Episode 9: Look for the Light

We're in Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we're here. It's the end of the first season of of Mushrooms and Men. I am one of your hosts also, who's also one of the hosts of the Game of Thrones House a Dragon show that my friend here Yesharre, my co host, the co host of this him and I did that show as well. And we're at the end here of the show now of Mushrooms and Men, a last of us podcast. What a shame, right that the season had to end out that their own nine episodes.

Uh yeah, it's it's it's Ober. And like our friend Shrek once said, it ain't ogre till it's ogre. It ain't oger until it ain't oger until Merle gets murdered folks. Yeah, but uh yeah, I think this was the episode that I was maybe the one I was most anticipating because I wanted to see how closely they stayed towards the story of the game, and I think they were pretty close to it. Actually, we could go to more of the specifics.

Um also just rhythm shout out this direct This and last episode was directed by Ali Abassi, who's a Persian director my people, who also happened to direct a really weird like Norwegian or Swedish movie called Beast or something like that I watched a few years ago with trolls. Why am I mentioning this? Uh? It's called Border about border patrol agent who's a troll. Uh, It's it's cool.

He also directed this movie that just came out recently called Holy Spider that is about a serial killer of prostitutes in the name of Allah in Mashad, which is where my dad was born in the late nineties early two thousands. So I watched that last night. So I got a lot of Ali Abbasi uh in my veins. Right now, you're rep in the rep in the Persia right here, brother, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we see. That's the thing I grew up.

I grew up. You and I grew up together, and a and a fairly I mean fairly, you know, mixed community of people. But I never heard you say Iran. Growing up. You always said I'm Persian.

You realize that, Yeah, I know, I and I know why. I know why. I understand why because I'm trying not to get deported. Man. I am Caucasian as far as you know, legally, I am Caucasian, right, uh yeah, No, On this episode, we're like Yshar kind of mentioned in the lead up, we're gonna be talking about the final episode of the first season of this show, Look for the Light, the final episode of the first season of The Last of Us.

So, like you mentioned, it's directed by Ali Abbasi and once again written by Craig Mazin and Neil Truckman. And what happens this episode will we finally get to where Joel and Ellie have been heading this whole time. We get to the fireflies in Salt Lekasiti, where if you've never seen the Book of Mormon, it's a long story in saltasit That's all I could think of when they're fucking saying it over and over again. That's all I could think of was Book of Mormon. God, damn you, Trey Parkard, Matt Stone.

But we get to where we're going, finally, the moment we've all been waiting for, because if you know anything about this game, you know that the ending of the game is kind of not I guess controversial is not the word I would use, but shocking, like I don't really I don't know, Like the story makes it very clear what's going to happen. I think it's more impressive that the game, when given the opportunity to actually do it, actually does the thing that most of these things would not do well. The game does it, but we didn't know if the show was going to do it, because again they have made changes. They did say the show when the game end in the same spot, but that doesn't mean they're going to do the same thing.

The show, like you mentioned, more or less copies the game one for one, even at least these last couple the last couple bits of the game are more or less shown to you on screen. Sands the going and killing everybody, And we'll get to that because they do show that, and I think it's a little excessive, to say the least. Maybe I think it's a little I guess a little much, but I get why they did it the way that they did. Yeah, I mean so, let's obviously the final twenty or so many says. I think what most people are going to think about.

The episode does open up with Ellie like clearly traumatized by what she's seen and done with David the previous episode, and I thought that was an interesting dynamic because like we've generally seen her like pretty happy, go lucky, even when she's done some like fucked up, arguably sadistic things in the past that have hinted at a potentially darker side to her and Joel's space. Really just like doing the let's talk around it thing, because like they both can't be like fully open to one another. Like even when he tells her like about his suicide, He's like, oh, I did you know that thing? And she's like, I'm happy you didn't do it, and he essentially said without saying, you're the reason I've found like a purpose now to Ellie.

So like I enjoyed those character moments. The giraffe thing was taken actually straight from the game, and I thought the draft was cg turns out the draffe is real. Everything around it was cige. I don't know, how do you feel about like the opening, you didn't mention the biggest part of the opening, Ladies and gentlemen, we get to yeah, now we get to see the second member of the video game cast. I would well, I know, sure, but let's let's be real here.

This is one of the all this is the actual video game person who's really given anything to do in the entire show. Talking about Ashley Johnson, who does the voice for Ellie in the Last of Us one and two and who the character in the second game is modeled after. Definitely not in the first we swear it's not based off of anybody else. It's just a composite who totally looks like somebody who was in a movie called Juno. We promise not the same.

But but in the Last of Us two, Ashley Johnson is more. You can even see her facially more in the character, just like Troy Baker in the second game. She's also closer in age to like that Ellie, but we get to see her as Anna, who is Ellie's mom, giving birth to Ellie and then being murdered by Merle uh Dandredge who plays Marlene again because she plays Marlene in the video game and in the show, I guess Marlene is probably Marlene. Yeah, probably herself. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so and and I really liked the opening because it gave like a definitive answer why Ellie was immune, and that's she was basically via umbilical chord, because she basically was given birth at the same moment.

More or less her mother was bitten, so it's like, you know, it's kind of the audi adi but essentially that transmits some sort of sensor that to other infective makes her appear like one plus gives her an immunity to it, which is you know, why why not makes sense? I buy it? Well, why didn't anybody realize that? Um? Well, so here's the thing.

