Fridge / Left 4 Dead 2

Fridge Brilliance

• There are only two scripted non-finale bosses in any official campaign; the Bride witch in the first chapter of The Passing and the Marine tank in the first chapter of The Sacrifice. This was yet another way Valve tied these two campaigns together thematically!
• The Dark Carnival finale. It was weird that the background music had lyrics, except that's the whole point of the set-up. The Midnight Riders have been lip-syncing their performances!
  • Nick points this out in-game.
• The Midnight Rider's website mentions their latest album can't be found in stores because their record producer decided they weren't profitable enough to make copies. The Peach Pit in Whispering Oaks is not a massive stadium, nor is it solely devoted to their performance. In addition, The Passing shows that they were set up to play a small club that could hold maybe 50 people. Playing the fairground and club circuits is usually reserved for little-known indie bands and for nostalgia acts like the Riders who can't fill arenas and amphitheaters. The Riders were popular in the 1980s, but have since fallen on harder times and now tour almost exclusively in the Southern United States. Coach suggests as much when he says he has all their albums, "even their new stuff that ain't no good".
• So the theme of The Passing is that no one survives forever? Well, the Uncommon Infected for this level is called the Fallen Survivor. Think it fits the theme?
• The old, dummied-out Fallen Survivor attacks survivors and burns ferociously if shot? Seems pretty badass. The newly-restored Fallen Survivor? Runs away like a wimp. It could be a nerf... unless the fallen dude is resisting the infection and won't fight back. Gameplay-wise the point is to lure players after it and split off from the group.
  • Goes into double the Fridge Territory if you read The Sacrifice Comic. Infected think they're normal and we're the ones infected. Early infectees thus attack in groups, thinking they're the ones killing zombies. Now the Fallen Survivor isnt an early infectee, he's been fighting the infected this entire time. Turning infected, he is suddenly free, everyone has turned back to normal. But wait, there are four new infected, ones he never saw before. While all of the other "normal" people charge at them, the "infected" are shooting and killing them! If the Fallen Survivor fought Special Infected in his previous life, he'll definitely know how dangerous special infected are, which is exactly what we appear to be, brandishing molotovs and guns. No wonder he runs, after all you'd run the minute you hear a tank no?
  • So maybe you playing as the survivors are zombies. Seeing as how Infected are delusional and see generally false images, it could be that the survivors see more zombies than there really are and that maybe, there not just attacking them (The survivors) but each other, (The zombies). Why they see other "Non-infected" may have something to do with there blood type. But what about the special infected? Those could just be simulating feeling. For instance, hunters rip your guts out; could be getting shot by a survivor, a tank punches you and throws rocks; an explosion with alot of debris, and a smoker pulling you towards it only to get beaten at close range; a survivor with a gun making noise attracting zombies. Some of these things (The illusions) should kill you immediately, yet don't. And other than the comic, there is little evidence of you the survivor needing to eat.
  • Ever wonder why Fallen Survivors have higher HP than other common infected? They're wearing Body Armor.
• Why don't the construction zombies in Hard Rain go after the pipe bombs? It seems like a Non Sequitur until you realise the zombies are construction workers, they're wearing ear protection. They can't hear the pipe bombs. Borders on Late to the Punchline for some. For some reason, they're still aren't attracted to boomer bile thrown by a player but will go after the stuff puked onto a player.
  • The devs mentioned that was due to the pipes and bile bombs using the same programming, meaning one ignores both or neither, and yes it was an oversight.
  • Maybe they had nose plugs for some reason?
    • It's possible. Hard Rain takes place in a sugar processing plant, and from what I've heard, sugar processing plants do not smell so sweet.
  • Considering the construction equipment and the open street, pipes, etc., in The Passing, reminiscent of a sewer pipeline being worked on, that theory doesn't strike me as too unlikely, actually.
• There's a sequel because all good horror movies have sequels, with little or no resemblance to the original, complete with callbacks to the original.
• During the trailer for The Passing, Francis and Rochelle begin hating on the bridge. Rochelle is playing into a gag, but Francis actually has a legitimate reason to hate it; "We lost a good man getting this bridge up..."
