Presumably the current score means people are review bombing it for this reason. It was good though, the best yet - and I dislike the trope of American TV forcing in a disabled black lesbian hero for no storytelling purpose. That wasn't the case here, it's part of subverting the stereotype of a prepper, and of what it takes to survive the apocalypse.

Yea, it came down to 8.6 with almost 25k votes.

Also, a large number of people probably only vote on an episode if they really like it or really hate it.

Craig Mazin wrote and created Chernobyl, one of the great limited series of the past decade. I really like his way with structure, in both that and The Las Of Us.

I was mostly joking about the gay stuff and zombie titties. I'll re-watch it, but I genuinely didn't think it was all that good the first time. Also, I haven't gotten sucked into video games since I was wee lad.

The Linda Ronstadt song Long Long Time is up 4900% in streams on Spotify. lol

Gripping episode for sure; well written and well acted.

Narratively a throwaway episode that accomplished nothing but paying fan service

I don’t think that’s the case at all. It’s has narrative implications aplenty for the future of the series. And a lot of the TLoU fans I’m friends with actually didn’t like this episode at all. This was not a fan service episode whatsoever. The only things that could be seen as that, and I doubt they are in this case, are the Easter eggs at the end. Same shirts, same truck, the window, the dialogue exchange. The gamers are split, and I get that. But at they’re split over what they know and what they wanted. The non-gamers split is because “ewww gay…..” So **** their opinions lol

I've not played the games, and it didn't seem like fan service to me. Worldbuilding, particularly with some history, is important. It also progresses the story, particularly re: Joel protecting Ellie.

I enjoyed E3 far more than 1 & 2 which I thought were just run of the mill TV. I can see the worldbuilding aspect.

I can imagine a scenario in TWD where Rick and the gang just stumble into a house outfitted like Offerman's house and just pick all the usable stuff while hunkering down there for like 2.5 seasons...lol

Fan service was probably a bad way to put it. You don’t know who bill or Frank are if you’ve never played the game and we just spent 50 minutes on their story only to kill them both off before actually meeting them.

I can see why game bros would be off put. I can also see why people unfamiliar with the game might have their arms raised like wat?

And yeah the people who think ew gay are the lowest common denominator

Bill is a relatively minor character in the game and only serves to advance Joel and Ellie's gameplay (although Ellie talking **** to him constantly is pretty great and the actual gameplay in the town is very good). Frank is a corpse when we meet him. The episode did far better service to the characters than the game.

If they followed the story from the game the episode would have just been a lot of running around and shooting the infected. I'm sure we will get plenty of that in later episodes.

Watched the brief "inside the episode" on HBO, and Neil Druckmann said that his philosophy was to get back to the game's storyline if the additional stuff was not as good, but to be willing to linger away from the game if the additional stuff was better. In this case I think they lucked into landing 2 fantastic actors, and felt that it would be a shame to not devote an entire episode to their story, even if it didn't stick to the game or advance the plot very much.

As someone who never played the games, I really liked the episode. I am a sucker for flashbacks in general (one of my favorite seasons of TV ever was S1 of Lost, when they did a flashback ep for each character). I think there is something inherently dramatic about starting from the present where we know the world has gone to ****, and flashing back to different points along the way.

Plot-wise this was a standalone episode pretty much, but it was the best ep of the season I think. Just a very believable and well-acted love story. I'll admit I was getting choked up at the end, when they showed the open window with the Linda Ronstadt song playing.

My problem with the show so far, is similar to the problem I have with every zombie show or movie... the zombies are just not that scary once you see them. They look to me like precisely what they are... actors wearing makeup. I also have an issue with the 2 main characters. Joel is pretty non-interesting. I feel like the actor is struggling with the part, not sure if it's trying to do an American accent or what it is, but he's pretty lifeless. Ellie is the latest in a long line of sullen teenage protagonists who are supposed to be edgy and cool but end up just being irritating. It's telling that the best episode so far barely featured the 2 main characters.

Good post, I agree with all of this (I don't mind Ellie, though). The zombies are basically a joke with their ballet moves and over-the-top makeup. I ep2 I almost felt like I was watching a comedy during the endless chase scenes.

My GF and I had a discussion about Pedro Pascal, who we both love. His face should not be that good-looking, yet he is incredibly attractive. It’s like sum of his parts somehow end up worth more than those parts lol. It’s weird.

But damn, is he a good-looking man.

Don't sleep on Pedro Pascal, guy is gifted.

Pedro Pascal is hosting SNL this week.

Only know him from GoT prior to this, which he was great in. Not sure if it's the writing or the character or what, but he's not connecting for me yet. Only 3 eps in though so it may get better.

I think a lot of the success of this show will be how much we end up believing in his and Ellie's relationship. Obviously she's supposed to represent a daughter figure and a chance to redeem himself after his failure to save his own daughter in the beginning. Right now I'm not buying into their chemistry but it will hopefully progress.

Ep3 So far, the Ellie character is not scared of anything she sees which doesn't make sense given her cloistered life. So far, Joel is the strong silent hero which is boring until he gets action. The storyline in ep3 surprised me. I thought the Frank character was going to go sneaky evil. The emotional drama was well done and unique. Not sure how they could survive though given Bill's injury and Joel's warnings, but whatever. On to ep 4.

Pedro Pascal was really good in Narcos. He's a great actor, he's just not given anything to work with here so far.

He's been in loads; not to hijack this thread *but* would recommend watching Prospect. Agree the character/writing hasn't give him much to work with thus far.

I'm curious how many of you saw Station Eleven, and which one you prefer.

Too early to say at this point

Agreed I'll need to see the whole season of this to make the call. TLOU has been more consistent so far imo.

lol


yeah, it was fine. would have hit harder if we got more time with these characters. hopefully there's more flashbacks of them to come. offerman crushed it obv


haven't watched lost, but saw lindelof's leftovers, and yeah i was gonna say there's some stuff going on that reminds me of that. i assume there's gonna be lots of flashbacks given how we were dropped into the middle of this story and everything kicked off. lots of gaps to fill in. and like, we're really gonna need some joel flashbacks if he isn't gonna talk about anything.


one thing i think this ep accomplished is moving joel's motivation from saving his brother only to (probably) fighting to save the world. you know, whatever bill was saying in the letter to him there (only saw it once, forget the exact wording), it seemed to affect him. previously it didn't really seem like he cared about ellie as a person or that she might be the key to the survival of humans, but now the latter looks there, at least.

and i assume that ellie will stop being annoying af at some point and their relationship will build to the point where he does like and care about her.