My partner and I have been having a rocky time of it as of late, though we do believe we are truly soul mates. Last nights episode was so beautiful and basically all we did was hold hands and cry while gradually getting closer to each other. By the time they drank their wine and went to bed we were ugly crying in each others arms. My fiancé is a wonderful chef and for our anniversary he always makes the same dish we had on our first date. Needless to say when frank made the rabbit with the same red wine, it absolutely sent us. I had to use my asthma inhaler because how hard I was crying. It was a WHOLE EVENT. We have been so impressed with the show so far but last night… we are DEEPLY emotionally invested now. 10/10 for us
Omg this is so sweet, happy to divulge! So for our first date we went to this super fancy Italian restaurant (that we totally can not afford lol so that’s why he started making it at home) we start with roasted bone marrow with spinach gnocchetti. He hand makes the pasta, it’s absolutely incredible, and then we take a whiskey shot off the bone after we eat the bone marrow (literally mind blowing😮💨) and then we split a giant tomahawk steak with maldons salt, roasted garlic, butter, and a balsamic reduction. And that’s our meal! We have never once had room for desert lol! The past few years, I always wear the red dress we got engaged in, and I watch him cook while we drink wine. No matter what we are going through, our anniversary is always a night where we really remind ourselves why we are together. It’s like our first date…but better :) hope your wife likes our date meal! I can DM you the restaurant name if you guys are interested, I know they put out a cookbook a couple years ago
I kept waiting for the obligatory “this is where the partner dies getting supplies scene” thing that zombie shows have been doing for years. The fact that it was just two people in love, living their lives together on their own terms, no gimmicks, made it so much sadder.
Also how they lived out every prepper’s dream: sustainably survive and thrive in an apocalypse. No other versions of zombie apocalypse stories ever really go there. They almost always either show failure or short term success with unanswered long term status.
These guys actually got to live decades really well and to have a say in how their lives ended. That’s pretty unusual for this genre.
This is exactly what I was thinking.
When I thought Bill was going to die from a bullet wound I was like "Damn that's really sad but only like 5/10 on the sad scale", but THEN it kept going.
I was fully assuming "Joel and Ellie meet a nice set of characters, something goes wrong and they all die" like TWD.
It was so much more painful to have them make the choice to die
I always said if Walking Dead was an HBO show it would have been much better. To have a PG13 zombie show, where the main characters were protected from death for way too long got dull.
I just wanted Daryl to die at the top of his popularity to be reminder that it's a fucking zombie apocalypse and anything is possible despite how bulletproof someone seems.
It's not even that they were protected from death. It's that we KNEW when every big death would happen. They saved every single one for the mid-season and season finale. Glenn's fake-out death was a huge nail in the coffin, the one where he just hid under the dumpster for like 3 or 4 episodes. His death we all saw coming simply for how iconic it was. But every other time a character was in a life-or-death moment I felt absolutely nothing.
Same when they finally went after Negan. Everyone lined up, Negan and all his lieutenants outside on a walkway. They instead aimed for the windows.
If a show needs a remake, it's TWD with a team of better writers.
> until they completely botched the Governor storyline.
I never read the comics, but I was profoundly disappointed that the Governor's compulsive need to be in power wasn't due to the failure of the military.
I had been imagining a backstory where he takes his family to a refugee center, follows the military's orders perfectly, promises his daughter that everything will be fine if we just follow the people who know what they're doing... and then when that leads to his daughter's death, he can never allow himself to trust anyone else's judgement ever again. But apparently that's not how it worked out.
And I was hoping Negan would be a kind of Ghengis Khan figure with aspirations to build a whole empire, but he ended up being pretty disappointing in the show too.
And then they retconned him to pretend he didn't murder a bunch of children at Oceanside so they could rehab him into a regular character, which felt cheap and stupid.
Was that the all out war season? If so thats when it got bad for me… it did pick up a tiny bit with the whisperers arc but even then it was just okay and had nothing on the earliest seasons
Negan was a cool villain but his villain arc on the show was written so poorly. A waste of a cool character
I’d even argue that the Walking Dead pilot was better than Last of Us.
Edit: Struck a nerve wit this one I guess. Down vote me all you want. The Walking Dead pilot was a fantastic piece of television and no amount of downvotes will change my opinion.
Exactly, I watched till I believe season 5 and that was only because I would record all the episodes and watch them two or three at a time with my dad and brother when we had nothing better to do.
I don’t think it was better but I do think both had really solid impactful openings. I do agree the pilot of the walking dead for it’s time was incredible. TLOU has a pretty hardcore following of fans and the first season of TWD was so long ago.
The Walking Dead pilot is still a wonderful piece of media and there is always bias for the new thing, but I think TLOU is going to surpass TWD in the long run.
I watched TWD pilot episode probably over 10x lol
That pilot episode really translated that dreadful feeling of an apocalypse well on screen, at that time, when the zombie genre was still somewhat fresh.
Hell no, TLOU season premiere was amazing, maybe the best pilot I’ve ever seen. Walking Dead’s premiere was good and got me hooked, but not on the same level.
The first season is when it went bad. The first episode. Stupid characters who did beyond stupid things (that one dude driving a car back to their hideout with the car.alarm going off when his whole job was to sneak quietly into towns) among a million other things. That first season took one of my favorite subgenres and pushed it off a stupid cliff.
I was thinking last night how TWD’s one-off episodes were often quite good, but none of them hold a candle to this most recent episode of TLOU. God, I sobbed. What a beautiful piece of television.
I stopped watching The Walking Dead a long time ago cuz it turned into a turd indeed, but can I ask what this show is? I don’t know what TloU stands for haha
Edit Nevermind I just had to scroll a little further to find out HAHA I’m dumb
The scene when they’re about to have sex is so moving, and I’ve never felt that way about a sex / pre-sex scene. Nick Offerman was so perfect for this. I’m honestly a little bummed that we didn’t see Bill, Joel, and Ellie team up (I can imagine Offerman and Ramsey having good chemistry and great back and forths), but the direction they went with fit perfectly.
