‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Finale: A Verdict on the Cliff-Hanger

Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Jonah Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney.

We are here to talk to you about the Last of Us finale and sort of an overview of

season two, and maybe some look ahead at season three, and some big picture questions, and some granular thoughts, and all everything in between.

This is our official Last of Us wrap-up podcast.

Oh, what a thrill and a delight to be here with you, Rob.

But how sad to be

done with the mushroom apocalypse for now for the next time.

It's always bittersweet to end these things, Joe.

I think, you know, the good news and the bad news, did the season end?

I don't know.

Is the Last of Us over?

Certainly not.

Great question.

Okay, so we're going to get to all of that.

I'm really excited to hear.

Rob and I haven't talked about the finale at all, so I don't know your takes.

I'm excited to get them.

And just to let folks know, we will be covering also the Your Friends and Neighbors finale this week.

So

in theory, we will find out who, who done it.

And if you were like, hey, I didn't know Your Friends and Neighbors was a whodunit show.

Sure is.

Tune in.

Also, did they know when they started the season?

That's the real question.

I really recommend the episode we did last week with Bill.

I thought that was like a really, really, I really enjoyed.

having Bill on for, it's like a perfect Bill Simmons show, Your Friends and Neighbors.

So that was, that was a really good episode.

if If you guys have not caught up with your friends and neighbors you might want to um just to enjoy bill's incredible takes um

and then also tvd next week we are figuring it out right now we've got some like potential owen wilson golfing ideas

you know surely we have to check back in with natasha leon on poker face at some point so we've got some some ideas but no concrete plans to announce right this very moment rob if people have have thoughts and feelings about what we should cover next, where can they reach us?

They can always reach us, Joe, at prestige TV at spotify.com.

I mean, it's sad to say we're kind of sunsetting our last of us specific email.

This is yourbrain on shrooms at gmail.com.

But you know what?

I'm a sicko.

I'm still going to be checking the emails.

I'm still going to be wanting your thoughts about this finale, about this season, even if we don't have an avenue to then read them on the air.

Please do always send us your emails.

I'm going to, I feel a little bad about this, but I'm going to protect this person's anonymity, so it's fine.

And I I don't think they listen to this podcast anyway.

We did get an email the other day from someone who wanted us to like send a medical correction to the people who make the pit.

This is one of my favorite emails we've ever gotten.

Someone who was quite disgruntled about, you know,

a depiction of a certain medical procedure on the pit.

googled the show and found our email and sent it to us

to relay to the writers.

We are the pit masters, Joe.

I don't know what to tell you.

We have dominion over the pit.

We don't have that power, but if you ever need to send a correction or a complaint about an email, we will show, we will probably read it.

Whether or not we can do anything about it, TVD.

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I want to start with,

you know, we've gotten, we've got a ton of emails from people.

I will say I'm a little

gassed out on debating

the likability of Ellie or any of that stuff.

We've done it.

I don't really want to do it this week.

I do think, though, it's worth talking about the ratings.

A lot of people wrote in whether or not they liked the finale or not, or the season or not, whether they were a gamer or not.

We got the whole spectrum of emails from people.

But something concrete information we do have, and this is a question we were asking, is like when you

spoils, spoilers for The Last of Us season two, if you're here, you should already know.

I would hope, yeah.

But not the game.

They killed off Petro Pascal, who plays Joel Miller.

If that's news to you, welcome to the Thunderdome.

Welcome four weeks late.

And, you know, a question was, and I'm sure it's a question they asked themselves, are people going to be as excited about this show without Petro Pascal in the mix on a weekly basis?

And so here's the ratings information we have initially for this show.

Ratings are so much harder to calculate, obviously, in the year of streaming.

The highest this show ever got

was 8.2 million viewers for the season one finale.

So that was the series high.

It was a 5.3 million viewers for the season two premiere.

So a drop, but that's not unusual.

People are like, oh, that's on, and they catch up and whatever.

Okay.

So the season two premiere, 5.3 million viewers.

Season finale, 3.7 million viewers.

So it's a drop from the premiere and it is a 50% drop from the season one.

Pretty steep.

So that is, that's, you know, any way you slice it, that's tough.

I will say, again, that is like, that does not include

accumulative data in terms of like people binging the show later, which people are doing more and more.

So there's just like a lot of information, but it's not.

perfectly captured in this.

So this is not like the only people who will ever watch these episodes.

But in terms of like, I guess in terms of the last of us feeling like urgent appointment viewing or water cooler conversation,

something I will say anecdotally, something I will say about season one, my memory I was

no, I was, I was working at the rare, I was not so working at Vanity Fair, but like something I like to track when I was working at VF, and when I was still talking to a lot of VF people, maybe on a more regular basis, is like, if a genre show hooked the like snootier colleagues, and I say that with love at Vanity Fair, that means it had like sort of, you know, ooze, Agatha, no, no, WandaVision, uh, in terms of Marvel shows, broke out of the Marvel fans.

And I would say the last of a season one, thanks in large part to long, long time, the Bill and Frank episode, broke out of the what's this zombie show on HBO viewership.

And I think that this season, unfortunately, for a myriad of reasons, which we've discussed over the last few weeks, a season of television that we've had a really good time with did not become that this season,

did not have that wide-ranging reach.

So I don't know if we want to

talk about why we think that is the case.

I feel like we've been talking about that all along, all season.

Definitely.

What does this information do for you, Rob, in terms of how you're thinking about the season?

I think it's smart to kind of position it within genre storytelling and to say say that these type, those types of shows, The Last of Us Season 1, Wanda Vision, anything that's genre-based that does break out, like the Dune movies, I think, are a great example of that too.

Those are the exceptions to the rule.

By and large, genre fans will show up for those things and they'll have their audience within those groups.

But in terms of like broader mass pop culture appeal,

that is not the rule, right?

That is not what happens to these kinds of shows.

Like the Game of Thrones.

breakouts are incredibly, incredibly rare to find.

And one of the challenges of this particular story is they have their massive breakout in season one, they catch the lightning in the bottle.

And then the nature of the story is we're going to tear it all down and we're going to build something completely different from what you fell in love with.

And that is a really challenging storytelling method that I think can be incredibly effective.

Ultimately, when you get to the end of the road, it is quite effective.

But along the way, you're going to lose a lot of people who thought they were showing up for not just the Pedro Pascal show, but the Joel Miller Ellie show, right?

Like who love that character and that relationship in addition to that performer.

And so whenever a show is kind of changing under your feet, I think you're going to lose some people.

And I think I, again, we talked about this all season, but I think it was like hearing Neil talk about it, hearing Craig talk about it, hearing Hallie talk about it.

Like there was never a question of like, should we not kill Joel?

Right.

Will people, you know, they were like, that's the story that we want to tell.

And I think, especially for Neil and Hallie, having weathered everything that came with part two of the game and coming out the other side, as they should be incredibly proud of the challenging storytelling that they put together in that

game, I can appreciate that they would

be more confident than someone like me would in terms of sticking to their guns of like, this is, we're going to take this swing.

And if it's a miss with some people, it's a miss with some people.

