“I'm taking a ride with my best friend” - The Last of Us on HBO (2023)

Didn't David say that the group kept getting attacked by raiders, and each time moved further and further west, one presumes with fewer and fewer people/resources? He's a long way from Pittsburgh.

The idea that they were a group of benevolent, god-fearing folk who were hounded across the country and driven to desperation, becoming violent and cruel is what we're told, but I am not sure that David guy was the most reliable of narrators

"Ah, so, uh you said the cult word. I guess people might see us as a cult. Also, I recently smacked someone so hard they fell out of their chair when they dared to speak out of turn."

Oh, for sure, the guy was a master manipulator, which means an expert liar. That's why I wished *this* was the baddie we got more build up with, as opposed to ... I already can't remember the character Lynskey played. This is a good example of expanding on something in the game to no real narrative benefit while compressing something to its (again, relative) detriment.

David is the embodiment of the famous lyric from the musical Into the Woods, "Nice is different than good". He speaks calmly and softly, comes across as friendly at first glance, but he actually rules through carefully controlled menace. like the "everything happens for a reason" soliloquy, where he uses his Cat Stevens voice to distract Ellie long enough to allow his partner time to return and draw his gun on Ellie, while implicitly stating that he knows who she is, and who Joel is, while lulling her to think it's only Joel he's after.

it's not beating people with a big stick, but having one and the constant threat that it could be used.

his henchmen were well-cast -dudes looked hungry af

I'm pretty sure the narrative benefit of having the earlier two episode Missouri encounter -- which, I agree, could have been a little shorter -- was to establish and further the Joel/Ellie dynamic while taking a breather on the road. The second part was everything the first part set up: who is Henry, why is this Kathleen person so adamant on finding him, what was his sin of collaboration that was so bad?

I think one common thread is the examination of what people are living for, as opposed to surviving, and what governs their actions. If your city overthrows FEDRA, ok, what happens after that? Kathleen's motivation is vengeance. David and his group are completely governed by fear and the power he wields by telling them that it's actually faith.

xp what living on starvation rations without a beard trimmer in a snowy excluded area does to a mf'er

His right hand man, btw, is the actor that plays Joel in the game!

BTW, now that we're past this episode, here's a darkly funny meme that made the rounds after a Twitch streamer played the game and reached this point (note her demeanor after so many hours already spent with this story).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09cpCqkFwa8

Bunny had a cameo in the show, but a better fate.

interview with Troy Baker, who played David's right-hand man James in the episode:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/6/23627597/the-last-of-us-troy-baker-interview

his read on his character's motivations ring true to me

Not sure I like anything more than a cannibal nonce getting an axe in the head. Some good and obvious foreshadowing of what a liar the creep was - the girl desperately upset they wouldn’t bury her father, the mystery meat they added to the pot before the deer had been butchered, the fact he tells Ellie it’s a secret even though there’s butchered corpses just hanging around…ok.

I can’t remember if it came up in an earlier episode, but can the fungus survive the cold? Is that why they’re safe in this resort town?

Anyway, it was a really solid ep, felt for Ellie, Bella is so fucking great, excited for the finale.

lol yeah "what's this? venison" and then seeing the deer come in was like, eerie foreboding

So glad to see a horror series/movie where they FINISH THE JOB. Cannibal cult leader will not be showing up in season 2 with scars but still deadly.

He was also attempting to manipulate Ellie big time. This "oh, we're equals talk" really sounded more like "btw I want a child sex object and need to coerce you into our way of life before you'll either take that role willingly or have lose all ability to resist"

Oh yeah and the fact his plate of food was like four times the size of everyone else’s! Hope there was enough left to barbeque you, prick!

^ yes! meant to mention that earlier, just not even trying to be subtle about taking more than his fair share

Okay wow that was... intense

FINISH THE JOB

Was browsing a forum, and this came up a couple of times, people frankly relieved to have each episode (more or less) resolve itself rather than propel a villain forward by rote.

also i already love the character of Joel & absolutely stan Pedro in all things

but i love how hard Joel goes in this episode, like he’s pushing through a ton of pain clearly to just be upright but he doesn’t halfass anything ever … pedro gave a great performance

ellie the star of this ep of course

especially that final scene, she really bailed the splitsecond tornado of emotions

I'm impressed that each episode has apparently been getting better ratings than the one before it. Proper appointment television.

