As a die-hard fan of the video game series The Last of Us, you can only imagine the excitement I had when it was announced HBO would be handling a live adaptation of the hit game.
And for the most part, this particular fan walked away satisfied with what the first season of the show presented.
The acting is good, the set pieces and horror elements (the game is about a zombie apocalypse) were solid, and the show hits on the plot beats of the first Last of Us game (and its DLC) rather well.
If this were a review, the show probably deserves a solid B or B+ score.
The reason I can’t go past that score is because HBO’s “The Last of Us” was only nine episodes long — and there was somehow still filler.
That’s just an egregious misuse of highly limited storytelling resources.
Remember: The violent game itself lasts around 15 solid hours (even more for completionists), which is ample time to let a story simmer and cook.
The show doesn’t have that luxury (two of the episodes are over an hour long, the other seven are about 40 minutes to an hour long) and still spends a curious amount of time fleshing out canonically unimportant characters … like “Bill.”
In the games, Bill is a very minor character — a “quest giver” effectively — whose paranoid survivalist skills come in handy for the main protagonists of Joel and Ellie (his bad intel also almost gets them killed).
Did you watch “The Last of Us” on HBO?
Video-game Bill comes and goes, with only the most astute fans even picking up that he apparently had a gay lover.
Well, the HBO show dedicated a big chunk of screen time fleshing out Bill and his gay lover in the show’s third episode, titled “Long, Long Time.”
Much to my surprise, other fans didn’t feel similarly annoyed with this waste of storytelling. In fact, they loved it so much that actor Nick Offerman (of “Parks and Rec” fame) won an Emmy for his portrayal of Bill.
Despite being decidedly two-bit characters in the game, Bill and Frank (his terminally ill gay partner whom you never actually even see in the video game) became overnight sensations within the LGBT community.
SPOILER ALERT: With Bill and Frank dying at the end of that third episode, fans began clamoring for more of the duo, and Offerman seemed to hint at that possibility, per Deadline.
Bringing back Bill and Frank “certainly has been pitched,” Offerman said after winning his Emmy, Deadline reported. “I think we pitched a whole mini-series of a prequel of their lives before they met each other.
“It could be a musical. We’re not short on ideas.”
He said it would depend on what showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann “come up with.”
Well, Mazin told Deadline that, no, there won’t be any return via flashback or a spinoff for Bill and Frank.
“I’m very proud of the episode we did with Bill and Frank,” Mazin, who also wrote that specific episode, told the outlet.
Mazin added: “There won’t be more Bill and Frank.”
He then clarified that Offerman was not being serious.
“Nick was joking about a prequel, that was kind of a joke,” Mazin explained. “We are very happy with what we achieved.”
Season 2 of “The Last of Us” will cover the events of the second game. Production is expected to begin shortly.
