The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The Last of Us’ Episode 8 Recap

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Charles and Van share their instant reactions to the eighth episode of ‘The Last of Us.’ They discuss David as a false prophet, the biblical parallels and religious symbolism throughout, and what made the action-packed penultimate episode one of the most exciting episodes of the season. Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Danny Kelly, host of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, and from now until the draft, we are turning our feed into the Ringer NFL Draft Show to talk all things draft with me, Danny Hyfitts, Ben Soak, and Craig Horlebeck. Check us out on Tuesdays and Thursdays and search the Ringer NFL draft show. Welcome to the Prestige TV podcast, a show where you better not ask where that mystery meet came from. I'm Charles Holmes. He's Van Lathen.

Together, we're known as the Midnight Boys. Piboo! And we're here to discuss. the last of us. But before we get into this monumental episode of TV, I have to be real with the audience, man. Can you please explain to the audience?

What happened before we hit record today? Because you were coming at my neck. Like, you ain't answering my questions. And I'm like, bro, I don't know what episode of TV you watched. So I have to apologize to my midnight boy, Charles. We jumped on the podcast to report. And HBO sent two episodes in the bundle that they sent us in terms of the screeners,

the penult and the finale. And I watched the wrong one. And so Charles is saying stuff. I'm asking questions about it and Charles. And I'm like, Charles, what are you doing? Then he said something. I go, wait, which one are we doing? And then we had to go back and I had to watch the episode.

You was like, this episode. I was just like, wait. Are we watching this? First of all, let's not give anything away. So, Kai beep that. But we, but yes, I was like tripping. But to be the episode, fair, before we get to this episode, this is a call to arms to all of the companies that are sending

us screeners. You've got to label the episodes better. You just can't have episode eight and shit like that. I don't know which one we're on. Give us titles. If it's the season finale, let us know. But anyway, this is your recap for when we are in need directed by Ali Abasi, written by Craig Mason. We begin with David giving a speech to his cold and hungry congregation, controlling a young woman whose father is mysteriously dead. Back in the suburbs, Ellie is trying to keep Joe alive, but has to leave him to find food. After killing a deer, Ellie comes upon David and his right-hand man. She holds them at gunpoint and tells them she'll trade half of the deer for medicine that can fight infection. As Ellie and David wait for the medicine, the preacher tells Ellie about his backstory,

belief that everything happens for a reason, and reveals that he knows Joel is the one who killed one of their men. Ellie takes the medicine, uses it on Joel, but has to lure David and his crew away on horseback because they are hell-bent on getting revenge for the man that Joel murdered. Ellie is captured but warned Joel beforehand that people were coming. Joel ends up killing the men after extracting information on where Ellie was taken back at the compound. David tries to woo Ellie to his side, but she's disgusted when she finds out their cannibals. Ellie ends up fighting her way out of the compound by killing David. By the time she walks out into the snow, Joel is there to support her with the two finally cementing their father-daughter relationship.

All right, Van, not going to hold you on everything I love. This was one of the most exciting hours of TV. that I've seen in quite some time. And I know that we keep saying that about Last of Us, but after two episodes that were not bad by any stretch, but we're a little bit more down tempo. This one ratcheted up the stakes. I had chills.

I was on the edge of my seat. A star was born in front of my eyes. How are you feeling after you finish this episode? This is the highest octane episode of The Last of Us that we've gotten yet. And it's an episode that I found to, be dripping with religious symbolism all over it. I'm going to get into some of it a little bit later. I think what we wanted to see from Ellie's character was as Joel is gravely injured,

we wanted to see her evolve from the cub to the wolf. Yeah. After this episode, it is no longer lone wall. It is a two wolf pack. And that was going to have to happen at some point. And the way they did it and ate was fantastic. Here's what we have. We have Ellie placed in the situation where she has to be a full-on caretaker for Joel.

She has to feed Joel. She has to get Joel medically ready to go. And she has to motivate him to stay alive. Joel does not have corticeps, right? He doesn't. But he does have via a wound, something that is ravaging his body and taking it over. In a way, Ellie taking care of Joel while he has this wound that he got in this new reality of society that we're living in is a little bit of a statement on how Ellie is the cure maybe for all of humanity, right? because what she has to do, she's not infected by the actual infection that's taking over his body.

What she has to do is essentially cure Joel. She has to be to Joel what the fireflies expect her to be to the entire world. And so I enjoyed watching Ellie as the cure in this episode because I felt like she was. Fucking cooking. You're cooking, Van. What I wanted to talk to you about is what I loved about this penultimate episode is that I feel like it showed us Ellie and Joel completing their father and daughter relationship on a varieties of levels. Physically, emotionally, metaphysically, this entire season, we have seen Joel doing something that he was not able to do with his biological daughter, which is teach her how to survive in this new world. We've seen him in episodes.

