Episode 4 - “Please Hold To My Hand” lyrics

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): I know what it's like. First time that you hurt someone like that. If you, uh— Well... [Sighs] I'm not good at this.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Yeah, you really aren't.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): I mean, it was my fault. You shouldn't have had to. And I'm sorry.

["The Last of Us" by Gustavo Santaolalla plays]

Troy: Welcome to the official podcast for HBO's The Last of Us. I'm your host, Troy Baker. Joining me now, Craig Mazin.

Craig: Good to be back, Troy.

Troy: And Neil Druckmann.

Neil: Hello, Troy Baker.

Troy: Today, we're going to be discussing episode four, titled, "Please Hold To My Hand."

Craig: So, that's a lyric from "Alone and Forsaken."

[Music ends]

Troy: I mean, that's a carryover from the gamе. We get Alone and Forsakеn played in the truck. On the tape. Ellie's got a gun. And what I loved is that we take a moment to show she's really adept at it. Like, she knows how to chamber a round. She knows how to do a mag reload. Like, she's— She's really good at this.
Neil: She's also infatuated with it.

Troy: Yeah.

Craig: Yeah, yeah. She smells it.

Troy: What is her fascination with guns? What is that?

Neil: I think it's the power. I think it's just— Well, for one, again, she looks to the people that are survivors. The ones that are capable in this world, and they have the power to kill. The questions she asks Joel are often around, "What was it like to kill? What was it like to shoot? What was it like to do these things?" It's almost like she's preparing herself. And again, she doesn't want to be in a situation where Joel's going to have to save her. She wants to hold her own, and she wants to demonstrate that she can hold her own.

Troy: This is not a device or a weapon of protection, but it's a weapon of attack. It's an offensive weapon.

Craig: Yeah. She's not obsessed with a gun or owning a gun because she's afraid for her life. She's obsessed with it because she wants to walk the path of power the way somebody like Joel does. When she sees Joel beating a man to death at the end of our first episode, what she is experiencing inside of herself, along with a kind of inevitable revulsion and fear and shock, is aspiration. Because that's what she wants to be able to do. I mean, this is a man that was coming at them with a very big gun, and Joel defeats him with violence. And Ellie— We don't yet understand how she became infected. We haven't heard that full story. But I think it's probably safe to say that it was violent, and perhaps, if she had had a gun, if she had been more prepared or had more of a position of power, she could have prevented it from happening.

Troy: There's two cool things that are kind of nods to the game in this. First, there's the siphoning of the gas, which is something that in the game, Bill, as we're leaving him, throws us a siphon and says, "You'd be surprised at how many cars out there still have gas." And now, we also have the pun book.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): [Laughing] "No Pun Intended, Volume Too" by Will Livingston. Volume "too." Look, you get it? Too? Like T-O-O.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Jesus...

[Ellie laughs]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): What did the mermaid wear to her math class? An algae-bra, like— Algae-bra!
Craig: I loved it. I mean, I remember in the game, being shocked that the game was suddenly offering me this thing that had no benefit for the game.

Troy: At all.

Craig: That's what I loved about it, that it was just gratuitous and yet, lovely and human. It was it was sort of like saying, "Hey, you know what? You don't have to be eyes-on-the-back-of-your-head, or getting-read- to-run-or-shoot at every moment. You can take the time to stop, look around. Experience the beauty of the world that's created." But what I also love about it, and why it was it was essential to include in the show, is that it undercuts this thing that happens when adults write kids. They either write them too young or too old. And there's this stage of life... My friend Scott Frank had the best description of it ever. I was talking to him about my kids as they were going through that age. And he said, "I call that time of life, 'f*ck you, tuck me in.'" They are ready to go out on their own. They want a gun. They want to be in charge. They think they know everything. Also, they're still children. And I love how Ellie has this joy for something so juvenile and infantile and stupid. And she knows it's stupid, but she loves it. It's honest joy. And I always find myself connecting to characters when they show me what they love. And Pedro's reaction is amazing. But I think one of the things that Neil and I, as we were talking about including it, it became a place where we thought, "You know, given that it's not something that just emerges dynamically and goes away when you're pausing on the stick in the game." What can we do with this joke book that comments on their relationship as it changes?

