Fans of The Last of Us never dared to dream they’d ever get a live-action adaptation as good as what HBO has delivered. Chernobyl‘s Craig Mazin and game director Neil Druckmann have smartly adapted the post-apocalyptic action adventure into an episodic TV show, shearing away the stuff that only works in a game and cranking up the volume of minor stories.
By far the best example of this is episode 3 – “Long, Long Time” – which took a subplot so minor it’s possible to miss it entirely in the game and made it the focus of the episode. This was the heartbreakingly tender love story between doomsday prepper Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), with the pair realizing that simply surviving the apocalypse doesn’t mean much if you don’t live life.
Everyone has been blown away by “Long, Long Time.” Well, almost everyone. Homophobes are up in arms over the episode, taking to IMDb to review bomb it. Now, they’re taking aim at the show’s stars. Yellowjackets‘ Melanie Lynskey will appear in episode four as Kathleen, described as the “ruthless leader of a revolutionary movement.” But to chuds online, she’s also part of the… “homosexual agenda”. And she couldn’t be more thrilled:
Seriously though, if the homosexual agenda is to turn out note-perfect episodes of television we’ll remember for a long, long time then we’re totally on board with it. Plus, if the worst people on the internet are mad about Bill and Frank, we await with bated breath their reaction to the characters coming in future seasons based on The Last of Us Part II.
The Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO.