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The Last Of Us Spoilers - Blog Posts
just two characters who wiggled their fingers before their death that they knew was coming
PEDRO PASCAL as Joel Miller THE LAST OF US | S02E02 “Through the Valley”
notice how she tries to hold his hand like she did when he got stabbed. notice how she holds onto it even if he isn't caressing her hand to tell her he's okay. notice how-
it’s so much worse. the way ellie tells joel to get up and he tries. the way abby seeps the pointed end of the club into his neck. the way the wlf members don’t even bother knocking ellie out because she is already so emotionally paralyzed by grief she can’t even so much as stand.
but more than anything else it’s crawling to him. all she can muster is crawling with nothing but her arms and cuddling into joel with her whole person. her face buried into the man’s which will forever be the last memory of him. it’s like watching a child seeking the safety of a parent who can’t protect them anymore. this isn’t just the death of a protector. it’s the death of home. joel, to ellie, is safety. safety that she spent the last five years resenting until it was too late. he’s been the one constant in a shattered world. so when he’s dying — or dead — she reverts, not in age but in emotional rawness. she becomes a daughter clinging to a father figure who can’t shield her anymore. and it’s not just fear. it’s complete unmooring. there’s no one left to hold the world up for her. it’s the kind of need that children have when everything feels too big, too loud, too dangerous. she needs to be held. but there’s no one to hold her, so she becomes the one doing the holding, even if he can’t respond. and he’ll never respond.
in one of ellie’s most harrowing moments in life joel was there to cling on to her. in yet another, she clings to him. but he’ll never cling back again.
joel absolutely would grow shit weed and have a therapist who hates his guts thank you so much hbo
I’m so glad they didn’t show the porch scene yet. I love the placement of it in the game. We need to *not* understand Ellie’s motivations for a time, she’s supposed to be complex and taciturn to the audience, she’s supposed to lose us a bit. And the porch scene and the context it provides bring us back to her at a pivotal point in the story.
ignoring how emotionally devastating the episode was I love how once joel accepted he was a Dad again he went from reluctant father figure to full blown dad mode. did not hold back. found ellie’s favorite food and a board game for them to play. took her to the zoo (the giraffe feeding scene). asked her if she was ok in the most gentle way possible. told her stories about sarah. compared her to sarah bc they’re both his daughters. told ellie how proud he was of her / how much he cared for her. opened up. said “we’re going home”. murdered dozens of people for her. brought her on a hike. you know. normal dad stuff
honestly I couldn’t think of any worse way to spend the apocalypse than in one of the coldest states in the country a part of a religious cannibal cult. especially compared to tommy’s communist hallmark movie town? girl
something about joel being terrified now that ellie is someone he loves and bill saying he wasn't scared before frank came. something about love being both a driving force and a paralytic. something about having characters like bill and frank and henry and sam come around to show different kinds of love but still paralleling their stories to joel and ellie.
why does no one talk ab henry from tlou he's so fine ?? and also i feel so bad for him and sam. they deserved to live
it confuses me when ppl say “joel doomed the world” bc are we being fucking fr? the world was already doomed (if some serious changes weren’t made). the fireflies didn’t care about humanity. they cared about seizing power from fedra. the qz’s were run by dictators and living conditions were horrible. the infrastructure was falling apart. there were raiders cannibals rapists etc. humans were a bigger problem than the infected. tommy’s commune was proof that you could survive and thrive post apocalypse but powerful groups like the fireflies and fedra refused to explore that option. circling back to ellie & joel, the fireflies took the one immune person they ever found and were rushing a lethal surgery on a non consenting 14 year old. they didn’t do any tests on her / biopsy / explore any options. they were just going to take out her brain. the doctor preforming the procedure had a bachelors in biology (lol). the chances of successfully developing a cure from this hack job surgery was impossibly low. ellie would probably die for nothing. and if the cure was created, then what? how would they mass produce it? how would they distribute it? WHO would they distribute it to? surely no one under fedra rule. the cure would solve so little on the 1% chance it worked. “joel believed the cure would work he was being selfish” ok and ? we know it wouldn’t
this is cool and all, but i want to add my perspective on knowing why you SHOULDN'T stck stones like that, ending up in me yelling at the screen "NO PEDRO, DON'T STACK THE ROCKS YOU'LL RUIN THE ECOSYSTEM, THE MICROORGANISMS, PEDRO, THINK ABOUT THE MICROORGANISMSSS"
We thought it was important to show that Joel missed her. That he’s mourning her. In his very simple way, just making a small cairn of rocks to say quietly ”I’m sorry, I blew it. I lost you”. It was important for us to show that he cared. (Craig Mazin)
HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast, Episode 3
I have not played the Last of Us game, but I felt strongly that the series finale (episode 9) lacked OOMPF. It was very well written and preformed I thought, and I enjoyed the plot points that happened a lot as this was a competently put together story. I'm also not usually a fan of lengthening things without a good reason, and thought the pacing was good, but it did feel a little like it was skimming through the events.
