Triple Click - Beanscast: HBO's The Last of Us

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Jason, Maddy and Kirk take on the clickers once more in this spoiler-filled discussion of HBO's hit adaptation of The Last of Us.LINKSKirk's 2013 article about the game's endingSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Hello everyone, Kirk here, and as you probably already know, we are taking the week off for the holidays. So instead of a new episode of Triple Click, we are bumping up one of our members-only bonus episodes from earlier in the year. Specifically, we're running our spoiler-filled conversation about HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us, which initially ran in March shortly after the show's first season completed. Remember HBO? I remember HBO. Of course, if you like this bonus episode, also, if you like Triple Click, we hope that you'll consider becoming a member of Maximum Fun and supporting us and supporting Maximum Fun. You can do that at maximum fun.org slash join as we say every episode. And if you do that, you'll get an episode like this every month. And also if you do that, you'll get all the bonus episodes that we have

recorded since we started making the show now almost four years ago, which is crazy. So you'll get 44 bonus episodes counting this month's December's episode, which will be our long-awaited Beanscast on Balders Gate 3, which is very exciting. This year, we talked about all kinds of things in the bonus feed. We debated the best October in video game history. We played a game of debatable live in person at Jason's house. We recorded spoilery thoughts on games like Tears of the Kingdom, Persona 5, and Spider-Man 2, shows and movies like Succession, Her Ex Machina, lots of good stuff.

So go become a member, support our show, support sustainable creator-owned media that doesn't sell out and ruin itself at the first opportunity. Where was I? Go to Maximumfund.org slash join to become a member. Thanks so much to all of our members for making this whole thing possible. Okay, that's enough from me. Thank you all for listening. And from all of us at Triple Click, we hope that you are having a happy holiday season.

And we'll see you next week. We'll each share our top 10 games of the year. But for now, let's talk about the last of us. Take it away, past hosts. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Dreyer. Hello.

Hello. Hello. It's us again. It is. And thank you to everybody listening to this for supporting our show. We really appreciate you. Yeah. If you're hearing this when it went up, you're hearing this during Max Fund Drive. This is our bonus episode for Maximum Fund Drive.

So it's even more special, even though you're probably listening to this after Max Fund Drive. And then, you know, you're just a member. And also thank you to people who are other Max Fund members who are listening to this show because they're like, hey, the last of us in HBO. Sounds pretty cool. I want to hear people talk about that. Yeah, hey, you could listen to some more triple-click content. It's true, you could. You could even add us to one of the shows that you support on maximum fun if you enjoy this.

Or not, you know, whatever you want to do. Or not. Nobody. Up to you. Not like the world will end. It's not like your decision holds the fate of millions. It's not like you're the only person in the entire world who has the power to do this and it's all up to you. And if anyone prevents you from that, it would be unethical.

Gosh, it is nice that we all live in a much lower stakes world than the world of the last of us. which is pretty nice. For now, for now. Oh, my God. So it's, yeah, man, it's funny that, man, the book I just read, The Ministry for the Future is so different from The Last of Us. There's a lot of things that are interestingly different from The Last of Us that we will talk about. But anyways, that's what we're going to be talking about.

On this bonus episode, we're going to be talking about the HBO adaptation of the PlayStation video game, The Last of Us. And this is a beans cast, which means we'll be spilling the beans. We'll be doing it in a slightly controlled fashion. we're going to spill like a lot of the beans. Oh, beans everywhere, but not all the beans from the jar. And those will be the beans of, I'm not going to use the beans metaphor. I'm just going to give a clear spoiler.

Okay, so spoilers for, okay, so spoilers for the game, The Last of Us, and its expansion or a DLC left behind, as well as the show, of course. Full spoilers for season one of the show, the first game. That's what we're going to talk about for a while. We may allude to things in The Last of Us, part two, the video game, but we won't really get into it. And then at some point, we'll talk a little bit more. about the Last Vest Part 2 and specifically what it may mean to be adapting that for multiple TV series or seasons it sounds like.

So we'll give a warning for that if you watch the show and maybe haven't played the game, haven't played the sequel, don't know what happens. That could be really cool. There's a lot of stuff that does happen in the Last Vus Part 2. It's like majorly spoilery. So we'll give you a warning before we get into any of those specifics. That'll be a little ways in. For now, though, we're going to talk about the show. So yeah, we all watched it.

So did the rest of the world. We just live in the last of us world where now it's just like the biggest thing ever. That's why I said for now, because we live in the last of us world. That's true. I guess at some point we could actually live in the last of us world. It's fine. Corticeps hasn't even come close to evolving to become that.

But anything else could lead to it. I just want to say for a second, like to kind of break character slightly, it's so weird that just regular people in my life now debate what Joel does at the end of the last of us. I'm like, this is something that took over, my brain, cordyceps style in 2013.

But that was just me. Like, I didn't have to have these conversations with people in my life who don't play and cover video games. Right. But now it's everywhere. Now, like, Dina's mom is, like, weighing in on what she thinks about what Joel did at the end of season one. It's been fun for me because it lets me talk some to people about video games in a way

that I think is actually really interesting because I can specifically talk about some of those climactic moments and how different they were in the game because of the game. they were interactive and like explain to people like, okay, so you saw that story? That was like a really provocative, interesting, engaging story, right? And now imagine all these other layers on it. And like you can kind of get a sense for what I dedicate a lot of hours of my life to. And, you know, I'm not just like playing Fortnite over here. Like there is a lot of interesting stuff going on.

So that has actually been. Although sometimes we also just play Diablo form. Nothing wrong. Yes, there's nothing wrong with just clicking on things until they explode. But no, you're right. And it was kind of fun to. tell people like, oh, these are different aspects of the show that are in the game and what changes them. And I mean, we're about to get into it. Each episode, I couldn't turn my brain off as if you were.

I was like, oh, I remember playing this part and oh, they changed that. It was such a weird experience watching this show and just immediately knowing what was and wasn't different. I guess we're in the thick of it. We don't really have to do the thing where we go around. I mean, the last of us is so baked into the video game discourse DNA at this point that it's like hard to tease that all out. I will say that I thought the show was generally really well done more from an acting perspective than from a directing perspective. Like just looking at it, it kind of, it looked fine a lot of the time. It looked like a video game adaptation.

I don't mean that as a dig really because video games look great. I mean, The Last of Us looks really nice. But it was more of the performances I just thought were really strong. And I found the changes to be fascinating. And mostly I was so caught up in the feeling of experiencing this story imagining all the people who were watching it, experiencing it too, and then trying to get my head around what it is about this story that is so compelling to so many people, to so many millions of people who watched it. And I came up with a lot of different answers. I mean, when you

watch the show, you're like, well, yeah, I mean, I got why people watch this. This is really entertaining and, like, you know, a really sort of provocative show in a lot of ways. But yeah, I really thought that it was surprisingly, maybe unsurprisingly. I thought it was very successful overall. Yeah, I also thought it was fantastic. And I think it speaks to, I don't know, it speaks to a few things, but I think first and foremost, it speaks to just the story quality of The Last of Us, which, I mean, for all of our kind of, like, love for games and the storytelling that they have, I mean, not a lot of, like, cinematic style games have really lived up to the Last of Us, even in the last 10 years when it comes to, like, being able to tell a nuance, complicated, interesting, thought-provoking story. And I think video game storytelling is actually, way better at other things, like the kind of mystery solving, deductive stuff, like interactive stuff, environmental storytelling, Eldon Ringstile story, like a lot of the stuff that we've

talked about on our show. Cooperative storytelling. Yeah, exactly. Cooperative, systemic storytelling. Like, hey, man, you'll never believe what I just did in Breath of the Wild. That sort of stuff is what video games are generally good at. The last of us, it felt like, and I've seen this point floating around the internet, it felt like it was designed from the beginning to be a cinematic,

HBO style show. Specifically an HBO drama. So, of course, it works as an HBO drama. Still, putting that aside, I thought the show was phenomenal. I thought that, like, the performances were really, yeah, I mean, it's, I think it's, it's really a testament to the directors, both the casting directors and the director directors that they were able to get such incredible performances out of pretty much every character on the show.

There isn't a single week thing. I should say, I had that thought when I was saying, like, about the directing. Like it was like the camera stylistic work is the thing I was talking about where actually it is correct. It is like the directors did a great job with the cast and getting a lot out of them. Yeah, I mean, it works differently on every show obviously. But yeah, that's like DP cinematography stuff is what you're talking about. But yeah, I mean, the show just, it just really worked. It's just like, I mean, the loss of us works.

