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Solaris 2.0 posted:I'm not sure the infected would really be free meat, considering its probably rotten/covered in fungus? Fertilizer for plants tho! It's actually possible to eat the fungal growth from a Clicker's head (non spoiler link, obviously): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c7LfzZHEY0
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Jan 30, 2023 23:05
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Arist posted:To be honest, someone not liking this episode kind of signals to me that they want something I fundamentally just don't understand out of this, and when I say "this," I mean "the medium of television." I liked the episode as a standalone thing but I felt like it fell flat of being a part of this show, mostly because Bill & Frank are shown as having virtually no antagonists - outside of the scuffle with the raiders they lived in complete peace and their way of life was never threatened. The fact that they got to die on their own terms is much less impactful when they got to live their entire lives on (mostly) their own terms too. The stakes were never high with their survival, so the stakes with their death feel meaningless too - especially when it worked out for Joel & Ellie (getting what they were there for) either way. So it was a good episode but it didn't feel like it took place in the same world as the first two episodes and I can understand people saying it's not what they signed up for. Like the strawberry scene for example - I can understand that they probably haven't had strawberries in a while and I understand that scene's purpose in the plot, but because they were only ever shown as eating very well and not worrying about their next meal, "they got some food they were nostalgic for" doesn't feel like a big "win" for them and opening-up moment for Bill like it should be.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:06
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Yeah, it's so easy to just survive in a hell world. Barely an inconvenience. The strawberries was super important as it cements that Joel is bringing them good stuff. They've been living off carrots and wild rabbits for years.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:09
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Yeah, my point is that they should show more of the hell-world to make the strawberries actually impactful, because prior to that they are shown enjoying every meal they eat and having food of far higher quality than the rest of the world. There was virtually no hell-world shown in the episode, they ate like kings and then got strawberries as a lil' nostalgic treat on top. e: Like Bill makes a big deal about how his purpose was to protect Frank, but his acts of protection toward frank are only shown in one relatively small scene in the entire episode. I just wanted to see more of what survival life was like for the two of them I guess. Show me how they saved each others' lives or cemented each others' trust or whatever instead of just telling me it happened. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 30, 2023 23:12
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i sort of get it, i generally despise the "shipper" aspect of stories. i genuinely don't care about romance between fictional characters in almost any show. peggie and stan ending up together at the end of mad men? i honestly wish they had skipped this. it's just not my thing, even tho i loved mad men in general. while i can say that i more or less felt the same about the romance this episode (didnt really care about it), it was still a great episode of a zombie apocalypse show. we almost never see this type of character - the competent survivor - unless it's some sort of parable combined with a heavy handed authoritarian leader providing a sense of security through draconian repression. there was lots of interesting stuff happening, some action, and a little bit of a romance story. this was an anthology entry to the show, separate from the main plot. Yes, this is different than what we were shown in the first 2 episodes. but it was good TV, and if you're so hung up on the lack of advancement for the main plot that you couldn't enjoy this "tales from the last of us" episode, i don't know what to tell you.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:17
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All I'm saying it needed is even just like a 60-second montage (set to some linda ronstadt) of them killing infected or raiders together, or setting up defenses together, etc. I'm fully with you on the competent survivor part but that's precisely what I wanted them to show more of! I love the zombie move The Night Eats The World because it's precisely that: a movie about a competent survivor sneaking around, scavenging supplies, and cleverly avoiding the undead. I wanted to witness how efficiently Bill & Frank dispatched the world's threats together. The only parts of their competent defense we're shown are the zombie with the tripwire early on, and then the raiders getting wrecked by flamethrowers and electric fences for a few seconds. Critically I am not saying that their relationship or anything about the episode detracted from that aspect, but that that aspect just wasn't shown much, when I feel it would have made their characters much more relatable/interesting/human instead of just being two guys living what is (essentially) a dream life in a walled garden inside the apocalypse. Let me feel how hungry they are for a taste of the old world before you feed them strawberries before my eyes  But I guess maybe they're just saving that for a potential Bill & Frank spinoff one day which I would be all-in for. e: vvv Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying: It makes it feel like these characters were fundamentally not a part of the same world as the others. Maybe that's what it's going for and that's cool, I'm just tossing out my opinion that it kind of whiffed the impact of their deaths (or lives, for that matter) on me because of that. They're just two guys who had the nicest possible love story in the apocalypse who existed for no reason other than to let Joel & Ellie loot their stuff now that they're dead. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 30, 2023 23:26
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Imo the episode wasn't about "surviving" though. It was about Living.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:29
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The line about Frank trying to dig at Bill for thinking the government were Nazis and then being like "well they are now, but they weren't then!" is lowkey the funniest line of the episode
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Jan 30, 2023 23:31
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deep dish peat moss posted:Yeah, my point is that they should show more of the hell-world to make the strawberries actually impactful I don't think the strawberry scene was meant to be a reprieve from the hell-world. It was showing the literal fruits of letting other people into your life and growing beyond a survival mindset. They only got those seeds because Frank chose life over survival (to paraphrase the guy above me)
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Jan 30, 2023 23:32
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I'm not arguing what the scene meant to do, and I agree with you that it wasn't "meant" to do that, I'm saying that it would have been a much stronger scene if it had meant to do that. Because as-is Bill & Frank are essentially two rich kids in love I don't give a poo poo about, because they lived a perfect life as Haves in a world of Have Nots. There were no stakes to make me worry about them.
deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 30, 2023 23:34
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deep dish peat moss posted:All I'm saying it needed is even just like a 60-second montage (set to some linda ronstadt) of them killing infected or raiders together, or setting up defenses together, etc. I'm fully with you on the competent survivor part but that's precisely what I wanted them to show more of! Why do you need this when you know it happened based on what we've seen in the first couple of episodes. deep dish peat moss posted:I'm not arguing what the scene meant to do, and I agree with you that it wasn't "meant" to do that, I'm saying that it would have been a much stronger scene if it had meant to do that. Because as-is Bill & Frank are essentially two rich kids in love I don't give a poo poo about, because they lived a perfect life as Haves in a world of Have Nots. There were no stakes to make me worry about them. This takeaway is entirely divorced from the actual world building they've done in this show and any plausible interpretation of Bill and Frank's situation. mikeraskol fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jan 30, 2023 |
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Jan 30, 2023 23:37
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Yes, you are hammering my point on the head: there has been a lot of world building about how dangerous the world is, then this episode showed two characters who never had to deal with any of that danger on-screen.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:40
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Well except the traps, watching a trap taking out an infected, his rushing out to cover a trap when he finds Frank, his being warned by Joel that things are not all sunshine and roses and that they are going to get raided, the one raid they showed with the time they had that resulted in Bill getting shot in the gut. The fact that Frank hadn't had any food and started with 10 people and was down to 1 when Bill found him. Their reaction to the strawberries. Oh, and the fact that this is all in the background while not being the main loving point of the episode.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:41
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Those are the exact points that I'm saying it would be cool to see more of  E: it's the fundamental concept of show vs. tell in storytelling. We are told that bill and frank are badasses with lovable soft sides, but we are only shown the loveable soft sides outside of two brief scenes that are quickly moved on from.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:42
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To be honest, I initially didn't understand why they showed Bill, shot, telling Frank to call Joel and then cut away to a scene from much later in the timeline. It made that scene feel kind of pointless, but I eventually realized that it does serve a purpose that other people have already summed up nicely: it's about the value of letting people in. Even in this destroyed world full of raiders and death, you can't live alone. You need other people. Maybe it would have worked better if we had encountered some enemy human factions as Joel and Ellie (besides FEDRA, anyway), but I think it worked beautifully as it was.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:42
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deep dish peat moss posted:Those are the exact points that I'm saying it would be cool to see more of No, you're actually shown it. You're shown it in the way that Bill prepped, his springing into action immediately after the town was cleared, in the way that he made his home safe, in the way that he defended against the raider attack, by the mere fact that they lived for 20 years. And you are not told Frank is a badass actually, quite the opposite - Bill is sitting there believing that he is dying telling Frank to find Joel and that he will protect him. You're read is divorced from reality and you're asking for things that are not needed. The episode is about finding your humanity in this inhuman situation. We don't need 50 scenes to ingrain further that Bill is a bad rear end. It's entirely unnecessary.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:44
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flashy_mcflash posted:The line about Frank trying to dig at Bill for thinking the government were Nazis and then being like "well they are now, but they weren't then!" is lowkey the funniest line of the episode It’s a great line and I found myself chuckling
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Jan 30, 2023 23:45
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mikeraskol posted:No, you're actually shown it. You're shown it in the way that Bill prepped, his springing into action immediately after the town was cleared, in the way that he made his home safe, in the way that he defended against the raider attack, by the mere fact that they lived for 20 years. And you are not told Frank is a badass actually, quite the opposite - Bill is sitting there believing that he is dying telling Frank to find Joel and that he will protect him. Okay but the point of my post was to point out that some people have different tastes and preferences and opinions on what makes a good television episode, in direct reply to the post I originally quoted. You are allowed to have different opinions from me but stating your opinions as fact that invalidates other opinions like this is a bad look.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:48
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flashy_mcflash posted:The line about Frank trying to dig at Bill for thinking the government were Nazis and then being like "well they are now, but they weren't then!" is lowkey the funniest line of the episode Somebody please make a video clip (with audio) of Bill shouting the line
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Jan 30, 2023 23:51
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deep dish peat moss posted:You are allowed to have different opinions from me but stating your opinions as fact that invalidates other opinions like this is a bad look. I mean, that's kind of SA's whole thing these days?
