645: "Feel Her Love" (The Last of Us S2E5) Listener Feedback

[00:00:00] Hmm? Ah! Hmm. Podcast Control!

[00:00:37] Hey Zed Heads, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason. And I'm Eric. And I'm P.E. Lonnie. Woo! And this is The Cast of Us, Episode 645. And this episode, we're going through your feedback for The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 5, Feel Her Love. Ooh, my goodness. What kind of podcast are we doing, guys? P.E. Lonnie, it's so great to hear you and see you. It's so wonderful. Yeah. It's been so long. It's been so long. Way too long.

[00:01:05] Yeah, I was looking at, I don't know if this is actually the last time you were on, but you guessed it about 12 years ago. It was number 117 when we interviewed Angela Kang together. That's right. I remember that, yeah. I think that was maybe the first time I appeared, but I did do another episode. I feel like I did one and Karen was on it as well. You did? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you set up that Angela Kang one. That was really great. And remember, that's pre-showrunner Angela Kang. Yeah. That's right. She was just writing.

[00:01:35] She was. Crazy, right? That's her career. And we've been doing a rewatch lately, and if you look like we're in Episode 4 right now, and it's like Glenn Mazzara wrote, I mean, Scott Gimble wrote one, Angela Kang wrote one. It's all like who became the later showrunners and went and did spin offs and everything. It's pretty cool. Anyway, great to have you on. It's so good to see you and to have you on. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for the invite. Yeah, it's great.

[00:02:02] I just tried to sign up for the Patreon and then Jason reached out again. I'm like, oh, friends. We're back. So, have you seen The Last of Us? I have seen The Last of Us. You know? It's convenient. I think that's convenient. It would be a little weird being on here if you hadn't. Yeah. Tell me, you're just, you know, how do you like it? What do you think? Great. Well, thanks for asking. I'm not a gamer, so I did not play the video game. Cool.

[00:02:28] But I did really, but I enjoyed the first season and not just because Pedro Pascal is zaddy. It was incredibly compelling. I missed the drop. So, like, I missed the first few episodes and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, these podcasts are popping up. I need to watch it again. It has been so scary. This season I feel like it was really scary the first couple of episodes.

[00:02:58] And I actually got spoiled at what happened in episode two. So, it wasn't as shocking to me, but still, I mean, it was incredibly compelling and scary. And just the acting for everybody in that scene was just amazing. I had to close my eyes and then watch it again and those kinds of things. So, I've been really enjoying it. Good. That's so cool. Yeah. I'm glad to hear.

[00:03:25] And the fact that you're not a gamer is cool because we love to get different perspectives. I always worry that we go too much into the whole gamer thing because I know most people aren't. Most people who watch the show didn't play games, you know? Yeah, of course. So, it's fun to, because it's hard for me to, both of us, I think, to separate that out. And I see stuff that's from the game and I just get so giddy because it's so close. But then I wonder if people who never played the game still appreciate it. And it sounds like you do. No, absolutely. Absolutely. That's cool.

[00:03:54] Well, before we get into the feedback, I just, I listened to the HBO official one and it was great. I recommend people listen to that if you're, if you want to get more Last of Us content. And Neil Druckmann said one thing that I thought was really interesting. He said faith is, he was talking about, of course, the Seraphites. He said, faith isn't inherently good or bad. It's powerful and in the wrong hands or under the wrong leadership. It can be devastating. Hmm.

[00:04:22] And I think that's a good thing to keep in mind as we talk about this because, you know, the Seraphites, they do some pretty horrific things and I talk about it being in the name of their faith and I don't want people to misunderstand and think that I'm down on all religion or something like that. So, I think he really encapsulated that well, you know? I don't think anybody would mistake what we're talking about with the Seraphites as being against all religions. I mean, I think, you know, I can't imagine.

[00:04:51] I mean, I don't, I don't know if too many religions currently right now who get praise, if any, if sticking a sickle and disemboweling people hanging from a tree. So, I think it's okay to say we're not talking about three or four. Yeah. Okay. All right. That said, let's get into listener scream, snarls and clicks. Click, click. I'm a zombie guy. So, we'll take turns.

[00:05:21] Pilani, you wanna go first? Ooh, I get to go first. Great. Thank you. All right. So, Kirk Manley. Kirk! Kirk Manley. Hearts, hearts. Rocked! And I'm becoming jewel in front of our eyes. Spores! Jess to the rescue. That was just quick encapsulation. Nice. Give us something. Next one here is from Jenny Ryan. Just wanted to know why no one ever walks around in an apocalypse with braces.

[00:05:50] Surely someone had braces when the world ended and they've had to live with them for 20 years. Oh my gosh. I mean, you'd be able to figure out a way to get them off, right? Yeah. I think so. A lot of people have those ceramic ones too that I think would pop off more easily than the metal ones. But it started in 2003, so I don't know if they were that advanced back then. Maybe they were, but even if you had those metal ones, I know if it was me, I'd be getting in there with pliers and pulling them out. Oh gosh.

[00:06:20] I know. That's a nice visual. Lisa Edmondson Walker says, it's hard to remember to breathe while watching the show. Between the infected, the scars, the wolves, the spores, it's all so intense. I do love that they use Stanley Park in Vancouver for the park scenes. I did not know that, but that was cool. Oh. Maria Lawson says, spores! That basement was probably my favorite set piece of this entire series.

[00:06:49] I love that we have both the evolution of the fungus and the infected in one episode. I feel like Eddie needs a serious decontamination shower for seeing Dina again. Oh my God. No kidding. Right? Oh, gross. Oh gosh. Uh, let's see here. Beth Nichols. Jeebus! I've just finished watching episode five. Things have certainly ramped up. Does anyone else have to stop the show occasionally to take a short break when it gets too violent or scary?

[00:07:19] I had to stop three times today. I don't like seeing Ellie get so violent with that woman at the end. I guess we are seeing the last bits of her innocence disappearing now as it leads into a flashback at the end. However, it was nice to see Joel again. Hmm. Yes, it was girl. I wanted to ask you. Yeah. Do you like that? Uh, P.L.A. Is that a pleasant surprise? I knew he was coming back. I knew that Zaddy was coming back, but, um, I need more. Nice. Yeah. I was, I was glad to see him.

[00:07:49] Um, do I ever take a break? No. When it gets violent or scary? Uh, no, I don't. I don't know if, yeah, I've definitely stopped playing games because it was just getting too intense, you know, and I needed to take a break, but I don't think I've ever stopped watching a movie because it was getting too scary, but it is. I mean, I'm loving how scary it is this season for sure. Yeah. It is terrifying at times. Carlos Frederick says, Hey, all the air sure was dirty tonight.

[00:08:18] My favorite was when Dina tells Ellie, yes, you would come out shooting because you're a little crazy and that's exciting. LMAO. She was so on point for saying that not to mention Jesse showing up and saving their asses. The Nora scene I thought was fucking great. Where is Abby? No whack. What does that mean? I don't know. You're going to say it one more time, Jason. So we'll see what happens the second time around. Where's Abby? No whack. Again, you could really see the darkness in Ellie at that moment. Good. Good for her. Yeah.

[00:08:47] Kick that ass. I don't know what that means. Okay. So for me, Almardini. So creepy. Interesting to see the torture scene of the wolves versus the scars. The scars won't give up under any conditions, but the wolves are ready to spill literally and figuratively. That was a hard scene to watch for me. Final thoughts. Through the episode was struggling with thoughts about losing Dina, but then realized

[00:09:15] it was about her losing Joel and refocusing on her mission. The last scene was epic. I hope we see more of Joel. Me too, girl. And get the truth next episode. Get the truth about what? I wonder what she means about that. Well, I'm guessing, uh, maze means this the truth about what Joel did in Salt Lake. Oh yeah. What happened with Eugene maybe? Oh, maybe that too. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:40] Or how, um, how Ellie knows maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We know what he did. We know, but we also know he lied to her. So, you know, that's fair. All right. Janine G. Okay. I get it now. Do not F with the Sarah fights. They are kind of bad-ass. I'm so glad Jesse saved Ellie and Dina because I couldn't take another scene with the lovey dovey stuff.

[00:10:08] I'm here for revenge, not romance. The introduction to the spores looked like Ellie was scuba diving in the ocean. All of the weeds, people stuck in the walls and mushrooms look like coral and the spores floated out of the guy's mouth. It was pretty cool. And lastly, I'm so glad we're getting some more Joel this season. Arts. Can't argue with any of that. No, I'm I like that. Um, I don't like the romance either. I'm all about the action and the revenge. Yeah.

[00:10:37] Janine you and I could be, we go out for drinks and enjoy this. It's a little too forced cutesy. That's my problem with it. Hmm. Yeah. Matt King says at least Ellie had got some revenge over Abby's group by effectively killing Nora. We finally got to see Pedro again at the end. So that was a nice moment. I've just watched gladiator too. And it appears Pedro may be looking to take over from Sean being, oh, you just spoiled gladiator do for me as the one doomed to die in every show.

