S01.E07: Left Behind

[Whimsy]

6 hours ago, shelley1234 said:

There aren't malls like that in Boston...probably the Cambridgeside Galleria is the closest or maybe the Braintree Mall.  Boston has the Pru and the Corner Mall, but never are actually malls. But this isn't a documentary so I don't really care about that.  

Still watching, but the mall kind of looks like the Natick mall or maybe the Prudential Center. The Solomon Pond mall in Marlborough used to have a merry-go-round  

 

[BasilSeal]

18 hours ago, paigow said:

If Ellie killed Riley, it is likely she would not remain at the mall... Then Marlene has to coincidentally arrive before Ellie can escape. 

I  think Ellie will probably have to kill Riley as she begins to turn because i think after she shoots the boy who was going to kill Joel in KC, she tells him that it wasn't the first time she'd killed someone.

 

17 hours ago, grawlix said:

Ellie would unlikely be able to escape an attack from someone that close (like with Sam in the hotel room).  Ellie has to stay alive longer than the 8 hours to be fully infected to give Marlene the idea that Ellie is immune.

I'd  need to watch the first episode again but IIRC i got the impression that Marlene already knew Ellie was immune, maybe i just got the wrong end of the stick, but didn't she say that she had placed Ellie at the FEDRA training school to keep her safe?

[Capricasix]

5 minutes ago, BasilSeal said:

I'd  need to watch the first episode again but IIRC i got the impression that Marlene already knew Ellie was immune, maybe i just got the wrong end of the stick, but didn't she say that she had placed Ellie at the FEDRA training school to keep her safe?

She did say that, yes, you’re right. I think she said that she, Marlene, had put Ellie in the FEDRA orphanage when she was a baby (I’ve watched the first ep five times, you’d think I would remember 😄). Which means that she would have known even then. So now I’m wondering if they recruited Riley for the sole purpose of luring Ellie 🤔

[BasilSeal]

1 minute ago, Capricasix said:

She did say that, yes, you’re right. I think she said that she, Marlene, had put Ellie in the FEDRA orphanage when she was a baby (I’ve watched the first ep five times, you’d think I would remember 😄). Which means that she would have known even then. So now I’m wondering if they recruited Riley for the sole purpose of luring Ellie

Or was it the other way round? did Marlene recruit Riley to get her away from Ellie as she felt Riley was a bad influence who would damage Ellie's career in FEDRA? remember riley says she asked Marlene to allow Ellie to come with her and Marlene had said no. Marlen wanted Ellie to stay where she was, perhaps she also saw she had potential to become a FEDRA officer and wanted her on the inside?

[bethy]

I'm in the "Bored now" camp on this one. I figured we were seeing the origin of Ellie's bite, but they could have gotten there so much quicker. But then, I have very little patience for teen romance these days. (The last time I saw Romeo and Juliet, my sole thought was, "Oh, for heaven's sake, you're 14 years old."). Back to the hot dad, please. 

[shelley1234]

45 minutes ago, Whimsy said:

Still watching, but the mall kind of looks like the Natick mall or maybe the Prudential Center. The Solomon Pond mall in Marlborough used to have a merry-go-round  

 

Definitely not the Pru.  That is not really a mall.  And Natick or Marlborough aren't places that Ellie and Riley is walking to on their adventure.  Reddit came to the conclusion that Cambridgeside Galleria is probably it.   Someone remarked that Ellie even told Tess she was bit in a mall across the river, which I didn't remember....but that would make Cambridge a viable option.  So I'll go with that in the make believe fungus zombie world.  🤣

[T Summer]

I've been curious about Ellie's backstory, since we met her.

However having watched eps 1-6 right before the new one (as I missed large parts of 1+2), I was anxious to find out what happens to her when she's forced to go it alone. That's why I could have done with a lesser portion of the episode  spent  on flashbacks and more of it moving the story along.

Even if I hadn't, just waiting out the week  I'd still want to see what happens to her next. Does anyone know how many episodes remain? I saw one mention of 9 in the season and another of 10.

[aghst]

49 minutes ago, shelley1234 said:

Definitely not the Pru.  That is not really a mall.  And Natick or Marlborough aren't places that Ellie and Riley is walking to on their adventure.  Reddit came to the conclusion that Cambridgeside Galleria is probably it.   Someone remarked that Ellie even told Tess she was bit in a mall across the river, which I didn't remember....but that would make Cambridge a viable option.  So I'll go with that in the make believe fungus zombie world.  🤣

Inside the Episode seems to indicate that they built the whole mall pretty much.

As opposed to going to some existing mall and making it seem dilapidated like that.

 

[shelley1234]

9 hours ago, aghst said:

Inside the Episode seems to indicate that they built the whole mall pretty much.

As opposed to going to some existing mall and making it seem dilapidated like that.

 

I assumed that it was a set.  I think we all just went down a rabbit hole of if it was a realistic mall set for 2003 and that it seemed dated. Then I interjected that in Boston proper there really aren't malls anyways.  

