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Lampsacus posted:Also , I don't know. If feels like all post apocalyptic TV shows always start good and get stuck in a bad loop. It's almost like the tropes brain glitch the writers into just doing the loop by their nature, they encourage lazy writing so well. Saying that, I love these shows. You might like Jericho. It's set in the aftermath of a nuclear war and the plot largely stays in one town with a fixed set of characters.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:18
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Camera should have panned around over the last shot to show Joel had murdered the whole town.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:23
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nooneofconsequence posted:Camera should have panned around over the last shot to show Joel had murdered the whole town. Kneecaps and bricks everywhere.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:25
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They should lean in and make it totally episodic where there are just the two main characters coming in to a different type of hosed-up community each week, and leaving a swath of chaos and destruction in their wake.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:26
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Xiahou Dun posted:Why are you assuming those yahoos were the inner circle? It's a reasonable assumption given that cults tend to feature authority figures that don't trust lower-rung members with important duties like "find us food so we don't starve".
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Mar 6, 2023 20:27
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withak posted:They should lean in and make it totally episodic where there are just the two main characters coming in to a different type of hosed-up community each week, and leaving a swath of chaos and destruction in their wake. I'm not sure how serious you are but I would absolutely be okay with this. Broken apocalypse community anthology show would be a ton of fun.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:33
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fullroundaction posted:You mean the part where our protagonists burn down the main building of this established community of killers and cannibals after offing their leader(s) and then slowly hobble towards a lake or river that we hadn’t seen before while no one else from the entire community notices or bothers to check out what’s going on? "Oh, no! Our rear end in a top hat, abusive leader who makes us eat humans are in a burning building! Let's all run super fast to his rescue instead of quietly celebrating that he's gone!"
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Mar 6, 2023 20:35
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Alhazred posted:"Oh, no! Our rear end in a top hat, abusive leader who makes us eat humans are in a burning building! Let's all run super fast to his rescue instead of quietly celebrating that he's gone!" E: Removing the snarkiness from my post because I don't want to be like that. I don't know how they would know who was in danger or not be drawn to check out the circumstances surrounding`how a catastrophic fire broke out in their village/kitchen. Bulky Bartokomous fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 20:39
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When Ellie runs out and Joel finds her, that's basically been like 3 or 4 minutes since the fire started and it's still mostly just inside the building, in a blizzard. I doubt there's much checking on what's going on in the neighbourhood in this fearful, put upon, starving community so it makes sense to me they could leave the immediate area pretty much unaccosted.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:44
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Really liked the ending, thought it left the trauma of everything that had just happened hang in the air and the "baby girl" line closed the emotional loop on the whole surrogate daughter arc in a way that showed us instead of telling us. Disagree with needing to fluff out every storyline with half a season of making every bit of subtext into text. Feels like this show does a really good job of communicating people's relationships to each other by the way they react to each other, without needing to get bogged down explaining the backstory of every minor character that wanders through the plot; the story isn't about them. Honestly kind of reminds me of watching old Star Trek, every week is a new stop on the journey with a new
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Mar 6, 2023 20:49
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:It's a reasonable assumption given that cults tend to feature authority figures that don't trust lower-rung members with important duties like "find us food so we don't starve". It's also reasonable to send out four surplus mouths to feed to scavenge without committing valuable guns and ammo in hopes they either succeed and bring back food or fail and let the existing food supply last that much longer.