But the people with whom it's a hit,

it will, I feel like outside of the noise, and this is, you know, you know, more about this as a gamer, but like outside of of the noise of the initial controversy around The Last of Us Part 2 as a video game, its

reverence and respect has only grown as people have given it a chance, who maybe didn't give it a chance initially, or whatever it is.

And I think

I'm hopeful that the highs of this season, outside of sort of a toxic cloud of conversation around the season,

the

reverence and respect for it will only grow.

That being said, if you've got an issue with season two, if you didn't enjoy it, that doesn't make you like any

kind of any kind of person.

We're all allowed to enjoy stories, you know, however we want to enjoy them.

But I think I get increasingly distressed when

more toxic versions of conversations or critiques just sort of drown out

like more reasonable disagreements among people who, you know, like to spend time thinking about story, overthinking about story the way we we do.

Yeah.

Well, and I think this story has multiple challenges on that front.

It has that sort of toxicity baked into the reception to the initial game.

And there's a portion of people who are just going to respond in a very similar fashion to whatever adaptation you make.

Right.

There's also the incredible difficulty of adapting a thorny, twisty, non-linear story into a TV form.

And I think this is a great place to talk about this finale specifically, which I think this works well enough as an episode.

I do not think this episode works as a season season finale at all.

I think it's very, I think it's really clear that they needed more than seven episodes.

I think it does not feel like a complete season.

It feels like part of, part of a story.

And that is a really, really tough sell for a lot of audiences.

I would say specifically when you're now asking those audiences to wait two to three years for the next installment of it.

I think it's, I really agree.

This is something that we've been talking about in the spoiler section the whole time.

I mean, I think I'm a little higher on this finale than you are, but in terms of like a sense of an ending and a sense of propulsive motion towards the next season, this is something we talked about a lot with the House of the Dragon season two finale, where it just sort of like felt like a lot of people towards something.

And then we're just like,

okay.

And you know, so we were talking in the spoiler section a lot about where are they going to end this season.

And this does to a certain degree,

give or take a few more minutes,

feel like a natural

ending in terms of the way in which the narrative cycles

inside of the game.

But in terms of

it's just a different proposition, as you're saying, to ask someone to

watch this season and then wait a couple years.

And I don't, we don't know how they're going to structure season three, but in theory, they could structure season three,

you know, as they've discussed.

So I don't think it's a spoiler to say, in a very Abbey-centric POV, meaning like the characters that we've invested time in, Ellie and Dina, et cetera, et cetera,

we might not get to check back in with them for a while.

We don't know exactly how they're going to do it, but that is certainly one thing they could do.

And so that's so different from I'm playing the game one minute.

I'm playing as Ellie, and here I go playing again as Abby, but I'm still playing.

Like the, I don't have time to like sit and marinate or

forget anything or, or, you know, all the things that come with these long gaps between seasons that are now part of these high-level productions with a ton of digital effects that take forever to, you know, to be rendered as beautifully as they are

on The Last of Us.

Yeah, I mean, as a game player, having the control in your hands, the story is like unfurling at your pace.

As much time as you have to sit on your couch and play, you can find out what is going to happen within the context of that game.

I say all this as someone who adores these exact structural elements in the game form.

I think they work incredibly well.

I have the utmost respect and love for this game.

I think asking those people, specifically the like cut to black element and then perspective change pivot that we're seeing here and that is teased with this sort of like coda, you know, Abby waking up within the stadium.

And now we're going to go back to day one and you're going to see some of this from her perspective.

Asking people to wait in that moment for years is a lot to ask.

And I think you know it's a lot because the show almost doesn't have the confidence in the cut to black to leave it there and feels obligated to show you this coda to say, here's a little taste of what's going to be happening next.

And it's not just going to be, we're going to pick up right here being held at gunpoint.

Like we're going to change the nature of this story based on what you understand about it.

Like, I think flashing a little bit at the end of this finale to a character that audiences know, but have no real relationship to, who's genuinely like barely been in this season is just too much.

I think it is to me speaking to the fact that, as we're alluding to with the game versus show elements of this, like storytelling does not exist in a vacuum.

It is beholden to whatever delivery system you have.

And TV as a delivery system for this version of this story, I just don't think it works.

You think the coda,

the

after cut to black, Abby waking up, et cetera,

you would rather, you think it would have been stronger to not have that at all and just cut to black at the end of the episode?

episode i think if that's where you see the act break is uh then end it and leave leave that like it's a harsher cliffhanger i'm sure people would be frustrated with that in their own right but you still have the cliffhanger it's not like you wrote your way out of it or you showed that scene to completion you've got this cliffhanger teasing the perspective shift to me says like oh we're going to go in this slightly different direction with the next season which you know as we talked about in terms of the game and the perspective shift there it's not like a lot of people didn't already know that who are coming with this knowledge from the source material i just, I don't think that serves the story of this season.

I think, I think it only exacerbates the problem of this not feeling like a complete, even episode within the larger Last of Us universe.

Like, this doesn't even feel like the Empire Strikes Back, you know, of like you get on the ship at the end and you're looking out the window and things are uncertain, but like this chapter has closed.

This chapter is open.

It's like left hanging on purpose deliberately.

And if you're going to do that, leave it hanging.

Like let it, let it all out.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Um,

I think I disagree.

I think I agree that this is not quite,

does not feel like a very incredibly satisfying end to a season.

And I think it does veer closer to,

you know, the frustrations we talked about with like the squid game season breaking, which felt like a complete, this is a different case, but in that case, it felt like a sort of

very

revenue-based

driving the storytelling decision to break a complete season in half and just like leave us hanging and not like, you know, there's nothing wrong with a good cliffhanger.

This does not feel like a good cliffhanger.

But I think you did need to give

the non-gamers

this coda.

I really and like knowing that how much uh, well, I actually don't know the demographics of how many people are watching this who are game players versus not, but I have to imagine that the non-game players, game players outweigh

game players when it comes to this.

And so you have to like have that in mind.

So without them knowing what the premise of season three is, I kind of think that

I think you need this, but I have to say,

and I am not a TV writer or a showrunner

or a game designer.

I thought you were a script doctor.

I thought they call you in and they're like, Joe, can you punch up this dialogue for me?

Yeah, but it's uncredited, so I don't have to brag about it.

That's fair.

If there's anything I'm terrible at, it's dialogue.

and I'm telling you that right now.

Um, look, for as much as we ping some of these shows for dialogue, very hard to write, just impossible.

I have no idea how anyone does it.

Um, I think you know, we talked about this last week.

I think the Penelsman episode was so strong, yes, that no matter what, I think this finale was going to feel not quite what the Penelsman episode was, and that might be by design.

Again, certainly, this was the approach the Game of Thrones took for many seasons: that the episode nine was the high, and episode 10 was sort of the wind down.

Um,

but I have have to wonder, given where we're sitting right now,

would it have made more sense for either there to be almost zero Abby this season

or

a side-by-side Seattle experience, shifting POV back and forth?

Even episode by episode, you could do it if you wanted.

