The Sony Days of Play sale is underway, and it includes the first official price cut for the PS5 Pro. The console has dropped by $50 to $650 in the US for the sale, which runs from May 28 to June 11. This is the first time Sony has discounted its Pro-level console. Retail partners like Amazon are matching the discount as well. If you don't have a PS5 already and can afford the Pro model, it's definitely the way to go to get the best PlayStation experience. It earned a score of 88 in our review, and it might have scored even higher if not for the price and the lack of a built-in disc drive. There are other discounts on consoles in the US and Canada as part of the sale. A bundle of either the standard PS5 or Digital Edition with a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 starts at $400/$510 CAD (for the Digital Edition). Sony says that will save you $120/$160 CAD compared with buying them separately. The PS5 standard and digital versions will be on sale in Europe and Asia too, starting at €400/£340/¥65,980. It’s worth noting that Sony has considered raising the prices of PS5 hardware to offset the cost of tariffs. Microsoft this month jacked up the prices of Xbox consoles recently for that reason. So if you’ve been on the fence about getting a PS5 or PS5 Pro, now might be the time to snap one up. Elsewhere in the Days of Play sale, accessories are getting discounts. You can save on the PlayStation VR2 ($50 off), PlayStation VR2 and Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle ($50 off), Pulse Explore earbuds ($30 off), DualSense Edge controller ($30 off), PlayStation Access controller ($20 off) and the DualSense controller ($20 off). Things like PS5 console covers and external storage drives will get price cuts as well. You will, of course, be able to snap up PS5 games for fewer dollars than usual. MLB The Show 25, the brilliant Astro Bot and Lego Horizon Adventures are among the many first-party games getting discounts. If you haven't played The Last of Us Part II and don't want to wait a year or two before finding out where the story of HBO's adaptation will go after that (somewhat unsatisfying) season finale on Sunday, you might like to snap up the remastered edition of the misery simulator, which will be included in the sale. Hundreds of other games will be featured. The list includes several Assassin's Creed titles, Grand Theft Auto V, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Balatro. On top of that, movies will be on sale through Sony Pictures Core Elsewhere, some PlayStation Plus plans are 33 percent off for new subscribers. Upgrading to the Extra or Premium tiers may cost you a third less than usual as well. That stinks for long-term PS Plus members who’d like to add another year or two (especially after recent price increases in several regions), but that’s standard practice for plans such as these as companies try to boost subscriber numbers. Speaking of which, Sony is adding an extra few games to the PS Plus Game Catalog for Extra, Premium and Deluxe members. They are: Another Crab’s Treasure (PS5, May 29) Skull and Bones (PS5, June 2) Destiny 2: Legacy Collection (PS5 and PS4, June 4) Grand Theft Auto III (PS5 and PS4, June 10) Another Crab's Treasure is a delightful Soulslike that was one of my favorite games of 2024. One of the best things about it is an accessibility option that gives you a giant pistol that can one-shot any enemy. Skull and Bones landed last year after years of delays and I'd say that "at no extra cost" is the best way to try it. Destiny 2: Legacy Collection includes hundreds of hours of gameplay with all of the expansions from the game's Light and Darkness Saga, except for the last chapter, The Final Shape. As it happens, the latest batch of monthly PS Plus games (which all PS Plus subscribers can claim and keep in their libraries as long as they maintain the membership) includes Destiny 2: The Final Shape, which will be available on May 30 for PS4 and PS5. The other titles, which you can claim starting on June 3, are NBA 2K25 (PS5 and PS4), last year's remake of Alone in the Dark (PS5) and the Jet Set Radio-esque Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (PS5 and PS4). That's a solid lineup! In addition, two bona fide all-timers are joining the Classics Catalog on June 5 for PS Plus Premium/Deluxe subscribers. Myst and its sequel Riven will be available to members on PS4 and PS5 at no extra cost. Premium/Deluxe subscribers will have access to two more game trials from May 28: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (PS5) and Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (PS5 and PS4). Update, May 28, 12:53PM ET: Sony pushed back the date that it's adding Destiny 2: The Final Shape to the PS Plus Monthly games list from May 28 to May 30. This story has been updated accordingly.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-ps5-pro-is-50-off-in-sonys-days-of-play-sale-144517873.html?src=rss

On June 5, after years of rumors and anticipation, Nintendo will finally launch the Nintendo Switch 2 worldwide. Preorders are already mostly sold out with millions of gamers anxiously awaiting Mario Kart World Tour and new on-the-go ports of Street Fighter 6 and Cyberpunk 2077. Of course Nintendo is no stranger to the hardware business, launching more than a dozen consoles and portables since the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). And there have been many ups and downs over the last four decades. When considering which Nintendo system actually had the best launch, we looked at the quality and quantity of games at release, price, as well as the overall impressiveness of the hardware at launch. This retrospective also considers only the North American launches of each system. With that in mind, this is the definitive ranking of all of Nintendo’s console and portable launches since the NES gave the world a red-capped Italian plumber!  13. Virtual Boy Since entering the video game market in the 1970s, Nintendo has rarely encountered a massive failure, but it’s hard to see the Virtual Boy as anything but a colossal misstep, albeit an ambitious one. A home VR system in the mid-‘90s was literally decades ahead of its time, but nothing about it was really consumer friendly. Despite being marketed as a Game Boy successor, the Virtual Boy wasn’t really portable, and at home, it required a table to play. And while the black and white monochrome screen was fine for the original Game Boy, the Virtual Boy’s red and black monochrome display was known to just cause headaches. As for the launch games, they were aggressively… okay? Mario’s Tennis is a perfectly competent, if barebones, tennis game. Meanwhile Teleroboxer was an interesting, just not terribly compelling Punch-Out!! successor. But even if the games were decent, the controller, a god-awful monstrosity mixing the worst aspects of the SNES and N64 controllers, didn’t do these titles any favors. The launch price, equivalent to around $370 USD in 2025 dollars, was the final nail in the Virtual Boy’s coffin, and Nintendo quietly discontinued the console a year after release. 12. Wii U The Wii U is Nintendo’s worst selling console by a large margin, and the problems really were evident from the beginning. The tablet controller was an interesting idea but just not as engaging or innovative as the Wii’s motion controls. Nintendo really banked on Nintendo Land showcasing what the system could do and banked on it being their next Wii Sports, but it ended up just showing how limited the new console really was. And while Mario games have historically been system sellers, New Super Mario Bros. U was largely a rehash of its Wii predecessor, just with HD graphics. It’s a fine platformer, but a surprisingly average Mario game. Beyond that, the launch lineup was largely made up of third party ports, some of which had been available on other consoles for years at that point. It’s easy to see why so many people were confused about whether the Wii U was a new console or an upgrade of the Wii, and why so many of those who understood what it was ended up skipping it, even if the $300 launch price was competitive. 11. Game Boy Color If we were looking at the entire history of Nintendo consoles, the Game Boy Color would certainly rank higher, but Nintendo just didn’t put much effort into its launch, likely because Nintendo absolutely dominated the handheld gaming market at the time. They didn’t have to work very hard to sell this thing. They knew the players would show up. The highlight of the Game Boy Color’s launch in 1998 was Game & Watch Gallery 2, a color collection of the old handheld titles Nintendo made in the ‘80s. It actually was a very good showcase of the GBC’s better color graphics, but it wasn’t the type of game that had much staying power. The other launch titles, Pocket Bomberman, Centipede, and Tetris DX, a colorized version of the original Game Boy’s Tetris launch title, were similarly serviceable but largely forgettable, because seriously, who was dying to play a colorized version of Game Boy Tetris at that point? But at $79.95, the launch price was right, and the GBC quickly built an impressive library of exclusives. 10. Nintendo 3DS When the 3DS was first revealed in 2010, its glasses-free stereoscopic 3D generated an immense amount of buzz. Sadly, a botched launch promptly killed a lot of that momentum. Nintendo’s first party offerings were all oddly disappointing. Pilotwings had been a solid launch series in the past, but Pilotwings Resort lacked a lot of content compared to its predecessors. Steel Diver was an interesting submarine sim that just didn’t quite click. And Nintendogs + Cats, well… it was more Nintendogs for whatever that’s worth. The launch lineup wasn’t all disappointments, however. Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Rayman 3D were excellent ports of console games, and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars remains an underrated gem of a tactics game. But arguably the biggest knock against the 3DS was its price. The handheld launched at $250, a price that many gamers balked at. Nintendo was forced to cut the price to $170 just a few months later. Early adopters were compensated with a collection of 20 NES and GBA games, but so many unnecessary missteps left a bad taste in the mouths of many Nintendo fans, and it seems like the 3DS never quite reached its full potential. 9. Nintendo 64 I remember first playing Super Mario 64 in a Toys ‘R Us in 1996 before the U.S. launch and being absolutely blown away. I had never used an analog controller before that let me control how fast or slow my character on screen moved. There had been plenty of 3D platformers prior to that point, but Mario’s first 3D outing truly felt like a giant leap forward for gaming thanks to its silky smooth controls and innovative open world gameplay. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The problem with N64’s launch is that there just wasn’t much else to it. It only launched in the U.S. with Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, which was another excellent showcase for what the console could do, but once you played through those games, new releases were sparse, and expensive, an issue that would continue to plague the console for its entire lifespan. The N64 certainly had quality games, it just could never get much quantity. And while the $250 launch price was reasonable, it was only $50 cheaper than a PlayStation at the time, and given that the PS1 had a much larger library, and its games tended to be cheaper, it’s easy to see why Sony’s console outsold Nintendo’s by a large margin in the late ‘90s. 8. Nintendo DS Nintendo didn’t really seem to know what the DS was supposed to be at first. Seemingly rushed to market in late 2004 to get ahead of the imminent Sony PSP launch, the DS was initially marketed as a “third pillar” system that would sit on shelves alongside the GameCube and Game Boy Advance, though it quickly elbowed the GBA out of the handheld space.  That wasn’t exactly thanks to a great launch lineup though. Super Mario 64 DSFeel the Magic: XY/XX was a weird and wonderful minigame showcase of the handheld’s new features, but it had little mass market appeal. And while games like Madden NFL 2005, Spider-Man 2, and Urbz: Sims in the City were all perfectly serviceable, none of them were on par with their console counterparts. But at $150, the DS was $100 cheaper than the PSP, and that easily helped it become a bestseller.  7. Nintendo Switch  In 2025 the Switch is an undisputed massive success, but its launch in 2017 was very much a mixed bag. First the good: the hardware, though underpowered compared to competitors, is fantastic. Being able to seamlessly switch between playing games on a TV and on the go is a wonderful innovation. The Switch feels great in your hands, and the Joy-Cons still offer some of the best feedback of any controller on the market. It was clear that the system had massive potential from the start, and the $300 launch price undercut both Sony and Microsoft. But the launch lineup was the definition of a one trick pony. Yes, The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild was an instant classic and absolutely deserves to be in the conversation of the greatest games of all time. But beyond that, how many people even remember the Switch’s other launch games? 