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

A comment on the interview I just posted:

Joel's decision is also rational. This doctor has one patient who is immune, and he's going to kill that patient trying to make a cure. What if he fails? What if he isn't smart enough to make the cure, but some other doctor later would be? He should study her for years before he commits to an irreversible course of action. That would be rational; instead, the doctor surrenders to his fear and misery and pride.

lol internet dork, that isn't why he did it. he gave Ellie the opportunity to tap out, and she wanted to go to the finish line, and he didn't object, so he clearly had some faith they could find a cure. he probably wasn't expecting a prolonged, multi-year study either. he didn't gaf about the success of the procedure, he literally said "find someone else", meaning 'let someone unimportant that I don't care about die'.

lol @ the idea of a doctor trusting that they have 4 years to study someone who could be killed at any moment by FEDRA or scavengers - being immune to cordyceps doesn't mean being immune to

*dying

I thought they'd got you midsentence

lol

If you were like me and wondered if the giraffe was real, it was: https://www.polygon.com/23639876/last-of-us-giraffe-real-cgi

The most significant difference between the show and the game is that the game has SO much literal (and I mean *LITERAL*) backstory: hundreds of letters, notes, bulletin boards, post-its, diaries, journals, posters, graffiti, voice memos, overheard dialogue... it's just hours and hours of this stuff you encounter while you're scavenging for crafting materials, health kits and ammo. It's what gives the game so much depth is just these unending layers of tragic missives forced back into handwritten form now that technology has taken ~1 century backstep. None of that made it into the show (aside from some critical main characters dialogue).

And while I enjoyed it (and cried!), the gratuitously fanfic ep 3 was OTT enough to trigger both game loyalists and homophobes (the intersection of which is probably larger than I imagine)... An epic counter-troll by the show producers perhaps? In the game Bill plays a significant plot partner for Joel & Ellie while you only briefly encounter Frank post-mortem hanging from the rafters in a warehouse a few beats after you've parted ways with Bill. Again, I enjoyed the artistic freedom taken but it was clearly a departure from the game leaving short-shrift for the more essential plot-driven episodes. Maybe they're shopping for a spin-off a la Better Call Saul... Last Of Us universe DLC expansion.

Also there's no way any vaccine is going to be produced & distributed without computers, massive clean labs, cold chain air-conditioning, rapid transit (air/trucks)... that's all a pipe dream.

Just the way the show treats the threat of the infected being significantly less than the threat of fellow mankind, the vaccine's importance is lessened.

I need to rescreen the whole season to see how often the logic shifts and changes, hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha

xp I think expanding Bill and Frank is a substitute for the backstory of artifacts you mention, a way to sheet the disaster home to its effect on people and relationships.

Joel clearly did it because he wasn't going to lose Daughter The Second but that doesn't make the plan (or their stated reasons for cutting out her brain stem) any more coherent. Her microdose of cordyceps from the knife had 13 years to develop in her body - so why couldn't everyone microdose a little and develop it? Or if it's because she was an infant, stem cells, etc. then adults can't develop the immunity anyway late in life. Cutting out her brain stem cordyceps and, uh, growing it in a vat for everyone to vaccinate themselves with... wouldn't that cordyceps just attack them?

Who cares, it's a story about fungus zombies that's not entirely coherent about how it even spreads (the first wave involves bites rather than airborne spores... but grandma goes zombie without being bitten) but I don't think 龜's questioning is dumb or means they weren't paying attention.

but grandma goes zombie without being bitten

They addressed that in one of the early episodes:

"Best guess… cordyceps mutated and some of it got into the food supply — probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar," Joel says. "There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere. All across the country, across the world. Bread, cereal, pancake mix. You eat enough of it, it'll get you infected."

And apparently if you rewatch the premiere, there's several occasions where Joel & his daughter narrowly avoid eating pancake mix, cookies etc

Maybe they're shopping for a spin-off a la Better Call Saul... Last Of Us universe DLC expansion.

