House of R - ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 7 Deep Dive

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Joanna and Mal are back to talk about the season two finale of ‘The Last of Us’! They take their signature deep dive and discuss this devastating episode. They talk about Ellie’s confession to Dina, a shocking death, catching up with Abby, and (most importantly) where is Shimmer!? (00:00) Intro (24:08) A night at the theater (35:16) Shimmer name check #1 (01:10:59) Shimmer name check #2 (01:23:15) It’s not our war (01:39:08) Is my Costco membership still good in the apocalypse? (01:49:56) The confusingly named Kingston Bookstore (02:13:01) I’m seasick just watching this (02:15:38) Day trip to the aquarium (02:32:52) Curtain call (02:43:30) Seattle day 1 (Again) (02:45:45) Spoilers: a fungus among us Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producers: Steve Ahlman and Carlos Chiriboga Video Supervision: John Richter Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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on Paramount Plus. Welcome back to House of R. Joanna Robinson. She's Mallory Rubin and Mallory Rubin. On the occasion of the last list finale, would you care to hit me with a pithy, relevant quote from the very episode itself? Okay, got it. So you're St. Joanna of Wyoming and everyone else is a fucking asshole. It's me, Joanna, with my savior complex and only a few more minutes left to live. Here we are covering the Last of Us finale on House of Our. devastating and exciting at the same time for us. You might be looking at your feed and you're like, wow, this is here early.

What the heck happened? What the hey? We recorded early because it's Memorial Day weekend and we just thought we would maybe take the Monday off and record this early. And then you're sitting there saying, but what the hey? Don't you usually have feedback from us, emails from us, insights from the showrunners on the official pod? I've got great news for you. We'll be doing a spring mailbag pod later this week. You've already submitted some of your emails, thoughts, and questions, and comments and concerns for that, and we so appreciate it.

But we'll be doing like a Last of Us chunky section of that mailbag. So we will get to, you know, some post-finally reactions that we might not be able to cover in this. Some but close to an instant reaction, a finale, Last of Us Finale podcast. Hobbes and Dragons at gmail.com is how you can contribute to the spring mailbag before we do that though you might be all you might also be looking at your feet and you're like what the hey I thought we were getting a Rogue One rewatch you are yes we moved it slightly and here's why we've got a special friend joining us that's right we moved it slightly we just to do it last week we pushed it to the top of this week because um

we got greedy and wanted to have one of our pals joined us. So I'm really excited for that one, aren't you, Mallory Ribbon? I can't wait. Elsewhere in the feeds. Yes. Midnight boys, Poo, poup, pooh. They'll have their super fresh instant reaction that went up right before ours for the last those finale, so you can listen to that.

They also have a Mission Impossible final reckoning reaction pod coming out later this week. So that's exciting. Buttonmash will have there, the Last of Us finale, you know, getting her guide recap with Ben and Daniel. And then, guess what Mallory's time for Ringervis recommends again? Just thought I would put that in your ear. Delightful.

I'm excited. How can folks you track of all of that good, good, fresh, delicious, mushroom-y content, Mallory, Eberman? Going to keep it simple. Follow the pods. Why not? Follow House of R. Follow the Ringervor.

Follow the Prestige TV podcast on spot. or wherever you get your podcast, you can watch full video episodes of House of Our Midnight Boys, PooPew, on Spotify and on the Ringerverse YouTube channel. So make sure you're following us on YouTube as well. And then follow the Ringervverse on the social media platform of your choosing. We're not here to tell you what that is. But the Ringervorverse is on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. And then, as Joe noted, send us your emails for the Spring Mailbag in the Last of Us mailbag, but send us your emails for everything. We love to hear from the bad babies always. We've gotten some great Rogue 1 emails from a bunch of people, a bunch of people who had never seen it,

who watched Danderer with us and we're like, okay, I'll watch one. And they were like, oh, Cassie Dendor isn't the lead of this movie? Surprising. Right, no, K2S.O is. Correct. Bad Daniels is, but that's okay. We'll get to that when we talk about Rogue 1 later this week. Okay. Spoiler warning. Yes. So even though Season 2 of The Last of Us is done, the last of us part two, the game is not done being adapted, there's a whole another half plus plus to the story.

We know what happens because Mallory Rubin, dedicated content provider that she is, played the game. I, medium dedicated content provider that I am, watched a play through. And so all of our thoughts and feelings that we have about what comes after the cliffhanger, as one might call it, of this finale,

we will keep for a spoiler section at the end of the podcast. You will hear such a loud warning, such a spoiler warning. So we will save that for later. But we will be using our game knowledge, of course, to infuse our analysis of this of the adaptive choices they made. Key differences, some major differences, I think, in terms of what some characters know. But no matter how you slice it, Jesse doesn't make it out of that theater. And that is true in both game and show. And we will miss him.

Young Mizina was really, really great. Fantastic. So we will miss him. We will eulogize him when we get there. Season 2, episode 7, I am 98% sure this episode is called convergence. Okay. But since we're pre-recording it, I am not 100% sure. Right.

We're going off a screener. No title on the screener. Yeah, no title on the screener. That's a good guess, though. I've seen it listed elsewhere. It's just sometimes those things are fake, so I'm just saying. What do you think is the second most likely title? She's still there, doing all right?

Not that you ask? Yes. Hashtag shimmer lives. This episode, like last week's episode, was written by the trifect of Craig Mason, Neil Druckman, Halle Gross, and directed by Nina Lopez Corrado, who has like a, you know,

a pretty chunky TV, but not a director that I'm very familiar with. So that was interesting. Convergence as a title, it comes up in the episode, we're talking about meteorological events. It comes up as we're talking about paths converging.

of characters inside of this episode. It is also the name of a track from the first game. So this is just like a word that has long-standing associations with The Last of Us. Love it. Mallory Rubin. Yes. Joanna. We haven't really talked about our feelings about this finale with each other.

Not at all. How do you feel? How are you feeling? I'm in mourning. You know, I'm sad that it's over. And, you know, we've been potting together for, who, sheesh, three and a half years. Is that right? Wow.

Goodness. Three and a half years amazing. Cricky. We've gotten multiple what-the-hays and a cranky already from Joe. We're cooking today. You can definitely tell it's late on a Friday before a holiday weekend. I'm feeling zesty today, honestly. I love it. It's the fresh mint.

Yeah, MIT. The ginger. and your teeth. I, as you know, am often inclined to dread the end of something before it has even begun. It's something that I should spend some time parsing with Gail. Like, why am I this way? But not while she's having breakfast. But not during a meal or personal reading time.

When it's a thing I love, that feeling when we reach the end is like so intense for me because on the one hand, I am just like genuinely despondent that the shared experience, our community, our us of like watching this together, talking about the game, talking about the show, talking about the world is coming to an end. But then I have that immediate, you know, the wave crash. And then I'm like, okay, I'm okay. I came out because one of the things that I love most about doing this and doing this with you is that, you know, we just talked about this with and or nothing's ending.

It's like we always get to go back into the worlds that we love. And so I'm so excited to think about the future of the show. I already can't wait to rewatch both of these seasons to replay the games. I just love being in the world and I've really loved sharing it with you. It's like my favorite thing in the world to get to talk about a story that we love in a world we love together. In terms of the actual finale, this was such a, this was such an emotional wallup in so many ways. a real payoff of the Every Path has a price logline and premise and framing of this season. And, you know, last week in episode six, the penultimate episode of the season, we spent a lot of

time talking about that because it was, you know, invoked directly through the lens of Joel and the choices that Joel had made. But what this episode I thought really effectively reinforced is that that is true for everybody. It's true for Ellie. It's true for Abby. It's true for any person in the story or the world who makes a decision. Like the things that we do to other people have consequences. And to see our characters confront that and reckon with what it means for their relationships with each other, for their ability to look in the mirror at themselves is such an interesting thing to see rendered on screen and to talk about together. All of basically like every lyric from a song that has been featured this season was also on my

mind watching this? Like, obviously I'd surely lose myself as, you know, it's the, it's the mission statement brought to the four in this episode. Like, this is where we find Ellie and the I'd surely lose myself state of it. And then the attempt to pull out of that in the question for us now of can, of can that happen? But, you know, I was thinking too of like through the valley and I know I'll kill my enemies when they come. And I know when I die, my soul is damned. And even like a happy, lovely, beautiful moment of possibility, like, take on me, we still get I'll be gone in a day or two. And just that question of what is taken from you and what you give up, what you sacrifice

and what you use is such a rich text. I was really hoping that your take on me lyric would be, I'll be coming for your love okay, which is my favorite take on me lyric. Wonderful. Obviously not relevant to what we're talking about. Okay. Sorry, anything else? I didn't mean to step on you.

Anything else you want to say? Okay. Just, you know, I can't wait to go through beat by beat with you. And, you know, also not an episode where the infected were featured, which is always interesting at the end. I have that in my notes too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the end. At the end. Yeah. Real true, you know, to the monsters. The monsters were the monsters. The monsters are other people episode, which is always a fastball down the middle for us. The monster at the end of this book.

The monster at the end of the season. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So I love everything you said there. I agree with all of it. And there's obviously incredibly consequential things that happen inside of this episode. I still do think that the arc of the season, was a bit thronesier in its construction

in that the peak is the penultimate episode. And then this is like, it's weird to say a wind down when like multiple named characters die, et cetera, and there's battle prep and all this other stuff. But it does feel like a sort of wind down comparatively to the penultimate episode.

And I think, you know, in terms of, you know, Craig directing what he directed, Neil directing what he directed, and then, like, you know, Nina, who is sort of newer to this family, directed to the finale, you know, means that they have, like, where are their interests in the story lie, sort of a different place in the arc? But still tremendously good, really good, really good, Bella episode.

I thought really, really tremendous stuff as Ellie, spirals deeper into this brutal cycle that she's found herself in. I was thinking a lot of, and I dropped in our notes here, but this quote from Tess in season one, we've talked a lot about the end of the quote, which is you're not immune for being ripped apart. But the beginning of the quote, when she's talking about the network of the mycelium that is a show change to the way in which the cordesps interact with each other. She says the fungus also grows underground, long fibers like wires, some of them stretching over a mile. You step on a patch of cordyceps in one place and you can wake a dozen infected from somewhere else.

Now they know where you are. Now they come. You're not immune from being ripped apart. And this is something that, you know, we've invoked a couple times when talking about the little tendrils coming out of the pipes in. Jackson or little tendrils in the subway station. You step on one of those, you call the horde, like, sort of thing. And so thinking about this idea of the steps that Jesse and Ellie and Tommy take through Seattle, like the ways in which these various actors, or when the WLF, the SLC crew came to Jackson,

what network of mycelium are you stepping on and what are you calling to your doorstep when you step on it? And so this idea of just like, Ellie is called to the aquarium because of what Abby did at the beginning of the season. And Abby is called to the theater because of what Ellie does in the aquarium. And so this cycle of violence, but it's also this like, you don't know what the strength of those bonds or what those networks or what that meselium network is for these people, right? She kills Joel. She lets Ellie live as she and Owen are both sort of fond of saying, but like they didn't know

how closely connected necessarily those two people are. Probably if they knew they wouldn't have let her live. And Ellie kills Owen and Mel somewhat accidentally, you know, your mileage may vary if that feels like an accident to you, but not knowing

what really, what that's going to do to Abby, or knowing and not caring and not thinking through what the consequences might be that the repercussions might show up at your very doorstep, especially if you turned all the lights in the theater on.

So, I don't know, that was just like sort of on my mind, just like thinking about all these webs of people as their own mycelium network and the fungus loves too, but of course, so do these people. Thinking about Isaac talking about the way that Isaac talks about Abby in this episode is so interesting.

A lot of what, you know, we've seen only a bit of Isaac this season, but it's already so expanded from the game that it makes me really excited for season three and how we can use a Jeffrey Wright inside of a story like this one. So, yeah, a lot to chew over. I'm really excited that I get to talk to you about it. Molly Rubin. Same, my beloved. on the shimmer count it's been seven days since we last saw shimmer not that you asked ellie

not that you have a fucking fucking icon asked double shimmer invocation inside of this episode um before we get into the episode a little uh mailbag moment please the guitar is pronounced epiphone um okay i will say i front of the pod, Jenny Owen Youngs, who was a musician, she was like, you know,

I first pronounced it epiphany when I first saw and I was like, that makes me go better. Okay. Susan wrote this great episode about Joel's watch that I thought

maybe we could talk about for a second, especially as Tommy reenters a narrative inside of this episode. She wrote, The reveal of Joel's watch, having belonged to his dad,

opened up so many avenues in my brain. To have been wearing it prior to the mushroom apocalypse implies that his dad gave it to him left it to him in an I'm the eldest boy scenario. After Joel dies, Tommy, we assume, leaves it in the boxer Ellie. If the watch had belonged to his dad, wouldn't Tommy be the logical person for it to be passed

down to next? This is all just made me think that maybe Joel came to an understanding about his father or maybe even a possible forgiveness that Tommy never did. Or maybe he just wanted to try to forgive him. The cycle continues. What did you think about that, about this idea that Tommy just leaves that watch in the box on Joel's bed. Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with the reading and the email. Like I, I think we, as we talked about at length last week, we certainly have the ability to read into what it means that

Joel is carrying that, given what we glimpse between Joel and his father and this idea that we talked about a lot in our penultimate pod and that the showrunners have spoken about beautifully in what Joel says to Ellie at the end on the porch, like, do a little better than me, that you're passing down more than just trauma and more than just the cycle of violence, but also the belief that things can be a little bit better if you try. And the fact that Tommy is not like, okay, I'm slapping that puppy on my wrist now is really interesting. Now, maybe he left that in the box in case Ellie wanted it and it was an act of generosity and grace for him to present it to her, but maybe there is a deeper insight there in terms of how Tommy would feel about carrying something

that reminds him of his father on his arm and that that is not something that he wants and that that that was not a place that they reached. So, you know, it seems possible that we will have the opportunity to learn more about Tommy's relationship to that past as well in the future. And if so, I would, you know, as we noted last week, that that backstory scene with, with Javier Miller was completely new to the show. So we can say genuinely, we have no clue if we will learn what Tommy thinks about that. I'm sorry, are you saying Tony Dalton for season three of the last of us? That's exactly what I'm saying. Correct. Book it. Okay. Also, we've gotten a couple emails from listeners asking about the quarter-sups levels inside of Seattle and sort of like,

how is this place fortified from show watchers? I will say, when you're a game player, it's quite evident that there's just like big fuck-off walls around. Seattle, there are these gates you have to traverse. It's just like a, it's heavily fortified. You have to spend a really long time figure out how to get over the wall, etc. I saw from some sort of like making a behind the scenes photos that they actually built some wall gate sets that they didn't wind up using or maybe I don't know we'll use later.

I don't know. But like they have built that wall. But anyway, in terms of like, sorry, in terms of like, um, What makes Seattle secure? Why is it not overrun? There are some, there is some infrastructure in place there that we just didn't see as shit watchers. So. But even then, like we, you know, just as in these other QZs, prior QZs, you know, before Fedra fell where it seems like contained and then all of a sudden it isn't, you know, we had the moment in the tunnel where it's like, I thought this was clear.

It was. So, you know. And not to mention the stocker factory. So, you know. Exactly. That long-ass building. Like, you've got our pockets of peril everywhere still. On the, what kind of bone was that front?

Let's just be really clear. Of course, it was not a human bone. I don't know what I was thinking, but I do want to let you know that we got emails from, that I share with you from an ER nurse. You did. From like forensic anthropology, for like a number of people who are like, hey, I also considered it might be a human bone. So.

