Hello, Welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today we are talking about the last of US episodes one through four with myself, Aaron McGowan, and
Danielle of Written in the Star Wars. We're not gonna do episode by episode coverage, but every now and then we're going to check it on the show which is raising so many great questions, doing so much, so many interesting things with a genre of post apocalyptic and zombie TV, and just have some great discussions that it's raising it. So I'm really excited for this episode.
I'm gett into all that right after this commercial break. We have no control over, but if it's for any kind of flower based product, be careful.
Welcome Backman is Matthew host And to introduce my first guest, I can tell kind of a funny story because Danielle Written in the Star Wars has been on the and Or podcast a bunch of time times has talked to me about some other Star Wars stuff, and then recently her Twitter and her TikTok the started to be a lot of references to Tlou and Pedro Pascal and a video game, and I had no idea what was going on because I live under a rock, And when I finally figured out, I realized how excited she
was about this show and that she'd played the video game, and I knew that if I wanted to talk about the show, I definitely needed to get her on. So one episode of the show and immediately was like absolutely hooked. And so, having learned what is necessary in order to survive the apocalypse from these wonderful characters, didn't yell. Let me start by asking you, if you have a crush on a D and D player, what's the best
thing you should do? Is this a bad to ask them? What I was going to say, Is this a bad time to say I don't play D and D? Oh? No, it doesn't matter because the answer is you ask them for a D eight. When the show went to bad puns, I was just like, I am here for it. This makes me so happy. So Danielle, go ahead and introduce yourself. Hi. I'm Danielle written in the Star Wars on TikTok, Dannys three nine four on Twitter, and my pronouns are she, her, and I'm very excited to be
here because I love the last of us awesome. So in the Happy Accidents of scheduling myself, Dan Yelle, and Aaron McGowan, who's been my regular co host. Earlier today, we did an episode on the most recent episodes of The Bad Batch, and because I had scheduled this double block of time with Danielle to do this and The Last of Us, Aaron got the invitation for all of it and said, oh, hey, wait, I'm really into the Last of Us too, Can I join? Which I said,
of course because I love their perspective so much. So Aaron say, Hello, introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Aaron, Lady tonal creates on Instagram and TikTok, and my pronouns are she her. The Last of Us kind of snuck up on me. I mean like it didn't, but it did. So. I had seen the posters and all the trailers with Petrofascale and Bella Ramsey, and when the first episode came out, I was like, yeah, I'm not emotionally ready for this, Like I don't know if I can
do this. I recently did the same thing with the New Avatar movie. I avoided it for so long because of how deeply emotional movies make me and I get so emotionally involved with all of this, so I was scared to even watch it. And then I saw the invite and I texted Matthew, what does TLO you stand for? And they were like, oh, the Last of Us, and I said, oh, I gotta watch it. So then I've been to the first four episodes and I loved it. It's
not as bad emotionally as I thought it would be. And I didn't know much going in, but I knew Danielle and I knew it was a game being turned into a show. I had kind of a similar reaction to you, Aaron, and I didn't know much about it. I knew post apocalyptic zombies, which always raises some interting ethical questions. And the first two episodes were okay, here's some interesting stock off. I like where the going Pedro
Pascal is amazing. Bella Ramsey without a British accent is breaking my brain, but is very good. And then the third episode gave me probably in the top ten hours of queer media that I've ever seen in my life, and we'll definitely talk about why that was so important. And an episode four just hit me again and again and again, and so yeah, there was so much here to talk about and Delia. Let me just start with this is because, like I said, you were you were going ham on this game
and this movie on this TV show. I got there eventually, long before it came out. What was it about the story of the game that so spoke to you? And how is the show like why was it that you were so excited for this? And how is the show reaching or not reaching that levels of excitement you had? So I have to give a warning I might start crying. This story is my favorite story perioded, not just video game, not just you know TV show. Now it's my favorite story.
And I started playing it in twenty twenty so COVID, and it was just kind of a thing that was really there for me at a really hard time, and I've just played straight through. It became really really attached to Joel as a father figure. And I've made jokes on social media about how I love Feather Pascal and I usually Thurst over Feather Pascal characters, but Joel, no, like, that's that's my father. And I think a part of that was I've talked a little bit about this on social media. Part of
that is that Joel is from Texas. He's a Southern man, and he actively cares about his queer daughter and like and not just in like a pretended way kind of thing, which I think a lot of people who maybe grew up in the South are used to, which is like, oh, we don't talk about it, it's not there, you know, we can just
you know, not talk about it at all. And Joel's not that way, even though he may be a little ignorant at times about like, you know, if in the games, at least he's never hurtful, and he's always actively like supportive of Ellie, not just in her queerness but in who she is as a person. And I love my parents, but they Joel fills a gap, I guess that for me, and I don't want it to seem like that's the only reason, even though I do think that's enough
of a reason. But it's just the story is so well told. It's such a good narrative, and it stays that way consistently. And I won't give spoilers for part two, obviously because neither of you know about that, But the narrative choices in part two are some of the best and like most risky narrative choices I've ever seen a story take and it pays off so well, and it just shows the real trust in the material and a real trust in the story itself for the creators to believe that they could do this and
get away with it essentially and tell a good story, and it does. And I just think that that kind of creativity doesn't come around very often. And yeah, I am so happy to see that the adaptation has followed in those footsteps, because we'll talk about this more, I'm sure, but there have been changes to the story, and that in itself is a risk, and I think that it wouldn't be the last of us if they weren't taking risks in adaptation. So I'm very pleased with where it's come so far.
It's exceeded my expectations, truly, and I'm so happy with that. I think I've been seeing that because we've been doing a weird thing where my spouse
had played through the whole game, Mary I had not. We debated if we should play the game before watching it or not, and instead decided to kind of like play a chapter or two from the game and then watch the Because the TV show is pretty closely mirroring the narrative of the story, the new Fire Emblem game is out now, which my partner I are both super obsessed with it, so I think Last of Us Unfortunately game playing is going to fall off the tracks. But part of that is and I'm curious for
people who only watched the show, how this was for you. I got to play the first chapter of the game, or watch Mary play before I played it, before I saw it, and so for me to really connect with Joel's actual daughter character, and I knew that this was very much a like father daughter's story, and so I thought, this is going to be our main character going forward. And then to have her be killed was such a gut punch to me in the game, and it made me wonder.
