New leaked photos from the set of HBO’s The Last of Us all but confirm how much of the video game will be covered in season 2 (and how faithful it’ll be to Naughty Dog’s polarizing sequel). Whereas the first season of the HBO series covered the entirety of the first game (and its DLC), the second season won’t cover the entirety of the second game. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have confirmed that the show will take two or maybe even three seasons to tell the story of The Last of Us Part II.
The Last of Us season 2 is expected to consist of seven episodes, two episodes short of season 1’s nine-episode run. Speculation has run rampant about how the HBO series will chop up the game. Will it linearize the Jackson flashbacks? Will it show Ellie and Abby’s perspectives of the three days in Seattle concurrently? Just how faithfully will the show adapt the game? The latest leaked photos from the set of The Last of Us season 2 seem to confirm just how faithful the show’s adaptation will be, and how much of the game these seven episodes will cover.
Set Photos Of Bella Ramsey & Young Mazino Suggest The Last Of Us Season 2 Will Cover All 3 Of Ellie’s Seattle Days
Season 2 will get to Ellie and Jesse’s journey to the aquarium
Redditor u/OwenChristopherNDA has leaked a photo from the set of The Last of Us season 2 depicting Bella Ramsey and Young Mazino, the actor who’s been cast as Jesse, on an overcast street. Unless the TV show is making some drastic changes to the game’s storytelling, they’re shooting scenes from Ellie and Jesse’s journey to the aquarium from the Seattle Day 3 section. Ellie won’t leave Seattle without Tommy and Dina won’t leave Seattle without Ellie, so Jesse reluctantly agrees to accompany Ellie to the aquarium where Abby is hiding so they can get Tommy and head back to Jackson.
This is the home stretch of Ellie’s search for Abby. While Jesse is happy to abandon the quest for revenge and only wants to rescue Tommy, Ellie is still secretly determined to exact vengeance. Ellie ends up abandoning Jesse to pursue Abby to the aquarium, but Abby isn’t there. After Ellie kills two of Abby’s closest friends, Owen and Mel, Tommy and Jesse arrive to bring her back to the theater hideout. The plan is to abandon the revenge mission and head back to Jackson, but before they can set off, Abby makes a surprise appearance at the theater.
The latest set photos suggest that all of this will be covered in season 2. Earlier set photos showed Ramsey and Isabela Merced in a filming location that closely resembled the Capitol Hill section from Ellie and Dina’s Seattle Day 1 adventures. All these set photos of Ellie’s journey through Seattle – paired with the fact that Abby’s TV actor, Kaitlyn Dever, has been nowhere to be seen on any of the Seattle sets – seem to confirm that season 2 will cover Ellie’s three days in Seattle and save Abby’s days for season 3, mirroring the structure of the game.
The Last of Us season 2 will air sometime in 2025.
Abby’s Storyline Might Be Saved For Season 3
If season 2 is Ellie’s story, season 3 will cover Abby’s story
Seven episodes is nowhere near enough to cover both Ellie and Abby’s Seattle storylines, and Dever hasn’t been seen filming any of Abby’s scenes, so it seems likely that season 2 will focus squarely on Ellie’s three-day storyline. This would mean that Abby’s three-day storyline is being saved for season 3. Audiences will follow Ellie’s relentless quest for revenge, then suddenly pivot to following the character she wants revenge against. This is the exact same storytelling trick the game used: players play through all three days as Ellie before going back to play them all over again from Abby’s perspective.
This was necessary in the video game medium, because games are limited to one perspective at a time, but the TV show could’ve used cross-cutting to show both perspectives simultaneously. However, that might’ve taken some of the impact out of the storytelling. The structure of The Last of Us Part II was chosen very specifically to manipulate the audience’s emotions. Abby’s brutal killing of Joel makes the player hate her immediately – and makes them want revenge just as much as Ellie – and the game forces them to sit with those feelings as they chase the elusive Abby across Seattle.
Throughout Ellie’s three days in Seattle, Abby remains more of an idea than a human being. All the grief and anguish and regret that Ellie is feeling is projected onto the idea of Abby. The switch to Abby’s perspective pulls the rug out from under the player and forces them to regret wanting her dead so badly as they realize she had an understandable motivation for killing Joel and she’s been tormented by remorse ever since. That rug-pull wouldn’t work as well if the story kept cutting back to Abby’s redemption arc while Ellie was seeking revenge.
The Theater Confrontation Will Make A Great Season 2 Finale
It’s a bombshell twist
Just when Ellie is about to give up on her quest to find Abby and avenge Joel, Abby comes to her. Abby arrives at the theater, takes Tommy hostage, kills Jesse, and holds Ellie at gunpoint as she realizes the people whose lives she spared have tracked her down and murdered all her friends. And then, cut to black. The game then dives right into Abby’s story. But the TV show can make that cut-to-black a jaw-dropping cliffhanger in the season 2 finale. This bombshell twist could make for a really great season finale that leaves the audience guessing.
Why Copying The Split Story Structure Of The Game Is A Big Risk
An Abby-centric season 3 might alienate some viewers
While the split story structure is a huge reason why The Last of Us Part II has such a profound impact on audiences, it would be a massive risk for the HBO series to copy that structure. For as many gamers as there were who loved the twisty storytelling of The Last of Us Part II and came to love Abby just as much as they love Joel and Ellie, there were just as many who gave up on the game as soon as they were forced to play as Joel’s killer. Some TV audiences might do the same.
Since gamers have to pay full price for a game whether they finish it or not, this didn’t affect the profitability of the game. But TV shows need to keep viewers coming back every week in order to stay profitable. An Ellie-centric season 2 will surely please fans of The Last of Us, but an Abby-centric season 3 could alienate some viewers like the Abby chapters alienated some gamers. A lot of Walking Dead viewers stopped watching after Negan killed Glenn, and that show didn’t give Negan his own season-long arc right after.