This is now HBO's most watched show since Game of Thrones apparently - finale had almost twice the number of viewers as the premiere - so I guess HBO milking it for all it's worth is sadly a distinct possibility.

the gratuitously fanfic ep 3 was OTT enough to trigger both game loyalists and homophobes (the intersection of which is probably larger than I imagine)... An epic counter-troll by the show producers perhaps? In the game Bill plays a significant plot partner for Joel & Ellie while you only briefly encounter Frank post-mortem hanging from the rafters in a warehouse a few beats after you've parted ways with Bill. Again, I enjoyed the artistic freedom taken but it was clearly a departure from the game leaving short-shrift for the more essential plot-driven episodes

"I wish the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies were more faithful to the amusement park ride."

Again, Bill and (to an extent) Frank are in the game. That episode is not some total deviation, just kind of ... a distraction? Because the story is about Ellie and Joel, and I felt it detracted from that story a bit, in the literal sense, strictly minutes. Same with Kathleen. I get (and liked!) what they did and why, but I think it might have been better balanced with more Ellie and Joel, who, like the hundreds of documents you explore in the game, also interact more in the game, and not just in cut-scenes. The game is more than its cut-scenes (many/most? of which made it into the show more or less line for line/scene for scene);if you try watching just the cut scenes it's a bit like dozing off in the middle of a movie and only catching bits and pieces of the story. For example, the (non cut-scene) interaction between Bill and Ellie in the game is a highlight, iirc, and for obvious reasons none of it made it to the show.

Re: the infected, one of the few big changes from the game, probably to the show's detriment, is the way the infection spreads, not just through bites but also via spores. So there are a lot of scenes in the dark or damp where the threat is literally hanging in the air. Having a mask fail or break is about as bad as being bitten.

(Honestly, the show is a surprisingly faithful adaptation! That is, pretty much the entire "game" is in the show. Any quibbles I've had are really re: small tweaks and changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes less successful, imo, but generally always small.)

There is significant creative license to change Frank from an unanimated corpse who hung himself from a bite and turn him into fighting a lengthy Lifetime channel battle with MS and have he and his caring lover kill themselves together in solidarity. In the game Bill and Frank don't even interact but more importantly don't even like each other. Bill makes an offhand negative comment about his former partner Frank in passing dialogue and in Frank's page-long suicide letter you find next to his hanging body it contains a sentence or two about Bill, mainly that he hated his guts and was a waste of a life. There is innuendo that their bad blood may have stemmed from a possible lover's quarrel or misplaced feelings, but the show turns less than 30 seconds of obscure references in a 12 hour game into the bulk of a 75 minute episode. Even Jack Sparrow would be confused.

I do enjoy that the show's producers flipped the script on the long-besotted trope of fanservice in video games where you normally encounter oversexualized young women and instead offers this soft focus middle-aged bear seduction spending their days pairing wine surrounded by watercolors. But as many people ITT are confused about SOP of dystopian vaccine manufacture/distribution in a society that's turned into paranoid Goth tribe factions, the threat of which after 20 years is much more a threat to daily life than cordyceps. While the (non-game) Jakarta doctor 20 years earlier offered the solution of total annihilation, Ellie's (also non-game) approach to the vaccine was to become blood siblings with Sam (unsuccessful but perhaps a foreshadow that she cannot undo the virus despite theories that she was "the one"). I'm rambling but there was a lot left of the world and plot to explore and esp.after the last few episodes being so light on storytelling and the all-to-familiar panic rush to wrap things up makes the casual lingering in earlier eps 2 & 3 feel a bit superfluous.

I wouldn’t personally judge a show on its unexplored plot points or opportunities by the things people in a TV thread get hung up on tbh.

I mean, I would like to see the argument that episode 3 - about how people can not just survive but thrive in this world (adding even more fuel to Joel’s decision, the knowledge that people can not just live for the sake of living but live for the sake of someone else) offers less to this show than, idk, actors dead-eyed reading out detailed logistics descriptions for the satisfaction of people who miss the wood for the trees? The fact that even in a world without a cure people can carve out their own little slice of happiness? No?

The show is about potential as much as it’s about anything. Joel saves Ellie for the potential of how her life - their life together - might play out, we are shown in every episode her childish happiness at something, and the show giving us Sarah’s future and those of so many others suffocated by the cordyceps contrasts sharply with what Joel sees as his rare opportunity. They survived and they can be happy. It is selfish like Bill and Frank’s survival is selfish, but it’s also completely understandable. That’s the stuff that’s interesting about this show to me.

