The Ringer-Verse - 'The Last of Us' Season 2, Episode 3: The Gamer Guide | Button Mash

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Ben and Daniel get back on the horse and hit the road to a new destination: Episode 3, "The Path." They share their high-level reviews of the episode, consider the significant differences between how the game and show handled the aftermath of Episode 2's momentous events, and speculate about what those departures from the source material—and a notable non-departure from Jackson—might mean for the rest of the season and series. Intro (0:00)Ben and Daniel react to Episode 3 in the aftermath of Episode 2 (3:00)Key differences in gameplay vs. the show (7:50) Predictions for the rest of the season (48:25)Outro (1:07:55) Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Daniel ChinProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to learn more or visit trimfire radio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer.

Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor for The Ringer, but MASH host, join today as I am throughout the series by a friend and colleague I can count on to remind me to bring maps and medical supplies on my murder trips. Very important tip. Ringer staff writer, Daniel Chinn. Hello, Daniel. Hello, hello. How you doing, Ben? Doing well. Asked you to start off our outline this week. You kind of handled some of the organization, much like Dina does for Ellie. Really, sort of a similar dynamic in some respects, but not in others, some very important ones. All right, we can make it

quick, or we can make it much, much worse, or maybe much, much better. We're here to give you the Gamer Guide to Season 2, Episode 3 of The Last of Us, The Path, written by Craig Mason, directed by Peter Hoare. As usual, we'll be comparing and contrasting the Last of Us season two and the Last of Us Part 2, discussing the differences in the TV adaptation and what they could portend for the rest of the season and beyond. Our usual spoiler warning, we will be discussing everything through Season 2, episode 3. We will not be discussing future episodes.

We can't because we haven't seen them. We'll be speculating about them. But not with any foreign knowledge. Everything else, however, is, so to speak, fair game. We will be talking about the entirety of The Last of Us Part 2, the video game. And as always, we welcome your questions and comments via email at ringerversegaming at gmail.com. So we don't have quite as much to get to as we did in our first of these pods when we had to do some recap. and refreshing and set up, and also probably not as much as we had to talk about last week,

which was a truly momentous episode. Nonetheless, we do have some significant stuff to say. So what's your quick take, first of all, your overall impression of this episode, as an episode of television, as an adaptation of the video game, blend it both wherever you want to take it? Yeah, I mean, I liked it. I think it makes sense to have this kind of episode after such a big episode, too, where this one feels like, definitely like a cool down, kind of really dwell on everything that just happened

in the big explosive episode two and just set up where we're going to go for the rest of the story. And I thought that some of it worked really well in terms of the innovations, which we'll get into that the show is doing compared to the game. Some of it worked less well for me, but overall I enjoyed it.

How about you? Yeah, last week was a tough act to follow, obviously. So I'm trying to guard against that, trying to calibrate my expectations. You can't expect that every single week. And yes, this is going to be kind of a consolidation episode, a week where we figuratively and Ellie literally just try to catch our breasts after everything that happened last time.

I guess I would say that this was among my least favorite episodes of the series, both as a standalone episode, as a game adaptation. I thought some aspects fell a little flat in both of those respects, but I'm not here to hate or to tear it to shreds. The baseline quality of The Last of Us is so high that even if I thought it was a relative down week, that's not that much of an insult. It's still a good show that I very much enjoyed. There are just maybe more nitpicks that I have this time than I'm totally with you. I typically have.

Yeah. We'll get to some of that. And Peter Horr, the director, he also directed the Frank and Bill episode of the first season, which was also episode three. and a quiet, contemplative, emotional one. So I guess he's sort of the sob story specialist for the series so far. And if we're comparing it to that, which is maybe also unfair, then I don't know that I'm getting the same Grammy nominating Grammy winning vibes from this episode necessarily, but some similarities tonally, I suppose.

And we'll get into some of these changes that maybe got our goat just a little bit, or at least we're reserving judgment. We're wondering why things happened the way that they did. So let's just segue straight into our main section of the episode, which is just the significant changes, our analysis of those changes. If last week was the time to kill, this was the time to heal, physically at least, enough so that it can be a time to kill again as soon as possible, as far as Ellie is concerned. And there is actually a lot of time for that physical healing to happen. So last week when we talked about the next time on montage, I said it seemed to tease an episode that would be pretty faithful to the game because all we really saw in those clips was things that we recognized from the game.

And there are some scenes that map perfectly onto the game. But there are more deviations than I expected. And one of those is that there's just more time that elapses here. and thus more mourning that happened. So what do you make of the fact that we have a three-month pre-departure time jump? I was genuinely surprised by the time jump. Yeah.

But I think it makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways and the ways in which it's going to change things moving forward, I think will be interesting. But mainly just the fact that we get to spend more time in Jackson, I found fascinating. And I've really appreciated the way that this show is kind of really trying to hone in on that idea of really making Jackson a character.

And I think it's just a logical conclusion of what's going to happen after this massive event that's happened to the town with the infected horde coming. So I think if you're going to add that change into the series, it just makes sense to have something like this where you can spend a little bit more time

and it's not just like, all right, Ellie and D and I are on the road again. Yeah. I guess Ellie got kicked really, really hard. She did. I mean, it looked hard. But three months is a lot of time to convales in the hospital. She was like inpatient. She couldn't even go outside and come back for checkups.

They were just not letting her leave. Granted, they're worried that if they do let her leave, then she will instantly set out to exact her revenge, which probably is what would have happened. But nonetheless, I guess that's a pretty swift, well-eemed kick there to take her out of commission for quite that long. And so, yeah, even though we get certain scenes that are just shot for shot, like the watch and gun in the box and the flowers outside of Joel's house and the smelling his jackets and crying, which that got to me watching Bella Ramsey portray those emotions. I was feeling them.

And so a lot of those things are very similar, but the time jump does definitely change things. And so in the game, of course, Tommy leaves almost immediately. Now, if this is another major change, Tommy doesn't leave at all, at least so far in the TV show. But he leaves essentially because he knows that Ellie will, if he doesn't, that she's going to go if no one else does. And so he hopes to forest all that and kind of head her off at the past by going himself. And then that kind of kicks off a lot of the subsequent action. So one thing Neil Druckman said on the after the episode, making us, of and also on the podcast is that they have the luxury of time here because it's not an action-oriented

video game where you watch a cutscene and then you're accustomed to saying, okay, what's the next action set piece here? I got to get going. I got to take control. So they have the freedom, I suppose, in this medium to take their time. I do think it also helps explain why no one is willing to leave. And I think the battle also comes into play here because we talked a lot about the battle for Jackson last week, another big change from the games. And we just like that, I think, in isolation because it was cool. It was a great spectacle. But it also does help explain why there wouldn't be a posse that sets out right away because they're licking their wounds. They're burying their dead.

