FIRST TIME WATCHING: TLOU S2E2

Always love you and the hat.

beautiful reaction Natalie

As someone who played the game, for your reaction and everyone's reaction who hasn't played the game is the James Franco meme, First Time?

You always dress so cool, but your hat makes your fashion ten times better.

Some of y'all in the comments should hop off the Internet and go talk to some real people 😆. Being mad about a piece of fiction that came out half a decade ago is such a bad way to live. Go do things that bring you joy!

Let us remember Joel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFlLPLb72g&t=26s

Natalie, The first season was awesome, but season 2... I found out what happened to Joel in the first season, when i was googling about TLOS part 2. I told myself that if they ended Joel's pulse, I'd quit watching and I'm staying true to my promise. The minute Abby ended Joel, i lost all affinity for it. I refuse to believe that Pedro doesn't have enough influence to change that event. Abby should've grieved and moved on. When Kaitlyn Dever filmed that scene, they had to have extra security because of the toxic nature of Abby. When the 2nd game came out, alot of people were very upset. So much so that the woman playing Abby in the game, got threats to eliminate her. They made Ellie into a hostile little brat this season. She knew wat Joel did. Not the details, but she knew. Ellie's not dumb. The non-gamers, like me, will mostly be the ones to stop watching. Pedro is a major star and was the main character. Bella won't be able to carry the show. Now it's about revenge. After i see Vicky's 2nd episode reaction, i'm tapping out. I didn't sign up for that . They had one job.... one job. Please i beg of u to please watch Sopranos. I'll catch ur movies. Until next time Stay Golden .

The apology seems a bit hollow with Maria setting it up.

“I guess I’ll just go watch Treasure Planet now..” 😂 Amazing reaction, so glad you at least understood Abby’s motivations. There’s an extra layer of pain and frustration on Ellie’s part too because she never got closure with Joel, never got to reconcile with whatever she was angry with him for, which is just going to fester into fuel for her revenge A lot of people get particularly upset at the idea that the show is calling Joel a “bad” person and that he deserved his fate, etc, but I don’t think it’s that simple. From Abby’s perspective, of course, that’s all he is; a maniac who killed a hospital full of people who couldve potentially made a cure, and doomed the world. We’ve seen Joel be heroic and kind and caring, and his time with Ellie and being in Jackson has helped him ever more to heal, but we also know from his own admission in season 1 that he has done horrible things to survive, besides killing all the fireflies. Joel himself probably knew that if the infected didn’t kill him, it would be his past catching up to him, and I think Pedro did a fantastic job here conveying Joel’s fear, realisation, and ultimately his acceptance that he was going to die And now Abby is the one who killed a 19 year olds girls (I didn’t realise Ellie was the same age Abby was when it happened, good catch 👀) father, right in front of her. Just perpetuation the cycle of trauma. Amazing storytelling, devastating experience

