The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 1 - Fandom Hybrid Podcast #349

0:24 What's up, hybrids? Welcome back to another episode of the Phantom Hybrid Podcast. This is Hanukkah and I'm here with Anthony and we are discussing the Season 2 premiere of The Last of Us. I hate these long hiatuses. I really do. But they're worth it. They are so worth it. They are worth it this episode. Quality, Quality television. It is. At its best, quality television. But. However. Ellie's getting on my damn nerves already. The longing is real.

1:07 The longing is real. The longing is real and she is getting on my damn nerves already. I, I, I heard Casey in my head, even though Ellie is 21 where we are now. I was like, this girl need a whooping. She need a whooping. Like she really needs a whooping. But we're going to get into that. You know, but the the counselor side to me says it's, it's a trauma. Trauma response, I know. Trauma response. I know for both both of them it's a trauma response. I know and and the crazy. Thing is, we don't even know. Like we don't even know what she knows because the start of the show is, you know, it's five years after what happened in the last season.

1:57 So we don't even know yet what she knows. We just knows. We just know that there is a a bit of an estrangement with them, but. I still don't think he told her. I don't. Think so. I don't think he told her, but I think she probably has guessed. No, I think she know he ain't telling her. We'll, we'll get to that. I I just think she, she knows he's not telling her the entire truth. Right. And, and we'll, we'll get to that when we get to the part with the therapist. Yes, we will. OK, so let's start at the top of the episode because we see that part that the season ended on last season where she's asking.

2:41 She was like, swear to me that you're telling me the truth about what happened with the fireflies. And he looks at her, doesn't matter eyelash. And he's like, I swear. And it's like, I think we had this discussion with the last with that last episode. It's almost like you can't tell if she's, if she's not believing him, like she thinks he's telling, you know, a lie, or if she's just to the point where she's just like, OK, you know what he says. It's the truth. I'm not going to push. I'm just going to accept it and just move forward because she kind of she takes a long time and it's just like she's looking at him and then she's just like, OK. And then she walks on and I don't know if him standing there for be after she walks is what makes her like, he's not telling me the truth.

3:39 Because I think if he had been clear, you know, of a clear mind, he would have just started walking with her with no, with no problem. But the fact that he sat there and he just kind of stood, I was like, yeah, that's where the bridge started. Well, he hesitated after she asked him, and then she walked off and he still stood there. Yeah, Yeah. But I think subconsciously, I think she she has some suspicion that he's not being completely honest about what happened. Right, right. Whatever it is, whatever went down, whatever she knows, he's not telling, 'cause he killed everybody there.

4:24 Yes, as we see in the next episode, I mean the next scene, because we see a group and it's like a group of his, what, five of them? And they're there with a whole bunch of, you know, grave markers. And they're upset. And they're just like, why would he do this? And they're having this conversation between themselves. And one of the girls says, well, I heard something about a kid he had with him and supposedly, and the other girl cut her off and said, no, don't say it because it's not true. And in this moment, you realize that not everybody in the Fireflies was aware.

5:08 One, they weren't aware of who Ellie was. And two, they weren't aware of what the situation was like, why she was being brought there, and what they were going to have to do in order to do whatever it was they needed her to do. Because obviously this little group really don't know what Ellie was there for. They just know that Joel came in and they don't even really know much. About him, Somebody name Joel or Joe or whatever. Yeah, just came in and cleaned house and they're like it even, you know, even if it was true, the rumors about what Ellie was, it makes no sense without. And they're like cutting each other off. Like they don't even want to say their names. And there's the one girl that's sitting there who's like, really, really pissed.

6:01 And I already know that this is Abby. And I already know that just preliminarily, I'm not to like her because I know what she does in the video game. So it's kind of hard because I'm trying to be open minded. I'm trying not to have a prejudice against this girl from jump. That's from jump already. Day one. Alright, you can see she's upset. You can see she's talking about going after Joel, finding him and killing him. And on the one hand, I really, I really sympathize with her. I really understand. I really do. We had that conversation like, was Joel right? Was he wrong? Like there's so many Shades of Grey with that but you don't even know why.

6:49 Like like y'all say you don't know why he did it you. Don't. You don't have any clue as to what was going on. Y'all don't know what they were about to do to this girl. There's just a lot of there's a lot of prejudgments being made, which I understand. These are your people. They've been killed. They've been, you know, slaughtered. You tried to save some of them. You ended up having to bury them. I get it. And your friends are kind of there. They're upset, but they're not as angry as this girl. Speaking of which, hi, Danny Ramirez, because he's one of the people that's in here. But the anger on this girl's face, like you feel it coming through the screen, this girl who, whoever she is, this Abby girl, you feel her anger.

7:45 And I was just sitting there like, I'm going to try to keep an open mind based on what you find out. But right now I don't like you because I know what I know what your anger means. Well, the fact that she said that she's going to kill Joel. Slowly, slowly, I was like. That that would right there would make you not want to like her. Yeah, that right there. But but the we got bigger fish to fry. We're trying to survive. We're trying to make it and you want to do this side quest? Come on. Well, I mean. If.

8:26 You, we got a place to, he said. We got a place to go. We go to Seattle and and they'll take us in, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But no, you want to take a side quest to put yourself in imminent danger at all times. Right, because if this if this one person did this to your, to your camp with all those people, all those guns. I ain't even got that part yet, but the fact that you going after this dude on top of all the other stuff you're going to have to get through because you got to find them. And that means you got to go out and venture out and and check things out and track down leads. All the while the Cordyceps is just floating around floating around you.

9:12 What? Come on, I I. I know, but I mean also too if. You think? About it in that way, you said she they have bigger fish to fry in her mind. Joel just took away a very big part of that of, of, of solving that problem. But do we don't even know if she really knows? I I know, but I mean, but they know the fireflies were working on something, so in her mind she could be justified for doing that. OK. I But I know you, and I know you and I. Know but you you feel like you justified for something that what was it? What was it?

9:52 You can either, you can even mourn the living. No, you can even mourn the dead. Or what was that saying? Someone said it's something that we recently watched it. Was it had? Was it the will? It had to be all the time. Oh, the the Tuatha one. We bury our dead and we go on. What else is there? Right. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, the whole thing that makes all of this difficult is we as the viewers, we see what's happening on both sides. We see what's happening with with both sides of this coin.

10:33 And we know that when Joel brought Ellie to the Firefly camp, they both had all intentions of Ellie doing whatever it was she needed to do in order to help save humanity and maybe get rid of the coryps. Joel and let's be honest, Ellie, neither one of them were given all of the facts. They weren't given all the details. You know, they literally had Ellie already under anesthesia, about to undergo the surgery that was going to kill her without telling her that this was what was going to happen. At least that's the gist that we got from the way the conversation with Marlene and Joel went.

11:17 Like, y'all, y'all basically told her she was going to save people, but y'all didn't tell her that, you know, when you put her to sleep to do whatever you doing that she's not going to wake up. And that was that was the moral dilemma. Like do you have the right to take that choice away from someone even if it means saving the world? Yeah, well, she didn't have informed consent. They didn't tell her what was going to happen. Yeah. So yeah, again, I understand why Joe with him. I understand it. But then you have the people on the other side of it, the people on the Firefly side who don't have all the details as well. They didn't know what Marlene was about to do. They didn't know what this doctor was about to do. They just knew, OK, yes, we're working on a cure. They didn't tell everyone that the cure meant they were going to have to kill someone.

12:06 And it's like if, if these people, if Abby and this, this group of other people, if they knew that, would they still feel the same way about what Joel did? And that's I think is gonna be the real like when they eventually come face to face, because, you know, they're gonna come face to face. That's gonna be the big question. Like, is Abby gonna be able to calm down enough to let Joel explain to her what happened? And then is Joel going to, I don't know, allow her to be justified in her anger? But he also has to deal with Ellie and her anger first. There's nothing Joe can say to Abby I. Know.

12:50 That is going to change anything for her. Yeah. Right now, all she sees is red. She sees red. Yeah. And even if, even if they do get to the point where they have a conversation and he explains to her exactly what happened, even in her mind she might be like, OK, I can understand, but you don't have to kill everybody. You killed everybody. Not just Marlene. You killed the doctor. Well, he killed everybody getting to Ellie that that was in, they were in the way. He wasn't trying to kill everybody. They all came after him. I and and I understand that, but it's kind of like you could have just it. Was like you said, OK, I got to kill every fucking God damn in here right now.

