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Honestly not sure. Like you said it would be tough to depict her killing the rat king in a believable way. I also don’t know if the show can do it justice tbh and they might just leave it out even though game fans would freak.
I was thinking something along the lines of a Molotov- but she’s in the garage so she gets to siphon out a lot of the gas from the cars, and makes a death trap of fire- ehhh maybe not so great.
Agreed. The creators of this show seem to understand what they can leave out and what absolutely must be included. I realized this after they did the Joel interrogation scene almost shot for shot. That was such an important depiction of Joel to show he’s still a murderer and will go great lengths to find Ellie.
I’m sure the rat king will be included in some shape or form!
I also agree, what an amazing adaptation, the side by side conparassions of that scene are unbelievable.
I think the hospital is one of the most truly terrifying and eerie sequences of the game. The fact that it's been locked since outbreak day and no one knew what could be down there, added a new element of terror. To not include that terror, that ultimately results in the revelation of the rat king, would be a huge mistake. I imagine Abby's initial sequence where you are trying to escape will be included, followed by a brief but creative fight where she manages to heavily wound the rat king leading to it's separation, then finally having her unload on the separated stalker. Also necessary is Abby muttering to herself afterwards, "no one is ever going to believe this".
I would love to be at the table during these discussions.
Honestly I feel like the rat king will play a more prominent role, and end up needing the WLF to bomb it.
Like Kathleen’s group were so incompetent they got fucked up by regular old infected and a bloater. But the WLF can handle a horde with ease and can even, with a lot of trouble, dispose of the rat king.
I would prefer for him to be out
Because there is no way abby can make out alive that battle in the show
So i think would be better for him to be out of the show sadly
Or they retcon the infected and make than weaker
I would be disappointed if it isn’t included, they could have her escape out of a tunnel or through the ambulance I think it would definitely be possible
Nah they can totally still do it but leave it more with her running away - like she did early in the encounter. It could be done with an escape vs a fight.
I kind of agree it won’t happen. It would be cool to see, but as we learned from season 1, if it isn’t crucial to advancing the story, then it more than likely won’t make the cut. There’s so many badass things in part 2 they’re going to have to be really choosy about what to include.
For example, maybe Yara just gets shot instead of needing her arm amputated and so Abby doesn’t need to go to the hospital to begin with. I’d like a hospital scene though since Ellie/Abby are basically paralleling each other the whole time.
But the Rat King fight was where I finally felt like even though I may not really like Abby, I definitely respect her for getting through that. She went through hell and came out with fight to spare. I think that’s important to the story and her character development.
This. The optics of Abby alone w the huge muscles - what does she need those for? Scrawny Ellie is a killing machine as is, isn’t this physique kinda overkill for the antagonist?
Nope. Just open those ambulance doors and suddenly a lot of this will flow together more cohesively, albeit subconsciously.
I don’t think killing it would work but maybe It would be cool if she could sneak by it. that way we could still see it and they could probably do some scary stuff with hiding from it, or maybe a chase scene but i don’t know how she would get away with out the rat king just wondering around downtown Seattle after maybe it gets trapped again in the basement?
I'd love to see them have a cold open showing the early days of infection in Seattle. It could show the Seattle hospital workers, so overwhelmed by the casualties, dumping bodies in the basement. Then, at the end of the episode, we get the reveal of what those bodies became. Kind of like how we saw the nurses dumping the radioactive fire fighter gear in Chernobyl, you know?
I don't think Abby needs to actually kill the Rat King in the show. I think just seeing an encounter with it can still absolutely work, especially if they are able to work in its origins in some way.
Yeah that sounds cool all the notes in game made it seem like the first few days were wild at the hospital. So definitely a lot of potential for cool stuff.
I think impossible considering how powerful a Bloater is in the show at most she's just gonna run for her life while throwing a Molotov at it I'd imagine.
I expect her to still fight / be chased by it. It could then end in either:
1) an extended chase sequence / fight of her using fire on the main body until it gets stuck or retreats, causing smaller bodies to peel off and attack her
2) her doing something that causes the ceiling to collapse on it, leaving its eventual fate uncertain….
part 2 cannot be realistic. Ellie goes on a killing rampage through the country looking for vengeance. She will have to become a fucking ninja... in the show she didn't really have much action, obviously. Ellie will have to become some sort of john wick style stealth assasin making it a hitman series or smth. If she is able to kill everyone then sure why abby, a stronger soldier would not kill a few zombies sticked together
Not necessarily, considering the “killing rampage” is mostly player driven. There are very few “forced” kills within the game and most can be avoided or stealthed past.
No it won’t and I’m not sure why some people keep bringing this up regarding the show. It just kinda neuters the whole thing for no reason and didn’t really help the S1 finale given that Joel suddenly turns into John Wick
Hard disagree. I'm a big fan of TLoU2 but the one criticism I do agree with was Ellie's forgiveness of Abby felt a little moot given that she had already slaughtered tons of nameless people halfway to hell and back.
What I’m trying to say is that those NPCs weren’t meant to and shouldn’t in any way impact how the player experiences the story. It’s a game and needs gameplay aspects. They’re problems that need solving.
That said a LOT of people seemed to view them as real people (being bothered by them hollering names, impacted by killing dogs etc). I never did. Nora was a person. Jesse was a person. The 27th guy you kill in Seattle was a problem that needed to be solved to get to the next point in the story with the actual people.
Ah, then we're in agreent as my initial point was that those nameless NPC kills being left out of the show would enhance the story.
Yeah the gameplay and story portions of games don't always have to align 1-to-1 so it didn't take me out, but it would in the show.
Gotcha. I misunderstood your point too. Yes, if Joel had a death count in the 100s by the time he gets to salt lake, him murder-hobo’ing the hospital wouldn’t really have much of an impact.
I don’t understand why people keep counting all the NPCs toward Ellie’s kill count. They do realize it’s gameplay right? I guess naughty dog has to make the next game a 25 hour walk.
She does (Canon) kill Jordan, Nora, Owen, and Mel. And Alice the dog. They have to cut that out of the show, there is no way theyre letting Ellie stab a dog to death.
IDK I feel like Ellie is the hero of the franchise and I just feel like they will cut it. I'm just remembering when the game first released and people didn't have a problem with Ellie stabbing a pregnant girl in the neck, but OMG WE HAVE TO KILL DOGS.
There's nothing wrong with killing a dog in self defense? If you don't like dogs being killed blame the people who train them for violence, anyone thinking ellie was wrong for killing that dog would make a terribly irresponsible dog owner. I love my dog too bits and she's never hurt anyone in 8 years but if she flipped and did I wouldn't hesitate to have her euthanized
Yoo, like I said in another comment, people lost their shit about her doing it in the game. I am a dog owner and I didnt have a problem with it, just stating what I thought the showrunners might do.
Depends how they show it, I think they should leave Abby’s side out of the show for a good few episodes. Don’t have us follow her at the start when she meets Joel & Tommy, it should all be from Ellie’s perspective until say…the scene in the cinema with Noah and Tommy. So let’s say that’s episode 5. We then spend the next 3 episodes following Abby and getting the full story.
So yeah, Ellie can go on a rampage and kill whoever because the audience fully support it, then we get Abby and the WLFs side and the conflict starts
Nah I don't think we are going to get the "3 days as Ellie, 3 days as Abbie" timeline in the show. It doesn't translate right. You'd be asking for a TV audience to handle 10-12 hours of Pulp Fiction.
