The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Last of Us’ Episode 7 Deep Dive

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Joanna and Mallory dive deep into Episode 7 of ‘The Last of Us.’ They start by discussing some recent listener emails and behind-the-scenes reveals they missed last week (5:01). Then, they break down everything that happens in the episode, from Ellie’s choice to not leave Joel to the flashback of her beautiful but doomed romance (21:23). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Ben Solac and I host the Ringer NFL Draft show with Danny Kelly, Danny Hyfitz, and Craig Horbeck. Join us twice a week as we talk everything NFL draft and break down all the players who will make your team better, except the Rams because they don't really have any picks. Check us out on the Ringer NFL Draft Show on Spotify. This episode is brought to by Boris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boris Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it. presenting the friars turkey breast only from Boershead.

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It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. How did you get bit? You know the old mall in the QZ? One that's sealed off and boarded up and no one's supposed to go in, ever, that one? Whatever, I snuck in. Wanted to see what it was like.

I didn't think there was going to be anything in there, and then one just came at me out of nowhere. I thought I got away, but... So it was just you in there alone? Yeah. Nobody's gonna be coming after you, right? Like mom, dad, boyfriend. I'm an orphan, and, uh, no.

Back into the Prestige TV podcast feed, I'm Joanna Robinson, joining me today. Her mouthful of tendrils. It's, uh, it's Mallory Rubin. Rubin. I'm Mallory. How are you? Oh, Joe. We could just be all poetic and shit and lose our minds together. I kid you not, I thought of you during that line. We're here to talk about the Last of Us, episode seven left behind. We're so excited to talk about this episode. This has been one that I've been really looking forward to. So I am so glad it is finally time to talk

about it, but it also means we are close to the end of the season. And I know how much that I'm sorry. So let's talk about other content that we're covering in the prestige feed. Content never stops. It's true. Never stop stopping. Van de Charles, of course, are here with your instant reactions to The Last of Us in this feed. Rob Mahoney and I are covering poker face, which also only has a couple episodes left.

Last week's episode, a banger. This week's episode, a banger. It's ending really strong poker face. So I really recommend you check it out. And then starting soon, I'm not going to commit to a little. a day or time because things are flexible in this world. Starting pretty soon, Bill Sim and Sean Fentasy and I will be doing some pre-succession content in this feed to get us all ready to go. thrilling.

Yeah. To go back to the Roy family drama. So, you know, that's happening. Yellow jackets are coming over on the Ring Reverse feed. Mallory and I are going to be starting in our Mandalorian season three coverage this week. So listen, don't be sad. Every time content closes a window, it opens a door into five other shows that we're frantically rewatching and preparing for. Grogu's back this week.

I've yelled of a lot. How are people going to go back to watching a show with Pedro Pescal's face cover the entire time after they've seen the last of us? Do you know what I mean? It's a great question. I don't know. Hopefully he'll just keep removing the helmet. rejecting the dogma, the children of the watch. I hope he's nothing but like sweaty helmet hair the whole season.

Okay. Maybe he'll swap the Baskar helmet for a Halloween mask, the grinning wolf. I could always count on you to bring it back to the subject at hand, which begs the question, Mallory. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm well known for on Pons. You're so good at that. sticking efficiently to the subject at hand. No digressions ever. Mallory Rubin, if folks want to hear about poker face, about succession,

A about the Mandalorian. How can they keep track of all this content that we're covering? Oh, first I'd suggest following the pod. I'm not. I'd like a prestige TV podcast. Follow the ringerverse. Follow trial by content. Follow all of it on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you're looking for ways to stay tapped in beyond that, check out our various social media feeds. The ringer crew is on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, everywhere. And as you know, you can also send us your mushroom recipes, your apple musings,

your questions, and thoughts about the latest Last of Us episode at the Pipe and Hot Pop and inbox Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Keep the emails coming. We got an email to say

that I haven't forwarded to you yet, which someone sent us a like a cat bed that is shaped like Grogoos. little bassinet. Are you aware of this product? Oh boy. Yeah, the little, the little leg. Yeah. It's almost too much. Does Hale any of that? Okay. It's almost too much to bear. I really don't think the person who owns like multiple sabers and helmets, whatever say that, but that's okay. All right. Before we break down this episode, we just want to do a little like sort of emails,

things we missed corner because we recorded last week's episode a little in advance of when we usually do, which means we didn't get to like listen to the official podcast or check in with all of you who have played the game more deeply than we have, etc. And so two things I want to hit. And Molly can let me know if there's anything else. Number one, the teen girl that we see sort of peeking around a pillar scoping out Ellie last week's episode could be a possible season to Easter egg. Our palestee of almond like was made sure to text us about that. So that is something that people feel very confident is an Easter egg. I feel a little mixed positive on it.

And then the other thing we wanted to mention is that the closing Depeche Mode cover that ended last week's episode was performed by Jessica Mason, Craig's Magins' daughter, teenage daughter. I just like love that detail. It's amazing. Amazing. Yeah, it was really cool to hear him talk about that on the official pod for episode six and how it, made what was already such an emotional parent child ending in conclusion to that episode even more heightened for him. On the Easter egg front, they, Neil and Craig, they acknowledged the possibility of the egg

on the official pot, which I was intrigued and surprised by. So, you know, we'll find out together in real time. Can't wait. I think with stuff like that, I just have casting questions. Because if this is a character who's going to play an important role in season two, and, you know, would they commit themselves to an actress who's going to show up for two seconds in this episode? Or, you know, would they hold off casting that role until season two? That's just a sort of like TV procedure question I have.

But listen, if we're acknowledging the egg, we're acknowledging the egg. I would now like to use an email as an excuse to talk about the TV series Lost. Are you ready for this, Mallory? Here we go. You know I love when we talk about the TV series Lost, please. We got this email from Daniel, and we got a couple similar emails. So this is like sort of of a piece of a way few people are reacting this episode. Daniel wrote, I would love for you to discuss the placement of Ellie's flashback within the overall season.

For me, I thoroughly enjoyed our quote unquote before trilogy meets Mortal Kombat walk-and-talk. However, while understanding Neil and Craig's reasoning for placing the flashback where they did, I found it oddly places in the overall story. I thought it would have been better as an introduction to Ellie's character. You match her losing Riley to Joel losing Sarah and Tess. I didn't like that we broke away from the main story in this moment. All right. So that's from Daniel.

Again, we got several emails on this, you know, on this question, some a little bit harsher than others. But I do want to use this as an excuse to talk about the flashback. structure in television and something, you know, Mallory and I, because we're huge fans of the TV series lost, we've watched it through multiple times. This seemed like so standard to me to have a flashback, especially a flashback off the L.E's reach for the door. Elie's has to make a choice, and then we flash back to an important moment in her life that is going to inform us, the viewer, about what she's thinking about as she makes this choice. And this is what Lost did every single goddamn week on that show. It was such a miracle. The balance would have been a little different. We would have gotten a little bit more in the present to balance, to offset the flashback to the past.

But for me, since those stories are so closely connected, this decision she makes to stay with Joel and this decision she and Riley make at the end of this episode, it all feels so beautifully of a piece to me versus, let's say, um, our pal Ryan area over at screen crush invoked the book of Boba Fett and the way that that shows misused flashbacks in a way where it really... Flashback to. Who could forget? Well, it didn't really like feel connected to the main story.

And so then, you know, it doesn't feel like I'm taking a rich deep dive into a character and their decisions and their thought processes and stuff like that. And also in terms of like the timing, the placement in the show, I love it here because as you heard in the clip that opened this episode, when Ellie first meets Joel and Tess, she's not ready to tell them the truth about who she is. She doesn't know these people very well. She doesn't yet fully trust them. Also, you know, Neil and Craig on the official podcast, we're talking a lot about the context of being queer in 2003, right, which we talked about a bit with the Bill and Frank episode. So, like, Ellie having this very important, like, moment in her queer awakening,

is something that, you know, maybe not knowing Joel very well and a guy from like Texas in 2003, she's like, I don't know if this is safe right to talk about. But then she understands that they were friends with Bill and Frank. And so she's like, okay, this is like a safer. And not that she tells Joel this story in this episode, but I think as Joel gets to know Ellie better and he learns something very important about Ellie in this episode, when she comes back for him, he understands more about who she is. She's not going to leave. Right.

I think that's a good time for us to know more about who she is. What do you, what do you think, Mallory? I agree completely. I think that, like, of course, in episode seven of a nine episode first season, if we're not with Joel or if we hadn't been with Ellie, either of them for every second of the episode, we're going to miss them together when we're not with them. but what we get in place of that is so enriching and illuminating and crucial not only for filling in these blanks in the past, but then understanding where we're going moving forward and understanding the parallels between them.

I think that if could they have done a version of what's suggested here quite deftly and well in the premiere, possibly. But I think ultimately it's more rewarding for us as viewers to take a beat that is not just a beat for us, but is what is happening inside of Ellie's mind in that moment. these connections that she's drawing, the relationship that she has with Joel, this is the most important person in my life right now, the person I can't leave, I don't want to be without, who is she thinking of? It's natural for her to think of the last most important person in her life in that moment. And so if we had gotten Joel and Sarah and Ellie and Riley back to back in the first episode, I worry that that would have been like whiplash-inducing cross-timeline.

