The Ringer-Verse - 'The Last of Us' Season 2, Episode 5: The Gamer Guide, and Animating 'TLOU2' | Button Mash

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Ben and Daniel got here from Jackson just in time to talk about Episode 5, "Feel Her Love." They discuss the specifics of the action and the pivotal closing scene, then pull back a bit to comment on how the effort to adapt the game is going before forecasting what could be coming next. Then, Ben talks to longtime Naughty Dog game developer Almudena Soria Sancho, lead animator on 'The Last of Us Part II,' about her thoughts on the 'TLOU' adaptation, bringing the Stalkers and other infected to life, perfecting performance capture, the advantages and drawbacks of film and TV versus video games, what she's most looking forward to seeing the rest of this season and next season, and more. Intro (0:00)Reactions to Episode (3:50)Interview with Almudena Soria Sancho (1:05:50)Outro (1:32:18) Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Daniel ChinGuest: Almudena Soria SanchoProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech 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 WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer.

You don't need WeatherTech 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, Button MASH host. Join today by my regular co-host for these Gamer Guide episodes. He found the map that I left in the theater. He followed me to the studio, showed up just before we hit record. Perfect timing.

Daniel Chin, staff writer for the Ringer is here. Hello, Daniel. Hello, Ben. Wow, just amazing that it worked out so perfectly. So, so serendipitous. We will be talking today about the Last of Us, season two, episode five, feel her love, written by Craig Mason, directed by Stephen Williams. We will also be feeling some hate in this episode. And we will be talking about everything through season two, episode five.

So our usual spoiler warning, we will not be discussing. future episodes. In fact, we have not seen them, so we cannot. We can speculate about them, and we will. But everything else is fair game, so to speak, if it's been in The Last of Us Part 2, the Last of Us universe, then we can discuss it here. Be warned. You can contact us, as always, at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. And we've got a little treat at the end of this episode, our first interview of this series. I will be chatting with Amadena Soria Sancho, who is currently the lead animator at Wildflower Interactive, a studio started by Bruce Strelie, who was the co-creator and co-director of the original The Last of Us. But before,

starting her current role, Amadena was at Noddy Dog for a decade, working on both the Last of Us games plus DLCs and remasters, and co-directing the in-game and interactive cinematic animation teams as a lead animator for The Last of Us Part 2 in addition to her work on Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy. So she's going to be joining me at the tail end here. We'll have a quick conversation about the stalkers, which were featured in this episode and also in the corresponding section of the game. She helped bring them to life in their original arc incarnation. We'll talk about that closing scene with Ellie.

We'll talk about the differences between video game animation and live action. But we'll be nice to talk to someone who played a prominent role in bringing this story to life for the first time so that we can all enjoy it in its new incarnation. So our quick takes on the episode before we get to some of the big changes and analysis and forward-looking speculation, what did you think of Feel Her Love? I like this one a lot too. I feel like this is two really good episodes in a row. I like a lot of the changes that they're making. We'll obviously get into that more, as we discuss. But I'm into what they're doing in this adaptation.

How did you feel about this episode? Yeah, largely pretty positive, I would say. I think in isolation, I like this episode and certain sequences in this episode. I think I have some larger concerns, which we've expressed throughout these episodes, just about the structure of the season and the adaptation specifically. and I'd say maybe some of those misgivings are building in my mind as we come closer to the end of season two here. And a lot of things are kind of crashing together. Some things are a bit compressed compared to the way that they were in the game.

And I want to get into that a little bit later. So I do have some macro concerns. But the micro level, I thought this was a pretty gripping episode and good interpersonal stuff and good action. and obviously some pretty pivotal developments here. And some things that we've been waiting for a while to see how they'd happen because we're adapting the day two sequence in Seattle here. So we've got some pretty big plot points that we have been waiting for, wondering about.

And of course, one essential scene at Lake Hill Seattle Hospital, which we will spend a good deal of time talking about. So love is in the air. So are quarter-step spores. And that is a first for this show, but not for the video game. We get a new spores discovery origin story here. And this is brand new. This is different from the game, which introduced us to the spores really just a couple hours in.

And here we are most of the way through season two of the TV show. And we're just getting in on spores. We meet Han Rahan and Elise and Leon. These are all new characters, though there was a completely different Leon in the game who you meet through a note that Ellie finds. He's a bank robber who happened to schedule a bank robbery on the day of the breakout. Not the best timing. But you listen to the official HBO companion pod.

Tell me what Neil Druckman said on this most recent episode about why the spores were introduced now and in this way. Yeah, I thought this was a really part of the episode in this conversation that Druckman was having with Mays and Troy Baker. and he was basically just describing how the spores were originally just a narrative mechanic in the game to show evidence that Ellie can breathe in this infection and nothing's happening to her. But so obviously they chose to go away from that in the first season. We've talked about that in past episodes. They replaced it with the mycelia. There was just always the sense that the spores localizing and not spreading out in the world

would be something that was kind of unrealistic. but with this scene with Nora coming up in season two, they realized that they needed to have that narrative function again. So I wrote down a quote from Druckman. He said, sometimes you get these happy accidents. We didn't do spores because of a bunch of different reasons. We talked about in the past,

like not wanting our actors to constantly be in gas masks. But now we have this season an escalation of the outbreak because of that. We see the stalkers. We see that they evolve. And now there's this new threat that it's like, this thing is not static. It's constantly fighting back as people are becoming complacent. Yeah, and I guess that concern about how it would be harder to convey in the show that the spores are sort of localized or that people wouldn't believe that they wouldn't just spread throughout.

I did see some people saying that in this episode, like, hey, the wolves are just setting up in this hospital where it's spore infested in the basement and they just kind of close the elevator doors and they're good as long as they don't go down there. And I do wonder, though, about that because we don't know exactly how long has elapsed since this flashback scene. Enough time for poor Leon and Co. to get pretty deeply embedded in the walls down there. But a while has passed. And so are we to conclude that the spores are just limited to this basement? Would it be weird if we don't just suddenly start seeing spores everywhere? Like if cortisps is evolving, then would that have to be? to be reflected throughout the world as we continue to watch this show. If we don't see spores

pop up everywhere, are you going to be going, well, where are the spores now? Yeah, I think it's a very fair question. And I think that's definitely why they wanted to avoid having this type of conundrum in the first place. But I do like that they've made it so that this particular setting is the one that has it. And they're kind of making it into a bigger thing. They have that whole conversation about how this was the first place where the first quarter steps patients were in 03. And they're kind of building up this ominous tone around it because as the gamers know, this is also where the Rat King will be. Yes.

Not until season three, sadly, but it's coming. I'll talk to Al-Madena about that. But I think it's partly, as we've talked about throughout the season, wanting to make the spores seem more threatening in season two, make it seem like they're leveling up. But it also seems like part of the impetus was just wanting to have that moment in the Ellie Nora scene where Ellie can just walk in there without the gas masks, not coughing. And Nora instantly realized, oh, you're her. You're the immune girl. So it seems like a lot of why they introduced it now and where they did was for that moment, which fair, I guess, it's a pretty pivotal scene.

Yeah, I mean, that's one of those scenes where it just feels so tough to try to change it because it's such an iconic moment for. for several reasons. Like that moment where Nora just realized it's like, oh, this is the immune girl is like so powerful. And I think they did a really good job of recreating that. Well, we can circle back to talk about that more. But there are definitely some bigger elements of it that might not work as well of the adaptation.

But I feel like some cool things that they changed to it, like just the mechanism of the way that the infected are now, like exhaling the spores, I thought was an interesting choice visually, but also just like functionally what that means and how they have this sort of symbiotic relationship now with the people that are on the ground that are now embedded into the wall, becoming a part of the infection.

And the way that this infection is trying to spread through them and using them is an interesting visual thing too. Yeah, they've got kind of a three-eyed raven thing going on here. They're just growing into the spores, growing into the quarter-seps. And I do like the just the puffs of spores, just expelling smoke rings almost, the spore rings, but we can back up a bit before we get to the descent into darkness at the end of

the episode here, because things are a little lighter earlier on, though, you know, there's fluctuations of tone in The Last of Us. And so we get some nice heartwarming moments with Ellie and Dina, and we also get some sad, tragic, angry moments with them. And maybe we can talk a little bit about the changes to Dina's backstory. So we got some detail here about her first kill. And we get the basic structure of what went down. There was a raider. She was outside. She was eight. She had a gun, but she couldn't get back quickly enough to defend her mother and her sister. And in the show, they both die. They both get killed. She feels guilty about it. She leaves Santa Fe, makes her way away. raises herself, as far as we know for a while.

