S01.E05: Endure and Survive

[CooperTV]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I guess it 's possible that FEDRA has a ton of the drug in stock, or that it doesn't really consider it that valuable even if it has just a small amount -- how many people are going to be dying of leukemia post apocalypse, and why would FEDRA maintain resources to save those people?

Mass-murdering and tyrannical FEDRA survived in this area for 20 years, having functional governing system and supplies (you need an apple in exchange for a favor, we'll give you an apple) to rule  those people and use them against oppressed masses. Kathleen and her bunch of murdering jerks who lacked common sense and will for survival lasted for about 11 days and was wiped out because they were just that stupid.

[UnknownK]

I think FEDRA was going to shit after 20 years anyway, and that's why the resistance was able to take over.

If you look at history great men who brought change without major bloodshed end up killed or sidelines by those who only want revenge and end up screwing everything up to get it.

FEDRA was like modern law where anyone trying to topple law and order ends up jailed or dead because of the rules but the rest of the population has order and goes on, while the resistance seemed to be like tribal law where families get revenge that goes back and forth till society crumbles, and everyone is dead.

[cambridgeguy]

5 hours ago, Anela said:

One thing I liked in the last episode, was Joel pointing out that the gas didn't last long, because it was so old. So, he had to keep siphoning more, to put into their car.

He's right about gas breaking down, but that process takes months.  After 20 years it wouldn't matter how often he stopped to siphon, that stuff would be useless.  If you really want to travel across the country you'll have to do it the way they did back in the 19th century before the railroad was set up.

[UnknownK]

Gasoline is a mixture of hydrocarbons some more volatile than others so the more volatile stuff will either vent out or oxidize when exposed to air. Gas made with ethanol is much worse since that stuff is weaker per gallon of fuel and also sucks in water from the air which is bad for combustion.

If you want to be realistic you would have a hard time finding a running vehicle that has been mostly sitting for 20 years even on a dealer lot unused (leaking seals, bad tires, electrical components that just quit working, gummed up oil, etc.) even if you had fresh fuel. Having said that it would be cool seeing vehicles that were converted to run on coal or wood gasses like the Germans used in WW2 (simple technology with easy to source fuel). While wood fired cars would be low powered it's not like you would be running at autobahn speeds on unkept roads full of derelict cars and other obstructions anyway.

 

[snickers]

7 hours ago, aghst said:

Not sure that I buy people behaving this way.

First who are FEDRA suppose to be, former military?  US soldiers are not pristine, there have been cases of them brutalizing or massacring civilians but those cases are relatively few — at least the ones which are general knowledge.

But soldiers generally are taught discipline and following the military code.  Now if they’re former police, it might be different.

KC FEDRA apparently committed all kinds of crimes to stir up so much hate that they’d desecrate their corpses.

Kathleen may have led the rebellion but people motivated to defeat oppression must surely see that she’s just as much a bloodthirsty criminal as FEDRA was.  Ordering the summary execution of those people and they carry it out without question?

Did mostly sociopaths survive the fungus apocalypse?

I take it you don’t watch the Walking Dead? The humans in this show act better in my opinion. People would totally behave this way in a post apocalyptic world. 
 

Not to get too into it but look at the current political environment 🤷🏽‍♀️ driving down the street and seeing foul language written about politicians on people’s houses/cars😳

And I think I saw a comment on this site from the first episode something to the effect of “after seeing what happened with Covid and people not complying these stringent military groups are starting to make more sense in these types of genres”

I’m totally paraphrasing but seeing how people reacted to Covid yeah, I totally buy people behaving the way they do in this world, the walking dead world etc.

[Capricasix]

Completely agree. There’s so much violent rhetoric online, and while it might be easy to handwave that as people just saying sh*t that they would never actually do IRL, we would be naive to assume that everyone would show the same restraint. Humans often do things in a group that they could never imagine doing on their own. Call it a mob mentality, or going along with the crowd; it’s part of the human condition.

[aghst]

My point is military discipline wouldn't break down that much.

But cops would be another matter, also ICE, which have been brutalizing civilians.

Look at Ukraine.  Russian soldiers are committing atrocities against civilians and POWs.

Ukraine soldiers haven't been mistreating POWs, probably because they're aware that NATO would hesitate to continue supporting them if they did act brutally.  But they certainly could act with brutality, the way their country has been destroyed.

I'm not even that pro military but the US military has a better record than most others because they didn't misbehave, particularly in WWII.

But we're speculating because the story doesn't spell out exactly how FEDRA was formed or how these QZs were organized.

It certainly sounds more organized or an attempt to preserve some semblance of order than the TWD universe where it was basically every tribe for itself, with each tribe having their little defining characteristic, like cannibals here, farmers there, etc.

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by aghst

[Capricasix]

Serial posting to add: I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that Kathleen said - “Did you ever consider that he was meant to die?” and “Kids die all the time”. This sounds uncomfortably close to what some said about elderly people during the height of the pandemic, to wit: they’ve lived long lives and maybe it’s their time; well, they were old and going to die anyway, so what’s the problem? 

This is why I can accept that, yes, people would actually act like the resisters did when they defeated FEDRA.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Capricasix
messed up my formatting

[cambridgeguy]

1 hour ago, Capricasix said:

Call it a mob mentality, or going along with the crowd; it’s part of the human condition.

To quote Agent K: "A person is smart.  People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals."

[magdalene]

9 hours ago, aghst said:

Not sure that I buy people behaving this way.

