JOEL MILLER, EIGHT

Think back to the beginning, before the outbreak. Joel would probably be his truest self at that point. Even then he was socially disconnected. Sarah wants him to grab a birthday cake and he forgets. Later, certainly, he’s not socially comfortable. He ridicules Tommy for being a “joiner”. This is not a Heart Type.

He’s not a leader, either. That’s Tess. That’s Marlene and, we’re told by FEDRA, that’s Ellie. Joel is a follower. We can say, judging by the final episode, that he’s not a planner. When no one is in charge of him, he kills everyone in the building. He’s not strategic. (He would’ve kept the doctor alive if he had any sense of the post-apocalypse big picture.) We could even say that Sarah was the boss of him before she died. For Joel, he’s not just losing a daughter with Sarah (or with the threat to Ellie), he’s losing his purpose and identity.

This is a particular kind of Eight, the type society tries to keep busy in physical jobs. He’s a mastiff on a leash, if we’re lucky. In civilization, we want Joel to obey orders. In war, we let the dog slip.

Look for the Light

This is the finale for Season One of The Last of Us.

ONE

Someone is panting and running through the woods. A woman. She’s last-trimester pregnant, and she’s having contractions. Sounds of pursuit keep her moving. Ahead, a ramshackle farmhouse. When entering, she calls out, “It’s me,” so she knows this place.

Her water breaks. In what was once a child’s bedroom, she pushes a chair under the doorknob and squats against the wall. She’s in advanced labor now. From her pocket she takes a switchblade, ready just in case. Something attacks the outside of the door. An infected breaks in and scrambles at her, rushing right up to her face.

She stabs him and goes back to giving birth. A small human, delivered onto the floor, starts crying. As mother looks down at the baby, she notices the bite mark on her leg. She quickly cuts the cord and ties it off.

 A very precious and unhappy newborn infant (a squirmble!) gets a close-up. Mama cradles it and says, “Ellie”. Roll credits.

Continue reading “Look for the Light”

When We Are In Need

This is my least favorite episode of The Last of Us. Let’s get through it together.

ONE

Silver Lake, CO. The depths of winter.

Inside a restaurant, people meet and listen to a man reading from the Bible. A teen girl weeps. A sign written on cloth hangs at the window: “When we are in need He shall provide.”  

TWO

The preacher/leader (David) kneels next to the girl. (He speaks gently but he has a creepy vibe.) She asks, “When can we bury him?” David pauses, looking at another man (James) at the gathering, then says the ground is too cold for digging. In the spring.

Outside, people in parkas head home. Blowing snow and roof ice dams indicate a very cold place. (None of Jackson’s social cheer is here.) James and David discuss that their meat stores are down to a week. Deer were spotted in the forest. David challenges James, sensing doubt in him. No, he answers, it’s just been a hard six months.

THREE

Ellie examines Joel’s wound while he sleeps. He looks feverish. Wolfing down the last packet of jerky, Ellie leaves a piece on Joel’s blanket. She heads out with the rifle.

Continue reading “When We Are In Need”

Summer Hiatus, not

Now is normally when I take a break from encaustic. However, this year my art cart is in a climate controlled environment. No need to compensate for wax that stays perpetually soft.

My postings of encaustic will still be light, though, because I’m working toward an illustrated book. No worries. I promise a few more random dead flower pieces this summer. You know I can’t resist them.

Left Behind

LEFTOVER NINE

While credits roll, the camera travels through a neighborhood of abandoned houses. Inside a garage is the horse, still wearing its tack. Cut to a frantic Ellie, ripping cloth for bandages and pressing on Joel’s wound. He lies on the basement floor gasping in pain. He tells her to leave, and she yells at him to shut up. “Go to Tom,” he says. After covering him with his coat, she gives him a long look and walks out. Fade to black.

ONE

Pearl Jam starts, over, and we fade in on a Walkman at Ellie’s waist while she runs laps in the school gym. Round and round the basketball floor the girls jog until some bully comes from behind and rips off Ellie’s headset. The bully taunts that Ellie’s friend, the one who fights for her, is no longer here. After a pause, Ellie throws a punch.

Cut to Ellie in the principal’s office. She has a black eye. Cpt. Kwong wears a FEDRA uniform. He’s gentle, mentioning that Ellie’s been in much more trouble over the past few weeks. The bully, Bethany, is in the infirmary with stitches. Kwong, who appears to like Ellie, lays out the two paths ahead for her. One, she becomes a drudge doing the worst jobs. Two, she becomes an officer and has an easier life. “There’s a leader in you,” he says.

Details of a room: a baseball on a window sill, dinosaur drawings, a paperback copy of “No Pun Intended”. Rain is heard while Ellie on her bed reads the comic book Sam loved in Episode 5, “Savage Starlight”. She tosses it aside and looks over at a bare corner of the room with an unoccupied bed. Lights out, and Ellie climbs under her covers.

Continue reading “Left Behind”

Kin

LEFTOVER NINE

Henry’s final moment from the previous episode replays.

ONE

Three Months Later. We’re in snow country. A man carrying rabbit carcasses strides up to a self-sufficient cabin. We don’t see his face until he enters and exchanges a glance with this wife, who sits by the fire. Her eyes move sideways, and Joel steps from behind the room’s center post with his gun drawn.

The couple goes through some hilarious schtick, the kind only longtime partners have, and the man sits. Joel is looking for Tommy. Ellie, from the loft, asks to come down. Husband and wife exchange another speaking look.

TWO

Joel asks for their location on a map and how to travel west. “Go east,” the man says. Past the river are a lot of dead bodies, only some of them infected. Joel and Ellie head out, having no choice but to continue on. 

(This was a jewel of a scene that ended way too soon. Give Graham Greene and Elaine Miles their own show. I’d watch them all day.)

THREE

As they leave, Joel has what appears to be a panic attack, although it could be angina. 

Continue reading “Kin”

It’s published!

Acting the Enneagram is now available at amazon. You may have noticed I’ve become more interested in how a character’s Enneagram impacts the overall success of the story.

In this book I go over the basics of Personality Typing for the Enneagram using movie characters and posts from the blog. I add some never-before-seen Storytelling Enneagram breakdowns for an assortment of movies, and then I mash the two sections together.

Going forward look for me to try more of this weaving of Enneagrams in my posts and in future books. I’m convinced this is the best way to write, create, and critique film and television stories. Besides, it’s fun!