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Jan 30, 2023 23:53
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deep dish peat moss posted:e: vvv Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying: It makes it feel like these characters were fundamentally not a part of the same world as the others. Maybe that's what it's going for and that's cool, I'm just tossing out my opinion that it kind of whiffed the impact of their deaths (or lives, for that matter) on me because of that. I think you're way too hung up on "worldbuilding" type stuff and not nearly interested enough in the story the characters themselves are showing. The episode is showing you that people can make a life for themselves by choosing to care about other people. This is contrasted by FEDRA rounding people up and killing them because they don't care. The people in FEDRA camps are "surviving", not "living" and this is shown to be a big loving failure. If the show had included all this other survival type stuff that you wanted then the tone of the whole episode would be different. Do you really think the show wants the viewer to remember some violence that the characters faced, rather than a scene of them making the most of the hellworld they live in? deep dish peat moss posted:They're just two guys who had the nicest possible love story in the apocalypse who existed for no reason other than to let Joel & Ellie loot their stuff now that they're dead. I really suggest you think harder about the content of the episode if you believe thats the only point of those characters.
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Jan 30, 2023 23:58
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deep dish peat moss posted:Okay but the point of my post was to point out that some people have different tastes and preferences and opinions on what makes a good television episode, in direct reply to the post I originally quoted. You are allowed to have different opinions from me but stating your opinions as fact that invalidates other opinions like this is a bad look. Your opinion that they need a montage of them fighting off raiders and zombies is fundamentally contrary to the entire point of the episode and rests on an interpretation of these characters' lives that is so implausible that it must be intentionally wrong. mikeraskol fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 00:12
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Chairman Capone posted:It's actually possible to eat the fungal growth from a Clicker's head (non spoiler link, obviously): I did not expect to see Matt Lees in this when I clicked lmao
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Jan 31, 2023 00:13
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I was with the episode until they got to 'current day' Frank and Bill. Like a few others said, I'm also in the camp of terminal illness storylines hitting a little close to home and being kind of rough to sit through. Bill's ending caught me by surprise. I was expecting Joel to run into a bitter, lonely, heartbroken Bill at the end, then welp.
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Jan 31, 2023 00:30
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i enjoyed the episode, and it is a bit refreshing to have a post apocalyptic show which isn't maximum bleakness at every moment, even if it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief it does make me wonder about the exact extent and ability of fedra. like, fedra is this fascist police state that is apparently unable or uninterested in projecting power over a compound a single day's hard hike out of a qz. i'm sure the boston qz could find a use for whatever that gasworks was producing, they just don't for some reason that's never really articulated. like sure, internal dissent in the qz and overextension must limit their presence outside the qz, but an hour's drive from the qz being enough to hide bill's entire operation for decades seems like they must be really limited, but if they are then why are the fireflies fighting this long guerilla war instead of just slipping away it was a lovely character piece, and joel not just being told that he needs people he feels protective about in his life, but that literally one is better off dead than lacking those people sure must be a sobering moment for him
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Jan 31, 2023 00:37
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Finished episode 3 and god drat that was good.Koirhor posted:I enjoyed Ellie calling out a lovely useless govt incapable of stamping out a pandemic  Question about the game, is there a scene in it where Ellie cuts then stabs to death a trapped zombie?
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Jan 31, 2023 00:46
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LadyPictureShow posted:I was with the episode until they got to 'current day' Frank and Bill. Like a few others said, I'm also in the camp of terminal illness storylines hitting a little close to home and being kind of rough to sit through. I didn't like the illness portion either, but not because it hit close to home, just because I thought it was all a bit trite and overwrought, especially the montage of their last day. Frank just said everything they were going to do, and then they put that tearjerker song on as you watch them do it all. I really felt those 10 minutes because I had emotionally checked out. Overall though it was decent, and I was pleased when Joel and Ellie showed back up. Nobody's really talking about their parts of the episode but I enjoyed them. Tzen posted:Question about the game, is there a scene in it where Ellie cuts then stabs to death a trapped zombie? Nope. roomtone fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 00:52
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I started the episode angry that Ellie would be so reckless. It felt like a contrivance to create some danger for Joel to rescue her, but it turned out fine and Joel never knew what happened.
