♪ (HBO INTRO PLAYS) ♪ DAVID:<i> What does Cordyceps do?
Is it evil?</i> <i> No, it's fruitful,
it multiplies.</i> <i> It feeds and protects
its children.</i> <i>And it secures its future
with violence, if it must.</i> <i> It loves.</i> ♪ ("THE LAST OF US"
THEME MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ TROY BAKER:
Welcome to the official podcast for HBO's original series<i>
The Last of Us.</i> I am your host, Troy Baker, and I had
the amazing opportunity to play Joel
in<i> The Last of Us</i> video game. But today, I am here
with the showrunners, -Craig Mazin...
-CRAIG MAZIN: Good to be back. -TROY: ...and Neil Druckmann.
-NEIL DRUCKMANN: Hey. TROY: And we are discussing
a very special episode, perhaps one of my favorites,
episode eight, titled, "When We Are in Need."
Now-- CRAIG: I thought
you were going to say,
"titled, 'I'm in this one.'" (LAUGHTER) TROY:
That's why it's my favorite. It's my favorite
for many, many reasons, and I'm warning you now,
this is as spoiler-y as it gets. So if you haven't watched
the episode yet, you're gonna want to. This is a very different
kind of cold open. For many reasons. The image that we're given
is very, very cold. Bitter cold. And we hear something that,
up to this point, has been absent in this world. And that is scripture. CRAIG: Yeah, so, we're here
in a different place, in a different season, and this is one of those places
where Neil and I discussed how to expand the other. We've been doing this
all season, looking at the other
that in the game we see through a fixed perspective
from Ellie. And... Okay, we don't have to. We can actually start
on the other side of it and present the other as humane, and with, in this case,
a guy named David, his own goals,
his own community. He is a preacher. There are people
clearly relying on him. Things are not going well.
He knows it. And he comforts a child. He comforts a little girl
who's about Ellie's age. DAVID:<i> Do you remember
what comes next?</i> (CHILD SNIFFLES) DAVID:<i> "And God will wipe away
all tears from their eyes.</i> <i>And there will be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying.</i> <i> Neither will there be
any more pain.</i> <i> For the former things
are passed away."</i> (CHILD SOBS) DAVID:<i>
Do you know what that means?</i> (CHILD SNIFFLES) DAVID:<i> Good.</i> CRAIG: There's an intimation
that her father has been killed, and there's also
the undercurrent that something else
is going on here that's worse than just sadness, and, if I may, we understand that because
this tall, lanky drink of water named Troy Baker,
playing a character named James, shares a look of recognition
with this guy, David. Something is going on here
that these two guys know about, and maybe other people don't. TROY: Revelation 21, "And I saw a new heaven
and a new Earth." Why-- Why this verse? CRAIG: It's about rebirth. It's about the idea
that there can be a new world that is better than the world
that we know or have left behind. And it is also a verse about
moving past tragedy and grief. It's something
that I think David, who is played
by Scott Shepherd here, has read every time
someone has died. I think it's his go-to. I think it's a call
to maintain faith even in the face
of tragedy and loss. NEIL: It's also
where he found faith, which we discover later, which is like
he discovered faith through this massive loss
that happened on our planet. CRAIG: Yep. TROY: Once we leave that moment,
now we're out into their city. And what I loved seeing this, especially now that I've seen
the episode with Jackson, is you're presenting
two possible outcomes. Whereas Jackson has prospered
and flourished and is a functioning
communistic society, here is one
that is the underbelly. Where it's--
In order to control, you must do that
through fear and oppression. CRAIG: Well,
you can certainly read into this the dangers of theocracy,
although I think-- NEIL: They're just unlucky. -CRAIG: That's part of it.
-NEIL: That's where
they settled down. -They're just unlucky.
-CRAIG: They picked a bad spot.
And that-- TROY: Why?
What about it was bad,
do you think? CRAIG: Well, in my mind, this place must have looked
fantastic in the spring. There are all these buildings. TROY: It's a resort.
Silver Lake Resort. CRAIG: It's a resort.