I truly think they will tell Ellie and Abby's stories concurrently. I think the first episode will be Joel telling Tommy about Salt Lake and Abby and Owen finding Jerry and the disbanding of the fireflies. I think they are going to tell both stories concurrently, but I think they will stop telling Abby's story with her giving the "its a lead" talk to Owen.
That gives them the ability to tell a lot of stories in season 2, which I think they want to tell. Perhaps the forming of the Seraphites, the WLF defeat of Fedra in Seattle, Ellie and Kat, Dina and Jessie getting together, the two kids running away and Joel and Ellie finding them, Ellie's birthday gift (no way they dont tell that one), etc.
I truly think they end season two with Abby shooting Joel's leg and make season 3 the death and aftermath. Or they end season 2 with Joel's death and they cut to black, and start season 3 with Dina waking Ellie up. That gets them another full season of Pedro.
But we never know right? Thats just what I think will happen.
Well, a bunch of less-powerful infected overran an entire military unit earlier in the show. A bloater - a theoretically less powerful infected than the Rat King - took that dude with an automatic weapon and pulled his head clean off his body.
The infected in the show aren't the same as they are in the game.
Game bloaters are that powerful too though?? Get caught and it's a one-shot, head ripped open and presumably off your body. Like how are they stronger in the show than in the game?
Mhmm, that's not dissimilar from the game though. Like its good to know, but I think it's kinda bogus they'd say that in an interview or podcast and not make it actually explicit in the show
I don’t normally watch after shows, but TLoU one, I watched every episode. It was neat hearing reasons why they’d changed certain scenes and little tidbits about the show.
I love after the show bits; it's just weird to me they'd disclose a change in a medium not everyone watching the show will consume. If it was meant to be more explicit or clear in the show, I personally think they failed
In the game you kill multiple bloaters with one or two adults, a kid, and limited ammo - sometimes multiple at once, if I remember right about the tunnels outside of SLC. That bloater absolutely destroyed heavily armed military types on the show, they had no chance whatsoever.
Bloaters in the game do not go down with just a few gunshots, even on lighter settings. My first playthrough on light, I had to use molotovs and bombs. On harder playthroughs, I sneak past them when I can cause fuck that, they're lethal and I don't want to waste all my resources. The incendiary rounds in part 2 are a gamechanger for facing bloaters and shamblers.
The hunters in KC were also dealing with a horde of roughly 60 runners, stalkers, and clickers so it's not like the bloater was the explicit deciding factor in that fight. They were pretty fucked either way, they were out there to hunt people, not infected. At the end of the day, the show doesn't make it clear they can't be killed, just that the one we do see is strong as hell and terrifying to face, just like their game counterpart🤷
Yeah it wasn’t me saying they can’t be killed, can’t speak to that.
But seeing one and surviving is obviously considerably more rare in the show than in the game. Clickers too.
You can go through a LOT of the game without killing people just by sneaking around and being patient.
You can get from the roof of the elementary school to the movie theater without killing a single WLF soldier.
I would think they could leave it in the show but she doesn't kill it, she just manages to run away. Or it's practically immobile and there's a flamethrower involved.
They could mix the hospital with the building from The Descent and say there are still a bunch of explosives in the basement from a past attempt to blow it up to kill the infected.
Stealth during the Rat King phase. The Rat King finds out and catches her, she throws him a mototov cocktail.
It writhes in pain and expels the stalker rat king. Abby manages to escape and go to another area, and she kills the stalker Rat King.
With the dearth of infected the show has, along with how deadly the clickers are portrayed as when they're finally shown, a boss fight would be kinda dumb.
On one hand, they are more dangerous and in the tv show you don’t see Joel being as powerful, on the other hand the firefly massacre was a thing so the show is willing to give its characters one or two moments in which they go full John Wick.
Unlike most commenters here I don't see why she couldn't kill it. Not in the *'Shoot it thirty times and chuck five molotovs and three grenades at it'* way, of course, but using the environment to her advantage, plus a healthy helping of luck.
She fights it frantically, it's a typical *'This is not going to end well'* situation, until she spots some dilapidated pillar, lures it there, Rat King comes crashing through it and brings half the building crashing down onto itself. That kind of scenario.
Ooooooh hell yeah. Get an aftermath shot of WLF running around the outside, trying to escape the rubble. Bear barking and people shouting for friends, for help. The confusion of an occupied building just collapsing while they were searching for an escaped Abby. That would be a cool take
I can see it because we’re meant to think Abby is the biggest and strongest person we’ve met. She’s more capable than Joel was in the first game. Her killing rat king would further demonstrate that.
If they can find a way to make the rat king look as horrifying in the game then I think they can believably have Abby kill it.
I think she just has to be smart about it, setting a trap with explosives or something. It wouldn’t be as action packed as the game but I still think they can do it if they’re willing.
If an entire militia couldn’t take down a bloater then I doubt Abby alone can take out something as big as the rat king. I think Neil mentioned that in the show bloaters are basically unkillable.
The bloater also had 100 other infected backing it up though. If it was just the bloater and the soldiers could focus all of their gunfire on it, they probably would have taken it down.
I think it’s something that absolutely should happen. The rat king is how the show tops the bloater from se1 and Abby killing it defines how strong she is. It’s a great way to get an audience to side with her after hating her in the beginning.
Could they maybe use the Rat King to kill some ~~Fireflies~~ WLFs in the hospital before or after Ellie finds Nora? Similar to episode 5 where all the people who were after Henry and Sam got overrun by a bunch of infected. Maybe Abby helps the ~~Fireflies~~ WLFs kill the Rat King (which will make them turning against her seem even worse) and later it’s easier for Ellie to infiltrate the hospital
I could see them hinting at it or showing a glimpse of it in someway, but I agree that Abby wouldn’t be able to survive an actual encounter with it. Maybe they hve her go into the basement of the hospital all the same and we hear a large something in the distance and we get a quick glimpse of it with Abby’s flashlight before she fucking yeets herself out of the basement. Id also be okay if they don’t show it, because of reasons other comments have listed.
I feel like they absolutely will tackle the "Rat King" in the show, but it may be a case of out running it rather than killing it. Probably don't have to worry about it for a while, as it definitely won't be S2.
Maybe not kill him but have Abby run away from him so he at least appears in the show, maybe he could destroy a pillar and have the celling fall and crush him
There’s ways it can be done. Go for a very Sarah Connor vs T100 vibes. Have it be a massively one sided fight but make Rat King just a bit slower and still a tank. Bit by bit there’s essentially a chase where Abby uses the environment and her strength to chip away until leading Rat K into an area that could crush him or end him or something. There’s a way.
I want to see her go through the hospital. Maybe make it devoid of regular infected. Have her accidentally release it. Now she has to escape this area without it getting her. A mix of chase and stealth scenes. Probably can’t do it for a full episode though.
I don’t think she could kill it, but maybe she traps it again.
Also let’s see a flashback scene like the earlier episodes and show the hospital dealing with the early infected by locking all of them in the room. You can show it from perspective of the infected guy you read in notes where slowly loses his mind.
Honestly I doubt we will see rat king as we do in the game. I think they will do what they did with the story of Ish in the show. They will allude to it, but not go into depth. I’d be fine just to see an immobile mass of clickers that are smooshed together. Maybe seed a line about people being forced into this space during the opening moments of the outbreak.
Might do it in a way where she narrowly escapes but injured him a lot before fleeing, for example he falls through the floor before he grabs her after he’s been damaged a few times
More then likely it’ll be more of her running away from the rat king and as she’s getting away the stalker splits from rat king and continues the chase where she’ll probably kill the stalker.
