The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Last of Us’ Episode 2 Deep Dive

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Joanna and Mallory dive deep into the second episode of ‘The Last of Us.’ They break down everything that happens in the episode, from the cold open in Indonesia to the tendril-filled kiss at the end of the episode that led to the death of another character. They also talk about some of the adaptation choices the show is making and the highly anticipated third episode. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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They'll take her off your hands. They'll handle it from here. No, no, no, I can't. They won't take her. They won't take her. They will because you'll convince them. Yes, you will. I never ask you for anything

not to feel the way I felt, not to, you shut the fuck up because I don't have time. This is your chance. You get her there. You keep her alive. And you set everything right. Joanna Robinson.

This is the Presti TV podcast feed. We're going to talk about the Last of Us episode two, joining me today, as always, is my usually House of Our, but here we are over the prestige co-host, that majestic Morel herself, Mallory Rubin. Hi, Malloy, how are you? Joe, is that chicken? No, it's sad, dried beef jerky. We are here, no, we're here to bring you the chicken sandwich of podcasts as we talk about this horrifying, emotionally devastating, action-packed episode of television.

Season 1, episode 2, infected, directed by Neil Druckman, never heard of him, written by Craig Mays and never heard of him. The co-creators of the show are behind the camera on this one. We're going to zoom through some things really quickly.

Program reminders. You're in the prestige feed. Yeah. Van and Charles are here every week to give you an instant reaction. Really good, as always, but really good stuff from them this week on this episode. No surprise.

Rob Mahoney and I will be covering Ryan Johnson's new show Poker Face, which drops four episodes this week. So four episodes are going to drop. We're going to have an episode out discussing those four episodes on Friday, and then it's going to go week by week from there. So that's something that's going to be on this feed. I'm really excited. Talk about that.

And then over the reverse, we have all kinds of stuff going on. We got a mailbag this week. So if you know us already, you know that you can find us at hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. And right now this week, you can send us mailback questions. We've already received a ton. Thank you so much. But you have time to send us more. And we'll be back on Friday with something like that.

And also last Friday, if you didn't get a chance to listen to it, we dove deep into the lone wolf and cub trope, which is, you know, comes into play very much so in this episode. And I was really excited to see some of the very specific themes that we were talking about in that episode, sort of ring back through in this episode television. So Ringaverse, subscribe on all your various podcatchers. Press HDTV, subscribe. Follow some social. Jomi and all the other social team are just like really hitting it on social. So follow the ringer at ringer. Follow ringerverse at ringerverse.

And that's how you can keep on top of everything we're doing. Did I miss anything except the spoiler warning, Mallory? You nailed it. What's our spoiler warning for today? Great. I'm going to fast zombie my way through this and say the spoiler warning is, We had some questions last week from people about like, hey, what do two people who haven't played the game have to say about a show based on a game? Plenty. But also, Mallory's

playing the game week to week. I am. I, thanks to our lovely listeners, have opted into this cinematic playthrough that is available on YouTube. So I'm watching that sort of week-to-week track, like watching it after I watched the episode. So stopping when whatever's been covered in the episodes covered in the play-through. You can watch on yourself. It is, like, approved by Neil Druckman loves, loves this playthrough that exists on YouTube. This episode has content from episode two of that play-through, Just Cargo, and episode three partners. So that is what I'm doing. And actually, it was enormously helpful. I like, I do appreciate the, uh, the nice feedback from people who are like, hey, I think you would benefit from comparing it a bit more to the game. So that is something we'll

be doing a bit more this week. The show's popular. I don't know. need to get into it, but hey, it's hugely. Hugely popular. Had a huge leap in viewership. So that happened. And last one at least, I just want to shout out, we were talking about Neil Druckman as a creator of the game a lot last week. I just want to shout out his co-creator, Bruce Staley, just to make sure that he doesn't

get lost in the mix. He's not directly involved in this adaptation, which is why Neil's name is going to come up a lot more. But I do want to give him credit for, you know, being the co-director of the original game. Let's get into the episode itself, shall we? Okay. Yes. I'm excited. I loved this episode of television tremendously.

Me too. And I'm so excited for like the first time I watched it through, I was there, what I will say is this, like having watched the play through and you having played the game, like we can both recognize that there are a ton of moments in this episode that are beat for beat, line for line from the game. There are some majorly significant departures, though, and I think they answer some of our questions about like, how can this show be additive? How can it enhance, deepen, expand our understanding of what a story like this can bring to us emotionally, psychologically, et cetera? And so I'm really excited to dig into that stuff as well. Starting with another cold open we get in this episode.

Last week we were in the 60s. This week we're in 2003. In Indonesia, Mallory, what do you want to say about this cold open we got here? I thought that this was tremendous, like absolutely riveting and gripping. I've loved the overall effectiveness of both of the cold opens and really hope that we keep getting opens like this week after week. I hope that we get flashbacks with characters who we have now said goodbye to, like our beloved Anna Torv.

I hope that the test has not gone forever but can return in some sort of 2003 or other timeline. But in terms of like the 68 Dr. Newman opening last week and this Jakarta stretch this week, the particular and keen terror of showing us the pinnacle of expertise. Yes. Professor of Micology. Somebody who has been studying this her entire life saying, you have one choice and one choice only. Bomb this city. Bomb this place where I am.

Bomb this place where my family is. We get not only the global scope. Last week, of course, we got the time frame scope of how long people. could have been readying and anticipating and dreading this. But there's something about cementing the horror for us and the tragedy for us in this particular way, the inability of the most qualified, brilliant people to solve a thing. The shaking of the hand when Ibu was holding her teacup and hears not only that they didn't find the first person who bit the woman who is examined in the lab, but that there are 14

other people missing from the flour mill. It is already, this is two days before the September 26th Joel birthday Austin timeline from episode one. And we learn in this stretch that it's, it's been 30 hours since this fiasco. So we date this back to September 23rd. We're talking, we don't know exactly what the minute was for the first, for the first person who was infected. But the math we have so far is that it took three days for cordyceps to take down the entire world. Absolutely harrowing and horrifying and incredibly active. And then on top of that, we get more mouth tendril action, not for the last time in this episode, but like, again,

to see a consummate professional, someone who is a scientist who has seen a lot of things under the microscope, like react with horror and drop the forceps. As the tendrils reach for her, horrifying. Exactly. And like we chatted a lot last week, Joe, about those little moments. Obviously, that's a dramatic moment, the dropping of the tendrils. Like, that's how we would respond.

