‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 5: Ellie Kicks Off Her Revenge Tour. Plus, Costume Designer Ann Foley

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Hello, welcome back to the Fresh Each TV podcast.

Eid, I'm Joanna Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney.

We're here today to talk to you about The Last of Us, but also

fun announcement.

Just when you were thinking, hey, I miss Rob and Joanna talking 900 times a week to each other.

Have we got some news for you?

We will be covering your friends and neighbors this week, which we could not last week because Rob was getting hand surgery.

Very normal day.

Hand is fine.

And so we will be podcasting about your friends and neighbors and also poker face,

a show that really sort of like launched this, uh, our partnership on this podcast.

It's true.

In earnest.

So we'll be doing some poker face check-ins throughout the season.

Season two is

really fun so far.

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

Um, so that's the plan this week.

Three pods from us this week.

Joe, that's lightweight for you.

Lightwork.

No problem.

In light of poker face, could we be more back?

You know, not that we ever went anywhere, but we're so back at astronomical levels.

We're so back.

We're HBO Max again.

I cannot believe we're doing this again.

I cannot believe it.

We've gone from Max back to HBO Max.

Yeah, it sounds great to me.

PressGTV at spotify.com is how you can reach us for all shows that we cover.

I'm mildly sure that we will have a poker face-specific email when we get to that.

But for now, you can send your season two thoughts to press TV at spotify.com.

And for this particular show, Rob Mahoney, how can folks reach us?

They can reach us at thisisyourbrain on shrooms at gmail.com.

And the emails have been popping in, Joe.

I've really appreciated the context people have been giving us.

Some people are big mad about this season.

Some people are curious about why everyone else is big mad about this season.

I'm enjoying parsing through it all personally.

Everyone's emails have been incredible.

This is going to be something of a discourse-heavy, I would say, chat between the two of us, just because that's where everything is sort of burbling and bubbling right now.

So, we want to talk about everyone's thoughts and feelings, positive and negative, about what's happening in The Last of Us this season as we round the corner on an episode next week that promises Petra Pascal's return.

And then we've got the finale.

So, it's like a very interesting point in the season to sort of assess where we are.

We will also, on this podcast, have a conversation with the costume designer for The Last of Us, Ann Foley.

Yeah.

And talked about a lot of things, including sort of being in that mushroom-y hallway with Leon, with the doctor character who they called the breather and stuff like that.

So, that was that was really fun to hear about from Anne.

So, we'll have that chat with Anne, and then we'll have a look-ahead section afterwards as we do to sort of think about what we might see next week on The Last of Us based on our gaming knowledge, et cetera.

Joe, does the breather not sound like a Doctor Who monster of the week?

This just makes me want to talk to you about Doctor Who.

These days, I don't know if you do.

Actually, did you know that they did a sequel to Midnight this season on Doctor Who, which is my favorite episode of Doctor Who?

So I had heard you on, I think, on House of R alluding to a semi-sequel of some kind to a beloved episode.

I did not know it was Midnight, which is maybe my all-time favorite episode of Doctor Who.

So, yeah, I might have to check that one out.

Yeah, I'll let you know which one that is specifically so you can dip in.

All right, before we get into

discourse-heavy chat, I thought we would start out with like a little treat, a little

appetizer before we get into the sort of more serious meal that we're about to have.

And that is this email we got from Micah, which could not be, I think, a more Rob Mahoney-coated email if they tried.

Micah wrote in

our discussion of fine cookware last week, inspired by, of course,

William Sonoma enthusiast Isaac.

Micah wrote, he was asking why we didn't talk about Les Crusé.

Micah wrote, enameled cast iron might not be the most ominous fine cookware to threaten someone with, but a nice flame-colored Le Crusade skillet would have been a perfect utensil with which to burn a hand.

Think of the whimsy.

So in case you're listening to this podcast and you're not a weirdo who knows a lot about cookware like Rob and me,

Les Crusade are those like brightly colored sort of ombre colored cast iron enamel.

You'll see like a lot of Dutch ovens, people collect it as like plates or mugs or that sort of stuff.

It can be something people, what people often do is they pick a color.

and then they just like fill their kitchen.

If you are a Stanley Tucci fan and you love a Stanley Tucci TikTok, you will note on the like back wall of his kitchen, there's just like a collection of Les Crusade Dutch ovens at all time on the wall behind him.

The Les Crusade Stanley Tucci circles, like that's not a Venn diagram.

That is just one and the same.

You're right.

It's one circle.

You probably don't watch a Stanley Tucci TikTok if you don't know what Les Crusade is already, but just in case.

I will say for my, and you know, they're, they're, they're spendy, but not the spendiest thing, but it's something that you want to like invest in.

They do last forever.

So that is, that is the benefit of a Les Crusade.

I at one point had a bunch of

Les Crusade plates because they were like something I could, I think I bought them in my like maybe late 20s because they were something I could afford.

Yeah.

You can like afford a Les Crusade plate when you can't afford

the Dutch oven.

And then also the, I have a red enamel cast iron Dutch oven, but it is a lodge.

It is not a Les Crusade, but it is wonderful and it is like maybe one of my favorite things that I own.

Totally.

It's very

budget Les Crusade, but it is.

Lodge is a very respectable bit.

I have the same issue, which is like a Dutch, a good Dutch oven, and Lodge makes good Dutch ovens also last forever.

And so, who am I to replace a perfectly functional Dutch oven for a slightly more aesthetically pleasing ombre Dutch oven?

I don't have it in my constitution to do it.

Neither do I.

So I will probably stick with that cherry red lodge that I got, you know, like over a decade ago for the rest of my life.

But

dare to dream.

If one had a touchy-esque

level of commitment to cookware, yes, Rob Mahoney, what is the Ley Crusade item that you would procure for the apocalypse for two?

Let me, let me, let me give you two possibilities.

Okay, one, you're torturing a seraphite in a very uncomfortable way, yes.

Two,

you, like Ava Crowder from Justified, have decided that a cast iron pan of some kind is backhanded against someone's face is the right way to move through this world.

So fighting infected or torturing people, what is your Le Crusade item and color of choice, Rabmahoni?

You know, the torturing, I think we can actually get away from the Dutch oven skillet family.

I would actually go like the very tasteful tea kettle because then you're going multi-purpose, right?

You've got the scalding hot enamel surface.

You've also got the boiling water inside.

The world is your oyster at that point.

It's true.

There's just a lot of swing to it, too, because

I don't have one, but my knowledge of the Lake Crusade tea kettle is that it's got like one of those handles where like it will swing the kettle back and forth, essentially.

So you can just have like a nice reverb, I think, on your.

Can you imagine the acoustics on that thing?

That would be incredible.

As far as moving through the world, though, as a blunt instrument, I think you have to go skillet.

I think you have to go frying pan.

And honestly, the smaller, the better, because those things are quite hefty, as you alluded to.

You don't want something that's going to weigh you down too much, but also something that's going to be too cumbersome to swing.

So the smaller, the better.

Saucepan or skillet, I think, is the way to go.

Color is an interesting question.

Do you want to blend in with the world of the apocalypse?

Like, do you want something more in the brown-green family?

Or are you just going to say, like Isaac, I always wanted the flame.

You know, I always wanted those bright colors.

Personally, my Les Crusade collection, to the extent you could call it that, a couple of modest pieces, mostly like dishes that I use for cobblers and things like that, I find is what I end up picking up from Les Croisset.

I go Caribbean, which is like a blue ombre.

Okay.

A light blue trending into dark blue.

And you know what?

I think in the natural world post-apocalypse, we're not getting enough blue.

Unless you're living by the ocean, blue is not a heavy, naturally occurring color, but it's one of my favorite colors.

I think I would want a little something for myself.

And so I'm going to stick with my Caribbean brethren as my

trusty arms in the apocalypse.

Well, stay tuned to hear what Ann Foley has to say about the use of the color blue on The Last of Us.

I think it's really interesting.

I will always, it is, I don't know where this was sort of imprinted on me, but I will always go for Cerise, which is their sort of like tomato.

They describe it as ripe tomato juicy pomegranate color.

And that is just like iconically like crusade to me.

So,

yeah.

I will just say that like if I had to grab an item, I think about this all the time.

After Zombieland,

in the film Zombiland, right at the beginning, someone takes the back off of their toilet and uses it to crack someone over the head.