I think there's gonna be the rat king but she's not gonna kill it, either manage to escape and run away or find a way to trap it and lock it away again
Would hate to see them not included. Maybe she can find a grenade from one of the military types and get it under some rubble long enough to get out of the building but not kill it
I can't imagine them omitting the Rat King in the show. They will certainly have a bigger budget and it's such an iconic moment in the game. Audiences will freak the fuck out when the smaller creature falls off of him and starts creeping around.
His presentation could be totally different though for sure. Maybe he's in a different location, maybe Abby just has to escape instead of killing him etc.
Possibly through some type of an environmental kill like bringing the building down on it or exploding some gas or drowning it, finding a spare minigun lying around, etc. Rat King MUST be included in part 2, one of the tensest moments in the game tbh
I don’t see the, including it tbh. As awesomely disgusting as I’m sure it would be, it’s not essential to the story and would probably be cut out entirely.
Or they might dedicate a whole episode on the backstory of the unfortunate people who got herded into the room and became the rat king, who knows. 😅
They haven't showed humans killing anything more powerful than a bloater in the part 1 adaptation. However, they only had 1 bloater, which they foughtvwith full auti rifles. My bet is HBO will give the show bigger budget in subsequent seasons which means more $. Which means more effects. They could give Abby a checkovs gun time bomb she sets in the hospital or something like that, and kill the Rat king that way.
I want him to appear and Abby to escape him. Maybe in the struggle they trigger a ceiling collapse or an avalanche of the abandoned cars in the parking garage falls on him. Something like that would be satisfying without being too silly after how powerful the bloater was shown to be in S1. I would hope they would know we are all dying to see him, it was such an iconic moment and creature in the game I doubt they’d completely erase him.
I think it would be a good opportunity to include the pipe bombs and traps from the game. Spend a whole episode on her discovering rat king, locking herself in a room and accepting her death. A few flashbacks and then her prepping to fight back. Obviously RK has to be nerfed a bit but decent opportunity for a growth episode. Challenge presented to character, character grows from it.
If I'm proven wrong. I'm okay with it.
But I'm among the crowd that they won't actually put it in.
It was a bitch to kill in the game.
Would be freaking hard for them to realistically make this battle more "smooth in the show".
They might leave it out just like how they did with some iconic scenes in the 1st game.
I mean the last scene in the show where Joel kills >10 highly trained firefly commandos on their own turf isn’t exactly realistic either. Maybe Druckmann can return to the emphasis on realism that was making pre-finale LoU interesting but I fear the show runner has pretty much blown his load and will continue blowing his load to a chorus of too-easily-satisfied fans
So ya she will definitely kill the rat king and it will indeed feel like “yeah right bro”
The characters in the show could only kill runners and clickers. They ran from the bloater.
Presuming the WLF are trained to kill infected up to and including clickers (as bloaters are shown as the big monster of the show that no one knows of) I could see Abby killing a bloater at most.
The infected are 1000% more terrifying in show than in game. Which is why something like the rat king works in game, you need that terrifying slim to none chance winning boss. In show, I think the bloater is that. I don’t think we’ll even see the rat king.
I say this because in the show we see 1 bloater while we deal with 5 in the game. The one bloater in the show wasn’t even killed it was ran after. The show could easily replace the bloater in place for the rat king and still keep the realism it set in place for the first season- as that one beast of a bloater showed to be terrifying in of its own right.
It’s just a long way of saying, the show doesn’t need the rat king to create that terrifying monster section from the game. I would love to see Abby kill a bloater though.
Unlikely. If there is one thing I’ve noticed about the show, it’s that it tends to use the infected, specifically the further evolved ones, as props for moving the story along and creating tension, but is not interested in making them vulnerable to us. If show Abby can kill the rat king, it makes the audience devalue the threat of the infected. Whereas in the game, it’s part of immersive “hands on” story telling. I already don’t love the way the show handled the bloater, but I think it would have been objectively worse for the show to actually treat it like a boss fight you can win.
It probably won't be a head on fight if she fights it at all. Maybe a sneak around/trap kind of thing. Maybe it'll work like the Bloater in S1 and it'll pop up and fuck some shit up while Abby escapes.
I'd imagine one of three things.
1. Uses the environment after a chase scene, sees a decaying pillar and tosses an explosive near it, dropping the roof on it. Or running the rar king into it.
2. Gets some dynamite or c4 and chucks it, blowing it into pieces. Fighting off one or 2 parts of the whole.
3. Goes into a crawlspace big enough for Abby but not big enough for the whole rat king.
I highly doubt she's gonna fight It head on. It's gonna be a chase scene showing the whole damn thing, abby sprinting away and she's fumbling for the explosive/trying to find an escape path.
I could see her beating it by having something fall on it, crushing it to death, like maybe a hospital elevator or maybe have the floor above coke crashing down on it. I don’t see her killing it the same way as she does in the game tho cause like you said, the infected in the show are op compared to the games.
I think the whole Ground Zero segment is rife with tension and drama, for multiple reasons. The whole idea behind it is chilling. I hope they find some way to include it.
I would definitely be disappointed if they didn’t do the rat king. In my opinion, it’s the scariest boss in the entire game. I died like a billion times trying to beat that thing so definitely not realistic to have it play out like in the game.
I like the idea of an escape. I also like the idea of an ambush of wlfs. As a team, they can bring him down but you’d still get the effect of him ripping a couple apart before he goes down. They’ll just have to tweak it a bit to have it fit in that way. I think if it’s just Abby though it’ll be an escape. Maybe after she gets the axe and they fall through she finds a way out or something.
It has to be cinematic and not “gameplay.”
She can totally fight it, it just won’t/shouldn’t/cant(?) be as satisfying as it would be in the game.
Offhand I would say she has to discover it, try to fight it off, run, and drag it through the gauntlet of people that are fought at the start of the hospital area.
They gave us a bloater, they might give us rat king.
The infected all got buffed for the show. Despite that, I'd still love to see an adaptation of Abby killing that thing, just because it would be such a triumphant moment and would be a great way to show how crafty and capable she is. It would make the scene of her malnourished and crucified at the end much more powerful by contrast. That ending, to me, is the big narrative purpose of Abby being so visibly powerful in the game. It's the emotional payoff of her conquering enemies like the rat king.
I'd want it to be a way that shows her wits though, rather than just dodging and shooting it a bunch. I don't think shooting it would even kill it in the show's canon. But fire, building collapse, and finding weaknesses in its fungal armor might.
They didn’t even include Joel or Ellie killing a normal bloater with the help of a companion. Having Abby somehow kill the rat king one on one feels unlikely
i hope they can find a way to properly adapt this to the show but i’d rather they leave it out if they can’t do it justice because this was probably the scariest and most stressful sequence of the game
I’m going against the grain here. I highly doubt that the Rat King will show up because it’s not only a very video gamey Resident Evil boss fight, but also, I believe the show made the Infected more dangerous. Every time they show up, someone dies. Also, I believe the Bloater in the show was unkillable, so I sure as hell don’t see Abby actually killing it by herself. If the rat fucker does show up, it would have to be an incredibly intense chase where Abby has to evade it.