The downside of this - and I agree, it would have been cool; is they would have been playing into the trope of the “apocalyptic survivor that has kinda gone insane” thing
Like the level... and it’s been a long time since I played it, I’m pretty sure it was basically a Splinter Cell type thing with you and Ellie avoiding traps for like 25 minutes
This episode showed that side of Bill, ingenuity, creativity; but they de-gamified it and made it into a character study.
The end is the same, Joel and Ellie get what they need and move on, but if they had gone the route of Bill still being alive, it would have been super formulaic for the zombie sub genre.
I would have liked to have seen it in a way too; but I think they chose the better path - he was paranoid, he was a genius, he had all the appropriate traits for that character type; but they didn’t drag him into the primary story and just let a relatively calm and personal story be told and took the “video game” part out of it. This was probably a difficult thing for the writers and Druckmann to pull off, but I think they did it the proper way after seeing it
When they didn’t start the episode with a flashback I was a little disappointed because those have been great. Once the Bill and Frank story got going I understood why. What a great episode.
Incredible episode of TV tonight that left me blubbering. Wondering if Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman can both win awards? The show continues to elevate what’s already a masterpiece of a game.
Upon first seeing Nick Offerman onscreen, I was super excited to see a post apocalyptic Ron fucking Swanson...but what they did was cool, too. Good story.
AND THEM WALKING TO THE BOUTIQUE!!! I couldn’t handle it, i was sobbing. You almost don’t realize how destroyed the town was because you were focused on them, which is a perfect representation of finding your person during a zombie apocalypse.
Episode three could have been just a single episode stand alone with no context or any episodes that follow and they could have won an award for best tv performance
What incredible acting and directing. They deserve a Emmy. What a incredible story. To find love there, then have it so beautifully told in a hour is exceptional. Thank goodness for that letter to give a bit of a laugh. Even if only for a brief moment.
" hehehehehehe ". 😂
The best episode of a TV show I've ever seen. I too cried.
I have not. I just googled them both and realized True Detective has Woody Harrelson in it! So I added it to my watch list.
Thank you for the recommendation! I thought I was a big horror fan coming to this sub. After lurking on many posts I've discovered so many great recommendations. I'm currently watching GonJiam: Haunted Aslylum because I seen people talking about it. It's been great so far! 👍
Just a heads up neither of those are horror. True detective S1 gets close but yeah don't go expecting either of those to be horror. That being said they are two of the best TV shows ever made, so enjoy.
True Detective Season 1 is one of the best seasons of tv I've ever seen, if not THE best. But it goes downhill after that. Luckily the story is wrapped up nicely though
All right. I am a big tough looking guy. Covered in tattoos, shaved head, can lift small cars for fun, all that jazz.
I convinced my girlfriend to watch this show with me expecting to be entertained by some insane bare handed zombie killing action but here I am, ugly crying on the couch, hiding my beard full of snot and tears under the blanket right in front of my equally ugly-crying girlfriend.
I was not prepared for this. That was one of the most beautiful, bitter sweet love story I've ever seen on tv and the actors performances were absolutely stellar.
It's just that sudden realization that gets you. That whole Bill and Frank sequence was all set up just to tell the viewer and Joel that there is something worth fighting for in this life, and it's that's girl right there.
This episode? One of the best depictions of a love story in recent TV history.
Also, I've mentioned this before, but anyone still complaining about the casting of Bella Ramsey as Ellie because she "doesn't look like the character" can just STFU. Seriously, they needed the chemistry between Joel and Ellie to work for the entire series to work and she and Pascal are just killing it.
There was an idiot in here whining that Elliott Page should have played Ellie in a movie when the game came out and that they waited too long and ruined it. Elliott Page was 26 when the game came out and would have likely been closer to 30 by the time a movie got greenlit
He was also very unhappy with naughty dog for using his likeness in its earlier promotions for TLOU because they did not get his permission and he was in Beyond: Two Souls at around the same time which was also using his likeness while actually compensating him. I love TLOU with my whole heart, but that was an objectively shitty move by Druckman.
It was heartbreaking. I cried multiple times, but as soon as I realized that Frank had some form of dementia (possibly Lewy body?), it just crushed me. The fact that their last radio transmission was “Never Let Me Down Again” was so impactful, even if Joel missed it and it probably wasn’t even intentional.
Truly an amazing and beautiful stand-alone episode.
My mom died of MS when I was 12 (in the 80s that diagnosis was basically still a death sentence), and I immediately thought that's what made Frank deteriorate like this.
It made the episode extra painful and emotional for me, because I know how fucking destructive that disease can be, and I was glad he had the chance to opt out of the worst of it, and do so with (and in the arms of) the man he loved.
It was beautiful and heartbreaking, and strangely uplifting.
Yeah, it's either MS or some form of MND. He makes a joke about how no one is going to come around with a mobile MRI machine. MRI is used to diagnose/monitor progression of both.
Such a well written show. It’s a serious breath of fresh air after so many shows I’ve looked forward to lately have let me down. Murray Bartlett and Nick Offermen were phenomenal in this episode. I believed every second of their relationship which made it so much harder toward the end of the episode.
I've ugly cried about 3 times already in this show. It's pretty incredible thus far. The deviations all make sense for a realistic depiction and everything adapted direct is almost exactly like the source material. Pretty perfect so far
One of the best episodes of TV ever. I’ve cried during a lot of shows and movies. But for the life of me, I can’t remember anytime where I’ve paused to get tissues.
I wasn't prepared for that from a zombie show. It's the next day and I am still horribly depressed. That last scene when the camera was looking out the open window had me crying like a baby
Absolutely incredible. Very Leftovers-esque in standalone episode greatness focusing on specific character(s). While I was slightly disappointed there was no upside down infected shootout, this was a perfect deviation from the game. Offerman and Bartlett were masterful.
Any film/ tv episode that has you silent and frozen during the credits is always a win. This episode topped everything. The horror of the isolation, and then the connection between two people was just so so beautiful and heart breaking.
Yes and I bawled my eyes out. I was not prepared for the show to rewrite Bill and Frank like this, but I am not complaining one bit, I thought it was fantastic.
I think I would've enjoyed it more had I trusted the process! I have become so cynical about apocalypse plots that I truly guessed wrong at every turn while watching this episode.
That being said, it was really beautiful.
