The Last of Us - S02E07 - Convergence

[00:00:17] Welcome to the Lore of Us podcast, where the Lorehounds, your guides to the fungal apocalypse. This is our coverage of The Last of Us on HBO, Season 2, Episode 7, Convergence. We're going to start off with our hot takes. Very hot tonight, I think. Sizzling. And then we're going to get into our discussion of the episode on a thematic basis. If you want to contact us, contact tlou at thelorehounds.com. Let the hate flow through you to us. And you can also go to our Discord.

[00:00:47] Where you can discuss it in real time with us and other like-minded folks. And if you like what we do, even if you're not in with our spicy takes, but you still want to support the podcast, we do have a Patreon and we do have a Supercast. It's like Patreon. It's the same thing. There's a link in the link trees for all of that, all those links.

[00:01:08] We really depend on your support and patronage. And yeah, you get ad-free episodes. We've got some bonus content. And it really helps us be able to produce all of the different projects that we are covering. We're just wrapped up on Andor. We've got a couple of podcasts left on that. You guys are doing Murderbots.

[00:01:33] That's right. And we got the Doctor Who finale this weekend. It will be, by the way, if you're a Doctor Who, if you're a Whovian, it's going to be a couple days later than usual. We're not getting a screener for the finale. Right. Right. They're keeping it secret. So I bet it's going to be exciting. Interviews with the showrunner say he's going to mix up the lore a lot in the finale. So we'll see what happens. All right. Well, we'll talk a little bit about more all of that at the end of the podcast.

[00:01:59] Very cool. So I am the game player. You are not. You are the show-only watcher. And that keeps us nice and balanced. Now, David, before we get into our hot takes, you and I discussed, you had this great suggestion of not a spoiler warning because we're going to spoil the episode and only what's in the episode. Nothing from the games. That goes beyond the point that we're at. Sort of a spice indicator. Yeah, like it's like the little chili peppers on a menu letting you know that the food is spicy or not.

[00:02:30] And I was going to say, too, you may notice that we're a little bit late on our podcast, partially because we had a long weekend here in the United States. And so that sort of threw off our schedules. But the other thing, at least for me, like I'm a little bit more calm now and a little bit more circumspect. I can be a little bit more distant from it. I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. Yeah. If we had recorded on Monday, I think I would have been throwing some feces around. So I was a little upset. But anyway, I'm a little bit of distance.

[00:02:59] But yeah, I think we should just let folks know we are not fans of how this season ended. No. And again, so we do our best to not yucky hums here, right? Exactly. If you are having a good time with this season, this might not be the episode for you. Like, come back next season. I'm sure that we'll have a better time. I've come back to any of our other shows. I think we've been positive on pretty much everything else going on right now. Yeah. Very positive. Von Andor, Murderbot, Doctor Who, all this stuff.

[00:03:27] Yeah. And look, I'm just going to complain a lot tonight. I'm going to complain a lot. I have a few things I liked, but I disliked more than I liked about this season. Yeah. And I'm disappointed in that. I came into this season after a great season one and after loving the games and hoping that this was going to be a really great season. I unfortunately don't think they did it. But again, if you liked this, I want you to keep liking it. Yeah. I'm not here to convince you this was bad media. Right.

[00:03:53] If you love this, if you want to look at Pedro Pascal all day, I think you should do it. I think you should do it. And I support you in your journey. That's not the journey I am on today. Right. Right. And same with you, David, right? You're on the fairly negative train and that's why we wanted to preface that and not because I think, you know, the last time we had an episode like this was the Ahsoka finale. Mm-hmm. And I think we upset a few people because they expected us to be positive. We had been positive on the whole season. Yep.

[00:04:21] I will say I'm not angry like I was on the Ahsoka finale because I was gently let down throughout the whole season. Whereas the Ahsoka finale, I was like banger after banger episode followed by a bleak finale. Mm-hmm. And that's a different thing, I think. That was whiplash for me. Right. And I think I'm sort of in that position of Last of Us here, you know, after a couple of,

[00:04:45] fun, fun, quote unquote, fun, some intense, a couple of intense episodes and really looking forward to the season. It's been, for me, the episodes have been getting weaker, not stronger. And I was actually, the more I thought about it, the more I sat in my feelings about the episode, the finale, the more angry I got at the show and the show writers and the show runners and the writers of this episode.

[00:05:14] I really was upset. I think they did some not good things for the property and I think they put some things into the world that I don't appreciate. And I think they really didn't do a great job. And I have opinions about that. And yeah, and like you said, we don't want, if you think that, oh God, I don't think I can listen to these guys, you know, pig pile onto this thing, then yeah, you know, maybe, maybe skip this one. Maybe let this one pass.

[00:05:42] Look, we, we've, we are over 500 episodes, folks. There's a lot of our voices out there. You don't have to be here for this one. And this is probably the podcast we've most told people not to listen to. I almost was like, I don't want to listen to this. I do this podcast. Yeah. I was, I was a little hesitant to talk about it because look, we try to be honest here. Like we, we're not going to just say media is great when it's not. Right. Exactly. And, and most, we do a lot of careful deciding of what we cover based on what we like. And we try to pick things that we will like.

[00:06:11] Because we've covered the things that we, we've covered things before that were difficult to cover. You did make me watch Kaleidoscope and True Detective. I'm so sorry about that. I will never, you'll never forgive me, right? Just like a sandwich guy. I'm never going to forgive Kaleidoscope. Yeah. Yeah. No, there, there will be no forgiveness in this home. But, uh, you know, overall, I think we're pretty good at gauging what we're going to like. Like, and, uh, after season one, I thought, bro, season two, season one was fantastic. Amazing. Absolutely. Like no notes on season one. Yeah.

