HBO has released the first footage of the second season of The Last of Us, and it implies that things for Pedro Pascal’s Joel may be a little bit different than they are in the game. No, not that different, but it seems like he might be going to therapy.
The brief, 24-second teaser shows a few familiar scenes originating from The Last of Us Part II. These include the dance scene in which Bella Ramsey’s Ellie kisses Dina, flashes of characters like Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac who leads the militaristic Washington Liberation Front, and a few glimpses of the Seraphites, the Seattle cult which also occupies the city. But one character seems to be someone entirely new. This person, played by Schitt’s Creek and Home Alone actor Catherine O’Hara, seems to be Joel’s therapist. She is shown asking if he hurt Ellie, which he denies. Instead, he insists he saved her.
This seems like a new take on the opening scene of The Last of Us Part II, in which Joel recounts the violent events of the first game’s finale to his brother Tommy. He finishes his story with the same line: “I saved her.” So it seems Joel might be confessing his murder of the Fireflies to someone other than family in the show when it premieres on Max in 2025. The first season played things pretty close to the original, but it did make some big changes to Bill and Frank’s relationship, and added entirely new characters of its own, like Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen.
Given that HBO plans to cover the events of Part II across multiple seasons of the show, it wouldn’t be surprising if it used all that extra time to riff on more plot points and character threads. The first season put a big focus on Joel’s anxiety, something which the games only hinted at, so the sad dad finally getting professional help seems in line with how the show’s been handling that side of him.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will lead season two, but HBO has announced several new cast members that will play characters from The Last of Us Part II. Most notably, Kaitlyn Dever will play Abby, the co-protagonist of the sequel.
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