This is a little bit different from Game Dina's backstory, in which the broad strokes are similar, but her mother is killed, not her sister. And so she is raised, at least for some time, by her sister Talia, who tells her about her family's Jewish faith, and she then relates that to Ellie throughout the game. So we get some backstory here on the Amish,

not the Jewish, so things have changed a little bit there. And I guess maybe it just gives even greater fodder for motivation when Dina then reinforces Ellie's bloodlust a little later. So what did you make of the change to this origin story and what the motivations might be? I was a little conflict about this part. One thing that I really did like about it was just really building up Dina's character a little bit more in terms of like how much she also just really wants this for them to, just the revenge. like getting revenge for what they did to Joel. And it's even like a step beyond justice, you know, like these people need to pay for what they've done.

But the other side of it, like, and I mean, we've talked about this a little bit with other instances on the show. It feels a little bit neat in the way that this is setting up Ellie's own lust for revenge. Like we see this being like, I think they described it in the making of the episode. Like Stephen Williams, the director, was talking about how this is kind of the beginning of Ellie. revenge quest, which I thought was interesting because, like, it felt like we'd already started it. Yeah, like, why are they in Seattle? Not just to sightsee, right? Like, that's why they're here. Right. Exactly. So, but, like, there are all these little moments where this is pushing Ellie a little

bit closer to the edge. And the end of this episode is her going over that edge. Yeah. And it does start really in earnest here a little later than it does in the game, which we can get into. But this is when, And the rubber really meets the road in terms of, okay, how far am I going to go here? And Dina gives her permission, essentially, to go as far as she wants to. And she's not actually there in the Nora confrontation, but she sort of gives her pre-approval almost by basically just like kind of a blanket. I don't care what they did. Like, you know, I don't care what Joel did. Essentially, I wouldn't care if my family had done something to these Raiders first.

It's just inexcusable. and I would pursue them to the ends of the earth. So as you're saying, it is a little neat that she's just kind of like putting that out there, but I guess she knows where this is going if they actually stick to their course here. And that is one of the things I think that I've liked. I think we've both liked about the season and the adaptation, just making Dina more invested in her revenge because of her relationship with Joel, which was essentially non-existent in the game.

And here she's almost a second surrogate daughter for Joel. And so she feels it personally and she's there instead of Tommy in the room. And so that I think has really worked well in terms of, okay, why is she so into this? Why is she so willing to accompany Ellie? Why is she willing to match her? Just really blow for blow here. Yeah. I think this is going to be another thing that's going to be interesting to watch, though,

because on the flip side of this is like we're seeing all these little changes start to snowball across the season and like how they will change things further down the line because obviously we know where it is because of the adaptation. And such a big part of the game later on, when they're on the farm, it's like Dina's begging Ellie to stay. Like just like choose this life over Abby. But here, you know, Dina's like, I would do this, you know? Yes, you'd have to change her too.

Yeah. Right. And I guess it helps also that show Dina is just more actively involved, physically involved. Yeah. Than game Dina was because game Dina. was just sort of sideline. And here, and we previewed this last time, but Game Dina stays at the theater and Ellie goes to Lake Hill alone, whereas show Dina is just much more involved.

It's like where you go, I go. She's going to be by her side every step of the way. And that makes it, I think, a little easier for her to be providing that moral justification because if she's just like rooting rah-rah, like, yeah, go get him, Tiger, but I'll just sit here at the theater for a while. That wouldn't resonate quite the same as it does if she's at Ellie's side and they're taking down stockers in tandem. So this is going to lead to later changes the fact that Dina goes along for this raid here with Ellie because, you know, skipping ahead a little bit, show Dina is the one who gets shot by the seraphite arrow to the knee almost, whereas she isn't at that seraphite encounter in the game. it's Ellie who gets hit in the shoulder instead. So a lot of that setting is just yearly similar.

Just when I was watching that scene, I was very much flashing back to my first play-through of part two. It's very faithful in that sense, but Ellie's not alone, and we get a different person taking the blow here. And then because of the shooting of Dita, Ellie does ultimately still end up alone later in the episode as she goes after Nora and Jesse. we haven't talked about his arrival yet other than our intro joke, they return to base and he carries Dina back there. So they contrive away for Ellie to have her one-on-one with Nora. But for a while there, it's different in terms of who's present at various scenes and who's actually being bloodied. Yeah, I mean, it's just interesting to see the different changes that they're making, but ultimately ending up in the same place or like finding new reasons to stay into the same place. because there are just these pivotal moments

that just have to happen, like Ellie confronting Nora. Yeah. But I did like how in this sequence in the park, they did combine that whole, I don't even know what you'd call it, that execution is also just like a ceremony too. Yeah.

But the fact that they showed that and like really gave this really powerful and horrifying insight into the seraphites, I thought it was a really good place to kind of show that too. Yeah. I'm going to go with ritual, disembassified. That seems like the best label to me.

Yeah, I have noticed that even though that is also in the game and Ellie sees that, the show is sort of explaining the seraphites more. And Ellie and Dina just seem more curious about them than they are in the game, where they're so single-mindedly focused on Abby and her crew and the wolves that doesn't seem like they're that interested in seraphite lore. Like they've got to go through the seraphites sometimes to get to the wolves, But beyond that, they're not so interested, really, in why they aren't using technology or what their religion is or any of that. They're just sort of their bystanders, basically.

They're NPCs for them in that scenario. Whereas here, and I guess it's partly because the show is making more of an effort to humanize them or to show the different factions within the seraphites and give some of the nuance of this battle with the wolves. Ellie and Dina, because there are our main protagonists here, they're giving us some of that insight. And as I mentioned, Dina sort of likening them to the Amish and talking about why the wolves feel comfortable being on the walkie-talkies and everything, just getting a little more curiosity from the two of them as far as the seraphites go. Yeah, yeah.

I'm definitely conflicted. I think one of my biggest gripes across the season is how much exposition there has been. In moments like this, to your point, like the way that they're describing the seraphites so much. But I also just do like, again, to what you're saying as well, like the way that they are providing a lot of insight and humanizing the factions more. Because what this show is really interested in is the tribalism of these different communities. And they talk about that on the official podcast a lot and just how the world has created this where these different communities are just, constantly fighting each other or they're just constantly fighting for their own. Yeah.

It is always kind of a challenge for the show to cram all of that environmental storytelling that the game does, whether it's just seeing them. Now, the mural, for instance, we see in the game and also in the show in this episode, and that's sort of similar. But there's so much incidental dialogue that's going on between Ellie and Dina and you're overhearing the shouts, the barks from the people who are stalking you. or whom you're stocking. There's just a lot of little things

that aren't actual cutscenes that you're picking up on in those hours of combat and stealth and exploration and scavenging that you don't really get in the show unless you then squeeze it all into certain scenes. And then, you know,

it becomes kind of clear that that's what you're doing, or at least it does if you've played the game, but I am somewhat sympathetic in the sense that there's just not as much screen time. Like in terms of, you know, actual cutscenes, maybe, but there's so much stuff that's not really a fully animated

cutscene that still deepens your understanding of the world and the characters. Yeah, it's a lot of what we were talking about last week in the episode of just like how there are so many things in the video game that are optional that you could just totally miss. Right. But in the TV show, those things aren't optional. So they have to make these decisions. Now, before they actually set out from the theater, we should talk a little bit about the

much anticipated future days scene. which goes by quickly. So we still haven't seen Joel's early game future days performance on the show. Perhaps next week, we will discuss that. But we do finally get Ellie picking up the guitar and strumming some Pearl Jam and singing one line. That's all she gets through. She gets through two lines in the game. And there's a little difference here.

I actually like this scene a lot in the show because you can tell that this is, the moment or at least one of the moments when the switch flips for Ellie because, you know, she's just kind of idly strumming and maybe her hands are just going to these chords because it's muscle memory and its habit. But then she remembers. And if you're a show only viewer, you don't know what she's remembering, really. Maybe you can intuit that, okay, there must be some sort of Joel connection here. But because we haven't seen that scene, it's just all going on in Ellie's heads. And we see that playing out over Bella Rimsie's. face and you kind of get the sense, okay, she is remembering something that's pretty important

to her. And this makes her mad. And I think it makes her mad more so than in the game. I think it makes her more sad. And frankly, I've been wanting show Ellie to just get angry. And so I was happy that this happened. If anything, it felt a little overdue. But it's a subtle thing that you might even miss out on the significance of if you haven't played the game and yet having played the game, we know what she's thinking about and thus we know why it sort of stiffens her resolve for the rest of this episode. Yeah, I mean, exactly what you were just saying at the end there. I mean, if you played the game, this is a moment where you're like, oh, she's finally singing this song. So I do wonder what it's like for the people that haven't played the game in this moment.

