This podcast is sponsored by Rocko. The American dream of homeless further and further out For many people But Rocket is on a mission. Everyone get home. They've got a range of products and services designed to turn renters into owners, from lowering down payments to as little as 1%, to helping turn your rent check Find out more at Rocket.com Own the dream. This podcast is sponsored by Rocket, the American dream of homosexuality.
feels further and further out of reach. For many people, But Rocket is on a mission to help everyone get home. They've got a range of products and services designed to turn renters into from lowering down payments to as little as one percent to helping turn your rent Find out more Rocket.com. Rocket. Own the journey. You lied to me. You looked me in the eyes and you lied. And it was the same face. Same fucking look. I think I knew already. I knew this whole time.
Welcome back to the official podcast for the HBO original series The Last of Us. I'm Troy Baker and I'm joined as always by the showrunners of the HBO series Craig Mazin. Hello Troy. And Neil Druckmann. Hi. with a very special guest, co-writer of The Last of Us Part II video game.
Hallie Gross. Welcome, Hallie. Hi, Troy. Today, we're unpacking episode six of season two, which is titled The Price. It was written by Neil, Hallie, and Craig and directed by Neil. Listeners, you know the drill. Spoilers ahead. This is nice. Isn't it nice? Just a wonderful little gathering. Where I'd like to start is talking to you, Allie. Your contribution to the part two was very visceral.
What was it like coming from the game into the show? Obviously, you have a vast amount of experience writing for television. How is this different for you? Oh, it was really exciting because when you're working on a game, there's so much to do. There's so much material that you're really just filling the volume of the space that you have. It's never done. The deadlines just come. So getting a chance to get a second crack at these characters at telling the story in a new way was.
extremely exciting for me. And I was so moved by what the guys had done with season one that I was really thrilled to get to be a part of it and watch their brains go. What were you excited? that you had worked on previously with the game about adapting into the show. So much of this show is about Ellie's struggle to reconcile the past and to tolerate her own decision-making through that.
And there's so much darkness that the things that I was most excited to get a second crack at were the moments of beauty and lightness and love and hope. as a counterpoint to the hellscape of the world that they're fighting through. Those really heartwarming moments that remind you why Ellie is making the decisions she's making and what she has lost. The three of you, yahoos, wrote this incredible episode together. Neil, this was the episode that you directed this season. Why? I'm sorry
Why would you do that? What drew you to this episode? Was it just the way that the schedule rolled out or was there something specific about this that you wanted to have your personal fingerprint on? Part of the schedule and part of it was in the story of The Last of Us. There are certain elements that just really speak to what the story is about.
Even while Joel is gone we get to see that he is at the heart of the story. Even in death, his presence remains and is guiding all these characters through a lot of choices and actions. And this episode in particular just felt I got to as deep inside as we're going to get into the story. We'll talk about it later, but that porching at the end means everything to me in this.
it really kind of speaks to what these characters are about and their complexity of emotions that they feel towards each other so I was really nervous and excited to eventually get to that but then there's all these other really juicy bits including the exploration of Joel's dad that we didn't get to do in the game and this is one of those bits that I feel like
Well, I'm hoping that gamers will feel what I felt, which is, oh, I get to understand this guy a little bit more. You could take this scene and slot it into the game, and it would work exactly the same. Exactly the same. Did I ever tell you about that time I stole a candy bar? I was 10. Grandpa found out, made me give it back, made me apologize to the cashier. And then we went home just before I got out of the car, man. It broke my jaw. There was blood everywhere. Grandma thought I was dead.
My mouth was wired shut for two months. Everybody knew why. It was humiliating. If you know what it feels like, then why? That's not why I'm telling you this.
we talked about all the different permutations this is how we work of like what could the dad feel like what would he look like how would he behave we've written versions where we got to see joel making this drug deal or actually tommy making the drug deal and joel being there and beating those guys up but normally it felt like we could distill it down to this one conversation And a lot of our talks around these conversations were
Why is this time different? Why doesn't his dad beat him up for getting into trouble and he got into serious trouble? It's because this time is different. This time Joel has done what his dad has done previously, which is like he used violence to protect. Joel used violence to protect his brother. And now his dad feels like, ah, see, now maybe you understand why I've done what I've done. It's probably the most vulnerable he's ever been in his life to his son, to his eldest son.
