The Final of Us‘s third installment “Lengthy Lengthy Time” is a completely unbelievable episode of tv, delivering a young love story between apocalypse survivors Invoice (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett). Not solely did “Lengthy Lengthy Time” present a touching, hopeful take a look at the tip of the world, it additionally expanded on an implied queer relationship from the sport that ended tragically.
Sadly, a lot of viewers didn’t get pleasure from “Lengthy Lengthy Time” and are making their ire identified via “overview bombing.” Evaluate bombing is when a lot of individuals depart unfavourable on-line evaluations on a product over a concentrated time period. Within the case of movie and TV exhibits, overview bombing primarily takes place on aggregator websites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and Metacritic. Since Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t permit person evaluations for particular person episodes, the overview bombing for “Lengthy Lengthy Time” is occurring on IMDb and Metacritic.
‘The Final of Us’ modified Invoice and Frank’s story, this is why
On the time of writing, “Lengthy Lengthy Time” has a 4.7 person rating on Metacritic (person scores are out of 10). Out of 1102 scores, 578 are unfavourable. On IMDb, “Lengthy Lengthy Time” holds a 7.9 score out of 10. 121,111 IMDb customers left scores on this episode, and whereas simply over half gave the episode an ideal rating, somewhat over 1 / 4 gave the episode a one out of 10. The primary two episode each maintain a rating of 8.6 on Metacritic and 9.2 on IMDb.
So what’s it about “Lengthy Lengthy Time” that has mobilized overview bombers? The reply is disappointingly all too predictable: homophobia. It is no coincidence that an episode centering a homosexual romance has grow to be the goal of on-line trolls, and the person evaluations verify this. Critiques complain that the episode pushes “the LGBTQ agenda” or “inclusive propaganda.” Others complain that the episode deviates too removed from the sport, although the adjustments to Invoice and Frank’s story are totally in line with the thematic spirit of The Final of Us and are backed wholeheartedly by Neil Druckmann, creator of the sport and co-creator of the collection. (Invoice and Frank are additionally homosexual within the recreation.)
Evaluate bombing tends to be triggered by racism, sexism, and homophobia. For instance, in 2022, Prime Video briefly paused evaluations to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy in an effort to defend the present from trolls. A lot of the net vitriol was directed on the present’s forged members of coloration. Even The Final of Us franchise isn’t any stranger to overview bombing. In 2020, overview bombers focused the The Final of Us Half II due to an early in-game demise and the sport’s centering of LGBTQ characters. (So, brace yourselves for Season 2.)
As upsetting because the rhetoric behind the overview bombing of “Lengthy Lengthy Time” is, it would not have that giant of an affect on the present’s score itself. The Final of Us nonetheless holds a 7.7 person rating on Metacritic, and an much more spectacular 9.3 on IMDb. Critics (myself included) showered “Lengthy Lengthy Time” and The Final of Us with acclaim. On the scores aspect of issues, 6.4 million viewers(Opens in a brand new window) watched “Lengthy Lengthy Time” when it aired on Sunday night time — a 12 p.c enhance from viewership the week prior. And since viewership continues all through the week, that quantity is bound to extend. Regardless of the perfect efforts of trolls, The Final of Us is doing greater than tremendous.
Nonetheless, it bears repeating that the existence of queer individuals in media and in the actual world doesn’t replicate some insidious agenda or propaganda. Newsflash: LGBTQ individuals exist, they usually have the appropriate to exist in movie and TV as effectively. One-star evaluations will not change that.
The Final of Us is now streaming on HBO Max.(Opens in a brand new window)(opens in a brand new tab) New episodes air each Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
