Warning, This podcast contains spoilers for the Last of Us Episode five. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and on Rosey Night, and welcome to Next Revision the Crooked Media podcast, where we are diving d all the way down to the sinkhole beneath Kansas City. Do we talk about your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture?
In this episode, we're digging into episode five of The Last of Us. In the alge just Gonna make you cry again, Sorry, and in nerd Out, we've got a really brilliant theory about the importance of Marvel video games in the MCU, which feels particularly relevant right now with the way DC is trying to cross those things over.
Of course, if you want to jump around, check out the show notes for time stamps. Let's go to the airlock. We're stepping out of the airlock and into the remnants of Kansas City's czy for episode five of The Last of Us on HBO and HBO Max, titled Endurance Survived. This episode was written by Craig Mason and directed by Jeremy web And Boy, for all the folks who were like this needs to be more of this show needs
to be more like the video game. Last two episodes have given us the more like the video game part of this story and this execution.
Yeah, and I think that a lot of people who played the game off the seeing episode three were wondering at the end of episode four, when we saw Henry and Samurai, if that would be a kind of Bill and Frank reconsideration.
There is in a time any kind of nuanced moments.
But if you're ready to get your heart broken because you saw them, it's gonna happen.
This episode. It's just brutal. We open in a flashback of what we learn is about ten days before the arrival of Joel and Ellie and Kansas City, and it is the fall of Fedra in the Kansas City QZ. The rebels, Kathleen's rebels, we are soon to learn, are celebrating their victory with fireworks and flares and chances and freedom and torture and the summary execution of various federal
soldiers and citizen collaborators we are soon to meet. Trucks are circling the streets making the pretty unconvincing announcement that collaborators who surrender will receive a.
Fair truck I'm pretty sure that if you just look out in the streets at what happened here, you got them fair trial statement is not really ringing true.
I mean they're like straight up hanging people out here. Yeah. And I also I want to give you a shout out because I do.
I do feel like even though it was like, you know, Drugman and Mason had said, oh, there's this kind of revolutionary aspect.
I feel like a lot of people, including.
Myself, the first time I watched it in episode four, it was kind of like the Kathleen stuff kind of felt very quick and we didn't really get a lot of insight into motivations. But you were absolutely right about kind of the space that she takes up in this world.
This was an anti federal revolution that was led by Kathleen, who, as we gonna learn and as you pointed out last week, sees Henry as the reason for like a great loss in her life, and it was kind of crazy to see that just come directly to life.
And it's such a good This episode is so good.
At expanding on this kind of moral gray area that the show is really trafficking in compared to the kind of good in the game you know, the hunters, they're just evil, but here we learn a lot about the lengths people will go to survive. That's kind of how I feel like this episode.
Is I agree with you that something like the overthrowing Fedra I guess you could argue is like, certainly it was just listen. We find out how they were hanging people. We find out that Fedra here had a reputation for cruelty and that they had a twenty year reign of rape, murder, and torture. I'm all four overthrowing them. I also think, like, it's not thirty seconds into the revolution before the thing goes off the rails into completely indefensive one.
Yeah, we learn we learn pretty quickly that there's two versions of what this revolution could be, and it's because it is Kathleen who's leading it that it goes this way.
It is a It is a vehicle for her vengeance, we are soon to learn. So hiding in the streets as this chaos is unfolding is Henry and a young death boy Sam. Henry tells Sam what they're gonna do. You know what the plan is to get out of here using sign language, and it's basically, hey, stay close to me. We don't worry. Everything's gonna be fine. We're gonna get out of here. Elsewhere, we see Kathleen lording
in her victory over FEDRA. She's got a bunch of FEDRA prisoners not even collaborate, they're citizen collaborators whom Wood were doing what they needed to do to survive.
There is a moral grayness there, but that is the question is some of these people were doing it for unbelievable reasons, and some of them, like she points out, we're doing it to like get fresh fruit. So it's kind of like there's a there's a very strange system that was put in place by this fascistic FEDRA who would lead in the QS.
And you know, FEDRA clearly created its antagonist because Kathleen, she says, we learned that. We learn that her lieutenant's name is Perry. She says, you know, Perry, I used to be so scared of these people, and now look
at them. And she's talking about the thing you were saying, which was that apparently these collaborators did what they did in order for access to medicine, to fresh food, to you know, whatever counts as a luxury in the Kansas City QZ and the rest of the population received depression and torture and probably murder. And she says, did you make did it make you feel better? Did it make you feel safe? How does it make you feel now in this way that you understand that you're not going
to get any kind of fair shake with her. She insists that there will be trials, although she then says right afterwards, but you're all guilty, so we know how that'll go, okay, And then she says, and you'll do some time, but first you're gonna have to basically give up the information on other collaborators. Specifically, the one that Kathleen wants above all others is Henry. Where is Henry? There's no answers, So Kathleen's like, okay, Perry kill them all.
And then so a guy's like, oh wait, wait, he's with Edelstein. This is we are soon to learn the doctor from the previous episode, and apparently it is a shock to Kathleen that Edelstein was a collaborator. She is she is very surprised to learn this, and the man tells Kathleen that Edelstein has he had a safe house somewhere out in the city in case quote things went bad,
but he doesn't know where. So Kathleen orders her people to go door to door until Henry is found, and Perry's like, I think pretty wisely is like, wait, hold on, we just like literally just had a revolution. Maybe we need to stabilize things, like we could use people in different places doing different things, not just like hunting for one guy. And Kathleen is like.
Excuse me what She's like, he's not my seventh priority, Like he is my number one priority?
Is he not your number one priority? And it is very clear from this interaction that whatever, whatever the reason is that people follow Kathleen, a significant ingredient to that reason is fear. They are both entranced but also afraid of her, afraid to cross her in any kind of way. And then he's like Perry's like, hey, are we really putting him on trial? And gal Arry, Pry, babe, what are you saying? Absolutely not just why did you have
to loss? If yeah, go on, we got we got people like smashing broken bottles into people's juggulars outside, you know, like there's no trial, there's no trials going on Henry, And we see Henry and Sam enter a building. There's gunshots ringing out in the streets behind them. Meet Edelstein climb up to the attic that we also saw in the previous episode, and this is the safe house that the man was talking about, and Edelstein is telling Henry
and Sam, hey, this is safe. There's water, there's toilets. You can stay here for a while. And we also learn important information coming off of the end of the previous episode that Henry's gun is empty. He's bluffing, flat out bluffing. So Henry's plan is to sneak out through the tunnels, which Edelstein thinks, why don't you just hang yourself here in this it's a very it's the timeline.