When I then watched the show, I realized all the marketing has been about Bella Ramsey, who the girl his biological daughter clearly isn't. And I'm curious, like if it had less of an impact for those folks, because they were like, well, we know this isn't Bella Ramsey or whatever. But I in a game, at least to me that was like, oh,
this is not your traditional game, this is not to me. What it said was, yes, you're going to have some fun shooting zombies, but mostly shooting zombies is just a wait for us to tell you this incredible story. For me, I didn't see it coming at all. Like that part slapped me in the face. I had heard so much about the actress who played Sarah and how well she portrayed the character, and I knew she wasn't the Bella Ramsey character, but I thought, okay, cool, you know,
she knows her stuff and she'd be around for a bit. And then like twenty minutes later, I was like, oh, they killed her off, Like I was not expecting that. Yeah. I've been wondering that too, because I have seen some people who played the game say that they wish that they hadn't so they could experience the show fresh. And I can see the appeal to that, I really can. But I think that I'm at the place where the game itself means so much to me and nothing can take
that away like that. The game can mean a lot to me, and the show can mean just as much to me, But the game means so much to me that I'm glad I experienced it first, because I do feel like the show has made some better narrative choices with specific storylines that I feel like if I watched the show first and then played the game, I might be a little disappointed in some of the choices, and I would hate for
that to happen for me personally because the game means so much. But yeah, I'm always interested to see what people who haven't played the game, what
their thoughts are about it. Yeah, and that's been for me. Like we're now, Like I said, I want to keep playing it through, but I feel like the show is just going into so much more depth in everything, from that initial conversation of the two scientists where the interesting the whole idea of what fungus can do, to the whole Bill and Frank thing being so much more drawn out, to it's kind of fun watching it with my partner because she's able to go like, oh, the magazine conversation of the
jeep that's word for word from the game, or like, I've seen her play through the hotel, so I can see that the sets are so painstakingly perfect. But then they're adding so much more and in some ways I'm finding at least I'm curious how this is for you. The game is so much more violent because it's more of the playability, of course, but I find that cutting that way back means that the few people you do wind up seeing
get killed in the show, it has so much more impact. Yeah, and I think it's like you said, it's like it's a necessity of gameplay that you have a lot more of, kind of like unquestioned violence. That's something that Part two plays with a lot, the questionability of violence in gameplay and and so. But in Part one it's just like, yeah, this is a zombie game. You gotta shoot you know, you gotta shoot these zombies. You got to shoot these people, not really thinking about it all
that much and how it might affect someone. But the show can't. You can't have that and have it be meaningful, I guess because you don't have cut scenes, Like you don't have a shootout and then a cut scene to a really emotional moment and then a shootout again. It's all like one thread, and you have to incorporate the ethics of ethics and the morality of killing someone in this post apocalyptic world into that exact situation. And I think they've
done that so well. Yeah, I really see that. I think it especially came through an episode four where can I remember? When playing through the game with Mary, one of the first things I was struck by was that in the first couple of chapters, you're killing a lot more humans than you are zombies. And it's interesting. Yeah, it's a pretty common idea that post apocalyptic is doggie dog and roll out against each other, and there was a little bit of that in the show, but the fact that there was
so little, I thought, we're bouncing around it it here. Maybe it's a good way to get into this part of it. Episode four, to me, is so good in so many ways, the puns, the connection, but I felt like that was the episode where we really had to wrestle with to survive in this world. Most of us are not getting the Bill and Frank story. We're having to kill other humans, and so for Bella to have her first kill in that situation, or at least the first kill
we saw, she says she's killed others. How did that scene play out for you? Aaron? Especially curious for you, like what was your take on watching that scene of them having getting attacked by and killing other people? Yeah, I mean, like I didn't see it coming, Like I could see it coming because obviously Joel just talked about it in the post apocalyptic world and how everyone's out for each other. But as they were just driving through
the city, and that's not what I thought would happen at all. I thought they would just be last in the city and then pop out on the wrong side of town and be further away from Wyoming and then have to deal with that. And then when the guy ran out and was like help me, help me, I was like, oh, okay, run him over and turn around. And then there was gunfire and I was like, oh, yeah, okay, this is an assault, Like this is a planned
assault. I liked that Joel actively was saying to Ellie, like it's okay, we're safe. We're safe throughout the journey, even though they're not. And he tells her, you know, they won't hit you. They won't hit you. Run to the hole, like hiding the wall, and don't come out until I say And then he doesn't hear somebody ambush him, and she sees this happening, or hear's it happening, and she has a gun and she knows she can go out and save him, and she does.