It just breaks up nicely as a show. Every single episode is, it's really true to the game. For people who haven't played the game, it is almost identical other than like. a few additions. And we could talk a little bit about what is kind of missing from the game in the show, which is an interesting topic. But the overall points and really down to even the specific stories from the very beginning with tests to the very end with David and then the hospital stuff. That's all straight out of the game. If you haven't played the game, you should know that there are approximately 10 times as many, hey, you see that ladder? Let me give you a boost

to get up there type moments in the game. And the show, including a couple of those, kind of like a fun gimmicky like a wink at people who played the game and have played other naughty dog games because that is very much a trope in those games. But yeah, I came away just incredibly impressed and was texting friends and family who don't play games and be like, hey, if you haven't, you should watch this show because it's really good. Did you too watch it with your partners who I assume both have also not played the game? No. Emily was not on board. Because yeah, my wife isn't unfortunately. I guess it's fitting for a naughty dog production. my wife has been in crunch mode with her job for the past few weeks.

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was not able to watch it. Emily just doesn't like stuff that's like really, like, intensely emotional and also just, you know, kind of has a lot of tragedy and loss. Yeah, Dina has such a stronger stomach than I do and watches so much violent true crime and non-true crime stuff that I can't stomach. So she was fine with every single aspect of this show in ways that I wasn't.

So we watched all of it together, and her mother watched all of it, which I thought was fascinating because Dina plays games at this point and also actually saw me play a lot of the last was part two when I was reviewing it. That was, you know, a thousand years ago, relatively early in our relationship and comparison feels like another life. But she, unfortunately, was like spoiled on some of the show just from remembering things in part two, which was kind of funny. But Dina's mom, I thought, had a really fascinating perspective on it as a normie, a non-gamer. And I was just like, well, don't you notice like all these slow, long shots where they're just walking down a hallway and, and all these moments that to me are like,

this is like traversal in a video game or like the moment when there's like a truck in front of a tunnel. And it's like, oh, how are we going to get around? Like, did that scan is weird to you? Like, to me, those moments felt so video game. And she was just like, well, yeah, so. Like, I just, I was really impressed by how much. video game lexicon has entered into every other form of media that like an older woman was just like, yeah, I totally recognized those as video game mechanics, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the show and picking up exactly what the plot was putting down. And I just still really enjoyed it as a story and took it as being based on a game just the same way that I watch a lot of movies based on comic

books. And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I'm stupid for assuming you would have some huge problem understanding this. Well, also, I mean, the three of us have talked a lot about logistics and TV shows. And Game of Thrones really set the tone for, like, making people want to watch shows about how people get places and the obstacles they encounter along the way. And this is very much, I mean, it's also in the, this show is, and the last of us in general, is based on Corbeck McCarthy in the road and a lot of just kind of, like, wandering and obstacles that you face on your, on your various road trips.

I mean, the road trip story is kind of the great American, one of the great American fictional tropes. So I wouldn't even say, I mean, I don't know, maybe there are video game tropes in there too. But a lot of that stuff, I think especially the wandering part, like shots of people traveling. I think that's pretty common. Yeah. I thought it was surprisingly effective for people who didn't play the game, even though as a person who did, I was distracted the entire time. And Dina was very patient about me being like, okay, so in the video game, you're actually playing a Sarah for the entire opening and it was really interesting at the time because you're like this vulnerable

young girl and then you have to experience getting killed and then the perspective shifts and she's like uh-huh uh-huh i'm dating well actually that's well she doesn't affect me it's one of the thing it was almost shot for chat but i mean what you're talking about you don't have to do the nerdy voice because i actually think that that's one thing that is missing from the show not the sarah part so much as the alley part well the sarah part is affected when you're in the backseat of the car and you're like looking around up the window but that's not that's not that's not that's not The point is that what's effective and what isn't. The point is that, like, you are missing because a TV show is switching point of views constantly.

When you're with Joel for 10, 15 hours and then suddenly you switch to Ellie, it has a very significant, like, impact on the storytelling. Whether or not it's emotionally effective, it just changes things in the same way that the second game changes things when it does its own. POV shift. So I think that that is one thing that TV shows cannot do because they're always switching perspectives anyway. Mm-hmm. I agree. And I think part of why it's so effective actually is because you play as Sarah at the very beginning. Because you're reminded of that moment when you're Sarah, or at least I was, because this was a time period where playing as a female character, especially a young girl was pretty rare. I mean, 2013, a lot has actually changed in 20 years. So I remember being so excited, 10 years, whatever. I don't know. I don't know what time is. I know. None of us do. The cortisps happened. It's been 20 years, guys. Bush was president. Anyway, 10 years. So I remember it being a really big deal that you could play as this little girl at the beginning. And then to have that control once again as Ellie later in the game, except she's such a badass in that moment.

Like she can shoot. She has all these abilities. She's also kidnapped in that moment and has to fight off an attacker just as she does on the show, a pedophile attacker. And I was just really fascinated by those moments and what they say about like control and how Joel sees Ellie and how you the play. are invited to inhabit Ellie in that moment and have, see her as kind of a person in those moments. And then to have that control taken away at the end is so much more heartbreaking and effective because you've had those moments of actually getting

to inhabit both Joel's actual bio daughter and his, I would say, just his actual surrogate daughter in those two moments. Like those are moments that the show can't similarly create. It just, I mean, it can, I guess. People, I'm sure, still cried. Yeah, player agency and character agency. That whole, yeah, it's interesting stuff.

So we're moving on, we're moving on to particulars, but I'm curious just to kind of ground us a little bit. Natty, you don't have to do it like thumbs up or thumbs down, but I am curious your take on this show. Like, what is, well, because you're kind of dodging around it. I feel like you're critical of it or you don't love it. And that's fine, but I'm curious, like, what is your general take on the show? I mean, you guys know. I thought the last of us was fine when I played it the first time. I wasn't as into it as everybody else.

I have a lot of trouble relating to dad's stories. I just always have, for whatever reason, it's just a storytelling maneuver that just doesn't get me in the guts in the way that it does for a lot of other people, which, you know, I cry at commercials with kittens in them. So it's not to say I, like, don't have the ability to sob at things that are designed to prey upon my emotions. But usually, like, the dad is a tough guy and then realizes he has feelings in certain circumstances, thing just doesn't always work for me. And there's a lot of that in The Last of Us, the game and the show. but it doesn't mean I don't get intellectually what's effective about it and I can still enjoy it on that level even if I'm like okay this isn't for me it's like if you eat a dish that isn't your favorite but you can still recognize when it's made very well let's let's say it's I have a I have the theuteur's respect for the last of us I have something like that and I understand what it's trying to do and and also and I won't I won't spoil it, but I will say that my disappointments about the Last Post Part 2 have also retroactively made it harder for me to even feel that good about the

things I liked about The Last of Us, which I know isn't a problem that everybody else has, but I just had such high hopes for where the story could go, putting you in Ellie's shoes at the after that ending, that now at least we can all agree that ending is like so charged emotionally. Yeah, bang on ending. Come on, let's get this like. conversation between these two. Like what is going to happen there? Well, I mean, okay, we'll get into that because I actually think. But you know what I'm saying. No, I know, but like, my take at the time and I think I still have this take is that they should have just ended it. That that ending and the ambiguity of it is, is a

perfect ending. At the time, I kind of wanted them to continue it because I had some ideas in my head of what I wanted to happen. But now I also retroactively, I'm like, they should have just left it there. So, okay, so I'm really going to avoid the ending for now. We're going to pull us back a little bit. let's go back to the beginning of the show itself and how it begins because I think right from the start of the show it is it feels very different from the game it um it starts with all this world stuff the news and episode two begins with another flashback to a fungus expert who you know sort of tells us how screwed we are scientist character it's very world war z the book if either of you have read that book oh i've read that book I love that book oh I didn't know you've read that book man I love that book that's like one of the best apocalypse books when you were talking about the Kim Stanley Robinson book it sounded like you know yeah they're not dissimilar they're not they're very different

obviously in a lot of particular ways but structurally they're a little bit similar and they're kind of appealing in that same way where you do get a kind of global view which this show gives and I think that that is interesting like that it immediately demonstrates something the show can do that the game can't that as

you said Jason also is something that sort of kneecaps what's the term It's very violent. It sort of makes it less effective when it moves to entirely Ellie's perspective for a couple episodes in a flashback, which is kind of the closest they can come to making Ellie playable in the later acts. Like it's not as effective because they've been shifting perspectives already so much. Where the show could have done the like, I don't know if it's children of men or whatever.

