The Comoot: Film & TV

The Last of Us - Hello Jackson Hole! - S2 E1 & E2

• Comoot Podcast Network • Season 6 • Episode 56

Share episode

A new season of Last of Us is here and so are Ruben and Adam! Back again to discuss the start of the new season and especially episode 2 - the best episode on tv in a long time? We think so


Music credit: "Arnold" by Luke Million

SPEAKER_00:

And we are back. Just like that. I didn't want to check the last time we recorded something. It's not like we haven't been watching TV. We've just been a little bit busy.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure you are with bringing in another into the world. you don't have a lot of time these days to watch high-quality television.

SPEAKER_00:

It's actually the opposite, mate, because it's the newborn phase. We put the older one to bed, and we've been watching a lot of... But speaking of high-quality television, if there was ever going to... Not to jump straight into the meat, but if there was ever going to be something to bring us back together, it was what we witnessed this week. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. By the way, this is... For the listeners out there, this is obviously a... The Komoot doing what it does best, right? We talk TV, we talk film, but this is also- Oh yeah, we should do the intro. No, we'll do the intro. We'll do the intro later. That's fine. We'll do the intro at the end. I can't remember how it went. What I'm trying to make is, we're talking about The Last of Us, but, mate, Andor Season 2 has arrived

SPEAKER_00:

as well. Yes. Yes. I haven't started watching that yet, but that's been when I saw the other day that it was starting. I was like, oh yeah. Yeah. Here we go. And they dropped three

SPEAKER_02:

episodes, right? Yeah. I'm going to hook Diego Luna back into my veins. Last of us. Last of us. It's back. Pedro Pascal is back.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's okay to work backwards. We will talk about episode one, but can we work backwards or should we do it justice and talk about episode one first?

SPEAKER_02:

I think we can talk about it together. Well, let's talk about episode one first. It cuts to five years in the future, or rather five years from when he went berserk and killed all the fireflies, which I thought at the time, I'm like, oh, that's a big jump. But obviously, after season episode two, it makes sense now why they did that. Obviously, this is based off a game, right? So a lot of people who've played the game know this story. It's following the story. A bit like Game of Thrones, right? Everyone who read the books kind of knew. I didn't want to play the game. The last game I played was Donkey Kong. I didn't play the game. So I don't know the story or the backstory. That

SPEAKER_00:

is one cool part. Obviously, people know. generally what's going to happen but there's a lot of people just like with Game of Thrones where we didn't read the books or you know we didn't know what was coming and So that's a cool part of it and seeing how the people who knew it was coming, how they feel about it, how it was done. Yeah. The five-year jump I liked because did you ever watch Sons of Anarchy? No.

SPEAKER_02:

I

SPEAKER_00:

really liked it. It was a show about bikies based in California and it went over five or six seasons. So it was quite a while. And I think there was at least one season where they had like a three-year jump or whatever, but it was one of those things where it was such a great show, but bad things were constantly happening to these bikies. Like they never had a rest, you know, they never had a year off of like, you know, a good There's always drama.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I sort of like the idea that maybe these guys in Jackson Hole, they've had a nice five-year run where they have some semblance of normal life. They're not just constantly getting attacked by

SPEAKER_02:

these- You know, after the first couple of years of absolute chaos, there would be pockets where these, these things are, and there'll be areas of the world where you could start rebuilding and yada, yada, yada, right? Like the, the, the normal stuff starts happening to a certain degree. So I guess that's what's happened, right? That Wyoming way up, way up in the cold part of the world where

SPEAKER_00:

maybe

SPEAKER_02:

these, uh, what are they called again? They clearly don't like the snow, or maybe they do, and they've just been hanging out, as we saw. The infected, that's what they're referred to. Yeah, so they- But they got the cordyceps in the brain. Yeah. And the town looks like old-timey West mixed with- Can I just say something? Watching this show, season two- HBO has really worked out how to use the extras and the extra sets they've had from Westworld and Game of Thrones. Somebody went, you know what, how do we get rid of all this stuff? Let's just make a show that has some Wild West stuff and also has some White Walker-like things, and we