[00:06:40] And season two, I, I, I'm so disappointed. I am, I am wildly disappointed in this, in this show. Yeah. And it's not because of Bella Ramsey. No, no. Bella Ramsey haters. I want you to, I want you to calm down. I want you to calm down because it's not her fault. It's just like Goodwill hunting. Yeah. Let's just put the blanket out. All the actors did a great job. Yeah. They're, they're fine. We don't have an issue with that. It's the scripts that they were given.

[00:07:09] Yeah. All, all the actors. I, I totally agree with that. Yeah. Um, the, the scripts were not there. Yeah. Not a bad performance among the actors. They all did their jobs. Yeah. I, I, but, but Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, I mean, Neil Druckmann's new to TV, but he wrote the game too. Like he, neither of them have an excuse for how the season turned out. Yeah. I don't understand. And I do think they, they hold the responsibility for how the season turned out.

[00:07:37] Yeah. Absolutely. That's what, when you're the show runner, you, that you're the ultimately responsible. Mm-hmm. I want to ask you because, uh, you're new to the structure of this game and I couldn't talk about the structure of the game and now the structure of the seasons until now. Right. But now, you know, this is a nonlinear story. Sure. Sure. How do you feel about what they're doing now? We, we did Ellie's journey, the three days through Seattle. We are now going to follow Abby.

[00:08:05] So there's nothing new necessarily about this Rashomon inspired storytelling, right? We, we saw that in the Acolyte Rashomon, right? Like that's a, you know, early Japanese cinema style and it goes back even further. That's totally fine. And there are ways to do that. And there are ways to communicate the way that you're going to do that. This was not the way. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:32] And I think the, the bigger and even bigger impact is we now have to wait two years for the other side of the story. If they had been clear about that and I get it with the gameplay, but this goes into the whole heart of the matter.

[00:08:49] I think is season one, it didn't feel like they were beholden to the game. They use the game as, as inspiration, but they riffed on it and they played and they expanded the world. And every episode was an expansion. Even though there was gameplay stuff in there, it really felt like the world was moving outwards.

[00:09:13] Like we were pushing outwards and learning new things about new characters and, and gaining new insights. And this just felt anchored by something that just didn't make any sense. And if you needed to do some sort of nonlinear storytelling, you shouldn't have, um, uh, last yourself to the mast of the game.

[00:09:41] You should have taken the, you know, this is a lot of me shoulds, you know, wagging my finger should, should, should. Take the, take the key storylines, right? This is all shippy test stuff, right? This is all, what's the message? I'm going to, I'm going to shippy the hell out of this episode. Yeah. Let me tell you. Uh, what's the, what are the key things that you're trying to show and tell, break it all apart and then abandon the game structure and then just tell the story with the constituent parts.

[00:10:09] But it felt like, and I, I've listened to a bunch of other podcasts. I've been reading a bunch of, you know, uh, um, discords and our discord and another discord. And, uh, a lot of game players are saying that this is stuff like straight out of the game. And it feels like. It isn't, it isn't. There's a lot of, a lot of major character changes that I think fundamentally undermine the story.

[00:10:30] So there's character changes and then there are plot beats or particular mechanics of like, oh, we got to put Ellie in this position or she's got to experience this particular thing. It's like, why, why did, what, what is the island? What does the Seraphite Island have to do with anything? That's not even in the game. So I heard it was in the game. They just, they just know that she did not visit the Seraphite Island in the game. Okay. At all. Like they just did that to tease season two. Season three rather. Yeah.

[00:11:00] So it just felt like they, they lashed themselves to a certain structure and it didn't make sense. It didn't work. I applaud them for trying stuff and trying to make a swing. But, and I think my, we'll get into more other criticisms later, but the cut to black gunshot was bullshit. And. It was.

[00:11:29] It, you have all season long. You kept giving us these. Deus ex machina moments. So what am I supposed to believe? I had to, I, the only thing that I can think of is, is Dina shoots, uh, Abby. I don't care if Ellie dies. I don't care if Dina shoots out. You know, I don't.

[00:11:48] It just, it was, I have no trust in the show runners to pull a cheap stunt like that and then make the audience wait for two plus years for the, for the result resolution. I just think it was just really poor storytelling and poor streaming. Like the strategy of the show as a streaming show. Mm-hmm. It just, it doesn't make sense to me.

[00:12:15] I think they got all of the negatives of the nonlinear structure and none of the positives. I agree. I agree. The nonlinear structure made a lot of sense in the game because. It's a game. No, and not just that. The way the, the story is being told is you have this slow buildup of Ellie's rage uninterrupted, right? She is not doubting herself. She is just getting more and more blinded by rage.

[00:12:40] And it's only after she kills Mel that she reflects once and is like, holy fuck, what have I become? Right. And that is a powerful moment in the game. Right. And I didn't get that in this because even on the way to go to Mel, she's like, I don't know if I should. I really do this. Mm-hmm. This, this, I don't know if they're trying to make Ellie more sympathetic or something like that, but all it does to me is completely undermine the character arc. Right. So that's one thing.

