'The Last of Us' Theme Shift Is Closer Than Thought; Plus, Summer TV and 'The Studio'

Hey, welcome to Taking it down.

The TV and streaming podcast from a southern but thinking point of view, which brings conversation about television and movies with respect for working folks who know they aren't represented in some other podcast.

We are members of the wonderful Southern Bay site and podcast family found@thealabamatake.com you can visit that site, even sign up for it when you visit so that you can comment along with us and others.

And you can always use the site without a sign in, of course.

In this episode of our podcast, I'll have co host and friends Adam and Donovan broadly talk about the studio and the last of us before we take a break.

And then we'll return after the break to give deeper thoughts specifics on those television shows, which will include spoilers after the break.

We'll also talk about summer television in general, some things that we haven't seen, and we'll debate if they're worth watching.

That's how we'll begin.

So let's do that.

Let's begin.

Adam and Donovan will join us.

Alabama Tape Projection.

Hey, here are two of my best friends, and I'm lucky because they're also two of the best co hosts for this TV and streaming podcast.

For any TV and streaming podcast, let me say it that way.

And it's Adam.

It's Donovan.

Hi, guys.

Hi, Blaine.

We're back.

I want to say hello to some listeners.

I want to say hello to the people I did not even know listen today.

It always makes me nervous when I discover we have listeners.

I know, I know, but these are people we kind of sort of know in person.

It's Ryan and Derek, Derek's wife Patricia.

Tim Hamilton we've known has listened for a while and 87 Jetta, who's been listener number one since day number one.

The OG, the OG man, he's so good to us because I feel like we kind of know they're probably listening.

I just wanted to say, hey, if you're a listener, let us know if we missed you.

If you listen with regularity, that's cool.

You can listen to with regularity because we don't spoil a thing until the mile marker that you probably can see in Spotify or Apple Podcast or YouTube, you can, wherever you listen, there are timestamps and if you listen in Apple Podcasts, I know, and probably other podcast apps, there are even chapters and you can use the chapters to be like, no, this is a spoiler because I will label them accordingly for you.

If you do listen every week, I apologize for what I Say every week.

You don't have to, dude.

It's insightful.

I'm with Donovan.

It is horrifying to realize that people I know listen to this.

Occasionally someone will say, oh, I listen to the podcast.

I've never heard you talk that much.

Really?

Yeah.

I'd like to know who they are.

That's funny.

I feel like there's some music types in Florence that you would know who have expressed that.

The doc.

Doc's one of them.

Hey, Doc.

Yeah, but it's every time that happens, I think, well, do you want me to start talking for an hour about the last television show that I watched?

Probably not.

This is not how we behave in a society.

The most intimidating I've been intimidated, I've been with were the two or three weeks after Mr.

Paul Thureen had messaged us a couple of times.

And he's the creator and writer for somebody somewhere.

And he was basically implying that Bridget Everett had listened and Mr.

Hiller had listened.

I think we all set up straight.

And we were just like, yes, thank you.

That's the visual.

We were all like, excuse me.

Yes.

But no, honestly, we're just working class Southern folk and that's our primary point of view and that's.

And we think there's value there and that's what we bring to the table.

That's why we exist.

That's why this podcast is ongoing.

And we'll get into some things before we even talk broadly about the studio and the last of us.

That's our two primary topics.

Today, I want to do a summer TV rundown.

Some quick, immediate thoughts from the both of you on shows that are pretty recent or brand new or just about to begin.

Maybe next week.

It could give listeners a sense of what we may do in the coming weeks, or maybe just suggestions on what they want to watch, if they have any time off, extra time during the summer where they want to put their eyes.

First up, you guys game for this?

I'm game.

And I've.

I've been.

I mean, yes, Donovan, dammit, I've been thinking about this.

Well, he said he's absolutely not game for this, but I am.

Because I have been thinking about how summer can sometimes turn into the.

The TV doldrums.

Right.

Because everybody goes to the movies.

Yeah.

Is that the logic?

I think.

Or they read books.

It's summer books.

It's summer movies.

But you don't hear summer tv.

You never do.

Plus, back in the day, that was the.

During broadcast television.

This is the time for reruns.

Yeah.

You watch your reruns.

If I missed episode five of Cheers that year, I wait for it to come back on.

There you go.

Speaking of Cheers, George went.

Rip, man.

He was a great.

That really kind of hit me.

And celebrity deaths don't.

But I thought, oh, man, George went with us anymore.

It's funny.

The ones that'll get you like that.

Yeah.

You know, like.

Like you don't know any of these people and, like, you're sad that a human being died, but, like, there's the one that'll be like, oh, I wasn't ready for this.

Is there a celebrity death that really, really got you?

This isn't a celebrity, but the author, Ursula Le Guin, when she died, I was just like, oh, I didn't expect I would feel that way.

Why is that?

She just.

Her books have meant more to me than I guess I realized.

You know, I was just.

Because I started thinking about her and books of hers that I've read and her work, and I was like, oh, I'm actually really sad.

I mean, I'm sure there are some that made me quite emotional.

But even this week, also a guy like Jim Ursay dying who, like, I had.

No, not a Colts fan, but he was in TV shows and kind of a man around town.

You're like, oh, man.

That's not that I had, again, any connection.

But that makes me sad for this guy who seemed to very much enjoy life.

Yeah.

I didn't expect that reaction of myself.

Enjoyed being the cult's owner, that's for sure.

It's always fun to see people in positions that we would think of as fun.

Actually enjoying it.

Yes.

You know.

Yes.

That's cool to just transparently show enthusiasm.

Yeah.

I remember my first one, and it struck me, and still strikes me, is MCA of the Beastie Boys.

I thought he did not.

He didn't deserve an early death at all.

Such a warm heart.

And then the.

The second one, which still affects me to this day, is Tom Petty.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was truly, like, dark day.

Shocking.

That was.

That was tra.

That was tragic.

It's so sad.

Not to the level of Tom Petty for me, but, like, David Bowie.

And I think part of that was, like, Petty.

It was a surprise.

Like, he just released a fantastic album, like, three days before.

Well, you're a huge Bowie fan.

If I love Bowie.

And that last album is one of the best he did.

So to, like, have that excitement, to hear it, to, like, be watching it.

And then all of a sudden, like, I woke up on the Sunday after that album was released and saw something referring to him in the past tense and I'm like, what the hell?

Any tears for any of these people?

Legit tears?

I don't think tears.

No, no, no.

Not for me either.

It was just some downers.

Just like you felt down.

Yeah.

I mean, I still think about being a musician in the South.

Alex Chilton and Big star inevitably haunt, like everything that we do.

And Alex Chilton, the nature of his death and just thinking like, man, that guy.

1.

I wish that didn't seem like he really wanted more career wise recognition, whatever.

But what year was he?

I mean, it's been.

I think that was 2012ish.

Okay.

That's a complete guess.

That's the, the era of when it happened.

But I still think about like such a emblematic way for you just wonder like, oh, if he had had health insurance for most of his adult life.

If he had had, you know, whatever.

It's sad.

Yeah.

It's just sad.

Well, that was our tangent.

Sorry, y' all.

Yeah, it kind of got dark there.

It's okay.

But we're going to talk on recent shows, shows that are brand new or about to air, we're just going to run them down.

