On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight cook up some…venison? In the Airlock (0:59), they dive deep (deeep) into HBO’s The Last of Us episode 8, recapping and discussing Joel’s violence, David’s creepiness, and manipulative leadership. Then in Nerd Out (55:29) Jason and Rosie discuss a listener theory that crosses over between Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and The X-Men.

 

Note: Imprecise timestamps are an unfortunate side effect of a new ads system. Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.

 

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Nerd Out Submission Instructions!

Send a short pitch and 2-3 minute voice memo recording to xray@crooked.com that answers the following questions: 1) How did you get into/discover your ‘Nerd Out?’ (2) Why should we get into it too? (3) What’s coming soon in this world that we can look forward to or where can we find it? If you’re sending a theory, feel free to send only a summary of your theory (no audio needed) for Jason and Rosie to react to on air.

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Jason Concepcion Warning. This podcast contains spoilers for The Last of Us Episode eight and potentially some minor spoilers from Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania in our Nerd Uut section, so be warned. Yeah. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion.

 

Rosie Knight And I’m Rosie Knight.

 

Jason Concepcion And welcome to X-ray Vision, the Crooked Media podcast, where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.

 

Rosie Knight In this episode, I hope you’re hungry because in The Airlock.

 

Jason Concepcion Dinner’s served.

 

Rosie Knight Dinnner’s served some delicious venison. In The Airlock we’re talking about The Last of Us Episode eight. And in Nerd Out it’s a theory on Ant-Man and the WASP Quantumania. You might have heard of it.

 

Jason Concepcion If you want to jump around, as always, check the show notes for the timestamps. Let’s get into it. Coming up next, The Airlock. We’re stepping out of The Airlock and into the restaurant for The Last of Us, episode eight, titled, When We Are in Need, written by Craig Mazin and directed by Ali Abbasi. And we open with scenes of Deep Winter, We see a not quite frozen lake somewhere in Colorado. We see a sign for Silver Lake, Colorado. And over these wintery images, we hear the voice of a man saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. The preacher’s name is David. He is the leader of a small Christian fundamentalist group whose motto is When we are in Need, he shall provide. And David is reading these lines with sadness. It seems, you know, he’s got this. He really projects this kind of like humility, but almost like he’s trying to project this humility. He’s so he’s been you know, he’s been weighted down with this responsibility and he’s all too familiar with the sadness that that responsibility brings. There’s a young girl and a woman, we assume, to be her mother, sitting close to the preacher. They look distraught. He then asks the girl if she remembers what comes next. She doesn’t, so he finishes it for her, he says, and God will wipe the tears from their eyes and there will be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. The former things are passed away. Do you know what that means? And basically it means heaven is pretty good. Now this. The daughter and the woman are the family of, we are soon to find out over the course of this episode, the man who was killed in the previous episode when the group of Raiders attacked Joel and Ellie.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, it’s definitely very interesting. I really like the choice here to show us what happened, show that the Raiders were the aggressors, and then to have this kind of opening where they want to flip that on its head. But there’s always this creepy edge to it where we know what really happened. We know what these people do to survive. We know they will go out and kill people. But here the family hears the fallout and it’s again, it’s that question of what will we do to survive. But here we’re not going to get an empathetic version of that story. This is something, as you will gain from the next line, that David says this is something much darker.

 

Jason Concepcion Well, in the most empathetic reading of a situation like this, you know, in the in the you do what you have to do to survive formulation. Right. You get killed taking another people’s stuff that will just kick off this cycle of retribution you would imagine. And that’s very much what this yeah not just this episode but this series is is about on a certain level. And it really seems to know no spoilers but to be pointing their head towards the themes and content of the sequel.

 

Rosie Knight Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion Game two of The Last of Us.

 

Rosie Knight It really does. From Kathleen to here, we’re really getting a lot of hints towards what happens in the in the second part of the game.

 

Jason Concepcion And it also like not to belabor it but it also you know when. When that’s your dad you don’t want to believe they do bad stuff.

 

Rosie Knight No.

 

Jason Concepcion And they died doing something good. They did? Yeah. He died fighting.

 

Rosie Knight He was a hero, you know?

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. The bad guys killed him.

 

Rosie Knight I think that’s really powerful. And I think that they do a great job with this character. Is the young girl being your in character. She is ignorant to what is really going on in this colony, as we will find out. And also, as we later learned, David is a manipulator. He is a groomer.

 

Jason Concepcion Par excellence.

 

Rosie Knight He is a violent, horrible man. You know, this is this is someone who who is manipulating the people who follow him. And I love that we do get this one moment of somebody who truly believes that they have been wronged and they don’t know the context. And obviously, to her, it’s just a shocking loss. But like you said, I like that it shows that seed of retribution. And we’ll see the young girl trying to seek her out later to.

 

Jason Concepcion The girl asks if they can bury dad and a look passes between David and a few picked men here in the. What we are soon to learn is like the the restaurant of this former resort. And David’s like, now, you know, the ground is. It’s frozen. It’s frozen solid, folks, until the springtime. Don’t worry, we’ll. Well, let’s put a pin in that marrying thing. Let’s say March, April, we’ll come back to it.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And it as you will if you’ve read the road, if you’ve watched The Walking Dead, you probably understand that this point, what is really going on in Silverlake. Because when they when she asks that and David shoots a look to his men you know including Troy Baker here in a new role who played Joel in the game. You know what’s going on. And it is creepy AF. You know. You know.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, yeah, yeah. You definitely feel it. And if you don’t know right here, you.

 

Rosie Knight Get you.

 

Jason Concepcion Certainly you certainly understand that something is amiss.

 

Rosie Knight Mm hmm.

 

Jason Concepcion Later on, David bids his congregation bye. They head back to their homes. And James, his. His lieutenant comes up. This is the man that David exchanged the glance with, and they start talking about t the stores. How how, how much meat we’ve all left. Elk, venison, all that stuff. And James is like, you know, one or two weeks something somewhere thereabouts. We and you learn that David has groups scouring the surrounding area for supplies. But there’s really nothing to be found in this in this region. David then tells James that, you know, I’m sensing some doubt here. And James is like, What? No. The congregation, like, obviously, like it’s tough. People are hungry. It’s very, very cold. But they they their faith remains unshaken. And David’s like, No, no, no, no. I’m talking about you, bro. What about you? And James is like, No, I still believe the less. And it’s always when someone says, I still believe and then goes on talking.

