#and i have my ep 6-8 thoughts just half written sitting in my drafts bc school and life has been busy lately

[silentsockfeet]

tlou hbo s1 ep9 thoughts (w spoilers)

really did love the scene we got with anna i’m just upset that we didn’t get more!! it’s so symbolic to have ashley play ellie’s mother and that moment felt cheapened by the fact that we still know so little about her. why not get to know her, watch her life and how the outbreak impacted her, see more of her relationship w marlene so that when the moment comes where she has to die we know just how much that hurts! there is so much more they could’ve done and i’m mad that they chose to rush through it

okay i’ll stop the rant and talk about what i liked about it now. really loved how much of that classic ellie attitude shines through in anna’s lines, the spunk was inherited i guess. and i really love that you can tell just how much love ashley poured into anna and therefore anna pours into ellie, she is so careful with her and insistent with marlene about taking care of her. ellie was so so loved from the beginning and it is so evident in everything anna does

especially loved how insistent anna was about telling marlene she cut cord before she was bit. it was a flat out lie but she was so intense about it that i almost believed her for a sec despite having just watched the scene. she is so strongly protective of ellie

joel’s goofy dad side really came out this episode every little moment is just him trying to get a smile out of ellie. the line with the dynamite really cracked me up he’s tryin so hard

watching ellie drop the ladder i was sitting there screaming at joel like GET OUT THE WAY ur about to get conked by a ladder!!! lol

giraffe scene my beloved ❤️ that’s all i just love it

“i’ll follow you anywhere you go” thanks i’m but a broken shell of a human!! and when we get dina’s ‘you go i go’ parallel next season i may actually pass away

joel’s admission about trying to kill himself,, it surprised me at first but hoo boy that hit. i like that it almost felt as if he HAD to tell ellie, like it clawed it’s way out of him. it’s his time to finally admit out loud how much losing sarah hurt, but also how much ellie means to him. and seeing them letting themselves be so vulnerable with each other made my heart ache

we got the apocalypse joke so actually this is the best show ever it did nothing wrong

UGH joel storming the hospital while a deep slow orchestral version of the theme plays fUCK ME UPPP gustavo always delivers

laura bailey as one of the nurses 👀 i’m wondering if they’re gonna have her play a bigger character in s2 and give her some connection to abby

i am a bit sad that they didn’t have the whole chase sequence with joel carrying ellie out of the hospital. i get that it probably works better in the game but idk i think they could’ve gotten it to work. that scene is just so loaded bc it’s like you have her and you’re almost there and the tension and fear is so high that when you escape all you feel is relief and happiness that you saved ellie. would’ve liked to have seen that translated into the show

the extra little bits of joel’s lie were fun, especially when ellie asks if marlene was okay. i almost feel like in the game ellie could sort of write off the lie easier bc it was a generalized thing? but since joel adds the extra details here and specifically sort of half lies about marlene for some reason to me it feels even more painful. idk did a bad job of explaining that but yeah i really liked the additions

i know i’ve complained about how they’ve been using pt2’s score for this first season so much but playing ‘unbroken’ after joel lies to ellie is like smart but also so mean. like i’m already dead on the ground you didn’t have to drive the knife deeper

“i’m not saying that you’re not girly-“ “i’m not” i fuckin love ellie so much. gonna get serious for a sec but ellie being super masc is one of the reasons i fell in love with her when i first played the game bc i felt so seen by it and idk just hearing it addressed so directly just made me happy

also loved the fact that joel basically called ellie short. bella said short king rights ig

also also i just loved that whole sequence in general, joel just wants to make sure that ellie knows that she’s not some replacement or that joel doesn’t view her as sarah but as her own person and he’s a dork about it but it was so heartfelt

okay so. i’m not happy that they confirmed ellie kills riley tbh. i was never a fan of that idea in general bc it didn’t feel right to me. and even despite my own personal opinions about how i think ellie leaves riley i think there’s something to be said about having ambiguity around it. leaving it open let’s people form their own thoughts and feelings about it, it engages them and makes the story feel more personal, so confirming what actually happens just feels cheap to me.

the other thing is too, i knew they were gonna confirm it as soon as marlene kills anna bc they were setting it up to be such an explicit parallel. they could’ve still left riley’s fate open ended in that final convo and people would’ve come to the same conclusion bc of the setup beforehand, but at least this time there’s like active engagement and analysis happening with the audience. i just don’t think there was a need to actually have it explicitly confirmed. idk i just did not like it at all.

overall tho i’m glad the ending stuck so close to the original. i liked the changes they made to joel’s dialogue in the final scene, it was like a little surprise

so anyways kinda can’t believe this show is real tbh like wow they really took my favorite game and turned it into a show. and obviously i have some complaints about it but overall it was still super good?? this is a thing that happened??? wack. it’s gonna take a bit for it to sink in that it’s over for now. i’m excited for season 2 tho, bella ramsey is a goddamn power house and they’re gonna fuckin crush part 2’s story