LAST OF US Episode 3 Breakdown: Every Easter Egg & Ending Explained

I'm guessing you found this jaw because anyone else would have been electrocuted or blown up by one of my traps hey welcome back to screen Crush I'm Ryan Erie and this is all the Easter eggs references and little things you might have missed in episode 3 of The Last of Us long long time now a lot of you may be thinking that this episode didn't move the story forward very much because we spend most of the episode with two Side characters who are already dead but this episode was necessary for a few reasons it perfectly encapsulated the theme of the series and serves as a microcosm for Joel and Ellie's Journey now to say right now basically this episode shows us what's really at stake for Humanity are people just going to survive or are they going to live for something and it's everything that I want from an adaptation when the series was announced I thought that all they'd have to do for a show was to re-film the cut scenes into a movie because the story of the game is so so good well I was wrong this episode shows the right way to adapt one medium into another what do you mean well okay let me tell you what this bill story line is like in the game for one thing bill has rigged up an entire town with traps not just one street of a subdivision now I think the show changed this for Budget reasons but also it made this story more personal bill is not interested in the town he just wants his house and his own little Fortress to protect so in the game Joel and Ellie try to avoid all the traps in town and there's even a sequence where he hangs upside down from one of the traps and has to shoot the zombies to protect Ellie it's a lot of fun then Bill saves his life and they go grab a car battery before the zombies can kill them the key difference is here is that we never meet Frank we hear about him once upon a time I had somebody that I cared about I wasn't hooked up and I realize it's got to be just me hey Bill's Forest sounds familiar well that's because he's voiced by W Earl Brown Dan from Deadwood I I don't get it will I am not as smart as Al and when they do find Frank's Body it kind of seems like he's just like Bill's friend who did himself in I reckon he didn't want to turn guess not though in hindsight there were hints that they were romantic he's the only idiot that would wear a shirt like that but we don't find out that bill is gay until Ellie reveals the Playgirl magazine that she found in his house how [Music] how they get rid of that and then the only hints we get about Bill and Frank's relationship was in a note that you find in that house well bill I doubt you'd ever find this note because you were too scared to ever make it to this part of town but if for some reason you did I want you to know that I hated your guts I grew tired of this shitty town and you're setting to raise attitude I wanted more from life than this and you could never get that well now Frank and Bill in the show do have a similar argument about Bill being afraid and paranoid and Frank wanting to do other things but we are going to have friends but in this episode it leads to a better way of life for them and that's really what this show is about showing how Joel can finally move on from the death of Sarah and live his life to the fullest now you can never set up these kind of emotional stakes in a video game because nobody wants to play a game or you're an aging man dying of cancer well unless it's Roy a life well lived you beat cancer and then you went back to work at the carpet store but in a TV show you can pause to show how good things can be before things get very very bad and they are about to get very very bad you know the last of us at its heart is a show about Joe overcoming Trump trauma and we identify with Joel because we've all experienced feelings of loss in our lives living with trauma or anxiety can affect your daily life causing loss of sleep or depression but therapy can help you get through your own trauma I can't even explain to you guys how much of a positive effect the therapy has had on my life I lost someone very close to me a few years ago and I was super depressed I hated life and therapy helped me get through that and maybe there's something in your life that's interfering with your own happiness you might want therapy but you're not sure where to get started and that is where better help comes in they're the sponsor of this video better help listens to your needs and helps match you with your own licensed therapist now this is not a crisis line or self-help it's Professional Therapy see I'm from a rural area where it's hard to find therapists so better help is perfect with more than 25 000 therapists in their Network for a service that is available around the world so to get started you just answer a few questions about your needs and your therapy preferences that way better help can match you with a custom picked therapist from their Network it's very accessible you can log into your account at any anytime and send messages to your therapist plus you can schedule weekly phone or video sessions so you don't have to sit in uncomfortable waiting rooms but if your therapist isn't right for you better help makes it easy to switch better help wants you to start living a happier life today it's more affordable than traditional offline therapy and financial aid is available and we have a special offer for screen Crush fans click the link in the description to get 10 off your first month at betterhelp that's help.com screen crush or you can click this QR