The penultimate episode of HBO’sThe Last of UsSeason 2 aired this past Sunday, and with it came discussions about the pacing of this new season. The series' first season was a total of nine episodes, adapting the entirety of the first video game into a single season. However, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are taking a different approach to adapting the second game, as the ambitious and sprawling narrative ofThe Last of Us Part IIcan cover multiple seasons. Now, the showrunners have revealed that they have plans beyond just Season 3, for whichHBO recently announced.
In an interview with Collider, showrunners Mazin and Druckmann discussed how much of Ellie’s quest for vengeance there is left to tell, and the ramifications of Abby’s choice to kill Joel at the beginning of the season. With only one episode left in Season 2, the series has adapted slightly less than half the game. The shorter episode count plays into this, though Mazin would speculate that the upcoming third season would have a longer episode count, as well as reveal that there are plans for Season 4:
“I think there’s a decent chance that Season 3 will be longer than Season 2, just because the manner of that narrative and the opportunities it affords us are a little different. The thing about Joel’s death is that it’s so impactful. It’s such a narrative nuclear bomb that it’s hard to wander away from it. We can’t really take a break and move off to the side and do a Bill and Frank story. I’m not sure that will necessarily be true for Season 3. I think we’ll have a little more room there. But certainly, there’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season. Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth. That’s the most likely outcome.”
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HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Has Plenty More Story To Tell
Those who have playedThe Last of Us Part IIknow that there is still an entirely different story that needs to be told in Seattle. Moreover, audiences are put into the perspective of Ellie in Season 2, who is entirely unaware of the conflict between the Washington Liberation Front and the Seraphites in the city. There is still so much information being intentionally withheld from audiences, and Mazin seems to have a clear plan for fleshing out the world ofThe Last of Usthrough multiple seasons, as he would say:
“We always think ahead. We thought ahead to Season 3 and Season 4, to attempt to get as much visibility as we can. So, we really do try to think things through fundamentally. The challenge for our first season was, how do we tell this big story in a way that’s complete and doable within an amount of time and with the budget we have? And with this season, it was, ‘Okay, this source material goes way beyond one season.'”
It will be interesting to see ifThe Last of Usis renewed for Season 4, as many had assumed the incredibly early Season 3 renewal meant that the show would end there. After all, Mazin and Druckmann indicated that theHBO show wouldn’t go past the source material. Overall, it seems thatThe Last of Ushas a bright future ahead of it, as the showrunners have an ambitious plan to bring the rest of the second game to life over two more seasons.
Source:Collider
The Last Of Us
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.
