The Most Epic Fantasy and Sci-Fi Website

The Last of Us Director Fought For THAT Final Shot in Episode 3


There is little doubt that people were expecting another action-packed episode of The Last of Us this week but fans got an emotional hour with Bill and Frank. Episode 3 also concluded with an unexpected callback to the original game that added depth to the title's menu page, and amazingly, director Peter Hoar had to fight for the final shot to be used in the HBO series.

In The Last of Us Episode 3, viewers got to meet Bill and Frank who were in a relationship during the apocalypse. When Frank becomes ill, he asks Bill to euthanize him but Bill chooses to commit suicide so they can die together before Joel and Ellie could reach their compound. As Joel and Ellie leave in Bill's truck, the final shot shows the window in Bill and Frank's bedroom.

click to enlarge

It's an emotional episode and director Peter Hoar intended it that way.

"I do one episode of a big show, and I turn up, knowing the game and the brutality of the gameplay," he explained to SFX (via GamesRadar). "There are moments for great tenderness, loss, and grief, but there are lots of times to shoot Clickers. But as soon as I got there, it was a little bit like, 'Okay, this is how we're doing this. We're not about the gore, the gratuity, or anything like that.'"

Cinematographer Eben Bolter agrees, revealing that the crew insisted on using the final shot that ended up in the episode.

"We had to fight for that shot to be honest," Bolter said. "The main thing was we really wanted Joel and Ellie driving off into the next episode, into the sunset. But we just wanted to have that final reminder of this was Bill and Frank’s story, and it just felt like a lovely way to do both things at the same time."

The Last of Us Episode 3 is now streaming on HBO Max.

Related: The Last of Us Episode 3 Reveals Bill and Frank's Heartbreaking Story

For more articles like this, take a look at our The Last of Us, Games, and Geek Culture pages.