[00:13:04] The second thing is the whole point of the nonlinear structure in the game was you don't reveal who Abby is until you get to Abby's section. Right. And you don't, you don't find out. Ellie doesn't find out until very late. And so she's blinded by rage and she doesn't even know why Joel was killed by her. Right. And that, and the, and you as the player feel that rage for Abby because of that too. And it's only playing as Abby that you get to learn why she did what she did.

[00:13:32] And you, you begin to empathize with Abby. And that is the power of nonlinear storytelling. Mm-hmm. Undermined. We knew, we've known this since episode two. Right. Right. What was the point of that? What was the point of that? I think it was to make people empathize with Abby earlier, but I don't think that they should be empathizing with Abby earlier. The whole point is build this person up as a villain and then come back and force the viewer to, in the game, force the player to play as them. Right. In the show, force the viewer to empathize with them and follow them.

[00:14:02] Right. What was the point of all this if we're going to just tell you everything up front? And that was just lazy to me. Mm-hmm. That was, I think, honestly, it's, it's, it was done for a noble reason, I think. And I'm speculating here, but the voice, the motion capture actress for Abby in the game, I cannot remember the name right now, got a lot of harassment, a lot of hate. Yep. Because a lot of people would play the first part of the game and not know what was going on. And, you know, guys, don't harass actors for the characters. Yeah, I know, they're doing a job.

[00:14:32] Yeah. Come on. But, but, you know, I don't think we have a lot of listeners like that, but, you know. I should hope not. Yeah, I should hope not. Yeah, I hope you, you, you know something, listen to us all day. Right.

[00:14:45] But, but so you, you, they wanted to soften this blow for Caitlin Dever, but in, in the consequence of that is that you completely undermined the emotional impact of Ellie on this rage mission, this blinded by rage, telling Dina she's a burden for being pregnant, leaving her behind to, to go on her mission while she's injured. Um, which she's not injured in the game, actually. She ends up with morning sickness. That's how she gets incapacitated for a while.

[00:15:14] I actually think it's better to have her wounded. That makes more sense to me. Sure. Um, so that, you know, like they made a few changes that were better for the show, but not a lot. I think mostly they really undermined it. And, you know, now we have to wait two years. And like you said, so, so I will tell you that the, the cut to black with the gunshot does happen in the game, but you immediately start playing as Abby and then you can catch back up to that pretty quick. Okay. And so it works when I can keep going. Right. Right.

[00:15:44] When I can keep going in the game. But I can't keep going in the show. I have to wait two years. They're not even starting to film until 2026. And this is what I was saying before about these, um, uh, holding on to these mechanical aspects of the gameplay. That doesn't work for the show. And that's what, what was so beautiful about season one was like, okay, well let's take Bill and Frank and let's like make a whole world around them. Right. And then that was just a cranky guy in the game.

[00:16:14] Yeah. It's more about who, um, uh, uh, Pedro Pascal's character, whatever, Joel, uh, it tells us about, it informs our relationship with Joel watching Bill and Frank.

[00:16:32] Um, you know, every scene, the, the, the Kansas city stuff, we see hate and revenge consuming, uh, uh, I forget. Kathleen. Kathleen. And then we see the tragedy of the, of the little brother and the bond, you know, and then the heartbreak that, that affects Ellie.

[00:16:53] So every time we take these characters, it's illuminating and telling us more, but in this one, everything just got smaller and smaller and more contorted to try to make something work so that it felt more like pandering to the game players. I don't, I don't make, it doesn't make sense. Let's take, okay.

[00:17:15] So this is a story about revenge, you know, and, and, uh, and hate and what that does to somebody we've come to know and, and, and really empathize with. They didn't do any, it was just completely muddied for that, that whole storyline. It's because every time Ellie got close to feeling hate, something would happen to make her go, well, I don't really know if I want to go through with this. Right. Like, like I said, she finds out about pregnancy in the game. She goes, well, that, well, you're a burden to my mission now. Right. Right.

[00:17:43] Like that is not the same character as we saw on screen. And I'm not saying it needs to be exactly the same, but if you're trying to make me feel the same feelings as I did in the game. Or think the same thoughts like, God, like, what does that, what does that say about you? What does that say about the human condition? Right. What, that's what this show is, is it's talking to us about the human condition in extreme circumstances. Right. And I should think Ellie is an asshole at this point. Right. Like, I should be completely like, oh my God, what is this monster that I'm playing as? Right.

[00:18:14] Not, um, this person is annoying and a brat. And like, yeah, it just doesn't work. And we see Bella Ramsey do that with Nora, right? She gets there with Nora. And then just every other time, like, even when she's with Mel and Owen, she's like shaking. You know what I mean? Like, she's just like, not really fully there. She's like, I don't really want to do this. And I'm like, what is this? What, what are you trying to tell me with Ellie's character?

[00:18:41] It's like, oh, if you stumble into revenge, you might hurt some people. Like, I, I know it should be, you are blinded by revenge. You are filled with hate and you don't think about consequences and you hurt both the people you love, like Jesse and the people that you hate. Yeah. And the people who are innocent bystanders, like the unborn child of one of the people who was just a bystander there. So along with that, for me, there were big structural plot things.

[00:19:09] The whole, you know, going to the island. I didn't understand what that was about. Oh, that was bullshit. Yeah. Driving the boat. Which, the way that Jesse was killed, I get the mean, you know, the, the meaninglessness of Jesse's death. But the way that it was done, you kept telling me one thing about Jesse and then he died in a way that doesn't see, is, is antithetical to who he was. He wouldn't burst through a door like that, in my opinion.