13:38 No, it's I'm going to Ellie and anyone in my way is going. They were in. When you got to the doctor, you don't have to kill the doctor. I mean, think about the doctors in this world, as we have seen so far, they are very few and far in between. Yeah, that. Might that might have been unnecessary, but I, I I don't know yeah, it may have been an unnecessary death, but he because. You not only take away what he was doing to Ellie, but you take away him being able to help other people with other things that have nothing to do with courtesy. But but first of all, he wasn't even a real doctor. He was, what was he a dentist or something? Chiropractor. I I don't mean to say he wasn't a real doctor, but he wasn't a neurosurgeon, so he would. Have probably fucked it up anyway. He.

14:27 Yeah, he, he, he probably, I'm not, not to diss on dentist, but he probably didn't have the skills to keep her alive and do what he needs to do. I was. Going to say you're not dissing on a dentist. A dentist works in the mouth, not in the brain. That's not a diss, that's you are. You are under qualified for this position, Sir. I'm just saying even if he had done the surgical rotation in neurology, he still didn't have the skills to go into somebody's brain, pull out a biopsy and do some tests on it. No, he was going to cut her head open and pull the brain out and then save the brain. The brain stem, right?

15:10 He even though he was looking for they were guessing. Yeah. That's why she was going to die 'cause they didn't have no clue. Well, I think she was going to die anyway, because from what Marlene was saying, I think the part of the brain that they have to activate in order to reverse whatever it is that the Cordyceps are doing, it's in a part of the brain that you can't get to without the host dying. Exactly. So yeah, she was going to be a goner either way. And then it's kind of like you think about what Joe's thinking, OK. Hold on, kill her. Hold on. Let's back up a second now Wendy, Marlene become me steamy or me dreamy from how how well they had.

15:56 Other doctors. That's that's what she was saying, Like they had other doctors working on whatever. Because I'm pretty sure they're not going to have all the doctors in one location. You're not going to put all your games in one basket because a crazy motherfucker like Joel might come along and kill everybody. Of course, of course, the the biggest, most important thing that ever happened to the Fireflies and you don't have the doctors there to know what they're doing. I'm just saying, you know, I. I I'm just saying it. Marlene. Marlene. Because the other doctors could have been way across the country. And guess what? You wait, you wait. But Marlene, they couldn't wait.

16:39 And Marlene was. I'm just saying we can't believe all these people and that's and that's and that is probably what was going through Joel's head. Like y'all didn't tell me this to begin with. You didn't tell her this to begin with. What else are y'all not telling what you're thinking? What kind of doctor is he? He don't even know what the hell he doing. Do you know what he's doing? Y'all even know what is going on? Is this even going to work? Y'all even sure this is going to work? Right. And not not having been the person who played the game, but knowing how video games go, I'm pretty sure we we did a deep dive into the lore.

17:22 We find out it probably wasn't going to work anyway because her situation is really unique. Yeah, I have questions. I feel like she can infect people for some reason. I think if she bit somebody or really tried or in her blood, I have a feeling she can probably infect people. Yeah, other than 'cause like, I swear that one time when she tried to put her blood on that boy's wound, yeah, I swear it went faster. Oh yeah, that that's a good one. He turned faster. 'Cause he turned overnight. He turned fast. Like in a few hours, yeah. Right. So I'm just saying there's a lot about and I know that the people, the, the game, whatever, I know that's not the important part of the story, but it is very interesting to think about the ramifications of her being almost like a hybrid. Yeah, because what would have happened if if, let's say they had moved on with the surgery, let's say the glove broke and the blood would have gotten onto the like, like you said, we don't know how that would have affected them. That's a really good point because at this point, we really don't know anything about Ellie's blood except for the fact that she was born after her mother was infected. Infected.

18:49 She's been bitten and she seems to be immune. But yeah, we, we don't know what all of that entails. And that's probably something that Marlene and the fireflies, the doctors, that's something they probably should have done first. Like you're about to just go brains deep into this child and you don't know anything about her medical history. I mean, I'm sure they had some stuff because again, Marlene was a friend of her mom's and kind of was watching over her this whole time. So I'm sure maybe something was out there. But also, too, if you think somebody is immune, you are not going to, like, just be sending them to the doctor for the doctor to find that out because then you really have no control over the situation. Yeah.

19:38 Especially with the way the government was working where they were at the time. Because remember, the Fireflies are the resistance group. So if they had, you know, if they have found Ellie figured out that she was immune, this story wouldn't even be taking place now because they would have already had her and been experimenting on her and doing all this other stuff. They should have done their due diligence. Before you just. You just stick her on a slab and be like, OK, we're going to cut into her brain. Yeah, I, I still don't. I know we need to move on, but I still don't believe she's immune. I just believe she's infected. Well. She's just walking around infected and when she gets bitten, it's like, oh, you're already infected, so it doesn't have to infect her because she's already infected. They they don't even have they didn't even like we don't know if that's the case, if she has any bodies that attack the invade, you know, the invading Cordyceps. Because they didn't do any.

20:44 They didn't do any blood test. They didn't do any blood test. They didn't do anything. But you know, let let let's move on before I we, we keep going down right. We keep going down this rabbit hole. We'll be all night. But OK, so moving on a a little bit further, like I said when I started this out, OK, Ellie being a smart ass when she was supposed to be like 1516, that was kind of sort of cute. Yeah, it was a little irritating at some point, but she was a child who was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

21:24 Literally. Like, after being told that you could literally save the human race, you kind of expect her to be a little asshole a little bit. Five years later, when you're 21 and you're still being an asshole and you're being irresponsible, you're being reckless, you're just being a smart mouth for no reason. Yeah, that stops being cute. I had to pause this episode several times because I was like, I just want to hear her in her mouth. I really do. Yeah, and it's like her, her cavalier attitude and this recklessness is going to get somebody killed. And all because she's mad at Jolene for what he doesn't even know. Like everybody else can tell that you're upset with him, but you won't talk to him and let him know you're just being an asshole to him and all he's trying to do. Like he, like he said when he was with the therapist, I saved her.

22:19 That's all he did. But because she may or may not have all the facts, Again, this is five years after the season finale. We don't know what has happened in that time. So we don't know what kind of conversations they've had. We don't know what kind of clues he may have given her. We don't know how their dynamic has changed. It could just be in the way that he's acting that she's like, OK, yeah, you did something fucked up because that's the way he was, you know, when when she met him. Which is again so strange, because if you're mad at him for what you think he did, you have to remember he didn't want to go in the first place.

23:04 No, he didn't. He was trying to send his brother with her one, because he didn't think he could protect her because, you know, he was having the shakes. And you see him at the beginning of this episode kind of doing the thing with his hand like is not any better. But he didn't even want to go no, because he was like, I don't know if I can do what is needed to to be done to protect her. And then we find out, Oh yes, you can do what you need to do to protect her. Book again, was that the right thing? Was that the wrong thing? But he did it. That's what you wanted him for. You wanted him so you could feel safe for you, so you could feel protected. Guess what?

23:45 That's what he did for you when you were helpless. And now you're taking it out on him in the ugliest of ways. Yeah. I was just like, I mean when your best friend slash potential crush tell you know when she's going to him, like why is she mad at you? What happened? You don't even know. Obviously, something ain't right. Everybody can tell something's wrong with something's wrong. And it's just it again, you know, they tried to press the narrative in this episode. Joel said it to to Dana.

24:26 He was like, you know, she's a 19 year old girl and I'm, you know what I am to her. And most 19 year olds, they don't like their parents. He was like, I never got there with my daughter. So I don't know how this works. OK, yeah, that could be an excuse. But even when you go to the therapist and the therapist is like, Oh my God, you have the most boring problem in the world. Like all 19 year olds don't like their parents. So it's something more. Everybody else sees it. Joel knows what the issue is, at least internally. He's like, yes, she knows I lie to her, but because she won't say anything and she want I, I don't know at this point, girl, just get it out.

25:10 Get it out so you can move on, so everybody can move on, so everybody doesn't have to be stuck in your anger and trying to tiptoe around all of that. Like here you are you putting his brother in the middle because you know, Tommy's trying to Tommy's trying to treat Ellie like a grown up. He's taking her out to shoot. You know, they they see some of the clickers out kind of in the distance. He's taking her out the shoot. He's giving her responsibility, but then he's also trying to shield her because he's like, I don't, you know, I don't want Joel to get mad. He's worried about you. And then the whole thing with the Fight Club in the in the beginning of the episode, like what the fuck? What's that?