[00:11:05] Dina continues to be the MVP of season two. It'll be interesting to see how they handle Jesse arriving to throw a spanner in the works. Well, I don't feel bad about getting that movie spoiled for you. Um, I would feel bad for you if you had already watched the movie. I saw it and wow, what a steaming pile that movie. Well, that makes me feel better about it. It was seriously. It was like, how can this be this bad? And it really was bad. Really? Yeah.

[00:11:35] Okay. It was pretty bad. Yeah. It was almost, you could almost sleep through it because it's just, there was nothing compelling other than, uh, the attractive people in it. Yeah. Good. Good. And there was almost none of that for me. So. Almost. Okay. Well, dobelino Bob grippy says the hallway full of infected stuck to the wall was something out of aliens. Mm hmm. Quote. You tell me, man, I just work here. Totally. Awesome. Right.

[00:12:05] The contrast of Ellie torturing Nora to Ellie waking up to Joel and saying, hi is amazing. What has to happen for something, for someone to go that dark? Ellie is addicted to revenge. She'll lie and turn her back against her friends and safety to get it. And Enid is a spy. Seriously though. Was there ever any followup Kirkman general or the actor on what she was about to say to

[00:12:33] Carl when Alexandria was suddenly overrun with wolves? Question mark. Yeah. Gimple said that she was about to admit she was a spy. So you're right. No. Thank you. That's not. Thanks for the question. Not at all true. I can't believe that's still a thing. Okay. Jennifer ring him. Can someone remind me, does Ellie know how she is immune? It seems strange that she would be traveling with a pregnant woman and the thought wouldn't cross her mind that if Dina is bit, her baby might be immune.

[00:13:02] But also if I was Dina, my first question would be, oh my God, how? When I found out Ellie was immune, but I guess they have more important stuff to worry about. I'm sad that Nora has to die. She seems like a bad-ass and someone we would have been rooting for if the story was flipped. I'm watching you on Netflix and was surprised to see that she is one of Joe's love interests. But then again, she did call Joel a little bitch. So maybe I don't feel that bad. Yeah.

[00:13:29] Uh, also on you is Janine from, um, Handmaid's Tale. So I gotta watch that. I'm, I missed the last season of you, the one previous to this one, but I've seen all the other ones. And I gotta go back. I don't think, uh, I don't think there's any way that Ellie could know how she was immune. No. Right. I mean, the only person that cause cause actually her mom lied to Marlene saying that she got bit after, uh, the baby had come out.

[00:13:57] So, um, oh, well, yeah, you'd think maybe Marlene might've figured it out. Uh, yeah. Or at least suspected what really happened, you know, but I don't think Ellie knows. No. Cause she didn't know who Marlene was when they met. Right. So it's not like they had a lot of time to say, Oh, by the way. Yeah. I think we saw the whole like entirety of their relationship on the screen. Yeah. All right. Here's the first call from Steve Brown. Hello. The cast was Steve.

[00:14:26] And this is going to be for the last of us season two, episode five, uh, feel her love. So we're in a hospital and this, I don't know who this new woman is, this new character. Oh, so it's now an airborne virus, not just from, and just sealed them in the basement. Oh, not stupid. Non-school oriented. Yeah. That's you Ellie. Uh, what building are they in that has this huge theater and all these guitars? Oh, desiccant packages on these guitars, but they're well preserved anyway. So feel her love is on the wall.

[00:14:55] I guess that's kind of a mic drop, but not really more evidence that nobody's a good guy in this, this day and age that the wolves are bad. The scars are bad. Everybody's bad. Oh, but Dina makes a point here that no matter what Joel did, he didn't deserve what they did to him. And she was eight years old when she killed her first man. Haunted, but empty. Huh? Just like us. This whole sequence is very, very tense in this building. That's obviously not going to be completely empty, right? Oh, so they found one of the stalker infected.

[00:15:24] Oh, there's a bunch of them in here. Of course. I knew this building wasn't empty. Oh, somebody just saved them. Is it Tommy? Oh, it's Jesse. They're doing a lot of shooting. So the wolves should be coming after him, right? That is who's after him, but they're in the park now. Um, not central park. That's another show altogether. Okay. So Tommy's with them and they left the night after these two left. Oh, that whistling language. The scars are in the, in the park. Oh, they're disemboweling him. At least we can, oh, the intestines are, ugh. Oh, now we found one of the people that participated in Joel's killing.

[00:15:55] Hey, this is Nora. Oh, she fell down on the elevator shaft and now she's at the second basement level. Joel, that's where the infected are, right? Ooh, it's all over the walls and it is in the air. There's bodies in the walls. Whoa. That look on Bella Ramsey's face. Ooh, where is she? Huh? Wait, what was that at the very end there? It's a memory of Joel walking in on, ah, all right. Only like two more episodes left. Dang.

[00:16:25] It's Joel's ghost. He does those. We call him live Steve's. He, he calls it and just kind of narrates as he goes through. Um, always that's only for Steve, by the way, if everyone did that, it would drive us all nuts, but it's really fun to hear his reactions, especially when something crazy happens. All right. Here is Stacy Metcalf, who says another anxiety driven episode full of action. I was so thankful that Jesse showed up to save the day.

[00:16:53] The Ellie and Nora showdown had me thinking Nora was going to get away, but I was definitely wrong. You were the whole wing of, well, maybe we don't know for sure, but probably yeah, wrong. The whole wing of spores was incredible. So creepy and amazing. I kept waiting for Ellie to put one of the spores trapped people out of their misery, but unfortunately it didn't happen. That is actually a really good point. Mm hmm. Once Ellie caught up to Nora, I found myself smirking and cheering for her and then questioning my sense of humanity.

[00:17:23] Wait, cheering for, oh, Ellie, not Nora. Okay. I love the plunge Ellie took into her revenge filled soul. That's a great way to put that. Mm hmm. Knowing Nora held her down as she watched the torture of Joel made me want revenge for her. Ellie's I know was brilliantly performed by Bella and leaves me wondering if she really did know. That's a good point. We presume, everyone presumes that she did know, but she could have just been saying that. That's true. Ready for the return of Joel with the, the awaited flashbacks. Great episode.

[00:17:53] P.S. I love my hex clad pans. Ben. Oh, Ben's not here to respond to that, but I'm sure he'll be happy. Oh, people do. People absolutely do love their hex clads. This is true. So funny. So I have a question. If the people who are trapped are killed, does it stop the process? Uh, they're not going to respirate anymore, I guess, but yeah. Right. That's what I was wondering. Like, you mean, what do you mean by the process?

[00:18:22] Like, like, does it stop the breathing and the spread of the spores? You know? Yeah. Because. Yes, I think so. But I don't know if that has much impact on the outside world, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I think, I mean, the way they described it on the official HBO podcast was something like, they're just in this symbiotic relationship where they're spore producing machines and they're, they have to sit there and suffer, you know? Yeah. It's really horrific.

[00:18:50] Oh yeah, I definitely got the sense that they were being kept alive for that purpose. They're still alive, right? Which is just. And there may be some awareness there too, which like they were saying, you know, her mom felt bad about having that kid's mom, excuse me, felt bad about leaving him down there, but she doesn't know the half of it. Mm-hmm. True. So fun. All right. What's next? Well, Jess Jones has a comment. OMG! Three exclamation points.

[00:19:18] The stalkers are insane and so are the Seraphites. I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but another intense episode that literally had me on the edge of my couch and the only thing I could repeatedly say was, oh God, oh God, oh God! And almost covered my eyes because I was afraid of how much they were going to show. Goddamn! Woo! What a ride! I'm fearing for the gang in each situation and feeling their terror as I watch each new discovery.

[00:19:47] I know you guys have mentioned the spores and I'm so happy for the gamers to finally see this on screen. It was incredible. What a set. But man, what a way to go, huh? Breathing in air and breathing out spores forever. Absolutely horrific. And the big reveal. Ellie knows what Joel did. But when did she learn it? Is this why five years later she and Joel were in such a fight?