 

Rosie Knight It, you know, like they like after the but, Right? It’s like, I still believe, but…

 

Jason Concepcion You know. There’s no but here, but it feels like James, James says, I still believe now. And then, you know, the last six months have been hard. But he insists that he’s with David. But again, it seems like a pretty weak assurance. Back with our friends, Ellie and Joel. Ellie is checking on Joel’s wound. You know, it’s certainly not bleeding any more after Ellie’s kind of hasty and rough sewing up of the injury. But, you know, infection.

 

Rosie Knight And Joel’s struggling.

 

Jason Concepcion The regular kind.

 

Rosie Knight Struggling

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, is certainly a concern. And, yeah, he and Joel is absolutely out of it. There’s this wonderful, like, maternal moment, you know, with the the the roles suddenly flipped where Ellie chews some jerky, you know, almost desperately and then leaves it on on Joel’s blanket for him to eat. Should he rouse himself and need to need to eat. And then she slips away to go hunt. She tries to tackle a rabbit that doesn’t work. She and then soon after that, she. She spots a deer, takes aim. Shoot it. But the animal, it’s not a kill. Shots of the animal kind of runs. She has to go find it. And of course, it drops dead right at the feet of David and James, who are in the area looking for forage, looking for supplies. Ellie gets the drop on them. She’s like, Drop your rifles, turn around, walk away. David goes right into preacher mode.

 

Rosie Knight Yup.

 

Jason Concepcion And.

 

Rosie Knight He’s ready.

 

Jason Concepcion He’s ready specifically, as we are going to learn over the course of this episode, he sees a young girl by herself. Mm hmm. And David is like, Oh, shit. Here we go. Yeah. Hey, that’s really. You have 10 seconds. Hey, just before you. Before you shoot us off your deer, you have 10 seconds to talk about. You know, where you are spiritually and.

 

Rosie Knight We’re starving.

 

Jason Concepcion He just goes into his pitch.

 

Rosie Knight It is you want. Yeah, You need to help us. We got other people, women, children. You know, he’s going tfor the guilt trip, and he really wants Ellie to go back with him now.

 

Jason Concepcion And he and he offers a trade. He’s like, Maybe there’s something we can help you with. You know, you give us half the deer and, you know, we have stuff. And then before he can even, like, list anything, she just blurts out, Do you have medicine? And then David is like, Aha, here is a vulnerability. Here is the thing that I can I since I have leverage here and Dave is like oh yeah, we got, we got lots of medicine. You come back with us to our cabin. Ellie’s wisely, is like No.

 

Rosie Knight Thank God. I was worried for a moment, you know, like she’s not the most sensible person, but I like her here.

 

Jason Concepcion She’s doing all of this for the first time, you know?

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, but I like that here. She. She trusts that. God, that’s that instinct that when you’re a kid, your parents are like, if you feel that, just follow it. Like, if somebody gives you a bad vibe, don’t go. And she does the right thing and she’s like, I’m not going back with you.

 

Jason Concepcion Then she does the slightly less unwise thing, but still in wise thing, which is. She lets James go back to get the medicine. He goes. David is like, Hey, go get two bottles of penicillin from Howard and a syringe. James is like these look in his eye, like, is this code for.

 

Rosie Knight He’s trying to decode it. Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Something? Yeah. And, and David is like, it’s not code, James. Just do it. Now, when he says it’s not code, James That should have been Ellie’s first clue that like, Oh, yeah, that’s right. Part of a group. I’m sending this guy back.

 

Rosie Knight He might tell somebody.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, I need to be. I need to be on guard here.

 

Rosie Knight But it’s about Joel’s survival. I think Ellie has that tunnel vision in this episode. Just about how can she help the man that she cares so deeply about come through this? How can she avoid being alone? Which, you know, she said to to Sam was her greatest fear.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. So David and Ellie and up in the ruins of this house, they’ve built a fire, and they’re sitting there with this deer carcass. And Ellie’s got her gun on David the whole time. And David is continuing his pitch. She’s like, Why don’t you join us? Why don’t you join our group? And Ellie’s like, It doesn’t sound that great because you yourself said that you’re starving.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. Sounds like it’s a good job.

 

Jason Concepcion Her Yeah. It doesn’t sound like you’re doing great. You’re stealing, my dear. I think.

 

Rosie Knight I am a child and I killed a deer. And now you are stealing it from me. I don’t think it sounds like a good trade.

 

Jason Concepcion And he’s like, Yeah, but I’m a decent guy and I’m just trying to do right by the people who rely on me. And she’s like, Okay, so you’re their leader. And he’s like, Yeah, but, but they chose that. They wanted that to be the thing. And Ellie, and this is good, this is actually great that Ellie snips this out right away, is like, this is some weird cult thing. Like.

 

Rosie Knight She knows.

 

Jason Concepcion Very, very much so.

 

Rosie Knight Absolutely yes, babe. Like 100%. Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion And David does not give the most authoritative answer when Elie says, Is this some weird cutting? And David’s verbatim answer, his actual answer is, Uhhhhhhh.  He like starts with this very long, Uh. And he goes, Ah, just your basic, just your basic preacher Bible preacher. That’s it. What was the Uh, bro? What was the five seconds of Uh?

 

Rosie Knight Everyone in this colony needs to have better prepared answers. You’re going to see this time and time again. I’m like, brother, you could have just said no. If somebody asks you if it’s a cult, just say no. But then we will learn that for some reason throughout this episode, probably his own delusional mind. But David sees something in Ellie that he thinks is a kindred spirit. So I also wonder if that’s why he doesn’t immediately lie to her.

 

Jason Concepcion I’m going to get back, let’s get back to.

 

Rosie Knight Maybe, maybe she likes cults. I don’t want to deny it in case she’s into it.

 

Jason Concepcion I wanted to talk about this when we get to that moment.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Let’s talk about it now. I. This is part of David’s pitch to Ellie earlier. I took that to be David, just  flat out is grooming this girl. He is like you’re so special. Like you, you’re the only one that understands me. You know, all these people I’m with, they don’t get it. They don’t get it. They don’t know your mind. Understand? Yeah. Like you really understand what’s going on here. And I feel like you’re a kindred spirit. Like I took that as. Oh, David’s an even deeper scumbag.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Then, then we could. Then we are. Then we know about right now.

