THE LAST OF US (HBO TV) - spoilers allowed for aired episodes (game spoilers masked)

[Jay 37,368]

1 hour ago, Goldfinger said:

If you think about it, the Winter part of the game is a lot of action and going to place to place with very little of the "story".  I think based on the episodes left, it should work out alright and not feel rushed. I think there is some stuff that will be sacrificed, but at this point I'm willing to trust them based on how well this transition from game to show has gone. another episode or two would probably be ideal but sometimes less is more.

 

 

Something like this?

 

Spoiler

Show	Game
Episode 1A (orig 1)	Chapter 1 - Hometown
Episode 1B (orig 2)	Chapter 2 - Quarantine Zone
Episode 2 (orig 3)	Chapter 3 - The Outskirts
Episode 3 (orig 4)	Chapter 4 - Bill's Town
Episode 4 (orig 5)	Chapter 5 - Pittsburgh
Episode 5 (orig 6)	Chapter 5 - Pittsburgh & Chapter 6 - The Suburb
Episode 6 (orig 7)	Chapter 7 - Tommy's Dam & Chapter 8 - The University
Episode 7 (orig 8)	Chapter 9 - Lakeside Resort & Left Behind
Episode 8 (orig 9)	Chapter 10 - Bus Depot
Episode 9 (orig 10)	Chapter 11 - The Firefly Lab & Chapter 12 - Jackson

 

[Goldfinger 59]

That seems likely, though I wouldn't be surprised if Chapter 8 from the game is either incredibly shortened or altogether removed to make things flow better.

[Jay 37,368]

Man,

 

Spoiler

I'd be bummed if we don't get to see that university on screen!  Plus, that's where Joel gets hurt causing Ellie to take care of him, which is presumably when the Left Behind story will be told.  So we have to see him get hurt somewhere after they leave Tommy's

 

[thestat 348]

Man, there is nothing more beautiful than Episode 3. A Malickian love poem that resonates. The performances from Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman. Sensitive, tactile, beautiful. I adore this show.

[MaxMovieMan 272]

I’m going to be honest I’ve only heard one new cue from Gustavo in the series so far which is the “All Gone” remix for Sarah’s death. Every other cue by him has been from the games which I’m not complaining about I’m glad they’re using the same music but I had thought Gustavo would record a lot more new music for the show than has been shown so far.

 

Are there any new cues I’m missing?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

It’s all reused from the games. He seems to just get an obligatory credit for creating the sound of the universe. I highly doubt he really did anything for Part II either.  

[MaxMovieMan 272]

22 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

It’s all reused from the games. He seems to just get an obligatory credit for creating the sound of the universe. I highly doubt he really did anything for Part II either.  

Well, an actual all brand new album for Part II came out when the game was released. That album was amazing and had a ton of new Gustavo cues. In the game itself all the music was new as well. Much different than the show so far.

 

Also Sony confirmed that an actual album for the show is coming soon as well so there has to be at least some new cues from Gustavo like the “All Gone” remix.

[Goldfinger 59]

23 hours ago, Jay said:

Man,

 

  Hide contents

I'd be bummed if we don't get to see that university on screen!  Plus, that's where Joel gets hurt causing Ellie to take care of him, which is presumably when the Left Behind story will be told.  So we have to see him get hurt somewhere after they leave Tommy's

 

Spoiler

I really like the university stuff as well, but I feel that budget wise it might be hard to pull off. I can see Ellie telling her story to Joel after he is potentially hurt combined with the Tommy stuff and losing the university altogether.  I hope its not the case, but if they were cutting something it would be the easiest and most cost effective thing.

 

[Jay 37,368]

Well HBO has revealed the episode titles and runtimes for the whole season now.

 

There's no spoilers, but I know some people don't like to know titles or lengths before watching the episodes.

 

Spoiler

Episode 1 - 81 minutes - When You're Lost in the Darkness

Episode 2 - 53 minutes - Infected

Episode 3 - 75 minutes - Long, Long Time

Episode 4 - 45 minutes - Please Hold to My Hand

Episode 5 - 60 minutes - Endure and Survive

Episode 6 - 60 minutes - Kin

Episode 7 - 56 minutes - Left Behind

Episode 8 - 51 minutes - When We Are In Need

Episode 9 - 43 minutes - Look For The Light

[Jay 37,368]

Some more random thoughts

 

I loved the scene where Ellie finds Bill's nudie mag!  If I'm not mistaken it was almost exactly like this in the game.  But it was really well acted in the show, very funny!

 

I liked the touch that Joel killed the kid that Ellie shot with a knife.  Why waste a bullet / why create another loud noise?  I hope we get some brick throwing action soon

 

I like that after that incident, it's clear what Ellie wants / needs is a hug, and Joel either doesn't understand that, or can't bring himself to give it.  Oddly, the fact he apologizes for her having to use the gun, then teacher her how to use it better, and lets her keep it, is like this relationship's messed up version of a hug, lol.  I'm sure this isn't what one part of Ellie really wanted, but its like a substitution that got her through most of what a real hug would have.  Or something like that.

