The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The Last of Us’ Episode 2 Recap

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Charles and Van share their instant reactions to the second episode of ‘The Last of Us.’ They unpack why the show is already being so well-received, as well as the impact of HBO’s prestigious Sunday-night time slot. Later, the guys discuss how they feel about the show’s world-building and how the environment's significant role in the story line adds a new dynamic to the infected. Along the way, Charles surprises Van with a pair of new podcast segments. Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at the Ringer, Offguard, hosted by me and my guide, Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figure those time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league.

And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA. Tap into Offguard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Mother's Day has a way of sneaking up on you. But when it does, 1,800 flowers makes it easy to send mom something beautiful, thoughtful, and worthy of everything she does. Right now, with double blooms from 1,800 flowers,

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Together we're known as the Midnight Boys, Poo-Pew! And we're here to discuss the last of us. Yeah. And let me just say, Van, after a harrowing hour of television, how are you feeling? because this one left me emotionally exhausted. Man, the show does just a fantastic job of building tension, building stakes. And already, it's the second episode, and I already had to light one and put one in the air

for somebody who I had gotten attached to. Punching the gut. We're not going to spoil it yet, but I was like, God damn. I knew that shit was happening. And still, I was like, oh, man, what a weird way to go out. But before we get into the episode, we got some programming and reminders for y'all. So Van and I are giving our instant reactions to The Last of Us every week immediately after the show airs. And then you've got to make sure to stick around because later in the week, Joanna and Ma will be giving their deep dives, all right?

And since our first episode, numbers have come out for The Last of Us? Van, have you seen the numbers for how popular this show is? I didn't. I'm assuming it's doing well. Can I, in millions of viewers, can you give me a guess? How many millions of viewers do you think watch the debut episode? You know, I was going to give like an off kilter response, but I think I really want to guess. So, uh, in the era of streaming, I think three million would be solid. All right.

So, 4.7 million viewers, according to deadline. Oh, that's very impressive. So it's a little under House of Dragon, largest since House of Dragon. Okay? That's not bad, like 4.70s. It's a wild number. That's a huge number. If you're HBO,

$3 million is solid. The House of the Dragon has an entire lore and a fan base built up over nearly a decade of television to fall back on. Obviously, that was going to open the big numbers. Before we get into this episode, I guess the question is why? Why does this debut so solidly?

Was it the word of mouth? Was it the reviews? Have we reached a point to where Pedro Pascal is that type of draw that people are like, okay, if that guy's in it, we're going to give it a chance? Is it the zombie situation? Is it the unprecedented success of the video game, which I would imagine that the video game

probably pulls in numbers that are superior to that because these video games are so big nowadays? What would you attribute it to, Charles? So I think it's a couple things. I think the first is January's traditionally just a really, really weak release month for both movies and TV. I think until the Mandalorian,

honestly, besides, you know, football and award season and everything like that, this is kind of the only show. I think the second thing is that the Last of Us games, I'm reading a 2018 article have sold between the PS3 and PS4, back 2018, it already sold 17 million copies. You know what I mean? That is like... Just a built-in fan base.

So it's really, essentially, not to cut you off, But essentially it's the same as the House of the Dragon, being that the game has been out for so long, I almost misspoke there. It has the same type of built-in fan base that that would have, just not in this media. No, exactly. And I think between January being a week month,

how big the game, honestly, is. And then to be real, I think HBO has done a superb job marketing this show. I can't go anywhere without seeing The Last of Us. It is up and down my timeline, billboards. They were really out in front being like, no, this is the next show that you need to care about in a way where when's the last time HBO has given that push that wasn't like, House of the Dragon was the last one where they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, stop everything that you're doing. This is the event that you need to care about.