There are TV shows who will do like ensemble cast. Steady cam on a single person. Or they'll do, oh, the leftovers is a good example. where The Leftover is Season 1 does it's like an ensemble show, ensemble show through and through, and then there's one episode that's entirely about Nora, right?

That's her name, Carrie Coon's character. Is that right? Is that her name? Carrie Coon's character, and it's just her. And the whole episode is just her going to this conference in New York. And so by changing formats,

it's this striking move and you're totally shaken up and then you experience this, you have this whole experience alongside her. Like, that's the way a show would do what the game does, where it's like, oh, and now you're playing

as Ellie and it's this big deal. This show doesn't do that because it starts by shifting the perspective immediately. And we'll get into the bill stuff because that's a huge departure, both structurally and narratively, I think an amazing episode and a big improvement. But even from the beginning, they're doing it. My personal favorite episode, which I can't believe I'm saying, because heading into the show, I was like, Left Behind is going to be my favorite episode because Left Behind is my favorite last of us piece of content ever.

I think it's really well done. Yeah. I think it's my favorite thing naughty dogs ever made. Yeah. Yeah, well, we can kind of kind of, so that first act, let's get into that, and also the long, long time, the episode about Bill and Frank and their long relationship. Like, all of that is kind of a piece with this change, this sort of structural perspective change. So yeah, I'm curious just what the two of you thought of that from the very beginning of just how immediately different it felt. Yeah, so there are a couple of practical change or kind of practical differences between games and shows that are worth unpacking.

here a remote control or a remote control well actually that's one of them legitimately because when you feel uh when you have to actually engage in ellie killing someone and killing david with the machete um the way she does at the end of the show that feels a lot different as uh kind of the the audience member in like kind of watching this all unfold it feels a lot different when you are pressing the button and doing it than it does when you were watching with a remote and just kind of like sitting there munching on popcorn as it happens in front of you. Not that both can't be harrowing, but one is differently harrowing than the other is. And the other thing is that games, just because of the nature of how they are made, it is a lot more difficult to construct new and unique scenes that won't be

shown again or will have things that won't be shown again, such as that opening section that's like the conference room where they're talking about the fungus or like the TV set. The lady, the fungus doctor lady and like all the other kind of like unique little moments that in a game a producer would be looking at the schedule on the budget and be like man we can't afford to just like

create this entire thing which will take us once in work. Maybe Naughty Dog they're like the one of the only studios that a rock star they like do do that kind of stuff. Well even naughty dog well even Naughty Dog they do do that but it's only for specific things and like you can only fit a couple of

those per game. Yeah, your point totally stands. You have that prologue section and they could get away with doing that. So, for example, in the game The Last of Us, it shows you that whole section of Sarah and Joel before the world explodes and the car sequence and all that stuff. And that is so expensive to make that you really can't do more than one or two of those in a game. And Notty Dog does do those in pretty much every game. They do one or two of those usually at the end of a game where it'll be like totally new thing.

Or like the giraffe sequence, which is. is also in the show and is like a notable part of the game. Well, that's, no, that's not what I'm talking about because that you model some drafts and you play around with the cinematics. Well, it's not that it's easy. What I'm talking about is specifically constructing an entirely new set that you will never use again in the game, whereas the drafts were kind of a part of a section that is like using some of the same environments and some of the same post-apocalyptic stuff that you're

seeing elsewhere. I'm talking about totally unique set pieces. Anyway, point being that with an HBO show, you can explore a lot of more of that stuff and kind of deliberately choose to make it feel more ensemble. Like, the whole Bill and Frank section is also a good example of that because it's a whole, just kind of whole ass episode that is just like totally unique stuff and these characters that you never are going to see again in the game. But the show can really take the time and explore that stuff. And I think it's done to good effect in this because the whole question of like what, you're willing to sacrifice, what we're kind of like, I mean, the show, the name of the show is the last of us. It kind of implies this kind of connection that you're making with someone when

there are only two of you and nobody else is around you. And that's what the whole show is about. And so Bill and Frank is really good at just kind of like telling a microcosm version of that story that's self-contained in a single episode and exploring some of those same themes. So I think it's just done really well in that sense. Yeah. I thought episode three, I mean, it's a great example of something that I wish the game had done, but some of that is also times changing. Like, the game's version of them as characters was that these two characters are sort of implied to be gay and maybe attracted to each other,

but by the time you find one of them's already dead and it's not ever spelled out and it's pretty unfulfilling. Well, the relationship had kind of soured to, like, Frank is very angry at Bill, sort of. It seems like they liked each other in a way but didn't really like each other also. It's not a very warm relationship. Right. And I think there's like a letter from Frank that people really read into at the time.

And I'm sympathetic to that. God knows I've read into things. And Bill is alive in the present day in the game. It's worth noting. Barely alive, like living for nothing, but yeah, alive. Right, which is a much more tragic version of his story. And I think the rewrite for Ebb 3 works. a lot better with the larger themes of the show about found family and like the idea of finding

somebody in this time where it seems almost impossible to and to like have that also be a queer relationship is really interesting because just statistically it's kind of harder to date as a queer person like you got to find somebody who's attracted to you on top of finding someone you can stand. Oh look hey there's an attractive gay man in my hole. I know. I did I did have that thought where I was like what are the chances of this. But it's also like what? are the chances of Joel happening upon this this young woman who's the same age practically as his dead daughter that he's suddenly forced to take care of? I mean, that's just as coincidental and absurd when you think about it. And so I was kind of willing to go along with it, plus it's a

fictional show. And I, you know, it's tugging at the heartstrings. So I really liked that as like I like to think that there were like 10 others that were just attractive men, but they were straight. And so he just killed them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just killed those guys. He was just waiting for one that set off his gay dar, which was like a separate device that Nick Offerman also had. Anyway, I really liked that. And it also just, I mean, aside from just the fact that I thought it was a well-written episode. And I do know there was some criticism from people being like, oh, you know, it's, it sucks that these two gay characters have to die at the end. I don't really feel that way because this is a show where pretty much everybody dies.

Yeah. I think that's a fair assessment. just kind of how every episode rolls. And that can be a tough hang. Like, I get it if people are just like, I don't want to watch a show where everybody dies. Like Kirk's partner, for example. I think that's valid. Not everybody has to engage with that.

But if you're going to watch a show where everybody is on the brink of death at all times, then having moments where they experience joy and having that be such a key part of why Joel saves Ellie, I think really works. And I think having episode three, be written in such a way that that sense of joy and, like, believing in that is part of those characters' arc. It just, it made a plot that I didn't go in liking that much work a lot better for me because that entire other analog episode was also there, if that makes sense. Like, it actually fleshed out the entire rest of the show for me in a way that I completely didn't

expect and really applaud. Yeah, I loved it as well. Part of it, I just have to say is that Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett was the actor who played Frank were just incredible. So good. Perfect chemistry between them, too. Great acting on everybody on this show. Yeah, from the White Lotus. And just like, I mean, there are scenes together. The scenes where there's just little things when he gives him the plate of food and then he adjusts it a little bit. So that it's set just right, which is very built. It's Nick Offerman performing this role. It's telling you so much about a character. It's just like the kind of stuff that a great actor like him can do.

And then you see it later, like the passage of time. I'm a sucker for any depiction of a relationship over time. Like, you know, people who flash back to when they were young or flash forward to when they're old together. Like, that stuff just wrecks me. And that wrecked me in that episode. I really found it very affecting. And I also liked it because of the change and because it was so clever, which seems like a more shallow reason. and to like it, but it really wasn't.

I cried a few times watching this show. Of course, when Sarah dies, just like the most emotionally brutal thing. I cry every time I see it in the game and it was even worse than the show and I was just like, gee, God. Yeah, because if you have to watch Pedro Pascal cry. I know, and I'm just like, how many times

I have to watch this girl die while her father like sobs? Anyways, so I was like fully crying, just being like fuck you show. I love that you too, non-parents are just like just sobbing everywhere. You know, if you don't have kids, you don't care about kids dying. That's true. You're not moved by seeing a human being suffering or dying.