And it's feeling to me here like a very organic moment in the story to learn this about Ellie. And so I liked it. And it felt like an appropriate place in the overall flow of the season to have a more complete view of Ellie's history and who she is. And I don't mean to hammer, of course, this particular listener, Daniel, because I thought his email was quite thoughtful. And as I said, we got much saltier versions of this. But I think the sentiment of like we broke away from the main story in this moment. We heard similar grumblings around the Bill and Frank episode. I think it comes back to what you consider main story when you're watching television.

Is it only action of carrying the McGuffin being Ellie, Miracle, Miracle Cure Baby, from point A to point B, like the forward motion, the zombie attacks, etc., etc., Or is it sort of if that's like, you know, the X, I know math, the X axis, is it the Y axis, which is like going deeper into our characters and understanding them better? I would argue that it's both. You need both forward and, you know, deepening momentum in your stories. And so I never think of, unless they feel disconnected, as with Book of Fett, I never think of this as taking me away from the main story. I think of them as the main story. Yeah, absolutely. It's all connected. It's all, it's all part of the tendrils. It's all part of the

network, right? And part of the communication and our communication with the show and our understanding of the show, we can have a toe step over here and we feel it over here, right? That's the way the show is built and the story is structured. I think it's part of what has made it so compelling and engrossing so far that every time we meet new pairings, we get to think more deeply about that them question. Well, what's another us for one of our main members of our central us? Like, it's all so deeply entwined. That's part of why I've loved the show so far. And I like also that each of the episodes feels like simultaneously so deeply connected and of a piece with the overall flow of the season. And like just a lot of the episodes have felt really distinct. You know, you talk

often when we pod about how when you look back at a season of TV, you're talking about it with your friends, or you're talking about it on a pod, you can say the one where, the one when. And this show has been so deftly structured in that respect. You'll be able to talk about this first season that way forever. That's, I think, a real achievement. That's a perfect observation because I think that I think it stresses me out when a show turns to mush and you can't distinguish between episodes because that's like the art of television is these like episodic chapters. And so to have the one with Bill and Frank, the two in Kansas City or the one with Henry and Sam or whatever, the one with Riley, I think that's great. Okay, so we got this email from Brian, which is just really cute

behind the scenes fact from some of the extras that came out around the game, which is that Ashley Johnson, who's the actress who portrayed Ellie in the game, and Troy Baker, who portrayed Joel and who is the excellent host of the official HBO podcast, that they were just talking to Neil Druckman about sort of what they would have been if they hadn't been actors. And Ashley said an astronaut,

and Troy said a singer. And that's so that that like wound up in the game. for these for Ellie and Joel. I love that little detail. I thought that was really cute. So good. And I like tear up listening to Druckman and talk about this on the pod last week because he was like, this is just such a meaningful thing to be able to like incorporate part of your

history, you, the person who brought this character to life for so many people. That's just a really, a really neat little little detail. I loved it. A really quick email from Reagan as well that I wanted to read because we got actually a couple emails asking about why Joel's Texas accent was so thick in last week's episode. And I loved this email from Riggin on that front who says, we Texans have a unique drawl. But when Texans speak to each other, that drawl gets cranked a bit. And when two Texans are speaking to each other in a bar outside of the state of Texas, that drawl gets cranked up all the way to 11. Boy, howdy. When Joel talks

to Ellie or Bill or the old guy sniper, his Texan drawl is there if you listen. Great job, Pedro. But when he's talking to his brother. It is on full display. Just listen to how he says the word alive to Tommy. Dangnam it. They got us down, Pat. So I love that. I'm like, I have a friend of mine who is from Arkansas and his Arkansas accent comes out so strong when he's drunk at weddings. Like there's moments when that like regional accent, your Baltimore accent, it like ebbs and flows, you know? And so like this idea of like, I love that his, the accent got thicker when he was around Tommy. Like, I thought that was perfect. Do you have anything you want to say in Accent Corner here, Mallory?

I love it. I always enjoy when we go to Accent Corner or when it's time for a wig watch with Joanna Robinson. So I feel like this was a real coming home again moment for the pod. This is great. And yeah, the first thing I thought when I read this is how many times you've noted to me that when I talk about Baltimore sports or my family, my accent comes out more strong. It's really cute. And you were just home. So I hope people are listening out for the Oos in this.

episodes. Last but not least, we got this email from Sam that I really loved and it ties into some of the larger sort of mythological storytelling conversations you and I like to have

citing a passage from author Erica Barry's new book, Wolffish. Sam writes, this is a passage from Wolfish. When Joseph Campbell codified the concept of the hero's journey in 1949, he suggested

a hero was made when he ventured out into the world. encountered wild forces, triumphed and returned with new power. This was the scaffolding of boy into man as heroes from Odysseus to Hercules, Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter will tell. Nearly 40 years later, in an 1984 interview, Campbell said, a girl turns into a woman with, quote, her first menstruation, it happens to her. Nature does it to her, end quote.

Unlike the man's journey, Campbell portrayed the woman's as passive. She didn't have to go looking for transformation because the seed of it was always inside of her. What is a woman? Ask Campbell. A woman is a vehicle of life. Life has overtaken her. The words first infuriated me. So that's the end of the quote from the book Wolfish. And then Sam wrote, I don't exactly have a fully baked thought here, but it did get me thinking about Ellie and the multiple mentions of her menstruation this season.

For all the transformations in her world that aren't happening to her, the tendrils, et cetera, there is one process still happening to her. and her affect has certainly betrayed her indifference, if not outright enmity. Because she wants to go on the boy's version of the hero's journey described above, she sees that Joel is on something of one himself, and she wants to be part of it, not accessory to it, partner in heroics. That's the end of the email from Sam. I love this email. I love this idea.

We talk a lot about the hero's journey. We don't often talk about the various gendered ideas around the hero's journey. And I love also that I got this email from me. Sam before listening, before it was written before this week's official podcast came out. And Mazen and Druckman were talking about how determined Ellie is to feel an equal to both Riley and Joel. That it's not, I want to be taken care of. It's I want to be your equal.

I want to be on this journey with you. I want to live up to the bar that you're setting of competency or whatever it is. Any thoughts or feelings? And I've been curious about these moments. centering on Ellie's menstruation in this season of television. Any thoughts or feelings about this now? I think, like, more generally, what I really, one of the many things I really loved about this episode is that it's a coming of age episode inside of a story where it feels largely like you're not allowed to grow up or be happy or experience anything normal. And we have so many moments with Ellie.

You know, we need only look back to episode six and Jackson where she wasn't able to sit down and enjoy the movie with the other kids. She's sitting in the, the, the teenagers room reading the diary, saying with like genuine befuddlement, this is what people used to have to worry about. Like, what shirt do you match with what skirt? And so in this episode or in these other moments in the season where you're reminded of like, this is what changes about you as you grow up. This is a thing that at one day all of a sudden you're dealing with that you weren't the

day before. Like the mushroom apocalypse doesn't stop that. And I thought also Bella Ramsey spoke really beautifully about this in The Inside the episode where she talked about this crush and that like you wouldn't stop having crushes or forming emotional attachments or like longing for somebody because every day you worried about what was next. Like, if anything, it would make it all the more crucial, and that's really what this episode is about, ultimately, the big takeaway, to live inside of those moments for as long as you can. So like a coming of age episode and all of the different aspects of coming of age that are a part of that, I think really heightens that larger theme. 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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So here we are talking about episode seven left behind, directed by Liza Johnson, written by Neil Druckman. Liza, looking into her CD Liza, is directed a bunch of television. specifically I just want to shout out the sex lives of college girls because I know how important it is to the Simmons family. And she's a, you know, a queer woman directing the story about queer young women. I think that was a great choice. And I liked how much, how often in the official podcast, Craig and Neil were sort of like shouting out her particular point of view and how it enhanced the episode. This is based on, you know, Mal and I are doing our own journeys through the game. Mallory is playing it.

I'm watching these sort of cinematic playthroughs. This is not based on a section of the game. This is based on a supplementary story called Left Behind, which is called part of like a DLC downloadable content, sort of extra feature that Neil Druckman created after the show, the game was already a hit, this sort of backstory of Ellie and Riley, which I watched a playthrough of,

and I was very enjoyable to me. Any thoughts or feelings about your continuing play-through of the game, Mallory? Yeah, it was fun to, so I, you know, I paused the primary game to play left behind over the last couple days. And as usual, it took me twice as long as the, to play through time I had read on the internet. I thought this was like extraordinarily good and really, really gripping. And you, in the, in left behind, when we should say, also, so that there's a four-episode comic issue, American Dreams,

that's also more of the Riley backstory, and then left behind. It's the, like you said, the DLC associated with the first game. So you're in two different moments with Ellie, much as you are in this episode, but it is a much more even split, where you're in two different malls

because Joel is, Ellie has taken Joel and his wounded, that draining near corpse to this other dilapidated abandoned, you think abandoned mall. And so you really have these plot and gameplay and mechanical parallels across the journeys too where Ellie is looking for the resources

and the tools to be able to try to treat and heal Joel. So that was an interesting adaptive change and I think a smart one where you have those elements and of course the thematic moments of cutting back and forth where you realize what is going on in Ellie's mind. mind and how central that is to the decision that she makes to stay with Joel to not leave Joel behind. But you don't have this long stretch of the episode where Ellie is looking for a way to help him. That's ultimately resolved with a very dirty needle and spool of thread. I have notes.