They're rebuilding the wall. They're in no condition. And neither is Ellie to just leave. and set off who knows where after who knows who. So I think that battle then pays dividends here in justifying the delay. Yeah, definitely. And I do like just them really emphasizing that part of them rebuilding because it puts this whole decision to actually go out into a much different context.

And we can get more into that whole town hall scene. But even just like the smaller details of like Tommy and Jesse like building that house together, You know, you get Jesse like flexing his strength on him, which is great. I really appreciated just like having those little moments of levity in this episode to give us all a little bit of reprieve of how intense that second episode was. Yeah. Well, Young was, you know, he's clearly been lifting. He's been in the gym. So this is functional strengths.

This is not just not just aesthetics. This is not all for show. He's pounding in those pegs. So that could also maybe foreshadow some changes to come with Jesse. We'll speculate about that a little later. Another implication, possible benefit of this time jump has to do with Dina's pregnancy, assuming that the vomiting that we get later in this episode is a hint. There also does seem to be she's kind of adjusting her shirt when Ellie sees her in Joel's house

as if maybe she's trying to hide something, some protrusion. So people who have played the games know that there's a pregnancy happening. here whenever there's a mysterious vomiting in a TV show involving someone who could possibly be pregnant, you have to think. Not that it's not fully legitimate to throw up at the site of the slaughter of seraphites. I think that makes sense. That was a slight change too, I guess, because in the game, it's what, like a dead horse corpse, right? Yeah. And Dina still throws up, but just different circumstances. But it's often to tell, oh, we've maybe got some morning sickness is happening here. And the three months, well, that changes the timeline, possibly for the

pregnancy, and when and how that happened. We can return to that topic later. So we get Gail again. Gail makes her grand return in this episode. And one thing that I want to talk about here is the still absent porch scene. Because when Ellie is getting discharged from the hospital, She has to pass muster, past inspection with Gail, who fully sees through Ellie, but what can she do? She's saying the right things almost too well. And Gail, you know, she's siffing around. She knows that there's something that Joel wasn't telling her and now that Ellie isn't telling her and she's naturally curious and she's probing and she's asking about the last time that they talked. And in the first of these pods that we did,

I said that some people who've played the game, I think, have adaptation brain where if something doesn't happen in the same sequence that it happens in the game, people assume that it won't happen at all. Oh, they just, they forgot about this somehow. They just decided that this pivotal scene was extraneous. Here, Ellie seems emphasis on the seams to have confirmed that at first, because she says to Gail, Yeah, when I got home, he was on the porch, and I should have talked to him, but I didn't.

Gail asks, do you regret that? Ellie says, yeah, of course, but your final moment with someone doesn't define your whole time with them. And then they move on. So on the surface, it seems like, oh, wow, they did actually cut out the porch scene. All that happened was that Joe was sitting there. Ellie looked at him. She went straight into the garage and that's that. But that is probably not that, right?

Yeah, I mean, with just the way that they so prominently placed the porch scene at the end of Lassovus Part 2, it is such a huge scene in the video game that I feel like they just can't not do it. And Craig Mason, I think, alluded to there being something that happened when I guess it was probably either after the episode or the official podcast discussing that scene that Ellie has with Jesse in episode two where she gets very defensive about like her relationship with Joel. And she alludes to them having squared something away, you know, that they've figured it out together. So not only that, but I feel like the really nice moment of Ellie at Joel's grave when she drops the coffee grinds, the coffee seeds. In the game, Joel is drinking coffee in this porch scene. I'd like rewatch this. He's drinking the coffee and he's just traded for coffee beans. So I'm guessing these are maybe those coffee beans, but I don't know.

Maybe I'm reading into that a little bit too much. No, it could be. I guess he didn't have time to grind them, probably. Because he got grounds quite quickly after that. But in a way, I would almost admire it if they did cut that out because it would make the death even more devastating if they didn't actually have a last heart to heart there and kind of come to terms and actually start to proceed along the path of forgiveness and reconciliation. But that's such an important beat in the story that I really can't imagine that that's the case. And yeah, that's saving it for later. And you can understand why Ellie wouldn't want to launch into that here because, A, none of Gail's business, I guess, you know. I mean, if she wanted to unburdened herself, maybe that would help.

But I see why she wouldn't. And if she explained the porch conversation and the encounter, then that would probably lead to some follow-ups because Gail is already asking, well, what was he saying exactly about how he saved you, but also he harmed you? what does that mean? And so she'd have to basically lay it all out there if she was going to explain anything. And we've all been in conversations with strangers or semi-strangers. You know, you might be having the worst day of your life.

And then you run into someone at the store in line and they say, how's your day or how you doing? And you say, oh, fine. Okay. Like, you know, no one expects you to unburden yourself. Granted, I guess a therapist does. That's what they're there for. But we've all been in that situation where, you know, you, turn it into small talk instead of getting into a deep conversation. So that is most likely what's

happening here. And as Gail says later on in the episode of Tommy 2, Ellie is a liar. And she definitely is a liar. She's damn good at lying. Yeah, she has got a clocked Ellie there. So kudos to her. And yeah, maybe we can talk about that scene for a second because I love Catherine Herrera. I like Gail as a character in isolation in the abstract. But I don't care for that conversation in particular that she has with Tommy. It's basically instead of the conversation between Tommy and Joel that starts the second game, which we talked about a couple weeks ago, we have individual conversations with Gail as the proxy. And so they have this exchange where Tommy says to her, I just don't want her, Ellie, that is, to go down the same paths that Joel did, coming up with

justifications and such. All he was really doing was lashing out. And then Gail says, So you think she might have learned that behavior from him. Turns out nurture can only do this much. The rest is nature. If she's on a path, it's not one that Joel put her on. No, I think they were walking side by side from the very start. Some people just can't be saved. It's just very perceptive character analysis here from Gail,

given that she doesn't really know a whole lot about what went down between these two people. But yeah, there's something about that conversation that I think even if I hadn't played the games, but especially because I've played the games, just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. And I wrote a little bit about that on my recap on Sunday, as you know, where I feel like I really do like seeing Catherine O'Hara in this role. She's obviously a phenomenal actor. But Gail is a very deliberate way to just have this character insight. Like, I mean, she's obviously a therapist, too. So that's part of it. But like, it is, it is just very heavy-handed to have this moment where, like, you're saying exactly who

this character is down to the T. And also just that Ellie can't be saved. And again, like, because we have played the game, we know that Gail is exactly right, that this is, this is the story that we're going to see unfold. But it's just moments like these, it's like, damn, okay. Like, I see. I get it. Like, you've done, the show has done a good job, I think, of showing this in other ways throughout, like, especially in the first season, of just showing, how similar they were, even before they got together, like having the whole left behind episode, you see that Ellie is violent.

