The Last of Us | Episode 7 Review (SPOILERS)

thank you [Music] good soup oh please [Music] hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of nerdsoup I am Bo Oliver joining you today with Aaron the new two monkey and we are back to review The Last of Us episode 7 Left Behind written by Neil drupman and directed by Lisa Johnson coming into this episode based on the preview we knew that it was going to incorporate some flashbacks and we also assume that present day would also be addressed and I thought it was done pretty well I mean the themes are a bit obvious but that's okay it's all about how they play out and I think the main relationship between Ellie and Riley was very touching and moving sweet romantic it's an opportunity for these two kids who grew up under this military regime to experience some Freedom the freedom of being a child of going to the mall that's like a pastime of American Childhood escape to the mall go see a movie [ __ ] with people obviously there's not a lot of people working there so yeah can't really cause a Ruckus but get a nice pretzel I always love a nice small pretzel lanians is one of the fourth wonders of the mall for me that's not even including a hot topics Spencer's Gifts little fountain with the fish yeah yeah right yeah poor fish they're not good for the fish the good and bad of society pre-apocalypse you know it wasn't all oh yeah the mall is a was a real reflection of society as a whole the survival of the fittest truly oh really yeah they had that mean girls right when they're all fighting at the mall the watering hole but good performances definitely it stood out that's what stood out the most similar to episode 3 with Bill and Frank and I think that's an obvious uh comparison to draw there but the new edition storm Reed is Riley and it feels like this young actress has been popping up all over the place I know she was in Euphoria so she's got the HBO connection but she was really great in this episode and I think the best thing that she brought to her character was the maturity combined with the Innocence so she feels that fedra is kind of pushing her out they relegate her to this shitty job literally and then she decides to join the fireflies so she feels like she has no one else to turn to and I I think that for Ellie it was important for her to see the different ways or the different paths that you can take towards rediscovering that freedom that so many of these people have lost but as I mentioned the innocence of still being a kid but having that maturity of being capable of fighting so storm read was excellent and Bella Ramsay continues to kill it I'm going to assume you were also a fan of their relationship here yeah no I I thought they were both great um this was obviously a DLC from the game so it was something removed from the main story but it was fun to go back and play after you finished the main story because you had this that a little bit more you can get into and that backstory on Ellie and how she got bit and kind of where she's coming from before we even meet her I set up with her in ephedra Camp getting more insight into them I like the way they presented fedra um and their conversations regarding fedra versus fireflies where it is a little Mucky at times right um obviously fedra and we've seen it throughout the series being this sort of authoritarian presence in the Q Z zones but when you look at the recruits and people like Ellie it's kind of like just their only way out of basically living a subpar life like for a lot of people you can just say it's just a job or just the way they can actually make a difference or want to make a difference but in reality when you look at it from the outside looking in it just looks like a complete [ __ ] show and even with the fireflies too Ellie bringing up you know when she finds the bombs like you're gonna use this on people like me and things of that nature so from both sides you know and even when you look at Kansas City when Riley saw is talking about how they want to liberate the qz zones and make a better a better life for people within it then you look at Kansas City and look how that turned out where it basically was the same thing repeating itself again they weren't fireflies but in essence you can see how that same thing could potentially happen so yeah I enjoyed those conversations between them going back and forth getting better insights on that and yeah just seeing their relationship develop like you said it is such a a normal sort of young love budding romance type story taking the Beats from something that you would see in a normal society like going to the mall and having these little awkward moments and these crushes and everything and the background just completely different when you look at it's a [ __ ] zombie apocalypse but you can still have these moments yeah you can even apply the idea of your your friend moving away or in this instance your love interest right changing schools parents got a new job in this case it's a bit more extreme she's joining a rogue militia group that's always fun that happened to me once but uh the game always did a good job of this as well and I think in part two more so these moments to just catch your breath in this incredibly chaotic world and I think the way that the mall was set up was beautiful it had that sort of 80s retro Vibe I guess malls did sort of in the early 2000s