The Last of Us Season 2 Review: HBO's Hit Drama Makes a More Provocative Return

The second season of The Last of Us opens with a repeat of the final scene of the first. This isn't a mere "previously on" refresher for a show whose most recent episode aired in 2023. Much of what happens in Season 2 can be traced back to this brief, tense exchange. It's the moment when Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) lies to Ellie (Bella Ramsey), the teenage girl he's escorted across a wasteland ravaged by the Cordyceps plague that turns its victims into murderous, zombielike creatures called the "Infected." Ellie is immune to the plague, and that's the reason she and Joel make the journey that ends at a Salt Lake City hospital in the first place. Yet, once there, Joel mows down members of the militant resistance group the Fireflies who are attempting to derive a cure from Ellie. The problem: He's learned that doing so would result in Ellie's death, and she's come to mean more to Joel than saving the world. Joel chooses to kill, and to let the civilization-destroying infection continue, rather than lose the girl he's come to see as a daughter. Then, to protect Ellie from the truth of his actions, he tells her a story that absolves both of them of any guilt.

The second season of The Last of Us depicts the events fanning out from Joel's actions and from his decision to keep the truth from Ellie. But it's also about other sorts of ripple effects and unintended consequences. Five years pass between the season premiere's opening moments and the timeline in which the majority of the episode (and the season) takes place. That proves just long enough for Joel's choices to begin catching up with him, due to both the maturing Ellie's growing doubts about the story she's been told and other forces. These developments both drive the season's plot and capture its larger concerns in miniature. Joel had his reasons for doing what he did. Those who seek revenge against him, led by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), the daughter of the doctor who was convinced he could have developed an Ellie-derived cure, have their reasons, too. Later, all concerned will be swept up in an even larger cycle in which one side's atrocity becomes the excuse for the other side's atrocity, creating a spiral of violence that seems as impossible to end as it once was easy to start.

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Showrunners Craig Mazin, a veteran whose TV career is highlighted by Chernobyl, and Neil Druckmann, writer and creative director of the games The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II (the latter co-written with Halley Gross, who co-writes two of this season's episodes) have widened the scope of the series without losing the intimate drama that made the first season so remarkable. Its seven episodes include an action scene on a scale that dwarfs any comparable moments in the first season and turn a major American city into a war zone. But they also remain grounded in the ties between and experiences of its central characters. That circle expands as well. Though Joel and Ellie's relationship remains a key element of this second season, it is not, for several reasons, a continuation of their cross-country father/daughter adventures.

8.8

The Last of Us Season 2

at HBO

Like

• Deepening themes
• Complicated characters
• Impressive action

Dislike

• The only caveat here is that anyone expecting a direct repeat of the first season will be unsettled

It's hard to write about this season without revealing too much, even for those who have played the games. Even noting where the season ends could be something of a spoiler. So let's focus on where it begins. As Season 2 opens, Joel and Ellie have settled into life in Jackson, Wyoming, where Joel's brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), and Tommy's wife, Maria (Rutina Wesley), have played central roles in carving out a bit of civilization in the midst of the chaos. Joel, too, has settled into a leadership role, and Ellie has joined the ranks of those who keep Jackson safe through patrols and preparation against catastrophe.

But something's not right between Joel and Ellie. An early scene in which Joel warmly calls a visitor "kiddo" proves to be something of a fakeout when it's revealed he's talking to Dina (Isabela Merced), Ellie's best friend and the object of her (Ellie assumes) unrequited crush. Joel and Dina's easy warmth stands in sharp contrast to his interactions with Ellie, who's moved into the basement of the home she shares with Joel and has as little to do with him as possible. It's enough to send a father to therapy, and does: Bartering some weed buys Joel time with Gail (Catherine O'Hara), a psychotherapist with a dark wit, substance issues, and a tragic past. (Between this show and The Studio, O'Hara is having a very good year.)

Ellie is pushing boundaries with her adopted dad but also with the community that's taken them in. She takes chances on patrol and reacts badly when Joel defends her against a homophobic bully. He has her back, but she doesn't want him to have to have her back. The world may have changed dramatically, but the experience of being 19 remains fundamentally the same. That remains true even when developments force Ellie to make some hard choices akin to the sort Joel made in Salt Lake City years before. Setting off on a different sort of cross-country journey, she opts to act in service of a personal agenda and to worry about long-term consequences later.

It won't take long for them to arrive, and in the season's later episodes we see a similar dynamic play out on a larger scale when several characters find themselves in the middle of a conflict between a military group known as the WLF and a religious cult called the Seraphites. The dynamic doesn't map directly onto any global hotspot, but it's impossible not to see reflections of contemporary conflicts in the situation. Both parties commit awful acts in the service of their respective causes, with only a mounting body count, an increasingly clouded sense of morality, and a deepening hopelessness to show for it.

Mazin has likened this season to The Empire Strikes Back, as both tell stories in which wins turn into losses and characters lose their way. Season 2 is in many respects a tougher and more upsetting season than the first. The cast, especially Pascal and Ramsey, does superb work, but what made Joel and Ellie easy to like and root for in the first season starts to erode here, another consequence of Joel's actions in Salt Lake City. That makes Season 2 more difficult but also more complex and provocative. The Last of Us began by dropping characters in the middle of a nightmare. In its continuation, they have to deal with the realization that part of that nightmare is their own creation.

Premieres: Sunday, April 13 at 9/8c on HBO, with subsequent episodes airing weekly
Who's in it: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey
Who's behind it: Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann
For fans of: Post-apocalyptic stories, family dramas, zombies that are never called zombies
How many episodes we watched: 7 of 7