Warning this podcast could take spoilers for the Last of Us episode eight, and potentially some minor spoilers from ant Man in the Wasp Quantumnia in our nerd Out section, so be warned. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcio and on Rosey Night, and welcome to x ray Vision, the Crooked Media podcast where we dived Dee been to your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
In this episode, hope you're hungry because in the.
Hello Dinners, Dennis some delicious venison in the lock we're talking about the Lost of Us episode eight and in nerd Out it's a theory on I'm Man in the Wasp Quantumnia.
You might have heard of it.
If you want to jump around, as always, check the show notes for the time stamps. Let's get into it. Coming up next to the airlock, we're stepping out of the airlock and into the restaurant for the Last of Us episode eight, titled When We Are in Need, written by Craig Mason and directed by Ali Abassi, and we open with scenes of deep winter. We see a not
quite frozen lake somewhere in Colorado. We see a sign for Silver Lake, Colorado, and over these wintry images, we hear the voice of a man saying, behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men. The preacher's name is David. He is the leader of a small Christian fundamentalist group whose motto is when we are in need, he shall provide. And David is reading these lines with sadness. It seems, you know, he's got this. He really projects this kind of like humility, but almost like he's trying to project
this humility. He's so he's been, you know, he's been weighted down with this responsibility, and he's all too familiar with the sadness that that responsibility brings. There's a young girl and a woman we assume to be her mother, sitting close to the preacher. They look distraught. He then asks the girl if she remembers what comes next. She doesn't, so he finishes it for her, He says, and God will wipe the tears from their eyes, and there will
be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. The former things are passed away. Do you know what that means? And basically it means Heaven is pretty good now this the daughter and the woman are the family of We are soon to find out of the course of this episode, the man who was killed in the previous episode when the group of raiders attacked Joel and Ellie.
Yeah, it's definitely very interesting. I really like the choice here to show us what happened, show that the raiders were the aggressors, and then to have this kind of opening where they want to flip that on its head. But there's always this creepy edge to it, where we know what really happened, we know what these people do to survive, we know they will go out and kill people. But here are the family, here's the fallout, and when it's again it's that question of what will we do
to survive? But here we're not going to get an empathetic version of that story. This is something, as you will gain from the next line that David says, this is something much darker.
Well, in the most empathetic reading of a situation like this, you know, in the in the you do what you have to do to survive formulation, right, you get killed taking another people's stuff. That will just kick off this cycle of retribution, you would imagine, And that's very much what this, not just this episode, but this series is about. On a certain level, and it really seems to no spoilers, but to be pointing ahead towards the themes and content of the sequel game too.
It really does. From Kathleen to here, we're really getting a lot of hints towards what happens in the in the second part of the game.
And it also like not to belabor it, but it also you know, when when that's your dad, you don't want to believe they do bad stuff, right, and he died doing something good. They did, They died fighting.
He was a you know, I think that's really powerful and I think that they did a great job with this character. Is the young girl being your in character. She is ignorant to what is really going on in this colony, as we will find out, and also as we lay alone. David is a mini pulator. He is a groomer. He is he is a violent, horrible man. You know, this is this is someone who who is
manipulating the people who follow him. And I love that we do get this one moment of somebody who truly believes that they have been wronged and they don't know the context, and obviously to her it's just a shocking loss. But like you said, I like that. It shows that seed of retribution, and we'll see the young girl trying to seek that out later.
To the girl asks if they can bury her dad, and a look passes between David and a few picked men here in the What we are soon to learn is like the the restaurant of this former resort, and David is like, nah, you know the ground is, it's frozen. It's frozen solid folks until the springtime. Don't worry. Well, well, let's put a pin.
In that, a burying thing.
Let's say March April. We'll come back to it.
Yeah, And as you will, if you've read The Road, if you've watched The Walking Dead, you probably understand that this point what is really going on in Silver Lake because when when she asks that and David shoots a look to his men, you know, including Troy Baker here in a new role who played Joel in the game, you know what's going on and it is creepy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you definitely feel it. And if you don't know right here, you get you certainly you certainly understand that something is a miss. Later on David business congregationbuye. They head back to their homes and James, his lieutenant, comes up. Uh this is the man that David exchanged
the glance with. And they start talking about the stores, how much meat we've got left, Elk Venison all that stuff, and Jay is like, you know, one or two weeks some so somewhere thereabouts, uh we And and you learn that David has groups scouring the surrounding area for supplies, but there's really nothing to be found in in this
in this region. David then tells James that, you know, I'm sensing some doubt here, and James's like, what no. The congregation like obviously, like it's tough, people are hungry, it's very very cold, but they they their faith remains unshaken. And David's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about you, bro, what about you? And James is like, no, I still
believe the less. And it's always when someone says I still believe and then goes on to keep talking, you know, like that off the bot right, it's like there's no butt here, but it feels James. James says, I still believe now, and then you know, the last six months have been hard, but he insists that he's with David, but again it seems like a pretty weak assurance. Back with our friends Ellie and Joel, Ellie is checking on
Joel's wound. You know, it's certainly not bleeding anymore after Ellie's kind of hasty and rough sewing up of the injury, but you know, infection and the regular yeah, is certainly a concern, and yeah, he and Joel is absolutely out
of it. There's this wonderful like maternal moment, you know, with the rolls suddenly flipped, where Ellie choose some jerky, you know, almost desperately, and then leaves it on Joel's blanket for him to eat should he rouse himself and need to need to eat, and then she slips away to go hunt. She tries to tackle a rabbit, that doesn't work. She and then soon after that she spots a deer, takes aim, shoots it, but the animal it's not a kill shot, so the animal kind of runs.