Troy: Man. And there's so much about it too, because in her backpack, she has a pun book and a weapon. And it's so, to me...

Craig: "f*ck you, tuck me in."

Troy: "f*ck you, tuck me in!" It's this cool opportunity that we show that these things are getting mixed up.

Neil: You could see their relationship, they're organically connecting with each other. Whereas before, it's like they have to be very thoughtful and, like, try. They've been trying, and now they don't have to try anymore. It's just— Now it's happening.

Craig: This is also the first moment where Joel talks. I mean, obviously, Joel is speaking for the first three episodes, but he doesn't go on at length, and they are driving in the car. And she asks him about Tommy, since that's where he wants to go. And he talks for a really long time. And I just love that notion that Joel doesn't even realize that it's happening. It just is happening.

Neil: It's happening despite himself.

Craig: Despite himself, yeah.

Troy: But also, after the prompt, he goes, "It's a long story. This is where I shut it down." And she goes, "Is it longer than twenty-five hours? That's how much time we got."

Craig: What I thought was interesting about this was, A, he's talking a lot, which in and of itself is interesting. B, he is giving some context that creates threads that we will be able to pull on and expand on later. And also, at the very end of it, when Ellie is pushing him and saying, "How do you know you're going to find him? What if you don't?" And he says, "I will." "How do you know?" "I'm persistent." And Ellie has this little smile on her face because she loves that. That's what she aspires to.

Neil: That's what she is.
Craig: That's what she is. It's persistence, is the thing that connects the two of them.

Troy: The thing that stuck out to me most when he's discussing this whole thing about Tommy, and he kind of glosses over this. He says that, "There have been people that I attached to that I tried to keep alive, and I don't do a good job of it."

Craig: That's one side of the coin. And the other side of the coin is, Joel has a certain narcissism, that he must go save Tommy. There's almost a resentment. "I gotta go save him again." In the first episode, Tommy calls him from jail, and he's like, "Ugh, I gotta go bail him out. God damn f*cking idiot." There's this thing of, like, "I've got to go do my job and be the guy." But Joel loves being the guy.

Troy: Right. Who am I if I'm not the guy?

Craig: Exactly. Exactly. It's part of his identity, even as he's pretending to complain about it. This, the way in our last episode, Bill says to Frank, "You were my purpose." This is Joel's purpose. He has to have somebody to save.

Troy: There is another thing that he says to Ellie in this conversation. He's talking about family.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): If you don't think there's hope for the world, why bother going on? I mean, you got to try, right?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): You haven't seen the world, so you don't know. You keep going for family. That's about it.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): I'm not family?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): No, you're cargo. And I made a promise to Tess. And she was like family.

Troy: He says it dispassionately. But why? Why say that?

Neil: Because that's what he wants to be true. Yeah.

Troy: For whose benefit is he saying it? For himself or for her?

Craig: For his. I mean, what is the alternative? To say... "You are family. I actually am starting to care about you. You're filling a place in my heart that I thought I had closed off completely. And by filling it in my heart, you are opening me up to experience the greatest pain I've ever felt. A pain I swore to myself I would never feel again." Or he can say, "Yeah, no, no. You're not family. You're a job. I was given you by Marlene. I'm delivering you. And I'll drop you off with the Fireflies."

Neil: He's not going to say, "I've already murdered for you."

Craig: Yeah, exactly. And I think if he had said too much, Ellie would have been probably a bit shocked and put off. I like that she takes it in stride too. This will happen again. In later episodes, we are going to see how she also is not quite ready to be like, "You and me, buddy. It's us."

