The Last Of Us Season 2 Is ‘A Bigger, Far More Ambitious’ Return Says Pedro Pascal

Given that The Last Of Us is often hailed among the greatest achievements in games, there was plenty of pressure for its small-screen HBO adaptation. But fans and critics alike were bowled over by The Last Of Us Season 1, taking Naughty Dog’s tale of a fungally-ravaged post-apocalypse and a father-surrogate-daughter relationship and maintaining all of its emotional potency. Now, Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie are back in Season 2, moving the narrative into The Last Of Us Part II territory, and taking us years down the line from the explosive finale of Season 1.

As Pascal tells Empire, everything established in that first run only gets expanded from here. “It’s definitely a bigger, far more ambitious and risk-taking season,” he says. “And, if it can even be imagined, further tests our strength against a world we’re already afraid to be in.” That fear is both the emotional and literal kind – not just the life-or-death stakes for our beloved duo, but fresh forms of the cordyceps crawlers. “All I’ll say is that for the people who want to see more of the infected... Buckle up!” showrunner Craig Mazin promises. Get ready to meet the ‘Stalkers’, smarter and scarier members of the infected. “You get to see a different evolution of this infection,” says The Last Of Us creator Neil Druckmann. “It’s kept certain parts of their brain alive, so they are smarter. They coordinate and hide and do things that we’ve never seen any other infected do on this show.”

There is, too, the sheer terror of The Last Of Us’ unforgiving world. And for Pascal, he’s already wistful about the Season 1 relationship between Joel and Ellie, set to be tested in Season 2. “If I were to indulge my melancholy a little, I remember thinking, ‘I want to go back to the beginning’,” he says. “Just to experience the whole thing again and not lose any time being shy with one another, because of how special it felt to me, and how unready I was to move on from it.” Get ready to scream, cry, and gasp – possibly all at the same time.