it's an ongoing thing between the two of them that Joel loves coffee. And Ellie has no idea how you could like something that is so bitter on your throat.

[00:53:27] So her bringing coffee beans to his grave and putting them there, you know, they're probably quite scarce now, being it's how many years after the apocalypse. You know, so her being able to do that, bringing it to him, I feel like it's a nice little touch for a nice connection between the two of them that only they'd understand, you know, which makes sense. But I like as well as they're traveling then after that, you know, as they're traveling to Seattle, I kind of like the fact that, okay, they're on back of a horse rather than in a car, but they're doing these travel games.

[00:53:57] So it's going through the alphabet, naming the bands. Of course. And then it's like, we'll start again. And it's like, the first person you killed. And it's like, well, I can't do that one, but I'll tell you the second. Right, right. Those moments are just kind of interesting. Yeah. You know, it's like, they're not looking at number plates or whatever it was that I used to do on the way down to like south of England or whatever, where it was like, well, can you find the like the newest number plate for the newest cars? Of course. Going down the M6.

[00:54:25] Anything your parents could use to get you through a traffic jam. Yeah, exactly. I remember the bands game. Absolutely. Always fun. Bands game as well. Their little extra spin on it where it has to be a band that both of them think are exceptional. It can't just be any band with a name makes it way more difficult. Absolutely. How do you get to like, you know. Now they've got Ozzy Osbourne, I don't know. Oh, yeah. But again, they have some time together, these two characters.

[00:54:52] You know, we saw them on New Year's Eve having this big loving moment, actually kissing on the dance floor on New Year's Eve. The scene with Seth, the breakup with Joel at that point. And then after that, it's been a nightmare. The last three months, as Dina says, have just been funerals and rebuilding of Jackson. That's all that's been going on. And Ellie's been in hospital the whole time. So the two of them having a moment together to discuss the kiss, which they never really got the chance to discuss in the past.

[00:55:24] Ellie's saying I was drunk and Dina's saying I was stoned. Ellie giving it a six out of ten. Yeah. How would you raise it a six? And it's like, Dina absolutely not accepting that. Yeah. But then we find out that she's back with Jesse. Yeah. So it's interesting, the dynamic. But yeah, I mean, to me, I say it's interesting, the dynamic it is. But it's just. I guess.

[00:55:53] That runs the course of a connection sometimes. It's like she's on it. She isn't with Jesse. And, you know, she's kind of finding out what that kiss meant to Ellie in this moment. So the six out of ten is a bit of a body blow. It is. Yeah. Of course. But Ellie's Ellie. You don't ask Ellie directly what you think of the kiss. Yeah. Exactly. You ask her, would you like me to kiss you again? Maybe.

[00:56:23] Rather than asking her to rate it. You know. I know. I don't think that's going to get out. That went down well with Ellie. But I loved having these moments again. This is such great characters and really like the performances. So anytime we get to spend with them just talking with each other rather than shouting and screaming and crying and shooting, you know, is important before we get there. And there's just I do want to mention in this section as they're on the road. I want to mention the religious group that we see. I think they're leaving Seattle.

[00:56:51] They're going through some national park and we see that there's there's two roads and it looks like they're following the road away from Seattle. As Ellie and Dina are going there. But just because of some interesting discussions that are going on there. This is a religious group in the game. Can we say the name of them, John? I think they're the Seraphites. They're the Seraphites. Yeah. Who have a prophet that has set up their society and they follow the teachings of a prophet.

[00:57:19] But I like the conversation that's going on between the father and daughter where she's saying, can we not just trust in the prophets to protect us from this? He's going to prophets, not magic. The prophet just gave us some instructions and things that allow us to build our new society. But the Seraphites believe in those teachings, but not in any kind of magic that will guide them. They need to protect themselves. They have to save themselves.

[00:57:43] And we hear that they communicate using whistles to give them each guidance of what's going on around them, I suppose. So we have that moment when one of the Seraphites calls out that they all need to hide because there's wolves coming. So this comes almost directly on the back of Dina and Ellie's conversation about the wolves that nobody's mentioned them before. So there must be a small group. It'll be fine. There wasn't the liberation front. They may have even broken up because they must be tiny since nobody's talking about them.

[00:58:13] And here we have this group of Seraphites that are so terrified by the arrival of the wolves that they all hide in the forest. And later, Dina and Ellie come across the bodies of that entire group. They've all been slaughtered by potentially the wolves. Yeah. I mean, so I kind of really enjoyed how this kind of book ended in because, you know, you have them hiding.

