Yeah, I wouldn’t have liked that either. Hope this show continues to hold your interest. Viewers here seem to give it high praise.

 

Their promotional campaign was very good too. The trailer was one of the best I've ever seen for a new series. And now word of mouth is drawing more people in.

 

Yeah, like I said in a previous post so far there's only one scene I really didn't like. But this happens with any show. There were things in House of the Dragon I didn't like either, like not focusing a bit more on Rhaenyra and Harwin, or Daemon and Laena. But I'm pretty confident about this first season because all of the reviews are based on 9 episodes. They allowed reviewers to watch the whole season in advance.

 

I thought episode 3 was extremely well written. It was a deviation from the game in that we missed out on a number of action sequences that occurred in Bill's town. He was alive when Joel and Ellie arrived, but Frank was dead.

They executed this one well from start to finish, and I liked how they worked Joel and Ellie in.

My only reason for pause is that this is a very fast paced season with the final 6 episodes covering the remaining events in the game. So it feels as if they spent a bit too much time on Bill's story with all of this ground to cover.

A very good episode but I'm not sure how well it fits until I see the rest of the season.

 

I think this episode is a little long and dragging.
I mean, this is basically a bottle episode for Bill and Frank. What I would do is to spend half the episode time on them and then the other half time on the story of that black woman (her dress on the ground implies she was murdered by the government even though she was not infected).
My point is:- the loyalty between Bill and Frank can be contrasted sharply with the cheating/betrayal of the government on her citizens (characterized by the black woman) who trust in her.

BTW, since I have not played the game, I did not know what will happen when Bill met Frank. I was thinking, maybe Frank was a bad guy, pretending to be good. When Frank, sort of, seemed to make an excuse of not leaving by playing the piano and then asked Bill to sit down and play, the camera zooms in on the big head shot of Bill playing piano and singing, I thought:- Oh no! the next scene will be Bill's head being smashed by Frank....lol

 

We'll see how it goes but this episode opens it up to second guessing overall. Originally I thought the first game could've easily been broken down into 2 seasons.

If you're going to spend this much time on Bill's backstory, then they should've done the same for Tess. Basically my outline at this point would be the premiere as it was, then two episodes of Boston QZ/Statehouse. And I really believe they missed an opportunity of making the whole Bill and Frank story even better if they had been alive for when Joel and Ellie arrived. You get all that interaction between the characters and then after Joel and Ellie left you could've had the suicide scene. So that could've been two episodes taking us through # 5 instead of #3.

My point is if you want brisk pacing, fine, that's the choice for your series. But if you stop like this and then don't do the same throughout some of the audience is going to feel like they're missing the journey a bit. For instance I was fine with Tess going quickly, because it roughly mirrors the game, but now it feels as if we were a bit short changed.

I think they should've stopped this season upon them reaching Tommy. Then Season 2 could work in the remaining events of Game # 1 while introducing the Game 2 characters that will impact Season 3.

They made it sound like it was a strict adaptation of the game, so I was more lenient in terms of the narrative then, but now they expanded on Bill. Supposedly in the game Frank hated him in the end, so they added content for the TV side. I'm not critical of that, it was better I think, but I feel the same should be done to the rest of the story.

 

In the game we never see Frank. He's dead when Joel and Ellie get there. Then they have interactions with Bill. Frank did commit suicide though.

Your reaction is interesting because I'm seeing the same from some others who haven't played the game. Having understanding for Bill's Town, put me in a bit of a different spot than someone else coming in fresh.

As I mentioned in my previous post I thought they could've interwoven this whole story better in two episodes where Joel and Ellie were more prominent, and they had interactions with Bill and Frank. It's unusual to give two characters that exit their own episode. It was very well written but from what many are saying I think they took a lot of people out of the main story.

 

I thought episode 4 was the weakest one so far. At this point in the game they're only in Pittsburgh, but on the show they are in Kansas City. And while the location for the events is not too important, Ellie mentioned that it was her second day in the car, and somehow they had managed to teleport all the way from Massachusetts to Kansas City. That would be incredible time in today's world, let alone an apocalypse where the roads are damaged and blocked. To make matters worse Ellie explains that they keep stopping for gas. So yeah, Pittsburgh would've made more sense than halfway across the country.

Apparently the first time they reached a blocked road was Kansas City too. For all it's flaws at least early TWD recognized that it's not easy to get from place to place. The Last of Us though, unlike the Walking Dead, recognized that gas does degrade. I think though the ability to travel so far, so quickly, is a much greater flaw overall.

