“The Last of Us” Episode 109 Recap: Promises, Promises

Hello and welcome to our very last recap of season one of The Last of Us, episode 9, “Look for the Light.” As always, two queer friends (me, Valerie Anne, and my buddy Nic) recount the tale of a tiny lesbian and her unlikely bond with her Apocalypse Dad. And since this is the last one, I just have to say that I have had an absolute blast co-writing these recaps with Nic, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say we’ve loved reading your comments and breaking things down with you all. Maybe we’ll see you all in Season 2! Until then, there are still a lot of feelings left to be had, so let’s do this thing!

Nic: Previously on The Last of Us, a fungal virus tore through the whole entire world, a man named Joel watched his daughter die in his arms, he picked up a job in the form of cargo named Ellie, transported her across the country and along the way they fought infected and learned to trust each other. They met lots of people on their journey, and unfortunately lost some too, but the one constant was that they would always have each other’s backs, no matter what.

A Mother’s Love

Ashley Johnson gives birth to Ellie again, this time a bit more literally.

Valerie: We open as I wish more things in my life would open: with Ashley Johnson.

Nic: Ah yes, coming in strong with the Ashley BAFTA Johnson love! She deserves!

Valerie: Okay, okay, sorry, fine, let me start over.

We open on a woman in the woods. She has reddish brown hair, a yellow sundress, and a green army jacket. She’s sprinting, and panting and grunting in a way that will sound familiar to anyone who played the games. And she’s very, very pregnant.

We don’t learn this til later but I’ll tell you now, her name is Anna; she runs to a farmhouse that has a firefly symbol on the silo and calls out, “it’s me” but no one answers. She realizes her water broke, runs upstairs and barricades herself in what looks like it used to be a nursery and slumps to the ground.

Anna pulls out her switchblade and fights contractions while the infected that chased her through the woods pounds at the door, eventually dropping the blade during a wave of pain. The infected gets through the door and attacks, and it takes her a second to grab her blade again and get the fungus freak off of her.

Anna looks down and sees the best and the worst thing imaginable within a second of each other: her beautiful, healthy-looking baby girl screaming her brand new lungs out…and a bite mark on her own leg. She quickly cuts the umbilical cord and inspects her baby’s ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, smiling at her little miracle. The baby screams but Anna smiles, saying, “You fucking tell ’em, Ellie.”

Nic: Watching game Ellie meet show Ellie and hearing her say the name “Ellie” gave me my first of many cries this episode.

Valerie: Anna calls Ellie tough, and smiles through her tears, trying to enjoy what she knows are not only the first, but also the last moments with her baby girl.

Fireflies arrive later that night, led by the one and only Marlene. They sneak through the house and follow soft sounds up to the nursery, where Marlene finds Anna singing to baby Ellie. Anna is holding her switchblade up to her own neck, pressed so deep it’s already piercing the skin, ensuring that at the first twitch she would be able to take herself out and protect her baby. As soon as she realizes it’s Marlene in the room with her, Anna drops the knife and slides Ellie toward her. Marlene tries to explain what happened, why they’re late, but Anna isn’t listening. She says it’s not Marlene’s fault, and asks her to take Ellie to Boston to find someone to raise her and keep her safe. She asks her to give Ellie the switchblade, and to believe her when she says she cut the umbilical cord after she got bit. After.

Then Anna asks Marlene to kill her. Anna twitches and groans a little; she held on as long and as hard as she could while she was holding Ellie, but now that she knows Ellie is safe it’s harder to fight off those pesky cordyceps. Anna pulls the “we’ve known each other our whole lives” card but Marlene can’t do it; she takes Ellie and brings her out into the hallway, but she stops when she hears Anna screaming after her. She hands baby Ellie to another Firefly, asks him to cover her ears, then goes back into the room.

The first sound baby Ellie heard was her mother’s voice, cooing at her and singing at her. The second was Marlene.

The third sound Ellie Williams ever heard was the gunshot that killed her mother.

Nic: OUCH.

On Giraffes and Hope

Oh the joy and simplicity of feeding an animal in the middle of the apocalypse.

Nic: It’s springtime in the present day, and Ellie is staring off into the middle distance, no doubt lost in the thoughts of what’s transpired until now, and what’s still to come now that their goal is within reach. She’s so lost in thought that she doesn’t hear Joel talking to her about finding Chef Boyardee and the game Boggle until he repeats himself and even then, she responds with half of her usual energy. It’s such a wild role reversal watching Joel do everything in his power to get Ellie to open up. I didn’t even know Joel knew this many words!

Valerie: Joel showing things to Ellie to try to make her smile is exactly how I imagine my inner dialogue when I’m trying to trick myself out of a depressive state. Just mentally holding things up to my own self like “Eh?? How about this?? Is this working???”

Nic: Joel tells Ellie that they’re getting close to a hospital and that it might be the one they’re looking for. And it’s such a small thing, but when Joel asks her to hold his gun while he grabs his things, I can’t help but remember a time when Ellie merely looking at a gun sent Joel into a tailspin. As they restart their journey, Joel shares that he found a smashed up guitar in an RV, but maybe he’ll look for one so he could teach her how to play. This is the Joel we met in the pilot; Joel before his entire world was shattered; Joel whose purpose in life was to care for his daughter Sarah; Joel who wanted to teach things solely because he thought someone else might be good at it. Apocalypse Dad has truly come so far.

Valerie: And Joel isn’t just shaking rattles in front of a baby on the verge of a breakdown and hoping for the best. He’s tapping into things he’s seen Ellie get excited about before: being better than him at something, offering to teach her something. It’s genuinely so thoughtful and sweet.

Nic: As they continue to walk, their way is blocked so Ellie figures they’ll do what they always do: cut through a building to find a skyscraper and see what they can scope out from high up. But Joel continues his quest to make her laugh by suggesting they use dynamite to blow their way through and he’s got her going for a hot second, before confirming that she was right; they’re going to cut through a building to find a skyscraper and see what they can scope out from high up. He’s trying so hard to break through her walls, and when he asks if she’s okay, it’s in a voice that’s so tender and caring; a far cry from conversing with “cargo.”

They make their way through the building until they find a way to get upstairs. And the way up? Why it’s by using one of my favorite game mechanics: the boost! Joel boosts Ellie up so she can drop the ladder down to him, but she manages to only half drop it because something else catches her attention. Now, there were only a handful of in-game scenes that I really wanted to see on screen, and the moment I realized this was happening, the tears started to flow.

Ellie runs upstairs with more zest than Joel’s seen in a while, beckons him to join her, and then immediately shushes him so as not to disturb the real life giraffe in front of them. Joel feels the enormity of this moment and slowly grabs some leaves for Ellie to feed the giraffe with. And oh her smile and her laugh as she does a task so many of us with access to zoos might take for granted. Joel watches Ellie with love in his eyes and relief on his face, knowing that despite everything, his joyful Ellie is still in there.

Valerie: Ellie showing some signs of energy and joy again made me cry. And weirdly made me hopeful? If this girl who was born into trauma, raised in a literal apocalypse, and then went through more over the course of a year at age 14 than most people go through in a lifetime and still find things that make her giggle, maybe there’s hope for all of us.

Nic: Ellie runs to the roof to get a better look at the giraffes and Murder Dad and Daughter get themselves one heck of a view. “So, is it everything you hoped for?” “It’s got its ups and downs, but you can’t deny that view.” (Can I send my therapy bills to a ledge?) They get serious for a moment, and Joel talks to Ellie about the riskiness of what she’s about to do; tells her that she doesn’t have to do this; that they can pack it in and go back to Tommy’s and forget all of it. And with the wisdom of someone much older, Ellie looks at Joel and tells him that after everything she’s done, it can’t be for nothing. He’s protected her up until now and when they’re done, she will follow him literally anywhere he wants to go, but for herself and for every person they’ve lost, she has to finish this. She’s choosing to finish this.

The Guy Who Shot and Missed

“And I believe if you go, my heart would break. Just hold on one more day.”

Valerie: On the way to the hospital, they walk through an army base; it reminds Ellie of FEDRA, but Joel explains that they were emergency medical camps that were set up right after the outbreak, though they were short-lived. He says he ended up in one on day two, and Ellie asks if Sarah was with him; and maybe it’s because of all they’ve been through, or maybe it’s because he’s excited she’s actually talking again, or maybe some combination of the two, but for once he doesn’t balk at Sarah’s name, he just tells Ellie that Sarah was already gone by day two. He was in the med tents for the wound on his head she had asked about all those months ago, the man who shot and missed. Ellie starts to make a joke about her stitching technique when Joel stops and confesses something to her: it was him. He was the one who shot and missed. Ellie’s eyes get big and sad and she goes to sit next to Joel, ready to listen.