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Mar 6, 2023 20:50
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Jarmak posted:Really liked the ending, thought it left the trauma of everything that had just happened hang in the air and the "baby girl" line closed the emotional loop on the whole surrogate daughter arc in a way that showed us instead of telling us. Disagree with needing to fluff out every storyline with half a season of making every bit of subtext into text. Feels like this show does a really good job of communicating people's relationships to each other by the way they react to each other, without needing to get bogged down explaining the backstory of every minor character that wanders through the plot; the story isn't about them. Completely agreed on this. It feels like you can't win with some people. If a tale is told out over a season its a walking dead farm problem. If its told in an episode that wraps everything up nicely, its "too quick". Lingering on anything in the winter village is just wasted time. The themes, characters and motifs had time to simmer and they came to fruition. It was a great episode.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:01
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Jarmak posted:Really liked the ending, thought it left the trauma of everything that had just happened hang in the air and the "baby girl" line closed the emotional loop on the whole surrogate daughter arc in a way that showed us instead of telling us. Disagree with needing to fluff out every storyline with half a season of making every bit of subtext into text. Feels like this show does a really good job of communicating people's relationships to each other by the way they react to each other, without needing to get bogged down explaining the backstory of every minor character that wanders through the plot; the story isn't about them. Yeah, this is why I don't think it needed to be a two-parter to flesh (  ) out David's cult. The main point of the episode was getting to that "baby girl" line, not what happened with the cult.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:04
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I feel kinda bad for the guy playing David, he's just too believable as a nonce. As for the series length discussion, I've always leaned to the whole better leave them wanting more than outstay your welcome thing but hey, different strokes etc.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:15
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Kwolok posted:If a tale is told out over a season its a walking dead farm problem. If its told in an episode that wraps everything up nicely, its "too quick". Lingering on anything in the winter village is just wasted time. Maybe the answer lies somewhere in the middle? Only 9 episodes was a mistake imo, sometimes it feels like could do with some breathing room, and yes it would have been seen as wasted time but only because they for some reason have kneecapped themselves with making the season so short, a good 3 or 4 more episodes wouldn't have hurt, I want to see more of Joel and Ellie's adventure. David sadly felt like what he is, which is a video game villain, because he went from the good preacher to almost instantly the evil cannibal pedophile whereas if this was a two-parter, that reveal could have been handled with more subtlety which would have increased the tension and the effectiveness of him as a villain. I get they're trying to do the video game justice but the game had to have these moments happen quickly to get to the next gameplay section which a show doesn't have to worry about. Also making him a creep like that kind of makes him a bit 2D, it goes from doing what he has to to keep the town alive (which then has parallels to what Joel has had to do over the years) to oh I'm actually a sociopath and a child rapist and I clearly need to die in a matter of minutes. edit: Also I can see the arguments against the two-parter idea, but I do still think the show feels like it's zooming towards a conclusion.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:18
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Exodor posted:It's also reasonable to send out four surplus mouths to feed to scavenge without committing valuable guns and ammo in hopes they either succeed and bring back food or fail and let the existing food supply last that much longer. No one said your scenario was unreasonable.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:21
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The attempted rape at the end of the episode left me with a sour impression. We get that David is a bad guy as evident by cannibalism and pedophilia. Did we really need one more character trait of "this guy would even try to molest someone as the building burns down around them"? I hope that this show can learn to show some restraint in future seasons. Right now they fall victim to being heavy handed or excessive, and the narrative suffers for it. Definitely an echo of the Kansas City finale: it over-embellished with zombie swarm from a random hole, bloater appearance with minimal foreshadowing, and a villain monologuing themselves to death.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:21
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fullroundaction posted:The entire town did know that Joel and Ellie were nearby, who they were, and that their people were out hunting them (and at least a portion of them wanted vengeance). I guess I would have expected more of a high-alert type atmosphere, but yes everything you said is possible in the context of real life, just doesn't 100% work for me in tv show form, since killing the main big bad doesn't immediately release all of the threat and tension of the scenario. Fair points. For some reason I didn't realise it was the same building they'd all been eating in. I guess I was making up my own logic while watching to explain away why nobody else was around.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:24
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DarkLich posted:The attempted rape at the end of the episode left me with a sour impression. We get that David is a bad guy as evident by cannibalism and pedophilia. Did we really need one more character trait of "this guy would even try to molest someone as the building burns down around them"? The monologuing, sure but minimal foreshadowing? Did you even watch the show where they laid out a long drawn out shot of two characters discussing the clear evidence of there being some kind of big amount of hosed up poo poo underground.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:26
