Month: January 2023

This article originally appeared on 03.11.16

This post was originally published on Wait But Why.

When you’re a kid, or in high school or college, you usually don’t work too hard on your friend situations. Friends just kind of happen.

For a bunch of years, you’re in a certain life your parents chose for you, and so are other people, and none of you have that much on your plates, so friendships inevitably form. Then in college, you’re in the perfect friend-making environment, one that hits all three ingredients sociologists consider necessary for close friendships to develop: “proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.” More friendships happen.

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Maybe they’re the right friends, maybe they’re not really. But you don’t put that much thought into any of it — you’re still more of a passive observer.

But once student life ends, the people in your life start to shake themselves into more distinct tiers.

It looks something like this mountain:

At the top of your life mountain, in the green zone, you have your Tier 1 friends — the people who feel like brothers and sisters.

These are the people closest to you, the ones you call first when something important happens, the ones you love even when they suck, who make speeches at your wedding, whose best and worst sides you know through and through, and whose relationship with you is eternal; even if you go months or years without hanging out, nothing has changed when you find yourself together again.

Unfortunately, depending on how things went down in your youth, Tier 1 can also contain your worst enemies, the people who can ruin your day with one subtle jab that only they could word so brilliantly hurtfully, the people you feel a burning resentment for, or jealousy of, or competition with. Tier 1 is high stakes.

Below, in the yellow zone, are your Tier 2 friends: your Pretty Good friends.

Pretty Good friends are a much calmer situation than your brothers and sisters on Tier 1. You might be invited to their wedding, but you won’t have any responsibilities once you’re there. If you live in the same city, you might see them every month or two for dinner and have a great time when you do, but if one of you moves, you might not speak for the next year or two. And if something huge happens in their life, there’s a good chance you’ll hear it first from someone else.

Toward the bottom of the mountain in the orange zone, you have your Tier 3 friends: your Not Really friends.

You might grab a one-on-one drink with one of them when you move to their city, but then it surprises neither of you when five years pass and drink #2 is still yet to happen. Your relationship tends to exist mostly as part of a bigger group or through the occasional Facebook Like, and it doesn’t even really stress you out when you hear that one of them made $5 million last year. You may also try to sleep with one of these people at any given time.

The lowest part of Tier 3 begins to blend indistinguishably into your large group of acquaintances (the pink zone): those people you’d stop and talk to if you saw them on the street or would maybe email for professional purposes but whom you’d never hang out with one-on-one. When you hear that something bad happens to one of these people, you pretend to be sad but you don’t actually care.

Finally, acquaintances gradually blend into the endless world of strangers.

And depending on who you are and how things shook out in those first 25 years, the way your particular mountain looks will vary.

For example, there’s Walled-Off Wally:

And Phony Phoebe, who tries to be everyone’s best friend and ends up with a lot of people mad at her:

Even Unabomber Ulysses has a mountain:

Whatever your particular mountain looks like, eventually the blur of your youth is behind you, the dust has settled, and there you are living your life.

Then one day, usually around your mid- or late 20s, it hits you: It’s not that easy to make friends anymore.

Sure, you’ll make new friends in the future — at work, through your spouse, through your kids — but you won’t get to that Tier 1 brothers level, or even to Tier 2, with very many of them because people who meet as adults don’t tend to get through the 100+ long, lazy hangouts needed to reach a bond of that strength. As time goes on, you start to realize that the 20-year frenzy of not-especially-thought-through haphazard friend-making you just did was the critical process of you making most of your lifelong friends.

And since you matched up with most of them A) by circumstance, and B) before you really knew yourself yet, the result is that your Tier 1 and Tier 2 friends — those closest to you — fall in a very scattered way on what I’ll call the Does This Friendship Make Sense graph:

So, who are all those close friends in the three non-ideal quadrants?

As time goes on, most of us tend to have fewer friends in Quadrants 2 through 4 because A) people mature, and B) people have more self-respect and higher standards for what they’ll deal with as they get older. But the fact is, friendships made in the formative years often stick, whether they’re ideal or not, leaving most of us with a portion of our Tier 1 and Tier 2 friendships that just don’t make that much sense. We’ll get to the great, Quadrant 1 friendships later in the post, but in order to treat those relationships properly, we need to take a thorough look at the odd ones first.

Here are 10 common ones:

1. The non-question-asking friend

You’ll be having a good day. You’ll be having a bad day. You’ll be happy at work. You’ll quit your job. You’ll fall in love. You’ll catch your new love cheating on you and murder them both in an act of incredible passion. And it doesn’t matter, because none of it will be discussed with The Non-Question-Asking Friend, who never, ever, ever asks you anything about your life. This friend can be explained in one of three ways:

1. He’s extremely self-absorbed and only wants to talk about himself.
2. He avoids getting close to people and doesn’t want to talk about either you or himself or anything personal, just third-party topics.
3. He thinks you’re insufferably self-absorbed and knows if he asks you about your life, you’ll talk his ear off about it.

In almost every group of friends, there’s one pair who can’t ever be alone together. It’s not that they dislike each other — they might get along great — it’s just that they have no individual friendship with each other whatsoever. This leaves both of them petrified of the lumbering elephant that appears in the room anytime they’re alone together. They’re way too on top of shit to ever end up in the car alone together if a group is going somewhere in multiple cars, but there are smaller dangers afoot — like being the first two to arrive at a restaurant or being in a group of three when the third member goes to the bathroom.