And that always struck me as just like such a brilliant move to grab for a really heavy weapon.

But I have to say,

if I were to kill an infected with something in my house, it would probably be the cast iron

skillet that we have or the Dutch oven.

The lid of a Dutch oven is basically Captain America's shield.

Like that shit is impenetrable.

All right, vibranium or cast iron, it doesn't matter.

This is what we're doing.

Okay, that was our diversion.

Now let's go for the meal.

Actually, before we get to that, I want to ask you a spores question.

So this is, this is the episode where we are introduced to spores in the games.

Yes.

Sorry, in the show.

The mechanic is a bit different in the game.

The spores are everywhere.

People are often putting on gas masks, etc.

I guess my question to you, Rob, in terms of like the danger of the world is

as you think about this infected world does it change how how significantly does it change the danger level that there isn't the possibility of spores around every corner that they're contained to this one um hospital floor and i should say we talked about this at length on house of our and i was a little

uh consumed by the thoughts of whether or not the spores would go in the vents, but I did hear from several HVAC experts that they were like, if the spores are heavy enough, they might not go on the vents.

And also from from the medical community, that usually in hospitals, the vents are like one floor dependent, sort of intentionally.

So they, they wouldn't like, you know, feed throughout the whole hospital.

That's all well and good.

But by the end of this episode, we have a clear elevator shaft and two sets of open elevator doors.

And the spores are just spewing at that point.

Like they're just flowing into Gen Pop.

I'm not, I'm not feeling great about it.

So, like,

do you, have you been thinking about it in terms of like, I miss the spores or I miss the fact that the world, that the very air is dangerous in this apocalyptic world?

What do you think, Rob?

I like that element in the game.

And now we're kind of getting into it in the world of the show, just because when you force characters to put on gas masks, it's like an earmark for like elevating danger, right?

Like, you know that anything can be around any corner.

You know, the infected could hit you at any time, but it's like when you go into these very spore-dense areas, it's like, okay, it feels a little more claustrophobic.

Everything, the tone is sort of shifting.

And so, like, I do miss that element.

And I'm glad we're getting into like these physical areas are even more perilous than everything else.

And so I think from that perspective, and this is done quite effectively in this cold open, elevating the latent terror over the fact that not just that spores exist, but cordyceps is evolving in general, right?

This idea that it's growing, that it's changing, that

like, look, humanity

already lost, like the war is over, cordyceps won.

That doesn't mean you can't lose more.

It doesn't mean it can't get harder.

And I think what this stuff signals, in addition to the stalkers, in addition to like the fungal tendrils that came up through Jackson, it's like this is evolving and getting smarter, and everything is getting harder for even the few people that are left alive.

The idea of an enemy that learns, that adapts, that grows, that changes is absolutely bone-chilling to me.

That's our industry fighting AI every day, Joe.

They are the cordyceps that are running our youth, unfortunately.

Before we move on from the spores, I have one science-based spores question for you.

Oh, I'm sure I will know the answer.

Noted scientist Joanna Robinson.

So, like, are we to understand that the spores in the Seattle hospital in B2 and below, potentially, is this just an older strain?

Because we're told this is like the, you know, some of the first cordyceps patients are brought there.

And so, is this an older strain that has been sort of contained and thus is evolving as a means to get out?

I guess I was kind of thrown for a loop when Leon, who his infection itself is like a day old, maybe two days old, He is very much like part of the architecture of the walls at that point.

My understanding is that the cold opening we saw took place a while ago.

Oh, that would make sense.

Yeah, that Leon had been down there for a while.

So that's what I think.

But like, I,

it's a good question.

And what other strains could be awaiting us, you know, because so the in the lore of the show, right, the infection starts in Indonesia and then is spread out from there via

gluten-based products.

Don't eat the cookies.

Reminder: do not eat the cookies.

Don't eat the cookies.

I don't care if it comes in a Lake Crusade.

Don't eat the cobbler either.

Nothing with any flour-based products in it of any kind.

So we're getting to the Pacific Northwest perhaps earlier than we're getting based on shipping lanes.

I don't know, perhaps earlier.

It might be like.

But you're also an expert on shipping routes.

You don't know the traffic to Pacific Northwest?

I wonder if it could be almost like an environmental thing.

Like when we're talking about, we learned in season one about how much this cordyceps infection is related to the idea of global warming.

Like, what does it mean for cordyceps in the swampy air of Seattle versus, you know, the arid deserts of elsewhere?

You know, I can see it mutating and changing and growing based on environments.

That's what mushrooms do.

So

that's my best guess is it rains nine months out of the year in Seattle.

Seattle is a very mushroom-y place.

Oh, yeah.

So perhaps these mushrooms are just even more so than you would find elsewhere.

Anything in a B2 or below, that's dank down there.

You know, like that's that's gotten a lot of a lot of rain draft water coming out.

A lot of mildew, a lot of rat.

It's simply a no for me.

Okay.

You stalled long enough.

Discourse time.

Here's the deal.

Okay.

People have strong feelings about this show.

They certainly do.

People have strong feelings about this game.

And what you have compounded in the conversation around the show right now is

there is, of course, there was the original argument over the decision inside of this game for Joel to die early, Ellie to be the main character, Abby to be another main character, and what that meant for fans of the first game, how that felt altering for them.

A lot of people didn't like it for,

I would say, interesting reasons and also uninteresting, very boring, dumb reasons.

Like, you know, all of that, all of those nuances are there.

So there was the original divide among the game players.

And now you have in the show watchers, you've got people who don't know anything about the game, and then you've got the people who were mad about the game in the first place, and then you've got the people who loved the game and feel like this adaptation is doing things so differently, it's not what they wanted from

this adaptation of the game that they actually loved, because there's plenty of people who loved Last of Us Part 2, the game.

Forbes put out an article,

headlines a bit hyperbolic, in response to the review bombing that's been happening uh around the last of us season two the headline is hbo's the last of us review bombing surpasses the game's review bombing

and

review bombing for people who are too innocent to know um you know is when a bunch of people sort of collectively decide to give something the lowest possible review in order to try to pull that average down.

So if you look at like, let's say, the IMDb ratings of the last episode, The Last of Us, you've got 29% are giving it like top ratings or whatever.

And then there's 29%, fully 29% are giving it a one out of 10.

Yeah.

And that's like, that's like when you see that low,

people can dislike things.

That's fine.

But usually they're scattered in the middle.

When you see that bottom number have such a huge representation, that's a review bomb scenario.

And so

the critical reviews of this season are quite high in the 90s, 90s and the sort of audience reviews across these

not technically scientific, mathematically sound aggregate sites is in like the 40s,

which I guess is a, is a wider margin than say like the 50s versus the 90s for the game.

So in that case, the Forbes math is perhaps right.

I don't know, Rob.

I know that you've had some,

you know, a little bit of pushback on the show of like, hey, this is a little different.

I'm not sure why.

I have an open mind, but, but like, it's not quite what I wanted.

Was there any way for this season of television to not find itself in this position?

Like, what do you think?

There was not a way to avoid it.

It is baked into the story.

It is baked into the DNA of what they are trying to do with The Last of Us as a game, as a property, and now as a show.

We were always going to be here.

And I will say, having lived through it the first time with the game, You just can't hurt me anymore.

You know, like I've already,

you're right that the volume, I think, is going to naturally be different when something is on TV, specifically, like a prestige HBO show versus even a massively popular video game.

Like you're just talking about fundamentally different audiences.

That said, the response to the game was not very well behaved.

And I would say it was not very well behaved in a way that was even more toxic than what I have seen as far as the response to the show.

And I think also the response to the show, the people who are angry, a lot of them are people who are rehashing their anger from the game or rehashing, as you said, some of maybe some of the adaptive choices, which is its own bucket.

But I would also love to hear too from even more people listening to the pod, prestige TV at spotify.com, this is your brain on shrooms at gmail.com.

If you did not play the game and you are bumping specifically on or not even bumping, whatever your impressions are of Ellie at this point in the story, I would love to know.

Because I feel like I am over-indexed in my life on people who love or hate the game and have feelings about how Ellie is being represented on screen here in the show.

And I'm very curious how people who do not have that like baked in anchoring perspective on what that character is supposed to be, how they're interpreting everything that they're seeing.

Because otherwise, I feel like this is just kind of what was going to happen.

