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

and of Other Space (a Yahoo! Original that no one watched but I loved)

I didn't dislike the episode (I thought it was okay, am I allowed to think something is simply okay in 2023?) but I agreed with a lot of this: https://www.primetimer.com/features/the-last-of-us-episode-3-queer-love-story-condescending

xpost It's a subtle distinction. Bill obviously has had strawberries before, so it's reminding him of what he's missed or lost or had forgotten. In Ellie's case, it's what she has never experienced. Two different sides of wonder.

I find a lot of post-apocalyptic things (aside from truly, truly bleak stories like The Road, or It Comes at Night or whatever) feature fleeting moments of happiness or positivity. What sets this episode apart is that it's a *sustained* depiction of happiness in the post-apocalypse. Whether that works or not is really moot, since it more or less ends in the same place, story-wise. In the game the message iirc is "be careful or you will end up like me," in the show it's kind of "be careful or you might not end up like me." Both boil down to the same message. How it's delivered ultimately probably ultimately comes down to preference, but this episode gets plenty of points for the novelty of tilting positive. I wouldn't expect many more like it this season, but you never know! It's nice to be surprised by big changes now and then.

I annoyed my girlfriend by predicting most of the plot points in this episode, from the romance itself to the romeo and juliet ending, so while I can grant that maybe the story wasn’t particularly fresh or challenging, it was nicely executed I thought

I disagree with Juan Barquin’s assessment, but maybe there is an overabundance of gay bear romance films/TV through the past 20 years that I have somehow been unaware of

In fact I definitely felt when I saw Murray Bartlett kissing Nick’s giant Jim O’Rourkey beard: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen two hot 50+ bears make out before, in the context of reputable entertainment”

they don't mention them being bears even once? are you confusing the two pieces that've been linked recently

Did you cry? I was sobbing. No exaggeration.

― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:32 AM (two hours ago)

yeah I was crying too

my question is how did ellie know about Mortal Kombat II? i'm guessing one of the older kids in her fedra camp told her about it. did they have old consoles? zSNES and ROMs?

Pretty sure said detail will be explained this season ...

Need to catch up on the thread but this:

I was trying to think about post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve seen or read that does people living, rather than just surviving

Station Eleven (both the book and the series) grapple with art in the age after apocalypse (and the book makes hay out of the slogan "survival is insufficient").

I'm not a crier anymore because Effexor effectively shut off that function, but let's just say I felt the emotions w/ ep 3 that would have triggered such an episode in the past.

i had trouble settling into the show, at first, because apocalyptic fiction is something I've dove into so much, that any trope in the genre feels 'familiar' to me from the jump (I didn't have any experience w/ the game).

but once I just let myself take it in, i'm very much enjoying it now. not least because the 'zombies' are more of a pre-Romero definition of zombie (via fungus mind control vs undead-reanimation), as well as the character work and the sheer look of towns with actual pronounced fungi growth serving as also a graveyard for the world.

From Juan Barquin:

Watching the episode, it feels as though the writing became stuck in 2003, which is when the fungal pandemic hits in the show, resulting in the kind of gay love story that would have been groundbreaking TV back then, but is now just wearisome.

That's what I was referring to. I haven't seen any convincing onscreen older gay male romances, me. Not now and not since 2003. "Happy Together" is convincing but they're not older. That Jane Fonda show with Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, I mean, it's fun to watch them I guess but they're not at all convincing by any measure; that's more the kind of TV to which I'd apply Juan Barquin's criticisms.

the performances were very important to the quality of the ep too. Offerman is getting a lot of the credit but Murray Bartlett's performance is perfect, just the little choices he makes. the astonished look of gratitude plus surprise at the meal placed in front of him, the moments where he's fighting through excruciating pain to be present for Bill but can't hide the toll it's taking on him.

cynical side of me was expecting Frank to be not who he said he was and one of the two to wind up murdering each other, or (like apparently in the game) Frank bolting and Bill coldly lamenting his loss for the latter half of the episode, was pleasantly surprised to see it be exactly what it was.

and lord, the Ronstadt moments. I wonder if her discography will see a bump.

yes perhaps we can finally find some of her records in record stores now

Need to catch up on the thread but this:

_I was trying to think about post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve seen or read that does people living, rather than just surviving_


_Station Eleven_ (both the book and the series) grapple with art in the age after apocalypse (and the book makes hay out of the slogan "survival is insufficient").