25:54 That's that's her training. That's her training and I and I get it. But when you're mad because somebody pulled a punch and it was because, oh, we don't want to have to explain it to Joe and you get even madder. Yeah. Did you not? You You obviously didn't see what you look like in the mirror. No. He would have broke your nose. But, I mean, it's good that she's training. It's good that she's fighting. It's good that she's learning how to shoot. It's good that she's going on patrols. But man on man, everything is not a joke. Everything is not, you know, to be disregarded, like the behavior that she did when they went on the patrol.

26:39 And like the guy, Jesse, he's literally telling her, OK, don't run off on your own. Listen to the leader. Do this. Do this, follow the instructions and if you know, if you see this, if you see that, come back, regroup, blah, blah, blah, whatever. She sees blood and she's like, oh, OK, let's go. I was like. Her recklessness is going to get somebody killed. It's going to get somebody killed, and it's probably going to be Dina. I have to say it, she's going to get her best friend killed because Dina has a little bit of that same recklessness. Oh wait, we made it through episodes and nobody died.

27:22 Not for lack of trying. Nobody died. Not for lack of trying. 'Cause every, that first season, end of every episode, somebody died every episode. But yeah, nobody died, so we're good. But she Ellie almost and she probably should have, but she probably still could. Who knows, because she got bit. I mean, we'll, we'll get into that 'cause that that that part of the episode was harrowing. Yeah, harrowing. It took me almost, it took me almost an hour and a half to watch this episode. Oh, wow, 'cause I had to keep pausing, especially at that part.

28:04 I was like, I can't do it. Can't you? Yeah, but he told, you know, you got to listen to the captain. And then he even went up to them and was like I need for y'all to stop joking. Right. Can y'all take this seriously a little bit? He's like some of the others. They look up to y'all. And the last thing you need is a whole group of people being assholes, being reckless assholes at that, so. Yeah, because at the end of the day, everybody wants to be safe. Nobody wants to be fucking around with a clicker, right? The, the whole, the whole thing about them being in Jackson, WY, which is where they are, that settlement.

28:45 This is one of the things that they do well in this show. And you know, last year at Dragon Con, I was on a panel comparing The Last of Us in The Walking Dead. Like what? What does each show do better? What does each show do worse? One of the things about Jackson, Wyoming, this settlement is in the mountains and they have open views on all sides. So you can see anything coming. You it, it's like you have the most protection. You're in the mountains. So when you shoot, that sound is gonna echo. So it'll be hard to pinpoint where it's coming from. And we know that these Cordyceps, they they find their prey by by sound.

29:31 So it's kind of like it's smart. You guys are in a very ideal location, ideal backdrops, ideal surroundings. You're meant to be safe. And I'm assuming, you know, yeah, you may have a stray, you know, Cordyceps that come by, they seem to be taking care of it very well. You know, the town is thriving. I mean, hell, in this episode, they're celebrating New Year's Eve. They've got music. They're having a party. It's a lot of noise and you would think that that would attract the Cordyceps. But again, if if all the the noise is echoing through the mountains, those clickers probably don't know where to go. I'm still trying to figure out how to get gas for their vehicles and then I have.

30:20 To say at this point, I'm I'm just saying it's, it's, it's 20 something years into a a Cordyceps infested apocalypse. They've probably learned that they probably grow a lot of corn somewhere. They're making, I'm just saying. OK I I literally have that because I had the same problem in Walking Dead. Walking Dead, but I think someone had refinery that was. Yeah, they they, they were make, they were actually making gas. But I mean in this show. Enough people asked the question how y'all getting all these vehicles driving around with gas because gas has this has the expiration date. They're probably making more gas somehow. OK, I'm not going to question it. But also, let's be honest, they don't have a lot of vehicles. They do have a lot of horses.

31:11 They are traveling a lot by horse. They do. So it could be that they're rationing their vehicles. Like they're using the vehicles to go out on runs where they're collecting refugees, which apparently they seem to be doing a lot of because Joel makes the comment about it. You know, they're, they're taking in so many people that they can't keep up with the construction around the town. And I will say this, I like Maria, AKA Tara from True Blood, but she was one of those people in this episode. She was getting on my nerves too. Sitting there like this window is not holding in. It's not keeping out the cold.

31:53 We need to build faster. And Joel is like, do you not hear me telling you that we have a lack of people and this is moving slow and this is moving slow? Like, what do you want us to do? I don't see you out there working on the rusted pipes that we're going to get to. But you know, it's just one of those things where you can't, I, I don't know you, you can't, you can't make wine out of thin air. You don't, you don't even have water at this point. There is nothing. And Joel is trying to make it work and you keep bringing people in and then you get upset at him when he says, well, maybe y'all need to stop letting people in. Can.

32:37 Can. We sit back for a second. How did Joel all of a sudden become the civil engineer? Like he wasn't even a part of the town. He's, he's stumbled in and now he's, I don't want to say in the position of authority, but apparently they rely on him on, on the construction and all that stuff. Probably because he probably has the most experience out of everybody else who's there, because he was doing that kind of work before he found his. Brother, that's true. And then, of course, when your brother is, you know, one of the people in charge of the town that might cause. Wasn't he in construction? Wasn't he in construction?

33:20 Yeah, as I forgot about that. Yeah, so he, I mean, he probably knows the most out of anybody except for maybe Tommy. And, you know, that's all well and good with his experience, but one Joel in this show is now approaching 60. Yeah, OK. We already know he has problems with his hands. We saw it in the first season. We saw it in this episode where, you know, all he was doing was trying to fix a breaker, and he had to sit there with his hand. And so he's not in the best shape at this point. And then you have all these other people coming in probably at, you know, maybe at a growing rate.

34:07 But if you have people coming in who don't know how to do that work, first you got to train them to do it, and you have to train them to do it properly. You can't just put people in charge. Like, you're not just going to call me and say, hey, Hanukkah, I need you to come build a house and then put people in. Why would you do that? You know? So it's kind of like her, her attitude about the whole thing was kind of irritating because he's making sense. And that's the one thing I think that has irritated me about this show is because a lot of times when Joel is talking, Joel is saying the hard things that nobody else wants to say. This has been since episode 1.

34:48 Nobody listens to him, but he's almost always right. Yeah, but the But the problem with turning refugees away is they always come back. I know, and sometimes they come back mad. They come back mad, yeah. Or they come back and bring trouble. Or they come back with more refugees and they all feel like, oh y'all not going to let us in. So we're just going to take this shit over We're. Going to figure out how to get in, yeah? Yeah, yeah. And I get it. But I mean, Joel is making a point. He's like, look, we we can't keep up with with all of these people coming in. He was like, I understand. He was like, if I had my choice, we'd take them all in. But if we don't take care of us, we can't take care of anybody else, right?

35:34 And again, he has a point, but then Maria has to say that thing. Joe, you were a refugee too. OK, You want you know what? Let me refugee my ass out of this town and then y'all see what y'all gonna do. Like you just, I don't know. And and it's been like that ever since he came to Jackson. Like Maria has not liked him and she gives him a hard time. And you see it like in this episode, they kind of have a little bit of a better relationship, but still she has that kind of the attitude of, OK, this is what needs to be done and you're going to do it. And don't forget, I'll let you in here.

36:14 I I don't like that. I don't like that because that kind of that kind of attitude can lead to problems, not just with him and her, but if this is how you're treating the person who is literally building your town up, what does that say to the other people around as far as how you're going to treat other people? You're not going to treat the refugees better than you are. The person who's building your town, the person who's helping you, you know, helping to put you in a position where you can help refugees. So, yeah, I just. I didn't like that.

36:55 I love the fact that he got to play with his nephew. That was cute, you know, little Benji. But yeah, I just, I and I don't know. Again, this is five years after everything that happened in the season finale. So we don't know what has transpired with all of these people and all of these relationships in that five years. I'm pretty sure they'll probably go back and do flashbacks and kind of give us a little bit, you know, feel in the background. One thing we do know is that Joel killed somebody and we don't know why he killed them. Yeah, that's good. Good question. But, but, but he's, he's going to see the therapist who is the wife of the person that he killed.