And I liked the moment when she didn't kill him. But Joel is so protective of her that even when this guy was screaming about killing them, he was just screaming about how they deserve it. He takes the time to ask her to go behind the wall because she's still kid. I mean, she's never seen an airplane. She didn't know what a grassy hill looked like. Like a car just blew her mind. She's so naive while being so cynical
and worldly. At the same time. She knows how bad the world is, and she knows that there's not much hope, but she's still affected by Oh, they really killed a bunch of innocent people, how they executed a baby. I'd like to continue to see how these kind of things affect her and see how Joel tries to shelter her from it. I'm curious to see
where it goes. You know, if he eventually starts to trust her, if he's going to include her, you know, in their plans, start to trust and rely on her more, or even if he's just like doing everything that's possible to protect her and goes in completely opposite direction. I'm just happy and interested to see where it's going to go. Yeah, I think that well, I think the way that Joel handles Ellie's like the way that she's been forced into this unfair world, Like he says an episode for it's
not fair that someone your age has to experience this. In the way that he does this in the show is so much better than in the game. I find show Joel to be much more open, and I think that that is very important. He's open to a certain extent and then he closes off and game Joel is like that, but it takes him a little while to get there, and I think that it shows his reactions in these instances really show the benefit a kind of a perspective. I say this a lot when
I talk to the adaptations of material. Is that the Last of Us,
part one, we have to remember, was made ten years ago. That's when it was released, so it was likely the story was written, you know, at least like twelve years before twelve years ago, and Neil Druckman was new to this, one of the first things that he wrote, one of his first games, and he's had twelve years to think about this, and I imagine that there are things that he wish he had done differently in the game, or things that now looking back at it as a father himself,
is kind of like, I think I want to change this up a little bit, And I think the show has allowed him to do that in such a beautiful and natural way, because adaptations aren't meant to be copies, and so it's expected that you're going to change some stuff, and the fact that he's taking the time to change Joel's responses to Ellie is really important because the father daughter relationship can be at risk of being overdone in media. I
think what's different is how that's portrayed. Is Joel just going to be this overprotective, gruff father figure or is he going to be someone that Ellie can really open up too. And I like that they've taken that and it's really seen in the scene where she doesn't kill that man, but she shoots him and he's even if he hadn't died, he's paralyzed for life, like shot
him in the spine. He can't feel his legs And in a post apocalyptic world, what does that look like for someone who just got shot that way? And Joel can see throughout the next several minutes of their scene, can see that she's not handling this well, and instead of ignoring that and instead of just asking her once if she wants to talk about it, and then letting her not talk about it, he really pushes for it. And I loved that aspect of their relationship. Yeah, it hits so hard and it's
funny. After the third episode, I was like, oh god, we got to talk to Danielle about it, and we had something she scheduled. I made a scheduled snaffoo. So now it turns out we're we're talking now. And while we have so much to say about the third episode, I
think it does tie into this. I am so glad we got to this point because I do think this was the episode where there really was that breakthrough because between the two of them, and I think, yeah, the way it was portrayed as First of all, knowing his history, I think he does have this very sort of like Gruff. You know, it's every person for himself. You maybe make one or two connections if you don't connect to
other people, And so there's that aspect. But also he had a daughter who died, like this is a person who, of course the last thing he wants is to get connected to this girl who may also die because I think I don't fault him for wanting to have those emotional walls up and seeing the way they come down, and that it is. It's after he sees
that she has gone through the horrible st you know. I think the fact that she's able to literally save his life, which he has guilt about, but he sees she can handle herself in this world and she gets this world for me. I think that's a big part of what allows him to start to lower those walls, both because he's like, you're already a little broken like me, and I want to protect you, but also knowing you're a little bit broken already means a there's a better chance you're gonna survive and so
I can connect with you. But also there's a better chance you can get me and I can get you. Yeah. I think she became more real to him in that moment. Maybe he was able to distance her a little bit more until that happened, and then he realized, Okay, yeah, she is my partner in this Now Tess isn't here, it's just me and her. Well, let's talk about the ethical conundrum that doesn't bark to hordly
paraphrase Sherlock Holmes here because yeah, he kills that. We shoot that person who immediately does this huge like you know one eighty of he was trying to kill them before, and now I was like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Please don't kill me, Please don't kill me. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Which it didn't feel insincere to me. It
felt incredibly heartfelt. I was incredibly moved by it. And it was you know, we just had this conversation around bad Batch where there's so many parallels too, you know, Omega and Ellie, if nothing else, but also there we were talking about like how you're part of a group, you're part of an army, you're part of a gring, you'd do what they tell you. He's been trained all his life that these are the people who's are threatening him, and so he has to fight against them, and was see
how deep that runs in the whole community. But now that he's lost, he's so he's pleading for his life, he's begging for his mom and I was really struck by the fact, but I didn't mind it. I liked it that she gets upset, you know, she's upset and he Joel kills the guy so that she doesn't have to, and they never mentioned that, and a part of was thinking, is that going to be what she's upset about? That she thinks maybe we didn't have to kill him. And I
kind of really love that. Actually, that isn't ever questioned. That that's just accepted as this is horrible and terrible, and in better circumstances, maybe shouldn't have. And I think we from a happily nonpost apocalyptic well by some definitions, but not as clearly apocalyptic situation, Like it's easy for me to morally sit back and say, no, of course you should say that guy's life. You should get him to his mom, you should do what you
can. But I totally understand why they both felt like that was a necessary thing in that world. And I kind of love that the show doesn't question that. The question thing is about her having to kill him to begin with, but the fact that they let this guy die while I screaming they kill him while I screaming for his mom, that's not really an issue. Yeah, I mean, I kind of well to me to disagree in a friendly way. It didn't play as sincere right away, like, of course a
dying man is going to say anything for you to not kill him. I was sitting there, like, does he even have a mom or Is he just trying to pull sympathy from Joel? Is he trying to pull sympathy from Ellie? Like there's no way you can trust this guy. He's telling him, He's telling I'll go back and tell everyone you're okay. Even if he goes and tells them you're okay, which he probably won't, his people are probably just going to kill you anyway. I think the both of those are
really interesting perspectives. And I think that what I think of most with this scene with Joel killing this man is that we don't see him do it and it's done and over with very quickly, and that is such a big difference from the last time we saw him kill someone, which was in episode one, and he beats to a pulp the Venia officer because he's thinking of Sarah and how he couldn't protect Sarah. And I think there are two side,
Like there's one side to Joel that I think that the series will probably continue to explore, and that's his his need for not his need, but he does have a vengeful side he does have this anger that can come out and can do horrible things, horrible unnecessary things, and that's shown with the FEDRA officer because he didn't really need to kill him that way. I'm pretty sure
the guy was already dead when he was still beating up on him. But the difference between those deaths I think is very important because we do see him do this, and we do see that anger in him, and we continue to go back to the hand the knuckles that are still injured from that whole fiasco, and then this death that we see now, which we don't actually see him do and he doesn't string it out. So yeah, I agree that he has this really angry and vengeful side, and I think that's very
powerful. That this was not a random FEDRA agent. This is the guy that he would small a pills for. This is the guy who would tell him when and one not to be on the street, like kind of your buddy. But the moment it parallels the situation with Sarah. He just Joe
flips. And it's interesting because I hadn't really put this together, but there is a way in which this situation also mirrored that in that you know, Joel fights against the two people who he knows, and he takes them down, but he, as he says, he doesn't hear this third guy. And it's because of his failure in that that this guy almost kills him,
which forces Ellie to have to come out and shoot him. And so there is a parallel there of again, he has made a mistake, and like, I don't think anyone except maybe there's the most super spy superspy person could have not done what he did there. It's a very hard situation, but still in his mind he's screwed up, and the girl he's taking care of was harmed because of it, And so that makes I think even more powerful that he's able to not make this a you know, I'm going to take
out all my emotions on this. It's just a okay, I'm just gonna make this queen clean quick. This guy's not gonna suffer anymore. He's gonna get killed. Alie's not gonna have to deal with suffering anymore and just move on and he apologizes to her. That was a huge thing for me.