She has to go find it, and of course it drops dead right at the feet of David and James, who are in the area looking for forage, looking for supplies. Ellie gets the drop on him. She's like, drop your rifles, turn around, walk away. David goes right into preacher mode and he's ready. He's ready, specifically, as we are going to learn over the course of this episode. He sees a young girl by herself, and David is like, oh shit,
here we go. Hey, you have ten seconds. Hey, just before you before you shoe us off your dear, you have ten seconds to talk about you know where you are spiritually.
And you need to help us. We got all the people, women, children, you know, he's got trip and he really wants Sally to go back.
With him now, and and and he and he offers a trade. He's like, maybe there's something we can help you with. You give us half the deer, and you know, we have stuff. And then before he can even like list anything, she just puts out, do you have medicine? And then David is like, aha, here is a vulnerability. Here is the thing that I can I sense I have leverage here. Uh. And David's like, oh yeah, we
got uh, we got lots of medicine. You come back with us to where cabin Ellie's wisely, he's like no, no, thank.
God, I was worried for a moment, you know, like she's not the most sensible person but for the first time, you know, yeah, but I like that here she she trusts that guy. That's that instinct that when you're a kid, your parents are like, if you feel that, just follow that, Like if somebody gives you a bad vibe, don't go. And she does the right thing and she's like, I'm not going back with you.
Then she does the slightly less unwise thing but still unwise thing, which is she lets James go back to get medicine. He goes. David is like, hey, go get two bottles of penicillin from Howard and a syringe. James is like he is speak in his eye like is this cold?
Yeah?
Yeah, And David is like, it's not code, James, just do it now. When he says it's not code James, that should have been Ellie's first clue that like, oh yeah, that's right. Part of a group. I'm sending this guy back. He might tell somebody, yeah, I need to be I need to be on guard here.
But it's about Joel's survival. I think Ellie has that tunnel vision this episode just about how can she help the man that she cas so deeply about come through this? How can she avoid being alone? Which you know she said to Sam was her greatest fear.
Yeah. So David and Ellie end up in the ruins of this house. They've built a fire and they're sitting there with this deer carcass and Ellie's got her gun on David the whole time, and David is continuing his pitch. He's like, why don't you join us? Why don't you join our group? Uh? And Ellie's like, it doesn't sound that great, because you yourself said that you're starving. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't sound like you're doing great. You're stealing my dear.
I'm a child and I killed idea and now you are stealing it from me. I don't think it sounds like a good trade.
And he's like, yeah, but I'm a decent guy and I'm just trying to do uh right by the people who rely on me. Uh. And she's like, okay, so you're their leader and he's like yeah, but but they chose that they wanted that to be the thing, and Ellie and this is good, this is actually great. That Ellie sniffs this out right away, like this is some weird cult thing. Like she's very very much.
Yes, babe, Like one hundred yes.
And David does not give the most authoritative and sir. When Ellie says, is this some weird cult thing? And David's verbatim answer his actual answer is uh. He starts with this very long uh, and he goes, ah, I'm just your basic Yeah, just your basic preacher, Bible preacher. That's it. What was the up, bro?
Everyone in this colony needs to have better prepared answers. You're gonna see this at time and time again. I'm like, bro, you could have just said no. If somebody asks you if it's a cult, just say no. But then we will run that for some reason throughout this episode, probably his own delusional mind, but David sees something in Ellie that he thinks is a kindred spirit. So I also wonder if that's why he doesn't immediately lie to her.
Maybe maybe she likes you cults. I don't want to deny it in case she's into it.
I wanted to talk about this when we get to that, but let's talk about it now. I this is part of David's hitch to Ellie. I took that to be David's just a flat out is grooming he is, You're so special, like you're You're the only one that understands me. You know, all these people I'm with they don't get it. They don't get it the way you understand. Yeah, Like you really understand what's going on here, and I feel
like you're a kindred spit. Like I took that as Oh, David's an even deeper scumbag than than than we could, than we are than we know about right now.
He definitely is, and you see that in the way that he approaches Ellie, Like the actor who brings him to life is.
So terribly deeply unsettling role.
It's so quiet and at no point. What I really love about this is they don't try and fake us out. They understand that we know the genre enough that they don't need to make us think, oh, maybe it is a good place, because if you think about it, like The Walking Dead, I think a lot about the Sanctuary storyline, which was actually one of my favorite storylines, where they seek out this place that's allegedly the safe place for survivors. They get there, they get fed this delicious meal lo
and behold, oh, actually you're going to be dinner. Like season five Walking Down or whenever that happens. But like, I like here that from the outset, you are just given clues constantly, atmosphere clues, tone clues, visual clues, vibe clues that David is just bad news. And I think that's a really good way of building the creepiness and tension that kind of leads to this explosion of violence. At the end of the.
