'The Last of Us' Season 2 Episode 3 Review | HBO

0:00 Hey y'all, load up the cooler with some home brewed brewskies because guess what, there's a Little League game going on. Terrible commercial. You wouldn't like that. That's GAIL, baby. Imagine that's how they do commercials in the apocalypse. Oh, it's just someone standing in in the town square. Doing that, it's like you're right before the town hall meetings. Grab some of Harley's Hardy Stew. I don't know. We'll workshop it. We'll work. I, I, I can't get off the cuff.

0:40 I'm not going to improv. I'm Derek. That's Noah. This is a bite of and we're covering The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 3, The Path. The path, which is also a song that's in the game and play some very pedal moments so just. Throwing that up, all just names of songs this season. 2 out of 3 so far. Maybe Yeah, yeah, I guess we'll see. It's an amazing soundtrack so why not True. OK so yeah, another fun episode that we're here to talk about before we get into everything, make sure you're following, subscribing, whatever it is that we get notifications, whatever new episodes come out. I feel like I'm much those words together, but we have Doctor Who and The Last of Us coming out in the same week every week until both of those shows are done.

1:27 We. Just did the well, Doctor Who. Now we're doing the path in The Last of Us. It all just makes sense. It all leads to something. Absolutely. So spoil alert ahead. We try not to spoil anything future in the game. But if we do, if I feel the need that I can't not say something, I will give double double spoiler alert. So spoiler alert for The Last of Us. All right, so let us officially take a bite of The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 3, The Path, written by Haley Wiegren Gross and Craig Mazen and directed by Peter Horror. Three months passed since Joel was murdered, and the citizens of Jackson can feel the hole he's left behind.

2:08 Ellie and Dina set out on their own to track Abby and seek justice. They quickly discovered they don't know much about what has been going on outside the wooden walls of their home. Yikes. OK, this this episode, I was very interested to see how they were going to do it because the show almost has to recalibrate itself into what it's going to be. But not Joel. I'm not saying that Joel was the show, but Joel was the anchor, right? And it's Pedro Pascal, so a lot of star power. So how was this going to move forward from Joel? And I felt like it did a good job of almost like that video game thing of like, OK, loading screen, here's the new path forward. But I, I really appreciated that we spent time grieving, not a lot of time, but with Ellie and Tommy specifically, I think those are the people we needed the most to see grieve. And I think they did a beautiful job with that. Yeah, it's interesting that you said kind of what the show is going to be without Joel, because in the second-half of the show, I was thinking like, what is keeping this show from being just like ACW teen drama, right? But with the preview of the next episode, obviously it's not going to be that at all.

3:27 But it is something really interesting because the first season really was built on Joel and here he is completely gone. I mean, even removed from the opening credits of the show. Wow, OK, great. I. Mean they did it, and the question is, was Pedro Pascal under the sheet when they were washing the body? You better be, you know, yeah, he's like, I'm just going to don't touch me or laugh. But yeah, I think, yeah, we, we do know he's going to show up in flashbacks. And that's a very big part of the game, as well as showing flashbacks of their journey to Jackson or in between the five years that we didn't see. So Pedro is going to be in the show in some capacity just to really break our hearts and miss him even more. It did look like his hand let.

4:12 Us believe, yeah, that it is him. The I believe the actor or somebody said, I can't remember if it was the actor that played Tommy or something, but they said that this scene specifically was like a one man wake. And I thought it was so incredibly sad and moving and touching and the only light being emanated in that whole room was from the fire. Yeah. Just seeing him clean up his brother and then say give my luck to Sarah, which is so incredibly sad because the two characters we started the show with are gone and now we're with Elantina. Yeah, that moment really just showed the repercussions of what happened in that one day. I mean, it was really like an hour, if even that right where now Joel is gone, Jackson is completely is burning, there's dead bodies everywhere.

