Look, y’all, I try to start these recaps with lighthearted jokes and gags that all of us, both lovers and haters of The Last of Us season two, can enjoy, to set a welcoming and pleasant tone before I start unleashing my critiques of a given episode. However, I don’t think I have it in me this week. I’ve been dreading writing a recap for the sixth episode of this season because it is exactly the kind of sentimental, dramatic episode of television that often captivates audiences and gets award show buzz, but it is also one of the most nauseating adaptations of the original work the show has given us yet. This is where all of showrunner Craig Mazin’s odd creative choices collide like the gnarliest 10-car pileup you’ve ever witnessed, and the result is the absolute bastardization of the most important scene in all of The Last of Us Part II.Suggested ReadingNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go Higher Share SubtitlesOffEnglishSuggested ReadingNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go Higher Share SubtitlesOffEnglishNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go HigherDoing betterAlmost all of this episode is told in flashbacks that, in the game, were sprinkled throughout Ellie’s bloody quest for revenge in Seattle (and after, but we’ll get to that), but here are condensed into a single hour of television. But before we get to that, we start out with a brand new scene of a young Joel (Andrew Diaz) and Tommy (David Miranda) in their home, long before the cordyceps fungus was a concern. It’s 1983, and the younger brother tearfully tells his brother that he’s scared of their father, and that he’s going to get “the belt” whenever dad gets home from work. Joel assures Tommy that he will take the fall for whatever it was his brother did, and sends him up to his room to wait for their father alone.When J. Miller Sr. (Tony Dalton) arrives, it’s in a cop car. He walks into the kitchen and doesn’t so much as say hello to Joel, instead telling him to “talk fast” about what happened. Joel tells him he got into a fight with a pot dealer, but his father already talked to the witnesses and knows Tommy was the one buying the drugs. Joel stands firm and tells his dad he’s not going to hurt his little brother. Rather than getting the belt, Officer Miller grabs two beers out of the fridge and hands one to his son. He then tells a story about a time he shoplifted as a kid, and his father, Joel’s grandfather, broke his jaw for it.“If you know what it feels like, then why?” Joel asks. He then proceeds to justify his own abuse by saying his was “never like that,” never as bad as what his father inflicted upon him. He says he might go too far at times, but he’s doing a little better than his father did. “When it’s your turn, I hope you do a little better than me,” he says as he heads back out on patrol without having laid a hand on his son, this time.So, I hate this. Depending on how cynical or charitable I’m feeling, I read this as both an uninspired explanation for Joel’s misguided, violent act of “love” at the end of season one, when he “saved” Ellie from her death at the hands of Abby’s father, the Firefly surgeon, and then lied to her about it, and a tragic reason for why he’s so hellbent on giving Ellie a better childhood, even in the apocalypse. Last of Us fans will likely run with both interpretations, but in the broader scope of the series, this previously undisclosed bit of backstory is the exact kind of shit that lets people excuse Joel’s actions and place the blame on something or someone else. This sympathetic backstory is the kind of out the show has been oddly fixated on giving viewers since season one as it tries to soften the world’s views of Joel and Ellie, even as they do horrific things to those around them. First, it was players and viewers creating their own justifications, telling themselves that the Fireflies wouldn’t have been able to distribute a vaccine anyway, or that they couldn’t be trusted with such a world-shifting resource, though Joel clearly doesn’t give a fuck about the prospect if it means Ellie’s life. Now, it will be “Joel was just perpetuating the same violence his father put on him and his brother, but at least he didn’t hurt Ellie. He’s doing better, and Ellie will in turn do better as well, and this cycle of generational trauma will eventually be broken.” What is with this show’s inability to confidently lay blame at its leads’ feet without cushioning it with endless justifications and explanations?The maddening part of this addition is that it’s much harder to just call this another overwrought Mazin embellishment because this episode is co-written by Last of Us director Neil Druckmann (who also directs the episode) and Part II narrative lead Halley Gross, alongside Mazin. I’ll never know how some of these scenes came to be, but I’ve seen what this story looks like when Mazin’s not in the room, and many of his worst tendencies are still on display, even with Druckmann and Gross writing on this episode. But I’ll be real, if I had been rewriting what is essentially my magnum opus for television, I would have fought to keep the kid gloves off. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Giving Joel even more tragic backstory to justify his actions is hardly the worst crime this episode commits.We jump forward a couple decades to the small town of Jackson, just two months after Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) settled in following season one. Joel’s putting his old smuggling skills to use to make deals with local bigot Seth (Robert John Burke). He found a bag of Legos for Seth’s grandkids, and he wants something in return. Whatever it is, he needs it by tomorrow, and he needs it in vanilla flavor. Before he goes, however, he says there’s one more thing he needs, but Seth has plenty of it, so it shouldn’t be a problem.Image: HBOJoel sneaks through his house and verifies Ellie isn’t in her room, then takes his prize out from his coat pocket: a bone. He takes it to his workshop and starts carving it into the shapes he needs to finish a woodworking project he’s been saving for this day: a refurbished tobacco sunburst acoustic guitar with a moth decal on the fretboard. The guitar’s origin is more or less the same as the game, but with a few added details like Joel carving in the moth based on one of Ellie’s sketches. It inverts the origins of Ellie’s moth tattoo, which was originally implied to have been designed based on the guitar Joel found rather than the other way around, but it’s a cute personal touch for the show to add.Joel gives the guitar a quick once-over before his work is interrupted by Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Ellie arriving with the latter loopy on painkillers. While working in town, Ellie intentionally burned off the bite mark that kicked off this whole series. She apologizes before finally passing out in her bed. As we saw in Seattle, Ellie justified this as wanting to wear long sleeves again without an infected bite mark scaring the hoes, but I still prefer the interpretation that she did this because being constantly reminded of the cure she never got to be was more painful than a chemical burn. When she wakes up, the pain has mostly subsided, which is good, because today’s not a day for pain: It’s Eli’s 15th birthday. At least, that’s what the vanilla cake Seth baked says on top. An illiterate bigot ex-cop who can’t spell “Ellie”? This is who survives in the post-apocalypse?Ellie, still a bit doped up, is unfazed, shoves a fistful of the cake into her mouth and says it’s good. Sure, queen. It’s your day, and silverware is for people who aren’t the birthday girl. One of the surprises Joel has is not edible, though. He brings the guitar into the kitchen and reminds Ellie that he promised to teach her how to play last season. Ellie wants to hear something and insists that Joel sing. He protests, but Ellie reminds him that it’s her birthday. So Joel huffs and puffs, then sits down and finally sings Pearl Jam’s “Future Days.” Well, I mean, I guess it’s a Pearl Jam song? As we went over last week, this song should not exist in the show’s timeline because the album it came from wasn’t released until 2013, and the apocalypse began 10 years earlier in the show for no real discernible reason beyond some weird Bush-era anti-terrorism hoopla in the pilot. So maybe “Future Days” is a Joel Miller original in The Last of Us? Eddie Vedder, who?Pascal’s performance, like Troy Baker’s in the game, is very understated and sweet, and sounds like a person who can’t really sing doing his best. Ellie says the impromptu song didn’t suck, and he hands her the gee-tar. She holds it in her lap and accidentally touches her bandaged arm with it. Joel tells her he understands why she burned the bite mark off, and they’re not gonna let that ruin her birthday.Sweet 16Next, we jump to one year later for Ellie’s 16th birthday. The duo is walking through a forest as Ellie tries to guess what Joel’s surprise is for her big day. He says he found whatever they’re traveling to see while on patrol, which prompts Ellie to bring up that she’s tired of working inside Jackson when she could be fighting infected alongside Joel and others. She says Jesse told her he’d train her to help expedite the process, but Joel changes the subject by asking if