How do you shoot a gun? How do you aim at things? How do you hunt? How do you track? And we see in this episode, Ellie finally coming into her own, being her own person who can take care of herself. But I think emotionally, she reminded me of Joel so much in this episode because she has to become a darker version of herself to protect the person that she loves. Absolutely. It's almost like, remember in the episode.

when Ellie finds out who Joel was before her, that he had to kill people, that he had to do all of these things to protect the people he loved. And the dawning realization that that's what Ellie needs to do in this moment was handled so beautifully because there's a part of her innocence that is forever just changed after this episode.

She has become what this world has made her. Yeah, yeah. And she's met what this world turns people into. I mean, she'd seen it in Fedra, right? And she'd seen it in the fireflies. But really what she'd seen between them were battling philosophies, philosophies that had to do with sort of maintaining a status quo and a philosophy that had to do with radical and revolutionary freedom. What she really has seen less of, and we've seen over the course of this show, Joel tried to show, shield her from it. He didn't want her to see

skeletons. He tries to at all times keep Ellie from taking that step. Doesn't want her to kill. Doesn't want it to happen to her, right? What she hasn't seen, okay, is when everything has devolved into subhumanity.

She's seeing what people do in the name of a cause, but she hasn't seen what people have done in the name of their baser instincts. And that is what David, who is brilliantly played by Scott Shepard in this. Fucking chills. As much as Bella Ramsey is the star acting performance of this episode, Scott Shepard is right there as well. We'll talk about David.

Can I ask you this? Sure. When did you know? When did you clock watching this episode that something was wrong? Because immediately when he's preaching, I already was like, oh, man. There's, like, that's good acting where he didn't necessarily say anything sinister, but just by his body language, I'm like, he's not right.

Here's the deal, though. And a lot of my religious sort of observations come from, you know, being a church boy growing up in the church. It wasn't him that tipped me off to the fact that something was wrong. It was them. The congregation. Absolutely. So here's the thing, and here's how you know, when you're,

dealing with a false profit or when you're dealing with someone that is leading people astray. It's never them. They are a lot of times plug in place. Sure, you can feel the anointing on people when you're around them if they're doing what they're doing in good faith and for the greater good and to lead people and help them. But you can always look at their flock and you can tell how their flock is responding not only to him but to one another. If there is hope, if there is connection,

if there is love, if there is kindness, if there is all the things that are the better tenet of any religion in that flock or congregation, you know that you have a leader that's leading from a sense of inspiration and hope and the goodwill of man. If they don't have that,

you know that you have a charlatan. And that's how you can normally identify like a cult. The funny thing is, grew up in the black church as well. The type that has like the mega church and then the satellite churches. And I was at a satellite church. And you can always tell which preacher, which pastor is the one that the people are all in on in terms of like we believe in him or her.

We can talk to them like they have my best interest at heart. And then you know the one that rolls up in the bends. And you're just like, wait, what's happening? And just the fear. You see adults like almost like you're in school again. and you're like, I don't want to disappoint Daddy. And that's actually who David is. And it's something that later in the episode, he chafes against because he looks down on it.

He calls them a flock, not in a holier than that way. And he looks at them like animals. Like they're lesser than him. Which was so effective. So a couple of things here about David. Let me tell you about the things that I noticed about David in this episode. Firstly, the young lady that has lost her father, she asked, when can we bury my father? He said, we can't bury him right now.

The ground school school called we bury him in the spring. He had nothing else for her. This is someone who had lost their dad. This is somebody that in that situation should be able to talk to the leader of her organization, her town, her religion, whatever it is, and be able to get some sense of comfort. and all he gave her was coldness that rivals the snow on the ground. Damn. There's another thing.

Okay. David's group is losing faith in him. He has positioned himself as not their leader because a leader is something different than a boss or a God. He's positioned them as like, he's positioned himself as God to them. and there are a couple of different hints in the, it's asked to that relationship in here. One is that the group sort of represents order. Everything is about order.

His will is to not be questioned. In the episode, Ellie and Joel represent connection. They are connected. They do what they do for one. Love is why they do what they do for one another at this point. That's what really any religion is supposed to be. It's supposed to be doing something. out of love and the sense of good.

Not this guy. He's an Old Testament sort of kingdom God. Fire and brimstone, yeah. Fire and brimstone, which we literally get at the end of the episode. At the end of the episode, when he is having his fight with Ellie, we literally get his town being destroyed by fire and brimstone. It sets on fire. Him and Ellie are having a fight in the middle of hell,

while outside is this white place pure as the driven snow that she is trying to escape to. When he sits down to eat, when they all sit down to eat, David and everybody sits down to eat, did you notice something about his plate? Oh, here's the thing, because I don't know if white people will notice this,

but I grew up with my grandparents. My grandpa always had to have the big piece of chicken. He always had to have, like it was this weird thing where his plate always, he had to get his plate first, it had to be the hottest, and it had to be the biggest portion. And I was like, that's when I clocked. I was just like, this ain't right.