I have so many notes. The last few minutes of this episode were so beautiful. And I was a wreck watching them as we were cutting back and forth between the two. And when Ellie and Joel, like, their fingers were entwined, I was fucking. sobbing. I thought it was so beautiful, but I was also like, disinfect the needle, Ellie. I mean, I mean, beautiful though. She had no alcohol. I mean, she had alcohol in the past. Well, Joel's got a flask, you know? Like, let's, let's tap into some of the. We got to, we got to, if there's anything in the flask, yes, or at least like, boil the needle. If you can like make that something. It's a tense situation. But anyway, that's a, that's a long way of saying.

Left Behind is incredibly cool. Yes. It's really like watching a movie and like playing a game, which is, of course, not a new observation. It's something that Legions have said for a decade about these games overall. Right. There are some really neat,

which we'll talk about a little bit more as we go through specific distinctions and the nature of the gameplay in Left Behind, where you were, of course, playing as Ellie and experiencing Ellie's distinct point of view and also, like, her abilities. It's like, I can't wait to talk about like the way they did the Mortal Con.

combat and photo booth moments in particular, just so, so cool. I think that, and here's where we'll get into like the episode itself, but I think that it's so fascinating to me that this is the moment in the game when Joel gets injured here and then you take over playing as Ellie. And as I mentioned, like, the plot of this is in the DLC, but in the game itself, you know, I pause my watch through. There's like a time jump, right, into the snow. And it's like, you know, Joel is injured and Ellie has been dealing with this for a long time.

And that's so interesting. I don't think they're going to do that in the show. But more crucially, you as a player are inside Ellie's head. So again, this is a great moment to go inside Ellie's head because in the game, this is the moment where Neil Druckman, et cetera, decided you are inside Ellie's point of view now. There's no cold open in this episode. Mason and Druckman explain why. is just sort of like, again, to keep that connection between the present and the past, that very lost, like, were you waiting for the whoosh of the plane engine sound when she reached for the door now? Like, it was such a perfect loss flashback moment.

I think we get the, you know, like blood dragging in the snow, the horse is inside. We get all the clues we need about how she got, Joel. I mean, like, I am so impressed with Ellie. The fact, like, basically, it seems like she. And callus, great horse. Yeah, great job, buddy. It seems like she rigged up a sled of some sort with rope and the sleeping bag and got the horse to drag

Joel freely bleeding through the snow into this house. An amazing achievement that immediately makes me very worried about who might spot the trail of blood leading them to this. So subtle basement. Joel opens his episode by telling her to go. Oh, real, you know, Namira rocks. Once again.

Once again. Thinking of our beloved Aria and Nymeria. Hard not to. This was heart wrenching. The way he's saying, leave, leave. She's stalling him to shut up. He says you go, go. Like literally pushing her away because he is so worried about exactly what he voiced to Tommy in episode six.

I'm just going to get her killed. I know it. I know it. I have to leave her. and then they have this massive breakthrough and bonding after that, after they do go on together. And then for him to be in this moment where he's like, this is exactly what I knew was going to happen. She's going to stay here by my side. I'm going to die.

Then she's going to be on her own. She's not going to be with Tommy or someone's going to find us. Something terrible is going to happen. For those to be the things going through his head, like that defining life-altering fear as he is about to bleed out and die, painful. Also, it's this beautiful collision of those defining life-altering fears because we found out from Ellie a couple episodes ago when she was talking to Sam. Like, her biggest fear was being left alone, right? So she is staring down the barrel of her biggest fear and he's staring down the barrel of his biggest fear and they're at odds with each other. But in this moment, it's Ellie who has the upper hand of controlling the situation, you know, because he's the more vulnerable one in this situation.

And, you know, she's like, I'm not, she could go back to Tommy. But as, you know, as she said to Joel, like, putting me with someone else, you know, wouldn't make it better. I would just be more afraid. Yeah, you know, so. Arrenching. Also, because they use the heavier winter overcoat as the blanket. You know, he's shivering. He's cold.

We got to see that classic jacket again from the early episodes. I was thrilled. I'm so glad for you. So happy for you. Speaking of FitWash, we flashed to Ellie. Ellie at Federal School in her sweats, her Fedra sweats. In P.E., we get a little... Nightmare.

Yeah. Terrible. Okay. You and I are completely aligned on this front. My greatest fear, P.E. Pearl Jam. We get a Pearl Jam needle drop. As players of the game will tell you, Pearl Jam is very important to the game,

a particular Pearl Jam track. I don't know anything about it, but this is what I have heard. And Neil Druckman talked a lot about his fascination with Pearl Jam on. on the podcast. I'm hoping that one day Bill Simmons and Neil Druckman get to bond over this shared love of Pearl Jam because as anyone who has ever listened to the Ringer podcast network will know Pearl Jam is a mainstay. So this was big. This was big for the Ringer. Even though, it had nothing to do with the Ringer. It felt like it did. The lyrics though, Joe, Joe, like it's a hopeless situation. I mean, the musical selection in the season has been great. This is a big episode for

music. Big episode. It's so funny because sometimes I get really irritated. when musical, when needle drops are like the lyrics are too on the nose. And for some reason, it does not bother me in this, in this show. It's all perfect for me. Speaking of our Lord Xavier Bill Simmons, something that I'm, like, I shouldn't be surprised by, but it's been like such an interesting discovery for me since I started working here is how good Bill is at putting a playlist together. Like, Bill's Spotify playlists are really good. If you love the 90s.

Anyway. It's great. It's also, it's a real like Starlord awesome mix volume one energy here too, you know, because we don't get an actual mix. But with the Walkman, yeah, we get the stack of tapes. We get the commentary from Riley later in the swap of the tapes. And like thinking about how where Ellie found these, like we learned that the Ed of James in the game, we learned that that came from Riley.

That was a gift from Riley. Then you think back to how excited Ellie was to find the Linner. Durant sat in the in the truck with Joel and like oh this is a new thing now that I can listen to and share and I love music. So like another another nice moment where we see something here and it enriches something that we've already seen in the past. It's also these like even though the past is the future. Yeah. I want I'm going to talk a number a number of times as we break down this episode. I'm going to talk about this concept that I stole from the Better Call Saul Insider podcast where they would talk about how they would drop what they called pre-ster eggs or pre-easter eggs.

You know, and that's in the final season of Better Call Saul, it's just like choking on them. It's so good. But like what it means is like a thing and we see it and we're like, that probably means something. And I will learn later what it means. And there are so many Ellie lines that we've heard throughout the seasons that are illuminated and excavated by this episode. So, you know, shout out to the priest or eggs.

But I think also I want to talk about, I mean, I think this is as good as good a place as any talk about this idea, her anxiety around the Walkman. We know that like Star Lord and Guardians has a like very personal connection to the mixtapes and the Walkman. And here it's like it operates a little differently, but I love this idea of these items. It's a very video game idea like to have these items, right? Like you you have your in D&D you call it bag of holding, but like you know, you have your stuff that you carry around with you. But our listener, Mark, put me on to this great article by Alison Stein over at Salon that connected this show. It was just the, it's just her recap from February 19th, but like this show to the concept of the Tim O'Brien book, the things they carried.

So when you think about these totems and these items and what they mean, we've seen Ellie and her desperation to get that knife back. right at the beginning of the season. We've seen the joke book, which we find out more about in this episode, the comic book. We've got like what Sam carries, you know, like the fact that Henry saved a bag of crayons for his brother.

You know, like, what are the things? What are the items? When you don't have a home, when you're a nomadic, then these things in your pack, these totems, these items, like take on things. such, such significance.

And what's interesting meaning is in the Tim O'Brien book, The Things They Carried, Great Book, by the way. Like, these are about, that's about Vietnam soldiers. What do you carry when you're at war? What do you have on you that is like a photo from home or something similar that it connects you back to maybe who you were in the before times? Or that piece of humanity that you want to hold on to for yourself? And what is it?

It's books. It's music. It's, you know, it's art in the form of crayons. It's that survival is insufficient concept that we keep talking about. Yeah, exactly. So I just love that. And, you know, we get so much of that in that establishment of Ellie's room that we'll go to a second. But I need to talk about fucking Bethany.

Bethany, tough hang. Not a friend of mine. Oh, man. But I love, when Bethany says you don't fight your friend fights and she's not here anymore, is she? we are immediately put in a space where we are associating the loss of Riley, a person that we haven't even met yet. We meet her in her absence with Joel. Like, you don't fight your friend fights. She's not here anymore.

