The Last of Us (TV Show)

Episode 6 was maybe the best yet. Got to see lots of cool interactions. However it's really starting to me like they're rushing things along. They really seemed to shortcut the most important character development of the story, when Joel has his confrontation with Ellie and then ultimately decides he going to take her. It was good but absolutely nowhere the quality it was in the game. Really makes you appreciate what lightning in a bottle they captured back in 2013.

The more I think about it the more I think if it was me I would have just cut out episode 3 altogether and used that time to show more of Ellie and Joel growing together and Joel ultimately coming to accept Ellie. Episode 3 is just a self indulgent self contained story that has no impact on the broader series. If you weren't going to show the Bills Town interactions with Joel and Ellie then you may as well cut it and have them pick up a car somewhere else. Still people went nuts for episode 3 so I suspect I'm alone in thinking that.

Yep, episode 6 was the best episode so far.

As an individual piece of TV storytelling, episode 3 is absolutely brilliant. But I agree it's a fair point regarding whether it's upset the rhythm of the season as a whole. It really is a detour from the main story and with only 9 episodes it might now be a tad unbalanced overall. Shame they couldn't stretch to 12 episodes or something, would have been easier to incorporate it, perhaps even spreading Bill & Frank's story out somehow.

If this show was a sort of anthology, like a number of commissioned post-apocalyptic stories put together in a series, then Bill & Frank's story would have been a perfect tale. In fact it wouldn't have even needed the Joel/Ellie scenes bookending it. It kinda deserves to be its own entity.

Captain Kinopio wrote:Episode 6 was maybe the best yet. Got to see lots of cool interactions. However it's really starting to me like they're rushing things along. They really seemed to shortcut the most important character development of the story, when Joel has his confrontation with Ellie and then ultimately decides he going to take her. It was good but absolutely nowhere the quality it was in the game. Really makes you appreciate what lightning in a bottle they captured back in 2013.

Ya episode 6 was good, and actually it was the first time I felt like they pulled off a decent sense of journeydom and passage of time. Obviously partly it's the Three Months Later title card, but the snow setting really acts as good scenic (and with it, time-ic) differentiation. Also I kept wishing in earlier episodes they would have more travel montage and humdrum inbetweens like camping scenes and they must have heard me because this episode had both!

It's enough to make me think that even two contemporary episodes left (discounting the Left Behind episode) they'll manage to just about stick the landing for feeling like a Journey and not like they're just getting started as it did before. The change to Spring will help too (and more montages and minutiae please!).

Other thoughts:

Horse-back chats were like the game in a good way.

Joel/Ellie stuff is good in general and I'm invested in their bond. Ellie being loyal and protective to Joel was great, and her immediate Let's Go bag-chuck to Joel in the morning was hilarious and fab. I agree with Captain that many scenes still don't hit like their game equivalent, and I think it's partly down to the music use. In both The Sarah Scene and The Conversation Scene in this one, the guitar music used is just less affecting - feels like difference for difference sake but less effective.

Joel's panic attacks were a bit rubbish but Joel's fear and vulnerability with Tommy was really great and firms up this TV Joel as different to Game Joel.

Agree with ORKN that the Last of Us 2 stuff being included - like the town - is cool and pretty elegantly done. Even the point-at-the-map scene with the two OAPs, which I spent a few minutes thinking Where Do I Know That From before realising!

Ending skirmish (specifically the tree hit and the stab reveal) wasn't directed very well and even the ending with Ellie's panic felt weirdly rushed and underpowered.

But still, overall I thought the episode was great! (Honest!)

I still find the way the tone of the whole thing and the direction a little 'TV Human' instead of believably natural, but that might be because I'm less trained on US TV Drama as I find most of them a little bit panto try-hard.

Oddly when someone in my house watches one of the (better) UK dramas like The Responder or Kiri or whatever, I find the dialogue, the low-key naturalism and the general composition of scenes (some of the TLOU feels a bit too handheld and functional and un-cinematic?) weirdly more impressive and 'full'?... Not quite sure!

Anyway anyway! It's good.

Edit: one thing I do think is that I'm liking the series more and more in accumulation, which is sort of thematic and like the slow-grow Joel and Ellie thing. Also is it just me who gets early-emotional in lots of the scenes because if already knowing (and maybe the added layer of-) the game stuff? I don't think I would have found the bedroom conversation as affecting without knowing (and super-adding?) the game in my mind? Like an echo or a doubling?!