There's something else here, too, that we're probably not speaking directly to, which is just the HBO of it all, right? Let's be honest, guys. we're brand whores, all of us are. Absolutely. We're brandhors, right? You're sitting down, you're watching TV, it goes, and you're like, wow, we're for something good here. If this would have been the last of us on Amazon,

if this would have been the last of us, dare I say on Netflix, I don't think at this point that the response would have been this positive. I mean, I don't think the numbers would have been this big. I'm just being honest, there are a lot of shows that do huge numbers, especially Netflix,

maybe that's a little bit. Maybe Netflix is closer to HBO in that regard because they've had some huge, huge titles this year. Obviously, Dahmer was everywhere. You know, you have all of this stuff. Dommer Wednesday, yeah, they could do it. They can do it. And Netflix can do it. But when you see, and that's kind of something else when you see these other, there's not, they haven't, even Apple, which I love Apple, right, severance.

But they haven't really gotten to the point to where they still can do, draw up or play and have event television on their platforms yet. I guess Netflix. I misspoke about Netflix. Netflix is definitely there. But HBO is there and it will continue to be there. I guess. To be fair, though, Netflix does not have the power of HBO Sunday nights where it's like if. Fair enough.

Like here's the thing. And that's not me saying like obviously like Netflix can get numbers to our point. But what is Netflix or Amazon or Apple's Sunday night viewing where White Lotus is on, Lasibus is on? Succession is on where it's just like, no, we're actually as a TV watching community stopping and being like, all right, everybody needs to sit down right now and make sure you're locked in. Well, I mean, Netflix tried to destroy that, right? Yeah. I think Netflix's whole, and it's been such an interesting back and forth the last couple of years, an interesting argument between the binge model and the episodic once a week model.

There are certain shows that we go, man, this show would have been better as it been. she Hulk. And there's certain shows that we go, you can't give us all this at once. We just can't have it all at once. There was a point where Netflix's model had taken over television

and the only holdouts were coming from the HBO's of the world who were giving you Game of Thrones every single week, right? And everybody, it switched up. And I remember the boys, the fans got super upset when season two of the boys came and you couldn't binge you.

it. And it made you wait. People got super mad. And now we see that there is something to be said about having everybody's collective attention at one time on one night because it drives the conversation in a different way, especially when you have something as weighty, meaty, and emotionally gut-wrenching as this show happens to be. So look, all of these things that we're talking about are kind of what lead up to the last of us already becoming the appointment viewing that it's become, and it has become that already. But God damn, if this isn't just a great show. It's cooking.

I'm upset. Matt. Let's get into quickly. I'm going to recap what happened on episode two of Last of Us, infected, directed by Neil Druckman. And then we're going to get into our thoughts on the second episode. So we begin in Jakarta, Indonesia, where Ibu Ratna, a professor of mycology at the University of Indonesia, is escorted by authorities to a hospital. where she examines a corpse infected with the cortisps fungi.

When the authorities ask what they should do, she tells them there isn't a medicine or vaccine that can stop this and that they should just bomb the city. Ellie, in the present, wakes up to Joel pointing a gun at her and along with Tess, they question how she's not one of the infected yet. Tess gets Ellie to reveal that Marlene wants the girl to be dropped off at a firefight encampment where doctors can make a cure based on Ellie's immunity. As the trail moves through bombed out Boston, Tess and Ellie grow closer.

but when they're ambushed by two infected in the Bostonian Museum, Tess is bitten but hides it from Joel and Ellie. When they get to the Firefly hideout, they find the entire crew dead and a horde of infected coming for them. Ellie finds out that Tess is bitten. Tess sacrifices herself to give Joel and Ellie more time to escape and blows up all of the infected. First reactions after you watched episode two, Van.