But I think the thing that works either way is just how good Bella Ramsey's performance is. in this scene. I think they do such a good job in this episode in general. In this moment and like in the scene with Nora and really just showing how this transformation is like starting to take hold where she's she's about to go on this revenge quest. And it's you can see that kind of swelling up. And for anyone who's concerned about the Pearl Jam continuity error here, because this song came out in 2013 and what with the timeline shift in the show, there's just no real way that these characters would know this song, given that everything else proceeded along the same timeline.

Mason and Druckman have talked about that and have basically been like, yeah, we don't care, right? So I'm not going to get too worked up about it either. I think it's nice to have this. I guess you could have just turned it into some other more chronologically appropriate, less anachronistic song. but that song, the lyrics, the music just work really well. And I'm not even saying because it would piss off players of the game not to have this song in there. But it just works well thematically.

And look, we're talking about a post-apocalyptic fungus monster show. Like the fact that a Pearl Jam song came out a little too late for it to make sense here. I'm just, I'm not getting too worked up about it. They're both like Mazen and Druckman. They're both very smart. And like they always like have like good explanations for like timeline changes. I just love how this time they were just like, fuck it, you know? It is what it is.

Like don't think too hard about it. Yeah. So Ellie does not set out alone. She has company on this quest, but has to face some similar obstacles, including stalkers. Now we get a stocker scene in the game here. We also get a stocker scene in the show. They're quite different aside from the similarity of stalkers.

because one is in a warehouse that's in the show versus an office in the game. There's also just more stockers in the show, and they're more aggressive, not the typical sneaking around smarty-pants stalkers that we've seen before. They are just kind of charging, which I guess they can do because they have the numbers here. And it seems like they're on the verge of overwhelming Ellie and Dina. And Ellie is essentially sacrificing herself, even though she's immune. She can get bitten. I guess we'll find out whether she did sustain yet another bite here. What would that be number five?

What's she up to? We have to have like a bite counter. Yeah, we really do. She's like Swiss cheese at this point. They're just chopping on her on the show. But we'll see if she's unscathed. But obviously, she is still very vulnerable. She can breathe in spores and be unscathed.

She can be bitten and not be infected. But she still can be killed by a whole horde of stalkers. And so this is a brave gesture on. her part. And I guess it makes sense that there could be more stalkers than they were in the game because she's not on her own here. She has backup from Dina. And also, DeiSX, Jesse, who shows up at exactly the right time with his shotgun to save the day. So it's a little bit of a different arrival for Jesse than it is in the game where he also arrives at a handy time. And he sort of emerges from the shadows and he pulls

Ellie back and stops her from potentially being spotted by a wolf patrol. But here, it's a little more of a guns blazing arrival for him. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I know that he explains

that he like found the map in the theater, but it's like, how did he find the theater? And she actually asks him that, and he's just like, you think I want to talk to you right now? It's a very handy way to just like, let's table that discussion for now. Right.

And then he proceeds to answer like all these other questions about Tommy. Right. Yeah. This is the part I want to know. I like that. They gave Ellie that line because they know that we're going to be wondering that.

But then they have him quickly cut it off. Let's shut down that line of discussion because I mean, look, maybe he's just an incredibly talented tracker. Also, I guess they turn the lights on in the theater, which seems like not the best idea. But maybe that was just a beacon for Jesse, who knows. So he tells us, he gives us the answers to the question that we've been asking for a few weeks now, which is, where's Jesse? Where's Tommy? Are they going to show up? Because it would really destabilize the story that we know if they didn't. And so he explains that he and Tommy left together the day after Ellie and Dina. And so this is quite different, obviously, in the game Tommy left first. Ellie and Dina follow him. Jesse comes after. them in the show, Tommy and Jesse left together immediately after Ellie and Dina. So aside from the convenient timing of Jesse's arrival here, what do you think of the decision

to just go from the last time we saw Tommy and Jesse and what was going on in Jackson and the rebuilding and the obligations and the leadership roles and the council meeting and all of that to finding out that now they just decided to duck out a day later? I mean, I'm really curious to see the Tommy side of it. That's the one where I have the most questions, I feel like, because he's the one that's obviously leaving his family, his kid behind. And he is currently the leader, or one of the main leaders of the Jackson community. And I'm sure that is going to be a big source of drama moving forward.

But in terms of the Jesse changes, I think it does make sense in the sense, like, he's still like, is probably in love with Dina. He isn't going on his own this time. And I just thought it was an interesting kind of role reversal of this scene and this like encounter between Ellie and Jesse because in the game, Jesse just sneaks off on his own without Tommy because Tommy's already there before all of them. And Ellie is the one that says, tell me you didn't come alone. And Jesse says, give me shit about it later. Ellie replies, you're a fucking idiot. You know that right.

And he says, yeah. But here it's like, Jesse's the one reprimanding Ellie. It's like, I can't believe you would do this. type of thing. And he's clearly pissed because it's like this is, they've broken the trust of not just him and Tommy, but of the community because they voted against this

now. And this is the guy that they keep on talking about being like the future leader of the community. So I'm curious to see where it continues, this whole conversation continues to go from there. But I do understand it and they are showing like the subtle differences in terms

of the character work. Yeah. He is pissed at her and also there's the whole undercurrent potential resentment, jealousy, little love triangle going on here, even though it's not really a triangle because Ellie and Dina love each other. And Ellie doesn't quite feel that way about Jesse much as he likes him. And obviously, she is carrying his child. So that's going to change things if Jesse finds out about that. And meanwhile, he doesn't even know yet what has transpired with Ellie and Dina and the fact that they've gotten together the way that they have.

though maybe he can intuit that or has guessed that on his own. But it does seem somewhat curious to me that Tommy would do an about face. And I don't know whether we'll get a flashback to this or we'll just get more explanation. In a couple weeks, there's not a ton of time left in the season. So I don't know whether they'll delve more deeply into the rationale here. But it wasn't a shock to Tommy, at least, that Ellie was going to go, right? he knew that that was going to happen one way or another. And he didn't even oppose that on the show.

He wasn't telling Ellie not to go. He was advising her to go about it the right way to try to persuade people to go along with her. But I don't think he was really under any illusions that she was not going to go on this mission one way or another. And so I guess I wonder why he wouldn't have just decided to accompany her from the start or what changed basically. in the day after she left, was it just guilt weighing on him? I let her go on her own to avenge my brother and now she's in danger. Or what? Was there something else that happened here?

Because as we've seen, there are just a lot of ties binding him to that community. So maybe it's just second thoughts, but I kind of hope we get a little more insights because it seems slightly abrupt, given where things stood the last time we were in Jackson. Yeah, definitely. This is going to be one of those things where it's like you really hope they don't just wave it away the way that they're kind of doing it with terms of how Jesse has gotten here in the first place. Because it's like this, they are making really big changes in terms of the way that Tommy has been portrayed as a character. So hopefully this stays in line with what the TV show Tommy is like and not just, well, we have to have this epic duel between Tommy and Abby and Manny in season three or whenever that happens.

so we need to have them here. Yeah. So we talked a little bit about the seraphite scene and the woods. And from there, Ellie decides to just go solo and proceed to the hospital and hunt down Nora, which really, I guess, shows you how much her mindset has changed because, you know, Dina's been injured. Jesse's running back to the theater with her. They're expecting her to rendezvous with them, but she's not going to do that.

She's too close now to Nora to let her go and potentially pass up this opportunity for a showdown. So she manages to sneak into the hospital. She finds Nora, gets her alone, and they have a very similar confrontation. In a lot of ways, there are some differences, but a lot of what happens here in this momentous scene between Ellie and Nora is just ripped straight from the game, just in terms of the blocking. the lighting, the setting, even the dialogue, just verbatim in many cases, not entirely, but this was a scene that it seemed like they thought, okay, this is so essential to Ellie's arc in this game, in this season, in this series that we can't alter it too much, even though we've altered a lot up to this point.

Yeah, it's really interesting to see them the scenes like back to back, because I do, like, I thought they did a great job of recreating it in a lot of ways. and just like you were saying, like how similar it is with the lighting and the blocking, like it works so well the first time and that they just knew that some of these things had to stay the same. But I think it really just comes down to the way that we already know

exactly who they are is the thing that I'm still, like, wrapping my head around. Yeah. Because like even again, in this version of it, Nora explains everything in terms of like exactly what Joel did, the connection that Abby has with with her father to Joel. killing Abby's father.

Because in the game, you still don't exactly know what the full story is and like Ellie's asking about the fireflies. So it's, I don't know. I mean,

this is, we'll talk about this a little bit more in a bit, but just the fact that we still haven't seen Abby again too. It's like we, we had so much at the front of this season

and a lot of what's happened in between has been like pretty much identical to what happened in the game. Yeah. Now we do get a reveal for the TV view. viewers in the scene, which is that Ellie knows what Joel did.

