Constantinople

It's easy for me to say after the fact, but the guys going searching for Joel house to house probably should have searched in 2 groups of 2 rather than 4 searching separately.

Soylent Green is made of people! Of people!

I too am wondering why Marlene first hid Ellie within FEDRA ROTC. What did Ellie mean to Marlene at that point? Marlene didn't know about Ellie's immunity until after the mall, when Ellie was already part of FEDRA. Random act of kindness? Friend or relative of one of Ellie's parents? The Departed: Mushroom Apocalypse with Marlene as Jack Nicholson and Ellie as Matt Damon? Although Marlene might prefer to see herself as Martin Sheen, not that anyone in The Last of Us would have ever seen The Departed.

I didn't enjoy the episode much, but the two main problems I have with it are me problems, not show problems. It has nothing to do with the acting, writing, set design, etc. It may be a while until I can handle a TV episode set in a mall thanks to the mall scenes in the final season of Better Call Saul, which I hated on the whole. It didn't help that I saw an ad for Cinnabon when I scrolled down this page. I didn't realize how much it still bothered me until I watched this episode. And these days I'm not particularly interested in young, first time romance. That said, it's good to have an episode giving us more background on Ellie. Given what happened in the previous episode, it makes sense that we see that background now. Usually I prefer chronological story telling because many writers aren't nearly as good as they think they are telling a story out of order. But I think it works here. I also thought Bella Ramsey did a really good job as Ellie. In particular, there were 1 or 2 times before Ellie and Riley kissed where Bella did a good job showing how Ellie was thinking about it, but didn't go through with it. I also liked at the end how Ellie took positive steps to try to help Joel, even though they may be ineffective. It felt different somehow than when she shot the guy in Kansas City who was attacking Joel, but I'm not sure how to describe it. Perhaps because it was a healing action in this episode rather than a violent action in Kansas City, however necessary. And I may enjoy the episode more with time, perhaps after the season ends or later. I didn't much like the Fly episode from Breaking Bad, but now I do.

Riley was raptured?

While they were driving to Kansas City, Joel told Ellie that Tommy joined the army after he graduated from high school and was shipped off to fight in Desert Storm. That would Tommy about 50, which is not young for a father having his first child in the midst of a fungal apocalypse. So Joel's issue may not be to whom Tommy is married, but that he's married at all. In the same conversation with Ellie, Joel said Tommy is a "joiner" who signed up to save the world and that Tommy made the same mistake with the Fireflies. So perhaps Joel is concerned that Tommy is making the same mistake again, or a similar mistake.

If watching The Goodbye Girl is as good as it gets in this dystopian, apocalyptic hellscape, kill me now.

Odd. I didn't write CooperTV did. I merely replied to that quote of CooperTV.

You can't spell "A friend" without FEDRA

It would be ironic if Ellie died from a bacterial or viral infection after cutting her hand in a futile attempt to save Sam with her magic blood. Don't think it will go that way though.

He's an obstetrician not a trauma surgeon or an ER specialist. He hasn't worked in a "modern" hospital in 20 years and if he delivered Kathleen as he said he did, he likely completed his residency around 50 years ago, if not more. And this isn't a world where you need a doctor's signature for a prescription. It's not that his skills and knowledge are useless, but a lot of them are linked to a medical infrastructure that no longer exists. Without anesthesia and a sterile environment, even a surgeon's usefulness wouldn't be as high as it was pre-pandemic. So the question is how much more valuable his skills are than a medic, EMT, nurse or midwife that you do trust versus a doctor that you don't. The doctor himself didn't make the case for keeping himself alive because he's a doctor, instead trying to work on Kathleen's emotions by reminding her that he delivered her. And it didn't look as if anyone was complaining that the doctor was locked up and not seeing patients. It's not that killing him is necessarily a good idea, just that he's not untouchable.

It appears Joel made an impulsive decision and a bad one, saying "Screw it" to Ellie after she asked how long they'd have to backtrack. I'm guessing Joel had some fixed timeline in his head for how long it should take to get to Wyoming. That said it was still odd given how careful Joel was as shown to be earlier in the episode. When he wanted to sleep he didn't just park by the side of the road or in the open field but in the woods. Then he told Ellie no fires because it might attract other people. I would think they'd be more likely to run into people driving through a large city than in the middle of the woods. And Joel and Ellie seemed to expect that FEDRA would be running Kansas City till they actually got in the city. But we've already seen what FEDRA does to people they catch sneaking in or out of Boston. So why drive through Kansas City? Maybe Joel was trying to get Patrick Mahomes's autograph before the Chiefs flew to Arizona for next week's Super Bowl.

