“I don’t know if Joel and Ellie were ambushed by those guys. They seemed genuinely angry that Joel was firing on them;”

we love a full circle

Same. This KC militia is basically being run by a Karen, and I’m not sure I buy in. 

-Wow that episode just flew by

Melanie Lynskey’s career literally started with her being an unknown cast in Heavenly Creatures because she conveyed this rare quality of being unassuming on the surface and being able to convey dark thoughts and energy underneath that 

Kathleen is an invention of the show. In the game, they’re just a bunch of generic evil guys.

It was unambiguously an ambush in the game.

I always think Lynskey’s power as an actor is in her ability to evoke a lot of darkness below what may seem an unassuming surface. she seems to make sense as a leader, someone with a foot in the old world of things and in the new.

While a very small moment, Ellie knocking the hands off the clock made me laugh and continue to appreciate how well Bella Ramsey sells ‘sarcastic and genuine kid’ which is a really tough needle to thread. It would be very easy to make those two sides of Ellie feel like they did not mesh or were forced but she’s…

Yeah no, NWO was always a wingnut conspiracy. Truthers may have been mostly on the left but their theory was the attacks were a false flag to justify US imperialism. NWO was more on the Tim McVeigh end of things.

We realize it’s only January, but if 2023 gives us a better episode of television than episode three of The Last of Us, we’ll be very lucky.

As a queer person, I didn’t read it as a Bury Your Gays at all – they didn’t die because of homophobic brutality or tragedy, they died because they were old and content, it’s really the most beautiful, sweet, and sad episode of TV I’ve seen in a long time.

Yeah, they confirmed on the podcast that while they left it intentionally vague, it was supposed to be ALS or something similar.

A very good episode. The only misstep was playing Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight, which has become an overused cliche to signal the waterworks in shows and movies. But very lovely and tender scenes with two fantastic actors. I was blown away by Offerman, showing Bill’s longing, trepidation, and vulnerability.…

It took me a while to remember that in 2003, people ranting about the “New World Order” tended to be hardcore liberal 9/11 truthers rather than Qanon freaks.

“Arby’s didn’t have free lunch; it was a restaurant.” First legit LOL line of the season.

This was my interpretation as well — Frank is suffering from a terminal disease that had no effective treatments in 2003, when modern medicine collapsed. The line about “we didn’t know how to treat it even before the world went to shit” suggests that it’s not cancer, because we had treatments for most cancers in 2003.

They nailed this episode. I went in expecting a fairly strict adaptation of Bill from the game: a loner curmudgeon with a chip on his shoulder who helps Joel find a car battery.

that strawberry scene totally smacked me back of the head with some emotions.