S02 E02 S2 E2: Through the Valley

[Raachel2008]

Just rewatched it with my SO, who hadn’t seen the episode yet. His first reaction after it was over was “why these dumb kids didn’t take the horses?”.  And then he went on with a long  list of things that Jackson could have done to improve their defenses, form barbed wire to trenches, to actually building a brick/rock wall during these five years (that we know). In fact that was his main problem and he was adamant that  the Jackson folks would be able to make their own mortar.

As for the show as whole he was like “so now Ellie will avenge Joel? Should I care about these new people?”.

[Kel Varnsen]

12 minutes ago, Raachel2008 said:

And then he went on with a long  list of things that Jackson could have done to improve their defenses,

Also why weren't the people of Jackson using that mountain house that Abby and the others were in as a lookout? It was in an awesome location and it looked well built and warm. And on the other side of things for all the different patrols that the people of Jackson were doing, how did they not notice the smoke coming out of the chimney of that place?

[magdalene]

9 hours ago, Colorado David said:

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.

Sean Bean? Just kidding. The Pedro replacement is Abby and of course Ellie. I have remembered where I know the Abby actor from, she used to be as a child on Justified and she was excellent in it. It's a pity that her face gives me a vomit reflex now and I will have to refrain from watching her in other things.

[mrspidey]

20 hours 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.

I guess their construction squads had their hands full with maintaining and expanding the town to accomodate the influx of refugees. There's only so much you can do with very limited manpower and ressources.

Edited April 24 by mrspidey

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, mrspidey said:

I guess their construction squads had their hands full with maintaining and expanding the town to accomodate the influx of refugees. There's only so much you can do with very limited manpower and ressources.

Ya maybe, but more refugees means a bigger workforce. It's not like you need a bunch of construction experience to dig a trench or help build another wall or place obstacles. Even those D-Day beach obstacles would help direct attackers into one area or slow them down.

Edited April 24 by Kel Varnsen

[paigow]

Maybe they got killed, but the flamethrower guys that ran away should be used as bait... 

[DigitalCount]

I can't even be that mad at those guys though. Like even if I'm thinking that they just shouldn't have taken the job, you really don't know what your mind will do when push comes to shove and the fear takes over. It would definitely have helped to have them roasting the Bloater though, because then Tommy wouldn't have had to use all his gas on it.

I haven't played the game, but I do play games, so I knew peripherally that this was coming. It was still pretty rough to watch. And knowing that Pedro Pascal is a huge draw, I hope people still stick around to see the story through.

[tv-talk]

15 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Also why weren't the people of Jackson using that mountain house that Abby and the others were in as a lookout?

Yeah they would have had a group of people living there at all times, it was absolutely perfect spot and there is no way it'd have just been empty that close to the town.

 

15 hours ago, magdalene said:

The Pedro replacement is Abby and of course Ellie. I have remembered where I know the Abby actor from, she used to be as a child on Justified and she was excellent in it.

Thank you I could not place her!! Yes she was great on that all-time great show. 

 

2 hours ago, DigitalCount said:

And knowing that Pedro Pascal is a huge draw, I hope people still stick around to see the story through.

My GUESS is the ratings suffer badly but we shall see. 

[paigow]

2 hours ago, DigitalCount said:

I can't even be that mad at those guys though. Like even if I'm thinking that they just shouldn't have taken the job

Bro, if they bailed on you and get forgiven... then you are a candidate for Ambassador to the U.N.

[Colorado David]

i would accept sean bean as a replacement for pedro. i luv them both. on a weird note i would accept jon hamm too only if he does it seriously and not comedic.

[MrWhyt]

1 hour ago, Colorado David said:

i would accept sean bean as a replacement for pedro. i luv them both. on a weird note i would accept jon hamm too only if he does it seriously and not comedic.

While i enjoy seeing Jay Hammy-Hams on the TV I don't see why Pedro needs to be replaced by him or anyone else.

Edited April 24 by MrWhyt

[paigow]

The show created a Young Adult Female Negan... Maybe she will pass a golf course, loot the Pro Shop looking for a club she can name Lucille

[Kel Varnsen]

2 hours ago, tv-talk said:

Yeah they would have had a group of people living there at all times, it was absolutely perfect spot and there is no way it'd have just been empty that close to the town.

It had a perfectly clear view of the town, from a very high point and seemed to be in radio range. Why wouldn't you have people on lookout there at all times?

Also it seemed weird that with like every 3rd conversation being about patrols since the start of the season, that none of the patrols found people living in the house or the huge pile of frozen infected.