There's something that my therapist would say to me. He's still alive, don't worry. But he would say, Childhood is the air we breathe. We think we're adults, but really we're children. And because we're children, even though our relationship with our parents changes over time, The way that they instruct us when we are young is in printing and at first I think we were talking a little bit more about Showing the birth of Joel's for lack of a better phrase savior complex
But what it turned into really was a discussion about how to present the chain of influence in a way that wasn't negative. Because what we've seen mostly people handing down some pretty negative stuff to their children and so on and so on that's sort of what the world has become and in some ways we feel like maybe Joel has taught Ellie some bad lessons certainly
the acts that Joel commits at the end of the first season that Ellie becomes aware of, that's not a great lesson per se to hand down to solve your problems through violence. And this was really about saying there is the potential to do better, even if it seems like we're doing worse, even if we are struggling to overcome. there is a progression, a moral progression in time. I do believe that. I believe that parents are kinder to their children now than they used to be.
And I think watching this, which is very common, I mean, growing up in the 80s, People hit their kids all the time. I remember my dad telling me about the way he was hit. Which is different than the way I was. I was smacked. He was hit. watching the improvement you know because I've never done that to my kids and they wouldn't even imagine doing it to their kids so it gives a sense of hope we know that Ellie is going forward somehow
into the world on a mission to make her grief go away. But while she's carrying that violence with her, you know, that Joel has kind of instructed her, she's also maybe carrying this lesson too. It's interesting, we haven't talked about this, Craig and I, but we have similar backgrounds in that, yeah, I grew up in the 80s and my parents hit me. That's a thing that was pretty common with parents. And to Craig's point, the way their parents hit them was way worse.
And it also speaks to something which is like, you know, as parents, sometimes you do things. that you know in the moment is wrong but you try to look at things in kind of the broader scale the kind of bigger scale of things and to say you know in the long term i'm gonna do right by my kid even though right now
I might be upsetting them. I might be hurting them in some way. And I think we're seeing in this scene how Joel's dad, by the way, played brilliantly by Tony Dalton. I'm surprised we've been able to keep it a secret. he's not sure if he's doing the right thing and often as parents those are the feelings that you're left with like
Because parenting is such a, like, if you look at it as a problem, it's one of the most complicated problems you will face in your life of like, how do I do right by these kids, by my kids? And there's so many variables there and so many people you're working with. co-parent teachers and you just try to do your best and ultimately that's what this dad is saying here
I've done the best I could with the tools that I've had. I remember that's, you know, I've had a conversation with my dad about, you know, hitting me and stuff like that. And what my dad told me, he's like, look, if I raised you today, I would absolutely never hit you.
But that's what I knew. That's the best I could do at the time. Those are the best tools I had in front of me. So I really love the scene because of that, because I think it gets to the heart of a lot of Joel's decisions, not only in this season, but from the previous season.
From here on out, the episode is organized by a series of Ellie's birthdays. I love watching the evolution of this. Starting off, with a cake i love the moment with ellie where you know you see joel trying to do it right let's get out proper plates and cutlery and you look over and ellie's just already dug in it is good just a mouth full of cake Happy 15th birthday, Eli. Well, let's hope Satin begs better than he spells.
Enough. Oh my god. One of the things that we talked about with this episode was, as we did with the Bill and Frank episode, using a relationship to see fill-in time, what happened over the 20 years between the end of the world and when Joel meets Elliot. In this episode, what happened in those five years from, okay, I'm going to say I accept your swearing, your oath. Everything was exactly as you said. We go to town.
We see that it's okay that honestly she does believe him or she has made a choice to believe him or Whatever part of her doubts him. She has shoved way down And it was really important to see that it was okay, that their life actually was great. It was great. It was fun. This was sort of the best of it. It reminds me so much of... after Joel agrees to take Ellie from Jackson to Colorado.
And they just are okay with each other. He's teaching her how to shoot. And they're talking about football and their dreams for the rest of their lives. Like I remember Neil saying that I'll never be better than this. Well, this is, if it's not better, it's just as good. they're happy and I love that we could kind of use Ellie's birthdays as a way to structure this so that rather than feeling episodic, it felt like every single segment. was ticking off almost like a time bomb.
