Everyone just join bandwagoning a filler episode for whatever reason. Its good than most tv though, a slightly extended UP movie opening with zombie background

It's either the greatest TV episode ever or over long filler.

I guess people enjoyed the exceptional writing, direction, and acting.

A lot of people have good taste. It happens.

Whenever a thing is supposed to be big, all of a sudden the entertainment press will talk about it and talk it up, and are trying to create as much experience to drum up business. Manufacture controversy where there is none, talk about how amazing a B+ episode of a show was, talk up an actor who is prospective for several big roles, etc. Just watch what you like and ignore media press - its as manufactured as the shows and actors it’s reporting on.

They made a self contained love story within the confines of a fungal world calamity and made you love the 2 characters and mourn their losses all within 30 minutes of introducing you to them in the first place.

That’s pretty much as good as writing, direction, acting and pacing can get.

I certainly won’t say it’s ‘one of the best tv episodes ever’ but it was brilliant.

[deleted]

Honestly. Well different perspectives I guess. This post should also be on unpopularopinion

I feel like anyone that considers it filler really missed the point.

Probably the gay romance, which i thought was done well. But I wasnt looking for any romance in this show especially not this early.

I'm so mad at you for even making this post. 😒

You can't call every second of television that doesn't advance the plot forward in time "filler"

Because the acting and writing and cinematography was exquisite

Things can’t just be “very good” or “bad” on the internet. I really enjoyed this episode but I saw a headline calling it the best episode of television in a decade and personally it’s not even the best episode of television in the last month. Doesn’t detract from the fact that it was an excellent episode of TV.

Agree, a lot of the more extreme love seemed to come from people who know the game and appreciated that extra level of nuance lost on those fresh to the story.

Best episode of all time? Lol no, of 2023 so far ? Yeah I can see that.

Sometimes people have different emotional reactions to things than other people. It’s pretty crazy.

I'm there for the story of Ellie.

Just curious, what would you say is a better episode of tv in the last month? I'm always wanting new shows with great writing.

Missed the point and will continue missing the point when we continue to meet people only tangentially associated with Joel and Ellie and see their stories told in greater depth than what the game(s) could do.

I'm a heterosexual married man and I love Bill and Frank.

not every scene without joel and ellie is filler lmao

Not just for those 2 characters. It gave you a reason to give a shit about the letter. Yeah the comparison of Tess to Bills partner make us and Joel emotional. But it also helps us relate to Joel realizing he needs to protect Ellie.

They could have just had Joel find Bills letter and just move on. Instead they added emotional "filler" that shows us that even though they weren't exactly friends, Joel respected Bill so much that his (and his partner's) death still upset him.

Hell, in the last 12 months they have been some incredible episodes of TV that have dropped.

EDIT: there not they

Couldn’t have said it better

I found the perfectly clean house and unlimited supply of wine, power, gas, pills and other things to be very very unrealistic. It distracted from the well produced TV.

Haha you’ll probably disagree with me but I actually enjoyed the first two episodes of TLOU better than the third. I realize now the way I worded my comment implied other tv. I should have said it wasn’t even the best episode of TLOU.

Really good point actually. It made his relationship w Tess matter more too so added more to previous episodes’ events. Set the scene for him protecting Ellie as you say.

Same. I started texting my friends and asking if they’d had a chance to watch the show yet.

I’m excited for next Sunday

I watched with my wife and it really made me appreciate the limited time we have spent and will spend together on this earth. Sometimes we all go down dark alleys, confused by our purpose, exhausted by the daily grind…What is it all for?

To be reminded so beautifully about our opportunity on this earth to find and spread love from an hour long episode of a video game adaptation was absurd to me. I understand the potential that kind of apocalyptic situation brings to having this revelation but I never felt anything close to this from walking dead.

Me and my wife had been fighting a little bit that day, ended up in each other’s arms crying. It felt so real

The show has established from the start that it's going to tell smaller stories within its world as well as Joel/Ellie's "main story".

Yet it still manages to give us backstory about Joel, about surviving the past 20 years, about surviving in a bubble without any health services, it gives us a lot of context to appreciate/fear the world and makes us care about people we just met. It also revealed the source of the radio music from the first episode, making us think back to that. There was a lot that ties back to our main characters, albeit indirectly. Worldbuilding is not filler in my eyes.