We will find out why, Laiza, Yes, we will. Edelstein then asks if Sam the boy is scared, and Henry's like, yeah, I mean he saw twenty five murders, you know, many many MUDs. Yeah, And then Edelstein says, he's scared because you're scared. So Henry ta the hint and goes to ease the boy's mind, basically saying, hey, look at how brave I'm being. I'm not scared of this. I'm not scared of what's going on, and he gives Sam a big bag of crayons and the boy starts to decorate
the area. We see the drawings, of course at the end of the previous episode, but I think there's something really affecting, Like it really got me this, Like it just shows you. So he's drawing illustrations of this superhero called Savage Starlight wears red mask and it has cost you much like Superman, and it just kind of shows you, like the power of the superhero fantasy, of the idea that there is a powerful person who's not going to misuse their strength and who's going to do the right thing,
and who's going to come and save people. And it must feel Henry must feel so powerless in this moment, just a flesh and blood person doing is surrounded by these pictures that are like the embodiment of this fantasy that Sam has that someone, some hero can just put a stop to this.
Yeah, And I think something that's really interesting too, is like I love that because it is this this idea of this comic book superhero kind of becomes really important this episode. But also I think something that's very interesting is the pictures that Sam is drawing and painting. They include the superhero like killing Feder, like this is like it's it's both sides, like he has seen violence from both sides, but a lot of his dream was like this superhero would come and kind of get rid of
Feder and get rid of this fascistic force. And it's this really heartbreaking reality of what that ended up looking like. And the fact that now the person that Sam wanted to save them somebody stopping Fedra is now the person who's hunting them down. And yeah, the visuals, the visualization of this drawing and the drawing I'm assuming the act to Dig because we see him doing all like beautiful,
so beautiful and really moving. And they also remind you that this is just a kid, like this is an eight year old kid, you know, and it's oh yeah, just really really powerful stuff. And these two actors who portray these characters are just.
Such good casting.
Like it's Lamar Johnson as Henry and Covon Woodward as Sam, and it's just like it's just like Bill and Frank.
You want to see more of them, You want to see more. I want to see more. X Ray Vision will be back. We're excited to announce the return of Stuck with Damon Young, in original podcast from Crooked and Spotify. On this show, award winning author Damon Young has returned for more off the cuff conversations inspired by today's most culturally relevant headlines and roundups of Damon approved listeners submitted questions.
He's joined by some of the brightest minds and bold voices of the black community, including Keise Layman, Roy Wood, Elaine Welterroth, Nicole, Hannah Jones, and Moore. The trailer is live right now. In the first episode drops February sixteenth. Listen to Stuck with Damon Young for free only on Spotify, and we're back. We fast forward ten days. The pair are down to their last can of food. Henry looks outside and the roundup of collaborators, even ten days later is continuing.
And it's this very like there's like tanks driving down the street on timing. This is like become a military as much of a military operation as feder You can tell like they're ready to keep this town. Oh yeah, I.
Said it before, and it's a thing that I've talked about in other pods, But it's like you don't you don't think about an enemy as a person or a group that you have a relationship with. But the relationship between antagonists is a very real one. And in this case, just like in many cases, the enemy created the mirror image of itself that has not taken over. Like for whatever, whatever the the high flung ideals of freedom and a return to safety and security that that sparked this revolution war,
they've become fedra. They are for all intensive purposes, the thing that they overthrew. Sam meanwhile, ten days later, continues to draw. He's passing time with his art and all the while, Kathleen's people are getting closer, getting closer, getting closer, and Edelstein hasn't been back in a while. He went on may not.
Du and its coming back, may not return.
Sam flat out is like he's dead, isn't he. Henry's like, probably, yeah, he's probably dead. Sometime after this, Henry is like, Sam, we got to leave. We have to leave, and I know that's scary, but here again, Henry, trying to be that superhero, is like, don't worry, because I've analyzed almost like almost like in a video game, you know, like I've analyzed the patterns that I've used them every day, like,
we can make it. Yeah, we can do it. We can get past them because I've watched their patterns and you trust me. I can you know, don't worry, I
can do it. And again they embrace, they hug, and they're surrounded by these drawings, and there again you get this feeling of of how small and weak Henry has to feel with this incredibly heavy burden that he has surrounded by these images of what that the person he's sworn to protect, you know, dreams about, which is just like a person who would come and protect them.
Yeah, And it's this really heartbreaking kind of evolution as we get through that episode too, because we come to see that and learn that Henry in no way sees himself as a hero. He sees himself as the bad guy. So to constantly have his brother like dreaming of this heroic figure or seeing Henry as this heroic figure, is like really a heartbreaking thing.
So they're getting ready to leave their safe house when they hear a screech of tires and gunshots and this is the sound of the ambush of Joel and Ellie, and Henry watches all this unfold through the window, and he turns to Sam as he watches Joel, you know, in Henry's mind easily dispatch like two of Kathleen's militia. He turns to Sammy says, new plan. So now we're back where we left off in the previous episode. Henry and Sam. They get to drop on Ellie. Henry has
his gun on Ellie. Sam has his gun on Joel, and Henry immediately feels that Joel is the danger. So he's like, hey, look at me, listen, We're not here to hurt you. We can help each other. We haven't hurt you at all, Like we didn't shoot you. I'm gonna put my gun down, and then you know, we can have a truce, right, we can just you know, was that okay? And it's very obvious that Henry has not done shit like this before. He doesn't know what
to do in a situation like this. And it's also obvious just by Joel's demeanor that he's a hard ass, that he's a Yeah, I mean he has seen him kill guys like just the other day.
Yeah, But it's also just like in the moment, he is not scad Like if Joel wanted these kids, he could disarm them.
Uh So, when Joel is like to Henry's query of like, hey, so I'm gonna put my gun down, it's cool, right. When Joel says like okay, like the undertaker or something, Henry is really and rightfully nervous and is like, hey, it's really weird the way you said okay. And Ellie's like no, no, no, he's just got like resting asshole voice. But you can't help being like that, right, Joel. So Henry's like, okay, fine, I'm gonna trust you, but if you try anything like I'm going to shoot Ellie. Of course,
Now again Henry's gun is empty. Henry then tells Joel uh that he and Sam are brothers, and that he is the most wanted man in Kansas City. The militia out there they're searching, they're looking for him. Although right now Joel and Ellie are probably you know number two,
you're running in close second, he says. Later, they eat off Joel and Ellie supplies, and Ellie introduces herself and makes really effective small talk the way that kids just can you know, like these are they immediately fallen together as people, as peers people broadly in the same age group, and you can tell that Ellie just like delights in being around Sam.
And she's so happy to see Sam and just yeah for the power of them to kind of have somebody who's more on her level, who also gives her someone to kind of like look off, uh, and also is not Joel, who is like really cranky all the fucking time.
