Spoiler warning for those who haven’t played The Last of Us Part II game and also aren’t aware of the bigger story beats that take place.
While the TV-adoring half of my brain can’t wait for The Last of Us Season 2 to hit the 2025 premiere schedule, the horror gamer side of my brain is perfectly fine with waiting as long as possible, since the events it’ll presumably cover from the second game did not exactly end so well for Joel. (Technically speaking, the game didn’t middle well for him, but I digress.) But its arrival on HBO is coming soon, amongst other upcoming horror series, and the network celebrated The Last of Us Day by releasing a Season 2 teaser with tons of new footage.
It’s an hype-worthy blend of Joel and Ellie interspersed with a ton of new The Last of Us cast members. Most come straight out of the video game series, such as Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac Dixon, the leader of the Washington Liberation Front, and Kaitlyn Dever’s soldier Abby, the majority-antagonist for the second chapter of the source material. Check out the trailer below if you haven’t already, and then read on!
And now to wallow through the feastering feelings that reside within that point to Pedro Pascal's Joel heading down a dark and depressing road in Season 2, much as it went in the video game, despite any and all hopes that the live-action series would change things up.
Moment #1: Joel Seems To Be In Therapy
Catherine O'Hara is set to arrive in Season 2 as a character whose identity has yet to be confirmed, but the first footage of her in the trailer above indicates she's serving as a therapist for Joel. And the dialogue used from their session is of her asking him what he did, and the implication there is that she's asking about the events from the Season 1 finale, in which Joel chose to save Ellie's life from Firefly scientists aiming to sacrifice the immune teen in an attempt to find a cure for the cordyceps virus.
As indicated in Season 1, Joel already has anxiety issues that crop up in moments of high stress, which this universe is full of. So it definitely makes sense that he would want to talk to someone even in the post-apocalypse. (Assuming this is happening in the present day.) But if Joel confesses his sins/crimes to anyone, that's a drain he won't be able to re-cork, and can't guarantee that word won't spread.
Moment #2: Abby Looking Peeved At Someone's Grave
One of the biggest gut-punches of the video game, which isn't fully confirmed to be playing out the same way in The Last of Us' TV series, is that the surgeon Joel killed at the Seattle hospital is the father of Abby, Kaitlyn Dever's character. And it should come as a surprise to no one that she seeks revenge for it.
So I get zero chill vibes coming off of Abby in the trailer moment where she's sternly looking back while visiting an unidentified grave. If it is her dad's, that'd be a big red flag for her vengeance coming alive. Really, I'm not so convinced this is her dad's grave, but possibly one of the other characters from her group that gets mauled by Joel, Ellie or Tommy. Either way, she looks ready to shoot eye lasers through someone's torso.
Moment #3: A Likely Shot From Joel And Ellie's Final Conversation
Just seeing Joel and Ellie playing guitar in the first look at Season 2 nearly sent me to pieces, since those musical moments play heavily into the game's emotional core. And while there's likely probably some point earlier in the game where Joel is seen strumming it up on the front porch, that visual is unmistakably tied to Part II's ending, which relays the final conversation that Joel and Ellie have before she severs ties and leaves him.
It's as emotional and reflective a sequence as any others in the video games, and I think it'd be smart for the TV show to have it play out in a different context rather than a season finale capper. But regardless of how it happens, the idea of a "final conversation" taking place in Season 2 just makes Joel's surviving until Season 3 that much more unlikely.
Moment #4: Ellie's Agonizing Screams
Ellie certainly had emotional moments in Season 1, and Bella Ramsey brought their A-game with those performances. But this moment from the trailer appears to show Ellie watching the most horrifying thing imaginable. And there are presumably only a limited number of events that could draw such an intense reaction out of her. And numero uno on said event list would be witnessing Joel's death.
To be fair, she could also be witnessing the death of her girlfriend Dina, though that's hardly a best-case scenario to think about. It could also be Tommy or one of the other survivors that Ellie befriends on her deadly journey, but it's truly hard to imagine her freaking out that hard over anything but her makeshift father figure.
Moment #5: That Final, Lingering Shot Of Joel
Hypothetical situation: this Season 2 teaser comes out, and instead of being 2 minutes long and revealing the previous 4 moments listed, it's only those final 5 seconds with Ellie and Joel at the table, where he's bursting with wistful pride without trying to overdo it. And to me, that's the show saying, "Soak it up, bitches, and kiss this daddy goodbye." Just perhaps not in so many words or implied fetishizing.
By all means, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann could very well serve fans a left-of-center twist that completely shakes up Abby and Joel's brutal confrontation from the game. I don't believe they'll go that route, since maintaining the core canon has been a big thrust for the co-creators, with exceptions being expanded character development that the game's locked point-of-view couldn't account for, such as with Bill and Frank's Emmy-winning episode. I think they'll stay true, and I think it'll crush people.
The Last of Us Season 2 doesn't yet have a release date set, but here are a bunch of shows to watch while waiting for its 2025 release.