The first season of 2023’sThe Last of Us, fashioned by wonderful auteur Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (who created the namesake video game a decade earlier), was a revelation (see my review). Who would believe a dystopian video game based on the cliche of zombies threatening to take over the world might work at the character level? Yet it did, proving to be a visceral, nuanced narrative following Joel, a grizzly zombie-war veteran, and Ellie, a fourteen-year-old holding a secret hope for humanity. Now Season 2 of the series is upon us and it is a stunner. It kicks off five years after the dramatic closer of Season 1, with Joel and Ellie embedded in a walled city survivalist community in the snow of Wyoming, guarding against the hordes of zombies outside the walls. Joel is worn down and hesitant in his kind-of-fathering role with Ellie, while Ellie is a troubled near-adult, rebellious as heck. In these two pivotal roles, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are sublime. Two new main characters enter the fray as action segues between the zombies and human conflicts: Kaitlyn Dever as a vengeful northerner and Isabela Merced as Ellie’s best friend; both portrayals are excellent. As ever, Mazin’s byzantine and stunning plot twists and devious time flits work perfectly,, the action scenes are fearsome, and the cinematography is lush or claustrophobic (where is the zombie?) as needed. Season 2 of The Last of Us, seven episodes long, is a highlight of this reviewer’s 2025 viewing.
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