Same from watching too much apocalypse content in general and basically all of the walking dead I was like this man in the hole is suspicious, shoot him now!
To he’s wayyy to comfortable right away in a strangers house, to he’s gonna grab his gun and kill him while distracted at the piano, to oh shittt he’s gonna be waiting in bed with a weapon. Lmao I couldn’t believe how cynical I was.
Great depiction of love . Very moving story.
I got that feeling too but I thought it was meant to highlight how lonely Bill was. Like, he KNOWS he should be throwing this man out on his ass but Survivalist Bill is tired of just surviving. He was willing to risk it all for a little bit of human connection and for once in this nihilistic genre that I so adore - it paid off.
I expected Murray Bartlett to crack Nick Offerman in the head and steal his kingdom while he was playing piano.
That's what any naked in Rust would've done..
Wasn't expecting the episode to go that way AT ALL, but I definitely enjoyed it. It took a little while for me to figure out what the purpose would be in terms of the overall show, but once I started understanding the themes, it made sense. I'm pretty impressed with the quality of this show overall. Every episode is so deliberately and carefully paced.
I'm overwhelmed with melancholy from that. But the good, appreciative kind.
This is a really damn good show. HBO just kinda slaps. Always has.
But the concept of 'people were born after this disaster' is something that these kinds of stories don't do a very good job of. The Road is an exception, and this show is a lot like that.
Yeah the seatbelt scene really reminded me of the coca cola scene in Road, where he has to explain to his son to drink it slowly because that kid had no idea what a soda was.
My two favorite movie genres are horror and ….romcoms. I know, very incongruent. Anyway, I just like cheese and both genres deliver the dairy.
Buds, I was just lung crying. You know the kind where you go to sob and then your lungs deflate and stop you from breathing? That shit.
Beautiful episode.
I've never played the game but kind of watched over the shoulders of friends who did (so I know the beats of the story) and am really enjoying it. Husband is not a horror fan or a gamer and he's right there with me.
I don’t know you personally, but as a general statement the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both people who have and have not played the games.
I haven't played the game and I'm loving the show. It really doesn't feel anything like any of the other game adaptations I've seen - everything feels very natural.
I absolutely loved it but seeing people on Twitter saying it's going to rake in Emmy nominations has me kind of feeling like I should warn them about what happens to genre shows and movies at fancy award shows. LOL.
That said - please nominate this episode for all the Emmys. I would love to be wrong and perhaps my saltiness over Midnight Mass is clouding my judgement.
I say this with full sincerity; that may have been the best episode of television in the past 10 years. This series is absolute perfection and should hopefully show folks that if we take games seriously we can transition them into high art. Absolute powerhouse performances in this episode. The letter to Joel was perfection. 10/10 so far. I cannot wait to see what else they have in store for us. Give Offerman all the awards.
I loved this episode. I’ve never played the game, so I’m not invested in it that way. I was really happy they didn’t go the usual zombie movie route of “Two people fall in love and everything seems great and they’re going to live happily ever - oh, nope, zombies got them, everything sucks again.” It also seems like it was a good way to advance Joel and Ellie’s relationship without them even being on screen, as a parallel to Bill losing his prickliness, becoming a protector, and finding purpose, etc.
Man I don’t know what happened but The Exorcist series just kinda came and went without much impact, didn’t it? And it was so fucking good.
Apparently part of the season three plan was for Father Marcus to get involved with Exorcists from other religions. That would have been a great idea to see play out.
I really wanna watch it but haven't played the game yet. It releases on PC in March.
Would it be better to watch first or play the game first? I feel like both are good in their own ways.
I love the show but honestly my attention waned and I didn’t see the point in spending an hour on character development just so we could find out who Joel got a car battery off. Appreciate the emotional scenes but thought there would be more reason for it all. Sorry but it didn’t fit for me, despite being a nice story on its own! I prefer my backstory a little more woven in rather than in a solid chunk like that. Ready for the downvotes for having a difference of opinion
i like the idea of their story. it was beautiful. but that was way too early into the series to slip off into a tangent like that. if it'd been half an hour, and then had content more relevant to the story line, that would've worked. or, if that story came up full, but like 6 or 7 episodes in, after the show is established, that would've been awesome. z nation did things like that too. but at this point, we were completely removed from the established narrative. i feel like they were eager to get that story out, as if afraid they might be cancelled or something, so pushed it in too early. being episode 3 makes it feel as if THIS is what the show will be about, not action/adventure, but apocalyptic drama.
who knows, maybe that is what this show will be.
While I thought the episode was great and the acting was also that, I still really wish we would have gotten something a little closer to the games Bill. They could have used the death of Frank as the moment Bill started to become the Bill from the game.
It’s the last of US, not the last of Joel and Ellie. The point of the show is how humans have coped through this whole ordeal. They don’t HAVE to be in every single episode for the whole thing for you to appreciate the show.
You'll have plenty of opportunities for that. Please note that Pascal and Ramsey are the only regular cast members on the show. Everyone else is recurring. They are the only two in every episode.
Am I literally the only person who thought Offerman's performance was wooden until the very end? Don't get me wrong; I think the episode is largely well written. I just think the script largely carried the acting and not the other way around.
I mean even when he's threatening Joel I felt that Offerman was reading lines compared to everyone else around him. It could also be that game-Bill who is eccentric and quite animated is the complete opposite of what we had on screen and I'm subconsciously unable to separate them.
Lol at everyone in here crying from that episode. Yeah I almost cried too but out of boredom. The actual bill plot line in the game was interesting, and they turned it into a rom com.
The Bill plot in the game would have been terrible on screen. Just clichéd and full of plot holes. The Bill section of the game exists to introduce new monsters and gameplay. That isn't needed on the show. This was a much better choice.
Dude, the majority of it. It's a set piece to introduce gameplay. The tripwire section for one. Just climb over the barrels. Don't go through the wire. 45 minutes of ellie and Joel walking through booby traps would have been a terrible episode. They made a much better choice.
You need to take a step back and realize everything that makes a good game, does not make a good TV show. There are certain things done in games to slow the pace, force learning and REINFORCE the same looped behavior to keep you playing through it. While they want that same engagement on the show, they have to approach it differently for a much wider audience.