Episode, X ray Vision will be back and we're back, so we get some of David's backstory. He says that he was just a math teacher, which again, bad vibes. Here's a good yeah, the bad vibes can continue, like this was a person working with young people. We should assume and consider what we learn over the course of this episode very troubling. And he says, you know, I was not even religious until after the end of the world.
We learned that he was at the Pittsburgh QZ, which fell due to ongoing battles between Fedra and the Fireflies, and then he and some people started heading west and they'd find a camp and that raiders would attack the camp and then they'd have to move on and picking up people along the way, and that's how they came to be here in Colorado and He believes that all of that, all of that constant kind of movement to the west, attack, a search for peace, the death on
every side, all of that was as it should be, because it's what brought them here. All of this happens for a reason. Don't believe it. Check this out. And then David tells Ellie recently, I sent out a forging party of four and winter. It's been hard. Food's been scares, people have been starving. Only three men came back. Now the man who died was a father, and he was killed by a crazy man traveling with a little girl.
And now Ellie's like, oh fuck, and she stiffens. But before she can even think about pulling the trigger on her rifle, David's saying, James, lower, you're going to realize that they've already got to drop on her. James, for his part, recognizes that Ellie was the girl who was with the man who killed their companion and their friend. And David is like, yeah, but forget all that. Just give her the medicine. James is like what it's like, Yeah,
just give it to her. And then David again offers to take Ellie and he's like, I can protect you you know you're out here alone. This is no place. You know, this world is not safe, or a young girl alone. Ellie takes the medicine and runs off, and James is like, I can't believe that you're just gonna let her get away. But of course he's not going to do that. Yeah.
I feel like this is a good sign as well that David is clearly not like a very trusted leader. Even though he has this power, he kind of rules through this fear, as we'll find out in a couple of scenes. And also I just find it very interesting that that's James's first thought. It's not like, oh you oh, obviously we're gonna follow her, or what's the plan next that he just thinks like, oh, you saw a young girl and you gave her what you wanted because you're
a creep. Like it's really interesting. They show you so many dynamics in these small moments.
I think that that's right, and I think that it's even more insidious than that, because it tells you that David has, even from his followers, a secret side. Yes, because James is like the fact that James doesn't understand of course David's not gonna leave it here. This is not the end of it. You think he's that was
just like largees, it was just generosity. Nor the fact that James doesn't pick that up lets you know that David has a deeper, more secret side from the people who you know he's ostensibly in this like intimate leadership rule.
With I love that actually, because that is a great read where it's like David's falsification of who he is and this kind of kindness and generosity. He has actually sold that to them so well that James could believe that he would just give this away because he thinks it's the right thing to do. And I love I love that pickup that I almost kind of didn't even realize when I was watching that he wasn't a preacher before.
When you read it in the context after a couple of rewatches and then talking about it with you, that is just so creepy because that is a man who picked up the beliefs of others in order to become a cult leader to make the most of a post apocalyptic situation for himself. That's so horrifying. And I think that I wrote about this ign this week about this episode. I think that is the notion of why these kind of characters are always presented as the scariest thing you
can come up against inever apocalypse. What if it wasn't the best of us who thrived at the end of the world, but the worst of us. Yeah, and David is absolutely that a man who knew how to manipulate the end of the world into a situation that now he is incredibly happy with because he's surrounded by women and children who he is in control of. Very scary stuff.
This is a great point now. In that opening scene where you see David with his flock in that restaurant, the first thing that struck me was one the women and the men were separate. You saw a mother with a young daughter, You saw another mother with a young daughter who we didn't meet them too much. But then all the men sit at their own tables and it's really only David that addresses the women and.
Who walks among them.
I just feel, Yeah, immediately You're like, this is there's something not right here. This is not good. Whatever is going on here is not right now. It's just not It's certainly it's awesome.
Very soon even more of that really nightmarish dynamic.
So Ellie returns to Joel. She just kind of guesses, like where to inject the antibiotics. She does it right into the wound, you know. Pad choice like good choice, Yeah, good as good a choice as any. We go back to silver Lake and the short dinner is getting cooked up. It looks like very very red meat.
Yeah, it looks very fresh, seeing as well, they just very very frunning out of meat that surely you would have jerkied, etc.
We're putting this in tomato sauce that we have because because that's what we have, but also like it'll help cover up any kind of the redness.
Yeah.
Folks are kind of sitting around with their plates of this meat and there's a great moment. So the moment was being cooked up right where the woman who is stirring all, you know, everything into the pot, uh, says to the guy who brings this tray of meat, well what is it? And he just goes, well, first there's a long pause two to three, like a very very.
Long get a quicker on inside in your head, yeah.
And then he just goes venison. Its like it's a question.
Yeah, yeah, it has the little little ven.
So you know, everybody's h sitting around eating there or getting ready to eat their plates of and you could see there's a there's a really great, kind of very very small moment here where you see various people eating. Some of them are tearing into it, Others are like just nibbling at it. Others seem wary of it, like openly wary. And that is when David and James return with this big deer that they took off Ellie and David could not be happier to be bringing this meat in.
But then he sees that, oh, people are like, wait, what are we eating?
Yeah? Everyone else is like you just showed up.