5:01 There's just a lot to deal with. And so, you know, what's interesting is that this is our second time jump in this season already. Granted, it's not as as big as the first one, but we needed that, right? I don't think we could have sat in that grief much longer, but we know that even though it's three months later, they're still dealing with the loss of Joel. Yeah, they gave us time to again, grieve the character some more in this. But yeah, I don't think we needed three months to really be. Yeah, we got Ellie waking up in the hospital and literally waking up still in that moment. I mean, who knows? Maybe she was reliving that moment over and over again. And when she finally came to, it was like, it happened again. They had to show us one more time. Yeah, I was like, cool, love it. But yeah, I don't think this show is incredibly sad. And it's emotionally taxing.

5:47 I don't think we need to sit with it for too much because then it's just becomes like, oh, this makes me feel not good, you know? And IA lot of this stuff doesn't make me feel good, but it's part of the story. And it's like moving forward, I don't want to sit here, like get out of Jackson. For the love of God, I can't. And I think that this episode gave us, it's a bridge, right, like you said, between the past of the show and the future of the show. And we just kind of lived in Jackson for this one episode to see what was going on and how everyone was dealing with it. And obviously we see Ellie going back to the house, which is devastating, and just being there with him, but it being so empty, Yeah, you know.

6:33 This particular scene was so well done. It's such a, you know, I, I've seen some people say that like this was a filler episode and stuff like that. Well, granted, no, it's not. It has a lot of character development and it pushes the story forward. It is slow. It's a very slow, slow episode. I think we need that because a lot of times we don't get this, we don't get the grieving, we don't get to see the consequences or repercussions of a character dying and decisions being made like this in a show with this many episodes anymore. Nowadays it's like, hey, the character died, have like of them under the sheet for one scene and then like move on. At least in this we got to see a little more and her in the house. I it was, it was so sad.

7:20 So, so sad. It was so sad. And I think it would have been almost unfair to Ellie to not give her this moment, right? I think it as far as audiences, right? Because I had made a comment about the first episode of saying, like, she's really bratty. She's being really like such a teenager in this. And so if we didn't see this humanizing moment of her dealing with the loss of her father, then I think that it would have been a disservice to the audience and to the character. This this episode does a good job of showing grief and it's different ways and how a child of 19, you know, she's I don't feel like she is a child in some ways and also Tommy dealing with grief, but then, you know, a town because everybody lost somebody.

8:03 But we see Ellie specifically and and Bella Ramsey, they phenomenal job in acting in this episode because they do those different layers of, I don't know, kind of being a bratty kid, but also lying, putting up a certain face when they know they need to get a certain way or get something that they want. When she talks to GAIL in the hospital, it's very much like, oh, you know, like the last moments of somebody shouldn't define ball. Like she's literally reading a pamphlet. She knows what she needs to do. But then that slow pull in when she's leaving and her face slowly turns into how she's actually feeling. So good, so good, so good. Yeah, I think Ellie just wants to move. Like it's almost like the the face she's putting out there is a face of being strong and moving on, but internally she's obviously going through it.

8:54 Yeah, she she goes and smells Joel's clothes and she starts breaking down and then she hears Dina and she has to, like, fix herself. And she's like, oh, this is what? They can't see me like this because her whole path. And regardless of what she says during the town hall meeting, it is about revenge. She's lying. You know, Jesse, when they're they're training and stuff like that, Jesse's like, oh, you need to like, you know, you need to plead your case, like write stuff down. You need to like, think about this. And she's like, OK, I'll do that. She already knows her path. She 100% she's lying and GAIL is like the only one that can clock her. Yeah, and I think for GAIL, GAIL is like, what am I going to do? Holding her back? It's not going to change anything, right. She she talks about the difference between a liar and telling lies. And but she's just like that kids, a liar. Well, and she also, she Joel killed her husband. We know that, how much anger she has with him. And like, regardless of it being sad and, you know, Ellie had nothing to do with that.