You see that Ellie is really loyal to the people that she's close to, and you see that there's a lot of these similarities that she has with Joel. So you don't necessarily need to spell them out like this. It was at least the way that I felt. Yeah, I agree. I guess you could argue that ultimately she's wrong and that Ellie does step back from the brink,

getting to the very end, that it costs her a couple of fingers and a lot of other struggles along the way, but that perhaps she can't be saved or she can save herself ultimately. But, yeah, I just don't love, just in general, the scene where one character just explains another character's traits

in a way that we could probably pick up organically from the show. We've spent enough time with Ellie and Joel at this point as viewers, let alone players, that, yeah, I think you could pick up on this or you will be able to pick up on this, given how the rest of this journey is presumably going to go. So, yeah, it felt a little, little heavy-handed

and not the only example of that, because maybe we can get to the town hall scene. Again, there were other things that I liked. The adaptation changes here, I liked the little wake with Tommy cleaning Joel's body. That was tender. That was sads. That was nice.

There are aspects, I think, of the cemetery scene that were changes that I think were improvements. We'll get to that in a second. But big change here is that we get the town hall scene. So instead of Tommy just running out to get vengeance himself, he's doing everything by the book here. This is just a much more orderly Tommy, leaderly Tommy, a softer Tommy than we get in the game. And he wants to just make these decisions by committee. He wants to put it to the community. And we get this extended scene with just about the whole population of Jackson getting to weigh in on this and then have the council vote on this proposal to send a 16-person posse after Abby and co. And we get various people piping up to basically present each of the possible interpretations one could have of this proposal.

So I think we had similar reactions to this scene. What was your take? Yeah, in the same way that we were just talking about the Gail and Tommy scene, it just feels like a very deliberate way of just talking about basically the theme of this whole series. Yeah. In just this pursuit of revenge and just the whole debate around it, like whether you should be merciful instead of being vengeful. Yeah.

And to have like each character is kind of. echo those sentiments very, very directly. On top of the fact that they're voting for 16 people to go, which is just like a lot of people to be going to Seattle, I feel like after this huge tragedy that's obviously left them very vulnerable. So that also takes away some of the suspense as well. Yeah, that was the 16 person detail. It's just why 16?

That is a high percentage of like the, you know, able bodies, not wounded, populated. of Jackson at this point. I can understand, you know, if what they're looking for is trying to make it more palatable to the audience that this is the way the council votes, if they're trying to sort of stack the deck and say, okay, yeah, if you're asking for 16 people, seems pretty reasonable to say no. But where did you pull that number from? Why isn't there some kind of compromise?

Okay, you're saying zero. I'm saying 16. How about we send eight people? Split the difference. or two people, four people, I don't know, even one person would be better than none, right? So it is kind of odd that you draw the line there and there's no nuance or like maybe we can just craft a slightly different proposal.

Like we're all kind of on board with the idea or a lot of us except my man Carlisle, who's like, let's turn the other cheek. Not a Christian, but just extremely into mercy. And, you know, it just felt to me like it felt more video. gamey than the game even weirdly. It felt to me like some sort of dialogue wheel, like a mass effect style oversimplified. You have like a paragon dialogue option. That's Carlisle, who it's like, you know, we're the merciful ones.

That's what's setting us apart from the wolves. And then Seth is the renegade option. And he's just like, let's kill the bastards. And then Ellie is trying to strike the neutral tone and not doing so. that convincingly. I guess she kind of convinces Maria, but she's, you know, going through the motions, she's trying to make her thirst for blood sound a little bit more palatable to the voters here. But yeah, it did just feel like overly spelling out the themes for the audience. And I'm trying to be conscious of the fact that we just know more. We have just more experience with this story and

these characters than the typical HBO viewer who has not played the games. And so I don't want to fall pray to thinking, oh, they'll pick up on this, they'll get this. Maybe we would need this handholding too if we hadn't already been through this experience and in a longer fashion. But it still just felt a little bit to me, like, you know, laying it on a little thick. Yeah, yeah. And I do think like having something like this makes sense, like functionally, like from a logical standpoint because of like what's happened and just the way that they've painted this,

this community is being something that they're really democratic about everything that they do. They're really voting on everything. They want to do everything together. So it makes sense. But I think because we just know that, I think even if you haven't played the game, you just know that it's not going to happen with 16. So it's like, again, there is that bit of like losing the suspense of it. And it feels that you're kind of like dragging it out a little bit to me. Yeah.

And this is not the first revenge story. It's not the first cycle of violence story. I'm not trying to take away from The Last of Us and its own originality, but we've all seen a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction at this point. And so I think we're familiar with the trope of it's not the zombies slash the infected, slash the fungus slash whatever. That's the real danger. It's the people.

The people are the real danger in the post-apocalypse. And so, yeah, we're all kind of familiar with that eternal struggle, even if most people haven't watched as much Walking Dead as I have, you know, It does tend to repeat itself where it's like, are we the baddies? You know, if we hunt them down, then are we the same as they are? And what actually sets us apart and how do we retain our humanity and struggle to survive in this sort of setting? So we're mostly familiar with that kind of moral dilemma. And so I feel like we don't need it spelled out with quite that level of specificity.

I'm also conscious of the fact that, you know, it used to be before game adaptations were done as well or as competently as they typically are these days that critics, players of the games, might in some cases actually know those properties better than the creators of the movies slash shows. They might actually have more respect for the original. They might have more experience for the originals. There were so many examples of people who just picked up on the IP and said, here's a recognizable name and brand. I don't play games myself and I don't really respect games and I'm just kind of taking superficial aspects of this beloved property and porting it over to another medium, not really with care. And that's not really what happens these days. And that's certainly not what happens with the

last of us where Neil Druckman is directly involved. So I always feel kind of self-conscious criticizing changes from the game to the show. Right. Right. Because it's not as if they haven't thought of these things more than we have. And it's not as if they don't have more at stake in these creative decisions than we do or that they don't know the source material as well as we do. So presumably they've thought these things through and they've come to considered decisions about why it makes sense and they have more experience making television than we do. And so I'm open to the idea of just maybe we're not considering all the implications of if this were just more directly ported over.