 

I also liked their conversation that kind of explained Joel's drive: he feels like he has to be there for others - particularly (exclusively?) his family.  Getting Tommy out of jail, tagging along with him to Boston, and now going to find him in Wisconsin.  And I thought it was interesting that he told Ellie was just "cargo", but he's with her out of obligation to Tess, who was "like family".  Joel's an interesting dude.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

3 hours ago, Jay said:

Well HBO has revealed the episode titles and runtimes for the whole season now.

 

There's no spoilers, but I know some people don't like to know titles or lengths before watching the episodes.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Episode 1 - 81 minutes - When You're Lost in the Darkness

Episode 2 - 53 minutes - Infected

Episode 3 - 75 minutes - Long, Long Time

Episode 4 - 45 minutes - Please Hold to My Hand

Episode 5 - 60 minutes - Endure and Survive

Episode 6 - 60 minutes - Kin

Episode 7 - 56 minutes - Left Behind

Episode 8 - 51 minutes - When We Are In Need

Episode 9 - 43 minutes - Look For The Light

Surprised at these details!

[Jay 37,368]

I was most surprised by

 

Spoiler

how short the final episode is!

 

[MaxMovieMan 272]

Spoiler

The runtimes make me even more nervous. I’m already worried about pacing.

 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

5 hours ago, Jay said:

I was most surprised by

 

  Hide contents

how short the final episode is!

 

Spoiler

Same here. Really crazy that it’s the shortest episode. I would have been very happy with a Stranger Things approach here, with 70-80 min episodes being the norm. 

 

[Jay 37,368]

Another tidbit I liked in the latest ep is the reveal that Joel doesn't hear well out of one ear.  When he lies down to go to bed, he has his good ear facing upward.  But when he wakes up at the end of the episode, he had rolled over to the other side, explaining why he didn't hear the intruders enter

[Jay 37,368]

Just a reminder that Episode 5 drops on HBO Max 11 1/2 hours from now, so if you're waiting to watch on Sunday, don't enter the thread early!

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

Episode 5 was insane. It was sooo incredibly good!!!

 

Both Henry & Sam were incredible characters. I loved that Sam was deaf. It made everything with him more impactful I thought.

And the way Henry and Kathleen's history is connected in a very strong way. Henry sacrificed her brother for his brother. It's really about how many people will you sacrifice for the people you love. I loved it.

 

Then the whole sequence in the town at the edge of Kansas. What the fuck!! This was incredible. So many things happened at once and the moment that that car was being pulled into the ground I knew something was about to go down. But I never thought it would go down the way it did. This was pure and utter chaos on every level and I loved it.

The way the infected just swarmed out of the ground in one giant wave was so scary and you just knew that no one would survive that. The child clicker freaked me out the most, the way she moved in the car and then how she took out Kathleen, especially after the speech Kathleen gave earlier about kids dying (god I hated her) That was brutal, poetic and I thought it was great.

 

But could someone tell me what that giant thing was? I'm not a player of the game so I'm not sure how those things come to be.

 

Then the scenes in the motel at the end of the episode I felt were again a very tragic way of showing how Bill & Frank are probably the only people who have a happy ending in this story. It was so heartbreaking to see Sam ask Ellie if you're still you when you get infected. It was a great way of revealing he was.

I actually had hope of it somehow working with Ellie's blood like that, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

Henry's reaction after shooting Sam point blank in the face was incredible. He was so shocked by what he did. And to be honest, however sad it was, I don't think Henry could've lived on without Sam. He couldn't have endured. So it made sense for him to shoot himself.

 

This series surprises me every episode with how good it is. It's just phenomenal storytelling.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

31 minutes ago, JNHFan2000 said:

But could someone tell me what that giant thing was? I'm not a player of the game so I'm not sure how those things come to be.

 

They're called bloaters. They're the final stage of cordyceps infection, after clicker. If the host survives long enough it becomes completely covered in hardened fungal plates making them very difficult to kill. In the game they also have sacs on their bodies that they rip off and throw at people which explode with spores on impact. But as the spores aren't in the show I guess they don't do that here.

 

Totally agree on the child clicker. It was nightmarish - reminded me a lot of the zombie children in GOT's "Hardhome". The way it contorted over the car seats was chilling.

 

Good episode. In many ways it felt more like a part 2 to last week's episode, meaning that it was mostly payoff. For the most part I was satisfied with it, and it had some great game adaptations like the abandoned colony in the tunnels, and Joel with the sniper rifle out the window. I wonder if they filmed and cut out the discovery of the childrens' bodies in the tunnels because it's just so damned grim, or perhaps they wanted to imply a worse fate for the kids by showing us the child clicker. 

 

The final few scenes with Sam were truly heartbreaking. I appreciated the bait-and-switch with Ellie's "medicine blood", for a second I thought they really were going to go there with that (which I would've hated), but it was subverted immediately.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

12 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

They're called bloaters. They're the final stage of cordyceps infection, after clicker.

Not true if you’ve played Part II

I didn’t really like the Kathleen character, and thought her arc and demise was cliché. The bloater had some rough animations. Wonder if that’s the only one we’ll see. 