And I say that even knowing and seeing that Craig Mason and Neil Druckman and Holly Gross, like they have very seemingly intentionally steered to try to soften the blow of the discourse relative to what it was last time around.

But I think it shows that even you can go to those efforts, you can make changes, you can try to give audiences more information, and you're just always going to end up in the same place, unfortunately.

Here's an email we got from Rishi.

And again, I think that there are

critiques that exist out there that strike me as bad faith.

And then there are critiques that strike me as thoughtful and interesting.

And I would, I would characterize the conversation that they had on the Midnight Boys podcast this week as thoughtful and interesting

versus some of the other conversations that I've seen.

So I thought this email from Rishi was interesting that we got.

Rishi wrote,

I'm still on the question of Ellie.

I'm still wondering whether they wrote her a bit too soft by trying to show us happy show Ellie, how happy show Ellie is with Dina on their journey so far.

The concept of this, meaning Nora, being a breaking point in Ellie is very compelling in terms of future storytelling.

But for me, what she did at the end of the episode didn't feel as grounded in the show as it was in the game.

The switch felt somewhat instantaneous.

Ellie being so cruel to Nora in the show was a dramatic jump for me, and Bella Ramsey played it incredibly well.

And although it was a great scene, it felt psychopathic.

So, maybe did we need an Ellie versus WLF stabby murder spree sequence in the show?

I think my connection to the game might be driving these feelings.

Would love your thoughts.

So, Rob, as

a fan of the game, as a fan of the game version of Ellie, which has her in sort of an angrier,

more violent mode throughout

the Seattle experience up until this moment with Nora, versus

we had talked about this a bit last week sort of the softer

Dina and Ellie stuff did it make that switch in the hallway with Nora feel

jarring and discordant to you which is a critique that I've seen from people or did it feel like this makes sense that it would be sort of a a switch to flip inside of someone I like the idea of the switch to flip.

And fundamentally, this is the divide we need to create.

And apologies for anyone who does does not care about the game or the source material, but like in this particular area, I think it's unavoidable to talk about it some.

Like the Ellie in the game is an open wound, is much more, as you said, outwardly driven by violence and like the singular nature of her mission of revenge.

Like that is what she is after point blank is kind of throwing everything else to the wind, does not really care about anything else, or at least it comes secondary or tertiary to that goal.

Right.

This version of Ellie, I would say, is much more like living, breathing, coping mechanism, is deflecting, is faking it, is shoving the real stuff down, is lying even to the people who matter to her.

And so, is it a switch flip or was it just like, this has always been the Ellie that is there?

Like, I've gone back and forth after watching this episode between thinking, you know, you do get that incredible performance from Bella Ramsey as she goes full, like horror movie villain.

by the end of this episode, red flickering lights, like dead eyes, blank stare, slight head tilts.

Like, it's creepy as all hell.

Is Is that version of Ellie, which is like almost like channeling, like Bella's channeling something like inhuman in that moment, like truly kind of sociopathic?

Is that the closest to the real Ellie that we've ever seen so far in this season?

Or is that a shift into a dissociative different state?

I kind of think this is who she's been.

deep down through most of this season.

And as Gail told us, has been kind of lying to everyone to try to cover it up.

I might argue with the bluntness of some of that messaging up front, but it's clear that some people were wanting more.

And I think that's where I'm kind of threading the line on this is like, I didn't want more people telling us that Ellie is lying or Ellie is hiding something or Ellie is like, you know, having this facade papered over everything else.

I do think we could have used one or two more moments before this point

of the fraying, of the cracking, of that sort of violence that Rishi is talking about.

Yeah, it's interesting.

So if you think about the Ellie alone moments that we've gotten post-Joel's death this season, There is

after that Gail conversation in the hospital, watching Ellie's face, like the mask slip off her face as she walks down the hallway.

Yes, there's Ellie alone in the house, just sort of subsumed by grief and unwilling to let Dina see, you know, she's like sobbing over Joel's jacket.

She hears Dina's voice and she just like scrubs the tears off her face because she does not want to show that open wound of herself to Dina.

Also, when she's packing to leave on the trip and Dina's, she's like, I'm

sleeping.

And Dina's like, I don't think that's what you're doing actually.

You know, that's like, she's, she's ready to lie to Dina at all times.

When we saw her alone in the theater inside of this episode, playing the guitar, all of these Ellie alone moments are dark and sad.

And Ellie with Dina or Ellie with Tommy or Ellie with the town council or Ellie with Jesse is like Ellie posturing.

And I like that.

And a lot of people

I've seen like that.

And then I've seen some people say that's a cop-out to say that she's masking or something like that.

But I don't know.

I just think it's how we process grief.

Grief isn't one thing.

It isn't one mode.

And particularly for someone like Ellie, who

has

had so much taken from her in her life, this idea of sharing herself with someone else, even someone as wonderful as Dina, a character we really like, is going to be incredibly hard for her.

Yeah.

So I like this, but also I don't have this long association with the game version of Ellie.

So I can understand why some people are like, it's unfamiliar.

So I'm not loving it, you know?

I think it's that.

Like it is different.

It's unquestionably different.

But I think this version is pretty effective if you just kind of go along with the process.

Like, is it pitched absolutely perfectly?

Maybe there's room for improvement in this scene or that scene or something like that in terms of the modulation.

But I really like the concept.

I also really enjoy the conversation you had with Mal and House of R about specifically the Dina part of that presentation, right?

Like, there's who you are to the world, there's who you are to other people.

There's also like the part of yourself that you don't want anyone to see, especially the person who like you're in love with and you're crushing on.

Like, why would you want them to see your deepest darkness?

That really wouldn't make sense for that character.

And so, the idea of putting out this very specific presentation for dina absolutely tracks in the same way that it did for tommy and jesse in different ways you know back in jackson for example uh when ellie was like whipping votes for the council like she wants something from them right and she's trying to present to them i'm not angry I'm just driven.

I just have this purpose of justice.

Like, you know, she's posturing in a totally different way.

Not me, my personal vengeance.

Yeah.

Of course not.

Yeah.

But, but then you can see in this episode, when there becomes a tension between like, oh, we should probably leave Seattle so we can survive to, oh, we need to keep moving forward.

Ellie's like, fuck no.

Like, no, I don't want to go back.

I don't care that we're being shot at with bows and arrows.

Like, I'm moving forward, even as everyone else is looking for the escape hatch.

Right.

Our listener, Carrie, wrote in this like sort of larger idea about the notion of like fandom and adaptation, right?

And Carrie wrote, when someone options an adaptation, of course, there's an assumption that people who enjoy the original content will at least show interest in the adaptation.

At minimum, creators will try to deliver something that matches the theme and spirit of the original.

Usually they cater to that audience, sometimes going overboard, as we've seen it discussed many times.

But when do fans become haters?

Are the Last of Us game players even fans?

The same can be asked at Bridgerton, where white hetero women flood Instagram with racist, homophobic comments.

I'm posing the question because I don't have an answer.

If you're trying to avoid the wrath of a specific audience, is that audience really made up of fans?

Do we need a better term to refer to fanatics who will go out of their way to tank reviews?

This seems to be adaptation specific and it's exhausting.

I mean, the

yes, and I would, you know, I would plus to carry the original sort of

original conversation I remember around this concept of like

fans and their power or fans and sort of their unreasonable expectations or fan and their misbehaving comes from the idea of the fandom menace, the Star Wars fandom.

And so I would say it can go beyond

adaptation into just sort of like an IP.

I'm a real Star Wars fan, so I feel this way about Andor, or I'm a real Game of Thrones fan, and the real Game of Thrones fans feel this way about House of the Dragon.

And so as someone who can get prickly, I can get quite prickly about adaptation changes to a text that I love.

I will say as a real Jurassic Park fan, all of these Jurassic Worlds can go like

screw, you know, so like we all have.

If there's not a shirtless Ian Malcolm, like I don't even want to be part of it.

What are we even doing here?

Scarlett Johansen, what are we doing?

The thing that I always wonder is like if it's not if it's not serving the world that you love, if there's an adaptation that doesn't work with a world that you love, I just sort of try to ignore them.

Like I have to watch the Jurassic Worlds for my job, but I don't even like think of them as the same thing as Jurassic Park, a perfect movie.

Like, I just like, it doesn't hurt the original thing that I love.