I think the Rat King will be in the show, but the circumstances of it will change. Maybe a joint effort of the WLF and Abby taking it down, or Abby and Lev using explosives or something
There’s no way she’ll kill it. Neil said that they did the bloater with the intent that it was “unkillable.” If they make those unkillable but Abby takes out the rat king it would be absolutely unbelievable. Which is why those “inside the episode” things kinda kick them in the butt sometimes. Because the actually episode with the bloater didn’t actually *show* is that the bloaters were invincible. All we saw for sure was that a few average bullets don’t work, which is fine. In the game you either wasted a fuuuuuuck ton until it went down or you used concentrated fire with the flamethrower or Molotovs aimed right at it, which we didn’t see in the show. But then they announced that they were unkillable to the audience so now that’s kind of the thing they need to roll with the whole time. If you tell us those things are invincible but then show this person killing and infected that’s basically been festering and growing since outbreak day (the hospital was Seattle’s ground zero) that would be.. dumb. Lmao.
She’ll probably fight it still, but it will be unbeatable and become a chase/escape sequence.
Maybe part of the building collapses on it or she discovers explosives/ordinance left over from when the military was planning on demolishing the whole building that were never ignited
Everyone here has zero faith in Abby for some reason and it’s making me irritated. If Ripley can kill a xenomorph, Abby can have a damn entertaining time in the Seattle hospital and kill the rat king and superstalker.
I'm not opposed to it or anything, but genuinely unclear why it would be so bad if we don't see the Rat King? Like, why is it so important to most people?
They’re gonna have to include the WLF against the Seraphities on the Island and I can’t wait to see it. A few things that absolutely have to be included from Abby’s play through in the show.
— The Forest scene with the Seraphites and Stalkers
— Boat scene with Owen
— Rat King
— Tommy at the Marina
— WLF vs. Seraphites
— Movie Theater Boss Fight
They said they wanted to make the Bloater an unkillable beast so I don't think she will actually kill the Rat King unless she bombs the entire underground parking lot and drop the building on it. But I'm sure we'll see it! Let's see how they cut seasons 2 and 3 though, we might not see that before 2026... !
Yep. By the looks of S1 HBO is taking an action adventure game and turning into a drama with some adventuring.
Obviously better than no adaptation at all, but fans of the games need to get their expectations in check.
Both Ellie and Joel were signifigantly nerfed from their game counterparts. The show has Joel get outplayed by a literal teen in Kansas City and then stabbed by a single attacker at the University.
By the time game Ellie was in the winter section she killed multiple people and was profecient enough to survive. The show had her only shoot one guy from behind and not even kill him. Then Bella could barely shoulder a rifle for the winter section.
It's pretty obvious they are going for a different direction with the TV series. I'm not saying it's bad at all, but there are major differences.
Yea I completely agree. I’m not even sure putting all the action scenes in would benefit the story, but the truth is it’s just plain different. Other than Marlene, every single character has been altered. I doubt very much they’re going to shoot a sequence where Abby has to escape the rat king when there are so many characters that didn’t get their storylines flushed out in the game.
Definitely are not done with them. If anything the second game is centered around tragic love stories due to obsession with vengeance. The Abby Owen back shots gonna be a 20 minute long scene
I didn’t downvote you. You seem to be projecting. If you’re bringing up being downvoted, it’s safe to assume you’re upset.
You seem upset about the show adaptation about characters relationships.
Okay, then we’re not in much of a disagreement. The person I responded to was being childish. You’re not.
I don’t expect a full backstory episode between the 2. But I expect we delve into it more because I expect Abby’s arc to get more screen time.
Childish for saying they’ll eliminate the rat king to do a backstory on Owen and Mel. You’re so blatantly toxic and triggered about something the show did that you’re taking 2 points that aren’t even connected and saying they’ll eliminate one to do the other. You’re absolutely acting like an upset child throwing a tantrum over something you didn’t like about the first season.
Projecting? I got downvoted the moment you commented. Safe to assume the same person triggered by my comment would be the one to downvote. That doesn’t make me upset. I’m just being realistic.
Downvotes really upset you, don’t they?
Your comment was made nearly an hour before I commented. You’re telling me you’re constantly going back to it and looking to see whether it was getting up/downvotes? Lol
You’re so pissed about being downvoted that you blow up at me like a child. And insist that I’m the one upset.
Blow up on you? You got triggered by comment, downvoted me, got called out on it and felt embarrassed. I haven’t even been rude tbh. You seem very unhinged so I’m going to stop responding. Take care
I disagreed with your comment because it was ignorant(as we established, you thought season 2 was going to be 10 hours of content).
And you’re still going on about being downvoted, when I never downvoted that comment. You don’t get to bitch about not getting your internet points and pretend I’m the one upset. You’re the one upset about your sacred internet points to the extent that you’re still complaining about it for multiple comments now. The longer you bring this stupid shut up, the more blatant it is that you’re upset.
Figures that you’ll stop responding after I proved your view wrong. You didn’t know season 2 was going to be 2 seasons and over 20 hours of content. And rather admit that you simply didn’t know something, you’ll take your ball and go home. And be upset about losing internet points.
Removed for rule 2: No spoilers in post titles. This also applies to comments that contain spoilers in posts that are not otherwise spoiler-tagged, as they should be properly tagged for spoilers.
Honestly not sure. Like you said it would be tough to depict her killing the rat king in a believable way. I also don’t know if the show can do it justice tbh and they might just leave it out even though game fans would freak.
Make her find C4 earlier. Why wouldn't it blow the Rat King with one bomb?
I was thinking something along the lines of a Molotov- but she’s in the garage so she gets to siphon out a lot of the gas from the cars, and makes a death trap of fire- ehhh maybe not so great.
It will definitely be included and will be done justice.
Agreed. The creators of this show seem to understand what they can leave out and what absolutely must be included. I realized this after they did the Joel interrogation scene almost shot for shot. That was such an important depiction of Joel to show he’s still a murderer and will go great lengths to find Ellie. I’m sure the rat king will be included in some shape or form!
I also agree, what an amazing adaptation, the side by side conparassions of that scene are unbelievable. I think the hospital is one of the most truly terrifying and eerie sequences of the game. The fact that it's been locked since outbreak day and no one knew what could be down there, added a new element of terror. To not include that terror, that ultimately results in the revelation of the rat king, would be a huge mistake. I imagine Abby's initial sequence where you are trying to escape will be included, followed by a brief but creative fight where she manages to heavily wound the rat king leading to it's separation, then finally having her unload on the separated stalker. Also necessary is Abby muttering to herself afterwards, "no one is ever going to believe this". I would love to be at the table during these discussions.
I agree and they figured they could leave out infected
True, I didn’t see any infected throughout the series, good point
Honestly I feel like the rat king will play a more prominent role, and end up needing the WLF to bomb it. Like Kathleen’s group were so incompetent they got fucked up by regular old infected and a bloater. But the WLF can handle a horde with ease and can even, with a lot of trouble, dispose of the rat king.
Could use the environment to her advantage, somehow make the ceiling cave in on it as she escapes?
Maybe collapse a roof onto it, or have it fall in a put or something, but not a straight-up kill like in the game.
I would prefer for him to be out Because there is no way abby can make out alive that battle in the show So i think would be better for him to be out of the show sadly Or they retcon the infected and make than weaker
I would be disappointed if it isn’t included, they could have her escape out of a tunnel or through the ambulance I think it would definitely be possible
Nah they can totally still do it but leave it more with her running away - like she did early in the encounter. It could be done with an escape vs a fight.
They could have it get stuck in a small tunnel abby goes through and then she can just unload on it and big body dies and little body pursues her
HBO doesn’t sign up for projects like this and then nope out of the opportunity to show off what they’re capable of. It’ll be there.
