Episode 3 - “Long, Long Time” | The Last of Us Podcast | HBO Max

all right I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died I was wrong because there was one person worth saving that's what I did it saved him then I protected him that's why men like you and me are here we have a job to do and God help any [ __ ] who stand in our way foreign to the official podcast for HBO is the last of us I'm your host Troy Baker this is an episode that I've very much have been waiting to get into episode three better known as long long time well thank you Craig for joining us my pleasure and thank you Neil for being with us as well thank you let's start at the beginning we've just left Tess to her demise we find ourselves in this Babbling Brook and you see Joel stacking rocks was the message we're trying to convey with that well we thought it was important to show that Pedro Joel missed her that he was mourning her and in his very simple way just making a small Karen of rocks to say quietly I'm sorry I blew it I lost you it's as much about self-recrimination doubt as it is about mourning but it was important for us to show that he cared simply because we know that the story becomes about Joel and Ellie we didn't want Joel to already be okay it's me and you kid let's go hmm there was a moment where we had to stop and acknowledge what happened and similarly there was a need for Ellie to address it because we understood that pretty quickly in this episode we needed them to start talking their relationship is beginning now because it's just the two of them by necessity there's no one else to talk to which means they had to come to a detonte right and in this case she says how long is this hike five hours we can manage that that's all we have to do is just be civil to each other for five hours and then we're done there was a really cool exchange where they're talking about I don't want your apology look I've been thinking about I want your sorry I wasn't gonna say I'm sorry I was gonna say that I've been thinking about what happened nobody made you a test take me nobody made you go along with this plan you needed a truck battery or whatever and you made a choice so don't blame me for something that isn't my fault if there is this interesting posturing that I see happening already as far as you know we talked before how Tess was kind of out in front she was the leader yeah and so now we have this leaderless band and there's an opportunity it seems for Joel to step up to become the leader but then also Ellie is saying that I'm I'm not someone who needs to be led I can actually handle myself right pretty well it's a nice evolution of the scene those in the game where Joel lays out the rules okay if I'm gonna watch over you here's how things are going to play out and I like the addition of Ellie standing up for herself saying look I'll do all those things but let's be clear I am not responsible for Tessa's death which to me I can't help but look at like Bella and Ellie and say oh you totally feel guilty you're saying these things of course but you're feeling the opposite you're like that's it's coming from an insecure place which is ultimately again there's more to be revealed with that with Ellie I'm a big believer that people are liars it's just part of our it's part of human nature is that we lie hopefully when we're lying we're doing it to make things go a little easier for ourselves and others and not hurt people's feelings and all the rest but sometimes we're lying because we simply can't handle the truth and what's interesting is here's Ellie saying it wasn't my fault but of course she feels like it's her fault and here's Ellie saying yeah five hours that's fine we can manage that and then almost immediately starts asking questions right starts making jokes starts asking for a gun starts having fun starts giving him crap she wants more than just to manage those five hours she admires him she still admires him because of how it all began when she saw what he did there is a primal desire I think in children to have a parent who will protect them and even though Ellie was fond of and had a connection with Tess it was Joel who protected her twice and so there's even though she's saying oh it's just five hours in her mind already something's begun what's interesting for me about that scene with both characters is they're both hiding their vulnerabilities they're both trying to be tougher than they actually are because they don't trust each other yet there's not enough trustor to be vulnerable in front of the other person there's a dramatic shift yeah in this episode the first two episodes it's a lot of heavy lifting you guys had to do right you had to introduce these characters you had to introduce the fiction and the lore and the world and and the impact that the inciting events have had on the world and these characters and now we've kind of set that up and once you start establishing not only who these characters are but now you're starting like you said Neil there's an evolution in these characters we immediately leave them we leave them by the river and they go off on their five hour hike and we know that they're going to bill and Frank's right we saw that in the end of episode two this is where we need to go we need to find Bill and Frank and then we jump to 20 years ago at the very beginning of this and we see this wild-eyed guy not today you knew World Order Jack boot [ __ ] and this is our first introduction to to Bill that line by the way that was not originally dialogue so a lot of times when I'm writing I will put what a character is thinking in dialogue form in italics in the action area right so they know okay I'm not saying these things but this is what I'm thinking and Nick Offerman said just uh one thing Craig um this line here New World Order Jack boot [ __ ] I'm saying that out loud and I was