It’s generally agreed that the best episode of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us was Long, Long Time, which focused on the relationship between Bill & Frank throughout the apocalypse. While The Last of Us Part 2 uses flashbacks and has us relive each day from fresh perspectives, the first TLOU game is entirely linear. The series uses the sequel’s ideas on chronology more 🧸(and likely will going forward), giving us one episode almost entirely in flashback to show u♏s a new side of the apocalypse.

It’s thanks to this flashback that, where in the game we meet Bill living alone with only vague hints of a queer romance turned bitter, the show 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:zooms in on the human element and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:elevates Bill from generic trope in possession of a plot macguffin into one of the apocalypse's biggest tragedies. Now, Nick Offerman says HBO is considering a Bill & Frank spin-off, which is a tragedy all of its own.

The only exception to the linear structure is Left Behind, the post-launch DLC, which shows Ellie's life before Joel with Riley.

There has been a lot of talk about video games replacing superh♍eroes in the cultural canon, with adaptations suddenly profitable and plentiful while previously cas💎t-iron capescapades are flopping. And there has been even more talk about whether video games can sustain a trend for even close to as long as superheroes - comics have been running for decades longer and even the lesser known ones are tied together by a functioning universe, while games are mostly standalone and often reliant on gameplay to paper over their narrative shortcomings.

On the other hand, triple-A games often ape the structure of prestige movies or TV shows these days; it's why HBO's The Last of Us was a killer pitch from the start. And there are several more games that don't currently have any adaptations that could prove fertile ground for success to grow: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mass Effect's adaptation has been heavily rumoured, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Luigi's Mansion feels like a no-brainer after the success of Mario, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Red Dead Redemption feels as tailor-made for HBO as Theౠ Last of Us was, and I could go on.

But while there might still be a few more waiting, a) there aren't as many as superheroes and b) they're owned by lots of different people. HBO has the rights for The Last of Us, which means making a Bill & Frank show is likely a lot cheaper than making Red Dead Redemption. And, given Bill & Frank's newfound popularity, the bankable talents of Nick Offerman (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:who won an Emmy as Bill) and Murray Bart🅰lett, it also probably seems to make sense. But the more you think about it, the less it m🔯akes sense.

What we see in Long, Long Time is not just everything we already know of Bill & Frank from the game, it tells us their entire life. It takes us from the moment they meet until their tragic deaths, and the moments they spend together in between. Knowing where it ends doesn't necessarily mean there's no more story to tell, but all we'd be doing is picking random moments from their life story we've already seen told, and stitching them together in a desperate attempt to draw blood from a stone that has already been (very impressively) bled dry.

At that point, you're just making a new show. I'm all for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:di🍃verting from the stric༺t path of the game itself (that's how Long, Long Time happened), but there is nothing at all left to draw from in the show, and these are tertiary characters. Frank is already dead before the game starts. It's like looking at the success of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the Mario movie and deciding to make a movie about the farmer who grows the mushrooms. I get that there's brand recognition, but there's got to be a limit.

There are far more ways to expand The Last of Us into a universe if you wanted to. My preference would be to not, but that doesn't make money. We could get more of Riley and Ellie, though that might mean recasting them both as younger, which in turn might take away from the character recognition HBO is clearly relying on here. There's Tommy's story, plus (depending on how the time skip is handled) the stories of the likes of Dina, Jesse, Abby, Owen, Manny, and Mel to explore, then the Seraphites themselves.

Plus there's the often overlooked fact that the outbreak didn't just happen to Ellie and Joel. The Last of Us has provided the basic world building and now any number of other stories can be told in this world. Doing so wouldn't be much different from Bill & Frank, given both require fresh invention away from what the game has laid out, and what you lose in character recognition you gain and then some in open road ahead of you.

Personally, I think the path forward for The Last of Us is to figure out how to adapt the chronology of Part 2 and then go from there, but if the video game boom is dooming us to spin-offs, there are far better choices than Bill & Frank. I loved their story, but I don't want to see any more of them right now - and I'll feel that way for a long, long time.