0:07

You gotta help me. Come on. Leave.

0:12

Leave. Shut up, John. Take the gun. Joe,

0:15

should the fuck up. Go.

0:18

You go. You go north.

0:21

Go to Tom.

0:31

Welcome back everybody to HBO's The

0:33

Last Of Us podcast. I am your

0:35

host, Troy Baker. I had

0:37

the wonderful opportunity to play Joel

0:40

in the video game. And now I get to sit down

0:42

with the showrunner's Craig

0:43

Mason. I'm back and Neil

0:46

Druckman.

0:46

What up Troy? Oh, gosh.

0:48

Oh, gosh. Yeah. We're now seven

0:51

episodes in. Okay. That does

0:53

prompt me before we dive into

0:55

this episode to just thank

0:57

people who are listening to us

0:59

now for staying with us. I

1:02

mean, we're at place now. We're we're pretty deep in.

1:04

We're starting to approach

1:06

our final descent. We love all fifty

1:08

of you. I'm

1:12

I'm pleased that people are still with us and

1:14

hopefully they're feeling rewarded as we go.

1:16

Today, we're talking about episode seven

1:20

titled left behind. And

1:22

this episode does a bit of a time

1:24

jump to tell the story of Ellie's

1:27

relationship with Riley. Neil,

1:30

you originally wrote this story not

1:33

in the original game, but in a a companion

1:36

comic book in the DLC, which

1:39

we could say is shorthand for downloadable

1:41

content. Let's let's talk about that.

1:44

Yeah. Twenty thirteen

1:46

when a game came out downloadable content,

1:48

we're getting pretty popular like you would at least like

1:50

a full game. So in the case of the last of us, these

1:52

are fifteen hour experience. And

1:54

then, often, you'll release,

1:57

like, an additional chapter, something an

1:59

add on, a downloadable content. And

2:02

often people would use like a side character

2:05

or something that was kind of frivolous or wouldn't

2:07

really affect the main story. And

2:09

it's more than to talk about something else that

2:11

was really popular to time, like, add on

2:13

comic books. Like, take your world

2:16

and build another story and release it, like, as

2:18

a comic book and it's a it's a way to

2:20

help market your product is a very cynical

2:23

way to look at it. But I looked at both of these things.

2:25

I'm like, oh, it's a storytelling opportunity.

2:28

What if we treated both of these things like

2:30

they matter? Like they're essential.

2:32

Let's take our most important character of Ellie

2:35

and put her in the center of both of these stories.

2:37

So with the comic book, I teamed up

2:39

with Faith Aaron Hicks, who's just

2:41

a brilliant comic book writer and

2:44

artist and we developed

2:46

Riley together for

2:48

that comic book. And you got to see how

2:50

Ellie met Riley in a little bit more the school

2:53

And then the started like solidifying

2:56

for the DLC, which was called left behind,

2:58

which was Ellie

3:01

and Riley's final encounter together

3:03

before Elliott thrust into the

3:05

main journey of the last of us.

3:08

And it was a really kind of great

3:10

opportunity to spend

3:12

even more time with Ellie before she

3:14

was

3:14

bitten. What was she like on her day

3:16

to day business And

3:19

then, what was the event

3:21

that turned her life completely upside down?

3:24

No cold open. Straight to the credits.

3:28

Why the change? I think we

3:30

were thinking about the

3:33

opening of the show as to

3:35

taste basically every episode. When

3:38

does it want? Some episodes

3:40

want it and this one just

3:41

didn't. Sometimes you use

3:44

that opening to create almost

3:46

like a

3:46

reset of,

3:47

like, okay, this was its own story. Reset.

3:50

Now we're starting another story. These

3:52

two stories are so intertwined

3:55

like that edit is really important of, like,

3:57

going from one directly to the other.

4:00

Yeah. Ellie reaches for

4:02

the doorknob here and the screen

4:04

cuts to black and we start to hear pearl jam.

4:07

We could have cut to the

4:09

credits there and use that as a cold open. Then

4:11

when we come back suddenly, she's back

4:14

in the federal school. But I

4:16

think Neil's absolutely right. It's We

4:18

wanna understand that she's

4:20

reliving kind of a lifetime

4:23

moment in this second

4:26

And that's why

4:28

we did it. I don't think there was even a debate.

4:31

No. I wanna talk a little bit

4:33

about something that Again,

4:36

HBO in a very smart

4:38

way suggested to us. This wasn't originally

4:41

the plan. Originally, this

4:43

episode was gonna really play

4:45

entirely as as Ellie's story

4:47

with Riley. And one of the

4:49

things that HBO strongly suggested,

4:51

and then they were right was to connect

4:54

it back more to the story

4:56

at hand, which is

4:58

what it was -- Yeah. -- in the last

5:00

of us -- Mhmm. -- DLC. Sorry,

5:02

the and left behind DLC. That's

5:05

when we talked about seeing

5:08

this image of Joel dying

5:11

on this match in a basement with this

5:13

very iconic blanket on. And

5:16

I love the way this starts

5:19

with Joel telling her to go. And

5:21

there's this moment where what

5:24

else can she do? Right? What

5:26

else can she do? Why wouldn't she go at this

5:29

point? He's dying. That's

5:31

clear. And and she's not a doctor.

5:33

They are not anywhere near civilization. There's

5:36

nothing that can be done. It is

5:39

hopeless situation. He doesn't

5:41

just tell her to leave he shoves

5:43

her. Yeah. He reacts. And the

5:45

only way that he can, which is by force,

5:47

and the second that he does that and

5:50

he sees her turn, the reality

5:52

of that action, the consequence of

5:54

that action as a parent, and he's It's

5:56

not the pain that's making him

5:57

cry. It's that. And it's just a single

6:00

tear. It's not it's not blubbering.

6:02

I love that tear because you're

6:04

right. Is he mourning

6:07

his own impending death? Is

6:09

he mourning the fact that she has

6:11

to leave him or that she is? Is

6:13

he mourning the fact that the only way he

6:15

could get her to go to save her was to push

6:17

her away in the last memory she'll have of him is

6:20

something

6:20

rejecting, can she make it

6:22

on her own? It's -- Right. -- will she survive?

6:25

If you die, I'm fucked. Yeah. That's that's

6:27

my interpretation. It's, like, it's the fear

6:29

of, like, I can't protect you. have to let

6:31

you go and I don't know how this is gonna play out because

6:33

I'm going to die. That's the best part of this

6:36

is any of those could be true.

6:38

And it's probably combination of

6:39

Right. -- what matters is

6:42

the depth of his connection to

6:44

her no matter how you slice

6:46

any of the interpretations we just offered

6:48

up All of them come back to

6:50

the same thing. There is this remarkable depth

6:53

of connection between the two of them.

6:56

Let's talk about music little bit more,

6:58

Pearlia. All or none.

7:01

Neil, you have a an

7:03

obsession. And I was supposed

7:05

to be very careful with my words. But

7:07

there is that was gonna say connection to

7:10

Pearl Jam. Is this just sympatico

7:12

between you guys or was there something

7:14

that Neil you

7:15

said, I have a song. That I would like

7:17

to put in. You know, when when you grow up, you

7:19

have like handful of songs that are like

7:21

an escape. You know, when things

7:23

are getting hard or like when you're down on yourself

7:25

for whatever reason. And to me, this was one of those

7:27

songs. That song

7:29

specifically, there's a certain feel,

7:31

a mood, a tone. I don't know if I have the right words

7:34

for it, but, like, capturing where

7:36

Ellie's at right now that she's

7:39

alone, she's at a place she doesn't wanna

7:41

be, and there's kinda nothing going

7:43

on for her. And this song think

7:45

captures that mood, but it also

7:47

captures her attitude that's called

7:49

all or none, which is very

7:51

much

7:52

Ellie. Right? It's like everything or nothing.

7:54

And it's it's always just just just kind of

7:56

full commitment. Whenever

7:58

it comes to songs.

8:01

There aren't many that we use

8:03

in the series. I mean, we we talked a lot about

8:05

never let me down again. Long,

8:07

long time, obviously, is is

8:10

the centerpiece of our third episode. We

8:12

really want to think about those lyrics. We

8:15

don't want to be too on the nose. We don't want

8:17

to be something that feels overused

8:19

or to pop. I read this

8:22

statistic that searches

8:24

of never let me down again the dipesh

8:26

mode version square rock. Like,

8:29

yeah, by five hundred percent or something.

