S02 E02 S2 E2: Through the Valley

[MrWhyt]

12 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

I bet you 100x more young males played the game than any other demographic. 

sure but that doesn't mean they're the intended audience for the show. If they were they intended audience why would the writers take 2 side characters and spend almost a full episode on their gay love story? Where is the HBO VP of Tits? Cause speaking as someone who long long ago was once a young male, the thing we want more than violence is T&A.

[tv-talk]

That was what I meant by the show seeming like a 2 legged stool. The expected audience for a violent zombie fest based on a video game is the group of people that played the game but the show looks like it's going in a direction that group of people wont bother following.  You can pretty clearly see the extent the show is going to minimize men (that asian dude is as good as dead) and especially white men (are there any?) which is fine if that's the story the writers want to tell but it seems incongruous with the demographic that wanted to watch.

[MrWhyt]

2 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

 and especially white men (are there any?) 

oh won't somebody think of the white men!?

 

[MJ Frog]

Just sayin', this show hasn't had any trouble finding an audience, whatever we think that audience is supposed to be. 

[tv-talk]

22 hours ago, diebartdie said:

but so are all the zombie stories when you get right down to it. Silly, dumb, nonsensical and not the point.

I do really like the idea of a fungus evolving ability to withstand our internal body temp and then taking control of us- given there is actually a fungus that does exactly that to ants and bees. Better setup than random virus forces you to eat brains.

[Lamima]

My fam of 5 is white. Hubs and I are 50-something. I watch and he doesn't. But I am aware I am unusual in my peer group (most my 50-something lady friends aren't into this genre but I like fantasy type genre). My son (late 20s) watches but would skip it if I didn't drag him to our living room to watch with me. My lesbian 20-something daughter watches (is into it as much as me, all the fantasy genre stuff too). My straight 20-something daughter doesn't watch (we just recently made her watch GoT by dragging her to our living room and binging it). 

Son and one daughter (the one into this genre) are both gamers. Hubs and I are not and other daughter does a little but not really. I don't know what that says about viewing audience of this show. I do think it will drop off now that they killed Pedro's character. I'll watch until it jumps the shark like TWD and GOT both did before the end. I watched GOT to that bitter end but gave up on TWD.

[tv-talk]

39 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

oh won't somebody think of the white men!?

That's the attitude that in part helped get the current President elected.  Shows like this that try to alienate men in general are usually not particularly good. If this one goes down that path as it looks like it might it wont be very good either.

[MJ Frog]

6 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

Shows like this that try to alienate men in general are usually not particularly good.

As a straight man, I am not exactly sure how this show is alienating me. Seriously.

[tv-talk]

11 minutes ago, MJ Frog said:

As a straight man, I am not exactly sure how this show is alienating me. Seriously.

Minimizing would have been a better choice of word. 

[MrWhyt]

16 minutes ago, tv-talk said:

 Shows like this that try to alienate men in general are usually not particularly good.

See you're claiming that they're trying to alienate men but at the same time claiming that their intended audience is young males. 

and as MJ Frog said I'm not feeling alienated, I'm not even sure what's supposed to be alienating me. The alleged lack of white men? you know who worries about not seeing white people on TV? shit heads.

[mcree]

1 hour ago, MrWhyt said:

I haven't played them, but from what I've seen the games have been praised for their storytelling not their gameplay

The second game refines and then expands upon the gameplay of the first; it may not be as well regarded as the story, but it's good.

With its linear plot (as opposed to an "open world"), the game is a few dozen combat encounters, set in "levels" in Jackson and Seattle, surrounded by and slightly interspersed with the story. As with many games, there's an increasing selection of weapons (e.g. "now I found a shotgun") and abilities.

When the game was re-re-re-released, they added a feature that allows you to play any of the encounters as any of several characters, including previously non-playable characters like Dina; each with their own special abilities.

This is a case where a successful studio with a successful game can afford to spend money to add that as a bonus. But they wouldn't have done it if the gameplay wasn't any good.

 

[Capricasix]

1 hour ago, tv-talk said:

That's the attitude that in part helped get the current President elected.  Shows like this that try to alienate men in general are usually not particularly good. If this one goes down that path as it looks like it might it wont be very good either.

Pray tell, how is the show trying to minimize men?

[MJ Frog]

1 hour ago, tv-talk said:

Minimizing would have been a better choice of word. 