Is she? Like, you're vulnerable because your defender, your protector is not here anymore. And that, again, it's such a close connection to the headspace that Ellie is in in the present in this moment. What is it like to lose your protector? and can you defend yourself in that situation? Turns out Ellie can, fucking Bethany. Yeah, 15 stitches. So, yeah.

Big episode for stitches. The Fedra school reminds me of Ender's Game. Does it like pop any sort of child soldier comp for you? Ooh. Ender's game, that's a good one. I don't know if it made me think of anything specific. It just felt like such a intentional moment not only to show us Ellie's history, but people in Fedra, Captain Quang in this case,

who think truly that they are the good guys doing the good things and what the pitch is for this particular kind of future. But like before that pitch, I thought one of the real interesting touches was the photo on the desk and Ellie taking it and looking at it and we see these two daughters, family members. And like the first thing you think is, are those people still alive?

And I think that the show has done a very good job of not letting us get comfortable with any group and always reminding us like the resistance can become as bad quickly as the group that they overthrew. The fireflies are not, oh, let's push back when we hear someone say terrorists, but also let's show you the pipe bombs and how they use them.

And let's show you that across episodes. Fedra, we've seen Fedra do horrific, horrific things. And we've heard about other even greater horrors, right? This is like a through line of the experience so far, this oppressive fascist regime that is ripping the life away from the few people who've managed to hold on to it. And then you have this human being who's sitting across the table saying, let me talk to you about your future and how smart I think you are. And here's a picture of the people I probably lost. And it's those little moments, again, where there's not a conversation

about that. But we find ourselves thinking about like, what was this person's history? What was this person's loss and grief? And like one of the things I really loved about this scene is like even though in a amazing and Druckman talked about this, they felt it was clearly like important to keep showing us and always to show us the complicated nature of the divide across the sides. What you hear, you know, you get your own room. You get a nice bed. We eat well. We don't go on patrol. We're cool in the summer. were warm in the winter. I think there's a read on that scene that's, wow, we get to glimpse a caring human being

inside of this noxious Fedra machine. My read on that was, what a disgusting thing to leverage like the basic necessities of life. Like you can have warmth if you participate in our tyrannical dictatorship, but you can't if you don't. Like, that's horrific.

And so actually putting it inside of this, like, temporary cocoon of civility made it, I think, more appalling. It was very, very effective. Yeah, there's a couple things going on here that I think are so interesting. One is that this adaptive choice, this isn't really a through line of the left behind DLC, but this adaptive choice to make Riley and Ellie like star-cross lovers in ideology even without the mushrooms. zombies, this like Fedra versus Fireflies idea sort of, and again, that's Tommy versus not that Joel is pro Fedra, but like that clash of ideology inside of a loving relationship is a really interesting element. There's also, again, that stratosphere, the like the way in

which they apparently sort their children, their child's soul. soldiers into like, are you a leader? Or are you a Bethany? Are you? We later find out a Riley and you get sewage duty, you know? And then there's this moment, I mean, the real alarm bell for me is when he gives her the old Luke and Grogu test of like, here are two items on a desk. Here's a mug.

Here's a key. Here's a lightsaber. Here's an adorable little Bescar chain mail shirt. Sure. You have to choose. your path right now. And like, yeah, there's ways in which, you know, he talks to her about being a leader and we like Ellie.

So we're like, oh, someone sees, you know, the potential in Ellie. So there is a tendency to want to like kind of like this character. And he's a bit avuncular with her. But as you say, if you've drilled down deeper into the language, it's absolutely vile. Yeah. And I think it's another thing that's more effective for us seeing it later. Because, like, we understand now that Ellie's awakening

is ongoing. We get to see inside of this episode that the idea of Fedra being the fascist dickbags as we hear is not a new revelation. It's something she and Riley had been talking about at length for a long stretch of time. When Ellie says later to Riley, like, we can be the ones who change something. It's not like she's like, I purely and truly believe in Fedra. She's never gotten to experience any other kind of life. Like this has been her entire reality. So when we then see her out in the world. Like the way that she clearly just admires Tess immediately and is so interested to learn from her, everything that she and Joel have witnessed and experienced together, this like

broader sense of the world. In the moment when Joel said, like, you haven't seen the world so you don't know, it was a wall that he was putting up for himself. There's also a kernel of truth to it, which is that every experience Ellie has is a new one. And so the idea of her being a leader is right. But why would she ever be a leader inside of that horrific reality? Look at all the other different ways she can make a difference. All the other different ways she can try to impact people's lives. I think what's also so interesting about this, you know, to your point about Ellie's, every experience Ellie has is a new experience. And this is,

this is the moment in her life where she first experiences true loss. And when she and Joel have that really tough knockdown drag out fight in last week's episode, and she talked about. And she talked about her own, you know, you're not the only one who's experienced loss. Like, I've experienced loss. And we believe her, it's, but it's a different thing to see it. And it's a different thing, again, to contrast Ellie and Riley in this episode, Riley is someone who has already experienced that loss. And Ellie is someone who is bouncing around with a certain degree of naivete, despite living, being in a child soldier school, living in a mushroom apocalypse, she's still been cocooned to a certain degree of the harsh realities of what it means to live in this particular

reality. Let's talk about her cocoon, her little feathered nest, right? Her dorm that she lives in with just like, you know, if you want to talk about Easter eggs galore, we've got it, you know, the Savage Starlight comic is here. The first volume of the Will Livingston book is here. The Knights is here. His daughter be good. It's great titling. the cassettes you mentioned and then there's just like dinosaur drawings and astronaut

ephemera everywhere you know what I mean and this is like I think it's cool I mean I wouldn't think that barracks would usually be a place where you get to have so many posters but I love the idea

of especially with Mortal Kombat too which obviously we'll come back to this idea of these posters and these totems of something she's never actually actually experienced, right? One is like going to the moon and dinosaurs. Like that's something that like none of us, I think, listening, unless there are some

astronauts listening, hello. None of us haven't experienced. Or Dr. Alan Grant is listening. But like, but then in this reality, you add things like a video game or like other things are as foreign as the moon, as a dinosaur to a person like Ellie, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And again, I was thinking back to her on the window bench in episode six in that other teenager's room and the bafflement with which she greeted what used to be routine. But like, this is kind of her version of that. You know, like what do you choose to surround yourself with? And it tells us so much about her. Some of it is aspirational. Some of it is the music she's actually listening to and keeping on her ears and her head every day. And it was a neat, it was a neat setting. And of course, course, like, there's the presence of all of that. Some of it is literal. Here's the switchplate. I can hold it in my hand. Some of it is the presence of a goal, a dream, hope, right? That idea of

hope, very present in this episode and Ellie's arc overall. And then some of it is the sharp, sharp, sharp contrast of the absence, of the empty bed, of this space that she's staring into. Well, there's another thing I used to love used to be there. And now it's not. Like, I was left behind. Some things work better together. Like Narz's soft matte complete concealer and radiant creamy concealer. Soft mat complete concealer erases and blurs and perfections with full coverage. Then, radiant creamy concealer

evens and brightens with a luxurious texture and radiant finish. Two concealers. One flawless look. Perfect for a no foundation base. Nars. Better together. Visit Sephora to shop now. We get our first introduction of Riley, played by the great Storm Read.

Storm Read is fantastic in this episode. She's so good. I, the honestly, the first thing I know, honestly, the first thing I noticed was her hair. And this is only because I, for whatever reason, watch a lot of TikToks about black women doing their hair. I think it's really interesting. And I know for a fact it takes so fucking long. So my first instinct was like, who's doing her hair in the mushroom apocalypse? but I've come up with a theory.

We got this email from our listener, Alia, who says I immediately noticed Riley's braids during this week's episode. This may have been entirely unintentionable, but I love the idea that not only did Riley take the time to braid her hair, this type of protective style and black women can take upwards of 10 hours to complete, but the black woman in her life felt that even though the world has ended,

teaching her how to do this hairstyle and passing this massive piece of black culture, down to another generation was worth it and essential. side note I'd like to know where she got her bundles of braiding hair during the mushroom zombie apocalypse in Boston of all places. P.S., I'd like to throw the gala apple in the ring for consideration in the great Apple debate. Thanks for sliding a little apple commentary in there, Leah. Here's my new theory. In recruiting Riley to the fireflies, Marlene's like, this is part of the seduction. I'm going to do your hair. Something I did notice, I mean, her braids are fucked up. Like, when you get a closer look at them, they're all, like, snarled and fucked up and stuff. So at least she doesn't have, like, perfect braided hair in the post-apocalypse. But I did think this was good at detail. And I liked Alia's email because we get so much in this episode about Riley's memory of her mother, something that she has that Ellie doesn't.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's a tremendous insight. Well, one of the things that immediately sat to me in this moment of entry was the clock. we zoom in, it's 153 a.m. And the last time in the show that we zoomed in in the teenage girl's room at the clock in the middle of the night when there was an interruption,

something terrible happened really shortly thereafter. And so it made me nervous. It set me on edge right away. And of course, like, we come into this. You know, you've selected very smartly the conversation with Tessonelli is the opening clip for this episode. Like we've heard Ellie talk about how she was bitten. We know as soon as they're sitting out to the mall

that this is when it's going to happen. We've heard Marlene allude to Riley. We can see on Ellie's face. There's a depth of feeling there. There was the response to the question about the boyfriend. We have all of these clues mounting that we know something terrible is going to happen on this night. We know there's a reason we're seeing this, but still like the heightening of the anxiety. Yes.

