warning this article contains spoilers for the last of us episode 3 if youve not yet caught up with the show turn away nowaside from a few tweaks to tesss death in episode 2 the last of us has been a pretty faithful adaptation of the naughty dog game on which its based episode 3 however deviates from the source material significantly offering us a glimpse at bills life before he meets joel and ellie while it opens on our main protagonists played onscreen by pedro pascal and bella ramsey as they continue their journey west long long time soon jumps back to the beginnings of the cordyceps pandemic in 2003 and sees bill nick offerman turn his abandoned town of lincoln into a selfsustainable oneman safe zone one day though his isolated existence is interrupted by a man named frank murray bartlett and he winds up spending the next 20 years in a romantic relationship with the oncemysterious survivorwhile it might seem strange to plonk a semistandalone episode so early on in a season bartlett argues that its positioned to set up the tone and the message of the entire series one of the key phrases in the show is when youre lost in the darkness look for the light and this episode is getting to the heart of that he explained to gamesradar and other media recently it proves there can be hope in anything and theres possibility of connection even in the darkest of situations connection and hope are possible in any circumstance thats a very privileged thing to say but i think it is true to a certain extent depending on your situation the white lotus actor continued obviously if youre in a war zone or some dire situation its an enormously challenging thing to do and yet we see here in this postapocalyptic world that is dark and scary and lonely that humanity can kind of triumph in terms of like finding light within each other finding hope within each other and find finding strength in connection with each other thats what i got from it and i hope thats what people take away from itin the show the conclusion of bill and franks time together is tragic with frank choosing to end his life before his terminal illness truly takes hold and bill opting to do the same but its much more tender than how things ended between them in the game in that frank leaves bill due to his controlling ways and allconsuming conspiracy theories before being bitten by clickers and hanging himself none of which you actually see you learn it through a note joel finds by tweaking the outcome showrunners craig mazin and neil druckmann end on a more hopeful note says offermani grew up in a farm family ive been a laborer and now im married to the woman who played karen walker on will and grace and she affords me fabulous riches and all of the incredible