Murray Bartlett Praises Gay Love Story In The Last of Us

Australian actor Murray Bartlett praised the gay love story in his new TV series The Last of Us. The HBO show is a post-apocalyptic drama that follows characters Joel and Ellie who travel across America while avoiding mutated fungi and infected zombies. 

Throughout their journey, the duo are helped by a man named Bill who is the last survivor of a town taken over by the zombies. In the third episode of The Last of Us, viewers are able to watch a storyline dedicated entirely to Bill and his partner Frank. 

The series is based on a video game of the same title which sees survivors of a pandemic, following the collapse of civilisation, attempting to stay alive and avoiding parasitic fungus that turns people into flesh-eating monsters. In the video game, Frank becomes infected and players of the game know that he became infected and kills himself to save Bill.

‘Gay Episode Is One Of The Best’

Bartlett commended the script for the third episode of the series, telling Collider that it was “one of the best hours of television I’ve ever read.”

“It’s beautiful. It’s beautifully written,” he told Collider. “There are these zombie creatures in it, but it’s tender and it’s human. I think it’s gonna be really special,” Bartlett said.

Bartlett declared that he was “really proud of the work” that was done during the filming of the gay episode. He called the series “incredibly cinematic”.

“It’s an amazing, complicated story with really deep themes in it. It’s an amazing creation,” he said. 

The Last Of Us

In the lead up to the show’s release, fans of the series posted their excitement onto Twitter, with one user writing, “as we are now one week away from The Last Of Us on HBO, may i remind people that we are getting Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as gay lovers in the show. DILF REPRESENTATION!!!!!!!”.

Screenwriter Craig Mazin, described the characters of Bill and Frank as people who embodied “outward love and inward love – the people who want to make everybody better, and the people who want to protect particular people at any cost.”

The first season of The Last of Us consists of nine episodes and is written by Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin and Druckmann. The series premiers on January 15, 2023 and audiences in Australia can watch it on Binge.