We so rarely see parental figures in real life and in media apologize to children when children deserve to be apologized to children are humans too, and if you do something that you shouldn't have that resulted in harm to them in some way emotional, physical, whatever, you should apologize. And we get that so rarely, like I said, and so to see Joel actually apologize, which doesn't happen in the game was huge for me. Like I start, I
was crying. I didn't even realize it. I was like, Oh, that's so nice to apologize, and I'm like, oh, there's tears streaming down my face. But I really liked that addition. No, as someone who's been working with a therapist for ten years to figure out some way to get my father to say the words I'm sorry, it's not just emotional nasochism with these shows. It's therapy for us. My currency needs to pay my HBO Max bill, and I want to use this too. We're gonna got
to jump around a little bit here. But I think that there's so much of the about all these episodes to talk about. But I think one to me, episode four does not pay off anywhere near as well if it's not set up by episode three. And so I think this is kind of a good good time to talk about episode three and I have so much to say
about it, especially how it pays off to hear. But let me just start with you all, and starting Danielle with you as someone who had played out the Bill and Frank storyline, in which case it as someone who had played out Bill and Frank's story in the game where he's referred to as a partner, and like it could be a queer partner, it could be a business partner. It's a very negative story of a relationship that's gone sour.
How did this strike you? Seeing this very big deviation from the story and an episode that has if you want to talk about a thing that people would call a filler episode, though clearly it's not at least not well or it's all the things I love about filler anyway, too much? Shot up, Danielle ahead and talk about the episode. How was it for you? Very
emotional? I got to watch a screener for it, so I watched it three days before it came out, and that was one of the hardest things I've had to sit on because it was in a different way than the first two episodes. There was so much I wanted to talk about and so much I needed to unpack. About it and really just kind of deal with in
my head. And to have to sit on that for three days and not be able to talk to anyone about it, it was really really hard, because you know, we process things by talking about them with each other.
And my first thought for this episode was I literally walked out and said to my boyfriend, I'm shell of the person I used to be, because that's how hard it hit, Like I don't know that there's ever been anything that has hit me as emotionally and so quickly as episode three of the Last of Us, and I spent a lot of time trying to think about like why that was. And first, obviously it's a much better story for Bill and Frank than the game. And is it okay if I give game spoilers for
it? Yeah, that's fine, or do I want to stay with that okay? So in the game, just to clarify it, to show how different it is in the game, Ellie and Joel meet Billy. They go to find him. Joel's known him in the past, but Ellie actually gets a chance to meet Bill, and Bill's pretty much the Bill we meet at the beginning of episode three, and you hear about Frank his partner again.
There's a hesitation there. I feel like, if you're queer, you know that it's meant to be a queer partner, but if you're not, then it might slip past you. But Frank's left Bill, he didn't want to be around him anymore, and you think that's the end of the story, that he's just going to be mentioned. Well, you end up in a house and there's a dead body hanging from the ceiling and it's Frank and Bill is devastated, and but he tries to hide that with his gruff and grunchiness.
And then as you're exploring the house, Joel comes across a letter that is a suicide note from Frank to Bill if Bill ever found it, And it is the most horrifying letter from an ex lover to an ex lover that I've ever read. And it basically says that Frank would rather be dead than spend another day with Bill, and he hopes that, you know, basically says at least at least you're not going to get that car battery. At
least I got to it first. And it's so vengeful and so hateful, and it's heartbreaking, and that's what I was expecting coming into this episode. I was hoping for maybe something a little bit better, not as horrifying and
traumatic. But what we got, instead of Bill's story being focused on hatred, which it is until the last second you meet him, it's focused instead on love and the number one theme and the last of us is love and it's many different manifestations and the toxicity of love, the beauty of love, and to change Bill's story to that was such a good choice, and I think again the benefit of perspective because instead of seeing a traumatic queer love story,
we got a beautiful, lifelong queer love story that we so rarely get to see in media, and that meant so much to me. And at the end of the day, I was like, I would give up Bill meeting Ellie a hundred times over if it meant we got this story again.
And I think that a lot of people, mostly outside the queer community that I've seen, don't view it that way, yeah, because it's not something they've ever had to want, and there's a you know, an ignorance there and uh, you know, not really seeing it for what it's meant to be. A version of love that is very hard to find ye now and even more so in the Apocalypse. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like crying honestly about this thing, that story after watching the episode. I can't imagine the
bill from the episode finding and reading that letter. It's just heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm glad you could jump in a little bit because I could not have spoken for a few moments there, and I to me, there's so much about that episode I want to talk about, but I just want to start with what you're saying there about how rarely we get to see queer joy. You know, I grew up where some of the first in the eighties and nineties we first started to get a lot of gay characters.
