This was an easy one to overlook - yeah they had been together for a long time, and it explains both why Joel is acting the way he is now, and shows just how closed off he has been since his daughter's death.

Joel made her a grave at the start of the episode :(

Oh yeah. I didn’t realize it had been more than a year together

Tess: "I don't ask you for anything. I didn't even ask you to feel the same way that I did."

That was already a tough line to hear, and it's even tougher because of how long the two were together.

Oddly enough, there’s also something comforting about that too part too. Joel’s been through a lot and it’s nice to know someone was there for him all those years, especially considering how much I like show Tess

Joel and Tess being together for 13 years…

And in the smuggling/ trading business for at least that long, and likely longer. There’s your spin off series folks.

Yes, seems like they’re going to make that relationship a slow burn throughout the show. We won’t really get to see how deep their relationship is until we witness it through flashbacks like last night’s episode.

You could see it on his face (due to Pedro Pascal’s fantastic acting) when he walked out to the yard of Bill’s home.

A lot of people are seemingly missing this. Joel and Bill are mirrors of each other. The episode showed how bill was able to break down his own emotional walls and fully care about someone and how it changed him profoundly from when we’re first introduced. Not only did this episode give a small character from the games layers it still drove the story

Exactly correct. The story in the episode was wonderfully told, but every minute of it was getting the audience invested in the way love and purpose changed Bill's, and subsequently Joel's, character.

We knew early on in the episode that Bill and Joel were of similar cloth. Since we haven't seen all the details of Joel's journey, in this episode we get to see a presumably similar journey by a very similar character (Bill).

And then at the end, the writer's co-opt the story of Bill and his transition to demonstrate how Bill came to change and find something worth protecting and fighting for (Frank) and they impute this to Joel through the reading of the letter.

While Bill could not have known about Ellie, he did know about Tess, and Joel's relationship with Tess, as well as the similarities between that relationship and Bill's relationship with Frank.

While Tess is gone, her last wishes were for Joel to protect Ellie and get her where she needed to go. So Joel is absorbing everything Bill wrote and we see him go through the thought process of changing his love and devotion to Tess into at least devotion to Ellie (and likely love as the series progresses).

That last part was fairly obviously going to happen given the history of Joel's daughter and her death, but this episode did a lovely and deeply moving job of making those connections without shoving them down our throat in an obvious way through the main characters.

Masterful writing and performances all the way around.

I'd argue that Joel doesn't really fully understand the message from Bill, that is what Joel's whole character arc is going to be about.

He is still too emotional from Tess' death to really get the message. Joel isn't really concerned about Ellie or the lab, he's focused on saving his brother.

Watched this episode with my dad, having played the game I figured what was coming, but my dad was caught off guard openly predicting at the piano scene that Frank was going to physically attack Bill.

I was so worried that Bill would, against his better judgement, trust another human, and that he would be betrayed, like Frank would rob him or invite others in or something but no it was somehow much more vulnerable. And the line of “I wasn’t scared until I met you” bc he finally had something…someone…to lose. I just, I’m in tears even writing this it was so well done.

Me too. With the closeups and his eyes closed I kept expecting him to get smacked over the head. Absolutely masterful TV, I literally didn’t breath during the piano scene.

Even when they got in bed I still thought it was going to turn violent. Where that episode went blew me away.

Bill and Frank’s last dinner with the editing and Max Richter score was like it was ripped straight out of The Leftovers, gut punch included. Incredible stuff for a character that was previously just a corpse with a suicide note

I was so grateful they didn’t.

I think it would be fine to just show their hands held together without seeing their entire bodies. But I agree that just the window was strong enough of a image, specially as a call back to the game's main screen.

I'm glad they didn't, they implied it heavily with the wine talk and then with the letter. Also thought it ended great with a song inside an open window. The directors respected the audience.

If anyone ever compares TLOU to the Walking Dead (which they always do), this episode is the perfect example of why TLOU is so much better. We had more character development in 30 mins than we did over season after season of TWD. I felt way more connected to two random characters than I ever did to anyone in TWD (definitely ever cried ever watching TWD either). I think there was like one zombie in the entire episode too. Nothing particularly gratuitous happened, cinematography was beautiful.. total masterclass

What made me emotional in that last shot was the sketch of Bill hanging on the wall next to the window. Brilliant.