Remember when Marlene comes, she says, oh, I cut the umbilical chord before I was bitten. And even though Marlene like, you're not sure, she tries it. She's like, she repeats, she's like I cut it before, and she's saying like, hey, you know, take this baby, you're my best friend. M So, like Marlene, similar to Ellie at the end, I think knows it's sort of bullshit, but goes with it because of the love for that person. Sure.

And then and then also like because she's never been beforehand like Marline and obviously doesn't turn Marlene probably at that point thinks, Okay, I guess she did cut it before she was bitten, and you know, probably doesn't think any of it. I did, however, think based on the end of the episode, you could just you know, get a lot of pregnant women about to give birth and have them. That's all I'm saying. That's I'm just saying and what we're both thinking. And that's not from the game.

That is not from the game, because well, in the game, they kind of just they kind they kind of YadA YadA what they're trying to do to Ellie. In the game, in the surgery part, Merle or Merle, God damn it, Merl Dandridge plays Marline. If I refer to her as Merlin at any point, you'll know who I'm talking about. In the game, there's none of the like and this is how this and this is in the brain, and there's none of that. Yeah, it's just we're doing this.

Okay, Well it's they say that it's in the brain, but we don't have the context of how our immunity happened. But nothing in this contradicts that being and Neil Drukman said this was always his plan. He just never had an opportunity like to display he was maybe god doing a comic book or like a short film. So I think, for all intents and purposes, this is how it worked. It's it's not like a change where it like the affected being communal and like, you know, one person can set up a whole thing that's new to the show.

But the thing about the mother passing it on at the moment of birth, that is not to sound nerves, but Cannon, it seems like like that was the original intent. Not to be a nerd or anything. Be a fucking nerd. Please, Oh I know, I'd rather you be the guy who's very disinterested in pretends he doesn't like things. Do that.

Okay, yeah, thanks, but yeah you I did really enjoy that scene and I like that it gave a little bit more like from the game you Know This and from the show you Know This. Yes, Marlene and Ellie have like a relationship that's lasted a long time, but Marlene has put her with Fedra, right. She hasn't like really taken care of her herself. She's put her in a place that's safe and also the people she's fighting, which I find an interesting. I think there's like there's something to be said about what that says about Marlene.

Um sure, but I guess the point is we know that Marlene really cared about Ellie's mother and does care about Ellie. I mean probably don't see her I necessarily as a daughter like Joel does, but definitely isn't taking the decision she's making in this episode lightly now, you know. It's I appreciate that there's an opening scene, a cold open once again. I like. I like that they have Ashley Johnson finally in the show.

I mean we I think we've probably been waiting for it. I mean, and we knew it was coming, because how could you have Troy Baker in the show and not have Ashley Johnson remains to be seen. If they'll be in the next season. I don't think so. I guess this is the one time they're in the show.

Now. Yeah, it's kind of strange unless they just show up as other characters, but this isn't a show from the seventies, so oh. Also fun fact, one of the nurses was played by the actress who plays Abby, who we won't get into the details, but she is a very I mean, she is one of the main characters. We can say she's one of the main characters of two. So I'm sure we'll see that actress probably play a Rolands.

Can I pause? It's something here controversial? I think this episode I think this episode wasn't very good. I think this episode was a poor way to Ella show. Hold On, hold On.

I think it was rushed comparatively to everything else that we saw. I think that they I think that they had an interesting story beat that I took and did something with at the beginning of the episode, with the two of them and having that conversation, it gets interrupted, obviously because they have to Hugh close to the game, right, The game and the show end the same, and we'll talk about the ending. I pause it here an unpopular opinion, not because I haven't have any opinion about the second game, but I know what the second game is and the story that it tells. Fucking ignore the second game and do your own thing with this show. I'm dead serious.

You want to know why there's nobody who wants to see what happens to Joel in the video game happened to Pedro Pascal. No matter how bad of a character he's written to be in the game, he's not in the show. He's just not. It's but the character of Joel in the show is not gray like the character is in the game. I know you know that, and I know everybody who's played the game knows that while watching the show, and that's the thing that Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin couldn't bring themselves to do, which was have the person who's playing Joel actually kind of be off putting, not physically off putting, but just kind of gruff and a little abrasive towards Ellie.

I mean, they do come around eventually, but the character of Pedro Pascal's Joel in the show, like, I don't know, man, you know what I'm getting at, because like it is, it is a different feel to the show, the way that they go about resolving this kind of decision that his character makes, but it leaches into everything that they've done throughout this entire show. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I agree they I mean they've even said they tried to soften Joel up. Although sorry with the David episode, we saw him take darker turns and he said he's done bad things, saying it but telling and showing he did two different things. We did see it when he tortured those guys and you and I said, what what did we say?

It came out of nowhere and it felt unearned because they had only done it that one time to set us up. So let me ask, did they do it then an episode ago to set us up for this and only this because they had been doing such a good job of laying the seeds of everything else throughout the season. And then it's like, oh, yeah, oh we forgot. Joel's actually kind of a morally ambiguous character. But oh, by the way, the things that he was doing, those people were terrible people.

Nobody's going to defend what they were doing. They tried to kill Ellie and they were turning them hit her over to their cannibal overlord. Like, as far as I'm concerned, yeah, he killed them, but okay, like like I guess I'm of two minds and one mind. On one hand, I'm like, okay, they didn't. They didn't pull punches like they could have done it.