Nic: I love that Ellie followed Joel’s lead here. She didn’t push him to share anything he wasn’t ready to. She just waited so he knew that she was ready for whatever he was willing to say.

Valerie: Joel says that after Sarah died, he didn’t see the point of going on, so he tried to shoot himself, but at the last minute, he flinched. He doesn’t know why, but he did, and he decided to go get himself stitched up after. (Is it bad that I’m envisioning fan art Sarah’s ghost gently moving his gun hand away? Why do I like to hurt my own feelings?)

Nic: Welp! Now I’m picturing it too!!

Valerie:Joel starts to explain why he’s telling Ellie this, why he’s telling her now, but she stops him. She knows why he’s telling her. Joel finally understands how wrong he was when he accused her of not knowing what loss is. He sees now that their wounds aren’t exactly the same, but their pain is very similar.

Ellie tries to ease the weight of the moment by distilling the lesson, saying, almost sarcastically, “Time heals all wounds.” But Joel doesn’t smile or hesitate, he just looks in her eyes and tells her matter-of-factly: it wasn’t time that healed him.

Nic: :choked sob:

Valerie: Ellie nods resolutely, and meekly offers that she’s glad it didn’t work out for him, his day two plan. He’s glad too. They awkwardly get up and start heading toward the hospital, and Joel decides the best way to turn the mood around is to ask for some terrible puns. Delighted and happy to oblige, Ellie pulls out her trusty joke book and reads off a few, including an apocalypse-themed one that makes them both laugh.

While they’re distracted, they end up getting flash-bombed, and Joel has to watch Ellie get taken from him yet again.

Next page: Sorry, you’re not done crying yet, sorry. (Sorry.)

“The Last of Us” Episode 108: Nevertheless, She Persisted

Hello! We’re back with a recap of the penultimate episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, titled “When We Are In Need”. And per usual, by “we” I mean me (Nic) and Valerie Anne; two queer nerdy friends having lots and lots of feelings about our favorite video game turned television show and its tiny murder lesbian. I think we say this every week, but this is an emotional one folks, so buckle up.

Valerie: Previously on The Last of Us, Joel got shanked, sending Ellie into a flashback of the last time she was left behind by Riley, her best friend and first love, with whom she had a magical night in an abandoned mall before they both got bitten by a clicker. In the present day, Ellie dragged an injured Joel to a basement in an abandoned house, sewed him up and hoped for the best.

The Hunt

“I bet Riley would know what to do.”

Nic: It’s snowing, it’s blustery, it’s beautiful; and as we take in an apocalyptic winter wonderland, the voice of a man reading from the book of Revelation cuts through the peace. We’re in a place called Silver Lake where a group of very forlorn looking white people (I don’t know why this stuck out so much to me in this episode, but it was giving Westboro…) are listening to a man preach about the comfort that God provides even in the most trying times. A girl about Ellie’s age is crying, and as her mother comforts her we learn that this gathering is to mourn the death of her father. The girl asks the man when they can bury him, and after an interesting glance to another member of the group, he tells her that because the ground is too cold, they’ll need to wait until the spring.

After the “service”, the man, who we learn is called David, and his buddy who happens to have the face of Troy Baker aka the voice of OG Joel from the video game, discuss just how dire their situation is – they have enough venison to last 1-2 weeks at most. Before they ready themselves to go hunting for more food, David accuses James of doubting him, but James insists that although it’s been a rough few months, he still believes in him. The episode has barely started and I’m already creeped out and uncomfortable with this entire situation.

Valerie: Two things: 1) Once you escape the cult of Christianity, it’s hard to imagine how you ever thought things like “He Shall Provide” were anything but creepy. 2) Troy Baker is one hell of an actor because he put on quite the voice for Joel. If I didn’t know it was him, I wouldn’t have guessed it.

Nic: Back at the abandoned house they’ve been hiding in, Ellie continues to do everything in her power to take care of Joel. She checks his wound which is looking…pretty gnarly to be honest. He’s been asleep or resting the entire time, but that hasn’t stopped Ellie from talking to him or asking if he’s hungry or thirsty. She dabs some water on his lips, takes a bite of food for herself, and leaves a piece for him as she ponders what the heck she’s supposed to do next. The rifle catches her eye and in that moment she knows that she’s got to put those hunting lessons to good use otherwise the two of them will starve.

So Ellie heads out with the rifle, checks all around her just the way Joel taught her, and then makes her way into the woods. She starts to follow some tracks, scares away a rabbit, and then falls on her face into the snow. Our girl is going through it, y’all. Before long, she spots deer tracks and hot damn, she actually sees one in the distance. She readies herself, gets into position, breathes, and remembers the way Joel told her to squeeze the trigger. It works! She hits the deer and then it attempts to run, well limp, away.

We see its blood trail, only it’s David and James who find the deer first. They start to discuss whether it’s okay to just take it when Ellie’s voice rings out, demanding that they back away from her kill before she puts a bullet right between their eyes. They drop their guns and step back before turning to see that the voice belongs to a literal child. A child who is having NONE of their shit, to be fair. And thus begins David’s emotional manipulation. He pleads for just 10 seconds to tell Ellie that they’re from a large group of very hungry people so they need that deer more than she does. Honestly, the audacity of this white man to just reap the benefits of Ellie’s work?! I’m not surprised by any means, but everything about David makes my skin crawl. :shudder:

Valerie: Ellie using her Joel impression for good instead of for mocking him. (Which, arguably, is also good, but you know what I mean.)

Nic: Ellie lies and says that she’s also from a large group, but even so, David knows that she can’t carry that deer back by herself. So he offers a trade, and Ellie nearly jumps at the chance to potentially get medicine for Joel’s infection. Bella’s face work is impeccable in this entire episode, and right here, they depict Ellie’s immediate shift from badass negotiator to scared and hopeful child in the most perfect way.

Valerie: THE VOICE CHANGE. IMMEDIATE. Agreed, perfect line read, no notes.

Nic: David and James agree to the trade, but Ellie’s a smart girl and refuses to follow them anywhere; instead, she tells James to go get the medicine while she and David wait for him. Once James leaves, Ellie keeps her gun trained on David while she unloads the men’s rifles. It’ll be a bit before James gets back, so Ellie, David, and the deer take up shelter in a nearby shed.

Venison and Vengeance

14 is too young to have the world on your shoulders.

Valerie: Sitting around the fire with only a dead deer for company, David tries to make conversation with Ellie. Tries to ask her name, but she won’t give it; invites her to join his group, to which she points out he JUST said they are low on food. He says he’s a decent man, a thing most decent men don’t have to say out loud, and Ellie asks if he’s their leader. David claims it wasn’t his choice, that the people looked to him to lead. Hilariously, Ellie asks exactly what I would have asked next: is he leading a cult? He tries to laugh it off, admitting there’s a religious element to it, but claims it’s “standard Bible stuff” as if there are no cults that would claim just that. Ellie doesn’t believe how anyone could watch a mushroom virus take over the world and believe there is a god but he says he only became a preacher after the world ended. (One might say he found god in a hopeless place.)

Nic: HAHAHAHAHA (thank you, I needed that laugh).

Valerie: Using humor to cope is my specialty.

Ellie puts on a mocking tone and asks if he switched from teacher to preacher because it rhymes, and it’s another one of those moments where you go “oh god she’s only 14.” Because she’s trying so hard to be tough and fling insults but all she knows how to do is swear a lot; despite the show she puts on for everyone, cruelty doesn’t come naturally to her.

He tells Ellie everything happens for a reason, which makes her scoff, and he offers to prove it. His example is that one of his men got murdered the other day by a man traveling with a girl who is just her age. Ellie’s body tenses and she tightens her grip on her gun and whips around to follow David’s eyeline; James is back with a gun on her. She points her gun at him anyway, but David tells James to stand down, give Ellie the medicine, and let her go. James questions this order, but Ellie doesn’t wait around to hear David’s explanation, she grabs the medicine and high-tails it back to Joel, much to James’ chagrin.

When Ellie gets the medicine in the needle she realizes she doesn’t know how to give someone a shot (which, fair) and when Joel can’t answer her pleas for help, she decides to jab it right into the wound. Then she tucks him in and curls up next to him which reminded me too much of that one scene in The Lion King for my heart’s comfort. And Joel, perhaps instinctively, almost imperceptibly turns his head into hers.

Nic: Wow, I was already emotional about Joel leaning toward Ellie here, and then you hit me with that Lion King reference? Rude.

Valerie: Back in Cultville, a cook prepares fresh meat stew; he claims it’s venison, but there’s an awful lot of it, and David and James don’t return with the deer they stole from Ellie until after dinner is served.