8:31

Well, this is exciting. Like, that's what we want. We want

8:33

a song that people discover it with us

8:35

that are beyond say the fans of Projem. And

8:38

Neil is a much bigger fan of Projem

8:40

than I am. That's not I I'm not a fan. It's just that

8:42

he's a super fan. So I wasn't

8:44

that familiar with that song. And when he played

8:46

it for me, I was like, okay. Yeah. And there's something

8:48

about the way it's starts. Mhmm. Mhmm.

8:51

The guitar tells you everything

8:53

before Eddie Better even starts in.

8:56

There's this sense of god.

9:00

And Ellie's situation here

9:02

is not simply hopeless

9:05

as the lyrics say because she's stuck in

9:07

a FedRA orphanage trained to become

9:09

a

9:09

soldier. It's hopeless because someone's

9:11

gone missing.

9:12

Right? It's hopeless to her. Yeah. Get

9:17

them back. The pick

9:19

up your pace. I'm not running doubles again

9:21

because of your shitty attitude. I

9:23

don't fight about it. Fight

9:25

about it? You don't fight. Just

9:28

your friend fights. She's

9:30

not here anymore. Is she.

9:40

I love the look that Bethany gives in the face, but

9:42

she's kinda wear down. She's like, are you it's it's

9:44

it's not quick. I don't know. She looks like, what

9:46

are you about to do? And then she sees the punch coming

9:49

but you stay on Bethany. Yeah.

9:51

Bethany Bethany realizes

9:53

she's made a terrible mistake

9:55

just one second too

9:56

late. She could have just walked away

9:58

from the fight. Yeah. But she was

10:01

disrespected. Yep. was disrespectful. It

10:03

was personal. It was personal. So Bethany

10:06

makes a couple of fatal errors. One

10:09

is she underestimates Ellie, but

10:11

the second one more importantly is She

10:14

brings up whoever this friend

10:16

is, who's not here anymore, triggers

10:19

something inside Ellie,

10:23

that it's like it

10:25

uncorcs the demon. We

10:27

don't know who this person is yet until we

10:29

meet Reilly. We don't understand that that's who Bethany

10:32

is talking about. All we know is, Bethany

10:34

stepped on a third rail. That Ellie's

10:37

anger and whatever

10:40

innate violence she has

10:42

comes from her connection

10:44

to other people. It's not

10:46

so much about her. It's about

10:48

don't talk shit about

10:51

my friend

10:52

because I love my friend.

10:55

Here we see a completely different side of FedRA.

10:59

This is almost It's shadows

11:01

of normalcy. We have Procedra almost

11:04

kind of. Yeah. It's functioning. She

11:06

gets in trouble. She goes essentially

11:08

the principal's office and we get to meet Captain Kwang

11:10

is played by Terry Chen. And

11:12

then Ellie does this thing. She looks at the

11:15

picture of his family. Yeah.

11:17

And he walks in and he sits

11:18

down, he doesn't knows it at first, and then he

11:20

does, and he turns it around. Mhmm.

11:23

Ellie is no problem invading people's personal space.

11:25

The fact that he has a picture of these two

11:27

girls, obviously his

11:29

daughters, are they alive? Probably

11:32

not. She has no problem

11:34

invading that space and looking at them because she's

11:37

not a parent. She doesn't know. She doesn't care. She

11:39

wasn't even alive when this stuff was happening. They look

11:41

at them. They're at an amusement park in that photo.

11:44

And that's this little thing where

11:46

he's like, okay, that belongs to me,

11:49

not you. And

11:50

after that, he lays out some cold heart

11:52

truth. You're smart,

11:55

Ellie. You're so smart, you're stupid. Can't

11:58

see where this is going? Let me help you out.

12:00

Too fast ahead of you. First

12:05

path. You keep acting like a grunt so

12:07

you get the life of grunt. Up a dog,

12:09

walk the streets, walk the wall, you eat, shit

12:11

food, you do shit jobs, you take

12:13

shit orders from your patrol leader will

12:16

probably be

12:16

Bethany. And

12:18

that'll play your life from now until you catch a

12:20

bullet from a firefighter fall drunk off a

12:22

roof or get your hair caught in a moving tank tread.

12:27

There's the other path. You swallow this

12:29

pride yours. You follow

12:31

the rules, you become an officer. You

12:34

get your own room, you get a nice bed,

12:37

We eat, well, we don't go on patrol. We're

12:39

cool in summer. We're warm in winter and best of

12:41

all. When you're an officer, you get to tell the

12:43

Bethany's of the world exactly where to shove

12:45

it. One of the things

12:48

that Neil and I talked

12:50

about a lot throughout the development of

12:52

the show was never

12:54

painting one side or the other as purely

12:57

bad or purely good. We've gotten

12:59

so much bad federer stuff. I mean, we

13:01

saw how abusive or

13:04

at least how cold and controlling

13:07

Fedra was in the first

13:09

episode. And corrupt. Exactly. And

13:12

we saw how Fedra,

13:14

even though we didn't see what Fedra did to

13:16

the people of Kansas City, in our

13:18

fourth and fifth episode, we certainly saw the

13:20

aftermath and there's no way to

13:23

account for how brutal the uprising

13:25

was if as Henry put

13:27

it FEDRA hadn't done it to them first

13:29

and for twenty years. But

13:32

now we had this other conversation and

13:34

we thought it would be important

13:38

to hear the other side of it. And the other side

13:40

of it is we're the only things holding

13:43

this together. If we go down

13:45

these people are going to starve or kill each other,

13:48

which we saw happen in prior episodes,

13:50

so he's right. And You,

13:53

Ellie, are the generation that we need

13:56

to raise to keep this going,

13:59

or everything will fall apart. And

14:01

he's saying to Ellie, you

14:03

can be me, you

14:05

can be in charge. You could run all of Boston

14:07

one day. You have the Innate

14:11

intellectual capability and

14:13

strength of character to do this if you

14:15

would just get your shit together. This

14:17

is the most parental possible discussion

14:20

you can have.

14:22

But that notion of

14:25

the push and pull of FedRA and

14:27

its polar opposite. The fireflies is

14:29

gonna come up over and over. I know

14:31

that I had this conversation multiple

14:33

times. With principals, teachers,

14:35

the word that I hated growing up

14:38

hearing was potential

14:39

potential. Mhmm. I personally

14:41

wasn't overachiever. And I don't

14:43

say that proudly. And

14:46

no one ever said, oh, if

14:48

only you could get your shit together, my

14:51

problem boils down to shit was two together.

14:53

So I'm always drawn to characters

14:56

that I wish I had been more like.

14:59

And, you know, in this

15:01

case, means this is a script by Neil, but

15:03

It's all everything goes back to the Ellie

15:05

that Neil wrote anyway. One

15:07

of the reasons I always loved her is because I wanted

15:09

to be like her. I wanted to

15:12

be that kid. She's so

15:13

brave. She says, just put me

15:15

in the fucking hole. She doesn't care. She's

15:18

so cool. She has such like an

15:20

allergy to authority -- Mhmm. --

15:22

which I've I've been in those conversations

15:25

a lot because I was not a good student. I

15:27

would do good enough on tests to

15:29

just get by homework. But homework forget

15:31

it. And I would have advisor after advisor

15:34

sit me down and be like, you have all this potential

15:36

and you're squandering it. I'm like and I was just

15:38

kind of like Ellie, I guess I was aimless. I didn't

15:40

know what I wanted to do. I wanted to, like, play guitar

15:42

and hang up with my friends. And there's

15:44

only ones I thought about making video games that it

15:47

went from, like, a c student to an a student.

