S02.E03: The Path

[AimingforYoko]

Quote

After Dina shares crucial information, Ellie prepares to petition the town council, even while she struggles with her deep emotional scars. On the outskirts of Seattle, a religious sect attempts to flee a war – raising questions on what lies ahead.

I have to strongly disagree with the opinion that Bella's not going to be up to carrying this series the rest of the way. At least if this episode is any indication.

Looks like they're walking into a Seattle civil war of some kind. Although hammers vs. firearms doesn't seem fair.

[gatopretoNYC]

Were those coffee beans that Ellie put on Joel's grave?

[peridot]

I teared up a bit at the beginning.  I didn't realize that it was a cold open until they showed the credits.

The council scene was interesting.  At first, I was trying to keep count of the "Yes" and "No" votes, but I got the gist of it as they showed Ellie's face.  It makes me worried that she's leaving for Seattle when her lung injury is still hurting.

Dina's a good friend, but I'm not sure if she would be a good girlfriend.  She admitted to going back to her boyfriend after the kiss with Ellie, and it seems she's putting feelers out to Ellie because her boyfriend is sad being with her.

I like seeing new parts of this world, so I was looking forward to seeing who the people with the self-inflicted scars were.  It was shocking that even the children were murdered.

Yikes at the size of the Wolves.

Edited Monday at 02:50 AM by peridot

[patty1h]

I'm not digging the teen love story much. I muted it during the tent scene... don't care to hear them talking about their "feelings". Also, the idea of two teen girls going across a zombie infested world with limited supplies, hoping to eventually meet up with the ex-Fireflys on a revenge plan. That's an eye-roll for me. I figure the game is based on this "whole get even for Joel" scenario, but it's a tired trope.

Jeffrey Wright?!?

[Paws]

Yes, Bella can certainly carry this show, tonight showed that but Joel really does leave a deep hole. Want to know more about the scar people as well. The Wolves are scary AF, where’d they get not just one but three CybertruckTanks?

 

random thought….wouldn’t the Tupperware w the cookies have degraded some by now? Or did Wyoming figure out how to make plastics?

 

great character development on angry grey haired guy over 3 episodes, made perfect sense that he’d be the guy to provide for them. 
 

fun fact..Gabriel Luna who plays Joel’s brother, is not the brother of Diego Luna despite them having the same last name and same set of eyes.

Edited Monday at 03:27 AM by Paws

[MJ Frog]

Dina needs to stop fucking with Ellie and make up her mind. She should either set aside her need for attention, or embrace not being straight where Ellie is concerned. It makes it hard to like her.

I teared up more in the beginning than I did in episode 2, where I think I was too shocked and angry to be sad. But in this episode we got the chance to process it through Ellie.

 

[thuganomics85]

Show ain't messing around and even removed Pedro Pascal's name off of the credits!  Still suspect he will show up in some form down the line (either by flashbacks or maybe some classic hallucination/visions), but it sure is making things clear that he ain't a permanent fixture anymore.

Tommy's reaction and cleaning Joel's body was heartbreaking enough, but Ellie's freakout and everything after really hit home for me.  Despite everything, it's clear to me that Ellie really did see Joel as a father figure and even though she treated him like shit for a while, she did love him and no doubt regrets how she handled things after.  Something that is certainly going to be the driving force for her going forward.  I think Bella Ramsey is crushing it, but then again, I never agreed with a lot of the criticism (in some cases, borderline hate) that she's gotten for the role.

Actually wasn't too surprised that the council ended up not wanting to go after Joel's killers, because I can see why in their minds, it wasn't worth possibly losing 16 or so folks to avenge one death.  Especially since they were already dealing with more deaths and other issues due to the horde attack.  I also wasn't sure if we were suppose to think Ellie's speech was too safe or whatnot.  I do wonder if one of the three yeses wasn't actually from the Tommy/Maria/Jesse trio.  I'm pretty sure about Tommy and I can see Maria going either way, but I wouldn't be surprised if we find out Jesse actually voted no for whatever reason.