I knew this was coming. I just can't believe they did it this early in the season. I don't care that it's faithful to the game, the MAJORITY of fans of TLOU game HATED what happened in the sequel's story. I don't respect Neil Druckman's "creative or narrative vision". I believe what he did was a total betrayal of the original characters, and would not have happened if Bruce Straley had been co-director of TLOU2. (Dealing with a DIVA like Druckman is probably what caused Straley's "burnout" and why he left Naughty Dog.) TLOU2 offered nothing new or insightful about the self-destructive and cyclical nature of revenge. It was just grim, mean-spirited, and pointless. More than anything, it was peak arrogance and HUBRIS to ignore the negative backlash about TLOU2, tell the same story in Season 2, and not expect the same negative reaction. The definition of INSANITY is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Well fans HATE what happened at the end of this episode and many have said they're not going to continue to watch Season 2. I don't blame them. Considering how insufferable Ellie has been in the first two episodes, and knowing from the game the direction her character takes, I agree there isn't a compelling reason to continue to watch -- other than to confirm my predictions and know WTF I'm talking about, rather than ignorantly bashing something I haven't seen. (Also, HBO shows are free with CRAVE, which is part of my FibeTV package, so cancelling it to "send a message" would be pointless.) Aside from the MISERABLE ending, I admit that this episode was great. The tension and foreboding was riveting, the acting (aside from Bella Ramsy) was great, the scale of the battle was impressive, and the effects were amazing. At least HBO learned their lesson from GoT's "The Long Night" and didn't have this zombie siege occur at night. It's ironic because this battle occurred at winter during a blizzard, which was basically the Battle of Winterfell! It wasn't a perfect battle. It was really lame that a SINGLE Bloater breached the wall. Did they just reuse the one Bloater suit from Season 1, and that's why there was only one? But it was clearly CGI in some shots, so that couldn't be the limitation. Also, I know exaclty what siege experts will say, and I agree: Where was the DITCH!? Every fortification must have a ditch (or a moat), and as usual, Hollywood never includes that essential defensive obstacle. Jackson had 5+ years to dig a ditch! And it would've been effective versus both Infected and Raiders! A 6-foot deep ditch just 10 feet in front of the wall would've stopped the Infected horde in its tracks, and would've been PERFECT to drop the fuel barrels into and burned them all, at SAFE distance from the WOOD log wall. (I thought for sure the burning Infected were going to set the log wall on fire -- it probably should have.) But I know, it's more thrilling if the zombie horde breach the wall, so the defenses MUST BE FLAWED. It's frustrating because it's possible to make the defenses correctly, and have the Infected horde overcome them anyway. The horde could've been so large they filled up the ditch, then MULTIPLE Bloaters smashed through the wall. Or something more creative, like Bloaters THROWING Infected up over the wall. There are plenty of cool ideas, they just chose none of them. I didn't like that Maria letting the attack dogs loose turned the tide of battle. Firstly, Maria had ridiculous plot armour to make it through the horde like that. Second, WHY wasn't someone standing by in the kennel with a radio, waiting for Maria's order to set the dogs loose? The range of the radios was compromised by the storm, but within the town, they should've worked fine. Third, I just hate the idea of "war dogs" in general, because they're basically kamikaze pets. I thought it was despicable how the Soviets in WWII used dogs carrying explosives to run under German tanks and their handlers remotely blew them up. There are innumerable historical examples of exploiting dogs. It's a total betrayal of man's best friend. Returning to the worst part of the episode (this is deep enough into my comment it'll be hidden unless you clicked on it--regardless, SPOILER WARNING:) I disliked that Joel didn't try to defend himself, either physically or verbally. Again, it was a betrayal by the narrative direction to make Joel just sit there SILENTLY while Abby RANTED about her poor dead daddy (who pulled a scalpel on Joel BTW), and then she had a hissyfit when Joel told her to shut up and get it over with. That's why Abby SUCKS as a character. She's completely blinded by vengeance, she's oblivious to her hypocrisy, and she doesn't care about anything else, like WHY Joel killed the doctor and the Fireflies: TO SAVE ELLIE! Abby's rant was actually a change from the game, which proves Neil Druckman's arrogant defence of the game was wrong, because it if it was all about "artistic integrity" as he claimed, it would've been done exactly the same. Instead, it was Dina with Joel, instead of Tommy, and Dina gave away Joel's name by accident before she even saw Abby, a stranger, was on the back of Joel's horse. Although it was really strange how Abby's goons coddled Dina by drugging her instead of beating her unconscious, like they did to Tommy in the game. She was already being held in a choke hold; they could've choked her unconscious in a few seconds instead wasting time and resources using drugs to knock her out. Woke Hollywood's BS double standard for women strikes again! And WHY was it even necessary to incapacitate Dina? Abby's goons didn't lift a finger during Joel's torture and murder. Just to spare Dina from having to watch, so ONLY Ellie was traumatized by Joel's murder? The problem with Abby's rant in this episode compared to the game was that there were plenty of opportunities for Joel to interject with the FACTS: i.e. Abby's daddy was about to KILL a 14 year old girl who had NOT consented to the brain surgery procedure. Also, Marlene had lied to both Ellie and Joel from the beginning, and she used Joel (and Tess), then betrayed them. That Joel wanted to see Ellie and tell her before her surgery, but Marlene had her Firefly goons beat him up and kick him out. Those are some vital details! I know it wouldn't have persuaded Abby, but it's possible those revelations would've swayed her goons. Speaking of which, it's unbelievable that Abby's friends stuck with her for 5 YEARS, and then just stood by while she tortured and murdered Joel. For them to come that far, they must have wanted a taste of revenge themselves, so it makes no sense that they didn't participate. ALL of the characters SUCKED, and were incredibly stupid to just walkaway, leaving Ellie and Dina alive -- to perpetuate the cycle of revenge. It's so unbearably CONTRIVED! They could've had Dina wake up while Abby and her goons were distracted, grab a gun, and open fire to scare them off. And/or Jesse could've arrived and stopped them from killing Ellie and Dina, demonstrating that he's a brave LEADER, like Ellie mentioned. But Jesse is a dude, so yunno, he CAN'T be a hero in TLOU2. The ONLY good part is that since TLOU Season 2 is a show, not a game, WE are not forced to play as Abby. She can just be the antagonist who we can judge and hate, and root for the only remaining protagonist, Ellie, to exact her revenge for Joel. However, I predict the show will try to portray Abby as "sympathetic" -- as if none of the people that Joel and Ellie killed in Season 1 had family and friends who would've been "justified" in seeking revenge. NOPE, only Abby could do it, and we're expected to empathize with her. Uh... NO. Considering the (predictable and understandable) negative reactions to what happened to Joel in this episode, I'm interested to see how badly viewership will drop for the remaining episodes. Because I guarantee, viewership will drop.