9:51 From what we know, she's like, I, I mean, yeah, kid, I'm sorry, but y'all, you 2 are the same. You're very much the same. And also like, he killed my husband. Yeah. I like GAIL. Bye. You could tell that GAIL, that GAIL is a really good psychologist because she's very aware that she's an alcoholic. She's just like talking to Tommy. She's like, well, I'm an alcoholic. That's how I'm dealing with things. She's just like and that's my path that I find. Imagine being like the only therapist. I mean, not in the world right now, but maybe in an entire town during apocalypse. I would drink too. She said she's supposed to go to therapy herself to unload all this nonsense, but all she has is the bottle. All she does is go to a Little League game and then drink right in left field.

10:36 I I thought we were in the past. Every time I see an episode of the show, I'm so impressed by Jackson. Like I was impressed that Dina had a Tupperware and then they have a full baseball field for these kids. I was like, OK. I did love the detail that their jerseys were clearly just T-shirts with spray painted numbers on them. And they all look different. Yeah, that I appreciated. But yeah, I mean, we all deal with things differently, right? You know, one thing that I thought was interesting was the scene where Tommy is, we see Tommy kind of fixing up the town and he's trying to put a post in the ground. And then Jesse comes along and does it in like tooth wax, right? So I was looking at that and going like, does this mean that Tommy in his mind is like, well, maybe it's time for me to step back? Maybe I've been doing this for too long and there is strong leadership here that could take my place. Yeah, I mean, I can't.

11:30 OK, Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. I'm going to wait, skip like 15 seconds, blah, blah, blah. Tommy does go on. OK, Spoiler, you're gone. You skipped a little bit. OK, Tommy does go on his own path of revenge. So I think this is a a way, if they're going to do that, a way for him to be like Jackson's taken care of and I can leave and go do that. That makes sense. OK, I got you. That's all I want to say with that. Well, with Mr. Biceps at the helm. Oh my gosh, Jesse. Yeah, Jesse, I mean. I get it 100. Percent that I I get why Dina's confused She's like put those arms.

12:13 He's like yeah, but yeah, I think it is very much like Jesse is is pragmatic. Jesse is somebody that like he sees his future as being a leader of Jackson, being the president of Jackson, right. And I think Jesse doesn't take over doing the post of like, look, I got biceps and I'm strong and you're old. I think he takes it of like. I got it, absolutely. You know which I that's one of the reasons what I love about Jesse so much is he is like that and you know, sometimes to a fault, but I think he always has the best intentions. But I very much that's a that's a good thing to bring up. I think it's the transition of like, oh, Jackson itself is going to change in some way and what does it look like the path going forward?

13:01 It's like they named this the path for a reason, yeah. Before we get like kind of moving away from Jackson a little bit, the scene specifically in Joel's house, just to kind of go back a little bit with Dina specifically. I really appreciated this conversation and the kind of passing of like, I don't know, not secrets, but like they almost have a pact that happens in the scene. So Dina brings cookies as a peace offering to be like, look, I help with the information. I know all of their faces, their names and where they're from, and even the the entity that they work for. And she lied about it, rightfully so, from Tommy and Ellie, because she knew they would go under it. They needed to heal.

13:49 And then it was also almost an exchange between both of them, because I think Dina has an understanding in the scene of like, Ellie is going to do whatever she's going to do, and Dina's here with her. And so them almost like sharing the cookies is like, we're in this, yeah, we got this. Let me try to do it this way. If not, we're going to go do it this way. Yeah, I think that this scene shows how well Dina knows Ellie. And, you know, we've only met Dina, but they've obviously known each other for years at this point. So these this scene really illustrates the fact that they do have a bond and a friendship or maybe more. And so Dina is able to really already know what Ellie's going to do.

14:30 She could see the steps Ellie's going to take before she even takes them. And so Ellie needs a person like this in her corner, someone that is going to really think pragmatically about all the steps that need to be taken. Because Ellie doesn't do that. Ellie leaves before she looks. Well, Dina says on their trip to Seattle. She's like, I'm the brains, you're the brown. And it's very clear that that's how it's going to go. Because Ellie is just like Joel. He shoots 1st and asks for justification later. Yeah, even in the scene later on when she finds Ellie packing for the trip, it's just guns, you know, and like. Maybe a little less grenades and more granola. What about a blanket or a first aid kit or something like that? Yeah, a first aid kit might be.

