this love story will have made many tears shed [SPOILERS]

SERIES – We take a shaky breath and dry our tears. The long-awaited third episode of The Las of Us was released on the HBO platform this Monday, January 30 in the morning. If until now the series followed the game fairly faithfully, sometimes to the nearest shot, this time it allowed itself a beautiful – and heartbreaking – gap.

Last week, following the second episode, HBO, which announced the arrival of a season 2, had teased the arrival of the character of Bill. This third act focuses on him.

SPOILERS ALERT: The rest of this article reveals key elements of the plot of the episode of The Last of Us. Stop reading here if you want to keep all the surprise on viewing.

If in episode 2, the writers went off track by including the traumatic scene of the mushroom kiss between Tess and an infected man, here is a whole episode that was invented and a part of the story of The Last of Us modified.

As we continue the journey of Joel and Ellie, now about fifteen kilometers west of Boston and in the direction of Bill and Frank, we discover what life was like for them. Bill is a survivalist who has taken refuge in a bunker hidden under his house, thus avoiding the purge that his city has undergone by the army. In his ultra-protected fortress, he manages to live a more or less stable life, until a man gets caught in one of his traps: Frank.

He wanted to go to Boston and Bill, still reluctant to let a stranger into his home, offers him to share a meal before leaving. Finally, a bond is created very quickly between them and a deeper relationship is born. Frank does not leave and the episode is devoted to their love story, between life together, confrontation with dangers or even night attack by bandits.

A heartbreaking end

Twenty years pass, the couple grows old. Frank falls ill and moves in a wheelchair. He ends up asking the man he loves to help him leave. A last journey that they decide to make together by swallowing a sufficient quantity of drugs to die in their sleep.

The music On The Nature of Daylight by Max Richter rings out and a final shot of an open window, curtains waving gently in the wind, finishes us off.

(And cleverly recalls the game’s intro menu).

On Twitter, the tragic end of this postapocalyptic love has broken the hearts of many Internet users, who are visibly struggling to recover.

« Me finishing episode 3 of The Last of Us. How two old gay men can cause so much depression »

“I wasn’t scared before you arrived. »

« I just finished the third episode of The Last of Us »

« The scene of Frank and Bill’s wedding and last supper is touching. Not only because of what it means to its story, but also because the background song is On The Nature of Daylight by Max Richter. Yes, the same one that we hear at the end of the film Arrival. »

« The Last of Us didn’t have the right. »

« The Last of Us, the writers were like “Hey Joel needs a car. What if we wrote the most touching and heartbreaking moment on television in the world? »

« How I started the episode. How I finished it. »

« My shrink: are you okay? No, I just saw Bill and Frank in episode 3 of The Las of Us.»

« I shouldn’t have watched episode 3 of The Last of Us. Aaaaah Bill and Frank. »

Bill, a game and a series, but not the same fate

At the end of the episode, upon their arrival, Joel and Ellie find a note from Bill explaining their gesture. They resume their journey to find Joel’s brother, Tommy, in Wyoming, still looking for the laboratory of the Fireflies where Ellie must go.

Bill’s death is new to the game as this character helps Joel and Ellie, then leaves them later in the story. Frank, meanwhile, is well and truly dead, hanged so as not to have to undergo the horrific transformation into a cordyceps.

Only a few notes to unearth during the adventure give clues to the romantic relationship they may have had. A tiny vein that the writers wanted to exploit, with subtlety.

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