There's a beautiful lake, and there are a lot of trees, and probably quite a bit
of game running around. You have this steakhouse, and this is all taken directly
from the game, Todd's Steakhouse, which is instantly convertible into a community
gathering space, and a church,
and a house of worship. And you don't stop
to think about things that are not
particularly religious, but rather scientific. Like this is Colorado. We are up against
the Rocky Mountains. And when the winter comes, this place is going
to be unrecognizable from what it is in the spring. And the food is going
to run out, the weather is going
to be bitter cold, and we are so cut off
from other settlements that if anything goes
slightly wrong, if it's even a slightly worse
winter than we expect, people are going to start dying, and we are going
to start starving. And that is where we find you--
uh, James and David contemplating what to do. NEIL:
There's also a conversation
that, you know, is reflected in the dialogue
between James and David, which is faith. And faith can, just like love, can be wonderful
or sometimes terrible. DAVID:<i> I sensed doubt in there.</i> JAMES:<i> They haven't lost faith
in you, David.</i> <i> They're just scared.</i> DAVID:<i> Not from them.</i> (JAMES SCOFFS) <i> I still believe.</i> <i>It's been a...</i> (SNIFFLES) <i> The last six months
have been hard.</i> DAVID:<i> For all of us.</i> <i> But I need to know
you're with me.</i> JAMES:<i> Yeah.</i> DAVID:<i> Good.</i> <i> Now, go get our guns,
we're going hunting.</i> NEIL: And in this instance, I think that David has fallen
too far into, like, "Everything's going to work out because everything happens
for a reason. We are in these trials
for a reason." But now it's becoming too much. And I think he let faith
kind of override it. The positive thing of faith is
you can maintain hope in these extraordinary
circumstances, which is what he does. But he hasn't prepared
for the winter in the way that Jackson has. CRAIG: Yeah,
Jackson is run by a woman who was a prosecutor. (CHUCKLES) She was a woman of law. And it was founded, therefore, on the bedrock principles
of law. I believe very strongly in the separation
of church and state, not only because
it's important to protect people who are
of religious minorities, but because religion
doesn't do a good job of running a state. I believe religion does
a terrible job of running a state. If you look at theocracies
around the world, you will see this being repeated
time and time again. Where there is a theocracy,
your state starts to fail. David is not only theocratic
in nature, but he's also paternalistic
in nature, which is another
interesting thing to talk about the idea of how a patriarchal theocracy
functions here versus a democracy
built on secular law run by both men and women
in Jackson. There are
these very clear differences, and I think
our show is not shying away from saying one is better
than the other. NEIL: It doesn't help
that he's a narcissist, and everything is about him
and the love that he receives. -And--
-CRAIG: Well, this is-- You know, the people that tend
to end up running theocracies... are probably not as godly
as they think. NEIL: But he's also extremely
confident at adversity. Like, that's why I think
he makes the hard calls. Just like Kathleen,
just like Marlene, just like a lot of the people
we've seen in this story, he can make the hard calls
that no one else can make. TROY: Once we move away
from David and James and that conversation
you talk about, we're back with Ellie and Joel. And we see perhaps
a little progress because she has been able
to stitch him up, and we see a remarkable
bedside manner from Ellie. Just to place us in the time, how much time has passed,
would you say? CRAIG: To me,
it's been a day or two. NEIL: Yeah, not that much. CRAIG: Yeah, she's sewn him up. NEIL: But what I love
about this sequence is that there's these long moments
where you just see her staring, and the idea of, like,
you wouldn't know. You're like, "I stitched him.
Is this working? It's kind of turning infectious.
I'm not sure. -Is he going to survive, die?
I don't know."
-CRAIG: He doesn't look good. Yeah. I mean, the wound
still looks really bad. The discoloration is spreading. And more importantly,
Joel's not waking up. He's in and out
of consciousness. He's not eating.
He's not drinking. She's tapping water to his lips. She's doing everything she can,
but she is a kid. Now, she's also a kid that,
as we've talked about, has this aspiration
to be like Joel. And so I think
when she's sitting there
looking at him, and she's starving herself, 'cause they're down
to their last little scrap
of beef jerky, she thinks,
"Well, what would Joel do here?" And what Joel would do is
pick up that gun, go out there, and shoot a deer.
I mean, remember, Ellie asked, "Teach me how to hunt.
I want to know how to hunt." Well, this is her chance
to go out there and hunt. TROY: Ellie takes the rifle, and she forges out
because they need food. And we have moments of this
for the first kind of sequence with Ellie in the game
where she is now hunting, and we have this moment
with a deer. And we get to actually see this
where she's trying to remember just the steps
that Joel walked her through
of what to do. And she breathes,
and we have this very intimate-- You chose
to be very close with Ellie and also with the deer. And then we find
our two other characters David and James. And now,
just as Joel has had the drop-- someone's gotten
the drop on him before, Ellie has now got the drop
on these two guys. ELLIE WILLIAMS:<i>
Turn and face me! Slow!</i> <i>Any sudden moves, I put one
right between your eyes.</i> <i> Ditto for buddy boy.</i> DAVID:<i> You're quite a hunter.