When they do return, David and James are met with awkward stares, so David addresses the room. He says that in the morning, they’re going to follow the girl’s tracks to the man who killed their friend and enact justice. The dead man’s daughter shouts that they should kill them both, to which David answers by strutting right up to her and backhanding her across the face.

Nic: This fucking guy was a teacher.

Valerie: He basically says he’s her father now and tells her to obey him and despite it leaving a bad taste in MY mouth, after he finishes blessing the meal, everyone goes to town on their meal. If you look closely, you can see David’s mouth turn up in a slight hint of sick pleasure as he watches Hannah eat the stew, which makes me more nauseous than thinking about the stew itself.

Back in the basement of bad vibes, Ellie checks Joel’s fever again and jabs more antibiotics into him. She goes upstairs and gives Callus some snow to drink and is standing in the yard trying to decide what to do next when she sees a flock of birds fly off as if startled, so she slinks around to take a look. She spots David, James and a few more men heading her way, all armed, and clearly looking for her. While they trace her, James protests David’s plan of bringing “the girl” back to town with them, but David doesn’t want to hear any of his lip.

Ellie books it back to Joel, and when she can’t rouse him, she presses a knife into his hand and tells her to kill anyone who comes down to the basement on sight. She leaves the house, cleverly blocking the basement door with a bookshelf, and takes off on Callus, on a mission to distract the men and lead them away from Joel.

Nic: She came up with this plan so fast?!?!

Valerie: David yells after his men to make sure he brings her in alive so James shoots her horse, sending her flying, disorienting her enough for James and his boyz to catch up to her. They’re about to take justice into their own hands, but David interrupts, determined to take the girl alive. David carries Ellie herself, tells two of his men to drag the horse back to town, and lets the rest hunt for Joel to enact the vengeance they so desperately crave.

One of the men rolls a natural 20 on his investigation check and sees through Ellie’s bookshelf trick, heading downstairs. But when he gets there, Joel isn’t on his mattress; the combination of antibiotics and adrenaline got him up and at ’em, at least enough to kill the man trying to ambush him. Joel uses the body of this man as bait to trap two more, torturing them just long enough to get the name of the town/resort David took Ellie to, kills them both, and takes off with his newly marked map.

Nic: Joel’s “it’s okay, I believe him” got me GOOD.

Next page: “DESTROY HIM!!!!” 

“The Last of Us” Episode 107 Recap: Let’s Go To The Mall

Hello and welcome to this recap of The Last of Us, Season 1 Episode 7, “Left Behind” aka the one we’ve all been waiting for. Once again here to recap the gay events of this gay episode are gay friends Nic and I (Valerie Anne), who have both played the game (including the DLC this flashback was based on) and yet still continue to be devastated by the events of this show as if they’re brand new. Huzzah! To the episode! Nic, care to start us off?

Nic: Previously on The Last of Us, Joel and Ellie headed west to find Tommy and ended up finding a whole ass thriving community and a sister-in-law. The brothers had a tearful reunion where Joel begged Tommy to take Ellie because he can’t keep failing her, Ellie found out about Joel’s daughter Sarah, aaaaand Joel got impaled. Yikes.

THE FIGHT

We’ve got a tough little cookie on our hands.

Valerie: We open this episode with Joel fighting for his life on the floor of a garage in an abandoned house in an abandoned town. This wee teenager managed, with the help of the horse whose name they haven’t mentioned on the show but I believe is called Callus, to get Joel and all their stuff to this garage and is now swearing and pressing down on Joel’s wound and begging him to tell her what to do. He tells her what to do, but it’s not what she wants to hear: he tells her to leave. He wants her to leave him, to go north, back to Tommy. She puts his jacket over him, scowls, and then turns around, opening the door from the garage that should lead her to the house proper.

This door leads us instead, to a flashback. Before she left Boston, before she met Joel, Ellie was a student at FEDRA school, where she ran lazy laps with a Walkman while her fellow trainees sprint past. A grip rips Ellie’s headphones off as she passes, scolding her for going so slow, saying she doesn’t want to do doubles because of her. Ellie says she doesn’t want to fight, she just wants her headphones back, but then the girl taunts her about Ellie’s friend who isn’t here anymore and Ellie loses her cool, punching her.

We don’t see the rest of the fight but we do learn the results in Captain Kwong’s office. Ellie has a black eye, but Bethany is in the infirmary getting 15 stitches. (:Gavrosh voice: She may look easy pickings but she’s got some bite.)

Nic: 15 stitches is SO MANY! Damn, Ellie.

Valerie: Ellie knows how meetings like these usually go and asks to just skip the middle bit and go right to the part where she’s put in the hole, but Kwong points out that these past three weeks she’s been in the hole and the hole doesn’t work. He knows Ellie is smart, so he lays out two futures for her. One is that she keeps acting up and she ends up being Bethany’s bitch for all eternity, the other is where she gets smart, follows the rules, and becomes Bethany’s boss instead.

He tells Ellie that they, FEDRA, are the ones keeping the peace, holding everything together. She buys into this, and in her defense Kwong seems to earnestly believe this, retrieves her Walkman and heads back to her room, ready to choose a new path.

(This is random but I love an accent peep, and between it being an artifact Bella Ramsey probably has never encountered and also just being a word with two awkward American a sounds in it, I loved the way Ellie said “Walkman.”)

Ellie goes back to her room, which is covered in posters about space and dinosaurs, and gets into her bed that has a pun book on its side table. She tries to read some comics but she keeps getting distracted by the empty bed across the room, the void pulling at her attention like a black hole. Eventually she gives up and tosses and turns until she falls asleep.

RILEY

“And what do we say when we feel like this?” “Next time it’ll be 20 stitches!!” “Ellie. No.”

Nic: Not long after Ellie falls asleep, the window to her room opens and we see someone sneak in and up on her. Ellie immediately shoves the person away and grabs her own knife in a way that is so swift, you just know she’s done this before. But then Ellie realizes it’s her best friend Riley, who’s been gone for three weeks, and immediately relaxes. Well, she at least relaxes enough to yell at Riley for leaving without telling her because she thought she was dead. When Riley sees that Ellie’s been fighting, she threatens to beat up whoever messed with Ellie, but it’s too late; Ellie handled her own shit. Ellie won’t be distracted though, and she demands to know where Riley’s been. Riley pauses before saying she joined the Fireflies, and Ellie’s first reaction is laughter because surely all of their talks of “liberating the QZ” were just talks, right?

Riley shrugs off Ellie’s questions though, and invites her to have the best night of her life, knowing her best friend would say no before eventually relenting.

Valerie: I love the little hints at queerness that are already being dropped. The fact that Ellie always makes Riley turn around when they change. Of course she’s weird about it, both because she’s probably felt weird when other girls have changed in front of her, and because you don’t want to just change in front of someone you have a crush on when you’re 14. Especially not your 16 year old best friend.

Nic:As the two sneak out, Ellie fills in Riley on what she’s missed (mostly the fights) and instead of cheering Ellie on, Riley tells her that she doesn’t actually have to fight everyone; she can pick and choose her battles. And Ellie’s flabbergasted because that doesn’t sound like the friend she knew; it sounds like something a Firefly might say. Even when Ellie’s disagreeing with Riley though, she’s giving her shit in ways that only a best friend can. It’s VERY cute.

Valerie: I liked the off-hand mention of how Ellie got her eyebrow scar.

Nic:They bop through a window into an abandoned building and head up way more stairs than Ellie’s prepared for, before discovering a brand new body, dead by his own hand rather than from infected. (On my second watch, I realized that Ellie thought that this was her surprise which is both hilarious and bleak.) They steal his booze from the Before Times and head up to the roof, where all the best serious talks happen.

Up on the roof, they take shots and act like they don’t hurt like hell, and Ellie asks Riley if that was the first dead body she’s seen, forgetting the fact that her friend saw her parents die. Ellie knows that though; she’s just so nervous being around Riley again! When she asks to hold Riley’s gun, her friend pauses because it’s technically against the rules and yet again, Ellie makes fun of her for being “such a fucking Firefly.” And then Ellie does that thing you do when you’re not sure how your crush feels about you; she “jokingly” asks Riley if she joined the Fireflies because of some guy she met. Riley goes right along with the joke, before revealing that what actually happened was one night while Ellie was on lockdown, Riley snuck out and some “really old” lady saw her, was impressed, and invited her to join; so she did. All it took was a general besmirching of the fascist FEDRA dickwads, and she was in.

Valerie: The number of times Ellie says “friend” and also her asking about a boy are all such familiar gay teen moves to me. I felt them deeply.

