On my first watch of The Last of Us I missed the plot plants for this episode. The radio link in Joel’s apartment that plays 80’s tunes as a sign of trouble, and Tess’ plea for Joel to leave Ellie with Bill and Frank, didn’t stick with me as important.
However, that means I went into episode 3 with no expectations. I didn’t remember that Bill had a Frank. I’m glad, actually, that everything was a surprise for me. It let me experience each beat at its full impact. I’ve really been looking forward to this rewatch.
Let’s see how the breakdown holds up!
LEFTOVER NINE
Joel’s damaged hand reaches into a stream and takes out a stone. He’s building a cairn on the riverbank. Ten Miles West of Boston. Ellie waits for him in the woods. As Joel packs up to move on, Ellie takes him to task: Don’t blame me for Tess’ death. After a beat, Joel nods. They have a five hour hike ahead of them.
ONE
Ellie tries to make conversation while they walk. She’s direct and he’s honest, although uninterested in talking. They stop at a Cumberland Farms where Joel has supplies stashed. Ellie, very excited, finds a Mortal Kombat arcade game. She joyfully remembers the game’s details. Looking around, Ellie finds a basement storage area, including a box of tampons. A noise freezes her. Under a pile of rubble is an infected, trapped. She comes close, right up on it as it gapes and clicks at her. (Meanwhile, Joel is still upstairs looking for his cache.) Like a scientist, Ellie uses her knife blade to cut into the infected’s forehead while it watches her. Fungus is underneath the skin. Then she stabs, finishing it. By the time Joel starts looking for her, she returns, no evidence of what she encountered. Joel stores his assault rifle, and they leave.
They continue walking. A downed plane, ruined, excites Ellie’s attention. She starts picking Joel’s brain for details about the past. The infection began with a common food product eaten across the world: bread, cereal . . . pancake mix. The infected starting biting on a Friday night. By Monday, everything was gone.
TWO
Joel suggests diverting through the woods to keep Ellie from seeing what’s on the road ahead. She pushes onward. In the grass just off the road is an open mass grave, now only skeletons and fragments of belongings. Joel must explain that people who probably weren’t sick were still killed by soldiers because QZs didn’t have enough room. “Dead people can’t be infected.” The camera pushes in close on a scrap of dress flapping in the breeze.
Cut to the same dress on a living woman carrying an infant. September 30th, 2003. She’s in a group of people loading into a military truck while soldiers mark houses that are now empty. We view the scene from one of the houses. Its security cameras feed to a display inside the house’s basement. The man watching quietly lifts his rifle and looks up at his main floor while soldiers tromp above his head.
THREE
Outside, the woman in the dress loads into the truck. It drives past a Mandatory Evacuation notice and out of town. The soldiers follow.
FOUR
Lights come on in the house’s basement, showing a prepper heaven. The man climbs up to the main floor, lifting a false bureau that camouflages the hatch. Shotgun ready, he checks his house, then steps out front. His door has the painted red X. He wears a gas mask, with extra shells slung over his shoulder. The neighborhood is absolutely deserted. He lifts the mask off, showing us his face. (This, we’ll learn, is Bill.) He smiles as slide guitar music begins.
Music continues, over, as he hitches up his neighbor’s boat as a trailer and breaks into the Home Depot. (It’s a hilarious sequence of him ransacking the town for anything practical and delicious. Every survivalist aspires to be this person in a disaster.) He fences his property, raises chickens and grows vegetables, digs traps outside the perimeter, and fires up a truly gargantuan generator in his back yard. All alone he eats a gourmet meal he prepared. A buzzer goes off, and he switches on a security camera to watch an infected approaching through the woods. He (and we) watch it step into a trip wire, triggering a shotgun to blow its head off. Bill, enjoying himself, resumes eating.
Four Years Later, 2007. The perimeter fence, opened by a remote in Bill’s truck, shows a High Voltage sign. Cream’s “White Room” plays, over. (The suggestion is that life is still good.) In his basement, Bill welds when a buzzer goes off. The camera shows one of his pit traps has been breached.
Racking the shotgun, Bill goes through his gate and approaches the pit. “I’m not infected,” says a plaintive voice. In the pit, a man with his hands raised (and looking genuinely harmless) explains himself. Bill leaves him, then returns with a ladder. Before the man can climb out, though, Bill tests him. It’s green.
Bill points toward Boston, letting the man go free. The man introduces himself as Frank and says he’s hungry. They take a long look at each other, Bill with his pistol aimed, and Frank with a vulnerable face.
Cut to inside. Bill places clean clothes on a bed. In the bathroom the shower runs. From behind the closed door Frank, ecstatic, asks for five more minutes of hot water. For a beat, Bill, emotional, stares at the door.
