♪ (HBO FANFARE PLAYS) ♪ JOEL MILLER:<i> I saw a man kill
his own brother to save her,
while I just watched.</i> <i>And today, I thought that dog
was gonna tear her apart</i> <i> because it smelled
something on her.</i> <i>And all I did was stand there.</i> <i> I couldn't... move.</i> <i>I couldn't think of anything,
except, just...</i> <i> I was so afraid.</i> TROY BAKER: Welcome back.
This is HBO's podcast
for<i> The Last of Us.</i> I'm your host, Troy Baker,
and I'm joined, as always, -by showrunners, Craig Mazin...
-CRAIG MAZIN: Hello. -TROY: ...and Neil Druckmann.
-NEIL DRUCKMANN: Hey, Troy. TROY: And today, we'll be
talking through episode six,
titled "Kin." TROY: Just a brief set up, we're now three months
after the last episode. It's cold.
The landscape is different. We've left behind the crumbling
buildings of the city, and we've traded them,
now, for the stark... desolation
of the wilderness. Let's talk about it. CRAIG: Well,
we first wanted to remind people, even though
it's only been a week, about how things ended
between Henry and Sam. When you end
an episode with a tragedy, the way
episode five ends, the most important thing is that
you let the audience know that you're aware of it
and you're going to honor it. It was important for us to say,
"We're remembering this." And also,
a lot of time has now passed. It was important to give
the audience an understanding that Joel and Ellie
have been going for a while. And so, they are not still
in direct mourning over
what happened. There isn't this immediate
grief, although, of course, we will see that grief
burble back up soon. TROY: We've gone from
Boston to Kansas City. Geographically, now,
where are we in the world? CRAIG: Wyoming. But where in Wyoming they are,
is still something they're
trying to figure out. -NEIL: Not a small place.
-CRAIG: No. NEIL: This is kind of similar
in the game. Like, they knew
they were getting close, but they didn't know
exactly where they were. TROY: And this is where we get
to meet some new characters, the inimitable Graham Greene
and also his wife, played by Elaine Miles. And Graham's character gives us
some great advice. MARLON:<i>
Anywhere people used to be,
you can't go there no more.</i> JOEL:<i> So, you haven't heard
the name Tommy?</i> MARLON:<i> Nope.</i> ELLIE WILLIAMS:<i>
What about the Fireflies?</i> FLORENCE:<i>
We get those in the summer.</i> ELLIE:<i> Not the bugs, the people.</i> FLORENCE:<i>
There are firefly people?</i> (LAUGHING) JOEL:<i> You got any advice
on the best way west?</i> MARLON:<i> Yeah... go east.</i> <i> But you never go past
the river here... ever.</i> -ELLIE:<i> What's past the river?</i>
-FLORENCE:<i> Death.</i> <i>We never seen who's out there,</i> <i> but we see the bodies
they leave behind.</i> <i> Some infected, some not.</i> <i> If your brother's
west of the river, he's gone.</i> CRAIG: The notion of these
two characters emerged out of a sense
of trying to place Joel and Ellie in a world
where we don't have GPS. You can have a map. But if you have a map in the
middle of the Rocky Mountains, good luck. You know,
it's not so simple. And when you're looking for
one man in a massive state, it's pretty easy to get lost. As Ellie says, "We must have
missed all the traffic signs in the enormous fucking forest." And we had this notion that there is danger ahead that is
unseen and poorly understood. Somewhere out there,
there are bad people. Ghosts, monsters,
who knows what. But, this isn't as simple as, "We're just gonna walk
for a while." That there's real danger. And there's also,
as we often do in the show, a sense that every time
we meet a couple, whether they're brothers
or husband and wife, there are echoes of
Joel and Ellie inside of it. These two have been alone
and isolated forever. There's no one else
in their lives. And it's not like
they're saying, "Hey wait, don't go. Please
stay. Play Scrabble with us." This is how it is for them. You can end up in this world,
just alone. TROY: How affected do you think
they were by this world? CRAIG: My understanding of them
is that they left before, well before
the outbreak ever started. When the world ended,
they were already off the grid. So, they have cordoned
themselves off permanently
from everything, and, even more so, by their concern about
the things they've seen. They've reduced their world
down to this cabin and a certain amount
of area they can go, but you don't go
west of the river. NEIL: What's interesting,
I think, for fans of the game, especially<i> Part II,</i> is it shows you can survive if you find, like,
a quiet corner. There are still safe areas. It's not just all doom,
and gloom, and danger, like, around every corner. It does exist, but you can
survive there on your own. I think there's also... We would talk a lot about
not exhausting our audience. And we just
traumatized them with the end
of the last episode. So, this was
a moment of levity, a moment to show how
Joel and Ellie have progressed
in their relationship. They're much more
comfortable with each other. And a lot of our conversations
about this episode were like, "What is the impact on Joel from the experience
of Henry and Sam?" And you get to see some of
that as they exit the cabin, and he seizes his chest. TROY:
So, what is going on there? CRAIG: What's happening is,
Joel's having a panic attack, and he doesn't know why. Panic attacks feel very much
like heart attacks. It's your body telling you,
"You're in terrible danger," but you don't understand yet,
why. And so much of what
this episode is about, is Joel coming to terms with
how terrified he is, suddenly, that she's going to die, and it's going
to be his fault. And if you've been paying
attention along the way, what you will see is, for as many times as
Joel has helped her, he's also failed her. And those are the things
that he dwells on. Like a lot of us,
if you have core shame or core trauma
the way Joel does, the things that you do
well are discounted. Your failures, anything
that reminds you of the tragedy
of your past, you will magnify
in your mind and your heart until it threatens
to subsume you. NEIL: He's convincing
himself that what's best for Ellie
is to let her go. And it's really
to protect himself. And when you're
playing the game, you know,
the camera's quite far back. You swing it around
the character, so there's no way to, like,
see a lot of what's going on
with the character's face. So, a lot of it has to be
conveyed with dialog. So, the way
we did in the game, as I'm sure
you remember, Troy, we just made him
that much more distant. Like, it's almost like the
relationship has gone backwards. Here, again,
because we could have these, like,
intimate moments with the cameras right up
there on your face, we could do it in much more
subtle ways. And I also love Ellie's
reaction here, which is, you know, when you
look at your parents that have been protecting you
your entire life, you don't want to accept that
they have any sort of weakness. So she's getting
angry with him, which I've felt this
as well. You know, sometimes, as my
parents get older, I was like, I don't know why
that's the reaction, but you get angry
that they're not invincible. CRAIG: Yeah.
