HBO’s third episode last survivor brought Bill and Frank to the forefront, but also made some big changes along the way.
If you haven’t had time to check out the third episode, don’t read this as it contains some major spoilers.
So far, there haven’t been any huge differences between The Last Of Us show and The Last of Us games. The first episode had us spend more time with Sarah, and Tess’s death was slightly different, but one of the biggest changes was always Bill and Frank. This is mostly because Frank wasn’t even a character in the original game, and their relationship was mostly implied. However, Frank was fully fleshed out on the HBO show, and his and Bill’s stories ended very differently, and the show’s creators explained why in an interview with IGN.
In the game, all Bill and Frank are described as “partners”, after a while Frank apparently leaves to find a better place. Unfortunately, Bill, he, Joel, and Ellie later find out that Frank committed suicide because he was infected. It’s obviously a rather sad state of affairs, but the show manages to kick it up a notch. The show doesn’t mince words about the two being in love, even though Frank eventually dies.
The difference is that on the show, Frank is terminally ill, so decides to end his life and walk out on his own terms, not through his illness. He asks Bill to give him a drink laced with sleeping pills, which he does for Frank and himself, but apparently Bill doesn’t end up taking his own life.
“Craig brings up a really interesting point when we talk about this part of the season, which is that … there are a lot of examples of things not going well for people, and usually those are Joe It’s a reflection and a cautionary tale of ‘here’s what you have to lose,'” Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann explained of the change. “Yeah, what if we show them you can win?
“But in a way, it’s still a warning sign for Joel, especially in [Episode 2]. In the TV show, we can keep the perspective of the protagonist, while in the game, we are very stick to pure Joel or pure Ellie. Here, we get to see what happened to Bill during the outbreak. Then meeting Frank, falling in love with Frank, what it’s like to grow old with Frank, and then the full cycle of love, living with someone, experiencing loss, but the loss is tinged with the bliss of living a full life with love. ”
Craig Mazin, the show’s co-creator, said he believed it was a “happy ending,” saying: “I think we tend to think of death as failure, especially when you’re talking about playing video games. It’s literally Fail. For our show so far, there have been some brutal moments where Joel has failed, or at least thought he failed: He failed his daughter, he failed Tess, and he had a relationship at the beginning of the episode with The ending definitely felt that weight.”
If you’re curious to check out the show but can’t stream it anywhere, the first episode is currently available for free on YouTube, which is handy.
