Credit: Unsplash

The episode turned a throwaway plot into a heartwarming story.

Sunday’s new episode of The Last of Us on HBO Max has proven to be an overnight success, telling a self-contained story of love and intimacy in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Doomsday prepper Bill, played by Nick Offerman, meets a survivor named Frank, played by Murray Bartlett, and though the two start on tense terms, they eventually join in a beautiful and understanding relationship ultimately culminating in their mutual voluntary deaths.

Interestingly, in the video game on which the show is based, Bill and Frank are only bit characters, with Frank leaving Bill offscreen and Bill engaging more fervently in his prepper tendencies. In a behind-the-scenes segment following the episode, the creators of the show discussed making this significant change to the story.

“My philosophy on the show has been when should we deviate and when should we come back. If it’s kinda the same or worse, we stay where the game is,” The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann explained. “If it’s better, we deviate.”

Long, long time. pic.twitter.com/h1e92sLsBp

— The Last of Us (@TheLastofUsHBO) January 30, 2023

Producer Craig Mazin explained that Bill’s relationship with Frank serves as a way to both gauge the passage of time and to tell a brief story of a man who closed himself off learning to love. “We knew from the game that Bill had a partner,” he said. “In the game, Frank is already dead and I thought there was an opportunity to go a different way….I’ve seen this thing 200 times, and I still cry and it’s those two guys doing it to me, no question.”