#PaigeGoneAnalysis

[paigegonerogue]

I love how TLOU HBO uses colors…

Before Sarah dies the colors are a lot warmer, a lot “kinder”, almost

But when she dies, and it transitions to present day, the colors get colder. More stark.

But Ellie’s colors are warm

And you see that contrast…

…then you see their color schemes come together

[jacksonscouts]

Last week @paigegonerogue grabbed 4 badges on the first day! Let's get to know our fellow Scout!

How do you usually participate in the TLOU fandom? 

I’d say… unhealthily…No, but I love TLOU and I write fanfiction and I also do analysis of the show. I ramble about anything from dialogue to cinematography to emotional beats!

I post mostly positive and complimentary things on my tumblr and on my AO3, which as my readers can tell you is also very positive and uplifting😅😅

Happy Pride Month! How do you feel about the portrayal of queer stories in TLOU?

Happy pride month to you too! I really love it! I love how they present different types of love and relationships with so much care and tenderness, and let the people be real. But also Long, Long Time was so cruel of them to make because that broke me!

Do you like Jackson Scouts? 

I absolutely love it! I think it’s really awesome how you’re trying to bring some positivity and fun into a community that can be very negative! I think it’s super cool what you’ve been doing, and how you’ve given a lot of people a reason to share art and writing, and say things they liked about TLOU rather than the things they didn’t, which seems to have been a lot of what I’ve been seeing lately.

Who's your favorite TLOU character and why? 

I mean, that’s too hard man🤣😭 So, so many. I love them all. TLOU has so many great, depthful characters and—Ellie, it’s Ellie—to just choose one would be impossible!

Would you like to promote anything?

Oh heck yeah! I feel famous lol. First, I’d like to go promote my analysis posts about TLOU. They’re on my blog @paigegonerogue (same as my AO3) under the tag #PaigeGoneAnalysis (could that be cleaner? Yes. Am I gonna change it? Nope.) I’ve talked about cinematography, dialogue types, the infected scene, episode 8, and more! If you’re interested in reading multiple paragraphs about lighting, boy oh boy do I have the blog for you!

Next, I’ll promote my AO3! I write non-smut fanfic, currently with two ongoing projects going on, ‘Anatomy of a Broken Girl’, a series where Ellie and Joel meet at Silver Lake (super dark and angsty fic), and ‘AbelCode’, a story where Ellie and Joel meet working for a tech company (more upbeat) (mostly…)

I’d also like to thank all of my writer friends, who all do absolutely incredible work… and also myself because I WON. I GOT ALL THE BADGES FIRST I WON😎🔥🎸

[paigegonerogue]

I love this scene so much. Ellie and Joel are surrounded by strangers with guns and Joel’s having a panic attack and Ellie’s just like “DOGGY😃😃😃”

[paigegonerogue]

TLOU s2 first look (in video form) came out, and HOLY FUCK IT’S INCREDIBLE!! But you guys know me… you know how I am… let’s analyze this sucker.

Spoiler for tlou part 2

Other than the amazing dialogue and acting here, this scene thrills me because now we know we get at least a little more time with Joel. Thanks, Craig❤️

I’ve seen people say it could be therapy, which I love, but it’s also possible it could just be a normal conversation. Either way, I can’t wait!

Onto the next shot!

The “the tattoo looks bad!” People are sweating lol This looks AMAZING!! The scarring makeup is so well done! But ALSO did someone say shallow depth of field?? No?? Okay we’ll screw me I guess. Also, IT’S THE MOTH AGHHHHHH

Beutiful recreated shot. The shallow depth of field is gorgeous, and the lights… it’s just beutiful!

First thing’s first…

👏BELLA👏FUCKING👏RAMSEY👏 …holy shit.

It’s possible that the person holding onto Ellie’s shoulder is Maria, since if you turn your brightness up you can kinda see her side-shave hairstyle.

I have two theories for this: 1, this is right after the chemical burn? Or 2, this is after Joel dies? I could be totally wrong, though.

The guy in the background doesn’t look familiar to me, and none of the main cast have beards like that. I think he’s a new character, probably just a small role as a doctor.

ALSO DID SOMEONE SAY SHALLOW DEPTH OF—

This is definitely Jackson. You can see that the gates are the same as Jackson’s from ep 6.

And I’m fairly sure that it’s an infected horde, since none of them seem to have guns or weapons.

