Wow.... this hit home with Tom’s incoming call. My mom called me with a very similar “play-by-play” of my dad’s death, EMTs, compressions, chaos and confusion... just as I was sitting down in a theater seat, chaperoning my son’s middle school class at a matinee stage show. I remember yelling down to him to just follow…

When my parents died- years apart- I was the only family member in the area. And, in both cases, I knew- knew- that I wasn’t going to get to them in time, that I was not going to get to them before they died. My mom in hospice, my dad in his own bed, at home, shortly after his home health aid left.

I also saw the expression of fear in Coach Ben’s face that he might be the next one getting eaten.

Ellie was sexually assaulted and almost eaten at 14, so I think she earned a prolonged state of crisis.

So the Fireflies are expecting a teenage girl, who may hold the key to a cure, escorted by a middle aged man. Is this in dispute?

Humanity, being fucked, had no influence on his decision to murder the Fireflies and get Ellie. He was acting out of his own desires. Marlene even gave him a choice and he doubled down on it. Lying to Ellie, only cements that he knows he’s “wrong” and that he didn’t care. Whether or not the Fireflies would have been…

If you apply that to the real world, it’s like saying because the Covid vaccine doesn’t solve humanity’s problems, it wouldn’t be worth killing one person to save hundreds of thousands, if not more, worldwide.

Every time Ellie and Joel encounter humanity, there was nothing worth saving. Bill wrote it in his letter. Humanity isn’t worth the sacrifice. But some humans are.

I want the post-post-apocalyptic story where the real heroes are the urban designers so badly

The full context does not make it any better. He interprets some poll as proof that a majority of Black people have anti-White beliefs, calls them a hate group for it and says White people should stay away from Black people and that that’s why he lives in an area with little to no Black people.

Nah, Paper Boi clearly said he wanted a ‘Nando’s’ on set, and Earn messed up again.

When they were leaving I was yelling at the screen “Joel, ask him how you find the lab when you get to the university!  Ask him what the building looks like!”

It wasn’t clear why the entire city followed her either unless it was just out of loyalty to her brother. RIP Kathleen, I guess.

One thing the show is doing exceptionally well is building up the dread - you know the other shoe is going to drop but you don’t know when and how it happens (not even the game fans cause they change things up quite a bit).

So you’re telling me the battle in Kansas City, where FEDRA lost, happened like a week before Joel and Ellie showed up? How convenient.

And yet another also, Lynskey was good as hell, and I really appreciated reading her perspective in the linked twitter thread. 

I’m the first one to call out an episode, or a whole show for being painfully plodding (Mayfair Witches and The Watchful Eye are two shows that I’m rapidly growing impatient with), but, to me, this episode did not feel like it was ‘dawdling’.

In a fucking downpour.

See this is why I value the comments section more than the features. Learn something every day.

Coming soon:  Disney Also Too HBO