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S02.E04: Day One

AimingforYoko

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patty1h

patty1h

(edited)

This teen lovey-dovey shit is killing me.  

They find a bunch of dead bodies, get stalked by Wolves, chased by undead and almost die about 5 times in one hour but manage to escape it all.  In the next interlude, Dina sees Ellie get bit, almost shoots her, then Dina says she's pregnant! They find a little cubbyhole and they have more onscreen sex than Joel had in the whole series.   How many more episodes?

Edited by patty1h
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peridot

peridot

The beginning was good.  It disgusted me that the soldiers were laughing at Goldberg's ignorance rather than his abuse of power.  I'm glad Isaac explained was what meant by "voters".  The wide-eyed newbie looked familiar, but I wasn't sure if he was just a one-off character.  Isaac's contempt was obvious, but I wasn't expecting for him to turn!  It'll be interesting to see if the WLF is any different from FEDRA.

Ellie and Dina was pretty nonchalant about rolling into the city.  I'm glad that Dina had some sense about not walking up to the WLF building in broad daylight.  They seem so under-prepared.  I'm not sure if it's anger or ego that's driving them.

The scarred people seems formidable.  It's terrible that they are using child soldiers in their group.

When Ellie and Dina woke up after their night together and talked about morning breath, I realized that Dina vomited before kissing Ellie 🤢.

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Dev F

Dev F

3 hours ago, patty1h said:

This teen lovey-dovey shit is killing me.  

They find a bunch of dead bodies, get stalked by Wolves, chased by undead and almost die about 5 times in one hour but manage to escape it all.  In the next interlude, Dina sees Ellie get bit, almost shoots her, then Dina says she's pregnant! They find a little cubbyhole and they have more onscreen sex than Joel had in the whole series.

You say that like it's a reason why they shouldn't have had sex in that moment, but I thought the episode was pretty clear that all of that stuff is the reason why they did.

  • Like 18
Glade

Glade

(edited)

Some really lovely character moments between Ellie and Dynah.  I would think now is the time to turn back, but they've lived their whole lives in a world that is this dangerous.  Quite sad that the civil war between WLF and Fedra seemingly transitioned right into another one between WLF and the seraphytes.  If either of those groups decided en masse to follow Dynah and Ellie back to Jackson, that would be horrific.

Edited by Glade
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thuganomics85

thuganomics85

"What the fuck is wrong with Seattle?!"  Apparently, a lot is wrong with it, Dina.  After-all, Grey's Anatomy has apparently got over 20 seasons of medical drama out of it alone!  Hell, wouldn't surprise me if someone from that hospital is still working there and rolling their eyes at all of the zombies, militant goons, or crazy cult guys that interfere with their job (and numerous hook-ups....)

So, we get to meet the leader (or one of them?) of the Wolves: Issac, a former FEDRA guy, who didn't quite like how that organization ran things, so he decided to branch out and form the Wolves.  And by branching out, I mean throwing a couple of grenades inside a van filled with douchebag soldiers, and painting the inside red.  He's also one hell of a cook and knows everything like the best temperature to heat up your pan when you need to do some good old-fashioned torture!  He is a man of many skills!  The show wisely decides not to mess with perfection and gets Jeffrey Wright on board to reprise the role from the games and, again, no notes there.  The man is awesome in any role and he is already crushing it here.

Sounds like the mysterious group from last week refer to themselves as the Seraphites, although the Wolves call them "Scars" in what sounds like a derogatory way.  But it sounds like they are a lot more dangerous than they let on.  Isaac clearly is considered enough to go all out here and that guy did not flinch after everything tossed at him.  Yeah, Seattle is probably going to be a full-fledged war zone, when this is all said and done.

Hey, that was Josh Peck as the lone soldier that Isaac spared and now seems to onboard with the Wolves.  Between this and Oppenheimer, the man is getting some interesting roles lately.

Looks like Joel did find time to teach Ellie how to play guitar!  That was a nice moment with her and Dina.  Isabela Merced really sold Dina's emotional response to Ellie's performance.