Yeah, you just showed up with the meat. What am I eating right now? And David's like, hey listen, okay, wait, wait wait wait. This is one of the great fake outs in this episode too, where David and David says, okay, hold on, let me I need to say something. I know there are rumors going around the camp. Okay, and they're true. I found the girl who was with the
guy who murdered what our friend. It's so good because you're like, I really thought like he's about to say, hey listen, yeah, we're starving.
This time we're eating some people. Yeah, I love I love that note that you made as well, Like it's so well done to see the way that some people are just eating it so heartily. Some people are wary, some people are nibbling because, like we can tell just from the narrative storytelling of one episode that David is off key, and that that glance he gave to James meant her Dad's getting eaten. So of course the people
in the room would feel the same way. I like that respect of the intelligence of the characters and the intelligence of the audience to know that it's not realistic that every single person in there would just be yamming down the food, acting like it was completely normal. There's gonna be people who are starting to cotton on to what David and James are doing.
And here we see how David keeps control of these people. He does it one through his generosity sharing this food communism. It turns out it turns out to be you know people spoiler two, by creating these external threats. He says, Hey, I found the man, I found the girl. I know where she is. We're gonna send a search party out tomorrow and we're gonna get revenge. He's out there, We're
gonna get him. And then three through outright fear and violence, the girl whose father was killed is like, I want them both dead? Why not kill the girl too? Like, why are you gonna bring her back here?
It seems like a good point. And also, like I will say as well, I think this is another great narrative choice, because surely that seems like what the leader would want, and that would have been a great moment for David to be like, you're right, my child, like we will get justice and vengeance, just like an eye for an eye in the Bible or whatever. But that is not the way David reacts, and it tells us so much about him and this colony.
He slaps this young girl to the floor. Yeah, like off her chair, off her chair. Nobody moves, No, everybody, everybody stays nailed to their seat. And he says, you know, basically, I'm your father. Now you have to respect me, or this is what happens. Now, let's say grace, uh and eat dinner, which is probably your.
Dad sadly, like yeah, it's so creepy. He's like, you think you've lost your father, but you still have a father and he's oh, so creepy, and then he's like, and now eat your father. There's lots of fun.
Now your father, he'll be part of you forever. Oh yeah. The next The next day, Joel hard to tell if he's getting better or not. Ellie goes outside to get some air, and she sees a flock of crows go up maybe half a mile away, very very close, and she realizes that something is coming from that way. She sneaks around and she spots them. This is five maybe six men, including David and James, and of course they are here to kill Joel if he isn't dead already,
and David orders them to bring Ellie back. She is not to be harmed. James is like just another mouth to feed. No, like, what do we have to Maybe we'd let her stay here and die, or we kill her. I don't know. Maybe that's God's will. Yeah, I and David gives James the most chilling stare.
Yeah, it's so scary. And I also love this moment because after watching it again, Look, I'm not trying to make any justification for James's behavior, and Troy is so great in this character, Like it's so believable. This kind of weird like weakness, this like tweaky weakness of following David. But I also wonder, like does he have an inkling, Like do these men think Ellie would be better off to just be shot in the street than to go
back and be with David like that? Maybe he doesn't want to kill another person to actually feed them to someone else, Like there's something here that I think is actually more than this idea of a mouth to feed, Like, I think that there is a deep down somewhere there is a slight act of mercy as he sees it, to just shoot her in the snow instead of taking her back.
That's an interesting read as well. It's you know, certainly that idea of well it's better this way, mingled with the sincere vengeance that he's seeking. She certainly would make doing the young girl a lot easier. Ellie tries to rouse Joel no Bueno desperately. She puts her knife in his hand and is like, listen, I'm gonna try and lead them away. But if I can't, this is for anybody that comes down here. Joel is like just barely with it. He does not seem all the way conscious.
Ellie then seals up the house like puts a puts a piece of furniture in front of the cellar door, gets on the horse and goes galloping down the street. She you know, runs up on the guys says, hey, motherfuckers. She shot at them, and then rides off. Uh, And they're ready to shoot her, but David is like, no, alive, alive, alive, I want her alive. James then shoots Ellie's horse out from under her. Rip horse. We didn't know your name,
but it was really sad to see you go. Ellie is gets the first of several concussions that she will get over the course of this episode. Oh man, I mean she's like legitimately unconscious for like an hour, like a long time. It's actually medically concerning. They capture her easily. James is about to kill her when David shoots in the air and is like no. Then he carries her off himself, which is fucked up, and then it's like you all, I'm gonna take I'll take her back by
myself to our camp. You stay here and you look for Joel.
Yeah. He's like, if you venge get it that way, get your hands here, and sorry to them. They don't realize that essentially going up against the terminator, Like if you take a kid from Joel, if you take a little girl from Joel, if you take a baby from Pedro Piscal as we know, you're gonna be in trouble. So is not gonna go well for them, but good good for them for trying to get their vengeance. Let's see how that goes.
Yeah, absolutely, what follows is Joel Wick.
Joel Wick exactly instead of the little puppy.
He you know, the first victim sneaks into the house that Joel is in, drags the obstacle away from the cellar door, creeps down there, sees the bloodstained mattress. It's like,
who's down here? And then Joel stabs him in the shoulder slash neck and in classic Joel fast squatsco is like joking him out so you can't cry out, and you get this really stark shot of the light going out of this guy's eyes and you stare at it for a long time, like you just see this man the dead man's face, you watch him die.