I liked the setting of a mall where for a brief moment these kids got to still be kids.  To play and dance around, play video games, go on a carousel, be smitten with someone, etc.  It was sweet until the fungus woke up and ruined their good time by biting them.  How rude.  

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by shelley1234
Sometimes spelling is hard

[maystone]

1 hour ago, T Summer said:

Even if I hadn't, just waiting out the week  I'd still want to see what happens to her next. Does anyone know how many episodes remain? I saw one mention of 9 in the season and another of 10.

There are nine episodes, so only two more. Sigh.

[izabella]

I was disappointed in this episode.  Plot and momentum came to a screeching halt.  My thoughts were with Joel the whole time, until it finally dawned on me that they really did make the entire episode a flashback.

Having said that, Ellie's story is usually sad or grim, so it was a lovely to see her being so happy and lighthearted with her crush, even under their circumstances.  The mall was fantastic!  Creepy and surreal, full of surprises.  It just would have worked better for me if they had interspersed more plot. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by izabella

[paigow]

Did Boston FEDRA gender-segregate cadet training?  

[T Summer]

1 hour ago, maystone said:

There are nine episodes, so only two more. Sigh.

Thank you.

[Kel Varnsen]

I thought this one was ok. I wish they could have made it so the flashback part was mixed with what was going on with Ellie and Joel and less of it was flashback. Because even though it was good to get Ellie backstory, we kind of knew Riley wasn't making it out of there since last episode Ellie told Joel she has lost every she ever cared about.

7 hours ago, Lamima said:

ALso wanted to note that Riley and Ellie speak like little adults. The wit, and whatnot, is not that of kids their age. I will add myself to the list of those not all that wowed by this episode. In fact, I fell asleep about 20 mins in. 

They have grown up in a world with no TV and no technology. So that means entertainment is any book you can get your hands on, and just talking with people in person. So I would fully expect their conversation skills to be way better than real world kids.

23 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I do like how they show how dangerous the infected are.  Just one of them was able to bite both of them with ease.  This genre has made it common to have zombies/infected/etc. be taken out with ease by themselves, so seeing one do this much damage really raises the stakes and be terrified of the swarms.  A lot of humanity is truly doomed.

I sort of see it the opposite way. Other than the infected eruption in Kansas City it seems like the infected people shouldn't be that much of a threat. Like this was one guy in a huge mall. A small group of trained soldiers with automatic weapons and maybe body armour shouldn't have too much trouble taking him out. It would be like putting a group of soldiers and a bear in a mall, my money would be on the soldiers. Even in episode 2 in the museum when it was 2 clickers, it's not like they were doing any kind of coordinating or working together.

[rhygirl720]

On 2/26/2023 at 10:19 PM, magdalene said:

I was bored.  I watch this show for Pedro Pascal.  Not young teenage love.

I guess there are only 2 episodes left? What a waste.

you read my mind.

[Nashville]

21 hours ago, Cheezwiz said:

One thing I found odd was that the shopping mall looked more like it was from 1983 than 2003. Were arcades still a thing in malls 20 years ago? I was also trying to remember if Esprit was still around in 2003 - that seemed like  such a quintessential 80's store.  Maybe they were trying to poke at multi-generational nostalgia buttons and encompass multiple eras.

 

10 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Yeah, it was too Stranger Things to be period-appropriate. The last time I was at my local mall was last year, and I hadn't been to the mall in ages prior to that. I noticed that almost every single store in the mall was a clothing store of some sort. Back in my day (which would have been the 70s/80s) there were music stores, book stores, pet stores, novelty stores, etc. Now it's just specialty clothes and that's about it. 

Y’all may be making an assumption based upon facts not in evidence - i.e., the mall was still an active commercial entity right up until the 2003 outbreak.  Most of the malls in my area started up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, had their heyday in the ‘80s-early ‘90s, started hitting the skids around the mid-‘90s, and were largely shuttered by the early 2000s.

[Note: “shuttered” in this context doesn’t necessarily mean 100% shut down - even when their major “anchor stores” closed their doors, many of the larger malls might still keep a wing or two of the mall complex open with recognizable retail outlets.]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Did Boston FEDRA gender-segregate cadet training?  

Apparently.

[Racj82]

20 hours ago, Lamima said:

ALso wanted to note that Riley and Ellie speak like little adults. The wit, and whatnot, is not that of kids their age. I will add myself to the list of those not all that wowed by this episode. In fact, I fell asleep about 20 mins in. 

That means nothing in a world where kids don't really even have a childhood. This is not our world. We can't put our worldview on them. These kids had to grow up really quick. They also don't talk any different than your average teenager anyway.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Racj82

[Nashville]

——————-    
An extra note: if you’re one of those people (like me) who find “dead malls” incredibly intriguing and visually compelling, be sure to check out Dan Bell’s Dead Malls series on YouTube.

[paigow]

If this was a real ZOMBIE show, that mall would be packed with zombies...