[MaxMovieMan 272]

I was very satisfied with this episode. Everything from Henry and Sam, the infected, Kansas City itself, the creepy at abandoned child center. Everything was great! They perfectly adapted the most important parts of the story so I’m happy (Especially the way Henry and Sam died. I only wish they added the music from the game here). Seeing the guy who played Tommy have the bloater death animation happen to him was icing on the cake.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

1 hour ago, Koray Savas said:

Not true if you’ve played Part II

 

 

Spoiler

Haha yes fair point. Though I would argue that the rat king isn’t so much a natural progression of the infection, more a victim of circumstance lol. God I can’t wait to see that in the show.

Unless you mean the shamblers, but they’re an alternate last stage anyways. 

 

I was also a little underwhelmed with Kathleen’s arc. I was optimistic at first, hoping they’d lean more into the idea of her being an unlikely leader, but she was just the de facto because her nicer brother was killed. Seemed like a waste of Lynskey’s particular acting style. A rare miss for this show so far.

 

I was also a little disappointed that the sink-hole just turned out to be… a hoard of infected plus a bloater. I was hoping for some kind of mega-tendril action or something, which is admittedly a little silly, but still.

[MaxMovieMan 272]

46 minutes ago, Docteur Qui said:

I was also a little underwhelmed with Kathleen’s arc. I was optimistic at first, hoping they’d lean more into the idea of her being an unlikely leader, but she was just the de facto because her nicer brother was killed. Seemed like a waste of Lynskey’s particular acting style. A rare miss for this show so far.

I thought the same thing after episode 4 but after the latest episode I realized that her character’s arc is adding on to one of the main themes of the show. Where Bill and Frank showed love can endure Kathleen shows that revenge is a double-edged sword (Which is the main theme of Part II). Kathleen’s revenge allowed her to overthrow FEDRA but also ended up leading to her own downfall and supposedly the destruction of what’s left of Kansas City.

[thestat 348]

It's great how this show bounces on the same beats that The Walking Dead (TWD) used to do, but then totally defers from them into much more character introspective moments. Yes, Kathleen's death was a bit TWD but there is just much more sadness in all of these moments in TLOU (in five episodes vs 11 seasons of TWD) that resonates. The soap opera dynamics that plagued a lot of TWD are just completely absent - which is fantastic

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

 

20 hours ago, MaxMovieMan said:

I thought the same thing after episode 4 but after the latest episode I realized that her character’s arc is adding on to one of the main themes of the show. Where Bill and Frank showed love can endure Kathleen shows that revenge is a double-edged sword (Which is the main theme of Part II). Kathleen’s revenge allowed her to overthrow FEDRA but also ended up leading to her own downfall and supposedly the destruction of what’s left of Kansas City.

 

I got what they were going for, and the arc itself worked fine. It just felt like a pretty stock-standard story for a series that is known for taking much bigger swings. One thing that did really work for me was seeing Kathleen surrounded by fire, chaos, soldiers and infected; her world literally crumbling around her as a direct result of her obsessive revenge. And even through all that all she wants is to kill Henry. That was a pretty great visual summary of what the episode was going for. But for me it would've landed better if her earlier scene in the childhood bedroom was more compelling.

 

I also want to mention how fantastic the young actor playing Sam was. I was really impressed by his performance, and the dynamic he had with Henry and Ellie was wonderful. It made their eventual fate truly heartbreaking, something that I didn't quite feel from the game even though it played out pretty much the same. The decision to age Sam down and make him a deaf person probably contributed to that.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

On 11/02/2023 at 11:08 AM, Docteur Qui said:

They're called bloaters.

 

You should have that checked.

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

Episode 6 was another stellar episode.

This really was a "character development" episode. And a really good one at that.

 

It waa great to see Tommy. But what I thought was the most interesting was that Joel came all this way to save him, but now that he saw Tommy, he knew that that wasn't necessary anymore. The way Pascal acted this was great. You could see some kind of shift in him, like he felt his goal was taken away from him.

 

But this does lead to a beautiful scene between him and Tommy later. Where Joel lets his guard down and for the first time this series actually tells how he feels. It was beautiful and Pascal's acting was incredible.

 

I also thought the scene after that with Ellie about loss was incredible. It really put things in perspective for Joel and I love that he chose to stay with her.

 

But that ending!!! I'm not a gamer so I don't know what will happen, but I really hope that what I think might happen won't. I would be devestated. Although I have to say. It's a hell of a way to end an episode.

[Jay 37,368]

Woops!  I haven't seen episode 6 yet, but never wrote about 5, so here we go

 

 

The Last of Us 1x05 Endure and Survive

 

Immediately after this episode, I had roughly the same opinion as I did on episode 3, which was that I liked it a lot, but couldn't help but think about cool stuff from the game that wasn't included.  However as the days went on after watching, those thoughts subsided and I was mostly left just thinking about how good it was.

 

It isn't perfect though; The Kathleen subplot was pretty undercooked and probably the least successful thing the show has done yet, I'd say.

 

What worked great was everything Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam and of course the amazing action sequence at the climax.