How are you feeling? This show is going to be a ride. the show to think about what the episode was able to take it to another part of the world you watch someone an authority on this type of phenomenon uprooted from their life and thrust into action in that entire time even though you're on the other side of it you know what happens to the world you're hoping you're hoping for the people that are still there you're seeing all of these people out in the street, you're seeing a society, you still have hope for that society that you know that you know is doomed. All of that should be non-dramatic. It shouldn't work. It shouldn't be

something that you care about. You know what happens at the end of it, especially since there's not specifically like, normally in those flashbacks, you'll have like a human story, the story of how two people got separated, the story of how somebody had to go off with somebody else. There's like a little drama in there that they get you on. This one, the whole purpose is. The whole purpose is. that is just selling you on the hopelessness of the situation. That's the entire point of that. Like, the entire point of that is to let you know the smartest person at the time in that vicinity goes kill everybody. Like, kill everyone.

Now, I haven't played the game, so there might be some extra added significance to that. Maybe that's ground zero for the cortex infection. Who knows? Because you learn, I guess, a little bit more about how it was able to spread throughout the world and how the pandemic got to the... People can correct me if I'm wrong, but like, similarly to the first episode, where the first episode starts with this TV show where professors are essentially describing the next pandemic to us,

this is not something that I remember from playing the game. I think that this was completely created to give an additional layer and foundation. So this is something that's new. But what, to your point, Venn, did you get a tinge of this where when she's talking about you just got to bomb it. I was just like, this hits home in such a weird way because I remember watching the news

when our current pandemic started. And do you remember what it was like to hear, oh, no, you can't be in the vicinity of people. You need to be six feet. You need to wear a mask. Like, you can't. And it's just like, you're thinking like, what?

Like, what type of world are you living in? You can't think of that type of world and now it's been normalized. Which is like, just bomb the world. And then Tess is, like later in the episode, yeah, it worked here. It didn't work everywhere else. You're like, oh, shit, not only did they bomb everywhere else.

That didn't even work, which was just like, I was clutching my chest. I was like, oh, man. I thought she was about to say that she was on the news, watching the news during COVID, and somebody was talking about they need to bomb someplace. That would have been wild. I didn't hear, I was about to say, I didn't hear anybody say that. I was supposed to say, hey, you guys, we got our first case in California. We will be bombing San Francisco.

But you know what I thought about? I thought about a different movie that you probably've never seen because you're a young whippersnapper. You ever see Outbreak? You ever see that before? I have not. So there's a town and Outbreak, right?

Rest in Peace, J.T. Walsh, Outbreak. One of those movies that's only half series, right? It takes itself seriously, but it's really not that series. You have Dustin Hoffman in this. Morgan Freeman is in this, Renee Russo, is in this Cuban Union's in this movie, Donald Sutherland's in this movie. And there's a scene at the White House

towards the end of the movie where they're going to use a fuel air bomb to bomb the town that this outbreak has occurred because it's called the Mutabavirus is going to get out and they have this whole thing this is 12 hours, 24 hours,

40 hours, and remember Donald Sutherland says this line, he goes, be compassionate, but be compassionate globally. So I just think about the people in this town. Think about people everywhere. I'm like, God damn. So they do this whole thing. And the J.T. Walsh, rest of peace, J.T. Walsh, man. J.T. Walker, the greatest character actors of all time,

gives this, just this ridiculously powerful speech about how we're going to do this. Everybody has to be on the same page. And I was thinking, this is what it would be like if we were in a situation where a disease, the lethality of the disease, was even slightly more than it was for COVID. These are the type of situations and decisions

that would have to be being made, right? And you look at this lady who she's looking at this disease and she's already figured out, if we don't do this, this is the end. And even to have to say that, it's a good thing for the show to do to keep taking us back to a pre-apocalyptic. I know we talk about post-apocalyptic, but pre-apocalyptic life to just a world to let us know just how hopeless this situation was. just how hopeless it, because the more hopeless, in my opinion, the situation was,

as far as the virus is concerned, the more powerful Ellie's character is because she represents something that could undo all of that hopelessness. Before we get out of this, I have to say, the show has to fucking stop with the little fungus shit

coming out of people's mouth. It freaks me fucking out every single time. Like seeing the little tension, I'm just like, stop. Like, you guys have to stop. Now, I'm about to, introduce a new segment that I have not told you about.

