HBO Max The Last Of Us review (SPOILERS!)

[gorfias]

It came across as a "very special episode" but I really enjoyed it. And we've moved our 2 main characters a bit further upon their arc. They got wheels now.

I have to play the game more (I'm doing an early scene wrong. Trying to run and gun when I think they want me throwing distracting rocks) to see the game version of this story.

But, I thought for sure that the grim story line would be Frank grows on Bill big time, only to have Frank been playing him all along so that he could let others in to rob and kill him. Nice that didn't happen.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Prediction: the brothers are gonna live.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Prediction: the brothers are gonna live.

However they end up, I don't think we'll see one shoot the other than immediately grief-strickinly shoot themselves.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

So I'm watching this show with my wife, who knows nothing about the game. This last episode hooked her and got her invested, because, yeah, it was great.

I strongly believe that adaptations' primary audience should be those NOT familiar with the "source material," because it's its own thing.

 

[BrawlMan]

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Nice episode but I'm missing the action, horror and general adrenaline rush of the game.

The action in this was quite lame. Frank and Bill don't sleep with guns in the room, Frank has to run downstairs to get a gun in the middle of a break-in? How many years into the zombie apocalypse? And then Bill chooses to stand in the middle of the street and pointlessly expose himself to people who're already dead anyway but can still fire their weapons? How about you XCOM the situation and just stick to a cover? That sniper rifle could use some support.

 

[Piscian]

Nice episode but I'm missing the action, horror and general adrenaline rush of the game.

The action in this was quite lame. Frank and Bill don't sleep with guns in the room, Frank has to run downstairs to get a gun in the middle of a break-in? How many years into the zombie apocalypse? And then Bill chooses to stand in the middle of the street and pointlessly expose himself to people who're already dead anyway but can still fire their weapons? How about you XCOM the situation and just stick to a cover? That sniper rifle could use some support.

I noticed all that too. I think what the episode kind of alludes to is that this isnt mad max. There arent a ton of marauders running around causing chaos. As the years pass in the episode humanity is so close to extinction that this hideaway has become entirely remote and peaceful. That was a weirdly terrifying thought, just 99% of humanity dust in the wind and what would look like as the episode skips from year to year. I think they just loosened up over time. Cant panic forever.

I think the reason bill goes out to the fence is because its raining and night time. If he doesn't stop them then and there, theres no telling what they would do next. If they hide in the house they give up the defendable position at the gate. I asked the same question but then its like where else you gonna fight them. You hold out in the house and they take the village and just siege you out.


Id say if anyone really enjoyed this episode "Station Eleven" is a must watch. Its story focuses much more of this aspect. Not so much running from zombies, but how empty and weird the world becomes without people and how valuable bonds become.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Nice episode but I'm missing the action, horror and general adrenaline rush of the game.

The problem there is that in the videogame you play someone who can punch people in the face repeatedly without injuring his hands once. And even as a game TLoU was far less action driven than a lot of other third-person shooters. Looks like the next episode is going to be all about Pittsburgh though.

The action in this was quite lame. Frank and Bill don't sleep with guns in the room, Frank has to run downstairs to get a gun in the middle of a break-in? How many years into the zombie apocalypse? And then Bill chooses to stand in the middle of the street and pointlessly expose himself to people who're already dead anyway but can still fire their weapons? How about you XCOM the situation and just stick to a cover? That sniper rifle could use some support.

That was definitely the weakest scene in the episode, and in a way I feel it might've been better had it not been there at all. With Bill though we don't know if he does or doesn't keep a gun by his bed, because he's already outside when Frank wakes up. And I think with Frank it's implied that he either isn't as adapt to these situations, or Bill in general wants to handle these moments himself without putting Frank in danger. But it works well in setting up the gun for Ellie to find later at least.

I'd be more a lot more harsh on the idea of these two people living in relative peace for 16 years in this world, but the fact that this does look like a small town that had to be evacuated, meaning it's likely in the middle of nowhere, and seemingly surrounded by woods, makes it skirt by. Unlike Ellie and Dina who live in a house on a hilltop in the middle of a giant open field, where people from miles away can probably spot it. Also, I just didn't really like Ellie and Dina together, unlike Bill and Frank. Liking two characters, and liking them together does a lot to eleviate any other issues I might have in a story.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The problem there is that in the videogame you play someone who can punch people in the face repeatedly without injuring his hands once. And even as a game TLoU was far less action driven than a lot of other third-person shooters. Looks like the next episode is going to be all about Pittsburgh though.