like okay done he was just said it yeah it sounds amazing yeah he was just like uh if a line like that must be announced to the world and it was amazing watching Nick who I think some people understand has this dramatic side to him performing in a way that was far more dramatic than I've ever seen him perform and yet still never lose his sense of humor like his timing his comic ability it's all there bill is a funny guy to watch even if he is not a funny person character I want to just park it here for a second and talk about Nick Offerman because I'll be honest with you when I heard that that was who you're going for for Bill my eyebrows went up Vince Gilligan said once that he loves hiring comic actors for non-comic roles clearly because they have an innate Humanity that is there underneath the drama and they understand the absurdity of the world because that is the Bedrock of comedy and I think Nick is a great example of what Vince is talking about he just there is a Humanity to him underneath this Gruff angry closed off man dangerous man also to an extent very that was just as important for that character as Pedro's vulnerability was important for Joel to make sure that we were providing people with a full human being because there is no one that's just one thing or the other and a lot of where the comedy versus drama comes from I've noticed is not from the performance it's the presentation of it's the context of it right we get to see how he eats dinner watching and enjoying violence violence yeah and it's like that's that's his show until you get old someone falls into a hole yes and we go outside and and Bill discovers the person who's fallen into this hole is someone who's not infected but it's very very much alive and turns out to be Frank Frank I'm not infected are you armed no why did you take that long to answer I don't know I thought about lying for some reason but reason didn't come so Frank played by Murray Bartlett rolls on into Bill's life the way Ellie rolls one into Joel's and Bill would have been perfectly happy living alone for the rest of his life you get the sense that he was living alone anyway maybe his mother who's since passed on right maybe she lived in the house for a while but otherwise he's alone and he liked it that way and then Here Comes This ray of sunshine a completely different human being uh this is uh a guy who is a refugee he was with a group of people who died he's left alone he's fallen down a pit he's hungry he's dirty and he's smiling and he's smiling because uh he already can tell something about Bill that Bill maybe didn't think anybody was able to see it all Neil what was important to you about bringing in the character of Bill and Frank into this iteration yeah in the game that episode that section is about how even though you can survive by yourself what are you surviving for what's what's left in the game they have a very different fate where they have a big falling out and Bill sticks to his ways and Frank says I can't live with you anymore and tries to escape ends up dying that's where the exploration of like oh this guy had a partner that wanted more than just surviving day to day you have to live your life so it was an interesting again to take those themes and approach it with a totally different story like now let's approach it as a sweet romantic story where the characters can struggle with that idea of what is this life for you know we're here for a limited amount of time how do we best live it and when Craig pitched me this kind of structure and the thing I get nervous the most about changes is changing the fate of a character and here we have a very different fate for build than we do in the game and then I try to do the math of like weighing it or like well how much do we gain because to me it's when you deviate that much there's a certain cost to it and it was such a beautiful story that again explores the themes of love and the complexity that comes with love and the happiness and pain and even though this build dies in the way that bill doesn't die in the game it's a happier ending much happier because he lived the full life like we're demonstrating like because eventually where some of the story goes is like you know there's a demonstration of here's what you stand to lose when you love someone you could feel this immense loss but here's what you gain and the contrast of those two things in this episode I feel really Elevate Joel and Ellie's Journey through a telling of like a bottle episode Murray Bartlett I feel like he just popped up in my life that he's kind of always been there he's always been there Psalm first in season one of White Lotus and I was blown away by again we're talking about comedic range and dramatic range right yep and he does both how do you go about casting that role that's essentially new well that's the joy of auditioning no it's not auditioning is never I know you don't like it but we love it um we were very motivated to cast gay actors I mean I'm I there's a larger debate let's take a moment and just talk about generally representation and how you go about being more inclusive in the stories you tell this wasn't A New Concept that bill was gay that's in the game but when you're casting people now you know you try as best you can to cast actors that are representative of the characters they're playing in some important way or another initially the role of Bill was going to be played by Khan O'Neill who played bruhanov in Chernobyl and he wasn't able ultimately he couldn't do it because he was on our flag means death which is another HBO show which is very funny if you haven't seen it so we can do with Khan and that's when the idea of Nick came around but for Nick and for me both straight men it was important to say look we can do this work we can tell these stories with these characters the key is you have to do