The Last of Us' Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett Break Down Bill, Frank and the Episode That Wrecked Us

Warning: This post contains spoilers from Sunday’s The Last of Us.

To take a note from Linda Ronstadt, I think I’m going to be talking about this week’s The Last of Us for a long, long time.

Episode 3, which aired Sunday, introduced us to a gruff survivalist named Bill (played by Parks and Recreation‘s Nick Offerman) who was perfectly happy as the lone, post-Outbreak Day survivor in his Massachusetts suburb. But when an affable man named Frank (White Lotus‘ Murray Bartlett) stumbles onto Bill’s property and winds up staying for lunch, the two become an unlikely romantic pair. The course of their entire relationship — from tentative first kiss to their lovingly conceived and executed double suicide —  is covered in the 81-minute episode. Frank and Bill’s link to the main narrative? They traded goods with Joel and Tess in the past, and Bill leaves a note for Joel, knowing he’s the most likely person to show up at the house after their deaths. (Read a detailed recap here.)

The episode gives Frank and Bill a happy ending, which is a far cry from their plight in the video game on which the HBO series is based. (You can Google it if you want to know what happens in that version of the story. Rehashing it here will harsh my post-ep buzz the way that crushing the strawberry patch would’ve messed with Frank, and nobody needs that.)

I was so into the episode that I couldn’t wait to talk about it with Offerman, Bartlett and series co-creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin. Press PLAY on the video above to hear what they have to say about surviving the unsurvivable, big packages of all types (seriously) and finding love in a hopeless place. 

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