Because a 15-year-old or 14-year-old is capable on some level of understanding things, but every single year as they approach 19, every year is a massive amount of growth, a massive amount of change. And so it's like the fuse has been lit that Joel and so many other parents in the world can't acknowledge has been lit. But it's lit. And the kid that you thought you knew is going away. And a new kid is coming.
And that kid is smarter. And that kid does not look at you like God. That kid looks at you and sees nothing but flaws. How are you going to handle that? Yeah, and also the audience knows, right? The audience knows ultimately this relationship is strained. They saw it in episode one. How do we get there? Is it just Ellie getting there on her own? Is it due to some choices Joel has made? It turns out the answer is yeah.
It's all those things. One of the moments that we've been kind of waiting to see is what people who play the game consider one of the most iconic scenes, which is Joel singing and playing for Ellie. Let me hear something. What do you mean, play it? I don't say. No. No, no, no, no. No, I don't say. It's my fucking birthday, man. Let's see what you got.
Let's talk about future days. You have taken a lot of liberties with the show, and you could have chosen any number of songs. What was it about this song that no matter what, you came back to? What made you stick with this? I mean, first we have to talk about why we picked it for the game. And, you know, it's something that Hallie and I discussed quite a bit. There are certain things about the lyrics. If I ever were to lose you, I'd truly lose myself.
Ellie has given Joel and it's stated even more explicitly in the show than it was in the game. She's given him a second chance at life. that after losing Sarah Joel was suicidal and just became a zombie. He's just going through the motions, but he wasn't truly alive until he met Ellie. And that notion of if Joel were to lose Ellie at any point afterwards, it would have been the end for him. I don't believe he could have survived that.
And it's just a beautiful song written by Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Obviously a huge fan. You've heard me say this multiple times. that once we were able to get that song, it felt like there's nothing else in mind. And I guess I have to talk about, I have a personal relationship to that song is I would play guitar and sing that song to my daughter when she was an infant.
Because a lot of what Joel kind of conveys to Ellie is what I felt singing it to my daughter. So it just felt like, you know, sometimes you try to imbue things that are very personal to you. It raises your investment and makes you care more about the details and how it's executed and fleshed out. This scene was definitely impactful. I have no idea how Pedro felt filming this scene.
when I got the chance to do this scene, when we shot it for the game, is I don't get nervous often. And this was the one that I got very nervous on because it's hard to play guitar in mocap gloves. And it's also, I knew what this song personally meant to you, Neil, and to Naughty Dog. And I knew what was on the line, what was the stake. Without him being here, it's obviously hard to speak for him, but what was that like filming this scene for Pedro and Bella?
I think I am not going out on a limb by speaking for Pedro to say he was also very nervous about singing the song. We prepped quite a bit for it. You know, he took, we had, over the weekend, there was like a vocal coach that we worked with. And he really also just wanted to get it right, but also make it his own. I worked quite a bit with Ksenia, our incredible DP.
I remember we went on the set a week or two before we were shooting it and we looked at every corner of that kitchen to find the perfect spot for the bright lighting. and then we landed on this kind of kitchen table just a bit felt like we could silhouette them and really light them in this beautiful way this moment They are the happiest we'll ever see them so how do we just really make it seem almost magical and it was important to capture that magic with the lighting.
of this really just this beautiful bonding moment. You know, it's a promise Joel had made to her in the previous season of like, I'll teach you how to play guitar. And here he is fulfilling that promise. and fulfilling his role as her dad. One of the things that I think is kind of magical about that moment is how it mirrors the moment where Ellie plays guitar for Dina. Like, you're a musician.
Pedro's not really a musician. So there was this other like extra avenue of vulnerability, which is when you're not used to expressing yourself through music when you do. You don't have the, let's say, the years of polish, rehearsal, performance. There's like this weird shortcut that goes right to how you feel. It's a classic acting class exercise. Sing something with nothing and just sing it and make me believe it.