Really, my biggest issue I think is the long sequence where Joel goes on a rampage against the fireflies. Or rather, I guess that it wasn't long enough? I felt like this sequence could've been improved a lot by taking a page out of a similar story, "Lisa: The Painful". Somewhat similar events happen in that game and what really puts a cherry on the ice cream of the whole game and gives it a great climax to it's story is this feeling of justified violence and power fantasy the main character feels in the final fight. This feeling is of course incorrect, and what's happening is just a broken man finding a way to take out his anger on the world, similar somewhat to the TLOU season 1 ending!
What I think they really could've done here is lean into Joel's power fantasy a lot more, and really make it a bombastic epic sequence with tension as he blasts through the various hordes of really just regular people, grand music playing throughout to really put the viewer in his headspace. Make us feel conflicted like we're in his perspective by making this a grand epic sequence where he himself feels like a hero, to really contrast somewhat to the events, and how morally gray this decision is. Make the viewers feel really invested in this sequence, and make the sequence feel somewhat off and wrong. I think this would've greatly strengthened the episode and contributed to a good series finale.
Joel died with guilt. Not for what he did to save Ellie. He died with guilt because he thought Ellie and Dina were next. He died with guilt because he didn’t know Tommy made it out of the disaster in Jackson alive and well. Joel died thinking he failed again like he did with Sarah.
The only thing that comforts me about that scene is that Joel knew how much Ellie loved him. Even though it was horrific, Joel watching Ellie plead and beg for his life with all her heart showed Joel that even though they were going through a difficult time, she loved him so much. She never stopped loving him and he never stopped loving her. That was a daughter screaming for her dad. He meant the world to her, so it makes me feel a bit better knowing he knew that.
he tried to LIFT HIMSELF UP FOR HER
Omfg I need to fucking vent it’s been 2weeks since season 2 premiered.
It’s morning for me rn and I’ve been scrolling on Snap for a bit AND THE AMOUNT OF VIDEOS IVE SEEN SHIT TALKING BELLA FOR NOT LOOKING LIKE ELLIE DOWN TO THE LAST MOLECULAR ATOM FOR ELLIS DNA IS FUCKING INSANE
You shouldn’t be basing your opinion of Bella and the show just because Bella doesn’t look EXACTLY like Ellie. You should be looking at Bella’s acting instead.
Bella’s acting is soooooo fucking good. And especially at the end of ep2(iykyk).
AND I FUCKING SWEAR THAT IF IG GO BACK TO SNAP OR YOUTUBW OR WHATEVER AND SEE A BIDOE SHIT TALKING NOT JUST BELLA BUT KAITLYN TOO!?
IM GOING TO FUCKING RIOT. YES HATE ABBY ALL YOU WANT IDGAF BUT HATING KAITLYN BECAUSE SHE DOESNT LOOK LIKE ABYY DOWN TL THE LAST MOLECULAR ATOM OS FUCKING INSANE. SAME HIES FOR BELLA.
thank you for coming to my NedTalk😁
Friendly reminder that as devastating as THAT scene is, y'all better leave Kaitlyn Dever THE FUCK alone. Hate Abby all you want, but Kaitlyn is an actress and a real human. Do NOT repeat what happened to Laura Bailey. Okay thx bye
THE LAST OF US SPOILERS AHEAD
are u kidding me 😭😭
the ONE tv adaptation that wants to actually stay true to the source material and it has to be this one ??? 😭😭😭 NOOOOO
gonna be a hard few weeks for abby defenders