I guess I'm always far more interested in structure and plot than characters, in that I don't care much about my emotional attachment to any one character so much as whether a character serves their purpose to the overall story.


Obviously I love a good character, but I've been starting to see a complaint becoming more common that the show needs to slow down and stay awhile. My sort of joking response earlier was meant to imply that while the show's gonna stay sad, it's not staying the same TYPE of sad (trying to say enough with very little here) and that's totally by design.


Joel has a very specific goal. He never intended to be this far away from Boston, but Boston also wasn't his home without Tess. Ellie has a very specific goal and it's all the way over *there*. This was established super early, so when I see articles or subreddit comments complaining that the show won't have multiple more episodes in Kansas City to flesh out, like, the local politics or more of Kathleen and Perry's relationship or whatever...Joel and Ellie DON'T need or want to know any of that, and it's meant to feel just as fleeting as it is grandiose.


It's nice to see PTP seeing the show on that level, it's basically a TV show because it would've been so much harder to translate into a movie. The story itself is pretty basic, it's all about Joel and (increasingly) Ellie carving out an existence for themselves that makes sense for them. Nobody else matters unless they're family.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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