something is going on between the teens. Our funky little lesbian chuckles at the notion, and Joel insists he has an eye for these things. “I don’t think you do,” Ellie laughs.This interaction is pulled from The Last of Us Part II, and I love it because it says a lot about the two’s relationship. Most queer kids have stories of their parents assuming that any person of the opposite gender you’re standing near must be a potential romantic flame, and in the best case scenarios this comes from a place of ignorance rather than malice. I had always attributed Joel’s extremely off-base theory to a growing distance between the two after they made their way to Jackson, and a sort of southern dad obliviousness that’s incredibly real and also endearing. Yes, yes, Joel did terrible things, but he is also Ellie’s surrogate peepaw who wants to be part of her life, and when he’s not being a violent bastard, he has a softer side which Naughty Dog developed brilliantly, and it’s a huge part of why millions of players still stand by him after all the mass murder and deception. HBO’s show? Well...put a pin in this, we’ll get back to it.Image: HBOWe finally arrive at our destination, and it’s an abandoned museum. Right out front, Ellie finds an overgrown T-Rex statue. Immediately, she climbs up to the top, which just about gives Joel a heart attack. Standing on top of its head, she sees the museum in the distance, and Joel tells her that’s the main attraction, if she doesn’t break her neck falling off the dinosaur. Once inside, we see what Joel wanted Ellie to see: a huge exhibit dedicated to space travel. So far, Ellie has only really fueled her passion for astronomy through textbooks and sci-fi comics, so getting to see a full diorama of the solar system is a dream come true. But her real dream is to go to space. In another life, one in which a fungal infection hadn’t leveled the world, she would’ve been an astronaut going on intergalactic adventures.Joel can’t take her to space, but he can give her a chance to imagine what it was like. He walks her a bit further into the exhibit and shows her the remains of the Apollo 15 Command Module, which went to space and back in 1971. Ellie is speechless as she excitedly climbs inside, but before she gets in, Joel points out that any astronaut worthy of the title needs a helmet. He hands her a rock to break into one of the suit displays, and she picks her favorite helmet of the bunch.“How’s it smell in there?” Joel asks.“Like space...and dust,” Ellie replies.The two get inside, and Ellie starts flipping switches and narrating her space trip. However, Joel has a better idea. He pulls out an old cassette tape, and Ellie asks what’s on it. He says it took a great deal of effort to find in this fucked up world, but doesn’t answer. When Ellie puts the tape in her Walkman, Joel tells her to close her eyes as she listens. When she presses play, she doesn’t get some old world music Joel liked as a teen; instead she hears the countdown of a real orbital launch. She closes her eyes and imagines herself flying up into space. We see the spacecraft shake, the lighting change as it passes through the atmosphere, and then finally, the sun shine over her helmet as she comes back down to Earth. Joel asks if he did okay, and Ellie just lets out a flabbergasted “Are you kidding me?”Alright, yeah. This scene is still incredible, and I imagine it’ll hit even harder for newcomers who haven’t played the games because they didn’t get a similar scene in season one in which Ellie imagines playing a fighting game. Even before Joel or her first love, Riley (Storm Reid), died, Ellie was a girl in a constant state of grief. She mourns a life she never got to have as she gets nostalgic for a world whose remains she gets to rummage through while scavenging, but that she will never truly experience. Joel can’t give her the world, but he can give her the chance to imagine it, just for a little bit. Joel’s love languages are obviously acts of service and gift giving, and my guy knows how to make a grand gesture even in the apocalypse. God, I know there’s someone out there wagging their fingers about the war crimes but leave me alone, that’s fucking ohana. He’s just a baby girl trying to do nice things for his baby girl.As the two head back to Jackson, Joel says they should do trips like this more often. Ellie agrees, but then briefly stops as something catches her eye: a group of fireflies gathering in the woods. For a show that loves to just say things to the camera, it’s a nice bit of unspoken storytelling. Ellie stares at them long enough to convey that what happened at Salt Lake City still haunts her, but it’s subtle enough that a viewer who isn’t paying close attention might not catch it.Dear diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body countNow it’s time for the 17th birthday. Joel comes home with another cake, but this one spells Ellie’s name right. He heads upstairs to give it to Ellie, but hears giggling inside her bedroom and barges in without so much as a warning. He finds Ellie on her bed with Kat (Noah Lamanna), freshly tattooed, smoking weed and fooling around. Joel goes into full-blown angry dad mode and tells Kat to get out.“So all the teenage shit all at once,” he barks. “Drugs, tattoos, and sex...experimenting with girls?”Ellie says it wasn’t sex, and it certainly wasn’t an “experiment.” Joel says she doesn’t know what she’s saying and storms out.Well, homophobic Joel Miller was not on my bingo card for this show, but it’s done almost nothing but disappoint me, so maybe it should have been. As I wrote when we learned about Dina’s bigoted mother in episode four, the way The Last of Us weaves old-school homophobia into its world has far more long-standing consequences to the series’ worldbuilding than I think Mazin, and now Druckmann and Gross, considered. The more people who are shown to have carried bigotry into the apocalypse, the more it makes it odd that Dina and Ellie have no idea what Pride flags are. The more that queerness is othered in this world, the more its indiscriminate, post-apocalyptic loss of culture instead reads like a targeted one for queer people specifically. I already wrote about that enough for episode four, though, so I want to focus on what it means for Joel to dabble in active bigotry rather than exude the passive ignorance he did in The Last of Us Part II.There’s an argument to be made that adding this layer of disconnect between Joel and Ellie helps add weight to their reconciliation. If your dad has had homophobic outbursts most of his life, then starts wearing an “I love my lesbian daughter” t-shirt, that’s a feel-good story of redemption worth celebrating. However, was it necessary? Did we need Joel to become a late-in-life homophobe on top of all the other questionable things he’s done? The reason I love him asking if Ellie is interested in Jesse is that it’s a silly, light-hearted interaction. In Part II, the fact that he hasn’t picked up on her being a raging lesbian when he asks about Jesse speaks to how distant the two have become by the time she’s turned 17, and ultimately underlines that he’s a clueless dad at heart. This change for the show, however, replaces ignorance with malice, and the dynamic is entirely different. Yeah, homophobia is inherently ignorant, but Joel asking about Jesse isn’t malicious, it’s just dumb. My man is not reading the room. Here, Joel is reading the room and doesn’t like what he sees.It’s another example of the show not being willing to leave well enough alone. HBO can’t be content with all the subtle shades of grey the game provided, so it has to expound on everything, no matter how unnecessary or damaging it is for the characters. Joel is no longer just a well-meaning (albeit overbearing and violent) dad to TV viewers, he’s a well-meaning (albeit overbearing and violent) dad who also was secretly a bigot the whole time. Fuck this.Image: HBOEllie heads out to the shed in the backyard to get away for a bit. It’s dusty and full of tools, but Ellie’s got a vision and starts to move her mattress out of her room. Joel wakes up and asks what’s going on, and he says Ellie can’t move into the shed overnight because there’s no heat or running water. Ellie says she’s not sorry she smoked weed, got a tattoo, or fooled around with Kat. Rather than admit that homophobia is so 2003, Joel agrees that she should have her own space and says that he’ll spend a few days making it livable. As they put the mattress back on the bed, Joel asks to see the tattoo. It’s not quite finished, but the moth illustration is already inked over the mostly healed burn mark. He asks why she’s so fixated on moths, and she says she read they’re symbolic in dreams. Joel asks if it represents change, and Ellie, clearly not wanting to dig into what it actually means, just says it’s late to get him to leave.Ah, crap, I forgot about Gail. Hello Catherine O’Hara, I wish you were playing a less frustrating character. Joel ambushes the doctor at the local diner and asks what moths mean in dreams. Gail says moths usually symbolize death “if you believe in that shit.” When Joel seems paralyzed by the answer, Gail, annoyed, asks why he wants to know. He doesn’t answer and heads home.Ellie has wasted no time getting her shit together to start moving out. The camera lingers over some of her