still look this way because in our times they've certainly changed they've become sort of depressing depressingly minimalist but this was a maximalist experience as I mentioned it is the Pastime of the American Childhood and with fedra being a literal militarized Nanny State it's that freedom that comes with shedding adult supervision where nobody's telling you what to do when you have to be home you're just living off of pure childhood ecstasy and I think that's what they experience in these moments and uh just seeing Ellie's reactions to something like the escalator it's the things that we take for granted and there's been a lot of that with Ellie's character like the first time she's in a car or when she sees a plane she doesn't think about how it crashed he thinks about how it was was once in the air so even though there's nobody here in this mall she still can walk in the shoes of the people who came before her and get those same experiences and for her they hit her even harder because as I've mentioned it's the things that we took for granted right these simple things that are to these two kids are wonders of the world yeah there's a couple like little call forwards or callbacks depending on the timeline or whatever but her seeing the Mortal Kombat machine earlier in the season now just has whole new meaning right and how she Associates that with her last night with Riley yeah but I think it's just seeing Ellie get to be a kid in these moments and obviously we've had a couple times like that during the show but I think so far it really has just been and obviously this doesn't really end too well either but just having this little moment to sit back even though you kind of and they you know pen the camera to the the infected in the dark room so you kind of get a sense that something bad is going to happen but when you see them just be able to have fun and laugh and just have a good time just one night it really does like just make you it's good to see that for that character I like the even the beginning when she comes and sneaks into a room and they go on that little Adventure that was all really fun too they still they find the bottle of whiskey uh and I think everyone remembers like their first time with their friends drinking and pretending that you liked it right yeah they're hitting all the checklists here yeah outside drinking in the cold all right that was actually a scary moment that shook me a little bit when the body fell through yeah I thought the body was gonna I was just mad hung over no yeah he was still alive yeah just water needed some McDonald's breakfast or some [ __ ] yeah um but and also like going back to the whole Firefly and feather thing and having Riley feel like she's wanted and she's accepted in this group I mean realistic like really too like take a step back she also is what 17 very young just I feel like obviously fedger is doing the same exact thing but just how these different organizations are trying to maybe not manipulate in some some circumstances but try to grab these young impressionable people and kind of mold them to fit what they want and what they believe is the right way to go about it and that's one thing too from game two show I think that's a little different is the fireflies are I think presented a little bit more complex in the game or more like you're not sure if they're necessarily good or their intentions are pure here I think they do allude to some of the things like with the bomb and how you know maybe some casualties are getting stuck in the middle of this war but at the end of the day you kind of get the sense that they are pushing towards a better future we're in the game I'm not too sure about that yeah and it's funny with Frederick I feel like they've scaled back some of the nasty stuff that fedra does where even when she's having the conversation with Captain Quang and he's looking out for her telling her that she can have a career here I can understand that the the weight of command when you're operating an authoritarian military government is so overwhelming that yeah even good people can sort of get caught up in it right but I think that they have diluted some of the nastiness because there's also an emphasis in the original story of fedra is no longer working for a vaccine they're just trying to maintain status quo and Ellie says that in this episode that hey at the very least they're holding things together but in the game the fireflies are very much looking for the vaccine that is their end goal and even though they are a bit more complex bit more gray and they talk about it here that they have these violent philosophies that's sometimes you that they're willing to go to those lengths they're willing to meet fedra on that same playing field in order to achieve their goal of one day finding a vaccine and I think that you made a point in our spoiler discussion that they need to emphasize why this is so important and it does sometimes feel like the whole vaccine immunity thing is being lost in the story which isn't that big of a deal I think for the most people it's still in the back their minds that that's the end goal but I think from the perspective of the fireflies they they haven't really mentioned that so much I mean with Marlene sure you have it but as I've mentioned drawing that dichotomy between what fedra wants to do and what the fireflies want to do would