your homework and you have to talk to people who have walked in the shoes of these characters and most importantly you have to give them room to tell you where you've gotten it right and where you've gotten it wrong and you have to listen and in this episode we were very lucky because Murray is a married middle-aged gay man Peter horror the director who did such a beautiful job as a married middle-aged gay man Tim good the editors a married middle-aged man or you know production manager Cecil O'Connor is a married middle-aged gay man a middle-aged as it turns out is more important than gay in this story because it was important to me to tell a story about what older longer committed love looks like because that's reflective of my experience so through this lens we put out a call and say look we're looking for somebody roughly between these ages who ideally is gay to play this man and we saw a bunch of people and and then there was Murray and it was just and this was before White Lotus came out I was familiar with him but he did such a beautiful job in the audition and it was as I recall it was the speech that Frank does towards the end when he tells Bill give me one last wonderful day and it was gorgeous it was an easy easy casting decision to make then then White Lotus came out and I was like oh my God nailed it got him first this guy's amazing and in addition to being so wildly talented and Murray could play any character as far as I'm concerned he could play gay straight anything uh he also is one of the most lovely warm people ever and Nick I've known Nick for a long time he's a friend of mine he's also just joy that set was so delightful with those guys it was good to hear it was wonderful and I think in part that lovely feeling we had was also informed by something Neil pointed out which is it was a happy story yes they win in this world that we've created for this show those two guys won when I was watching it the moment at the piano what why that song like what was that what is the there's not a song there's not a queue of music that's in the last of us that doesn't have some meanings yeah what is the meaning of this we had this idea that bill and Frank would connect over a song that would be the thing that would essentially lead Frank to feel differently about Bill to not just go oh I see what's going on with this guy but also to want him and I thought it was an interesting rotation of expectations you might think well Frank feels like the kind of guy that would be really good at the piano and have a beautiful voice and he's absolute [ __ ] at the piano which by the way Murray Bartlett is great at the piano and has an excellent voice which is why he was so funny doing an impression of a terrible player wow with a terrible voice [Music] well neither am I but and then bill has this gorgeous ability to play love will abide take things in stride sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side and time in this incredibly heartfelt connection to these lyrics okay so I'm looking for a song that describes a state of permanent lonely heartache that can never be soothed and I'm also looking for a song that isn't overplayed that didn't feel cliche that didn't feel syrupy or Gloppy and this is a tall order so I'm hunting around I'm looking around I'm struggling and then I have a great idea I know what I'm going to do I'm going to text my friend Seth rudetsky so Seth rudetsky uh is Broadway institution he is the main DJ on the SiriusXM Broadway Channel and he also is an accompanist and he also has created his own Musical and he's a wonderful guy he also has the most encyclopedic knowledge of all music all of it from classical to show tunes to popular music all of it and I texted him and I just said here's what I'm looking for lifelong loss and longing a sense that you'll never ever get there so a sort of Woe Is Me song and within four seconds three does three dots yeah long long time Linda Ronstadt and it was one of those songs I had forgotten existed yeah same and I played it and I was like oh my God it couldn't have been more perfect could not have been more perfect and talking with Nick about the lyrics the how important it was to understand that the lyrics were someone saying everyone tells me that it's okay that Love Will Find me that the pain of heartache and loss and disconnection will heal no it doesn't no it's not and the person that I long for from afar I'm gonna love them basically forever in the most unrequited manner and to me I just thought what a beautiful notion that you can't ever get there the closer you get the further that light gets away from you hmm for me there's this trepidatious moment after after Frank has just butchered the admission of the song and he sits down and bill says I know I don't look like the type and Frank says you do you do and it's just so offhanded but then the hand comes on the shoulder and he goes to who's the girl that you're singing about he goes there was no girl but he knows the second that he asks this either I'm right and it confirms it or I got it wrong and I'm going to be really really disappointed there's no chance he got it wrong and this is something that I talked about a lot with our many partners on that episode who were gay so what is it like when you're trying to figure out if the other person is like you in the minority of sexuality and all of the men that I spoke with basically said there are people you really don't know about they're people you're pretty sure about and then there are people you're like oh I see you and this was a case where we felt it was important that Frank could see Bill Bill's sexuality was buried not because he was in the closet anymore the world had ended literally nobody is around him he's alone the whole world is his closet it was that he had essentially buried his own sexuality totally that was a question