 

Rosie Knight He definitely is. And you see that in the way that he approaches Ellie, like the actor who brings him to life is so terrifying.

 

Jason Concepcion Deeply, deeply unsettling performance for this role.

 

Rosie Knight It’s so quiet and. Yeah, but no point. What I really love about this is they don’t try and fake us out. They understand that we know the genre enough, that they don’t need to make us think, Oh, maybe it is a good place. Because if you think about it like The Walking Dead, I think a lot about the Sanctuary storyline, which was actually one of my favorite storylines where they seek out this place that’s allegedly the safe place for survivors. They get there, they get fed the It’s delicious meal. Lo and behold, Oh, actually, you’re going to be dinner. Like sorry bro, Spoiler alert from The Walking Dead season five, The Walking Dead or whatever that happens. But like, I like here that from the outset you are just given clues constantly. Atmosphere clues, tone clues, visual clues, vibe clues that David is just bad news. And I think that’s a really good way of building the creepiness and tension that kind of leads to this explosion of violence at the end of the episode.

 

Jason Concepcion X-ray vision will be back. And we’re back. So we get some of David’s back story. He says that he was just a math teacher, which again.

 

Rosie Knight Bad vibes.

 

Jason Concepcion Here’s. Yeah, the bad vibes continue like this. This was a person working with young people. We should assume and consider what we learned over the course of this episode. Very troubling. And he says, You know, I was not even religious until after the end of the world. We learned that he was at the Pittsburgh QZ, which fell due to ongoing battles between FEDRA and the Fireflies. And then he and some people started heading west and they’d find a camp and that Raiders would attack the camp and then they’d have to move on and picking up people along the way. And that’s how they came to be here in Colorado. And he believes that all of that, all that constant kind of movement to the West attack a search for peace, the death on every side, all of that was as it should be, because it’s what brought them here. All of this happens for a reason. Don’t believe it. Check this out. And then David tells Ellie, Recently I sent out a forging party of four. And winter has been hard, food’s been scarce. People have been starving. Only three men came back. And now the man who died was a father. And he was killed by a crazy man traveling with a little girl. And now Ellie’s like, Oh, fuck. And she stiffens. But before she can even think about pulling the trigger on her rifle, David says James lower your gun and we realize that they’ve already got the drop on her. James, for his part, recognizes that Ellie was the girl who was with the man who killed their companion and their friend. And David is like, Yeah, but forget all that. Just give her the medicine. James is like, What? It’s like, Yeah. Just give it to her. And then David again, offers to take Ellie, and he’s like, I can protect you. You know, you’re out here alone. This is no place, you know, This is. This world is not safe for a young girl alone. Ellie takes the medicine and runs off, and James is like, I can’t believe that you’re just going to let her get away. But of course, he’s not going to do that.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, I feel like this is a good sign as well, that David is clearly not like a very trusted leader. Even though he has this power. He kind of rolls through this fear, as we’ll find out in a couple of scenes. And also, I just find it very interesting that that’s James’s first thought. It’s not like, oh, you know, obviously we’re going to follow her or what’s the plan next? He just thinks like, Oh, you saw a young girl and you gave her what you wanted because you a creep. Like, it’s really interesting. They show you so many dynamics in these small moments.

 

Jason Concepcion I think that that’s right. And I think that it’s even more insidious than that because it tells you that David has, even from his followers, a secret side.

 

Rosie Knight Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion Because James is like the fact that James doesn’t understand. Of course, David’s not going to leave it here.This is not the end of it. You think he’s that was just like largesse. That was just generousity? No. The fact that James doesn’t pick that up lets you know that David has a deeper, more secret side from the people who, you know, he’s ostensibly in this like, intimate leadership role with.

 

Rosie Knight I love that, Julie, because that is a great read where it’s like David’s falsification of who he is and this kind of kindness and generosity, he has actually sold that to them so well that James could believe that he would just give this away because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. And I love I love that pick up. I almost kind of didn’t even realize when I was watching that he wasn’t a preacher before. When you read it in the context after a couple of rewatches and then talking about it with you, that is just so creepy because that is a man who picked up the beliefs of others in order to become a cult leader, to make the most of a post-apocalyptic situation for himself. That’s so horrifying. And I think that I wrote about this at IGN this week, like. About this episode. I think that is the notion of why these kind of characters are always presented as the scariest thing you can come up against in an apocalypse. What if it wasn’t the best of us who thrived at the end of the world but the worst of us?

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight And David is absolutely that. A man who knew how to manipulate the end of the world into a situation that now he is incredibly happy with because he’s surrounded by women and children who he is in control of. Very scary stuff.

 

Jason Concepcion This is a great point. Now, in that opening scene where you see David with his flock in that restaurant, this first thing that struck me was, one, the the women and the men were separate. We saw a mother with it, with a young daughter. You saw another mother with young daughter who really didn’t meet them too much. But then all the men. Sit at their own tables. And it’s really only David that addresses the women and.

 

Rosie Knight And who walks among them as well?

 

Jason Concepcion Yes. Immediately you’re like, this is there’s something not right here. This is not good. Whatever is going on here is not right now. It’s just not it’s certainly it’s off. And feels very, very off.

 

Rosie Knight And we get to see.

 

Jason Concepcion Yes.

 

Rosie Knight Very soon, even more of that really nightmarish dynamic.

 

Jason Concepcion So Ellie returns to Joel. She just kind of guesses like where to inject the antibiotics. She does it right into the wound, you know.

 

Rosie Knight Painful, truly good choice. Like, sure, Good choice.

 

Jason Concepcion Good is as good a choice as any. We go back to Silver Lake and Resort. Dinner is getting cooked up. It looks like very, very red meat.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, it looks very fresh. Seeing as when they just running out meat, surely you would have jerkied, etc..

 

Jason Concepcion We’re putting this in tomato sauce. That’s because this season we have.

 

Rosie Knight Not going to lie.

 

Jason Concepcion Like. Because they have because that’s what we have. But also like it’ll help cover up any kind of redness.

 

Rosie Knight The gamey texture.

 

Jason Concepcion The folks are kind of sitting around with their plates of this meat and there’s a great moment.

 

Rosie Knight So good.