15:49

So that one very much resonates

15:51

with me. And and I guess the this whole a

15:53

lot of the idea for left behind as a concept,

15:56

again, because I was such a terrible student,

15:58

but I hope my parents aren't listening to this. Oh,

16:00

they're they're I I the gifts cool

16:02

all the time and we would just go hang out somewhere,

16:04

go to the mall, and the thought

16:06

was like, what's the postapocalyptic version

16:09

of

16:09

that? Of skipping school and

16:11

hanging out with your friend that you have

16:13

a crush on. There is this

16:16

connection, though, always. With

16:19

her stuff. Bethany starts

16:21

by taking the walkman. Mhmm. From

16:23

captain Kwang, she says, can I have my walkman

16:26

back? First thing she said from

16:27

Erlinking, I have my stuff back. Some

16:29

of the these totems are very personal

16:32

to Ellie. And and, right, she has a reaction

16:34

when Joel steps on her knife. Right. That's

16:36

very primal. And then other

16:38

times, I don't know if this is unique to Ellie, but these

16:40

things are so precious in this world.

16:42

It's like, how many working walkman's are

16:45

there? Mhmm. Probably not that many. So this

16:47

is one of those things that Elliott's probably had for

16:49

a while. And whenever she's

16:51

alone, or needs to escape,

16:54

she just shuts out the world and put these headphones

16:56

on. So for someone to threaten

16:58

to take away that, how

17:00

fucking dare you as for where Ellie is

17:02

standing?

17:03

Her world is actually very small. Ellie

17:06

does not have a lot of friends. She actually has

17:08

one friend. And that friend hasn't been around

17:10

in weeks. So what does

17:12

she have left? No one talks to

17:14

her. There's a a scene that we shot

17:16

that we ultimately cut for time

17:19

where Ellie is in a locker room. It's very classic,

17:22

you know, Hollywood type scene. She's in a locker

17:24

room and everybody else's chit chatting and she's alone.

17:27

And when your world

17:29

gets that solitary,

17:33

it does come down to these things give

17:35

you comfort. And help

17:37

you ground yourself. A walkman, a

17:39

Switchblade, a comic book, a comic

17:42

book. There's a baseball

17:44

on the windowsill, there are posters

17:47

of things that she's heard about, but we'll never

17:49

know about or so we think. And

17:51

there are a few cassette tapes

17:53

that we know must mean a lot to her. We

17:56

don't know how she got them. All

17:58

we know is their hers. And

18:00

that's the some totality of

18:03

her entire

18:04

world. You know, once Riley

18:07

leaves, this is all Ellie has.

18:08

We won't talk about Riley because

18:11

we've already mentioned her so much. Riley was played by

18:13

Storm Read. And it's one of

18:15

those things where it's like literally she

18:17

just came off the pages of the comic

18:19

book and out of the game. We had a few things

18:21

going for us. We had Liza Johnson directing the episode

18:23

who is an excellent director,

18:26

but also of all

18:28

of our directors. think the one that

18:31

was the most connected to the actors.

18:33

She just kept them so

18:35

safe throughout process, which was amazing

18:37

to watch. Anybody who's lived

18:39

through the misery of those years. And

18:42

I I don't know who these people are that enjoy

18:44

those

18:45

years. But if if you lived through It wasn't

18:47

the worst.

18:47

Yeah.

18:47

The middle school is the worst. High school

18:50

is also the best and worst.

18:52

Right? It's like it's I guess, like,

18:54

I think Avelli is is like a freshman in high

18:56

school. You know, it's like the worst year possible.

18:58

And and yet there

19:01

is the the magic

19:04

of your heart pounding in your

19:06

chest for the first time really.

19:08

Sure. The way that opens up, I mean, that's

19:10

where you really start to live.

19:12

And we're watching it happen here. And

19:14

I think the fact that storm

19:17

and and bell are are close

19:19

enough to that experience that I'm sure they both

19:21

had, that you could

19:23

feel it. It just felt so true. That

19:25

first heartbeat starts not with necessarily

19:28

love, but fear. Riley

19:30

comes through the window, and

19:32

we see immediately their

19:35

relationship.

19:36

You're a fire crisis. I

19:38

told you I'd fucking do it. Talking about liberating

19:41

the Qsy is not the same as Fuck. Why

19:43

don't you leave it alone? Slow down. I will tell

19:45

you everything. First, you have

19:47

to promise me something. Sort of

19:49

crazy and you're gonna say now, but

19:51

then you have say yes. Come

19:56

with me for few hours and have

19:58

the best night of your life.

20:01

No. Okay. Now,

20:03

so yes. I'm not going anywhere with you.

20:05

You said that Ellie is allergic to authority.

20:07

However, she does submit

20:10

herself to the authority of

20:11

Riley. I guess, for me, it's

20:13

not so much the authority of Riley. It's like

20:15

Ellie wants there's certain people

20:17

she looks up to. And Joel is

20:20

obviously, she has become one of those people. And Riley

20:22

is this other person, but she wants to be there

20:24

equal. She doesn't wanna just follow

20:26

their commands. She wants to sit alongside

20:28

them. Yeah. She's so proud that she

20:31

fucked Bethany up. You know,

20:33

because she's she's doing what

20:36

Riley would do. I think

20:38

Neil's exactly right. Riley is

20:41

somebody that is older, taller,

20:44

stronger and Ellie

20:47

has aspiration. Ellie

20:49

is small. I love how small Bella

20:51

is. I think it's really important.

20:53

You know, she's small. And when you're small,

20:56

people will underestimate you all

20:58

the time, but she can

21:00

pack a punch literally. And

21:02

Riley comes back at this moment with

21:05

a grand plan. We don't know what it is,

21:08

but it's she's doing a very

21:10

typical thing, which is I got good news

21:12

bad news. The good news is

21:14

I've got a great night planned

21:16

for us, but ultimately we'll find out

21:18

the bad news is why I've planned

21:20

this night. And just like in the installment

21:23

that gained the DLC left behind, this this retroactively

21:26

adds weight to our story.

21:28

There's this one quick line that that Riley

21:30

says. She goes, do

21:32

you want another seven eleven situation? Mhmm.

21:35

Mhmm. What is the seven eleven

21:36

situation? What

21:37

is the seven eleven situation? Is the seven eleven

21:39

situation? Well, one again, that conversation

21:41

is just like, things could go wrong. Someone

21:43

could get hurt. Just kind of like but

21:46

there's also, you know,

21:48

if I get this question so many times of, like,

21:50

how did Ellie get her scar on the eyebrow?

21:52

On her eyebrow. And then Craig and

21:55

I discussed, and I told him, like, just some thoughts

21:57

I had about

21:57

it. So, like, I

21:58

I don't

21:59

necessarily wanna answer that, at least not yet.

22:01

And, like, okay. We could just hint that there is a

22:03

story there. So something

22:05

happened in a seven eleven that obviously

22:07

is in the QZ in abandoned where

22:10

in my mind, it happened together.

22:12

Right? Elliott Riley must have been together. They

22:14

must have broken in. They must have had to run out

22:16

fast. There were some glass going

22:18

through a window. Something happened. It's

22:21

interesting how in the first,

22:24

I don't know, ten minutes of this episode, the

22:26

concept of stitches comes up over and

22:28

over. Which I think is really interesting. The

22:31

notion that you get wounded and you have

22:33

to have

22:33

stitches. And it's a constant reminder

22:35

-- Yes. -- that we are frail. And

22:39

that comes into play at the end, it all

22:42

comes back around. But

22:44

the notion that there are scars

22:47

from living in this world is a really interesting one.

22:49

And and it was important to since

22:52

Ellie and Joel talk about Joel

22:54

Scar early on

22:56

in episode three. This is an interesting

22:58

opportunity to at least acknowledge that

23:01

something happens and then here we it's like, well,

23:03

we don't know exactly how Ellie got her

23:05

scar. We also don't ex know exactly

23:07

how Joel got his scar. All he says is there, you know,

23:09

that was a shootout you know, the other

23:11

guy missed. So we're

23:14

hinting at these things, but what we are saying

23:16

explicitly is violence

23:18

is permanent and leaves marks, and

23:20

sometimes, the only way to close-up

23:22

a wound is to stitch it. They

23:25

make their way up through this decrepit

23:27

building and they come upon

23:31

not only a bottle of of hooch, but

23:33

also a dead body.

23:36

This isn't moonshine either. It's like from

23:38

before.

23:40

This

23:40

guy must have spent every card he had to get

23:42

this. No

23:42

one told me he couldn't miss pills with that

23:44

shit.

23:46

I didn't

23:47

think he knew what he was doing.