Did I, do I care about these new Ghostbusters movies?

Not really, but it doesn't hurt the original Ghostbusters movies.

Does anybody?

You know, email us at prestige TVAspotify.com if you care about the new Ghostbusters movies.

So I think that, you know, of course, we want the thing to be good.

We want the thing to be great.

We want the thing to like absolutely, you know, transcend the original and bring us to new levels of joy and expectation.

But I don't know.

Do you have any thoughts about this broader fandom question, Rob?

Can you solve it right here on the Prestige TV pod today?

I'm so glad you asked.

I definitely can.

Let me give you my 10-point plan to solve fandom.

Great.

I think this is a particularly thorny idea with video games in particular, although it applies to any like visual media.

Like if you were remaking a TV show or a movie or translating one into whatever, when you have these very specific visual touch points of what a a character is supposed to look like and how they're supposed to move in the world, any change is going to feel jarring to some people.

Like there was a point where Pedro Pascal's casting in this show, there was like, oh, Joel can't possibly be Pedro Pascal because he does this in the show, because his background is this, because he looks this way in the game.

I think what I would be wary of, if I can give some unsolicited advice to anyone out there who has any adaptations they hold dear, or any source material they hold dear that might be adapted.

I would be very wary of the things you think you want.

Because in a lot of ways, the point of art, the point of any of this stuff is to give you some stuff that's going to surprise you.

And so if it is just beat for beat, then you're not going to get Bill and Frank in season one.

You know, you're not going to get these creative liberties, these detours, these reinterpretations.

You're not going to get like Greta Gerwig's Little Women.

Like you're not going to get radical reinventions that can build on ideas, that can modernize them, that can change them, that can completely revolutionize their meaning to even the people who hold the original material so dear, and so, like, yeah, you can have your ideas of like, I'm guilty of this too.

Like, I will, I would love to see this scene reenacted in a particular way because I love that scene in the game.

But if you show me something new and exciting that's going to make me think about that scene in a different way, I want that stuff too.

And I'm really interested, we'll talk about this a little bit more in the

sort of look-ahead section, but I'm really interested to see how next week's episode works for people

on that level.

Like, particularly, I think that is the episode which Neil Druckman, Holly Gross, and Craig Basin, all three of which worked on.

You know, they're like, you're marking it as this is the one that we, the core creatives, have our fingerprints all over.

So I'm really curious about next week's episode in regards to that.

But I also think I have to wonder, and I say this not as

obviously not as a gamer myself, but there is something that I understand from the way that people talk about video games is there's a different level of connectivity you have with a story where you are actively playing the characters.

You are making the choices.

And so, whether or not you agree with what Joel did at the end of season one, or whether or not you agree with Ellie's actions to Nora in this hallway, you as a gamer have no other options

but to make those decisions yourself.

So then you become complicit.

Craig and Neil have talked about this brilliantly over the years.

So you're complicit in the story.

You're also, you know, and Kate Heron talked about this to us last week where she was like, I played the story of the pandemic.

When Joel died, I felt like someone I knew died.

You know, like there is just an, I, I think that I can get absorbed in books and I think I can get absorbed in movies and TV shows.

Like, you know, Mallie and I cry over tons of shit.

So we are definitely emotionally invested.

But I do think there's like a different almost sort of like visceral, when you are feeling the fear.

actively in your body

that the character you're playing is feeling when a room is full of stalkers or whatever it is there is just like almost like a chemical attachment that you have to the story that's a little bit different from another medium.

So I'm wondering how much that is in the mix as well.

This is, this is where I want to lodge, like, I don't know if this is even a complaint, but this is my experience of watching this episode in particular.

And please push back on this, Joe, if you feel like this may be me being too tethered to my experience from playing the game.

I love a lot of the discrete elements of this episode.

The stalker sequence, the overgrown park with the Seraphites, Ellie's transformation.

Like, I think all those are incredibly well done.

I did not love the way it was all stitched together in part because it felt really rushed.

It felt like, even, even honestly, the transition at the very end to the flashback felt like a little harsh for me, even for like a cut to black.

And then all of a sudden, we're in this flashback world.

Like, I almost, there's, there's a lot of things like that happening in this episode where the one that I bumped on probably the most was Ellie and Dina and Jesse are pinned down by the Seraphites.

Dina gets shot in the leg.

Everything is going to shit.

Yada, yada, yada.

Ellie escapes, yada, yada, yada.

Ellie finds Nora without the slightest trouble, like finds the exact supply room on the exact hall of the exact wing of the hospital.

In a part that, like, to translate that sequence to the game or these sequences to the game, like normally you're fighting through all of these enemies, you're dodging, you're avoiding so many people.

It feels like a more drawn-out process.

And part of what I love about the world of The Last of Us, the show, is how big the world feels.

Like, I love how dangerous and intimidating, like, you get, you know, you show us Seattle and you show us these warring factions and all this ground that Ellie needs to cover visually from her on the rooftop, her and Dean on the rooftop.

It's like, oh my God, this is an incredible undertaking to get to this point.

But when you put everything on a, where it feels like it's on a track hurdling towards a destination just because, it makes all that stuff feel a little bit smaller to me.

And so this was an episode where I like, I like all the component parts.

I don't know how I feel about the whole episode.

I think that's a good question.

I think that's really fair.

And as someone who hasn't played but has watched it play through, like, I can co-sign what you're saying in terms of the amount of time that it takes to get through all of this.

A lot of dying.

I know.

I've been watching it happen,

even though I have not played it myself.

I think

this, I think part of what's feeding into that is that this is a very short episode, so 45-minute episode.

Definitely.

In In which they packed a stalker encounter, a seraphite encounter, Jesse's arrival, Nora's death, you know, another musical moment from Ellie.

There's just a lot of happening action-wise.

You know, this, this WLF Cold Open, this mushroom hallway.

There's just like, there is a lot packed in here.

I think the park is a great example.

Like, I would have loved to spend more time getting out of the overgrown park with the Seraphites.

And I think that might be, because again, I don't think that's like a bad faith critique from you, Rob Mahoney.

And I think that might be feeding what some people feel in terms of like a dramatic swing inside of a character.

Sure.

If we're, if we're hopping so quickly from

setup to setup,

and then we get this moment for Ellie at the end.

Do I feel like I just haven't had a moment to catch my breath from stalker to seraphyte to Jesse to et cetera, et cetera?

And then we're here now.

I'm in a different, Ellie's in a different mode.

I have to get into a different mode as an, as an audience member.

As I mentioned to Mal on House of R, Stephen Williams is like one of my all-time favorite TV directors.

And I think the way in which he's

put together these

set pieces in conjunction with Craig Mason, like we should say, having listened to like Kate talk about it or some of the other directors talk about it, there really is this sense of like Craig Mason is even more so than some other showrunners, this sort of like Craig's in the edit, like, just like a bit more of an overall, he's there all the time, has his fingers and everything, versus like someone like Damon Lindelof, who Stephen Williams worked for, who does not like to go to set at all.

You know what I mean?

So, like, he's not in Hawaii and lost, and he's not necessarily on set for Washman.

And so, those directors have a different task, a different sort of like level of authority.

And so, in fairness, it's hard to get people to go to Hawaii.

You really gotta twist it.

Who wants to go to the North Shore?

Couldn't be me.

So,

so,

you know, who's to say who's responsible for what exactly inside of an artistic experience like that?

But I think that, like,

I think you're right that every single vignette works really well.

Yes.

And then does it cohere in a way where you think back and you're like, wow.

You know, and I would say,

contrary-wise, I think last week's episode really cohered very well

as an overarching story.

So I would have happily taken 15 more minutes inside of this hour of television.

It felt like one of the shortest episodes of the show inside a seven-episode season.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, look, there's a lot of story in the Last of Us.

There's a lot of nooks and crannies.

We've already seen how they love to expand on some of the lore of this world and how successful that can be.

Yeah.

It's hard to fit it all in seven episodes.

And so maybe this is just a business reality of seven for whatever reason is what they got, and they have to cut some corners here and there.

But I did feel it more in this episode.

We also got news today that

I think, based on some of the things that we heard out of the HBO up fronts today,

there's a sense that The Last of Us is not going to, next season is not going to start filming until 2026.

And so, does that mean we don't get that season until 2027?

Like, possibly.

And

I'll see you then, Joe.