moth sketches, including one that reads “You have a greater purpose” in between the drawings. She grabs them and puts them in a box, but it’s clear the purpose she thought she had weighs on her mind when we see her next.All the promises at sundownThe show jumps forward two years, almost bringing us to the “present” of the show. A 19-year-old Ellie sits in her hut and rehearses a speech she wants to give Joel. She’s been thinking about his Salt Lake City story and some of the odd inconsistencies with what he told her four years ago. How were the Fireflies surprised by a group of raiders when they saw the pair from a mile away in the city? How did Joel get away from the raiders while carrying her when she was unconscious? Why haven’t they heard from any of the other supposed immune people besides her? Before she can finish her spiel, Joel knocks on her door and says her birthday present this year is that she’s finally getting to go on a patrol. All the animosity melts off of Ellie’s face and is replaced by a childlike glee. She grabs her coat and a gun, and they head out.The pair head onto what Joel describes as the safest route they’ve got so she can learn the ropes. Ellie’s clearly dissatisfied with wearing training wheels, but the two banter and scout out the area until Joel says it would be nice if they could spend more time together. Ellie hesitantly agrees, clearly once again thinking about Salt Lake City. Joel asks if she’s alright, but the conversation is derailed by a radio call informing them that Gail’s husband Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) spotted some infected and needs backup. Joel tells Ellie to head back to Jackson but she protests, reminding him that she’s not his kid, but his scouting partner. Joel realizes he’s losing time arguing, so they head out.Image: HBOAs the two scale down the side of the Jackson mountainside, they hear gunfire and infected screeches in the distance. They follow the noise and see the corpse of Eugene’s patrol partner, Adam, being dragged by his horse, but Gail’s husband is nowhere to be found. Joel leads them down the path the horse came from, and they soon find the aftermath of the scrap, and Eugene leaning up against a tree. Joel asks if he got bit, and while it seems like he considers hiding it for a moment, he shows a bite mark on his side. Joel keeps his gun trained on Eugene, who asks if he can go back to the Jackson gate to say goodbye to his wife before he turns. While Joel isn’t entertaining it, Ellie asks Eugene to hold out his hand and count to 10, and verifies that the infection hasn’t spread to his brain yet. There’s time for him to see Gail. They just need to tie him up and bring him back. Joel hesitates, then tells Ellie to go get the horses, and they’ll meet up. She starts to leave but then stops and turns to Joel with an expectant look. He sends her off with a promise that they’ll be there soon. But he’s promised her plenty of things before.Joel directs Eugene to a clearing next to a gorgeous lake. But the awe is short-lived as he realizes that Joel never had any intention of taking him back to the town to see Gail. Joel says if he has any last words for his wife, he’ll pass them along. But Eugene didn’t have anything to tell her; he just wanted to hear her last words for him.“I’m dying!” he shouts. “I’m terrified. I don’t need a view. I need Gail. To see her face, please. Please let that be the last thing I see.”Joel doesn’t relent and says that if you love someone, you can always see their face. Eugene gives in and stares off into the distance until he dissociates. Then, finally, he tells Joel that he sees her. We never hear the gun go off, but we see a flock of birds fly away from the scene.Image: HBOEllie finally arrives with the horses, and Joel merely apologizes as she stares in horror at what he’s done. He ties Eugene to one of the horses and says he’ll tell Gail just what she needs to know. Ellie is dead silent. She tearfully realizes that Joel’s promises mean nothing as they slowly make their way back to Jackson.Inside the Jackson wall, Gail cries as she stands over Eugene’s body. Joel tells her that he wanted to see her, but didn’t want to put her in danger as the cordyceps overtook him.“He wasn’t scared,” Joel says. “He was brave, and he ended it himself.”Gail hugs Joel both for her own comfort and as thanks for his kind words. But it’s all bullshit. If there’s one thing Joel is good at other than gift giving and torture, it’s lying. But Ellie is here and knows this better than she ever has, and she’s not about to let him get away with it.“That’s not what happened,” she says. “He begged to see you. He had time. Joel promised to take him to you. He promised us both. And then Joel shot him in the head.”Joel is stunned, then turns to Gail to try to explain himself, but she slaps him right across the face and tells him to get away from her.“You swore,” Ellie growls at him before walking away.For the uninitiated, this entire side story with Eugene is new for the show, and I have mixed feelings on it. It’s well acted, with Pantoliano giving us one of the season’s best performances in just a few minutes of screentime, but it’s also a very roundabout way for the show to finally create what seems like an unmendable rift between Joel and Ellie without them, you know, actually talking about what happened between them. Yes, it’s an extension of that conflict, as Ellie realizes that Joel is a liar who will do what he wants, when he wants, and anyone who feels differently will find themselves on the wrong side of a rifle or with a bogus story to justify it. But we’re not directly reckoning with what happened in Salt Lake City here. As illustrated in the first episode, Joel doesn’t even realize that Ellie’s anger is rooted in what he did to her, and he chalks the distance between them up to teen angst. If I didn’t know any better, I would also be confused as to why Ellie didn’t talk to him for nine months. My guy doesn’t even know that Ellie is on to the fact that he committed the greatest betrayal she’s ever suffered. Which makes the show’s actual unpacking of it all the more oddly paced, and dare I say, nonsensical?With one more leap forward, we finally reach something familiar from episode one. It’s New Year’s Eve, and Dina (Isabela Merced) is the life of the town’s celebration. Joel is sitting with Tommy and his family and watching Ellie from an acceptable distance. Tommy’s wife, Maria (Rutina Wesley), says that her calling him a “refugee” five episodes ago was out of line, and that he’s still family and has done a lot for Jackson in the years since he and Ellie moved to the town. The sentimental moment is interrupted by Seth calling Ellie and Dina a slur for kissing in the middle of the crowd, and Joel remembers that homophobia is not it and shoves the illiterate, cake-baking, bigoted ex-cop to the ground. He quickly leaves after Ellie shouts at him for interfering, but hey, at least you decided to remember not to be a bigot yourself in your final 24 hours.Oh my god, I’m bracing myself. I have spent weeks trying to gather the words for talking about this next scene. I work with words for a living, and they usually come naturally to me. But when I first watched this scene recreated in live action, all I could do was fire off expletives as my skin crawled off my body. The tragic part is, this scene is my favorite in all of the Last of Us games. It is the foundation of everything that happens in Part II, and originally, it is only shown to you in the last five minutes, after hours of violent conquest for which the game refuses to provide neat, softening explanations. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson’s version of this interaction is everything that makes The Last of Us Part II work, condensed into a stunning five-minute scene of career-defining performances, sublime writing that says everything it has to without having to explain it to the viewer like they’re talking down to a child, and a devastating reveal that explains every painful thing you’ve witnessed and done in this game with heartbreaking, bittersweet clarity. I’m talking about Joel and Ellie’s final conversation before his death, and y’all, I cannot believe how badly the show tarnished this scene, and that Druckmann and Gross let it happen.Part of the issue is that the show’s version of what has become colloquially known as “The Porch Scene” not only has to bear the weight of what was originally Joel and Ellie’s final conversation, but also that it mashes the original scene together with another in such a condensed fashion that it kinda undermines the entire point of Joel and Ellie’s year of no contact. In Part II, there was an entire playable flashback dedicated to Ellie traveling back to the Salt Lake City hospital and discovering the remnants of the Firefly’s base to confirm her worst fears about what Joel had done. It’s much more straightforward than the game’s approach to driving a wedge between the characters, but maybe Mazin and co. thought it was too implausible for show audiences to buy, or they didn’t have the Salt Lake City base set to use anymore. Who’s to say? Instead, we got the Eugene subplot to serve a similar purpose, and Ellie lives with mostly certain but never confirmed suspicions that Joel lied to her about what happened at the hospital. So, on