23:57

Let's talk about that moment. Yeah. We

23:59

we talked quite a bit about that

24:01

beat and what it would mean and what does it say

24:03

about Ellie. A lot of it came

24:05

from, one,

24:08

just how brave she is. She's not scared of

24:10

something more without a thing. If we saw it,

24:12

we'd be like, let's steer clear of that.

24:14

Let's call nine eleven. Let's just take care

24:16

of this. But instead, she's fascinated. Again,

24:18

she's fascinated with the dark

24:20

part of humanity and hear

24:23

someone that just whether they

24:25

purposely or not took their own life, they

24:27

end up taking their own life just by overdosing

24:30

on drugs that maybe this person

24:32

even bought from Joel. Right? We see that little baggy

24:34

there. Also establishing that this is

24:36

the reality of these two girls. Like, they live in a different

24:38

world than the one we

24:39

know. That it's not that big

24:41

of a deal for them. Well, it's

24:43

definitely not that big of deal for Ellie

24:45

because she

24:48

has never experience

24:50

the death of somebody she cares about

24:53

because she doesn't have anyone she cares

24:55

about except for Riley. She's

24:58

never known her parents. And

25:01

what I loved about this scene

25:04

and what comes after

25:07

is that you realize there is one fundamental difference

25:09

between Ellie and Riley, and that's that Riley

25:12

did know her parents. Right? And

25:14

Riley saw her parents die. And

25:16

Riley's experience of dead bodies and death

25:18

is different than Ellie's. For Ellie, she

25:21

has that thing that kids can have, which

25:23

is a sense of immortality. And

25:26

so this doesn't mean anything to her.

25:28

She laughs when that body bumps

25:30

into the floor because I hope people

25:32

don't get the sense that we're saying that Ellie is in a

25:34

psycho. Even though people jokingly

25:37

call her a

25:37

psycho, she's not. At

25:39

all. She's just grown up under such

25:42

different circumstances than we have.

25:44

But it's also, like, that age.

25:45

Right? It's, like, you're pushing the boundaries of how

25:47

far you could take things. One of the the darkest

25:50

things you could see or explore in

25:52

the previous episode, Ellie

25:54

asks for a drink. And Joel obliges.

25:57

And she says, yep, still gross. Are

25:59

we seeing the first time that she's had something to

26:01

drink

26:02

here? I think we

26:04

might be. Yeah. I'm not sure if we say it's

26:06

a first time or not, but it's definitely an early

26:08

time.

26:09

And Again, it's just the the

26:11

idea is better than the thing itself. Like,

26:13

the idea of being naughty or doing

26:15

something that you're not supposed to do is

26:17

more exciting than how disgusting alcohol

26:20

tastes when you first have it. This is

26:22

rite of passage. III don't know if

26:24

every kid goes through it, but certainly a lot to.

26:26

I did. My parents

26:29

had this. It wasn't a liquor cabinet.

26:31

It was this weird cube, a

26:33

wooden cube of nineteen seventies furniture

26:36

that had this little tiny knob and you would open it

26:38

and inside that had all these bottles and my parents

26:40

were in big drinkers. So the bottles that

26:42

were there were things that people had brought

26:44

over for the very occasional,

26:47

you know, dinner parties or something that they

26:49

would have, seventy style with crab

26:51

dip and horrible avocado based

26:54

foods. And my sister

26:56

and I were just like, let's do it. We

26:58

got in there. I think the one we

27:00

chose because we liked the bottle and the

27:02

name and the vague smell of it

27:05

was Amarlo de

27:07

sero, which is an almond liqueur,

27:09

and we both, you know, took a way

27:12

too big swig. And

27:14

it felt like I had

27:16

done something

27:18

permanently damaging to

27:20

my mouth and throat and

27:22

still never be the same. I was like, did I

27:24

sorry. Was this, like,

27:26

toilet bowl cleaner? Or

27:28

is this meant to be drank because

27:30

that's horrible. Now, later on, things

27:32

change, but there's something about

27:34

that first time where you're trying to be

27:37

grown

27:37

up. Sure. Yeah. And you're not.

27:39

Well, there's one other thing which is, like, again,

27:41

high school parties and stuff where you're

27:44

next to someone you have

27:46

a crush on and you're and, like, you feel

27:48

this nervous, you're, like, maybe the alcohol

27:50

will, like, make that subside. Like, yeah.

27:53

Maybe not in this initial

27:54

drink, but as they go forward, I think Ellie's

27:56

drinking because she's getting more and more nervous.

27:58

She's yeah. She's taking shots of courage.

28:01

She is. And And what I like

28:03

about how the episode develops

28:05

is that

28:06

it's not for nothing. Yeah.

28:09

It kind of works. Like ultimately,

28:12

the courage is there. I do

28:14

wanna get to the place that Riley

28:17

is trying to bring us to. Which is transitioning

28:19

from this broken down decrepit

28:21

reminder of this failed

28:24

world and then the remnant of

28:27

what was wonderful. And now understanding kind

28:29

of where maybe we drew that

28:31

from this

28:32

mall. We get into this

28:34

epic shot of

28:37

this world coming online.

28:48

And what I love is Ellie's

28:51

look of wonderment. There's

28:53

innocence there. And oh,

28:56

this oh, boy, I'll tell

28:58

you. That's one of the

28:59

hardest. I mean, yeah, we'll fix.

29:01

Wish I could drag everybody in the audience back

29:03

in time to make them sit through all the meetings we had to

29:05

sit there on the practical or was that the effect?

29:07

It was the effect. So we had this interesting

29:10

challenge. I was in

29:12

love with the mall from

29:15

the DLC and we needed

29:17

it. This takes place a mall for all the reasons

29:19

Neil said. That's where you sneak away

29:21

as a teenager. And I

29:24

wanted as much as Neil

29:26

wanted to CLE

29:28

experiencing what we all took for

29:31

granted for the first time how magical

29:33

it is. Well, we got kinda lucky

29:35

to an extent. There is a mall

29:38

in Calgary that was scheduled

29:40

for demolition. So on

29:42

the one hand, it was great because they basically

29:45

said You can do whatever you want. You can break

29:47

up the floors. You can jack up the

29:49

whole place with, here's the case,

29:51

mud, and vines, and everything

29:53

and you have the run of it for shooting as long

29:55

as you want throughout the day. The problem

29:57

was. The problem was the mall itself

30:00

was not little sad.

30:02

It was a sad story. It was one

30:05

story mall. There

30:07

was only one area like at the variant

30:09

of the mall where there was an escalator which obviously

30:11

we used that went up to this one

30:14

little extra, like, taller section that

30:16

led into, like, a winners, I

30:18

believe, which is the Canadian kind

30:20

of target ish sort of

30:21

store. And then like a clinic, it

30:23

was really sad up there.

30:24

But if you're if you're standing at the top of the s

30:26

earlier looking out, you just see a wall. There

30:28

was nothing. There was, like because there was no second

30:30

floor. There's just, like, everything like tilts down and goes

30:32

down to the first. So if you're, like, a junky and you

30:34

wanna know, like, how we do things, the shot where

30:36

we're behind Ellie and we see that mall coming

30:39

on, that wasn't at the mall, that was

30:41

on a sound stage. We built a

30:43

little railing and then

30:46

there's just blue. And so

30:48

we say to Alex Wong, our visual effects

30:50

supervisor, you're gonna have to figure this out. And he

30:52

was scared that was one

30:54

of the few times I saw him scared

30:57

because that is a

30:59

very difficult thing to pull off and

31:01

when we were in the physical model, we needed

31:03

to kind of paint

31:05

like a blue stripe where the

31:07

first floor kinda ended. To say

31:10

from this point

31:10

up, we're gonna be building

31:13

out instead extending with visual

31:15

effects. We had some conversation like,

31:17

okay. Should we just make it like a once story

31:19

mall. And then pretty quick and we're like, no. No.

31:22

There are these phrases people use in Hollywood.

31:24

The one that I hate the most is is

31:26

the juice worth as a squeeze.

31:28

I fucking hate that. Yes.

31:30

It is. It is.

31:32

It is worth the squeeze. And Is

31:35

it worth it for this one marquee

31:37

shot where this world comes to life?

