#hbo's the last of us spoilers

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

Before episode 3 got released, it got hyped up so much. It was going to be The Best episode yet and every time I saw it get hyped up, I was cautiously more sceptical.

Well, I just watched it and it was just beautiful. Not even bittersweet, just beautiful.

You don't know what the story is between Bill and Frank in the game, you don't even get to meet Frank. Because by the time you reach Bill's town, Frank is already deceased. He's mentioned prior to finding him, he's introduced as someone Bill calls "a partner- someone I had to look after" but you never actually get to meet Frank.

Not only does the show finally give us Frank.

They confirmed to us what Bill and Frank were to one another, they showed us how they met, the 16-17 years they lived together, loved each other, and grew old together in a world in which most people don't get to grow old at all, and they gave us their end. Together. Because this time, Frank didn't go alone and Bill didn't stay behind.

And it wasn't a violent end either. Frank didn't get bitten numerous times trying to escape the town Bill had turned into a fortress in the hopes of keeping both the Infected as well as the people away.

They went quietly, peacefully. In each other's arms.

And most importantly of all, they were in love until the very end.

[artfulusername]

Okay. Say the doctor had been able to isolate what caused Ellie to be immune to cordyceps. Say he’d even been able to replicate it.

Where are they going to manufacture and mass produce a cure for everyone? Where’s the infrastructure that could support that massive undertaking?

The only factory we hear about (in the show) is one that makes pills and bullets. Do you think that you could get that cure past FEDRA and have the factory (whose bosses are probably doing pretty damn well for themselves) produce that cure? How are you going to distribute it? How are you going to make sure that more than a select few get this cure? Had the Fireflies really considered all of that? Did they think that far ahead?

Would Ellie’s death have really saved the world?

[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.

[ellies-knife]

Reddit wins this one

[Image ID: post from Reddit thread r/thelastofus titled "When is a gay relationship on screen not "political propoganda?""

Post reads: "It's the same criticism I see levied at the last episode over and over again. "I'm fine with gay people, but keep politics out of my entertainment."

I'm genuinely curious. How in the holy hell is a gay relationship pictured on screen inherently "political?"

It's maddening man. I'd prefer they just come out and say what they're actually thinking."

User catnap_kismet replies: "there are two sexualities, straight and political. there are two genders, male and political. there are two races, white and political. etc".

This reply has many awards and 1.2k upvotes

End ID]

[critter-of-habit]

There's a WALL of them

[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

[obiwan]

THE LAST OF US - BILL & FRANK

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

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

[ewans-mitchell]

I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong, because there was one person worth saving. That's what I did.

THE LAST OF US (2023-) S01E03 | "Long Long Time"

[nicolethered]

First look at Joel in season two

[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

[bucksapartment]

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

[fcntasmas-archive]

the last of us on hbo: here’s your first two episodes, full of the TERROR of humanity!! infected!! corrupt government!! marshal law!! senseless killing!!

us: ah

the last of us on hbo: and now for your third episode. the gut wrenching love story between two men who found each other at the end of the world and became so entangled in one another that when time finally wore them away, they left together. also on the nature of daylight plays over their last day together

us: