‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Ratings Show Trouble on Horizon for HBO Hit

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in 'The Last of Us.'

Could season 3 mark the last of The Last of Us?

While the season 2 finale drew an impressive 3.7 million viewers across all platforms, it marked a pretty dramatic drop in audience—both from the season premiere, which was watched by 5.2 million people, and especially from the season 1 finale, which tallied a massive 8.2 million viewers.

For dedicated fans of the post-apocalyptic video game-turned-prestige series, the numbers are just that. But for industry analysts, the trend could spell trouble for the Emmy-winning series.

The Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibberd did a deep dive on the data and trends behind the show, who crunched the numbers to find that “Overall, season two has averaged 18 percent fewer viewers than the first five episodes of season one.”

Why? Well, Hibberd’s first theory is probably obvious to anyone who watched the series: in just the second episode of season 2, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann made the bold decision to kill off much-beloved Pedro Pascal’s equally beloved character, Joel. And much like Pascal’s fate on Game of Thrones, another iconic HBO series, his death was savage.

“Once the story stops being about a ‘wolf and cub’ wandering the apocalypse and becomes the story of a dead wolf and an angry cub [Bella Ramsey's Ellie] chasing a villain who is a mirror universe version of herself, something just slips for some percentage of viewers,” Hibberd writes. Yes, as he continues, “The second season’s trope-busting story is intensely clever, and has Something to Say about the nature of storytelling and heroes and how we invest in a point of view. You can respect all the artistic choices being made, but that doesn’t mean the same number of people will enjoy that kind of story. It is, admittedly, a bit of a bummer.”

For Hibberd, the dropoff in ratings could simply be because of how well Mazin and Druckmann stuck the landing with The Last of Us’ first season finale, which he described as a “perfect conclusion.”

“Once Joel saved Ellie from the Fireflies and they settled into a safe and thriving survivor camp, it felt like The End,” writes Hibberd. “If you’re a viewer watching these two likable characters endure all sorts of grisly horrors, this was just about the best outcome for Joel and Ellie you could realistically hope for. A second season of The Last of Us can only be written as ‘but then more—and even worse—bad stuff happens’ for a tale that felt resolved.”

It's an excellent point from the viewer’s perspective, especially when you’re focused on two actors, Pascal and Ramsey, who have rabid fan bases. Yes, there are some fans of the game who never quite accepted Ramsey in the role of Ellie, but it’s hard to deny her acting chops—or the stellar onscreen chemistry she and Pascal have.

Ultimately, HBO has always been a network that favors artistry over audience numbers, by sheer virtue of the fact that, as a premium cable network, they can better afford to take chances. Which is a good thing for Mazin and Druckmann, especially as they prepare to change the world of The Last of Us once again by (presumably) putting Joel and Ellie’s story in the rearview mirror as they forge ahead with their third season, which they just confirmed will be all about Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby character.

“I think it was good to go on that journey to end up at HBO… a place that leaned into those controversial decisions,” Druckmann said at an Emmys FYC panel earlier this week.

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‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Ratings Show Trouble on Horizon for HBO Hit

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