code now back to what I was saying we begin in the present day with Joel washing his broken hand in a river remember he fractured his hand when he beat a soldier to death because he was triggered by the memory of Sarah's death so the pain in his hand is a constant reminder of the loss of Sarah and the more he's reminded of her at the more he'll start to see that she is a lot like Ellie after washing his hand he makes a small stack of stones and this is called a can now Cairns are an ancient custom that some cultures use to Mark safe passageways on Trails but mostly they're used as monuments or gravestones kind of like how the world's plowing competition placed Cairns of Peace in all the towns that hosted their competitions like this one in people's Ohio but in this case the Cairn is a tribute to Tess and this is another attribute to adapting the story into a show in the game you don't get a lot of time to mourn tests there's too many zombies to fight but this episode very wisely takes away most of the zombie action and focuses on the human drama which sets the stakes for the zombie action that's to come Joel even says as much here not often no what are you looking out for people now it's a small detail but he even throws Ellie some of Tess's old food a small way for him to acknowledge that it's time for him to move on from his old partner now this episode is not totally different from the game entire dialogue scenes are lifted from the original such as it's kind of cool but they also added this great scene where Ellie stands up for herself so don't blame me for something that isn't my fault this shows Joel that Ellie is tough but as we see in a bit she still has a childlike way of looking at the world for instance the way she keeps asking for a weapon is also lifted from the games you know seeing this is just the two of us I was thinking I should probably I need a gun no you don't and just like in the game Ellie freaks out over an arcade game she'd punch a hole through your stomach before kicking your head off there's this one character named Molina who takes off her mask and she has monster teeth and then she swallows you whole and Barks out your bones but actually Ellie's 100 right about Molina but she also has another move where she turns the opponent into a baby now her turning into a monster is appropriate to mention for this show here people turn into monsters and eat one another just like Molina now the game within the game is called the turning which is probably a metaphor for a zombie apocalypse Ellie says that her friend told her about this game now the friend is named Riley and we're going to meet her in a future episode so I don't want to give anything away just yet I will say that her friendship with Riley is kind of a mirror to what happens to bill in this episode and in the American Dreams comic book she and Riley do play arcade games in a mall and of course Ellie Loving video games makes her more endearing to Gamers the supply station is also a new addition but it's crucial for setting up the rest of the episode and this was also a neat trick that this show pulled episodes one and two had these prologues that foreshadow the theme of the entire episode but this this episode uses the present day for a kind of theme setting prologue for events that happened in the pastor well the station is a safe house where Joel stashes his gear including the automatic rifle that he's carrying much like Bill's bunker where he stores his weapons but Ellie's trip into the cellar is even more important notice how she's smart enough to not just jump into the trap door she clocks an exit strategy with the trash can first she goes down to look for supplies which you do a lot of in the game I mean there's like a lot of looking for supplies and reading notes now she does find tampons which Joel likely would have overlooked because he's a guy then she sees this stalker that's helpless crushed by bricks so think about another character who's trapped in a basement in this episode Bill Bill hides in his bunker detached from the outside world now we've talked at length about how this show uses the cordyceps fungus as a metaphor for the loss of humanity specifically the loss of Joel's Humanity just as the fungus destroys the human mind it also robs the human race of its soul and that battle for goodness is told through Joel learning to love again after the loss of his daughter but Bill is a bit of the reverse he was already a closed off person filled with hate and the pandemic brought love into his life this story shows us that it is possible to love after the world is gone if you leave your heart open so the stalker represents Bill Ellie is curious about him because she's never seen an infected up close and it will never not be creepy when we see the fungus growing Under the Skin but the fungus growing through the skin is visually similar to the plants growing through the ceiling upstairs both show a plant cracking through the surface of something man-made so on their walk Joel and Ellie see two important remnants of civilization the airplane and the mass grave one showed the heights that Humanity could achieve and the other shows how low we can sink moments like this when their written well can reveal a lot about a character's outlook on life when Joel thinks of airplanes his memories are all terrible it's shoved into a middle C pay 12 bucks for a sandwich you know accurate descriptions of air travel but for Ellie this is magical dude you got to go up in the sky we see this attitude repeated later in the episode when she first enters