Are you going to say you didn't cry, Jason? Yeah, I don't know. No, I didn't cry at this one. Well, I cried at that. But anyway, well, the thing I'm talking about, though, is this episode three. And that I was kind of like a much more, I went into it with my heart a lot more hardened because I was like, well, okay, Frank's probably going to die. Then they're going to meet Bill.

You know, it'll be like the game. And then my dawning realization of what was going to happen and what was happening when Bill reveals that he has put a deadly amount of, you know, whatever that medicine is, into all of the wine. And I thought at first, at first I was like, oh, he's just telling Frank that so that, like, Frank will just die, but then he's really going to live. But then I was like, oh, no, wait, he's really like, they really are just both going to die together. Because when he's like, I'm old, man, like, we've had a good life. I'm done. I just, I don't want to be without you.

I really was moved by that. And then his letter to Joel, which is. you pointed out, Maddie, beautifully underlines and emphasizes the ending. I mean, it like sets up the ending so much more strongly because of his presence. Hearing that, I was like, I wasn't exactly like crying being like, it's such good screenwriting. But I kind of was. Like, I was like, fuck, that's really smart. Like, that's a way to take this minor thing and turn it into something that like really ties in with the overall theme.

And I wonder what it was like for people who didn't know that's where it was going. because it was so partly affecting for me because I was like, oh, God, like this is like the thematic underpinning of the entire ending of this show. Yeah, super helpful to know that when you watch. And if you didn't, you might just think, oh, this is just like, okay, like he, you know,

Ellie really matters to him and not really see what that's setting up and the kind of horrible in some ways consequences of that letter. Yeah, I mean, for Dina, she just was like, that was a great episode. I wish more of the show had those two guys in it. And I was like, oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah, but I think for her it's tough because it's like she didn't know what the end of the show was going to be. So it wasn't like me hearing the letter read and being like, oh, my God, this is such a clever way to set up the ending, which I didn't want to spoil for her. So it was tough. I'm like it's almost like it rewards a rewatch, which is kind of neat. I think that's really it. Yeah, it rewards a rewatch. So can I say moving out from the Bill and Frank stuff, one other thing about these early episodes that I think was striking to me,

watching it, imagining kind of watching it for the first time, and having never played the game, is just how cool of an idea the Corticeps zombie fungus is. Like, the show actually doesn't have a whole lot of clickers and fungus in it, which is probably fine, because like the human stuff is more interesting. Which is great.

And by the way, they've said that there's going to be more in the next season, which is yet another reason. Who knows what that means? But yes. But that notwithstanding, it's such a cool idea. It was a cool idea when the game came out. I remember number, when I wrote, I was looking back, I reviewed the game in 2013 and I talked about,

there was a Gizmodo post or an I-O-9 post that, an old blog, a sort of sister blog to Kotaku, the site that we all wrote for. And it was a tarantula that had been infected by cordyceps. And it's the worst picture, one of the worst pictures I've ever seen in my life. Like, it's like a dead tarantula, bad enough, with like horrible white tendrils coming out of it. Oh, man, you're going to scream. Yeah, like controlling its carcass, making it walk. Well, and it's just dead.

but it just looks like a coral reef has grown out of this thing. It's horrible. So anyways, and just talking about that and being like, what a cool idea. It's not just a cool idea. There's Jason is seeing it. Pretty horrible, right? Amazing. It like has antlers or something.

So anyways, watching the show and seeing them introduce this idea and then seeing the way people react to it, their articles, I saw some article that was like fungus, like people who sell fungus around the world are now having people be like, oh, so what, is this like the thing on the last of us? Is this going to take over my brain? kill me because now everyone's thinking about fungus. It just was striking to me all over again.

What a great idea it is for zombies to be this weird networked fungal growth and just how gnarly and cool and fun it is. It's scarier in this because the whole premise is that like, well, this couldn't happen to humans unless the world was a couple degrees warmer, which is of course extremely scary today. But that's not, and the game doesn't set it up that way. No, there are some changes to it. There's also the whole idea of the mycelial network, which is a really cool thing. I learned about in Michael Pollan's book about psychedelics, but that there is this huge network of fungus, like the whole Pacific Northwest, where I live right now, like they're listening to us right now. They're aware that we're talking about them because there is like a crazy, like,

internet of fungus that just connects huge parts of the world. And the idea of the zombies or whatever you want to call them, the infected are all connected to one another. So if you kill one, you alert the entire, you know, fungal growth that's going through whatever building you're in is also cool and different from the game. And not something they capitalized on nearly enough in the show, in my opinion. Like, they introduced that in episode too, which then caused Dina to say in like every other episode where there was ever a zombie. She was like, oh, they're going to bring in the others. And then that never happened. Right. I haven't like once. This is also what happens if you watch a show with an environmental biologist. So like when we got to the left behind episode, she was like, okay, so how does this infected person eat the entire time? Because they've been underground in the mall with like no sunlight, no, no access to any form of food. They ate at the food.

What are they eating? And I was like, listen, I can't talk to you about this. I'm pretty sure I saw a subway. There was a subway. Went to the Great American Cookie Company. Well, but it's like, what do the infected eat? You know? Like, you just can't think about it.

You don't want to think about it. Why is it a bloodborne virus? Why is it spread by biting? Again, better not to consider these questions. But these were things Dina asked me that I had no answer for. And I was like, listen, just enjoy the show. Right. They make changes.

Like, they removed the spores so that Peter Pascal wouldn't have to wear a gas mask all the time, which is also like fair enough. Which is kind of too bad because I feel like the spores make more sense in some ways for a fungus. Right. Is it because of, wait, it's because a Mandalorian. Yeah, it's because you are, this beautiful guy with this amazing face, like, is already wearing a helmet in his other show. And like, now we're going to make him wear a gas mask.

And this one just wouldn't be fair to the rest of us who want to look at Pedro Pascal. Yeah, I know. That's the reason they changed it. But I'll probably bring a gas mask back. I don't know if it is, but it would make sense. But yeah, I mean, so they made these changes. But then because they really are very faithful. to the game. There just aren't that many opportunities

for them to be like, well, in the scene that's kind of just an infected and they have to kill it, like, it can't trigger a hoard because that's not what happens next. Even though it's a cool idea. Yeah, the one thing missing from the show is like the boss in the game. There's like one, right? Well, that thing does turn up in that moment. It does. In the scene where Melanie Linsky's character

dies. Right, that's true. But you don't have to actually have to fight the other. Let's actually, okay, let's move on to this next act, which takes place after the Bill and Frank chapters where they go to, wait, is it Pittsburgh? Are they in Pittsburgh? No, they're not in Pittsburgh.

In the game, it's Pittsburgh. They changed it to Kansas City for the show, but it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really make a big difference unless you know Kansas City and watched it and we're like, oh yeah, it's the old Kansas City building. Right, it was just probably easy logistically.

I mean, the Boston sets weren't accurate, so I'm going to assume the Kansas ones weren't either. Look, a lot changed after the end of the world. There was a bombing. It suddenly looked a lot like Canada. I don't know why, but everything looked almost a lot like Northern America. By the way, quick, quick tangent is that I think if people were really living in the United States for 20 years, like that long, I think they would have found a way to clean some of those cars off the roads, clean up some, clean up at least a couple more things in there. Nope, going to be covered in dust.

Well, in Kansas City, I guess it is, it is all apocalyptic, because the idea in Kansas City is that they rose up against. FEDRA and killed them all and there was kind of recently a war there. So maybe it would make sense that they wouldn't have cleaned up. Yeah, 20 years. 20 years is a long time. 20 years is one of those things where you know I really need to take out to like clean up the attic. All right. It's been 20 years.

I don't know a lot going on. There's no TV anymore. I don't have a smartphone. I may as well put that car in a neutral and move it. Exactly. So there's not a lot. I don't know. These middle chapters are not like the strongest part of the.

the story, I would say. No, I want to talk about the ending. I felt like Melanie Linsky was a little bit wasted. You know, I really, I like the idea of her being in more things. It's fun to just have her be this kind of pissed off lady who's killing people. They, you know, the whole thing with Sam and Henry. Henry, yeah. In the game is a much, it's like the strongest relationship that's depicted because left behind wasn't in the game originally and because the Bill and Frank stuff.

