TV Review - HBO's The Last of Us, Season 2 (Spoilers!)

Every path has a price.

The Last of Us is a 2023-present post-apocalyptic drama series created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, produced by Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog, and distributed by Warner Bros. Television Studios. This season is based off of Naughty Dog's 2020 video game, The Last of Us Part II. It stars Bella Ramsey and Isabela Merced.

"I hope you do a little better than me." - Joel Miller

Plot

Five years after breaking Ellie Williams out of the Firefly hospital, Joel Miller has settled with his newfound daughter in the small town of Jackson, Wyoming. The community is thriving...until an unexpected threat shatters the people and sends Ellie to Seattle, hunting for revenge.

The Sweet

The Last of Us was one of my most anticipated returning TV shows of the year. I was a huge fan of the first season. I thought it was incredibly profound and emotional, showcasing this beacon of hope inside of the apocalypse while also giving us complicated, compelling characters. The season wrapped up by giving us a truly thought-provoking moral conundrum, and I was really excited to see how that was addressed in the following season.

For context, I have played a bit of the first game but not the whole thing and I have not played any of the second game. However, I did know that Joel was going to die. I found that out before I was a Last of Us fan, so I went into this season preparing.

And that's a thing I will give this season credit for. Because the inciting incident is essentially Joel getting murdered, this season goes in an entirely different direction than the first season. I appreciate that they took risks and went in a darker and more cynical route than the first season. It felt like season one took a dark world and made it lighter, and season two flips that on its head: our characters seem happy in the beginning, but they are then thrust back into the darkness once Joel is killed.

This season also still managed to deliver on all of the emotions that season one had. Maybe they aren't as strong here, but there are some moments that are really, really heart-breaking. Of course, Joel's death is just devastating, and Ellie's reaction rips your heart straight out of your chest. But, honestly, the season had so many moments that will tug on the heartstrings throughout. The Price, which is the penultimate episode, may be the most emotional hour of the show. The scene where Ellie confronts Joel about Salt Lake City is up there with the most emotional moments in the series. I thought it would be hard to recapture the way that season one made me feel, but this season delivered on every gut-wrenching heartbreak you would want it to.

I think my favorite new addition to the show is Isabela Merced's Dina. She is probably the MVP of the season as a whole. Again, I haven't played the game, but I've heard that the show is adding some depth to her character, and that makes sense, because I absolutely love her and find her to be very compelling. Merced does a fantastic job of switching from charming and fun to serious and somber. You see her almost as this middle ground of the worst and the best of Ellie. She is compassionate and selfless, and it works to keep Ellie grounded and not going off the rails.

As always with HBO shows, the production design is just immaculate here. There is a sequence in episode two that reminds me of the Battle of Helm's Deep from The Two Towers but with the infected, and that was just awesome. The sets of this broken world are gorgeous. The new factions that we see in this season, the WLFs and the Seraphites, both look pulled directly from the game. The new infected designs that we see are just as terrifying. It's just fantastic. Per usual.

Finally, the performances here are absolutely perfect. I do not understand the Bella Ramsey hate. People have been criticizing their performance all over the Internet, and I find it to be just ridiculous and exhausting. Ramsey is an absolutely phenomenal actor who nails all of the charisma while also having the anger that Ellie is going for. Obviously, Pedro Pascal is not in this season a ton, but he is the star of the show whenever he shows up. The porch scene that I referenced earlier is partly so emotional because he just acts his frickin' ass off. I already talked about Isabela Merced: she's great. And the other supporting cast members that really stand out are Catherine O'Hara and Kaitlyn Dever. Obviously, we will be getting a lot more of Abby in season three, so I am curious to see what Dever does with her performance, but I really dug her in this season. And O'Hara is just tons of fun. Her character does not exist in the game, and I found that surprising, because she was just magnetic whenever she showed up.

The Sour

Ugh. My most anticipated shows of the year have been really disappointing this year. Between this and Severance, I am very frustrated with these sequel seasons.