Nic:The two then run from roof to roof like some kind of baby gay Aladdin and Jasmine, with their spryness and youthful knees (*wistful sigh*). They argue for a bit about whether FEDRA or the Fireflies have the most bullshit propaganda, but they’ve reached their destination: the mall that is supposed to be sealed off but 100% is not actually sealed off.

Next page: Ready to swoon and sob your eyeballs out? 

“The Last of Us” Episode 106 Recap: Never Let Me Down Again

Welcome back to our tag team recap of The Last of Us! This week Valerie Anne and I (Nic) are covering the jam-packed episode six, titled “Kin”, in which our favorite smol teen lesbian succeeds yet again in making us feel every single feel that exists. We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

Valerie: Previously on The Last of Us, Ellie and Joel had a hell of a time in Kansas City, meeting up with fugitives Henry and Sam and eventually facing a woman named Kathleen and her army of rebels. Their final face-off got interrupted by a horrible horde of infected, including a Bloater and a tiny gymnast child clicker. Henry and Sam were going to join Ellie and Joel but Sam got bitten and even though Ellie tried to heal him by pressing her blood into his bite, he turned. Neither Sam nor Henry survived the morning, so Ellie and Joel headed west, alone together again.

THREE MONTHS LATER

“Lady, I just watched my brand new friend turn into an infected and then get shot by his brother. You can’t scare me.”

Nic: In what is an incredibly cruel start to the episode, we see the final moments from the previous one yet again. But then it’s three months later and a whole lot snowier when we see a man approaching a secluded cabin whilst carrying the spoils from a hunt. That man is not Joel, however, he’s an older gentleman who lives out here with his wife; his wife who’s been entertaining some company while he was out hunting. Joel pops out from the shadows and asks the man to put down his gun. He’s annoyed with the woman for making Joel soup and treating him like a guest, but she explains he didn’t hurt her and also he’s got a girl with him.

Valerie: Me as a hostage. “Want some soup? It’s cold out!”

Nic: Ellie takes her cue and comes downstairs, telling Joel to calm down because this couple is so old that they couldn’t possibly be a threat to them. All Joel wants to know is where exactly they are and if they’ve seen Tommy. They haven’t seen or heard of the younger Miller brother, and they explain that they’re not hiding here; they’ve been in this house since way before Outbreak Day and their seclusion happened to serve them well when everything went to shit. I won’t lie, I’m kind of obsessed with this couple.

When Joel asks them the best way to get west, the man tells him to go east because nothing good is out beyond the “River of Death.” And as they explain the rumors about what’s out there, and the bodies they’ve found, Joel actually looks scared. When he and Ellie leave the cabin, she steals one of their rabbits since Joel refuses to teach her how to hunt. And while he’s inclined to believe the couple on account of them having more experience out here than they do, Ellie’s the one who tries to convince Joel that they can handle themselves and it’ll all be fine. What’s not fine though, is Joel’s heart?! He gets a faraway look on his face and uses the fence to hold himself up as we hear echoes of Ellie asking if he’s okay. Because you know, if he dies, then ya girl is fucked.

RIVER OF DEATH

“I learned it by watching you!”

Valerie: Ellie and Joel take off, the former significantly more confident than the latter. They walk all day and eventually reach a river and decide to camp out in a cave. Joel says they can hunt more rabbits and Ellie excitedly asks if he’ll teach her but he shuts her down. As they sit around the fire before bed, Ellie asks for some booze “to warm up” and Joel somehow relents, probably because he knows what will happen: she takes a sip and immediately declares it gross.

They have a cute little fireside chat about what they would do if they could do anything, if the cure works and they can follow their bliss. Joel says he would have a farmhouse, maybe a sheep ranch. When he turns the question back to Ellie, she just looks up. She loves Sally Ride (which Joel guesses…which I’m choosing to believe is a sign he knows she’s gay.)

Nic: Oh I’m right there with you on that one. I also love watching these two open up to each other little by little. Every time one of them shares, they seem almost relieved when the other doesn’t immediately revolt.

Valerie: After talking about how cool Sally Ride is for a minute, Ellie gets quiet and asks if Joel thinks the cure will really work. She confesses to how she tried to heal Sam, but he reassures her, saying it’s more complicated than that and that he trusts Marlene’s instincts on this one. He tells her to go to bed and she asks if he wants her to take first or second watch but he says he’ll do both. Then he tells her to dream of sheep ranches on the moon, which is such a classic dad thing to say and it made my heart so full.

Nic: Joel’s gentle reaction about it being more complicated rather than immediately chastising her got me all misty-eyed!

Valerie: The next morning, Joel snaps awake, realizing he fell asleep while on watch. Ellie quips that he still mumbles in his sleep, and recites all the things she learned from him about keeping watch. He nods in quiet approval but then tells her to just wake him up next time, which she agrees to with her words if not her tone.

Once they’re packed up, they head out again, trudging through the snowy landscape. They walk across a bridge, seeing no death near this river, just a white abyss. Ellie tries to teach herself how to whistle while they walk, and then asks again to learn how to hunt. For a while I was brushing off these questions as just an eager kid, and if there’s one thing I know about kids is that they love to ask questions. But after watching this episode it occurred to me, she doesn’t want to learn how to keep watch or shoot or hunt just because it sounds fun to a 14 year old, though I’m sure it does. Her biggest fear is that she’ll end up alone. Right now she’s reliant on other people to survive. She can’t do this alone. But she wants to be able to. Just in case.

Eventually they get to a dam that I seem to remember working very hard to turn back on in the game, but it seems to be running smoothly now. When Ellie sees it she says, “Dam(n),” and I immediately thought of Nic.

Nic: The way I WHEEZED!

Valerie: Ellie confirms with Joel that dams made electricity, but he tells her not to ask him how, because he couldn’t explain it. (Same. Dams, windmills, solar panels. Might as well be sorcery.) She says he could just make something up and she would have believed him.

They approach a second river, and Ellie points out that maybe THIS is the River of Death they were warned about. And sure enough, as they look at the map to try to reorient themselves, a group of people on horses descend upon them. Joel immediately pulls Ellie close and drops his gun when he’s told to. He tries to explain their situation, whispering to Ellie that it’ll be okay, and encouraging her to do as the strangers ask.

They let a dog loose and say he’ll rip apart anyone he smells the infection on, and Ellie looks scared, not knowing if she’ll fail this test like she fails on FEDRA equipment. Joel watches as the dog growls and approaches Ellie, and Joel’s ears start to ring as another panic attack threatens to rise, but suddenly he realizes he’s not hearing Ellie screaming, just giggling as she pets the goodest boy.

Joel says that he’s looking for his brother, and a woman pulls her horse forward and asks his name. When he says his name is Joel, she looks like perhaps she anticipated that answer.

JACKSON

“So uh…any cute girls around here who I can pretend to be annoyed by while actually falling in love with them?”

Nic: They all ride into a settlement built around a town; Jackson, Wyoming. And it’s like going back in time in a way. The streets are filled with people of all ages, there are shops, lights, construction vehicles; it’s almost like Outbreak Day never happened. Ellie’s never seen anything like it and the awe is all over her face. Almost immediately after entering town, Joel spots a familiar figure supervising some construction and he calls out for his brother. They both look like they’ve seen a ghost, but they jog toward each other and embrace, and it’s so sweet and shut up no I’m not crying. As they reunite, Ellie gets a strange look on her face. (ALSO CAN WE TALK ABOUT RUTINA WESLEY AS MARIA BECAUSE MY GODDESS!)

Valerie: A) Joel SMILING and LAUGHING? I was emotional. B) I squealed a little when I realized it was Rutina Wesley, then squealed even more when I realized she was Maria.

Nic: Tommy and Maria take Joel and Ellie to some combination of a restaurant/community center/bar where the latter two scarf down a meal in a way only two people who’ve spent months on the road can. In a very cute moment, Joel reminds Ellie to mind her manners, and then she immediately yells at a girl who’s staring at her with interest. (I have a head canon on who this girl could be, but I won’t drop it here because SPOILERS for Part II of the game. But if you’ve played both, you can probably guess.) Maria explains that the kids in Jackson are just curious because they’re not used to foul-mouthed gun-toting teens. Weird, I guess.

When Ellie goes off about their people almost killing them, Tommy defends Maria and the rest of the group, because they were just trying to keep the community safe from outsiders who attempt to try them. Those bodies that the couple warned them about? People who have tried them. They’re well aware of the rumors, but Tommy says that having a bad reputation doesn’t necessarily make them bad. Joel thanks Maria for her hospitality and asks if they can have some private family time, but Tommy reveals that actually, Joel has a sister-in-law! Ellie immediately congratulates them, but Joel hesitates before following suit.