That was definitely the weakest scene in the episode, and in a way I feel it might've been better had it not been there at all. With Bill though we don't know if he does or doesn't keep a gun by his bed, because he's already outside when Frank wakes up. And I think with Frank it's implied that he either isn't as adapt to these situations, or Bill in general wants to handle these moments himself without putting Frank in danger. But it works well in setting up the gun for Ellie to find later at least.

I'd be more a lot more harsh on the idea of these two people living in relative peace for 16 years in this world, but the fact that this does look like a small town that had to be evacuated, meaning it's likely in the middle of nowhere, and seemingly surrounded by woods, makes it skirt by. Unlike Ellie and Dina who live in a house on a hilltop in the middle of a giant open field, where people from miles away can probably spot it. Also, I just didn't really like Ellie and Dina together, unlike Bill and Frank. Liking two characters, and liking them together does a lot to eleviate any other issues I might have in a story.

Surely we agree that The Last of Us, an action-adventure game, was at least half devoted to action. I don't remember missing it for long in between set pieces. And none of the action ever felt empowering, exactly. It was always a desperate, last-ditch effort. Joel isn't a powerhouse. I'm not asking for Pedro Pascal to Max Payne through motherfuckers. I wanna see him cower around corners, throwing bottles as distraction and maybe break a brick on someone's face now and then.

Now we both played the game. Don't tell me you wouldn't be slightly disappointed if I told you they were gonna make it to Pittsburgh in the show having only fought off one soldier and two clickers in all of three episodes.

As for Bill standing out in the open with a bolt-action rifle, risking his life even though the enemies are as good as dead... gimme a break. Even if it wasn't incredibly out of character it's a dumb thing to do, and looks dumb as well. I'm not one to obsess over the way firearms are handled in movies and TV but boy did the scene stick out in a dumb way.

 

[BrawlMan]

And none of the action ever felt empowering, exactly. It was always a desperate, last-ditch effort. Joel isn't a powerhouse. I'm not asking for Pedro Pascal to Max Payne through motherfuckers. I wanna see him cower around corners, throwing bottles as distraction and maybe break a brick on someone's face now and then

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[Johnny Novgorod]

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Not how I liked playing the game (or maybe I just couldn't). But if nothing else this shows action isn't the lesser part of the game.

 

[BrawlMan]

Not how I liked playing the game (or maybe I just couldn't). But if nothing else this shows action isn't the lesser part of the game.

Just wanted to show you that the game can be played aggressively if you want, or know how to do so. Nothing more. I definitely agree with you on that second sentence.

 

[Bartholen]

Well, that (episode 3) was quite different from what I expected. Like probably most of you, I assumed Joel and Ellie would come to the town to find an old, embittered, unstable Bill and go through the same beats as the game did, considering how accurately the first 2 episodes repeated beats from the game. But then it cut to present day, Bill and Frank still together, and I realized a major swerve had just happened. And it was easily the best episode so far. It does raise some questions about the state of this version of the world of TLoU though. If 2 guys can hold off for more than a decade and a half with just a bit of outside help, how many other tiny communities like that are out there? Since we've seen fairly few human threats so far, I wonder what part the various raiders are going to play in the story - if possibly any at all.

In a way this episode felt almost like a counterpoint to the game's version of Bill's town. In the game it's implied that Bill has been able to survive due to his obsessive nature and ruthless survival instinct without any outside burdens. He is miserable, lonely and going insane, but he's surviving, in a way even thriving in the post-apocalyptic world. What little contact he has with any other humans is awkward and tense. But in the show Bill doesn't just survive, he lives, and he specifically lives because he has someone with him. And he gets probably the best possible ending anyone could hope for in the world.

