The Last of Us - S02E04 - Day One

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[00:01:17] Welcome to the Lore of Us podcast with the Lorehounds, your guides to the fungal apocalypse. This is our coverage of The Last of Us on HBO Season 2, Episode 4, Day 1. Let's start with our hot takes today and then we'll get into a discussion of the episode. A little bit thematic based. Don't forget you can contact us at tlou at thelorehounds.com or you can go to our Discord chat more about the show with us. But if you want your feedback in the show, definitely email us.

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[00:02:15] Right. Don't super cast. There are links in the show notes below. Also, in the show notes, there is a link tree that has a link to all of the other affiliate podcasts that we play. I'll play in the same sandbox, so to speak. I don't know. Can we say that? I don't know. The people that we would be running with if we were in the middle of a fungal apocalypse. It's true. It's true. We'd have our own little Jackson. That's right. Our own little Seattle.

[00:02:46] Would we take ritual scarificate? Would we require our affiliates to scar themselves? I'm going to say no. Okay. Not for me. You're on your own on the fungal apocalypse if you're doing that. All right. So just, you know, Last of Us history. I've played the games. You haven't. I will say, though, watching this episode, I was like, oh, I haven't played the second game nearly as much as I played the first game. So, like, some of the game stuff might be a little hazy for me, and I'm not going to, like, offer stuff up unless I'm sure about it.

[00:03:16] So if I have a little bit less input from the games in this episode, then that's why. Just, you know, write in if you're a game player and you want to talk about the differences between the show and the game. I think it's really interesting. There are certain things that I want to talk about in this episode about adaptation choices. But before that, let's go into our hot takes. David, what's yours? Well, I was going to say before we get there, too, as a game player, I'm just curious. Are you feeling like they've got this going?

[00:03:46] Because I can't tell any game stuff at all. Like, I don't see any outlines of any kind of game mechanics or plot. Just like season one. Yeah. It seems seamless to me. I mean, they did the same thing that they do in the game with, like, we're in Seattle, day one. Like, that's the next phase of this game. We've gotten to Seattle, day one. Right. But nothing seems video game-y to me. You know what I mean? Yeah. I never feel like I'm in a video game or they've adapted something from the video game.

[00:04:13] The story is unfolding like I would expect the story to unfold with these characters in this situation. I think, first of all, The Last of Us 1 was pretty cinematic. But by the time they got to The Last of Us 2, which was in 2020, so this is pretty recent. Yeah, that is pretty recent, yeah. But they already knew that they were known for making cinematic video games and so they're leaning into that more. Okay. And so I think that part of it is just that, like, they knew what they were making at this point. They knew that they were doing something that could be very easily adapted. Adapted. Got it.

[00:04:41] And, you know, they are changing certain things like, alright, so I'll just go right into my adaptation. Yeah, yeah, why don't you go for it? Yeah, please. Because, you know, a lot of this backstory that we're getting with people like Isaac, these are things that you learn through like notes that you pick up. Mm-hmm. So, like, you'll pick up a note where people are like, it was crazy when Isaac joined the WLF and, you know, he betrayed all his Fedra people. I don't even think that was the exact backstory of the game. But the point is, you get all these through like interactive storytelling in the game.

[00:05:10] And so they always have to be making choices of like, what do we just let by the bygone? Because those are all optional, right? Like, I don't have to pick up all those bits of lore. Right, you can walk right by it. If I want to just go through and shoot zombies, then I can do that. Right. Um, but, uh, and just like the guitar scene with Ellie, that's an optional cutscene in the game. Mm-hmm. You can go up upstairs in the record shop and you can pick up the guitar and play for Dina. You don't have to. You can just play right through that and never touch the guitar. Mm-hmm. So, but, but they just liked it. So they left it in for the TV show.

[00:05:40] Cool. But my point is, they're doing some really smart things with adaptation. There is a main structure pillar of this game, of this story in the way that they tell it, that has not been revealed yet in the show. Okay. That I am very curious onto how they're going to approach that in terms of adaptation. And I think I understand what they're doing now. Are you trying to feel out the plot and the movements of the storyline to see if you can see where it's coming?

[00:06:09] Well, they already are moving up a lot of exposition about Abby, about the WLF. Mm-hmm. But they're, and about the scars too. Mm-hmm. The, the Seraphites. And I, I do think that they're making smart choices, but I'm wondering, the way that the game is structured is really weird. It's really, really weird from a gameplay, from like a video game standpoint. Oh, okay. And in the show, I think it's even weirder. Mm-hmm. And I can't talk about why yet. So I'm really curious how they go forward with this game.

[00:06:37] Uh, I will say some of the dialogue in this was really clunky. Like the, the Ellie and Dina professing love to each other. Very clunky teenage dialogue. Mm-hmm. I did not love that. Mm-hmm. Very different from the game too. So I, I think that something, something that I'm going to criticize this episode for, which I, I don't, I think most of my comments are going to be praising this episode. But something I want to criticize this episode for is, in the game at this point, you really feel the rage Ellie has. You really feel that she is just single-mindedly focused on vengeance.

[00:07:07] Okay. There is, is, you know, Dina's there. She really likes Dina. And yes, they are, they are going to be an item, but it's not the, her primary thing, right? Like the main thing is, I want to get Abby. I want to get Abby. I want to get Abby. And I'm not feeling that from this episode. I, I feel like Abby was almost like getting to Abby was almost the side quest on this episode. Whereas most of it was about Ellie and Dina. And you know, that's a choice. That's a choice. I don't know if it was a good one. I think time will tell.

[00:07:37] Uh, I, I think it really depends on what happens next episode in the rest of the season. Gotcha. Because I need to see that vengeful, angry, hateful Ellie. And we saw her waiver at the end here. Like you don't have to, you know, she, she didn't have white hot. I'm gone. Yeah. Like that's the Lake Hill building. I'm gone. I'm already like, there's no conversation. I'm already out the door. I'm on sparkle. I'm running towards it. Right. No, there was like this conversation and like, oh, well maybe we should think about this. Right. That's not white hot rage.