It was a good episode. But I agree with OP. It’s blown way out of proportion. The reason it’s getting so much love is that it is a love story of non-stereotypical gay men. Which is great, but if these relationships were more normalized, it would be considered a nice palette cleanser filler episode after a the episode 2 shock of >!Tess’s death and narrow escape of Joel and Ellie!< . So, it is being praise for the groundbreaking portrayal of non-troped LGBT relationship with a bonus of it being very well written and acted. Is it the best episode of TV in the last decade? Up for debate. The good news is all the buzz is great for the show.

I don’t get people criticizing it for being filler. For the last two weeks those same people have been criticizing the show because it wasn’t giving details on how the pandemic played out. We got a whole episode covering 20 years on how the pandemic played out. And it’s ‘filler’ fuck off with the lot of you.

It’s very clear these people prefer video game plotting and don’t understand that tv and movies are different mediums.

Yeah agree - ep gave me walking dead ‘completely stall main story to go off on tangent vibes’ - not a fan of that and trust the show to keep this to a minimum. But it scared me!

I’m sorry that HBO didn’t make the show exactly to your specifications

You know you can clean a house right

And you know that a wine store probably has 1,000’s of wine in stock and if there is only one customer in the entire world, then basically that person has 1,000’s of wine

Did you close your eyes during the montage that showed how he got the power and stuff?

Or that the dude is a crafty survivalists?

I swear to god some of y’all like half watch these shows and then pop off the lamest criticisms

I thought it was a fantastic episode that successfully added an emotional depth to the show to take this up a few more notches over other shows like TWD, FTWD, etc. The first episode was great, last week's felt pretty "paint by zombie numbers", while still being a good episode, but this week gave Joel purpose(if you will) and humanized everyone a little more. I'd gladly watch more of Bill & Frank if the showrunners wanted to give it to us, they were great and my heart broke for them.

Was this the greatest episode of TV ever produced? No. Is it the greatest episode of TV from the last year? Possibly not even that, but maybe? There are obviously details of this episode that have the propaganda arms of the press screaming its praises from the rooftops disingenuously, but that should not detract from how good of an episode it really was. I'm not going out and scheduling an emergency talk session with my therapist over it due to loving it so much (as one friend on FB randomly gloated Sunday night), but I'm definitely going to be watching it again before next episode simply because I enjoyed it so much.

A bit off topic but anyone else find the writing for Ellie to be odd. Not talking about the acting but the writing for some scenes makes her seem sadistic. She was always a little dark in the game but here it has no subtlety.

Its okay not everyone likes great media.

Brilliant point. It sold the letter and provided the emotional base for Joel’s decisions moving forward, while giving Joel and the audience closure on Tess’s death.

It’s an episode with really sharp writing. It’s slower, but The Last of Us is slower in places with the game, too. It’s a series far more interested in character than action.

Without spoiling too much about the rest of the series, Bill and Frank’s story is a microcosm of the broader themes the story is going to follow. Bill in particular tells us a lot about Joel’s character, because Bill correctly sees that he and Joel are very alike.

I thought it was good but cliche

Sad nerds upset they didn't tell the video game story the way they like it

Maybe you should rewatch the episode then, but this time actually pay attention

A potential answer is that the queer community is so, so starved for good rep that when a non-straight relationship gets the same emotional weight and is presented as a completely normal thing, it feels so fresh and wonderful.

And also, it is a great piece of art in general.

[deleted]

When the episode was over I felt like I had lived the entirety of their relationship with them. They felt like old friends I was watching wither away. I honestly wish the episode would have ended with them walking to the bedroom and pick up with Joel and Ellie next week.

100% this. That letter is objectively stronger for Joel's character arc than the equivalent events in the game. And if the context we're given to make that letter land for the audience is this brilliantly written and acted episode - well how do you complain about that? What are we here for? It's art - it's exploring the human condition - it's trying to move its audience emotionally. Did people really feel nothing watching this?

It's a GOOD change from the source material, but really I'd call it a flourish more than a deviation - it doesn't change the plot at ALL.

This episode also shows how the loss of Tess, Bill, and Frank is the loss of everything for Joel's current or now former life, he has no more connections to Boston and his world as it was. That end makes room for a new beginning with Ellie, now he can choose to become vulnerable and open up to her the same way Bill did with Frank, and that's the real power of the letter.