The episode does have a couple of weak spots though: for one, why is Bill shooting his gun out in the open, not even crouched or prone? And am I seriously supposed to believe that a prepper of his caliber wouldn't be wearing a bulletproof vest in such a situation, even after years of peaceful living? Come on. For two: while I liked the mislead with the flashback turning out to be about Bill and not the baby and the mother, it still raises some questions: how has this town lain undetected and unfound for twenty years by the authorities, let alone other survivors like Frank? It's less than 30 km from a major QZ that has stood for that entire time. Did the military seriously at no point send out any sort of reconnaissance patrol to check up on places like that? Did they just write it off and forget about it? Because it's clear that after the initial evacuation we see, they don't come back at any point, Bill's just left to bask in his fortress of solitude. In the game the explanation was pretty clearly conveyed by the game itself: it's an infected hotspot, completely decrepit, and riddled with Bill's traps.

 

[Bartholen]

Just wanted to show you that the game can be played aggressively if you want, or know how to do so. Nothing more. I definitely agree with you on that second sentence.

This is like showing a speedrun of a Soulsborne game and saying it shows you a way of playing the game. Which, while technically true, is not reflective at all of how the gameplay looks in the hands of an average player, or even a skilled player. Gameplay like that requires incredbily precise timing and prior knowledge of the game, like knowing exactly where the enemies are going to spawn. It's also very resource draining, and while it looks cool in isolated encounters, remember that if you played like that all the time, you'd run out of resources right in the next one.

Also personal pet peeve: I fucking hate how blatantly those video titles just lie by claiming to be playing on Grounded difficulty. It's so bleeding obvious from the way there's just an entire shiv lying on the barrel, or how the infected die from a single revolver shot. It says in the description that it's Grounded customized to have plentiful resources. But the biggest thing difficulty affects in the game is resources, so by playing Grounded that way you're essentially playing "Grounded but not really".

 

[BrawlMan]

This is like showing a speedrun of a Soulsborne game and saying it shows you a way of playing the game. Which, while technically true, is not reflective at all of how the gameplay looks in the hands of an average player, or even a skilled player. Gameplay like that requires incredbily precise timing and prior knowledge of the game, like knowing exactly where the enemies are going to spawn.

That can be said about almost any game a person plays multiple times and knows where the spawn points are. It shows that it can be done, even with some luck.

It's also very resource draining, and while it looks cool in isolated encounters, remember that if you played like that all the time, you'd run out of resources right in the next one.

So I've been told in Seraphim17's walkthrough back on the PS3. I believe both of you.

Also personal pet peeve: I fucking hate how blatantly those video titles just lie by claiming to be playing on Grounded difficulty. It's so bleeding obvious from the way there's just an entire shiv lying on the barrel, or how the infected die from a single revolver shot. It says in the description that it's Grounded customized to have plentiful resources. But the biggest thing difficulty affects in the game is resources, so by playing Grounded that way you're essentially playing "Grounded but not really".

Didn't know about that. I'm personally not upset, as I found the video entertaining, and it's not SMVR's best video anyway. They already proved themselves with that Vergi fight on Dante Must Die for DMC 5 No Damage, Royal Guard only. Still their best video. I understand your frustration though.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Surely we agree that The Last of Us, an action-adventure game, was at least half devoted to action. I don't remember missing it for long in between set pieces. And none of the action ever felt empowering, exactly. It was always a desperate, last-ditch effort. Joel isn't a powerhouse. I'm not asking for Pedro Pascal to Max Payne through motherfuckers. I wanna see him cower around corners, throwing bottles as distraction and maybe break a brick on someone's face now and then.

It wasn't empowering, but that's due to the mechanics never giving you that sense. But outside of that Joel is murdering his way through a good 10 to 12 people in the section right after Tess' death alone. Nevermind the horde of infected you encounter and kill before that. Joel doesn't control like a powerhouse, but everything he does (at his age) pretty much makes him one.

Could there have been more of Joel doing his thing, sure, but I think the show so far has done a good job at showing us what kind of man he is.

Now we both played the game. Don't tell me you wouldn't be slightly disappointed if I told you they were gonna make it to Pittsburgh in the show having only fought off one soldier and two clickers in all of three episodes.