1-2 Switch is a lame minigame collection. Super Bomberman R had potential as a launch exclusive, but turned out to be a middling entry in the long running franchise. And ports of Just Dance 2017 and Skylanders: Imaginators weren’t exactly moving systems. Still, the success of the Nintendo Switch makes a really good case that all a console needs to be successful is a great design and one killer app. 6. Game Boy When it launched in 1989, the Game Boy was woefully underpowered and lacked the color screen of competitors like the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx. It didn’t really matter though. First Nintendo understood that less power meant longer battery life, which is still about the most important feature for portable gaming. More importantly, the Game Boy had a secret weapon: Tetris.  The classic puzzler was a pack-in title for the Game Boy at launch, the equivalent of giving the first hit away for free to get gamers hooked. At $89.99, the launch bundle was an absolute steal. Along with Tetris, Super Mario Land was a quirky and unique take on the Mario series that was well worth checking out, while ports of Tennis and Baseball from the NES library kept people hooked as the Game Boy gained momentum.  5. GameCube The GameCube launch is both better and worse than you remember it. While the console was kind of knocked for not having any truly great exclusives at launch, the exclusives that were released have actually aged rather well. This was a system where you could pick up Luigi’s Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, and Super Monkey Ball at launch, all fantastic titles that weren’t available anywhere else. And while it launched three days after the original Xbox, it was also $100 cheaper. Admittedly, the third-party offerings were a bit slim, but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3Crazy Taxi with the all important arcade soundtrack that’d been missing from more recent releases. But those ports also showed off the GameCube’s biggest weakness: there was really nothing different about these versions if you already owned them elsewhere. It’s not surprising then that after this generation, Nintendo started looking toward new gimmicks to sell consoles instead of just pushing graphics technology to its limits. 4. SNES The SNES didn’t launch with a ton of games, but there wasn’t a stinker in the bunch. Of course there was Super Mario World, still arguably the best Mario game ever made. Not only is the design of that game timeless, but the huge graphical upgrade over anything the NES could do quickly justified the upgrade to a new console. Pilotwings and F-Zero, with their revolutionary use of Mode 7 further showed off the power of the system. The $199 launch price (equivalent to around $460 today) was high for the time, but the launch lineup was so good, the price was kind of justified. Even the two games pulling up the rear, Gradius III and an SNES-exclusive version of SimCity were excellent titles worth picking up. But what’s really underrated about the SNES is how much of an improvement the controller was. It was much more ergonomic than the hard rectangle shape of the NES controller, and the addition of X and Y and shoulder buttons made it clear from the get-go that this console was going to open up a lot of new gameplay styles. 3. Game Boy Advance The Game Boy Advance had an all too brief time as Nintendo’s premiere handheld before the DS took the spotlight, but it built an impressive library during its time starting with the launch. The $100 launch price is quite possibly the best of any piece of Nintendo hardware. And the portable had a solid one, two punch out of the gate with F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, an excellent successor to the SNES title, and Super Mario Advance, a full-fledged remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 that remains the best way to experience this classic.  The 15 other titles available at launch included solid ports of games like Rayman and ChuChuRocket!, with the portability of the GBA version arguably making it more preferable to play than its bigger brother on Dreamcast. But for many, the real star of the launch was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, a technically impressive port that somehow managed to squeeze all of the gameplay of the console version into an isometric view. Before release, many were touting that the GBA was the equivalent of a handheld SNES. These early games showed that it could actually be even better than that. 2. NES By the mid-1980s, console gaming was essentially dead in North America. Atari had killed the market, flooding it with low quality games. It would take an impressive new console, genius marketing, and just a little bit of luck to bring home gaming back from the brink. The NES succeeded at a tough time for video games by trying not to be just another console. It was more of a toy, or “entertainment system,” sold alongside a Zapper light gun and R.O.B., a robot accessory. Gimmicky? Sure, but that was just the opening salvo in Nintendo’s strategy, the Trojan horse to bring consoles back into the living room. Of course, the games needed to be good for the NES to succeed, and Nintendo had that down pat, launching with 17 titles, including Super Mario Bros., Excitebike, Duck Hunt, and Ice Climbers, titles that are iconic to this day. Other titles like Baseball, Tennis, and Pinball were more perfunctory, but good enough to gain the public’s attention and prove that video games weren’t just a fad. Admittedly, the $200 launch price (equivalent to nearly $600 in today’s dollars) was high, though historically similar to many other launch prices for new consoles, and that price point clearly didn’t do much to dissuade prospective buyers. 1. Wii  Twenty years after the NES brought consoles back from the brink, Nintendo’s home console business found itself in a tough spot. Despite good reviews and a respectable library of games, the GameCube had just taken third place in a three-way fight. Clearly, just trying to build the most powerful console wasn’t the key to success. So as Sony and Microsoft turned to HD gaming, Nintendo released a console just slightly more powerful than its predecessor, but with the benefit of motion controls thanks to the Wii-mote. It sounded kinda nuts. Then people played Wii Sports and were immediately hooked. The game was a phenomenon. Not just hardcore gamers wanted to play it, but parents, and even grandparents. The Wii truly brought console gaming to the masses in a way that had previously been unthinkable thanks to an innovative new controller. Oh, and for the hardcore gamers, a little title by the name of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight PrincessExcite TruckTrauma Center: Second Opinion were more than enough to keep the console flying off shelves for years after release, especially because the older technology meant it could be sold substantially cheaper than either the Xbox 360 or the PS3.

Kai Cenat became Twitch’s top showman long ago, but the secret to his ongoing success is continuously finding new ways to take his streaming stunts to the next level. Last year it was turning a 1,700-death-filled Elden Ring marathon into the gaming event of the season. In 2025 it was a riff on reality TV and Hogwarts called Streamer University that crammed a bunch of streamers into a dorm and let the algorithm-fueled drama unfold. Suggested ReadingGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores Close Share SubtitlesOffEnglishSuggested ReadingGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores Close Share SubtitlesOffEnglishGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores CloseThe multi-day event got underway on May 22 with 120 rising streamers handpicked for an all-expenses-paid stay at the University of Akron to participate in Cenat’s Saw-like social experiment of watching his peers and protégés vie for attention, clout, and maybe learn something about getting famous monetizing that fame in the modern creator economy along the way. There were fights, expulsions, late-night parties, and actual classes. It was heavily manufactured and also brought in tens of millions of views. Streamer University Best Moments!A great report by Vulture interviewed some of the participants and offers an incisive recap of the entire spectacle. One “student” named Winston Groves recalled getting hazed with a hot dog in a condom left around his doorknob and said the cafeteria food tasted like it was gruel out of Minecraft. One of the floors was called the “demon floor” because of the stink. “The whole floor smelled like wild fumes, mysterious funk,” Groves told Vulture. Nobody slept. Everyone was constantly filming. There were apparently a lot of hot dogs and baby oil, seemingly the modern-day prank comedy equivalents of whoopee cushions and cream pies. “They had this prank where they made fake poop with fart spray and it had literally stank up our room to the point where my roommate’s eyes were tearing up,” said attendee Kieya Jennings, “There was water everywhere, baby oil, baby powder, noodles,” recalled Mari Franklin.There are over 10 hours of streams on Cenat’s Twitch channel from the weekend-long saga, and many, many more from the channels of the individuals in attendance. Comments on a video for the final day’s awards ceremony were filled with nothing but love for the streaming world’s current master of ceremonies. Streamer University’s valedictorian was Tylil James, a rising star with a big following that’s still only a fraction of Cenat’s. “Kai put on so many different type of creators and let them just create and do whatever they was great at,” reads the top comment. .

From holding up the bathroom line with your skincare routine to playing music without headphones, there are numerous etiquette mistakes people make when flying on airplanes.That's why Business Insider asked etiquette coach Mariah Grumet about the things passengers should avoid doing while on a flight.Here's what she had to say. Reclining your seat without regard for others Reclining your seat is OK, but be courteous to the person sitting behind you. Cherdchanok Treevanchai/Getty Images When — or whether — to recline your seat on a flight is a hot topic when it comes to plane etiquette.Grumet told BI that even though some may find it rude, she thinks passengers should be able to recline since they paid for their seats.However, she said passengers should still be mindful of the person sitting behind them when deciding when to recline.For example, Grumet advises against reclining if the person behind you has things on their tray. Stinking up the plane with food or grooming products Avoid bringing smelly food and toiletries on the plane. Stephen Schauer/Getty Images Grumet said it's really important to be mindful of anything with a strong scent.For example, if a passenger brings a tuna sandwich onto the plane, the smell can be disturbing to those around them.Grooming can come with extra smells, too. Items like nail polish or perfume could be distracting or irritating to fellow passengers, so Grumet advised leaving those at home. Being rude to parents Giving parents dirty looks can just add fuel to the fire. d3sign/Getty Images Young children may act out if they're hungry or exhausted from a long day. Even if the crying is annoying and disruptive, Grumet said it's important to be respectful to the parent."It's likely that the parent is already super embarrassed as is, and you don't want to add fuel to the fire by whispering or giving dirty looks," she said.This also applies to children who are a bit older. Grumet added that even if they're running down the aisle or doing something you think can be controlled, it's still important to be kind. Rushing to the front at the end of the flight Unless you have a connecting flight, always let those in front of you exit first. AlxeyPnferov/Getty Images "The most polite way to deboard a plane is to let the people in the front go first," Grumet told BI.However, she pointed out that many passengers try to rush to the front as quickly as possible.Even if you had a difficult flight, Grumet said you should allow those ahead of you to go first. The exception to this is if you're running to make a connecting flight.In that case, she advised notifying an airline staff member to help you get off the plane as quickly as possible.This story was originally published on August 22, 2024 and most recently updated on May 30, 2025.