We still see the wounds on Joel's knuckles because he fractured his hand remembering Sarah and not being able to save her, he winced when Ellie took his hand as he helped her up the next episode in the flooded hotel because he's still burning with pain over his loss. Next episode I imagine we'll see this wound healing better.

The adaptation to TV from the game is impeccably done and how adaptations should be. The emotional aspects also resonated with my personal life, it's a message about the hope that real love can bring, rather than the grim despair of the game's version of these characters' story for this chapter. It's just good television and some article titles making claims aren't indicative of how I or anyone else feels, I feel the way I feel because I see what they're doing and enjoy it.

I liked it but no way does it beat GoT’s Red Wedding or really come that close… but anything entertainment related is definitely subjective

Well there are a ton of people that "missed the point".

I also thought the first two were better so you're not the only one.

You mean the montage that completely ignores how gasoline and electricity actually work?

I mean, I'd sure love a natural gas stove that magically works off of electricity and raw crude oil! Or three cans of processed gasoline that can power a mansion-sized generator and a town-sized electric fence for 10+ years constantly when gas goes bad after about 6 months of sitting...

I wonder who kept filling that generator after the both died until Joel and Ellie showed up to find them? I mean, all the lights were still on but they've obviously decomposed and the leftover food on the table had gone rotten.

And remember when the crafty survivalist and skilled hunter stood out in the middle of the road shooting at people his traps were going to kill anyway until he conveniently got gut shot?

It's easy to pop off about how legitimate criticism is "lame" on the internet even when it's not. Conserving an entire liquor store of wine is really the only thing that would have feasibly worked in that whole episode.

My problem with the episode was that it was both slow yet not. It introduced and told a 20 year story in 45 minutes in slowly paced snippets. I could never get into it because of how much it jumps (by necessity). For me it took away from the momentum of the main story with Joel as I am totally new to this world and am still getting into it. But the acting was top notch and I liked the relationship as well as its development and arch. But for a series that was just two episodes in and someone not familiar with the game it was way too soon to take a detour like that for me.

People are coming into any discussion about the show ready to fight against bigots. It was a huge problem with the fandom of the games just because they included non-hetero, non-white, non-cis characters.

Trying to discuss the games and any criticism of them was largely drown out by bigots and people screaming at bigots. If you're going to talk about this show critically just know that people will come at you with these assumptions whether they are warranted or not.

I really couldn't tell you why it's so heated with this franchise. Maybe it's because the games mash up the conservative fantasy of survivalism and murdering people to protect your "family" with token diversity and inclusivity.

Idk I think red wedding didn’t even come close. That entire episode was carried by complete and total shock value, there was no story telling or character development, it was literally just hey let’s stab a pregnant woman in the belly

i think I'm in the middle, I can appreciate the episode and thought it was beautiful but I didn't cry and I cry at everything. I think part of me as a fan of the game really wanted to see Ellie and Bill interact the most.

I also think reading constantly the week before that 'this is the best episode of the series' didn't help with not feeling what I was meant to. .

Best TV episode of the month doesn't have the same ring as best episode of the decade though.

Hyperbole is annoying and it sets up weird battles over stuff because then people end up fighting against stuff they really liked but didn't love. I mean I'll give 10's out on IMDB fairly freely for good episodes of TV but any paid critic jumping to BEST EVER four hours after watching something should really calm down, no matter what it is.

It's just a TV show.

Would this be a good place to ask how a food borne pathogen destroyed the entire world in one weekend?

I can definitely see where you’re getting that sense from. To me it seems less like sadism and more a natural, hungry curiosity and fascination with a world that’s been withheld or distanced from her for her whole life. Plus she’s a 14 yr old teen, they tend to get excited about the idea of dangerous, forbidden things like guns or knives lol so that part reads very typical teen to me.

The moment with the infected she found in that basement is what definitely feels a bit concerning, and the only thing I’d say felt as straight up sadistic so far. But it could also be pretty easily explained as a fascination with something that has had such a big impact on her life and that has taken away so many things she views as wonderful aspects of life before - like the airplane she and Joel see. And it’s something most people don’t really get an opportunity to see up close with little chance of danger. So she hurts it out of malice, or to see if it does hurt, or just to see what would happen.