[CooperTV]

9 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

I know!  At first, I wondered if she could have sterilized the needle with fire, boiled some water to wash … the rag to clean the wound better? the thread before putting it in his body? …

The needle scene was the most horrifying scene of the entire episode to me. There's a number of ways to sterilized a needle but the show decided Ellie would just take dirty needle from the dirt floor and stick it in. Ugh, so gross.

Edited February 28, 2023 by CooperTV

[Capricasix]

7 hours ago, CooperTV said:

The needle scene was the most horrifying scene of the entire episode to me. There's a number of ways to sterilized a needle but the show decided Ellie would just take dirty needle from the dirt floor and stick it in. Ugh, so gross.

I was thinking, “I hope she has matches so that she can sterilize that thing!” 😬😄

[BasilSeal]

On 2/27/2023 at 6:13 AM, aghst said:

The FEDRA officer didn't seem corrupt, though he was selling Ellie on the advantages of being an officer.  He claimed without FEDRA, the people in the QZ would be killing each other and the survivors wouldn't last.

They were training up the girls to be FEDRA soldiers and officers.  So they have a plan, not sure what the Fireflies' plan is, other than to fight FEDRA.  But power corrupts and believing in some grandiose mission may lead to abuses.

Once again the show is telling us that things aren't black and white, FEDRA aren't necessarily evil. Presumably they were the remnants of the US govt and set out to save humanity and civilisation, which in itself is not a bad thing, it's just that their plan for saving humanity involved killing possibly hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent civilians.

As i said on the other thread, that has to have had some lasting effect on the individual soldiers ordered to carry out these acts, they didn't do it because they were evil, they did it because they believed, rightly or wrongly,  it was the only way for humanity to survive, it's not surprising that their regime has descended into brutal totalitarianism, but maybe, like the officer that speaks to Ellie, they think that this is simply the only way to save people. To think otherwise would mean admitting that they killed all those people for nothing.

I wonder what sort of organisation FEDRA is  in the present? Is it just a loose group of connected settlements with authoritarian warlord type leaders doing their own thing under an umbrella title that is more legacy? or is there some overarching  central government still in place that coordinates the different QZs which the individual commanders answer to?

[Tachi Rocinante]

Ehh.

They could've combined this episode with the Two Guys episode and freed up time to tell us more about the search for Patient Zero/city bombings.

I wonder if Kwong was being honest or if Ellie would have ended up on sewer duty too.

I did enjoy the arcade scene and the fact that they didn't have to black out titles or make up fake game names. I haven't seen some of those in a long time.

[paramitch]

I loved this episode and am really surprised at the negative reactions. I thought this was a genuinely moving chapter, and a lovely showcase for the splendid Bella Ramsey (her open yearning, vulnerability, and joy were all so lovely).

I'm into this show because I am invested in both Ellie and Joel. We already know about Joel's story thanks to the opening episodes and the fact that we experienced his loss of Sarah firsthand, as well as his ensuing early relationships with Tommy and Tess. We have learned much less about Ellie before now beyond the small hints we saw at the very end of her imprisonment. We only knew facts that had been mostly implied before now:

• Ellie had been tentatively saved by Marlene at birth, or at least placed and paid attention to
• She was rescued after being bitten in the mall
• She hesitated after saying she was alone when asked (obviously lying about that)
• She had evidently survived longer than the standard period when rescued and was still not changed by the bite/infection so Marlene didn't execute her and imprisoned her to watch her instead
• She was thrilled to see the Mortal Kombat II machine and wistful about the villain
• She later told Joel it wasn't her first time killing an infected human/acquaintance

All of these questions were answered in this episode, as well as the subtleties to Ellie -- her toughness and her ability for compassion, her wish for connection and family, and her subtle disdain for pursuing a hetero relationship, etc. 

So I loved this episode. I'm in for stories that aren't just "next step" but that are also "how" and "why." Which is why I will always love Bill and Frank's episode. As with here, sure, their episode wasn't a dynamo move-this-story-forward episode, but it had TREMENDOUS impact on the story and on the texture and complexity of the story we are watching.

Which is why found this so moving. Because I'm also deeply interested in Ellie, and I was really moved and happy to learn more about her here. I thought the FEDRA stuff was fascinating and completely realistic (the talk with the commander about her future was a fascinating "you can do better" speech -- then we realize he had already assigned Riley to shit-shoveling duty. I mean, that is BRUTAL in terms of his estimation of each of them).

I loved the confirmation that Ellie is gay, and her kiss with Riley was so moving and sweet. Especially the way we watched her shy interest throughout the episode. Just the adoring looks, the little hair fixes, the moment before the reflective window to make herself prettier (and the black eye makes it so poignant!) -- so many scenes, if you look -- Riley is looking around, at their environs, and Ellie is just gazing at Riley like she is looking at the sun on a cloudy day. Bella was just so good here, and I thought Storm Reid was equally wonderful as Riley as well. Realizing the joke book came from Riley broke my heart.

I especially loved the delicacy Neil Druckmann showed here as a writer -- loved the tension of revealing the Infected in the mall early on so that every ensuing scene is infected with that -- we want to enjoy the joy and glow of their moments but are filled with tension and dread because we know they will end (which we already knew anyway, but it adds to that). I also love that he ends on those heartbreaking moments of love between Ellie and Riley -- we already know Riley will turn, Ellie won't. We already know Ellie will have to kill Riley. We already know Ellie will survive after a certain period and find rescue from Marlene.

