Deviating from source material in a television adaptation always comes with an amount of risk. If a change isn’t in keeping with the spirit of the original, you risk derailing your project entirely and alienating an audience of passionate fans. However, a smart adaptational change offers truly great rewards, like the chance to add more context to certain events or to further flesh out supporting characters. Such is the case with the remarkable third episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, titled “Long Long Time.”
“Long Long Time” continues to follow Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) on their journey to find the Fireflies, but the real meat of the episode is an extended flashback spanning decades. Neither Joel nor Ellie are the focus here. Instead, that honor falls to survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) and his partner Frank (Murray Bartlett). While these characters will be familiar to players of The Last of Us, their story in the show is entirely different than what we see in the game. That turns out to be a brilliant decision, one that injects hope into the show’s increasingly grim apocalypse.
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How is Bill and Frank’s story in The Last of Us different from the game?
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
When Joel and Ellie arrive in Bill’s town in The Last of Us game, they only meet up with Bill. In fact, Joel doesn’t even know who Frank is until Bill mentions that he once had “a partner.” However, he claims that in this world, caring for someone is “good for one thing. Getting ya killed. So, you know what I did? I wisened the fuck up. And I realized it’s gotta be just me.” Bill’s been on his own ever since.
We later learn than Bill and Frank had had a fallout, with Frank weary of Bill’s staunch survivalist rules and limits. He stole some of Bill’s supplies during an attempt to leave town, but before he could make it out, an infected Clicker bit him. Rather than turn into a mindless monster, Frank died by suicide. Bill, Joel, and Ellie find his body.
Joel also discovers a note Frank left for Bill that gives us a sense of how things ended between the two. “I want you to know I hated your guts,” the note reads. “I grew tired of this shitty town and your set-in-your-ways attitude. I wanted more from life than this and you could never get that…I guess you were right. Trying to leave this town will kill me. Still better than spending another day with you.” If a player chooses to give Bill the note, his response is not one of grief but of anger: “Well, fuck you too, Frank.”
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The harsh circumstances of Bill and Frank’s separation could not be farther from what we get in the show. There, a wary Bill takes Frank in, and the two fall in love, confirming and expanding a relationship that the game heavily implied. Over the next several years, Bill and Frank build a life together and befriend Joel and Tess (Anna Torv). Frank falls ill and decides to die by suicide — something he declares to Bill. After one last good day together, during which the two get married, Bill chooses to die alongside him. In a show that’s given us heartbreaking deaths via gunshot wound, explosion, and infection, this is a moment of relative peace.
Why does Bill and Frank’s love story work so well?
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
The success of “Long Long Time” is in part due to how The Last of Us embraces its new televised medium. The game could not give us the kinds of varied flashbacks we’ve seen in the show so far, like the television interview warning about the threat of Cordyceps or the Indonesian mycologist realizing the severity of the outbreak. With Bill and Frank, The Last of Us takes a chance to expand on an in-game relationship that we never saw play out. What we get is new, but it still feels true to the world and the spirit of The Last of Us — and that includes Bill and Frank’s altered fates.
Up until now, The Last of Us has presented a consistently horrifying reality. Between the hordes of Clickers, the threat of disease, and the fascist rule of FEDRA, how is anyone supposed to lead a fulfilling life?
“Long Long Time” offers a respite from the horror, telling the audience that it is possible for hope to exist in this world. Bill and Frank managed to thrive together, eating gourmet home-cooked meals and painting works of art. Sure, they have moments of conflict, but their fights are more about whether they can have friends over and less about the best way to, say, kill the infected. Overall, their life is proof that humans can still make a life in seemingly unlivable conditions — a hopeful message echoed in HBO’s sublime Station Eleven, where survivors of a global pandemic form communities, create art, and build lives beyond simply trying to fight the apocalypse.
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The hopefulness even extends to Bill and Frank’s joint death. The scene could read like a new addition to the “bury your gays” canon, but it’s complicated by the fact that these two grew old together and lived happy lives, even at the end of the world. As Bill tells Frank: “This isn’t the tragic suicide at the end of the play. I’m old. I’m satisfied. You were my purpose.”
None of the beauty of Bill and Frank’s time together would have been possible had The Last of Us adhered strictly to what we see of Bill and Frank in-game. There, the two are ripped apart by differences and by the stress of the apocalypse. Their split is embittered and hostile. If we had seen that in the show, it would have quashed any hopes the rest of the episode might have raised. Instead, we are offered a world where, when Frank says, “I wanted more from life than this,” Bill listens. And that is a wonderful thing.
How does Bill and Frank’s changed storyline affect Joel and Ellie?
Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Supplies and a car aren’t the only things Joel gets from Bill and Frank’s in the show. He and Ellie also find a letter from Bill — one that is much more positive than Frank’s in-game letter. Here, Bill tells Joel what happened and offers him an important new perspective on how to more forward.
“I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died,” Bill writes in his letter. “But I was wrong. Because there was one person worth saving. That’s what I did: I saved him. And I protected him. That’s why men like you and me are here: We have a job to do. And God help any motherfuckers who stand in our way.”
When Bill wrote this letter, he assumed that Joel’s “one person” is Tess. But now that Tess is gone, the letter reads more like a directive to Joel. Find your new person. Protect them. And with Ellie being Joel’s sole traveling companion, the show’s message is clear: Ellie is Joel’s person. It’s a moving way to close out an episode that started with Joel not even wanting to speak to Ellie in the first place.
“Long Long Time” feels like a promise, one that hope, love, and beauty are still possible after the world comes crashing down. But it’s also a narrative promise: Just as Frank was Bill’s purpose, so too will Ellie become Joel’s. After all, both pairs’ relationships started from places of tension — Frank falling into one of Bill’s traps, Joel throwing an attacking Ellie against a wall. But as The Last of Us has shown, it’s possible for deep human connection to grow from even the most unlikely places…And that’s what we should expect from Ellie and Joel in the coming weeks.
The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes air every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