We made it, everybody. We’ve reached the end of HBO’s The Last of Us. Wait, sorry, I’m getting word in my earpiece that…we’re only halfway done with it because this show’s going for four seasons. At this point, I’m mostly feeling deflated. Last week’s episode was such a catastrophic bummer that it cemented for me that the show fundamentally misunderstands The Last of Us Part II, the game this season and those that are still yet to come are adapting. But you know how your mother would tell you not to play ball in the house because you might accidentally break the priceless vase on display in the living room? Well, if you’ve already broken the vase, you might as well keep playing ball, so we’ll probably be doing this song and dance into 2029. For now, we’re on the season two finale, which essentially wraps up Ellie’s side of this condensed revenge story and reveals the premise of season three. Most game fans probably assumed this was where the season would end and, if nothing else, it’s still a bold cliffhanger to leave off on.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 HigherGuilty as chargedAfter last week’s flashback-heavy episode, we open on Jesse (Young Mazino) tending to wounds the Seraphites have inflicted on Dina (Isabela Merced), which means we get a real heinous scene of him doing some amateur surgeon’s work to remove the arrow she took to the knee. He douses it in alcohol and offers her a sip to dull the pain, but she staunchly refuses without explaining why. They made Jesse an asshole in this show, but he’s still a smart guy. The gears start turning in his head about why she might turn down a swig right now. Nevertheless, he takes that motherfucker out with no anesthetic, booze, or supportive bedside girlfriend to help Dina through it.Speaking of the absent girlfriend, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) finally returns to their theater base of operations. Now that she’s back, all her concern is on Dina, but Jesse is still wondering where the hell she’s been this whole time. Dina is resting backstage, and even though we only see these details for a few minutes, I once again want to shout out the set designers who recreated this little safe haven, which is covered in old show posters and graffiti from bands and artists that performed there before the cordyceps took over. I’m sure Joel would have loved to have seen it.Dina stirs awake and Ellie checks her wound. Jesse’s effort to wrap the injury leaves a lot to be desired, but it should heal in time. Ellie asks if the baby’s alright, and Dina says it’s okay.“How do you know?” Ellie asks.“I just do,” Dina replies.The one who is not okay in the room is Ellie, who is bleeding through the back of her shirt. Dina helps her undress and starts to clean the scratches on her back. As she does, she asks what happened while they were separated. Ellie says she found Nora (Tati Gabrielle), and she knew where Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) was, but only said two words: “Whale” and “Wheel.” Ellie says she doesn’t know what it meant. It could have been nonsense. She was infected, and it was already starting to affect her cognitive state.“I made her talk,” Ellie whispers. “I thought it would be harder to do, but it wasn’t. It was easy. I just kept hurting her.”Image: HBODina asks if Ellie killed her, but she says she just “left her,” meaning that somewhere in this timeline, Nora is wandering the depths of a Seattle hospital with broken legs and an infected mind. I thought the show couldn’t possibly concoct a worse fate for her than what happens in the game, but they found a way. It takes commitment to put down a character like showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have done for Nora across both video games and television. Personally, I think when you already know that people are wary of the way you treat one of the few Black women in your franchise as if she doesn’t deserve the same dignity as everyone else, maybe you should do better by her when given a second chance, rather than worse. But that’s just me. I’m not the one being paid a bunch of money to butcher this story on HBO Max every Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern. So what do I know?Maybe this is just part of the contrived sadism the show has attached to Ellie. She thinks violence is easy and it comes naturally to her, so I guess she would beat a woman nearly to death until the fungal infection made her lose her mind. Meanwhile the game version is so traumatized by what she’s done in this moment, she’s practically speechless by the time she reaches the theater. God, I knew this shit was going to happen. Mazin has repeatedly insisted that Ellie is an inherently violent individual, something he’s communicated both in interviews and by having Catherine O’Hara’s Gail, the therapist who tells you what the story is about, say that she’s always been a sadist, probably. Now, when we get to moments like the post-Nora debrief which used to convey that Ellie is Not Cut Out For This Shit, the framing instead becomes “Ellie likes violence and feels bad about how much she likes violence.”Before The Last of Us Part II came out, a lot of Naughty Dog’s promotion for the game was kind of vague and even deceptive in an effort to keep its biggest twists under wraps, and some of the messaging it used to talk about the game’s themes have irrevocably set a precedent for how the game’s story is talked about years later. When the game was first revealed in 2016, the studio said the story would be “about hate,” which paints a much more destructive and myopic picture of Ellie’s journey than the one driven by love and grief she actually experiences through the course of the game.One of the most annoying things about being a Last of Us fan is that its creators love to talk about the series in ways that erase its emotional complexity, making it sound more cynical and underhanded when the actual story it’s telling is anything but. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people reductively parroting notions that The Last of Us Part II is just about “hate” and “guilting the player” for taking part in horrifying actions when they literally have no choice but to do so, rather than cracking the text open and dissecting that nuance. Mazin’s openly-expressed belief that Ellie is an intrinsically bloodthirsty person similarly bleeds into how a lot of the public perceives her as a character, seeing her as a violent ruffian rather than a grieving daughter who was only ever taught to express her pain by inflicting it on those who made her feel it in the first place. Discussing these games as a fan means having to fight against these notions, but they’re born from a game built on subtext, and thus willingly opens itself to those interpretations.Its willingness to dwell in ambiguity only makes it a more fascinating text to unpack, or it would, if we lived in a world where discussing video games wasn’t a volatile experience in which you constantly run the risk of being targeted for performative online dunks, or running up against rabid console tribalism. Now, the Last of Us show has decided to lean into the most boring interpretation of what this story is about without an ounce of subtlety, nuance, or even sympathy for Ellie’s plight. She is a sadist who does terrible things not simply because she’s grieving her father figure, but because this is just who she is. Mazin has deemed it so, and here we are, and this vision of her will no doubt weave itself into the fabric of how we talk about Ellie Williams, even in the game.This story only has any thematic weight if Ellie’s violent outbursts are rooted in pain, not pleasure. Yeah, what we’re seeing in the show is her acting from a mix of those things but, in the game at least, the most affecting moments of Ellie’s Seattle revenge tour happen when she has to confront how she is not built for acts of violent excess in the same way Joel was. She never has been. Back in Part I, she was sick to her stomach when she committed her first kill to save Joel, and the entire point of Part II was that we see her cut off parts of herself to do what she feels she must, only to find that she’s unable to recognize herself when it’s all over. In the show, she is instead mesmerized by carnage, only to decide she doesn’t like that she feels that way, actually. But all this self-reflection is fleeting, because she’s only killed one person on her list, and there’s a lot more work to do. How many Joels is Nora’s life worth to Ellie? One-fifth?While Ellie is wrestling with these feelings, Dina is about to see things with more clarity than ever. At first, she says that Nora may have deserved this fate worse than death, to which Ellie says “Maybe she didn’t,” before telling her girlfriend everything. She tearfully recounts Joel’s massacre of the Fireflies at the base in Salt Lake City, how the group was going to use her immunity to create a cure, and how Joel killed Abby’s father to save her. Dina puts it all together and asks Ellie if she knew who Abby’s group was. She says she didn’t, but she did know what Joel did. Dina sits with that for a moment, then flatly says the group needs to go home.So I guess this is how the show gets Dina, who’s been pretty revenge-hungry thus far, back onto the track she’s on in the games. Without spoiling scenes in the late game for the uninitiated, some major points of conflict at the end of Part II require her to be less on-board with Ellie’s vendetta, so the fact that she’s been egging her girlfriend on to track down Abby was an odd choice. I wasn’t sure how the show would handle it down the line, but it seems the way HBO’s show has course-corrected was by having her condemn Joel’s actions. Dina had her own relationship with the old man in the show, so I imagine that in a later season she’ll interrogate how she feels about him in light of this new information, but having her more or less get off the ride when she learns what Joel has done sets up a contrast between her and Ellie that I’m curious to see how the show handles.The shame of it, though, is that this is just one more thing that undermines one of the core foundations of the source material, and I have to get at least one more jab in on this topic before we end the season. In The Last of Us Part II, when you look at what is actually expressed in dialogue, you see that characters are often lacking important information about each other. This lack of communication is an important part of its storytelling, but the show is instead having characters tell everyone everything. In Part II, Joel and Ellie don’t know who Abby’s father was. It’s strongly implied that no one other than Joel, Ellie, and Tommy knew about what happened in Salt Lake City, not even Dina. The more the show bridges these gaps of communication, the more senseless this entire tit-for-tat feels. To be clear, it was senseless in the game, but it was in a tragic, “these people are so blinded by their emotions that they can’t fathom another path forward” sort of way. This time around, everyone knows exactly what’s happening and chooses to partake in violence anyway. We don’t have any mystery or lack of communication to fall back on as a we struggle to understand why the characters keep making these self-destructive decisions. Everyone is just knowingly the worst version of themselves this time around, and I guess Mazin thinks that’s the point, which is the kind of boring interpretation that makes the show such an inferior version of this story.Family mattersWe now begin our third day in Seattle. Ellie and Jesse are packing up to get going in the theater lobby. The plan is to find Tommy (Gabriel Luna) somewhere in the city and then head back to Jackson. However, Jesse is a lot less talkative this morning. Dina limps into the lobby, and after a brief scolding for being on her feet, she gives Ellie a bracelet for good luck.“I’m not sure it’s been working for you,” Ellie jokes.“I’m alive,” Dina replies.Jesse is clearly uncomfortable watching his ex (or are they technically still together now? I’m not sure) give Ellie a prized possession, and says he can go alone if Dina wants Ellie to stay. Ellie says they’ll be safer together. Jesse relents and says they should be back by sundown. The tension is radiating off him, but the pair leaves Dina in the safety of the theater.Image: HBOEllie and Jesse awkwardly walk through the remains of Seattle. She finally breaks the silence by asking how he found Ellie and Dina’s theater base. He recounts his two days of tracking, giving a shoutout to the horse Shimmer who’s still vibing in the record store the girls left her at, but he’s clearly pissed. Ellie assumes it’s because he and Tommy had to cross state lines to come find them, but no, there’s something else on his mind. Why do Ellie and Dina look at each other differently? Why did Dina turn down a free drink for the first time in her life? He’s putting it all together. Dina and Ellie are no longer just gals being pals, and his (now ex?) girlfriend is pregnant.“None of this has to change things between us,” Ellie says.