Valerie: I thought it was very cute the way Ellie told Joel to “say congrats” in the same tone he used to tell her to mind her manners. Buddies!

Nic: As they tour the town, Maria gives some super informative exposition about how Jackson came to be what it is today in just 7 short years. They built around an existing gated community, and because everything is so much more spread out, it’s been pretty easy to stave off groups of infected that have wandered over from cities. One of the ways they’ve been able to keep their location a secret is by staying off the radio, and whewwww the look that Joel gives Tommy when he hears that information? You just know he’s gonna hear about it later. Thanks to power from the dam, everything in Jackson actually works.

Even their essentially communist system of government works! They have a democratically-elected council, all of their resources are shared, and everyone pitches in. They get to the stables and meet an adorable horse named Shimmer that I definitely won’t fall in love with. Nope. While Maria takes Ellie to one of the empty houses across the street, the brothers head to the bar (?!) to catch up.

Joel can barely believe that he’s posted up at a real bar with real ice and real whiskey. Tommy asks about Tess, and Joel says that she’s fine, but he can’t look his brother in the eye as he lies to him. He uses Tess’ assumption about Ellie being some Firefly big wig’s to explain why he’s traveling with a random teenager, and when Tommy explains where the Fireflies were last stationed, Joel automatically assumes that his brother is going to join them on their journey. When Tommy declines, Joel immediately blames Maria, but Tommy isn’t having it; the crew in Jackson saved him when he left the Fireflies and if he has to follow their rules in order to make a life for himself, then so be it.

Joel takes this rejection hella personally and reminds Tommy that all of those awful things they did? He did them so they could survive. But what Tommy’s learned is that while that’s true, there were ways other than killing; they just weren’t good at any of them. And besides, Tommy’s about to be a father so he’s got to be more careful. It’s sweet, the way Tommy talks about being a good dad despite being scared to death. And in that moment, Joel is reminded of Sarah and the fact that he didn’t get to continue being a good dad to her. It stifles his excitement for his brother, and Tommy’s hurt causes him to tell Joel that everything doesn’t have to stop just because it did for him. It’s a low blow, and Joel leaves after saying he and Ellie will be gone in the morning. He doesn’t get very far before he appears to have another anxiety attack.

Valerie: I’m sure seeing someone with hair like Sarah’s in the crowd did nothing to help the death grip around his heart.

Next Page: SURPRISE! RUTINA WESLEY! 

“The Last of Us” Episode 105 Recap: It Ends The Way It Ends

Hello and welcome to this recap of The Last of Us, season one, episode five, Endure and Survive. Neither of which I feel like I succeeded on because I nearly cried myself to death by the end of it. This recap is, as always, a tag team between me, Valerie Anne, and Nic, just two queer nerds who love the snarky lesbian teen protagonist of this show, and also apparently are emotional masochists. There’s no other way forward but through, so let’s do this.

Nic: Previously on the The Last of Us, Ellie and Joel ran into a group of hunters (led by Melanie Lynskey) on their way out west, Ellie shot a guy real bad, Joel attempted to feel some feelings, Ellie made Joel laugh, and they were both woken up at gunpoint by two strangers.

THE REVOLUTION

“In this timeline, I’M the Antler Queen, and you will obey me!”

Valerie: We open during a celebration, fireworks exploding, chants of “Fuck you FEDRA” filling the air. The people we have come to call the hunters have revolted. They’re beating on, shooting, and hanging FEDRA agents in the streets, taking over the QZ. The city belongs to the people now.

A man and a child hide. Henry and Sam, respectively. Henry speaks to Sam in sign language, telling him not to look at the carnage, explaining where they’re about to go next to hide. And I’m reminded yet again that ASL should be taught in all American schools, for obvious reasons like being able to communicate with the deaf and hard of hearing (and other people who might have trouble communicating verbally), but, less importantly, in case of a zombie apocalypse. Being able to communicate silently without the help of technology is a clutch skill Henry and Sam have.

Nic: I was ready to love Henry and Sam, but I sure was not ready to protect and die for them the moment we met them.

Valerie: In the overrun FEDRA base, Kathleen sits in a chair, looking down at a huddled group of collaborators. People who snitched on their peers to FEDRA agents for food or medicine or other such amenities. Kathleen puts on her sweetest voice she can muster and tells them that they’ll just have to do time for their crimes, but no one speaks up. It’s not until she orders Perry to kill them all that a man confesses to knowing where Henry is. He says Henry is with Edelstein, and Kathleen seems genuinely surprised to learn that Edelstein is a collaborator. Almost impressed, saying he was much more subtle than the rest of them.

Kathleen then hilariously insults this man for doing exactly what she asked him to do. Just, chef’s kiss, perfection. This whole scene, expertly written, expertly executed.

Nic: MELANIE FUCKING LYNSKEY killed this scene. The faux sweetness dripping off of every line, catching you off-guard until you realize the implications of what she’s actually saying?? A masterclass.

Valerie: When she leaves the room, Perry says a manhunt for Henry will take a lot of manpower, and with the revolution turning tides less than 24 hours ago, there’s other things to do. But Kathleen looks Perry in the eye and says Henry is her priority, and so it should be his as well.

As she starts to head out, Perry asks if they’re really going to put all the hostages on trial, and she says no, and suggests he burns their bodies when he’s done.

Meanwhile, Henry and Sam are indeed with Edelstein, the doctor from the last episode, who is hiding them in a sort of crawlspace in the apartment building. They don’t have enough ammo and they only have enough food for the three of them for 11 days, and then they can sneak out of the tunnels.

Edelstein asks if Sam is scared, and says if he is, he can see Henry is scared, too. So Henry goes to Sam and tells him he’s not scared, hoping his little Super Sam can find bravery in that. He gives him crayons and they start decorating their new temporary home.

Ten days later, the walls are full of superheroes and their stash is empty of food. There are still rebels everywhere, and Edelstein hasn’t returned for a whole day. Sam, being 8 and hungry, sasses his brother about being hungry in a way only a little brother could. Henry, frustrated and too young to be in this position, snaps back at him, saying they have to wait. And as an older sister who, from when I was about 8 to 18, used to have nightmares about how to keep my brother safe in an emergency and/or apocalypse, I felt this so hard. Almost immediately after snapping at Sam, Henry softens, and explains the situation to him, that Edelstein isn’t going to come back and that they need to go, but that he thinks he knows a safe way out because he’s been watching the hunters and their patterns.

Sam asks if they killed Edelstein, and when Henry confirms, Sam gives his big brother a hug. In return, Henry paints a superhero mask on his face.

Nic: Something that stood out to me about the way Henry talks to Sam is that he doesn’t shield him from the realities of the world they’re living in. He doesn’t make up a story about Edelstein getting lost or leaving them just to make Sam feel better; but it’s not in a callous or careless way. Sam understands the danger, but he can also see that his brother is doing his best to keep him safe from it.

Valerie: Yeah it was kind of refreshing of him to be honest! And one other thing I did want to note is that I feel like they do a good job of keeping both Henry and Sam’s hands in frame while they are signing. A lot of shows will cut away to favor the reaction of the non-signing person or unfathomably just zoom in too tightly onto the person’s face, which always feels rude to me. But I felt like it happened rarely if at all in this episode, which I appreciated.

WORLDS COLLIDE

A rare sight at the end of the world: smiles.

Nic: Henry and Sam don’t make it very far from their hideout when Henry hears the sounds of gunfire and conflict, and we’re taken back to last week, but we get to see what Joel and Ellie’s confrontation with the Hunters looks like from another perspective. Henry and Joel appear to make eye contact before Henry ducks back out of sight to reassure his brother that they’re okay.

We’re just about caught up to the final scene of last episode as the brothers make their way through the “crunch crunch crunch” trap and into the room where Joel and Ellie are sleeping. It becomes clear very quickly though, that Henry is not as comfortable being the aggressor as the gun in his hand might make it seem. Ellie tries to diffuse the situation by hilariously insisting that Joel is gucci, it’s just that he has an asshole voice, and Joel does absolutely nothing to dispel that notion.

Valerie: This whole exchange was hilarious. Both Henry calling out that Joel had a weird tone and Ellie trying to defend him while also mocking him.

Nic: Eventually Henry tells Sam that he trusts these strangers, so the kids and Not!Dads settle in for an evening of snacks and introductions.

I love the shades of duality we get to see between Joel and Ellie and Henry and Sam. Both duos include a child and a caretaker, both have their own unique ways of communicating and coping in an impossible situation, and both are just doing their absolute best to protect each other. Once Sam sees that Henry lets his guard down, he does the same, and Ellie asks questions to get to know them. Surprising no one though, Joel is a bit slower to trust and is ready to send them on their way until Henry correctly guesses that they’re waiting until it’s light out to scope a way out of the city. And lucky for them, Henry knows one.