But that's not to say that I think that they're infallible when they make these decisions or that they always choose the best course. So I think they're still open to quibbling or at least questioning of, I wonder why they did it that way or would it have worked a bit better this way? Because, yeah, this scene as well as it works and makes sense for the Jackson

that they have depicted here, the actual experience of watching it and having these different moral stances presented to us in kind of a clear-cut, cookie-cutter way. Yeah. It just didn't work so well for me. Yeah, no, I agree with all of that. But I do think that, like, they, I really appreciate, especially, like, hearing Craig Mason talk about a lot of these very logistical changes that they're making to the town.

It is really interesting seeing, like, how from, again, like a logistical standpoint, how these things are all functioning. Like, right now we're going to talk about the location of the cemetery, for example. Yeah. Like having that moved out of the town, I think makes so much sense for a lot of reasons. And Craig Mason talked about this a lot on the official podcast where he's just, you know, about how in this world where people are dying all the time and they have all this space in Wyoming, like it makes sense to put the cemetery like 10 miles away from town and like having this like beautiful scenic spot to lay their dead. As opposed to in the game, like, the cemetery is in town and you just like have that little walk over to Joel's grave. Yeah, I thought he made some good points on the podcast saying, A, that it was a picture. Eschresque place and be that they have a lot of dead in this world. And so a cemetery might quickly take up a lot of space. As was established in the season premiere, they're running out of space as it is to house all the people who want to live there. So, okay, I get that. And also, maybe you're just surrounded by death all the time as it is. Maybe you do kind of want out of sight, out of mind. I did feel like 10 miles was a little far.

It is a little far. That's a long way to go in this world. You can't just like stroll out to visit your loved ones. Yeah, yeah. You can't go alone? That's a good point. You know, I got to get a horse. Like, can I check out?

Is a horse available? Like, do I need guards? You know, like it's not a casual 10-mile trip here when you're talking about horses and also infected ridden areas. I just, I don't know. I understand what are you saying about, okay, maybe outside the city, walls makes sense, but that's pretty far. That's pretty far ago. I can't imagine many people are making pilgrimages to pay their respects. Ten miles. That's, I don't know how many miles that's

equivalent to in our world, but many multiples of that far. But I did enjoy that scene because it's just, it's pretty and it's heartfelt, and I like the coffee beans and also the inscription on Joel's headstone, beloved father and brother instead of just Joel Miller. You know, It got the heartstrings tugged as it intended to. So mission accomplished there. Again, like, I think they're doing a really good job of expanding this world, but also, like, adding a lot of realism. Not necessarily that, like, they don't have that in the game itself, too.

But I feel like they're doing a good job of, like, really, really thinking about all the small details about each part of these things, whether it's the town council, whether it's how they actually defend against raiders and infected or where they're going to set up their cemetery. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Want to support your gut health?

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And Druckman even said this on the podcast that he says to Mason often, if you're going to change something, you better have a great reason to do it. And I guess we could disagree with all of the reasons being great, but I think often they are. And as for Tommy not departing, which is a huge change, but one that I'm fine with in theory, I think we have to see how it plays out, but again, they've laid the groundwork here to justify why he doesn't leave. So there's this exchange with Ellie where she says, if it were Joel, if you were the one who died, he would have been halfway to Seattle by now. And Tommy, I thought actually justifiably put her in her place and was like, I know Joel too, you know. Like I knew Joel longer than you. He is my brother.

And I have some sense of what he would think. And also, yeah, if I were alive, he'd come rest, me. But if I were dead, maybe not. Now, I don't know. The Joel we know, I think maybe he might have, I think I might side with Ellie on this one. But I think Tommy has a lot of reasons to stay because he is this pillar of the community. The community very much needs him. And I think it's nice that in contrast to the game, the TV series shows that Ellie could have made a different choice. That Tommy presented with essentially the same circumstances makes a different decision, which paints what Ellie decides to do in a different light. It almost gets her off the hook a little if she's just taking a cue from Tommy or suggests that, yeah, what else could she do in this

situation? Tommy makes the same choice. But here, he chooses nonviolence, as angry and eager for revenge as he is, which maybe makes it harder to defend what Ellie does. I thought it was interesting that he didn't even mention really his son or his family. It was more about Jackson. And I guess that makes sense because he doesn't need to tell Ellie that he has a son. She is aware of that. But I kind of expected him to hammer that home more as he was not hammering the pegs because they established that he had a son. That was a change. And that seemed at least partly to just deepen his investment in this community and also give him a blood tie to it beyond Maria and make it even more understandable why he wouldn't go anywhere. But he didn't actually end up using

that as, hey, I'm a dad. I can't leave my son. I feel like probably what we're going to see with that is what the way that I was thinking about it was, I feel like Tommy still has to leave. Yeah. And I'd imagine that's going to be a huge plot point or a huge, like, emotional thing that they're really going to explore a lot more in depth. Yeah. But I think it's smart to have it this way with just the way that Tommy's been kind of recast as being

more of this community leader, family man. Because in the game with him leaving, it changes the dynamic a lot more where Maria tells them to go after him, and you're always one step behind Tommy the whole way. But now that Dina and Ellie have actually successfully snuck off without presumably Maria or the others knowing yet, unless Seth has decided to tell everybody else, which seems very unlikely. But now it creates this different dynamic for Tommy where he's going to be potentially going after them to save them. And maybe he leaves with Jesse to, I don't know, but it changes it a bit where it's not as much as like, oh, Tommy's being a hothead right now and leaving us out of this

moment of trying to protect Ellie, but still, he's going off on his own and probably going to get himself killed. Yeah. I got the sense that if Maria wasn't aware, if there wasn't tacit approval there, that maybe she would approve because she seemed swayed by Ellie's speech at the council meeting and seemed like she was maybe willing to approve the posse. and so I think she would probably understand if Ellie went, but it does play out differently, obviously,

than it does in the game where it's very much, you know, she confronts Ellie and they talk and she gives her a horse and everything. So, yeah, but I think that it helps obviously the fact that Dina was with Joel at that scene when he was killed, even though she was unconscious at that point. As we talked about last time, I think that does justify why it's Dina who goes and why she's motivated to go. And helps explain maybe why Tommy is a little less hell-bent ongoing. And in the game, it's Tommy, of course, who knows the details about Abby and her crew and the wolves and the logo and all of that,

whereas now it's Dina and she's the one who's saving this secret to spring on Ellie once she's actually well enough to go. So I think all of that kind of lines up. And I think there's just more room for Tommy to grow as a character in that. the show and have more layers to him just because supporting characters in the game where you're just playing as Joel or then Ellie for almost the entire time. There's just there's an important role for Tommy. He's not quite as well-rounded as he has become in the show. So and yeah, we haven't heard the last of him.