Neil: And he's, one... for people that know, it's like, he's still holding quite a bit of secrets. They're both holding, like, secrets from each other. So, as much as he's chatting, he's not chatting about everything. He's not talking about Sarah, for example.

Craig: Right. And there's a lot she's omitting. Which is, you know, that is something that I think we talked a lot about in terms of adaptation. Ellie was a bit of an open book in the game, and we thought it was important for Ellie to have a couple of secrets that she was holding back that were a bit darker, and a bit creepier, and a bit scarier.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

[Car trunk and doors slamming shut]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Where are we?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Kansas City.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): How far back do we have to go to get around this?

Troy: One glaring question for me would be, maybe it's me being a nerd and having familiarity with the game, but why Kansas City?

Neil: Craig hates Pittsburgh with a passion, which is why Pittsburgh is not in the story.

[Craig and Troy laughing]

Craig: I'm so sorry, Joe Manganiello. Um... No, I love Pittsburgh. But really, what it came down to is the Pittsburgh-ness of Pittsburgh wasn't necessarily important. And we had certain environments we knew we could shoot in, because we were shooting in Alberta, largely around Calgary, a little bit in Edmonton, and it looked closer to Kansas City. It was just literally, I think, came down to that, it was just harder to manufacture Pittsburgh in that place.

Neil: There was also something, we talked about distances and where we want them to be on the journey at a certain time of the year because where the story's going. And we wanted that moment to be closer to the next beat, which we won't spoil. We're just like, we're looking at the map and Pittsburgh is like, "Oh, that was much further away, so if this beat happened here, there'd be a lot more that happens between the next beat." So, it's just one of those things that... I refer to as like a superficial change. 'Cause what city you're in is not important. What happened to the characters, and the choices they make in that city, that's what's really important.

Troy: So to me, the thing that I liked about it being Kansas City is... it made it believable that they would open up and they would talk to each other. It made it believable that they were more comfortable. 'Cause what we are going to get into with this, is we have this ambush that happens, which was almost one-for-one. If you've played the game, it was great. "Help. Please help me."

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Patrick Chan (As Stranger): Hey! Please help!

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Put your seatbelt on.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Aren't we gonna help him?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): No.

Patrick Chan (As Stranger): f*ck! Go! Go! Go!

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Joel!

Troy: This attack happens from all these people. We realize that we are wa— We, literally, drove right into an ambush. And then we meet Bryan.

Craig: Right.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Juan Magana (As Bryan): No, no, no, no. It's okay. It's okay. It's over. We're not fighting anymore. I'm gonna go home. I'll tell everyone you're good. I don't know what to do! My legs don't work. My mom isn't far. If you can get me to her... We could trade with you guys. We could be friends. I didn't know. I'm Bryan. I'm Bryan. What's your name?

Troy: We humanize the enemy.

Craig: Yeah.

Troy: Where did this come— I mean, I... Good God.

Craig: Well, in part, I think it was getting under the skin of people that you think are just "Bad" with a capital B. And it was also a chance to ground violence, because in the gaming experience, violence very quickly becomes, sort of, just noise. You're killing a gazillion people, lots of monsters. And here, not so much. And it was important, I think, for us, tonally, to make it clear that violence isn't clean, and the people that you hurt are as human as you are. And Ellie, who had had this excited thing with this gun, and who had shown violent impulses, is really struck to her core by what's happened here. And Neil has put his finger on the most important thing, which is that Joel is almost— is angry. But why would he be angry at her? He's angry at her because he's angry at himself, because he didn't hear that guy coming, because he was losing, because he had just given this big monologue about what a savior he is, and once again...

Neil: He would have died without her.

Craig: Bingo.