37:39 Yeah. That's tough. That. Means she she's the only therapist in town and. He clearly needs, well, you know, we always talk about the fact that all these people in these shows that we watch, they need some therapy. We actually have a person who is getting therapy. He's actually getting. Paid. Yeah. Except on the days when his therapist is celebrating her birth, her first birthday, without her husband, the husband that he killed, and he's been coming to her trying to get advice about how to deal with Ellie. And she's like, you've been lying to me this whole time, so let's cut the bullshit.

38:21 No, wait, what? OK, So what's funny is first he's like, well, should you be drinking? And no, we should not be drinking as therapist. And two, so in therapy, when you get to a point in the therapeutic relationship when you're not making any progress, she switched up. She did confrontation. Because normally, normally you would just say, you know what, this is not working here. I'm going to refer you to somebody else that maybe can have that, that you can make progress with. No, she was like confrontation. So that that is a therapeutic, that is a therapy thing you can do, but. The But the sad thing is that she had a reason to confront him.

39:09 Well, well, she was. She was using that that self disclosure as a means to make him understand why she was trying. She knew that he was not being forthcoming, so she was trying to give him some self disclosure to get him to self disclose. But I was not expecting that to come out of her. I was not, I was not expecting Eugene for Eugene and. I was like, who is Eugene? Did we see this? So then I went to go look it up and apparently also in the game, Eugene is kind of a mysterious figure. Like, apparently he he was part of the Fireflies and he was heavily involved with the fireflies to the point where he was away from home and lot to the point where she was like sending him letters like, please come home, please come home. And then something happened.

40:04 He died. And I don't think they ever explained it in the game. At least that's the gist of what I read online today. And I was like, so he's just this specter just kind of hanging up, hanging around, you know, just kind of. Haunting people's thoughts for what? Like are we ever going to find out why he killed them? Probably not, because that's not the. That's not the point. You know, but. It could also. Explain. Her issue with him? Yeah, I was going to say it could also explain, though, maybe some of Ellie's hostility, maybe a little bit of Maria's hostility of why they, you know, it's like they're cordial to him, but you still detect that under undercurrent of them not really liking him. And maybe it has something to do with that. I mean, if you think about what happened with Ellie later on in the episode when she's at the dance and the guy calls her her and Dina dykes and Joe kind of goes off on him, maybe it was a similar situation and that's why Ellie doesn't like him. I mean, again, it's been five years. A lot of things could have happened. It could be, but he could just also be he see, he's the person that gets things done that no one else would want to do. So you and I was on the panel of the drafting of the bipod science science fiction characters for ATV show. Yeah.

41:35 And I picked Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man because you got to have that one person that's willing to do what it takes to get the job done, no matter what it is. And that's Joel. Love him, I hate him. He's going to do The Dirty thing that nobody wants to. So whatever happened to Eugene, it needed to be done. And they're going to hate him for it. They're going to dislike him for it. But you see, he ain't locked up. He ain't been punished for it so obviously even. Said I understand why you did it. Right. It was the right thing to do, right?

42:17 So, I mean, he could have been infected. We don't know. That's what I was going to say. I was like, what did Eugene do? Or did he get infected? Like, he could have went out on the run. He could have, you know, came back infected. And apparently what we learned in this episode is because Dina was joking around with Ellie. She was like, did you get bit? Do I have to shoot you in the face? And she said it so casually. But it's kind of like that's probably what they end up doing to these people because once you're infected, except for Ellie, you turn, you turn. So that that could easily have been it, especially since, yes, she's angry with him because of of how it happened. That's what she said. She said I'm I, she said, I understand you had to do it. You had no choice.

43:02 But what what I'm angry about is how you did it. What? The fuck? Did he do they better tell us that at some point during this season? I just want to know, I mean, it may not have an impact on the bigger picture, but then again, it could because we don't know how important the therapist is going to be in, in this season. But I, I, I'm just curious. I mean, I know Joel is going to be the person to do the things that won't get done because that's literally how we were introduced to his character, especially after everything that happened with Sarah. When we see him 20 years later, he is that guy. Him and Tess though, they were those people. You know, when Tess was having that confrontation with the other person, she was like, oh, do I have to get my guy? And they're like, no, no, no, we don't really. We don't want none of Joe.

43:58 They. Don't want them that they don't want. That smoke, right, Right. I mean, he even said it was to Ellie. He was like, yeah, me and my brother, we did things. We did bad things because nobody else would do them. Yeah. So we already know, which also could be contributing to what Ellie is feeling towards him because she's probably like, OK, he said. This is what happened to Fireflies. Not anything I've learned about him over this, however many months they were on the road. Yeah, they're motherfucker lying. Yeah, he lying. But OK. Especially because I don't think she knows he killed everybody, right?

44:38 Because she woke up in the truck. He was like, yeah. Nah. It didn't work out. Yeah, because he told her that they were attacked by by rebels or Renegades or something that, you know, people came in and and killed or whatever the case may have been. So yeah, but I don't know but but. If it changed, OK, I just want to say Pedro Pascal can sometimes be a really good actor. And the shift in his 'cause he seemed to be so vulnerable when he was talking to the therapist after she told him what happened.

45:21 You know how she felt. And you swear he was on the verge of telling her. And then you see a physical shift. He's like, no. And he stood up and he's like, I saved her. And then he walks out. But he that's just a masterful piece of acting, Sir, let me tell you. She had she had beat him down. He had tears in his eyes. He was slouching. She had beat him down. And all of a sudden he was like, no. And he sits up a little bit straighter and he says, her dead in the eye. I saved her. Yeah. When he walks out. Like I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah, but let me tell you about Pedro Pascal, OK? We know he's masterful.

46:05 This man has been in the business for years, OK? He comes on Game of Thrones as Prince Ober Martel, and that literally is what shoots him into the stratosphere. His total screen time for Game of Thrones, if I'm not mistaken, 38 minutes total. You make that much of an impact with a character in 38 minutes in one and only in one season. You ask anybody who has watched Game of Thrones but where?

46:47 Martel was one of the best characters to come out of that show, and it was his portrayal that did it. He sells it with this one because I mean, if you look at TV nowadays, Pedro Pascal himself, he's doing musical numbers, selling, you know, Apple Airpods and stuff like that. He's spry for a 50 year old. We're the same age. He just turned 50 a couple of weeks ago. But then you look at him in this show, he seems older. He seems a little more haggard. He seems a little gorgeous, almost like he's tired. And then you see him in the scenes where he does have that vulnerability with GAIL, the therapist, with Dina, talking about Ellie, with Ellie, you know, just trying to find some common ground with her, trying to give her her space, but still wanting to be there for her, wanting to kind of have that relationship with her again, build that kind of father daughter relationship again. He's so vulnerable, and it's just kind of like, Joe, you seem like such a broken man.

47:58 But depending on what he's been through in the last five years, it's probably, you know, just the way he is. I mean, the most lively we saw him in this episode was when he was with Benji. Yeah, I think Ellie, this relationship is breaking him. It it it's breaking him because he doesn't know what to do. Well, I mean. Well, he does know what to do. He do, Yeah. He knows what to do. He just don't want to do it. He's not going to do it. Yeah. Because he probably feels like that will push her further away. Yeah. Because she may not. She may not understand. You know, it's like I'm not. Well, I won't say she won't understand.

48:38 She probably will understand. She probably could say, OK, yes, I understand why you did this, why you saved me. But again, for for you to have it built up in your mind that you are the person that's going to save humanity. You are the person who could possibly get rid of the Cordyceps. You could possibly, you know, it could be you or your blood or whatever the case is that changes things back to normal. And to have that taken away from you for whatever reason is going to be devastating enough. But then to if you find out that the reason it was taken away was because of someone who was close to you, someone who made a promise that they will let you go to do what you needed to do.

49:25 And he didn't keep that promise. Yeah, that's that's. Heavy. And it's like when you think about that, there are no winners in this. No. They're both going to hurt no matter what the outcome of the situation is, you know? But my thing is, I, I also kind of feel like that's one of the reasons why she's being so reckless, because maybe subconsciously, maybe she knew she wasn't supposed to get out of that situation alive. And now she's kind of like, OK, well, there's nothing I can do now.

