Episodes 3 and 4 of HBO's The Last of Us are great examples of why and how to adapt your story in a way that both works better for your intended medium, possibly improves on the source material and still essentially serves the same function as the original. A certain scene in Episode 4 also showcases why simply "sticking to the game" and being too faithful can at times in fact be a mistake.
This review contains spoilers for Episodes 3 & 4 of The Last of Us show and the first game. The text also contains some minor discussion about suicide.
Last week I failed to write a review for Episode 3, which mostly was the result of me procrastinating until I realized that everything I wished to say was already said by others, and probably in a more elegant fashion. Simply put, I absolutely loved the episode and have very few, if any, gripes about it. It utterly destroyed me emotionally, to the point that instead of some "manly tears" (a fairly ridiculous concept to be honest), I looked very similar to how Bill did as he cried on the couch after Frank's gutting proposal.
Episode 4 was a strong continuation of the story, bringing us back to something more familiar to fans of the game: Joel and Ellie slowly bonding on their road trip before getting ambushed by the most dangerous enemy, other survivors.
While the two episodes have little that truly connects them, which makes reviewing them together slightly more challenging, I do see a very strong case in them for why smart changes from your source material is important. As someone who spent a lot of time studying why video game adaptations like Paramount's Halo did not work, it is interesting to see a show like the Last of Us that is both at times incredibly faithful and yet unafraid to make bold diversions when necessary. Especially as often a popular sentiment among audiences of adaptations, be it of books, comics or video games, is that the films should just "stick to the source material," and that the reason shows like Halo are bad is that they did not respect what the stories they were based on. Episode 3 has received a lot of similar criticism from straying "too far" from the game, but I'm of a completely different mind on this.
It is true that Episode 3 told a very different story about Bill and Frank that many of us know from the game. It also did it by focusing on a seemingly detached B-plot for the majority of the episode, only following our central characters and "main story" at the beginning and end of the episode. And while it might be easy to say that the focus on Bill and Frank's love story slowed down the pacing of the show, I would still argue that it was in no way unnecessary or forced.
It's easy for people to get stuck on things that are different and equate that to the same as it being bad, but if you truly examine the show on its own merit, you can see why that is not always the case. Let's break down these common arguments about the show, while ignoring the obvious homophobia that is also a major part of some people's criticism. I will be repeating some things other people have already pointed out, but hopefully I will be able to convey all the different talking points effectively to help form a coherent case.
First of all, let's talk about how and why the episode is different to the game, and if that makes it somehow worse. In the game Joel and Ellie arrive in "Bill's Town" and fight some infected before meeting Bill, still very much alive but far from alright. Bill is alone, and clearly has been for a while. He is paranoid, bitter and hostile towards Joel and Ellie, especially the latter, which results in some funny banter between the two. There is no mention of Frank initially, because unlike in the show, Joel has never met him. At one point Bill references Frank by telling Joel a story: "Once upon a time I had somebody I cared about... A partner. Somebody I had to look after. And in this world that sort of shit is good for one thing: getting you killed." Later the player can find a letter and learn that Frank and Bill had a falling out, because Bill was unable to change, while Frank eventually got tired of him and tried to leave. However, Frank got bit by infected on his way out of town and hung himself before turning. Bill, Joel and Ellie find his dead body in an abandoned house while escaping from infected. Bill is clearly somewhat upset by this, but as their relationship ended badly, he also remains bitter at Frank and uses that to mask any vulnerability from Joel.
In the game, Bill's section serves two main functions for the story. From a plot perspective, Bill helps Joel and Ellie get a car, which they do by sneaking and fighting their way through countless infected. Thematically and emotionally however, Bill acts as a warning for Joel about what kind of a bitter and sad man he could become, should he continue to act selfishly and close his heart to other people. (Which he does learn from, although one might argue that perhaps not in the best way.) Bill's character is a tragic one, because even though he continues to survive, his lonely existence is far from truly living.
