The long-anticipated third episode of The Last of Us introduced viewers to the gay love story between Bill (played by Nick Offerman) and Frank (played by Murray Bartlett).
During an interview with Inverse, episode three director Peter Hoar explained how he deliberately “tricked” viewers into watching a gay love story without necessarily making that clear straight away. He explained:
“For Nick, it was very much a different person. But at the same time, we didn’t get Nick Offerman to not have some of him in it as well. Because that is Bill – Bill is complicated. I would definitely argue that Bill doesn’t come across as a gay man. It’s a little less binary than that. He is a man who never really discovered himself. He lived in a world of mistrust. He lived with his mother for a certain long number of years, she then died, and he had the house. He pulled himself away from society. He was never going to naturally discover who he was to fall in love with or who he found attractive until Frank came along. And even then, it wasn’t just about being a man, it was because he was Frank. It was because Frank is Frank. I felt like it was about making sure to keep reminding them all of that.”
The director continued, saying, “Sometimes you have to sort of trick the rest of the world into watching these things before they’re like, ‘Oh my god, it was two guys. I just realized.’ I think then they might understand that it’s all real. It’s just the same love.”
Even though people who had played The Last of Us games already knew of Bill’s gay love story, the TV adaptation of the videogame series is attracting a wider audience that isn’t necessarily aware of all these characters and storylines. As a result, Hoar used that as an advantage to tell the backstory of Bill and Frank.
Episode three of The Last of Us continued the show’s mind-blowing growth in overall ratings. The series drew 4.7 million viewers during its grand premiere, then 5.7 million for episode two. The third episode had an audience of 6.4 million people, making it the highest-rated episode of the series thus far.
Unsurprisingly, HBO has already renewed The Last of Us for a second season, which should continue to follow the storyline that has already been told in the videogame franchise. If the TV adaptation continues to bring in such high viewership numbers, there’s a very big chance that HBO will take the Game of Thrones route and continue to make seasons past the point of having enough source material.
For now, though, viewers are just excited to keep watching The Last of Us and see where this first season ends.
The Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.