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Xavier's silly faces and Wally being Wally are two cornerstones of the entire show. That is all I have to add to the show's important discourse of Maddie's body running around while Maddie herself stares in the middle distance, confused.

The writers created a retcon backstory for Tim that caused him to doubt himself, and he decided to break up with her because apparently he doesn't "deserve" her or whatever. All the best vampire romance novel tropes were deployed with this one, writers spared no expense.

So this plot twist rendered the entirety of the season 1 pretty much useless. The finale wasn't set-up at all in any meaningful way, and the plot basically was spinning wheels for 7 episodes straight. I first thought they would set up Maddy body snatching with that scene where Anderson saying Claire Maddie had asked for the money. But guess what, turned out it was Nicole pretending to be Maddie, so no set-up for you, viewer. After that it was emotionally unstable Simon yelling 'Xavier killed Maddie, no, no, Anderson did it, no, Claire did it, no, Claire did it again, no, Nicole did it", red herring after red herring after red herring, all the way to the unsatisfying end. If the writers were more capable they would make Simon to be an attacker/killer, as he was the only one who actually fits that jealous spiteful personality he attempted to paint everyone around him as. All the ghosts and Xavier are more interesting characters than the main three. Wally is a precious puppy, so I've no doubt thet will make him a jerk in season 2 to prop Simon. I even liked Claire and Xavier's horrible dad more than Maddie in the end. Purely subjective, but Maddie is brought down a lot by her connection and BFFsness with Simon.

Not surprised a certain number of viewers thought Simon was a killer, he's just that selfish, obsessive, unreasonable and controlling towards pretty much everyone around him. But anyway, I guess this show needs its love quadrangle going, and Simon is your typical "nice guy" of the three dudes. Character work in this episode (and all others) is superb, though. It definitely holds better than the overarching plot of Maddy being a ghost and Simon's paranoid delusions of accusing everyone and their mother of being a serial killer with an axe.

Rachel was that annoying social worker person who Lucy set up with Tim to win a bet in season 1. This Rachel also were planning to move to New York and told Tim, her boyfriend, about the fact after she got the job there, and he still wanted to date her. (So Lucy is the only person Tim willingly broke up with at this point, this show is just weird with Chenford).

Number: Season 2, Episode 1 Airdate: Wednesday Jan 8, 2025 at 20:00

The proper use of the Trolley problem was used in the game called Prey (2017). First it was introduced to the player in a psychological testing without any context to it (as it exists in our world on a random Wiki page). And in the end of the game player/the main character uncovers the entire point of this testing and has full context to apply it. Prey (2017) is also what we call "a non-linear" game, and with number of various choices, big (astronomically big) and small, that decide character's fate. TLoU writers wanted their game/show to be a narrative masterpiece with a complex message. And yet don't ever give their players/viewers (I uses it interchangeably because the TloU 1 = TloU s1) the freedom of choice or even freedom to think for themselves. And their "complex" message is not that interesting or complex when is presented in the flawed and reductive way they did in the game/show.

As much as you can use "trolley problem" as a shield from any criticism, either from the writing standpoint, or from the ethical standpoint, it's not going to be correct. From the writing standpoint the author created rushed and barely thought-out scenario where the fate of an immune person is decided by a third party to the actual government in more or less an hour of real time. And if loved ones object to the murder of said child, they're killed as well. Then the writers are bewildered why viewers refuse to connect emotionally to the apparent bad guys' POV. Even though the same writers created the same problem ten years ago in a different medium and it was at best ambiguous then, and they even did a little bit of study on the subject. From the ethical standpoint again, trolley problem is a thought experiment with no variables or outside information present. But the most important part of ethics as a tool that it its presenting sufficient information in its complexity for every individual solution. We, as viewers, see all the details Joel is unaware of because he has limited POV. But his decision, even if it could be done for variety of reasons, is still consistent with the viewers' own ethical standpoint, which is "don't experiment and kill children after kidnapping them and attacking their guardian".

