In episode one, Sarah is sitting in class, and there’s a moment where some other student is flicking her wrist and the light from her bracelet glints on Sarah’s face, distracting her. I always wondered what this meant?

I was really disappointed with the episode “Long, Long Time” from The Last of Us. Going into it, I was genuinely excited because of all the critical acclaim it had received, but by the end, I felt like it stood out for all the wrong reasons. While I appreciate the show’s willingness to slow down and focus on character-driven storytelling, the execution felt contrived and at odds with the harsh, unforgiving world that The Last of Us is built upon.

Bill is introduced as a deeply disciplined, hyper-cautious survivalist—someone who has successfully outmaneuvered military forces, avoided capture, and built an isolated fortress out of pure skepticism and meticulous planning. This is a man who trusts no one and prepares for every conceivable threat. Yet, within the span of a single afternoon, he allows a complete stranger into his sanctuary, shares a vulnerable dinner with him, and opens himself up emotionally and physically. It felt rushed and out of character, undermining the foundations of who Bill was established to be.

To be clear, I have no issue with Bill being gay or with his relationship with Frank. In fact, a love story in the bleak world of The Last of Us could have been incredibly powerful. The problem lies in how the relationship was developed. If the writers had taken more time to show Bill slowly lowering his walls, building trust with Frank over weeks, months, or even years, their relationship would have felt more believable and earned. Instead, the pacing reduced what could have been a profound emotional arc into something that felt forced.

Additionally, the episode’s depiction of their life together felt strangely idyllic and out of place in the brutal, survivalist world of The Last of Us. Aside from a brief encounter with raiders, their lives were portrayed as almost fairy-tale-like, complete with gourmet meals, wine pairings, and moments of quiet domestic bliss. While moments of peace and love can certainly exist in this universe, they should still feel tethered to the ever-present danger and scarcity that defines the world.

The issue isn’t that “Long, Long Time” tells a love story—it’s that the story doesn’t feel authentic to the world it’s set in. If Bill and Frank’s relationship had been given more time to develop organically and if their existence had been more believably intertwined with the harsh realities of survival, this episode could have been one of the most impactful in the series. Instead, it felt disconnected, and ultimately, like a missed opportunity.

I will be talking about the game not the show,but the ending made me thinking...

I think the writters messed up the vaccine part due to make it more dramatic, you cant magicly make the cure and distribute it to entire american communities, the problem with trolley problem is that it never possible to see something that extreme, nothing easily that extreme happens, you can run to save the one guy after you changed your direction, you can scream that somebody is at road soo the train drive can hit the brakes, they wanted to make the dramatic effect more hitting while completly disregarding how absurd this is, the part especially that "she has to die soo we can make the cure" is absurd in another way, yes the game and tv series explains it, in its own way, but normally you dont need to cut a persons brain out to make a cure, the host doesnt has to die for most of sicknesses, but lets put all that to one point, eventually the infected will die, they cant magicly keep living as does the writers wanted them to, in possibly ( which is still dumb to say but ) 10-20 years all infected should be turned to dust, people are dying not because of infected, but due to lack of medicine, resources, endless conflicts with other raiders, none of them gonna end with a magicly produced and distributed vaccine, the real thing was going to happen is that fireflies would have a political tool to take down FETRA ( the idea of a vaccine will make people do anything for it ), now im not a fan of them either but if you all rebember that the place joel and ellie fought against the raiders that kill people at the mid game, there are notes that prove that they were also at a similar rule FEDRA people did, after terrible rule of their military goverment and the fall of it, nothing magicly solved, this time they becomed something way worse then the military goverment ever could become, if im not wrong they even started cannibalism ( they might not be related to cannibals ), the cure is not the problem solver here, fireflies making endless terrorist attacks to FEDRA aint helping either, what people needs freedom when they cant even have food on the table, which btw fireflies cant either give, but they dont shy away from war, they are absoloutly out of touch with reality (thanks to their writet not because of deep writting )everyone at here possibly knows the Maslow pyramid, without the basic needs you cant have freedom right, im not gonna argue more I think I made my point, the writting of these games are overrated, and a insult to intelegence of human mind,its abusing emotions of people to make its show, similar to detroit become human, if you want a deeper game that explores human psyche right play disco elysium, again I have to apologise for my language and possible murdering the grammar rules but again I have to say this somewhere

On outbreak day, all the government guys we see are in army uniforms. Four days later, the guys we see trucking off the people of Bill's town are in Fedra uniforms.