Neil: It's interesting, both characters— We had a lot of conversations about what this moment means and how— what should their reaction be. And they should be comforting each other. They just survived this thing. And instead, like, Ellie's feeling, like, fearful and shame, like, that she's... she's about to cry. And I think it bothers her more that she's about to cry than what this... Joel's about to do to this man. And often in this genre, like, a character like Ellie would symbolize the innocence that still exists in this world. And in this moment, when the guy's begging for his own life, Ellie would be arguing for that guy— on that guy's behalf. Like, "What if we left him alone? What if we, what if we saved him?" And she does none of that. She understands what needs to happen, and she walks away and lets it happen. And her thought process is, "I feel sad for him, so I must be weak."

Craig: Right. Right.

Troy: Hmm. How did Joel... How did he kill Bryan?

Craig: He stabs him right in the chest.

Troy: I was expecting to hear a gunshot, and I didn't. And it was...

Craig: It was something that I loved when I played the game for the first time, which was how scarce ammunition was. It made me scared. Also, it's loud. Why draw attention to yourself? There's already been gunfire. Why throw one more bullet on there? Someone's gonna come looking for this kid.

Troy: Another face that we get to meet, which was such a surprise... is Melanie Lynskey.

Craig: Yeah.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): This is Henry's work. Understand? And he won't stop until we stop him. Find who did this. Find every collaborator, and kill them all.

Troy: How did that come to be? Like, this is a new character.

Neil: Yes.

Troy: We're completely infusing a new character into our story. Where did this come from?

Neil: The show affords us the ability to leave Joel and Ellie and flesh out other characters in different ways. And the best thing I think you could do in The Last of Us is flesh out your antagonism to show that there's motivation behind what they're doing. They don't see themselves as villains or "the bad guys." "We're just at odds with each other, because our goals somehow overlap what we want, which are different things." So, to leave Joel and Ellie and focus on Kathleen, and sh— put a face to this resistance that has taken over the quarantine zone from FEDRA, made them more interesting. And made the fact that, like, Joel and Ellie and this other group are barreling towards each other. Like, you're kind of cringing just wanting to avoid this conflict between these two groups.

Craig: Humanity probably will not, in a post-apocalyptic world, descend into a Mad Max style, "We're just eighty people that love killing." It's not what happens. What happens instead is, "We're eighty people who love each other because we're family, we're friends, we're neighbors. That love means we must protect ourselves and our stuff and stay alive at any cost, which means anybody that gets in that way of that needs to be taken out." And Joel, himself, was once one of those people. That's how he knows that the guy saying "Help me" is not really hurt. It's... They're being conned. It's a hustle. It's a setup.

Troy: It's one of my favorite lines from the game, which is when they're— and I love that it happened kind of in the same place, is, "How did you know about that ambush back there?" And he goes, "'Cause I... been on both sides."

Craig: "I've been on both sides." And she says, "Did you kill innocent people?" And he gives her this look. The weird— I can't describe it. It's guilty. It's confessional. But it's almost like, "Please don't make me answer it."

Troy: To me, it's, "You don't want to know the answer. You don't really want to know the answer, and don't make me say it."

Craig: "Please, don't make me say it." And she understands in that moment what the truth is. So, we have this character, Kathleen, who we understand, is suffering when we meet her. She's suffering even though she's the one with the gun in her hand.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): I wonder if this is the cell where my brother was beaten to death.

John Getz (As Edelstein): Oh, you were wronged... and I'm sorry. But this has gone too far. It has to stop.

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): Oh, "It has to stop now," you mean, now that you're in the cell. But before, people dying was okay, when you were safe, and protected, and ratting on your neighbors to FEDRA.

John Getz (As Edelstein): They put a gun to my head.

[Kathleen points her gun at Edelstein]

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): There. Have I satisfied the necessary conditions for you to talk?

Craig: She's aiming it at this man's face. Not just any man, her doctor.

Troy: Doctor who delivered her.

