The Last of Us 2.7: Those Who Die

Well, a lot of characters died in the season 2 finale of The Last of Us on Max tonight.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Two more of the people who presided over Joel's killing die in 2.7: Owen is killed by Ellie because he draws a gun and attempts to fire on her.  Mel is accidentally killed by Owen as he fires his gun (after being shot by Ellie) and his bullet hits the wall, bullet bouncing off whatever the wall is made of, so the bullet hits a very pregnant Mel in the neck, who dies before Ellie can save her baby (by cutting the baby free) as Mel is pleading with Ellie to do.

And that's the least of it.

Before the episode is over, Jesse is shot and killed by Abby (he was the most ethical character in the show), and Abby fires point blank at Ellie, before the screen turns black in an end-of-The-Sopranos moment.

Of course, that final scene in The Sopranos was the final scene of the series, not of the second season in a continuing series.   And there was no gun shot in that final scene, before all went black.  David Chase, the main brains behind the series, now says that scene was meant to "imply" Tony Soprano's death.  But having read I. A. Richards, who a century ago, back in the 1920s, said we can safely ignore explications by authors of their works (there could be interpretations they didn't intend which are nonetheless valid, or the authors could just be lying), I don't think we should pay much if any attention to what Chase says about his masterpiece.

But back to The Last of Us:

1. Since the series is continuing, even a gun fired before all goes black is no proof of anything.
2. And there's no point looking at the game from which The Last of Us series is derived, because the makers of the series have been free to change whatever they wanted to change from the game when they made the series.

So is Ellie dead?  How should I know?  At this point, we can't even be sure she's been shot.  But I'd bet we'll find out more in Season 3.

And although it's too soon to say the following about Ellie, paraphrasing what Shelley said about Keats' death -- weep not for Ellie, 'tis death that's dead not she -- we can certainly apply that to Jesse, a brave, highly ethical soul that we could certainly use more of in our world off-screen, and the ethical crisis that's now raging.  Here's to Jesse, whose morality is eminently worthy of veneration.

See also The Last of Us 2.1-2.2: The Killing Cold ... 2.6: Father and Daughter Flashbacks

And see also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice ... 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort ... 1.9: The Limits of Utilitarianism

more about The Silk Code here

The Last of Us 2.6: Father and Daughter Flashbacks

A superb, emotionally wrenching flashback episode 2.6 of The Last of Us on Max tonight -- actually a series of flashbacks -- in which we learn why Ellie and Joel were so estranged in the opening episode of this second season.

[And I suppose there are spoilers ahead ... ]

The reason, in a nutshell, is that Joel swears to Ellie that he won't kill Eugene, who was bitten, but Ellie estimates has enough time see his beloved wife, Claire (played by Catherine O'Hara), the town's psychologist, but Joel kills Eugene anyway, then lies to Claire, saying Eugene killed himself, in front of a horrified Ellie.

Before this, we see Joel and Ellie at some of Ellie's earlier birthdays, as the two grow closer and closer together as father and daughter.   Flashbacks, if done well, can really make a series soar, as was demonstrated so brilliantly in Lost.  And this a standout episode in the second season of The Last of Us, where we already have seen the seen the immediate future to this father-and-daughter narrative:  after the two sort of reconcile as the last flashback in 2.6, Joel is tortured and killed in 2.1 by Abby, and her gang and a worse-than-horrified (too weak a word) Ellie, unable to do anything, look on.

Pedro Pascal puts in a masterful performance as Joel, as does Bella Ramsey as Ellie.  It was also great to see Joe Pantoliano back on the screen as Eugene, and Claire reading George R. Stewart's Earth Abides (made into a TV series that's pretty high up on my list of science fiction series to see).  And I really liked Ellie in the space exploration museum in the flashback that preceded the one in which Joel kills Eugene.  Getting out beyond this planet is arguably the greatest accomplishment of our species.  And it was potent indeed to see this astonishing accomplishment laid low by the fungus that has wiped most of our species.