There's something like, come on. No. Question. When your grandfathers were doing that, my father was the same way. When your grandfather and my father, anybody was doing that, it was a sign of bounty.

Everybody was eating so I could have the biggest piece of chicken. Right? His people are starving. So every portion that he gets that's more than what he needs is something that somebody else doesn't get. His people are not his people that he's taking care of. They are his subjects. They are offering food to him.

And by the way, as he consumes their bodies, it's literally inverse from the way. things work in Christianity. Christianity, people consume the body of Christ. Yeah. This is a leader that is consuming the bodies of the people who follow him. This is typical false prophet stuff, typical biblical stuff. I'll even go further. As this is happening, Joel is Moses. He is wandering through the wilderness to get to this place where these people really don't even know that they need to be liberated from this leader who is essentially Pharaoh, right? Ellie, never had sex before. She is a virgin miracle to him that he is trying to get to save and lead his people to a new land.

All of this stuff is coming together. It even starts with a religious song. And the whole episode, I was just caught up in the rapture, if you will, of all the religious imagery. So also something that I think that is also happening with David is that when he's talking to Ellie, his new religion is the infected.

In that conversation, I was like, no, his God are the infected. He's actually doing what they are doing. He's consuming other humans to sustain himself. And I was just like, oh no, when he's talking about God and all

of these religious things, I'm like, oh, no, he's not talking about a Christian God. he's talking about this thing that has taken over the world. And that to me was so scary almost that this man is looking at these monsters walking around and being like, oh no, I need to be more like them. Instead of being more like Christ, he's like, I need to be more like them.

That's my guy. Do you remember the book of Eli? Yeah. In the movie, Gary Oldman's character, why do you want the Bible? Do you remember? Dude, no. I watched this in the ice school.

He wanted the Bible. He thought Eli had a Bible. Eli had committed the Bible to memory. If you guys haven't seen the book of Eli, it's underrated. Denzo Washington, Milakounis. It's an underrated movie to me in terms of not just the action, but in terms of what the movie symbolizes and all that stuff.

Denzel Washington had committed the Bible to memory. We didn't know until I'm not going to spoil the movie, but just watch it. Why Gary Oldman was as the leader of a town, not that much different than this one, okay? They had more stuff, not much different than this one. He was the same type of leader. He wanted the Bible because the power of dogma, the power of religion, the way that you can manipulate people, when you give them something to believe in that is bigger than themselves, there's no aphrodisiac quite like it, especially if it's a lie. And what I mean about that is you'll have more power.

You'll have more influence if you use the Bible or any religious text to corrupt people. See, if you actually follow the tenets of almost any religion, you have to share. You have to consider your fellow man. You have to be patient. You have to be loving. You have to be forgiving. Every religion is actually telling humans to act against their base urges. instead of thinking of yourself first,

put everyone around you. Right. But it is very easy to flip that. And that's why so many people get so upset about any religion. It's the folly of it, right? The folly of it is anytime you give, anytime you stand a man, a woman, a human being, in front of four or five thousand people.

And those people are looking at him for their daily, dose of eternity, it takes someone totally uncommon. Not to let that corrupt himself. And what I'm saying about figures that we see like David and Gary Olman's character from the Book of Eli, I can't remember, is these guys understand the power, not in God, but the power in that. So what do they do? They feed on the people that follow them.

And in this episode, you get somebody that's feeding. on them spiritually, emotionally, and actually the people, when you look around, everybody looked dirty except for him. Everybody looked stressed and uncertain and insecure except for him. When he met Ellie and he was talking to Ellie, he was inspired by the fact that she wasn't a servant. That's what made him into the creepy R. Kelly that he was in that situation. He was inspired by the fact that she wasn't a servant

and he didn't see what she was, which is really inspired by actual human emotion and filety to something bigger. She loves Joel, so she's willing to do anything for him. You know what I mean? This was an Old Testament play lived out in one act. So if we take that further, do we think that what David also saw in Ellie

was what we've been talking about, that Messiah complex, where Ellie actually does believe that she is the key to saving humanity. She has to. The reason that she's fighting so hard isn't just for Joel.

It's because the fireflies, all of these people, Tess, Marlene, believe in her. They believe that she can bring something back. And we know that humans who think they are a Messiah nine times out of ten,

99.9% of the time, it goes bad. And what I thought was brilliant about this episode is that David is actually a reflection of everything that Ellie can become. Absolutely. Because what happens if Ellie does meet the fireflies and they do treat her as this deity that like, okay, you are going to be the thing

that returns us to some semblance of normalcy, that almost to me was kind of what awakened a certain amount of Ellie's humanity. a little bit is not wanting to turn into this man. Remember, David found religion after this all happened. And I'm sure there are other people that probably did in good faith. But what it is for him is a mechanism. It's a use for control.

Everything that Ellie has found, even her immunity, it's all immaculate conception. It's all faded. People think, watch this. Kai, do you know what the immaculate conception is? No. Damn. Wait, what? What is it?

