‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 reviews: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, and Isabela Merced shine in bleak, shocking return
Liane Hentscher/HBO
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One HBO Sunday night drama ends, and another is set to begin.
On the heels of the violent season finale of _The White Lotus_ , HBO’s Emmy Award-winning hit series _The Last of Us_ will take the Sunday night baton starting next week. On Monday, the network dropped its review embargo on the new episodes, and the consensus is that the show remains as upsetting and unsettling as ever, albeit with a shocking twist that changes its scope and future.
That game-changing shift is well-known to fans of _The Last of Us_ video-game franchise (or anyone who has read the game’s Wikipedia summary). Showrunner **Craig Mazin **has somewhat alluded to it in pre-release interviews, comparing the show to the conclusion of _Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back_.
“I think about that a lot — because I love _The Empire Strikes Back_ , and I think everybody should,” Mazin told _The Hollywood Reporter_. “We love that one because the second act is the tough act. That’s when everything is challenged and characters go through these moments where they can’t be who they used to be, but they’re also not ready to be who they’re supposed to be. There’s a sense of feeling lost. And I love that.”
The first season of _The Last of Us_ was a runaway success for HBO. Critically acclaimed and embraced by Emmy voters, the series landed 24 nominations and won eight awards, including guest acting wins for **Nick Offerman** and **Storm Reid**. The expectation is that the show will again be an Emmys favorite, with stars **Pedro Pascal** , **Bella Ramsey** , and **Kaitlyn Dever** predicted to earn nominations. Based on the reviews, **Isabela Merced **could also be a significant player. The actress plays Dina, a new character in the show, who forms a close relationship with Ramsey’s Ellie.
Thus far, reviews for Season 2 are strong, and comparable in the aggregate to Season 1. The second season has a 92 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (versus 96 percent for Season 1) and an 88 score on Metacritic (versus 84 for Season 1). However, many critics have dinged the season for its incomplete story — Mazin and co-showrunner and _The Last of Us_ game creator **Neil Druckmann** split the narrative of the second game in half — and the way the twist impacts what made the first season so beloved.
Read the best reviews of _The Last of Us_ Season 2 below. The show returns Sunday on HBO.
**Kathryn VanArenDonk, Vulture** : “Season 2 of _The Last of Us_ has much to recommend it. There are issues around the margins: texture about the surrounding world that doesn’t get enough detail, for instance, and the introduction of Abby, who does not yet have time to become as rounded and complex as Ellie or Joel. This leads to questions about how this season sets up what’s likely to come in the future, when presumably Abby and the Seraphites and the world beyond Ellie’s individual decisions become more critical. But at its core, the show is full of the magic and horror of parenthood and how hard it is to let your children become their own people. That’s most visible in the season’s standout (not a bottle) episode, which comes near the end of the season, when Joel and Ellie have some time away from the apocalypse to simply be together. A zombie story is always going to involve characters running and screaming for their lives — it should. But in Season 2, _The Last of Us_ is proof that a zombie story can be even better and more devastating, more nuanced about its moral conundrums and more thoughtful about the aftermath, when no one’s firing up a flamethrower.”
**Ben Travers, Indiewire** : “Back when the first season launched, I worried the story’s grim nature might put off people who were just tuning in for superficial scares. Such fears proved for nought, as viewers turned out in droves comparable to the undead seen onscreen. But Season 2 doubles down on what it asks of its audience, unveiling a challenging narrative filled with challenging ideas — ideas people base their entire lives on, and thus ideas people may struggle to reassess. Audiences, it seems, aren’t looking to be challenged amid challenging times, especially by their entertainment. I hope once again to see my worries quelled, even as I sit here wondering what agreed-upon wrongs will become tomorrow’s dilemmas.”
**Meghan O’Keefe, Decider** : “ _The Last of Us_ Season 2 is a spectacular showcase for the talents of all the artisans involved, but it’s missing some key human spark. As someone who hasn’t played the show’s video game source material, I found myself repeatedly feeling a sense of disconnect from the otherwise straightforward revenge story. I was literally watching a gorgeous re-enactment of video game cut scenes, unable to interface with the show on a deeper, personal level.”
**Simon Cardy, IGN** : “Season 1 of HBO’s _The Last of Us_ was a superb retelling of the Naughty Dog game of the same name, both staying loyal to and enriching a beloved story. But Season 2 struggles to replicate those qualities — it’s a bleak, abbreviated chapter whose key moments fall flat with too much regularity. It's by no means bad — in fact, at times it’s very good – it just kept me at arm's length, never letting me quite connect to its characters in the way that’s so crucial to _The Last of Us Part II_. It's often a spectacle, crafted with skill throughout, but fails to live up to the thrilling heights of its source material or capture the heart of its first season.”
