Call it a shock that the biggest TV series of 2023 not called Succession is getting a second run, but there it is — The Last of Us season 2 is a done deal, and will likely beam into our eyeballs in the next year or so.
We've got a decent idea of what it'll be about: series co-creator Neil Druckmann told GQ in an interview last year that it'll at least, in part, cover the events of the video game The Last of Us: Part II, echoing what star Bella Ramsey told us last February. ("I think [the show] will most likely follow the storyline of the games again," they said. “I don't think there's much need to fill in the gaps.”)
Since then we've had a slew of casting notices from the show, confirming that actors have been recruited to fill in the boots of key characters from Part II. All signs point towards a direct adaptation of Part II in the next season and beyond (much as the first season maintained fidelity, for the most part, to the first game).
Naturally, we'll be covering the events of Part II in this explainer, which means significant spoilers moving forward. Be warned now.
Who will direct the The Last of Us season 2?
Mark Mylod, director and producer of Succession, is coming on board for season 2. The Last of Us and Succession? Two queens coming together to maximise their joint slay. But seriously, it's hard to imagine a more powerful link-up than two of the biggest cultural entities of last year. Mylod helmed 16 episodes of Succession, including Connor's wedding and the finale, two of the most talked about hours of television in recent history. No word yet on what part of the season 2 story he'll be taking on, but let's assume it's going to leave us all pulling our hair out.
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Elsewhere, Kate Herron, who directed every episode of the first season of Marvel's Loki (arguably its biggest TV success story) is joining for season 2, alongside Watchmen director Stephen Williams and Perry Mason director Nina Lopez-Corrado – both huge HBO shows. Essentially, HBO has enlisted its own kind of Avengers.
Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann will also be back for season 2 in the director's chair, as well as Peter Hoar who directed the soul-crushing third episode of season 1 starring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett, Long, Long Time.
When will The Last of Us start shooting?
At an event for Variety in December 2023, showrunner Craig Mazin confirmed that production will commence on 12 February. Yes, despite Pedro Pascal shimmying around awards show red carpets in arm sling, there will apparently be no delay to the production date.
HBO lead Casey Bloys confirmed as much in a recent Variety interview. “I think they figured out a way” to shoot despite Pascal's injury, he said. “I can't tell you exactly what the production plan is. But I know they have taken that into account. I don't even know the exact nature of the injury, but I know that production has figured out a way to work around it.”
Who is in the cast for The Last of Us season 2?
Booksmart's Kaitlyn Dever has been confirmed to join the show as military musclehead Abby; she plays a pivotal role in The Last of Us: Part II, and so speculation abounds that she'll take the second-billing slot for season two of the TV series. She's an immense talent tipped by many Hollywood pundits to blow up in the next couple of years — and maybe The Last of Us season 2 will be the match to her fuse.
Also joining will be Beef breakout Young Mazino as Jesse, one of Ellie's best friends in The Last of Us: Part II, who accompanies her on a vengeful trip to Seattle, and Rosaline's Isabela Merced as Ellie's beleaguered girlfriend Dina. Her character is described as “a free-wheeling spirit whose devotion to Ellie will be tested by the brutality of the world they inhabit,” per Variety.
Otherwise expect all of the primary cast from The Last of Us season one to appear in the next season, namely Ramsey, Pascal, Gabriel Luna (Tommy) and Rutina Wesley (Maria). Notably, two key characters from Part II are yet to be cast: Lev and Yara, young siblings who are cast out of the Seraphites, a primitive religious cult.
When can we expect The Last of Us season 2 to air?
In March last year, Ramsey offered an approximate timeline while speaking on the Graham Norton show. “I think we'll probably shoot at the end of this year, beginning of next,” they said. “So [the show] will probably [release by] the end of 2024, early 2025.”
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Of course this was before the actors' and writers' strikes kicked off in the spring, which pushed production back to February this year (read more on that above). So where does that leave us? We can only make an educated guess, of course, but knowing how long shows at this scale take to make? That's early 2025, at the absolute earliest – it could well be even longer. Don't rush it, guys. But also maybe do?
What will season 2 of The Last of Us be about?
Season one of The Last of Us maintained strict fidelity to the story of the OG video game, bar a couple of embellishments. And, in our interview, Ramsey suggested that season two will “most likely” follow the storyline of the games again. “I don't think there's much need to fill in the gaps,” she continued, suggesting that the four-year time jump will be maintained, with season two kicking off with the events of Part II.
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So what happens in Part II? Long story short, it's a revenge tale which takes Ellie to Seattle after Joel is beaten to death by Abby, a member of the militia group the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), for reasons we won't further spoil. Yep, that means Ramsey will likely be the series lead from season two onwards, with little Pascal to be seen — aside from in flashbacks, perhaps.
It's a gargantuan game, running at around 25-30 hours of playtime (depending on how great of capital-G Gamer you are), so there's been chatter amongst fans as to how creators Craig Mazin and Druckmann will fit it all into one block of episodes. Apparently, that isn't the plan. “It's more than one season,” Druckmann told GQ in a recent interview, with Mazin stopping short of confirming the actual total.
Druckmann continued, “some of the stuff I'm most excited for [in Part II] are the changes we've discussed and seeing the story come to life in this other version. And I think it's exciting because it leans into those feelings you had from the game, really heavily, in a new way.” Very ambiguous. Could that mean… Joel survives in this iteration? It would be a dramatic narrative shift from the source material, demanding nothing less than a complete storytelling overhaul, markedly out of step with their adaptive process so far, but… we guess nothing is off the cards.