I’m not too worried yet but who knows lol.

I’ve noticed a couple of moments, a more subtle one is when Joel is beating the FEDRA guard to death and Ellie is watching with a morbid fascination, and then also the more overt one where she slices then stabs the trapped infected in this last episodes.

Not sure what they’re going for exactly with this, but I am open to whatever it is.

Nothing wrong with the lines Ellie says specifically imo, it’s pretty on brand for the Ellie we know from the game. Just the acting is a bit different, showing a sadistic(?) side of her for some yet to be discovered purpose.

Like I said, subjective

Same…was a great, well acted/directed episode of TV, but to me it felt like an episode of Station Eleven( not a bad thing, loved that show) which is only a couple years old at this point. I appreciated the arc of Bill and Frank but we met and lost those characters in one episode, doesn’t quite have the emotional impact of spending seasons with characters.

I’m feeling the same for Poker Face, perfectly enjoyable show but the hyperbole surrounding it when it’s just doing an old network style show is kinda wild.

>I mean, I'd sure love a natural gas stove that magically works off of electricity and raw crude oil!

This is such a weird criticism.

When the power went out while at the hardware store, he went to the "New Bedford Plant" Natural Gas Plant and turned the gas back on assuming the reserves would last him in a town for for 1. He drives at the gates of the plant at full speed and cuts through the rest with bolt cutters.

We know the generator doesn't power it because he lights the stove to heat water, before he unpacks and powers up the generator.

>I wonder who kept filling that generator after the both died until Joel and Ellie showed up to find them? I mean, all the lights were still on but they've obviously decomposed and the leftover food on the table had gone rotten.

It depends on how long the generator lasts. But also Joel has been there many times, and might know how to refill it as part of his whole Handyman Builder thing. They've probably traded for fuel before.

> the crafty survivalist and skilled hunter stood out in the middle of the road shooting at people

"I was never afraid before you showed up." He was afraid and made mistakes.

Also at no point is he shown to be a great hunter. He see him raising chickens and farming. His signature dish appears to be rabbit, and he's shown to be a trapper. None of that translates to shooting ability. It would then be notable that nowhere do we see a shooting range, or anywhere he can practice.

I think a lot of it was maybe that it was unexpected. I thought it was good and Muary Bartlett was really good as he always is but Nick Offerman was just his normal self except he was a closeted gay guy, his acting was good but not really worthy of the crazy high praise that episode is getting IMO.

It wasn't brilliant and it didn't make me love or mourn the losses of Bill and Frank in anyway. I was bored to death waiting for them to die.

Disappointing episode and the continual dumb trend of making everything gay so everyone is forced to agree that it's good or else.

I also loved how it broke the mold with these kind of shows, in general. I was constantly waiting for Bill to be betrayed. There no way Frank is a good guy, don't trust him yet. Even when Joel and Tess came I kept thinking this will be one of those horrible things they've done in the past that they keep referring to.

Bill and Frank were already gay.

I think it's a good episode. A little ham fisted, but well made. I wanted them to make Bill a little less "Ron Swanson" lovable, and more cynical in outlook, so the love story would be even more special. But in general, a very good episode that explores something tender and beautiful in a Zombie genre. Very unprecedented.

They gave their audience an authentic and loving gay relationship that a straight person can appreciate. No stereotypes. Just love.

Oh no someone didn’t like something on the internet. Anyway…

It was a decent episode and I hope every episode is at least as good. I think there are essentially two reasons it is being so breathlessly praised:

1. Fans of the game are super happy to see it given the Prestige TV treatment - video games and video game adaptations are rarely taken this seriously. There’s also probably not a small section of TLOU’s gamer audience that don’t often watch shows that place that much emphasis on dramatic storytelling over world building, lore and action - which tend to be the basis of most genre TV shows.

2. The non gaming audience of TLOU probably weren’t expecting a video game adaptation to be given the Prestige TV Treatment and were likely expecting something closer to The Walking Dead or a Marvel show.

Simply put, it deviated from half the audiences expectations and exceeded the other half’s, which has lead to slightly inflated reviews from both.

Add to that a great one off performances by actors loved by both - the gamers love Ron Swanson, the non-gamers loved seeing Murray Bartlett getting his ass are in The White Lotus - and you’ve got a recipe for success, as well as a nagging sense that you’re being pissed on and told it’s raining.