SPEAKER_00:

can reuse all this stuff. I'm dying to jump. to the second episode to talk about, like you bring up White Walkers. Let's just do it. Let's

SPEAKER_02:

get the second episode. First episode was fine. A little bit of preamble.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Look, we're happy. We're happy for Joel, right? Joel murdered. Yeah. He murdered all the Fireflies because he wanted to have a nice life with Ellie and they had a nice five years. Husband. Yeah. Oh, that was like- Not

SPEAKER_02:

murdered. Put down the therapist's husband because- What's her name from Schitt's Creek? She's in that. I forgot her name in real life. But Schitt's Creek therapist's husband, Joel, put down. And then in the second episode, it kind of really amps up, man. Because the second episode- I'll be honest. After the first episode, I was like, eh. okay, but if this is all going to be like...

SPEAKER_00:

It was a set-up episode, right? They're coming back and they sort of played it as Ellie and Joel aren't talking and we wonder if it's because... ellie kind of knows that he murdered the fireflies or that he was lying about it like is it finally coming back but they had a couple of couple of sparks like they showed when they were busting up that pipe in the ground and they showed the the fungus oh

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah you're like oh this is going to be trouble like there was a bit of the foreshadowing with that but then even that's that scene with the therapist at the end of the first episode was pretty awesome it was pretty good it was like a it was an interesting interaction i just

SPEAKER_02:

didn't know where they were going because i'm like oh i just want to see i think I think what it is, is I liked the show, the first season. I like shows where people are just on the road. I remember the best parts of Game of Thrones when they were on the road. I like people on the road. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

not at

SPEAKER_02:

King's Landing or in Western. Yeah, I'm not a fan of a show where everyone's like, well, now we've got here now. We're just hanging out. That's boring. I want to be on the road. Fun stuff happens on the road, mate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And there was some good parts in that first episode. Like you had Ellie and her mate, Dina, they went on that patrol and they jumped into that house. It's funny now that we talk about it, cause it was like a week and a half ago. I'm remembering there was some good, there's actually a few good bits. It was just overshadowed by how good second episode was. Like in the first episode, they go into that old supermarket together and you're like, no, you guys are being naughty. Don't do this. And then they had that crazy thing where they had that, infected that was smart that was um stalking the

SPEAKER_02:

prey they're trying to say like the initial premise is that these guys aren't aren't afraid of the infected anymore because they feel like they've got the capability it doesn't matter they're almost they're hunting them out for sport basically right whereas the end of that first episode you're like oh wait you know, tables are turned. These guys aren't idiots anymore. You can't just fight them for sport. They're actually like coordinated. And then, yeah, let's just get a second episode. Second episode, there's a, a

SPEAKER_00:

storm's a brewing.

SPEAKER_02:

I

SPEAKER_00:

need you to talk me down, Rubes. Was this one of the best episodes of television in a long time? You know what? I don't want to say ever because that's BS, but

SPEAKER_02:

like- Can I say something? It's one of the most recent episodes of memory for me where the episode starts and then like, as every minute goes on, gets progressively better and better and better and better.

SPEAKER_00:

And the intensity builds from the start, right? Yeah, the intensity

SPEAKER_02:

goes, like, really, like, it goes from, like, oh, okay, we're back here, we're at whatever, the school dance or whatever the hell they were, or the New Year's Eve thing, and then it goes, then they're out in patrol, and then they go to, you know, there's a little bit of storm on the horizon, everyone come back from the storm. Oh, wait, not storm, actual, like, White Walkers was what I liked.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because, like, you had- The coordination and, like, the more running at the, like, I love the fact that at a certain point it now bifurcated into the fireflies being there trying to get Joel to then... And the second part of the story was the infected just storming King's Landing or Wyoming.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so like you had... But if we back it up to the start of the episode, like you had a bit of, again, like foreshadowing where they had the meeting in the town hall where he's like, this is what we're going to do in the patrol. This is what we're going to prepare. Because it started with them saying, oh, we went on patrol and 30 infected came out from underneath. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I think it's got to go. It's going to get worse. I thought it

