Season two of The Last of Us was released on April 13. This show was originally released in January 2023 and is based off of a video game. The first season of the show is based on the first The Last of Us game and follows Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie Williams (Bella Ramsey). The second season will cover part of The Last of Us 2 but is predicted to only cover half of the game. This second season will focus on Ellie and Dina (Isabela Merced). Right before the release of the new season, it was announced that there will be a season three. It is predicted that this season will cover the second half of the game. This story will go over the first four episodes of season two and will contain spoilers.
Episode one takes us to five years after last season ended. Joel is working as a carpenter while Ellie has been training to fight and go out on patrol. In this episode, we meet two new friends of Ellie. Jessie is a leader in the community and has been helping to train Ellie. Dina is Ellie’s best friend and is also close friends with Joel. At the beginning of the first episode, Dina goes to talk to Joel about Ellie. Here, we find out that Joel and Ellie’s relationship has been tense and that Ellie is angry at him. Joel and Ellie have a father-daughter relationship, so despite this conflict, they still care for eachother very much. As we get further into the episode, Ellie and Dina meet a new type of Infected; Stalkers. Stalkers are smart. They hide and come at you when you least expect it, instead of just running at you like many others do. When Dina and Ellie go out on patrol, Ellie falls through the floor and gets trapped in a room with one of them. Ellie does get bitten by it, but is otherwise unharmed. Ellie and Dina come back to tell the town’s council about it which scared them. Then, we see a girl who was briefly shown at the beginning of the episode. Her name is Abby. She is looking for Joel and has found the town.
Towards the end of this first episode, we get one of the most loved scenes from the game. Ellie goes to the town gathering and meets Dina there. There are music, drinks and decorations for the holiday season. Ellie likes Dina, but does not think she likes her back due to her previous history with Jessie. Dina eventually pulls Ellie into dancing with her and eventually kisses her. After this, an older man at the event named Seth asks them to stop because it is a “family event.” Dina and Ellie originally plan to just walk away, but then the man calls them a slur. This causes Joel to push him over in anger. Joel does this because he cares about Ellie, but Ellie does not see it in the way he does. She feels he is being over protective and is mad because she can take care of herself. After this, Joel comes home and works on a guitar and Ellie comes home not long after. Ellie does not speak to Joel because she is angry, but will later deeply regret it.
Episode 2 is definitely the most heartbreaking one in this series. In the beginning of this episode, we see Abby, who we briefly met in episode 1. Abby and her crew are holed up in an abandoned house, trying to come up with a plan. Abby then decides to take the first watch for that morning. After this, we see Ellie again. Jessie comes to get Ellie for patrol and tells about infected that are hibernating under the snow. They also talk about Ellie and Joel’s relationship. She tells him how despite their current conflict, she and Joel are still themselves and still care for each other.
After this, we see Abby again. She is on patrol for her crew and hears Joel and Dina on patrol. She then attempts to follow them, but disturbs a hoard of infected and has to run. When she finds a place to hide, she also finds Joel, who helps her get to safety. Abby then suggests that they go to the lodge where her crew is to hide until the infected clear out. This ends up being a trap. Ellie’s friend gives Dina a sedative and Joel is eventually shot in the leg by Abby. Things just get worse from there, with Abby interrogating him about when he killed her dad and slowly killing him. Eventually, Jessie and Ellie find Joel after hearing they had been unresponsive on the radios. When Ellie gets there, she tries to fight Abby’s crew but is unsuccessful. Ellie is then trapped and unable to help Joel. She yells at him to get up and he lifts his head slightly before Abby finally finishes him off. Ellie is heartbroken and stays with him until Jessie gets there and they all head back to town.
While all of this is happening, the hoard that Abby woke up attacks the town. Tommy and Maria, Joel’s brother and sister in law, get everyone to either hide or fight. First, the infected hit the wall around the town, but they eventually found a place to break in. The whole town fights hard and loses many people, but the town eventually wins the fight. Parts of the town are in ruins by the end of this, either being broken or on fire.
Episode 3 brings us to about 3 months after the attack and Joel’s death. Ellie is just getting out of the hospital. She pretends that everything that has happened isn’t really affecting her. When Ellie gets home, she goes to Joel’s room to reminisce about him. Eventually, Dina shows up to talk to Ellie. She tells her that she knows who killed Joel and where they are from. Dina has figured out that Abby’s crew is from Seattle. Ellie then comes up with a plan to go after them in order to get justice and revenge for Joel. They bring it up to Tommy and they bring it to the council to decide if they should send out a team or not. Ellie even writes a speech to convince everyone that they should go. Despite Ellie’s efforts, the council decides not to send anyone.
Later that night, we see that Ellie is going to go to Seattle by herself. Dina then catches her, but decides to help her, not stop her. Dina comes up with a proper plan for how they are going to get to Seattle and what they are going to bring. Dina also has someone help them obtain everything they need and sneak out. This person is Seth. While Seth was mean to Dina and Ellie previously, he respected Joel and thinks he deserves justice. Ellie and Dina then set off on their journey to Seattle. While the journey is rough, they make it there by the end of the episode.
Episode 4 shows us day one of Ellie and Dina’s time in Seattle. In the beginning of this episode, Ellie and Dina raid an old pharmacy to look for medicine. Then, they take their horse and wait in an old record store until they can go after the WLF that night. At the record store, we get another famous scene from the game. This scene is where Ellie plays Take On Me on the guitar for Dina. In the game, it is an optional extra scene that you can find if you go to the upper floor of the store. Once it is night time, Ellie and Dina set out for the WLF base. While they are heading towards it, they find a group of dead WLF soldiers. They check out the area and soon hear noises coming from a radio. Not long after that, the WLF comes to find the group of dead soldiers.
The WLF then is scouting the area out to look for the people who did this. While the girls are able to hide for a while, they eventually are found and have to escape the building. They then find themselves in an old subway station. The soldiers figure out where they went and head down there too, but before they can find the girls, they find a hoard of infected instead. Ellie and Dina then have to run through a train and then find an exit. Just as they are about to get out, Dina almost gets bitten by the infected. Ellie instead sticks her arm in front of Dina and she is bitten instead. After this, they are able to escape and hole up in an old theatre. Once they get there, Dina starts to freak out because she does not know that Ellie is immune. Ellie tells her that she will be ok, but Dina is still suspicious and stays up all night to make sure Ellie doesn’t turn. When Ellie wakes up again, she proves to Dina that she is ok. Then, after months of tension, Dina kisses Ellie. After this, Dina also reveals that she is pregnant. When Ellie asks how she is sure, she shows her a pregnancy test that she found at the pharmacy. Finally, after all of this insanity, Ellie finally gets ready to go back out and find the WLF.
This new season of The Last of Us is amazing in so many ways. It shows how Ellie and Joel’s relationship stayed strong even through their hard times. It also shows how love still prospers in hard times. This show depicts how hard the apocalypse made it to survive outside of just the brutality of it. I think that the story and message this show conveys was done beautifully, but there are some parts from the game that will definitely be missed. Scenes like Joel and Ellie’s conversation on the porch before he died and the differences in his death really changed the feeling of this story. I don’t think these differences necessarily make the show any better or worse, but they do change the weight of what happens drastically. I loved how this show doesn’t try to glorify what happened in this apocalypse and shows how difficult it really would be to live in a time like this, but also shows that good things can still happen in hard times.