"If you die, I'm fucked"
is what she says to him, which is, I think,
a very child thing to say. Obviously, she, also, cannot
process what that would
emotionally be like. Neither one of them are
operating on the level of emotional honesty
or acceptance yet because they can't
get there. What they are doing is,
doing what Joel and Ellie do. Ellie is coming at this from
the point of view of being this child
who's saying, "Don't die, because I
need you to stay alive." She's certainly not gonna say,
"Don't die because I love you." And Joel is not saying,
"I'm terrified that I'm gonna get you killed,
and that's why I'm so upset." Instead, he's, his heart is
seizing up on him, and he can't
even explain why. -NEIL: "It's the cold."
-CRAIG: Yeah. -He says it's just the cold air.
-TROY: "Just the cold air." So, after Joel has this episode,
this panic attack, we then transition
into Ellie staring up at the aurora borealis
by the campfire. And she's talking about-- This is the first time we've
really seen her become wistful, and maybe even hopeful. CRAIG: Yeah. TROY: And she talks about
her desire to be an astronaut. ELLIE:<i> It's probably because
I grew up in the QZ.</i> <i>Behind you, there's ocean. And
ahead of you, there's a wall.</i> <i>Nowhere else to look but up.</i> <i>I read everything I could
in the school library.</i> <i>Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin,
Jim Lovell...</i> <i>But you know who my favorite is?</i> -JOEL:<i> Sally Ride.</i>
-ELLIE:<i> Sally-Fucking-Ride.</i> <i>Best astronaut name ever.</i> TROY: Where did that come from? CRAIG: When I first started
working with Neil
on this adaptation, it was before<i>
The Last of Us Two</i> had
come out and I went over to-- It was the first time I'd ever
gone over to Naughty Dog,
and sat with him there. And he said, "You wanna see
something from the second game?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he showed me a sequence
from the second game that touches on
Ellie's, you know, interest and fascination with being an astronaut
and space travel. And it's an incredibly
beautiful moment. And that's one of those
times where I said, "Hey, we have
this opportunity that Neil didn't have when he
was making the first game, which is we know more now." It was also a moment to show
that Joel knew Ellie, because she says, "But you know
my favorite astronaut?" And he says, "Sally Ride."
He knows. Even if Joel doesn't know why Sally Ride means
so much to Ellie. And even if Ellie
doesn't know why Sally Ride
means so much to Ellie, instinctively,
he's already in her head. He knows this kid. And she's not
shocked by this either. She's not like, "Whoa!
How'd you figure that out?" She's like, "That's right. Sally-Fucking-Ride,
best astronaut name ever." NEIL: To go even
further back and talk about the origins of why
Ellie likes space so much. You know, these things are
massive collaborations, and everybody puts a part
of them into this thing. And over the course
of making the game, I've gotten to know you, Troy, and Ashley Johnson,
who played Ellie. And Ashley loves space,
and astronauts, and knows everything
about it. And I'm like, "I want to make
Ellie even more like Ashley." And likewise, Joel,
or Troy, I should say, I knew your start
was with music, and you play the guitar,
and you sing. And that's why Joel says, "I would have wanted to be
a musician. A singer." Yeah. There's just something-- I get a little emotional
about this 'cause, like, we've all put, like, so much
of ourselves in this. And the combination of all that
makes for something greater. TROY: Joel doesn't admit that he
wants to be a singer first. He says he wants to be...
a shepherd. He wants to have a sheep ranch. NEIL: Which is also a bit of--
For people that know<i> Part II,</i> it's a foreshadowing
for where that's going. CRAIG: Absolutely.
That's foreshadowing as well. TROY: Is this the truth for him? Or is he, again, reaffirming
the distance that he feels? CRAIG: I think that there's
something about it that appeals to Joel
intellectually. He's a country boy
to some extent. And so, I think the idea
of isolation and peace... I mean, "shepherd" is,
essentially, equivalent to peacefulness. I think he likes that idea
intellectually. But is he being honest here? No. I think the honest truth is that if he could do anything
or be anything, he would be a dad
raising his daughter, whether it's Sarah or... He can't quite get there yet,
to say it's Ellie, but... that's what he was put on
the Earth to do. That's why he's been
wandering around a little bit like a zombie
himself for 20 years. He's trying
to find his purpose, because it was taken
from him. NEIL: But it's also interesting,
where is his mind at? Right? And it's like, he would
like to be at a place where he would just
be alone, because that's-- -that would be the easiest way
for him to survive.
-CRAIG: Right. -NEIL: No threat to his heart.
-CRAIG: Yeah. NEIL: Nobody that he could lose.
Nobody to have to look after. CRAIG: Yeah. What's
interesting is that even as we show these moments
of peace and happiness, we keep seeding these other
little underlying threads
of failure. So, for instance, Joel says,
"You know what? I'm gonna take
both watches tonight. You go ahead and sleep, dream of
sheep ranches on the moon." And then he falls asleep.