FUCK YES. LET’S FUCKING GO.

(No analysis here. Just hype.)

Definetly Seraphites, probably from the iconic forest scene. Looks great, love the lighting here.

First look at Dina!! Woo!!

Ellie has an assault rifle, and I think she might be on some rafters here, judging by the metal and because she’s definitely above ground level.

Gorgeous landscape shot, probably around the Jackson area.

JEFRREY WRIGHT RAHHHHHHHHH I don’t believe there’s a fight in the kitchen with Isaac in tlou part 2 (correct me if I’m wrong, but I definitely don’t think so?). He could be fighting Ellie here, which would probably be triggering for her (bad memories of guys fighting her in kitchens)

Firstly, KAITLYN LOOKS SO GOOD WOOHOO!!! Secondly, awesome recreated shot.

Not 100% sure, but could this be Tommy and Ellie? The first person looks like Tommy, with the longer dark hair and jacket. And the second person has the same color jacket that Ellie was wearing in the first look, and seems smaller than Tommy, which would also line up.

Awesome shot! I bet this is in the tunnels, especially since the shot after you see an infected slam against the doors.

Anyway, those are all my observations for now! This was the best 20 seconds of my day, and I’m so UNBELIEVABLY hyped!!

[paigegonerogue]

Now that this has become a topic of discussion (again) there’s something I gotta say…

Honestly? I have some problems with Ellie’s part 2 design. Not because it’s a bad design, but because of a completely different reason:

Ellie in TLOU part 2 is nineteen years old. After the time-skip she’s 21-22.

Ellie in Part 2 is a Hollywood teenager. Plain and simple. And I know people are going to hate on this because they love Ellie’s character design, and it’s not that I think it’s bad, I just think it’s important to acknowledge that it isn’t realistic.

I’ve seen so many ways people have tried to justify it, saying things like “well stress and lack-of-food make people look older”. Yeah, they do. What they don’t do is turn people into models. Stress doesn’t give them perfect cheek-bones and plush lips—it gives them wrinkles. A couple scars doesn’t make someone look realistic—especially when they’re precisely placed as to keep the sex-appeal at a maximum. Ellie in TLOU part 2 was absolutely designed to be attractive and appealing to people. The design wasn’t made to be realistic, the design was made to be marketable.

It’s absolutely fine to love the character design, what’s not fine is to expect people to look like it and be mad that they don’t.

Bella Ramsey looks like a real nineteen-year-old. Bella Ramsey looks like a human. Bella Ramsey didn’t have their appearance designed pixel-by-pixel and shown to focus groups and adjusted so they could look good to as large a range of people as possible.

People look like people. Get over it.

[paigegonerogue]

Something the Last of Us s1 did that I hope s2 and onward continue with is that every death matters. Every death affects the characters, the viewers, and the story, even if just a bit. And not just the main one’s, like Tess or Riley, but the small characters too. The one’s who are only in it for one scene.

I think it’s interesting how for me at least, when I hear a video game is getting adapted, I automatically think of the set-pieces and combat and how it’ll get adapted, but with TLOU HBO, the new medium actually allowed for them to scale down the violence, rather than up. (Except for the infected sequence in episode five, but that’s a whole other post about why that one worked so well).

After every death you see the characters faces. You see how it affected them more than you’d be able to with a video game (no hate to video games, they need more enemies to remain something you can play and it wouldn’t be realistic for a cutscene to happen every time you killed something).

I think it’s a testament to how well done TLOU HBO was, and how both versions played to their respective strengths as a medium. The game needed enemies and things to do so it didn’t become a long cutscene, but the show was able to scale down the violence and really make every death matter with dialogue and shots and closeups that just wouldn’t be realistic for a game, but works so well for a show.

[paigegonerogue]

Something TLOU HBO does SO well is show that Ellie’s just a kid. Even when she’s fighting for her life or in situations no kid should ever be in, she’s still just a kid. A kid who’s trying to act like an adult, sure, but just a kid.

She pretends she’s tough because that’s how she’s survived, but you get these wonderful, occasionally heartbreaking moments of seeing just how young she is.

You see it when she’s laughing with Riley or fascinated by a car. You see it when she’s making stupid decisions that she doesn’t know any better than to make. You see it when she tries to help Sam and has no idea what to do, and when she’s lost and scared while Joel’s incapacitated. You see it when she breaks down in her father-figures arms after learning a new horrible thing about humanity, and in her curiosity and naivety and recklessness.