“Everything changing doesn’t have to change things?” Jesse asks. “Well, how about this for something new: I’m gonna be a father, which means I can’t die. But because of you, we’re stuck in a warzone. So how about we skip the apologies and just go find Tommy so I can get us and my kid the fuck out of Seattle?”Wow, okay. Judgey, much? I mean, you’re right, Jesse. This is a no good, very bad situation, and Ellie has put your kid in danger and won’t even tell you she was torturing a woman last night. But god, I miss kindhearted Jesse. I miss Ellie’s golden retriever best friend who, when finding out Dina was pregnant, firmly but gently told Ellie it was time to get the fuck out of Seattle. Now that the show has created a messy cheating love triangle out of these three, I’m once again reflecting on how The Last of Us Part II could have very easily made this storyline a dramatic, angry one, and instead it was one of the brighter spots in a dark tale. Meanwhile, in the show, the whole thing feels like it’s regressed to a rote and predictable earlier draft of the story that’s much less refreshing and compelling than the one we already know. Justice for Jesse. This is character assassination of the goodest boy in all of Jackson. Well, actually, that’s Abby’s job. Sorry, sorry. That’s actually not for another 35 minutes.As the two move further into the city, they see more art praising the Seraphite prophet on the buildings, but she looks notably different than in images we’ve seen previously. This art depicts a Black woman, whereas others have typically portrayed the prophet as white. Ellie wonders aloud if there’s “more than one of her.” Jesse says it’s possible, but ushers her forward as rain starts pouring down. I’m curious what the show might be doing here, as this is a divergence from Part II. Could the Seraphites be a kind of polytheistic group in the show that follows multiple prophets? Could they believe the Prophet was reincarnated into a different woman at some point? All we can do is theorize, but we haven’t seen much of the Seraphites this season so we don’t have much to go on. Which is by design, and feels pretty in-line with Part II, which didn’t tell you much about the group during Ellie’s three days in Seattle. We’ll pick this thread back up next season, I’m sure.The pair takes shelter but before they can catch their breath, they hear the popping sound of gunfire nearby as a W.L.F. squad corners a lone Seraphite. Ellie and Jesse watch in horror as the wolves strip and drag him away. Just as Ellie nearly gets out from cover to intervene, Jesse pulls her back. Once the coast is clear, Ellie walks away in a huff. As Jesse follows, he points out that they were outnumbered and would have lost that fight.“He was a fucking kid!” Ellie shouts.“Ellie, these people [are] shooting each other, lynching each other, ripping each other’s guts out,” Jesse says. “Even the kids? I’m not dying out here. Not for any of them. This is not our war.”Who the fuck is this man? I touched on it in episode five, but what is with this show putting all of Ellie’s unlikable traits on other characters so she keeps getting to be the hero? Jesse turns from a selfless guardian into a selfish asshole who will watch a kid get tortured to save himself while Ellie is suddenly very concerned about a war that, in the game, she seemed largely indifferent to. It’s as if The Last of Us’ second season is so concerned with us liking Ellie and feeling like we can root for her that it’s lost sight of anything else.So Jesse gets to be the belligerent asshole and Dina gets to be the revenge-driven one in the relationship. Ellie? She’s just bee-bopping through spouting cool space facts, and so when she tortures Nora, it feels like tonal whiplash. I don’t recognize Jesse. Most of the time, I don’t recognize Ellie. But really, the more I watch this show, the more I hardly recognize anyone, and I don’t have any faith in the series to figure these characters and their relationships out, even if it’s going to go on for two more seasons.Will the circle be unbroken?We shift away from the Jackson crew to check in on Isaac (Jeffrey Wright), who we haven’t seen in a few episodes. Sergeant Park (Hettienne Park) updates the W.L.F. boss that the incoming storm will get worse as the day goes on, but even so, the group is still preparing some kind of operation. She also lets him know the rank and file is a little nervous about whatever’s going on, but Isaac’s only concerned about one person: Abby. From the sound of it, she and most of her crew have all disappeared over the past few days. We’ve seen what happened to Nora, Manny is still around, but Owen and Mel are gone without a trace. Again, Isaac isn’t concerned with them. He’s nervous that they’re going into whatever operation they’re planning without Abby. Park is clearly exhausted by this lane of thinking and asks why he cares so much about the girl.Image: HBOShe starts off asking why one “great” soldier is so important when they have an army, and then gets into a weird aside where she exasperatedly asks Isaac if he’s harboring feelings for the girl when he’s at least 30 years her senior. I don’t know if this line is supposed to be a joke, but it’s not funny, even though Isaac laughs at it. She acknowledges it’s an out-of-pocket question, but says he “wouldn’t be the first old man” to make decisions based on such inappropriate impulses. As much as it’s a stupid thing for Park to say, it’s also a stupid thing for the writers room to nonchalantly whip out in a humorous fashion given The Last of Us’ history of old men preying on young women with the character of David. Why write this non-joke into your script if you don’t want viewers to possibly view his fixation on Abby as potentially untoward? Isaac’s following speech focuses on the preservation of his militia, in a very similar way to how David’s preoccupation with Ellie in season one was born from the cannibal’s warped views on longevity, and if you’re not trying to make this direct connection, why even gesture at it? Yeah, I don’t imagine anyone considered the optics of this obviously flippant, throwaway line, but Christ, if you’re that desperate for a joke or moment to cut the tension, this was the best you could come up with? Amateur shit.Isaac sits Park down and tells her why he cares so much about one soldier. He says there’s a very strong chance that the W.L.F. leadership will be dead by tomorrow morning. If that happens, who can lead the militia in their stead? He wanted it to be Abby. It was “supposed” to be her.“Well she’s fucked off, Isaac,” Park says as she leaves. “So maybe it wasn’t.”We go back to the Jackson crew as Ellie and Jesse reach the rendezvous point in a bookstore, and Tommy isn’t here. The place is in bad shape like most places are in this city, but Ellie gravitates to the children’s books section. She picks up an old Sesame Street book, the Grover classic The Monster at the End of This Book, and picks it up for the bun in the oven as Jesse says she picked a good one. As the quiet creeps in on the two, Ellie tries to break the silence by clarifying what happened, but Jesse says they have enough problems for the moment, so he wants to bury the issue.He says he loves Dina, but not in the same way Ellie does. He remembers a group that passed through Jackson, and how there was a girl he fell hard for. She asked him to leave with her to Mexico, but he declined because he’d found purpose and community in Jackson, and he was taught to put others first. People look to him to become the “next Maria” and lead the town, and he couldn’t abandon them for a girl he’d known for two weeks, even if she made him feel things he’d never felt before.Ellie immediately sees through this story. It’s not about him pointing out how he’s felt love and knows that he and Dina aren’t the real deal; it’s about how she’s putting her own needs and wants ahead of everyone else’s.“Okay, got it,” Ellie says. “So you’re Saint Jesse of Wyoming, and everyone else is a fucking asshole.”“You can make fun of me all you want,” Jesse responds. “But let me ask you this, Ellie: If I go with that girl to Mexico, who saves your ass in Seattle?”Before she can reply, they hear W.L.F. radio chatter about a sniper taking out a squad and assume it’s gotta be Tommy. The two head out to higher ground to get a better look, and Ellie sees a Ferris wheel in the distance. She finally puts Nora’s final words together: Abby is in the aquarium at the edge of the city. Immediately, her focus shifts away from Tommy as she starts trying to figure out how to reach Abby’s apparent hiding spot. Jesse is confused and says that Tommy’s got the W.L.F. pinned down in the opposite direction. Ellie starts coming up with justifications for her plan. They don’t know if that’s actually Tommy. If it is him, he’s got the group pinned down. Either way, he would want her to go after Abby to avenge Joel. Ellie doesn’t understand why Jesse is so against this. He voted to go after Abby’s crew back in Jackson, right?Image: HBONo, actually. He didn’t. He believed this vendetta was selfish and “wasn’t in the best interest of the community.” That sets Ellie off.“Fuck the community!” she screams. “All you do is talk about the fucking community, you hypocrite. You think you’re good and I’m bad? You let a kid die today, Jesse. Because why? He wasn’t in your community? Let me tell you about my community. My community was beaten to death in front of me while I was forced to fucking watch. So don’t look at me like you’re better than me, or like you’d do anything differently if you were in my shoes, because you’re not, and you wouldn’t.”Jesse takes a beat, then tells Ellie he hopes she makes it to the aquarium as he leaves. While this scene does exemplify the show’s typicalal “no subtext allowed” approach to writing that I find so irksome, the storyline of Ellie feeling ostracized by the people of Jackson while constantly being told that she must make compromises for them even as they are incapable of extending the same to her is one of the few embellishments The Last of Us makes that resonates with me. It’s easy to write off Ellie’s revenge tour as a selfish crusade that puts everyone else in harm’s way, but when she’s also one of the few out queer people in a town that mostly coddles bigotry and she’s being constantly belittled and kept from doing things she wants to do like working on the patrol team, why would she feel any kinship to this community? Now, when she’s so close to her goal that she can almost taste it, Jesse wants her to consider the people of Jackson? Why should she do that? They’re hundreds of miles away, and the only people who came to save her and Dina were the ones who already cared about her. Ellie’s disillusionment with her neighbors is one of the few additions to the story that The Last of Us manages to pull off.Ellie reaches the harbor from which she can use a boat to reach the aquarium and finds several Wolves meeting up on vessels heading somewhere off the coast. Isaac is here leading the charge, but it’s unclear where they’re going or what they’re doing. Game fans have the advantage of knowing what’s going on, but the W.L.F. storyline feels underbaked in this season, which is one of the real issues with the show dividing the game’s storyline into multiple seasons. During this section of the game, you get a sense that there’s an untold story happening in the background, and you can learn more about it through notes you can find in the environment and ambient dialogue from enemies. The show doesn’t have those same storytelling tools, so I wouldn’t be surprised if newcomers felt a little disoriented every time we hopped over to Isaac.Once the W.L.F. forces make their way wherever they’re going, Ellie finds one of the spare boats and starts to make her way to the aquarium. The storm is hitting hard, though, and the tide is not on her side. A giant tidal wave knocks her out of the boat and into the sea. (Good thing you learned how to swim, queen.) As she washes up onto the shore, Ellie hears Seraphites whistling as a group of them descends upon her. She’s too weak to get onto her feet and run, so the cultists grab her and carry her to a noose hanging from a tree in the woods. She screams that she’s not a Wolf and that she’s not from here, but they don’t listen. As they wrap the noose around her neck and start to hoist her upward, a horn sounds off in the distance. The lead Scar says to leave her, their village is in danger, so I guess that’s what the W.L.F. operation is targeting? This concludes our latest little exposition detour, as Ellie gets right back into the boat to the aquarium.Image: HBOShe manages to reach the building and finds a broken window through which to enter. Inside, she finds several makeshift beds. Whatever Abby’s doing here, she’s not alone. As Ellie makes her way deeper into the aquarium, she finds a ton of medical supplies, including bloody bandages and surgical equipment. Was Abby injured? Is that why she’s been missing in action as the W.L.F. undergoes a huge, all-hands-on-deck mission? Who’s to say?Quick sidenote: When Ellie infiltrates the aquarium in the game, she’s attacked by a guard dog named Alice. The W.L.F. used trained canines in their war against the Seraphites, but that element has been notably absent from the show. Between this and sparing Shimmer from her explosive fate, The Last of Us has been toning down the animal murder.Ellie keeps walking through the desolate aquarium and eventually finds fresh footsteps. She follows them and soon finds their source: Abby’s friends Owen (Spencer Lord) and Mel (Ariela Barer). The two are arguing about something, though it’s not clear what. Owen wants to go somewhere behind enemy lines, even in the midst of the battle Isaac has just initiated. He says he doesn’t have a choice because “it’s Abby.” Mel says he does have a choice and so does she, and the Abby of it all is why she’s not going along with whatever the plan is. Owen says he’ll do it on his own, and if Mel’s still here when they get back, she can “keep going with [them].” Either way, Owen’s leaving. Mel let’s out a hearty “fuck you, Owen” before realizing that Ellie is there. Sure seems like there’s a whole other story that’s been going on while we’ve been hanging out with Ellie, huh? I wonder if we’ll ever get any further insight into whatever this is. Perhaps in a season entirely dedicated to the other side of what’s going on in Seattle? Maybe in a couple years it might premiere on HBO Max (or whatever it’s called by then)? That would be something!Ellie holds the two at gunpoint and tells them to put their hands up. When she asks where Abby is, Owen realizes who she is and points out that he was the one who kept her alive. Ellie isn’t swayed by this, so he says they don’t know where Abby went. But, of course, they were just talking about her, so Ellie knows that’s not true. She spots a map on the table and decides to pull out an old Joel Miller standard: She tells Mel to bring her the map and point to where Abby is, saying that next she’s going to ask Owen the same question, and the answers had better match. Owen looks at Mel and says that Ellie will kill them either way, so there’s no reason to comply. Ellie says she won’t because she’s “not like” them. When she crosses state lines to torture and kill someone who killed somebody important to her, it’s very different than when they do it, of course.Owen stops Mel from