I'll see you on the other side of our apocalypse and we'll be podcasting from both.

I don't know.

Okay.

Anything else you want to talk about in a spoiler-free way before we do some look ahead stuff?

You know, I have a couple of notes for the characters involved.

I really love the staging of Ellie and Dina having to go through this big ass building that's empty, but they don't quite know why, but they kind of know why.

Like, it's a great suspense building mechanism.

If you are the WLF, I know this place is like lousy with infected,

but having a stalker factory in the middle of your city seems pretty dangerous when you have an army that you like fire.

Drive a fucking tank through that thing.

I don't care what you do.

You have the hardware.

Maybe they just don't want to use like the ammo and stuff that would require like it would require.

I would not.

Well, I'm not, I'm not in the military.

No.

I wouldn't drive a tank.

I don't want to like break the shell of the building and have the stalkers scatter to other locations.

Like, I would rather know where they all are

and keep them contained there.

But can I not, like, firebomb this place and just like burn them up?

Like, what, you know, that seems like it should be available to me as a

sort of heavily armed military organization.

Yeah, it's it seems like you definitely could.

But I love that construction.

I love the plotting that is kind of driving the characters to that point.

And I think overall in this episode, you're getting a sense as far as Ellie and Dina and now Jesse are concerned.

The only way they can get through a city like Seattle is basically by walking the battle lines between these three factions, effectively with the infected.

Like they have to walk the line of going into the park, leaving the park, going into this building, trying to get out alive.

Like it's the only way to stave off one element from the other.

And I really like that sense of danger that's sort of building throughout this episode of like, it does feel like everything is kind of closing in on them,

which, yeah, like, again, then makes it a little odd when Ellie's Ellie's just like, Yeah, I'm gonna crawl through here and there's Nora, you know, like everything is great.

I like, I like what you're talking about in terms of like this idea of a liminal space inside of Seattle, like where, where are the borders that we can sort of skirt around?

What are the like, and literally you have Ellie in like nooks, several nooks and crannies inside of this episode?

So, we're just sort of trying to weave our way in and out of a literal war zone.

Sounds fun to me.

All right, let's go now to our chat with costume designer Ann Foley, and we'll see you on the other side for some spoiler talk.

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I want to start by asking you something that I heard you say sort of before the season started when you were trying to be a little bit more circumspect about spoilers was how much excited you were for the costume work you did this season to reflect Ellie's emotional journey.

Now, I know we're only, this is, this is coming out after episode five, so we're not entirely done, but what can you tell us through episode five about how the costumes reflects the emotional journey that Ellie is on?

A lot of that is done through just color palette and the simplicity.

You're not going to see a lot of

patterns on Ellie, and you're not going to see any bright colors.

We're leaving the bright colors to Dina, who is so effervescent and so full of life.

And, you know, so her

color palette and her costumes reflect that, where Ellie is,

she's a chip off the old block of Joel.

They might not be, you know, related by blood, but they're related in every other sense of the way.

I mean, she is Joel's daughter.

And

Joel is, you know, has a similar color palette as well.

And so I wanted to sort of show that

you know, story of the two of them through their matching color palettes.

And, and also this season is a little bit darker for Ellie.

And that's why I wanted to stay in those blue tones and the green tones to sort of like to show that.

I love the idea of color psychology.

And so I tried to put a little bit of that in there.

For the effervescent Dina, she's in a lot of sort of burgundies and reds and pinks.

What does that color psychology tell us about her?

Dina is a rainbow.

And that's that's why i you know that's why that jacket spoke to me originally not just because it's also has a super wonderful 90s vibe to it and everything that we're looking at is um

you know in the show we're trying to stay to that late 90s early 2000s uh period um

and so you know it's just there's a brightness to her there's a light to her and

you

you can sort of see that through her clothes and who she is.

And it just, you know, it comes through.

She's just such a wonderfully happy person.

And Isabel is like that in real life, too.

You just are immediately drawn to her.

And she just makes you smile and she just makes you, you know, happy.

When you're, I completely agree, when you're doing something like this, you're adapting a video game where so many people know have such an attachment to a preexistent look um

was there a look that was the most important and i know you're also picking up the mantle from a different designer who did season one was there a look that felt the most important to you to sort of replicate

And then was there a look you were most excited to sort of try something different, something new with?

Well, the look I wanted to replicate the most, you're going to see in episode six on Ellie.

I'm so excited by that.

And I think the fans of the game will be too.

I think it's also

finding Ellie this season, you know, and trying to show that progression from Ellie as a 14-year-old

to now Ellie's 19

and is an adult.

And

so,

you know, trying to find that silhouette.

for Bella.

And it's, you know, it's little things like we're going to make the jeans a little bit slimmer.

They're not going to be as baggy as they were before.

And the same with the way the clothes are fitting.

The t-shirts are going to be a little bit shorter.

The short sleeves, they're going to just a little bit shorter up there too, so that we can see the bicep.

You know, it's those little subtle changes that help.

the character, help the actor find the character.

Because, oh, there's Ellie grown up.

Yeah, okay.

I get it now.

I love that.

Yeah.

I love how she has kind of like structured shoulders on some of her flannels too.

Gives it that nice.

I wanted to ask you about something I was noticing looking back at season one, which is such like a road show.

We're on the road constantly and we're also encountering a lot of places where people are just kind of getting by versus being in Jackson where we're settled.

It seems like people have access to washing machines and irons and other things like that.

And so, well, it just seems, for example, the character of Gail, who seems to have actual style, which seems to elude a lot of people in the apocalypse, me included.

That would be my vibe would be flannels and jeans.

But Gail is wearing beautiful cashmere sweaters or a beautiful dress to the baseball game.

Can you talk about

establishing sort of

rooted in place fashion versus on-the-road survival looks.

They do take care of their clothes because there are no new clothes.

Everything is something that was found either in a house or they, you know, found in a store that was abandoned.

There are plenty of places that they could have found the clothes.

at the end of, you know, when clothes stopped being produced in 2003.

Now, with Gail,

there were lots and lots of conversations

with Craig and Neil about the character.

It's sort of like Gail's holding on to the past in a lot of ways.

And she's not going to let go of that.

And even in the script, I remember reading a description of Gail and her silver bangle bracelets.

And she cares about how she looks.

And

For all we know, that could have been her house in Jackson before, you know, the apocalypse happened.

And so, all those clothes that she lovingly took care of could have still been in that house.

Um,

but Gail's gonna look

for things that make her feel good about herself and that she's comfortable in.

And,

you know, and that's just

who she is.

Another character, and this, this is a good episode to talk about it because this is, this is where we say goodbye to her.

Another character who we meet this season,

Nora, I was like noting, you know,

the WLF, and I do want to ask you a little bit more about them, but they're wearing a lot of sort of military-inspired outfits, of course,

and civilian civvies, but like make it military.

There's a lot of cargo pockets and stuff like that in their pants.

But Nora has, you know, a cowrie shell necklace and the design sort of on her beautiful jacket that she wears, the sort of like

quilted jacket that she wears, or in this episode, the tank top she wears.

There's just like a little extra style.

Her jeans are like black instead of blue, like all this sort of stuff.

I was wondering if you could talk about finding Nora's look.

I got to give credit where credit is due on that necklace.

That was Tati.

And

she came in wearing it to her fitting.

And when we started trying on the clothes, we realized this necklace actually works with what we're doing.

This is a cool like character piece.

And then,

you know, we showed it to Craig and Neil and they were on board.

And, you know, it was, it was great.

I love that little detail to her character.

I think it's important that everybody,

you know, remain, there remains somewhat human in this.

You know, it's not all

just, you know, your typical apocalyptic.

you know, show.

We want to have hints of humanity and character in there somewhere.

And that's what I love about Gail and her bracelets and her, you know, in her cashmere.

This is stuff she held on to.

And Nora's necklace, she held on to this as well.

These are these little touches of

who they were before.

I mean, you even see Isaac talking about that in episode five with the pots and the pans.

Yeah.

and referencing who he was beforehand.

And if, you know, we can do that with the clothes, and I think that that's, that's helpful as well.

It might be more subtle, but, you know,

informs the audience.

I know, and I love that.

And I love that it's this apocalyptic style is so grounded in reality.

And I, you know, I love a Mad Max punkish post-apocalyptic look, but, you know, we're, we're in a lot of denim, a lot of work jackets and stuff like that.