He fails. And she's the one who is
looking after him, which is only reinforcing
his growing panic that he is insufficient, that he is not gonna be
able to keep her alive. So, even as the two of them
are moving through this
beautiful world and seem relatively safe, he, on the other hand, keeps feeling
the pounding threat of his own inability
to keep her alive. NEIL: What's interesting there
as well, is, like, Ellie is
slowly becoming, not necessarily, Joel,
but her idea of Joel, which, again, she believes is
this invincible man that can
never get hurt. TROY: We move into another
one of those moments of
threat and failure as we're surrounded by
this group who has a dog. (DOG BARKING) SPEAKER:
Last chance for a bullet. If you're infected,
he will smell it,
and he will rip you up. (DOG CONTINUES BARKING) CRAIG: And we know that
Ellie shows up as infected
if you scan her. That goes all the way back
to the first episode. So, now the two of them...
they can't say it out loud, but they are both
incredibly aware that
she's in a lot of trouble. If the dog smells
the infection on her, which it probably will,
it's gonna kill her. They've dropped their guns,
they are surrounded. Joel has no idea what to do. NEIL: And he chokes. CRAIG: It is only because
whatever is going on in Ellie isn't the kind of thing
that a dog would smell, but maybe just a scanner
would pick up, that she's saved. The truth is, there is nothing
Joel can do there. -What is he supposed to do?
-NEIL: Right. CRAIG:
But that's rational thought. If you're a parent,
you do something. You-- Basically, you
go down with the ship. And he doesn't. He freezes. And if you suffer the trauma
that Joel suffered, and you are put right back
in that situation, the fact that your brain and
body shut down should not be
a surprise at all. TROY: Joel says,
"I'm looking for my brother." And they say,
"What's your name?" He says, "Joel." And we smash cut to now we are
just outside the gates... -of Jackson.
-CRAIG: Yeah. So we find out that Maria,
who is one of the leaders of this settlement in Jackson. She has a relationship
with Tommy, which we find out is
husband and wife. And that means she
knows exactly who Joel is. Tommy's told her. NEIL: But there's a
massive difference here from the game
that we can talk about. -TROY: Absolutely.
-CRAIG: We're in Jackson. NEIL: In the game, all the interaction
with Tommy, interaction with Maria,
everything happens in the dam. They're there fixing the dam
for Jackson. In<i> Last of Us Part I,</i>
we never go into Jackson, and that was mostly a time
and budget issue that-- we actually had all this
concept art for going inside, and we just didn't have the
resources to pull it off. So when we started talking
about the sequence, we're like, “Oh, we could
just see the dam, but it'd actually be way more
interesting to go into Jackson itself
and see what's at stake.” Here's where you
could settle down and actually live
a semi-normal life. TROY: One of the other
differences is the version that's
in the game is when there's this opening
of the gates, and Tommy comes out,
and there's this moment of hesitation between
the two of them, and then
Tommy embraces him. Here we see a completely
different version. As soon as he spots him
on the horse, he jumps off, and he yells with
this brotherly desperation. JOEL:<i> Tommy!</i> CRAIG: They're drawn to
each other very powerfully, but give them enough time, and then,
the resentment returns. TROY:
They'll go right back to it. CRAIG:
It doesn't even take a day. TROY: Because even Joel laughs
about it, like, “What are you
doing here?” He's like,
“I'm here to save you.” I mean, how funny is that? He's like,
“I can't believe this.” And then
what happens off camera, he goes, “What happened?” He goes,
“What happened to you?” NEIL: When they sit down to eat
after they get a tour
of the place. CRAIG: Yeah. NEIL: There's some really nice
stuff that's happening there. Ellie just, like,
has a sailor mouth. And, you know,
Joel, being like... a good old Texan,
is like apologizing. Apologizing for her manners. ELLIE:<i> What?</i> JOEL:<i> What's wrong with you?</i> ELLIE:<i> What about her manners?</i> MARIA:<i> She was just curious.</i> <i>Kids around here don't usually
look or talk like you.</i> ELLIE:<i> Right. Well, maybe
I'll teach them.</i> <i> And I want my gun back.</i> MARIA:<i> They also aren't armed.</i> TOMMY:<i> You know what, uh...</i> <i> I think maybe y'all
got a little off on
the wrong foot.</i> ELLIE:<i> She was going to
have her guys kill us.</i> TOMMY:<i> Well, we got to be
real careful about who we
let in this place.</i> NEIL: But then, you know,
when he starts getting this pushback
from Maria, all of a sudden, it's like he gets
very protective of
his tribe, his family. He's like-- And he's trying
to push her out, and then realizing, "No, no,
this is someone Tommy has let into the circle
without his permission." So, he has just a weird
kind of reaction to it. And then there's like
a nice kind of... Would you call it an Easter egg? I don't know if I'd call it
an Easter egg. CRAIG: It's a little, I mean,
it's ambiguous. -Somebody's staring at Ellie.
-NEIL: Yeah. CRAIG: I wonder who that
could be, theoretically or not. We'll find out maybe one day. TROY: I completely missed that.
“What are you looking at?” NEIL: Yeah,
because in<i> Part II,</i> there is a story about
the first time Dina met Ellie that is very similar to
what happens here. CRAIG: That doesn't mean
that that's Dina, but it doesn't mean it's not. TROY: How interesting.
I was-- Because the question that I was going to ask is,
why is Ellie being so confrontational here? CRAIG:
Well, Ellie's tribe is Joel. And Ellie has been taking
a little bit of the lead ever since they've
gotten to Wyoming. And what she knows is, they were captured
by these people. Guns were pointed at them. They were threatened
with dogs. And supposedly,
they're killing people because Marlon and Florence
told them. So, she's not happy. NEIL: I think Ellie can smell
what's happening here, which is there's something
going on with Maria, where she doesn't like Joel. Ellie can sense that. CRAIG: Yes, she knows. When Maria says, you know, “A bad reputation doesn't
mean you're bad,” or Tommy says that,
and then Maria says, “Not always, at least.” That's when Joel realizes, but Ellie got it
the first bounce. We should say, this episode
was directed by Jasmila Zbanic, who is a brilliant,
Bosnian filmmaker. She made this wonderful movie
called<i> Quo Vadis Aida.</i> And Jasmila grew up in Sarajevo,
in the middle of the war. And when we were talking
to her about directing
an episode, I said, “Look, we have
these two episodes that take place in
war-torn Kansas City. It's a city that
has been divided. It has, essentially, erupted
into a civil war. Who would know how to
better do this than you?” And she said,
“I have no interest in that.” She said,
“I want to do this episode.” Because what she
was interested in was showing a society
that actually functioned. So the tour that happens, as Maria takes
Joel and Ellie around and shows them this place
and Ellie says, “This place really actually
fucking works.” That is what Jasmila
really grabbed onto, is the idea that you can still
have a functioning society. And Maria is the key. One of the things that
Tommy says to Joel when they're having this
argument in the bar is, “I know that you
and I killed people. We did it because it was
the only way we knew
how to survive. But it turns out,
there were other ways. It's just, we weren't
any good at them.” So there's this method
of surviving that doesn't involve
killing innocent people, that doesn't involve
violence at all. NEIL: Which is where
Tommy's instincts lie. And we see that
in episode one. In episode one,
these two characters
show you who they are. Tommy wants to stop
and help that family. Joel says, “No, keep driving.” CRAIG: Exactly. And it's Tommy
who joins the Army because he wants to try
and spread democracy. Whatever they told him
at the recruiting office. He joins the Fireflies.