that I had is it does almost felt like Frank is shepherding yeah well the the thing I like about I I love about this character is that the contradiction like this is clearly a doomsday prepper conservative guy that cares a lot about the Second Amendment oh yeah and he's gay and he doesn't know how to clear he's never dealt with that Frank clearly sees him for what he is and he's inviting him he gives him an opening and he's like he's not calling him out he gives him this opening and Bill takes it I mean we talked about okay like where's the moment I had this discussion with Peter horror and with Murray Bartlett like where's the moment that Frank sees it and I don't like to impose these things I feel like okay where you feel it naturally as an actor that's where it will come forth I can only tell you what I think if you want to know and they did and to me there's a moment where Frank is standing there he's come out of the pit that he's fallen into he's got his hands up Bill's aiming a gun at him basically telling him to get lost it feels long I'm letting you go so go all right look first my name's Frank oh yeah here's the thing Frank if I feed you then every bum you talk to about it is going to show up here looking for a free lunch Frank basically says come on please I I won't talk about it to any bums or hobos or vagabonds I promise and there's a hesitation Bill hesitates because he's looking he's just suddenly seeing how handsome this man is staying there in the light and that's something that Frank's brain is incredibly attuned to it's that fast there's a moment there if you watch that scene again where he kind of smiles and he's smiling because in his mind he's like I got you I know you and from that point forward it was about in my mind about Frank Thinking to himself look maybe I get lunch and I move on I don't know but let's just see where this goes and as Bill reveals more of himself to Frank Frank suddenly realizes oh this isn't about a game of gotcha I see who you are or how many lunches can I get this is a beautiful person and we jump straight from oh yeah this beautiful intimate moment yeah oh [ __ ] you come on hey would you stop do I ask for things ever why am I even saying that this isn't for me this is this is for us who cares what they look like I do our home isn't just our house it's everything around us give me a [ __ ] break oh I'm sorry I forgot what we think of is romantic love and this is important because there's so much of the show is about love what we think of is romantic love lasts I don't know how long it lasts a year two tops I don't know the really intense part is maybe three or four months so what does it mean to love somebody after 25 or 30 years to me that love has nothing to do with romantic love that love is the product of time and here we see again another version of that love where love means you fight and you argue and and Frank says something specific is it's my street too this is me I love it the way I want to exactly right and that's the dichotomy that we will play around with a lot there is two ways of loving things Frank wants to love outwards he is son he is light he wants to make things beautiful around him he wants to care for Bill uh he wants to revitalize the street so it is not simply this Mausoleum that bill lives in and he wants to have friends he wants to share what they have and Bill wants to put an electrified fence around them that is guarded by an additional layer of flame throwing gas pipes and no one can show up ever because he must protect Frank from the world and as it turns out both of those loves are required but one of those loves is likely to get you in trouble more than the other so much of the experience was built in the game is about traps we pick up new resources that was to me as a player is is so much of an important factor in Bill's story when we're in Bill's town but this is a wonderful example of telling the same story in two different mediums and the cost benefit of that how do you navigate that between where whereas like gameplay is not a part of this now we just have the narrative this story in this episode you could not tell in the video game it'd be impossible to jump around that much especially the game The Last of Us is which again is more kind of action oriented you couldn't go this long without some kind of set piece some kind of actions press F to save Bill's life um and therefore you could tell this kind of really moving slower romantic story of where you jump around in years and likewise the story that the game tells and how you're connecting with Bill in the game by like you're playing alongside him you're surviving sequences with him he saves your life like that's how you meet him in the game is you are Joel stuck in one of his traps and he comes and saves you we couldn't tell that story in the TV show it you'd be bored out of your mind if you're not playing that sequence right so it had to change there's a specific moment where he day one Frank goes in and he rubs his finger across the mantle to see the dust and for me that moment was I have a purpose here you can make rabbit and pair with a Beaujolais and you can clearly create traps and and protect and protect us but I can make it look nice I can nurture this place we have moments of and I texted you when it happened and all I had to do was just send you a picture of strawberry an emoji with strawberries and crying there's the laugh cry that you do yeah when he tastes it [Laughter] and then you see this beautiful moment and I love it is breakfast not here in the store on the strawberries which is that that's you know that's me and my wife you know like it's that wonderful push-pull of this energy of of two people who have kind of committed to each other but I in that scene what I love is you've got the epitome of who Frank is which is somebody that nurtures and