[00:20:13] Like, did he keep it from her for over four years and then she found out and shut him out? I have too many questions and thoughts. I won't be writing in next week because I'll be on a boat in my floppy floops. So until the finale. Bye. Bye Jess. I thought Ellie could have maybe deduced, you know, what happened. but maybe we'll find out in a flashback specifically and i gotta say as uh you know

[00:20:41] the spores in the show honestly yeah yes the spores are cool in the game but the way these were depicted in the show made them so much cooler it's not even funny i don't know what it is but something about that the way it was depicted the way it is maybe an evolution of this versus just the uh standard default it just i don't know hit really well yeah i don't know if this is right but

[00:21:06] it seems to me that in the game they look more like somebody blew a dandelion you know yeah and they're just like little speckles in the air but in the show it was more like wispy dark dusty grimy the darkness of it yeah something about that the way that you can see the eddies of of the breath kind of churning it around in the air and then just go oh wonderful good stuff an immediate

[00:21:33] impact too right it's like nora was in there and just a few minutes later she was already sort of wheezing yeah yeah and i think that was the kind of the point of bringing in those spores just so there could be this environment where nora expected ellie to be coughing too and she wasn't and it just made it all the more horrific for her yeah all right alma contreras holy guacamole this episode

[00:22:00] was really intense at first during the dina ellie dialogue i was rolling my eyes a bit but then we got into some crazy and terrifying stuff those freaking infected stalkers are creepy af i was seriously scared i don't like how they move almost like demonic creatures or something thank goodness jesse showed up to save the day whoo i feel like we missed a bit because all of a sudden eddie was

[00:22:25] right up on nora oof and how crazy was both the spores scene and ellie going ballistic on nora's scene i was seriously holding my breath throughout i was wondering if the spores would have any kind of effect on ellie guess not lol oh how is ellie gonna get out of b2 stay tuned till next week you know one thing we didn't say uh is they show they had these three levels of this basement b1 b2 b3

[00:22:54] they said b1 was empty we saw it was on b2 so they're not going to have a b3 without something happening there i presume at some point that's all i'm saying yes okay michael say about that michelle excuse me d from boston says hey i've never emailed before but decided now you guys are my go-to last of us podcast happy for the new season of course but even happier having you guys

[00:23:21] along for the season well thank you that's really nice i was slacking until i binged everything a few days ago which then allowed me to binge you guys at work as someone who's played the game multiple times i'm really enjoying the season i wasn't someone complaining about the lack of infected in the last season but it is nice they've upped their infected game so far this season with episode two making me think of days gone and the hordes of infected great zombie game by the way i've heard that a lot but i've never played myself oh and i used to watch walking dead weekly but last i remember

[00:23:50] was the gang escaping a place they thought was a sanctuary only for them to get captured to end the season wasn't that every season no i'm just kidding for some reason i never got back into it so i'm i'm so many seasons behind as well as so many spinoffs behind if i did ever go back and binge them at least i have all your podcast episodes to listen to as well sorry for the rambling no no rambling there but yes um i recommend going back and watching all of it and listening to us because

[00:24:15] it's awesome it is awesome i i agree well let me tell you what josh gell says bella ramsey giving shades of christian bell's batman where is she another superb episode of the last of us i really like the introduction of the spores in the show poor leon oh yeah poor leon i am so glad to see

[00:24:40] jesse join ellie and dina in seattle they needed a mature adult them lol he is pissed at them can't wait to see tommy again either me too um if i ever were to lose you i'm not crying you're crying yeah that was that was that was good um this episode alone bella should get an award what an amazing performance i was watching a youtuber talk about this episode and he had an interesting take

[00:25:11] in previous episodes we've seen what the seraphites are capable of what if this episode was the first time we're properly introduced to them i think that whole sequence in the park would have been even more terrifying 10 out of 10 i don't understand that take to you guys yeah i think she i think he's saying that what if this was the first time we were introduced to them oh instead of not seeing

[00:25:37] them before instead of kind of getting the whole like oh they're actually really nice you were just victims of the wlf versus holy shit these people are insane yeah right no i like it i like it the way it went because i just love the way this show depicts the um complexity of humanity where you think you know somebody and then you see this other dark side of them that's what it's all about nice

[00:26:03] yeah agreed okay andrea abarka hello jason lucy and the gang hope my favorite podcasters are all doing well i had to write in about the latest episode of the last of us just to say wow i don't know if it was well adapted or not for the game but since i'm not a gamer i just enjoyed it for what it was scary brilliant emotional it had it all i'm a huge fan of bella's and i know there's been criticism of

[00:26:31] them don't care as far as i'm concerned they are brilliant from the beautiful quiet moment in the theater with the guitar i'm not crying you are to the confrontation with nora i loved tati gabriel on you so the confrontation with her and bella the chemistry between them was off the charts but that moment with the red lights when ellie's eyes look black and she says i know it sent a chill down my spine

[00:26:56] no emotion just pure vengeance how bella can go from sweet to killer i just can't see how anyone can think she's not amazing and powerful and then joel a heart i can't wait to see him again as for the rest of the episode i found the spore infected sad but also beautiful the scene was amazing i do confess being scared for ellie momentarily i wasn't sure if she would be immune

[00:27:21] there as well the seraphites are terrifying and my favorite infected are the stalkers though i would definitely not want to run into one choosing to ignore the negative people and just loving the show until next week don't get bit well that's yeah that's the best way to do it i think just choose to ignore them yeah yeah but it is nice every once in a while just to point out that we're choosing

[00:27:46] to ignore them i like it because i agree with everything you said indeed hard hardcore okay here's a call from archmaester rennie who also wrote how odd to be watching both this and handmaid's tale i was silently saying no ellie no don't bash don't bash nora with that pipe then in the handmaid's

[00:28:08] tale i was saying yes kill them all context is everything which is great so uh here's her call jason and eric i just want to praise you for your astute observation that even in the mushroom apocalypse commas retain their importance feel this bitch and feel this bitch without a comma yeah

[00:28:37] yay punctuation may it thrive forever right so um the show i love because it's making me think about all these ethical dilemmas but also it's a great horror show and it's scary and i wanted to tell you a story about something that happened to me yesterday after i had seen the show the night before at work a co-worker asked me to come into her office

[00:29:04] and help her with a spider that she had seen because she's terrified of spiders and um i'm not bothered at all by spiders so i did that i was the spider hero for the day and then uh when i got home i was looking in my refrigerator and found some leftover pesto that was in a glass container that had

[00:29:27] gotten pushed to the back of the refrigerator and it had was all overgrown with fungus and i reacted the way my co-worker reacted to the spider oh my god it's a it's fungus it's it's oh no what am i gonna do i think we have to take off and nuke the site from orbit it's the only way to be sure

[00:29:50] mostly i've always thought fungus was particularly icky and now i think it's even even scarily icky here great show i'm loving it loving your coverage thank you oh that's rad that's very good she she ate it now she's a clicker um hold on i i gotta say regarding uh grammars uh grammar they can they can regarding grammars i know i got something to say

[00:30:21] i was gonna say they could take the oxford comma from my cold dead hand yeah i would give up i so cheered when i was listening to that i cheered for you i was like that's right she you know the whole fungus thing getting ickier i i found myself uh at the beginning of well when season one was airing i'm like i gotta try mushroom coffee and i took my son nico out to forage i was like really getting into mushrooms whenever i would tell anyone they'd be like yeah i was kind of doing

[00:30:50] the same thing uh i've never really liked mushrooms and over the last couple years a few years i've gotten starting to enjoy them a lot more probably because of this wow what kind of mushrooms yeah i was gonna ask that but what i'm gonna say is i was gonna make a dish with enoki mushrooms tonight so my kid loves mushroom talk kid loves those just eats the youngest just eat some raw non-stop okay

[00:31:13] wow yeah i like it all right deborah ulmer says hi the cast of us team hi sorry i missed the chance to comment on last week's episode but i enjoyed it a lot i definitely teared up again when i heard the show theme as ellie saw the guitars in the music store but i love jeffrey wright he's such a versatile actor from westworld to the batman he plays every character amazing i'm looking forward to see what

[00:31:38] he does as isaac also i wanted to chime in about the raisin cookies lol i own a bakery and making a lot of gluten-free items for my customers so when y'all were commenting on it i was like yes you can certainly make cookies without wheat flour there's rice flour potato starch blends or any type of nuts made into flour to name a few oatmeal raisin would probably be the easiest one to make too by using

[00:32:02] rolled oats and oat flour and they'll be tasty i want chocolate chips in my oatmeal cookies i love oatmeal raisin and i will die on that hill all right no no no so good chewy raisins don't do it if this can be the most contentious issue we talk about that would really make me ease my soul as for this episode it was great and crazy intense it's so wild how ellie and dina are on this hunt

[00:32:29] in quest for vengeance not knowing that they walked right into a war of two factions totally they walked right into a war and even though their relationship may be young-minded in some ways and others it seems very grown up especially how dina is able to guide ellie both physically and emotionally they play off each other well i'm enjoying seeing them together like this yay i was so excited to see jesse but now i know i'm glad she said that because we've all sort of been a little bit down on that stuff and i i think it's

[00:32:57] uneven but it is a sweet relationship too i i think it's just uh yeah anyway i'm enjoying seeing them together like this yay i was so excited to see jesse but now we have him and tommy to worry about also so this is how they introduce spores i'm interested to see how this new aspect plays out whoa ellie got dark at the end there i can imagine that it's going to get worse though y'all have a good one and take care i think you might be right

[00:33:23] well thanks for the the baking talk too that was really helpful i like it all right so wyman owen says spores i'll jump right to the end here the way that they were able to project spores from the game to television was absolutely stunning i was in awe of it all okay back to the beginning i understand that dialogue drives the story in moments that the action isn't there

[00:33:46] but the 15 minutes of dina and ellie yapping back and forth hit a little flat for me i was taking more notice of the details of the background and setting the streets looked amazing and the theater was immaculate yes the theater was incredible and ellie played a tiny bit of the song was hoping for the flashback scene that followed in the game but no the scene with the stalkers was intense and it brought

[00:34:13] back my game anxiety especially when dina ran out of ammo kept in wyoming with a c and the seraphites were absolutely brutal lastly the chase with nora at the hospital literally ripped right from gameplay i loved it the actress who played nora nailed those moments applause for her