 

Henry and Sam's storyline was so different from the game, but good in its own right!  Henry doing whatever it takes to help Sam, including turning Kathleen's brother into Fedra to get Sam's medicine was a nice parellel to Joel doing whatever is needed for his brother Tommy... not to mention doing whatever for Ellie some day, perhaps?  Rewinding 10 days and seeing how they got from their hiding spot to Joel and Ellie's sleeping spot was nice and man, these two actors were really good!  Lamar Johnson was pretty good at taking Henry through a variety of emotions in one single episode; I loved his cockiness that everything would be fine underground, his loving parental nature towards Henry, and the way he talked up Joel to get them to help.  He's a smart kid.  Keivonn Woodard was also really good as Sam!  I can see him being cast in some network show before too long now.

 

The best character moments in the episode was the kids together.  Seeing Ellie actually laughing and having a good time with someone closer to her age was great to see, and a nice reminder that at 14 you're really both a child and an adult in different ways at different times.

 

When they get through the tunnels and get to the neighborhood, I was like: OH NO!  This was the HARDEST level in the entire game!  I died so many times trying to get Joel down the street up into the sniper's nest.  I guess it makes sense that the show simplified it by having the sniper be alone, instead of tons of hunters all over the place.  Then when he has to provide cover fire to help the kids, so cool!  The whole action sequence was pretty awesome, great imagery with the most amount of runners seen yet emerging from the hole, and of course the show's first bloater, standing there with a wall of fire behind it, ripping Perry's head off like a Mortal Kombat game.  And then they managed to one-up the game again with that creepy child gymnastic clicker!  Yikes that was freaky!  Such a cool scene.

 

I figured the episode would be ending shortly after that and wasn't expecting the sad ending to Sam and Henry's story to be included in the same episode.  I loved that Ellie naively tried to use her blood to save Sam, and then even though she promised to stay awake she fell asleep (hey she's a kid - the same thing happened in the pickup truck).  I liked that there's no way for her to know right away if Sam turned or not when he's facing the window (BTW: the fungus in the show seems to really crave sunlight, like the runners seen on the streets of Boston reacting to the sun) since he's deaf.  I was kind of surprised how quickly Henry shot him!  And then himself!  It all happened so far, so little thinking and processing done.

 

Nice moment that at the end as Joel is burying another kid (surely the emotions are somewhere in between having to bury Sara, and the endless kid corpses he buried in the Boston QZ), it is now Ellie who is trying to get them to move along.  I wonde if she is thinking about getting to a place where her blood can be used to help people so no one has to go through what Sam and Henry just did.

[MaxMovieMan 272]

“The Path” being played towards the end gave me goose-bumps.

[Jay 37,368]

I honestly haven't a clue about anything this show does with its underscore.  It's all in one ear and out the other

 

Nice use of existing pop songs though  

[Knight of Ren 789]

2 hours ago, MaxMovieMan said:

“The Path” being played towards the end gave me goose-bumps.

Agree! Such a nice theme, and it fits beautifully with the travelling montage. I hope they get to use that theme some where else in the remaining episodes.

 

But what I'm wondering is what the soundtrack album will contain, since so far I think we've only heard variations or even direct quotations of tracks from both games.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I loved the sly shot of Dina in this episode, and getting to see Jackson proper. I wonder how soon they’ll start production on Part II.
 

I’m starting to think there won’t be anymore infected encounters in the show considering they were comfortable enough with a 3-month time jump. 

[Bayesian 1,363]

I'm caught up to Ep. 5 now. Until I started hearing about this series last fall, I'd never even realized there was a video game by this name, so I'm watching this show with zero preconceptions.

 

First, this is prestige TV at its near-finest. Terrific character development, amazing production values, and some truly gripping human story to keep your attention. I very much enjoyed watching the man-on-the-ground POV of the world starting to fall apart in Austin because I'm endlessly fascinated by how screen/teleplay writers choose to portray the end of the world. It's done very believably in TLoU. (It's also terrifying to think how quickly everything will go to shit in a shock-event situation like this. I kinda get the prepper mindset.)

 

However, precisely because the producers go to such lengths to portray the decay of civilization as we know it as accurately as possible, I can't help but notice the way some elements stretch credulity. I agree with Jay the total unlikelihood that Bill & Frank's town would have gone undisturbed for 20 years, save one raider attempt. Bill somehow getting the regional gas utility infrastructure up and running so he could get his gas stove going was a little farfetched, to say the least. And the town itself, after 20 years, needed to show a lot more woody vegetation, roaming wildlife, rotting wood structures, eroding pavement, etc. Flags would have turned to bleached gray shreds. And gasoline would simply no longer exist in a usable form (Joel siphoning gas out of a car in that one episode was LOL-ridiculous). But I tend to notice this problem in all movies and TV: when something is supposed to look like it was undisturbed for a decade, the set decorators make it look instead like it was undisturbed for a year or two at best.

 

But here I am nitpicking. The truth is that these things are completely forgivable in the face of such good storytelling. The way the writers play with our sympathies against the KC resistance and then for the resistance was really well done. And no matter how implausible it would have been in real life, Bill & Frank's storyline -- and the semblance of the old way of life they built under such bleak circumstances -- was beautiful.

