SPOILER alert:This post discusses plot developments from “The Last Of UsPart II” video game, which will presumably serve as inspiration for Season 2 of the HBO adaptation.
“The Last of Us” creator and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that Season 2 of the Emmy-nominated HBO series is all outlined and ready to go as soon as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes come to an end. He’s currently making the press rounds touting the new “Last of Us” attraction at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights.
“We’ve outlined all of Season 2 and we’re ready to go as soon as the strike ends,” Druckmann said. “As far as the next game at Naughty Dog, I can’t say anything. My comms director over there will slaughter me.”
“We were able to map out all of Season 2,” series co-creator Craig Mazin also told Entertainment Weekly. “And I also wrote and submitted the script for the first episode and sent it in [to HBO] around 10:30 or 10:40pm right before the midnight the [WGA] strike began.”
Mazin added, “I think it’s becoming essentially a near certainty that we won’t be able to start [filming] when we were hoping to start, which is upsetting. We are all raring to go. This is what we are born to do. This is how we not only choose to live our lives, but I believe [how we] are compelled to live our lives. Otherwise, why the hell would we do this insane job? I can assure you it’s not for money.”
The first season of “The Last of Us” became a ratings blockbuster for HBO at the start of the year and garnered 25 Emmy nominations, including outstanding drama series and acting noms for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. The second season will adapt the second video game, “The Last of Us Part II,” but not all of it. Mazin has been open about splitting the second game across more than just one season of television.
“It’s more than one season,” Druckmann previously confirmed to GQ magazine, with Mazin adding, “You have noted correctly that we will not say how many [seasons will cover ‘Part II’]. But more than one is factually correct.”
News that “The Last of Us Part II” will be split across more than one season is welcome relief to fans of Pedro Pascal’s leading turn as Joel. As video game users know, “Part II” begins with Joel being shockingly murdered in the first act of the game. His murderer, Abby, is the daughter of the Firefly surgeon he killed in order to let Ellie live. Joel’s death sets Ellie up on a mission of revenge against Abby. Will HBO really let “The Last of Us” team kill off the show’s most beloved and high profile star?
“It wouldn’t make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path,” Pascal toldEsquire magazineearlier this year about prepping for his Season 2 fate. “So, yeah, that’s my honest answer.”
“This should be fairly obvious to anyone by now, but I don’t fear killing characters,” Mazin told the publication. “But the important thing to note is that neither Neil [Druckmann, who co-created and exec-produces the series with Mazin] nor I feel constrained by the source material.”
“The Last of Us” Season 1 is available to stream on Max.