My heart is racing, just thinking about it. Oh, I texted you right out. I texted you and Chris right after I watch this and my heart is racing. Like I could feel it pounding in my chest right now thinking back. But, you know, we chatted in the premiere so, like about how many of those quick visuals, quick lines, quick indicators are priming us for. something and this opening stretch did did that so tremendously again think about the moment where we arrive at the ministry of health after the fetching from lunch after the car ride after the inquiry

about whether she had done something wrong violated the law in some way the initial looking at the scan let her form her own opinion why is this substance pulls us back to the temperature the climate change humans right well what has happened in the world around us and like we knew all these things last week, but we get to see them coming together in real time and in front of us, the running at the Ministry of Health past the SARS sign, places us in time, calls back to these other real life things that we have experienced and have knowledge of. The hurrying down the hall, the needing to like hustle to keep pace with the guards and with the officers, you feel the urgency, but also mixed in with just the regular routine nature of life. Again, pulling

pulling her out of just a meal at a crowded cafe. Everyone's just going about their business as civilization is beginning to crumble around them. And I think one of those small details that is not, again, it's just theirs not commented upon is the bullet hole in the head of this cadaver, right? You know what I mean? Like this is someone who was executed because of, you know, this thing that they don't understand yet. But this is their reaction. And then, of course, what is her reaction? At the end of all of this, what is the solution?

she says, bomb, and it is so chilling that that is a cognate, that that is a word that she's speaking in her language, but we can, we as English speaking viewers, immediately without any translation, understand what she's saying. And the fact that her follow-up, and this is something we're going to talk about a lot in this episode, the fact that her follow-up is like, what do you want to do? Can I see my, can I see my family? Is that idea of connection? connection for like she's she's yearning to be with her family that's a connection that she's seeking

just the way that those like mouth tendrils were yearning for like some kind of connection with her I do love a yearning mouth tendril and again we're going to get the ultimate yearning mouth tendril moment at the end of this episode but you know the creators and the official podcast that we're talking a lot about this like idea of a community a fungus based community that it's not just the human community that we are studying here. It is this fungus-based community. And so this constant parallel between what humans are seeking, the warmth and comfort that humans are seeking and the biological warmth and comfort that the fungus is seeking is like really chilling. And again, like an additive thing to the show versus the game. I think chilling is like the most apt word. And when you contrast to the community of this fungal network and the community of humanity and you think about what human beings.

is trying to like fight for, preserve, protect, restore. And, you know, I'm glad you mentioned the bullet hole because when we go to the couch scene, and it's almost like you're in somebody's living room, even though it's one of the most consequential conversations in human history, what they're discussing there. And this run through of police came, she tried to attack. They shot her. What about the people she bit? They were taken for observation.

They were executed too. Well, what about the person who bit her? We don't know. And so you have this juxtaposition of the most horrifying and drastic things, executing your own people, ordering the bombing of your own community, immediately put next to the reality that that wasn't enough that you shot these people, but you couldn't find the rest of them, that you're going to bomb these people. But then we go forward in the episode to walking through Boston and Tess and Ellie discussing the bombing of that city, which will hit a little bit more when we get there, but we have these like immediate payoffs for the fact that these most extreme and drastic

measures were not sufficient. I want to shout out a couple emails we got on this subject just really quickly and say, like, we got some emails from people from the Indonesian community listening to this podcast who said they really love the way that this whole sequence was laid out in terms of like seeing their own community reflected, seeing like a scientific, you know, oftentimes when we talk about like the origins of a plague like this or a pandemic or however you want to call it, there's all this like gross xenophobic, like, it comes from the other, it comes from elsewhere.

But what we see here is like highly trained efficient military, highly trained efficient scientist, like doing, you know, an extremely professional job trying to take care of this, right? We got an email from a listener, Shane, who's just talking about like the way in which he enjoyed the scientific community being represented here because oftentimes in these kinds of movies, the scientists are like wrong or skeptical or pay the price or all the sorts of things. Like, it's more about curiosity for her than it is like tough, obdurate skepticism of this can't happen. It's just sort of like, show me, show me, what's going on, show me.

And last one at least I want to say, the walking by that SARS banner, I think really has to put you in mind of like where we were in 2003. You've got this interesting email from a listener, Kevin, about this idea of like, where, let's just put it back in America and say where we were as Americans in 2003. so quickly post 9-11 and how we were poised as a government as a society to seed control

to certain authorities and stuff like that because of we were still in a fierce state and I think that's really interesting to think about as like a time period for the origin of this you know of Fedra of the QZs of all of that

of the bombing in America so right particularly yeah like you're saying with Fedra and particularly given that they shifted the time right. It's moved back a decade from the outbreak timeline in the game. Well, what does that move? Where does that move place you then? And what would people be thinking? FEDRA was obviously less present in this second episode than in the premiere in a way that is one of the main adaptive changes from the game, which we'll talk about a little bit more later with the updates to Tess's death, which is a Fedra sequence post bite, not a romantic,

date night with a infected yearning tendril. But the absence of Fedra as a central character in this episode, we still feel that presence in terms of what society is primed for.

Ibu Ratna, incredible character. It's like one of the things that is already so interesting to me about the show. We're just going to be moving through these moments and time and meeting people and then presumably never seeing them again.

And like that heightens the heart of it to know that we won't be back with this person, I don't think. But what we got in that moment told us something significant about what unfolded from there. According to a couple emails, we got Christine Hakeem, who plays Professor Yibu Radna is like Indonesian acting royalty. So we were, we were like, I mean, crushed it. Crushed it. All right. So let's go to the salon. Let's move to the salon where we've got our little found family of three for now. There are several moments in this episode. I thought, you know, the question I had about the first episode was like, Craig Mason is like a visual director.

How did I feel about it? And I wasn't like over, over, over the moon with the visuals in the first episode. But I think there are some stunning visuals in this episode. And there is a constant reminder of this beautiful destruction here. We get this like gorgeous shot overhead of Ellie curled in like on a moss patch in the sunlight with a butterfly. Later we see a flock of birds fly past, you know, like crashed. It sounded like you were doing a clue board there. In the moss patch.