I was genuinely surprised we didn't have to suffer all that, especially since most shows would LOVE to show Ellie having to suffer Riley's turning without her, Ellie having to kill her. The show's delicacy and restraint in not showing that here for me was yet another example of how this is a great drama that is so much more than a standard "zombie show" (TWD would have milked that sadistic shit every single second and then some).

As far as Ellie stitching up Joel's wound -- okay, so here goes:

• My dad was a history teacher, so I still read a lot of good nonfiction and factual historical fiction. Such a wound is wholly survivable if the bleeding out can be stopped.
• The bat fragments could have missed Joel's liver and vital arteries, and seems to have
• He may still experience infection, but many many people in the middle ages through the late 1800s survived such wounds simply through their fabulous immune systems and the luck of the draw. Plenty of surgeons in the 1700s and 1800s didn't even believe in cleaning their instruments, etc.
• Maybe Ellie will still find or meet someone to give her antibiotics for Joel in his recovery.

Meanwhile, I loved this episode. Ellie -- it is implied -- did not leave Riley behind, even at the end. She didn't leave Joel either -- just like he didn't leave her. Ellie doesn't leave people.

On 2/26/2023 at 9:43 PM, Glade said:

This was a really touching episode, and while I wanted the action to continue, I was fondly rewarded by getting more of Ellie's backstory, of the person who she apparently meant when she said she had lost someone.  And seeing post-apocalyptic teens exploring the wonders of a mall and the poetic motif of dancing in halloween masks before a real monster rushed them was spot-on. 

I loved it for many of the same reasons (I'm pan/demi) and the moment the two girls were dancing on the counter, just caught up in the music and closeness, especially with the subtext that they are both wearing MONSTER MASKS -- then take their monster masks off in order to face each other and eventually kiss, I was thrilled and also hugging myself. It was a lovely moment for them even though I was terrified for them at every second (which also added to the entire LGBTQ subtext -- right?!).

On 2/26/2023 at 10:26 PM, maystone said:

Bella Ramsey has been a revelation to me from episode 1 but never more so than tonight. She was just stellar.  I love character work, so Left Behind was a great episode for me. I thought the placement was spot on. We've had no real backstory on Ellie since the show began: We meet her when Joel and Tess meet her. We only know what she's told Joel about her past. Right off the bat I was surprised that she was going choose the officer route with FEDRA. I mean it was a smart decision, but up until that scene, Ellie had always come across as anti-FEDRA; she wasn't exactly pro Fireflies, either. She was just this hardened, foul-mouthed teen who saw herself as being bartered. There was a whole other person who existed before the tragedy at the mall.

The story of her and Riley - and Storm Reid was perfect in this role - was, god, so real and so bittersweet. All those soft, tentative moves towards each other. Ellie fussing with her hair. Riley's remark about the Victoria's Secret outfit. (I just can't believe that no one looted that!) The hands held. The dance. The kiss. There's certainly vulnerability but there's also courage in reaching out to each other. I have the feeling that FEDRA doesn't have a Pride Day. And then, of course, it all goes to hell even before the Clicker crashes in, because Riley was going to leave her.

So, yeah, I loved this episode, and I liked using Ellie's hand on the doorknob and the partially opened door as the bookends to Ellie's backstory because her history matters.

I loved everything you mention here, and loved the backstory and how it showed us how and why Ellie could not leave Joel behind. She is just not that kind of person.

On 2/26/2023 at 10:46 PM, grawlix said:

The end of the flashback just leaves a lot of open questions about Marlene's reasoning to keep Ellie alive.  

We didn't have a exact time of Marlene's arrival, but the time frame from the FEDRA bite chart showed a bite to the mid part of the body is 2-8 hours.   If Marlene arrived prior to Riley turning, she just sees two people on the verge of being fully infected and probably kills both girls because they are now a threat to attack her and whomever else Marlene brought at any time.   If  Marlene arrives after Riley turns, then Riley and Ellie's decision to stay together means Ellie will be in close proximity when Riley turns and attacks her.  Ellie would unlikely be able to escape an attack from someone that close (like with Sam in the hotel room).  Ellie has to stay alive longer than the 8 hours to be fully infected to give Marlene the idea that Ellie is immune.

Also, Ellie's questions to Joel about killing the infected may imply that Ellie had to kill Riley.

For me the implication was that Riley and Ellie survived for another 8-10 hours infected, Riley turned, Ellie killed her, and Marlene found Ellie and put two and two together, and imprisoned Ellie rather than killing her.

21 hours ago, Dev F said:

I think he was an intermediate infected form, between the newly turned and the clickers. There's a lot more fungal growth but they haven't yet gone blind, and they seem somewhat more deliberate than the "run around wildly crashing into things" newly infected. (The other big example of this stage on the show would be the infected that "kisses" Tess in episode 2.)