You guys can give quips or thoughts, and it might line up with what we're going to do next week in the coming weeks.

First up is Duster.

This one's on hbo.

No, I think it's only a Max production and it's a J.J.

abrams production.

He has a hand as a creator.

Stars Josh Holloway and Sydney Elizabeth.

About a 1970s Southwest crime syndicate where this agent ropes in one of the crime syndicate's own to take them down.

Could be fun, but I'm pretty allergic to JJ Abrams at this point in my life.

Wow.

Yeah, me too.

The trail.

I've seen the trailer because it ran before some stuff and I'm like, okay, this looks good.

But then J.J.

abrams is like, oh, that's the kiss of death.

Like, is it gonna.

It's almost.

I'm so.

Mr.

Abrams, if you're listening, I'm so sorry for what I'm about to Say to you, J.J.

abrams, working on your movie or film at this point, I think we've seen enough of his stuff that it's like, oh, this is evidence that this movie, film, show will not transcend at all.

This premise does offer excitement, minus any sort of puzzle or big reveal that he's known to take a shit on.

It's not even that, like his Star wars movies weren't built around really surprises.

They sucked.

His Star Trek movies sucked.

They just weren't good.

He did other movies that I can't remember.

I just remember the, the fake out with Chewbacca dying in that final new chili.

Yeah, you're right.

And it's like that's supposed to try to surprise and it's just like that's stupid.

No, it was stupid.

I didn't care for it.

I just.

I'm thinking about J.J.

abrams now.

Like how he's almost like a corporate thing, you know, like, oh, we'll just put him.

We'll attach him to this project.

Like how do people that everybody seems to kind of just go eh, about their work like continue to get work.

Yeah.

Well, have you ever seen him talk?

He seems like a super nice guy.

Yes, he does.

That's why I feel bad for what I said about him because he seems like if I think if we hung out, I would genuinely enjoy hanging out with him.

I don't feel good about questioning him.

I'm just, I'm wondering how the.

What we're going to talk about the studio later.

It's like thinking in those terms, like how does this get made?

You know?

Yeah.

I tell you what, I will make a promise to listeners and to you too, guys.

I will watch an episode this week of Duster and tell you more on it and I may watch more if I like it.

So we'll.

Can we get him on short takes?

Jj yeah.

What's he up to?

I talked to his age.

Work through, work through some of this stuff.

I would try this program.

That's my, my rating there.

Yeah, it's got a certain aesthetic I think that I might like.

Next up is Murderbot on Apple tv.

It's production based off a series of novellas about a security robot played by Alexander Skarsgard, who's.

I like him a lot.

And this Murderbot, this robot develops emotions and it's getting great reviews.

So Murderbot.

And it's like a 30 minute series which is not what I thought it would be.

I'm gonna go based on premise and name that.

If I had to give my interest rating out of a 10 0.

Yeah, bad name.

Bad name.

But it is getting good reviews.

So.

Yeah, I don't like Skarsgard.

So I do like Skarsgard.

It's supposed to be kind of funny.

I don't like that.

Yeah, the reviews have been really good.

I was.

This is me.

I'm really going to get some hate mail this week.

I.

I was kind of having like, some.

Having some knowledge of the novellas that this grew out of.

I felt extremely allergic to this project.

Did you read any of them?

Excerpt.

Didn't like it.

Thought.

I thought it was kind of like reading the Martian or something where it's like, yeah, I get that he's the sarcastic guy, you know, Like, I just.

It's just not.

It's just not funny.

And it felt like he was trying way too hard.

I sincerely apologize to the author of those novellas because I've never published anything or done anything, had any of my things made into a show.

So Blaine mentioned that people listen to the podcast at the top of this episode, and Donovan cannot get out of his head that he is personally offending everyone.

I'm just worried, man.

Everyone from Alexander Skarsgard to JJ Abrams listens to this podcast.

I feel like there's a certain stupid predictability in me being like, oh, I don't like this because it is written by a woman.

Oh, it is, yes.

Written the novellas and she's been very successful.

And it's just not my cup of tea.

But I might look at it.

Gotcha then.

On Netflix, new series, brand new, came out this weekend.

It's called Sirens stars Julianne Moore and Millie Acock, where Julianne Moore plays a boss who may or may not be some sort of cult leader to her employees.

Yeah, I watched Severance.

I'm intrigued by that.

I kind of am.

It also got a fair review that I saw as a headline, and I thought maybe might.

Might give it a shot.

Depends on how time goes, because Netflix usually drops to the lowest of my list on when it comes to time.

Jumping back to Apple tv.

Plus, this one's been on for several weeks now, and it might even be wrapping up.

It's called Government Cheese.

It's about a newly released ex convict played by David Oyelowo, who's trying to reunite with his family and ignore his past life of crime.

It's a period piece, I think, out of the 60s or 70s.

Look, I mean, everything about that sounds really good.

I just haven't seen any headlines about it at all.

But I.

I really want to watch A shame, too.

Yeah.

I also have seen Nothing, which is a shame because it has a great leading man there.

David Oyelowo is very watchable.

I've never seen him in anything that he wasn't excellent in.

He was in Silo.

Remember the early episodes of Silo?

Oh, I didn't watch that.

Adam, do you remember him being in Silo?

He was like The Sheriff.

Oh, yeah.

There is always these shows that it is like hits the if I get around to it category and fairly or unfairly things go into that category.

And this I think is solidly if I get around to it.

Yeah.

It honestly, I'm kind of a sucker for that.

That period piece thing.

I'm a sucker for Criminal trying to do right.

Yeah.

Man.

You must have loved season four of the Wire.

I loved all of the Wire.

Let's go to fx.

They haven't had anything out we've talked about lately.

This one is coming in a week or two.

It's called Adults.

It's a comedy series with a cast of mostly unknowns, about 20 somethings trying to become adults, trying to live in an adult world.

Heavily leaning into the Girls.

I was gonna say, I've seen Girls aesthetic.

Yes.

From hbo.

Yeah.

It comes out, I think this week, garnering praise from various sources.

I mean, this is in the same way that you enjoy Criminal trying to make good programs.

I enjoy this genre quite a bit.

It's always.

It's always fun to me.

Young adult trying to be real world.

Yeah.

And I would be interested specifically because like me and Donovan and our wives would watch Girls.

We had a long spell where that was.

Because it was always on after the.

The hour long Prestige.

Whether it was Game of Thrones or.

Yeah.

Or True Detective when that was running.

Which is hilarious to think about those running back to back Russ Cole and then whatever Lena Dunham got into that week.

But it would be interesting now, some years removed from feeling like we were seeing our generation get screen time now versus.

Versus now.

Looking at the generation that follows what their version of that story is as a newly aging person would be interesting.

If it's done well.

There's something kind of great about the like, I'm trying to be an adult.

I'm trying to figure out what it is and the same.

What life is.

In the same way that the Buildings from On is an evergreen genre.

Just in the sense that like you're kind like as you're trying to figure out your place in life, you're asking big questions and there's a lot of opportunities, opportunity for depth and insight and comedy.

And my favorite thing from Girls is from the first season.

God, I've been thinking about it all this week.

I can't get it out of my head.

You're gonna have to censor this part out.

There's a bit where Zosia Momay's character or Mamet.

