The Last of Us (new HBO series)

The American way...

This is a huge deal... that quite frankly is hard to believe wasn't intentional. When it came to the game, the action influenced the narrative which also inspired and influenced the action. TLOU was a collaborative effort by Neil & Bruce and they are on film admitting as much. Hard to believe this wasn't on purpose. All he wants is a credit and I think it's fair.

The prologue was thrilling but the main story is meh so far.

In the locked thread you mentioned a viral sex scene? I don't recall such a thing, but I've been known to be oblivious to those kind of things.

Anybody watch Ep 2 yet? Thoughts?

We knew that Tess would eventually be gone thanks to genre-savviness and the opening credits just showing Joel and Ellie, but I was secretly hoping there would be more episodes with her.

Although the show is really well-done overall, the notion that "ah, we got to our objective, but now we have to deal with a new objective" struck me as video-gamey. Like in something more akin to real life, it seems like they would have equipped Tess and Joel with contingency plan after contingency plan given the importance of the mission, and it also seems like the statehouse Fireflies would have had more agency instead of just being NPCs.

Of all the scary and gross stuff, the one Infected kissing Tess was probably the scariest and grossest.

In the game, the cordyceps fungus is contracted through mycelial spores in the air near a "flowering" infected person and through bites. This "tendril" fungus thing they are doing for the show where if you step on a tendril, all the infected within a certain radius knows you're there... I actually like that better. It ratchet's up the tension a lot more. I knew what was coming and I was still on the edge of my seat. I hope you guys are too. I had a friend give up on the game during the museum action.

Of all the zombies shows/movies I have encountered in my travels, this is the most human.

It's really hard to resist buying this game considering how much I'm loving this series. I just got a PS5 and I'm loving video games again, but I don't want to be spoiled.

So far I think this is Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul level of writing. The humor is laugh out loud funny and the tension is on point. The camera work is good as well. The girl works as just an average smart-ass teenager kid, but also just cute enough and likable enough that she's a stand in for your daughter/niece/ little sister or whatever so of course your invested in her survival.

I'm not a huge zombie fan. I'm more a fan of ghosts, vampires and werewolves when it comes to horror. I feel like zombies have been over played in the past decade. Not that I hate zombies, just not a huge fan. In fact I've avoided TWD all together.

This show almost feels like a follow up to I Am Legend in the sense that not only was he looking for a cure and was about to embark on a journey to find a safe haven, but also it was very personal.It's less about a horde of zombies running after you, though we do get that, but it's more about the humanity or regaining your humanity.

They convey this world very well. Obviously the survivors have to have some sort of civilization, but it's clearly not one we'd want to live in. They also do a good job of showing us what type of life Ellie has lived in. It's like the pre-911 and post 911 word or pre-WW2 and post WW2. This girl doesn't know how to swim, has never been outside of the QZ and wasn't alive before the world went to shit. They do a really good job of showing us this rather than telling us this. They also do a good job of showing us what kind of person Joel is. He's a vet who probably served in Afghanistan or Iraq so he's perfectly suited for this environment. He watched his daughter get shot so he probably isn't in a rush to shoot Ellie, but would if he had to. He sees that she's probably not infected, despite being bitten so he's willing to give it a chance despite the fact that there's been rumors of cures for a long time.

I really hope they are able to keep up this level of writing and I hope the show doesn't drag on, but of all of the major streaming services, it seems like HBO is making the wiser decisions so fingers crossed.

I listened HBO’s official podcast for this show. It was Troy Baker, the game’s actor/voice for Joel, Neil Druckman, Game Director & @Uncle Albert ’s favorite & Craig Maizin, the show runner.

So we don’t really get a lot of time with Tess in the game, but with what we got, you grow to think she’s a great & complicated character. Neil & Craig tell Troy that as an exercise to understand Tess’ character better, they wrote a little backstory for her and it absolutely broke me on my home commute.

So… on outbreak day 20 years ago, Tess had a family. A husband & a son. They both get infected and Tess had to kill them. She was able to kill her husband but couldn’t bring herself to kill her son. She locked him in the basement and eventually left their home.