In the butterfly. In the butterfly. Yeah, we see, like, this beautiful little, like, majestic. We hear them, this flock of birds fly by the, and then, like, in the hotel lobby, I think, is the best example where we've got ducks paddling through the water and a little frog and a frog playing the piano. You know, it's like, it's gorgeous and it's horrifying, but there's some beauty. And, you know, in this sequence, which is so interesting, the.

the contrast between the way that Joel is responding to this and the way that Tess is responding to it. One of the ways that Joel is responding to Ellie having a buy-in that he's not having on, I mean, Tess having a buy-in that he's not having on Ellie, is don't talk about her like there's a future for her. But what we are confronted with over and over again, and again, this I think, is a contrast to sort of the healthcape that we get in the game is this idea of new life, right? Life goes on, you know, the dolphins are coming back. Like, you know, like, it's just, like, there is oddly hope in life all around them. And there's also mushroom people all around them.

But there's, like, you know, there's growth all around them. And so I think, I think we just get this, like, quiet visual sense of renewal and almost, like, springtime. Joe, I just feel like we're Nat and Cap, you know, after you mentioned the whales just talking about. the nature out of view in the Hudson. But you're absolutely right. This was a really striking episode in numerous respects. And I think the tonal mashup was the biggest thing for me. Like, this had moments across the episode that scared me much more severely than the first episode where I was like quaking in my seat. I could read off 15 quotes right now to you that had me in stitches. This was so funny. The sarcasm, the rapport. The report.

that like father, daughter back and forth that is building so naturally and quickly in real time. And that mashup of intent and reality is so present in the landscape as you're observing. I think that was so mesmerizing. That opening visual when you're above Ellie, like, part of it is the fetal position that she's in, right? So we think of her very much as like in the womb of this new world, but also it just makes us think of how young she is. I can't help. of course, but think about Sarsie and Jamie whenever I see characters embedded in some sort of womb-like position. But that mix, again, what is clearly going to be a signature brew and Druckman in particular, I think, is talking about this a lot in the inside the episodes and the HBO pods. Of that beauty and horror entwined, of that peace and panic.

You couldn't get those moss-covered floors or the patches of light breaking through the roof, that little like, yellow ring of flowers up above, these little mini Edens, if this horrible thing hadn't happened, but also where are those little pops of verdant life? They're in the ruins. They're in the graveyard of this former city. And like literally half the time that new landscape we're seeing is growing out of what used to be a human head. So we learned to, I think one of the best summations in this episode, and this is one of the big changes with the hive mind, every step you take risks calling being infected to you, risks activating this hive mind, like, triggering this magical mushroom mesh that is stretching across the city. And I think that sums it up quite well, too,

you have this beauty, this unholy beauty, the earth taking itself back from the things that humans have done to it and every step you take to move through it. And this is the familiar country to them. What happens now when Joel moves forward outside of this episode into future episodes into areas he doesn't know? These are the threats here and the places that they've explored in full. Terrifying. And I mean, I don't know this for certain, but like, I mean, he found his way to Boston from Texas. He and Tesla are smugglers. We don't know how far their scope is. But I think, you know, they've been... Wyoming feels like it might be new as a... Western destination. Quite far.

It reminds me of the way that they're walking through this ruins of their own civilization. Reminds me a lot of this thing that Tolkien did in Lord of the Rings, where even before he had the full history of this world that he was building hammered out, he had his characters walking through the ruins of previous civilizations, right? We see statues of bygone heroes and all sorts of stuff like that. I think it's very pointed that both the clicker sequence in the game and in the show take place in this Boston Museum where we've got like display cases and portraiture and all this sort of stuff, our own founding history. And what does that mean? It's trash. It's ruins, you know, sort of thing. To go back to the, to speaking of Nat and Cap and I always think of sandwiches when I think of Nat and Cap, a shared sandwich.

Yeah. To go back to your chicken sandwich comment. Peanut butter there, chicken here. I wrote over and over in my notes this week that Station 11 quote that we brought up last week, which is survival is insufficient, right? And so I think there's no better – we're going to get to some emotional versions of that, but there's no more concrete metaphor for that than Joel and Tess hunched in the shadows gnawing on tough beef jerky and Ellie's sitting in the sun eating a chicken sandwich on like pillowy white bread, you know? And it's just sort of like, can you survive on beef jerky or whatever the emotional version of beef jerky is, which is I would argue what Tess has been surviving on for years and years and years. You can, but you're not living. And so I think, again, it's this question of the new world, what are you willing to embrace?

Like something my pal Summer, who was listener to the pod and a huge fan of the game, huge huge fan of the game, she was texting me about this idea. She's like, Joel and Ellie's apartment, they've made no effort to make that theirs in any way. They are camping out in someone else's house. Anything that is decorative in there is from the people who lived there before. And later in this episode, we hear Tess say, like, that is not my home. When Joel's like, we should just go home. She's like, that is not my home. People aren't making homes for themselves, for the most part, in this world.

And again, that is surviving versus living. You know what I mean? And maybe they don't feel like there's an opportunity to make a home. And I understand that. But I mean, that's the contrast. And maybe the contrast between generations of like survival is insufficient for the people for whom this has always been the way of life for them. Nothing feels permanent, right?

Yeah. And like nothing feels possible. And we start to see in this conversation between Tess and Joel here as Tess is pushing and what motivation is pure and what is what is about handling him, the way that these embers of hope begin to like a light anew, I will very quickly say that my one, I'm shocked, this is the public discourse pushback this week is I fucking love jerky. It's delicious. I have it all the time.

And I think I'd be well suited for the apocalypse because of my love of jerky. However, I think I would be ill suited for the apocalypse for every other reason and particularly for this dystopia, Joe. All the plant life without my clarity. What would I do? I would just call the clickers to be constantly one sneeze at a time. To be clear, stop composing your emails. I'm not, this is not an anti-jurkey agenda for me. I'm pro-jurkey.

