In This Episode
On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight make a molotov! In the Airlock (1:22), Jason and Rosie dive deep (deeep) into The Last of Us video game, continuing their recap as well as discussing the differences between the original and the adaptation. Then in Nerd Out (53:58) Jason and Rosie discuss a listener theory about the Quantum Realm.
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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
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Jason Concepcion Warning This podcast contains spoilers for the video game The Last of US Part one, as well as spoilers for the first two episodes of The Last of US on HBO Max. Hello. My name is Jason Concepcion.
Rosie Knight And I am Rosie Knight.
Jason Concepcion 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, we are continuing our discussion of The Last of US game and things are about to get spooky. Spooky. And in Nerd Out, Guess what? It’s another theory. I’m so happy about this.
Jason Concepcion Good.
Rosie Knight And this one’s about the quantum realm. From the next installment of the MCU, the highly anticipated Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania. Of course, if you want to jump around, check the show notes for timestamps and feel free to unspoiler yourself, but really play The Last of US.
Jason Concepcion All right, let’s jump into it. Let’s get into the airlock and. These folks are stepping out of the airlock and back into the world of the last of us. The first installment of the Last of US series for our ongoing coverage of Naughty Dog’s iconic video game. Of course, some quick facts behind the game. The game was published Last of US was published on the Sony PlayStation three platform in 2013. Two vintage began. It really is vintage. I can I can still see it. I can still see that beautiful console.
Rosie Knight I still have one.
Jason Concepcion I still have one. I still have two PS4s. Anyway, developing began in 2009 after the release and massive success of Entourage two, Neil Druckmann as the creative director and he led development of the game, creative directing, the writing of it and the game is directed by Bruce Straley. Voice acting and mocap performances in this game are fantastic. Troy Baker as Joel Ashley Johnson is Ellie, Annie Wersching as Tess and Merle Dandridge as Marlene. Let’s get into it. So this recap is going to cover the second chapter. Starting at the second chapter, the outskirts and the segments outside downtown, the museum and the Capitol building. And then we are going to end up at the Bills Town chapter with the segments, the Woods and Safe House. And judging by the way the show’s going, I think it’s a perfect time to jump into this portion of the game. We open up with Joel and Allie together. Now, heading off into the ruins of the open city, Ellie heard the shootout at the Firefly safe house. She asks Joel what happened? What the fuck do you think happened? Joel says?
Rosie Knight Didn’t you hear those guns?
Jason Concepcion Yeah. Didn’t you hear it? Joel says Fireflies. Same thing that’s going to happen to us if we don’t get off the streets. We hear loudspeakers carrying FEDRA warning that harboring criminals, including the Fireflies, is grounds for immediate execution.
Rosie Knight They love to execute someone.
Jason Concepcion They, FEDRA is very, very keen to execute. And so Joel and Ellie have to have to skedaddle. They cut through some abandoned buildings they had for Joel’s place. Ellie asks Joel if this is the first time he’s ever smuggled a person. A kid in particular. He said, No, that’s a first. What’s the deal with you and Marlene anyway? And then we get some some really interesting expo. Ellie says that, quote, She knew my mom and she’s been looking after me. Ellie has no idea where her parents are now. Joel probes some more, but Ellie lets him know that she’s under orders not to tell Joel anything that might be a clue as to why she is so important. But Joel is would like to present himself as someone who actually doesn’t give a shit.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion He says. Yeah, he doesn’t care. He says the want to know the best thing about my job. I don’t got to know why I could give two shits what you’re up to now. I think that that’s not exactly true. But but it’s certainly the the mask that Joel puts on. Just like in the show, Joel and and Ellie head back to his apartment. And the second after arriving home, Joel hits the couch and back to sleep again. We’ve got this really interesting inversion of the cold open of the game where.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion It was Joel awake and his daughter Sarah asleep on the couch. And now you’ve got Ellie awake and Joel, tired old Joel, needing a meeting nap time. Ali’s like, What do I do? What am I going to do? And he’s like, I’m sure you’ll think of something. And then Ellie gives him that little stinger again. Same as in the show is great dialog. Your watch is broken. Joel wakes up, it’s raining. Ellie is telling him that he mumbles in his sleep. It’s a testament to. How good the remastered version is and even how good the original was. Yeah, suggesting emotion that you really feel like Joel in that moment is wondering like, what the fuck will I wonder what I said? Like a little concerned about what he might have said.
Rosie Knight Yeah. You get a really great one of those visual moments too, of Ellie looking out of the window, which, you know, they basically replicate directly in the show, which is so lovely. But I definitely remember that being one of those. That was one of those visuals that you sort of couldn’t escape on the Internet, Ali, looking out of the rainy window kind of eyes. And they’re really setting up this great space where, oh, Joel, he’s this reluctant. You know, it’s it’s lone wolf and Colbert’s that classic thing. He doesn’t want to be burdened with this child. But here she is. And she’s got this wonder about the world, which I think people are starting to kind of get to see in the show. And we really start to get to see on the next part of that mission.
Jason Concepcion And by the way, Pedro Pascal, in two Lone wolf and Cub inspired stories.
Rosie Knight This man loves a baby. He loves a baby.
Jason Concepcion Loves to move through a dangerous world with a child. He depends on every he absolutely is the king of that role. Ellie tells him, I hate bad dreams and she is watching the battlements of the QZ is spotlights her kind of swinging to and fro out there right outside the walls looking for any threats that might be out there looking for anybody who might be sneaking out. And Ellie, of course, has never been outside the walls of the She was seen Joel again, who just minutes earlier in our gameplay hours earlier in the fictional reality of this story claimed to not give two shits actually might give a singular shit about Ellie because he then asks again what is so what? What are the Fireflies want with you? What’s the deal? But of course, before she can answer, Tess returns. Tess says, If you remember where we left off Tess after the confrontation at Firefly HQ, Tess went to go scout the merchandise. Guns, in the case of the game, a cache of guns. And she has now come back and has seen the goods that Marlene promised them. And she says, Yeah, it’s all there. It’s legit. It’s an impressive haul. We’re good to go. Joel has.
Rosie Knight Guns. She’s like, Give me those guns.
Jason Concepcion Let me tell you something.
Rosie Knight I want these guns. Please.
Jason Concepcion She loves guns almost much as much as Ellie loves asking for guns.
Rosie Knight Yeah, that is the perfect comparison. She’s stoked about these guns. She’s like, I will smuggle this child because these guns are real.
