First Things First…
Another genre show getting the plum Sunday 9pm time slot on HBO—that’s reason to celebrate!
That said, I’ve never played the video games. All I know about this story is from the trailers and a few Ringer-verse podcasts. The trailers haven’t blown me away, but the Ringer folks speak highly of it.
Also, the marketing has been built around Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as the two main characters, and I like them both. And I think I spotted Nick Offerman in the trailer. So I’m going in cautiously optimistic.
5 Things I Like
5. Tale as Old as Time
Even in a post-apocalyptic world, there’s government overreach and abuse of power.
I get how cautious this popup civilization in Boston has to be to protect itself, but hanging people for sneaking in and out of the QZ seems harsh.
They have the tools to determine if someone is infected. They could put violators to work without rewarding them with ration cards for a few days. Or even banish them.
Of course, all this works for the show. It’s unsettling to realize nothing and no place is truly safe.
On the flip side, one of the best decisions they make is to throw us off the scent—briefly.
Our introduction to the QZ happens right after the time jump. A kid arrives at their gates, alone. When he’s brought inside, while someone tests him for the infection, a FEDRA agent talks with him. She’s lovely and compassionate—even if she’s full of shit. For a moment there, as she’s promising him toys and his favorite foods, it seems like this might not be such a bad place to live. Until we realize a couple of minutes later that as she was talking to him, the injection another agent gave him was lethal. And his corpse gets unceremoniously dumped into a fire pit.
4. Gritty, Grimy, Overgrown
In the post-apocalypse genre, one commonality I’ve always enjoyed is a city overgrown with vegetation and wildlife.
Of course, the cities are still there. The human structures still exist. But nothing is clean or shiny or new. Abandoned cars, traffic lights, and the streets themselves are overrun with weeds, plants, ivy…
With so few humans left, nature is taking its planet back.
For most of the episode, we only see this in and around the QZ. But the last shot is a panoramic view of Boston now that Joel, Ellie, and Tess have escaped and are going to have to navigate the city. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this, at least in the next episode.
3. Chilling Fungus Scientist
“We lose.”
Dr. Neuman
I wasn’t expecting a cold open like this—a talk show set in the 1960’s with two competing scientists.
Here, one scientist blows off the idea of a viral pandemic—which we actually have been living through for a few years now—but then talks, in chilling detail, about the possibility of a fungus overtaking our species.
The way he describes how it already happens in ants, and then says it could happen in humans eventually if the earth’s climate rose just a little bit, is harrowing. You feel it in the change in mood of the studio audience and even the host.
The camera starts doing alternating closeups of the doctor talking and the host listening while interspersing shots of the audience members not making a sound or moving a muscle. It’s absolutely chilling and sets an ominous mood for the show.
2. World Falls Apart
On the night of the outbreak, the world immediately starts falling apart.
All of it is thrilling—the explosions, the mobs running away from some unseen terror, the military and police out in full force, even a plane crashing on the city street Joel, Tommy, and Sarah are driving on. I loved all of it.
But a small decision here stuck out to me more than these major catastrophes happening all around them.
When the three of them are trying to escape the city, there’s a blockade and traffic looks like it’s backed up for miles. So Tommy drives the truck offroad, across a field, to try to get around it.
Sounds like nothing compared to the crazier shit happening. But think about it—a day earlier, he never would have done that with cops around. In fact, he wouldn’t have done it at all. Not only is it illegal, but societal norms would’ve dictated you stay on the road. But in the span of a day, things have fallen apart and everything is on the table.
Of course, it gets a lot worse than that. At one point they’re trapped by hordes of people on all sides, and Joel yells at Tommy to run them over. It’s not out of cruelty but desperation. This entire sequence is incredible.
1. Falling in Love with Sarah
I didn’t know the show would open 20 years before the main action begins, on the day everything goes to shit. And I didn’t know Joel has a daughter. But having seen all the marketing for the show centered around Joel and Ellie, I figured right away Sarah wasn’t long for this world.
That’s why it surprised me that she’s the protagonist early on. We see the world through her eyes. We see her take care of her dad, wake him up, cook breakfast for him, get his watch fixed—but also go to school, spend time with her next-door neighbors, and fall asleep on her dad’s lap watching a movie.
We spend a good 20-30 minutes absolutely falling in love with Sarah—this kind, smart, responsible, funny, loving young woman played perfectly by Nico Parker…
… only to have her ripped away from us just like she’s ripped away from an anguished Joel as he tries to move her after she’s been shot, knowing she’s in excruciating pain, and keeps calling her “baby” and saying “I know, I know, I know” over and over as she cries out.
It’s devastating for us all.
2 Things I’m Mixed On
2. Fireflies
I felt more confused about the Fireflies than anything.
We see their graffiti all over the QZ. And FEDRA is concerned about the threat they present. Yet Marlene, their own leader, says to one of her underlings:
“You fight for 20 years and you get nowhere, you’re not a rebellion. Just spray paint.”
Plus, we see them with Ellie imprisoned. Marlene seems like she’s able to get through to Ellie and to get her to understand how important she is, and that’s why they want to get her out of the QZ. They’ve got a whole plan in motion.
Then the next time we see them, Marlene is bleeding out and her underling Kim is missing an ear. (Not to mention Robert, who we also meet earlier in the episode, is dead.) But we don’t see the fight.
This whole thing was jarring—and not in a good way.
1. Ellie
We don’t spend nearly as much time with Ellie as with Joel in this premiere.
She’s precocious, I can see that much. She curses a lot. And she has a strange, almost hungry look on her face as Joel beats the soldier to death. But I don’t have a full handle on her yet.
I also don’t understand her connection to the Fireflies. Marlene says she put Ellie in a FEDRA military school when she was a baby. She knows her real name is Ellie, even though Ellie has been telling the Fireflies it’s Veronica.
If it turns out the most important girl in the world, who the Fireflies rescued, just happens to have been connected to them in the first place, that’s gonna strike me as a bit of a stretch.
2 Things I Don’t Like
2. Zombies Slipping on Banana Peels
I don’t need the infected to have Olympic-level agility and coordination. But they’re out here running at full speed, with no ability to slow down or turn, just slipping all over the place and bumping into everything.
Don’t get me wrong—I’d still be terrified of them in real life. Especially when they’re feeding. But their running and chasing skills look more like a slapstick comedy sketch. And laughter probably isn’t the reaction they’re going for.
1. Balance of Power?
“Now I promised Robert that you wouldn’t hurt him. But I would very much like for you to hurt him.”
Tess
Great to see Anna Torv again. I loved Fringe but haven’t seen her in much since.
But this scene confused me. A deal has gone bad, Robert has double-crossed Tess but also wants to Tess to forgive him, and Tess seems to have the power even though she’s handcuffed to a chair and has been beaten up.
Robert doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s above having his goons kill a woman. I’m glad that’s not the route they go, but things just don’t add up in this scene.
Tim Matassa