It's called Vance Plucky Kid Corner. Wow. Now, on a scale from one, which is Kevin McAllister and Home Alone, plucky kids you would like to hang out with. Pluck in the right way. Number 10 being scrappy do. Like, get this fucking fool out of here. On a step from 1 to 10,

how is the girl Ellie doing for you in this episode? Are you still on the fence with their pluck? or is she winning you over? She's winning me over. A couple of things. Number one, I actually love Scrappy Do. Get out of here. Fuck out of you.

But let me tell you what. I criticized the pluck. And I had several people that watched it and listened to us and told me that there's a reason why this pluck exists and that it's a good reason.

This is a young girl who is in a world where she finds it difficult to trust people to where people are telling her that she has something in her veins that might save the entirety of humanity she's being jerked around that this pluck might just be

a defense mechanism. Yeah. It's a comfort blanket. It's a comfort blanket to try to weed out. So while I'm watching and I'm like, I'll just do what this guy says. If you really surrender to the drama, seriously, if you surrender yourself to dramatic stakes in the show, then you would know that it's not just easy to do what someone says in this world.

It's not easy just to do as you're told because what you're told might lead to, it might lead to an infected on the other side of the wall or you being in the situation. So I would say, as far as your segment, which I love, she's going to get a six and pluck. Oh, okay. Wait, no, no, a six is bad. I know. It is bad. However, wait a minute. However, she would have got a nine or a ten before. Okay. Okay. We're moving in the right direction.

So moving in the right direction. And as the episode continues to go, you start to understand her character a little bit more. And you're connecting with her character a little bit more. And you're understanding how her pluck probably at the end of the day is an asset. Joe probably needs that a little pluck in his life. I'm not going to be honest. So before we get out of Plucky Kid Corner, all right, there's another thing. And I already know the answer.

then if you were tasked with transporting Ellie to the fireflies would you have stolen her chicken sandwich She at least got to break it off You know what I'm saying? I was just like you fucking rude as hell Because they eat it like the nasties jerky

And they're just salivating at this chicken sandwich And she's just like Hey I don't know what to tell y'all You got you'll have to give me a corner of the sandwich man At least break it off a little bit You know they got the jerky and they look like they're, I mean, they're just trying to tear the jerky,

the jerky won't even tear, and they got big-ass bread. Where do they get that big-ass bread from? No, but she looks at them. And she's just like, yeah, these are from chickens, you know, Marlene got from a smuggler. I guess y'all ain't that kind of smuggler. I was like, oh, hey, yo,

I would have just taken the sandwich. You can't take the sandwich, though, because you need, once again, you need her to go along. I would have been, I don't understand not asking for a piece of the sandwich. even just a piece of the brand so you can make it like a little jerky sandwich just give me like a little piece of bread and I'll take two pieces of bread

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we get this moment where essentially Tess is describing the infected to Ellie. Now it's like they're connected and test responds. More than you know, the fungus also grows underground, long fibers like wire stretching underground, step on a patch of cordyceps in one place and you can wake a dozen infected from somewhere else. Now we know that this is going to be important later in the Lowe's. episode. But when she's saying that, I was just like, this is like such a great moment because while Tess is talking about the infected, she's almost describing what this trio, especially

Joel and Ellie, are experiencing, which is Marlene decides not to kill Ellie when she gets bitten. That one act of kindness potentially can save the rest of humanity. It's like a domino effect. was just like, oh, like the greatest zombie movies, the greatest zombie TV shows are just like, how close are we to the dead? Like, who are the actual living? Who are the actual dead? And in that moment, maybe I'm pulling this out of my ass. I was just like, oh, no, that's partially what this show is about is like, what can one act of kindness do? Like, that, like, one act of kindness can lead to something bigger. And even Tess, in this moment, when she's at the end of the episode yelling at Joel, she's trying to make him convince, like, hey, believe in something.

bigger than yourself again. Please, for once. Like, do this thing for me. Was that something, am I totally off base here? Yeah, no, you're not. I think it, once again, in these shows, the, everything is contagious. Everything is viral. Compassion is viral.