I don't know if that would generate the same thing that it does in the game in terms of.

But like, I don't know that you can capture what the game can capture inside of the TV medium.

What do you think in terms of like

almost less Abby, like not knowing her motivation, not getting any of the stuff versus a shift back and forth?

Again, we're not TV writers.

We're Wednesday morning quarterbacking,

a very impressive and expensive and all this sort of stuff show.

But like, you know, as someone who thinks a lot about story, Rob, what do you think about that?

Well, I think this is where my bias as a game player really comes out because I prefer the version of this story where you know less about what Abby is up to, basically, until the moment where she kills Joel.

And that is, in its way, an announcement of like, oh, this is a totally different kind of story.

I am in over my head as a viewer in a way that I did not even understand watching the first, you know, couple of chapters play out.

I would have preferred to know less.

I would prefer for Abby to be this sort of specter figure in Ellie's journey as she's like pursuing her and chasing her through Seattle.

Like, I think that structure is always going to appeal itself more to me.

But to be fair, I think this version could still work and could have worked, I think, a little bit more effectively within the overall shape of this season.

To me, the problems for me are not just like we end in this kind of uncertain place.

I think that's inevitable

in some respect when you're breaking up a game into multiple seasons, like one story into multiple seasons, you're going to run into that problem.

I also was bumping up against, to me, episodes five and seven, this one, both felt really, really rushed.

And that means

the forward momentum of the back back half of the season felt incredibly rushed because six, which I love, is not advancing the story in a plot way.

It's advancing the story in terms of the emotion and the investment and our understanding of what's at play here.

But in terms of the forward movement, it's like, that's a lot of time to be what to me, I would say maybe uncharitably felt like

a checklist.

It's like, okay, we got to hit this.

We got to hit that.

We need to go to the aquarium.

We need to, you know, we want to, we want to touch on the Serified Island.

Like we want to do this.

It felt like I was being rushed through this process that I wish I had 10 episodes with.

I mean, I certainly think a lot of this would be alleviated by even a nine

episode season.

Definitely.

Essentially, we were talking to Bill about this on Your Friends and Neighbors font last week.

By the way, just for the record, this show is way better than Your Friends and Neighbors.

Like way, way, like multitudes better.

So I'm not.

Make it very, very clear.

So just make it really clear.

I'm not comparing the two.

Well, I want to say too, like, we kind of like everything that we're saying, I feel like, is within the context context of grading the show on the curve of the standard of season one the standard of the game the standard of what this show has proven to be at its absolute best which is episode six or even episodes earlier this season which i thought really really nailed so many story and character elements and then here at the end we're just getting like plot device a little bit of short shrift i felt like i would say for me this season the highs are like one the premiere i loved four i really loved and six i think is a masterpiece and so those are like you know and then two is like a mixed bag for me because the battle of jackson didn't work as well for me as it did for some people but like all the joel stuff worked really well so

um

not bad like tent pulls to have across a seven episode season of television but something we were talking about on the your friends and neighbors pod is the idea of a first season versus a second season and this idea of like there are a lot of shows that go really hard uh and explode out of the gate in the first season and then the second season is a little wobbly and then sometimes it's just diminishing returns from there.

And sometimes it's like, oh, we figured it out again and we're back in season three.

And a great example of this is something like Friday Night Lights, which has an incredible first season, a wobbly second season.

Well, an incredible murder mystery in the second season.

You want to know who done it.

Well, we know who done it.

And it's too bad.

But why done it?

Like in an existential sense, why did any of us do this?

Great question.

And then you have the reverse.

This is what we were talking about with your friends and neighbors and a bunch of other shows, Justified, et cetera, that have like a wobblier first season, but have like a really, really strong second season.

And so I think this is a case where in the most optimistic case, and I am very optimistic because I really love this world and this story, and I really, I really respect the way that the creators think about story,

I think that

season three has a tremendous amount of potential.

And, you know, and I said this, Malin, when Mal and I talked about this on House of R, like for me, we got some emails to the contrary.

We got some emails from people saying, like, I don't know that I want a whole,

you know, maybe non-gamers who are like, I don't, what do you, what do you mean?

I'm going to have a whole Abbey season, or what do you mean?

I'm going to spend time with the prophet and the Seraphites and stuff like that.

Like, I'm not really that interested in them.

I am tremendously interested in that.

I think there is a lot of potential in season three for,

again, I, you know, Mal and I talked about this a little bit, but like the idea of exploring a figure like the Seraphite prophet, which gets somewhat explored in the game, but they have so much more room, you know, to dig into that in the show and the way in which these folks think about

human nature inside of uh you know a world where our institutions have been torn down and we have to rebuild them.

What does a human do in some in a in a place like that?

That's really fascinating to me.

And I think there's just like

I don't know if I'm just being you know, rose-colored glasses, but I really think that season three has has an opportunity.

And, you know, we're huge, as we mentioned, Divorites.

So the prospect of like Abby, an Abby-centric season is very exciting to me.

So I don't know.

What do you think, Rob?

What are you thinking about?

Yeah, an LE-sized portion of an Abby story starring Caitlin Deaver.

I'm 100% here for it.

As much as you would like to center that season on Abby and anchored in her perspective, I'm down for that.

I also think, you know, for whatever qualms I may have or other people may have about this show, one area in which Craig Mason and Neil Druckman and the whole creative team are basically undefeated as far as I'm concerned is adapting lore into story.

Like turning things like Bill and Frank, turning things like Eugene last week, turning these little elements that you find out through the periphery of the game into like, here is Isaac throwing a grenade into the back of an armored van.

Like that is electric shit.

And so, yeah, to your point about the prophet, like turning these people you hear about within the story of the game into a focus of an episode, a focus of an arc, a focus of a season.

That's really thrilling storytelling for me, even as somebody who thinks they know where the story is going ultimately.

Like, I can't wait to see all that.

I can't wait to see what they do with Abby.

I just wish it was happening six months from now or a year from now.

And this, like, the game, I feel like the Game of Thrones stuff keeps coming up because that is a series, as you alluded to, that does not finale in always the most dramatic fashion.

It's like climax in episode eight or nine, you know, whatever, like the penultimate or the anti-penultimate, as we learned, episode is called.

Yeah.

And then you kind of tail off and you're resetting in the finale.

And that can work within the larger kind of tableau of storytelling that is the Game of Thrones universe.

That was also a show that before the debacle of season eight was coming out one calendar year apart, basically every year.

Like spring, spring, spring, maybe summer, maybe a slight push.

Seven and eight were both.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, seven and eight.

I deferred to the Joanna Robinson Scholarship as always.

But like for the most part, like those are seasons that are coming out on a more regular increment.

And I think that's a good thing.

And I think until seven and eight.

Yeah, up until seven and eight were 10 episode seasons versus seven and eight being shorter seasons.

So this idea of like a shorter season with a longer window in between the storytelling is like again tough everything that i'm saying i feel like i would not feel that way if we knew that this the filming of season three was in the can and this was a season that's coming out eight months from now a year from now if there was a definite timeline i would feel much more confident about the way we can process a story like this without it frankly who knows when season three comes out there's also the the spectacle lesson that can be learned from game of thrones which is like you know thinking about them shooting again

The Last of Us is

an exquisitely beautiful show.