grabbing the map by saying he’ll do it. He slowly turns to the table, but instead of picking up the map, he grabs a handgun stowed under it. Ellie is quick with her trigger finger and shoots him right in the throat. The bullet goes straight through him, and hits Mel in the neck as well. She falls onto her back and, instead of cursing Ellie, she asks for her help. Not to save her life, but someone else’s. She opens her jacket to reveal her pregnant belly, and asks if Ellie has a knife to cut the baby out of her before she dies. Ellie is in shock and doesn’t know what to do. Mel tells her she just needs to make one incision. That isn’t enough direction, and Ellie panics. She doesn’t know how deep or which direction to cut. As Mel starts to become delirious, she repeats “love transfers” and then asks Ellie if the baby is out. But she hasn’t even made one cut. Mel finally drifts off, and Ellie realizes it’s too late. She sits there until, eventually, Tommy and Jesse find her. Tommy attempts to comfort her, but she’s in shock and doesn’t speak. Finally they leave and head back to the theater.Naughty Dog / Cinematic GamingWhy can’t this show stop giving the audience outs to not turn against its leads? The death of Mel, specifically, feels like the show bending over backward to teach Ellie a lesson without laying blame at her feet. Mel’s death here is an accident. She’s an innocent bystander who dies because Owen and Ellie made choices, and she was, quite literally, caught in the crossfire. In Part II, by contrast, Mel “shot first.” Well, she tried to stab Ellie, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it. Ellie reacts in self-defense and stabs her right back, but she did it fully knowing she was about to send Mel to an early grave. The gut punch Ellie feels upon learning that she’s pregnant is a moment of dramatic irony, because the game’s shifting perspectives had already revealed her pregnancy to the player way back in the opening hours. So when you’re slamming the square button to fight back, you know that Mel isn’t the only one about to reach her untimely end. Here, she doesn’t even get that moment of agency to fight to protect herself. She’s just collateral damage. It’s a small but important distinction. At this point in the show, Mel’s only real trait is a clear distaste for Abby’s violence, and now, when she finally shows up again, she’s just an unintended victim of Owen pulling a gun on Ellie. Sure, season three will fill in those gaps, but the end result will be the same. Mel died not because she was fighting back, but because she was an inch too far to the left.Then there’s the matter of her pregnancy. Again, in the game players already knew about this by the time Ellie reached the aquarium, while the show kept it secret until the end. It’s hard not to see this last-minute reveal as a knife being twisted for shock value, but that’s only half the problem. My friend Eric Van Allen (co-host of the Axe of the Blood God podcast) would often joke with his college friends about how Michael Caine’s characters in Christopher Nolan films so often show up just to tell you, the viewer, in very literal terms what the story is about. Throughout most of this season, Gail has been this character, the one burdened with the heavy task of diegetic literary analysis, but Mel’s delirious “love transfers” line may be even sillier than anything Gail spouts; homegirl is bleeding out and telling Ellie that pain is not the only thing we inherit from our parents? Just one week after Joel tearfully told Ellie that he hopes she does better when she has a kid than he or his abusive cop father did?Perhaps in a show that hadn’t already spent two seasons using literalism as a writing crutch, Mel speaking her final hopes for her unborn child might have landed for me. But I think I’m just too jaded towards it now for even what should have been a genuine expression to feel like anything other than a heavy-handed, patronizing declaration of what lessons I’m supposed to take away from the story. I don’t think characters overtly communicating their beliefs and feelings about a situation is an inherently poor way of writing dialogue. In fact, some of my favorite works have managed to execute this well thanks to strong acting and stories that lent themselves well to this style of writing. The Last of Us, a series that often relishes in grounded dialogue that forced you to read between the lines and unearth that meaning yourself, the Last of Us show’s inability to let nearly any emotion, belief, or theme go unspoken feels so contrived and tiresome that even someone expressing something thematically resonate feels like being told what to feel. Mel uses her last words to tell me the themes of the story. Just in case I forgot. Thank you, Last of Us show, I don’t know how I would have ever understood your thematic richness if you didn’t make your characters tell me about it, even in their death gasps.The group makes it back to the theater and Ellie is still in shock, so much so that she doesn’t even look at Dina as she enters the building. Some time passes, and Tommy and Jesse are mapping out their route home on the stage. The storm is still pretty rough, so they’ll stay overnight and hope the sun is out when they wake up. Ellie finally joins the group, and Tommy reassures her that Mel and Owen played their part in Joel’s death, and they made the choices that brought them to that fateful end. Ellie can only fixate on what she didn’t get to do.“But Abby gets to live,” she says.“Yeah,” Tommy responds. “Are you able to make your peace with that?”“I guess I’ll have to,” she says, defeated.She looks to Jesse, who won’t even look up at her. Tommy realizes they might have something to talk about and walks to the lobby to pack. After some awkward silence, Ellie thanks Jesse for coming back for her, even though he had no reason to after the way they clashed.“Maybe I didn’t want to,” he says. “Maybe Tommy made me.”“Did he?” Ellie asks.After a second of contemplation, Jesse drops the act and says, “No.”“Because you’re a good person,” Ellie responds.“Yeah,” Jesse agrees. “But also the thought did occur, that if I were out there somewhere, lost and in trouble, you’d set the world on fire to save me.”Ellie says she would, and the two finally see one another, even if just for a moment. Jesse acknowledges that Ellie’s vendetta isn’t entirely selfish, and that when it comes to defending the people she cares about, dead or alive, you won’t find someone more loyal in all of Jackson. It’s good that they finally had this moment of connection after all this drama. But damn, I miss Ellie and Jesse being bros, and I miss her giving him shit for being a sap in these final moments. But most of all, I miss that dopey good ol’ boy with a heart of gold saying his friends “can’t get out of their own damn way.”All that understanding is short-lived, as the two hear some ruckus in the lobby, grab their guns, and book it to the entrance. The second Jesse opens the door, bam. A gunshot rings out in the lobby, and he is on the floor. We don’t even see that it was Abby who fired it until after we get a gnarly shot of him with his face blown open. He’s gone. It was instant. The Last of Us Part II tends to draw out death. It’s either long and torturous like it was for Joel or Nora, or it’s short like Owen’s and Mel’s, but in any case, the game typically lingers on the fallout for a bit. Jesse’s death, by contrast, happens so fast that you can’t even process it before you have to deal with the situation at hand. The show follows suit, and it’s recreated practically shot for shot. But that’s hardly the most disorienting (complimentary) thing that happens in these final minutes.“Stand up,” Abby growls forcefully from the other side of the desk Ellie has taken cover behind.She repeats herself: “Stand. Up. Hands in the air or I shoot this one, too.”Ellie can see Tommy on the ground with a pistol aimed right at his head. He tells Ellie to just run, but she tosses her gun where Abby can see it and crawls out from cover. Abby recognizes her immediately. Ellie asks her to let Tommy go, to which Abby replies that he killed her friends. Ellie says no, she did.“I was looking for you,” Ellie says. “I didn’t mean to hurt them. I know why you killed Joel. He did what he did to save me, I’m the one that you want. Just let him go.”Naughty Dog / VGS - Video Game SophistryHm. Okay. We’re almost at the end. I gotta get another little quibble in before the curtains close. I mean, come on, we’ve been through seven episodes of me complaining together. You can’t take one last gripe? This line from Ellie is slightly altered to account for the fact that she knows more about Abby in the show than in the game, and it means we miss one of the most important subtle interactions in all of the story. As I mentioned earlier, Ellie doesn’t know anything about Abby’s father in Part II. She assumes that Abby killed Joel because he took away any chance of the Fireflies developing a cure, so she cites that in this high-stakes moment. The original line is almost identical to the one in the show, but instead, Ellie says “there’s no cure because of me” and suggests that killing her would be the extension of Abby’s presumed vendetta. Then, we get some incredible, subtle acting from Abby actor Laura Bailey, who hears what Ellie’s saying, has a brief moment of angry disbelief on her face, and then scoffs under her breath before picking right back up where she left off. In just a few seconds, you see Abby realize that, after everything, these fuckers have no idea how much pain she’s been through over the past five years. But they’re not worth the breath it would take to explain herself. They don’t deserve to know the man her father was and what he meant to her. All that matters right now is that Ellie pays for what she’s done.Abby still views herself as the righteous one here, as she points out that she let Ellie live when she did not have to do that. It turns out that Ellie wasn’t deserving of her mercy, that she squandered it by killing her friends. Part of me has wondered if all the exposition-heavy dialogue in this show, such as Dever’s villain monologue in episode two before she murdered the shit out of Joel, was written to give its actors more words to say in front of a camera. When you’ve got big names like Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine O’Hara, and Pedro Pascal in your cast, you don’t want them to not talk, right? But all these elongated exchanges have also robbed actors like Dever of those subtle moments. Hell, she led an entire film with next to no dialogue in 2023’s No One Will Save You, and was great in it, so she has the chops to pull off that kind of acting. Communicating something through body language and expression is just as powerful as a poetic piece of dialogue (or in this show’s case, the most literal, unpoetic dialogue a person can fathom), but this show rarely, if ever, understands that.Image: HBOAnyway, Abby says that Ellie wasted the chance she was given when the ex-Fireflies spared her, and points her gun right at Ellie. We hear a bullet fire and Ellie shouts before a hard cut to black. But wait. That’s the season finale? You expect us to wait for two years, probably, to find out what happened? Well, about that. You will probably have to wait even longer.We do have one more scene this season, however: a flashback. We see Abby lying down on a comfy couch with an unfinished book resting on her stomach. She’s in a deep sleep before Manny (Danny Ramirez) loudly enters the room and wakes her up. He says Isaac wants to see them, and she stirs awake. She gets up and walks out of this cozy living space and into a giant football stadium. The entire field has been repurposed for agriculture, manufacturing, and housing. Abby takes a second to look at the whole operation before heading to Isaac’s, but the camera lingers over the field as bold white text flashes on the screen: Seattle, Day One.Alright, TV newbies, welcome to the second divisive twist of The Last of Us Part II. In the game, the player goes through Ellie’s three days in Seattle, killing Abby’s friends and mostly ignoring the war between the W.L.F. and the Seraphites. Meanwhile, Abby has been kind of an enigma the whole time. Every time Ellie finds a new lead, Abby has already come and gone. When Abby finally shows up at the theater for another round of vengeance, it’s clear that a lot of the story happening in this game has happened off-screen. That’s because you’re about to see an entirely different perspective on the last three days, and you’re going to play as Abby when you do it.As you can imagine, this shit drove some players nuts at the time, and you’ll still find angry people online complaining about it to this day. For all my problems with this season, I have to commend the show for actually going for it. HBO has taken the coward’s route in adapting this story for so long, it’s almost surprising that it’s ending here and, from the sound of it, season three will be entirely about Abby and what she’s been doing these past three days. It’s very likely we won’t see Ellie again until next season’s finale after we’ve followed Dever’s character for several episodes. Despite some ham-fisted attempts by the show to build sympathy for Abby early on, it seems like swaths of TV newbies still demand blood. Will viewers complain for an entire season as Dever takes on the lead role? I’d like to think they won’t. I hope that new audiences are more open to her than the worst people you’ve ever met were when the game launched.Despite all the golf club swings I’ve taken at this show, I’m looking forward to examining it further as HBO rolls out the next two seasons. The Last of Us Part II is one of my favorite games of all time, but I genuinely fucking hated The Last of Us’ second season. I don’t expect my feelings to improve in season three. At this point, the rot of Mazin’s poor creative decisions runs too deep for the show to be salvaged and reach the highs of the games. But if nothing else, it’s been a rewarding ride. Thank you for joining me on this seven-week journey. I think I’m due for a replay of The Last of Us Part II to wash off this stink. This shit was ass, HBO. I’ll see you in the ring again next time.