And also the Frankenbill. Yes. The Bill and Frank stuff also isn't really established. So you kind of get a little bit of it. But then you really see Henry and Sam. You really get a sense of their relationship. You see what happens when Sam turns. Henry kills him immediately realizes what he's done and kills himself.

It's really horrifying. It's a very effective and prestigey part of the game where Henry shoots himself. It cuts to black. You don't even see it happen. You just hear Joel yell, no, it's really horrifying. It cuts to black. And then it's just like fade up. on they're in a completely different part of the country and it just says winter if I'm

remembering correctly or it's like two months later or something it's worth noting that that's one of those things that has made this translation so easy is that the game doesn't really concern itself with a lot of that down like has a lot of downtime that you never see never play has a lot of moments that are make for perfect episode endings because in the game they are perfect episode ending though in the game you're like your plan is Joel after that cut and he's still only got three bullets in his revolving you're like dude you couldn't have picked up some bullets like in the months in between this. Some mechanical.

The exact same of I was running out of stuff before this. No, but yes, you're totally right. I think that is, I think that's true. So yeah, I don't have a ton to say about this. I think that the big set piece at the end was pretty cool. Like where all the zombies come out of nowhere,

that was an addition. It was a change. Well, that in the game is extremely memorable as having to get to that sniper, which is pretty easily, quickly done in the show. But like in the game, that's one of those things. To their benefit, there's really just the one stealth sequence against the clicker where they like,

I think they literally throw a brick or something to distract it. And I was like, okay, I can't watch this anymore. And then they don't need to see anymore. Where in the game, it is very engaging when you're hiding from a sniper. But then having the showdown with, you know, with Melanie Olenski's group, Kathleen's group, and then the massive uprising of infected with the big beafer dude, whatever those guys are called, coming and like ripping everything apart. That was like pretty cool.

That was pretty fun. Yeah. In the game, that Big Bifredud is somewhere else is like a boss. He's like in a gymnasium, right? Don't you find him in a gymnasium of a school? Yeah, that's a different sequence. But I don't have a ton to say. Do you have anything more to say about that section?

No, I'm kind of, I'm really eager to talk about the ending, actually. No. Well, we're not quite there yet. So hold your horses, Jason Schreier. We got to talk about left behind. We got to talk about Jackson. So after that period, they get to Jackson, which is a new edition because it's like taken from the second game.

That is something that you just see more of in the sequel. You really get a sense of Jackson. I'm going to say, and I'll throw to the two of you, that I think the addition of Jackson is cool only because Jackson is a functional, equitable, safe society. And that was a very cool thing in the second game as well. And it's implied in the first game you get there. You know that Tommy's living there, but you don't really see it. And I think that it really helped this show overall to show, yeah, some people are just

like making it work. Like they're living together. peacefully. They would just want to survive and have nice lives. It isn't the thing of the walking dead or the thing implied by Kansas City, where it's like everyone's a militia who's just like brutally murdering people and they're all like out in their crazy, you know, Mad Maxmobiles. Like there are just people who are living normal lives and I like seeing that. Yeah, the only narrative difference is that I guess in Last of Us part two, and this is at the very beginning. So it's not a spoiler if you're curious, but I guess it's implied that Joel and Ellie participated in building this

into the commune that it was. So I guess that's taken away, but it doesn't really matter. No, not really. And I did like the idea that there is some tension between Tommy and Joel here that's illustrated more effectively in these scenes, I would say, where it's just spelled out more that Tommy stops talking to Joel and becomes part of this more functional family and also society because he's left that life behind. But also, that's a tragic decision for him to make.

And it's not necessarily one that guaranteed. Joel would come out of the funk he was in and, you know, work on his PTSD and become a more functional person, which one could argue he doesn't actually do in this show in the game. But nonetheless, I mean, he finds Tommy and sort of presents himself as healthy enough to like have those conversations and be like, I'm having PTSD episodes. I'm having all these problems. I mean, I just felt like that was a lot more cleverly done in the show. And again, is an example of like this person left. had a new family and figured things out in this world and proves to Joel that it's possible.

And that's kind of established repeatedly. Yeah, I think that scene, the one you're talking about Joel saying, I'm failing in my sleep when he goes, he gives this monologue, it's when he tries to hand Ellie off to Tommy and he's like, you take her like, I'm going to screw this up and I can't lose another daughter.

That was like another one of the great changes and an incredible scene. I mean, that was Pedro Pestal. That's like Pedro at his right. knocking it out. Like that was him being like, this is why you hired me, this is why,

and that was them, all the writers and creators of the show understanding what they had and being like, we have this guy who can do this thing and give you just this view into him

as this, yeah, really broken, really tragic person, but man, that was a great scene. So agree that I think that that sequence is much stronger

for having that scene in it and more interesting too. We made it as far as KC. And then You know, she saved my life there from another kid. Five years ago, I would have destroyed him. But she had to shoot him to save me 14 years old. Because I was too slow and too fucking deaf to hear him coming.

That's all. I saw a man kill his own brother to save her while I just watched. And today I thought that dog was going to tear her apart because it smelled something on her. And all I did was stand there. I couldn't move. I couldn't think of anything to say. I just...

Oh, it's over. You think I can still handle things, but... I'm not who I was. I'm weak. Lately, there are these moments where the fear comes up out of nowhere, and my heart... It feels like it stopped. And I have dreams.

I've lost something. I'm failing in my sleep. It's all I do. It's all I've ever done is failure again and again. Yeah, well, so in last of us, one, I was just looking this up to remember 100%. The commune is there. They have built the settlement. I guess it's a little bit more established.

You're like on a dam though, right? Like you don't really see... You have to like fix the dam. Yeah, you don't see a lot of the actual visuals of it. You don't see until lots of us do. Anyway, not important. What is more important, the big, big difference that will be explored in future seasons is that in the show, Tommy's wife is pregnant, and that is not the case in the game. So I guess we'll see

what happens there with Tommy and Maria and their future child. We'll see what the deal is that. But other than that, yeah, I think pretty straightforward stuff in that section of the show. Yeah. I also, we haven't brought this up, but like the fact that the show just makes the decision to be significantly more racially diverse is a very welcome change to me because it's just like, nice to see a version of the future, even a post-apocalyptic future where people are living equitably and also brown and black people survived. Like it just, I mean, especially given that we had just experienced like this, the Henry and Sam storyline, two significant black characters from the game. They were black in the game. They die notably. That was criticized at the time. And like,

it's just nice that the show is like, let's not make those the only black characters here. You know? Specific. So specific. So specific. Specifically Maria is turned to black in the show and is white in the game, specifically Maria. And like Pedro Pascal. Well, yeah, and also Sarah is. Yes, and Sarah's... She has darker skin. And it feels like a carry-on from The Last of Us Part 2, which was also a much more racially diverse game than the Last of Us part one.

Because, you know, it was made many years later. And I think they were, they had changed their approach and were like, yeah, let's like make this a more diverse game. So watching the show now just feels like a carry-on from that, which I agree is very. cool to see. Let's keep going. There's like kind of before we get to the editing, we're almost there, Jason. Almost. I promise. We got to do. We got to do some cannibalism. We got to talk about David and we got to talk about the cannibals. We got to talk about

left behind. Both of those sequences are cool. They're kind of interrelated. Yeah, I don't know. I don't really know how to tackle it. What do you want to talk about first? Left behind? Canibals? I mean, we can talk about left behind. I like, I like left behind a lot. I think my

only thing about it that I was a little sad about was that there was just the one zombie at the end because I went back and rewatch this in the game and the way that Ellie and Riley finally get bit, they both get bit and they stick together and it's implied that Ellie shoots Riley. And I like that they didn't show that in the show or the game and instead just have you learn it later. I think that's very effective and I was really relieved that they didn't make us watch it. Her name was Riley and she was the first to die. Like that line really matters. It's a good line and it needs to be telling you something that you didn't see. Yeah. Especially because you already know.

you know? And I don't know. Anyway. So, but I like how in the game, it's these two teen girls who believe themselves to be such badasses that they're willing to go to this location that they know has a lot of zombies in it. And they just don't care because they kind of see themselves as immortal. And like, that's a date night for them. And in the game, that's just kind of their attitude. And then they get overwhelmed. And in those final moments, there's tons, there's like multiple zombies. Like there's kind of like a chain reaction and a series of moments where Ellie then gets bitten and Riley's fighting off that zombie and Ellie saves Riley from the other zombie that bites her. Like they each get a savior moment with separate interactions. You know what I'm saying? And it's clear

that like they're just overwhelmed and they didn't expect this to go so badly. Whereas in the show, there's just one zombie. They think there will be zero. And they are two armed people, but they can't manage to fight it off. And I just found that less believable and a little odd. Two armed and trained soldiers. Yeah, trained. Significantly trained. I just, I thought it kind of lost some of the messaging of the sort of like, we're teens, we're going to live forever.

