@niquezvosu Any time you can add complexity to a character and more representation to a show without sacrificing anything, I count that as a plus. The more that a piece of entertainment can reflect reality & all of the parts of the world that we exist in, the more immersive it is. My only quibble with this particular story choice is that it didn't illuminate anything that had come before, or impact anything that we've seen since. (At least by the end of season 1.) In one sense that's great - who Ellie is is just who she is; it doesn't need to be a big deal - but the revelation just felt kinda meh. Again, it should be meh, but with this show I don't want any story beats or character elements to feel wasted, and this one did.
Review by Mike ShawVIP EP 2BlockedParent2023-02-27T19:17:15Z
The acting, directing, and production design of this show continue to be amazing. Unfortunately, at times, including for this entire episode, the writing falls back on tired zombie apocalypse tropes to drive its story forward. Flashbacks are all well and good; they help flesh out characters and can provide nice diversions from the main storyline. But Joel's predicament in Episode 6's cliffhanger needs no diversions, and there are no surprises offered in Episode 7. (Well, maybe except for Ellie's apparent queerness, which is a definite plus, though it doesn't do much to inform, flesh out, or provide insight into anything else that we've seen so far.) From the time that the show's trailer premiered we knew that the scenes in The Mall would be coming. And anyone who has ever watched more than one episode of The Walking Dead fully expected that the person Ellie shared those happy scenes with would be a close friend, and that they would die in a heartbreaking manner. What I didn't expect - especially after the triumph of storytelling that was Episode 3 - was that the writers would spend 50+ minutes telling this tale, and/or that there would be no surprise twist. It could have been done in 10. Fleshing out Ellie's pre-Joel story could have been spread out across multiple episodes. Instead, this week's installment felt like wasted time. Even worse than time, it wasted magnificent performances from Bella Ramsey and Storm Reid on an hour of TV that I kept wanting to fast forward through.