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Exodor posted:It's also reasonable to send out four surplus mouths to feed to scavenge without committing valuable guns and ammo in hopes they either succeed and bring back food or fail and let the existing food supply last that much longer. Or in this case if they get themselves killed they get added to the existing food supply.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:27
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Xiahou Dun posted:Why are you assuming those yahoos were the inner circle? Mainly because of these words from the post I responded to: quote:I guarantee only David's inner circle had access to the armory, and are the only ones scouting anywhere new guns and ammo could be found He sent them off to scout the university, so... Its like 10 minutes since this thread was saying they couldn't dress the horse because Joel had killed 3 of the men that would be doing that sort of thing, that the town seemed strangely empty of people responding to the big fire in their dinner hall. Are you now saying that there are actually loads of men there, and they send the worst of them out unarmed in groups of four to search for vital supplies? Whatever. I think its pretty clear from the show itself that they aren't a massive cult, we see the numbers at dinner together, we see the leaders having to go out hunting themselves, we saw the effect on the group of just one of their number getting killed recently, we saw the complete lack of anybody at the end of the episode. The men at the university were the same men involved in hunting Joel, which leaves a small plothole back in episode 6. Its fine, it happens.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:27
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Clyde Radcliffe posted:Fair points. For some reason I didn't realise it was the same building they'd all been eating in. I guess I was making up my own logic while watching to explain away why nobody else was around. The people were cowed to the point where they remain dead silent during an entire evil monologue then greedily devour man stew without a word. People in that state, even if they did notice the fire in the 4 minutes it burned on screen, aren't generally the type to come rushing in to play hero. They are passive and docile, by design. They've given up their agency and the show went out of its way to show us that.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:28
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Kwolok posted:The monologuing, sure but minimal foreshadowing? Did you even watch the show where they laid out a long drawn out shot of two characters discussing the clear evidence of there being some kind of big amount of hosed up poo poo underground. The only foreshadowing I recall is when the two Kansas City resistance people are looking at the concrete rubble. They imply there is an infected problem, and there's a deep groan. Is that the scene you're talking about, or is there another I missed? There are much better ways to have foreshadowed that. For example, while the party of 4 was traversing the maintenance tunnels, show some dented iron doors. "What could have done that?" dialogue and such. The bloater was just thrown in with the rest of the chaos. It got a cinematic kill or two, and then ceased to be relevant. Seemed they really bungled the execution of a unique and fearsome foe. DarkLich fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 21:31
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Just Chamber posted:Maybe the answer lies somewhere in the middle? Don't really understand this line of thinking. David didn't have a character arc, he didn't go from being a good preacher to turning bad in a short period of time, he was evil before he entered the story and it was a short period of time before it became obvious how/why. The unease in the way everyone in his group reacted to him, and especially with the little girl asking questions, very quickly communicated something was very very wrong with him and people were terrified of him. I don't think there was any tension between him being a guy making hard decisions vs being a sociopath, the tension was with how long he was going to keep up the facade before something terrible happened.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:33
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XboxPants posted:I also felt the ending was sudden or off like many people are saying, BUT I kinda think that's just because I'm so broke-brained from modern tv. In truth, I actually really appreciate that we're getting these self-contained stories that start and resolve within a single episode. There's not enough of that today. It seems like so many shows feel obligated to fill half of every episode with some tedious long term narrative that doesn't really go anywhere and it's just being included so they can wedge in a cliffhanger and string you along waiting for the mystery box to be opened (looking at you, nu Quantum Leap) I'm with you here, show is moving at a perfectly fine pace. I would've been cool with an albatross soup moment built in but not at the expense of having to dwell another ep with those losers or changing who killed who.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:42
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Kwolok posted:Completely agreed on this. It feels like you can't win with some people. If a tale is told out over a season its a walking dead farm problem. If its told in an episode that wraps everything up nicely, its "too quick". Lingering on anything in the winter village is just wasted time. The themes, characters and motifs had time to simmer and they came to fruition. It was a great episode. I agree. Now they could have done a 90 minute episode, but 2 whole episodes spread out over 2 weeks is a big no for me. In the end TLOU (so far) is about using the plot to push the relationship ahead and this episode did exactly what it was supposed to do. In doing that it set-up the finale. Thinking about it, If I could change one thing about this season, I feel like that certain episodes should been longer. We don't need 12 episodes, just a few more 90 minute ones. Also, Bella kills it again. I assume she will get an Emmy nod when it is all said and done.