They value life so much, the creators of this show, and I think it's something that really makes this stand out from pretty much any other post apocalyptic storytelling, even the game. I think it's one of the smartest choices they made in adapting it. You feel every death. Every time somebody dies, it's horrific. It's it's terrible. Every time someone is hurt, it's horrific, even if they've done something. There is a cathartic nature to what Joel is doing.
But I like your john Wick reference because there's that moment. You know, obviously love John Wick, like the stuntman movie of all time, and I love Keanu and there's that great moment where it's like he's like, yeah, I guess you could say I was back, And this is definitely like all Joel is back. This is that Joel that we are about. This is that Joel. Everyone. Oh, Joel did so many bad things.
Ellie.
You can't trust him, you can't. You don't know the things that he did. We've seen reluctant Joel. We've seen tired Joel. But this is assassin Joel. This is going to kill you no matter what you tell him. Joel.
Where is the thing that I want? Yeah, tell me where it is? And and we've we've spent the last several episodes talking about Joel's lack of comfort with anything that seems like peace or happiness, or the potential for happiness or the potential to grow new bonds. It's the hard ways, which Hardway's is like something to be taken from.
This is Joel in his element. This is Jewel doing the thing that he is comfortable doing, and that's dealing out pain to people, and it's not daring the cost himself, bearing the cost on his own body. Ellie comes to in a holding cell. David is there. He's been watching her sleep and he's like, listen, I'm the only thing keeping you from being torn apart by my followers. They want to kill you. But I'm tears saying no, no, no, let's give her a chance. Uh so, why don't you
just tell me your name? And she's like eat shit. David really really wants Ellie to join up, and he keeps on pitching this story about I can protect you. He's offering her a new life. He's like, listen that whatever you did before your life is before this day. It's over. Your relationship with that man. That's done. It's coming to an end. This is your new life at starting right now. Back at the town, joel Is continues to go full jowel Is. He takes out two more
of David's men. He takes some captive, drags him to a house, and tortures them until they point out. One of them points out where Ellie is on a map. Then he kills that guy, and then he picks up a pipe and he beats the fucking other guy's brains in.
Yeah, this is this is one of those moments where I just think we're constantly blown away by Petra. He's such a brilliant act a light. We've seen him. We've seen how brilliant he is in The Mandlurian. We've seen this kind of quiet, stoic, tortured man that he can be in the Last of Us. He's also brilliant comic actor. You know, we've seen so many brilliant sights to him. But there is such a determination and violence in this sequence, like he is going to pop a man's kneecap off with his knife.
There's a comfort too that easy, specifically the way he like when he jams that his knife into the into the you know, right behind the guy's Kneecappin says I'm just gonna pop it off. You understand in that moment that Jewel's done all this before. So he's done this. He's gotten people to tell them the thing that they don't want to tell.
It's a routine, and it makes so much of the earlier episodes makes sense. I mean, imagine how uncomfortable it was for him to sit with Bill at the house and pretend to be civil when he knew that what he could really do was killed Bill and take what he wanted. You know, this is the way that Joel gets things, and to see him I thought it was
really one. As game players will know, this was needed in the series to show what Joel could do because Joel is not going to stop doing this and we needed to understand that because we have not seen this kind of explosion of violence from him in this way yet. And that moment where the guy tells him, you know, he's in agony. He points out the map and this kind of with the knife on the blood on the knife, Joel just kills him and that's when his friend realizes, oh shit, I'm gonna die and he.
And the guy and the guy begs for his life. He's like, why did you do that, Yeah, you.
Told it, but he did, yeah, And I think Joel says something like he's like, don't worry, he did tell me. And then he just beats his head in with a pipe and it is just like this, something is flicked a switch in his head. And Ellie is Sarah. Sarah is Ellie. Ellie is his door.
Sarah is his door.
This is you fucked up, and there's no going back.
X ray vision will be back, and we're back. We go back to Ellie. She's alone in the case. She's trying her darnness to escape. She's trying to unscrew little pieces of the fencing of the gate hardware itself. And as she's doing that, she sees something across the room that absolutely shakes her. She goes white. And that's when David comes in with a tray of food. He slides this food under the cage and then we see what Ellie is terrified of. This is like this smear of
blood on the floor and a human ear. And David realizes he's caught, you know, to a certain degree, you know, for what it's worth, this is just dear meat, I swear, yeah, and.
Then he and then he switches tactics. This is how which is this man is a master manipulator. He's like, now, I'm just gonna kind of make a joke about it. This is dear meat, like, I'm giving you the good stuff. Don't worry.
This is when. This is when the true grooming really takes place. He's like, hey, listen, I'm letting you in. You're in the inner circle. Now only a few people know.
That we're eating pop and what is there?
Yeah, you join us and you're gonna be part of that. You're gonna this is.
So scary because this is the ultimate first step of any kind of grooming and any kind of behavior that you don't want a kid to follow, which is an adult telling a kid I know something secret and you can't tell anyone. This will be our secret. So they do this here, but they pose it as him telling her about them being cannibals, but we know what it really is. He's bringing her into his confidence. He wants
her to feel like she owes him. He wants her to feel like there is something she knows that nobody else knows. It's so creepy and so well done.