The Mission: Impossible franchise is built on intense Tom Cruise stares, convoluted plot twists and reveals, and incredible stunts. It is not, however, built on compelling stories. Most of the Mission movies are about rogue agents and ill-defined MacGuffins, a repetition that would be annoying if anyone cared about the plots. However, lack of plot clarity does not equate to lack of tension. Most of the movies feature excellent villains who make life difficult for Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and force him to do incredible feats, resulting in the stunts we all love so much. So as the franchise winds down (maybe) with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, let’s take a look at the best of the worst: the villains who literally drove Ethan Hunt up a wall or into a giant turbine or hanging from a biplane. Point of clarity, first. While the series does have some fun henchmen like Paris (Pom Klementieff) and some stories have shadowy baddies pulling the strings, such as duplicitous IMF director John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) or the Entity, we’re just looking at main bad guys here, the people who dare to match wills with Ethan Hunt. 7. Sean Ambrose (Mission: Impossible II) Mission: Impossible II almost killed the franchise in its infancy. It seemed like a good idea to bring on director John Woo, a Hong Kong auteur with just as much style as the first film’s director, Brian De Palma. Furthermore, Woo and screenwriter Robert Towne (a Hollywood legend who co-wrote the first movie) base their story on the Alfred Hitchcock movie Notorious, casting Thandiwe Newton in place of Ingrid Bergman as the untrustworthy spy who captures our hero’s heart. The combination proved disastrous. Woo’s melodramatic method clashed with underdeveloped characterizations, a problem particularly clear with M:I2‘s central antagonist, former IMF agent Sean Ambrose, played by Dougray Scott. The legend of how Scott, the first person cast to play Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men, lost the role because of an on-set injury has been told time and again, overshadowing the worse insult, that he’s quite badly used in this movie. Ambrose is intended to be Hunt’s dark double, so much so that he begins the film masquerading as Cruise’s character. But he never has the intensity nor the charisma of his enemy, too often coming off as a sulking man-child than anyone who could threaten Hunt, let alone the world. 6. Kurt Hendricks (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) Kurt Hendricks, aka Cobalt, is so much better in conception than in execution. Played by Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, Hendricks is exactly the type of antagonist who should challenge Ethan Hunt. A true believer in a nihilistic ideology, Hendricks wants to spark a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. That extremist belief gives the IMF no choice but to engage in the sort of over-the-top action that makes the franchise so special. The threat posed by Hendricks might send Ethan scaling the Birge Kalifa, but as a person, he’s a nothing onscreen. Nyqvist knows how to play menace, as demonstrated in his many genre roles in his native Sweden, or in American movies like John Wick, but he has nothing to do here but glower. Worse, he’s overshadowed by his minion Sabine (Léa Seydoux), whose personal connection to Hunt’s colleague Jane Carter (Paula Patton) gives her an edge that Hendricks never achieves. The main antagonist of Dead Reckoning and The Final Reckoning, the agent known only as Gabriel (Esai Morales) is set up as Ethan Hunt’s greatest foil. Not only does he apparently have espionage skills even greater than those of our hero, but he was directly responsible for Ethan joining IMF. We learn that Gabriel killed Ethan’s girlfriend Marie and framed him for the murder, which put him on the IMF’s radar. Worse still, Gabriel resurfaces as an acolyte of the all-powerful AI known as the Entity, giving him a driving ethos to match Ethan’s desire to save everyone. On paper there’s nothing wrong with this characterization. In practice it stinks. Dead Reckoning and especially The Final Reckoning suffer from a self-mythologizing that keeps dragging the movie back into the past instead of charging forward, and Gabriel embodies that backwards impulse. Gabriel is given some big moments of evil, directly killing fan favorites Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Morales has fun playing up the villain role, but Gabriel’s worst sin is boring the audience. 4. Jim Phelps (Mission: Impossible) Before we get further, we must be clear: Jim Phelps is a good villain. The fact that he ranks so low here is a testament to the strength of the other baddies, not a knock against Jim. One of the main protagonists of the original 1960s television series (albeit portrayed by Peter Graves instead of Jon Voight), Jim Phelps makes Mission: Impossible into a legacy sequel, connecting the classic series to a new set of heroes. However, Mission: Impossible has a bravery that most legacy sequels lack, turning the former hero into the new villain. Phelps initially seems to die in the attack that takes out most of Hunt’s team at the start of the movie, during a mission that IMF boss Kitteridge later reveals to be a “mole hunt.” However, Phelps returns late in the film as first Ethan’s ally and then his enemy, the true traitor that Kitteridge seeks. Voight brings plenty of gravitas to the role, but he struggles a bit with the stunts at the end—despite the fact that he was 57 when the movie was shot, a year younger than Cruise was when filming on Dead Reckoning began. 3. August Walker (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) Going into Fallout, the buzz was all about the mustache that Henry Cavill grew for the movie. Because he could/would not shave the facial hair for reshoots on Justice League, that movie’s director Joss Whedon had to digitally remove the ‘stache from Cavill’s face, resulting in an infamously absurd looking Superman. It seemed like a petty move at the time, but once we all saw Fallout, we got it. The mustache looks amazing and deserves to stay. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The mustache is important because it sums up Cavill’s character August Walker. Described as a “blunt instrument” assigned to work with (read: spy on) Hunt for CIA Director Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), Walker proves to be a force of nature who is just as destructive as our hero. Even before he’s revealed to be the malevolent John Lark, the man who the IMF sought in Rogue Nation, Walker proves a credible threat to Ethan. He’s ready to pummel our hero to death at any second—and he looks great doing it. 2. Owen Davian (Mission: Impossible III) For all of the death-defying derring-do in the Mission: Impossible franchise, it’s notable that the scariest moment comes not during one of Ethan Hunt’s feats, but in a line of dialogue. When arms dealer Owen Davian wakes up to discover he’s been captured by IMF, he ignores Ethan’s questions and blithely asks some of his own: “Do you have a wife, a girlfriend? Because you know what I’m gonna do next? I’m gonna find her… and I’m gonna hurt her.” It’s not so much the specific words that Davian says that send a chill down the spine. It’s the way that they’re delivered, completely without passion. Of course Davian is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest actors of his generation. Hoffman’s ability to play cool and controlled (and, in one memorable scene, play the ever-energetic Ethan Hunt disguised as Davian) elevates the otherwise mundane J.J. Abrams-directed third film. In fact, Hoffman brings so much to the part that it’s hard to notice how bland the writing of Davian is, a demerit that knocks him to second place despite the utterly mesmerizing performance. 1. Solomon Lane (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) Owen Davian may talk about killing Ethan’s loved ones, but Solomon Lane actually almost did it. The pure sorrow and terror on sweet Benji’s face when he reveals the bomb strapped to his chest tells us more about Lane’s capacity for evil than any of Davian’s monologues could do. In fact, Lane encapsulates everything about the franchise’s past baddies, perfecting everything they tried to do. He has Davian’s quiet menace, the espionage skills of Gabriel and Ambrose, and he has the twisted worldview of Hendricks. By the time he sends a bomb to the worksite of Ethan’s estranged wife Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan) out of pure pettiness, Lane even develops a personal animosity like Phelps. Much of the credit goes to Sean Harris, who uses his raspy voice and dark eyes to enhance the malevolence. So much of the Mission: Impossible franchise rests on Cruise’s gift of being earnest on camera, looking out from the screen with yearning blue eyes and a furrowed brow to convince viewers that he can do whatever he intends to do. Harris’ eyes do the exact opposite. When he looks out from the screen, we see pools of blackness, drowning us in nothingness. If Hunt is, as IMF Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) memorably put it, “the living manifestation of destiny,” then Lane is truly the opposite; the living manifestation of nihilism.

smelly shield Penguin poop may help preserve Antarctic climate Ammonia aerosols from penguin guano likely play a part in the formation of heat-shielding clouds. Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News – May 24, 2025 7:07 am | 4 Credit: Getty Credit: Getty Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. New research shows that penguin guano in Antarctica is an important source of ammonia aerosol particles that help drive the formation and persistence of low clouds, which cool the climate by reflecting some incoming sunlight back to space. The findings reinforce the growing awareness that Earth’s intricate web of life plays a significant role in shaping the planetary climate. Even at the small levels measured, the ammonia particles from the guano interact with sulfur-based aerosols from ocean algae to start a chemical chain reaction that forms billions of tiny particles that serve as nuclei for water vapor droplets. The low marine clouds that often cover big tracts of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica are a wild card in the climate system because scientists don’t fully understand how they will react to human-caused heating of the atmosphere and oceans. One recent study suggested that the big increase in the annual global temperature during 2023 and 2024 that has continued into this year was caused in part by a reduction of that cloud cover. “I’m constantly surprised at the depth of how one small change affects everything else,” said Matthew Boyer, a coauthor of the new study and an atmospheric scientist at the University of Helsinki’s Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research. “This really does show that there is a deep connection between ecosystem processes and the climate. And really, it’s the synergy between what’s coming from the oceans, from the sulfur-producing species, and then the ammonia coming from the penguins.” Climate survivors Aquatic penguins evolved from flying birds about 60 million years ago, shortly after the age of dinosaurs, and have persisted through multiple, slow, natural cycles of ice ages and warmer interglacial eras, surviving climate extremes by migrating to and from pockets of suitable habitat, called climate refugia, said Rose Foster-Dyer, a marine and polar ecologist with the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. A 2018 study that analyzed the remains of an ancient “super colony” of the birds suggests there may have been a “penguin optimum” climate window between about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, at least for some species in some parts of Antarctica, she said. Various penguin species have adapted to different habitat niches and this will face different impacts caused by human-caused warming, she said. Foster-Dyer has recently done penguin research around the Ross Sea, and said that climate change could open more areas for land-breeding Adélie penguins, which don’t breed on ice like some other species. “There’s evidence that this whole area used to have many more colonies … which could possibly be repopulated in the future,” she said. She is also more optimistic than some scientists about the future for emperor penguins, the largest species of the group, she added. “They breed on fast ice, and there’s a lot of publications coming out about how the populations might be declining and their habitat is hugely threatened,” she said. “But they’ve lived through so many different cycles of the climate, so I think they’re more adaptable than people currently give them credit for.” In total, about 20 million breeding pairs of penguins nest in vast colonies all around the frozen continent. Some of the largest colonies, with up to 1 million breeding pairs, can cover several square miles.There aren’t any solid estimates for the total amount of guano produced by the flightless birds annually, but some studies have found that individual colonies can produce several hundred tons. Several new penguin colonies were discovered recently when their droppings were spotted in detailed satellite images. A few penguin colonies have grown recently while others appear to be shrinking, but in general, their habitat is considered threatened by warming and changing ice conditions, which affects their food supplies. The speed of human-caused warming, for which there is no precedent in paleoclimate records, may exacerbate the threat to penguins, which evolve slowly compared to many other species, Foster-Dyer said. “Everything’s changing at such a fast rate, it’s really hard to say much about anything,” she said. Recent research has shown how other types of marine life are also important to the global climate system. Nutrients from bird droppings help fertilize