[00:08:07] No, it's not. It's not. And I mean, look, they did do a good job of showing how like Ellie is, uh, you know, like, oh, let's go to that building right now. And Dina goes, and why can we not? I did enjoy Dora the Explorer has got a lot of good, uh, stealth skills. Uh, as we know, swipe or no swiping. She's got to get away from him all the time. So right. Anyway, point is I, I do think that they, I mean, first of all, Isabel Merced, Merced, uh, she is doing an amazing job as Dina standout performance of this whole season.

[00:08:36] Uh, no complaints there. I, I do think that the writing was just a little bit clunky in the dialogue at some points. That being said, I think the visuals were amazing. I don't know if you know this, but they use real people in that, in that grotesque display. Oh really? Those were real people hanging. Oh God. Okay. And they had the guts coming out of them and everything. Right. Yeah. But those were real people hanging. They were like, we're not using dummies. We're hanging out with real people. Okay. That's cool. Uh, I think that the practical effects are off the charts in the show.

[00:09:06] Uh, you know, the, the way the zombies look pounding on the, on the, on the subway. I was, I was genuinely like really nervous for, for Ellie and Dina. And part of that is like, you know, that this was a similar scene in the, in the show, man, I am just going right for it. Aren't I? This is a, it's a very similar scene in the game, but because you don't have that gameplay aspect of like sneaking around and trying to like, you throw a bottle over there to distract the clickers.

[00:09:33] You really have to like get that intensity in a different way. Hmm. And they're doing it in a really smart way. Cool. What are your thoughts? Yeah. I was really mixed on this episode. There were a lot of stuff that was really tense and I really enjoyed the, the buildup and the action and then the resolution. And then there's some stuff that it was like a lot of little things that really, um, kept

[00:10:03] adding up and then taking, and then by the, by the end of it, all of these little things had added up and I was just kind of not feeling it. And we talk about this a lot on, on lore hounds is if you are watching a show and you start, you know, you're looking at your phone or the pre you're starting to notice, you're starting to nitpick at the production details and things like that. You can notice a production detail, but when you start obsessing about all of them, that's

[00:10:31] when you know that you're sort of sliding out of the, uh, what's the word we're looking for? The verisimilitude. Yes. The verisimilitude. If I can say that 10 times fast, you know, that I'm, that I was slipping out. So last night I was definitely at the end like, and it was just little stuff. Um, the, uh, the Seattle stuff. I'm from Seattle. So I am seeing stuff that's just, you know, not right. I'm seeing some stuff that is right. And then other stuff.

[00:10:58] And then they're like all the flat, all the rainbow flags on Capitol Hill. Okay, great. Expect to see that the little archway thing, not a Seattle thing. The subway station. I actually wanted to ask you about the pride flags because I had this debate with my wife last night. And I was like, 2003, where are their pride flags up in Seattle? And she's like, Seattle. I think so. And I was like, I don't know. 2003 feels early for that much open support. Oh, Capitol Hill is long been open and out. Okay.

[00:11:28] Flags flying and bars and people out on the streets and all kinds of stuff. It was a, uh, Capitol Hill and Wallingford were the two areas. Um, but Capitol Hill was a big LGBTQ area. Uh, we have Seattle Central Community College up there. And so that had a big draw. We had a lot of bars and restaurants, clubs, um, specialty shops, if you will. There was, it was a full on, that's, that's where it was happening in Seattle. So yeah, 2003, definitely.

[00:11:57] I mean, I understood the symbolism they were going for, which was, you know, two women who love women passing a pride flag and not knowing what it is. It was really proud rainbow people. Yeah. Yeah. It was fascinating, right? Like what are, what are the symbols mean when you take them out of their context? Exactly. That was a very good line and a, and a great way to play that. But anyway, the, there's a little archway that says Capitol Hill. There's nothing. It just, so it, that kind of stuff. And then I noticed, okay, so I, this is totally nitpicky and I'm, I'm just going to, uh,

[00:12:26] once I get past my little things, I'll, we'll move on. Um, but when she opens the tank top, right, I could tell that it was just a thin sheet of metal. A tank hatch is like a ginormous piece of machinery that is like thick and it has viewports on all this kind of stuff. And I get it, right? It's a cardboard tank. I mean, uh, a plywood tank and they, they've got to, you know, do stuff with it, but it kept being those little tiny things that were adding up.

[00:12:51] There is no, the, whatever the TV station is, there's no building that looks like that. There's no TV station with those names. So all that little stuff kept bugging me. And part of that's a me thing, but it was just a lot of incongruous details. Yeah. And for that, you also have to ask yourself, like how much are they legally allowed to use in the branding and how much are they going to have to like make up the TV station because they can't get the rights to use it, right? Sure. But then make a building that looked like that. There's no building that looks like that in Seattle.

[00:13:20] Like that, that's, it's completely ridiculous building. So it just little things like that was, we're starting to add up. And then there were, I agree that there are some beautiful set shots in here with the, with the guitar and all of that. But then at the very end, they're just sort of standing there looking out at the big battle going on. And there are kind of, they're just kind of standing there and they're just kind of talking. And I don't know, I, the, the whole energy of the whole episode just got lost onto me

[00:13:49] there when, when they were at the forward bay, the, the, the WLF base with all the people hanging and the subway scene. And even though we don't have subways like that in Seattle, like those are completely not the kinds of. Yeah. You just got to accept certain. I know. It's not real Seattle, right? This is, this is fair enough. We needed a subway scene and we put a subway there. But the tension of all of that stuff was great. And I was like, Oh my God, what's going to happen? Are they going to make it through the hatch? Like, so I was really invested.

[00:14:18] And then, yeah, then there was just some other wooden dialogue and stiffness that I was like, Oh, this just kind of a, a miss. And I, and it was upsetting because it, otherwise it was a really great episode. And I really, I'm like, okay, finally they're, they're, their relationship is just starting to come into being in, in this new, or hit this new transition point, right when the stakes get very high, when we learn about, Oh yeah, the, the, the seraphims are not nice people.