Jason Concepcion Joel is really worried about this mission. It’s nothing like they’ve ever done before. It’s a it’s human cargo. And he doesn’t understand. If y if Marlene is in command of the Firefly militia, they don’t just use their own people. Now, apparently putting two and two together, they don’t really lay out the details here. But I think what this suggests is that FEDRA’s campaign against the Fireflies has been devastating.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion That, you know, whatever manpower they have left, it’s not a lot. Marlene needs Tess and Joel.
Rosie Knight Definitely. And also, like, there’s this implication that the fire, the February’s like sowing discord among the survivors in the Green Zone and the Fireflies by kind of creating these violent campaigns, that kind of the Fireflies as these terrorists, when we know that FEDRA are like fascists who are just, you know, executing people willy nilly, even though the QZ’s great, there’s there’s problems on either side. And yeah, the Fireflies. The Fireflies. And Marlene need Joel and Tess. It’s very hard for a game like this where, you know, the narrative is headed in a certain direction to make you feel like the characters are making organic choices. But Joel, questioning the Fireflies feels so real. You’re like, Yes, he is right. Like, why? Why is this? This is so different from pills. This is so different from guns. This is different even from murdering people. But you have to kill a lot of people to be able to be in a lone wolf and cub situation. So it fits the trope, but it’s not it doesn’t make sense in the world and economy that they know. So.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight I love that he’s not just like, yeah, I better do it because my daughter died. You know, they don’t use the easy answer. They set it up in a way that makes you believe that Joel is wary that Joel does not want to take on this burden.
Jason Concepcion It’s such a underrated wrinkle, but really wonderful generator of drama in both video game in the show is the fact that Tommy has joined the Fireflies. And that was kind of the source of the of the of the the tear in the relationship between Joel and Tommy. Really, the only people that each of them have left is each other. And the fact that they would be torn apart like this tells you that it was it was really a big deal and dramatic. And it makes sense that Joel just would not. Fucking.
Rosie Knight It’s an ad. It’s like you said, it’s great. It’s a great, like, personal wrinkle that makes this strange, unexpected gun run become something so much more complex.
Jason Concepcion They head out, the three of them together outside of the walls. They take a tunnel, get out beyond the wall. And now they have to sneak out from under the gaze of FEDRA spotlights in the various patrols. And Ellie is thrilled, despite the danger. This is an adventure. Everything outside is like mud slicked visits. It’s a downpour. There’s like, these huge craters and stuff and lots of wreckage. But she’s having a fantastic time. She’s never been beyond the walls before. Now they don’t get far in their little sneak before a guard knocks Joel to the ground. There’s two guards. Actually, it’s a two person patrol. It turns out they radio in for backups. And now the clock is ticking. They do the thing that they’re trained to do by the book and they test the people they’ve caught. Tess negative. Joel negative. They’re about to do Ellie. Ellie knows that she’s going to come up infected. She gets her knife out. She stabs the soldier. And unlike in the show, shit just immediately goes.
Rosie Knight There’s no relationship between Joel and these FEDRA soldiers in the game.
Jason Concepcion It goes murder level right away.
Rosie Knight You have to kill him.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight You have to kill them. Tess is a murder death dealing machine, so she doesn’t care. Joel is dead inside because of his loss. And so dead. Dead. And you better get ready because you’re going to. You killed. By this point, we’ve killed a lot of, you know, Robert’s men of drug dealers. Now we’re going to have to start killing some FEDRA agents. So if you ever wanted to kill some soldiers, whew.
Jason Concepcion This is it.
Rosie Knight About to be happening.
Jason Concepcion So Joel takes down the one that Ellie stabbed. Tess takes out the other one. And, you know, it’s just interesting to think about at this point in the game, it’s been, you know, not counting the flash back to, you know, whatever year that 2003 or whatever year that was.
Rosie Knight Yeah, the Prolog.
Jason Concepcion The Prolog, it’s been about a day. And your mileage may vary depending on how you play. But Joel, in terms of probably killed 50 people a piece.
Rosie Knight Yes. Well, at least at least. And I do think it’s one of the most interesting things about the game and one of the most interesting things. You know, we talked about this, as you probably know, if you’ve been listening to our coverage and watching the show, this is we are getting into two second episode territory here. Oh, we are about to venture into the real second episode. And what’s very interesting is how coy the show is playing it with how dangerous humans are in this world.
Jason Concepcion Mm hmm.
Rosie Knight Because that is going to be a gut punch to Ali when it comes. Because in the game, you kill so many human people in the U.S. before you ever kill a zombie. But in the show, that is just not the case. And that was discussed. We see destruction. It’s such a smart change because also in the game, you have to kill people because that’s the nature of these kind of games. It’s a shoot em up. It’s an adventure game. It’s kind of a combo, almost a first person shooter. There’s all different things that are built into the gameplay, and that’s just the nature of what you need to do. But in this show, it’s really about grounding it in this humanity and also in Joel’s journey of of coming to terms with how many people and how many zombies, how many clickers, how many infected he has killed. That’s what we’re going to see in the show is a Joel and a Tess who are tired. This is Joel and Tess who have already done the terrible stuff that you have to do in the game, and they’re kind of sick of it. And I think it’s really interesting. But yeah, here, this is all out war, Tess and Joel.
Jason Concepcion Ellie is shocked by this.
Rosie Knight She’s like what the fuck.
Jason Concepcion She’s like, holy shit, these.
Rosie Knight Probably realizing she’s not in a good position As someone who just tested positive for infection with two strangers who love to kill.
Jason Concepcion She is absolutely shocked by this violence. Joel and Tess realize that Ellie has tested positive. Ellie panicked now because she just watched these two people commit murder. Like without any compunction, without any hesitation at all.
Rosie Knight Adults. Armed adults.
Jason Concepcion They are ready to do it. Pulls up her sleeve and she’s like, Look at this bite. It’s three works, it’s three weeks old. It’s healed. Like, have you ever seen this before? Like, I’m not I’m not sick. Do I look like a zombie? I’m not going to get you sick. And Joel has, like, heard this before. He’s heard about people who’ve claimed to be immune before. He doesn’t buy it at all, but they can’t. Come to a decision in that moment because Federer, the backup, is here and they.
Rosie Knight Oh they’re coming.
Jason Concepcion So now they’re they’re back in that little moat proper, dodging the QZ forces, dodging the spotlight. Soldiers are everywhere. This is a really, really fun and tense sneak heavy portion of the game.