The thing is, sometimes it’s not even that these people couldn’t have an individual friendship — it’s just that they don’t, and neither one has the guts to try to make that leap when things have gone on for so long as is.

3. The non-character-breaking friend you have to be “on” with

This is a friend who’s terrified of having an earnest interaction, and as such, your friendship with him is always in some kind of skit — you always have to be on when you’re interacting.

Sometimes the skit is that you both burst out laughing at everything constantly. He can only exist with you in “This is so fucking hilarious, it’s too much!” mode, so you have to be in some kind of joke-telling or sarcastic mode yourself at all times or he’ll become socially horrified.

Another version of this is the “always and only ironic” friend, who you really bum out if you ever break that social shell and say something earnest. This type of person hates earnest people because someone being earnest dares him to come out from under his ironic safety blanket and let the sun touch his face, and no fucking thanks.

A third example is the “You’re great, I’m great, ugh why is everyone else so terrible and not great like us” friend. Of course, she doesn’t really think you’re perfectly great at all — if she were with someone else, you’d be one of the voodoo dolls on the table to be dissected and scoffed at. The key here is that the two of you must be on a team at all times while interacting. The only comfortable mode for this person is bonding with you by building a little pedestal for you both to stand on while you criticize everyone else. You can either play along and everything will go smoothly, even though you’ll both despise yourselves and each other the whole time, or you can commit the ultimate sin and have the integrity to disagree with the friend or defend a non-present party the friend criticizes. Doing this will shatter the fragile team vibe and make the friend recoil and say something quietly like, “Hm … yeah … I guess.” The friend now respects you for the first time and will also criticize you extra hard next time she’s playing her pedestal game with a different friend.

What these all have in common is the friend has tall walls up, at least toward you, and so she builds a little skit for you two to hang out in to make sure any authentic connection can be avoided. Sometimes that person only does this out of her own social anxiety and can become a great, authentic friend if you can just stomp through the ice. Other times, the person is just hopelessly scared and closed off and there’s no hope and you have to get out.

In any case, I can’t stand these interactions and am in a full panic the entire time they’re happening.

4. The double-obligated friendship

Think of a friend you get together with from time to time, which usually happens after a long and lackluster email or text exchange during which you just can’t find a time that works for both of you — and you’re never really happy when these plans are being made and not really psyched when you wake up and it’s finally on your schedule for that day.

Maybe you’re aware that you don’t want to be friends with that person, or maybe you’re delusional about it — but what you’re most likely not aware of is that they probably don’t want to see you either.

There are lopsided situations where one person is far more interested in hanging out than the other (we’ll get to those later), but in the case we’re talking about here, both parties often think it’s a lopsided situation without realizing that the other person actually feels the same way — that’s why it takes so long to schedule a time. When someone’s excited about something, they figure out how to get it into their schedule; when they’re not, they figure out ways to push it farther into the future.

Sometimes you don’t think hard enough about it to even realize you don’t like being friends with the person, and other times you really like the idea or the aesthetic of being friends with that particular person — being friends with them is part of your Story. But even in cases where you’re perfectly lucid about your feelings, since neither of you knows the other feels the same way and neither has the guts to just cut things off or move it down a tier, this friendship usually just continues along for eternity.

5. The half-marriage

Somewhere in your life, you’re probably part of a friendship that would be a marriage if only the other person weren’t very, very, extremely not interested in that happening. 1 for 2 on yes votes — just one vote away — so close.

You might be on either side of this — and either way, it’s one of the least healthy parts of your life. Fun!

If you’re on the if only side of things, probably the right move is to get your fucking shit together? Ya know? This friendship is one long, continuous rejection of you as a human being, and you’re just wallowing there in your yearning like a sobbing little seal. Plus, duh, if you gather your self-respect and move on with your life, it’ll raise their perception of your value and they might actually become interested in you.

If you’re on the Oh yeah, definitely not side of the situation, here’s what’s happening: There’s this suffering human in the world, and you know they’re suffering, and you fucking love it, because it gives your little ego a succulent sponge bath every time you hang out with them. You enjoy it so much you probably even lead them on intentionally, don’t you — you make sure to keep just enough ambiguity in the situation that their bleeding heart continues to lather your ego from head to toe at your whim.

Both of you — go do something else.

6. The historical friend

A Historical Friend is someone you became friends with in the first place because you met when you were little and stayed friends through the years, even though you’re a very weird match. Most old friends fall somewhat into this category, but a true Historical Friend is someone you absolutely would not be friends with if you met them today.

You’re not especially pleased with who they are, and they feel the same way about you. You’re not each other’s type one bit. Unfortunately, you’re also extremely close friends from when you were four, and you’re both just a part of each other’s situation forever, sorry.

7. The non-parallel life paths friendship

Throughout childhood and much of young adulthood, most people your age are in the same life stage as you are. But when it comes to advancing into full adulthood, people do so at widely varying paces, which leads to certain friends suddenly having totally different existences from one another.