[00:58:39] You kind of introduce this little kid, Constance, who's asking the questions about their religion, their culture, their lifestyle. I love the fact that it's a whistled language. Like, you know, there's like loads of whistled languages, some really longstanding. So I think when I was looking at this, it was like 80 whistled languages. Really? It's a real kind of – it is a way of communicating. Yeah. So I love that – Oh, yeah.

[00:59:09] There's that one where they whistle from one side of a maintenance to another side of a maintenance. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I remember that one. Yeah, yeah. As well. But they really – I like the fact that that's what they're using as their form of at least long-distance communication. You know, in the absence of walkie-talkies and radio, maybe. And phones. And phones. So I really enjoyed this. And I liked how, you know, there's that peril and then they hide.

[00:59:37] And you wonder kind of what's going to happen. I mean, even the fact that, you know, the father figure hands her a hammer to protect herself. But actually, you know, he says to them, true protection will be when we're far away from here. Well, exactly. Do you feel safe with the hammer? Yeah. Wow. Exactly.

[00:59:56] And I really kind of liked how on the other side of that bookend, it's the reaction of Ellie and Dina seeing this massacre that's happened. And seeing Dina throw up after having seen that and Ellie going in to check it out and you see Constance, you know, the dead young girl.

[01:00:21] And then asking that question, well, if this was the WLF, they're killing kids. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Now, we don't know at this stage within the show about the Seraphites either. Yeah. You know, highly religious, you know, possibly cult-like. Mm-hmm. So, I think because of everybody having the shaved heads and everybody having the marks on their face that are cut into them, including Constance, a young kid. They all have the same markings and they all dress the same way.

[01:00:51] All the women have braids. All the men have shaved heads. So, you know that they are one specific group. So, if the wolves come across them, they can easily identify that they are part of that group, right? Yeah. But it is interesting that they are so terrified of the wolves here after Ellie and Dina thinking that this is just a tiny group. It's probably only 10 or 20 people and we already have met five of them.

[01:01:16] That's kind of what seems to be going on in Dina and Ellie's head when they're making their plan or not to go after Abby and her group, you know? Yeah, exactly. But they're considerably bigger, it seems. Well, and we see this later when they arrive in Seattle. You know, I love that kind of vista. That, to me, looks straight out of the game with the sort of freeway coming into Seattle. I love seeing that, you know, you see that iconic tower in Seattle sort of decayed.

[01:01:46] And not really a standout feature of the cityscape. It's more of the sort of the main sort of central business district of Seattle. But you look at it. It's the spinning restaurant or the tower restaurant. It's something like that, yeah. It's where Manny is positioned. The only member of Abby's team that we see here is Manny. Well, that's it. So, it looks empty. Again, it's feeding into this thing that, well, maybe there's not that many people. It looks empty.

[01:02:16] But then in another area of the city, you have Manny directing people on the ground as to where they can maneuver to. And you see that this maneuvering is like, you know, full, well, it's a tank. It's armored vehicles as well as, you know, foot soldiers heavily armed. All with the WLF. Everywhere, yeah. I mean, this might be the sum part of the WLF. Could be. To an extent.

[01:02:43] It could be moving the entire battalion from one side of the city to the other. Could be. But, again, it's to the point that for Seattle, this is a major force. And certainly bigger than Ellie and Dina have the guns enough for. Exactly. There's 22 of them. And also that, you know, if they were able to. And, again, you know, Jackson is saved by the fact that it's so far away. They can't drive there because there's the supply of diesel or gas or whatever.

[01:03:14] So I like this kind of foreboding that, you know, maybe they've misjudged the situation with the WLF. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A nice little closer for the episode. And, again, good to have a member of Abby's group back in their position. So we know now if Manny's back there, well, I guess all the rest of Abby's group are back in Seattle. So Dina had the right idea to wait until they got back home. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah.

[01:03:44] Yeah. Good stuff. Well, I think that's everything. Any notes, Derek? Just one note to mention that Eugene was brought up once again. Eugene was the one that knew the WLF. It's just because he's been mentioned in the first three episodes. And this new character of Gail, the psychologist or psychotherapist, is his wife. So we will be seeing the character of Eugene later on in the season. We know that for definite. But just interestingly, keeping the name in our head.

[01:04:10] So I'm looking forward to seeing why they've dedicated an episode to Eugene in a seven-episode series. And we're already at episode three. So I wonder why his character is so important. Yeah. No, it is really intriguing. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else from you, John? Any notes, anything else we have? No, nothing from me. Excellent. So overall then, what did you think of the episode? What's your overall final thoughts? Yeah, I really, really enjoyed this.

[01:04:34] I would give this five clicker groots out of five. Five clicker groots. I am infected. Yeah, exactly. I just really like the interpersonal dynamics here on this episode. And it really, it provided a breath from the action of episode two. It reconnected us with that characterization.