And when he's playing this and he's singing this to her, it's both internal and he doesn't look at her. He looks away and she looks at him. And that is an exact mirror of how it worked with Ellie and Dina. It's obviously a different kind of relationship, but what you're seeing is somebody not performing, but rather being and expressing something true so much so that they can't even... bring themselves to look at you while they do it. And the other person is receiving it and beaming.
Because it's true because it's honest and that's so important for Ellie Because we know there is a splinter in her and that splinter is him being not on And I love this moment for its honesty because it's going to be overturned. It also underscores something you mentioned, Craig, earlier, which is... the programming that we're given and in the same way that Joel protects through violence and how he was taught to protect their violence.
Ellie is now learning how to connect with people through this kind of very vulnerable moment. Dina literally says, he taught you well. Now we're seeing it. We're seeing the birth of it, and that's a beautiful thing. So this idea of the beautiful things we can pass on and the way we can improve our children and teach them things, and that is so important to counterbalance.
this other part of the story, because it isn't all good or bad. Just like our upbringings were not all good and not all bad, and some of them are tilted more one way or the other. but it's too complicated to just describe as Well, he lied to her and he screwed her up.
Because it's not true. There's so many moments in this episode that I could sit and park and dissect for literally hours. But I do want to move because each of these birthdays has such significance and moves the story forward in such a beautiful way. One of them is something that actually I remember happening in game as a conversation where he's talking about kind of how we see Joel as a clueless dad. He's trying to relate to his daughter and he talks about
The way that she looks at Jesse. Jesse said he'd train me if you let him. Is there something going on between you two? Excuse me? We spent a lot of time together. Is it funny? I see the way you look at them. I got a keen eye for these sort of things. I don't think you do. Alright none of my business. How funny is Bella in that moment? I mean she's laughing while he's saying it.
Which is awesome. That was one of my favorite exchanges in the game. I loved how confident he is. How he thinks he's so smart about people. He's so savvy. And he's completely missing what's so overtly under his nose. And I also love that she lets him off the hook. She doesn't say, you're wrong. She just goes, I don't think you do. I'm not going to get into the rest of it. You know what? That's kind of adorable. I mean, she's actually quite nice.
but there's also something that as much as she trusts Joel she's not telling him the truth here she's withholding we're seeing the limits of that trust or the limits of vulnerability that ellie is willing to take which I hope viewers can't help but wonder, what else is she holding back on? What other feelings, what other things is she struggling with that she is not talking to Joel about? This podcast is sponsored by Rocket. The American dream of homeowners.
Feels further and further out of reach for many people impossible. But Rocket is on a mission to help everyone get home. They've got a range of products and services designed to turn renters to owners from lowering down payments to helping turn your rent check into a forever Find out. Rocket. Own the dream.
this podcast is sponsored by rocket the American dream feels further and further out of For many people feels impossible but rocket is on a mission to help everyone get home they've got a range of products and services designed to turn renters into owners from lowering down payments to as little as one percent to helping turn your rent Find out. Rocket. Own the dream. This entire exchange happens as we're making our way to a birthday surprise of the museum.
And this scene means so much to me and obviously to people who are familiar with the story, but I want to talk about the Apollo 15 simulation, where the idea of this come from, the origination, obviously, the adaptation into the show.
you get these questions often like where did this idea come from and often it comes from like a million different places but this one actually we could trace back to a few specific When we were working on the first Last of Us game, I was working with Faith Aaron Hicks on a comic book that showed Ellie and Riley's first time, the way they met. In it, we see Ellie walk into an arcade that's been destroyed.
and we get to go in her mind for like a few panels in that comic book of her imagining what it would have been like because so much of Ellie and anybody that has been born after the apocalypse A lot of these things like flying a plane, kids playing in an arcade, someone going to space, these are myths. These are things that might never happen again ever for humanity.
so it was interesting to kind of go in her brain and see the world through her imagination when we cast you troy and ashley for joel and ellie i asked you guys What were your dreams? What did you want to be when you grew up if it wasn't acting? You told me singer. That's why Joel sings. Ashley told me, astronaut, she loves space. That's why Ellie is obsessed with space. It's because of your stories that are now imbued in this narrative.
