Vacation Vixen: Isabela Merced

I have not started the second season of “The Last of Us,” despite it having all the Ellie and Dina goodness. I just couldn’t make myself tune back into the end of the world for fun while the real world was so decidedly unfun. But I plan to, someday. You know, maybe once the world starts to suck just a little less.

And I Feel Fine

Given our current geopolitical shitstorm (we, non-MAGA America, are really sorry about all this – sincerely), I’m kind of relieved we get to relax and enjoy the end of the world for a change. “The Last of Us” returns after two years away to a very different world, both on screen and in real life. Because I read spoilers about the videogame years ago, I know we are in for an intense and intensely sad season. But because I read those spoilers years ago, I don’t remember any of the specifics. Well, other than I remember Abby’s arms.

I know there has been some rumblings about Kaitlyn Dever not looking the part of Abby. But I know that woman can flat-out act, so I’m not that worried about the size of her biceps. We can’t all be Katy O’Brian.

I’m more pleased they chose Ellie and Dina’s relationship for slavish recreation. I hope Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced share as much chemistry as they do likeness – and taste in clothes – to their video game counterparts.

Also sneaking a kiss into the trailer? Yeah, they’re trying to make it up to us queer ladies for killing Melanie Lynskey in the first season. (It’s been more than two years, that’s not a spoiler…)

So, who’s ready for a nice, calming apocalypse?

Dancing Into an Apocalypse

Are you ready for the end of the world? No, not whatever is going to happen in approximately 10 days in Washington D.C. I mean the end of the damn world, with mushroom zombies and armed lesbians. “The Last of Us” is back and amid to bring us more death and and decay, both physically and morally. If you’ve played the game, or read the spoilers like me, you will know the aftermath of Joel’s actions to save Ellie at the end of Season 1 will drive much of the story in Season 2. We also get clearer looks at Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, who you’d better believe is coming for Joel’s ass, and Isabela Merced, who plays Dina Ellie’s new love interest and slow dance partner. Something tells me we’d better hold onto every last moment of warm, sapphic happiness because the rest of the trailer. Yeah, the end of the world isn’t for everyone.

Love & Other Apocalypses

Hey, remember getting the bejesus scared out of you by “The Last of Us?” And remember how it’s coming back for Season 2, a.k.a. When Shit Gets Really Gay? The first footage and images of Bella Ramsey as Ellie and Isabela Merced as her girlfriend Dina have emerged as the second season continues production. Hello, thigh holsters! You gotta give the makeup and props department props for how well they’ve recreated the videogame. Granted, I never played the game but from my untrained (but highly gay) eyes that looks great and super gay.

So, there’s at least something to look forward to as we trudge through our own hellscape. There may be an apocalypse, but there is also gay love. And we haven't really seen Kaitlyn Dever as Abby yet either. So bring on the murder mushrooms again. Time to strap one one and get ready for the second season.

The Newest Last Leads

Because of the weird annual sputter restart that is the New Year (see: Dreaded January Doldrums above), I’m a little behind with this news. But that makes it no less exciting. “The Last of Us” has cast two key female stars for its much anticipated (and much anxiety making, man that show is stressful), second season, Namely, they’ve cast Abby, who if you played the game know is a key protagonist (though, um, antagonist for Joel) in the “The Last of Us: Part II.” And they’ve cast Dina (a.k.a. Ellie’s girlfriend on TLOU: II). The series has named Kaitlyn Dever (from “Book Smart” and “Unbelievable”) as Abby and Isabela Merced (from “Let it Snow,” but one of the straight storylines) as Dina.

Having not played the video games, and while trying to maintain relative unspoiled status for what will happen in the second season, I don’t have a ton of insight into these casting choices other than to say I think they’re both good. Kaitlyn (who it always astounds me has also spent like ten seasons on “Last Man Standing”) is very talented and capable of convening the most complicated of emotions without words through just the vulnerability of her face. Yes, Kaitlyn might have to work on her guns a little. But I have every faith in her ability kick future ass. As for Isabela, well, to be extremely superficial she makes an extremely cute couple with Bella Ramsey. Get it, Ellie. So, any of you play the games? Thoughts on these castings?

The End of Us

Spoilers: I will be discussing the first season finale of “The Last of Us” in full. If you haven’t watched and don’t wanna know, stop reading. I have lots of women in tank tops for you to enjoy instead. Or, read it and know the insidious ravages of time will no doubt make you forget whatever you read once you finally get around to watching anyway. Your call. We’re all adults (probably, and to any Youths welcome but be aware I’m just a middle-aged lesbian who likes to yell at my TV while I watch my stories).