We didn't even hear you coming.</i> ELLIE:<i>
Turn around and walk away!</i> TROY:
There was a specific choice
that felt like it was made. She doesn't know
how to hold that rifle well. -CRAIG: No. It's too heavy.
-NEIL: It's bigger than her. CRAIG: It is. And that rifle
that we're using there
is the real thing. We, you know, obviously stressed
gun safety all the time. Most of the time, when our actors
are holding guns, they're not loaded with blanks or, obviously, never loaded
with real ammunition. In that case, the gun,
as she's walking around,
is unloaded. But it's the real rifle,
and it is heavy. And Bella, like, the next day,
was feeling it, like, in her biceps and her pecs. It was hard for her
to hold that thing up. And we would--
Throughout the scene where she confronts
your character and David, from off camera,
we would occasionally be like, "Lift the gun! Lift the gun!"
Because she would-- It starts to lower,
but she can't lower it. She has to keep it on you guys. And yet you can see her
struggling with it. And we kept
some of those moments in. They're subtle,
but you can tell. It's just-- She's not equipped,
and yet she's trying her best. She lowers her voice
when she, you know, yells, (IN A DEEP VOICE)
"Don't!" You know?
"Turn around!" You know? She's doing the best she can
to be tough and scary. And what I love is
that Scott Shepherd, as David, sees right through it and doesn't take advantage
of it. He goes the other way, which is all about
what's going on in his mind as he sees this
for the first time. -TROY:
David is unflappably calm.
-CRAIG: Yeah. -TROY: Why?
-CRAIG: Well... Neil and I talked a lot... about when a certain concept
begins to form in David's mind. And the concept is,
"I want her." So, we've seen this episode now.
There are no spoilers here. David's interest in Ellie
is not merely paternal. There's something else.
He wants to have her. He wants to possess her.
He wants to own her. And I think
it happens immediately. I think he looks at this kid,
who is so far away from any of the people
that he is currently
the pastor for, and he is lit up. I think
he is intensely attracted to her force of nature,
her power. NEIL: Her confidence.
Like, you think about the-- He has broken all the people
around him. Right? It's like sheep. And here he sees a wolf,
like him. CRAIG:
The people that came to him came to him
because they were sheep. So, these sheep keep huddling
towards David. -NEIL: But Ellie is different.
-CRAIG: Yes, Ellie is different. And he is so impressed. And it's not only
that she's holding a gun, and that she got
the drop on them, and that... He knows exactly
who she is already. This is the girl that was
with the guy that killed Alec, who was the man
with the baseball bat two episodes ago, episode six,
who jabs Joel in the stomach with that broken handle
of a baseball bat. That's the guy that Joel kills. That's the father of
this little girl who's crying. And he knows all this.
So does James. So, when David says,
"Go get her medicine," -James is... so confused.
-NEIL: Hesitates. CRAIG:
And I love that David says,
"It's not code." -TROY: "It's not code."
-CRAIG: Yeah, he's saying... Because some--
You could see it was like,
"Oh, go sneak aroun-- What I'm really saying is
sneak around behind her
and shoot her." No. He's saying, "Help her," which is absolutely
the weirdest possible decision. But that's the thing, I think, that already attracts David
to Ellie is that she was involved
in killing. NEIL: Well, he's
a master manipulator, right? He's like--
He's making Ellie feel like
she's in control, but he's in control
the entire time. CRAIG: Yeah.
Everything at that point was about the world
shrinking down to two people, David and Ellie. David is... carefully creating
a circumstance whereby Ellie will lean forward. He's not gonna pull her.
He's not gonna-- He's gonna make her want
to lean forward. In the game, that discussion happens after
Ellie and David have to fight -a lot of infected together.
-TROY: Right. CRAIG: It's one of the hardest-- NEIL: Yeah.
It ends with a big bloater-- CRAIG: Yeah,
it's a really hard encounter. So, they're bonded
by a certain trust because of gameplay. -TROY: He cheers her on.
-NEIL: In the gameplay, you save each other's lives,
and that's how we build trust. Here we have to build trust
through our conversations. CRAIG: Yes, because we felt...
While we could do that, the plot implications of a lot
of infected running around out there that can just get you
at any moment, it would permeate
throughout the episode, and we wanted it to function
a different way. So, it was about
the conversation. And he's very crafty about
letting her make her jokes, not pushing things,
not taking things personally, being kind... NEIL: Yeah, she's insulting him
quite a bit. And he just-- -he rolls with it.
