“Last of Us” S2 Is About Escalation & Tension

In the wake of yesterday’s full trailer for HBO’s Emmy-winning post-apocalyptic drama series “The Last of Us,” further details about the new season have emerged from both the show’s SXSW panel along with interviews subsequently given to press outlets.

As previously indicated, the seven-episode new season will adapt only part of “The Last of Us Part II” game with scenes from the new trailer confirming theories that it will expand on the Jackson scenes, adapt at least one key flashback scene, and reach as far as part of ‘Seattle Day 2’.

Co-showrunner Craig Mazin said a major theme of the new season is “escalation” with a lot of people and the world itself evolving:

“A lot of what’s going on in the season is evolution and change. Ellie is growing up, and she is changing. This town of Jackson is growing up. It is expanding. It’s taking in refugees. And the world outside is changing.

It was important to us to always move the ball forward with the infected. It’s not a question of just more, but something else, something that is meaningful to what is going on, so they don’t just become NPCs.”

That ties to the inclusion of spores this time out – a key element of both games, the TV series essentially ignored them in the first season – switching them out for mouth ‘tendrils’ to avoid having actors in gas masks for periods of the show. With the time jump here, spores are now a thing in the TV universe as well.

Fellow co-showrunner and game creator Neil Druckmann says the balance of action and drama will be more even this season as they’ve now got the hang of what they’re doing:

“For us, everything is drama. Even the action sequences are drama. Season 1 we were picking and choosing our moments because we weren’t sure what we were doing. Now we know what we’re doing. We swung for the fences with some of this. There’s pretty intense stuff you don’t even see in the trailer People ask if season 2 is better. I often say: It’s crazier.”

Also setting the tone will be the fractured relationship between Joel and Ellie. The first season (and first game) ends with Joel lying to Ellie about what he did to the Fireflies and swearing on that lie. Ellie accepts it, but doesn’t look like she entirely believes it.

As the new season is set years later, there’s been a simmering tension between the pair as they start the new run with “nothing but tension and distance between the two of them” actor Pedro Pascal tells Screenrant, while adding that there is “a really interesting and heartbreaking unravelling as to why.”

Co-star Bella Ramsey says: “I mean that ‘you swore’ kind of gives you a little idea of where Ellie is at. I think Ellie has that in the back of her head this whole time, and that’s where we pick them up. And they’re not best of friends. She’s quite sad. But I mean, there’s a lot of layers to friendship.”

“The Last of Us” returns on HBO on April 13th. Video of Pedro Pascal watching the trailer at SXSW has gone up on X.

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