I honestly wouldn't. That's not to say that I don't wish what was there was handled better; the zombies (including the Clickers) really aren't doing much for me. My biggest issue so far is how the show depicts the dilapidation and the reclaiming of nature. It's why Episode 3 fairs better in that regard, because it's Joel and Ellie in the woods and fields - something they didn't need to set-dress and try to make look like nature.

Seeing how the show does its action so far, I don't think I'm as interested in more of that (though I understand that it is necessary to an extent). The quiet moments though, where the characters are just talking to eachother, is where the show is excelling at. Those interactions between Joel and Ellie at Bill's house and in the car were far more engaging to me than any of the (zombie) action in the show as of yet.

As for Bill standing out in the open with a bolt-action rifle, risking his life even though the enemies are as good as dead... gimme a break. Even if it wasn't incredibly out of character it's a dumb thing to do, and looks dumb as well. I'm not one to obsess over the way firearms are handled in movies and TV but boy did the scene stick out in a dumb way.

Yeah, that scene wasn't great. Again, they should've probably left it out all together.

 

[Bartholen]

Okay, having now thought about it more, that 3rd episode is souring in my eyes and fast. The love story is sweet and all, but everything else, especially the worldbuilding, is pushed well past the breaking point of suspension of disbelief. It's almost parody level just how cartoonishly saccharine and Disney Bill and Frank's story is, and it betrays both the source material and the show itself, and in doing so makes this world feel entirely toothless. Bill and Frank just get off scot-free and coast through their time together on Recruit difficulty without any sense of weight, sacrifice or consequences. There are so many holes in the worldbuilding that by the end of the episode it's like a sieve. So many things are just handwaved away that in order for it to make actual sense you have to do such extensive headcanoning that you might as well write and entire lore codex about it.

There are so many interesting directions they could have gone in and dynamics they could have explored (Bill's personal politics for example, which in the show are addressed with like 5 lines), but they just went with the schmaltziest, most soap opera-y way of doing it. Devoid of the show, Bill and Frank's story would be a wholesome and sweet short film about love blossoming even at the end of the world. In the context of the show it's a clumsy, self-satisfied bastardization of the world, themes and larger story. I'm curious to see how it fits into the rest of the season when it's all come out, because as of these 3 episodes it feels like it's out of an entirely different show and universe.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Okay, having now thought about it more, that 3rd episode is souring in my eyes and fast. The love story is sweet and all, but everything else, especially the worldbuilding, is pushed well past the breaking point of suspension of disbelief. It's almost parody level just how cartoonishly saccharine and Disney Bill and Frank's story is, and it betrays both the source material and the show itself, and in doing so makes this world feel entirely toothless. Bill and Frank just get off scot-free and coast through their time together on Recruit difficulty without any sense of weight, sacrifice or consequences. There are so many holes in the worldbuilding that by the end of the episode it's like a sieve. So many things are just handwaved away that in order for it to make actual sense you have to do such extensive headcanoning that you might as well write and entire lore codex about it.

There are so many interesting directions they could have gone in and dynamics they could have explored (Bill's personal politics for example, which in the show are addressed with like 5 lines), but they just went with the schmaltziest, most soap opera-y way of doing it. Devoid of the show, Bill and Frank's story would be a wholesome and sweet short film about love blossoming even at the end of the world. In the context of the show it's a clumsy, self-satisfied bastardization of the world, themes and larger story. I'm curious to see how it fits into the rest of the season when it's all come out, because as of these 3 episodes it feels like it's out of an entirely different show and universe.

I wouldn't say it's anymore the case than it was in the game or the show so far. The Last of Us has never been The Road; it's only ever really used the theming, not the harsh reality of it. The game(s) typically skipped the details to drive home how terrible things can end up, and Episode 3 skips the details to present something very nice. And it all ultimately comes back to Joel.

 

[Bartholen]

I wouldn't say it's anymore the case than it was in the game or the show so far. The Last of Us has never been The Road; it's only ever really used the theming, not the harsh reality of it. The game(s) typically skipped the details to drive home how terrible things can end up, and Episode 3 skips the details to present something very nice. And it all ultimately comes back to Joel.