Hope is viral. Everything is as infectious as the disease is. and normally the people that we're watching, they're the antibodies to a society that's also diseased, right? So whether it's the Walking Dead or whatever it is, there's always some people, one group, one group of people who they are like literally little helper T-cells that you hope are spreading a new way to get things back on track that people aren't really

sort of subscribing to before they get there. Very important what you say. Also, just functionally, to me, for this particular version of zombies, it was important to know that they were all interconnected this way because that is novel, right? That's something that you don't really see in the other zombie movies and fair.

You don't see that. You don't see the fact that, and this, I learned, about, do you know that this corticeps thing, it kind of exists actually in nature? That's where, that's where, uh, Druckman partially got the idea. This is fucking terrifying, right?

And so I'm, I'm serious, man. Like, this is terrifying. And so to know that when it's like, you're up against one of them, that all of them can be brought to bear, it just adds an extra layer of danger. to the world. And it also

does something to them. It organizes them in a different way. You always wonder why the walkers hang out together. There's no social interaction. They don't play dominoes. They don't really hunt and packs, but they're always together. You always wonder why they're together.

Sometimes to me it wouldn't make sense. Like, why are they hanging out together? Are they, like, working together? Is there some cognitive sort of situation going on in their minds where they're like, hey, it's easier to catch humans if it's four of us. and not just alone. But in this one, you understand

that there is an organization and an intelligence to this grand evil that is going to take a lot of spirit, obviously, and a lot of bravery, but also some coordination and intelligence to beat. That, to me, is as scary as everything. That one scene where you see the fungi

wrap around somebody's hands and then you see it happen to somebody else, and then they all come. come, I'm like, fuck what you're supposed to do? And that sort of, those sort of odds is like, that's really what raises the stakes of the show. Because I think it also, the genius thing about

it is, is that, you see this a lot in like environmental, like horror movies where the actual environment is like almost like a human body where it has antibodies and viruses and what this thing does is as the fungus, as the

corticeps, is infecting our body, it's doing something to the earth. The earth is like itself controlling these infected. It's weird. But to talk more about this, fan, I have another segment

for you. Oh. All right? I haven't told you about this. Sure. We're going to go to Kai's Video Game Corner. What's up, y'all? All right, I just want to say, I learned two things today. First of all, Kai is very, very

good at just planning stuff. So shout out Kai. He's also a big fan of this video game. He should have told me sooner when we were recording this episode. Kai, I brought you in here because I want you to describe the zombies because there's three types of zombies, okay, in this world. I think Van would like to know what they are. And I think what we were talking about, the cortisps stepping on it, them knowing what's

happening, a little different in the TV show versus the game. So can you break down the three types of infected that we have in the last of his universe? Yeah, yeah, I got you. First of all, I just got to say it's an honor to be sharing the mic with the midnight noise. All right, don't suck up. Go ahead. Do the thing, Kai. So we got three types, like Charles said.

We got runners. We got stalkers and we got clickers. We actually have a couple other types, but I'm not about to spoil. They're in the game. We'll see if they show up in the show. Runners being the weakest infected, kind of like recently turned humans. They still resemble humans, but it's kind of like your classic, you know, pop culture zombie.

You see a lot of those in episode 1 and 2. They're rampant in the video games. It's kind of like the main zombie you come in contact with. Then you've got stalkers. This is your second stage of infected, you know,

two weeks to a year to reach this stage of infection. And that's kind of like the combination of a runner and a clicker, which I'll get to in a second. It's like the vision and the speed that you have

with a runner meets the deadliness and like the ferocity of a clicker. When you're playing the game, they're kind of like a stealth zombie. Like they can hide around corners and they can just come at you from anywhere and you're like, okay, this game's getting legit at that point. And I don't think we've explicitly seen one of those in the show yet, but I'm sure we will. And then clickers, which is the big one, obviously very important in this episode,

is the third stage of infected. And it takes about a year of infection to reach this point. And as you see in the show, like the fungus completely takes over the host's head and like they can't see barely resemble human at that point. They're blind, but then like also as you see is like they can use echo location to hear. Like a bat. Like a bat. Makes them very, very deadly. Wait, really quick, Kai.

