Though the first two episodes of HBO’s adaptation of “The Last of Us” video game were quite faithful to its source material, bar the odd small change such as the cold opens, the show’s third episode offers the TV series’ biggest departure from the games to date.
The result is likely to be held up as one of the finest hours of television to air this year as the Bill’s Camp game level gets reimagined into a quiet character study going into the backstory of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett).
The 75-minute episode offers a touching and intimate portrait of the nearly twenty-year romance between the men, and a strong reimagining of the characters. Written by Mazin and directed by Peter Hoar (“It’s a Sin”), the episode has been receiving universal praise from critics across the board.
One interesting moment is the final shot of the episode – a shot of a half-open window overlooking Bill’s driveway, as Joel and Ellie drive away. The shot not only offers a bittersweet end to Bill & Frank’s single episode storyline, but Hoar confirms to Inverse it was designed in part to honor the title screen of the original game’s menu:
“Two things were going on with that shot. When you play the original game there was a menu screen, and it was a window with a breeze. That’s where you select ‘play game’ or whatever. There was this discussion with Craig [Mazin] where that might be something that we try and emulate. We would put it at the beginning of every episode.
Once he described it to me, I thought it was gonna be at the beginning of the episode. And I thought it doesn’t work at the beginning of my episode, because they’re out and about now, they aren’t near a window. But at the end of the episode, we are there.
Obviously, we see Joel and Ellie disappear off into the sunset. But I wanted a last moment with Bill and Frank, and I didn’t know how else to do it. But if we pull back through their window, see the flowers that have died, which is also heartbreaking, and one of Frank’s pictures on the wall. I just thought that was our last moment. We’re actually coming back into the world of Frank and Bill for that one last shot because I didn’t want to go.”
A making-of-episode featurette about the third episode has been released, as has the trailer for the upcoming fourth episode of the season, which adapts the Pittsburgh level and should be one of the heaviest action-centric parts of the game.