Your life is so interesting to me. Thank you. Can you put me on game? Kai somewhere eating chicken nuggets. And pop tarts. Eating chicken nuggets and pop tarts. You know what I mean? It's too early for this.

Listen in the slayer. You got to call your mom tell her to go over to Kai's house, lay some hands on him. Yeah, Kai, you're going to have to... My mom is into all types of different spiritualism, though. It's not...

My mom is a Christian, but my mother, African spiritualism, just whatever it is. If it's a spirit, my mom down. I will say, same with like the women in my family when the secret touchdown. Fuck, like, it was, it was right. People think that the Immaculate Conception is the birth of Jesus with no father, right? That's not true.

People think that the Immaculate Conception is the birth of Christ. The Immaculate Conception is the birth of Mary. Mary was free from original sin. This is facts. Mary was free from original sin from the moment that she was born. That's why she was able to be the vessel for Christ. The Immaculate Conception speaks to Mary's birth and not Jesus's birth. Go look it up.

All right? And so when I look at Ellie, I look at her as being immune. I'm assuming since birth, okay, but I'm not. sure about that, to be honest with you. I'm looking at her as sort of being an immaculate conception. She is without the sin

of corticeps. And because of that, that is, or she's immune to it, because of that, that makes her uniquely qualified to be in a lot of these other situations. It makes everybody protect her. It makes everybody show her stuff.

It makes people sort of want to maintain the integrity of who Ellie is. So when she stands in front of this guy, like every way that he's been corrupted contrasts up against her purity, even the purity of the fact that she's still a teenager. And she doesn't understand the concept of her own mortality.

She hasn't been through all of these things. So at that age, there's still a purity of the fuck you when he asked her to tell him her name. All of that. It's just a total masterclass and how human beings can go bad when they are led by something that is not real and false.

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Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbounds.lily.com. We're going to bring in Kai. I really want to know, is David's role similar in the video games in terms of, like, is there this level of backstory? Is there this level of religion? or is a little more straightforward? Honestly, it's a little more straightforward, and I'm going to sound like a kind of like a broken record here,

but it's like they've added so much more context, so much more backstory to this character that was like, he was creepy, he was manipulative, he was violent, he was all of those things. He was, you know, he took that weird liking to Ellie, tried to appeal her and all that. But yeah, the whole religious context, the layer of him being this false prophet,

this preacher to these people, that's all brand new. And also want to quickly mention that we do possibly get the biggest cameo of the season in this episode. His right-hand man James is played by Troy Baker, who is the voice actor for Joel in the game. So that was pretty tight. Oh, shit.

Damn. But yeah, David, all that stuff that's added in terms of the religious aspects, that's all brand new. And I think it works really well. How close are the group of cannibals? That's the other major change that I should probably mention is that all you see are a bunch of like goons and raiders and men who, do his bidding. They're referred to as the survivors in the game. But there's not like a whole

congregation of women and children that you come across. It's really just kind of David, James, and then a bunch of other guys who try to kill Ellie. So that's different too. Now let's kind of talk this out a little bit. Charles and Kai, both of you guys, and this is, I don't have a distinct answer that I'm looking for here. Why do you think they chose to do that? Why do you think they chose to take something in the game that seems that it's a little bit more as innocuous as cannibals can be? It's just like, hungry people, eating people, they don't care about society's rules anymore. And why do you guys feel like they decide to turn that into what I believe could be considered to be a critique on modern Christianity and religion?

Why do you think they injected that into it? I mean, story-wise, I think what we needed is that you need somebody who is the physical manifestation of everything. thing that Ellie is feeling emotionally, spiritually, mentally, all of these things, where it's not enough for him just to be a goon that is appealing to her. He needs to believe in something that she doesn't. What does he say when they first sit down? I believe that everything happens for a reason. That is completely against everything that Joel is teaching Ellie. Joel is like from minute to minute mission accomplishment. He doesn't know why things happen. They just do. He doesn't even necessarily yet. Do you even think, I'll ask you this, Van,

do you even think Joel believes that Ellie will save the world? Or is he still just doing this emotionally because Tess made him promise? This is quite literally, not only are Joel and David polar opposites, David and Ellie are polar opposites. And the religion aspect of that

is a way easier way to show that versus like him just being a regular guy that doesn't believe in anything. I totally believe that Joel doesn't give a shit whether or not Ellie can save the world. I think Ellie's more concerned about that than Joel is. Joel's entire saving grace is people. That's the only thing that's ever given him a reason to exist on this planet.

Purpose is people, be it Sarah, be it Tommy, be it test, and be it Ellie. Ellie hasn't found her purpose yet in life. She's being told what it is. And as kids, we've talked about this before, that's what happens to you at first. Part of it's learning, part of it's unlearning. People tell you what your purpose is. And then you get to a point to where you see the world for what it is. And you endeavor to find out what your own purpose is.