50:05 There's no doctors to do what they're supposed to do. I'm just walking around here immune and it doesn't mean anything. I mean, that's what one of the things when she was telling she was saying it to Tommy, she was like, well, we know I can't get bit. He was like, no, Ellie, we said. We agreed that we weren't talking. About you don't talk about immunity. I got bit and I didn't turn. I'm, you know, I'm in. I'm not infected, I'm immune. And then she yells, and I'm like, you do realize your voice is echoing through the mountains right now, right? So somebody may actually hear that. Hell, that could be the reason why the folks showed up at the end of the episode way in the mountains, looking down on the town. I'm I'm, I'm stretching it, but you know what I'm saying. Why are you being so reckless?

50:56 Do you want to die? Is that it? I don't know. And even if you do want that, do you want to die for nothing? Because at this point now, if you die, you die for nothing. You're not dying to help anyone. You're not dying to save the human race. You're just going. You're just going to be dead just to be dead. Just. To be dead. And what a waste because that's not to say just because Joe killed that doctor, that's not to say that there aren't any other doctors around. That's not to say that there can't be any doctors that come up. Like I'm sure someone in that town has some kind of medical training.

51:41 Maybe they can be the ones to kind of, you know, OK, let's, let's see what we can figure out. Let's do some reading. You, you might have a genius in that group. We don't know. But just kind of throwing your life away and just. Yeah, that that's the main thing that bothers me about the situation. I understand she feels invincible, but the people around you are not. And, and at 20 years old, I know you're young, but you got to understand that. Yeah. You can't be acting all stupid and stuff like that. You 20, you 21 or no. Excuse me, she's 19.

52:22 That's. 19, yeah. 19 She's like, I'm an adult, act like it. Yeah, act like it. Act like it. Yeah. Just like this whole thing that that takes place when they go on their run. We've already talked about her and Dina. They're sitting there joking. They're not really listening to the instructions and everything. They feel like they've been. They've done this before and, and, you know, they kind of throw in some stuff in there about the person who is leading this particular patrol was, I guess she and Ellie had a relationship and it didn't end well. And, you know, they keep talking about this dance going to New Year's or whatever, but then they approach this bridge and they see blood in the snow, and it's running towards the town.

53:13 So instead of sitting there talking about, OK, this is how we're gonna handle this, Ellie just takes off. And then Dana takes off with her and Cat, the person who is in charge. She's like, guys, we really need to go back to town and get reinforcements. Guys, come on. I'm like, what the fuck kind of patrol leader are you? You just like, come on guys, come on, man. Come on, stop. Playing come on back. So they get to they get to the middle of the town and they find a scene of carnage. You see a couple of clickers, you see a dead of black bear and you see a few body parts. Now, I was sitting here trying to figure out what the fuck was going on in the scene because if I remember correctly, I didn't get a chance to go back and rewatch season 1. But the clickers don't attack.

54:15 They don't attack each other, correct? No. OK, so you have the one clicker in the street, you have body parts, and then you have another clicker and another clicker and then the bear with all of his stomach gone and his intestines just hanging out. So are we to assume that the bear and the clickers did this to each other? Because I was like, those clickers look like they've been shot. Yeah, it's like, no, that's that's why they said, that's why she said how many bear, how many clickers does it take to take down a bear? So the bear is not the easy thing to take down. Right. So yeah, they literally killed each other.

54:56 OK. And then apparently one got away and so Ellie and Dina decide they're going to go take care of her. I'm like, if this thing hears you out in the street talking because you are not doing anything to disguise your voice, you're not whispering, you're just talking. If this thing has heard you and it hasn't come out, leave it the fuck alone. Just leave it alone. It's far enough away from Jackson that y'all don't have to be messing with it. Just leave it alone. Go home. No, they have to go up there to see what they, you know, that they can take take care of it. They realize it's two in there.

55:39 And Dina seems like she's going to hesitate. And then Ellie says. Or do you want to let the man do it? I was like, see, bitch, this is how y'all gonna die, right? Because instead of thinking smart and thinking, OK, well, we could get back up or we can get somebody who might be stronger, since we know that there's two. You gonna sit here and think, OK, no, I can. I we we can handle it. And maybe they can. But you're going into a situation where you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what the layout of the place is. You don't know what's going on, Which is how Ellie ended up through a floor because you just didn't know. Now what y'all did up at the top was smart. You know, you, you kind of divided and conquer. OK, there's this one clicker we hear. OK, you're going to go this way.

56:29 I'm going to go this way. You're going to create a distraction and then you're the person supposed to be creating the distraction and you get distracted yourself because you see a dog on the employee of the month wall inside the store. What are we doing here? She being reckless. What are we doing here That's. What we're doing, we're being reckless because I'm immune. I'm a superhero. Right. You're immune. Your friend ain't. Your friend ain't. The friend who is going to try to kill the clicker that you are supposed to be distracting so that she can catch her, you know, unawares, but you too busy looking at the fucking wall.

57:11 Like oh these are the people who used to work here, this is cool. Oh they have a dog on the wall. Why is the dog the employee of the month? But you know, wasn't she already kind of like that when you first meet her? I mean, yes, kind of because this is this is a world that she was not familiar with. So she wasn't familiar with, you know, the stores being open and employees of the month. Like she was literally born into this. I mean, this reckless nature of hers, I think you she's always kind of been like that when we first. But I don't think it was to this extent. It wasn't as bad. I think, I think more so when we first met her because she was younger, she was 15.

57:56 It was more naivete and more, I would say ignorance, you know, about how dangerous this was because of course she's thinking she's immune. She doesn't have to be as careful. So she's not thinking about the other things, how it could affect other people. And, and that I, we can attribute to her age and just her lack of experience, her lack of being in the world because she'd been shut away for the whole time. So that I can excuse. But now here you are. Like you said, five years later, you've already stated that you are an experienced runner, that you've gone on runs before, that you know how to handle the clickers.

58:37 OK, that's all well and good, but still, if you're not by yourself, if you're working with someone else, you need to be thinking about that other person's safety and, and not being so reckless. You, you kind of got your best friend killed, you know what I'm saying? And just like when they finally do she, she kills the clicker and when they get ready to leave, she falls through the floor because the floor is rotted. OK, so she's down there and she's like, I don't hear anything. I don't hear another clicker. There's no way for her to get back up. So Dana's like stay put. I'm going to go and see if I can find some stairs or something because obviously it's it's a two-story building. There's got to be a way down.

59:25 So Ellie, of course, does not, in fact, stay put. She starts walking around, she starts looking around and stuff. She finds the old People magazine with was that Topanga on the front? Danielle Fisher. You can't. You kind of look like it. Yeah, that was, I think that was Danielle Fisher. So she finds the old People magazine. She starts flipping through it and then you notice something in the background kind of crawling to the side. And that freaked me out so much because I'm not used to them being quiet. Usually you hear them clicking or you hear them making some kind of grunting noise or something weird. So this thing is quiet and I was just like, she does not hear it. She starts walking and she starts looking and then she hears a noise like this thing made, a noise that sound like a person.

1:00:20 And Ellie turned around. She was like, the fuck? So of course, now she's on her guard. She's going through the aisles and she's looking. And as she's going through the aisles, we see in the background behind her, like maybe two or three feet behind her, this thing is crawling on the ground. And when I say the way that they did these camera shots, I was like, this thing is playing cat and mouse with her because she keeps looking and she's stopping. The thing is not there. And then as she keeps moving, you see it. They they put the camera on it and it's walking on its hand and knees. There's glass on the ground and it's actually avoiding the glass so not to make a sound.

1:01:05 And I was like, what the fuck are we dealing with? Yeah, he was stalking. He was stalking her. He was hunting her. He lured her. I mean, it was tricking her like you were behind her. And then when she turned the chute, that muffle was gone. Was. Gone and here's the thing you made the noise to draw her in and like I said it sound like a child at 1st and then it. Sounds like that's a feral. Yeah. I was like, that's a feral human. Nope. I didn't realize it wasn't until you saw. Until you. Saw. Well, I saw the little thing sticking out of his head. Right. And so, and, and she turns around and she sees it and she was like, come at me, motherfucker, thinking this thing is of course it's going to hear her. It's going to come after her.

1:01:54 That thing stood there. And with opposite direction. She said. Come at me, motherfucker. And. It ran. It ran. She goes after it. She can't find it. Yeah. She goes past the point where where she fell into the thing. She goes past it and there is like a little cabinet or something. This thing has hidden in the cabinet and it's coming out very stealthily as she walks past and she hears nothing. I was like pause. I was like, no, let me go play a game of solitaire. I need to get my blood pressure that I I couldn't do it.