I don't know how you say her last name is like, she's never had sex, but she's having a sexual encounter and the guy's giving her oral sex and it just goes to her face and she goes, okay, okay.

Like she says, like, she's just confused by it.

It is so funny and she does such a good job.

I just want to jump back for listeners, Donovan used the word buildings.

Roman, as we probably pronounced it wrongly, just in case anybody missed that word.

Also coming out, I think this week, next week, now this one I think I'm.

I'm all in on.

It's stick on Apple tv.

It's a bit of a trope sort of show.

But here's what destroys the trope.

Owen Wilson.

He's playing a washed up golfer who takes up a new guy under his wing.

And I love Owen Wilson.

This give me.

Oh, man.

Yeah, I'm all in.

Just air it now.

He opens doors into stories that I would otherwise not.

I mean, like, Owen Wilson being like a wealthy person on screen.

I'm always like, yeah, I'm here for this.

I don't give a shit about golf and country club life.

But tell me all about Owen Wilson doing it.

You've seen the videos of him skateboarding, right, with those guys, like, currently, they're not that old.

No.

Yeah, he's like an old.

Yeah, he's kind of older than the kids who are skateboarding.

And he just like, he's so nonchalant.

Like, he is.

And then he just gets on the skateboard and like, does all kinds of tricks.

You haven't seen this?

No, I'm gonna look it up.

I gotta look this up.

I've not seen this worth a Google.

This is a sneaky.

Why am I discovering that I'm a bigger Owen Wilson fan than I thought I was?

Oh, man.

Admit it.

I love the guy.

I mean, I just hadn't considered it because he's always been there, you know?

Well, both of y' all are huge.

Royal Tenenbaums.

Oh, man, he's the best.

So good.

Yeah, I feel like he gets underappreciated in the Darjeeling Limited too, as the.

Kind of like, this is exactly what I was.

He's the.

The.

He doesn't play the straight man.

No, he's the neurotic, fussy older brother.

And like, he's.

It's not like a really, like, hammy performance.

It's almost kind of under low, lower key for what it is.

But he does such a good job.

And it's just Adrien Brody in Schwartzman get so many iconic moments and he's kind of there to antagonize them.

Absolutely.

Or.

But like he's so good at deliver.

Like the bit where he's like mad at.

Because Adrien Brody's character has like the dad's belt.

He's like.

There's something about the way he delivers the line.

I just don't want you thinking you are better friends with dad than the rest of us.

It's like there's something petulant and it's just so good.

He's so good at that.

Can I admit here that I have watched Midnight in Paris probably a dozen times.

Oh, same here.

Yeah.

Because of Owen Wilton probably.

That was before I had read Woody Allen's Wikipedia page.

I mean, I'm not proud of the fact that I've done that.

Owen Wilton was also just so good in Loki.

Yeah, he was a lot of fun.

He was so fun there.

I'm not gonna say he carried it because Hiddleston was great too.

But yeah, Proof of Apple TV and their list of great efforts is your Friends and Neighbors, which I can't wait to get back into.

It's probably on its back half.

Might even be ending.

I've enjoyed every episode I've seen since I took a pause of late.

But it's airing and I plan on finishing.

It's super good.

The Jon Hamm vehicle for your Friends and neighbors.

Super good.

You know that you can just watch Mad Men again.

It's kind of cool to see him in this though.

I know it is.

But the and I this longtime listeners will know that if you're tracking what YouTube TV is doing right now.

The stories by AMC channel is back on Mad Men and has been for three weeks.

And I.

I have just got nothing done in my life.

On Max and HBO is the three part docu series Pee Wee as himself, which is a lot of archival footage of Paul Rubens, his castmates, interviews with them, a look back at the character of Pee Wee Herman and sort of Paul Rubens getting to that character.

I'm a little older than you guys.

Pee Wee Herman had a.

I wouldn't say an impact, but he had a place in my childhood.

I'm kind of fascinated to see what they can tell me about both Rubens and the character that I don't know.

Early reviews have been, I think positive.

If I've seen this is something I've not been like, oh, I gotta see it.

Just because I'm probably five to ten years too young for Pee Wee Kerman being part of my childhood.

When they do the three part docu series on Big Bird, I'm gonna be watching that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Hasn't that been done.

Behind the scenes with Wishbone?

That'll be where I'm there.

Of course, 100 foot wave is airing, which is good stuff.

We've covered it here, so I won't spend a lot of time on it.

And there's even.

Andor which we haven't discussed at all.

It too is either at the end or has ended.

Donovan, you've seen it.

Disney's been kind of doing it a disservice by releasing it in three episode drops.

Yeah.

On the other hand, it's been fantastic.

Yeah.

Now that seems to be one of the most well reviewed things that's come out this year that we're.

I haven't seen any of it, so.

Me either.

As guilty as anybody else.

Haven't finished it.

Thought what I've seen is incredible and really works.

It's so good that it makes Star wars like simultaneously like better and worse.

Mm.

It takes it the material seriously, but not in like the pseudo adult way where it's like serious means swears and guns and it's like.

No, it takes it seriously, but at the same time, the stuff, the worst of Star wars shows up very poorly next to this.

Is it like your pronunciation of buildings?

Roman?

I guess.

Bear with me on this one because I want to jump beyond summer and I saw this last night and I was praying it was coming out next week.

It's the HBO series Task.

Have you seen the trailer for this?

Mm.

Mm.

It must be brand new.

It's well in the distance.

It doesn't come out until September, but holy shit, it.

This will be my favorite show.

It's got Mark Ruffalo playing a detective.

It's got a sympathetic bad guys and it's from the creator of Mayor of Easttown.

And it looks like.

Yeah, okay.

I did see a trailer for that until you said Mayor of East Town.

It was hidden in my brain and.

It looks like the perfect HBO show.

I'm in.

I mean, saying you've got your Sunday nights locked up.

Yes, of course they're going to air on Sunday so that we have to cover a week behind.

But hey, that's what.

Anyway, that was way too.

That's September.

That's a.

Well in Alabama.

It's not quite after summer, but that'll.

Be in the oh, please, God, let it end part of summer.

Yeah, that'll be.

Did Alabama win or not?

Okay, let's watch Task now.

Right, we're.

In the section of the podcast where we don't discuss specifics, so there's no need to run or hide if you're in the still watching the the Last of Us or the studio.

But we'll start with the studio comedy from Apple tv Plus, created by Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg, Freda Perez, Peter Huick, and Alex Gregory.

Long list.

It's about Seth Rogen's character, Matt Remick, who's been promoted as head of a major studio, and he has to figure out what to do with his powers.

A lot of guest stars, callbacks, Inside Hollywood jokes in the best way, and a lot of laughs.

I think we've praised it in recent episodes.

So you guys are still on board with it, right?

Yes.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I, Yeah, I have to admit, I said on the show that it is so intense that it stresses me out a bit at times.

I had to kind of calibrate to watching it.

So I feel like I was very on board at first, and then, like canon, I endured this program and then landed back at, yeah, I'm gonna.

I'm here for the duration.

It's.

I feel like once I started to get a handle on the characters better, it actually became less stressful for me.

I don't know why that is.

Yeah, I think some of that is just.

I don't know, just getting more used to it.

But, like, by the time it hit the.

Like the episode where they're worried that they're making things racist and it just makes everything more racist.