I don't think. And we'll return to that at the end here. But we could talk a little bit about Ellie and Dina's relationship differences here because there's sort of some, mixing and matching going on, certain scenes from the game that are being ported piecemeal over to the show or not as of yet. And one thing I did like about this episode is that I do enjoy these two together. I just like the chemistry. I like Dina just kind of being a flirt, kind of being a tease, Ellie being just flummoxed

by her motivations and what she's divulging and why she's asking these questions. And there's just an easy rhythm with these two actors and these two characters. And so I'm enjoying now that we're on another road trip and it's another two-hander for the moment that it's not the same dynamic as Joe Lennie, obviously. But it's a good one in its own right. Yeah, I feel like it's definitely an interesting change. And I feel like just in general, they've already done a good job of adding these little complexities to Deina's characters where you are unsure of her motives. But, I mean, in the game, by the time you leave Jackson, I mean, they haven't put a label on it exactly. But they're pretty much already in a relationship.

Yeah. Where Dina even says to Ellie, like, you know, wherever you go, I go, something like that. And it's like now they're still in this kind of mode where they're feeling it out where like what's going to happen in terms of that. You have the tent scene where Dina asks about the kiss, much like the weed scene in the game. Yeah. But the way that, especially with this three-month time jump that we, We've talked about, like now in between that New Year's Eve dance and where we are now, Jesse and Dina have gotten back together, which helps from logistical standpoint in terms of Dina's pregnancy. Yeah.

But it also just obviously switches this dynamic between Ellie and Dina in a really interesting way. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. They have part of that scene from the Blizzard before Joel dies where they have the hookup and they go from. from the kiss rating, the six, to the sex. And just it's kind of a natural transition. Because it's like, hey, six, like, let me prove it to you that I can do better. Let me make it up to you.

And then they do. And they go considerably beyond that. And it seemed like that was where things were leading here potentially, too. I mean, you got privacy. You get your nice cozy tent. You're on your own. Everything seems to be set up for that to happen. But then it doesn't happen.

I assume that it will at some point. but they're sort of slow playing that. And whether that's just the typical TV, will they or won't they dynamic, or maybe there's more to it. But yeah, in some ways, they're closer than they were at this point in the game, maybe not physically,

but they've been through different things. And it actually reads as more comprehensible to me that Dina is just setting off immediately, given what she's gone through here than it was in the game. But also, yeah, they're holding out on each other, a little bit. And there was one difference that seemed somewhat noteworthy. They had a very similar conversation on horseback. And I love that now Ellie is on the front of the horse and she's holding

the rifle, much like Joel was when he used to ride and Ellie would be behind him. And that's tough. It's it gets the juices flowing. But they have this exchange, which is very similar to one they have in the game where they talk about their first kills, as one does. You know, we've known each other for years, and I've never actually asked you how old you were when you killed your first person. So we should have that conversation at some point, maybe off mic, depending on how much you want to divulge.

But I like that they have that conversation and that it's just sort of routine in this world to talk about that. It's just like an icebreaker, you know, getting to know you, what was your first murder slash self-defense? But in this case, Ellie explains, or partly,

explains. As in the game, she doesn't explain the whole left-behind scene and the actual first kill, but she talks about the one where she saved Joel. But then she doesn't, and this was pointed out on the official podcast, too, so it does seem significant, that Ellie doesn't follow up and ask, how about you, which seems like a natural response. Okay, I shared my first murder. What was yours? In the game, it's nothing that remarkable in that scene. It's just Dina says a guy who, I was 10. There was a guy. He was coming at my mom. I stabbed him. And Ellie says, wow, like, you have me beat. That's, that's even worse. That's rougher. The fact that that part of the exchange doesn't happen here makes me think that there is some other shoe that's going to drop here about who Dina's first kill actually was or that there's some sort of surprise that's hiding here. And I don't know what that would be unless it's Eugene related. Unless do you think there's some chance that. Dina was the one who put Eugene down and Joel took the blame. Like we saw in trailers what seemed to be excerpts of Joel lining up to take that shot.

But we know that Dina and Eugene had a relationship, and that's how she was able to piece together the WLF. And so could it have been that that was what happened here? And that's why she doesn't want to volunteer this or isn't asked about this yet. It's just hard for me to imagine who else or what else it could be that would still be significant to us as viewers. Yeah, yeah. It's funny because that was something that, like, honestly, I didn't even, like, register when I watched it the first time. And it was only something that I was really thinking about afterwards when I was listening to the official podcast. And I feel like Craig Mason does this thing a lot where he's like, well, we might see what's going to happen.

So it's like, okay. Yeah, we get it. We're probably going to see it. Yeah. But yeah, so it's interesting. So, I mean, it seems like we will see, like, maybe even a flashback of, like, what actually happened. And maybe it's just, like, a lot more traumatic than Dina made it sound in the game, or maybe they are changing it, like, to your point, to something like that, where it's, where it's involved in Eugene.

That would be interesting because it would obviously tie Dina even closer to Joel. But, yeah, I'm curious to see where that kind of unfold. So we also get the scene of the seraphites, and this is different from their introduction in the game. When Ellie's going after Abby and Nora, she comes across the seraphites. Here, we just get this scene, seraphites only, and we get to know a couple of them a little bit before their tragic demise. And we get a little bit of lore dump and exposition about this group and what their whole deal is. And then, of course, we come across them later after they have been killed by the wolves, presumably. And that's pretty heavy, obviously, for Dina and Ellie to come across this girl,

Serapite girl, Constance and her father both killed. That's going to summon some stuff that is barely below the surface as it is. But what do you think of this introduction to the seraphites and what it might mean for how they will be portrayed in the rest of the show? Yeah, this was one of the scenes that just didn't really register that well for me. I feel like there were really three scenes for this episode, and it was this, it was the Gail Tommy Exchange, and then the town hall scene.