While I appreciate the clarification, I don’t feel minimized either. I would say that I don’t feel the need to be at the head of the line all the time, but I don’t even see how this show is trying to either center or de-center men. It feels pretty neutral on that score. Respectfully, I think maybe the threshold for what counts as minimized is a little low.

[Starchild]

I think maybe the mindset of men turned off of watching this is more like not being catered to. Like, if a story is not centered on one or more straight white men, it's not worth watching.

But that attitude says more about the audience than the showrunners.

I'm not a SWM, but I watch shows centered on them all the time. Why can't they be as open-minded as the rest of us. What are they afraid of?

[magdalene]

8 hours ago, MrWhyt said:

it's not in-game bigotry, it's bigotry (particularly anti-gay) by some of the detractors of the game.

Smiles. Sure us Pedro Pascal afficionados and Bill and Frank lovers are known for being big time homo phobes.

Edited April 22 by magdalene

[Dev F]

29 minutes ago, magdalene said:

Smiles. Sure us Pedro Pascal afficionados and Bill and Frank lovers are known for being big time homo phobes.

I don't know why anyone here who's disappointed by the show would assume that a comment about "some of the detractors of the game" refers to them. But it is interesting how quickly the discussion has morphed from being primarily about the initial personal responses to the most recent episode to yet another argument about the politics of a five-year-old video game.

[SeanBug]

On 4/21/2025 at 2:45 AM, magdalene said:

She loved him? She acted like he was her enemy. She can rot right along with Abby.  I am going to pretend this show ended with the first season.

Of course she loved him. But like she said, the relationship is complicated. And they had made up.  She's 19. Even tho she's been thru a lot, she doesn't understand a parent losing a child, and then having a surrogate daughter almost taken. Joel was out of his mind with fear of losing her, esp when he'd been led to believe it was just an operation, not something that would kill her. 

For Abby to hold onto this anger for five years and travel across the country to kill Joel, when it's obvious she doesn't understand what was going on, is a little ridiculous. 

I have to say, this plot has become quite Shakespearean. You killed my father, so I'm killing you.  In front of the girl who was like a second daughter to you.  And I'm sure everything will be just fine.  Abby you just signed your own death warrant. 

There are a lot of characters to care about now. Tommy, the others in Jackson, Ellie of course. I trust the show will handle this well.  HBO has already renewed it for a 3rd season, so they have faith the viewers will stay with the show. 

 

[millennium]

On 4/21/2025 at 12:01 PM, diebartdie said:

Losing Joel like that was awful but it wasn't done for the shock value. I mean come on, HBO knows how people feel about Pedro Pascal nd by extension, Joel Miller. You don't remove that much star power unless you fully believe the rest of the story is stronger than that character and that relationship.

HBO green-lit Season 8 of Game of Thrones.  HBO gave us Euron Greyjoy and no elephants.   HBO crowned Bran Stark king.

Then HBO gave us Season 2 of House of the Dragon.

I don't put much faith in HBO anymore.

[paigow]

7 hours ago, diebartdie said:

It would have been better for the entire community had the bigot been banished away from the settlement 

He might be the best cook at the only restaurant in town... 

[violet and green]

I accidentally spoiled myself, so I was advance warned that Joel would die at some point in this season, just not so soon.

While that was a nice, melancholy image to end the show with - his body dragged by a horse back into town through the snow - all I could think of was why would they leave the other horse or was it two horses behind at the lodge in the cold?

Hard to imagine watching many more episodes as I have close to zero interest in any other character than Joel, and flashbacks are tedious.

[Starchild]

3 minutes ago, violet and green said:

all I could think of was why would they leave the other horse or was it two horses behind at the lodge in the cold?

Why didn't Abby's group take the 3 horses that were there? Long walk to Seattle. They could have switched off riding them, used them as pack animals. I wondered.

[MrWhyt]

1 hour ago, magdalene said:

Smiles. Sure us Pedro Pascal afficionados and Bill and Frank lovers are known for being big time homo phobes.

I did say "some of", reading comprehension, look into it.

[KeithJ]

I just finished this episode and a lot of my thoughts have already been aired by others.

I just don't understand why Abby's friends (or whoever they were) followed her along for five years on her vendetta. Even if their parents were also killed, I would have bailed on her a long time ago.

Even though it took five years, I still have a hard time believing, with the state of the world, that Abby and here group were actually able to find Joel. A six foot tall handsome man with a beard and a scar? That's not really all that unique.   Wherever Abby got the info that Joel was at Jackson, how did they not know it was a fully functioning city (one of them said they thought it was going to be a tent encampment)?