I guess if the world's gone to hell but you are in a mainly safe area, going through life filled with booze and weed isn't the worst way to go out!  Gail has all of this figured out!  Catherine O'Hara is a blast as always.  But I do think Gail went a bit overboard with her practically acting like Ellie is a lost cause due to her being a bit mad over the, you know, father figure getting murdered in front of her thing.  Or is she more concerned over Ellie's ability to lie?

Dina is proving herself to quite the "ride or die" gal, and apparently a very good planner.  Ellie probably would have just tried to haul off with every weapon imaginable but nothing else.  But, come on, Dina!  Find it hard to believe that your remarks and flirtations with Ellie aren't just casual.  Either quit messing around with her or accept that maybe your sexuality isn't as set in stone like you want to believe.  Isabela Merced is still a delight though.

Did not have Seth being an ally on my bingo card!  Granted, I doubt it's that he's suddenly changed his bigoted views/ways, and more because he sees the same threat Ellie sees and is just glad that someone is willing to do something about it.  But, hey, maybe there is hope for him yet.  Someday...

Get introduced to a new group that really like robes, talk about some kind of prophet, really loves hammers, and have self-inflected scars on their cheeks.  I'm going to guess that isn't because they're just huge fans of Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight!  Either way, they were no match for these Wolves, assuming it was them.  Looks like they're already controlling Seattle as well, so this won't be quite the cakewalk for Ellie and Dina.

The scene with Ellie's at Joel's grave was nice.  The coffee beans!

[Starchild]

7 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Show ain't messing around and even removed Pedro Pascal's name off of the credits! 

Right? During the opening credit sequence I was wondering if they would change from two "person-shaped growths" at the end to one, and sure enough..

[Capricasix]

1 hour ago, Starchild said:

Right? During the opening credit sequence I was wondering if they would change from two "person-shaped growths" at the end to one, and sure enough..

Oh god I totally missed that 😭 Guess I’ll have to watch it again.

Ellie crying when she saw Joel’s jacket made me cry too. My dad died a few years ago; several months later my mom and I took some of his clothes to the Salvation Army, and when I took his beloved winter coat out of the car I bawled in the middle of the parking lot.

[diebartdie]

14 hours ago, peridot said:

Dina's a good friend, but I'm not sure if she would be a good girlfriend.  She admitted to going back to her boyfriend after the kiss with Ellie, and it seems she's putting feelers out to Ellie because her boyfriend is sad being with her.

 

10 hours ago, MJ Frog said:

Dina needs to stop fucking with Ellie and make up her mind. She should either set aside her need for attention, or embrace not being straight where Ellie is concerned. It makes it hard to like her.

 

9 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

...come on, Dina!  Find it hard to believe that your remarks and flirtations with Ellie aren't just casual.  Either quit messing around with her or accept that maybe your sexuality isn't as set in stone like you want to believe. 

I really, really, REALLY hated that. Game talk WITH A SPOILER:

Spoiler

In game, Dina dumped her boyfriend (after he knocked her up) and then was with Ellie, monogamously. Dina NEVER got back up with whatshisnamesorryguy.

As a lesbian, I remember being in my late teens, early 20's and meeting girls like that. They would flirt and kiss you, hell sometimes even have HEAVY make-out sessions and ALWAYS ALWAYS go back to some stupid boyfriend who usually treated them like absolute dogshit. Those kinds of "straight unless I've had a couple drinks" girls are THE WORST and absolutely not trustworthy AT ALL. The TV show turning Dina into THAT kind of *********** sucks. This is one change that does not work for me AT ALL because fuck that Dina.

So this website does some sort of censoring, Im editing to say I did not do that edit and that edit sucks. Where you see all those stars, it should say "untrustworthy, manipulative, fake lover" or something along those lines.

Edited Monday at 05:14 PM by diebartdie
because the website censored me and I didn't like that

[Dev F]

5 hours ago, diebartdie said:

As a lesbian, I remember being in my late teens, early 20's and meeting girls like that. They would flirt and kiss you, hell sometimes even have HEAVY make-out sessions and ALWAYS ALWAYS go back to some stupid boyfriend who usually treated them like absolute dogshit.