You remake that idea. And we're seeing that happen with Ellie. And to a degree, we're seeing how the effects of that you know, affect everyone around her. Because now she's seen what the world really is. She's killed people. She's hurt people. People that were directly going to kill and hurt her and were killing and hurting others.

But we see it now. We see what happens when somebody is plunged into a world where people don't have any sort of love or connection or purpose or feeling of belonging towards one another. If anything, Joel had that. The Joel that we know. We know that for a time he was out there doing some wild shit. But if anything, Joel has that. I think the show makes us litigate different factions of humanity and in a time when we really need it, what's going to win. Not just different factions of humanity, things that we believe now. The best place that we've ever visited in the two best places we visited in this show thus far. One was led by a doomsday prepper and the other was led by communists. Everything else that we've seen, we've seen freedom fighters,

we've seen the remnants of the U.S. government, we've seen religion, we've seen every single aspect of what we believe our country to be built on, which is revolution. Revolution, order, religion, and government. We've seen it all indicted. And what we've seen work is people sharing and helping one another for various motivation. Also, to answer your original question, because we grew up in the church, I think that we get a lot of the symbolism right away. Like, to your point, this is the Moses story. She, like, Ellie is quite literally wandering in the wilderness.

Absolutely. Do you think that the audience would pick up on all of that if it's not slapping you in the middle of the face that this guy's a preacher of a congregation? Would they get the Pharaoh Moses type of Exodus type of story if you're, he's not quoting scripture and it's not slapping you in the face? Probably not. And there's a lot of it that I might just be gleaning from it because I know my Bible. So maybe not, maybe not. But I do think that as human beings, we tell the same story over and over and over again. And a lot of the stories that are, you know, a lot of biblical stories are the same thing.

So we know them even if we don't know them. If you've seen Ten Commandments or whatever, whatever. But at its base, what we still have is Joel trying to protect Ellie from people who have been corrupted and destroyed by a world that no longer. has any guard rails on it. And by people who thrive in this world because of who they couldn't be before. One more post-apocalyptic movie I'm going to name.

The Postman with Kevin Costner and Lorenz Tate. Supposed to be a big deal. Didn't end up being a big deal. Whatever. I'm not going to tell you I'm going to watch the postman. All right? It's by a guy who starts delivering the mail

and post-apocalyptic setting. And because he delivers the mail, he like people are able to communicate and he brings back some sort of structure to the world and then people get inspired or whatever whatever but I do remember the guy who is the leader of the people is that great dude that's in he's in Yellowstone

he's in Armageddon I forget the guy's name he's a fantastic character act you've seen him in so many different things remember the Titans Will Patton? Yeah Will Patton Will Patton who was remember the all of that. When he's asked what he did before the war that destroyed society, he says, I was a Xerox machine salesman.

Like, I was a Xerox machine salesman. I was a guy who, you know, inside of me had all of these feelings about the world and about humanity, but it wasn't the right world for me then. And that's a scary part of this show. There are people who are just waiting for enough chaos and destruction to take advantage of it. And we know this because we saw it during the pandemic. We saw people profiting off the pandemic.

We saw people using the pandemic to leave people astray and sort of forge these deep, deep, deep distrusts and lines between American and world citizens. We've seen this before. And it's scary when you're confronting it in an episode of television. And it did a great job of showing that to us. in this episode of television. So then let me ask you this, though.

In this episode, we do finally get this moment where, like, my heart was just grew, I was the Grinch crew fucking 10, 100 sizes, when finally he sees Ellie and says, calls her baby girl and, like, hugs her. I was just like, this is why you get Pedro Pascal to do this. This is the level of acting. He's capable of this. This is why you cast these two. But I was thinking, is it a good thing that Ellie has become more,

like Joel. Like it's a good thing in terms of it's taught her how to survive in this world. You need to be a Joel. But do we think that that's something that will come back and bite her to basically put aside a part of yourself for mission accomplishment to destroy and do anything that you need to survive? Because part of me like almost there was a sadness. I was so proud that Ellie made it out by herself. But there was a part of me, I'm like she's now a broken person like Joel. You're spot on. A central question of the show was answered in this episode. And there's a question that lingers on the other side of it. The central question was, could Ellie survive this world without becoming like Joel? Yeah. The answer is no. And everywhere we've gone, we've been confronted

with what people have to do in order to navigate this world. But we always get little glimmers of hope, right? We see children at Tommy's place, and they look like kids. They look like kids. They are kids, but they seem like the kids that we know, they're eating popcorn and watching a movie. It seems as if, you know, at least someplace, childhood, innocence, and the civilization that we understood that that's valued and

protected. I mean, think about it. Joel thinks that he sees his daughter and what does his daughter represent a child from the before times. He didn't think he saw his daughter anywhere else out in the post-apococal because the kids are fucked up. The kids that we see in this are fucked up. They don't look like children.