I'm just saying like, jerky is great, but it's not a chicken sandwich. You can have a wonderful sandwich. I love the sandwich thing is just so funny. There are so many, I mean, first of all, just the first look we get at them sitting there like, the way that they're watching her is so hysterical. The moment where, like, there's not going to. be anything bad in here as Ellie is going to the bathroom just you I mean the humor is so present in the scene and the with the sandwich like Marlene said they got it from smugglers I guess not you guys

and then the liver currents later when they're going for when Tess and Joel are taking their flashlights out of their bag and Joel's like did Marlene pack you one of these are just sandwiches it's just very very funny in an otherwise like horrifying and incredibly tense episode. I was very grateful for the humor and the way that these people are just navigating conversation with each other. I loved it. We move out of the salon. Like basically, Tess has to, as we saw her do in last week's episode, like handle Joel, right? Like, convince him of something. She's saying, let's just, it doesn't matter whether or not she's a miracle baby, a cure, you know, miracle of science. We just need to take her where we need to take her so we can

get what we need to get. But inside, on the official podcast, you know, they were like very clear that Ellie is already a believer right here. She believes. Exactly. I thought that was interesting because like, I'm sorry, did I say Ellie, I meant Tess. I keep Tess. Yeah. When I first watched the episode, I don't know that that was my impression in that moment because there's all of this stuff that you learn over the course of the episode, right? And then you bring your full watch of it to a rewatch. You bring these comments from them. But I think that it kind of doesn't matter if you have that clarity from the creators, which is to the credit of the episode, that it plays with whatever level of awareness you have of her motivation at the time.

Because if in the course of, you know, from the 15 minute mark to the 50 minute mark, she goes from saying, we're doing this for us, we're not good people, to saying, Joel, no matter what, save who you could save, this is our chance for redemption. That's an amazing thing that we actually believe in buy inside of a very tight span of time. And if in this moment as they're, as they're explaining to us and elucidating for us, she really does. And you do, I think, feel it when she, when she says so firmly, she made it through the fucking night, Joel. Like, she is convinced whether that has changed the whole nature for motivation,

she is convinced that this is real, that this is legit, and that there's a path forward. I loved what Mason said on the pod about desire. He said it cuts to something that she has that Joel doesn't want to have again. She is brave enough to dare to hope. And that feels really crucial in terms of Joel's readiness to believe the decisions that come into play at the end of the episode. It's the fear of the hope. It's the vulnerability that we chatted about a lot on the Long Wolf and Cub pod. What does it mean if you let that hope back into your life?

How can you be hurt again? Who can you lose if you allowed yourself to connect? Can I just say that I was listening to the official pod and Mason brought up how you need vulnerability and a heroic character? like Joel, I started just like literally bouncing up and down since we talked about vulnerability so much on Ring Reverst last Friday. Go listen. Anyway, should we mention this backstory, this test backstory quickly that didn't make it into the episode? I thought this was fascinating. What was your, what was your feeling on this? Yeah. So we learned on the official podcast that they were thinking of shooting a backstory for Tess where wrote it but didn't shoot it. Yeah. Where her husband was infected. Her son got infected. She had to kill her husband and she couldn't bear to kill her son. So she locked. him somewhere and that the way they were going to do it is like just show you a closed door with like clicking behind it and you would find out maybe slowly over the season that this was like Tess's sun locked in a basement somewhere slowly blossoming into a mushroom person. But like they opted not to do that. And I actually kind of think it's good that they didn't because people are already drawing so many comparisons between Anna Torv and Carrie Coon and the leftover. So if you gave her like right, the nor the curse nor a durst like backstory is just like again. a little too close. But, but again,

for both Joel and Tess to have been nursing this wound of a child that they've lost, albeit through different circumstances, and for them to be on their different paths of reactions to that is interesting for sure. And it definitely informs for Tess here this idea of like, you know, Joel says better.

In terms of like, if we take her back, she could be killed. And Joel says better, them than us. Like, we don't want to be the ones to have to kill this child. Right. He's prepared for that reality.

He's ready to do it, but he doesn't want to have to. I thought, like, it was interesting to learn that they had sketched out that backstory for Tess. And I think that we, like, can bring with us to every new character

we meet the assumption that something horrific has happened to them, that they have suffered a great path-defining loss, and that that is present, even if we don't get to see the, specifics, but like on the inside the episode at the end, Mazin was talking about how Tess, he said she doesn't have any particular emotional connection to the world as far as we know.

And I thought that that was so deeply upsetting as a read on what it takes to survive in this world and how crucial it is that we see with Tess inside of this episode is she and Ellie start to really find this like fast friendship with each other. You don't need to know that Tess was literally a mother. to feel the bond forging in real time, to feel that this is a character she is willing to try to save and move forward, right? Like, you, I think this gets back to this larger conversation we were having an episode one about, like, love as both the guiding light

and the question that the showrunners have been introducing to the audience of, like, well, where does that lead you? And what purpose do you find, yes? What hope do you find, of course, but also what are you willing to do when that's a part of your experience again? I think that's such an interesting mix. I want to circle back to that amazing comment about Tess's emotional connections to the world when we get to the end. But before we leave the salon, I just really want to quickly say there are some very clear and obvious lighting, intentional lighting moments going on. We've got Ellie in the full light, Joel in the shadow.

and tests sort of moving towards the light in very one specific frame than one of our listeners Lily emailed into us. And I just think, like, we were talking a lot about this pulled towards this light, the pull towards the dark in the lone wolf and cub trope. We talked about that a lot in the ringer verse on Friday. Is Joel being pulled towards the light and the hope? I just want to keep an eye on this use of light with these two characters, you know. Absolutely.

And I think that that plays really effectively in that macro sense, thematically. And also just in the specific context. of this conversation in this scene, right? Because you have Ellie who is representative of this possible future. You have tests who is willing to buy in and believe and push for it. And you have Joel who is actively rejecting the possibility. Like when he says, he just starts literally speaking over Ellie and completing the sentence in real time is the key to dividing the vaccine. That's what this is? We've heard this a million times. Vaccine, miracle cures. None of it works ever. Now, as viewers, we have the prologue from last week where Dr. Newman said,

we lose. There's no chance. We have Ibu saying at the beginning of this episode, there's no chance. And so there's a part of us that is primed inside of this world to accept that Joel is right, to worry that he is right, then there's this beautiful new beam of light. Maybe this is the one path that you should actually follow, right? But like, Joel, after, after 20 years, we haven't seen every single thing that happened to him after Sarah. We haven't seen those intervening two decades, but we understand from the reality that has already been presented to us over these couple hours that this would be a normal reaction for like every path forward to feel like it had been full of debris and clickers alike,

right? That there was no way to move forward, that the dejection and apathy would have taken root inside of you as deeply as any mouth tendril. Don't say as deeply as any mouth tendril over again. I'm going to so much if you want to be friends with me. Probably said it in the next five minutes. 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

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That's OLLL-L-Y. com. Let's talk about this movement through the city, which we've already like referenced a couple times. But I wanted to, we've talked a lot about station 11. This is not going to be the last time we'll talk about station 11. But one of our listeners came down in this passage that I love from station 11 that I'm just going to read a small part of. And it goes back to that conversation we were having about the airplane falling out of the sky in last week's episode, which is what is lost when civilization falls. And it's titled, an incomplete list.