Yeah, go for it. Can you do the click or stuff for me? I can. I'm not about to do that. No, come on. Kai. Kyle. I don't cancel.

I will cancel. Kai's real game corner. Kai. Kai, Kai, Kai. One second. It's a goddamn honor to be on here with the Midnight Boys. It is. Another second, you won't do the click sound.

Kai. We need you to click right now. Do the click sound. I'll do it with you, Kai. We need some sort of I have no idea how to do it. Let me tell you something. So I never played the game.

I never played the game, right? And so I didn't, so when I saw, oh, first, do we have anything more for Kai? Oh, no, Kai has a couple more things. I think one thing I want to talk to you about is, it's different in the video game. Test dies differently in the video game. Yes, test dies very differently in the video game.

actually like it's similar to how she gets bit and the reveal is pretty similar to but then in that final moment for Tess when she reveals it to Joel and Ellie actually a bunch of Fedra soldiers come in and she holds them off with like a pistol or whatever sacrifices herself that way in this you see Joel shoot the zombie

and then like Charles alluded to earlier there's like this collective hive mind kind of thing and then they all start to rush and then that's when she like obviously does like the explosion and like I like this better. I like this better. This is way.

Number one, the scene with her trying to get the goddamn, she was clicking herself. She was with her trying to light the lighter. And I'm like, yo, is the lighter going to fucking light? Because I didn't want to see her get torn apart. I have a question for you guys. Why did the guy come in her like he was Timothy Shalamee and he wanted to get down on the French kiss tip?

Yo. Aren't they supposed to bite? I'm serious. Aren't they supposed to bite and tear apart? Like, what's what, I don't, he didn't bite and tear apart. He came over there like on some real Titanic, like, come here, baby type shit. This is different from the game because there's no zombie horde that comes and attacks them at the Capitol building. I was left with a like, why is this zombie like fronching her with the fungus tendrils coming out of his mouth?

I don't even know what that was supposed to be besides something that was just a horrific and be my best. guess is like he realizes that that's one of them now where it's not attacking her like a normal human. Oh, but maybe because she, it realizes she's already been bit. She's infected already. So, oh, that's interesting. Okay, that makes a little sense. Kai, what would you say to that? Yeah, I was going to say, too, I've heard the creators like reading some of like the press ahead of the show and stuff, also talking about how like, like, I don't view it this way, but like there is some beauty in the infected, right? And so I feel like that might be their way of being like, okay, they're not like, they're still humans.

There's still something there. Obviously, it is horrifying. But I think that's kind of, that's kind of how I read it too of like, obviously it realizes that she's been bit and there's some type of connection there. That's at least how I saw the same. Zombies get horny too.

Gotcha. To this point, two guys' point about this, I want to come back and talk about a couple of things here. Number one, I did not know about the three types of the infected. There's more. There's more. This is just the kind of like the three main ones that we've been seeing.

However, kudos to the storytellers here because it was sort of obvious. Sometimes it's not, right? It was obvious that this was a further along, advanced sort of progress of the disease, the infection, and that it was obvious that it couldn't see that it was really well told during the story. He's actually not worried about being seen at all. He's flashing the light. He's doing all of that stuff. So you, as the audience, even not, you understand that the thing can't see him.

But you realize that it can hear him. And like I said before, echolocation, not a superpower because these things can do it. Shut. Oh, echo location is definitely a super power. It's not a superpower. These things are doing it. Just joking, Charles.