-TROY: "Well,
you got me there." Yeah. CRAIG: And then there's
that moment where she's like,
"But seriously..." And that's when he knows
he has her because she's interested. DAVID:<i> So, I sent four
of our people to a nearby town</i> <i>to scavenge what they could,
and only three of 'em came back.</i> <i> And the one that didn't
was a father.</i> <i>He had a daughter just like you.
And her dad was taken from her.</i> <i>Turns out, he was murdered
by this crazy man.</i> <i> And get this...</i> <i>that crazy man was traveling
with a little girl.</i> <i> You see?</i> <i>Everything happens for a reason.</i> CRAIG:
What I love is that Bella-- the way Bella played it was,
it takes her, like, -three seconds too long...
-TROY: To realize that she's... CRAIG: ...to realize
because she's into the story. She's suckered in
by him completely. It's-- And what I love about that is
that's the first time, I think, we've seen it happen.
No one's been able to fool her. No one's been able
to sucker her. She's always one step ahead
of everybody. TROY: As soon as she gets
the penicillin from them, she runs back
to give it to Joel. NEIL: There's a lot of payoffs
that would not work if the rest of the season
didn't work as well as it did. And one of these moments that-- one of my favorite moments
from the game is Ellie is-- She got this penicillin,
shot of penicillin, and she doesn't know how to-- She just injects it
where she thinks it might go. She's not sure
if it's going to work or not. And then she lies down
next to Joel and leans into him. And I just--
Again, I'm watching this, and I'm seeing Ellie and Joel,
not like Bella and Pedro. But I love, again,
that we wake up the next day, and she does another injection.
She's, like-- She doesn't know
how much to give, where to do it,
whether it's going to work
or not. And again, there's a little bit
of this blind faith that this is all gonna work out. TROY: And there's
nothing more helpless
than having a solution and having no idea
how to use it. CRAIG: It's something
I remembered feeling
in the game, and it was, at the time,
shocking. When, in<i> The Last of Us</i>
the game, you wake up, so to speak,
as Ellie. You become Ellie. The screen goes black,
and now you're playing as Ellie. It was shocking. And playing as Ellie and not knowing
if it was gonna be okay, if Joel was gonna live,
was really scary. TROY: Mm-hmm. Let's talk
about the slap and the hand. So, we see this exchange
with Josiah and Joyce, and she says, "What is it?"
And he looks at her and he goes, -"Venison."
-CRAIG: No, it isn't. (CHUCKLES) -TROY: So, that's a question.
-CRAIG: Yeah. TROY: This is where
we also have the scene that contrasts with earlier,
whereas Hannah interrupts, and instead of crying,
she's now saying-- she's crying out
for the vengeance of her father's murder. David slaps her. DAVID:<i> I know you think
you don't have a father anymore.</i> <i>But the truth is, Hannah,
you will always have a father.</i> <i>And you will show him respect
when he's speaking.</i> CRAIG: This is a big deal. Like,
we talked about this a lot. When we expanded this out, we thought that it was important
to humanize David, humanize the world around him,
make us feel, at least when he was initially
with Ellie in that sawmill, that... he's a good guy. You know what?
He's forgiven her, which is
a very Christian thing to do. In fact,
he's given her medicine so that she can save Joel. NEIL: Yeah,
he's been honest with her. CRAIG: He has been honest
with her the entire time. And we need to make it clear that that isn't
the complete truth. But we don't want to go
all the way into showing
who he fully is yet. And this is the product of that. It was important for us
to show the audience that he is not
the nicest guy in the world. He says to Hannah
after he hits her, "I know you think
you don't have a father anymore, but you will always
have a father." It's about the most patriarchal
thing you can possibly say. And what does father do? Father comforts you,
father teaches you, and then father hits you. -Everybody--
-NEIL: But it's out of love. CRAIG: Yeah.
But that's the thing, he-- In his mind, that is love. Because he doesn't understand
what love is. NEIL: There's a lot of dark
in this episode, but to me,
this moment is so dark. Like, he hits this girl,
and then he does this, like, really gentle motion
to her mom, "Sit back down. Sit back down. I got this." CRAIG: So controlling, right? NEIL:
And, again, the control he has, -where, like,
the mom then sits back down.
