conquistador

I thought this show was really interesting and worth watching. Martha’s actress was outstanding, she made you feel pity and horror and everything in between. I did struggle a bit with watching the main character and his irrational behavior. It was clear by the end of the story that he was in fact also very mentally unwell, but for several episodes it was like he was irrational to the point that it felt like it was only in order to service the plot moving forwards (including his brand of prop humor).

I don’t recall the exact phrasing, but it was along the lines of ”They are working on a solution to stop cellular breakdown”. And no, that’s not very complex. There are three things wrong with it for me: 1. Foster’s character otherwise seems pretty intelligent and at least has a basic scientific understanding, so it feels out of character for me. 2. If we assume that Foster is just asking on behalf of the audience, then I don’t see the point of that either. If you are not understanding that the scientists are working on important research, then I don’t think you are going to follow the rest of the plot anyway. 3. The research itself is also silly, it’s basically a silver bullet for any advanced disease. Which ties into the supernatural aspects I guess, but I prefer things to be a bit more grounded.

I’m on board for Jodie Foster and she is making it worthwhile. I have a couple of nitpicks though: * The scene with the geography teacher was just really stupid. They went all out with the ”Speak English, nerd!” cliché. * I cannot believe that the corpses in the ice rink were not closed off, not even with screens or curtains. They are just sitting there on full display. * Sex is weird in this show. All the characters just crash their partners and are like ”Uh! Knock knock! It’s sex times!”

We don’t know much about the food supply. Are grains still contaminated, or was it only that one occurrence? The survivors have gotten by for twenty years, so whatever they do seems to be working (except for the cannibalism…).

Getting a functional vaccine would be an absolute monumental achievement in and of itself, regardless of the numbers of adopters. But I have to think that among the people who already survived 20+ years of cordyceps, there would be few left to argue that it’s ”made up”, ”comparable to the flu” or some such. Also this vaccine would assumably not be reliant on herd immunity, which should also be a big deal. FEDRA were able to trap all of those infected in episode five, so even larger quantities seem manageable under the right conditions. My solution would be: full body armors with helmets - no visible skin allowed. That would guarantee no risk of being bitten as long as the armor is not compromised. Then send out extinction forces with groups of soldiers wearing these armors - they should also be equipped with sniper rifles, machine guns, grenades and flame throwers. The biggest threat then would honestly be human raiders…

Honestly, there is a lot we don't know with regards to how advanced society still is and how complex health science is at this point or in this particular universe. For the most part it seems all of humanity is in total shambles, but there are a few things to consider: * Tommy's community is completely self-sustaining. Are there more communities like that? Perhaps much more common than we think, especially outside the US? * It is mentioned that FEDRA have factories that produce bullets and drugs. So that is in itself a pretty large and technical infrastructure - requiring energy, material, labor and so on. * Most importantly, we see in the first few episodes usage of handheld cordycepts detectors. They may look like no more complex than the thermometers used in the Covid pandemic, but that is very sophisticated and advanced technology, the like of which we don’t in our present times. It must have taken a lot of R&D to pull together - especially in a post-apocalyptic world.

I think you are on the right track - but just for the sake of argument, would it not be really difficult for Joel to lie about it afterwards? Even in the present version Ellie doesn’t really believe him, but at least for Joel there is the benefit of all the events transpiring so quickly, making it all a bit of a blur.

Going back to episode 1 feels quite rewarding after having seen the whole show. There are a lot of details I didn’t pay much attention to at first go that become more significant in hindsight. For example: * Joel already being efficient at killing (saving Sarah from the infected neighbour) * Seeing Tommy * Joel has a guitar in his house * Ellie brandishing her mother’s knife * Marlene mentioning Riley And more. They have certainly worked on getting the characters and their stories cohesive throughout the season. One other such example (which was pointed out to me) is how Joel’s hearing loss matches up with the suicide attempt that we learn of in the final episode.

Firefly Doctor: My professional guesstimate is that we need to take the long knife and perform stabby stab against Ellie’s brain-brain Marlene: Okay, seems legit

And apparently, the giraffe was real!

That’s true, but it wouldn’t work for the story if Ellie could simply walk up to any infected and kill them off (as they wouldn’t fight back). Even so, it would have to be a huge win for humanity to be rid of situations like what Sam and Henry went through.

I agree. I think that was established with the very first scene (the talk show set in the 1960’s), that the show is thinking critically about its scientific concepts and also challenging genre conventions along the way. Of course it’s still not ~realistic~, but the whole concept with the cordyceps is pretty unique.

Like @paramitch wrote earlier, it is a variant of the Trolley problem. Or maybe it’s a variant of Sophie’s Choice. With a split second decision, Joel had to seal the fate for both humanity and Ellie and weigh their interests against eachother. Even if the odds are not 100%, even a small percentage chance of a successful vaccine becomes an enormous deal when you consider what’s at stake.

