*There are major spoilers in this review from this episode. If you have not seen it yet, please read with caution*
I hope you had tissues ready to go for this week’s episode of The Last of Us because they really brought it. This episode mainly focused on Bill and Frank, a backstory that was not given much time in the game. Given how original and unique the storytelling was, I think this is the best episode of the show so far.
This episode goes back in time to when the outbreak began, and we see good ol’ Bill, a hardline survivalist, getting ready for the apocalypse. In the game, Bill acts exactly like Nick Offerman in the beginning of the episode. He is a paranoid person who trusts no one and will do anything to survive. But, they deviate from the game with Frank’s arrival.
Frank is only shown in the game in the present day, hanging from the ceiling while Joel and Bill get in an argument. Bill just cuts him down from the ceiling and that is the end of the game’s story of Frank and Bill. But for TV, I thought it was genius for them to build further on the relationship of Bill and Frank because the essence of this story is about relationships.
I loved that they chose this to be the episode to change the pace of the show. Even though it mainly focused on Bill and Frank’s love story, we also got to see the world expand. This was the first time we actually saw raiders, which will become extremely important to the story soon.
And, we see how important Bill and Frank were to Joel. In this world, you can only trust a few people, and Joel’s circle is closing every single day. Joel clearly has some disdain toward Ellie about this especially after what happened to Tess.
All in all, this episode is one of the best I have ever seen on television. The amount of heart and emotional connection we saw so quickly was mind blowing. I did not know I could get in my feels this much at 5:30 PM on Monday night from two single-episode characters.
This is by far the best original addition to the show. If you don’t like it because they killed Bill, then grow the fuck up and just enjoy two guys having the best love story you’ll see on TV.
Score: 96/100 – Inferno