Anyone within three years of 30 has a bunch of these going on. It’s just a weird time for everyone. Some people have become Future 52-year-olds, while others are super into being Previous 21-year-olds. At some point, things will start to meld together again, but being 30-ish is the friendship equivalent of a kid going through an awkward pubescent stage.

There are darker, more permanent Non-Parallel Life Path situations. Like when Person A starts to become a person who rejects material wealth, partially because she genuinely feels that pursuing an artistic path matters more and partially because she needs a defense mechanism against feeling envious of richer people, and Person B’s path makes her scoff at people who pursue creative paths, partially because she genuinely thinks expressing yourself is an inherently narcissistic venture and partially because she needs a defense mechanism against feeling regretful that she never pursued her creative dreams — these two will have problems.

They may still like each other, but they can’t be as close as they used to be — each of their lives is a bit of a middle finger at the other’s choices, and that’s jst awkward for everyone. It’s not always that bad — but to survive an Off-Line Life Situation, friends need to be really different people who don’t at all want the same things out of life.

8. The frenemy

The Frenemy roots very hard against you. And I’m not talking about the friends that will feel a little twinge of pleasure when they hear your big break didn’t pan out after all or that your relationship is in bad shape. I’m not even talking about someone who secretly roots against you when they’re not doing so well at some area of life and it hurts them to see you do better. Those are bad emotions, but they can exist in people who are still good friends.

I’m talking about a real Frenemy — someone who really wants bad things for you. Because you’re you.

You and the Frenemy usually go way back, have a very deep friendship, and the trouble probably started a long time ago. There’s a lot of complex psychology going on in these situations that I don’t fully understand, but my hunch is that a Frenemy’s resentment is rooted in his own pain, or his own shortcomings, or his own regret — and for some reason, your existence stings them in these places hard.

A little less dark but no less harmful is a bully situation where a friend sees some weakness or vulnerability in you and she enjoys prodding you there either for sadistic reasons or to prop herself up.

A Frenemy knows how to hurt you better than anyone because you’re deeply similar in some way and she knows how you’re wired. She’ll do whatever she can to bring you down any chance she gets, often in such a subtle way it’s hard to see that it’s happening.

Whatever the reason, if you have a Frenemy in your life, kick her toxic ass off your mountain, or at least kick her down the mountain — just get her off of Tier 1. A Frenemy has about a 10th of the power to hurt you from Tier 2 as she does from Tier 1.

9. The Facebook celebrity friend

This person isn’t a celebrity to anyone other than you, you creep. You know exactly who I’m talking about — there are a small handful of people whose Facebook page you’re uncomfortably well-acquainted with, and those people have no idea that this is happening. On the plus side, there are people out there you haven’t spoken to in seven years who know all about the new thing you’re trying with your hair, since it goes both ways.

This is a rare Tier 3 friend, or even an acquaintance, who qualifies as an odd friendship because you found a way to make it unhealthy even though you’re not actually friends. Well done.

10. The lopsided friendship

There are a lot of ways a friendship can be lopsided: Someone can be higher on their friend’s mountain than vice versa. Someone can want to spend more time with a friend than vice versa. One member can consistently do 90% of the listening and only 10% of the talking, and in situations where most of the talking is about life problems, what’s happening is a one-sided therapy situation, with a badly off-balance give-and-take ratio, and that’s not much of a friendship — it’s someone using someone else.

And then there’s the lopsided power friendship. Of course, this is a hideous quality in many not-great couples, but it’s also a prominent feature of plenty of friendships.

A near 50/50 friendship is ideal, but anything out to 65/35 is fine and can often be attributed to two different styles of personality. It’s when the number gap gets even wider that something less healthy is going on — something that doesn’t reflect very well on either party.

There are some obvious ways to assess the nature of a friendship’s power dynamic: Does one person cut in and interrupt the other person while they’re talking far more than the other way around? Is one person’s opinion or preference just kind of understood to carry more weight than the other’s? Is one person allowed to be more of a dick to the other than vice versa?

Another interesting litmus test is what I call the “mood determiner test.” This comes into play when two friends get together but they’re in very different moods — the idea is, whose mood “wins” and determines the mood of the hangout. If Person A is in a bad mood, Person B is in a good mood, and Person B reacts by being timid and respectful of Person A’s mood, leaving the vibe down there until Person A snaps out of it on her own — but when the moods are reversed, Person B quickly disregards her own bad mood and acts more cheerful to match Person A’s happy mood — and this is how it always goes — then Person A is in a serious power position.

But hey, not all friendships are grim.

In the Does This Friendship Make Sense graph above, the friendships we just discussed are all in Quandrants 2, 3, or 4 — i.e., they’re all a bit unenjoyable, unhealthy, or both. That’s why this has been depressing. On the bright side, there’s also Quadrant 1 — all the friendships that do make sense.

No friendship is perfect, but those in Quadrant 1 are doing what friendships are supposed to do: They’re making the lives of both parties better. And when a friendship is both in Quadrant 1 of the graph and on Tier 1 of your mountain, that friendship is a rock in your life.

Rock friendships don’t just make us happy — they’re the thing (along with rock family and romantic relationships) that makes us happy.

