Was Bill Gay The Last of Us Game?

HBO’S THE LAST OF US IMPROV ON THE GAME’S IMPLIED GAY ROMANCE

'The Last of Us' Episo 3, featurg Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as gay uple Bill and Frank, is earng an overwhelmgly posive reactn om fans. * last of us gay couple *

Bill is gay the game, but ’s referenced so vaguely that plenty of players missed .

The cisn to keep muted, hted at a sgle le of dialogue and a hidn letter, was both praised and cricized — was easy to overlook, but also avoid a lot of gay-character trop, and allowed Bill to be a human and not “a maniftatn of sexualy, ” as Polygon’s Danielle Rien put at the time. The game’s storyle don’t avoid trop altogether, though: It was cricized for “buryg s gays. What we got stead was a psule episo, and a particularly bracg one, given the show’s opprsively bleak mood th far: The hour is dited to the love story of Bill and Frank, a gay uple who—due ially to Bill’s skills as a bunker-stockg, booby-trappg, Don’t Tread on Me survivalist—manage to build a largely happy existence together an abandoned and eventually fortified ral hamlet for almost 20 years.

THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY

The most recent episo of HBO’s The Last of Us has left some fans wonrg if Bill and Frank were a gay uple the origal game. * last of us gay couple *

Wh Bill and Frank, we were given a portra of love—specifilly gay love—that feels surprisg and urgent.

In our own 2023, we are not exactly lackg for media imag of whe gay men. For one thg, we see gay sire portrayed all s plexy, but wh a touch as light as a breeze playg through curtas. Bill’s is not a “type” of gay man I n say I’ve ever seen mastream media before, and watchg him slowly reveal and epen that aspect of himself wh Frank’s help—sexually, y (Hollywood: more hairy bear love scen please!

But Bill and Frank create somethg else, a ltle oasis of their own that’s regnizably gay, full of quiet bety and joys the size of new strawberri.

THE LAST OF US’S GAY LOVE STORY BREAKS NEW GROUND FOR AN ENTIRE GENRE

Frank wants to fix up the block and some of the “not stupid” shops—the we and furnure stor, the clothg boutique—bee he hop they might one day have unfected guts (which they eventually do, the form of Joel and Ts), but really bee makg thgs nice, pecially when nicens isn’t valued, is one of the great gay llgs. As an echo of the gay experience wh AIDS, is, as veteran activist Peter Staley put a Facebook post, a ftg tribute to the “tenr love & bravery gay men summoned when facg ath durg the plague years, cludg those who did so on their own terms.

How powerful, then, to see not only a gay uple given an entire hour of a marquee show, but a gay uple who are held up as the keepers of civilizatn, as stewards of bety, as emblems of human digny and possibily.

You may be able to fd the same ntent another format, or you may be able to fd more rmatn, at their web of you reprentativ om the Miserable Onle League is gonna start somethg about Nick Offerman playg someone gay and I want to remd you he is married to Megan Mullally which qualifi as a gay marriage— nolan (@anxluxe) January 30, 2023Philip Ellis is News Edor at Men's Health, verg fns, pop culture, sex and relatnships, and LGBTQ+ issu.

After wng turns Lookg, Tal of the Cy and The Whe Lot, he’s fast beg one of the medium’s most proment gay the episo nears s end, and Frank be curably sick, the uple’s last scen together are profoundly movg. The episo is, among other thgs, a subversn of the much-cricised “bury your gays” trope.