It's all going to be fine. And then suddenly both of them are looking down at bite marks on their arms and they're like, oh, we're dead. We're both dead now. Like, that was so much more effective. I haven't realized that because I never played Left Behind, but that's an astute point. So there's also one of the reasons that I think Left Behind is one of the best things Nottie Dogg has ever made.

There's, there are interactive sequences in Left Behind. that are just, they can only be done in a game and are really incredible. There's this fighting game sequence in particular that's just absolutely beautiful that recurs in the Last of Us part two in a different context, but in the sort of spaceship sequence. But it's the same idea where like you just watch Ellie as she plays, well, they want to play, is it a Savage Starlight game or is it, I mean it's what's Moral Kombat? In the show they find Mortal Kombat too and they just play it.

where if I'm remembering correctly in the game, they go to play it, and then the power cuts or the thing stops working. So then Riley describes to Ellie what the game is like, and then you just, it just sits on Ellie's face, and she's playing, and Riley's like, oh, like, he's coming at you. Like, you've got to fight him, and, like, and Ellie is like, first she's kind of like, this is stupid,

and then she starts getting into it. And then, like, you see the lights of the screen, like, start reflecting on her face. It's, like, really wonderful. It's, like, really intimate between the two of them. It's just, like, really incredible thing that you're kind of interacting with, like you're playing it in the game.

And of course, it's also about someone playing a video game. So there is some stuff like that that just is really special in the game version of this that wasn't in the show version. I don't know how they could have done it. I was hoping there would be some kind of a nod to it just because it's like a really special moment in that game. I still think about it and remember it.

But, you know, it's okay for the game to have some things that are just for the game too, I guess. Sure. I did like that they kept a lot of similar lines, like the one about them, going crazy together. I just remembered for some reason and then it's a memorable line. It's a good line. Yeah, I don't know. There were things like that that I really appreciated them keeping and largely really dug that episode. But yeah, we can move on to the cannibalism. Yeah, we can move on.

And yeah, there really are a lot of those, a lot of those shot for shot sequences that are generally pretty strong and underline how unusually strong like a lot of the writing and just the sort of pacing, conversational pacing of the original game was. So yeah, now we got to to David and the cannibals. Good old David, man. What a performance by whoever, by that guy? What's his name? Yeah, I'm going to remember. Scott Shepherd.

His name is Shepherd. Perfect. Yeah, what a creep. Good Lord. So, my take on this sequence was that I think it actually is the one part of the show that I think they could have had a little bit more time with.

Like, I think that maybe this arc would have worked better over a couple of episodes. It's the only time I feel that and I'm not totally sure it would have worked. Maybe it wouldn't have. I generally really appreciate how the show is just like all killer and no filler. Like we are not wasting time with like banded outposts. We're not wasting time with bullshit.

It's like people die fast. They come on. They do their thing. They die. They keep moving. Like the story goes through. We got nine episodes. We're going to tell this whole story.

No time for collectibles. No time for finding secrets. In this one. In this one case, I think that I just wanted a little more time with him before the turn. There's this moment halfway through the episode where he's talking to the girl in the, in the dining hall, and he gets up and he hits her. And you're like, whoa, okay. So this dude is like fully bad. Oh, my God.

Like, because up until then he's sinister, but he's kind of like, it's a little ambiguous. And then the mask is off. And then you're like, okay. And then he's like a fucking cannibal pedophile. And like he's like the worst ever. You really have to be both a cannibal and a pedophile. Yeah, I can't just pick one. I agree.

I think maybe we all agree just based on when we were talking about that. I think the pedophile stuff is like a bridge. too much. It's in the game too, though. It was one of the things that I was like, I wouldn't be mad if they changed this, but... It's more subtle in the game, if I'm remembering correctly. It's like, why not just want to eat her?

Maybe if he just wanted to cook her and just serve her up... Or even like, yeah, get her to join him and like be a weird daughter to him. It's like, I just want to say... I just want to eat his child bride. It just needs a little money. Guys, this is perfect because Passover starts next week. And on Passover, There's a Jewish song called Dianu.

Translation is, it would have been enough. It would have been enough. I remember this from Ellen Steppenwald's TV recaps. The song is about how like, if you had rescued us from the desert, from the Egyptians, but not saved us from the desert, it would have been enough. If you had saved us from the desert but not giving us this food to eat, it would have been enough. That is essentially what we're talking about here. David. Yes.

They had been cannibals. That would have been enough. Yeah. I kind of do think that, though, like I feel like also in the game, the pedophile. aspect was like not noticed by many people it was very subtle if I recall it was very subtle it's just he touches her hand and it's yeah but there's also

like a line he says something I don't remember exactly but there's like a couple moments where you're like oh like he's also like attracted to Ellie that's gross and like you can kind of pick up on it if you're paying attention and so then here it's spelled out a lot more yeah and like also in the game

I mean you're playing as her you feel a lot more vulnerable you have to fight him off as an attacker and like to have him also be a pedophile subtly indicated is like it makes the moment much scarier. I didn't love it in the game. I thought it was a little much at the time. And in the show, I at least was prepared for it.

And I was like, well, here we go. This is going to be what this is the whole thing. Apologies for recapping this. But the thing at the end when they're fighting and he's like, I like it when they fight or whatever. I was just like,

holy shit. I was like, okay. I already hate this guy. It was like Disney villain levels. It became funny at that point. I was like, this is corny.

I don't know. So that notwithstanding, though. So I think my pacing thing is that I wanted a little longer with him in friend mode because those sequences, the sequence where she has the rifle, you know what I mean? He's in friend mode. He's like, hey, like we're cool. Like I'm going to give you pills. I'm going to help you out. Right, he is with his cult. And of course, Troy Baker there. I liked seeing him. It was funny. And I was like, oh, this is fun because Troy, I was thinking it was going to get killed by Pedro Pascal, but even better to have him get killed by Bella Ramsey. Like having the guy who played Joel get killed by Joel.

But anyways, during those sequences, it's very tense. You really feel Ellie's vulnerability when she has the rifle. And because she's not as much of a killer as she is in the game, you just are like, man, like this could go so bad. Like I was so tense during those sequences. And I really liked that tension. And then it just, I wanted a little more time in that zone and felt like it could have stretched out a little bit more.

And just generally, you know, when it, yeah, when it becomes like, oh my God, we're cannibals. Like, I don't know. Like, I guess it's like the most tawdry and kind of pulpy plot twist that the show takes. And or it felt the most like the Walking Dead. Like it was the most like kind of like, oh man, were you meat? But what kind of meat is it gross? Look at that meat.

And, you know, I mean, I don't know. I didn't hate all of that. Like just mostly thought the pacing was a little off. And yeah, could have done without some of the pedophilia stuff. I just feel like it could have had a lighter touch, especially given how many great changes have been made across the other episodes. That's a good way of putting it. I felt like this needed another pass.

But it's not. Right. A slightly lighter touch. Which this was, I believe, a Craig Mason written episode. And he's generally had a lighter touch. I was kind of surprised that it dialed it up there at the end so much. But, you know, still strong. They end with him calling her baby girl.

The camera pulls in on the watch. The whole thing. Like, you know, you really see it. I really remember playing the game, I think, for the first time. Or maybe I was replaying the first chapters. when Joel is watching her go with Tess and he like, Tess moves on and then Joel stands there for a second, he looks down at his watch and then keeps walking.

And just being like, wow, like body language and subtle storytelling in a video game. Like it was a very striking thing at the time to just sort of underline how the, even at the time, the game felt like a prestige TV show. Okay, so anyways, let's get to the end. Let's get into it. Well, so wait, let's talk first about Ellie's mom and her death scene because this, okay, I was kind of blown away by this edition and I will say I liked it because something that always bugged me about the game and especially the cure was that I was like, I don't understand

how this works. How does Ellie's immunity work? They actually come up with an explanation for it that I think is pretty logical and it's a good enough explanation to justify why Ellie would have to die, which always was why in 2013 I was like, this is ridiculous. Why do they have to take her brain out? But in this, they really go into it. They're like, no, this is how this works. I've definitely seen like scientists or whatever, like, viral, just being like you definitely never would have to kill someone. But like, if you believe that, yes.