Investing serious time and energy into those is a no-brainer long-term life strategy. But in the case of most people over 25 — at least in New York — I think A) not enough time is carved out as dedicated friend time, and B) the time that is carved out is spread too thin, and too evenly, among the Tier 1 and Tier 2 friendships in all four quadrants. I’m definitely guilty of this myself.

There’s something I call the Perpetual Catch-Up Trap. When you haven’t seen a good friend in a long time, the first order of business is a big catch-up — you want to know what’s going on in their career, with their girlfriend, with their family, etc., and they want to catch up on your life. In theory, once this happens, you can go back to just hanging out, shooting the shit, and actually being in the friendship. The problem is, when you don’t make enough time for good friends, seeing them only for a meal and not that often — you end up spending each get-together catching up, and you never actually get to just enjoy the friendship or get far past the surface. That’s the Perpetual Catch-Up Trap, and I find myself falling into it with way too many of the rocks in my life.

There are two orders of business right now:

First, think about your friendships, figure out which ones aren’t in Quadrant 1, and demote them down the mountain. I’m not suggesting you stop being friends with those people — you still love them and feel loyal to them, and old friends are critical to hold onto — but if the friendships aren’t that healthy or enjoyable, they don’t really deserve to be in your Tier 1, and you probably shouldn’t be in theirs. Most importantly, doing this clears up time to…

Second, dedicate even more time to the Quadrant 1, Tier 1 rocks in your life. If you’re in your mid-20s or older, your current rocks are probably the only ones you’ll ever have. Your rock friendships don’t warrant two times the time you give to your other friends — they warrant five or 10 times!

Your rocks deserve serious, dedicated time so you can stay close. So go make plans with them.

This article originally appeared on 08.20.19

I occasionally get asked by mothers of young children what the secret is to raising great teenagers.

My initial response is that I have absolutely no clue. My kids are who they are IN SPITE of having me as a mother. (The young moms don’t find that answer too helpful.)

Really, the first thing that I will tell you is to disbelieve the myth that teenagers are sullen, angry creatures who slam doors and hate their parents. Some do that, but the overwhelming majority do not. Every one of my kids’ friends are just as happy and fun as my kids are, so I know it’s not just us.

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Teenagers are incredible. They are funny, smart, eager to please, and up for just about anything as long as food is involved. They have the most generous hearts and want desperately to be loved and validated. They are quirky and messy and have the best sense of humor.

So, here is my list of “rules” for raising teens. These are the secrets we have found to be successful.

1. Love them fiercely.

Love everything about them, even the annoying stuff. Love them for their actions AND their intentions. Let them know in word and deed how much you adore them. Daily. Love their wrinkled shirts and Axe-body-spray-covered selves. Love their bad handwriting and pimpled cheeks. Love their scattered brains and long limbs. All these seemingly insignificant details are an amazing, magical process at work. It’s like being witness to the miracle of a diamond mid-formation. All this imperfection is going to one day yield a responsible, serious adult. A loving husband and father. Or a wonderful wife and mother. It’s a privilege to be witness to such glorious growth.

See your teenagers as a privilege, don’t see them as a burden. They’re more perceptive than you can imagine. How you feel about them will be no secret. So just love ‘em.

2. Listen and pay attention.

When they walk in the door after school, you have a precious few minutes when they will divulge the secrets of their day with you. Be excited to see them. Put down the cell phone. Don’t waste this time making dinner or taking a phone call. Look them in the eye and hear what they are saying. Make their victories your victories. Be empathetic. It is really hard to navigate high school and middle school. Don’t offer advice at this time unless they ask for it. Don’t lecture. Just listen. It makes them feel important and valued. We all need to feel that way.

3. Say yes more than you say no.

The world is forever going to tell them no. For the rest of their lives, they will be swimming in a stormy sea with wave after wave of “you’re not good enough” and “you can’t do this” crashing down on their heads. If nothing else, I want to be the opposite voice in their lives for as long as I can. I want to instill in them the belief that they are not limited and they can do anything if they’re willing to work hard enough for it. I want to be the YES, YOU CAN in their lives. I want them to leave my house every day feeling invincible.

4. Say no often.

You need to say no to experiences and situations that will set your child up for harm or unhappiness. Don’t let them go to the parties where they will be forced to make a choice about alcohol at age 16 in front of their peers . Don’t let them stay out until three in the morning with a member of the opposite sex. Be the parent. Set up rules for their safety, both physical and moral. You would think this rule goes without saying, but we have known a shockingly large number of parents who don’t.

5. Feed them. A lot.

And not only them, but their friends too. These bodies are growing and developing at an astonishing rate and need fuel to do so — most of which they prefer to be loaded with processed sugar and hydrogenated-something-or-others. When their friends know your pantry is stocked to the gills with treats, they will beg your kid to hang out at your place. This allows you to not only meet and know their friends, but to keep an eye on your teen as well.

6. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

When living with teenagers, it can be so easy to see the backpack dropped in the middle of the living room as laziness. Or the bedroom scattered with dirty clothes as irresponsible. Instead, and before you open your mouth to yell at them, put yourself in their shoes. Find out about their day first. Maybe they are feeling beaten down, and they just need to unwind for a minute and tell you about it. Ignore the mess for a bit and put your arms around that big, sweaty kid and give him a hug. Talk to him about his world. Find out what he did, wants to do, and dreams of doing. THEN, and only then, ask him to pick it up and put it away.