I agree with much of what you're saying. I just feel that while the episode itself isn't filler, it does have a bunch of pointless filler in it. The episode could have been so much better by cutting out some of that filler and expanding on the relationship between Bill and Frank, and Joel and Tess. It was a missed opportunity.

IMO the writing was not good, the standout positive was the acting by Murray Bartlett.

Dude, your entire post reads of cringe. The characters were always gay - the only thing the episode did was give them a much more cohesive, nuanced and realistically emotional backstory.

The only people who think that "everything is being made gay" are the people who aren't comfortable enough in their world view to be able to accept the fact that not everyone looks, acts or lives like them.

Spoiler alert: if you think this episode was gay, wait til you see season 2.

It’s a tv show about mushrooms taking over peoples brains, not a documentary.

[deleted]

>This is such a weird criticism.

>When the power went out while at the hardware store, he went to the "New Bedford Plant" Natural Gas Plant and turned the gas back on assuming the reserves would last him in a town for for 1. He drives at the gates of the plant at full speed and cuts through the rest with bolt cutters.

Why would the gas even be off? And those plants don't just run themselves for 10 years with no issues, the supply would have dried up and there's no electricity for any of the mechanical functions that supply gas to work. They specifically zoomed in on him lighting the gas stove with a match, but he turned the electricity back on with the generator. He's conserving electricity to not use the electric pilot (its 2003, not 1886) but happy to keep everything else running 24/7/365 off the generator?

They literally live in that house for a decade as if all public works infrastructure didn't totally collapse and is working like normal simply because he flipped a switch at a plant miles away and poured whatever was left in a gas station into three oil drums. Hot showers, running water, gas, electricity, etc. It's total nonsense, none of that actually works that way and is a huge, frequent, and valid criticism of pretty much every piece of post-apocalyptic survivor media. The truck wouldn't have worked either in the last scene, the engine would have immediately seized when Joel tried to start it with decade old bad gas in the tank.

Does it make it "literally unwatchable" or any such nonsense? No, of course not, but that doesn't make it invalid criticism either.

>It depends on how long the generator lasts. But also Joel has been there many times, and might know how to refill it as part of his whole Handyman Builder thing. They've probably traded for fuel before.

A generator that size, powering a house that big, and an electric fence that's always on surrounding the whole town?

Even with minimal usage in the house, that's going to be burning 10+ gallons of gas an hour. Those three 100 gallon drums he filled up at the beginning of the episode would have lasted... about a day. Your average gas station like the one he took the gas from sells about 4000 gallons a day and is usually refilled daily or every other day. So assuming the gas station had a full reserve, he'd have been out of gas to run the generator in a little over two weeks on a generous estimate.

Ten years running that 24/7? Even putting aside the fact that after six months it's all moot and there's no more unspoiled fuel to scavenge or trade for, ten years is nonsense.

As for when Joel and Ellie showed up, unless the generator was topped off right before they died and it hasn't been more than 48 hours... there would be no electricity for any of it. If you'd like to say the generator was hard-line natural gas powered, we return to point 1 where that's just as equally nonsense.

And we know Joel and Ellie didn't fill it up and turn it on because the fence was powered when they entered the compound and they went directly to the house on camera, it's right next to the gate while the generator is out back. They'd have no reason to turn the generator on first if they didn't know Bill and Frank were dead and the fence was still working, so that doesn't add up.

>"I was never afraid before you showed up." He was afraid and made mistakes.

Running out into the road to stand under a street light and shoot at things you cant see is not "i'm afraid and made a mistake," it completely undermines his entire characterization. It's more nonsense.

>Also at no point is he shown to be a great hunter. He see him raising chickens and farming. His signature dish appears to be rabbit, and he's shown to be a trapper. None of that translates to shooting ability. It would then be notable that nowhere do we see a shooting range, or anywhere he can practice.

I'm not going to sit here and argue the semantics of whether or not trapping is a discipline of hunting. The man is literally a doomsday prepper with Don't Tread On Me banners hanging in his secret bunker next to his absurd collection of firearms.

We're not seriously going to sit here and pick apart an assumption that he doesn't know how to fire a gun, or that you don't stand in the open like a jackass when executing guerilla tactics against raiders, right?