Where, yes, he kills people, he lies to Ellie, they escape, and like there's still consequences of lying to Ellie and you know, stopping the potential salvation of humanity. But maybe he doesn't in the softer way. Maybe you know, he only kills almost like self defense, or you know, you could make it a bit more palatable, or they just have him essentially like Rampage and just turn into just an automaton, like it's like John Wick basically, and like where it's really hard, even if you understand his love for Ellie to justify like the level of like destruction he causes. And yeah, so I really do have mixed opinions on it based on how they've built him up in the show, but I think coming in as someone who wanted to see it adapted from the perspective of someone who's seen the game, I think I appreciate that they just went for it in the finale, but maybe they shouldn't have stopped him as up as much earlier on.

And I think that's a valid criticism has that the character of Joel in the game kind of has it coming in the second game because he's just like, yeah, I did it, Like okay, like you made the decision fine, but like you're kind of like again, like you're morally more morally ambiguous than he is here, and it's like, maybe it's just again, I go back to something we've been saying this whole time. It's hard to root against Pedro Pascal. Motherfucker's Like why do you cast someone this charismatic as your lead and then be like we need some shades of gray here. I'm not saying Pedro Pascal can't do it. That's not the point.

It's just he's too likable, he's too lovable. He's like he's like he's like a meme now on the internet. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but I don't. I didn't leave this episode being like, oh, he's so cuddly, Like I was like, no, I was kind of like it was kind of cringe at the end.

Yeah, but like that in and of itself was kind of bizarre because he's like, all of a sudden starts mentioning his dead daughter and it's like, cringe, bro, like why are you going here? Like it just felt strong, it felt like post climax. It was a different character. Even it's it's weird because like before the hospital scene, he's almost the softest he's ever been, the most vulnerable, and that's great and that is fantastic, but then afterwards it's this weird bullshit of like you would have liked my daughter, Like what the fuck writing is this? Like what who's writing this scene?

Like it's like out of some old Western all of a sudden where it's like you would have lacked old Sarah. She was so she's scampered up rocks and stuff. Was like, what the this is weird, dude? Like, I actually think it's a bit really Like he's clearly mentally distressed, traumatized, probably as PTSD, among a litany of other things we can't even fathom, and like he's compartmentalizing, and we actually see him compartmentalize before. Even when he's being open with Ellie, he's still not being completely truthful.

He can't like, like I mentioned, he can't even tell her you're the reason I'm like, I have a purpose to live, like so he it does continue that him talking around the thing in the search of comfort. So I actually I think had less of a problem with that. But I mean, do you want to talk about the hospital sequence? Yeah, let's talk about it. So you you tell me, because I haven't gotten to this point in the game yet, you tell me how close to the game it is first, because that's something I'm obviously curious of outside of him watching it on YouTube, watching it on YouTube and experiencing as one playing the game or two very different things.

So, um, yeah, in the game, you take Ellie to the hospital. I don't remember if you get knocked out or whatever on the way, but that's neither here nor there. You take her to the hospital. As she goes, um, now, I'm gonna say Merle Marley, got you, you got you too, buddy, got me, got me, got me, And like a SIMI competition, Marlene, you know, comes to Joel and says, you know, we're prepping her for surgery and jewels, like what surgery And she's basically says like this is the only way. She says in the show, I think as well, it's not a hard percent, but the doctor thinks that we can do something, you know, to potentially come up with a cure or vaccine or some sort of treatment for this, So we do know it's not a one hundred percent like that is clear in the game.

It's maybe a little less clear of the show. But she says, we think there's a solution. The show makes it seem like this is going to succeed if it happens. Yeah, the show I think comes a little stronger, whereas in the game it's like it probably will, but it's not hard percent. But regardless, like this is the closest humanity has had had to a cure for this plague that's consumed the last twenty years of the world.

And obviously it's like the trolley problem on steroids, right, you know the trolley problem. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, run over one to save one hundred, or save one and let one hundred die, Like yeah, I mean so, And we know that Marlene is a firefly. She can she can sacrifice hers for a greater cause, so that makes sense. Whereas Joel we've established, like Ellie is everything she is Sarah Part two. He has nothing without her, so I understand why he would not want her to do that and like be the way he is.

But in the game, yeah, you get a gun and you just start mowing dudes down in the hospital and at least you in coming up shooting the doctor. Who um, just just pay attention to the fact that they lingered on the doctor a bit um for season two only differences. You actually kill the nurses in the game. You let you let them live in a show. But it wasn't like you don't have to kill him in the game, do you not?

I don't know? Wow, block them all bro time to die multiple videos of the finale of the game where you don't have to kill everybody but the right roun. They were working for their life. They had a scalpel. You saw it, um so, and then you yet you take you take Ellie.

She wakes up in the car and you basically give it this bullshit about you know, they couldn't they did the tests, it wouldn't work. We left Marlene's busy ha ha. And then you know, Ellie asked, you know, is that actually what happened? And Joel says, like, I swear, And then you know, Ellie's like okay, like in a way that it's the way you say okay when I don't know, you just walked in on your partner, you know, fucking the poolboy, and uh, okay are you cheating on me? And you're like okay, um, I say, this is a formal pool boy.

Simply study. That's all I can say to you on that one. I mean, the show is more or less that, Yeah, I mean, they don't they don't say, hey, let's come up with a more palatable way of you know, Joel dooming humanity potentially for his selfish gains, but maybe he doesn't have to kill that many people. It's like, no, Joel like should people in the back, people that are running. I mean, the way he kills Marlene is pretty rough.

Like she comes up to them. Marlene says, hey, Joel, like, I'm essentially willing to forgive that you thirty of my people killed. You know, the doctor who maybe you shouldn't be killing doctors in a time like this. Just give her back. And Joel shoots her and then comes back in double taps because he's like, I don't want to risk any shot of more risk to Ellie, Like I don't want any loose ends.