How did they manage a switch of uniforms so quickly under literal zombie apocalypse conditions? I'd expect to see military camo patterns with some hastily put together Fedra stickers on them at that point in time.

Am I overthinking this and they just made a lot of uniforms for the production and figured they would use them wherever they could?

Wow. Just wow. What an excellent series. I initially started watching it because Dever was involved. She does a great job in her role but I soon started watching it for the story overall. One of the best mini-series I have ever watched.

I highly recommend it. Some might be sensitive to the subject matter but it's definitely a story people should check out so they can see for themselves. It's about the Opioid addiction problem. While it's based on real life most of the individual stories are fictional. Many of them are composite characters of real life individuals that suffered from it.

If any of you have Hulu it's definitely one to check out.

I always felt Jackson was underutilized as a place in P2 (and they did some in the show which I’m glad) but I hope in S2 we spent just a little more time in Jackson. I hope we get a small bit of Joel and Ellie Integrating or being apart of the community, and I know they spent a half an episode in S1 at Jackson but they were technically outsiders at that point, I hope we see Joel and Ellie being a part of the larger community in S2.

I was working on lighting study and this render came out well enough to be a poster. Why not 😂

I have been trying to figure this out, and please tell me if I'm totally making this up, but what song is playing during the moment when Ellie and Riley are on the carousel? It's a sort of music box version of a song that sounds pretty familiar, but I can't put my finger on it. So please help me out if you can. Or, if it's an original theme and I'm just making up that it sounds like something, tell me please.

What are some scenes from The Last Of Us Part 2 you hope to see make it into the show? I personally want to see the part from the game where Ellie gets ambushed by the Seraphites, and also gets attacked by stalkers on her way to go after Nora.

Got into a random TLOU kick and replayed the first game and S1 of the show and and I noticed that a moment that I love (and isn’t really a big moment) from the game was cut, it was at the end of Tommy segment and Joel said “well your wife kinda scares me and I don’t want her coming after me” and I love that because it just sounds like something my dad would say. Also I was really disappointed that giving Joel the Picture of him and Sarah (both Tommy and Ellie) was cut from the show as I do think that those are both GREAT moments for Joel both showing how he’s not ready when Tommy hands him the picture to showing Joel that he’s ready when Ellie hands him the picture wish those made it into the show and they’re not really BIG moments but I feel they also should’ve atleast included the picture

Note: I haven't played the games, and this has likely informed my opinions. My understanding is that Frank and Bill's story progresses similarly, but that their sexuality wasn't officially confirmed. However, I know nothing else about their character development or whether the gunshot scene was taken from the game. Also, I've read rule 3 and am assuming this type of discussion is allowed.

I'm a little late to the party as I just started watching, but after the emotional rollercoaster that was episode 3, I'm very curious to hear opinions.

I've never been one to look for offensive tropes just to check off boxes on a bingo scorecard. However, certain tropes have been addressed so many times that, regardless of the writer's real motive, it draws so much attention and predictable objection that any purpose it serves is overshadowed. The black guy dies first. The hero's wife/girl/sister/secretary is tortured or murdered as backstory for his character development, not hers (a trope called "fridging"). The blonde girl is dumb and her boobs jiggle while she's running from a serial killer (okay, that was Scary Movie which doesn't count, but there are less exaggerated variations of it everywhere).

The "bury your gays" trope is one that's still used heavily and frequently. I saw a thread that discussed this episode and whether or not it fit into the trope, with the overwhelming majority of people saying no. I'm inclined to agree. It was a brutal, but very heart-rending story about these people we were introduced to, made to love, and then made to lose over a very short period of time. My husband and I watched it together and were like, "It's us! This is exactly how we'd be!" And while I'm only on episode 5, I've been informed that non-heterosexual themes are continuous throughout the show and it isn't just The Walking Dead all over again. I think showing a same-sex couple making a good life in the apocalypse and then making a difficult choice was one of the best examples of representation I've seen on a TV show, and the casting was fantastic as well.

However... the scene where he gets shot and appears to bleed out on the table had me clenching my fists and saying "Don't you do it!" It was so predictable that I had already said, "Well, bye, random gay guy" before they were even in immediate danger.