He says, listen, I'm not proud of the fact that we're cannibals. But but you also get the sense that he'll do anything to keep himself in control. Oh yeah, of his group. That's what this is all. Really, it's not about surviving this, it's just about control. It's about maintaining his iron control over the people that fall under his sway and using them to satisfy himself.
However, exactly, I also think it's really important to point out, like one, eating you know, scientifically people know that eating human meat makes people sick because you're not supposed to do it. You can catch brain infections, things like kuu whatever. So he's not really protecting people. And the bigger issue here as we talk about grooming is consent. David admits that most people who are eating the meat do not know. He did not go out of his way to tell them.
He'd not pose this as some kind of democratic solution. Let's be real, in a post apocalypse, you're.
Do what you have and also at least you do bring it up exactly, hey, what do we think, what do we think should.
We do this? And also as well, realistically in Cannibal, in a post apocalyptic situation, there would actually probably be many cannibals. There might even be a cannibal black market of meat and jerky and all different kinds of things. But David doesn't care. He doesn't want to democratize it, doesn't want to have a conversation. It's about manipulating people. It's about making people do something that is so taboo, so horrific, and keeping it from them. This is all
part of his game. He enjoys. I mean, look, also, let's be real, do we really think all the deer's gone. I don't think so. Ellie found one so easily.
Yeah, you know, this is.
This is control. But this is something that he is choosing to do because he enjoys it. And he kind of gets into that as he as he keeps trying to groom early, and.
He keeps saying, you know, you're you're a natural leader, you're smart, you're loyal, And then he says, you know, I've always had a violent heart. I struggled with it, but then the world ended and I was shown the truth. And here you you really get the sense that he's actually coming clean on a certain level. He is actually telling her a secret that the rest of the group doesn't know. The rest of the group thinks, uh, you know,
after the fall of the world, David found God. No David, but David's God is the cordysteps and he says, look at look at the way. First of all, it's it won. And look at the way it won. It's fruitful. It multiplies all over the place. It protects itself, it protects its children, and it secures its future through violence. Uh. And Ellie's like, why are you telling me all this? Because you can handle it the way the others can't
now and you know. He then tells her like, oh, I see this an equal you know we're going to be partners in this. Ellie asks about Joel, and David says, you know, I can I can tell the others to stop looking for him. They'd spare him. They do that. I have that kind of poll I can do that. He places his hand on the bars. Think of what we could do together. We could make this place perfect, and she moves towards him place. He places his hand
on hers. Imagine the life we could build. And Ellie says, whoa, and then bends his finger back and breaks it. Yes, he's stunned. She snaps it. There's a satisfying little pop too in the in the in the in the sound mix. And then she as he is stunned and kind of dealing with this immediate pain, she is trying to grab the keys off his belt. He grabs her, knocks her head into the bar's concussion number two and she goes down and he says, you, let's see what I go
tell the others. Now this petulant side, now the anger coming out. And Ellie says, like, I'm you can tell that I'm the little girl who broke your fucking finger. Meanwhile, Joel one of the great performances through injury in the history of of of sports and performance. He's like Michael Jordan's flu game. He's got a gut full of penicillin, a stab wound in his abdom but he's going for it, folks.
He manages to make it a silver lake. He breaks into what turns out to be the storehouse that the group is using, and he finds some of Ellie's stuff and he knows that she's there, uh. And then he looks in the other room he sees their horse, May she rest in peace. And then he turns the corner and sees some boats and then just pass the boats, he sees a couple of headless corpses that are just
hanging waiting to be butchered. Oh shit. Meanwhile, David and James drag ally out of their cage and they're about to cut her up for real, like that, this is about.
To Yeah, this is we didn't talk about this yet either,
like one of my favorite things about this episode. So they're in the steakhouse, right, this old restaurant, and they actually it's this brilliant piece of production design that outside Ellie's cage there's this huge wooden kind of butchering table that's just covered in little bloody nicks and it's so horrific, but it's so mundane in the context of being in this butchering steakhouse until you realize what they've been butchering on it and they're putting on her and I guess
she's fighting them, I think that, and that's when she bites him, right, yes, he picks up the cleaver and she bites him and she's fighting her life.
And as they are about to bring this cleaver down and start cutting her up, she screams, I'm infected and now so are you, and David looks at the bite, saying, she's like, hey, roll up my sleeve, take a look at this, and they see the trademark. Cordy steps looking kind of scar but it's also it's weird, right, it's clearly healed, and James is clearly absolutely fucking freaked out. He's freaking out, and Dave is like, but yeah, but this doesn't make sense. She hasn't turned. She would have
turned already. And then suddenly, in this moment of confusion, it's this is really great. Like if this is just a well paced scene where you don't know, like you know, usually if something like this has not done well, the distraction is very obvious. It seems like there's too much time. Ellie just strikes and she grabs the cleaver boom right into James's head. James is now dead, uh, and then
she flees as David is shooting at her. Ellie finds herself in the restaurant of the old resort, and for people who've played the game, they recognize this setting and they recognize this boss battle. I think, for me, probably the hardest, it's the hottest actual fight, and for me, the hardest fight in the game. Just because I mean, it was one very very scary and to that this boss incongruously for what the game is just like had like clicker level headpoints.
That's yea, even though he's just a human, just a guy.