I mean, especially like given how Riley decides to surprise. I mean, I'm sorry. Riley would get like punched by me. It was a joke, okay. I thought it would work better. In my mind you loved it is so funny. In my mind you loved it was like so good. That's great.

When they take, yeah, I thought the same thing. Like you and I obviously don't know necessarily all the beats of what's going to happen in this episode. But no matter what, we know that Riley and Ellie are no longer together. So like this person who is important to Ellie, something is going to happen in which they are separated. Right. And Ellie, when we meet hers with the fireflies. So like if Riley had been okay, why would Riley have not been there too? We're just very worried, very worried right away. And you know, you've noted already some Riley Joel comps. And obviously there are a ton of those

across the episode. One of the things I'd like about the episode is that I thought there were also a number of Ellie Joel comps. And one of them happens right here too when Riley is tempting, is tempting. Ellie out into the night and Ellie doesn't want to go. And Riley says, it's sort of crazy. You're going to say no, but then you have to say yes. Come with me for a few hours. Have the best night of your life. No. Okay. Now say yes. I was thinking back to Ellie telling Henry and Sam when she's talking about Joel, like he'll change his mind. Trust me. This is how it goes. And the idea that both Ellie and Joel, like, in the face of just a conversation with somebody who is like a defining presence of their life, their instinct is to say, no, we can't. Here's why this is bad. Here's why this is

dangerous. Here's why this is a threat and a poor decision. And then they soften because, like, this is the one person who can change your mind. I just love that little detail. I love that too. And what that puts Ellie in is in a Riley parallel. We get a couple moments in this episode, I think, you know, most specifically around the Will Livingston book, which again is straight out of the game. But I think this idea that like she's picking up some of these tactics that Riley had used to endear herself to Ellie and using that on Joel. And that's just like, oh, okay, this is how

you form a connection with someone. And something I love about the writing of this episode is as they bust out of Fedra and they're like, you know, making their way down creepy back alleys to the abandoned mall. Listen, I'm not doing any. Mallory, I love you. If you ask

me to join you on an adventure, I'm not going to an abandoned mall with you. Like, I'm sorry. It's not I'll never ask. I'll be comfortably in pajamas at home. And, you know, I have some notes on the drinking and roof jumping as well. It's very, very concerning. But I love in this screenwriting, in the writing of this episode, there are so many little moments that allude to the history between Riley and Ellie that don't drop as like clunky exposition. But we just get these little nods like, if you're thinking about hanging in the park, we can't go there anymore. So now we know that they used to go hang out in the park, right? Or could have been a 7-Eleven. situation, right? Like, what was the 7-11 situation? We find out, like, this is the origin story of Ellie's eyebrow and stuff like that. But, like, again, that's just sort of like, we don't need to know all the details. Druckman and Mason talked about it on the inside, on the official

podcast. But, like, we don't need to know that. We just need to know that they've had other adventures before. They, you know, they are friends with a deep history. Yes, exactly. That that 7-11 moment really stood out, too, like, that idea that you don't know. We've talked about this a lot week after week. You don't have to know the specifics. You just have to understand the depth of that shared history. And here, too, like, literalizing in that way, the history that they've shared, the experiences that they've had together have, like, literally left marks on their bodies. That's, like, a very powerful message inside of the, inside of the show. Dr. Scars and Ellie scars, yeah, absolutely.

Speaking of bodies, Joe, by the way, before we head onto the rooftops and find our booze, what did you make of the little moment where Ellie asked her I lay to turn around when she was changing. This was just such like, oh boy, what a relatable content. That's so cute. And I like, again, the shyness. Notting to that history, Riley says you're always so weird about that, right? You know what I mean? Like, this is a moment we found ourselves time and time again. I love it. There's this funky little flashlight moment that, um, Alia has. We got an email from Brian who says the flashlight's fritzing is a one-to-one callback to the PlayStation gameplay where you have to shake the controller.

It's absolutely how it works. And that's one of those moments where I saw that happen. Like she's shaking the flashlight. I'm like, I feel like this is probably a reference to something. I don't know what it is, but this feels like a reference moment. But what do you make of this? Like, what is this in advance of the body that they stumble across here? This man who has chosen to end his life with with pills and a little bit of booze.

what is the significance for you on this episode? So a few things. This is on the heels of one of the lines that really struck me from Riley to Ellie, when she's saying, I'm just saying you can't fight everything and everyone. You can pick and choose what's important. Like that felt like a very meaningful insight from the person who knows Ellie best. And so it's in our mind as we then travel up this.

stairs. Seven flights, not two. Another Ellie Joel comp. Winded going up the stairs. She's like mocking Joel and Tesl later, but she was huffing and puffing here. It stood out. Anyway, the draw once again, like the almost magnetic pull to the horror that is always there for us with Ellie. You know, we get it right at the beginning when she's watching Joel pummelie to death. the conversation that follows, and again, you're kind of really shifting organically but constantly through tone because you have like the first sip of the booze. We're thinking to the like still gross response from the liquor from Joel's. Yeah, Joel's flask in episode six. And like the way she's faking here that she thinks it's like delicious loves it putting on that kind of gruff front.

But she asks Riley, like this body falls through the rotting floor. and she's laughing and then asks Riley like, was that the first body you saw and Riley's like, my parents. Yeah, but you know it's not. Yeah. And the way that that whole sequence reminded us that the ghosts of the past are just always present. They're not the past. They are always there with you in the room.

And something that folks who read the comic know is that Riley's backstory is so tragic in that her dad turned, like ripped her mom to shred. and then she had to kill her own father. Again, we don't get that story here. We don't necessarily need this story here. I think just the implication of loss is fine, but especially harrowing. They have this little like, you know, Elie asked to hold Riley's gun. Ellie is continuing on her gun fascination.

But they have this little run across the rooftops, which again is like a very, it's a game reference, right? A little run and jump across the rooftops. But the way that it's filmed, the way that Liza Johnson chose to film it, it's just very giddy, it's like sweet. I wrote again and again my notes like puppies. Like I just think of them as puppies, sort of like tumbling into each other, unsure of how the other one feels, but wanting to find a moment to like be close to each other. But then like pulling back because they're nervous and they're unsure that the other feels the way that they do. And just like the giddiness.

I mean, like, it's horrifying. They just saw a dead body. They're running towards a derelict mall. They're running towards one of their, you know, Riley's death. Like, that's what's happening. But it shot the way like a giddy teenage love story would be shot. And I just loved that element of it. Yeah, it's a great call on that, that testing of the waters, which, you know, we're mostly seeing through Ellie's perspective, but is there on both sides clearly.

And I think particularly apparently on a rewatch, like the moment here where Ellie says, uh, what happened? You started dating some firefly dude? And, like, oh, cool. Like, I think I'll be a terrorist. Like, that's a, it made me think of, of Bill and Frank and Frank saying, like, who's the girl that you're singing a song for? Like, the way that you're putting out that test balloon to see what will happen.

And the number of times they do that with each other across the episode. It's just, again, felt very, the context is not something any of us can relate to. We have not yet lived through the mushroom apocalypse, but that specific element of, like, does this? And this was one of the things I just loved about this episode and love about coming of age stories. Like, this is the most relatable thing in the world. I love this person. Like, do they love me too?

What happens if I say that out loud and I find out that they don't? And then you amplify that worry if it's your best friend. Well, like, what might I gain if I can muster the courage to put this out into the world? But like, what might I lose? And that was just so effective across the whole episode. And again, Meazen and Druckman talked about this so eloquently. that feeling another level when it's a queer story and you don't know the sexuality of the other person. I was reminded again and again of this beautiful Netflix series that came out

last year, Heart Stopper, where again, it's just like that that uncertainty of like, not only do you like me, but like, are you going to be repulsed if I tell you that I like you for like You know, different reasons than what, you know, sisat people have to deal with. All right. So we finally, we're an hour into the podcast and we've reached them all. Good job, us. There's so much to talk about. This is just, this is just like fully a date, right?

Like, this is such a date. Riley has planned everything. This is a thing I know will make you happy. Yeah. I want to share it with you. I think the moment that I just like really like my heart studded. was, you know, I'm skipping ahead a little bit when when they get to the arcade and Riley reveals that she spent like an hour breaking open the change machine to make sure that the date would go well essentially is just like so charming. The set design here is absolutely incredible.