Right. Because Nora's coming out and thinks that maybe she's going to talk Ellie down and, hey, be reasonable. Here's why I did what I did. And here's what Joel did. And surely you can see why I'm acting the way I am or why we did in Jackson. And this is where Dina's little pre-confrontation pep talk comes in handy because she's kind of coached her for this moment.

It doesn't matter. I know. and this sort of sets up what seems like it will be a Joel-centric episode next week, and perhaps we will find out how Ellie knows what Joel did in Salt Lake City. But this is a bit of a surprise that's a little different from the game in that the sequencing is not the same. And so here you have TV viewers potentially being a bit surprised, okay, Ellie actually knows more than we thought she did, that TV viewers might have thought that we knew more about what happened when Ellie was unconscious in Salt Lake City. But no, she is revealing here not only that she knows, but that she doesn't care.

And that that is not going to stay her hand here. And so we get the red lighting. I half expect Matt Murdoch to show up. He's got the daredevil glow here. And of course, it reflects the fact that Ellie is seeing red literally and figuratively in this scene. and she's just going to go to town on Nora, who is terminally ill, who is infected with the spores. And yet this is not the way that one would want to go out.

And understandably, she says she's not going to give up any info on Abby. She knows she's dead one way or another. But Ellie's going to make it extra painful for her. Now, the way that that's depicted, I wouldn't say they hold back on the show. But one difference, you know, we get, I guess, one shot on the show more from Nora's perspective, looking at Ellie. But in the game, when the real beating commences, you are Nora, essentially, you are in Nora shoes. You are looking up at Ellie.

And you see the rage on her face and you have to press X to torture or whatever. Right. And so, you know, you press the buttons and you are essentially commanding Ellie to beat you more or less from your perspective as the player. And we don't quite get that here. We're not watching the beating through Nora's eyes. We're seeing it more externally, and it's maybe cut off a little earlier. So I think it's still implied what exactly is happening here.

And I think the rage that Ellie is feeling and how she's fully giving over to the dark side here, that's quite clearly conveyed. But some differences, at least, in how exactly that's showing. Jones. Yeah, I think it's one of those things that's tough because of just the difference of what the experience is like for the player when you're actually having to do something like this. It's like one of my favorite things about this whole game series and just building up this

moment where you're like, damn, I really don't want to do this as Ellie. I don't want to beat the hell out of Nora on the ground who seems like this great loyal friend. But in order to move forward in the story, you got to keep on a hidden square to like just break her legs. And it's just like, there are all these pivotal, like, whether it's Joel shooting Abby's father in the first game, it's like, you have to do this thing. And the game is making you feel that confliction. Yes. Like, and it's, it's brilliant. But with the TV show, it's like, I do think that Bella Ramsey was great in this.

And like, the lighting, again, is, it makes it look so menacing in a way that is, that is just different in the live action medium. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's been a lot of conversation about Bella Ramsey's performance. in the season specifically. And I think we could draw a distinction between people who are just criticizing Bell Ramsey's appearance or resemblance

to original Ellie, which I just, I don't have a lot of time for, or criticizing the performance, which is fair game. I think people have suggested that Bell Ramsey made a better season one Ellie just in terms of looking fairly youthful. I mean, they're age appropriate, right, for season two Ellie, but because there hasn't been as big a time gap in real life between season

one and season two as there is in the game world, Ellie doesn't look that much older than in season one, and maybe Bell Ramsey looks a little younger than their age. And so I see what people are saying about that. And also suggesting that just that, that anger, that simmering rage that you get from game Ellie is not so present here and kind of criticizing the expressiveness of Bell Ramsey in certain scenes. Now, I think in this scene, they're great. I think they completely convey just the wide-eyed, wild-eyed rage that Ellie is feeling here. I do feel some whiplash when it comes to the portrayal of Ellie this season. And I don't even mean so much Bell Remsey's performance as the writing, the directing.

Exactly, yeah. I think that's played a bigger part in it overall. I think Bell Ramsey is a great actor and could rise to the challenge and do what the script calls for. But the script has rarely called for Ellie to unleash that rage. Like, by the time you get to this stage of the game, Ellie has done more murders, right? Like, Ellie has killed more wolves, including the game character Jordan. And so there's more of a body count here.

And so it's a little less of a steep, abrupt escalation to just completely losing it on Nora. It just feels more part and parcel with, okay, this is why she's here and this is what she's been doing. Whereas in the game, I feel like it comes, you know, not out of nowhere, but it's definitely a really rapid turn, I think. Right. Even within this episode, because we get a lot of the lovey-dovey stuff, where. which I think is good, except that it comes so quickly. Like, you know, we're in these emotional scenes and saying,

I love you. And those things are happening in the game as well. But they're happening over a bit of a longer time frame. And part of it is just what I was saying before about how there's just more hours that you're sinking into the game and you're just spending more time with Dina, even though she's holed up in the theater a lot of the time. But it's also like the timeline of that relationship has been moved back and kind of compressed because the hookup happened faster, happened later in the show. And so all these things are just happening at once.

It's like, you know, finally Ellie's fully on tilt here and yet also is like vocalizing love and having these emotional breakthroughs. It's just a really roiling mess of emotions, I guess. but it's just hard for me to follow that, I guess. And I was sort of talking about this last week, too, with the change to the pregnancy reveal and the reaction to the pregnancy reveal, which again, in isolation, I thought was great,

tender, heartwarming scene. I'm into it. But also, it's hard for me to then go from that. And it's not like Game Ellie wasn't also envisioning a future and everything, but it just reflexively, it was more rage and frustration because, hey, we're here to kill some wolves. And a lot of the time in the show,

it just seems like we're here to get to know each other, you know, and it's like fall in love and see Seattle. And then every now and then you're reminded, oh, right, there's also this revenge quest. Yeah, I mean, just to go back to your earlier point, too. I mean, I think part of it is a little bit unfair to Bella Ramsey, just in the sense that this is definitely a lot of writing and directorial choices. Just even the fact that Stephen Williams is saying,

the overarching point of this episode is to kind of show the beginning of of Ellie's revenge quest. Yeah. And like that's not Bella Ramsey's choice. And like when you have these moments of actually showing that rage, like I thought like that last scene is awesome where you can actually see this horrifying look on Ellie's face just being like where is she. Yeah.

And just the contrast of having that to showing like what Ellie was like in this, this really brief flashback that we get of Ellie and Joel and just showing how happy and sweet Ellie was like not too long ago within just the past five years. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems to me, I've seen some of the reactions to this episode

when Ellie really drops the mask here. People have said, gosh, Ellie's not very likable here. Not sure I'm on board with what Ellie is doing. And yeah, that's the point, right? I mean, that's the cycle of revenge. Ultimately, she overcomes that in the game, but she has to really hit rock bottom rage-wise to get there.

And we're a long way away from that in the show. And so, yeah, you want to be feeling that. You want to be feeling some alienation from that character because of what that character is doing here and is set on accomplishing. And so it does seem to me that the creators are wary of that feeling. are wary of alienating the audience. And I just feel like it's hard to have it both ways with this story.

And I get that it's a different medium. And if you're a gamer and you're playing the game, then even if you don't really like what's going on with Ellie, if you are enjoying playing the game and you want to proceed, you have to just keep pushing forward, as uncomfortable as that might make you. Whereas if you are watching on TV and you don't have that same sort of personal investment and interactivity, you might just say, man, Joel's gone, Ellie's a monster suddenly.

Maybe I don't want to watch this show anymore, right? And so I'm sympathetic to that concern, but I feel like you also, if you want to preserve the impact, like the punch that this game packs, you have to retain that. That's kind of the core of the story that Noddy Dog told. And if you water that down and if you want to make Ellie more likable, that's just going to be tough, I think, to have that wallop that the game gives you. Yeah, I mean, to your point, like, I don't know how I felt,

I was conflicted about just the little glimpse that we do get of Joel at the end of this episode because I feel like that moment of having Ellie smashing Nora's leg is a powerful moment. And it is kind of packing a little bit of that wallop, like you're saying. Yeah. But it softens the blow a little bit by, by having it at the end when I think especially it was obvious from the trailers too.

Like we're going to get the whole flashback episode next week. So it's like I feel like we could have possibly saved that. I do understand the contrast that they're trying to show. But ultimately it's such a big turning point, not just because of what Ellie is doing in terms of violence, but because they're also revealing that Ellie does know what has happened with Joel and the fireflies. Yeah. I like it in the sense that it sets up the flashbacks that we're going to get.