Really?

And I love that about it.

But thinking about what are they chasing, there are big set pieces inside of the game that you're going to want to make sure that you capture.

But I'm worried that they're like, you know, are we getting the Battle of Seraphite?

Island as like a Battle of Jackson moment.

And is that going to be something that delays things because that is a huge logistical thing to film versus staying in the POV, which is, you know, what the game does.

I think to your point, I really agree.

This idea of like undefeated in the in the realm of expansion.

I completely agree.

Except when it comes to something that feels like it's trying to like

plus

the spectacle of the show versus deepen the story.

Where they're Jurassic worlding it, you're saying.

The bigger, the better dinosaurs show.

Okay.

I refuse to put this show that i love in the same conversation as jurassic world what are we putting words in your mouth but yes mortal ip enemies the jurassic world uh films tough hang um

i want to ask you about some specific adaptive choices inside of this finale um specifically i think the melan owen uh encounter okay the nora encounter um

was fairly faithful to the game, even though the like the spore, when we're deploying the spores in the game versus a show, is different, but there's a lot that those two sequences have in common.

There are some pretty significant departures in time in terms of like how everything unfolds with Mel and Owen inside this scene.

And also,

I guess, kind of what we know, which is something that like, you know, you and I can reserve a little bit for the spoiler section, but like in terms of

the accidental versus intentional violence inside of that sequence, how is that sitting with you?

So for context, for the people who are not game players, and this is not a spoiler, just like an adaptive change, within the game,

Mel is not killed by accident.

Mel sort of attacks Ellie with a knife

within their exchange as this like standoff is going on after she shoots Owen and Ellie turns the knife on her and stabs her in the neck in like incredibly violent and brutal fashion.

I think that the change here to have it be an accident I'm very much of two minds about, but I'm pretty open to the adaptive shift that they've made here because I think it gives you the payoff of having Mel begging Ellie to cut her open to take the baby out,

which is just one of the most, like, if you'll pardon the pun, like gutting things I've ever seen.

Just absolutely brutal stuff to witness and knocked me on my ass in a way I was not prepared for.

In a good, like, in a good way.

In a good way.

In a way that this is like violent and shocking and desperate.

And like, I also think it's that within that scene between Mel and Ellie, they're kind of like negotiation is like, can you do this?

I can tell you how to do this.

Can I do do this?

I'm freaking out.

I think it's some of the best stuff we got from Bella all season.

I think it's a tremendous exchange.

I think that addition I really, really love in terms of intensifying what is already a really devastating sequence with a new kind of emotionality and just like peeling back layers of it that are that feel for a character like Ellie completely different, given her context with Dina specifically.

I think also, in terms of what we know, and again, this is not

a spoiler.

This is an adaptive change.

There are things to spoil in this scene.

We're not doing that, but like,

in the game, you already know that Mel is pregnant because it's something you learned at the beginning of the game.

So you as a player, there's a word for this and I, I feel like one of our listeners wrote in about it, but I can't remember what it is.

But

we've been talking around it.

I just, I guess there's a specific term, which is this idea of like...

the act of being having to actively choose to do the thing inside of the game and what that does to you psychologically and emotionally which in the last of us Us, they love to do.

It's not just like you're in a boss fight, it's like press square to slice this person's throat, right?

And this person who you know is pregnant.

Yes, so you know this character is pregnant, and you, as Ellie, have to

stab her in the throat in order to keep playing this game, and that is an active choice you have to make.

So it's just like a really different psychological-emotional composition.

The complicity that

they achieved pretty well, I think, with the ending of season one, which is the Joel action, because in terms of making us complicit,

you're not actively pressing square to shoot a doctor in the head at the end of season one, but you are

kind of rooting for Joel to save Ellie, you know?

And here inside, this is a different setup.

I'm not rooting for Ellie to brutalize Nora, and I'm not rooting for Ellie to kill Owen and to kill Mel.

So

knowing zero about them or not, it's just not something I want to have happen to Ellie.

Because again, it's different stakes on it.

For Joel, it's a rescue mission.

For Ellie, it's a vengeance mission.

And that is like the story, different stories that they're intentionally telling.

Yes.

But it makes that

act of sympathetic complicity that the game forces you into harder to achieve inside the show, I think, because I'm I'm not like, yeah, get her Ellie to Nora personally.

Maybe some people are, but I'm not.

So I don't know.

It's an interesting question.

I think it also draws out a slightly different need for characterization, a slightly different need for performance from Bella Ramsey as opposed to Ashley Johnson.

Like, you just need something different when you don't have that audience complicity in quite the same way.

Like, we're just kind of reshaping those sequences.

And to that point, the trade-off for getting Mel begging Ellie to slice her open and take out her baby is that you don't get the like murder on purpose.

Like, like, Ellie kills Mel because she, she's in danger and in a moment of peril.

And because, frankly, I think she's probably just going to kill all these people anyway, regardless of whether they help her or not.

Like, she is there for revenge.

The fact that Mel's death is an accident, a grazed bullet or kind of like however it hits her exactly, puncturing her neck in the world of the show, it clearly doesn't change the tragedy of what's happening.

Like, this is an emotionally wrenching scene.

I would say, even more emotionally wrenching than it is in the game game in terms of the aftermath of it.

Absolutely.

But it does let Ellie as a character off the hook a little bit in a way that I do think soft pedals the story that we're telling.

You have to do that, though, if you want this exchange where Mel is begging Ellie.

Like, I don't think Mel is begging Ellie if she just stabbed her on purpose.

If she just murdered her, then imploring her to take out the baby doesn't feel like a true thing, even for a desperate mother in that situation.

And as we all know, I have many times been a desperate and pregnant mother on the verge of death, asking people whether or not they should or will take out my baby.

As

a mother of babies, Ramahoni has to say, yeah.

I mean,

it's true, and you know, we talked

a lot about this on House of R in terms of

there is a

part of this moment in the game when Ellie has to kill a dog.

You as Ellie have to kill a dog.

Yeah.

And Craig and Neil had some like funny answers,

funny serious answers for why they decided to not do that in the show did they talk about saving the cat because it really is inverting saving the cat like killing the dog and saving the cat are on opposite ends of the moral character spectrum they were talking about it like um

Craig made a joke about the fact that like he killed a dog in Chernobyl and he's like, you're only allowed to kill one dog in a TV show anyway.

There's a cap on these things, especially with one network.

Like they're just not going to let you do that.

But yeah, I mean, and we got plenty of emails about this, about this idea that like it's soft pedaling Ellie's viciousness a little bit, but I don't know because like, again, I don't, I don't want to debate the likability of Ellie or the competency of Ellie.

I don't know what I mean that way.

Or no, no, I know you don't, but what I will say is that we have gotten emails all across the spectrum.

Yes.

In terms of like, Ellie is too vicious, Ellie is not vicious enough, Ellie is too empathetic, Ellie is not empathetic enough.