I mean still very few, and there were never main characters, but you know on TV shows and you got like Will and Grace and stuff like that,
but almost always someone was dying of HIV AIDS. You know, the character was there because they were going to get beaten up in a kind of act of homophobic or transphobic violence for our main character to be inspired by in some way, you know, and the stories was all, you know, to the point of it became a trope called bury your gaze and that like if you have a story about two gay people, especially if they fall in
love, one of them has to die. And so to have this story where these two people fall in love, and some people pushed back said, oh, there's so toxic, they break each other's boundaries all the time. I think there's some truth to that, But I think part of it's about the struggle to find love and connection in an apocalypse, and that's where I think this episode ties in so well to the episode that comes after about how
hard it is to let down your walls and have connection. And of course there's toxicness all over the place, but the fact that they build this beautiful little life together two people from vastly different worldviews, that they learn to see each other and to hear each other with some very real stumbles, to be sure, and some real boundary breaking and to acknowledge, but that even with that, they find love and they find connection, and that they wind up
living a full life where they the fact that they die in a way that has nothing to do with the zombies, that has nothing to do with the raiders. It's a little bit connected to the lack of medical care, that maybe they could have stretched out their life, but as I clearly say, it's not something that would have been fixed, that would have been cured. They one of them dies of natural causes and the other gets to basically decide
to commit euthanasia along with him. Now I'm worked up in It was so beautiful to get to see that, because to me, the message of that is that in the midst of this incredibly broken time that we're about to get a story of Joel and Ellie trying to see can they build connections with each other, that we start by seeing yes, it is possible, and that it is two men having gay love for each other that can have this um. You know, forgive me for the genre switch here, but you know,
finding love in a hopeless place, that's literally what it is. And it was just it was such a beautiful story. But I think also you're right, Danielle, if you're not queer, if you're not connected to those communities or or you know friends or family with people those communities, it's hard to understand why that mattered quite so much. Yeah, And that's why that's why I wrote the piece I did for simple Geek, because when I watched it, like I said, I watched it a few days before it came
out. I was so worried that people's biggest focus was going to be on Bill not meeting Ellie and the lack of interaction there, because that is a really fun part of the game. But I would have loved to see Bill Offerman's not Bill Nick Afferman's Bill meet Fella Ramsey's Ellie. I think that would have been hilarious. I also think Frank would have loved Ellie. But I was so worried people were going to be so hung up on that that they
would look past the beauty of this story. And some people were hung up on it, but the vast majority I was so happy to see were on board with a one hundred percent, And I think that that really speaks to a couple things. One, the power of storytelling in this series is just I mean, the level of the level of it is astronomical. It's just done so well. The acting, every aspect of storytelling here has just done
so well. And then also the fact that it's it's twenty twenty three now, and when that game was made it was twenty thirteen, or when it
was published it was twenty thirteen, and so much has changed. I'm a teacher at university, and I think that that's the place where you people can really see the way that things have changed identity wise, and especially for the queer community, because even though things aren't the way that they should be now, even compared to when I was in high school, when I was in university, people are so much more accepting in certain places than they were when
I was that age. And I think it's easier for a story like this to come out now than it would have been in twenty thirteen. Not to say that there weren't stories like this in twenty thirteen, that there weren't actual lives living stories like this then, but for it to be as widely accepted, it's so beautiful to see in a real I think, testament to the fact that these stories can change lives and can change society. Yeah. I mean, it's by no means the only definition of when gay rights happened or
queer rights happened. But the over fell Supreme Court decision in the United States legalizing gay marriage that happened two years after this game came out, you know, I mean, that is how recent a lot of these changes have happened. That just made me realize I mean, it hit me really hard when they got married on Fred's last day. Oh my god. Okay, And looking back when the world shut down for the pandemic, it was two thousand
and three, and that wouldn't have been okay. Gay marriage wasn't legalized, And the fact that they got to have a private ceremony and be married on their last day together is just so beautiful. Yeah, And even just stepping away from that part of it, that last day story meant so much to me. And I'm going to get into some very serious subjects here and so trigger warned for people making decisions similar to what they decided in the show.
My mother died of cancer about seven years ago. Now, eight years ago. We knew she could use chemo, she could use all of these things to extend her life as long as possible in a way that was not going to be pleasant for her, or she could just enjoy the last couple months of her life eating and smoking and drinking and having time with her family the
way she wanted. And that was hard for us. But I think their decision of her getting to go out on her own terms was one that was really important to me and one that I've continued to support and when I've been adjacent to other families where I think especially this happened a lot during the pandemic. And again here I'm going to be touching on some very sensitive stuff, but you know, I think there were families where I knew older people who
were saying I don't want to live. However, Long's pandemic is going in total isolation. I'm okay taking those chances so that i can be with my people and be with my family. And I'm not judging out anyone else handle those things. But to see that kind of discussion happen in this in the show, and to come to the conclusion that they did, of especially because each character clearly says I love you, I want you to be a part of my life, but I have made a decision regarding my death that you
do not get to have any control over. And Frank does it, and Bill is heartbroken. And then when Bill does the same thing, you can tell Frank's upset and he says that beautiful thing about I'm upset. I didn't want this, but it's also incredibly romantic. But to me, that was also Frank saying you have the exact same rights that I do. I get to decide when my time is up, and you get to decide when your time is up. And it was just, it was so beautiful about an
issue that is so rarely discussed in those kind of terms. Yeah, I agree. I think that it was the beauty of having a choice of getting like you said, getting to go out on your own terms, and the fact that they didn't die from this apocalypse. They died of natural causes. Essentially, they made the choice to go out the way they wanted to, and that's not something that often happens in real like outside of the apocalypse,
let alone inside it. And I think the line that broke me that I like, audibly, like was sobbing and wailing over was when Frank said, then love me the way I want you to, because outside of this being
a queer love story, it's just a love story. And that I feel like can be that many people, not even just in the queer community, can relate to because love is such a I always say this, love is a profoundly selfish and selfless thing, and it shouldn't be able to work the way it does because of that necessity, and it's so difficult to ask someone to trust someone to love you the way that you need them to, and that like, in some ways it might be selfish to ask of that,
but it's also selfless to give that. And the way that that works is that balance is giving the love that that person needs and knowing that they're going to also give you the love that you need. And I felt that that was portrayed so well in this episode that we got to see throughout their lives that you know, when Bill needed to give a little to make Frank happy, he did. When Frank needed to give a little to make Bill happy,
he did. And that's what love is, compromises and coming together and still staying true to yourself, but also acknowledging that this person is important enough to you that you are willing to live maybe a little differently than you would otherwise. And I just thought that was so beautiful and it's a great message and a great counter to the type of love that maybe we'll see throughout the
rest of the series and or not counter. But just like you know, love isn't the same across groups of people, and it manifests in different ways, and I think it's nice to have those examples of what love can look like when what you said. Also again, I'm just so struck by the brilliance of the writing and how it all ties together, because earlier we were
talking about how, you know part of Joel. Part of what Joel goes through with Ellie in episode four, you know, he had told her don't have a gun, don't have a gun, and his acceptance of her part of it is like he realizes she lied to him, she stole a gun, she did all these things he told her not to do, and he has to accept that, and instead, as you said, so powerfully, he's the one who apologize to her. They set up the connection that Bill
understands that Bill and Joel are very similar. And I think part of what the love me the way I want you to for me. That's a very powerful thing as the person who's more the person being taken care of to say to the protector, to say to the person caring, because it's also saying I know you want to keep me safe. I know you want to protect me. But loving me has to be willing to take chances, it has to be willing to lose me, it has to be willing to love me.
And the way I want to be loved, not the way you want to protect me. And I can never made the connection, but I think that's what Joel is learning, is that to care for Ellie and to protect her means to I don't think they're ready for the word love, but but that basically is what it is. It's learning to care for her and to relate to her the way she wants, not just the way he wants.