The next morning, they get an honestly gorgeous view of Killer City, and we learn that KC FEDRA was some of the worst out there. After 20 years of being taken advantage of in every way imaginable, the city rose up against them. And while Henry wasn’t FEDRA, he was a collaborator, which in Joel’s mind is ten times worse. But for today, this snitch’s stitches will have to wait because he holds the key to their escape. Despite being the most wanted man in KC, Henry reiterates that he’s not violent and needs Joel’s help to clear the way out of the city. Their strategy session is soon interrupted by the almost unrecognizable sounds of laughter; Ellie and Sam are doing their own bonding over their shared love of a comic.

Henry lays out their plan with a roughly drawn map that really made me miss Valerie’s D&D sketches when we were in a campaign together.

Valerie: I miss making those maps. I’m a big fan of cartography, turns out.

Nic: Because they’re boxed in by highways, they figure they can get out of dodge using maintenance tunnels since they’re never guarded because Kathleen thinks the tunnels are still overrun by infected. Henry knows this plan will work though, because his source told him the tunnels were cleared out 3 years ago and they’re totally clean. But just in case there are any stragglers, Henry knows Joel and Ellie can handle it, especially since they fought 2 clickers and lived to tell the tale. It might be a dicey plan, but it’s the only one they’ve got.

THE TUNNELS

This conversation about the comics sort of gave me Station Eleven vibes in a heart ache-y kind of way.

Valerie: The new fabulous foursome heads to the building that has the tunnel entrance, and as they descend I can’t help but remember the breathing floor Kathleen swept under the metaphorical rug last week, rendering me STRESSED AS HELL.

Joel tells Ellie to get her gun out, and Ellie looks so proud but Joel looks annoyed that it was in her pocket. And also unamused that she was so excited, probably.

Nic: That interaction is one of many reasons I cannot multitask while watching this show. The looks on their faces change so quickly and show the kind of shorthand they’ve already developed.

Valerie: Henry is probably equal parts excited and relieved when the tunnels seem empty, but Joel tells him not to count his chickens before they hatch. Henry says “Your dad is kind of a pessimist,” and Ellie and Joel are QUICK to inform him that Joel is NOT Ellie’s father.

Nic: Sorry to interrupt again, but I read that as “clickers” before they hatch and LOLOL not incorrect!

Valerie: First of all, stop apologizing. You “interrupting” is the whole point of the JOINT recap!! Second of all, that’s way funnier, I should have said, “don’t count his clickers before they hatch.” Thanks for punching me up!

They find a door with children’s drawings around it, and Sam excitedly goes to open it, but Joel dad-arms him back and opens it carefully. They don’t find any infected inside, just an abandoned classroom. A leftover relic from the early days of the outbreak, when some communities moved underground. Ellie wants to rest here for a little while, and Henry convinces Joel by explaining that it would be better to leave as the sun goes down anyway.

Sam finds the comics Ellie has been collecting and they bond, it’s so cute. Sam teaches Ellie how to say the comic’s tagline in sign language. Endure and survive.

Ellie and Sam play soccer in the makeshift goal while Joel and Henry watch over them. At one point while Ellie is playing, Joel looks down at his watch. His watch that hasn’t worked in 20 years, his watch that he knows full well doesn’t tell time. His watch that reminds him of his daughter.

Nic: Rude.

Valerie: Henry and Joel are sitting in silence, but Joel is uncharacteristically the one to break the silence. He says that if Sam is why Henry was a collaborator, he takes back what he said before, that he gets it. Henry explains that Sam had leukemia and he had to give up something big to get the medicine he needed, so he gave up the leader of the resistance, a good man…and Kathleen’s brother.

Henry asks Joel if he’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s sure he knows it. He did a “bad guy thing” so he must be a bad guy. It’s this that reminds me that Henry is barely older than a kid himself.

Henry can tell Joel was a father, even if he isn’t Ellie’s, but Joel isn’t quite ready to talk about that yet, so he says it’s time to go.

NEXT PAGE: Heartbreak, obviously! 

“The Last of Us” Episode 102 & 103 Recap: Alone Together

Hello and welcome to this DUAL DOUBLE RECAP of The Last of Us. It’s DUAL because it’s written by the tag-team that brought you the review of the first episode, aka me (Valerie Anne) and Nic. And it’s DOUBLE because we missed last week so we’re covering episode 102: “Infected” and 103: “Long, Long Time.” In the future we’ll be hitting things one episode at a time but this one is a long one so BUCKLE UP and let’s dive into it. (And just as a warning, we do our best not to spoil things from the game, but there might be some light spoilers here and there because we have both played it and we can’t unknow what we know, unfortunately.)

Nic: Previously on The Last of Us, we met a man named Joel, his daughter Sarah, and his brother Tommy whose lives were turned upside down when a global pandemic that scientists warned about decades prior broke out and caused much of the population to become infected and begin biting each other, turning them into the walking dead (heh). Twenty years after Outbreak Day, and the death of his daughter, Joel and his partner Tess end up smuggling cargo in the form of a 14-year-old (seemingly immune) girl named Ellie, who needs to get to a camp run by a rebel group called the Fireflies.

Episode 102: “Infected”

THE BEFORETIMES

I don’t think I would have felt the impact of this part quite as deeply if I had seen this pre-pandemic.

Valerie: This week we open in Jakarta, September 24, 2003. Now, normally I would just put the year, but this date is actually important in a way I might not have realized if we weren’t covering two episodes at once.

Anyway, since they do know about a problem, but don’t know what that problem is, the government scoops up a scientist and asks her to inspect a body. The body has a bite mark in her leg that has cotton-looking fungus beneath it when the scientist cuts into it. And when the scientist looks in the body’s mouth, tendrils creep out and reach toward her, still alive despite its host having a gunshot wound to the head. The cordyceps being alive in the human body is wildly concerning to the scientist. The agent tells her it started in a flour and grain factory, though they’re not entirely sure who the very first infected was. They executed the workers they could find but they’re afraid it’s spreading. They’re hoping the scientist can help but she tells him gravely that there is no treatment, no cure, no vaccine. There’s nothing they can do. She suggests bombing the city to help quell the infection, and asks to be taken to her family, so they can be together. For the end.

Nic: I swear, these cold opens are scarier than anything I’ve seen in the game or on the show so far.

THE WALK/THE HOTEL

“What part of the *everything about me* made you think I had a boyfriend, Tess?”

Nic: Back in 2023, Ellie slowly wakes up like any other 14 year old, with guns pointed in her face. Tess and Joel have been watching her all night just in case she starts to turn, but Ellie is just as lucid and snarky as ever; especially when she gloats about having a rare sandwich while Joel and Tess snack on their meager rations. Ellie explains that the Fireflies wanted to transport her because her immunity could be the key to finding a vaccine, but Joel’s seen this film before, and he didn’t like the ending; he thinks it’s a load of shite, is what I’m saying.

Valerie: This whole interaction was gold. Including “Will there be anything bad in there?” “Just you.” And “Fine I’ll just throw a sandwich at them.” Also the way Ellie mumbled to herself that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about her immunity but then she told the first people who asked. *chef’s kiss*

Nic: They head out to continue their journey, and Ellie is shocked by Boston’s eerie beauty, despite (or perhaps because of) massive craters left by the very type of bombing our scientist friend suggested during the cold open. Since they’ve got nothing but time on their trek to the capitol, Tess asks Ellie about how she got bit. There’s a mall in the QZ that is super duper off-limits, but one day, Ellie decided to check it out. She didn’t expect any infected to be there, but there was, and she got bit, and that was definitely that! And although Ellie’s mouth says that she was by herself, her eyeballs tell a very different (and heart wrenching) story.

There are so many moments where Bella really becomes Ellie, but their delivery of “um, no” when Tess asks if any boyfriends would be looking for her, is near the top of that list. “Nope! No boyfriends, Tess. Big ‘ole gaymo here!” Before Ellie can elaborate, they’re interrupted by sounds of infected in the distance.

Valerie: I love this walk-and-talk. And I love that Ellie is doing that thing where you’re nervous about something but don’t want to admit you’re nervous about something so instead you ask 900 questions about that thing. So cute.

Nic: The trio’s journey leads them through an abandoned hotel, where we learn that 1) Ellie doesn’t know how to swim and 2) that Piano Frog™ deserves a Grammy nomination for their work in this scene specifically. I love Ellie’s reaction to the hotel because it’s so delightfully childlike in its innocence. Of course she loves how gross it is and of course she would act out how she believes a hotel guest would treat an employee! But no sooner than she demands a suite, the appearance of a skeleton snaps her back to the reality of their situation.