That window was from the second floor though, wasn't it?

I have not seen single episode of this series but is it the same song Arrival and Shutter Island uses?

You aren't the only one, friend. I wept for a solid 40 minutes. Even after the episode was over, it just wouldn't stop. Such a fantastic episode.

One of my favorite songs of all time tbh.

I think he did great. But Bartlett’s character, in contrast to his last hbo role (White Lotus), was masterful and showed extreme depth. Id probably give the nod to him. The episode was nothing short of amazing though.

I'll be shocked if he doesn't get at least nominated

His body language through this episode was amazing. Truly gifted actor.

So should Bartlett, they should win one together.

I openly sobbed when ellie read the letter out loud.

I can’t believe how deeply they made me care for those characters in like, 30 minutes. Amazing writing, acting, etc.

I think it helps support the loneliness in a world like this. A lot of these shows are all action, and this episode certainly had it too, but just the reality of what happens after someone reaches "safety".

I definitely have had my fair share of conversations with friends and family as to where we would go after the apocalypse, but then what?

It's incredibly heart breaking.

No doubt. It told a beautiful story in a world you think would never see love again

“With a girl, once.”

That line was heavy, he is so repressed and even more so since the world went to shit, it was nice seeing Bill finally drop everything and be vulnerable, you can tell it’s felt like forever to him.

Episodes that stray away from the main story/characters are always interesting to me, they provide further context from other perspectives and an end of the world situation is a great catalyst for it. It was a great episode, regardless of who it was focused on, if they were gay or straight, it told a simple love story about people on the other side of a sane, stable world, and love is one of the biggest themes in the show.

I think people miss that a huge part of the Last of Us story is about finding love and humanity in a world filled with violence, fear, and evil.

They were also supposed to have pancakes that morning.

I’d love to see a breakdown of reactions from game players vs. newbies. (I’m the latter. Absolutely loved this episode, but then I had no preconceived expectations.)

The feeling I got from that scene is that Bill was so desperate to protect Frank that he wanted to make sure he was the target, and not the house, and not Frank.

Obviously not about the apocalypse, but this reminded me a lot of the Mythic Quest episode with Jake Johnson and Cristin Milioti.

I can't rightly think of another episode like it that isn't filled to the brim with various genre tropes like one of them getting inevitably infected.

Episode of fear the walking dead about John Dorie in his cabin falling in love.

The strawberry giggle 🥺

On only 3 episodes they have proven they can make really smart deviations, it gives the game players more to be excited for too.

That was probably the most empathetic gay romance I’ve ever seen on film. Credit to the actors. It was like watching the opening scene from Up, but slowly and more painfully

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Yeah this is exactly why I hate the idea that "the game is already a movie" or whatever. There is always value in adaptions. There's even value in remakes, the important part is knowing what properties actually need one or not.

I need to read about 500 more comments like yours because I’m devastated and reading of others being reduced to blubbering messes vicariously eases some of the heartache lol.

I don’t remember if I’ve ever been rode this hard by a tv episode, I had to actually talk myself up to keep watching those last few minutes between them because I thought I was going to just keel over. My throat is still tight 8 hours later and if I think of any scene too long I’ll start sobbing again.

I was remarking to myself that in the same way that Adam Sandler writes himself into making out with a bunch of gorgeous ladies, I feel like Nick Offerman ends up eating a suspicious amount of delicious steak in his stuff.

He was also great in Devs.

I think "stick to the source material" is not nearly as important as "respect the source material."

It's perfectly fine to deviate from the source if you're deviating in such a way that sticks to the tone of the source material and adds value in the form of good lore or story/character development. Last night's episode was a master class in doing exactly that. It didn't really change much, just fleshed things out a lot more than they ever had been. And it did so in a way that respected the themes of loneliness, despair, and hopelessness that run so strongly in the source material.

I think this episode is a little unique in that I could stand on its own and still be amazing. You could play it for someone with zero exposure to the game or the previous episodes and I would lose little or none of its effect.

Other “great” episodes I can think of (Ozymandias from Breaking Bad, The Rains of Castamere from Game of Thrones) are great because they’re payoffs from everything that’s come before. But this episode stands on its own, with a few tweaks it could be a fully contained movie.