“The Last of Us” Season 2 Reviews Are In

HBO hit it out of the park with the first season of “The Last of Us,” adapting the highly acclaimed video game into a highly acclaimed TV series that drew some of the best reviews of 2023 along with big numbers.

Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann showed how to make a game adaptation right – some scenes were copied verbatim from the game, and others were completely new tangents expanding on the original work. It couldn’t match the sheer scale of the original game, and some of the subtle nuance lost, but overall it was a very solid take on the story for a different medium.

With the second season season though they face a tougher challenge. Here they adapt the first half of the much bigger “The Last of Us Part II” game, a title with a much more complex structure and a much more divisive story than the original. It’s decidedly more of a challenge, have they done it justice?

Mostly it seems. Reviews are now in and the second season is pulling in a 93% (8.4/10) on Rotten Tomatoes and a 82/100 on Metacritic. That’s a tad shy of the first season’s scores of 96% (8.75/10) and 84/100 respectively but still amongst the best of the year so far.

Praise is high for the expanded scale of the world, yet at the same time a tighter focus on its core handful of characters. The main complaint is the same across the reviews and not unlike that of “Squid Game” Season 2 – namely this shorter second season genuinely feels like only half the story (which it is).

Others think it may have been streamlined slightly too much – the faster pacing coming at the cost of some of the first season’s quieter moments. Here’s a sampling of reviews:

“It’s a faithful yet reflective adaptation, carving out new character beats that not only give the excellent duo of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey additional moments to shine, but further complicates some of the questions raised by the game.” – Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap

“Remaining faithful to the games, the HBO drama continues to be a powerful, emotional, and often brutal story about what it means to survive in impossible times.” – Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

“Season 2 doubles down on what it asks of its audience, unveiling a challenging narrative filled with challenging ideas — ideas people base their entire lives on, and thus ideas people may struggle to reassess.” – Ben Travers, Indiewire

“Moving and devastating in equal doses, The Last Of Us remains post-apocalyptic television at its peak. At almost every turn, it delivers.” – John Nugent, Empire

“Understanding its subject on both an intellectual and emotional level, it’s a viscerally conflicted monster – and continues, in this second season, to be the finest video game adaptation ever.” – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

“The fact that I’m still more eager to turn the next page than I am to ditch this book altogether is a testament to the strength of its storytelling, if not necessarily its structure.” – Angie Han, THR

“The Last of Us is back with many of the qualities that made the post-apocalyptic adventure’s first season television’s most compelling video game adaptation. Many, but not all.” – Bob Strauss, SF Chronicle

“Mostly, though, it’s the lack of Ellie and Joel that keeps the season, while still strong overall, from hitting the heights of that first year.” – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone

“It’s still the best video-game adaptation on TV. Yet to pretend that The Last of Us completely transcends its original medium would be to ignore the hole at the center of the show where insight and complexity and rich supporting characters should be.” – Judy Berman, TIME

“It is an oddly constructed season of television — some questions are answered almost immediately, while others are left to linger for an unusual number of beats.” – Mary McNamara, The LA Times

The new season premieres on April 13th and runs through to the end of May.

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