15:11 A good, you know, just in case, but Ellie's like, I got all my gun, let's go. We're killing people. And so Deena very much is the one that's able to take a step back and look at things and make a list. We always need those people in our lives. Speaking of, not Speaking of but so when Ellie smells Joel's shirts and stuff, if I was to pass, what would you smell like? What would be the thing you would go to 1st to be like or keep be like? This is the thing that smells like. Oh, that smells like you. I was going to give it a dirty answer. No. I mean. Probably 1 of like this big sweatshirts that you wear around the house. And you're sweating all the time. Yeah.

15:57 Or make sure to extra sweat on them just in case. Yeah, and the like matching shorts set or something like that and I try to wear them, but they'd be too small. You can't wear them, then it would smell like you. OK, maybe I wanted our smells to mingle for one last time. What would you wear of mine or smell of mine? I wouldn't wear just went over that. Probably your Spirited Away shirt. I like that one and your underwear. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I know those, the black and white briefs, those are cute. Those are. Cute. This is a family program. No, no, no.

16:37 OK, yeah, I was just curious. I was like, I wonder what would happen. That's what I'd really keep, yeah. All right, so town hall meeting in this one of my favorite scenes in this episode. I thought it was really a neat look at different people in this community and what they're thinking and also how their system of, of government works. And I liked that they all had to vote in front of everybody, and then they count them right there. It's like, yeah, you can't lie. You can't break the system. No. Yeah. What did you make of this scene with all these different voices kind of, I don't know, pleading their case? I mean, I think that they are very much a democratic society and we really see that in play here. And I understand both sides of it. You know, you can't help but put yourself in this situation and wonder, well, what would I do?

17:25 And I understand that one woman that's like, well, I lost people. You know, I know people that died in this. Some people very close to me. I'm not looking to go out and take revenge and have 16 of our strongest people leave when we're still rebuilding and have, you know, weakness in our guard. So I get that. But then there's a part of me that's like, there's a difference between walkers, not walkers. Oh my gosh, infected coming in and killing US versus a group of humans who went out of their way to torture and murder someone. So I would say let's compromise. How about we send 8 instead of 16? Yeah. I mean, I think knowing what we know at the end of this episode of the wolves being much bigger and heavily armed than we thought they were, it doesn't matter, like sending 16 or sending 2, you know. So I think in the end it was going to play out. I was going to play out anyway, but I very much did like that that woman saying like, look, I like Joel, he was a nice guy, but like, hello, like, are we going to, I don't know, get revenge on anybody that gets wronged here? So I think that she is like setting that precedent of like, look, we have to think responsibly with this, but us as viewers are like, no fucked up.

18:46 Let's like go kill them. Like we need to like get rid of them. And then also we have that one guy that was like, look, this is a cycle of violence. Like we need to like cut this off. We need to show mercy. That's what separates us. Also a great point. And then we have fucking Seth. We're, you know, Ellie gives their speech and it's great. It's fake as fuck and everybody knows it. And GAIL clocks it. She's like she was lying the whole time. But Seth, when you have the only towns bigot in your corner, it's like, oh, maybe let me rethink this a little bit. He's like I agree with the F slurs it's so random. You know, I have real pride in them. It's just like this was an interesting turn for this character, what are we supposed to take from it as the viewer? Is he overcompensating?

19:36 I mean, maybe he does have like some weird like fetish with the revenge or something like that, but I feel like he's like overcompensating in a way or like, yo, I don't he I don't get out of here. I don't care about him. Like, I like that Ellie was still like this guy. Like, OK, I'll shake your hand. Thank you for giving me my horse. But I was like, OK, I don't care. Like you just you're still an asshole. Like it doesn't make it better. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that's the thing. It's it's, I don't even think it's like a forgive and forget thing. I think it's I don't forgive you and I'm not going to forget it, but you're giving me what I want in this moment and that's all I could ask for. Yeah, I'm going to use you as much as I can. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about shimmer.

