Summary
- It's crucial to include flashbacks from The Last of Us Part II in season 2 of the HBO series for more emotional impact.
- It needs to dive right into Ellie's revenge story in Seattle without filler to maintain an emotional connection with viewers.
- Season 2 should show key scenes like Abby finding her dad dead and Ellie's birthday gift for a deeper understanding of the characters.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.
Some critics have argued that The Last of Us season 2, set to premiere in 2025, will begin to tackle the gargantuan narrative of The Last of Us Part II, which is expected to take up multiple seasons. It’d take a super-sized episode count to cover the prologue, three days in Seattle from both perspectives, and the epilogue all in one season.
Rather than padding out the story with filler, the TV show will likely dive right into the grisly revenge storyline of Ellie relentlessly searching for Joel’s killer in Seattle. The toughest challenge for showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin will be figuring out which parts of the game can be cut in the adaptation. The game’s many flashbacks might seem ripe for cutting, but touching flashbacks like the Jackson barn dance and Joel and Ellie’s trip to the science museum provide integral context that gives the main storyline even more emotional impact.
10 Changes To The Game To Expect In The Last Of Us Season 2
The Last of Us season 2 will have to make some major changes to The Last of Us Part II in adapting the epic sequel game for television.
10 Abby Finds Jerry Dead After Joel's Massacre
Seeing Abby's devastation is the key to understanding her vengeful motivation
Owen tries to hold Abby back as she breaks down in emotional turmoil.
It’s one thing to know that Abby is the daughter of the Firefly surgeon that Joel killed and that’s the reason for her vendetta against him, but it’s another thing to see the grief overwhelm her when she comes into the operating theater and finds her dad lying dead in a pool of blood. Owen tries to hold Abby back as she breaks down in emotional turmoil. It’s a truly heartbreaking scene, played beautifully by Laura Bailey.
Seeing Abby’s devastation upon finding her father’s bullet-riddled corpse is the key to understanding her motivation for exacting revenge against Joel. Since the TV show won’t have the benefit of gameplay to put the audience in Abby’s shoes, it’ll have to work overtime to get viewers to empathize with her. Showing her heartbreak at the sight of her dead father would go a long way toward creating that empathetic connection.
9 The Jackson Barn Dance
It's important to show the fateful night that started it all
After the opening four-year time jump, The Last of Us Part II picks up the morning after a fateful barn dance at Jackson. Ellie reveals that she kissed Dina, Jesse mentions that he heard Ellie got into a fight with Seth and Joel shoved him, and Dina apologizes for causing a scene. The actual barn dance goes unseen until the epilogue. While Ellie and Dina are raising J.J. on their sheep farm, Ellie is reminded of the barn dance.
All the details finally come together: Ellie and Dina got into an argument with Seth because he made a homophobic remark, and Ellie got into an argument with Joel because he stood up for her and she was still sensitive about letting him fight her battles for her. With all the necessary context, the barn dance hits differently towards the end of the game. The Last of Us season 2 can’t afford to skip this scene.
8 Abby & Jerry Save A Zebra
The zebra scene shows Jerry to be a great guy
After Ellie’s three days in Seattle culminate in Abby’s ambush at the theater, the game cuts back a few years to show Abby on patrol with her dad. Jerry has seen a pregnant zebra in the area surrounding the abandoned zoo – the same zoo that used to house the giraffes seen by Joel and Ellie in the first game’s sweetest moment – and he wants to help her deliver the baby. However, when they find the zebra, they see that she’s already given birth and she’s caught in a trap.
As Abby and Jerry cut the zebra free, they follow it to see it reunite with the baby.
As Abby and Jerry cut the zebra free, they follow it to see it reunite with the baby. It’s tough to work with animal actors, so this scene might be a nightmare for the TV crew to shoot, but it’s one of the most touching scenes in the game. It shows Jerry to be a ridiculously good guy and compounds the guilt over killing him (as Joel) in the first game.
7 The Birthday Gift
Ellie's imagined trip to space might be the most beautiful moment in the entire Last of Us saga
“The Birthday Gift” has the potential to be The Last of Us season 2’s answer to season 1’s Bill and Frank episode. Like season 1, episode 3, “Long, Long Time,” “The Birthday Gift” is a heartwarming standalone narrative that offers a welcome break from the bleak and intense main storyline. While Ellie is in Seattle seeking retribution for Joel’s death, the game flashes back a few years to Joel taking Ellie to a science museum on her birthday.
She’s in awe of the dinosaur exhibits, and then they get into a space capsule, where Joel gives Ellie her real present: an audio recording of a rocket launch. Ellie’s imaginary trip to space will provide the perfect emotional climax to a potential Last of Us “Birthday Gift” episode. This flashback highlights Joel’s best qualities when Ellie is constantly being reminded of his worst mistake.
6 Abby & Owen At The Aquarium
Abby's forbidden romance with Owen is key to making her sympathetic
When Abby learns that Owen is missing and decides to go after him, she gazes at a Ferris wheel on the coast of Seattle. This leads to a flashback of Owen taking Abby for a day out at this Ferris wheel. He shows her an abandoned nearby aquarium that still contains plenty of beautiful marine life. In the game, this gives the player a chance to get their bearings in the aquarium, which will become Abby’s home base across the three days in Seattle, but the dramatic content is important for the TV show, too.