• A moment of Fridge Brilliance had while playing Left 4 Dead 2, but that applies to nearly all zombie games (and movies). There are no children seen in the zombie apocalypse, and there's often no explanation as to why. Think about it though. Zombies eat human flesh, zombie adults have, for a long time in fiction now, move faster than a child could conceivably run. Add to that the fact that children would be more likely to curl into a frightened ball at the sight of zombies, and suddenly we know exactly where all the children have gone.
  • Not quite. Left 4 Dead zombies are not "zombies" so much as humans infected with a virus that enrages them, not unlike rabies. If you notice, they don't bite or try to eat the survivors, they mainly just take swings at them while they're standing and kick them while they're down. If anything, the children probably can't survive the virus, they got beaten to death by infected adults, or they surely would be infected and trying to kill the survivors too. Though this is probably just a design decision on Valve's part to keep their game being rated AO. You know, because killing children would be hard. After all, they're below your normal firing line.
  • Children died from the infection. If you ever get a chance, stay around normal infected without alerting them. They will act like they are violently ill, start vomiting bile and blood, and eventually lay down and die. Perhaps the infection was too much for children's bodies to handle and they died first. Which would also explain why we don't have any pets running around trying to bite you.
    • Kids usually have stronger immune systems than adults, making it more likely for them to survive. Let's just go with the idea that the zombies outpace kids, and/or the fact that kids often have trouble taking care of themselves in a normal world, much less one with zombies. As for the pets; they fled, are outright killed by the virus, or zombies ate 'em.
    • There is a very, very, very hard to find easter egg in The Sacrifice level, but as you are passing through one of the buildings with graffiti (possibly the auto parts place), you can actually see a childish drawing on a wall of all the Special Infected eating a man. The reason it's so hard to find is because it's underneath a table you get ammo and weapons from. The name's nearly impossible to read without a camera mod, but it's tagged/signed with "Age 7". So... there was a child who survived the infection somewhere and who saw zombies. The child's room with toys and empty crib in the Daughtry farm could be explained away that the family was evacuated. But on that note, in the big house that Virgil rescues you from in the sequel, there's at least 3 teddy bears in an alcove, seemingly abandoned...
  • One of the myriad health scares in real life for swine flu had a radio report claiming that it turned the body's immune system against itself, so those with strong immune systems were at more risk- given how screwed up Green Flu already is, they could easily toss this trait in as a way of killing off all the kids.
  • What about this; the infected think they're healthy, and that we're the infected. We rock up and start killing all their buddies. What would be your first reaction if you saw some diseased monsters killing all your friends? The chances are that you'd want to protect your kids. So maybe that's just what they're doing? After all, we only really see those fighting. So in fact they're bravely sacrificing themselves in a desperate attempt to protect their children. Perhaps those less capable of fighting are herding the children to safety, whilst the super-hero like special infected fight with no regard for their own lives? Or perhaps the children are hiding in locked cellars, waiting for the sounds of gunshots to go and praying that their parents will come back...
    • That's the exact same twist as the ending of I Am Legend.
  • From a gameplay perspective- this is just an excuse to exercise Improbable Infant Survival and ensure that no players go trigger happy on children.
• When the survivors of the original game were saved by anybody, it went horribly wrong almost immediately, and even for the second game the helicopter rescue goes badly as well. So why is it Virgil stays with the group not only to get them to the next campaign, but even after that? Because he's a carrier as well, and more likely than not he's the one who infected his wife.
  • Gotta wonder if the man has any kids... After all, immunity is passed down the father's side.
• In Left 4 Dead 2, the use of the song "The Saints Will Never Come," which is a version of "The Saints Go Marching In" and can be found in the jukeboxes and in the campaign The Parish, is just brilliant. "The Saints Go Marching In" is often used as a traditional funeral march in New Orleans. This isn't Soundtrack Dissonance. It may seem upbeat, but Valve is basically saying "you are on your way to the graveyard" whenever that song plays.
  • The song "re: your brains" will cause a small horde during the chorus("all we wanna do is eat your brains")
• The reason Zoey and Ellis hit it off is that they have approximately the same view about the zombie apocalypse.
• During the intense rainstorm in the Hard Rain campaign, the volume of the voice chat is reduced, making it extremely difficult to hear everyone and requiring you to shout to even be heard unless you're indoors. Just like talking to someone outside during a hurricane, no?