[00:34:35] then leaving us with a joel teaser for next week i want more and i want it now agreed so some good stuff and some bad with some absolute amazing things this week for me still loving the show and i love what y'all do on the podcast me too i love what they do like a second family enjoying shows together my wife won't watch it so i gotta enjoy with somebody oh i'm so excited all right another pun

[00:35:01] did you hear about the unfaithful espresso it was grounds for divorce honest reactions to the puns um i love puns what's your favorite um pedro pascal thing oh my favorite pet of all time i i have a guess but i won't say it um you know what i really enjoy

[00:35:29] and can watch over and over snl yeah have you watched him on snl oh it's so good oh brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant all of it it's just hilarious the ease of the change of the characters and he's so funny yeah um that one in particular i love la it's so good i love that yeah i think a wonder woman 1984

[00:35:58] no i'm just kidding nobody ever says that nobody would ever say that i love that answer i love that answer i didn't even like him in that i was i know he couldn't say no no not at all that was one of the worst things i've ever seen what was another i was so sad for it to be a bad movie i know me too i was too yeah all right we could talk about pedro pascal for hours so let's move on all right so rachel teal edwards

[00:36:23] dang this is a good one not the elie dina stuff but the second half i just don't care about this romance it seems forced and superfluous and downright boring at times however the action and horror and drama of the second half totally overshadows the dullness so i can't wait for next week the back half was one incredible scene after another the stalkers are

[00:36:48] terrifying glad to see jesse because we need a new dynamic in this dramatic non-thrilling scenes and tommy i miss tommy hope we see him before the season is over what a treat to actually witness the disemboweling not that was one of the most intensely gruesome things i've seen since rick biting out the claimer's jugular this might be worse actually the visual at the hospital of the

[00:37:17] people trapped in the cordyceps exhaling spores is not one i will soon forget ellie should have been kind and killed them ending their misery but i guess she had other things on her mind i found myself totally immersed in this scene taking shallow breaths myself and had to ground myself in my own surroundings and take some deep breaths that's not a sign of good tv i don't know what is ellie is

[00:37:42] channeling some serious aggression here i saw a look on her face that made me think she might actually show mercy to nora but it was just the opposite she was digging in and giving into her raw primal emotions as a non-gamer i will say there are plenty of scenes where i can tell it's straight out of the video game but i actually think that's cool and enjoy it you know i i thank you rachel i was rad i was just

[00:38:07] thinking about what could have improved the spore scene is if one of the trapped people spewing out the spores was a woman and she started vomiting and then ellie would say oh my god she's pregnant you're pregnant oh gosh oh gosh wow that's a joke that's a lot uh yeah like she had a lot on her

[00:38:32] mind that's true i thought maybe she'd she'd get attacked but um it was just such i wouldn't want to get anywhere close to one of those yeah no it's just such a beautiful beautifully horrific scene so well done uh thanks rachel rinaldi coleeks says sorry this is long but a lot happened in this episode that interested me this episode felt like the dc comics character two-faced one half really

[00:38:58] didn't work for me it seems to be um you know you're kind of in the majority there maybe or at least a lot of people say the same thing m was to be frank not good well dean and ellie are good because they're not frank that's my pun quota for the week well good that's good but as good as they are they cannot carry this show their 15 minutes of leading this episode fell flat for me i mean i'm not seth here and definitely not frank who's seth seth is the the guy with the steak sandwiches oh yes

[00:39:25] okay i mean i'll be frank in terms of honesty dina and ellie are fantastic characters though dina is my favorite and i actually want them to survive and settle down perhaps get parenting advice from tommy and maria but the good parts of this episode play played a huge obstacle in dina trying to recreate what she lost with ellie and possibly jesse a family because all the action sequences were intense lucy voice i don't know how lucy says intense and she probably says it with a scottish

[00:39:53] accent which i would imagine they did a good job making me scared for ellie and dina especially dina because i'm the captain of the dina bandwagon i didn't know that about you that's good uh the confrontation with nora was enjoyable despite being sad and horrifying because of its combination of emotional and physical intensity this is going to sound weird because again i'm not on team abby and i'm reluctantly on team ellie but i respect nora for refusing to give up abby even when it's

[00:40:22] in excruciating pain or out of just primal fear and desperation nora refused to give up abby the wlf soldier was willing to give up isaac his commander in a second but nora said no aside from dina's speech that has to be my character moment of the episode well i think that's all really um interesting rinaldi but we actually don't know if nora gave up abby because we didn't get to see the

[00:40:48] end of that scene so we'll find out also i feel so sad for mrs park whose son leon is trapped in that beautifully shot designed spore basement area absolutely last of us really does a good job with these brief flashback segments and takes horrific things and makes them artistically beautiful you know what this episode isn't two-faced it's a harvey dent who never became a villain and learned there are two sides to every coin from gail the therapist and neil druckman look at that i exceeded

[00:41:16] my weekly pun quota with two puns not two-face in honor of joel who's back in flashback form so all the zotters of pedro pascal are going to come back to their zaddy right right they're going to come back and watch the rest of the season right um yeah do you think a lot of people jump shit when no i don't think so i thought they might i don't think so either no i don't think so yeah yeah yeah i mean again my wife did say she's still not as interested without him but she's still watching i mean

[00:41:45] then again she doesn't have a choice since i'm watching it but you know what did she say when she saw joel oh i i think she was i think it was something along the lines of yay something like that that's all that's all i i really don't remember exactly but i'm pretty sure along the line i'm paraphrasing yay oh good yeah your wife is pretty chill eric that's true she's pretty chill that was a very enthusiastic reaction it was like yay with a capital y

[00:42:15] i think so yeah yeah i mean there there was yeah i'm not going to say there was an exclamation point on it but no no no let's not go there come on now i mean come on she didn't win the lottery where are we here what's going on uh it's a call from carissa hey y'all it's carissa from portland um really quickly to answer jason's question from last week about belief in the supernatural

[00:42:39] um not being what really seals the deal for people i think that belief itself is different than facing evidence of a supernatural being like if you have evidence you don't need to believe anything but when you don't have evidence you have to have faith and so that belief or faith is what keeps you going along with rituals like high demand rituals like the scarring with the seraphites and the community and the connection whether it's healthy or unhealthy is what keeps people

[00:43:08] committed and so um i hope that explains it and if it didn't i tried um so episode five i'm hearing a lot of talk about how frustrating it is to see ellie and dina make what are very idiotic decisions um dina has done her best to make everything safe but going to seattle was just stupid they're not prepared they're in over their heads is anyone else feeling like it's just getting too stupid like just watching them make mistake after mistake like for me personally i don't find it

[00:43:37] frustrating i know what the story is trying to do it's a study in the cycle of violence and almost 100 of the time in these situations there are a series of stupid irresponsible decisions so yeah and that way i feel it's realistic yes but i can also see how that's frustrating to watch in a tv show for some people um oh and then ellie knew all along like not strongly suspected but like

[00:44:02] she knew it um very cool that we're getting spores now do y'all think nora knew what was down there she didn't seem that surprised but she also had the problems on her plate so she didn't know nobody didn't care um it seems like the cordyceps have found a way to use human bodies as a host to breathe out the spores so do you think there needs to be like a main hub to create the spore factory and like will the spores maybe get weaker if they're further away from like the factory or the hub

[00:44:33] um i don't know what do y'all think uh that's all i got bye i mean maybe but originally the whole thing spread because it got into the wheat the flour so i don't think the idea is that there's some central spore factory somewhere and that's why it's spreading i think that's just another manifestation of the horrors of this whole plague if that i don't know if that answered your question but yeah it's

[00:44:57] like when pollens fly through the air and plants sprout where they land right yeah that just tripped me out by the way because your voice sounds similar to hers and when i said i don't know if that answered your question and you said yeah i was like wow that's never happened before wow that's amazing welcome to the first interactive am i crazy right now chris and i are the same person we are the same person that was kind of awesome uh i'm from portland

[00:45:26] uh what was i gonna say oh about people doing dumb things my hope is because you're absolutely right it's very realistic because they're driven by emotion you know revenge can cloud logic insanity and uh my hope is people watch this and go man they're doing really stupid things maybe i shouldn't do stuff like that yeah and they're young right they're they're 19 so you're you're supposed to do stupid things at this age and it's supposed to make us as viewers feel like

[00:45:53] we're smarter and wouldn't do it but you know we probably all would do stupid things yeah i keep doing it i'm sure there's some lesson somewhere in here regarding vengeance revenge you know clouding your judgment that kind of thing but you just like the zombies me i'm just kidding i like i like the fight scenes i'm not gonna lie i love it when she does jujitsu and i just think

[00:46:18] that's fantastic well i love that you just made ben cringe by calling them zombies so who who would win ellie or daniel larusso oh i know who she ellie probably ellie you're probably right ellie would totally win she has more passion she'd stab him he would just kick her i mean all right what's next uh billy thompson is next hello hello hope you guys are well i'm warming to ellie and dina's

