There aren't 10-foot waves in the f*cking Puget Sound
Inaccurate Seattle weather in media really gets me in a mood.
There are a lot of valid criticisms about HBO’s The Last of Us Season 2.
About how it differs from the game (though I know few details about this), about Ellie as a character, about the “pluck,” about how Dina’s hair always manages to look like that despite them being in an apocalypse.
The criticism — maybe complaint is a better descriptor — I have probably most aligns with that last shared one in that it’s a bit silly and pointless in the grand scheme of things, but drove me absolutely mad, as I’m sure Dina’s perfect blowout did for many others.
Said criticism has already been spoiled by the title of this post, but I’ll reiterate.
THERE AREN’T 10-FOOT WAVES IN THE FUCKING PUGET SOUND!
Spoilers for The Last of Us ahead.
In the Season 2 Episode 7 "Convergence,” Ellie’s headed to the Seattle Aquarium on Pier 59 where she expects to confront Abby and avenge Joel.
I’ll give the show credit here: The view they show of the pier, when Ellie makes the connection that “the wheel and the whale” clue she received in the previous episode about Abby’s location from Nora is indicating the aquarium with the ferris wheel visible behind it, is fairly accurate.
Her journey to get there, well, is much more strenuous than I think 99.9% of trips from wherever she is in the central-ish part of the city to the aquarium would be. I’m pretty sure she probably could’ve even gotten there without a boat, though I’m also recalling that there’s maybe some swampiness that has sprung up along the city’s coastline, so maybe that’s how they explain that.
Regardless — because I’m not taking the “The Apocalypse has Changed the Climate” argument, even if it probably has some merit — I THERE AREN’T 10-FOOT WAVES IN THE FUCKING PUGET SOUND.
I lived north of Seattle for the first 18 years of my life. I have seen the Puget Sound on all different types of weather days. I know that the “waves” are barely waves at all because I remember when I first saw real waves (while visiting Forks and LaPush, if you know you know) on the state’s coast, I was obsessed with them.
Still, I did my due diligence. I Googled: “Biggest recorded wave Puget Sound.” “Average height wave Puget Sound.” “Waves Puget Sound.”
Nothing to indicate waves even coming close to the monstrous one Ellie encounters that capsizes her little motor boat and then washes her ashore at… Centennial Park? Pocket Beach?… where she’s very briefly captured by the Seraphites only to escape because of the WLF’s attack on their homebase.
Here’s video proof. This is what qualified as “big waves” in the Puget Sound during a storm as of two years ago according to “Pacific Northwest Weather Watch.”
I also looked at the Coastal Waters Forecast for Washington by the National Weather Service and never saw anything above “2 ft or less” cited there.
Everything I found that even mentioned 10-foot+ waves in the sound was tied to tsunami simulations and probabilities. It would take Mt. Rainier erupting to cause the type of wave Ellie encountered, or a big earthquake — both of which, I might add, are like scientifically overdue to happen and therefore I would’ve accepted as plausible if they had happened in the TLOU universe as part of or in replacement of this big storm in Ep. 7.
I get I’m supposed to suspend disbelief. I understand it’s a dystopian fantasy show based on a video game. But there are also a hundred other more plausible obstacles Ellie could’ve faced that could’ve delayed her from reaching the aquarium.
It shouldn’t surprise me that The Last of Us didn’t pay this geographical detail mind considering the atrocity they pulled with the “10 miles west of Boston” still that was so obviously just not where they were in Season 1.
But for the last time because it bugged me: THERE AREN’T 10-FOOT WAVES IN THE FUCKING PUGET SOUND!
Rant over.
What I Leik’d: May
Movies:
Friendship (2025, dir. Andrew DeYoung)
Fight or Flight (2025, dir. James Madigan)
HARTNETTAISSANCE
Thunderbolts* (2025, dir. Jake Schreier)
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015, dir. Christopher McQuarrie) and Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018, dir. McQuarrie)
These are very self-indulgent and admittedly I probably could’ve gone on without seeing them, but also movies with real stunts and dudes being dudes inherently kind of rock?
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016, dir. Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone)
Friend who I watched this with didn’t find it to be for her. It is VERY much for me.
TV Shows:
The Studio (Apple TV+)
Overcompensating (Prime Video)
Ending up liking this a lot. Had not heard of Benito Skinner or half the other people in this who are apparently Internet famous before 2 weeks ago, but they made a very fun show. Great replacement for The Sex Lives of College Girls.
Music:
“Anyone But You” by Still Woozy
On my “life’s a romcom” playlist I just made and have been bumping a lot
Pure Heroine by Lorde (2013)
I mean, holy banger. I’m ready for Lorde Summer.
Melodrama by Lorde (2017)
Podcasts:
The Ringer-Verse
The Big Picture
The Sports Gossip Show
Also check out their Substacks, Impersonal Foul and The Wilder Things
Pablo Torre Finds Out: “The Jordon Files: An Exclusive PTFO Investigation”
Books:
Great, Big, Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
Definitely not her best. But I’d be remiss not to try and spread the EmHen gospel here. Read her other stuff.
The Rose Code by Alice Quinn