Sublime storytelling soaks tissues in The Last of Us Ep. 3.
I'm going to be thinking about "Long, Long Time" for...well, you know.
The Short Take:
Episode 3 digresses from the main plot to tell a beautiful, poignant story about life and love after the apocalypse. Exquisite storytelling through music.
Image Credit: New York Times
[SPOILER WARNING: Don’t open this trap door if you haven’t seen the episode. There will be nothing but spoilers inside.]
The Long Take:
I never thought Linda Ronstadt would make me cry.
The Last of Us has, since the start, operated at a high level of emotional intensity, but Episode 3, titled “Long, Long Time,” after the Ronstadt song of the same name, might be one of the best, most emotionally impactful uses of a song I’ve seen on television, at least in recent memory.
I’m not the only one ensorcelled by the 1970 country tune, apparently. Spotify reported on Twitter that streams of it increased by 4900% on Sunday night after the episode hit HBO Max. It seems to have created a similar phenomenon to the appearance of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” in Netflix’s Stranger Things, according to CNN.
Why has the song “Long, Long, Time” had such an impact? For me, it doesn’t merely set a tone or generate momentum for a scene, as good needle drops often do. And while the lyrics do provide subtext to Bill and Frank’s feelings, I’d say that’s not the most important contribution this song makes to the episode and the series. This song actively plays a role in the story, moving it forward through characters’ reaction to the music. Bill and Frank fall in love, and fall in love so quickly, because the song is able to speak for them — to say what they initially hesitate to say. They’re two strangers in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and trust is hard to come by.
What’s more, the song efficiently conveys how these two men are both opposite personalities and yet compatible. Frank plays the song boldly, with gusto and joy, while Bill plays a slower, understated arrangement that is more soulful and introspective. They hear the song at different speeds and with different hues, but they both love the song. Perhaps they paradoxically love each other for as well as in spite of interpreting the song differently.
At the end of the episode, there’s a beautiful echo when Ellie pops a cassette tape in Bill’s truck. Joel suddenly stops discouraging her when he hears Ronstadt’s voice. So many thoughts ran through my head during this final scene. Joel and Bill didn’t exactly get along, but this shows that they had more in common than they thought. And even though Joel was not able to see or speak to Bill and Frank one last time, the mixed tape with this song allows him to connect with them posthumously. He may not know the full extent of the song’s significance like we do, but the tape is still a relic from their lives. They probably listened to that song in their truck just as Joel and Ellie listen to it now.
We get that sense throughout the entire present timeline sequence. As Ellie and Joel walk through Bill and Frank’s home and interact with their material possessions, I as an audience member can still feel the presence of them and the full life they lived together. I don’t think that emotionally pays off without circling back to that song.
Image Credit: Variety
Even though we end with Joel listening to “Long, Long Time,” the episode clearly conveys that this is Bill and Frank’s story through and through. Showrunner Craig Mazin shifts control of the narrative over to them. Joel feels like he’s a guest star on his own show. The final shot of the episode, even after we’ve spent time with Joel and Ellie, reflects Bill and Frank’s spiritual POV. In what I’d guess is a reverse dolly zoom, the camera slowly backs up into the house from the window, zooming out as it goes. The window, with curtains gently fluttering, is open; it must be the window in Bill and Frank’s bedroom that they left open so their rotting corpses wouldn’t stink up the house. Mazin didn’t have to do this. The episode could have easily ended with Joel and Ellie driving away in the truck. To instead end with the camera occupying space in the house and as a result representing Bill and Frank’s posthumous presence has a haunting effect and, more importantly, gives these two supporting characters the care and the respect that other shows might not have afforded. That dignity and control poetically echoes their end of life.