SPEAKER_02:

would be though. I thought when they said, okay, these are all the protections and defenses we have in the town. I thought it would have been like, okay, this episode, we're not going to see them storm the town. What we're going to see is like a couple of them have to fight off a massive ambush out there. I didn't expect them to like, be like, oh, we're going to go from ambush to you're going to see them hit the town. Like episode two, episode two is like, it's almost like if you watch Game of Thrones season two, and they were just like, yep, you know, this is where the white walker come and hit King's landing. There was no, which is, which I'm fine with because I'm like, yeah, good. Let's just get to it. Let's get to the, like, I want to see like all the bloody, you know, home alone style, you know, booby traps I had set up for all these things. I love that little call back where they're just like, yeah, pour down the, pour the, uh, the, the oil barrels. Yeah. Before

SPEAKER_00:

that dude, like you, you had Ellie was going out on patrol with her mate. I forget the guy's name. you know, they, they point out the fact that there's a storm down in the Valley. Yeah. You know, but he's like, oh, it's not coming this way. And part of you is like, ah, you know, maybe they'll, maybe they'll just encounter a bit of a storm out there somewhere back to your point. Like it's not going to happen like immediately. Uh, and what I actually loved was that when you, that scene where you first see all the infected come out of the ground, wasn't with anyone from the main group. It was with the firefly. I forget her name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say Ellie, but that's too close to Ellie. But it was her doing her recon. I like the way they do that. They do that a little bit in other zombie movies. It's a little bit with the White Walkers in Game of Thrones. She was on her own, and she stumbled upon the big horde. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that scene where she gets up and starts running, and that's when it first- like when we see how many infected there are you're just like oh my god like it's way more than i also thought it

SPEAKER_02:

was really cool when they're running at her and then like you see like a whole bunch others run or like get up and start running and you're like oh they're just gonna join up and run after this girl and they don't they all turn like and basically start running towards

SPEAKER_00:

oh that was a bit after that was after joel saves her joel and dina save her first so so yeah first they chase her and she climbs a fence into an area and you're like wait a Yeah, that was awesome, by the way, because I'm

SPEAKER_02:

like, this girl is dead. Yeah. Without it being unbelievable. I thought it was really good. I thought it was

SPEAKER_00:

awesome. When Joel saves her though, like my heart sank a little bit. I was like, oh no.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's just get to it, right? Anyone that had seen this, spoiler. So obviously if you're listening to this, you've seen episode two. If you haven't, don't listen to this. So I did not expect Joel to die. I thought it would be, he's going to get his ass handed to him. He's going to get beaten up and then Ellie's going to come and shoot him. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

someone's going to find him. Someone's going to save him. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

I thought he would be saved. Like, is this a Ned Stark moment, Ruben? No, mate, I'm sorry. It's a Pedro Pascal moment. This dude cannot be in an HBO show without being killed prematurely.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Oberyn Martell was murdered prematurely. He must have read the

SPEAKER_02:

script and gone, oh, awesome. And then read season two and be like, wait, what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

No, they knew. They knew. I watched an interview. I watched an interview like they knew.

SPEAKER_02:

It's based on a game. So this happens in the game. But I just thought, obviously, I didn't play the game, so I didn't know. And I was like, there's no way they're going to kill off Joel when Pedro Pascal is so popular. Yeah. And like that, he's like, I'm not going to lie. Yeah. The show is great, but I watch it because of Pedro Pascal as well as anyone else. Right. That show hasn't gone on so long that I feel like they can get rid of characters, but it's part of the, it's part of the, the narrative. And from, I spoke to, uh, maybe we should have him on as a guest, one of the episodes, uh, Our friend Luke Grundy, who has played the game and knows it inside out, he was like, I've been waiting for this. And he loved the way they did it. But he was like, he was telling me how in the game, the next episode, the next sort of season two of the game, if you will, or the second game that comes out, which is what season two is based on, very much is about Ellie. So that

SPEAKER_00:

makes a whole lot

SPEAKER_02:

of sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Probably going to get revenge against this militia, I'd imagine. But I

SPEAKER_02:

did, I did, I did. read that and this is what i was saying the whole five-year jump thing is kind of a handy vehicle for him because what i read was pedro pascal is going to be in other episodes and it's going to be basically cutting back and forth between the five years prior so what happened after he kills the fireflies and the five years prior up until how they come back to wyoming and yada yada yada and okay which got which then i'm like all right cool i'll i'll if you just told me the rest of the show is just the five years prior i'll watch it absolutely