Like people are having all different kinds of reactions to this character.

So I don't think you can say one way or another, if she had killed a dog, that would have satisfied some people and pissed off them.

Like, you're never going to win.

Some people just need you to kill a dog on screen.

They're just, they're just imploring you to murder more dogs.

And I'm good, personally.

I'm okay with not doing that.

I'm all right with it.

I mean, look, look, the violence is part of this story.

I'm, I'm sympathetic to people who came from the game perspective where the violence is even more omnipresent, I would say, than in the show and are missing some of that.

I think that's a fair you know, criticism or commentary about what the show is and kind of the adaptive changes necessary to make it work.

Right.

I think so long as within this scene, the most important thing to me as a viewer, as someone who's invested in Ellie's story, is like, you need to see Ellie being so blinded by rage and her mission that she ceases to see people like Owen and Mel as people.

Right.

Until it's like too late, until she is forced to then confront, oh my God, like the pregnancy is like a very pointed way to do that, but really it's just kind of a means to shake her loose.

And then frankly, to have Tommy and Jesse come in the room as well.

And they are like, this is, this shit has gone way too far.

Like, we have, yes, everyone might be quote unquote getting what's coming to them by participating in this cycle of violence, but like, this is, we are way off the rails at this point.

And especially for someone like Mel, who is the character who was the least comfortable with what was happening to Joel and to Dina and to Ellie in episode two.

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Let's talk about Jesse.

Of course, this is a massive Jesse episode, not just because it's the end of Jesse on The Last of Us, but

the show did a lot of work to expand

the character before they killed him off.

And I always appreciate that because if you want to make a death,

there is inside of, again, I was not an active player.

I was a playthrough watcher, but like inside of the game, there is the shock and awe of you're running through the door and then bam, your compatriot is dead.

And like you, you like Jesse.

He's been around.

He's very competent.

But like.

the depth of relationship is much more expanded in the in the show

How did all of this work for you in terms of how they tried to deepen Ellie and Jesse's connection?

Or, I mean, I will say alternatively,

Jesse in the show is much harsher on Ellie than Jesse in the game who was much more supportive of Ellie's moves and decisions.

So another aspect of the expansion of Jesse is this way in which he is much a much more harsher critic of Ellie, whereas Jesse in the game is like

happy to be here and support her.

So,

what do you make of this specific change?

I think in general, Sho Jesse is really, really great.

And I think it makes me care about this character in a totally different way.

As you said, like the surprise in the game is one thing, but he's not really a fully fleshed out person.

He's not someone you really understand.

He doesn't have these relationships with the people around him.

He also doesn't have, I think, the added tragedy of, you know, with his death in this episode.

Like, obviously it's a loss for Dina and for their baby, who's going to grow up without its biological father.

There's also like the death of Jackson's future element of this, where he has been sort of like, you know, anointed as a future leader of this community and having, having him as a stand-in for the idea of someone who has built actual community.

And don't get me wrong, like, I think some of the stuff from St.

Jesse is coming on a little strong as far as like the I'm a good person element and it's, it's treated as such within the world of the show.

He also makes some great points.

I also think his investment in Jackson is a good counterpoint to the larger tribalism that The Last of Us is concerned with.

You know, this is a story that's telling you when you do create these harsh boundaries as far as who is us and who is them.

That's going to lead to cycles of violence.

That's going to lead to this sort of lashing out in revenge.

But creating that us is the only reason these people have meaning in their

post-apocalyptic lives in the first place.

Yeah.

Like you need that connection.

You need that investment.

And so having Jesse as kind of an avatar of some of both of those things and the ways in which they can be good or bad, I think is really effective.

I also just think, you know, young Buzzino, shout out to his performance in this show is really wonderful.

He, this version of Jesse is a great hang and a good friend.

And ultimately, I think would have made for a really good leader, which is part of the real shame and tragedy of losing him in this particular way.

How do you feel about the way in which Dina is used in this episode?

Or maybe more significantly, not?

I mean, we get a scene that is is an adaptation of the game in which Dina,

you know, cleans Ellie up after she comes back

from the encounter with Nora.

But then you have this added, again, if you're a non-game player, this added element of Dina now knows what Joel did, which is a huge difference

from the game.

What are your thoughts on that?

I think it's pretty wonderful.

Specifically, I would say having this version of Dina be so rattled, understandably, by this information that Ellie knew kind of why we're here, like what the chase into Seattle was really all about, why Abby and her friends came to Jackson in the first place, and that Dina jumped so headlong into this because she wanted to help Ellie and wasn't given the benefit of even the slightest context as far as what they were really doing,

is an incredible betrayal.

And to then follow that with, and this is to me, is like one of the most important aspects and through lines of this finale.

Following that betrayal with Dina

having this incredible show of grace with Ellie, of kind of maybe not fully forgiving, but absorbing and accepting what happened and sending her off with this bracelet that is clearly so important to Dina.

It's like a moment of, I know you did this shitty thing.

Clearly, this conversation is not over.

Like, they're still pretty frosty by the end of their exchange there.

But it's like sending her off in a really selfless and accepting way.

And I think throughout this episode, you see Ellie bumping up against people doing genuinely selfless things.

Like, say what you will about Jesse, like he is there trying to save other people, trying to save Dina, trying to save Ellie.

Tommy showed up here to save Ellie's life.

Dina is sending her off with this gesture.

Yeah.

And everywhere you turn, Ellie just like cannot wrap her head around that kind of behavior, cannot wrap her head around the idea of like seeing past her fundamental mission right now.

Okay, I'm going to push back on you a little bit because

on the one hand, I agree, especially like in, of course, in the moment where, you know, Jesse's like, Tommy's in trouble.

We have to go.

And Ellie's like, Do we?

Yeah.

Are you sure?

Because I just figured out a crossword puzzle clue.

And it's like, the answer is Aquarium.

So I'm going to go this way.

Right.

So obviously that's a moment where you're like, Allie, Jesus Christ.

But you get the moment with the Seraphite who's being attacked by the WLF.

And Ellie's like, we have to help that person.

And Jesse's like, not our war.

So Ellie contains,

you know, contains multitudes in that, like,

you know, sometimes she's like, let's help Eugene get to Gail.

Let's save this

kid, you know, like, so there are these moments for Ellie where that's available to her.

And then there are moments where she loses touch of that part of herself.

This is the Ellie who says, kill me if I can save the world.

Do that.

So that's who Ellie fundamentally is.

And there are ways in which her revenge mission, to your point, is like obscuring that part of her.

Totally.

But I think that is like a natural part of who she is that has been,

you know, eaten away at, corroded by this other thing that is taking over her

inside of the story.

I think that's a really smart bright line to draw between, like, you know, as you said, Ellie in flashback, Ellie as we knew her in season one, Ellie and some of the past things she's done and wanted to do are genuinely selfless, are serving a community, are serving like the broader humanity.

Like she, she wants her life to have a purpose, obviously, but she also is trying to help other people.

I think it's telling within this episode, though, that even with that serified kid, the reason that we're told in the post-episode breakdown of like why she's doing that is because she sees herself in that kid.

