Warning. This podcast contains spoilers for the video game The Last of Us Part one, as well as spoilers for the first two episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Max.
Hello.
My name is Jason Concepsio.
And I am Rosie Knight, and welcome.
To x ray Vision, the Crooked media podcast where we dived e pet your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
In this episode, we are continuing our discussion of the Lost of Us game and things are about to get spooky, spooky and in ned out. Guess is another theory. I'm so happy about this and this one's about the quantum Realm from the next installment of the MCU, the highly unto Diticipate at Amtmann and thest Quantumnia of Course. If you want to jump around, check the show notes for time stamps and feel free to unspoiler yourself. But really play The Last of Us.
All right, let's jump into it. Let's get into the airlock. Books were stepping out of the airlock and back into the world of the Last of Us, the first installment of the Last of Us series. For our ongoing coverage of Naughty Dog's iconic video game, of Course, some quick facts behind the game. The game was published Last of Us was published on the Sony PlayStation three platform in twenty thirteen. Began it. It really is vintage. I can still see it. I can still see that beautiful console.
I still have one.
I still have one. I still have two PS fours. Anyway, development began in two thousand and nine after the release and massive success of Entering Out two. Neil Druckman as the creative director, and he led development of the game. Creative directing, the writing of it, and the game is directed by Bruce Strayley. Voice acting and mocap performances in this game are fantastic. Troy Baker as Joel, Ashley Johnson as Ellie and he Wershing as Tests and Merle Dandridge
as Marlene. Let's get into it. So this recap is going to cover the second chapter, starting at the second chapter the outskirts and the segments outside downtown, the museum and the Capitol building, and then we are going to end up at the Billstown chapter with the segments of the woods and safe house. And judging by the way the show's going, I think it's a perfect time to jump into this portion of the game. We open up with Joel and Ellie together, now heading off into the
ruins of the open city. Ellie heard the shootout at the Firefly safe house. She asks Joel what happened? What the fuck do you think happened? Yeah, didn't you hear it? Joel says, Firefly, same thing that's going to happen to us if we don't get off the streets. We hear loud speakers carrying Fedra's warning that harboring criminals, including the Fireflies his grounds for immediate execution.
I love to execute someone.
They Fedra is very very keen to execute, and so Joel and Ellie have to have to skidattle. They cut through some abandoned buildings. They head for Joel's place. Ellie asked Joel if this is the first time he's ever smuggled a person, a kid in particular. He said, no, that's a first. What's the deal with you and Marlene? Anyway? And we get some really interesting expo. Ellie says that quote she knew my mom and she's been looking after me.
Ellie has no idea where her parents are now. Joel probed some more, but Ellie let's him know that she's under orders not to tell Joel anything that might be a clue as to why she is so important. But Joel would like to present himself as someone who actually doesn't give a shit. Yeah, he says, yeah, he doesn't care, he says, the one to know the best thing about my job. I don't got to know why I could give two shits what you're up to.
Now.
I think that that's not exactly true, but it's certainly the mask that Joel puts on. Just like in the show, Joel and Ellie head back to his apartment, and the second after arriving home, Joel hits the couch and back to sleep again. We've got this really interesting inversion of the cold open of the game, where it was Joel awake and his daughter Sarah asleep on the couch, and now you've got Ellie awake and Joel tired old Joel meeting nap time. Ellie's like, what do I do? What
am I going to do? And He's like, I'm sure you'll think of something, and then Ellie gives him that little stinger say again, same as in the show, A great dialogue. Your watch is broken, Joel wakes up. It's raining, Ellie is telling him that he mumbles in his sleep. It's a testament to how good the remastered version is
and even how good the original was. Yeah, suggesting emotion that you really feel like Joel in that moment is wondering like what the fuck, Well, I wonder what I said, like a little concerned about what he might have said.
Yeah, you get a really great one of those visual moments too, of Ellie looking out of the window, which you know that you basically replicate directly in the show, which is so lovely, But I definitely remember that being one of those that was one of those visuals that you sort of couldn't escape on the internet. Ellie looking out of the rainy window kind of as and they're really setting up this great space where oh Joel, he's this reluctant you know, it's it's lone wolf, and Corbet's
that classic thing. He doesn't want to be burdened with this child. But here she is, and she's got this wonder about the world, which I think people are starting to kind of get to see in the show, and we really start to get to see on the next part of their mission.
And by the way, Pedro Pascal in two Lone Wolf and cub Inspired st This baby loves to move through a dangerous world with a child who depends on me. Absolutely is the king of that role. Ellie tells him, I hate bad dreams. And she is watching the battlements of the QZ as spotlights are kind of swinging to and fro out there right outside the walls, looking for any threats that might be out there, looking for anybody who might be sneaking out. And Ellie, of course has
never been outside the walls of the QZ. Joel again, who just minutes earlier in our gameplay, hours earlier in the fictional reality of this story, claim to not give two shits actually might give a singular shit about Ellie, because he then asks again, so what the what are the fireflies? Wan't we what's the deal? But of course,
before she can answer, Tess returns. Tess says, if you remember where we left off tests after the confrontation at Firefly HQ, Tess went to go scout the merchandise guns in the case of the game, a cachet of guns. And she has now come back and has seen the goods that Marleon promised them, and she says, Yeah, it's all there, it's legit. It's an impressive haul. We're good to go, Joe.
She loves She's give me those guns. I want these guns, please.
She loves guns almost much as much as Ellie loves asking for guns.
Yeah, that is the perfect comparison. She stoked about these guns. She's like, I will smuggle this child because these guns are real.