That being said, do I completely ignore the state of my boys’ bedrooms all the time? No, I do not. But I pick my battles, and I pick the appropriate time to fight them. Once every seven to 10 days or so, I tell them their bedrooms need to be picked up. Which they do happily because it’s not the running loop of a nagging mom. They know when I ask, it needs to be done.

7. Stand back and watch the magic happen.

If you let them, these glorious creatures will open their hearts and love you more fiercely than you could possibly imagine. They are brilliant, capable, strong spirits who bring with them a flurry of happiness. They are hilarious and clever. They are thoughtful and sensitive. They want us to adore them. They need us to adore them. They love deeply and are keenly in touch with the feelings of others.

They are just about the greatest gift God gave to parents.

The Phoenix Suns and Memphis Grizzlies have been two teams going in opposite directions of late, with Memphis ascending to second in the West, while Phoenix has fallen all the way to 10th in the standings.

That recent form didn’t matter much on Sunday in Phoenix, as the Suns jumped out to a 25-point lead at the half on the Grizzlies, putting Memphis’ resiliency to the test. The Grizzlies would chip away and make it a game late, and got an unexpected boost to close the third quarter from Ziaire Williams, who took a rebound and threw up an 80-foot buzzer-beater that banked in to cut the deficit to 15 going into the fourth.

We’ve seen some impressive shots this year in the NBA, and while luck certainly plays a role in banking one in from the opposite restricted area, this has a strong case for the craziest shot of the season. These accounted for three of the 16 points Williams gave Memphis off the bench, as they tried to rally in the second half for a stunning comeback that fell just short, cutting the lead to as few as two in the final seconds, but they did show their fight even in a game they could’ve easily punted on at the half after falling down big.

On the other side, it’s a big win for a banged up Phoenix team, as they pick up a third straight win to get back to .500, as Chris Paul’s return provided some much needed playmaking, as he had 22 points and 11 assists in the win.

[This post contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode two, “Infected”]

The second episode of The Last of Us has multiple firsts for the HBO show. “Infected” (directed by Neil Druckmann and written by Craig Mazin) is the first time Ellie leaves the quarantine zone; it’s also our first look at the Clickers, who are blind but highly sensitive to sound. They’re disgusting, but the biggest first in the episode is the most disgusting.

In the final minutes of “Infected” (read our recap), Tess reveals that she’s been bitten by an infected. She’s not immune like Ellie, so it’s only a matter of time before she turns. Tess sacrifices herself to save Joel and Ellie so they can continue heading west, but before she can ignite her lighter, detonating the building and its fungal infected inhabitants, she’s the unwilling recipient of the grossest kiss on TV since Chainsaw Man.

OK, it’s not technically a “kiss” so much as one infected spreading to another infected. Still: not ideal. But I’d still rather make out with someone with fungal tendrils (great band name) coming out of their mouth than eat an actual mushroom. Yuck. Anyway, if Tess is actually dead, which is likely considering, y’know, kaboom, let’s give it up for Anna Torv. The Mindhunter actress made an enduring impression in only two episodes — and one nasty kiss.

For more on “Infected,” learn how the virus started.

Each week, we’ll recap the biggest moments of HBO’s The Last of Us before placing bets on the odds of survival for our favorite characters – like the sick, twisted, soulless monsters we are.

The Last of Us follows up its slow-burn season premiere with a backpacking how-to through fungal-infected Boston that will absolutely not be making any travel bucket lists when the inevitable apocalypse strikes. In episode two’s “Infected,” Tess, Ellie, and Joel establish a tentative truce before they make their way to the Massachusetts State House where the Fireflies should be waiting to ferry “humanity’s cure” out West, but this is an HBO drama adapted from a best-selling video game that has made grown men cry so things just aren’t going to be that easy.

A couple of close calls, some, err … bonding time for Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, and a heartbreaking sacrifice are the highlights of episode two as a shocking ending throws our Survival Odds watch into pure chaos. Let’s get into it.

Early Outbreak Bombshells

Something both the game and the series does incredibly well is its science. We can’t say for sure that the Cordyceps Brain Infection could ever really cause a massive pandemic that eradicates mankind, but the use of flashbacks so far goes a long way in convincing us that humanity is just one bad box of pancake mix away from total annihilation. “Infected” launches with a look at the situation in Jakarta, back when the Cordyceps strand had yet to really permeate on a global scale. A scientist is rudely kidnapped in the middle of her lunch break to weigh in on a sample of fungus taken from a human specimen, a factory worker who went berserk and started biting her fellow employees. She meticulously studies her corpse, slicing into fungi-invaded flesh and prying tentacles from the victim’s jaw before realizing what we all now know: this sh*t is gross as hell and it’s going to be the hottest extinction event on the planet pretty soon. There’s no cure, no vaccine, and after breaking that news to the uniformed simpleton responsible for cluing her into this devastating future, she calmly sets down her cup of tea, tells him to bomb the city (with everyone in it), and asks for someone to give her a damn ride home.

If she’s going to face the end of the world, she’s going to do it in her comfiest PJs with her housecat and a bottle of red by her side.

