Warning: Spoilers Ahead For The Last Of Us Episode 3 "Long, Long Time"The Last Of Us episode three was met with instant acclaim and offers the best argument yet for why it needed to be a series and not a movie. The history of video game movies or TV adaptations is littered with heartache; for every Netflix Castlevania, there are ten duds like Street Fighter or Assassin's Creed. From its first episode, HBO's The Last Of Us is making a strong case for being the best live-action take on a game yet. It's helped that the 2013 title already had a great story and characters, but HBO's show is building on its foundation.
Case in point is "Long, Long Time," the third episode of The Last Of Us. Instead of following Pedro Pascal's Joel and Bella Ramsey's Ellie the entire time, it mostly focuses on the tender romance between Nick Offerman's Bill and Frank (Murray Bartlett) over 20 years. What followed was the most acclaimed episode yet, which charted the highs and lows of a couple surviving together amidst the apocalypse. While the story loosely came from the game, the series greatly expanded on the Bill and Frank story, and in doing so proved The Last Of Us couldn't have worked as a film nearly as successfully.
Bill & Frank's Story Would Have Been Cut From A Last Of Us Film
The Bill and Frank romance takes up about an hour of "Long, Long Time," and is given the time it needs to breathe. Of course, in a two-hour The Last Of Us movie, this love story would be the first thing cut out. In narrative terms, a movie couldn't take that time on such a long digression that's not directly related to Joel and Ellie's quest. A film probably would have featured Joel talking about them, only to find them already dead when he and Ellie arrived at their house. That might work for a movie, but audiences would have had zero investment in that reveal.
A strength of both The Last Of Us game and the TV adaptation is that they can afford to take those sidepaths. "Long, Long Time" is an early contender for the best TV episode of 2023, with its wrenching, emotional love story helping flesh out the world of The Last Of Us further. The show has given viewers action scenes and monster attacks, but it's the characters the showrunners want them to invest in. Bill's story, in particular, has parallels with Joel's dilemma, and while the series arguably could have worked without this episode, it's much stronger for having it.
Why The Last Of Us Film Didn't Happen
On the surface, The Last Of Us should have been easy to adapt as a film, but that didn't prove to be the case. The movie was developed in collaboration with Sony's Screen Gems, Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures and Naughty Dog. Creative director Neil Druckmann developed some screenplays, but the project entered development hell in 2016. Druckmann later revealed to THR he was concerned with crunching 15 hours of gameplay into a two-hour Last Of Us movie. He was also picturing a smaller character piece, while Screen Gems wanted more action and a tone similiar to 2013's World War Z. This convinced Druckmann to let the movie adaptation die.