I'm going to kill the person who may even represent depends on your perception of fireflies, but the best shot of even beyond just to cure but like the new democracy and so like in that moment, Joel dooms humanity to the status quo. And that's not what Ellie would have wanted. No, no, And I think Marlene says it. I don't think she says it manipulatly. I think she's like she knows Ellie right, Like she's been around Ellie her whole life, and I think we know Ellie generally would do the right thing.

And I think in a case like this, like Ellie probably would say, yes, I'm willing to be sacrificed with have my life means something like she's been looking for meaning she never had family, And yeah, she doesn't get to make that choice. So how do you feel about the ending? Just in general? Just in general, now that you're here's your opportunity ACKs poetically about a game from twenty that's ending. Is I mean again, it's ending, is now being enjoyed by x, you know, ten x people than it was before.

I absolutely, like as a person who you know, just my inner moral compass was just on fire, Like I hated Joel after this, like I really did. And you know, maybe it's cognitive dissonance because in the game you do some pretty bad things and you killed probably some not that kill people. But I don't know, it seems in the context of this greater good always this is just pure selfishness and the fact that he is willing to doom all of humanity for this and he kills so many people in the way. It's just it was really hard for me to swallow. And I listened to the Last of Us podcast that Craig Mason and Neil Druckman do after every episode, and something interesting.

I think Neil Druckman said he was like, you know, when he asked people, it's just a fifty fifty, like fifty percent of people say, like I get it, Like I actually would have done sathing. Joel did two percent, Like no, he's a monster. But he says when he asked parents, almost universally they said they would have done what Joel would do. And that kind of goes back to that theme we talked about of love, like you know, just because something is love doesn't make it good. And this is this is Joel's love for Ellie, but it's I think the worst side of love, and it reminds me of just like general conflict or someone is like, oh, you hurt the person that hurt me, so I'm going to hurt you back.

And it's just like leads to the cycle of violence, and it's I feel like a similar thing, except Joel happens to have the cycle of violence. Be I'm going to make sure Manny never gets secure for this virus. I don't know what are your thoughts, How did you feel about it? I know you knew about the ending, but you've never really seen it play out, you know. You know, I again, like it's one of those things where I read about what the ending was in twenty thirteen and I just thought to myself, I was like, holy shit, who's making this game.

It's like, oh, right, it's the people that are making Uncharted. Maybe they can actually put some of that storytelling prowess into Uncharted, and they did, so I, like you just said, I missed out when this was the topic of discussion ten years ago. So coming to it ten years later knowing everything that we know now, because again, I can't experience the ending in a last of US two less universe, you know what I mean, Because as someone who's dialed in like you are, I know where this is going if they go the way that it's going. So I can't not think about that. So to try and remove all of that from the equation as much as I can, because that matters, it really does.

The right decision and the wrong decision aren't what's important here, right, It's whether And you know, Craig Mason says it aptly and that after the episode, he says, you need to just understand why Joel gets to the decision that he does because hopefully, thankfully, up until this point, knock on wood, none of us have had to make this kind of decision, and hopefully we'll never have to. So in my mind, it's less about what I make that decision. I look at it more. Did you get me to the point where I can understand why this character is making this decision in the scope of the narrative, and does this make narrative sense? And it does.

It's you know, if you play the game, I don't know how you could think it's going to end any other way, you know, And if you're watching the show, I don't know how you could think it could end any other way. Once she says, we have to kill her to make whatever it is, like we have to take her brain out of her body, bro and like fuck around with it, like she's not getting it back to Saint no fucking return catching release. Shit. I understand why we're why Joel makes the decision that he does. Would I make the same decision to doom humanity?

It might be easier for me to make the decision to let Ellie live and run off and kill all the fireflies, only because humanity's already fucking doomed, Like and and Joel says, like she like he has nothing else to live for, Like he doesn't, he doesn't give a fuck about committee, Like he cares about one thing, Ellie. And like his brother is in a good situation in Jackson, so like he's fine. So yeah, from Joel's perspective, this like the rest of everyone else doesn't really matter, right And in a lot of ways, like for me, that's probably where I would come from, less of like a parent and child thing, but it's more like give fuck them, like fuck everybody else. Fuck them. Like if you if you're my ride or die, I'm not giving you up to save everybody else.

Like, and I get that decision. That's a decision I would be willing to make personally, I would make that decision one hundred times if given one hundred opportunity. Is if it were my wife or people close to me, Like I'd be like, yeah, fuck the rest of everybody else. And you know what to self to self. Do not put in Chris Stash's hands, don't put the few, don't put the fad of humanity in any human's hands.

Because you think anybody's going to make the right decision. People say they will people will say character in the show, sure, but I'm talking about a real person in the real world is going to make decisions more in line with what Joel did unless that unless unless you really like again, Like that's the thing. The decision that Marlene is asking Joel to make, she knows he's not going to make that decision the moment she sees him freak out when she says, Joe, you know right, because she's like, oh shit, like this is about to get real bad, real She should have just shot his ass. You want me to be perfectly honest, That's how this game should have ended. Marlene goes, bang, now we can do whatever the fuck we want, and Joel's dead, Like, I mean, yea, if you're just show she did show like some compassion, right, and if it's me, Like that's her mistake, is what he took advantage of because if it had been me and I had seen someone react that way with like bang, no, not even gonna fucking do this.

You have her from Yeah, she knows what he's capable of. Like, that's the thing I'm not saying. It's not Joel's fault. Joel ultimately makes the decision, but Joel's also putting a pretty advantageous position to make that decision as the character in this, Like if it's me and I'm Marlene, Like, I'm fucking utilitarian to the end. Fuck him like he deserves.