Like, she, she is coming from a perspective of self-identification and not, this is another person making their own decisions independent of me.

And I need to do something in service of them because they are a person I care about.

Like,

I'm very curious, given that read that you just said, Joe, like, how, how does the stuff with Jesse and Ellie at the end of this episode when they're in the theater, this idea of like, you would run through the fire to save me.

Do you believe?

I feel like, no, she wouldn't.

She just showed with Tommy that she will not.

Like, we got emails about that.

I just don't believe it.

I think it depends.

I think it depends.

Okay.

I think if that's the only thing that's happening, like, if Jesse got like abducted from Jackson.

If there's nothing on TV, if dinner isn't ready, like, you know, if there's nothing going on, then I will help you.

I think if there's nothing on the other side of that scale pulling on her,

then she would.

But with Tommy, unfortunately like he just doesn't like weigh enough yeah in counter to this joel vengeance mission and so

um i agree we got some emails about that where they're like would she

it's really tough

i feel like she would

usually yeah maybe but not right now yes not right now is the crucial part i i think

having having that sort of moment and the like let me tell you about my community jesse is really tough for jesse for tommy for Dina, for all of the people that Ellie is like putting at mortal risk.

In Dina's case, especially, not even telling her why she's there.

Yeah.

And then saying, like, you're not even a part of my community.

My community is dead.

My community got bashed in the head with a golf club.

And I think that speaks to, of course, this idea of like

healthy versus unhealthy attachment.

And

the way in which Joel and Ellie, as we watched in season one, which was just so powerful, like found each other, had these like, you know, matching caverns inside of them for all the loss and trauma they had gone through, and they just like latched onto each other.

Yeah.

And so for Joel, it's Ellie, and for Ellie, it's Joel.

And like, yeah, you're right, tough luck for Tina.

Tough luck for everybody.

And all these other people who are trying to make an us with Ellie when she has decided that this was her, this is her us.

Yeah.

Whether or not that's like a place she will stay in is like a question, but

um,

you know, this is a story about codependence as much as it is about anything else, so yeah, I mean, what are cordyceps if not codependent?

You know, we're all just part of some kind of fungal system, yeah, my cylinder network, exactly.

Oh, something I want to mention, we got a couple ebooks about this over on the House of Ari, Melon, and here is that I didn't talk about in House of Aries: the Grover book that she picks up in the bookstore, uh, the monster at the end of this book.

Um,

That we didn't get into the story of that book, which is about Grover

being rattled by all the monsters around him until he discovers at the end of the book that he's a monster too.

And so it's sort of okay, I believe, is the summary of the book that was given to me.

So,

this idea of like Ellie in Seattle saying Abby and her cohort are monsters, and we need to eradicate them only to

sit on the floor of the aquarium and wonder

I believe am I a monster too I would think I would hope in that moment she's wondering that that's that's the time to ask that question I think so

yeah I don't like I think all of this is really complex and really interesting and like I am

really excited for season three like genuinely but I think even if season three is a banger and season four which I have some questions about is a banger, I think I will look back at season two and say that ended a little

shakily.

I think that's okay to say, you know?

I think you get that too, some with this like quick detour to the Seraphide Island, where it's like, if you're going to do that, I would encourage you to do it.

And it's a great part of the story.

I love this element of like Ellie is trying to get to the aquarium and she's bumping up against all these like near-death, near-miss kind of experiences.

Like she almost shoots at these two guys.

Oh, wait, there's actually like a hundred guys behind them.

And if she had pulled the trigger, she's a goner.

Like, she makes this reckless decision to get on the boat and try to sail in through a storm and winds up on the shore.

And then it's like, she's off of that shore in no time flat.

Like she is noosed up, ready to go.

The their dinner bell rings.

They got to get back home.

Is that what it was?

Was that the dinner bell?

I didn't see what happened.

Who's to say?

But the Seraphites are out of there so quickly.

They don't even bother to murder her on the way out as they probably would with almost any other character.

Like the combination of plot armor plus expedience, like the speed,

that did not work.

And again, I think there's elements of that that could have worked really well if you had the time to flush them out.

For me more than anything else, it was,

and I said this on House of R already, so I don't need to, you know,

Shimmer's alive, so I won't say beat a dead horse, but like the way her boat washed up on shore right next to her and

like fine.

It's very seawater.

Just ready to crash and it didn't wash away it wasn't anchored to anything and it didn't wash away that was just like well it was almost like the boat had more plot armor than anything else that was just like i can't well that's proof of that there was an apocalypse right like if the world had ended in 2013 we wouldn't have the slow degrade of capitalism making all of our commercial products so much worse on a year-by-year basis you know a 2013 boat is probably a pretty good boat A 2025 boat is dog shit.

I got to be honest with you.

We used to live in a society with shipwrights who knew what they were doing.

Okay.

On the timeline front, on the space-time continuum, something that,

you know, we talked already about the Pearl Dam song Future Days, which came out after

when the mushroom apocalypse was supposed to hit in this particular adaptation of the show.

Seattle folks wrote in to let us know that the Ferris Wheel at the Aquarium was also built after

the mushroom apocalypse.

It's a lie.

I will say that Ferris Wheel specifically is something that I want to see in season three.

So I'm glad it's there.

I don't mind that, again, we break the space-time continuum to make it happen.

I'm fine with it.

Seattle kick rocks.

No.

No, I heard you loud and clear, Joe.

Seattle, you're great.

And I love you.

And I've enjoyed spending time with you.

Okay.

Anything else?

What else do you want to say about this episode?

I mean, I guess, should we say anything else about at least some lip service being paid earlier in this episode to like Abby being super important, at least to Isaac?

Again, I think it just kind of continues on what we were talking about earlier, as far as like she's in this season so little, and then when she does come up, it just feels like we're kind of brushing over the surface of what Abby is supposed to be to these people.

I don't know.

I'm just like left in this weird, uncanny valley of like too much Abby and not enough Abby at all times.

This isn't the right portion.

And I think we have to say, as Kayla Deaver fans, I would err on not enough.

There's no doubt about it.

Or always, please.

But

the Isaac aspect is really interesting because,

you know, as we talked about at House of Bar, like he's in

two scenes in the video game.

And so we've already gotten more scenes with him than we get in the video game.

So again, to your point about this idea of like chef's kiss expansion of characters,

Mobiel chef's kiss, especially.

Like our guy is cooking in every possible way.

They're like, oh, we have Jeffrey Wright.

Maybe, mayhap, we should do something extraordinary with this character.

It's a good idea.

His fixation on Abby and his like.

delusions of grandeur is that what you want to call it like whatever it is that's percolating around these scenes where he's monologuing about cookware uh and you know this idea that like he deserves the best and the best is abby and the best is certain kinds of pots and pans i think that is like a a really fascinating in terms of like asking who do we look to to lead us through these moments, you know, and the various leaders we've had on the show, be it a David in season one, a Kathleen in season one, a Maria in season one into season two.

Um,

you know, who do we look for

and what qualities?