Joel is really worried about this mission. It's nothing like they've ever done before. It's it's human cargo, and he doesn't understand if why if Marlene is in command of the Firefly militia, they don't just use their own people. Now, apparently putting two and two together, they don't really lay out the details here, But I think what this suggests is that Feder's campaign against the Fireflies has been devastating. Yeah that you know, whatever manpower they have left, it's
not a lot. Marlene needs Tess and Joel definitely.
And also like there's this implication that the Federer is like sowing this cord among the survivors in the courting zone and the Fireflies by kind of creating these violent campaigns that kind of pit the Fireflies as these arrists when we know that feder are like fascists who are just you know, executing people, Willy Lilly. Even though the q's's great, there's there's problems on either side. And yeah, the fireflies, the fireflies and Marline need Joel and tests.
It's very hard for a game like this where you know the narrative is headed in a certain direction to make you feel like the characters are making organic choices. But Joel questioning the fireflies feel so real. You're like, yes, he is right, Like why why is this? This is so different from pills, This is so different from guns. This is different even from murdering people. But you have to kill a lot of people to be able to be in a lone Wolphan club situation. So it fits
the trope, but it's not. It doesn't make sense in the world and economy that they know. So I love that he's not just like, yeah, better do it because my daughter died. You know, they don't use the easy answer. They set it up in a way that makes you believe that Joel is wary, that Joel does not want to take on this burden.
It's such a good rated wrinkle, but really wonderful generator of drama in both the video game and the show is the fact that Tommy has joined the Fireflies, and that was kind of the source of the of the of the the tear in the relationship between Joel and Tommy really the only people that each of them have left or each other, and the fact that they would be torn apart like this tells you that it was. It was really a big deal and dramatic, and it makes sense that Joel just would not fucking It's.
An added great it's a great like personal wrinkle that makes this strange, unexpected gun run becomes something so much more complex.
They head out, the three of them together outside of the walls. They take a tunnel get out beyond the wall, and now they have to sneak out from under the gaze of the feder spotlights and the various patrols. And Ellie is thrilled despite the danger, this is an adventure. Everything outside is like mud slicked because it's a downpour. There's like these huge craters and stuff and lots of wreckage. But she's having a fantastic time. She's never been beyond
the walls before. Now they don't get far in their little sneak before a guard knocks Jowel to the ground. There's two guards, actually it's a two person patrol. It turns out they radio in for backups, and now the clock is ticking. They do the thing that they're trained to do by the book, and they test the people they've caught. Tests negative, Joel negative. They're about to do Ellie.
Ellie knows that she's going to come up infected. She gets her knife out, she stabs the soldier, and unlike in the show, shit just immediately goes.
Relationship between Joel and these Feder soldiers in the game is just you have to kill him. Yeah, you have to kill them. Tess is a murdered death delon machine, so she doesn't care. Joel is dead inside because of his loss, and so they're dead, and you better get ready because you're gonna you killed them. By this point, we've killed a lot of you know, Robert's men of drug dealers. Now we're gonna have to start killing some
Feder agents. So if you ever wanted to kill some soldiers, this is it's about to be happening.
So Joel takes down the one that Ellie's stabbed. Test takes out the other one, and you know, it's just interesting to think about. At this point in the game, it's been uh, you know, not counting the flashback to you know, whatever year that two thousand and three or whatever year that was. Yeah, the prologue, the prologue, it's been about a day. And your mileage may very depending on how you play. But Joel, it tesn't probably killed fifteen people a piece, yes.
Well, at least at least, And I do think it's one of the most interesting things about the game and one of the most interesting things. You know, we talked about this. As you've probably noticed if you've been listening to our coverage and watching the show, we are getting into second episode territory here. Oh, we're about to venture
into the real second episode. And what's very interesting is how Koy the show is playing it with how dangerous humans are in this world, because that is gonna be a gut punch to Ellie when it comes because in the game, you kill so many human people in the QZ before you ever kill a zombie. But in the show that is just not the case. We see destruction. It's such a smartness change because also in the game you have to kill people, because that's the nature of
these kind of games. It's a shoot them up, it's an adventure game, it's kind of a combo almost a first person shooter. There's all different things that are built into the gameplay and that's just the nature of what you need to do. But in the show, it's really about grounding it in this humanity and also in Joel's journey of of coming to terms with how many people and how many zombies, how many clickers, how many infected
he has killed. That's what we're getting to see in the show is a Joel and a Test who are tired. This is Joel and Tests who have already done the terrible stuff that you have to do in the game, and they're kind of sick of it. And I think it's really interesting, but yeah, here this is all out war Tests and Joel.
Ellie is shocked by this.
She's shably realizing that she's not in a good position as someone who just tested positive for infection with two strangers who love to kill.
She is absolutely shocked by this violence. Joel and Tests realize that Ellie has tested positive. Ellie panicked now because she just watched these two people commit murder like without any compunction, without any adults ready to do it, pulls up her sleeve and she's like, look at this bike. It's three weeks it's three weeks old. It's healed. Like, have you ever seen this before? Like, I'm not I'm not sick. Do I look like a zombie? I'm not
going to get you sick? And Joel has like heard this before, He's heard about people who have claimed to be immune before. He doesn't buy it at all. But they can't come to a decision in that moment because Feder the backup is here and they come out of here. So now they're they're back in that little moat proper, dodging the QZ forces, dodging the spotlights. Soldiers are everywhere. This is a really really fun, in tense uh sneak heavy portion of the game.
