The second season of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation is coming this April, and like many, I’ve been hungry for new details of what’s to come. There’s already been a little bit to analyse – for example, Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley and I have already disagreed over the importance of Kaitlyn Dever’s diminutive stature and how much of an impact it will have on her portrayal of Abby Anderson, and our opinions are solely based off of what we’ve seen in trailers. We’re fighting over scraps. It’s not looking good out here.
With the premiere coming in hot, though, we’re now getting new information that reveals even more about what we can expect. To be specific, we’ve gotten a full list of actors coming to the show and the characters they’ll be playing. Renowned character actor Joe Pantoliano will play Eugene, a minor character who’s mentioned briefly in the game. Robert John Burke will play Seth, the game’s homophobic bar owner. Noah Lamanna will play Kat, Ellie’s ex who gave her the tattoo covering her bite scar.
Other actors like Alanna Ubach, Ben Ahlers, and Hettienne Park will be playing characters written for the television adaptation. Ubach will be playing a character named Hanrahan, Ahlers plays Burton, and Park is playing Elise Park. We won’t know who these people are or the roles they play until the second season arrives next month.
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We’ll Be Seeing Plenty Of New Faces
Bill in the back, played by Nick Offerman, and Frank by the piano, played by Murray Bartlett
From this list alone, we can already tell that the show’s second season will be much like the first in how it expanded on smaller, even tangential characters to create compelling stories within the same world.
One of the first season’s best (and most controversial) episodes focused on Bill and Frank. Bill was a minor character in the game, and his romantic relationship with Frank was alluded to but never explicitly stated. The adaptation took this minor plot point and expanded it into an entire episode, giving us a queer love story that was at once moving and tragic.
I expect we’ll see the same in the second season, specifically with Eugene. Eugene is a Jackson resident who’s mentioned by Dina as having died from a stroke at the age of 73, and Dina and Ellie find a bunch of his possessions while taking shelter in an abandoned library. Aside from growing weed in a basement that Ellie and Dina end up smooching in, that’s really the extent of his involvement in the game, though you’ll find other references to him in collectibles.
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The most notable thing about Eugene is that he died of natural causes in a post-apocalyptic world where most people never even get to his age. Considering that an actor as prolific and talented as Pantoliano has been cast, I assume that we’ll be getting an entire episode dedicated to his life and impact on the people in his community, Ellie and Dina included.
The second season will also feature entirely new characters, in the same way the first gave us new characters like Kathleen (played by the excellent Melanie Lynskey) and her crew of revolutionaries, and Marlon and Florence (Graham Greene and Elaine Miles), a Native American couple who live in the wilderness.
The Last Of Us’ Willingness To Experiment Is Its Strength
The original games are already considered to be quite ‘cinematic’, as far as video games go, and its adaptation is at times so faithful that it replicated cutscenes shot for shot. But at the same time, the way that the adaptation adds and amends the source material is part of what’s garnered The Last of Us one of the best video game adaptations ever made to date. It expands the game’s world beyond just its protagonists and supporting characters, making the world feel more fleshed out and alive, and uses its new medium to tell new stories as counterpoints to the existing text.
This is what elevates the show from mere live-action remake to true adaptation – it’s more expansive, more developed, a place where ideas that had to be scoped out of the game can blossom into their own individual stories.
That said, it’s hard to say how and to what extent its new additions will affect the core story, if it does do that at all. For example, Kathleen was introduced as an antagonist quite late in the season, and it’s still unclear if the faction she led will have any impact on the overall story. I expect that if these new characters end up playing major roles and changing the narrative from the one we already know, it’ll end up being an incredibly contentious show. Only time will tell if The Last of Us cements itself as an all-time great video game adaptation or if it goes too far off the beaten path to keep longtime fans happy, but quite frankly, I’m just happy it’s continuing to experiment.
The Last of Us
- First Episode Air Date
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January 15, 2023
- Cast
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Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey
- Where to watch
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HBO Max