31:40

Yes. Yes. And does doing

31:42

that mean that throughout everything else, we're gonna

31:44

need to continually show this other floor

31:46

above it, and it's gonna be money and time sensitive, yes.

31:49

Because we need to know that

31:51

they are in a place

31:53

that is magical and connects

31:56

back to the world we know. And the world

31:58

we know, that's what malls look like. And

32:00

what Alex and the vendors did

32:04

to make that happen is magic.

32:06

It's just absolute fucking magic. And I wanna

32:08

say again, how important it is

32:11

that we're building a show based on this

32:13

game because it's the love of the

32:15

game that brought all these visual effects

32:17

artists to the show and it's the love

32:19

of the game that kept them

32:22

working at their computer and

32:24

their tablets for

32:26

iteration after iteration to make it

32:28

Great. What's interesting to what the DLC

32:31

is, you know, it wasn't as popular as

32:33

the main

32:33

game. But for people who played

32:35

it, they have such a deep love for it.

32:38

And a lot of the crew members had that

32:40

deep love where they were so excited to work

32:42

on like this part of the story. There's

32:44

another thing that this moments specifically

32:46

does. And speaking of the game, it's a moment that happens

32:48

in the game, it also happens in the show, where

32:51

it almost mirrors something that happens

32:53

later between Joel and Ellie when

32:56

she's looking out and he says, is it everything you

32:58

hope for? Yeah. We have

33:00

almost that same kind of moment. Was that

33:02

a happy accident or was that intentional?

33:05

It's probably a happy accident. Happy accident.

33:07

I was like, if it is it's like sometimes these

33:09

things work on a subconscious, but it's like right.

33:11

So we know that Ellie just has an appreciation

33:14

for beauty. And for the old world.

33:17

So in a similar situation, she's gonna

33:19

have a similar reaction. And I

33:21

love these kind of connection that we didn't even intend.

33:23

We're just being true to the characters and they

33:25

happen

33:26

organically. There is this thing about

33:28

Ellie where the people who love

33:30

her wanna show her things -- Mhmm. --

33:32

they do because she appreciates them.

33:35

She's not a romantic, but she's

33:38

a passionate person about the world

33:40

around her, and even in this

33:42

shit holy living, even though

33:44

the mall is wrecked. Mhmm. To

33:47

see those lights come on and to see how big

33:49

it is. It's so magical

33:51

for

33:51

her. She appreciates it. So of course,

33:53

you wanna show her that. It's

33:54

it's this awesome moment, Greg. Well, it's like, you've

33:57

seen a great movie or played a

33:58

great game, and you get to share that with your

34:01

friend, and you get to experience it again through

34:03

their eyes That's what Riley's doing right

34:05

here. Like, Riley loves a small and then

34:07

she knows Ellie would love it even more. Because

34:09

she's and now she gets to share it with her. Because basically

34:11

I'm doing now with you. Right? I'm

34:13

like, I want everyone to see that she's awesome.

34:15

One of the things that I love is that Riley gets

34:18

surprised by the thing that

34:20

Ellie -- Right. -- in fact, she freaks it over the

34:22

escalator. Yeah. We have a

34:24

big conversation about the world

34:26

that was and what was important. Sneakers

34:29

not soap. But then it leads

34:31

quickly to this other moment, really the first

34:33

moment of tension between the two of them

34:35

at the Victoria's

34:36

Secret. I mean, I don't get

34:38

why people back then wanted all this

34:40

stuff. Do you need me to explain it to

34:42

you? No. I know why.

34:44

It just looks uncomfortable. Yep.

34:50

What? Nothing. I was just trying to imagine

34:52

you wearing this. Shut up.

34:57

Alright. Come on. We're

34:59

almost there. Malls

35:02

are just such weird places. Right? So

35:04

it's got this weird collection of all these different

35:06

stores. Right? It's like shoes

35:08

and the food court, and then you have like this

35:11

store, that's all about sex. And

35:15

again, you think back to that years as a teenager

35:17

where like your brain is just getting pumped full of hormones.

35:20

And then you can't help but think about

35:22

attraction and sex and all these things when

35:25

we're in the next to that store. And ultimately,

35:27

we know where the story goes. And both of these girls

35:29

like each other. Like, really like each

35:31

other, but they're too afraid to say anything. And here's,

35:34

like, Riley gets to, like, poke at it

35:36

and see the reaction. And Ellie

35:38

has a very kind of weird nervous reaction because

35:40

she doesn't wanna she doesn't wanna reveal how

35:42

vulnerable she is because she loves Riley.

35:44

And that's after Riley walks away, we get to this

35:46

lingering moment, Riley's just looking at her on

35:49

reflection, and we see an insecurity.

35:51

Yeah. Liza really understood this

35:53

moment beautifully, that

35:56

here are two girls who

35:59

well, we've all seen the episodes now. So no big

36:01

secret. They're both gay. And

36:04

their sexuality is confusing

36:08

to them and scary to them because the

36:11

world, to remind everybody, in our

36:13

show stops in two thousand three, the

36:16

revolution that we've gone

36:18

through as a culture to

36:21

become accepting of homosexuality

36:24

and whatever we would call non heteronormative sexuality,

36:27

this hasn't occurred. Which means if the world

36:29

stops in two thousand three, it just doesn't

36:31

happen. In this world, that

36:34

stuff is still problematic as

36:36

they say. So you

36:38

have these two girls who are

36:41

uncomfortable with and afraid of their own sexuality.

36:44

And they're looking at the most

36:47

heteronormative presentation of female

36:50

sexuality there can be. Lingerie,

36:52

designed to be incredibly feminine

36:54

to attract men. And

36:58

neither one of them seemed to quite get

37:00

the allure of it, which is not

37:03

surprising. It's not their thing. But

37:06

what I love about what Riley does there is that

37:08

she and people do this. Right? They we

37:10

know they do this. She gets scared

37:12

of her own feelings for Ellie, and so she

37:15

basically puts Ellie down to

37:18

cover up how she's feeling in

37:20

this weird moment. And Ellie

37:22

doesn't understand that and and it

37:24

hurts. You get defensive. And she

37:26

gets defensive and then she gets insecure and

37:28

she's looking at herself in the reflection of

37:31

this angel, you know,

37:33

the Victoria's Secret angel. And

37:35

she is not an angel. She doesn't like her

37:37

face. She doesn't like her hair. She doesn't like the

37:39

way any of it is. And she's pretty sure that Riley

37:42

would never ever like it either. And

37:44

I can't think of a more fourteen

37:47

year old teenager y thing to think than

37:49

that because God knows I always think that

37:50

stuff. We are shaped

37:52

so much by media

37:55

and how we're bombarded by movies

37:57

and games and comics and ads

37:59

a big part of it is ads, these girls didn't

38:01

grow up with that. So then you get a glimpse into this

38:03

other world. We're like, look how easy they

38:05

had it. Look how beautiful they were. Like,

38:07

it's almost like it becomes this

38:10

fantasy

38:11

instead of like looking back at a reality.

38:14

We move from that moment into the

38:17

mall gets even more magical. We

38:20

find this merry-go-round, which is taken

38:22

straight from the

38:23

game. Yeah. It's very rare.

38:25

I

38:26

love when that happens. We hear this

38:29

almost calliope version

38:31

of cures just like heaven.

38:33

Yeah. And I have to give credit

38:35

to our editor, Tim Good. That was his

38:38

Tim, I think, is

38:40

is important to the

38:43

creative integrity and success

38:45

of the show as anyone. And

38:47

he had been waiting, I think, to put this

38:49

in a show forever. And I think he had tried

38:52

and people have been like, what? No. And

38:54

and then I heard this and I was like, oh my god.

38:56

It's the most

38:58

beautiful thing And

39:00

is there realistically a a merry

39:02

go round that would play a Caliope

39:05

version

39:05

of those who were joking? This is like coolest

39:07

marry you around the necessary.

39:09

Like, plays okay computer.

39:11

Yeah. It's, like, the coolest marry you're

39:13

around. I think a lot of people I

39:16

suspect you're gonna be like, wait. What was that?