 

Jason Concepcion Great moment where the meat was cooked up right where the woman who is stirring all the, you know, everything into the pot says to the guy who brings this tray of meat, what is it? And he just goes, Well, first there’s a long pause. 2 to 3 second. Like a very, very long pause.

 

Rosie Knight Too long. The pause again, get a quicker answer in your head, mt friend. Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And then he just goes. Venison? Almost like it’s a question.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. Yeah, vension. Are you going to accept that?

 

Jason Concepcion So, you know, everybody’s sitting around eating their or getting ready to eat their plates of venison. And you can see there’s a there’s a really great kind of very, very small moment here where you see various people eating. Some of them are tearing into it. Others are like just nibbling at it. Others seem wary of it, like openly wary. And that is when David and James return with this big deer that they took off Ellie. And David could not be happier to be bringing this meat in, but then he sees that, oh, people are like, Wait, what are we eating?

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, everyone else is like, bro.

 

Jason Concepcion You just showed up here. You just showed up with the meat. What am I eating right now? And David’s like, Hey, listen. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is one of the great freak outs in this episode, too, where David and David says, Okay, hold on, let me I need to say something. I know there were rumors going around the camp, okay? And they’re true. I found the girl who was with the guy who murdered one of our friends.

 

Rosie Knight It’s so good. Because you’re like it? Is he about.

 

Jason Concepcion I really thought like he’s about to say. Hey, listen.

 

Rosie Knight You got to do what you what you got to do.

 

Jason Concepcion We were starving. Yeah, we’re starving.

 

Rosie Knight It’s happening this time, baby. It’s happening. We’re eating some people. Yeah, I know. I love that note that you made us all like it’s so well done. To see the way that some people are just eating it so hardly. Some people are wary. Some people are nibbling because, like we can tell just from the narrative storytelling of one episode that David is off key and that that glance he gave to James meant her Dad’s getting eaten. And so of course the people in the room would feel the same way. I like that respect of the intelligent of the characters and the intelligence of the audience to know that it’s not realistic, that every single person in there would just be yamming down the food, acting like it was completely normal. There’s going to be people who are starting to caught on to what David and James are doing.

 

Jason Concepcion And here we see how David keeps control of these people. He does it, one, through his generosity with sharing this food.

 

Rosie Knight Mm hmm. Communism.

 

Jason Concepcion Turns out that it turns out to be, you know, people. Spoiler. Two, by creating these external threats, he says. Hey, I found the man. I found the girl. I know where she is. We’re going to send a search party out tomorrow and we’re going to get revenge. He’s out there. We’re going to get him. And then three, through outright fear and violence, the girl whose father was killed is like, I want them both dead. Why not kill the girl, too? Like, why are you going to bring her back here?

 

Rosie Knight A good point. And also, like I will say as well, I think this is another great narrative choice, because surely that seems like what the leader would want and that would have been a great moment for David to be like, You’re right, my child. Like we will get justice and vengeance, just like an eye for an eye in the Bible or whatever. But that is not the way David reacts. And it tells us so much about him and this colony.

 

Jason Concepcion He slaps this young girl to the floor.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, like off her chair.

 

Jason Concepcion Off her chair. Nobody moves. No, everybody. Everybody stays nailed to their sheet. And he says, you know, basically, I’m your father now you have to respect me or this is what happens. Now let’s say grace and eat dinner, which is probably your dad. Sad, but.

 

Rosie Knight He’s like, Yeah, it’s so creepy. He’s like, You think you’ve lost your father, but you still have a father that’s always, Oh, so creepy. And then he’s like, I now eat your father. So there’s lots of fun. I know.

 

Jason Concepcion Your father. He’ll be part of you forever. Oh, yeah. The next. The next day, Joel, hard to tell if he’s getting better or not. Ellie goes outside to get some air, and she sees a flock of crows go up. Maybe. Half a mile away, very, very close. And she realizes that something is coming from that way. She sneaks around. She spots them as five, maybe six men, including David and James. And of course, they are here to kill Joel if he isn’t dead already. And David orders them to bring Ellie back, she is not to be harmed. James is like just another mouths to feed, no? Like, what do we have to? Maybe we let her stay here and die or we kill her. I don’t know. Maybe that’s God’s will.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, I.

 

Jason Concepcion And David gives James the most chilling stare.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. It’s so scary. And I also love this moment because after watching it again. Look, I’m not trying to make any justification for James’s behavior here. And Troy is so great in this character. Like, it’s so believable. This kind of weird, like, weakness, this, like, tricky weakness of following. David. But I also wonder, like, does he have an inkling? Like, do these men think Ellie would be better off to just be shot in the street than to go back and be with David like that? Maybe he doesn’t want to kill another person to actually feed them to someone else. There’s something here that I think is actually more than this idea of a mouth to feed. Like, I think there is a deep down somewhere. There is a slight act of mercy, as he sees it, to just shoot her in the snow instead of taking her back.

 

Jason Concepcion That’s an interesting read as well. It’s, you know, certainly that idea of well, it’s better this way mingled with the sincere vengeance that he is seeking. She would make the doing young girl a lot easier. Mm hmm. Ellie tries to browse. Joel No bueno. Desperately. She puts her knife in his hand and is like, Listen, I’m going to try and lead them away. But if I can’t. This is for anybody that comes down here. Joel is, like, just barely with it. He does not seem all the way conscious. Ellie then seals up the house like puts it, puts a piece of furniture in front of the cellar door, gets on the horse and goes galloping down the street. She, you know, runs up on the guys, says, Hey, motherfuckers, She shot at them and then rides off and they’re ready to shoot her. But David is like, No, alive, alive, alive. I want her alive. James then shoots Ellie’s horse out from under her. R.I.P. Horse. We didn’t know your name, but it was really sad to see you go. Ellie is gets the first of several concussions that she will get over the course of this episode.

 

Rosie Knight Oh, man. Her brain.

 

She is out of it.

 

Rosie Knight Is scrambled up in there.

 

Jason Concepcion I mean, she’s like legitimately unconscious for like an hour, like a long time. It’s actually medically concerning. They capture her easily. James is about to kill her. When David shoots in the air and it’s like, no. Then he carries her off himself, which is fucked up. And then it’s like, you all I’m going to take. I’ll take her back by myself to to our camp. You stay here and you look for Joel.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. He’s like, If you want vengeance, get it that way. Leave her alone. Get your victim here. And sorry to them. They don’t realize that they’re essentially going up against the Terminator. Like, if you take a kid from Joel, if you take a little girl from Joel, if you take a baby from Pedro Pascal, as we know, you’re going to be in trouble. So is is not going to go well for them, but good good for them for trying to get their vengeance. Let’s see how that goes.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, absolutely. What follows is Joel Wik.