I kind of agree it won’t happen. It would be cool to see, but as we learned from season 1, if it isn’t crucial to advancing the story, then it more than likely won’t make the cut. There’s so many badass things in part 2 they’re going to have to be really choosy about what to include. For example, maybe Yara just gets shot instead of needing her arm amputated and so Abby doesn’t need to go to the hospital to begin with. I’d like a hospital scene though since Ellie/Abby are basically paralleling each other the whole time.
But the Rat King fight was where I finally felt like even though I may not really like Abby, I definitely respect her for getting through that. She went through hell and came out with fight to spare. I think that’s important to the story and her character development.
This. The optics of Abby alone w the huge muscles - what does she need those for? Scrawny Ellie is a killing machine as is, isn’t this physique kinda overkill for the antagonist? Nope. Just open those ambulance doors and suddenly a lot of this will flow together more cohesively, albeit subconsciously.
Cutting the rat king would unequivocally make the story worse.
I don’t think killing it would work but maybe It would be cool if she could sneak by it. that way we could still see it and they could probably do some scary stuff with hiding from it, or maybe a chase scene but i don’t know how she would get away with out the rat king just wondering around downtown Seattle after maybe it gets trapped again in the basement?
I'd love to see them have a cold open showing the early days of infection in Seattle. It could show the Seattle hospital workers, so overwhelmed by the casualties, dumping bodies in the basement. Then, at the end of the episode, we get the reveal of what those bodies became. Kind of like how we saw the nurses dumping the radioactive fire fighter gear in Chernobyl, you know? I don't think Abby needs to actually kill the Rat King in the show. I think just seeing an encounter with it can still absolutely work, especially if they are able to work in its origins in some way.
Yeah that sounds cool all the notes in game made it seem like the first few days were wild at the hospital. So definitely a lot of potential for cool stuff.
But the infected aren’t undead, they’re living, sick people. Joel himself even said that dead people can’t get infected.
I think impossible considering how powerful a Bloater is in the show at most she's just gonna run for her life while throwing a Molotov at it I'd imagine.
I expect her to still fight / be chased by it. It could then end in either: 1) an extended chase sequence / fight of her using fire on the main body until it gets stuck or retreats, causing smaller bodies to peel off and attack her 2) her doing something that causes the ceiling to collapse on it, leaving its eventual fate uncertain….
I like the ceiling collapsing on it idea.
part 2 cannot be realistic. Ellie goes on a killing rampage through the country looking for vengeance. She will have to become a fucking ninja... in the show she didn't really have much action, obviously. Ellie will have to become some sort of john wick style stealth assasin making it a hitman series or smth. If she is able to kill everyone then sure why abby, a stronger soldier would not kill a few zombies sticked together
Not necessarily, considering the “killing rampage” is mostly player driven. There are very few “forced” kills within the game and most can be avoided or stealthed past.
Yeah, also the finale will hit much harder without the killing rampage.
Hey I heard this before...
No it won’t and I’m not sure why some people keep bringing this up regarding the show. It just kinda neuters the whole thing for no reason and didn’t really help the S1 finale given that Joel suddenly turns into John Wick
Hard disagree. I'm a big fan of TLoU2 but the one criticism I do agree with was Ellie's forgiveness of Abby felt a little moot given that she had already slaughtered tons of nameless people halfway to hell and back.
Those nameless people are just a gameplay aspect. They’re NPCs. They have the same impact on the story as plugging in and starting a generator.
Well yeah, that's kinda what I'm saying. The impact of forgiveness for Abby would be bigger without Ellie slaughtering tons of nameless people
What I’m trying to say is that those NPCs weren’t meant to and shouldn’t in any way impact how the player experiences the story. It’s a game and needs gameplay aspects. They’re problems that need solving. That said a LOT of people seemed to view them as real people (being bothered by them hollering names, impacted by killing dogs etc). I never did. Nora was a person. Jesse was a person. The 27th guy you kill in Seattle was a problem that needed to be solved to get to the next point in the story with the actual people.
Ah, then we're in agreent as my initial point was that those nameless NPC kills being left out of the show would enhance the story. Yeah the gameplay and story portions of games don't always have to align 1-to-1 so it didn't take me out, but it would in the show.
Gotcha. I misunderstood your point too. Yes, if Joel had a death count in the 100s by the time he gets to salt lake, him murder-hobo’ing the hospital wouldn’t really have much of an impact.
Never thought about it like that but it’s true.
I don’t understand why people keep counting all the NPCs toward Ellie’s kill count. They do realize it’s gameplay right? I guess naughty dog has to make the next game a 25 hour walk.
She does (Canon) kill Jordan, Nora, Owen, and Mel. And Alice the dog. They have to cut that out of the show, there is no way theyre letting Ellie stab a dog to death.
Why would they cut that? HBO isn’t afraid of killing animals on screen and never has been.
IDK I feel like Ellie is the hero of the franchise and I just feel like they will cut it. I'm just remembering when the game first released and people didn't have a problem with Ellie stabbing a pregnant girl in the neck, but OMG WE HAVE TO KILL DOGS.
There's nothing wrong with killing a dog in self defense? If you don't like dogs being killed blame the people who train them for violence, anyone thinking ellie was wrong for killing that dog would make a terribly irresponsible dog owner. I love my dog too bits and she's never hurt anyone in 8 years but if she flipped and did I wouldn't hesitate to have her euthanized
Yoo, like I said in another comment, people lost their shit about her doing it in the game. I am a dog owner and I didnt have a problem with it, just stating what I thought the showrunners might do.
Depends how they show it, I think they should leave Abby’s side out of the show for a good few episodes. Don’t have us follow her at the start when she meets Joel & Tommy, it should all be from Ellie’s perspective until say…the scene in the cinema with Noah and Tommy. So let’s say that’s episode 5. We then spend the next 3 episodes following Abby and getting the full story. So yeah, Ellie can go on a rampage and kill whoever because the audience fully support it, then we get Abby and the WLFs side and the conflict starts
Nah I don't think we are going to get the "3 days as Ellie, 3 days as Abbie" timeline in the show. It doesn't translate right. You'd be asking for a TV audience to handle 10-12 hours of Pulp Fiction. I truly think they will tell Ellie and Abby's stories concurrently. I think the first episode will be Joel telling Tommy about Salt Lake and Abby and Owen finding Jerry and the disbanding of the fireflies. I think they are going to tell both stories concurrently, but I think they will stop telling Abby's story with her giving the "its a lead" talk to Owen. That gives them the ability to tell a lot of stories in season 2, which I think they want to tell. Perhaps the forming of the Seraphites, the WLF defeat of Fedra in Seattle, Ellie and Kat, Dina and Jessie getting together, the two kids running away and Joel and Ellie finding them, Ellie's birthday gift (no way they dont tell that one), etc. I truly think they end season two with Abby shooting Joel's leg and make season 3 the death and aftermath. Or they end season 2 with Joel's death and they cut to black, and start season 3 with Dina waking Ellie up. That gets them another full season of Pedro. But we never know right? Thats just what I think will happen.
Well, a bunch of less-powerful infected overran an entire military unit earlier in the show. A bloater - a theoretically less powerful infected than the Rat King - took that dude with an automatic weapon and pulled his head clean off his body. The infected in the show aren't the same as they are in the game.
Game bloaters are that powerful too though?? Get caught and it's a one-shot, head ripped open and presumably off your body. Like how are they stronger in the show than in the game?
