I’m not going to do a whole perspective on the series, though I’ve been hooked on it since midway into episode 1. I’ve never played the games since I lack the constitution to handle jumpscares and enemies like the Clickers, but I’ve read bits and pieces. From what I understand though, this episode greatly expounds on an otherwise footnote pair of characters in the game.

I knew going in it was a romance story, I even vaguely remember hearing that it ended in a sad way. What an understatement! The pacing? Perfect. The dialogue? Real, raw, not maudlin nor wooden. Everything from Bill having his kid-in-a-candy-store moment at the start while looting the town to how both he and Frank (Offerman and Bartlett for their actor’s names) moved like the old men they were at that point in the story. It was as close to perfection as I can conceive of, and not once did the episode fall on ‘gay tropes.’ At worst, the ‘couple-to-be isolated together’ device was used, but it never felt jarring.

While doing my traditional post-watch web scouring for information related to the episode (itself after I took a good fifteen minutes to stop crying and let my nose de-stuff) I read up on the main writer for the episode, Craig Mazin. He graduated magna cum laude in Psychology, which while hardly the sole determining factor of his writing ability definitely leads me to believe the natural emotion—the way their dialogue felt so real without coming across as overly casual—was heavily influenced by that background.

Really though, what I was so heartwrenchingly pleased to see was the dual representation of gay men not as any stereotype, but as simply two men. Offerman’s Bill had a bit of flair as an avowed survivalist, but Bartlett’s Frank? He could be anyone who likes warm clothing and a bit of fishing—also known as most rural New Englanders. It was also a couple that didn’t get forced into the traditional masculine/feminine dynamic. Frank liked gardening, Bill liked craftsmanship. Bill was an excellent cook and talented pianist, Frank had social graces and apparently a bit of mercantile talent. It was the perfect gay romance because outside of the initial context of two men who grew up in 80s/90s America before the apocalypse, their sexuality didn’t matter. Two people who found their purpose in life, which was so poignantly told by Bill’s posthumous letter to whomever finds it (but probably Joel.)

One hallmark of quality in my opinion is when people who don’t like what was made still acknowledge it was made well. I’d say another hallmark is when you see something crafted in your field, in this case an episode’s screenplay, and feel simultaneously eclipsed and motivated. Mazin wrote a better story than I can even conceive of right now, but I feel encouraged. It’s almost like me just experiencing that story has given me a greater scope and context for what romance can be. Whatever preconceptions you may have about The Last of Us (I admittedly never felt any great draw to play them, even outside of my aversion to jumpscares and clickers), romance stories, whatever: put them aside for a little over an hour and watch this episode. You won’t regret it.