I saw Dina's motivations as being more complex than that: she'd recently gone through a horrifically traumatizing ordeal, and the girl she seemed interested in was stuck in the hospital for three months recuperating from said ordeal while she had to withhold important information from her for her own safety, so I can understand why she would feel particularly alone and vulnerable and reach for the comfort of her sweet, protective, and most of all available ex.

As for the ways in which the love triangle differs from the one in the game, I think it's also important to note that (game SPOILERS)

Spoiler

in the game, Ellie and Dina have already definitively hooked up by the time Joel dies, whereas in the show they've only flirted a bunch and kissed one time when they both had the plausible deniability of being drunk/high. It would've been a much more significant betrayal if Dina had gone back to Jesse after she and Ellie had sex, and I don't think the Dina of the show would do that either.

 

[mledawn]

7 hours ago, Capricasix said:

Oh god I totally missed that 😭 Guess I’ll have to watch it again.

Ellie crying when she saw Joel’s jacket made me cry too. My dad died a few years ago; several months later my mom and I took some of his clothes to the Salvation Army, and when I took his beloved winter coat out of the car I bawled in the middle of the parking lot.

When she leaned into the closet I bawled. I did the same thing to my dad's closet after he passed - I leaned right in and took some deep breaths. I still have the odd pieces of clothing of his, many many years later.

It's been a while since the game(s) came out so while i do remember the general storyline, the way the show is getting there is still new-ish. So far, still so good.

[millennium]

The Walking Dead is strong with this one.

[paigow]

Was Robin Hood / Legolas walking away or towards Seattle? He was looking for  WLF behind them. 

[Dev F]

38 minutes ago, paigow said:

Was Robin Hood / Legolas walking away or towards Seattle? He was looking for  WLF behind them. 

Away, I think. When the scarred guys scatter to escape the Wolves, they ditch their wheelbarrow on the left-hand side of the path as the camera is looking back at the direction they came from. When Ellie and Dina find it later, it's on the left-hand side as the camera faces the direction they're going.

[tennisgurl]

I knew that this was going to be a rough one, but this whole episode was like several punches in the gut. Even though I now know that this was inevitable, losing Joel leaves such a huge hole in the show, and maybe even in the television landscape for the season. I think that Bella can carry the show, she was excellent in this episode, but Pedro really was the solid center of the show and I am still not sure where we go from here. 

Tommy cleaning Joel's body and asking him to give Sarah, Joel's deceased daughter, his love really got me, a nice reminder that people besides Ellie loved Joel. I was also happy to see the many notes and memorials that were left for him at his and Ellie's house. He was certainly a man with darkness in him who did many questionable things, but I am glad that people remembered the many good sides of him. 

I might still have some reservations about the show going forward, but Bella did a great job in this episode, I especially liked her hands slightly shaking as she read the letter asking the council to send people after Joel's killers, and the way she finally broke down looking at Joel's jacket and watch in their house, finally alone with only her memories of her father. 

Gail is just living her best life in the midst of all this drama, she's an icon. 

I wonder if we will see more of the hammer and scar faction, I liked their vibe, and I am really interested in the wolves and how they have whole ass tanks as they patrol around Seattle. Ellie was sure quick to guess that it was Abbey who killed the hammer people, I bet she keeps blaming them for literally every bad thing that they find. The wolves? Abbey. Those people being slaughtered? Abbey. The mold based zombies that started it all? Somehow, probably Abbey. 

[Jodithgrace]

In the last episode Abby said that her people have a code which forbids killing people who cannot defend themselves. She proceeds to break that code by killing Joel. 
But if her group was behind the massacre of the scar/hammer group, how does that fit in with their code? Was the fact that the little red haired girl had a hammer make her fair game? How do people with rifles justify killing people with hammers? 

[Obnoxio]

Three months in hospital.  Undressed by medical staff.  Nobody notices the "infection" under her tattoo?