And also it reminds us why Ellie is doing this and how much this relationship meant to her and all of that. But it also does sort of smack of like, don't leave like TV dads coming back. You know, like we. It's on the hips. Yeah, like looking ultimate dad's mode, as you said in your recap this week at theringer.com. What a great website. Yeah, it was also, it was almost a little bit like, we don't want you to be too turned off by what's happening here. Don't worry.

like we're going back to happier times and we're going to give you more Pedro Pascal and I want more Pedro Pascal too. I'm just saying like you sort of have to sit in that discomfort, I think, or else it's just it's not going to give you that same just grueling, gut-wrenching experience that the game at its best did. And I've been thinking about that because it's, you know, the game, it's hard not to be anchored to preexisting knowledge as we are. And that's why we're doing these gamer guide episodes for other people who are with us or are curious about our mindset. But I want to give the show a chance and try to approach it with fresh eyes and not just reflexively say it's different and therefore worse. It does seem like, and this was pretty predictable, that there is a greater divide between how gamers and non-gamers are experiencing this second season than there was in the first season.

And I'm just, you know, I'm just sort of wetting my finger and putting it up to the wind and taking the temperature of the internet, essentially. So I don't know how accurate this is exactly. It's also hard to get a read on what the populace actually thinks of these episodes because of various review bombing efforts. And so all the user ratings are essentially useless because it's like, did people actually not like this episode so much? Or do they not like that Ellie is a lesbian? It's really hard to untangle those things as it was with the game. But it seems to me that there is more of a divide where there wasn't that much for gamers to get upset about in season one. It was just more faithful. It was a more straightforward adaptation. It was more beat for beat. And so there just wasn't as much to quibble with. And that's one of the reasons why we were excited about doing these episodes and talking about the show. And I've enjoyed doing that. But there was also potential for there to be more of a disparity in how this has been received. And I'm not saying that every show only viewer. is thrilled with the direction that the season has taken either, but I do sense more unrest among

the gamers given some of these creative liberties and changes that we've been dwelling on. Yeah, and it's just tricky, too, because you do see them seeding in a lot of things for the future along the way, too. So it's like we do know what they're doing each step. I mean, obviously because we know where the story goes, but like they're also very conscious, not only because Neil Druckman is on board, but because Craig Mason is such a big fan of the game, as we've talked about before. So it's tricky,

and I think the biggest challenge for this so far has definitely been the timeline changes. And I do worry that we're just getting, especially since we know pretty much that next week is going to be the flashback episode, then we're already at the finale. And there's, like, so much that has to happen still. And it really seems like they're leaving everything with Abby

to the next season, But there's still a lot of character work, I feel like they have to do in terms of television with the characters that they've set up on Ellie's side. Like, is Jesse going to die in the finale already? Like, I feel like I want some more Jesse's time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I've been more invested in the L.E. Dina relationship in this season than I was in the show, really. And yet I almost feel like that's a reflection of the fact that the show has strayed further from that. alienating aspect of the game and its characters and the story.

I don't know if that's a good thing, I guess, is what I'm saying. Like, you know, if you want the rom-comier version of The Last of Us, and I'm not saying it's exactly a rom-com, but, you know, there's just a little more levity and lightheartedness and warmth there. And while I appreciate that, and I just, I really like the portrayal of Dina and the relationship with Ellie and all of that, it feels like it's almost working at cross-purposes. or if they had gotten together earlier, if they had gotten together on the show

as early as they do in the game, and I know it's a little different because of the different patrol assignments and everything else, but if you had stuck with that where they break the ice, they hook up, there's no will they or won't they

the way that there was in the show, or even if that happens en route to Seattle in the tent scene, where it seems like it could have happened potentially, you get that out of the way so that it's just, not all going down at once. It's just, yeah, there's a little more whiplash this way.

And, you know, the game itself was divisive. And I think that's sometimes a sign of good, effective art, that it's provoking strong emotions and that you can interpret things in different ways. And last best part two was pretty polarizing. And I'm not talking about the sets of the world who were angry because Ellie was gay or because the game was too woke or whatever, nor am I talking about the people who just couldn't deal with Joel's death and were sending death threats to developers and actors.

I'm talking about the reasonable people who engaged with the game in good faith and just disagreed about how good it was or how effective its story was. And was it too dark and was it too manipulative in some ways? Like you were saying with, you know, you have to press square or whatever, to continue the beating. It's not as if you have an option here and you're kind of implicated because if you keep going, okay, you sort of signed off on that, but it's not as if you're feeling what Ellie is feeling in that moment exactly. And is it sort of artificial then to say, oh, you're guilty too because you wanted to keep going, right? And just because of the structure

of the story and everything, it really went for it. And I think whether it totally landed for you were not, I respected the degree to which it went for it. And that has been my larger concern about this season, is just that they haven't gone for it to the same extent. And I think some of that is because of the structural differences and the different mediums and the realities of a TV schedule versus a video game. But some of it also just feels like wanting to spell things out more for the spectators, wanting to hold their hands more, wanting to water things down a bit more and it's it's that impulse that has disappointed me at times yeah that's fair okay so let's look ahead just briefly here hopefully ellie puts nora out of her misery after putting her through even more

misery and tati gabrielle who plays nora can go back to playing the protagonist of naughty dog's next game intergalactic based on the next time on it certainly seems as if we are headed for yet another no abbey episode in which case we will have gone four full episodes So it's three to six without her. And we're going to presumably see her again in the finale, but by then it will have been quite a while. It will have been, what, five weeks? And most of the season will have elapsed since we last saw her, even though she's the driving force of the season to some extent. So do you think that's a problem?

Or is that okay? I guess it's kind of coming closer to mirroring the game structure and that we've had some time off from her, even though we know much more. about her than we did at the equivalent point of the game. And how do you think she'll be reintroduced or how will we leave her in this season? I feel like I'm getting to the point where I feel like it is becoming a bit of a problem because if they were going to hue so close to the way that it was in the game, that I wish they had just done the same thing at the beginning of it and kind of kept that mystery alive because I think they should have had a little bit more faith in the audience of just

like letting that mystery be for a bit. Yeah. I kind of feel like the way that it's been going, it's just going to be Abby arriving at the theater, like kind of where there is that big division in the game too. Right. And having that kind of set up where we're going to be for next season. I kind of wish they have been putting it a little bit more into this along the way.

I do like that they are, I mean, they showed Manny at some point, like very briefly. Like we got to see a tiny bit of, Nora before we have this confrontation. Yeah. And we're obviously going to revisit them when we see Abby's side of it a little bit more. But I feel like, and I don't have any great suggestions for how they would have done this, I feel like they could have shown Abby a little bit more if they were going to do it

this way. How do you feel? Yeah, I felt like that a little bit where if you did decide that you were going to just give us all that information up front, you know, if you're going to take her away from us for this long, then part of me wishes that she just had stayed a cipher. that she just remained a mystery that we'd all been wondering, as we were when we were playing the game all along, what is happening here? And granted, in the game, you can just plow forward and you can get to that second part and you can get those answers, whereas you're constrained with the TV schedule. It's one episode a week, and that's all you're going to get.

And that means that there's going to be a long wait there, and that's frustrating. But still, the boldness I would have appreciated if they had done that. And look, I'm still enjoying the show. I think it's still very well-made and well-acted and well-produced. And I think that there's a tendency to nitpick good shows. And I've noticed this with other things, you know, Severance Season 2 or White Lotus Season 3. We have a tendency to turn on good shows, good TV very quickly.

And I guess it's because we have high expectations and because a show comes along and it thrills us when it feels fresh and new. and then, you know, it's just we're rabid. We really go for the throat. Any sign of weakness we will nitpick. And maybe it comes from the way that these shows are covered. And the fact that we're doing several podcasts about each episode of television and we're covering it week to week, if all we had to say was, yeah, seems great, really enjoying it. You know, be pretty short podcasts.

So you almost do have to come up with critiques. And I'm certainly not saying that we're reaching or being insincere here at all. But there are times when I feel like, man, we're really just turning quickly. We're all just suddenly deciding that things have jumped the shark and really in the grand scheme of things. This is still a high-quality show. And so I don't want to strike that tone with The Last of Us, which we're comparing it to a really strong first season and a classic game. And so high standards. And so we're judging all of these things in a relative sense.

And that's kind of the tone that I'm trying to take here. For sure. No, I'm very glad you said that because that's a great point. Because, like, I am also really enjoying this season. I think this is just the case of us and just a lot of people, too, like having adaptation brain, especially in this season because they are making so many departures from the show that they, like you were saying this earlier, too. They didn't really do that as much in the first game.

Or, like, if they are doing a departure, it's something like the Bill and Frank episode, where it is such a departure that, you're saying, that you're not really, there's nothing to compare it to, really. And they're just expanding it on it in a way that here, they're not as much expanding all the time. It's just like making differences, making little changes to the timeline.