This is just the first graph. It says, No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. No more porch lights with moths fluttering on summer nights. No more trains running under the service of cities

on the dazzling power of the electric third rail. No more cities. And so as, you know, knowing that they start with the cities when they bombed, you know, Jakarta and then Boston, etc., etc., etc. No more cities really sort of rings out as we're walking through this landscape here. I thought that Ellie's face was so captivating here as she's looking out. We got that moment with

her perched on the windowsill in the first episode talking about how she had, how dark it was as she had never been out that far. And we're heading out with our characters into what is irrefutably a hellscape. But there's this like intrigue and wonder in her eyes all the same. And it made me think about the Station 11 pandemic babies too and what the context is for their reality. Like that everything to somebody who grew up in this existence is still the great unknown. And you get that a lot not only in the in the walk and the conversation about what happened, but of course when we get into the hotel and you see like the the joy and like childlike wonder that Ellie brings to running over to the bellhop station

and and pretending that she's there to request the most luxurious suite and the awe and joy that she brings to what would have just been routine before all this happened. No more. No more check-in desks. No more, you know. Exactly. No more luggage racks. No more asking for extra towels and mini toothpaste. But and then we get the bomb, we get the bombing conversation, like right in the beginning of this stretch. And of, of course, the bombing opening is very present in our heads. And like, the moment where Tess says that they hit most big cities, but that says it worked here, but it didn't in most places. I found this quite upsetting for multiple reasons. Of course, it's the bookend to the opening stretch. This is what happened. This is

what they did. We'd gotten the flashes of light and the loud sounds and the Austin sequence in the first episode. But Joanna, this is the best case there? This is what working looked like. Exactly. A shell of a city. Yeah. A fascistic quarantine zone where they're burning bodies in mass and shoveling the ash every day is the ideal outcome in this new order. That is harrowing. I agree. Hard agree. And I think this idea of like Ellie who has never been out of the QZ, again, this is like a really easy or common narrative trope of like have a character who hasn't experienced any of this so that the other more experienced characters can explain to it like have a Hobbit go on an adventure so that everyone else can explain how the world works to them. You know what I mean? So like we're explaining how clickers work to Ellie.

We're explaining, you know, what we're looking at to Ellie, all of this sort of stuff. But at the same time, I also want to talk about this opportunity for connection in the official episode, in the official podcast episode, Mason and Druckman are talking about, they called it like a sick community, some kind of sick community, this like a network of cordyceps, the mushrooms people, the tendrils that go under the ground and curl up around your fingers, etc. What's interesting about that is that is there is no, there are no lies in something like that. In that kind of community, that is a fully connected, you see something, I see it, you think something I think it, you feel something, I feel it. There's no, there are no walls. That is a connected, thriving organism. By contrast, we get the hard shells that are around these various characters because of

their trauma. And like in this conversation between Tess and Ellie, as just. she's asking, as Tess is asking Ellie how she was bit, so like that, we have these moments that it feels very clear that Ellie's lying about certain things, whether or not she was alone in the mall. The way she says that, I feel like she was not allowed in the mall, right? Or like asking, you know, the way that she responds or she's asked about a mother or father or a boyfriend or, you know, yeah. The mannerisms and the inflection, the extending of the words feels like we're returning to both of those moments for sure. Or when she asks about the clickers, or, you know, she describes what we find out are the clickers. Joel and Tess don't say, yes, there are creatures like that. Let me tell you all about it. That, you know, in a few months from now, Joel will have to mouth the rules of the clickers to her. But they do not explain it here.

And so, like, no one's being. They just make eye contact with each other, the unacknowledged truth. Yeah. No one's being fully forthcoming until, I would say, Tess at the end of everything, lays it all out there. But for the most part, we as traumatized humans in the scenario have a hard time opening ourselves up to hope to connection. And I think it's important to contrast that with the sick purity of the mushroom community. I love that. I think that's a beautiful and really astute insight.

And you, of course, immediately thinking about that and hearing it your inclination is to say, okay, but what about like individuality and free will and the ability to forge your own way? of course, but you're right that there is, and clearly this is one of those central preoccupations for the creators, there is this community and this oneness that humanity has lost the ability to understand or even approximate. And so when you see, as they're walking through Boston, these scenes of a city frozen in time,

it really heightens. Or Joel's, think of Joel's Frozen Watch. He'll look down at it again when they're on the rooftop later or preparing to go down that very, very unsafe looking fire. Rickety. Rickety is the word.

Absolutely terrifying. But that was the moment where people stopped. Not that people ever totally excelled and understanding how to be open and honest with each other or themselves, but you lost something. And so when you scan through and you see the white tablecloths on the two tops

and the four tops, and they're still set for dinner with the moss filling the wine glasses, or you pan past the cars and there's a toy giraffe under the chassis against the tire. It's like everything stopped. And you left behind everything that you had. It stayed where it was.

And the thing that you moved forward with, the people, whatever parts of yourself, was no longer connected to what civilization and life used to look like. I love that. I was really struck by the production design on the rooftop bar in that hotel. I don't know why. I just think like maybe I've just. sat on too many rooftop bars in San Francisco or whatever, but I was just sort of like, I can just, I've been there

and like to see it just grown over. I would ask you, how do you even know what a rooftop bar looks like, but you would like Ellie would just say, have you heard of books? Have you heard of them, lad? All right. Probably my favorite. That was so funny.

Have you heard of books? And then they're like followed right after by the one little hop into the water inside of the hotel lobby. I don't know how I was supposed to know that. Something I've been told is very important in the game is that Ellie can't swim. And so, like, possibly in the game, you are confronted with, like, well, we can't go that way because Ellie can't swim. You know what I mean? So that's like a little moment.

Again, there are so many lines and frames in this episode that were ripped directly from the game. I want to go to the clicker attack because mostly I want to get to the kiss and I want to make sure we have time to get there. But is there anything you want to say before we get to the clicker attack? I think just maybe a minute or two on the, when test goes up, they've climbed up. They've made it through this like foul pool. Ellie is delighted by how gross everything is. It reminded me of Cassie Lang when she gets the give. Like, he's so ugly.

