"The Last of Us" Season 2 Unveils Trailer

HBO has finally unveiled the official trailer for the long-awaited season 2 of“The Last of Us”, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey,  at an SXSW panel featuring the cast and series creators.

The footage is as full of monsters and violence as Season 1 was — with a lot more fire. It opens with Ellie sneaking through an abandoned building, seemingly in fear of a nearby attacker as broken glass litters the floor and a dog wanders in the background, before showing a shot of a man’s arm wearing a watch and a shot of what looks like a gravesite full of thin wooden crosses, each draped with a medallion.

It also featured Joel with Ellie as the two trek through a forest. “You OK?” Joel asks. “Yeah,” Ellie replies after a pause, but it’s clear that she has more on her mind. Joel is then shown sitting in a house in Jackson, Wyoming in a settlement where he and Ellie have lived for five years since the end of Season 1. In his lap is Benjamin, the young son of his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), whose wife Maria (Rutina Wesley) was pregnant in Season 1.

The creators and cast of HBO’s Emmy-winning post-apocalyptic series were on hand at the South by Southwest Film Festival in advance of the show’s second season.

“[Joel and Ellie’s] relationship has changed a little, and we start to see why,” star Ramsey said, in addition to referencing a line in the trailer where Ellie scolds Joel by saying, “You swore…” — referencing the end of the first season where Joel swears to Ellie that what he told her about what happened with the Fireflies was the truth. “I mean that ‘you swore’ kind of gives you a little idea of where Ellie is at. I think Ellie has that in the back of her head this whole time, and that’s where we pick them up. And they’re not best of friends. She’s quite sad. But I mean, there’s a lot of layers to friendship.”

Co-showrunner Craig Mazin said “escalation” is a major theme of the season, which will include different types of infected. “A lot of what’s going on in the season is evolution and change,” he added. “Ellie is growing up, and she is changing. This town of Jackson is growing up. It is expanding. It’s taking in refugees. And the world outside is changing. It was important to us to always move the ball forward with the infected. It’s not a question of just more, but something else, something that is meaningful to what is going on, so they don’t just become NPCs.”

Newcomer to the series Kaitlyn Dever, who plays a survivor named Abby, told the audience, “I think I just wanted to really focus on who Abby is in her core and her emotional journey and establishing her grief and how broken she is. That was the main goal for me.”

Mazin also talked about Dever’s casting. “Kaitlyn was within The Last of Us DNA because when she was younger and [co-showrunner Neil Druckmann] and I were contemplating making a Last of Us as a movie were considered casting her for Ellie. And when the show rolled around she was no longer convincingly 14, I think it’s fair to say. Our method is to sit with [actors] and talk to them. Making the show is hard. It’s hard and grueling. She’s an amazing actress and you got to want to do this and she wanted it.”

Asked about the balance of action and drama in the season, Druckmann commented, “For us, everything is drama. Even the action sequences are drama. In season one, we were picking and choosing our moments because we weren’t sure what we were doing. Now we know what we’re doing. We swung for the fences with some of this. There’s pretty intense stuff you don’t even see in the trailer. People ask if season two is better. I often say, ‘It’s crazier.'”

Pascal also revealed that Joel is in therapy in the new season and pays for his sessions with marijuana.

Season one of "The Last of Us" premiered in 2023 and it was a major success, as the TV adaptation of the popular did justice to its source material. The series was renewed for season 2, less than two weeks after its premiere.

Following Season 1, the seven-episode series will feature a five-year time jump and follow an even more grizzled Joel and Ellie as they face off against more fungal, zombie clickers.  It also sees Joel dealing with the choices he made to save Ellie's life in Season 1's finale.

The official logline for Season 2, which is based on The Last of Us Part II, reads, "After five years of peace following the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie’s collective past catches up to them, drawing them into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind."

“The Last of Us” is based on Naughty Dog’s PlayStation video games of the same name, which were written and creative directed by Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog. 

Executive producers include Mazin, Druckmann, Carolyn Strauss, Jacqueline Lesko, Cecil O’Connor, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan and Evan Wells, while Halley Gross serves as a co-executive producer and writer.

Many familiar faces from Season 1 will return for the second installment alongside Pascal and Ramsey, including Gabriel Luna as Tommy and Rutina Wesley as Maria. 

At the same time, Season 2 will also introduce several new cast members including Catherine O'Hara as a therapist, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac Dixon.

Season 2 of “The Last of Us” premieres on April 13.