They make their way upstairs (shout out to Tess for the creaky knee representation) and while Tess searches for a way through, Ellie attempts some small talk with Joel. He refuses to answer personal questions, but then Ellie gets serious and asks if it’s hard to kill infected knowing that they used to be people; sometimes it is.

Once they’re outside, we learn a bit more about how the cordyceps virus works. The tendrils form a sort of underground network that connects infected together; which means that you can step on a live tendril in one place, and a hoard of infected from a mile away could be on you in minutes.

THE MUSEUM/THE ROOF

This show is great for a lot of reasons but also it’s just so…PRETTY??

Valerie: When the trio gets to the museum, the door is covered in fungi, which does not look promising to Ellie. But Joel inspects it and they seem dry so they hope that it means everything is hunky dory.

Tess and Joel gear up and pull out flashlights and guns and Ellie pulls out her flashlight and points out that she is one piece of gear down, continuing what is now my favorite running joke of Ellie asking for a gun and being instantly denied. As they tiptoe through the museum, we get an up close and personal look about what this fungus can really look like when left to grow wild, covering the walls and floors, incorporating many bodies as hosts as it grows and spreads.

When they get upstairs, they encounter what we call Clickers, aka the split-head echolocators Ellie mentioned before. Ellie starts to get scared and Joel mouths to her that the Clickers can’t see, but they can hear. Fighting breaks out and it’s truly so stressful. It’s dark and those things make awful noises and the way they walk and move is so unsettling.

Nic: Gosh, Ellie was right about the blind infected with bat-like qualities…I sure hope she isn’t right about the overgrown infected that explode spores all over the place! But in all seriousness, everything about this scene was perfectly tense and game-like, right down to Joel’s panic over needing to reload his gun with a Clicker looming.

Valerie: What’s fun is I genuinely don’t even know if she’s right! It could be a nod to the game or a hint at what’s to come! There are just enough differences from the game to make me excited to know what’s coming and also terrified that I do not know.

Eventually Joel and Tess best the Clickers and Ellie realizes she got bitten on the same spot as last time, even though Joel’s eyes become saucers, she shrugs it off and says if one of them had to get bit, it’s probably best it was the immune one.

They head up to the roof and as Joel wraps Tess’s ankle, Ellie strolls across the board between the buildings like it’s a footbridge across a stream. Joel seems surprised she isn’t scared, but Ellie points out that Clickers are scary. Heights are just high. As soon as Ellie is out of earshot, Joel starts to express concern that maybe Ellie got lucky with the first bite, but maybe now that she’s bitten again…and Tess snaps at him to stop looking this gift girl in the mouth and just accept that maybe just this one they caught a break. Maybe this time they can actually have a little hope.

As Joel joins Ellie on the other roof he asks if the city is anything like she expected. She’s not sure what she expected really but in a line pulled right from the game she admits she, “Can’t deny that view.”

THE CAPITOL

🎶”This is why…I don’t leave the house.”🎶

Nic: They finally approach the capitol, but something seems off because it’s more abandoned than they expected. Ellie finds a blood trail though, so they follow it inside and are greeted by what can only be described as a massacre. Joel surmises that one of them got bit, the sick and the well attacked each other, and they all lost.

While we can all agree that the situation is quite balls, Tess is running around more frantically than her companions, searching high and low for some kind of answer; something that will point them in the right direction. She eventually relents and notes that the very luck that Joel mentioned earlier was bound to run out; and that’s when Ellie realizes that Tess is infected. Joel asks to see the bite, but when Tess steps toward him, he instinctively steps back. It’s such a small movement, but so much is unsaid between the two of them in that moment.

Valerie: THAT HURT MY FEELINGS. Eh hem. Okay, carry on.

Nic: Tess pleads with Joel to take Ellie’s immunity seriously because in comparing their bites, Tess’s hour-old bite looks exponentially worse than Ellie’s three-week-old one. The one thing she asks of Joel is to take Ellie to Bill and Frank’s because they’ll know what to do with her. He just needs to keep Ellie alive.

Valerie: How dare they add another layer to Tess in the eleventh hour with that line about how she never asked Joel to feel the same way about her as she did about him. Such a simple line but so telling. And of course add a dash of Anna Torv and it’s just a knife twist.

Nic: Their emotional final moments together are interrupted by one of the infected waking, a harsh reminder of the importance of their mission. After Joel shoots him, the tendrils around the man begin to move, and that group of infected they tried to avoid starts to sprint their way (they’re unnervingly fast?!). They don’t have much time, so Tess starts to set up her trap; a blast intended to save her people while sacrificing herself. Joel and Tess share one last look before Joel grabs Ellie and gets the hell out of dodge.

The infected storm the building and one zeroes in on Tess, passing the living tendrils between them in one of the grossest sights I’ve ever seen in my life. The episode closes with the capitol building exploding as Joel and Ellie look on.

Next page: Episode 103, GAY LOVE AT THE END OF THE WORLD. 

The Last of Us’ Lesbian Lead Is a Light in the Darkness

Hello and welcome to this review of HBO Max’s The Last of Us, a tale of a world ravaged by a pandemic that turns people into monsters, centered around a teen lesbian named Ellie, played by gender fluid actor Bella Ramsey. This review is presented to you by two gay nerd friends who love gay nerd games and the gay nerd content that spawns from it. Nic and I (Valerie Anne) had a very intertwined experience with The Last of Us franchise, so it feels right that this review is coming from both of us at once. This review will contain spoilers for the first episode of TLOU the show, but we’ll do our best to quarantine the video game spoilers to one specific section (and keep those spoilers relatively light), so those of you who haven’t played can still be surprised.

The Outbreak

Let’s get right into it: how did you like the episode???

Nic: How did I like the episode? HOW DID I LIKE THE EPISODE?! Valerie, my friend, I don’t know the last time a pilot got me THIS excited. And you’ve watched me watch A LOT of television.

I got to see it early at a screening in NYC, and did I cry at the opening credits? MAYBE. Did I cry at the first notes of Gustavo’s beautiful score?? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT.

Sorry sorry, let me rein it in. In all seriousness, my hopes were high and somehow the episode managed to surpass them. The moments they chose to lift directly from the game integrated seamlessly with changes they made to better fit this medium. There were times while watching when I wanted to reach for my controller in anticipation of making the next gameplay decision. I joked with you while we watched that maybe the show represented the “optimal” path of game completion, but it truly just felt like I was doing another playthrough in the best way. Pedro Pascal’s portrayal of Joel is so spot on that there were times when I was convinced that Troy was dubbing.

And Bella?!?! They are the PERFECT Ellie. Everything from their body language to their inflection to the way they subtly shift from asshole teen to vulnerable kid, was better than I could have imagined.

Look at this little lesbian! LOOK AT HER!

Valerie: Yeah, it’s definitely a surreal experience to know exactly what’s going to happen and also have no idea what’s going to happen. It was also surprisingly nice to sit back and enjoy the story in a different way than when I played the game. I haven’t watched anyone else’s full playthrough yet, just snippets here and there, so I’ve never gotten to experience the full story without actually having to participate in it. Also from a nerdy writer perspective, thinking about aspects of the story that they either have or that I’m anticipating them having to tweak a little with the change of format. When you and I were watching together, and there was that scene of Joel getting Sarah out of the car, you pointed out that it’s almost shot for shot from the game (the whole ride there was, honestly) except he didn’t kick the window out, which in the game is the first time you get to control Joel. (For those who don’t know, you control Sarah up to that point, for extra devastation, I guess.) In the game, it’s to learn how to kick; but Joel knows how to use his own legs, so that extra step was unnecessary. From little things like that to bigger things like how we learn about the fungus and the pandemic, the little storytelling changes are really fascinating to me.

And obviously we’re both biased, but I feel like even without the context of the game, it was still a really excellent episode of television. Maybe especially amidst a pandemic, the cold open talking about the possibilities of humanity losing to a virus, seeing the day it all went to hell, then jumping into the future. Seeing Joel go from a hard-working single dad who loves his daughter and makes corny jokes to a hardened shell of a man with nothing to lose was just heartbreaking to watch. Ellie is a teenager who knows nothing BUT the horrors of this new world so she finds it harder to take anything too seriously moment to moment. Ellie’s sarcasm and wit make her immediately charming, and exactly what you said – the way her face shifts now and then, lets down the facade, you know she knows how dire things are and can be. She’s seen some things. Bella is a star and I can’t wait for them to continue to charm and devastate me.

