Discuss and Rate the Last Thing You Watched (non-movies)

[Johnny Novgorod]

I mean, in this episode we literally have Joel say 'Because I love you' to Ellie; a thing that I'm sure nearly everyone watching ISN'T confused about.

A thing that Ellie wouldn't be confused about either. It's not a revelation anymore than Joel telling her what "really" happened at the hospital.

The whole episode exists to reinforce stuff that both Ellie and the audience - gamers and non gamers included - already know about them. In the game the porch scene happens near the end and works as a final twist on the nature of Ellie's rampage.

I feel like the show isn't working towards any kind of emotional oomph anymore.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I feel like the show isn't working towards any kind of emotional oomph anymore.

It can't, because Ellie's section is very lacking in plot. Once they enter Seatle it's really just looking for some people, Dina revealing she's pregnant, and Jessie showing up. It's then capped off with Abby paying a surprise visit and shooting Jessie. The reason they put Ellie and Dina's romantic build-up in Seatle instead of before is to have somekind of plot progression, because without it there would've seriously not been anything that happened, even if they included Jordan and that one dead girl they find at the TV station.

The next season will likely fair much better since Abby's section actually has plot.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It can't, because Ellie's section is very lacking in plot. Once they enter Seatle it's really just looking for some people, Dina revealing she's pregnant, and Jessie showing up. It's then capped off with Abby paying a surprise visit and shooting Jessie. The reason they put Ellie and Dina's romantic build-up in Seatle instead of before is to have somekind of plot progression, because without it there would've seriously not been anything that happened, even if they included Jordan and that one dead girl they find at the TV station.

The next season will likely fair much better since Abby's section actually has plot.

I mean both "have plot", it's just that Abby's half feels busier because her goals keep changing.

At first her goal is to find Owen, which she does. Other than a rather subdued love triangle between her, Owen and Mel, and the Israel-Palestine thing in the background, I'd say she's firmly back in plotless territory - she's not really trying to do anything - until she decides to go back to help out Yara and Lev out of a misplaced sense of guilt.

In a continuation of that, she now has to go find meds for Yara.

Then she decides to go rescue Lev before he wins a frankly long overdue Darwin Award.

Then she decides to go avenge Owen/Mel.

Then she decides to co-opt Owen's original plan of sailing to Santa Barbara with Lev in tow.

Compare Abby's checklist of fetch quests and changing priorities to Ellie's Gotta Kill 'Em All campaign, which isn't exactly plotless - she too has a love triangle of her own, and the show amplifies the IDF/Palestine thing in her background too - it's just she's more focused than Abby. Her plot "progresses" by spiraling into anger and misery, which we haven't seen because she has yet to kill more than two people - one in self-defense - or alienate Dina from her. I think the show's also missing a trick by either ignoring or deleting Tommy's rampage.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I mean both "have plot", it's just that Abby's half feels busier because her goals keep changing.

At first her goal is to find Owen, which she does. Other than a rather subdued love triangle between her, Owen and Mel, and the Israel-Palestine thing in the background, I'd say she's firmly back in plotless territory - she's not really trying to do anything - until she decides to go back to help out Yara and Lev out of a misplaced sense of guilt.

In a continuation of that, she now has to go find meds for Yara.

Then she decides to go rescue Lev before he wins a frankly long overdue Darwin Award.

Then she decides to go avenge Owen/Mel.

Then she decides to co-opt Owen's original plan of sailing to Santa Barbara with Lev in tow.

Compare Abby's checklist of fetch quests and changing priorities to Ellie's Gotta Kill 'Em All campaign, which isn't exactly plotless - she too has a love triangle of her own, and the show amplifies the IDF/Palestine thing in her background too - it's just she's more focused than Abby. Her plot "progresses" by spiraling into anger and misery, which we haven't seen because she has yet to kill more than two people - one in self-defense - or alienate Dina from her. I think the show's also missing a trick by either ignoring or deleting Tommy's rampage.

I'm not saying it's a good plot, but things happen, Abby meets with characters, goes to places with a specific goal. Even Owen and Mel feel like they have more agency compared to Dina and Jessie who just follow along with whatever Ellie wants. Abby also benefits from meeting new characters and having a new relationship form (depended on how the adaptation handles it), and between enemies, which while simple tends to create a nice engaging foundation.

And Ellie's spiral into anger and misery pretty much begins and ends before she even leaves Jackson, what with her going on a suicide mission and taking Dina along. Nothing honestly happens with her descent wise other than being mad at Dina a bit for being pregnant, hitting Nora with a pipe, and not going with Jessie to help out Tommy. As for her only having killed two people in the show so far not adding to this spiral, in the game she'll only have killed three people by this point (Jordan, Vita Girl, and Nora) if you don't count everyone she merced during gameplay, which the game surely doesn't. Somehow her killing Nora and Mel impact her greatly(ish) within the sea of bodies she left in her wake for some reason. Almost like the game needed to account for every non-scripted encounter in which you can just sneak by or run away from enemies.

And not having Tommy there might get rid of that pretty good sniper scene, though knowing the show they'll probably find some way of having Tommy taking potshots at Abby in Season 3. I never cared for Tommy being stupid and leaving his wife anyway, so them changing that is no great loss to me. I'm not expecting every setpiece from Abby's section to make it in the season though, which is honestly a large part of what made her section as good as it was, and the ones we do get likely won't look as good as they did in the game.