Sadly, I totally buy it.  History shows us over and over that when a military dictator ship gets overthrown by the "good" and "just" revolutionaries the rebels are most often just as bad or worse.

I came to really loathe Kathleen.  First of all in the previous episode it was so dumb of her to execute their doctor for petty revenge. You need medical professionals for emergencies you stupid cow.

Kathleen struck me as the type of person who used to be hell on store clerks and phone support operators. I cheered when she bought it.

[Glade]

Honestly, I'm not sure what there was for the rebels to 'win' aside from revenge anyway--a collection of rotting, moldy old buildings bound to make people sick who try to live in them and some expired food/medicine? I mean, the plan should be to take what's valuable and go setup a farm co-op somewhere fertile and well-protected. But of course, Fedra murdered the peaceful resisters/big idea people a long time ago, so Kathleen is what was left. 

[wanderingstar]

4 hours ago, Capricasix said:

Serial posting to add: I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that Kathleen said - “Did you ever consider that he was meant to die?” and “Kids die all the time”. This sounds uncomfortably close to what some said about elderly people during the height of the pandemic, to wit: they’ve lived long lives and maybe it’s their time; well, they were old and going to die anyway, so what’s the problem? 

Those lines chilled me to the bone. She was so consumed by hatred and desire for revenge that she found herself basically shrugging at the prospect of Sam's death. For me, Kathleen embodies what happens when the resistance mimics the mindset, power dynamics, and tactics of the regime they're fighting against.

[Anela]

4 hours ago, Capricasix said:

Serial posting to add: I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that Kathleen said - “Did you ever consider that he was meant to die?” and “Kids die all the time”. This sounds uncomfortably close to what some said about elderly people during the height of the pandemic, to wit: they’ve lived long lives and maybe it’s their time; well, they were old and going to die anyway, so what’s the problem? 

This is why I can accept that, yes, people would actually act like the resisters did when they defeated FEDRA.

Yep. I was in a really bad way, when people were getting wound up, April 2020. Then when people I knew, were saying that older people, like my dad, were expendable. Everyone with compromised immune systems, should go, and let everyone else go to the movies, and eat in restaurants. So many people online were coming out with this shit, that I wondered if I was the crazy one. 

Last night, I saw a van in the parking lot of Best Buy, that I'd seen outside one of our grocery stores in early 2021. It's covered in covid conspiracies. I remember a woman and her partner, looking at it, and saying that it was insane, and I looked when they were gone. It freaked me out. Conspiracy theories were pushed on local social media (facebook, next-door), and one guy told me it wasn't like I'd be hard to find, when I said that I didn't broadcast my political views with signs on our property. He meant, because I was on next-door, but I initially wondered if it was a threat, and so did another woman. 

Anyway, I could totally see it happening anywhere. 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Anela
I've edited the mentioned date three times. wtf brain.

[Dev F]

8 hours ago, Capricasix said:

Serial posting to add: I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that Kathleen said - “Did you ever consider that he was meant to die?” and “Kids die all the time”. This sounds uncomfortably close to what some said about elderly people during the height of the pandemic, to wit: they’ve lived long lives and maybe it’s their time; well, they were old and going to die anyway, so what’s the problem? 

This is why I can accept that, yes, people would actually act like the resisters did when they defeated FEDRA.

It's also incredibly common for people to draw broad, wrong principles from more specific judgments that are actually quite reasonable. It would be totally defensible for Kathleen to argue that lots of people's kids need cancer drugs, and there's nothing righteous about getting priority over the rest of them by conspiring in the murder of a local freedom fighter. But it doesn't bring any other poor sick kids back to kill Sam now. That's just vengeance, but it feels morally right to Kathleen because she was genuinely wronged, and the fact that someone else benefited from that wrong and there's nothing morally appropriate to do about it is a tough pill to swallow.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Dev F

[MrWhyt]

On 2/11/2023 at 5:35 AM, Helena Dax said:

It can't be just "infected". Fungies? Wereshrooms? I don't know if I've missed a slang term for them.

I've seen them called "fun-guys" elsewheres

AS for the question of how did FEDRA get so bad: Power corrupts. 20 years of being the top dog with no one to check you is going to lead bad behaviour.

[aghst]

Problem with that is as you age, you can’t defend yourself as well.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[paramitch]

11 hours ago, Capricasix said:

Serial posting to add: I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that Kathleen said - “Did you ever consider that he was meant to die?” and “Kids die all the time”. This sounds uncomfortably close to what some said about elderly people during the height of the pandemic, to wit: they’ve lived long lives and maybe it’s their time; well, they were old and going to die anyway, so what’s the problem? 

This is why I can accept that, yes, people would actually act like the resisters did when they defeated FEDRA.

First off, I 100% agree -- we have already seen what happens to people for the worst (as well as for the best) in a pandemic. I am disabled and middle-aged, and let's just say that it wasn't a whole lot of fun to learn that thousands, even millions, felt I was expendable (as well as my parents, my chronically ill sister, etc.). Kathleen's words definitely evoked some of that verbiage, and I think that was deliberate.

Meanwhile -- as far as Kathleen and Henry and Sam... I thought the episode did try for something interesting, in showing how Kathleen's love for her brother had all curdled into this vast need for hate and revenge. The love she had felt was now just rage, so even standing before Henry and two blameless children, she suddenly flips from "Henry has to die" into "Henry and these two kids have to die because the world isn't fair and my rage needs more lives to feed it than just you." The fact that she is saying Sam was supposed to die and "kids die all the time" -- while looking at Sam (and Ellie) is so horrible. (Want to make it even more painful? Sam is experiencing this while KNOWING HE WAS BITTEN and he is scared and doomed anyway. Aghghgh.) At that point, she is worse than the Infected (which was the whole point of this KC storyline, even though it's also depressing as hell).