Craig: The man who delivered her. So, we have a character who must be a little bit like Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities. Like this revolutionary who quietly becomes a terror, and who does horrible things in service of that revolution, but also, at the same time, is somebody that we can empathize with, and feel for, because she has suffered. Now, that's a tough thing to pull off. The name that we kind of landed on pretty early was Melanie. And I've been friends with Melanie for many years. But, you know, you can be friends with people. It doesn't mean they're going to do your thing. And so, I sent her this and I was like, "Look, I'm just going to describe this character. But I need you to know, please, if there's even one percent of you that is like, 'I don't want to do it,' I'm okay with that." I don't— you know, it's an awful thing to think like, "We won't really be very good friends anymore if you say no." So, I gave her every possible out I could give her. And she agreed to do it.

Troy: It feels like the character was created for her. There's something— I understand why she was put in charge.

Craig: Yep.

Troy: She doesn't look comfortable with a gun in her hand, until she shoots it.

Craig: Right.

Troy: And then, she has this lieutenant.

Craig: Mm-hmm. A familiar face to you.

Troy: Well, what's funny is, it's not as— A familiar face as a friend, a familiar voice, but definitely not a familiar face. Because, my God, he went all out. We're speaking, of course, of Jeffrey Pierce.

Craig: Jeffrey Pierce, who voiced Tommy, Joel's brother in the game, plays a very different character in our show. Jeffrey Pierce plays Perry, who is Kathleen's revolutionary right hand man.

Troy: There's some tension between the two of them, because I felt from him, "You're not doing a good job of leading us. We need to tell people that there's— Let me show you something that's happening down here." And we see the pavement is beginning to peel up. There's something happening. We don't know what it is.

Craig: There's something happening underground.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

[Low rumbling]

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): f*ck, f*ck.

[Kathleen and Perry panting]

Jeffrey Pierce (As Perry): When do we tell the others?

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): Not yet. Let's just handle what we have to handle. We can deal with this after.

Jeffrey Pierce (As Perry): Kathleen—

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): After. Seal off the building for now. Okay?

Jeffrey Pierce (As Perry): [Sighs] Yeah.

Troy: And there's this hesitation from Perry that's like, "That's the wrong move, I know it's the wrong move. But I'll know my place and I'll stay in my lane."

Craig: Yeah, he did such— I mean, Jeffrey— That's a tough character to play, and Jeffrey did a brilliant job, because he believes in her, he follows her, but he is also far more moral than she is. And she— it's sort of— This is the thing. Sometimes the person who's leading needs to be the person who has the least reluctance. That's why they lead you to victory. He's not as interested in her pursuit of vengeance, which is a function of her love. But he is—

Neil: But he'll follow her despite it.

Craig: He will follow her despite it. But he is— She's Bill and he's Frank. And we can do this all throughout the series.

Neil: But there's also something interesting with the two of them, like parents that have certain knowledge and decide, "When do we withhold information from our kids, and when do we lie to them, and when do we tell them the truth?" Which is also a theme that will keep coming up in this show of this idea of trust and, "I know better than you." Right? So, this moment where she's like, "Do not tell them, because they're not ready to hear this right now. I will decide what they should know or not know, as a parent."

Troy: I want to know, why does Perry follow Kathleen?

Craig: You know, it's important you're asking the question, because it means you are correctly confused.

Troy: Cool.

Craig: Or at least you are correctly mystified. It was important for us for the audience to wonder, "Why? Why is he following her? What is so compelling there?" All I can tell you is, keep watching the show.

Neil: Typically, you would not cast Melanie in this role, because she does have— like, there's a sweetness to her—

Craig: Yes.

Neil: ...that makes this role that much more interesting.

Craig: Yes, a maternal softness. Yeah. Because you get the feeling that this person's not designed to be angry. So if they are, what made them like that, and what are they capable of doing?

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Melanie Lynskey (As Kathleen): They're out of food. Henry won't let Sam starve. Double the guards around our provisions. He's f*cking close. I can feel it.