Where in that sending to a longer stands that he doesn't want another Sarah and he doesn't want to lose her again and that's yeah, it all ties together, so well, yeah, yeah, I think especially because he's asking Ellie to do a lot and he's not really until I think episode for given much to her except for protection. And I think that what we see a lot, especially with him finally caving and laughing at the puns, is that he realizes that that can't continue, like he has to give a little too,
And that was a really beautiful thing to see. Yeah, for me, the scene with the puns and like the sleeping bags just reminded me of like a sleepover when I was a kid, you know, and it's like dark and you and your friends are all tucked away and no one person starts laughing and the other person starts laughing. Go to bed, Go to bed, No, you go to bed. And I just thought it was a really
beautiful moment of connection between the two of them. M yeah, you know the fact that Joel finally laughs at her joke and he's starting to crack a little bit, and you know, he guesses and she goes, oh you dick, and they have that little fight and and they go to sleep. I think, feeling a little safer with one another. Yeah it watch it
with my partner and then telling my other partner about it. I mean, I have in my dating profiles like you must love bad puns as a form of love language, and like, you know, my partner Mary will often groan at the bad puns and we've realized, like that's that's the sign of appreciation. But maybe one out of every fifth, out of every like five, maybe one out of every like five or ten times I'll get her to
laugh and it's just such this happy moment. And like, so seeing that moment for Joel, it just I connected with it so well and it was just so good. Um. The one thing I want to say about that episode, and we can talk about some of the other stuff, but I think we've hit a lot of the stuff I wanted to cover. The other were two episodes before episode three, so they deserve a mention or two somewhere. The fact that Ron Swanson. Forgive me nick Offerman, but basically,
I mean he was playing Ron Swanson in the Apocalypse. You know, it was such a similar character, and that character, as played by Nick Offerman, was so much the symbol of libertarian masculine manhood and manly manly ways. You know, I eat only meat, and I have all my guns, and I have a permit that says I can do what I want. It says I can do what I want. And yes, that character is meant to be a parody of that kind of masculinity, but also became kind of
an icon of it in many ways. Nine times out of ten, I'm going to say I want a gay character played by a gay actor. I can't say how much it meant to me that it was Nick Offferman playing in that part. And for me, there's a double sense of it because I
am a gleek. I've revealed this terrible secret about myself. Another podcast and earlier in the day, the Sunday that I watched the episode, I was listening to a podcast about Glee where Chris Coulter, the actor who played Kurt Hummel, who famously gay in the show, was talking and his actor, the actor Chris himself is also gay and he got outed against his permission in
the course of the show. And he talked about how how much his publicists and his agents and everyone around him been been telling him, don't you ever get seen like wearing something or kissing another man like in his private life. If people know that you, as an actor are gay, you'll never get cast again. And Chris is an actor who I think he himself said this, like, you gotta kind of work hard to think he could be straight, Like, I mean, anyone can me it's not just stereotypes, but
he's not. It's not a huge leap to guess that he is. And so for that to have happened literally only like fifteen and sixteen years ago. And then now Nick Offerman this gay this you know, super masculine, masculine man play this part where it's not just that like I've seen other straight actors play parts like this where there's one chaste kiss on the lips, but mostly there's not. There was and the scenes were hot. The love scenes were
incredibly erotic. He had a shirt off for a lot of it. There was a lot of eroticism in them and a lot of like it wasn't you know, it wasn't like, you know, there's one clear masculine and then like who's the top, who's the bottom? They were both you know, they were both bears, which I love. I'm a bear type myself. I can't say how much that meant, just that Nick Offerman would play this
role and that it would be in this show. It just I talked about The Wire every now and then, and Omar Little, who's like a gangster who steals money from other drug dealers and is also gay, was a revolutionary figure because The Wire, or show about cops and criminals, is not where
you expect to have a gay main character. And I kind of feel the same about this, like the fact that it's not a show on Bravo that's going to have a lot of queer content, which I love those shows, but the fact that it's Nick Offerman in a zombie show, I just can't put into words. How much that meant. Yeah, I think the it's something that is so sorely needed because you have people who maybe otherwise wouldn't be
so on board with the story. But who let I mean, I don't know how you could be a fan of Nick Offerman and then not be on board with a story like this because he's very publicly an ally. But maybe people watching it who might be a little more of the typical you know Bill we see at the beginning of the episode themselves and might relate to him in many ways forced to think about if they can relate to him in this way and forced to you know, that doesn't mean that you have to be gay,
but can you be emotional? Can you open yourself up to someone? And that is a way you can relate to someone, You don't have to be exactly like them. I think a lot of times sometimes toxic masculinity in our society has encouraged you know, straight men and straight sis men to think
that they can't relate to gay men because that makes them gay. But the human connection goes so much deeper than that, and I think that I hope that this is something that showed that to these people who might think that way.
And I've seen comments of people who have, you know, southern conservative parents who are watching the show, but who actually we're crying at the end of that episode because they could relate to Bill's choices, like these men can relate to Bill's choices, Bill wanting to protect Frank, Bill at the end, choosing to go with him instead of because that was his purpose and instead
of living without his purpose. And I think that that is such an important part of storytelling, and like I said, I hope, I hope that it changes things, even if it's just little things in people's minds that make them think differently about this. Yeah, I'm with you there, especially even putting aside anything about the fact that the partner Bill is with his mail. I've don't like counseling work, and like sex said work with with younger book.