 

Rosie Knight Joel Wik. Exactly. Ellie Instead of the little puppy.

 

Jason Concepcion He, you know, the first victim sneaks into the house that Joel is in. Drags the obstacle away from the cellar door, creeps down there, sees the bloodstained mattress, is like, Who’s down here? And then Joel stabs him in the shoulder slash neck. And in classic Joel fashion, it’s like choking him out so he can’t cry out. And you get this really stark.

 

Rosie Knight Oh.

 

Jason Concepcion Shot of the light going out of this guy’s eyes. And you stare at it for a long time, like you’re just see this the dead man’s face. You watch him die.

 

Rosie Knight They value life so much. The creators of this show and I think is something that really makes this stand out from pretty much any other post-apocalyptic storytelling, even the game. I think it’s one of the smartest choices they made in adapting it.

 

Jason Concepcion They made you feel the cost.

 

Rosie Knight You feel every death, every time somebody dies it’s horrific. It’s it’s terrible. Every time someone is, it’s horrific. Even if they’ve done something, there is a cathartic nature to what Joel is doing. But I like your John Wick reference because there’s that moment, you know, obviously love John Wick like the stuntman movie of all time and I love Keanu and there’s that great moment where it’s like, he’s like, Yeah, I guess you could say I was back and this is definitely like old Joel is back. This is that Joel that we have in.

 

Jason Concepcion This clip now, you know.

 

Rosie Knight This is that Joel everyone. Oh, Joel did so many bad things, Ellie. You can’t trust him. You can’t you don’t know the things that he did. We’ve seen reluctant. Joel. We’ve seen tired. Joel That’s a great. This is assassin. Joel, This is going to kill you no matter what you tell him.

 

Jason Concepcion Joel This is the thing that I want. Yeah, Tell me where it is.

 

Rosie Knight And when you tell me, I’ll kill you.

 

Jason Concepcion And we’ve. We’ve spent the last several episodes talking about Joel’s. Lack of comfort with anything that seems like peace or happiness or the potential for happiness, or the potential to grow new bonds.

 

Rosie Knight With the hard way.

 

Jason Concepcion He wants hard reasons, like something to be taken from. This is Joel in his element this is Joel, doing the thing that he is comfortable doing and that’s dealing out pain to people. And it’s bearing the cost him, bearing the cost on his own body. Ellie comes to in a holding cell. David is there. He’s been watching her sleep and he’s like, listen, I’m the only thing keeping you from being torn apart by my followers. They want to kill you. But I’m here saying, No, no, no, let’s give her a chance. So why don’t you just tell me your name and she’s like, Eat shit. David really, really wants Ellie to join up big and he keeps on pitching this story about I can protect you. He’s offering her new life. So this that whatever you did before your life.

 

Rosie Knight Is over.

 

Jason Concepcion For this day, it’s over your relationship with that man that’s done. It’s coming to an end. This is your new life. It’s starting right now. Back at the town, Joel is continuing to go full Joel Wick. He is. He takes out two more of David’s men. He takes him captive, drags him to a house and tortures them until they point out one of them points out where Ellie is on a map. Then he kills that guy and then he picks up a pipe and he beats the fucking other guy’s brains in.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, it’s this is this is one of those moments where I just think we’re constantly blown away by Pedro. He’s such a brilliant actor. Like, we’ve seen him. We’ve seen how brilliant he is in The Mandalorian. We’ve seen this kind of quiet. Stoic. Tortured man that he can be in The Last of Us. He’s also a brilliant comic actor. You know, we’ve seen so many brilliant sides to him. But there is such a determination and violence in this sequence, like he is going to pop a man’s kneecap off with his knife.

 

Jason Concepcion There’s a comfort level too, that.

 

Rosie Knight Easy.

 

Jason Concepcion Specifically the way he like when he jams that his knife into the into the, you know, right behind the guy’s kneecap and says, I’m just going to pop it off. You understand in that moment that Joel’s done all this before. So this is not new. He’s done this. He’s gotten people to tell them the thing that they don’t want to tell.

 

Rosie Knight It’s a routine and it makes so much of the earlier episodes make sense. I mean, imagine how uncomfortable it was for him to sit with Bill at the House and to pretend to be civil when he knew that what he could really do was kill Bill and take what he wanted. You know, this is the way that Joel gets things. And to see him, I thought it was really, one, as game players will know, this was needed in the series to show what Joel could do, because Joel is not going to stop doing this. And we needed to understand that because we have not seen this kind of explosion of violence from him in this way yet. And that moment where the guy tells him, you know, he’s in agony, he points out the map and this kind of with the knife on the blood. On the knife. Joel just kills him. And that’s when his friend realizes, oh, shit, I’m going to die.

 

Jason Concepcion And he and the guy and the guy begs for his life.

 

Rosie Knight He’s like, Why did you do that?

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, you told it, but he did. Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight And I think Joel says something like, he’s like, Don’t worry, He did tell me. And then he just pizzas had him with a pipe and he’s just like this. Something is flicked a switch in his head. And he is Sarah. Sarah is Ali. Ali is his daughter. Sarah is his daughter. This is you fucked up and there’s no going back.

 

Jason Concepcion X-ray vision will be back. And we’re back. We go back to Ellie. She’s alone in the cage. She’s trying her darndest to escape. She’s trying to unscrew little pieces of the fencing of the gate hardware itself. And as she’s doing that, she sees something across the room that absolutely shakes her. She goes white. And that’s when David comes in with a tray of food. He slides this food under the cage. And then we see what Ellie is terrified of. This is like this smear of blood on the floor and a human ear. And David realizes he’s caught, you know, to to a certain degree. And he says, Yeah, you know, for what it’s worth, this is just deer meat, I swear.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And then he and then he switches tactics.

 

Jason Concepcion Switches up.

 

Rosie Knight This man is a master manipulator. He’s like, Now I’m going to kind of make a joke about it. This is dear meat. Like, I’m giving you the good stuff. Don’t worry.

