🚫WARNING! THERE BE SPOILERS, MATEY!!🚫
It seems that the Last of Us has further gone into dark territory and episode 3 is by no means an exception.
This episode begins with Joel and his ever-precocious traveling companion Ellie making their trek in search of his brother, but first, they must make a pit stop. As they stumble through what is seen as an open mass grave, which the United States government are responsible for in a drastic measure to contain the spread, Joel recants events that began in 2003, which the story shifts to Bill, a Survivalist who hates people and believes that the Government is all Nazis. Well, after that mass grave scene, one may be compelled to agree with him.
Bill lives a solitary lifestyle thanks to his survival skills: farming and especially engineering where he creates makeshift weapons and boobytraps around his house, until he reluctantly takes in a weary stranger Frank, who later on makes advances toward Bill's vulnerability y'know, being alone and devoid of companionship. Right away, I joked to myself, " shades of The Last of Brokeback Mountain." 🙄
Now, I don’t recall Bill's appearance, who was in the game, since it's been nearly ten years when first and last played The Last of Us, on my PS4. Aside from Ellie, I was not aware of Bill's sexual preference and maybe it's one of those moments, that I didn't see coming. Also, it seems that Nick Offerman is very comfortable playing LGBTQ roles as witnessed in previous films. Bill and Frank's story as a couple is detailed through flash forward sequences with Offerman channeling a Ralph Kranden (The Honeymooners) persona, within the earlier scenes, while Frank is this flippant extrovert. The funny thing is how much the actor who plays "Frank" looks very identical to the Joel we know, from the videogame counterpart. While I'm glad to see Pedro Pascal as the series' main protagonist, if you want to really match the aesthetics from the source material, you can do no wrong by casting Murray Bartlett.
As the years go by, the narrative takes a tragic turn of events, where Bill and Frank are up against home invaders, followed by Frank's health declining from the worst disease known to man, and no I'm not talking about the cordyceps or fungus, it's the big "C!" Frank gives Bill a few demands, one being that he marries him, and the other euthanasia by drinking wine laced with pills.
Bill complies with Frank’s demands and takes it one step further, by forming a suicide pact as Frank gave him a reason to live and changed his entire outlook on life, during this apocalypse. Joel and Ellie arrive at the compound and discovers a note left from Bill that tells him where the weapons are stashed, and to use them to protect Tess, which Joel has failed to do from last episode. This sobering episode reminds us that, although it's a tale of fiction, there are real monsters in this world that affect us all. Overall, it was another great episode. In a sad case of irony, actress Annie Wersching, who served as the voice and performance-capture for Tess in the Last of Us video game, had passed away due to complications from Cancer. Rest in Peace.