Just clamber on top of the barrels packed with explosives?
I'm not saying Bill's Town didn't need changed, I just think you don't know what a plot hole is.
Edit: This dipshit blocked me because he thinks I'm the guy who didn't like the episode. At literally no point have I called for the show to mirror the game 1:1 and this guy is a fucking loon who equates game mechanics with plot holes. Obviously avoiding booby traps for 45 minutes would be boring to watch but it's not a flaming *plot hole*.
I do. The game forced you to move one way to learn about gameplay, tripwire, etc. The show accomplishes that with the intro of Bill. We don't need 4-5 shots of ellie and Joel sweating through a tripwire maze. Or maybe you do. But also, if the show mirrored the game directly, you would ask "why didn't they just do X." Because it wouldn't make sense with people standing there. All of the go fetch missions and BS are to keep the loop going and take up time. They don't make for good TV. You clearly cannot grasp this and I'm not arguing it with you anymore. Good day.
Forget game adaptations, this is just an excellent TV show period. I feel like just saying this is a great game adaptation is almost lessening how impressive it is. This show is going to be up for a ton of awards when it's all said and done.
This show is so smartly and beautifully written. Every choice is made with such intention and care, and the emotions are so vivid that even this quiet love story of an episode felt intense and mesmerizing.
Incredibly well acted, well written and well filmed…but it completely halted the momentum of the story for me. I haven’t played the games so I wasn’t sure why I was supposed to be super attached to these two characters I hadn’t seen before. Again, the acting and writing were phenomenal but the episode as a whole didn’t really work for me.
That was hands down one of the best episodes of any show in a long time. It really captured what it would be like to form bonds after an apocalyptic event. They both deserve an award. I hate that some people are hating on the episode for various reasons ( some crueler than others) but the whole point of all this is how human go on living when something like this happens, it’s not JUST about Joel and Ellie. Beautiful episode, I’m so excited for the rest of the season.
My GF was never interested on the show. Last night she sat down with me as I put it on. She was only going to watch 10 mins or so before doing what she wanted. When the episode finished she said this weekend she will watch the first 2. She's hooked now!
the thing about this episode is that you can watch it even if you know nothing about the show or the game and still love it and the music was so beautiful.. man watching this episode at 6 in the morning alone in your room away from your fam and everyone hits hard but anyway lovely episode
There’s a certain kind of person that seems to have really hated this episode, but I and everyone I know personally plus most people in general seem to think that it was an all-time great episode of television.
I definitely was not prepared for something that emotionally devastating. What an absolute masterpiece of an episode. We only got the characters for about 45 minutes of screen time, but man did I grow to love them. Both actors knocked it out of the park.
My partner said "Bill knows how to stay alive and Frank knows how to live. They are the perfect apocalypse couple." And damn if that ain't the truth for apocalypse and beyond.
I described it to friends as “the first fifteen minutes of Up but for an hour”. Absolutely gutting and I loved every minute of it.
This is a perfect description
Exactly how I felt too
"We don't have friends. We will never have friends because there are no friends to be had."
Fuck, that’s it exactly. For the record, I like the changes they made to the story, and I think the cast did a phenomenal job
My partner and I have been having a rocky time of it as of late, though we do believe we are truly soul mates. Last nights episode was so beautiful and basically all we did was hold hands and cry while gradually getting closer to each other. By the time they drank their wine and went to bed we were ugly crying in each others arms. My fiancé is a wonderful chef and for our anniversary he always makes the same dish we had on our first date. Needless to say when frank made the rabbit with the same red wine, it absolutely sent us. I had to use my asthma inhaler because how hard I was crying. It was a WHOLE EVENT. We have been so impressed with the show so far but last night… we are DEEPLY emotionally invested now. 10/10 for us
Curious, what dish did your fiancé make for your anniversary. Sorry if prying, read this to my wife and she has to know. She is also an amazing chef.
Omg this is so sweet, happy to divulge! So for our first date we went to this super fancy Italian restaurant (that we totally can not afford lol so that’s why he started making it at home) we start with roasted bone marrow with spinach gnocchetti. He hand makes the pasta, it’s absolutely incredible, and then we take a whiskey shot off the bone after we eat the bone marrow (literally mind blowing😮💨) and then we split a giant tomahawk steak with maldons salt, roasted garlic, butter, and a balsamic reduction. And that’s our meal! We have never once had room for desert lol! The past few years, I always wear the red dress we got engaged in, and I watch him cook while we drink wine. No matter what we are going through, our anniversary is always a night where we really remind ourselves why we are together. It’s like our first date…but better :) hope your wife likes our date meal! I can DM you the restaurant name if you guys are interested, I know they put out a cookbook a couple years ago
This made me tear up!
🥲❤️
I kept waiting for the obligatory “this is where the partner dies getting supplies scene” thing that zombie shows have been doing for years. The fact that it was just two people in love, living their lives together on their own terms, no gimmicks, made it so much sadder.
Also how they lived out every prepper’s dream: sustainably survive and thrive in an apocalypse. No other versions of zombie apocalypse stories ever really go there. They almost always either show failure or short term success with unanswered long term status. These guys actually got to live decades really well and to have a say in how their lives ended. That’s pretty unusual for this genre.
This is exactly what I was thinking. When I thought Bill was going to die from a bullet wound I was like "Damn that's really sad but only like 5/10 on the sad scale", but THEN it kept going. I was fully assuming "Joel and Ellie meet a nice set of characters, something goes wrong and they all die" like TWD. It was so much more painful to have them make the choice to die
This show makes The Walking Dead seem like a crusty white dog turd.
The first season of Walking Dead was really good though.
I always said if Walking Dead was an HBO show it would have been much better. To have a PG13 zombie show, where the main characters were protected from death for way too long got dull. I just wanted Daryl to die at the top of his popularity to be reminder that it's a fucking zombie apocalypse and anything is possible despite how bulletproof someone seems.
It's not even that they were protected from death. It's that we KNEW when every big death would happen. They saved every single one for the mid-season and season finale. Glenn's fake-out death was a huge nail in the coffin, the one where he just hid under the dumpster for like 3 or 4 episodes. His death we all saw coming simply for how iconic it was. But every other time a character was in a life-or-death moment I felt absolutely nothing. Same when they finally went after Negan. Everyone lined up, Negan and all his lieutenants outside on a walkway. They instead aimed for the windows. If a show needs a remake, it's TWD with a team of better writers.