I want to ask you, so

once again, I know that you were not on the first season of the show, and I know that Joel's iconic jacket was not, you know, that it pre-existed your time on the show.

But what is it like for you as a costume designer to see a moment like the one where Ellie sort of loses herself inside of Joel's jacket and to watch a story where an item of clothing, a piece of costume, is given this real emotional weight?

I think it's wonderful.

And I got to tell you, when I read that in the script, it broke me.

And when I read it, I knew immediately we had to use that jacket.

And

I think it's great when something iconic like that makes a connection with the audience.

It makes that scene even more impactful and more powerful because the audience knows what that jacket is.

They know that that's Joel.

And so you break as much as Ellie does.

And,

you know, and Pedro and I talked about it in his fittings.

It's like,

what's a really important piece to bring back?

What piece is the audience going to connect with?

And

we decided it was that jacket.

And that's why you see him so much in it, because

it serves the story,

you know?

And that's what's important at the end of the day is serving the story.

I wanted to ask you about the concept of breaking down a costume.

Not everyone who's listening to this might be familiar with that.

So can you you explain to the people who don't know what breaking down means and how that is essential for a story like this?

Oh yeah.

Well, I had the most incredible breakdown team ever on this show, led by the amazing Samantha Strumman.

And

their job is to essentially take a piece of clothing and make it look like it's, you know, 25, 30 years old.

And

now, that being said, I did start with a lot of used clothing on this.

Early in prep, we did giant thrift runs in Los Angeles and went to a lot of vendors who had a lot of used stuff because

I'm trying to help the team out because of the volume of stuff that we have to like age and break down.

They needed at least

a head start, so to speak.

So

everything gets touched that goes on the background, especially the infected and even the main cast.

So, for example,

Joel and Ellie's parkas from 202.

We made those in-house

and the process was getting the canvas fabric.

then stonewashing the fabric, stripping out a little bit of the color, and then we over dye the color.

So then you get this really sort of wonderful layered effect to it.

And then we give it to our workroom.

They build it, they build the shell, then it goes back to breakdown, they wash it down to get that really great sort of faded,

the seam, the faded seams that you see in old clothes.

And then it goes back to the workroom, gets its linings,

you know, the fake fur that we used on the hoods.

And then they start painting into it and spraying into it to give it that,

this has been worn for 20, 30 years vibe,

where you can see like stains and a little bit of dirt in there.

And,

you know, so that's just with.

the regular clothes.

And then when we get to the infected,

that's a whole nother team

that is working with barry gower

and his incredible team um prosthetics team yeah oh my gosh yeah they're amazing so they give us all the prosthetic pieces that we then have to build into the costume and so

that is some of the most amazing art i've ever seen some of that um if anybody's interested i just put that onto my Instagram page.

You can see a lot of the close-ups of where the team is painting

around

all of the cordyceps, like making it look like the cordyceps is growing out of the weave of the clothes.

And, you know, and then you're painting in the ooze and then the mold.

And

it's really, it's disgusting, but it's really beautiful at the same time.

And

it took about, I would say, 10 days on average to do a clicker.

So.

Wow.

Well, what about something like in episode five, we get

the spore sequence in the hallway, which is, again, to your point, some of the most incredible art I've ever seen.

And we get extreme close-ups on a couple characters, including the character of Leon, who is the son of

Character Opens the Show.

And I was thinking about you when I was looking at that in terms of watching these shelves of mushrooms grow out of their WLF uniforms.

Were you on set for the day that they did the hallway?

Can you talk a little bit more about that process?

Oh, yeah.

That hallway was

one of the coolest things I've seen on the show.

I'm not going to lie.

And again, hats off to Barry Gower and his team because wow, when you walked in in real life,

that was

mind-blowing.

And

so, yeah,

my team worked

very closely with Barry Gower, his team led by Paul Spateri,

to incorporate the clothes,

especially the breather that you see, who used to be a doctor and he's in scrubs.

Oh, I think that was his nickname was the breather.

The breather.

I love it.

We had to like put somebody in there and, you know, we're marking where all the cordyceps is going to go.

And,

you know and then sort of like again incorporating the cordyceps into the weave of the clothes so it all looks like one um

what's really amazing and that you don't really you haven't seen really yet um and i might upload some pictures of this um after the episode airs but there's some more people you know in there oh yeah you know i can see some of that like i was trying to count how many people were in the walls it's very upsetting.

I want to say that there's a patient on a gurney who had slippers on.

Oh.

So, which was like a choice that was made.

And I was just like, this is so crazy cool.

Disgusting, but really cool.

Yeah.

And beautiful work.

It's art.

It's really, it's a form of art, what, what was going on in there.

And, but with Leon, it was incredibly important to make sure that we just didn't cover up his name tape.

Yeah.

That, you know, Ellie, Ellie doesn't know who this guy is, but the audience does.

The audience knows immediately who that guy is.

You mentioned earlier, no new clothing, except for the seraphites, right, who are making some of their own clothing.

It seems to me.

So like you've got this, the seraphites in the game have this iconic sort of raincoat look,

this sort of, I know what you did last summer, kind of a villain fisherman look.

And

then the seraphites that we meet who are sort of fleeing Seattle earlier in the season,

you know, they've also got a lot of pieces that, to my eye, look like they wove this and they sewed this and that sort of stuff.

So, can you talk about mastering the seraphite look?

Oh, yeah, that you hit it right on the head.

That's they're making everything.

and

you know

it was really

it's always great to have the game as inspiration and craig and neil were so supportive about this is yeah this is what's in the game but we want to see your take on this you know what would you do with the serophytes and so I worked with my incredible concept illustrator, Imogene Shays,

to sort of develop, you know, the seraphytes, starting with what they were in the game and then taking it you know to a new place but still staying true to who they were you know in the game and so we changed the raincoat to a poncho

and because

it made a little bit more sense and um

and then we used a waxed canvas

Because my thought process with that was where would they get stuff to make the ponchos that would be waterproof?

And I thought, oh, old, you know,

you know, from a boat maybe in the old abandoned marinas.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, because they're right there by the water.

So,

so yeah, so

that was like, maybe they just took tarps and they started to cut them up.

So when you see some of the ponchos close up, you see that there's like blocks of different colors in them.

And

everything is supposed to have that sort of hand, you know, made Luddite

vibe to them.

And

staying true to the colors of the forest in Seattle.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you for your time.

I really appreciate it.

Joanna, thank you so much.

This was really fun.

Okay, Rob, what do you want to get to in a spoiler way that you couldn't talk about in the non-spoiler section?

Maybe we should have teased this more in the non-spoiler section because

cordyceps infestation at the bottom of the hospital looks incredible as you just talked about with Anne, like alluded to some of the specifics of that.

Huge fan.

You and Mal and understandably everyone else is invoking aliens.

That's exactly what it feels like.

Like the walking into the hive for the first time and the sense of, oh shit, this is a totally different thing

makes me very excited.

Also, just the practical effects of this show and seeing that hive in particular, I could not be more more excited to see The Rat King.

And they simply need to give it to me.

I don't know.

They have to do it, right?

I mean, they're definitely going to do it.

The way that Neil and Craig were teasing it, like up a storm in the official podcast, like they're definitely doing it.

I'm just a little worried because, like, I don't personally love the bloaters that we've seen so far.

That's not my favorite thing I've seen.

Yeah, that's true.

They do look a little like a guy in a suit.

Yeah, so, but

they're like, I think the clickers are some of the coolest shit I've ever seen in my life.

So, like, yeah, like, I'm curious what Barry Gower and the team of prosthetics folks come up with for the Rat King.

In a post-the-substance world, I just

want to see the monstro Eliza Sue

turned into the Rat King with a clicker head attached.

Like, that's what I want personally for myself.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, that's very exciting to me.

We got this really interesting meal.

I'm saving it for the spoiler section just because

this idea of like,

is a cure even possible?

Is a cure ever happening?

Is still a question mark, I think, to unspoiled people.

So, Jeff wrote this email that's basically like, what would the cure have cured anyway?

That I thought was really interesting.

Jeff says, Furthermore, let's play the whole cure thing out.

It's been 20 years at this point since the virus began.

The majority of humanity is gone.

Resources are scarce, and there's virtually zero development of new major resources.