Which was why I thought it was a nice touch of the show that it is not just an Infected who gets/kills Kathleen, but it is very pointedly a CHILD INFECTED (a child Clicker) who takes her out.

Talk about poetic justice for the woman who said "kids die every day." One of those dead kids had the perfect reply.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by paramitch

[aghst]

I agree that people can be horrible with each other.  There are civil wars all over the world.

I remember in Bosnia, people who had practically been neighbors were taking part in ethnic cleansing there.

Sure people could be whipped up to hate, as we've seen with various nationalist movements, some of them lead to the worst brutality against other ethnic groups.

Usually though, these kinds of attacks are carried out by paramilitaries, normal people who join up in the fervor to scapegoat and destroy out groups.

Now many of the right-wing militias, such as those who took part in Jan 6 are former military.  But it doesn't seem to be widespread.  Rank and file military are inclined towards a certain political ideology but so far, there hasn't been some widespread insurrection led by former military and certainly not active military.

In other countries, you have the military leading coups, usually because of corrupt generals to whom soldiers have greater loyalty than the rest of the country.

That's why I wonder how FEDRA came into being, it's composition and so on.  There won't be a backstory on this so I guess we just accept that they were corrupt and acted in ways that we hope US military and federal officers wouldn't act.

[Starchild]

Pretty intense episode, but I lol'd at this (paraphrasing):

Henry: "I don't want it to be like this, but I don't like your tone"

Ellie: "No, no, it's OK, he's always like that. Joel, tell him it's OK"

Joel: "It's OK" /threatening tone

Ellie: "Duuuuude" /verbal headshake

Edited February 13, 2023 by Starchild

[Nashville]

On the whole, I do feel I have to say - this reminded me of every trip I ever took to Kansas City.  😉

 

19 hours ago, UnknownK said:

I think FEDRA was going to shit after 20 years anyway, and that's why the resistance was able to take over.

Two decades of static deployment without any kind of relief, and military discipline will cease to exist - which leaves you with a lot of people toting a lot of firearms.

 

18 hours ago, cambridgeguy said:

He's right about gas breaking down, but that process takes months.  After 20 years it wouldn't matter how often he stopped to siphon, that stuff would be useless. 

Forget 20 years; I can tell you from personal experience that gasoline left sitting in a vehicle for 2 years can turn into a shellacky mess which will gum up gas tanks, clog intakes/injectors/carburetors, and is about 50/50 likely to put out a lit match if you douse it with the crap.  Gasoline stabilizers might get you an extra 3 years or so, not much more - and certainly not 20.

[cardigirl]

I think the whole discussion of who has the right to decide whose life is worth more was broached pretty well. Clearly, Kathleen couldn't understand the need for her brother to die, so that Sam might live. Her brother was a good man, a great man, I guess, if we go by what was said about him. (We don't actually get to meet him.) And he was betrayed by someone who loved him, because Henry loved Sam more than he loved Kathleen's brother. 

Kathleen's brother was killed by FEDRA, clearly a corrupt organization. Kathleen became corrupt in her need for vengence. But her questions about others' actions, the collaborators, and how did they feel now, when they were about to feel the consequences of their actions. All of that was a little murky. What exactly was the need for FEDRA to have informers for? Why were they hunting Kathleen's brother? The resistance was resisting what?  

This is where the show is more like a video game (to me). No real explanation of anything. Just our two heroes in danger constantly, a semi-defined goal of getting Ellie to someplace where they are working on a cure.

Why is there no cooperation between safe zones?  Is it impossible to maintain any kind of communication system? Is wireless radio the only way to communicate long distances? Is there agriculture anywhere? Some kind of food production? Pockets of oases where chickens, pigs, cows survived, or is everyone living on 20 year old cans of Chef Boy-ar-dee (which, btw, would contain flour)? 

Back to who gets to live and who gets to die ... Sam is clearly an innocent. He's young, cute, and adorable. Someone worth caring about. So protect the innocents at all cost? When Joel told Ellie he was sorry she had to go through all of this (i.e., fighting for her life, shooting someone, listening as Joel finished him off), he was mourning her lost innocence. 

Perhaps Kathleen's brother would have willingly gone to FEDRA, if it would save Sam. Perhaps not. But in a world of limited resources, people start making decisions about how to spread the resources around. When Kathleen said children die all the time, she was baring her grief. Why was Sam's life worth more than her brother's? 

Joel said earlier in the show, that the only people you fight for are family. Since Sam was not Kathleen's family, she couldn't see why Henry would do what he did. Since Kathleen's brother was not Henry's brother, he could do what he did for his family, Sam.

While I was silently cheering when the hoards of infected came up and got rid of the resisters, I thought the basic question of how does one decide who gets the resources to live and who doesn't was a great one. More of a philosophical discussion than I would expect from a show based on a video game. 

P.S. Comparing this situation to the COVID situation, there was a lot of scary talk on both sides.  

P.P.S.  Apparently children were still being born after the start of the infection. Both Ellie and Sam were younger than the 20 years this infection has been going on. I just find that interesting. 
 

Edited February 13, 2023 by cardigirl

[Capricasix]

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.

[Chicago Redshirt]

22 hours ago, aghst said:

My point is military discipline wouldn't break down that much.