After a lack of zombies last week, we got a good amount here and Dina discovers the truth about Ellie's immunity!  I did like that Ellie forgot about that at first and kept going on like normal, only to turn around and see Dina pointing a gun at her and mentally preparing herself to execute her.  Yeah, it's never fun living in a zombie world.  Not only is it possible your loved ones can die, sometimes you might have to be the one to do it for the greater good/there benefit.

Not surprised that it ended with Ellie and Dina finally hooking-up, which while it was nice seeing a happy moment between the two, it was hilariously rushed.  Ellie revealing her immunity, Dina revealing she was pregnant, and then bam!  Sexy times!

I sure hope Shimmer has enough grass to chow on.  Not sure if/when they'll be picking him back up...

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slowpoked

slowpoked

While it was a slow burn type episode, I think it’s a good one. We finally get the backstory behind the scars and WLF. And this episode really built up Dina and Ellie’s relationship.

Jeffrey Wright!!!

I would have thought though that Dina would ask more questions about Ellie’s immunity - how did she get immune? Who are her parents, did she get it from them? Did Joel know? Who else knew? Is there a way to spread around Ellie’s immunity? I would have thought that if I discover something mind-blowing and potentially life-changing like that, I would not stop with the questions.

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iMonrey

iMonrey

12 hours ago, peridot said:

The wide-eyed newbie looked familiar, but I wasn't sure if he was just a one-off character. 

8 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Hey, that was Josh Peck as the lone soldier that Isaac spared and now seems to onboard with the Wolves.  Between this and Oppenheimer, the man is getting some interesting roles lately.

Ben Ahlers played the lone soldier Isaac spared. His name is Burton, apparently. You might recognize him as Jack, the footman at the Van Rhijn house on The Gilded Age. 

Josh Peck played the talkative soldier in the van that Isaac scolded. And then killed along with the rest of the soldiers, except for Burton.

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slowpoked

slowpoked

26 minutes ago, baldryanr said:

Well, they're assuming that sexy times is not a way to spread it (or the bad form of the fungus), that's for sure. 

LOL. This reminds me of a scene in Edge of Tomorrow where Tom Cruise had the Groundhog Day-like power of resetting time, and wanted to transfer it to Emily Blunt. 
 

Cage: Is there a way to…transfer this to you?

Rita: Oh you mean sex. No, I’ve tried it.

Cage: Well, how many times?! 

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patty1h

patty1h

(edited)

This show has been progressive in the fact that the only two scenes of couples being sexual  in the whole series were gays.   I loved the scenes Frank and Bill last season, but the Dina/Ellie thing is just not cooking for me.   Their teens falling in love scenes seem out of kilter with the apocalypse horror that's going on all around.  Maybe if I played the game I could appreciate the relationship between Ellie and Dina differently.  

Even the civil war fighting seems so "big picture" and these girls playing at being mercenaries is hard for me to swallow.  Kill Abbie?  Sure, but I'm not that invested.

Edited by patty1h
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Starchild

Starchild

8 hours ago, slowpoked said:

We finally get the backstory behind the scars and WLF.

Not enough. I'm not sure why it was necessary to break away from one paramilitary organization just to form another.

 

1 hour ago, Lamima said:

Can we talk about the frank and beans they showed on the poor tortured scar fella? Um, no thanks. I was watching with my 2 daughters and we all were covering our eyes. Seeing anyone's down unders on TV is a hard pass for me, thank you very much.

I'm just glad the pan didn't get applied there. I was worried.

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Shellgame

Shellgame

21 hours ago, patty1h said:

more onscreen sex than Joel had in the whole series

I don’t think he had any sex in the series, onscreen or off. He didn’t seem interested in Tess that way (although her speech about feelings is open to different interpretations) and was traveling with Ellie after that. I could easily see him as asexual or even buy he was not over a lost love. At any rate, you don’t have to go too far to have more onscreen sex than he did because that wasn’t part of his life during that period and we never got to see what might have been if he’d lived.