Flash-forward to the now, as a sleeping Ellie wakes to find both Tess and Joel creepily guarding her in an abandoned building outside the QZ. They’re still wary she might turn and trying to convince them that she’s the only person on this godforsaken rock that’s immune to the infection is becoming exhausting. Eventually, she has to clue them into Marlene’s plan – one Joel seems unimpressed with considering rumors of a “cure” have apparently been floating for some time without ever landing on solid ground. But Tess, as we’re quickly discovering is her way, sees through the bullsh*t.

It doesn’t matter if Ellie is humanity’s last hope or not, the Fireflies believe she is and they need what the group has promised. One kid for a car battery and ammo is a hell of a good trade in postapocalyptic times so the group soldiers on, taking the freeway into the city as Tess and Ellie bond over their shared recklessness and Joel grudgingly follows behind.

Pedro Pascal is in full “annoyed babysitter mode” and it’s a good look for him.

Boston, Who Hurt You?

We hope to God that Ben Affleck didn’t survive the fungal outbreak because he’d be weeping into his Dunkin Donuts coffee over the state of his hometown. Ellie though? She’s mesmerized by the big buildings – that are leaning precariously into one another and overgrown with weeds – the deserted streets – covered in fungal pathways that might awaken a horde at any moment – and pavement craters a mile wide – evidence that at one point, our government’s best idea for how to beat CBI was to just drop bombs in every major city across America and hope for the best.

There are two ways to the State House, the long way or the way where someone ends up dead. The trio’s not stupid enough to try that path first but the foreshadowing here is about as subtle as Colin Farrell’s attempt to flirt with Ana De Armas at this year’s Golden Globes. Choosing the long way means breaking into a once-upscale hotel to get a birds-eye-view of their trek before they get caught by a pack of Infected and it’s during this watery interlude we learn more about Ellie … and Joel, and Tess, but mainly Ellie. She’s a kid that’s grown up in the QZ, educated by FEDRA on life before and after the outbreak. She can’t swim, but she does know where Detroit is assholes. She’s got a wicked sense of humor that Joel quickly labels “weird” and a knack for pissing her babysitter off. The two try to bond while Tess looks for a way through the rubble but the conversation goes nowhere fast. Joel is grumpy and closed-off, still unsure if he’ll have to put a bullet in this girl’s head. Ellie is curious but guarded, she wants to know more about her current guardian – and life in general because she hasn’t done much living up until this point – but she knows that appearing too eager, too naïve is a vulnerability she can’t afford. She keeps things close to the chest but gets frustrated when Joel does the same and dammit if this prickly little pair doesn’t warm our hearts a bit. They’re both lost souls looking for some kind of meaning, some kind of purpose in life and they’ll probably find it in each other, but not before facing some monstrous setbacks.

Speaking of …

Mayhem in the Museum

The safe route to the State House has been overrun by Infected so Tess, Joel, and Ellie are forced to take a shortcut through the museum. It’s covered in dried-out fungal strands which leads the group to believe it’s safe. Naturally, assumptions can get you killed on this show, and even though the build-up to our first post-outbreak Infected run-in is fairly straightforward, it’s still terrifying. It’s still not clear how these beings work since their brains aren’t necessarily dead, just controlled by a fungus infection, but it seems like they hunt by sound, not sight. The group’s flashlights do nothing to alert the creatures, but one misstep, the crunch of a human hand being stepped on, has them losing their minds. While Tess and Joel fight off two Infected, Ellie scrambles to find a place to hide. Bullets fly, hatchets are wielded, and eventually, our smugglers are able to deliver fatal blows to the head, which may not be the only way to kill one of these things but it sure is the fastest and most effective method of zombie disposal.

Tess walks away with a bum ankle, Ellie with another bite, but the group makes it to the State House relatively unscathed. Or, so we thought.

Save Who You Can

Despite large armored trucks and a huge weapons cache, all of the Fireflies hold up within the building are dead, not from FEDRA or raiders but because one of their own became infected and mass panic ensued. Joel wants to turn back, go home to the QZ and let FEDRA decide what to do with Ellie. An increasingly irritated Tess is adamantly against that notion and Ellie soon figures out why. She’s been infected by one of the creatures they fought off at the museum. While her bite spreads rapidly, Ellie’s just leaks a bit of blood, a clear contrast that proves to Tess at least that Ellie is the real deal. She pleads with Joel to take her to someone named Frank, to ferry her to safety as penance for all their committed sins and it’s the kind of heartbreaking, self-sacrificing monologue that’s all the more tragic because we know it will be Anna Torv’s last on this show. We get that a zombie apocalypse needs stakes, but what a waste to only use Torv’s talents for two episodes.

Still, she makes an impression, on us and on Joel, who agrees to her dying wish, dragging Ellie kicking and screaming out the back while Tess douses the lobby in gasoline and grenades, setting a trap for the hordes of Infected who’ve been alerted to their whereabouts thanks to those dead Fireflies. The final shot of Tess silently struggling to get her lighter to work as mindless bodies flood through the building, with one targeting her by slowly reaching his tentacles inside her gaping mouth, is disturbing and devastating in equal measure. It’s a nasty way to go, but at least it’s one Tess got to choose, which is more than most survivors of this apocalypse will be able to say.