a car it's your first time in a car it's like a spaceship now it's notable that this is a change from the game the show wanted this to be her first time in a car I think because it's a fitting button to her fascination with the airplane and with the airplane on her mind she asks so everything came crashing down in one day and one Theory she throws out was it a monkey I bet it was a monkey one is how the AIDS virus was developed but it's also a nod to the movie outbreak where a monkey nearly ends the human race and Cuba Gooding Jr did this somehow Palpatine returned sorry I meant this one God he deserves that Oscar so Joe explains that it was a tainted food supply from flour meaning that all the YouTuber fan theories were right and well done to all of you heavy spoilers most zombie stories are metaphors for how human expansion will cause our deaths and the same is kind of true here cordyceps mutated because of climate change but also a globalized economy spread the tainted food everywhere in just days now this was all hinted at in last episode's prologue which also hinted at this episode's appearance of a mass grave the last episode was about trying to contain the spread by using bombs or by Tess sacrificing yourself and here Joel talks about how less than a week after the outbreak the government was doing the same thing in small towns would it just even be dead people can't be infected then we get a close-up on Bones and a baby blanket before cutting to this mother with her baby 20 years ago now it is interesting that the flashback begins with a skeleton embracing the person she loves but the final shot does not show us the men's skeleton but I'll talk about that final shot later in the video as the federal agents are rounding people up they Mark the cleared houses with a red X now in the games in Pittsburgh you do find a note saying their supplies in the building with a red X on the door I never found it the first time through so I actually played the game a second time just to get to it and the scene where the soldiers are loading people into the trucks is heartbreaking especially how the soldiers are helping them with their luggage even though they know they're just going to go execute them now they're doing this so people won't Panic fire drills do not exist to save people from fires they just save people from trampling God that's heavy okay so then we see Bill in his bunker and he is a direct parallel to the infected person who is also trapped underground except for Bill he is trapped by his hatred and paranoia notice how at first we don't see his full face on the Shadows Silhouettes and parts of him this is showing the bill can see deals himself from The Real World both literally and emotionally he also has an obscure view of the outside he's forced to see the world through monitors because of his paranoia and one camera is even obscured by an American flag showing how his ideology has further driven him away from people and almost drives him away from Frank you say resource management so help me I will run through one of your tripwire now I will say though that bill was right about a lot of stuff but it still meant that he was closed off emotionally and notice how the soldier here says the basement was clear but I thought bill was in the basement no bill created a bunker beneath his basement also a metaphor for how deep he has buried his heart and kept it from the outside world so the Hub of this cul-de-sac is a civil war Monument appropriate since in the games the town is called Lincoln now this Monument Begins the episode with an evacuation order in front of it and then later Frank surrounds it with flowers and eventually the flowers die out and of course the Civil War was a period when Americans were fighting Americans so this Monument is a metaphor for Bill's life the world he lives in is filled with Americans fighting one another but when Frank enters his life that world becomes beautiful but then eventually they pass away like the flowers and Bill's basement we see this issue of guns and ammo magazine which was a real issue published in February 2003 so seven months before outbreak day well done art Department we also get a close-up of his sulfuric acid foreshadowing that later Joe will be able to use this acid to make a car battery and when he emerges from his house bill is wearing a gas mask in the game the fungus was spread through spores in the air so like half the time you're walking around wearing a mask now the show did away with this but maybe it's possible that there were rumors of spores in the beginning or maybe bill just wasn't messing around and then we finally get to see Nick Offerman who is perfect casting for this role Offerman is most famous for playing Ron Swanson in the show Parks and Recreation now Swanson feels like a first cousin to Bill both men are conservatives Outdoorsman resourceful and embrace Solitude in fact the scene where Bill is at dinner and watches Zombies die on TV seems lifted directly from Ron Swanson's birthday dinner when he eats a steak and watches Bridge Over the River Kwai hmm now when we do finally see Bill unmasked I loved the pure joy on his face like he says in his note he's always hated people and he has literally been prepping for this day for years now he knows exactly what he wants to do right away he knows he's got to steal his neighbor's boat to go get supplies and it's all set to the song I'm Coming Home by Fleetwood Mac now this is a great choice because it's got this kind of nasty blues guitar riff which just adds to the idea that this is just some old