Climbing off the 10 flights of stairs, you tried climbing 10 fuck-up with Arnees. See how you feel again, and a tour icon. Great delivery. When she has to go through to find the other path because of the new wreckage, the new debris, and we get another Joel Ellie scene. I loved so many things about this, the reluctance in both directions specifically, because he sees her with the knife.

Of course, we have seen his knife. He asks the question, where did you learn to do that? She's not going to tell him anything, but she wants to know about him. So you two like, meaning him and Tass, pass. How'd you end up in Boston? Pass.

He's so. hesitant to share anything. And then you think ahead to a moment like the absolutely heart-wrenching final plea from Tess about how she never asked him to feel how she felt. That's like the line of the episode as far as I'm concerned. I was just unbelievable. Like I'll be thinking about that forever. Forever. That was just incredible writing. We'll talk about that more in that context in a few minutes. But it starts to crystallize for us that he is so reluctant not only to show these things to other people, but to allow himself to feel them again. And what a sad and lonely life that must be. A beef jerky of a life as far as I'm concerned. And again, I just beef jerky is just delicious.

I love it. Okay, fine. Wonderful. Like vegan mushroom jerky then. Unseasoned. And then the other thing in that conversation, Joe, quickly was, I mean, mushroom jerky might be wonderful too. I know we'll find out because you're going to probably have to make your own jerky as one of the recipes that you've signed up for trying. the conversation about killing Ellie asking you ever kill one and Joel saying yeah I killed lots of them was it hard like knowing they were people once and then she zooms to ask

well what about like the guy last night Lee who the Fedra agent who her beat into death when she asks about the Fedra killing it makes us think back to that that idea of her being animated by that as the as Mason said

but then the ignorant yes but then the ignorance yeah just as present, I thought, when she was asking about was it hard knowing they were people, was a sadness that indicated, and I'm through exactly the part of the game

where this episode ends. So that's the knowledge that I bring to it. So I don't know. But that was a question I thought that a character asks if they have had to make a choice with somebody they love. So I wonder if that's something

that we will learn about Ellie in time. Great call. Great scene. And that, you know, great scene again, them putting up walls. Like, honestly, Pedro might as well be wearing the Baskar armor in this show as well, like for how thick the walls are. We have the clicker attack, which is very similar to what happens in the game,

except we've got test goes off and gets bit off screen, which that happens in the game. But the way that Ellie and Joel are working together silently in concert, that is a show edition. And Mazen and Druckman were talking about, you know, how this is just a crucial moment of switching where Ellie had been sort of like a baby duckling, trailing test this whole time. And this is the first time where she's like really paired up with Joel and we see how they work together pretty well, actually. And I mean, shout out that moment where Joel is reloading and the camera moves off the

clicker. And so we just hear the clicker. And like, and he's so compromised and so primed to make noise because he's just got the flashlight. is like between his ear and his shoulder. He's dealing with these fiddly bullets that, like, I know that I would drop. And then we just hear the clicker before we see the clicker, even though we're, like, tracking it. We're pretty sure it's right there.

But, like, hearing it, being inside Joel's mine. And there's so many shots in this episode that are shot like the video game, which is to say the camera is just back barely over his shoulder. So we get his head, his shoulders. And, like, let's say Tessonelli are having a conversation in front of him. that's like, you know, straight out of the game, et cetera. And then, yeah, and then it's just never a good, good move on a zombie attack when someone disappears and comes back and says they're fine. Always troubling. I'm proud to tell you, Joanna, that I have, after going through this museum stretch in the game, I have shived some clickers to death. I have also died many times. And it was very hard for me to get through this sequence. And I may, Adam may or may not have filmed a couple clips that I'll be texting to you later. But it was, uh, It was a journey. How much crouching is involved is my question.

This is one of the things. Actually, maybe next week I'll bring Adam on for 30 seconds of Mal plays Last of Us reviewing, but he's absolutely dismayed by how often I'm in a crouch. And I keep telling him, it's stealth. I have to. But so this thread of the clickers, you know, you mentioned the way that Ellie is asking as they're making their way across the bridge, like these different myths that have permeated the culture of what is real.

isn't the really, like, very, very, I mean, everything inside of the museum, we walk up to it and it, like, is covered. It reminded me of the vines and the legend of Cora that have entered from the, from the spirit world, right? Like the extent of it, or the up or the upside down. Very, very upside down, Vecna, hide mind, you touch one, you step on one and everything awake. I loved before they got to the museum when Tess was saying to Ellie, this is in the conversation that you mentioned earlier

about connection, about they're connected more than you know, that idea that you're not immune from being ripped apart that Tess forecasted for Ellie and for us, of course,

like that makes us more nervous as viewers because we have to remember that there are all of these other things, a fall, a gunshot, a stray gunshot wound, another human being, the clicker's tearing you apart other than just being infected that are perils.

Like, I feel like the stranger and rings about perils, perils, there are perils everywhere. And the world building of establishing this network, this alert network, in addition to stranger things, it also made me think of Andor actually in the Narcena 5 floor. And again, the idea of like the very ground you're walking on potentially being your undoing at any moment. But like, the way that there's that tenderness and Tess's guidance heading into this hellscape, but also this real demoralizing note there

that like no one is safe really, even the one great hope. I have some notes, I will say also for Joel on Recon. He goes into the gift shop and he's like, they're cooked. Doesn't see the like fresh corpse that Ellie spots in basically two seconds. Also, I wanted to tell you. ask you if, of course, on the station 11 front, just being in a museum, made you think of the

Museum of Civilization. I'm always thinking of the Museum of Civilization. But I love like this inversion of, you know, the attempt there to curate and preserve and hear the idea of a museum just being like our history cobwebbed and entombed, that this is a graveyard and a relic of the thing that we lost, not a thing that we're trying to save or share. Very. very, very upsetting. And I just, yeah, and I, like, on a production design note, the, the way in which, the way in which the, like, fungus blossoms and blooms and tendrils, like, completely in case that building was absolutely gorgeous. Barry and Sarah Gower, who are Legends of the prosthetics world, we know them from Game of Thrones. We know them from their work on, like, Vecna and Stranger Things.