But cops would be another matter, also ICE, which have been brutalizing civilians.

Look at Ukraine.  Russian soldiers are committing atrocities against civilians and POWs.

Ukraine soldiers haven't been mistreating POWs, probably because they're aware that NATO would hesitate to continue supporting them if they did act brutally.  But they certainly could act with brutality, the way their country has been destroyed.

I'm not even that pro military but the US military has a better record than most others because they didn't misbehave, particularly in WWII.

But we're speculating because the story doesn't spell out exactly how FEDRA was formed or how these QZs were organized.

It certainly sounds more organized or an attempt to preserve some semblance of order than the TWD universe where it was basically every tribe for itself, with each tribe having their little defining characteristic, like cannibals here, farmers there, etc.

 

I think you are romanticizing the military while painting the police with an unfair brush.

If you pick the U.S. military, there was no lack of atrocities and heinous behavior committed by individual soldiers or the overall system. It's a given that as much as we might venerate WWII, U.S. soldiers raped women during it, murdered civilians during it, facilitated the theft of property and internment of Japanese people, etc. etc. I don't claim to be a military historian, but my understanding is that military discipline was not very good during Vietnam. 

Yes, there are a bunch of brutal cops. I don't think there's any reason to think that as a percentage cops are any more brutal than military people. I just think that there are far more opportunities for the average police officer to commit acts of violent misconduct than the average peacetime soldier. and that in 2023, we are far more likely to hear about the acts of the police officer than we re the acts of the soldier. 

Many police are former military. So even accepting the premise that the military teaches people to respect civilian rights and not commit acts of misconduct, the notion that police do commit misconduct from time to time underscores that those teachings are not always going to stick or to be acted on.

The show obviously hasn't explicitly said, but one would have to imagine that FEDRA would have originally taken in anybody who had guns and were willing to follow orders no matter how heinous, whether the people were cops, active military members, militia members or whatever. Even if FEDRA was originally formed largely out of military people in 2003, now that we are 20 years later, pretty much everyone on the front lines of it would not have received the traditional training that one would expect military people to have gotten in 2003. That their mindset would have been shaped by 20 years of humanity being on the brink of extinction and the marching orders of the civilian leadership (if any) that might be even more brutal and fascist. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 minutes ago, Capricasix said:

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.

People's mileage will vary.

I would say it depends on what the "bad guy" thing is. 

I don't think it is a fault of critical thinking to hold the belief that some things ARE black and white, and that if you do certain things you are automatically bad. 

I don't really care what might have motivated you, but if you molest a 3 month old, you are not just someone who has done a bad thing. You are bad, period, paragraph. It is not possible IMO to be a Nazi and to be a good person.

Now of course, some might come back and say "Well, I don't think it is possible to be a meat-eater and to be a good person" or "I don't think it is possible to be a non-Christian/Christian/fill-in-the-blank and to be a good person"  Which is where you have to agree to disagree.

But to bring things back to the show, Henry acted as a Judas to get an anti-cancer drug for his brother. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family and 10 is child molestation, I'd guess it's closer to the 10 side of things than 1. I'd probably say it's a 6. Betrayal is a bad guy thing. Dante had it as the crime punished in the lowest circle of his Inferno for a reason.

 

[iMonrey]

This was really a good episode and that's coming from somewhat who has been mostly lukewarm about the series thus far. When the episode started with the Henry and Sam origin flashback I kind of groaned because I thought I would be irritated by the addition of new characters, but I quickly became interested in them and by the end of the episode was invested enough to want them to stick around. So the ending really was gutting. That's something, for a show to make me care that much about two characters so quickly.

Also, I really enjoy the quieter, character driven parts of the story rather than the big action set pieces, so I liked Joel, Ellie, Henry and Sam trying to make their way out of the city. But the big confrontation scene and the ensuing zombie hoard scenes were so well done it really was riveting.

I could grow to like this show more than I started out doing so.

[CooperTV]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

But to bring things back to the show, Henry acted as a Judas to get an anti-cancer drug for his brother. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family and 10 is child molestation, I'd guess it's closer to the 10 side of things than 1. I'd probably say it's a 6. Betrayal is a bad guy thing. Dante had it as the crime punished in the lowest circle of his Inferno for a reason.

Then again, Henry never said he was a good guy, unlike self-proclaimed "good" guys that were shown at the beginning of the episode pillaging, dragging dead bodies around and killing prisoners of war without trial. Moralizing this issue will not help to make Kathleen and her gang of child killers to look any better, even if Henry did the wrong thing. Henry was one man with no power, and Kathleen was the judge, jury and executioner and had all the power.

[TV Anonymous]

Good episode, if not too much of deus ex machina. My regret is that the ending means that the last 1-1/2 episodes have been for nothing, except that Joel and Ellie now lost their vehicle and almost all of their supplies.

So how is it explained that virtually all infected in the city are contained in the basement of that particular house? And what is the big boss infected? What kind of infection that mutated it that way?

[Starchild]

12 minutes ago, TV Anonymous said:

So how is it explained that virtually all infected in the city are contained in the basement of that particular house? And what is the big boss infected? What kind of infection that mutated it that way?

I guess when Fedra routed them a few years back, that's the hole they were all driven into, and Fedra closed up the tunnels behind them. The truck explosion probably loosened things up enough for them all to break through.

I think one of those big boss types was just one who's been infected the longest.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Starchild

[Ilovepie]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:17 PM, aghst said:

Not sure that I buy people behaving this way.