-CRAIG: Sits back down. TROY: To me, the look is,
"Keep her in line. Keep yourself in line. Because you remember
what happens if you don't." CRAIG: He also-- He then reaches
his hand down to Hannah, but he doesn't take her hand, he just reaches down
and makes her take his hand. And that's about
the most David thing you can do. That's this other level of,
"You see? You wanted to take my hand." -NEIL: But that is like the DNA
of abusive relationships.
-CRAIG: It is. Like, this guy is the model
of a gaslighter, a manipulator, and an abuser. TROY:
To somewhat stay chronological, there's this great shot
where we're now hunting Ellie. CRAIG:
And what's interesting is, your instinct, James' instinct,
and Timothy and Marcos, and Josiah's is
to kill this little girl for what she did. Because she
and whoever that guy is killed their friend Alec. And David won't let you. TROY:
"I shot the horse to stop her. I just want the girl gone. I just-- 'Cause she-- I feel the fact that she could
easily usurp my position." In the same way
that David intuits that he has found an equal,
I think there's something inside of James that senses that
from this girl as well. He looks at her differently. CRAIG: Yeah,
James is not his equal. And that's what's sort of tragic
is that... It's the reason
the first real conversation that David has with James is about David challenging
James' faith. And James says,
"No, I still believe." And you would think,
okay, this is, like, "Because I need you with me,"
and he's like, "We're going hunting," you know? This is what bad people do. They make you crave
their approval, and then when they give you
the approval, it makes you feel things that you probably
shouldn't be feeling. That's how they manipulate you, and that's
how David manipulates James. But the whole time,
David doesn't really love James. David has contempt for James. David has contempt
for practically every single person
in that church of his. TROY: I would even think that,
from my perspective, contempt was just a little bit
too much thumb on the scale of an investment. He was disposable. -"You serve a purpose for me
right now."
-NEIL: Yeah. Yeah. TROY: So, then after David
and James kidnap Ellie, she wakes up in this cage, and David is there trying
to prove he's a good guy. DAVID:<i> Did you hear me say
the others want to kill you?</i> ELLIE:<i> Yeah.</i> DAVID:<i> But I stopped them.</i> ELLIE:<i> Fuck you.</i> DAVID:<i> Why don't we just start
with your name?</i> ELLIE:<i> Eat shit.</i> DAVID:<i> Hey, listen to me!</i> <i>You can't survive on your own.
No one can.</i> <i> But I can help you.
Let me protect you.</i> ELLIE:<i> I'm not on my own.</i> DAVID:<i> Right, your friend.</i> <i> And how is he?</i> CRAIG:
What's happening there is,
again, David doing this thing
of slowly luring her, and Ellie doing her best
to put on a brave face. She is concussed.
She is trapped in a cage. She is unarmed. Joel is out there
dying somewhere. This guy's saying,
"Hey, I'm keeping you alive." And she's telling him
to "eat shit." (LAUGHTER) CRAIG: Which is a very--
You know, "What's your name?"
"Eat shit." There's no more Ellie thing
to do than that. NEIL: By the way,
the "What's your name?" thing, it goes back
to the conversation we just had of, like, again,
you're in this room where everybody's eating
human meat. And only some people know
because there's a secret, and trust only goes so far. And so much
of this back-and-forth, this chess game
that they're playing, is about trust. And the question
he keeps asking her, "What's your name? What's your name?
What's your name?" And she knows
this is what she has over him. And she's saving it for, like,
this very specific moment. TROY: Let's talk about Joel. There's some really cool things
that, again, we get to enrich the game. There's a physicality that,
throughout every episode, Pedro's brought to this, and this is
a shining example of that. We have the fight. -NEIL: That fight is so cool.
-CRAIG: I love that fight. NEIL: I was just rewatching it
last night with Halley Gross,
who co-wrote the second game, and she starts laughing.
And I'm like, "What are you laughing at?"
She's like, "Just Joel at ten percent
is better -than two of these guys
at 100 percent."
-(LAUGHTER) TROY: But the only reason--
This, to me, is what makes it so good is
because he fights smart. Which is,
"I have one shot at this, and I gotta get this knife
in his neck. If I can get the knife
in his neck, it's over." CRAIG: And it's also
he is fighting for Ellie. -NEIL: Yeah.
-TROY: Yes. CRAIG: If it were just him,
I think he would just be like, "Oh, for fuck's sake,
just do it. Just kill me already. I'm useless, I'm broken,
I'm lying on this mattress, and I'm dying." But the thought
that Ellie might still be alive, that Ellie might need him, that is what gets him
off the mattress. That's-- Well, that and the penicillin, which is derived from a fungus,
which I love. (TROY CHUCKLES) CRAIG:
That's what gets him going,
and Ali really stressed that this fight should have
a sad desperation to it. That Joel is hanging-- He stabs this guy
and then hangs onto him -because he doesn't have
the strength to stand anymore.