[Jay 37,368]

The Last Of Us 1x06 Kin

 

That opening cabin scene was so unexpected, because there's nothing like it in the game.  I like those two actors, they were fun.  The small ways that Joel and Ellie's relationship seems to grow a bit off screen between episodes has been fun, it was nice to start with a slightly different dynamic already in place here, especially since it strengthens even more by the end of the episode

 

Another new change from the game was Joel's panic attacks.  I'm not sure if I like this addition, because his fears are already explained through dialogue later in the episode, and Pascal's acting already gets across everything Joel is going through without this crutch.  So yea, not needed at all, I would say

 

I liked the warning about the river of death; Since the whole cabin scene was new, I really had no idea what it was referring to or what they'd find when they got there.  I like that they realized too late it was actually a different river, and then it was nice that the threat was just Tommy's town.

 

The town was pretty nicely realized, I think!  Felt more like the opening scenes of game 2 than I remember the town looking like in game 1, but that's fine.  I thought it was connected to the dam too, since the game has that huge action sequence where you have to defend it they wisely didn't include in the show.

 

So many nice little moments thoughout their time in town.  Joel thinking he sees Sarah - and Sarah being a mother of her own at that; Ellie getting a Diva Cup (did they exist yet in 2003?), community movie watching (I didn't recognize the movie, though).  Ellie getting a bit of motherly love (and a haircut) from Maria... and her leaning about Sarah.  I guess I hadn't thought about the fact that Joel probably never told her about that.

 

I kept expecting the time spent in down to climax with the attack from the game, and was surprised we moved right into the whole University sequence within the same episode - also heavily truncated.  It makes sense to skip past having to sneak through the dorms avoiding infected, and being chase around the lab inside, etc.  Joel getting stabbed is about the same as him getting rebar through the leg, I suppose!

 

Interesting that they ended up outside an abandoned train to end the episode.  Looking forward to what happens next!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

The rebar punctured the same spot where he got stabbed in the show. I understand the change, because

Spoiler

there’s absolutely no way he would have survived his injuries in the game.

 

Now that we’re back with Tommy and Jackson, the change to make Joel’s motivation to go out west to “save Tommy” makes even less sense to me.

 

HBO Joel is a much nicer person than Game Joel, and I think that kinda betrays his character a bit. I’m confident both endings will be the same beat-for-beat, but ultimately the show isn’t as strong as the game, for me. 

[Jay 37,368]

On 11/02/2023 at 4:48 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

And the way Henry and Kathleen's history is connected in a very strong way. Henry sacrificed her brother for his brother. It's really about how many people will you sacrifice for the people you love. I loved it.

 

Yea it's a good theme and good juxtaposition of two different sets of siblings making similar and different choices, but it's starting to get a bit overdone that every couple in the show (spouses/partners, parent/child, sibling) all has some on-the-nose parallel to other ones

 

 

On 11/02/2023 at 4:48 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

The way the infected just swarmed out of the ground in one giant wave was so scary and you just knew that no one would survive that. The child clicker freaked me out the most, the way she moved in the car and then how she took out Kathleen, especially after the speech Kathleen gave earlier about kids dying (god I hated her) That was brutal, poetic and I thought it was great.

 

The child clicker was the best part I love some new ideas they have for the show that us game-players can't see coming and are good surprises

 

On 11/02/2023 at 4:48 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

But could someone tell me what that giant thing was? I'm not a player of the game so I'm not sure how those things come to be.

 

It's called a bloater and it's basically just if a really, big, really strong person turns into a clicker, as years go on and the infection really spreads and takes over their body, the fungus forms a hard shell (so you can't just unload your weapon into them in the game like you can with clickers and runners).  I thought they were blind too like clickers but it seemed like the one in the show could tell what was going on so idk

 

On 11/02/2023 at 4:48 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

Then the scenes in the motel at the end of the episode I felt were again a very tragic way of showing how Bill & Frank are probably the only people who have a happy ending in this story. It was so heartbreaking to see Sam ask Ellie if you're still you when you get infected. It was a great way of revealing he was.

 

Yea!

 

On 11/02/2023 at 4:48 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

This series surprises me every episode with how good it is. It's just phenomenal storytelling.

 

The storytelling in this show is really good, especially compared to most shows out there in the world.  But man, if you like this, you'll love the storytelling in the game.  If you're not a gamer, you can probably play it on the Easy difficulty setting and not have that rough of a time with a gameplay, and get a lot out of all the story parts

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

2 minutes ago, Jay said:

Yeah!

 

Fixed!

[Jay 37,368]

On 11/02/2023 at 5:08 AM, Docteur Qui said:

I appreciated the bait-and-switch with Ellie's "medicine blood", for a second I thought they really were going to go there with that (which I would've hated), but it was subverted immediately.

 

Wait, you've played the game and thought that 

 

Spoiler

her blood actually could save people?

 

[Jay 37,368]

On 11/02/2023 at 6:00 PM, Koray Savas said:

I didn’t really like the Kathleen character, and thought her arc and demise was cliché.

 

Yea........

 

I love Melanie Lynskie, and I was on board with the idea of inventing a character to personify the hunters.  And the way her thirst for revenge was (eventually) explained by the actions Henry took that explain his whole story is fine.  But somehow the overall effect is less than the sum of its parts.