regular redneck the lyrics say I'm not gonna leave anymore because Bill is preparing to stay in his home forever and you know it won't be long foreshadowing the anthem of this episode Linda ronstadt's a long long time I loved all the little details here like when he fuels up his drums he gets that real good grade that 91 stuff that nobody ever buys now when the power goes out he Rams the Gate of the power station one of many gates and barriers that get broken down in this episode both literal barriers and also metaphorical ones and actually part of the fungus in the opening credits even looks like the barbed wire that is around his compound so he breaks in to turn on the emergency supply of natural gas now since he's the only person using the gas this Supply should last him for years hey why is he had a generator with a hammer is he mad at it uh no when an engine is not used for a while it can get rusted so hitting it with a hammer is a quick way to loosen the corrosion and preserve contact points how'd you know all that buddy when the mess comes down I'm the guy you want to ride with high five so four years go by when Bill meets Frank now this flashback begins with Bill listening to the song in the white room by cream and the song actually has a few different meanings the song is about Solitude and loneliness and the lyrics go I'll wait in this place where the Sun never shines where the shatters run from themselves yeah that's the one very good so the narrator of the song is waiting for somebody to arrive on a train that he knows will never come this song reflects Bill's State of Mind at this time he is lonely trapped in a room of Shadows but he thinks that no one's ever going to arrive now this song came out in 1968 and remember the code that bill and Frank used with Tess and Joel 60s song they don't have anything new 70s they got new stuff what Sadies the 60s means no stock just like here bill is all alone and his flag here don't tread on me was the first flag of the rebelling colonies back in the 1700s but today it's been embraced by Libertarians and alt-right groups it's an expression that you don't want interference in your life and the divided snake means that we're all better off by ourselves and not under a single system of control it's easy to see these political leanings as a metaphor for how Bill is living his life and then Frank arrives also trapped in a hole a room filled with shadows sir hurls are a metaphor for loneliness yes very good right away we get the impression that Frank is not a threat he can't even lie about having a weapon I thought about lying for some reason but reason didn't come he's very clean and soft because he spent four years in the Baltimore qz before it fell now inside the house we get to see a bit more of the furniture and decor but now through Frank's eyes he brushes his finger across a layer of dust now this is telling us that bill is interested in protecting his house but not in enjoying it he doesn't try to make his home beautiful their first meal together is a bit tense right I mean because this is the last of us we're expecting Frank to maybe try to kill Bill or forbid kidnap Frank or something so the audience and Bill are both feeling paranoid and guarded but Frank never feels that way he takes one look at Bill and he recognizes the kindness in his eyes this is also reflected in the ways he starts to show love like how he rotates the plate for presentation or presents the label of the bottle of wine remember he also repeats these actions for their last meal together and then Frank says a man who knows to pair rabbit with a Beaujolais I mean all right I would have gone with a Pinot Noir or a ripe Bordeaux but if we're going to favor a varietal from the game grape fine have it your way then bill says I know I don't seem like the type Anne Frank immediately sees bill for the person he is not the facade that he's been showing the world now you do the best scene in the entire episode is the piano scene it is filled with subtext that speaks volumes about Bill without having to give a detailed backstory first of all the piano is Dusty and neglected Bill loves listening to music but playing it is a personal expression that he rarely allows himself Frank goes through the sheet music and says [ __ ] these aren't yours because he is able to sense the tenderness and Bill and he replies and this line is when you really begin to understand Bill he lives in his childhood home his mother's home surrounded by his mother's things he never married because he's a closeted gay man he probably felt like he could never tell his mother the truth about himself so instead he buried who he was in a bunker under the house and also buried the truth under all the other sheet music and Frank immediately senses this this is you now the way Frank plays the piano is Full Tilt very passionate of will abide but when Bill takes over form the song becomes deliberate and loaded with meaning love will abide okay so this song is about a person who's had their heart broken or in Bill's case is longing for someone that he can never have the singer acknowledges that people out in the world have told him how to deal with this pain to take things in stride sounds like good advice people tell the singer that time will wash away the wounds of love but the singer doesn't know what that means on everything I know to try and make you and this next line is heartbreaking when he acknowledges that he will have to live with the pain of love for his entire life [Music] hey remember that song released uh 1970 and remember the 70s