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Shellgame

Shellgame

7 hours ago, slowpoked said:

This reminds me of a scene in Edge of Tomorrow

There is a great Jaime Lannister fanfic called Battle Is the Great Redeemer that is inspired by Edge of Tomorrow.

3 hours ago, Lamima said:

Seeing anyone's down unders on TV is a hard pass for me, thank you very much

I was much more bothered by the torture.

17 minutes ago, Pike Ludwell said:

Yet another case where, in the romance area, Hollywood writers write what they relate to and most people don't. 

What was unrelatable?

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Anela

Anela

(edited)

I haven’t finished the episode yet, because I had to go out, but I didn’t even notice the genitals of the tortured person, if nothing else happened after Jeffrey wright threw the pan in frustration.

I finished. Ellie is now the main character, and she’s (they? are) falling in love. I’m hetero, and I’m fine with it.  They also barely showed anything.  

Edited by Anela
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tennisgurl

tennisgurl

Everything is truly better with Jeffrey Wright, he's so calm and composed so intense, I am so curious as to the backstory of what happened in Seattle and led to this war between Isaac's wolves and the Seraphites. How did Isaac go from being so disgusted by FEDRA's cruelty that he killed his fellow soldiers and joined an anti FEDRA group to this, people who look and act a whole lot like FEDRA did. We even have him calling the Seraphites "Scars" with the same disdain that Josh Peck called people they would hurt "Voters", I don't know the backstory yet of this conflict but it doesn't seem like anyone is really the good guy here. 

I still miss Joel but I like Ellie and Dina and I thought their big hookup was sweet, even if having sex in a dirty building after being almost eaten by zombies sounds pretty unsanitary, that's just how things are in a zombie apocalypse. You take the happy where you can get it, especially after Dina was convinced that Ellie would be gone. 

I would think that Dina would have a few more questions about Ellie being immune, how she realized she was immune, who her family is, if Joel knew, what that means, etc. 

I like that we have gotten so many more zombies this season, they look so cool with their mutated heads and weird jerky motions. I thought that the room where they found the guitar looked gorgeous, it looked like a fancy Air B&B you could find in current Seattle, and I had some real feels when Ellie started playing the guitar. But don't forget to take that guitar with you! I know its busy and your running fir your lives, but look at that thing!

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tv-talk

tv-talk

35 minutes ago, diebartdie said:

WHAT THE EVER LOVING HELL ARE YOU ON ABOUT WITH THIS "ARROGANCE"? This "unrelatable"?

Homophobia is a terrible, toxic and corrosive mental disorder and when it is internalized, it can be deadly.

Is it allowed for people to not enjoy some aspect of a show or does that automatically make them homophobic? I mean when an lgbtq woman cant even say she didnt like a storyline without being accused of homophobia- where are we really?

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Dev F

Dev F

23 minutes ago, diebartdie said:

2 things bothered me about this episode. #1 I am very worried about our girl Shimmer and #2 (game talk spoiler tag)

  Hide contents

Ellie does not AT ALL seem like she's insane with vengeance in the tv show. Game Ellie called Dina a "burden" when Dina revealed the pregnancy and it was a very ugly moment that truly showed how far gone Ellie really was in that important moment. God damn, losing that moment in the tv show really steals Ellie's diabolical hatred fueled violence. 

I'm guessing the lack of #2 is just a pacing thing that's a knock-on effect of the earlier adjustments to the story. (GAME SPOILERS)

Spoiler

Because Ellie and Dina didn't get together before Joel's death, their hookup needed to be a moment of heightened emotion to cut through their single-minded quest of revenge, so I think it makes sense to tag it to the dual revelation of Ellie's immunity and Dina's pregnancy. But it would be whiplashy to immediately go from there to Ellie angrily blowing Dina off to continue her mission. You need an episode break to give their new relationship status some time to breathe before torpedoing it.

But given that the story now seems to be headed in the same direction as the game, I assume we'll get #2 in the next episode, with a little more separation from the dramatic developments of this episode.

Kel Varnsen

Kel Varnsen

Wow pretty lucky for Ellie and Dina that when they arrive in Seattle the Wolves are fighting two different wars. Because otherwise they would have been dead pretty fast.

