In This Episode
On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight sight-see at a museum! In the Airlock (1:08), Jason and Rosie dive deep (deeep) into episode 2 of HBO’s The Last of Us, recapping the episode and discussing bread, Tess, and creature design. Then in Nerd Out (45:20) Jason and Rosie discuss a very relevant theory about mutants in the MCU.
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Nerd Out Submission Instructions!
Send a short pitch and 2-3 minute voice memo recording to xray@crooked.com that answers the following questions: 1) How did you get into/discover your ‘Nerd Out?’ (2) Why should we get into it too? (3) What’s coming soon in this world that we can look forward to or where can we find it? If you’re sending a theory, feel free to send only a summary of your theory (no audio needed) for Jason and Rosie to react to on air.
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TRANSCRIPT
[AD]
Jason Concepcion Warning This podcast contains spoilers for the second episode of The Last of US on HBO Max.
Jason Concepcion Hello. My name is Jason Concepcion.
Rosie Knight And I’m Rosie Knight.
Jason Concepcion And welcome to X-ray Vision, the Crooked Media podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.
Rosie Knight In this episode, in the airlock, we’re digging deep into the Last of US, episode two.
Jason Concepcion Don’t eat the bread.
Rosie Knight Don’t eat it, no cake. And in Nerd Out, we’re doing a very relevant theory from Brandon.
Jason Concepcion Let’s go, Brandon.
Rosie Knight And.
Jason Concepcion What?
Rosie Knight If you want to, supportive of the theories. If you want to jump around, as always, just check the show notes for the timestamps.
Jason Concepcion Coming up, the airlock. And we’re stepping out of the airlock into the overgrown and ruined halls of a colonial museum in Back Bay, Boston for the Last of US. Episode two. Titled.
Rosie Knight Infected.
Jason Concepcion Titled Infected. Show, of course, created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, creative director of the game for Naughty Dog. EP by Mazin. And of course, this episode directed by game creative director Neil Druckmann.
Rosie Knight Perfect timing as well, because Neil’s about to introduce the Big Bad.
Jason Concepcion The Big Bad. The Big Boss.
Rosie Knight The big boss. And he does it well.
Jason Concepcion We open in Jakarta, Indonesia, September 23rd, 2003, a place where Joel at this time was confused about its location. You didn’t exactly know where it was. A military man enters a restaurant interrupting the lunch of a of a woman who is dining there. Her name is Eboo Ratna. She is a professor at the University of Indonesia, specializing in mycology, a.k.a. the study of fungi. The man takes her to the secure wing of the hospital and shows her some specimen under a microscope. And Dr. Ratna is like, Oh, that’s Ophiocordyceps.
Rosie Knight Dun dun dun.
Jason Concepcion Dun dun dun. Which is a fungus noted for its ability to to take over and control ants.
Rosie Knight Uh huh.
Jason Concepcion And and she’s like, Where’d you get this? And he’s like, It came off of a human specimen. She’s like, No, it didn’t.
Rosie Knight Absolutely not.
Jason Concepcion No it didn’t. That’s impossible. Cut to a even more secure part of the secure wing of the secure hospital. Dr Ratna, now in full biohazard gear, is walking in to inspect the victim that the specimen was taken from. The general, very helpfully, tells her, Get what you need and get the fuck out of there as quick.
Rosie Knight Don’t go close. Don’t do it. It’s just don’t do it.
Jason Concepcion That talk should come before I suit up. I feel like.
Rosie Knight They’re not ever fully transparent to the good doctor, they rob her out of lunch. They take us on why she thinks she’s being arrested.
Jason Concepcion Yeah
Rosie Knight Then they’re given a, you know, a little bit of bread crumbs news until she gets into this room and learns the true horror.
Jason Concepcion And the horror is that there is a young woman lying on the slab there. Dr. Ratna goes up, inspects the victim, finds a what is apparently a human bite mark on her ankle, cuts it open with a scalpel. There’s a spongy fungal mushroom material in there. This is shocking. Dr. Ratna then reaches into the woman’s mouth and pulls out a site we’re all familiar with by now. Those all those wriggling worms.
Rosie Knight Kind of tentacle fungi that poke their way out creepily. And she just freaks out. She’s out.
Jason Concepcion She’s out. All the way out. Later on, she debriefs with the general. He tells her the victim was infected 30 hours ago in or around a factory that processes flour and grain. She says, Oh, flour and grain. That’s the perfect incubator for this fungi. Well, let’s stop here.
Rosie Knight Okay, Let’s pause, because we’re about to get to the big the big theory.
Jason Concepcion There is there has been a theory out there that obviously this is this infection spread by bites. We’ve seen that. But how did it explode across the world at once? And one of the theories was bread.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion It got into the flour supply and all these flour products that went out across the world carried it. And that’s how everybody got sick at once. On top of that, there is the cake theory.
Rosie Knight I love this because this is. So in the game, a lot of people like is the same as the game is. In the game, there’s a mention of kind of infected crops and that’s really about as far as it goes. But the cake theory is great and you are the one who introduced this to me. And the cake theory is, if you remember in that kind of heart breaking cold open, Joel forgets to bring a cake back for the birthday celebration with Sarah and the cake theory expounding on the bread and wheat theory is that the reason Joel and Sara didn’t get infected is because they didn’t get a cake. And this also doesn’t really.
Jason Concepcion I love it
Rosie Knight It’s so good.
Jason Concepcion Our Discord brought this to our attention. So thank you. I forget who, exactly.
Rosie Knight I was going to say shout out because the Jakarta choice is really, really intentional, because in the first episode we hear Joel and Tommy trying to work out why Jakarta is so we realize this is happening so close and it happened so quickly. But as one of our incredible Discord users pointed out, Indonesia is actually home and Jakarta, the the biggest flour processing factory on Earth. So it’s like a perfect place for this to have spread for the wheat and flour theory faction to really kind of get a little bit of what seems like a confirmation, especially as, like you said, Jason, the doctor basically confirms that that would be a great way for it to spread.
Jason Concepcion You know, what’s funny is in episode one, Joel jokingly tells the Adlers that he’s on Atkins, meaning he’s just eating meat, no carbs. And everybody on Atkins made it. Day 1.Eeverybody on Atkins, made it.
Rosie Knight You just wait, wait. I just had a life.
Jason Concepcion All of the gluten free folks, they made it.