Yeah, and this is like really that moment we kind of touched on it in the last episode when we were talking about this, but this is that moment where your gameplay strategy is going to start to come into play. Because I tried to go hot and heavy, killing every song Drysol and I died so many times. They set you up by the opening of the game being all
about kill, kill, kill, kill kill. Then you get here and you learn actually, so often the easiest way to survive is to not kill and to use stealth and to sneak. And if you need to to sneak up on someone, grab them with a triangle and strangle them with a square. You know, we've done it many times at this point.
But I think it's get this shakeout, Yeah, get this.
Get the shift bob bop pop. But like it's a really it's a really good tone switch, and it's one of those smart stories telling where it almost kind of it sets you up for one thing and then pushes you into a totally different style of gameplay. And it's this is such a fun, spooky segment because you're kind of if you get caught by the you know, the the massive spotlights, then they'll find you and they send
more soldiers, and you really got to be sneaking. And it's not just you, it's you, it's test if Ellie and sometimes if if you if you get seen, then they'll get seen and you have to kind of help them. Miscake extremely tense, so you want to be stealthy. That's the best tip here, stealth, stealth, stealth, X.
Ray vision, will be back, and we're back.
Eventually they get out of their exit through some ruined buildings and then it come out of a sewer pipe near what used to be an overpass. And it's here that Ellie, you know, again, surely concerned that these two could just murder her outright, tells them what the firefly's plan was. It was to get her out of the QZ. And apparently there's a secret lab somewhere out there to
the west where scientists are working on a cure. And of course Joel and Test have heard all of this snake oil shit before, you know, they're not impressed by this.
It's been twenty years, twenty years of no cure, no vaccine, nothing.
When Ellie tells them that, you know, Marlene says, I'm whatever is making me immune is the key to the vaccine. Joel is like, Okay, that's it. I've heard enough. I've heard this before. It's very clear that there is no part of Joel that is willing or ready to hope again.
And certainly, if even if there was a chance, it's much too slim to risk a trip across open country all the way to Wyoming or wherever the fuck they're going tests however, maybe somewhat surprisingly wants to try, although in the game, unlike in the show, it reads more as self interest.
Hey, yeah, she wants she wants the guns.
She wants the guns.
Well, she was promised. But I like, this is the best thing about a good adaptation, right, is that it adds context to something that you already love, and if you don't love the adaptation, the other thing still exists. But I think in this case, when I've been replaying it, I was just from what I've seen in the show, Tess's decisions were seeming like they had this extra weight to them, like maybe it was a little bit of hope that she was scared to show Joel.
It wasn't.
It wasn't just these guns which she was gonna get from Robert anyway. So like suddenly she has to do this whole extra mission. Why would she want to do that? Why wouldn't she be just as reluctant as Joel. I love that it kind of adds this this elusive, kind of like moral complexity to her choices. But yeah, you when you're playing, from what you've seen of Tess. You think it's the guns. She wants those guns. She she wants what she's and and the Statehouse is the capital.
You know, Capitol Building is not far away.
I agree with you, and I feel like in the game, well it's in the show, the relationship with Tess and Joel. I think you're exactly right. And I think episode two supports this and that this idea that Tess was really the more hopeful one all along, but it was high that part of herself from Joel. Yeah, because she just understands that Joel, like when she snaps. We talked about this in our Wednesday episode, when she snaps and says,
can you just take the good news for once? You understand in that moment that that her frustration with Joel for never hoping, for never you know, holding out any kind of wish that the future could be better really kind of wears on her, but she's been keeping quiet about it. In the game, they're two peas in a pod. Like it's it.
Seems like she's the leader, she's the beacon, and Joel's kind of this empty vessel.
He's the follower. He is just lost and he just wants to do anything In the game that will deaden the feeling of loss and tragedy that he's carrying around, whereas Tess is just a creature of rage, just lashing out killing everybody. A good change, I think from games.
It's a really nice expansion, and on someone who was essentially a side character that was given so much more weight that even people who knew Tessa's fate expected her to last longer in the show than she did.
On the trek to the State House, we learn from Tessenjol's conversations that the military bombed Boston and most of the big cities in a kind of vain attempt to stop the infection. Although I guess you could argue in Boston it kind of worked.
It worked, but it kind of just pushed the infected inside. That's kind of And also, I will say this is the moment in this in the game and in the second episode. This is when if you've played the game and you're watching the second episode, or if you've watched the second episode and now you're playing the game to catch up, you're going to start acting like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and pointing at.
The screen and going, oh, because they just they are just absolutely just it's so wild to see something so die directly adapted, not just in visual aesthetic, but in writing, like to trust the writing of a video game to carry and oppress the ch TV show and to hear these lines, it's just so cool.
Yeah, I agree with you. Eventually they get to the Capitol building and it's here that our heroes encounter and you, as the player, encounter your first clickers, the first like really really dangerous boss level enemy. They are dangerous, they are super aggressive. Of course they cannot see, but they have pinpoint acoustical qualities akin to sonar and bats, and if you make any kind of noise, they will immediately key in on you and they will fuck you up.
So now you, as the player moving Joel, have to move through these ruins and dead silence. And this is when in the game you will probably begin to really lean on distractions, bricks whatever to kind of throw bottle the clickers.
Away, picking up like melee weapons to fight them with, like pieces of wood pipe stuff like that.
Now, there was a you know, in our discord, we've been discussing this Kotaku article that takes the opinion that The Last of Us would be better if it was more like the game, basically saying, you know, why isn't there more crafting? I'm paraphrasing, and the and the piece is worth reading as a as a kind of perspective. You know, why isn't there more crafting? Why don't they turn a coke bottle into a silencer? Why don't they
throw bricks to distract? I I take the point, but I actually love the way the clicker encounter went down in the show. It just felt like much more grounded. First of all, there are so many more things in the world, yeah, literally everywhere all around our characters that could have been used to distract clickers. When Joel runs past the display case and pushes it over, you can't do that in the game, right, You can only interact with like fucking bricks, bottles and.