make a lot of people more partial towards the fireflies I think in my opinion but here they're very much trying to do the they're bad we're bad they've got guns we've got guns too but it is sort of you mentioned the word manipulation I think you can call it what it is here it feels like Riley was justifying her joining a gang because that's usually what they say right it's just people to support you gives you that sort of camaraderie that you're missing in your life and I think think with from Ellie's perspective she thinks that they've got that the two of them have enough of that already just through their friendship and through their romance so it was uh difficult and with episode three we see a lifetime of Bill and Frank and with uh Ellie and Riley it's only one night but it felt like a Lifetime by the end of it especially the way they come to peace with their bite marks at the end saying that this was all worth it just to enjoy these last few moments no matter if it's two minutes or two days we have this freedom in the here and now so let's embrace it yeah and even going back to I believe it was the same episode where Ellie sees the Mortal Kombat machine she also sees the infected in the basement right so um looking back on that it's actually more interesting knowing that her last moments with Riley you know they don't they don't show it explicitly but her turning into infected um so it's like in the game she gets to beat her with a bat right I think so no I'm just kidding does she no I don't know I don't remember I'm imagining they don't show ability there I never played it excited she beat because I know she killed the the infected there's a couple in the mall that she beat up right um but anyway but now I'm just thinking back to when she sees the infected in the basement and she's like looking at its eyes and cutting it just maybe seeing what not only what she could have been but what her what Riley turned into right yeah and I even at the time I thought that she was looking for any ounce of humanity before I kill this thing is anybody still in there and that's something that Sam talked about too are you still inside when the monster takes over so for her to have had experience that with Riley it's obviously traumatic but I think in the back of her mind she's thinking of her friend in that moment and maybe Riley was still in there and looks like no you do fully lose control and that's a horrifying thing to contemplate as well in your final moments right to sit there and knowing that what did they say that they're going to lose their minds together yeah and obviously you can't I don't think you would want to show something that disturbing but I can only imagine what it was like for Ellie to realize okay nothing's happening to me what the [ __ ] she's becoming a zombie what do what do I do yeah it's horrifying do you like that they cut that I mean you definitely could have shown it but it almost feels like a repeat of what happened with Sam right because she thinks that Sam maybe there's a possibility he won't turn and then Taps him on the shoulder he's a zombie so you're sort of repeating it and maybe it would have hit harder because this was uh a relationship that had been established that they've known each other prior so the emotional connection there is a bit deeper but I think you've sort of got that same thing with Sam maybe not that aspect of it but just Ellie realizing that like she's just different right right yeah like what the [ __ ] is happening like where do I go what do I do how do I present this to Marlene without getting a bullet in my head yeah because I think the acting the fear that they've been able to pull out of these actors has been great when she realizes that she's been bitten her reaction is horrifying and it's the same thing with Riley's character where it's not as expressive all life sort of leaves her eyes but Ellie's an absolute panic and I was also very impressed with the way they took out that zombie I think they're they're more uh formidable than Joel and Tess these two together even though he looked over at her at the end it's like hey look at us who would have thought troll doesn't get bit though so yeah test it dumbass yeah no that is true I was thinking about that uh watching this episode I was like I guess Joel's Specialties he's never been bit pretty good yeah I mean right that's the whole thing you're trying to have here I don't know what I would do if I would just ride it out or just end it I would definitely if I knew Ellie was a thing I'd be like yeah I'm probably built like her ain't no way I'm turning well that's the thing I wonder if there was a moment where Riley saw Ellie wasn't turning thinking oh we're look at this we're immune buddies both of us I don't know it's probably like you [ __ ] [ __ ] I [ __ ] hate you when I turn I'm gonna rip you apart no no we're fine we're still friends you gotta shift me in the neck that CD is in 2003 I'm not crazy right oh yeah yeah unless you sell cassettes I'm pretty sure that was the thing too I remember having a Walkman yeah I had a Walkman too but it was a CD player okay no I remember cassett's uh like even cars had the cassette players in the mid-2000s the older cars yeah but I thought the the best out of all the different wonders was to me the Merry-Go-Round I thought the way that was shot real calm real sweet just watching them go round