Rosie Knight Yeah. And this is like really that moment. We kind of touched on it in the last episode when we were talking about this, but this is that moment where your gameplay strategy is going to start to come into play because I tried to go hot and heavy killing every soldier I saw and I died so many times. They set you up by the opening of the game, being all about kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. Then you get here and you learn. Actually, so often the easiest way to survive is to not kill and to use stealth and to sneak. And if you need to, to sneak up on someone, grab them with a triangle and strangle them with a square, you know, like we’ve done it many times at this point. But like, I think it’s a get out. Yeah, get this, get the shiv pop up. But like, it’s a really it’s a really good tone switch. And it’s one of those smart storytelling where it almost kind of sets you up for one thing, and then pushes you into a totally different style of gameplay. And this is such a fun, spooky segment because you kind of if you get caught by the, you know, the the massive spotlights, then they’ll find you and they send more soldiers and you really got to be sneaking. And it’s not just you, it’s you. It’s Tess, it’s Ellie and sometimes if, if you if you get seen then they’ll get seen and you have to kind of help them.
Jason Concepcion Extremely tense.
Rosie Knight So you got to be stealthing. That’s the best tip here. Stealth. Stealth.
Jason Concepcion Stealth X-ray Vision will be back. And we’re back. Eventually, they get out of their exit through some ruined buildings and then it and come out of a sewer pipe near what used to be an overpass. And it’s here that Ellie, you know, again, surely concerned that these two could just murder her outright tells them what the Fireflies plan was. It was to get her out of the QZ. And apparently there’s a secret lab somewhere out there to the west where scientists are working on a cure. And, of course, Joel and Tess have heard all of this snake oil shit before. You know it, they’re not impressed by this.
Rosie Knight It’s been 20 years. 20 years of no cure, no vaccine, nothing.
Jason Concepcion When Ellie tells them that, you know, Marlene says, I’m the whatever is making me immune is the key to the vaccine. Joel’s like, Okay, that’s it. I I’ve heard enough. I’ve heard this before. It’s very clear that there is no part of Joel that is willing or ready to to hope again. And certainly if even if there was a chance, it’s much too slim to risk a trip across open country all the way to Wyoming or wherever the fuck they’re going. Tess, however, maybe somewhat surprisingly, wants to try, although in the game, unlike in the show, it reads more as self-interest. Hey.
Rosie Knight Yeah, she wants. She wants the guns.
Jason Concepcion She wants the guns.
Rosie Knight She was promised. But I like this is the best thing about a good adaptation, right? Is they add context to something that you already love. And if you don’t love the adaptation, the other thing still exists. But I think in this case, when I’ve been replaying it. I was just from what I’ve seen in the show, Tess’ decisions were seeming like they had this extra weight to them.
Jason Concepcion I agree.
Rosie Knight Like maybe it was a little bit of hope that she was scared to show Joel. It wasn’t I it wasn’t just these guns which she was going to get from Robert anyway. So like, suddenly she has to do this whole extra mission. Why would she want to do that? Why wouldn’t she be just as reluctant as Joel? I love that It kind of adds this this elusive kind of like moral complexity to her choices. But yeah, you when you’re playing from what you’ve seen of Tess, you think it’s the guns.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight She wants those guns.
Jason Concepcion For sure.
Rosie Knight She wants what she’s and the statehouses, the Capitol, you know, Capitol building is not far away.
Jason Concepcion I agree with you and I feel like in the game, well, it’ll back up in the show. The relationship between and Joel. I think you’re exactly right. And I think. Episode two supports this and that. This idea that Tess was really the more hopeful one all along, but it was hiding that part of herself from Joel. Yeah, because she just understands that like when she snaps. We talked about this in our Wednesday episode when she snaps this. Can you just take the good news for once? You understand in that moment that that her frustration with Joel for never hoping for never you know holding out any kind of wish that the future could be better really kind of wears on her but she’s been keeping quiet about it in the game. They’re two peas in a pod like it’s Tess.
Rosie Knight It seems like she’s the leader. She’s the beacon and Joel’s kind of empty vessel.
Jason Concepcion He’s the follower. He is just lost and he is just wants to do anything in the game that will deaden the feeling of loss and tragedy that he’s carrying around. Whereas Tess is just a creature of rage, just lashing out, killing. Everybody. A good change, I think, from from Gates.
Rosie Knight It’s a really nice expansion on a someone who was essentially a side character that was given so much more weight than even people who knew Tess’ fate expected her to last longer in the show than she did.
Jason Concepcion On the trek to the state House. We learn from Tess in Joel’s conversations that the military bombed Boston and most of the big cities in a kind of vain attempt to stop the infection. Although I guess you could argue in Boston it kind of worked.
Rosie Knight It works, but it kind of just pushed the infected inside. That’s kind of and also, I will say this is the moment in in in this in the game, and in the second episode, this is when if you’ve played the game and you’re watching the second episode, or if you’ve watched the second episode and now you’re playing the game to catch up, you’re going to start acting like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and pointing at the screen and going, Oh, because they just they are just absolutely just. It’s so wild to see something so directly adapted, not just in visual esthetic, but in writing. Like to trust the writing of a video game to carry in a prestige TV show and to hear these lines. It’s just so cool.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, I agree with you. Eventually they get to the Capitol building and it’s here that our heroes encounter. And you, as the player, encounter your first clickers. The first, like, really, really dangerous boss level enemy. They are dangerous. They’re super aggressive. Of course, they cannot see. But they have pinpoint acoustical qualities akin to sonar and bats. And if you make any kind of noise, they will immediately key in on you and they will fuck you up. So now you as the player moving Joel, have to move through these ruins and dead, dead silence. And this is when in the game you will probably begin to really lean on distractions, bricks, whatever, to kind of throw.
Rosie Knight Bottles.
Jason Concepcion Lore the clickers away.
Rosie Knight Picking up like melee weapons to fight them with, like, pieces of wood, pipes, stuff like that.
Jason Concepcion Now, there was a you know, in our Discord, we’ve been discussing this Kotaku article that takes the opinion that The Last of Us would be better if it was more like the game. Basically saying, you know, why isn’t there more crafting? I’m paraphrasing and and the piece is worth reading as a as a kind of perspective. You know, why isn’t there more crafting? Why don’t they turn a Coke bottle into a silencer? Why don’t they throw bricks to distract? I, I take the point, but I actually love the way the clicker encounter went down in the show. It just felt, like, much more grounded. First of all, there are so many more things in the world.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion Literally. Everywhere, all around our characters that could have been used to distract the clickers. When Joel runs past the display case and pushes it over. You can’t do that in the game, right? You can only interact with, like, fucking bricks, bottles and pointless.