Rosie Knight I had a light. I had a light bulb moment just then when we meet the Adlers.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight The son is feeding his mother biscuits. And she was the first person.
Jason Concepcion And Sarah didn’t eat the cookies because she didn’t like the raisin cookies.
Rosie Knight Exactly. And then she was the first person that we saw that was infected.
Jason Concepcion Oh shit.
Rosie Knight So I think the bread theory is really important. And as we will get to momentarily when we start digging into the episode, I think that it expands.
Jason Concepcion It goes to a dark place. Okay. So we learn again from that, from the general that an employee at this flour processing plant became violent or attacking her coworkers, bit several of them, one of whom is this dead woman here on the slab, and that at current time, 14 workers are missing from the factory. Dr. Ratna is shook. She.
Rosie Knight She’s horrified.
Jason Concepcion She’s horrified. She’s unmoored by this. The general is like, okay, so obviously we came to you as one.
Rosie Knight How do we fix it?
Jason Concepcion As one of the most foremost experts in mycology in the world, we need a vaccine mediated medicine. We need some mosop and doctors like I got you. Here’s what you do. You call up, you’re in the military, call up your fighter wing and just fucking bomb the city.
Rosie Knight Yep, she’s what she said my whole life I’ve worked on this. My whole life. There’s no cure.
Jason Concepcion We can’t do anything.
Rosie Knight There’s no study.
Jason Concepcion Come on.
Rosie Knight There’s nothing. And you know what? It’s a really brilliant reflection of the first cold open where the scientists sat on that stage of the talk late night talk show and said, if this happens, we lose.
Jason Concepcion I hate a quitter. But it turns out she was right.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion She then tearfully says, Hey, can I get a ride home just to spend the final moments here in civilization with my family? We go back to 2023. Ellie wakes up in a patch of sunlight. And this beautiful, kind of like idyllic patch of grass in the middle of this former beauty salon.
Rosie Knight So gamey.
Jason Concepcion It’s wonderful.
Rosie Knight So it feels so unfussy, that perfect mix of bleakness and beauty that this story does so well.
Jason Concepcion Joel and Tess are watching her like hawks. Joel has his riffle in his hand.
Rosie Knight Joel’s ready to kill her. He’s right.
Jason Concepcion He’s ready to do it. He’s like, Show us your arm. Ellie does no change. Joel and Tess have never, ever seen anything like this. But they’re not all the way there to believing that Ellie is actually immune. And Joel is further away, certainly, than Tess is. Ellie is like, Hey, so we got this far. Where are all the infected? I heard that they’re just swarming in here in the city
Rosie Knight Uh huh. You can’t leave the quarantine zone because you’ll just die.
Jason Concepcion Joel’s like, Don’t worry about that. Which is? Ellie rightly says, Well, I’m going to actually worry about it because it seems like a big deal. Tess, then, is is continuously pressuring Ellie to tell her what Marlene’s plans were. What did Marlene want with you? Ellie says that Marlene found her after she was bitten. And then rather than kill her, which is usually what you do. She and the Fireflies watched her. They ran tests on her. You know, Tess is like, What tests? And she’s like, I held on my arm. I counted to ten and. But mostly the thing that really impressed them was I didn’t turn into a fucking monster.
Rosie Knight Bella Ramsey is killing it. Okay, let’s stop here as well, because this. Leads to another theory, right, that we spoke about briefly. Why didn’t Marlene shoot Ellie? Now, this has to be directly tied to the fact that in the first episode, Marlene tells Ellie that she was the one.
Jason Concepcion She placed her in FEDRA.
Rosie Knight In a FEDRA military school when she was a baby. So that hints to me that there may be more than one kid who they were watching for this purpose, which would be very different from the way it is in in what we know of the first of the last of us a game. But yeah, I think that’s very interesting. And the fact that Marlene didn’t like Marlene Fruit all the Fireflies or that’s the point, the fact that she didn’t just shoot an infected person in the head means she knows she knew who she was. Right. She says she knew her real name. She tells Ellie that in the first episode. So this is definitely a threat to keep watch.
Jason Concepcion At the very least, it lets us know that this is not Marlene’s first rodeo with seeing if someone was immune like she’s done this. They had a system in place for.
Rosie Knight Exactly. They had a testing system.
Jason Concepcion X-ray Vision will be back.
Speaker 5 <AD>
Jason Concepcion And we’re back. So Ellie goes off to to do what one does when they wake up in the morning. And Tess and Joel have a little conversation. Tess is trying to convince Joel that this could be real. What Ellie’s, Ellie’s immunity. That might be legit and that we should. They should just go forward with dropping her to the Fireflies and getting the truck from from them so they can go find Tommy. This is probably their best shot at doing that. Joel is like, I don’t know. This is like, more than we bargained for When we drop her back at the QZ and is like, if she goes back to the Kizzy, she’ll get tested. At some point, she’ll come up infected and then she’ll get killed and then we get nothing. So we might as well do that. Mm hmm. There’s a funny moment that follows, which is actually pretty meaningful considering our cold open where it’s breakfast time. Tess and Joel are eating the most rancid looking jerky.
Rosie Knight It’s badly.
Jason Concepcion Of unknown. Unknown meat source.
Rosie Knight It’s so hard. It’s like chewing on a ruler. And they’re really generous. They’re like, Oh, you know, you can have some of ours. And Ellie’s like, Don’t worry about it. And pulls out this, like, huge chicken salad sandwich on his massive bread.
Rosie Knight Let’s talk about the bread.
Jason Concepcion Okay, so there’s two there’s kind of like two variables here. First option one, nobody knows that it was bread and flour.
Rosie Knight Exactly right. And they’re just earing it.
Jason Concepcion And they’re just eating it, I guess, like additionally to that would be the possibility that they know it’s bread and flour, but they figured it out.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion They figured out how to fix it, which I don’t buy.
Rosie Knight Or the other option is that the Fireflies know about the bread and they’re feeding it to Ellie to check that she doesn’t get infected or to build up a.
Dun dun dun
Rosie Knight Which is incredibly bleak.
