The Last of Us - HBO *Spoilers* See warning in post #1

Yeah they used a kid who's a contortionist so they moved really extra freaky trying to get Ellie in the car. That was insane.

The Bloaters I don't mind so long as they're used sparingly. The show is very much leaning more towards avoiding the infected at all costs rather than trying to fight them.

They've skipped over a few bloater appearances already

Reminds me more of World War Z or The Living Dead.

Where did you watch Station eleven ?

I liked in the previous episode where Ellie's asking Joel if they're not Fedra, who are they. He responds "they're just people"

And this episode really shone on that point. Joel's also told Ellie about his experience on both side of the ambush tactic.

Here we learn how Kathleen, Perry etc, were wronged by Fedra and rebelled. It wouldn't take a massive perspective shift to see them as the heroes.

Just allowing us that little extra time with these characters really helps keep the show operating on it's on terms.

Henry & Sam's extra scenes were great to have as well. I liked that Henry was a bit more than a two-dimensional side-character. He was clever and resourceful, but also a bit naive. I think they got the balance just right to make it believable.

It was good carnage - really frenetic, cars knocking down infected metres from our heroes, insane child clicker, and whatever else. All very hectic, and looked great.

Bloater was... grand. Didn't quite have the same heft/weight as the more human characters, but wasn't a scene killer. Just a Perry killer.

A bit silly of Ellie not to tell Joel right away; dunno if she thought she could actually save Sam or if she was just hoping he'd be ok, or maybe just thought the comfort she could offer him was the single most important thing. Either way, fairly devastating, and well done. Her scenes with Sam throughout were great, even when just in the background of Joel & Henry sections.

It showed just how much Ellie is still halfway between being a child and being someone equiped for the harsh world.

The development of side characters has been nothing short of masterful, particularly in such short screen time.

The relationship between Bill and Frank was excellently conveyed after just one episode. It really is an incredible job to make you care so much for two characters after only 40 minutes of screen time.

Kathleen was brilliantly shown not to be a simple one-dimensional bad-guy. They showed her humanity, hurt and motivation in contrast to her evil ruthlessness and avoided that "bad for the sake of it" trope. You understood her reckless pursuit for Henry even if you didn't agree with it. In another show, she's easily an anti-hero.

With Henry, you believed his character and his motivations to do anything for Sam. And they're brief on-screen relationship clearly has lasting effects on Joel and Ellie.

Even Perry was seen to be a rational character and not a stock 'henchman'.

It's a joy to see these side characters screentime absolutely maximised and nothing is wasted.

It also makes guns and bullets very special items.

It would be stupid if in this post industrial world Joel was just spraying bullets all over the place every day.

I'd say FEDRA would have rounded up as much of the supplies as possible from as many sources as possible. People probably aren't allowed their own weapons inside QZs (hence why Joel had a hidden stash in his and Tess' apartment and why they kept small stashes hidden in places along their usual routes). After 20 years, a lot of the guns and weapons would have ended up with raiders and the likes, the Fireflies (Marlene's group), or other non-FEDRA settlements.

Bill had his own decent stock, but even if Joel did take some bullets for themselves when leaving Bill's, he's lost it when they had to abandon the truck after being ambushed.

It's not so much the guns and ammo being in short supply, it's just where those supplies have likely ended up.

Nah it'll be fine. The logic of tLoU universe states that if you kill an infected while you have no ammunition that infected will have been carrying ammunition.

In reality ammunition isn't that hard to make especially in the US. The quality might not be as good but at the short ranges they're using it it shouldn't make much difference and I don't think the US would run out of gun quickly in the event of a zombie cordyceps apocalypse, they have an estimated 1.2 civilian guns per person.

It's been 20 years, though, since everything went to hell. I wouldn't imagine that ammo would be in great abundance. Especially working ammo in prime condition. And nobody's manufacturing new stuff either, to any great degree anyway.

So, yes, I'd imagine that in the wasteland areas finding usable guns and ammo would be pretty difficult.

The pictures when you google it don't help it. I thought it was some teen-lit TV show.

It also would have stopped being in production

Edit: and now that I think about it more, the amount off bullets used to fight off other dangerous human/zombie/horde would be very high.

Gun culture in America is big so I could see how after 20 years of no production of bullets and self defense/taking over would lead to a shortage of ammo