‘The Last of Us’ Episode 3 deviates from the game, makes the story better

Image via HBO

Warning: The following article contains massive spoilers for ‘The last of us’ Episode three, Long Long Time, and the original video game.

During HBO The last of us While it’s certainly made a few deviations from the video game in its run so far, it’s arguable that it’s mostly stayed true to the source material.

This week, said allegiance was more or less thrown out the window by deciding to divert the narrative from the show’s leads, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, and instead gave us a solid hour with Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett).

Not only did Bill and Frank not have nearly as much focus on the game, their love story was completely rewritten and we think it had a spectacular effect.

If you’re unfamiliar with Bill and Frank’s arc in-game, we’ll keep it short and sweet. Frank doesn’t even appear on screen in the game. Well, in a way he does, but we’ll get to that in a moment. The game version of TV’s latest favorite couple eventually had a serious argument that led to them breaking up and moving to opposite ends of the city of Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Joel and Ellie show up in town with a similar goal of acquiring a vehicle and find Bill alive and well. He helps them with their project and takes them to Frank’s district. However, the group discovers Frank’s hanging body, who chose to end his life after being bitten by one of the walkers. The icing on the cake? Frank left a suicide note describing his hatred for Frank. We know what you’re thinking – BOO! We like the TV version better.

While Bill and Frank’s in-game story was tragic in itself, it didn’t hit quite as hard. In the live-action adaptation, we saw a couple who found each other under the most adverse of circumstances and lived a long and happy life together. Of course with this being The last of us and all in all, it stayed true in the sense that it didn’t hesitate to break our hearts and have them commit a double suicide after a neurodegenerative disease ruined Frank’s quality of life.

Well THAT is a Bill we can really cry for, not a guy who couldn’t keep his relationship together and ended up moving his partner away to fend for himself and eventually getting killed. Well done HBO – keep it up. Just don’t make bad changes. just right?

If you can recover from the emotional damage of Long Long Time, The last of us will be back next Sunday with a new episode.