top of the two talking out the Eugene stuff, they also have to lay out the entire foundational conflict between them at once. The result is an extremely rushed revelation and reconciliation, while the show is also juggling Mazin’s overwrought annotated explainer-style writing. So the once-perfect scene is now a structural mess on top of being the show’s usual brand of patronizing.At first, Ellie walks past the back porch where Joel is playing her guitar, as we saw in episode one. Long-time fans were worried this brief moment might mean the show was going to skip this scene entirely, but it turns out that was just a bit of structural misdirection. The two stand side-by-side at the edge of the porch with their hands on the railing. They occasionally look at each other, but never outright face each other as they talk. Neither of them is quite ready to look the other in the eye just yet.Ellie asks what’s in the mug Joel’s sipping on, and he says he managed to get some coffee from some people passing through the settlement last week. My king, it is past midnight. We all have our vices, but do you think you need to be wide awake at this hour? Anyway, Ellie’s not here to scold him for his coffee habits; she’s here to set some boundaries. She says she had Seth under control, and tells Joel that she better not hear about him telling Jesse to take her off patrols again. Joel agrees to the terms, and there’s a brief, awkward silence before he asks if Dina and Ellie are girlfriends now. Ellie, clearly embarrassed, rambles about how it was only one kiss and how Dina is a notorious flirt when intoxicated, and asserts that it didn’t mean anything. Joel hears all this self-doubt and asks a new question: “But you do like her?” Ellie once again gets self-deprecating and says she’s “so stupid.” Then Joel goes into sweet dad mode.“Look, I don’t know what Dina’s intentions are, but, well, she’d be lucky to have you,” Joel says.Naughty Dog / HotoP GaminGThen Ellie says he’s “such an asshole” and gets to what she actually wants to talk about. He lied to her about Eugene and had “the same fucking look” on his face that he had when she asked about the Fireflies all those years ago. But she says she always knew, so she’s giving him one last chance to come clean. “If you lie to me again, we’re done,” she says.Then Ellie asks every question she wanted to ask on the morning Eugene died. Were there other immune people? Did raiders actually hit the Firefly base? Could they have made a cure? Did he kill the Fireflies and Marlene? For the first time, Joel gives honest answers to all of her questions, and says that making a cure would have killed Ellie, to which she says that she should have died in that hospital then. It was the purpose she felt she was missing in this fucked up world, and he took that from her. He took it from everyone.All right, so here we go. Most of what’s happened up to this point is, bar for bar, the original script. And then Pascal just...keeps talking, prattling off embellishments and clarifications in keeping with Mazin’s writing style, massacring what was once an excellent example of natural, restrained writing and conflict resolution, all so there’s no danger that the audience watching could possibly misinterpret it. Incredibly complicated characters who once spoke directly to each other without poetic flair are now spoonfeeding all the nuances to viewers like they’re in an after-school special about how to talk to your estranged family members.I’m going to type up a transcript of this interaction, bolding the dialogue that is new for the show. Take my hand, follow me.Joel: I’ll pay the price because you’re gonna turn away from me. But if somehow I had a second chance at that moment, I would do it all over again.Ellie: Because you’re selfish.Joel: Because I love you in a way you can’t understand. Maybe you never will, but if that should come, if you should ever have one of your own, well then, I hope you do a little better than me.Ellie: I don’t think I can forgive you for this...But I would like to try.Welp, glad that’s resolved. Ellie learned about the greatest betrayal of her life and is ready to try moving past it in all of five minutes, rather than taking a full year to sit with that pain before even considering talking to Joel again. Yeah, maybe at this point Ellie is just trying to resolve things with her surrogate father, and that’s less about one thing that transpired than it is everything they’ve been through, but it still feels like the show is rushing through the biggest point of tension these two face in favor of a secondary conflict.Besties, there are bars on my apartment windows put there by the building owners, and if they hadn’t been there, I cannot guarantee I would not have thrown myself out of my second-story home and suffered an inconvenient leg sprain watching this scene. In just a few additional lines, The Last of Us manages to turn the game’s best scene into one of the most weirdly condescending ones in the show, spelling out every nuance of Joel’s motivations, and explaining his distorted view of what love is with all the subtlety of a Disney Channel Original Movie. It’s not enough for Joel to boldly say he’s seen the fallout of what he’s done and would still have saved Ellie’s life, the show has to make sure you understand that he did it not because he’s a selfish bastard trying to replace one daughter with another like all the meanies who hate him say online, but because he loves her…while also quoting his newly-revealed abusive father. God, I can already hear Ellie likely quoting this “doing better” line when she makes a big decision at the end of Part II’s story in a hokey attempt to bring all of this full circle. I already hate it, HBO. It’s not too late to not have her quote an abusive cop when talking about her as-of-yet unborn child.Watching this scene feels like having an English teacher’s hand violently gripping my shoulder, hammering down every detail, and making sure I grasp how important the scene is. It’s somehow both lacking confidence in the moment to speak for itself while also feeling somewhat self-important, echoing how The Last of Us as a whole has been publicly presented in the past five years. Sony and HBO’s messaging around the franchise has been exhaustingly self-aggrandizing in recent years, as they’ve constantly marketed it as a cultural moment too important to be missed. That’s why it’s been remastered and repackaged more times than I care to count, and why we’ve reached peak Last of Us fatigue.The Last of Us has reached a point of self-important oversaturation that even I, a diehard fan, can’t justify. But while Sony’s marketing has often felt overbearingly self-important, that quality never felt reflected in the actual text. Here, however, the Last of Us show insists upon driving home the lessons it wants to teach so blatantly and clumsily that I once again find myself feeling that this adaptation was shaped by discourse, reacting to potential bad-faith (or just plain bad) responses in advance rather than blazing trails on its own. It knows this moment is important to fans who spent a whole game fearing Joel and Ellie parted on bad terms before his death, so it’s gotta make sure viewers, who only had to wait halfway through the story, know how significant it is, too, by laying the schmaltzy theatrics on real thick when understated sentimentality would’ve sufficed. Even the best moment in the game isn’t immune to the show’s worst tendencies.I’ve spent the whole season racking my brain about why Mazin chose to rewrite The Last of Us Part II’s dialogue this way, because the only explanations I can come up with are that he believes this to be an improvement on the source material or that he thinks the audience couldn’t follow the nuances of this story if they weren’t written out for them like in a middle school book report. But after seeing how the show butchers Joel and Ellie’s final talk, I don’t think his motivations matter anymore. The end result is the same. Even though HBO is stretching Part II’s story out for at least one or two more seasons, I don’t think there’s any coming back from this haughty dumbing down of the game’s dialogue. The Last of Us has already fumbled the landing before the story’s even halfway over. The show will continue, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a failed experiment, and it’s fucking over.Now, we’re back in the present day. As Ellie walks through a rainy Seattle back to the theater where Dina and Jesse are waiting, and we’re back in the midst of her revenge tour, I have whiplash. HBO has already shown its hand. We’re at least another season away from seeing the resolution to this entire conflict, but we already know…almost everything? We know Abby killed Joel as revenge for him killing her father. We know Ellie is so hellbent on revenge (well, that’s debatable, considering the show has drained her of that drive and given it to Dina instead) because she was denied the opportunity to truly reconcile with Joel. The show has demolished so much of its narrative runway that I don’t know what the tension is supposed to be anymore. Wondering who lives and dies? Well, fucking fine. I’ll watch the show aimlessly and artlessly recount the events of the game, knowing its ending, which feels more predictable than ever, is coming in a few years.