and round and the tension the Romantic tension that they were building between the two of them the Unspeakable romance that they have all comes to a head and the classic photo booth right that's what young lovers are always doing you get caught off guard with the first one and then you do all the wacky faces and it was super cute when they Embrace get real close and Riley doesn't pull away right away so the awkwardness of it the uh the awkward Romance of being that young and not knowing how to express your feelings it was very cute and for somebody like me I don't always necessarily love that type of writing because I think it's difficult to write it without it coming off as sappy or melodramatic but here it fit these characters so well you know I think it works it definitely established definitely did a good job of building that connection like and like you said just the the Romantic tension between these two characters um I thought it built pretty well because you know it's always I think from Ellie's perspective we're not used to seeing somebody I guess even when it's with adults or Joel she's very confident in herself or she takes control of the situation where here she's a little bit more she wouldn't say timid but Riley is the from her perspective is this sort of Larger than Life presence like that she's trying to impress are trying to try to figure out if she feels the same way about her so she definitely takes this not a back seat but it's just a different a different way than we've seen Ellie so far in this series and I appreciated the way they were able to frame that and at the end of the day like they're both kids right so they both kind of have this little awkwardness to them or this nervousness when it comes to actually uh embracing each other in a way that's just more than friends and seeing that all play out with the dancing and all that I thought it worked it all worked and tied together very well at the end there right yeah and then cutting it in between Ellie trying to save Joel once again it's very obvious to see what they're doing there but she doesn't want to leave Joel behind because she wasn't able to save Riley she wasn't able to save Sam so she resolves to try and save Joel here even though he does try and send her away and then going back to Riley's decision to try and leave and join the fireflies you wonder if she didn't choose to stay back if she didn't come and get Ellie and bring her to the mall and have have this adventure maybe both of these characters would have been alive she would have been off with the fireflies Ellie would have been safe with fedra never would have known that she was immune which is an important piece of information but you wonder about those things was it the right decision to have those final moments with the the love of your life and I think those questions sort of arise and that's always been the genius of the source material and now part of the genius of the show what's the right decision to make it was very powerful especially the way they cut it back and forth the desperation of Ellie looking for all the tools yanking out the draws and uh even Pedro Pascal he's not even much of the episode but the way he was reacting to the pain sometimes I think in shows and movies they don't react enough for me that shit's gonna hurt you know you just been stabbed you're bleeding out somebody's poking you with the [ __ ] needle yeah express some pain there now that makes me wince more than him actually getting stabbed is seeing the the Stitch right and not having anything to take to subdue the pain right just having to [ __ ] eat it get that man a towel or something before he bites his tongue off a little Pedro Pascal tongue wiggling around most people that's the dream that is true yeah that was our Dream a couple of cold opens ago but as you mentioned with uh Riley's character even though she is she's at least Joel in these moments she is still a kid so she's unsure about certain things and Ellie does convince her to stay so it looks like at the end they were going to or not to stay but maybe to take Ellie with her that they were going to figure something out and then that adds another element of tragedy there because the zombie shows up these two kids make it all that [ __ ] noise but it was also a very emotional scene when rally first tells her what she's going to do and now he has that reaction of storming off and then eventually coming back so as I mentioned it's hard to know what the right thing to do is because you have this personal connection but from Riley's perspective what do you want to get out of your life and what do you believe in if she truly does believe in the fireflies you can understand her decision maybe like it's not a huge criticism but maybe they could have got more into Riley's like maybe that was the point too because it seems like she's just reiterating a lot of stuff she was probably told by Marlene and the fireflies to justify their actions yeah Nelly calls her out on that yeah so maybe and I think by the end they do a good job of being like maybe Riley isn't so sure what she's like what she's doing here and she doesn't know the severity of the situation more just they're both kind of like they say in the show regurg is hating propaganda from uh their respective sides here so yeah and I think for Riley she's probably had a rebellious streak at this school so