[00:19:33] The, the character, oh, like I want to say this Seraphite kid, but when my uncle needs me, I say fuck the community. Right? There was just like all these inconsistencies. And then the, you know, just the, the geography and the jetpacking stuff. And, and just, I, I kept having to hand wave the, the logistics of the show to the point like, okay, this is ridiculous. You, you don't get washed away. We'll get to it, I suppose.

[00:20:03] I don't know. But, I don't know. Should we get to it? I'm kind of, I am kind of tempted to just go very quickly through this. Yeah. And it's really just going to be, because, and it's really just going to be nitpicking on these major scenes. That's what I mean. Like, is this entertaining for anybody? I don't think it is. And I would feel bad to put somebody through that. I mean, it's one thing for you and I to talk about it. And I guess that's what people listen to is they want to be part of the thing. Here's my problem is they can't come back from this.

[00:20:33] Like, that is not, you cannot fuck up the main character's arc and then come back when you have another season. They're probably going to have a whole season of playing as Abby or of following out. Yeah. That's, that's what I'm assuming. And you've just fucked up Ellie's whole arc. Right. And the whole point of this thing is to contrast these two people who are on similar missions. Right. Right. Right. And to contrast what, what that does to relationships around you, what it does to your friends, what it does to your enemies.

[00:21:02] And if you mess up half of that, that the whole thing falls apart. And you did something in this season, which is drop Pedro Pascal regard, you know, flashback episode aside. You, the people built their, their love for the show on the lone wolf and cob thing. Right. And the story and the, and the feelings. And I'm all, that's fine. I'm kill Joel. That's great. That's part of the story. I get it.

[00:21:29] You know, we're, it's pushing us into a new place, but then you've got to tell that story really competently because now you have to re-engage us as an audience into some new dynamic that we're going to feel for. And I have not gotten to know Abby at all. And now I'm going to go whole, spend a whole season with her. And again, like, that's fine.

[00:21:54] If we're like, really, they should have just done like a 15 episode season and just done both sides of it because you can't, you can't do a two year break before that. And that's, that's a, a more damning indictment of the entire streaming industry right now. Yeah. But man, but if you know that, like, they know that going in. Craig Mason's not an idiot. Here's my. He's going to have to wait two years. You know, we could, we could rewrite the show ourselves, whatever. That's bullshit.

[00:22:19] We're, we're, you know, we're not as smart as a lot of these writers, commercial writers or whatever. But like just one alternative alternating episodes and yeah, run a 12 to 15 episode season. One episode. Or even just don't get as far, right? Like, yeah. Don't get us as far through the plot, but alternate the episodes or, or you don't even have to alternate the episodes. It's like, you know, cut to the different people at different times. Yeah. And build and weave. Yeah.

[00:22:44] Like I, I understand the impulse to do exactly what the game did on, on the nonlinear part. And that's a really cool way to tell a story. But because you already didn't withhold information, like a Rashomon style storytelling necessitates withholding important. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they didn't do that. Yeah. They gave us all the information right away. Like imagine Joel, you know, we, we have what it was at episode two where that happens. Yeah. And you know, we don't know nothing.

[00:23:14] We don't, we haven't had their, their, I can't imagine it. Cause I played the game that way. Right. And then the next thing we know, Joel is dead by these strangers who then just fuck off. Right. Like, hell yeah. Let's work. Yeah. We're saddling up and we're voting for the mission at the town. Let the hate flow through you. Yeah. Let's go. Because who the fuck are they? Pardon me. I'm really swearing. I don't normally swear so much, but who are these MFers that came into our place and killed our dude? We're going to go get them.

[00:23:41] That if knowing nothing, I would have, that would have been cool as hell. Right. Because then you can be with Ellie. You can be with Ellie on the hate train. Exactly. But I can't be with Ellie as much if I already have this empathy for Abby. Right. And, and, and Ellie's not even fully with Ellie. Every, every episode she's been on like, maybe we should go back. And it's like, this is not somebody on a revenge mission. This is someone on a pleasure cruise. Right. Yeah. And imagine. Maybe, maybe today will feel like revenge, but I don't know.

[00:24:11] Yeah. Like, Oh yeah, I know Joel. Like, you know, don't tell us that at all until we get to that moment. And boom. Yeah. Joel told me, we were sitting on the porch one night and, you know, flashback or not, you know, there's ways that you could have played it. That, that, that, that this doesn't make sense relative to that. Yeah. Why don't we take a break and then let's continue talking more generally about the episode because I just don't think that a scene by scene is going to be right for this. Yeah. Even though I've already written it.

[00:24:42] All right. We'll be right back. We're back. Let's talk about some, some positives for a minute. I want to say, I really think that they improved the Mel death a lot in the show. Okay. In the game.

[00:25:11] Uh, you know, Abby, Ellie gets, oh my God, I can't keep these characters straight. Ellie gets into a scuffle with them. Okay. And, and does, you know, intentionally shoot Mel. I mean, doesn't notice that she's pregnant until afterwards. Um, and, and then notices, um, that she's pregnant and has the same kind of breakdown that she has to get pulled away from. Um, but, but what they added in the show was even more sad and brutal, which is Mel calmly saying, I have like 30 seconds left. Grab the knife. Right.