I loved the dogs being released on the horde.  I just hope all of them survived.

[Raachel2008]

I simply don't understand why we are even discussing about the audience. None of us have any idea. We can assume a good part is people who played the game. Some probably checked and stayed becaue of Pedro Pascal or Bella,or both. We can assume some just like 'zombies' shows, etc. But it is impossible to know. And it is such a futile debate, really.

What I think we can debate is the timing. Should they have waited? It is better to rip the virtual band-aid and be done with that?

Personally, I think they should have waited a couple of episodes, and make the bonds between Ellie and the others stronger - more scenes with Tommy and Maria, Dina. Ellie and Joel were such at the core of the show, they dominated the screen time, and even when they were not together on screen, it loomed over the show. If they are going to "replace" it by whatever relationships come next, and since Ellie is the center, they should have built it, IMO.

3 hours ago, SeanBug said:

Of course she loved him. But like she said, the relationship is complicated. And they had made up.  She's 19. Even tho she's been thru a lot, she doesn't understand a parent losing a child, and then having a surrogate daughter almost taken. Joel was out of his mind with fear of losing her, esp when he'd been led to believe it was just an operation, not something that would kill her. 

Not only that, but Ellie is not your normal child/teen. She was raised in a military orphanage/academy. We can safely assume that Joel was the first  parent she ever had, and differently than kids who grow up with a family, even a disfunctional one, she only learned how the a daughter, so to speak, when she was 14. 

Last but not least, we don't know what happened in the last five years. People make it sound like Ellie has been like this since the day they had that talk approaching Jackson at the end of season 1, but for all we know it could have been that things just went really downhill six months ago - the way Joel that to the terapist, it did look like something that was somewhat recente.

Someone upthread mentioned not watching week to week anymore. I would love to know, once the season is over, if and how viewership habits changed from people watchinh live to people watching days later or even binge watching 2-3 episodes and then other 2. Or even just waiting until the season is over and going through the entire season.

Edited April 23 by Raachel2008

[Kel Varnsen]

That was a wild episode and the snow and the whole snow storm was amazing visually. It makes me a little disappointed that the show Deadwood never did any winter episodes. 

The battle was crazy. Although it was disappointing that the people of Jackson didn't have better plans for their defence. Like maybe don't use fire as a weapon so close to the wooden walls of your town. Plus most people it seemed we're using like hunting rifles. Why not try to get some military hardware like landmines or a Gatling gun or maybe a tank.

Also I just finished the show Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix and man Kaitlyn Dever is great at playing horrible people. Especially because Abby is completely different from the terrible person she played on that show.

[tennisgurl]

I am truly shocked that I didnt see any spoilers about Joel dying, I am still in shock, utterly gutted and not sure where the hell the show goes from here. Now that I know this was a huge moment in the game, and now I have read more spoilers, at least surrounding Joel, I get why they did it, but its still utterly shocking and painful. Joel was a very flawed man who did something morally ambiguous at best at the end of last season, but it was clearly done out of love and he really isn't a bad man, as we saw here when he saved Abbey, a complete stranger, and that kind act ended up costing him his life. This really feels like a punch to the gut, this shows whole pitch for most of season one has been the bond between Joel and Ellie, and now Joel is gone and Ellie is devasted, so what is even next. I am just...sad. 

So did Abby's friends really spend five years following her on her revenge quest, almost attacking a whole heavily armed settlement, even though they didn't really want to actually get revenge? They probably should have had that hard conversation somewhere in Ohio a few years ago. 

The big fight between Jackson and the zombies was epic, it was like the Battle of Winterfell except I could see everything! 

I like Jessie, I was sure that he or Tommy would be the ones to bite it (hah) but they went in a totally different direction. Fucking hell, still feeling a lot.

The fact that Ellie was being so bratty to Joel is going to make thing seven worse, for all that Ellie was being a brat she did/does love Joel as a father and is going to be devastated by losing him, especially in this horrible way. 

[Capricasix]

6 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

That was a wild episode and the snow and the whole snow storm was amazing visually. It makes me a little disappointed that the show Deadwood never did any winter episodes. 

Deadwood > Timothy Olyphant > Justified > Kaitlyn Dever!

Edited April 23 by Capricasix

[Dev F]

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

So did Abby's friends really spend five years following her on her revenge quest, almost attacking a whole heavily armed settlement, even though they didn't really want to actually get revenge? They probably should have had that hard conversation somewhere in Ohio a few years ago.