Joel never joined the Fireflies. Joel would never join
the Fireflies. He blames Marlene
for taking Tommy from him. But Tommy has always been
looking for a way to
make things better. NEIL: It's just Joel has been
controlling him. CRAIG: Yeah. And this notion that Maria
has a better way of survival is a really interesting one. And it's something that Jasmila
really drew out of this episode, in a really, I think,
fascinating way, even to the point where Ellie
can't help but be impressed. Joel, however, is jealous. TROY: We get the real version
of that conversation once
they're in the bar. He's like,
“You haven't aged a bit.” And he goes,
“You on the other hand.” And that's what you're
talking about. The return of the resentment. CRAIG: There is this thing
happening in that scene
that is about lying. I'm a big believer
that people are liars. Not because we're mean and evil,
but we lie to protect ourselves. And Joel still doesn't
have full access, I think, to his own feelings about Ellie. What he's doing is saying, “We're going to go take care
of this ourselves. Me and you.” But really, what he's saying is,
“I can't do it alone.” But he's not allowed to
say that out loud. He's not allowed to say,
“I'm insufficient. I'm going to get her killed.” All he can say in
this moment is, “The two of us should do it.”
And, “Why can't you do it?” And then that immediately
turns into this recrimination. JOEL:<i> What, 'cause
your wife won't let you?</i> -TOMMY:<i> Joel.</i>
-JOEL:<i> Is she the one</i> <i>who kept you off the radio?</i> <i> Is that why you stopped
messaging me back?</i> TOMMY:<i> After I ditched
the Fireflies,</i> <i>Maria and her crew found me.</i> <i> They're good people.</i> <i>They didn't have to take me in,
but they did.</i> <i> And all they ask is that
I follow their rules.</i> -JOEL:<i> I'm your brother.</i>
-TOMMY:<i> Yeah, I'm aware.</i> CRAIG: Your wife
kept you off the radio. Your wife kept you from me. NEIL: He won't say, like,
“It was you.” Like, he's trying to find blame
outside of his tribe, outside of this little circle
he's trying to protect. CRAIG: And then Tommy reveals
why he's so reluctant to go. TOMMY:<i>
Maria's a few months along now.</i> <i> So I just got to be
more careful.</i> CRAIG: It's not like Tommy
could know, although he kind of does know, that this is
the worst possible thing at the worst possible time
to say to Joel. Because it means,
“I'm going to get to do the thing that was stolen
from you. The only thing you
ever wanted to do. I'm doing it now.” Joel, literally, I think,
does the best he can do there. He doesn't walk out.
He doesn't punch his brother
in the face. He just says, “Well, I guess
we'll see how it goes.” And obviously, Tommy
doesn't take kindly to that and says the one thing
that he shouldn't say. TOMMY:<i> Just because
life stopped for you,</i> <i> doesn't mean it has to
stop for me.</i> TROY: The scene you're talking
about is interrupted, -in the game, by gameplay.
-CRAIG: Yep. TROY: Here, obviously that's-- You don't have that advantage,
that convenient interruption of like, “Let's get you
back on the stick.” NEIL: One could argue,
a disadvantage. TROY: A disadvantage. So that's my question,
is like how much does that affect the story,
knowing... you're not going to have
infected that are now attacking because you are within
the safety of Jackson. So, how does that affect...? CRAIG: It means you
have to go deeper into
the emotional action. And so what happens right after
he walks out of this bar is something even worse. And this one gets me every time. He's having another
panic attack. His hand goes to his chest.
He can't breathe. He doesn't know why. And then he looks up,
and he sees a woman that might as well be
his daughter. I mean, one of the things
about Nico is she has
the greatest head of hair. TROY: Nico Parker, who,
of course, plays Sarah. CRAIG: Yeah.
And it's very specific. You know it when you see it. And here's this other woman,
a grown woman, but he's looking at her
from behind. She's got that hair it's
this wonderful thing
that Pedro does. He's blinking a lot,
which we do when
we're under stress. We tend to blink a lot. And so he's having
this panic attack and his eyes are blinking
and then he looks, and he sees this woman
and he stops blinking. And he just stares, and he stops
having a panic attack. He goes into something else. NEIL: He's daydreaming. CRAIG: Yeah, he knows it's
not her, but it could be her. And then this little girl
runs over, and it's like, “And that could be
my granddaughter.” NEIL: Yeah,
that's another life. CRAIG: And then the woman turns,
and it's not Sarah, and suddenly he feels
like the biggest idiot, like the most hopeless fool. That this is what he's still
doing after 20 years. This is the moment
where I think there is a snap in him, a break
that will allow him, finally, to just tell his brother
the truth. ♪ (“ALL GONE” BY
GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA PLAYS) ♪ TROY: There is a particular cue
from the score by our composer
Gustavo Santaolalla called<i> All Gone</i>
that's repeated quite often throughout both the game
and the series. And whenever it comes on,
I think about loss. And it all starts with Sarah. NEIL: I think beautiful scores
and scores that are used well, it's a way into
the subconscious. So, it's a way to trigger
certain memories or feelings without being explicit about it. So that's where, in the game
and similar in the show, we use that theme again
to hark back to that moment when he lost his daughter. And it's a way to tap into that. CRAIG: Yeah, and Nico
did such a good job. I would tell Nico,
“You are the point upon which this
whole thing is built. It's you and your death.” That when Joel
is looking at this woman, and we hear that theme,
we feel it. We feel the loss.