But so that scene where they're inside and they're running is incredibly well done, right? Do you want to say something else, though? There is something to these particular zombies to where they have left their imprint on the world in a way that zombies and other zombie shows and movies haven't. Because you see them everywhere. You see the fungus all over things. It's not just like a man-made disease that has gone wrong. It's a force of nature that is attacking humanity for whatever reason.

It's coming up against humanity. It's something that's happening. Wherever you go, they're leaving their calling card. You can see that they're there. It's not just humans that are changing. When you're watching a zombie show, a zombie movie, human beings are changing, right? It's not just that. It's the world that is changing.

The world looks different. And that, once again, it just ups the odds. Everywhere you look, you see an example of something that looks like it's impossible to stop. Because I wonder, you know, she has a cure inside of her. Okay, if that's the case, there's fungus on the side of buildings. There's fungus on the ground. It's everywhere. It feels like punching a hurricane almost where you're just like...

A little bit, yeah. You're like, that's why when the woman's like, we should just bomb me. I'm just like, oh, because she knew, I'm like, if this comes out of a, control to your point, if you've ever had the misfortune to, like, be somewhere after a flood or a hurricane, you see the shit on the walls, the mold, the damage. It's like even after this force and nature to your point is gone, it imprints itself on the world. And it, like, leaves you with this feeling at the end of the episode, you're like, how are they

supposed to fight this thing? Yeah. And then when she blows everything up, which just this trope will never not work. I'm sorry, the trope of, hey, she's infected. It's never not going to work. What is that not going to work? Kai, you tell me, you're the expert in, you tell me, hey, look, you look down there there's a bite.

Now we got to say goodbye. Yeah, I think it always works. It always works. At the end of dawn of the dead, the dude's bitten, here come the zombie hoard, you're upset, you think they get away, and then the post credits is terrible. But anyway, just a really affecting episode of television. I don't know what I thought was going to happen, knowing that it was just Joel and You've seen all these posters

that you were still like. I didn't know what was going to happen. I knew she was going to die. I guess I knew she was going to die at some point, but I didn't think it would happen in this episode. And we know what we also saw. We also saw that the whole plan is gone to shit.

That there's that, that the fireflies or whatever. There's just nothing is going as it's supposed to have gone. And now Joel has decided with no guarantee of seeing his brother with none of the this stuff. He's done something. He's taking

up a mission. It's like, this episode was his first step and starting to believe in humanity again. Oh, absolutely. So I have a few more things, but Kai, thank you for Video Game Corner. Van, he did an amazing job. I think we should bring him back next episode for Video Game Corner. What? Kai's the man.

Kai is always, man. Like, me and Kai, me and Kai, like, watched, we watched the NBA draft. Remember we watched the draft last year today? The Me, Kai. Yeah, and you called me Logic. Yeah, I was like, the ringer finally hired Logic. We're going to bring you back next week for Video Game Corner. One thing I want to talk to you about thematically, Van, as we kind of wrap up this episode,

is like, you can tell that this show is written so well because one line, right, that if you're not paying attention, you're like, okay, cool. But when Joel says, I need you to stop talking about this kid, like she has a life in front of her. Like that one sentence says so much about not only where Joel is, but kind of this. engine of the story, being about loss of innocence, but also being about childhood wonderment. There's so many parts of this series where Ellie, you kind of forget, no, she is a baby of this apocalypse, where to her, a hotel, something we take for granted, is this kind of new thing where she's just like, oh, she's never had the ability to stay at a hotel. She doesn't know what it is,

like to wake up in a world not surrounded by walls. And it's kind of interesting where you can see Joel, his facade start to crumble a little bit as he's seeing the world through a child's eyes again. And it's something that it seems like he kind of buried when his daughter died. And I thought that was such a beautiful part of the episode. Had to bury it. Had to bury anything other than the realities of the situation

because he's no longer living, he's surviving. Yeah. and surviving is very important to him, obviously, and he wants to make sure that his brother survives. There's something else that's going on in the episode. There is a push-pull about what it is that Ellie actually knows. Certain things that she knows, hey, I know this. I went to school.