I forgot too but it’s established in season 1 that the infected are a hive mind, so because the fungus in the pipes at Jackson was disturbed it sent a signal to the rest of the infected to attack Jackson. Also explains all of them heading towards a weakness in the wall at the same time, they’re like ants 😅

Should we have Nat react to the scene in the game next Gold Standard? lol

My anxiety was through the roof basically this whole episode. idk why but I really believed for a minute that they were gonna find a way to save Joel’s death until the finale and that the 3rd season would be Ellie’s revenge 😅 but damn, they did it…

Shittiest fame thrower I have ever seen and I include the Musk grill lighter in that category. That flamer was more like a giant butane lighter than an actual weapon.

Nothing against Dever’s talent or range, I just can’t take her seriously in this role. While she didn’t need to look like the version we got in the game, her 5’2” diminutive stature really let her down here as the director made every effort to frame her “beating” of Joel in a way that really hid her lack of physicality. She looks utterly unintimidating. Imagine a slightly taller/bigger actress with more presence, like a Florence Pugh as Abby. I think we would’ve got a much more formidable opponent for Ramsey’s Ellie.

Having Ashley Johnson sing the outro was diabolically nasty work.

Some notes about this episode (NO SPOILERS): The song at the end was sung by Ashley Johnson, who provided the voice (and motion capture) for Ellie in the games. She also played Anna, Ellie's mother, in the Season 1 flashback. This particular song was performed by Ashley for an early teaser trailer for the second game that was released in 2016 (wow, 8 years ago). It's a really great trailer that doesn't spoil the game (or the show), and in fact provides a bit of a misdirection, as it doesn't contain any events that happen in the game: https://youtu.be/W2Wnvvj33Wo It's a powerful song, and works so well in this episode. Some events/setups in this episode differ from the game (mainly regarding which character is in which location), but one of the biggest changes is that in the game, Abby does not tell Joel why she's going to kill him, and the player doesn't even know. Then the game makes you play as Abby while still not sure of her motivations. It's a choice that angered a lot of fans, but I think it works brilliantly in the game. I can see why they made different choices for the show.

There are a few changes from the game that I'm not a fan of in this episode but overall I think it worked well and a couple of the changes were brilliant IMO. Stoked to see the show move forward from here.

Such a great episode.

This is the advantage of not playing the games before watching the show, you could see that Nat couldn't believe what she was seeing, waiting for someone to save Joel... What a great show, and what a great game..

There are some haters in this thread, but I'll just say this was every bit as wonderful and painful as I'd expected. The game blew me away when I played it almost 5 years ago now, and to see it being adapted so well (and I might even say better in some instances) is just such a beautiful thing to see. It’s supposed to be devastating. It’s supposed to hurt so bad you can’t breathe. This is the catalyst for the entire game/show. What do you think Ellie is going to do now? There is no game or show without this event.

I waited all week for your reaction to this! I'm shook too, gave me GoT flashbacks!

Hey Nat, I think you were overthinking the fungus inside the town. In the first season they talked about how it grows for miles underground. The growth inside the town was just signalling to the infected that there were a bunch of humans to infect over here (which is why they pivoted). I don't believe the growth itself was a direct threat to the town unless someone would like eat the fungus.

Kaitlyn Dever slayed this episode

Lets go golfing.

I got 2 buckets of Natalie tears

Take care of yourself, self care and all that. It's a hard story to go through.

After watching (& re-watching) this episode, I have finally understood what the writers/developers of the Video Game were trying to convey and can now play the Sequel Game. From what I've heard, the game was a lot more surprising. And, some have called this the "Red Wedding" version.

You will never love anything as much as the showrunners/Sequel game producers hate their fans. The big question has been whether they would follow the Game's storyline or if they would change it for Season 2 given that the sequel game basically flopped due to popular anger at its story. I predict that you're going to see a major drop off in viewership. Might still get a season 3 but I think this decision will kill off the show the same way it killed off the game series. This is especially true if they stick to the Sequel game's terrible story ending.

The story of TLOU is amazing and devastating. It hurts to watch, but you just can’t stop.

I wonder how much normie non-gamer viewership will drop after this. Pedro Pascal was the draw of the show imho for many people. I'm definitely not interested in Ellie's solo adventures tbh.

YEPPPPPP welcome to the trauma 😂 Also, in this show, think of the fungus like a hive mind… when the worker broke the pipe and found the cordiceps, the infected nearby sensed it and all pivoted to Jackson. Hope that helps clarify

She is alive

Happy Thursday Nat. This LOU episode was always going to be the most brutal 😢 It still has the power to shock 5 years on. I said your reaction would be unforgettable and I was right Nat 💛

So it begins...