1:02:37 I couldn't do it. Then when she does realize this thing is behind her because again, it starts making the noise like letting you know, bitch, I'm here. She turns around to shoot it, it's gone. Then it comes just out of the blue, attacks her, her gun gets thrown and this thing starts biting her. I was just like, you know what? I'm just, I'm done because Dina's going to come downstairs. She's going to see this, then Ellie's going to have to explain to her what's going on. I was like, I can't do this. I can't. Thankfully, Ellie is able to get her knife out of its holster and she's able to kill it. But do you see how many times she had to say that thing to kill it?

1:03:23 Yeah. I was like, what are we dealing with? Like this thing was intelligent. It was playing games with her. It was. It had a plan. And then, of course, after all of this happens, Dina comes downstairs and she hides the womb because this thing has bit into her stomach. And I was like, here we go with another Carl. Here we go. I'm. That's where my mind went like, OK, so now she's going. To yeah, but soon as. No, no, because she doesn't seem like she's turning. But I mean, Dina comes down, they see the thing, and then next thing you know, they're they're sitting before the council and she's telling them, yeah, this thing is this thing was smart.

1:04:11 They were like, are you saying that it was thinking? She was like, yes, this thing lured me. It trapped me. It. Stopped at me it it stopped. Me. It lured me, yeah. But I don't know what y'all been doing for the last five years. These things are evolving. They are evolving and that's scary. It's different when they're just kind of mindless and you know what drives them. You've learned enough about their patterns and their behaviors to say, oh, OK, well, light doesn't affect them, but noise does. So if you throw something over there, they're going to go over there and try to attack. Oh and they just sitting there waiting to see what you're going to do.

1:04:58 Like also that means that this thing saw her, which from what we know about Cordyceps from season 1, they can't see. Right, this one, clearly they made sure to show us its eyes. He can see. So now I'm sitting here watching, I'm like, OK, is it that they are evolving? Or is it that maybe this particular clicker is, I don't know what how you want to play freshly transformed. Like maybe there's still some of its human nature left. And that's why I don't know, because we don't really know anything about these things except for what we've been taught in the first season. And of course, like you said, I I haven't played the game, so I don't know anything about what these things can do, like what the limits of their abilities are. It didn't look partially transformed. It had been sticking out of his head. That takes some time.

1:05:56 Yeah, I guess. That takes some time. Either way it goes, No, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I I again after she got bit pause, let me go play a couple games of solitaire and Martin, no, I'm not ready yet. Let me go play something else. I I couldn't do it. I had to pause it. I think, I think it took me 15 minutes to go back because I was just like, I I don't know what to expect now. Like Ellie has been bit in the stomach. I'm thinking, OK, maybe this is when she learns. OK, maybe I'm not quite as immune as I thought. But no, apparently even hours later is not having any effect on her. Like her her, her wound doesn't even look infected. It hasn't really changed color.

1:06:46 And So what she does is she takes a knife and she put some alcohol on it and she starts cutting around the teeth marks. And then I don't know if she took that piece of skin and just threw it off, but I know she started sewing herself back up and I was just like, she has been way too calm about this for this simple the first time she did this. I don't think this is the first time she's getting bit. At least since the the arm. Thing the arm, right? Because when she knew, she was trying to hide that it's a bite. And that could also be why she's being funny with Joe. 'Cause she's, it's almost like she's she can, if they see it, she can say, oh, I, I hurt myself when I fell through the floor. Yeah.

1:07:30 So. That that way it won't look like a bike and you know, it's been 2345 days later and she ain't turned. So they have to believe her because not everybody knows that. She's but no, this is the same day because this is all. No, I'm just. I'm just. I'm just saying, but oh. Because they start turning as soon as they get bit. Because remember Joe? Yeah. You could see it, Tess. Tess's neck started. Yeah. And that was a that had only be a few minutes later before she started. Having. Things come out of her mouth so. Yeah. Pretty fast and the counseling is stupid because was that was that what's her name she's like? Berea.

1:08:17 Berea. Oh yeah. Oh. I don't believe Dina. Dina didn't see nothing. Because Dina, of course, she's like, yeah, it happened exactly as Ellie said. I saw everything. Yeah, but Ellie. I mean, Maria was like, I don't believe Dana, but I do believe Ellie. Yeah, I think we all did. Right. But it's like, OK, I understand it's New Year's Eve and y'all having a party and you want to get to the party. You don't think y'all need to sit around for a few more minutes to discuss the fact that a Cordyceps was stalking and trapping someone like this is a one off? While we're on this, while we're on this, let's talk about the pipes because as far as I know, the themes are spread and that's it.

1:09:08 This was like scouting. It's like his little tendrils out and then pulled his tendrils back in. That's the problem. The fact that they didn't see any of that at the beginning when they first broke open the pipe and they saw. Them I thought what I thought when they first broke open the pipe was like, oh crap, that's of course is like the way those are roots. And I started thinking they, they going to tell us something about this later. And that was that was my mind. I was like, right, because these things came out. I was like, uh huh. And then went right back in. So here's my question again. This is why y'all need to fucking listen to Joe. Because what did Joe tell Dana to do? He said. Y'all clear those roots out, We will fill that pipe in with ABS.

1:09:51 He was like, cut out the rotten parts of the pipe, take out the roots, we'll fill it in with ABS. Why are those roots still sitting in there? Yeah, 'cause he's seen. Well, I don't want to say he's seen this before, but he. He has, I was. Going to say you may not be thinking that way, but he's thinking just in case. No, remember, they walked through that museum. Yeah, I remember, he remember and and yeah, we we can't just just can't have that shit just coming and he just being careful, like if the roots can make it this far through the pipe. Thing too, Joe, you got to stop being distracted.

1:10:33 I realize you're trying to do a lot of stuff, but when you told Dana you was going to go out there and check it because she, as she said, the four man wasn't forming in, you should have went out there and checked it yourself. Yeah, but you're right, he distracted. He is there's. Going to be the downfall of Jackson right there, Cordyceps in the pipes is in the pipes is in the pipes. And I'm OK. So now I'm sitting here thinking about your, I don't know if you want to call it a theory that Ellie could be infected and could have been infected this whole time.

1:11:14 OK, here she is freshly bitten, and a few hours later the Cordyceps shows up in the pipes. I wonder, is it sensing whatever is in her Because that because that bite is fresh, that maybe because remember they told. Me, it's a hive mine. It's a it's like a hive mine. Yeah. And that was the thing that they said in the first season when they were like, yeah, you can have infected miles away, but if if the the roots in the ground feel them or hear them, they're going to connect. And I was like.

1:11:54 Yeah, 'cause if that one is connected to the smart one that bit her. It's all over. Jackson is going to fall. Jackson's been. Because here's the other thing. They've gotten too comfortable in Jackson. And again, I understand you guys have had this system in place for years now. You're, you're out in the open. You have all of this visual, you know, around you so you can see what's coming. You have the mountains and, and you can see what's coming from there. It echoes. So it's kind of camouflaging you. Still, I feel like there's a level of caution they they should be taking, especially considering these Cordyceps are driven by sound. Because at some point, even if the sound is reverberating through the mountains or whatever, once they're running towards stuff and they realize it's not there, they're going to start looking for something else. Eventually they're going to find their way to you, which is why you guys are now starting to see more and more strays and even small herds.

1:13:06 But that's. Not almost like those are almost like scouts, like Recon. Their own Recon. Right. Again, not good, not good. I understand. Y'all want to celebrate, y'all want to have fun. It's New Year's Eve. Like I, I don't know, I just, I just can't imagine if you're in a world where everything has gone to shit because these things can eat you. I'm not worried about a date on the calendar, I mean New Year's Eve. OK, for what? Well, I know there's a saying I can't think of right now, but comfort breathes complacency, which breathes carelessness. And we see a lot of that going on. Yeah, there's a lot.

1:13:53 Going on you're having a dance in the church with music and lights and y'all have strength. Where the fuck y'all get fireworks that still work after 20 years? Answer me that. Forget about the gas, you can. Make the gas who is? Making fireworks. That's my question. You can make gunpowder. If you can make gas, you can make gun. They were. They had sparklers. They had sparklers. They say it's still gunpowder it uses. You know what? You make it, You can make gunpowder. You can make gas. You can make gunpowder. OK, OK. And if you make gunpowder, you can make fireworks. OK.

