Capricasix

So, hmm…maybe the wheat was contaminated in Australia, but the higher temperatures/warmer climate in Indonesia triggered the mutation 🤔 Indonesia is closer to the equator than Australia and must have at least a subtropical, if not tropical climate. I’m glad others think about this stuff as much as I do 😄

One more thing I noticed in this ep, and it’s physical, non-verbal acting again, is that Joel occasionally rubs his right hand as if it still hurts. Of course, that’s the hand he used to beat the crap out of the FEDRA guard in the first episode. I’d be interested to know if that was purely Pedro, or the director, or both. Also, the podcast mentioned that ths episode was directed by a woman who had grown up in the former Yugoslavia, I believe in Sarajevo, during the war there in the 1990s. They approached her about directing the Kansas City episodes, and she said that she really wasn’t interested in revisiting that scenario, but she wanted to direct the episode showing that civilization was still possible even among the horrors of the pandemic. Living, not just surviving.

@Daisychain Yes, it was Craig’s daughter. It may even be the same daughter who sang the cover of Never Let Me Down Again from the end of this episode.

Did I mention yet how much I love this show? 😄 I’m rewatching this episode, and I just thought that there’s very little that’s random in every episode - Mazin and Druckmann have ensured that almost everything is purposeful. And so much of the action is nonverbal. Example: after J&E have their meal in the dining hall in Jackson, Tommy and Maria give them a tour of the town. Joel asks how they keep the place quiet, and one of the things Maria says is “we stay off the radio”. Joel gives Tommy a Look, and Tommy looks back sheepishly. I missed this the first time round, but it says so much without using any words at all.

😉 Hell, they even had alcohol on the Nebuchadnezzar in the Matrix! Good for getting drunk and degreasing engines 😄

I wouldn’t even have noticed if I hadn’t seen it pointed out 😄

It almost sounds like Sophie’s Choice. In the abstract, it would be easy enough to say that a mother would choose her partner over her kids because they could always have more kids. Realistically, though, I don’t know any mother who wouldn’t sacrifice herself to save her children.

That’s interesting - I was 34 when I had my second child, and I’m glad they didn’t call mine a geriatric pregnancy 😄 And that was in 2005!

I friggin love this show. I’m always thinking about it. I was listening to the podcast while driving a few minutes ago, and it occurred to me that Joel reminds me of Stu Redman from The Stand (I developed a huge crush on Gary Sinise after watching that). Stu and Joel are both from Texas, albeit East Texas in Stu’s case; they’re roughly the same age although I think Joel’s a bit older; and they both have to make their way across the US after a pandemic. They’re both good with their hands (this is not the place for fanfiction Capricasix STOP IT RIGHT NOW) and can look after themselves and others in the outdoors. Also, Joel and Ellie are a clan of two 🥲

Thomas had never seen such a mess!

I mean, he’s no Leonardo DiCaprio 🤷🏽‍♀️😄 (and thank dog for that!) Edited to add that I haven’t listened to it yet, but I’ve read on social media that the HBO podcast revealed that Pedro ad-libbed Joel’s speech in the scene with Tommy. Even more reason why he deserves an Emmy! (I mean, he deserves one just for being incredibly hot, but they don’t seem to have a category for that 😡😄) Serial editing to add - after listening to the relevant part of the podcast, I learned that Craig Mazin wrote most of it but Pedro ad-libbed the line about waking up and feeling like Joel lost something, and all he’s ever done is fail her, again and again 🥺 (I feel like he’s also talking about Sarah and Tess, not just about Ellie)

She’s 14. Teenagers, especially young ones, love to say things that they think are shocking to adults around them. She’s testing her limits like many teenagers do. This does not mean that there’s some kind of inappropriate tension between them.

Oh, OK. I thought it was a variation on a potluck or something like that 😄 Thanks!

Please to explain what is a Potbelly lunch?

I remember a line in the first book, when James and Siegfried met for the first time, that specifically references Siegfried and Tristan’s parents’ love for Wagner. That had to have been pure dramatic licence, considering Siegfried’s name IRL was Donald 😄

My minor quibble was with Maria’s pregnancy, specifically the likelihood of a viable pregnancy at her age. What did the chalkboard memorial say about her son‘s birth year? Was it 1997? I’d have to go back and look. It’s not a big deal, as it’s certainly possible for a woman to have a successful pregnancy in her late forties. Hilary Swank is something like 48 and pregnant with her first child, I believe.

Apropos of nothing, the resistance fighters in the Terminator universe used detector dogs in a similar way as in this episode 🤔

I really don’t think Joel is dead. And I never played the game, so I know very little of the backstory - but I don’t think his story ends so soon. I forgot to add the part that made me laugh out loud - when Joel was teaching Ellie how to target-shoot and he took the gun to show her that it was still working fine, he said something about how to aim it, and she said, “Are you gonna shoot it or get it pregnant?” LOL 🤣

Another great episode. I’ll need to watch it again (and again) to catch anything I missed the first time. I always enjoy seeing Graham Greene in anything. He’s a Canadian acting institution. The only thing puzzling me is, how Maria (Tommy’s wife? I think that was her name) is still young enough to have children. She was an ADA in the Before Times, which would mean that she would have had to have been a practicing lawyer for a few years at least, in addition to undergrad and law school - and the pandemic was 20 years ago - so she has to be *at least* in her mid-40s, and that’s being generous. Yes, I know that it’s possible for a woman to be pregnant at that age. It just made me think 🤷🏽‍♀️😄

I know! I was almost yelling at the TV like “Why are you in there with them? You wanted Gerald to come and now you’re ignoring him? Come on!” So did he definitely leave, or was it unresolved? Because that snog made me think that he might have changed his mind. I found that blue filter, or whatever it was that they used to make it seem like winter, was annoying. It was so unnatural.

Eyesight. I think it’s fairly rare to see a 56yo without some type of corrective lens, and in a world where I don’t imagine there are too many optometrists, poor eyesight might be a significant issue. Although I may be biased, as I’ve needed glasses since the age of nine and my eyes have only gotten worse over the years 😄🤓 I seem to recall reading an article about it a few years ago, but I couldn’t tell you where - it’s lost in the mists of time!

Yes! She sounded almost regretful that it was going to end that way - at least, until the horde erupted out of the ground 😄

Also when Henry was about to give himself up, he said something like “I’ll come out! Just let the kids go”, and she said, “No, sorry 🤷🏽‍♀️” almost as if to say “Too bad, so sad - the kids have to die too”.

It’s easier for British (or Australian, or New Zealander, or Irish) actors to mimic an American accent than it is for Americans to mimic theirs.

Yet another line of dialogue that got me thinking - Henry said to Joel, “I am the bad guy, because I did a bad-guy thing.” The quandary: does doing a bad thing automatically make someone bad? Some people live in a world of absolutes. You do something bad, and that makes you bad. One and done, no second chances, no moral or ethical gray areas. However, I think most people capable of critical thinking understand that life is not black and white, and there are lots of morally gray areas, when we don’t know what we’re capable of until and unless we’re put in a situation where doing nothing could cause actual harm to ourselves or our loved ones. Ellie asked Joel if he’d ever killed innocent people, and he didn’t (or couldn’t) answer her.