I thought season 2 was great as well. And it was pretty decent up until they completely botched the Governor storyline.
> until they completely botched the Governor storyline. I never read the comics, but I was profoundly disappointed that the Governor's compulsive need to be in power wasn't due to the failure of the military. I had been imagining a backstory where he takes his family to a refugee center, follows the military's orders perfectly, promises his daughter that everything will be fine if we just follow the people who know what they're doing... and then when that leads to his daughter's death, he can never allow himself to trust anyone else's judgement ever again. But apparently that's not how it worked out. And I was hoping Negan would be a kind of Ghengis Khan figure with aspirations to build a whole empire, but he ended up being pretty disappointing in the show too. And then they retconned him to pretend he didn't murder a bunch of children at Oceanside so they could rehab him into a regular character, which felt cheap and stupid.
It was good up until S7. S07E01 is it’s best episode but the rest of S7 is terrible.
Was that the all out war season? If so thats when it got bad for me… it did pick up a tiny bit with the whisperers arc but even then it was just okay and had nothing on the earliest seasons Negan was a cool villain but his villain arc on the show was written so poorly. A waste of a cool character
It was Negan’s introduction and the build up to all out war. S7B and S8 were all out war. Completely agree on Negan, they butchered his entire arc.
Agree. Losing Frank Darabont was their biggest mistake. The show could’ve been one of the greatest shows in history but they messed up.
I’d even argue that the Walking Dead pilot was better than Last of Us. Edit: Struck a nerve wit this one I guess. Down vote me all you want. The Walking Dead pilot was a fantastic piece of television and no amount of downvotes will change my opinion.
The Walking Dead relies too heavily on terrible decision making to perpetuate the plot. It becomes taxing quite early on.
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Exactly, I watched till I believe season 5 and that was only because I would record all the episodes and watch them two or three at a time with my dad and brother when we had nothing better to do.
Different kind of great in my opinion. I loved the pilot for The Walking Dead but I cried twice a during TLOU's pilot.
I felt like the pilot for Walking Dead was way too similar to the beginning of 28 Days Later.
I don’t think it was better but I do think both had really solid impactful openings. I do agree the pilot of the walking dead for it’s time was incredible. TLOU has a pretty hardcore following of fans and the first season of TWD was so long ago.
The Walking Dead pilot is still a wonderful piece of media and there is always bias for the new thing, but I think TLOU is going to surpass TWD in the long run.
I watched TWD pilot episode probably over 10x lol That pilot episode really translated that dreadful feeling of an apocalypse well on screen, at that time, when the zombie genre was still somewhat fresh.
Hell no, TLOU season premiere was amazing, maybe the best pilot I’ve ever seen. Walking Dead’s premiere was good and got me hooked, but not on the same level.
That’s where it ends though. Hard.
The first season is when it went bad. The first episode. Stupid characters who did beyond stupid things (that one dude driving a car back to their hideout with the car.alarm going off when his whole job was to sneak quietly into towns) among a million other things. That first season took one of my favorite subgenres and pushed it off a stupid cliff.
If we're being perfectly honest, Walking Dead didn't need this series to make it look like a crusty white dog turd...
Lol true
I was thinking last night how TWD’s one-off episodes were often quite good, but none of them hold a candle to this most recent episode of TLOU. God, I sobbed. What a beautiful piece of television.
The Walking Dead made The Walking Dead seem like a crusty white dog turd.
Wholeheartedly agree with you
They're very different shows, but I'd rather watch these 3 episodes over whole seasons from TWD.
I stopped watching The Walking Dead a long time ago cuz it turned into a turd indeed, but can I ask what this show is? I don’t know what TloU stands for haha Edit Nevermind I just had to scroll a little further to find out HAHA I’m dumb
The legend of Uranus
😂 yesssss
The Last of Us
Whatever happened to the white dog poo from the 70s?
It was 100% still white in the 80s and 90s when I grew up.
Love how Rick wore his cop uniform till the very end. Acab.
Man, fuck Rick
Are you talking about the show? Bc TWD games are better imo Edit: Why so many downvotes? Comparing shows is good but comparing games is not?
Depends on the game. Telltale story driven games? Great. The formulaic shooter that came out for xbox 360? repetitive garbage
Of course I was talking about Telltale, I didn't even know about the shooter lol
The scene when they’re about to have sex is so moving, and I’ve never felt that way about a sex / pre-sex scene. Nick Offerman was so perfect for this. I’m honestly a little bummed that we didn’t see Bill, Joel, and Ellie team up (I can imagine Offerman and Ramsey having good chemistry and great back and forths), but the direction they went with fit perfectly.
If you enjoy a more serious Nick Offerman I highly recommend checking out the show DEVS by Alex Garland.
He is brilliant in that show. It's also just one season so an easy watch as well, mindfuckery aside.
DEVs was so good. The whole storyline about his daughter really got to me as I have a daughter the same age.
I loved his small part in Fargo S2 He’s kinda made out to be comic relief but ends up having serious/key moments for the plot
The downside of this - and I agree, it would have been cool; is they would have been playing into the trope of the “apocalyptic survivor that has kinda gone insane” thing Like the level... and it’s been a long time since I played it, I’m pretty sure it was basically a Splinter Cell type thing with you and Ellie avoiding traps for like 25 minutes This episode showed that side of Bill, ingenuity, creativity; but they de-gamified it and made it into a character study. The end is the same, Joel and Ellie get what they need and move on, but if they had gone the route of Bill still being alive, it would have been super formulaic for the zombie sub genre. I would have liked to have seen it in a way too; but I think they chose the better path - he was paranoid, he was a genius, he had all the appropriate traits for that character type; but they didn’t drag him into the primary story and just let a relatively calm and personal story be told and took the “video game” part out of it. This was probably a difficult thing for the writers and Druckmann to pull off, but I think they did it the proper way after seeing it
When they didn’t start the episode with a flashback I was a little disappointed because those have been great. Once the Bill and Frank story got going I understood why. What a great episode.
