Great scene but I wasn't sure, was this a flashback? Because when we saw her son in the basement it looked like he had been down there for awhile.

And not to belabor the discussion but I thought cranking up the generator was dumb too but at least it helped explain how Jesse and Tommy found the theater/the map.

Also, I appreciated how Dina actually pointed out how reckless they are being to at least acknowledge the poor choices/behavior.

5:50 to end is comparison of the Nora scene

Ghost of Bisbee said:

---

For all those jumping ship, recommend giving it another episode or two at least.

What follows this series of events from tonight's episode in the game is an absolute masterpiece in storytelling and gameplay. I hope the show can replicate that. It is that good.

---

I know I'm behind here and I'll watch some more, but a few things in EP2 that bugged me to no end....

The knife scene didn't bug me so much (got to keep quite) as HTF did she run down the hall to kill the clicker and the floor held up just fine, then she walks away and crash, thru the floor. Even if it was down the hall further, then the other chick would have fallen thru the floor when she ran around from her side. Or the clicker would have.

Joel finds Abby b/c she's running from the infected (that fence scene was over the top crazy/scary and well done) and he's sitting in an old plant/warehouse with his horse b/c of the storm, which is going to kill everyone out in the cold. They run from the infected to seek shelter in the house, almost dying in the cold weather. After Joels' death, everyone just gets up a leaves the house out into the cold/wind/storm that almost killed them. And then why would they leave Ellie and the other chick alive? I mean, we have morals but only a few morals and we'll apply them as we see fit knowing full well the folks in town are likely coming after us, on horses and we will just walk? There were 3 horses at the mnt. Lodge and only two at the end. Ok, not enough horses for all the fireflies but TAKE THEM WITH YOU or let them go and deny the folks left alive quick transport back to town.

Also, when Abby confronted Joel about her fathers' murder, I was waiting for Joel to remind her he was about to experiment on and kill a 13yr old girl without consent. Not that it would have stopped her, but the other fireflies, from what I can understand, were not present in Salk Lake when Joel went postal on them. Maybe get some allies before Abby murders you.

Finally, they are working on that clay drain line that is full of roots, and that one guy see's the fungus but just stands there and doesn't say anything? IIRC, that happened long before the attack started.

TCTTS said:

---

Again, my primary issue is with the massive coincidence of Abby randomly running into Joel in the first place. They make a whole deal about the lengths they've taken to hunt him down, and then about how fortified the town is, only for the one guy Abby has spent five years searching for to be found miraculously outside the walls, within eye sight of Abby, at the exact same moment she just so happens to be on watch.

---

Coincidences happen all the time in life. It's not that big of a stretch at all.

If my oldest twin did not attend Ark and join a fraternity, his twin brother, who attended a different college, dropped out and joined the marines, then back at school, would not gotten met his fianc. 200 things could have happened to prevent them meeting but they did.

The sweet spot is just watching gameplay videos so you can see how they make changes to fit the TV style of storytelling, but you are not attached to the Ashley Johnson version of Ellie. Also not spending 30 to 40 hours sneaking around to throat slash infected horde and WLF soldiers

I have mainly watched gameplay up until end of Seattle Day 1 (and the Ellie/Joel flashbacks). TV Dina and Tommy are upgrades compared to the game versions. Probably will not watch the rest of the gameplay for this season so I can be a little surprised in the season finale

FL_Ag1998 said:

---

TCTTS said:

---

It was broad daylight outside. The lights made no difference. And if the generator was in a basement or tucked away there was hardly any risk of it being heard by warring factions way off in the distance. Ellie and Dina had clearly checked the place/area out beforehand.

I can feel this starting to turn into military guys/experts nitpicking about realism and accuracy, and to me that's just the absolute worst, most boring way to watch/discuss a show like this.

---

I'll drop this line of argument as well after this post, but come on. This is HBO's premiere show right now. A dark supposedly realistic take on a zombie world (as ridiculous as that sounds when said out loud). So yeah, sometimes the viewers are going to get nitpicky when the writers decide to get willy-nilly with details of the world they've built whenever it's convenient to them. And as Apache mentioned, compared to truely standout shows like Andor, the failings of this show stand out even more so.

Yes, you're making arguments to support your viewpoint regarding the characters actions (just like I'm doing). But, I feel like your arguments are simply ways of trying to justify why the characters would act against their training/nature in this world that's been created. IMO, when the viewer has to do that to enjoy a show it's the result of subpar writing. So, in that regard I feel like you're cutting this show a lot of breaks.

---

It's less about making arguments trying to justify why the characters are acting the way they do and more about trying to make the point that servicing character and theme is more important than achieving perfectly logical plot mechanics. People often get fixated on the former without realizing that if the writers stuck strictly to hyper-accurate logic, the story would be robbed of certain drama, character beats, and entertainment value.

Yes, in a perfect world, a show should ideally be able to do both without compromise. But sometimes that compromise can't be avoided, even on a prestige show like this.

To me, in this particular instance, the generator thing was more about showing that Ellie indeed also had a usefulness, re: the conversation she and Dina were having at that very moment. Dina is the smart, well-studied strategizer (and the "light," as you said), while Ellie is more the "muscle"/handyman/fixer. Otherwise, if Dina has all the positive traits, and Ellie is just "stupid," as they joked, their relationship starts to feel weird an imbalanced, and basically like they're George and Lenny in Of Mice and Men. IMO, the scene was simply trying to show, as succinctly as possible, that they make a good team, short of outright saying it. So, because it was first and foremost servicing character, I can forgive it for not adhering to exactly what two trained, hardened soldiers in their position would do.

fig96 said:

---

TCTTS said:

---

I expect everyone who insisted/told me over and over again, for two straight weeks, that no remaining WLFs would know about the "immune girl" in the hospital, to start lining up for the crow I am now serving.