Like that.

Like, the cascading tragedy of them trying to fix it was like, oh, yeah, I'm on board for this.

I think you have to.

And I don't think this is spoiler.

Since we're this far into the season, you have to let go of your hopes that he's going to smoothly accomplish anything.

Yes.

You know, you're rooting for the Matt character, for the Seth Rogen character to pull off the objective of making great art and also financially succeeding early on.

You're like, oh, this will be just hijinks along the way.

No, no, no, that's not what the show is.

It's stellar, it's sharp.

It's worth the time it takes to watch.

I think the characters are lovable despite their huge Grand Canyon defects.

I actually agree with that, everyone.

Like, once when you get to the end of it, I feel like even, like in part of this is, I just think Seth.

Some people can't stand him, but I just think Seth Rogen projects likable when he's on tv, but you're kind of like, oh, these guys, like, they're just like, there's something so.

Because they're so flawed and fallible, but they're also like, oh, well, they're.

They're people, you know, like, they've got hopes and dreams, too.

You kind of want them to succeed.

People who don't like this show yet have watched it might have a problem looking at themselves.

I think that a lot of these characters serve to remind me of my own character defects.

I know we talked about the Curb comparison, but there's a level of that that I understand why somebody would walk away from.

Is renewed for second season.

If you're a listener like me who gets on the fence about a show, that may help sometimes I'm like, well, is it going to be around for a while?

So this would have been a good one and done.

But I'm glad that it's coming back, and I do.

Me, too.

I think this is, like, people will just, like Adam said, like, hate it for the same reason I'm about to propose.

You love it.

But if you love comedies of the ego, which I think there's a lot of ripe potential, you know, there.

To quote Tobias Hunke, this is ripe for parody.

In addition to all the other good stuff it's doing, it's got a really good eye on just, like, people's feelings and projections of self and how that is battered in many different ways.

Speaking of shows coming to a close, at least seasonally, it's the Last of Us.

I like that we paired these two together because I think the studio asks, do you like to laugh?

And that's cool.

And then the Last of Us is like, do you like to cry?

Yeah, yeah.

But both big emotions.

I'd be curious to note if listeners hear the Deadwood score.

When I watched the Last of Us, Deadwood, Die Hards might notice similarities in the score.

Well, they're kind of.

They're kind of both Westerns at this point.

That.

Well, that's a.

You know.

Yeah.

Much more than.

Much more than the first season was.

I haven't made that comparison in myself, but I've seen that.

What are your feelings on season two of the Last of Us?

Wasn't sure.

A couple episodes, like, there's things I like, there's things I dislike.

Okay, this is plausible.

This is less plausible.

And then the last episode kind of wrapped it all up for me.

I was like, oh, now they're dropping pieces into place.

Now that makes sense.

Yeah.

I was worried about the show and the direction it was taken, but I.

I was worried, too, but now I'm.

I think I'm not worried anymore.

Right.

My anxieties were greatly eased by some forward movement, but it moved at such a quick pace for an episode or two that I forgot my worries.

Yeah.

And I forgot what sort of thematic show it was turning into.

And then, like you said, the most recent episode helped a lot.

It is kind of, I think, always a risk that I commend creators for taking.

When you do have that, you're kind of playing a long game where it's like, the things.

This is going to make you feel unsettled.

And then when we get to this, everything's going to kind of drop into place.

But you have to have, like, a kind of trust of your audience that they're going to make it through, you know, with you, to the point where it all starts to make sense.

Yeah, yeah.

And they could do that here.

The audience is probably a little built in.

Yeah.

I mean, it's the second season, not the first, for sure.

Yeah.

And the video game thing aspect.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

We're gonna take a break after.

We'll dissect some of these in the order that we've mentioned them.

Okay.

We're gonna maintain the same order the shows we discussed earlier, but here we're gonna discuss specifics.

We may ruin jokes, may tell plot points, Start with the studio from Apple tv.

If I can oversimplify a stance.

It's just fun to watch, I think.

Why is Bryan Cranston so good at everything he's in?

Yeah, he is.

Have you ever seen that video of him being interviewed by Rainn Wilson?

And Rainn Wilson's like, how does it feel?

You know, we're guys who maybe get identified with one character.

I'm like, that's not what's happening here.

I think that people are going to get justifiably angry with Matt Remick and his inability to know when to shut the fuck up.

But as I mentioned last time we podcasted about this, oh, so many weeks ago, I just relate to him.

He's a larger version of the mishaps I create in my own life.

I feel like if you're able to accept that as, like, oh, okay, I understand that this is gonna be part of the vehicle that drives the comedy too.

It is kind of funny to, like, when you know that it basically is set up to be like, okay, this is gonna go wrong for them in the worst possible way at the worst possible time.

That's actually pretty funny.

And then I did enjoy, because that is the vehicle for so much of a humor, how towards the end of this series, they ended up subverting that and they have thing.

Everything goes perfectly at exactly the right time.

Let's focus on a few episodes that lead up to the final two.

They recreated the Golden Globes.

Have you read anything about how they did this?

It's like an amazing feat, right?

I mean, I haven't read.

I'm just.

I'm curious if you.

If you did the homework of, like, how did they.

The whole time I was watching it, I thought, how did they do this?

They just got everybody in one place and did it in the spot where the Golden Globes is set usually.

Right.

Do you think that they did this in the way that when you're in your 20s and you need help moving, you're like, hey, I'm going to have pizza and beer if everybody can just come over for this one night.

Gene Smart's like, this is the last time I help you out, Seth.

Right.

So many guest stars in this one.

Very good.

Notably Zoe Kravitz.

I have really.

They.

They really have been smart about their guest stars, too.

Yeah.

Where it's like, they're fun cameos, but they don't overwhelm it at all.

And nobody minds playing a version of themselves that is close enough to reality that when they have the asshole turn, you know, like, it's.

It's really kind.

You would think that you have to have a good sense of humor about yourself because, yeah, you know, they all have some ugly moment, generally.

Except for Martin Scorsese, who's just.

Again, that was so funny.

Poor, sweet Martin Scorsese.

I really did enjoy this Golden Globes episode for the, like, the pathos.

And it's almost kind of a tragedy of Matt.

Just like, he's got.

He's the head of a studio, right.

He can collect vintage sports cars, right?

Like, he can.

He's got all this money and power, and he just wants to be thanked.

And there's almost.

There's this, like, almost sad thing because, like, he.

He wants to imagine himself throughout the show as this artist, as someone who's facilitating art, and often he's just facilitating crap.

He's not an artist.

He's, you know, he is a penny pincher, as they call it.

He's a bean counter.

A bean counter.

That's what it was.

Bean counter.

But he wants it so bad.

And I get.

I felt that for him.

Yeah.

That combined with like can't shake phone calls from his mom saying, you're gonna think, do you get to go on stage in.

In his own like muddle headed way where it's like, it's not really malicious.

He just wants a thank you.

That's all he wants.

He needs that thank you to make up for the lack of a wife and child and all of the.

Exactly.

Convenient, conventional things.

As much as any comedy we've seen lately, this is as thematic and rich as any comedy that I've maybe seen in a long time.

Because we do have this idea that he's compensating, he's normal.

People have that feeling of no, I don't really want to be thanked.