[Colorado David]

2 hours ago, paigow said:

The show created a Young Adult Female Negan... Maybe she will pass a golf course, loot the Pro Shop looking for a club she can name Lucille

gah hate these torturing characters

[diebartdie]

19 hours ago, paigow said:

The show created a Young Adult Female Negan... Maybe she will pass a golf course, loot the Pro Shop looking for a club she can name Lucille

Continue the gender flip, she would name it "Lukas".

[Quickbeam]

Are the glowy things in the water/sewer pipe the virus/fungus? Non gamer, unspoiled viewer, just trying to hold onto this show. 

[Blakeston]

As someone who's completely unspoiled about future plot points, what I'm assuming is that the nurses who survived the Salt Lake bloodbath chose not to tell the dead fireflies' kids the truth about how Joel killed their parents to stop them from killing a child to harvest her brain.

So they told them that Joel was a maniac who killed 18 fireflies for no good reason - possibly because he's a pro-government extremist.

The kids probably heard some rumors that there was a girl who was immune to the fungus, who may or may not have been connected to Joel. Like they said, they don't think it matters anymore, because Abbey's father (the firefly doctor who they believed could help defeat the fungus) is dead.

I have no idea if this is what actually happened in the story, but it makes sense to me, for whatever it's worth.

[T Summer]

I don't know anything about the game, either.

While I suppose anyone's imagining of what Abby learned, when and from whom is as valid as the next person's, being that we weren't shown that part...  I just can't get why Joel's part of the story would be the only one told.

 

 

Why would Joel have been let into the facility in the first place?

Remember in the s1 finale  Joel and Ellie felt and heard some sort of blast and  then he sort of came to  and became aware he was inside the hospital and started frantically asking where Ellie was. That's how much control  the fireflies performing the security function exerted over who might enter,  or leave. No one was going to walk right in that facility.

 

Wouldn't Abby have had questions as to why her father was killed but the nurses were not?

 

We  would also have to assume  Abby's father never spoke of his work on stopping the threat to humanity  the constant roaming hoards of infected posed. Like nothing else is going on but keeping your most basic needs taken care of  while avoiding the cordecyps monsters   and dear old dad has a plan to end the nightmare that life has become by developing a cure or vaccine, and he just doesn't mention it? Why?

 

He very well could have introduced his daughter to Marlene and the other fireflies and / or spoken of the whole team's  and  hospital's purpose over time. Abby would have been 14 at the time, not 4.  I'd imagine  any time he spent away from his child(ren)  / family would  require  a damned good explanation as to why. Given the state of that world  I could even imagine him having one or  some of the fireflies there protecting them in his stead.

[T Summer]

Or did Abby say she was 19 at the time her father was killed?

[maddie965]

Maybe he didn't trust her because he knew she was a psychopath. Just kidding. Or not.

[DigitalCount]

He might not have wanted to get Abby's hopes up over what must have seemed like a long shot. Or maybe he was ashamed that the patient was being operated on without her informed consent. He might have been able to get away with describing his work in general terms, like "I'm trying to figure out a way to save us from all of this" without specifics as to how.

[T Summer]

Well, I don't think Abby's father would've  told his daughter he was going to anesthetize Ellie  and remove her brain or any significant part of it...

maybe just some cells to work with.

 

In that world with the  infected constantly posing the threat of death his family or colony or whatever  probably could have used some hope.

and  doctors... not every one but most, really dig on admiration 😉

[baldryanr]

9 hours ago, T Summer said:

Well, I don't think Abby's father would've  told his daughter he was going to anesthetize Ellie  and remove her brain or any significant part of it...

maybe just some cells to work with.

 

In that world with the  infected constantly posing the threat of death his family or colony or whatever  probably could have used some hope.

and  doctors... not every one but most, really dig on admiration 😉

They're in a world that's 20 years into an apocalypse.  It's not unreasonable to think that most otherwise decent people would be more than willing to kill one person if they thought it meant saving the remnants of humanity.  That was Marlene's attitude - she felt guilty and wasn't going to throw a we saved the world party, but in her mind it was a necessary evil.  It's easy for us to get offended about the lack of consent, stupidity of the plan, and lack of basic decency, but we're not hardened survivors of a nightmare.

[T Summer]

I was just suggesting Dr. saveusfromcordecyps might not have told his teenage daughter  all the grisly details. A few others have suggested Abby would have only known Joel was in the facility killing people like her father, but that what he was doing there and with who might be a complete unknown... which doesn't really make sense to me.