The show does not remotely need to have a ready to go vaccine rollout plan for it to matter, it’s total nitpicking and again, show me the argument that this adds more to the show than the stuff you feel was fanservice (for whom btw? You already made the point that a lot of homophobic fans had a problem with it.)

Lol while thinking about corrupted tropes I just remembered in the second game, there is a (hetero) sex scene that is so OTT cringe/ick, awkward, unnecessary and unflattering (to all parties involved). It just comes out of nowhere and you're forced to endure it...

I can't wait to see what the producers do with that, probably turn it into a 3 episode sidebar?

The (hetero) sex scene in the second game is totally cringe/ick/unnecessary to a distracting degree. I forgot it even existed.

I'm willing to bet the expansion of Bill and Frank is this season was done with an eye potentially on specific events/plot points/parallels in the second season/game. Describing that episode as "about how people can not just survive but thrive in this world" is fair but maybe underscores a disconnect. Or perhaps an even greater thematic question: is there really a place for happiness in this (fictional) world? Or might that happiness be a fiction as well? For sure Joel envisions some sort of happy, or at least happier, future, but it's based on a lie.

Wait do you have to press buttons during it

I am very upset about that final episode

the guy who created the game is also working on the show. he is completely open to exploring ideas not in the game! and making changes to minor characters that expand the universe in a different way!

there’s this vibe like “a bunch of non gaming snowflakes wanted to adapt a game and made it too gay” ~frowny face~

bill still ultimately serves the same purpose for joel at the end of episode 3

i don’t see what the problem is beyond “it’s not the game” if you gave even a tenth of a shit about good storytelling (which if you played the game surely you do) this episode would stand as good storytelling!

oh they spent a whole episode living a life and having feelings how terrible

give me a goddamn break

Otm

the show telegraphed from the very first episode that it would not just be about joel and ellie. episode three just hammers it home. i'm honestly grateful i haven't played the game bc i had no problem getting on board with this

again, haven't played, prob never will, but everywhere the show has diverged from the game it has done so for the better imo (especially re: bill/frank's original relationship, and finding fucking letters everywhere)

as a video game adaptation, for me it never reached the meta-heights of the paul w.s. anderson resident evil series (not that it was ever going to), but it was a really beautifully conveyed character study about the way the world and your relationships with the people in it change you, often unaccountably, especially when said world is largely dead and hostile

There's no reason to get angry or defensive about the show. The show is great! But there is a reason the source material, a masterpiece of a game, was chosen for adaptation, and I don't think it's harmful to discuss how maybe it falls short a little. They are different mediums, and they achieve their goals different ways. Saying that the game is better or trying to explain why doesn't detract from the achievements of the show, especially for those that have not played the game and are experiencing the show on its own terms. I find that aspect of the discussion very interesting.

i did like that i was able to like... understand why the game is so acclaimed through isolated sequences, especially the joel terminator rampage sequence, bc you're installed in his perspective and understand why he's doing it even though he's doing all of these horrible things and you can't stop him

josh do you have strong feelings about the video game, yes or no

if nothing else - creating a shooter game with a storyling whose ultimate goal is to make you think "maybe shooting everybody is potentially possibly really a bad thing to do" is a pretty neat trick

Also if there was any fault with Ep 3 was that it was so fucking good the rest of the (very good) season felt like a bit of a letdown, any debate about whether that episode or important or a success seems completely bonkers to me.

xxpost I can't tell if you are trolling me or not, but yes, relatively so? But not in a "this source material should never be changed" sense.

Oh, and in case it's unclear, Bill and Frank are gay in the game, so that wasn't changed. I suspect any anti-gay discourse flying around out there stems in no small part from lingering (over) reactions to the second game. And it's quite possible the extended Bill and Frank episode of the show was a reaction to *that*.

I think Bill and Frank in the show was indeed good storytelling, but standalone storytelling. If you tried to describe the show to someone, or the story, they probably wouldn't come up at all.

Another example of a change from the game, subtle, with slightly different effects: the game pretty clearly takes place over the course of almost a year. I didn't get that feeling from the show. Not sure it matters.

urgh typos

meant to say:

Also if there was any fault with Ep 3, it was that it was so fucking good the rest of the (very good) season felt like a bit of a letdown, any debate about whether that episode was important or a success seems completely bonkers to me.