• When on the bridge on The Parish campaign, the person you radio may ask you "Are you Tango Mikes?" In military phonetic alphabet, the letters are TM, the letters of the nickname Typhoid Mary. For those who don't know their history, Typhoid Mary was the nickname of Mary Mallon, an Irish-born cook who infected 53 people with typhoid fever due to being an asymptomatic carrier of the disease (meaning that a carrier wouldn't have symptoms and could infect others)... who repeatedly refused to go into quarantine and kept escaping official attempts to keep her isolated, returning to her occupation of as a chef. Since the military are keeping an eye out for carriers, they've nicknamed them Tango Mikes as another way of calling carriers Typhoid Marys.

Fridge Horror

• In Left 4 Dead 2, the characters have to kill horribly mutated zombies. Now, Ellis lived in the same area around The Dead Center campaign. This would mean that he was forced to kill his neighbors, friends, and family that he knew and loved. However, unlike the other three survivors, Ellis seems the most positive and... almost happy. Think about that for a second.
  • Except that one of the possible lines Ellis can say upon seeing the zombies for the first time states that he actually doesn't recognize any of the zombies they're killing.
  Ellis: "These don't look like no Savannahites I ever seen."
  • Thus, this implies a couple of possible explanations:
    • A: Most every person who actually lived in and around Savannah was able to get evacuated before the events of Dead Center. Even Keith was stated to be on the first chopper out. Ellis just decided to stay because he figured he could hold out, suggested by the fact that he apparently tried to zombie-proof his truck (which obviously failed in the end). The zombies that are left in Savannah were non-natives that came to Savannah to be evacuated, but got infected instead.
    • B: Any Savannahites that didn't make it out have become so horribly mutated by the infection (in addition to the disfiguring wounds they sustain from various sources) that they aren't even recognizable by those who knew them, at least in the fast paced action of combat.
• With the revelation that being immune still means you spread the infection, it's possible that when you give Whitaker the cola, you're actually dooming him. This assumes, of course, that Whitaker wasn't a carrier in the first place.
• Like all survival horror games you tend to run into this a lot. In Crash Course, you find the torso of a man in a truck depot with several truck trailers nearby. Going further up you see a trailer that looks like it was bashed in, and inside you find... the lower half of a human with entrails leading outside...
  • The Sacrifice Campaign is ripe with this. In the first level, you find a Tank, apparently chained and beaten inside a reinforced train car. He also has an Army Marine Tattoo. The Train also held military equipment. Remember, this Tank was captured, not killed, and was being transported in a military train, with weapons. To say nothing less of what happened to the bloody mess that is the remains of whoever was in the car with him. In the second level, you will find a half-sunk fishing boat identical to the one used by the people who rescued you in Death Toll. Granted, it's most likely because the designers didn't want to create an entirely new boat just so it could be used as a half-sunk prop.
• In the Sacrifice Comic, you see the world through the freshly-infected Lt. Mora's eyes. Humans appear as daemonic entities and monsters to him. That's what the Infected sees. Now think back, you've been running around blowing their brains out and killing them with wild abandon. Who's the monster now?
  • The Fallen Survivor runs away from you instead of running up and attacking. Since humans now appear to be infected to the actual Infected, this means that all of them thinks you are the zombies and are actively trying to save themselves. This may mean that only their perception of the outside world is altered by the virus, not their morality of right and wrong. Think about that again as you're holding that shotgun...
  • However, it's quite possible that the virus might reduce the infected's mind into that of a ravaging beast, which runs on animal instincts, that attacks anything non-infected. Otherwise, the special infected would be thinking themselves as superheroes saving the world from the survivor menace. Which seems to be confirmed by the fact that Mora believes whatever Francis tells him (for example, that everything is Louis' fault) without questioning his claims in the least or considering that he may be lying.
• An in-game example is during the Swamp Fever campaign when Ellis and Rochelle have a little conversation.
  Ellis: If you ask me, these swamp people have it all figured out. No cops, no rules...
  Rochelle: No indoor plumbing.
  Ellis: They figured out how to stop going to the bathroom? That's AMAZING. Ohhhhh. No, wait. Oh, I just got that. Shit, that's gross as hell.
• After all they went through, getting tossed into a military prison for being carriers and barely escaping with their lives, the Left 4 Dead survivors still send Ellis, Rochelle, Coach, and Nick on their merry way to the exact same fate with the closest thing to a warning being "We're through with the military."