But when it comes to just the actual production of this show, I mean, every episode, I'm so blown away by the production and just like the set designs that they do. Like the amount of detail that they put into this, like even just like showing B2, the basement level of, hospital. The way that the quarter steps is like lined on on the walls, everything is just like

so stunning. And to actually see this recreated from the game is like been amazing to see each time, whether it was like the theater, like the amount of detail, it really feels like you're just courting the video game to real life. Yeah. And I think that's been part of the conversation about the show from the start, especially in the season. It's just, is this another zombie show, another post-apocalyptic show with HBO budgets and production values and prestige trappings, or is it more than that? Is there a real core to it? And I think in the games, at least there is.

And I think in season one, there was. And a lot of that had to do with the rapport between actors and everything. But there are deeper themes and things that this series is aspiring to. And so I just don't want it to hold back. I want it to go for that so that it's not just. wow, this is a really well-produced, pretty version of a show that we have seen over and over and over again. I want it to be better than that. And even when I put my blinkers on and try to focus solely on The Last of Us when we're talking about it here and when you're writing about it and I'm editing your pieces for the website, but it might not hurt that Andorra is over now. Just saying, you know, tough act to follow or tough act to proceed at least.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm judging the Last of Us against The Last of Us, not The Last of Us against Andor. And yet, when you have a show just on a generational run like that, it's just, it's tough to go from one to the next without seeing some of the differences there. So, you know, we're definitely getting spoiled right now with a lot of, a lot of little content. Right. So the next couple weeks, The Last of Us has genre prestige TV more to itself. So maybe that will redound to its benefit here. And as we see on this sneak preview, we only see a snippet of it, obviously, but all we see is Joel.

We see Joel and Kiddo here back together again. So we haven't seen episode six. Are you assuming that this is going to be an all flashback, all Joel episode? And if so, do you expect this to combine a bunch of Joel flashbacks all at once? I mean, we've got a lot to get through. We've got the future days scene. We've got the museum scene. We've got the porch scene.

Are you expecting all of this to be smushed together, even though those are coming at different times and in different places? Yeah, I wonder, I think that we will definitely see a lot of it because, I mean, we are seeing from all the trailers a bunch of different clips that are going to come at some point. Like, obviously, we'll get the whole museum sequence here. It seems like we're going to get the whole backstory behind what happened to Gail's husband, Eugene. And it seems like that's going to be a very big, dramatic moment that is going to be a lot to unpack, it seems. I feel like the porch scene is going to be the one thing that they're going to

withhold just because it is such a crucial thing at the end of the game, and it might be a little bit premature to show that. But I'd imagine that they're going to have to show the future days thing at some point, because not only did they name the first episode of the season after it, but now they've had that a little musical allusion to it last episode, and I feel like they can't keep on referencing it without showing it at some point. So I feel like it's about time, and it's a big impactful moment in the game too. And the museum scene, if they show that the way that it goes down in the game, that's a pretty lengthy, meaty, substantial scene.

So, yeah, I will be curious to see how they sort of smush those things together, if that feels awkward at all. And just how much of the potential flashback material they burn here, because that's the question, I guess, will we see Joel? How much will we see Joel beyond episode six or even this season? And now if season three is much more abysentric and Yarra and Lev, et cetera, then you wouldn't expect to see so much, Joel. But will they save something? Will they hold something in reserve to ration Joel so that it's not cold turkey, complete withdrawal for the people who got into this in part because of Joel and Pedro Pascall and are now questioning, will I continue without Joel?

Will they dangle something, some morsel of Joel Miller? Yeah. I hope they do. I really hope they do. Because they do it in such an effective way with just going back and forth between the present timeline and the flashbacks that we haven't really seen as much in the show yet. I mean, they did it a lot in season one between Left Behind and the whole Bill and Frank episode we were talking about earlier. So I'm curious the way that if they try to bookend it too is what I'm going to be looking for. Like maybe we at least see Ellie go back to the theater and we get a little bit more of like that insight of like, all right, Ellie is really, really thinking about Joel.

this moment and kind of putting on the blinders and ignoring everything. Whether it's Dina, Tommy, and Jesse now and really focusing on Joel. So I'm curious how they also just set it up. Well, we will be back to discuss that next week. And I'll give you the quick programming teases for the Ring oferson House of Our feeds in the meantime. The Midnight Boys. There you go. We'll be back on Sunday night with their Last of Us season two episode six, instant reactions.

So they will discuss what goes down with Joel. before we do, though we will be back on Thursday as usual to cover it from the Gamer Guide perspective. Next week is actually a double button mash week because I will also be covering the newly released Doom the Dark Ages, as well as chatting with Tom Bissell, who wrote the series finale for the aforementioned Andor and is also an accomplished writer about and for video games. So we'll get into Andor and we'll also talk a little bit about the difference writing for those mediums. which might be instructive for our ongoing Last of Us conversations, too. So check that out. And after the usual Thursday gamer guide, Mint Edition, Jomi and Steve, will be checking in with MurderBot.

Yet another Apple TV Plus high-quality sci-fi series. You know I'm obviously going to be watching because I watch them all. But Steve and Jomey will be checking in on the first three episodes of MurderBot. And then the cycle will start anew. The Men Night Boys will be back with their breakdown of the finale of The Last of Us. Over on House of Our, there will be a Last of Us deep dive as usual. And Mal and Joe will also revisit Rogue One after Andor, as I will probably also be doing for the website. You can, of course, read my Endor finale recap and other coverage of that series.

And you can read Daniel's ongoing recaps of The Last of Us. each Sunday night after the show airs and other coverage from our other staffers throughout the week. So I am going to talk to Almodena briefly here. You have to go watch some basketball. We're recording this before Nick Celtics. Let's go, Nick. Game five, yeah, regardless of the outcome, go New York, go New York. I wish you well.

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market. Every outfit starts with a choice. What am I wearing underneath? Something comfortable? And let's be honest, something that keeps everything looking smooth. That's where Vanity Fair lingerie comes in. Their new smoothing wireless bra has four-way stretch fabric for all over smoothing, soft lightly lined cups for a natural shape, and no wire comfort that lasts all day. All over smooth, all-day comfort, Vanity Fair lingerie. Find yours at Target today. All right, I'm joined now by Almaden. Nasoria Sancho, who is currently the lead animator at Wildflower Interactive, but was previously a naughty dog veteran and served as a lead animator on The Last of Us Part 2, as well as working on many previous Noddy Dog games. Amadena, welcome. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. So how would you describe what a lead animator does or did on The Last of Us Part 2?

So a naughty dog, there was a pretty flat hierarchy, so we didn't have anyone, you know, some places have animation. So we were colleagues, Jeremy and I. So we basically directed the whole animation pipeline and animation. The last of us part two. So we divided our work, making sure there was consistency. So basically anything from my area was more NPCs, we're going to talk about a lot of the Abbey scenes and a lot of the Abbey stories. That was kind of my main how we divided the work.

So you make sure, like you directed the team, you make sure every, the work is consistent. that it fits in the vision of the directors and that it's fun to play. So what has it been like for you to watch the show on HBO now five years on from working on the sequel? And of course, you worked on the original years before that. So what does it like to see it on a different sort of screen? It's actually, it's really cool. At the beginning, I was like, oh, man, because I miss the Last of Us and it's been a big part of my life.

So someone else taking it over to TV is like, oh, no. But honestly, it's been really cool. cool because it's not, you know, if you've played the game, there are things that the series is adding to it in terms of storytelling or like gaps that were in there or changing things that I think it adds value to the world. So I'm enjoying it. So I'll keep watching it. So you don't feel super protective of, oh, it must be exactly the same as it was when we made it the first time. You're interested in seeing the differences? Yeah, like every medium has like different storytelling abilities.

And again, you're pretty restrictive in what you can do. So I think in movies, you know, you take advantage of that, like building up on more of the character stories or so, yeah, I'm not art. It's art. Yeah. Does it make you envious to see live action projects? Do you think, gosh, they just have to turn on the camera. They don't have to animate anything.

It's all just there for you. Well, no, because I do like the, the, the technical. of making games. That's why I make games and not movies, because I like that challenge of you can play it. A movie, you sit down and you're immersing the story by just watching, but play and you choose the style you're going to play. So then we have to make sure our things work with how we want to make them. And that's why I work in making games. And Mountie Dog has been known for its excellent life-like animation, and that's why it was really easy to forecast what it might look like on a Sunday night show,

we had seen the cinematics that you worked on. We'd seen this cutscenes. It was kind of a proof of concept. So what is the secret? Or if there is one thing that enabled Noddy Dog to distinguish itself in that area, what was it? I think it's mostly like there's a very strong vision. Like Neil is a very great storyteller. So making sure that anything we do, it fits in the world. So the universe of The Last of Us is grounded. It tells a certain story. So we have to. to feed everything on that. It would be easy just to start going, like, gamey, and break all the rules, what grounded is.