I feel it every time. I understand Joel
in this moment. I'm not watching somebody
feel something. I'm feeling something
with them because I get it. TROY: Speaking to their history,
that there's a totem of the honoring of that
on the mantle when Ellie walks
into the house. And we see this chalkboard
with distressed chalk, so it's been there for a while, that has two names
and two dates. We see Kevin and Sarah. And I noticed something and it,
not to nitpick, but I was just curious. The date that Sarah died
is the 27th. Historically, we know
outbreak day was the 26th. I'm curious-- -CRAIG: After midnight.
-TROY: It's after midnight. NEIL: This was a fun scene
in that you don't get to
see it in the game. In the game, it's like,
Ellie and Joel part ways, so Joel can have a conversation
with Tommy. Ellie goes with Maria,
so she can feed her
and take care of her. And then you just see
the aftermath of that conversation where,
like, somehow, Ellie learned about
Joel's daughter. And here we got to brainstorm
and flesh that out. And I think where we ended up
was really cool. CRAIG: There was something that
we wanted to take advantage of, which was the idea that
for a moment here, we could see Ellie
with a maternal figure again. We'd seen it briefly with Tess,
and now we're with Maria. First of all, Maria supplies her
with new clothing. She supplies her with this,
the Diva Cup. And because half
of our planet is women. These shows never talk about
menstruation, which is a huge thing you're
going to have to deal with
in the apocalypse. This is the second time
we've come around on it. Joel has no interest
in helping out on that front, but here Maria has been
thinking about it already. And it is connected, also,
to sisterhood and womanhood. And Maria is giving her
a haircut. MARIA:<i> Look, I'm not going to
ask you what you're
doing with him.</i> -ELLIE:<i> Good.</i>
-MARIA:<i> But there are clearly</i> <i> things you don't know
about Joel.</i> ELLIE:<i> Oh, like how he used to
kill people? I know about that.</i> MARIA:<i> So then you understand
my concern.</i> ELLIE:<i> He doesn't do
that anymore.</i> MARIA:<i>
He stopped killing people?</i> ELLIE:<i> Innocent ones.</i> <i> And Tommy did it, too.
You worried about him?</i> MARIA:<i> Tommy was following Joel.
The way you are now.</i> ELLIE:<i> Well, maybe I'm smarter
than Tommy. No offense.</i> MARIA:<i> You are definitely smart.</i> <i> Would have made
a hell of a lawyer.</i> <i> There's a whole lot
you're not telling me.</i> <i> Good.</i> <i> Herein lies the point.</i> <i> Be careful who you put
your faith in.</i> <i> The only people who can
betray us</i> <i> are the ones we trust.</i> CRAIG:
She's not challenging Ellie because Ellie has
a sailor's mouth
or Ellie's angry. She's worried about Ellie. She has nothing invested
in Ellie at all. She just met her. But she's worried about Joel
and the way he is. And that makes her worry
about Ellie. NEIL: And the nice thing about
these two characters is they're both extremely smart. Like, now, Ellie is
being challenged by someone that's as smart as she is. CRAIG: Yeah. And who sees it. And I think Maria is impressed. Because Joel's intelligence
isn't necessarily expressed
verbally, but Ellie's is,
and so is Maria's. And so this is a little bit--
I remember saying to Rutina Wesley,
who plays Maria, and Bella, “This is a fight. -This is a fist fight.”
-NEIL: Yeah. CRAIG: We're just not
punching each other, and we're going to shake hands
at the end of it. But that's what's
happening here. It's a fight. NEIL: Like, earlier,
we were talking about, like, is there a temptation
to have more action? This is our action sequence
right here, like the emotional action. And we're going to have more,
like, later on. But to me,
this is as captivating as the cul-de-sac beat
in the previous episode. But we also get to see
how loyal Ellie is, because what does she do? She defends Joel
all the way to the end, including insulting Maria
and her husband, all to justify who Joel is,
because this is her dad. CRAIG: But there has to be,
I think, a little bit of a note, a little thread inside Ellie, that's shaken when Maria says, “Be careful in whom
you put your trust. The people we trust
are the only ones
who can betray us.” Inside, it's hard
for Ellie to deny the absolute truth of that. And there is something weird
in the air here in Jackson. And it happens right away
when they enter Jackson, and Ellie watches Joel
run over to his brother. There's-- you can see
a jealousy in her, or a fear. “Wait.” TROY: He's mine. CRAIG: Yeah, “That one is mine”" NEIL: And again, Ellie is
smarter than she realizes. She has probably
already sensed something since the Henry and Sam moment. CRAIG: Yes. Something is off. TROY: Then we see Maria
bring Ellie to go see a movie with the rest of the town. And the movie is a 1977 classic. CRAIG:<i> Goodbye Girl.</i> TROY:<i> Goodbye Girl</i>
with Richard Dreyfuss. -Deep cut. I've never seen it.
-CRAIG: Really? TROY: Tell me why
you chose this movie
and why I should see it. CRAIG: Well, I saw this movie
when I was a kid, and I loved it. And I think maybe
it was because it wasn't just about a man
and a woman falling in love. There was a kid. And the kid was saying,
“That would be a good dad.” That was the real love story. This scene that we show
when they're watching the movie is really the first
real meeting between this man
and this little girl. And I like the idea of movies
as an additional signifier of how civilized this place was, because up until this point, the world revolves around
ammunition, guns. TROY: Food. CRAIG: Food, batteries,
transportation. And the only other person
that was invested in art
was Frank. And I liked the idea
that one of the signifiers that this town is functioning is that it is still
interested in art, and the community gathering
together to watch a movie. NEIL: Which in the game, right, they're on the outskirts
of Jackson, and Tommy says, “They'll be watching movies
tonight.” CRAIG: Exactly. NEIL: And here,
we get to see it. TROY: In stark contrast to that, Joel could have been in there
watching the movie as well, but what he decided
to do instead was go off and,
kind of like a dad, put himself in a shed
and tool around. -CRAIG: Isolate.