were code for New Stock coming in because now Frank is coming into Bill's life oh that's so nice I know right so after this they share a kiss which is actually a neat contrast to Tess kissing a zombie in the last episode so on the show's official podcast series co-creator Craig Mason said I love the way we did that because it's underscoring again the theme of love and the way love functions because the fungus loves too and also when Frank tells Bill to go take a shower it's an act of faith for Bill we're still thinking that Frank might turn on him and instead they fall in love so the dinner ends with them in bed just like their last dinner will and Frank takes his virginity leading him into a new life just as later on he will lead him into death okay so the next time Jump is three years later oh [ __ ] you I loved their argument about how the government is evil and the government are all Nazis the government are all Nazis well yeah now but not then and just like in the note left in the game Frank is challenging how Bill lives his life Frank wants to make their house into a home or more to the point he wants to live instead of just to survive remember this is how Bill defines himself so what you were uh prepper or something survivalist but Frank is telling him that survival is not enough paying attention to things it's how we show love and Frank also forces bill to make friends he met Tess over the radio and actually he was probably using the same radio that we saw in episode one and now holy crap look how much younger Anna Torv looks in this episode so like I don't know if they like aged her up for the first two episodes but already the Aging effects on this show are just incredible Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett look a lot older on their final day and it makes you think why couldn't the X-Men movies at least attempt this I mean Magneto was in his 60s in dark Phoenix and he still looked like Michael Fassbender anyways anyways there is a heartbreaking little moment here when we see how unwilling Joel is to open his heart to Tess he can't even call her his girlfriend Maya it's mine he and Bill are so much alike they're both protectors and they see the world practically Joel points out weaknesses in his fence and offers him crucial supplies if we have an accusey that you don't have here books medicine and that offer of medicine is actually foreshadowing the ending when Bill will use that medicine to euthanize both himself and Frank and this bless you the rest of your life lives is basically saying you might be okay with dying but you're trying to keep Frank alive now as they leave Frank tells Tess's idea for the music code that we saw in episode one the decades of 80s trouble also it was kind of necessary for other people to show up and meet them so we didn't think the bill was just imagining Frank this entire time next we get this very tender scene 10 years after the outbreak Frank has traded one of Bill's guns for a packet of seats each gun a little one in other words he's given away an instrument of death in order to create new life the two of them eat strawberries and strawberries are usually a symbol of romance passion and love but they're also a luxury fruit something sweet that you normally wouldn't eat just to survive this is the kind of beauty that Frank has brought into Bill's life but also notice that the fence is piled up with cars there is escalating danger in the outside world death will someday come for both of them and the show performs a cunning misdirection to make us think that Frank is going to go first I'm sorry for what getting older faster than you I like you older all of this leads into showing us what is at stake Raiders attack the house it is a great action scene that ends with what we think might be the death of Bill his last words Cole Joel or because he knows that Frank can't protect himself but Joel could be a substitute for bill because they're the same kind of person we can help each other and get that gun out of my face and this is why this episode is in the middle of the series it's drawing this parallel between bill and Joel showing how Joel is a protector who can defend Ellie similarly Ellie can restore Joel's Humanity heck in the second game he even sings to her like Bill sings to Frank two days days of you and me next we come to their last days finally catching up to 2023. Frank it's implied has cancer and he's dying he can't walk and has limited use of his limbs but he's still trying to paint to bring something beautiful into the world his first words are asking Bill to bring him in from the cold foreshadowing that soon he'll ask Bill to kill him self and we see that his quality of life has diminished he has to drink from a plastic sippy cup he can't even take himself to bed even the way Bill gives him pills is like he's speaking to a child um a little white little white big Roundy and by the way man Joel is going to want that bag back I need to bag back so the next day his last day he wants to live on his terms he gets himself out of bed then breaks the news to Bill and notice here how much the place has changed it's no longer Bill's mother's house the walls are brighter Frank's artwork covers the walls there are flowers everywhere Frank has brought Beauty into Bill's world huh and now why are there so long to get married well Doug I think it's because it was September 2003 when the outbreak happened and until the Court ruling in November 2003 gay marriage was illegal in Massachusetts so it's not that these two men wouldn't have wanted to get married it's that