The Last of Us Season 2 Episode Count Seemingly Confirms a Major Theory
- The Last of Us season two returns in Spring 2025.
- The second season is shorter than the first season.
- Fans have their theories about shorter upcoming season.
HBO’s highly awaited post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey is set to premiere in April 2025. The second season of the series, which is based on a video game franchise of the same name, follows the 2020 game The Last of Us Part II. The story follows Joel and Ellie five years after the events of the first season and also introduces a new character, Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever.
The reception of season one of The Last of Us had been very impressive, which led to several critics calling the series one of the best adaptations of a video game. Writing, production design, background score, and performances were highly appreciated by critics and audiences. And season two is expected to be no less.
The Last of Us Season 2 will feature 7 episodes
The highly awaited post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us is returning this spring for season two, starring Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Kaitlyn Dever, and more. The second season is going to pick up five years after the events of season one, and the tension between Joel and Ellie remains high.
The first season ended on a heartbreaking note with Joel fighting for his life to save Ellie and then lying to her about it to make sure that she’s safe. According to the 2020 video game The Last of Us Part II, Ellie travels to Seattle for vengeance after a tragedy strikes close to home.
Dever, who plays Abby Anderson in the show, is going to be a significant character in the second season, and she is regarded as one of the most divisive and controversial characters in the story.
It has been reported that the second season is going to feature 7 episodes. This led to ardent fans claiming that there is a chance that the upcoming season is probably going to be a sequence of flashbacks, which will eventually lead to Joel’s death in the finale episode.
In the game, Abby’s character is introduced to disrupt the lives of Joel and Ellie as she seeks vengeance for the ones she has lost and loved. Her character is not only going to challenge Ellie’s strength but also her emotions and patience. It has been mentioned that Abby goes on to kill Joel in the game, which is going to happen in the series as well, but it’s Pedro Pascal’s character that we’re talking about.
Pascal’s Joel became one of the fan-favorite characters on the show, and the ones who are not aware of the video game will be heartbroken to witness his death. That somewhere means that the makers are probably going to stretch episodes so that the climax (here Joel’s death) is kept for the finale episode, i.e., the seventh episode.
The Last of Us creators explain the seven-episode-long season 2
Ahead of the release of the second season of The Last of Us, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann shared with Deadline about their decision to cut short the season. They mentioned one of the Season 2 episodes would be quite big in length. They shared,
The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons.
Craig Mazin added that when they looked for natural breakpoints and as they laid out everything, season 2’s breakpoints felt like they came after seven episodes.
He noted that they don’t think they are going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons because they are taking their time and trying to go down the same path as season one.
We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that—as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television—season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require season 4.
The co-creator of the series clarified that the upcoming season is a bit shorter than the first one, and it’s because they want to take their time. They noted that the story they are trying to share with the audience is bigger than season 1, and there is so much going on, but they aim to make each episode a blockbuster in itself.
The Last of Us creators hint at the same theory that there are high chances for the season to include a lot of flashbacks and eventually the death of Joel, which will be stricken up to the very last episode.
The Last of Us season one is streaming on HBO.
