#hbo's the last of us spoilers

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

Me, looking at show-only fans knowing that there's something worse than the Bloater:

[dumdeeedum]

The Last of US TV finale spoilers ahead!

I LOVE this show, I thought almost everything about it was masterfully executed. I personally would have loved to see more infected but that’s because I played the game and actually enjoyed how they did them in the show, they were creepy and worked well and would have sprinkled just a little more into the show than just “people can be the real villains!” But otherwise it was absolutely fantastic, I love this Ellie and Joel more than the game versions and loved what they did with absolutely every side character from the game in the show.  I’m also SO relieved to be getting tv like this again. I feel like we’re in a very strange place with entertainment and we don’t get quality like this very often anymore so this was such a breath of fresh air!  HOWEVAH!

I REALLY thought they’d fix the science in the show. It was my biggest issue in the game and why I ultimately didn’t even entertain not siding with Joel at the end even after everything he did and how I understand I’m SUPPOSED to feel about it. The messy science just meant, for me, that these people have ONE immune person in the world that they know of and are just opting to KILL HER. WHY?! I’m not actually a scientist but I really would have thought that it’d take a lot more experimenting over a longer period of time, perhaps even generations, to figure out what Ellie’s mutation is and how it could function as the cure for humanity.  And this feels especially true in a world where resources for that sort of shit don’t seem like they’d be very plentiful. I wish they’d used Marlene’s suspicion that Ellie’s mom did not actually cut the cord before she was bit to perhaps have Marlene then suspect that Ellie might be immune since she didn’t turn as a baby and at least check her blood or whatever then!  The thing could have been that Ellie’s been experimented on, without her knowledge because she didn’t know she was immune, her entire life and then maybe I’d believe that these doctors and scientists truly believed that killing the ONLY immune person they know of in the world is a good idea. 14 years is a FAR cry from the year or so they seem to have known about Ellie to be certain the answer is killing her. I’d have believed that a little bit more! (And if it WAS the case that they’d been doing that then they explained it VERY poorly.)

This is ESPECIALLY relevant if the immunity was suspected to have come through the umbilical cord as the game and show both suggest. Ellie would probably have been cooperative in stuff like blood tests, brain scans, bone marrow tests, harvesting her eggs to see if a child can be born with the immunity, whatever! I’m sure she’d endure some pretty invasive shit for the sake of the cure if she were asked! But you DO NOT KILL THE ONLY IMMUNE PERSON YOU KNOW OF!  If Marlene had PROPERLY explained to Joel as Joel was leaving with Ellie that this experimentation had been in the works for YEARS, that he simply didn’t understand the situation and that they were certain that a vaccine could be produced but only by harvesting what was in Ellie and they couldn’t do that without killing her and THEN Joel had killed Marlene it would have been WAY more interesting to me. As it is it felt like they wanted her brain stem or whatever (I forget exactly what it is they wanted) to play with it! Joel was right, TO ME, because they didn’t explain it well and it doesn’t make sense TO ME! Excuse that first sentence, it’s a doozy. The consent thing was ALWAYS going to be an issue, on both sides, and a good moral point in the show against both Marlene and Joel because neither Marlene nor Joel knew what Ellie would do given the right circumstances to actually consider it so they were both disrespecting Ellie’s autonomy. (In the second game Ellie is asked and isn’t sure what she should have done and at that point she’s had more time to live and to want to live.) Marlene killing Ellie or Joel saving her. The reasons don’t matter, Ellie should have had a real choice.

But FOR ME, ultimately, having a more convincing argument for how wrong Joel is would have gone a lot farther to make me see the true moral blackness of Joel’s actions at the hospital at the end. He didn’t ruin shit for the world the way I’m supposed to feel he did, FOR ME. We’ve seen him kill, we already know he isn’t a good guy and isn’t just willing to kill but to kill with unnecessary cruelty, even after knowing Ellie. In the game we spend a lot of time killing people and while the game does a decent job attempting to make us feel like the people are people and we should feel bad for killing people, especially in this world, we still kill a LOT of people in the game. Seeing Joel kill some more people at the hospital, doctors but also just people, people who are threatening to kill his new daughter AND the ONLY immune person in the world that we know of just didn’t phase me as much as I’m sure it was meant to. I’m also sure people who didn’t play the game may feel differently about that and obviously it isn’t a good thing that Joel did but Joel’s actions made a lot of sense to me given the givens. AND as far as I’m concerned Joel also saved them from themselves because these dummies almost fucked up the only shot this world has to get a cure for this infection! Perhaps this is a very basic and wrong hot take, I didn’t really look at reviews or anything when the game came out because it actually took me a while to play the first game but there it is. I may be wrong and I’m sure a lot of people would just tell me to let it go and suspend disbelief because that isn’t the point even if I am right, but it just seems like a weird oversight to me that I REALLY hoped that the show would address given 10 years of retrospect and a staff to help the guy work on it! Feel free to correct me, I’d really like to know if I’m wrong.

[ayo-edebiri]

#He's her dad, i'm not fine

[nicolethered]

First look at Joel in season two

[lovebugism]

the "you're cargo" to "it's okay, babygirl" to "it wasn't time that did it" pipeline goes so fucking crazy bro

[cordycepspog]

Laura Bailey, the voice of Abby in TLoU2, posing over the dead doctor is peak comedy everybody else go home

[azertyrobaz]

Parents lie

[arcanejude]

and then nothing bad happened to them 😊

THE LAST OF US

1.07-Left Behind

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

I love that HBO's TLOU went "how do we make David worse? we make him a preacher!" Which not only fits (David was kind of preachy in the original game as well) but David doesn't even believe in the Bible. For him, it's just a way to keep his cultpeople under his thumb.

[bucketsofgiggles]

i am absolutely l o s i n g it at Tommy "Desert Storm Vet and Texan in 2003 When the World Ended" Miller realizing he's now a communist, like look at this:

this man's whole worldview got Rocked

[thehotpilot]

the way joel says “what’s wrong with you” is so fucking funny to me like he’s so embarrassed his feral child is making a bad first impression on tommy that he’s like i raised you better than this!! but we all know he didn’t and she’s actually just like him

[taiturner]

Let’s see what I go tell the others now.

[not-so-mundane-after-all]

I just know, I feel it in my bones, that if Henry didn't stop Joel, he would've pulled Ellie off the floor and right into his arms. You can see it in his eyes - it's like for a moment, even with all that just happened, all he sees is Ellie, his Ellie and she's scared, probably hurt and she's crying and all he wants to do is gather her in his arms and make sure she's okay. And if that happened, Ellie would've broken down right then and there and just clung to Joel with all she has left in her.

Somebody, please write this.

[orangechickenpillow]

Joel protecting Ellie on the ground while he's up in the building. Him seeing the truck at the same time she did, following her as she ran to it for shelter. Him being so zoned in on her and only her. Him seeing that she's going to make a run to save Henry and Sam, and her looking to him for cover, and him knowing what it means and nodding, "go for it, I've got you."

Holy fucking shit.

[attackoneyebrows]

i was never afraid, before you showed up.

[jadeinretrogrde]

bruh wtf