 

I think it was partly due to the way they told her story across the two episodes, which was too clever for its own good and didn't work for me.  You have her introduction where she's interrogating some guy who was just trying to help some kids, and she and kills him, so you instantly hate her.  You learn nothing more about her in that episode so you spend a week hating her.  The next episode has another scene where she interrogates a room full of people and has them all killed, so you still hate her.  Then you get this scene in her childhood bedroom where she attempts to explain to Perry her reasons for doing what she does, after we already learned about her brother from the Henry/Joel scene.  But by now I was so out off by her whole character, I found myself actually tuning out of the show for the first time in its entire run during this scene.  The insight into her character comes too little, too late, because then her next scene is the start of the episode climax where she dies.

 

 

I think what would have worked better would be if the first Kansas City episode stayed with Joel and Ellie, and never cut away to Kathleen and the other hunters.  Instead of ending with Henry and Sam finding them, have the episode continue on all through their time in the underground tunnels.  Have a bit of suspense to end the episode where they think they've run into trouble in the tunnels, only to open a door and find like one basically dead infected crawling around, but also all the bodies of the community like you find in the game.  This should give more time for more Ellie/Sam time spent together too, especially since you can pick up the next episode with the idea that some more bonding took place off screen between episodes.

Then have the second Kansas City episode start 10 days ago like it does now, but this time instead of only showing Sam and Henry until they meet Joel and Ellie, start swapping back and forth between Henry/Sam and Kathleen the whole time, so you learn the beats of their stories in order.  Now Kathleen is just a one-episode antagonist, so her thin characterization and motivations isn't as big of an issue.  Then everything can still end the same way.

 

 

On 11/02/2023 at 6:00 PM, Koray Savas said:

The bloater had some rough animations. Wonder if that’s the only one we’ll see. 

 

Huh.  I've seen other people mention that too, but I didn't notice anything off on initial watch.  Maybe I'll pick something up on a rewatch someday.

[Jay 37,368]

On 11/02/2023 at 6:37 PM, MaxMovieMan said:

Seeing the guy who played Tommy have the bloater death animation happen to him was icing on the cake.

 

Such a fun easter egg

 

On 11/02/2023 at 7:48 PM, Docteur Qui said:

I was also a little underwhelmed with Kathleen’s arc. I was optimistic at first, hoping they’d lean more into the idea of her being an unlikely leader, but she was just the de facto because her nicer brother was killed. Seemed like a waste of Lynskey’s particular acting style. A rare miss for this show so far.

 

Yea, completely agree

 

On 11/02/2023 at 7:48 PM, Docteur Qui said:

I was also a little disappointed that the sink-hole just turned out to be… a hoard of infected plus a bloater. I was hoping for some kind of mega-tendril action or something, which is admittedly a little silly, but still.

 

I didn't mind that.  Well I mean, I don't mind that the confrontation on the street ended up just being runners, clickers, and a bloater, with no tendril stuff at all.

 

I actually don't really understand how this "sinkhole" stuff was supposed to actually work, or why they introduced it at all.  The setup of the sinkhole in the first KC episode was cool and spooky, but then the only payoff was them arriving into the culdesac it kind of instantly deflating what seemed like a cool new thing.

 

I don't really understand how these infected traveled from the center of the city to the neighborhood cul de sac; Is the show trying to tell me me they're just walking through big tunnels, the same ones Joel/Ellie/Sam/Henry go through?  These tunnels go from the city to the neighborhood?  Why?

 

I don't know how this is better than just having the infected show up by just like, approaching the cul de sac from the darkness somewhere >shrug<

[Jay 37,368]

On 11/02/2023 at 8:37 PM, MaxMovieMan said:

after the latest episode I realized that her character’s arc is adding on to one of the main themes of the show. Where Bill and Frank showed love can endure Kathleen shows that revenge is a double-edged sword (Which is the main theme of Part II). Kathleen’s revenge allowed her to overthrow FEDRA but also ended up leading to her own downfall and supposedly the destruction of what’s left of Kansas City.

 

Good analysis!

 

 

On 12/02/2023 at 5:19 PM, Docteur Qui said:

I got what they were going for, and the arc itself worked fine. It just felt like a pretty stock-standard story for a series that is known for taking much bigger swings. One thing that did really work for me was seeing Kathleen surrounded by fire, chaos, soldiers and infected; her world literally crumbling around her as a direct result of her obsessive revenge. And even through all that all she wants is to kill Henry. That was a pretty great visual summary of what the episode was going for. But for me it would've landed better if her earlier scene in the childhood bedroom was more compelling.

 

Yes, thank you!  That's exactly right.  Her ending is fine and fantastic visually, they just didn't lead her to it properly for me, and yes the bedroom scene was the scene that most missed the mark of what it needed

 

 

On 12/02/2023 at 5:19 PM, Docteur Qui said:

I also want to mention how fantastic the young actor playing Sam was. I was really impressed by his performance, and the dynamic he had with Henry and Ellie was wonderful. It made their eventual fate truly heartbreaking, something that I didn't quite feel from the game even though it played out pretty much the same. The decision to age Sam down and make him a deaf person probably contributed to that.

 

Definitely good stuff all around  

I do kinda miss hopping around the fire escapes from building to building avoiding hunters sequence though

[Yavar Moradi 2,599]

I agree; the Kathleen stuff was the only part of the show which didn’t quite gel for me. Before I even got to Jay’s post, I was thinking that what that character needed to work was an actual flashback for HER, showing her both before and after her brother’s death (*showing* their final meeting rather than just having her *tell* us about it, maybe we even see her watching his execution). That would have made us connect with her emotionally rather than just hating her.