Play add to your yeah, your pack. I think that's a really great point. And also I do think personally that there are so many moments, especially in the second episode, you know, where we see like Joel binding up Test's foot, which is essentially the same as using a medpack. We see Joe. That's what I was going to say, which is such a big moment, and sometimes you can get glitchy if they don't give you the boost option, you know,
so I was really liking that. I believe as we get further into the season, we will definitely see multiple like brick and bottle moments, even they won't be like no one's going to be collecting them and putting them in the pack. But do I think that we'll see tests or Joel use a bottle and slash a brick, And do I believe that we'll probably get some kind of modied melee weapon that is kind of of like
like you would make in the game. I do. I also think that they translated the tension of the clickers so well, because like as we're about to get into so you can see the state House in the distance, but you're not quite there. You got to you've gone through an office building. That's where you first meet them. They're terrifying. You can kind of sneak around them. We're about to head into like some we've got to climb outside the office building on this terrifying like window washing carriage.
Then you're going to go into the subway. There's multiple different parts because this is a game and you want to get that long term gameplay. But in the show, right, they just send you right into the museum because they know that they need to have that impact and instead of the tension of you must craft something, the tension there just all comes from the cinematography and the hiding.
I think that's exactly right. And again, you like, you know, people can have different opinions.
And the best thing is the game still exists. Yeah, the game, so you can still go and you can still craft, and you can still experience that part.
But I'm not sure as a viewer that the ex experience of watching our characters stop for twenty minutes to tape a coke bottle onto a gun is like the best most thrilling television like that you could watch. You want to watch them get right into it. And so
I agree with you. I think all the changes they've made have been for the better, and I actually think I mean, this is a conversation for another day, but I think one of the reefs so to speak, that the ship of video game adaptations has crashed on over the years has been this idea that we need to translate the game to the to.
The translate the game play with fidelity, right, we need to like, we need to have that moment in Doom where all of a sudden, the rock goes into POV first person and you see the gun.
No, you don't need that, you don't, you really don't need that to tell the story. The trio navigate to a window washing carriage still hanging from its cables after twenty years. Great your moment, really fun moment, and then eventually to a subway station which is just absolutely fucking riddled with it.
You've got to be shooting some monsters in the head.
Actually, I guarantee you will die.
You will die so many times. But this does it in This introduces probably my favorite crafting thing, which I do believe we'll see in the show at one point, which is the Molotov cocktail. And it's so cool because if you when when you're in a subway, you learn how to make a Molotov cocktail and you collect the bits to make it. As this game is very much about collecting, which kind of funny because it made me realize how much it's like a cozy game. It's like
murder animal crossing. It's like you have to collect all the things to do your recipes, but when you have the Molotov cocktail. The best, most satisfying part of the programming of this game is that if you hit a clicker with it, it will draw any other clickers with its screams, so you can kind of draw them and use it to sneak past and I found that to be a very useful technique, and that really first comes
through in the subway. I'm excited to see if we'll see a version of the subway this subway sequence, and then you know, later on in the game, as we're going to talk about, they kind of go in subway again. I'll be interested to see if we get a subway setting in the show, because it feels like it is quite a memorable part of the game. But there's so much to fit into this first season.
There really is. In the subway station, they find a body of a firefly, and at this point our heroes begin beginning to wonder if they're even going to be any fireflies. At the drop off point, with Ellie test leads the way. She gets them through a short cut through other ruins that take them to the place they need to go. Joel gets a one of those rolling garage doors open just in time to avoid You gotta fucking be tapping.
It'll be holden.
And here is where we get some fun modding. When if you're playing, you get to now, you've probably unlocked some other modding perks by the point, and your mileage may vary again, but you're probably making health. You're probably moddeling your weapons. Ellie tells Tess about how she was infected, same as in the show. She was hanging out at
the mall in the QZ. No one's supposed to go in there, but she got attacked by a runner, not a clicker, and in her panic, she went to go see Marlene, who, rather than execute Ellie, just decided to wait and see if the infection would take its course. Now, eventually, our heroes find themselves in a museum and the building is fucked. It is an advanced case.
Scary. Is really scary.
Is collapsing around them in different stages. And a collapsing beam separates Joel from Tests and Ellie, and then you hear Test scream Joel, they're here, and then they run off and who knows what's happening with them? Joel? You as Joel player as Joel now has to fight their way, you know, through different infected sneaking around them, fighting them when necessary to pick again. Your mileage may vary. I don't know how good you are at the game, but I barely made it out several times.
This was the funniest thing time.
Many times here.
I was thinking a lot about like why they chose the museum, because there's so many different segments that didn't make it in. But then I was thinking like, well, it took me a long time, and there's like a lot of strategy that you have to work out for like the runners and the clickers and kind of the time that they come in and the clickers in berserk mode and everything. And I was like, oh, this is in there, because I know that no matter how good you are at games like this, you googled how to
get out of the museum at least once. Every single person who played this game did that.
And by the way, here's another thing that hasn't been adapted for the television show. Joel's incredibly precise ability to hear where enemies are through walls.
Oh, I love this. Yeah, he needs to be doing this more in the game.
He needs to be doing that more. After the fight, Joel and Ellie share a moment looking at the State House. You know, they're on the roof. Now there's a fresh sunrise. It's beautiful. Tests is like, hey, let's let's fucking go, guys, Let's pick it up. Joel says, yes, ma'am. They come across more firefly bodies.