She’s a kid so out of her depth, with nothing but the weight of the world on her shoulders and the lessons she’s learned from living in a world where everyone’s doing awful things to survive. She tries so hard to pretend to be in control, but you see these glimmers of the kid that she is, and her good intentions and hope that the world tries and tries to take away from her.

[paigegonerogue]

I think a lot of people forget that Ellie and Dina in part 2 are only nineteen. Nineteen! They’re still teenagers whose brains aren’t fully formed, yet they’re dealing with a crazy situation and going through hell, on top of that losing loved ones and an unexpected pregnancy while they’re still freshmen in college!

It adds this whole other layer to the story, of these kids who grew up in the apocalypse falling deeper into the ways of the world they live in, and about breaking the cycle of violence and vengeance in the game’s conclusion.

Season 1 of TLOU HBO did amazing at showing the fact that’s Ellie’s still just a kid, way too young to be in this situation, and I bet (and hope) that’s something they continue to focus on in Season 2.

[paigegonerogue]

My Top 5 Shots in Every Episode of TLOU

Episode 1

TW: Guns, creepy imagery

Quick disclaimer that I was not able to find two scenes I wanted for shots in this list. I couldn’t find unedited versions of the scene with the infected child, or Ellie’s introduction, however their are plenty of other amazing shots in this list without them!

Number #5

The Last of Us quite often has very shallow depth of field. That means shots in which the background is out of focus (blurry). It works well for a lot of things, like making really pretty shots or drawing attention to certain things, but in this case it uses it for suspense. Ms. Adler twitching in the background is absolute nightmare fuel, and the way that it was played, with the camera focused on an unaware Sarah the whole time, was so incredibly well done and scary that this shot became one of my favorites of the episode.

Number #4

This one is great on a lot of levels. Not only is it pretty, with the out of focus fire lighting half of Sarah’s face (making the shot prettier with shallow depth of field), but the color scheme absolutely rocks too. But I think my favorite thing about this shot is the emotion it portrays without saying a word. Props to Nico Parker, because the tone of the visuals and her devastated expression really show the toll the apocalypse is taking on Sarah.

Number #3

This shot is a masterclass in “show don’t tell”. With just this image, we instantly know exactly what type of place our protagonists are living in. Dirty streets, snipers on roofs, lack of freedom or happiness. Somehow this one shots delivers paragraphs of exposition, and does it so well and good-looking that it’s not only bearable, but excellent.

Number #2

Another example of how well this show uses depth of field, this shot works on so many levels, and also just looks absolutely awesome. The contrasting colors of the oranges and browns of the set vs. the blues and grays of the screen is so striking, and I have just always been an absolute sucker for shots of shots, and this is one of the best executed ones I’ve ever seen.

Before I reveal my #1, here are some honorable mentions…

This shot is simply fantastic. The explosion, the people, the view through the car window, it all just works absolutely so well.

Another excellent example of visual world building, showing the tanks driving through the streets. The ultra-high camera angle also looks fantastic, and the way they used the rooftops and textures is just incredible.

Two really gorgeous, well-lit shots of Sarah.

Just like the entire show, this is a really well lite scene, and the way it uses depth of field is so well-done and pretty. Also the high 3/4 angle is fantastic, and don’t even get me started on the eery, creepy tentacles.

Number #1

This is just an I incredible shot all around. The side profiles and rim-lighting for Joel and Sarah, the out of focus explosion centered in the background. It’s so well executed, and you can feel the emotion, the fear, coming through the screen. Bravo!

Tune in for ep 2 tmrw!

[paigegonerogue]

Something that TLOU HBO did that I loved was that they let Ellie be an actual, real fourteen year old girl.

I feel like so many shows just assume that teenage girls are inherently unlikeable, so they portray them as stupid, annoying pests who should never be take seriously. Sometimes if they don’t do that they’ll go in the opposite direction, making their teen girl characters distance themselves from the demographic by being so unbelievably charming, mature, and witty that it becomes impossible for real people, especially real teenage girls, to live up to it. (As great as The Last of Us Game is, it very much does that).

A lot of times that ‘perfect teenage girl’ philosophy also carries over to appearance, with teen girl characters always dressing and looking mature, stylized, and unrealistic.

