Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.The recently released teaser trailer for The Last of Us season 2 has a few exciting sequences that are practically shot-for-shot recreations of iconic moments from the video game. The Last of Us season 2 will begin to tackle the massive nonlinear narrative of The Last of Us Part II, and based on the scenes shown in the trailer, it’s shaping up to be a pretty faithful adaptation. All those theories about season 2 padding out the story with filler have been invalidated by a trailer full of scenes ripped straight from the game.
There are plenty of moments in The Last of Us season 2 trailer that aren’t in the game and have been created just for the show. Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby seems to be mourning at her dad’s grave, suggesting the series will explore more of her grieving process. There’s a massive horde of infected — or possibly even hostile survivors — seen heading towards Jackson, which is a drastic deviation from the game. But there are some scenes taken directly from the game, like Ellie and Dina’s supermarket patrol and Joel and Ellie’s heartbreaking scene on the porch.
7 Joel Gives Ellie Her Guitar
The Last Of Us Season 2 Is Adapting Part II's Touching Opening Scene
Early on in the trailer for The Last of Us season 2, Joel is seen picking up a guitar with a familiar moth emblem on the neck and gifting it to Ellie. The opening scene of The Last of Us Part II sees Joel picking up a guitar to give to Ellie, then dropping it off in her little guest house in his backyard so he can teach her how to play, just like he promised in the first game. The Last of Us season 2 seems to be adapting this touching scene directly.
The game’s four-year time jump skips past all their guitar lessons to a 19-year-old Ellie as a master guitarist, but some of the clips in this trailer suggest a couple of those lessons will be shown on-screen. The use of Pearl Jam’s “Future Days” on the trailer’s soundtrack also suggests the show will feature the same song that Joel played for Ellie in the game. Although the song was released long after the TV show’s new outbreak day, it’s so thematically perfect to symbolize their relationship — and it’s so key to the game — that hopefully, they’ll just use it anyway.
6 Ellie & Dina's Supermarket Patrol
Ellie & Dina's Early Bonding Moments Will Be In The TV Show
Ellie’s first action sequence in the game sees her heading out on patrol with her love interest Dina played by Isabela Merced in the TV show. After signing in at the lookout, they scope out a supermarket that turns out to be full of infected, then get caught in a blizzard and have to take shelter in a library. The Last of Us season 2 trailer confirms that the TV show is adapting this stretch of the story. Ellie and Dina are seen riding through the blizzard, and Ellie is seen being ominously approached by an infected in the supermarket.
The supermarket setting was already confirmed to be in the TV show, because a supermarket set dressed up as Greenplace Market was spotted on location and the first-look image of Ellie saw Bella Ramsey in a supermarket, rifle in hand. But it was unclear if the TV show was just borrowing the setting or adapting the whole sequence. Now that a full trailer has arrived, it seems the series is copying the entire supermarket scene, infected encounter and all. However, to save time, it might skip the trip to the library and have Ellie and Dina camp at the supermarket.
5 Joel & Tommy Save Abby From A Horde
The Last Of Us Season 2 Will Set Up THAT Scene In The Same Tragic Way
About midway through the trailer, as Abby is sneaking past a chain-link fence, a horde of infected bears down on the fence. The fence breaks and Abby is pinned underneath it. As Abby tries to crawl through, an infected gets past the fence and attacks her. Just before it can bite her, a handgun comes into frame to shoot it in the head. This is a near-shot-for-shot remake of one of the most intense sequences from the game. As Abby is chased by the horde, she’s saved at the last second by Joel and Tommy.
This makes The Last of Us Part II’s most heartbreaking scene — Joel’s brutal murder — even more heartbreaking. If Joel and Tommy had just left Abby to die, they would’ve been fine. But Joel sees his own daughter in Abby, and his protective streak kicks in. Little does he know, the woman he just rescued has been pursuing revenge against him for four years, and she’s planning to kill him in the most gruesome way imaginable. This sets up that shocking reveal brilliantly, so it’s a good sign that the TV adaptation is keeping it in.