Rosie Knight Things you can basically add to your. Yeah, your pack. I think that’s a really great point. And also I do think personally that there are so many moments, especially in the second episode, you know, where we see like Joe binding up test his foot, which is essentially the same as using a MedPAC. We see some who’s just singing Tess. So I was going to say, which is such a big moment and sometimes you can get glitchy if they don’t give you the boost option, you know? So I was really liking that. I believe as we get further into the season, we will definitely see multiple like brick and utter moments even they won’t be like, no one’s going to be collecting them and putting them in the pack. But do I think that we’ll see Tess or. Joel, use a bottle?
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight And slash a brick. And do I believe that we’ll probably get some kind of modded melee weapon that is kind of like, like you would make in the game? I do. I also think that they translated the tension of the clickers so well because that as we’re about to get into. So you can see the state house in the distance, but you’re not quite there. You got to you’ve gone through an office building. That’s where you first meet them. That’s terrifying. You can kind of sneak around them. We’re about to head into like some. We got to climb outside the office building on this terrifying, like, window washing carriage. Then you’re going to go into Subway. There’s multiple different paths because this is a game and you want to get that long term gameplay. But in the show.
Jason Concepcion Right.
Rosie Knight They just send you right into the museum, right? Because they know that they need to have that impact. And instead of the tension of you must craft something, the tension there just all comes from the cinematography and the hiding.
Jason Concepcion I think that’s exactly right. And again, you know, people can have different opinions.
And the best thing is, the game still exist. Yeah, the game. So you can still go and you can still craft and you can still experience that part.
Jason Concepcion But I’m not sure as a viewer that the experience of watching our characters stop for 20 minutes to tape a Coke bottle onto a gun is like the best, most thrilling television like that you could watch. You want to watch them get right into it. And so I agree with you. I think all the changes they’ve made have been for the better. And I actually think I mean, this is a conversation for another day. But I think one of the reefs, so to speak, that the the ship of video game adaptations has crashed on over the years has been this idea that we need to translate the game to the, to the other medium.
Rosie Knight We need to translate the gameplay.
Jason Concepcion With fidelity, right? We need to like we need to have that moment in Doom where all of a sudden The Rock goes into P.O.V. first person and you see the gun. No, you don’t need that. You don’t. You really don’t need that to tell the story. The trio navigate to a window washing carriage still hanging from its cables after 20 years.
Rosie Knight Great visual moment.
Jason Concepcion Really fun moment. And then eventually to a subway station which is just absolutely fucking riddled with infected.
Rosie Knight You’re going to be shooting some monsters in that.
Jason Concepcion I guarantee you will die.
Rosie Knight You will die many times. But this does in this introduces probably my favorite crafting thing, which I do believe we’ll see in the show at one point, which is the Molotov cocktail.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight And it’s so cool because if you when one you’re in the subway, you learn how to make a molotov cocktail and you collect the bits to make it, as this game is very much about collecting, which kind of funny because it made me realize how much it’s like a cozy game. It’s like murder Animal Crossing. It’s like you have to collect all the things to do your recipes. But when you have the Molotov cocktail, the best, most satisfying part of the programing of this game is that if you hit a clicker with it, it will draw any other clickers with its scream so you can kind of draw them and use it to sneak past. And I found that to be a very useful technique. And that really first comes through in the subway. I’m excited to see if we’ll see a version of the subway, this subway sequence, and then, you know, later on in the game, as we’re going to talk about, they kind of go in the subway again. I’ll be interested to see if we get a subway setting in the show because it feels like it is quite a memorable part of the game. But there’s so much to fit in to this first season.
Jason Concepcion There really is. In the subway station, they find a body of a Firefly, and at this point, our heroes become.
Rosie Knight How many are left.
Jason Concepcion Are beginning to wonder if they’re even going to be any Fireflies at the drop off point with Ellie. Tess leads the way. She gets them through a shortcut through other ruins that take them to the place they need to go. Joel gets one of those rolling garage doors open just in time to avoid getting infected. You got to fucking be tapping it.
Rosie Knight Got to be holding it.
Jason Concepcion And here is where we get some fun Modding when if you’re playing, you get to Now you’ve probably unlocked some other modding perks by this point and your mileage may vary again, but you’re probably making health, you probably modding your weapons. Ellie tells Tess about how she was infected, same as in the show. She was hanging out at the mall in the QZ. No one’s supposed to go in there, but she got attacked by a runner, not a clicker. And in her panic, she went to go see Marlene, who, rather than execute. Ellie just decided to wait and see if the infection would take its course. Now, eventually, our heroes find themselves in a museum and the building is fucked. It is an advanced techno scare.
Rosie Knight It is really.
Jason Concepcion Carnival energy is collapsing around them in different stages, and a collapsing beam separates Joel from Tess and Ellie. And then you hear Tess scream, Joel, They’re here. And then they run off and who knows what’s happening with them. Joel, You as Joel the player, as Joel now has to fight their way, you know, through different infected, sneaking around them, fighting them when necessary to pig. And your mileage may vary. I don’t know how good you are at the game, but I barely made it out several times.
Rosie Knight No, no, this was the funniest thing that I though.
Jason Concepcion I died many times here.
Rosie Knight I was thinking a lot about like why they chose the museum because there’s so many different segments that didn’t make it in. But then I was thinking like, Well, it took me a long time. And there’s like a lot of strategy that you have to work out for, like the runners and the clickers and kind of the time that they come in and the clickers in berserk mode and everything. And I was like, Oh, this is in that because I know that no matter how good you are at games like this, you Googled how to get out of the museum.
Jason Concepcion 100%.
Rosie Knight At least once. Every single person who played this game did that.
Jason Concepcion And by the way, here’s another thing that hasn’t been adapted for the television show, Joel’s incredibly precise ability to hear where enemies are through walls.
Rosie Knight Oh, I love.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight He needs to be doing this more in the game.