So they're having this dinner and Ellie's introduced herself to Henry and Sam. She's asked Sam how old he is. There's this nice little rapport building, and then Ellie hits Joel on the leg like are you going to introduce yourself, and Joel like, I'm Joel. Listen, we didn't kill each other. Let's call this a win win and get out of here, to which Henry is like, no, I have an offer. Clearly, you two, Henry says, came up here to find a
way out of the city. I know the way. I know the way out of the city, and I promise tomorrow I will tell you what it is. So the next day it's light, we see that they're in like a conference room of what was formerly like a business office, and they're looking out at the streets of Kansas city. There are humbies going up and down Kathleen's people, and you know, Henry's like, welcome to what does he call it? We Killer k C. And apparently Casey Fedra was the
worst of the world. It's unclear like how much coordination and command and control there is in feder.
It seems pretty clear got dropped in and then it was just like survive.
Yeah, And it seems pretty clear that each feder that controlled whatever QZ was just kind of doing its own thing without any kind of oversight, you know.
And the baseline was terrible, Like if we look at the Boston QZ, they were just hanging people for leaving the QZ. And it seems like in spite of how bad that was, this is this is worse.
So Henry talks about it. He says, you know, this was the worst of the worst. The Federal here were rapists, murderers, Their reign of terror went into a like the moment basically the QZ was built. And he says something I think very important here. He says, what happens when you do that to people the moment they get a chance, they do it right back. And that's what's going on now. Henry then tells Joel that listen, I'm not Fedra, I'm
kind of work. I'm a collaborator. And Joel's like, I don't work with rats today, you do, Henry says, because I know this city, and he goes about proving it. Can I just say Joel is a hypocrite? Yeah, because I saw that. I saw that, Like, I know he didn't. I know he like, I get it. He's not a snitch, he's not, but he has informed on people.
He hasn't informed on people, but I saw him like given Fedrick, drugs, get him ration cards, well sneak. It's it's the levels of what you have to do to survive. And we learn that Henry is weighed this, this is weighed heavily on him what he had, He did.
Very very recently admit that he ambushed and murdered innocent people exactly Joel Jewel riding the smallest high horse ever witnessed. Also, this guy is like.
A teenager as well. Like that's the other thing. I'm like, Joe, you're like fifty six, bro, Like you probably rid on people when you're a teenager, though, you know not to defend collaborators.
I think this.
I think this is one of the most interesting thing about this episode is like it's all about this horrifically morally gray area of like what you do for survival, and at no point are they like this is the right thing or this is the wrong thing, other than like Kathleen's vengeance is obviously like consumed her. But there is this really interesting pullem push in this episode about I agree, the lengths people will go to survive and how that can be like weaponized.
Yeah, you're absolutely right on the kind of scale of immoral behavior. For some reason, we joel ambushing innocent people to take their clothes and food and guns and whatever else they had somehow feels maybe because it's more active in the in the you know, within the context of we did what we had to do, feels like more
actively doing what you had to do. That feels somehow more honorable, that's the right word, because you're doing it you had to do by informing on people who will then go out and do the thing that you were too weak or unarmed to do yourself.
Informing on people to survive when those people were probably just doing what they had to survive. It's this, it's this really horrible kind of a Rowborus cycle. But yeah, I think they do a really interesting job, as we'll learn a bit further in this episode, of really expanding on that space with Henry's story and making he he essentially becomes like the person with the un the unchoosable task. That's like they do a great job of building it
into empathy. He is not one of these people who was, you know, informing on his neighbors to get an apple.
Like, there's so much more to it.
But I love the way that they kind of have that reaction from Joel. But then we get to see, just like in the game, Henry is really the first person that it feels like Joel kind of opens up to even more than like Ellie, Like there's this kind of unexpected connection there, probably because of these caretaker.
Roles, Yeah, very clear parallels. Joel asks a really important question, which is why you're doing this if you know the way up and just fucking go? Uh, And Henry's like, because you're good at fighting and I'm not. And the way we're gonna go is really dangerous. Now I'm gonna tell you what it is. And also my gun is not loaded, so and I've never I've never physically killed anyone. So I need you. Yeah, I need you because, like you, you're good at this. And then Ellie is like, yeah,
we killed two clickers on the way out here. He's like, see, like you killed two clickers. That's and that clicker and you survived. Like that is such a great It's such a small thing, but a really important moment to let you know how the really, really fierce joy is a fight, and of course we're going to see it at the end of this episode. So then Henry tells him how they're gonna get out. He draws a map, basically a box of four highways in which they are the middle.
They are inside that box in the former QZ, which is now controlled by Kathleen's forces. What they need to do is get across one of these highways out to the river, across the river to safety. But they can't do it above ground. The way they're going to have to go it's below ground, these maintenance tunnels that were built to connect various properties that were once owned by the same real estate developer. And so Thenjoel again he's like, well, so,
why what do you need me for? Yeah, go ahead, and do it and then and then Henry gives them the bad news. Okay, so there's no infected here, as you've noticed, he says, drove them underground fifteen years ago and haven't let them up since. Only good things those vascious motherfuckers did. But good news, Henry says, the tunnels are empty. How do I know? Someone told me it was only like three years ago. This is I actually love this because there's two things I really love about
this one. It's a really cool explanation for the evolution of the infected. It's like such a cool idit.
And if you've ever read Max Brooks World War Zoo, which I just think is like one of the best like sci fi horror books I've written, there is a whole plot line about how a certain country, when the zombie apocalypse happened, basically they hid all that they all moved underground. But then the rumor has it that basically the reason no one ever heard from them again, even after other places started to recover, was because a zombie had gotten in. And it's this idea of all these
people living underground who have been infected. It's such a scary vision. And something else I found that was really cool after I watched this episode, is that Kansas City actually does have like real ancient underground maintenance tunnels. So I thought that was a really cool addition. But yeah, I love that, Like the idea that fedro this federal was so brutal that they actually managed to essentially like.
Rid that city of infected. That's like unheard of.
It sounds absolutely bonkers, but it tells you something about them.
And of course, you know, Henry's like, oh, it's all good now, like three years ago they cleared it. A sure sounds too good to be true, my friend, But here's the upside, here's the actual upside. Henry tells them Kathleen's people won't be there. They're gonna be looking in the tunnels, knowing everybody's too scared to go down there. And you guys are really good. You killed two clickers. You can handle it. So they head out down through the lobby of an office building, into the basement and
down again into the tunnels. Joel and Ellie, after what they have already been through their short time together, are already on edge. Henry is just like chat, hey, hey, look it's empty down here, and they're shut. Joel, of course, is not convinced. He just tells them, hey, be ready to run. So they move through these tunnels quite a long ways until they get quite surprisingly to this area.