The innocence has been wrecked away from them. Yeah, yeah. And even in the episode prior, what did we see? We saw two kids that were still struggling to be kids in a world where your childhood just gets ripped from you, right? It starts off with Ellie talking to a Fedra guy about what she has to be

to live a decent life in the QZ in this world. In the middle, we get basically an 80s movie. An 80s movie where kids get into a mall after the mall is closed, and they try on clothes, and they do all of that stuff.

We've seen that so many times before. And it's John Hughes shit almost, and you forget where you are, right? And then you're reminded. Like we even, we get a teenage love story to the point to where we get two young girls exploring their sexuality. And then you're reminded. You're reminded because a demon comes out of nowhere and kills one of them. Right.

And so this was Ellie's reminder. This is our reminder as an audience watching The Last of Us that no. The way, the type of life that Ellie is leading, the quest that she has, she can't maintain the innocence that Joel wanted to keep her enveloped in, that we want to keep her enveloped in. It's happened to her. Now, the question is, what happens now? That's the question. How does she handle it?

Is Will Livingston out the door? What happens now? Like, what, you know what I'm saying? It's like the movie big that we just covered on the rewatchables. Like, he's a kid the whole time. He meets the lady and they start doing the thing. And now he's grown up and he doesn't know how to make toys no more. Like, you know what I'm saying?

So it's like, what happens to Ellie now is going to be answered. in the finale, hopefully. And I think that's the last hurdle that the show has to jump. I mean, I say this with all due respect. I come from a military family, but it reminds me of the stuff when you talk to people

who have gone to war and come back. That struggle of like who you need to be to be a successful soldier in war is not who you need to be in regular society. And that's why you have such things as like PTSD and soldiers coming back. Like I have uncles who I was just like, you could tell it takes a toll on you because there's a part of you that can no longer come back to regular society in terms of like you've seen things you've had to do things and the world is upside down and that's what Joel and Ellie remind me of of like who are these people when they're not fighting for their life and I don't know this is our last time doing this is it time to retire the plucky kid corner is it the death of the plucky kid corner I think it is

Nah, man, she cut her way out the plug, Doc. Kai, I mean, Kai's right there. A perfect mixture of Jomey and Steve. What? Yeah, you don't listen to the Midnight Boys. You don't listen to the Midnight, but... Listen, I had a busy week, all right? You know, I've been a little under the weather.

Come on, I'm going to listen. You know this. I want you to listen to what happened in the Midnight Boys. I don't know if I want to anymore. The Midnight Boys are a little... I think the Midnight Boys might be a little threatened by Kai now. Oh, come on. after an observation was made by Charles,

which goes down as a top 10 moment to me in Charles podcasting Midnight Boys History. Really quick, I just want to say this, Van, did you notice? Our boy, Kai, got the blonde on top like Steve and the black on the bottom like Joe. Oh, my God. A perfect next.

I need to listen to this now. Kai Joe Steve. But Kai, for you, someone who's intimately knowledgeable about the games. How much of the stuff that we are getting from the show is present in the games?

This is one of the most critically lauded video games ever, the second part, even more so than the first part. How much of this is present in the games? How much of these themes are hitting you over the head some of the stuff that are me and Charles? Or is this based upon changes made to the source material by the television staff?

I mean, in terms of this episode specifically, I would say the religious stuff that stuff's all pretty new. I mean, there are things that you can make those parallels with in the game, but I think everything else you guys have been kind of touching on of like the survival of them,

what you said, Van, about having to go from the lone wolf and cub to two wolves. Like, that's a huge, huge part of moving into the second game. And yeah, I think everything in the show, from what I've seen and what I've experienced with the game, is everything that was touched on in the game

just expanded upon and just kind of unpacked a little bit more. Everything I think is done really, really quite, quite excellently. So then let me ask y'all this. Kai, I want your answer. I'm going to go to Vance. We all know that there's a Last of Us part two. This has been renewed for a second season. It should not be a spoiler to y'all that like the second season, like, at least going

to have to grow up. From what, there's been a lot of chatter on the interwebs of Ken Bella Ramsey play an older, more action star heavy version of Ellie that we see in Last of Us Part 2. This was a tour for performance for Bella Ramsey. She was already a star. This was the moment where I'm just like, oh my God, this is why you cast her.

Then, do you think that she has that gear in her? Because I was telling Kai, every actor is not an action star. In the same way that every action star is not an actor. And it's something where it's like, I don't want them to recast Bella Ramsey, But there is that question of like, can she morph herself into someone that is more a central figure, more of an action movie star? I think so.

Okay. I don't know if it's going to need to be 135 beats per minute. Sarah Connor T2, which is the greatest female action star moment ever to me. Thanks. Wait, I'll ask you this. Better than aliens. God damn. I think it is.

I've just, I got to put it, like, better than aliens. Yes, but I don't know why I just ripped Ripley out of my shit just then. I didn't even think about it. Shout to James Cameron. I'd say so. I mean, Aliens, Ripley's right there. It depends on the day. It depends on the day.