... but as I stated when it comes to Abby learning of her father's death one person's suppositions are as valid as the next person's, since we didn't hear it.

 

[Colorado David]

and are we certain the brain surgery would definitely have killed ellie? i know that surgery is super scary, but depending on the doctor maybe he could just excise a small amount of brain the sample and she'd be ok.

i know, likely not a popular opinion, but i have to pose these sorta things.

[mledawn]

22 minutes ago, Colorado David said:

and are we certain the brain surgery would definitely have killed ellie? i know that surgery is super scary, but depending on the doctor maybe he could just excise a small amount of brain the sample and she'd be ok.

i know, likely not a popular opinion, but i have to pose these sorta things.

Well, brain surgery done by those who aren't actual brain surgeons is likely to go awry...

[Dev F]

15 minutes ago, Colorado David said:

and are we certain the brain surgery would definitely have killed ellie? i know that surgery is super scary, but depending on the doctor maybe he could just excise a small amount of brain the sample and she'd be ok.

i know, likely not a popular opinion, but i have to pose these sorta things.

After all the discussion on the subject in the thread for the season 1 finale, I reached the conclusion that this would've probably been the cleanest way to present Joel's final dilemma: that the Fireflies don't intend to kill Ellie, but they're performing a highly dangerous operation under extremely dodgy postapocalyptic conditions, and Joel can tell that they care more about extracting the cure than about guaranteeing Ellie's survival, and he's not going to stand for that.

The problem is, if that's the scenario, I think Marlene would've at least tried to assure Joel that they don't need Ellie dead, but instead she just starts talking about how she won't feel any fear or pain, which certainly makes it sound like they expected her to die. Maybe they'll try to retcon it at some point so their intentions were less lethal, but I don't know that it'd totally hang together.

[mcree]

On 4/27/2025 at 12:40 PM, T Summer said:

did Abby say she was 19 at the time her father was killed?

Yes. So while technically true, using "teen" and "teenaged" as an adjective gives the wrong impression. After all, this isn't (supposed to be) porn :)

Also, Ellie could easily be 20 by now. 14 at the beginning of the first season, which starts in the summer, then takes place over a year into spring. Then five years later to New Year's; and E03 is three months after that. So it's spring again, 6 or 7 years after Ellie was 14.

Just finished the E03 podcast, and Craig Mazin said Ellie and Dina are 19. Which makes him bad at math.

7 hours ago, Colorado David said:

are we certain the brain surgery would definitely have killed ellie

Short answer: yes. The second game -- eventually -- answers several of these questions quite clearly. The show has already taken some liberties with the overall plot, but it would be surprising/disappointing if they muddied the answers.

In the game and show, Marlene absolutely expects Ellie to die (if not immediately with the operation just starting, then shortly). She has made her peace with it: her lines to Joel about being there when she was born, and the promise made to her friend, Ellie's mother. She places her own loss/failure in exchange for the greater good as the highest. Unfortunately, she did not factor in that the grizzled amoral smuggler has found a replacement for the daughter he lost at the start of the outbreak.

 

[PurpleTentacle]

I know Joel is "stoic man"™ but would he really not say something when Abby says the doctor was unarmed? He came at him with a scalpel. That seems pretty armed to me. Any police officer would have shot in that instance and I'm not just talking american police, who will shoot at anything, european police would have had the same reaction. Scalpels are no joke.

This is bad writing, plain and simple. But what did I expect after the horrible writing that was the whole finale of season one?

[PurpleTentacle]

On 4/21/2025 at 6:12 AM, Raachel2008 said:

Then she is basically kidnapped by some dumb rebels and taken to a neurosurgeon who decides in less than a day - because Joel wasn’t out for even 24 hours - to open her head. No testing her blood, no studying her cells, no transfusing her blood, examining her saliva - no nothing. 
 

For me that’s the dumbest plot in the series because it makes no sense. You don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and all that. For me it just validated what Joel did and anyone - anyone - should see how wrong the Fireflies and the doctor were. BTW that doctor was what? 25? 30 when the cordyceps took over? Really what was his experience?

And what really pissed me off is that this was never mentioned in the right way, it is not only that Joel didn’t want to see Ellie dead, but that what the Fireflies wanted made no sense. But I guess it would be too easy for things to be clear and Ellie understand how fucked up the surgery was.

Agreed. See all my rants in the season finale thread.

And regarding things that should really be communicated but just aren't, because it would be inconvenient for the writers, see my last post here.

On 4/21/2025 at 6:16 AM, maystone said:

I know the OG cordyceps are blind, but the one from last episode was stalking Ellie.