I would love even more information than we've received in the various behind the scenes about this is when I want one of those like House of the Dragon like 20 minute like how the production designers put this mall together, this derelict mall. House the mushrooms built. Let's do it. Yes, exactly. But I love that they use, you know, in contrast to the game, these are all like real stores, right? We get like a Panda Express and a gap and, you know, all this sort of stuff and the Victoria's Secret, of course. And like to give us the viewer that more immediate feel of this is what our world would look like if it fell into derelict mushroom ruin, you know? This was amazing. The first glimpse, when it lights up like a Christmas tree and we have these bright colors and these shiny signs and like that overgrowth of the ensuing years encroaching on like exactly what you're saying. Just this totally routine normal thing for all of us. The time capsule nature of that was so wonderful. And, you know, of course the mall setting. It made me think of Stranger Things season three and why that was such an effective setting for so much of that.

that season and like what the mall and a day at the mall with your pals like means to you at that point in your life like that taste of freedom and exploration and just getting to hang out and be yourself. But then also all of these like encroaching aspects of like commercialism and consumerism and society and expectations. It's just like, yeah. Yeah, standards. Exactly. It's this really effective brew for everything that unfolds here. And, you know, that there's also nothing, I think, more, like, nothing can sum up. This will be here tomorrow more effectively than a mall. And so, like, the fact that it won't be is just so heartbreaking. Man. Speaking of the podcast, trial by content, which you mentioned fleetingly about an hour ago, we've been doing this, like,

multi-week exploration of zombie movies, which has been really fun to think about the mall is a staple of the zombie movie genre. You know, you get like lighter versions of it in like zombie land. But Dawn of the Dead, both George Romero's and Zach Snyder's, I think excellent, the only time I'll say nice things about Zach Snyder, excellent remake that I love, set in the mall and it's such an interesting location for a zombie apocalypse. I have a really important question. I mean, we go down the escalator. The take on me by AHA is playing great stuff. But here's my really important question. Somebody has looted the foot locker in this mallory. Would you like to confess to your crimes? Oh, it would have been the first thing I hit. Absolutely.

Unless they had like a beef jerky story. You know how I feel about jerky. But it seems like there's a good supply of that still 20 years later. You know, this period in time, 2003, predates a lot of the really advanced cushiony soul technology that we're enjoying now in the React and Boost era. But, you know, you immediately look for the biggest air pocket you can find. You get some airbag, something cushy, and you're set. I think you have to balance wanting the support and cushion of the soul with needing

like a thick upper because you don't want something that a bite could, go through. This is why everyone's wearing boots all the time, I assume. I thought that... A lot to think about. I thought that when you talk about sports was like the most disconnected I feel from you, but now it might be shoes. You want to feel even more disconnected for me. I'll just mention here casually among friends, just us, that I'm petrified of down escalators still to this day. Terrified of them. Just down. Up is fine. But the first step onto a down escalator, terrifies me and has since I was a kid. So this was a really scary scene.

Incredibly sweet. I think, okay, because this is Victoria's Secret moment, which works so well in so many levels. I love this moment where Riley, like, almost kind of nags Ellie, because, like, you know, I was just trying to imagine you wearing that. There's this like one, there's like a reality wrapped in that of like, I'm attracted to you. I'm trying to imagine you wearing that. But also like you would never wear that. And Ellie who is like insecure about how this person feels about her or whatever, you know, pauses and takes this moment to like anxiously look at her reflection.

It's just so human and relatable. Absolutely. I love it. I loved it. And, you know, again, like we see what happens at the end. We see the reciprocation. We know the feelings are shared. this isn't an unrequited love.

And so, like, you can, you can feel in that moment then when you, when you think about it or return to it, that this is, like, this is Riley not knowing how to navigate what she's feeling and that they're both experiencing that. The moment when Ellie stayed to look at her reflection and, like, fix her hair for a second was just, man. Like, how many of us have experienced something like that in our lives? Like, is this person going to want me? Am I enough for them?

Like it's just the insecurities that you feel not, I mean, certainly when you're a young person at this point in your life, but like always forever. That's part of being, you know, being human, that vulnerability and that fear, like, especially when you want something really badly. It was just, oh, man, it hit hard. It really did. What I love is, like, what happens immediately after is that Riley grabs Ellie's hand to, like, pull her onto the next thing. And like, do you trust me? Yeah. And goes back to. that something they do in the show Heartstopper, which is so beautiful, is like, anytime a character who like has a crush on another character, like barely touches them, like, this is going to sound really cheesy, but it's done really well. Little animated, like, flowers or hearts or whatever come up that just like help, like, remind us how electrifying it is to simply the barest touch of someone that you have a massive crush on.

And so just imagining like how Ellie and Riley are feeling just from robbing your hand and let's go on to the next thing. Like that's, you know. And like the response we saw the way Ellie has this real child like wonder greeting the moving stairs. But like we see when she falls when she trips when she falls into Riley. And then that's mirrored of course in the photo booth like, okay. Get off me. Get off me. Like so you're navigating the thrill of it with like the terror of it.

And not to jump too far ahead, but I would just say one of the most wrenching and moving moments of the episode I thought was when they're clinging to each other at the end after they've both been bitten. And Ellie reaches up with her hand and just like holds Riley's arm. Like the gift of that closeness in that moment was just, oh my God. Sad. Sad, sad, sad, sad. If I do take one image away from this episode, though, it is the Carousel sequence, which is, instantly iconic. Again, lifted from the game, but it's just like one of the most beautiful things we're seeing. So we get this beautiful carousel version of The Cures, just like heaven.

Got to shout out my husband, Adam, who called this right away in real time. I did too. I was so proud of myself because I was like, don't fuck this up, Joanna. You know this song. And then like I started, I got to the words and I was like, yes, it's the cure. Anyway, yeah. Shout out to Adam. Love, love that for you. Take on me the escalator song. Obviously, like, now, I have not yet played the second game, so I don't know the details, but I know that this is like a big song in the game. And that was the song overlaying the initial trailer that HBO released,

though I don't think it's, I was like Googling trying to find it. Is that trailer gone or did they just replace the music? Anyway, it was in the initial trailer at some point. So a big song in The Last of Us universe. And then we moved to The Cure here, our third, but not last. a big musical moment of the episode. I just want to, I mean, take on me by a incredible iconic song, obviously.

I do know I just want, if you've never sat and listened to the words or take on me, it's so delightful because they are clearly written by someone for whom English is a second language. I'll be coming for you, okay? Like, there's just like moments where you're just like someone, someone who's not from here

wrote this and it's a perfect song, perfect pop song. Man, I'll be gone in a dare to do. It hits, Joe. It hits here. It does. The cure, though, just like heaven, watching Ellie, like they're on the carousel. They're bathing this golden light. Riley is, like, looking up and around and Ellie is just looking at Riley and just getting

to, like, steal her, sneak her looks in. And it's just, like, dreamy. and it squeezed my heart really hard. Anything else you want to say? I felt this one in my soul all around. The way that Ellie responds to the magic of the carousel made me think of that great Frank line, like paying attention to things. It's how we show love because Riley is paying attention to Ellie by taking her here,

even though she has this other motive, which will be revealed that this is her last night, right? And she's saying goodbye. Like to try to bring that joy to someone you care about. It was just a lovely thing. The look, I mean, I had the same response. The look on Ellie's face there, unbelievable. And the way across episodes, there are these moments of utter yearning in a gaze. Like, what is a character looking at and toward that feels like it's out of reach?

And, like, maybe it isn't. And that's actually more tragic. Like, if you realize that it wasn't when it's too late, that is just devastating. Thinking about Bill, like looking at Frank play the piano or something like that. You know what I mean? It's just like we get a little bit more detail. We already talked about this idea of like sorting the kids into various tracks. Of course, there's another Riley Joel comp because Riley was going to go on sewage detail, which is Joel took sewage duty in episode one, right?

So this is like where they are. Moving on to Photo Booth. You want to talk about the gameplay and how this works in the game? Yeah, sure. In the game,

it's like a highly interactive stretch where you're getting to change the pose and the face you make and you have choices and even like the initial choice when you're sitting down. What's the vibe?

What's the mood? Are you picking love? And I picked love. I picked the prompt for love and like, what does that mean if you pick the prompt for love? What are you? What tone are you setting? How will the other person respond? So that's, it's just a really neat stretch of the game and like a very sweet one.

Like obviously one of the pictures is like the cover art and this like iconic visual from the gaming world. And then like you think about the printout here again, we mentioned this already, but the moment, like the leaning in and the cheeks touching and the nervous energy. but then you get the actual printout and like it doesn't print in the game but it prints here

but the ink is faded and then there's this one that you could see just a little more clearly and like I just love the idea of like Ellie carrying that with her still of this photo strip now becoming one of those totems you talked about earlier that is a possession that she like cannot

relinquish at any point like what is so sad that's just so sad oh I also have this thing that I don't know why it just like really hit me hard when Riley says I was waiting to do it with you. Like shredded me. Okay. Shredded me.

