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The Last of Us' first season has concluded and has received critical acclaim from both critics and audiences for its story, performances, characterization, visuals, background scores, and cinematography. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a certified fresh critic score of 96% and an audience score of 89%.
In January 2023, the series was renewed for a second season after HBO Max viewership in the United States for the show crossed over 22 million. The Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have revealed in an interview with IGN that the second season will follow the franchise's second game, The Last of Us Part II.
With the show's second season adapting the second installment of the franchise, fans are naturally cautious as the installment had become very divisive and controversial for killing off Joel via the game's new character Abby two hours into the story. Pedro Pascal has recently revealed whether Joel will die in the upcoming second season of the show.
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Pedro Pascal says he is not "emotionally ready" for Joel's death in The Last of Us season 2
In a recent interview with Esquire, when asked whether Joel would die in the second season of The Last of Us, the Mandalorian star revealed that if it was to happen, he was not ready for it emotionally. He said:
"If that does take place in the show, I don’t know that I’m emotionally ready for it."
In an earlier interview with Esquire, Pascal confirmed that he had not played both parts of the game and had not seen Joel's death in the second game. He had said that it would not make sense for the second season of The Last of Us to stray away from The Last of Us Part II after the first season had faithfully followed the first game.
Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie in the show, added in the same interview that she doesn't know if she is emotionally ready for Joel's death.
Series showrunner and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin told Esquire that he "does not fear killing characters" and that he and co-creator Neil Druckmann "were not constrained" by the limits of the source material.
Mazin's statement of not fearing killing characters lends credence to the possibility that Joel might die in the second season. However, Mazin's other statement of not being constrained by the source material gives fans at least some hope that Joel's fate could have a slight change.
The Last of Us season 2 will not be exactly like the game
As of now, it remains to be seen whether or not Pedro Pascal's Joel will meet the same fate as his video game counterpart. However, if the second season were to adapt the second game more closely and include all the major plot points, then fans can certainly expect Joel's death.
Craig Mazin, the showrunner, in an interview with Deadline, however, revealed that the second season would not be "exactly like the game" and would be the show that he and Druckmann wanted to make along with Bella Ramsey. He said:
"It will be different just as this season was different. Sometimes it will be different radically, and sometimes it will be fairly different. It won’t be exactly like the game. It will be the show that Neil and I wanna make. But we are making it with Bella."
Mazin also revealed to Deadline that he had great beats of anxiety when it came to adapting the second game and stated his desire to do a very good job on the upcoming season.
Craig Mazin later told Collider that he and Neil Druckmann would be adapting the second game's story in the way they saw fit:
"Anytime you talk about Abby, you start to excite certain corners of the internet. All I can say is that Neil and I will be adapting the story to television, as best we see fit. It seems likely that main characters that are crucial to the storyline would be portrayed, but no, right now, it’s too early for me to commit to anything in print, let’s put it that way."
As per The Direct, the second season of The Last of Us is set to be filmed in Vancouver, with no production timeline made yet. However, the outlet also claims that the second season could begin filming at the end of 2023, with a release in 2024 or 2025 at the earliest.
All nine episodes of The Last of Us' first season are currently streaming on HBO Max.