4 Ellie Plays "Take On Me" For Dina
One Of The Game's Most Heartfelt Moments Made The TV Adaptation
One of the most heartfelt scenes in the game sees Ellie playing a beautiful acoustic cover of a-ha’s “Take on Me” for Dina. When Ellie and Dina first arrive in the Seattle Q.Z. and search the downtown area for the gasoline they need to open a checkpoint gate, there’s an abandoned music store to check out. Here, Ellie finds an intact guitar and plays the same song she played for Dina at a campfire when they were still denying their feelings for each other. It’s the first confirmation players get that Joel did successfully teach Ellie how to play guitar.
Since it requires the player to go off-course and explore the open-world environment, this sequence is easy to miss in the video game. But TV viewers won’t be missing it, because the showrunners have put this scene front and center in season 2. It’s framed the exact same way it’s framed in the game, with Dina sitting on the floor, looking up at her girlfriend with deep affection, and gorgeous soft light coming in from a big single-pane window behind Ellie. This scene is perfect in the game, so it makes sense the TV producers wouldn’t change a thing.
3 Isaac Tortures A Seraphite
The Torture Scene Looks Even More Brutal In The TV Show
Early in Abby’s section of the game, she stops by the F.O.B. for a meeting with Isaac, the ruthless leader of the W.L.F., and he’s introduced in the most horrifying way imaginable: coldly torturing a naked, bloodied Seraphite. The season 2 trailer shows this scene in all its unsettling glory. Jeffrey Wright is reprising his role as Isaac from the video game, and he looks to be just as intimidating in live-action.
Set leaks showing scenes from all three of Ellie’s Seattle days and none from Abby’s days seemed to suggest that the TV show would follow a similar structure to the game, with season 2 showing Ellie’s whole story and Abby’s being saved for season 3. But Isaac’s haunting torture scene takes place during Abby’s Day 1 adventures, so season 2 will at least cover the early scenes from Abby’s storyline. Abby isn’t shown in this brief snippet of the scene, so the torture imagery might’ve been repurposed as part of Isaac’s backstory.
2 Ellie & Dina Get Stuck In A Subway Station Full Of Infected
The Last Of Us Season 2 Seems To Have A Lot More Infected Than Season 1
After Ellie and Dina have collected Polaroid photos of Abby and the rest of the Salt Lake crew from the TV station, the W.L.F.’s troops chase them into an underground tunnel, and they end up trapped in a collapsed subway station full of infected. Here, they’re introduced to a whole new type of infected: shamblers. In the season 2 trailer, Ellie and Dina are seen running through a subway station and infected are seen swarming a train car. It even has the same ominous red lighting that makes the sequence so terrifying in the game.
Between the supermarket encounter, the horde that attacks Abby, and this frightening subway sequence, The Last of Us season 2 seems to be all-in on rectifying the complaints that season 1 didn’t have enough infected action. Co-showrunner Craig Mazin had already promised that season 2 would have more infected and the trailer confirms he’s kept that promise. This subway sequence culminates in Ellie’s immunity being revealed to Dina when her gas mask breaks, but since the TV series has done away with spores, it’ll have to come up with a different way to reveal Ellie’s immunity.
1 Ellie Talks To Joel On His Porch
The Last Of Us Season 2 Might Be Moving Up The Porch Scene From The Ending
Perhaps most interestingly, The Last of Us season 2 trailer teases the scene in which Ellie comes to talk to Joel on his porch. In the game, this scene doesn’t appear until the very end. After Ellie’s entire journey is over, and she’s lost everything in the futile pursuit of revenge, she remembers her final conversation with Joel. She told him she didn’t think she could forgive him for pulling her out of the Fireflies’ hospital and costing humanity a cure, but she would like to try.
This scene recontextualizes the entire story that just played out. Ellie was so desperate to avenge Joel because she never got closure. She’d started to make amends with him, but she never got to make up for all that lost time. The Last of Us season 2 isn’t covering the whole of Part II, so the TV show might be moving this scene up to the middle of the story. The trailer doesn’t show any of their actual conversation — it just shows Joel playing guitar on his porch and Ellie approaching — so season 2 might not show the whole scene.