Shredded me. Absolutely. All right. Let's move to wonder number four, which is Raj's Arcade. Again, I already mentioned the fact that like Riley took the time to make sure that they could get the money that they need to do this is so dreamy. Mortal Kombat, too. I'm going to let you talk in a second about how the gameplay here is different in the game as well. It's a similar difference.

But Neil was saying, I think in the inside the episode and on the podcast talking about this idea that the girls learned these moves, these combos from reading about them in some old video game magazine. No, as we know. Joanna Robinson is not a modern gamer. But I definitely had a Nintendo growing up. Actually, my sister had a Nintendo growing up. And one time this guy we knew left behind some gaming magazine that he had for Super Mario 3. And we learned all of the special sneaky combos for Super Mario 3. And it's like, I've never played a game on that level ever in my life because I'm often a button smasher or like whatever.

But I know all the move to Super Mario 3 because of one of these video game magazines. And so when Neil was talking about that, I'm like, I know what you're talking about, man. And they exist. And it will take you to a whole other level of a video. video game. So in the in the in the in the in the in the in the game is broken. Can you talk about how that works as as you play it?

And the whole arcade is much more of a ruin like in the show and I thought this was a fascinating adaptive choice. It is even more so than the whole mall when when Riley turns the power on just like brimming with life right glistening this like encapsulation. Humming. Yeah. Yeah, you hear the electricity. Yeah.

You hear the electricity. Exactly. That's wrong. And like this real encapsulation and capturing of possibility. Like the possibility for fun, the possibility to fall into a world together and just inhabit it fully. To the point where what's the moment where we pan away and see horrifyingly the infected, it's when they are just enraptured, completely consumed by play.

Like by play. And I was thinking about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. and which I just read and we've talked about in other pods, but this idea that, like, play is, like, the most intimate thing, actually and meaningful thing that you can share with somebody because you were showing someone your true full, unvarnished self when you're at play. And, like, I just loved that idea here.

It was, oh, I'm getting emotional. It's just a really great sequence. Stormy's delivery of fatality. Like, it's just, like, really, I mean. I don't know a ton of about gaming, but I do know that for Mortal Kombat. Okay. So good.

So good. But yes, like you said, the game, the game works here so they can play. And then we think back to like, Ellie's, not only the poster on the wall, as we saw in her room at the beginning of this episode, but we think back to like her interaction in episode three when Joel is looking for supplies and she sees the machine. And it's like this absolute longing. Like, oh my God, I had a friend who knew everything about this game. Ah, man, like this call back to this, this totally gripping thing. and pre-ster egg, baby. A pre-ster egg.

I love the idea, like, too, thinking about, thinking about this more here, like, Mortal Kombat, but just, like, violent games in general, that's, like, idea that for most kids, like in our reality, a monster that kills you is, like, is a game, but for Ellie, for Riley, for the kids in this world,

that's real. And so for, like, this to be your escape is just such a fascinating, fascinating ripple. But, yeah, like, there's this amazingly cool stretch in the game, game where the machine isn't working. And so Riley wants to give Ellie the gift of falling into that world, even though she can't literally play it. And so she tells Ellie to close her eyes.

And she like whispers to her every step, everything that's happening and gives her that reality, like gives her and tries to bring that to life for her. And Ellie and then you, the commands pop up on screen in this animated, the animated fashion of the arrows and whether you're supposed to press square or triangle, what you're supposed to do. And you are playing along as yourself, as Ellie in her mind is playing as Riley is whispering this to her. And it's just like, I thought a really magical way in the game to capture where somebody else can bring you, like where a person can port you. It's lovely. It's like one adopted choice that I like, I kind of wish they had done it that way in the show. Like, it's so beautiful. It can't. If,

I don't know if you speak about video games this way, but the camera is what I will say. It's just on Ellie's space and her eyes are closed. And even though you do have those little like commands of what you're supposed to do, it's sort of in the corner. It's not overwhelming. And your focus then is just on Ellie's experience. It's incredibly like intimate experience of Riley like whispering and describing this game to her. It's so beautiful.

And we learn here that Riley in the show has played this before. And so you get the inverse, like Ellie saying, oh, so you don't wait to do everything with me. And the, like, for everything you just said about, like, the absolute magnitude of hearing from somebody like, I'm saving this for you and how meaningful that would be. If it was a person you cared about, just incredible. Like, how here you would just, the jealousy would kick in, like, instinctively. Oh, there was a thing you did without me. It was great. Very true life.

I guess you watched ahead on stranger things. That's fine. All right. In the macho nacho, which is where Riley has been living, Ellie tries to like say, okay, let's call it a night. Basically, like, things get a little too, like, a little too close, a little too intimate, right? And Ellie's like. She gets very close. Ellie gets very close to Riley after they're, she's celebrating her win. And then when Riley steps away, it's like, oh my God, did I, did I blow it? That fear you have. Yeah. And also just sort of like, I haven't. fucked anything up majorly yet. So let's just call it a night. Right. Before I do something, you know, irrevocable. But there's a gift.

Yeah. Honestly, this would work on me 100% of the time. I would also be like, I love gifts. I love gifts. I love the water pistol mention as they're walking because there's a big water gun fight stretch in the game. That was fun. So Riley gives her the second Will Livingston book, which we are already quite familiar with at this point. Again, another like prester egg. And I love this. I already referenced the

Salon article by Alison Stein, but I love this. She's talking about the earlier inclusion of the Will Livingston book, but she says, jokes are meant to be communicated. It's a communal kind of reading as the teller waits for a reaction. And I love that. It's not just like, you know, me, Joanna, giving you Mallory a book that I like. There's a difference between that and like, let's tell each other these dumb pun jokes and see how we react to them together. You know what I mean? So much more communal. And again, that like that reeling in that Riley uses like to capture Ellie here is what

Ellie has used to reel in Joel, uh-uh, the same way. So good. And then again, like, you think of the way she's carried that with her. And what it must have meant for her to share that with Joel. It's so cool. I love that neither of them knew what a screenshot was. Great stuff. But that like laughter.

I love that like. They're both laughing and then they're like, wait, actually, we don't get it. That's, that's iconic behavior. Okay, we get, you know, like you do and when you camp out on a macho nacho, you know, and you like surround yourself with pipe bombs. I would definitely sleep right next to my little bomb factory. 100%. That's where I would sleep.

Yeah, maybe go elsewhere in the food court, you know? The Sabaro. Why not, right? Are you a Sabarro food court? Listen, I don't think Sabarro is good, but if I'm going to pick like one thing in a food court, it's definitely a Sabarro. What do you say? Has to be a soft pretzel on Tion's. Oh.

Has to be. Yeah, but that's not usually, that's not like, that's like a treat. If I'm picking a treat, it's Mrs. Fields. But you're at the mall. Why wouldn't you pick a treat? I don't know. Like in theory, Sabaro feels like it's allegedly a meal, even though it's probably, like. like made up with the same complex carbohydrates as a soft pretzel.

Soft pretzel is a good call. Flock a dip and dot though. Let me tell you. Okay. What? Yeah. Well, first of all, I think of dip and dots is ballpark food, more than food court food, even though I guess it's, it's, they're ubiquitous at this point.

But dip nuts are great. What are you talking about? Is this the new Apple debate? I just don't know why you would have dip in dots when you could have ice cream. Like, why would you do this? that. So you know what I mean? Variety, you know, different. Sometimes you want to feel like the searing, burning sensation on your tongue as you're just trying to enjoy a confection. And sometimes you don't. Let's go to a less contentious conversation, which is Riley telling Ellie that she's leaving

town. She's being sent to it, Lansa, right? Yeah. And that she wanted Ellie to go with her, but Marlene said no. And in the game, it's a little clear that Marlene like knows Ellie. Like, it's not just a no, you can't take your friend. It's, I know Ellie and you can't take Ellie, right? Like, so here, Ellie doesn't seem to know Marlene or anyway. It's just like a little, a little different. Right. And later in episode one, which is in the past for us in the show, but later in Ellie's life, when she's talking to Marlene and Marlene's like, I'm the one who put you there. This is like clearly new information to Ellie at the time. Ellie goes to leave again, right? Boy. Yeah. She comes back. Yes.

And we're in Wonder Number 5, the Spirit Halloween store. I will just very quickly say that it actually is you just did it goodbye and then the trash can slap the storming off. It made me think of like the why are you still here if you're just going to ditch me, ditch me moment with Joel and how like we have to assume that even though Ellie will later say don't go and Riley will say okay, that when Ellie thinks Joel is leaving. She's thinking about when Riley was going to leave too. She had to have been. She had to have been into the Halloween store. The masks, the dancing, the kiss. Woo.

And I think that like when Riley says, when Riley says to Ellie, I think that you don't know everything. You don't know what it was like to have a family to belong. I mean, I didn't have them for so long, but I had them. I belonged to them. And I want that again. Maybe the fireflies aren't what I think they are, but they chose me.