[00:25:41] Take the baby out. And like, yeah, that was a little Delulu as the kids say, like Ellie was not going to be able to do a successful C-section here. But yeah. And what do you do with that? Yeah. Right. What you're going to do with the baby. But I mean, just the heartbreak of like, all right, I know I'm going to die. I'm accepting it calmly. Go try to save my child. Yeah. I had a lot of problems with this scene.

[00:26:05] I had a lot of problems with the whole, uh, um, you know, Dina pregnancy. She's kind of, I don't want to say, how do I say this? She suddenly loses some, does she lose some age? I don't know. I don't know how to process what that goes on with, you know, what's going on there.

[00:26:24] And then, you know, with Mel, like, I'm just glad I wasn't watching with, with my wife or, you know, or anybody else who's, who's, who's carried a child, uh, at all. Any way, shape or, you know, to, to whatever. Well, I watched with my wife who had a C-section, two of them actually. Right. I just, I don't know what they were doing with that and why. And I just was upset. I just, the whole thing upset me. Oh, it was very upsetting.

[00:26:53] I actually think it was well done though, because I think that, I think that that really like hammered home to Ellie. Like if we had built up the rates of that moment, that is such a sobering moment. You're the love of your life is, is pregnant and you just accidentally killed a pregnant woman. Right. And she's begging you to save the baby. I mean, what a way to make sink in like, we're the same in a lot of ways. Right. Right. I, I actually think that that was one of the better scenes. Okay. Yeah. It was, it was just a lot.

[00:27:22] And I was, I was really kind of, um, and, and they did, they've just been putting, they've been putting a lot of, uh, I don't know the, the, the way that they constructed the intensity of the scenes. Like with Kathleen and with David last season, it just made, it had a, made a lot more story sense and it had a lot of more impact. And outcome.

[00:27:48] And in this one, it just felt like they just were turning up the horror dial. Like, we're just going to make things more horrible and more horrible. And we're just going to challenge. And it, for, for what purpose? I don't know. Like, you know, with, with David, it, you know, Ellie unlocked this survival level of like, how far would she go to survive? Yeah. And she had to do it on her own. Right.

[00:28:12] Meanwhile, uh, Joel is like, you know, trying to make his way there, but he didn't do anything to, you know, it was that, that was all Ellie, her ingenuity, her ferocity, her willingness to, you know, her wanting to live. So that tells me something about Ellie that, you know, seeing some seraphites, gutting some people. Okay. I get it. They're bad. You know, like multiple times. I just, they, they, they just turned up the gore dial for, for no purpose to, in my mind. Yeah.

[00:28:42] Yeah. I hear you. I, I, I didn't mind the gore as much maybe because I played the game and it was probably worse. It's not that I don't mind the gore. It's just that for what purpose? Like, you know, it's just like with, why, why are you going to show people being intimate on screen for what purpose? Is it just to show, you know, naked bodies on the screen? Oh, you, you can't say that, David. You'll get a lot of emails. I got a lot of emails on the wheel of time. We had a whole section about it in the feedback episode. Jesus Christ. People think that I am like a Puritan.

[00:29:10] I, I wear turtlenecks all the time. I don't. So, so yeah. So just, you know, putting the, the, the, the thing with Mel and the pregnancy on top of the other stuff, it just, it didn't, there was no, there was no logic to it. There was no internal logic, storytelling logic. It was just, let's keep amping and amping and amping for no purpose.

[00:29:34] And then if we're missing the rage of Ellie, you know, raging through all of that kind of stuff until she hits, you know, an immovable, immovable object kind of thing. Right. Then there's no payoff for it. It's just, it's just grotesque. Yeah. I, I too did not like her getting to the certified island. It just felt like they wanted to be like, Hey, look, there's going to be a battle next season. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't make sense that she's just like washed up next to her boat. That her boat hasn't capsized. She hasn't sunk wearing jeans.

[00:30:04] She hasn't gotten hypothermia. I am from the Pacific Northwest. I know that water is cold as hell and you don't, even if you call your way out and survive that, you're still wearing wet cotton clothes sticking to your body. But you're, you're going to go into, uh, you know, you're going to get into hypothermic shock. You're going to start doing the shivers thing, like uncontrollable shivers.

[00:30:27] And then to go through all the trouble of stringing her up and then go, Oh, nevermind. Like the fuck. Right. She's absolutely did not make sense. They would have just, Oh, we'll do this quickly. Let's just, just do the, do the killing quickly. Cause we got to go. Yeah, exactly. Drop her down and, and, and do it some other way. You don't have to get all ritualistic about it. You could just, you just do it. Right. Right. It made no sense.

[00:30:54] And geographically speaking, there is no Island like that off of Seattle. Oh no. The idea, they have not explained this yet. Maybe they will next season. The idea is that it's flooded. The city's flooded. And so that's actually a district of the city that, that is now disconnected. Okay. Well, again, there's no, like that would be discovery park. And that's where it, yeah, they're just, you know, so. So that strained my credulity. Is that the right word?

[00:31:22] Cause I know the Seattle geography very intimately. So it, it bothered me. I think there was actually like scientific, I'm going to, I'm going to push back on this. Cause I think there was actually like a thing where they did research about like, if you stopped, there's, there's books about this. Like if you stopped maintaining the water systems and things like that. Sure, sure, sure. Like what would happen? And one of them is Seattle. Part of it would flood. I got no problem with that. And I totally get that. And I totally understand that. And, and the, and, and where the aquarium was and all of that.

