Warning: spoilers ahead for The Last of Us episode 3.
It’s safe to say that the latest instalment of The Last of Us will leave many fans bawling their eyes out, after the love story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) was told from start to finish, from their unlikely meeting to their final moments.
In episode 3 of the TV series based on the video game franchise, viewers were introduced to the two characters, who after meeting serendipitously near the start of the outbreak, ended up falling in love, living together, getting married and then sharing their last breaths together.
While speaking to Metro.co.uk and other media, the instalment’s director Peter Hoar and the director of photography Eben Bolter delved into the meaning behind the ending, when the camera revealed the window that Bill had left open in their room, after Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) discovered that the couple had died.
Frank, who had been suffering from an illness in his old age, had told Bill that he wished to die, and wanted him to help with making that happen. Not only did Bill tearfully agree to do so, but he in turn decided to go with him at the same time.
When Ellie finds Bill’s letter that he addressed to Joel, it explains that the window was left open so that the house wouldn’t smell from their dead bodies – but as Peter outlined, the final shot of the episode played on an image that fans of the video games will recognise.
‘In the game on the menu page, there’s always a window with the curtains blowing. That’s where that comes from,’ he pointed out, before explaining why they decided against showing Bill and Frank’s bodies in the end, for a tale that’s known to contain plenty of gore.
‘I turn up knowing the game, knowing the brutality of the game – that’s the game play. Obviously, there are occasions for great tenderness, and loss and grief and all of that, but there are lots of times to shoot – not zombies, they’re not zombies – but to shoot those things,’ he said.
‘We’re not about the gore, gratuity or anything like that,’ he added, stressing: ‘You have to earn that sort of stuff.’
While the curtains of the window were shown blowing gently in the breeze, Joel and Ellie could be seen driving away in Bill’s old truck, having been told in his letter that they could take anything that they wanted.
‘There were a lot of conversations about that shot,’ Eben recalled. ‘For one, the road, the car disappearing into the distance, that’s all VFX. None of that was there. So we had a lot of pre-conceiving and we had to sort of fight for that shot.
‘The main thing was we really wanted Joel and Ellie driving off into the next episode into the sunset, but we just wanted to have that final reminder of this was Bill and Frank’s story and it just felt like a lovely way to do both things at the same time.’
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The Last of Us is available to watch on Sky and NOW, with new episodes released on Mondays.
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