I matter to them. That's like Tommy was always a joiner behavior. Right. But also, again, I think that's another Riley. Joel Kopp, this idea of like, you're not family, your cargo. Like, Ellie is always on this outside of this idea of family and told that by the people who are closest to her. It made me think of Aria and Gendry that I can be your family moment and like how painful that is when it's happening. And you would be Malady. Right, exactly.

You know, this is a real and true reminder of what Riley had him lost and what Ellie hadn't known. And I think there's this interesting aspect of like there is the specific way of thinking about loss, right? But also like absence is a type of loss. And that's a very sad thing. And like as Ellie is indicating she and Riley can. you know, build a family together. You mattered to me first. Like that's her response to Riley saying they chose me. I matter to them. You mattered to me first. Like this is that found family through line. Obviously the relationship and nature of the relationship between Ellie and Riley and

Riley and Joel is completely different. But that's the part of it that's the same. Like you are the most important person in the world to me. And we are going to choose to switch from cargo mission task to something central and defining. And like that you deserve a choice moment from Joel in the stables in episode six was like a shield that he was hiding behind. Right. But also there was something true about it. They both had to make the decision, the choice to move forward with each other. And like when you do that with somebody, that's a powerful and deeply meaningful thing. And so Ellie is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like we talk all the time about that found family. And so like Ellie, Riley saying like, well, this is like, they chose me. I chose them. But like,

Ellie's like, well, but we could, we could be that for each other. And found family. Found family is such an important concept throughout somebody in the stories that we love and follow. But something that I hear a lot from the queer community is this idea of chosen family, right? Which is like this concept of like, maybe your family has not embraced who you are. But this idea of chosen family is like surrounding yourself with other queer people or whatever. And I've chosen my family and my family is who. accepts me here. So I think there is like a very specific like queer lens, this idea of like,

is your choice. I choose you, choose each other. The dance, the masks, the smooch. Alzheimer. All time. Period. The attack. Just an all timer. The masks are right from the game. The Halloween store and the dancing are separate scenes though. The Halloween store and the master early. The dancing is later. But to have it all together here felt, felt very smart because The masks are horrifying in both live action and in the game. Like that clown design, I'm not a fan of. It's spooky. It is. I loved it, though.

It made me think of our guy Dinjaran of Mando. And like, I mean, you mentioned it on this very podcast today. There are moments where we're like, wow, we just want to see Pedro Pascal's face. But one of the things I have really genuinely loved about watching Mando is that you don't always need to. You can feel what he is feeling in the way he character. himself the way he tilts his head, the way something changes in a given scene, how he touches or interacts with the environment or other characters around him. And so when Ellie, even though she has this like objectively like ridiculous grinning wolf mask on,

after they're singing and they're dancing and they're pointing at each other saying, I got you, babe. And it's this like beautiful, magical thing. People say that we don't know what love or how to make it grow, like the lyrics that we're hearing as we're watching them is just so powerful and sweet and moving. And the way you just pour back to whatever experience you've had in your own life, like teenage love, the fear, but the possibility, how electrifying it can be. And like the way that she stops and the mask is on, but we know exactly what she is going, like what she is considering in that moment, what she is thinking, even before she takes it off and then she does and we see like the depth of the despair and the fear on her face and

the longing it's just beautiful the desire yeah and but i mean bella ramsie's mask acting as you say incredible not everyone can do it um but also there's the attack and the specific flavor of ellie's anger when she discovers the bite we know the bite is not lethal for her um she doesn't know that there but she doesn't know that there but she She doesn't know that and also Riley has been bitten. And so the anger that she has there, even before she starts smashing the glass, just her no. To me, it read like, now when I just figured this thing out, right now, like I finally found this thing. Now, fuck you, universe, you know.

Yeah, it's like the cruelty of it, the injustice. the unfairness. Like it's taken everything she had to lean in for that kiss. What's her first response? It's to say, I'm sorry. Like, the fear that it won't be reciprocated.

And then it is, and you have a moment, a moment of joy and possibility. And then it is gone. It is ripped away from you. The desperation with which Ellie is rubbing her arm, shouting no, like she can,

she can, it's like something you can wash off. It's something you can wipe away. Yeah, yeah. And I was thinking of so many other moments that we've spent with Ellie because, like, you have something like her reveal to Joel about what she tried to do with Sam. And the way that she knew rationally, it wasn't going to work. But she wanted to try to save him. And you think back to like this moment with Riley and what that must have, what impact that must have.

Could I have saved her if I just rubbed my blood into her open wounds? No, Ellie. Unfortunately, no. But you think also, Joe, if you don't think there's hope for the world, why bother going on, for Ellie to be able to hold on to that after this is extraordinary to me. Extraordinary to me. And again, in like an episode that is just, you know, we cut back to Joel and the, you know, we have a little back and forth here at the end, right?

And we were watching Ellie. Ellie has made the decision to stay. And we're watching her ransack the house desperately looking for an absolutely filthy needle with which to sew up Joel's wound. But when the girls are sitting there and Riley and they're talking about the various options, in an episode that's just full of all these Riley and Joel and Ellie comparisons or whatever, for Riley to say, we just keep going, right? Option two. whether it's two minutes or two days, has to take us back to episode four for exactly that exchange you're talking about. You don't think there's hope for the world. Why bother going on? I mean, you got to try right. Joel says you haven't seen the world so you don't know. She says you keep

going for family, right? Riley was her family. She wants Joel to be her family. That's about it. I'm not family. No, your cargo and I made a promise to test, right? We've gone very far. from that idea of cargo, but like the fact that she is thinking of Riley, that she's adopting Riley's words in that moment. Oh, man. Devastating. And also, like,

I was thinking of Tess in episode two, telling Joel save who you can save because there's a real parallel there, right? Like, live while you can live. No matter how brief it is, like you can't, you can't squander any second that you have with another person. And it is just absolutely agonizing the way that Ellie says,

what's option three after. Riley lays out that there are just two options. Like, oh my God, just so sad. And you know, you mentioned earlier the moment where Ellie says to Joel in episode six, the everybody I've cared for has either died or left me. And, you know, again, like the exchange that precedes that, that I'm sorry about your daughter, Joel, but I've lost people too. And Joel saying you have no idea what loss is. And it's like, well, she does. And we see it here. And we see the heft of it And the anguish of it. And what's so fascinating to me is that we see it, but then we don't see it.

And as we've mentioned a number of times, you don't have to show us every little thing. We can imagine for ourselves the horror that Ellie experienced. I mean, maybe we'll see it eventually. But I don't think so. And I like that they didn't show it. We're like, Riley's going to turn and Ellie doesn't. And how does that play out? Right.

Does Ellie have to kill Riley? Right. You know what I mean? And then we think back to it wasn't my first. time the conversation in episode four about hurting somebody. Well, what might that mean? Did she have to hurt Riley? Right. Is she talking about the mushroom man that she stopped in the head or she talking about Riley, you know? Do the fireflies who we know are using them all as a base? Do they show up? And she can't, maybe it's not that she hurt Riley. Maybe it's that even though they know in that moment it's

the end, she can't bear to see somebody else hurt Riley. And maybe she hurts one of those people. Like it could be any number of those things, but we port back to that exchange. And also to, to, Ellie asking Joel in episode two, and they barely know each other at all, like, was it hard? Knowing they were people once? Oh, my God. And we go down underneath that little store to the infected, buried under the rubble and the, like, lust with which Ellie drove her knife into his head. Like this defining moment here at the mall, like everything that we've seen since connect. back to this, everything.

Oh, boy. I was thinking of, so, you know, Allie does her dubious first aid on Joel. We'll see how that goes. But I thought that the way that they constructed that wound that he got from the broken off bottom of the baseball bat looked a lot like a bite wound, just the way that it was like sort of a broken half circle kind of thing. Yeah. And kind of like gnarled flesh. It's not a neat wound. Yeah.

Yeah, and I was also thinking, you know, speaking of the various song lyrics that we have read out in this episode. But in, and I've got you, babe, the lyric, put your little hand in mine, right? There you know, and like when Ellie puts her little hand in Jules. Unbelievable. And then probably gives him a staff infection. It's just like. Oh, my God. And so Craig Mason said this thing on the official pocket.

Oh, no, it might have been in the insider. Anyway, he said, for as long as I have you, I am with you. Mallory, for as long as I have you as a podcasting partner, I am with you. Same, Joe. I will grip your fingers back the way that Joel did when he saw that Ellie had returned to him. So, so beautiful. I loved it. Anything else you want to say before we go?

I don't think so. I think we did it. I am despondent that we only have two episodes. left, but I can't wait to see them and I can't wait to talk about them with you. This episode was produced by the great Carlos Chirovoga. I apologize for my voice. I'm a little sick, so I might have heard that a little bit. I'm not sick with a mushroom infection, though, but you should remember the fungus loves

too. We'll see you next week. Bye. A text says, you're on my mind. A bouquet from 1-800 flowers says, you're my everything. Heartfelt moments belong in the real world, not just your phone. For 50 years, 1,800 Flowers has helped millions of people make memories that'll last a lifetime, with gifts they'll cherish forever. Their expertly curated arrangements and gift baskets shipped nationwide with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

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