Jason Concepcion He needs to be doing that more. After the fight. Joel and Ellie, share a moment. Looking at the state house, you know, they’re on the roof now. There’s a fresh sunrise. It’s beautiful. Tess is like, Hey, let’s. Let’s fucking go, guys. Let’s pick it up. Joel says, Yes, ma’am. They come across more Firefly bodies now. One of them is carrying orders, which you, as the player, can read. And indeed, you should. They say, quote, Ensure no military presence before moving the girl to the next safe house and then scribbled in handwriting underneath the typed orders. Quote, Make sure the girl is well-fed and in good health. Her safety is of the utmost importance. Now they’re moving through Boston Commons, which is like a flooded swamp now. And eventually they get to the state house. They find all the Fireflies dead. Tess searches the bodies, you know, hoping that there’s a clue, a map, something that says where they’re going so that they can finish this deal and get the guns and all the you know, who knows what else? You know, where’s that lab? Ellie just says somewhere out west she doesn’t know. Tess and Joel now argue. And just like in episode two, Tess reveals that she has been bitten somewhere in the museum during that fight. Oops. Right, she says. Tess grabs Ellie’s arm, rolls Ellie sleeve up, shows it to Joel and says, Look, that’s a three week old bite versus my bite from an hour ago.
Rosie Knight This is real.
Jason Concepcion This is real, Joel. This is fucking real. You’ve got to get this girl to Tommy’s. And it’s so a truck of Federer show up at this moment, but it’s actually really interesting. I find myself wondering. If that truck doesn’t show up, I kind of think Joel says, No, I’m not going.
Rosie Knight Yeah, no, I think so, too. I think. I think that Joel would have probably waited. Or he would have had to, Tess would have had to shoot him or he would have had to shoot Tess. Like it was not he wasn’t going to leave like this is this is just going to be another unrelenting loss.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. And I certainly don’t think he escorts Ellie any further west. With Tess out of the picture, I think he goes back to the QZ and just decides to become an even more aggressive and dedicated murder smuggler criminal. To to kind of like numb the pain is.
Rosie Knight Like you said, he’s the next Robert.
Jason Concepcion Yeah. I don’t I certainly don’t think he is going to be like, yeah, what the fuck? I’ll take Ellie.
Rosie Knight I also think is really interesting because that in that moment, that’s the first time that we see Tess have hope. And it’s just before she’s about to die. She’s like, This is real. Get this girl to tell me is like the implication there is like, you can fucking save the world. Like this is the cure we’ve been waiting for. This is actually real. I feel like when they were making this show, I feel like Druckman and Mazin and the crew, they were probably. That was the moment they probably took to expand on Tess’ character because it feels so true to who she is in the show. And then we get this really interesting moment because like you said, FEDRA, I love that they changed this in the show to the infected. I think it’s really affected. We’ve seen the evils of FEDRA, but in the game is horrific.
Jason Concepcion Tess spends her last moments begging Joel to take Ellie, and then when he does and they exit the area, holding off the FEDRA troops, she dies and.
Rosie Knight You hear her screaming as you run away and you hear them shooting her.
Jason Concepcion So Joel takes Ellie through a door. Now you’re on the other side of it. And like in a in a large foyer or something. And Ellie is absolutely shocked that they left Tess. She can’t fucking believe it. She’s like, we left her to die. She had she’s just met Tess and watched Tess commit. A murder. Mm hmm. And it tells you a lot about Ellie. Again, we mentioned this in our previous episodes about the show and the game. How Ellie is the only person that you encounter in this world who actually cares about other people and.
Rosie Knight Values life. Just baseline.
Jason Concepcion Just baseline is like, we can’t just leave her. I know she was infected, we can’t just leave her to die. And I think that it’s important to remember that as we move towards the ending of the Last of US game because everything we know about Ellie in this game is that she wants to help people. And if given the full information about.
Rosie Knight How she might be able to do work.
Jason Concepcion How a cure could be developed from her. I think there’s no question, she says. I’ll do it.
Rosie Knight Mm hmm.
Jason Concepcion No matter the cost, I will do it. And it’s important to remember that you’ll never like he. He’s doing what Tess said here, but he’s kind of forced into it. And at the end of the day, he kind of doesn’t respect Ellie’s agency as much as he loves her. He doesn’t respect her point of view. X-ray Vision will be back. And we’re back. Joel and Ellie have to evade the FEDRA to escape the state house in this more fun action. It’s here that the player as Joel acquires the hunting rifle for the first time. Yet it’s also here that Ellie starts asking for a gun, of course.
Rosie Knight And also this is the really this is the really head fuck moment, which is like you’ve just they’ve just killed Tess. So narratively and emotionally, you just want to kill all of the soldiers because you know that they just killed her. But you have to stealth to survive them.
Jason Concepcion You have to.
Rosie Knight You cannot you there is like a number of soldiers, and the only soldier you really, really have to physically kill is the one who’s, like, guarding the door so you can’t get out. Otherwise you can really stealth and occasionally, you know, strangle people. Are you killing them? You can decide. You could say you’re just you’re just doing a really good choke that they’re just going to wake up, but probably killing them. But like, it’s really interesting because they set you up again to be in this emotional, angry state that Joel would be in, which is like, fuck them. They killed this one person who is my partner, and then the game’s like, Not enough. You want to survive and get out of this stake out alive, you got it. You got to just ignore them. You got to just focus on survival, it’s so interesting.
Jason Concepcion As they’re escaping, they encounter a cloud of cordyceps spores, and Joel puts his gas mask on. Ellie just breathes it, just breeze it. And if and if Joel was, you know, had doubts before, surely they are now fading away because he is just watching her with his eyes, just breathing in spores that should cause her to get infected is absolutely zero effect. They eventually get above ground. And Ellie tries to apologize for Tess and Joel says, here’s how this is going to play out. You don’t talk about Tess ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves. Most importantly here, Joel stresses to Ellie, and she’s heard this before. But now it’s Joel’s turn to tell her that she can’t tell anybody about her immunity, because that will probably mean her death. And also, by the way, you got to do exactly what I say. You’ve never been out here before. You don’t know what it’s like. I do.
Rosie Knight It’s going to end badly for you.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, just. Just do what I say, Joel. In need of a of a next move. A vehicle would be helpful. Decides to steer them towards a town called Lincoln, an independent town where Joel says, quote, Someone owes him some favors. So they make the move to Lincoln through the woods. And Ellie is just reveling in nature in the in the in the emerald leaves.
Rosie Knight It’s so beautiful.
Jason Concepcion Butteflies.