If he's gonna do this and he knows what the score is, then he doesn't deserve to be here. And it's not well, I'm gonna let you walk into a stairwell by yourself with armed guards. Hardy, harror, harror. I'm James Bond villain. This could never end poorly.

I would never do that. I'd be like, I'm gonna shoot you myself because see, you now want to leave the fate of humanity in my hands, because I'll make the fucking decision that she couldn't. That's the other part of this, Like, that's the part that nobody else talks about, is how do you make it this decision like this when you're also given the opportunity to make that decision. Joel's given the opportunity to make a decision in the game, and in the show, Marlene gives him that opportunity. If Marlene were really committed to the cause, she would have fucking killed his ass and I just like, again, not to blame a character, but that's kind of a plot hole that's glaring, isn't it.

I don't know if I would call that a plot because I do think like her word is important to her, and like so her word is more important to her than saving humanity is all right, Well, no one else is making it, but she's making a decision based on her own moral no too right, I mean in her mind, she's like, I have two armed guards on him. I've told them shout to kill if he gives you, like any inclusing. And there's a bit of like the superhero you know, plot armor to Joel. And that is a problem because in the show they essentially have to make him the terminator, like because in the game, you're essentially the terminator, right, Like yeah, I mean but that's any game where you're killing lots of people.

But right, but there's a better way to do it in the show that doesn't make it feel so plot armory, Like yeah, oh yeah, definitely feels a little plot armory, and like there's a lot of bodies, like they don't they're really emphasizing like he has killed a lot of people and probably not even all, even if you agree with his decision necessarily, Yeah, and and and it's in a lot of ways it's Dave's ex Joel, like he escapes and just kills everybody, like like you said, like who knows, who knows what families those people had? Yeah, and I mean they seem like half those people are just chilling right this hospital been like you know, like I just hear gunshots, Like I wish they had given that seem some more weight, like even more weight than they gave it, because it needs to be apparent that Joel is not doing the right thing by the fireflies again, right and wrong in this scenario, like at this point, when the world's over right wrong, you're fucking gone.

Like that's why it's like did he make the right call or the wrong call? Like, guys, civilization's more or less already been destroyed. So how It's like the thing with the alcohol, Like why do you care for fifteen year old drinks a bottle of alcohol when there's literal monsters roaming the waste land. I just have a hard time understand. You're never gonna let them live that one down.

I just doesn't it doesn't make any sense, does it? Does it actually make sense? I mean, you still have like it's they still have. It's not like they don't have any rules in their little societies. It's not like, yo, we should all be shooting up Heroin at ten or whatever just because the greater society doesn't exist, Like there were some people that had to have been like, oh, I'm sure there were, but I don't know, like I could still see some general I mean there are general rules like Fedra and Jackson was like a well organized place, like kids are going to school like by that, by that say, well why do the kids need to go to school?

Like, well, those people made the decision to keep going on with society the way it was before. But that is in and of itself a choice as well. Yeah, I ask you, if you're if you're in the post apocalypt are you going to go live in a city with electricity and all that bullshit? Fuck? Yeah?

Why because I want electricity and I would not want to be anywhere near anybody else. Fuck that. Everybody else is a fucking everybody else is a liability. They are they kind of are they kind of are in this society more people are kind of a liability, all right, SVB. It's liabilities.

It's a balance sheet joke sympathy. But you know what I mean, like other people kind of are a liability. Like, yeah, I get what you're saying. I mean, it depends obviously on like a well organized thing like Jackson or is it just like random people living in a house here or there. But like, yeah, if I could have Tommy set up, I would definitely do that.

I don't know, like I understand where Joel's coming from from, the idea of like hanging on to vestiges of the old society. Maybe aren't I don't know, like maybe in this it doesn't matter here. Yeah, look, he makes it as I understand why he makes the decision he makes. I think they give good enough job writing us up into the edge and then jumping off the cliff and the and I understand why they jumped off the cliff and the decision they made landed. And I reading reviews of the show, and I don't see anybody complaining about the ending.

They're complaining about other things, like the rushed pace of the last two episodes of the show. Yeah, and this you could say is rush. Definitely, I feel like less rushed than the last episode. But I think that to your point yet, Joel being this violent was a bit of a thing that caught me a little off guard. But in the context of the themes that the show has been subtly and very not subtly, like the Bill and Frank stuff putting in front of us, like about how important it is to protect the ones you care about.

Love will make us do things good and bad. It all it makes sense thematically. It brings the whole story like fully circle it just it does change your perception, well not for everyone watching the show, but it does change the perception of Joel. And I'm not going to get into where I think next season is going to go, because like I know the story of the second one, but like, let's get I do want to get into it at some point because there's no guarantee it's just going to tell the second game. No, but they did, Okay, so Craig Mason and Neil Druckman did say it's gonna follow a similar thing where they're going to get the core story from the game and then you know, maybe spend more time with characters or other things off the beaten path, but the core story, they say, it's going to be similar, but they did say it's going to span over multiple seasons, which I think you and I spoke about.

And the way the second game is structured probably makes sense. It's aged a longer game, but the narrative structure also has like a couple clear turning points where you could see it. Probably I would imagine two two seasons. You can maybe do it in three seasons, but one season would be tough to tell that story. There's part of me that just wants this to be it.

