Pretty amazing for an episode that was clearly meant to save time and budget.
Uh what? They built an entire town. How does that save budget?
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Jesus Christ that was fantastic writing and acting. I mean, Top 10 television episode of all time level.
That's an impulsive statement but I don't think I am that far off.
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It was so worth the second watch tonight, especially for someone like me that often misses things on first viewing. Absolutely missed the part where Bill came to the realization that Frank was gay while Frank was speaking from the shower.
Watching with a buddy of mine we loved how perfectly the show led you to believe Bill was seconds away from being killed/robbed by Frank through almost the entire scene of interaction as they came to love each other. We were literally both calling out loud that Bill ####ed up when he criticized Frank's version of the song and Frank encouraged him to sit down and show him his version, while Frank now stood behind him with perfect opportunity to subdue/kill etc if that was his desire.
They created the perfect tension and insinuation that Bill had let his guard down and was about to lose everything he created because of it through a solid 15 minutes of television, which is incredible. To have it end that way was just so beautiful.
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The biggest shock of the night is that twitter is being surprisingly reasonable about this episode.
Gives me a modicum of hope for the world. But there are still ####holes of garbage here and there.
I am sure that there is the odd bigot even here just dying to post some laughable complaint about "gender politics in ma TV show" except that they know they'd be mocked into the dirt.
As it turned out, [W. Earl Brown's] age wouldn't have been an impediment to what they wanted to do... he's only 7 years older than Offerman and looked like this in the recent Deadwood movie, which would have worked.
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I suppose the answer was just "I don't see him as this version of Bill", who is obviously the same Bill but who lived a different life than the version in the game and those experiences ultimately created a different person.
I actually just got around to watching the latest episode this evening (), and I still think with all due respect to Earl Brown, his age might still have been problematic. He's pushing 60 and looks it, and I don't think he could have convincingly played the scenes set 2003-2013ish, while Offerman believably plays mid to late-40s and was believably aged up for the last few scenes.
That said, as it turns out I'm not sure Earl Brown would have been right for the part anyway. It was really an entirely different character, quite easily the biggest deviation from the game so far.
I wouldn't go as far as to say "greatest TV episode of all time" as some have, but it was quite good. Like I said, very different from the game...
Spoiler!
Not sure which storyline I prefer, although in a way I think the TV continuity is more believable. Certainly a 'nicer' end for Bill & Frank. Discovering what happened between the two of them in the game continuity, in a story already full of other dour happenings, wasn't as profound as it could have been. Or maybe ought to have been. Bill's sexual orientation was also treated as a punchline by Ellie, which was ####ty but at the same time it reinforced how petulant and immature she was, how unprepared she was for facing the perils of the world. Was it 'authentic'? Yeah, absolutely, 14-year-olds are often ####ty people because they don't know any better. Was it really necessary? No, probably not: she was already an annoying and childish character before and no more or less annoying and childish immediately after. It was maybe a bit of a bluff to cover for her own budding sexuality that she wasn't quite ready to deal with though.
I guess what I'm arguing myself into saying is it was kind of refreshing that Druckmann and Mazin chose to go in this completely different direction with the characters, and the result is almost certainly for the better.
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Interesting to see the reactions here. I mean, I thought it was quite a good episode, but I didn't finish it thinking "that was one of the best shows I've ever seen".
To each their own but having seen it now, I think the praise is earned
A show based off a game had no business putting out an episode that good (given the track record of adaptations to date)
Start to finish, has to be one of the ten best episodes I've had the pleasure of watching
Superb acting, well developed character relationship, emotional scenes that resonate .. you know it hit when those segments of the audience that would normally have an issue with it aren't making a fuss
I'm continually fascinated by the prologue scenes from different points of view that show the outbreak as it happened .. it really spins your imagination
This is a lot more the kind of show I hoped for from the walking dead .. more of a slow burn that earned its moments and took time to develop its characters and atmosphere of its post apocalyptic world. And while not needing to fill a zombie action quota each week
TWD was a little too juvenile and it desensitized you to the absolute worst violence and gore early and often where eventually nothing was shocking or that emotionally engaging any more
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Not only is TLOU in rarified air by being a video game adaptation that is actually good, but the changes they made for TV have almost been universally praised by even the dedicated gaming subreddits. Usually deviating from the source material ends in disaster (Halo, Resident Evil, Witcher, etc), so to do that, still be critically acclaimed, and not even piss off the gamer fanboys is nothing short of miraculous
I really hope this series acts as a wakeup call to writers and producers who treat game adaptations as a quick cash grab. There's still a lot of stories out there that would make for awesome movies or television if done by talented people who actually care about the source material
Uh what? They built an entire town. How does that save budget?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jayswin
Yeah, I don't see how that was a budget saver, at all.