But Sarah Connor, that to me is the defining lady action hero movie. And you know what? And right there also is Viola Davis and Woman. King. I haven't seen a woman king yet. Oh shit dog. Like, hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's been some great action, women action situations over the years. Are you putting Michelle Yo in there with everything everywhere all at once? Is she? I'm putting Michelle Yo in there with her entire career. No, not just, no, entire career, but obviously like if we're talking about you brought up woman king, does everything everywhere all at once go in the pantheon of just like? Absolutely.

Okay. And that's actually a good idea, a good time. for us to discuss on the pod. Best female action star of all time. We should do a female action star draft. We should do a female action star draft. That's actually a good thing. What I'm saying is, Bella Ramsey doesn't have to kind of get to that. I think she can maintain a sort of dramatic energy

that navigates us through the things she's going to have to do. But, you know, she's 19 now. And we don't know when season two of The Last of Us is going to be filmed. Could be filmed when she's 21. The way HBO works. could be filmed when she's 27. So we don't know when that's going to happen. No, it's being filmed. Succession is ending.

They're like, come on. They're like in the channel. Come on. But yeah, so for me, I definitely think she can. I definitely think she can. I also think that seeing her in this episode is it's kind of proof of concept of that. Here's the thing. This is the perfect example because I agree.

I don't want them to recaster. I think that acting wise, even if let's, because I'll put it to you this way, I don't know if I buy Tom Holland as an action star. I buy him as Peter Parker. I don't like, anytime he's in anything, I'm like, I don't know, man. I'm as Fred Astaire. I can't wait for that. So, Kai, do you think that Bella Ramsey has it in her?

We got two yeses. All right, what do you think, Kai? Well, we've got a third yes for me. But I will say, going back from like when she was announced as Ellie, and she got all that unfair backlash. And I was really excited. I just was like immediately just as a huge fan of the games, I was like, how do we get from this to part two?

Because it's a lot more physical, it's a lot more violent, it's a lot more aggressive, and it's just an entirely different Ellie than who we meet in the first game. It's just incredibly vastly different. After seeing this episode, you know, I'm in. I definitely think Bella Ramsey can do it. I'm still interested to see how, but I'm sold.

I don't want to recast. I think she is our on-screen. at this point. All right. So we're going into a rapid question corner before we wrap up. Kai, stay on. I have a few important questions. What was the coolest Ellie moment from this episode? When she gets the drop on, David and James,

her getting her John Wayne Clint Eastwood on, riding off on the horse to save Joel. Tell them Ellie is the little girl who broke your fucking finger or Ellie killing David and burning the whole house down. Kyle, start with you. That's tough. Yeah, I got to go with

her in the cage after after she she bodies David got to go with that one. All right, I'm going to go with tell them Ellie's little girl who broke your fucking finger. I was just like, this is magic. That is one of those shots. That separates the actors

from like the real actors. That was the moment when I was like, oh, okay. Like this is, that's a little bit of part two Ellie right there. So yeah, that moment for sure. She has that dog in her. What about you there? Yeah, she got that dog in her for sure. I like escape of the hatchet moment off the,

I guess it's not the operating table, it's the fucking filet table. It's a meat table. That's the butcher table. She's a butcher table. So I go with that. Ellie is just, she's this badass. Hit it?

We got the principle of evil marksmanship. He couldn't hit her from about five feet away. Wait, no, let me, that can't be a quarter flip because these I'm sorry-ass motherfuckers. They are sorry. You're right. I don't think they know how to hunt. I think these people are like... Yeah. Great point.

They don't even know. I'll put it to you this way. I wanted this to be a van ISO. You're a country boy. You've been hunting. You've tasted game, all of these things. Boy, I don't know. Like, when they was like, nobody knows what the meat is. I'm like, these motherfuckers know where the meat is coming from.

Like, what are we talking about? This shit ain't venison. Well, see, here's the thing. I never had that human meat. Shout out to always sunny in Philadelphia. I ain't never been on that human meat. People talk about that human meat. I don't know what that human meat tastes like.

You know? I watched the movie Fresh. It's a crazy-ass movie with Sebastian Stan. And he was on that human meat like a motherfucker. Like for me, I know what venison tastes like. I know you can't give me venison and they'll give me a motherfucker's peck

and tell me that the peck is venison. I'm going to know what venison tastes. I'm going to know it's not venison. You know what I mean? I don't know what it is. I'm going to know it's not venison. You can give me venison right now and then give me cow or give me elk or moose. And I'm going to be able to tell you the difference between what I'm eating.

And so I would assume that I could do that with a motherfucker's hamstring or it's quag. So, but I don't know. Whatever it was, they was lapping it up. That scene where they were eating, I felt bad for them. All you heard was ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Some people were trying to take this up. You all ain't telling me that like, you know, Joe Blow down the street disappears one day. And then motherfuckers like, hey, we got a lot of meat on our hands.

