#like the questions of Ellie's agency as far as this is concerned don't really matter until they get close to the domed building anyway???

[james-stark-the-writer]

like, i get that because of where they ended last episode this scene had to happen because the scene that they are adapting originally also gave us the information that they were making a vaccine and that Ellie had to get out somewhere but like you guys could have just like put this in another scene or like had Tess and Joel have this conversation conclusion anyway separately without Ellie telling this to us because they're supposed to be experienced smugglers who probably wouldn't need to make this choice or even have this conversation beyond a few lines, like it doesn't matter what they think the Fireflies think bc they're gonna get paid either way, like i just don't understand why this show is so averse to treating these characters like they live in this world and are capable of their own thoughts and don't have to explicitly state every single one of their thoughts. it's like a bit annoying frankly.

but that's just the type of writing i prefer so if you like this that's fine or whatever but it's just really grating because of the material they are adaptating and how much that material goes out of its way to respect your intelligence and to treat you like you are capable of understanding that these people have their own thoughts and feelings (though that kinda backfired on them in Part II but let's not get into that. S02 will probably reveal that this fan base is not any better either lmao. praying for whoever gets cast as Abby and hope they have a good support system).

like i don't think you need to explicitly make the point that they are afraid that Ellie will turn and hurt them because that's fucking implied already and also very obvious by the fact that Joel is afraid of Ellie hurting him but also like it was pretty obvious from last episode and i think this is just making his action there even less compelling because like it's such a strange choice of writing and like i can't fully articulate that at the moment because i don't have the context of the whole show but i will probably come back to this sometime in the future to see how this holds up because so far i feel like this is just catastrophically worse for not just an adaptation but also making his choice in episode 1 weaker because it's not complicating his thoughts, it's flattening it to try to provide two binaries of "Joel wants to protect her" and "Joel wants to kill her", it's not a complex morality system, Joel it's still at the beginning of his character i am aware but like it's just presenting two choices as binaries and with the context of Part II i know that Neil Druckmanm is anti-binary in some ways but like, for THIS story so far, i don't think this was the right choice. like I don't know, i will still have to see their execution but so far it's not doing anything for me.

fuck it, let's watch more The Last of Us S01. if you missed it, go to the link to read all my thoughts on episode 1, let's watch episode 2.