1:14:37 Yeah. So that is that's interesting that it's it's it's it operates like a hive mine, so. And like like I said, that thing didn't show up in the pipes until it was bit. Yeah. So I don't know, May, maybe there was something in that piece of flesh she cut out and I, I, I don't know, it's just. I think, I think it connected with her for a second when they when they bit her. That's the problem. It is. Jackson is going down. It is going down. But even without the Cordyceps, you you got some tensions brewing in Jackson because at this dance, you know, at first. OK, first of all, the fact that everybody keeps asking Ellie if she's going to the dance.

1:15:30 And she was like, what did she say to Jesse at the beginning? She was like, yeah, because it's some kind of like, community thing, right? And he was like, oh, so you're part of the community now. So one that lets you know that she's kind of a hermit. She's a recluse. She doesn't interact with a lot of people, which makes her behavior and her carelessness and her just kind of her mouthing off at everybody, that makes it even more infuriating because you're already kind of sequestering yourself from everybody. And then when you are around people, you got to be an asshole. Really. OK, so they do finally make it to this little party thing. Dina is dancing with somebody.

1:16:14 And Jesse, who is apparently her ex-boyfriend, comes over to have a conversation with Ellie. And he's like, he was like, yeah, she's like, really putting it on, isn't she? Because she's dancing with another guy. She's acting like she's having fun and she's acting like she's really, really drunk as well. And Ellie said something to him. But yeah, you guys are. You guys will be back together soon. He was like, no, not this time. And she's looking at him like, what do you mean? He was like nothing. And he walks off. Dana comes over to her. She was like, hey, come on, come on over here and dance with me. After she takes a sip of Jesse's drink. Very disrespectful. But so she pulls her out there to dance.

1:16:54 And it's a slow dance. And she's, you know, she starts dancing with Ellie. OK, this is my best friend. We're just going to dance. Ellie is looking uncomfortable as she looked uncomfortable earlier in the episode. So we already know Ellie is in her feelings about this, but of course she's doing the same thing that she did before. She's like, I'm not going to tell any. I'm not going to tell her. I'm not going to tell her. I don't want to ruin this, whatever. So Dana and I don't know if this is sincere or if this is just her being drunk. She really starts flirting with Ellie at this point. And she was like, hey, all the men in here are looking at you and Ellie's like, Nah, they're looking at. They got to be looking at you. Dina's like, no, I think they're looking at you because they're jealous. And she was like, jealous of what? I'm, I'm not competition.

1:17:39 And then Dina says, I think they should be very, very jealous, basically telling Ellie, yeah, you, you just might be a little competition. And they kiss. And then Ellie's looking at her like, oh, OK. And they kiss again. And then they get interrupted because then dudes like hey, this is a family party and they're like OK sorry. Or at least Dina says sorry. And the guys just still looking at her with the same faces. She was like wow, sorry. They get ready to leave and he says this is a church. Yo Dice. Ellie turned around so fast I'm surprised her fist didn't hit his face as fast as she turned around.

1:18:22 But before she can even get to him, Joel got to him first, right? Locked him on the ground. And then Ellie looks pissed. Maria takes the guy, picks him up, takes him outside. And then she looks at Joel. And she was like, what the fuck was that? I don't need your fucking help. And everybody, of course, is around them. They're they're looking, they're whispering, they're doing all this stuff. Joe looks hurt because he's like, I did the same thing you were about to do, but I did it so you wouldn't have to. Yeah, but I think that goes back to the reason why she was fighting in the beginning. She wants to do it herself.

1:19:03 She wants to take care of herself. She doesn't want to need him or need to want him. So we don't. We still don't quite know why she feels that way, but it's obvious that that's what's going on. Yeah, I, I think I kind of want to put my finger on it and say it probably started once they got to the city and they had the conversation where Joel had told her about trying to kill himself after what happened to Sarah. And then he, you know, he tells her he really didn't care about living anymore. And she was like, well, what did she say? Having a mission will change that or something and or time will change that.

1:19:44 He was like, no, it wasn't time. And he looked at her like, it was you. And that's what she realized. Oh, OK, so I'm not just a job to him anymore. I'm like family. And I mean, especially after everything that they went through with her and the cannibals and him almost dying, coming to save her and stuff. I think at that point she realized they had a real connection. But she's probably also realizing it's because of that real connection that whatever happened and where were they? Where were they? Washington or I can't remember where they were. Was that one something I don't? I don't know if they went quite that far. Some somewhere in the the Midwest I. Think it was, it was.

1:20:31 I think it was Colorado. Yes, I think so. It's Colorado. But the connection that they have with each other now, as she was starting to look at him as a father figure, he was starting to look at her as a daughter figure. That connection is what affected whatever happened with the Fireflies. She knows that much. If she doesn't know anything else, she knows that something didn't go quite right. And it probably had to do with the fact that he was being overprotective of her. So now I think part of the reason why she's being so careless and so just kind of, you know, off putting and leave me alone.

1:21:13 I don't want to have anything to do with you. Is I think she's trying to find a way to break that connection, probably because she feels guilty. You know, like again, hey, I have the blood that's immune. I'm supposed to save the world. And now I didn't say the word. I didn't fulfill my destiny. Because of this, she probably feels some responsibility for it and survivor's guilt, even though, you know, she doesn't know exactly what happened. She knows that the fireflies were attacked, which they were, and she knows that he saved her and got her out of there, which he did. She just doesn't know that he was the one that was actually doing the attacking.

1:21:55 But either way, it goes survivor's guilt on a huge level. Yeah, especially if she's thinking about the number of people it was because when she asked did anybody survive, he was like, no, she said did Marlene. And he was silent. So yeah, she's she's probably, she's probably trying to find a way to sever that, that connection and thinks being an asshole is the way to do it. But, you know, it's just kind of like, I don't think he would let her go in that sense because, again, he didn't get to experience any of this with Sarah. Sarah was 14 when she died. So it's it's one of those things where I feel sorry for him.

1:22:40 But I also understand her because, yes, she does want to kind of take care of things in her own way. She doesn't want him to always, you know, come to. She should come to her. Yeah, and whatever. But he's also at some point, he's got to stop treating her like a child. There too. Yeah. There, too, she's got to be allowed to make her own mistakes. And let me tell you, she she's making a whole bunch of them. Making a whole bunch of. Them making a whole bunch of them. But I was just when when he left, he left the party. And you know, when she, she leaves the party and she starts walking, she sees him sitting on the porch playing the guitar. And they just kind of stare at each other. It's, it's so sad because he's looking at her almost with hope, like, OK, maybe maybe she'll come and sit with me and, and we can have a conversation.

1:23:42 And you just see her. She looks at him. And then it's like just the tiniest change of her face. She gets so hard and she literally walks to the porch, walks past the porch to go to the garage where she lives. And I was just like, all right, here we go. Different kind of drama, father daughter drama. OK, I get it. But like you. Well, it's like her. Fish to fry. But it's like Gil said, she's not your daughter. You saw he, you saw. You saw how he jumped at her when she said that. Like what you say, but she's not. She's not.

1:24:23 Yeah. And you know, you know, and I was going to say it, sometimes you got to, sometimes you got to cut them loose. Didn't we just say this with the will of time too? If you love something, let them go. You got to let them go come loose. I'm sorry. I'm looking at. I'm looking at the Cordyceps from the pipe again. It's going to be a. Problem. It's going to be a problem because at this point now if you try to go in and clear those those roots, that Cordyceps is probably going to be there. And. We saw from episode 1, it does not take much. It doesn't take a cut, it doesn't take anything. That thing will literally go through your skin or it'll go through your eyeballs, or it'll go through your nose or your mouth or your ears or any open orifice you have on your on your body.

1:25:23 It's about to be some shit. Oh knows. I'm glad they didn't do the game because the game is sports floating around the air. You spend most of the game wearing masks, and they like, well, we can't do that in the show. Yeah. Yeah, we want to see the pretty faces. Yeah, pretty faces. What was it Abby said when she said when they were trying to describe Joe, they was like, yeah, we know. We know he's a fighter. His name is Joe or Joe. Yeah, he's what she say. 50 years old. Graves. Graves. Hair. Oh yeah, they also say he's pretty. Oh, I forgot. You're handsome. Handsome. She's like, oh, I forgot that, you know, being sarcastic because she was like, I don't give a fuck that he's handsome. He killed our people.

