The Last of Us (new HBO series)

I'm worried they won't do the Winter level properly. Might be too dark for HBO.

Too dark for HBO? Have you seen Game of Thrones ?

Did you see the trailer for next week? It looks like the voice actor for Joel, Troy Baker is going to be “Buddy Boy.”

I'm avoiding trailers. They always give too much away. But yes, I was vaguely aware that both voice actors are making cameos.

Well that was pretty full on.

Bella Ramsey deserves an Emmy for this. I don't even have words for this episode other they got what they deserved.

Well, hell. They got that one more right than wrong. Removed a lot of action and one whole sequence with the infected was cut out entirely, but she didn't have to chase down that fucking deer with a goddamned bow and arrow. And there's the first of your cameos. I may be appreciating more than most that they are playing the original game sound track music throughout the episodes.

Still no Ellie floating on pallets, and I don't think I heard that horse get a name, so by fucking god I better be seeing some giraffes soon.

I was really curious about how everyone took this episode. I loved it, but was little bummed they took a lot of the action out of this sequence. In the game, after Joel falls off his horse, we cut to a scene of Ellie with a bow killing a rabbit. She sees the dear and goes into hunt mode. I really enjoyed that sequence.

Welp... just one more episode left! It seems like they have a lot of ground to cover but I guess they'll just omit all or most of the action and keep it moving. I think that in some cases it helps the show but I think this week and possibly next week, it will take away from the story, IMHO. If any of you decide to actually play the game, be sure to start a TLOU thread in Press Start and let me know what you think. I still haven't started a thread about TLOU II.

Where did everyone in the town go when Joel and Ellie were just walking out of there at the end? There was a building on fire, you think that would've gotten some attention

I have a friend who’s played the game and is watching the show. He says he appreciates the way that they tie everything together because he says in the game, all of these events are not really connected. He also says that there’s a lot of ground to cover and that there’s a time jump between the first game and the second so season two could fill in that gap with completely new material.

In the game, Ellie & Joel separately put down at least 2 dozen guards trying to get to each other. For the most part, the show has added so much depth & context to the story. In this instance, I think the show has taken something away by eliminating so much action. At this point in the story, Joel & Ellie have spent the better part of a year together. They have fought, hunted, & sneakily snaked their way across the infected country. Without that, Ellie doesn’t survive her encounter with David. Earlier in the show, Joel apologizes to Ellie for exposing her to violence. I’m not sure how I feel about it because that never happens in the game. Joel conducts violence as a survival mechanism in this world and makes no attempt to shield Ellie from it. She’s watching & learning the whole time… so much so that at this point, she’s a proficient hunter and can hold her own. At this point, she become Joel’s “daughter” and we’re not even sure of exactly when that truly happened. Did you guys catch her adding extras bass to her voice when she confronted David & James at gunpoint?

I was going to add that myself. Between the two of them, they killed off most of that gang before the end.

Well, what did everyone think? I think they pulled it off. Not sure how you guys will react to Joel's "Die Hard" montage. I think it could've been depicted better. But overall, the story is out there.

Having been aware of this story for over a decade now, one of the most frustrating things was the positioning Joel as the "bad guy." Maybe. Most likely not, IMHO. I've been eager to talk about this with a different crowd. What do you think?

So different people may come away with different perspectives. Is Joel "the bad guy"? I think they did as much as they could to make his massacre of the Fireflies seem righteous as possible. The fact that within presumably a day the Fireflies are talking about killing the goose that laid the golden immunity without her consent and without even trying anything that might leave her alive makes their approach suspect. The only "bad" thing that Joel does is blatantly (and poorly) lie to Ellie about what and why he did what he did.

I have no knowledge of what happens in the game, but it seems clear that despite Joel swearing, Ellie doesn't believe him, and it seems like there is a rift in their future. I guess we'll see in a couple years (or sooner if I give in to temptation and watch the cutscenes from the game on YouTube).