[00:46:47] interactions and the way they are written compared to the game i was initially struggling with it and thought it was maybe too happy slash jokey while being on a revenge mission which i still feel like it's at times but it seems to be getting more emotional slash serious between the two like the conversation about dina's first kill and if she should keep on going which was a lot closer to the game's vibe is that true guys it is you mean like that that's her vibe a little bit more

[00:47:14] that she's a little more serious in the game than the show yes yes yeah they both are okay they both are yeah all right well it's for sure a prop a me problem and i'll keep telling myself it's not 100 game accurate and just enjoy it for what it is it's good plus it is a three months later than the game so them feelings ellie and dina had about joel's death would be a lot a bit more under control when

[00:47:41] interacting with each other rather than the raw feelings in the game because it had just happened that's a good point i feel like they've taken yeah that's a good point i feel like they've taken a slightly nicer approach than the game did which is fine it's its own thing it'll just take some getting used to from me like how jason says when he sees the walking dead comics and show is different i need to with this that you really do it's it's so hard i i really struggle with it myself you're

[00:48:08] you're not alone i hear yeah i hear y'all struggling with it and i also hear you know like bald move talking about the same way where they're like oh it's kind of this way it's kind of that way anyhow when i'm watching the show sometimes and i start to feel like or sometimes i just catch myself going oh my god i'm appreciating this on its own what a great feeling you know it just like comes over me like it's its own thing yeah yeah it's weird well billy continues wow what a scene with the

[00:48:37] stalkers so creepy we definitely can't moan about not getting enough infected this season i'd love to see how they film that scene can't work out if some of the infected were cgi or not you have to take your hat off for the actors that play stalkers though just a perfect performance yes just seeing them run into the park gave me anxiety i knew exactly what was coming such a memorable memorable part of

[00:49:02] the game just have to say what a performance this episode from bella such a phenomenal actor i'm generally so sick of the negativity online surrounding the actor same billy same i've actually had to leave facebook and reddit groups because it is so relentless just this episode alone shows exactly why they chose bella for the role i for one think it was absolutely the right decision

[00:49:26] to cast bella after such a crazy intense violent episode hey kiddo was exactly what i needed to hear god i can't wait for the next episode i have a feeling it's going to be a standout thanks guys bye all right next one here is from ricky white hello everyone i loved this episode the cold opening

[00:49:50] really set the tone something is lurking underneath hanrahan's expression when she hears it's in the air was haunting she tried to stay calm but that look gives her away dina opening up about her first kill hit hard it made me think about the survivor's guilt she's still carrying her speech is what drives ellie to push forward but i think dina needs this journey just as much maybe the wolves brought back that same

[00:50:16] helplessness she felt years ago joel was another person she couldn't save i really like this change from the game it makes dina's reasons for staying in the fight feel more layered and real the stalkers were terrifying i got a serious xenomorph vibe from them just one could have taken ellie out if she wasn't immune and now there's a dozen of them the tension in that scene was incredible and jesse showing up right then had real joel energy it reminded me of the original last of us part two teaser

[00:50:45] when joel walks in with that flood of light behind him jesse's character is really working for me he's angry and he should be without him they'd be dead his frustration with ellie's recklessness feels earned and i was glad to hear tommy is out there too can't wait to see more of him the park scene with the seraphites felt like it was lifted straight from the game the orange haze from the torches the eerie

[00:51:10] whistles the ritualistic killing and that sudden arrow to the knee chef's kiss the hospital sequence was just as impressive another stunning set and a haunting performance from bella ramsey the red light her almost black eyes that blank stare as she interrogates nora were unnerving and then we see joel smiling ready to take ellie on a fun father-daughter trip next week these cruel bastards i mean i love it

[00:51:38] and i expect nothing less but come on it's cruel lol can't wait for the next episode thanks for everything you do and remember don't get bit well put that's good good writing there uh i like how he points out jesse's mad because that's one thing we didn't really mention yeah it's true about how he was rude to ellie he's like i had to come out here to save you and you weren't supposed to leave we all voted on it she did have almost black eyes ellie in that red light scene and i i love that like a

[00:52:07] doll's eyes nicole couture says hi guys i recently found your podcast and i have to say i'm enjoying it immensely cool yay i'm new to the story as i'm not a gamer but i wanted to find a place where i could get a deeper understanding of the last of us world i've tried listening to other podcasts about the show but in my humble opinion apart from the official podcast you guys are by far the best well thank you again you guys really are oh thanks i'm gonna tell aaron you said that no i'm just kidding

[00:52:36] you can that's okay go ahead please do i really appreciate that you're very respectful and considerate of not just everyone's opinions but also the actors and showrunners as well as any sensitive subjects when they arise i think this is partly to do with how you view the show as its own thing a thing that's heavily based on the games for sure but still distinct from the source material well we try it seems like all the other fan podcasts can do is criticize the show about not

[00:53:01] being a one-on-one carbon copy of the games it's pretty damn close in a lot of times not to mention complain and shit on bella for having a different way of portraying ellie than the original actor i saw some discourse if bella did the scene in the basement with nora justice and whether or not they had the grittiness of ashley's portrayal in the games personally i think they absolutely killed it pun intended i've watched a comparison of the scene between the game and show and i understand why

[00:53:28] people might feel the way that way but to me it seems again people are too caught up in comparison to appreciate the show as itself to me it seemed that ashley's performance in the game made ellie seem like she was mid to late 20s whereas bella's made her seem like late teens early 20s which is the age ellie's supposed to be anyway this would make sense because at the time of filming both actors were closer to those respective ages that's all really well said and and honestly like i love that scene in the

[00:53:57] game and the show and i think they're both fantastic performances yeah but but yeah ellie it does play a little older in the in the game than the show as a total aside i'm from vancouver where most of this episode is shot and the theater they used to film it is the orpheum theater the ceiling is real and it looks exactly like the show in person just maybe a little cleaner oh well wait the orpheum is cleaner

[00:54:23] or the show ones it was built in the night person in person okay that makes more sense in the it was built in the 1920s and i consider myself fortunate to have gone to several performances there that is so cool it's absolutely gorgeous inside another anecdote i have about a filming location is about the scene where ellie dean and jesse are running through the forest away from the seraphites it was filmed in stanley park it's essentially vancouver's version of central park except it's not in the middle

[00:54:49] of downtown it's on the tip of a peninsula but still very accessible through several bridges and roads many people walk or bike through the park daily and there are horse-drawn carriages you can purchase and cultists disemboweling people i'm just kidding there are also in the forest yeah you have to go a little deeper you have to know right a little extra right there are also tons of other attractions like an aquarium that focuses on the rehabilitation of injured sea animals as well as a ton of indigenous coast uh

[00:55:19] salish totem poles not to mention other seasonal events and attraction that sounds delightful yeah that's awesome but now i've rambled enough about vancouver to sound like a tourism advertisement so i'll wrap it up here thank you for doing what you do from a new avid listener now you are free nicole that's the creepiest sign off to the nicest oh my gosh nicole that was she was so canadian until she got to the last sign off right that was great what a great comment that was wonderful nicole aquarium you say hmm

[00:55:49] interesting leave that there yeah don't spoil it there's dolphins coming no i'm just kidding doing flips and shit okay no they're they're they're gonna be infected dolphins it's gonna be horrifying they click anyway oh it's a whole nother language right that's a whole nother signaling each other dolphin talk all right here is a call from gloria

[00:56:12] hi guys this is gloria from salem mass this is my feedback for the last of us episode five what an extremely intense episode oh my god i'm on the edge of my seat we're really in the thick of it now aren't we those spores holy shit dina is super smart and thank god she's good at math i personally suck at it i do hope we get more story backstory on her though she was eight the first time

[00:56:41] she killed and how did she get to jackson is that a spoiler will we ever find out isabella merced is my new hero what an amazing actress um ellie in the auditorium with that guitar oh my goodness just heartbreaking she couldn't even continue with the song i'm assuming that's one that joel taught her and i know it's pearl jams future days and the lyrics so that's going to be a wicked set scene when it happens i hope it happens

[00:57:11] it better so i guess that building in between the wolves hospital and headquarters is that the headquarters i don't know i don't remember what she said um is filled with stalkers sneaky little fuckers i do have a question which infected do you guys think is the most dangerous runners stalkers clickers bloaters or shamblers and are there any others um ellie really scared the

[00:57:36] shit out of me when confronting nora sweet jesus she really didn't brace her dioxide didn't she so clearly she knew what joel did but i can't wait for those flashbacks and that last scene it was so good to see pedro again go ahead and know as i can still appreciate a handsome man like abby said pretty handsome i did want to mention the actress who plays harahan alana youbeck she's from euphoria and she portrays suz howard who's a hysterical character funny

[00:58:05] not insane well maybe both that's it from you guys talk to you next week bye what did she ask which one of the creatures is the most terrifying i think would be the most deadly maybe the most deadly i think um i mean bloater areas terrific clickers bloaters i don't they're all i mean yeah i don't like the smart ones who sneak up on you yeah i don't like that man i gotta say