Elsewhere in the thread I've quoted the bits of dialogue that were meant to explain this: in the prologue to episode 1, the SLC crew talks about how there's some kind of outfit in Seattle that's willing to take them in while they search for Joel, and in Abby's speech to Joel in episode 2, she explains that she's spent the last five years with this militia group. But considering how many different people I've seen who assumed that the crew was just trailing after Joel for five years, I think the show may have garbled this bit of the backstory.

I wonder how much of it has to do with the way they handled the look of the crew—the fact that, with one exception, they all look exactly the same as they did five years ago. It gives the impression that not much has happened to them since we last saw them.

I think the vibe would've been quite different if they'd made more of an effort to age them up. There's a little of that with Nora, who goes from a scraggly-haired look in the prologue to a shaved-head look five years later. Why not do more of that? Maybe Owen is a clean-shaven kid in the prologue and has his beard in episode 2. Maybe one of them picked up a facial scar during their time in the militia. Just little cues that they did more than spend half a decade beating their heads against the Joel situation.

Edited April 23 by Dev F

[Raachel2008]

41 minutes ago, Dev F said:

I wonder how much of it has to do with the way they handled the look of the crew—the fact that, with one exception, they all look exactly the same as they did five years ago. It gives the impression that not much has happened to them since we last saw them.

I think the vibe would've been quite different if they'd made more of an effort to age them up. There's a little of that with Nora, who goes from a scraggly-haired look in the prologue to a shaved-head look five years later. Why not do more of that? Maybe Owen is clean-shaven kid in the prologue and has his beard in episode 2. Maybe one of them picked up a facial scar during their time in the militia. Just little cues that they did more than spend half a decade beating their heads against the Joel situation.

That's a good take on why it bothered so many people. They didn't change and for me this was plain obvious, specially because Ellie did - I mean Bella looks the same, but Ellie's different, the hair a little different, her posture, the way she carries herself, even the voice is more adult. Fantastic acting too.

[magdalene]

7 hours ago, MrWhyt said:

I did say "some of", reading comprehension, look into it.

Grins. Oh, rude. Stay classy.

Edited April 23 by magdalene

[maddie965]

You know what kills me? Knowing that there will be no more therapy sessions. Catherine O'Hara and Pedro Pascal played each other's so well. I wonder how much better he would feel if he just told her everything that had happened. I wish we could hear what she would say to that. What a glorious scene that would be. Oh well, no chance of that happening now.

I'm still mourning. And looking for other Pedro Pascal movies/series to watch. Any suggestions? Besides GoT (not watching it) and Mandalorian?

Also looking forward to the next episode. OMG the tears. And Ellie. God I want to hug her. So much.

[Capricasix]

Narcos! About the drug trade and the hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia. Also starring Boyd Holbrook and Wagner Moura. It’s a terrific series.

[Colorado David]

ok bloater tactics: flame takes time. i would make sticky bombs to throw and blow them apart, or at least take out a leg so they cant walk.

iguess the moat idea is good with gasoline, tho how does one protect the wooden fence? digging huge pits takes a lot of time and effort. 

ideas?

[shirazplease]

On 4/20/2025 at 9:39 PM, Lamima said:

Very GoT like.

I

Exactly what I was thinking when they were up on the battlements - reminded me of the battle at the Wall with the Night King's army.  The whole epi felt GoT to me in a good way.  I didn't play the game, didn't know anything about it, so Joel's death was a shock to me.  I literally grabbed both sides of my head and went "NO!!!!!!!!" and scared the dog.

[Capricasix]

A nitpick: how in the white walker is Ellie running around with only thin Converse sneakers on her feet? I live in southern Ontario, which doesn’t get nearly as cold or as much snow as Wyoming (or British Columbia, as the case may be), and good winter boots are essential for protecting one’s feet and lower legs. And if Dina got slightly frostbitten on her arm, there’s no way Ellie wouldn’t be feeling the cold on her feet.

Okay, rant over.

[paigow]

3 hours ago, maddie965 said:

And looking for other Pedro Pascal movies/series to watch. Any suggestions?

Equalizer 2

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, Colorado David said:

ok bloater tactics: flame takes time. i would make sticky bombs to throw and blow them apart, or at least take out a leg so they cant walk.

Flame takes time and your wall is made of wood. Bombs would probably be better. Or a rocket launcher. Or landmines. I also used to watch this show about medieval castles and how they were designed. Lots of things things they could have done to add extra layers of barrier or create bottlenecks to make it easier to shoot. Like a moat but full of metal spikes, or extra layers of wall.

