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[Draugoth]

Article From Kotaku:

Every day, I am begging the straights to be normal about men who kiss each other. The latest episode of The Last of Us seems to have caused many of them to lose their goddamn minds. The cause of their mass dissatisfaction? Two men having a loving relationship on an HBO show. As of the time of writing, one fourth of the ratings on IMDb are listed as one-star.

The third episode of The Last of Us expands on the relationship between Bill and Frank, two gay men who were living together at the end of the world. Players only got to meet Bill in the original 2013 game; Frank had been bitten by a zombie and was forced to take his own life. Their relationship in the game ended on a bitter note and was criticized as an example of doomed queer love that’s all-too-common in popular media.

The HBO show expanded on a different interpretation of their relationship. In the series, Bill and Frank built a home together, and got to meet their ends entirely on their terms. It’s probably the best ending anyone can experience during a zombie apocalypse, regardless of sexuality. The episode was universally praised by critics, who found their relationship to be both incredibly moving and a triumph over the original events of the game.

Unfortunately, bigots can’t appreciate a good thing. Many review bombers griped that the romance was a distraction from the leading protagonists. “We spent almost 50 minutes on a romantic story that doesn’t benefit the main story,” wrote one reviewer. “This episode had nothing to do with Last of Us,” complained another. First off, Neil Druckmann and show producer Craig Mazin criticized the tendency for video game adaptations to be overly faithful to the original. So if the HBO show doesn’t feel exactly like the video game, those creative decisions were made in order to improve the watchability of the adaptation. Secondly, the low rating is clearly disproportionate to the perceived cinema sin committed here.

Other review bombers were more forthcoming with the source of their discontent. “Again just another instance of the small minority of gay people exerting their influence in Hollywood to push their agenda on the world.” Ah yes, the universal gay agenda. That’s clearly why Bill and Frank are gay in both the original video game and the television adaptation. It can’t possibly be the prevalence of gay artists and the straight creators who are influenced by them. “A cheesy chapter, full of agenda and absolutely unnecessary,” wrote another. I don’t know, my dude. I think the queer kids who are struggling to see a future with themselves in it probably thought that it was necessary.

Some of the complaints get deep into conspiracy theorist territory. “We know [it’s] so [the producers] can FARM on pink money with sex scenes and cheap romance.” God, I wish that pink money was prevalent enough to regularly fund an HBO television show. That would be really nice. It’s unfortunately not the world that we live in.

Cry harder, homophobes.

 

[LordCBH]

Everything gets review bombed. Usually for retarded reasons.

 

[Topher]

"“We spent almost 50 minutes on a romantic story that doesn’t benefit the main story,” wrote one reviewer. “This episode had nothing to do with Last of Us,” complained another."

Maybe I'm missing it, but where is the "bigotry" in those criticisms?

 

[fart town usa]

Not at you OP but who fucking cares. Don't give clicks to that reddit-tier click bait.

 

[Jennings]

The show will persevere regardless of how many reviewers review bomb it online. None of that will change the number of people that tune in to watch and hate-watch every week. If anything these review-bombing efforts will only generate free press and make basement dwellers look even more dwelly than before.

 

[Bartski]

review bombing is cringe, but not as much as unironically quoting Kotaku

 

[MiguelItUp]

"“We spent almost 50 minutes on a romantic story that doesn’t benefit the main story,” wrote one reviewer. “This episode had nothing to do with Last of Us,” complained another."

Maybe I'm missing it, but where is the "bigotry" in those criticisms?

Those sound like valid opinions to me. It's funny, I've definitely seen OTHER types of reviews about the episode, but those are some poor examples.

But again, this is Kotaku we're talking about. I'm glad I stopped going there a decade or so ago. Seeing threads like this is always amusing to me because it's like a "grass is green" situation.

Regardless, review bombing is bullshit, really. Especially when you can see the line where "honest" reviews lie, and BS ones too.

 

[AV]

Meanwhile episode 3 was a better story than 90% of the game.

Hilarious to see people who think it'll be cancelled after that when it was already renewed for Season 2 and will go down at the best TV show of the year.

 

[Swift_Star]

Let them cry, I say, I honestly couldn’t care less. Episode is a masterpiece and will win an Emmy.
Now, saying homosexuality is an agenda will never not be funny and pathetic.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

I just want to go to the HBO boards for this show and tell them all the Mando is going to get 9 ironed in season 2.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Maybe I'm missing it, but where is the "bigotry" in those criticisms?

As soon as you disagree it -has- to be bigotry, because these insane TLOU stans can't fathom someone not liking the thing they worship for other, entirely valid, reasons.

