Hey everyone welcome back to my review of another episode of The Last of Us. The show which I’m liking, based on a video game I’ve never played on a system that that I didn’t continue after the second generation. As per usual this review will not feature any Easter eggs, because frankly I wouldn’t know what one would be. I’m actually getting this out at a decent date, hopefully. I have also made another revelation when going back and reading what I’ve been writing. This isn’t just a review, but a recap and review. Although, since I also have labeled the previous posts as reviews, I’ll just keep going with that. This is just a little behind the scenes stuff, but secretly these should be named recap and review and thus you will be getting a recap and my thoughts on the latest episode of The Last of Us.
The last episode was so heart breaking and I thing the writers knew the impact it may have, so that’s why this episode seems very light and only picks up on action towards the end. You have time to come down from the last episode and get some humor before things go down and you remember where they are going now and meet what happens to Karen’s when the world ends and they need use their powers of horribleness to gain followers.
We start out this episode with Joel and Ellie at a gas station where Joel is trying to syphon some gas, let’s hope he saved the mint for after he was done. Ellie is secretly playing with her new toy aka the gun she took from the house after she found it last episode. She has also seemed to get her hands on a joke book that sounds like it was written by every collective dad in the world. The jokes are corny and are just invitations to mock the person that said them. In my circle of friends if you tell a bad joke you’re going to get a good 30 minutes of getting made fun of for trying to pass off a trash joke. Joel doesn’t do this but instead just sighs and takes it. During the car ride Ellie gets her first look at the mess that is called the male human body and makes Joel very uncomfortable as he asks her to put it away. Joel then decides to go camping since they had driven enough for that day.
Deep in a forest where they’ve set up camp Joel whips a batch of the most elegant 20-year-old Chef Boyardee Ravioli, and they eat like kings. Ellie wants to start a fire but is told not to as it will attract people that will do much worse to them than kill them. This bit of truth is a little too much for Ellie as she wants confirmation that no one knows they’re out there and Joel obliges. You then cut to Ellie sleeping as Joel stands watch over her protecting her. Dad mode never goes away, no matter if the person you’re looking after is your own flesh and blood or not. Ellie wakes up to what sounds like a steampunk alarm clock, but it’s just a pot of coffee brewing. Ellie leans over and takes a smell and says it smells disgusting, and that they had Starbucks at the quarantine zone. I guess in the great fast food war Starbucks and it’s spinach and tomato panini’s won.
Joel and Ellie are driving when Ellie inquires about Joels brother. He informs her he’s a joiner, which is a nice way of saying he has family issues and constantly is looking for a new group to resemble one. Joel tells of how he joined the armed forces, and after the outbreak he joined the fireflies and that’s how Joel met Tess. He says where they’re going and if his brother isn’t there they’ll go to another possible location. Ellie falls asleep and wakes u when they hit a stopping point at a location that’s blocked. Ellie is playing navigator and is guiding Joel through the city to get back on the highway, but get stopped by someone who is hurt. Joel seeing they are just a lying liar who lies and guns it towards them. They start getting shot at and crash the truck into a small store. After a shoot out that involves just Joel. He takes one out and the other one ambushes him. Ellie takes out her gun does whatever any of us would do in that situation. She shoots him in the back, Paralyzing him and Joel asks Ellie to go hide because he doesn’t want to see him give this guy another hole in his body.
Joel and Ellie take off to hide and we then meet Kathleen, who is the Karen of this whole city. You learn that they most likely turned on the government who was stationed there to keep any order. Kathleen is playing both nice and mean cop to a doctor who she believes knows where her sons are and who tipped possible mercs off who may or may not have picked up her son. She’s informed that one of the men Joel killed is this lady and she blames the doctor for being a part of tis and ends his life. We also learn that Kathleen is a master at manipulation and a big lover of secrets as there’s a sink hole opening under one of the buildings where infected will most likely emerge and wreck some stuff.
Joel and Ellie makes their way to a very tall building where they imitate Ghostbusters from the 1990’s and climb the stairs and locate a room where they can rest until it’s safe. Joel sets some traps to work as an alarm system and Ellie hits him with her most devastatingly dad joke of all dad jokes. I laughed and so did Joel who went to sleep laughing but woke up to 2 guns pointed it at them.
Overall this episode was good. I continue to look at what the world will look like when nature takes over. This wasn’t as heartbreaking as the last episode, but it was still a solid way to help the character progression with Joel and Ellie. We shall see how next week goes and how they get out of having guns pointed at them.