[00:14:46] Like they set us up at the beginning, the seraphites, thank you, seraphims. So the seraphites, we thought, Oh, well they're just peaceful forest dwellers. I know I had to keep my mouth shut on that one. Cause I'm thinking like, these guys are fucking vicious. You don't know that yet. And they completely play off that. They play that off. So it was, that was set up really well. And then we see the kinds of things that we're going to do what they're doing. And we're like, Oh God, why is, why are the wolves killing them? Um, so anyway, we can get more into the episode.

[00:15:15] So, uh, cause we're, we're digging into a lot of the details. So I really was mixed on the episode overall so much that I really enjoyed. And then there's just a few things that, that kind of were kind of like, uh, kind of bland, I guess not bad. They were just bland, you know, like I had a great, a great starter, a great salad, you know, great amuse-bouche, whatever. And then the main course was just a little bit. Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. I think I'm in a similar place to you. I think, you know, good, not great episode. Yeah.

[00:15:44] Uh, I I'm hoping that they, they work on the dialogue a little bit for the next episode. And again, I really need to see Ellie develop into this. Like. Yes. Agreed. Something that was missing for me too, because if you're going to stick with this revenge mission, show me you're out for blood. Yeah. And she was not. Yeah. She's kind of just like wandering in the city. Like maybe if I come across Abby, I'll punch her in the face, but like, I'll play, I'll play like someone who's like out for blood. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:16:12] Play some guitar and hang out, eat some beef jerky. So. Yeah. I do have a question for the listeners. So if anybody knows, I'm pretty sure I know what Dean is gun is. And I'm just wondering like, this is kind of a slight prediction or kind of a slight. Hmm. What do you think? Uh, do you think she has a chambered as a nine or is a 40? That's my question for the listeners, but I'm pretty sure it's a Browning high power. So. Right in your prize is nothing. Yeah.

[00:16:38] Your prize is internet points, but, uh, Dean is a bad, I really like Dina as a character. I like her sort of pedantic, like now, why can't we do that? Now? Why do you think that is, you know, it's really funny. Cool. But I appreciate that Ellie is like going with it too. Right. She's like, all right, you're right. You're right. Let's do it. Right. Yeah. Let's not die doing this. It's fair. All right. Well, we've, we've talked about most of the scenes now, just in our hot take. So why don't we go into it? Sounds good.

[00:17:07] Let's get to the first scene, which we get the Isaac's cold open. Uh, in 20 is right. Yeah. In 2018, Seattle, a tank of fedra agents joke about beating up civilians and taking away their rights. Isaac, the leader of the squad, scolds them and leaves them in the tank while he meets with hammer. It's a, it's an armored car. I don't care. I do. Uh, the leader of the WLF.

[00:17:33] Isaac invites the new guy burden to join him, then throws two grenades into it. He gives burden a choice. Uh, I, okay. So great, great, great introduction for Jeffrey, right? I thought the setup of the joke, the, the, the baldy, you know, guy talking about taking away the voter rights and stuff like that. I, it was a little too long for me and it was a little too cringy, but whatever.

[00:18:00] But then seeing, uh, seeing our guy, Isaac there. And then when he tosses in those grenades, I was like, Oh, I know exactly who this motherfucker is. That was a really, really great way to tell us who, who Isaac is and what he's about. Cold. Cold. And practical, pragmatic. Like, you know? Yeah. Why, why do I, and he, he tosses him in just like, yeah, boom, boom. You know, he's not dramatic about it. He's not furtive about it. And he's just like, oh, toss in a couple of grenades.

[00:18:30] Right. Yeah. And, but I do like that. He gives burden a choice, right? He was burdened. It's like, all right, you didn't, you didn't laugh along with them. You questioned things. You got a shot. Uh, make your choice. Right. And that was that. Yeah. And, and it gives us more insight into Isaac's character as, as that he's cold blooded, but he's also not unthinking. He's not a dare, dare I say it a monster.

[00:19:00] Is he not? I mean, he's a monster. He's a monster. That was a monstrous thing to do. He's pretty monstrous, especially later. I just had to make the joke. Right. I mean, it was just there. So, I mean, let's, let's contrast it quickly. Um, with, with today. Um, you know, in the present, Isaac tortures a seraphite or a scar with a hot copper pan. Love that monologue, by the way, about the pan. Uh, he wants to know where the seraphites are attacking next when the scar refuses to

[00:19:28] tell him Isaac realizes the futility and kills the cultist. So, well, can we, just before we get into that, I had one more question about, uh, in an open question, you, I don't know that you can answer this. Mm-hmm. How did they set it up with Isaac and the WLF that they didn't know each other? They presume each other's names. And then they kind of shake hands. And so I think there's just, I don't know if that's an actual show mystery or if that's just, you know, leave, just take the scene for what it is. Yeah.

[00:19:56] I, I'm trying to think, I'm pretty sure this was set up before. But he didn't, yeah, but they didn't know each other. Hannah ran and. Not in person, but I think he knew her name. He knew. Well, obviously they knew each other's names, but yeah. Like how, who, and what were the intermediaries? Yeah. Cause that's a pretty drastic action that Isaac takes and he's taking it on. He has some sort of assurance that this is going to work out. Yeah. So I, it's just sort of a curiosity question as to the backstory of how that deal got done.

[00:20:25] But anyway, we can move to the Seraphites now. Yeah. They might flesh that out more. I believe it's fleshed out in like the notes when you go, you just, it's like in the last of us, you just go through the houses when you're looting and there, there will be a note and you read the note. And it's like a note from Isaac to the Seraphite saying, not the Seraphites to the WLF saying like, yeah, I think that Fedra is pretty fucked up too. You want to, you know, maybe we can work someone out. Right. Right.