That is not how you prepare venison!

well that's the show ruined for me

Edit: never mind

lol

venison is the new long pork

"No you see, his name was Ven E. Sonn."

what were all the followers doing while their quaker meeting house was burning down?

Was wondering that. You’d think there be a bunch of people gathering outside, what appears to be, the only restaurant in town

They were all reading Roberts Blossom poetry and cutting each others hair in the style of his author photo

also, via mefi, the actor who played the cannibal cult leader has a history of partner violence, which makes his performance a lot more disturbing in retrospect

Crazy how Joel had the strength to kill off the Fleet Foxes one by one.

newly added to my list of places i never want to end up:

a cage with a tiled floor

In the game a lot of this episode is set during disorienting, white-out blizzard conditions, which lets you be more sneaky. You've also pretty much single-handedly killed all David's armed people by the time you reach him.

Does the game make you torture people for information?

Yes. Or at least it does as a cut scene. The second game requires a greater degree of participation.

I liked it overall and Ramsey in particular, the cage scene in particular was tense and had a lot going on in it. Pretty great performances from both actors.

but some plot stuff felt clunky, like Joel going from semicomatose to ubermensch again on demand, the apparently plentiful deer and and rabbits in the woods around the cannibal cult village, the villain calmly strolling around the burning building. Some details felt a little tossed off in contrast to the strength of the overall narrative and world-building to me. I'm just being picky, nothing major.

That said, I am really going to miss this show after next week! I would have loved two more episodes, but probably smart of them to keep it really lean and leave us wanting more.

xp Whoa, weird. I have of course played lots of games in my life where you blow away tons of enemy NPCs but that seems... different to me somehow?

I wonder if the use of Mortal Kombat in the show is meant as a reference to the fact that the show is based on a game where you similarly just kind of destroy living people's bodies in an intimate way. Not unlike eating them! Wait, in the game do you have to eat anyone? Or is that a spoiler?

Anyway, I am still in the camp of not enjoying this show as much as I thought I would after the first two eps, but I am enjoying it enough to keep watching it!

the apparently plentiful deer and and rabbits in the woods around the cannibal cult village

now that I think about it... maybe showing the availability of deer and rabbits was intentional, the psycho cult leader had developed a preference for cannibalism?

“why wait for a deer to show up when we have all of this meat right here”
~gestures to henchmen~

xxxpost You'd don't eat anyone in the game. But I do think Mortal Kombat was a commentary on violence. I think they referenced it in the podcast, how Ellie is entirely a product of this fucked up world of death and violence. That's really all she's seen and knows. So of course the violence is cool. They also laugh when that corpse they find falls through the floor.

Re: Joel ... antibiotics can be pretty effective! You can feel better in just a couple of hours, probably faster if it's literally injected into the infection site. With David's burning-building behavior, though, in the game at least he thinks he's been infected by Ellie and has nothing to lose. Dunno why they changed it here.

now that I think about it... maybe showing the availability of deer and rabbits was intentional, the psycho cult leader had developed a preference for cannibalism?

I don't get it, I think the human bodies hung up for meat were people who died in other ways (e.g. the guy killed by Joel) not people they intentionally killed for food!

What's the proper wine pairing for human?

https://64.media.tumblr.com/0817dd7cb43dc5d80dcdd3b5fd471cde/e1d75d128dfc608c-48/s540x810/35493fe81b329a9b8c3442f2e840643837806a08.gif

I don't get it, I think the human bodies hung up for meat were people who died in other ways (e.g. the guy killed by Joel) not people they intentionally killed for food!

I guess I thought they set that up in order to establish the circumstances whereby they get their meat people.

Also, what was David's endgame for spring? Like, the crocuses are out, the birds are singing, the kid is like "can we bury Dad now" and David is going to be like.. "Sorry kid I forgot where we put him"??

I think the chief creep and his lieutenants were out there intentionally killing people for food in addition to eating Dad and others who die from their own clan, while keeping it a semi-secret from his sheep. They tried to kill Joel right away at the University. I got the impression the bodies they were bleeding out were from others they'd found and killed for food.