The Last of Us (HBO)

I thought that scene was a little forced. Just because there's no reason from the perspective of 1968 to assume that the fungus would be resistant to anti-fungal meds. And even less reason to think that a few degrees of climate change would cause that adaptation when if that were true the fungus in death valley would have adapted a long time ago. Not to mention ignoring the difference in complexity between human and ant brains.

 

That guy from 1968 had obviously watched this video:

 

The boy wasn't "suspected" to be infected, he definitely was. FEDRA scanned him after he was brought into the QZ, when they had him strapped to a chair, and the scanner came back red, meaning he was infected. (The agent behind the boy briefly showed the scanner to the lady talking to him, and you could see the red light.) At the end of the episode, the scanner showed green for Joel and Tess, because they were clean, but red for Ellie because she's infected, but immune to the fungus' effects.

And there's no reason to even consider checking to somehow see if someone is immune, because as far as everyone else is aware, nobody is.

 

I don’t remember those scanners in the game. They must be new for the show. They better be 100% accurate if a positive is a death sentence

 

They show part of a scene from Left Behind in the first trailer, and announced a while back that Storm Reid from the A Wrinkle in Time movie and Euphoria is playing Riley, so we'll definitely be seeing the Left Behind story as a flashback.

But it would still be a waste time since as far as everybody is concerned there is an absolutely 0% chance that anybody would be immune.

Since we're going into this now knowing where the story will go in Part II I'm wondering if they'll include anything new that'll set up it's storyline.

 

Presumably - in addition to the scan, they do at minimum a cursory examination for evidence of infection before pulling the *ahem* trigger - as they did here (noted the scratch / bite mark; tried and failed to communicate with the boy - although he appeared to still comprehend, could no longer speak).

If there were any doubt, they wouldn't have to wait long.

 

According to the wiki, scanners are seen in the game but they aren't actually used by the player.

 

"The more numerous Species becomes, the more likely it will be attacked by it's nemesis Cordyceps fungus." - line from the video.

 

I am not an epidimeologist, but wouldn't immune persone that test positive, be labeled as super spreader? If infection had no effect on her cause of her immunity why is she still infected? Shouldn't have immune system destroyed the infection?

 

They are indeed seen in the game used by FEDRA in the quarantine zone used just as we saw here.

And yeah as for the kid, this really isn't a difficult concept to grasp and not really up for debate: Infection = bad. Benefit to allowing an infected person inside a QUARANTINE zone (clue is in the name, no?) = zero. Risk of infected person to larger population = immense. Likelihood that an infected person may randomly be immune = probably south of 0.000000015873%. Benefit of burning scarce and rapidly dwindling resources on the infinitesimally small chance that any one of the hundreds of infected people encountered every year may randomly be immune = none.

Boston is a workcamp run by thugs. Any hope of anyone figuring out an effective cure, immunisation or counteragent is two decades in the rear view mirror. There are no real scientist left. No universities. No international co-operation. The entire species has been knocked back so far it may as well be the neolithic.
This is just how the world works now. Water is wet, the sky is up, and infected people get put down and incinerated. Behaving otherwise is about as rational as flapping your arms really hard in an attempt to fly around the moon from a standing start.

 

I wonder if the two doctors of the 1968 segment were still alive during the outbreak. I imagine the first one telling the other "I told you!" before being eaten by super fungus

 

Those were the fabulous John Hannah and Chris Heyerdahl!

I wasn't initially interested in this. I don't play video games and I'm pretty done with post-apocalyptic horror. But we kept hearing so much about it being good... plus Pascal... we gave it a shot.

Damn. That was more emotionally effecting and well done than I expected. I assumed his daughter was going to die (Tragic Backstory!) and I figured Ellie was immune ("get immune patient to scientists" was also the plot of Z Nation season 1). I'm glad they threw us into the present without further exposition.

I'm interested to see where this goes.

 

I was starting to wonder if anyone else had recognized them!

 

Todd and Inspector Cloth? Of course.

 

I've become quite good at Heyerdahl spotting! And Sparticus made me a real Hannah fan (though I've liked him since The Mummy).

 

Seeing John Hannah (and his thick-ass sandals) in Spartacus put him on the map for me.

 

Hannah was the best part of Spartacus.

 

My brain went to "Mad-Scientist-Bloke-From-Agents-of-SHIELD" and "That-One-Tall-Bugger-From-Stargate-Atlantis-That-Never-Actually-Did-Anything-But-Look-Mildly-Concerned".

 

He was also Todd in Atlantis.

 

Heyerdahl was also Bigfoot and John Druitt in Sanctuary, and The Swede in Hell on Wheels.
I just watched the first Brandon Frasier The Mummy last week, so I recognized them both right away.