A Supernova remnant (SNR) with exceptional circular symmetry has been spotted by an international team of researchers. Supernova remnants (SNRs) are the remains of a supernova explosion, seen as diffuse,expanding structures. Observations show that SNRs harbor ejected material expanding from the supernova explosion. They also contain other interstellar material that has been swept up by the passage of the shockwave from the exploded star. This rather unusual SNR is named “Teleios”, the Greek term of perfect. The newfound SNR, officially designated as G305.4–2.2 was identified in the radio-continuum images of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU).Unusual structure and propertiesAccording to the research paper describing the “Teleios”, it stands out for its unusual symmetrical structure. SNRs generally are unsymmetrical due to uneven distribution of the interstellar medium (ISM) they expand into. A few remnants like lSNR J0624–6948, SN1987A, or MC SNR J0509–6731 exhibit similar morphologyAccording to the paper, G305.4–2.2 or “Teleios” is located at a distance of 7,170 or 25,100 light years away, corresponding to a diameter of 45.6 or 156.5 light years, respectively. The study found some extended radio emission inside the southeastern edge of Teleios's shell. This suggests that at least some parts of this region might be affected by the interaction of Teleios with local interstellar medium (ISM) structures. A steep spectral index of -0.6 suggests the remnant is either relatively young or very old and exhibits low surface brightness. These features make Teleios a compelling target for deeper investigation.Possible Origins and Future ResearchThe study's authors propose that Teleios likely originated from a Type Ia supernova, possibly formed below the Milky Way's galactic plane. However, no direct evidence currently confirms this hypothesis. To uncover more about Teleios's origin and evolution, the researchers recommend future high-resolution, multi-frequency observations.These could reveal its expansion velocity and provide a clearer picture of its age and composition. Such efforts would not only enhance understanding of this unique remnant but also offer broader insights into the diversity and behaviour of supernova explosions in our galaxy.

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Higher power Do these Buddhist gods hint at the purpose of China’s super-secret satellites? Until recently, China's entries in the realm of spaceflight patches often lacked originality. Stephen Clark – May 17, 2025 1:00 pm | 14 This illustration of Chíguó, protector of the east in Buddhism's Four Heavenly Kings, shows the divine being strumming a pipa, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. Credit: Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology This illustration of Chíguó, protector of the east in Buddhism's Four Heavenly Kings, shows the divine being strumming a pipa, a traditional Chinese musical instrument. Credit: Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Mission patches are a decades-old tradition in spaceflight. They can range from the figurative to the abstract, prompting valuable insights or feeding confusion. Some are just plain weird. Ars published a story a few months ago on spaceflight patches from NASA, SpaceX, Russia, and the NRO, the US government's spy satellite agency, which is responsible for some of the most head-scratching mission logos. Until recently, China's entries in the realm of spaceflight patches often lacked the originality found in patches from the West. For example, a series of patches for China's human spaceflight missions used a formulaic design with a circular shape and a mix of red and blue. The patch for China's most recent Shenzhou crew to the country's Tiangong space station last month finally broke the mold with a triangular shape after China's human spaceflight agency put the patch up for a public vote. But there's a fascinating set of new patches Chinese officials released for a series of launches with top secret satellites over the last two months. These four patches depict Buddhist gods with a sense of artistry and sharp colors that stand apart from China's previous spaceflight emblems, and perhaps—or perhaps not—they can tell us something about the nature of the missions they represent. Guardians of the Dharma The four patches show the Four Heavenly Kings, protector deities in Buddhism who guard against evil forces in the four cardinal directions, according to the Kyoto National Museum. The gods also shield the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, from external threats. These gods have different names, but in China, they are known as Duōwén, Zēngzhǎng, Chíguó, and Guăngmù. Duōwén is the commander and the guardian of the north, the "one who listens to many teachings," who is often depicted with an umbrella. Zēngzhǎng, guardian of the south, is a god of growth shown carrying a sword. The protector of the east is Chíguó, defender of the nation, who holds a stringed musical instrument. And guarding the west is Guăngmù, an all-seeing god usually depicted with a serpent. The patches for a quartet of Chinese satellites launched since March each portray one of the Four Heavenly Kings. We know little about these satellites, other than their names and locations, and they were reportedly manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, a division of China's main state-owned aerospace contractor. They are part of a series of Chinese missions known as Tongxin Jishu Shiyan (TJS), or what China calls communication technology test satellites. But that's likely a cover for their real purpose. This artwork released by one of China's state-run space companies shows the Four Heavenly Kings. Clockwise, in order of launch from the upper left: TJS-15 as King of the West, TJS-16 as King of the East, TJS-17 as King of the North, and TJS-19 as King of the South. Credit: Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology China launched TJS-15, the first satellite with a Heavenly King mascot, on March 9 aboard a Long March 3B rocket. A Long March 7A rocket launched the TJS-16 satellite March 29, and another Long March 3B deployed the TJS-17 payload April 10. Finally, on Monday, a Long March 3C rocket sent China's TJS-19 satellite into orbit, skipping TJS-18 in the sequence. All four satellites are on their way to, or already operating in, geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. At that altitude, a satellite's orbital velocity matches the speed of Earth's rotation, allowing it to remain over the same part of the planet. Notably, ground-based trackers have detected unexpected objects that appear to have separated from TJS-15 and TJS-17 in geosynchronous orbit. These may be remnant rocket engines that helped inject the satellites into their operating orbits, but a handful of earlier Chinese satellites also released smaller spacecraft to perform their own maneuvers. Orbital intrigue US officials believe China uses many of the TJS satellites for missile warning or spy missions. In the first instance, some of the TJS satellites may be similar to the US Space Force's fleet of early warning satellites, on guard with heat sensors to detect the thermal signature of a ballistic missile launch. TJS satellites filling the role of a reconnaissance mission might have enormous umbrella-like reflectors to try and pick up signals transmitted by foreign forces, such as those of the United States. It's not difficult to start making connections between the Four Heavenly Gods and the missions that China's TJS satellites likely carry out in space. A protector with an umbrella? An all-seeing entity? This sounds like a possible link, but there's a chance Chinese officials approved the patches to misdirect outside observers, or there's no connection at all. All of the TJS satellites are parked in geosynchronous orbit over the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, or the Western Pacific, except for one—TJS-7—positioned over the Eastern Pacific, with good visibility over the entire United States. A Long March 7A rocket carrying the TJS-16 satellite lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on March 30, 2025, in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China. Credit: Liu Guoxing/VCG via Getty Images Mike Dahm, a researcher at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a former naval intelligence officer, told the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission last year that TJS-7 is probably a missile warning satellite, but it could be spying on signals coming from the US homeland. Some of the TJS satellites might also be capable of maneuvering near other satellites for closeup inspection. The US military has its own inspector satellites, known as GSSAP, to get a closer look at interesting things happening in geosynchronous orbit. And the Space Force is using them. One of these GSSAP platforms, designated USA-324, approached within about 10 miles of China's new TJS-16 and TJS-17 satellites on April 26 and April 29, according to COMSPOC, a commercial satellite tracking company. A video animation released by COMSPOC, embedded below, shows how the USA-324 satellite maneuvered close to each of the Chinese satellites last month over the Western Pacific Ocean. It seems the Space Force is intrigued by China's flurry of new top secret satellites missions, too. Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 14 Comments