Also can we talk about how Anna Torv and Merle Dandridge are here being apocalypse mommis?! I hope we get more Tess and Marlene because I am a big, gay fan of theirs.

Nic: TANK TOPS!!

Valerie: EXACTLY.

If this woman came up to you during the apocalypse and was like “wanna join my group?” how on Earth could you say no?

Valerie: Okay hard question: if you had to pick one thing/line/moment/scene as your favorite of the episode, what would it be?

Nic: Ellie: “You my fucking mom or something?” Marlene: “…do I look like your mom?” I screamed. Bella Ramsey, I bow to you.

A solid mix of comedy and tragedy makes for a great dystopia.

Nic: What about you??

Valerie: That was an amazing moment. The delivery on both parts was top notch. This is definitely hard because every time Ellie made a joke it was my new favorite part BUT to kind of shift gears: as a horror fan, I loved the scene where Sarah is in her neighbor’s living room looking through the DVDs on the shelves and over her shoulder, out of focus, you see Nana start to twitch and her mouth contorts open unnaturally but then when they cut back to her a few seconds later she’s just sitting there, quiet and unmoving, like she usually is.

PS. If you were wondering why this wee child you’ve never seen before looks familiar, it’s because she is, indeed, Thandiwe Newton’s child.

Flashback

Let’s take it back a bit and talk about our history with the game.

Nic: I’m going to try my best not to make this entire review a love letter to our friend Taylor, but as you well know, she introduced me to two things that make up probably 42% of my entire personality – Critical Role and The Last of Us (Thanks Taylor!!). I didn’t play a lot of RPG or long-form story games growing up; it was Madden and Crash Bandicoot all day in our house, so I missed TLOU when it first came out on PS3. Crash was the entire reason I even bought a PS4; RPGs were so far from my radar despite having a deep love of stories in general. I don’t remember the exact details of every conversation about starting the game, but I do know that Taylor must have used my love of Ashley Johnson to trick me into starting a HORROR game, because in June of 2018 I met Joel and Ellie and fell head over heels in love with my Grumpy Dad and Murder Daughter. As soon as I loaded the game, I knew it would be different than any other gaming experience I’d had up to that point. I mean, the cold open is one of the most emotional scenes I’d ever seen in any form of media, let alone a video game! The concept itself was terrifying and intriguing enough, but add in the emotional elements of found family and morally gray characters you can’t decide if you want to root for? I was HOOKED. Plus, I love a good “pew pew” game. Taylor was heavily involved in you starting the game too, yeah?

Valerie: Yes! She actually did the same thing to me with TLOU as she did with Critical Role, which was just slowly giving me fun facts about it, or clips of Ashley Johnson talking about it, or gifs of people playing it, until I suddenly couldn’t resist checking it out myself. Though I think I might have been an easier sell than you, because I love the horror genre and I love story video games. I had taken an accidental break from console gaming in college (though I was still playing some mobile and PC puzzle games) and the game that got me back into it again was the first Life is Strange. That game is also what inspired me to start streaming, because I was yelling at/about Max and Chloe alone in my room and decided I wanted to share that experience with strangers in future games. So I started streaming with Horizon Zero Dawn but as soon as I was finished, I queued up The Last of Us, which was very fun for me both because I loved the story and because my friends who had played were so excited for me to meet Ellie because they knew damn well how much I’d love that girl. So much attitude packed into such a tiny person. The game does such a good job of stressing you out and making you feel like the stakes are high while you’re playing, and even though I didn’t play it until 8 years after it came out, the graphics were stunning.

Before the Outbreak

Given our experiences with the game, what were our expectations going into the show, our reactions to trailers and casting news, etc.

The cinematography of this show is outstanding.

Nic: Okay look, we both know I can be a little dramatic, but when the news of a television adaptation dropped, I lost my ENTIRE mind. We were in the throes of announcements and then delays for the second game, and I needed that sweet sweet TLOU news. Once the excitement died down though, I started to get a little nervous about how faithful the adaptation would be. At that point, I had played through the game twice, and was emotionally attached to those characters in a way that I couldn’t have anticipated. It had become more than just a game to me; it joined the ranks of the best stories that question the very nature of humanity.

Valerie: Yes! That’s the part that fascinates me the most. How they found a new form of currency, how new groups form, how people’s morality changes. My brother texted me while he was watching “who was having babies during an apocalypse,” and it’s a great question. And this story does such a great job of exploring that.

Nic: It’s a FANTASTIC question! I had the same thought because like, do we let humanity die out and cease to exist? But then also how do we subject new generations to such danger and horror? But back to my expectations, not only is the world of The Last of Us massive from a geographical sense, but there were also huge acting shoes to fill left by Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker (Ellie and Joel in the game, respectively). Honestly though, finding out that Neil [Druckmann] would be heavily involved put me incredibly at ease.

Between the two of us, I’m definitely the trailer/casting news goblin, so I was EATING UP every piece of news that dropped. Every casting announcement got me more excited than the last, so to say my expectations were high is probably the understatement of the century. The one that really got me, though, was hearing that Storm Reid was cast as Riley, because that meant the emotional devastation of the Left Behind DLC would play out in front of our eyeballs, and I’m still not sure if my heart is ready to watch everything I know is coming, unfold between our tiny gay murder babies.

Valerie: Yeah, my first reaction was “oh no” because I don’t tend to trust adaptations. But the second there was a leaked photo from set of Ellie and Joel walking through the rubble that looked like it could have been a realism artist recreating a scene from the game, I knew it was going to be okay. I was also excited that we were going to get the Riley backstory folded into the first season.

Looking to the Future

A slightly spoilery look at what we hope the TV show will do either the same or differently from the game, for others that have played it. If you haven’t played the game, consider skipping this section!

This is your last warning to get out before you get spoiled! Proceed with caution!

Valerie: I won’t lie, within the first ten minutes of the episode, I felt my shoulder muscles loosen. Any fears or worries I had vanished; I trust this show now more than I did before I started it. I trust that they will stay true to the heart of the story, and I can tell that any changes they make will be purposeful and well thought-out. Plus, it seems clear we’re going to get more canon queerness even faster than in the game. If my memory serves me correctly, Ellie’s queerness was revealed eventually and subtly, but it took a while to get there and it was left a bit to interpretation. It wasn’t really until the DLC that we knew for sure that Riley wasn’t just an intense teenage friendship but canonically something more. But it’s clear this show is going to give that to us in a more obvious way, and we’ve already had our first mention of Riley in the very first episode.

My biggest fear right now is the…let’s call him the “man from the restaurant scene” in the game in case any non-players cheated and are reading this. Those scenes were the right amount of terrifying in the game and I could easily see a TV adaptation (especially if it were in the hands of some other shows on HBO…) taking it too far, but for now I’m just going to trust that they know where that line is and they won’t cross it. I also hope they do a better job of explaining some stuff toward the end that I felt the game kind of glossed over, but I have a feeling this won’t be the last time we’ll be talking about this show on Autostraddle dot com, so I’ll let that one sit for a later date.

When we watched the episode together, I asked you if you thought they would do one season = one game, because I think that would make the most sense. Even though it seems like they’ll be adding more flashbacks, it will just fill the time in gameplay that you, the player, are looting around or taking 87 tries to get through a dark abandoned train station full of clickers. (Or maybe that’s just me.) I’m doing my best to enjoy this as an entity separate from the game, but I also wouldn’t want them to change too much to the “present-day” stuff from the game. I’d love more fleshed out backstories from as many characters as they want, but there are some really great moments that I’m hoping they keep.

Nic: Oh, I completely agree about the “man from the restaurant scene!” *shudder* One thing I didn’t expect (though maybe I should have) is the extra time we got to see Joel as a dad and by extension, we form a deeper attachment to Sarah now that we’ve spent more time with her. That made for additional levels of devastation in the pilot, but it also got me wondering who else we might get more of in the show vs. the game. Personally I’m really hoping we get some more quality time with Riley and Tess. Because I’m a masochist.

Are we allowed to make specific references here? I’m almost afraid to put this into the ether, but my pie-in-the-sky-but-it’s-okay-if-it-doesn’t-happen dream would be to see a certain long-necked animal make an appearance. There are also several cameos that I’m very excited for, but I won’t name them here in case folks are avoiding casting announcements!

Valerie: I think that is the perfect amount of reference because if you know, you know. And I agree, I would love for that scene to happen. And I usually do avoid casting announcements but yes I did hear of some familiar voices popping up, so that will be fun!

Nic: Like you, I think that pilot did a wonderful job establishing trust with players of the game while also getting a brand new audience to care about these characters and their stories. Despite having played this game multiple times, I’m already on the edge of my seat waiting to see what our apocalypse pals get up to in episode 2. Look for the light, my friend.