Rosie Knight But I also think very fitting and I think is really interesting because after that cold open night, the big chat and our Discord was like, why would they show up eating bread? So and, you know, nothing in the show is unintentional. So I’m really interested to see where that goes. But I kind of love how we have that dramatic irony of us knowing that that bread is probably a death sentence if Tess and Joel eat it, but they’re just that’s all they want in the world is just to eat this bread and they’re eating that nasty little jerky and they want to eat that. And they’re like, Is that chicken? Like, everything is so. But that in itself is just completely wild, especially. And it highlights on a basic economy level how important she is to the Fireflies, because this is clearly Joel and Tess are smugglers. They’re out every single day.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. She’s like, you.
Rosie Knight Smuggling. They’re like.
Jason Concepcion Where’d did you get chicken?
Rosie Knight And she’s like, from smugglers. But obviously, like, not you, love.
Jason Concepcion I think that. I think what is probably going on here is that there are certain people in the know who understand that bread and flour were the thing that sparked this. And maybe it’s not widely known. And I think the fact that somebody can still make bread and get flour and stuff suggests, again, that there is, to your point, a kind of system in place to test people because you’re not going to fucking find wheat and make bread for one person like you do it. If there is there is a whole system going on of testing and make and finding out if people are immune. Tess wants to know why Marlene found Ellie so important and she says, you know, like, and you better, by the way, you better actually tell us or we’re going to bring you back. Ellie shoots back. Well, then when you won’t get your car battery and Tess is like, Oh, you heard that? Then you must have heard that he wants to shoot you. And she looks at Joel and knows that it’s true. Joel Yeah, I’ll shoot you right now. And it’s a really, really chilling moment. And then we get this from tests where she says, Joel and I, we aren’t good people. So answer my question. Here’s so. Playing the game and watching the show. In the game kind of goes into this more. But the I sort of realized playing the game again that Joel and Tess were on their way to being Robert like they were. Yeah, they were. Robert was like their competitor. They were like, moving up the ladder of, like, criminal kingpins in the QZ.
Rosie Knight If they didn’t kill so many people, they would have had an army. But they killed everyone by killing an army because they kept killing everyone. But no, no, definitely. Like I think that this episode and this series, honestly, just over these two episodes, like it has done so much to expand on Tess, who was essentially just like an outrageous, like death dealer, kind of like serial killer.
Jason Concepcion Total psycho.
Rosie Knight Total psycho. And like, you know, that’s fine because in the game it serves a purpose. But even in such an emotional game, that’s definitely one of those things where in the show you’re just like, Wow, this is someone who, no matter what they’ve done, suddenly feels hope and suddenly wants to imagine something a bit better. And you kind of don’t really get to see that with Tess in the game until her last last moments. But here she’s really, she’s tired.
Jason Concepcion And even that in her last last moments in the game feels more out of desperation and like, let’s just like finish it than actual feeling.
Rosie Knight You know so realizing how valuable Ellie is.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. Ellie tells them that what she knows is that there’s apparently a Firefly base camp somewhere out west where doctors are working on a cure, and Joel finishes her sentence.
Rosie Knight He’s heard it before.
Jason Concepcion He’s heard all this shit before, the key to finding the vaccine is me. And he’s like, Come on, this is. Tess you’re going to. This is what you’re going to buy. How many times have we heard this? There’s no vaccine, there’s no medicine. There’s nothing we can do. He still wants to shoot her. But Tess really is like, Hey, listen again. The Fireflies believe it. So let’s just do it.
Rosie Knight Yeah, exactly. And also, I will say this is really where you start to get from this scene you are getting now. Dialog just directly lifted from the game. The first was more of a loose adaptation that brought things from the game. This episode is so close to what you see. It’s actually quite wild. Like I was playing the game than I was watching it, than I was playing the game. And I was like, Well, I’m really just seeing stuff being directly pulled in. This conversation is one of them and kind of where the episode goes to these terrifying, nightmarish places that is just so brilliantly adapted.
Jason Concepcion One of the lines that is ripped straight from the game is Ellie saying, Hey, can I have a gun? Which she asks about 100 times in the game.
Rosie Knight Honestly it’s like.
Jason Concepcion They say no, because who wants to get shot in the back by a panicky, like 14 year old? Yeah. And she’s like, well, I’ll just I guess I’ll just throw my sandwich at the infected. And I think they’ll like it because it’s, you know, part of their history. They then head off into the kind of like sunlit wreckage of Boston. They’re passing bomb craters. Tess is telling Ellie that, as Dr. Ratner suggested.
Rosie Knight They just bombed the city.
Jason Concepcion The American government at least came to came to the realization that their best course of action, which is bomb the fuck out of cities. And it didn’t work everywhere, but it appeared to work in Boston, where they managed to set up the quarantine zone. Now they come to like a place where a building is partially collapsed across the street. So this is the direct pass path to the old state house. So what’s left is the short path and a long path. And apparently the short path is like you will get killed.
Rosie Knight Yeah, it’s it’s the long path, although you die path. And then he’s like, I think I’ll just take a long path.
Jason Concepcion So they go through this hotel and here’s a very telling moment that kind of dovetails nicely with what you were saying before about Tess. The difference between game Tess and show in the way that this Tess, there’s almost something vaguely parental about her and the way she talks to Ellie. Notice it. Ellie walks next to her. This whole.
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Concepcion You know, Joel did say, like, I will kill you, but is walking next to Ellie this whole time. And there, you know, and then Ellie, Tess is being very generous about telling her about the dangers of the open city. She asks how Ellie got Got bit Ellie’s like I went into the mall in the cuz that’s blocked off and I got bit. Tess asks, Did you go in there alone? Ellie. I think lies and says, yes, I she was in there with someone else. Who we’re going to find out was the person who was her significant other intense is impressed and you can tell that Ellie is really feels. She really feels good about.
Rosie Knight She not often getting compliments.
Jason Concepcion She feels good about the fact that someone is like you.
Rosie Knight And I think what she sees in Tess, that’s someone that she would want to be like, you know, someone who can survive this for 20 years, who can kind of things is bad. Asked to go into an empty mall and get bit just for the sake of it. Like very chaotic behavior, but really, it’s a chaotic world. And yeah, I love to see that with Tessa. And also, again, they do a really good job let you get those moments in the game. But here there’s a lot more kind of quiet time for them to walk. And we get this really fun conversation about the different kinds of zombies and.
Rosie Knight Threats that like because all, all Ellie’s ever heard is rumors.
Jason Concepcion So that’s a really wonderful part of this scene because, you know, Ellie is like looking at this. I mean, the city’s in ruins, but it’s beautiful. And she’s like, what the. She was she’s almost disappointed that it’s not as dangerous as everybody says.