I guess you can say that. I just find the details they do present to raise implications that don't stand up to scrutiny:

1. Frank initially falls down one of Bill's traps on his way to Boston, so clearly he had some idea of where he was going. Did no other traveling survivors show up during the entire following 17 years? If they didn't, why? Is the world really that dead, or the town that out of the way? Clearly not, considering the raiders that show up. If they did, what happened to them? Did Bill and Frank just murk and bury them all offscreen? Did Bill and Frank let them go, and they pinkie promised not to tell anyone about the beautiful, safe, self-sufficient town only a day's travel from Boston?
2. The raiders that show up. Where'd they come from? Clearly they weren't just some travelers considering they showed up armed and started blasting before Frank even woke up. Did they just randomly stumble on the town? Possible but unlikely, considering how willing they were to just start going gung-ho. Were they part of a larger group? If so, surely someone would have come looking for them afterwards? You can't just introduce an element like that and treat it like a RPG random encounter.
3. The fact that no one from authorities of any kind shows up during the entire 20 years. The people just get evacuated and boom, entire town that's like a 20-minute drive from Boston just left empty. Bill's free to do as he pleases and no one's the wiser. I just find that wildly implausible when in the game the military was still showing up at Bill's town even 20 years later, despite it being an infected-ridden, trap-laden shithole.

For me these things just gloss too many elements over to be able to ignore them. Though it seems the show's world is already quite different from that of the game: spores don't seem to be a thing at all, for example. That change alone raises some wild worldbuilding questions I don't have the time for right now.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I guess you can say that. I just find the details they do present to raise implications that don't stand up to scrutiny:

1. Frank initially falls down one of Bill's traps on his way to Boston, so clearly he had some idea of where he was going. Did no other traveling survivors show up during the entire following 17 years? If they didn't, why? Is the world really that dead, or the town that out of the way? Clearly not, considering the raiders that show up. If they did, what happened to them? Did Bill and Frank just murk and bury them all offscreen? Did Bill and Frank let them go, and they pinkie promised not to tell anyone about the beautiful, safe, self-sufficient town only a day's travel from Boston?
2. The raiders that show up. Where'd they come from? Clearly they weren't just some travelers considering they showed up armed and started blasting before Frank even woke up. Did they just randomly stumble on the town? Possible but unlikely, considering how willing they were to just start going gung-ho. Were they part of a larger group? If so, surely someone would have come looking for them afterwards?
3. The fact that no one from authorities of any kind shows up during the entire 20 years. The people just get evacuated and boom, entire town that's like a 20-minute drive from Boston just left empty. Bill's free to do as he pleases and no one's the wiser. I just find that wildly implausible when in the game the military was still showing up at Bill's town even 20 years later, despite it being an infected-ridden, trap-laden shithole.

For me these things just gloss too many elements over to be able to ignore them. Though it seems the show's world is already quite different from that of the game: spores don't seem to be a thing at all, for example. That change alone raises some wild worldbuilding questions I don't have the time for right now.

The world of TLoU tries to appear realistic, but is ultimately just a zombie apocalypse that wants to focus on human drama. And the human drama will generally take presedence over realism. One of the biggest examples being Joel (in the game) being run through and Ellie nursing him back to health, only stitching him up and giving him anti-biotics, completely ignoring the intense and complicated surgical proceedure that would be necessary in that case. But in that moment what matters most to the story is showing Ellie's commitment and refusal to give up on Joel even when he's near death. By the way, I'm predicting the show will have a significantly toned down mortal injury when the time comes - there's no way a live-action show can make that believable. He'll probably get shot or seriously stabbed or something.

In regards to Episode 3, it doesn't make much sense from the start that the Home Depot Bill raids wasn't already emptied by the military before being boarded up, or that the power plant was just left unattended; you'd think that'd be a very important resource that FEDRA'd want to some soldiers posted at, and to have some kind of connection established to the Baltimore QZ (which I'm assuming is the closed one to Bill's town, seeing as it's where Frank came from).

I had A LOT of issues like this with TLoU2, but that's mainly because I reallly didn't like any of the characters (except maybe Maria, Yara, and Lev), and when that's the case in a story I start to hone in on all the ways things just don't make much sense. Heck, sometimes it even happens with stories that I DO like; I've kinda ruined The Thing for myself in this manner.