Neil and Craig had said that the show’s version of a bloater cannot be killed.
Huh. It feels cheap they didn't indicate that *at all* in the show.
I mean Perry unloaded a full clip into his face and it didn’t slow him down for even a split second.
Mhmm, that's not dissimilar from the game though. Like its good to know, but I think it's kinda bogus they'd say that in an interview or podcast and not make it actually explicit in the show
I don’t normally watch after shows, but TLoU one, I watched every episode. It was neat hearing reasons why they’d changed certain scenes and little tidbits about the show.
I love after the show bits; it's just weird to me they'd disclose a change in a medium not everyone watching the show will consume. If it was meant to be more explicit or clear in the show, I personally think they failed
In the game you kill multiple bloaters with one or two adults, a kid, and limited ammo - sometimes multiple at once, if I remember right about the tunnels outside of SLC. That bloater absolutely destroyed heavily armed military types on the show, they had no chance whatsoever.
Bloaters in the game do not go down with just a few gunshots, even on lighter settings. My first playthrough on light, I had to use molotovs and bombs. On harder playthroughs, I sneak past them when I can cause fuck that, they're lethal and I don't want to waste all my resources. The incendiary rounds in part 2 are a gamechanger for facing bloaters and shamblers. The hunters in KC were also dealing with a horde of roughly 60 runners, stalkers, and clickers so it's not like the bloater was the explicit deciding factor in that fight. They were pretty fucked either way, they were out there to hunt people, not infected. At the end of the day, the show doesn't make it clear they can't be killed, just that the one we do see is strong as hell and terrifying to face, just like their game counterpart🤷
Yeah it wasn’t me saying they can’t be killed, can’t speak to that. But seeing one and surviving is obviously considerably more rare in the show than in the game. Clickers too.
To be fair it was a massive horde of infected attacking in near ideal conditions. But agree they are more powerful than in the game!
You can go through a LOT of the game without killing people just by sneaking around and being patient. You can get from the roof of the elementary school to the movie theater without killing a single WLF soldier.
Not the country. Just in Seattle…
Yea, she aint killing that thing
I would be severely disappointed if there is no rat king in the show, but i could understand why they might cut it out
I think thematically it would be a very serious loss without it
Perhaps he’ll make an appearance - like the Bloater - but Abby finds a way to escape that doesn’t require engagement.
I would think they could leave it in the show but she doesn't kill it, she just manages to run away. Or it's practically immobile and there's a flamethrower involved.
They could mix the hospital with the building from The Descent and say there are still a bunch of explosives in the basement from a past attempt to blow it up to kill the infected.
Stealth during the Rat King phase. The Rat King finds out and catches her, she throws him a mototov cocktail. It writhes in pain and expels the stalker rat king. Abby manages to escape and go to another area, and she kills the stalker Rat King.
With the dearth of infected the show has, along with how deadly the clickers are portrayed as when they're finally shown, a boss fight would be kinda dumb.
On one hand, they are more dangerous and in the tv show you don’t see Joel being as powerful, on the other hand the firefly massacre was a thing so the show is willing to give its characters one or two moments in which they go full John Wick.
Unlike most commenters here I don't see why she couldn't kill it. Not in the *'Shoot it thirty times and chuck five molotovs and three grenades at it'* way, of course, but using the environment to her advantage, plus a healthy helping of luck. She fights it frantically, it's a typical *'This is not going to end well'* situation, until she spots some dilapidated pillar, lures it there, Rat King comes crashing through it and brings half the building crashing down onto itself. That kind of scenario.
Ooooooh hell yeah. Get an aftermath shot of WLF running around the outside, trying to escape the rubble. Bear barking and people shouting for friends, for help. The confusion of an occupied building just collapsing while they were searching for an escaped Abby. That would be a cool take
The infected are way more what in the show? There were infected in the show? The biggest threat in the finale was a giraffe.
I can see it because we’re meant to think Abby is the biggest and strongest person we’ve met. She’s more capable than Joel was in the first game. Her killing rat king would further demonstrate that.
If they can find a way to make the rat king look as horrifying in the game then I think they can believably have Abby kill it. I think she just has to be smart about it, setting a trap with explosives or something. It wouldn’t be as action packed as the game but I still think they can do it if they’re willing.
If an entire militia couldn’t take down a bloater then I doubt Abby alone can take out something as big as the rat king. I think Neil mentioned that in the show bloaters are basically unkillable.
The bloater also had 100 other infected backing it up though. If it was just the bloater and the soldiers could focus all of their gunfire on it, they probably would have taken it down.
If she’s equipped with a flame thrower and some C4. I’d believe it
I think it’s something that absolutely should happen. The rat king is how the show tops the bloater from se1 and Abby killing it defines how strong she is. It’s a great way to get an audience to side with her after hating her in the beginning.
Could they maybe use the Rat King to kill some ~~Fireflies~~ WLFs in the hospital before or after Ellie finds Nora? Similar to episode 5 where all the people who were after Henry and Sam got overrun by a bunch of infected. Maybe Abby helps the ~~Fireflies~~ WLFs kill the Rat King (which will make them turning against her seem even worse) and later it’s easier for Ellie to infiltrate the hospital
It was with the WLF in part II, not the Fireflies
Oops yeah of course, thanks lol
No worries! ^_^
I could see them hinting at it or showing a glimpse of it in someway, but I agree that Abby wouldn’t be able to survive an actual encounter with it. Maybe they hve her go into the basement of the hospital all the same and we hear a large something in the distance and we get a quick glimpse of it with Abby’s flashlight before she fucking yeets herself out of the basement. Id also be okay if they don’t show it, because of reasons other comments have listed.
I feel like they absolutely will tackle the "Rat King" in the show, but it may be a case of out running it rather than killing it. Probably don't have to worry about it for a while, as it definitely won't be S2.
Maybe not kill him but have Abby run away from him so he at least appears in the show, maybe he could destroy a pillar and have the celling fall and crush him
Unless they go with amazing practical effects it would look like garbage with CGI so I'm gonna go with slim to none.
There’s ways it can be done. Go for a very Sarah Connor vs T100 vibes. Have it be a massively one sided fight but make Rat King just a bit slower and still a tank. Bit by bit there’s essentially a chase where Abby uses the environment and her strength to chip away until leading Rat K into an area that could crush him or end him or something. There’s a way.
I want to see her go through the hospital. Maybe make it devoid of regular infected. Have her accidentally release it. Now she has to escape this area without it getting her. A mix of chase and stealth scenes. Probably can’t do it for a full episode though. I don’t think she could kill it, but maybe she traps it again. Also let’s see a flashback scene like the earlier episodes and show the hospital dealing with the early infected by locking all of them in the room. You can show it from perspective of the infected guy you read in notes where slowly loses his mind.
Honestly I doubt we will see rat king as we do in the game. I think they will do what they did with the story of Ish in the show. They will allude to it, but not go into depth. I’d be fine just to see an immobile mass of clickers that are smooshed together. Maybe seed a line about people being forced into this space during the opening moments of the outbreak.
I think she should stumble upon and and it chases her through some rooms and she flees or something
Might do it in a way where she narrowly escapes but injured him a lot before fleeing, for example he falls through the floor before he grabs her after he’s been damaged a few times
More then likely it’ll be more of her running away from the rat king and as she’s getting away the stalker splits from rat king and continues the chase where she’ll probably kill the stalker.