Rosie Knight You know, the whole idea is they keep you in the quarantine zone by telling you the moment you get out.
Jason Concepcion You’re like swarmed.
Rosie Knight Walking dead walkers. They’re coming to the fences, they’re going to eat you. But when you get out there, it’s beautiful, it’s overgrown. Nature has kind of found its way. And so far, she hasn’t seen a single zombie or infected.
Jason Concepcion So. So there aren’t the ones with the split open heads that see in the dark, like Bats and Tess and Joel are like.
Rosie Knight They look at each other. And I like, I guess, what I like we’ll keep an eye on at.
Jason Concepcion Which point you hear the the trademark screech.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion Of an infected. And Joel was just like, okay, let’s just keep moving and let’s go. They come to the flooded lobby of a hotel, which Ellie recognizes because she reads books. She is really having fun. Like, she’s turning this into an adventure. It’s obviously very dangerous, but she’s never again been outside before. And she goes to the front desk, rings the bell. There’s this whole little scene about checking into the hotel.
Rosie Knight And is like, You are weird kid. He’s like, You are true weirdo. But, you know, it’s really nice because in the game, Ellie’s always. She’s like, always singing and, like, been trying to teach us about the whistle and doing, like, weird shit because.
Jason Concepcion They’re laughing like little laughs when you see her looking at stuff.
Rosie Knight She’s getting to explore this world, but the horrors of the world and the fact it’s broken down are not new to her. Like, that’s all she’s ever known. So that yeah, I love that scene. And Bella, they just sell it so well. They’re like, kind of talking and checking in andJoel is just like, What is wrong with you?
Jason Concepcion Eventually, Joel and Ellie get their first moment alone when Tess has to find an alternate path through another part of the building that’s collapsed. And Joel compliments Ellie’s switchblade.
Rosie Knight She.
Rosie Knight Classic Joel.
Jason Concepcion She’s skilled with. Hey nice knife. When she asks where he’s from, he says Texas. She is. She asks where Tess is from. She says Detroit, which is in Michigan. And Ellie’s like, I know that because I went to school. The parallels with Sarah and geography are right there. She then asks how Joel, Tess and Tess know each other and how Joel got to Boston. Joe is like, No, we’re not talking about us. No more questions about me. She then asks, How long do you think infected live? And he says, A few months. But some have been around since this all started, since, you know, 20 years ago.
Rosie Knight Yeah. Those are the ones you you don’t want to meet.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. And she asks if he’s ever killed any, and he says, Yeah.A lot. She asks, Is it hard knowing they were people once? And he says, Sometimes it was. And then she asks him what? You know. How hard was it to kill that soldier? You know, when he had that flashback to the to the night on the riverbank with Sarah in his arms. And before he can answer, Tess returns. And she’s got bad news that, hey, so the way we have to go, it’s just all infected.
Rosie Knight It’s an infected party. You know, the long way that was supposed to be the safe way. And now the long way is also the dead way. And there’s just, like, infected everywhere. And it’s all bad. But we do learn something very interesting here. There’s this is a cool episode if you want to know about the Cordyceps virus and the infected, because we kind of get to learn through Ellie’s eyes a little bit more about them.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, you see the sun kind of moving across the landscape, you know, as clouds kind of go across the face of the sun. And as the sun beam moves across these kind of this lolling like.
Rosie Knight Hundreds.
Jason Concepcion Crowds.
Rosie Knight Yeah, just been laid on the floor.
Jason Concepcion They all react to it in unison. And Ellie’s like, Oh my God, they’re connected. And Tess says more than you know. And she tells them that those fungal tentacles, they grow underground too. And they’re like a fungal web, like an Internet for that.
Rosie Knight Creates like, a hive mind.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. And if you step on a patch of those tentacles, it can send a message miles away on the ring, alert the hordes, and here they come.
Rosie Knight And I believe that is new as well. That is very, very new.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, that is very new and.
Rosie Knight And very terrifying.
Jason Concepcion And Tess, again, is being very warm in the way she’s delivering that. She’s she’s she even says something to the effect of Listen, I’m not telling you this to scare you. I’m telling you because you need to know.
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Concepcion Because you’re immune, but. But you’re not immune to getting ripped apart.
Rosie Knight I love that line. She’s like, Yeah, you’re immune to getting burned, but you’re not immune to, like, a zombie coming and, like, tearing your limbs off. Like, sorry, babe, but. And then bad news. The short way’s the only way now, baby. Through the museum.
Jason Concepcion Through the museum. A beautiful red brick colonial covered in fungal tentacle.
Rosie Knight The doors literally, like, locked shut.
Jason Concepcion Joel goes over, touches one of the big tentacles. It is, but it’s bone dry. And he says, Well, you know.
Rosie Knight Maybe they’re dead. Feeling positive.
Jason Concepcion So they get ready to head in. Flashlights come out. Tess and Ellie, you know, have another talk. Tess is like, listen, you stay behind us. We’re going to be very slow. If anything happens, you get between me and Joel and then the guns come out. And this is an interesting moment. So Tess uses that alternating flashlight, pistol, overhand grip, wrist over wrist, and then later in the episode says at the very end, says to Joel, Save who you can save, which is a very 9/11 era first responder thing to say. And it makes me think Tess was a cop.
Rosie Knight Yeah, definitely some kind of first responder kind of situation. And also very same with what we know of Tess which in the game the little things that we get to see about. She’s usually the one who’s giving Joel stuff to to fix his wounds and wrap it up And they do a nice inversion of that in this episode. But yeah, I thought that was a really great catch from you. And again, you know, Ellie just wants a gun.
Rosie Knight Yeah, she can give me a gun. She’s like, I’ve got a hand. And Joe’s like, Good for you. Hey, we’re going to a dark building. Can I have a gun? I mean, this is like if you’ve played the game,.
Jason Concepcion Never shot a gun, but can I have one?
Rosie Knight Can I have one? I mean, show me one. They teach you that The FEDRA military school, though I feel like they should. They probably didn’t want the kids to have a gun so they could escape. But still, I feel that that would have been probably a good idea in the context of this.
Jason Concepcion So. In here is where we get our first view of the clickers now. Joel and Tessa are initially feeling pretty good. They find this like this group of dried up and dead infected sort of thing. Oh, good. They’re dead. But then flashlight pan over to the side, and there’s a body that’s been dead for, like, 2 hours.