Jeffrey Pierce (As Perry): Yeah.

Craig: There's somebody out there named Henry. We don't know who he is.

Troy: Right.

Craig: We know that they're looking for him. We know that there's another— that Henry has a brother named Sam. We don't know why they're important. We just know that Kathleen is ready to throw the entire revolutionary army out there to find them and bring them to some sort of justice. While Joel and Ellie are hiding from all those trucks, they have a moment where Ellie asks him if he's doing okay.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Are you okay?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): I'm alright. Are you alright?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Yeah.

Craig: And that rattles him, because that is a complete violation of who he feels he needs to be, which is the guy that nobody needs to worry if he's okay.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Thing is, is I didn't hear that guy comin'.

Craig: He realizes, "Oh, my God, this child just basically killed somebody for the first time. And all I've been doing is being grouchy." And he tries to comfort her. He's not good at it. He admits that.

Neil: It's the best he can.

Craig: He does the best he can. And then she tells him, "That wasn't my first time."

Troy: Yes.

Craig: And so, we are left wondering, "What was the first time?" But what's interesting is Joel, at this moment, decides, "I'm not going to push that. Instead, I'm going to reward her with the gun, because I trust now. I am going to show her that I trust." And he gives her the gun. And this is the most father-daughter moment they've had.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Finger off the trigger. Now, who taught you that?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): FEDRA School.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Figures. Your thumb over your thumb. Left hand squeezes down on the right. You got it? There you go. Look-it.

[Joel wiggles the gun and Ellie laughs]

Craig: And then he wiggles it to show her that it can't get loose and she laughs, which is a laugh that every parent who's taught a kid has seen this laugh of discovery and joy like, "I've learned!" Even though Joel doesn't get it, we know there's no coming back. Once he gives her that gun and he shows her how to use it, he is on a permanent path towards returning to fatherhood.

Neil: I think Joel, he's giving in. Like the world is reminding him again and again, "You will fail. You cannot do this by yourself." And this is the first time where he's giving into that. "We're now more on equal footing than we were before. And I have to trust you on this journey alongside me."

Craig: And bad parent or good parent, parent. And the look on her face. I mean, she's crying. She's trying to not cry, she's failing. And then, he gives her this gun and she's immediately smiling. Not because she loves guns so much, although we know she does, but because she's never had— she's never known a parent.

Troy: She even questions if Marlene's her mom.

Craig: I mean, it was pretty funny. [Laughs]

Troy: It was great.

Craig and Troy: "Do I look like your mom?"

[Laughter]

Neil: One of my, uh—

Craig: "No, you do not." He also, somewhere deep down, even if he doesn't have access to it in that moment, and seeing her face light up is an experience he would have never had with Sarah. Ever. Because this is not Sarah. This is a very different person. And this is one of those places where you realize that sometimes the people that you create biologically are not as similar to you as other people you may meet on your path in life.

Neil: Well, Ellie, she's telling him, "I've already killed someone."

Craig: Right.

Neil: She's already lived, like, a vastly different life than his daughter would ever know.

Troy: I've experienced this. I'm sure other people have as well, where there's a— sometimes the grief and the sadness is all that you have that remains of the person that you were grieving or sad over. And when there is an opportunity to love again, there's an opportunity, an invitation to feel... joy, connection, hope, something. There is this fear that you're swinging from one vine to the next.

Craig: He doesn't realize it, but it's beginning to happen. And that's why I loved using the joke book at the beginning of this episode, because it feels like nothing. It feels just like this frivolous bit of goofiness. And when we get to the end and they've created their little safe nest and she delivers one final joke and he laughs.

Troy: Laughs.

[Audio from The Last of Us Season 1, Episode 4 plays]

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Joel.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Hmm?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Did you know diarrhea is hereditary?

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): What?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Yeah. It runs in your jeans.

[Ellie chuckles]

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Jesus.