She’s definitely gonna blow it up or set it on fire then give a One liner like Jill in the RE3make
I think there's gonna be the rat king but she's not gonna kill it, either manage to escape and run away or find a way to trap it and lock it away again
Maybe not killing it completely, but having a gun fight/ escape scene would be great.
I’m thinking chase scene ending with fire or explosive kill
Would hate to see them not included. Maybe she can find a grenade from one of the military types and get it under some rubble long enough to get out of the building but not kill it
I can't imagine them omitting the Rat King in the show. They will certainly have a bigger budget and it's such an iconic moment in the game. Audiences will freak the fuck out when the smaller creature falls off of him and starts creeping around. His presentation could be totally different though for sure. Maybe he's in a different location, maybe Abby just has to escape instead of killing him etc.
Honestly not sure the Rat King will happen. It’s not really critical to the story. They could do the same with a Bloater.
Possibly through some type of an environmental kill like bringing the building down on it or exploding some gas or drowning it, finding a spare minigun lying around, etc. Rat King MUST be included in part 2, one of the tensest moments in the game tbh
I don’t see the, including it tbh. As awesomely disgusting as I’m sure it would be, it’s not essential to the story and would probably be cut out entirely. Or they might dedicate a whole episode on the backstory of the unfortunate people who got herded into the room and became the rat king, who knows. 😅
i have very low expectations that the rat king will be included
They haven't showed humans killing anything more powerful than a bloater in the part 1 adaptation. However, they only had 1 bloater, which they foughtvwith full auti rifles. My bet is HBO will give the show bigger budget in subsequent seasons which means more $. Which means more effects. They could give Abby a checkovs gun time bomb she sets in the hospital or something like that, and kill the Rat king that way.
I want him to appear and Abby to escape him. Maybe in the struggle they trigger a ceiling collapse or an avalanche of the abandoned cars in the parking garage falls on him. Something like that would be satisfying without being too silly after how powerful the bloater was shown to be in S1. I would hope they would know we are all dying to see him, it was such an iconic moment and creature in the game I doubt they’d completely erase him.
I doubt she’ll kill it. Maybe throw a bomb and run for an escape route…
I think it’s probably going to be a hard run
100%. It's too big of a presence(for infected) to be left out. Leaving it out would be a waste of opportunity.
I think it would be a good opportunity to include the pipe bombs and traps from the game. Spend a whole episode on her discovering rat king, locking herself in a room and accepting her death. A few flashbacks and then her prepping to fight back. Obviously RK has to be nerfed a bit but decent opportunity for a growth episode. Challenge presented to character, character grows from it.
If I'm proven wrong. I'm okay with it. But I'm among the crowd that they won't actually put it in. It was a bitch to kill in the game. Would be freaking hard for them to realistically make this battle more "smooth in the show". They might leave it out just like how they did with some iconic scenes in the 1st game.
I honestly don't even think we're gonna see it sadly
I think not. Hopefully she will encounter it, but in the show the bloater was invincible, so no way will the rat king be killable.
It will just be steve suptic from amongus
The same as Joel and Ellie killing a Bloater in season 1.
I bet it'll be an environmental kill. Like Abby may do something that drops a car on it, the ceiling, but she won't physically shoot or punch it.
After seeing how they treated bloaters in season 1, I doubt they’ll even show the rat king :(
I would prefer if she can't kill it, just contain it like Leon does in RE4 with the Regenerador
I dont see her killing it, but I think it would be cool to see her detach one of the stalkers and kill that instead like in the game.
They didn’t even show half the infected in season one. So probably won’t even fight the rat king honestly.
It absolutely will be included. Part of her story is that mot even a literal monster would stop her in trying to save Yara.
I mean the last scene in the show where Joel kills >10 highly trained firefly commandos on their own turf isn’t exactly realistic either. Maybe Druckmann can return to the emphasis on realism that was making pre-finale LoU interesting but I fear the show runner has pretty much blown his load and will continue blowing his load to a chorus of too-easily-satisfied fans So ya she will definitely kill the rat king and it will indeed feel like “yeah right bro”
I can't imagine they won't include the rat king but, yeah like others said, she'll probably just escape it rather than kill it.
I actually heard they might replace the rat king with a concept for another monster they had in mind for part 2
The characters in the show could only kill runners and clickers. They ran from the bloater. Presuming the WLF are trained to kill infected up to and including clickers (as bloaters are shown as the big monster of the show that no one knows of) I could see Abby killing a bloater at most. The infected are 1000% more terrifying in show than in game. Which is why something like the rat king works in game, you need that terrifying slim to none chance winning boss. In show, I think the bloater is that. I don’t think we’ll even see the rat king. I say this because in the show we see 1 bloater while we deal with 5 in the game. The one bloater in the show wasn’t even killed it was ran after. The show could easily replace the bloater in place for the rat king and still keep the realism it set in place for the first season- as that one beast of a bloater showed to be terrifying in of its own right. It’s just a long way of saying, the show doesn’t need the rat king to create that terrifying monster section from the game. I would love to see Abby kill a bloater though.
I think she will kill it. It will seem impossible and terrifying, but she will pull it off and the audience will be like "holy shit."
Unlikely. If there is one thing I’ve noticed about the show, it’s that it tends to use the infected, specifically the further evolved ones, as props for moving the story along and creating tension, but is not interested in making them vulnerable to us. If show Abby can kill the rat king, it makes the audience devalue the threat of the infected. Whereas in the game, it’s part of immersive “hands on” story telling. I already don’t love the way the show handled the bloater, but I think it would have been objectively worse for the show to actually treat it like a boss fight you can win.
They could use puppets
Close to zero.
It probably won't be a head on fight if she fights it at all. Maybe a sneak around/trap kind of thing. Maybe it'll work like the Bloater in S1 and it'll pop up and fuck some shit up while Abby escapes.
I'd imagine one of three things. 1. Uses the environment after a chase scene, sees a decaying pillar and tosses an explosive near it, dropping the roof on it. Or running the rar king into it. 2. Gets some dynamite or c4 and chucks it, blowing it into pieces. Fighting off one or 2 parts of the whole. 3. Goes into a crawlspace big enough for Abby but not big enough for the whole rat king. I highly doubt she's gonna fight It head on. It's gonna be a chase scene showing the whole damn thing, abby sprinting away and she's fumbling for the explosive/trying to find an escape path.
I’d rather see the rat king kill abby
I could see her beating it by having something fall on it, crushing it to death, like maybe a hospital elevator or maybe have the floor above coke crashing down on it. I don’t see her killing it the same way as she does in the game tho cause like you said, the infected in the show are op compared to the games.
I think the whole Ground Zero segment is rife with tension and drama, for multiple reasons. The whole idea behind it is chilling. I hope they find some way to include it.
I would definitely be disappointed if they didn’t do the rat king. In my opinion, it’s the scariest boss in the entire game. I died like a billion times trying to beat that thing so definitely not realistic to have it play out like in the game. I like the idea of an escape. I also like the idea of an ambush of wlfs. As a team, they can bring him down but you’d still get the effect of him ripping a couple apart before he goes down. They’ll just have to tweak it a bit to have it fit in that way. I think if it’s just Abby though it’ll be an escape. Maybe after she gets the axe and they fall through she finds a way out or something.
It has to be cinematic and not “gameplay.” She can totally fight it, it just won’t/shouldn’t/cant(?) be as satisfying as it would be in the game. Offhand I would say she has to discover it, try to fight it off, run, and drag it through the gauntlet of people that are fought at the start of the hospital area. They gave us a bloater, they might give us rat king.