And on that pessimistic note, I'll try to lighten the atmosphere by wishing Ellie a happy birthday.  I have a daughter, but I'm no expert on father-daughter relationships, because every one is different, not to mention that Ellie has been celebrating her birthdays in an apocalyptic nightmare of a world.  Ours certainly is no bargain these days, but we're nonetheless a lot better off on the other side of the screen than are Ellie and her cohorts.

See also The Last of Us 2.1-2.2: The Killing Cold

And see also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice ... 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort ... 1.9: The Limits of Utilitarianism

more about The Silk Code here

The Last of Us 2.1-2.2: The Killing Cold

 [spoilers ahead ... ]

So, Episode 2.1 of The Last of Us, up on Max last week, was pretty quiet. We did learn some important things.  There's a young woman, Abby, who is clearly a counterpart of Ellie -- the two even look somewhat alike -- who is intent on killing Joel.  That intention, of course, will put her on a collision course with Ellie, who therefore also of course gets into a father-daughter type argument with Joel, who also, as we know, is Ellie's de facto father.  We also see Ellie and Dina kiss at a dance in Jackson Hole, the center of the action so far in this second season.

As I say, pretty quiet.  And in a narrative of this calibre, pretty quiet has to be a build-up to something pretty calamitous.   But episode 2.2, just up of Max tonight, was a lot more than that.  I'd say it was one of most exciting, all-hell-breaks-loose, explosive episodes of anything I ever seen on any TV or streaming screen.  Right up there, in other words, with equivalent episodes of Game of Thrones.  And if we add movies into the comparison, with equivalent scenes in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.

I mean, the hordes of the infected attacking Jackson Hole are right up there -- or down there -- with the Orcs attacking wherever it was in Lord of The Rings.  And in some ways even more powerful because it came on so suddenly.  And, to add to the knock-down punch of this second episode, it wasn't even the more powerful scene in the near hour.

That would be the killing of Joel, which, although we learned the hard way in the first season that everyone was expendable, nonetheless came as a shockingly horrendously unwelcome stun.  Like I'm sure everyone else who saw the episode, I didn't want to believe it.  I didn't want to believe it so much, I didn't really believe it until I saw the bag with his body being hauled through the snow.   And even now there's a part of me that believes, yeah, if I was writing the story, maybe Joel would get frozen in the snow, so much so that his brain will get frozen before it dies, which means he could be resuscitated, right?  (Actually, I think that sort of happened with Michael C. Hall's "Dexter".)  Yeah, suddenly immense cold can do that.  But, sadly, I'm not writing this series.

But speaking of the cold, it did get nice and warm in New York City the past few days, but the cold was such an impressive character tonight, I actually felt chilled watching this episode -- not just psychologically because of was happened to Joel, but almost physically because of the way in which the snow and the cold was so effectively depicted and played a role in this narrative.

And I'll see you back here with my continuing reviews of this chilling series.

 See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice ... 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort ... 1.9: The Limits of Utilitarianism

The Last of Us Season One Finale: The Limits of Utilitarianism

Well, the season one finale of The Last of Us, just up on HBO Max tonight, was everything it could be and even more.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

So, first, here's what happened.  Turns out, at least as far as the docs in the hospital that Joel and Ellie finally get to, think: only by destroying Ellie's brain can her immunity to the fungi be disseminated to the rest of humanity.  We never find out if they're scientifically right or wrong, because Joel, once he finds out what the docs plan to do with Ellie, kills the doc about to perform the surgery and everyone else in his way so he can make good his escape with Ellie.

But here, then, is the question: was Joel right to do this?  Was he right to go against the fundamental principle of utilitarianism of the greatest good for the the greatest number, and deprive humanity of its rescue from death, all so one person, Ellie, can survive?  I tend to be utilitarian in many things, but ...

I would have done exactly what Joel did, had I the lethal prowess, to save Ellie.  Does that mean I'm weak?  Did Joel ignore logic and give into his emotions? Well, he did follow his emotions, but that doesn't mean he was weak or even illogical. Maybe there's a higher logic at work here.  The logic of going with your deepest emotion, if that emotion is love.