39:18

Wait. That

39:19

was the cure. I I'm excited to see

39:21

how second video Second video was

39:23

like, wait a minute. I had to go back and listen to it

39:25

again. I

39:26

love how this

39:28

functions. I loved how it functioned

39:31

in left behind, and I love how

39:33

it functions here. Ellie

39:35

allows herself to slip

39:37

into the fantasy, and

39:39

it is just like heaven until it's

39:42

not. Because at some

39:44

point, the world comes crashing in

39:46

on her even before the merry go round breaks

39:48

down. She remembers, oh

39:51

yeah, this girl doesn't feel about

39:53

me the way I feel about her. In fact,

39:55

she never will. And

39:58

that's when she has to

40:01

kind of go back to questioning,

40:05

what is the thing with you and me?

40:08

Why did you run away?

40:11

What are we doing here?

40:13

Did you really leave because you actually think

40:15

you could liberate this don't say it like

40:17

it's some type of fantasy, Ellie.

40:19

They've done it in the other q z's. Set

40:22

things right the way they used to be.

40:24

Yeah. We could do that too.

40:28

If you come back, I mean, we're we're

40:30

like the future. You know,

40:33

we can make things better. You could

40:35

be running things.

40:37

The text as they're talking about the

40:40

political standing of the quarantine zone,

40:42

but they're really talking about each other. Yeah. And

40:44

Ellie's trying to let's say, I was

40:46

so hurt because you left and you

40:48

were my everything.

40:50

Yeah. I mean, that's why I

40:52

think the world comes crashing in in her because she

40:54

remembers, yeah. Riley just left and

40:57

had no problem with that. Ellie

40:59

would never leave Riley for three

41:01

weeks, ever because Ellie is

41:03

in love with Riley. But Riley

41:05

left no problem obviously, Riley's

41:08

not in love with me. And so

41:10

Neil's right. The discussion is why. And

41:12

we in that discussion learned a really interesting

41:15

thing about Riley,

41:18

which is that, Riley is

41:21

not going anywhere, etcetera.

41:24

Riley is not Ellie. Captain

41:26

Kwang is not sitting Riley down saying your

41:28

officer material. Gave her sewage

41:30

detail. Yeah. You're gonna be sewage detail.

41:34

And that opens Ellie's mind to

41:36

an

41:36

understanding. Okay. I I'm starting

41:39

to get it. The next beat that

41:41

we get into the photo

41:43

booth. Mhmm. Let's talk about

41:45

what the photo booth meant in the game

41:47

both mechanically and also narratively.

41:51

So a lot of the game, we

41:53

took these mechanics that weren't

41:55

used for violence when you played as Joel

41:57

in in in the in the full game. And then for

42:00

this extra chapter, we subverted

42:02

those mechanics to get

42:04

you to connect with Riley and be on this sort of

42:06

date on, like, running away together.

42:09

We had this idea of, like, oh, what if they weren't in this photo

42:11

booth? Because, again, this is the thing you're doing a mall with your

42:13

friends, and you take pictures together.

42:15

And it would it would be a moment that would make it interactive.

42:18

You could choose what poses you wanna do. So there's

42:20

a little bit of agency for the player there as far

42:22

as, like, shaping how that experience goes.

42:25

Ultimately, that moment is about

42:28

a cracking of the dam of seeing

42:31

like these girls are starting to telegraphed

42:33

to each other, whether constantly or not,

42:35

that there is more here than just friendship. And

42:37

that that was a purpose for it in the game. And

42:40

in the game, it was this huge investment. We

42:43

would always say, like, you know, we used to be known for these

42:45

set pieces and uncharted. One of the most

42:47

famous one is, like, You're in this

42:49

building that's being shot with missiles by a helicopter

42:52

and you're fighting all these enemies and you,

42:54

like, dynamically jump out of it just as it

42:56

crashed around June. It took this massive effort

42:58

for whole studio to pull that off, it

43:00

was kind of the same for this photo booth, and it was,

43:03

like, unheard of to spend that many resources

43:05

on this very intimate character moment.

43:08

But again, for people who experience it,

43:10

it had the same impact, the same emotional

43:12

payoff, even more so of an emotional

43:15

payoff than maybe an adrenaline rush. And

43:17

it kinda changed, you know, how we approach things at the

43:19

studio as far as the kind of games we make and the kind of

43:21

moments we are willing to invest in. And

43:23

that's why I believe, Craig was

43:26

like so Adam meant from the

43:28

get go that we need to recapture this

43:29

moment, this photograph moment. That was

43:31

an easy one. And to try and recapture

43:34

it as truly to that

43:36

experience that I had playing left behind

43:39

as we could. This is the

43:41

back and forth we do all the time, how much

43:43

fidelity, what are the things we do exactly,

43:45

what are the things we change. This was

43:47

one where I just thought as

43:49

a fan if I didn't see it

43:51

even down to bunny ears and

43:54

monsters hoses. And just

43:57

feeling like I remember that feeling of

43:59

being physically close

44:01

to a girl that I liked and she liked

44:03

me and we both knew it and we were

44:05

teenagers. And there's just I

44:08

don't know, man. There's just something there.

44:10

And but also at that moment, we're,

44:12

like, you're so insecure. You can't

44:14

even have enough proof. There's never enough proof to

44:16

say she definitely likes me to

44:18

kill. Yeah. Not even like when her friends

44:20

like no. No. No. She likes you. But Ellie

44:22

is like, oh, okay. Okay. Get off.

44:24

It's the second time. Because the in

44:26

the first time, she's coming down the SLC trips.

44:29

And she's like, no. Okay. I'm fine. No. I'm fine.

44:31

It's Ellie gets so

44:34

excited by and terrified of

44:36

physical contact with Riley. That

44:38

when it happens, she needs

44:40

to stop it because she's afraid that

44:42

she won't be able to stop herself from

44:46

kissing her. Ellie's afraid that

44:48

Riley will see right through her. She'll see all the

44:50

emotions she's feeling and she'll be embarrassed.

44:52

Right? So she has to protect herself from this. Yeah.

44:55

Because what's coming is Whoa.

44:58

Friends, but I don't feel that

45:00

way about you also. Actually, now that

45:02

I know that you're one of those, I don't wanna

45:04

be friends with you at all. That's the

45:06

fear. I

45:07

mean, losing somebody. Yeah. When when I

45:09

talked to my friends who

45:11

grew up gay and they

45:13

explained those additional levels.

45:17

That's the scariest part. If if

45:19

I liked a girl and I asked

45:21

her out, and she said, I actually rather be friends.

45:24

Like, maybe she'll be laughing

45:26

about me with her friends that night and that hurts.

45:29

But there won't be this like crazy rumor mill

45:31

in the school. No one's gonna stop being friends

45:33

with me. No one's gonna call me bad names. No one's

45:35

gonna hit me. But that's

45:37

not true if you're gay. Not when you're growing

45:40

up in the seven years or the eighties or the nineties.

45:43

Or even the two thousands. I I think it's changed

45:45

dramatically, at least in some places,

45:48

not everywhere, unfortunately. But

45:50

that's I think a real

45:52

fear that Ellie has, that it won't

45:54

merely be a rejection

45:56

of romance. It will be a total rejection

45:59

of her as a person and as a friend. And

46:01

she can't bear that. We'll get to

46:03

the moment where she's afraid of losing her

46:05

and that's really at the root

46:07

of that fear. Mhmm.

46:09

But first, we have another wonder

46:12

of them all. The most wondrous wonder of them

46:14

all. Why mortal combat too? Why mortal

46:16

combat too specific because that's my

46:18

phase. Where do they was that just the

46:20

one that you could find? No. I mean,

46:22

okay. First of all, portal combat two

46:25

is the best ever. Right? Like,

46:28

not every cabinet arcade

46:30

game worked like that. Sometimes the first

46:32

one was the best. In this case, moral

46:34

combat too, I think, was

46:36

the best. Same. And we

46:39

had this opportunity to do something that

46:41

Naughty Dog couldn't do when they were making the game, which is

46:43

use real stuff. Because when and I don't know

46:45

the rules. I don't understand the intellectual property

46:47

thing.

46:48

In the video game, the game's called the turning.

46:51

Yeah. And the game one

46:55

again, when I skipped school, the highlight of

46:57

skipping school was going through the

46:58

architecture. Absolutely. By far. Yeah.

