The screen is One weekly column devoted to everything that happens in the world of WIRED culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter.
Around the WIRED offices, I’m not necessarily the “told you so” type of person. Honestly, in a smart workplace like this, I’m like a “no, no, you’re right” team player. But on Monday morning, when my colleagues jumped into Slack to talk about last Sunday’s episode of Our Lastall I can think is, “I warned you.”
Granted, I only warned a few. But as one of the editors behind Will Bedingfield’s book brilliant piece about bringing Naughty Dog’s video game to HBO and Hemal Jhaveri’s lovely Q&A with Our final star Pedro PascalI watched the show early and when someone asked, I would say, “Episode 3 made me cry”.
The third episode of the series—the love story between a preparer, Bill (Nick Offerman) and a man named Frank, who is trapped on his property (Murray Bartlett)—is a different one. compared to the main plot of the HBO series and that game. based. Bill is a character in the game, but not a playable character, and Frank is only mentioned in passing. Expanding on their story is one of the many ways the show’s creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (also game producers) have managed to transform Our final game in Our final famous TV show. “I said, ‘Neil, I have a crazy idea,’” Mazin speak Vanity Fair. “And he was like, ‘Do it. Let’s see where this goes.'”
Gambit worked. Episode airs “Long Long Time” on Sundays attracted 6.4 million viewers, a 12 percent increase from the previous episode and over 1.8 million from the first episode. (This bump is significant considering Our final‘ network brothers, Dragon Houselost viewers on the third episode.) Stream the Linda Ronstadt song from which the episode is titled. up 4,900 percent on Spotify. Jimmy Kimmel has Offerman on his late night show to show him TikTok The fan’s tearful reaction to the episode. And Twitter can’t stop talking about it. personal favorites:”Our last writers were like, ‘Hey, Joel needs a car. What if we wrote the most moving and heartbreaking hour of television in the world.’”
It was a rare TV episode that gave a thousand thoughts. Vulture declares episode Rosetta stone that “unlocked the adaptation.” Rolling Stone it is “painful love story.” Inverse asked director Peter Hoar decode the last picture. More than one socket called it one masterpiece.
As with all speeches, there was also backlash. It was Druckmann who foretold that, speak New Yorkers before the series premiere that “as great as that episode is, there will be fans upset by it.” Druckmann’s creation regularly receives criticism around its weird characters, and he, yes, knows some fans won’t like what his show has to do with the verse. Bill’s story. Some called it “a serious pivot under the guise of positive representation.” Others call it “empty feelings.” It has been suggested that the episode is an example of the “bury your gays” joke; Other critics claim that it is a the subversion of that trope. (The latter is closer to the truth.) And so on.