But then when it's over you're like, well, why the fuck wasn't I thanked?

Right.

It's very much like Larry David flailing throughout the episode, but driven from such a different place of not only desperation to be recognized but also just included.

Mm, yeah.

A deep desire to be part of the club.

Yeah.

Larry David usually comes from I'm right and you're an idiot point of view.

And you get on board with that pretty easily.

I'm just saying he would create a similar wake of problems in that room.

But it's from the different point of view, from the different angle.

Whereas Matt Remick is just, just love me.

I love movies and I want to, you know, also be loved.

And there's the big.

We can go back, we can jump some episodes here.

There's the big moment where he's at.

The cancer benefit, pediatric oncologist.

Thank you.

With his then girlfriend and he, you know, they get in this huge argument that the doctors are telling him what you do is absolutely unimportant to anyone.

That's almost their stance.

This was a fun flipping of the script.

Right from like self important Hollywood types usually being lampooned to these doctor, I mean of course they keep people alive.

So it's kind of like you can't argue, this is not subjective.

That yes, keeping people alive is if you're in a hierarchy of need situation, more important than what he does.

But they're just such assholes about it.

That made it so delightful where you're like, there's such assholes about it that you're like.

Cause you know, if you really start to think about it, you're like, Matt, is your work crucial?

You're making Kool Aid, the movie is that important.

But they're just such dicks about it.

You're like, you know what?

Art is important, even if it is Kool Aid, the movie.

As that episode went on, I agreed more and more with him.

Yeah, it's.

It's so funny.

Like, it makes you, like, against the pediatric oncologist, which is hilarious.

Brian Eno has this thing where he talks about, we have.

People would say art is not an essential part of life, yet for all of human history, we have made art.

So obviously it is something that we are incapable of not doing.

It is part of the human experience.

And so trying to, you know, this is almost like a government funding argument.

You know, like, is the arts as important as, like, stem stuff or whatever?

And it's like, well, yes, we do need people trained to make sure the bridges that we're driving across are all these things.

But, like, how do you quantify what art does?

And is it worth being alive if, like, are we human if we don't have these things?

And I would say no.

But obviously this is.

Was reduced down for this episode into, like, everyone's kind of a jerk.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Are we human if we don't have the Kool Aid movie?

Right.

Like, you're not talking about.

He's not selling van Gogh's paintings 115 years ago so that there can be more.

You know, this is.

It's a different.

He's not working with Brynn.

You know, he's.

He's making Kool Aid.

Yeah, but even that, you know, after you've seen that.

And what.

Even though they're making fun of the studio, freaking out about diversity, inclusivity, all of these things, like, it still meant something, like, to have to go and work through those issues, and it still be important enough to do.

I don't know why I'm arguing for Kool Aid here, but, like, obviously, we.

All love Kool Aid, the movie.

Even dumb movies are capable of asking questions about our society that are important to have conversations about, I think is.

What I'm getting sometimes.

I think that sometimes does happen.

My favorite line of this, of that episode was when he yells at his girlfriend, they cured cancer.

I did not know that.

Didn't realize y' all had cured cancer.

I just loved when they're loading him in the ambulance and he still will not let it go.

Yeah, that.

That was my favorite part.

There's gonna be a tv.

There'll be screams.

It also just, like, it reinforced his character as, like, this childlike moron, you know, in a way.

Like, he just.

He.

He is a true believer in what he's saying, even if you disagree with his point, it's like he believes this with his whole heart.

And this gets back to what I was saying, that this comedy has complexity and thematic ideas that I haven't seen in a lot of comedies.

There are some.

And I think that it reaches its apex with its ideas in the episode with the Doctors.

And then the episode which is titled Casting, which we brought up briefly about how.

What do you.

What do you do to balance the scales of what mirrors America?

Making sure you have a diverse film, making sure that it's fair, you know, or equitable, and then just going crazy over that idea.

And it was such a good episode.

And I kept thinking, there's no way they're going to actually get Ice Cube to play the part that they're talking about, the version of Ice Cube that they're talking about.

But they do, and it's great.

It is, I think, really smartly and subtly asking questions about.

For an episode that doesn't seem super subtle, it's asking really good questions about who is in the room, who's being consulted, who gets to decide.

And I think they really highlight that with Kathryn Hahn's character repeatedly throwing white women under the bus and was like, you are a white woman.

She's like, my father was from Cyprus.

But just this.

I thought that was actually really clever in, like, we can have, like, this identity, this position, this power, and yet still be very blind.

Right.

As we're.

As we're having these conversations, as we're doing these things, as we're figuring out who's included and excluded from the room.

I just thought it was.

It was very.

Yeah, it was very good.

It was good.

And it's also nice of them to bring back in the Kool Aid movie.

I know we've talked about it a lot, but this was the first episode that brought it back because I started casting for it.

I'm so annoyed that the Martin Scorsese movie doesn't exist.

I still need to bring this up.

We talked about this, haven't we?

Not maybe not on Mike, but the Jonestown thing.

Yeah.

It is being brought to us by Bill Hader.

It's not Martin Scorsese.

It's not.

I'm sorry, Bill Hader.

Well, it's not.

But don't disregard Bill Hader, Barry.

I'm not one of the top shows of the last, what, 10 years or so?

Yeah, definitely.

Decade.

You know, I was.

It's funny that I was begging for more Sal.

And not just Sal, but Sal on Coke and That's really what you get in the last half of this series.

It does deliver.

It delivers.

And then it's.

It's so good that it's Sal that gets the attention in the Golden Globes instead of Matt.

It becomes a running joke.

I've got to thank this Sal person just over and.

Yeah, like, that's part of what, like, I just loved.

You know, we're kind of talking about like the, like the very human pathos of it.

And it is, it's doing that thing that Curb would do sometimes too, where it's like the thing that like, you fear or you can handle the least coming out of this is exactly what's happening around you and you just.

And you just can't deal with it at all.

Yeah, he's like this, this is all he wants.

He wants people to think he's cool.

He wants people to know his name.

He wants to be thanked on stage.

And old Sal's ripping coke and getting, you know, dancing on tables, continuously ripping coke.

The fact that Sal has two young daughters who don't give a about him is just one of my favorite components of this series that.

That lasts all of three minutes the most.

I love that he's very clear eyed about his first off the two daughters.

Like the one doing like the baby voice or whatever.

And he's just like, he's just like, he can't deal with it.

But then after that he's just like, my kids are really stupid.

I'm gonna need to provide for that.

Like, he's incredibly clear eyed about his children.

Sal, maybe best character of the year.

Low key.

Also with the, with the Golden Globes episode, I mean, they just take down so much of the.

That the three of us might also try to take down if we were smart enough.

And one of it is the tik tock generation there at the Golden Globes filming the red carpet.

And, and Matt says, I can remember when the red carpet used to stand for something.

He repeated jokes that like, his mom has told all her friends at whatever retirement community that George Seinfeld.

I mean, all the parents in Seinfeld, everyone's parents in Seinfeld ended up in Florida.

Like, she's told everyone there, like, oh, my son's gonna be on stage.

And just like her continued inability to understand what's happening and disappointment.

Yeah.

Running through it.

Yeah.

Costanza.

George Costanza.

Geez, why could I not think of that?

Oh, yeah, you go to George Seinfeld.

