Season two of HBO’s multi-hyphenate eight-Emmy-award-winning, genre-defining, one-of-the-greatest-video-game-adaptations-of-all-time, Pedro-Pascal-career-relaunching, heart-rending series, The Last of Us is coming to viewers screens soon! The series arrives on Monday 14 April Express from the US at 4:00 and again in prime time at 21:00 on M-Net channel 101, DStv Catch Up, and DStv Stream.
This season picks up five years after the events of season one, which chronicled Joel (Pascal) and Ellie's (Bella Ramsay) trek across the wasteland that America had become in the wake of the terrifying "zombifying" infection. The first season concluded with Joel realising that the Fireflies’ plan to find a cure for the Cordyceps infection included the murder of Ellie, forcing him to take drastic measures to save her life.
There’s still tension between them at the start of season two, but they’re now settled in the Wyoming commune run by Joel’s sister-in-law Maria (Rutina Wesley), who has a child with his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna). In the midst of what appears to be a largely peaceful time, a character named Abby arrives and her desire for vengeance threatens the calm of the commune. Joel and Ellie’s collective past catches up to them, drawing them into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind.
Joining Pascal, Ramsey, and Kaitlyn Dever in season two are Catherine O'Hara in a yet-to-be-disclosed role, along with Isabela Merced (Dina); Danny Ramirez (Manny); Ariela Barer (Mel); Tati Gabrielle (Nora), and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac Dixon.
Showrunner Craig Mazin told Collider that the second season is more dense than the first, which set a high bar. “Each episode is like a meal. You can have a light dinner or you can go to a 12-course French restaurant,” he says. “We have seven episodes. They are high-calorie, dense episodes. If you consider action and drama and scope to be the things that create an epic nature, each one of these episodes packs quite a wallop. You will not be bored.”
His producing partner Neil Druckmann added: "What I always loved about the idea was that you are going to continually be challenged as you were in season 1. When you try to pick a hero, it's tough because we're human beings; we're not heroes. For every heroic act, there's someone who suffers on the other side who may see you reasonably as a villain. When you look at Kaitlyn, there's just something in her eyes where, even no matter what she's experiencing, you connect. It was important that we found somebody that we could connect to the way we connect to Bella."
"Unmissable" is an overused word in the modern streaming and broadcast landscape, but it genuinely applies to season two of The Last of Us.
For more, join the conversation on Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok.