Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us to follow.
The week of buildup between episodes is either a virtue or a vice depending on who you ask, but so far we can all agree that the wait for each episode of The Last of Us has been well worth it, and that’s never been more true now that the third installment has come around.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned since then, it’s that offering up too much creative freedom with this already heart-wrenching property can lead to some absolutely devastating results, as shown through the efforts of director Peter Hoar, as well as actors Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett.
Without giving away too much, episode three offered us one of the biggest deviations from the games in the form of an intimate look at the relationship between survivors Frank and Bill, the former of whom only ever appeared as a corpse in the video game. Needless to say, you’ll need build up a few callouses around your heart to sit through this one with dry eyes, and showrunner Neil Druckmann has cheekily and insincerely reminded us that this is the “happy episode.”
If “Long Long Time” is Druckmann’s idea of a happy episode, then we should probably be outright terrified about what’s coming in the following weeks. Although, to his credit, this will probably be the show’s peak of sweetness, so we can probably just chalk up “happy” as a misused word.
Twitter, of course, was in absolute disbelief that Druckmann would taunt us all like that, since many are probably still in recovery mode.
It seems we’ve figured out the golden rule for this particular adaptation; if it will destroy your audience, lean into it with all the gusto you can muster.
The Last of Us is currently streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes releasing every Sunday until the season’s conclusion on March 12. A second season has been confirmed.