She's.

She's.

My brain broke.

She's clearly at the same retirement village that the Costanzas are at.

Oh, yeah, in Florida.

Yeah.

The Seinfelds and Costanza still live in New York.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

They do, don't they?

Donova.

Just making a mess out of this.

Oh, my goodness.

I'll have to clean this up.

There is a wonderful.

It's so fun picture of Adam Scott and Ike Barinholtz as young men.

Like really young men, 20 years old together.

You can.

You can find that pretty easily online because the.

The joke is that Adam Scott slept on.

Excuse.

Yeah, no, he plays Adam Scott.

That's right.

Adam Scott slept on Sal's couch coming into Hollywood.

Adam Scott was so good in this episode too.

So good.

I was really.

I got a little, I don't know, laugh or smile out of the fact that they didn't use severance.

Yeah.

You know, they're on Apple TV plus, but they didn't use severance.

They kept using Netflix and Ted's.

Ted Sereno's rather than Tim Cook.

It was.

I thought that was pretty genius.

It was in his.

His speech.

Not speech, but monologue.

Very brief to Matt about.

Just like, just put it in the contract and count your beans.

Yeah, yeah, he had it figured out.

Donovan, do you have any issue with a two part finale for the studio?

No, this was perfectly fine.

I feel like that because the second part was a little shorter.

It ends up feeling a little slight as compared to the first one.

But I was laughing the whole time through.

Yeah, there were some good gags in both of them.

And the way the last episode decides that it's going to subvert, like everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

It's like everything miraculously goes right.

Was also funny to see how they're stumbling their way to success.

Yeah.

And Bryan Cranston is hilarious.

Yeah.

Here we get a whole lot more Bryan Cranston and he's playing a part you never see on screen, which is the head of the head of the movie studio.

I didn't even know such a thing existed.

Oh, yeah.

So like what, what does he do?

Give the money or something?

Yeah, he's like.

He's like David Zaslav or something.

Like, I guess he's like in charge of all of Warner Brothers stuff.

So he'll meddle around with HBO and all that.

Yeah.

I found myself thinking I would have maybe preferred two separate narratives with a slight connection, but it worked okay, I thought.

I did love the somewhat serialization of the entire series.

The studio movies that were mentioned or worked on earlier became smaller plot points throughout.

It's just sharp writing to keep those on the bulletin board in the writer's room and use them again.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

Like when they're doing the fake trailers for all of the movies that we've seen so far.

I used to.

That Matt has.

Matt has ruined in his own.

His own way.

I used to scream at TV shows for.

For bringing up something new and like you brought up whatever three episodes, just use it again.

One point in the final two episodes that they got to chuckle up from me is that Bryan Cranston's much older than Imagine character Griffin Meal.

He's way older than both CR and what people think.

That was just funny to me that he's 82.

He's like 82 or something like that.

And doing coke and doing all the drugs.

And it was so humorous to me because I kept thinking, just give him coke.

If he's that down and out, give him some blow.

But it didn't quite work.

It didn't work enough.

I will admit.

I don't know why I thought, like, Dave Franco, playing a really annoying version of himself was like, oh, this is somewhat funny.

And then right at the end, he comes in, he's all beat up.

He's clearly, you know, he's been doing coke or whatever, and they're just worried, what are you gonna do?

He goes out on stage, he's so professional.

He nails it, and then he comes back like, you did it, you did it.

He's like, oh, my God, I need an ambulance.

Just falls over.

He had been beaten up.

He really made me laugh.

I'm digging that.

Matt had a relationship with Kathryn Hahn's character and there's no explanation, quote unquote.

They don't do that anymore.

Right.

They just happen to absorb one another in a moment of extreme drug use.

And Zoe Kravitz really knows how to play someone who has taken way too many mushrooms.

A lot of mushrooms.

That was really telegraphed.

When he picks up the mushrooms and the lady tells him the amount you're supposed to take, you knew then, oh, no, they're not gonna take that amount.

I feel like the characterization is fairly strong at this point because you know that he's like, he can't even ask this person.

Like, he doesn't want to seem like he doesn't know something.

Right.

He's not cool.

So he can't even ask like a basic question and ends up drugging Zoe Kravitz.

He's such a buffoon that he can't stand looking like a buffoon.

Exactly.

Like many of us, right?

Yes.

Yes, I am a buffoon, and I do not want to come off as one.

Yeah.

I think all of it, which is kind of like there's sort of that, like, you know, the little pathos there.

Right.

Where you're kind of like.

I kind of ident.

I've done this stupid thing because I haven't wanted to seem like I didn't know what I was talking about.

You know, we've all done that.

Exactly.

Lovely show.

I'm.

I'm real thrilled, especially with the way it ended.

I'm thrilled that it's going to come back.

We still don't know if they got sold to Amazon or will.

Yeah, they.

They pulled out.

They pulled it off.

But that's the cliffhanger.

Yeah, it's the cliffhanger you mentioned briefly.

It could have been a one and done, but no, I think another season to see the Amazon mess or if that's going to be an Amazon, if they get Jeff Bezos as a guest star.

I feel like this show for me was very strong in the first two episodes from being like, oh, here's Martin Scorsese.

You like him.

Here's movie making.

And it really did build off of that to.

To at the end where I was like.

By the end of it, I was like, I genuinely enjoy these characters.

I genuinely enjoy these.

I'm kind of rooting for them a little bit.

Like, I think it did.

I think it just built itself really intelligently across the.

Not that it was all perfect, but it's the series that's made me laugh the hardest this year.

And I think the episode casting is my favorite episode of comedy.

Yeah, that's come out this year.

Yes.

Like, that was.

They were firing on all cylinders.

Yes.

It's so nice to see a sitcom kind of show have depth as well.

Yeah.

So, kudos.

Let's shift gears, though, okay.

As we bid adieu to the studio, we will soon be saying goodbye to the Last of Us.

Now, regular listeners know we're always an episode behind for Sunday shows, but Donovan and I are going to analyze these most recent episodes of the Last of Us, which we haven't had a chance to do.

It's going to take us right up to the penultimate episode and we'll discuss it.

In fact, that might be the primary focus of our conversation.

Well, I tell you, let's.

Let's do backup one.

Okay.

Let me orient our viewers if I can.

It was called Feel Her Love.

I think it's Episode five of the season that's airing.

It's few.

If that doesn't ring a bell to anyone.

It's the one where Dina and Ellie are.

Are.

It's day two in Seattle, and they're really in the.

And I thought that this was the episode where I was already okay with the.

With the huge, monumental shift.

But here I thought, this is a tantalizing piece of television.

Mm.

You know, I want to know what happens.

I want to see where it's going.

Yeah, I agree.

And I don't.

Still.

Not completely.

I'm still not 100% sold on the thematic shift.

I mentioned this, and I'll just reiterate.

Do I want it to be a question of what does violence do to us versus what would a father do for his daughter?

I like that second question a whole lot better, but it's still a good TV show.

My concern is about the oriented, because I do think for the first season, the strength of it was, what would a father do for his daughter, especially as he's coming.

They're both kind of growing into these roles with each other.

Exactly.

And so I think I agree with you, Blaine.

But then I think that the most recent episode kind of actually hooked it all around and connected those things back together.

Did it connect it too late for you?

No, it worked for what hit.

Because you started.

It was.

Because it was.

By going back and showing you what you didn't see.

It was like, yeah, now I see the context for.

For a lot of stuff.

And now I'm starting to understand.

And it's.

It is asking.

I think it's asking more than just like, you know, hey, does hurting people make you a bad person?

Usually, you know, it seems to.

It seems to be bad for you.

But I think there's even just.

They've kind of suggested it that parenthood is something that's on Ellie's mind now, you know, and so hooking it back in with.

Yes.

Okay.

She's trying to get revenge for Joel, but now she knows there's a baby on the way with, you know, her friend girlfriend, Dina.

And then we get the concept of.

Is what really ground the show for me.

The idea that you're just trying to do a little bit better than the way you were taught.

Yeah.

Hang on to that idea.

We'll definitely, you know, and that.

Is that real?

This all that snapped it together for me.

Definitely gonna bring that back up.

Great little line could be in the game, for all I know, with Ellie saying, I'm gonna be a dad.

Yeah, that was.

She delivered it very well.

She does her line delivery with anyone else but Bella Ramsey, I would maybe not like as much and even groan.

That's exactly it.

Like, Bella Ramsey, they do such a good job of, like, this kid should be obnoxious.

Yeah.

But you kind of can't help but grin at them because they're just irrepressible.

She was a little obnoxious in episode one, but I hung in there.

Obviously, it wasn't quite that bad, but I thought that it was a little overplayed.

I couldn't tell if it was the direction or the acting.

I thought it could have been pared down some.

But from episode two until now, I've loved it.

I would almost say I'd love it.

Yeah.

And I think that this is not a slight on Bella Ramsey, but I think that we kind of discussed this.

Right.

Like, when you take away.

You know, they had the dynamic between Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, and when you take away Pedro Pascal, it's not.

You just don't know how it's gonna go.

And I do think Bella, one of the things just very quickly this show has done is it's really focused on Bella Ramsey, on Ellie very well, and done a good job of bringing in other people in her orbit so that she's still able to have relationships with the other folks that are on screen instead of just like, okay, it's just Ellie now, and there's no Joel, and she's completely def.

By him not being there, and that's just not the case.

Yeah.

I mean, I.

I question not only the thematic shift, but the shift of, do I want to watch a show that promised me Pedro Pascal?

But it's not Pedro Pascal now, and that's not a cut against Bella Ramsey, obviously.

Not anymore, because I think she is phenomenal.

Oh, that was kind of the fruit.

My point of that whole long ramblers.

It's on her shoulders.

Yeah.

She can.

And she's pulling it off.

Yeah.

She's very lovable.

She's very lovable.

Yeah.

Line delivery is.

Is on point.

Before I move into the penultimate episode, I wanted to ask, though, the episode of Feel Her Love where they get rescued by young Manzino's character of Jesse.

Jesse.

Yeah.

I don't have it.

Yeah.

That was fine for me.

That was a funny moment for me as a viewer, because I kept thinking it's about time for somebody to have caught up to them.

Yes.

And then, sure enough, they get.

And it was right before they go into the abandoned warehouse or factory or whatever it is.

I was thinking, yeah, if somebody was going to catch up with them two days.

They've been there two days.

It's about that time where they would start bumping into somebody from Jackson.

And so to me, it was perfectly timed.

Everything's fine.

You know what is almost funny to me as I'm reflecting on these episodes is I think we.

And this is not bad.

I think this is a testament to the show.

But we're sort of talking about more, like, thematic elements.

But, like, as far as, like, the show itself goes, it is also very compelling in the set.

Like, do you like watching, like, you know, like, thriller stuff?

Do you like watching, like, a little spy and espionage stuff?

Do you.

The horror stuff is still, you know, like, the other stuff in the show is still very well done and very compelling.

It makes you want to watch, like you said.

Yeah.

It does have that element of horror.

Oh, yeah.

Especially now that when they were in.

The factory abandoned warehouse and.

And they start counting how many of the smarter cordyceps are there.

It got a little freaky fear.

That's.

That's exactly what I was.

That.

That was the moment I was thinking of.

And then even later with the, like, you know, which they've done before, but just the body horror stuff of these people who have been completely overtaken by the fungi.

That's right.

Which she bumps into in the basement of the hospital, tracking down Nora.

Very good work.

From the costume department or the props and effects department.

And because it's really incredibly gross and kind of hard to look at.

Yeah, but that's body horror, right?

Like, it's doing a good job.

HBO has done a great job of funding this, and you can see it in every aspect.

Well, let's get into this penultimate episode, and my question for you, I think, to lead, is, how would this have worked for you as a first episode part of it?

I think, like, I know that my emotions are being played with, and I think this would have been a mistake to have as the first episode because I feel like losing Pedro Pascal and really losing him.

I might be wrong, but I think he wasn't even in the credits on the episodes that he's in the opening.

Credits for the penultimate.

He was.

Yes, sorry, I meant in the opening credits for the episodes that he was not in.

That's correct.

And then this one, I noticed that he was back.

So I think that really losing him and then going back and getting all this context and having some gaps filled in does put us in Ellie's shoes a little Bit we can sort of understand, you know, where she's coming from all of a sudden.

I think it's really good.

I honestly think it would have worked really great as a first episode.

Really?

Yeah.

Because you get this build up and then you'll get his death in an episode or two and you as a viewer, it would just gut punch you deeper rather than reminding you of the gut punch.

It worked.

So either way, it worked for me with the context retroactively making that scene.

And by God, what are they paying Pedro Pascal?

Give the man more.

He's gonna make my prediction for this.

My wife has not yet seen it.

I have seen it.

My wife has not yet seen it.

I.

I'm pretty sure I go back.

I am going to have to, like, have an ambulance on standby because her body will be in danger of shutting down from dehydration after crying through.

Through this episode.

Yeah.

If you would have said, hey, Blaine, there's a video game television show that's going to make you cry, I would have laughed you out of the room.

A pair of two towering performances.

Yes.

Really, it's.

It's.

The other characters are secondary.

It's really, it's.

It's completely built around that dynamic.

It is.

But they have roped in superior actors for even small things.

Oh, absolutely.

Everyone who's in it is good.

Let's start with Tony Dalton plays Joel's dad.

Yeah.

My fucking God.

Tony Dalton is one of my favorite minor characters in the last 15 years.

He is the only good thing about the Hawkeye show that was on, man.

The humanity of this show with Tony Dalton there.

And he has a presence that very much could take off his belt and whip your ass.

But he instead, he reaches for a beer, slides it to Joel and says, man, I'm just trying to be better than my dad was.

Dude, that hit me between the eyes.

It was.

I feel like that kind of being one of the central themes of the episode made this incredibly poignant.

You know, just because I think we like, we all like the way that we are raised.

Right?

Like, that's natural for us.

We just kind of.

We don't know anything else.

And at a certain point, lots, for lots of us, I think for.

For most people, maybe that's all you can do is I just tried to do a little bit like my parents tried to do a little bit better than their parents and so on, you know, I just tried to do a little bit better.

Isn't that the truth?

And then the way that Joel tries to share that with Ellie on the porch.

And.

And he, you know, the.

In.

In the context, his revelation that he would do it all over again because, you know, he loves her like a daughter.

Yeah.