But I think this one was one where I was conflicted because I wasn't sure if I didn't really like it just because I knew exactly who they were introducing because I was playing the game. And maybe I would feel differently if this was just like my introduction to the Sarah Fights for the first time in the TV show. But since I have played the game,

it just seems very, again, very heavy-handed and deliberate in just, you mention all the things about the profit with the seraphites. You have like the whistling, basically all the trademarks that you have with these characters kind of just airdropped into the middle of this episode that felt a little bit awkwardly placed to me. But you are setting them up very early on because the seraphites are going to become very crucial to this story, especially in this conflict that they have with the wolf. So from that point of view, like I understand that a little bit. But how about you? Yeah, I guess I like that it humanizes them maybe too much because the seraphites are far from just uncomplicated good guys in the games. And I assume in the show as well.

So I guess these are the good seraphites, the ones who are getting out of there. But it does, yeah, it lays the groundwork for what's coming later. And I don't know how or when that will come. And we haven't met Lev yet in the show, of course, and we may not until next season. Who knows? But this sort of foreshadows maybe Lev defying traditions, wanting to leave the cult, right? And so just establishing the idea that maybe the seraphites aren't a monolith and some of them stay, some of them go, which I kind of like just because it's kind of a peeve of mine in post-apocalyptic stories, especially where it's just like almost. everyone is dead. I always feel like there's plenty of room for everyone, you know?

Like, people should just spread out a little bit because there are always these post-apocalyptic turf wars. And it's like, what are you fighting over? There's so much turf. There's no scarcity here. I like Seattle, too. I'm just saying like, you could go elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest and not be locked into this fight for your life. So maybe these are the serfights who are like, yeah, we don't actually need to hang around here. We could just go settle some other territory nearby. There's nothing so special about this area in particular. So, yeah, I think this might be a scene that just works better for people who are show-only

viewers. And so I'm not going to come down on it too hard and we'll see how the serfites are ultimately introduced. And just a few Easter eggs. We're not really big Easter egg hunters on these podcasts, but there were a few that are sort of specific to game viewers that I appreciated in this episode, especially in Joel's house when Ellie is wondering around. I mentioned some of the just scenes that perfectly mirror their equivalence in the game. That's not even what I mean by an Easter egg. But there are some

things that you glimpse in the background that aren't really focus on that if you have played the games are kind of meaningful to you. So in Ellie's room in Joel's house, we seem to see the hat from the museum scene, which we assume will be coming and we'll get to see via flashback at some point. We get to see Joel's workbench and an owl statue that it seems like he was whittling that matches the design of his beloved mug. So that, I think, goes along with the coffee motif here. And we also get, I guess, Constance, the seraphite girl, kind of has Yara's hairdo. Maybe that's just all the rage among the seraphite youth, but that did make me think of, of Yara. And then we also get the running joke about Ellie sneakers and how Dina understandably gives her a hard time and just says, hey, you should probably wear boots, even though she made it across the country and all sorts of adverse circumstances in the converse.

In the game, she does just wear the sneakers the entire time. So it does feel kind of like poking fun at the conventions of video games where it doesn't matter so much what your footwear is. But in real life, you probably would want something a little heavier duty. So I appreciated that. And also, when they reach Seattle, another musical nod, not quite as touching as the Ashley Johnson song from last episode, but the home screen music from The Last of Us Part 2 plays when they reach Seattle. I like those little nods. It's not so noticeable that if you were not a game player, you would even pick up on these things or think anything of them.

So it's not obtrusive, but if you're in the know, if you know, then you know. And you probably appreciate those things. The attention to detail in this series is always so great. And they don't make it so, like, to your point, they don't make it like so in your face that they're like, hey, this was in the game. But it'll just be something like a Savage Starlight poster on the. wall or something like that that really adds like there's a matrix poster in a extreme when she's boxing with jesse right right all these really good little just touch still to tell you like when

when the world stopped yeah exactly and the timeline is a little bit different of course in the show than in the game so they're sort of reinforcing that too so we should spin this forward a little and speculate about what could be coming and so we weren't surprised we sort of call that okay, it didn't seem like Tommy was going to go anywhere. That wasn't too tough to forecast. But still an open question. Will he leave? When will he leave?

Under what circumstances will he leave? And Jesse, of course, tags along for this journey in the game. So what do you think? Will Tommy go after Ellie and Dina? What could prompt him to do that? Will we see the same sequence with Jesse, where he comes after Dina protectively. Because Tommy and Jesse, their presence in this party does dictate a lot of what happens in the games. Like if they just never left Jackson, then a lot of other things, there would be

ripple effects and domino's not knocked over here where progressively that'd be a big butterfly effect that would shape the rest of this narrative. So that's why like you, I lean toward thinking, okay, they'll find a way to get them there somehow, but how and when? I think it's a great question, especially with Tommy. I mean, with Jesse, it's a little bit easier just because I feel like in trailers, we can see that Jesse at some point will be reunited with, with Dina and Ellie.

I remember there's at least one shot of the three of them running together. But notably, Tommy isn't with them. So I feel like they're still kind of leaving that to be a mystery. But one thing with Jesse that I find to be interesting in this whole new equation with a TV show is that they've really

kind of painted him to be this really big leader in the community and Ellie alludes to how he's going to be running Jackson one day Yeah so I feel like they could be setting this up In part just to make the sting of what we can presume Will be his eventual death yeah hit that much harder Yeah

Yeah, but I feel like it could also play into the fact that like all right well if Jesse is hell bent on leaving Because Dina is there too with his close friend Ellie as well Maybe that will give Tommy even more of a reason to be like all right well Maybe the future we don't of Jackson could use a sniper to have with him. So I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, they have been laying that on pretty thick about the young politician, Jesse.

He's on the council now. You know, he's the hope of the community. And maybe that's a little bit like, you know, sometimes you start hearing that stuff and you think, oh, this character is not long for this world, which we know that Jesse is not in the game. There's part of me that's thinking like, are they actually changing things with Jesse here? Are they positioning him because Jackson's this big character in the show more so than in the game? Is there some way in which Jesse survives? I would love it.

I would love it too. I don't want to allow myself to hope that that could be the case, but there is some small part of me that's thinking that. But I guess they're trying to plant that seed in my mind so that I will be even more devastated if he does make the same fate that he does in the game. So, yeah, I'm not taking odds on Jesse surviving. I'm just saying, you know, you never know. They were changing some things. Other things could change. So then if he goes, I just, I wonder what would be the impetus for Tommy departing.