But they do their best. I mean, they really try to come up with it and make it work insofar as like, okay, so Ellie's mom, they show Ellie's still in the womb, but like her mom who, I don't think you have her listed here, but isn't her mom. It's played by the person who plays Ellie in the game. Yeah, Ashley Johnson, who sounds like Ellie, like when she's, she starts talking. It's like, oh, man, it's Ellie. Yeah, she's Anna Williams is her name. Yeah, it makes perfect sense for her to be Ellie's mom. Yeah, so right after Ellie emerges from the womb,

umbilical cord still attached, her mom gets bit. You're like, oh, how is this going to go? But we already know Ellie makes it. So we're like, oh, does she just get like a little bit of the, of the zombie juice through the umbilical cord? How does that work? And that's enough, at least for me, my suspension of disbelief to be like, okay, sure, it's part of her brainstem. It isn't somehow controlling her, but there's some tiny enough dose that she got that it kind of vaccinated her, immunized her against this. I can go along with that in ways that the game didn't quite sell me. Like that ending, there's a lot of reasons why it just work for me. We're about to get to it. But this, I thought, helped set it up by being like, this is why Ellie's so different from every other person.

She had this extremely bizarre thing happened when she was a little baby, you know? Yeah, I really liked that scene. It was, like you said, it was very fun to see Ashley Johnson, who I'm mostly seen acting, not voice acting, like being in something. She's in the first Avengers movie. She's the waitress that, like, Captain America has a couple of conversations with during the Battle of New York. So I already knew what she looked like. And she does, I guess, look like Ellie as well from the games. But it was very fun seeing her getting to play Ellie's mom.

I don't I'm actually like kind of I don't know that I needed the explanation though it changes it's it's they both work the way that the game did it was much more of a just it turned it into a more of an abstraction it was just well she can do it and we don't know why like she is immune and we don't know why and they kind of just it was like well we're not going to explain why and at the time I kind of appreciated it only because video games tend so often in the opposite direction to like over-explain things you're like well the reason is that like the cells in this. It has this special antibody that if we synthesize the antibody,

you know, it's the midi-chlorians thing. Where having that completely absent was kind of cool. In this case, I guess explaining it is fine, but then it raises more questions that I don't need to be raising. Like, okay, so then I guess should we be like having pregnant women be getting bit by the zombies?

Like, is there an ethical case for that? Well, no, probably not. So then like it starts, like it gets even more kind of into the realm of... But isn't that kind of what the finale is designed to do? this exact set of conversations? Well, no, but the idea is you could create it. You could recreate it in the mythos of the show because of that, right? Right, like now that we know how it's made.

But it's also that, like, it begins raising particular questions, and I actually think that the ending works best on a, like, raw, emotional out-of-focus level. And when you get more focused about it, as I guess we can discuss. But you start to look at the particulars of what's going on. And then the more into the particulars, you're, are, the more it feels like, oh, well, this isn't actually the profound ethical conundrum that it appears to be because, you know, things like we don't know if it's going to work. Ellie was not asked for her consent explicitly.

She was just put under and they're going to kill her. Right. So like then you're looking at it and like Joel is just here in like totally wakes up out of nowhere and then is told that this is the situation. Well, yeah, like it becomes a lot more understandable even leaving aside the trolley problem ethical question. Because like Marlene and co have behaved unethically up to that point that Joel wakes up where they already haven't communicated with Joel, Ellie, or, you know, any other people about what's really the plan, which is also sad because you get the sense Ellie would have been on board

for it. And also if Joel had been told all along, he might have acted differently, but we don't know. Right. So it kind of boils down to a communication issue. But just, sorry, just to close out the thing with her mom. By introducing that as well, it just adds another one of those kinds of specific wrinkles where you're like, well, then also why do we have to kill her if maybe there's some other way that we could get more immune people and keep studying this or like, you know, we

don't even know how it was made. So it's like complicating that question actually doesn't necessarily... But I want to hear what Jason thinks. Yeah. So yeah, go ahead. Jason sorry. Well, first of all, it's interesting. The show spends a lot more time focusing on Fedra as fascist than the game

does. The game doesn't really do that much. And it's interesting that it does that and then presents the fireflies as the anti-fascist group, but also makes them dicks and terrorists and awful people who act in super unethical ways. It's very much like the show is like, hey, let's do what Bioshok Infinite did in 2013 and follow that right. No, but yeah, I think that the ending is like incredibly well done and still hits just as hard today. As it did back then, as is obvious by lots of people discussing it and debating it. And I don't actually think it's that interesting to debate, well, did Joel do the right thing so much as like trying to understand why he did what he did and why it makes so much sense.

And I think to your point, Maddie, I think the fact that they acted so unethically is interesting. I think the fact that they stripped Ellie of her agency and didn't give her any choice in the matter. And then Joel did the same is another kind of interesting theme here. But I think what is most, at least what resonates most to me and makes me empathize. the most with his decision to just become a mass murderer and kill everybody in a hospital is that, like, for the second time in his life, people are trying to take away his daughter without giving him a chance to say goodbye, without giving him any sort of closure or catharsis in the matter. And I think that is really what just kind of sets him off. And that is what's the most interesting to see is like, first his daughter is

taken away from him and like she just goes and he doesn't get to say anything. He doesn't get standing similarly. Well, but the boy thing that it's not zombies. It's also people in power are not listening to him. But it's not even, it's just like that he is able to, he is not able to like communicate with her in the final moments and like say what he wants to say. Say goodbye in any sort of way. And I think that like if the fireflies had handled it ethically, it said, look, here's what's

going to happen. Let's have a conversation about it. It might have been a very different outcome. Yeah. I think there's an aspect. of Peter Pascal's performance during that final massacre in which the show finally

just fully becomes a video game and he's like upgrading his weapons and reloading and he looks. Yeah, well that whole scene I mean that's straight out of the game like shot for shot too. Right, and he looks dead inside his eyes are just empty

and it's like really chilling like when he's just killing unarmed people and just sort of he's completely shut off he's in this other sort of you can imagine some sort of emotional fugue state. Yeah, I mean he's in like a PTSD dissociative state is how I would present it, yeah.

And it's how he presents it in his performance. I haven't seen whether he talks about that specifically, but it comes across very clearly. And he is making this decision that is tragic on so many levels. The ones that hit the hardest, for me at least, are the ones that go outside of the trolley car, the trolley car problem, the trolley problem of like, you know,

are you condemning the world, and into the specific tragedy of, like you said, Jason, removing Ellie's agency again and just and ruining their relationship in a way that well we'll get into the sequel in a second but like in a way that certainly plays out and that is clearly going to play out just through that final conversation that they have and while all those questions are interesting they're interesting on like an emotional level a philosophical level an ethical level like they're interesting on practical level all these different levels when it all comes down to is that final sequence and this is where I think Bella Ramsey

just crushes it. I mean, she was great throughout this whole show, but the final scene, Ellie has to do that. And it was remarkable in the game. It's the exact same in the show. It's shot for shot. I mean, pacing everything about that final conversation,

the way that he's like too friendly, the way he's openly talking about Sarah and comparing them. The story doesn't add up. Like, she's asking him questions, and he doesn't, he suddenly is like, oh, well, there were raiders. Like, she can tell he's lying. Oh, yeah, in the car, it's clear it was a lie.

But then when they're walking, and he's like being so friendly and open in a way he never was. And then just that final interaction, the way that she asks him, for real, tell me the truth, he straight up lies, she can tell, you can see it on her face, she decides to accept it, and then it just cuts to black. Like that is an amazing ending. Like it's an amazing ending for a TV show. It's an amazing ending for a game.

I kind of stand by the thing I felt when I first saw it at the game, that like for something to just end that way and then walk away, like quit the field and leave it, would have been really cool. even though, of course, I understand why they felt the need to explore the ramifications of all of that. It would have been kind of, it's neat that at least people who watch the show currently just get to live in the ambiguity of that moment for a while and just feel it. I'm envious of them. Well, I mean, I'm sure some of them will look up like Last of Us part too. I wonder what happens. So let's, all right, so we're going long.