 

[Gorgyles]

Is this gaming journalism?
Refreshing user review sections to see what fringe weirdos are doing and then complaining about it?

The episode is great and I honestly don't care if it's a 0% audience score on RT at all.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Maybe it's their way of adding filler for the sake of it. Got to pump up the episode count and max out the budget.

If you guys want to see the most boring episodes ever with maximum filler scenes go watch The Punisher on NF. I think each season was about 12 episodes. Literally could had been condensed to 8 each.

 

[Fbh]

Every day, I am begging the straights to be normal about men who kiss each other

So clear this up for me Kotaku:
Is it or isn't it ok to take the actions of a few to make broad statements about a large group of people?
I'm getting mixed signals from you

 

[Doczu]

I loved Bill's potrayal in the game. His orientation was alluded to and if you were dumb yo not notice Ellie shoved a gay porn mag right in Joel's face.
His character was beautifully written and show. I felt his pain.
I still haven't seen the show cause i want to end Caleidoscope and then bing watch a few episodes but this episode (and the gay sex scene) was impossible go black out online and i have to ask myself and others:

Was it really needed? Did it serve the story or was it nothing more than pandering filler?

 

[AV]

As soon as you disagree it -has- to be bigotry, because these insane TLOU stans can't fathom someone not liking the thing they worship for other, entirely valid, reasons.

Literally the fourth 1* user review I saw on iMDB refers to it as an "agenda". Never mind that Bill was a gay character in the 2013 game.

As soon as a romance scene is referred to as an agenda and not a romance scene that's bigotry no matter how someone wants to convince themselves it isn't. You don't have to care, but it is. If someone has a problem with it being a full episode being centered around a romance that's a fine, valid criticism. Kotaku gave a bad example, but what I'm talking about ain't hard to find.

This thread is gonna turn into a swamp pretty soon though so I'm not looking for an argument about it.

 

[Fake]

Slow news? I thought Kotaku don't care about user score.

 

[SlimySnake]

I find it odd that IMDB users who were very positive on Brokeback Mountain, Six Feet Under and Euphoria which is straight up a trans romance story with several gay characters have now all of a sudden turned into homophobes.

The 1 star ratings appraoching 30% are very high on TLOU, yes. Especially in comparison to Brokeback mountain, Six feet under and Euphoria that all hover around 3%. So assuming 3% of the population is homophobic, why is TLOU's 3rd episode 1 star ratings at 28%!!

Maybe people didnt like a love story side quest in a show about Joel and Ellie. Im sure it being gay didnt help but as we've seen, the IMDB userbase is not your average gamefaq or metacritic audience.

If anything, the show is being overrated by a bunch of people spamming 10s as if its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Euphoria and Brokeback Mountain have around 20% 10 star ratings while TLOU Episode 3 has 54%. Thats way too high and shows that just as many people are overrating the episode.

 

[Topher]

As soon as you disagree it -has- to be bigotry, because these insane TLOU stans can't fathom someone not liking the thing they worship for other, entirely valid, reasons.

Not about TLOU fans at all really. This part of the story isn't even in the game. Just implied. Those criticisms are being taken as anti-gay and I'm just not seeing it.

 

[Coloress_Kafka]

Considering all the fucked up shit HBO let’s slide in Euphoria I really don’t think they care about people getting salty about an episode with two old white gay men falling in love.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Only the negative review bombs are problematic, all the 10/10 are legit.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Literally the fourth 1* user review I saw on iMDB refers to it as an "agenda".

who cares, the user I replied to was quoting directly from the article, and there's nothing anti-gay about those criticisms.

 

[Rush2112]

Woketaku

 

[mrmustard]

"Every day, I am begging the straights to be normal about men who kiss each other"

Hey, at least i'm normal about women who kiss each other. Nobody is perfect!

 

[Kacho]

Cool culture war bro

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I find it odd that IMDB users who were very positive on Brokeback Mountain, Six Feet Under and Euphoria which is straight up a trans romance story with several gay characters have now all of a sudden turned into homophobes.

The 1 star ratings appraoching 30% are very high on TLOU, yes. Especially in comparison to Brokeback mountain, Six feet under and Euphoria that all hover around 3%. So assuming 3% of the population is homophobic, why is TLOU's 3rd episode 1 star ratings at 28%!!

Maybe people didnt like a love story side quest in a show about Joel and Ellie. Im sure it being gay didnt help but as we've seen, the IMDB userbase is not your average gamefaq or metacritic audience.