May 16, 20253 min readThe Universe May End Sooner Than Scientists Had ExpectedA new study suggests the universe's end could occur much sooner than previously thought. But don't worry, that ultimate cosmic conclusion would still be in the unimaginably distant futureBy Sharmila Kuthunur & SPACE.com An illustration of the remnants of an ancient, dead planetary system orbiting a white dwarf star. New calculations suggest that white dwarfs and other long-lived celestial objects are decaying faster than previously realized. NASA/ZUMA Press Wire Service/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy Live NewsAs the story of our cosmos moves forward, stars will slowly burn out, planets will freeze over, and black holes will devour light itself. Eventually, on timescales so long humanity will never witness them, the universe will fade into darkness.But if you've ever wondered exactly when it all might end, you may find it oddly comforting, or perhaps a bit unsettling, to know that someone has actually done the math. As it turns out, this cosmic finale might arrive sooner than scientists previously thought.Don't worry, though — "sooner" still means a mind-bending 10 to the power of 78 years from now. That is a 1 followed by 78 zeros, which is unimaginably far into the future. However, in cosmic terms, this estimate is a dramatic advancement from the previous prediction of 10 to the power of 1,100 years, made by Falcke and his team in 2023.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today."The ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time," Heino Falcke, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Radboud University in the Netherlands, who led the new study, said in a statement.The team's new calculations focus on predicting when the universe's most enduring celestial objects — the glowing remnants of dead stars such as white dwarfs and neutron stars — will ultimately fade away.This gradual decay is driven by Hawking radiation, a concept proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking in the 1970s. The theory suggests a peculiar process occurs near the event horizon — the point of no return — around black holes. Normally, virtual pairs of particles are constantly created by what are known as quantum fluctuations. These particle pairs pop in and out of existence, rapidly annihilating each other. Near a black hole's event horizon, however, the intense gravitational field prevents such annihilation. Instead, the pair is separated: one particle, one carrying negative energy, falls into the black hole, reducing its mass, while the other escapes into space.Over incredibly long timescales, Hawking's theory suggests this process causes the black hole to slowly evaporate, eventually vanishing.Falcke and his team extended this idea beyond black holes to other compact objects with strong gravitational fields. They found that the "evaporation time" of other objects emitting Hawking radiation depends solely on their densities. This is because unlike black hole evaporation, which is driven by the presence of an event horizon, this more general form of decay is driven by the curvature of spacetime itself.The team's new findings, described in a paper published Monday (May 12) in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics on Monday (May 12), offer a new estimate for how long it takes white dwarf stars to dissolve into nothingness. Surprisingly, the team found that neutron stars and stellar-mass black holes decay over the same timescale: about 10 to the power of 67 years. This was unexpected, as black holes have stronger gravitational fields and were thought to evaporate faster."But black holes have no surface," Michael Wondrak, a postdoctoral researcher of astrophysics at Radboud University and a co-author of the study, said in the statement. "They reabsorb some of their own radiation, which inhibits the process."If even white dwarf stars and black holes eventually dissolve into nothing, what does that say about us? Perhaps it suggests meaning isn't found in permanence, but in the fleeting brilliance of asking questions like these — while the stars are still shining.Copyright 2025 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Far before modern humans ever walked the Earth, our Homo erectus ancestors made arduous journeys to the present-day islands of Southeast Asia. Fossil remnants of H. erectus have been left all across this region, and now, two newly discovered skull fragments belonging to the species have added a new angle to their story. A study published in the journal Quaternary Environments and Humans reveals that the fossil remains were found after a marine sand extraction project in the Madura Strait, a stretch of water between the Indonesian islands of Java and Madura. By examining the fossils, archaeologists have opened a window into the lives of H. erectus who took advantage of low sea levels to spread across a now-submerged landmass 140,000 years ago. H. erectus Fossils on JavaAfter leaving Africa nearly 2 million years ago, H. erectus trekked all the way through Asia and eventually hit the Southeast Asian islands closer to 1.5 million years ago. Fast-forward to the late 19th century, and the first set of H. erectus fossils was found by Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois on Java, enshrined in archaeological history as the Java Man. But with Java surrounded by water in modern times, one may wonder, how did H. erectus land there in the first place? In the ancient past, this part of the world was much different than it is today. Millions of years ago, a landmass called Sundaland connected islands like Bali, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra. Sundaland was exposed during glacial periods when sea levels were low, forming a land bridge that paved the way for human migration flows at various points in history. This is how H. erectus and other species could reach Java. Rare Vertebrate FossilsThe new fossils shed light on Javanese H. erectus much later in their existence, around 140,000 years ago. Researchers involved with the study say that vertebrate fossils have never been found in the area that was once Sundaland, now submerged in the ocean. “This makes our discoveries truly unique,” said Harold Berghuis, an archaeologist at Leiden University, the Netherlands, in a statement. “The fossils come from a drowned river valley, which filled up over time with river sand. We have been able to date the material to approximately 140,000 years ago. That was the penultimate glacial period. Large parts of the northern hemisphere were covered by glaciers, and so much water on Earth was stored in ice caps that the global sea level was 100 metres lower than today.”The fossils show that H. erectus living on Java at the time dispersed throughout the lowlands of Sundaland when the sea level had receded enough. They would have traveled along river systems such as the Brantas and Solo Rivers, finding edible plants and shellfish. Read More: Who Was Homo Soloensis, the “Solo Man?”The Extinction of H. erectusThe researchers say that Javanese H. erectus hunted bovids (the family that includes cattle and buffalo), and potentially learned hunting practices through contact with more modern human species living on the Asian mainland. The final survivors of the entire H. erectus population were living in Java at the time of their death. Homo erectus soloensis (or the Solo Man), a subspecies of H. erectus, is believed to have lived along the Solo River from around 117,000 years to 108,000 years ago, marking the last known record of H. erectus. The extinction of the species may have occurred as a result of a changing climate that caused Java to morph from an open woodland environment into a rainforest.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Britannica. Java manJack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.