However, the game's version of Bill's and Frank's story was changed for the TV adaptation for multiple reasons. While in the game it is strongly alluded to (and confirmed by the writer) that their relationship was romantic, we never get to see it and only learn about it from vague dialogue and Frank's suicide note. Bill's sexuality was also hinted at by the porn magazine Ellie finds from his stash. This vagueness was partly the result of the mindset of 2013, where an openly gay relationship between two men in an already risky big budget video game would have surely scared off investors and potential core gamers. (Not surprising, give the reaction to this episode.) The game simply needed to succeed, as it was a completely new IP. Additionally in a game, backstory is easier to convey through dialogue and optional collectables the player can find and read, while on television it's more effective to show that instead of simply telling.
But most importantly, the bitter ending to their relationship and Frank's suicide in some ways also contributed to the common trope of "burying your gays." For a long time in media it was common to kill off any explicitly gay characters and very rarely, if ever, were queer relationships depicted to have happy endings. In stories they would often end tragically with one or both characters dying, and their whole purpose in the story might be to die. The image of Frank's character, a canonically gay man, hanging from suicide was a painful reminder of the very real pain many queer people have had to face due to oppression and internalized phobias. For more in-depth discussions about the topic, I would encourage people to seek texts and videos from LGBTA+ creators, such as Jessie Earl's review of the episode. Even though Bill and Frank die in the show, they got to grow old together and choose their own ending in a beautiful way.
In the show, Bill's and Frank's story serves two very similar purposes as the game but in a drastically different way. From a plot perspective, they still help Joel and Ellie get a car, just without the drawn out fighting through hordes of infected, that in a game works to give the player something to do, but does not really serve any function in a passive medium. After all, action scenes in a story should further the plot or grow the characters in some way, instead of existing for the sake of it.
Again, on a subtextual level Bill and Frank's story and the letter reinforce the theme of love and fuel Joel's character growth. While in the game Bill functions as a warning to Joel, this version of Bill is instead a positive example of the opposite. I would argue that both versions of Bill are very much the same character at heart, but more like alternative timelines of the same person. Bill in the game was unable to grow past his paranoia and toxic beliefs of what it takes to survive. Bill in the show started out the same way but over time, with Frank's help, learned to live instead of simply surviving. Despite the major difference in how his story ends, the end result is more or less the same: Joel learns about the difference between surviving and living.
And if we want to talk about respecting characters, I would argue that the show did that more than the game did. The game did not allow Bill to grow, to change. It doomed him to a lonely, sad life while barely even delving into a fundamental part of his character's story, that being his relationship with Frank. The show instead committed almost a full episode to develop his character and allowed him to grow and change as a person, instead of being forever stuck in emotional stasis.
When it comes to how the episode might feel detached from the rest of the show as some argue, I would point to the earlier points about how it is important for Joel's development. It is obvious how the letter affects him, especially as this version of Joel has known Bill and Frank for over a decade.
And finally, this is the beauty of a television format. The Last of Us is not a film, and TV has always used the episode structure to sometimes deviate from the typical "three act structure" of storytelling (despite how many Disney produced shows seem to function as essentially 6-10 hour movies). That is the advantage of having more than three hours to tell a story. It is not at all uncommon to have so called "bottle episodes" that concentrate on one location as a narrative tool, or entire flashback episodes, or even seemingly detached storylines that can function almost as their own short films within a season. And history has brought us a number of great examples of these more "independent" episodes, even if they are sometimes divisive like Breaking Bad's "Fly".
These are not to be confused with filler. Filler is when a show's runtime is artificially padded out to fill a certain quota of episodes with something that does not develop the characters or themes in a meaningful way and has no consequences outside of the episode. Episode 3 is not filler, as it develops and furthers the themes of the show and it does very clearly have an effect on the plot on a mechanical level (Joel and Ellie get a car, and Joel cannot simply offload Ellie onto Frank and Bill) and on an emotional level. Not to mention that clearly a lot of love, effort and money was put into making the episode, something that is rarely the case with filler.
In the end, even if we put everything that aside, Episode 3 was a beautiful story told incredibly well and something new that managed to positively surprise a lot of fans and new audiences, engrossing them for an hour of great TV. At least for those of us who are not put off by two gay men kissing on the screen and instead see them as people in love, regardless of their gender. Was is strictly necessary for the series to work? No, of course they could have just gone the "easy route" and done something more similar to the game or simply skipped Bill's character altogether. Yet do I think Episode 3 is a worthwhile addition to the story and the best one out of the four so far? Absolutely.