[00:58:31] gloria i love that massachusetts accent so much i really do i'm so good i love that so far i could listen to that yeah that was a great call next comment is from rachel cox hello the cast of us i'm rachel from indiana i'm currently a stay-at-home mom with two little boys came across you all while i was watching the white lotus which i also love nice i appreciate your talking points and how open-minded

[00:58:57] you are to different perspectives same rachel same so let me get started i did not play the game or really watch all of season one oh actually in both cases my husband did so i kind of pseudo watch them getting bits and pieces here and there the one exception was the episode with nick offerman and murray bartlett oh yeah one of the best episodes of television ever i'd say very good um i also just

[00:59:24] fell in love with murray bartlett after seeing him in the white lotus me too i was so so sad after episode two like so much that i woke up the next morning still feeling really somber however i really wanted to see what happened next unlike what happened with glenn in the walking dead okay poor glenn yes i was one of those people that stopped watching after that you and millions of others i know it's so sad uh my

[00:59:49] husband told me that this is a pivotal part of the game too for ellie and that he was also so surprised when it happened in the game on this same note after episode two i asked my husband if we could watch the rice gin stones right after the last of us going forward so i wasn't left in such a gloomy mood before bed we have also been watching mob land on sunday night so it's a double whammy of some dark stuff and i know you've been recommending to watch pedro pascal in the fast fantastic four now but another

[01:00:19] good movie to watch with him is freaky tales especially if you're a quentin tarantino fan i've been wondering about that that movie i've seen it pop up on a video on demand all right anyway back to the episode i was on pins and needles during a lot of this episode my heart rate definitely increases when i watch his show the pacing felt so fast especially after they left the theater i found myself thinking what's going to happen what's going to happen over and over again i love how

[01:00:46] a lot of the editing looks so video gamey for lack of a better word the way they make ellie's face look with the lighting the glow of the eyes of the stalkers and how dark ellie's eyes look at the basement to name a few a lot of what i've been thinking about comes from the end of the episode those people that are all fungified totally reminded me of annihilation and when ellie is yelling where is

[01:01:11] she total the dark night vibes i mean both these as compliments the very very end when we see ellie and jewel again i actually found myself laughing like we all know that ellie is on the same path as jewel basically turning into jewel here it made me laugh because it was almost like jewel was back and saying welcome to my life to my headspace i don't know i don't know it isn't funny but it's like you

[01:01:38] really don't understand where a person is coming from until you live it yourself maybe i was just laughing at the tragic irony of i also just laugh when i'm nervous so maybe it's just me uh random question but don't answer it if it spoils anything the seraphites leader was her first name sarah or is that a little too obvious thank you all i recommend podcasting about mob land by the way uh i don't

[01:02:02] remember it was they don't they never said i don't think so and they're called the seraphites and so that is an interesting possibility but there's you know i meant to look it up but there's this class of angels called the seraphim in the bible and i think it might be about that yeah i don't know anything about them though do you know anything about them i don't but i feel like that was uh that makes more

[01:02:27] sense than being named after sarah yeah but it could be because she's the guru so maybe it's a both you know it could be both yeah yeah the seraph is a type of angel in abrahamic religions uh yeah pulled it up here highest rank of christian angelology angelology with the fifth rank of 10 and the oh my god i'm not going to read this sorry but yes apparently it sounds like a dungeons of dragons yes uh in hebrew the word

[01:02:53] seraph means burning and is used seven times throughout the day okay never mind burn baby burn okay moving on rebecca g hi podcastica team i recently started listening to your podcast and enjoy hearing your last of us discussions my friends are not into scary tv so i don't have folks to talk with about it hooray for parasocial relationships anyway i have a very late thought i wanted to share about the second episode

[01:03:22] i was so fascinated by the fact that abby decided to drug dina before she started really torturing joel her choices with joel are extreme and violent but they don't extend to dina for all abby knows dina could be the mystery girl who joel took from the hospital she could even have had some involvement in her father's death she has no way of knowing who this girl is even so she makes an intentional choice to not inflict the type of trauma that she experienced when she was a teenage girl she doesn't

[01:03:52] even inflict the violence of knocking dina out with the butt of a gun or something like that instead she has her carefully injected with enough medication which may be in limited supply to make sure that she does not experience the subsequent violence it's especially interesting considering the episode started with a daydream where she's trying to keep her younger self from seeing the carnage in the or that's genuine

[01:04:15] kindness in a fucked up post-apocalyptic kind of way however that kindness only goes so far by the time that ellie arrives she's in full-on killing mode and doesn't care about anything or anyone around her remind you of anyone else we've met ellie isn't even a blip on her radar anyway i don't know if this will be shared on the listener feedback episode i don't know either uh i know it's very belated but i

[01:04:41] wanted to share since i haven't heard anyone talking about it and i thought it was a really fascinating character choice thanks for taking the time to read sincerely becca p.s has anyone brought up the asl version of the episodes that hbo is putting out i saw that i'm not a fluent signer but i am studying asl and i love re-watching the episodes with the signing in the corner it provides so much more nuance and context than captions ever could it's such a great step towards better access for the

[01:05:08] deaf community and i hope they choose to do this for more shows in the future oh yeah i saw that in max speed i saw that there was a asl version of it i was like yeah it's pretty cool yeah and it's a way to keep seeing pedro pascal on your screen because he's doing it no i'm just kidding that'd be pretty cool all right on a serious note i love that they've got the asl versions of it i mean one of the things i love i work in live events and um i'm still

[01:05:36] an executive in diversity so it's a very inclusive thing to do but it's also the way becca talks about it it really does add emotion if you've got someone who is signing because they use their whole body and they use their face as their it's really cool it's just a nice experience so i like that she brought the the sign the the signers at the hip-hop shows are by far the best i'm going to see kendrick lamar next week i cannot wait to see where uh they put the asl folks i have

[01:06:04] a feeling there's gonna be they always kill it i love it yeah and i mean doing locker stalker for so many years uh we had signers up on stage and they were incredible and it was really fun sometimes to see the interplay between the actors and the signers like uh cudlets getting them to talk about the cosmos and the you know everything like that you know or uh rooker making them say

[01:06:27] dirty things yes rooker oh my gosh that was always awesome that sounds um what was i gonna say no that's right uh uh you the stuff about knocking out dina it is a little weird because why take so much time to knock out dina but then just do it right in front of ellie and oh i i took it as just uh give her time to do her thing just to not be an interference the way rebecca's putting it is she

[01:06:56] just was in killing mode by the time ellie came in yeah yeah i didn't care um and that maybe that's it but i think also it's for plot reasons right they wanted ellie to be the one to witness it and not dina but anyway yeah nice glad you brought that up okay here's a call from robin hey y'all it's me um this episode wow wow wow wow so many tense moments um once the ladies stopped triangulating

[01:07:26] and wandering around turning on the generator and finding yet again a bunch of unwarped playable guitars in a building that hasn't had any heat on in 20 years in rainy chilly seattle um but whatever and they get going um it became it became really intense for me um gotta say the smart clickers are some of the scariest things i've ever seen and making those human sounding cries made the hair on the back

[01:07:55] of my neck stand up they are so so so scary i was so glad to see jesse show up to save them but i'm a little bit worried i'm not gonna lie i love him so much i really hope he and tommy don't die um they're just oh they're so great and he's just so great um and they're walking through the woods i was so glad to see him turn around and take ellie down a peg because she is so insufferable she just won't shut

[01:08:22] up he's like do you really think i want to talk about this right now come on you know um the seraphites are making the wolves look a little bit like rookies in some ways that disemboweling scene that was one of the grossest things ever and all i could think of was that the uh episode in the walking dead proper in the in the prison when the people were dying of the flu and turning and the guy in his bed in his cell got opened up by another walker and after he turned and went to stand up

[01:08:51] all of his intestines slid out onto the floor that had previously been the grossest thing ever but this this um disemboweling by the seraphites so gross but also just because it was so horrendously scary and and awful um during the whole scene with nora i'm not a game player so i really have no idea what's going to

[01:09:12] happen um i was just i was very very shocked by the clickers that are sort of melted into the wall that that was one of the most amazing i don't know how they build those sets but that was really really cool and you know during the whole scene with nora i kept saying ellie no no don't do it ellie because i know she has to change i know the theme of the story i know what it's about but i just hate to see it

[01:09:41] happen you know the ellie that we grew to love i just hate to see her go um and i'm really afraid that she's going to go to the point where she totally alienates everybody who loves her that dina and jesse will turn away from her and you know she'll end up alone i'm really afraid of that how could they make dina obviously pregnant without being so obviously with the puking

[01:10:06] well some things they could do they could have her go off to pee and check her underwear they could have her be so hungry and then unable to eat the food and say you know because it doesn't smell good or because it's just gross to her for some reason and that could be just about anything when i was pregnant i could not stand the smell of coffee which is one of my favorite things in the whole world they couldn't have her chomping on ginger like walking dead did with annie but they could have

[01:10:34] in the pharmacy had her find a box of peppermint tea or ginger tea or ginger supplements and stick those in her backpack um you know she could also start after they had seen that little girl dead with the seraphites she could also start talking about children and wondering if they have a lot of you know big families and babies and you know just sort of talking about that sort of thing all of those things

