The episodes go so fucking fast except for this one. I paused it once and couldn’t believe there was like 17 min left. Slow burn with a great payoff
And now that I think about it, that might be my first cannibalistic pedo religious whackadoo character. Dude was a triple threat
Having finally just finished playing thru the game, it's remarkable how closely they've stayed to the source material in many of these scenes. Really well done. Can't wait for the finale
Had no idea the guy who played James (David’s second in command who was killed by the cleaver) was Troy Baker, who plays Joel in the game (and hosts the podcast)
I haven’t watched any yet. Will someone quote this and answer yes/no if this season ended at the ending of the game part 1?
is anyone truly innocent? Spoiler he straight up executed that doctor who was just trying to save the world
Spoiler I agree that he probably could have found a way to let him live by shooting him in the leg or something, but the guy was about to kill Ellie and he said he wasn't going to let him take her. I think Joel killed everyone because they were going to come back after him if he didn't.
My take is that Joel made a very selfish decision. You can sorta justify him killing everyone to save Ellie. But also - what he did isnt much better than what the fireflies did. They didnt give her a choice, and neither did Joel. Probably because he knew what she'd choose and it's not what he wanted. I have no idea where/when S02 picks up (I dont want to know you game nerds). You have to imagine how much Ellie is struggling with all this. Even though she said 'ok' she has to know he's lying to protect her.
If Im picking knits - this is the one thing that seemed a bit out of place. Joel is a survivor. I can see how he can take people out of he gets the jump on them. But it's not like he had any kind of military or combat training, and he took out a hospital full of what seemed to be well trained and armed forces.
but Marlene made it clear that what he did just to get there was more than her team was able to do. She cited half of her people being killed along the way.
Also, one thing that crosses my mind about the ending is the lazy standard trope I have seen (even by Sepinwall) that Joel chose not to "save the world." The reality of the situation is all he chose to do is potentially not find a cure for the zombies. The worlds issues are well beyond zombies as the problem at this point, but in our reality that is who we consider the threat. The show did a great job of showing that people are the threat and focused on people way more than infected. I am not saying that some of the people he killed may not have been a threat, but perspective and immersion are important when considering his choices, and ultimately his love for Ellie was the primary motivator.
He’s been doing this kind of stuff for 20 years with his brother. It’s not a stretch to say he’s fully capable of this. Him becoming a mass murdered for Ellie also tracks after he got attached to her.
Exactly. The infected aren’t a huge problem and are easily avoidable. It’s the survivors that are the problem which makes it much better than something like TWD where they pop out from behind trees and shit.
Right. They touched on it with the Negan and Whisperers as they were able to handle the hordes by that point but it’s always been other people that were the real threats
I kind of like that he made a selfish decision at the end. As Tess said, they weren’t ”good” people. He placed his potential for gaining a daughter back over what she may have wanted, and what I guess could be considered the collective good. Though what the fireflies were doing, or at least the way they were doing it, wasn’t “good” either. Ellie deserved the choice and neither party was interested in giving it to her, for their own reasons. Also I was led to believe Joel was a tremendous badass and fully capable of taking that number of people out. He was aging but once he had clear, primary motivation, I don’t think it was out of character for him to be that effective. I haven’t played the games but that’s what I’ve gathered from hearing people talk about him. I do wish the finale was a bit longer. Other episodes were around an hour but this one was only 45 minutes.