her superiors probably thought we're never going to convince this person to be a Federal Officer it's not that she is incapable it says she just doesn't follow Waters and Ellie at this point is on the fence where she's shown her intelligence and capability but she does escape with Riley she does break the rules and breaks curfew so she's got a rebellious shriek to her as well so even the way the character evolved from her time to Riley to her time with Joel where she is cursing more she talks back she's a bit more witty she's got more of an edge to her and it's because she's seen some things and she tells Joel in episode six I've lost people too so that was interesting that Riley uh that Ellie was at this point where she could have gone either way she could have been an officer Ephedra and benefits Healthcare dental all that good stuff right now Bethany's gonna be the officer not Bethany yeah that [ __ ] they better bring her back in Future Seasons you know Big Boss type of [ __ ] she's the Big Bad season two but that's a you know that's enticing the idea of having that sort of stability all you have to do is follow Waters and he was uh he was almost acting like a father figure in that scene the captain Kwong an interesting little wrinkle there to the the differences or the way that fedra and both the fireflies try and recruit but I think you you did kind of nail it there in the beginning saying that Riley there's always an element of manipulation and I think Ellie was being manipulated by that Federal Officer as well it's like oh it's a great job but you have to hang people no he's he seemed nice he seemed like a pleasant guy but then he realized he's like I'm not going to send you to the hole again like this 15 year old girl getting sent in a hole what's what's the hole I think it's like [ __ ] no it's probably Solitaire yeah solitary of children it's like I'm not gonna send you to the hole for the fourth so I'm like oh he's not that bad he's a nice veteran man he's one of the good ones Ellie did rock that girl's [ __ ] dropped her excuse me she's being an [ __ ] yeah them dancing on the table to Etta James I've actually been Spotify recommending me a couple of her songs lately so I've been bumping her recently oh wow and then the show inspired me to go back and bump some Hank Williams so some good tunes that they've been incorporating dude I don't know what it is but those masks especially that clown mask so scary even when I know it's not a bad person wearing it it's just [ __ ] scary dude the wolf mask is pretty cool well real life lifelike right yeah no she should have kept that like wolf girl yeah yeah but normally see that's another cliche right characters nobody [ __ ] dances like that I like awkward dance yeah yeah awkward dance is fine right yeah the music they can hear it but then it just becomes the soundtrack that everybody can hear and and then the zombie coming crashes the party but I that was actually one of my favorite Encounters of the season so far and that's just that's what I've been clamoring for this is smaller encounters with a zombie you know where he's just there and he's wrecking [ __ ] he's tossing things and they're struggling so hard to kill him and uh and they successfully do but you know they both get bitten but that was uh to me a great action moment so written by Neil druckman I think the episodes that he's been involved in have had those better smaller action scenes so that was definitely one of the better ones and I thought the Vibes of the episode you know even though all the lights were on and The Vibes are happy the atmosphere is still post-apocalyptic so you never know what's going to go down so I would have even liked maybe you don't even see the zombie in this little cocoon he just shows up yeah it's like Hot Topic that's what I thought when they pan to it like it definitely made it eerie and like horror situation but like if you don't show that at all and just keep it in the back of your mind while they're having this good time because once you see that the surprise is taken out like you know it's it's going to end poorly especially the way they did it with the Halloween store because I thought that was it I mean I was like oh the zombie's there he's popping off and then it's decoration chekhov's infected that would be funny if he just never showed back up and beat some George R Martin [ __ ] T something and never resolves well now you know where he got she got her little pun book that you hate so much you can blame Riley for that well the first pun was good the second two were awful even Riley was like the screenshot one they didn't know what it was volume two not not as good as volume one oh yeah yeah of course the sequel's Never As Good right yeah she got the pun book and even when she's reading the comic books right we see where you know Ellie's at heart she is a nerd so she's got an affinity for storytelling for video games so one of us and even the the back and forth when they share that first kiss when they take off the masks and Ellie goes in for it being brave and she says sorry rally says For What and they both do that innocent giggle so cute uh it's the best way to write it it reminded me of the homecoming the Spider-Man movies where the romance was so awkward and there was teasing but there was there was a real love there that they didn't know how to fully Express but it's a little