Now.
One of them is carrying orders, which you, as the player, can read, and indeed you should. They say, quote ensure no military presence before moving the girl to the next safe house, and then scribbled in handwriting underneath the typed orders, quote make sure the girl is well fed and in good health. Her safety is of the utmost importance. Now they're moving through Boston Commons, which is like a flooded swamp now, and eventually they get to the State House.
They find all the fireflies dead. Test searches the bodies, you know, hoping that there's a clue, a map, something that says where they're going, so that they can finish this deal and get the guns and all the you know, who knows what else. You know, where's that? Lab Ellie just says, somewhere out west. She doesn't know. Tests and Joel now argue and just like an episode two. Test reveals that she has been bitten somewhere in the museum
during that fight. Oops, right, she says. Test grabs Ellie's arm, rolls Ellie's sleeve up, shows it to Joel and says, look, that's a three week old bite versus my bite from an hour ago.
This is real.
This is real, Joel, this is fucking real, real. You've got to get this girl to Tommy's. And it's so a truck of fedra show up at this moment. But it's actually really interesting. I find myself wondering if that truck doesn't show up, I kind of think Joel says, no, I'm not going.
Yeah, No, I think so too. I think I think that Joel would have probably waited, or he would have had to Test, would have had to shoot him, or he would have had to shoot Tests like it was not He wasn't gonna leave like this is. This is just going to be another unrelenting loss.
Yeah. And I certainly don't think he escorts Ellie any further west with Tests out of the picture. I think he goes back to the QZ and just decides to become an even more aggressive and dedicated murder, smuggler, criminal to kind of like numb the pain.
He say he's the next Robert.
Yeah, I don't. I certainly don't think he's going to be like, yeah, what the fuck, I'll take Ellie.
I also think it's really interesting because that in that moment, that's the first time that we see Tests have hope, and it's just before she's about to die. She's like, this is real. Get this girl to Tommy's. Like the implication there is like you can fucking save the world, Like this is the cure we've been waiting for. This
is actually real. I feel like when they were making this show, I feel like Drugman and Mason and the crew they were probably that was the moment they probably to expand on Tessa's character because it feels so true to who she is in the show. And then we get this really interesting moment because, like you said, Fedra, I love that they changed this in the show to the infected. I think it's really affected. We've seen the evils of Fedra, but in the game it is horrific.
Test spends her last moments begging Joel to take Ellie, and then when he does and they exit the area holding off the feder troops. She dies.
You hear her screaming as you run away, and you hear them shooting her.
So Joel takes Ellie through a door and now you're on the other side of it, like a in a large fourier or something. And Ellie is absolutely shocked that they left us. She can't fucking believe it. She's like, we left her to die. She's just met Tests and watch Test commit a murder, and it tells you a lot about Ellie. Again, we mentioned this in our previous episodes about the show and the game, how Ellie is the only person that you encounter in this world who actually cares about other people.
And yeah, value, just baseline, just baseline is like, we can't just leave her.
I know she was in fact, well, we can't just leave her to die. And I think that it's important to remember that as we move towards the ending of the Last of Us game, because everything we know about Ellie in this game is that she wants to help people and have given the full information.
About how she might be able to cure, how.
A cure could be developed from her. I think there's no question she says, I'll do it. No matter the cost, I will do it. And it's hard to remember the Joel never like he's doing what Tess said here, but he's kind of forced into it, and at the end of the day, he kind of doesn't respect Ellie's agency. As much as he loves her, he doesn't respect her point of view.
X Ray Vision will be back and we're back.
Joel and Ellie have to evade the Federer to escape the state House, and it's more fun action. It's here that the player as Joel, acquires the hunting rifle for the first time. Yeah, it's also here that Ellie starts asking for a gun, of course.
And also like this is the really this is the really head fuck moment, which is like you've just they've just killed Tess. So narratively and emotionally, you just want to kill all of the soldiers because you know that they just killed her, but you have to stealth to survive that you cannot. There is like a number of soldiers and the only soldier you really really have to physically kill is the one who's like guarding the doors
so you can't get out. Otherwise you can really stealth and occasionally, you know, to strangle people are you killing You can decide, you can say you're just you're just doing a relanked choke that they're just gonna wake up, but probably killing him. But like, it's really interesting because they set you up again to be in this emotional angry state that Joel would be in, which is like, fuck them, they killed this one person who was my partner.
And then the game's like, Nana, no, if you want to survive and gal of this statehouse alive, you gotta you gotta just ignore them. You got to just focus on survival. It's so interesting.
As they're escaping, they encounter a cloud of cordysop spores and Joel puts his gas mask on. Ellie just breathes it, just breathes it. And if and if Joel was you know, had doubts before, surely they are now fading away because he is just watching her with his eyes, just breathing in spores that should cause her to get infected as absolutely zero effect. They eventually get above ground and Ellie tries to apologize for tests, and Joel says, here's how
this is going to play out. You don't talk about test ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves. Most importantly, here Joel stresses to Ellie, and she's heard this before, but now it's Joel's turn to tell her that she can't tell anybody about her immunity because that will probably mean her death. And also, by the way, you got to do exactly what I say. You've never been out here before. You don't know what it's like I do. It's gonna end back, Yeah, just
just do what I say. Joel, in need of a of a next move, a vehicle would be helpful, decides to steer them towards a town called Lincoln, uh, an independent town where Joel says, quote, someone owes him some favors. So they make the move to Lincoln through the woods, and Ellie is just reveling in nature, in the in the in the Emerald leaves.