It's like a concrete box with a door on the other side, and the concrete walls are painted with scenes as if from a kindergarten or a grade school, you know, happy children, giant flowers, golden castle. There's a door. They go through the door and it's the remnants of an elementary school that was built underground. Joel says, I read about places like this people went underground after outbreak day
and very interesting to read the whiteboard behind them. There's a whiteboard with the message the rules of the school still up. One, make sure the doors are a lot to ask for the password if you don't know the visitor. Three, no shouting or noisy play for run to the hiding spot. When you hear the alarm, and Joel thinks, well, it infected. Must have somebody didn't follow the rules. And yeah, I thought there was a great moment when they first see this,
like beautiful painted kind of mural. Sam is so excited as an artist, and he kind of runs ahead and you get this great moment from Joel where you know that Joel of like four days ago would have just that kid, would have been the canary in the coal mine. But he stops him, and he pushes him back, and he goes back in front, and he's getting a little
bit more of that caring. There's something about the idea of looking after these kids in a way he couldn't look after Sarah that is really changing who he is. And I thought this was such a cool, spooky addition, this kind of empty grade school that feels like it's going to be this creepy resident evil type space, but actually ends up being almost like a sanctuary for them for a little bit. It's a really smart inversion of
kind of what we get what we expected. Sam and Ellie find a Savage Starlight comic and then just bond over it. She tells him that she has issues four, five, six, and eleven. He has issues five, six and eight. They you know, kind of reference the tagline of this series, which is Endurance Survive, and at Ellie's urging really with Henry agreeing it's a good idea, they decide to stay there until dark, when they can move around above ground
more safely. Ellie and Sam passed the time playing together, and Joel and Henry, as you mentioned, start kind of like opening them up up to each other. And Joel, already a different guy I think than he was a few days ago, basically apologizes so like, hey, I didn't know your situation. If you collaborated to help him, I get it, like we've all done things. Yeah, He's like, I shouldn't have judged you. Yeah, I shouldn't have judged you. And then Henry is like, oh yeah, what do you
think about this? And didn't just collaborate and just inform? I informed on a great man, a great and charismatic leader. Sam got sick leukemia. The only drug that could save him was of course, controlled by FEDRA, and so to get it, I informed on this person and this person the leader and I guess figurehead of the Casey resistance movement was Kathleen's brother, which is we learned now why she's after him. And he says, still think you should take it easy on me? Or am I the bad guy?
He says, And he says, I'm sure I'm the bad guy because I did bad guy stuff. And Joel doesn't say it, but you can also tell there's a bunch of different emotions going across Pedro Pascal's face here, but you can definitely tell that one is discussed at what happened and also you did what you had to do.
Yeah, he he is accepting of this kind of horrible story that he has to tell. And there's something you know, Henry explains that this guy like always forgave, he was always kind. He he had been leading this moment and had this kind of this love for all the people in his community. But you know, as we're going to find out, he led the revolution, but he didn't lead them to revolt.
That was Kathleen. So it's like, you.
Know, this Henry unintentionally kind of inspires the actual revolution by by informing on on this man who you know, meant so much, but he did it for like, like we were saying earlier, like this is a choice you would never want to have to make watch your eight you know, child, a child die because the government is withholding their medication, and you can get that medication if
you just make one choice. It's all about this idea off you have to sacrifice one life for another, you know, and it's it's such a heartbreaking kind of expansion.
But like you said, Joel, Joel is judging him. You know, honestly it would have been. You can't make any excuses for what it's clear that Fedra did, But the actions of Kathleen's forces in their victory also show that, like, okay, well kind of what's the difference? Like this story, this episode really made me think about how whether someone's a hero or a villain really depends on when you meet them.
You know, when when in your when in their story do you arrive because you know where we arrived with Joel, is he's a hero because we never saw him ambushing and killing untold numbers of innocent people. We see Henry as a hero because though he did something horrific and indefensible, he's also a completely powerless person trying to protect his
brother on the run from maniacs with guns. Kathleen, maybe if we'd met her two weeks ago, we would have been like what an yeah, like and now it's like she's power mad and vengeful and like not doing the thing that will actually help her community, Like this is a personal grievance you should be rebuilding. Why are you doing this? There's also an important moment here in this exchange where Henry can just immediately tell that Joel was once a father because of the way he's like protecting
Ellie even though he knows that they're not related. We go back to Kathleen, who is hanging out in the Federa orphanage where her and her brother were raised. Perry finds her there h he has no information for her, no idea where Henry is, no idea where Joel is, no nothing, And he says that he asked, you know, people have been looking for her, that nobody had any idea where she was, and they had to talk to
her mom to figure out that she'd be here. And then Kathleen starts reminiscing about her brother and how and he really did seem like a great guy. You know, he acted as her protector, he did, you know, he begged her to forgive her enemies. That even the last thing that he said to her with when he was in.
Prison, he said, forgive Henry, like he did what he had to do, just forgive him. But she know, and she knows that like her brutality and her violence and all these terrible things she's done, of things he would hate, like if he was here, he would be so disappointed in her. And she assumes that Perry is there to basically say to her, like your brother would say, nay, Henry alone, like let's just build, let's make things bout. But nah, Perry's in, He's he's all in on the Kathleen train.
And this is the this is the danger of violence is like again, like no one can. It must have felt good and just and right, and indeed it probably was to rebel against feder and take them down. At the same time, the people who were called to violence are often like the least stable and worst people you know, and uh, and Kathleen is definitely not the person who you want to be following in a post revolutionary like.
She took the following her brother had and utilized because her brother died ten days ago, you know, and then the revolution happened like it was within that timeframe.
That is the reason Kathleen is the leader. What did your brother do?
He was great, but he didn't overthrow fed You opened to Fedra because you were so violent and angry and consumed by this vengeance that you could, and you enlisted the people around you who had followed your brother to do it. It's a it's a very interesting character study. And obviously mel Nielenski is like incredible.
She brings a an almost like she brings a pettiness to what is a very important clearly like you know, existential matter, and I think it says so much about her character. She's just like aggrieved, she's like really hurt and angry. And also it's just in charge of, like of what is a very very dangerous like mob of armed people.
Yeah, it's such clever casting too, because it's like, and this is what Melanie has always been great at. From Heavenly Creatures, the Yellow Jackets. Like, people see her and you're like, oh, that's someone who's like a mom, that's
like my mom. Like, so to see her in this midst of this rage, it's not like some tattooed zombie survivor with one arm, Like, this is just a woman who looks like a really normal white woman in it, and she's just been absolutely consumed by this fury and like you said, that pettiness, that aggrievedness.
So when you see her, you know, I saw a.