I knew going into the season that The Last of Us Part II was controversial, but I didn't know why. And I honestly don't think this season is disappointing because of the problems with the story. A lot of the problem really lies in execution.

The biggest problem is how they handled Ellie. It seems like her arc for the season is supposed to be this cycle of violence commentary about how Joel's murder turned her into this revenge-seeking machine that just kills anyone who gets in the way of her hunt for Abby. I've read up a bit on it, and that's her arc in the game. They absolutely botch that idea in the season. Ellie kills three people on her "violent" quest for revenge. One is legitimately monstrous. One is in self-defense. And one is completely accidental. That does not make it seem like she's turned into this horrible killing machine. Because they are failing to establish her arc, it just destroys everything that this season is attempting to do.

And you can see what I mean by that in how Joel's death is executed. The whole point of Joel's death is to give Ellie this motivation to turn into the killing machine that is just focused on Abby. But because I don't buy that she has become this killer, I don't feel the impact of Joel's death that I should. They killed off the main protagonist of this show to try and motivate the new protagonist of the show to go too far...and when they don't succeed with Ellie's turn, it makes me feel like Joel shouldn't have been killed off. They took such a big risk by killing Joel and I do not think it fully paid off.

This season is also paced...horribly. Like, unforgivably bad. There are seven episodes in this season. That's one episode shorter than season one, but they also split the second game into two seasons. There are entire episodes that feel like nothing happens. Episode three? Such a drag. But then the finale feels like three episodes packed into one. Episode six, The Price, is my favorite episode of the season. It's fantastic, but it's a flashback episode. A flashback episode as the penultimate entry in a season? What? What are the writers thinking? They just had no clue how to adapt the second game into a well-paced season of TV, and I think that's a huge, huge shame.

The worst part of the season is definitely the finale. I was pretty positive on the season up until the final episode, but once I saw the conclusion, it really knocked the season down as a whole. As I said, it feels like three episodes squeezed into one, and I just don't get it. The individual sequences are good, but it's an unsatisfying continuation of Ellie's arc and it really fails to wrap the story up in a solid way. There's a scene where Ellie is kidnapped by the Seraphites and nearly killed and then she escapes. How long is that scene? Two minutes. And it had zero relevance to the plot. It was just a two-minute sequence that was there...because.

And the cliffhanger ending simply does not work. Cliffhangers are a tough balance to strike, because you have to satisfy your audience while also leaving them wanting more. The Last of Us fails in almost both ways. Now, I am invested in these characters and, to an extent, this story, so I was always going to want to see what happens next, but I'm not on the edge of my seat...especially because I know we may have to wait two years until we see what happens. ON TOP OF THAT, I am going to have to watch an entire season of Abby, the character I despise because she killed Joel, before getting the payoff to this cliffhanger. This is just so frustrating.

Final Thoughts and Score

I don't really know where I land on this season. I love The Last of Us, but this season was a mess, with terrible pacing and a frustrating fumble when it comes to Ellie's story. Still, the emotions and individual sequences may be enough for me to go positive here.

So, yeah, I am going Savory. That could change after season three. Age range is 16+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

"The Last of Us"

Fun Factor: 7.5/10

Acting: 9/10

Story: 5.5/10

Characters: 7.5/10

Quality: 6.5/10

Created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann

Rated TV-MA for strong bloody violence, frightening themes and images, language, thematic elements

Premiered on April 13, 2025

Episode runtime: 1 hour

Bella Ramsey as Ellie Williams

Isabela Merced as Dina

Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller

Gabriel Luna as Tommy Miller

Young Mazino as Jesse

Kaitlyn Dever as Abby Anderson

Rutina Wesley as Maria Miller

Robert John Burke as Seth

Spencer Lord as Owen

Tati Gabrielle as Nora

Catherine O'Hara as Gail Lynden

Danny Ramirez as Manny

Ariela Barer as Mel

Jeffrey Wright as Isaac Dixon

Joe Pantoliano as Eugene Lynden