Rosie Knight It seems like such a juxtaposition to the kind of ruins, even the overgrown ruins of Boston. This is just pure nature. And Ellie is so happy to be there.
Jason Concepcion One of my like Pavlovian responses to this game happens when I think of or hear like Ellie laughing somewhere off on the map. You know, you’re playing I’ve got headphones on. I’m playing as Joel, I’m looking at a singer, I’m scavenging, and I hear Elie kind of laugh. And then you go over and she’s looking at something beautiful, that she’s never seen before.
Rosie Knight Giggling, singing, trying to teach us about the whistle, which she’s always doing. And it sounds like she’s turning into an infected. So Joel’s always really stressed about it.
Jason Concepcion So there’s one of these moments right here where you find Ellie kind of like reveling in a swirl of actual fireflies, real fireflies. And then she says, Sorry, I lost myself there for a moment. Just wonderful, really magical moment. Now, apparently, this town is inhabited by one guy who’s got his name is Bill. He lives somewhere in the town which is riddled with booby traps all along the way. Now they can see kind of a single fire or something, you know, maybe half a mile, maybe three quarters of a mile into the town. And that’s probably where Bill is. There’s a moment here where Joel and Ellie have to be briefly separated, which is really fun. Now, on the way to Bill’s, Joel tells Ellie about Tommy. He says that Tommy is, I don’t know. It’s unclear at this point like what his status with the Fireflies is.
Rosie Knight He’s maybe a former Firefly. He was a Firefly once. It’s unclear, but he was there. And that makes Joel believe that he’ll know what to do with Ellie.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, he he’s Tommy will know what to do. Meanwhile, Ellie continues to, you know, communicate, wonder about everything she’s seeing. She they pass by like an old garden store.
Rosie Knight And you can dig around and get crafting stuff. And Ellie just fucking loves garden gnomes.
Jason Concepcion It’s so good. She says, Man, I had an art book filled with these. I always thought they were super cute. And then later she finds an arcade game that she.
Rosie Knight With like a cool, like, Wolverine style character on the front.
Jason Concepcion An abandoned pizza parlor. And he’s like, Did you play this? How do you know this game? She’s like, No, but I had a friend that knew everything about this game. Apparently there was a character called Angel Knives. He’s like Mortal Kombat esque finisher combo was like a gut kick decapitation. And she’s like, I wish I could play it. So as we noted, Bill’s town is just booby trapped to the gills. Landmines.
Rosie Knight Trip wires.
Jason Concepcion Deadfalls.
Deadly trip wire.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, He is a guy who knows how to acquire things, which has made him helpful to Joel in Tess in the past. And of course, they’re hopeful that he’ll be helpful to them. Now, here on a bread truck heading into the town, Joel finds a bow and arrow, which is extremely is probably the thing I use the most in this game.
Rosie Knight It’s really good for headshots.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, it’s great. Great, great.
Rosie Knight Oh, my God. As Saul said a bread truck, exclamation mark.
Jason Concepcion Bread truck, Folks. Be careful.
Rosie Knight Careful. Don’t eat that bread.
Jason Concepcion Ellie is like, Hey, I’m good with the bow and arrow. It turns out, by the way, if you know and as the game progresses into the sequel, that she is quite good at it.
Rosie Knight Not untrue.
Jason Concepcion Not untrue. But of course, Joel is certainly not ready to to trust this girl He just met with a deadly weapon that, you know, will probably end up stuck out of his back if he chooses to her. As they get closer to the smoke plume, Joel tells Ellie, Hey, just beat when we find Bill.
Rosie Knight Just be chill.
Jason Concepcion Yeah, just be chill. He’s he’s weird. He is not going to be trusting of strangers, you know? And he says he close by saying, you know, he’s a good guy, but, you know, let me do the talking. Ellie agrees. Joel leads Ellie to what looks like an old mechanic’s garage. And here is where one of Bill’s traps strikes with a really, really dangerous and cool effect. This is one of like, kind of.
Rosie Knight This is one of most unique sequences.
Jason Concepcion Action scenes in this game. It is really fun. So there’s a loud bang, a rattle of chains, and next thing you know, you, as Joel, are upside down, hanging by your leg from the ceiling, ensnared in one of Bill’s traps, anchored on the other side by a refrigerator. Joel is like, Ellie, get on top of the refrigerator and cut the rope and cut me off of this. Now, while Ellie is doing that, of course, the infected are coming. They’ve been drawn by the sound and they are swarming everywhere. And so now you, as Joel, hanging upside down, have to shoot these infected really as best you can with your head and muscle.
Rosie Knight And there’s like it starts off with runners. Who do you think you can deal with? And then the clickers come. You know, it is it is so intense and you’re probably going to die a couple of times before you succeed.
Jason Concepcion Oh, for sure.
Rosie Knight And if you’re playing on easy.
Jason Concepcion And folks, the cutting takes fucking for Ellie.
Rosie Knight Because for Ellie they’re two sanctions first, she starts cutting it and it kind of falls and then she has to properly cut. And that’s when the clickers start and you’re really fork like you’re in trouble.
Jason Concepcion And now the clickers are here. The infected, the the, the fast ones are here and they’re chasing Ellie all around the fucking garage. Joel is, is like, Hey, hey, come over here. Look at me. Like doing his best to draw their attention and shoot them and reload. Finally, Ellie cuts the rope. Joel lands headfirst on the ground with an infected on top of him. And you’re thinking, I’m getting ready to jam on this square, baby, I’m going to be hitting this square button, but the infected is killed. And you look up and there is Bill and it’s, you know, shades of 28 days later. Yeah. That moment where they chased by the infected go into the apartment building. They’re drawn by the lights. They crawl to the top of the stairs and it’s Brendan Gleeson in like a full butcher smock and like a gas mask
Rosie Knight You have the gas mask and Bill has this long hair. He’s going to be played by Nick Offerman in this series, which I think is a very exciting casting. So yeah, it’s, it’s a really good, scary moment. Like you think there’s relief, but it’s, it you’re not really relieved when you see him.
Jason Concepcion In the game. Bill is voiced by W Earl Brown, who you might remember from Deadwood, another classic, the fantastic show Deadwood. Bill leads them to relatives safely with the infected, always just like a step behind. And you’re having to fight your way out now. Really fun segment. Eventually you get to do something like a safe house that’s like a brick building that’s been kind of like reinforced with metal plates. Ellie is like, Oh, man, thank you so much for for showing up when you did adds, you know, that you really saved our ass. And then before she can really even finish that Bill has her handcuffed to a pipe and he’s got his gun out and his gun is on Joel.