-TROY: Isolate. CRAIG: Self-isolate.
He can't face his brother. He can't face Maria. He definitely can't
face Ellie right now. He has come to grips finally
with the reality that he isn't good enough. TROY: And he says it
in a very compelling way. JOEL:<i> You think I can still
handle things, but...</i> <i> I'm not who I was.</i> <i> I'm weak.</i> <i>Lately, there are these moments</i> <i> where the fear comes up
out of nowhere and...</i> <i> my heart...
feels like it stopped.</i> CRAIG: He says,
“I'm failing in my sleep.” And that was-- That was obviously
a hard monologue to write. But the line when he says,
“I have dreams.” “What dreams?”
“I don't know." "All I know is that
when I wake up, I know I've lost something.” That was from Pedro directly. That notion that
when you wake up, you just have a feeling
that you've lost something was so beautiful
and it's so confessional. And this is not at all
like something we saw from Joel in the game. This is different.
This is... This is sadder, I think. It's a little more broken down and it's a little more
upsetting. NEIL: Yeah, in the game,
Tommy comes to the realization when he sees how much
Joel cares for Ellie after an action sequence. Here, it's like
Joel has to plead. -CRAIG: He has to beg.
-NEIL: Joel has to, like, show-- It's the most vulnerable
we've seen him yet. TROY: This is a difference
of the stoic, "play it close to the vest" Joel
that we've seen. What excited you, what scared you about showing
this version of Joel? NEIL: There was no fear. We had talked about it
quite a bit beforehand, so I was excited to see
the execution of it more than anything, because I knew it would
give us more insight into who this character is, and what drives him
and what scares him. CRAIG:
I think I'm mostly concerned
with not boring people. TROY: Yeah. CRAIG: So,
if you can interest people in a quiet discussion
between two humans, then that sometimes
is as impactful, if not more so,
than a big action sequence. This episode, in particular, has really only one
action sequence. NEIL: And it's pretty short. CRAIG: It's short,
and it's at the end. This episode is about
other stuff. All the action
is emotional action, and if you qualify
emotional action as being as impactful
as physical action, this is one of our most
action-packed episodes because a lot of
emotional crossroads meet here. So, Joel started this journey
looking for his brother. He was terrified
that his brother was in trouble. He's going to find his brother. Joel started this journey
saying to Ellie, “You're not family,
you're cargo.” She's family now, and he doesn't know
what to do about it. Ellie started this journey
looking up to Tess and thinking that
that was the person that was going to lead her
to the Promised Land. Well, now Joel has become
her father figure, but she is starting to doubt
whether or not she herself will even be effective
as the hope for humanity. All of these things
are coming together, and to me, that's as exciting to watch, and certainly as exciting
to write, as action. NEIL: For the game as well, it was kind of
a similar thing of, you know,
we made what we call a “character action
adventure game.” But this episode has one of
the most memorable moments
from the game, which has no action,
quote unquote, which is the moment
where Ellie confronts Joel about wanting to leave her. JOEL:<i> You'll be way better off
with Tommy.</i> <i> He knows the area
better than I do.</i> ELLIE:<i> Do you give a shit
about me or not?</i> JOEL:<i> Course I do.</i> ELLIE:<i> Then what are you
so afraid of?</i> <i> I'm not her, you know.</i> <i>Maria told me about Sarah and--</i> JOEL:<i> No.</i> <i> Don't say another word.</i> TROY:
Let's talk about that scene. CRAIG: This is
one of those moments that I have sense memory of, you know, playing the game
and just being shocked. This is a spot where, I mean, even in an episode
where we are in Jackson, which wasn't in the game, and Joel has said a lot of
very different things to Tommy that weren't in the game, this is one of those moments
where I said, “I want to, with rare exception, we're doing the scene
because the scene is great.” I want the wallpaper
to be the same, I want her sitting
where she was sitting, I want her reading the diary, and I want to feel all of it. I think with two exceptions, one at the end where he says,
you know, “Come dawn,” and then one that I'm sure
you want to ask about, which is “Mighty thin ice,” it's the same scene. TROY: And for people
who are fans of the game, there is what would be
considered an iconic line that I'd love to know
the story of, because it was
a carefully preserved thing. People who know
are going to be like, “Why isn't that line in there?” NEIL: Right.
I can answer that. Because this Joel is
a little bit different. His dialect is
a little bit different. If that line stayed in there, I think it would have stood out
in a way that would have taken away from this version
of the scene. TROY: Well,
when we originally did it, I don't know
if you know this or not,
but it wasn't “Mighty thin ice”" it was “You're treading
on thin ice.” NEIL: Well, the other thing,
I guess, is that, again, to give credit, is the scene wasn't written
with that shove. TROY: No. NEIL: We were struggling to get
the emotion out of that scene. And I remember we had to like-- We tried a few times, and were like,
"Let's take a break." I think you asked,
“Can we take five?” -I'm like, “Let's take 15.”
-TROY: Yeah. NEIL: And then we came back
and did it. And then Ashley,
just on her own, shoved you across the stage. And that was the take. -TROY: The “Don't” in Pedro's...
-(NEIL LAUGHS) TROY: And what it was,
it wasn't a threat. Again, he's pleading. It's almost the same
“Please don't” that he gave to the sniper. -"Please don't."
-CRAIG: It's the exact
same thing. And the scene doesn't change
the subtext of, “You're treading
on mighty thin ice,” and “Don't say another word.” The context is exactly the same. “Stop in your tracks.