Did HBO build a time machine to travel to the future to get future Bella Ramsey to play Ellie's mother? Just kidding, I know it's Ashley Johnson. Man, talk about perfect casting. Joel was absolutely right in what he did, but how he went about it was wrong. I have no love for the fireflies and that woman is a piece of shit for how she handled the whole situation. She didn't tell Ellie the whole truth and I wouldn't trust a janky-assed hospital to preform brain surgery in. Plus they didn't give anyone any choices. I'm sorry, but that's not the type of society that I want to save. So yeah, going back to Wyoming would absolutely be a better choice. But shooting up the entire hospital and lying to Ellie was not the right thing to do. That being said, I did like the shootout scene.

Overall, I liked this series. Every episode was good and built on the previous. I'd say this episode was the weakest one because I feel like it should have been longer. I feel like it wrapped up too quickly. Anyway, it should be interesting to see how things go forward. I think coming clean to the people in Wyoming and trying find a cure there would make for much better outcome, but who knows what might happen when they get there, they could all be dead for all we know.

One of the things I like about this series* is the reality of the dialog and action. Joel, as a real living human would have lied, probably poorly, to a child in the same situation.

Sure, but then he maintains the lie after she calls him on it. The initial lie is understandable. At some point you got to tell her what they were going to do to her without giving her a choice.

The scene may only be like … six months later (I don’t even think that). So, she’s still the same age. In his head, too young for that.

I was a hostile audience. I didn't want to like this show. They skipped a lot of action, added a fair bit of character moments, but overall I have to say they hit the right notes and finished it exactly right.

The problem is that they have left themselves nowhere to go but the second game now.

It's a tough call. If Tommy or Tess were with him then they could weigh the options so I get it. I just think that if your lie gets questioned then you probably should just own up. Overall, I think he did do the right thing.

I have a friend who's played both games and he's pretty much had the same experience.

Maybe not

(10) The Last Of Us Season 2 Teaser Trailer 2025 and How They’re Changing The Video Game Story - YouTube

Apparently the giraffe was real.

Didn't get very far into it, but i think he's incorrect about whether or not the actress can "carry" the show for several seasons as a main character. She's a good actress, we already know that. So, the question isn't about whether or not the actress can carry the show, rather can the writers keep up writing good scripts.

Well part of that point, as I understood it, was "can she carry it right after they just killed off maybe the hottest actor in the industry right now"

Pascal presumably would leave a much larger hole than...say, Troy Baker would.

Dude!! I would've creamed my pants if Joel made & threw a molotov just once. That's all I wanted.


I have some thoughts about how to approach TLOU S2...

Oh, I definitely agree, and said previously (maybe not here), that it would be a bad idea to get rid of Pascal at this point. I don't believe season two would follow what I know about the second game.

I'm a little shocked that the ending of S1 didn't prompt more discussion here. Am I correct in assuming that everyone here agrees that Joel did the right thing by pulling a "Die Hard" on the Fireflies and getting Ellie out of there? What about the bold faced lie he gave Ellie right to her face? It's obvious to me that Ellie knows he's lying, but what do you make of her "OK" at the end? It's been made clear that Joel has developed an ability to disassociate himself from his actions to a disturbing extent. I suppose it's something he developed as a part of living in this world. The lie to Ellie is a part of that.

Not happy with the lie, but he absolutely did the right thing. Yes, I know, the needs of the many. I’m Kirk in TSFS.

The show stacked the deck a lot in favor of making Joel's decision seem reasonable, by having the Fireflies have brain surgery as the first option, having the cure not be a sure thing and having them not inform Ellie that is what a possible cure would take.

It's hard to argue that a reasonable person would not have issues with what the FFs were doing. The FFs are shown to be sketchy, unreliable and unethical.

As someone who has not played the game, I don't know the details of how the game handled it. But based on other games I have played, it would not surprise me if the game has Joel breaking bad (as a number of games I have played tend to have an ally turn antagonist after a bit).