Yeah, the attacker Infected was definitely brewing to become a Clicker and kind of halfway there.

17 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

I know!  At first, I wondered if she could have sterilized the needle with fire, boiled some water to wash … the rag to clean the wound better? the thread before putting it in his body? … but I guess her time, skill and supplies were ultra-limited.  I guess these homes wouldn’t have any alcohol left in them for sterilization after 20 years, either, with all the looting that seems to go on.  And I was just like, he’s got to have bat splinters floating around in his wound, plus that blood trail in the snow at the beginning of the episode looked very ominous.  Ugh, willies is the perfect word.

I agree with all of this, but if you read up on medieval through 18th century medicine, a surprising number of people did survive these exact things and worse (mainly, in Joel's case, as long as the bowel or liver weren't perforated, which I'm guessing they weren't). 

17 hours ago, Dev F said:

You can see from the tracks in the snow and the stuff lying around the horse inside the house that she actually tied him into one of their sleeping bags and dragged him on the ground behind her.

This! And by the same token, Ellie is smart enough to figure out how to hoist Joel over the back of a patient horse (or drag him behind) to get him to shelter.

12 hours ago, bethy said:

I'm in the "Bored now" camp on this one. I figured we were seeing the origin of Ellie's bite, but they could have gotten there so much quicker. But then, I have very little patience for teen romance these days. (The last time I saw Romeo and Juliet, my sole thought was, "Oh, for heaven's sake, you're 14 years old."). Back to the hot dad, please. 

Why does Ellie being a teenager make her romance or story less worthy than anyone else's (Joel's, for instance)? I'm not into teen dramas as a whole, but I care about Ellie as a person, so her story and romance moved me deeply.

I mean, yes, Pedro Pascal is hot (do not get me started), but it's THE LAST OF US, not THE LAST OF HIM. Also, on a shallow note, I hope you watched Narcos, because Oh, man.

[mledawn]

19 minutes ago, paramitch said:

We already know Ellie will have to kill Riley.

Do we?

[cardigirl]

13 hours ago, shelley1234 said:

Definitely not the Pru.  That is not really a mall.  

It's not? Seems like a mall to me when I go there. 

 

What is considered mall?

a large retail complex containing a variety of stores and often restaurants and other business establishments housed in a series of connected or adjacent buildings or in a single large building.

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by cardigirl

[Capricasix]

1 hour ago, paramitch said:

I mean, yes, Pedro Pascal is hot (do not get me started), but it's THE LAST OF US, not THE LAST OF HIM. Also, on a shallow note, I hope you watched Narcos, because Oh, man.

“No, I have not gone duck-hunting…you fucking hillbilly” 🤣🤣🤣

And Boyd Holbrook? So pretty 😍

[Capricasix]

1 hour ago, Tachi Rocinante said:

Ehh.

They could've combined this episode with the Two Guys episode and freed up time to tell us more about the search for Patient Zero/city bombings.

 

That would detract from the focus of the show, though. The showrunners are pretty clear that it’s about relationships and love, not about the how and the why of the apocalypse.

[paigow]

36 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

What is considered mall?

a large retail complex containing a variety of stores and often restaurants and other business establishments housed in a series of connected or adjacent buildings or in a single large building.

 

Source: VTS.COM

1. Malls

Their sizes generally start at 400,000 square feet, and the limit of how large they can be is still undetermined. 

[bitchin camaro]

14 hours ago, shelley1234 said:

Definitely not the Pru.  That is not really a mall.  And Natick or Marlborough aren't places that Ellie and Riley is walking to on their adventure.  Reddit came to the conclusion that Cambridgeside Galleria is probably it.   Someone remarked that Ellie even told Tess she was bit in a mall across the river, which I didn't remember....but that would make Cambridge a viable option.  So I'll go with that in the make believe fungus zombie world.  🤣

I figure that if they can have the Canadian Rockies located ten miles west of Boston, they can put the Paramus Mall in the middle of town. 

Even my husband was like "Esprit? How freaking old IS this mall?" 😂

[Uncle JUICE]

2 hours ago, paramitch said:

I was genuinely surprised we didn't have to suffer all that, especially since most shows would LOVE to show Ellie having to suffer Riley's turning without her, Ellie having to kill her. The show's delicacy and restraint in not showing that here for me was yet another example of how this is a great drama that is so much more than a standard "zombie show" (TWD would have milked that sadistic shit every single second and then some).

What a fantastic point, one I'd not considered until reading this. Where does this pay off, this decision? Unfortunately, it pays off TWO THREE EPISODES AGO if you ask me. This bit gives heft to two scenes that seem to be throwaways before this context. 