It's hard for me as well, I think that's why Episode 3 was so great - two decent people trying to just live a normal life in the middle of the apocalypse. Fixing things instead of letting everything go to rot. I get that people do horrible things when they are desperate - we see that happen all the time and all the way down history, but it's so depressing to think almost EVERYONE would be that way. And every single show set in the apocalypse has been that way. Well, except Last Man On Earth, but that was a comedy. Still, in some ways that is what I think more people would be like. I mean, where are the people trying to rebuild? Nowhere? No-one???? It's not the immediate aftermath here, it's 20 years! I know Kathleen was broken by all that came before, but saying "maybe he (sam) was supposed to die" - what? By that logic, maybe her brother was supposed to be turned in! God, it makes me think if I end up in this situation, please just eat me first. I don't want to live that way or be that kind of person.

This episode was waaayyyy more bleak and sad than Episode 3. How gutting for Sam and Henry to go out that way. Ellie's back and forth on Sam's board was brutal. "I'm scared of ending up alone", "If you turn into a monster is it still you inside" "I'm sorry". All heartbreaking. But for me, the saddest moment came when Joel begged the old sniper in the house to put the gun down. Pedro Pascal's face said everything - he just knew he was going to have to kill him and he didn't want to do it. What a horrible life. Again, please kill me before I have to be that person.

The hoard coming out of the ground was well done, but I think I'm immune to that type of stuff after years of Walking Dead. Oh great, a hoard of zombies fungus clickers and a bloater....sure,whatever.......I'm just glad Kathleen came and went in such short order - she was a terrible leader and they all followed her to their peril. Fitting end, now on to the next group of which I assume we'll meet for two episodes before they're dispatched - uh oh, one is Joel's brother.......

[Uncle JUICE]

13 minutes ago, Ilovepie said:

Still, in some ways that is what I think more people would be like. I mean, where are the people trying to rebuild? Nowhere? No-one???? It's not the immediate aftermath here, it's 20 years!

This is the kind of thing that I find fascinating about this show. Initially I agreed with you: where's all the rebuilding, this was my main pushback on Walking Dead (I quit that shitshow in S3, I know it ended up with a ton of other problems), why aren't humans trying to out-think the walkers, etc. I think here this show is a little different because it very clearly lays out an absolutely STUNNING timeline of how things went to shit. Basically, Joel went to work on Friday morning, and by 11pm Friday night, the world had fallen apart, right? Planes falling out of the sky, army occupying the streets, who knows how many people dead? The rate of people dying or getting infected outpaced our ability to transfer data to each other to keep things going, and everything but survival went on the back burner. Like that kid's shoes, there's just no one to make them anymore. I think you're seeing people try to rebuild (FEDRA no doubt started out with this goal in mind), but the population is so decimated that specialized and industrialized skills are so few and far between that we just don't have the horsepower. 

[CrazyDog]

How does this show get me so attached to characters in the span of an episode? Sam and Henry were so compelling and heart-breaking. Poor Sam, being hungry in the hideout. The sadness with both their friend not returning, and knowing he'd likely been killed. And Henry knowing their options had run out. Their hug :( 

I'd been spoiled on the game storyline, but I totally had my hopes up that maybe the show would keep them around a bit longer.

46 minutes ago, Ilovepie said:

But for me, the saddest moment came when Joel begged the old sniper in the house to put the gun down. Pedro Pascal's face said everything - he just knew he was going to have to kill him and he didn't want to do it. What a horrible life. Again, please kill me before I have to be that person.

That was incredibly well acted by Pedro Pascal. Just the look and tone of his voice. He did not want to kill the solitary old man, and it cost him to do so.

How many people has he seen over the years who show a bit of goodness, like Henry did when he went back for Ellie and got her out of the line of fire? And he lets his guard down just a bit more to invite Henry and Sam to join them on the trip to Wyoming, only to lose them.

Ellie and Sam were adorable together. Finally getting to be kids for a bit.

I kept wondering how much they've been finding to eat. Where are they finding food? Minor plot point, but it I couldn't let it go, ha.

Kathleen was brutal. Not just the comments about kids dying all the time, but even refusing to consider letting Sam and Ellie go. What danger are they to her? Her revenge truly consumed her. I did think the scene when she finally came face to face with Henry was also really emotional. Her pain was so obvious. 

The opening flashbacks were horrifying to watch.

I wish I know how long Ellie and Joel have been traveling. My only, minimal show complaint is that their relationship seems a bit rushed, in terms of the bonding, and trust forming already. But I imagine in show time it's been longer than what it seems as a viewer.

[Chicago Redshirt]

55 minutes ago, Ilovepie said:

I mean, where are the people trying to rebuild? Nowhere? No-one???? It's not the immediate aftermath here, it's 20 years!

I hope the show does more to explore this, but it seems like the current system of QZs, small settlements with random outliers like Bill/Frank are about the best you can reasonably get under the circumstances. 

Infected are everywhere, and allowing one infected to slip past your defenses can easily mean that your encampment gets overrun in a day. You are going to have limited access to oil, computers and many of the things that we depend on in modern life, and many of the people who know how to work or procure those things are gone. You've got armed raiders further making it difficult to rebuild to any sort of widespread civilization. 

