HBO’s The Last of Us is back for season 2, and so are we

One game-player and one newbie return to recap HBO's fungal free-for-all.

Apr 14, 2025 - 13:59

HBO’s The Last of Us is back for season 2, and so are we

New episodes of season 2 of The Last of Us are premiering on HBO every Sunday night, and Ars' Kyle Orland (who's played the games) and Andrew Cunningham (who hasn't) will be talking about them here every Monday morning. While these recaps don't delve into every single plot point of the episode, there are obviously heavy spoilers contained within, so go watch the episode first if you want to go in fresh.

Kyle: To start us off as we return to the world of The Last of Us, as a non-game player, maybe recap what you remember from the first season and what you've heard about the second.

Andrew: Going into the first season, I’d been aware of The Last of Us, the video game, as a story about an older guy and a kid trying to navigate a post-apocalyptic world. And the show was also mostly that: It’s Joel and Ellie against the world, and who knows, maybe this spunky young girl with an apparent immunity to the society-ravaging fungal infection could hold the key to a cure!

Things fell apart at the end of last season when the Fireflies (a group of survivalists/doctors/scientists/etc.) may or may not have been threatening to kill Ellie in order to research their cure, which made Joel go on a murder rampage, which he then lied to Ellie about. We fade to black as they make their way back toward the one semi-functioning human settlement they’d visited on their travels, where Joel’s brother and his family also happen to live.

Going into this season: I know nothing. I don’t really engage in TV show fandoms or keep up with casting announcements or plot speculation. And the only thing I know about the second game going into this is a vague sense that it wasn’t as well-received as the first. In short, I am as a newborn baby, ready to take in the second season of a show I kind of like with the freshest possible eyes.

Kyle: I may be to blame for that vague sense you have. I fell in love with the first game, especially the relationship between Joel and Ellie, and I thought the first season of the show captured that quite well. I thought the endings to both the game and season 1 of the show were just about perfect and that any continuation after that was gonna struggle to justify itself.

Without giving too much away, I think the second game misses a lot of what made the narrative of the first one special and gets sidetracked in a lot of frankly gratuitous directions. That said, this premiere episode of the second season drew me in more than I expected.

One jarring thing (in a good way) about both the second game and the second season is suddenly seeing Joel and Ellie just existing in a thriving community with electric lights, music, alcohol, decent food, laughter, etc., etc. After the near-constant precarity and danger they've faced in the recent past, it really throws you for a loop.

Andrew: Unfortunately but predictably, you see both of them struggling to adapt in different ways; these are two extremely individualistic, out-for-number-one people. Ellie (now a 19-year-old, after a five-year time jump) never met a rule she couldn’t break, even when it endangers her friends and other community members.

And while Joel will happily fix your circuit breaker or re-string your guitar, he emphatically rejected a needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few approach at the end of last season. When stuff breaks bad (and I feel confident that it will, that’s the show that it is) these may not be the best people to have in your corner.

My only real Game Question for you at the outset is the big one: Is season 2 adapting The Last of Us Part II or is it doing its own thing or are we somewhere in between or is it too early to say?

"Oh, dang, is that Catherine O'Hara?"

Kyle: From what I have heard it will be adapting the first section of the second game (it's a long game) and making some changes and digressions that expand on the game's story (like the well-received Nick Offerman episode last season). Already, I can tell you that Joel's therapy scene was created for the TV show, and I think it improves on a somewhat similar "Joel pours his heart out" scene from early in the game.

The debut episode is also already showing a willingness to move around scenes from the game to make them fit better in chronological order, which I'm already appreciating.

One thing I think the show is already doing well, too, is showing 19-year-old Ellie "acting like every 19-year-old ever" (as one character puts it) to father figure Joel. Even in a zombie apocalypse, it's a relatable bit of character-building for anyone who's been a teenager or raised a teenager.

Andrew: Joel’s therapist, played by the wonderful Catherine O’Hara. (See, that’s why you don’t follow casting announcements, so you can watch a show and be like, “Oh, dang, is that Catherine O’Hara?”)