It's great. I'm, I, this is so reminiscent to me of when you solicited emails about ACL tears during our Yellow Jacket's coverage and then we're like so excited to present them. And I was like, this is a lot of information about bones and ligaments that I am not constitutionally prepared to, uh, oh, we don't have to talk about it anymore. Let's just be clear. I love, I love your commitment despite saying multiple times on this podcast that you were not a doctor or a scientist to learn. about the human body.

I admire this about you. I do. Before this very podcast, I said to you, I think I broke my foot, and you said, here are the things I would recommend trying. Yeah. Rest-ice compression elevation.

None of which had occurred to me. Okay. No, what did I say first? First I said, consider a doctor. Right. We move past that quickly. And then you were like,

maybe I'll get a, maybe I'll get an ace bandage. And then I said, rest, ice, compression elevation. Okay. Bottom line, I was wrong about the bone, but we had many fun and entertaining emails from people trying to identify what kind of bone it was.

Mallory doesn't want me to read them. I'm not going to read them. You can. You can. You can. Go for it. You can't have parts of the body, Mallory. We'll use your old-night email. God damn it.

We're going to leave the old-none aside. We're going to focus on a different body part. Mallory Rubin, I know that you listened to the prestige pod last week where Rob and I talked about a creative way that one might create a vanilla substitute in the mushroom apocalypse. You did. Would you like to weigh in on this conversation at all? You know, listening to you and Rob podcast, it's similar to how I feel like watching The Last of Us, right?

It's just, it's an enriching experience when you are intellectually and emotionally stimulated and when you get the opportunity to learn new things. And I was not prepared over my period of listening to learn that the anal glands of a beaver of a beaver. are a potential avenue for securing vanilla flavor, nor was I prepared later in that very same episode for Rob to return to it by mentioning licking those anal glands. And, you know, this is just, this is the joy of getting to work at the ringer, honestly.

I was also caught off guard by Rob's return to the anal gland corner. Okay, so that has been bones, and glands and walls. It has been. And watches. As always, the mailbag is a joy. Okay. We've got a couple more emails that we'll get to in the body of our breakdown of the episode.

But should we go now to our deep dive? Let's do it. All right. No cold open in the episode this week. We go right into the opening credits where once again we are back down to just one little Ellie mushroom at the end of the opening credit. It's very sad. It is sad. It hits me every time.

I know. Ellie all alone, it's not a good thing. Despite, you know, the Dina scene at the beginning, despite Jesse being here, it's still, in many ways, Ellie all alone. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity. Or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related. medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zep bound is approved as a 2.5,

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We go now to the theater. Yes. It is a dark and stormy nights. But Dina is not drinking any dark and stormies. Because she knows by the rule of television. that once you're pregnant, you don't take a sip of alcohol. She's, we hear her before we see her, right? She's hollering.

She's been shot perhaps near her femur. I don't know bones very well with an arrow. And we hear on the radio that the WLF are going radio silent. And so they've gotten on that someone can hear them across the radio. so they're going to go silent. We'll check in later. Ellie, we'll be checking all the channels later and hear nothing. And then some dumb fuck later will be like, hey.

Yeah. There's a Tommy-shaped sniper pinning us down. They're like, get off the radio. Anyway, here we find St. Jesse of Wayobee crouched at Dina's feet trying to form surgery. Jesse, much like us, is not a doctor. Not a doctor. Yeah.

But he claims to know where all the arteries are. Were you thinking about Mel and the Arrow from Yellow Jackets when watching this scene? No. I wasn't. But for the backwards baseball cap wearing a population. Perhaps if somebody had been wearing a backwards hat, then I would have, you know? Here's something I know from watching television. First of all, if you refuse alcohol, you're pregnant.

Secondly, if the arrow goes in, you're, you're pregnant. Secondly, if the arrow goes in, you're, you probably should just push it through. Yeah, of course. I've learned that. So, you know. Yeah. Handy to have the flask on hand to disinfect the shaft, you know?

Yeah. Do you feel like Jesse brought that from Jackson? I mean, like if they've been a month on the road, has he been refilling it? Has he been using it? Saving it for a special occasion. What do you think the relationship between Jesse and that flask is? Yeah, you know, I mean, we saw our guy hitting the booze at the news at the New Year's party. So I think I think Jesse who is Captain Wyoming, St. Jesse of Wyoming,

all of it. But also like, knows I'd have a good time. You know, likes a glass of whiskey, has impregnated Dina. And in this episode, canonically establishes that he bought four bad paintings to fucking chiculite. I believe that Jesse is staying the flash. I can't go with you to Mexico. I am St. Jesse of Wyoming. Yeah, the chosen one. Exactly. A sip at night to unwind, but also I do think that Jesse would be practical about it, too. You know, the utility of being able to use it as a disinfectant should the need to rise.

To disinfect what? To disinfect what? The shaft. Okay. You need the shaft to be clean. You don't want a dirty shaft. Yeah. So as he pushes just the tip through the other side of Dina's leg, she says, I can't die.

laden with meaning. Yeah. And he loses his temper right before he really calmly tells her like he has her. And it's so enormously, like, he has this human losing his temper moment, and then he just, like, recalibrates. Yeah. Says, I have you. It's incredibly comforting. Again, thinking about Jesse as a potential leader, this is just sort of like, he's not a robot, but he is someone who will put others before himself.

He has his own emotion here and it's frustration and then he tamps it down, I'm sure, quite healthily, and it just focuses on Dina. Yeah. And in that moment, I was like, Ellie should really fucking be here, you know? Yes. Yeah, I, Ellie and Joel were on my mind here for a few different reasons. I thought in actually just like the most basic way, seeing. Being Dina suffer this injury, hearing this conversation about we can nick an artery, like, that could be it. It's a wrap.

Later in this episode, we see a bullet great, you know, nick the side of Mel's jugular and that's it, right? So we talk so often because we are so rooted in Ellie's experience about immunity to the cortisps virus, the great threat. And I just thought reminding us that our characters can die in all these other ways and that an injury that you suffer when you're, sneaking through the woods could be the end if you didn't have what you needed, a person to help you, something to disinfect the wound was like an important bit of mooring. When Jesse found that tenderness again and put his hand on Dina's cheek and said, I got you, like, obviously to be clear, the relationship between Joel and Ellie and the relationship between Dina and Jesse is a different type of relationship.

But I do think that language choice I got you invokes Joel. finding Ellie at the end of episode eight in season one after David and saying, like, it's okay, baby girl, I got you. I got you. It just makes us think about, like, who are you there for? Who can you count on? And then, yeah, to your point, Ellie's absence here, and then especially the nature of Ellie's return, you know, the pounding on the door, the shimmer test to be able to, that's great stuff. Jesse, always thinking of shimmer. We love it. We respect it. We need Yeah. Jesse, come on House of Art. You can't. You're dead. But if you weren't, come on House of Mars. That was a painful journey to go on with you in real time right there. Boy, I was like, yeah, Jesse, come on House of Art. No. But just for...

I welcome Ghosts on House of Art. Ghosts are... We can absolutely interview a ghost. Ghosts are welcome in House of Art. I agree. Ghosts, a werewolf, certainly a vampire. You would love that. Thrill of my lifetime to interview a vampire. There you go. But especially because Jesse, you know, immediately and then on their walk again later, it's like, where were you? Where have you been? It is so top of mind for us that Ellie went to the hospital. Before Ellie makes the choice to not go with Jesse to help save Tommy, yeah.

Go to Whale and Whale to hunt down Abby, Ellie made the choice at the end of episode five to go after Nora after Dina had been shot. Like we will just keep hammering and then we hit an episode five. And they're like, here's the plan. Yeah. We'll be back. So it's not just that, like, they could, they're wondering where Ellie has been. Is Ellie okay? What could have happened to Ellie?

But, like, Dina, the person Ellie loves is gravely wounded to not be the one by Dina's side to make sure she's okay is like really that distinction. And who's there is really notable here. I think especially given that like when Dina says she's pregnant and there's this sort of like, I've seen the memes mocked line of like, I'm going to be a. dad, right? A line that I liked, but that's fine. But Ellie's like a immediate assumption of like, your family is going to be my family. So like, I am going to be part of this essentially like Thruple arrangement around a baby. Like, you know, Jesse's going to be involved. I'm going to be involved. Dean is going to be involved. This is going to be our baby. And I'm like, where? Where are you showing up? This, this new us that Ellie claims in five.

is not something that she has any kind of ability to hold on to. And I've been thinking about that a lot in the context of this episode, this idea of like, can you find a new, like, what does it mean to find a new us when you've lost someone and that idea of that evolution through grief? Where can you reinvest? And is it sticky? For Joel, yeah. Losing Sarah, and then having this very loose test connection,

Tommy obviously also there sort of like in his network. And then it's not until Ellie that he's able to reform. It wasn't time that did it, right? Like, is able to reform this connection. Now, it wasn't time that did it, but Ellie has had way less time than Joel to sort of like form new attachments. But I think as we think about these characters and these cycles of violence and some of the I will say for the spoiler section. I think this idea of like, you know, can you reattach yourself?

Yeah. Or are you just out there alone floating in your grief and sorrow? I think is really interesting. And I think Jesse's tenderness, he doesn't call her baby girl, but I think that's like a very good comp to Joel. It would be kind of weird if he did. And then there's this like wide shot of Dina like head from back screaming and the thunder and the lightning. And it's like freaking gothic horror. And where is Ellie?

Right. You know? And so yeah, I like you calling out this idea that like Ellie made this choice at the end of five, which we talked about. Yep. She comes back here and we're going to talk about that in a second, traumatized, upset by what she did. and then just doubles down on that same behavior in not going after Tommy. Which I think is what's so interesting about what we're watching and about this particular character journey and arc. I really like admire how messy this is.

And the, you know, I was thinking about Joel, like, I saved your life. And Abby's response is what life, right? And, like, Abby had people around her. Ellie has people around her. And I think that the, I'm going to be a dad moment and all of that, which I also, as you know, really liked. I think what's important about where we find Ellie is not that she is like, I am uninterested in Dina's love. She badly wants that. And she knows what it feels like and the capacity to transform inside of that.

And then she does the things she does anyway. Yeah. But she can't fully access it, you know? Like she wants it, understands what it is, but can't connect, latch on to it, you know? Yeah. In an anchoring kind of way, at least inside of this section here. So I, all right. As you mentioned, shimmer name check number one.

Very, very important. Do you have anything you want to share right now about, about shimmer? I'll, uh, I'll hit it later. I'll hit it later. Yeah. All right. When you get to the aquarium. Great. Love to talk about a horse in an aquarium. Okay, so, um, it will be through the lens of discussing a dog. I know. I know. I was just thinking about that John Mullini bit, the horse in the hospital and I was like, a horse in an aquarium, there are seahorses. Okay. Anyway. Um, mm-hmm. Ellie, Ellie arrives, you know, does the sort of shimmer password gambit, Jesse's like,

Dina's okay, where were you? Ellie's not really listening to Jesse, just like focused on getting to Dina, belatedly, getting to Dina. And Ellie in this mode here is quite different, I would say, at least in this moment, from Ellie in the game who shows up, like, covered in so much blood that Jesse's like, that your blood? We get focused on the hands shaking inside of game Ellie. I was thinking a lot about Bella's performance versus Ashley Johnson's performance in the

game. And I think there's just like a number of adaptive differences that set Ellie up to have a different trauma reaction to this. I think it's important for us to see how physically shaken Ellie is after she kills Nora in the game because we've watched Ellie kill so many people. Right. Doesn't really kill Nora. But like, you know, brutalized Nora in the game.

Yeah. Because we've watched her kill so many people in the game at that point. But it's like, what's another death? And so we really, really need to know that this was different for Ellie in the game. For Ellie in the show, you know, we've talked a bit about the people that she's killed and we've seen her gleefully pick off the infected. But, like, you know, a complaint that I've heard from the game players is that Ellie in the show is not as competent or not as violent as Ellie in the game. And I think, I don't know for certain if Craig and Neil feel exactly this way. But I think that, like, if we were to just watch Ellie go on a killing spree through Seattle, then when we get to Nora, then when we get to Owen, then when we get to Mel, will it really,

feel all that different. And so removing that, then Nora's death hits, again, not a real death, but a death. O&MEL's worse than death, yeah. Yeah. Owen and Mell's death hits. And so the way that Bella plays this as like this like inner storm is tremendously effective to me. They're both effective performances to me.

I don't know. What do you think about this? Yeah, I mean, I think there are some overt distinctions between game and show in terms of what is actually part of this conversation as well that we'll discuss momentarily. But yeah, in terms of this state of being, I think obviously in both cases there is like a just harrowing aspect to Ellie making her way into the dressing room back into just the realm of being with Dina and then, you know, confront. fronting what she has done and what she is capable of and what was, as we will hear her say, actually, easy, easy to do. I thought that the fact, to connect to what we were talking about a few minutes ago, the fact that Dina, you know, Ellie checks on Dina, of course, looks at the wound, asks if the baby's okay. How do you know? I just do, obviously, in light of everything that happens with Mel and, like, thinking about this connection between a mother who's, carrying a child and that is just like very intense.

But the fact that Dina then, you know, sees the blood seeping through the shirt and immediately goes into like caring mode, nurturing mode, tending to Ellie who was not there to do the same for her, just all like, all very striking. And then, yeah, in terms of like kind of what the toll is in those initial days in Seattle, My assumption is that there are like, I think the conversation about what is the path to each of our like notable set points and set pieces in each of these days has been, you know, has been interesting. And I think obviously when you're playing the game, the sheer volume of tonnage that you have to get through, obviously, like, leads to a different sense of of pace and like what those days are full of and what maybe even Seattle feels like to get back to the question from the top of the podcast. I did think that in this moment here, though, we have a very clear portrait of the toll of this time and the decision to go here and do this, right? We have the physical toll. Dina's very injured. Dina is not in good shape and we'll be not in good shape at the end of the episode.

And Tommy's like, we can't like, can't really like move her in a storm. Yeah. Ellie is seriously injured from fending off all of those stalkers. We are only three days removed from looking down over the overpass and, like, our sweet summer children. Piece of cake. This is going to be a cinch. Easy peasy. Yeah.

And now everyone's barely hanging on, both physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, all of it. So I think the kind of core truth of where we find, Ellie, is the same? Like, what have I done? Yeah, she will do it again. But yeah, you're right. There are distinct calibrations.

Yeah. I love the arms up. Arms up, which is from the game as well. There's a lot different in the scene, but there's some striking similarities. Arms up, again, to your point, is like a mothering thing to say. And I love that the wounds, I don't love,

but the fact that the wounds on Ellie's back, are from the stalker attack. So their wounds sustained, trying to defend, like, put her body between the person she loves and the violence, the harm.

So Dina, intending to those wounds, is tending to wounds that were inflicted, you know, on her behalf. Yeah. Which is a difference from the game, and I really like that change a lot. We're, of course, thinking about the uranotomy and for being ripped apart language.

But to your point, Dina in the game has mournings, it is like ill from her pregnancy. To look at Dina here with her bandage leg and also they like put like base on Isabella Merced's mouth, like lips to give her that pallor. Yeah. That they do for like vampire makeup. You know, so like she's physically drained of blood. and she's the one taking care of Ellie here. And I think that, like, so she, she, she, she, she got some, like, crossword puzzle clues from Nora, whale and wheel, you know, which is really interested. And then Ellie's face is very blank when she says she was infected, it was already setting in.