And I think, especially,

um, I would say in America right now, when

the majority of the voting body made a specific decision for like what they want to see in a leadership position, that's an interesting thing to contemplate.

Like, what do you want in leadership?

And for someone like Isaac, who comes into the WLF

from a military background into a civilian organization and militarizes it, that's like, that's a really interesting, again, season three story that I'm excited to tune in for.

Without a doubt.

And I think, look, there's parallels with Jesse clearly as far as like these people who are tabbed to be the next in line.

I also think there's just like an interesting apocalyptic story to tell.

And, you know, one of the things that you and Mal were talking about on House of Rs, like this idea of childhood itself in the apocalypse being its own thing and childhood in our reality only existing in kind of a modern societal sense, right?

Like once society had progressed to a point where children didn't have to work on farms or work in factories or work as hunter-gatherers, if you want to stretch it back even further than that, like now you can have a a childhood, right?

Now you can have this.

In some ways, this idea of succession is a luxury, right?

Like, we have we have moved beyond the immediate apocalypse of like, holy shit, there are zombies.

Yeah, I'm trying to carry my daughter to the truck and get out of town into like, okay, now there are QZs, now the QZs have broken down, now we have these replacement organizations like the WLF, and someone like Isaac has enough relative security to sit back and say, who do I want to take this mantle after I'm done or gone?

And some of that is is like

extremely, extremely rude.

I, for one, was thrilled to have Etienne Park back in this, back in this season, to have her return.

Shout out to all the Hannibal fans out there.

Exactly.

The Fannibles.

I love the Hannibals.

You know, we're really eating as well.

But like, you know, why not her?

I guess is my ultimate question.

Like, she seems like a pretty good leader.

She's, she's the person who rightly says, you know what?

Like, your chosen one, she well and fucked off.

Like, maybe she wasn't so chosen after all.

As your defense lawyer rob mahoney i would caution against saying we're really eating around um a cannibalism based show have you seen the food styling on that show it's unbelievable uh if you show up to our next podcast with a flower crown on i will be very excited for you and for all of us um

yeah this idea i i love the way you're thinking about that in terms of like what is jesse being and i say groomed not in the creepy sense but what is jesse being groomed for in terms of leadership what is abby being groomed for in terms of leadership what do we want yeah you need and and it's similar to a lot of what, I know you're not caught up on Andor, but it's similar to a lot of what we've been talking about on Andor, which is like, what kind of leader do you need for what kind of

era of a revolution?

Yeah.

Wartime, peacetime, conciliary, that whole thing.

Exactly, exactly.

So like, is,

you know, what is it about Abby?

And this is something that I look forward to understanding better in season three that Isaac has identified as,

you know, once I, once I defeat the Seraphites once and for all on the island, which is what he thinks he is about to do.

Yeah.

Once I have conquered Seraphide Island and perhaps die in the process, which is what he says inside of this episode, who do I then want to lead a Seraphite-less or a Seraphite-quashed

future?

And I, you know, Caitlin Deaver, you often have my vote in most things.

So

you know what?

I would vote for Caitlin Dieber for many, many things.

Caitlin Deaver, Comptroller?

Let's do it.

Let's Let's get her on the ballot somewhere.

Effortlessly.

Okay.

Anything else you want to say in a sort of spoiler-free context?

I think as we've kind of circled here, I'm really excited about season three, and I wish it were coming sooner.

This is the blessing and the curse of this sort of ending of this sort of season.

It's like, I'm very eager to see how that show handles the next stages of the story.

I hope people are along for that ride.

I hope people are willing to wait, given kind of where they've been left hanging.

Here's what I suspect is going to happen.

If season three is the banger that I think and hope it will be, I suspect the

and if

Zazlov does not pull any hinky shit over at Werner Brothers.

When does he not?

And so if the creators of The Last of Us have the amount of time and budget that they deserve to have to make the season three that they want to make.

Yep.

My prediction is season three will start out with a low viewership and will

gain back viewership as word of mouth spreads of last of us is back baby not that i think it's gone but just sort of like you know if if you love season one you were a little bit out on season two my hope is that season three is something that um

and i i suspect will like bring people back in but we'll see um i'm not a prophet um i am merely a podcaster okay

That's it in a spoiler-free way.

I don't know how much spoiler stuff we have to talk about.

I think we've talked around most of the stuff we want to talk about, but just in case, here's your spoiler warning.

It's been such a joy to spend the mushroom apocalypse with you, Rob Mahoney, and

with the listeners who don't want spoilers.

We'll see you in the neighborhood for your friends and neighbors.

Yeah, don't be a stranger.

You know, don't wait until season three to hang out with us here on the Prestige TV podcast.

On the golf course, perhaps, for a stick.

And on the road, of course, for poker face, among other things.

There's some stuff coming, and we're really excited about.

Okay.

So this is your spoiler worrying.

Yes.

Do not continue if you don't want to know anything else about the rest of this story, the rest of this game, the rest of humanity.

Are you gone?

Did you go?

Okay.

Please, please go away if you do not want those things.

Rob, what are the sort of, what have you been dancing around?

Okay, so this is something.

We got an email about this.

Someone was,

we were debating whether or not to talk about Owen as the father of Mel's baby,

which I think, due to an editing error, actually did wind up in a version of House of Are that was then edited out.

But anyway, good catch.

The uh,

but Mason did say on the official podcast that Owen is in love with Abby, which I think is like felt like this is brand new information to some people.

Um, well, we'll stop there.

Like, did you feel like that was represented in their limited time on screen?

Like a relationship, yes, a deeper connection than the the other WLF.

Yeah.

But in terms of like they're in love with each other or they're in a relationship, which at this point they both are and aren't, it's very messy.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Like I feel this is this is the like

too little or too much.

Like I think I think I think I needed that conversation where Owen tells Abby that Mel's pregnant.

Because Abby's reaction to that inside of the game

told me everything I needed to know before I

even saw all of the O and base flash effects that we get and stuff like that.

Like her

extreme distress at this news told me that they were once a thing.

She still cares.

He still cares to a certain degree.

But now he has gotten someone else in their group of friends pregnant.

And that is a very thorny thing.

And I feel like we got,

again,

too little or too much information around it inside of this episode or inside of the season, I guess.

You're right to pinpoint that sequence, though, like that exchange, because it's so character dense and it's so like you're immediately caught up, not on the full extent of these characters' backstories, but like who they are to each other.

Like, what are the elements at play between these people that are complicated?

And the version of the story that we've gotten so far, the only thing really dividing any of them is like to what extent they want to fuck up Joel

versus to what extent they want to go home.

Like, there is a spectrum from, you know, from Mel to Abby as far as like how invested they are in the mission but otherwise it's like oh they're just like a group of ragtag wlf members who are on the same page on all other things in life and i like i would have liked having a little more indication that there was some differences between them yeah

um any other spoilery stuff that you want to make sure that we talk about well in terms of like exactly where they cut off the cliffhanger yes

I think the gunshot, I actually think my biggest objection is the gunshot sound.

Yeah.

I didn't didn't want to talk about it up top because it's like too spoilery.

