‘The Last of Us’ S2 infects the screen

In the new season of The Last of Us, survivors Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other in a world that has grown even more dangerous and unpredictable. They now face new human enemies alongside the ongoing threat of fungal-infected zombies.

The post-apocalyptic drama’s second season takes place five years after the events of the first. It is streaming on Showmax from today (14 April 2025), with new episodes releasing weekly on Mondays.

Spoilers incoming, if you haven’t watched Season 1.

At the end of The Last of Us season one, Joel rescues Ellie from the Fireflies after learning that their plan to develop a cure would require fatal brain surgery on her. He kills the medical team and Marlene, the group’s leader, before fleeing with Ellie.

When Ellie wakes, Joel lies about what happened, claiming the Fireflies had stopped searching for a cure. The season closes with Ellie asking Joel if he’s telling the truth – he insists he is.

The second season is based on the 2020 video game The Last of Us Part II,developed by Naughty Dog. The series is set decades into a pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection, which transforms its hosts into aggressive creatures and has led to the collapse of society.

Cast and awards

Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) stars as Joel, with Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) as Ellie. Abby, a new key character, is played by Emmy nominee Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart).

Photo courtesy Multichoice.

The cast includes Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek), Young Mazino (Beef), Ariela Barer (Runaways), Danny Ramirez (Top Gun: Maverick), Isabela Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold), and Tati Gabrielle (You).

Emmy winner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), the show’s co-creator, executive producer, writer and director, says many previous game adaptations failed because the people adapting it didn’t love the game.

“Until I first played the game about 11 years ago, I’d never felt that kind of connection,” says Mazin. “It was so expertly crafted; even in the gameplay, it was always pushing you towards this feeling that you had for this kid; a parental thing.

“And then to switch perspective and put you in Ellie’s shoes, you feel an entirely different kind of fear and hope. And then the ending is heartbreaking. I’ve been playing video games since the Atari 2600 but I’d never felt anything like that.

“We watched Ellie grow up. We’ve even shown Ellie being born. We are properly fascinated by her because she’s so many of the things that I would hope to be if the world were like that; but there are also parts of her that are dark and dangerous.

“This is not a finished person,” says Mazin. “It’s like when we meet Luke Skywalker: he’s a young adult on the cusp of either being this or that. And so is Ellie.

“When you take characters like that and you put enormous pressure on them, and the world punishes them, especially punishes them when they do the right thing, when they open themselves up and create vulnerability, will they retract? Will they regress? Will they just drift towards their darkest impulses? Or will they somehow figure out how to evolve and become the person that we would want to be and we hope they will get the chance to be? Then that’s everything to us.”

Game co-creator Neil Druckmann, who also serves as co-creator, executive producer, writer and director on the series, says: “The first season – and the first game – was really an exploration of love, the light and the dark sides of it, what the selflessness of it could lead to; how much you’re willing to sacrifice of yourself to protect someone you love; how in the spirit of trying to protect someone you love, you’re willing to commit really horrible, violent acts.

“It was an exploration of the unconditional love that almost every parent knows the moment they hold their child in their hands; that you’d go to the ends of the earth to protect your kid.”

“By the end of Season 1, Joel is willing to sacrifice all of humanity to protect Ellie,” says Druckmann. “And not only that, he’s willing to put his relationship with Ellie on the line and lie to her about it in order to protect her. We end Season 1 on that lie, and we see that Ellie is accepting it – but we know how intelligent she is, too.”

Mazin says: “Five years have gone by, which in and of itself implies that things must have been going pretty well. They’re still alive.”

Druckmann says: “They have settled in Jackson. They get to live as good of a life as exists in this world, post-apocalypse and pandemic. But there’s some tension between them.”

Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, says: “Ellie’s become hardened since we saw her at the end of Season 1. She definitely has more of a cage around her heart. She’s older; she’s 19 – not 14. So much growing up happens over those years. She’s establishing herself as an adult in a community and she’s not used to being in a community. And I think she has been learning how to do that. She’s definitely in a different headspace – and with Joel, most noticeably.”

Mazin says: “Whatever positive relationship they’ve had is now clearly strained. Joel is going to therapy to figure out how to deal with what he thinks – or I should say, what he hopes – is a standard, ‘I’ve got a 19-year-old kid who’s wanting independence, turning away and rejecting Dad.”

Ramseysays she could easily relate to that part of the rift. She says: “When I was shooting Season 1, I was 17-18, but still a child in many ways. I was 20-21 when filming Season 2; I became an adult over that time. So yes, there are many ways in which I relate to Ellie’s need for independence, autonomy and to have the people around her trust that she can hold her own.”

One of the key new characters this season is Joel’s therapist, Gail, played by Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara. Mazin says: “Her point is, ‘No, I don’t believe that is what’s going on. And you can see that inside Joel, there is this suspicion that somehow, it is this flaw that he introduced into their relationship; this lie that maybe is starting to be the problem. Ellie’s relationship with Joel has taken an interesting turn and we’re not quite sure how or why. And we will find out. There is a mystery at the heart of it.”

In 2024, The Last of Us won seven Critics Choice Super Awards, including Best Horror and Best Superhero, as well as Best Actor (Pedro Pascal), Actress (Bella Ramsey) and Villain (Melanie Lynskey). The show collected eight Emmys, including Guest Actor and Actress prizes for Murray Bartlett and Storm Reid.