I’ll be honest – I wasn’t expecting to get completely wrecked by an episode of The Last of Us that barely featured the main characters. But here we are, and I’m still thinking about “Long, Long Time” weeks later. You know how sometimes a piece of media just catches you off guard and reminds you why storytelling matters? Yeah, that’s what happened here.
The thing about being in my late forties is you’ve seen a lot of TV shows come and go. You develop this protective cynicism, especially when it comes to adaptations of games you actually care about. The Last of Us game meant something to me when I played it back in 2013 – not just as a zombie survival story, but as this meditation on what makes us human when everything falls apart. So when HBO announced they were doing a series, I had the usual skeptical optimism that comes with being a longtime gamer who’s watched too many terrible video game movies.
Episode 3 though… man. Peter Hoar directed something special here, and Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett delivered performances that reminded me why I fell in love with character-driven storytelling in the first place. The episode basically says “forget Joel and Ellie for an hour, we’re going to tell you about these two guys you barely know” and somehow makes it work perfectly.
Bill’s introduction immediately grabbed me because he’s such a familiar archetype done right. Here’s this gruff survivalist who’s turned an entire abandoned town into his personal fortress, complete with traps and defenses that would make Kevin McCallister proud. Offerman plays him with this perfect balance of competence and paranoia – you believe this guy could survive twenty years alone, but you also see the toll it’s taken on him. When Frank stumbles into one of his traps, Bill’s whole worldview gets challenged by this one optimistic guy who sees beauty where Bill only sees danger.
What really got to me was watching their relationship develop over the years through these perfectly chosen moments. Frank finding that old piano and coaxing Bill into letting him play it – that scene alone was worth the price of admission, so to speak. There’s something about music surviving the apocalypse that always hits different. Maybe it’s because I’m old enough to remember when you had to really work to hear your favorite songs, when music felt more precious because it wasn’t just streaming everywhere all the time.
The way the episode handles their growing bond feels so natural and lived-in. They’re not just surviving together, they’re building something. The garden Frank tends, the way they establish routines, how they slowly turn this fortified compound into an actual home – it reminded me of playing house as a kid, except the stakes are literally life and death. Frank’s enthusiasm for creating beauty and normalcy gradually softens Bill’s hard edges, and you see this incredibly guarded man learn to trust and love again.
Their encounter with Joel and Tess adds this great layer to the world-building too. Suddenly you realize there’s this whole network of survivors who’ve figured out how to coexist and trade despite everything being dangerous and terrible. Pedro Pascal and Anna Torv only get a few scenes, but they establish this history and mutual respect that pays off later. It’s the kind of efficient storytelling that comes from really understanding your characters and world.
But then Frank gets sick, and the episode shifts into this completely different emotional register. Murray Bartlett’s performance here just destroyed me. He’s playing a man facing his mortality while trying to maintain his dignity and protect the person he loves from having to watch him deteriorate. The practical realities of caring for someone who’s dying in a world without proper medical care, the way it affects both of them – the show doesn’t shy away from how brutal and unfair it all is.
The decision they make at the end… look, I’m not going to pretend this wasn’t controversial. Some people thought it was too heavy, too final, too much. But having watched my own parents age and struggle with health issues, having had those conversations about quality of life and dignity – the episode earned that moment. Bill and Frank choosing to face the end together, on their own terms, felt like the most loving thing they could do for each other. It’s tragic and beautiful and completely in character for both of them.
What really impressed me is how the show trusted its audience to handle this story. There’s no melodrama, no speeches explaining why we should care about these characters. The episode just shows you their lives and lets you feel whatever you’re going to feel about it. That’s increasingly rare in modern television, where everything has to be explained and justified and focus-grouped to death.
The representation aspect matters too, though I don’t want to make it the only thing worth discussing. Seeing an LGBTQ+ relationship portrayed with this much care and authenticity, without making it feel like a Very Special Episode or trauma porn, felt significant. These are just two people who found each other and built a life together. The fact that they’re both men is part of who they are, but it’s not the point of the story – the point is the love and partnership they create.
When Joel and Ellie finally show up at Bill and Frank’s place, finding them gone but discovering that letter Bill left – that hit different than I expected it to. Pedro Pascal’s reaction as Joel reads those words about protecting what matters most, you can see it changing something in him regarding Ellie. The episode functions as this perfect catalyst for Joel’s character development without feeling forced or manipulative about it.
The whole thing reminded me why I love science fiction and horror as genres for exploring human nature. Strip away all the comfortable assumptions about how society works, put people under extreme pressure, and you get to see who they really are. Bill and Frank’s story could have been maudlin or exploitative in the wrong hands, but instead it becomes this meditation on what makes life worth living when the world has ended.
I keep thinking about that piano scene though. Frank playing “The Long and Winding Road” while Bill just sits there listening, slowly letting his guard down. There’s something about that moment that captures everything the episode is trying to say about connection and beauty and finding meaning in impossible circumstances. Music as this bridge between who we were before everything went wrong and who we might still be able to become.
The episode also made me appreciate how the show is handling its source material. The game had Bill as this bitter, paranoid character who you only glimpsed briefly. The TV series takes that foundation and builds something much richer and more emotionally resonant. It’s adaptation done right – respecting what worked about the original while finding new ways to explore the themes and world.
As someone who’s been gaming since the Reagan administration, I’ve watched a lot of attempts to translate interactive media into passive viewing experiences. Most of them fail because they focus on plot mechanics instead of understanding what made the original material emotionally compelling. The Last of Us show gets that the zombies and action sequences are just the framework for examining how people maintain their humanity under impossible circumstances.
“Long, Long Time” stands as proof that you can take a detour from your main narrative to explore secondary characters and actually strengthen your overall story in the process. Bill and Frank’s relationship gives weight and meaning to Joel’s growing protectiveness toward Ellie. Their example of choosing love over fear becomes this template for what survival might look like if you’re brave enough to let someone else matter to you.
The episode left me thinking about all the relationships that don’t get dramatic storylines but matter just as much to the people living them. All the quiet partnerships and daily kindnesses that keep civilization functioning even when everything seems to be falling apart. Maybe that’s what good storytelling does – makes you see the extraordinary in what looks ordinary, makes you care about people you’ll never meet, reminds you that every life contains multitudes worth celebrating.
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