I know it's not. I know we're getting another season, but this is a pretty good standalone season of TV, wouldn't you say, even with the rush last two episodes? Yeah, I mean, well, the first game was supposed to be standalone, right, So, like we know, it told essential the same story, and it was satisfying in the fact that it's really well told, well made, well acted. It gives us something new. Um left me unsatisfied in the context of I's like, damn, Joel's just going to get away with it?

Huh Um. I feel like, yeah, you feel that in the show. So the second game is about like reckoning with with you know, the Joel's actions, which you don't get in the in the like playing off just the first game you're just like, oh, this thing happens and he kinda like just dooms manity and goes on with his life, whereas the second game asked the question is like, is like, you know, we learned about love, this is like what our consequences of like said love and selfishness blah blah blah blah blah, and has that impact relationship. Um, that's the theme of two well, and that enrage and revenge and anger and anger, and that's and that's the thing that I struggle with seeing how they're gonna get these two actors to that point where they are now like those two like it's either going to have to be a very slow burn, which is what I assume they're going to do, or a lot of ship's going to happen in the in between time of now now and the next time we see the show again.

But there will be a time jump in that real lifetime period as well, where they kind of again they have to sow the seeds of and they already have of. Ellie doesn't believe Joel Great. Now, where do we go from here? We see that, Yeah, we see that, Yeah, and where do we go from here? Is the question?

Like that's literally what you're left hanging with at the end of the episode is Ellie saying okay to Joel feeding her a big bag of bullshit. And the thing is she's saying okay in the context of, like, I love Joel and he generally has, what's you know, in my best interests and I'll just go along with this because why not or is it okay? Like something's off? I don't trust him, you know. I mean, we'll see more of that play out, and I think in the second game, Joel's bit actually calmer, whereas like Ellie grows into more of her own and becomes i think more similar to Joel.

It wasn't the first whatever like personality like what I'm gonna just to see how that personality dynamic plays. There's like a four or five year gap in the game something like that. There's there's a good chunk. I don't know if theirs are gonna jump straight into that gap or we'll have like episodes filling that information or just having flashbacks, and there's a lot of different ways they can take it well. And I think that I'm really I'm worried about the second and third season of this show, as I know you kind of are too, because it's just so fucking different in like a way that like, I think even the people that are watching this show might not appreciate like the people who are watching the show that have never played the game, because that is a that is a large group of people, wouldn't I don't think they would like that second game anymore than a lot of the people who played that second game did.

Yeah, it'll be, it'll be, It'll be interesting. I think I could see the second season being maybe a bit more traditional. But if the third season goes like how I think you want to know how I would do the second season. I would have the second season open and be only Abby and her pals the entire season, and it ends where the game kind of has that hard bit. Yeah, but you don't see Joel, you don't see Ellie for the in entire season, And that is how you make a third season of this show, like the second half of the second game actually matter, because all of a sudden you see people you recognize, and then you understand where this is going, what are the stakes?

Who are the people? Because again, I don't need to see Ellie and Joel again for a while, frankly, because that needs to sit and simmer on the stove and get to a boiling point of its own again. Because it will and it does it, and what happens with the characters in the second game force a reckoning with or without the characters that are involved in a lot of way. And I think that's I think if if it's me and you doing the show and someone's like, you have to now you have to do the second season of this show, but it has to be the second game, I would not adapt the second Game. I just wouldn't.

I would do something else entirely. I just would like I just like just have like a completely maybe maybe still have to be about consequences, but in a different way. Yeah, like again, like do you know what I mean? Like I like Bellow Ramsey and Pedro Pascal a lot together. I think they make an interesting dynamic together, and I mean where the show is going there, they're in a lot of that left there's it's it's a lot of characters doing things on their own and other and other machinations that are going on.

So that's what I would do though, because again, that second game is so tonally different, so narratively disjointed, that you can split it up into two seasons, maybe, like you said, even three if you want to go completely, if they want to do like everything, they want to just everything in the second game, you probably could do. I feel like that would be a lot, but right, because there are like whole sections in that game that would be like one episode and that's it. Like, yeah, but you know, I think I think it's nice that this is as good as it is and it stands alone and it does tell a whole complete story, and that when it ends, it ends on that moment of uncertainty, not only for the characters, but also for Ellie and Joel, the two of them, because it's not just uncertainty about where's the show going for us the audience, but there's a level of uncertainty with Ellie about her feelings towards Joel, a character that we have seen her fall in love with throughout the you know, eight episode, eight episodes up into this point.

Yeah, um, I mean your thoughts on the overall season and you're you liked it, You're in. I think the last two episodes were the weakest part of the season overall. I think that the last episode kind of it rushed through its hard hitting climax, and not because it wanted to, but because it just didn't have enough time. Like it they just ran out of time, is what it feels like. Like you had ten hours to play the game, and you got nine and a half hours in and you got to the climax of thirty minutes left, and that's all we gave you, Like, did you want more time in the hospital or I don't know.

I don't know. I think I wanted I think I wanted them to give the stuff. Okay, And I've seen this complaint a couple of times, and I think it's an interesting I'm going to complain and critique it from a different action. I've seen people critiquing it as I'm sure you have where they go, there weren't enough infected in the show. There wasn't enough infected action.

Here's where my directional kind of criticism would stem from the decision that Joel makes. I understand why they get to that point in the show and in the game, but in the game the infected feel like a threat. In the show, they really don't, and they and it's not. And it's not because we haven't had enough action scenes and shit, but like post Kansas City, we've had very little. Yeah, we've actually had what we had one in this episode in the flashback with Ellie's mom.