 

Jason Concepcion This is when this is when the true grooming really takes place. He’s like, Hey, listen, I’m letting you.

 

Rosie Knight In.

 

Jason Concepcion Into my confidence. You’re in the inner circle now. Only a few people know that we’re eating.

 

Rosie Knight And what is the only.

 

Jason Concepcion You’re Yeah, you join us and you’re going to be part of that. You know, you’re going to.

 

Rosie Knight This is so scary because this is the ultimate first step of any kind of grooming and any kind of behavior that you don’t want a kid to follow, which is an adult telling a kid, I know something secret and you can’t tell anyone. This will be our secret. So they do this here, but they pose it as him telling her about them being cannibals. But we know what it really is. He’s bringing her into his confidence. He wants her to feel like she owes him. He wants her to feel like there is something she knows that nobody else knows. It’s so creepy and so well done.

 

Jason Concepcion He says, Listen, I’m not proud of the fact that we’re cannibals. But but you also get the sense that. He’ll do anything to keep himself in control of his group. That’s what this is all really about.

 

Rosie Knight It’s not about survival.

 

Jason Concepcion The creepiness. It’s just about control. It’s about maintaining his iron control over the people that that fall under his sway and using them to satisfy himself.

 

Rosie Knight However, it’s exactly do I also think it’s really important to point out like one eating, you know, scientifically, people know that eating human meat makes people sick because you’re not supposed to do it. You can catch brain infections, things like cure or whatever. So he’s not really protecting people. And the bigger issue here, as we talk about grooming is consent. David admits that most people who are eating the meat do not know. He did not go out of his way to tell them he did not pose. This is some kind of democratic solution. Let’s be real in a post-apocalyptic.

 

Jason Concepcion You’re starving, you do what you have, but at least you do bring it up, you debate. What do we think? Should we eat them?

 

Rosie Knight What do we think? Should we do this? And also as well, realistically, in Cannibal, in a post-apocalyptic situation, there would actually probably be many cannibals. There might even be a cannibal. Black market of meat and jerky and all different kinds of things. But David doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to democratize it does want to have a conversation. It’s about manipulating people. It’s about making people do something that is so taboo, so horrific, and keeping it from them. This is all part of his game he enjoys. I mean, look, also, let’s be real. Do we really think all that is gone? I don’t think so. Allie found one so easily. Yeah. You know, this is hard. This is control. That is something that he is choosing to do because he enjoys it. And he kind of gets into that as he as he keeps trying to groom Ellie.

 

Jason Concepcion And he keeps saying, you know, you’re a natural leader, you’re smart, you’re loyal.

 

Rosie Knight You remind me of me.

 

Jason Concepcion And then he says, you know, I’ve always had a violent heart. I struggle with it. But then the world ended and I was shown the truth. And here you are. You really get the sense that he’s actually coming clean on a certain level. He is actually telling her a secret that the rest of the group doesn’t know. The rest of the group thinks. You know, after the fall of the world, David found God, no, David. But David’s God is the cordyceps. And he says, look at look at the way. First of all, it’s it one and look at the way it won. It’s fruitful. It multiplies all over the place. It protects itself, it protects its children, and it secures its future through violence. And he’s like, Why are you telling me all this? Because you can handle it the way the others can’t. And, you know, he then tells her like, oh, I was equal, you know, we going to be partners in this. Ellie asks about Joel, and David says, You know, I can I can tell the others to stop looking for him. They’d spare him. They do that. I have that kind of pull. I can do that. He places his hand on the bars. Think of what we could do together. We can make this place perfect. And she moves towards him. Place. He places his hand on hers. Imagine the life we could build. And Ellie says, Whoa. And then. Bens his finger back and brakes and.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, she snaps it.

 

Jason Concepcion While he’s stunned, she snaps it.

 

Rosie Knight Bad ass.

 

Jason Concepcion There’s a satisfying little pop tune in the in the in the sound mix. And then she as he is stunned and kind of dealing with this immediate pain, she is trying to grab the keys off his belt. He grabs her. Knocks her head into the bars, concussion number two, and she goes down and he says, You cunt,  let’s see what I go tell the others. Now, his petulant side. Now, the anger coming out, Ali says, like you can tell them, I’m the little girl who broke your fucking finger. Meanwhile, Joel, one of the great performances through injury in the history of of of sports and performing.

 

Rosie Knight He’s going, He’s pushing through.

 

Jason Concepcion Joel, he’s like Michael Jordan’s flu game. He’s got a gut full of penicillin, a stab wound in his abdomen. But he’s going for it, folks. He manages to make it to Silver Lake. He breaks into what turns out to be the storehouse that the group is using, and he finds some of Ali’s stuff and he knows that she’s there. And then he looks in the other room. He sees the horse, may she rest in peace. And then he turns the corner. We see some boats and then just past the boats. He sees a couple of headless corpses that are just hanging, waiting to be butchered. Oh, shit. Meanwhile. David and James drag Ellie out of their cage and they’re about to cut her up for real. Like that. This is about.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, this is. We didn’t talk about this yet either. Like, one of my favorite things about this episode. So they’re in the. The steakhouse, right? This old restaurant. And they actually it’s this brilliant piece of production design that outside Ellie’s cage, there’s this huge wooden kind of butchering table that’s just covered in little bloody necks. And it’s so horrific, but it’s so mundane in the context of being in this butchering steakhouse until you realize what they’ve been butchering on it and that and they’re putting on her and I guess she’s fighting them, I think. And that’s when she bites him, right?

 

Jason Concepcion Yes.

 

Rosie Knight He picks up the cleaver and she bites him and she’s fighting for her life.

 

Jason Concepcion And as they’re about to bring this cleaver down and start cutting her up, she screams, I’m infected. And now so are you. And David looks at the bite of his hand. She’s like, Hey, roll up my sleeve. Take a look at this. And they see that the the trademark cordyceps looking kind of scar. But it’s also it’s weird, right? It’s clearly healed. And James is clearly absolutely fucking freaked out. He’s freaked out. And David’s like, But, yeah, but this doesn’t make sense. She hasn’t turned. She would have turned already. And then suddenly, in this moment of confusion, it’s this is really great. Like, it’s. This is just a well-paced sequence. You don’t know, like, you know, usually if something like this is not done well, the distraction is very obvious. It’s like there’s too much time. Ellie just strikes and she grabs the cleaver. Boom, right into James’s head. James is now dead, and then she flees as David is shooting at her, Ellie finds herself in the restaurant of the old resort. For people who’ve played the game, they they recognize this setting and they recognize this boss battle. I think for me, probably the hardest.