Image Credit: Screen Rant
Does this episode technically move the plot forward all that much? No. In fact, it almost feels as if we’ve stopped time just to tell this tale. (Or pressed pause during a video game.) I would still say, though, that The Ballad of Bill and Frank does contribute to the story, especially in terms of Joel’s character development. It is through Joel’s return to Bill and Frank’s homestead that he is able to allow himself to feel. Bill’s epistolary comment about protecting those you love, with the explicit mention of Tess, not only brings back the pain of her loss from the previous episode, but also the guilt and shame Joel feels over not being able to save her. It reinforces Tess’ final words about saving who he can save. She was talking about Joel being unable to save Sarah, but here that phrase carries new meaning because we remember that Joel wasn’t able to save Tess either.
All of this grief fuels his developing Lone Wolf and Cub relationship with Ellie. With Ellie he has a way to channel all the pain and sadness, and Bill’s letter combined with the implied contemplation of Bill and Frank’s relationship — felt keenly by the audience but also, presumably, by Joel — facilitates that process. Tess’ death introduced a new sense of purpose to Joel, and Bill and Frank’s death cements it.
Image Credit: Men’s Health
Regardless of how you feel about this episode’s relationship to the whole series and its ongoing plot, the love story and totality of Bill and Frank’s relationship as told here is absolutely beautiful. I loved the time jumps that showed how their lives change and progress after they meet. And that simply doesn’t work without the brilliant acting and chemistry between American comedian/actor Nick Offerman and Australian actor Murray Bartlett (who apparently is in HBO’s The White Lotus…yet another reason I should watch that show). Their attraction and deep love for one another was so believable. Incidentally, I haven’t thought to mention that they are a gay couple until now because the show so thoughtfully presents their relationship as completely normal, without pointing an exploitative, voyeuristic, or self-congratulatory finger. So perhaps Offerman and Bartlett are able to give these grounded, believable performances because the of the writing.
The casting here is genius, especially with Nick Offerman. The second I recognized him, it was as if the series had a shorthand. I knew exactly how Ron Swanson, Offerman’s character on Parks and Rec — and to a lesser extent Offerman himself, who in real life carves canoes from wood by hand — would react to a zombie apocalypse. And then the vulnerability and sensitivity he shows throughout the episode makes his character so much more complex than the survivalist stereotype allows.
Image Credit: CNET
As a result of all these smart, thoughtful, and emotionally potent storytelling choices, Episode 3 is a testament to what post-apocalyptic fiction can do. Yes, people consume post-apocalyptic zombie stories for the suspenseful action and for the survival drama. But the bigger appeal of these stories for me is the potential they have as a thought experiment and as a pressure-cooker through which to understand the human condition. I think of the scene in which Bill and Frank eat strawberries for the first time since the world fell apart, and the purity of that moment, the celebration of life’s simple pleasures, made me think about what I might take for granted in my own life. Stripping away all the comforts of modern civilization, we are able to see, for lack of less cliched language, what really matters.
Image Credit: Polygon
We may have already progressed past the point at which I stopped playing the game, as I don’t really remember Frank or Bill, but my consultant on retainer, Jordan, says that while Frank and Bill are in the game, Frank is already dead when we encounter Bill and we never get to meet him. So the epic love story that has come to a bittersweet end by the time Joel and Ellie arrive is not in the game at all. I’m totally fine with these changes. In fact, I’d say this adaptive departure reflects the series’ ambition to realize its potential as a post-apocalyptic narrative. In Episode 1, we started with a talk show interview independent of Joel and Ellie. In Episode 2, we followed a professor of mycology. And now, we have almost an entire episode about two characters who, unlike the first two, know Joel, but feel very separate from the quest to get Ellie to doctors who can then use her to formulate a cure. These “side” stories expand the world in order to illustrate that this is a global event happening to everyone, everywhere. It also leans into post-apocalyptic dystopia as a concept. How do different people from different walks of life respond to doom and catastrophe?
Bill and Frank responded with human connection, trust, and care. Despite all the sadness — the literal tears this episode induced — this story was still happy and hopeful because Bill and Frank got to live a full life full of love. Also raiders and trip wires, but mostly love.