And you don't start questioning and you like, man, these motherfuckers really ain't that good at hunting. I don't know. All right. After this episode, Pedro Pascal, he got Mando coming back. Listen to the Midnight Boys. We're recapping it. With Baby Yoda. We already know Baby Yoda's certified in these streets.

Hand-hand combat. Now, Ellie, Ellie's doing her thing too. in a knockdown drag out to the death brawl. Who's your money on, Ellie or Baby Yoda? I think it's Ellie because, I mean, she's just, listen, once you see part two, once you see that next level she gets to, there's just nothing.

There's nothing that will stop her. There's nothing that she won't just destroy, essentially. So I just, I don't know the aggression is just too much for Grogo to handle. Question, does Ellie have any best car in the second part? No. Okay, so Ellie's fucked, all right? What, Kai? This was a trick question.

What the fuck is Ellie going to do against the force? I love it, but Ellie's screwed. Ellie's going to get fucked up on accident. Grogu's too nice, though. No, Grogu's going to see like a flower behind Ellie. One move to throw it to the sidebreaker clavicle. We've seen him, by the way, we've seen Grogu neutralized threats. It's true.

You know what I mean? So let's not act like we haven't seen. seeing Grogu, we've seen Grogu neutralized threats. He was, he was choking, he was forced choking Gina before she went over to the dark side. He knew something back

then in the first season. He's like, I don't know about these politicians. Yeah, about it. Caradone, where were you on January 6th? It got to be Grogoo. It got be Grogoo. I mean, you can believe, I haven't seen part two. I haven't played part two, though. I know what happens because

I looked around in some stuff, but I haven't played part two. So I'll have a better gauge of that once I get through part two, because I'm planning on playing it, or once I see Ellie in her final form, you know what I mean? All right, that's fair. So last question, we'll start with Kai. Where does this episode rank in the Last of Us canon of season one? Where are you putting it?

I think I'm putting it at two. I think, again, episode three still takes the cake for me as someone who's just like played the game so many times, looking for something new, looking for something interesting and fresh in terms of a take on this story. But man, this sequence is fantastic. It's probably the most,

like, identifiable set piece from the first game. And I think they just, you know, they knocked it out of the park. So I think, yeah, this would be my second favorite. Still got to give Bill and Frank the edge just a little bit,

just because I was really surprised at, you know, how they handled that. All right, Van, where are you going? It's up there. So I had Bill and Frank second, right? What was the episode five that got to me? It was Henry and Sam. Henry and Sam.

It was Henry and Sam's episode that really got to me. It's up there. It's in the Pantheon. I'll say this. So I'm going to say it is now, I'm going to say this when it's third. I don't know, man. I might have to put it over, Henry and Sam, man.

No, I might have to put it over. No, it's tough, bro. It's really like that. Let me explain this. How I think about it is, I think that the Bill and Frank episode is a better episode of TV and of TV. But this to me is the best last of us episode.

This is the proof of concept episode. This is what you're like when you're pitching to HBO being like, we're getting Ellie here. Like this is what we're building to. This is the relationship that you're going to buy into. In the ways that the other episodes were cool, don't get me wrong. but you can't have the best episode of your whole show

be about the supporting characters. You feel me? That's fair. I feel you. I'll say this. This show is one stuck landing away from being mentioned as one of the greatest opening seasons of television history. I'm talking in the same sentence, the same sentence, should I say,

and system, as Wire Season 1, as Sopranos Season 1, as Andor season. one, as Breaking Bad season one, we're talking about way, way, way up there

in the annals of prestige television. If they stick the landing here, because we're talking about great episode, if they stick the landing, I'm telling you, you're looking at all-time greatness right here. Let's go there.

If we're putting this in the hierarchy, let's wait. Let's wait, though. I'm not talking about all, because we're going to do all HBO shows, but like, if we're talking about HBO's current lineup, top three flagship shows, one, two, three, where is last of us sitting? Current slate of what's coming out in HBO when you're in the investor meeting. Well, I think that that's fair to do after episode nine.

I think it's fair to do after episode nine. I think we should give it a full season. That's what I would say. Oh, cool, because I want to know, because like, let's all think about it because you've got euphoria in the mix. you got succession in the mix, you got House of the Dragon, last of us,

like is this coming at House of the Dragon's a neck? Not in terms of like ratings, but in terms of like, no, this is the show. Yeah, we'll, I think that's a great conversation to have after we've seen now.

I agree. I agree. So, yo, guys, this has been the penultimate episode of the Midnight Boys covering the Last of Us. Thank you to the chicken nugget lover himself,

Kai, for producing us. Thank you to. Bible Boy Van for bringing the heat this episode. My name is Charles Holmes. Make sure we check in next week for the season finale. Blast of us on the Prestige TV feed. See y'all later. Be-hoo!

Be-boo!