I keep going back and forth about whether Joel should have buried Bill and Frank. And I'm leaving "It's the right thing or decent thing" out of it. That house will deteriorate a lot faster with an open window, particularly in winter. Close the window and you've got a nice supply base. On the other hand you may end up doing work that will end up benefiting someone else and Joel may also have no plans to ever return to the Boston area.

A great yet sad episode. I think my favorite scene was when Frank and Bill toasted with the newly grown strawberries. Made even more poignant since Annie Wersching, who played Tess in the game, passed away earlier today. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/annie-wersching-dead-bosch-24-runaways-1235312384/

I'm not bothering because it makes no geographic sense. Not that I mind, it's just typical TV/Movie geography. Last episode they were talking traveling from Haymarket to the "Old State House". The implication was that the Old State House was on the other side of the wall (which seemed to be borne out since they crossed beyond the wall at the end of the episode). Except the Old State House is about a two to five minute walk from Haymarket. I can't imagine they'd be on separate sides of the wall (Haymarket and State are adjacent stops on the Orange Line). And it doesn't have a golden dome. The State House does have a golden dome. It's a little farther away from Haymarket, but still close enough that I would expect it to be on the same side of the wall. But it's on top of Beacon Hill, not on flat land. For that matter, they made it look as if the State House and the Custom house are on opposite ends of the same street, but they're not. So long as as Frank & Bill don't live East of Boston, that is in the Atlantic or one of the Harbor Islands, I'm just going with the flow.

I was oddly relieved when we find out Sarah was shot. When we first hear Sarah breathing with difficulty, I was concerned they were doing the old "lead character's child has asthma and the inhaler has been lost or forgotten" cliche.

I enjoyed the episode and will keep watching but I thought Sarah, the daughter, was oddly apathetic about what was happening on the day of the outbreak. While at the repair shop, she sees a number of police cars and fire trucks racing by with sirens blasting. The male store owner says that's been going on all day. Then the female store owner appears from the back, says they're closing now and tells Sarah must go home. Sarah never asks her what's going on before being shooed out of the store hours before its regular closing time. When Sarah gets to the neighbors' house, Sarah asks of them if she's heard any news, but is satisfied by a non sequitur and doesn't ask to turn on the news. When Sarah leaves, several military jets fly by. We don't see her immediately going home and turn on the news. Hours later, when her father Joel returns home, we hear the news in the background, but Sarah isn't paying attention, nor does she ask her dad what's going on. The subtitle said the day was September 26, 2003, exactly 2 years, two weeks and a day after 9/11 and 6 months after the Invasion of Iraq (as if to drive home the point, the store owners speak in Arabic to each other and we see a bumper stick on her father or uncle's truck identifying him as a veteran of the First Gulf War). I'm not sure how old Sarah is supposed to be but there's a reason the show told us that she knew Jakarta was the capital of Indonesia, that she took the money from her father to repair the watch without asking, that she felt comfortable asking the neighbor if she could borrow a DVD. So I found it odd.

If white harts are in the suburbs -- note the buildings in the background -- I don't think a sighting should decide who's the rightful monarch https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/21/country-diary-a-white-hart-appears-from-behind-the-willows

Ser Ilyn Payne passed away https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/23/wilko-johnson-dies-aged-75

Devrim Lingnau has charm to burn but the show is so formulaic.

The show has been explicit about who's killing whom, and the circumstances under which they're kilked to the point that they had Larys's henchmen helpfully wear firefly sigils for the audience's benefit when they torched Harrenhal. And with Viserys they explicitly raised the issue of whether or not he's being given too much milk of the poppy. I don't see why the showrunners would break that pattern now.

Rhaenyra (to Luke): Storm's End is a short flight from here. You have Baratheon blood from your grandmother, Rhaenys. And... Lord Borros is an eternally proud man. He will be honored to host a prince of the realm... and his dragon. I expect you will receive a very warm welcome. Sad to think that of Rhaenyra's last words to her son was a lie.

As a viewer, I can't get worked up about kinslaying after Game of Thrones. Some kinslayers had bad ends, but not necessarily related to kinslaying (Ramsay, Euron). Some kinslayers turned out fine. Tyrion killed his father and ended up Hand of the King. Jon killed his aunt and ended up going camping, which is pretty much what he would have wanted to do anyone.

Glances to the left. Sees sigil of House Bolton

Despite Rhaenyra's reaction at the end of the episode, she won't immediately lash out. In fact, I doubt we'll see a response from Rhaenyra for another year and a half.