But yeah, we clearly all just "obviously didn't watch the episode" or "don't get it" or whatever.

I just wish Bill would’ve lived and he got another episode or two. seems weird to have that much backstory just to never see him again.

This right here. When people get behind a work of art like this — something that highlights LGBTQ characters, and is in that specific lane of inspiring and sad — they can also get uber-defensive of it.

I personally thought the episode was well-executed but sorta boring, artistically. Casting Offerman in that role is a bit on the nose, using “On The Nature of Daylight” during a sad monologue has been done to death, and I found the time-jumping a bit tedious.

And lemme tell ya, I could talk in depth about the parts that I really liked. The almost Better Call Saul-esque sequence of Bill setting up his little fortress, the strong acting, and the clever moments of writing. Particularly liked Bill’s line where he claims he probably doesn’t look like a guy who knows how to pair the right wine with a meal.

But end of the day, I thought it underwhelmed a bit and I feel like I’m about to get killed for saying that even as I couched the criticism.

There are like three episodes each, from the past year, of Industry, Reservation Dogs, and Andor that I’d rank as better than this episode. And that’s not an insult! But if people wanna exaggerate then I’ll bring receipts…

The first batch of episodes of Poker Face have been really great.

I would argue that if you need an hour long segue that completely departs from the source material to prop up why the letter is important, then the letter wasn't important in the first place.

They could have done the same thing in half the time, and put better framing around the letter in the current timeline to make it just as important without watching Bill and Frank eat strawberries in the garden or have awkward sex.

We knew Joel respected Bill from literally two minutes of the whole hour long flashback, when they talked to each other directly. That could have easily been done a hundred other ways without the extended flashback.

I think the biggest condemning factor here is that yes, you could argue that the super long flashback did X and Y and Z, but the game also did all of those things for all of those characters without an hour long flashback about Bill & Frank's domestic life. When taking that into account it's hard not to frame the whole thing as "filler."

Was it bad? Aside from a handful of blatant plot holes that really stretch suspension of disbelief, no, it was not bad. The acting was solid and the characters were at least passingly interesting if romance is your thing. But it 100% felt like they just copy/pasted any random Lifetime Original movie into the middle of an episode of The Last Of Us. It was jarringly out of place and would have done better on it's own as a spinoff movie or something.

The way the game gives you moments of absolute peace, getting you to forget that there are millions of humans and non humans out there trying to kill you, was showcased here. It really gave the feeling that lives can continue with some semblance of what once was normal.

Not surprising. I can't imagine people who were obsessed with the Walking Dead are having a good time with this show.

Suspension of disbelief is a real thing.

They could've written in a unicorn that pisses refined gasoline and it would've made more sense than spending the whole time portraying "realistic survival techniques from a doomsday prepper" that don't add up at all.

It's the same problem people had in Game of Thrones in the last seasons where time didn't make any sense. A crow flies halfway across the continent and Dany comes to their rescue on dragonback overnight? If you're going to set up rules for your made up fantasy universe, you still need to follow those rules or it doesn't work.

Eh, she comes across like a jaded teen living in a fucked up world. If anything, I think she's acting exactly like any kid would in her situation.

Teens are not subtle.

Suspend your disbelief then, buddy.

Yes I’m absolutely certain based on this comment that you’d have found the episode equally dull and umaffecting if it wasn’t a gay couple

It’s told a story about characters that it just introduced in that episode. And it did it well. And it the overall theme of the game had to do with people in pairs. So it’s a ton setter.

I think people love a good love story and we rarely see a good queer one. Add in the actors and setting and it’s just really great to watch. It was not the best tv ever, but it was quality.

It’s gay so they’re overhyping it.

If it’s filler im hoping for more of that, what scares me about this show is that it can fall into repetition, but this was an amazing way to write a story and add to the main plot, it’s ok to praise things but people like you love to “not get things” when they get too mucch praise, so you can have your moment too i guess.

