This latest episode of The Last of Us season 2 showcased life without Joel (Pedro Pascal). After Joel’s stunning death in the second episode, last night was all about grief and how the people of Jackson will move on after this tragedy. Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, takes Joel’s death particularly hard, leading to an emotional moment involving a piece of clothing.
After being released from the hospital, Ellie returns home to an empty house. Ellie walks into Joel’s room and begins looking through his things. Once she finds Joel’s jacket, Ellie breaks down into tears. Ramsey revealed to The Hollywood Reporter why this emotional moment was the “toughest” scene to film.
“Oh God, in the closet, that was the hardest [scene],” Ramsey said. “So I really struggle with crying in scenes. I can get a tear out, but that’s different to crying. And even getting the tear, it doesn’t come easy for me. I don’t cry in front of people in my everyday life. A very, very limited amount of people in my life will see me cry. And so having to do that on a set full of people with the monitor and then more people watching the monitors…it’s virtually impossible for me. So I was really worried about that scene, and that was the toughest one for me to shoot.”
Liane Hentscher / HBO
Instead of channeling sad thoughts, Ramsey thought of the “happiest of memories” with Pascal to elicit an emotional response.
“The thing that is always the saddest for me is remembering the happy things,” Ramsey explained. “I was remembering us the first few times that we met and the whole of shooting season one together, and the funniest moments. I was remembering all of that and through the lens of losing him — not just Joel and Ellie, but like me and Pedro — because the memories of me and Pedro and Joel and Ellie are so intertwined for me.”
In the episode, Ellie proposes sending a group of townspeople to Seattle to find Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), but the town council denies her request. Ellie and Dina go to Seattle anyway. While on the trail, they encounter a group of dead Seraphites, who Ellie and Dina think could have been killed by Abby and the WLF. The episode ends with Ellie and Dina reaching Seattle, while members of the WLF march through the streets.
The next episode of The Last of Us season 2 airs on Sunday, May 4.
Starring Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, the show primarily takes place 20 years after the cordyceps fungus evolves to infect humans, generating hordes of aggressive creatures. Joel (Pascal), a smuggler whose daughter died during the initial outbreak, is tasked with escorting Ellie (Ramsey), an orphan who’s seemingly immune to the fungus, across the country in hopes of developing a cure.
The show earned both Pascal and Ramsey nominations at the Golden Globes and Emmy Awards and turned them into household names. It also featured an award-winning performance from Nick Offerman, who stars alongside Murray Bartlett in the season’s acclaimed third episode “Long, Long Time.“
A second season of the HBO hit is nearly here, and it’s set to adapt part of the game “The Last of Us Part II.”
Here’s everything we know about the new season.
Kirsten Acuna contributed to a previous version of this article, which was first published in January 2024.
‘The Last of Us’ season 2 will premiere on April 13, 2025
On March 9, HBO released a full trailer that announced season two will premiere on April 13, 2025. The footage gave fans a better idea of what to expect from the show’s sophomore season, including a large-scale battle in the snow against a horde of the infected.
The trailer was watched 22 million times in 48 hours, which indicates that anticipation is high for the series.
HBO previously released a trailer on “The Last of Us” day in September, showing Joel and Ellie — as per usual — in distress.
Season two will have seven episodes, which Mazin described as “high-calorie” and “dense” in a February 2025 Entertainment Weekly interview. It will also include deleted material that wasn’t included in “The Last of Us Part II.”
There will likely be a time jump — and season 2 won’t cover all of ‘The Last of Us Part II’
In an interview with Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in February 2023, Ramsey said that while they were playing a 14-year-old Ellie in the first season of “The Last of Us,” Ellie would be closer to their own age in season two.
“I’ll be 20, probably by the time we shoot that, and I’ll be playing 19,” Ramsey said. “So yeah, I will be closer to my age.”
Bella Ramsey as Ellie in “The Last of Us.”
Liane Hentscher/HBO
Showrunner Craig Mazin also spoke about the possibility of a time jump with Collider, and said that there won’t be any recasting as a result.
“Obviously, the time jump is important, to some extent,” Mazin said. “It reflects the changing nature of Ellie’s relationship with Joel, as she gets older.”
While “TLOU” season one covered the events of the 2013 game, the second season will not cover all of its 2020 sequel.
Series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who also created the game series, told GQ in March 2023 that the events of the second game will take place over “more than one season.”
HBO has yet to renew the show for a third season. Mazin told EW in February, however, that he thinks it’s “pretty likely” that the show has enough story material to carry it at least into a fourth season.