He's like, well, they didn't teach you that in school. No, it was a shitty school. Really, she's like any other kid. She thinks she knows shit, but really she don't know nothing. Normally, when you're in that situation and you're a kid, all that makes you is annoying. just a nuisance. You know, you think you know everything about politics,

but you've never voted. You think you know everything about sex, but you're a version. You think you know everything about New York, but you've never been out past 12 a.m. in New York. You went with your family, and you guys went to Ellis Island, and you got to hang out at One World Center.

You know, you got to do, but you don't know about New York, you know? And I think that's like, that's the way that you build trust in kids is actually the ability to convince them just how much they don't know. Because when a kid, especially at that age, is looking for guidance, they have to believe that you have their best interest at heart because you've been there before. And it's so important when they're going back and forth and he's saying, oh, they didn't teach you that. that. They didn't teach you that. This didn't happen. You never heard of that. This is something you never did, whatever, whatever, whatever. Because Elliot, at some point, it's going to have to believe that Joel is the best way for her to get to where she's supposed to go. She probably doesn't

have, she knows that she's immune, but she hadn't been on the earth that long to care that much about it. You know, his losses have been immeasurable even before, even before this all happened, Joel had to learn how to lose. He was a soldier. Wait, wait, wait. Some people on Twitter have corrected us. Supposedly he's not a soldier. It's Tommy's truck. So he's the combat. Oh, interesting. Well, thank you for the people of Twitter. I thought that he was a soldier. I thought it was Tommy's Chuck. So Tommy was in the service and not Joel. What you just said that was really sparked something else that I almost forgot about, which is something that you don't see as much in the game because obviously a game is all momentum. It wants to get you to the good parts is that in this short episode, you realize, how starved, and even how starved Ellie is,

but even Tess is for like a mother-daughter bond. Because she says something very interesting. When she's teaching Ellie about this world, Tess is basically saying like, hey, even though you're immune to this infection, you're not immortal, which is such a, there's like one thing that like every parent at some point,

or any figure, mother figure, father figure teaches to a kid, especially when you're a teenager is just like, you're not going to live forever. And that's the thing where it's like, that's the genius thing

about The Last of Us about the game and this TV show is that Ellie's immunity is a metaphor for what it means to be a teenager. You think you are immune to the world. You think you're going to survive.

Nothing can touch you. And through this episode, you're seeing, like Ellie's eyes opening that, okay, to your point, New York after 12 is different from the New York that that's happening in the daylight.

So when Ellie loses this mother figure, because when she looks at her, when she's like, hey, you got the balls on you, kid, it feels like that's the first time anybody, especially a maternal figure has been like, oh, like, I'm proud of you, like you're doing something good. And to see that loss,

and Ellie's like looking at Joel, like, why are we leaving or da-da-da, da, da, you're like, oh, the show in an hour built up this mother-daughter relationship. so it hurts even more. It's brilliant. Yeah, it's brilliant. You guys, we're coming back.

We're coming back with more. I can't believe it, Charles. I can't believe that HBO got in their bag again. What's in HBO's bag? What did he got in that bag? HBO, here's a thing too. Like your point, that first episode, I liked the first episode.

If it was on any other service, I would be like, all right, cool, cool, cool. But this, I was like, oh, shit, I know they're cooking. And this episode two blew the pilot out of the water. I was just like, all right, locked in. I'm ready to go. Polly was stronger at the beginning parts of it, but this episode is obviously now we're,

now, Charles, we're in the shit. We're cooking. We're cooking. We're cooking. But yo, thank you so much for y'all for listening to the second episode of us breaking down the last of us. Thank you to our producer, Kai, the video game extraordinaire. Make sure you lock in with Mal and Joe

who are going to do a deep dive, go deeper than we ever could go. and y'all we will be back next week bitty b'oooooo!