Rosie Knight Who is this punk? Like what is the reason? Why would you bring that here now?
Jason Concepcion Honestly fair play to Joel? Yeah. I would be pretty fucking paranoid, too. And, you know, Bill rightly says, Hey, you, come here. You come to my house, you set off all my traps. You damn near break my arm. What the fuck is going on? Who is this girl? Ellie’s fierceness, which has been hinted at before and flashes during the game. Most notably that the first meeting of Joel and. And Ellie Flashes. Now she says, I’m none of your goddamn business, and we’re here because you owe Joel favors. And you can start by taking these things off. She means the hand and bills like favors. What the fuck? What? What favors? Could I possibly owe Joel? And here we get Joel’s ask. And Joel’s ask, honestly is pretty. It’s pretty shocking to hear. He’s like, I need a car.
Rosie Knight He’s like, Hey, can I just have, like, a car? Not just a battery. Just the whole car. A working car.
Jason Concepcion Can I have a working car?
Rosie Knight Sure. You don’t need that.
Jason Concepcion A live, a live battery and some gasoline.
Rosie Knight Not too much to ask. Not too much to ask.
Jason Concepcion Bill is like, First of all, if I had a working vehicle, why the fuck would I give it to you and two, no. Ellie, completely ignoring Joel’s earlier warning to, like, not get into it with Bill, gets into it with Bill, and Joel has to be like, Oh, and settle her down. Joel then notes, Hey, there’s a lot of, like, wrecked cars around here. Like, couldn’t you? You’re very handy, Bill. You could, like, assemble something. And Bill has that kind of know how, and he kind of comes around and decides to do it. He shows Joel and Ellie a map of his town showing important locations. He says, okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. Joel, you and Ellie, for all I care, I don’t give a shit, gather the stuff that I need from these places marked on the map and then bring it back and, you know, and we’ll see what happens. Maybe I can put together something that runs. But after this, he says I owe you nothing. And he gives Joel the handcuff key to unlock Ellie, and he leads them through the booby trap town. Bill is like, Where’s Tess? You guys are thick as thieves, usually. Where she at, Jules? Like, you know, she. She is not here is. And this is just a simple drop off job. The stuff Bill needs is on the other side of his town. So the first place that we stop is the armory, which is a very useful area for the players, because now you’re restocking on ammo. Fucking hell. Fun shit, bricks, fucking pipes.
Rosie Knight Which at this point you’ve only been able to do by shoving your way into like random locked rooms which wastes one of your weapons that you really need to kill quick. So it’s it’s a it’s a double edged sword, but this is a great moment of of relief of their loving us into a false sense of security, with some actual weapons.
Jason Concepcion There’s a great moment that tells you who Bill is. Right. There’s a there’s an infected that has been ensnared in one of his traps. And Bill is just casually like, Hey, you didn’t answer my question about where Tess is while decapitate city. Did you know so good? There’s another here as they’re moving through these kind of like dead vehicles in the middle of the street, there’s another infected swarm that you as the player, have to fight off. Really fun moment. And eventually they get past that. Bill tells Joel about why he chose this town. Because Joel is like, this is kind of you’re kind of vulnerable here, no? And Bill says like, no, because the infected are really predictable. And he says, and this will be, you know, again, every zombie movie foreshadowing. This is every zombie movie has this hypothesis. Bill says, quote, It’s normal people who scare me. You of all people should understand that. And that’s every 28 days later.
Rosie Knight Walking Dead, the Road, which is like post-apocalyptic. We’re not zombies, but, you know, it’s yeah.
Jason Concepcion It’s always the people that are the worry.
Rosie Knight This is a very interesting thing that he says. I think they do a really good job here of setting up some kind of history. Bill keeps asking where Tess is. Bill says you should understand that Bill kind of taught there’s this illusion of a history between Bill, Joel, and Tess that we know that they’re going to expand on in the series. But here is just these really interesting illusions. Is he saying you of all people should understand that because humans did something terrible to Bill, or is he saying it because Joe, a murderer? Like, it’s a really interesting bit of writing.
Jason Concepcion At the armory. Ellie, yet again is like, hey.
Rosie Knight I need a gun. Gimme a gun.
Jason Concepcion I’m ready for a gun.
Rosie Knight Please, can I have a gun, Sir?
Jason Concepcion Bill and Joel have a side conversation. Bill is like, Hey, just quick, if I like. I think that this is crazy what you’re doing.
Rosie Knight Don’t do it.
Jason Concepcion And I think you should take this girl back wherever the fuck you found her and leave her there.
Rosie Knight Again, interesting moment, because, like, Billy’s this kind of prepper survivalist who doesn’t give a shit, who doesn’t owe Joel anything, but then suddenly wants to share his insight into this relationship with Joel and give him this warning. It’s so interesting.
Jason Concepcion Bill later tells Joel that, you know, once upon a time he had a partner, someone he had to look after. I highly suspect that we’re going to learn more about this in the show. This is this is all we kind of get of this in the game. And if if episodes one and two are any guide to the kind of philosophy that Mazin and Druckmann have taken with this adaptation, it’s that they’re going to pull on these little threads that are left hanging in the video game narrative and they’re going to flesh them out. So I would not be surprised to see that. But he says, you know, that’s slowed me down. Being with another person, being attached to another person, it put me in danger. So he doesn’t really say what happened. But he essentially says that he ditched this person in what manner that ditching took place. We don’t know. I again, I will assume that we were going to find out Sunday night. Joel is like, okay, okay, enough lectures. I’ll take a shotgun. He takes it. Bill then shows Joel how to make a nail bomb out of a soup can, which is very wonderful. And you need a fantastic and useful recipe for Joel’s crafting menu. And then Bill tells Joel where they’re going. There’s a FEDRA truck on the other side of town. They used to come through here. They come through here regularly scavenging, looking for things. And that FEDRA squad was overrun by a horde of infected. And the truck is still there and it probably still works. Probably still has a working battery, too, because it wasn’t that long ago. Joel is like, okay, this might work. And the trio had off their church out a stained window toward the local high school in the FEDRA truck and will pick it up in chapter three of our Last of US video game.
Rosie Knight Dun dun dun.