I am very glad I haven't seen any of the "ick, too gay" criticism. It has not escaped my notice that the show has a nonbinary actor playing a lesbian character.

I hasten to note that this would still be salient even if it were not personally relevant to me... but it is personally relevant to me.

I may have mentioned that my elder child is 15 and nonbinary; my younger child is 11 and nonverbal. His name is Sam. He communicates using a whiteboard or tablet.

So then this frkn teevee show serves up an episode in which: the nonbinary actor playing the 14ish lesbian teenager serves as a temporary big sibling to the Deaf/nonverbal kid whose name is Sam and communicates using a magic slate.

So yeah I needed a lot of time to recover from that one.

holy shit... that's wild.

I was once bitten by a museum employee who smelled bad so yeah sometimes TV gets too real

hopefully less then Pedro's attempt at a Texas accent haha

Didn't he grow up in Texas? Does his accent go funny on Mandalorian as well? Speaking of, both shows are bizarrely following the same trajectory...
At any point in the game, does Ellie develop mushroomchlorian force powers?

Having never played the game, I'd imagine I'd find it unbearably tedious as a narrative-delivery mechanism, given that I gave up on slogging through cutscenes and dialog in Castlevania and went for Vampire Survivors instead, which has the narrative content of a slot machine.

A game based on Ron Swanson macguyvering death traps, procuring meds and homesteading with a bickering partner with a dwindling health meter, might be fun though -- some kind of cross between tower defense, animal crossing, and sims.

Anyway I wanted to tell elder kid how that episode gave me ALL THE FEELS, and the conversation went like this:

"Sky, are you familiar with 'The Last of Us'?"

"Well, kinda. Most of what I've heard about it is that it's zombies, plus gay."

Take from that what you will.

I'm willing to bet the expansion of Bill and Frank is this season was done with an eye potentially on specific events/plot points/parallels in the second season/game.

Maybe you have something in mind from the game, but how could there be a parallel more relevant than the one between Bill/Frank E3 and Joel/Ellie season 1? The episode is still about Joel and Ellie, giving us a letter that could have been written by Joel at the end of season 1. It is also about the game, a way to make the "finding and reading of a letter" game mechanic work for television.

Could see the writers getting to the finale and thinking "this is all too sudden, but we can't have Joel explaining his transformation in real time" and then coming up with E3 as a solution exactly for telling the story of Joel and Ellie better. (And adding to it. Bill and Frank's story is also interesting and important in itself). So not being salty but seeing it as subtraction from the Joel/Ellie story time seems wrong!

Maybe you have something in mind from the game, but how could there be a parallel more relevant

Relevant spoilers from the second game:

In the second game, Ellie is in a stable, loving relationship, and she is eventually given an explicit choice: live in apparent domestic bliss with her girlfriend, together alone in an isolated house, very much akin to Bill and Frank, or return to her previous ways. When the show (presumably) gets to that inflection point, viewers will have an even better idea of what happiness can look like, or even that it truly is possible, making Ellie's decision that much more distressing. I think having seen Bill and Frank the way we have in the show will make that conflict even more powerful whenever we see it, which does make it an improvement, but mostly imo in the context of what is to come.

That whole bit with Bottom the Weaver and all really subtracts from the main action of "Midsummer Night's Dream," yo. I mean, why not just focus on the main characters the whole time?

xp maybe that possible future parallel is making it harder for you to accept the season 1 parallels as the episode's main function. I get what you are saying with the season 2 stuff, but I don't think it's necessary to explain or feel good about the writing decisions in season 1 alone.

I agree! Just part and parcel in comparing the game and show. Obv. not an issue for anyone that has not played the game (which, of course, is best known for its story, not gameplay).

fwiw I've seen some people complain a little about tiny tweaks to Ellie's character that may have a slight impact on the story going forward, but I don't think I have problem with what the showrunners intentionally shifted.

which, of course, is best known for its story, not gameplay

The gameplay is outstanding!

I think so, but it's a common complaint I've seen from some. I mean, the gameplay in the second game is so good I think that's why they remade the first game!

having only watched the show i found myself now pretty impressed with the game that it had such deep storylines already built in, like that the ending is part of the game blew my mind a bit.

it’s cool to know that gaming can allow for a nuanced, challenging emotional experience like that