It's so it's.
Such a juxtaposition to the kind of ruins, even the overgrown of Boston. This is just pure nature, and Ellie is so happy to be there.
One of my like Pavlovian responses to this game happens when I think of or hear like at Ellie laughing somewhere off on the map. You know you're playing I've got headphones on. I'm playing as Joel. I'm looking at a thing or I'm scavenging, and I hear Ellie kind of laugh. And then you go over and she's looking at something.
Yeah, giggling or singing, yeah, trying to teach herself how to whistle, which she's always doing, and it sounds like she's turning into an infected So Joel's always really stressed about it.
So there's one of these moments right here where you find Ellie kind of like reveling in a swirl of actual fireflies, real fireflies, and then she says, sorry, I lost myself there for a moment. It's a wonderful, really magical moment. Now, apparently this town is inhabited by guy's got His name is Bill. He lives somewhere in the town, which is riddled with booby traps all along the way.
Now they can see kind of a single fire or something, you know, maybe half a mile maybe three quarters a mile into the town, and that's probably where Bill is. There's a moment here where Joel and Ellie have to be briefly separated, which is really fun. Now, on the way to Bill's Joel tells Ellie about Tommy. He says that Tommy is I don't know, it's unclear at this point, like what his status with the fire.
He was maybe a former firefly, he was a firefly once. It's unclear, but he was there, and that makes Joel believe that he'll know what to do without Yeah.
He's Tommy will know what to do. Meanwhile, Ellie continues to you know, communicate wonder about everything she's seeing. They pass by like an old garden store.
Yeah, and you can dig around and ye contact the stuff. And Ellie just fucking loves Godden gnomes.
It's so cute. She says, man, I had an art book filled with these. I always thought they were super cute. And then later she finds an arcade game.
Was like a cool like Wolverine style character on the front had abandoned pizza parlor, and.
He's like, did you play this? How do you know this game? She's like, no, but I had a friend that knew everything about this game. Apparently there was a character called Angel Knives whose like Mortal Kombat esque finisher Combo was like a gut kick decapitation, and she's like, I wish I could play it so. As we noted, Bill's town is just booby trapped to the gills, land
mines up everything. Yeah, he is a guy who knows how to acquire things, which has made him helpful to Joel and Test in the past, and of course they're hopeful that he'll be helpful to them now Here. On a bread truck heading into the town, Joel finds a bow and arrow, which is extremely It is probably the thing I use the most.
It's really good for headshows.
Yeah, it's great, great, great.
Oh my god, said a bread truck exclamations. Folks, careful, careful, don't eat that bread.
Ellie is like, hey, I'm good with the bow and arrow. It turned out by the way, you know, and as the game progresses into the sequel that she is quite good at true, not untrue. But of course Joel is certainly not ready to uh to trust this girl he just met with a deadly weapon that you know, will probably end up stuck out of his back if he choos it to her. As they get closer to the smoke plume, Joel tells Ellie, uh, hey, just be when we find Bill. Just be chill. Yeah, just be chilly.
He's he's weird. He is not going to be trusting of strangers. Uh, you know, and he says he closes by saying, you know, he's a good guy, but you know, let me do the talking. Ellie agrees. Joel leads Ellie to what looks like an old mechanic's garage, and here is where one of Bill's traps strikes with really really dangerous and cool effect. This is one of the kind of this is one of the most unique action scenes
in this game. It is really fun. So there's a loud bang, a rattle of chains, and next thing you know, you as Joel are upside down, hanging by your leg from the ceiling. En snarreted one of Bill's traps anchored on the other side by a refrigerator. Joel is like, Ellie, get getting on top of the refrigerator and cut the rope and cut me off of this. Now while Ellie is doing that, of course the infected are coming. They've been drawn by the sound and they are swarming everywhere.
And so now you, as Joel, hanging upside down, have to shoot these infected really as best you can with your limited.
And there's like it starts off with runners, who do you think you can deal with? And then the clickers come. You know, it is so intense and you're at Lea's probably gonna die a couple of times before you succeed, oh for sure.
And clay on easy and folks, the cutting takes fucking for Ellie because the two sections.
Yeah, first she starts cuying it and it kind of fools, and then she has to properly ci and that's when the clickers start, and you're really fucked, like you're in trouble.
And now the clickers are here, the infected, the fast ones are here, and they're chasing Ellie all around the fucking garage. Joel is is like, hey, hey, come over here, look at me, like doing his best to draw their attention and shoot them and reload. Finally, Ellie cuts the rope. Joel lance head first on the ground with an infected on top of him, and you're thinking, I'm getting ready to jam on this square baby, I'm gonna be hitting
this square button. But the infected is killed and you look up and there is bill Uh and it's you know, shades of twenty eight days later. Yeah, that moment where they chased by the infected go into the apartment building. They're trying by the lights. They crawled to the top of the stairs and it's Brendan Gleeson in like a full butcher smock and like it's like.
You have the gas mosque and Bill has this long hair. He's going to be played by Nick Offerman in this series, which I think is a very exciting casting. So yeah, it's it's a really good scary moment. Like you think there's relief, but it's it You're not really relieved when you see him.
In the game. Bill is voiced by w Earl Brown, who you might remember from Deadwood, another classic fantastic show Deadwood. Bill leads them to relative safely with the infect it always just like a step behind and you're having to fight your way out. Now, really fun segment. Eventually you get to something like a safehouse that's like a brick building that's been kind of like reinforced with metal plates. Ellie is like, oh, man, thank you so much for showing up when you did, and you know that you
really saved our ass. And then before she can really even finish that, Bill has her handcuffed to a pipe and he's got his gun out and.