So it felt if that's the thing Ellie loves the most, this is the best gift Joel can give her. How could he come the closest to taking her to space? Well, it's through her imagination, but putting her in a capsule that's actually been to space and finding this recording that, you know, who knows what he went through and what maybe horrible things he had to do to get this.
but he gets this cassette that has this recording of a liftoff sequence, a launch sequence and as best as he could he takes her to space. Can you imagine being up there? Would you like to? Like to what? Go to space. When Craig and I first started working on the show, we've said the story a lot but now I can actually say what we were talking about. He came by Naughty Dog.
And we started talking about the first game and how we're going to break it into season one. And we were still working on game two. And I said, do you want to see something from this game? He's like, duh, of course. And I loaded up this exact sequence, the space capsule sequence. And it was in pretty good shape. It was in quite final. And Craig in that moment said, one day, in the future, years from now, we will do this sequence exactly like that.
and he was a man of his word because that's what we at least that's what we attempted to do and i you know for my money i believe we pulled out There is a danger of inserting ego into this process where you think, well, I can't just do the same thing because then, you know. I'm somehow less than as a writer. No, no, no, no. It's the most honest and brave thing you can do as somebody who's adapting material. Keep it. If it's right, you keep it.
And that was a moment where it was just like, oh yeah, why would I change anything? Why would I even suggest changing something there? It works. And I knew it would work on TV. It's this glorious cut scene. It is. And it's so quiet and it's just two people sitting in one space, which is my favorite thing to do. And there are moments coming up in season three where I am so excited to replicate
Through adaptation. Because it will be different anyway. It's still different. It's Pedro and it's Bella. There's something different happening there between the two of them, and yet it's the same. It's glorious. Probably for you, is there a temptation in you to go... oh, this is one thing I kind of wanted to work in, and either we ran out of time or something about it didn't allow that idea to manifest. Do you have that temptation, or can you look at it, as Craig said, and go, you just do it?
No, I think Craig's comment about ego is absolutely right. It's about what is going to be the most effective choice. And there are times I think in the game where we really nailed it, where we were like our intention was X and we achieved X. But I think what's exciting about this process is, you know, you write games out of order. And so you've got a very clear outline, but your eye is on so many different things happening all at the same time, and you're just hoping that web comes together.
With TV you can write and conceive of arcs in this extremely linear Fashion. So you're going to find new things. You're going to deepen experiences. So I think you want to excavate every single scene and go, is there a way that we can plus this? Because if you're precious as a writer, I think there's a fragility that will end up breaking you. I think you have to, if you want your work to continue to be better, if you want to continue to grow as a writer, you have to constantly gut check and go.
Can I make this better? Can I make this more authentic? Can I make this the tension greater? Can I make the feelings deeper? And how can I honor the characters best? And that's who you're serving more than... Anybody else I want to just also add like.
For me, speaking about the capsule scene, the moment that we came in to this set that was built for the museum, was I've never more felt like I was in a simulation it was such a fucking one-for-one what like it was insane the level of accuracy you really felt how much everybody loved This moment, especially in this world, it was.
life-changing it was super cool this moment is the most universally loved yeah across the games one quick anecdote to that as well as you know while we were shooting that I had Allison Morey, who is the studio manager at Naughty Dog, and Arnie Meyer, who is the head of communication at Naughty Dog. They came to visit, and I had Allison sit next to me while I was directing.
And we were at a different location and I was like, hey, do you guys want to see something? Because this set was still being built while we were directing. I was directing something else. We walked over and I showed them the space capsule. It's not quite finished. It's still getting greens and set dressings put in. to really kind of help the foliage and the lighting is being put in.
And I'm like, look how authentic this is. This is just like the game. And they're sitting behind me, so I'm not seeing them. And then I turn to face them. I kid you not, they're both crying. because again we've worked on these sequences for years you know trying to get them right and sweating them
And then you're like, you're now moving to this other medium, you're working with a whole new team and they're trying, they're working hard and trying to recreate it. And that stuff just means so much to us. I can't stress that enough when you get it right. It just feels so special. It's like someone honoring your kid as the closest I can come to the emotion you feel. Like and there's so much stuff that people watching the show aren't gonna see like they built like trust me fam
If you see this, like there was a whole rover you're not going to see that was like exactly where it was in the layout of the game. There was a whole atrium with dinosaur skeletons. where they could put hats on the different like it was it was the most moving immersive experience i have had What I love hearing is how much attention goes into every little detail, from the solar system to the capsule to Ellie's tattoo. And this is where we get to see the...
the genesis of that, the beginning of that. Not only is that the first time we get to see this tattoo, but it's also the first time that we really get to see this budding... sexuality in Ellie. We have this moment where she gets caught with Kat. And Joel interrupts this moment of intimacy, not only of what's happening between the two of them, but also the covering up of her secret. Let's talk about that moment.
