tlou hbo ep.6 thoughts ig
you sent this to my main inbox but i'm answering here since i figure you follow me here anyway (also late watching it lol but it sure was bliss to not watch for a bit)
i think it's a waste of an episode to have all the flashbacks put together like this. they're meant to give little bits of insight as to why ellie is gunning so hard for revenge (but ellie isn't gunning very hard in the show right now, she actually seems pretty occupied with her relationship with dina that abby is hardly on her mind at all). they accompany and highlight the brutality and danger that we were meant to see (again, absent; story's gutted of all the brutal killing ellie's supposed to be doing) but they feel a lot less significant when put up against each other.
they probably could've made for intro segments since the show seems pretty fond of these but maybe they'd be too long? though there have been long intros before in season 1.
it being from joel's perspective is a very confusing choice. even if they started out the season attempting to flesh him out more, it still doesn't really work because he's been dead the entire season. i don't think we gain anything from having more of his pov because we know enough of how he felt about the rift between him and ellie already, and especially not with the thesis that they set up for the episode which is the cycle of...fatherhood? the story is already about joel's story as a father and the choices he makes because of it! why are we throwing in yet another point his morally gray choices as a father?
instead of joel and ellie's relationship being okay with an undercurrent of tension only to make a sheer drop when ellie seeks out the truth about salt lake, the episode presents it more as a gradual fall. i can see a world where it would be interesting but it stumbles so much. ellie's characterization is one of the season's biggest problems because she's written as if she's still 14. she's still happy-go-lucky, she still jokes and quips, and she's still same-old ellie and i think that's a huge misstep. because it really doesn't seem like she's all that affected by the weight of what joel did.
they remove some pretty integral scenes that give insight to how feelings about salt lake have just been festering within her all this time, like the flashbacks of when she was 17, where she finds the bodies of jackson residents who ran away and where she runs off to salt lake to find the truth (presumably to cut back on set costs??). it's the legit turning point for their relationship but they sub in, uh...eugene's death? there's an attempt at ellie's feelings about infection and where she stands as an immune person, but again, the episode is from joel's perspective so that clearly isn't the point of the scene but instead, ✨joel's gray morality again✨, hooray. the show keeps beating us over the head with THIS shit in particular, and neglecting that subtextual facet of ellie's character that has to do with her lost sense of purpose as "the immune girl." y'know. a major part of season one.
the eugene scene makes it more about ellie's overall distrust in joel being reaffirmed but not really in regards to what happened at salt lake specifically.
i could pick at every detail in the episode if i wanted to, but i feel like the most important is the porch scene. what. the fuck.
pushing the porch scene up makes no sense at all? with this, it felt like they just didn't want the flashbacks as a motif at all, which would've been fine for the others but this one? how do you botch one of the most important scenes to the story? it's not even supported by any momentum because this episode didn't build any at all.
the porch scene is meant to be pivotal to both characters. it's joel stating that he stands by his choice, and it's ellie offering an olive branch between them. instead, much like with the whole episode, they cram two important moments in one: ellie starting to forgive joel and joel confessing the truth about salt lake. why is this HERE of all places. why did they choose to have joel confess in one of his last moments with ellie, when it causes a rift between them in the og story?
and ellie forgives him almost immediately! what causes her to break down, hyperventilate, and stop speaking to joel entirely for two whole years in the game, she gets over completely in the show in a matter of minutes.
it begs the question now: what is ellie's motivation here, really?
ellie's reason for going on a damn-near suicidal revenge mission is just not strong enough in the show. it effectively boils down to "she loves him so she goes," which is fine, but other people loved joel. everyone in town loved joel. in the show, she's the one who presses pretty hard to go (unlike in the game, where tommy mirrors her grief). the show is of the position that "only a certain type of person would do this (one with a 'violent heart')" when it should be "ellie is desperate to do this because of what she could've had." it is a character choice based on a perceived mistake.
they softened EVERYTHING in this version of the story to the point where i feel disoriented just watching. they softened joel, they softened ellie, they softened every edge of the story that gave it clarity for, what, some simulated sense of "nuance"? to explore more of joel's gray morality and the consequences of his actions?
for a story about ellie's journey through self-destructive revenge, it doesn't feel like it's about ellie at all. she doesn't feel like the main character and it shows in the plain fact that they chose to use the flashback episode to explore MORE OF JOEL and not of ellie.