45 years after the release of Pac-Man, Bandai Namco is finally answering the age-old question: “How would it play as a 2D Metroidvania?” Surely you’ve all been wondering that, right? Well, ask no more because we’ll soon have an answer to that head-scratching question with Shadow Labyrinth on July 18. At PAX East 2025, Digital Trends went hands-on with the upcoming game and chatted with Seigo Aizawa, producer at Bandai Namco, about Pac-Man’s new look. Aizawa showed us how the oddball game is more true to Pac-Man’s core tenets than it looks at first glance. It may be a gritty Metroidvania with intense boss fights, but this is still the same maze-navigating eat-em-up you’ve been playing for decades, albeit in a very different light. Recommended Videos Enter the maze In Shadow Labyrinth, players wake up in a strange world where everything is trying to kill them. The only thing aiding their survival is a Pac-Man-like creature that gives them abilities and guides them through a savage planet. Amazon’s Secret Level episode starring Pac-Man serves as a prequel to Shadow Labyrinth, and watching it will give players a better understanding of what to expect. “To expand our audience, we wanted to make something new,” Aizawa tells Digital Trends. “We wanted to get people who never played a Pac-Man game to play [Shadow Labyrinth]. When we thought about the concept of the game, ‘Dark Pac-Man’ came up. When you think about a dark atmosphere and a maze concept, [the] Metroidvania [genre] matches it perfectly.” Shadow Labyrinth is especially fast-paced for the genre. Every attack must be executed with a plan in mind. But that’s not to say Shadow Labyrinth isn’t a Pac-Man game at its heart still. There’s still a maze for players to run through, you just won’t see it from a bird’s eye view. Instead, players navigate 2D environments and you have to figure out where they’re going as they explore. Pac-Man’s tendency to eat everything in sight plays a role here too, though in much more sinister fashion. After players are done chopping up your enemies, they can perform an action that essentially turns you into a Pac-Man Kiju that lets them eat their foes to gain abilities. Aizawa revealed that this was by design, as the game needed three key pillars for which Pac-Man is known for: eating, mazes, and power ups. That’s not the only thing my Pac-Man companion can do. As I was making my way through mazes, I was presented with paths that had rails on them. The only way to cross them was to turn into that iconic yellow sphere from the arcade classic. The catch was that the rails were packed with all sorts of traps that were trying to kill me. If I wanted to make it through alive, I needed to evade them. While the Shadow Labyrinth itself is a new location, it still connects to a familiar universe. Bandai Namco decided to toy around with the UGSF (Universal Gaming Simulation Framework), a narrative device that the company uses to connect many of its games. A clear example of this appeared towards the end of my demo. After defeating the main boss, I uncovered a Dig-Dug easter egg that played a bit of the game’s music. Bandai Namco Aizawa says that this is just one example of how all of the games are connected thanks to the UGSF. Shadow Labyrinth takes place in a distant future, whereas Dig Dug took place 3,000 years before this game. As players progress through the story, they’ll find remnants of other beloved Bandai Namco properties. Sometimes these will be simple winks and nods to other games, and other times they’ll play a bigger role in the story. The overall gameplay doesn’t disappoint based on what I’ve played so far. There’s a clear sense of Metroidvania progression that gives players plenty of new abilities to unlock, changing their tool set. The boss fights are engaging clashes against larger than life monsters and the platforming almost feels like a game of its own. Every aspect of it is working for me so far, which is a pleasant surprise considering how left-field the pitch is. Shadow Labyrinth is dark, edgy, and grim, but still very much a Pac-Man game at its core. As different as it is from anything else in the series history, I’m still having fun exploring mazes and eating enemies at the end of the day. Shadow Labyrinth is taking a big swing and hopes to capture a new audience with its latest iteration of Pac-Man. From what I played, Bandai Namco may just pull that off with something entirely new. Shadow Labyrinth launches on July 18 for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" A unique insight into the reality of NATO's eastern boundary is provided by the Latvian Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition, titled Landscape Of Defence, examines how defense infrastructure affects daily living, the land, and public perception. Located in the center of the Biennale's main display path, Campo della Tana provides entrance to the Artiglierie of the Arsenale, where the Pavilion is housed.The Pavilion, which was designed by Latvian architecture studios Sampling and Nomad and curated by Liene Jākobsone and Ilka Ruby, explores the junction of the military and civilian environments along Latvia's borders with Belarus and Russia, posing significant questions.What does it mean to be on the periphery of NATO during a geopolitical conflict? How are lives and landscapes shaped by defensive measures?, asked the curators. National and NATO-wide defense are now a part of everyday life in Latvia and are not merely a government mandate.Visitors are urged to reevaluate the concept of "border" in a time of global unrest by use of an impactful and provocative exhibition design. The curators present opposing viewpoints: Architect and designer Liene Jākobsone, who holds a PhD in product design, is the director of the Art Academy of Latvia's Institute of Contemporary Art, Design, and Architecture and co-founder of the firm Sampling.Her research focuses on the relationship between cultural creation and geographical activity. The independent publishing company Ruby Press, which focuses on architecture and spatial activities, was co-founded by author and curator Ilka Ruby. She offers a more comprehensive analysis of the political and social function of architecture through a critical and transdisciplinary perspective.Road signs, watchtowers, fences, barbed wire, and other man-made structures found in the Latvian borders are among the natural elements, vernacular architecture, and remnants of everyday life that are documented in a photographic collage that is shown behind a wide circular curtain that defines the exhibition area. Anti-tank hedgehogs, dragon's teeth, a surveillance pole, and rustic wooden benches are among the items from the military and civil worlds that are replicated in the center using luminous, abstract material that changes their look and encourages critical thought.Six television screens provide the illusion of a control room: footage, shown in Latvian with English subtitles, switches between shots of the surrounding terrain and testimony from border residents. A second, 4.5-meter-tall curtain on one wall displays a sizable, historically-inspired map of the 30-kilometer border zone. From the standpoint of military defense, informative writings and firsthand accounts provide a human and spatial context. The pavilion's technical details and curatorial text are also displayed on the same curtain.The Latvian Pavilion highlights the complexity involved in developing defense infrastructure rather than offering answers. In the face of actual threats, walls and barriers might be required, but they also present moral, environmental, and aesthetic issues. The goal is to encourage discussion among visitors as well as with military and political stakeholders on the interrelationships between security, space, and society.A folded-out catalogue in postcard size, published by Ruby Press, is included with the exhibition. It features original pictures by Latvian photographer Reinis Hofmanis, who received the Fuji Global Grant for his borderlands investigation, as well as an essay by Liene Jākobsone. The publication, which resembles a passport, emphasizes the relationship between territory and identity, the experience of crossing, and the importance of the border."The eastern border of Latvia has been fortified in such a way over the past few years. Work is still underway, but the territory has changed significantly. The border is not just a line, but an area. A whole landscape of defence has been created along with imposing fortifications," as Jākobsone writes in the postcard leporello. "The border itself (...) marks the end of the country and, in this case, of a much wider region — that of Europe. (...) These postcards from the very edge of Europe are not only a testimony to its diversity and its values, but also offer an opportunity for this landscape of defence to be