This was both incredibly affirming and eye-opening to read, especially the paragraph on how Tess's death scene related to the show runners personal understanding of Israel-Palestine "relations" (playing TLOU pt2 definitely keyed me onto that possibility but I never dared look it up, already too emotionally bruised and betrayed, though it's interesting to see how that world view plays out not just in this opinion of cycles of "revenge" but also death/rape).
This is definitely a case of the writer not only wanting to prelude to the story of pt2 (which obviously wasn't even an apple in his eye when pt1 was written) but I think an almost purposeful form of leaning into the audience's hazy years old memory of the relationships in pt1. That they must have reckoned audiences could have been repelled by a mean Joel and wouldn't want to tune in to next weeks episode of "now why is nice ol' pedro pascal not being nice to ellie?". Though I am definitely giving them far too much benefit of the doubt for this nostalgia tour of repeated content.
All in all very sad to read this post-ep3 where Bill was in fact Not A Cunt :(
I'm especially grateful for your comments on the mischaracterization of Ellie. "Levity" is an essential descriptor for the originality of her character as it develops through the pacing of the original game, and well into the second; hashing out an HBO series to pander to hounded-on tropes by fans dedicated to years of over-analyses served to kill everything that made her interesting in the first place
To edit dialogue IN THE SHOW ITSELF for the sake of shitty pacing is such a misstep. You haven't just written a critical piece here; its a highlighting of rightful ire that everyone's kept at bay for the sake of diehard fans and their feelings.
Better video game adaptations plz. Had you only been in charge...
I cannot express how much I appreciate you being a hater right along with me. I feel consistently insane every time I see the HEAPING praise piled on this show that, to me, has been astonishingly mediocre at best.
Anyway, I wanted to add a few of my own thoughts that have come up as I've worked my way through your posts.
1. "Although apparently not obvious enough, because rather than trust the audience to make that extremely obvious connection to something that happened, like, less than an hour ago in the same episode, or trust Pedro Pascal to convey what he was remembering via, I don’t know, acting, the show actually inserts a FLASHBACK to the parallel scene from EARLIER IN THE SAME EPISODE. Okay. Prestige television, sure."
You're so right about this one and I think one of the most egregious examples is from the third episode, when Joel tells Ellie there's stuff ahead she shouldn't see, foreshadowing Deeply Traumatizing Horrors and then it's....a ditch with mostly covered skeletons. So they shows us the skeletons, with the subtle detail of childish print on a cloth blowing in the wind and I have a brief pang of emotion... Then Joel tells in a very explicit voice over exactly what happened and THEN just in case the audience is REALLY stupid, they have a flashback showing us what happened and that it was in fact a mother a child that was saw in the ditch. It's like being beaten over the head and saps any emotional resonance out of the scene. For a show that's desperate not to show us any of the cool action sequences the game has, they're also physically incapable of any kind of subtlety.
Bringing me to observation 2, which builds off of what you've said here: it feels like the dhow runners are desperate not to tell an action-horror zombie apocalypse story. They have no respect or interest in the genre conventions or the way the game subverted any of those conventions, resulting in a weird clunky thing that leans too hard into zombie tropes (like the swarms of undead) while simultaneously rejecting any of the action, combat or suspense that made the game fun. I think the really egregious example of this is (aside from the scenes you highlighted where the main characters just....walk away from the action) is Joel getting stabbed in ep 6 instead of impaled on the rebar. For a zombie apocalypse show there is almost no action, combat or suspense -- and I'm not saying those are strictly speaking necessary for me to enjoy the show, but god is it boring without them.
And my last addition 3. Tess's death was the moment I really started to worry about the quality of the show going forward. Everything about it was utterly awful and impractical. I rarely find myself critiquing fictional suicides but Tess made nothing but dumb choices so that Mazin could have his weird, fungus r*pe scene. It's really when I started to think "ruh roh" and lose faith. Then of course episode 3 happened and killed any of my remaining hope dead, quite brutally, and much more efficiently than Show!Tess or Joel could have.
Oh my goodness thank you for this very long and eloquent comment! you're so right about the avoidance of action it's really a criminal failing of the show. if you don't want to do action you've either got to cut it out entirely or you've got to really COMMIT when you portray them and this show does neither. its always interesting to hear when people lost faith in the show; for me it was the casting of pedro pascal which made me think "uh oh are they going for a cuddly guy vibe." and unfortunately i was right. also the colouring which imho looks like shit god bless.
the sublety thing is also absolutely ridiculous and so frustrating. it wastes time and flattens the story and doesn't leave you with little tendrils of themes that you can think about it just spells it all out!! its so stupid.