It's not really budding, is it? I mean, Ellie's known who she is. I think she's one of those people who's always known. She knew when she was with Riley five years earlier, and she knows who she is now. However, the discovery of having a connection with another person, intimacy with another person. inside of the bubble that Joel thinks he's created, which parents do around their children.
that we are a unit, we are a community, and nobody else could ever get inside of this tiny bubble. And what happens as your children get older is you suddenly realize they like other people more than you. They share things with other people that they don't share with you, and that's necessary because they have to start to break away. And they begin to do these things. Joel is bowled over by it. He doesn't understand. And we think back to Sarah, who Nico Parker played with this perfect kind of
It's like the child everyone would dream of having. Because she's growing up, but she's still a kid. She loves him. It's just the two of them. There's no other friend over. There's nobody else she talks about. There's no boyfriend. It's just them. And here, Ellie is getting high. She's making out with some girl. She's getting a tattoo, which is a permanent mark. Permanent, which children do. casually my youngest daughter not only jailhouse tattooed herself
a jailhouse tattooed another kid. That's hard, man. That's awesome. I mean, not against that kid's will. Trust me. I mean, it was all agreed upon. But, you know, and I remember saying this is Permanent you understand then she was like yeah, I understand but they don't because they're 16 or 17 and the idea of being 70 is not a thing And this rupture here inside of their house leads to this kind of amazing moment where Ellie calls Joel out on something that I think is fascinating.
You may not like the rules, but this is my house. No, it isn't. You don't own it. They gave it to you. Sorry to us. You don't own anything. You're Joel and I'm Ellie and we're Joel and Ellie. But I don't belong to you. Not the way Sarah belonged to you. Not the way your house belonged to you. This is different.
There's no belonging here and the problem that Joel has is there is something huge else going on here. It's one of the reasons why it was important for us to start the season the way we did. Begin again with swear to me, but then add that little extra bit where Joel looks at her She's walking away, and it's almost like I did it but also almost like I'm not sure I did it
and hear the sick kind of paranoia that maybe that little infection of that lie that we thought went away, maybe she's not immune to that. Maybe that's still there. And he's ignoring the clues that are right in front of him, right? When they talk about, okay, why did you get this moth? And he gets it completely wrong, what that moth means.
Again, the confidence in the answer, right? Yeah, and then he hears it from Gale. No, no, it means death. And even then he's like, he's taken aback because he doesn't know her as well as he should. And then what I believe is happening in his head, he rationalizes it. He's like, okay, you know, kids at that age get obsessed with death. They get obsessed with skulls. I was as a kid.
And he's not tying it back to the lie, to what actually happened that is just buried inside Ellie, but as we see over this course, this episode starts to bubble up. We get what the actual interpretation of what the moth means through Gale. who's I'm very quickly talk about. I love that we've been discussing a lot of the details.
She's reading the book Earth Abides. It's a 40s post-apocalyptic science fiction book. And this was one of our references when we were working on the original Last of Us. because we try to consume every post-apocalyptic media that we could. And this one was one of my favorites. So when the question came up, like, oh, what do you have Gail reading? I'm like, I got an idea. I guess it's worth a bite. Let's do that.
And if people are wondering where the Ish character or his name was inspired by came from, it's from this book. ish for those that don't know was an important side character that we explored in the game and he built this whole underground society, community.
that explored much more detail in the game. We got to see that community or what was left behind of it in the show in season one. This is where Ellie, Joel, Henry, and Sam end up hiding in, and we see some of the drawings that were left of that community. that show a sketch of who Ish was. But his origin comes back to Arthabae.
