The Last of Us‘ season one finale landed last night, and we suspect many viewers are still scooping their jaws off the floor. The first season focused on establishing the complex bond between Joel and Ellie and how much they mean to one another, all of which came crashing into sharp focus in the closing moments of the episode.
Just as when the game dropped back in 2013, expect an endless series of debates as to the morality of the situation, and whether Joel’s actions can be philosophically justified. Aside from that, it’s difficult to argue the series didn’t nail adapting one of the finest endings video games have to offer.
With the incredible first season now complete, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are preparing the sophomore run, which will adapt the 2020 smash hit The Last of Us Part II. On the official HBO podcast, the pair were quizzed about what’s coming and though they stayed tight-tipped on specifics, Druckmann did confirm a few details.
“You can expect us to repeat the same process. Which is, we will look at what made that story special and what is the soul of that story and that needs to remain intact. And then the moment-to-moment beats and the characters, they might stay the same they might change we will do what needs to happen in that story as it transfers from one medium to another.”
Being equally vague, Mazin danced around specifics while still hinting at what’s to come.
“And we will also take advantage of the freedom we have in television that wasn’t in the game, specifically the advantage fo changing perspective and we will use what we can use in a new medium to tell that story and we will go through the same process of adaptation and there will be Pedro and there will be Bella and there will be blood.”
The pair were joined this week by original Ellie actor Ashley Johnson, who quizzed Mazin on the new additions to the cordyceps bacteria, specifically that there’s a network between the infected.
“That is something we will be exploring further in the next season. I thnk this first time around we were learning so much about how to create the infected and how to televise them in a way that was exciting and didn’t seem goofy or weird or artificial and I think we figured ou that and I think the interconnectivity of them and the risk of stepping on the wrong thing, that stuff is going to be brought forward more for sure.”
The Last of Us Part II was a controversial sequel, and if season two follows the game’s story, we can expect a similar amount of anger when that tees off sometime in the next few years. Current indications are that HBO is eager for more of The Last of Us and there are whisperings it could begin filming in late 2023/early 2024. If that happens, expect a late 2025 release, though we’ll be counting the weeks until we reunite with Joel and Ellie and see the long-term consequences of the former’s season one choices.
The Last of Us is available to stream on HBO Max.