This was both incredibly affirming and eye-opening to read, especially the paragraph on how Tess's death scene related to the show runners personal understanding of Israel-Palestine "relations" (playing TLOU pt2 definitely keyed me onto that possibility but I never dared look it up, already too emotionally bruised and betrayed, though it's interesting to see how that world view plays out not just in this opinion of cycles of "revenge" but also death/rape).
This is definitely a case of the writer not only wanting to prelude to the story of pt2 (which obviously wasn't even an apple in his eye when pt1 was written) but I think an almost purposeful form of leaning into the audience's hazy years old memory of the relationships in pt1. That they must have reckoned audiences could have been repelled by a mean Joel and wouldn't want to tune in to next weeks episode of "now why is nice ol' pedro pascal not being nice to ellie?". Though I am definitely giving them far too much benefit of the doubt for this nostalgia tour of repeated content.
All in all very sad to read this post-ep3 where Bill was in fact Not A Cunt :(
yeah, i definitely agree that they wanted people to like "good ol pedro pascal." and it's working so i mean *shrug* thanks for commenting!
Yeah go Tab!! Tear the bitch apart!!
if you are brave it's because you can slay
Thank you for writing this.
thank you for commenting!
Well written; just incredible Tabs.
I'm especially grateful for your comments on the mischaracterization of Ellie. "Levity" is an essential descriptor for the originality of her character as it develops through the pacing of the original game, and well into the second; hashing out an HBO series to pander to hounded-on tropes by fans dedicated to years of over-analyses served to kill everything that made her interesting in the first place
To edit dialogue IN THE SHOW ITSELF for the sake of shitty pacing is such a misstep. You haven't just written a critical piece here; its a highlighting of rightful ire that everyone's kept at bay for the sake of diehard fans and their feelings.
Better video game adaptations plz. Had you only been in charge...
thank you zahra <3
I cannot express how much I appreciate you being a hater right along with me. I feel consistently insane every time I see the HEAPING praise piled on this show that, to me, has been astonishingly mediocre at best.
Anyway, I wanted to add a few of my own thoughts that have come up as I've worked my way through your posts.
1. "Although apparently not obvious enough, because rather than trust the audience to make that extremely obvious connection to something that happened, like, less than an hour ago in the same episode, or trust Pedro Pascal to convey what he was remembering via, I don’t know, acting, the show actually inserts a FLASHBACK to the parallel scene from EARLIER IN THE SAME EPISODE. Okay. Prestige television, sure."
You're so right about this one and I think one of the most egregious examples is from the third episode, when Joel tells Ellie there's stuff ahead she shouldn't see, foreshadowing Deeply Traumatizing Horrors and then it's....a ditch with mostly covered skeletons. So they shows us the skeletons, with the subtle detail of childish print on a cloth blowing in the wind and I have a brief pang of emotion... Then Joel tells in a very explicit voice over exactly what happened and THEN just in case the audience is REALLY stupid, they have a flashback showing us what happened and that it was in fact a mother a child that was saw in the ditch. It's like being beaten over the head and saps any emotional resonance out of the scene. For a show that's desperate not to show us any of the cool action sequences the game has, they're also physically incapable of any kind of subtlety.
Bringing me to observation 2, which builds off of what you've said here: it feels like the dhow runners are desperate not to tell an action-horror zombie apocalypse story. They have no respect or interest in the genre conventions or the way the game subverted any of those conventions, resulting in a weird clunky thing that leans too hard into zombie tropes (like the swarms of undead) while simultaneously rejecting any of the action, combat or suspense that made the game fun. I think the really egregious example of this is (aside from the scenes you highlighted where the main characters just....walk away from the action) is Joel getting stabbed in ep 6 instead of impaled on the rebar. For a zombie apocalypse show there is almost no action, combat or suspense -- and I'm not saying those are strictly speaking necessary for me to enjoy the show, but god is it boring without them.
And my last addition 3. Tess's death was the moment I really started to worry about the quality of the show going forward. Everything about it was utterly awful and impractical. I rarely find myself critiquing fictional suicides but Tess made nothing but dumb choices so that Mazin could have his weird, fungus r*pe scene. It's really when I started to think "ruh roh" and lose faith. Then of course episode 3 happened and killed any of my remaining hope dead, quite brutally, and much more efficiently than Show!Tess or Joel could have.
Oh my goodness thank you for this very long and eloquent comment! you're so right about the avoidance of action it's really a criminal failing of the show. if you don't want to do action you've either got to cut it out entirely or you've got to really COMMIT when you portray them and this show does neither. its always interesting to hear when people lost faith in the show; for me it was the casting of pedro pascal which made me think "uh oh are they going for a cuddly guy vibe." and unfortunately i was right. also the colouring which imho looks like shit god bless.
the sublety thing is also absolutely ridiculous and so frustrating. it wastes time and flattens the story and doesn't leave you with little tendrils of themes that you can think about it just spells it all out!! its so stupid.