I think the writers should have maybe create a universe where killing children for greater good is okay, and anyone going on a rampage to prevent that is a bad guy. I feel like they wanted it to be so, for the sake of "ambiguity" or "discourse". But the same writers consistently, from the episode one, showed us that killing children for whatever reason is horrific thing to do. Their bad guys of the week systematically either put no value in children's lives (Karen of KC QZ) or were outright child abusers (David the Cannibal). This is a massive writing issue that became even more obvious in the finale, where we, as viewers, are supposed to sympathize with known terrorists, child murderers and medical hacks over a father that wants to save his child from said terrorists. Rule of the thumb, supported by mankind everywhere: killing children is 100% off limits. Experimenting on said children that would result in their demise to create a medicine is a crime punished by at least prison time. Case closed.

There's a recent zombie apocalypse game called Days Gone where the main character is a biker from a biker gang, and everyone is getting around via bikes. Not that those bikers wear anything sensible either to protect themselves against the infected, though.

I mean, humans have been apex predators for hundreds of thousands of years and has been hunt megafauna for resources way longer than that. The writers did themselves a big disservice by removing the main source of danger of the infected from the game. The show's infected are easily disposable by common sense and fire, I think. ETA: Yet Ellie was eating white-bread sandwich in the episode 2, for reasons. In our reality vaccine from fungal infection doesn't exist. That's just not a thing. Anti-fungi chemicals reduce growth of fungus.

Marlene didn't tell anything, and from the looks of it, Ellie was sedated before they administered the major drug, as Ellie was confused about it when she came to. Yes, Marlene in the garage said that Ellie would chose to die but it's the same Marlene that removed said choice. In her dying breathe she basically said to Joel like, why would you try and save her, she'll be taken apart by clickers or raped by raiders anyway. I don't even going to comment on Joel's predicament, I want to point out that Marlene, this beacon of light and democracy (as if), that wanted to save all the humanity (no) said 14-year-old girl should die for "the cure" because she has nothing to live for apart from her being raped and abused.

Except a Trolley problem as any abstract experiment, is incomplete, and ethics questions are always specific and are based on individual details. Details like Marlene and her group are failed terrorists ignored by normal people, and they, according to the show, are unable to do anything properly without falling flat on their face. I deliberately ignore Joel's emotional response and actions here exactly because it's not about Joel in the end. It's about the Fireflies who are incompetent butchers with no common sense. No one would want those idiots to be the switch operators on anything ever, let alone let them decide the destiny of the US base human race. I think the fact that Marlene doubled down on her "Ellie would have agreed to committing suicide" in the end, when Marlene was the one who robbed her of choice and ordered to put her under without a warning just "to not scare her" is the answer enough by itself.

The question was if Tommy shared his life story and the fact his niece died in front of him while his brother held her, and after that the brother (Joel) was never the same. There was dialogue in the show where Joel says "You don't understand", and Marlene says "I'm the only one who can understand". So she thinks Joel is 1) cold-blooded killer who doesn't care, 2) she thinks he cares as much as she is (so, not much) or 3) she thinks he cares for Ellie as her father because he can bond with people in such a manner? And every option should have cause the unique response from smart!Marlene. Option 1: Joel goes on his merry way with the promised supplies/kills Marlene after they screw him over by not giving him a reward. Option 2: Joel is drugged alongside Ellie and is woken up after the surgery that kills Ellie/They kill straight away. Option 3: Marlene has a long discussion on the medical ethics and how they will wake Ellie up and ask her if she consider it possible to give her life at some point in not so distant future to potentially save the world. Again, none of these options can be true simultaneously. Yet what we got in the show is Marlene screwing over the known stone-cold smuggler, saying she understand how he feels but she'll kill a girl anyway and kill him if he refuses to go. Enter Marlene's forever Pikachu face.

Isn't Marlene dated Tommy at some point when he had his Fireflies phase? It's possible Tommy trash-talks Joel to all his girlfriends (as was evident from Maria's treatment of Joel), sure. But still, Marlene at least has to know Joel was a father and that his young daughter was murdered in front of him by authorities because they thought it was the right thing to do.