“We have a plan,” Druckmann told EW. “We know what we need to do going forward, but we couldn’t tell you right now exactly how many episodes or how many seasons it would take to get there.”
There are new cast members in season 2
Kaitlyn Dever will play Abby, a controversial character in “The Last of Us” video game franchise.
Gilbert Flores/WWD via Getty Images)
In January 2024, HBO announced three major season two castings.
Dever will play Abby, the second protagonist of “The Last of Us Part II” and a playable character in the game. She’s a member of the Fireflies and is driven by her desire for revenge.
While Mazin and Druckmann remain tight-lipped about the details of Abby’s character, Druckmann confirmed to EW that her physicality won’t be as strongly emphasized in the series compared to the game. In simpler terms: she won’t be as buff.
“I personally think that there is an amazing opportunity here to delve into someone who is perhaps physically more vulnerable than the Abby in the game, but whose spirit is stronger,” Mazin told EW. “And then the question is, ‘Where does her formidable nature come from and how does it manifest?’ That’s something that will be explored now and later.”
“Alien: Romulus” star Isabela Merced was cast as Dina, Ellie’s love interest and eventual traveling companion who she gets to know in the Jackson settlement.
And Young Mazino, a breakout star of the Netflix limited series “Beef,” will play Jesse, Dina’s ex and a community leader in Jackson.
Young Mazino will play Jesse in season two of “The Last of Us.”
Elyse Jankowski/Variety via Getty Images; PlayStation/YouTube
In March 2024, Max announced four more additions to the cast. Danny Ramirez will play Manny, Ariela Barer will play Mel, Tati Gabrielle will play Nora, and Spencer Lord will play Owen. The four characters are friends of Abby’s from the Seattle settlement.
HBO also announced in May 2024 that Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”) would reprise his role from the games and play Isaac, the leader of the Washington Liberation Front, in season two. Per Entertainment Weekly, HBO describes Isaac as “the quietly powerful leader of a large militia group who sought liberty but instead has become mired in an endless war against a surprisingly resourceful enemy.”
Catherine O’Hara of “Schitt’s Creek” also appears in season two, and can be seen in a trailer acting as a counselor or therapist to Joel.
Druckmann told EW in February that there’s still another high-profile casting that’s yet to come.
“There is a pretty prominent character that is talked a lot about in the game, similar to what we did with Frank in season 1, that is in this season,” he said. “There’s a very, very cool casting that I hope we can talk about soon.”
Fans are concerned Joel could die in season 2
Joel (Pedro Pascal) cradles Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in the season one finale of “The Last of Us.”
Liane Hentscher/HBO
“The Last of Us Part II” video game is controversial among fans because Joel is unexpectedly and brutally murdered by Abby toward the start of the sequel when his past catches up with him.
TV-Joel’s fate is the question on every fan’s mind since it’s the major jumping-off point of the sequel game. Even Pascal has said his character’s death is a possibility in season two.
Pedro Pascal as Joel on season one of “The Last of Us.”
Liane Hentscher/HBO
“It wouldn’t make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path,” Pascal told Esquire in April 2023.
“If that does take place in the show, I don’t know that I’m emotionally ready for it,” he added.
However, Mazin told Entertainment Weekly in 2023 that fans can expect some changes from the sequel game in season two, saying, “It’s going to be different, and it will be its own thing. It won’t be exactly like the game.”
Maybe that means there’s a chance Joel could live, or at least make it to the end of season two, due to Pascal’s immense popularity.
Since the second game became controversial, it’s likely the show may flesh out Abby’s character more before killing Joel off, if the show decides to go that route. But it would be difficult to envision season two straying from Joel’s death entirely since it’s the key motivation for Ellie’s path in the sequel game.
There will be more infected
One of the infected.
Liane Hentscher/HBO
In the game, players constantly outmaneuver and kill many of the people who have been infected and taken over by the cordyceps virus. Though the infected show up in a few key scenes, they weren’t a main fixture of season one, which placed a large emphasis on character relationships and world-building.
“It’s quite possible that there will be a lot more infected later. And perhaps different kinds,” Mazin said during a press conference for the finale in 2023.
On HBO’s “The Last of Us” podcast in 2023, Mazin added that season two will likely further explore the idea of the Cordyceps hive mind and how they can be a major threat together.
“I think this next season, the interconnectivity of them, and the risk of stepping on the wrong thing, that stuff is going to be brought forward more for sure,” Mazin said.