Although I am curious if infected were once human, and humans are 50% water or more how were the infected not frozen solid?

[Colorado David]

5 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Although I am curious if infected were once human, and humans are 50% water or more how were the infected not frozen solid?

valid point, they should be frozen solid, infected or not. we are ignoring physics here, i dont like. even fungi are subject to physics. 

[MrWhyt]

47 minutes ago, Colorado David said:

valid point, they should be frozen solid, infected or not. we are ignoring physics here, i dont like. even fungi are subject to physics. 

I think that under the snow they're all huddled together in a big enough mass so that the ones in the center don't freeze solid. For every 1 we see running around there's still 4 or so frozen stiff. At least that's how i'm explaining it to my self.

[Capricasix]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Equalizer 2

Paigow, I think my avatar is facepalming at yours 😄

[Dev F]

29 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

I think that under the snow they're all huddled together in a big enough mass so that the ones in the center don't freeze solid. For every 1 we see running around there's still 4 or so frozen stiff. At least that's how i'm explaining it to my self.

They actually confirm this explicitly in the episode: Jesse tells Ellie that Jackson is on alert because a patrol discovered a group of live infected who emerged from under a pile of frozen infected corpses: "They're using their own dead like insulation."

[Kel Varnsen]

8 minutes ago, Dev F said:

They actually confirm this explicitly in the episode: Jesse tells Ellie that Jackson is on alert because a patrol discovered a group of live infected who emerged from under a pile of frozen infected corpses: "They're using their own dead like insulation."

But unless they are able to build sealed houses out of their dead the insulation just sort of delays the loss of heat. Especially since it was cold enough where Dina got frostbite fairly quickly. 

[MJ Frog]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I also used to watch this show about medieval castles and how they were designed. Lots of things things they could have done to add extra layers of barrier or create bottlenecks to make it easier to shoot. Like a moat but full of metal spikes, or extra layers of wall.

YES. I found myself irrationally angry at the citizens of Jackson Hole for not taking the last five years to do exactly that. They have a whole lot of open space where they could dig entrenchments that could be used in various ways to slow and control any advance on the city. They should have reinforced the wall, too. Dammit, people.

[Colorado David]

i guess we all all agree to overlook this. it is a show

the next question is, whom do you bring in to replace pedro?? i mean seriously big boots to fill here, fan  wise. and i do niot wnat friggin theon. i would tolerate tyrion tbh.

[Colorado David]

how exploding would the net go if it were jon snow????

 

[DigitalCount]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

But unless they are able to build sealed houses out of their dead the insulation just sort of delays the loss of heat. Especially since it was cold enough where Dina got frostbite fairly quickly. 

While true, they don't have to be warm enough to thrive or do well for themselves, just warm enough to be able to move when the time comes. We've seen the infected shrug off many things that would stop a human, so I imagine frostbite is no exception.

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, MJ Frog said:

YES. I found myself irrationally angry at the citizens of Jackson Hole for not taking the last five years to do exactly that. They have a whole lot of open space where they could dig entrenchments that could be used in various ways to slow and control any advance on the city. They should have reinforced the wall, too. Dammit, people.

They even had heavy construction equipment. Plus as far as I can tell the infected can't read, so you could build all kind of boobie traps and then just put warning signs up everywhere to keep actual people safe.

1 minute ago, DigitalCount said:

While true, they don't have to be warm enough to thrive or do well for themselves, just warm enough to be able to move when the time comes. We've seen the infected shrug off many things that would stop a human, so I imagine frostbite is no exception.

I wasn't so much thinking of the pain of frostbite, but the water in a body freezing solid. 

[tv-talk]

7 hours ago, maddie965 said:

I'm still mourning. And looking for other Pedro Pascal movies/series to watch. Any suggestions? Besides GoT (not watching it) and Mandalorian?

If you havent seen the Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, I cant recommend it enough. He and Nick Cage are absolutely hilarious, especially as Cage is playing himself. Great movie!

[mcree]

19 hours ago, Starchild said:

Why didn't Abby's group take the 3 horses that were there?

They are not horse thieves. They are there to mete out (harsh) justice, not to hurt innocents (like Joel did). The two young women left behind will want the horses to get back to town (and drag Joel's body back).

In their minds, they consider themselves good and righteous people -- a common mistake.

 

[violet and green]

You couldn't have the image of the corpse dragged mournfully through the snow if they took the horses. I doubt they were being thoughtful or integrous.