Because Abby's whole crew clearly knew the whole damn story.

I ****ing told y'all.

---

Don't want to derail but I think it's also fair to note that Nora didn't think that she was a real thing, much less that that person was Ellie.

It's entirely plausible that they could think an immune person existing was a myth but also know that Abby's dad would be one of the few who could do something with that knowledge.

---

I hear you, and I agree, but it just started to get ridiculous how much people were insisting it was impossible that anyone else outside of the doctor and the head of the Fireflies would have knowledge of what was going down/what went down, which is what the conversation evolved (or devolved) to.

TCTTS said:

---

fig96 said:

---

TCTTS said:

---

I expect everyone who insisted/told me over and over again, for two straight weeks, that no remaining WLFs would know about the "immune girl" in the hospital, to start lining up for the crow I am now serving.

Because Abby's whole crew clearly knew the whole damn story.

I ****ing told y'all.

---

Don't want to derail but I think it's also fair to note that Nora didn't think that she was a real thing, much less that that person was Ellie.

It's entirely plausible that they could think an immune person existing was a myth but also know that Abby's dad would be one of the few who could do something with that knowledge.

---

I hear you, and I agree, but it just started to get ridiculous how much people were insisting it was impossible that anyone else outside of the doctor and the head of the Fireflies would have knowledge of what was going down/what went down, which is what the conversation evolved (or devolved) to.

---

Now this point I will agree with you on. This is another case where, for the convenience of the plot, Abby's group was extremely naive in leaving Ellie alive.

Fair point.

CheeseSndwch said:

---

I did find it odd that Ellie who has received FEDRA military training and was on track to be an officer didn't know how to monitor coms and triangulate a map.

---

Wasn't she chastised for being a C- student?

SECcess12 said:

---

Head Ninja In Charge said:

---

Ayee, whoever this actress is - she did the damn thing. Easily the best performance of this episode. Needs more scenes.

---

agreed. and those tears at the end of the scene followed by, "sorry about your son" as she was walking out, made for a heck of a scene.

---

It took me a moment to clock the meaning of it and my jaw just dropped.

And her aim went to **** when shooting at Nora unless she was missing on purpose.

fig96 said:

---

TCTTS said:

---

I expect everyone who insisted/told me over and over again, for two straight weeks, that no remaining WLFs would know about the "immune girl" in the hospital, to start lining up for the crow I am now serving.

Because Abby's whole crew clearly knew the whole damn story.

I ****ing told y'all.

---

Don't want to derail but I think it's also fair to note that Nora didn't think that she was a real thing, much less that that person was Ellie.

It's entirely plausible that they could think an immune person existing was a myth but also know that Abby's dad would be one of the few who could do something with that knowledge.

---

Yep, I mean she said "you just killed both of us" or something like that; so she didn't believe it and didn't associate it with Ellie at all. Not to mention she said the doctor was one of the only people that could create a cure. Insinuating that there was little motivation to bring Ellie along, b/c wtf were they going to do with her. Don't get me wrong, I felt it at least warranted some acknowledgement during the scene and thought it was a bit weak they didn't talk about it, but felt while weak, it was 'defensible'. Kind of like when Dina found out Ellie was immune, I thought that would lead to an interesting conversation... but they decided to go a different direction.

Thought the final scene was really cool. It was like a super-hero being unmasked for the first time in their home layer. That floor seemed trippy but also seemed like Ellie could do some damage there and treat it as the hero or villain's den (I doubt it gets used for that, but in the moment it gave me those kind of vibes). Also, liked that it was Ellie coming head to head with what (I'm assuming) she was so mad at Joel about, and in a way fully forgiving but also embracing what Joel did to continue on this vengeance arc.

I'm not an Ellie fan, but I assume she does some leveling up in the game, so not surprised she does a lot of stupid stuff now, but assume she turns into more of a badass as we continue on. One other perk of it being video game based is that the infected are getting stronger and we aren't doing the whole Walking Dead thing where you forget there are even zombies around b/c they are so slow and easy to avoid.

Yeah...I don't care whether it follows the original either. Except, kind of a major element of the story (which they DID adapt, so) is how Ellie is haunted by grief...ruthlessly out for revenge, and a capable and competent survivor. I see very little of that in this Ellie.

I don't mean to disparage the show that much but this second season kind of surprised me... especially the last couple episodes. I'm still going to watch as more of a popcorn flick now and hope they stray more from the original story at this point or Ellie grows as a character soon

Muy said:

---

Not a gamer and don't really care if this follows the video game, but the main character is so gd creepy looking and terrible at acting it's just hard to watch.

---

Maybe its so good it just comes across as terrible.

Neil Druckmann is the director of tonight's episode.

When does the new episode come out? Never mind, comes out at 8.

Immersion totally broken. Apollo 15 CM, Endevour, is in National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio
Not in Wyoming.

Wow. Tying in that porch speech back to his dad's speach is amazing writing.

Ultimately, in a world of zombies and raiders: what is the point of the regular patrols? They seem like a lot of risk without much reward. I think fortified outposts with good sight lines of Jackson and the surrounding area would give way better intel with way less risk.