[00:20:50] Well, the, the, the Seraphite thing, like you really, you learn that through the dialogue and I thought it was good, a good way to bring us into the world that there is this ongoing blood feud between the two. Yeah. And I, and I really liked the way that Isaac runs the litany is like, oh, you did this. We did that. We, you did this. We did that. Okay, fine. And now I don't care about any of that. Tell me where you're going to attack next. That's the only thing I care about. Right.

[00:21:20] Right. He's just pragmatic. He's very, very pragmatic. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I do like when he realizes he's like, I'm not going to get anything out of him. He's like, I'm not going to take pleasure in torturing him. Exactly. Yeah. I'm just going to kill him. Like I, he is a utilitarian. Yeah. The, uh, I have to laugh. I had to laugh a little bit too about the cooking story and the, the sort of the personal thing.

[00:21:44] There's this, I guess it's the, is it a trope of the torture sharing a relatable human moment so that it contrasts their torturous behavior as opposed to relatable behavior. And I can think of like a, a star, there's a great Star Trek episode where Picard is being tortured and the guy who's doing it as always talking about his home life and this and that kind of stuff.

[00:22:09] So I think it's a, I think it's actually a trope of the, the relatable, the human relatable, uh, torture. So I think that's right. I mean, I like the trope, but I think it's an interesting scene to watch every time. I'm not sick of it. Right. I do love his line, strange benefits of the apocalypse. Yeah. Yeah. That was a great line. He's in charge of it. He's like 30 years to retirement. Nope. I'm going to run a militia. Yeah.

[00:22:36] So, so the, the Seraphites, you don't like the scars nickname. I'm just reading your notes here. Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't going to say anything. I, there's just something that's not ringing quite right for me. Like I could see it used as a once in a while thing, but there's something, but it's a naming thing. Like do, you know, I think it's frack. I think it's honestly the, the wolves trying to like take the power away from them. Right. The Seraphites are there. You always going to dehumanize your energy.

[00:23:05] Those, those are their, their like religious names. Yeah. That's, that's their profit given name. Yeah. They're like, no, you're just scars. You are the markings you made on yourself. You're not, you're not. Yeah. And I don't disagree that that's an accurate thing, but to me, there's just something that falls a little bit short and it's in the evocativeness. So, but that's, that's a me thing. Well, I like it. Fair enough. I'm just going to go on record. Let's take a break, David. Sounds good. We'll catch up with Ellie and Dina.

[00:23:50] We're back. Ellie and Dina find the tank. Isaac blew up in the cold open, the armored car. David's going to correct me. It's actually not. They're there. The thing that they find is not the thing that. Okay. So you're saying that that's a tank and the other thing was an armored car. Correct. Okay. All right. Fine. Ellie and Dina find a tank. Yes, they do. It looked like an M1 Abrams to me. Then take shelter in a record store. There Ellie finds a guitar and plays take on me by Aha. Aha. Aha.

[00:24:22] At night, they sneak into a WLF building and find multiple wolves hanged and disemboweled by the Seraphites. They realize one of the wolves called for backup and attempt to escape from the searching militia. We did forget the drugstore search and. Oh, I didn't put the drugstore search. Okay. Let's just talk about it now. They stop in a drugstore to search for things. Okay. That's your recap. That's your recap.

[00:24:48] But I like, so they didn't show us like Dina reacts to something. They intentionally don't show us. And then she very intentionally says, I got a pee. And you're like, huh? And then later you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. That all makes sense now. So they, they, I thought that they set that up. It was, it was a little clever by half, but it still worked on me. So I was, I was, I was okay with it. I was going to ask you about that because I knew Dina was pregnant. Sure.

[00:25:18] And so I, the minute she said I have to pee in the drugstore, I was like, okay, all right, we're doing a pregnancy test. Well, I started running through my mind, like what could she have found? And, you know, and, and, and cause we had that great scene in season one where Ellie finds some tampons and, or, uh, you know, I, where the, I forget which, but some sort of feminine hygiene product, if I could be, uh, overt about it. And she makes a big deal about it to Joel. Like, Hey man, this is a big deal.

[00:25:45] And so I was, I think, doesn't Maria give her a diva cup? Yes. And, uh, that's a whole big thing. Yeah. That's a thing too. And so I was expecting something along that lines. And then when it was revealed what it was, I was like, ah, well played. Like that was a really good, like finding obscure feminine, you know, products that are made for women where like, Oh, well why would you take that? Well, yeah, because you're not 50% of the population.

[00:26:13] That's actually a really important thing that Dina found and a really important thing that Ellie found earlier. Yeah. Yeah. So I liked the play that it's sort of the rhyming across the seasons there. Yeah. And you know, I saw some people talking to the discord, like, wouldn't that have expired? I'm like, well, yeah, but so would the gas. So you just got to roll with it. Like, like we are just, you know, it's the same thing as like fallout, right? Like fallout always has like this, like canned food you find. And like, that's not going to be good. Yeah. But, uh, we'll just go with it. We'll go with it.

[00:26:41] Well, and then they did play with the idea when she pulls out the eight sticks. Yeah. So that was cute. I like that. That was funny. Yeah. It's like, Oh, I am super pregnant. Uh, so the, I don't know why they brought up the Apollo one reference. Like I get it. Cause she read all that Apollo, you know, our space history stuff in season one, but didn't like, I thought it was a pretty morbid joke to talk about the astronauts that burned

[00:27:11] up on the platform. Well, I think it's fitting for Ellie. Honestly. Fair enough. Um, I, I can't say much more about that. She likes astronauts. Okay. Uh, isn't there, what is it? What's the comic that they read in, uh, that was all about season one star and survive. I got a savage starlight. That's what it was. Yeah. I thought the, the guitar scene was pretty good and I was trying to decide, was that was,

[00:27:39] did Bella learn to play actually? She already knew how to play. She already knew. I did actually watch the behind the scenes on this one. Okay. We're talking about how Bella already knew how to play. So they just had to play it. Practice it a little bit more and yeah, good. Good. But it was beautiful. And I really liked Dina's reaction sitting at her feet. And I mean, man, anybody who can, especially in a camping like situation, you know, fire or in the woods or whatever, and somebody busts out a guitar, that's just instant, you

[00:28:07] know, like, Oh, like sing me a song, please. And you get all goofy and yeah, it was, it was a really fun scene. Well, now I'm flattered because I was the guitar guy. Yeah. All the campfires. And sometimes people were like, will you quit it? I'm like, no. Well, I will say this. Um, when Dina was playing with the drum set, it made me extremely nervous. Let's, I think that's like rule number, uh, 23 of the zombie apocalypse.