But by not doing that and staying true to what characters in the world they actually live in, I think that's the success. So when we make, when write needs and writes, I don't want to speak for Neil, but when he writes a line, it's not just a line that, you know, it's whatever. It's like it makes a purpose for what the character is trying to tell you

that they are. So I think that's the story. And then obviously all the resources we had at Noddy Dog, like hiring great actors, being able to direct them and do a lot of motion capture shoots and redo. And like, you know, it's a very open, collaborative environment. So that enables us to not just, you know, have tunnel vision of like an action super has to be action. But we're trying to tell a story. And that story fits in these world we'll create it.

I do want to ask you a little bit about the human characters. but since the stockers were sort of the centerpiece of the action set piece on this most recent episode, wanted to ask you about them, and I assume that you worked on them and the infected in general. So what can you tell me about the development of the stockers and how you helped set them apart from other types of infected? Yeah, so that was at the very beginning. We wanted to make a big push in the game. In the first game, there was a problem with like, I don't know where the stalker is. I don't know what the runner or the clicker is.

So in the game, we started by, okay, how do we differentiate this very different type of characters? And for the Stoker, because they're like intelligent, they hide. Our first instinct with like Michal, which was the NPC lead at that time, we were like, okay, let's see what we can do. Maybe in force or force, they're trying to keep a low profile. And that was the signature idol for a game that's pretty challenging because everything they do, it has to come from that posture, melee and like traversal. So it's a pretty wide stand.

So that does definitely create challenges, but the benefit they give us to have a very distinct silhouette in the game for a stoker. And now you see them like in the top of the trucks in the series. It's like, yeah, they are stalkers. And obviously the character model with the, they're not antennas, but you know, the growth that allows them to be smart and communicate. That's just like, it's really cool to watch because I remember that was one of the first, you know, calls we made because in the part one, they don't do that. They just had become pillars. They only

appear in a couple of places. So we wanted to make them a little more. They're intelligent. They're going to stalk you. They're going to flank you. You have to be careful. And now you have mixed with the clickers and being able to identify them from like the listen mode is like where our aim was. Yeah, because you do want it to be clear to the player. Okay, here's what I should expect. Or here's what my strategy should be. So you have to differentiate the infected types. And when Ellie first encounters the stalker at the start of this season, it is just a one-on-one stealthy battle, whereas in this most recent episode, it's just a whole bunch of them, and so they can kind of charge her. But watching the depiction of the stockers on the show, are you thinking, yeah, this is really

faithful to what we did, or are you thinking, oh, there's some interesting changes here? Yeah, the first thing I identify is like, okay, they're making smarter because they are an evolution of a runner. The runner is just like, is hungry. It's like just got infected. It's just going to try to eat and kill whatever they can because they can control their body. But there's still a human element to them. Well, the stalker is still not fully, but they're smart.

So I think the episode captured it like pretty perfectly because you could tell like they were already smarter. And like then they mentioned it. So it was really cool. I think they did a good job. You want something inhuman about the movements of the stalkers, but also something human, because that's how they started. And it's sort of sadder and more tragic, I think, if you can see what they were before the infection.

So did you begin with motion capture and tweak it from there? Was it all motion capture, just the erratic movements of the infected? Right. Everything is motion capture, but is very, very heavily twigued to represent a more like broken silhouette. If you imagine that you suddenly start getting your muscles, it's atrophied and you have like this stiffness to you, but it's not as much as a stiffness that the clicker would have. So still has this element of like you can't really control your

movements. So we tried to add as much as we could like this, you know, the twisted neck. It's like clearly you're getting like a little consumed by this virus. So yeah, it goes through a very heavy like layering and process of like making sure we tweak the animation. So they're not like humans on a suit, which is sometimes you tend to get when you see other things. Were the stockers the most challenging type to work on or your favorite type to work on? They were one of them. I think for me, it's like the very first time we did, it's like, okay, let's do a very quick motion capture set. We would create a new tech that's motion matching that allowed us to do like a very quick motion capture set with limited movements and

put them all in the game within like hours since the data was delivered. So our aim was like, okay, let's just put all the infected in one level and then let's see. We don't want it. Like, you can't just do one class without having all of them in contrast or like in context because they have different function and you want to make sure that when you're jumping a level, it's like, here they are. Are they different enough? Do they represent what they actually do?

And then for the player clarity, because we're making a game. That's like one of the most important things. People who are listening to this podcast are familiar with the whole game. So if we skip ahead just a little bit. to talk about the Rat King. Now, was this the ultimate challenge for you? Because we're seeing the setting here, I guess there's a deeper sub-basement

where our characters will encounter the Rat King at some point in the future. But is this your Super Bowl as an animation director? Is this the biggest challenge, the most resources that go into this, take me through the making of the Rat King? I was definitely a thing. I think it was about, okay, we know what we want to do,

is this character that is made of combination of different infected, okay, how are we going to achieve that? So it wasn't just the animation. It was like, okay, it sounds like they didn't get traction for a long time because no one was like sure where to start. So it was a Saturday, like, okay, we need to kick this off because without a model, there's no rig, without a rig, there's not animation.

So remember, like, there was a talk and then there was a concept done. It's like, okay, we can achieve this by like couple actors, like linked together, three, actually, by like chaining and then do a move set. And it actually turned up very well as well, like a massive amount of animation done by a lot of animators involved, not just the gameplay move set, right? Which is like he's moving and the environment, also the scenes of like when Jeremy, we're working this one

where like Abby gets the hammer or the hatchet. And it's just like, bam, and then you have to like press the bun. That's like, that's weeks of work. work. Just coming with that, but also making sure that there's not a discrete, like you're still in control, you're still playing the game. It's not an IGC that plays. It's interactive. So you feel like you're in the moment. But yeah, it was a beast. Literally. But you said that it was sort of a flat hierarchy. And so it's kind of collaborative. It's not just top down, here are your orders, but you probably have a conversation about

things. So how closely are you working on something like that with writers, art designers, AI people who are actually programming the behavior of these creatures that you're animating? What is that communication process like? We'll start turning in parallel all time. No one is going to just wait. It's more like just go. But obviously, there's a certain dependency we have. Like without a rig, we can't really prototype anything. So we might just start, Maybe we do our own rig. Maybe we just ask, let's put three rigs together and, like, test these things. So it starts with, like, a prototyping phase.

Definitely, like, Neil Vision of, like, what this would look like. It's, like, it needs to be dark. It's like, you know, it's all like the appearance in the ambulance, what this is, the anticipation. So there's a lot that goes into create the moments like that to make it falling impactful and don't be like, oh, what's that it? Right? Because the anticipation, you already know those doors are closed. It's like there's something down there that no one wants to go to. And then you go in there and it's like a tiny little animal. That'd be probably a comedy, right? Perfect for a comedy, but not perfect for The Last of Us. You want something to be to pay off. Yeah, it's got to be worth the build up. So when you're working on a scene with non-infected characters with humans, how does that work differently? For instance,

Were you working on something like the Eleanor scene in this episode, or would you have worked on Joel's death scene with Abby? Would you work as closely with that kind of sequence? Yeah, I walked very, very closely on the Horde. That was like one of the best moments, on the defense moment. It was like, oh, my God, it's almost exactly the same. And I remember going to the motion capture studio, get us to actors, and it was like, okay, we only work with a few at a time.

So we have to like, like do it in sequences, making sure they're not going to step on each other. So marking the trajectory is to make, I don't know, they were like 16 or not sure how many you can render at the time close to you, but like making going the fans at the time. It was, I love working on that level because I was tracking with Abby. And there's some scenes in the game that they haven't been here yet, but I don't know, like getting rabbi infected and like running from the hoard. Yeah, and how we're going to render that many in the movie? It's like, I mean, are they all actors?

Because I'm like, what? There's so many. There's probably some CG in there or some post-production, right? But when we did, you know, the horror, it's like, we can't render that many at a time. This is a video game. So it was like a simple type of MPC that has a very, like, a stripped up brain and like making sure the more distance they are, the more like we can make them simple. We call them simple MPCs.

Yeah. When you saw that assault on Jackson in episode two, which was just kind of a bigger scale than anything that you could do in the game, and this was, you know, you had to program for PS4, so there was a little less power than there is even on a PS5. And so I'm sure that was difficult to bring to life on TV as well, but were you thinking, I wish we could have done something like that? Or are you thinking, gosh, we would have had to delay the game for years to make that happen? I think if we put our minds to it, we could have done it. I was lost because I was like, well, I don't, I'm pretty sure we didn't have a Jackson being attacked by infected. So I was like, oh, for us, it's like, what is the purpose of that change of the story? That's where I like, ask myself. It's like to direct the horse somewhere else and I introduce the blotter and introduce like, I'm not sure, but it was cool to watch.