That's it. But it's not a clicker but it's not any It's just like a run of the mill infected. I don't think that the zombie show needed more zombies. I fucking saw that criticism and I my eyes rolled inside of my head and did three sixty because it's like, a we've mentioned this not a zombie show. Be if you're tuning in for that, that's not the intent of the show runners at all.

They've Craig amazing even like says that multiple times. It's like there's a lot of action in the game, but like we couldn't find purposeful reasons for it in the show. I'm not looking for more action, but I am looking for you in the show telling me why the decision Joel made dooms everybody when like the threat they're kind of getting along just fine with with just managing it. We gave up the cities. Oh no, like yeah, like like it's not it's not nearly where we are now.

But it's it's like enough people do have decent systems where generally people are living okay lives if you're in one of the good Fedra places, or you haven't have a Jackson situation, or you haven't have a cannibal pastor potential pedophile leader, you know, right, I mean, and that's and that's the thing. It's like it depends on where you are, things are good or bad anyways. But that's the way it is now, like in real life, like I mean again, like in a lot of ways. All right. That's the that's the issue I have with this show and the Infected is the decision that Joel makes is meant to feel like this big condemnation of humanity and a you know, a kind of pushing up on the pedestal of love the one you're with and you know, worry about them and don't worry about humanity, which again works perfectly fine if you make me understand the state humanity is in actually needing something that this threat is overwhelming.

The Infected are kind of just they're hanging out, like they make a point in saying like, oh, clickers, you survive fighting a clicker, Like, holy shit, these things are just like killing people in right or no, like or people just aren't seeing them like again, like it's not made clear in the show. I think it's I think it's more for like before the people had like the good wealth fortified, you know, because now people generally have like these fortified areas, you know, with walls and guards and stuff. But if you're like just on your own or you know, you're in a place that has been overrun by them, yeah, your situation is not great. But it has been twenty years, so these people do have like these like pockets of like you know, we know their patterns and we can generally protect ourselves with enough weapons and AMMO and stuff like that.

But yes, it is a lot of tell us we don't really see it. We see it in the first half of the series, but not really the second. Yeah, I mean the most we see with the infected is in Boston with Tity well, but also in Boston with tests. Yeah, because they fight the clickers. They fight the clickers in Boston, and then they fight the bloater in Kansas City, which nobody like mentions, Hey, wasn't that fucking thing wild?

That we've just spot Like nobody at any point is like, hey, what about that thing that ripped that thus head apart? Like where was any Like it's just weird, like the infected or kind of an afterthought in a show where the decision that's made at the end of the story is about the infected and like their consequences on the world, and like, how are we surviving in a world that's so destroyed by these creatures? Oh, we're kind of just hanging on, but we have a way to fix it. And this guy fucking screws all of us. Like there's less of the we're just barely getting by part of this than I was expecting.

And I think that stems from a lack of the effect. That's fair. I mean, that's it right, Like and again, like that's an easy thing to fix. I think Maze and Druckman said it as much in their like post things. They were like, we're going to put more infected in the second season, Like yeah, I bet probably, yeah, And it makes it Yeah, I get what you're saying.

You're saying, like we know the infected are this like bad thing that's scourge on humanity, but we haven't spent enough time to really understand how shitty it is, so it makes Joel's decision selfish. But like, we haven't seen them in so long, we almost forget that there's this persistent problem beyond just like living in a shitty house or not having supplies. It's like, well, the reason we can't have these things is because there's these fucking monsters everywhere, right, And there's like, again, like the show does a good job of telling us that, but it does not avail itself to show us that. Yeah, and again, like like we saw with the Kansas City kind of two episode little stint, they have the and the infected were under control, and if you're there and if they're focusing on keeping the infected under control else where, it seems like they can just keep them under control.

In Kansas City they were kind of ignoring it, but other places they weren't. And so it's just I don't know, It's just when I was reading those things about people complaining about not enough action in the show, I was like, oh my god, you you are just looking for the wrong thing. But again, I feel like I'm kind of complaining about the same thing. I just feel like it's more of a like actual problem with the show is that the infected need to feel more like a threat, because we get it, the humans are bad, Like that has been made abundantly clear in almost every episode of the show that humans are not great in this world, but like, I would like to see more of how the infected are really an oppressive force that by Joel dooming everybody, like you know, he's really dooming everybody, Like it just doesn't seem like he's dooming everybody.

It just seems like, oh, you're just gonna have to continue to let live shitty lives, but not like constantly worrying about the infected coming in the night murdering you, because like, I don't know who's worrying about that in this universe because we haven't seen them. We've seen people worrying about like Bill and Frank, we've seen them worrying about raiders coming, but infected coming in the night and breaking in Like there's none of that. There's just the infected are not the threat that the game makes them out to be. And that's because the game gives you twenty plus hours of just fucking running around and sneaking around and smashing bricks on their heads and stabbing them with shives. And I know that that's hard to recreate in a show, but some of that needed to be there just a little bit more, just to give us an idea that, like, these are not just some piss ass threat that nobody cares about because that's what it feels like.

Yeah, yeah, no, totally makes sense. What are your final thoughts on the season at as a whole. Yeah, I mean every episode wasn't perfect. I think there's there were some issues and like pacing in later episodes, and I think I agree a bit with the clicker criticism. I don't think we need a lot more, but a little bit more would have made that threat a bit more real.

Yeah, I mean this is a really solid, well made show. It was I enjoyed every episode, like even the bad as a bad episode's like was like an enjoyable for even it's our of Phoebe. You can tell a lot of thought and like say love, but reverence for the source material went into it. I mean, obviously you have the director of the Game as one of the writers. And I'm really looking I am looking forward to season two.