[01:05:03] And, you know, it really brought in, again, it's one of the intriguing things, you know, that this, you know, that this notion of justice for something that equally is what Abby is striving for. It's the same side of two different sides of the coin, in a sense. And when you have that, it is the inability to square the circle because, no, I'm right. No, I'm right. I'm looking for justice. Well, I'm looking for justice. Absolutely.

[01:05:32] And it's back and forth. And in the end, it is that mess. It's the spiral of viral. That spiral down. It just goes on forever. Exactly. I need this. No, well, I want that. No, I feel. So in the end, it's just this spiral of, like, dreadfulness that can result. And, you know, it's misjudging. And I think it's really important to kind of put that across. And I think, you know, you have Gail questioning Ellie to Tommy.

[01:06:01] And I think that's really important to do. I like that the show does that. Yes, her quest for justice disguised, her quest for vengeance disguised as justice, as Gail, you know, identifies, is that. But whether it's wrong is another matter. You know, that's something hugely personal.

[01:06:28] It's to the point of the conversation, you know, that Gail had in the hospital with her. And that, well, he said this to me. Do you know what that means? And she says, well, you know, she's not willing to go there. It is all bottled up. Absolutely. And I think she even says, oh, I wish I could have let him off the hook for the thing that he felt he wronged me. But maybe I should let myself off the hook for not allowing him off the hook before he died.

[01:06:56] You know, using her pop psychology to get herself out of that situation. But absolutely, it's so important that Ellie knows her own mind and knows how everybody else is trying to attack her vengeance story. Exactly. And I think this episode did such a good job. You know, even her taking Jessie's advice is that because that was a calculated measure in order to get the result that she wanted. Exactly. For example. She's a liar.

[01:07:23] I love the fact that we got introduced in quite a brief way, the Seraphites. Again, I think generally the interpersonal sort of development between characters here is so good and really a nice beat coming off of the sort of more action orientated second episode. Absolutely.

[01:07:50] You know, and the consequences of that. Yeah. So for me, five clicker Groots out of five. Fantastic. I am infected. Excellent. Excellent. Derek, what about yourself for episode three, The Path? Yeah, I love this episode. I thought it was really, really good. And I think this is why I like the story of The Last of Us and how they're translating it to the TV show. So the moments between characters are really important.

[01:08:18] And that's what they added to the story in season one that, you know, may not have been as present in the game. The game is a game. You know, it's about running around and killing things and experiencing the story and walking through the story. But sometimes you miss things that are in the corners that were present in the game. And what Craig Mason is doing is bringing them to the forefront. As far as I remember from the game, the characters, the Seraphites, the religious order that we see or the religious group that we see in the episode here. As far as I remember, those were notes that you had to take the opportunity to pick up and read.

[01:08:48] And you don't always do that when you're playing a game. You know, maybe you only have an hour to play and you don't want to sit down and read notes for the entire hour. But bringing it forward and showing them as a group of people of belief and that they're terrified of this group of the wolves adds so much to what Ellie and Dina don't know is coming. Yeah. If that makes sense.

[01:09:11] It's without Dina and Ellie falling into a bad situation, you've just told them, uh-oh, they have no idea this group murders children, murders anybody that isn't part of their group, you know? That's quite a big situation to fall into. And they could have just left it for that camera pan back at the end of the episode to say there's a lot of them. But that doesn't really matter. Showing what they actually do to another group is much more convincing about how terrifying the situation that Ellie and Dina could be walking into.

[01:09:41] And it's kind of in the battle for survival against the infected. Even people that should be allies in that, which are other humans effectively, uninfected humans, are not necessarily always allies in that. The power struggle. We're quite a destructive race, really.

[01:10:06] Even when on the brink of destruction, there's always the power play to be had in order to possibly destroy everything before even the mushrooms do. Do you know what I mean? So, like, it's really interesting. Like, we don't know why the wolves have done this to the Seraphites, including kids, in the same way that Jackson didn't know why those people had killed Joel. And this is the danger of it all.

[01:10:36] Exactly. As well. It's almost like you've been watching Andor, John, in your concept that humans, even though they might be on the same side, don't always work together for the common good. Because that's also the theme of the first three episodes of Andor as well. But anyway, that I think is it for our wrap-up of The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 3. But let's get out of the pub. Have a little drink. Pour one out for our man, Joel, and go to The Last of Us World's End pub quiz. Pour one out.

[01:11:04] Grab one of those beers off Gale, because we are at the Little League for The Last of Us World's End pub quiz. Fellow quizzers, fellow survivors, fellow fun guys, it is question three that we're on to. When Ellie arrives in Joel's house, there are two carved birds on his workbench. What birds are they?

