Footage from this Sunday's season 2 finale of The Last of Us has leaked online, and fans have been reacting to what appears to be at least one significant change to how these events play out in the Naughty Dog video game, The Last of Us Part II.
We're not sure if the entire episode was posted at any point, but the finale was made available early to people who bought the season pass for the show through Apple. The episode - reportedly titled "Convergence" - was quickly removed ahead of the intended May 25 broadcast date, but not before clips began to circulate on social media.
Spoilers follow.
It looks like the finale is going to cover Ellie picking off the rest of Abby's friends (or Owen and Mel, at least) and Abby arriving to the abandoned theater where Ellie, Dina, Jesse and Tommy are holed up to exact her revenge. In the game, Abby kills Jesse and holds her gun on Tommy, forcing Ellie to toss her weapon and face her.
At this point, the narrative shifts to Abby's perspective as we follow her journey from shortly after Joel's murder to the theater stand-off.
The clips we've seen (we won't be sharing them here) play out very similarly, but it looks like Kaitlyn Dever's Abby is going to threaten to kill Jesse, not Tommy, unless Ellie confronts her. There is music playing over the video, however, which might well have been added to disguise an edit to make it look like Tommy wasn't involved in the scene.
Whatever happens in this week's episode, there's no way it will cover the remaining events of the video game, and showrunner Craig Mazin believes a fourth season may be required to complete the story.
“I think there’s a decent chance Season 3 will be longer than Season 2, just because the manner of that narrative and the opportunities it affords us are a little different,” Mazin, who is also a director and writer on the show, told Collider. “The thing about Joel’s death is that it’s so impactful. It’s such a narrative nuclear bomb that it’s hard to wander away from it. We can’t really take a break and move off to the side and do a Bill and Frank story."
“I’m not sure that will be necessarily true for Season 3. I think we’ll have a little more room there. But certainly, 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 likely outcome.”
You can check out some official promo images and clips at the links below.
New cast members for season 2 include Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) as Abby, Young Mazino (Beef) as Jesse, Danny Ramirez (Top Gun: Maverick) as Manny, Ariela Barer (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) as Mel, Tati Gabrielle (You) as Nora, and Spencer Lord (Heartland) as Owen.
The Last of Us is set 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed and centers on the relationship between Joel, a smuggler in this new world, and Ellie, a teenager who may be key to a cure for a deadly pandemic. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle the 14-year-old girl out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey as they traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Season 1's cast also featured Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Anna Torv as Tess, Nico Parker as Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Storm Reid as Riley, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, Elaine Miles as Florence, Ashley Johnson as Anna, and Troy Baker as James.
Filming took place in Vancouver, since a significant part of the story in The Last of Us Part II game is set in the Pacific Northwest.
The Last of Us is written and executive produced by Mazin and Druckmann. Carolyn Strauss, Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Rose Lam also executive produce.
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