**Dave Nemetz, TVLine** : “There is, as I said, a twist — one that I can’t say much more about, but one that fans of the video game series will see coming. I will say the twist was divisive among video game fans, and it’s easy to see why. It turns the show into something different, a meditation on the toxic effect of revenge, and it may leave a bad taste in some fans’ mouths. It also emphasizes the black cloud of sadness that hangs over everything on _The Last of Us_ : The tension is just about unbearable at times, and Season 2 adds in several sadistic torture scenes that are enough to make you wince.”
**Josh Wilding, Comic Book Movie****:** “As someone who has played the games multiple times and knows where this story is going, it’s hard to say how those only familiar with Joel and Ellie through TV might respond to certain plot beats and, more importantly, the way this season is structured. On the one hand, it feels like a complete arc, but on the other, gamers will be acutely aware that they’re getting just half the story. In that sense, it feels a little like _Squid Game 2_ ; a satisfying, superb watch, albeit one that will surely be all the more enjoyable once Season 3 comes along and delivers the rest.”
**Angie Han,****_The Hollywood Reporter_****:** “To some extent, you probably want a mid-run season of a serialized drama like _The Last of Us_ to leave you less than satisfied. It’s a good thing when a show makes you wonder about the characters within it, or hungry to dig deeper into the lore. If you find yourself groaning with impatience to find out what happens next, it just means you’re invested in the plot.
But there’s mysterious, and there’s incomplete. By the time the season two finale has Ellie (**Bella Ramsey**) chasing after one group of people we don’t really know, whose motives and goals remain opaque to us, only to get waylaid by a different group of people we don’t really know, whose motives and goals remain opaque to us, HBO’s hit video game adaptation has fully tilted into the latter. Its lasting impression is one of anticlimax, as it becomes apparent that the answer to most of the questions it raises is: ‘You’ll see next season.’”
**Alison Herman,****_Variety_** : “The series remains a feat of production, from the lushly overgrown abandoned cityscapes to the gorgeous natural scenery to the hordes of Infected, especially in a harrowing battle episode directed by network stalwart **Mark Mylod**(_Succession_ , _Game of Thrones_). But Season 2 trades the momentum of the journey from Point A to Point B for a carefully constructed sense of place. Like its protagonists, _The Last of Us_ hits pause on the wandering to put down some roots.”
**Mary McNamara,****_Los Angeles Times_** : “If the first season of _The Last of Us_ is about survival, the second is fueled by revenge. Or, if you want to get all existential about it, consequences.
For those who know anything about the video game on which the series is based, this will come as no surprise. For those who don’t, well, early moments of the Season 2 premiere (Sunday on HBO) make it clear that the sins of the fathers will, in one way or another, define the futures of the daughters.”
**Caryn James, BBC** : “Season 2 takes a drastic plot turn, truly the most jaw-dropping in a hit series I can remember, a twist too stunning to spoil. Unsettling a hit can work brilliantly, as it did when _The Bear_ replaced the first season's sandwich shop with a fine-dining restaurant in its second series. But the big alteration in _The Last of Us_ is a devastating creative choice.”
**Alan Sepinwall,****_Rolling Stone_** : “Mostly, though, it’s the lack of Ellie and Joel that keeps the season, while still strong overall, from hitting the heights of that first year. In the style of the Bill/Frank romance that won Nick Offerman a guest actor Emmy for the first season, there’s an episode that reveals much of what Joel and Ellie were up to during that five-year gap. It’s a helpful change of pace for a season where a good chunk of the episodes cover a span of only a few days. And it’s a superb showcase for Pascal and Ramsey — maybe too superb. As good as all the newbies are, as tense and scary and thrilling as many of the set pieces are, it’s hard to come away from the flashback episode wanting anything other than as much of those two characters in close proximity as possible.”
**Judy Berman,****_Time_** : “When the season is at its best, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann seem invested in whether Ellie, who everyone keeps saying is so similar to Joel, is doomed to repeat his dangerous moral errors. But those moments are few and far between. Most of the time, you could sum up the show’s take on justice—one it relentlessly hammers home — with the chestnut (often attributed to Gandhi), ‘An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.’”
**Valerie Ettenhofer, Inverse** : “Pascal is incredible here, falling effortlessly back into the performance that gives the series its beating, broken heart. _The Last of Us_ Season 2 strives endlessly to comment on the difficulty of breaking violent cycles (it even adds in a therapist character, Catherine O’Hara’s Gail, to explain concepts like these), but it only really succeeds when its tangled scripts and chaotic plotting get out of the actors’ way. At its best and rarest moments, _The Last of Us_ Season 2 allows Pascal, Ramsey, and their co-stars to sell this emotionally shattering story the same way they nailed the Season 1 finale: with a shared look that tells audiences everything we need to know.”
**Andrew Webster, The Verge** : “If you thought Joel’s decision in the Season 1 finale was challenging, oh boy, just you wait. I personally felt that _The Last of Us_ ’ second chapter was a difficult but effective way to explore the lasting impact of violence and anger, but it also turns its main characters into unlikable sociopaths, so your mileage will definitely vary.”
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