Survival Odds

Joel (10 to 1)
We’d say anyone who hitches their wagon to a smart-mouthed teenager pegged as humanity’s only hope is bound for the grave but Joel is ruthless in his ability to cut personal ties, ignore emotional attachments, and save himself in precarious situations. Just lending a helping hand to Ellie in this episode gives him the heebie-jeebies and with Tess gone, he’s even less likely to stick his neck out for the girl. At this point, she’s not a stand-in for Sarah by any means. Sarah was sweet and caring whereas Ellie is fearless and bloodthirsty. She’s more like Joel than he’d probably like to admit, which serves as yet another reason why he needs to get rid of her, and fast.

Ellie (5 to 2 odds)
No, Ellie won’t die from infection, but damn if this girl isn’t trying to get herself killed in every other way imaginable. It’s one thing to go out into the post-apocalyptic world with no house training, it’s another thing to call attention to yourself by dinging hotel lobby bells and heavy-footing your way through fungus-infected museums and breathing like an asthmatic without her inhaler while hiding from creatures intent on killing you. Do better or get the hell away from Pedro Pascal because we refuse to watch him die on yet another HBO drama series.

HBO’s The Last of Us has given fans a terrifying new possibility when it comes to world-ending events. Forget zombie outbreaks and viral pandemics, the most devastating destroyer comes might come in the form of a fungus that infects human brains and turns bodies into flesh-covered puppets.

The Cordyceps strain is an actual breed of fungi that does exactly what the ominous-sounding doctor describes in the show’s season premiere. That first episode of The Last of Us gave us a 60s-era talk-show primer to how the Cordyceps Brain Infection could happen — by fungus mutating to survive rising temperatures caused by climate change. While it’s a bit more complicated than that in real life, on the show, it quickly becomes a horrifying reality.

And, thanks to episode two’s “Infected,” we now know exactly how the infection started.

Jakarta, Indonesia

In the premiere episode, the show teased the origins of the infection — which technically isn’t a virus since it’s fungal in nature — early on. As Sarah, Joel, and Tommy were having breakfast, sans pancakes since Joel forgot to buy a box mix, a radio report was detailing chaos in the city. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment was primarily a chance for Sarah to school the adults on their less-than-stellar geography knowledge but it also teased how the pandemic had already taken root overseas.

When episode two opens, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann dive further into the mythology of their imagined apocalypse. We meet an elderly woman having lunch in a cafe before she’s picked up by government officials and taken to a lab. She’s a scientist, a renowned one thanks to her work with different types of fungal infections, and she’s presented a slide that shows the Cordyceps strain infecting human cells. Naturally, she’s a bit skeptical because fungus can’t survive in temperatures as high as our natural operating ones. But Cordyceps has evolved and she quickly discovers just how disastrous that mutation is for mankind when she examines the corpse of a woman infected with the fungus.

Fungi Beginnings

After splitting open the bit site on the woman’s leg only to find fungal spores have built a nest underneath her skin. She then goes to pry living tentacles out of the victim’s mouth, ones that move as if in search of a new host to latch onto. It’s all disgusting, blood-curling stuff, but it gets worse when the doctor is asked for her help in creating a cure, or a preventative to fight the spread. Because it has spread.

The woman on the morgue table was just one of many workers in the city’s biggest flour mill that were bitten. According to the authorities, a woman came to work, began acting erratically, bit four co-workers, and had to be put down by police. When the people she bit started exhibiting symptoms, they too were executed, but one might have gotten away before the military’s quarantine efforts could bear fruit. After that incident, 14 more workers were unaccounted for, causing officials to suspect they too had been infected somehow.

Unfortunately for Jakarta, which now seems like ground zero of the CBI pandemic, the doctor gives a grim prognosis. There’s no cure, no vaccine for a fungal infection like this. Their best chance? To bomb the city and everyone in it. We now know those explosive containment protocols were too little too late, but it’s a chilling scene made all the more tragic because, unlike in the video games, the show dedicated plenty of time to let it play out.

The Cowboys and 49ers played in what can only be generously described as a defensive struggle on Sunday night, as neither team produced much in the way of explosive plays, but it was the Niners that were able to make fewer offensive mistakes, as Brock Purdy did just enough to help out his stellar defense in a 19-12 win to punch a ticket to the NFC title game against Philly.

The same could not be said for Dak Prescott, who, a week removed from arguably his best game as a pro, struggled mightily with just 206 yards on 23-of-37 passing with one touchdown and a pair of brutal interceptions. The final Cowboys drive served as a microcosm of their game, as poor decision-making and execution collided to send them out of the playoffs with a whimper.

The series started with Prescott almost taking a safety and then almost throwing a pick on the first play, which really set the tone for the last gasp effort at a game-winning or tying drive. From there, Dalton Schultz, who likewise starred a week ago, didn’t get out of bounds going forward, allowing the clock to wind, and then failed to get a second foot down on a catch with five seconds left that would’ve put them on the edge of Hail Mary range. At that point, the Cowboys needed a miracle, and the play Mike McCarthy and Kellen Moore dialed up was, well, certainly unique, as Ezekiel Elliott (yes, the running back) served as the center on what amounted to a 8 yard hitch route that got blown the hell up.

