Season two of The Last of Us changes its core DNA but remains as compelling as ever
The Last of Us
★★★½
The first season of HBO’s grim post-apocalyptic drama asked what it cost to stay alive in a world filled with the undead? The answer was too much. As smuggler Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his teenage cargo Ellie (Bella Ramsey) travelled across the ruins of an America felled by a mutated fungal infection that turned people into ravenous zombies, they bonded meaningfully in ways the source material – the hit video game of the same name – only sketched out. Joel killed other survivors to keep Ellie alive, then hid the truth from her.
Ellie (Bella Ramsey) may be the only immune human on the planet.Credit: HBO Max
With the team of Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann returning, the second season of The Last of Us examines the ramifications of their journey. Five years have passed, taking Ellie from 14 to 19 years old, and the pair have a measure of safety in the walled Wyoming city of Jackson, but they’re at odds emotionally and pursued by the past.
A driven young soldier, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), wants revenge on Joel. Acts he considers justified are heinous crimes to her.
This is a shorter, sometimes more contemplative instalment; sombre conversations in derelict rooms are frequent. There’s no stand-alone episode unfolding supporting characters, a triumph last time around, but the expanded scale with which the snarling, swarming Infected are depicted is thrilling and horrifying.
Pedro Pascal as Joel in season two of The Last of Us. Credit:
In many ways, it’s a Western: long journeys by horseback across a deadly frontier in an all-consuming quest for vengeance. “I want justice,” demands one character, but no one can agree what that actually is.
In taking Ellie from sheltered teen to defiant young woman, the show changes its core DNA. She remains wilful, blithely sarcastic, but also calmly open about her sexuality and slowly becoming involved with her best friend, Dina (Isabela Merced), even as she grows disillusioned with Joel’s compromises.
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