-NEIL: Yeah. CRAIG: And then they both fall
to the ground, and it is ugly and-- NEIL: By the way,
that guy has the coolest death. -CRAIG: Oh, he really does.
-TROY: Just the look
on his face. CRAIG: He did a great job,
and it is horrible. TROY: We should mention
that the Ali that we've been talking about
is the director of this episode, Ali Abbasi. CRAIG: And they, Ali,
is not, as you know, he's not a director that just
likes to do one or two takes. And that was-- I think those guys had to kill-- try and kill each other
about 100 times that day. And the level of commitment
from both of them
is extraordinary. And that grounded level
of violence is what we're talking about,
we've been talking about it
all along. We want you to feel it. We want you to feel it
as much as possible. And we want you to even wonder,
even if it's subconsciously, even if it's
for a fleeting second, "Who loved this man?
Who did he love? How did he get here?
Is this what he deserves?" TROY: Names are important. There's constantly names
being used, and we saw that with Brian,
we saw that with Alec. We've seen this use of, like--
These are real people. -CRAIG: Josiah, Timothy, Marco.
-TROY: Josiah, Timothy, Marco. -These are people.
-CRAIG: They're people. And Josiah and Timothy
and Marco and James are all following someone who is telling them
to do these things. TROY:
After this fight that Joel has, we are back now with Ellie
in a cell. And David and Ellie have
a very tough talk. CRAIG: That's the scene
where we get to this... somewhat more developed truth
about David and why he likes her so much. Which is not merely
this sexual-- misplaced sexual desire
in a 14-year-old girl, but this recognition
that he's found a kindred spirit. And that is
a very disturbing thing. Because on the one hand,
he hasn't. Ellie is a far more
decent person than him, no question. But on the other hand, he does put his finger
on something. Two things. One, he talks about
how Cordyceps is the thing that set him free. That he looked
at what Cordyceps did, which is to be fruitful,
and to multiply, and to protect its own
through violence, if it must. NEIL: Which is often
organized religion. CRAIG: And that is
his definition of love. To secure--
He says, "To secure a future--" That line, "To secure a future," is part of, like,
a White supremacist anthem, "To secure a future
for our White children,"
or whatever it is. It's this-- We've talked a lot
about these two kinds of loves, and this xenophobic,
protective, defensive, insular,
tribalistic love, David has taken
to its furthest extreme. And so, of course,
he admires Cordyceps because that's
what Cordyceps does. But he says to Ellie,
"You have a violent heart. I should know. I've always had
a violent heart." Now, he's right and he's wrong. She does have a violent heart. In fact, everything he says
about her seems to come to pass, including, "If I put
this knife in your hand,
you'd stab me with it." Well, he gets more than that. She does have a violent heart, but she also has
a beautiful heart. Ellie has both kinds of love
within her. David only has one. And it is dark,
and it is possessive. NEIL: Yeah. They both have
these violent tendencies. But whereas
David's a narcissist, Ellie's overflowing
with empathy. TROY: What do you think
David's plan was? CRAIG: I think
he wanted her to recognize that he was her way to safety now that her other
father figure, who was presumably dead,
or dying-- He did not expect Joel
to come back. And, purposely,
Joel doesn't save the day. I think he wanted her
to begrudgingly begin
to trust him, and then
she would become his wife. NEIL: He wanted her to fall
in love with him, to look up to him
and fall in love with him, and have someone like her
worship him. TROY: Do you think
that he would have stayed
in Silver Lake, or do you think
he would have left? CRAIG: I think
that he really did believe that she would help him. -I think he was being honest
when he said...
-TROY: "Look at us." CRAIG:
..."Look at what's happened.
I could use the help. God knows I could use the help." He needs a partner.
He doesn't have one. NEIL: He feels like he's
smarter than everybody else. And that's why he believes
he can't have, like, a conversation on his level
with anybody else. And then here's Ellie,
where that could be that person. CRAIG: Yeah.