Few people who were like I don't know if I buy it, Like I'm like, that's your own conception of what somebody like that can be like in this the whole point of this character in this story is like, how would this affect normal people?
Make them behave?
And in Kathleen's case, it's this kind of nightmarish vengeance which will eventually destroy her entire community.
X Ray Vision will be back and we're back. Finally, Henry and the group emerged from the school and they come out on the other side of the highway through a parking garage. They're in a suburb now it's night, no one around. Henry is extremely proud of himself and he should be. He actually should be.
I have to say, she's supremely great fake out by the show too, Like I'm like, oh, this is it, Like they're gonna be underground, it's gonna be like the subways in the game.
Like they're gonna have to be killing the zombies. No, this actually legit Like was a great plan, great plan, it worked. What could you say? Joel of course would like everybody shut the fuck up because the river. They're close to the river, but they're not there yet. And then Ellie, surprising Joel invites Henry and Sam told come with them to wyoming Joel, you could just tell is
he's like hard no on that. But before they can really discuss it, shots ring out a sniper in a house at the end of the street and they're hiding behind a car kind of pinned down. Joel tells Ellie, Okay, you guys stay here, I'm gonna go around, sneak on top and you know, sneak up to that house and take the sniper out. This guy is bad aim. And also he's wasting like a ton of This guy's like yeah, yeah, yeah, he's bullets. Is a very interesting part of that, like the reality.
Of how this would happen, Like sure, Kathleen has this petty vengeance kind of fueling her, and Perry seems to have some kind of military training, but not everybody in Kansas City, in this community would have that. Like she knew the doctor. These are people they've known their whole lives, and some people aren't going to be trained to be a sniper. This man's just wasting the bullets he shooting. Honestly,
not gonna lie. I do believe that. I like Joel's idea, and also it gets in this really great position of like enacting one of the the really like intense parts of the game.
But also I don't necessarily think Henry and Sam are wrong.
If they'd have just done the zig zag run, they all could have probably gotten away and hide.
Behind the cars. But just to murder someone it's been a while he does, and there's and also like there's an important moment here where as Joel is leaving, Ellie's like, no, don't do this, it's stupid, and he's like, do you trust me? And she does.
There's like a moment, but then she nods and it's just like there's something there and she.
Doesn't want him to go. She doesn't want to be alone, she doesn't want to not have Joel at her side. It's it's a big moment. It was a big and very very touching moment. You know, as you know from playing the game, you gotta get that soup rifle acquire as soon. I actually found it really.
Interesting because there's so much of this episode narratively, especially with Sam and Henry, that's.
So directly taken from the game.
But then there's also quite a lot of diversion with Kathleen and with Kansas City instead of Pittsburgh. And then you end up in this situation where as soon as they get to that street of cars, I was waiting for the sniper because I knew I knew that Joel was gonna and that's when my heart started to sink because it meant I knew the way the episode was ending.
And but yeah, yeah, you've got to get in there.
And I love this because this this moment as well, like you know, when Joel gets into the house, it is just it's a really great telling character moment of the kind of Joel that we have in this Joel was tired in the game, but he's not really tired emotionally or soulfully of killing people. That doesn't feel like it's more just like, oh, this sucks. I wish I
didn't have to live in the zombie Apocalypse. But in this moment when we see him and he sees that there's this old man with bad aim, and he says to him, he's like, just give me the gun and stay in your position and just don't tell anyone that I was here. And the guy turns to him and Joel's like, don't try and shoot me.
Joel, doesn't that you want to kill someone in that moment, I take it back. He actually is like he is heartbroken.
He doesn't want to kill another person. This is an old man. He's like, don't do it, my friend. He's like, just don't do it.
Joel sneaks over as you mentioned, gets the drop in. The old man gives him the opportunity. He's just like, just give me the gun and sit in this room for an hour. That's all you gotta do. Don't do and then he the guy doesn't, so he kills him, and then everything seems like it's gonna be great. But then a radio cracks to life and you hear Kathleen's voice and the guy called called it in, already called Kathleen. He already called it away. And so Kathleen's forces are
they're like right here. So Joel yells out the window of run. Kathleen has a convoy of trucks and then the lead truck is like this garbage truck with like a plow on the front, and it's just like pile driving Rerex out of the way. We had this great action sequence where Jull snipes the driver.
Just like you feel like you're just like you feel like you're just in the game, and this time is like there's more of Kathleen's people are coming and you're just thinking, like when of the infect are gonna show up, because that's the next people that you've got to snipe. But this truck's just pile driving. There's this huge you
think Ellie's gonna get caught. She you know, she kind of she has this moment where she falls over when in front of the truck after Joel saves her and you see someone grabbing her and you're like, oh no, but it's Henry. Henry goes out of his way to save her life and he pulls her behind the truck. And I think in that moment when Joel sees Henry do that, there's like a switch that flips.
Yeah, He's like, okay, these I have to go all out to save everyone. So the truck that was chasing them blows up and crashes into the front of the house. And as this is happening, all of Kathleen's people are pouring out of their cars. There's like there's like one hundred and fifty two hundred people out there, so many people, this feels like it might be all of them.
Like it might be it feels like more of the revolution and this is everyone like they're so consumed.
It's the it's the mob with the pitchforks. Yeah, and they are angry. Kathleen calls to Henry. She's like, hey, just like come out and let's just deal with this. He doesn't. He wants to some assurances that like Sam and Ellie are gonna be fine, Like first of all, Ellie's not involved in this, and second, well Sam's a kid, and she's like, no, no, we're gonna kill him. Sorry,
there's they're definitely dead. So that's not even on the table, she tells them, and you realize, Okay, Kathleen is if you needed any more, you know proof, You now know that Kathleen is just way way away.
From she's unhinged, kind of Final Destination esque rant where she's like, well, if kids die, kids diling, if Sam was supposed to die, and this is you getting what you'll come up and says, because you fucked around with fate, she's death, the angel of death.
He has to, you know, kill Henry and avenge her brother.
Though it's not gonna make anything better or change anything other than add two more notches to her her bloody belt.
Yeah, you can really here get the sense that she is fucking drunk on power. Yeah, or at least getting drunk, because you know, when you start talking about fate and you messed with fate and kids just you know, can die. Who cares like they die all the time. That is just too much. And I'm like, Joel, can you just like shoot her right now? Like shooter he was?
I guess you kind of get these shots of him looking and he's trying to like kind of work out the lay of the land. Yeah, and like obviously if he shoots out, maybe some people are gonna know where this is. But there's this moment when so Henry steps out because he's brave and he's like he tells Ellie like you're gonna take Sam, You're gonna run, and he steps out into the open, And I have to say, this is why Melanielinsky deserved that, Emmy. This is why
she's so good in Yellow Jackets. Heavenly Creature is like one of my favorite movies. But in this moment when she looks at Sam with that gun, she looks upset, like she looks sad in her eye that she is gonna kill him.