grows and beautifies and shares oh I traded Joel and test one of your guns for a packet of seeds which gun a little one and then you have poor Bill who is worried that he's getting old and who says I was never afraid until you hear me and that to me is that's where the underside of Love is why do you think he takes that moment to apologize and go I'm sorry for getting older faster than you yeah because he's afraid that Frank is going to be left alone he's already worried about it he's already look at this beautiful man and the Beautiful Things that he does and what is Bill's contribution bill doesn't grow strawberries I mean what did Frank if Frank even traded one of his guns for the strawberries a little one a little one a little one um and what is Bill's contribution Bill's contribution is to keep Frank alive which we will see in the next scene happening as best bill can but Bill is already afraid that he is going to fail and that is a fear that Joel has in him because Joel's earned that fear through experience he failed his daughter at least as far as he understands that to his own trauma and he lost her and Bill is already worried and the most honest expression that bill can make to prove that he loves Frank is to tell him I'm afraid because I need to keep you alive I mean as cliche as that sounds that is love that's what love is like putting yourself out there and accepting you're going to feel pain a hundred percent you're going to feel pain but it comes with this beautiful strawberry moment let's move through from this beautiful moment he says we're going to have friends in Joel and Tess come and yes they're lunch and you see how the current circumstances are are mandating a very cordial luncheon well this really is just it's amazing right can you not please almost cordial I mean Bill does have his gun on the table and what I love is that first one was can you not please can you not please switch it as my wife elbows on the table I mean I cannot tell you how many times my wife has said can you not please can you not please but it's that's you know and then oh your paranoid schizophrenic too I'm not schizophrenic yeah but you see how Frank and Tess kind of band together we we see the introduction of the convention of how the music is going to be their code and then we see not purposefully but kind of like I guess you and I have to talk between bill and Joel but we do get to see this other part of Joel where he's pitching to Bill a little bit well what he's doing is speaking Bill's language because even though unlike Joel bill has been self-sufficient basically his whole life and Bill continues to think he can manage this on his own but here's Joel saying look one protector to another since this is our utility in the world I need to tell you that fence won't make it and Bill knows he's right the second he says it and it pisses him off that fence has got a year on it tops galvanized wire already started to corrode I can get you 10 spools of high tensile aluminum last you the rest of your life lives because Joel knows that Bill's purpose is not to protect himself Joel understands inherently as Bill understands about Joel their purpose is to protect someone else they don't care as much about their own lives correct they don't care at all anyway at least another thing that like uh as we talk about this it's interesting to think about is just how similar Joel and Bill are and they're similar in the way that they're very conservative and by that I mean it's about protecting yourself and your tribe it's like by closing them off as much as possible putting as much of a shell around them so you could keep them safe and yet they're drawn to people that take big risks and live life if you think about like tests and Frank and Ellie that's their similarity they can't stand still it is about kind of going outwards and like affecting some change the night when the Raiders come is definitely one of those life is short moments and we see this flip of the caretaker happen yep Frank is a nurturer Frank is somebody that brings things to life Frank is somebody that preserves life that is very different than somebody who's out there killing people to protect you and in that moment you can see the two sides of love and because Frank is fixed right there in the moment on nurturing and saving and curing and healing and bill has already written his own life off and is running down a list of practicals I made a list for you tell me about the list I have copies of all the keys good and most important call Joel and that to me is where you start to understand the kinship between bill and Joel even though Bill clearly didn't like Joel he resented Joel he didn't like the fact that Joel was rubbing his nose and in his weaknesses but there's a respect there there's a respect and a recognition that he will take care of you meaning somebody has to be here to murder people to keep you safe there's tiny moments with Frank that we get that to me are just stories within themselves and we wake up Frank's in the wheelchairs as it took me most of the night I'm exhausted and Bill's angry at him Bill's angry which is exactly the way it works yeah you know when you are in that long-term relationship and you go to bed it's a quick peck on the cheek you roll over you go to bed you wake up you see the person that you love has done something you've told him not to do 100 times and you're like I'm not arguing about it your feet are going to turn blue get back in the bed that's it and then he gets stopped in his tracks by what Frank says I'm not fighting about it back in bed I promise you I'm gonna stay up why because this is my last day what Frank is asking him for Frank knows is difficult but what he's saying to bill is every Instinct you have is to protect me to keep me alive to murder anything that would hurt me then I'm asking you to hurt me