[00:28:37] Do not play with a drum set. Well, as she said, Ellie just proved that there's no zombies around because, uh, it doesn't matter. Drum sets are just bad to be a pong. All right. You just don't do it. Don't do it. Uh, I did look at the album covers of course. And I was like freeze framing the album covers to see what they put there. So we had a Bob Marley album. And then we had an Andre Previn album.

[00:29:03] And he is a composer and pianist and, you know, more in the classical genre. And then we had tears for heat for fears, the hurting. And that's a very good album. Uh, the power in my house just went out. Oh, how are you still with me? I have a UPS. Oh, and the powers back. Huzzah. That's good. I don't know what UPS is a universal power supply. It's a battery. Oh, okay. Battery backup. That's it.

[00:29:33] Wow. Yeah. On the internet too, huh? Yeah. I've got, uh, everything. Um, my router, my Synology discs, my disc array thing, you know, the server. Wow. And then my, yeah, everything's all my primary equipment is, um, in the battery backup. You're prepared for the apocalypse. I'm impressed. I mean, it's going to run for like all of five minutes cause I got so much shit plugged into it, but at least it covers for, for that kind of situation. I'm leaving this in. Okay. I'm leaving this in.

[00:30:02] David's prepared for the apocalypse. Oops. I do not have a bug out bag and I'm not, uh, I'm a little low on ammo right now. Uh, but anyway, the tears for fears album. I liked to see that, uh, the hurting good album, actually one of the songs off the album, uh, pale shelters on my heavy rotation right now. So yeah, I was, uh, I was happy to see that. That's cool. Oh, and I, I, you know, now that you're talking about the music, I wanted to bring up that, uh, take on me.

[00:30:31] That was in season one. We had that with, uh, with her and Riley in the mall. Oh, was that what that song was? That I don't remember that. Oh shit. Okay. I thought it was a different song. Let's look it up. Okay. All right. You were right. Yeah. We, we checked it. This happened in season one. I don't know why I was doubting myself, but this is when they're going down the escalator in the mall. Ellie's doing take on me. Yeah.

[00:30:58] And there was another song, uh, in there too. Anyway, there's a lot of good songs. A lot of good music season one. So, and this, that's super interesting to me because that song they, they played, uh, you know, the first time she hears it, I think is in that mall with Riley. And that's right before she's bitten for the first time. That's right before her best friend has bitten for the first time. Oh my God. That's where she discovers her immunity. And now she plays it for Dina right before she has to prove her immunity.

[00:31:26] Can you just throw a big melon at my head? Because like, I completely missed that. That's a total setup from season one. Yeah. That's a huge, huge Easter egg right there. Duh. I feel so stupid now. No, no, no. Somebody, somebody, somebody. I couldn't even remember if for sure if it happened. So. All right. That is, that's a really good call. I mean, because she's, it's going from Riley to Dina, right? Yeah. She's transferring that, the transference of that. It's this, uh, the mirroring, mirroring of plot lines, which is cool. Exactly. Oh, that's cool. That was a good catch.

[00:31:56] I'm glad we, I'm glad we paused for a second to look that up. Yeah. Cause that's kind of important. So. You want to talk about the subway? Uh, I just want to call out, I, we can, and I just want to call out that, that, that all. Have you ever seen the music video for that? Yeah. No, this was a, has one big, they had a couple of other songs, but this was really their big one. And the music video won like six MTV awards or something like that. It was back when MTV played music. Yes.

[00:32:24] It back, seriously, back when MTV played music. Um, if I, I would really recommend you at least take a look at it because the animation of the episode of the music video is very cool. It's this hand drawn charcoal sketch thing. That's this girl, uh, in a cafe and she's drawing and she draws this hot dude and then he reaches out her hand and pulls her in. And then they have this whole adventure where they're being chased by bad guys and all this kind of stuff. And then she pops out and then he pops out and oh, then it's like, they're in love.

[00:32:52] And you know, I don't even need to watch it now. No, but you have to watch it just for the animation. You got to watch it for the animation. It was like one of the most expensive music videos ever produced or something. It was like stupid. It like blew out their budgets, but they won a bunch of awards for it. And then aha kind of just disappeared. So they got their money and they left. That's right. That's back when you used to make money for recording songs. That's right. You have to tour. That's right. Yeah. The escape scene in the subway. That was tense. Yeah. Are we there? Is that what we're talking about?

[00:33:22] Yeah. That, that alongside the, the, we kind of already talked about the wolves being strung up and, and, you know, them narrowly escaping. Dina, of course, kills the first wolf. Yes. Yep. I do want to say that the fight scene with Ellie and the guy, they've been sort of building up the whole season so far of Ellie and her sort of hand to hand grappling skills. Yep. And so here we go. You know, she got to spring on like a spider from behind. Yeah. She did a good job.

[00:33:51] And then she straight up stabbed that dude. Yeah. Like right in the neck. I was like, oh man. So they, you know, I was thinking about this while they were being hunted in the big room that, well, it's like, well, could you give yourselves up as drifters? Like, Hey, we're just drifters. No. We stumbled in here. I don't think so. I mean, look, if, if you walked in and a bunch of your friends were strung up dead and these two random people you don't know are like, we're innocent. You'd be like, all right, come on.