She does not talk about the spores, which I think is. an interesting choice from a writing perspective. I can understand why it's like, let's not pause and talk about the how spores work inside of this world. But like, do you think it's that or do you think she skips it because it reveals how even more horrific? She's like, Nora was already infected. So, you know, whatever she was dying. Not she will live in a half light state, like, you know, rotting into the wall.

This is the horrible thing I did. I think a little bit of both because obviously we are about to watch Ellie reveal a number of things, a truth about herself, a truth about Joel. But the fact that there is still some withholding the particular manifestation and depravity of that decision and the state that she left another person in, I like that read that like, you know, we've been talking about this over the last few episodes. what does it, what does it mean to show somebody who you are and how scary is it, that they might not want you anymore, they might not accept you and love you anymore. And to not, to be taking

such a massive step on the truth and lies front in this conversation, but still, um, wonder where that third rail is. Like, what will be the thing that is too much? I like. And I also think you're right that there's like a practical element of, okay, let's save the, the spore exposition. Yeah. For like a conversation they have elsewhere. and not slow down the scene and focus on this, yeah, the emotional truth of what is unfolding here. Okay. So when we get this exchange, Dina says, did you kill her? Ellie says, no, I left her.

Dina says, well, yeah, well, maybe she got what she deserved. Then Ellie whispers, maybe she didn't, which I loved that delivery. Ellie saying, yeah, well, maybe she got what she deserved. I just wanted to take a second to, like, dwell on this idea of, like, deserved inside of the apocalypse. We've talked about this. We've talked about this. It has come up a couple times. This idea, you know, of course it's like what Nora invokes, all of that sort of stuff.

But I just think that this idea of justice versus vengeance is very interesting and how distinct those two ideas are. That the idea of vengeance is like an emotional one and justice is a logic fact-based. Sort of like here are the laws we all accept to be true. and here are all the facts and evidence for how you broke these communally accepted laws and here is the punishment we already decided on

before we even started these proceedings. That's justice. And justice is meant because of the way it's laid out and when it works, it doesn't always, obviously, but when it works is meant to provide closure. That's the end.

We all agree. and this is what when Abby is you know like hovering over Joel and saying like you know there's just some things we all agree or fucking wrong

right like there's this idea of like what is what is deserved what is vengeance what is justice inside of a society that is broken down to this degree and especially when you create these little micro societies like the WLF have rules rules inside that they adhere to. The seraphites certainly have rules

inside of their community that they adhere to. And some harrowing hand signals. Jackson, Lord. Jackson has their counsel, their voting body. They have their rules, right? But when you cross into another person's territory, when you go, when you leave your community, and it's just you out there in the world

or you and your plus one out there in the world, you know, what does that wilderness justice look like? And so how messy the idea of justice is inside of a place where you don't have these accepted, these agreed upon rules, and how vengeance is just an open wound and justice is this closed loop theoretically. I love that, and it takes me back to

Ellie's the strategy behind Ellie's pitch to the council where that was specifically the distinction that's a lie hinged on right?

It's not about revenge what I want is what you used to give people I want justice and the vote is no and the response from people like Gail is she's a liar

and there as we talked about at the time in our episode three pod there were certainly parts of what Ellie said that that were true Right. But this is the lie is like that core kernel, that driving force of what does Ellie want? What is she after? And most crucially, I think, like, what does she think is hers to impart? And that is like, I mean, it's just- Who gets to decide? It's just Gandalf and Frodo, right? It's like, I love this always, you know, like, do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment for even the very wise cannot see LN's, which I think connects beautifully to your, um, mushroom tendril network opening note. You don't see the end when you take a step.

And if the step you take is in pursuit of vengeance, well, what are the consequences of that going to be? I mean, that's the story for yourself internally, for the people you love, for other people. I mean, that's the story we're watching. Here's a major departure from the game inside of this scene, which is Ellie telling Dina the story of it was a long time ago before I came to Jackson.

There was a firefight base in Salt Lake City. There was a hospital there. They were going to use me to make a cure, but it meant that I would have died. And Joel found out and he killed everyone in the hospital. He killed everyone in the hospital. Everyone. He killed Abby's father. He was a doctor and Joel shot him in the head to save me.

Okay. This is more information then. Ellie has at this point in the game because of the Abby's dad information. and this is way more information than Dina ever gets in the game. So, Mallory, I know you had a chance to moderate this press conference with Craig and Neil, so that we don't have the official podcast to look to, do you have any insight from them on why they made this decision? The thing that was most on my mind watching this scene and thinking about this change

and why Ellie doing this, why Ellie telling Dina, of this feels like it is the thing Ellie would do in the universe of the show because it is such a departure. And so what else do we have, like, buttressing a moment like this that is also very core to what the show is doing and focusing on, right? So I was thinking a lot about the, again, the porch scene and everything we talked about in the penultimate episode, like, if you get the chance, I hope you'll do a little bit better than me.

And so just one of the questions that I asked Craig and Needs. just more broadly, like with this scene as the impetus for it, but more broadly, and I've been thinking about this a lot the last couple weeks with the penultimate in the finale. What does it mean when a liar is confronted with what it feels like to be lied to? Right. When Ellie, a character who the showrunners routinely referred to as a liar who Gail is like, she's a liar and Tommy's like, well, she lied. It's like, no, she's a liar.

And this is obviously something that they're very interested in exploring creatively. Like, why do people lie? People lie, why? Where does that lead them? And Ellie had to look into Joel's eyes and confront her own nature, right? And like what that felt like to be on the other side of it. Interesting. That's interesting.

Sorry, I had a, I want to hear your whole answer and then I will give you my reaction to that. So I was thinking about, I want to, I want to, I want to. I want to make sure before we leave the scene that we talk about the Dina part of it, because I have some questions for you and how you're interpreting the Dina reaction to what she learns here, given some of her prior comments, but in terms of like Ellie's perspective. So even just the way the scene is framed, right, we have, you know, again, Ellie coming to us from this like almost spectral plane, this kind of haunted ghostly quality, the way that we're on Dina's face a lot. But in that mirror framing, I was struck not only by Ellie looking at Dina in the mirror,

but Ellie having to, again, like, look at herself, right, and confront this thing that she's done and confront saying out loud. Like, it was easy. I was thinking of Joel and the, like, easiest thing you ever had to do. We all debate it and talk about it, but easiest choice he ever had to make and what does that tell you about yourself? I don't, unfortunately, have a transcript for the entire presser because there was no time between that and the pod. But I do have this answer and another crucial one later, written out in full, because I, I knew this would come up. I knew we would want to talk about this. So here is what Craig had to say. Quote, look where Ellie tells the truth. She tells the truth at the middle of the most private and

close relationship she has. After. Not before, leading up, during, or immediately after confirming that she has, that she and this other person are in love. It's after after, when she finally vomits it out. And that is a question of who deserves the truth, because telling the truth is vulnerable. And in this world, if you tell the truth, you're weak. You're giving something away. And look at how hard it is there for her. And then on her face, consider how close it is to the way Joel looked when he was talking to her. It will always be hard.

What we ask of the audience is to understand why they're lying. They're not lying to manipulate. They're not lying to be evil. They're lying to protect themselves. And when they stop lying, it means there is an extraordinary trust there. And in both cases, when they fess up, Joel or Ellie, they believe they may be losing the person that they love because of it. This distinction between the uses and the thems again, like what it means inside of a relationship defined by love. When you love a person, like that in that porch conversation, it's not just Joel unburdening himself and confessing at last and answering this challenge from Ellie with the truth.

it's a conversation that also features him saying, like, I love you in a way you can't understand. And that when you're lying to the people you love and withholding from the people you love, it has a cost. It has a cost on them and it has a cost on you. And so that just felt really, like, palpable to me here. But I also think then Ellie is like just, is not in a state of active truth telling either. And so that is really interesting. Like even Jesse is like repeatedly asking where she went. She doesn't tell him, you know?

So it's not like Ellie is just ready to sling the truth freely. And that's what made. And this is what Craig was addressing. Like that's what makes the fact that Ellie wants to do that with Dina for Dina here feel significant. I love that. I love you raising this idea of like what does it mean to be lied to when you're a liar. There is that. I love what you're saying about confronting your own nature.

That's really good. There's also this degree of like ego that's involved, this idea of like don't bullshit a bullshitter, right? Like how dare you try to pull one over on me? I'm the one who pulls things over on people. And I was thinking about that in terms of Ellie and this question of like, who gets to decide who deserves what or who meets out the vengeance or what the sentence should be. and, you know, to your Gannolf and Frodo question, like, that's a god complex, right?

For sure. You know? And so inside of Ellie, among all these other roiling emotions, there is this ego that's involved in it. And there's also the ego, I forget who said this. And I think it was in reference to this game. But this idea of the ego investment in being right, this idea of like, I have decided that what we have to do is kill Abby and we've come here to kill Abby. That's what we,

that's the decision we've all agreed on is, is the thing to do. And to have to admit to yourself, you know, Tommy will ask Ellie later in the theater like, are you okay? You know, she gets to live, are you going to be okay with that, right? That's this crucial question that's in the game as well, right? There's all these ideas of vengeance and justice and peace and all these other things, but there's also this idea of admitting you were wrong. Your big mission was wrong. That's not what you should have done. There's ego wrapped up inside of that.

That is interesting to think about when we think about Ellie. Yeah, absolutely. And I think whether it's telling Dina this huge thing about Joel or having to reckon with whether this was the right pursuit in the first place, all of it also feels just very connected to me to the, I feel like the Gail Joel scene at the beginning of the season was really there for a reason and a lot of key things with Joel and everything. But like,

and I thought also the mirroring of Joel with Gail, Joel with Ellie on the porch, the shaking and the nodding and the crying. And that's like so present here with Ellie as well in this conversation. You know, in the did you know part. Are you brave enough to say it out loud? And like maybe that means you hurt the other person. Maybe it means they don't accept you. Maybe it means you have to admit that you were wrong.

Like it all feels like it fits under that, that larger idea. So watching our characters grapple with that inside of the relationships that really like are their whole world now. Yeah. Very high stakes. The mirror framing, as you mentioned, I also really, really loved this idea that like my interpretation was like, I like what you said and also like a little different of like, let's, as we look at ourselves in a mirror, here we are, two 19 year old girls, we are the same. And then Ellie turns around and is like, here's the way in which I'm not like you.

Here's the way in which we're different. Here's the way in which we don't mirror each other, actually. And I thought, again, Bella's delivery here was so, so good. a lot of eyes brimming with tears, a lot of whispered confessions. It just all really, really work for me. It's an incredibly intimate scene and like warmly lit and just sort of like really, really magical inside of all of this pain and physical bloody brutality that is injured both of them physically.

And then there's this potential injury to the relationship. So your question to me is, Dina has a reaction to this, right? Did you know who they were? No, but no, but I knew what he did, right? And then Dina gets up in a way, to me, reads as like, I don't like this information. This information has changed the way that I'm thinking about you. But then when we very quickly get the bracelet exchange, that to me is like, okay, I've processed this and I'm still choosing you as my person.

Is that what do you think? Yeah. So, you know, I thought it was interesting, too, that before what Ellie reveals here before, it's important to say before, Dina says like, yeah, well, maybe she got what she deserved as you noted. Later, we get Tommy saying, you know, they made their choices. Right. So, like, we do hear other characters expressing incapacity for ruthlessness too. Yeah. Right? It's not just Ellie. But then, yeah, moving, Dina moving. into we need to go home.

Yeah. I was particularly fascinated by that through the lens of what Dina said in episode five, you know, when she was recounting what had happened with her mother and sister and said, what if my mom and sister were beaten to death in front of me? What if that motherfucker made me watch as he did it? Would it make a difference if my family had hurt his people first? No. No.

And if I hadn't killed him, if he had gotten away, I promised you, I would have hunted him down forever. So forever. Forever. Forever. Second forever, exactly. I thought this was really interesting because, like, obviously we're thinking about Joel and Ellie there. But now also, especially for Dina in light of having heard this thing and learned this history and this truth, I feel like Dina must be considering the Abby comp too, right? That Abby could be a person who said that and had her version. of that, which is interesting, and just like kind of connects to this larger thing that we're focusing on of like, who is everybody else's us and where does that lead them, right? And so I was wondering, like, what you thought the kind of the mix was of factors and variables that lead to this. I agree with you, the bracelet moment so close on the heels of this. It's still clear that Dina's like, Ellie, I'm with you. Yeah. I have not, this is, I have, but we have to go home. Right. Go home to a place

where we can rediscover, like, who we are. Yeah. How much of this is about I have confronted in a real way, an urgent way, my mortality while carrying a child, right? That's there. How much is learning the truth about what Joel did, this extra variable, not just the comp to her family, but, like, could have been a cure, right?

That's a big thing to dig in and to process. How much is learning that, Ellie kept this from her. Because, you know, the three-month gap in between episodes two and three, and then thanks to our emailer for the math a few weeks ago, like the four-gastened 45-ish days to get to Seattle. So let's say like it's been like four and a half months or something like that. That's not the same amount of time to withhold something as how long Joel kept what he did from Ellie. It's just not. But it does overlap with in the recent days here this real evolution of their relationship. Yeah, what feels like the most dominant shift from forever, forever here? I love what you're saying about her thinking about Abby and her sort of understanding, like, oh, God, we're all just doing the same thing back and forth to each other.

So that, that I think is, and this idea that Ellie is not giving her all the information. We're not on the same page. I thought we were doing this together. We're not doing it. You know, I forced you to let me into, on, like, on this trip, you were going to go with just some guns and, I don't know, die of starvation a few days out. So, one, we're off and three cans of food. So I, like, I made you make this an us trip, but I thought we had decided we are in us. Right.

And here you're still holding things back to me. So I think that's in the mix all there. Also, just from, like, a number of. a number of these little changes, Dina getting the arrow to the thigh, et cetera, et cetera, I think also achieve this difference that we're not,

oh, a woman is pregnant, she's immediately sort of like infantilized to a certain degree, right? Because, like, in the game, she's got morning sickness and they're like, we have to take her back. We have to take Dina back.

We have to go back. She's sick. She needs medical care. She needs all these things because she's pregnant. And this, Dina's pregnant. She's like, I'm going to go ahead and do this anyway, get shot in the leg, and then she's the one actively making the choice of we need to go back. Partially because of, I'm sure, the equation has changed for her, knowing she's pregnant.

Like, that is in the equation there. But I think making it her active choice that has more to do with sort of her moral consideration of the Quagmire that they found them in, rather than just this woman is pregnant. and now she is incapable of going on, I think is a smart adaptive choice. Yes. All right. So before they can go back, though, they have to go find Tommy.

They have to go meet up with Tommy. And I will say, I love this moment in the game when Jesse's like, she needs to go back. And Ellie's like, yeah, but I got to find, maybe you should take her back. And I'll just go find Tommy. I'll just go find,

I got to. I mean, morally, I have to go fight Tommy, so why don't you go take her back? And then I will do this. And we're both doing the moral right thing to do. When in fact, of course, she, as we quickly find out, she's just still got her eyes on Abby. In terms of the bracelet exchange, this is like a huge moment. Inside of the game, it happens a slightly different time.

But just what this totem means, inside of this game, we are constantly thinking about these artifacts and totems of regardless. going back to our discussion of season one, this idea of like the things they carried, when you are walking around with just a pack, what do you keep in the pack? What do you make sure you have with you? Joel and the Broken Watch. Ellie and Dina's bracelet.