I've done counseling work and sex said work with young men. And one thing that I often here talked about is that all media, when it shows just two heterosexual people, or you know, a man and a woman who are going to have their first sexual encounter, generates as their teenagers or young adults. The woman is nervous, the woman has all these feelings of vulnerability and fear and stuff like that, and the man is like, cool,
I'm about to get late, and that's that's what it is. And I would talk to young men who had a lot of feelings of nervousness and vulnerability around their first sexual experience, either that had happened or there was going to
happen, and felt like he had never been seen. And so they say that Bill has one time been with a woman, but I think it's it's pretty clear that like this is his first time in many many ways, the amount of vulnerability that he showed as Frank is sort of approaching him on the bed where he's not. I never doubted that he was consenting, but I saw that nervousness and that vulnerability. I have never seen that from a man about a first sexual encounter, and that alone was just I'm getting so worked
up because of how much that meant to me. Yeah, So, since I was kind of speed watching these episodes, I was trying to fit it in during my twelve hour workday yesterday. So I was sitting there in the break room eating my lunch, and it was the scene of Frank and Bill kissing for the first time and being intimate in the bed and my friend walks in and she kind of looks over my shoulder. She's like, oh, what are you watching. I was like, Oh, I'm just watching Nick
Offerman falling in Love of Gaby relationship. She was like, oh cool. It was the scene where Frank was kissing down Bill's chest and she was like, does he want that? And I was like, yes, yes, it's his first time other than with a girl a long time ago, but yes, And she was like, oh, okay. He looked kind of
fearful. And I think that what you said is very true. We don't see that kind of vulnerability in men, especially for big, quote unquote manly men like Bill, like Nick Gofferman, and I think that it was very important to see on screen. So I know that there's some zombies that appear somewhere in this show, and we should probably talk about them at least a
little bit. I mean, I will say that the zombie genre has never really appealed to me that much, and part of what I love about the show is so far at least it really feels like a show about what people do in post apocalyptic settings, where the zombies are just the mcguffin to get
us to a post apocalyptic setting. But obviously there are all zombies and that's an important genre, and they're doing this really interesting take on them with the whole idea of it a fungus and the connectivity and that we're not doing the classic like you die and then come back as a zombie, Like these people are not undead in that traditional way for both of you, like kind of talk more about that side of the story as sort of how do you feel
about this as a zombie story in the way they're using that as moving the thing that moves the plot. I've never really been into zombie or like apocalypse stuff. It just never really grabbed me in the past. It all felt like just swarms of zombies that moved so slow, but no matter how fast you run, they're always going to catch you. But this idea that it's a fungus, it's an intelligence, and it grows and it wants to consume
the earth and consume the population. They are slow moving, but they're incredibly dangerous because one bite, one piece of infection, and you have fifteen hours maximum until you're one of them, and you're trapped inside your brain with this fungus controlling you. And I don't know exactly what was happening with the tests when she turned and he was putting that thing in her mouth, but my understanding is he was kind of planting like a hive mind into her. And
then they all blew up, so it didn't matter. But I just thought it was a new and interesting take unlike zombies or infected that I just haven't seen before. Yeah, going off of that about Tess's scene, her death scene, so I was really intrigued by that. And they talked about this
in their podcast. Craig Mazin and Nick Truckman talked about an official Last of Us podcast about how they really wanted to play around with the idea of why a fungus zombie was different than an undead zombie or like, you know, Kenny, is that contradictive, But in the idea is that the fungus has a purpose, if you will, and that's to spread as far as possible where us. You know, the undead don't really have a purpose just to eat flush. In the games, kind of the fungus part of it is
kind of taken away a little bit. It's not as prominent as it is in the show, and so it does seem like in the game like they just want to eat the fleshy, that they don't really care about spreading anything. But in the show, their primary objective or purpose is to spread as far as possible, to implant this in as many people as possible. So if that's the purpose, would you be aggressive one hundred percent of the time
or would it just be when people resisted? And so Craig Massen and Neil Druckman wanted to see what it looked like when someone didn't resist, and that was that it was very not brutal. It was disgusting, but not fierce. And I thought that that was really interesting to think about because the fungus is is different and it is there is a type of intelligence to it.
I think lots of people have talked about fungi and you know, plants about their own type of intelligence that they have, and to see how that can manifest through a body that isn't dead, that is still very much alive, is very interesting and terrifying because I would rather be undead than still alive, yeah, and have and be treated as a puppet. And that's that's what these infected are they're still somewhere in their brain, just not able to control
their bodies anymore. The fungus is doing that for them. And I think that that is just like absolutely terrifying and a really interesting way to tell a
story like this. It really is in part first of all, because it cuts off any degree of mysticism that has to do with zombies, And like, I think this is just a kind of trend that's been going, is that we're getting further and further away from their kind of being something mystical or magical about zombies in heart, which is good because a lot of the original stuff kind of has some really like racist ideas about like Vudan and kind of
Caribbean mystical cultures and things like that. But also just like it's getting more to the the end of being something natural in a way, which I really appreciate, but I also love because of the metaphor that that is. Like, I mean, think about the way you were talking about fungus, and now if you think back to the original Matrix movie and Agent Smith, he
basically describes humanity in that exact same way. He calls them a virus, not a fungus, but that same thing of just like the need for growth at all costs and just subsuming everything it comes into contact with. I mean, that's kind of humanity too. And there's also a great metaphor there of you in terms of international supply chains and our food and like the fact the idea that gets into the food and that's then just so basic that it gets
everywhere. Danielle. You usually put out a great video about this, about how it could be on TikTok, about how it could be that it's it's able to withstand cooking. But even that, there's so many ways we consume flour that hasn't been cooked, whether it's cookie dough, although you came from my cookie dough, which I was not okay with, but also you know, like every time I baked bread, I spread raw flour on there to you know, just to be able to you know, to be able to
work with the dough and things like that. And yeah, it's I grew up with vampires. I know. There's all sorts of generational or political debates about vampires for zombies, and to me, I'm I'm much moren't shot vampires. But if you're gonna give me a zombie, story. I feel like this is the perfect way to do it because you're doing any inching twist on it, and for the most part, the story is not really about zombies.
It's about the apocalypse. Yeah. Yeah. I tweeted a couple of weeks ago because when the first episode came out, I saw a lot of people saying, Oh, you know, if it wasn't for Pedro Pascal being in this, I wouldn't watch it because I'm just tired of another zombie story. And I was like, Oh, it's it's so much more than that.
And I don't expect people who haven't played the game to understand that, but I was trying to get across that, like, in my mind, it's different even than the Walking, Like it uses zombies as a background, a foundation to tell the story, and technically they're not even really zombies. I guess it depends on how you want to define zombies. But they that's just the foundation, that's just the you know, the setting of this.