[00:31:49] It just, so, you know, it was just the, then, but it's funny because, you know, if you want to talk about other good things, there were other parts of Seattle that they finally got right. Like I was like feeling like, Oh, this is Seattle. I actually kind of know this place. So you're going to name it, you know, and you're going to do the matte digital paintings, whatever they're doing, then make it actually Seattle. So anyway, but you know, when you, we, we know that when we're out of the groove of the story, if when the needle's out of the groove of the record, we start to nitpick on, on those kinds of things.

[00:32:18] So that just bugged the shit out of me. Yeah. And no, she probably didn't know how to drive a boat like that, but that was something they did in the, that's something that they did in the, in the game too. And I think you just gotta, gotta go with it. Just. And then getting capsized and knowing how to drive one of those boats and getting, getting one of those motors started. I'm sorry. If you've ever tried to know on a wet. Cold night like that. No. Anyway, this is where I feel bad for the listener because it's just like, I'm just now. That's why I said, let's not go through this in detail. Let's just talk about.

[00:32:48] And here we are. Of a few things. I mean, you know, I, I did, I thought it was a pretty effective scene when, when Ellie is getting her back cleaned by Dina and she's confessing what was going on. Sure. I thought that was fairly affecting, effective rather. Um, you know, I, I, you know, I heard that on the official podcast, they were debating whether Ellie actually did find it easy to torture Nora. I don't know if that matters.

[00:33:13] I, I actually think she found it easy at the moment and feels bad about it now. Sure. That would be fine. I would be fine with that. But I, I think again, blinded by rage, you really need that built up. You really need. And I, I liked that whole sequence of her going down there because it was this space that she was safe in. She's not infected. She can be there. This is somehow, she is somehow spiritually. Her element. Exactly.

[00:33:43] And it looked so great at, you know, and yeah, we talked about how the, the alien, you know, uh, the xenomorph ness of it all, but I loved it. And I loved seeing that. And then that, that she was in this monster torturing Nora to, for the information that all made sense. And it worked for me. Right. And then, and then going, then coming back up to the surface and then going, holy shit, what did I just do? That's all cool. I like all that. That works.

[00:34:09] So what did, what did you think of, um, I'm calling it finding Tommy, like finding Nemo, the, uh, the whole segment where, where Ellie and Jesse are kind of making up in that bookstore. Well, I want to step back a little bit and I'm just so, uh, you know, watching Ellie, the way that they've written her and, and the way that she, uh, and I get, I understand

[00:34:36] what they're trying to go for, but the way that it went down with her writing Tommy off and saying, no, I'm going to go to the whale and the wheel. That was stupid as well. Just say aquarium. I'll be like, whatever. Um, uh, that really pissed me off because, you know, she's like, fuck community. Fuck my uncle. Like, you know, you know, this is your, this is Joel's living relative who told you before.

[00:35:02] Again, again, if you have somebody who's like, I have to get Abby at no, at no matter the cost, that makes sense. But we, again, she's like, it's whiplash because 10 minutes ago we had her agreeing with Dina to go home. Yeah, exactly. And again on the mission. Yeah. Yeah. And then she sees the whale on the wheel, which I thought was just a stupid writing. Um, and then it was fine because Dina, because, uh, Nora was getting infected. She could barely talk. She's getting a single syllable word.

[00:35:31] They might not know what an aquarium is either. They grew up without them. Anyway, I, it was just, it was, it was a silly trick writing thing because then she gets to go wheel whale and then put it together and we get to go, Oh, Whoa. It was, it was just dumb to me. Um, the, the thing with, with Jesse, uh, and, and making up the, like, I don't know that I believe that she would set the world on fire to rescue Jesse.

[00:35:56] She wouldn't set the world on fire to rescue Tommy and Tommy's Joel's blood, flesh and blood, you know? Uh, so I just didn't buy any of that conversation. Yeah. And, and I think that the whole, the whole thing is like Ellie's supposed to be a bad person here. Yeah. And, and she was in that moment, but we did, we haven't seen any lead up to this. It's really, I, like I said, I just have total whiplash with the season, the whole, the whole writing.

[00:36:25] I don't know where her head is at at any point. I, I, I'm so tired of complaining about this. I'm going to, sorry, I overstepped you. What did you say? No, I said, I'm just so tired of complaining about this. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the other one big complaint, and I, I do, I, I kind of feel like I want to wrap this up real quick is, um, is the way that Jesse went out. I get the idea that here's a good man who cares about community, cares about, uh, uh,

[00:36:53] his child, you know, his soon to be child. Uh, he wants to do the right thing by all of his people and he gets killed and it's senseless and it's like, Oh my God, this world and all this kind of stuff. But everything they told me about Jesse was that he's a tactically savvy operator. He understands how to maneuver and for him to go running through the door. Didn't make any sense to me. No, no.

[00:37:20] And that, this is one I'm not going to be arguing with, with he would is in trouble and he's the father of Dina. He's got a lot of stuff swimming through his head. Everybody makes mistakes. No, but no, no, no, no, no. But this is a guy that doesn't make, this is a guy that made it to Seattle and found her and has kept them alive. He has, this is Harrison Ford and Raiders of the lost arc arc. Maybe he has good instincts and he's going to, uh, he, you know, he's going to override his impulses. That's who he is.

[00:37:49] And that's who they told me he was all season long. Now, if he got popped by a sniper or he snuck out and, you know, and then, you know, she got the drop on him or something like that. Totally fine. I get it. Like, that's fine. You know, take kill Jesse, but I just disagree fundamentally. Fundamentally with the way that they killed him. And that's just my opinion. All right. Cause everything they told me about him is that he's very smart and he would, he knows how to operate. And he, you know, he's with his girlfriend in Mexico. Yeah. Yes. In the dream.