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Jan 31, 2023 00:57
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I like the Ellie cutting zombie part, it brings uncertainty to the character and the show.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:02
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Man my allergies are really acting up during this episode there's something in my eye
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Jan 31, 2023 01:06
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deep dish peat moss posted:Okay but the point of my post was to point out that some people have different tastes and preferences and opinions on what makes a good television episode, in direct reply to the post I originally quoted. You are allowed to have different opinions from me but stating your opinions as fact that invalidates other opinions like this is a bad look. Nothing on this show has stated that living in fortified areas give you dangers from roaming mushrooms yet, and this is the first time we've seen raiders. And they look like relatively small groups, and that was years back, too. Seems like you're kind of dragging in TWD setting expectations into this, but in present day, we've only really seen mushroom people underground and in and around messed up buildings and not just roaming. This episode could just be serving to help inform you of the situation they are in.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:08
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Chamale posted:I started the episode angry that Ellie would be so reckless. It felt like a contrivance to create some danger for Joel to rescue her, but it turned out fine and Joel never knew what happened. Same. I was mad at her and I was mad at the showrunners for such an obvious stupid cliche. And then, welp. Lol. For those who are unhappy about the slowness and the gentleness of this episode, all I can say is that I assume part of it is to provide a contrast to both the personal brutality and the brutal ways of life that will be seen later. You will get, I have no doubt, enough horror and cruelty to sate you. As it as been noted, they can’t have the video game rampages of slaughtering your way through clickers and raiders and leaving scores of bodies in your wake. That “feeling” of wading in the blood of your enemies is going to be made possible, in part, by the sweetness of e03.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:22
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Bill also likely has a lot of traps outside the fence, so any small group will be down a few before they even get to that
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Jan 31, 2023 01:33
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this was a beautiful episode of television and i cried while watching it. show good.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:36
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I'm staring at the fan wiki, pondering a blank page. What am I supposed to add? There were like three sentences of meaningful Content in this ep. Terrible work. Craig is not very a-Mazin if you ask me.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:46
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i enjoyed the episode, and it is a bit refreshing to have a post apocalyptic show which isn't maximum bleakness at every moment, even if it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief I feel like FEDRA's model gets a bad rap because we see Bill's libertarian paradise a day or so outside of Boston. My only real critique with the episode is it validates all of Bill's hard-core survivalist beliefs that everything would be great if the government left him alone. We get a sense things are bad, if Frank's party got decimated traveling from Baltimore to Boston, but we have yet to be shown anything that justifies FEDRA.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:53
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I know that comments like the above are taking the piss, but there are people who genuinely believe that it was an “episode in a bottle” that did not advance the plot or develop any ongoing characters. The episode is seventy‐five minutes long without commercials. Even if all the Bill and Frank scenes were excised, there would still be a half hour with Joel and Ellie in them. It’s frankly impressive that there are people out there so blinded by their Bill & Frank hate that they didn’t realize that they got a half hour of the television that they ostensibly wanted.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:59
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Morrow posted:I feel like FEDRA's model gets a bad rap because we see Bill's libertarian paradise a day or so outside of Boston. My only real critique with the episode is it validates all of Bill's hard-core survivalist beliefs that everything would be great if the government left him alone. We get a sense things are bad, if Frank's party got decimated traveling from Baltimore to Boston, but we have yet to be shown anything that justifies FEDRA. Larger cities will have more people coming in and will need more controls seems to be the shows issue. A few people can live fine together, but you need enforcement when it's thousands and any random person tries to wander in.
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Jan 31, 2023 01:59
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i enjoyed the episode, and it is a bit refreshing to have a post apocalyptic show which isn't maximum bleakness at every moment, even if it requires a bit of suspension of disbelief You have to remember by the time the show takes place, FEDRA is hanging on barely in the cities it does control, and has lost quite a few. Frank specifically mentions he fled the Baltimore QZ with a group and it is “ gone”. There was also that line on Ep1 about the cops/troopers having to pull double shifts and they don’t have enough men. Also the fireflies are just incompetent as hell and can’t do anything right.
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Jan 31, 2023 02:25
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That was a heartwarming love story. I wish they wouldn't use flashbacks so heavily. All the drama in the episode happened in the past. We already know how it ends so it robbed a lot of the tension from the scenes. Assuming it is a love story. Frank say's he's not a whore, and then immediately puts a price on having sex - he demands to be allowed to stay a few more days in this luxurious, wonderful world Bill has built if they have sex. That's some seriously mixed messaging. It's interesting that Bill and Frank have done more for the world than we've seen Fedra do so. I think Fedra has killed all of one zombie (the little kid who couldn't talk) on screen and a whole lot of basically okay humans (the Fireflies). Meanwhile, Bill has been killing zombies so effortlessly he's kept his little paradise intact for 23 years. He also killed at least one group of bandits. All without murdering any basically okay people. The show repeatedly rags on Bill for being crazy paranoid, but at the some time presents him as by far the most successful human so far. More mixed messaging, it's like the show runners don't know what they're saying.
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Jan 31, 2023 02:25
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