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Mar 6, 2023 21:44
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Jarmak posted:Don't really understand this line of thinking. David didn't have a character arc, he didn't go from being a good preacher to turning bad in a short period of time, he was evil before he entered the story and it was a short period of time before it became obvious how/why. The unease in the way everyone in his group reacted to him, and especially with the little girl asking questions, very quickly communicated something was very very wrong with him and people were terrified of him. I don't think there was any tension between him being a guy making hard decisions vs being a sociopath, the tension was with how long he was going to keep up the facade before something terrible happened. He was always a bad/ evil guy yes, but initially the viewer doesn't know this (unless you've played the game), and from the viewers perspective he is introduced as a preacher and leader in the town, providing a sermon to help the residents, who thank him as they leave, comforting the girl about her father's death, worried about food in the town and concerned for everyone, he's level headed, negotiates with Ellie to get the medicine and prevents his right hand man from escalating, seems to want to bring Joel to justice but otherwise bring Ellie into the town etc, all things which make him seem like he might be a decent guy, even if there's a bit of a red flag with the religious leader angle. The first real flash of something is wrong is him striking the girl, but then incredibly quickly it ramps up and up and he goes from violent, to cannibal, to pedophile to rapist in an incredibly short period and it felt rushed as hell and also incredibly over the top, as someone said, him actually trying to rape Ellie at the end in a burning building was too much. It didn't need to be a two parter but I do think the pacing was off. Anyway while it's not perfect the show's still good, both actors continue to make it something I'll watch even if I dont find an episode fantastic. Just Chamber fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 21:50
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Clyde Radcliffe posted:I guess I was making up my own logic while watching to explain away why nobody else was around. We're all doing this, because as a lot of people have been pointing out, we're not really given a lot of information to grab on to in each episode. Your headcannon and mine are equally as likely as far as I can tell  I do think the direction of the discussion about the show is very interesting as we head into the finale. It's very different from every other show I've liked enough to following along live forum threads with, in that almost no one is discussing the finale or the possibilities of what could happen next. Maybe it's because most people are game players and already know so they can't? Idk, weird vibes. I'm sure someone smarter than me can figure out why that is.
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Mar 6, 2023 22:07
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Just Chamber posted:He was always a bad/ evil guy yes, but initially the viewer doesn't know this (unless you've played the game)
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Mar 6, 2023 22:24
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Just Chamber posted:He was always a bad/ evil guy yes, but initially the viewer doesn't know this (unless you've played the game), and from the viewers perspective he is introduced as a preacher and leader in the town, providing a sermon to help the residents, who thank him as they leave, comforting the girl about her father's death, worried about food in the town and concerned for everyone, he's level headed, negotiates with Ellie to get the medicine and prevents his right hand man from escalating, seems to want to bring Joel to justice but otherwise bring Ellie into the town etc, all things which make him seem like he might be a decent guy, even if there's a bit of a red flag with the religious leader angle. The first real flash of something is wrong is him striking the girl, but then incredibly quickly it ramps up and up and he goes from violent, to cannibal, to pedophile to rapist in an incredibly short period and it felt rushed as hell and also incredibly over the top, as someone said, him actually trying to rape Ellie at the end in a burning building was too much. It didn't need to be a two parter but I do think the pacing was off. The first scene he's introduced is really unsettling, all the people look are staring blankly with their eyes cast down. I got a palpable sense of dread when the girl started asking questions as if it was incredibly out of line for her to speak, and David was very much acting like he was the playing the sensitive and understanding father by allowing it due to her grief. edit: it's not normal for a kind preacher to act like he's being incredibly benevolent for having the patience to answer the question of a little girl at her father's memorial/funeral. Jarmak fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 22:30
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Just Chamber posted:He was always a bad/ evil guy yes, but initially the viewer doesn't know this (unless you've played the game), and from the viewers perspective he is introduced as a preacher and leader in the town, providing a sermon to help the residents, who thank him as they leave, comforting the girl about her father's death, worried about food in the town and concerned for everyone, he's level headed, negotiates with Ellie to get the medicine and prevents his right hand man from escalating, seems to want to bring Joel to justice but otherwise bring Ellie into the town etc, all things which make him seem like he might be a decent guy, even if there's a bit of a red flag with the religious leader angle. The first real flash of something is wrong is him striking the girl, but then incredibly quickly it ramps up and up and he goes from violent, to cannibal, to pedophile to rapist in an incredibly short period and it felt rushed as hell and also incredibly over the top, as someone said, him actually trying to rape Ellie at the end in a burning building was too much. It didn't need to be a two parter but I do think the pacing was off. I thought it was pretty obvious that cannibalism was a possibility basically from his introduction. We find out that they are in a desperate food shortage that seems to be being kept secret from the commoners, and that one of their people died and conveniently no one is allowed to see his body, and the leaders are discussing exactly what kinds of desperate acts they might need to take to feed the community, the preacher has a creepy "I SENSE DOUBT, YOUNGLING. I NEED TO KNOW YOU ARE WITH ME" conversation with James when he doesn't immediately fall in line... Not enough to know for sure, but it was enough for me to suspect him of it. Similar thing with the pedophilia. As soon as he started talking to the girl with the poo poo about how he is a father to all the young girls in the cult and they must follow his will and show him respect, that's some massive sex slave cult red flag poo poo. Again, we don't know, but they weren't portraying him as unassailably good, either. They were constantly sewing little seeds of doubt, every one of which turned out to be a valid concern. Like you say, he did come off as level-headed but I didn't see that as a mark in his favor. This town is so hosed that every other person is visibly upset or afraid, so instead it made me read him as a sociopath. He also didn't truly comfort anyone. He superficially acted comforting, being calm and soft spoken, but instead of recognizing peoples' pain and their needs, he told them to stop suffering and believe in him without question. That's not compassion, that's being controlling and narcissistic.
