In The Last of Us’s zombie hellscape, same-sex love is no big deal – now for the real world

Love finds many expressions, but its sole certainty is that it always ends. This inescapable reality underpins much of human culture: what is most art, music, theatre, cinema and television other than an attempt to grapple with the emotional turmoil that results?

A devastating new contribution to this artistic tradition finds an unlikely home in episode three of the new HBO series The Last of Us. Unlikely, because it is based on a popular video game, set in an apocalyptic alternative universe in which most of humanity has been reduced to zombie-like cannibals. What remains of our species is confined to totalitarian quarantine zones and desperate raiding parties. This is not conventionally fertile ground for romance.

But – beware, lots of spoilers here – it is the setting for an extraordinary queer love story which defies cultural precedents. Bill is a conspiratorial survivalist who finds unfortunate vindication when civilisation collapses. When Frank – a survivor trying to make his way to Boston – falls into one of the many traps on Bill’s fortified compound, Bill reluctantly takes him in for a shower and meal. They fall in love and spend nearly two decades of bliss together: growing fresh strawberries, playing music, doing up the house, shielded from the violent ruin of human civilisation. Mortality eventually intrudes. Frank develops a degenerative illness and insists on taking his own life, but Bill decides they will die together, and they do, in each other’s arms in a locked bedroom.

Queer representation has undoubtedly improved in recent years. Traditionally, queer men often appeared in popular culture as desexualised, one-dimensional clown-like figures, or as tragedies. Bill and Frank’s story does end in tragedy, but not because of their sexual orientations: their lives and deaths are, in fact, far more dignified than most in their world. Netflix’s stellar school romcom Heartstopper was obviously very different, but it similarly presented queer youth and offered them the possibility of happiness, rather than simply tragedy.

In his suicide note, Bill writes: “I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong, because there was one person worth saving.” In the old, civilised world, he lacked meaning in life; it took the apocalypse to find it, thanks to the love of another man.

Why is this such an important and compelling storyline for queer people? When a young queer person comes to terms with their sexuality, they’re often stricken with panic because the simple roadmap seemingly offered to their straight counterparts – find someone, settle down, have kids, grow old together – vanishes. Images of loneliness fill the void. So when popular culture offers space for meaningful same-sex love – with all its complications – it matters. This episode could be seen as a cultural test: can a deep love affair in which sexual orientation is a background hum, rather than the foregrounded mood music, make it? If same-sex love is no big deal in the zombie apocalypse, a milestone of normalisation has been passed.

There’s something moving, too, about how the men are middle-aged – and, no disrespect to the actor playing Bill – not blessed with conventional good looks. But they happily grow old together. Gay male culture is often guilty of glorifying youth and unrealistic body images. Most gay men don’t see themselves in such ordinary representation – it’s striking how rare this portrayal of queer companionship in old age is.

The director of the episode suggests he actually tricked the audience into watching a queer love story by not making its same-sex nature immediately clear, drawing viewers in so they could later realise “it’s just the same love” they feel as heterosexuals. Of course, love is felt just as powerfully among same-sex couples as it is among straight people. It does often express itself differently, though. And representations of queer love in popular media should reflect that truth. For some gay men, wider cultural acceptance meant securing respectability. Others felt that if we were banished from heterosexuality, we might as well abandon its norms and start again.

For instance, gay men are far more likely to be in open relationships and to have multiple sexual partners. Because promiscuity among gay men has such negative connotations, there’s a fear – among straight and queer artists alike – that presenting this other reality will simply invite bigotry. But these non-monogamous relationships are often full of love and emotional commitment, no less so than Bill and Frank, and deserve to be explored fully.

Similarly, watching a gay man push his dying partner in a wheelchair evokes another singularly queer experience of love, but a tragic one: the HIV/Aids pandemic, where lovers became carers and torturous deaths awaited, all against the backdrop of an unforgivingly bigoted society. Bill and Frank build their own world free of the judgment of others – even if that world is as doomed as any other.

There is one universal facet of love, regardless of sexual orientation, explored in this remarkable episode, and that’s fear. Bill tells Frank that, before he came along, he didn’t feel fear: but now with something to lose, he did. That kind of fear defines the human experience more than we would like to admit. But for many queer people, a greater terror has always lurked: what if life will be defined by rejection and solitude, of sleepless nights in empty beds?

In truth, there is no shortage of Bill and Franks, condemned to love each other, living lives of joy, tenderness, fear and grief, just like everybody else.