Joel acted on that principle, but he's not a philosopher.   He unconsciously refuted the utilitarian principle, and then he compounded that ethically dangerous action by lying.   Parents often lie to their kids -- the younger the kids are, the more often they're not told the truth, presumably for their own good.  I said Joel was right to save Ellie.  The docs could have been wrong.  Even if not, he was right to save her.  But was he right to lie to Ellie at the end of the episode when she asked him if he had told her the entire story of what had happened back at the hospital? Here I'd say, probably not.  I'm pretty sure I think he owed Ellie the truth.

On the other side of both of these issues, we have Marlene. She kills Ellie's mother Anna, her friend, after she'd given birth to Ellie, after Anna had been bitten, on Anna's instruction. She saved baby Ellie's life. Marlene is able to think clearly, rise above her emotions, and make tough decisions. The decision to kill Ellie, the baby she saved, years later, was an even tougher decision. She went with her head, not her heart. John Stuart Mill would have approved. It's tough to hate or even dislike her, because she was really trying to do the right thing. Unlike Joel, she told the truth. But Joel had to kill her -- fittingly, the last person he killed -- to escape with Ellie. I think he made the right decision here, too. 

Being right two out of three times in these hellish circumstances ain't bad.  And The Last of Us was 100% right to give us such an ethically wrenching season finale.  I'll certainly be back here with more reviews when the series resumes.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice ... 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

The Last of Us 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort

Well, tonight's next-to-last episode -- 1.8 -- of The Last of Us -- was everything it should be.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Ellie was at her absolute best so far in this series.  She progresses from killing a deer to the demonic leader of a town (or actually a "resort," he says), whose people under his guidance are practicing cannibalism.  And along with that, she manages to get penicillin -- enough to get Joel back in action, after one shot of the antibiotic at night and another the next morning.  Now I have no idea if penicillin can work that quickly, but it probably does, and even if not, it makes for a good story.

The key development in all of this is Ellie manages to triumph without Joel's help.  She would have survived even without Joel.  We've seen her contend with the elements, and people, and the infected before, but this is her best moment.  She uses everything she has -- including distracting her attackers by saying and showing she's infected (though the leader sees through that) -- and taking every opportunity to get on top of things, which she indeed does.

Does this mean she no longer needs Joel?  No, not at all.  The world in which they live is universally dangerous, and each of them, Ellie and Joel, need all the help they can get.  And as we've seen all season, the two of them are the best sources of that help, for each other.

I'm looking forward to seeing what further lessons we learn in the season finale next week.  What clues will it leave us for the second season, and who knows how many seasons to come?  It's at times like this that I wish all of its seasons were up online, so I could see every one of them.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

Talking about Alternate Histories on TV and Film

 

On the evening of February 15, 2023, I talked via Zoom to the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County about alternate history stories on TV and in the movies.

Among the shows I discussed were The Man in the High Castle, Hunters, The Plot Against America, Watchmen, For All Mankind, The Last of Us, Fatherland, Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood, & Juliet, It’s Real Life, and Snodgrass.

The Last of Us 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Well, first of all, I was glad to see that Joel was alive at the beginning and conclusion of The Last of Us 1.7, fulfilling what I said in my review of 1.6 last week, that if you don't see a character's head cut off or blown to bits, there's always a chance that she or he survived.

Now all of that took maybe a minute to show, and The Last of Us devotes the whole rest of the episode to another nearly standalone story, this time of Ellie and her best-friend Riley, whom she also has a crush on, back in Boston, after the fungus apocalypse, before she ever met Joel.  This story within a story was woven in so well, I didn't even quite realize that Ellie was back in time and in Boston until Riley said something about needing to leave Boston the next day.  And then everything, including Ellie's mention a little earlier of a time machine (a nice meta-touch), fell into place.

So, does this now mean that Joel and Ellie are permanent characters on this series, or at least for this first season of this series?  Perhaps not, but I think there's a chance that they will indeed endure.  And I think that's a good thing.  You can't make everyone expendable in a story.  Or maybe you can, but I think stories are always enhanced by having some permanence, some continuity, of characters.