Now, let's actually talk a bit about Episode 4. It was once again a good one, this time focusing on Joel and Ellie for almost the whole runtime. This was probably the first episode where I truly began to love Bella Ramsey's portrayal of Ellie, as we see even more of her softer and playful side. She tells Joel puns from a jokebook and takes digs at him for drinking coffee (something that was referenced in the second game). The scene of them laughing together at a stupid joke before going to sleep was one I especially treasured, as it was refreshing to see Joel's hard shell crack for a moment. It was another great nugget of something that we never really saw in the game but feels like it could have happened off screen.
We also see the two of them open up more about their past, and moments like Ellie asking Joel to reassure her that they won't be found in the woods or Joel teaching Ellie how to properly hold a gun are lovely ways of building the foundation for their eventual father-daughter dynamic.
I also appreciated how they drew out Ellie's first time saving Joel, effectively and believably reminding us about the cost of taking a human life. It also shows that despite her darker side, Ellie is not a emotionless murder machine at this point and only a child still. Joel's later revelation of having been on both sides also reinforces the idea that while he was rightfully acting in self-defense when he fought the ambushers, it is too simplistic to label the others as "bad" and Joel as "good."
The ambush scene as a whole was tense but neither was it shot in a way that most people might call good action. This is not a criticism but more of a observation, as it is clearly intentional and Craig Mazin has stated so. The Last of Us is not an action show and Joel is not John Wick or a nearly immortal video game protagonist that can shake off bullet wounds. The show clearly avoids glorifying violence with gory action shots and impressive choreography, but instead aims to depict brutal but grounded scenes of violence that serve a narrative purpose in favor of spectacle. The creators are more interested in the emotional effect killing has on the person doing it rather than showcasing the act of shooting people.
I truly enjoyed the episode, but to conclude my take on the importance of making smart adaptations, I want to quickly mention how my least favorite scene in Episode 4 was the one that was unarguably the most "faithful" to the game. That being the scene with Ellie and Joel in the car, listening to Hank Williams and bickering over a porn magazine. The scene was basically lifted straight from the game, pretty much line for line and with almost identical editing and pacing. In the game it is definitely among my favorite scenes, despite it having essentially no real importance to the plot and mostly functioning to bring some might needed levity after an hour of tense combat scenarios. However, and perhaps this is just me, in the show the similarities were so obvious that it actually took me out of it. I could not help but to unconsciously compare the delivery of the dialogue to the original scene with Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, as it is still so fresh in my mind after playing the game numerous times and having recently gone through it again with the release of the remastered Part 1 for PS5.
This is not to say that the version of the scene in the show is necessarily worse, but to someone so familiar with the source material it feels that way. There have been similar moments in the previous episodes, like Joel "killing time" on the couch after his initial meeting with Ellie, but none have distracted me as much. Perhaps it's the comedic nature of the scene that does it, as comedy is as much about the timing and delivery as it is about the actual text. So when the only thing I can hear in my head is how the original actors delivered the same lines, it ruins that intended effect.
Personally, I think that scene alone serves as the perfect example of why adapting a video game scene word to word and shot for shot could be cool fan service, but might also be a disservice to the story for those familiar with the original work. Adapting a scene from a book or comic to film is different because the mediums are so far apart, but animated cutscenes in a video game are a lot more similar to films and television, especially in a game like The Last of Us. It's why the words "stick to the game" ring so hollow to me. As long as the major plot beats, the themes and characters are there, I would much rather have new original takes on these scenes if they serve the same function in the story. There are a million ways you could make a scene with Ellie and Joel goofing around in the car that gives us that same feeling as the original, without needing to mimic it exactly. I feel like the moment of Joel slurping coffee to spite Ellie proves this point.
But these are also personal tastes and obviously I cannot tell how well that scene works for someone completely new to the story. It is just particularly noticeable because for the most part The Last of Us has managed to bring us a familiar story with interesting twists and additions that make me feel like the game was truly worth adapting. If it keeps that up, we might have a true masterpiece on our hands.
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