Like most torture scenes I hated this one. I mean at least it didn't work, but it's annoying to me that no one ever gives false information. It's always nothing or the truth. And you would think a guy who has been fighting an apocalypse war for decades would know how ineffective torture is.

Also I would really love to know how the gas in the kitchen is still working. And how they have so much gas that Issac can just monologue with the burner going for a few minutes before he even puts a pan on it.

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Dev F

Dev F

2 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Like most torture scenes I hated this one. I mean at least it didn't work, but it's annoying to me that no one ever gives false information. It's always nothing or the truth. And you would think a guy who has been fighting an apocalypse war for decades would know how ineffective torture is.

I mean, plenty of real-world figures with decades of experience in national security thought it was a great idea to set up an American torture program after 9/11. It's a sadly plausible delusion.

But speaking of the torture scene, I haven't seen anyone else point out how ominous it is that the episode goes directly from Ellie playing the guitar for Dina to Isaac talking about how he used to cook to woo women—right before using his beloved cooking pots to burn that poor Seraphite.

This parallel is one of the main reason I don't agree with those who argue that Ellie seems too cheerful and well-adjusted for someone on a quest for revenge. The point is that we're seeing her on Day One, at the very beginning of a dark journey—just like we saw the younger version of Isaac who hated that FEDRA mocked their enemies as "voters" and who gave a naive young recruit a chance. But then we jumped forward eleven years and both men had became rigid partisans who mock the Seraphites as "Scars" and see them as "fucking animals" who deserve to die. The implication, I think, is that we're going to see Ellie slide to the other side of that divide in short order.

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DigitalCount

DigitalCount

2 hours ago, maddie965 said:

What was the other time? I forgot.

Sorry, my fault for not specifying. The other time was in a different show. 

And yes, every time the intro shows Ellie all alone it's like another needle to the heart. But at the same time, we know Joel is always with her, as shown by the musical interlude.

I do think that it's interesting though that Tommy told Ellie directly that Joel wouldn't have done this, and on top of that, now she has a family to protect. There are so many reasons for her to go back, but she's decided to forge ahead. And now she's killed a couple Wolves who had nothing to do with Joel's death and were really just in the right place at the wrong time. I think Tommy's fears of Ellie being like Joel with his justifications are spot on.

And really, what are the chances of actually finding Abby at this point? I know Seth suggested that their attack could be the first of many, but honestly the Wolves are pretty well embroiled in their own war right now. It's entirely possible that Ellie's revenge might get taken out of her hands before she gets the chance to take it. And even if Ellie doesn't know it, we heard Abby tell Joel that Seattle wasn't a great place to be. For all Ellie knows, Abby decided not to go back. I feel like narratively, she's likely to be there, but realistically after hunting down the guy who killed her dad, wouldn't she be just as likely to be tired of fighting?

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T Summer

T Summer

The main  reason Joel's death caused my interest to wane was that they spent so much  of s1 developing the  Ellie / Joel relationship and  they didn't really give us other relationships to  care about.  It  ripped the heart and soul right out of show, for me. The Bill / Frank relationship was very  well done but it was over so quickly.

S1 Ellie seemed more  thoughtful, almost more mature than s2 Ellie.  S1 Ellie  came across remorseful about sneaking into the mall with her friend  (girlfriend?) who ended up dead. Like she realized it was irresponsible  to just go off and do whatever you want in such a dangerous situation. She was even reluctant to speak about it at one point seemingly because of the responsibility she felt.

 

S2 has Joel wanting her off patrols because she's  apparently ignored protocol and wandered off if she felt like it...  it sounded like more than once. As the message is coming from Tommy, she  manages to talk her way into going and the first chance she gets she and Dina ignore  the group's apprehensions and enter a building that's unsafe structurally and contains infected, where she gets bitten again. What if it had been Dina who'd gotten  bitten?

She and Dina went off alone to find Joel, and now they've disobeyed the council and gone off alone to avenge his death.