they wouldn't have ever considered that they could that's so nice I know and more importantly that court case sparked a national conversation about same-sex marriage that ultimately led to the majority of Americans being in favor of it all right now back to the episode like I mentioned earlier their last meal mirrors their first meal he even Cooks rabbit for him again bill says this isn't the tragic suicide at the end of the play which of course is a reference to Juliet's suicide at the end of Romeo Juliet happy dagger this is thy sheath Etc we all read it in high school Bill makes it clear that like Frank he has lived a fulfilled life I'm old I'm satisfied and you were my purpose you sure you're okay I am yeah so let's talk about Joel and Ellie again the plants haven't been cared for so Joel knows that Frank is obviously gone and that's why he shouts for Bill we see Frank's last painting still unfinished much like his life and then Ellie finds a note to Joel which made me laugh because in The Last of Us game everybody's always like leaving behind notes for you to find and then piece together people's lives in the final day of the outbreak that's why you always leave a note but this particular note has one line that's going to resonate for the entire series and especially with the game's ending I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died but I was wrong because there was one person worth saving again this is like Joel and Ellie is his person worth saving hey what was all that stuff in the fridge that wasn't food for puppies no those were the components to build a new car battery basically when a battery sits too long it becomes corroded and the cells die out but if you assemble the battery from scratch it'll be fresh you just have to charge it our mattress and fencer you're welcome now near the entrance of the house there is another neat detail that shows how Frank influenced this home there is a sign here that reads come in the evening come in the morning come unexpected come without warning it's a subtle way of showing how much of an influence Frank's warmth had on welcoming people to this home now there's a few other bits of symbolism in the episode's closing minutes Ellie tells Joel to take a shower which is a parallel to Frank telling Bill to do the same thing Ellie also plays around with the grandfather clock breaking off a hand now like I've talked about before the first episode showed us a lot of clocks to indicate that time was running out clocks are also a symbol of human civilization so Ellie breaking the clock is showing that now in this house time has stopped civilization is done and nature can take over and then Joel basically commits to his mission to save Ellie lifting dialogue straight from the game like when he talks about his brother and more importantly he was a firefly my guess is he knows where some of them are out there maybe they can get you to wherever this lab is and the deal that he makes with Ellie rule one you don't bring up Tess ever matter of fact we just keep our histories to ourselves rule two you don't tell anyone about your condition they think you're crazy they'll try to kill you rule three well you do what I say when I say it clear also Ellie's new shirt is the exact one that she wears in the game so in the bunker and 80s song is playing maybe Bill put that on because Frank was dying and he needed medicine now the ending where they leave in the truck is very different from the game where bill and Joel have to fight off zombies so Ellie can pop the clutch in the game Ellie knows how to drive I know how to pop a clutch but in the show she's like filled with wonderment when she enters the truck it seems like the show is really playing up her childlike innocence which oh that's all I'm gonna say so the truck is also basically the same Chevy S10 that we saw in the game and the moment with the cassette tape is basically lifted from the game except in the show they play the same Linda Ronstadt song about longing that brought Bill and Frank together so the final shot of the episode is the open window of the bedroom and it is just perfect first of all it's thematically the opposite of how we first saw Bill as a shadow person viewing the world through monitors we don't see them in the bed but their presence is felt and the lyrics of the song when Bill sang it we're filled with sadness he was going to suffer through unrequited love for a long long time but here the lyrics take on a different meaning it makes their love seem Eternal ultimately we're sad about the ending but we're happy that these two people could find love when they were surrounded by so Much Death and just a reminder everybody check out our Link in the description to go to betterhelp that's better help.com screen Crush to find a therapist for yourself today and we want to know what you guys think of all of this let us know in the comments below we're at me on Twitter and if it's your first time here please subscribe smash that Bell for alerts for screen Crush I'm Ryan Erie [Music]

Channel: ScreenCrush

Views: 593,461

Keywords: Last of Us episode 3 breakdown, lastr of us episode 3 breakdown, last of us epsiode 3 breakdown, the last of us episode 3, lastr of us epsiode 3 breakdown, last of us pt 3, last of us critique, the lastr of us episode 3, the last of us epsiode 3, teh last of us episode 3, lastr of us pt 3, teh lastr of us epsiode 3, lastr of us critique, last of us part 3, last of us part 3 trailer, last of us part 3 theories

Id: smHCI70-6yc

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 29 2023