Frank sits at one end of the formal dining table. While cooking sounds come from the kitchen, Frank looks around at an old-style house with nice things. Bill, tripping slightly, bursts through the doorway. He carries two laden plates and a wine bottle under his arm. His face says he might be suspicious of his intruder, or he might be nervous to have company. When he sets the plate down in front of Frank, Bill rotates it for the best presentation. (Frank’s face is alight. He can’t believe his luck, or he’s just generally optimistic about life.) Starving, Frank rotates the plate to dig in, which earns him a frown. After one bite, Frank can’t believe how delicious it is. Bill pours the wine like a sommelier, and Frank compliments him on serving a beaujolais with the rabbit. Bill sits at the other end of the table.
(This is when I, in my ignorance, noticed the story was ‘shipping these two. Both are bearded and a little rough — that’s dystopian life — but Bill is extra rugged. To see him so delicate with cuisine is hilarious and wonderful. Frank, while appreciating a civilized life after all this time, can see that a tender soul is hidden under Bill’s antisocial exterior. Their meet-cute is delightful.)
After dinner, Frank looks for a reason to stay. He can’t resist the grand piano, and shuffles through the music in the bench. He finds “The Best of Linda Ronstadt” and opens to his “favorite”. Sight-reading, he plays and sings, hesitating on the more complex chords. Bill winces at the sour notes (and probably at the bombastic style most pop translations use). He interrupts Frank and closes the book. “Not this song,” Bill says. Frank gives him the piano, gesturing, “And then I’ll leave.”
Without the music, Bill plays and sings a stripped-down version of “Long, Long Time”, voicing his own piano chords. Frank’s attitude softens; Bill’s anguish is painful. It’s obvious he’s played this song many times. Who’s the girl, Frank asks when Bill finishes. There’s no girl, Bill replies. Putting his hand on Bill’s shoulder, Frank says, “I know.”
Frank leans in, and Bill kisses him back like he’s the one who’s starving. Tears on his cheeks, Frank asks, “What’s your name?”
(The acting here is off the charts. The bedroom scene’s emotional honesty doesn’t need me to spoil it.)
SWITCH
Cut to Three Years Later as Frank, cursing, bangs his way out the front door.
(This is the episode’s halfway point. Again, the Switch announces itself.)
FIVE
Bill follows him out and they have a traditional couples’ fight over differences of opinion. Frank wants to make the house and parts of the town more presentable so they can invite friends over. Bill, breathing until he can calm down, gestures at the post-apocalyptic emptiness and says there are no friends. However, Frank has been talking to a “nice woman on the radio”.
Cut to a luncheon on the lawn with Tess and Joel. It’s a business meeting with wine and fine food. As expected, Joel and Bill are cranky while Tess and Frank are diplomatic. (It’s a great scene.) When Frank takes Tess inside to show her something, Joel and Bill snarl a little at each other. Joel tells Bill the QZ has machine parts and medicine. Bill retorts that they’re self-sufficient, but Joel looks closely at the fence and nails the weaknesses. Meanwhile, Frank trusts Tess, building a relationship. He suggests the radio code. Bill resists. We’ll be fine, he says, even if raiders come.
Three Years Later, 2013. Metal has begun to corrode. Frank leads Bill on a jog through the neighborhood. (Bill sweats and holds his side.) Covering Bill’s eyes, Frank leads him into a surprise strawberry garden he’s planted. (It’s a beautiful, caring scene I won’t spoil.)
Dissolve to nighttime and rain. Raiders approach the fence and Bill’s flame traps go off. In the house, Frank wakes and calls for Bill. Grabbing a handgun from the desk and loading it, he crouches and steps outside, where the neighborhood perimeter is ablaze. Bill is in the street, rifle to his shoulder, picking off raiders who rush the fence. When Bill takes a bullet in the side, Frank pulls him into the house. (Meanwhile, raiders continue to burn. They won’t breach the gate.) Laying Bill on the dining room table, Frank examines the wound. Bill rasps out end-of-life instructions while Frank cleans the area with alcohol. Fade to black.
The front porch. Frank, sitting in a wheelchair, calls for Bill. Ten Years Later, 2023. Bill wheels him inside.
In a studio full of marvelous paintings, Frank tries to work but his coordination has degenerated. Bill waters a planter of autumn mums. At lunch, Frank’s glass has a lid and straw and Bill cuts a plate of meat. He helps Frank manage a baggie full of pills. Later, Bill carries Frank from the chair to the bed and arranges his legs. In bed in the dark, the camera holds on Frank’s profile.
In the morning, Frank’s in his chair when Bill wakes. “This is my last day,” he says. Downstairs, Bill tries to argue. Calmly, Frank lays out his plan: Picking out clothes, marrying, cooking a delicious dinner, crushing the baggie full of pills into my wine, and letting me fall asleep in Bill’s arms. Bill cries.
Fall leaves blow as Bill pushes the wheelchair down the street. Shots of the painting studio, the pit trap, and the setting sun. At the piano, Bill and Frank in suits exchange rings while violin music sweetly plays, over. Contemplating life, Frank waits at the table for Bill to bring in the plates. Showing the beaujolais, Bill pours a class for each of them. They toast and drink.