Like, they are just, like, out there. They did the clickers. The clickers looked absolutely. What were scared of the most, Joe, of this stretch? Was it the actual sound of the clickers? Was it the inching around the case and the gun reloading, as you noted? Was it the understanding, donning that they can't see but they hear and the way that, like, I loved when Joel, like, turns the flashlight right into the clicker's face and you're really like, oh, well, this doesn't react.

Yeah. Yeah, this makes no difference. But then the little intake of breath from Ellie, it's all that it took to signal. Anytime, okay, I will say this. Anytime a thing that can't see but can hear, like whips its head around at a sound, that will get me every time. I think it's just flashback to like velociraptors in a kitchen sort of like feelings for me. Yeah. I think I was most afraid when they were inching up the staircase.

The creak of their boots every time a toe touch it down, I was so scared watching that. but in a way that I that I loved. The stretch was amazing. Like, the best I can say is I can quote Ellie and say, I didn't shit my pants. So I guess that's a win, Joe, on the horror front. We knew, we. It's always a win when you don't shit your pants. We knew.

Always a win. Yeah. Going in, as we've already mentioned, we knew going into this season that this is like a lone wolf and cub story. So, like, I did not think that Tess was going to make it that far. However, when she disappeared in this clicker fight, I was like, did she get bit? and I wasn't sure until right after

when they're sitting on the roof and Joel is taping up her foot and the way that she looks at Joel is like, oh, she's bit. Like, she's definitely bit. I was like, why wouldn't she, you know, because I hate in a zombie movie when someone gets bit and doesn't tell anyone.

So I was like, why wouldn't she tell him? Like, I feel like Tess would tell him, but that's fine. I got to say, too, we know that like torso shoulder is in the two to eight hour turn time frame from the signage in episode one. but head and neck is only 15 minutes, five to 15 minutes.

And I guess we're counting that as shoulder, not neck, because in the game, she says it's already been an hour and here it's got to be more than five to 15 minutes. Collarbone, decalitage. Yeah. It's aggressive to not mention it

when it's that close to the head neck area. That was got me too, Joe, on the move. That was just shattering. You know, yeah, and things that she says there, right? You know, like, how about you take the good news?

Can you do that? Like to think for once we might, maybe we could actually win. or when he's like, there's more ahead and she's like, we'll deal with it then, which like, you know, she does literally with her death. But also just like it's him talking about a future that she's not certain that she's going to be a part of. That she's not certain she's going to be able to have his back on that because she doesn't know how much longer she has necessarily. Or if she is and then she knows that's probably it. All the moments throughout the episode about luck, luck running out, even Ellie when she sees that she's been bitten again in the same spot.

Oh, if it had to be one of us in the way that Tess is looking at her. I mean, it's very upsetting. on a upsetting in real time, upsetting on a rewatch. Like you said, we knew this was going to be a Joel Ellie story. Maybe I would have loved something that just they got separated, perhaps. It's very painful. I was hopeful for that. I was like, maybe Tess decides to stay back because she's had enough of Joel shit or

something like that, but no, that is not what we're doing here. So the state house we go in our final moments with our beloved Anatoor. I do, I do want to say really quickly before we get to the state house. A lot of people sent me a screenshot of like Ellie walking. across the plank as like a, you know, shop for shot from the video game. I picked up that board in the game. I fucking picked it up and moved it. And I was proud.

I'm proud of you. And that, and that, like, view out at the city and, like, exactly what she says. Can't be that view or whatever. But the moment where Joel looks down in his watch, which you already mentioned, is a moment that it clocked in the game and the playthrough that I was watching where I was like, it was a really beautiful, subtle moment of, like, he's obviously, anytime he looks at that watch, thinking about Sarah. That's a beautiful little item to have as a shorthand

for us of our main characters thinking about his dad-daughter. I was so interested to see that it was also in the show because as Mazin and Druckman were talking about on the official podcast, Peter Pascal did not watch or play the game. So he is not modeling

his movements after the game at all and they didn't want him to. So like there are things that he does that are departures from the way in which or the speaking in the game, but the watch Glance is there, to me, which means it was like written into the script. Joel looks down at the watch and thinks about Sarah. I just thought that was really upsetting and good.

Okay, to the Capitol building. This is amazing. This is, okay, as you already mentioned, huge departure from the game where, like, Fedra surrounds the building and, you know, Tess decides to take a stand against Fedra that, at least in my playthrough, we didn't really see. It's like Ellie and Joel leave and Tess, like, does what she can do to stall. them. Huge difference in terms of we're already using the underground vector mushroom network as plot. We're giving tests this big final stand with the fluid on the ground, the grenades,

and the lighter. But most importantly, it's the contrast of that of her saying to Joel, you know, I've never asked you for anything. I've never asked you to feel. the way I felt. Not even the feel the way I feel, the way I felt. So you feel the history of that. Unbelievable. Not kissing her, not giving her any kind of affection goodbye, not kissing. Like, I feel like Tess has been in this relationship with him, this partnership,

where like, I'm sure they have sex sometimes. They definitely have each other's back, all this sort of stuff. But that like, survival versus living, surviving versus thriving, he has been emotionally inaccessible to her this entire time. And so it is so beautiful and cruel the way in which this, where you don't call them zombies, infected gentlemen, comes in and gives her a death smooch. She's already dying. It's not really a death smooch.

But like the fact that they made it a kiss is so cruel. There's more warmth and tenderness in this disgusting mouth tender moment than in anything she got from Joel, who was her partner for years and years. years and years. Oh, amazing. Horrifying. I was screaming. I was very upset, but I was also like, upon rewatch, upon thinking about it, I just think

it's like one of the coolest adaptive choices I've ever seen. What do you think, Mel? I completely agree. I don't want to be hyperbolic, but I think that there are a lot of seasons of TV that can't execute a moment that is this well-designed stage and executed, but this emotionally resonant in a finale, let alone the second episode of a series with characters we barely know. Like, I feel like I understand the history between those two people completely from that dialogue that you just sketched out.

That is just so deft and nimble and deeply, deeply upsetting. The idea, like when they're just even looking at the bodies, the firefly group that they're expecting to be there, they're all dead, right? This idea that one of them got bit, the healthy ones fought the sick ones, everyone lost. and this lesson of, well, if we all fight each other all the time, we're going to lose two. The kiss is obviously the showstopper. I think the flinch, though, is one B to that one A. Joel's flinch, yeah.