represented to those it is intended to defend.""In Berlin, where I live, you still feel every day how the fall of a physical and systemic border can transform a city’s urban fabric. That frontier has now shifted to the border between Latvia — and Europe — and Russia. Our goal is to understand the effects that such fortifications can have on landscapes and lives," added Ruby.Uncertain characters, halfway between tour guides and sentinels, greet guests at the Pavilion while wearing outfits created by Latvian fashion designer Laima Jurča.The Pavilion's suspended atmosphere, which reflects the entrance of a militarized zone where the public is faced with the tension between security and threat, welcome and surveillance, freedom and control, is heightened by their subdued yet noticeable presence, which evokes gestures and postures of control."What does it mean to live on NATO’s external border in times of geopolitical conflict?," wrote the curators Liene Jākobsone and Ilka Ruby. "The exhibition focuses on the military defence of the Latvian state from the perspective of the inhabitants of the border area. We want to highlight the specific conditions of Latvia’s geographical situation – the reason why its population lives under a constant threat of attack," the curators explained."The exhibition aims to offer the international architectural discourse a study of the relationship between military defence and spatial condition in the Latvian context. We want to draw attention to the impact of defence measures on people and the landscape.""It is an invitation not only to architects, but also policy makers and military defence specialists to take part in the conversation on spatial qualities, encouraging them to consider the physical footprint of defence strategies on a territory and the emotional impact on its population," the curators added.The Latvian Pavilion is commissioned by Jānis Dripe, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. The exhibitors are Sampling (Manten Devriendt, Liene Jākobsone) and Nomad architects (Marija Katrīna Dambe, Florian Betat). The 19th International Architecture Exhibition will take place from 10 May to 23 November 2025 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and various venues in Venice, Italy. Find out all exhibition news on WAC's Venice Architecture Biennale page. All images © Michiel De Cleene.> via Latvian Pavilion

Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Yuhan Yao (UC Berkeley) Hubble image reveals galaxy with wandering supermassive black hole Highlights Hubble Sees First Rogue Black Hole Eating Star Outside Galaxy Core Astronomers spotted ‘Space Jaws’ using the Hubble telescope Telescopes may uncover more rogue TDEs and hidden black holes Advertisement Astronomers have revealed the occurrence of Space Jaws with the help of the Hubble telescope. There is a black hole caught from the home galaxy ripping a star. This is the first direct evidence of a huge black hole which is in action. Unique thing is that the black hole is not at the center of the galaxy, marked as the first incident in history. Dr. Yuhan Yao led the observations, postdoc fellow at University of California, together with Dr. Erica Hammerstein and Dr. Ryan Chornock.Identifying a Cosmic OutlierAccording to a study at NASA using the Hubble Telescope, on February 22, 2025, a tidal disruption event known as TDE called AT2024tvd, spotted at 600 million light years away. The Zwicky Transient Facility caught the initial flare and the location has been reported using the Hubble Space Telescope. The black hole lies 2600 light years away from the core of the galaxy, where 100 million supermassive black holes lie. This black hole surprised the scientists as it is in the offset position and is wandering. However, astronomers say, the presence of two super massive black holes within a single galaxy is not unusual.Origins: Ejected or Merged?There are two main theories put forward by the scientists for explaining the dislocation. According to one theory, it formed by the remains of a smaller galaxy that blended with the current host, billions of years ago. The other theory says it was ejected from the centre of the galaxy at the time of violent three black hole interactions. Dr. Hammerstein could not detect any merger remnants through observations, yet the presence of two black holes in one galaxy is a revolution to the past.A Star's Violent EndThe black hole shreds the star, and pulls it away through strong tidal forces and emits a bright flare. Such events not just indicate the happening of hidden black holes but too help the scientists study the physics of black holes in detail.Eyes on the FutureAstronomers expect to unveil more such TDEs which are offset using NASA's Roman SPace Telescope and Vera C. Rubin Observatory. There can be a possibility of hidden wandering supermassive black holes. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: Hubble Telescope, Rogue Black Hole, Tidal Disruption Event, AT2024tvd, NASA Discovery Gadgets 360 Staff The resident bot. If you email me, a human will respond. More Related Stories

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You can now own a $1 gold coin celebrating one of America’s most revolutionary achievements: the NASA Space Shuttle program. The latest variant in the ongoing American Innovation $1 Coin series is available to order through the United States Mint. Selected to represent the state of Florida, the noncirculating legal tender is the third coin released this year and the 28th coin in the 15-year project first announced in 2018. While the coin’s front displays the series’ Statue of Liberty image, the back shows the shuttle launching above plumes of exhaust. United States Mint Medallic Artist Eric David Custer sculpted the image while Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) Designer Ron Sanders designed it. “The Space Shuttle, officially known as the Space Transportation System, remains one of the most iconic and influential spacecrafts in history,” explained US Mint acting director Kristie McNally in an accompanying announcement. “As the world’s first reusable spacecraft, it played a pivotal role in advancing space exploration. We are honored to celebrate this major achievement.” The Space Shuttle’s iconic design (including the image displayed on the new $1 coins) frequently featured not just the shuttle itself, but its large external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters. Those attachments detached after the shuttle reached a predetermined altitude. While the boosters included parachutes allowing them to be recovered and reused, the fuel tank was designed to disintegrate during its atmospheric reentry along a ballistic trajectory ensuring any remnants landed in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. The Space Shuttle coin is the 28th in the American Innovation series. Credit: US Mint NASA relied on the Space Shuttle to transport astronauts on missions from April 1981 until its retirement in July 2011. The spacecraft blasted off a total of 135 times from one of two launchpads in Florida, returning to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at the end of 78 of those trips. During its tenure, the shuttle flew the first women and minority crew members into space, as well as delivered components for both the Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station (ISS). The program was not without tragedy, however. The Challenger and Columbia disasters of 1986 and 2003, respectively,  collectively claimed the lives of 14 astronauts. In 2004, President George W. Bush announced plans to retire the Space Shuttle program following the completion of the ISS. Today, NASA primarily relies on private contracts with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin for astronaut and mission transport. The ongoing Artemis lunar program will use an Orion spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin. The Space Shuttle’s influence today is far more than just symbolic. The Artemis program’s rocket booster engines, casings, and main engines are all repurposed and refurbished from Space Shuttle craft. The Artemis I mission alone utilized components previously employed on 83 shuttle missions. The United States Mint announced its American Innovation $1 Coin series celebrating American achievements across science and technology in 2018, and has already featured three space-related selections prior to the Florida coin. Delaware’s coin from 2018 showcases Annie Jump Cannon, the pioneering astronomer responsible for the star classification system still used today. Meanwhile, Maryland’s 2020 entry pays tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope, and Alabama’s 2024 release includes the Saturn V rocket. Later this year, Texas will become the fifth space-centric $1 gold coin with its Mission Control design.