Yeah. And so in a scene like this where the facial, expressions matter so much, Ellie and Nora, you have to see that anger or Joel when he's being beaten and the suffering and Ellie witnessing it. Is that all coming from actors and having the little dots on the face and capturing the expressions or how much are you tweaking that also after the performance? Oh, a lot. Yeah. The motion capture gives us definitely a face. For the cinematics, the big, big cinematics, they are motion capture data. There is the dialogue being recorded.

So you get the face data and the dialogue. It gets vested and then it gets all put up. For the scenes that are not cinematic per se, they're more interactive. We don't capture facial data. So it's all hand key. We did use some motion capture data from other, but most of the time, some of the time it's been like hand key by animators. You know, the melod sequences with dogs, that was animation, the Racken sequences, right?

Because they're not, like, you're not having a ratkin on the... So that was hunky. So most of the action sequences, or even some of the museum, I would say, they were also hunky with the base of... We use, like, different softwares to simulate the dialogue. But then there's a library that we get from the motion capture to have the consistency of poses. But yeah, a lot of HACI, even from the motion capture,

like the ARSORSTAM, it's like tweaking every single thing to convey. You can't really get the data and, like, convey all the little subtleties, the muscles, the leads, like the tessitation. And then Neil had like notes of like, what, I want this to be like this. Yeah. And it's like, okay, let's make it like this. Internally, how did you find out about story developments like that? For instance, how does Neil break it to you?

Hey, we're killing Joel in this game. As mind-blowing as that was for a lot of players, you've been working on the series for years at that point. You worked on the original. I'm sure that you were attached to these characters, having animated them personally. So how was that news broken? Was there a big meeting?

Here's what we're doing. Or did it just kind of trickle out or need-to-know basis? Or you don't know what's going to happen in the story until you have to animate that specific sequence? How did you learn about that and what was your reaction? I honestly, I don't remember. I think I probably blacked out. No, I honestly, I don't remember.

I remember I was finishing the lost legacy. I don't remember. Maybe I didn't find out until the sequence was going to be worked on. But normally there's a big story pitch, like when the stories decided, because it's constantly changing to fit. Yeah. You know, the gameplay with the story, make sure, like, everything fits. There was like a lot of rearrangement because there's a lot of flashback.

There's a lot of different storylines. So like you can't just come up with that. It's perfect. You have to iterate just to make sure the players don't get lost. It's like, well, I was Abby, where was I? So it all makes sense. And I think it turned out really well. But I don't remember.

And honestly, I'm not very precious on making a game. And I trust the vision of the directors. And yeah, I've never been precious about a very strong. strong idea of a story. I'm like, not that I'm here for me. I can't have opinions, but I trust that

it's just going to tell an impactful story. Yeah. It's not, hey, we spent so many hours working on animation for that character. How could you kill them off? And then, like,

if we're going to tell the story of Ellie and the cycle of violence, what thing, I mean, Joel is, it's, in a world like this is possible. Totally, he did what he did.

So it totally makes sense to me. that something like this could happen. And that kind of leads to like this, you know, it's falling of Ellie's brain and like cycle going on. So it's a purpose, it's like a big event that happens in life. So. Yeah. Hopefully not specifically this event in our lives.

Not in our lives, but it does happen in other lives. Yes. Well, maybe it's good that you don't remember it, that you blacked out. You didn't dedicate yourself to a revenge mission. It'd probably be better if Ellie had managed to forget it somehow, too. Since you know what's coming and you worked on Abby closely, you said, and we haven't seen that much of Abby in the show yet, I wonder whether there's anything that you're looking forward to specifically

that you know is coming either in the next couple episodes or maybe even next season or beyond that you worked on and you're excited to see. Oh, a lot. Like, just kind of having more of like the WLF and the SCAR story. Yeah. Because there's a lot of good stuff there. I don't know. I think there's like material for another 20 seasons, honestly.

Because I'm like, oh, my God, there's so much stuff to tell. And even if you were to go back to this backstory of these characters, it's like, whoa. So I'm looking forward to like the scar story because they haven't, there's an introduction there. And then the WLF and then the village on fire. That was one of my favorite to work on and like to direct the whole. Or just, yeah, the brood is just, because I didn't know that in the motion capture, and then I'm speaking it together. Oh, my God, in the Santa Barbara fight.

I'm just like, there's so much. I can't wait. I can't wait to see how. HBO will be happy to hear that there are 20 more seasons left in the tank. That's good news for them. So just a general question about the difference between these mediums. You mentioned that you like working on the interactivity of video games. what do you see as the advantages or drawbacks?

What can you do in live action with actors in the flesh, not with a rig, but just there being captured on cameras that is difficult to do in games? And what can you do in video games that is difficult to do on TV or in the movies? I think for movies, the pacing, you can pace the story as you want. The camera is fixed. You can play around with lighting and patterns. Like you can do a lot of things that you can direct the eye of the spectator to be like, okay, this is where I want them to look and cinematography.

So you can do a lot, you know, dialogue. So it's a lot you can do with live action. Now with games, you're playing as those characters. So I think when you get to like, then like be the character, that's what movies don't get you because you're not like doing a first person. You're not controlling it. You're not making decisions. The movie is making the decisions for you.

So from my opinion, I think you care from these characters from a third perspective. When you're playing a game, that's you who's going to die. That's you who is going to make the decision to kill or not kill this person. It's you, right? So that comes with a sacrifice of like, you know, the player might miss, like, some dialogue that is playing. It might not pick up a note that tells a story about someone else. were in the movie if you want that, you could camera car and it's like,

oh, there's a no, and we're telling the story of someone else. In the game, you can miss that. But the benefit is that you're playing. And if we do a good job, you care so much that you can't wait to pick up the controller, which, like I've heard, like I've done it, like, oh my God, I just left Ellie on the patrol and I'm about to enter this house and I have to go eat

or I have to go to work, and I can't wait to come back and find Joel because I don't know what's going to happen. and you could find it. Yeah. And do you think that video game technology has advanced to the point where you can capture those nuances,

those micro-expressions, that you can convey that emotion and that performance as well as film can, close to as well? For the last of us, we had a new trick to get emotions in the phases of what gameplay. I think the problem will always be

the responsiveness as the camera control that the player has. So you could do an expression, but if the player is constantly rotating the camera, right? So it's about like storytelling and setting the moment to convey what you want to do, right? So if you want to give player the flexibility, you have to give him a clear goal,

a clear thing to focus on, telling the story, and still players will just turn the camera around and go the other way, because players want to play. And I would give that flexibility. But there's a middle ground of like when, how you take control to tell a certain very important story. Yeah, you must be thinking,

do you know how hard we worked on that expression that you're missing because you just pointed the camera at that wall over there? Pay attention to my work. We worked so hard on this. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, you worked on a game called Enslaved Odyssey to the West, which is a favorite of mine.

And I think it's kind of a cult favorite. It unfortunately didn't do well enough to get a sequel, but I remember it very fondly. This is a 2010 game, the PS3 Xbox 360 era, written by Alex Garland, performance captured by Andy Circus. It was so well done, and it seems to me that there are a lot of commonalities

between enslaved and The Last of Us, and I think you're not the only person to have worked on both of those games, and it's post-apocalyptic setting, and it's two characters who have a close relationship and they're making their way through this world. So I'm bringing this up mostly to say, hey, if you hadn't heard of this game or played it,

go check it out. But also I wonder whether this informed work on The Last of Us at all or whether it was an influence or at least whether it prepared you for that game. Absolutely. I think that's the reason I got hired a naughty dog because you've mentioned there was people that were a naughty dog already and just because of the fact that you can make this,

game, you have the experience developing, like, character relationships and tell a story, not only through cinematics, but also through gameplay. I think that was the reason I was probably hard at Nottie Dog. But, yeah, I think it helped me, like, before then, I hadn't done anything that it was very story-driven. It was more like, G-Force, Paris of the Caribbean, like Disney Universe, and it's like fun gameplay games, but never like a deep story. of connection or so that was definitely one of those and then yeah no it does it's just like whoa

stories everyone well thanks so much for coming on this was fascinating and thanks to your work and your colleagues work because i think even if you didn't know it as you were playing i think it has a huge impact on how that story resonates with people and i think probably also with how easy it made it to envision how this would work as an adaptation because it was already so real holistic. Almadena, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, Ben, for having me. All right. Thanks to Daniel. Thanks to Almodena.

Thanks to Devin Ronaldo for producing this episode. Thanks to Arjuna Ramgapal for giving us the go-ahead to make it. Thanks to you for listening. Contact us at ringerversegaming at gmail.com. Stay tuned for Double Button Mash next week. Shimmer, where are you?