[Joel snickers and Ellie laughs]

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): That is so goddamn stupid.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): You laughed, motherf*cker.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): I didn't laugh.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): Yes, you did.

Pedro Pascal (As Joel): Jesus, I'm losing it.

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): You're losing it big time.

[Joel starts laughing]

Craig: We haven't seen Joel even smile since the world ended, much less laugh.

Troy: And he can't contain it. It just comes out.

Neil: He doesn't even know.

Craig: He doesn't even get it. People make characters too smart. And Pedro gets so annoyed at me, because I would always say, you know, "Joel's not that smart," and he would be like, "Can you please stop saying that?"

[Troy and Neil laugh]

Craig: And I'm like, "Well, you know—" But Joel is not the most insightful man in the world, let's face it. When it finally does hit him, it's going to hit him with an almost nuclear force.

Neil: Interestingly, I— And, again, this is all open to interpretation, that's what I love about this adaptation and how nuanced and subtle these things are, but I believe Ellie knows. Ellie sees it. Ellie sees the change in him already in a way that he doesn't.

Craig: Yeah, I think that's right. I buy that. I think that's right. Because she is insightful. And she is, in many ways, smarter than him. She's never had a parent, never had a dad. And it's fulfilling her. It's awesome. She loves it.

Troy: And it's immediately interrupted...

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): [Quietly] Joel?

Bella Ramsey (As Ellie): [Yells] Joel!

Troy: ...by Ellie waking up Joel. I love that he fell asleep...

Craig: Again.

Troy: ...on his right ear, but he woke up on his left. Meaning that the right ear, that he can't hear well out of, he didn't hear someone stepping on the glass. And we wake up and we have these two new characters that are facing us, and we're staring at them down the barrel of a gun. We don't know who it is, if you haven't played the game, but we have been hearing the names Henry and Sam floated about. And I think that we might have just met Henry and Sam.

Craig: There's a decent chance. I don't want to give away too much, but it does seem likely. Also, the casting announcements that were in Variety and so forth would indicate the involvement...

Troy: Shut up!

Craig: ...of those guys, were Henry and Sam.

Troy: Something that is unique to this is, normally, if I've— any adaptation, whether it be a book, or whether it be a play, or whether it be a game, I'm like, "Ah, got it. Now I know where they're going with this." The problem is, you guys are bast*rds, and you have completely taught me to not—

Craig: Good.

Troy: Yeah, my expectations, like, I don't know what's gonna happen.

Craig: You don't. And that's important. Because we know the game so well, and because we know that story so well, there was also a little bit of engineering to say, "Look, we don't want this to feel like an inevitable sort of slog for people that know the story of the game." We want them to be as on the edge of their seat as possible. And that means surprising them repeatedly, and we do. And we will continue to. If you've played the game a hundred times, I can assure you, you are going to be startled a lot between now and the end of this series.

[Outro music plays]

Troy: Well thank you, Craig, for joining us.

Craig: My pleasure.

Troy: And thank you, Neil, for being with us as well.

Neil: Thank you.

Troy: We are almost halfway through this season but if you've been looking online, you may have seen that viewers can expect a second season of this incredible show. And that is due entirely to all of you for tuning in every week and watching this incredible story, The Last of Us.

Troy: This has been the official The Last of Us podcast from HBO. Again, I'm Troy Baker, joined by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. You can stream new episodes of the HBO original series The Last of Us, Sundays on HBO Max. The podcast episodes are available after episodes of The Last of Us air on HBO. You can find this show wherever you listen to podcasts. Like and follow HBO's The Last of Us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Until next week, endure and survive.

Narrator: This is the official companion podcast for HBO's The Last of Us, hosted by Troy Baker. Our producers are Elliott Adler, Bria Mariette, and Noah Camuso. Darby Maloney is our editor. The show is mixed by Hannis Brown. Our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Bari Finkel. Production music is courtesy of HBO, and you can watch episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Max.