I didn’t know if it was a direct adaptation, but I did notice that the show’s video gamey storytelling reflexes were still fully intact. We almost instantly end up in a ruined grocery store chock-full of environmental storytelling (Ellie notes a happy birthday banner and 2003’s Employee of the Year wall).

And like in any ~~new game~~ new season of a TV show, we quickly run into a whole new variant of mushroom monster that retains some of its strategic instincts and can take cover rather than blindly rushing at you. Some of the jump scares were so much like quick-time events that I almost grabbed my controller so I could press X and help Ellie out.

Kyle: Yeah, it's pretty easy to see that the semi-stealthy assault on the abandoned market came directly from the game. I felt like there was some implication that the "strategic" zombie still had a little more humanity left in her that was struggling to fight against the fungus' pull, which was pretty chilling in the way it was presented.

Andrew: Yes! Fungus is still a maximally creepy and visually interesting way for an infection to spread, and it’s a visual note that helps TLoU stand out from other zombie stories.

It does seem like we’re moving into Phase 2 of most zombie apocalypse fiction. Phase 1 is: There’s an infection! Society collapses. Phase 2 is: Humanity attempts to rebuild. But maybe the scariest monster of all… is humankind??

I’ve always found Phase 2 to be inherently less interesting because I can watch all kinds of shows where people are the antagonists, but Joel and Ellie remain unique and compelling enough as characters that maybe they’ll carry me through.

A teenager should have some hobbies. Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery

Kyle: The first game already established a lot in the way of "humans are the real monsters" vignettes. And while I still don't want to give too much away, I will say that human-versus-human drama is definitely going to be an increasingly central part of the narrative going forward.

Speaking of which, I wondered what you made of the brief scenes we get with Abby leading a reluctant but willing band of revenge-seekers that see doctor-murdering Joel as an unalloyed evil (somewhat justifiably, especially from their point of view).

Andrew: My first thought was “look at all these clean, hot, well-coiffed apocalypse survivors.” At least Joel and Ellie both look a little weathered.

But in seriousness, yes, it’s obvious that What Joel Did is a bomb that’s going to go off sooner rather than later. Trying to address it without addressing it has pushed taciturn, closed-off Joel into therapy, where he insists to a woman whose (presumably infected) husband he killed that he’s a “good guy.” And it seems clear to me that Ellie’s shunning of Joel is coming from her sense that something is amiss, just as much as it is about a 19-year-old rebelling against her would-be father figure.

In Joel’s case, it’s telling that it seems like lying to Ellie is weighing on him more than the murder-rampage itself. But having these improbably fresh-faced Firefly remnants chasing him down will mean that he might end up paying for both.

Kyle: I think Joel can live with sacrificing the entire world to save Ellie. I don't think he can live with Ellie knowing he did that pretty much against her explicit wishes.

Andrew: Oops!! Pobody’s nerfect!

Kyle: I'm sure Abby will understand if Joel just says he made an oopsie.

Andrew: Seriously. Can’t believe they’re still mad even after a five-year time jump. Can’t we all just move on?

As we close, and while at least trying to avoid spoilers, are there any game moments you’re looking forward to seeing? Or are you just hoping that this season can “fix” a story that didn’t work as well for you in video game form?

How can you stay mad at this man? Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery

Kyle: Actually, I don't have to spoil anything to say that the scene at the dance was one I was looking forward to seeing in both the game and the show. That's because a large chunk of it was the first bit of the game Sony ever showed during a memorable E3 2018 press conference, which would end up being the company's last ever official E3 press presentation.

Besides making me an instant fan of the song ".44 Pistol," that scene had me very excited to see how the social adventures of "All Growed Up" Ellie might develop. And while I don't feel like the game really delivered a very satisfying or believable version of Ellie's evolution, I'm hopeful the show might be able to smooth out some of the rough storytelling edges and give a more compelling version of the character.

Andrew: Yeah. Video games get remastered, but they mostly seek to preserve the original game rather than overhauling it. A well-funded multiseason TV adaptation is a rare opportunity for a redo.

Kyle: The way HBO handled the first season gives me hope that they can once again embrace the excellent world-building of the games while adding some prestige TV polish to the plot.

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