peck on the lips like that you know I thought that was very well written yeah I wonder how and we'll see next week where placement is Gonna Come into I guess just the pacing of the Season as a whole um I don't think it's cut momentum because I do like the way they kind of balance that with Joel and Ellie trying to save him I think it related and made sense and where it was put uh in the context of the Season as a whole right yeah and I think it's because it's focusing on one of the two main characters and it's giving us this new context about what she dealt with before this story and it is important for her character Arc and her character decisions and her relationship with Joel specifically because maybe if we didn't if they didn't shine a light on this we don't know why she goes back I mean we can pick up that she cares about children she doesn't seem like a that cold of a person but the title of the episode Left Behind the idea of Riley leaving to join the fireflies and then wanting to stay so it all builds towards that moment of Ellie's decision to hang back and protect Joel so I don't think it's a momentum killer whatsoever I actually think some of the momentum killers in season one have been episodes where the story is moving forward right and uh I don't know if this is my second favorite episode of the season but episode three is definitely my favorite and I thought that this accomplished something similar to episode 3 where it's developing your themes it's important for the characters it's not moving the narrative forward but that doesn't matter so much right here because it's going to go a long way in future episodes and hopefully future Seasons so yeah but I think placement like episode three it establishes rather than reinforce where I think this episode reinforces what we already know about Ellie rather than establish anything new even though giving that Insight does help paint the picture a little better um but yeah I think it was just a as an episode it worked for me yeah emotionally we already sort of got that with Ellie I agree with that I guess the the only thing that it's giving us that's new is just new characters so you could argue that because Riley's time in the episode is so brief that she could be anybody yeah all you needed was that line in episode six of I've lost people too and right we're gonna take her for her word you know she's one of these Master manipulators where she's just lying about losing people I don't believe you it was a sociopath right right yeah Joel's like where's your proof you have a death certificate so um but at the end of the day if you're going to make an episode like this it's got to be good because it is a risk and that's why we complimented them with episode three it's a risk especially to do that so early you can get away with it I guess when it's episode seven goes to your point about placement but we will see after these next two episodes how they pan out yeah two left we're getting down to it I know dude this season has gone so quick right yeah it's weird because it also feels like it's I've been watching every Sunday for the past like I guess two months it has been so yeah pretty close to it right um but I think we're at the point now we're up until now I think we've both been really enjoying and so have a lot of people but yeah these last two episodes are probably more most important in terms of wrapping it up and trying to you know present just a really good season of Television all right guys that does it for our episode 7 review of The Last of Us we will be back next week for episode eight looking forward to that and we've actually decided to extend our last of us giveaway so we gave away two copies of The Last of Us Part One on PS5 and we're getting ready to give away two more so all you have to do is follow us on social media at nerdsoup on Twitter and on Instagram and be on the lookout for our telu giveaway wow that was probably our best review yet hey guys Aaron the nerdsuit monkey here with a brief Shameless plug before we end the video do you ever feel like you don't have an adequate amount of nerd soup in your life like you're going to bed hungry and yearning for the nonsensical yet entertaining nutrients our podcasts provide well we've come up with the perfect solution the nerd soup fan question podcast exclusively available to our patreon supporters you can sign up now by visiting patreon.com nerdsoup and for the price of only one dollar per month you'll receive exclusive access to our weekly podcast where we answer your questions that don't make it to the main show and while you're there you can check out the other rewards we offer to our patrons like stickers mugs t-shirts behind the scenes footage and appearing in the credits at the end of our videos and that's exactly what we're gonna do right now roll the names of the Nerds who make nerd suit possible the reason why the crypto crash didn't send our lives spiraling down a black hole of no return alright I'll stop talking so you can listen to this jazzy-ass music while checking if Bo spelled your name wrong in the credits foreign [Music]

Channel: Nerd Soup

Views: 24,401

Keywords: The Last of Us, The Last of Us Nerd Soup, The Last of Us Episode 7, House of the Dragon Nerd Soup, Game of Thrones Nerd Soup

Id: CXpCKt_64VU

Length: 29min 41sec (1781 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 27 2023