The Last of Us Episode 3 Soundtrack: “Long Long Time”

January 30, 2023, 3:45pm

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Last of Us episode 3, “Long Long Time.”] After HBO’s The Last of Us usedDepeche Mode’s ’80s track “Never Let Me Down Again” as a radio codesignaling trouble for Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey),Sunday’s episode 3 opened back up The Billboard Book of Number One Hits.This time it was singer Linda Ronstadt’s 1970 folk-rock single “Long,Long Time,” which serves as a love anthem for self-sufficientsurvivalists Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), who livedwith and loved each other for nearly two decades: a long, long time in the fungalapocalypse.

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Throughout its feature-length runtime and story spanning 16 years, “Long Long Time” features songs from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and the 2000s. When apocalypse prepper Bill turns the vacant town of Lincoln, Mass., into a booby-trapped and fortified compound to keep out raiders and the Infected, the montage is set to the tune of Fleetwood Mac’s “I’m Coming Home to Stay.” Four years later, a trespassing Frank trips an alert, interrupting “White Room” by Cream in Bill’s basement bunker.

A weary traveler seeking shelter while making his way from the fallen Baltimore quarantine zone to the Boston QZ, Frank is the first visitor welcomed into so-called Bill’s Town. It’s during Frank’s poorly-played piano rendition of Ronstadt’s “Long, Long Time” that Bill takes over, performing a tender version as he sings softly: “‘Cause I’ve done everything I know / To try and make you mine / And I think I’m gonna love you / For a long, long time.” Bill loves Frank for a long, long time, until the very end: 16 years later.

In present-day 2023, a dying Frank tells Bill matter-of-factly that this is his last day. “Just give me one more good day,” Frank says, planning a wedding day that will end with a concoction of pills mixed into his wine before falling asleep in his husband’s arms. The soundtrack to Bill and Frank’s last day is composer Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” a track heard in such films as Shutter Island and Arrival.

When Joel and Ellie reach Lincoln at the end of their five-hour hike through the woods, they find no signs of life. Ellie reads aloud the letter Bill left behind for Joel, confirming the couple died together, their final resting place being in each other’s arms in their bed.

“I used to hate the world, and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong because there was one person worth saving. That’s what I did,” Bill’s letter reads. “I saved him. Then I protected him. That’s why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do. And God help any motherf– who stands in our way.”

As Joel and Ellie grab what they can from Bill’s cache of weapons and supplies, Erasure’s “Chains of Love” plays over the radio. “If he didn’t reset the countdown every few weeks, this playlist would run over the radio,” Joel explains. The song is from the ’80s, and ’80s means trouble.