There's a moment in the game that we replicate identically because we have to,
because it's brilliant, where David finally reveals
the truth of his attraction to her. DAVID:<i> Think of what
we could do together.</i> <i> As strong as we are.</i> <i>We'd make this place perfect.</i> <i> We'd grow. Spread out.</i> <i> And we'd do whatever
we needed for our people.</i> CRAIG: And she plays along. DAVID:<i>
Imagine the life we could build.</i> ELLIE: (WHISPERS)<i> Oh...</i> CRAIG: It's that "Oh..." NEIL: By the way,
that "Oh" is, again, it's like, I thought I was hearing
Ashley Johnson in that moment. CRAIG: And that's not a moment where we sat Bella down
and said, -"Now watch this. Now do this."
-TROY: It was the line read. CRAIG:
It was the opposite, in fact. I remember on that day,
Bella and Ali were like... You know, they're blocking
and stuff. And I'm over here probably,
you know, working on another episode
or writing, you know, in the corner on my laptop. And they're like, "Hey, can you
come over here for a second? What exactly does--" Because neither one of them
had really studied that scene. I was like,
"Oh, this is interesting. Let me explain exactly
what's going on here." And I do-- I remember laughing
because I sort of said, "This is what's going on.
You're saying this because you want him to think that you are getting it
and that you're into it. And you're only doing that because you've made
the calculation that you'll be able to break
his finger and grab the keys and get out of here. DAVID:<i> Let's see
what I go tell the others now.</i> ELLIE:<i> Ellie...</i> DAVID:<i> What?</i> ELLIE:<i> Tell them
that Ellie is the little girl</i> <i>who broke your fucking finger!</i> CRAIG: When David smashes
her face against these-- the bars of the cell,
she is hurt. She is bleeding from her face. -And when she yells at him,
"Tell them...
-NEIL: She's still defiant. Still won't give him
the satisfaction. CRAIG: ..."I'm the little girl
who broke your fucking finger." And this is where I used to
call Bella "My little savage" because she can do these things
where it's terrifying, where she's like an animal.
And-- TROY: That's when she finally
gives her name. CRAIG: Yes. Yeah. TROY: That moment, both in
the game and in the show, rapidly accelerates
the situation. David and James go back
into the room with a cleaver. And Ellie, in the scramble,
manages to bite David, and right before
they're able to kill her, she thinks of a way out. ELLIE:<i> I'm infected!</i> <i> I'm infected.</i> <i> And now so are you.</i> NEIL: Which, by the way, right,
if you think about that scene, they could have gone in there
and shot her. But that's not satisfying
for David. David wants to win. He has to, like,
kill her slowly, and he wants her to know
that he's in control. The thing I've always loved
about this sequence is that it's a chess game
between these two characters of who has control. And Ellie has
an ace up her sleeve. TROY: Right. And of course,
David doesn't know that, but he has revealed
that he has a violent heart, and here is
where he is going to show her just how violent that it is. CRAIG: This is very close
to how it functioned in the game because it was
one of those moments that was so visceral
in every sense of the word. And Ellie interrupts with the final card
she has to play, which-- And I remember
when I was playing the game, I had no idea, "How the hell is she going
to get out of this?" It was seemingly impossible,
and it didn't occur to me. I had forgotten when I played
that she could do this, that she could say this. It struck me as so smart. And it works the same way here. The dialogue is the same. Even how she kills James
is the same. TROY: But she's poked around
violence before, but she's never-- This act of violence
has never happened with her. And she does it
almost instinctually. CRAIG: Well, she,
by this point in the story, has committed acts of violence, and she herself
has been "violenced," and right now
she is in full fight or flight. Live or die. She has been reduced by this man
to being an animal. NEIL: Yeah.
She's not even processing
what's happening right now. CRAIG: No. She uses
the last of her intellect to buy herself some time, and then she goes
into absolute survival mode. And in survival mode,
your life means nothing. His life means nothing. The only lives she cares about
are her own and Joel's. TROY: Ellie is trying to escape. She accidentally sets
the building on fire. And that is when we have this terrifying moment
with David. CRAIG: When Ellie kills David, we are doing
what was there in the game. NEIL: There's something about
this version, I will say, that's harder to watch
and is more disturbing. CRAIG: It is. And part of it is
that there's that one less thing of separation between you
and reality because it's not animated.
It's a person. Because there is blood
flying everywhere, including hitting the lens. And then it's also...
just telling Bella, "You have no restraints.
You have no leash. You have no nothing. Just do what needs to be done." And when she kills him,
it's so clear that he is beyond dead
after this fifth or sixth blow. And she keeps going.
And then she slows down. And then she starts up again. And it's that moment
where you realize that there's just
everything pouring out of her. And when she finally stops,
and she looks off, it's-- I don't know how
you could portray trauma better, more convincingly,
more accurately than what is on her face
in that moment and what is in her eyes.