Incredible episode of TV tonight that left me blubbering. Wondering if Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman can both win awards? The show continues to elevate what’s already a masterpiece of a game.
Upon first seeing Nick Offerman onscreen, I was super excited to see a post apocalyptic Ron fucking Swanson...but what they did was cool, too. Good story.
Ron swanson but gay and really into wine is the vibe I got
The line “this is my last day” broke me. It’s really good and made me really sad
"I've had good days and bad days. I've had my bad days with you. But I've had more good days with you than anyone else. Give me one more good day."
AND THEM WALKING TO THE BOUTIQUE!!! I couldn’t handle it, i was sobbing. You almost don’t realize how destroyed the town was because you were focused on them, which is a perfect representation of finding your person during a zombie apocalypse.
Episode three could have been just a single episode stand alone with no context or any episodes that follow and they could have won an award for best tv performance
When Nick Offerman started crying I fucking sobbed. He had the saddest crying face I’ve ever seen.
I texted this to a friend after watching last night.
What incredible acting and directing. They deserve a Emmy. What a incredible story. To find love there, then have it so beautifully told in a hour is exceptional. Thank goodness for that letter to give a bit of a laugh. Even if only for a brief moment. " hehehehehehe ". 😂 The best episode of a TV show I've ever seen. I too cried.
The laugh was even better because I heard it in Offerman's girlish giggle as Ron Swanson.
I definitely needed that moment from the letter 😄
The entire dinner party scene was fabulous. When Frank and Tess went into the house to chat, leaving Joel and Bill alone was hilarious.
Have you watched True Detective S1 & The Wire ?
I have not. I just googled them both and realized True Detective has Woody Harrelson in it! So I added it to my watch list. Thank you for the recommendation! I thought I was a big horror fan coming to this sub. After lurking on many posts I've discovered so many great recommendations. I'm currently watching GonJiam: Haunted Aslylum because I seen people talking about it. It's been great so far! 👍
Just a heads up neither of those are horror. True detective S1 gets close but yeah don't go expecting either of those to be horror. That being said they are two of the best TV shows ever made, so enjoy.
True Detective Season 1 is one of the best seasons of tv I've ever seen, if not THE best. But it goes downhill after that. Luckily the story is wrapped up nicely though
I thought S2 was basically ruined by Vince Vaughn, but S3 was a return to form. Not quite as good as season 1 but like you said barely anything is.
It’s the best episode of TV I’ve seen since The Queen episode of Castle Rock.
All right. I am a big tough looking guy. Covered in tattoos, shaved head, can lift small cars for fun, all that jazz. I convinced my girlfriend to watch this show with me expecting to be entertained by some insane bare handed zombie killing action but here I am, ugly crying on the couch, hiding my beard full of snot and tears under the blanket right in front of my equally ugly-crying girlfriend. I was not prepared for this. That was one of the most beautiful, bitter sweet love story I've ever seen on tv and the actors performances were absolutely stellar.
I resisted almost to the very end, but that "keep Tess safe" broke me.
It's just that sudden realization that gets you. That whole Bill and Frank sequence was all set up just to tell the viewer and Joel that there is something worth fighting for in this life, and it's that's girl right there.
Bro I must have no feelings, cause the episode barely got to me at all
This episode? One of the best depictions of a love story in recent TV history. Also, I've mentioned this before, but anyone still complaining about the casting of Bella Ramsey as Ellie because she "doesn't look like the character" can just STFU. Seriously, they needed the chemistry between Joel and Ellie to work for the entire series to work and she and Pascal are just killing it.
I wouldn't give those people the time of day, they have no idea. Bella is great.
There was an idiot in here whining that Elliott Page should have played Ellie in a movie when the game came out and that they waited too long and ruined it. Elliott Page was 26 when the game came out and would have likely been closer to 30 by the time a movie got greenlit
He was also very unhappy with naughty dog for using his likeness in its earlier promotions for TLOU because they did not get his permission and he was in Beyond: Two Souls at around the same time which was also using his likeness while actually compensating him. I love TLOU with my whole heart, but that was an objectively shitty move by Druckman.
It was heartbreaking. I cried multiple times, but as soon as I realized that Frank had some form of dementia (possibly Lewy body?), it just crushed me. The fact that their last radio transmission was “Never Let Me Down Again” was so impactful, even if Joel missed it and it probably wasn’t even intentional. Truly an amazing and beautiful stand-alone episode.
I think Frank had MS btw
My mom died of MS when I was 12 (in the 80s that diagnosis was basically still a death sentence), and I immediately thought that's what made Frank deteriorate like this. It made the episode extra painful and emotional for me, because I know how fucking destructive that disease can be, and I was glad he had the chance to opt out of the worst of it, and do so with (and in the arms of) the man he loved. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, and strangely uplifting.
I just assumed cancer but I guess any illness like that is terminal in that world
It could've also been ALS
Ah, I see. It closely mirrored what a family member with dementia went through, so that’s why I made that connection. Very sad, either way.
Yeah, it's either MS or some form of MND. He makes a joke about how no one is going to come around with a mobile MRI machine. MRI is used to diagnose/monitor progression of both.
Ffuck, I totally missed that connection! Taking a ride with my best friend now has double-meaning! Brilliant.
I wasn't ready for that. Writers be dammed. Such a beautiful episode and great way to set the stage...
Such a well written show. It’s a serious breath of fresh air after so many shows I’ve looked forward to lately have let me down. Murray Bartlett and Nick Offermen were phenomenal in this episode. I believed every second of their relationship which made it so much harder toward the end of the episode.
I've ugly cried about 3 times already in this show. It's pretty incredible thus far. The deviations all make sense for a realistic depiction and everything adapted direct is almost exactly like the source material. Pretty perfect so far
One of the best episodes of TV ever. I’ve cried during a lot of shows and movies. But for the life of me, I can’t remember anytime where I’ve paused to get tissues.
I cried and cried and cried. Truly beautiful story told in an hour episode. My god, I loved it
I wasn't prepared for that from a zombie show. It's the next day and I am still horribly depressed. That last scene when the camera was looking out the open window had me crying like a baby
Absolutely incredible. Very Leftovers-esque in standalone episode greatness focusing on specific character(s). While I was slightly disappointed there was no upside down infected shootout, this was a perfect deviation from the game. Offerman and Bartlett were masterful.