 

Rosie Knight It’s the hardest possible.

 

Jason Concepcion Fight for me, the hardest fight in the game, just because I mean, it was one very, very scary And to that this boss. Incongruously for what the game is just like had like clicker a level hit points.

 

Rosie Knight That’s yeah. Even though he’s just a human.

 

Jason Concepcion Just a guy. So Ellie now finds herself in the restaurant. She arms herself with, like, a smoldering log, throws it, it lights the building on fire. Now it’s starting to go up. And meanwhile, David is completely unfazed by the fact that his this place is burning down all around him. And he is calling to her. He’s talking to her in this creepy way. He’s just obsessed like the boss and that this is just like the fight in the in the video game. And he’s saying, you know, you know, he’s like calling her name. The fire is spreading. He’s he tells her he’s going to keep her, you know, like now you know what? No one’s going to die. I was going to kill you. You’re not going to die now. Now I’m going to keep you only to teach you. And he’s saying all these really horrendous things to her. She lunges. When his back is turned, he swings the cleaver, She gets below it, stabs him in the side. He is leaking. He’s really hurt now. But Ellie is also stunned. This is her, the now her third concussion after being knocked out for like, you know, an hour and a half or something. He then climbs on top of her. He’s he’s choking her. He’s clearly going to a solitary, says, oh, I thought you already knew. The fighting is the part I liked the most.

 

Rosie Knight And he’s saying, really? He’s like, You don’t need to be scared of my love, My love, it’s love. You don’t need to be here.

 

Jason Concepcion Ahead of your guy. You know, all the artifice, all the kind of like this warm smiles and Bible verses. Here is the real guy.

 

Rosie Knight This is so.

 

Jason Concepcion And she’s.

 

Rosie Knight He is. This is who he wants to.

 

Jason Concepcion This is the person he really is.

 

Rosie Knight What he enjoys. This is what he lives for. This is why he thinks everything happens for a reason, because he set himself up in a society where he can do this again and again and again, or so he thinks.

 

Jason Concepcion What’s so insidious and evil about this guy is that he knows that even in this fucked up world, the things that he wants. Will not be accepted by people. So he has to use the things that are accepted by people to get control of that so he can get the things that he wants. He understands it’s all put on to him so that he can get to this moment where he’s taking whatever he wants from whoever. And then in that moment, Ellie just snaps. She grabs a cleaver. Stabs him with it and then proceeds to chop him up for like a solid five sec.

 

Rosie Knight At least. She is chopping him up. This is like directly from the game too. Like she is chopping him heavily.

 

Jason Concepcion From the.

 

Rosie Knight Like, pieces. She’s getting covered in blood. Again, in the game, we have seen Ellie more decisively murder people before this. But this is a very smart choice to essentially have her first real kill be this huge explosion of violence that is vengeful, that is righteous, that is horrific.

 

Jason Concepcion It’s absolutely right. You know what could be more righteous?

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Then defending your own life and what she’s doing and in this moment and in the end in a state that, you know, you can imagine the adrenaline that’s running through it, not to mention, as we, you know, mentioned several times, many concussions. She’s she’s had. Yeah, she’s not like she’s not okay. You know, she’s not fully with it. It is just truly fight or flight. And she chooses fight and she chops the shit out of this guy. She flees, goes outside the burning restaurant, and Joel finds her, grabs her from behind. She’s still in fight mode, but he says, Look, it’s. It’s me, it’s me, it’s me. And then they embrace. And he says, It’s okay, baby girl. And you get this. The final, like it feels like a stone in this bridge between them. You know, it’s truly a father and daughter kind of relationship now. The father she never had, the daughter that he lost. And you feel that like has been built now is through these horrible circumstances and then they head off together. What a. Terrifying and really disconcerting.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Powerful. Really powerful episode.

 

Rosie Knight Definitely the most horrifying episode yet.

 

Jason Concepcion Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it really like. First of all, an incredible performance by Scott Shepherd, where you really you know, that feeling of. If it’s too good to be true, it must be heat. You know, the way he speaks his patter, the way he. Would only show his rage a few times, his secrecy. And yet here he is. This. This man of God who’s so secretive. This is a great performance and a really, really eerie performance. And I do like the way this show and series has been structured, much like the game where we go to a place. You know, we we vanquish it, we move on, and then we never see these people again. But I do. I also wonder Man. It would have been. It would be nice to to have a villain, you know, that like sues. But it is it’s it’s really created this interesting tenor and tone and texture of this show where it’s like one horrifying existential obstacle after another.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. I also think there’s such an interesting kind of skill the creative team have showcased here, which is, you know, they created Kathleen as a new character, right? And that is arguably our first big like, oh, the most dangerous thing isn’t the clickers, you know, it’s the humans, but it’s such a different tone and tenor and story to what we see with David. Even though arguably you’re sending out the same message and that to me, that nuance between Kathleen still had a righteous vengeance, a righteous anger that she perceived and she knew she was lost in it. That was a self-awareness there. That was more of a tragic even though she was a horrific, cold blooded killer. In the end, as we saw. It’s so interesting to me that you can do that storyline. And then three episodes later you can have another human antagonist. But that is so different and so scary and so completely evocative of a different kind of fear. And I just think that is such a complement to the way that telling these stories to be able to do that twice. The Walking Dead would do that, but it would be in different seasons. You know, this is one season where we go from someone like Kathleen and then we meet David and we see a completely different kind of person. And I think something that I totally I think you’re totally right. Like the chapter narrative is almost sequential in a way that, you know, we talk about that was Star Wars like the story of a week here. It’s the location of the week, which is very much.

 

Jason Concepcion And then we move on.

 

Rosie Knight Exactly. And I. It’s really interesting because definitely David is so scary and that community is so horrifying, but so kind of interesting as a psychological study. You could have had three or four episodes that you could have David be recurring, but that narrative choice to just keep moving, to work, to recognize that part of the game where you kill someone, you leave, you move on, you go to the next town. I think it’s quite a brave choice for prestige storytelling, and it really is nice. I’m still every day surprised that they chose to just do the game in nine episodes, and it makes me so happy because you could have we could have been just gangs. Kathleen now milked it. They could have milked three seasons, you know, and I just I’m always impressed by that choice, and I think it’s really paying off.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, I. The other thing about this episode, you knew, you know, I never asked myself, where the fuck is everybody else? Where the hell is? For one, the most of David’s like fighting men had been got chewed up by disengagement. You know, like heads, you know, like Joel fucked them up.