[00:34:19] But they know that it's a seraphites and they're definitely not seraphites because they're not scars. Right. I agree with you. And I, I had a similar thought about the scars, but I don't know. I also, you're only caught. You're also your only interaction with these people are them killing someone you love. I don't know if you would trust them to have like a judicial system. If you got cornered and you had to give up, right. And you, they got the drop on you or something like that. Any chance of, of explaining yourself away is now gone.

[00:34:49] Like you're, you're, you've killed two of their dudes. A lot of them got killed in the, um, in, in the zombie attack. Sure. Sure. That's true. That's true as well. Now, now you maybe have some cover cause you've got, cause there's a lot of people dead. Not just those, uh, just those people. Yeah. Oh boy. Oh boy. I, I loved the scene running through the subway. I mean, I thought that that was so well done. Do you want to read your setup for it? Or did you already read? Oh, I didn't read it. Oh my God. Why am I just jumping ahead of myself? Uh, Elliot.

[00:35:19] We're on a speed run podcast tonight. That's what's going on. I know. Ellie and Dina crawl through the subway station. Uh, but the wolves follow them through other entrances. When the wolves throw flares, they awaken infected through the fungal network, leading the wolves to be attacked. Ellie and Dina escape through the subway car, but just as they go through the turnstile, Dina is almost bitten by an infected. Ellie puts her arm in Dina. Ellie puts her arm in Dina's place, leaving leading Dina to believe she must kill Ellie.

[00:35:48] I loved the setup with the flares. I loved the flares and the little fungal tendrils.

[00:36:17] You know, nobody, they, it's not that nobody is what, you know, the question of plot armor and what they're going to do. Okay, fine. I mean, I may think that Ellie and Dina are going to get through because our main characters, right? You just killed Joel. Can you, can you actually kill either one of those two? That's not the point. The point is what are they going to have to do to survive?

[00:36:39] And that's what this show does really well is stress you out as to what is, how do they actually run this gauntlet? How do they actually get through, how do they get past David in season one? You know, like all of this stuff. It's very terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. And now I, like you pointed out about plot armor, like, I don't know. I would have said that they wouldn't have killed Joel when I first put up plot. Right. Right. Like, I, I, I don't know who has plot armor in this game.

[00:37:08] When I boot up part three, I don't know who they're going to kill at the beginning. Like, who knows? Exactly. The, uh, I loved all of the structural mechanics of the action, like the soft middle parts between the subway cars. Yeah. The, you know, breaking, you know, the breaking of the bottom of the fence and then those effing turnstiles, man. I hate that style of turnstile. I know. Just get the one that are just like, you can, you can just push through quick.

[00:37:39] The one bar one. And then the way that the zombies get stuck in the turnstile by like one of their own getting jammed in there. Like that's my fear of getting stuck in a turnstile like that. So it was like, perfect. Oh my God. Well, that's, that's a good fear to have. I didn't have it before and I do now. So thank you. You're very welcome. I'm going to New York city this week. I don't know why you needed to do that to me, but just jump the turns, jump the, hop the turnstiles. Don't go through the stupid round. Did you see they made anti jump turnstiles?

[00:38:08] Oh, of course they did. And people figured them out in like a day. Yeah, of course they did. Of course they did. They like put spikes on where people usually hold. So people just put their hands on the readers and then they, they were just over in like a second. And people who they spent like $15 million or something like that. Like it was some absurd amount. I don't know if it was $15 million or something else, but some absurd amount on this. And, and the, the people jumping were just like, I could, I could, whatever. Yeah, exactly. All right.

[00:38:35] Anyway, uh, the, let's talk about the bite, the sacrificial bite. Yeah. I, I was so tense, uh, about that turnstile. And then when she threw her arm out there, I was like, oh, this is great. This is great drama. This is great setup for what the hell is the cause Dina saw it. Mm hmm. They don't make any bones about the fact that Dina saw it. Right. It's in front of her face.

[00:39:02] And so you go from escaping from the wolves to escaping from the, through the subways and the, and the clickers. And then now you have this tense situation between Dina and, um, and Ellie. It's so that whole, this whole part of the episode was just like, bang, bang, bang. Yeah. It was really great from one, one tense moment to the next.

[00:39:27] And it really tells me a lot about Ellie that she's, you know, how she feels about Dina, that she could take the bite. Cause she's knows that she's going to have to explain her and Dina are going to have to figure that out afterwards because Dina saw it. Mm hmm. Right. But all right. This is one of my critiques of the episode is actually that Ellie is way too cavalier about it afterward in a way that I don't think makes sense based on what we've been told.

[00:39:58] Okay. Not that she wouldn't like if she got written in private and she was cavalier, I think that's perfectly normal. Okay. But she has been trained and trained herself to be extremely secretive about her immunity to the point where she, cause she knows people will see her very differently to the point where she'll literally burn her arm and get tattoos to hide it. Right. And I just don't buy that.

[00:40:25] She wouldn't be like Dina while we're walking here, I'm immune. Please don't shoot me. Mm hmm. You know, like she's like, Oh, I don't know. Oh, this, this is what you're worried about too much, too much. I know that they were trying to do the cavalier thing about Ellie's personality too cool for school. Mm hmm. First of all, I don't think that's totally an accurate portrayal of Ellie, but second, I don't buy it. I do not buy it based on what you've told me about this character and the situation she's been living. Right. Okay.

[00:40:54] So I thought that was a weak point of the writing. I did like the acting and the tenseness between them. Mm hmm. I mean, it was, it was on Dina's end though. Right. Like, I don't think that that was happening on the Ellie end. I'll be honest with you. But Ellie was worried about getting shot by her best friend. Yeah. So that was, that's the setup that I really enjoyed was watching them work it out. And what do you say? And how do you talk your friend down?

[00:41:20] Because Dina could shoot at any second as a mercy killing. Um, so that, um, you know, uh, uh, Ellie's really tense. Like, Oh God, like, what is she gonna, she can shoot me at any moment. Yeah. So I, I, I enjoyed that tension between them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is really interesting. I don't know if I totally love the scene.

