‘The Last of Us’ creator reveals how he crafted the gay love story that has fans in tears

Warning: This publish incorporates spoilers for Episode 3 of The Final of Us

The dystopian world of The Final of Us is a daunting, violent place. However the third episode of the hit HBO sequence is profitable approval for revealing how love can bloom in even the harshest of environments. Stepping exterior of the primary narrative, the super-sized chapter, “Lengthy Lengthy Time,” introduces viewers to Invoice and Frank — performed by Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, respectively — two middle-age males whose decades-spanning romance begins with a meet-cute in a zombie lure and ends with a tear-inducing farewell straight out of Romeo & Juliet.

“I needed to discover the theme of affection, and in addition totally different sorts of affection,” confirms sequence co-creator, Craig Mazin, who developed the present with Neil Druckmann, creator of the Ps online game that gives the supply materials for the present. And the concept for “Lengthy Lengthy Time” — named after a 1970 Linda Ronstadt observe that instantly began trending after the episode aired — grew out of fabric that additionally exists within the sport, albeit in a really totally different style.

Watch our interview with The Final of Us co-creator on YouTube

Within the Ps model of The Final of Us, Invoice seems as a non-player character who helps participant avatars Joel and Ellie (performed by Pedro Pascal and Bella Rasmey within the HBO sequence) safe transport to their subsequent vacation spot. Whereas Frank is talked about in passing, he has already suffered an terrible demise by the point Invoice crosses the primary characters’ paths and the precise nature of their relationship is left open to interpretation, though Druckmann has since stated he meant for them to be homosexual.

Frank’s voice is heard within the sport by way of an indignant letter he leaves behind for Invoice — one in every of many such NPC that gamers can uncover as they discover the sport’s totally different environments. These letters trace on the tales which can be occurring round Joel and Ellie, offering gamers with a deeper immersion in The Final of Us‘s expansive world. “Lengthy Lengthy Time” pays tribute to that in-game gadget on the finish of the episode when Joel and Ellie discover a letter penned by Invoice that places a definitive interval on the tip of his and Frank’s love story.

Story continues

Mazin agrees that Invoice’s letter is an Easter egg for followers of the online game, but additionally packs severe emotional weight for noobs. “We needed to offer individuals extra if they’ve performed the sport and in the event that they have not performed the sport, we needed it to really feel prefer it was this pure factor to happen anyway,” he explains. “There are these moments within the sport when Neil and I believed: ‘Oh, this is the place we wander away to discover and have enjoyable.'”

Mazin — who beforehand created the Emmy-winning Chernobyl sequence for HBO — is the only real credited author on “Lengthy Lengthy Time,” and he drew on his personal heteronormative love story to craft the present’s model of Invoice and Frank’s story. “[Their] story was much less about their homosexuality, and extra about the truth that it is a middle-aged romance,” says the author. “I am 51 and I have been married [to my wife] for 26 years. I do know what that outdated love appears like, and I actually needed to discover that.”

“Lengthy Lengthy Time” begins in 2003, simply after a lethal pandemic has toppled American society as we all know it. However Invoice refuses to just accept what he calls the “New World Order.” A severe survivalist, he turns his house right into a fortress that retains intruders — be they human or strolling lifeless — at bay. Invoice leads a solitary existence for 4 years, till Frank takes a tumble into one in every of his zombie traps and the good-looking stranger’s earnest appeals for help breach the partitions he is constructed round his coronary heart. They stay fortunately collectively till one late summer season morning in 2023 when a terminally-ill Frank wakes up and decides it is his final day on Earth — and Invoice accompanies him into the nice past.

Whereas “Lengthy Lengthy Time” might play like a facet story on a primary viewing, Mazin says that the themes on the coronary heart of the episode journey hand-in-hand with Joel and Ellie’s journey. “Frank is a really totally different man than Invoice, and his idea of what love is may be very totally different than Invoice’s. And that duality will come again time and again as you undergo the season. It is like somewhat seed that episode that type of retains rising, regardless that it has its personal conclusion. Hopefully, you may take pleasure in it.”

Primarily based on the ecstatic Twitter takes, most viewers very a lot loved “Lengthy Lengthy Time.” However there are a number of voices expressing disappointment with the way in which Invoice and Frank’s story was altered from the sport.

In the meantime, a poisonous component of Final of Us fandom is seizing on the episode as proof that the present is following a “woke agenda” by placing numerous characters entrance and heart — a grievance that Pascal immediately responded to forward of the sequence premiere. For his half, Mazin says that there is nothing he can do about viewers who come into the present with “preconceived notions” about what the story is or needs to be.

“The best way we approached all the pieces was to begin with only a frequent humanity,” he explains. “The forged is numerous, and we cope with range as a result of the world is numerous. Our present will not be about range or the significance of being one factor or the opposite — it is nearly individuals. Because it occurs, there are homosexual individuals, there are Black individuals, there are white individuals, there are disabled individuals and there are deaf individuals. We simply type of mirror the world round us as naturally as we are able to.”

And Invoice and Frank is not the one same-sex relationship we’ll see this season or within the just-announced Season 2. On the planet of the sport, Ellie is a lesbian and each Mazin and Ramsey confirmed earlier than the present premiered that key a part of her character would not be altered. “That was by no means gonna be the case,” Ramsey — who just lately got here out as gender fluid — tells Yahoo Leisure. “I would not have let that occur both. It is a part of who she is and what I like concerning the present is that it isn’t made into this big deal. It is her present on this world and loving girls… and Joel is cool with it. I feel it is finished rather well.”

“There is not any spoiler right here — Ellie’s a lesbian,” Mazin echoes, including that viewers will meet her girlfriend, Riley (performed by Storm Reid) in an upcoming episode. Druckmann initially launched Riley in a sport storyline that was launched between 2013’s The Final of Us and 2020’s The Final of Us, Half II, however the sequence is weaving Ellie’s LGBTQ id into the material of the present from the start. “The entire backstory of Ellie and Riley and who Ellie is as an individual wasn’t there once they made the primary sport,” he explains. “We’re in a position to slowly seed this truth into the present.”

“I feel we are going to proceed to simply discover her humanity,” Mazin provides. “People fall in love, people fall out of affection. People lose individuals, they mourn individuals, they wrestle they usually screw up. All of these issues occur whether or not you are homosexual or straight or something.”

The Final of Us airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO Max