 

Yavar

[Jay 37,368]

On 20/02/2023 at 4:12 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

Episode 6 was another stellar episode.

This really was a "character development" episode. And a really good one at that.

 

It waa great to see Tommy. But what I thought was the most interesting was that Joel came all this way to save him, but now that he saw Tommy, he knew that that wasn't necessary anymore. The way Pascal acted this was great. You could see some kind of shift in him, like he felt his goal was taken away from him.

 

Yea.... the explanation of WHY Tommy stopped radio contact with Joel was silly.  His new wife asked him to, so instead of explaining to her he needs to say goodbye to Joel first then will stop, he just... stops.  Who would do that?

But yea, it sets up character development for Joel, the whole savior complex he has.  But still.

 

On 20/02/2023 at 4:12 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

But this does lead to a beautiful scene between him and Tommy later. Where Joel lets his guard down and for the first time this series actually tells how he feels. It was beautiful and Pascal's acting was incredible.

 

Oh yes, that conversation was really fantastic.  Looking forward to seeing it again on rewatch.  Both their confrontations have such interesting character work.

 

On 20/02/2023 at 4:12 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

I also thought the scene after that with Ellie about loss was incredible. It really put things in perspective for Joel and I love that he chose to stay with her.

 

It's a powerful scene that is straight out of the game.  But frankly as a game player that's a bit of a problem, as Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker's raw and off-the-cuff performance (like Ashley putting "fucking" in the wrong part of the sentence, and shoving Joel) is brilliant and spontaneous, where-as here it feels like an imitation instead of finding a way to make it fresh.  But that's not a problem for non game-players, of course.

 

 

On 20/02/2023 at 4:12 AM, JNHFan2000 said:

But that ending!!! I'm not a gamer so I don't know what will happen, but I really hope that what I think might happen won't. I would be devestated. Although I have to say. It's a hell of a way to end an episode.

 

I'm going to reply in a spoiler block, but its contents have no game knowledge included, instead I talk about the show's trailer that came out before the season, and the "next week on" preview

 

Spoiler

I liked that the "next week on" preview only showed Ellie and Riley so it leaves Joel's fate a mystery.

 

However, the trailer that came out before the season had shots of Joel holding a rifle in a building we haven't seen yet, so it kind of makes this cliffhanger ending pointless.  But I guess marketing people make trailers and not Mazin&Druckman directly.

 

[Jay 37,368]

On 20/02/2023 at 7:39 PM, Koray Savas said:

I loved the sly shot of Dina in this episode,

 

Oh man.  So when I saw that scene I thought maybe that was who that was supposed to be... or maybe it was different person later, I can't remember.  But then I decided, nah, they wouldn't do that.  And also, didn't the second game make it clear that she doesn't arrive in Jackson until a while after Ellie does? 

 

And then I saw your post after I saw the episode, and was going to say as much here....

However, I listened to the official podcast this morning on my way in to work, and they basically confirmed it was supposed to be Dina.  Huh.

 

We shouldn't say anything more without spoiler blocks.

 

 

On 20/02/2023 at 7:39 PM, Koray Savas said:

and getting to see Jackson proper. I wonder how soon they’ll start production on Part II.

 

Yea, my bad on this one.  When I saw the episode I was thinking how Jackson didn't look anything like I remembered it from game 1, but that it reminded me more of game 2's opening part.  Then during the official podcast, they discuss how in the game you only see the dam in this part of the game, and that's where the big action sequence happens, you never actually see their community until the second game.  Well, that explains my confusion!

 

On 20/02/2023 at 7:39 PM, Koray Savas said:

I’m starting to think there won’t be anymore infected encounters in the show

 

Holy shit, you might be right, and that's nuts.

 

On 20/02/2023 at 7:39 PM, Koray Savas said:

considering they were comfortable enough with a 3-month time jump. 

 

Wait, what does this part of your post mean?  In the game you arrive in Jackson 3 months after Henry/Sam, just like in the show.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

Yea.... the explanation of WHY Tommy stopped radio contact with Joel was silly.  His new wife asked him to, so instead of explaining to her he needs to say goodbye to Joel first then will stop, he just... stops.  Who would do that?

 

I feel like the scene is telling us a few deeper things about Tommy and Joel. It's implied that Tommy was encouraged not to contact Joel because it would put Jackson at risk of exposure over the radio. But it's also pretty clear that if Tommy really wanted to contact Joel he would have - he's a headstrong guy. The subtext is that Tommy is ashamed of Joel, of the things they did together, and of the things that Joel forced Tommy to do so they could "survive", and is cutting off contact. We're being invited to see Joel in a new, unflattering light, as a manipulator of Tommy. Whether or not we agree with that is up to us, but it's how Maria and Tommy feel about Joel (supported by Maria's sharp questioning to Ellie about Joel), and it's not entirely untrue based on what we know. All these layers are operating under the surface of this episode and adds a lot of richness to the performances. Great stuff.

 

 

7 hours ago, Jay said:

 

Wait, you've played the game and thought that 

 

  Hide contents

her blood actually could save people?