[00:41:45] My critique about the bite scene is that the, it doesn't engender any intense conversation. Oh my God, you're immune. What's that about? Tell me about it. Like what's going on. Dina never really asks her about it. She asks about the scar, but not about the condition of being immune. Right. And that's what confuses me. Yeah, I think that's right.

[00:42:11] I think the lack of followup and the fact that like immunity plus pregnant equals sex. Like, I don't know. Like, I understand, like, I actually do understand like, you know, intense emotions. They just survive something. Maybe that, that the answer is, you know, we need to get some physical energy out of here, but, um, and we're alive and let's live in our aliveness. And yeah. So I get it to a point, but then like morning after when you're chatting, maybe we have a little further of a conversation. Yeah.

[00:42:40] And then, and the pregnancy conversation occupies more of their time than, Hey, why are you immune? What does that mean? What's going on with that? You know, I think that that would be my, in my mind, that was a bigger deal. Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll play. I hate saying playing devil. That's devil's out. Okay. But I'm going to do it anyway. You can steal man the argument. That's better. I mean, uh, just, just to say like, I don't think Ellie wants to talk about being immune.

[00:43:07] I don't think she wants to talk about it. I think there's a lot of residual trauma from it with the fireflies and with Riley. And I, I just don't, I think she's directing the conversation to be about Dina's pregnancy. I love, I did love, I'm going to be a dad. That did make me laugh a lot. All right. So let's go right into the last scene because David's power has gone out again and we might lose some suit and I might have to put his podcast. It's very eerie because I'm only lit by the light of my laptop screen.

[00:43:37] It looks really funny in the playback. I love the way Dina holds up her fingers as she's counting off the number of clickers that she hears. Yeah. She's a bad ass. She's a certified bad ass. I really, I'm really falling for Dina personally. Dora really grew up. Yes. Well, all right. So Ellie and Dina run into the abandoned theater where Dina pulls a gun on Ellie. Ellie explains that she's immune and offers to sleep in a chair with Dina watching her all night.

[00:44:05] She awakens unchanged and Dina tearfully confesses she's pregnant. The two get it on and in the morning come clean about their feelings. Let's get it on. They overhear a radio transmission that suggests Abby might be at Lake Hill Hospital. They decide to go there and find her. So your thoughts on the scene before you leave? What's that? Yeah, exactly. There is no Lake Hill Hospital. I don't know where they're pointing to. The geography bugged me on this, but whatever. And then we talked about it at the top of the episode.

[00:44:34] There's just sort of wooden as they're standing there. And it was, it was a really weird, maybe that's what it was, was the wild swing going from tense life and death stuff to, hey, we're happy and I'm going to be a dad and it's all cool and hunky dory. So I don't know. It seemed a little incongruous to me. I did love the morning jerky breath thing. I thought that was hilarious. That was pretty funny. Like, is that better? It's gotta be. It's gotta be. That was pretty good.

[00:45:04] That was pretty good. So we're going to Lake Hill Hospital next season. Next episode, rather. Yep. Very exciting stuff. We already see some stuff going on on the horizon. They're having a fight. I really do like, I, you know, I see, I see complaints about this episode. I have some complaints about this episode, but something I really like is that Dina and Ellie go there for simple revenge against a small group of people and they stumble onto a turf war. Yeah, that is. And that, that's so interesting because life happens all at once. Right.

[00:45:34] And I think that that's realistic as like, they're not going to find a simple situation. These people have lives in Seattle before them and they'll have lives in Seattle after them. Exactly. So what do you do when you stumble onto this crazy turf war? And in, from like a role playing world game, you know, standpoint, there's this idea of, well, we're going to go into this room and we're going to lock ourselves in and we're going to take our, our long rest and recharge all of our powers. And then we're going to come out and the same set of bad guys are going to be there. And then we're just going to beat them up and carry on.

[00:46:03] No, that's not what happens. You know, they bring reinforcements. The big bad comes down the hallway from the other chamber. Right. I love the fact that there is a, yeah, like you said, there's the rest of the world carries on no matter what protagonists are doing. The rest of the world is, is moving on. And so, yeah, stumbling into this turf war is like, oh my God, what is this that's going on? Right. Right. It's a great world building, a great twist, I think. Yeah. To this whole thing.

[00:46:31] Like that's what makes the last of us interesting is these, in these unique situations that people just stumble into. And the way that they said, again, we talked about it before, but the way that they set up the seraphite says, oh, but we're just peacefully walking through the forest and we're trying to get away from war and save our children. Like, nah. If they're going toe to toe with the, the WLF who have armored cars and automatic weapons. Yeah. You know, and there's explosions going off all the place and they broke through.

[00:47:00] How many more seraphites are there than there are WLF people? It's a good question. It's a good question. Well, we know that they're recruiting. Yes. They say, you know, every day some you lose somebody and they won and we don't ever lose any of ours. Right. That's an, that's a fascinating thing for Isaac. Right? Yeah. Well, why don't we do a feedback quick? Well, we still have you catch me. Yeah. Keep it. Keep us as long as we can go. I know the beeping in the background of my battery is going in. We're trying. Carry on. Carry on. All right.

[00:47:29] Katie says, hi, John and David. Greetings from New Zealand. Hi, Katie. Love the show. Really interesting takes from you both. I enjoy the generational debates. Last of us clearly serving up a lot of character tension and hitting current sore spots for all of us inspected zombies inside aside regarding the combo on Seth apologizing. Here we go again, David. Uh, so interesting to hear your differing opinions and then your reflections after getting feedback. One POV.

[00:47:55] I was surprised was not brought up as not so deep as the ethical debate of if one should forgive or not. It's that the conflict between Seth and Ellie is a foreshadowing of Ellie's block on forgiving. Uh, Ellie's is foreshadowing Ellie's block on forgiving. Seth is a reflection of her fixation to get revenge on Abby. I think that's right. You know, this, this idea that, that, uh, Ellie is so hyper fixated on revenge. She, she can't let go of a grudge. Hmm. Okay.