I would've liked to see a bit more action, and tension, from the scene where they were ambushed. The Joel and Ellie scenes though were all very good.

Aside from teleportation, my biggest problem with the episode was the new group. The whole scene with the doctor was ridiculous. The leader asks if the wounded person could be helped by the doctor. When she's told no, she goes back and shoots him. Good thing they'll never have need for a physician again.

And if the point was to make her a psycho, then she shouldn't have shown all that emotion with him when they first spoke. I'd say her role is miscast, but it might be doing the actress a discredit because her part wasn't written very well.

Having played the game it feels as if the showrunners are just rushing the characters to the endpoint rather than taking a true literal, and figurative, journey. We would've been better served with seeing Joel and Ellie travel across the country and slowly bond as they face small challenges. This is content they could've expanded on, just as they did with Bill and Frank. I want that level of writing throughout too.

I was surprised that Mazin wrote Episode 4. It's well beneath the quality he brought to episodes 1 and 3.

 

Totally agree even though I have not played the game.

Regarding the long distance, it must be because thus fits the purpose of the plot. Is it possible that Bill has stored up a lot of gasoline for Joel? Could it be that the truck, when leaving Massachusetts, did not only have a full tank of gas but also many bottles of gasoline in the back. If so, this might explain that Joel/Ellie can travel very far before needing to stop to find gas?

And yes, I would like to see an episode of having Joel/Ellie face some challenges on the way to develop the bond. Maybe 2 incidents (half an episode each) are good. And, it is a little odd that there seemed to have nothing happen on the road between MA and Kansas City.

BTW, can someone explain the joke that made Joel laughed near the end?
I could not hear well the dialogue. What was so funny?

 

I believe Ellie said that they had stopped multiple times to get more gas, so that would've made the trip even longer with all those stops to siphon it into cans.

The joke she told was "Why is diarrhea hereditary?" And the punchline was "it runs in your jeans."

 

I think the episode would've been better served focusing on Henry and Sam. My guess is their story is resolved in the next episode, and that's a shame since they had Episode 4 to give us some background on them instead of the KC group that I couldn't care less about. Showing those two and flipping back between them and Joel/Ellie would've been perfect, until both duos collided.

While I can understand why they didn't do Pittsburgh, because it's very distinct with all the rivers and has hilly terrain, they could've done something like Columbus, Ohio instead. That's flatter and less identifiable and it wouldn't have slipped into the realm of unbelievability that they traveled that distance in 1+ days.

While I'm not one that feels shows need a strict adaptation from the source material, I feel this has reached a point where it could be call more inspired from, than fully adapted from the game. They're leaving out key elements and rushing to the finish.

It's also problematic when you present an extremely well written and detailed story in Episode 3, but then in episodes 2 and 4 you're provide more of a surface level story.

For example I thought the Negan episode that TWD did in those bonus episodes (showing his backstory) was one of the best written and executed stories they ever had. It's certainly the highest quality they produced in their later seasons. But it further puts a spotlight on things when you routinely come up short.

 

Episode 5 was the best one since the premiere. While I think we should've seen Henry and Sam in Episode 4, I believe their story here was well told. I really liked how Joel was protecting Ellie, taking out the infected that were around her with the sniper's rifle. I knew Henry and Sam's deaths were coming, but they were still the most impactful ones since Joel's daughter in episode 1.

I like that any altercation with the infected usually results in dire consequences. They are more something you want to try and avoid when possible.

The first appearance of a Bloater was done well. I never expected that when I first saw one on screen I'd be on its side, but I loved seeing it tear apart that group. And I did laugh out loud when the baby clicker flew in the air and killed the ridiculous leader. Good stuff.

I'm looking forward to the reunion with Tommy in Episode 6. I wish they had expanded this season and had it end with Tommy. They could've easily ended at that point by doing more on Tess early on and expanding Bill/Frank into two episodes. Unfortunately I think we'll just be with Tommy briefly in 6 before moving onto the David story in the 7th episode.

 

The ending came as a surprise when Sam got bitten and turned overnight and was shot by Henry who then killed himself!

This is basically another bottle episode (much like Bill/Frank story), pretty well done!

Looking forward to the next story.

 

Does the game explain or give hint how FEDRA at KC was successful to drive the infected to the underground and to contain them there?