I'm not going to give you anything every day was a wonderful gift from God's speech I've had a lot of bad days I've had bad days with you too but I've had more good days with you than with anyone else just give me one more good day in the game the way that Frank meets his end as we find out through what bill says is that he got bit and Joel says well I guess he instead of turning he decided to hang himself where did this idea come from to make it just even more heart-wrenching well is it Ms what would you say that he had well we didn't necessarily want to specify it for the audience it was either Ms or early ALS okay but it was a degenerative neuromuscular disorder and you know this happens it happens so commonly and yet so rarely as people get older on screen they tend to be fully healthy until the heart attack staggers them out of nowhere that's that does happen but uh for the majority of people there is a decline and we thought it was really interesting to think look bill is older but Frank can literally runs circles around him yeah he's healthier Bill gets shot and then we jump ahead a number of years and it's Frank who's been brought Low by this disease and there's nothing they can do about it but you can see how Bill is doing his best to caretake Frank the way that Frank would care take built Frank was really shepherding him through his his sexuality and and even his first sexual experience but it feels like in this moment this is where Frank is shepherding him through grief like Neil says this is the price of love is pain I I I'm in my 50s I have to start thinking about what this might be like one day because it's inevitable in many ways Frank is the lucky one because from his point of view he's done he's ready to check out it's Bill who's going to have to mourn that's the hard part and what Frank is asking him for Frank knows is difficult but what he's saying to bill is every Instinct you have is to protect me to keep me alive to murder anything that would hurt me then I'm asking you to hurt me we get to the moment of of dinner and what I found interesting about that moment is again we have this private moment with Frank where Bill has made the same dinner yes from from the first night arranging that the charging platters in the same way and then Frank moves it back again the same way he did the very first time so we had this wonderful mirroring of their first encounter and then bill goes into the kitchen to get the second bottle for you guys when was the moment of decision for Bill my feeling is that somewhere around the middle of the day when Bill decided all right I'm gonna go along with his plan I will go to the boutique I'll put on what he told me to wear we'll get married we'll do all that stuff I'll make him dinner somewhere in there once he decided all right I'm going to do this then he very quickly decided and then here's what I'm also going to do because there's no [ __ ] way this was a tricky one because there's a line that bill says here that I lifted almost directly from the playwright Mark Crowley who who wrote boys in the band just wonderful play uh from the 60s about gay men navigating their lives and their relationships and one of them in that place says to the other this isn't the tragic suicide suicide at the end of the play not all gay men have to die at the end of the play because there is a tradition of essentially equating homosexuality with tragedy and that a gay man couldn't possibly just age and be happy and live long and it was important for me to have Bill literally say that's not what this is this isn't the tragic suicide at the end of the play I'm old I'm satisfied and you were my purpose what I love about all that besides how beautiful and moving it is when you watch it is that in a way bill is very very lucky that the person he loves the most is going out at the end of his own life like Bill doesn't have a lot left either right so the choice is relatively easier but it kind of reflects outwards or like it pulses outwards to say well what happens when you lose someone you love so much and there's a lot of life left in front of you because that's kind of what we saw happening at the beginning of the story with Joel and that's the thing that Joel is doing his best to avoid ever living again and slowly but surely what the universe is saying we're coming back to that moment in time you will live life with loss yes and the harsh part I guess the cruelest part is that Bill's note that he leaves behind for Joel is what he thought was his gift to Joel is to say look I thought it was awesome when everybody died which I think is hysterical yeah but it turns out I was wrong but basically a person like me is here for a reason and that is to love a person save that person and keep that person alive and God help any [ __ ] who stands in our way and you Joel are exactly like I am so I'm giving you all my guns use them to keep tests safe and so this gift that he's giving him and this thing of you and I are the same he doesn't understand that by the time Joel reads that letter Joel has already failed terribly and that it's not the first time Joel has failed to protect somebody that he was supposed to protect it was interesting to me that Joel goes so they're dead yeah and then the letter comes and that's when he has to walk outside that's what gets him is I don't know if it's a matter of the reminder of Tess or if it's I am not good at this both I think that letter underscores for him that no matter how hard he tries and no matter how strong his instinct is to preserve and protect the people that he cares about he can't and then sort of because the universe is lined up this way and really by the Universe I mean Neil druckman has created this there's this kid who needs him and he has a choice and the choice is do I stop trying to be like Bill do I stop trying to be like me and do I