(Not the main point of the post, but you can absolutely see how these portrayals harmfully affect real teen girls by making them feel like they aren’t worthy of love unless they conform to impossible standards) (is this getting about me? Pfffffft, nooooooo…)

But The Last of Us HBO doesn’t do that. It lets Ellie be a real teen girl with all her faults. It doesn’t portray her as annoying or idealized, it portrays her as a real person who deserves to be taken seriously, and that’s something that will always help the flawed-14-year-old still inside me. She’s awkward and abrasive and charming and funny and brash and sweet and it sees her not as a pest but as a person. Someone who doesn’t always look perfect or fashionable. She’s someone who cries and screams and gets flustered without it being something to make fun of.

Craig Mazin, the main writer for the majority of the show, doesn’t see being a teen girl as something inherently wrong. I think it’s because he has a now-adult daughter who it’s clear he adores. He wrote Ellie with so much respect and care, and it’s clear he loves the character (and is also a fantastic show runner)

Thank you, Craig Mazin

[paigegonerogue]

Quick appreciation post for Bella Ramsey’s performance as Ellie!

I’ve talked a lot about how much I love their performance, but I’m gonna do it again because there isn’t enough Bella Ramsey appreciation in the world (“But they were nominated for an Emmy!” Shut up, there should be more.)

Bella Ramsey put so much heart into their performance, fantastically showing us Ellie’s humor and big heart and hope, but also showing us her fear, her sadness, her rage. This sharp bite that she needed to develop to survive in the world of TLOU. They played the characters’ highs and lows with this incredible amount of depth, of humanity. They showed us Ellie’s hopes and her trauma. Their performance exhibited this raw edge that left the moments of pain splintered in your mind and the moments of joy that warming your heart. It was truly incredible👏👏👏

[paigegonerogue]

Can I just—

LOOK AT THIS GUY!! LOOK AT HIM!!

I LOVE THIS ZOMBIE SO MUCH!!! He’s like… gorgeous, in this scary way. The cordyceps growing out of him, the way he moves, it’s just amazing.

Not to mention the prosthetics, makeup and effects that went into this. Seriously I cannot express my love for this big guy.

Me:

[paigegonerogue]

In ep 9 of TLOU when Ellie wakes up in car after Joel kills the fireflies, her hair is kinda splayed out over her head on the car seat.

…if she was just put down normally, her hair wouldn’t been at least partly under her head, which means Joel fucking readjusted her hair to make her more comfortable after he massacred a hospital!

Good god this show will never leave my brain…

[paigegonerogue]

TLOU s2: Behind the Camera

One of the most anticipated shows of 2025, The Last of Us (my favorite show of all time), is likely getting an official teaser trailer this month for the absolutely stacked season 2! If you’ve been keeping up with the news around it, you’ll know the incredible new actors added like Kaitlyn Dever, Isabella Merced, Jeffrey Wright, Katherine O’Hara, and Young Mazino, but they’re not the only rockstars stepping onto the set.

(Super long post)

Directors:

Aside from the amazing returning directors, TLOU has added four prestige legends to the lineup. Thank you for your service, Ali Abassi, if you’re past work directing stories about blonde sex-offenders is any indication, your Trump biopic will be fantastic.

The four directors added to the lineup are Stephen Williams, Kate Herron, Nina Lopez-Corrado, and the legend himself, Mark Mylod.

Stephen Williams, the director who’s known for constantly directing episodes with an 8.7 score on IMDB (that’s not what he’s actually known for). He’s directed episodes of Westworld (one in s1 and one in s2, both with an 8.7 score) and Lost (in which he has two more 8.7s, and I believe over 10 other episodes in the range of .2 points of 8.7), so he’s pretty good with time-skips and flashbacks. He’s also worked on Persons of Interest in which he directed another, you guessed it, 8.7 episode, as well as two more win the .2 range of it. Recently he’s broken out of the “almost nine” range with HBO’s Watchmen, in which he directed episodes 3 and 6. (He’s directed 9s before, but this was the first time where they weren’t surrounded by 8.7s). His work with time shenanigans, and the fact that TLOU is rated 8.7 on IMDB, make this a fantastic match.