The factions are all killing each other anyway, which the cure doesn't help with whatsoever.

Thousands would die just trying to get the cure to each other.

The factions would likely fight fight over power for the cure and would only reach a finite number of people as it is, which even then only keeps you from getting the virus after being bitten.

It doesn't save you just like it wouldn't save Ellie from being torn apart.

Let's face it, humanity is fucked regardless if you look at this from a broad and realistic perspective.

So.

As I already stated, I don't question Joel's actions whatsoever, just like I didn't question them when I played the first game, and I shot the doctor instantly without realizing the game was going to force me to shoot him no matter what I wanted to do.

Also, if I'm Ellie, when Nora is bringing this info to me, I'm I'm spitting on her pie-in-the-sky perspective as if that bullshit is supposed to justify what Nora, Abbey, and company did to the only person who showed love to me in my life.

Okay, so

I love this idea.

There's a version of me and a version of like me who enjoyed the shit out of Craig Mason's Chernobyl that would like to see the logistics of what would happen

in this mushroom apocalypse with the cure.

The idea that like it would be

withheld.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, this is basically how mafias start.

Like, this, like, you control the means of production, right?

You control the cure, you control the world.

Like, of course, that's what would happen.

And, like, I don't, you know,

you know, Abby's dad could have been peace, love, and rainbows, and it doesn't matter because the system will do what the system always does.

And so, like, thinking about that, thinking about the absolute like corruption that a cure could help accelerate inside of this already sort of corrupt world is one thing.

And the other is just like, I mean, to bring it back to our world, just like thinking of trying to get people to take a vaccine for a virus.

I was just like, I don't know, man.

I don't know how that's going to play out.

So I just thought that was really funny, interesting email.

It is funny and interesting.

I think, look, at some point, you just got to try to do literally anything to make things better.

And so it's understandable why people would cling to the idea of a cure, regardless of all of the commotion that it would create.

Like, what's the alternative?

And I think you could try.

You have to try.

You could apply the same logic to any problem of modern life.

Global warming, income inequality, access to healthcare.

Like, what are we supposed to fix this shit?

Who cares?

Because then it's just going to create this other offsetting problem.

It's just going to create a run on resources.

Like, yeah.

but you're trying to save people.

And I think ultimately, too, part of the problem with the infected human dynamic is not dissimilar from the WLF serified dynamic, at least the one that was kind of espoused last week, of like every week one of you becomes one of them, right?

Like the numbers game is constantly shifting, not to make the WLF the good guys in any of this, but it's like the dynamics of that balance, I think, are very tough when people are kind of transferring from one side to the other.

Right.

We can't turn an infected back into a human.

We can only roast mushrooms as best we can.

Okay,

looking ahead.

So, in this spoiler section, we are going to be talking about next week's episode in the context of what we know about flashbacks from the game.

Yep.

And

Rob, I know you don't like spoilers, so I want to be like really careful with you.

Does a trailer for next week feel like fair game?

I think if we're in the spoilers section.

Okay, I'm just asking for you personally, Rob.

I don't want to like sully you, even though you know everything that happens in the game.

I deeply appreciate it.

And then follow-up.

I'm just trying to figure out where the lines are.

Okay.

Official stills released from next week's episode.

If it's official, I think we can talk about it.

Okay.

There's actually a section.

Even

though you gave me the green line on that, there's one thing that I am going to hold back from you that people have noted in one of the officials, stills, but I'm just sort of like, I like to, because it has to do with, so

we're getting

Eugene and Gail in next week's episode as part of this whole flashback thing.

And that still remains a mystery even to the Rob Mahonies of the world because this is this is a show-invented story.

So, like, what happened with Eugene is is a question mark.

Though if you want to

lots of weed, we know what happened with Eugene.

If you want to know what happened to Eugene and want to go look at the official stills, there's some information in there for you that might help you figure it out.

But we're not going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about the official, the flashbacks that we know of

from

the game.

First of all,

how do you feel about sort of seemingly all of the flashbacks being lumped together inside of one episode, like holding them back until this episode.

And then secondly, is there a flashback in particular that you are most looking forward to, Rob Mahoney?

I mean, let's just break down like the reasons to do this and the reasons not to do it.

Like the reasons I think you consolidate them all into one episode.

For one, you're keeping the momentum of the story moving forward.

And specifically, you're showing that the momentum of the story can move forward without being tethered to Joel.

I think that's very important for this stage of the story and the season and the show.

Like you need to have that sort of direction.

And I think they've they've done a good job of that.

Like we're moving to Seattle, things are happening, we're going for vengeance, like all this stuff is on the tracks.

I think the reason to parcel them out, and if you're in the spoiler section, but you haven't played the game, these flashbacks that we're presumably going to watch next week are more spread out over different sections of Ellie's story and kind of intermingled.

I would say the reason you do that is because a little flashback can go a long way.

And sometimes if you do a whole episode of flashback, you feel like we've been taken off the rails of all that momentum.

You feel like, you know, if we just kind of interpose like little bits and pieces, not only are we yo-yoing in and out of time of the story in a way that makes you think differently about the characters, but we're also not breaking up the momentum of that story too much.

And so I kind of see it both ways.

And I understand from a TV perspective why, and specifically a like Pedro Pascal perspective, why you don't want to make the show feel like it has to be a Pedro Pascal show if he's appearing in 4-5-6-7.

Like that, that's just not a thing you can can or should do.

And so once you make that decision, they kind of do get consolidated one way or the other.

I'm of two minds about this, and I think we'll talk about this a bit, like plenty more next week.

Because I agree with you, I think, especially going into a season three, which

has even less to do with Joel Miller.

you need to be able to prove that your show can exist without Pedro Pascal.

Like that, to your point.

It's just,

it's interesting to me.

This is forever going to be a debate about this season.

Would we be encountering such a sort of like rat king amalgamation of people complaining about their shows if they got their weekly dose of Joel and Ellie of Pedro Pascal?

You know, like, I, I don't know.

But I do think this episode is going to absolutely

smash.

Like, I think this is going to be an incredible episode.

And

I think that

that's a double-edged sword in terms of like, it could just be, it could bring a bunch of people back who are like, I'm not really feeling the season.

And then they get this episode.

They're like, oh, this rules.

But they might be like, but I guess you can't do it without Pedro.

If you don't have him, then what are we even watching here?

So like, I don't know.

It feels sort of damned if you damned if you don't.

In terms of specific flashbacks, what have you seen so far in the trailers that, you know, resonate specifically with something you loved in the game?

I mean, I think if you've played the game, you've been kind of waiting for this moment at the Science Museum and to see a simpler, younger version of Ellie before she was not only like confronted with everything that we've seen within the timeline of this season, but some of the revelations that are still to come for her.

You know, like we find out in this episode that she knows that like exactly what Joel did, or at least some of the parameters of what Joel did.

Getting to spend more time with a version of Ellie who doesn't know that yet and who has like a bit more of a straightforward relationship with Joel is not only a treat, but that sequence is really special in the game and is just like such a, such a wonderful portrayal of a kind of fatherhood or, or a kind of like caretaking of someone of like really paying attention to the things that matter to them and connecting with them on such a deep level that

honestly makes some of the stuff that's happening right now, like present tense in our story with Ellie and Dina kind of heartbreaking in a way.

Like I think we're starting to get our first indications that maybe like Ellie isn't the most like curious person in the world about Dina or her life.

Like the fact fact that Dina has this moment here in episode five, where she's talking about the first person she ever killed.

Oh, because you never asked me when I tried to casually bring it up on our road trip.

Yeah.

It makes it feel so much different than just like our little road tripping game that we're trying to do to pass the time.

It was like, I'm bringing this up because I really want you to ask me about this thing so I can talk to you about it because I don't trust that you will ever do it on your own.

And like, Ellie doesn't have that kind of consideration, at least within her current headspace.

Like she's so driven by what she wants and avenging Joel that, like, she doesn't have the kind of peace that Joel and Ellie at least found temporarily while they were living in Jackson, which is just heartbreaking.

It's very bad Tinder date coded of like, ask me literally one question.

And especially in contrast to Ellie in season one, who was so curious about Joel, you know, and asking Joel so many questions on the road.

Yeah,

the science museum sequence in the game, which, you know, we've seen that they're doing, not only are they doing it, but similar to something we talked to Kate Heron about last week, similar to

the

dance scene and the take-on me scene, like this is a scene that they felt compelled to, it seems like, recreate almost shot for shot, very faithfully.