If anything, the show is being overrated by a bunch of people spamming 10s as if its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Euphoria and Brokeback Mountain have around 20% 10 star ratings while TLOU Episode 3 has 54%. Thats way too high and shows that just as many people are overrating the episode.

Without watching the TLOU episodes aside from maybe half of the first one, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle between trolling, homophobe bombing and a boring episode.

If the episode is accurate where someone said 50 minutes was spend on this boring plot, I'd give it a low rating too. My expectation of the series is to be a more attune to high tempo or crisis situations than 2 gay guys. Nobody expects TLOU to be like Brokeback Mountain.

Just to show the anti-gay/anti-lesbian characters arent a big driver of bad scores, Ellie is lesbian and every gamer knows it. If people holistically hated queer people that much, the show would be reviewed bombed right from the first episode.

 

[SlimySnake]

Just to show the anti-gay/anti-lesbian characters arent a big driver of bad scores, Ellie is lesbian and every gamer knows it. If people holistically hated queer people that much, the show would be reviewed bombed right from the first episode.

Yep. ive been saying that since day 1. Everyone knows Ellie is gay. At least all the internet trolls. Hell, Sony had Ellie make out with Dina in a fucking commercial at E3. It's no secret. No one cared and the game sold 4 million copies in the first three days. fastest selling ps exclusive until gow 2.5 years later.

 

[Doczu]

I find it odd that IMDB users who were very positive on Brokeback Mountain, Six Feet Under and Euphoria which is straight up a trans romance story with several gay characters have now all of a sudden turned into homophobes.

The 1 star ratings appraoching 30% are very high on TLOU, yes. Especially in comparison to Brokeback mountain, Six feet under and Euphoria that all hover around 3%. So assuming 3% of the population is homophobic, why is TLOU's 3rd episode 1 star ratings at 28%!!

Maybe people didnt like a love story side quest in a show about Joel and Ellie. Im sure it being gay didnt help but as we've seen, the IMDB userbase is not your average gamefaq or metacritic audience.

If anything, the show is being overrated by a bunch of people spamming 10s as if its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Euphoria and Brokeback Mountain have around 20% 10 star ratings while TLOU Episode 3 has 54%. Thats way too high and shows that just as many people are overrating the episode.

People watching Brokeback Mountain or Euphoria and giving it 1 star reviews for "being gay" are retards. You know what you are going into. People wanting to watch TLoU maybe didn't want Brokeback Apocalypse

 

[chromhound]

I haven't played this game yet. But i guess people are mad this part wasn't in the original game ?

 

[Punished Miku]

I just see dumb shit from just about everyone on this series.

• So far the series has not been THAT good. It's gotten a crazy amount of hype not really proportionate with the quality of the series I've seen. I think part of that insane critic push is because of it fitting in with their ideology and politics. So far nothing has come close to The Walking Dead, and the story is straight up boring. PS fanboys also overhyping the series massively. It's the best game show, but it's still not THAT great. The acting is not great. Joel/Ellie are not great. The action scenes aren't great. Kudos to the set designers though.
• It's bad for Kotaku to label all critics homophobic. Too much of a generalization.
• It's obvious many people are actually homophobic though - especially related to male/male scenes, especially if they're furry, masculine and not typical pretty boy gay characters like Game of Thrones or something.

So yeah, nearly everyone has been hyperbolic and full of shit so far. People are homophobic, but it's not everyone. People are massively exaggerating how good the show is, and also massively exaggerating how bad episode 3 is. From what I've seen, the show is pretty decent with great set design. Episode 3 was the first episode with any noteworthy story or acting of any kind.

So I think nearly everyone is full of it for different reasons. Several competing shitty exaggerations all fighting for control.

 

[Meicyn]

I love the smell of culture wars in the morning!

 

[Rival]

Evilore needs to nuke all mentions of Kotaku on this site as the Politics forum was.

 

[Thebonehead]

Was a 4 out of 10 episode for me as it was just a contrived two people falling in love and aging together episode.

Reminded me of one of those filler episodes of the walking dead where they'd run out of budget as there is no way that episode cost $15m

 

[F0rneus]

Episode was great. Review bombing is dumb and rendered user scores useless a long time ago. News at 11.

 

[Topher]

I haven't played this game yet. But i guess people are mad this part wasn't in the original game ?

I think if the show dedicated an episode that expanded on Joel and Tess' implied romantic relationship but didn't actually advance the story as some have said (I haven't seen the episode either) then there would be similar criticism aside from those pointing to an "agenda".

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Every day I think my decision to watch only important and valuable things (Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, etc.) was the right choice to not touch mass culture swamp pit again.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Tough episode to watch there’s no zombies episode 4, 5 and 6 are coming up I’m fond of the franchise on PlayStation it’s the game to play.