But she's still gonna do it, but.
There is this moment there's like tears in her eye and you can't tell if it's because she's like so happy she's found him or she realizes that he is just a scared kid with his hands up. But in that moment, I was like, oh shit. I was like, Joel's gonna sniper. He's gonna sniper before she can do it.
But no, but they fate came into play. The truck that is on fire starts sinking into the ground, uh, and it falls through a massive hole and everyone's looking over it like oh, like oh fuck, and you hear this roar of what you know can only be infected and they come fucking pouring out of the hole and it's everything. It's runners, clickers, it's clickers, mom, and.
Also clicker almost there's like this even more exasperated, like even more like accentuated hive mind, Like they come out of there like an explodeon. It's completely different to anything we've seen before.
And it is so good and so scary.
If you've been waiting for that horror movie Resident Evil.
Living, this is it. You're this is like de spewing everywhere. This is an episode.
It's all about like reflections, and we've been seeing that
since really episode three. But like, they do this really interesting thing where we see the zombies killing all the people, and it looks exactly the same as when they were killing the FEDERA collaborators at the beginning, Like you have you had people holding onto the Federal collaborators and cutting their throats, and you have the zombies and they're the infected and they're eating they're kind of on people's necks, and it looks so similar, and it's just this horrible,
kind of horrendous orgy of violence. And it's really sad because Ellie and Sam and Henry are hiding behind this car together again and there is a great moment for them to just run, but they're so shocked and so scared that they don't really know.
What to do. Kathleen's people open up on these infected and I just want to say that, first of all, Kathleen's folks were kind of in a horseshoe pattern and were clearly shooting each other, like there was a lot of friendly fire happenings.
Again, it's not this is the thing they didn't plan this, this was a this was driven by vengeance. They they don't a lot of them don't have training. This was a terrible idea. They shouldn't have all been there. Un Lest we not forget, Kathleen knew that there were infected under the ground. She knew that there was something wrong,
and she didn't say anything. And this is that the tunnel vision that she had for Henry no pun no no pun, nobody, and and uh, you know it led to this and oh, it is just this is such a great action scene and it's so scary and frantic and frenetic, and it just is just, oh, it was just so effective. By the whole time, in the back of my I've played the game, I know where this episode's going, and.
I don't want to see it. I do know it. There's a there's a nice little sequence where Joel is covering Ellie is like zig zagging through the streets, and then you hear this bloated kind of burping roar. And if you played the game, you know what's coming next. It's a bloater, which is the most the rarest of the super infected, because it takes many, many years for an infected to develop into this a Bloater is basically a tank on legs, heavily armored.
And all over it and it's punching people like and killing them like it. This is a whole different kind of thing. This is a nightmare monster.
There is a great I don't know if this is purposeful, but I enjoyed it. So Perry is like, Kathleen, I'll
cover you, get out of here, and and he stays back. Meanwhile, Ellie is, you know, zig zagging through the streets bodies like and course, and of course Bella has been in an a scene like this before the Battle of winter Fell episode at the last season of Game of Thrones, and she dies in that episode, torn apart by a zombie giant, and Perry dies in the exact same way, getting killed the giant bloat giant.
A lot of people were really excited to see the blow as they were.
Like, well halfway through, like how often we seen it? And they just delivered this thing is terrifying, Geary. It looks it looks so scary.
But the funniest thing is even amidst all of that, you are just like, where is Kathleen?
Where is Kathleen?
Because you just know that she is the most imminent danger out of all of these things.
It's her.
She is the one who will kill Ellie and Henry and Sammoth if anyone does so.
Ellie manages to escape from a little girl clicker, which is one of the most horrific things I've seen in this show.
Big, big contortionist style, like yeah, oh yeah, very very much of like the conjuring, kind of feel the malignant, the exorcism of Emily Rose, kind of like feeling your body, whatever is inside your body possessing it, in this case, the cordyceps mushroom. They don't understand how a body is supposed to move, so they can't. And this is a really great way that that's brought to life. And Ellie is just like.
She's scared, but she doesn't. She's a survivor. Ellie manages to get Henry and sam who are hiding under a car to safety. You know, stabs a bunch of infection and it's off. Oh we get to see it. It was such a cool moment. And they're about to get away when Kathleen gets to drop on them, and it is a very very just moment when Kathleen, who moments ago was saying, well maybe kids. Maybe she just like kids die sometimes made kids that are sick deserve to
die because kids die every day. That the person who said that is then killed by a child clicker infected who leaps on her and just savages her.
It is everyone you can't stop watching it, And Joe Ellie has also watching it because this is not like the Bie.
This is these have.
Gone feral on the ground because she is just like pummeling her face, like Melanielinsky, you were great, I'll miss you.
But Cathleen good, good heroes, Our heroes manage to get out of there, and the infected as a whode turned towards the city too. We can only imagine, you know, rampage through the streets and kill everyone there. It's almost biblical like this, this community, this city that is defined by vengeance, by like bloodthirsty vengeance, is then like completely wiped clean by this force of need. Sure, the Cortyceps, like it's hard not to feel like they kind of deserved it.
A really horrific thing, because I truly backed that they should have overthrown Fedra And but I'm like, the question is sadly because of the death of Kathleen's brother, they didn't have anyone there to be like, well, now we've done that, let's try and transform our situation and not just end up in the same cycle that we were in again.
I mean, you know, you said something I think that was really that really resonated, which was how the violence of the infected that they were, you know, that they were utilizing against Kathleen's people really mirrored that night when the resistance overthrew feder And you're absolutely right, And I think what you know, we've been talking all series about how like what's one of the core themes of any zombie shows, like the people are the real enemy, the
real danger, and what's even as right is that it is. What really shook me about that opening scene was like, it's not just that the first of all, the infected are doing what they're doing because that's what's in their nature to do. There's no malice, Yeah, they're just they're
just a force of nature. But the way that the Kathleen's people were going about, like this execution and torture of people where they're like stripping them of their clothes, like you know, there's an element of I'm not just killing you. I want to humiliate you and rub your face in it before you die. I want to make it as painful and as terrible as possible. It's true, it was truly, truly horrifying, and it's like, weirdly, then again,
we've said it all serious. It's worse than what the effect did do in a in a very real way, and it.
Highlights again I love that thing you brought up about the nature of the infected, that idea of who gets to choose who lives and dies, the notion of course the effected are are running rampant, killing everyone. You want to kill them so you can survive. But there are bigger questions afoot here of is this evolution? Is this the next stage?
Is this something?
