The Last of Us season 2: Bella Ramsey says this season will be darker than the first

The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey says season 2 of the video game-inspired series will be darker than the first season.

Bella Ramsey, star of the HBO TV series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us (read our review HERE) recently gave fans a heads-up that The Last of Us season 2 is still off in the far distance – and HBO has since confirmed that they don’t expect to start airing the new episodes until 2025. While we wait, Ramsey has done an interview with Vanity Fair – and this time the Ellie actor said viewers can expect season 2 to be darker than the first season!

Ramsey told Vanity Fair, “It’s darker. It’s really a story about revenge, and a continuation from the first season about the dangers of unconditional love.” The article also mentions that filming on The Last of Us season 2 could begin “as soon as the end of this year” – but at this point it depends on how long the writers strike is going to last, and when the show’s writers will be able to get back to work.

The story of the The Last of Us video game is set years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for. 

Pedro Pascal plays Joel, who is “tormented by past trauma and failure. He must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity”. He is joined in the cast by Bella Ramsey as Ellie, “a 14-year-old orphan who has never known anything but a ravaged planet and who struggles to balance her instinct for anger and defiance with her need for connection and belonging… as well as the newfound reality that she may be the key to saving the world”; Anna Torv as Tess, “a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world”; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world”; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, “the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime”; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, “a rebel in a quarantine zone”; Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as Bill and Frank, “two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town”; and Storm Reid as Ellie’s best friend Riley.

Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who did the motion-capture performances for Joel and Ellie in the video game, are also in the cast of the show. Baker plays James, “a senior member of a group of settlers who must fight to keep their community alive in the face of increasingly brutal odds.” Baker also hosts a podcast that serves as a companion to the TV series. Johnson’s character is Anna, “a pregnant woman, alone and on the run, who must give birth under the most terrifying of circumstances.”

The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann serve as executive producers alongside Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions.

Are you looking forward to The Last of Us season 2? What do you think of the fact that the next batch of episodes will be darker than what came before? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.