His gun punk. Why would you bring that here?
Now?
Honestly, fair play to Joel. I would be pretty fucking paranoid too. And you know, Bill rightly says, hey, you come here, you come to my house, you set off all my traps, You damn your break my arm? What the fuck is going on? And who is this girl? Ellie's fierceness, which has been hinted at before and flashes during the game, most only that the first meeting of
Joel and Ellie flashes now. She says, I'm none of your goddamn business, and we're here because you owe Joel's favors, and you can start by taking these things off she means to. And Bill is like, favors, What the fuck? What favors could I possibly? Oh, Joel? And here we get Joel's ask, and Joel's ask, honest is pretty uh, it's it's pretty shocking to hear. He's like, I need a car.
He's like, hey, can I just have like a car, just a whole call?
Can I have a working car? I've a live battery and some gasoline.
Not too much, not too much.
Bill is like, first of all, if I had a working vehicle, why the funk would I give it to you? And to know, Ellie, completely ignoring Joel's earlier warning to like not get into it with Bill, gets into it with Bill, and Joel has to be like and settle her down. Joel then notes, Hey, there's a lot of like wrecked cars around here, Like couldn't you You're very handy, Bill, you could like assemble something.
Uh.
Bill has that kind of know how, and he kind of comes around and decides to do it. He shows Joel and Ellia map of his town showing important locations. He says, Okay, here's what's going to happen, Joel, you and Ellie for all I care. I don't give a shit. Gather the stuff that I need from these places marked on the map, and then bring it back, and you know, we'll see what happens. Maybe I can put together something
that runs. But after this, he says, I owe you nothing, and he gives Joel the handcuff key to unlock Ellie and he leads them through the booby trapped town. Bill is like, worst tests. You guys are thick as thieves. Usually where's she at? Joel's like, oh, you know, she not heroes and this is just a simple drop off job. The stuff Bill needs is on the other side of
his town. So the first place that we stop is the armory, which is a very useful area for the players because now you're restocking on ammo, on fucking health, on shit bricks, fucking pipes.
Which was until this point you've only been able to do by shiving your way into like random locked rooms, which waste one of your weapons that you really need to kill clickers. So it's it's a it's a double edged sword. But this is a great moment of relief. They're lumbing us into a false sense of security.
Is there's a great moment that tells you who Bill is right. There's a there's an infected that has been ensnared in one of his traps, and Bill is just casually like, hey, you didn't answer my question about where Tess is while decapitating infected. You know, it's so good. There's another here. As they're moving through these kind of like dead vehicles in the middle of the street, there's another infected swarm that that you as the player have
to fight off. Really fun moment, and eventually they get past that. Bill tells Joel about why he chose this town because Joel is like, this is kind of you're kind of vulnerable here. No, And Bill says like no, because the infected are really predictable. And he says, and this will be you know again, and every zombie movie foreshadowing this is the Every zombie movie has this hypothesis. Bill says, quote, it's normal people who scare me. You
of all people should understand that. And that's twenty eight days later.
Walking Dead. It's like post apocalyptic but not zombies.
But you know, it's always the people that are the worry.
This is a very interesting thing that he says. I think they do a really good job here of setting up some kind of history. Bill keeps asking where Tests is. Bill says, you should understand that, Bill kind of talk. There's this illusion of a history between Bill, Joel, and Tests that we know that they're going to expand on in the series. But here is just these really interesting illusions. Is he saying you have all people should understand that
because humans did something terrible to Bill? Or is he saying it because Joel's a murderer? Like It's a really interesting bit of writing.
At the Armory, Ellie yet again is like, hey, I need a gun. I give me a gun. Bill and Joel have a side conversation. Bill is like, hey, just quick, FYI like, I think that this is crazy what you're doing.
Don't do it.
And I think you should take this girl back wherever the fuck you found her and leave her there.
Again. Interesting moment because like Bill is this kind of prepper survivalist who doesn't give a shit, who doesn't owe Joel anything, but then suddenly wants to share his insight into this relationship with Joel and give him this warning. It's so interesting.
Bill later tells Joel that, you know, once upon a time he had a partner, someone he had to look after. I highly suspect that we're going to learn more about this in the show. Uh, this is this is all we kind of get of this in the game. And if if episodes one and two are any guide to the kind of philosophy that Mason and Druckman have taken with this adaptation, it's that they're going to pull on these little threads that are left hanging in the video
game narrative and they're going to flesh him out. So I would not be surprised to see that but he says, you know that slowed me down being with another person, being attached to another person, it put me in danger. So he doesn't really say what happened, but he's essentially says that he ditched this person. In what manner that ditching took place, we don't know. Again, I will assume that we were going to find out Sunday night. Joel is like, okay, okay, enough lectures, I'll take a shotgun.
He takes it.
Bill then shows Joel how to make a nail bomb out of a soup can, which is a very wonderful pne You need a fantastic and useful recipe for Joel's crafting menu. And then Bill tells Joel where they're going. There's a Federer truck on the other side of town. They used to come through here. They come through here regularly scavenging, looking for things, and that federal squad was overrun by a horde of infected and the truck is still there and it probably still works, probably still has
a working battery because it wasn't that long ago. Joel is like, okay, this might work, and the trio head off through a church out of stained window towards the local high school in the feder truck and we'll pick it up in chapter three of our Last of Us video game, du Dah. And it feels like just the right place to stop, because again it feels like we're heading right into what's going to happen yeah Sunday, And it feels yeah.