SPEAKER_00:

you know it's funny I made the mistake of watching post episode the the making of the episode which generally I don't like you know that was a thing with Game of Thrones and I didn't watch them like I don't I don't want to be a part of that I want to be taken out of the moment but I made the mistake of watching it. And the funny thing was what I hated the most about watching the making of was when they interviewed Pedro Pascal, he used his normal accent, not his Joel accent. And it just felt so weird to hear him speak. Not as Joel, while he was dressed as Joel. I didn't like it. Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. I mean, the guy's an actor he's he's from like Texas or whatever, but he's an actor. So like the same accent, obviously game of Thrones, he's got some weird foreign thing going on, but Narcos he's, doing an accent like I think anyway that's just my yearly reminder never watch those making of things especially after like one of the best episodes you've ever seen I had to switch it off and close my eyes and reimagine the episode again to go back into that feeling it's like when you eat an incredible burger and then you wash the burger taste out of your mouth with some other food like I can't brush my teeth after a really good meal because I can't wash the

SPEAKER_02:

I respect that man because I do think with the way tv is now there's always like a companion thing at the end where there's like in the making of and stay tuned to see you know commentary from the writers and i'm with you you know what sometimes just watch the thing and then that's it you don't need to know what was made that's yeah yeah the whole point of movies and tv is for you to not have to know how it's made and you can just watch it so anyway joel obviously um the firefly lady loses it at him And exacts for revenge, kills him, which I guess the idea is if you think objectively, he did murder a whole bunch of people and then also killed a defenseless doctor. So yeah, it makes sense that he doesn't have his redemption arc. Probably it makes sense that he, uh, should die

SPEAKER_00:

do you feel like though going back to my Ned Stark question this was I guess if you play the game you know he's gonna die and it's a zombie infected whatever show so it's not unusual to kill off a main character but this one felt Ned Stark-ish where we've been lulled into a sense of he's a main character he's always gonna be part of this show and we're shocked that he's gone to your point they're gonna show flashbacks so he's still around but yeah it wasn't until

SPEAKER_02:

literally harder is that Ned Stark was an ensemble. He was one of a few. If they'd killed off Tyrion, that would have been way more, because you're like, wait, this guy's, or Daenerys. Ned Stark, at the time, was an important character, but wasn't the character, whereas Pedro Pascal is the character on

SPEAKER_00:

the show. Ned Stark, season one was all about like their household. He was the main character. Yeah. Yeah. He, cause he was also the one who he was going to be the hand of the king. And then his mate, the king got murdered and, and they were setting it up as like, he was going to have to save Westeros. But anyway, the battle is, far out. It did remind me of some of the big battles in Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_02:

Right? It looked like when the White Walkers hit Winterfell or wherever. This is exactly what it is. They've used all the same extras to play the zombies. Reuse the outfits, yeah. 1000%, right? And they've definitely gone... I just love the fact that you saw them hit the wooden barriers and you see the wooden barriers buckle and I'm like, this is great. This is exactly what I want to see. And then obviously they... turn and go the other way, which is basically now these guys think and organize. And then let's, let's, let's talk about the quite literally the elephant in the room, the massive orc zombie or whatever. Yeah. What is that meant to be? Can we like, what was that meant to be? A human being that has just become so infected? Or is that a bear that got infected? What is that meant to be?

SPEAKER_00:

It's called a bloater. I just had to Google it. I remember they mentioned that in the mail. They're called bloaters. They are the most advanced stage of infection and are characterized by the massive size, armor-like fungal growth, and ability to use spore bombs. I don't think we saw spore bombs.

SPEAKER_02:

No. No. But we did see it took a whole lot of fire to get rid of this dude.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know what's funny, Rubes? The bloater and the fact that we had to Google the name sort of confirms for me, if you play this game, the game of Last of Us, and you have strong feelings, this is not the podcast for you. This is for the people who don't watch the

SPEAKER_02:

game. No, this is for the people that are watching it without ever playing a single frame of that game. But you know what? I'm okay with it. I like watching as an uneducated viewer.