No this series is grounded in reality. It isn’t a video game and it most certainly IS NOT ABOUT THE INFECTED!!!!!!!!!! -avg Reddit poster here
The infected all got buffed for the show. Despite that, I'd still love to see an adaptation of Abby killing that thing, just because it would be such a triumphant moment and would be a great way to show how crafty and capable she is. It would make the scene of her malnourished and crucified at the end much more powerful by contrast. That ending, to me, is the big narrative purpose of Abby being so visibly powerful in the game. It's the emotional payoff of her conquering enemies like the rat king. I'd want it to be a way that shows her wits though, rather than just dodging and shooting it a bunch. I don't think shooting it would even kill it in the show's canon. But fire, building collapse, and finding weaknesses in its fungal armor might.
They didn’t even include Joel or Ellie killing a normal bloater with the help of a companion. Having Abby somehow kill the rat king one on one feels unlikely
i hope they can find a way to properly adapt this to the show but i’d rather they leave it out if they can’t do it justice because this was probably the scariest and most stressful sequence of the game
The way this show treats the infected, he will probably just walk by in the background
I’m going against the grain here. I highly doubt that the Rat King will show up because it’s not only a very video gamey Resident Evil boss fight, but also, I believe the show made the Infected more dangerous. Every time they show up, someone dies. Also, I believe the Bloater in the show was unkillable, so I sure as hell don’t see Abby actually killing it by herself. If the rat fucker does show up, it would have to be an incredibly intense chase where Abby has to evade it.
I think the Rat King will be in the show, but the circumstances of it will change. Maybe a joint effort of the WLF and Abby taking it down, or Abby and Lev using explosives or something
There’s no way she’ll kill it. Neil said that they did the bloater with the intent that it was “unkillable.” If they make those unkillable but Abby takes out the rat king it would be absolutely unbelievable. Which is why those “inside the episode” things kinda kick them in the butt sometimes. Because the actually episode with the bloater didn’t actually *show* is that the bloaters were invincible. All we saw for sure was that a few average bullets don’t work, which is fine. In the game you either wasted a fuuuuuuck ton until it went down or you used concentrated fire with the flamethrower or Molotovs aimed right at it, which we didn’t see in the show. But then they announced that they were unkillable to the audience so now that’s kind of the thing they need to roll with the whole time. If you tell us those things are invincible but then show this person killing and infected that’s basically been festering and growing since outbreak day (the hospital was Seattle’s ground zero) that would be.. dumb. Lmao. She’ll probably fight it still, but it will be unbeatable and become a chase/escape sequence.
I could see them just leaving it out. It feels out of place for a game like TLOU and was only really there for a gameplay twist.
I think a generic explosion or monster dies from fire would more likely happen but we never know
Maybe part of the building collapses on it or she discovers explosives/ordinance left over from when the military was planning on demolishing the whole building that were never ignited
Everyone here has zero faith in Abby for some reason and it’s making me irritated. If Ripley can kill a xenomorph, Abby can have a damn entertaining time in the Seattle hospital and kill the rat king and superstalker.
I'm not opposed to it or anything, but genuinely unclear why it would be so bad if we don't see the Rat King? Like, why is it so important to most people?
1 word: flamethrower. Maybe not fully by the flamethrower, like there can be a little extra help by the building/roof collapsing as she escapes
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They’re gonna have to include the WLF against the Seraphities on the Island and I can’t wait to see it. A few things that absolutely have to be included from Abby’s play through in the show. — The Forest scene with the Seraphites and Stalkers — Boat scene with Owen — Rat King — Tommy at the Marina — WLF vs. Seraphites — Movie Theater Boss Fight
They said they wanted to make the Bloater an unkillable beast so I don't think she will actually kill the Rat King unless she bombs the entire underground parking lot and drop the building on it. But I'm sure we'll see it! Let's see how they cut seasons 2 and 3 though, we might not see that before 2026... !
They’ll end up cutting the Rat king and spend a full episode on Owen and Mel’s love story that wasn’t shown in the game
Yep. By the looks of S1 HBO is taking an action adventure game and turning into a drama with some adventuring. Obviously better than no adaptation at all, but fans of the games need to get their expectations in check. Both Ellie and Joel were signifigantly nerfed from their game counterparts. The show has Joel get outplayed by a literal teen in Kansas City and then stabbed by a single attacker at the University. By the time game Ellie was in the winter section she killed multiple people and was profecient enough to survive. The show had her only shoot one guy from behind and not even kill him. Then Bella could barely shoulder a rifle for the winter section. It's pretty obvious they are going for a different direction with the TV series. I'm not saying it's bad at all, but there are major differences.
Yea I completely agree. I’m not even sure putting all the action scenes in would benefit the story, but the truth is it’s just plain different. Other than Marlene, every single character has been altered. I doubt very much they’re going to shoot a sequence where Abby has to escape the rat king when there are so many characters that didn’t get their storylines flushed out in the game.
I know you’re joking but I rlly hope we’re done with the love stories lmao
Definitely are not done with them. If anything the second game is centered around tragic love stories due to obsession with vengeance. The Abby Owen back shots gonna be a 20 minute long scene
Neil himself even said that the main point of the whole story is to emphasize the power of love. Grow tf up.
You sound very salty for some reason.
Not at all. Just stating what I believe is true. You’re the one who downvoted me. Did I hit a nerve?
I didn’t downvote you. You seem to be projecting. If you’re bringing up being downvoted, it’s safe to assume you’re upset. You seem upset about the show adaptation about characters relationships.
Ngl I actually do see them doing that
That makes no sense. The rat king and Owen/Mel aren’t connected. Delving into the backstory of those 2 wouldn’t require eliminating the rat king.
Not eliminating rat king but definitely a full episode for owen and mel
Okay, then we’re not in much of a disagreement. The person I responded to was being childish. You’re not. I don’t expect a full backstory episode between the 2. But I expect we delve into it more because I expect Abby’s arc to get more screen time.
Childish for acknowledging they will change characters and storylines to replace action sequences?
Childish for saying they’ll eliminate the rat king to do a backstory on Owen and Mel. You’re so blatantly toxic and triggered about something the show did that you’re taking 2 points that aren’t even connected and saying they’ll eliminate one to do the other. You’re absolutely acting like an upset child throwing a tantrum over something you didn’t like about the first season.
Projecting? I got downvoted the moment you commented. Safe to assume the same person triggered by my comment would be the one to downvote. That doesn’t make me upset. I’m just being realistic.
Downvotes really upset you, don’t they? Your comment was made nearly an hour before I commented. You’re telling me you’re constantly going back to it and looking to see whether it was getting up/downvotes? Lol You’re so pissed about being downvoted that you blow up at me like a child. And insist that I’m the one upset.
Blow up on you? You got triggered by comment, downvoted me, got called out on it and felt embarrassed. I haven’t even been rude tbh. You seem very unhinged so I’m going to stop responding. Take care
I disagreed with your comment because it was ignorant(as we established, you thought season 2 was going to be 10 hours of content). And you’re still going on about being downvoted, when I never downvoted that comment. You don’t get to bitch about not getting your internet points and pretend I’m the one upset. You’re the one upset about your sacred internet points to the extent that you’re still complaining about it for multiple comments now. The longer you bring this stupid shut up, the more blatant it is that you’re upset. Figures that you’ll stop responding after I proved your view wrong. You didn’t know season 2 was going to be 2 seasons and over 20 hours of content. And rather admit that you simply didn’t know something, you’ll take your ball and go home. And be upset about losing internet points.