He failed to be honest, because she told him early in the episode that they had to give the vaccine an honest try and that the journey and their sacrifices couldn’t be for nothing. This was especially poignant since she was clearly suffering from her encounter with David. Marlene also confronts Joel with this fact, reminding him that Ellie would have wanted to save humanity if it was an option given to her. This is again why we have to accept the medical science as correct within the context of the show, otherwise Joel could easily just say ”Sorry Ellie, they were dangerous nutjobs”.

I'm with you guys on the writing issues regarding the surgery (I personally interpret it as the surgery is supposed to be viable), just want to point out that the original video game was utterly bombarded with awards of different kinds, including awards for game of the year and best storytelling. I can certainly see why Druckmann hasn't spent a decade on ruminating how to change the ending when it was already so well received.

Yes, this is something that has been on my mind too. I have the impression that the surgery was meant to come across as credible at least to Joel, but that he decides to interrupt the procedure anyway in order to save Ellie and then subsequently lie to her about the whole operation. It's more tragic and also more interesting story-telling. It then becomes more of a writing issue, that the script wasn't able to convey a more convincing portrayal of the medical science.

With regards to Joel’s actions, I appreciate how much of it was foreshadowed. We knew he had been very violent in his past, we also saw in the previous episode what an effective and cold killer he can be when he thinks the situation calls for it. His attachment to Ellie as motivation has also been thoroughly laid out, especially with the new information on his suicide attempt. I also think that we as viewers are left conflicted, the same way Ellie was. It’s true that he protects her, but we also see that he is capable of lying to her and betraying her ideals if it means being able to keep her around longer. This is a darker side of Joel that we, and Ellie, have to come to terms with.

I guess you could inject live fungi into them, but that is not much less gruesome… Also feeling a bit nauseous thinking of all the trial and error to get the timing right… I’m curious as to how they have planned to test the vaccine. Somebody has to be villing to sacrifice themselves before they can confirm its efficacy - perhaps the Fireflies are that dedicated to the cause.

The excision strategy was so very extreme. If you have a total sample pool of N=1, then it would be wise not to kill off that sample with the very first experiment conducted. If the cordyceps has spread to Ellie’s brain, then there ought to be live fungus tissue all the way from the brain to the bite mark on her arm. That is, if it even went to the brain at all - why would it, if it doesn’t recognize Ellie as human? The sensical approach thus would be to extract fungus tissue from the arm (and draw some blood while you’re at it), and try to build a vaccine based on that, all while keeping Ellie alive and well for possible future extractions and research. Or maybe just muck around in her brain willy-nilly, couldn’t hurt right.

The real-life Cordyceps does seem to have predilection towards ants specifically (although other species can be infected by spores), so I assume that is the inspiration. At least we have an in-universe explanation for why the outbreak was only in humans (contamination of human food supply). I immediately thought the monkeys at the research center had cordyceps, given how similar we are to them biologically.

Was there anything stopping Ellie from sniping David’s crew when they came to her street? We had already seen her sniping skills, it would seem like a better approach to hide in some backyard and at least get one sure hit then to ride up at them guns blazing.

Of the episodes we have seen so far, this one was probably burdened the most with genre tropes and also some plot contrivances. However, I think the directing sells it anyway - there are some wonderfully tense moments, my favorite being the scene where Ellie is about to get cut up. Most definitely. It bought her a few valuable seconds. The biggest worry in this scenario was probably that Ellie had turned into an asymptomatic carrier, so that even though she herself was fine and recovered, that she would pass on the disease to people in her vicinity. We would have seen evidence of that by now though (*airborn spores* are kind of a big deal in the video game, that concept seems to have been omitted entirely). Perhaps what Ellie has is a newly mutated form of autoimmune disease, with an overactive immune system that targets her own tissue, incidentally damaging the fungus that is trying to control her body. Hence why it’s more effective than regular innate immune system responses.

I think the people on TikTok very much would like a full episode of Pedro Pascal groaning on an old mattress.

Yeah, it’s not ideal is it. 😂 The needle is not going to make or break the situation when there have been so many contaminations already. And it would be difficult for her to find textile that is sterile enough for this purpose (I don’t suppose she access to a stash of fresh gauze.). On the other hand, you have to be as hygienic as you can in this scenario... And the last thing Joel needs is for his wound to be even more irritated.

I’m glad that we got an explanation to Ellie namedropping Mortal Kombat II earlier in the season, because that really didn’t make sense to me at the time! Overall the episode was … Fine, I guess. My issue was that I couldn’t feel much suspense when it was so obvious how things were going to pan out, especially since the show has made a clear trend of disposing all new characters in two episodes tops (Tess, Bill and Frank, Kathleen, Sam and Henry…). Riley would then just be another person to add to that list.