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Mar 6, 2023 22:44
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ozmunkeh posted:I guess it's possible that there are people watching who are discovering the concept of a television show for the first time. I'm sure you sussed he was evil to the point of being a canniballistic pedophile from the get go. It's a post apocalypse show, practically every character gives out i'm morally grey vibes even when they're supposedly the good guy, doesn't mean they'll turn out evil. Tbh it would have worked better if he was just killing people for meat to keep the rest of the town alive, echoing Joel in the sense that Joel has allegedly done some awful things to keep him and others alive. I think turning him into a cartoon villain isn't as interesting. Just Chamber fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 22:47
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This shows good but it could be so much better if they had paced and structured it to allow for a bit more each ep. I really think they dropped the ball overall by not capitalizing on the pairing of good self contained dramatic stories with tense infected scenes where they should have been. I just dont buy that its not doable to have them executed in a manner similar to how theyre weaved into these stories in the game and also be effective/entertaining in the show. Overall unless the finale blows my mind Im pretty dissapointed with how unambitious this entire show has felt. Its playing it way too safe for me to really be that impressed. The cinematography is incredibly boring and rote as well which is pretty dissapointing. Performances are carrying the entire thing for me mostly, Joel and Ellie are just perfect and thats really what matters in the end but everything surrounding them has just sort of came and went without leaving much impact for me.
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Mar 6, 2023 22:50
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there are three types of people in the last of us: baddies, the tragically gay, and joel
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Mar 6, 2023 22:50
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They didn’t take guns to the university because in a worst case scenario, the monkeys get their hands on those guns and we get a Planet of the Apes situation
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Mar 6, 2023 22:52
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I dunno if this is the case for Americans but to me "a man talking about religion in a post apocalyptic society in a room of people" is a baddie, there's absolutely no point at all I ever thought David was ever anything but bad. The moment he started being weird to Ellie when they saw her I assumed he was a paedophile too. It was a fine episode, it's a fine show, but it all feels so obvious all the time. That's not necessarily bad? But it does make it less meaningful for me and me and my partner find ourselves paying less and less attention during the episodes because it's so clear where it's going to be headed. I wish they'd given us time to think David was good and I assume for US audiences "preacher" is usually a good thing so maybe that was enough for people to think he was good? I dunno
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Mar 6, 2023 22:57
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I also immediately distrusted the guy because he was a preacher. Even the best case scenario there would make me suspicious and unlikely to be sympathetic. Maybe if they introduce the character as a normal person first and you know them for a bit before revealing that they are religious, but if I know they're a preacher from the outside my mind will always first be asking if they are a pervert, a grifter, a control freak, or a combo of them. It would take deliberate effort to assure me as a viewer the introduced preacher character is a good guy.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:00
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unfortunately the christphobic liberal media has made me expect preachers to always be villians in shows
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Mar 6, 2023 23:01
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Khanstant posted:I also immediately distrusted the guy because he was a preacher. Even the best case scenario there would make me suspicious and unlikely to be sympathetic. Maybe if they introduce the character as a normal person first and you know them for a bit before revealing that they are religious, but if I know they're a preacher from the outside my mind will always first be asking if they are a pervert, a grifter, a control freak, or a combo of them. It would take deliberate effort to assure me as a viewer the introduced preacher character is a good guy. They COULD have had him guiding his town and they've come together in their faith because the world has ended and it's the only way to keep sane. I'd have bought that for a bit But they didn't. I really feel like episodes 1-3 were the strongest and since then I'm just sorta going along with the flow. Again I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm not going to watch series 2. I've not played the game because it's a Playstation only title and maybe I'd feel different if I had?
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Mar 6, 2023 23:04
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AccountSupervisor posted:Performances are carrying the entire thing for me mostly, Joel and Ellie are just perfect and thats really what matters in the end but everything surrounding them has just sort of came and went without leaving much impact for me. Pedro and Bella are the only thing I'm finding interesting anymore. Everything else surrounding them has been kind of meh for me. Honestly wish I could watch this without knowing what happens already to see if I liked this more.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:05
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