[01:10:59] are also sort of tropey but they're less tropey than the than the puking uh and here's my pun ready what happens when two kittens get in a fight it becomes a catastrophe okay i'm sure we'll talk again soon love you guys you do so great with this this podcast it's been

[01:11:25] my my just everything for a long time talk soon bye bye thanks robin nice that's nice in in hawaii uh my wife's ob-gyn at the time first kid was born there recommended lihing mui for uh morning sickness that's what you should take so just throwing that that's what i craved when i was pregnant before i knew i was pregnant that was that exactly what i craved good stuff and that's how you knew what is it

[01:11:51] um like a salted plum yeah sort of salty sweet dried um salted prune basically those things you said well what i didn't really talk about this before but and maybe it's because it's so obvious but one reason the puking kind of works is because in this show you see a lot of things that might actually make people puke so it's not a for sure thing you know like what did she see oh it's all the

[01:12:16] dead seraphites yeah like i might puke if i saw that but uh of the things you said robin i like the one about just her bringing up babies bringing up kids you know that would have been interesting because i think yeah if you're pregnant that's going to be on your mind for sure for sure okay tam from perth says hey kiddos wow this episode had it all another tiny woman harshen by this world

[01:12:43] and towered over by tall young armed men her face walk her presence commands respect i really want more of her that was almost like a haiku i love love love the strong female representation eight-year-olds killing someone who ruined her family and another mother making a huge sacrifice uh is the sign in the hospital and the map a reference to the game i'm almost considering becoming a gamer um no i don't

[01:13:11] think so the sign in the hospital which sign and the map yes the map is a reference to the game oh yes there's always maps yeah especially that map um right yeah and i'm not sure what sign sign in the hospital what's fine don't know but i wouldn't be surprised if it was a nod to the game but i don't know what sign you're referring to good call yeah and if it's in the air then everyone's destiny and

[01:13:37] similar to the basement graveyard it's perfect and terrifying the exploitation of humans stagnant and purgatory creating an evolution again so clever but what the fuck seriously so will it be ellie victorious in immunity again only to be the last one standing like she is in the opening title surrounded by cordyceps that would be a bleak ending yeah no kidding i i feel like this episode is packed with so many

[01:14:01] zones and sets i know i'm amazed by this every week but this one but this one each scene had a giant step forward the lobby of love and intelligence the theater teasing us all for more bella's sweet vulnerability the warehouse of circus like stalkers and the perfect place to think joel no he's gone so yay tommy but okay we will take grumpy jesse my brain was honestly exhausted at that point and we were

[01:14:30] just getting started the lush forest of evil of which i'll admit i closed my eyes on first watch and i'm only seeing while i write this on my second that's so beautiful though the hospital where second on ellie's shit list nora who held our ellie down has to watch her become instantly dangerous bella's range is incredible from you love me to smart killing machine full of vengeance so it's just kept

[01:14:53] coming giving and i'm glad she gave that bitch what she deserved the infected basement give those artists an award and finally ellie's room complete in a happier time joel and a sweet sleepy innocent hi it's a full circle of love and violence standard sign off with a sorry for so long but i'm excellent at justifying because it felt like such a long episode and i'm bribing you with finally joining your

[01:15:20] patreon and beers if you ever come down under let's go i mean i'd be there in a second if i could afford it i want to go there at some point me too much love and give me eddie vetter's voice every day not just any day ps just finished the official hbo pod and they said that all those crates in the warehouse with the stalker scene were full of props etc from shogun which i knew you were watching and

[01:15:43] podding were we i didn't pod that did jonathan i think jonathan did i love that show so much my gosh kind of cool crossover and funny hearing craig mazen's story about it you know what i listened to the hbo when i didn't remember him saying that you missed that oh i was so excited when they said that yeah yeah that is pretty neat that was quite a quite a poetic message from you tam i loved it

[01:16:09] you've got some incredible listeners all of these are very detailed and well thought out yeah they're pretty passionate about it beautiful all right here is one well we do have our game talk segment coming but here's our final call in the main segment from renee and renee had called in about the other show i'm podcasting on right now handmaid's tale and she kind of stuck this part in there because it's about a more serious subject and she thought it would go better on that podcast

[01:16:39] since we really go there with the serious topics given the nature of that show but it's about the last of us so i said i asked her hey why don't we just play that on the last of us we'll go there on that podcast too so here it is that i'm just explaining that because um it doesn't have context but here we go now jason i want to address something that you said on the last of us podcast regarding the cycle of

[01:17:03] violence you compare george ford protest to the insurrection on january the 6th you said the east side justified violence because of what the other side did and that's kind of what's happening now with the incident involving the black child who was called the n-word by the white woman over allegedly stealing apple juice versus the black boy who stabbed a white boy after altercation the black boy who was called the black woman over the last of us i said that i'm not a black woman

[01:17:28] but i don't agree with violence unless it's in self-defense but i do understand why my people sometimes lash out we have been victimized demoralized and being less than for generations take for example when white people are on government assistance it's called a hand up when black people receive government assistance it's called a handout when we protest by marching or kneeling is considered

[01:17:54] disrespectful but when white people protest by storming the capital is considered patriotic as a black person i don't use words i consider derogatory like the b word the n-word the c-word etc i don't believe anyone should use their words those words some black people try to justify the n-word by using a a at the end instead of the er to me it doesn't matter it's an ugly word either way

[01:18:20] so i cannot understand how anyone could support someone that said that to a five-year-old said a five-year-old was acting like an n-word what does that even mean situations like that make black people lose hope in humanity as for the incident with the two little boys i don't know exactly what happened but my heart does go out to the family who lost their child now jason i wasn't offended by your comment

[01:18:47] because i know your heart and i know that you didn't mean any harm you was just making a point about protest dynamics but i do want to say there's a huge difference between people protesting because a man was killed and treated like an animal versus people protesting because they couldn't accept that their candidate lost an election it's definitely a case-by-case basis so first i just want to thank you

[01:19:13] for calling in about that i really appreciate it and um i thought when i was saying what i was saying that it would provoke some discussion and actually i think you're the only one so far that said anything about it um but you know i don't know anything about these two situations that you mentioned i know about the one um i don't know about either of them well one of them is this ridiculous thing where some

[01:19:40] white trashy lady starts calling some young black boy you know the n-word and somebody calls her out on it they're filming her and she goes yeah i don't care n-word n-word n-word n-word and for whatever reason uh the gross people of this country felt it appropriate to basically go fund me it's a different place that did it over seven hundred thousand dollars because she's you know somehow suffered wait go fund

[01:20:06] for what yeah you heard that right just just to give her money yes but she wasn't like i don't know if she was fired or anything i don't think so no this was just because she called some i think young kid the n-word she called the kid the n-word and so they're sending her money yes yes yeah you heard that right it's fucking insane yeah it's insane disgusting and uh i don't know about this

[01:20:31] it's disgusting yeah so the point of this conversation is i mean i think in the same podcast i asked because it's about cycles of violence right and um i heard a lot of people who were pro capital riot who said what about what happened this summer in the protest god i hate that you know it

[01:20:56] just reminded me of like this back and forth that happens between groups to justify escalation and i think i asked in the same podcast what if one side is more right than the other then should you still look for peaceful solutions rather than an escalation of violence and that that is a question like i mean some some things are absolutely worth fighting for but we're we're here in an examination of um

[01:21:24] of the cycles of violence and i have strong opinions about the george floyd protest and also the capital riots and i'm sure if i got into it a lot of you would go yeah he's right and some of you would probably be pissed off about it but my point is that to bend towards peace we need more people thinking even though i think i'm right how can we resolve this peacefully and in a way that's best for everyone and another

[01:21:52] thing that happened on the official hbo podcast this week craig mays and the other showrunner was talking about how nor and ellie lacked any empathy for each other in this episode and he said that moral certainty blinds you and that the higher moral value is empathy and he said quote if we don't figure out how to be invested in the other person winning then we're all going to lose and so this is a complicated conversation and sometimes you know it's not like i i don't necessarily think that turning the

[01:22:21] other cheek is the best solution all the time but i do think that on some level that is an important thing if we don't figure out how to be invested in the other person winning then we're all going to lose and i don't want to see our country become the last of us with the seraphites and the wlf or to become like other countries are around the world like the situation in the middle east like that so that that's all i just think i i wanted to bring that up as an example of that and i think you know a lot of times

[01:22:50] when there are um situations like this one side is more right than the other i happen to think one side is more right than the other in this case but yet still i think it bears pointing out that i i just wish that we could all figure out a way to um realize that we're all in this together and that we should all care about each other as corny as that sounds yeah no i don't think it's corny and i i want to honor renee's call because i think yeah she's making a really valid point about um perspective and life

[01:23:19] experience being different right she's calling as a black woman you know i'm a woman of color my perspective on all this is very different as well so i think i like the fact that she honored what you said and she knows your heart that you weren't intentionally saying something to offend anybody and i think she's right i didn't take any offense to what you said in that last podcast but i think the point is we've lost empathy as a country um and you mean the sin of empathy i mean it's really

