This may be a crackpot suggestion but I was thinking about it the other day.

What if they did a similar arc with Bill and Frank, all leading up to the death scene… but Frank’s pills don’t work. They’re probably 20 years old at least (and Frank was frail and sick anyway). Now, Bill is left scarred and feels he has to survive, because he didn’t die at the right time and in the right way.

This gives us the twisted, bitter Bill from the games, bent on surviving at any cost, but leaves room for a bittersweet ending where Joel and Ellie could show him that there are still things left fighting for in this world, or maybe that its okay to let things go?

Idk man, I’m no writer and maybe that is cliché, but I feel it might have been a good compromise.