It is so upsetting. TROY: There is one moment that, as close to the game as it is, is very different even though
it's a very small thing. How we get out of that moment. Because in the game, she... enacts her revenge on David
with extreme prejudice. Joel takes her from that and tries to pull her away
from that violence. In this, nothing is there
to stop Ellie from that scene. And she meets up
with Joel outside, and he says, "It's me. It's me."
Why the difference? NEIL: I think
our conversations were like, we didn't want it to happen
with the fire around. Like, there's the danger
of the fire that just felt
a little different in live action
than it did in the game. CRAIG: Yeah, there was
a question of, like, "How does Joel get inside
if the keys are on David?" It was like
a little bit of a logic thing, and then it was a little bit
of, like, wanting our Ellie to have completed it
to the point where she could literally
walk away on her own. NEIL: But it was important
when the sequence was constructed in the game, and I think it's the same
for the show, which is, like, we want
the audience or the player -to think Joel is going
to save Ellie.
-CRAIG: Yes. NEIL: Because that's
what this character
traditionally does. And it was important that,
"No, no, no. -Ellie saves herself."
-CRAIG: Yes. NEIL:
Except that he does save her. But now he has to do
a very different thing that a parent does, which is
he saves her emotionally. -JOEL MILLER:<i> It's okay.</i>
-(ELLIE STAMMERS) JOEL:<i> It's okay.
It's okay, baby girl.</i> <i> I got you.</i> (ELLIE WHIMPERS) JOEL:<i> I got you.</i> NEIL:
Before she loses her sanity, he's there to bring her back. Now, she will never be the same
after this, and we'll see the consequences
of that in the next episode. The whole scene was constructed
when we made the game. And this is
one of those sequences that made me want
to make this game. That the whole thing was
kind of a study of a more stereotypical hero
you would have in a person like Joel. And then there is
one moment in time towards the end of the story where he would get
so incapacitated, this is how it was pitched, that the roles would flip, and then you would play as
this girl protecting this man. To me, almost the entire story
hinges on this sequence. And I remember when
we were making the game, I was so nervous about whether
this was going to work or not because I'm like,
"If this doesn't work, then that means
the whole story's not working." And then when I finally
kind of played that sequence, I'm like... You know, it's one of
the most emotional parts
of the story, where like he, Joel,
comes and embraces her and calls her "baby girl,"
and you're like, "Oh my God." Like, look how much
these two characters
have been through. And I was so nervous whether this would hit us hard
on the show. And I wanted to be hit
as hard in the show as it did in the game. When I watched this,
finally, like, I watched, like,
two episodes before so I could go into this
with full context. I'm watching it,
and it's different. She stumbles on into the snow, and just the contrast of, like, the blood on her skin
against the white snow... And Bella does
such an incredible job of, like, this disembodied performance where she's not quite there. And then Pedro grabs her, and the way he looks at her,
there's a sadness of like, "I couldn't protect you
from this." Again, another failure to like-- another notch of failure. -And I'm bawling. I'm crying.
-(LAUGHTER) NEIL:
Not just like tears in my eyes. -I'm like, it's waterworks.
-(LAUGHTER) NEIL: And I'm like,
and I was like-- I pick up my phone. I just text Craig
this one sentence, "We did it." CRAIG: Yeah. NEIL: And it could only work,
again, if all-- everything that preceded it
was working. CRAIG: I continue
to marvel at both of them. When Joel finally finds her, and she finally realizes
it's him, that, to me, is why
I cry every time. Because I know
what just happened. And the same person that obliterated a man's face
with a cleaver is now a little girl, who is... NEIL: Who just needs
her father's affection. CRAIG:
...clinging to her father, who is calling her "baby girl," and putting his coat around her, and leading her off to safety. It's... Like,
it's a testament, again, to the story that Neil created and the way that you and Ashley
perform those scenes. All of that is the text
that we pull from. All of it. And that's why
I've loved this job. I love this job. As crazy as this job was, as long and exhausting
as it was, I love it. And I want to just keep doing it
because of moments like that. It's so satisfying to know that we've put something
like that out there. Even though it's so upsetting, it's also so beautiful. And my hat's off to everybody
that worked on that episode. Everyone, but especially
you two ding dongs for all you've done. TROY: We're not done yet. We have one more to go, and that's where
we'll pick it up next week. Craig, thanks a million,
man, for being here. CRAIG: Thanks, Troy. TROY: And of course,
the same to you, Neil. NEIL: Goodbye. 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 Elliott 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.