just give up and just walk back and whatever or do I try again and do I try again with this kid who represents something far more dangerous to me than Tess ever did because she is a 14 year old girl just like his daughter was not only is she a 14 year old girl but as we saw in the beginning of this episode she's a 14 year old girl with a sadistic streak ah yes she is she stabs that infected that's in the wall and at the end of this episode not only is she now starting to pull out the joke book and beginning to talk but now she's got a gun we really like the idea that Ellie wants a gun and Joel keeps telling her no you can't have a gun not giving you a gun Tess says I'm not giving you a gun Ellie asks over and over they're in Bill's bunker there's a wall of them no you can't have a gun and yet at the end when she's on her own she finds not just any gun Frank's gun it was Frank's I remember a lot of our conversation was um the structure of these episodes we ended the previous episode with Joel walking away from Ellie and not quite embracing this wish that Tess made before she blew herself up and then here we have a very different ending where like we see them connecting and he's prepping her and he's explaining things to her and he's now posts this letter has taken her on in a very different way um so again we feel the impact of like we left these characters to have this story this beautiful story between Bill and Frank and now we're feeling the impact of that story on our two main characters as they continue their Journey if I'm taking you with me there's some rules you gotta follow rule one you don't bring up tests ever matter of fact we can just keep our histories to ourselves rule two you don't tell anyone about your condition you see that by Mark they won't think it through they'll just shoot you rule three you do what I say when I say it we clear it's repeat it what you say goes well you you do what I say and and he says repeat it and she says what you say goes she doesn't repeat it that's brilliant writing I think it's my boy over here um there's a few things that we talked about it's the iconic things that we get to introduce right before they leave the shirt the shirt both shirts I love that you made the truck the truck truck is what we're getting into which we know will lead us hopefully into the next episodes what I'm hoping for some very iconic moments as well but there's one last iconic thing as we are following the truck is it you know heads off into the Horizon and we pull back and we're now into presumably the bedroom where yeah Bill and Frank are and we see the beautiful painting next to the wilted flowers and the open window with the curtains blowing in the wind was that intentional that's that's oh yeah yeah very much iconic Theory some things don't always work failures yeah right like that's the Temptation is this popular guess makes it sound like we just thought of only the good ideas and imagine look at that we avoided all the bad ones we had this idea that we were going to open every episode with a window with a window so you know like when you're watching on streaming and you the intro comes along little button says skip intro sure that we were going to change the words of skip intro to press play so you could sit there and look at this window as long as you wanted each episode would have a different window reflecting a different circumstance in that episode then you'd press play and the episode would begin and in this one we like the idea of coming back around to that window well as many windows as we filmed it just never really made sense anyway the reason we were attractive said yes that's what happens in the game right the opening of the game you're in the menu you're seeing a curtain blowing in the wind and it's like press a button to stress yeah it just never came together but the the plus side of the you know the misfire there was that we did have this ending which we loved and it is a chance to give fans who have experienced what I've experienced as a player that feeling of the open window and the sense of both promise and loss that it implies and what I love about the last moment is that it brings us a sense of happiness that you just know that bill and Frank are at peace and that finally Bill found the person that he could love for a long long time guys thank you both for being here today that was great Troy always fun foreign this has been the official The Last of Us podcasts from HBO again I'm Troy Baker joined by Craig Mason and Neil druckman you can stream new episodes of the HBO original series The Last of Us Sundays on HBO Max the podcast episodes are available after episodes of The Last of Us air on HBO you can find this show wherever you listen to podcasts like and follow HBO is The Last of Us on Instagram Twitter and Facebook until next week endurance survive this is the official Companion podcast for HBO's The Last of Us hosted by Troy Baker our producers are Elliot Adler Bria Marriott and Noah camuso Darby Maloney is our editor the show is mixed by Hannis Brown our executive producers are Gabrielle Lewis and Barry Finkel production music is courtesy of HBL and you can watch episodes of The Last of Us on HBO Max

Channel: HBO Max

Views: 336,165

Keywords: hbo, hbo max, hbo max movie, hbo max series, hbo youtube, hbo max youtube, hbo max trailer, hbo trailer, hbo video, hbo max originals, the last of us, the last of us hbo, the last of us game, pedro pascal, bella ramsey, joel, ellie, mutated fungus, fungus, post-apocalyptic, cordyceps, tess, the last of us series, the last of us show, the last of us live action, the last of us podcast, the last of us explained, the last of us interview, Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann, tlou podcast

Id: cYCccmiSSWo

Length: 48min 35sec (2915 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 29 2023