the whole 'living, not surviving' is always what I'm thinking of when I watch apocalyptic fiction. like if every one of my days involved eating dead roadkill, watching people around me die, being unable to sleep for fear of being eaten/dying of infection, and having PTSD put everyone at each other's throats, I'd probably just let a zombie/virus take me.

or as the band All put it, 'not alive, just living'

OK maybe this is super-obvious but is the fungus - which eats away its victims' brains but connects them into one hyperaggressive consciousness - a metaphor for social media ... which kind of really kicked off around 2003, the year zero of the end times of The Last of Us?

it's a metaphor for how the fungus is among us

but in seriousness, it makes sense at least for teh show's presentation

And to this episode... beyond all the stuff already discussed, I really liked it just as a signal very early into the show's run that it was going to do interesting things with storytelling. I like being told clearly in Episode 3 that this show will take its time and pacing, that it will tell side-stories, that many characters we get to know and like will die, that it will ruminate on the philosophical questions that arise from living in a world in decline (questions that feel less and less academic). The whole eye-rolling (from critics quoted, not so much from people on the thread) about this being somehow familiar or same-old same-old is pretty different from how it hit me.

quite honestly I was refreshed because if every moment of the show is just the two taking their journey, it'll get old. I enjoy watching flashbacks to the world as it is collapsing and other people's stories in addition to the main thrust.

now granted I have no idea how the game handled that but

That's the (neutral) criticism I had, that a limited single season adaptation of the first game doesn't necessarily have the luxury of taking its time with side characters, as there are a finite number of episodes with which to tell some very important story beats. That said, given that this episode was very different from how it played out in the game, maybe there is other stuff from the game that they will cut, though iirc they said that this episode was the only significant deviation from the game. I can only assume there will be other small details added here and there that will similarly get us to the same endpoint.

quite honestly I was refreshed because if every moment of the show is just the two taking their journey, it'll get old. I enjoy watching flashbacks to the world as it is collapsing and other people's stories in addition to the main thrust.

Exactly. The more I think about it, the more I want every subsequent episode to be like this one. I don't care that it's Not How It Was In The Game — it's a more interesting and expansive show if every week we get to see someone else's life, someone else's version of the apocalypse, and then see how that life intersects with Joel and Ellie as they come driving/trudging through on their quest. Because honestly, so far, neither Joel nor Ellie are super-fascinating characters. They're vehicles for plot advancement/goal achievement. So if they're used to bracket smaller, more interesting stories, I'm all for it.

Yeah - the talk show and the Indonesia vignette were compact versions of that willingness to explore the edges of the world too. I'm not someone who knows anything about the game so I may be wrong, but it feels like this type of digressive storytelling would be tougher to do in gameplay focused on the central quest. Unless there's a whole part where you have to hide strawberry seeds and secretly plant them for your survivalist bear life partner segment in the game.

the Indonesia vignette was great. just the realization by the scientist that cordyceps has been pulled from a human being

To Josh's point - do we know yet whether the plan is to tell the whole story of the original video game this season? Gameplayers would know better than I if it's on track to do that in 6 more episodes.

my biggest inability to suspend disbelief so far relates to gasoline, which goes bad after a year or two. the fact that everybody's driving around surely means that one of the QZ's is drilling for and refining gas, yeah?

xpost On track? Sort of. Again, it depends on how they tell the story. To that point:

Because honestly, so far, neither Joel nor Ellie are super-fascinating characters. They're vehicles for plot advancement/goal achievement.

And honestly, this is why I'm enjoying the discussion, especially among those unfamiliar with the game. There's a reason the game is beloved, and it hinges 100% on the relationship between Joel & Ellie. I'd argue that should the show fail to make them compelling to anyone not familiar with the game, then the show fails as an adaptation (or at least as an adaptation of the game's story). Unless it does indeed go different directions than the game went in, but there is no indication that is the plan. Every piece on it says it follows the first game to its conclusion. (The second game will supposedly be broken up into two seasons.)

also, bella ramsey is generally good as a secret britisher but her accent does leak through a few times imo.

xpost lol when Frank was taking a shower I was like DUDE THERE'S NO MORE PURIFICATION OF THE WATER SUPPLY ARE YOU NUTS.

