The latest episode of HBO’s The Last of Us was an epic love saga that spanned decades following the cordyceps fungal outbreak that led to the downfall of humanity. Over the course of a whopping 70 minutes, viewers were introduced to the reclusive survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) and his partner Frank (Murray Bartlett). By the end of the episode, we saw the tragically beautiful capstone to their tale.
“Long, Long Time” marked the biggest deviations yet that The Last of Us has made from the video game on which it’s based. In many ways, this episode watches like an alternate history, imagining a very different life for Bill and his partner than they led in Naughty Dog’s beloved game. Whether you’ve never played it or it’s just been a while, if you’re wondering how Bill and Frank’s story was different in The Last of Us PlayStation game, we’ve got you covered.
There will be SPOILERS below for Episode 3 of The Last of Us as well as the related section of The Last of Us video game below.
How were Bill and Frank different in The Last of Us video game?
If you’re just coming off watching The Last of Us Episode 3, no doubt you have a lot of feelings swirling around. This was easily the most emotional episode of the series yet. We saw Bill meet his partner Frank, watched the ups and downs of their relationship, and finally watched them end their lives together decades later.
In the original video game, 2013’s The Last of Us, things went down quite differently. Shortly after escaping the ruins of Boston, Joel and Ellie set out to find Bill, a trader who owes Joel some favors, in hopes of getting a car for their journey west. Unlike in the show, Joel and Ellie actually do meet up with Bill. He’s a brash, foulmouthed survivalist who has scraped out a living in the abandoned suburban town of Lincoln, Massachusetts. Bill has been trading with Tess and Joel for years; however, Frank is not part of the equation. At the very least, Joel has never met him and is unaware of his existence up until Bill starts talking about his partner during a later scene. This also marks the first time that Joel has ever traveled to where Bill lives. In the show, he and Tess made regular visits to Bill and Frank’s house.
Do Bill and Frank die in The Last of Us game?
Throughout the next section of the game, Bill leads Joel and Ellie deep into the infected section of town, where they hope to get a car battery. Yet when they finally reach their objective, they find that someone else has already taken the battery. A short while later, the trio stumble into a house to hide from infected, only to discover that it is the very same house where Bill’s partner Frank has hanged himself. Yes, that’s right: in the game, we never even meet Frank; we only see his corpse. The show greatly expanded on his character.
Based on documents you find on the body, it becomes clear that Frank was trying to leave Bill and go to the Boston Quarantine Zone. He was the one who took the car battery that Bill was looking for, and had already set it up in a vehicle he hoped to use to leave town. However, he was bitten while grabbing it. Rather than turn into one of the infected, Frank hanged himself.
Frank leaves a somewhat brutal note for Bill, which underlines just how different their relationship was in the game. Read it below:
"Well, Bill. I doubt you’d ever find this note cause you were too scared to ever make it to this part of town. But if for some reason you did, I want you to know I hated your guts. I grew tired of this shitty town and of your set-in-your-ways attitude. I wanted more from life than this and you could never get that. And that stupid battery you kept moaning about — I got it. But I guess you were right. Trying to leave this town will kill me. Still better than spending another day with you. Good luck, Frank."
During the time that Joel and Ellie spend with Bill, it becomes clear that he’s somewhat delusional, occasionally talking to himself and looking very much like a reclusive hermit. Frank’s suicide note underlines this idea, because when Joel gives it to Bill, Bill is shocked to discover Frank’s disdain for him. This is a far cry from the devoted lovers we met in the show. By the end of it all, Bill helps Joel and Ellie get Frank’s truck running, and the two continue on their journey. Bill and Joel consider their debt squared, and part on awkward terms as Bill wants to be left alone to grieve the loss of his partner.
The Last of Us show changed Bill and Frank…but also didn’t
While it might sound like the show just went off in a totally different direction with the characters of Bill and Frank, some of these changes are actually less extreme than you’d think. Because The Last of Us video game is fixed firmly to Joel and Ellie’s perspectives, we never see how Frank and Bill met one another. We never see any details of their life together. Similar to how the show depicted Tess’ run-in with Robert’s thugs, this is an instance where the team behind the series filled in a lot of backstory.
But the nature of Bill and Frank’s relationship, and their Romeo and Juliet-style suicides, is a big shift away from what little we know about their partnership from the game. Bill is a much crasser character in the game; it’s hard to imagine him doing things like playing a heartfelt piano solo or cooking gourmet meals. That’s simply not the way he’s presented.
The way I’ve been describing this change to people is that, if the somewhat delusional Bill from the game had imagined what he thought his and Frank’s life together was like, his fantasies might have been like what we saw in the show. It’s a totally alternate take that still feels like it belongs in the story.
Making this change to Bill and Frank’s relationship also likely won’t change the overall story much. If you’re a devout fan of the game you might feel a little disoriented after watching Episode 3, and that’s understandable. But the broad strokes remains the same: by the end of the segment focusing on Bill and Frank, Ellie and Joel have procured a vehicle from Bill’s neighborhood and continue on their journey west. We may miss things, like how Bill and Ellie constantly butted heads or how Joel first started acting proud of how resourceful Ellie was while they searched for the car battery, but we gained something unexpected and moving instead.
The Last of Us airs new episodes on HBO and HBO Max on Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET / 8:00 p.m. CT.
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