What will surprise viewers in the most anticipated series of the year?
On April 13, the second season of the series The Last of Us based on the super-popular video game of the same name will start on HBO — and this is perhaps the most anticipated television spectacle of the year. Lenta.ru tells everything we know about the continuation of Joel and Ellie’s adventures in the dark world of the American post-apocalypse.
Release date: April 13
Country: USA
Number of episodes: 7
Showrunners: Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann
Starring: Pedro Pascal , Bella Ramsey, Kaitlyn Dever , Gabriel Luna
What is The Last of Us Season 2 about?
The creators of the series faced the difficulty of working with two layers of material at once: it was necessary to build on the dramaturgy and images that viewers saw in the first season, but at the same time preserve the plot of the game The Last of Us Part II. The result was a unique product, as the showrunners themselves say.
Let us recall that in the finale of the first season, Joel delivered Ellie to the Fireflies, who hoped to use her to create a vaccine against the cordyceps infection that had zombified the world. Having learned that the operation to extract the cordyceps from her brain would be fatal for the girl, the hero took his young companion by force and escaped with her, sparing no one who tried to stop them. The events of the second season unfold five years after these events: Ellie and Joel live in the community of his younger brother Tommy. At some point, mysterious strangers appear in the area, and Ellie and her friend Dina set off to look for them.
Who will appear in the new episodes?
Pedro Pascal returned to the role of Joel Miller, which turned him into one of the sex symbols of the generation. The main secret of the actor’s work on the role in The Last of Us, according to critics, is that in the series, Joel is shown more physically vulnerable than in the game: he is deaf in one ear and has bad knees. This allows to expand the dramatic potential of the character, making him closer to the viewer. Orphan Ellie was again played by Bella Ramsay. Compared to the first season, the relationship with Joel has become more intense – she does not always listen to him, but still needs emotional closeness. In addition, she starts a close relationship with a girl from the community – Dina (played by Isabela Merced), with whom one of the most dramatic episodes in the game is associated.
It is known that another central character of the game will appear in the series – Abby Anderson, played by Kaitlyn Dever. Despite her youth, she is an experienced warrior who seeks to avenge those she loved. During the filming, the actress was assigned additional security due to the ambiguous perception of the heroine by fans of the game. Joel’s younger brother Tommy lives in one of the communities in Jackson (Wyoming) with his pregnant wife. According to actor Gabriel Luna, in the second season, his character will experience “anti-evolution”.
How does the continuation of the series differ from the plot of the game?
The Last of Us sequel is based on the second game in the series, The Last of Us Part II, which was released in 2020. Neil Druckmann said that it would take several seasons to adapt the entire franchise, and Craig Mazin added that he didn’t want the series’ plot to get ahead of the events in the original source material. He later confirmed that the project would definitely have a third season and possibly even a fourth. The creators admitted that in The Last of Us they were able to pay attention to storylines that didn’t work in the original games, thanks to the specifics of the television format. It is also known that the second season will focus more on the infected and their mutations.
We don’t feel limited by the source material. Sometimes the plot will be radically different, and sometimes it will repeat the events of the game. Everything will be shown in its own way, not exactly as in the game
Craig Mazinshowrunner of the series
The scripts for all episodes were completed in April 2023, and a full plan for the filming process was drawn up at the same time, but further work on the project was affected by the Writers Guild strike. Mazin wrote and handed over the dramatic basis of the first episode to the producers 90 minutes before it began. The showrunner himself stated that he tried to finish work on the entire season so that he could start filming immediately after the litigation between Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild was completed. The second season, according to him, is primarily devoted to themes of revenge, while the first was largely devoted to unconditional love.
What are people saying about The Last of Us season 2?
After a short clip from the second season of the series was published online, some fans of the original game were left perplexed or even furious. In it, Ellie, talking to Tommy, reminds her that she has immunity from the infected, and Tommy asks the girl not to bring this up, since they “don’t discuss it.” In response, the heroine, to spite Joel’s brother, starts shouting about having immunity at the top of her lungs. Commentators agreed that such behavior is not only very different from the character of the game’s character, but also simply illogical: several years have passed between the events of the first and second seasons, and the girl, according to critics, behaves as if she just walked out of the final scene of the original.
Also, many fans of The Last of Us: Part II demanded a change in the actress playing the main role: they are not happy with the fact that the heroine played by Ramsay has not changed in appearance or psychology, despite all the events she has experienced. For example, in the original source, Ellie’s model was significantly redesigned to show her transformation over time.
Critics who have already managed to watch the series at closed screenings have highly praised the second season of The Last of Us. The new episodes are praised for their spectacle, scale, drama and complex nature of the characters. However, even among the enthusiastic reviews, there are reviews that note the downsides of the continuation. In particular, many were disappointed by the decision to split the game’s plot into two seasons of the series, as well as the way new characters were introduced into the plot: supposedly Abby, who instantly captures attention and attracts interest in the game, here seems artificially integrated into what is happening.
To pretend that the show transcends its original aesthetic is to ignore the hole at the center of the plot, where insight, complexity, and vibrant supporting characters should be. Instead, episodes are filled with drawn-out zombie-battling moments and long, silent scenes.
Judy BermanTime critic
Is it worth waiting for a sequel?
HBO has already confirmed the renewal of the series for a third season, despite the fact that the second part has not even been released yet. However, Craig Mazin is sure that at least three seasons are needed to fully reveal the story of Joel and Ellie. The showrunner also stated that he allows for the renewal of the project for a fourth season. Will its plot focus on the events of the game or will it offer its own version of the end of this epic and tragic drama existing in the world of the zombie apocalypse? No one knows the answer yet, perhaps not even the creators of the series.