I will say this is a very good point that we're at because you can listen to this without worrying the episode three will be spoiled for you. That's what I will say. This is we are going to get that expansion Jason talked about, and oh boy, I can't wait to talk to you about that episode up next.
Nerd Out.
In today's nerd Out, why you tell us what you love and why, or as you have so kindly been doing recently, sharing a theory with us, Elizabeth pictures us a theory about a location from the upcoming Quantumnium movie, And I'm very glad Elizabeth sent this in because I know she has been very excited about this theory and Jason, I'm gonna let you read it because I think this one. I think this is a very astute suggestion.
I think so too. I think there's something to it. Morning, Rosie and Jason. Hello, Okay, So here it is. It starts with Quantumnia the media when they are in the quantum realm. She's talking about the shots from the trailer. It really reminded me of the TVA. You can pull both areas up and they aren't identical. But to me, it looks like the TVA is underground and the quantum realm is above ground. So here it is, the TVA
and the quantum realm are the same place. Furthermore, there's a possibility the TVA was set up in the quantum realm to contain Kang, and that's why he needs so much help to escape. So from here you can open up the ideas like the is it the Illuminati who helped Doc and Kang? The possibilities are endless. Enjoy, Elizabeth. I like this a lot. Yeah, I think I think that there is something to it. I think that there's something to whatever it is that Loki unleashed. That was
unleashed at the end of Loki. It created this branch universe where Kang is free, quote unquote free, and it would not surprise me at all if, for instance, when okay, so when Loki comes back at the end of you know, the very stinger of the final episode of season one, and we see the statue of Kan. I bet you that takes place after Aunt Man in Quantumania.
Ooh, I love that. That makes a lot of sense, And I will say I remember that. I think that this visual nod that Elizabeth is seeing is not unintentional, because do you remember when they went to the the well at the end of time. I'm like, where he who remains lives? Everyone was like, oh, this kind of looks like, you know what we were, the quantum realm, the microverse. It looks like it could be in there,
So I think there's a definite connection. I also think it would make sense that if Kang established the TVA in you know, the timeline as we know it, that one version of Kang. That would mean that any Kang would have the knowledge to establish the TVA, or maybe one of the Kangs who is trying to stop Kang the conqueror we're guessing who's in the who's in the quantum realm, could have established a version in the TVA.
I love your read that that Loki season two takes place after and that's what we're seeing because I want Kang to get out. I want to see every Kang. I want to know where he is. And we just have to say here that I'm very happy to see people finally saying what I've been saying all along, that the ten rings are obviously in that man and the Quantumnia trailer that looks like that kind of thing. And also, can I just say, I know no one else is saying this, but I am saying it, and please uh
Fastos obviously made the ten rings in Eternals. We saw it. It's the same circle, like there is a connection between these different artifacts, and we're going to find out it's only a couple of weeks now. I can't believe it,
just a few weeks. Thank you, Elizabeth. Yes, yeah, if you have theories or passions that you want to share, and we know you do, you can always hit us up at x ray at crooked dot com instructions in the show notes and then we'll read them out and talk about them, especially you know, we love to hear a theory, so yeah, so send them over.
All right, that's it for our show today. Stay tuned for a continuing coverage of the Last of Us. The show and the Game, and of course we're going to check in on The Bad Batch and other shows as they pop up. Rosie plugs, plugs, plugs, plug plug, plug, plugs, what do you have to plug?
You can find me on letterbox and Instagram. Rosie Marx m R. I've been writing about Last of Us at IGN. I will have some really cool man Quantumania stuff coming out, and obviously you can hear me here because this is really now the home of most of my theories and my outrageous tinfoil off the hat thoughts. So yeah, just check us out every Wednesday and Friday wob double vision so lucky.
Catch the next episode on Wednesday, February first for more of the Last of Us on HBO and remember we're bringing you to two two two two episodes a week. That's twice the everything else. Don't miss it Wednesday and Friday in your podcast feed.
And if you want to read a transcript of the show, they're posted beneath the show notes on the Crooked website for each episode within forty eight hours of release. And do not forget subscribe on YouTube, where you can now watch four episodes of the show, including us in the Crooked studio together ir Olt. Please follow X i'llb pot on Twitter and join our discord. Lots of you have been joining. It's great, tons of amazing people in that bands.
It's all kinds of media, all kinds of cool spaces in that to hang out, and me and Jason are in that. And if you're loving the Lost of Us, we've been doing some really fun watcher loves.
Speaking of the discord. In our discord, we're giving away a really cool Last of Us Activation pack. It is a Last of Us branded car Heart backpack containing a Last of Us car Heart jacket, much les, which is really where it's really cool, a little toolkit so that you can craft your items and weapons, a poster, a QR code that allows you access to unique the Last of Us social media filters, and more stuff in there.
It's really cool. Join our discord and head over to the giveaways channel to learn more and to sign up, and we'll be doing a random draw next week in our discord to see who will receive that really cool Last of Us Activation pack. Five star reviews, five star ratings, five five five five. We gotta have them, we need them, we love them. You gotta give them to us. Here's the one Deliver you Gotta do it. Here's the one from Greenman. Always upbeaten fun, thank You, thank you. This
podcast is always upbeaten fund. The point of view is always why you should like a movie, TV show, comic, et cetera, and never tear it down. The hosts and guests heaven encyclopedic knowledge of geekdom, and it is fantastic to listen to.
Thank You, green Man, Thank You.
That's definitely a 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 Gerhard are editing and sound designers by Vascilli's Photopoulos. Dilon Villanueva and Matt De Group provide video production support. Alex Reller for Handle Social Media. Thank you, Brian Vasquez for our theme music. See you next time.