Ellie and Joel's gun, which will come up later inside of this episode. You know, just like these artifacts, you know, what does the guitar mean? What do these little items mean in terms of connection with someone? The design on Dea's bracelet is called the Hamsa, and it is often associated with Jewish culture. And inside the game, Dita's Jewish identity is like a big part of her character.

We talked about the synagogue sequence that was in the game that's not here. Hamza is more broadly used symbol than just inside of the Jewish practices, but it is this idea of imparting luck and protection, prevent harm to the wearer and bring good fortune, right? And so we have this quippy little, it's for good luck, not sure, it's been working for you, I'm a live thing. But also, like, and we'll talk a little bit later about, in the spoiler, section, sort of some other sort of importance of the bracelet inside of the game.

But, like, I think it's interesting that, like, Ellie gets this bracelet. Inside of a show that has these questions of, like, faith and spirituality and a prophet and stuff like that, Ellie gets this bracelet. And inside of the show section here survives drowning, hanging, being shot at, like, all, you know, all of these, I wrote the notes, like, the full Rasputin, like, Like all these things. And came out the other side alive. And so you can chalk that up to whatever you want to chalk it up to.

But this idea of Dina's bracelet, something that Anne Fully, the costume designer, talked about on her Instagram, how important it was for them to get this just like exactly right. This totemic exchange. And especially like, I was thinking about our discussion of Andor, this idea of like, spoilers for Andor. season two, if you have not watched Andor season two, here are some spoilers. This question of like, are Bix and Cassian married? And the question of like, well,

well, what does it mean to be married inside of Feroxian culture? Who knows? But just because they didn't say vows and exchange rings, does that mean they're not married? They do this like beautiful hand gesture from home thing. What are the rituals? What are the exchanges?

What are the promises? And so Dina giving Ellie this piece of jewelry, this is like a this is a vow of a certain degree, this offer of protection, I am your us, I protect you as you go out and do this dangerous thing without me. Anything you want to say about this bracelet moment? No, I love all of that. I mean, I think it's particularly keenly felt, obviously, again, on the heels of this, I have said these things like, here it is. for it takes on even more magnitude and meaning as a way of Dina saying to Ellie, like,

I love you anyway. And I accept this and like I want to be in and us with you. I want you to be mine and I want to be yours. And I think it felt particularly keen not only on the heels of what had happened in the dressing room, but because Jesse is just right there. Like he was watching them with. There's this moment in Deathly Hallows when Harry wakes up and sees their run and Hermione and fall to sleep holding hands.

And it's like the line is like it made him feel strangely lonely. Like, you know, just when you see that like, I have, these people have chosen each other. And I love what you're citing about the list of things that Ellie actually does survive. The state of her soul, an open question. That's not great. Mortality. She's living. She's breathing.

She's alive. I choose to attribute her washing up on shore and her boat just being right there and fine. That's bracelet magic. If that's all bracelet magic, I don't know what it is. What I think is really interesting about that is like if we kind of conduct that to the other us is in the story and especially this idea through the idea of protection and love your desire. when you love somebody to protect them, but then also when does like the impulse to protect lead you astray or lead you maybe to go too far?

It's interesting to think about that for every character and like, you know, what we understand about their limits or about the moral calculus that they do. Obviously, we get a lot of this, like, made explicit text and conversations between Jesse and Ellie throughout the episode. But, yeah, I just like, I think that you're right that Dina is saying to to Ellie, like, you're mine, and I will cloak you in anything I have that can keep you safe. And that reminds you that I'm by your side even when I'm not. And, like, that's a,

that's a beautiful thing. And maybe think of sinners. Should I go see sinners again? Maybe. Okay. Shimmer name check number two. So as you point out, I mean, that bracelet scene is as much about Dina as Ellie as it is about Jesse and Jesse being on the outside of an us. And not just on the outside of an us, but on the outside of an us where, like, he used to be, you know, to your golden trio comp very much on the inside. It was Jesse and Dina as, as boyfriend and girlfriend. Or it was Jesse and Ellie as like, you know, since they were 16, close enough friends that Joel's like, eh? A little something going on there, maybe. And now that Ellie and Dina have chosen each other, he's just Jesse all alone.

Jesse on the outs. And not just on the outs inside of this very complicated dynamic where Dina is pregnant with his child, something that he should be intimately on the inside of, but has not even been told directly yet. Dina gave him the old, I can't drink. You know what that means. But like still. So I can't believe you didn't tack on a vintage Joe phrasing after saying intimately on the inside of. Jesse's saying

Everything changing doesn't have to change. Ellie's like doesn't have to change anything, right? And in him saying everything changing doesn't have to change things. The thing that is so fascinating about this scene actually with Jesse, and we should say, Jesse is so much more fleshed out in the show than he is in the game. And this is such as, you know, it's something that they're interested in in Isaac and a number of other characters.

They're interested in sort of like building. out these characters. So, like, when Jesse dies at the end of this episode, like, it's upsetting and startling in the game unless you've been spoiled by your podcast partner. But, like, inside of the show, there's so much Jesse in this lead-up here, and even back in Jackson,

that it really makes it hit that much harder. But, like, when Jesse says, not just I'm going to be a father, which means I can't die. And Chris Ryan texted me. He's like, never say that in the show. What are we doing? Yep.

But because of you, we were stuck in a war zone. So how about we skip the apologies? Let's find Tommy so I can get us and my kid the fuck out of Seattle. So Jesse is like, you're keeping me out of the us. But the us is still using. I'm still the community. And you are part of the community. And my kid, just FYI.

I am not going to not claim this kid is mine. This kid is mine. Let's get my kid out of Seattle. I thought this is just really facetting this idea of like everything changing doesn't have to change things and everything else that that Joel had an issue with with Ellie changing. And also this idea of like complacency and neglect inside of community. What do we cling to that's the old world?

order, what do we open ourselves up to, that is new, that is different, that is changing. And Jesse being in the crucible of that with just a few more hours left to live in his life. Listen, who are we to say who's right and who's wrong? But at the end of the day, Jesse's us included knowing that shimmer was okay and Alice didn't. And so I think we have our answer. Yeah. I've probably broken my personal record during this season two Last of Us run for the number of times I've said some version of like, well, we can't relate to the exact circumstances, but what we can relate to is, and this was like really that for me, because this just feels like the, when you have a friend group or whatever, colleagues, the family, people, you're went to camp with, like any number of things. And then two people inside of that have clearly

chosen each other and love each other more than they love you. It's like fucking painful, right? And you can want to be happy for them. And I think Jesse does a pretty admirable job of, and I think he is. I think he's sincere and genuine when he says, like, I love her, but not like you do. And I think that's part of why Jesse's great, right, is that he wants them to be happy as individuals and he wants them to be happy together. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, though. And I think that this episode and the exploring and parsing the dynamic in this trio in a world where it's probably more likely given how few people are around behind behind whatever walls you've chosen to live behind, that, you know, three people who are friends end up sleeping with each other. And someone's on the outside of that unless everybody is like watching this season of hacks and giving a throw up a go. We love a thruple.

Love a thruple. There's a whole house of our episode about throuples. Just check it out. Yeah. That was, we didn't really have to work hard to find the excuse to do that. And boy, was it a blast. So I just love that. And I love how true life it felt that this is, what this captured.

Do you think that idea of like two people love each other more than anyone else and other people feel on the outside of that? Do you think that's how everyone at the ringer feels like about us? I don't know. I wish we've chosen each other. I mean, frankly, I hope so. Yeah. I hope they look at us and they're like, their end game. They know it.

Expect your bracelet in the mail any day now. We literally have matching tattoos. You're the best. The other thing I loved about this was tough to think of a guilt trip landing more effectively on Ellie than a dad-centric. one given what Ellie in particular is mourning here. Here's a moment of confusion for me, and I'm hoping you can clear it up. So we see a prophet mural, feel her love mural, and we've already seen one in the show. And Ellie says, there's more than one of her.

And I guess the two murals are supposed to be two different women, and I did not clock this the first time I watched it through until I was like parsing every line. I was like, wait, what does Ellie mean by that? And then I was like going and I was like scrutinizing both murals. And I really can't tell because this is brick-based art in some cases. Whether or not like, I mean, the one that they see in this episode is clearly supposed to be a black woman. And the depictions of the prophet, a character we never meet in the game, is a white woman. And the mural that we saw earlier in the season is a more one-to-one translation to a version that's in the game.

but it's on brick so I was unclear anyway. Is your interpretation that the previous one was a depiction of a white woman and this is depiction of a black woman and Ellie's like there's more than one of her, whatever the her is, that Ellie doesn't know the full story of that yet. And if that's the case,

is the intention behind that because the idea of the prophet and the idea of the seraphites is this idea of what happens when a real life figure a person who espouses some idea of philosophy gets sort of like warped and extremized over time. I don't know if extremizes a word. And so made more extreme. And like in the way of all, like the fact that you see some portraits of Jesus and it's a white man and some portions of Jesus and it's a black man. So like this idea of like we've so, we've lost the plot so

much on the origins of this religion that we can't even agree on what this person looked like to begin with. What do you want to say? I definitely think there's more than one of her question mark is here to draw our attention and make us wonder. I don't know if I feel confident assigning a race to the first or even. I know. Or even the game version.

But I agree that clearly the second mural is a different person. And then also we have this line. Is it clearly? That's what I'm saying. It's like artistic depictions may vary. But like if it's two different races, that's when it feels like this is a different person. I think that Ellie says it is meant to make us wonder about it. So like, yeah, I think it's, it feels to me like, I guess it's not impossible that there could the profit could be revealed to be a mantle.

You know, that there could be more than one. The bread pirate Robert's. Just so. I think that's not impossible. And that could be because it is a mantle that is meant to be inherited or because other people in the wake of the original prophet tried to claim the mantle and become that person and hold on to that power and that leadership and inherit the flock, claim the flock. But my primary interpretation was what you said.

I interpreted it as this seeking to like capture and maybe we will explore further in future seasons, this idea of like worshiping someone in your own image. And particularly like with the seraphites through this lens of the passage of time, you know, and when we had that conversation, our first glimpse of the another, you know, the duo, the father and the daughter, the seraphites walking through down the path in episode three. and like this was like a long time ago, right? And just we have the sense of how much time has passed.

And so what are you, what are you following? Are you following a person who you knew or are you following an idea? And then how does the idea shift? Yeah. And at what point does an abstraction or a core belief for any version of that and anything, anything along the spectrum there, start to represent something to each person that it wasn't at the start. And I think that the show clearly seems interested in exploring that in the future.

It's maybe the thing I'm most excited for in season three. Because Neil talked to us about this idea of like, or in interviews about this idea of the profit being something they want to explore more in season three. And I'm like eagerly anticipating an entire profit origin story episode, if not. throughout the whole season. I don't need to write this show. They're way better at writing than I am, but I was thinking about this last night. I got kind of feverish about it.

I was like, would it be interesting to have stories of the prophet told and every time it's told you are looking at it, but it looks different. You know, it's like a different woman or something like that. Or we meet the woman and she bears no resemblance to any of these mural depictions or something like that. That is really exciting to me. And also thinking about that, as it's intended to be,

as this mirror of the WLF. The WLF, as we saw its origins, is Isaac saying, hey, these militarized assholes are treating people like garbage. Let's build something better and brings babies. Baby things to bring along with him. And what has that become? Right. You know, how has that been warped?

on its side. So that brings us into this next seat wins. It's not our war part with Jesse and Ellie taking shelter. Jesse and Dina both always on the lookout for storm clouds. Ellie oblivious, as ever.

Anyway, they see this horrific encounter. We got the return of Britain. Yeah. And this absolutely just like vile treatment of this young seraphite that they find. and we got a couple emails actually last week about children inside of the context of the mushroom apocalypse

because of the conversations around Joel and Ellie and when is Ellie an adult and one of the rites of passages. So I thought I thought I would read them because I think there's a number of takeaways from the scene, but I think knowing what we know about the larger context of the story, this idea of he's a fucking kid is a really important part of when is an adult, an adult, and when is a kid of a kid, and what does that mean inside of this story?

So Lily wrote it to say, I've long felt that one of the reasons some people bounce off this story, meaning the last of us, so aggressively, is that it begs the question we rarely want to be asked inside within genre fiction. In telling Joel's story,

the first season slash game indirectly portrays a world in which the only way children born into it can survive is by turning them themselves into soldiers, where many post-apocalyptic narratives either gloss over this fact of their setting or ignored entirely. The Last of Us, too, does the opposite and reckons with it head on. By placing us within Ellie and Abby's stories, this phase of the narrative asks us to take on the uncomfortable and distressing task of confronting what happens to these child soldiers when they invariably become adults. Which I thought was really interesting, and then I'll just say that our listener, Sophie, was talking about this idea of, like,

we have these benchmarks in American society of like you turn 18, you can vote. Right. You know, you turn 21, you can drink. You get your turn 16, you get a car. These rights of passage, these, this is growing up sort of idea. And tied to like our laws, which I think is, that's not Sophie's point necessarily, but it's all tied to our like laws and systems. And so in a society where all like those laws go away, you can get a good. gone when you're 16, you know, what is voting inside of here, et cetera?

What becomes the right of passage? And right of passages exist, you know, in all cultures always. And Sophie talks about like various, like, rituals and stuff like that. But she wrote, in earlier times, childhood and adulthood looked different. The idea of childhood as a peaceful and innocent time developed in the late 19th to 20th century when children stopped being sent to work and got the time to go to school for. full-time. It would make sense that after the outbreak, kids grow up faster and become official adults sooner, perhaps at 16. However, based on Jolinelli's conversation, Jesse going on patrol

at 16 was more of an exception than a rule. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. So just sort of like this idea of what is childhood? Yeah. What is innocence inside of this world that the story is set in? What do you think about this, Malirman? Oh, interesting emails. This is fascinating. thing. I, so I'm thinking of like hearing Dina tell Ellie, I, you know, I was fucking eight, right? And like the things in the courteseps apocalypse in this world that you have to face and do and confront and accept as a part of your reality, basically from the second you're born. But of course, that doesn't mean, like, we're not. meant to hear that story and think. And so at 18 is not a child, we're supposed to think,

oh my God, what a horrific thing that you did not get to experience a childhood in its intended form and plenty of people don't, right? I was, as we talked about last week, I was like, I felt even though we did get 16, I did kind of feel like skipping 18 was intentional in this respect. Like, it's such a, a mile marker in our lives and, like, but it's not here. So we're almost like going to remind you of that. It's funny. I probably read this incorrectly, but I didn't, because now hearing it in the email, that does seem right to me, but I didn't at the time, um, clock Ellie saying to Joel, like, well, Jesse got to do this as 16 as like, Jesse being more of the exception. I read it more as like overprotective Joel isn't ready to let

Ellie do the things that other, um, 16 year olds are doing. But yeah, like, when Ellie was, you know, 14. Like, Ellie had to kill her best friend and crush when she was a child. Yeah. And so, like, how can you say that you're a child after you've had to

do something like that? And, like, what does that even mean? Like, these concepts of phases of your life almost cease to function and have utility, even though they are, like, fundamental and essential to seek to preserve? It's this very painful dissonance to have to, like,

acknowledge. You want to protect the idea of childhood and make sure that Benji can have it, but also he's five and Joel's bouncing him on his knee, saying like you shoot monsters, you know? Out there are monsters, my guy? Yeah. Yeah, how, you know, how early would Tommy, you know, teach his kiddo how to shoot, you know, like, you know,

I don't know the answer to that. But the realities are different, you know. I have a horror of that. But like, you know, when I used to read, Little House on the Prairie books or whatever, like, you know, your reality is different. Okay. What I think is great about The Last of Us, and we talked about this a bit last week, in addition to many things, is there are no easy answers for a lot of those questions. And I think one of the best examples of that is this argument that Ellie and Jesse have here.

when Jesse's like, this is not our war, right? And Ellie, and we've talked about Ellie's empathy before. We talked about it with Eugene. Yes. You know, we talked about it with Sam. We've talked about it with her, like, wanting to help save the world. Like, Ellie and her empathy is a thing. And it exists alongside all of these other tendencies and all of these other attributes that she has.

