The First Teaser Trailer for 'The Last of Us' Season Two Catches Up with Joel and Ellie Five Years Later
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay are joined by new cast members Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Jeffrey Wright and Catherine O'Hara.
Outbreak Day, the date that Cordyceps reached critical mass in The Last of Us — that'd be September 26 — has been and gone for 2024 in Australia. But as the occasion hit the US, HBO gave fans of the TV show based on the hugely popular gaming series a welcome gift. After dropping sneak peeks as images and in promos for the network's full upcoming slate over the past few months, the American cable TV network has unveiled a teaser trailer for the post-apocalyptic hit's second season. Prepare for a time jump. Prepare for a guitar. Prepare for hordes of infected. Prepare for a haunting feeling, too.
How does life go on after not just the global devastation caused by the Cordyceps virus, but following the chaos that the first season of The Last of Us brought? Sometime in 2025, viewers will find out — but here's a glimpse now. In season two, it's been five years since the events of season one. And while there has been peace, it clearly isn't here to stay.
Yes, Joel and Ellie are back — and, in their shoes, so are Pedro Pascal (The Wild Robot) and Bella Ramsey (Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget). This time around, the show's main duo have company from both familiar faces and a heap of newcomers. Rutina Wesley (Monster High) and Gabriel Luna (Fubar) return as Maria and Tommy, while Kaitlyn Dever (Good Grief), Isabela Merced (Alien: Romulus), Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Young Mazino (Beef), Ariela Barer (How to Blow Up a Pipeline), Tati Gabrielle (Kaleidoscope), Spencer Lord (Family Law) and Danny Ramirez (Black Mirror) are the season's additions.
The first teaser for season two gives fans a glimpse of plenty of the above new cast members, including Dever as Abby and Wright as Isaac. Also new: Catherine O'Hara (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) as a guest star. She starts the clip setting a timer and trying to get Joel to talk. His look in response says everything.
The Last of Us made the leap from video games to TV in 2023, and was swiftly renewed after proving a massive smash instantly. The series gave HBO its most-watched debut season of a show ever — and its first episode was also the network's second-largest debut of all time. Locking in a second season was also hardly surprising because the 2013 game inspired a 2014 expansion pack and 2020 sequel.
For first-timers to the franchise on consoles and as a TV series, The Last of Us kicked off 20 years after modern civilisation as we know it has been toppled by a parasitic fungal infection that turns the afflicted into shuffling hordes. Pascal plays Joel, who gets saddled with smuggling 14-year-old Ellie (his Game of Thrones co-star Ramsey) out of a strict quarantine zone to help possibly save humanity's last remnants. There wouldn't be a game, let alone a television version, if that was an easy task, of course — and if the pair didn't need to weather quite the brutal journey.
As a television series, The Last of Us hails from co-creator, executive producer, writer and director Craig Mazin, who already brought a hellscape to HBO (and to everyone's must-watch list) thanks to the haunting and horrifying Chernobyl. He teams up here with Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog, who also penned and directed The Last of Us games.
Check out the new teaser trailer for The Last of Us season two below:
The Last of Us season two doesn't yet have a release date, other than sometime in 2025. When it returns, it'll stream via Binge in Australia and on Neon in New Zealand. Read our review of the first season.
Images: HBO.
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