20:18 Oh, shimmer. Shimmer, so strong can hold two people at once. Well, they're tiny little pocket sized people. Oh my gosh, shimmer these. Are literal children. And all the year, Shimmer's strong. We love her. But. So we go to Seattle. Yeah, that's fine. Nothing is going to happen there but. The final scene with Ellie stopping at Joel's grave and giving the coffee beans. What I thought was weird is I tried to think back if in any time in the show, Joel's love of coffee was mentioned and I'm not sure it was. I think maybe maybe in the episode, maybe survive and endure with Sam and Henry, like when they get to that place and he looks for coffee.

21:01 I can't remember briefly. Maybe in the games it's very much like a a dialogue thing that keeps happening. Like any time they go into like a convenience store or something is like, oh, I wonder if there's coffee. Like he loves coffee. So I did like that even I'm not sure it was mentioned in the show, but just if people were confused and why coffee beans? That's why I. Appreciate you explaining that because if you don't remember it, you know, definitely, I definitely don't remember it. And so I was going, you must have loved coffee. I don't know, but OK. I'm glad that came through. But I to me then it seems like a nudge to the game players, right? Of like, you know what this means? It's her way of honoring him.

21:42 Maybe it's something that they had just the two of them. Yeah, it's funny too, because in the game, when she goes to his grave, she just really touches it. She touches the earth and touches the the soil. So I liked it. And this one, it was even more of a a game thing than even in the game it was, you know, so I did like that little aspect, but it's such a beautiful shot. I'm I'm curious if this is the last we're going to see of Jackson in the show. I guess it depends on how much story they're going to show in Jackson because this, this all of this like does not really happen in the game. We don't get this council. We don't get these big long grieving periods because pretty much most of the game is breathing and dealing with that. It's like death, wake up, OK, we go there in Seattle. So because it's a game, right, it has to move the action forward.

22:29 So I'm liking that because we're having these two seasons of one game. We get these moments like this to sit with them and to kind of see how it all works. So not to not to spoil anything, don't spoil anything, but is there like a moment in the second game where you can see where they're going to end this season of the show? No. Oh, interesting. I have no. I mean, maybe, maybe, but no. Just such a mystery. Yeah, because there's there's a lot of like things that could end it. But we're we're already in Seattle. So I'm like. They got there so fast. Yeah, I I think we had to, right, because like that's the action that it has to like pick up because we've had such like intense but somber episodes really.

23:14 So I think we need to get the story moving a little bit. And Abby wasn't in this at all. So what is Abby doing? What's Abby up to? She's like bye. She's. Having a little party for for three months? What? A jerk. So, so on their journey to Seattle, they come across this sort of religious group that we we see in a scene, we know that they're running from something and then they are all murdered. They're massacred, basically. And so this is the part where you can tell that Ellie and Dina really have no idea what's been going on outside in the world. So it, it's so weird because they don't really tell you anything about these people. We, we hear a little bit of their lore, obviously we see that they have those marks on their faces and there's something about hammers, you know, that's, I guess they just use hammers to, to defend themselves. But it's, I was like, is this some sort of Attack on Titan crossover episode I wasn't aware of because they are dressed like Adam Jaeger.

24:14 It's wild. Yeah, the the Seraphytes are interesting. So this is a group of cults, like I can very easily, without spoiling anything, their cult, like they talk about profit. They talk about, you know, the best defense is distance, which means like distance away from, you know, whatever. I think we can infer that the wolves may have been hunting them down. There's a war between them. I think what's important for people to when they're watching The Last of Us or we will see more of is in the United States specifically, there's a lot of different factions and groups of people that branched out of ephedra. And so the seraphytes are just another branch of people that grouped like kind of branched off from something else or like because of ephedra, people rose up and the wolves they an opposition ephedra.