Jesse is right when he says to intervene would have gotten them captured at best and killed at worst you know what I mean? Ellie's like he's just a kid about this seraphite that's being dragged away and then later we see Ellie dragged away and narked on by an even smaller seraphite kid. Much younger child, yeah. And those serfites do not offer Ellie any empathy

or a second to, you know, explain herself or defend herself. There's no offer of empathy from them. And Ellie's, Ellie is right, right? Like you can't just turn away from an atrocity like that. And Jesse is right at the same time. And when Jesse says, I can get us out of Seattle and then says

mere minutes of screen time later, I'm not dying out here, not for any of them. This is not our war. Right. It's not our war. He has circled the wagons around what the us is and what the them is in this world. And for Ellie, it's a much more,

Ellie who thought she could save the whole world, it's a much more complicated proposition. And I think, this is something we've been talking about. I feel so fortunate that we've had and or in The Last of Us back to back as we're navigating the world right now. Embarrassment of riches.

They're both such rich shows, but they're also in many ways about the same thing, which is like, don't look away from atrocities that are happening right in front of you. And then Jesse's question, which is a question a lot of people ask in general, and a question that we talked about a lot when we covered and or is like, well, what can I do to stop it? This thing is so big. They're at war in Seattle.

And Jesse's like, it is way too big for us to dip a toe into what can we do at all, Save just one person. Save what, like, what do we do? And I think this episode is asking questions about that rather than providing you any easy answers about that. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I thought, as you noted, Burton was a appropriate choice

to bring us into this scene, you know, the formerly not only like innocent face, but wait, why do we call them vote? has no tether to the source of the mockery and the lack of grace for the people that they seek to control and dehumanize and then is here not just slamming the butt of his rifle into the seraphite's head and saying to strip him and torment him and kill him and God knows what else. But it basically has become the thing that we heard him a few episodes. episodes ago say about the quote unquote enemy, right? Animals. Like he is in a feral inhuman state.

And of course, he is treating the person across from him as something less than human. And that is the problem. I thought that, like, I'm really interested in what you're describing with from the L.E. empathy perspective because I think it's fascinating that like when we think about all of the different spheres, Ellie is like the most macro and the most micro, right? Ellie is like, well, it's me and Joel. And like, that's never going to change. And that is driving everything that Ellie is doing. And then also, Ellie had a calibrated sense of her own worth and her capacity to contribute something of meaning to the world through this idea of purpose that would impart a gift to all of humanity. Right. And yet, that's so interesting. Yeah. And yet, I would say Ellie is very lacking

on the in between, right? Because Ellie, as we talked about a lot, and as Jesse Wall, of folks shortly, not much of a community kid when it came to life in Jackson. Yeah, right? Correct. And so everybody is thinking about this, who's the us and who's the them, but in a distinct way. And that is simultaneously, as you're noting, I think quite interesting and quite challenging. And I think that like what Jesse, when Jesse, the fact that Ellie wants to help here makes me love Ellie. and I want Ellie to want to help and I want Jesse to want to help. It feels morally right to want to help, right?

Even at the risk of like your own safety, it feels necessary. It feels imperative. I think that Jesse, who is like the character in this duo in this long time friendship who is much more inclined to say, as you noted, like, well, what about the community? What about the other people who need us?

Being the one to then draw that line is fascinating and like it made me think a little bit of the conversation between Joel and Maria at the beginning of the season about the lifeboats, right? Like if our lifeboat is swamped, yeah, we leave them out there. And then Joel's like, I do wish that we could bring them all in, but what if it hurts us, you know? And this is the, this is the situation that all of these characters are in. And so then you have, like, you have a, you have Seattle. Like, look at what has happened to this place. To everybody who's here.

We got a really, not funny, ha-ha. I'm sorry, I don't have it in the docks because whatever. Email about the housing crisis in Jackson, our listener pointed out that like Joel and Ellie are living this massive house. And actually is just Joel sleeping in there and Ellie's in the garage. That Gail's rattling around this massive house with like Eugene's gone. It's just Gail there now. So it's like, where will we put all these people? Gail would be a great roommate.

Oh, my God. Let me, let's like, let's recap. Yeah, Gail has a copy of Earth abides handy at all times. Gail, rich in bourbon and weed. Gail, ready to comment on the quality of the weed. I would love to have with Gail. Going to baseball games with Gail. Gail, watching baseball, yeah, remembering the O3 Tigers.

Am I, Gail? Sounds like very similar now. I spend a Saturday. I love your point about the macro and the micro because so much of what The Last of Us does do, in its larger storytelling is it's hard to you can't understand the them until you meet one of them

right? Yes. Yes. And then you can understand it. Yeah. But the them is... Because then it's real. Yeah.

The them as a nebulous group is so easy to keep out of the lifeboat and then you meet one of them. And then the math changes. Exactly. Yeah. Um, what are the young man who, uh, is being abused by Burton at all inside of the scene, uh, is sort of repeating this litany, right? He says, the world is not in balance, but I must do my best to write it. She has led me this far. May she guide me. Uh, sort of repeated this, this seraphatic prophet based, uh, feel her love, uh, litany. Um, I was reminded the language, the world's not in balance, but I must do my best to write it. She has led me this far. May she guide me. Maybe. Maybe think, of Hamlet Act 1 scene 5.

Time is out of joint, O curse in spite that ever I was born to set it right. Hamlet is, of course, the ultimate dead daddy revenge story. And then of course, because you invoked Gain-Elf and Frodo. Why not invoke Gannolf and Frodo again and say, I wish it knew not have happened in my time.

So do I is again off. And so do all who live to see such times that that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what we do over the time that is given us. And I was just thinking about that concept and also the concept of like the repeated litany inside of The Last of Us because something we hear from Ellie again and again is where is she? Where's Abby?

Or, you know, just like a repeated Abby, Abby, Abby sort of like thing, this idea of what have you made your religion? What is the what is the rosary that you say to like get you through this? And have you dedicated your, have you pledged your, like, mortal soul to the god of violence? Or, like, what is it? What is you, what have you chosen to make your church and your guiding star inside of something like this? And it's scary. What do we say to the god of death, you know?

Not today, man. I'm not sure if you've heard this before, but the bard is always welcome. And so is the professor. So great work by you. That's our litany. That's a double. It's a double a JR or Willie Shakes moment. Shakespeare and Tolkien back to back is just peak.

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I'm going to guess no, unfortunately. I think that has probably been more picked over than the pretty well-stocked bookstore, depressing to confront how few people in the apocalypse are like, I'd like to... I'd like to read, yeah. Yeah. Not Abby, though. Happy's reading. All right, what do you want to say about this Isaac and Elise Park scene that we get at WLF HQ? Okay, so I love Elise Park.

It's just... Are you in love with her? What's wrong with you? I might be. No, no, no, no. When she was, yes. Yes, I know. I know.

Unlike Isaac, I am prepared to say I might be. I, this is not the most important thing in the scene, but I do feel compelled to observe that Isaac seems to on the brink of building this armada and preparing for this attack to have a bottle of Johnny Walker on his desk. Did you clock this?

Is that what you would drink on the version of war? So what Johnny Walker, what label? I thought it was blue. I was like, is that black label or blue label? Yeah. But I paused and I was looking, I will check again in a fully high-res. You know, it's hit the apps on Sunday night. But the glass seemed to have the blue sheen to me of a blue label.

So I just think it's very impressive to find that this deep into the apocalypse. What do you think is in Jesse? Flask? Is it like wild turkey? Is it just like, you know, gut rot? Maybe. Maybe. What would your, what would your, it's the night before I'm telling the person sitting across from me at the table, we're both probably going to be dead tomorrow. Like, I've saved this bottle of booze. What are you breaking out? It's you. So I'm going to guess it's either a mead that you made in stored or a tequila. It's definitely a tequila. Okay. No free ass, but what kind? I was going to say. I don't want to, I don't want to, I think it's a bottle of. Don Julio Tequila. Ooh, fancy. Well, shouldn't it be fancy if you're cracking it open

on the verge of I may not see the sunrise tomorrow? Here's the deal about Don Julio. Ever since you and I had the experience

of watching the masterpiece that was We crashed and the way that they were drinking Don Julio like it was water. I've had a real complex about it. I'm like, those fuckers

did not deserve the Don Julio. You know, I've never had a sip. Should we share some? Never had it. Yeah, let's do it. I'd love to. What's your, I'm about to go to war bottle? I mean, I would definitely do a rye for sure. I mean, whiskey for sure. I don't think I'm maybe scotch, but possibly bourbon, but almost certainly rye. You know, I like, I like acts from billions and really a mixtures loyalist. The thing that is important to know about you. Also really like a willet. Is that you're actually a 45-year-old man who only watches Showtime shows.

That is like... Forty-five. I feel like I'm at least at, like, 56 or something. 45 is pretty generous of you. I'm a 55-year-old man who only watches Showtime, aka I'm Bill. Okay. Oh, God. I guess the other thing I wanted to note at the top before we break down that conversation is just...

Apparently only one neurosurgeon in the apocalypse. Right. But the meteorologists have lived on. I love this. I'm curious. I mean, I guess Gail is a good example. I'm like, are the doctors just treated like kings? And what does medical school look like in the apocalypse? We might cover this a bit more later. Okay. So the storm is a convergence zone. Yes. And hey, that's the name of the episode. We think. But I don't know if you know about metaphorous Mallory, but it's not just a collision of two storms.

No. But the twin hurricanes of Abby and Ellie are barreling towards each other and will converge in this episode. I love it, honestly. I do. I love it. You mentioned Isaac's Armada. They're going to a place called Serified Island.

just to let people know when I'm play the game, Sarified Island is actually the Queen Anne suburb of Seattle. And if you're a Seattleite listening to this and you're like, hey, wait, that's connected by land. There's massive flooding

and the mushroom apocalypse. What are you going to do? And the Queen Anne suburb has become an island and it is known inside of the game as Serafite Island. And that is where

Ellie, unfortunately, washes up with her boat conveniently next to her and it is where Isaac and his armada are headed. Yes, indeed. I love this part where

Alisa's, again, there's just like, it's a very efficient scene. There's a lot to pick through here. Elise saying all the officers are on board with this large scale attack that Isaac is planning, but I think the rank in file are a little scared. And it made me think about like, how steady is the WLF

you know, power doesn't panic. But Abby and her crew are missing. We'll talk about how Isaac doesn't give a shit about Manning in a second. Brutal.

When Isaac was torturing Malcolm, the serapite in the previous scene, Malcolm said, every day one of your wolves comes to see the truth and takes her into their heart every day. Every day, a wolf leaves you to take the holy mortification to become a seraphite,

and none of us ever leave to become a wolf. So how nervous is Isaac about losing his pack, his numbers, his us? And is that something that you were like considering when you're thinking about him as a character? And we only get a little bit of him in this season, but like more than the game, but like his actions that we've seen so far. Yeah, I felt like three things were happening here with Isaac. like that Malcolm got in his head. That, you know, he's like, you're going to lose.

How are we going to lose? It's like, well, it's a numbers game. The first thing is for someone to worm their way into your innermost sanctum. I thought that just structurally, obviously we will get to the promises and glimpses of the future approach of the show and the story when we get to the end of this episode. But I thought this was just like a tantalizing.

little morsel of where to have you go, you know, to throw out to the audience. Owen and Mel. I thought this was, yeah, really, really great, like, way to wet the appetite there. And then I thought we still have Manny. We have a lot of Manny's, don't we? Brutal. And enough Owens and Mells, but only one Abby was the most, I mean, I thought the ensuing, which you already didn't know, live it to, like, okay, what the fuck?

She's a good soldier grade even, but we have an entire fucking army out there. And you're acting like she's the most important you in love with her or something. He wouldn't be, I don't know, he wouldn't be the first old man, too. Great stuff. But I was really struck here by a couple things. Like, I was thinking back to what we heard Abby say to Joel, you know, about the code. The code. And I've been in this militia and just thinking after Abby lost her father of like, who did Isaac become for Abby?

Right? Yeah. And the espousing of these mantras. creeds that somebody has imparted in you. It's like, wait, okay, what did they become to each other? Did they become an us inside of this larger us? And I think that was like then particularly keen when Isaac said, but only one Abby, because it felt to me like another very intentional and charged Abby Ellie comp and parallel, right? It's not immunity for Abby, but just the idea of being to, even if it's just one other person, maybe especially if it's just to one other person, maybe especially

if it's just to one other person, this prized, like this singular. You know, what makes you the chosen one to the other person who says but only one Abby about you? It's just fascinating to think about. It's interesting to me to think about that inside of the context of, I think this is okay to say, there's like just a few Isaac scenes inside of the game. And a line that he says that actually makes me think of like Jesse or whatever is he's like, no secrets among the SLC crew, right? Like, you guys are your own little us faction inside of my thing.

And if he's got this thing with Abby, that Elise is like, that's weird. You know, how threatening is that that there is another us that Abby maybe feels more allied to than the us of the two of them. Also, I was thinking about how we were talking about the psychology of an Isaac when we learned about his taste in cookware. And he says, if you have Moviel, you use Moviel. Like, is Abby the shiniest little copper bottom pot to ever join the WLF? And he's like, I deserve the best. Yeah. That's a very guest on of him.

And don't I deserve the best? And if the best is Blue Able. Yeah. And that makes me sure it's Blue Able. The best is Moviel. So that's what I'll have. And if the best is Abby, then that is what I will have. And what is interesting inside of the way they've cast Caitlin Dever in this role is if you're thinking

about this inside of the context of the game and the way that Abby is designed in the game is extremely muscle bound and physically intimidating. You're sort of like, yeah, that's his like bruiser. That's his like, you know, whatever. Kailan Deaver is a different kind of power or a different kind of special. So I'm excited to find out what is it about

this version of Abby that has made her the Jesse, the future of the WF, the chosen one to lead the WLF after him in his image. I'm so fat, like, it makes me so excited for season three. Same, really, really excited. Same. Yeah. Love it. You want to go to the bookstore with me?

Let's do it. Did you, like, both in the game and then in the show, paused to see, like, does that say, Elliot Bay? No. I did. Yeah, same. Same. Of course.

I quite. Literally did. Great bookstore. What a great bookstore. Love that bookstore. This is the fictional Kingston bookstore in the game and in the show. Very confusingly named because Kingston is at a completely different place on the map. But let's just not worry about it.

I spent a lot of time on the Seattle map last night when I was putting these notes together. Did you triangulate? I did, actually. Did you have a protractor? Well, I was like, okay, here's the south docks where Tommy is. and here's the aquarium and here's the seraphite island and I'm like, we're all in the same neighborhood and then Kingston is like right, like all the,

like you have to take a ferry to get to Kingston. Could it be a satellite location? Yeah, we think it's a local chain maybe. I'm not going to Kitsap County. Through Kitsap County, you get to Kingston to go to this bookstore. Let me tell you that right now. Tolkien's always welcome.