[00:48:25] Interesting. Yep. It's simply a great storytelling tool to show where Ellie is with her capacity to forgive wherever she gets to do that with, uh, it gets to with that. Uh, I'm going to assume it will be more acceptance of cause and effect and recognition of the pointlessness of continuing to put energy into something or someone who does not appreciate it. Well, that's very hopeful of you, Katie. Interesting. Keep going. Because forgiveness of oneself or at least acceptance of two people having conflict, but letting it

[00:48:54] go is the only way to break free of harmful patterns, but you can't force that in yourself. And it doesn't always come. Sometimes walking away is enough. It's giving Rick from the white Lotus season three origin story. Well done, Katie. Well done. You are Laura hound. You're mixing your story worlds. Perfect. Will Ellie allow this fixation on revenge to define her or define her life or transcend it? Oh, this is a perfect comp. I love this. It's great. Yeah. I love it.

[00:49:23] Also regarding Dina, she's no narcissist. She has so much empathy and validates people's emotions. I put it in quotes. Uh, she's just a 19 year old chick. We can all be a little manipulative, especially when we're young. I really, you really tripped me up when you called you. Cause I wasn't going to actually say the word. Listen, David, you can't write things in the notes and expect me not to bring them up. You, you put your notes in at your own risk. I learned, I've learned my lesson.

[00:49:48] I feel like this age aspect is, uh, forgotten about, uh, about often when people judge Ellie and other young characters and shows they are young and immature. That's pretty standard. Good point to reflect on characters as a way to discern right from wrong, but maybe it says more about us in how we expect young people to act, how mature we expect ourselves to act in their situation. But the truth is we'd probably act pretty similarly if we were wronged in the same way, unless we had

[00:50:16] really grown to through a higher level of maturity. That's a good point of view. I appreciate that. Um, that reflection because we're looking at it from our age, our life experience, you know, where we have gotten to in our life. And it's not easy to remember how you were the kind of the state of your being at that time.

[00:50:39] You have your memories, but yeah, I don't remember how stupid I was and, and, and sort of emotionally obtuse that I was. I remember doing stupid things, but I don't think about myself as, you know, young and dumb at that age. If that makes sense. Yeah. So I hear you. Um, the Katie finishes, uh, these stories are about growth and there wouldn't be any if those characters were not flawed with places to go to begin with.

[00:51:08] Anyway, my thoughts keep up the good work. Also been loving the wheel of time series. Fingers crossed. We get a season for Katie. I agree. Katie, give us wheel of time season four. Renew it. Katie. Thank you so much. Yeah. Great. Greetings from New Zealand. And, uh, thank you for writing in from down under we're, we're global, John. We have global reach. That's right. Lorehounds worldwide. That's right. Katie, write it again. That was really good insights. I really appreciated your take that you, you synthesized a lot of great stuff there. So thank you.

[00:51:38] Agreed. Now not to rush you out of here, David, but I don't want to lose your file. So I'm going to send you home and then I'll do the show notes after you leave. Sounds good. Thanks, John. Bye everybody. See you next week. David's power turned off just as we were uploading the files, but I got them just in time. So let's talk about what's going on on the network. Go check out all of our network affiliates, radioactive ramblings. They just did a fallout lore episode. Nevermind the music. They are always talking about the intersection between psychology and music.

[00:52:06] Uh, we'll shift dust. They have some stuff coming on Dune. Uh, that's Alicia's other podcast. And she also has a star Wars cannon timeline podcast to fill you in on some of that earlier timeline stuff. If you're interested in and or, and of course check out properly Howard movie review and rings and rituals, which will both be back soon. So subscribe. Everything's in the link tree on the network. We're doing this full time. We're doing and or we're covering every single episode by splitting them up between the three of us, me, David and Alicia.

[00:52:36] We're having a lot of fun with it. It's been such a good season and I'm really enjoying doing the first episode of every week. And it's been nice and exciting. Uh, this week I think I'm going to be with John again, just because we have to do some scheduling changes. So we're going to repeat co-host a little bit more than, than originally planned, but I get to talk with John more. So that's a plus. Anyway, everywhere else on the network, you can get a doctor who coverage. You can get, uh, you know, I think we're going to do murder bot. We're talking about that.

[00:53:04] So, uh, plenty of other stuff, some really in stories. There was an episode recently, go check out the network. There's plenty of stuff to get in the link tree. Quick. Thank yous are discord server boosters, Aaron K. Taylor, the thriller, dork of the ninjas, doof71, Athena, a Tina, Lestu, Nancy M. Ghost of Partition, radioactive Richard. I also want to thank Aaron for making our show art for this. Uh, thank you so much, Aaron for a host of radioactive ramblings for making the show

[00:53:34] art for the last of us and for and or this season. And our lore masters are top tier patreon supercast subscribers. They are some Martian. Michael G, Michelle E, Brian P, SC, Peter OH, Adam S, Nancy M, Doof71, Brian8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Matthew M, Sarah M, Andra B, Kwong Yu, Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Sub-Zero, Aaron K, Dally V, Brothership 61, Gnarls?

[00:54:02] Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa Yu, Neil F, Ben B, Scott F, Steven N, Julia F, Kali S, Ilmariel, forward slash Tim and Adrian. Thank you everyone for listening. And we'll be back next week, hopefully a little smoother without some power issues, but I think we had a great conversation either way. We'll see you then. The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds.

[00:54:26] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad free access to all Lorehounds Podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[00:54:51] Hey Mark, I was listening to Paramore the other day and it really made me think about the amygdala and the limbic system. You just made those words up, didn't you? What, Paramore? We're the Nevermind the Music Podcast, where one musician and one psychologist talk songwriting and the mind, one song at a time. We'll hear everything from Green Day and Outcast to Stevie Wonder and Dua Lipa. And we mostly try to stay on topic. Except for when we don't want to. Nevermind the music wherever you get your podcasts.