25:06 So there's a lot of different government or like religious or whatever entities. So you have groups of people always fighting each other. And so this is one of our first instances of seeing that outside of our characters. And it's just happens to be like a cult. But I did like the the kind of parallel between like Joel and Sarah, Joel and Ellie with this young girl and her father. You know, we see that they all have the glass go smiles and they talk about a prophet. So we know a little bit about them, but they don't have any technology. So having bows and arrows and hammers, I don't know how effective that would be against the tank, but obviously not very effective, yeah. It was really sad, and so I'm interested to learn more of this group.

25:48 Just personally in life, I'm always interested in cults and things like that. So it's just so interesting that even in a story of the end of the world, there are still groups of people fighting to either be right or have power. And it's like, we can never just exist, right? And so that's what this is all leading up to, just more fighting and seeing the power that the wolves have is scary, especially when we know it's just these two people on a horse. Yeah, And I think that's, you know, this episode was interesting because it it, it didn't remind us that these are they're young, they're young people. And there's moments like in the tent with very much like, will they won't they?

26:32 Dana's still trying to figure her stuff out. Ellie is like, God, I love this girl. But like, come on, you know, So we get moments like that where it's like, it does feel like a, and this isn't a dig or a negative thing, but like Aya story. And then we're thrown back into like, there's cults and there's government agencies and there's people killing each other. And like, this is a story about revenge. So I think going forward, like once we were like fully in Seattle, the tone might change a little bit, but I'm curious to see like, you know, a lot of stakes is on Bella Ramsey's shoulders, like they they're going to carry the show going forward. So what does that look like? I'm, I think this episode kind of sold me on their ability, obviously, but having Dina there really helps.

27:19 I think we needed that balance of not just Ellie being like super pissed off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ken love Blossom in a world where the soil is soaked with blood. I guess we'll see. We will see, you know, and I, and there's like a part of me that feels like, how can these two really take down this whole thing? And I mean, I, I fully believe in them, but I, I, I'm almost like, are there going to be these moments where the infected kind of almost work with them in a way to take down this huge militia? You know, and it's also to think about like, these were some pristine military vehicles that they had. So this isn't like them, you know, fixing up some old rusted junk. I mean, this is like really good weaponry. Yeah, yeah, these people are, they're very well equipped. And that's what that scene was trying to show us. Like, oh, no, like this is what they're walking into. They have no idea what they're walking into. And I don't know what they think they think it was going to be, but they're not prepared for this. No way.

28:22 And it's going to be a wild ride to see how they even begin to find Abby. Like how do you find in a in a huge American city like Seattle with this entire military? Like good luck, girls. And the fact that, you know, we even see in this with Danny Ramirez's character that they have posts they have watched, they're always watching, so. Apparently not good enough because they didn't see. That's true. But you know, in this episode it looks like they're going underground. That's going to be scary. Tight quarters and darkness. Last thing I want to say the tent scene. How did you feel about Dean being like you're gay? I'm not. I said, girl, I think you're a little queer yourself. She's very much still figuring it out, which I think is cute and we're seeing that.

29:11 But like, you know, video game me because at this point they've already like they've already bumped, you know, and like I just I, I, I need them to get there. She's like, how would you rate my kids? You want to try again? No. It's very like high school. Yes, totally. That's what I'm saying. It was like, like you're saying it's like, will this just be a teen drama? And then obviously it won't be. Yeah, I Ellie giving it a six. Come on. She's playing games. Come on, she's playing. Games girl. She's like, let's try again. OK, yeah, so I guess until next week. I'm hoping next week isn't as sad and we're really trying to make these episodes not like I cried. What about you?

29:56 Yeah, we want more murder. Let's go. Well. We have, we have Doctor Who episode 4 coming out on Saturday and then you know, you'll see us for the next Last of Us one. It's not the Last of Us. OK. On that note, goodbye.