blooms of oxygen-producing plankton, and huge swarms of fish that live in the middle layers of the ocean cycle carbon vertically through the water, ultimately depositing it in a generally stable sediment layer on the seafloor. Tricky measurements Boyer said the new research started as a follow-up project to other studies of atmospheric chemistry in the same area, near the Argentine Marambio Base on an island along the Antarctic Peninsula. Observations by other teams suggested it could be worth specifically trying to look at ammonia, he said. Boyer and the other scientists set up specialized equipment to measure the concentration of ammonia in the air from January to March 2023. They found that, when the wind blew from the direction of a colony of about 60,000 Adélie penguins about 5 miles away, the ammonia concentration increased to as high as 13.5 parts per billion—more than 1,000 times higher than the background reading. Even after the penguins migrated from the area toward the end of February, the ammonia concentration was still more than 100 times as high as the background level. “We have one instrument that we use in the study to give us the chemistry of gases as they’re actually clustering together,” he said. “In general, ammonia in the atmosphere is not well-measured because it’s really difficult to measure, especially if you want to measure at a very high sensitivity, if you have low concentrations like in Antarctica,” he said. Penguin-scented winds The goal was to determine where the ammonia is coming from, including testing a previous hypothesis that the ocean surface could be the source, he said. But the size of the penguin colonies made them the most likely source. “It’s well known that sea birds give off ammonia. You can smell them. The birds stink,” he said. “But we didn’t know how much there was. So what we did with this study was to quantify ammonia and to quantify its impact on the cloud formation process.” The scientists had to wait until the wind blew from the penguin colony toward the research station. “If we’re lucky, the wind blows from that direction and not from the direction of the power generator,” he said. “And we were lucky enough that we had one specific event where the winds from the penguin colony persisted long enough that we were actually able to track the growth of the particles. You could be there for a year, and it might not happen.” The ammonia from the guano does not form the particles but supercharges the process that does, Boyer said. “It’s really the dimethyl sulfide from phytoplankton that gives off the sulfur,” he said. “The ammonia enhances the formation rate of particles. Without ammonia, sulfuric acid can form new particles, but with ammonia, it’s 1,000 times faster, and sometimes even more, so we’re talking up to four orders of magnitude faster because of the guano.” This is important in Antarctica specifically because there are not many other sources of particles, such as pollution or emissions from trees, he added. “So the strength of the source matters in terms of its climate effect over time,” he said. “And if the source changes, it’s going to change the climate effect.” It will take more research to determine if penguin guano has a net cooling effect on the climate. But in general, he said, if the particles transport out to sea and contribute to cloud formation, they will have a cooling effect. “What’s also interesting,” he said, “is if the clouds are over ice surfaces, it could actually lead to warming because the clouds are less reflective than the ice beneath.” In that case, the clouds could actually reduce the amount of heat that brighter ice would otherwise reflect away from the planet. The study did not try to measure that effect, but it could be an important subject for future research, he added. The guano effect lingers even after the birds leave the breeding areas. A month after they were gone, Boyer said ammonia levels in the air were still 1,000 times higher than the baseline. “The emission of ammonia is a temperature-dependent process, so it’s likely that once wintertime comes, the ammonia gets frozen in,” he said. “But even before the penguins come back, I would hypothesize that as the temperature warms, the guano starts to emit ammonia again. And the penguins move all around the coast, so it’s possible they’re just fertilizing an entire coast with ammonia.” Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News 4 Comments

Warm weather comes around and it’s tempting to throw on that same charity 5K shirt you got for free back in 2017. However, well-made clothing is more comfortable and lasts much longer than the cheap stuff. Right now, Huckberry has a ton of its its luxurious-yet-practical clothing and accessories on sale for their lowest prices of the year. This stuff still isn’t cheap, but it’s made to feel great and last for years or even decades if you take care of it. It’s time to upgrade your clothing to stuff that’s both functional and comfortable. Howler Brothers Open Country Tech Short Sleeve Shirt $71 (was $95) The polyester and nylon blend is flexible and dries quickly. Huckberry See It This shirt is made from a nylon and polyester blend that’s surprisingly rugged and dries extremely quickly. The back has a vent with a mesh liner to allow for maximum airflow. Pearl snaps replace buttons, so it’s easier to take on and off than a typical button-up. Perhaps most importantly, it offers UPF 35+ sun protection to keep you from getting crispy in the sun. Proof 72-Hour Merino UPF Long Sleeve T-Shirt $94 (was $118) You can wear it for three days straight without getting gross. Huckberry If you want serious sun protection, this long-sleeved Merino top is a fantastic way to get it. As the name suggests, this shirt is designed so you can wear it for three days straight without washing it or even taking it off. It’ll stay comfortable, soft, and stink-free (within reason). It offers UPF 50+ sun protection and the neutral color makes it a great under layer that you can chuck on under a short-sleeved shirt. Midweight Terry Pullover Hoodie $88 (was $118) This hoodie is made of a uniquely processed type of cotton. Huckberry See It A good hoodie is essential through every season. This one is made of loop-back cotton, which feels similar to a terry cloth. It provides fantastic insulation without the need for fleece that will pill up or get gnarly when it comes in contact with water. It’s light enough to wear on a summer night, but has good enough insulation properties to keep you warm in the winter, too. Huckberry shirt deals Wellen Airweave Performance Shirt $70 (was $88) Howler Brothers Mansfield Short Sleeve Shirt $55 (was $79) Flint and Tinder Textured Button-Up Sweater Polo $96 (was $128) Marine Layer Liam Sweater Polo $98 (was $128) Kestin Tain Long Sleeve Shirt $99 (was $197) Flint and Tinder Cotton Linen Sweater Polo Shirt $78 (was $98) Wellen Airweave Performance Shirt $70 (was $88) Proof 72-Hour Merino T-Shirt – Classic Fit $67 (was $78) Flint and Tinder Cotton Linen Sweater Polo Shirt $78 (was $98) Flint and Tinder 72-Hour Merino Long Sleeve T-Shirt $84 (was $98) Relwen Micropile Snap-Mock Pullover $126 (was $158) Flint and Tinder The Architect Shirt – Slim Fit (Original) $83 (was $98) Proof 72-Hour Merino T-Shirt – Slim Fit $58 (was $78) Flint and Tinder The Vintage Soft Wash Curved Hem T-Shirt $34 (was $38) Huckberry hat deals Howler Brothers Lone Gull Snapback Hat $25 (was $35) Ciele Athletics GOCap – Comp – Century Hat $35 (was $50) Ciele Athletics GOCap – Comp – Bars Hat $35 (was $50) Huckberry Camo Script Patch Hat in Old School Camo $33 (was $39) Howler Brothers Bahia de Howler $28 (was $40) Huckberry sunglass deals Walden Eyewear Airman Sunglasses – Polarized $96 (was $129) Passage Sunglasses – Polarized $96 (was $129) Sunski Tango Sunglasses $59 (was $78) Woods Sunglasses – Polarized $96 (was $129) Walden Eyewear Airman Sunglasses – Polarized Satin Charcoal Grey Crystal $96 (was $129) Huckberry pants and shorts deals Flint and Tinder Cotton Utility Chino Pant – HB Classic $88 (was $118) Proof Rover EDC Short – 7″ $88 (was $98) Proof Rover EDC Short Black – 7″ $83 (was $98) Proof Equator Cargo Hybrid Short – 7″ Navy $73 (was $98) Flint and Tinder 365 Cargo Short – 7″ in Olive Drab Camo $78 (was $98) The post Huckberry’s Memorial Day sale drops prices on splurge-worthy clothes and accessories for summer appeared first on Popular Science.

Anker Solix F3800 Plus MSRP $4,799.00 Score Details “The Anker Solix F3800 Plus beats the competition in usability, versatility and value.” Pros Very portable Good looking Very strong warranty, lifetime customer service High-quality battery Expandable to 53.8kWh Cons Comes with a very short power cord EV charging is not practical Expensive for casual users With the Anker Solix F3800 Plus, the company promises people a more feature-rich, evolved power station that addresses many of the shortfalls from the 1st generation F3800. I got a chance to put the old and the new unit’s side-by side to see just how well Anker has listened to its fanbase. Recommended Videos Last February, I was able to spend some time on the original Anker Solix F3800, which was then brand new to the market and despite having some minor bugs, is still one of the most impressive power stations out there. Fortunately, in the year that I have had it, Anker has released a plethora of firmware updates to make sure things ran smoothly without complications. You can read about my experience with the Solix F3800 over on our other site, The Manual. Since it’s introduction, the Solix F3800 has garnered quite a lot of fans, a lot of which have asked Anker for some new features and fixes. This is where the Solix F3800 Plus comes in. Not only has Anker listened to its customers by addressing some of the complaints, but it has added several new features which are sure to make new customers happy. How much does the Anker Solix F3800 Plus cost? The Anker Solix F3800 Plus price is $4,799 MSRP, but you should be able to find it listed for less than that if you shop around. At the time of writing for example, you can pick up the Solix F3800 Plus for about $3,499 directly from Anker, which is $21,300 off of their regular MSRP. I was also able to find the F3800 Plus available at a number of online retailers, including Amazon – prices varied depending on what is packaged with it. When I reached out to Anker to ask about the discounts available, I was told that there are always discounts and specials running. What’s in the box of the Anker Solix F3800 Plus: Only a few things come packed with the F3800 Plus – the instruction and warranty pamphlets, the AC Charging cable for the unit itself, and two solar charging cables so you can connect some solar panels to the unit. I was bummed to see that the AC charging cable is considerably shorter than the one that came with the original F3800 unit. So, make sure that you have an AC outlet nearby, or be prepared to purchase a longer cord, separately. The original Anker Solix F3800 next to the F3800 Plus Ian Bell / Digital Trends Features and Design of the F3800 Plus The F3800 Plus doesn’t look any different than the original F3800 at first glance. Their shapes are pretty much identical, they weigh about the same etc., but when you take a closer look at the connections on the side of the F3800 Plus, that’s where things change. Here is a list of key differences between the F3800 and the F3800 Plus I was able to keep track of: The original F3800 accepts up to 2400W of solar input whereas the F3800 Plus accepts 3200W of solar input. This means you can charge the batteries much quicker You will need an adapter for the original F3800 if you want to charge your EV, the F3800 Plus has a port on the side where you can plug your EV in directly The F3800 Plus is compatible with 240V gas generators (up to 6,000 bypass) The F3800 Plus supports charging via generator or solar while simultaneously powering connected devices The original F3800 was not able to output AC power while charging with AC at the same time – this has been fixed with the Plus version Anker has a good comparison video on YouTube highlighting the key differences. Anker Solix F3800 Plus specifications Capacity 51.2Vdc 75Ah/3840Wh AC output AC Output 2 120V~ 20A Max, 60Hz, 2400W Max AC Output (NEMA L14-30R) 120V/240V~ 25A Max, 60Hz, 6000W Max USB-A Output 5V – 2.4A (12W Max Per Port) USB-C Output 5V – 3A / 9V – 3A / 15V – 3A / 20V – 3A / 20V – 5A (100W Max Per Port) Cell chemistry LiFePO4 Cell EPS/UPS UPS: 20ms Solar input 11-165V – 17A Max (1600W Max Each) (2) Solar Inputs Environmental Operation Discharging Temperature -4°F-104°F / -20°C-40°C Charging Temperature 32°F-104°F / 0°C-40°C AC input AC Input 120V~ 15A Max (< 3hrs) / 12A Max (continuous), 60Hz, L+N+PE AC Input Power (Charging) 1800W Max AC Input Power (Bypass Mode) 1440W Max Connectivity Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Dimensions 27.6×15.3×15.6 in / 70.2×38.8×39.5 cm Weight: 136.7lb Anker Solix F3800 Plus Vs. Competition Feature Anker F3800 Plus EcoFlow Delta Pro Ultra Bluetti AC500 + B300S Goal Zero Yeti 6000X Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro Battery Capacity 3.84 kWh (expandable to 26.9 kWh) 3.6 kWh (expandable to 25 kWh) 3.072 kWh per module (expandable to 18.4 kWh) 6.071 kWh 3.024 kWh AC Output (Continuous) 6,000W 7,200W 5,000W 2,000W 3,000W AC Output (Surge) 9,000W 10,800W 10,000W 3,500W 6,000W Solar Input Capacity 3,200W 5,600W 3,000W 600W 1,200W Portability Moderate (wheeled) Low (heavier) Moderate Low (heavier) High (wheeled) Expandability High High High Limited Limited Generator Charging I noticed that there are a few channels on YouTube covering 240V generator recharging with the F3800 Plus. Now, while I do not have a gas generator, nor do I plan on getting one now that I have the F3800 Plus here at home, I do understand that if you have both a gas generator and the F3800 Plus, you will want to use one to charge the other. Make sure that you purchase the Anker Solix Generator input Adapter so you