 

[Ilovepie]

34 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

This is the kind of thing that I find fascinating about this show. Initially I agreed with you: where's all the rebuilding, this was my main pushback on Walking Dead (I quit that shitshow in S3, I know it ended up with a ton of other problems), why aren't humans trying to out-think the walkers, etc. I think here this show is a little different because it very clearly lays out an absolutely STUNNING timeline of how things went to shit. Basically, Joel went to work on Friday morning, and by 11pm Friday night, the world had fallen apart, right? Planes falling out of the sky, army occupying the streets, who knows how many people dead? The rate of people dying or getting infected outpaced our ability to transfer data to each other to keep things going, and everything but survival went on the back burner. Like that kid's shoes, there's just no one to make them anymore. I think you're seeing people try to rebuild (FEDRA no doubt started out with this goal in mind), but the population is so decimated that specialized and industrialized skills are so few and far between that we just don't have the horsepower. 

I get what you're saying, but I do think there are enough people to live past meager subsistence - I mean, just the horrid filth is confounding. Sure you can't have new nikes but why stay in cities that have no way to support growing food and starting over? I know not everyone has the skills Bill had, but I personally know a lot of people just in my own life that possess engineering skills and even just tinker with things to a point that they could probably figure out how to make it work. If I know that many people, how are there zero people there that are trying to do what Bill has done? Lots of places in our own actual world have experienced catastrophic events and eventually they rebuild. I don't think the US would have collapsed to the level shown in this show or Walking Dead. But I am an optimistic person, so maybe it's my naivety that makes me think people would rise above. Maybe that's what draws us all to these shows - a voyeuristic view of how humanity behaves in an extreme crisis? Or, as I said in my OP, let me die first if this is the only outcome because I don't want to live like a savage hiding in a gross building eating 20 year old chef boyardee or killing people to survive......

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 minutes ago, CrazyDog said:

I wish I know how long Ellie and Joel have been traveling. My only, minimal show complaint is that their relationship seems a bit rushed, in terms of the bonding, and trust forming already. But I imagine in show time it's been longer than what it seems as a viewer.

Google says that Boston to KC takes under a day to travel in the real world under normal conditions. Given the need to constantly siphon gas, avoid infected, navigate packed highways and other obstacles, hide from potential raiders, etc., I would expect that their trip would have to have taken at least a week but more likely three. 

[Absurda]

I've been thinking about goods and such.  In the first episode one of the FEDRA guys said in Atlanta they were manufacturing bullets and pills.  So, there is some manufacturing going on.  Presumably people are still able to sew since everyone has clothing that's not too ratty.  It also seems that there is trade between the QZs and the outliers, probably raiders as well.  They have apples in KC QZ so there must be some farming somewhere and trade with the QZ.  Unless they have city garden plots.  They also have beef jerky and, at one point, Ellie had a chicken sandwich so there's some sort of animal farming and meat production still going on.  There may be some form of rebuilding and farming going on in places, we're just not seeing it because it's not part of the story.

One thing that does kind of bug me, though, is we occasionally see in the background some metal FEDRA signs with warnings or, in one case, a description of infected symptoms and timelines.  The whole world fell apart and someone was still spending their time designing and making these signs?

[Uncle JUICE]

25 minutes ago, Absurda said:

I've been thinking about goods and such.  In the first episode one of the FEDRA guys said in Atlanta they were manufacturing bullets and pills.  So, there is some manufacturing going on.  Presumably people are still able to sew since everyone has clothing that's not too ratty.  It also seems that there is trade between the QZs and the outliers, probably raiders as well.  They have apples in KC QZ so there must be some farming somewhere and trade with the QZ.  Unless they have city garden plots.  They also have beef jerky and, at one point, Ellie had a chicken sandwich so there's some sort of animal farming and meat production still going on.  There may be some form of rebuilding and farming going on in places, we're just not seeing it because it's not part of the story.

One thing that does kind of bug me, though, is we occasionally see in the background some metal FEDRA signs with warnings or, in one case, a description of infected symptoms and timelines.  The whole world fell apart and someone was still spending their time designing and making these signs?

Ugh, this show is going to kill me, it's another place for me to get bogged down in details like this :). So to the last paragraph, I'd conclude that the outbreak's worst days were at the very, very beginning, and then once enough people were dead, the misery and dangers people face daily changed and became more stable. After all, those QZ walls don't go up in a matter of hours, they're prison walls the span of city blocks, so clearly something must have stabilized to allow their construction, right? To me it seems reasonable that whatever's left of the central health authorities, the ones developing screening machines like the ones we see, would have no problem publishing signs aimed (futilely) to limit the outbreak. Now they seem quite out-dated, and really only exist for viewer information (everyone alive would know these timelines, maybe they just don't bother taking them down).

City garden plots are an interesting idea, but as a FEDRA managed resource is my guess, otherwise you'd be growing apples for people to just steal from your tree. And we sure it's BEEF jerky? :) The chicken I get (we see Bill has a coop, reasonable to imagine these are fairly common), but the bread gives me pause. As a non-game playing watcher, I really loved how the second episode's opening dovetailed in with the first and second episode details around bread. 

[Uncle JUICE]

1 hour ago, Ilovepie said:

I get what you're saying, but I do think there are enough people to live past meager subsistence - I mean, just the horrid filth is confounding. Sure you can't have new nikes but why stay in cities that have no way to support growing food and starting over? I know not everyone has the skills Bill had, but I personally know a lot of people just in my own life that possess engineering skills and even just tinker with things to a point that they could probably figure out how to make it work. If I know that many people, how are there zero people there that are trying to do what Bill has done? Lots of places in our own actual world have experienced catastrophic events and eventually they rebuild. I don't think the US would have collapsed to the level shown in this show or Walking Dead. But I am an optimistic person, so maybe it's my naivety that makes me think people would rise above. Maybe that's what draws us all to these shows - a voyeuristic view of how humanity behaves in an extreme crisis? Or, as I said in my OP, let me die first if this is the only outcome because I don't want to live like a savage hiding in a gross building eating 20 year old chef boyardee or killing people to survive......