Well, at least they got to pet some giraffes. As a non-gamer, I didn’t know what was coming for us at the end of the first season of “The Last of Us.” Instead I watched silently as the show became a first-person shooter in the name of love. The moral ambiguity of killing good (or at least goodish) people to save someone you love is one most of us don’t like to think about too much. It’s the old trolley problem, but with your significantiest someone tied to the other train tracks. So, like, we all deeply get what Joel did. (And, don’t get me started on the dubiousa-at-best saving the world science that put Ellie on those metaphorical tracks.)

But, here’s the other thing, we all deeply get that things will never be the same, either. Ellie (who Bella Ramsey continues to play beyond brilliantly) was a different person in the finale than the rest of the season. The trauma she endured thanks to the Bible-Thumping Pedo Cannibal cult clearly left a deep psychological mark, as those kinds of horrors are wont to do. This is not to say she didn’t go through terrible things before, like her finale revelation that she had to kill her best friend/first love Riley when she went all rabid mushroom. (Thank goodness for the small mercies of sparing us that scene, show. Truly.)

So when Ellie asks Joel if he told her the truth about what happened at the Firefly hospital, she knows he’s lying to her. And he probably knows she knows he is lying. But that’s what happens sometimes when you love someone, you lie to them.

Part of what has made TLOU such great television is the at times grim and other times grimly glorious mirror it has held up to our humanity. Our instinct for survival, at any cost. The weight and wonder of human connection. The power of loss and reverberation of trauma. We’ve watched a father become a father again. A teenager finds the parent she never had. So many people die. Good people. Bad people. Mushroom people. And an indifferent world that just keeps on spinning.

In the end, this might be the show that makes me not want to survive a zombie apocalypse. Because what’s left of the world seems made for people made of harder stuff than me. I don’t know if I have the right combination of luck and ruthlessness to succeed at the end of the world. Or maybe, I just don’t have the motivation anymore. Love makes you do the wacky, or as according to TLOU lore, you keep going for family.

I hope the next season brings us more beauty and heartbreak from this found family. May it keep giving us reasons to look toward the light amid all the relentless darkness. And, well, at least we know for sure it’ll be gay.

My Weekend (Age-Appropriate) Crush

The older I get the more truly great acting impresses me. It’s not just the mimicry, which while an undeniable skill isn’t what makes great acting great. It’s the ability to tap deeply into the emotions behind the movements. The power to make the make believe real through nothing more than a performance is a special kind of witchcraft. And, damn, if that doesn’t make Bella Ramsey the best kind of witch (not worst, see what I did there since they used to be on “Worst Witch”…Fine, I’ll see myself out).

As an avowed lover of apocalypse/disaster art, I’ve loved “The Last of Us” almost more than seems healthy. And I’ve loved it, in large part, because of the stunning work by Bella and Pedro Pascal as Ellie and Joel. While the show can be unbearably tense at times (and given me a whole new fearsome appreciation of mushrooms), what has impressed me perhaps the most is how well Bella has been able to tap into the universality of being a teenager in an impossible situation.

At 19, the nonbinary actor is utterly, heartbreakingly, unmistakably believable as a teenager just trying to stay alive in an apocalyptic hellscape. They can be totally annoying one second, totally terrified the next and cracking bad dad jokes when it’s all over. Bella’s Ellie feels real. You’ve met teens like this. Maybe you were a teen like this. But you never had to face faceless fungus monsters or ruthless murderous raiders. That push-pull of their character as she navigates an insane world while continuing to be a smart alecky teen on one side and a terrified child on the other — with the added pressure of the whole saving the world things on top of all that — makes Ellie as poignant as heroines get.

But then, we knew Bella was something special since their days as Lady Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones. While I can’t help but look back at that series through the lens of its maddeningly disappointing ending, Bella’s work as the tiny, fearless leader of the Bear Islands is among the show’s most memorable. Lady Mormont was one of the few killed off characters to get a proper hero’s death. And I’ll forever associate Bella with that “Go, little rock star” energy.

One of the other more refreshing things about Bella is their very Gen Z-esque “get used to it” attitude about sexuality and gender identity. They’ve come out as nonbinary (without, they’ve said, true pronoun preference choice). They’ve also revealed they wore a binder during much of “The Last of Us” filming. And that they’ve had many good conversations with Pedro (who has a trans sister) about gender and sexuality, which is all kinds of lovely and obviously shows in their onscreen chemistry.

Of the queer storylines on the show (including the Bill & Frank episode which no one has recovered from emotionally and the upcoming storylines around Ellie’s relationship with Dina — who everyone is pretty sure we caught a brief glimpse of in Episode 6), Bella is gratefully blunt. They told GQ magazine this about backlash to the queer storylines in TLOU games and series:

“I’m not particularly anxious about it. I know people will think what they want to think. But they’re gonna have to get used to it. If you don’t want to watch the show because it has gay storylines, because it has a trans character, that’s on you, and you’re missing out.”