This also ties into something else that's been underneath the surface. Another secret. Not only what happened to Joel and Ellie, but what happened between Joel and Gail, which is what happened with Eugene, tragically played by Joe Pantaleano. Joey Pants. Legend. And for us, we have people that come on set and are incredible actors. We have a really good tradition now, I think we can say, after two seasons of some of the best guest acting.
If you look at the way the Emmy nominations worked for season one, I mean, basically everybody that was a guest actor on our show got nominated. And this season, I love this tradition of keeping these great people coming in and just dunking, you know, just absolutely dunking on us all. Even then, I think everyone was like, oh my God, it's Joey Pants. The legend of Joey Pants extends all the way into Canada. What a treat to work with somebody like that.
required a little bit of scrambling because we had originally had a Matrix poster in Ellie's garage. and on the matrix poster is joey pants oh no That's a kind of universe boundary breakage that we can't have. VFX paint this one out. Took care of that. It is such a beautiful moment because Joel offers. Obviously, Eugene has been bitten. and Ellie's the one who says, hold out your hand, slowly count to ten. And he shows that he has time, and he makes one request. Please, I need to see Gail.
A beautiful, beautiful moment. Let's talk about this. We obviously didn't get to see this in the game. It's something that is different. I'm curious from each of you. What this moment for you? Oh, man. This scene was really tricky. As we were working on this episode, I think this is the scene that we iterated on the most.
and there had been a lot of different versions and we just kind of tossed it around and Talked about it and shoot on it and trying to figure out what was sort of because this is such a this is Such an important moment in the sort of zeitgeist of this season. If you have last words for her, I'll pass them along. Last words for her? I need her last words!
And I remember reading that line, I think it was Craig that wrote that line, like, it's her last words, I want her last words for me. And I remember reading that line being like, Oh, there it is. That's what we've been looking for this whole time, was that line. Understood. It was a tough scene, I remember. There were a lot of versions.
Yeah, I think on that, maybe that was a version where I think Neil called me and was like, well, Hallie's in tears. I think this is working. Yeah, that one got me. Yeah. The reason I enjoyed collaborating with Heli and Craig writing this scene is it felt like such a complicated problem to solve.
On the one hand, we have the mystery that we set up in episode one about Gale and Eugene and what happened there. Then we have, you know, in the game, the way the game part two is structured is these flashbacks, and they're not identical to what's happening here, but there's...
certain different flashbacks that achieve similar things that these flashbacks achieve and they're spread out throughout the game while you're playing as ally here we said okay let's take all them and kind of compress them into this one episode and you know in the game something very very different happens ellie travels she leaves jackson and she finds the hospital and in it she finds evidence of what joel has done and then she confronts him about it
We felt like, you know, for live action, the show has become more grounded, more realistic than the game. It felt a bit far-fetched for her to leave. And so we needed to achieve it in a different way. So that is a variable that we have to address at some point. Yeah. and I know eventually we're working towards this porch scene that Ellie will confront Joel with all these things so how do we get the truth without Ellie having hardcore evidence?
that Joel lied to her and it's like wow If we see another example where he does the same exact thing and this is where like all of a sudden right that's when the penny dropped and everything kind of fell into place and it felt like oh then it felt like a joy to write that scene because we know the destination this is the thing we always talk about once we know the destination
It's so easy to make the right creative choices without knowing that destination. That's where you flounder for a while. And that's why we floundered, I think, for a while with the scene because we didn't have that destination. But once it all found the place, and then to see the way Joey Pants approached it. You know, I often don't like revealing too much about actors and their process, but I really loved what he did here. And it's worth mentioning as he saw this moment.
As he's facing his death, he becomes so terrified, he turned into a child. That's how he approached that scene. And he needed Gale to give him comfort.
and again no one is doing necessarily the wrong thing maybe the one thing that joel did wrong is that he lied to ellie he could have told her the truth but he's protecting jackson he's following the rules actually and the rules are like you cannot bring eugene back because who knows what will happen if he turns right next to gail he could bite her she could get infected that's why they don't do it But he makes the fatal flaw of it in trying to protect Ellie. He lies to her again.