Rosie Knight And it’s like. It’s like, ripped apart. Like it’s stripped off. Ellie’s freaked out because Ellie’s like, I’ve been bitten, and that’s not some. It couldn’t have done that to me like this. What is this? And Tessa’s face like a.
Jason Concepcion Fear on their. On their faces.
Rosie Knight Is so good. Yeah.
Jason Concepcion The way she’s like. Well, maybe. Maybe he died outside.
Rosie Knight And maybe he go back outside the coffin.
Jason Concepcion And, you know, they know that that’s not true.
Rosie Knight But I see it. They don’t want it. They don’t want it.
Rosie Knight And it tell me.
Jason Concepcion If two badasses like this who have killed lots of infected.
Rosie Knight And survived like 20 years.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. Are scared then this is serious. Joel then tells Ellie, okay, listen, from this point forward.
Rosie Knight Silence.
Jason Concepcion Silence. Okay. Have you seen that movie with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, or did you see that one? No, that didn’t come out yet.
Jason Concepcion It didn’t come out yet. Sorry. Never came out. Okay. But it’s like that. Yeah. Not quiet.
Rosie Knight Silence.
Jason Concepcion Silent.
Rosie Knight No quips, No, like, strange bits about being in the hotel.
Jason Concepcion Like, just fucking do it and don’t say shit. So they go forward and they’re, you know, they creep their way forward. And at one point, Ellie steps on a dried vine, and they’re just like, Oh, shit. And then there’s like a building collapse on the stairs, and they’re like, Oh, shit. They eventually get into kind of one of the display halls. And behind them as they go up the staircase collapses behind them, which draws the attention of a clicker. You hear it screech first, and then you hear that as it’s searching, you know, with its audio waves, it comes up. And Ellie is crazy with you can see it on her face how absolutely terrified she is. And then there’s another screech screeching now looks like, Oh, shit. There’s two of them. Joel gestures to Ellie. He’s just like, you know, saying essentially, Hey, they’re blind, but they can hear. They can hear so shh. She’s freaking out. The monster is coming close, coming closer, coming closer. And then when it turns to them, we get this incredible view of really how what a great job they did on the creature design like was.
Rosie Knight Unbelievable.
Jason Concepcion The design over from the game. But then obviously the detailing, the scariness, the way it looks like something out of a. Guillermo del Toro.
Rosie Knight Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s so good. Like I was just saying this to Vassilis before, like our super sound guy, like that when you play the game, you see the yellow outline, you see the implication of a fungus, but you’re so busy trying to kill it and, and it’s scary. And a lot of times you see them outside, though, I have to say, the museum, they adapted it perfectly. This was the first time when I played the game that I got scared and they really translate it.
Jason Concepcion And this is directly from the game.
Rosie Knight Directly.
Jason Concepcion Directly from the game.
Rosie Knight And it’s it’s that moment where you go more into that classic horror video game style. You’re in a dark space, you’re lighting it with a flashlight. You want to be stealthy, but I didn’t expect them to be able to pull off the clickers and make them something so horrific. Like Guillermo del Toro is a great poll. It’s very resident evil. The kind of only sign of their humanity is this like gaping more with broken teeth and then on top of their heads are these like it’s fungus, but it’s also you pointed out, it’s like plating. It’s just like a dinosaur, like a triceratops. But like with fungus growing on top, it’s truly horrific stuff. And even though I have to say, pretty much everyone that I’ve seen loves this show. But if you were waiting for the episode where it becomes like a scary zombie show, this is the episode.
Jason Concepcion It so it’s it comes close, it swings its face towards them into the beam of the flashlight, which whoever did that, don’t do that.
Rosie Knight And please don’t do that.
Jason Concepcion And Ellie gasps and now it’s fucking on. And one thing we can say about this, these version of the clickers is they are way hardier than the video game. Video game version. They take some gun shots, but if you get like two headshots, it’s going to go down.
Rosie Knight Yeah. The thing that I.
Jason Concepcion Depending on your difficulty level.
Rosie Knight I was going to say I’m very bad at choice. I’m more of a four or five person. But, you know, I will say I’m going to be very interested to see how the clickers take it later on, because what I ended up finding was very easy on my difficulty saying is once you start modding your melee weapons, you can kill them in a couple of swipes.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight I wouldn’t want to get close to one of these clickers to know how that would go.
Jason Concepcion That horrendous.
Rosie Knight Yeah, they, they supercharged them and that kind of bizurk mode where after you shoot them once and they come to it, that is just horrific.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. So it the fight is on the first clicker, the one that’s closest to them, takes like four or five like bullets directly to the torso. No reaction is fighting with Joel like nothing happened.
Rosie Knight Which kind of makes sense if you think about it. Because if it’s if it’s just the body is essentially a shell.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, that’s it.
Rosie Knight Why would it damage it? You know, you have to get to that that cerebral cortex or wherever the main fungus is.
Jason Concepcion Shoot the head like a every Zombie movie.
Rosie Knight Like every Zombie movie. That’s the rule.
Jason Concepcion Tesand Ellie run. Big, big fight at the end of it, they do take down both clickers and Tess is okay, except for a twisted ankle.
Rosie Knight Tess is looking great.
Jason Concepcion She looks good. She says I’m fine. I twisted my ankle. That’s it. Okay, let’s move on. Ellie got bit again.
Rosie Knight And she’s like, Well, at least it was me.
Jason Concepcion Hey.
Rosie Knight If it had to be one of us.
Jason Concepcion Right? We’re fine. And they go out over the roof. They get on the roof. Tess is looking at Joel, sadly, as he’s taping her up.
Rosie Knight I love this moment again and again and again. You get and you get this like these moments. Something I love about this show that understands about the game is these like, moments of, like, empathy and compassion and comfort and these tiny moments that people can have together. Like when he’s wrapping her foot and they kind of talk. And again, you go from this deep, dark, horrific halls where you’re kind of chased by this nightmare monster onto this beautiful, sunlit rooftop with this broken down cityscape. It’s such wonderful juxtaposition, but it never feels kind of jarring. It’s just like a really nice breathing kind of spot. And we get another, you know, Joel and Tess are having this moment, and then you get this unbelievable shot of Ellie kind of as they traverse the piece of wood, which again, is one of the most memorable scenes from the from the video game.
