First of all, Abby did nothing wrong

It’s a big week for TV, my friends! Here are some thoughts, with spoilers, on the following:

• The Last of Us

• ER

• Andor

• Hacks

The Last of Us, season 2, episode 2

My good friend Anika regularly argues that character death rarely, if ever, improves a show.

In general, I agree. But some deaths are so necessary that it’s impossible for the story to progress without them. Consider Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. Or the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. Actually, most of my examples come from Game of Thrones — or, more specifically, A Song of Ice and Fire, which generally handles character deaths and their consequences better than the TV adaptation. Not that I’m still mad about Lady Stoneheart.

Some stories are tragedies. Hamlet had to die, and so did Joel.

Not just because this is, ultimately, Ellie’s story and always has been, no matter how angry some men were (and are!) about that.

Joel has to die because, in saving Ellie’s life, he may have doomed humanity. He did the right thing, but it was also the wrong thing, and tragedy is not a genre that lets people off the hook. You know who else dies in Hamlet? Literally everyone except Horatio.

Maybe this is a good time to admit that I’m completely spoiled for the entirety of the game, and have been since it first came out. There were a LOT of angry men out there in 2020, and also — I assume — some angry women. And I’m not sure if you remember 2020, but for some reason I was stuck at home and had a lot of time on my hands to read discourse about a video game I was not interested in playing.

(I have set aside a line item in my budget to buy both games.)

Anyway. Without getting heavily into spoilers, The Last of Us is not just a tragedy; it is also about revenge and atonement. Ellie and Abby aren’t done yet.

But Joel is, and Joel’s story is a tragedy. It has been all along. You’re meant to feel horror and grief and powerful rage at his death, and at some point in the future, you’re going to have more complex feelings. Assuming the show does its job, and I actually have a lot of faith on that count.

On the other hand, if you’re angry and dismayed that now you have to identify with a woman — and a queer woman, at that — or have empathy for a fictional woman who murdered a fictional man you liked, well. I don’t think the show or the game are the problem here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

That’s too many zombies and they’re going too fast. I simply do not approve. Which is what I would be shouting as the zombie horde claimed me.

But I do have to congratulate HBO for figuring out that you can film large action set pieces in daylight. Yes, some of the SFX were a bit ropey, but isn’t it nice that we could see what was happening?

ER, season 13, episodes 3 to 7

Season 13, episode 3: Now this is an ER episode. They found the handheld cameras and remembered this is a medical drama more than a soap opera. Yes, we’ve seen most of these plots before; in fact, the Arrogant New Resident Who Saves A Patient Who Won’t Recover was Pratt, several seasons ago. Now he’s got the resident he deserves, and no one feels bad for him. But the familiarity is nice. The show is, at least for one episode, back on track.

It also feels much too recent — it seems like only yesterday characters were talking about the Spice Girls, and now they’re name-checking Barack Obama. But it’s also very, very distant, as the A-plot gives us an elderly gay man (played by the dad from Frasier) who is unable to make decisions for his dying partner. This was filmed only 19 years ago. It’s devastating.

The next few episodes were … fine. Not outstanding, but also not terrible. Truthfully, harping on about how a series is not as good in its 13th year as its first is boring — and so far, this is a step up from the messiness and melodrama of season 13. And Michelle Hurd is around, which is always great.

Of note: in the last five minutes of episode 7, my flatmate looked up from her phone and casually told me that the patient of the week was played by the actor who would go on to play Dr Abbott in The Pitt. I am bad with faces and would have had no idea otherwise.

Andor, season 2, episodes 1-3

When we first learned that Disney+ would be dropping Andor at a rate of three episodes a week, I was like, “Either it’s absolute dogshit, or it’s even more overtly political than season 1 and Disney is hoping no one in the current regime notices.” Streaming services only do this when they are very distressed.

Three eps in, we can safely say it’s the latter. I mean, the Empire is literally rounding up undocumented workers and laying the propaganda groundwork for the invasion of an ally/member to exploit its natural resources. None of this is subtle, except maybe Mon Mothma’s storyline. Or maybe that just seems subtle because everyone is speaking in low, British tones and my hearing is not what it used to be.

These three episodes cover roughly four storylines. And fellas, is it bad if the weakest storylines is the one featuring the protagonist?

I understand why we had the whole “Cassian is trapped on Yavin with a bunch of rebels who can’t get their shit together” business. It tells us that the Rebellion is not yet a Rebel Alliance, and in fact, some rebels would rather fight each other than the Empire. This is, after all, Leftist Infighting In Space: The Series. I just don’t think it needed to go for three whole episodes.