Shakespeare's always welcome. And actually Lewis Carroll is always welcome. So we should note that on the wall in this bookstore is a quote from Alice in Wonderland. Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it. Not everything's got a morel. That's a mushroom joke, but everything's got a moral if only you can. Wow. You've called me your marvelous mural and text messages many times over the last few weeks, and I'll miss that.

I'll miss that. I think there is like a little fairy tale mushroom in the mural, in the faded Alice Wonderland mural underneath this quote on the wall. I should hope so. There's some, like, clear, you know, why we pick this quote from Alice in Wonderland, you know, things that we can say. We can talk about sort of Ellie down the rabbit hole, Ellie, Ellie through the looking glass. There's all sorts of things to say about that. This quote comes from an exchange between inside Alice and Wonderland, even if you've never read the book, perhaps you see in the Disney cartoon. And you remember that they play flamingo croquet.

And when they're playing flamingo croquet inside of the book, the character of the Duchess, not to be confused, Queen of Hearts, is talking to Alice. And she says, you're thinking about something, my dear,

and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit. And Alice says, perhaps it hasn't won. And the Duchess says, Tut, child,

everything's got a moral, if only you can find it. So, I will just say this. I think about Alice in Wonderland a lot. This is like, I think it's such like

a foundational, text. And this idea of finding yourself in a world where the rules don't apply, the rules that you've meticulously learned as a prim improper British school child do not apply to all of these situations that Alice finds herself in Wonderland. It's an upside-down world.

Everything she thought she knew, she doesn't know, et cetera, et cetera. through the looking glass, this idea of like, you know, twinning and all that comes with that, the Red Queen, the White Queen, all this sort of stuff that happens inside of that. This is, of course, like a convergent story, a twin tale kind of thing that we're dealing with here. I'm happy to overthink Alice in Wonderland any day of the goddamn, you're all just a pack of cards. You're all just as much of scars. Who can say? Mallory Urban, what do you want to say here in Lewis Carroll Corner? I mean, I love a bookstore.

I loved these opening few moments before we get to the conversation between Jesse and Ellie and then everything that follows. Yeah, I mean, showing us this Alice quote, what a perfect snapshot of literary seminal text to present to us and to the characters in the room at that moment. I thought also, like, a couple of the things that we hear from Jesse here are equally effective in rooting us, I thought. Like, what if he's in trouble? What if he is in trouble? We're all in trouble. Like, there's just such a kind of cold, clear reality to what Jesse is saying there. And I thought, here we are again, you and me in bad fucking weather was also a great way to remind us.

Obviously, that takes us back to the episode two in the snowstorm, but just to remind us of how long they've been in each other's lives, you know, the depth of that friendship. ship on the brink of what is about to happen on that sloped floor up above and then obviously later in the theater. So just everything right in these first few seconds as we're panning. And then obviously you also just have, you know, much like when Ellie in the ski lodge in episode two walks past like a child's crib, you just have this Museum of Civilization time capsule, like what was, we were just talking like, what does it mean to be a child? in this world and it's like...

And in essence, they never got to have. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, very, all of that here in like 30 seconds is the camera pans. And then as, you know, Ellie picks up a book thinking of Dina, thinking of the baby and Jesse's like, I should have thought of that. This, like, this tension between them of like, what role will we play in this kid's life

and Dina's life going forward? And then, you know, the conversation that we already alluded to, this idea that Jesse was like, I thought about leaving. Yep. About four ugly-ass paintings from this hot babe. I mean, who among us? I get it. But I was taught to put other people first.

When he said that, I was like, oh, brother. And then immediately Ellie's like, okay. And I was like, thank you, Ellie. So, yeah, Jesse's being quite sanctimonious here. But thinking about this, thinking about everything Jesse says in this episode, in the context of Ellie watching him die at the end of this episode. And we were talking in the spoiler section because we know Jesse's fate. How guilty Ellie will feel the maths a little different on why Jesse is there and how he followed them, etc.

Inside of this similar scene in the game, Jesse says to Ellie, I would have come if you told me you were leaving. I looked up to Joel, what happened to him was messed up. So that Jesse, game Jesse, is like, I'm in. You know, doesn't have all the information, but I'm in, right? This Jesse the whole way is like, from the beginning, bad idea. I didn't vote for you. This is terrible. You're selfish.

I'm here, though. And we'll talk about sort of a more hopeful exchange between them right at the end of his life. But like, he's this voice of like, what the fuck, Ellie? the whole way. And so how does that weigh on Ellie differently than Jesse being like, I would have come? If you asked me, I would have come easily. You know, it's a very different equation.

Yeah. Like, do I look like I want to talk to you right now? You know, you mentioned earlier the things that we carry and we've talked about that a lot since season one and I think you can carry physical things and you can carry emotional weight. And like Ellie carrying Jesse's death moving forward is a heavy, heavy thing.

but also making room in the pack for that book. What did you think of this election? And then I'll circle back to the, uh... Oh, I'm a big Grover fan, personally. You love Grover and I love knowing that about you. Yeah. Yeah, I thought the... I thought this was all really rich.

Shout out the pan of the read-to-baby shelves and clocked that copy of Love You Forever. That made me think of... Actually, I'll share this quickly. That made me think of, I won't say names, but it made me think of one of my dear friends who, when we were in college, would talk about that book and how,

I'm probably going to get an emotional time about this. She would talk about that book and how her mom always read it to her. And I was like, you know, an 18 and an asshole. And I was kind of like making fun of it. because if you haven't read the book, basically, like, as the child grows up, the mother is still, like, sneaking into his room at night and holding him and rocking him. And then he does that at the very end for her. And I was like, this is like, you know, I've, this is pretty weird.

And I could tell that it, like, really upset her. And then a couple years ago, her mom passed away. And I went to the funeral and my friend's brother, who I've also known, you know, for 20 years now, and who is like a great guy, but I would say like, keeps it, keeps it tight, right? Close to the chest. Close to the best. And his eulogy was reading that. And like, I don't know, I just like remember thinking, I mean, it was so beautiful and so touching, but also just again, like something we've talked about a couple times. Like, it really made an impact on me.

It's like you just, I don't, I don't want to like assume that I know what matters to other people, you know? So, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it was just on my mind seeing it. I am on a much shallower level. I will say also in that display was a we sing book. And I spy? Yeah, well, the we sing we had growing up, and that was like hugely, hugely, hugely, hugely, hugely important in my family, not in this same sort of extremely beautiful emotional way, but just sort of like, I was just saw that.

I was like, oh, that's childhood to me. And so let's give the flowers to the set decorator. We filled the shelf with meaningful cultural touchstones for a lot of us. Really good. I was looking for my favorite Sam and the Firefly. That's the one I was looking for. I love that one. Thank you for sharing that, Mel.

Thanks. Sorry. I thought this was, we got another interesting Jesse Cannon change here, which is that he was speaking about. his family in the absence, right? Like talking about Jackson, like the community raised me. Yeah. And so I'm taking that to mean that his family is dead.

Sounds like. Which is different in the and then in the game where his mother is alive. So that was that was really interesting. I thought to like just the vibe in direct points of contrast to like you know, thinking about an episode two when Jesse knocks on Ellie's door, the garage, before taking her out to patrol, it's like, it's kind of fucked up.

You did that, though, you know, joking around about the dance. And then the, yes, I love her, but not the way you do. Just the heaviness. You know, there was just so much heaviness here and this kind of like somber quality of like thinking about what the path that he didn't take, this person that he didn't follow,

seeing his friends choose each other now. And like, I loved that we still inside of that got the little, you know, that fucking feeling, like falling when you're falling for someone and they're falling right back. Because as we've talked about many times, I just really enjoy those moments in the show when I really loved to hear that shared smile between Ellie and Jesse. And I just love the moments when the show, especially in a scene like this in a stretch like this where these characters are just so weighed down, right? It's just like the responsibilities, trying to get out if you're alive, now trying to get home with everybody's safe. I'm going to be a father. And just remembering, like, what it's like to feel that spark, you know? Yeah.

And that pull to another person and just for Jesse to, like, articulate that here. Well, how that's, like, so core to the human experience. It doesn't matter what changes in the world falling in love is falling in love. Yeah, exactly. And, like, we really responded so powerful. to seeing the Ellie and Riley and Riley episode and to seeing what has bloomed with Ellie and Dina and like to hear Jesse talk about his experience with something like that. I really loved that like we got to glimpse that. And then of course it's very sad to me. I think it's like,

I agree. This is synodious quality. I think Jesse putting the community ahead of his own personal happiness is like admirable and also to me really sad because I think like, and what does it get him? Exactly. And the way he frames it is like, I go with that girl to Mexico, who saves your ass in Seattle? It's like, but maybe you would have saved yourself. Yeah. 100%.

And that's why there's no easy answer, right? Like, so we go up to the roof where, not the roof, an upper floor, we're here about Tommy, we're here about Tommy. And they have this confrontation again about community. There's a similar sort of splitting of the ways in the game and a similar like, you know, hope you make it, you know, and a similar, like, oh, that might not be Tommy, and we don't know.

Shit from Ellie. But much more text here and much deeper and richer based on these other Jesse scenes leading up to it. This idea of community, what is the right answer? Was the right answer to go with that girl to Mexico or is the right answer to be there for your community? Ellie calls out Jesse's hypocrisy

inside of this conversation, right? Like, you just ignored a kid. What do you mean? you're talking about community, you just did this thing. You're not better than me. And my community was just Joel. And my community got being to death in front of me.

What would you do in my shoes? And what I love about this exchange, again, a question with no easy answers. A little speech from Ellie that reinforces what we were talking about in terms of Ellie never really integrating herself into Jackson. Like, she has her person and that's her person. And even when they were estranged and even when she was spending time with Dina and Kat and Jesse and et cetera, Jackson, she does not think of Jackson as her community. She thinks of Joel as her community.

Yeah. But she says, like, don't act that you're better than me or you do anything else in my fucking shoes because you're not and you wouldn't. And when Jesse comes back around to talk to her at the theater at the end of the episode, he's like, I've been thinking about what would happen if it were me and what you would do. She's like pushing him into a space

where he has to get outside his rigid understanding of what's right and what's wrong. And try to put himself in other people's shoes or try to put himself in a different situation. He's just sort of like, if it were me, you would burn down the world to find me. Right? Yeah.

So again, Jesse is so admirable. But there's also, all these characters are constantly pushing on each other of just like encouraging broader empathy or narrow empathy or whatever it is, specific micro or macro. I really love that delineation that you shout out earlier. I think this is a really, really good conversation. I agree. I really love that this was expanded. I think because the ground is, first of all, the fact that just they go up high to look, I'm thinking back to Joel and Ellie and, you know, know, everywhere, right?

All the conversations about, we're going to go up, we're going to look, and we're going to scalp. So Joel is very top of mind, of course. But I was thinking of Anakin, I'm Anakin and Obi-on on a Mustafa far because the sloped ground. I'm just like, you know. I went to the sky, I went to the sky cells in the Erie with the slope floor. Because can I just tell you this right now, Mallory?

Lord. If something happens to you, happen to you, I would look for you forever, forever. I would burn down the world. You would not follow me to a sky. I would burn down the world to find you, but I would not go set one foot out on that floor that is sloped at like a 45 degree angle down into nothingness. I let you off the hook because it's a no for me as well. I'd find other ways to save you, but it wouldn't be that.

There wouldn't be anything to save. I would have rolled off for sure. Tyrion like jerking awake from the, I'm like, for me, I'm just, I'm splattered. I'm goo. Absolutely not. I have the high ground Antigand. I'm the high ground.

But just seeing, you know, two people who have been very close, like really challenged you shot her in a notable way. Ellie can say all she wants. It might not be Tommy. But she knows it is. And so she is choosing to potentially let Tommy die in order to go hunt down Abby.

Like that's not a hypothetical. It's the thing that is happening right now on the choice that she is making. And I was thinking back to the conversation between Ellie and Tommy in episode three, they're like, you know, don't talk to me like I didn't know him. He was my brother scene. And specifically that distinction Tommy drew and what Joel would have done when he said, if it had been you, what Ellie said, if it had been you,

Joel would have been halfway to Seattle before the sun came up. And Tommy said, he'd be halfway to Seattle to save my life. life. That's the go-pick Tommy path. Go save someone. And that's not the choice that Ellie's making. She's making the, I can only see the path to my vengeance. And that is not the way to save the people you love it is the way ultimately to lose them and to sacrifice them. And it is when we get back to the conversations we had earlier in the season about what are the comps for Ellie and Joel, but also what are the comps for Ellie and Abby? Seeking your vengeance above all is, of course, there's your convergence, right?

The LA Abby comp. So I thought that this was really strong. And like I loved that the, you know, fuck the community conversation again, just the tonal distinction. We've heard these ideas before, but not in this way, right? Like the loving kind of mocking, are you going to go to the dance tonight? Oh, you're part of the community now? like we're going on patrol. I want you to fulfill your duty to the community of Jackson Hole.

Like, dude, you're going to be in charge of Jackson one day. That's how it's come up with Ellie and Jesse before. And so the things that they are saying to each other, the stakes are so apparent. It is not just the person they might save or the person they might kill. It is like the core substance and nucleus of the thing itself, right? Their relationship with each other and with their own desire. This is Jesse's Church. Jesse's Church is community.

right and so like that is what he has made community him saying community community community is his litany and this is like what he has dedicated himself to and um and ellie's like your religion sucks i don't believe in your god of community at all and fuck the social contract while we're here okay um i was waiting like josey excuse me is kind of in the ellie porch position here like he's saying to Ellie what Ellie said to Joel, like, because you're selfish. Yeah. You know? And it's just made him for him because I loved him.

You know what you can't understand. But I heard it in my head, even though they didn't say it. All right. So Ellie's off on her own, which is never a good thing. Okay. So she's off on her own to grab a boat and go to the aquarium. And is it your read that when she gets to the dock and she thinks there's just like two people there? She's just, like, ready to shoot them in the head.

No question. Okay, cool. Definitely. Yeah. We've invoked Shakespeare. We've invoked Tolkien. We've invoked Lewis Carroll. I was just thinking about West Side Story.

The opening of West Side Story, the film, specifically, one of the best pieces of cinema you've ever seen is it's a turf war between the sharks the Jets, the capitalist and the mona youths. When you're a jet, you're a jet all the way from your first cigarette. I haven't seen that since I was really young because that's how it goes though, right? My mom used to sing it a lot. That comes later. The beginning, we're just seeing a montage of the various gang members walking around the park

and you'll see like, walking around the city and you'll see like a jet all alone and a bunch of sharks see him and they start chasing him and they round the corner. and then there's a bunch of jets there waiting. And it's like, it's a numbers game. It's a constantly like when it's two sharks and there's like a bunch of jets and then all of a sudden the other sharks show up. So it's just this constant like back and forth of like who has the numbers, who's the aggressor, who's the who's running away, who's running towards inside of this like dialogue

less relatively ballet at the start of West Side Story, cinema. Okay. So that's what happens here, right? Ellie's like there's two, there's two fucking. Sharks, wolves at this dock, I can take them. And then all of a sudden, it's not just one light on. It's, you know, the word you used earlier was Armada. It's a whole bunch of sharks, wolves in the water here.

And you're outnumbered. And you're, you know, like, in terms of the us versus them calculus, this is constantly it. A seraphite all alone in that parking garage and a bunch of wolves grab him, right? But then, like, what happens when the numbers are reversed? And Ellie gets on a boat. I don't want to talk about why she knows how to use a boat or steer a boat. I learned by pressing triangle in the game. That was how I did it.