Jason Concepcion Now, there’s a there’s a small interaction here that I think tells you a lot about Joel and Tess’s history. Joel is like, hey, so, you know, maybe and we don’t know what happened with that first bite, maybe this is the bite that.
Rosie Knight That’s going to get her, that’s going to get her.
Jason Concepcion And Tess snaps. She’s like, Can you just take the good news? You know, and maybe this time we can actually win. And it it would it’s suggested to me, and I thought this is great writing, is that contra the game, Tess was the more hopeful one.
Rosie Knight Yeah. Joel.
Jason Concepcion In the relationship, Joel, With games
Rosie Knight Yeah. Joel. And in in the game, he’s dead inside, but it’s like he’s dead inside, and he just follows Tess and does whatever she wants, but here he’s dead inside. And that allows him to do the terrible things that need to be done. Whereas with Tess, Tess can take it. But she’s tired of giving it out. She wants that little bit of hope. She doesn’t want to be killing people. She wants to imagine that this time they can actually win.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, this. This felt like a window into their relationship that maybe Tess’s the person who’s like, Oh, maybe it’s real this time. Maybe we can do this, maybe we can do that. Whereas Joel is like this is never changing. This is what we’re doing right now. Joel goes over to Ellie as Tess stays behind and it kind of tape herself up. And you can see the state house across the way. It’s beautiful under the sunlight. And as they move out, there’s a great moment where Joel glances at his watch and just like takes one look at the broken watch. They get to the state house. Firefly convoy is there in front of the building. No sign of the Firefly themselves.
Rosie Knight Suspicious.
Jason Concepcion Not good. Joel goes up, he checks the truck. It streaked with blood. There is dead bodies all around, torn apart by infected blood trail that’s leading up into the state house. And Ellie’s like, Oh, they went inside. Tess now grabs Ellie by the arm and rushes in because she’s ready to like she’s done. She’s ready to find out, like, what?
Rosie Knight Is it real?
Jason Concepcion What’s next? Probably, you know, depending on, you know, probably because of the reveal that’s about to happen, because she is, one, she’s she is inspired by and buoyed by and really deeply touched by like this sliver of hope that she’s feeling and also like, hey, if there is a cure, can we cook it up real quick?
Rosie Knight Can I maybe have it? How’s it going? How’s it going?
Jason Concepcion So they get in there and everybody’s dead. And Joel reads the situation. One or more of the Fireflies got infected. There is a fight as the healthy ones fought the sick ones. And then everybody lost. In Joel’s words. Tess is then like, okay, well, there’s got to be a fucking map or a radio or some kind of indication about where Ellie was supposed to go. And Joel’s like, Oh, we’re done.
Rosie Knight We did it done. Like, Yeah, we we dropped out here. Let’s go.
Jason Concepcion Let’s go home, he says. And then Tess snaps, It’s not my fucking home. Which is like a hugely revealing comment again from Tess, who all the while, you know, again, it suggests all the while, all the while, all the way. Tess has been, like, hoping for a real place, a real end to this. And then she says, you know, my luck had to run out. Sooner or later, I’m going to stay behind. And Ellie gets it. Tess was bitten. Joel is shattered by this. Tess shows him the wound which is on her neck, and it’s already like fungus out.
Rosie Knight And she’s like, Look at Ellie’s. This is like three weeks ago. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? This is. This is real. Because look at this.
Jason Concepcion Exact dialog from the game where she is. Her reaction is like, oops, right? You know?
Rosie Knight Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Concepcion Tess then begs Joel in an increasingly emotional appeal to take Ellie West to find Tommy and his group and to stop this, to cure this.
Rosie Knight She’s like, Your brother was a Firefly. Like, if anything, he knows.
Jason Concepcion Joel is like, they won’t listen to me. They they’re not gonna listen to me Like, I don’t. I’m never been a Firefly person.
Rosie Knight And he’s like, I don’t want to do this. Yeah, like, I have no investment in this. This is like your thing.
Jason Concepcion And Tess is like, you can do it because they’ll listen to you and you need to keep her alive and set everything right. And please say yes Joel. In that moment, an infected corpse, you know, shakes to not life, afterlife. Whatever you call. Joel walks over, shoots it. But. That corpse happened to be laying in a pile of the cordyceps fungal net, which transmits the the signal to a nearby horde and you can hear them screeching, growing louder, and they’ll be there in about a minute. Tess is like, okay, I’m going to stay and hold them off. And this is when she says to Joel, Save who you can save. You know, you can save her. I can save you. And I’m going to stay here. Joel then races with Ellie out of the bill drags her out. Elliei is like, No, we’re not leaving her.
Rosie Knight Not leaving her. Like, what are you talking about?
Jason Concepcion Again, this, like, naive innocence, that child. Like, why can’t we help? Kind of feeling the same thing that that Sarah displayed on the night. Yeah, everything broke out. Which is like, why aren’t we stopping for that family? Behind them. The building explodes as Tess, with her last strength, ignites her cigaret lighter, which sends up barrels of gasoline and loose hand grenades and and Joel heads off in the direction they need to go with Ellie. Just kind of shocked, staring at everything. X-ray Vision will be back. And we’re back. Without spoiling how this is going to go for people who haven’t played the game, I think one thing that’s important to get here is how much everybody but Joel wants to save the world and help people.
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Joel’s relationships are defined by the people closest to him.
Jason Concepcion That’s he’s a he’s he’s a selfish guy.
Rosie Knight But.
Jason Concepcion At his core.
Rosie Knight He’s selfish, but.
Jason Concepcion In a really understandable and humane in a way that you can relate too.
Rosie Knight It spans almost like a like a force field, like Invisible Woman force field around those he loves. And yes, it’s going to be really important. And I’m very interested to see where this goes because. So let’s talk about Tess dying. This is almost identical to the video game.
Jason Concepcion Almost identical.
Rosie Knight Except, In the video game she’s killed by FEDRA soldiers.
Jason Concepcion Right.
Rosie Knight So I love this choice because I think that it’s really interesting that now we have the two people Joe’s loved. One was killed by soldiers. One was killed by infected. So it adds that. And I’m very interested in the game. Joel does not take this death well and he and he takes it out on Ellie, kind of like in in a way that he he sees her as the reason that this happened.
Jason Concepcion Ellie apologizes profusely in the moments in the game.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion After this happens.
