‘Long, Long Time’: Spoiler-free photos from ‘The Last of Us’ episode 3

It’s that time of the week again when we look at the early photos from an upcoming episode of “The Last of Us,” the HBO show about a post-apocalypse caused by fungi infections. If you haven’t caught up with the episodes yet, this will still mention some of the events there, so I recommend that you go watch them first and just come back here when you’re finished. I’ll wait.

The button above takes you to a directory of all the posts about “The Last of Us” so far including a timeline that I will be updating after each episode.

Let’s have a quick recap of the events from episodes 1 and 2 before we discuss the photos: In episode 1, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” Ellie saw a piece of paper with the letter B and F. Those two letters most probably mean “Bill” (Nick Offerman) and “Frank” (Murray Bartlett), the names mentioned by Tess (Anna Torv) before her heartbreaking send-off in episode 2, “Infected.” She told Joel (Pedro Pascal) that he must take Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to Bill and Frank, who are shown in the trailer for the third episode. Below the initials B and F, the paper also had codes for the secret messages. Ellie soon found out through the codes and by tricking Joel that when ’80s songs are played, on the radio, it means trouble. However, the trio did not get to hear this warning as they left Boston Quarantine Zone a little bit too early.

Let’s start with the photos of Ellie.

That cat keychain must mean something, right?

Then there’s Ellie and Joel looking at somebody’s remains.

This is 100 percent from a flashback we’ll get in the next episode. Hopefully, this isn’t the cold open for the episode. I enjoyed both the cold opens for the first two episodes. I want more of Ibu Ratna. Southeast Asia represent!

I want Bill to be this show’s first anarchy symbol. Please give it to us, HBO. He lives outside the quarantine zones, far from the Federal Disaster Response Agency (Fedra), so fingers crossed.

In this scene, Bill and Frank have a copy of a Lindy Ronstadt songbook. It’s titled “The Best of Lindy Ronstadt,” which is interesting because in our world, that songbook was released in 2005. Supposedly, no music was ever produced after infection day, which happened in 2003, so in “The Last of Us” world, this songbook was released earlier. Grab a copy of that songbook before it becomes a rare collectible item, by the way.

Let me call it now: Nick Offerman will win a best guest star award for this.

And last but not the least, here’s a solo photo of Frank. It looks like he’s treating somebody’s wounds here. I guess Bill got wounded by his own traps?