  • That's not really Fridge Horror. They were trying to get the Jimmy Gibbs Jr. Stock Car; the originals probably didn't know that eventually they would find a highway crowded with cars. Besides, the new survivors state that they want to get to New Orleans; there probably aren't any military evacs that take them to New Orleans, so the originals probably knew they wouldn't have any military run-ins until they reached the ruined New Orleans.
  • ...And then what? What did the originals expect them to find? Either death by Infected or death by Military. There was no reason for them to not take them with them to the Florida Keys.
• Right before he leaves you in the last level, Virgil mentions that he is heading back to pick up more survivors. At the end of the campaign the army destroys the only bridge leading out of the city as they continue blowing it to hell, meaning that, even if he and any other survivors make it back alive, all they will have to greet them is a ruined, bombed city with no escape from the remaining hordes of infected.
• At the end of each level, you finish in a safe house stocked with ammunition, weapons and first-aid kits. As the next level begins, in almost every level, the door is barricaded with miscellaneous objects to keep the infected from coming in. Try to imagine being a survivor, opening a door to what is supposed to be a safe-room, only to find it blocked with heavy debris and all the first-aid kits missing.
  • In the Hard Rain Campaign, one such safe room is barricaded this way. However it is blown open by the hurricane in the subsequent level, and the survivors could have made it over the fence even if it hadn't opened up. In most other cases, there isn't even a way around the barricade...
  • The game hinted that the band of survivors are the last left in the city, for whatever reason were left behind. The Closet mechanism is meant to simulate the survivors finding new folks without having to actually generate them or unbalance the gameplay. Anyone else left, such as Whitaker, chose to stay of their own accord.
• A lot of the saferooms had mattresses, pillows, cooking implements and often crates upon crates of food supplies. It's hinted that these weren't just checkpoints; their occupants had attempted to hold out in them. Think about that for a second as you realize there are no-one inside, and no bodies...
  • Most likely, this is because the other survivors would do exactly what the players would: perhaps spend the night, make some food, go about their business etc., then scavenge or move on when supplies were running low and/or it became obvious they would not be rescued if they remained hidden.
    • This also explains why some of the safe rooms doors are often found open when you reach them at the end of the level: the survivor(s) that were in them left them, maybe to attempt an escape or to salvage for supplies. If the latter is the case, there's a good chance that they didn't make it back alive and that is why the door is hanging open.
• In the first chapter of The Passing the survivors stumble into a wedding where all the guests were infected and turned while still dressed in their formalwear. Even the bride was infected, becoming a Witch crying alone at the alter. Sure, one of the many well-dressed men could easily be the would-be groom, but the fact that the Witch is alone up there leads me to believe that he never showed up. Not only did the supposed love of her life leave her when they were supposed to get married, the wedding was also overrun by infected. That bride really didn't have a good last day of life.
  • It's also possible that the groom didn't make it to the wedding because he got infected. You decide which is the more awful possibility.
• A small bit of Fridge Horror about the Worker Infected. Considering that their ear protectors are the reason why they don't react to the pipe bombs, it's not hard to see how they got infected. They couldn't hear the hordes coming until it was too late.
• The military wants the original survivors dead so they can not spread the virus farther, right? And the original survivors go to the Keys to stay isolated from the military. What about the survivors in the sequel!? They left with the military at the end of the Parish... the same military that ordinarily tries to kill survivors. It is made worse when the original survivors in the passing DO NOT WARN THE OTHERS! Probably means bad things for the sequel's survivors.
  • A lot of what the military seems to do is isolating the carriers, the problem is that they're given a second class citizen approach when it comes to being rescued, causing many to try and escape. Beside all that, if it helps just think of it from the idea that the guy on the other end of the radio obviously knows for a fact they're carriers, but tells them where to go to get to the chopper, and even tells it to wait for them. If he or his superiors wanted the survivors to die, all they'd have to do is ignore the call for help.
  • After reading the comic, it's obvious that the boat they had would not have had enough food and other supplies to sustain all of them. Zoey would have likely let the other survivors go to save herself, Louis and Francis, fulfilling Bill's last wish. Which is probably why she is sad when Ellis refused her offer: she knew she had to sacrificed them, but with Bill gone she could save one, but only one, and she chose Ellis who refused. Makes her final line in the comics much more dark: "We look out for our own".
    • Maybe the originals just didn't want to run the risk of infecting the new guys.