 

[Swift_Star]

I loved Bill's potrayal in the game. His orientation was alluded to and if you were dumb yo not notice Ellie shoved a gay porn mag right in Joel's face.
His character was beautifully written and show. I felt his pain.
I still haven't seen the show cause i want to end Caleidoscope and then bing watch a few episodes but this episode (and the gay sex scene) was impossible go black out online and i have to ask myself and others:

Was it really needed? Did it serve the story or was it nothing more than pandering filler?

theres no such thing as pandering, unless every single straight romance on media is pandering to straights. That being said: the episode moves the plot forward and establishes Joel motivations for what will happen in the end of the show.

 

[thefool]

reality:

Its being praised because of the messaging.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Yep. ive been saying that since day 1. Everyone knows Ellie is gay. At least all the internet trolls. Hell, Sony had Ellie make out with Dina in a fucking commercial at E3. It's no secret. No one cared and the game sold 4 million copies in the first three days. fastest selling ps exclusive until gow 2.5 years later.

At some point, Bella Ramsay is going to make out with a girl. So that'll be the big lesbian scene, which non-gamers would get first wind of.

Let's see if that episode (which will happen down the road) gets review bombed too, while taking into consideration how action packed or boring the episode is.

 

[Thirty7ven]

The straights??? Uh

Anyway

Yeah

It was a great episode and people who are review bombing it because they can’t take two men kissing should honestly do everyone a favor and unplug from the matrix.

 

[Lasha]

I think if the show dedicated an episode that expanded on Joel and Tess' implied romantic relationship but didn't actually advance the story as some have said (I haven't seen the episode either) then there would be similar criticism aside from those pointing to an "agenda".

I said as such in the main thread. The love story was wonderful but I didn't think it fit into the show. I do not think that critics would be as glowing about the episode if 50 minutes had been spent on a similarly basic heterosexual romance.

 

[Swift_Star]

Yep. ive been saying that since day 1. Everyone knows Ellie is gay. At least all the internet trolls. Hell, Sony had Ellie make out with Dina in a fucking commercial at E3. It's no secret. No one cared and the game sold 4 million copies in the first three days. fastest selling ps exclusive until gow 2.5 years later.

No one cared? Do not rewrite history. People raged on social media about the trailer opening up with that kiss to the point some were saying “they made Ellie gay” lol.

 

[ManaByte]

Site that is about to review bomb WizardGame is complaining about review bombing.

 

[Hugare]

I'm sure that Mazin/Druckman are crying, having the series renewed for Season 2 and viewers increasing with each episode

 

[GymWolf]

Kotaku and their retarded takes once again.

Majority of people are mad for other reasons.

 

[Clear]

As I wrote elsewhere, the problem was only that it was done in a such a basic way. You could gender swap it and people would point out how trite and simplistic its treatment of love in a time of calamity is.

I do not have an issue with the homosexuality, what I have qualms about is that this romantic idyll is playing out within walking distance of the mass grave of innocent townsfolk executed by the authorities. Most of all that this doesn't factor into the reality of Bill and Frank's relationship when the entirety of the former's character is defined by his survivalist paranoia.

For me it should have started out well as shown in the show, but ended up like it did in the game with Frank becoming resentful of living in cage with an untrusting and naturally suspicious partner. There's a good dynamic to explore here with Frank just looking for peace and a sense of what his life and interests used to be. But that conflict is hand-waved away in a couple of short scenes... Which just struck me as cheap.

Frank, as written in the show, is no more no less a "good wife" stereotype. He does art and picks out their wardrobes, worries about the decor of a fucking boutique IN A TOWN THATS BASICALLY BEEN GENOCIDED. And Bill's so down with that he joins his lover in death at the end....

Nope. Sorry to me that's not good writing and worse "representation".

 

[PaddyOCanager]

Was it really needed? Did it serve the story or was it nothing more than pandering filler?

It's not pandering, and it technically served the story in its conclusion.

I personally didn't like it because I thought it was heavy handed with its message, tropey and boring. It eschewed storytelling opportunities the game didn't explore to tell a simple love story instead, complete with a Romeo & Juliet-esque ending.

 

[GeeseGoose]

While I think that the show has been a bit meh so far, and Joel & Ellie are absolutely unlikable in the show, the Bill & Frank subplot was wonderfully acted, heart-wrenching and overall the best thing about this show.

Love is love and the actors knocked it out of the park in portraying that.

 

[Mod of War]

Everything will be okay.