Like I said, go little rock star. And, on a totally superficial note, I’m loving their red carpet and photoshoot styles recently. In an appreciative way, not a lecherous way because I am An Old and 19 is just waywayway too young to even think about in that way. Happy weekend, all.

p.s. Honestly, I’m not even going to dignify the “Bella’s not attractive enough to play Ellie” troll comments that were spawned by their casting because this is a character that’s supposed to be 14 years old WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU THAT YOU WANT TO GET A BONER FROM THE CASTING OF A TEENAGE PART.

The Ballad of Bill & Frank

When I tell you that I did not expect the show about a mutant mushroom zombie apocalypse to include some of the most sensitive and heartfelt queer storytelling currently on television, I am so not lying. But, here we are, all struggling to emotionally recover from the Ballad of Bill & Frank/Episode 3 of aforementioned mutant mushroom zombie apocalypse show. Wow, is “The Last of Us” good. Like, it’s very good. Scary, funny, touching, scary a lot more. It is, at least for this horror wimp, incredibly tense to watch. But also, in the weirdest way possible, it’s been sort of life affirming.

Humans, we find a way. It’s not always a good way or a moral way or a logical way. But we find a way to survive. And, in the case of Bill and Frank, find love in a hopeless place. (Again, it’s hard to think of a more hopeless place than a mutant mushroom zombie apocalypse, especially when the remaining societal structure is an extremely fascist state/Nazis).

The performances, from leads Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey to supporting cast like Anna Torv and Melanie Lynskey and of course Bill/Nick Offerman and Frank/Murray Bartlett, are all phenomenal. And, while the first few episodes were pretty scary because mutant mushroom zombie people are scary, I think the last two episodes have settled into a more hard-scrabble but also reflective post-apocalyptic tone.

And that Bill and Frank standalone episode (for real, you don’t even really need to watch the show to enjoy it), well, if you didn’t cry at least a little you may already be a mutant mushroom zombie. Creating fully realized characters in the span of one hour-long show is no small feat, but to make us care so deeply for them and their relationship in that same short timeframe — well, that’s almost magic. I think it helped that Offerman and Bartlett played to type here (rugged individualist Ron from Parks & Rec and urbane gay Dom/Armond from Looking/White Lotus, respectfully). But the chemistry and the connection and the tenderness. Well, that’s just talent.

In many ways, Episode 3 especially, reminded me of the wonderful “Station Eleven.” It was my favorite television series last year, where the almost pastoral approach to the post-apocalyptic world was a refreshing departure from all the shooting and fighting. Also, if you haven’t yet watched “Station Eleven” is also on HBO Max. So if you can watch the mutant mushroom zombie apocalypse show, you can also watch the one about the bad flu that took out the world and left bands of wandering artists in the countryside instead.

Best yet about TLOU, we already know that as the show continues we should be in for a lot more queerness. Even though I’m not a gamer, even I know that Ellie is gay and has a girlfriend in the video game’s sequel. Since “The Last of Us” has been a massive hit and HBO Max has already renewed it for a second season, more gay days should be ahead.

So now, the only question is, who should play Dina?

Out Developments

Right, I may have calmed down a little from last week (also because I’m about to go on vacation). So how about we get maybe possibly future excited for some new projects that hopefully (maybe, hopefully) will bring us some new queer lady stories. Development and casting news has come out about a two new premium networks shows in particular that have queer potential.

The first is the HBO adaptation of the videogame series “Last of Us.” Now, I’m not a gamer. But even I know that the “Last of Us” franchise features prominent female queer characters. Maybe it was the Ellie and Dina gifs all over my timeline when it came out a that tipped me off. I also know things don’t really get gay until the game’s sequel, Part II. So I don’t know what we can expect on the queer front from the new HBO series based on the apocalyptic video game. But, for once when referring to a show about a video game, I’d love if they kept it close to the source material.

What I do know is that they’ve cast “Fringe”/”Mindhunter” start Anna Torv in a key role as smuggler Tess and “Game of Throne” badass Bella Ramsey in the even keyer (whatever, it’s a pandemic still, who grammars) Ellie! You might remember Bella Lyanna Mormont, the tiny warrior nobleswoman of Bear Island. I know I might be grasping at tiny little gay straws here, but I feel like they could definitely Make It Gay™, like the original videogame story. Or, why stop there, with Anna in the show please Make It Gayer™. But then I say that about everything. Game on, queers.

The second new development that immediately had my gay lady ears perked up is the adaptation of the No. 1 bestselling nonfiction book “Three Women.” Shailene Woodley has been attached to star in the new Showtime series. As soon as I heard the premise for “Three Women,” I knew there would be some queer up in there.

Described as “an intimate, haunting portrayal of American female desire, three women are on a crash course to radically overturn their lives.” The character of Sloane is particular is described as “a successful restaurant owner in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women.”

Yeah, I dunno how hopeful to get about that since I have not read the book it was based on. But, I’d be interested to see who they cast as Sloane. Woodley is playing the writer character in the series adaptation, so I’d field any suggestions.