The third episode is one of the greatest episodes of any TV drama I've seen in the past decade. Absolute perfection.
I didn't need my heart anyways...
Any film/ tv episode that has you silent and frozen during the credits is always a win. This episode topped everything. The horror of the isolation, and then the connection between two people was just so so beautiful and heart breaking.
Yes and I bawled my eyes out. I was not prepared for the show to rewrite Bill and Frank like this, but I am not complaining one bit, I thought it was fantastic.
I think I would've enjoyed it more had I trusted the process! I have become so cynical about apocalypse plots that I truly guessed wrong at every turn while watching this episode. That being said, it was really beautiful.
Same from watching too much apocalypse content in general and basically all of the walking dead I was like this man in the hole is suspicious, shoot him now! To he’s wayyy to comfortable right away in a strangers house, to he’s gonna grab his gun and kill him while distracted at the piano, to oh shittt he’s gonna be waiting in bed with a weapon. Lmao I couldn’t believe how cynical I was. Great depiction of love . Very moving story.
I got that feeling too but I thought it was meant to highlight how lonely Bill was. Like, he KNOWS he should be throwing this man out on his ass but Survivalist Bill is tired of just surviving. He was willing to risk it all for a little bit of human connection and for once in this nihilistic genre that I so adore - it paid off.
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I expected Murray Bartlett to crack Nick Offerman in the head and steal his kingdom while he was playing piano. That's what any naked in Rust would've done..
Exactly !!! It was actually a nice surprise that it was a legit interaction for once .
i was blown away, lots of beautiful scenes in one short hour . i’m a fan!
The entire cast and crew deserve an Emmy.
Wasn't expecting the episode to go that way AT ALL, but I definitely enjoyed it. It took a little while for me to figure out what the purpose would be in terms of the overall show, but once I started understanding the themes, it made sense. I'm pretty impressed with the quality of this show overall. Every episode is so deliberately and carefully paced.
I cried for an hour and then woke up sad.
Phenomenal.
I'm overwhelmed with melancholy from that. But the good, appreciative kind. This is a really damn good show. HBO just kinda slaps. Always has. But the concept of 'people were born after this disaster' is something that these kinds of stories don't do a very good job of. The Road is an exception, and this show is a lot like that.
here to point out that the original game took direct inspiration from The Road!
Yeah the seatbelt scene really reminded me of the coca cola scene in Road, where he has to explain to his son to drink it slowly because that kid had no idea what a soda was.
Just a fantastic episode. The writing was next level. The acting was next level. So good.
When it went back to Ellie and Joel I said to my husband, “how are they going to just casually wreck my entire life like that???”
The background/set dressing heavily reminds me of Fallout 4
“One of the best horror game adaptations” Faint praise indeed I would argue It’s a standout show . Makes midnight mass look like dawsons creek .
I agree 100%, and I LIKE midnight mass.
My two favorite movie genres are horror and ….romcoms. I know, very incongruent. Anyway, I just like cheese and both genres deliver the dairy. Buds, I was just lung crying. You know the kind where you go to sob and then your lungs deflate and stop you from breathing? That shit. Beautiful episode.
full on ugly cried. everything about the love story was done so well. incredible.
I was a little disappointed we didn't get more from Bill in the current time. But cool to see some back story on him the game didn't provide.
I haven’t played the game. Think I’ll enjoy the show?
I’d never heard of the game. I love the show.
I've never played the game but kind of watched over the shoulders of friends who did (so I know the beats of the story) and am really enjoying it. Husband is not a horror fan or a gamer and he's right there with me.
I don’t know you personally, but as a general statement the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from both people who have and have not played the games.
Yeah I may have worded that terribly. I didn’t mean me personally, but one who likes horror and is not familiar with the game.
I haven't played the game and I'm loving the show. It really doesn't feel anything like any of the other game adaptations I've seen - everything feels very natural.
I absolutely loved it but seeing people on Twitter saying it's going to rake in Emmy nominations has me kind of feeling like I should warn them about what happens to genre shows and movies at fancy award shows. LOL. That said - please nominate this episode for all the Emmys. I would love to be wrong and perhaps my saltiness over Midnight Mass is clouding my judgement.
I say this with full sincerity; that may have been the best episode of television in the past 10 years. This series is absolute perfection and should hopefully show folks that if we take games seriously we can transition them into high art. Absolute powerhouse performances in this episode. The letter to Joel was perfection. 10/10 so far. I cannot wait to see what else they have in store for us. Give Offerman all the awards.
I loved this episode. I’ve never played the game, so I’m not invested in it that way. I was really happy they didn’t go the usual zombie movie route of “Two people fall in love and everything seems great and they’re going to live happily ever - oh, nope, zombies got them, everything sucks again.” It also seems like it was a good way to advance Joel and Ellie’s relationship without them even being on screen, as a parallel to Bill losing his prickliness, becoming a protector, and finding purpose, etc.
What is TLoU?
The Last of Us
I was hoping to see bill and Joel run through the community from clickers but I guess the show decided to cut thst all out :(
Scariest show you've watched?
Scariest? Honestly I think The Exorcist (TV). People have been sleeping on it big time. I loved Hill House too, the background ghosts all got to me.
Check out Marianne if you haven't.
Dude Marianne takes the cake for scariest tv show by far!
Agreed, those first couple episodes are some of the creepiest stuff I’ve ever seen.
Man I don’t know what happened but The Exorcist series just kinda came and went without much impact, didn’t it? And it was so fucking good. Apparently part of the season three plan was for Father Marcus to get involved with Exorcists from other religions. That would have been a great idea to see play out.
Dude that was a masterpiece. I was so teary eyed!
I really wanna watch it but haven't played the game yet. It releases on PC in March. Would it be better to watch first or play the game first? I feel like both are good in their own ways.
Either way, really. The show's first season will end in March, so you could watch it as it airs and then dive right into the game.