When the meal is done, Bill brings in fresh glasses and another bottle. He dumps the baggie of crushed pills into Frank’s wine. Frank downs it. Watching him finish, Bill then downs his own glass. Frank realizes: The pills were already in the bottle that both of them drank. (A tender goodbye follows, which I won’t spoil.)
Bill wheels Frank to bed. Fade to black.
SIX
Joel and Ellie arrive. He punches in the gate code to the electrified fence.
The mums in the porch planter are dead.
SEVEN
Joel cautiously enters. We see two empty wineglasses on the dining table. The dinner plates have attracted flies; the empty baggie rests near a fork. Joel tells her to stay while he looks through the house.
Ellie plunks at the piano, which transitions into acoustic guitar music, over. She finds an envelope with a key resting on it. Joel knocks at the bedroom door, but comes back to Ellie. She reads the letter aloud to him.
EIGHT
As she speaks Bill’s words, she has no connection to who he was. The camera, though, moves closer to Joel throughout. At the end, Bill suggests Joel will understand what it means to protect someone, to have that purpose. Ellie breaks off without reading “Tess”. Joel takes the letter and steps outside. We see his struggle, his grief, and his acceptance that Ellie is now his purpose.
In the garage, Joel finds Bill’s truck. It has no battery, but in the fridge are the makings for one.
Returning to the house, Joel says, “Show me your arm.” The wound is scarring over like the last bite did. Joel explains about his brother out west and offers to take her along. They’re now our team.
NINE
They ransack Bill’s basement. (Ellie’s impressed by the prepper perfection.) At the computer, Joel turns off the 80’s music broadcast. They shower, change clothes, and grab supplies. Poking around, Ellie discovers Frank’s handgun in the desk. Before Joel can see, she tucks it into her backpack.
In the truck cab, Ellie is charmed by the novelty. It’s her first time in a car. Joel shows her how to use the seatbelt. In the glove box she finds a cassette and inserts it. Joel protests until he recognizes Linda Ronstadt. He uses the car remote to open the gate, at which point the tinny car stereo becomes the full sound of “Long, Long Time”. It plays while they drive, and then the camera POV is from Bill and Frank’s open bedroom window, holding on the sash while the curtain gently blows and the truck in the distance leaves town. Roll credits.
CRITICAL NOTES
Alright, we have a lot to unpack in this episode because it’s done a number of things brilliantly.
First of all, we have Joel and Ellie bookmarks. They are the protagonists, and this show is their story. Their beats are important. However, the Bill and Frank story is a complete unit. That means we’ll have a sub-Enneagram of their section. I’ll break that down later.
Stay focused on Joel, though, for now. He goes into this episode thinking he’ll dump Ellie with Bill and Frank. That’s what Tess told him to do, and that’s all he wants. At the Three, Joel is out of this story until he returns at the Six. (Flashback Joel doesn’t count; he serves the Bill and Frank story.) Our Joel with his intention — I want to pass the responsibility for this person onto someone else — is the point of this Enneagram. His desire fails at the Eight and he must invent a new intention. Pascal’s acting kills it in this moment, and the director trusts so much of the work to him. Joel’s resolve at the Eight allows the series to move forward. No actor wants to follow the Bill and Frank act, lol, yet Pascal steps up. The cranky similarities between Joel and Bill (which Bill acknowledges in his letter) help with the Eight, but still I give all credit to the showrunners.
The Three and Six are a bit of a stretch as mirror beats, and yet a subconscious connection exists. Bill has created his own QZ, and he enforces it as much as FEDRA does with their border. When the soldiers leave, Bill becomes the dictator of his own neighborhood with the power to decide who lives and dies. Also, a strange poignancy exists between the scrap of a doomed dress and the abandoned mums. It’s not a mirror I can think too much about, but it lingers at the edges, feeling bittersweet. I’ll count this Three/Six as effective.
All of this is window dressing, though. We’re here for the Bill and Frank story. What a bold move to insert two strangers into the third episode! Over the course of the main story’s Four-Switch-Five we have their own Enneagram. Quickly, here it is:
ONE: In an immediate show-don’t-tell, Bill’s basement says everything we need to know.
TWO: Frank’s fall into the pit trap is the Trouble. Bill’s world is about to turn upside-down.
THREE: The dinner and its charm.
FOUR: The romance develops. They become a couple who knows and loves each other.
SWITCH: Frank’s been talking to a nice woman on the radio.
FIVE: They have company over. They age. They withstand raiders. And they age even more.
SIX: The lunch with the sippy cup.
SEVEN: Frank’s decision to make this his last day. (Bill’s decision to join him, unseen, cascades after.)
EIGHT: The day. The wedding. The meal, with all the dinner rituals established at the Three returning. The drink.
NINE: The long walk to the bedroom, with the shot in a soft focus. The main story’s Nine, with the view from the bedroom window, nods back to the Bill and Frank Nine, bringing resolution to both stories.
There you go. The only complaint I have about this episode is that it sets the bar incredibly high. Can The Last of Us continue at this level of excellence? Stay tuned.
Also, that song makes an extremely persistent earworm.