And how do humans behave when they then are not at the top of the food chain and suddenly it's like they don't just turn on the things that are above them, they turn on themselves and it kind of exasperates the worst. This is definitely one of the bleaker episodes of the season because it's really about like it's about the horrors that we commit to ourselves and also about I think the really sad thing about Kathleen's brother's
death is like, there's something so powerful. I think a lot of us are in a space where we think about this a lot now, about like forgiveness and like what that means, and whether it comes to the idea of like prison abolition or or forgiving somebody who has done you wrong in your personal life. Forgiveness can be like extremely powerful when it's put into play in a way that is like gonna make a change. It's not a forgiveness and you let somebody fuck you over again.
It's a forgiveness that makes everything better for everyone involved. And if Kathleen's brother had survived, there is a chance that they could have built a different kinds of city. And I think that that threat of forgiveness is so key because as we see, it's also about like forgiving yourself something that Henry never did before. And Henry still does not have the ability to do any most needs to.
And well, it's just it's a really bleak episode, but I understand the gut punch storytelling that they're going for.
So our friends get across the river and they're posted up in an old motel, Joel and Henry still like kai on adrenaline are bonding. Elli and Sam are bonding in the other room. They're reading the Savage Starlight comic. Joel, you know what a change we've seen in him, invites Henry and Sam to accompany them to Wyomi. He says, yeah, you can come with us. We're going on foot, but you can come with us. Elli and Sam meanwhile reading the comic, and he asks her have you ever been scared?
And she's like yeah, like I'm terrified all the time. I'm scared all the time. Uh, what about you? And then Sam asks an absolutely crushing question, which is if you turn into a monster, is it still you inside? And then he shows her as those who played the game were expecting that he has been bitten. I want to stop here and say that you got to do
bite checks you encounter infected. I feel like, like like after bed, I feel like if anybody's going to bed or anything, you get to a safe space check for bites. Let's just do that right now, because maybe you didn't feel it because of the adrenaline. Let's let's make sure.
We do that and you can have a conversation like is this what are we going to Shall we see how I will say, I love I was really I wanted Sam and Henry to have a different fate than they did in the game. But I understand that's one of the most affecting parts of the game. It's very
affecting it. But they make little choices in the way that they tell the story that I love because in the game, Sam and Ellie kind of like Ellie gives him a toy and Sam kind of like throws a toy on the floor and Ellie leaves, and in the morning he's just he's transformed. And here him and Ellie. He gets to share that fear with someone, and Ellie gets to reassure him, and she and.
You see the goodness the le the inherent goodness of Ellie, which is I have this immunity, first of all, showing her his bite as a way to hope, you know, do the thing that Henry's been trying to do this whole time, which is give him hope, give him look, give him strength. And she says, you know, my blood's medicine, and she cuts her palm open and starts rubbing the blood into the wound. This really almost primal, you know, kind of attempt to heal him. And of course, man,
I wanted it to work. So I wanted it to work. I wanted it to be that you wanted to work. And I also want to give them so much credit in this.
So Cavon, who plays Sam, is a deaf actor, and I love the way that throughout this episode we have Sam teaching Ellie some signs, like they sign the title of the episode, that Ellie's making an effort to communicate. And the other way that Sam communicates is through like a one of those irasable like kids boards, And it's like hard to put into context how emotional and affecting it.
Is for these two people, these two kids.
They're trying to communicate the most urgent thing he's asking her about these fears, this existential idea of like will I still be inside the zombie?
And Ellie's like scrawling like my blood is medicine.
Like just the way that they decided to communicate this, it just added a whole other layer of.
Just emotion for me. And so yeah, and also the importance of like kids having their own community. You know, there is something so special about like they keep this secret, and of course they can only keep it till morning, but they don't there's no Joel, there's no Henry. Come see, it's just like okay.
He sleeps on the bed next to him like she wants him to know that she believes that this is gonna watch.
But in the morning he's sitting on the edge of the bed and she goes and looks at him, and he's infected. He attacks her. Henry draws his gun to stop Joel from doing anything. He fires his gun at Joel's feet, saying, don't do it, don't you know, don't attack Sam. But Sam is you know, really threatening ally now, And Henry almost without thinking, almost instinctively shoots Sam and kills him. And he's inconsolable. He can't believe what he's done. He can't come to grips with it, and he turns
a gun on himself and he kills himself. Later, Joel and Ellie bury the brothers, and Ellie places that scratch pad that she used to communicate with with Sam on his grave and it says I'm sorry on it, And then a measure of how Ellie has changed in this you know, a few days of this journey that have occurred. She is just like a hardened person now She's just like, Okay, which way are we going? Yeah? Which way She's she's taking in that. I'm sorry.
Like that's when she lays down the board, is almost like her saying goodbye to that like hopeful child who thought she could heal him, and now she's Joel. Which way's west? She doesn't want to hear it, she doesn't. They've buried their friends. They felt like they were building this family, and yeah, I mean this is this is one of the most absolute gut punch like moments of the game because you spend so much time with Sam and Henry and you really in the game in different ways.
But there's like this conversation that Sam and that Henry anna Joel have about motorbike and motorcycles, and Joel's telling him the feeling of riding a Harley, and there's this kind of human connection that Joel makes there that you assume will have to extend further than where it does, because then you know, the next morning, this whole kind of terrible thing plays out. Yeah, just so sad, and I was I was really bummed to see it go this way, but I understand.
Like it was. It's truly great television.
This episode, and I think it's going to leave a lot of people really heartbroken.
It felt. You know, this is an action episode, obviously with high drama, but it really makes you think, Like it really had me thinking about like revenge and how it's one of the most primal like feelings someone can have, as I've been wronged, people I love have been wronged, and I want to do something about it, and you can.
You know, there's a way to think about Revenge is almost like the stone on which like rules and laws and justice can be built, because it's that understanding that people will take revenge on you if you wrong them that creates the impetus to create these rules so that you know, people can live in a kind of ordered and peaceful society. But when you just give yourself over
to this feeling that is righteous. You know you've been wronged, and to defend yourself against the wrong, especially when that goes on for years, is righteous. But when it turns into just like wanton killing, when you can't step back for and say, let's talk, let's figure out who actually did the worst shit?
Yeah about the system for Yeah, for Kathleen Federer is almost irrelevant compared to the personal vendor as she has against Tennis.
That's what it is.
And she actually says to Henry, she straight up says to him, She's like, I know why you did it.
She's like, I don't care. He should have died. I mean, I think something point that is really scary.
About this episode two that kind of contradicts our expectations. And this is probably a good setup for if you found this episode hard to watch or felt like it took a strange turn narratively that left you shocked, this is preparing you for where we're going this season for sure.