Kate Herron is next up, known best for her work on Loki. She directed the entirety of season 1, which includes my favorite episode of the show ‘The Variant’, in which Loki and Mobius go to the location of a disaster in the near future to find a sinister variant. It’s practically a demo real for TLOU, since a lot of it takes place in a supermarket filled with people waiting out a disaster that none of them survive, showing she’s got the skill to pull of apocalyptic. She also delivered us the absolute gold of the salad scene. Other than that, she directed multiple episodes of Sex Education back when it was still beloved and acclaimed.

Third we have Nina Lopez-Corrado. While she hasn’t directed shows quite as high-caliber as some of the other directors, she’s proven she’s good at found family through her work on Agents of Shield, in which she delivered one of the highest rated, and roughest episodes of the show ‘Devil Complex’, in which our favorite characters get put through absolute hell (so she’ll be perfect for TLOU s2!). She’s also shown that she can get Tumblr obsessed with queer ships with her work on Supernatural…

Last and certainly not least is the most well known and acclaimed of the new directors, Mark Mylod. I believe he will be directing the most episodes of this list, but I’m not entirely certain. Mylod is probably best known for his amazing work on Succession, which he won an Emmy for. He’s directed all of my favorite episodes except Panic Room and America Decides. While he’s worked on other projects like Game of Thrones, Entourage, and The Menu, it’s his directing for Succession that gets me most excited for his work on TLOU. He’s proven he can elevate emotional scenes, and his directing is consistently incredible across all spectrums of human feeling. His thematic work with grief, trauma, and the cycle of violence will very much carry over into TLOU, and I can’t wait to see the absolute emotional brutality and heartbreak of his direction paired with Bella’s acting. Actually I can wait because holy shit I’m not going to make it… He directed Kendall’s traumatizing car crash in the s1 finale, Shiv’s self-destructive decisions in Ternhaven, Kendall’s breakdown in s3 when he admits to Roman and Shiv what he did, Roman’s grief and self-harming behaviors at the funeral, the bittersweet bonding in the finale of the show, and obviously Connor’s Wedding. If you’ve seen Succession or know the plot of TLOU part 2 you’ll know exactly how that might carry over…

You thought this was the end? Hell no! Directors aren’t the only ones behind the camera!

Writers:

Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann wrote season one. Their brilliant writing elevated the show and led to some truly unforgettable moments, and this season they’ve brought in some more incredible writers to help!

Halley Gross co-wrote The Last of Us part 2 alongside Neil Druckmann. No one was particularly surprised by this news, but it’s still great nonetheless. It’s clear how much Mazin respects the source material, and I love how TLOU brings in the people who wrote the games to help adapt it for television. She also wrote episodes for Westworld s1.

The other writer is more unexpected. Bo Shim joined the writers room of TLOU s2, but we don’t know much about him. He currently has no official writing credits, which either means it’s a pseudonym (which I doubt), or, more likely, they found a young, talented writer who hasn’t made it big yet and decided to give him his big break and use his skills for TLOU. If you’re looking, Craig, I know a film student who’d love to join the writing room for TLOU…. She’ll do it for free… she’ll pay you… please??

Cinematographers:

Cinematographers work with directors to create the look of the show, the shots, the lighting, etc.

Ksenia Sereda, who did the cinematography for TLOU episodes 1, 2, and 7 will be returning along newcomer Catherine Goldschmidt who worked on the always-gorgeous House of the Dragon.

Some of her amazing HotD shots:

Finally, Emily Mendez and Timothy A. Good are returning as editors. Set designers Austin Chuqiao Wang, Kyle White, and Shannon McArthur are returning as well.

There are wild amounts of other crew members who work on everything from lighting to costumes to vfx to storyboards. If I mentioned all of them this post would be as long as the credits, but every single one of them is important to the show and helps make it as incredible as it is!

I can’t wait for season 2!

[paigegonerogue]

I’ve seen people ask where they’re going in this shot at the end of episode 8…

…but this actually makes sense.

Considering they didn’t kill all the Silver Lakers in the show, they’re probably weary of raiders. Going to the water’s edge not only means that they don’t have to worry about being ambushed from one side, but it also obscures the sound of their footsteps with the water.

…God, I fucking love this show.

[paigegonerogue]

I know people give Marlene a lot of flack for telling Joel about wanting to kill Ellie, but to be fair, the last time she saw them together, Joel didn’t seem all that “invested” in the “cargo”…