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

My understanding is it’s very unlikely from mid 40s without fertility treatments, and the character would have to be 45 at least for it to be remotely plausible that she was an assistant DA twenty years earlier.

And given they live in a zombie apocalypse I doubt they have access to fertility drugs, and even if they did, would be much inclined to pursue to higher risk pregnancy.

He didn't "change his mind for no reason"

He asked Tommy because he was scared and then overcame that fear a bit. He still said at the end he thought Tommy was a better choice but let Ellie choose after the very important conversation they had the night before.

Yeah, slept on it and “overcame that fear a bit” hardly makes for compelling drama for me

Well didn't make compelling drama and "no apparent reason" are not the same thing.

Also you are saying no peril but the lad just got stabbed with a baseball bat.

I think what we are seeing is far more realistic than the usual zombie/raider Rambo style killing machines you usually get. If they were offing hoards of infected every episode it would feel too far fetched.

Yes, there was stuff at the beginning and right at the end. And I wasn’t expecting infected at this point, rather unfriendly people (which we got at the university). Also an action set piece doesn’t mean over-the-top zombie hordes. Two guys in a fistfight can be an action set piece.

“No apparent reason” means no reason that we saw. He just changed his mind overnight offscreen.

Anyhow, I’m not going to keep arguing this point. Clearly it worked for some viewers, and that’s great, but far from the only person who felt Joel’s U-turn was too sudden.

So will season 2 adapt TLOU Part 2, because I dont want go though another shitstorm from people over the ...controversial plot choices that happened in Part 2 all over again haha

I was reminded from elsewhere they skipped over a pretty important thing

Nice bit of foreshadowing with what Joel did with the Indians too

Im a bit roll eyes at these scenes, I dont mind anger, a bit of PTSD , but all this waaaa waaaa Im getting old and self doubt cr'p is a bit tiresome.

Thought that was the best episode so far alongside the Bill and Frank episode. Well paced, compelling, terrific acting, good character building.

I didn't personally find the u-turn too abrupt; because the reasoning behind it was fairly simple. Joel is suffering panic attacks because he's increasingly afraid he's not able to keep Ellie safe, and he can't stomach the thought of being responsible for her death.

They have their moment and on reflection Joel realises that by trying to absolve himself of that burden, he's completely failing her in a different way. I don't think it required anything beyond what we were shown, from his heart-to-heart with Tommy and the confrontation in the bedroom.

I think the blend of action and drama is perfect. The setting is realistic rather then delivering action for the sake of action, and as a result there's far impact and weight when the action and violence does present its head.

I don't understand someone saying the commune feels "too safe". Isn't that the entire point, to stay alive as best they can in a heavily sustained fortified and democratically-run enclave in a remote frozen landscape, safe from the threats of the new world which they want no involvement in.

It is fairly safe relative to the state of the wider world, like the QZ's are, with the real and ongoing potential threat being other people - but it'd be extremely cheap and a break in realism for a massive raider army or gargantuan horde to abruptly appear to coincide with Joel and Ellie's arrival for the sake of action.

This is the road The Walking Dead went down and it turned into a cyclical pantomine. Move to area X, encounter Y settlement of people, they want what you have and it all plays out ala Groundhog Day...over, and over....and over, again. It was a total miserable failure of a show narrative wise.

The peril in TLOU comes from the purposeful journey from a safety bubble into the vast, lawless, apocalyptic unknown, and the fact that the biggest threat posed is from other survivors - something it's captured extremely well by not overplaying the infected either, and establishing Joel's and Tommy's murky backstory.

We also see how humanity to a certain degree can't help but revert to type at a leadership level even when faced with a total existential crisis. I'd utterly hate to see them chucking in random gunfights and horde attacks every week for the sake of action. It feels absolutely perfect to me as it is.

I was talking about the game

Tommy used to be with the Fireflies, then was out and about one day and came across Maria and her crew, decided to move to Jackson and that’s why he didn’t know the Fireflies had moved, as Jackson doesn’t have any contact with the outside world?

Do I have that straight? How long ago is he meant to have ditched the Fireflies? Apologies if it mentioned this in the episode..

Pretty much. Unknown how long passed between Tommy leaving the Fireflies and meeting Maria/ending up in Jackson. But yeah, Jackson doesn't allow radio communication in order to help keep their commune safe and hidden, so he doesn't know where the Fireflies currently are (but knew they had been working on a cure at the University Joel and Ellie went to at the end). In the first episode Joel speaks with the radio guy in the Boston QZ and Joel is concerned because Tommy hasn't sent Joel a message in about 3 weeks. So given the time between the first episode and this episode, about 4 months have passed. Maybe Tommy has been in Jackson longer and had been leaving to send Joel messages or something, we don't know. Joel just knew Tommy last checked in from somewhere in Wyoming.