So uh. Ellie now finds herself in the restaurant. She arms herself with like a smoldering log. She throws it. It lights the building on fire. Now it's starting to go up. Uh. And meanwhile, David is completely unfazed by the fact that his this place is burning down all around him, and he is calling to her. He's talking to her in this creepy way. He's just obsessed like Boston, that this is just like the fight in the in the video game. And he's saying, you know, you know,
he's like calling her name. The fire is spreading. Uh. He's he tells her he's going to keep her, you know, like now you know what, no one's gonna die. I was gonna kill you, You're not going to die now now I'm going to keep you. I'm going to teach you. And he's saying all these really horrendous things to her. She lunges. When his back is turned, he swings the cleaver. She gets below it stabs him in the side. He is leaking. He's really hurt now, but Ellie is also stunned.
This is her now her third concussion after being knocked out for like, you know, an hour and a half of something. He then climbs on top of her. He's he's choking her. He's clearly going to assault her. He says, Oh, I thought you already knew. The fighting is the part I like the most.
And he's saying, really, He's like, you don't need to be scared of my love, my love, it's love.
You don't need to be here a real guy, you know, all the artifice, all the kind of like this good warm smiles and Bible verses. Here is the real guy he is.
This is who he wants.
He really is what he enjoys.
This is what he lives for. This is why he thinks everything happens for a reason, because he's set himself up in a society where he can do this again and again and again, or so he thinks.
What's so insidious and evil about this guy is that he knows that even in this fucked up world, the things that he wants will not be accepted by people. So he has to use the things that are accepted by people to get control of them so he can get the things that he wants. He understands this is all put on to him so that he can get to this moment where he's taking whatever he wants from whoever.
And then in that moment, Ellie just snaps. She grabs a cleaver, stabs him with it, and then proceeds to chop him up for like a solid five second like at least she chopping him up.
This is like directly from the game too, like she is chopping him to the feet from the game like pieces, she's getting covered in blood again in the game. We have seen Ellie more decisively murder people before this, but this is a very smart choice to essentially have her first real kill be this huge ex explosion of violence that is vengeful, that is righteous, that is horrific.
It's absolutely right. You know what could be more righteous, yeah, than defending your own life and body. And she's doing it in this moment and in a state that you know, you can imagine the adrenaline that's running through and not to mention, as we you know, mentioned several times she's she's had Yeah, she's not like, she's not okay, you know, she's not fully with it. It is just truly fight or flight, and she chooses fight and she chops the
ship out of this guy. She flees, goes outside the burning restaurant and Joel finds her, grabs her from behind. She's still in fight mode, but he says, look, it's it's me. It's me, it's me, and then they embrace and he says it's okay, baby girl. And you get this the final like it feels like a stone in this bridge between them. You know that it truly a
father and adder kind of relationship. Now the father she never had, the daughter that he lost, and you feel that like has been built now and through these horrible circumstances. And then they head off together. What a terrifying and really disconcerting and powerful, really powerful episode.
Definitely the most horrifying episode.
Yeah oh yeah yeah, and it really like, first of all, an incredible performance by Scott Shepherds, where you really, you know that feeling of if it's too good to be true, it must be he the you know, the way he speaks, his pattern, the way he would only show his rage a few times, his secrecy, and yet like here he is this, this man of God who's so secretive. This is a great performance in a really, really eerie performance.
And I do like the way this show and series has been structured, much like the game, where we go to a place, you know, we vanquish it, we move on, and then we never see these people again. But I do I also wonder man it would have been. It would be nice to have a villain, you know that like pursues, but it is it's really created this interesting tenor and tone and texture of this show where it's like one horrifying existential obstacle after another.
Yeah. I also think there's such an interesting kind of skill that the creative team have showcased here, which is, you know, they created Kathleen as a new character, right, and that is arguably our first big like, oh, the most dangerous thing isn't the clickers, you know, it's the humans.
But it's such a different tone and tenor and story to what we see with David, even though arguably you're sending out the same message, and that to me, that nuance between Kathleen still had a righteous vengeance of righteous anger that she perceived and she knew she was lost in it. There was a self awareness there that was more of a tragic even though she was a horrific,
cold blooded killer in the end as we saw. It's so interesting to me that you can do that storyline and then three episodes later you can have another human antagonist, but that is so different and so scary and so completely evocative of a different kind of fear. And I just think that is such a compliment to the way they're telling these stories to be able to do that twice. The Walking Dead would do that, but it would be in different seasons.
You know.
This is one season where we go from someone like Kathleen and then we meet David and we see a completely different kind of person. And I think something that I think you're totally right, Like the chapter narrative is almost sequential in a way that you know, we talk about that with Star Wars, like the story of a week.
Here it's the location of the week, which is very much and then we move on exactly, and I it's really interesting because definitely David is so scary and that community is so horrifying, but so kind of interesting as a psychological study. You could have had three or four episodes there, you could have David be recurring, but that narrative choice to just keep moving, to recognize that part of the game where you kill someone, you leave, you
move on, you go to the next town. I think it's quite a brave choice for prestige storytelling, and it really is nice. I'm still every day surprised that they chose to just do the game in nine episodes. And it makes me so happy because you could have we could have been just getting to Kathleen. They could have milked it three seasons, you know, and I just I'm always impressed by that choice, and I think it's really paying off.