And it all culminates in what you just brought up, which is the porch scene. You gave us a glimpse of this in the very beginning where Joel is sitting on the porch and we just see Ali walk past him. Now we get the moment where she comes back and we get that moment of confrontation. with the same reverence that you approach the capsule, with the same level that we have to get these details right. There are moments in this scene that are different. It's not one-to-one.
One of the things that I really loved about this adaptation is that Ellie doesn't know for sure There's no hard evidence. What she has is an intuition. As she's grown up and rolling his story around in her mind, it doesn't add up. At all and I love that she has to pull it out of him and he has to admit it Step by step, he has to acknowledge there were no other immune people. They could have made a cure. He did kill everyone in the hospital. He did specifically kill Marlene.
who was the closest thing Ellie had to a mom before all this happened. The one person that kept her alive before she handed her off to Joel. And then he lied to her. And that is so painful to watch. That then blending into the exact than back and forth that you had on the porch from the game, which, by the way, takes place at the end of the game. And here we have it here for good reason.
fantastic and then inside of that this then little adaptive bit where we come back around to the lesson Joel learned from his father that he is now putting on her But if somehow I had a second chance at that moment. I would do it all over again. Because you're selfish. Because I love you. Anyway, you... you can't understand maybe you never will but if that day should come if you should ever have one of your own. I hope you do a little better than me.
I blew it. I blew it for the best possible reason. I would blow it again because I love you in a way you don't understand. Which is absolutely true about children. They don't understand. They can't. But I hope you do a little bit better than me and that To me is the thing that you have to wonder will Ellie carry that forward in her bones or will she not? In the porch scene, Ellie says the reason why Joel did this is because he's selfish.
Talk about what she lost when Joel made the decision to save her. I mean, she says it very plainly in the scene, but, you know, my life would have fucking mattered. You know, through the course of this episode and through the course of both seasons, you see the consequences of the infection and the people that we've lost who could have been saved, right? And you see that very loudly with Joey Pants, this idea that like...
If there were a cure, we could have done something here. Gail would have her husband. Riley would be alive. Her death could have brought so much love back to so many people. You know, from season one... From maybe the moment we meet Ellie, she's suffering from survivor's guilt. that she lived and Riley died. Why is that? And people often wrestle with these things, especially when they survive something that someone they care about or someone close to them didn't.
And then it happened again with Tess. And then it happened again with Henry and Sam. And it's all in the service of trying to deliver this girl to make this cure. Because if we can make the cure, maybe it's all worth it. And Ellie hates the fact that she wasn't given the choice, the agency. And she tells us now, explicitly, given that choice,
she would have wanted to die because then her life would have meant something. All those horrible things that happened on this journey would have meant something to her. But he took that from her. And in the same conversation, she comes to understand this unconditional love that he has for her. And even though it kills her and eats away at her and has eaten away at her since they made that decision, she wants to move towards I don't think I can forgive you for this. I would like to try.
that port scene i was so nervous about that because again that scene is to me the most important and the entire story which is why you know in the game it's at the very end one of the choices that we made to bring it up and the reason we brought it up is because we were worried it wouldn't work if you had to wait years to get this payoff
And it felt here, as we're on this journey with Ali, it felt appropriate to do it in this moment in time. But yeah, it was such a joy. It was a freaking joy to work on this. It felt like I was living in the world of The Last of Us and it was really cool. we leave that heartbreaking moment with the two of them and those words still hanging in the air and we Then join Ellie present day walking in the Seattle rain with a purpose now. And that's what's going to lead us on to our season two finale.
Thank you all for listening. And of course, to Neil, Craig, Holly, thank you all for being here with us today. Thanks, Troy. This has been the official podcast for the HBO original series, The Last of Us. Our senior producer is Emmanuel Hapsis, our producer is Elliot Adler, and Darby Maloney is the editor. This episode was mixed by Raj Makhijar.
Our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Barry Finkel. Special thanks to Becky Rowe, Alison Cohen, Aaron Kelly, and Kenya Reyes from the Max podcast team. Production music is courtesy of HBO, and you can watch episodes of The Last of Us on Max. Make sure to join us next week as we wrap up Season 2 with the finale. Until then, no matter what, you keep finding someone. This podcast is sponsored by Rocket, the American dream.
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