[01:23:48] and i'll i'll say this from sort of a corporate dei practitioner when i talk about education for executives that's what i focus on i don't focus on definitions or talking about differences in terms of race gender um you know whether you're lgbtq or not i really talk about empathy from a human standpoint and so i think what renee is also trying to say is the same thing um it's just understanding that we all have our own lenses of how we see things but fundamentally we're all humans

[01:24:16] and we're going to destroy each other if we don't figure out how to be empathetic about experiences yeah and as we keep repeating the entire essence of this show and this and this story is based on perspective you know having having to look at something from another perspective yeah the destruction of vengeance you know how that destroys your humanity and also everything i

[01:24:39] said comes from a privileged perspective and i recognize that and and i want to honor that that i don't have i don't that's all that i have and so you know i hope i don't i hope i didn't undermine anything that you said renee because that certainly wasn't my intention i'm really grateful that you called in yeah it was great you are a strong ally jason you and eric both are very strong allies so thanks yeah infected news

[01:25:09] so i actually did not have time this time to gather last of us news this week but i do have one thing to mention and that is that there's a new teaser for the walking dead daryl dixon season three just came out last week it's pretty quick but it looks super cool like they're really paying a lot of attention to the the look of it at least you can tell that i'll put a link in the show notes for it but it says it's coming in the fall and of course lucy and i will be podcasting on it it looks like the title is just going to be the walking dead daryl dixon because the first season was the walking

[01:25:39] dead daryl dixon then last season was the walking dead daryl dixon the book of carol and i was thinking okay well season three be the walking dead daryl dixon the book of carol here's negan or something i don't get longer and longer every season but eddie dixon is a spy so awesome but i mean then he would just be carrying around her head on a pike or something

[01:26:03] oh that's right she ended up dead yeah never mind i stopped watching all right we are back we're going

[01:26:37] to do our typical game talk section i don't think there's anything all that super spoilery in it uh but if you're really um trying to protect yourself from spoilers or then you should probably stop listening and thank you so much for listening okay so whose turn is it i think it's my turn okay cool the non-game player um i'm gonna share what paik allen says the game flashbacks keep getting me

[01:27:02] don't go in that building they're stalkers don't go in the park that's scars territory following nora down into the spores infected area jesse and tommy are now in seattle absolutely loving it all they're doing it so well you know i gotta say uh you we were talking earlier about like just good people you know with good heart that's pig that's pig that dude's the real deal he's the real deal that's a good man right there so that's true sorry i had to throw that in there

[01:27:31] you're right i'm glad you said it all right mark mcburney wow that last scene with ellie and nora was tremendous both actresses did a great job and if i'm not mistaken word for word identical to the game the spores looked fantastic on the screen too i tipped my hat to the visual effects team a pack of stalkers those creepy little fuckers scare me more than the big bad bloaters

[01:27:56] really hoping i get to see one of those wall huggers jump out and shock the wife before the season is over that's so funny he's wife gets shocked uh matthew tindall says this episode might be the best so far this season i keep thinking that every every episode the seraphite scene was amazing it captured the scary cult vibe perfectly the stalker scene was also really good in the game they're annoying but all

[01:28:22] you need is some cloth and alcohol and you're good totally yep they did a fantastic job of capturing the stakes of dealing with those crafty bastards i'm also super happy that jesse's here i still think changing the order that they left was a bad choice because it removed any sense of urgency when ellie and dina first got to seattle but at least we're getting back on track the spores looked amazing and whoever created that entire set piece of the hospital basement deserves some type of award i hope they get

[01:28:51] it yeah they really should the writers finally gave bella something to work with in the scene with nora and she killed it the main issue i have now is how the tone and pacing messed up earlier episodes i'm super excited about the flashback next week but it should have been a sigh of relief after a long run of tension right now it feels like we are hitting the brakes when we just got started yeah i guess kind of

[01:29:17] interesting yeah okay okay ben woods hi jason eric ben lucy and other amazing hosts insert p elani's name here that's you ben from tasmania australia here i really like this episode so many parts were just like the game the seraphites were scary and that part was so tense seeing the wolf with the dog was cool i was a little disappointed with the jesse save but i'm glad he showed up when he did those stalkers

[01:29:45] are really creepy ellie had better get going now that the boy scout has arrived the hospital chase was cool to see the spores in the air was horrifying the set is incredible so amazing the infected in the wall was cool i was waiting for a big jump scare but unfortunately we didn't get one bitch nora met her end too bad she deserves everything she gets the fact that ellie uses

[01:30:09] a weapon directly from the game makes it even better nor explains what joel did and ellie says i know how does ellie know is there a flashback coming very interesting so great to see joel at the end the way they both smiled at each other was heartwarming looking forward to hearing what you guys think keep up the great work thanks ben there was a flashback right there at the end so

[01:30:38] all right and finally jenny from jersey hello my last of us comrades wow what an episode beginning with sergeant park and as she told the story of her soldiers and b2 i had no emotions well i was excited to hear about spores but other than that nothing that is until the other woman i can't remember her name said i'm sorry about your son out loud i yelled holy shit great opening

[01:31:08] hammerhead by the way i think or uh yeah hammer on uh i don't like the way she says ellie is non-school oriented give the kid a break she's a product of the federal educational system she's treated like a dummy in the game oh is she treated like a dummy in the game too no no no she is not from what i remember ellie is pretty fucking smart in the game maybe they did it this way to give dina

[01:31:32] usefulness yeah i say that because she's much more involved in the show and to be fair she was laid up on the couch face first in the garage pail most of the time in the game ellie we want more pearl jam i love how she's never heard of amish people yeah well yeah dina's story about her mom and sister broke my heart but i'm so proud of eight-year-old dina for shooting that fucker

[01:31:55] wow all right the i love you scene was cute but i really loved how dina can go from all cute to badass and 2.2 seconds just with her facial expressions i do love because she killed someone and she was eight that's why she's like yolo uh surrounded by runners i nearly shit my pants they

[01:32:20] are scary as hell and don't hold a candle to the walking dead walkers but ellie takes care of business as usual and thank goodness for jesse the seraphites little disembowelment ritual makes me think they are not too innocent really you think in fact i would probably label them sick fucks just when you think nora is being sympathetic she flips over to bitch mode spores that is that is

[01:32:47] the word of this episode i just yell out spores yes they did it so fucking cool b2 was so gross with all those cordyceps lining the walls and one dude breathing out spores was awesome and l park i knew exactly who he was breathing out spores tied up by cordyceps he is alive and helpless so cool and fucked up at the same time i love the nora beating i'm sorry you never say that sentence

[01:33:20] i love the nora beating the fact that ellie grabbed a pipe similar to the golf club when joel was beating the leg and hit her in the leg repeatedly oh let me make you suffer just like you made him suffer oh yes ellie gold star jason and crew thank you for all that you do you are appreciated and lucy if you are there no i love

[01:33:44] you oh you provide such interesting insights bye bye bye thanks jenny very nice that was a fun one you're dark yeah it's hilarious that was great jenny from jersey all right that is our show episode 642

[01:34:12] thanks so much for listening everyone thank you piolani that was super fun and i especially appreciated your um your reading style it was so good i felt like i had to bring it because eric is always so good too you know with the inflection and everything yeah i don't even like try to compete but you held your own pretty well oh dear god stop it it was great it was so great to chat with you again piolani and to see you oh it's so good way too long i know it really has been so long the pandemic just

[01:34:41] fucked everything up in terms of relationships so i'm so glad to be back in touch me too yeah yeah yeah it's so much fun well next episode is going to be the last of us season two episode six here's joel no i'm just kidding i don't know we don't know the title here's joey zaddy here's zaddy here's zaddy of course we don't know the title so that's funny all right if you want to write in or leave us a voice message about it you can find all our contact information at thecastofus.com

[01:35:09] yeah and while you're there please check out our other podcasts like right now i say andor because andor just wrapped up i haven't had a chance to see the last three episodes but i'm hearing very good buzz about it partly through eric it was stupid it's so incredible i it hits hard it's so good they did a masterful masterful take uh on andor i'm so happy with it couldn't be that's great

[01:35:35] and like jonathan and james asked to podcast on that a couple years ago when it came out and they came and they totally brought their a-game they were super fun they put a bunch of star wars sound effects into it their voices are great they're old friends and um to the point where because we had been it's on star wars tv cast by the way and uh my friend rich and um chris from

[01:36:00] talking dead podcast three of us podcasted on the mandalorian first and then jonathan and james took over for andor and then we came back for the mandalorian and everyone was like where's jonathan and james so i gotta check it out i gotta check it out yeah that sounds great i highly recommend it um and let me also say this episode is made possible by patreon supporters like holly and wilcox who pledged their support at patreon.com slash jason cabassi so thank you so much to holly and everyone else who does that

[01:36:30] everyone who does that gets to hear karen and i are recording an episode of the jason and karen show so that'll be in the feed soon awesome all right that is our show thanks for listening don't get bit may all our d