Really good episode (7) very close to the DLC.

Kinda annoying that they cut the ending short. I don't think there was enough story left to justify splitting it over two episodes, should have just wrapped it there and then.

Skarjo wrote:Kinda annoying that they cut the ending short. I don't think there was enough story left to justify splitting it over two episodes, should have just wrapped it there and then.

The whole episode was neatly contained as the Left Behind DLC story, and the next episode will be the Winter chapter of the game. I’m not sure what you mean by cutting the ending short or splitting it up.

jiggles wrote:

Skarjo wrote:Kinda annoying that they cut the ending short. I don't think there was enough story left to justify splitting it over two episodes, should have just wrapped it there and then.

The whole episode was neatly contained as the Left Behind DLC story, and the next episode will be the Winter chapter of the game. I’m not sure what you mean by cutting the ending short or splitting it up.

Hum, I just checked the wiki and I’m misremembering the DLC. For some reason I remember it being much more definitive and explicit about what happened to each of them but apparently not.

Never mind me, I’m just creating entire scenes in my head and then whining that they’re not included .

As much as i enjoy the show there is no getting away from the fact that its being rushed. Wheras The Walking Dead should have been 10 episode seasons, this could easily be 16 episodes. So many great scenes from the game are being missed out, imagine Joel falling down the elevator for example.
And guaranteed the whole David scenario will all be neatly wrapped up in one episode (at least Troy Baker will be making a cameo).
If the giraffe scene isnt in it, im out. I wont be watching the 2nd series anyway as 'that scene' was hard enough to deal with on a videogame so it will be too hard to watch with real actors.
I wonder if there is any chance they will alter the story as the show needs Joel? I would change it so as Abby takes away somebody that Joel loves (Tommy) and lets him live with the guilt that he caused it, then Joel and Ellie go on a revenge rampage.

Episode 7 was real good again. But - again - not quite sure I found it all-round Great.

Actors were both fantastic, and this is probably the most empathetic Ellie has been. Some of the dialogue was a bit written-quip-y and Let's Discuss Everything We're Doing instead of the unspoken/understated shorthand you get with actual friendships and understanding - but this is so common in modern American TV/film that I guess have to accept it. And when the actors were allowed to speak more in silences and expression they were super.

Also the solo infected (as opposed to the game's many) was probably less impressive but - more importantly - massively deflated by its earlier telegraphing and introduction. I've no idea why this was thought to work better? Maybe to make it seem less 'random' or add (zero?) ominous tension but I think done right it could still have worked as a GoT-style unfair entropy of the world type shock? Also the zombie had human style eyes which I think is a conscious decision to make them seem less 'other' or something (same as the Tess kiss scene) but instead just makes them seem less feral and threatening and more like actors in make-up. And the direction proper of the zombie fight was underwhelming.

It's strange because once again it seems there's some selective change for change's sake that works less well then in the game equivalent - the sudden tackle of Riley in the game works so well!

Most of all they changed the ending too in a way that was way less effective. Riley's voice-over about savoring every last minute being spliced with the Joel/Ellie stuff, and the music with it, is one of my favourite and most-memorable TLOU scenes. Here they've rejigged the order and music style enough to make it just less effective. Maybe they were worried about it being too on the nose or something I'm not sure?

Makes me wonder if actually Druckmann might be a better inherent director than some of these TV bona-fides? I'm sure it's hard not trying to directly emulate the original in a parodic way, but when you lose some of the lightning in a bottle (as Captain previously said) sparks it's a bit sad.

Also their light-jog roof-hopping scene was fun but the sudden out-of-breathness at the end was funny and bad?!

Anyway! I did like it! And found it moving. Just hard not to see the thing in stereoscope vision due to the mental screen burn of the game.

A really well-made episode. The whole show has such a high level of quality to its design and world-building.

Again though, similar to ep3, I am wondering whether a 9-episode season is perhaps leaving me feeling a little short-changed with Ellie & Joel's journey together.

The budget was reportedly $100m+ for those 9 episodes, so I guess it was a major undertaking by Mazin/Druckmann to condense it down like this.

jiggles wrote:

Skarjo wrote:Kinda annoying that they cut the ending short. I don't think there was enough story left to justify splitting it over two episodes, should have just wrapped it there and then.

