INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
the episode first if you want to go in fresh.Andrew: And there we are! Our first post-Joel episode of The Last Of Us
several currently airing TV shows and I find myself missing it a LOT.Kyle: Yeah, I've said here in the past how the core Ellie/Joel
relationship was key to my enjoyment of the first game
Its absence gently soured me on the second game and is starting to do the same for the second season.But I was also literally mouth agape
during the hospital scene, when Ellie said she had an opportunity to talk to Joel on the porch before he died but passed on it
Anyone who's played the game knows how central "the porch scene" is to recontextualizing the relationship between these two characters
before they are parted forever
I was hoping that we'd still get that scene in a surprise flashback later in the series, but now that seems unlikely at best.Andrew: (I am
not watching that video by the way, I need my brain to stay pure!!)Kyle: I suppose Ellie could have just been lying to a nosy therapist, but
if she wasn't, and their final conversation has just been retconned out of existence..
I don't know what they were thinking
Then again, if it's just a head fake to psych out game players, well, bravo, I guess.
Tommy is torn between love for his brother and
the welfare of the community he's helped to build.
Credit:
HBO
Andrew:
Ellie is a known liar, which we know even before Catherine O'Hara, world's least ethical therapist, declares her to be a lying liar who lies
If the scene is as pivotal as you say, then I'm sure we'll get it at a time that's engineered to maximize the gut punch
The re-strung guitar ended up back in her room in the end, didn't it?We're able to skip ahead to Ellie being semi-functional again because
of a three-month time jump, showing us a Jackson community that is rebuilding after a period of mourning and cleaning that it didn't want
I am struck by the fact that, despite everything, Jackson gets to be the one "normal" community with baseball and sandwiches and boring
town-hall meetings, where every other group of more than 10 people is either a body-mutilation cult or a paramilitary band of
psychopaths.Kyle: We also saw the version of Boston that Ellie grew up in last season, which was kind of halfway between "paramilitary
psychopaths" and "normal community." But I do think the Last of Us fiction in general has a pretty grim view of how humans would react to
precarity, which makes Jackson's uniqueness all the more important as a setting.We also get our first glimpse into Jackson politics in this
episode, which ends up going in quite a different direction to get to the same "Ellie and Dina go out for revenge." While I appreciate the
town hall meeting as a decent narrative explanation of why two young girls are making this revenge trek alone, I feel like the whole
sequence was a little too drawn out with sanctimonious philosophizing from all sides.
Even after an apocalypse, city council meetings
are a constant.
Credit:
HBO
Andrew: Yeah the town hall scene was an odd
Parts of it could have been lifted from Parks & Recreation, particularly the bit where the one guy comes to the "Are We Voting To Pursue
Bloody Vengeance" meeting to talk about the finer points of agriculture (he does not have a strong feeling about the bloody vengeance).Part
of it almost felt too much like "our" politics, when Seth (the guy who harassed Ellie and Dina at the dance months ago, but attempted a
partially forced apology afterward) stands up and calls everyone snowflakes for even thinking about skipping out on the bloody vengeance
(not literally, but that's the clear subtext)
He even invokes a shadowy, non-specific "they" who would be "laughing at us" if the community doesn't track down and execute Abby
I'll tell you what, that he is one of two people backing Ellie's attempted vengeance tour doesn't make me feel better about what she's
deciding to do here.Kyle: I will say the line "Nobody votes for angry" rang a bit hollow given our current political moment
Even if their national politics calcified in 2003, I think that doesn't really work...Andrew: SO MANY people vote for angry! Or, at least,
It's an extremely reliable indicator!Kyle: Except in Jackson, the last bastion of unemotional, mercy-forward community on either side of the
apocalypse!Andrew: So rather than trying the angry route, Ellie reads a prepared statement where she (again lying, by the way!) claims that
her vengeance tour isn't about vengeance at all and attempts to appeal to the council's better angels, citing the bonds of community that
When this (predictably) fails, Ellie (even more predictably) abandons the community at almost the first possible opportunity, setting out on
a single horse with Dina in tow to exact vengeance alone.Kyle: One thing I did appreciate in this episode is how many times they highlighted
that Ellie was ready to just "GO GO GO REVENGE NOW NO WAITING" and even the people that agreed with her were like "Hold up, you at least
need to stock up on some better supplies, girl!"Andrew: Maybe you can sense it leaking through, and it's not intentional, but I am already
finding Ellie's impulsive snark a bit less endearing without Joel's taciturn competence there to leaven it.Kyle: I can, and I can empathize
I think Tommy is right, too, in saying that Joel would have moved heaven and earth to save a loved one but not necessarily to get revenge
for one that's already dead
He was pragmatic enough to know when discretion was the better part of valor, and protecting him and his was always the priority
And I'm not sure the town hall "deterrence" arguments would have swayed him.Look on the bright side, though, at least we get a lost of long,
languorous scenes of lush scenery on the ride to Seattle (a scene-setting trait the show borrows well from the game)
I wonder what you made of Dina asking Ellie for a critical assessment of her kissing abilities, especially the extremely
doth-protest-too-much "You're gay, I'm not" bit...
Ellie and Dina conspire.
Credit:
HBO
Andrew: "You're gay, I'm not, and those are the only two options! No, I will not be answering any follow-up
questions!"I am not inclined to get too on Dina's case about that, though
Sexuality is complicated, as is changing or challenging your own perception of yourself
The show doesn't go into it, but I've also got to imagine that in any post-apocalyptic scenario, the vital work of Propagating the Species
creates even more societal pressure to participate in heteronormative relationships than already exists in our world.Ellie, who is only
truly happy when she is pissing someone off, is probably more comfortable being "out" in this context than Dina would be.Kyle: As the
episode ends we get a bit of set up for a couple of oncoming threats (or is it just one?): an unseen cult-killing force and a phalanx of
heavily armed WLF soldiers that Ellie and Dina seem totally unprepared for
In a video game I'd have no problem believing my super-soldier protagonist character could shoot and kill as many bad guys as the game wants
In a more "grounded" TV show, the odds do not seem great.Andrew: One thread I'm curious to see the show pull at: Ellie attempts to blame
"Abby and her crew," people who left Jackson months ago, for a mass slaying of cult members that had clearly happened just hours ago, an
attempt to build Abby up into a monster in her head so it's easier to kill her when the time comes
We'll see how well it works!But yeah, Ellie and Dina and their one horse are not ready for the "Terror Lake Salutes Hannibal Crossing The
Alps"-length military parade that the WLF is apparently prepared to throw at them.Kyle: They're pretty close to Seattle when they find the
dead cultists, so from their perspective I'm not sure blaming Abby and crew for the mass murder is that ridiculous