[00:38:19] Let's talk about, um, next season. I think, uh, let's just quickly do that. You know, we have the setup at the end where Abby walks out into the football stadium and we see this giant. That was cool. Post apocalyptic. That was dope. Right? Yeah. That was awesome. I think that's really interesting. I, that's straight out of the game too, but this idea of, you know, Jackson has its own little city, but they were like, all right, what do you do in an urban environment? We just set up the mega dome. Right. Yeah. I thought that was cool.

[00:38:46] And I'm really, I will watch season three. Uh, I, I don't know if we needed season four. Like a good. Oh my God. That's another thing. Why was this seven episodes? Yeah. It was rushed. It was, there was no reason for this to be seven episodes. No. Give us, give us 10 and move the story forward. Do the cut to black gunshot and then build, start to build Abby and then end the season on some cool cliffhanger, you know? Yeah.

[00:39:13] And that's the thing about cliffhangers is I want to be left wanting more. Like, oh, I can't wait to find out what happens. And on the discord and on the internet, everybody was like WTF. Yeah. Like it failed. It was a complete failure of a, of a, um, of a cliffhanger. Anyway, I'm definitely interested in, I think, uh, what's the actor's name, um, for Abby? Uh, Caitlin Dever. Yeah. Everybody, you know, everybody's like, Ooh, Caitlin Dever, Caitlin Dever. She's great.

[00:39:41] And I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, that. So I know I said earlier that I don't have, I, you know, I'm just very confused and mixed up about this episode, this season. So me too. I, I don't know what they were thinking with a lot of these choices and I, I, I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. Like I said, uh, it is what it is. I'm sorry if we, if we yucked anybody's yum tonight, I, I, but we gotta be honest when

[00:40:08] we're not feeling the show and, and man, and, and like, here's the thing, like this show has no excuse. This show has all the funding it needs. It has, uh, you know, silver screen royalty, Craig Bazin. It has the maker of the game, Neil Druckmann. Right. There is no excuse for it to fail on its mission. And I do think it failed in its mission here. I think the season is a failure in my opinion. Now, will I cover season three? Probably. I, I gotta, I gotta be honest though.

[00:40:37] Like if this comes out at the same time as two other things that I want to cover, this goes first, you know? Right. And we'll do a one shot. Like I, I'm not yearning to watch or, or cover season three. And, and I'll watch season three, but I'm going to be distrustful. You know what I mean? I'm, you're, you're going to have to re-earn my trust. You, they had so much trust from me from season one. That season was exquisite. Yeah.

[00:41:06] Real game changer of, of television. And this, I, I, it's not even a sophomore slump. I was willing to give it sophomore slump. Yeah. You kept saying that. I was like, I don't think so. I think they botched the whole arc. Yeah. This is, they crashed the plane here. Um, so I'm really sorry. I hate, I just hate to be so negative. I'm not sorry. No, I am sorry. Yeah. I, I, I, I don't want to be negative. I'm sorry for the listeners. We're, that's why we gave you that warning up front. We did. You can't say we didn't warn you. Yeah.

[00:41:35] I, I did not like the season. I thought there were some good moments, but overall, I thought that the season structurally was not sound. No, I a hundred percent agree with you on that. All right. We've cranked up enough. I'm, I'm not doing a scene by scene for this. I think we, we talked as much of what we wanted to talk about with the show for this season. Yeah. Sorry, everybody. Okay. Let's talk about what else we're doing so that we're in a better mood. Uh, I don't know. What are we doing?

[00:42:04] It's like, I feel like suddenly we're washed up on the beach of a forested island and we got weekly coverage of two shows still going. All right. All right. All right. Yeah. Doctor who we're finishing up the finale. Ian's going to be on that. Uh, I believe. And, uh, it's going to shake up the lore of Gallifrey, everybody. That's what, that's what showrunner Russell T Davis says. So we'll see. I just did a, uh, really great interview with Tansy Gardam, uh, from the Going Rogue podcast.

[00:42:32] Uh, we did a two part interview. The second part is out first and that's for subscribers only. And that's where, uh, you confuse everybody with that. I know I did it. I'm sorry. I'm confused this week too. The, the whole long weekend, uh, kind of threw me because I was relaxed. I was so relaxed over the weekend until, uh, you know, now it's like, oh, trying to get back into work. So I'm a little disoriented anyway. Um, so that's out for subscribers and season pass holders.

[00:43:00] And that's where Tansy and I get real nerdy about, uh, TV production and stuff. But then there's going to be a more, uh, generalized conversation about and, or, and the Star Wars franchise, which will be out on the public feeds, uh, probably tomorrow. And, uh, that's just a really great conversation. And if you have not heard of the Going Rogue podcast, go, if you're into Star Wars at all, you got to go check it out and then also check out her Going Solo episodes.

[00:43:29] And she gets into just deep, deep, deep research on how those two movies were made. And she does a whole bunch of other things. So, but it's a really great conversation, a lot of fun. So, uh, be on the lookout for that. Very cool. If you want a palate cleanser after the last of us, or honestly, Murderbot is, is a really good one. It's fun. It's 20. The episodes are 22 minutes. Cool. They are very short and sweet. They are very funny.