I think it's going to be a much more challenging thing to adapt, but I have faith that the approach that Neil Druckman and Craig Mason choose is going to be one that will reward when I use the word word reward in a broadway, but will reward the audience first sticking along and seeing what they do. And even if it just ended up being one season, like it was, it was a great season, and it does leave you thinking and feeling in a way where I think a lot of other shows would just kind of wrap up, put a bow on it, and you say, like, all right, we'll move on. Like I'm thinking about the ending still and I still have the same opinion about it I did when I saw in twenty thirteen, but I think I understand Joel a bit more and I think that's the sign of a good show.

I'm with you. I'm with you, and you know, as someone who has been a video gamer since teen teen, being a teenager or earlier, like I hope that this herald's in and we've talked about this a new age of video game adaptations because people are gonna undoubtedly do it being done well and right and with I would say the loving care of someone like Craig Mason and Neil Druckman, because yeah, Neil Druckman crafted the video game, but Craig Mason and like, I think the dude's obsessed with the Last of Us, Like he makes it right, like thirteen times or something like that, like yeah, like and good like. I as as as much as sometimes I want to say, don't be the guy who loves the thing that you're working on.

Sometimes that is that is the right person, and that is the correct person to take a project like this and turn it not from a movie but into a TV show, because you know what, we can both agree on. The movies ending would not have had the impact that the show's ending and the game's ending did. Yeah, it would have been more just action movie like oh yeah, he killed these people, cool like whatever that would have been. The clickers and infected that people wanted would have been in the movie, just like gobs and gobs of them, Like, I'm glad that this is a quiet character drama that just happens to have some some monsters. I was making jokes at the beginning of this show to people like, oh, it's kind of just a zombie show.

You'll be fine. And the first three episodes. That first four kind of are maybe not the third episode, but the first and second and fourth are. But after that fifth episode, like nope, it's like something else entirely. Yeah, which is again not bad.

I'm not complaining about it, but there are clearly people that didn't resonate with the slower, more character driven parts of this show than they did with the action and the intense gun play and whatever. Because again, like I get it, but I don't know. My hope is that more video game things are as well made as this is, because this is now, as far as I'm concerned, the high water mark for video game stuff, at least in a long form narrative. Maybe not in a movie, because again, I don't know if the best video game movie has come out yet. I mean, we could throw names out there, but I think this is the best video game adaptation period now.

Like I mean, I don't know if I'll stand for this Mortal Kobat Annihilation erasure, but we fucking got and you will die. I fucking that movie is such a wow stunt. That Wow Wow. I actually liked that movie. The Wow movie.

Wow. No, the Wow movie, Oh, well, I've seen it. I thought it was fine. Fine, Yeah, I don't remember. But remember how Duncan Jones directed that movie?

No, I didn't remember. Yes, he didn't direct that movie. He directed that and then he directed Us. I loved Moon, but let's do that. I don't know.

Being David Bowie's son, do you have to do more than that? I don't know. Man Like video game things just had the longest worst rap since that Super Mario Brothers movie. And it kind of feels oddly ironic that I would say, the best video game adaptation to come out so far comes out and finishes the same weekend that the Super Mario Brothers movie comes out. So it's kind of an odd circular nous.

But I'm hoping that The Last of Us is now seen as the beginning point in a new kind of a new age of video game adaptations, because again, I don't care if they adapt video games. It's not for me for them to adapt things. But there is an audience for it, and there are plenty of people that will never pick up a controller, that would love to see more of the stories from video games put onto the screen. And you know, God of War is coming, and so many other things are coming, and these are narrative driven games, just like Last of Us. So we'll see.

I'm excited this is This is a fun show. It was a good show, and now I think we'll see ripples from this into the future of other things that are as good or better than this. I hope there's I mean, I hope that the God of War show is better than this. Like this is a pretty high water mark, but like that has an opportunity to be better. There's plenty of things that can come out in the next decade that could be better than this, And maybe the second season of the show will be better.

That's not unheard of. That's not uncommon that the second season of a show is even better than the first one. So I personally would like to see the Last of Us two adapted in a way that like really challenges the audience, because I don't think this season. I think the season left you as an audience in a nice spot. Even if the ending is kind of you're not ading to swallow it.

It's challenging, but like, I still think that it leaves the audience with like a more or less like happy ending, at least it's Joel's happy ending. So I would like to see the next season and maybe third and power. Many seasons actually really challenge the audience and what they're expecting from from TV shows. So I don't know, and we don't know when that's coming out, folks, Just like the Game of Thrones show, if you listen to that show and now you're listening to this one. We don't know when we're doing the next one of these.

Could be a year from now, could be probably two I would assume two years. Yeah, I would at least I would say at least eighteen months before. I mean, if Craig Mason is to be believed, he almost died while filming the show, and like his life was he was like devoted to this, So give that man a break for like maybe a couple months. Let that man live his life, and then he'll go back to being obsessed with the Last of Us, which, hey, you know what great so so yeah, so until the next time you hear the Two of Us, which, again, like I just mentioned, we don't know when that will be. You can find the Two of Us over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this show and the other show we did, Game of Brose House the Dragon are airing.

I would assume that that show is going to come back before this one, So it's just safe to say though, we may be doing miniseries back to back until these shows are over, given that they kind of aired around the same time. So because what Game of Thrones only finished up in December, right, Somber December? Yeah. Yeah, So that's where you can find the two of Us, And as always, you can find this show wherever you get your podcast like, rate and review the show, and if there's something to check in with, we'll check in. But expect that the next time you hear us, we'll be talking about the Last of Us Season two,