Without playing this game or watching TWD, I was pleasantly surprised the Infected weren't on their heels or behind every corner continuously. Said it before but I appreciate the lack of "jump scares" for the most part and the focus on the slow burn tension build. Echoing what a lot of others have said, the interactions with raiders/communities are far more fascinating. Show did a good job showing all different kinds of people as well. After they left Bill and Franks they; encounter a revenge fueled revolution in a newly liberated KC finds a Native American couple that points them to Tommy Town and it's safety off to find the Fireflies they get attacked by scouts from Cannibal Town Cannibal Town destroyed then the Fireflies abduction and subsequent murking it was an interesting cross section of scenarios where each time they approached anybody you had no idea how it was gonna turn out and i applaud them for that
They did lay the groundwork and imply that he was doing similar stuff for a long long time and he’s good at it. We didn’t see it on the screen, but it was known by those that knew him in the 20 years offscreen what he was capable of
I felt that Tess established that pretty well in the beginning when she was with the dude that fucked them out of a battery
I have only played the first game, so I feel like I can safely pop in here now without being a risk. I've seen this take quite a bit in various discussion threads, and it was a concern I've had all along. The Last of Us was the first time a video game impacted me so much that it sent me scrambling to find people to talk about it with, articles discussing it, etc... As great as the story and gameplay were overall, it was really that moment in the OR when you were Joel and had to physically mash the buttons to kill the surgeon that hit the hardest. The surgeon does his little, "You'll have to go through me" thing, and you're just standing there with him staring at you with no choice but either stab or shoot him. I stared at my screen dumbly for several moments processing it all before I was able to proceed. Yes, I understand I had just plowed through a bunch of Fireflies to get there, but in the back of my mind, I felt like there would be an out. Coming to that moment after 40 hours or whatever of gameplay time spent as these characters and feeling "I really have to do this?" was something. And I believe it's something we all universally experienced more or less. Sucks that it didn't land the same way for many show watchers, but I'm not sure how it could have. I guess I hoped the effect interactivity had wasn't such a critical element to the emotional reaction, but it makes sense.
Druckman touches on this, thought it was super interesting. The main thread of everyone just saying Joel did nothing wrong avoids any nuance, so your post was much more interesting tbh. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/o...he-last-of-us-is-supposed-to-be-uncomfortable This ending, which is identical to that of the video game on which “The Last of Us” is based, has been divisive for more than a decade. Before the game’s release, in 2013, Neil Druckmann, its creator, found that play-testers were split; some wanted the choice to save the world, or simply had no interest in murdering innocent medics. When they reached the operating room, he said, about half waited or searched fruitlessly for another option: “They linger there for a while before they realize, ‘No, I’ve got to kill this doctor.’ ” (Parents, he noted, were far less likely to hesitate.) Many players were unnerved at being denied a conventionally heroic narrative—and at their forced complicity in an arguably villainous one.
The official pod has been great all season, but particularly this week. They go into this ending a lot and it’s fascinating. I did not like what he did (particularly killing the doctor like he did), but it didn’t hurt the show at all, it just wasn’t nice and clean like you would normally have.
Maybe I’m wrong but isn’t it noted that he’s a veteran and was an army ranger in the beginning of the show? Something like he joined the army and then his brother Tommy joined only because Joel did?
personally, i thought the end of the season suffered by trying to mirror the game (though i haven't played it; just read spoilers) more conflicted morality, bumping into that random couple in wyoming, more stories and showing the adapting to the world. less getting to specific checkpoints and vantages to pay off for people who played the game imo.
I can't imagine how horrifically wild that was to watch for anyone who hasn't played the game My first thought after realizing they were straight up following the game was "Man, I can't wait to see what people think of Joel after that last episode"
Joel going HAM to save Ellie made complete sense. Remember, Tess told him: Save who you can save. Yeah, the thought that Ellie’s immunity could be replicated to return the world to normalcy is best case scenario, but it still must have felt like a long shot. Save who you can save.
Just watched the finale. Two takeaways 1. The scene where Joel was killing everyone in the hospital was shot like you were playing a third person shooter. It was really fucking cool 2. Fireflies approach to the Ellie sacrifice was absurdly dumb. Put Ellie and Joel in a room, make the case for her giving up her life to save the world. High likelihood that she agrees to it. Then her and Joel get to say goodbye and everybody gets closure. And if Ellie says no you just kill Joel and do it anyway.
Just finished this wknd and never played the game. Caught up on the thread and definitely didn’t watch in as great of detail as all itt, but do have one question. How do we know that whatever the doctor was trying to do would work? How would the fireflies or whatever even come up with that Let alone have a doctor that could do it?
They didn't know it would work. I also don't know how they planned on mass producing some sort of vaccine.