I think the term is a “bottle episode”. Compared to the first two episodes with multiple sets, dozens of extras, and extensive make up and effects, this had one set, minimal effects, and would have reduced the schedule by filming in parallel with the main cast. Nothing wrong with this approach and HBO obviously didn’t skimp on the set design.
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I think the term is a “bottle episode”. Compared to the first two episodes with multiple sets, dozens of extras, and extensive make up and effects, this had one set, minimal effects, and would have reduced the schedule by filming in parallel with the main cast. Nothing wrong with this approach and HBO obviously didn’t skimp on the set design.
It doesn’t really fit the conventional definition of a “bottle episode” though, and cost was clearly not part of the intention based on the fact that the two leads were in half the episode, they hired two established actors to star in the one episode, had a character appear that was killed off in the episode before, a zombie, a full town built on a remote set, a gunfight, explosions, etc.
It has some stuff in common with a bottle episode in terms of dramatic beats (dialogue heavy, focused on a couple characters, etc), but it’s very obvious that it isn’t one.
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Yeah, this came off as a major episode with huge planning, capital and attention put into it to get the incredible outcome we all saw. I mean the actors contracts alone probably made it one of the most expensive episodes in the series.
I found one online review calling this a bottle episode. Does make a point though at HBO this would have been done more for creative reasons than financial ones.
Quote:
If you’re a longtime television fanatic like I am (and who isn’t?), you’re probably familiar with the term “bottle episode.” These self-contained hours of a series usually attempt to tell a very specific part of the show’s story, usually semi-detached from the main plot of the season. Think “Fly” from “Breaking Bad” or “Pine Barrens” from “The Sopranos.” Bottle episodes are sometimes limited in their setting, and they have a small cast of characters. In the past, a bottle episode’s purpose would be mostly financial: showrunners would have to scale their story down a significant margin for the week so as to not run over the network’s requested budget. In the streaming era, especially on a powerhouse platform like HBO max, a bottle episode is more of a creative endeavor, an opportunity to step away and smell the flowers (or, in this case, the strawberries).
I found one online review calling this a bottle episode. Does make a point though at HBO this would have been done more for creative reasons than financial ones.
See that description is accurate for this episode, the idea that it's no longer about saving money like it used to be, especially on a show like this that spared no expense. The original contention is that you yourself didn't call it a bottle episode, you described it as an episode that was "clearly meant to save time and budget".
That's what people took issue with, and is simply not true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireGilbert
Pretty amazing for an episode that was clearly meant to save time and budget. Just a beautifully told apocalyptic love story with the letter at the end tying things into the bigger picture. I love how TLOU takes these zombie tropes, like an immune child, a newly infected person sacrificing themselves, or the self sufficient prepper, but adds so much story and characterisation they feel fresh and realistic.
See that description is accurate for this episode, the idea that it's no longer about saving money like it used to be, especially on a show like this that spared no expense. The original contention is that you yourself didn't call it a bottle episode, you described it as an episode that was "clearly meant to save time and budget".
That's what people took issue with, and is simply not true.
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I'll admit I was wrong the episode scope was not purposefully small because of budget constraints but am going to stick to my initial observation this felt clearly lower budget than the previous episodes. If they cost as rumoured $10M to $15M USD per episode I'm guessing this was closer to the 10 than 15. Not saying it looked cheap, this was still a high quality episode from HBO.
I get the set design was impressive but so was the Boston set from episode 1 that was filled with the cast and extras. That episode also had a major zombie set piece with planes crashing that closed off a main street. Episode 2 had a number of impressive sets, including closing off a main bridge into Calgary for like 2 minutes of screen time, and featured an army of zombies with a huge explosion.
Also even if this doesn't meet the traditional definition of a bottle episode, a bottle of wine was very important to the story so still technically a bottle episode.
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Last edited by FireGilbert; 01-31-2023 at 03:07 AM.
), and I still think with all due respect to Earl Brown, his age might still have been problematic. He's pushing 60 and looks it, and I don't think he could have convincingly played the scenes set 2003-2013ish, while Offerman believably plays mid to late-40s and was believably aged up for the last few scenes.