Because something that I think that is really harsh and kind of hard to stomach but real about this is Kathleen does kill Henry in the end like this, if she hadn't have had this vengeful quest, if she hadn't have taken two hundred people there, if they hadn't have taken the snowplow, Sam would have never got bitten, they would have been able to leave. And in that way, she actually creates this self fulfilling prophecy of that fate
still coming true, and I think true. I think in that moment at the end, when Henry is so inconsolable, I actually found it to fit.
I feel like.
It's more in In the game, it feels so shocking, and here I feel like it's still as shocking and horrendous, but there's a lot more weight to the burden that he carries because he is essentially torn apart this community and this betrayed this man that he respected, who he clearly had love for in order to save Sam, and the end, he still couldn't save him. And I think that is just like.
Heart it's heartbreaking. I mean, by that same token, Kathleen inherited this movement that her brother built and effectively destroyed it. Yeah, because she didn't see it for years. Yeah, she didn't care about the movement. She didn't care about building a better world for the people that follow her brother's miss She didn't care about me, She didn't care about She didn't care about like fulfilling the thing, the goals and
the mission that all those people like believed in. All she cared about was taking revenge on the person that she felt was responsible for hurting her and her brother and and providing a vehicle for the bloodlust of her followers. Like in a in a really in a very real way, I think A part of the reason why the resistance decided to follow Kathleen was that the thing that her brother didn't give his followers was an excuse to Jaquille. Yes, and she let them do it.
You know.
It's like it's like, yeah, she was the one who did the overthrowing, but.
It it's it's really what that means is like she gave them that space.
You made it okay, you your example said we can go out there and hang people in the street, strip them nude, and drag them from the backs of cabbage, stabbed, covered in knife covered in knife stabs, throat slit, tortured to death, set on fire, and you give us cover that that's fine, that's righteous, and that's good and we can do that. It was really really chilling, really chilling and impactful episode. Wow. RP. Salmon, Henry, I love the breaking. Yeah,
and you're absolutely right. This is going to get harder before it gets easier. If it does ever get easier, it's never going to be easier. It's never up next nerd Out.
In today's nerd Out, where you tell us what you love and why, or like today, a theory that you are excited to share with us.
Which obviously we love both. But you know I'm a theory lover.
Reid explains, Now this is really interesting because you know I'm a big one about oh, the comics seed things to go in the movies. Reid has spotted an interesting pan that you cannot deny. So here he's going to explain my video games maybe another important source of how marvelous seeding things for the MCU.
Jason take it away. Okay, here it goes Read writes. I keep thinking of the video games we've seen from Marvel over the last five years, and how many of the characters who appeared in those games later appeared or were reintroduced in the MCU. The Spider Man video game introduced task Master and Lyles Morales. The Avengers video game seated Abomination, task Master, Modoc, and Kate Bishop, all of whom appeared or will appear in the MCU. Shortly, The
Guardians of the Galaxy video seated Adam Warlock. The Midnight Sun's video game is likely seeding Blade, a new generation's Ghostwriter and Magic Magic with a K. And there's an upcoming Wolverine video game not a surprise at this point, but the X Men are coming to the big screen. Based on the video game trend, My big takeaway paying close attention to which characters appear in the Marvel video games seems to generally point you in the direction the MCU is going. I think that this is right. The
facts are there. I'm like, it's just deniable. When you read it, you're just like, yeah, I think the fairs are there. And I think, you know, we've seen this in other places, the toys with Lego, you know. I think that this is a outgrowth of corporate some form of corporate brand sitnergy. And I think that reader is absolutely right. This is how we can tell. They want a broad direction of where the MCUs. They want people.
They want as many people as possible to know these characters, so when the trailers come out and the merchandise comes out, people are excited to see them. They want every movie to feel like No Way Home or Multiverse of Madness, where those trailers were getting people excited. And if you want people to be excited, they need to know who the characters are.
And not everyone is out here reading Jim Starlin comics.
Knowing who Adam Warlock is though, you should because like Adam Willock, anything but like introducing him in a very popular video game great because when God Ins the Galaxy Volume three comes out, people are going to recognize him.
It's very smart.
I think that Taskmaster one is what really sold me because yeah, me too. That is like a very much like you know them or you don't know them character.
So yeah, semester is definitely not like it's a I guess I would just say there are many villains that you think would be introduced before task Master. I totally agree. So the fact that test Master appeared in the video games and then in the movies feels very notable to me as well. Yeah, thank you read.
If you have theories or passions, which we know you do, but if you want to share them with us, hit us up at x ray at cricket dot com.
Instructions are in the show notes. As always, that's it for our show today, Rosie pluglukluk plug plug plug plup plug Plug.
I will have a cool more cool last of US coverage coming out at IGN. I wrote a fun piece at Primetimer about the Harlequin animated Valentine's Day special which is coming out this week.
It's really really good.
I reviewed it there it's very saucy and raunchy, so if you like from the comedy.
You'll probably love it. Obviously, ant Man's coming out, so you know that's I'm gonna be all over that.
We're gonna be talking about it, And as usual, we can find me here twice a week and at Rosie Marks on Instagram and.
Letable catch the next episode Wednesday, February fifteenth, where we'll be talking about everything you're gonna see over the course of Super Bowl Sunday, all those trailers, plus a primer on ant Man, head of ant Man and the Waspontomania, and of course remember two episodes a week every Wednesday and Friday. In your ear noggins twice, the Deep Dives twice, the Everything Wednesday and Friday. Yes, and if you.
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Speaking of that again, Shasta Heidi for creating the bot that allowed us to randomly select the winner of the Last of Us Activation Pack, which includes a car Heart backpack and a car Heart jacket and a bunch of cool branded stuff within there. Drum roll please, the winner of the Last of Us Activation Pack is Discord member Nate. Shout out Nate, Congratulations emails on the way, and that
pack will be heading to you next week. We'll be doing more giveaways like that, So if you're looking for a place to find a community and we'd like to join the Discord. On top of the fact that there's really great people there and we're there and the conversations are super fun and really informative, you get to you get to win stuff. We be doing more of these cool stuff. Five star reviews, five star ratings. We need them, we gotta have them, we love them. Here's one from
so very Kind designs. Love this show so excited. We have two episodes week. Love all of Rosie's comic knowledge.
Yeah yeah, blushing, blushing, blushing yeah.
Five star reves. We love them. Give them five star reviews. The more cool, weird comic book knowledge we will dig up. See you next time. My x ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Soul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy's Rhard Are editing and sound design. Who's by Facilli's Photopoulos. Dylon Villanueva and Matt de Group provide video production support. Alex Reller for handles social media. Thank you
Brian Vasquez for theme music. See you next time. Bye bye, mm hmm