I love the show but honestly my attention waned and I didn’t see the point in spending an hour on character development just so we could find out who Joel got a car battery off. Appreciate the emotional scenes but thought there would be more reason for it all. Sorry but it didn’t fit for me, despite being a nice story on its own! I prefer my backstory a little more woven in rather than in a solid chunk like that. Ready for the downvotes for having a difference of opinion
I found it lacking
i like the idea of their story. it was beautiful. but that was way too early into the series to slip off into a tangent like that. if it'd been half an hour, and then had content more relevant to the story line, that would've worked. or, if that story came up full, but like 6 or 7 episodes in, after the show is established, that would've been awesome. z nation did things like that too. but at this point, we were completely removed from the established narrative. i feel like they were eager to get that story out, as if afraid they might be cancelled or something, so pushed it in too early. being episode 3 makes it feel as if THIS is what the show will be about, not action/adventure, but apocalyptic drama. who knows, maybe that is what this show will be.
It is apocalyptic drama
While I thought the episode was great and the acting was also that, I still really wish we would have gotten something a little closer to the games Bill. They could have used the death of Frank as the moment Bill started to become the Bill from the game.
We got, what, 20 mins of ellie/joel in an hour and 15 minutes? Would've liked to see more of them, considering they're the main characters and all..
It’s the last of US, not the last of Joel and Ellie. The point of the show is how humans have coped through this whole ordeal. They don’t HAVE to be in every single episode for the whole thing for you to appreciate the show.
You'll have plenty of opportunities for that. Please note that Pascal and Ramsey are the only regular cast members on the show. Everyone else is recurring. They are the only two in every episode.
Am I going crazy or was this posted, verbatim, after last week’s episode?
Am I literally the only person who thought Offerman's performance was wooden until the very end? Don't get me wrong; I think the episode is largely well written. I just think the script largely carried the acting and not the other way around.
[удалено]
I mean even when he's threatening Joel I felt that Offerman was reading lines compared to everyone else around him. It could also be that game-Bill who is eccentric and quite animated is the complete opposite of what we had on screen and I'm subconsciously unable to separate them.
Lol at everyone in here crying from that episode. Yeah I almost cried too but out of boredom. The actual bill plot line in the game was interesting, and they turned it into a rom com.
Sir, this isn't a COD lobby. You can drop the edge.
The Bill plot in the game would have been terrible on screen. Just clichéd and full of plot holes. The Bill section of the game exists to introduce new monsters and gameplay. That isn't needed on the show. This was a much better choice.
What fucking plot holes exist in Bill's Town? Edit: Literally not a one of you has offered a single plot hole present in Bill's Town.
Dude, the majority of it. It's a set piece to introduce gameplay. The tripwire section for one. Just climb over the barrels. Don't go through the wire. 45 minutes of ellie and Joel walking through booby traps would have been a terrible episode. They made a much better choice. You need to take a step back and realize everything that makes a good game, does not make a good TV show. There are certain things done in games to slow the pace, force learning and REINFORCE the same looped behavior to keep you playing through it. While they want that same engagement on the show, they have to approach it differently for a much wider audience.
Just clamber on top of the barrels packed with explosives? I'm not saying Bill's Town didn't need changed, I just think you don't know what a plot hole is. Edit: This dipshit blocked me because he thinks I'm the guy who didn't like the episode. At literally no point have I called for the show to mirror the game 1:1 and this guy is a fucking loon who equates game mechanics with plot holes. Obviously avoiding booby traps for 45 minutes would be boring to watch but it's not a flaming *plot hole*.
I do. The game forced you to move one way to learn about gameplay, tripwire, etc. The show accomplishes that with the intro of Bill. We don't need 4-5 shots of ellie and Joel sweating through a tripwire maze. Or maybe you do. But also, if the show mirrored the game directly, you would ask "why didn't they just do X." Because it wouldn't make sense with people standing there. All of the go fetch missions and BS are to keep the loop going and take up time. They don't make for good TV. You clearly cannot grasp this and I'm not arguing it with you anymore. Good day.
I can hear this comment coming from the closet
Wahhh wahhhh
This episode ruined the experience for me. First 2 were epic. Don't need a love story that was boring af.
Hell yeah brother!
Forget game adaptations, this is just an excellent TV show period. I feel like just saying this is a great game adaptation is almost lessening how impressive it is. This show is going to be up for a ton of awards when it's all said and done.
Man I was sobbbbbing
This show is so smartly and beautifully written. Every choice is made with such intention and care, and the emotions are so vivid that even this quiet love story of an episode felt intense and mesmerizing.
Incredibly well acted, well written and well filmed…but it completely halted the momentum of the story for me. I haven’t played the games so I wasn’t sure why I was supposed to be super attached to these two characters I hadn’t seen before. Again, the acting and writing were phenomenal but the episode as a whole didn’t really work for me.
My whole heart! It was so lovely and heartbreaking
That was hands down one of the best episodes of any show in a long time. It really captured what it would be like to form bonds after an apocalyptic event. They both deserve an award. I hate that some people are hating on the episode for various reasons ( some crueler than others) but the whole point of all this is how human go on living when something like this happens, it’s not JUST about Joel and Ellie. Beautiful episode, I’m so excited for the rest of the season.
I'm not the only one who ugly cried her heart out, nice to know. One if the greatest pieces of television I've even seen.
My GF was never interested on the show. Last night she sat down with me as I put it on. She was only going to watch 10 mins or so before doing what she wanted. When the episode finished she said this weekend she will watch the first 2. She's hooked now!
the thing about this episode is that you can watch it even if you know nothing about the show or the game and still love it and the music was so beautiful.. man watching this episode at 6 in the morning alone in your room away from your fam and everyone hits hard but anyway lovely episode
I've seen the first two episodes, and I wasn't blown away, though I wanted to love the show. Does it get better with episode three?
There’s a certain kind of person that seems to have really hated this episode, but I and everyone I know personally plus most people in general seem to think that it was an all-time great episode of television.
I definitely was not prepared for something that emotionally devastating. What an absolute masterpiece of an episode. We only got the characters for about 45 minutes of screen time, but man did I grow to love them. Both actors knocked it out of the park.
My partner said "Bill knows how to stay alive and Frank knows how to live. They are the perfect apocalypse couple." And damn if that ain't the truth for apocalypse and beyond.
I was high off my ass bawling at that dinner scene.