• When Ellie kills the trapped infected in Cumberland Farms, now, we can imagine her first experience up close with infected as a framing device. We don't know for sure (yet?) what happened with Riley, but we know she's infected when the episode ends. Ellie's cold curiosity here, when she slices open the skin and sees the fungus, sees no reaction, she's likely thinking very much about her last moments with Riley, in such close contact with her. If she's spirited away prior to Riley's full infection, she might be wondering what exactly happened to her friend, what exactly the fungus did with her, which leads us to the next and more important pay off. 
• In Hold My Hand, she asks Joel if he'd ever killed an infected, and crucially, if it bothered him, if he thought there were still "people" inside the infected. What could this tell us about Riley's end, and Ellie's reaction to it? How she dealt with it, how she was taught to deal with it in FEDRA school (certainly would have been part of a curriculum, no one is doing fucking calculus anymore :)). Did she leave Riley and regret it, that's why she won't leave Joel? Or did she stay and convince herself that Joel was, like Riley, worth an effort? It's like this weird non-linear storytelling, and I don't know or even think it's really important to tell us. I just know I like the structure, it actually mirrors something I'm working on. 

2 hours ago, paramitch said:

I loved the confirmation that Ellie is gay, and her kiss with Riley was so moving and sweet.

I agree with the second half, but I take one tiny issue with the first half here. I'm of the opinion that in the environment that people Ellie's age are growing up in, sexual orientation is such a non-issue that they don't even consider it. In other words, they react strictly to attraction without the context of gender / preference, and that's because I think that humans have this deep genetic need for connection to each other, especially in times of trauma. I think based on the population being so thinned (I wish they'd tell us what % of people are left), and on the priorities that would necessarily shift almost entirely to individual survival over the course of years and years (remember we're 20 years after the show's opening; reasonable to assume that 5 or 7 years passed where it was literally the only thing you can think about). I really don't think, and maybe this is me being naive, that anyone would even think about gay or straight or white or black in these circumstances because social evolution would essentially eliminate those people first (because their support and survival networks would necessarily be smaller than those who didn't think this way). 

17 minutes ago, bitchin camaro said:

... the Paramus Mall in the middle of town. 

Even my husband was like "Esprit? How freaking old IS this mall?" 😂

NORTH JERSEY IN THE HOUSE. And it got similar reactions at our house, where I said Benneton was in the other wing down by the Hahne's. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Uncle JUICE

[cardigirl]

25 minutes ago, paigow said:

Source: VTS.COM

1. Malls

Their sizes generally start at 400,000 square feet, and the limit of how large they can be is still undetermined. 

Not sure if you're agreeing with me or just throwing this out there. I'm genuinely curious as to why the Pru would not be considered a mall. I think it was mentioned more than once in the discussion about this episode that the mall couldn't be the Pru as that is not a real mall. 

MINOR MINOR detail, just wondering why someone thinks that. 

Curious! 

[jcin617]

22 hours ago, shelley1234 said:

There aren't malls like that in Boston...probably the Cambridgeside Galleria is the closest or maybe the Braintree Mall.  Boston has the Pru and the Corner Mall, but never are actually malls. But this isn't a documentary so I don't really care about that.  

In my mind I assumed it was supposed to be the Galleria; the interior looked similar and its the closest mall to the North End (which is where I assume the QZ is mostly located).

[shelley1234]

To me the Pru isn't a standard mall like the Galleria is.  It's much smaller and only full of bougie stores.   Not the standard fare of regular stores, an arcade and a carousel in the middle.    I guess it is a mall, but for the wealthy MA elite.  🤷‍♀️

Edited February 28, 2023 by shelley1234

[Capricasix]

26 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

It's like this weird non-linear storytelling, and I don't know or even think it's really important to tell us.

Shades of the movie Arrival (which I loved and will henceforth watch anything Denis Villeneuve directs).

“And it got similar reactions at our house, where I said Benneton was in the other wing down by the Hahne's. “

I remember Benetton being popular when I was in high school in the Dark Ages *ahem* the 1980s 😄

Edited February 28, 2023 by Capricasix
Bc my quote tags didn’t work 🙃

[paigow]

16 minutes ago, cardigirl said:

Not sure if you're agreeing with me or just throwing this out there.

Throwing it out there... I have no idea of Boston Area Retail... Does Pru meet the size threshold? End of discussion...

[tennisgurl]

I almost expected the girls to mistake a very still zombie as a Halloween costume before it jumped up and attacked them, but that sounds a bit Scooby Doo for this show. 

I really enjoyed this episode, even though I spent a lot of it also worried about Joel and wanting to check in with him. I think that this Ellie backstory was actually placed very well, it explains a lot about her and gives us a breather before shit gets real in the next few episodes as we head towards the season finale. We see a lot of where her attitude comes from, what she lost, and her conflicted feelings about society in general. Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid were really cute together and the show continues to do a great job at making characters that you only know for an episode or even a few scenes and making you really care about and understand them. We hadn't really gotten a lot of Ellie backstory yet so I am glad to get this context for her and what she has been through, especially for what comes next. We know that she lost the one person she had in her life before when she lost Riley, now she's dealing with the prospect of losing Joel, someone who she has clearly come to care deeply about, which is certainly going to affect how the next episode goes. 

I think we can also see some of her antipathy towards her immunity and her supposedly magical bite. It might be the bite that saves the world, but its also a memory of the time the person she loved most in the world died while she survived. 