Jason Concepcion Dun dun dun. And it feels like just the right place to stop because again. It feels like we’re heading right into what’s going to happen.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion Sunday night.
Rosie Knight It feels. Yeah. I will say this is a very good point that we’re at because you can listen to this without worrying. The episode three will be spoiled for you. That’s what I will say. This is we are going to get that expansion Jason talked about and oh boy, I can’t wait to talk to you about that episode.
Jason Concepcion Up next, Nerd Out.
Rosie Knight In today’s Nerd Out, where you tell us what you love and why. Or, as you have so kindly been doing recently, sharing a theory with us. Elizabeth pitches us a theory about a location from the upcoming Quantumania movie. And I’m very glad Elizabeth sent this in because I know she has been very excited about this theory. And Jason, I’m going to let you read it because I think this one I think this is a very astute suggestion.
Jason Concepcion I think so, too. I think there’s something to it. Morning, Rosie and Jason. Hello. Okay, so here it is. It starts with quantum mania. The media, when they are in the quantum realm, she’s talking about the shots from the trailer. It really reminded me of the TVA. You can pull both areas up and they aren’t identical. But to me, it looks like the TVA is underground and the quantum realm is above ground. So here it is. The TVA and the quantum realm are the same place. Furthermore, there’s a possibility that TVA was set up in the quantum realm to contain Kang, and that’s why he needs so much help to escape. So from here you can open up the ideas of like, Is the clue, is it the Illuminati who helped lock in Kang? The possibilities are endless. Enjoy. Elizabeth, I like this a lot.
Rosie Knight Yeah.
Jason Concepcion I think that. I think that there is something to it. I think that there’s something to whatever it is that Loki unleashed. That was unleashed at the end of Loki. It created this branch universe where King is free, quote unquote, free. And it would not surprise me at all, if, for instance. When. Okay, so when Loki comes back at the end of, you know, the very stinger of of the final episode of season one and we see the statue of King, I bet you that takes place after Ant-Man and Quantumania.
Rosie Knight Oh, I love that. That’s that makes a lot of sense. And I will say I remember that I think that this visual nod that Elizabeth is seeing is not unintentional, because do you remember when they went to the dog world at the end of time, like where He Who Remains lives.
Jason Concepcion Yeah.
Rosie Knight Everyone was like, oh, this kind of looks like, you know what we were. The quantum realm, the microverse. It looks like it could be in there. So I think there’s a definite connection. I also think it would make sense that if Kang established the TVA in, you know, the timeline as we know it, that one version of Kang, that would mean that any Kang would have the knowledge to establish the TVA. Or maybe one of the Kang who was trying to stop Kang the Conqueror. I’m guessing who’s in the who’s in the quantum realm could have established a version in the TVA. I love your read that, that version, that Loki season two takes place after. And that’s what we’re seeing because I won’t hang to get out. Yeah, I want to. I want to see every Kang. I want to know where he is. And we just have to say here that I’m very happy to see people finally saying what I’ve been saying all along, that the ten rings are obviously in the Ant-Man and the Quantum Mania trailer. That looks like that kind of thing. And also, can I just say, I know no one else is saying this, but I am saying.
Jason Concepcion Go for it, please.
Rosie Knight Phastos obviously made the ten rings in Eternals we saw it’s the same circle like that. There is a connection between these different artifacts, and we’re going to find out it’s only a couple of weeks now. I can’t believe it. Just a few weeks. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Jason Concepcion Yes.
Rosie Knight Yeah. If you have theories or passions that you want to share and we know you do. You can always hit us up at Xray@crooked.com. Instructions in the show notes. And then we’ll read them out and talk about them. Especially, you know, we love to hear a theory, so. Yeah. So send them over.
Jason Concepcion All right. That’s it for our show today. Stay tuned for our continuing coverage of The Last of US, the show and the game. And of course, we’re going to check in on The Bad Batch and other shows as they pop up. Rosie plugs, plugs, plugs, plug, plug, plug plugs. What you have to plug?
Rosie Knight You can find me on Letterbox’d and Instagram. Rosie Marx, M-A-R-X. I’ve been writing about Last of US at IGN. I will have some really cool Ant-Man: Quantumania stuff coming out. And obviously you can hear me here because this is really now the home of most of my theories and my outrageous tinfoil hat thoughts. So yeah, just check us out every Wednesday and Friday. We have Double Vision. So lucky.
Jason Concepcion Catch the next episode on Wednesday, February 1st for more of The Last of US on HBO. And remember, we’re bringing you two, two, two episodes a week. That’s twice the everything else. Don’t miss it. Wednesday and Friday, in your podcast feed.
Rosie Knight And if you want to read a transcript of the show, they’re posted beneath the show Notes on the Crooked website for each episode within 48 hours of release. And do not forget subscribe on YouTube, where you can now watch full episodes of the show, including us in the Crooked studio together, IRL. Please. Follow XRVpod on Twitter and join our Discord. Lots of you have been joining. It’s great. Tons of amazing people in there, fans. It’s wonderful. All kinds of media, all kinds of cool spaces in there to hang out. And me and Jason are in that. And if you’re loving The Last of US, we’ve been doing some really fun watch alongs.
Jason Concepcion Speaking of the Discord in our Discord, we’re giving away a really cool Last of US activation pack. It is a Last of US branded Carhartt backpack containing a Last of US Carhartt jacket, much like Joel’s wearing.
Rosie Knight Which is really cool.
Jason Concepcion Which is really cool. A little tool kit so that you can craft your items and weapons. A poster and QR code that allows you access to unique The Last of US social media filters and more stuff in there. It’s really cool. Join our Discord and head over to the giveaways channel to learn more and to sign up. And we’ll be doing a random draw next week in our Discord to see who will receive that really cool Last of US Activation Pack. Five Star Reviews. Five Star Ratings. Five, five, five, five. We got to have them. We need them.
Rosie Knight We love them.
Jason Concepcion You got to give them to us. He’s one from.
Rosie Knight You got to deliver.
Jason Concepcion You got to deliver. Here’s one from Greenman. Always upbeat and fun. Thank you.
Rosie Knight Thank you.
Jason Concepcion This podcast is always upbeat and fun. The point of view is always why you should like a movie, TV show, comic, etc. and never tear it down. The hosts and guests have encyclopedic knowledge of geekdom and it is fantastic to listen to. Thank you, Greenman.
Rosie Knight Thank you. That’s definitely it.
Jason Concepcion 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. See you next time.