[deleted]

i thought it was very well made and written. it works as a standalone episode but also thematically builds upon the overall story and Joel’s character arc.

i do think its a little overhyped though. id guess it gets lots of extra appreciation due to it unashamedly being a gay love and romance story and playing it completely straight as opposed to making a big deal out of it. which i think is dope, more people should see these things and realize that its normal and not a big deal.

it wasn’t necessary to see the whole thing, but i dont really think it detracts from it either. its nice to see the show flesh the world out more. we didnt need to see sara’s entire day before the outbreak or the whole cold open from episode 2 either (i realize those take up less time but you get the idea)

attack on titan, better call saul as well

i guess its supposed to be setting up what happens in the second game a little earlier on

BRO ITS ABSOLUTELY A FUCKIN MASTERPIECE. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL AND OH MY GOD WHEN THEY DIED I CRIED AND THEN MY BRO CRIED NEXT TO ME THEN WE HUGGED AND SOBBED AND THE BEAUTY WAS IVERWHLMING ABSOLUTELY 10/10 THIS EPISODE OS GONNA CHANGE THE COURSE OF TV HISTORY !!!!!

Look man, when I was playing part 1 10 years ago I didn't give a FUCK what happens to Bill. This episode made me tear up by the end of it.

Well to be fair it existed for the letter to have emotional resonance and meaning so you kinda needed Joel to get the letter in the episode. But I hear ya

User reviews in a vacuum are great. Aggregated user scores are worthless because of all the brigading.

I think the thing that made it notable in a series that is known for being pretty stark and not very uplifting is that ultimately Bill and Frank won. The audience already knows that Joel is a person who has no hope for anyone, let alone himself. He's a survivor who's walled himself off from nearly everyone around him. He doesn't even think twice about justifying killing Ellie when he points out to Tess that she's gonna have a shit future anyway and he's probably doing her a merciful deed.

Bill did what Joel has failed twice at. But Bill showed that it can be done, and people can still win. One of the final scenes where Joel asks to see Ellie's bite again is him looking one more time before he lets himself make a leap of faith. And none of that would have been possible without seeing that Bill and Frank not only carved out something functional, but something that they clearly both loved.

I don’t watch a lot of contemporary tv bc the constant action scenes and just scene changing in general is too much for me to keep up with. I found this episode incredibly refreshing and able to hold my attention. Maybe other people are also craving a slower pace.

I think the fact that it did take up so much time is explicitly why it detracts from it.

For the majority of the hour we totally lost the plot and were watching something else. Maybe if they actually inserted some apocalypse into that hour it would have detracted less, but if you photoshopped the fence out of the background maybe five minutes of the whole thing still would have had anything to do with the setting and events of the show at large.

As someone else in another thread had said, you could've swapped the setting to a cabin in the remote woods instead of the fungus apocalypse and literally nothing else would have had to been changed about the whole flashback. It's like the whole apocalypse never happened for the entire flashback, it barely impacted them at all, and the one time it directly did (the raiders) they used it as a fake out two seconds later and surprise! Bill is totally fine from that gut shot while Frank is now dying of a terminal illness and they lived happily ever after.

Like there's a compelling love story being told here, but it sure as shit didn't have a thing to do with "The Last Of Us." beyond cribbing the setting and vague ideas of a couple minor characters then doing literally nothing relevant with either.

Not only that but it took the spirit of The last of us and really highlighted it. Finding a light in the darkness. You can’t change the world, all hope for that is lost but you can find a light that makes it warmer. It was absolutely beautiful

Bots and a huge advertising budget

Everyone reacts to art differently, that's all.

I literally just posted this before seeing your post appear on my front page. IMO, I feel we could have explored Bill’s character more. It was a beautiful episode nonetheless.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/10qchoc/spoilers_tlou_season_1_episode_3_bill/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[removed]

Tbf, TWD had a bunch of non-action filler episodes too.

Aw is the wittle bigot feewing sad having to watch men smooch?

Showing gay people existing that were gay in the source material isn’t catering. It’s just telling the story.

While I certainly don’t think it makes the show/game worse… having played both games, it’s not untrue that gay/queer folks are overrepresented in TLOU. Considering they are generally less than 10% of the population.

But given that historically, gays have been underrepresented in media, this might be a good thing.

In the second game especially though, there is a sense of “wait, he/she is also gay?”

It reminded me of Black Mirror’s “San Junipero” episode, as a brilliant, standalone episode, that stands above the rest of the series, and most anything else on TV at the time.

House of the Dragon, White Lotus may have also had an episode that could match this one.