47:01

So that this had to be, like, kind of, the climax

47:03

of what Riley wants to show Ellie. Which,

47:05

by the way, like, I haven't just recently

47:07

rewatched this episode. III tear up every

47:10

time they're staying in front of that arcade. I don't know what it

47:12

is. It's like some combination of, like, what's

47:14

happening in the episode and my own Alja for

47:16

arcades that have just kinda disappeared over the

47:18

years. So when we made the

47:20

game, we couldn't use an

47:22

existing game because we would have had to recreate

47:24

it So so

47:26

that's one thing. And then licensing would have been

47:28

a headache. So we just never went down that road. So we

47:30

made our own game called the turning.

47:33

It was called the turning because when I was working

47:35

on the comic book that eventually became

47:37

the last of us when it was pitched to the

47:39

Nighthawk, it was called the turning.

47:42

So this was kind of like homage to myself,

47:44

I guess. I don't know.

47:47

But, again, it's just one of those things you imbue

47:49

with stuff to make it more personal to you. We get more

47:51

invested in it. That's very much a rip

47:53

off of moral combat too. Yeah. Yeah. And

47:56

it was always intended to be that way. And the reason

47:58

we did moral combat to or just thought about

48:00

it is there's this

48:02

evolution of games and violence

48:05

in games, how violence in use in games. And moral

48:07

combat too. There was this whole conversation around

48:09

it with violence in the media

48:12

and senator Liberman wanting to censor

48:14

video games. That's where, like, the rating system all

48:16

came out. So it's like a lot of, like, really interesting

48:18

political things that happened with video games

48:20

with that specific game. But

48:23

to go back to what Craig was saying, we had an opportunity

48:25

to use the original source, the original inspiration,

48:27

which just moral combat too. And I'm like, wait

48:29

a minute. We could actually, like, probably get the

48:32

the rights for this relatively easy because it's Warner

48:34

Brothers. Yeah. So it was it was just

48:36

very cool to be able to use that. So then we worked

48:38

backwards from there. And if you notice the opening

48:40

of the episode when we're in Ellie's room,

48:42

She has a poster for moral combat two and two.

48:45

These girls would have had an obsession with

48:47

this particular thing because Ellie just

48:49

has this not dissimilar

48:51

to me in a possession with violent media,

48:54

which, like, you know, I grew up, like, at that

48:56

age, like or maybe little bit older. I

48:58

saw pulp fiction, and I read Cincinnati and

49:00

just, like, very much drawn to that

49:02

kind of

49:04

experiences at the time. Yeah. And there's

49:06

this nice circle

49:09

back payoff to a moment that happened

49:11

in the third episode when Ellie finds

49:14

a dead moral

49:16

combat two game in the convenience store

49:19

and tells Joel about how she had a friend

49:21

and she played Molina and she would swallow you

49:23

home and barf out your bones. And now we

49:25

see it. Yeah. And one of the things that

49:28

I was obsessive about

49:31

because I concentrate enormously

49:34

on sound. I try whenever

49:36

I'm writing scripts to write sound into the script.

49:39

And then when we're mixing and I

49:41

told our mixing team just amazing

49:43

led by Mark Fishman and Kevin Roche. Guys,

49:46

this isn't gonna be normal mixing strategy.

49:49

I am going to get so granular

49:51

about so many things. And one of the things I got

49:54

really granular about was the

49:56

way would feel in

49:58

your stomach when you drop that

49:59

quarter, that base walled.

50:06

This is

50:15

one of those meta moments where

50:18

there's a television show based

50:20

on a video game and the guy

50:23

that made the video game and the guy over

50:25

here that's helping adapt the video game,

50:27

both loved video games.

50:29

And we have our whole lives and

50:32

giving everybody a chance, especially

50:35

I think kids who haven't

50:37

known the mall or Kate experience the way we have,

50:39

to just enjoy other

50:42

people enjoying it. I think was

50:44

great. It was beautiful. And I

50:47

love how Riley

50:49

knows inherently that

50:51

Ellie is going to love The

50:54

fatality moves the special finishers

50:56

for people who know mortal combat, especially

50:59

when you played it in ninety three. The

51:02

only way you knew about the

51:04

cheat codes or the fatality codes

51:07

was anecdotally, you you heard the rumors

51:10

because somebody in

51:10

the yard. So glad you brought that

51:12

up. Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up. Because

51:14

I'm sure people will watch us be like, how did they know

51:16

the moves? How did they figure out the moves? This is actually

51:18

something we talked quite quite a lot about, and it's

51:20

like, again, as they collect these totems

51:22

from this old world, one of the things

51:24

that used to be really popular and was still

51:26

popular in the early two

51:27

thousands, or video game magazine

51:29

-- The magazines.

51:30

-- big glossy things like

51:32

a proper book that you'd

51:35

flip through and it would discuss

51:36

That's how I believe that level. Yeah. All I didn't

51:38

realize I missed them. Yeah. Yeah. So if they were, like,

51:41

infatuated with this game, Ellie would collect

51:43

anything to do with this game, including magazines

51:46

that would have listed the moves that they would have memorized

51:48

as if they could ever play it. But of

51:49

course, the tragic thing is they can never

51:52

play it because those games don't exist anymore until

51:54

today. Yeah. They had this wonderful

51:57

moment and we we leave them for a second

51:59

in inside of the arcade and the purple light

52:01

and the cacophanous sounds. And

52:03

the cartoonish violence that's happening

52:06

inside of that video game, we start to pan

52:08

out and we follow this root system. And

52:10

we see that they're not alone in this mall.

52:12

Right? That there is an imminent

52:14

threat that wakes up. Yeah.

52:16

And this is a difference from

52:19

the game. In the

52:21

game, there's

52:23

no indication that

52:25

there's anything in the mall -- Not too

52:27

much. -- too much later. And when it

52:30

does happen, there are a lot of infected.

52:33

And as we talked

52:35

it through, we we did like the idea

52:37

that, I mean, you know, Ellie's like that place is full

52:39

infected and really says, if it's sealed

52:41

off, then why isn't it sealed off? And then

52:43

you get in there and you're like, it's not full of infected

52:46

at all. Riley's correct. And

52:48

Riley's been living in

52:50

this mall for a couple of weeks. And

52:52

she hasn't seen any infected. There's one.

52:55

That's all it takes. Is just

52:57

one. And what wakes

52:59

him up is their joy.

53:02

It's the sound of their laughing. They're

53:04

having fun. As

53:08

much as we can, we

53:11

give our characters the things they want the most

53:13

and then we punish them for getting them.

53:16

And we want them to be

53:19

challenged by their darkest fears. And

53:21

so one of the fears that you have in

53:24

this world is that you're never safe

53:26

enough to have

53:27

fun. You're never safe enough to

53:29

fall in love. You're never safe enough to

53:31

have a first kiss. There's

53:33

two threats that are happening in this moment. First

53:35

is the waking up, the infected, that's in there

53:37

and also, there's a bit

53:39

of a truth bomb that Riley drops.

53:41

Right. Ellie, I'm leaving.

53:48

They're sending me to a post in the Atlantic

53:50

QCI

53:55

asked if you could join

53:57

so we could go together.

54:01

But Marlene said no. What the fuck is Marlene?

54:03

Marlene is the lady that helped me get it doesn't

54:06

matter. Ellie,

54:09

I tried.

54:12

Yeah. Yeah. Ellie finds

54:16

the truth of what Riley's been doing here. It's

54:18

not just this romantic, oh, I've joined the fireflies,

54:21

and I'm a gun, and all that. And Nellie's been making

54:23

fun of her for the whole tone. It's good to shoot

54:25

for her flu. Well, they're

54:27

pipe bombs. And the pipe bombs

54:30

have one purpose, and that is to be thrown,

54:32

etcetera. In the middle of our

54:34

first episode, we see what those pipe

54:36

bombs can do. They blow up a car. They blow up the

54:38

side of a building. They almost kill

54:40

tests. And Ellie

54:43

is confronted with the reality that this

54:45

girl that she's so connected to that she cares

54:48

so much about is actively

54:50

participating in something meant

54:52

to kill people like her. And remember she

54:54

was told by Kwang in the beginning,

54:56

you're gonna be an

54:57

officer. That means

54:59

one day, Riley's gonna be lobbying one of these

55:02

things at her and the whole

55:04

fantasy comes crashing in at that point.