Except...he didn't. He was very obviously dying one moment and then we fast-forward ten years. I actually laughed because I felt like I was watching a humorous parody of gay couples in post-apocalyptic fiction. Then it got heavy again and I stopped laughing, of course.

Anyone else have this same response, or thought they were baiting us ironically with that scene? Like, "Ha ha, gotcha, he's gonna die from something boring and all the straight guy gets is a car that gets shot up the next episode." They hit every checkbox for "bury your gays" but in such a way that it served a completely different purpose.

I dunno, I just can't think of any other reason for the gunshot scene other than to take a swipe at the trope. If not a humorous nod, then maybe a reassurance to the audience that these characters genuinely needed to die but they weren't gonna do them dirty. Either way, I am very confident that this trope was weighing on their minds and I love how they handled it.

I'll just tag this as spoiler in case there are new viewers.

I was wondering about the infected that chased Ellie's mom in S1E9. We hear it as she's running away from it, but we don't see it anywhere near her even when she's running across the field to the house.

She gets inside, locks the door, and goes upstairs because she can hear it get close. She goes inside a room and wedges a chair under the door. The infected didn't see her do any of this, it didn't get close enough.

But it managed to break in through a window, go upstairs and crash into the room she locked herself in.

I just find it makes the infected a whole lot scarier because I thought they view humans as an out-of-side-out-of-mind kind of situation. I assumed locking yourself inside a room and being quiet would be enough, but it seemed like it locked in on her and knew where to go.

Are the infected capable of thinking like how a human would? If it was a person chasing Ellie's mom they would've done the same thing--break in and go for the only door that's locked.

https://collider.com/the-last-of-us-season-3-filming-date-2025/

I rewatched season 1 recently and compared the scenes that are in the game with the ones in the show. Around 30% of them were recited word-for-word from the game and the remaining 70% were majorly different or entirely different from the game. What are your hopes for this in season 2/3? Obviously Joel and Ellie's final conversation MUST be exactly the same.

if marlene is a firefly and was also present at ellie’s birth, then how did ellie end up with fedra? i finished this series in two days so maybe i missed something in between those episodes? i’m confused

With The White Lotus season 3 being 8 episodes and confirmed to premiere February 16, I think that all but confirms that season 2 will premiere April 13.

So I live in the area where they are filming the second season and the other day I saw them taking a bunch of subway cars and placing them around. Looked like a subway station with a bunch of cars left behind.

Dunno much about the games or what it could mean, but confirmed it's for the show. Maybe someone who knows more than me about the games will know what it means.

Cheers!

I first saw her after looking up who played Nathan Drake’s daughter in Uncharted 4. She played such lovable characters in Rosaline, Booksmart and Ticket to Paradise. She also did a heartbreaking performance as a rape victim who was accused of lying in Unbelievable. It’s gonna be crazy watching her play someone so vicious as Abby, especially when she murders Joel with a golf club. I actually hope she doesn’t deal with the same kind of backlash Laura Bailey dealt with for playing Abby in the game. Honestly, I’m not a fan of Abby after what she did and I still don’t really forgive her for it, but I am interested to see how Kaitlyn pulls this off.

Last night at the Game awards, they announced that TLOU2 remastered will be available on PC on April the 3rd.

Two years ago, season 1 came out in January while the release of TLOU1 on PC was late March, two weeks after the finale.

Druckmann has said that marketing is key for Naughty Dog, so it’s possible they might release TLOU2 for PC just a few days before or after the start season 2.

Since we know White Lotus season 3 will begin in February, and that at least 6 episodes of TLOU 2 have to air before May 31, season 2 has to start around early April. White Lotus season 3 is said to longer, so either 8, 9 or 10 episodes. White Lotus has to start early February depending on how many episodes they got. Either the 2nd, 9th or 16th of February.

So my theory is that TLOU season 2 might start on the 30th of March, 6th or 13th of April. Could be also the 20th but they would lose momentum with the PC release being out two weeks earlier.

TLDR : based on the PC release and White Lotus said to be longer, TLOU season 2 will come out around early April (either 30th of March, 6th or 13th April).

Looking forward to it but I hope it's every bit as narrative heavy as the previous games have been.