I would like to see what the areas liberated by the Fireflies are like, are they really running things like a fair and open democracy or are things just falling apart without a strongly regulated system? It seems like the Fireflies don't really have much of a plan to actually keep society running when they defeat FEDRA, and as we saw in KC overthrowing the evil empire is all well and good but after you risk another group being just as bad as them or just having no idea how to actually run a group of people. Its easier to plant bombs than to manage food supplies. Its possible for a more fair and equitable community to exist, like we saw in the last episode, but I can imagine it takes work, especially on a massive scale like they want. 

That mall looked pretty awesome, that would be an absolute dream date for teenagers. A mall near where my grandparents lived is a lot like it, complete with carrousel and video games, so that really took me back to being a kid there and made me really want to go back. Riley and Ellie were so cute together, with their long glances, giggles and messing around, and their cute little kiss, it was so sweet but rough to watch knowing how it would inevitably end. 

[cardigirl]

59 minutes ago, shelley1234 said:

To me the Pru isn't a standard mall like the Galleria is.  It's much smaller and only full of bougie stores.   Not the standard fare of regular stores, an arcade and a carousel in the middle.    I guess it is a mall, but for the wealthy MA elite.  🤷‍♀️

Gotcha. So you meant that the Pru wouldn't have an arcade, or some of the clothing stores shown, even in 2003, which is probably true. But it isn't small. It's huge as far as I've experienced. 

 I think of it as a mall, mostly because of the definition I posted above, and your comment confused me. (P.S. I'm not wealthy or elite.)

Now, mall discussion is at an end. LOL. Thank you for your reply!

 

Also, to keep discussion tied to show, I did enjoy this episode, maybe not as much as episode 5, which destroyed me, but for the storytelling that was shown. The two young actresses were really good, and even though I was pretty sure of what was going to happen (and did at the end) I wanted to go with them on their journey. I also wanted to warn them to watch out for clickers or infected, and Riley should have really been aware of the dangers even if the mall hadn't been completely stripped bare yet. But when you are young and feeling all the attraction these two were feeling, sometimes you don't listen to the little voice in your head telling you to be careful. A mall was a great place to set this episode, for the opportunity for fun and danger. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by cardigirl

[iMonrey]

I think my issue with this episode is that it left me with more questions than answers. What happened to Riley, did she take herself out? Did Ellie have to shoot her? And how did Ellie wind up chained up in some kind of Firefly headquarters? Did she go out looking for Marlene and the Fireflies after getting bit? Why didn't they immediately shoot her when they saw she was infected? 

I wasn't necessarily wondering any of these things, up until now. I'm mostly OK with the flashbacks but they need to explain things rather than leave unanswered questions.

[grawlix]

3 hours ago, mledawn said:

Do we?

There is a strong indication that Ellie killed Riley (or at least the fombie formerly known as Riley).  In KC, she tells Joel that she has killed before.   She was in the FEDRA system/school since birth so we can assume she didn't kill anyone prior to the Bethany incident.  The FEDRA school counselor never mentioned a past death associated with Ellie either.   So, her killing someone would have to  occur in the time frame of the flashback.

3 hours ago, paramitch said:

For me the implication was that Riley and Ellie survived for another 8-10 hours infected, Riley turned, Ellie killed her, and Marlene found Ellie and put two and two together, and imprisoned Ellie rather than killing her.

This is the most logical sequence of events for me.   However, I wanted to get a scene with Marlene's arrival because it might flesh out Marlene a bit more.  Marlene said she placed Ellie into the FEDRA infrastructure.  This implies she just had a personal connection with someone related to Ellie or maybe something bigger in scope like Ellie being a secret Firefly genetic experiment (a possible  misstep by the showrunners but this is sci fi).

Edited February 28, 2023 by grawlix

[paramitch]

7 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I think my issue with this episode is that it left me with more questions than answers. What happened to Riley, did she take herself out? Did Ellie have to shoot her? And how did Ellie wind up chained up in some kind of Firefly headquarters? Did she go out looking for Marlene and the Fireflies after getting bit? Why didn't they immediately shoot her when they saw she was infected? 

I wasn't necessarily wondering any of these things, up until now. I'm mostly OK with the flashbacks but they need to explain things rather than leave unanswered questions.

For me the answers were in the episode combined with what the show has already given us:

Ellie implied already that she (1) lied about being alone in the mall, and (2) "killed someone" -- i.e., she stayed with Riley till she changed, then killed her.

Since Ellie ended up with Marlene and not FEDRA, it seems pretty obvious that Marlene or emissary came to get/connect with Riley and found Ellie -- then took Ellie into custody instead of killing her when her situation seemed unusual.

They didn't shoot her because they showed up long enough that Riley had turned and Ellie hadn't. Someone (Marlene) was smart enough to take Ellie in to consider the situation (we already saw Ellie chained up for several days and tested for neurological responses).