I read it as, you know, he's not an excuse, but he's giving this to her.

But he's also offering it to her in some way in the sense that he's like, kind of like, hey, I hope that when you think about me, you won't think about me as the man who disappointed you and let you down, but you will think about me as someone who you can build off of what I did and try and do just a little bit better than I am.

Because he.

It's such a perfect, you know, the father's wish for a child.

Right.

Like, I hope that you'll do just a little bit better than me.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, good grief.

When.

When Joel says he would have done it again and he's like.

He's like, I knew you would turn away from me.

It just breaks your heart.

It does.

And it goes through the whole episode.

You know, there's bits where he talks of her as a daughter.

She uses the word partner.

You know, there's this kind of push and pull dynamic.

She doesn't really see him as her dad.

He very much sees her as his daughter.

And it just breaks your heart.

It does.

Absolutely.

Right.

In two.

And it.

Yes, it does.

It ties the two themes together that I was worried it was going to be such a dichotomy, but it.

But it ties the idea of I've got to be a little bit better than what came before me, as well as father daughter relationships.

Yeah.

And Joel and Ellie in this episode reminds us that great acting and good storytelling can remind you of your own humanity.

Yeah.

Now, this one, I thought was a slam dunk and I think really, honestly, really smartly kind of gave us a reason for the second season.

You know, if a lot of the first season is what would you do for those you loved?

It's not actually that interesting to ask that over and over again because the answer is horrible things.

Right.

Like, Joel has done horrible things.

Yeah.

But now the idea that he is capable of recognizing that.

Yeah.

And that part of what he wants for Ellie is not to pass on a legacy of violence.

He wants her.

He wants something a little bit better for her.

And he can recognize those failures in.

Himself and they take it seriously somehow in a way that I'm not equipped to explain versus something like the Walking Dead.

Yeah.

They examine very similar themes, but they Just don't.

It feels as though they can't take it quite as seriously when someone dies on that show.

It's almost as if everyone expected it in the show.

Yeah, yeah, he was gonna die.

Okay.

Anyway, moving on.

You know, that's what it feels like.

More in the service of plot than in any kind of.

You know, whereas this.

I know.

This is melodrama.

I know my feelings are being played with.

Yeah.

I thought it worked very well, and I thought it.

By recontextualizing the season and by showing us the reason for the season existing.

Right.

Because now Ellie is, in some ways, in Joel's shoes.

You know, she's growing up.

Yeah.

I thought it was pretty bold to have the Tony Dalton scene to begin, because I don't know if an extra scene with his real daughter who dies in episode one, season one, I don't know if that wouldn't re.

Emphasize his overprotective defect.

I actually thought the dad scene was perfect because it introduces the note, and we already basically had the first season to remind us, and I feel like they didn't rub our noses in it.

That's right, they didn't.

They chose not to just remind you and rub your nose in it.

And I think they did do something really smart, too, which is show.

Like, in a lot of ways, their relationship is a good thing.

Like, Joel is trying to give her the things that his daughter never lived long enough for.

Right.

He's trying to delight her even in the midst of some of his definite failings as a parent.

Right.

Like, he tries to stop, think, give her some space.

You know, there's a lot of.

There's a lot of good there, and we can kind of see that good exists in and of itself.

And also as a tribute to his daughter who he lost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I think makes the painfulness of, like, he's doing what he thinks is right, even though it's probably wrong, that much bigger for me.

Pascal and Ramsey are having to do some subtle things in small moments.

Small.

Yeah.

Small moments for life, at least.

Not small moments for the show.

And they just carry so much weight.

Yeah.

That conversation on the porch, that's the.

Best acting that's been in this show so far between two actors who have, in fact, been quite good.

Yeah.

I couldn't believe how they were able to pull that off with all the cameras and crew around them.

It's such a quiet moment.

Yeah.

But that's.

That's why you want Pascal in the role.

They're both actors that have a lot of strength with playing silly and goofy and.

And they can do things that make you laugh, but they're like the serious.

Both of them just brought it home.

Honestly, it broke my heart a little bit when Ellie said to him, I don't think I can forgive you, but I'd like to try.

And just that for Pedro, for Joel, giving.

I want you to do a little bit better than I did to her.

And then she hands it back as the grace of, I don't think I can forgive you, but I love you enough that I would.

I wanted to try to be in relationship with you.

A person who might have done something that I can't forgive is heartbreaking.

And then, of course, that's why.

Then we see Ellie in a whole new light all of a sudden.

Yeah.

And I think we're to understand those are probably the last things they said to one another.

They are.

Yep.

So we had.

We had thought that.

And maybe this was a.

This was a little cheap, but we had thought that basically she had gone to the garage and not said anything.

Anything.

And then he was killed.

Right.

But.

But this is much better to learn.

That they had been at the very, very painful beginning of a process of possible reconciliation.

That's what breaks your heart?

Well, it struck me deeply, as a father of a daughter, those.

Especially the opening scenes where he's just taking such.

Such pleasure in providing for her and giving her things.

It's beautiful.

One of the things that I think that this show does smartly is that it is not just miserabilia.

You know, if.

If there's things.

If everything's just bad all the time, it's like, well, you might as well be dead.

Right.

Who cares?

Your life is probably better.

But here we have people who are like, you know, there's something that is worth striving for in their lives.

And so the light and the dark contrast each other much better than, oh, it's all just dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark.

Kind of like the Walking Dead.

Honestly, I hate to pick on them, except I don't.

I don't think they're very good.

Yeah, well, the comparison is warranted here, I think.

Yeah.

But I think that's another thing where they don't do a good job of that because they, you know, like, they're.

I think this show doesn't work unless there are genuinely good things and good relationships in between people.

That's right.

I couldn't decide on that final scene where we're back in Seattle and she's walking back to the theater.

In the rain.

Yeah.

You know, I think that could have been saved for the opening scene to next week as I wondered why.

Put that in there.

Yeah, I thought that.

I agree.

Honestly, this.

This went through my head, seeing it, because I agree with you, Blaine.

I thought it was kind of interesting.

I mean, obviously it, like, sets you thinking about next week.

Yeah.

But I was like.

I was almost like, I wonder if this is in the video game or something.

Like, just because it seemed kind of like a video game, I'm like, is this something like people might be expecting?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I honestly don't know how much more.

Emotional resonance could we have had with the ending, but with them, with the.

Conversation, it's where I would have cut it.

Yeah.

But I'm not my.

I've not made a very good TV show that's airing on hbo, so I guess, you know, that's right.

That brings us to the end.

We will cover the finale next weekend.

My only worry about the finale is this penultimate episode did so much heavy lifting.

I wonder if it's going to be able to compare.

Yeah, they're going to have to have some sort of cliffhanger, too, because season three is already.

Right.

Planned to happen.

Game of Thrones and a lot of the other TV shows on HBO run into this, too, where it's like, what with the finale, a lot of times is, you know, whatever else it's gonna be, it's gonna be an episode.

That is television in the sense that, like, it's a corporate product that is designed to do these things and.

Right.

Like, we're gonna have a cliffhanger.

All the stuff you just said.

Yeah.

Well, that's it for us.

We'll wish you goodbye.

And for Adam and Donovan, I'm Blaine, and we hope that you haven't caught a fungus.

And we'll talk to you next week.