I have watched this a number of times and I have yet to figure out what the plan was on this. When Kavontae Turpin catches the ball, there is no one for him to pitch it to immediately. If the plan was for him to catch and throw it back to the sideline, it was a terrible thought process because there’s no time for him to do anything as he gets lit up immediately. Also adding to the hilarity is Zeke trying to block after the snap, as he gets driven straight back into Prescott, only adding to the hurried nature of the play.

There isn’t a good play to run needing a touchdown from your own 24, but I am confident in saying this is a bad play call for that situation. At least the Cowboys gave us a laugh on their way out, although the Dallas faithful probably won’t see the humor in it all just yet.

Despite a runaway win over the Bucs in the Wild Card round, one of the biggest talking points coming into the Divisional round for the Cowboys was their kicking situation. Brett Maher missed four extra points to start the game in Tampa — after missing his last extra point of the regular season — as we appeared to be watching someone get the yips in real time.

Dallas chose not to hold kicker tryouts on the short turnaround before facing the San Francisco 49ers on the road, backing Maher and hoping he could shake off the worst kicking performance in league history. All of that set the stage on Sunday night for the most anticipated first half extra point in NFL Playoff history, when Maher stepped up after a Dak Prescott to Dalton Schultz touchdown put Dallas up 6-3. Maher’s attempt didn’t get past the line of scrimmage, thumping into a lineman’s hand to make for his sixth missed extra point in his last seven tries.

What makes it even more incredible is that it sure looked like this kick was going left from the beginning anyway, as Greg Olsen points out on the broadcast that Maher was kicking from the left hash and the block came from the left side of the snapper, which indicates this was hooking wide of the uprights whether it got hit or not.

It is genuinely one of the most incredible things to watch happen to someone in real time, as it feels like a slow-motion trainwreck where the Cowboys just refuse to do anything to stop it, continuing to trot Maher out there for kick after kick. He was struggling in warmups, to the point where Jerry Jones went out there to give him a pep talk, which doesn’t appear to have fixed anything.

Jones rather famously backed Maher after the Wild Card win in Tampa, but he may be regretting that loyalty as he watches the Cowboys leave more points on the board against a much better opponent. We’ll see if Dak Prescott gets his wish to “go for f*cking two” every time from here on out.

The Buffalo Bills entered Sunday afternoon as 5.5-point favorites against the Cincinnati Bengals, as the two teams got set to battle in the snow in Orchard Park for a chance to play Kansas City for the AFC Championship.

It became quickly apparent that the Bengals were the superior team on Sunday, as they jumped out to a 14-0 lead and, while the Bills would twice trim that lead to 7 in the late second and early third quarters, they never mounted much of a challenge to Joe Burrow and Cincinnati. While the Bengals carved up the Bills secondary through the air, with Burrow completing 23-of-36 passes for 242 yards and two touchdowns, the Bills struggled to replicate that same success — particularly when it came time to push the ball down the field on key downs.

On a few occasions, Josh Allen missed open receivers, as the ball seemed to be sailing on the Bills quarterback, notably on the first third down of the game when he missed Stefon Diggs for what would’ve been a big play to answer Cincinnati’s opening drive TD. Instead, they had to punt and were down 14 when they got the ball back, and Allen just never got into rhythm, going 25-of-42 for 265 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception.

Diggs finished the game with just 35 yards on four catches, and by the end of the game, his frustration started to boil over on the sidelines. After the last real chance for Buffalo ended with Allen missing Gabe Davis on fourth down in the end zone, Diggs made his displeasure with Allen not looking his way known on the sideline, with the star QB simply tuning him out and keeping his head down on the tablet.

That frustration from Diggs was shared by Buffalo fans and backers, as it felt notable how much Allen struggled while Burrow excelled — particularly early in the game when the Bengals took control of the game after a 9-for-9 start by Burrow — in the snowy conditions that Allen typically has an advantage in. On this afternoon in western New York, it wasn’t Allen’s nor the Bills day, and this offseason will likely bring some changes as the expectation in Buffalo is now to win, and a second round exit is no longer considered progress.

Electronic pop duo Sylvan Esso may be gearing up to hit the road for their No Rules tour this summer, but before they do, they stopped by CBS’ Saturday Sessions to practice their set. The Grammy-nominated act (comprised of singer Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn) continues to find success in dance music thanks to the songs “Sunburn” and “Your Reality,” and their latest album, No Rules Sandy, cements their impact on the genre even further.

Backed by a six-piece band featuring Jenn Wasner (Flock Of Dimes and Wye Oak), drummers Joe Westerlund and TJ Maiani, and guitarist Mason Stoops, Sylvan Esso performed a melody of their songs “Didn’t Care,” “Your Reality,” and “Look At Me.”

Their performance is a wave of musical experimentation heard across their discography as Meath and Wasner sing, “I didn’t care / And I couldn’t feel it in the air / I didn’t know / When I met you how it would go,” listeners are taken on that journey.

When we talked with the pair about the writing process that went into their critically acclaimed album Free Love, Meath said, “You almost have to prove it to yourself instead of it being an intuition. You have to put into words what you’re reaching for.”

Watch their performance of “Didn’t Care” above and “Your Reality” and “Look At Me” below.