Other than being   at the very least cold  toward Joel, not to mention ungrateful... this trait of being so impetuous, actually careless is the main thing they're showing us of s2 Ellie.  I'd expect her to have  matured some in 5 years. If I'd only seen s2 Ellie, I doubt I'd like her very much. Yes, she later said her relationship with Joel was complex, that they were good, but still ...

I'm struggling to put what I'm thinking into words, but it's like another reason Joel's absence  has left such a void is that  it appears Ellie's in need of a  whole lot  more fathering or guidance.

 

I about fell over when the inevitable discussion of she and Dina raising a child together came up. I know she did throw in a mention or two of Jesse, but saying "I'm going to be a Dad"? My thoughts  went immediately to 1. are you really ready to be someone's  mum, dad, step parent, co-parent of any kind?  and 2. I wonder what Jesse (the actual Dad) will have to say about that? Did Dina and Jesse have any discussions about what would happen if their resuming their relationship resulted in a pregnancy? So many questions. 

Of lesser importance:  if I were a young woman living in such times and found  a cashe of pregnancy tests, I doubt  I'd use up 4 or 5 at once.  Is anyone  still around making those? 

 I have  a 20something   family  member recently married and starting a family on baby #2 thinking about a 3rd and  more and I sometimes ponder being in their situation  and how I'd feel bringing children into the world the way it is. It's a hard no for me, and  there's not even  an apocalypse scenario with roving bands of infected Cordecyps monsters around! I suppose I get it, the community  is trying to rebuild. but IDK? 🤔

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Colorado David

Colorado David

(edited)
13 hours ago, DigitalCount said:

If I had a nickel for every time a soulful version of Take On Me was associated with the memory of a character I loved, I'd have 2 nickels. Not a lot, but still odd/interesting that it happened twice

i know right?? of all the 80s hits to go with a-ha. i feel they are somewhat a niche band. i would've picked depeche mode or inxs.  what i would choose:  

 

Edited by Colorado David
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KeithJ

KeithJ

(edited)
On 5/7/2025 at 2:33 AM, DigitalCount said:

If I had a nickel for every time a soulful version of Take On Me was associated with the memory of a character I loved, I'd have 2 nickels. Not a lot, but still odd/interesting that it happened twice

21 hours ago, DigitalCount said:

Sorry, my fault for not specifying. The other time was in a different show.

Put it in a spoiler tag in case people haven't watched The Magicians:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited by KeithJ
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T Summer

T Summer

4 hours ago, captain1 said:

I spent the entire latter half of the episode worrying about Shimmer!

Really. Is poor Shimmer supposed to still be standing in the music store/whatever through all this commotion?

 

 

You know that word  so frequently associated with horses...

spook :  to make frightened or frantic : scare; especially : to startle into violent activity (such as stampeding)

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DigitalCount

DigitalCount

Not really related to anything else, but I did like the parallel between Isaac saying he would woo a woman by cooking for her and Ellie singing for Dina. If I had to guess, that was probably the point where Dina admitted to herself that she'd fallen for Ellie, and her tears came from that realization as much as from being touched by the music or remembering Joel.

I can't help but feel like it's foreshadowing, though. Isaac turned into the same type of barking bully that he betrayed FEDRA to get away from. Is Ellie going to turn into Abby? The younger soldier who went to the Wolves with Isaac also seems to have become a stone-cold killer, happy to dehumanize the Seraphites even as his partner expressed reservations. I don't know if I'd call the Wolves innocent per se, but Ellie and Dina have killed Wolves that were at least uninvolved in killing Joel, which is actually beyond what Abby did (though it's almost certainly not beyond what she would be willing to do).

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Obnoxio

Obnoxio

On 5/8/2025 at 12:10 PM, T Summer said:

Really. Is poor Shimmer supposed to still be standing in the music store/whatever through all this commotion?

 

 

You know that word  so frequently associated with horses...

spook :  to make frightened or frantic : scare; especially : to startle into violent activity (such as stampeding)

Maybe Carol will come back from Paris and take care of Shimmer.

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