The point being that beneath her gruff exterior, Tess always nursed a sliver of hope that she’d see the end of this pandemic one day. That one day she’d be able to return & save her son. That sort of came through in Anna Tori’s performance… and in the game for that matter. She bought into the idea of a cure more quickly than Joel. She pushed him on beyond any reasonable expectations…. And if this works out, it will be because of her.

Tonight's episode was super moving. It makes me, to borrow a phrase from "Nobody Does It Better," sad for the rest of TV that they typically fail to get me as involved with their main characters as this show did with two side ones in just an hour. We met Bill and Frank for the first and probably the last time (assuming no flashbacks or what not).

Ron Swanson as a homo prepper - sorry, survivalist - was fantastic

“Do you know how much this piano is worth?”

“Currently, nothing.”

The case of Caymus, the Beaujolais and the bottle of wine he used at their last meal was an excellent Brunello di Montalcino - this guy was a true wine lover

Good episode even though it was completely different from the first two. So far this show hasn’t disappointed, looking forward to the next one

What a fucking amazing episode.

Well... that was different. Behind the spoiler tag is a synopsis of the differences of Bill & Frank in the game vs the show. The show did it way better. Honestly, There's no way to portray this episode in game form and keep it interesting as far as I can see. Great episode of TV, IMHO. Not sure if they intend to incorporate some or all of these elements in the show later on, so hence, the spoiler tags.

It dawns on me that the guy that played Frank was the guy who stole the show in another HBO series, season 1 of The White Lotus. Phenomenal actor. He was great here too. Great story.

I like the changes for that reason. The stuff back in the QZ looking for the battery felt very gamey, just moving from one milestone to the next. Nice to see an episode like this where it doesn't need to be a series of action set pieces.

I didn't know what to expect this week, but it wasn't that.

Nick Offerman in full prepper mode at the beginning was awesome.

That was a brilliant, beautiful episode. Fuck that was good.

Ah that's it, was bugging me all episode! He's really good

I don't understand how Joel needing a battery is any different than any other "McGuffin" used in modern stories to motivate a character to do something. As a matter of fact, this doesn't happen in the game until much later in the story. The reason Joel & Tess left the Boston QZ was because The Fireflies promised to pay them with guns & weapons.

Oh yeah... I did forget about that. That went viral?

It was... uncomfortable.

Can I say perfect casting? Nick Offerman in libertarian paradise was great. Little miss smart ass got her gun, but I have a feeling that once she really gets to use it, she's not going to like it. This show really brings the emotion. The humor is seriously funny, I love when one of the infected shows up and runs into one of Bill's traps and Bill just laughs. I thought the episode was going to end on Bill and Frank's death, but then we get a few more minutes of Joel and Ellie and it was great. What a really groat show.

I don't hate it like I expected so far. They've stayed surprisingly true to the first game, but where they have made changes it seems unnecessary to me, when the original events worked just fine.

I also hope they're giving every side character a full episode backstory and drawing focus away from Joel and Ellie in the process. That third episode was a sentimental little tear-jerker, but that was NOT Bill in any but the most general sense.

I loved ep 3, but I've been thinking about what the show gained from it vs what the show lost from straying away from the game version of Bill & Frank. I want to avoid spoilers, so I'm going to try and speak as broadly as possible. They may decide to incorporate some of these ideas later in the show.

The story of Bill & Frank in the game serves as a cautionary tale of allowing yourself to love another person in this world. How risky it is to make yourself vulnerable to someone and what that might cost you. Joel sees this early in the game and honestly, it could go either way. Either open yourself up to risk or become an isolated and lonely kook.


The show uses the isolation to show that 2 people can find love in this crazy world. While it's a great story, it'll be interesting to see how or if this has a broader purpose later in the story they're trying to tell.


Also, I'm not liking the bloodlust they seem to be giving show Ellie. It's not her character in the game. She's a normal girl.

I can forgive a lot if I get to see her float on a pallet at least once.

There's no way they are going to do that. I would love it, but no way.

Particularly awkward given how jacked up and masculine that woman looks. At first I thought it was two dudes.

Lesbians on next season!

https://twitter.com/pinknews/status/1620702241647730689?s=46&t=4D-qDboAn2OSbbWzdLG16g

Worst sex scene ever.

https://www.tiktok.com/@the_milleni.../?_r=1&enable_clips=1&utm_campaign=clip_share