Turn around, go back.” And in both scenes,
Ellie does not. Ellie moves forward,
physically moves forward. TROY: And if I'm not mistaken,
also, “Everyone has left me
except for you” was the original line. CRAIG, TROY:
“Fucking except for you.” CRAIG:
And what I love about that
is the imperfection of it. That's not where
the word "fucking" belongs normally, syntactically. Which shows you that
Ashley was just in the moment. Because we are not perfect
when we speak. NEIL: If I had written that line
and looked at it, I would've been like, "Uh..."
and moved it around. CRAIG: Of course. Exactly. You would never write it
like that. But it's perfect the way it is. So that was
perfectly replicable, and it was important to me
that we do it. ELLIE:<i>
Everybody I have cared for</i> <i>has either died or left me.</i> <i> Everybody fucking
except for you!</i> <i>So don't tell me that I'd be
safer with somebody else.</i> <i> Because the truth is,
I would just be more scared.</i> NEIL: Again, for me,
as someone that obviously has a lot of attachment
to that scene, like, it's equally moving. It's like you're looking
into another dimension. That's the best way
I can describe it. Now, what I would say
to our fans is like, “Don't do the comparison thing. Because like--
Appreciate it for what it is.” It's like another group
of artists taking a crack at it and creating
something beautiful. JOEL:<i> You're right.</i> <i> You're not my daughter,</i> <i> and I sure as hell
ain't your dad.</i> TROY: For me, in that moment,
in that performance, what I got is, “I am rejecting the dream,
the ideal.” NEIL: But once again,
he is lying. -CRAIG: Yeah. He's lying.
-(TROY LAUGHS) CRAIG:
It is technically correct. He wants it to be true. He feels like, “If I just
say that and walk away, I have saved myself
from pain and despair.” -NEIL: But it's too late.
-CRAIG: It's too late. And the fact that he thinks
about his own daughter
right after that is not,
“And that is my real daughter. Therefore,
I've made the right decision.” It's more like, -“I have the same feeling."
-NEIL: Right. CRAIG:
“I can't walk away. I can't.” He tries. Next morning, he tries,
and he just can't do it. And what he says to Ellie is,
“You deserve a choice.” Now, that's a cop out. -(LAUGHTER)
-TROY: Right. CRAIG: That's a total cop out. TROY: Wonderfully masked,
by the way, in democracy, and as a noble gesture. NEIL: Which, by the way-- I don't know how to say this
without spoiling something, but it's like,
that line specifically is very interesting
to where the story goes. CRAIG: Yes, I agree. It is. It will echo back later on,
the notion of choice. But it, here, is a lie. He's not there
because she has a choice. He's not doing her a favor.
He's doing himself a favor. He can't leave.
He can't. He cannot do it. And what I love is how Ellie doesn't even give him
a chance to con-- She's just like,
“Good. Thank you. Here we go. We're back.” She doesn't need him
to apologize. She doesn't need him
to explain himself. She doesn't care. She doesn't care
why he said those terrible things to her
the night before. All she cares about
is she got Joel back. That's all she wanted. TROY: There's something
about this goodbye between Tommy and Joel. And it's a long embrace, and one could almost
interpret it as final. But then,
we have Tommy's offer. “There's a place here for you,” which again,
is that one last chance. And Joel's response, and I didn't catch
the first time, “I'm counting on it,” to me, shows that there is hope
and that they will make it back from what he calls
"a suicide mission." And the request,
“Can I borrow the rifle?” Not, “Can I have the rifle?”
“Can I borrow the rifle?” What does that moment mean
to both of you? NEIL: Again, it's the fantasy
we all have of like, “Okay,
we're going to all be fine. We're going to all end up
well and healthy and we're going to
come back here, and it's all going to
turn out okay.” TROY: Do you feel this is a--
that Joel looks at this
as a fresh start? CRAIG: I think that he sees
that Tommy's figured it out. Tommy was looking for something,
a way to make the world better. And he did. “This place fucking works,”
as Ellie said. NEIL: He's changed.
He's accepted his role now. CRAIG: Yeah. He can
come back here with Ellie, and they're going to live
in that house. NEIL: And she's going to
watch movies and eat bacon. CRAIG:
And it's going to be okay. He has to do one last thing,
and he won't fail this time. And once he has succeeded, he gets to have
the life he deserves, and he gets to reclaim
his purpose in a place that works. NEIL: I guess it's also
the first time he's finally investing
in her future, which is his future. TROY: He begins to take on
the role of a dad. NEIL: Yeah.
He begins to accept it. CRAIG: (CHUCKLES)
Yeah, he's been doing it. But what he's done,
I think Neil's exactly right, he is no longer afraid. There are no more
panic attacks here. He has accepted her completely. There's no more place
where he's like fighting to not be enmeshed
with this person. He has now accepted
that he's enmeshed, and that the first manifestation
of this new phase of their life is he teaches her how to shoot. He teaches her
to be more like him. NEIL: It's the calm
before the storm where we get to see him... You know, when I was working
on the original game, you know,
sometimes when you write genre, you dive as deeply as you can
into the genre. You study like every single
story in that genre. One of my favorite movies is<i>
Road to Perdition.</i> And it's a little different
from the comic book
that it's based on, in that Tom Hanks
does everything he can to protect his son from ever
getting corrupted by violence. I knew for the story
we wanted to tell here, back when we did it in the game,
it was like... I think as a dad in that world, if I'm really trying
to protect my kid, I'm not gonna protect them
from violence. I'm gonna teach them
how to use violence as a tool so they will be safe. You know, Joel's been trying
to protect her from that. Of like never giving her a gun,
and then slowly trusting her, but only for emergencies. And now he's slowly teaching her
to become more and more of a violent person like him. CRAIG: And I love this
dad thing that I remember feeling
with my dad. Which is, dads are magic,
they can do magic things. Like they can
shoot that gun perfectly. When my oldest was younger, sometimes she would
stay up too late. And I didn't know necessarily,
the door's closed, I didn't know necessarily that she was staying up too late,
but, you know, what I would do is,
around 10:30 or 11:00, I'd wander over and then
I'd just open the door slightly. And if I caught her, like, playing on the iPad
or whatever, I would say, "I don't know why you think
you can get away with this. You can't. I'm Dad.