[00:43:57] Uh, Alexander Skarsgård is doing a really great job being a sassy robot. Nice. And we're loving it. We're loving it. We're having a great time. We have a, there's a Predator movie coming up. There is a John Wick movie coming up. We'll see what kind of coverage we do in those. I never watched the John Wick. What's that? Ballerina. It's the ballerina. Okay. From the world of John Wick. Ballerina. I've never watched any John Wick. Oh, oh, interesting. I've been wanting to. I, I, I'm not anti-Wick. I just haven't gotten around to it. We got Ironheart. I know that we'll have some coverage of that. The Bear.

[00:44:26] We have to talk about what we're going to do for the bear. I still haven't watched season three. I know. It's like, it's a tone poem. It's what it is. I don't know if I want that right now. Yeah, exactly. Foundation. We got to figure out what's up with that. That's gotta be weekly. Yeah, that's coming. That'll be fun. And then. I think, I think I'm going to pull Alicia into a one shot of the rehearsal. Nice. Very cool. Alien Earth is coming. I'm definitely covering that. And Peacemaker.

[00:44:53] I think Aaron's going to join Alicia because Alicia is very excited for that, for Peacemaker. Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, and then Fantastic Four. Like, so I know Jean and Alicia are definitely covering that. But, so we get a bunch of stuff. Yeah, it's going to be a little bit more popcorn. And Superman too. They're going to cover Superman. Oh shit, yeah. Superman. I forgot about that. I'm not a Superman or Batman kind of guy. That was just. Oh man. I know. I know. I like them. I like them both. Not me. I'm more of a Batman than a Superman, but I do like Superman. I think he's, he's both overrated and underrated, you know? Right, right.

[00:45:24] So yeah, lots of, lots happening this summer yet. So we're going to, we're going to keep it fresh, keep it rolling. What are the affiliates doing? I don't know. Anthony and Steve have been real quiet on Properly Howard. I expect, you know, but that's the way they roll. Then they'll just pop up and the season will be rolling before we know it. So, but last we heard it was going to be a Kevin Bacon season. But of course now with Knight of the Seven Kingdoms being postponed to next year, that throws a curve ball into their plans as well. So we'll see what they're up to. Yeah.

[00:45:55] And I think Radioactive Ramblings, they were also, because you know, all those guys are in college. And so they were sort of transitioning from end of classes into, you know, summer activities. But I know they were doing some Fallout lore because we're going to get more Fallout this year. So they're doing some more prep work with that. And then of course, Aaron is going to be on Peacemaker. Right. Very cool. Nevermind the music. Always doing their thing weekly. Yep. And I think they're coming up, their season is almost coming to an end as well.

[00:46:24] They just had another very funny, what do they call their bonus pods? Side tracks. Side tracks, yeah. They had a cool side track about music teachers. That was quite good. And their mailbag a couple of weeks ago was really good. And then the Weezer, the sweater song was a big one. A lot of conversation on that. Very nice. Very fun. Very nice. I'm not sure what Marilyn's doing with Rings and Rituals. I think we're, again, hiatus. And then same with- Yeah, we're waiting on her and Sarah to be free. Right.

[00:46:51] And then we'll shift dust and Star Wars canon timeline. I think hopefully Alicia's just catching her breath. She's getting Dune out soon. She promised me on Murder, but- Okay. Oh, speaking of Dune- She started Dune back soon. Speaking of Dune, I've been on the Dune Minute podcast all this week. Oh, yeah. I re-posted. I re-skeeted today about that? I re-posted. Re-posted. I'm going with skeet. We're going to go real gross with it. Okay. I had a lot of fun with those guys. And that was cool.

[00:47:20] Because they do minute by minute of the movie, of the Dune movies. And when they have a guest host on, they do a five-minute chunk. So we had a really great five-minute chunk around Paul's naming ceremony. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. So you brought up Brian, I'm sure. What's that? You brought up Brian, 8063. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Usul. Usul 8063. That's why I didn't recognize his name. That's funny. That's funny. So Alicia's going to be on that soon too, right? Yeah. Everyone but John. Yeah. Nobody wants John on their Dune podcast.

[00:47:50] You can pick five minutes. No, no. No, it's fine, Dune Minute podcast, if you're listening. Yeah, what did you call the quiz-etch? I don't know. You had funny names for it. I don't remember. Yeah, I did. We can't recreate it. Now I know the real names, so I can't make them up anymore. No, no. But they were very funny when you did. The Baba Ganoush Hazorat or something? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. I think we're stretching it here. We're stretching the dough pretty thin. I know. I know. All right. Let me thank some people.

[00:48:20] Our Discord server boosters, Aaron K, Tiller the Thriller, Dork and the Ninjas, Doof 71, Athena A, Tina Lestu, Nancy M, Costa Partition, and Radioactive Richard. And our Loremasters, Sun Martian. Michael G, Michelle E, Brian P, S, C, Peter O, H, Adam S, Nancy M, Doof 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Matthew M, Sarah M, Andra B, Kwong Yu, Deadeye Jedi Bob,

[00:48:43] Nathan T, Alex V, Sub Zero, Aaron K, Dally V, Mothership 61, Narls, Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa Yu, Neil F, Ben B, Scott F, Stephen N, Julia F, Kali S, Ilmariel, forward slash Tim, Paul K, and Adrian. Thanks, everyone, for all your support. It helps us be cranky and not feel as bad about it. It's good to know that we have a community that can understand us. Yes. All right, everyone.

[00:49:13] Good night. The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. 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.