Yeah. I the other thing about this episode, you knew, you know, I never asked myself where the fuck is everybody? Else where the hell is? For one, the most of David's like fighting men had been chewed up by this engagement, you know, like had do you know, like Joel Cara. Yeah, and then the rest of them, as we saw from James, who was you know, in many ways David's closest confidant. They were probably they were on some level waiting for some sign that they don't have to do what this
guy is saying. Anymore.
Yeah, I can't.
Imagine that anybody coming. I think it was. It's actually evocative of like his leadership style, that nobody is like running towards this brain building to figure out like what's gone wrong. Yeah, and I'm probably like, oh good, yeah, And I know it's true.
And I think as well that for the women, the children, the kind of the citizens, they're too scared. They don't do anything unless he tells them to. And I actually think that's really interesting, because you're right, it's evocative of the leadership style. But also a lot of times when men groom younger women and groom children groom teenagers, it's because people their own age will not interact with them,
will not respect their behavior, their abusiveness. And I think in that way as well, David knows that James doubts him, he knows that these adult men are kind of turning against him, so he's looking to Ellie. He's saying, we can start something new. You can be my confidence. And in that way it evokes that too. I thought the writing on this was was so well done and so kind of devastating and just horrific, but never in a
way that felt inauthentic. Like it felt true to who David is in this show, and yeah, just wow and Bella, Bella really going for that, Emmy. I feel like at this point, once we get into like episode eight page obviously, I mean, I feel like he's a shoeing after this.
Well up, next, let's go into nerd Out, and of course we're going to continue our last of US coverage right up until the finale. Stay tuned, yea.
In today's nerd Out, where you tell us what you love and why, or share a theory that you're excited about which you know we love theories, Seth offers an intriguing Quantumania X Men crossover theory, which obviously we're incredibly happy to share because we bloody love the X Men. So Jason, I will allow you to do the honor.
Hello, Jason Rosie. Since watching ant Man in the Last Quantumedia, I've been wondering about the rebels that we meet in the quant Real. Is it just me or does it feel like we have been introduced to the MC's version of the X Men. Quaskads would be a code name for Professor X. There's a Cyclops character who blasts energy from his face, a character who uses blades and has regeneration skills. And there's also a character that is a blob Aka. I'm saying this not Seth. You know, I
immediately thought, oh, that's fucking glob hertman. Yeah. I would love your thoughts, Seth. I think while I don't think that those are the X men, I think you're onto something in that the power set fuelks. Yeah, it did feel very pointed.
Yeah.
Also, I mean when you in a Marvel context, when you introduce a character who can read everybody's thoughts, like, you know what, I think, you know what you're doing?
Yeah, And I think as well, something I was really interested in. They talked a lot about this being a kind of Wizard of Oz inspired story where they venture into this alternate world, this kind of multiversel plane, you know, the quantum realm being so in space and time. I do wonder and I would love this, Seth. You inspired this. I hadn't thought about this before, but maybe there's a world where William Jackson Harper is our MCU Charles and
that was just an alternate universe version of him. You know, in every universe he has the psychic powers. You know, I think as well, I think it's really great that you caught onto this, because the truth is they do this for fans. They put these analogs in. They say, oh, wouldn't it be fun if we had you know, Oh wait, isn't this kind of like the Giant sized Crew? Like, oh, what if we just added one more character? So I
love that. I don't necessarily think that those are going to be the final versions, but I would love to see a world where we get some kind of recognition that perhaps this was some foreshadowing or seeding or some multiversal plane. If not, I just want to see William Jackson Harper come back again because I just think I just put him in more stuff, and also him as Charles.
I would love to see it, actually, I think that would be fantastic. Thank you so much, Seth. And of course course, if you have any theories or passions you want to share, hit us up at x ray at crooked dot com instructions in the show notes. That's it for us, Rosie any plugs plug blog blog, blub blub blok blug.
You can read my last of US coverage at IGN. I have some cool stuff coming up at Polygon. You can check out my website Rosie Night dot com. Wait can find all my work and read some cool comics. I am Rosie Marx on a box and Instagram and then obviously here twice a week.
Catch the next episode on Friday, March tenth for episode two of The Mandalorian. And remember we are bringing you to episodes a week every Wednesday and Friday on your podcast deliverer of choice. That's where you can find us twice, the Pedro Pascal twice, the babies twice, the Pedro escorting children across a wasteland. Find us every Wednesday and Friday in your ear.
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the time. It's linked to my letterbox, so there's a whole channel where you can just laugh at all my bad movies that I watch, which people have a lot of fun doing. It's rather joyful. And of course, let's not forget about the need for five star reviews.
Five star ratings, five star reviews. We gotta hell them, we need them. We desperately plead for him. Every episode you got to give him to us. Here's one from jan Hart The Last of Us. I discovered your show through Crooked Media and found the episode about the Last of Us so good and informative. I watched the HBO episode, then listen to your podcast, then go back and watch the episode again with you guys. Five stars all around. Thank you, Jay.
I watch Jacks.
X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Rhard are editing in sound design, Who's by Vascillis Photopoulos. Dylon Villanueva and Matt De Group provide video production support Alex Rella for Handle social Media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for theme music.
See you next time for Bye