I hear you, and like you, I'm an optimist with a lot of faith in collective humanity...but imagine how quickly that'd evaporate under the circumstances. How many times would someone have to take your resources before you not only refused to share them, but defended them aggressively against EVERY person? Even if you're in a loose "collective" of resource generation, how long does it take for one armed group to decide "Why should we start our own farm when it looks like these people have plenty of food right now, not six or eight weeks from now?" Then you know the outcome, arguemnts ensue and shit goes pear shaped in a realy hurry. It was Bill's LACK of faith in humanity, or his certainty about how terrible people would become, that saved him, that made him that "island" on his own. He took all that time to set up all that stuff after he was sure everyone had left. People with those skills would quickly become somewhat different, no? Like if you're an electrical engineer...what if the wrong person finds that out? There's a very thin line between "respected contributor to society" and "forced labor" in a place like this, I'd think. Or, other hand, you could withhold your skills so that, say, the pills manufacturing equipment locally just doesn't run, until you get exactly what you want. I think you're right on it, the appeal of these shows, zombie shows, is it forces us to imagine "what am I capable of, really" in a way. 

[Ilovepie]

6 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

I hear you, and like you, I'm an optimist with a lot of faith in collective humanity...but imagine how quickly that'd evaporate under the circumstances. How many times would someone have to take your resources before you not only refused to share them, but defended them aggressively against EVERY person? Even if you're in a loose "collective" of resource generation, how long does it take for one armed group to decide "Why should we start our own farm when it looks like these people have plenty of food right now, not six or eight weeks from now?" Then you know the outcome, arguemnts ensue and shit goes pear shaped in a realy hurry. It was Bill's LACK of faith in humanity, or his certainty about how terrible people would become, that saved him, that made him that "island" on his own. He took all that time to set up all that stuff after he was sure everyone had left. People with those skills would quickly become somewhat different, no? Like if you're an electrical engineer...what if the wrong person finds that out? There's a very thin line between "respected contributor to society" and "forced labor" in a place like this, I'd think. Or, other hand, you could withhold your skills so that, say, the pills manufacturing equipment locally just doesn't run, until you get exactly what you want. I think you're right on it, the appeal of these shows, zombie shows, is it forces us to imagine "what am I capable of, really" in a way. 

Gah! Nothing you have said here makes me want to survive the zombie/fungus apocalypse ;-p

[DoubleUTeeEff]

What I find so interesting about this show is how we follow certain characters and end up having great sympathy for them but it could so easily be flipped. If we had followed Kathleen instead of Henry, 90% of the audience would hate Henry and be calling him names. (Hopefully not racial epitaphs like the gendered insults Kathleen's gotten, but probably still a lot of ire would be directed his way.) The other 10% of the audience would still see the nuance in the situation as they do as we followed Henry and Sam.

In Kathleen's story, she and her brother are fighting fascists who in Henry's own words have been "raping, murdering and torturing for 20 years." Bill and Frank referred to them as fascists as well and we saw FEDRA in Boston hang people in the public square, ostensibly for trying to leave? Pretty harsh sentence. Basically, FEDRA are the Nazis. It's not really a head scratcher why people don't want to be ruled by them. If we had gotten a glimpse of people of KC trying to survive under their rule, we would have a lot more sympathy for Kathleen and her group of resistors. Then if we seen a story play out about a collaborator who turned in a neighbor for being a political enemy of FEDRA and gotten some apples as a favor, well, we'd probably understand why collaborators were rounded up. In Kathleen's story, Henry was someone who her brother trusted under these conditions and was then betrayed by him.

What's amazing is that Kathleen and Henry can see each other's side but still end up at odds because the circumstances they are in are so terrible. Like what Kathleen said about how children die all the time. That's an undeniably terrible thing. It's terrible from our perspective because we are a supposed to be living in a civilized society and we hope that every member of our community is cared for. It's terrible in TLOU context because it's true. Children do die all the time, from infection, lack of medical care, poor nutrition, etc etc etc. Henry put his need to have Sam survive over the rest of the community. We can't really blame him but can we blame the rest of the community for feeling betrayed and angry about it, especially when so many of them have experienced the death of their own children, when probably in many cases it could have been easily prevented in an earlier time? Or perhaps survived if a corrupt government wasn't in charge? How would one feel to see someone get special favor because they were willing to betray their friends or they were part of that corrupt system?

Kathleen's singular focus of overthrowing FEDRA and getting revenge on the collaborators did lead to her downfall, but it also resulted in KC overthrowing the fascist rule. Her brother had more compassion but he wasn't able to accomplish that. You can't exactly reason with Nazis so maybe you need someone like Kathleen to get things done under those circumstances. Of course, her inability to let Sam and Henry go led to her very appropriate death. She ignored the bigger problem and even in the midst of a fight with the infected, she was still focused on Henry.

Of course, the point of following Sam and Henry makes sense. It's a way to see parallel versions of Joel and Ellie. There's the mirrored pseudo father/child relationship and maybe to showcase a different way of how everything could play out for them.

