Honestly this is what I was personally hoping to see going into TLOU TV show - an expansion of the Bill/Frank story from the game.
After having watched episode 3, in your mind, try and expand on the story of Bill and Frank as it was in the game for 1 hour. The story as told in the game, Bill was closed off from the world and refuses to venture out from his little town, set traps to prevent infected and people from coming into the town. Frank hated his guts. And he owes Joel some favors and Joel has come to collect payment in the form of a battery. What do you imagine that story will play out like in ~60 minutes of TV?
Bill and Frank sit around and argue all day?
Bill and Frank fight off raiders and infected for 60 minutes?
What motivates Frank to leave the safety of Bill's town in turn getting him bitten and then hangs himself?
Instead we got this sappy, cliched, tropey love story that just fell flat with me. The letter given to Joel at the end made me roll my eyes.
Love and hate are opposite sides of the same coin. Hate is as much a cliche and tropey as a love story. The letter Joel picks up in the game is just i hate you and hate your guts and i'd rather die than live here with your old ways of just being stuck. It works in the game because it is optional side content you as a player can read. The letter does not flesh out the motivation for why Frank
hates Bill.
Well, Bill, I doubt you'd ever find this note cause 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 I hated your guts. I grew tired of this shitty town and your set-in-your-ways attitude. I wanted more from life than this and you could never get that.
And that stupid battery you kept moaning about -- I got it. But I guess you were right. Trying to leave this town will kill me. Still better than spending another day with you. Good Luck, Frank
In my personal experience, TLOU game was an oppressive story with characters that had no hope or light left in them.
You are not painting an accurate picture of the game. The game is about human connection in a post apocalyptic world. The game opens with Father and Daughter relationship, then we see Joel and Tess relationship, then we see Bill and Frank relationship, then Joel and Ellie relationship then Sam and Henry relationship then Tommy and Maria relationship. Even the "baddies" had communities and friends and relationships. Hope and light underpinned every relationship you met on the journey. Frank had hope for a better life, Bill was happy in his own little world and never wanted to leave. Sam and Henry were very happy and hopeful for a better life, Henry wanted to ride a motorcycle. Tommy and Maria made a better life and community for themselves and were married and happy.
Episode 3 of the show felt from another universe,
Episode 3 is another take on the Bill and Frank story even though underneath it is very similar. What the show and game have in common;
Bill was a shut-in prepper type who as far as we know never really had relationships when things were normal
He found Frank and was able to have a connection with someone
He loved Frank
He was able to connect with Joel and Tess
and I feel like something was lost when it comes to Joel's decision at the end and the natural character development leading up to his choice.
In the game, Bill served as a cautionary tale to Joel while in the show he served as an example of the possibilities and joy of connecting with people. Both stories as told in the show and game pushed the story forward.
However, I can't shake the feeling that episode 3 felt like someone hammering a theme into my face rather than the more nuanced and less on the nose themes from the game.
See i don't understand this take. You are mistaking vagueness as nuance. Till this day some people still don't realize Frank and Bill were in a relationship. But also the gay porn Ellie took from Bill is anything but nuanced. There is nothing hamfisted about the portrayal of love between two people. What exactly is nuanced about the story in the game, they barely touched on Bill relationship, all he said was Frank was his partner and the whole spiel about "once upon a time i had someone i cared about and all that is good for is getting you killed"
The letter from Bill to Joel was so on the nose it was laughable to me. Moreover, the letter is literally the only connection this love story had to our main characters.
The only connection you have with Bill in the game is that Bill owes Joel some favors and a fetch quest for some batteries.
The show establishes that
1. Tess/Joel and Frank/Bill had a system of communicating with one another
2. Tess/Joel and Frank/Bill had meals together
3. Bill trusted them enough to give them the code to his compound which suggests they made regular trips there
4. Upon his death Bill left everything to Joel
Are any of the above things you see Bill in the game doing?
In the game, Bill's town was used to bring Ellie and Joel closer together through multiple encounters and dialogue. In the show, Joel just.......reads a letter.
Bill's town in the show served the same purpose in a less violent way.