[MJ Frog]

3 hours ago, Jodithgrace said:

In the last episode Abby said that her people have a code which forbids killing people who cannot defend themselves. She proceeds to break that code by killing Joel. 
But if her group was behind the massacre of the scar/hammer group, how does that fit in with their code? Was the fact that the little red haired girl had a hammer make her fair game? How do people with rifles justify killing people with hammers? 

My take is that it's a red herring. I can't see Abby's group, or even Abby, doing that. And they would have been massively outnumbered anyway.

[Starchild]

3 hours ago, MJ Frog said:

My take is that it's a red herring. I can't see Abby's group, or even Abby, doing that. 

Especially since they didn't show it happening.

[mcree]

5 hours ago, Obnoxio said:

Three months in hospital.  Undressed by medical staff.  Nobody notices the "infection" under her tattoo?

By this point in the game, Ellie has explained that she has a self-inflicted chemical burn there, to make it look less like a bite mark. Then the tattoo was done on top.

In any case, it has been visible to everyone already for months/years, if only at a distance; perhaps with an accompanying story/lie. Medical attention might give cause to look more closely. But other signs of infection are very obvious. Does anyone even know what a healed wound from an infected that had no effect looks like?

 

[baldryanr]

7 hours ago, mcree said:

In any case, it has been visible to everyone already for months/years, if only at a distance; perhaps with an accompanying story/lie. Medical attention might give cause to look more closely. But other signs of infection are very obvious. Does anyone even know what a healed wound from an infected that had no effect looks like?

Plus it's a big point that no one else is immune.  So either that obscured scar tissue under her tattoo is from some random accident that just happens to look like a fungal infection or she's a one in billion medical miracle.  Which conclusion would a doctor come to?

[T Summer]

On 4/27/2025 at 7:48 PM, patty1h said:

I'm not digging the teen love story much. I muted it during the tent scene... don't care to hear them talking about their "feelings".

If you muted then... you missed the 2 (Dina getting back with  Jesse after her New Year's Eve kiss with Ellie)

that went with the +2 of Dina disappearing to get stomach sick.

I asked my husband after the episode:

in the category worn out, hackneyed, unbearably obvious TV + movie  tropes for two hundred Alex, What does it mean when a  character who is a woman suddenly vomits out of nowhere?

and without missing a beat he answered she's pregnant. 🙄

 

 

 

 

[I know they had Ellie suggest it was the sight and  smell of the dead scar people in the middle of the forest, but in the post apocalypse world where there's dead infected everywhere at times, sanitation might be janky and there's such a thing as rendering detail at the compound... I'm not buying it.]

 

 

 

[T Summer]

On 4/29/2025 at 8:03 PM, mcree said:

By this point in the game, Ellie has explained that she has a self-inflicted chemical burn there, to make it look less like a bite mark. Then the tattoo was done on top.

In any case, it has been visible to everyone already for months/years, if only at a distance; perhaps with an accompanying story/lie. Medical attention might give cause to look more closely. But other signs of infection are very obvious. Does anyone even know what a healed wound from an infected that had no effect looks like?

 

You're referring to her arm, if it's been visable to all for years, right?

 

What about the bite she sustained  on her abdomen in s2 e1 that she  took a knife to herself to cut out the parts that identified it as a bite mark and then stitched it up with  a needle and thread?... all without the benefit of  an anesthetic

🙄

If nothing else, they'd figure her for a cutter... possibly  indicating some sort of psychological problems. that existed prior to Joel's death. I think she'd be in for more with the compound's psychologist... Gayle is it? than pacfying  her with a line about how  she's going to have to forgive herself.

That's if  there was no weird discoloration around it.

 

 

 

[MJ Frog]

2 hours ago, T Summer said:

and without missing a beat he answered she's pregnant. 🙄

Exactly what I was thinking. They made a point of having her say she doesn't usually do that. Lines like that are never meaningless.

[maddie965]

Not sure about Gail anymore. First she tells Joel she hates him for killing her husband. Then she tells Tommy that Bella can't be saved. None of that was necessary or helpful.