SPEAKER_00:

I can't even remember if we did an episode or two of this on the first season. I don't think we did. Something I do like, someone coming in not knowing the game or anything like that, instantly, these Infecteds, I just love the whole premise. I love the premise that it's a fungus. Maybe it's worth mentioning it's the start of the second season. I love, and in terms of Yeah. Yeah. They, like, you need to be, you gotta have your firepower, you gotta have your defenses, because they move fast. And that added thing of how they all communicate together, you know how they broke into Jackson Hole, they found a weak point in the wall or whatever. Yeah, I think that's the new

SPEAKER_02:

thing, right? The idea is that now that they are five years on, these infected are now operating as, like, a coordinated, organized grouping of, you know, whatever. Yeah, and they move fast. Whereas the previous ones were just, like, scatterbrained, whatever. Yeah. Now, these ones are a lot more organized. I think that's the new evolution.

SPEAKER_00:

In my mind, it's still a zombie TV show, right? Even though if they're not zombies, they're whatever. It's classified as zombie. So, Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, whatever. Day of the Dead. Yeah. Are you much of a fan of all that stuff? I

SPEAKER_02:

don't watch a lot of zombie things, but I have no... issue with it. I never watched Walking Dead, right? I've always wanted to. Never watched Walking Dead. I like this one because I feel like I like the fact that it's very... black and white it's like they're all just infected by this thing and they're all the kind of they're all like that whereas i don't know maybe i'm wrong here but i feel like zombies are like well this zombie is different to this other zombie and this other zombie is different to this other zombie whereas like the idea that like well you're every single one of these is going to be the same as what the other one is they're all the same they all operate the same yeah the threat level is always the same which i like

SPEAKER_00:

like i watched the walking dead for a while i enjoyed it but it wasn't necessarily for the zombies themselves. I enjoyed sort of the writing and how they portrayed what life would look like in a zombie apocalypse or whatever if

SPEAKER_02:

they a year two more seasons from now if they decided that actually these infected can start talking and they like they start having dialogue about their own schemes I'll be like I'm out I don't want I don't want I don't want that I don't want to know don't give me like don't make it real make it like I need to know that they are these abstract things

SPEAKER_00:

well you know you've been given as well by this five-year break in Jackson Hole is I don't think this is a stretch to say this season is not happening in Jackson Hole they're going to be on the road they're going to be traveling to probably seattle it sounds like that's where the militia is they're going on the road for season two reuben so i'm very excited for what's coming i'm

SPEAKER_02:

or whose day you mean ellie

SPEAKER_00:

i could get ellie and the gang her girlfriend or her friend dina and then the ex-boyfriend or whatever the

SPEAKER_02:

gang is i'm trying to think who the gang is probably you reckon um joel's brother

SPEAKER_00:

i think it's the three youngins

SPEAKER_02:

oh hey you don't think it's joel's brother

SPEAKER_00:

it could be but the thing that makes me think not is well actually the obvious parts is he's got a wife and a kid so probably not um and also then you're just sort of changing out one old weathered guy for another so they got it maybe maybe it's just going to be the three of them

SPEAKER_02:

i feel like if it's the three of them ellie's fine right but just from a tv show not as watchable i feel like there needs to be there needs to be someone else that's added that's more like watchable

SPEAKER_00:

I have faith. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt after creating one of the best TV episodes I've seen in a very long time. I'm going to give them the chance. So,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah. Okay. Awesome. Mate, I'm looking forward to seeing how many more extras from HBO's Game of Thrones show up in this and how many more... Will

SPEAKER_00:

you see a dead Jamie Lannister at one point?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, or if they're just like, oh, look, we found... If the sex pirate from... Game of Thrones shows up. That's it. It's the greatest show I've ever seen. Simple

SPEAKER_00:

as that. I love it. All right. Until the next sex pirate, my friend. Mate,

SPEAKER_02:

I'll let you go. Tend to your youngin' much as Joel's brother will. Will do, mate. It was great catching up again. Good to be

SPEAKER_00:

back. Talk to you soon. We'll talk and or soon. All right, man.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, mate.