I know there's like so much more to talk about, but let's talk some of it. Is there a second game? What second game? Let's talk a little bit about, since we have gone long, so we just have a few minutes here. But this will be spoilers after this for The Last Vest Part 2. So if you haven't played that game and you don't want to know what happens, this is all we're really going to talk about from here and out. But thanks for being a member and listening to the show.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about The Last of Us Part 2 and how this might translate. Because what I'm interested in is the same thing that was true of the TV show, which is that they could change things. They could streamline things. could, I would be surprised, for example. I think one thing that strikes me anyways when I play this game, which I will say, as much as when we talk about The Last of Us Part 2, usually, like, Jason, you will sometimes say, oh, well, all three of us don't really like that game.

I got to say, like, I really admire a lot of things about The Last of Us Part 2. I have very mixed and ambivalent feelings about it. Like, there are things I think are incredible. I think its narrative ambitions are remarkable. But when I go back and, of course, the game design is like out of control. But when I go back and I play it, I am struck by the darkness and by the feeling that like so many people spend so much time creating a story this bleak and violent and nihilistic in a lot of ways. And in the end, that just eventually kind of wears me down. What I would think that might happen with the show just because Bella Ramsey as an actress, her energy on screen, though being the same age as Ellie is supposed to be in The Last of Us Part 2, reads as younger, just.

has a different energy. I could see them making a version of The Last of Us Part 2, where a lot of the big plot developments happen, certainly Joel will have to die very early. She'll go on the same quest for revenge. But I could just see it playing differently because of the actor that they're working with. Like, I could see them kind of just making the story feel a little bit differently

just in terms of the sort of overall energy of it. Do other view see that at all? I mean, I have the same problem with the scene that I know Jason is thinking of, which is the extent of the closure that they give Ellie and Joel in the game, like, they've got to take some of it away because otherwise her motivations just don't make any sense. And I feel like the show has the opportunity to do that rewrite. And I really hope they do. There's some other kind of gentler rewrites. I would also hope that they did. But that's a big one. I feel like the fact that Ellie doesn't ever have the chance to come out to Joel,

like they show scenes in The Lasso's part two where he's assuming that she's dating Jesse who's Dina's boyfriend at the time and she clearly is like too shy to tell him that's a sort of hanging thread that in playing it I always assumed that would be one of the things that she's so upset about missing the opportunity to do

but no that's resolved he tells her he loves her and supports her like it's like there's so many things that it's like it's supposed to be a uniting of the themes that Jason was bringing up earlier in this episode where it's like he never really gets the chance to say goodbye to Sarah. Her life is cut off so tragically short and he doesn't want that to happen to Ellie and he wants her to be able to live a full long life that Sarah didn't get to have.

And like that's what he's trying to preserve. And like to then have Joel die having experienced what appears to be a full long life that's like pretty great in the last 10 years is like, okay, so why are we so mad then? Like it's so weird. And then while I'm still talking, let me just say I've always thought it was like ridiculously ludacrously corny that the surgeon who operated on Ellie and died also has a daughter who's like the same age as Ellie and she's also mad that her

dad died and that like I don't know that's just really goofy to me like speaking of coincidences like how many daughters are there going to be you know what I'm saying like so what they're going to do is did you I don't know if you caught this or saw this that Laura Bailey is one of the nurses in the

this is the actor who played wait what's her name of the daughter Abby is in that room. So maybe it's just going to be the nurse. She becomes like death nurse and goes under a bit. It's just silly. I don't know. I thought it was silly in the game. I was like, is this young woman going to turn out to be the daughter of the doctor? And then she is. And I just, it felt so neat, but like not in an interesting way. Yeah. And to, well, to really quickly explain the thing you're talking about, just because I think that's a really good point and a change they could make for people who don't remember that one of our biggest complaints.

I think all three of us had the same complaint structurally with the story is the fact that throughout the story, Ellie is presented as anguished over not having closure with Joel and having left furious with him after finding out what he did. And then it's revealed at the end in a final cutscene that actually they fully got closure, they talked it out, it was great, they were going to be great. And so none of her past actions don't make the same kind of sense they seem to

throughout the story. Just by removing that, you suddenly like get a stronger story. Yeah, like make that a dream. make that a wish she had. Sorry, so just to explain that to people who don't remember what happened specifically. Go ahead, Jason. No, that's what I was going to say. Oh, okay.

You don't have any other thoughts. Did I say them all for you? Because I know we agree on this. Yeah, that's, well, that's 100% what I agree with is that the whole, that final section just kind of like makes the whole game just seem like a waste of time. It's also very long. I mean, they have the chance of this HBO show to cut down a lot of. they've said they're going to do two seasons.

No, but no. Well, I mean, cut down a lot of the like endless gunning, like gunning down camps. Or they can have a whole episode where Abby is in the basement of a hospital and she fights a gigantic rat king. Right. Yeah. Well, I'm sure there will be a rat king. No, but I mean, one of the reasons it feels so long is because there's so many sequences of just like sneaking around and shooting people. And especially towards the end of the last of us part to you where you're...

I mean, there's two separate moments. where you, Ellie and Abby confront each other and you think they're going to slug it out to the death. Like that happens, but then the game doesn't end and there's 10 more hours. And they go to San Diego to do it again. It ends with that. And it's like, why, what, don't. Oh, Last of Us part two. Why did you hurt us?

Why'd you do it? Yeah, it's rough. It's a rough hang. But they can fix it. Yeah, I don't know. The performance of Bella Ramsey, I think, can carry. I mean, her energy, yes, but also just like, yeah, her screen presence and just cap, just captivating watching her.

So I think she can she could potentially carry it even if it makes repeat some of the mistakes of the game. And I also feel like there's opportunities in flashbacks for like Pedro Pascal to be more withholding and like to make it more clear that like their relationship wasn't good when he dies and to feel like there was something unresolved between them and that can now never be fixed. And I don't know. I mean, I actually always thought Abby's storyline was the stronger of the two.

so I don't really have many notes there. I feel like that's just a matter of them casting somebody pretty good as Abby. And I guess also Lev, I think is the name of the boy that she hangs with. So yeah, I'm curious who they're going to cast and how it's going to go. But I'm also not excited to watch it. Yeah, I am. I fully am. I mean, I'm curious. So that'll get the better of me.

Curious. Man, people should listen because we can't go to Ventrological, but people should listen to our Beans, on The Last of Us Part 2 if they want to hear our thoughts on that game and potentially extrapolate what season 2 and 3 and so on could look like in the show. But one thing that I hope they find a way to address in a smart way is the question we all had of like, hey, this is kind of this major territory fight over the city between these two big factions and it's just like this endless cycle of

bloodshed, but like there's no reason either of them have to stay in Seattle because there's entire country full of abandoned cities and places and like you can set up shop anywhere. And the last of us, there aren't that many of us is what I keep hearing. No. No. There's cars. Not too many of them. It's supposed to be this big allegory for Israel and Palestine, but like it doesn't

work because that is very specifically a place where there's nowhere else to go. And there's all this kind of ancestral ties to this to this piece of land. Whereas in Seattle, it's just like, oh yeah, we could just go down the street. We could go to Portland and just hang out there. We could just go somewhere else. Not to just totally rehash our complaints about the Lasvas part, too, but it will be interesting to see how they handle that. Because, again, something that they could maybe make some changes to.

Yeah, I just hope it's something, because they could address it. Both of them are going to be really into coffee, and they're just going to be like, Seattle's best, Starbucks. These are the factions. It's like the Starbucks, like, motherload of coffee beans that are already roasted, and they're like, look, we're just going to sit on this. We got to spice with these. We need them.

every morning. All right. Well, this is a lot of fun to talk about. We just, we live in a world that is gaga for the last of us.

Somehow that happened and here we are. It's pretty wild. It is pretty wild. Video games. They're not just for kids. So anyways, this was a lot of fun.

Thank you all so much for being maximum fun members. Happy Max Fun Drive if you're listening to this the day that it came out. We really appreciate you joining up. If you're a brand new member, enjoy the archives.

And thank you so much. There's a lot of, of Beanscast back there. including one on The Last of Us part, too, as we alluded to. But yeah, that's it. We've gone long. Thanks so much for listening. And Maddie and Jason, and we'll see you both next time. See ya.

Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network,

and if you're listening to this bonus episode, it means you're already a member, so thank you. We really appreciate your support. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod, send email the triple click at maximum fun.org, and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned, audience-supported.