 

Rosie Knight Joel took care of them.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. And then the rest of them, as we saw from James, who was, you know, in many ways David’s closest confidant. They were probably they were on some level waiting for some sign that they don’t have to do with this kind of thing anymore.

 

Rosie Knight Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion I can’t imagine that anybody coming. I think it was it’s actually evocative of like his leadership style that nobody is like running towards this burning building to figure out, like, what’s gone wrong.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And I’m probably like, Oh, good.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And I know it’s true. And I think as well that for the women, the children, the kind of the citizens, they’re too scared. They don’t do anything unless he tells them to. And I actually think that’s really interesting because you’re right, it’s evocative of leadership style. But also a lot of times when men groom younger women and groom children and groom teenagers, it’s because people their own age will not interact with them, will not respect their behavior, their abusiveness. And I think in that way as well, David knows that James about him. He knows that these adult men are kind of turning against him. So he’s looking to Ellie. He’s saying, we can start something new. You can be my confidence and in that way evokes that, too. I, I thought the writing on this was was so well-done and so kind of devastating and just horrific, but never in a way that felt inauthentic, like it felt true to who David is in this show. And yeah, just. Wow. And Bella Bella really going for that Emmy? I feel like at this point, once we get into like episode eight, Pedro, obviously, I mean, I feel like he’s a shoo in after this.

 

Jason Concepcion Well, up next, let’s go into Nerd Out. And of course, we’re going to continue our Last of US coverage right up until the finale. Stay tuned.

 

Rosie Knight In today’s Nerd Out,  where you tell us what you love and why, or share a theory that you’re excited about, which you know we love theories. Seth offers an intriguing Quantumania X-Men crossover theory, which obviously we’re incredibly happy to share because we bloody love the X-Men. So, Jason, I will allow you to do the honor.

 

Jason Concepcion Hello, Jason and Rosie. Since watching Ant-Man and the WASP: Quantumania, I’ve been wondering about the rebels that we meet in the quantum realm. Is it just me, or does it feel like we have been introduced into the MCU’s version of the X-Men? Quaz could easily be a codename for Professor X. There is a Cyclops character who blasts energy B from his face, a character who uses blades and has regeneration skills. And there’s also a character that is Glob, a.k.a.. I am saying this not not Seth. I immediately thought, Oh, that’s fucking Glob Herman.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion I would love your thoughts. Seth. I think while I don’t think that those are the X-Men, I think you’re on to something in that the Power said that Yorke’s absence did feel very pointed.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. Also, I mean.

 

Jason Concepcion When you in a marvel context, when you introduce a character who can read everybody’s thoughts, like, you know what? I think you know what you’re doing.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And I think as well something I was really interested in, they talked a lot about this being a kind of Wizard of Oz inspired story where they venture into this alternate world, this kind of multiversal plane, you know, the quantum realm being its own space and time. I do wonder and I would love this. Seth, you inspired this. I hadn’t thought about this before, but maybe there’s a world where William Jackson Harper is our MCU Charles. And that was just an alternate universe version of him. You know, in every universe, he has the psychic powers, you know, I think as well, I think it’s really great that you caught onto this, because the truth is, they do this for fans. They put these analogs in, they say, Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if we had a, you know, oh, isn’t this kind of like the all the the giant size crew? Like, oh, what if we just added one more character? So I love that. I don’t necessarily think that those are going to be the final versions, but I would love to see a world where we get some kind of recognition that perhaps this was some foreshadowing or seeding or some multiversal plane. If no, I just want to see William Jackson Harper come back again because I just think saw him in more stuff and also him as Charles. Yes, I would love to see, actually.

 

Jason Concepcion I think that would be fantastic. Thank you so much, Seth. And of course, if you have any theories or passions you want to share, hit us up at X-ray at Cricket.com.au instructions in the show notes. That’s it for us, Rosie. Any plugs? Plugs, plugs, plugs.

 

Rosie Knight You can read my Last of US coverage at IGN. I have some cool stuff coming up at Polygon. You can check out my website, RoseKnight.com. You can find all my work and read some cool comics. I am RosieMarx on Letterbox’d and Instagram and then obviously here twice a week.

 

Jason Concepcion Catch the next episode on Friday, March 10th, for episode two of The Mandalorian. And remember, we are bringing you two episodes a week every Wednesday and Friday on your podcast, Deliverer of Choice. That’s where you can find us twice the Pedro Pascal, twice the baby’s choice of Pedro escorting children across a wasteland. Find us every Wednesday and Friday in your ear holes.

 

Rosie Knight And if you want to see us with your eyeballs as well as listen with your emails, you can subscribe on YouTube. We have a very good amount of subscribers. I’m very impressed. Thus thanks to Jason and bringing that channel over. So if you go there, subscribe, you can watch full episodes still on, does a great job with those. Follow us @XRVPod on Twitter where we’re always sharing cool stuff, retweeting a lot of Pedro Pascal love at the moment. And check out our Discord. You can meet tons of amazing fans, all kinds of rad people. They’re talking about all kinds of rad stuff. Some of the stuff is outside of the realm of X-Ray, too. So if you’re a little bit of a newcomer to this stuff, like what we talk about, it’s just a place to hang out. And there’s all different kinds of conversations going in that. And me and Jason are in there all the time. It’s linked to my Letterbox’d, so there’s a whole channel where you can just laugh at all my bad movies that I watch, which people have a lot of fun doing. It’s rather joyful. And of course, let’s not forget about the need for five star reviews.

 

Jason Concepcion Five star ratings, five star reviews. We got to have them. We need them. We desperately plead for them every episode. You got to give them to us. Here’s one from Jan Hart, The Last of Us. I discovered your show through Crooked Media and found the episode about The Last of Us. So good and informative. I watched the HBO episode, then listen to your podcast, then go back and watch them again with new eyes. Five stars all around. Thank you Jan

 

Rosie Knight Thank you so much, Jan.

 

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, folks.

 

Rosie Knight Bye.