This story could have been satisfactorily told in about 20 minutes. Didn't need an hour long drama.
And so many years organizing defense, then Bill stands completely out in the open shooting at the raiders. A little cover and concealment for just such a situation never crossed his mind?
Yeah, I was pretty much shouting that at the screen during that part.
Standing still in the open, wearing a white shirt no less.
And so many years organizing defense, then Bill stands completely out in the open shooting at the raiders. A little cover and concealment for just such a situation never crossed his mind?
Gas - It showed him opening up a gas valve at the plant to supply his town. The guy was very knowledgeable on the local infrastructure, it is unnecessary to show how he maintained gas over the years after show casing his initial skills. A simple low pressure dry gas well is more than enough to heat a house for over a century.
Water - I assume it comes from a well or multiple wells, lots of pump options given his skills and electricity. This is a very easy task.
Diesel powered generator was kind of dumb, it should have been run on natural gas... but given they had power 20 years later, I will assume he made the transition to a natural gas motor.
Food - they grew their own and he ate small mammals (assuming they raised them too)
There's videos of couples and small families living off the grid or relatively off the grid lives on youtube. The compound plus his home seemed hard to sustain alone. Adding Frank in helped but he wasn't doubling Bill's output.
Gas can be made from poop and garden waste with a bio digester.
Rain water harvesting, filtration and storage were reasonable for him given the likely climate in the episode plus Bill's other skills. There's earthships and tiny homes that do this. They rely on commercial filters which they could have stockpiled. But once those run out it is possible to build low tech filters. There's people in New Mexico living off grid where there rely on 9 inches of rain a year. They re-use their grey water to water crops and flush the toilet. Can use composting toilets to save even more water.
He had a lot of surface to harvest water from. Could also have built a pond / reservoir etc.
They wanted to tell a gay love story. Its HBO and they are targeting a female audience. The wife really loved this episode..
I think this episode shows that people could survive with out joining one of the factions. Additionally, it gives them a safe place to return to, after they find Joels brother.
I agree it is very stupid to stand in the middle of the road to shoot a dozen attackers.
Its HBO and they are targeting a female audience. The wife really loved this episode..
I liked this episode. The show is about the survivors, and this focused on one guy who prepared for it all. But he needed more than food, weapons and barricades to survive. He needed a reason to survive. Along comes love and companionship which gives purpose to his life. The reason for surviving and love is a running a theme.
shareWow a what deep theme, haven’t seen that before
shareIt's not groundbreaking and I was in Bill's initial mindset thinking Frank was gonna ruin everything by wasting resources. However, I thought of the game and how it's almost non-stop killing or be killed by almost everyone you run into. Something like this was needed to break that up, in addition to the main characters. Otherwise it is relentless and leads to despair.
I like how Bill was dragged over by Frank to the new way of life but still tried to maintain some boundaries eg. in his final letter to Joel.
Sure, no reason for it to be so long though, and to have such drawn out scenes. Several times I found myself saying, "Alright, we GET it."
Joel and Sarah's relationship and tragedy was fully fleshed out in around 30 minutes, why did this one need double that?
You need to ask?
shareNo, no I don't.
If it had been an older man and woman who'd had this same story I'd have been equally bored, but I doubt such a story would have been bothered with for more than ten minutes. I wouldn't want the drawn out love scenes with a hetero pairing either, fucking boring in either case.
There is of course the extra factor of it being two men here which I find uncomfortable to watch. Made a little less comfortable still that they're hairy and one of them is, to put it nicely, less than conventially attractive (I like N.O. but he's no oil painting).
I could put up with it after the initial revelation at the piano if it didn't then become a snoozefest that felt like a mixture of pandering and padding.
Maybe that story will be told in flashbacks. This episode was essentially a long flashback.
shareYeah, I kind of groaned when I realized where this episode as going, but I continued watching and as it moved on and I realized how it fit into the series I thought it got better and better. It was well written, well acted and well directed. It's getting rave reviews from all kinds of people. I saw Jeff Bezos give it high praise on Twitter, and many others.
Then there are those who are just going to wah-wah whine about wokeness.
The only think I thought was weird was when Bill was shot, maybe I missed something but it was Frank that was all of a sudden fatally ill with something.
I think the thing that made me pay attention to the episode was the tension when Frank first showed up. I was sure Bill was gonna blow him away. And then when Bill showed hospitality I was just as sure that Frank was going to murder him at the piano.
When that didn't happen, the gay romance thing was kind of a relief! ;-)
It's not supposed to be realistic. If Bill had not been standing out in the open, there would have to have been a whole thing of finding him and dragging him back into the house, etc. You are not wrong, but that's just a lame thing to criticize.
shareCould easily have had him in cover or moving between cover and getting shot instead of standing there like a moron asking for it. He's smart, he's a survivalist. Why have that one bit portraying him as a moron when it wasn't necessary?
Writers failing to think of ANY other way he could have been shot other than him painting a big bullseye on himself, that's what's lame.
They could have, they didn't. It would have been better if they did.
But if you're going to criticize gunfights on TV and Movies there is a lot
more to criticize than that stupid scene. Like how the good guys never
get shot, and always hit the bad guys, or if they do get shot they mostly
are ok in the next few minutes, even gunshot after gunshot.