These scenes are key to setting up Abby’s relationship with Owen. It’s already established that they have an on-and-off romance that’s become strained since Owen got into a committed relationship with Mel. But the aquarium scenes demonstrate just how much they care about each other, and how deep their connection is.
5 Ellie Learns The Truth At The Salt Lake Hospital
This is the moment that Ellie's relationship with Joel soured
Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City to figure out what really happened.
Midway through The Last of Us Part II, a flashback reveals that, a couple of years ago, Ellie ran away from Jackson and traveled to St. Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City to figure out what really happened. She went digging through the medical records that the surviving Fireflies left behind and found an audio recording recounting what happened during Joel’s rampage. She learned that, since he killed the only surgeon capable of creating the vaccine, even if they could miraculously find another immune person, they still couldn’t make a cure.
Joel catches up with Ellie after she’s learned the truth and she forces him to tell her exactly what happened. She promises to follow him back to Jackson, but says, “After that, we’re done.” This is the key turning point in Joel and Ellie’s relationship – and the moment that Joel had dreaded for years – so it needs to be adapted for the TV show.
4 Jerry & Marlene Debate Whether To Operate On Ellie
It's necessary to show that it wasn't an easy decision for the Fireflies
In the first game, at the Fireflies’ hospital, when Marlene gives Joel the bad news that creating a cure will kill Ellie, it seems like it was an easy decision. But a key flashback in The Last of Us Part II revealed that it was far from an easy decision. After Jerry determines that to get the mutated Cordyceps out of Ellie’s brain, they’ll have to kill her, he and Marlene have an interesting “trolley problem” debate about the ethics of taking one life to save millions.
While Jerry insists there’s no other way and losing Ellie will be a necessary sacrifice, Marlene stumps him by asking what he would do if it was Abby on the operating table. Jerry can’t bring himself to say that he would do the same if Abby was the immune one, because deep down, he knows he wouldn’t. This debate needs to be seen in the TV show, because it adds a whole new dimension to the cure debacle.
3 Finding Strings
This will give The Last of Us TV show one last Joel and Ellie adventure
“Finding Strings” sees Tommy attempting to repair the rift between Joel and Ellie by encouraging Ellie to go with Joel to pick up some new guitar strings at an abandoned music store. It’s just like old times, with Joel and Ellie cutting through a nearby building and clearing out all the infected lurking inside. Along the way, they encounter a bloater, who very nearly kills Ellie before Joel goes all Rambo with a machete to save her. On their way out of the building, Ellie brings up the Fireflies yet again and Joel lies through his teeth yet again.
This sequence deserves to be adapted for the TV show if only to give Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey another chance to share the screen. But it serves a few thematic and dramatic purposes in the grander narrative. Joel’s badass slaughter of the bloater highlights just how far he’ll go to keep Ellie safe, and Ellie’s prying questions about the Fireflies are a poignant reminder of the doubts she has about the tall tale that Joel told her.
2 Ellie & Abby's PTSD Flashbacks
The PTSD nightmares draw an interesting parallel between Ellie and Abby
Throughout The Last of Us Part II, both Ellie and Abby suffer from nightmares and panic attacks stemming from their PTSD.
Throughout The Last of Us Part II, both Ellie and Abby suffer from nightmares and panic attacks stemming from their PTSD. Ellie is reminded of Joel’s murder, with a recurring nightmare where she’s running down the staircase to the room where he’s being killed, and Abby is reminded of finding her dad dead, with a recurring nightmare where she’s running down the hospital hallway to the pediatric operating theater. These PTSD flashbacks show that Ellie and Abby aren’t so different.
The way these images change as the game progresses highlights the changes in Ellie and Abby’s psychology. As Ellie feels more and more guilty about Joel’s death, the staircase in her nightmares gets longer and longer, and she hears Joel crying out to her for help. As Abby takes on responsibility for Lev and Yara, she sees them in the operating theater, not Jerry.
1 Joel & Ellie On The Porch
Joel and Ellie's final conversation is as beautiful as it is devastating
The most significant flashback in The Last of Us Part II – and the one that absolutely needs to be included in the TV show – is Joel and Ellie’s final conversation on Joel’s porch. After their argument at the barn dance, Ellie pays Joel a visit to air her grievances. She’s still mad that he took away her chance to make her life matter, but when he tells her he would do it all over again if he was given the chance, she realizes just how much he cares about her.
Ellie tells Joel that she’s not ready to forgive him, but she’d like to try. Not only will it be really beautiful to see Pascal and Ramsey play this scene in The Last of Us TV show; it recontextualizes the entire quest for vengeance at the very end of the story. As it turns out, Ellie is less angry at Abby for killing Joel and more for robbing her of the chance to fully forgive her loving father figure. This flashback changes the meaning of the whole story.
The Last Of Us
- Release Date
- January 15, 2023
- Network
- HBO
- Showrunner
- Craig Mazin
Cast
Joel Miller
Ellie Williams
WHERE TO WATCH
The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic drama series set two decades after a global catastrophe. It follows Joel, a seasoned survivor, who is tasked with escorting Ellie, a teenage girl, across a desolated United States, transforming into a harrowing journey of survival and companionship.
- Writers
- Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin
- Streaming Service(s)
- MAX
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