I will always know." -"But how?"
-(ALL LAUGHING) And I had her so convinced
that it was just dad magic. When in fact, all I was doing
was just checking a lot. -(LAUGHTER)
-That's all I was doing. But that was the trick. And when we're kids,
we look up to our fathers because they can do
these things. Probably nine times out of ten,
he doesn't bullseye that target, but he did on that one,
he's like... (CLICKS TONGUE). NEIL: But is there
a better feeling than when your kid
is proud of you? CRAIG: No, that's the greatest. You love it, and they love it,
because it makes them feel safe. And everything
that happened here, I remember talking a lot
about this section with Neil is he was like,
"This is the best it will ever be
between Joel and Ellie." He's teaching her
about football, teaching her about the way
the world used to be. He was a contractor, which is one
of my favorite things ever, because everybody
loves contractors. He can revise history. And she puts her head
on his shoulder. It's a father
and it's a daughter, and they love each other,
and they're at peace. They have finally occupied the
place they're supposed to be. NEIL: And they're gonna be okay,
nothing bad will happen. -TROY: Well...
-CRAIG: Of course not. -TROY: I was about to say--
-NEIL: Thanks, Troy. TROY: You have trained us now to understand, of course,
we've learned with this story that those moments
of beauty and rest are quickly interrupted. And we see the sign
of the Firefly, but there is a huge difference-- We had this wonderful fight
with Joel and one of these hunters, and Joel gets injured. So let's talk a little bit
about the difference here, in this fight. CRAIG: Well, in the game,
Joel falls from I think the second floor
of a building and lands on his back
on the ground and is impaled
by a piece of rebar, right through his abdomen. And that does
make sense tonally in a world where you
are curing yourself of gunshot wounds,
for instance. But we're dealing with
a more grounded approach to the way violence impacts
the human body. So this is pretty serious,
and as simple as, there's just this broken
shard of a baseball bat that this guy stuck Joel with. And Joel didn't even realize it until he sees Ellie
looking at it and he looks down
and says, "Uh-oh," and he pulls this thing out. And that is
a very serious wound. And he's not
going to make it. He's gonna die. He falls off his horse,
he is bleeding out, he is unconcious. And Bella just does
this beautiful, and what I love about it
is it's still selfish, "I don't know where I am. I don't what the fuck
I'm gonna do." It's not, "Oh, Father, no!" NEIL: The subtext is,
"Oh, Father..." CRAIG: But it's like,
"I am terrified. What do I do without you?" And that's when we bring back<i>
Never Let Me Down Again.</i> NEIL: There's something
that I love and I've never said
this to you, Craig, but I'll say it here,
which is how personal the end
of this episode is to you. Because there's a part
of your daughter -in this episode.
-CRAIG: Yes. ♪ I'm taking a ride
With my best friend ♪ ♪ I hope he never lets me
Down again ♪ -CRAIG: That is my daughter.
-TROY: What? CRAIG: Yeah, so,
my daughter is 18, and she is a remarkably
talented singer. I know I sound like a jerk
who's just a dumb dad talking about his kids
saying how great they are. I'm not that guy. I'm also very cognizant
of the whole nepo baby discussion out there. And I had this idea that
at the end of this episode when Ellie is looking down
at Joel and this is the person-- She was taking a ride with him,
and he has let her down, even though it's<i>
Never Let Me Down Again.</i> This is how it comes around, and I wanted
to re-present that song but in this point of view
of just sadness and loss. And I also wanted to hear
a female voice singing it to echo Ellie. And you can spend months
reaching out to various people of all level of fame
trying to get them to do it, but the problem I had was
that there was this kid down the hall from me
in my house who I knew could crush it. So, I sent her the song,
and I said, "Jessie, can you do a cover of this
that is haunting and slow, and about a daughter mourning the loss
of her father? Just have that in
your mind as you do it." And she said, "Okay." And then, like,
two weeks went by. And I'm like,
"Where the hell is my song?" So I'm like, "Hey, Jessie,
where's my song?" She goes, "Oh, uh, I forgot." And I'm like,
"Listen to me, and I want
to make this clear. Daddy is saying
he wants to put your song on television. Can you please just--
Please?" And she's like, "Ugh, fine!" And she sent it to me
and I was like, "God damn." And the version that we
put together for the end I think is-- It feels like an echo
of Ellie. And to the extent that
Jessie's my daughter, and I think of Bella as
kind of an adopted daughter, it's this gorgeous moment
for me personally where it's like my
two daughters are together in this moment
at the end of the episode. TROY: "I don't know
where we're going or what we're going to do." These are the words that Ellie
ends the episode with and the answer
to those questions... next week. Well, thank you, Craig,
for joining us. CRAIG: My pleasure. TROY: And thank you, Neil,
for being with us as well. NEIL: Thank you. TROY:
This has been the official <i> The Last of Us Podcast</i>
from HBO. Again, I'm Troy Baker, joined by Craig Mazin
and Neil Druckmann. You can stream new episodes
of the HBO original series <i> The Last of Us</i>
Sundays on HBO Max. The podcast episodes are
available after episodes of<i> The Last of Us</i>
air on HBO. You can find this show
wherever you listen to podcasts. Like and follow HBO's<i>
The Last of Us</i> on Instagram, Twitter,
and Facebook. And as always, when you're lost
in the darkness, look for the light. NARRATOR: This is the
official companion podcast for HBO's<i> The Last of Us,</i> hosted by Troy Baker. Our producers are
Elliot Adler, Bria Mariette, and Noah Camuso. Darby Maloney is our editor. The show is mixed
by Hannis Brown. Our executive producers
are Gabrielle Lewis and Bari Finkel. Production music
is courtesy of HBO. And you can watch episodes
of<i> The Last of Us</i> on HBO Max.