7 minutes ago, grawlix said:

This is the most logical sequence of events for me.   However, I wanted to get a scene with Marlene's arrival because it might flesh out Marlene a bit more.  Marlene said she placed Ellie into the FEDRA infrastructure.  This implies she just had a personal connection with someone related to Ellie or maybe something bigger in scope like Ellie being a secret Firefly genetic experiment (a possible  misstep by the showrunners).

I agree -- I'd love to hear more about WHY Marlene was aware of Ellie to begin with. Maybe we'll get more info on this in the future? I'd love that.

[Uncle JUICE]

6 minutes ago, paramitch said:

I agree -- I'd love to hear more about WHY Marlene was aware of Ellie to begin with. Maybe we'll get more info on this in the future? I'd love that.

I don't think this is a maybe, nor do I think it can be: they made a real point about it in that first episode, which you'd only do if you were going to explain it later. Otherwise it's much, much easier to make Ellie a random orphan without that connection to anyone at all, just serendipity that she happens to be immune. If you're not going to explain Marlene at all, then all you're doing is leaving yourself a bunch of open threads for people to think "why" about. THey add nothing to the story that way, which is why I'm absolutely positive we're going to learn all about that. 

[mledawn]

37 minutes ago, grawlix said:

There is a strong indication that Ellie killed Riley (or at least the fombie formerly known as Riley).  In KC, she tells Joel that she has killed before.   She was in the FEDRA system/school since birth so we can assume she didn't kill anyone prior to the Bethany incident.  The FEDRA school counselor never mentioned a past death associated with Ellie either.   So, her killing someone would have to  occur in the time frame of the flashback.

I thought that it was her stabs that killed the infected attacking at the mall, and then she did stab/kill the infected at the gas station. Full disclosure, I'm not a big fan of those scenes so I may have closed my eyes and missed things... 

I don't disagree that it's possible that Ellie kills Riley but I don't think we can say we know that with certainty at this point.

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad mall news, but the local mall here has music/video game stores, clothing stores, sports stores, electronic stores, sunglass stores, shoe stores... That mall could be our mall RIGHT NOW. Except the arcade - the arcade left in the 90s.

[cmfran]

Regarding the mall, I spotted some uniquely Canadian chains in the food court (Thai Express, A&W). IMDB mentions the Northland Village Mall in Alberta as a filming location, so there you go.

[Capricasix]

20 minutes ago, cmfran said:

Regarding the mall, I spotted some uniquely Canadian chains in the food court (Thai Express, A&W). IMDB mentions the Northland Village Mall in Alberta as a filming location, so there you go.

I saw that too, but didn’t know that A&W was Canadian only.

[jcbrown]

I loved this episode. Tears streaming at the end of it loved it. Ellie's face after she apologizes to Riley for the kiss and Riley says "for what?" The moment of joy on her face--not an expression we've seen in the series, I think--was perfect.

Edited March 1, 2023 by jcbrown

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, grawlix said:

There is a strong indication that Ellie killed Riley (or at least the fombie formerly known as Riley).  In KC, she tells Joel that she has killed before.   She was in the FEDRA system/school since birth so we can assume she didn't kill anyone prior to the Bethany incident.  The FEDRA school counselor never mentioned a past death associated with Ellie either.   So, her killing someone would have to  occur in the time frame of the flashback.

This is the most logical sequence of events for me.   However, I wanted to get a scene with Marlene's arrival because it might flesh out Marlene a bit more.  Marlene said she placed Ellie into the FEDRA infrastructure.  This implies she just had a personal connection with someone related to Ellie or maybe something bigger in scope like Ellie being a secret Firefly genetic experiment (a possible  misstep by the showrunners but this is sci fi).

Because of genre conventions, it is quite likely that Ellie does kill Riley. But it could be that Marlene or another Firefly does, or it could be that despite what Riley says in this episode, she takes herself out in the end.

Even assuming she never killed anyone as part of her FEDRA training, there's a whole lot of time between then and when Ellie admits she has killed someone. We literally see her kill an infected, so it is entirely possible that is what she was referring to.

[go4luca]

1 hour ago, cmfran said:

Regarding the mall, I spotted some uniquely Canadian chains in the food court (Thai Express, A&W). IMDB mentions the Northland Village Mall in Alberta as a filming location, so there you go.

Methinks you're right.  Nice catch.

How The Last of Us rebuilt abandoned Calgary mall for latest episode

 

[Peace 47]

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I would like to see what the areas liberated by the Fireflies are like, are they really running things like a fair and open democracy or are things just falling apart without a strongly regulated system?

When Riley mentions that the Fireflies have overthrown FEDRA, I think she may have actually just been repeating a pile of crap that she had been fed.  Marlene said in the first episode to her one lieutenant that they had made no progress in overthrowing FEDRA in 20 years.  She might have just been talking about the Boston QZ, but if they had made progress elsewhere, I think that would have been noted.  I think that they are just trying to inspire their child soldiers to join the cause.

ETA:  Deleted my second point because the prior poster addressed it while I was typing my post.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Peace 47

[paigow]

1 hour ago, mledawn said:

That mall could be our mall RIGHT NOW. Except the arcade - the arcade left in the 90s.

Check the food court for bags of flour from Indonesia...