Only clickers are blind.

On 4/21/2025 at 6:56 AM, diebartdie said:

THEN something happened (can't say what) and I almost stopped, I could not believe what the game was doing. I kept watching...

and it was profound.

I think to think this was profound, you have to ignore how fundamentally stupid the ending of the first game/season was and how with how it was laid out, Joel did objectively everything right. Both for humanity and his adopted daughter.

I sadly can't do that. I will never not think the ending was the height of stupidity.

On 4/21/2025 at 9:12 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Even if I didn't play the game, it's not too surprising that Abby is the daughter of the doctor Joel killed: the one who is closest to being someone Joel just straight-up executed. 

Dude came at Joel with a scalpel. He might be the least "straight up execution" of the whole bunch.

Had he stood aside, Joel would have let him live, like he let Laura Bailey and the other nurse live.

On 4/21/2025 at 8:07 PM, Macbeth1966 said:

It's based on a video game - they could have changed the plot.

Yeah but the point to change the plot was before the finale of season 1. Now it's really too late.

On 4/21/2025 at 8:08 PM, diebartdie said:

Who was going to do the science for that? The one and only (so far as the world knows) scientist who could do that work was murdered in cold blood by Joel.

The hack who's first instinct was to murder the only immune person in the world? Yeah sure, he was about to find a cure. Don't make me laugh. Humanity has a much better chance with Ellie still alive. Maybe they'll reestablish contact with europe or asia at some point and maybe there are some real scientists left. Not crazy narcissist with a god complex.

Also when you just tried to murder somebody's daughter and then come at them with a scalpel, it's generally considered self defense when you shoot them...

[PurpleTentacle]

On 4/22/2025 at 9:15 AM, mcree said:

No, that's both-sides-ing it. If you discount the outright bigotry and willful stupidity, the game is in fact, clearly well regarded.

"Anybody who doesn't agree with me is clearly wilfully stupid and a bigot!" 🙄

Were there bigots complaining? Sure there always are. But there were a lot of legit critiques of the second game and dismissing all of them as "bigots!" really doesn't make you look good either.

On 4/22/2025 at 5:00 PM, Boofish said:

I would like to know how a cure would work when these "zombies" (not sure the proper term for them on this show) seems to be capable of more than just biting. They are dog walking these survivors across concrete. Is there an "anti ass beating vaccine" I'm unaware of? 

It makes more sense in the games since there you can be infected through spores in the air. I agree, in the show it wouldn't do much. Since when an infected bited you, it will more than likely tear you apart. In fact it doesn't even make sense that there are so many infected, without the spored. These people should have all been killed outright and not ever turned. I still don't get why the show made this stupid and unnecessary change.

On 4/22/2025 at 5:26 PM, Capricasix said:

The showrunners did such brilliant work last season

I mean up until the finale. There they suddenly felt completely beholden to the game and it just didn't work. Seems like they are going with a 1:1 copy of the second game as well and that won't work either.

On 4/22/2025 at 7:57 PM, Lamima said:

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). 

Why would you do that to your poor dauther? Or did you stop after season 4?

On 4/23/2025 at 4:32 PM, Capricasix said:

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.

That was a plot point last episode.

On 4/23/2025 at 6:14 PM, 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.

But how do they survive there for that long? These are infected, not zombies. They goota eat and drink. Doesn't make much sense once you think about it for 5 seconds.

On 4/24/2025 at 4:32 AM, Raachel2008 said:

Just rewatched it with my SO, who hadn’t seen the episode yet. His first reaction after it was over was “why these dumb kids didn’t take the horses?”.  And then he went on with a long  list of things that Jackson could have done to improve their defenses, form barbed wire to trenches, to actually building a brick/rock wall during these five years (that we know). In fact that was his main problem and he was adamant that  the Jackson folks would be able to make their own mortar.

To be fair to them, massive logs are way more sturdy than a brick wall and only on TV could even that muscle mountain break them down. In reality the logs would have withstood that force easily.

On 4/26/2025 at 11:34 PM, Blakeston said:

As someone who's completely unspoiled about future plot points, what I'm assuming is that the nurses who survived the Salt Lake bloodbath chose not to tell the dead fireflies' kids the truth about how Joel killed their parents to stop them from killing a child to harvest her brain.

The nurses must have run away before the kids got there. Because they said that nobody of the crew survived. Otherwise that is a pretty massive plothole...