Is it that he somehow hears about Elian Dina being in some sort of scrape? I mean, how would he even be aware of what's going on with them? Does the guilt begin to build? Because I've been wondering how much of Jackson will see after our protagonists have set out here because they have built it into this character in its own right and they've talked about how it is kind of a character. But is it an interesting character after Ellie and Dina and maybe even Jesse are no longer there? Like, it's nice that Seth suddenly stopped being a bigot or at least decided he hates murderers more than lesbians, but I'm not sure we need the continuing, like, you know,

is Seth getting woke updates for the rest of this season? So I'm not sure. exactly what would happen there, unless there are further threats to the community, another attack. I mean, you can't follow up that attack last time without it being a letdown by comparison. Is it that things settle down so much that Tommy actually feels free to leave because they don't come back when expected? I don't know. What do you think could prompt him to depart? Because I agree that he's going to at some point.

Yeah, I mean, I do think that Jesse could be a big reason for that. Just because it, I mean, Jesse does go by himself in the game, but it is kind of crazy for him to just go all that way on his own, especially now that they've been thinking of this as being a 16-person job. But I think that could certainly play a part in it. And I don't know. I am curious about, like, they are, of course we know that Dean is going to get pregnant, but they are starting to set that up.

Like, I wonder if maybe in this version of it, Jesse somehow finds out. Like, I don't know, maybe he comes across a pregnancy test or something, and it creates, like, new sticks that way. Yeah. But my guess at least would be that if Tommy goes, Jesse would play a part, in part because I feel like, to your point, we are spending a lot more time in Jackson, and that's going to create some suspense in itself

now that we're seeing so much of that perspective. It's not going to just going to be like, oh, Jesse is here now. Yeah. It's going to be probably more exploring, like, all right, do we go after them now or not? Yeah. Or was that line about, Jesse being sad is that set up for some bit of backstory that we don't have about Jesse that maybe

motivates his trip. I'm intrigued by that and whether we'll find out a bit more about Jesse. So yeah, I think that's going to happen at some point. When do you think we will see Abby and Joel via flashback again? Because we talked about this last time. As we discussed, as we intuited, we did take a bit of a break from both of them, which I think was wise not to see them here. Though now that Abby's out for one episode, my mind starts to think, wait,

are they actually going to mothball Abby for a while? Will it be like a belated, like the game structure where we just don't see her for a while? And then we pick up with Abby in season three. But if that were the case, why even bothered to have changed things as dramatically as they did to set up her motivations and her backstory here? So I tend to think that we will see.

her soon-ish. But I'm glad that we got an episode away just to focus on Ellie and Dina and Jackson. Yeah. I mean, I think we will get Abby at some point this season. But I do kind of wonder if them teasing Manny at the end was more to just show that, all right, this is where Abby and our crew actually are. This is like Manny and like where he is with the wolves right now. Or it could just be them kind of teasing

like, all right, Mani's first up. Yeah. Like, especially since we talked about last week as well, like Mani kind of combining into the Jordan character a little bit, maybe they change how Manny dies and Manny fills in that Jordan role where they're, they kill him first. But I don't know.

I feel like it could, it reminded me of a video game in that way too where it's like, all right, maybe Manny's the first like mini boss here. And this is like the first one up. Mani boss. Yeah, Manny Boss. It was right there for you. you. Come on. Yeah, the other thing about Tommy not leaving when he did is that because he goes ahead of Ellie and Dina, he kind of makes their path a bit harder because he has already alerted the wolves.

Like, they're on high alert by the time they get there because Tommy's been around and hunting and picking them off. And so does that mean that they can more stealthily sneak around because Tommy hasn't raised the alarm the way that he did in the game? Wonder about that. I also. I also, wonder, you know, we talked about the introduction of the seraphites and how that affects viewers' perceptions of them and also Ellie and Dina, just seeing them as the victims from the gecko. Also, this confirms Ellie's impressions of Abby and her group, which is that these people must be absolute monsters. The only thing that she's seen the wolves do now is brutally beat her father figure and then also seemingly senselessly slaughtering this

group of seraphites that was just wandering away. So that's all she knows about the wolves. And so that has presumably deepened her conviction and maybe her sense of justification that I'm the good guy here that I'm going after this lawless, bloodthirsty group. So again, I wonder whether at some point that will change, when does she have a moment where she realizes, oh, there's a little more nuance to these groups than I thought. And then also for viewers, how does that, resonate because as a TV viewer, you know Abby's backstory now. And so her murder of Joel is more justified than it was when you experience that in the game. You have no idea who she is and what her grudge against Joel is. Now does that tip the scales further towards actually

Ellie's in the right here? Because if she's part of the wolves, then the wolves are just killing constants for no reason as far as we can discern, then yeah, maybe these are the baddies. Like, are they trying to still have that moment of epiphany and of reckoning and of, oh, I'm rooting for Ellie because I care about Ellie, but maybe she's actually in the wrong here. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely an interesting point, especially just knowing that Abby obviously defects later on the game, too. It could just be kind of seeding that in as well that maybe the wolves are not as, or like showing this the side of the wolves that viewers won't be familiar with yet. Yeah. So we got a sneak peek of next week on the next time on.

Anything stand out to you from the minute or so of footage we have here? Well, one, I'm very excited to see Jeffrey Wright. Me too. Yeah. As Isaac, I'm pumped for that. And I think the thing that stuck out to me the most was the end of this clip where we have Dina about to potentially shoot Ellie, presumably because Ellie has been what Dina believes to be infected. Yep.

So that's going to be creating... Is it going to be bitten again? Or is this going to be? be like maybe she'll do the confession that she's immune and Dina will actually believe that she was bitten but not believe that she was immune and be on the point of pulling the trigger until she's actually convinced. I hope, hopefully doesn't have to take another bite to prove that she's immune to someone. Yeah, yeah. I mean, getting bitten twice already in four episodes is pretty rough if that's the case. But yeah, it's interesting. I think that's like a really,

if this is actually what happens, I think it's a really good place to really dramatize the moment a little bit more because in the game, it's like Ellie takes off the mask and the spores aren't affecting her. So Dina can kind of already see like, oh, she's actually like not immediately getting sick right now. Yeah. And the first time she tells her she just doesn't believe it. She just thinks she's kidding. Yeah. So this could be an interesting moment that the game is going to be switching up. So I'm looking forward to that a lot. Yeah. And it looks like after the slower-paced interlude episode here, the action's going to ramp up again. We're going to get some infected. And it looks like we're going to get a guitar scene, at least.

Maybe the take on me guitar scene is happening here. So that's nice. We'll get a little tender moment. Maybe that will deepen the romantic aspects of this relationship. So a lot in store here. And I was just thinking this just kind of occurred to me as we were speaking. How do you think, if at all, the success of the series affects the plans for a third game? if there are any, which has been a big subject of speculation.