[01:11:30] And for an extra point, what other carved animal is in the room? Fantastic. Let's see how good Joel is at carving and see if we can identify the creatures that he's carved there. John, do you want to get the question one more time? Certainly. When Ellie arrives in Joel's house, there are two carved birds on his workbench. What birds are they? And for an extra point, what other carved animal is in the room? Excellent.

[01:12:00] Question three of seven there. Email your seven answers at the end of the season to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com. And you could be in with a chance of getting your hands on some Last of Us goodies, as we've mentioned earlier on. Just a little bit of feedback on this episode. Over from our Facebook group, we got a message in from Victor Von Doom, who says, The conveyance of the overall grief of Jackson was palpable here. The three-month cleanup of Jackson must have been horrific on its own. I felt the call for mercy from Carlisle.

[01:12:26] Opposite set support for Ellie and revenge against the backdrop of violence brought by the infective made for a great scene. I noticed the series had to scale down Abby's physique from the game. Live-action Ellie would not have a chance against that character. Dina and Ellie better do some serious recon before heading into Seattle. Thanks, Victor. Yeah, I think they're walking in there whistling away going, Yeah, yeah, Seattle looks really empty. There's only going to be ten people in here. You know, five of them being from Abby's group.

[01:12:54] Yeah, I think they're going to have to see something in case they get caught up by the group of wolves. Yeah. As for Abby's physique from the game, this was something that they did in the game where it was effectively Abby, after losing her father at 15 or so, sorry, 19, wasn't it? When her father died, the five years intervening, she spent time working out. That was how she worked out her frustration. Here for the show, they've kind of said, look, they just cast the right actor in the role.

[01:13:23] I do think Caitlin Deaver is doing such a great job as Abby, as we've seen her in those first two episodes. I think she's just giving such a great performance that, you know, do you go after someone that looks like the character or someone that acts better? And I think the show The Last of Us is really focused on the people who are the right actors for the role rather than someone that just looks like the character. You know, otherwise, I guess you could do an animated show where you just draw the characters the same as the characters in the game.

[01:13:49] You know, I don't think they necessarily have to look like Abby, especially in the game because you play as Abby as well. That's probably the reason why she has a similar physique or is a stronger character than Ellie in the game because you're playing as her. So she does different things than Ellie does in the game. Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, it doesn't bother me either way.

[01:14:15] I think as long as they nail the character, I think they can be petite and strong, even physically. You know, I don't think you need to just be muscle back. So I think there is a strength there with Abby. Yeah. And also Ellie got taken out pretty quickly walking into that room. So she's going to have to be very careful. I think to Victor, you know, serious recall is required by Dina and Ellie before they head into Seattle.

[01:14:44] I kind of agree. I think that town council thing is a real important scene for Jackson, for Ellie, for people associated with her, like Tommy and Dina, who are all the, you know, listening to Rachel, Carlisle, Seth, as well as Ellie and hearing the decision. And despite that, that Ellie ignores it.

[01:15:12] So, you know, again, it's a really important character point here. And I think that is sort of, you know, that's just highlighted by the conversation that Gail and Tommy have at the Little League as well. Exactly. So, yeah, really good stuff. Thanks, Victor. Absolutely. Thanks, Victor, so much. We do want to hear all your thoughts on The Last of Us Season 2.

[01:15:32] We'd love to get your emails into feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or pop it over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash TV podcast industries to leave your thoughts on the spoiler posts over there. As we mentioned earlier on, later on this week, we'll be going back to the cinema for the MCU to watch Thunderbolts. Is it a hashtag or is it an asterisk, John? It's an asterisk, isn't it? Thunderbolts asterisk coming out. And we will find out what that asterisk means after watching the cinema, I think. I guess so. Yeah.

[01:16:03] But, yeah, we'll see. I'm not convinced. Not convinced by the asterisk. Apparently, there's a massive confusion because one of the cinema chains had an asterisk with six points on it and another cinema chain had an asterisk of five points on it. Oh, no. So, they tried to tie it in with the asterisk in the Thunderbolts and somebody got it wrong. Nobody knows why. Oh, okay. Great. But there you go. We also just finished our coverage of Daredevil Board again.

[01:16:30] You can go and listen to that over on tvpodcastindustries.com. Yes, and our roundup of the pub quiz over there as well. Exactly. Exactly. But that's it for our coverage of The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 3. We'll be back next week for the fourth episode of The Last of Us. Can't wait to see how the story continues over there. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll talk to you again next time. Yes, thanks so much, fellow survivors, for joining us for this discussion of The Last of Us Season 2.

[01:16:56] Remember, until then, keep watching, keep listening, and of course, keep surviving. This was brought to you by the Irish Mushroom Board. Bye. Bye. Bye.