The whole episode was neatly contained as the Left Behind DLC story, and the next episode will be the Winter chapter of the game. I’m not sure what you mean by cutting the ending short or splitting it up.

Agree, if any story needed to be split over two episodes it was Henry’s, just didn’t feel the connection enough at the end as I did with the game.

deathofcows wrote:Also the solo infected (as opposed to the game's many) was probably less impressive but - more importantly - massively deflated by its earlier telegraphing and introduction. I've no idea why this was thought to work better? Maybe to make it seem less 'random' or add (zero?) ominous tension but I think done right it could still have worked as a GoT-style unfair entropy of the world type shock?

Well, hang on now. Everyone playing the DLC knew how it was going to play out, due to how Ellie describes her and Riley getting infected in the main game. That conversation doesn’t happen until the very very end, and hasn’t happened yet in the show. It’s not supposed to be a surprise when things go badly, you’re supposed to know they get attacked. The fun in the mall is supposed to be heartbreaking, because you already know how it ends. That feeling of dread as you watch these kids have a great time, thinking “it’s going to happen now, right? Now? Oh, god, no, this is devastating”? That’s exactly what they’re going for. The problem being that the events are now being told in a different order to the game and there’s an audience who aren’t aware of exactly what’s coming.

As for 1 infected vs a horde, the larger group was intended to give you an exciting *gameplay* climax to the DLC, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. How were they being chased by so many and somehow they end up killing just two and get to sit quietly and process getting infected? 1 infected makes more sense in that regard, particularly when you figure Riley’s been in here a few times already. But 1 doesn’t make any sense from a gameplay perspective. You’ve spent the last few hours killing loads of infected and people as Ellie in the present day sections, so going 2v1 against one, even caught off guard, is something you (the player) can handle without breaking a sweat. It’s not a threat.

Fair. But I stand by all the rest of my points to the death.

Just finished ep7. Question though. Why would they have an unguarded boarded up mall inside the quarantined zone with infected still inside. Surely the point of the quarantined zone would be they've cleared out all infected.

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:Just finished ep7. Question though. Why would they have an unguarded boarded up mall inside the quarantined zone with infected still inside. Surely the point of the quarantined zone would be they've cleared out all infected.

I'm assuming that it was previously cleared and someone had got in after and died in there on his own.

Victor Mildew wrote:

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:Just finished ep7. Question though. Why would they have an unguarded boarded up mall inside the quarantined zone with infected still inside. Surely the point of the quarantined zone would be they've cleared out all infected.

I'm assuming that it was previously cleared and someone had got in after and died in there on his own.

Or better yet, had gone in there to die on his own, and not be a threat to the others in the QZ.

Found 7 to be the weakest episode so far the interaction between Ellie and Riley is just stilted and feels awkward throughout. Also being so similar to the game you're just waiting for the thing to happen and it kind of plods its way to that. It's a story that is core to the overall narrative though so it needs to be shown, so if it were between this and ep 3, the latter is what I'd bin off.

Watching this episode also made me wonder how old Bella Ramsey is and how much she's going to age up before series 2. Obviously they don't have to show her killing as much as Ellie in the game but I do wonder how some of the combat/action set pieces are going to play.

Captain Kinopio wrote:Found 7 to be the weakest episode so far the interaction between Ellie and Riley is just stilted and feels awkward throughout. Also being so similar to the game you're just waiting for the thing to happen and it kind of plods its way to that. It's a story that is core to the overall narrative though so it needs to be shown, so if it were between this and ep 3, the latter is what I'd bin off.

Watching this episode also made me wonder how old Bella Ramsey is and how much she's going to age up before series 2. Obviously they don't have to show her killing as much as Ellie in the game but I do wonder how some of the combat/action set pieces are going to play.

I believe she's 20.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:

Captain Kinopio wrote:Found 7 to be the weakest episode so far the interaction between Ellie and Riley is just stilted and feels awkward throughout. Also being so similar to the game you're just waiting for the thing to happen and it kind of plods its way to that. It's a story that is core to the overall narrative though so it needs to be shown, so if it were between this and ep 3, the latter is what I'd bin off.

Watching this episode also made me wonder how old Bella Ramsey is and how much she's going to age up before series 2. Obviously they don't have to show her killing as much as Ellie in the game but I do wonder how some of the combat/action set pieces are going to play.

I believe she's 20.

She’s currently the same age as Ellie was in the second game.

She looks about 12