It is so much more about human connection. And I meant that in the way that like that is more the focus than it usually is in in zombie stories and undead stories whatever, in such a different way, like I don't. I don't really know how to explain it, and I think that can across in the tweet because I'm aware that zombies and vampires are metaphors for are largely metaphors for the human condition, for you know, humanity and society,
and that none of these stories is really about the monster. It's about people, and I get that, but I also feel like sometimes creators don't dive into that in more than a metaphor oracle sense, if that makes sense. And my point is that The Last of Us does. It dives into it in a way that's not really a metaphor. It does have metaphors for it,
but it separates itself from that a bit. And I think that's what makes it so special, is that, Yeah, you have these these creatures that you have to kill and that you have to you don't want to get infected. That is a risk, but it's just another risk among many, and like that's become a natural part of it. And to me, it's different than things like The Walking Dead and Warm Bodies and you know, all the other zombie media out there, warm Bodies being I think the best Romeo
and Juliet Juliette out of patient that's never been. But that's all of the story. I'm just gonna say, I've never been so happy to be gluten. I mean, I don't think they're infecting almond flowery, you know what I mean. I appreciate that. I appreciate that perspective. Anything in the last comments to use, we wrap up. Oh, I guess just one
thing really quickly. We didn't talk a lot about Tests, but I do want to give that character a shout out, especially in the show, because they went into so much more depth with her character in the show than they do in the game, and they really made her in the short time that
she was there a female role model for Ellie. And even though they had a few conversations, the conversations they did have were Tests trying to impart some wisdom on Ellie and try to make sure that she stays alive and that she knows that just because she's just because she's a mune doesn't mean that she's immortal,
and there are other ways for her to die in the society. And it's such an important lesson for Ellie and to have it be Tests who teaches her that I think is really important because there's so few female role models for her, and I loved that. I also thought that her death scene was a lot more hard hitting than it was in the game. Oh my god. I didn't think she was going to be able to light it, like just looking at and I was like, you couldn't test this before. I
was like, no, why wouldn't you ask Joel for his lighter? Just engaged. I heard this idea once that the Zippo lighter company was gonna come up with some kind of lawsuit because, like, as someone who used to smoke, I was a goth, I smoked clothes. Cigarettes still miss them, but god, they're terrible for you. And I can tell you, like the whole point of zippos is they're much more reliable than your average just
like you know, two door lighter. And so the fact that in every movie that a Zippo has ever been pulled out either us to show that someone is sexy because they can use it, but most of the time it's gonna build dramatic tension around it, won't light, like the Zippo company has reason
for a lawsuits all I'm gonna say. But more seriously, though, I guess this should be my wrap up comment, it's funny that the three of us just recorded on Star Wars and are now doing this because part of what you were really ruined to me, of Danielle, is that both of you, this is fundamentally a story about finding hope, and in a lot of ways, there's kind of some weird parallels with like you know, Ellie is kind of like the Rebel Plans. You know, it's like the Death Star
Plans. It's a thing that can give us hope. And it again, to me, is why I think it's so important that we have the Bill and Frank story, because I think there's something to be said for You're in this horrible situation, and so your job is to fight the situation and to make the situation better and to have hope that everything can change. And I think that's a very important story, and I think that's clearly what we're going to get with the rest of this show. I assume no spoilers, please,
but I've seen a Hollywood story. I have some ideas, although clearly it's not going to be exactly what I expect. But Bill and Frank give you something very different, and they're kind of like the top from Clone Wars. Of that. It's like, because Bill gives up on any possibility that he can work with people like Joel or anything like. I don't think he knows that Ellie exists, but he gives up on the idea that his role is to help everybody. Him and Frank are just like, we're not here
to help everybody. We're here to create this little corner of stability insanity. And to me, I love that that the show is saying there is hope for that. And there's both these kinds of hope. There's the hope that you can be part of the movement to fix everything, but also there's just a hope that you can survive and you can find love and you can manage
to get through. And in a world where so many of us are burning out because we feel like we have to constantly be fighting everything, I think there's something beautiful in holding up both of those as equal, equally valid ways
to find hope. I think it's kind of like how it's so important to have shows like and or in Star Wars, but that gets so heavy and so traumatizing that it's also a necessity to have shows like The Bad Batch and Rebels that are still very emotional and still very meaningful, but approach the topic in a way that is a little bit easier on your soul. And you need that balance of it. You can't just have like one or the other. I love the TV show The Boys, but I think part of why
I like it there's nothing else in the Boys universe. But ever so much of the superhero universe is hope and is goodness and is optimism. Yet to me the Boys as and Or, it's so dark and it's so and they're going from more and more gross out, which I hate. But that's a whole other story. But but yeah, it's the same kind of thing of like and Or the Boys. They work because they're a counterpoint to everything else that's out there. All right, Well, thank you both so much for
being a part of this. For people who want to hear more of you, a should check out Star Wars Universe podcast because I just did some great content with both of them on the Bad Batch. But for people aren't Star Wars people or just want to hear from other things from you, Danielle, You've talked some about the other places that people can find you give us just the rundown, Where do they find your content on the Last of Us,
on Star Wars, on all the great things you talk about. So I'm on TikTok, written in the Star Wars, I'm on Instagram at Written in the sw and Twitter Danny s three nine four. I also occasionally write some articles for the Last of Us and the Bad Batch on Temple of Geek Awesome. Yeah, and all those notes, all those links will be in the show notes. And for Aaron, you're doing all this great stuff with cosplay
and learning about that. Where can people find your content? Yeah, So my handle is Lady period Tano period Creates, and that's on TikTok and Instagram mostly. Right now, I'm posting just a lot of cosplay work in progress stuff, a few events I've been to, and some other stuff about the podcast. But after watching the show and watching the new Avatar movie The Way of Water, they've both really grabbed me and I'm thinking, I think it's
start. It's time to expand my platform and start talking about some others. I love it. Well, thank you both so much for our patrons. We're gonna have a little bit of bonus content. We've been recording a while, so it's gonna be pretty darn short, but we all have a little bit. But for everyone else, of course, please think about supporting the show through the podcast, through the patron You can find it all on our show notes or on the website The Ethical Panda. But if you also just
go to patreon dot com the Ethical Panda, you'll find it. You get access to our bonus content. Most of you just help keep the show going. We'd love to hear your feedback. What do you think of the show? As I said, we're going to do more episodes on it. Professor Matthew Copal, He's going to come on and talk about the folklore and history
of zombies and all the different like there's a whole political theory. I hadn't realized that about about zombies versus vampires, and different ideas about like you know, one being pre or one being post HIV world. You know, there's so much stuff we're going to talk about. We'll probably definitely have other people back on. Check out all that give us feedback, The Ethical Panda dot com, Patreon dot com, all the great links these do have, and most importantly, have a great day.