Rosie Knight And Joel is like you cannot talk about Tess.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, don’t talk about Tess. We’re not talking about Tess anymore. Don’t say her name.
Rosie Knight I’m interested to see if they go the exact same route, because that’s a really it’s a really rough, like, emotional journey for the two of them.
Jason Concepcion I agree.
Rosie Knight But yeah, I’m just like I. So many people in our Discord were just so upset that Tess died. Anna Torv is so good.
Jason Concepcion She’s so good.
Rosie Knight That even though I knew where this was going. It. It still kind of shocks you because you’re just like, She was so good. Didn’t you want to keep our eye around? Didn’t you want to take it to Bill’s town? Didn’t you just want to imagine what that role would be?
Jason Concepcion Spoiker alert. Bill’s Town.
Rosie Knight Bill’s Town. If you watch the end, you know, if that that may be the name of the next chapter of the game. Yeah, but yeah, I’m. I’m very. I just think she was just so brilliant in this role. And also. Now somebody in our discord did say that they think the first season is going to be the first game and that that had been confirmed. I have not read it. But I will say the speed that this is occurring does make that seem like it could be possible.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, I agree.
Rosie Knight The speed that we are going through the events of the game.
Jason Concepcion I mean, we’re already at this point about 15 levels into the game, you.Know, future missions into the game.
Rosie Knight You know, this is the end of chapter three and there’s 12 chapters in in the game. So I’m I’m very interested because I would I think that would be one of the bravest choices that we’ve seen in TV for a long time, to not stretch out to five seasons, to just not do that expansive, kind of wide world, long term storytelling that The Walking Dead did to get to a point and to instead understand that that game has one of the most heartbreaking storylines and to just tell it in one season and what you do after that is what you do after that to deal with the fallout.
Jason Concepcion Now, I think people are surprised at how quickly Tess went out, even though, as you mentioned, she does go out in the same exact portion of the story, the game version of the story that she does in the in the television version of the story. But. Well, first of all, it feels like you spend a lot more time with her, one, because she kills about 100 people. And then in that time,.
Rosie Knight Predominant experience of Tess in that game.
Jason Concepcion You know, depending on how good you are at the game, you could spend, you could have by that time have spent anywhere from five from 3 hours to 10 hours.
Rosie Knight Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly.
Jason Concepcion Somebody in our Discord had a really funny comment that that alerting the first clicker. Ellie gasping validated his playstyle, which is being bad at stealth.
Rosie Knight No, no, no. I have to do stealth. I was. I’ve been playing the game and like, if I try and go chaos mode, I’m the opposite. Because if I go chaos mode, I lose. I lose every time, whether it’s a clicker, especially if it’s a soldier. But yeah, it’s it’s really fun. This is just such a good show. And I, I think they’re making a lot of really interesting choices.
Jason Concepcion I agree.
Rosie Knight Because also as well, this is a show where twice now in the first two episodes, they faked you out on who your main cast is going to be, because when the first episode you think is going to be Tommy and you think it’s going to be Joel. That’s true. And you think it’s going to be Sarah. That was not true. Then you think it’s going to be Tess and Joel and Ellie. And again, you lose one of them within that episode. So I think it’s going to be very interesting to see how they keep people on the edge of their seat. And the best thing is, as someone who has played the game, the show is still completely engaging and it’s really fun to see how closely they’re adapting it. But I’ve seen and this is my thing that makes me most excited, I’ve seen so many people who’ve never played the game in our Discord, online reviewers who just are absolutely invested.
Jason Concepcion It’s really well done.
Rosie Knight After two episodes.
Jason Concepcion It’s really well done and a great story. And I think one of the things. Two episodes in that we can kind of count on is. How they’re going to fill in the blanks of the I mean, there’s significant blanks and we don’t know. There’s a lot about the Fireflies. We don’t know. There’s a lot about how FEDRA works. So we don’t know, you know, next to nothing about how the fungus spread and the fact that, you know, episode one, you get all this interesting backstory. You follow Sarah for a lot longer than you initially think that, you know, considering how long you follow Joel. Episode two, you get how the fungus broke out. I think that is going to be is going to continue to be how this show improves on what is already an excellent story told through through video games, which is by filling in all these blanks with flashbacks, with all the stuff you didn’t see in the game, and really keeping the stuff that’s ripped directly from the game as the more kind of like suspenseful, thrill.
Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jason Concepcion Action stuff, which is what the game does so well.
Rosie Knight Replicating those moments of like, real horror.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight Yeah. I’m very interested as well to see if every cold open is going to be a different scientist because they’ve kind of set that up. And I’d really love to see maybe how it impacted people all over the world. You know, Chernobyl was very much about like showing how things break down in this kind of human bureaucracy, like slow time. And I feel like these cold opens are kind of interesting touches of that. So I’m really excited to see what happens in the Cold Open for episode three.
Jason Concepcion Later this week, for our Friday episode, we’re going to be covering the video game in the second installment of our coverage of The Last of US video Games. So check back for that. And of course, we’re going to be covering The Last of US on HBO Max, every Wednesday in your headphones. Up next, Nerd Out.
Rosie Knight In today’s Nerd Out where you tell us what you love and why. Or, as you have been doing recently, share a theory with us that makes you excited, which is obviously we love theories, the tinfoil hat to the better. But so far I have to say we’ve been getting a lot of very sensible theories. And and yes, we have a new theory from Brandon that is about how a real life incident could possibly inspire the way that the MCU chooses to introduce mutants. So, Jason, do you want to read the theory?
Jason Concepcion Sure. Hi, Jason and Rosie. Hi. I’ve been behind on podcasts and catching up, but every time you talk about mutants needing to be hated and feared, I have a thought and forget to send it in. I think there’s a really great and effective way to do it that the audience would by immediately: make it a pandemic. Agents of SHIELD kind of use this idea with Terrigenesis starring their Inhumans arc and I think it would work really well in our post-pandemic time. My $0.02. Thanks. That’s a fun, fun theory, Brandon. So that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arc is ripped from the comics.