i always wind up having to give a Jedi-handwave away on post-apoc shows/movies where people are grabbing obviously perishable food that is probably ten years past expiry and eating it and not dying from the bacteria pouring out of it. or in Terminator, where there seems to BE no food in a nuclear contaminated land, like what the fuck were they eating, rats (as seen in the segue in the first Terminator)?

re: characters... Ellie's got potential to be pretty compelling - weird mix of sheltered and feral, with a cruel almost sociopathic streak (which might be a pretty reasonale response to her environment). She's pretty interesting already, especially for a potential saviour figure. Joel started strong but could use some more character development at this point.

tbf with post-apoc shows you're never going to get a satisfying amount of that in the first few eps, because they're settling a baseline, usually showing you what this person was like before things went south, and their new, grizzled demeanor, and naturally folks in this situation tend to be have little motivation other than getting to the next day alive, which makes them boring to the viewer.

i can already see Joel opening up a bit, with him getting excited about Linda Ronstadt. Ellie seems to be dripping with personality but nobody to latch it onto since Joel's been closed off, so Joel's opening will help w/ that.

right, their whole relationship stakes are that he's terrified to open himself to the relaxed affectionate dynamic he had with his daughter in episode one because he couldn't take another loss like that... but we know the ice will melt eventually. Must be killing him keeping all his dad jokes under wraps.

Anyway the strawberries scene is as much about Bill’s childish giggle (that is reflected back by Ellie’s later wide-eyed wonder at the plane and the car) as it is a metaphor.
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:50 AM

You get either the Offerman hog or the giggle--not both.

this will sound super dumb but I already buy that there *will* be a relationship btw Joe & Ellie even if there’s not much of one yet, mainly bc Pedro Pascal pulled off a relationship aship with an animatronic puppet while wearing a mask & i bought that shit hook line & sinker.

also as he proved w Chernobyl, imo, Mazin can be a patient storyteller. He showed w that that he has a good sense of character & a confidence in the bones of a story. he’s not trying to quickly hamhandedly exposition you into caring for ppl: he’ll show you stuff you think you don’t need that serves the moments better, and that serve thd overall story better & (hopefully) give you a much more emotional, memorable payoff.

And I have no reason to believe the whole team won't pull it off here. After all, Neil Druckmann wrote and (essentially) directed the game and had a huge hand in every last detail. It's great thanks to his efforts, instincts and diligence. He's almost as involved with the show, as a director, writer, all around co-creator and overseer, so the idea that given his track record he would suddenly allow the ball to be dropped is pretty much out of the question. For example, I'm not entirely sold yet on Bella Ramsey, but I know she was cast for a reason.

That Beaujolais really would have been past its best

I just figure in all these post-apocalyptic stories that standards have been lowered to a few pegs below the bare minimum. Like, everything, from medicine to wine, is expired, so the question is, how expired? There's no way that dog food that Max digs into at the start of "Road Warrior" is still any good, even assuming it ever was "good" to begin with.

Twinkies remain Twinkies, though.

i'm just sayin, it's gotta be hard to quest on when yr shitting into a bucket 1 out of every 3 days

I'm fine with keeping the bacteria-related bucket-shitting and depictions of spoiled food and sewage water bathing related illness at the current low levels in the show myself, even if credulity is strained.

swear to god if you guys digress into a whole sidebar about shitting i will burn this thread down

I heard they went to the spread via bites vs spread via spore inhalation because they didn't want the actors hiding behind masks for teh duration of the show. it's a good move but I wonder how much of that is also Pedro Pascal saying "I ain't doing another show where you can't see my face, fuck you"

i'm kind of hoping for flashbacks to Joel and his daughter. I'm expecting Ellie will accidentally drag that out of him one episode, because I'm sure that's the main thing that shattered him

xpost lol that seems v otm

"Pedro - the good news is they've agreed to get rid of the masks. Bad news is they won't budge on all the shitting scenes."

That's the (neutral) criticism I had, that a limited single season adaptation of the first game doesn't necessarily have the luxury of taking its time with side characters, as there are a finite number of episodes with which to tell some very important story beats.

When you can make your episodes as long as you want, this seems a non-problem. First and third episodes were movie-length, while the second was only 50 minutes.

huh, there's another set of media based on a Cordyceps infection?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_All_the_Gifts_(film)

I enjoyed that movie; check it out if you have time. I think it's on Netflix.

Cool!