This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part 2 and season two of The Last of Us TV show.
Summary
The Last of Usseason two wraps up next week, and it will probably be a while before we see anything of season three. There’s a silver lining for those who don’t want the show to end, though. Writer Craig Mazin has admitted they’re not going to be able to finish tellingThe Last of Us Part 2’s story in a third season.
Speaking with Collider, Mazin noted, “There’s a decent chance that season three will be longer than season two.” Unsurprising as, at just seven episodes, season two is quite a bit shorter than the first season, even though Part 2 is considerably longer than the first game. Part 2 was always going to span at least two seasons, though, and now Mazin thinks it’s going to take three seasons to do the sequel justice.
“There’s no way to complete this narrative in a third season. Hopefully, we’ll earn our keep enough to come back and finish it in a fourth. That’s the most likely outcome,” Mazin said. Between the show’s popularity and the need to complete a story that has already been laid out in video game form, it seems unlikely HBO would cut Mazin and his fellow writer, Neil Druckmann, off at three seasons if they have more story to tell.
The Last Of Us Season Two Is Almost Over
But Looks Like We’ve Got At Least Two More Season To Come
Mazin partly pins the blame on taking a while to tell Part 2’s story on Joel’s Death. “It’s such a narrative nuclear bomb that it’s hard to wander away from it,” Mazin explains, meaning he and Druckmann haven’t had the opportunities they took in season three to wander off the main narrative’s path and tell some side stories. The Chernobyl writer points to the fantastic Bill and Frank episode in season one as something they’d like to do more of when they don’t have a lead character’s death to build an entire season around.
Mazin closed by assuring fans who haven’t played Part 2 that the WLF and Seraphites' stories will be told. If you have played the sequel, you know more about the factions warring in Seattle. It seems likely that season two will end with the theater lobby standoff between Ellie and Abby, a brutal scene that ends the first big section of the game and starts the next one.
If that’s what we get, and the show continues to closely follow the game, which seems likely, season three will focus largely on Abby, and therefore the WLF and the Seraphites. As for how many seasons this show will run, there’s a future where The Last of Us Part 3 exists for Mazin and Druckmann to adapt. The latter admittedthere’s a second game in development at Naughty Dogright now alongsideIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Druckmann doesn’t appear to be as involved with it as he usually is, which means it’s unlikely to be a Part 3, but you never know.