The play through I watched, she like capsized. You have no choice but to capsize? Correct. You capsize and then you and then you swim. We're still waiting for Gullet, but we got some boat stuff here on Sunday night on HBO. Borgulet? No. Okay, man.

So this was a, I had a, I learned something about this from Neil doing the finale press. Tell me. You mentioned that this, I'm sure this was out there, but I did not know this, that this, because I was like, whoa, Ellie washing up on Seraphite Island and everything that happens there was not in the game. But apparently it was. And then it got cut out of the game. It was intended to be there initially and then did not, yeah, it's not in the final game. Thank you for that information, Mallor, Rubin. Font of wisdom and insight always.

So here's this sequence that is not in the game as it exists now, but wasn't an earlier draft of the game, which is that Ellie gets nabbed, hoisted up, and then they're like, and then Gimley sounds the horn of Helma Hammerhands, and they're like the village, and then they, the serifies just leave her there?

Yeah. Yep. You don't want to just do like a quick disembow. for the road. No, okay, they leave her there. She picks up Joel's gun, which has fallen out on the rocky shore and gets on the boat and goes to the aquarium. This kid is going to haunt my nightmares, by the way.

I'm signaling for the disavaling. Evisceration sign language, yeah. You know, it's like this is, we're getting the horror in every corner. We had the parking lot wolf atrocities, and here we see what the. They don't know Ellie, right? They don't care. And they don't care. Exactly.

This is instantaneous. A main justice. They're just like string her up. I will say that like knowing that this was an inversion of the game is interesting to me. Without knowing that, I was a little like, this is weird. She washes up. She has this interlude and then she's just like off to the aquarium. Like we'll talk.

I have some spoiler section thoughts to. Well, I think we are allowed to say and you can disagree with me. I think we are allowed to say that when. Abby shows up to the theater she has very clear bruising on her neck rope, rope bruising on her neck I think that's just a fact that I can say

okay we're at the aquarium Ellie is drying her ammunition yeah is that in the game that you have to like dry your ammunition ever I don't know this seemed very much like the reddners are going to complain that her ammunition is wet and she can't fire the gun so let's show her driving the ammunition moment to me.

But this is the, this is a pause to focus on the revolver, Joel's revolver, which is the gun that Ellie's told Dina she was going to use to kill Abby. There's stuff for the spoiler section here. We see some evidence

of surgery, some camping. Is this where you want to talk about some animal stuff, Mallory Rubin? Yes, I do. Very quickly before that, I just, I was, So obviously this is a key game setting brought to the show here. Watching Ellie walk through, passing under the shark and then passing under the dangling jellyfish.

It just like right on the heels of the science museum birthday memory, it's not a dinosaur, it's not an ororee, but the contrast in mood with a setting that could otherwise be the same. could not have been more stark. And I thought really effectively, like using this setting in that way as we track one of Ellie's many long walks, we love a long walk. Like, it just really amplified how severely and devastatingly things have changed and how lost Ellie is now pursuing her vengeance in the same place that like in another, a few years ago in another version of life, like Joel might have just taken her to spend a birthday. Right.

Her useful, like enthusiasm and curiosity. intellectual curiosity, and she's just, like, not even giving any of these exhibits a second glance. Right. Yeah. Right. No transporting, light playing over the visor, no tear leaking out of the crinkly eye here. We are just in a – it's a different state of play. So on the – so I was like, are we allowed to talk about the fact that Alice is not here?

and then I asked I guess I'm used some of our precious time to ask Neil and Craig about this because I just could not help myself. Who is Alice for people? So in this stretch of the game and I'm not going to talk about anything from the future of the game,

but just in this stretch of the game, as Ellie is making her way through the aquarium, there is a harrowing sequence with a dock. and that is not here. And I was

quite, so I was surprised, but quite relieved. And that coupled with like, you know, our update that shimmer is thriving and doing well, I did ask about this. And Neil said, and I actually do have the quote for this,

I think Curtis traumatized from his Chernobyl days about what he did to dogs. And Craig said, I've heard you get one dog murdering episode a lifetime. Oh my God. That's so funny.

It's really good. Wild stuff. So the... Hashtag shimmer lives. Hashtag Alice lives. Beautiful, beautiful things. So Craig said a number of horrible things were happening. Plus, because it's live action,

the nature of violence becomes much more well graphic. It's more graphic. It's not like there's an animation between you and it. It's people. And it's very disturbing. We knew what was going to happen. happened to Mel was very disturbing. And to Owen, and also what had just happened to Ellie was disturbing.

And then on the shimmer front said, it's not like we shy away from doing bad things, but it made me feel good. So, I was so relieved. I was like really dreading this. Mallory, I think all of the bad babies at home, thank you for being exactly yourself and using just the few questions you had to ask about shimmer and Alice. I love you. I have already shared this with you, but I will not.

now share with the audience that our colleague Riley McAtee, he was one of the people who was most emphatic in the wake of season one who was like, you just have to play the game, like, all in full upfront soon. Don't get spoiled, do it all at once. And so I was keeping him, you know, updated occasionally on my progress. And I obviously these things all happen in the sequence here. So I texted him like, I am forever changed by what has just happened with Alice. And he replied, that's what you're texting me about. Not Mel? I guess that's like 30 seconds later.

That's, it's just so exactly you. So I don't know what else, Riley, who has known you for a very long time, expected. Okay. We overhear Owen and Mel are arguing

about Owen wanting to do something and Mel not wanting him to do it. They're talking about Abby, right? Like, don't make it sound like I'm being a heartless bitch, says Mel. I'm not. And let's be honest, this isn't about them anyway. Owen,

a mystery for show on show only people for sure. But whatever it is that Owen thinks he's about to do, we know, you guys don't know. It's alone behind enemy lines and Mel says it's suicide. And I think what's interesting is Owen is like, fine, I'll do it myself. Thanos style. Just like always a fascinating character moment for Owen here. But I think it was interesting, especially on the heels of like, you know, something I just said about Isaac saying, like,

no secrets among the SLC crew, right? Like, we've always thought of them, we think of them as a pack, little wolf pack inside of the larger wolf pack, right? They are in us, the SLC crew. But as we saw inside of the lodge, when Joel died, there were some, like, fractions and fissures inside of, like,

not everyone was, like, having a great time in there. Mel seemed to be the most upset about what she saw. Yeah, for sure. And so here inside of the SLC unit, we've got Owen, Mel making a bid for Owen, and we should say in the game we already know that Mel is pregnant, so this is something we talked about in the spoiler section. Yeah.

We've always thought of the like SL crew as a SLC crew as a unit, right? But here, inside of this, Owen's like, I need to go get Abby. He's like, if you're here when we get back, great. If not, Cia wouldn't want to be a sort of vibe from Owen. And so this idea of like, who's the us seems to be shifting under their feet inside of this scene, who you thought was the core us, the one two us, who are the them that he is pretending this is about? You know, what is the us versus them calculus inside of the scene? All this will become a lot clear for people in season three.

But it is an interesting tease. And it is just like an interesting thematic idea. Yeah. hit here. I really liked how explicit the contrast was of, I don't have a choice, do I? It's Abby from Owen. And then Mel saying, and I'm choosing

no, also because it's Abby. Yeah. We have so much to learn about the particulars, but that really tells us everything right there. Ellie hits us with her catchphrase. Where's Abby?

And I think it's interesting to track all of the SLC Cruise reaction, right? Nora hits us with a you're her for Ellie. Owen says, you got to be kidding me, right? And Abby just says, you at the end of the episode. Here's my note for Owen. Ellie said quite clearly, I'm going to kill all of you. Yeah. Every fucking one of you. Abby recited all of your names. Yeah. And you guys were trotting around with your custom merch. So I don't know why you'd say you gotta be kidding me.

You gotta be kidding me. How did you ever find us? We just sewed it onto our jackets and backpacks. All right. Right before everything goes to absolute shit and is one of the hardest things I've watched on television. Yeah. Ellie is still clinging to this idea that she's, quote,

better than the SLC crew. Not as good as Jesse, sure. Not say Jesse from Wyoming, but better than them. There's still an us and a them and they are the them. this is a softening to your point about sort of Craig and Neil talking about like Alice and Shimmer and all this sort of stuff and what we've been saying all along about this version of Ellie. What happens here, Owen lunging for his gun, him shooting first and Ellie shooting in response shot right through his throat and then raising Mel's neck as you mentioned. all of that is either self-defense or an accident, you know, as best you can typify it. That is not how this happens in the game at all.

Ellie, I mean, they're fighting a battle to the death necessarily, but like Ellie stabs Mel in the neck. Yeah. She does not know she's pregnant. Right. Mel loves an oversized parka, but stabs are in the neck. And then Owen, as he's dying, is like faintly. she's pregnant. And then Ellie goes and unzips the park and is like, fuck.

But Mel is already dead. And so what happens here where Mel the medic giving me like painful flashbacks to saving Private Ryan, the Giovanni Ribisi scene where like a medic tries to talk you through their own mortal wound or whatever, it's a slightly different case. This is so upsetting. Yeah. And it is horrible enough that Ellie kills a pregnant one without knowing she's pregnant. in or whatever. That is horrible. Mel trying to like as the life is fading out of her, instruct

Ellie on how to save her baby that you're doing good, you're doing really good when Ellie has not done a single thing because she's afraid of getting it wrong and so she does nothing. And then Mel dies anyway and then the baby dies and the shot of Ellie pulling Mel's shirt back over her belly like you would pull a sheet over a dead body is going to haunt me. Did you get any answers from Craig and Meal about why they went this much further with the agony of this sequence? This was so upsetting. We have been talking in the spoiler sections.

we should say, like, all season, because we, as you noted, in both game and show, Ellie doesn't know that Mel is pregnant, but as you noted, we the game or no, we find out very early. I was like in the spoiler section, what does it mean that we don't know? And it's like, you know, then once I, in the first couple episodes, because I hadn't gotten to the scene in the game. And then it's very clear, like, okay, this obviously has to, this has to happen. This has to remain intact. Of course, Ellie is thinking of Dina. How could she not be? There are so many people who are not present in the scene who are present here, right?

Dina, very present for us and for Ellie. Joel is present because Ellie does the Joel torture trick with the map, right? This is what we saw Joel do in season one episode eight when he was when David's, when David's followers had taken Ellie. And in the game, because Tommy has gone to Seattle first, Tommy does that. And Ellie and Dina come upon the carnage that Tommy has. Yeah. Tortured remains.

Exactly that he has left in his week. And so this question, this like kind of ongoing question of does, who has the stomach to do the thing that they have seen someone else do? And like, seeing that Ellie tortured Nora, but then was sickened by it tells us something important. Like, this might come more easily to Ellie than she expected, but she doesn't like the way it feels. And I thought the no, I won't on the like whether they can trust. that she won't hurt them. She'll kill us anyway. No, I won't. No, I won't. I'm not like you. It was really fascinating

because it's basically that it's the same promise that Abby made, right? And yes, everything that happens here is there's the self-defense and there's the accident part of it. But Ellie does, and I do think that is crucial,

to be clear. Ellie's walking into that room with her gun out. Oh, yeah. You know? And so anything can happen when you put yourself in the, that place. And that's something that we need to be thinking about and that Ellie needs to be thinking about. We also, of course, get the mirror of slowly, you know, Owen repeating slowly. It makes us

think of the way Abby made this vow, sort of this vow slowly. But the real presence in the room for me was Ellie's mother. Ellie's mom, of course. The knife. Nile saying knife, do you have a knife? I only have 30 seconds. Get the fuck over here. Please, please, not only does Ellie have a knife, she has her mother's knife, gifted to her as her mother turned and then died. This is her, this is Ellie's sole inheritance other than her immunity, right? The blade that was gifted on the birthing bed that was also a deathbed. And Mel calling for that here to try to save her baby was such a dark circle. I was like floored by it and just devastated by it.

She killed them with Joel's gun and she can't save the baby with her mom's knife. Yeah. And she's protected through all of this by Dina's bracelet. Oh, my God. Jesus. She used to believe that. Her despair and remorse and horror and shock over what has happened here is obviously a crucial thing. Crucial thing for us to see.

I think it's the choice to make it more of an accident. Yeah. I'm going to think about how I feel about that. Because Nora is a choice that Ellie makes. And I feel like it's kind of important, even though she didn't have all the information about Mel, that Owen and Mel is a choice she makes. And to your point, she goes into the room with her gun drawn, that's a choice. Guns out. Yep.

I think I would have preferred, I think I'll think about it, but I think I would have preferred this if this had been a more active choice rather than a oops sort of thing. talked about this in other contexts like Joel with Abby's father, but also you as the gamer, you are complicit. You have to do this. You must press square. And so that is also a ratcheting up of the horror and a tether to the harder. That is, yeah, it is a distinct, memorable in a painful way, experience. And like, again, here it is.

This is just every path has a price, right? Like you can say, I'm not like you. I'll let you go. But look at where we are. And they're dead within seconds, honestly. Okay. Tommy shows up just as he does in the game to sort of do a slight impression of Joel of it's okay. He doesn't say baby girl, but like it's okay.

You're okay. Let's go. Jesse's also there. And just in the game, there's like a cute. key shot with the blood pooling that's not serving the same purpose here in the show, I'll just say as vaguely as I can, but we still get that

her, Mel's blood dripping into the great in a very evocative way. Back to the theater. I'm calling this the curtain call. Dina, this is like a really interesting end for Dina for the season, right? Because Tommy and Jesse come in,

Dina embraces them, and then while Ellie walks in in traumatized, yet again. back again for the traumatized. Dina looks distressed, and then later we see her sweaty and feverish. And that's sort of like a wrap on Dina for the season. And I think that's like sort of an interesting ending, non-ending for that character this season.

Yeah. But, you know, we've touched on this, like, sort of what Tommy and Ellie are talking about here in the theater. They made their choices. That's all there is to it. That idea of choice again. What responsibility do you have inside of something like, this Abby gets to live.

You're able to make your peace with that. Guess I'll have to. That's language. Guess I'll have to is not yes. Guess I'll have to is not yes. Sure isn't. Tommy leaves them alone. I really like this adaptive choice that he just goes to pack the duffles because

inside of the game, he's like really excited to show them this gold necklace that he picked up for Maria and the tone is off. The tone is off. The tone is off. So they cut that. Yeah, and then we get Jesse and Ellie sharing a bit of grace right before

Jesse is taken from her forever. There's some matching, you know, they turn to face each other, but there is like a matching moment where they're both facing out. You know, she's sitting on the end of the stage. She's sort of looking out. They're both looking out. Very port scene evocative.

I really love this message we got, this email we got from our listener, Safaya, I think that's how you pronounce the name, about the moth imagery. This was in reaction to, like, death being the interpretation for the both imagery. But Safaya had this other interpretation,

where they wrote, The Flame and the Moth is a very common metaphor for love in Indo-Persian poetry and song, specifically a deep, obsessive, almost self-destructive kind of love. The moth knows that it will be killed by its love for the

flame, but it can't help flying straight into the flame anyway. It's a perfect metaphor for both for Joel's burn the world down love for Ellie, for which he's willing to pay any price. It's also a perfect metaphor for Ellie's obsessive revenge quest, as she is pursuing out of her love for Joel, even at the expense of her safety and her soul. Neither of them had any choice being the people they are, other than flying straight into the flame. I kind of love the idea that Ellie's moth can represent both love and death, considering how these concepts are intertwined throughout the show, most notably with Bill and Frank, but also with Henry and Sam, Riley and Ellie, etc. This is idea of Ellie as a moth.