Rosie Knight Yeah, the Inhumans Terrigenesis and kind of the way that they get their powers, which is you have to go through this process where the Terrigenesis brings out your powers. There’s definitely a way with mutants because TerrorGenesis is very similar to like the mutant gene being activated. We know that in the Weapon X program, and even if, even in like the Deadpool movies, which everyone’s really familiar with, there’s this idea that you can activate a mutant gene. So they could definitely do something where an illness or a global pandemic activated people’s mutant genes. So you don’t have to deal with that kind of analogy of, Oh, mutation is an illness. But you could talk about like how it b how it coming out of an illness could affect people, make people scared of it. And also it would be a very interesting way to bring real life into it. I think a lot of people are ready to see TV and film that actually. Deals with or talks about the pandemic that we have lived through, that we are living through, you know. So I think this is really interesting. The Marvel Comics don’t have a great history of doing like illness analogies in mutation, but, I would love to see a thoughtful way. And I do think that there’s something in the idea of taking inspiration from Terrigenesis and making it something where the mutant gene is actually accelerated or. And then you can have mutations in all different ages as well if they have the immune gene. But it hadn’t been activated yet, you know, that’s what happens. Did that pull in the movies? They kind of activate the gene through this horrible process of like torturing them and stuff. So the idea of some kind of pandemic that rather than giving people powers just activates a mutant gene would be, I think, really interesting. And also, you know, the MCU. I like the wierdest stuff. Everybody knows that. But the MCU has long been grounded in this kind of idea of finding real ways to bring. And also, I think that there’s something really interesting to talk about, about like superheroes and disability and superheroes and chronic illness and all that kind of stuff. And that’s not often really deeply explained. So again, if it was through an illness or something, there’s lots of interesting kind of connotations and ripe ground for exploration there.
Jason Concepcion Now, fun fact, the terrorgen bomb and Terrigenesis, you know, the kind of elevator pitch of that storyline was that a bomb filled with teragen mist was detonated in the atmosphere, causing lots of people who have the latent inhuman gene to develop.
Rosie Knight Including Kamala Khan.
Jason Concepcion Including Kamala Khan. Now, fun fact this was done in Marvel Comics pre Disney’s acquisition of Fox as a way to bring the mutants to the screen without actually.
Rosie Knight Having mutants.
Jason Concepcion Using them because they didn’t own the IP at that time.
Rosie Knight Exactly. So at the time, there was it was quite hard to find a fantastic format because they didn’t own the IP. They had been licensed away and it was very hard to find a comic that was solely focused on the X-Men and the Terrigen Bomb and the Terrigen mist, and people like Kamala Khan, who was originally pitched as a mutant but then became an inhuman in the comics through that. It was basically hilarious editorial edict to basically say look, look, we do have that here. We got these, here we got them. We got this guy who can’t talk. His voice is too loud. We got a cool dog. But he loves that dog.
Jason Concepcion Everybody loves Lockjaw. Come on, Lockjaw can teleport guys.
Rosie Knight Actually I would love to see, I would love to see Lockjaw like in Miss Marvel season two.
Jason Concepcion Listen, Pet Avengers, we talked about it.
Rosie Knight You know, we are the Pet Avengers super stan. But you know what the real truth is? We all saw how the Inhumans TV show went down like a lead balloon. And if you even remember that happened, you can watch on Disney Plus though.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight It’s very strange. Has unbelievable cast but it didn’t.
Jason Concepcion Bad wigs.
Rosie Knight I mean also they they shaved off Medusa’s hair in the first episode. Her power is literally that she has prehensile hair. So as soon as they did that you knew there was going to be a problem. But yeah, I, I would be very interested. I want to a lot of people thought that Ms.. Marvel was going to introduce Inhumans. I was always hoping it was going to be a mutant story, but I’m very interested to know if the Inhumans have a future in the MCU after we saw Anson Mount again. Great casting come back for that really memorable moment in in, in Multiverse of Madness. I’ll be very interested to see if there’s a universe where the Inhumans are the major heroes and whether or not that comes into play as we get to this kind of inevitable secret wars convergence, kind of like multiple universes in one.
Jason Concepcion Just no legacy virus type situation.
Rosie Knight Exactly. That’s. That’s not all we want. Yeah. No, thank you.
Jason Concepcion Thanks, Brandon. If you have theories or passions you want to share, hit us up at Xray@crooked.com, instructions in the show notes. That’s it for us. Rosie, anything to plug?
Rosie Knight You can follow me on Instagram and Letterbox’d. That’s my only social media. Rosie Marx with an X. I will be writing a bunch of stuff in the lead up to Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania, which obviously we are very excited about and will be getting more excited about in the upcoming weeks. You can check out my writing on IGN, Nerdist, Polygon, Den of Geek, all kinds of good places. I’ve got a big Den of Geek cover story coming out soon for a currently unannounced cool thing. Jason, what about you? Where do people find you?
Jason Concepcion You can find me in your podcast feed every Wednesday and Fridaay.
Rosie Knight Every Wednesday and Friday. Right here. Right here. Me too.
Jason Concepcion And that’s about it right now. Watch, Primo. When it comes out on Amazon freebies sometime, I don’t know, in the spring and or summer of 2023. And we’ll catch you on the flip side. Five star reviews. Five star ratings. We want one. No. We want two, no. We want three. No. Four. Keep going. Five. Yes. Perfect. We want five Star rating.
Rosie Knight Five, five, five.
Jason Concepcion Five star ratings on your podcast review rating platform of choice. Here is one from Bill’s Preston. Love this pod. Thank you Bill. X-ray is at the top of my list of awesome pods. I love listening to Jason and Rosie. The depth of their comics and pop culture knowledge is amazing. Super Pumped show is coming twice a week in 2023. That’s right.
Rosie Knight It is.
Jason Concepcion Let’s do it.
Rosie Knight Twice a week. We’re pumped too. And if you want to read a transcript of the show, something I’m very excited about, they are posted beneath the show notes on the Crooked website for each episode within 48 hours of you being able to listen. So it’s a great way for more people to be able to experience the show.
Jason Concepcion Catch the next episode on Friday, January 27th. And remember, we’re bringing you two episodes a week, 2- 2 -2 episodes a week. That’s twice the episodes, twice the deep dives, two times the everything else. Subscribe to us on YouTube, where you can now watch full episodes of the show, plus follow the XRVpod handle on Twitter and check out the Discord. Come to the Discord, folks. It’s great. The water is nice. It’s a great place to meet and hang out with tons of amazing fans and listeners. Plus Rosie and I are there. X-ray vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy Girard. Our editing and sound design is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Delon Villanueva and Matt DeGroot provide video production support. Alex Reliford handles social Media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for our theme music. Goodbye.
Rosie Knight Farewell.