And in our conversation, she teased that her favorite look for Ellie is a game-accurate look in next week's episode.

So, this idea of like we wanted to recreate it down to the very threads of what they're wearing.

Um, so this feels like it felt in the game is something you know that feels top of mind for them inside of this.

There's also, um,

you know, we see in official stills in the trailer.

There's also seems to be uh, Joel finding out about the tattoo, Joel giving Ellie the guitar, Joel,

and this is Department of the Making the Guitar for Ellie.

That's the next level woodworking.

Like, we've seen some of his works in progress.

I don't know that that guy can make a guitar.

The official term for someone who makes like a string is like a luthier, right?

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Like, that's just like

being a woodworker is one thing.

Being a luthier is another.

I think I pronounced that correctly is like another thing altogether.

On the guitar front, very quickly, like, again, not to like pick too many nits with this episode because I did enjoy the individual pieces.

i thought ellie happening into the auditorium which is something that does happen in the game and the game is loaded with guitars that you can just sort of find so it's like it's in the dna of the story i get it ellie walking into the auditorium and seeing a whole rack of pristine guitars kind of took some of the magic out of the take on me sequence for me because it was like the relief of her finding this like untouched instrument and was and getting to play it in this like sunlit bench was so special here like she's just gonna kind of do it again, but also stop short.

But first, Pearl Jam, but also, like,

you have electricity, but you can't even plug into the amp.

Like, let Ellie go electric, I think is my argument.

Both Dylan and Ellie need to go electric.

If you've got the generator, you need to shred.

Like, that's just like story 101.

Do you think we're going to get

a full musical performance of Joel singing Pearl Jam in next episode.

They've seeded it so strongly.

Yeah.

I think maybe not.

That might be too much.

Okay.

But like, I think, look, this is where adaptation gets so exciting.

And as we're talking about, like, what are the things you're looking forward to?

What are the things that you're worried that they might omit or skip or like modify in some way, consolidate?

Yeah.

Things like that, I could definitely see them leaving out or shortening or turning it into something slightly different as far as the story goes.

Things like how Ellie finds out about what happened in Salt Lake that could, as we've talked about throughout the season, be totally different.

Like, that's such a game idea.

And there are a lot of things that happen in the game that are just like, uh, Ellie went to Salt Lake and Joel just like finds her.

You know, like, like, just like people bumping into each other in this wide, expansive, post-apocalyptic world.

That would, if you did them on a show, it's like, how would they possibly find this person?

If you did on the show, Rob's like, oh, so Ellie's just in the room where Nora is, she's just there.

Um, Okay.

So Ellie going to Salt Lake City to find out the truth about the fireflies, maybe.

Yeah, whatever version of that can happen, should happen, will happen.

I'm eager to see

how they present that part of the story and ultimately Ellie finding out.

Someone emailed Dan, I'm blanking on the name.

I apologize about like, we get this moment in the trailer.

going back to the first teasers of Ellie saying you swore to somebody that I feel like has to be Joel, but also the fact that it was in the teaser, I feel like has to be a head head fake maybe or you know, it's just enough to kind of reel you in to know about the conversation you think they should be having.

But will it be?

Will that be that moment?

I honestly don't know.

Do you think we're going to get the porch scene in next week's episode?

This is a great question.

I think so.

Okay.

All the all the Pedro one in one go.

I think it's a lot of the Pedro in one go.

And people who have played the game will know there's still like some later flashes, like very quick sort of like visual reminders of the porch scene in particular and just kind of like the relationship as Ellie kind of increases her visitation of violence on other people.

But I think it's kind of the time to do it

in particular because of that holdover between seasons.

Like making people wait for that moment, I think would be kind of tough.

Any final Eugene and Gail theories that you want to put out here on the eve of unraveling this mystery?

I have no idea, Joe.

I mean, like, other than the things we've talked about, which is that I feel like Joel killed Eugene.

He did not, was not bitten nor infected in any way, but killed him to probably protect Ellie's secret, or at least protect the secret that he killed all the fireflies and contain that information.

But other than that,

I'm an open book.

I'm ready for Joey Pants to roll in here and just like knock my socks off.

Anything else you want to say in a look forward

sort of way?

One thing that you and Mal touched on at House of R was like the

casting specifically for the Seraphites.

You guys were talking about Maurice Dean Went in this episode as like the Seraphite priest.

I thought he was amazing and like creepy in all the right ways.

I also thought Ryan Massan last week as the Seraphide was being tortured was wonderful.

All of this Seraphite casting makes me even more eager to see like who Yara and Lev ultimately are.

And that's more of a season three question than it is a finale or a late season two question.

But I just think like they've been knocking those out of the park.

Like the Seraphites have been just the right tonality where I want to I want to spend more time in that world because it's so unsettling But just you know a casual disemboweling among friends in the park like it's it's a weird good time, but it's a good time.

It's not just the guy, but like the the

Young woman then who's like looking for them in the forest is like so scary

and yeah, Yara and Love is interesting because

If we're not filming like some people have been like maybe they'll show up in the finale.

You can't cast them yet.

You can't cast Lev yet if we're not filming until, you know, 2026, et cetera.

So Lev is going to be by midlife

by the time we get to season three.

You can't Game of Thrones this shit or else all of a sudden your little kid is like the starting small forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Like you can't do it.

An Isaac Hempstead Wright reference in the year 2025.

You love to see it.

All right.

Anything else you want to talk about, Rob?

Mahoney?

I think we talked about it all.

You know, ultimately, like, again, a beautiful episode in terms of like the set construction, the individual story elements.

Like,

I love how creepy the stalker sequence is overall.

Like, I thought the visuals in that were really jarring, really upsetting.

Would Jesse believe for a second that Ellie was not bitten?

I wouldn't.

And just given what we're shown in that scene, was she not being used as a chew toy by like six different stalkers?

Absolutely.

Wouldn't it be really funny, as far as I know, because I've only watched playback,

I'm not sure this is true, but wouldn't it be be really funny if, like, part of the game there is, like,

because obviously Jesse's coming in is different in the game, but like, part of the game there is like you have to convince Jesse that Ellie isn't bit.

And if you don't, he just like blows her head off, and then you have to start again.

Like, what is the rhetorical track that you have to pick in order to like convince Jesse

that Ellie isn't bit?

Um, see, we're wading into more of a naughty dog, call me.

I'm obviously a gaming expert.

This is the thing is, like, naughty dog famously, like they love this sort of cinematic storytelling where you don't necessarily do the like x for this response trial for that response like bioware kind of style like i honestly that would have been a really nice wrinkle for that part of the game you got to legislate your way out of there

um all right that does it i think for our conversation about

five cannot wait to talk to you about next week's episode um we've also penultimate do you think it's going to be it's feeling flashback wise quite penultimate well what do you mean by that?

You know, like, this is the part of the story where, you know, if you look at other prestige TV properties, including other ones we've covered lately, you know, we're stepping back, we're giving some context, we're moving things in place.

Disclaimer?

Is that what you're invoking right now?

Yeah, I feel like Severance did some of this as well.

Although that was less, I guess that was more like,

is there an official term for the episode leading into the penultimate episode?

Oh, the pre-penultimate episode.

The pre-cap of the penultimate episode.

Yeah, I'll be curious.

And I'll be, I don't know, like, is it all flashbacks or are we going to get some of Ellie returning to the theater and Dina patching her up or stuff like that?

You know, is that happening next week?

See the 15 bite wounds from the stalkers at the stalker factory.

The phrase stalker factory is really good, and I think it's going to catch on.

Was that not what that was?

Soccerfactory gmail.com.

The email that ever was.

Yeah, so I'm really excited to talk next week to you next week about this episode.

I am really excited for the interview we have lined up next week.

I'm not, I'm not going to jinx it by saying it before it's actually done, but I'm really, really excited about it.

And uh, it's with one of the stalkers, yes, yes, actually, it's with the factory foreman.

Um,

that's a good get, Joe.

Thanks.

Um, thanks to you, Rob Mahoney.

So glad your hand is feeling better.

Thanks to Kai Crady, thanks to Justin Sales.

We'll be back with your friends and neighbors and with Pokerface.

Um,

and we'll see you soon.

Bye.

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