It’s solely January. It’s approach too quickly to speak about The Final of Us’s third episode, “Lengthy Lengthy Time,” as the most effective episode of 2023, not to mention the most effective episode of The Final of Us, proper? Proper. However! Is it too quickly to declare it the most effective episode of 2023 and The Final of Us, thus far? Not from the place I’m standing.
Following a gap two installments that demonstrated astounding constancy to the online game it’s primarily based on, The Final of Us breaks the mould with its riveting third episode, a 75-minute meditation on life and love within the not-quite-a-zombie apocalypse. Pushed ahead by highly effective performances from TV treasures Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, “Lengthy Lengthy Time” marks the largest departure from the Final of Us supply materials up to now, providing a really completely different have a look at the online game characters of Invoice and Frank, to the purpose that they might as nicely be show-only innovations.
Whereas their origins are very a lot rooted within the recreation, Invoice and Frank’s HBO debut (tragically short-lived as it could be) imbues the TV collection with one thing that not even the fungus-free Ellie (Bella Ramsey) has managed to instill in Pedro Pascal’s Joel fairly but: hope, in an in any other case hopeless world. After all, by the episode’s finish, “Lengthy Lengthy Time” additionally manages to go away the viewers utterly wrecked. It’s nonetheless The Final of Us, in any case.
The episode begins within the aftermath of a unique wreck: Tess (Anna Torv), gone however not forgotten following her explosive sacrifice play. Joel would like if Ellie forgets all about her, however Ellie evokes Tess’s title all the identical: “No person made you associate with this plan. You wanted a truck battery or one thing, and also you made a selection. Don’t blame me for one thing that isn’t my fault.” Honest sufficient, Joel most likely thinks, however doesn’t say aloud, as the 2 reluctant companions set off to hyperlink up with Invoice and Frank, two of Joel and Tess’s enterprise companions outdoors of the quarantine zone, who’re higher geared up to cope with a precocious baby than the tragically childless Joel.
The journey to Invoice and Frank’s is a comparatively peaceable one. No explosions, no deaths, until we’re counting the clicker Ellie examines after which stabs within the head at an area fuel station. (Not simply any fuel station, thoughts you, however a Cumberland Farms! Take into account it one final tip of the Purple Sox cap to the New England trustworthy.) Regardless of no imminent hazard, ghosts lurk all through Joel and Ellie’s trek. They stroll previous the traditional wreckage of a airplane crash, busted and overgrown like all the things else within the better Boston space. They discuss theories surrounding the Cordyceps outbreak, with Joel throwing his lot behind “the large bread principle.” They attain a makeshift graveyard plagued by the bones of uninfected people, executed for concern of overcrowding the quarantine zones—ironic, given humanity’s present place on the endangered species listing.
“Why kill them? Why not simply go away them be?” Ellie asks, not understanding why these of us needed to die. Joel’s heartbreaking reply: “Lifeless folks can’t be contaminated.”
Fifteen minutes of tv have elapsed at this level. With an hour nonetheless on the clock, The Final of Us pushes into one other window of kinds, tripping backward in time all the way in which to the beginning of the outbreak. We see troopers spherical up a bunch of individuals on a truck, the identical folks whose bones Joel and Ellie will sometime meet on the aspect of the highway. However simply when it feels just like the present’s about to dive into the backstories of those soon-to-be corpses, the motion as a substitute shifts to another person fully—somebody who could be very, very alive.
Enter: Invoice, the veritable Ron Swanson of the apocalypse. It’s not simply because the closely bearded man involves us courtesy of Parks and Recreation alum Nick Offerman. It’s additionally as a result of this closely bearded man acts precisely as one would anticipate Offerman’s Ron to below related circumstances, with grim-faced badassery and a deep stockpile of provides. The proud survivalist watches surveillance digicam footage of troopers rounding up the folks of Invoice’s city, Lincoln. (One other elaboration from the sport, the place it’s actually named “Invoice’s City.”) When he’s happy that they’re all gone, Invoice emerges from his underground bunker and units about his new life, securing provides, boobytrapping property, consuming lavish home-cooked dinners for one, and in any other case usually thriving on the finish of the world.