That's what, like, what are we doing?

Like, this is the thing.

You don't need it.

You could say you wasted it, cut to black.

You don't need the gunshot noise.

I don't think that's necessary.

That's, that's my, actually, more than like the conversation we're having about the coda, more than anything else, the gunshot noise feels

like an insecure choice.

Yes.

Do you know?

Yeah.

And it feels like the kind of insecure choice that no one who watches any decent amount of TV is going going to fall for.

Like no matter how shocking Joel's death may have been or other deaths on the show may have been, Jesse's included, you're not going to shoot Ellie cut to black and then open season three with dead Ellie.

Like that's just not going to happen.

And so in that case, what does the gunshot accomplish?

What does it actually like ratchet up the stakes of when I don't think anyone is believing that it's going to result in anything?

I think it's like.

harrowing enough to have Abby like pointing a gun at you and saying you wasted it.

Like I think that that is

actually actually don't like where, where else would you cut it off, I guess, once again, to Wednesday morning quarterback?

I know.

A very good show.

Where would you,

what, what, like, would you have

included Lev in there?

Would you have Dina sort of be involved at all?

Would you have Tommy get shot?

Like, what would you, what would you do, Rob, if it were up to you?

Can I, can I talk through this out loud with you?

Because I had this work.

You know, because as I'm saying, like, I don't love ending a season this particular way.

I think, to be fair, again, my preference would be end it this way, but season three comes out in six months.

You've already shot it.

Squid game style.

Like, yeah, it's a seven-episode season, but it's part one of a season, effectively.

That would be my preference.

Even Squid Game is like, even though Squid Game divided their season in a way that we hated, at least, it's at least coming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

If you're not going to do that,

I was wondering if I would almost prefer as a viewer, seeing Abby and Ellie's Ellie's confrontation to completion.

Like seeing the fight that results.

Like show us, Abby comes here, Jesse gets shot, they wrestle, Tommy gets shot in the head.

You don't really have to include Lev at this point in the story because it's still kind of like anchored to Ellie's perspective.

Until I guess you would if you included the Dina elephants, maybe because Dina does get shot.

Like

maybe you do that.

And then they can't cast Lev because,

you know,

if you're casting a kid, you need to shoot with that kid right away.

Like even season three, I wonder if they're going to do

three and four simultaneously or something like that.

Well, no, because the Santa Barbara coda, they could set later.

So they will set later.

So Lev can be older.

So that's like less of a thing.

But like, yeah, the kid element in terms of like making sure that kid looks as young as that kid needs to look.

Yeah.

You can't cast him now.

Anyway, sorry.

Go ahead.

I wonder if there's a way to write around even something like that.

Like if you have a little more Ellie-centric point of view of that fight in exchange, Ellie is hit over the head with something, is kind of like dazed in a way where you don't see where the arrow comes from.

In much the way like this part of the game, Lev is there in this scene that we just saw.

He's just kind of like off to the side behind the bar.

And so you don't know that he's there as Ellie just yet.

But yeah, I was kind of wondering, like, if you showed that fight to its completion and to Abby walking away, and it's like, Ellie is left, like, I'm leaving you alive one more time.

I've shown you that this is fucked up, what we've done to each other.

And Abby, as not quite being the bigger person, but implored by Lev in that moment to be the bigger person, walks away from it again.

Like,

say what you will, like, that's an ending, right?

Like, that is an ending point of an arc and of a season and of a stage of the story.

And if you then want to go back and show it all from Abby's perspective as to like why she was so fucked up to come to the theater in the first place, like, I think that's that would be a fair game.

I'm sure there are qualms.

We've already stumbled into the Lev element of it.

Like, it's a tough way to introduce a character in like the final 10 minutes of a season finale.

So, there are clearly adaptive changes that would need to be made.

But I was wondering, just sitting on my couch, like, would I have preferred that?

And I honestly don't know.

Again, it feels like too much or not enough.

It's a tough adaptation.

Like, it really is.

Do we end it then before that?

Do we end it with like

Ellie in the theater?

Like, before Jesse dies?

Does Jesse die?

Do we run?

No, no, I'm trying to talk it through you as well.

And I'm like, do we run through the door and Jesse gets shot and it's Abby and that's where we end it.

You know what I mean?

Like,

what do we do?

There are no, to be fair, like, there are no good answers.

There are no good answers.

There are no ways to break up this story into like an end of season position that's going to leave everyone feeling satisfied.

Except I just would not have put that gunshot in there.

That's just like what I, that's, that's my main

issue, honestly.

So, yeah.

But that's us as Wednesday morning quarterbacks.

You know, that's, that is our right.

to say that we would not want that gunshot, but also to tip our hat to the fact that like, I, I would not want the responsibility of this creative process in terms of the adaptation.

Like, this is a lie.

Do not give us anything resembling that job.

Here's what I'll say about

like Neil specifically is like to have gone through the hell of

the joy and the hell of the controversy of the game and say to welcome it again.

That is a level of cojones that I will never experience in my own lifetime.

I just don't know.

I just, I couldn't.

A masochism, perhaps?

You You know, like there's some in all of us to walk back through the world.

I could not do that.

And I'm sorry that like history is repeating itself

to a certain degree.

But I am grateful for

this

TV show because it means I get to experience this story,

a story that you,

you know, someone I really respect, really loves, and I wouldn't have otherwise as a non-video game playing person.

So.

I'm glad to get the chance to talk about it with you, Joe.

I'm thrilled that we're going to get to hopefully continue to do it in a Caitlin Deaver heavy season.

Like,

here's the thing about The Last of Us Part 2.

Those of us, Druckman included, who have been in these wars before, and I was not even like, I'm not out there posting online about it, but I'm reading it, I'm consuming it, I'm being hit by wave after wave after like me on my rickety little boat washed alongside the shore, crushed by the wave of just like ridiculous,

some ridiculous criticism, some fair criticism, like the whole, the whole gamut.

I feel, in the way that many people do when they love a property like that, a show, a game, a a book, whatever, so protective of The Last of Us part 2.

Like, I feel the urge and the need to defend it.

And in particular, Abby.

Like, Abby is a character I feel very defensive about.

And so we're just going to be right out there on the front lines again, Joe.

I can't wait.

It's going to be a little different this time.

The discourse is going to shift into Caitlin Deaver

proportions.

And we're going to have that whole conversation, I'm sure.

But like, I love this part of the story that we're about to tell.

So we'll see you in a couple of years on this podcast feed.

If

not,

AI versions of us will be here.

One of the two.

To guide you through.

Thank you to Donnie Beacham.

Thank you to Justin Sales.

Thank you to everyone who worked on The Last of Us for giving us so much to talk about.

And

Rob Mahoney, I will see you

tomorrow, later this week, to talk about

Coop and your friends and neighbors.

I have a lot of

I just saw your soul.

I saw your soul leave your body.

No, I just like, I'm actually really excited to talk to you about it.

Okay.

You haven't watched it yet.

I have.

I'm really excited to talk to you about it.

Okay.

We'll see you soon.

Bye.