55:06

We have this pestilent goodbye.

55:09

What do you think it is that stops

55:11

Ellie and makes her go

55:13

back? That's love.

55:15

That's what this shows all about. You

55:17

can't escape the

55:20

truth of what you want. You

55:22

can know intellectually this

55:26

girl doesn't care about me the way I

55:28

care about her and

55:30

she is actively participating

55:33

in something that could

55:35

end up in my death,

55:37

but what if she

55:39

does care about me that way?

55:42

And what if I told her?

55:44

Would it matter? There's also the

55:46

fear of, like, is this the last interaction

55:48

I wanna have with her? Right. She's, like I

55:50

think there's also, like, there's such a love that

55:52

Ellie's will is is not ready to let her go.

55:55

And later, right, she says to her, it's like,

55:57

I'll support you. This is what you really want.

55:59

I'm your best

56:00

friend. Yeah. And and I'm not saying it all pissy. Yeah.

56:02

I mean it. Yeah. Like, I think

56:04

Neil's right. There's this

56:07

need to just say

56:09

goodbye. I don't think Ellie goes

56:11

back there thinking, I'm gonna

56:13

tell her how I really feel and I'm gonna kiss her.

56:16

She goes back there to say

56:19

a proper

56:19

goodbye. You know? But she does go

56:21

back and we get to see another iconic

56:24

moment from the left behind

56:25

game, which is the Halloween store. Yeah.

56:28

You use source music again as a score

56:30

with edit jain's version of I got

56:32

You Babe. Taken right from the game

56:34

with anybody that's played it

56:36

just knows

56:37

it. I think a lot of people that play that game don't realize

56:39

it's like a u bam because edit's

56:42

version is so different. Right.

56:43

Different. It's funky and fun in his juxtaposed.

56:45

And I mean, that was the challenge of, like, you know,

56:47

finding a song that is

56:50

about romance. But is not so

56:52

sentimental that it's just about romance.

56:54

Right. And this just strikes

56:56

that balance of again, the lyrics are about

56:58

something, but the vibe you get got this,

57:00

like like you're saying, a funky energy that

57:02

it gets to hide what it's really about.

57:05

Kind of like very much what is happening

57:07

between Ellie and Riley at this moment.

57:10

I mean, literally hiding under masks.

57:12

And there's this moment as they're dancing.

57:15

And I love the way Liza shot

57:16

this. Riley is

57:18

a much better dancer than Ellie. That much

57:21

is clear. Ellie is sort of like Do

57:22

what about the Yeah. Shuffling in the left side. Or

57:25

or being a goof. Riley

57:28

in that good dance away is sort of doing this thing where

57:30

she's rotating around and she turns away

57:33

from Ellie as she's dance around. And

57:35

as she turns away, Ellie slowly

57:39

stops dancing. And here's the

57:41

magic of Bella Ramsey. She

57:44

is wearing a mask that

57:46

completely obscures her face and

57:49

you know exactly still how

57:51

she's feeling just from the way

57:53

her body moves. Yes. It's

57:55

magic. It's just

57:58

there. And what she's feeling

58:00

there is this connection to Riley that

58:02

is so powerful and

58:04

so joyous that she

58:07

just can't let it

58:09

go. She can't walk away

58:11

without begging. She

58:13

just says, don't go. And

58:17

Riley says, okay. And

58:21

then she Ellie kisses her.

58:24

And and it's just like the

58:26

game. And don't think that's a bad thing. I think

58:28

it's a wonderful thing because

58:30

it was perfect in the game, and I think it's

58:32

perfect here. All

58:34

of it. Bella's reaction after

58:36

she kisses her, which is like fifteen hundred

58:38

emotions in two seconds. And

58:41

then

58:42

You know, apologizing and Riley sing for what,

58:44

and then Ellie realizing, oh my god. And

58:46

Riley sing oh, we give her, like, a few

58:49

seconds of the greatest joy it for a life.

58:51

Just a few seconds. Yeah. But there's, like,

58:53

this thing of the two of them, like, oh

58:55

my god.

58:57

The time we've wasted being scared

58:59

when we both felt this way,

59:01

and then the world comes crashing in. Like

59:04

you said, it's quickly interrupted. By

59:07

the pivotal moment for Ellie,

59:09

which is not only is

59:11

she bitten, but also

59:13

Riley as well. And the disparity again

59:15

between their responses. I

59:17

don't know. We don't get to see if

59:19

Riley has her freak out

59:21

moment, but we'd certainly see Ellie's.

59:23

And she smashes stuff and Riley

59:26

responds. Direct from the game. And

59:29

almost everything that they say between each other

59:32

is look from the game. There are a few other little bits here

59:34

or there that we put in. But

59:37

what I love about

59:39

this ending more than anything credit

59:42

for kind of pushing us to to keep

59:44

growing it is. What

59:47

Riley says to Ellie

59:49

at the end here is not merely

59:52

words of comfort or vague

59:54

philosophy.

59:56

It ends this way for everyone sooner

59:58

or later. Right? Some

1:00:01

of us just get there faster

1:00:03

than

1:00:03

others. Though

1:00:06

we don't quit, Father,

1:00:15

just two minutes. Or

1:00:18

two days. We

1:00:22

don't get that up. I

1:00:26

don't wanna give that up.

1:00:29

It is a lesson that Ellie

1:00:32

has in her bones And

1:00:34

it is why Ellie fights

1:00:36

to keep Joel alive because what

1:00:38

Riley is saying is we don't give up.

1:00:41

Even if we have two minutes or

1:00:44

two days, we just keep

1:00:46

going because we love each other.

1:00:48

And death comes for us all.

1:00:51

The time we have is the time we have. The

1:00:53

fact that it must end is

1:00:55

not a reason for us to not love. And

1:00:57

there's Ellie who has been told

1:01:00

to go away. Who knows Joel's gonna die?

1:01:02

There's no fucking way she's gonna be able to save him.

1:01:04

She's not gonna quit. And she ransacks

1:01:06

his house looking for what? Thread

1:01:09

to stitch him up. It's the only thing she

1:01:11

knows how to do with a wound because

1:01:13

of her own life. And she goes back

1:01:15

down there and oh my

1:01:17

god. They hold their the hands being

1:01:19

held. It's like, it's

1:01:22

so beautiful to me and and

1:01:25

then when she's sewing

1:01:27

him up, the look on her face

1:01:29

-- Yeah. -- is just what

1:01:31

do you describe it? It's it's it's

1:01:33

a desperation. Yeah. And

1:01:35

and and fury. It's almost

1:01:38

like I won't fucking let you

1:01:40

go. Right. I will will it Yes.

1:01:42

Mean, will the possible. Yes.

1:01:44

Will it work? That

1:01:47

is something we'll have to find out next week.

1:01:50

Craig, Thanks a million, man,

1:01:52

for being here. Thanks, Troy. And of

1:01:54

course, the same to you,

1:01:55

Neil. Goodbye. We

1:01:57

will talk to you both next

1:01:59

week. This

1:02:03

has been the official of the last of his podcast from

1:02:05

HBO. Again, I'm Troy Baker, joined

1:02:07

by Craig Mason. And Neil Druckman,

1:02:09

you can stream new episodes of the HBO original

1:02:11

series the last of a Sundays on HBO Max.

1:02:13

The podcast episodes are available after episodes

1:02:16

of the last of us airing on HBO, you

1:02:18

could find this show wherever you listen

1:02:20

to

1:02:20

podcasts. Like and follow HBO's the

1:02:22

last of us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Until

1:02:25

next week and duringsurvive.

1:02:29

This is the official companion podcast

1:02:31

for HBO's The Last Of Us, hosted

1:02:33

by Troy Baker. Our producers are

1:02:36

Elliot Adler, Brea Marriott and

1:02:38

Noah Camuso. Darby Maloney

1:02:40

is our added The show is mixed

1:02:42

by Hannes Brown. Our executive producers

1:02:44

are Gabrielle Lewis and Barry Finkel.

1:02:47

Production music is courtesy of and

1:02:50

you can watch episodes of the last of us

1:02:52

on HBO Max.