The Last of Us - HBO *Spoilers* See warning in post #1

Dinah: Thinner, smaller, worse blood circulation, clothing not as thick… a lot of factors can affect that.

Dogs: They didn't seem to have a lot of dogs, so I think the point was to thin out the herd as much as possible, then release the dogs to help finish off the rest. Plus wanting to reduce the risk of dogs getting infected and then having to deal with those too.

Horses: Abby and her gang probably took the horses that Joel and Dinah had, and either left a horse behind for Ellie & Dinah (they did go out of their way not to kill them after all), or Ellie tied her horse up somewhere else and they didn't hang around to try find it. So the only horses they had left were Ellie & Jesse's. That poor horse then had to carry him, Ellie and drag Joel's body. They could have managed that a bit better.

Your one that plays Abby was an awful pain in the hoop (probably deliberately so tbf) when I tried my best to sit through Apple Cider Vinegar recently.

And I/she couldn't shake it when I saw her in this, annoyingly.
I get that it was a major and emotional scene here but the overacting was a bit too Sean Penn for me.

Hopefully it can tone down a bit now going forward and she comes in to her own given the character gap that's left to be filled.

Forgot to mention it (outside of Dever) but how good was the acting this episode.

Gabriel Luna as Tommy was the highlight for me and his actions taking on the bloater and diverting it from his wife were brilliant. He was amazing.

Pascal and Ramsey were really brilliant in the death scene. Joel trying to raise himself for Ellie in the last moment was heartbreaking and watching Ellie drag herself over and embrace him was equally devastating. They were both brilliant.

Also loving Young Mazino as Jesse, he has a really reassuring presence and am enjoying his work too.

What a fantastic episode.
The Jackson siege was a lovely welcome addition as well.
I was hooked the whole episode.
Cant wait for more.

That was stunning television. Sat there in silence as the credits rolled, the song as the end had me blubbering.

The invasion scene was as good as anything Game of Thrones managed in its peak. You could literally feel the terror of the situation popping out of the screen. Those dogs were badasses. Was one of the male fireflys about to intervene in Joel's torture before Ellie burst in? Looked like it to me.

My own gripe, surely with all the handymen floating around Jackson Hole, they could have metal fencing as opposed to wood? I do understand that wood was probably more readily available.

I think there's probably a bunch of things that go into the decision; the town isn't one of the quarantine safe zones, so it was probably abandoned for years after the outbreak, and only started to be repopulated with people leaving/escaping the safe zones or who never went into the safe zones to begin with. After that, it wasn't just infected they had to try keep out, but raiders etc, so the fence and rebuilding the internals of the town probably took priority. After that, given the size of the town, a lot of manpower would be required to dig such a moat around the perimeter while also trying to do everything internally, security etc. Also seem to be dealing with pretty cold weather conditions so ground would be harder to dig through as well.

Seems like everybody is put to pretty regular work, so I'd say they just didn't see an attack on that scale coming and thought the fence, barrels and guns would be enough to defend against a reasonably-sized attack, and put people to work on other things. Digging a moat like that without machinery/equipment would be a huge task.

But let's face it, yeah ultimately it was for dramatic purposes.

I was a huge fan of the first game and, although I can't bring myself to revisit it due to it being over-long and intensely grim, I thought the second game was a masterpiece.

I remember when it came out and the culture warriors were all over it. "Ellie's gay? How dare you shove this down our throats" and the usual hogwash. Even worse was the trash about Abby…..

But the worst of all were the bunch of whiney babies crying because their beloved Joel was killed. Lads, he's a fictional character in a fictional world. You don't get to decide what happens to these "main" characters, that's up to the author. It's not Super Mario, it's a post-apocolyptic thriller.

(I also found a large overlap between those crying about Ellie's sexuality and Joel's death)

If the show lives up to the game with regard to how it unfolds the story, you are in for a narrative that will prove to you that your disappointment in these developments is unwarranted.

The internet was full of people, at the time, who gave up on the game when Joel got killed and spent weeks complaining about how TLOU 2 was a dud. Those who felt agrieved at the time but powered through the game found that it was an astonishing piece of storytelling which makes the player question the realities around tribalism and why you develop these attachments to "main" characters in the first place.

Joel was an interesting character, that is why viewers may be annoyed now that he is gone. Some may have found him a more interesting character than Ellie, or perhaps once we get to know her more, Abby.

Viewers were annoyed when the main House of cards character was killed off. He wasn't a good person ( the character and the actor), definitely not a hero, but viewres got annoyed because the story was diminished when they got rid of the most interesting character.

yeah very strange, maybe he was afraid Abby would go after Ellie then in revenge. Abby does look quite slight so was surprised how much she beat up Joel.

Joel was cornered with a blown out knee, surrounded by five (?) WLF soldiers and still had a gun pointed at him. He was done and he knew his time was always going to come as evidenced by his own words "Oh, just shut the fück up and do it already".

He knew he had no defence so there was none to make.

It'll be interesting to see how they try (and how successful they are) to get the audience behind Abby as her story starts/continues.

In fairness, the only other time I've seen Pedro Pascal in a show, he got his eye sockets caved in by the Mountain, the torturous death here was actually worse.

Will they repeat episode 3 of season 1 in episode 3 of this season by leaving the main story and flashing back to either Joel and Ellie over the past 5 years or Abby. I know can't fit the whole of Abby's story in now but maybe a bit.

Absolutely not. I’m team Ellie all the way. Go girl, make her suffer. (Don’t know the story of the game from here, but I’m going to assume that it will result is a showdown between Ellie and Abbey. Anything else would be a major disappointment.) I’m also going to be careful how I dip into this thread from now on. Don’t really want any more spoilers.

The killing in TWD was way more brutal and they showed a lot more but it did the kill the shows rating as you said.I read a review of this season of LOU that said the season was more like a typical zombie show and compared it to a season of Walking Dead which is not a good sign.

It'll be interesting to see if they treat Abby as per the source material because again TWD treating its antagonist the same as the comic material pìssed off even more of the remaining non comic material fans.

Its hard not to see similarities between the two shows now, be interesting if TLOU can break the pattern.