Episode 3 of The Last of Us, centering on Bill and Frank, was praised by a majority of fans. But a certain segment of the public, very critical of this episode of the series, launched a smear campaign on IMDb, in particular.
Highly anticipated by fans, The Last of Us series seems to convince a good majority of the public. A real audience success in the United States on HBO, the adaptation of the famous video game is widely commented on every week on social networks. The third episode, entitled “Long, long time”, is the one that has created the most reactions since the series began to air.
This chapter differs from the two previous ones by abandoning its main heroes, Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), and focuses on the romantic relationship between Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett).
The episode focuses on two secondary characters from the video game and develops a novel plot. The public attends, over twenty years, the beginning and the end of the great and beautiful love story between Bill and Frank, through moving sequences which caused pretty tears among the spectators.
Episode 3 of The Last of Us faces a wave of homophobia
But this episode was not to everyone’s taste. Some viewers have criticized this episode for being too far removed from the plot of the video game or for focusing on a secondary story that is “not necessary for the progress of the main narrative”.
The Last of Us: why the episode on Bill and Frank is so important?
In addition to these criticisms, this episode of The Last of Us is above all facing a wave of homophobia with violent comments on social networks but also on the IMDb site. Some “fans” have set themselves the goal of significantly lowering the rating of this third episodewhich is currently 7.9/10 as it approached the peak rating shortly after airing.
The Last of Us, and this episode in particular, are therefore victims of review bombing, an increasingly widespread practice on sites and media offering a rating system (such as AlloCiné). This crystallization of dissatisfaction, often unjustified, of fans is manifested by the action of an organized community to massively rate a work negatively on the reference sites.
HBO
If we look at the comments of the people who gave the episode a 1/10 rating, we can read violent criticism, such as: “Again, just another example of the small minority of gay people wielding their influence in Hollywood to push their propaganda around the world” Or “the Bill of the series was not only spoiled, it was also used for a ridiculous love story” or “we know that [c’est] so that [les producteurs] can make money by appealing to the LGBT community with sex scenes and cheap romance”.
It is worth remembering that Bill’s homosexuality, although implicit in the video game, does not come out of nowhere and that it had moreover been confirmed by creator Neil Druckmann the year following the release of The Last. of Us: Part I.
Co-showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin decided to step away from the video game in order to offer an original adaptation and flesh out the characters, whether main or secondary, which allows to add a new layer of emotion and humanity, which are the very essence of the video game work. And the episode on Bill and Frank is the best proof of this, no offense to some critics.
The first three episodes of The Last of Us are available on Prime Video in France.