can connect it to your gas generator first. Once connected to the 240V generator you should be able to charge your unit at 3300W according to the manual, and 6000W with an expansion battery attached. John from the YouTube channel Backyard Maine has a great video where he shares his experience connecting the F3800 Plus to his gas generator, I recommend checking it out if this is of interest to you. Solar Charging the F3800 Plus Anker did not send me any solar panels to test the F3800 Plus with, but once I get some, I will update and include my experience in the review here. The good news is that there are a lot of folks on YouTube that have connected solar panels, personally, I am a fan of Tommy Callaway’s Anker video. For home use, the F3800 Plus supports 410W permanent solar panels which you can purchase from Anker directly, or an aftermarket brand should you choose to. If you plan on taking the unit to the park or simply do not want to install the permanent panels, you can purchase some portable panels from Anker as well. The F38000 Plus supports a maximum 3200W charging input regardless of the panel’s portability. Accessories solar panels, ranging from portable panels to more permanent fixed panels. There are also several adapters to choose from that either allow you to connect the F3800 Plus to an EV, RV or solar panels. The system truly is expandable and designed to meet a number of needs. Expansion Batteries The Anker Solix F3800 Plus can increase it’s storage capacity up to 26,880Wh by connecting 6 Anker expansion batteries, or 12 if you are connecting a second F3800. The expansion batteries are about $2K each when on sale.Anker F3800 and F3800 Plus connections compared Ian Bell / Digital Trends “Real World” Testing the Anker Solix F3800 Plus I always find it amusing to watch videos or read articles where people are testing these power stations with power equipment in the garage, food blenders, or charging their EV’s. It’s as if we all expect life to go on as normal during a power outage, that’s how these companies want you to imagine things. But for a lot of people, including myself, I am not expecting a power outage to last days or weeks, I simply want my food to stay fresh, for the home to be comfortable depending on the weather, or my phone and lights to stay charged. And that’s for home use. If I am taking the F3800 plus to the park or camping , then sure, I will use it to power items to cook with, keep the lights on or play a sound system – and that’s why I like the F3800 Plus, when compared to a lot of its competitors – it’s portable with wheels and a built-in handle. The handle extends a little over a foot and is about the same length as you would get from carry-on luggage; it feels sturdy and didn’t make me worry about it breaking with prolonged use. For lifting the F3800, there is a smaller handle that flips out on the bottom so that you can lift the unit with two people. The unit itself weighs just over 132 lbs. and is too wide in my opinion for a single person to lift, so make sure you have some help with you. I transported the F3800 throughout the house, up some steps and over some grass in the yard. The wheels worked well and at no time did I feel like the unit was going to break – there were no clunking sounds or anything feeling loose.How does the App work? The Anker app is simple to use. Once installed, you can connect to the F3800 through Bluetooth, and then you will want to connect the F3800 to your Wi-Fi system so you can monitor the unit remotely. I was able to spend some considerable time with the Bluetti AC500 and can tell you that the Anker F3800’s app is considerably easier to navigate and use. You can also add multiple Anker devices through their app which is nice for when and if you decide to expand on this system. The first thing to notice is that the display is very easy to read and the instruction manual does a great job explaining what the icons mean on the display. Buttons on the front of the F3800 have a nice tactile feel to them – they are not mushy or sticky when pressed. Controls are intuitive to use for the most part. I would recommend keeping the manual handy so you can quickly find out how to put the F3800 into EV charging mode, and which side of the AC outlets you should use if you want to use the UPS function. These two areas are not easy to find unless you have the manual. To test the F3800 Plus at my home, I had it power a large freezer outside in the garage, charge some electric bikes, power a regular refrigerator and charge some laptops. Here is what the results are for those items. Danby 10 cu ft. chest freezer that I have in my garage: Started May 16th at 7:45PM and fully drained the Anker F3800 by May 18th 1:58PM – about 43 hours total. A little under 2 days of charge with a 47w draw from the F3800 Plus Frigidaire refrigerator – 20 hours until completely drains at a 150W draw. You could maybe get a couple more hours if no one opened the fridge. Standard laptop charges: between 30 and 60 charges if you avg, 50-100 Wh per laptop for example, triple that phone phones Charging an EV: With my Rivian R1S, I was able to get about 5 miles of charge out of the F3800 Plus – fully drained. Online, some Tesla owners were able to get about 11 miles of charge If you were confident the power would come back on in a hurry, you would be able to keep a fridge or freezer running, charge a few laptops or phones, maybe charge up an e-Bike and the F3800 Plus base unit would last about 17 hours before needing a recharge . With both the freezer and my fridge plugged in at the same time, I was about to get 7.34 hours before the unit was completely drained. Recharging the F3800 through a regular 120v outlet took 3.17 hours at 1645W (screenshot attached). Charging an EV with the F3800 is gimmicky in my opinion, but I just know that if Anker did not include this capability, some people will make a stink about it. Unless you are stuck in a zombie apocalypse and need that extra 5 miles of range to get somewhere else to charge your car, this feature just doesn’t make sense to me. If power outages are common in your area, ymy recommendation is that you ‘’ll want to buy the solar panels so you can charge the F3800 Plus if you are expecting outages for multiple days. And you will likely want to add a battery pack (or two) as well. 1. Anker Solix F3800 Plus App 2. Anker Solix F3800 Plus App 3. Anker Solix F3800 Plus App Can you connect the older, original F3800 to the F3800 Plus? Yes, you can use the Anker Solix Double Power Hub ($299). This increases your maximum output to 12,000W – impressive! As mentioned above, if you have two units connected, you can expand your batteries by 12 total, giving you days of backup for your home. The Anker Solix F3800 Plus can power your e-bike, EV and other devices Ian Bell / Digital Trends How long will the Anker Solix F3800 Plus Last? The Anker Solix F3800 Plus has an expected lifespan of 10 years or more due to the fact that they areit’s using EV grade batteries (lithium-ion batteries that use lithium iron phosphate as the cathode) which are considered safer than other lithium-ion batteries. Like a lot of companies, Anker releases regular firmware updates to address problems. Product Warranty Coverage Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus 5-year warranty with an expected lifespan of 10+ years using EV-grade LiFePO₄ batteries . With lifetime customer support EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra 5-year warranty covering both the inverter and battery components . BLUETTI AC500 + B300S 4-year warranty for both the AC500 power station and B300S battery module . Goal Zero Yeti 6000X 2-year warranty standard for lithium-based Yeti products . Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro 3-year standard warranty, extendable to 5 years upon product registration . Should you buy it? If your needs match mine, then I would recommend buying it. I like the design, portability and the warranty. Would I power my entire home with this? I probably would not, but according to other reviews on the web, and community forums, it certainly seems capable of doing the job if you go with the extra batteries and available accessories – for me, it’s a great base system that you can build from. I am “either/or” in this camp. If I purchased the F3800 Plus and the necessary equipment with the intention of powering my entire home, I am not going to go through all the trouble to disconnect it and take it somewhere – the portability aspect is useless to me. Because the F3800 Plus comes with wheels, an extension handle and a rear handle for portability, that’s what I would use it for. The Anker Solix F3800 Plus improves on the original F3800 in a lot of ways, and I like how Anker fixed a lot of the quirks I encountered from the original F3800. I spent a lot of time in the community forums learning a lot from F3800 owners, and it appears that the community as a whole has been happy with Anker’s support and firmware fixes. I plan on tracking my use as I get more hours with the F3800 and will see if Anker has plans to address any quirks that come up. If you currently have an existing Solix F3800 and none of the new features make sense to you, then there are no reasons to upgrade; Anker has consistently been providing firmware updates to improve the unit and any bugs associated with it. The good news is that you can add the F3800 plus to your existing unit and build from there too. If you are buying from scratch and want a versatile system that looks good, has a solid user interface, is a reliable performer and plenty of accessories and options for building upon, then this is the power station for you. The Anker Solix F3800 Plus beats the competition in usability, versatility and value. We have a pretty extensive list of Power Station reviews worth checking out if you think the Solix F3800 Plus isn’t right for you.

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A smelly, sometimes toxic “killer belt of seaweed” might put a damper on Floridians’ Memorial Day weekend plans. Sargassum is back just in time for the unofficial start of summer and this year’s influx of the brown algae would be record breaking at 31 million tons.  What is Sargassum? Sargassum is a genus of large brown seaweed. As a seaweed, it is also a type of algae. It floats along the ocean in island-like masses and does not attach to the seafloor the way that kelp does.  According to NOAA, this brown algae is abundant in the world’s oceans. It has many leafy appendages, branches, and its signature berry-like structures. These round “berries” are actually gas-filled structures called pneumatocysts. They are primarily filled with oxygen and add buoyancy to the plant structure and allow it to float on the surface of the water, similar to a life jacket.  Importantly, Sargassum provides food and a floating habitat for several marine species including various fishes, sea turtles, marine birds, crabs, and shrimp. Some animals, like the sargassum fish will spend their whole lives around Sargassum’s gas-filled floats and the seaweed is a nursery area for some commercially important fishes, including mahi mahi, jacks, and amberjacks. Smaller fishes, such as filefishes and triggerfishes, reside in and among brown Sargassum. CREDIT: NOAA/Life on the Edge Exploration. Is it harmful to humans? When Sargassum washes up on shore, it begins to rot. That rotting triggers the production of hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like rotten eggs. These odors themselves are not harmful to humans when inhaled in well ventilated areas like the beach. But the gases can accumulate enough to cause harm if they are breathed in within enclosed spaces.  “Hydrogen sulfide can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat,” writes Florida’s Department of Health in St. John’s County. “If you have asthma or other breathing illnesses, you will be more sensitive to hydrogen sulfide. You may have trouble breathing after you inhale it.” Coming into contact with the jellyfish or other stinging organisms embedded in the rotting seaweed can cause rashes on the skin. Any workers for volunteers collecting and transporting the seaweed should wear gloves, boots, and gas-filter half masks for protection. 2025’s mega bloom In Florida and the Caribbean, Sargassum season runs from April to August, with June and July as the peak months for setting in along the shoreline. However, the blobs have been spotted along shorelines since March this year. The bloom has already broken its own size record set in June 2022 by 40 percent–and is still growing. The annual bloom now stretches over 5,500 miles of ocean between Africa and the Caribbean and weighs an estimated 31 million tons.  “Sargassum goes from being a very beneficial resource of the North Atlantic to becoming what we refer to as … a harmful algal bloom, when it comes ashore in excessive biomass,” Brian LaPointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, told CNN. “What we have seen since 2011 are excessive inundation events all around the Caribbean region, the Gulf, as well as the South Florida region.” Why is this year’s bloom so big? Increasing ocean temperatures due to climate change is one of the reasons for such a large bloom. The Atlantic and waters around Florida have seen record-breaking high temperatures in recent years, creating ideal conditions for the seaweed to thrive. The excess nitrogen in the water from the burning of fossil fuels or dust from the Sahara is believed to be one of the forces behind this supercharged bloom. An experimental tracking map from NOAA for May 6 through 12, showing where sargassum is likely to wash ashore in Florida. CREDIT: NOAA Scientists can use satellites to track the seaweed and issue warnings if needed. The CariCOOS Sargassum map shows that the bulk of the bloom is currently east of Puerto Rico, but it has already been spotted along Florida’s Atlantic coast. NOAA encourages anyone who encounters Sargassum on the beach to report it with this form.