Yes, when Joel says, after Ellie realizes what's going on, fuck, she's infected, and Joel says, show me, and test steps toward him and whispers his name, and he just on instinct, reflex, takes a step back. And that hits so hard. Like when you start to fear, when you have to fear, the only people you know and care about, the people you've worked with, the person that you've protected is protected you, when that becomes a threat to you. And there's no room for tenderness. But like you're saying, when you open that up more largely to think about, like, well, what tenderness was there before, it is just so wrenching. And the way that Tess uses these final moments to beg Joel to do this thing.

And this thing is not just the act of taking Ellie. It's to allow himself to believe again. Get her to Bill and Frank pulling up her sleeve and her arm, comparing the wounds. Look, this is different. This is real. And the way that her hand is shaking, like the spasms are setting in, it's happening. These are her final seconds of life. And again, this is like the most vulnerable anyone has allowed themselves to be so far.

And it made me think of Andor again. Like it made me think of in one way out of Cassian's. I'd rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want. And then you like juxtapose that and this pitch for redemption from Tess to Joel. Like all of the shitty things that you did that we did. This is a way to do something right and do something good. That we have yet to learn about that person that we hope we will find out about, right? That like what did Tess and Joel do that led them to the point in this episode

where she says, we are not good people, right? We are not good people, Joel and I. And like this idea of redemption, do it for me, her dying wish, do it for me, do it for us,

do it for yourself, do it to wash your hands clean, all this sort of stuff. Just get her to Bill and Frank. It's all you have to do. Do that. It immediately changes the stakes of this lone wolf and cub story,

something that we talked about a lot on our Ring ofverse episode is just sort of like, what are the circumstances or what are you looking to do? And on the one hand, I'm looking to get a battery to get a truck to get to my brother in Wyoming is interesting. But I am looking to wash my soul clean of all the sins that I have committed in this hellscape we live in immediately ramps the stakes of this whole thing up. Absolutely.

And like thinking of save who you can save in all of those different layered ways, sure, try to save Ellie. Maybe try to save humanity. give me this this this new lease on everything I did too but do save yourself like that you believe that you have a way to save yourself still that there's something worth fighting for and striving for and in the moment of the kiss when when test has let this hoard the one that they looked at from the rooftop that they saw sprawled out the way that test had talked in that moment to ellie about how that's how year after year the infected take more of the city it was such an upset setting thing in that moment in that conversation to think, we're talking about our characters

fighting and trying to forge a way forward and improve things. Every day, they lose a little bit more. It doesn't get better. It only gets worse. And for her final moments to be that reality swarming in on her and to have to have like the strength and the fortitude for your final moment to be standing still as those tendrils work their way inside of you, for that to be the final thing you see and feel and taste and touch and know is one of the most, it's like, I see you a dementer's kiss and raise you this. I mean, that is just agony. Yeah, but I think that, like, what is so fascinating to me, the tension in that moment for me is like, is there still enough of, because she is, like, standing still, but I don't think it's just, like, bait or calculation

or whatever. It's her succumbing to this hive mind, right? Absolutely. She's a part of it now. So, like, it's the last of us, the last of test, the last bit of what is test, is able to light that lighter and drop it, right? And, like, there is real tension in that moment. I mean, I think this was going to happen because I'm like, well, Joel and Ellie probably get away, but I was like, there is a version of the story where she, it's too late and she doesn't drop the lighter, you know what I mean? And she doesn't, and she doesn't blow them up. And that is interesting in and of itself. But like, what is fascinating and stomach churning and compelling is the way that Mazen and Druckman talk about this idea that the fungus loves too is something Craig Mason says.

The recognition here, that the kiss is one of welcome. It makes more of itself. It's not someone trying. He's not this guy who's building the credits as like infected kissing man is not trying. They talk about the way that Tess is yielding and succumbing. That's very like sensual and romantic. It's shot intentionally central and romantic. It is a welcome to the hive mind test.

And she resisted the last shot of her humanity and pulls that move. But the fungus loves too. The fungus makes more of itself. I know. This isn't just like a scientific creepy connection. This is just like the fungus loves too is one of the most chilling things I've ever heard anyone ever say. I'm having a real mushroom moment. It's the written spoken form of a mouth tendril really works its way inside and stays with you Joe.

And you juxtapose that against that oneness, that sick kind of community, as you already, as you already quoted, against we then cut from the explosion from that zooming in and Tess's eye to Joel and Ellie on the outside and the look of the horror on both of their faces and crucially, separation. We just saw this coming together, this, this sick. on wholly horrifying coming together. And then these two people who have made it out, can they find some sort of belonging with each other

or only bling? Tune in next week to find out on The Last of Us. Anything else you want to say about this incredible episode of television? I thought this was sensational.

I can't wait for next week. I'm really loving this show so far. We haven't seen the third episode yet, but we've heard it was widely out there in the initial reviews of the season that three is a fucking heater.

So I'm like, man, if people are talking about that way, about three after this? What is it? What are we in store for? There's a lot of, as we've outlined, a lot of added, you know, frills and gills and whatever to the basics of the episode.

But this is a very like video gamey, get across the city, fight the clickers, explode the building sort of thing. Again, I have not seen episode three, but my understanding is that is like this is a big departure from the video gamey feeling of the show. So if you're watching and you're like, I'm not a gamer, I'm not feeling the gamey part of it. Next week is going to be something, a different flavor of mushroom. So you have which, thank you all for all of your mushroom recipes. I actually have made a couple.

I will be reporting further, but we just had a lot to say about maltendril kisses of this episode. What's your favorite recipe that you've made, Joe? Give us one winner. And a lot of people sent this one in. It was like a crispy mushroom with creamy Bucatini pasta. So like you crisp up the mushroom. and then you like put them in with the shallots and the and the cream and the Bucatini. It's really good.

But yeah, you can keep sending them. I have a full-blown spreadsheet going of all the, of all the mushroom recipes you all have sent. Thank you so much. My sister sent me a recipe. Harrison at Inside Edition sent me a fungus cookbook. Like there's a lot going on. Unfortunately, all the grocery stores are out of eggs.

So we'll see. Anyway, that's it for us on the press. TV podcast feed. Join us later this week. Rob and I went back to talk about poker face. Really excited for that show. Van and Charles will be back next week with their instant reaction. I'm really excited for to talk to you, Mallory, about episode three. Also over on the ringerverse mailbag, hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To our very favorite infected kissing man, Carla Sturiboga, our reason of this. I apologize. That's how I described you. We'll be back next week. Bye. Thank you.