I’m also not entirely sold on the “Cassian’s closest friends as undocumented workers hiding from the Empire” storyline. Did it need to go on as long as it did? Did it need a graphic attempted rape — and of Bix, who already spent season 1 suffering at the hands of the Empire?

Truthfully, I think the main weakness here is that the farmers who played host to the Ferrix refugees are all so one-note. They’re all good people who fear the Empire but will open their community to undocumented workers, and will help to hide them when ICE the Stormtroopers turn up. The only concern is that a teen romance might end in tears.

This is all fine, I guess, but falls into a “rural people = salt of the earth = decent types” stereotype, and we all know the world is more complicated than that. I cannot quite articulate how, but it ties in — for me — with the fact that we are yet to see any significant non-human characters, and the only droid is childlike and has no autonomy. That feels like an oversight in a universe where the Empire is explicitly anti-alien/human supremacist.

My favourite storylines were Dedra and Mon Mothma, and maybe that’s because I’m a bad person and see myself in problematic women. Or maybe there’s just too much absurd and sexist Mon Mothma discourse, and I cannot believe that it’s Star Wars fandom which finally drove me to mute the name “Nancy Pelosi”.

Anyway. I do not gotta hand it to Dedra, but I enjoy watching her professional and personal life unfold. For one glorious moment, I thought maybe she was quiet about Krennic’s Gorman Ghorman plan because the Empire was finally crossing a moral line — but no, like so many women in the history of office politics, she was simply trying to come up with a diplomatic way to say she had a better idea. She’s not a good person, but she’s a realistic one, and someone I can empathise with (and then wonder what my ability to empathise with her says about me).

Fun fact about Liz: my all-time favourite science fiction trope is the awkward dinner party in space. Alien planets count as “space” for my purposes, and space weddings just take it to a whole new level. Imagine my joy when, alongside the Mothma family wedding, we get Dedra and Syril hosting Syril’s awful mother at dinner.

The latter is another “these are terrible people and I empathise with all of them” situation. They’re all social climbers, but Dedra and Syril are better at it. Dedra and Eedy are completely certain of themselves and their identities, but Dedra (for some reason) respects Syril, which Eedy absolutely does not. The dynamics are incredibly familiar, and I don’t know if that’s a banality of evil thing, or just a reminder that even fascists are people. Which is important to remember, not because it entitles them to a free pass, but to remind us that we are not so different.

Terrible people I do not empathise with: all the men in Mon Mothma’s life. Her childhood friend is blackmailing her. Her husband is being a dick. Luthen is … well, he’s just being himself, but “himself” is basically “what if Senator Palpatine but for the greater good?”

With Handsome Tay off to get assassinated by the new Doctor Who companion (please stop making me want to watch the new season of Doctor Who), I don’t blame Mon for having a few cocktails and dancing it out.

Concept: I host a Chandrilan party for my birthday. All my friends wear fabulous clothes and drink amazing cocktails, and someone gets assassinated before the end of the night. Who? That’s the surprise!

There are people out there who think Mon is dancing at the end because she doesn’t care, and let me tell you, I have serious concerns about media literacy. At least when it comes to female characters. Anyway, here’s Tony Gilroy talking about taking inspiration from Babylon Berlin, another series which contrasts dance and joy and despair in the face of fascism and terrible choices.

At least the TikTokkers get it. Mostly.

I choose to believe that Mendo is aware of iconic Australian clothing company Gorman, and simply chose not to say anything. No one tell me otherwise. (I know that the Ghorman Massacre was part of Star Wars lore long before Lisa Gorman designed her first brightly-coloured linen sack, but let me have this, okay?)

Hacks, season 4, episode 3

FINALLY Ava and Deborah are on good terms again. And all it took was a series of panic attacks, a successful first night, a combination of cocktails, poppers and a mild head injury, and some wise advice from Carol Burnett.

Perfect episode, no notes.

Hey, I went to the movies

Sinners lives up to the hype. It feels like Ryan Coogler watched season 1 of Interview with the Vampire, then read the Wikipedia summary for Queen of the Damned and went, “Okay, but what if that story was actually good?”

I’m a terrible wimp about horror, and hope to one day desensitise myself enough to watch Get Out. I’m not there yet, but I do not regret spending a few hours at the cinema, on a Saturday night, with a toddler in the audience.

I do regret that now my TikTok feed is full of discourse about Hailee Steinfeld’s race (she plays a mixed race woman who “passes”, and is indeed a mixed race woman who is widely perceived as white), but that’s on me for opening TikTok.