This season will end after two more episodes.  And HBO has already called for a second season.  I'm hoping we'll see Joel in all of that, and more.  In the meantime, it was good to see Ellie's first love tonight, and in what circumstances she first got bitten by the infected.  Riley presumably didn't survive.  But her very wise advice that the two shouldn't take their lives, and instead live every moment they had left to the fullest, not only made everything we've seen of Ellie in this first season possible, but is very good advice for all of us on the other side of the screen

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

The Last of Us 1.6: Joel

[Big spoilers ahead ... ]

Well, I should have known when Tess was killed so early in the season of The Last of Us -- played by no less than Anna Torv -- that anyone and everyone was expendable in this superb narrative.  (As I said in my review of the first episode, I haven't played the game and know nothing of its story.)

But I didn't expect that Joel would go, and certainly not in the way that he did.  The scene with him and his brother Tommy convinced me that Tommy would escort Ellie, Joel would stay behind in Jackson with the Christmas lights and the movies, and we'd see him again sooner or later in the story.  In fact, I thought his change of mind was not quite believable, at least not to me.

I have a principle regarding life and death on the screen, which I usually mention as soon as a major character is killed.  The principle is: if the head isn't severed or blown to bits, there's a chance the character survived.  I guess I saw too many characters on 24 come back to life, i.e., not really killed.

So although we didn't see Joel in the coming attractions, I'm holding out hope.  I assume he was killed in the game.  But even if he was, that doesn't mean he was killed in the TV adaptation.  Adaptations are by definition not the same as the original.

In any case, The Last of Us continues to be one masterpiece of a series.  I said earlier that it's become my favorite post-biological apocalyptic series, and that only becomes more so with every episode.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

The Last of Us 1.5: Tunnels

Another superb episode of The Last of Us on HBO Max -- 1.5 -- in what is shaping up, hour for hour, as the best post-biological apocalypse series I've ever seen (and that includes, yes, The Walking Deads).

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

I entitled this review "Tunnels" because they play a crucial role in 1.5.  First, they almost provide a safe escape route for Henry and Sam and Joel and Ellie out of Kansas City.  And when they're attacked near the end by the fascist anti-Fedra militia, it's the horde of fungus heads coming out of tunnels -- well, at least from under the ground -- that saves the four again.

Again, but not for long:  in one of the most profound series of scenes in the series so far, it turns out Sam has been bitten ... Ellie tries to save him by coating some of her blood on Sam's wound ... but that doesn't work, and Henry kills what Sam has become and then himself.

But why didn't Ellie's blood stop the infection in Henry?  I had a feeling it wouldn't, as she was painting her blood on the outside of Sam's wound, because the fungus infection was likely already inside and all over his body via his circulatory system.  Maybe a blood transfusion would have saved Henry.  But Ellie's curative blood on the outside of the wound just wasn't enough.

The truth is, we still don't know much if anything at all about why Ellie has survived.  Maybe it was something in her lymphatic system, and not in her blood at all.  Or there could be something else in her DNA that makes her resistant, which cannot be transfused via her blood or lymphatic system at all.  We see a bit of discussion in the coming attractions about why Ellie's attempt to save Sam didn't work, and I'm looking forward to finding out more in the episodes ahead.

Which I'll be reviewing here every week.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun

lots about tunnels in this short story -- get it on Kindle, or read it free on Vocal

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

The Last of Us 1.4: Gun and Pun

Well, I of course knew when Ellie took the gun in episode 1.3 that she would use it to save Joel sooner or later,  so I was not surprised to see that happen in 1.4.  And I was glad, too.

[No big spoilers ahead ... ]

It was an excellent, fast-moving episode.  Kansas City, on and off the highway, was a good place to have it.  And, the coming attractions say Joel and Ellie will continue there next week.

Their relationship is developing in a realistic way.  Joel is in his 50s.  He's going to get winded climbing flights of stairs sooner than will Ellie, who has boundless young teenage energy.  And Joel is quickly getting to realize that because of that, she's an asset, in addition to her way with a gun.  Not to mention her sense of humor.

And her love of puns in that book.   Puns are a perfect punctuation to the life and death action.  In between the rounds of gunshots, it was good to hear it get so quiet you could hear a pun drop.