1:26:09 He has to die. Oh, it, Oh, no, it you, you know, made me think of Walking Dead and the first time they went to that savior outpost and killed all those people. But we saw how that turned out. That turned out. But I mean. You see, it's. Here it is five years. It's taking them five years to figure out where Joel is. But you see them at the end of the episode. They're up in the mountains and they see the town. Of course, again, the town is lit up brightly because they're celebrating New Year's Eve. And she just has this look on her face like found.

1:26:50 Now. They probably don't realize for sure that he is there, but the fact that they're that close. They at least know that there's a there's a lead there. This is going to be an interesting season. I kind of think I know sort of what their theme is going to be. It's really going to be about the consequences of violence. Like Joel committing all that violence. There begins is going to be get more violence here, you know, and then I don't know, I, I feel like this is going to be about the consequences of the violence that they're doing to each other. Yeah, yeah.

1:27:37 'Cause it's it's going to be a never ending cycle because the Cordyceps is just Cordyceps. It's just the wild thing trying to do it's thing. It's just trying to survive. But we are literally killing each other. But, you know, that's the theme of all these types of shows, Walking Dead included. It's like you think that the monsters are the things to fear, and really, it's not. It's the people. The monsters you can figure out how to deal with. Once you figure out what makes them tick and how to get rid of them, that part's easy. People are the ones that are harder to read and harder to, you know, figure out. Those are the ones that you really have to worry about because people can be deceptive, You know, they can be dishonest. They can be violent.

1:28:25 They can be violent and that's that's what made me think of of The Walking Dead. They went in there and killed all the saviors and that outpost that that was from the outside leaking in. You are the monster. You literally are the monster. That's that's why we have those panels that Michelle Casey and I do all the time at ATLCC when we're talking about Maggie and Megan and and those kinds of when you make those decisions because, yeah, if you really think about it, Maggie started all of that off. That wasn't even Rick. Maggie was the one who told Gregory, yeah, we'll go and kill the Saviors, and in exchange, you will give us the half of your food that you were giving them. And then you're going to give us some on top of that. That was a Maggie thing.

1:29:16 But we won't even get into that conversation. We'll be here for hours. But yeah. So. So Abby and her friends, five years later, they have now found the town of Jackson, WY. I don't know how deep this season is going to get into all of that because right before Season 2 premiered last night, a few days prior, they announced that it would be back for Season 3. So I've heard a couple of people who I know that play the games. They think at some point they're going to split the storyline that's told in the second game. They're going to split it between Season 2 and Season 3 so they can kind of flesh out the story a little bit more.

1:30:02 If I'm not mistaken, Abby is a playable character. She is because at some point in the in the game, you you play as her. Yeah. So I was like. So we might give flashback of the five years of her trying to find them. Yeah. Of trying to find Joel. I think so. And probably, you know, might get a little bit of story of how she got, how she got to be in the Fireflies in the 1st place because like I said, there were six of them there at the graves. But she was the one who was visibly more affected than anybody else.

1:30:43 So I don't know if anybody in that group, like especially Marlene, I don't know if that was a lover for her, if that was a mother figure, if it was, you know, somebody in her family. But she obviously, like everybody else, was sad. She was visibly angry. Like I said, you could almost feel that anger coming on the screen. Yeah. So yeah, they they have to give us some of her background story to kind of tell us who this character is. And I think it's it's going to be important for them to give us some information that'll help us connect to her character. Because that way, when it comes to the climax that we think it's going to come to, if they stick to the game now, we know this is an adaptation, they could decide to change some things. I think they would make a lot of people angry if they did that. But I mean it.

1:31:37 Only, only the people who hadn't played the games. No, I mean, as as far as if they keep a certain character alive, yeah, I, no, I think, I think gay people probably would be pissed too. Because kind of like, OK, yeah, we understand this is likeable character, but that person dies in the game and you know, it, there's this build up and blah, blah, blah. It needs to kind of sort of, OK, we're going to reference The Walking Dead again, kind of with the whole Glenn storyline. Cause a lot of people, even though he died in the comics and he died the exact same way in the comics, people were pissed when Glenn got killed.

1:32:18 Like a lot of people stopped watching the show, not only because he got killed, but also because of the violence that came with it and everybody, you know, all the other people. Like did you not read the graphic novel? Like this is exactly how he dies in the graphic novel, all the way down to the dangling eye. Like this is what happens in the story. You always, you know, people always talk about, oh, they don't follow the can and they're not true to to the story. But then when they're true to the story, y'all want to be pissed off about it because this wasn't what you wanted? Yeah, that's why I said if, if that certain character dies, the people who played the game, we'd be like, OK, we knew that was going to happen.

1:32:58 It's all the people who are new to it. It was going to be all upset. And the other thing is, the other thing is if they do this thing that Kirkland did right, Kirkman, Kirkman, Kirkman, he, he tried to change a lot of things that he thought maybe he got wrong the first time. So it's possible that that the people writing this, because I think the video game people are involved, they're not writing it, but I'm I'm sure they're consulted it it they could be like, well, what if we do this? Do you think that would, you know, so it could be possible that they keep that character alive and and it just be one of those scenes where this is something we didn't do in the video game.

1:33:43 It would be interesting to see if we had made that option to see how it would go. OK, and and I would be OK with that, but I like games like that. I'm a huge Mass Effect fan. I like when I have choices. So if that had been an option in the game, I haven't played the game, but if that. Like choose your own adventure. Yeah, that would, that would be a cool option to have to be like, OK, well, I don't want this person to die. What can I do to make this not happen? Because that happens in Mass Effect. There's a character in Mass Effect 3 that if you have done certain things in Mass Effect one, Mass Effect two, he doesn't die. In Mass Effect three, you can actually save his life. OK, but this margins are so slick. You make one mistake that that person dies no matter what. OK.

1:34:35 So it would be cool if they had, if they do, if they take that approach. So we'll see. We'll. See. We'll see. So I mean, I think either way it goes whether whether that character is killed or whether another character is killed 'cause it could be that, you know, kind of like, again, Walking Dead, they had a, they had a death where, you know, characters heads were put on pipes and all of the characters who died in the show were not necessarily the ones who died in the comics, Like characters who died in the comics, they spared them in the show and substituted another person or another character in their place.

1:35:16 They could very easily do that here. There's other, there's other ways to tell the story and make it someone else who dies that will I think could further the story, you know, because then you have another person who is out for revenge, but then you had this endless cycle and where is it going to end and blah, blah, blah. That could be a great story, depending on how they tell it. Or it could just be one of those things where it's like, OK, can you kill them both already, you know? Yeah, I think, like I said, I think the point of show is about the consequences of violence and the cycle of violence that that is just never ending. Yeah, yeah.

1:36:01 But this episode got off to a great start. It gave us some story. It gave us a little bit of drama. It gave us some drama 8. And a half out of 10. OK, look, you've been jealous with the ratings lately. Well, you know, that's what happens when we watch good quality TV. And we will. And the bus. Is one of those shows that is good quality TV even when the story is moving slow. I feel like it's good because they're giving us information that we need to know and they're doing it in an interesting way. I mean, like I said, Ellie walking through that store, I was like, OK, here we go walking through the woods, but it's the store she's looking through People magazine. Why are you guys showing us the oh wait, is that something moving behind her?

1:36:51 It was like the way that they presented it was so unexpected because I didn't even see that thing up there until it moved. Like literally I, you know how they say, you know, if it, if it, it would have bit me, I, I wouldn't have noticed. I I'd be dead right? Now. I'd be quarter steps with these things coming out of my nose and stuff. Yeah. But I mean, they played it very well. So do we have any final thoughts about this episode? I think we talked about all the the major stuff. We talked about all of it. We talked about all of it. OK, All right, so we are kicking off season 2.

1:37:35 It's it's a great start and we're going to keep it going. But for now, that is it for our show. You can find us online at www.phantomhybrid.com. We are on social media, on all the social media at Phantom Hybrid. You can chat with us on our Discord channel. You can watch our videos on our YouTube channel, and you can listen to us on all major podcast streaming platforms. Thanks for listening. We hope you join the conversation next time.