To my larger point about flipping the perspectives though, you could even do it with the earlier episodes. If we had followed the raiders who had tried to break into Bill and Frank's place, it would look like two assholes who had fenced off an area and hoarded all the resources, setting traps to kill people when those people were just trying to survive themselves. If we had followed the soldier who had killed Joel's daughter, we would have seen his complete panic about coming into contact with an infected person. He's probably haunted by what he did, but he thought he had to do it. There's really no good decision you can make in a Last of Us situation.

 

[overtherainbow]

This show is one big sucker punch after another, I knew there was no way they were letting those two off that easy but ouch. This was an especially brutal episode. I don't know why but the trailer for the next episode is giving True Grit vibes. Looks very Old West-ish.

[Absurda]

While I can't condone her actions, I can understand Kathleen's anger and pain.  It's a question of whose brother is more important than the other and, of course, she and Henry are going to have very different opinions on that.  Henry was in a shit position.  His brother was dying and he had the opportunity to exchange another life for Sam's.  He took it.  That he still feels horrible about making that choice tells me he's not a bad guy.  He's just a regular guy who was faced with a terrible situation and made a painful decision.  I can't honestly say I'd do anything different.  Can't honestly say, if I were Kathleen, I wouldn't want revenge against Henry (though not Sam and Ellie - she went overboard there).

In the after the episode segment one of the commenters (I think it was Neil Druckmann) said that this is a decision you make with your heart, not your rationality. 

[paigow]

30 minutes ago, Absurda said:

(though not Sam and Ellie - she went overboard there).

Ellie was a known accomplice in killing Brian... but Kathleen did not know that Ellie actually shot him

[overtherainbow]

51 minutes ago, Absurda said:

While I can't condone her actions, I can understand Kathleen's anger and pain.  It's a question of whose brother is more important than the other and, of course, she and Henry are going to have very different opinions on that.  Henry was in a shit position.  His brother was dying and he had the opportunity to exchange another life for Sam's.  He took it.  That he still feels horrible about making that choice tells me he's not a bad guy.  He's just a regular guy who was faced with a terrible situation and made a painful decision.  I can't honestly say I'd do anything different.  Can't honestly say, if I were Kathleen, I wouldn't want revenge against Henry (though not Sam and Ellie - she went overboard there).

In the after the episode segment one of the commenters (I think it was Neil Druckmann) said that this is a decision you make with your heart, not your rationality. 

What you have to do to survive and help your family survive is a common theme in this show. There's a lot of illusions to what Joel and his own brother had to do too, which I'm sure we'll hear more of in later episodes. It's brutal but very human. This show is good at not making people overly sympathetic while still humanizing them.

[Uncle JUICE]

1 hour ago, Ilovepie said:

Gah! Nothing you have said here makes me want to survive the zombie/fungus apocalypse ;-p

Isn't that a choice in and of itself? It's the choice made by Bill, after all, isn't it? :) and don't worry, I'm fairly certain I'm overestimating my own survival skills. Pretty.much if there's no toilet paper, I'm ready to call it quits on civilization. 

[wknt3]

On 2/12/2023 at 2:17 AM, aghst said:

Not sure that I buy people behaving this way.

Kathleen may have led the rebellion but people motivated to defeat oppression must surely see that she’s just as much a bloodthirsty criminal as FEDRA was.  Ordering the summary execution of those people and they carry it out without question?

Did mostly sociopaths survive the fungus apocalypse?

 

On 2/12/2023 at 12:12 PM, magdalene said:

Sadly, I totally buy it.  History shows us over and over that when a military dictatorship gets overthrown by the "good" and "just" revolutionaries the rebels are most often just as bad or worse.

I can also buy it and would add that even if they don't turn out to be as bad or worse there is often an extremely bloody and violent period where the collaborators and supporters of the old regime are purged and scores are settled. After all you may have joined the revolution to fight for liberty, but after years of seeing your comrades, relatives, lovers, etc. tortured, wounded, and killed and being constantly in mortal danger it's not hard to see how you are willing to overlook your ideals and even believe revenge is justice. Eventually it can burn itself out, or new leadership emerges that is more focused on moving forward than looking backward. If the show ever revisits Kansas City they could depict it as an independent democratic oasis, an even worse dictatorship than FEDRA, or completely collapsed and desolate and you could find parallels in history to support it.

[overtherainbow]

This isn't directly related to the show but I just found out Bella Ramsey, the girl playing Ellie, is a Brit. How do they do it??? Millie Bobby Brown, Saoirse Ronan, now her. They all make it look so natural. 😅

[mledawn]

39 minutes ago, overtherainbow said:

This isn't directly related to the show but I just found out Bella Ramsey, the girl playing Ellie, is a Brit. How do they do it??? Millie Bobby Brown, Saoirse Ronan, now her. They all make it look so natural. 😅

Kathleen was played by a Kiwi

[Capricasix]

46 minutes ago, overtherainbow said:

This isn't directly related to the show but I just found out Bella Ramsey, the girl playing Ellie, is a Brit. How do they do it??? Millie Bobby Brown, Saoirse Ronan, now her. They all make it look so natural. 😅

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.

[Starchild]

38 minutes ago, Capricasix said:

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.

Huh, I've always heard the opposite. 

[CooperTV]

5 hours ago, paigow said:

Ellie was a known accomplice in killing Brian... but Kathleen did not know that Ellie actually shot him

Ironically enough, other two guys ended up dead as well by Joel's hand, plus Joel killed the old sniper, but Kathleen didn't care about those as much. They weren't named characters.