On 4/29/2025 at 12:52 AM, Colorado David said:

and are we certain the brain surgery would definitely have killed ellie? i know that surgery is super scary, but depending on the doctor maybe he could just excise a small amount of brain the sample and she'd be ok.

Removing someones brain generally tends to kill them.

[Colorado David]

she didnt indicate brain removal, hence my comment on partial removal of a sample. if the doc was a brain specialist he could remove only a slice, not the entire stupid thing. jmo but you all know everything.

[PurpleTentacle]

Just now, Colorado David said:

she didnt indicate brain removal

They did. "It's wrapped all around the brain" was uttered and that they needed a massive sample. Put two and two together and you have brain removal.

Which of course doesn't make sense, but that was the plan. Which is part of the reason it's obivous that doctor was probably a janitor who reinvented himself after the zombie outbreak, btw.

Also Marlene was absolutely clear that Ellie would not survive the operation. That should give you another hint what kind of surgery this was.

[mcree]

3 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

"It's wrapped all around the brain" was uttered and that they needed a massive sample.

Anyone with a few spare minutes and an internet connection can verify that did not happen.

It hurts your credibility.

 

[baldryanr]

11 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I know Joel is "stoic man"™ but would he really not say something when Abby says the doctor was unarmed? He came at him with a scalpel. That seems pretty armed to me. Any police officer would have shot in that instance and I'm not just talking american police, who will shoot at anything, european police would have had the same reaction. Scalpels are no joke.

This is bad writing, plain and simple. But what did I expect after the horrible writing that was the whole finale of season one?

Do you really think Abby would have believed him?  She would have seen it as a pathetic attempt at begging for his life.  Plus Joel burst into the room with a gun, the doc grabbed a scalpel, and Joel shot him.  In Abby's mind nothing her father did would have justified Joel's response.

[WearyTraveler]

On 5/1/2025 at 2:26 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

It makes more sense in the games since there you can be infected through spores in the air. I agree, in the show it wouldn't do much. Since when an infected bited you, it will more than likely tear you apart. In fact it doesn't even make sense that there are so many infected, without the spored. These people should have all been killed outright and not ever turned. I still don't get why the show made this stupid and unnecessary change.

I didn't play the game, and didn't know this was based on a game until recently. I just binged season 1 before this season started and after Joel's death I went online to find out everything else I could about this show, so I wouldn't be surprised like that again.

I am stating that because even though I read a lot about what is coming up, I didn't dwell on the details of the first game that much. So, I don't know if the answer I am about to suggest (just a guess, on my part) will align with the game.

I would presume that if the infection can be contracted via spores, it would be airborne. In that case, people would have to wear masks and given the decimation of the human race we have seen, that would mean masks all the time. TV being a visual medium, and actors' facial expressions being so important to convey emotions, networks and producers are not keen on having their cast's faces covered. This is why shows like Chicago Fire spend very little time inside the fires and why there's always some reason for them to take their masks off.

So, maybe that's why they decided not to do the spores thing. On the show, these infected are everywhere and very close to where our main characters live or roam. If the infection were airborne and the characters didn't wear masks all the time, I would be one if the first people calling bullshit on the show 🤣

[Affogato]

On 4/22/2025 at 1:12 PM, tv-talk said:

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.

Women and others have spent decades watching/reading stories dominated by white men. I  include the news. It is possible. 

[Zaffy]

I really do not like this trope of creating really despicable villains only for our heroes to go after them and at the end give them the fate they deserve.
I find it so cheap and lazy writing. Maybe it works better in a game...
So, I do not care about having Ellie going after Abby in her own revenge quest. I guess this is a way to see more of the post apocalyptic world and meet more interesting characters.. so yeah I might stay for the journey, but I absolutely do not care about Abby. I hope a  bear eats her. It would be anticlimactic for some, but at least we will get rid of her and her annoying sociopath caricature of a character.
 

[Anela]

On 4/22/2025 at 1:12 PM, tv-talk said:

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.

The only people I watched play this game, when it was re-released, were women. More than one said, "It's my favourite game!" 

I haven't played the games (I can't afford them), but I wanted to watch this show. And men have not been minimized. Joel was one of two main characters, his brother just directed the defense of their town. 

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Zaffy said:

I really do not like this trope of creating really despicable villains only for our heroes to go after them and at the end give them the fate they deserve.

Negan should have died several years ago... The outlier

[Zaffy]

5 minutes ago, paigow said:

Negan should have died several years ago... The outlier

I have no clue who Negan is! 

[paigow]

2 hours ago, Zaffy said:

I have no clue who Negan is! 

Exactly the character you described.. from The Walking Dead