I have to say, as I may have said before, that The Last of Us manages to be a very different kind of biological apocalypse story (I haven't played the game).  Different from both Y and Station Eleven, not to mention the COVID pandemic in our off-screen reality which wasn't quite an apocalypse but came all too close, especially in the early days.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the episodes in this first season.  HBO announced on January 27 that they'll definitely be a second season, and I'm looking forward to that, too.   I'll definitely be reviewing every forthcoming episode.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

The Last of Us 1.3: Bill and Frank

A letter-perfect, memorable, beautiful episode 1.3 of The Last of Us, in which see how two people can find deep satisfaction in a lasting relationship that flourishes amidst the fungal ruin.

[Spoilers ahead... ]

Although Joel and Bella play a significant role, and it was good to see Anna Torv's Tess back in a flashback -- as I hoped for/predicted last week -- the heart of this episode was Frank and Bill.  It could easily have been a standalone movie or even series, but as it was, it lit up The Last of Us.

Bill's a conspiracy theorist survivalist who goes way back, before the arrival of the fungus (which we learn probably arrived in cereals -- oi! that could make me lose my taste for oatmeal every morning).  Frank shows up hungry, not having eaten in two days, not long after the pandemic has struck.  Bill is suspicious but cooks Frank a delicious dinner -- rabbit -- washed down by Beaujolais, which gives Frank an opening for a line about who knew how well Beaujolais and rabbit went together.   Bill and Frank certainly go well together (great acting by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett in the roles) and they live out their lives until ... well, I don't want to give everything away.  I will say that I thought the ending was the best way to go, given what the world around the two was like.

The larger lesson of this heartening and heartbreaking story is that who knows how many people really survived the fungal attack.  There could be thousands of couples and families in out of the way places around the world.   And this in turn means that there could be many seasons of this story.

But as to where we are now, Joel and Bella have a car, which plays Linda Ronstadt's "Long, Long Time" as the two drive west, a song played on the piano and sung earlier by Bill and Frank, an incandescent love song, which will now remind me of Bill and Frank for a long, long time.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs

The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us

So why would I watch yet another post-apocalyptic series -- apocalypse caused by some biological agent?  I mean, aren't Station Eleven, Y, not to mention our real COVID-19 pandemic enough?  And for that matter, the endless Walking Deads, which I stopped watching a while before COVID hit?  Well, yes.  But something moved me to watch the first two episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Max, and here I am reviewing them, and telling you I'm going to watch the rest of the episodes of this inaugural season.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

I mean, this new series, based on a game I've never played, doesn't fool around.  Joel, one of the lead characters, sees his daughter shot to death in the first attempts of our military to stop the spread of the fungus that turns anyone who's bitten in a violent monster.  That was at the beginning of the first episode.  And tonight, at the end of the second episode, we see Anna Torv's character apparently killing herself because she was bitten and needs to stop of hoard of fungus heads.  She's an icon of science fiction, having burst on the scene and distinguished herself in Fringe.  Well, maybe she's not dead, given my principle that if you don't see someone blown to bits they could still be alive.  Or, maybe we'll see more of Torv in flashbacks.

Meanwhile, Joel, portrayed by Pedro Pascal who was so good in Narcos, is alive and kicking, as he and the spunky, wisecracking young Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are maybe heading West.  Ellie at this point looks to be carrying the cure to this fungus, which so far has resisted all medications and vaccines.  She has been bitten and so far has not gotten sick or fungus-head homicidal.  Joel is beginning to appreciate this.

I do have a question about Ella, though. She said she was what, 14?  But the fungus hit some 10 years ago.  So, how did she get what seems to be such good knowledge of history and culture -- which presumably began crumbling pretty quickly after the fungus took hold.  Could a four-year old have been that precocious?

We'll just have to see.  And I'll be back here with more reviews after I see more of this series.

See also  1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels ... 1.6: Joel ... 1.7: Riley's Wise Advice ... 1.8: Ellie vs. the Resort ... 1.9 The Limits of Utilitarianism 

I talk about The Last of Us, beginning at 40mins 40secs