I was watching a couple, like, Last of Us lore videos last night as I was putting the notes together. And this one creator kept using the phrase, in the thrall of, Ellie in the thrall of her vengeance, in the thrall of her violence. Um, so yeah, like Craig and Neil have talked about Ellie and violence is like this addictive addiction metaphor. You know, getting, taking a hit off of the interaction with Nora and like the, the, the low that comes with it, but the high that comes with it. Or like, what's, what's the comp and the Owen and the Owen and Mel seen questionable? Um, but this idea of it is like a spell or like a flame that she's, she is. the moth is drawn to and is incapable of turning away from, I think is really impactful as well. I loved this email.

Thank you so much for sending it. What do you want to say about... Bad babies. They're so good. What do you want to say about Jesse and Ellie here? You know, I feel grateful that they had this moment. Certainly. I mean, Jesse's death is really upsetting.

I loved that Ellie had to thank him for the second time in this episode. You know, we have multiple Schumer mentions, multiple I Can't Die mentions from Jesse. And then, you know, a couple times where Ellie has to say, like, thank you for coming back for me. And I thought that, like, on the, if I were out there lost in trouble, you would set the world on fire to save me front. It was, it's interesting because, like, Jesse did what Ellie chose not to do. He went to save another friend, you know? But the fact that even in doing that and drawing that contrast, yet again, he's saying, he's like, it's his version of putting the bracelet on, right?

He's like, I give you the gift of saying that I believe in you still. And I'm particularly fascinated by the fact that he does that using like very Ellie and Joel-esque language, like the language of violence, you know? Set the world of fire to save me. Like, that's what Joel did, right? So this question of, again, you mentioned this earlier when Ellie actively. challenges Jesse and like would you have done something different. This question of in a story where these parallels and distinctions in behavior and impulse are often kind of notally entwined in a way that makes it really interesting. Like this was, I thought, another effective version

of that. And, you know, the fact that then Jesse has, you know, the fact that then Jesse has, We've seen Jesse and Ellie so many times in the snowstorm in episode two, when they hear the walkie-talkie activate and they run up to the higher ground, hear when they hear the sounds out from the lobby. They don't hesitate. They charge instantly into action to defend the people that they love. And, you know, it's so sad, obviously, for Jesse. It's sad for Jackson.

It's, of course, sad for Dina, like their baby. And for Ellie to have to carry. this too when she's already carrying so much. And the way that this trail of blood or those mushroom tendrils have spread, the number of people who are hurt or gone. And I think this question of like who feels like they have each person on their ledger is really interesting because like Abby killed Jesse. That's another one for Abby. No question. Jesse opens that door, runs out and Abby shoots him in the face without hesitation. But Ellie is going to going to be the one who carries that.

And, like, it's another thing that they're sharing then. I just think this is, like, so upsetting and fascinating. Well, and then for Abby, you know, she's carrying Nora and Owen and Mel, right? The way it's situated both in the game and the show, this idea, like, because Ellie's on the ground and Jesse's on the ground. And it's just, we're back with Joel in the lodge again. And then here comes Caitlin Deaver, who we have not seen Holy hell in a while.

And we missed her. A question we were asking ourselves all season in the spoiler section was like, where are we going to end with this? Are we going to end with this showdown in the theater? We get a little bit of a CODA, which we'll talk about in a second. But like, how did this return for Caitlin Deaver for Abby work for you? I mean, it's incredible. She's just the best.

So fucking good. I thought that the way that Abby said you, when she saw Ellie, was so chilling, not only because of the recognition and then stitching together of all these threats, but because Abby charged in there to do this thing not knowing who she'd find. Again, it didn't matter. Now it matters more, but it didn't matter. And Ellie's saying, because Tommy is under, Tommy is under Abby's. gun here. Yeah. And Tommy's like, go, Ellie.

Like, don't worry about me, but she wants to save Tommy, right? So here it is a chance to save someone, actually being faced with what it would mean to, like, lose this person. Yeah. And Ellie, incredible performances all around in this scene. Abby says he killed my friends. And Ellie says, no, I did. I was looking for you. I didn't mean to hurt them.

I didn't mean to hurt them. That's just not true. And it's also what it sounds like when like a child pulls the wings off an insect. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. There is this like regression to a younger, more like a base form where you have to stare in the face what you've done. And what it means for you and what it means for the people that you thought you were opposed to and what it means for the people that you loved, all of it. I let you live.

I let you live. And you wasted it. incredible, like you said, there's a CODA coming, which I'm excited to talk about, but incredible. We hear a firing of a gun and we cut to black. Quite a setup for season three. Seattle Day 1 again is our CODA here.

And I just want to explain what we're seeing because I got a confused text from CR. And so all along... Because he was like, it's called City of Thieves, not Thieves of the City, what's happening here? That's another photo. That and Tony Dalton are like two of the things that I sent to you. Anyway, Thieves of the City by Ben Davidoff is really good.

I'll explain that before I explain where we're doing here. City of Thieves, a book by David Benioff, one of the co-shore runners of Game of Thrones, of course, has been, Neil has said, was an inspiration for the last list part one. Great book. We've talked about it before. We love that book. And so they just made a sort of like mock-up reverse of the cover. Thieves of the city of the city. by Ben David Off,

and then they sort of like reversed some of the colors on the cover and stuff like that. You love it. Where are we? Okay. So we're in Soundview Stadium in Seattle. This is a settlement

that the WLF have created where we've got crops and wind power and all this sort of stuff like that. Lumenfield slash Century Linkfield to the people in our world, home of the Seattle Seahawks. The iconic signature pointy football

shaped end zone seats, not here in this. shot, but they are in the game. Right. When are we? We're three days ago, and that's the key thing. This is not like a flash forward or not even like a way flashback. This is Seattle Day 1, Seattle Day 2, Seattle Day 3 are Kairuns that we've seen.

So when they say Seattle Day 1 here, we're rewining the tape three days and now we're in Abby's POV. So what happened like all these little hints that we got? of, you know, the surgery at the aquarium or like, whatever it is, like, what are all the things that happened from Abby's POV is what happens in the game here and what's going to happen in season three. So Caitlin Deaver, if I had to guess, is the main number one on the call sheet star of season three of The Last of Us. I would think so, yeah.

Mani Who gives a shit about Mani But here he is To wake up Isaac wants you But not like that At least God And then he says

It's your funeral If you make him wait Isaac is a very scary individual That's just plain and true Even though he Seems to care a lot about Abby He is a very scary individual And here we go

Here we go again What a little glimpse of what awaits in season three. Fun. Very, very fun. All right, we're going to do, like we said, we're going to say more things, podcast, more, talk, converse in our spring mailbag later this week. So you get the Rogue One episode, then we've got the spring mailbag later this week, where we will sort of address some of your questions, comments, or concerns about the finale

that we may not have gotten to Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Now we're going to go into the spoiler section. you're going to hear the spoiler sound and that is your cue to leave. This is the most serious spoiler warning since the episode one spoiler warning ahead of Joel's death. Because like anything, I mean,

we're not going to spend four hours talking about season three, but like we're going to get into stuff that is coming next season. So leave if you do not want to hear it. Are you gone? Did you go? Okay.

No map left behind in the aquarium by Ellie. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So is Abby going to say, well, first I start at the music store where your horse is, not that you give a shit. And then I looked for the lights that were on. And then I look for lights that were on. So there was the moment where Tommy looks up because there's a loud sound. And then it's like the clap of thunder that kind of masks it.

But I'm like, okay, so it's, it's Abby and Lev entering the same way. But yeah, yeah, it's, I felt like a little bit the conversation. between Ellie and Jesse about how he found them was to lay the track for, you can find where Ellie is. Yeah, you can find her where she is. Okay. Jesse is saying skip the apologies to Ellie. Maybe think of Owen telling Abby not to be sorry in one of the flashbacks.

I don't know. I was just watching all the aquarium stuff again, and that just struck me. So what did you think of them not explicitly saying that Owen is the father? point that Owen is the father. Yeah. I guess maybe because they didn't show Abby learning that information at the beginning, which they do in the game. Yeah. Maybe they want us, the audience, the show watchers to experience it with Abby the way that we do in the game.

Interesting. So watch Abby learn that and learn it as Abby learns it, maybe. Yeah. I don't think they're going to change. There's no way they can change the parentage. It has to be Owens' baby. Gotta have Abby and Owen fucking up a storm while Mel is pregnant with his baby. You definitely do.

Okay. Braclet lore. We should say really quickly. There's just a gazillion Reddit threads dedicated to bracelet lore because a lot of people take, you know, Mallory and I were talking about the end of the game in the supposed section last week. And Mallory's interpretation of like whether or not this is a... a reunion for Ellie and Dina or not. And, you know, to Neal's point about taking things out of the game, there was a version that was like a bit more explicit and they decided to leave it a bit more open-ended.

But one thing that Ali and Dina, true believers, cleave to, is this idea that like, so Ellie's wearing her bracelet here in Seattle. She does not wear it when she and Dina are like playing house with JJ at the farm. She does not wear it when she goes to Santa Barbara, but she has it back on when she returns to the farm at the end of the game. So the fact that she's got Dina's bracelet back on to some people says they're definitely going to reunite or they have already reunited or something like that. So, you know, I don't think that's concrete one way or another, but it is information that people have decided to ascribe meeting to. Interesting. One of the things I'm interested in, I mean, we don't know much about this, but with the seeming change of Jesse's family being alive is like his mom.

You know, we have the letter from his mom. We have the photo of his mom with Dina and the baby. So we assume that Dina and JJ are with Jesse's family. She's definitely back in Jackson. Yeah. So that's really sad that that's not available. Maybe she moves in with Gail. Maybe that's the spinoff we all deserve.

Dina and J.J. and Gail. Can you imagine? What do you want to say about the profit that we haven't already said? You know, I think in general, just with on the seraphite WLF front, you know, obviously like Levin Yara are on our minds throughout this entire episode in a million different ways. Yep, that for sure. the bloody bandages that Ellie comes across in the aquarium from your surgery. When Ellie and Jesse are walking through town, you can just see the seraphite sky bridges. Like that crane is, that iconic crane is stretched across multiple skyscrapers.

So that was really fun, especially in such proximity to the brief conversation about the mural to give us the glimpse of the Sarah. if at lore and then a glimpse of the way that they are moving about. By the way, that was all really interesting. Abby and I are the same. It's a no-for-me-for-be-for-heights. I would be dead in an instant. Yeah, I think the evidence of your surgery was really, really a fun, not fun, but, you know. Super fun to have to suffer off an arm with a rotting compound surgery.

And then the conversation that Owen and Mel are having, right, obviously about, yeah, the trip to Sarafide Island. It was cool to glimpse just the quick, I mean, cool, this horrible, horrifying thing was happening, but the firebombing and this attack, this assault on Haven. And that is such a memorable stretch of the game. On the Sarafite hanging front, you already mentioned the non-spiler section, this idea that this was a cut, you know, cut, not a cut scene, but a scene that was cut from the game. But did you think that the woman The woman, I mean, not to say that all serfite women look alike, but they have a look.

Got the same. They have a look. The woman that they cast to play the woman sort of leading the lynching of Ellie here, I think looks very similar to Emily, who's the seraphite that lynch is Abby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Okay, anything else? Isaac's fixation on Abby. I mean, I think we were able to talk about this in the non-spother section in a way that, but yeah, I think it's going to be really fascinating to see what flash, you know, because hopefully we're going to get her dad flashback in season three. But, like, I'm excited and look forward to, like, what was it like for Abby a bit more of her Isaac interaction as she embeds herself in the WLF? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. And obviously also just interesting from the Isaac perspective that he's like in the conversation with Park, you know, we're probably both going to be dead by tomorrow. It's like correct. I mean, we don't know about Park, but Isaac will be dead. To your point outside of the spoiler section about Dina, just kind of like, you know, not being there.

Yeah. So she can show up and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, Leve is also barring an astonishing change to the story. Just outside of frame. I can't wait. I cannot wait for Lev. I think we did it.

We did it. We managed to talk about a lot of this stuff in a sort of talking around it way in the spoiler-free section. I am more excited than ever before about season three. I just got so excited thinking about Abby, Caitlin Deaver,

getting the whole Owen story, getting all of her dreams for flashbacks, getting prophet lore, getting seraphite lore. It's so really. and juicy, and I am, when do we get it? I know. Two years? I don't know.

I don't want to wait. I mean, I want everybody to take the time that's necessary to make a great show, and I have no doubt that they will. But, yeah, I need it. And I'm so, you and, you know, we've talked about this soon. Rob, I've talked about this. Like, I was so interested to see what they add and include that just never would have even occurred to us, either characters who were introduced in the story who,

are not known to us already or continuing to expand a character like Isaac. One of the questions that I that came up in the presser that another outlet asked was

I'm paraphrasing, but basically like could we get more of Joel's backstory? Like we got this one moment with Joel and Javier. Like what about all the stuff that he and Tommy did between Sarah and Ellie? They were kind of like, you know, Never say never.

And like, people who are dead are not necessarily gone. Petro, bring him back. I mean, who knows? A little Pascal hit. Sounds great. I support it. I mean, I think it's, it will be, I think it'll be very important with love and respect. I think a place that the show is like, could stand to flesh out a bit more as Tommy.

Because he's so key to the last chapter of. you know, Ellie's big decision later. And I really am going to need a bit more on either Tommy and Maria and Benji stuff or, you know, Tommy backstory stuff or something like that to help complete the picture of that interaction. So, but that might be a season four thing. I am, unsurprisingly, I'm sure, all in on Santa Barbara season four. I think that would be. Do you think how many episodes can they do for Santa Barbara? Barbara. Six? Four.

Got to be like a mini series. Oh, man. Six episodes of Santa Barbara? But like, again, there's so much that first of all, there's so little we glimpsed about that structure of the story. You want Rattler lore? Rattler lore. Yeah. Okay.

Give Mallory her two-part Rattler episode in the final season of the last of us. That sounds great. I, you know, I think I just really trust their ability to, like, expand in ways that are interesting. I trust them, too.

I support them in all their endeavors. I just never want something to where it's welcome. But I think that's top of mind of them too. So, yeah, absolutely. And everything they've, like, all the embellishments that they've made have been very interesting to me. And I think season, I'm just, like, extremely confident in season three. And then season four, I have some questions. But season three, I am like, this is going to crush.

Eight episodes for season three. Mm-hmm. Six. Let's split the diff. Five. Okay. Thank you to Stephen Allman, Carlos Chiroboga,

or dinner, Rangipal, show me at Dineron, John Richter for all their work on this podcast. Thank you to Mallory Rubin. Thank you to you, my darling. Thank you to Craig and Neil

and their entire team for making this delightful show for us. As we said, we're not done. We'll be back. We can't help ourselves. So we'll see you Rogue One with a special guest star.

I'm not naming who it is just in case that person falls through and I don't want to embarrass them. And then... People are going to think it's like... It's not Diego Luna. It's not Diego Luna or Tony Gilleroy. It's someone we work with. It's not someone at the ringer, okay?

Thank you for saving me for myself. A pal and colleague from the ringer. George Lucas will be... We're introducing our new Ghosts series. And... Carrie Fisher will be joining us on the podcast. Okay. So we'll be back for Rogue One watch and also our spring mailbag.

And we hope you enjoyed this episode of television, this episode of the podcast and had a wonderful holiday weekend. And we'll see you soon. Bye. All pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Bucks slot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. the biggest prize in Yamava's history.

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