Will there be a Last of Us part three? And at various times, Nottie Dog has cast out on that. At other times, kind of left the door open. And of course, they're working on intergalactic and have their hands full with that. But that doesn't mean they could also have something on the back burner in The Last of Us and that we could not find out about that someday. And, you know, there's just a lot of pressure, obviously, to make more because it's fairly rare that you get two hyper successful installments of a story and you don't just go for the

trilogy. And I respect it. If they say we told the story that we wanted to tell, I'm not necessarily advocating for another game, though obviously I would play one. But there's even more pressure because, hey, now there's a whole Last of Us universe. Now there's a Transmedia IP. Now there's a demand or an interest at least in additional seasons. And I'm not saying that they've necessarily had conversations about that or that that's in any way shaping creative decisions on the show. But you have to wonder, at least in the back of your minds, are there plans, have they completely ruled that out? And could that potentially affect how they're choosing to tell this story, you know, spacing it out more, telling the story of the Last of Us Part 2 over two TV seasons

at minimum? Is that to allow more time for a third game to be made? I don't know. there might be nothing to this, but I wonder whether you've considered that and whether you think there is a way that that could happen and how that might affect the rollout of the TV show. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely thought about this as most fans of the game probably have

because you just want to see more of this world, especially on how, how, like, depressing of a note, it kind of ends up with Ellie just being on her own after, you know, really, really messing everything up with Dina. I feel like because of the popularity of the show, my sense is that maybe they would just continue with the series, like continue the story that way.

That would be my guess. I know that Mazin and Druckman have both spoken about this to varying degrees, but I feel like if HBO wants it when it comes down to it, I think maybe that's probably the route they would go. Yeah, I'd have mixed feelings. I'd be conflicted about that, just as someone who experienced the series for so long. through the games, that that to me is kind of the quote unquote real, the last of us.

I mean, they're both real. They're just both different versions of the story and different canons and some of the same creators involved. So I'm not saying one is more or less legitimate, but I'm just so conditioned to play and then watch that it would be weird to have it go the other direction. But, you know, I guess not unlike having been a book reader for Game of Thrones, a Song of Ice and Fire, and then to have the HBO. series surpass that series. We're pulling for you, George. We believe in you. No, we don't really,

but we still hope for the best. But that, you know, led to different adaptation challenges. And it'd be different this time with Druckman on board. It would be as if you had George R. Martin writing the latter seasons of the TV show, which might have gone a bit better, all things considered, in retrospect. But yeah, that would be just an odd way to experience that. But at this point, I think you're basically committed to that if you do want to explore additional seasons unless there's a significant time jump, which I guess there could be. But, you know, you have a cast committed and you have an L.E. And you have to think about how that would affect things because the development timeline for a video game is just so protracted. Then unless they were well into development already, the HBO series, you know, even if you build in a couple years for season three of the show and then another couple years for a potential season.

before you're still looking at, could that game even conceivably come out before they're ready to start making the TV show, it seems unlikely. So maybe that is the path of least resistance. And I guess I'd be on board with that if they ultimately do choose to go down that route. But it's, yeah, it would be, it would be jarring, I guess. We wouldn't be able to do this podcast anymore because we wouldn't have a gamer guide to the next season of The Last of Us. Right. I mean, who knows? Maybe they just do a little expansion pack like a ticker.

Yeah, like the left behind style. Yeah, that could work. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. It'd be nice to be back in the same boat of not knowing what's coming next, you know. We know too much sometimes. So it'd be nice to know nothing, I guess, and get to experience it fresh for the first time again.

Anyway, much to consider. We will continue to consider it. We couldn't wait to get on the road again. The life we love is making murders with our friends. And we're going to make many more of those as we go. So I'm sure it's all going to go great. You know, we don't know. They're changing all sorts of things.

So they could slip in, just take care of business with Abby, turn right around, go home, simple, you know, in and out. Live happily ever after in Jackson. Who knows? You know, it could go down that way. Seems unlikely, though. You need conflict to create drama. But they have, I think, changed the timeline in significant enough ways, though, that maybe that lends credence to the idea of, okay, this is a reason to separate these things because we could. continue it as a show-only property at some point, and it would feel like a distinct

standalone thing. So tomorrow, Friday, the Midnight Boys, Pugh, Poo, Poo, Pee-Pew. There you go. The slow one for me, but yeah. I didn't set you up with the programming teases, but, you know, once we look ahead to what's coming in the last of us, we want to look ahead to what's coming on our Ringervverse feed. So Midnight Boys on Friday will have their Thunderbolts asterisk reactions. Daniel, you have seen Thunderbolts, and your reaction seems to be pretty positive, as most people's do.

And I enjoyed it. I mean, I'll be writing about it next week a little bit more, but I was pleasantly surprised. Happy to hear it. And yeah, we don't need to do a whole rounded discourse of is the MCU back yet. You know, one good movie, it's progress. I think we overreact to these things in both directions, you know. I'm sure we'll get another state of the MCU conversation going. But we could at least wait until Fantastic Four comes out, and we could kind of have those two conversations together.

You know, we don't have to have two separate re-evaluations. But I'm glad that Thunderbolts, evidently, is breaking the recent pattern. And you can already read Daniels Primer on the ringer.com. What a great website to get you ready for the film. And then follow up early next week for his post-release take. So the boys will have more on Thunderbolts early next week as well, following their Sunday night takes on The Last of Us episode four. On Wednesday, of course, and or episode seven through nine reactions, then Daniel and I will be back on Thursday to talk about episode four of The Last of Us. And on Saturday, the Midnight

Boys will finally have that Midnight Munchy's Apocalypse Food episode inspired by The Last of Us. And after that, the cycle of podcasts like the cycle of violence and revenge starts all over again. House of ours, Thunderbolt's, deep dive, will be up tomorrow Friday, too. And then for the next couple weeks, last of us, and indoor deep dives from Mal and Joe on Mondays and Thursdays. And of course, you can contact us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. Always fun to talk to you, Daniel. Great to be back on the road and on another journey with you. Yep.

Until next time, Ben. Thanks to Devin O'Donado for producing this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal, who is on vacation, hopefully having a far more restorative trip and relaxing one than Ellie and Dinas will be. as Ellie says, or will say, you can't stop this, nor we hope would you want to. So we will be back next week to pass the halfway point of this short season as we break down episode four from the players' perspective. Talk to you on the next Gamer Guide edition of Buttonmash.