 

 

I thought for a second that they might've been going down a different path. Then I remembered what show I was watching. You'll forgive me; 99% of adaptations make even dumber changes on a regular basis, I've been conditioned to expect the worst.  

[Jay 37,368]

On 20/02/2023 at 10:00 PM, Bayesian said:

I'm caught up to Ep. 5 now. Until I started hearing about this series last fall, I'd never even realized there was a video game by this name, so I'm watching this show with zero preconceptions.

 

First, this is prestige TV at its near-finest. Terrific character development, amazing production values, and some truly gripping human story to keep your attention. I very much enjoyed watching the man-on-the-ground POV of the world starting to fall apart in Austin because I'm endlessly fascinated by how screen/teleplay writers choose to portray the end of the world. It's done very believably in TLoU. (It's also terrifying to think how quickly everything will go to shit in a shock-event situation like this. I kinda get the prepper mindset.)

 

Humans and the planet we're on are incredibly fragile in the grand scheme of things.

 

On 20/02/2023 at 10:00 PM, Bayesian said:

However, precisely because the producers go to such lengths to portray the decay of civilization as we know it as accurately as possible, I can't help but notice the way some elements stretch credulity. I agree with Jay the total unlikelihood that Bill & Frank's town would have gone undisturbed for 20 years, save one raider attempt. Bill somehow getting the regional gas utility infrastructure up and running so he could get his gas stove going was a little farfetched, to say the least.

 

I dunno, I could almost buy he figured out how that works, but....

 

On 20/02/2023 at 10:00 PM, Bayesian said:

And the town itself, after 20 years, needed to show a lot more woody vegetation, roaming wildlife, rotting wood structures, eroding pavement, etc. Flags would have turned to bleached gray shreds. And gasoline would simply no longer exist in a usable form (Joel siphoning gas out of a car in that one episode was LOL-ridiculous).

 

Yep, can't deny any of that. I know its all budget related, but it's just true.  Free roaming monkeys in episode 6 might be about all they have budget for apart from... well, one particular animal-based scene.

 

Speaking of that scene, @Koray Savas and any other game-players, did you notice that in the bedroom Joel and Ellie have their big scene in,

 

Spoiler

there was a big giraffe poster on the wall?  I seem to recall the game version of the bedroom had one too.  And there was a stuffed giraffe in an earlier episode I noticed.

 

 

On 20/02/2023 at 10:00 PM, Bayesian said:

But I tend to notice this problem in all movies and TV: when something is supposed to look like it was undisturbed for a decade, the set decorators make it look instead like it was undisturbed for a year or two at best.

 

Very true, it's not a fault of TLOU alone. 

 

 

On 20/02/2023 at 10:00 PM, Bayesian said:

But here I am nitpicking. The truth is that these things are completely forgivable in the face of such good storytelling. The way the writers play with our sympathies against the KC resistance and then for the resistance was really well done. And no matter how implausible it would have been in real life, Bill & Frank's storyline -- and the semblance of the old way of life they built under such bleak circumstances -- was beautiful.

 

Yup, agreed.  in the end, these minor nitpicks don't matter.

But I find the better a show is, the more tiny nitpicks get brought up, because there isn't major issues to talk about instead like some other disappointing shows....

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

On 22/02/2023 at 10:20 AM, Koray Savas said:

Now that we’re back with Tommy and Jackson, the change to make Joel’s motivation to go out west to “save Tommy” makes even less sense to me.

 

To me it feels pretty consistent with how the show is illustrating Joel. He has narcissistic tendencies and a protector complex, even before the apocalypse his main purpose in life was bailing out Tommy from whatever shit he got himself into. Joel tells us as much in episode 4, and the events of the pilot lay it all out for us. Tommy goes off and gets in trouble, calls Joel, then Joel "reluctantly" goes off to help his little brother. But what kicks things off this time is that Tommy hasn't called Joel. And that's ringing alarm bells in Joel's head, so he goes off with Tess to try and figure out where he's gone. The reason being that Tommy never really needed Joel to bail him out, but Joel absolutely needed Tommy in his life to "save", or give his life purpose. You can see it in Pedro's eyes during the latest ep; Joel's so hurt that Tommy never called him.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah it makes sense when you put it that way. I just prefer the characterization of Joel in the game. He’s supposed to be a selfish survivor, hardened over 20 years, whose humanity returns thanks to Ellie. 

[Mephariel 451]

7 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

Yeah it makes sense when you put it that way. I just prefer the characterization of Joel in the game. He’s supposed to be a selfish survivor, hardened over 20 years, whose humanity returns thanks to Ellie. 

 

I just finished playing Part II and I don't know...are we just over-glorifying Joel in the game? His characterization is basically just Hugh Jackman Wolverine lite. I think they changed it in the film because acting like Joel in the game would be so one-noted, he wouldn't be an interesting character. Pedro Pascal showed a lot more emotions in the show than Joel did in the game for a reason. 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yes, they made him more relatable/likable. 

[Bespin 8,483]

To be honest... I like that show now. I was not sure when it began... another zombie series... pffff...

 

I saw the sixth episode yesterday.

 

Overall it's well done and very well played.

 

Impossible not to get attached by Pedro and Bella.