Summary
- Season 2 of The Last of Us needs more infected to create a constant threat in the TV show, similar to the intensity of the game.
- The introduction of the Rat King, a challenging infected boss fight from the game, could be the perfect way to address the lack of infected.
- While the Rat King scene would be a cinematic and intense addition, it may be skipped due to high costs and minimal impact on the overall plot.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us Part II.
The Last of Us season 2 has a perfect way to make up for the scarcity of infected in season 1, but the TV showrunners probably won’t go for it. While season 1 was met with near-unanimous praise, one of the biggest complaints was that there weren’t enough encounters with the infected. In the games, the infected are a constant threat, lurking around every corner, but in the TV show, they only showed up a couple of times. In the TV show, the infected don’t seem to be much of an issue, which lessened the impact of the search-for-a-cure storyline.
Co-showrunner Craig Mazin has addressed the infected complaint from season 1 and promised that there will be “a lot more infected” in season 2. From stalkers to shamblers, The Last of Us Part II introduced a handful of new infected variants that it’ll be interesting to see translated to live-action in season 2. There’s one infected variant in particular – the most formidable boss fight in the entire game – that would more than make up for season 1’s lack of infected. But considering the difficulty of bringing that set-piece to the screen (and its minimal story impact), it probably won’t happen.
The Last Of Us Season 2 Needs To Make Up For Season 1's Short Supply Of Infected
It’s imperative for The Last of Us season 2 to make up for season 1’s short supply of infected by making the infected much more of an omnipresent threat. The TV show was never going to include as many infected as the games, because the games need gameplay and it’s a lot easier to copy and paste enemy A.I.s than to dress up extras as clickers, but season 1 pared back the infected’s presence a bit too much. It seemed like infected either showed up in huge hordes or didn’t show up at all – there was no middle ground.
In the games, the player is never too far away from an encounter with infected, and it really hammers home just how deadly this post-apocalyptic wasteland is, and what a miracle it is that anyone can survive at all. In the TV show, the forests are empty, the sewers are empty, and most of the buildings are empty, so it seems a lot easier to survive. The biggest improvement that The Last of Us season 2 could make over season 1 is effectively conveying the ever-increasing threat of the infected.
The Last of Us season 2 is expected to air in 2025.
The Last Of Us Part II's Rat King Scene Would Perfectly Fix Its Infected Problem
The best way for The Last of Us season 2 to make up for season 1’s infected problem would be to adapt Part II’s most intense and stressful encounter: the so-called “Rat King.” While Abby is scouring the hospital basement in search of medical supplies, she’s attacked by a brand-new infected variant. The Rat King is a cluster of stalkers, clickers, and a bloater all fused together by Cordyceps fungus. It’s by far the toughest enemy to beat in the game, requiring an entire arsenal’s worth of ammo to take it down.
This sequence is a boss fight – which serves a function in gameplay and is rarely used in other forms of storytelling – but it’s deeply cinematic. From the reveal of the Rat King illuminated by Abby’s flashlight in the back of the ambulance to its detached super-stalker creeping around in the shadows, the Rat King fight would translate beautifully to a really intense horror set-piece in the TV show. If the Rat King comes crashing onto the airwaves of HBO, then complaints about the series’ scarce infected will soon stop.
Why The Last Of Us TV Show May Skip The Rat King Sequence
While it would undoubtedly be awesome to see the Rat King fight in The Last of Us TV series, the showrunners will probably skip this sequence in their adaptation. It would be a very expensive, FX-heavy scene that ultimately doesn’t do much to advance the plot, so they might decide there’s no point in adapting it. They already skipped most of the biggest action scenes from the first game, like the encounter with the bloater in the school gymnasium and the encounter with the stalkers in the hotel basement.
Although it doesn’t serve much of a story purpose, the Rat King sequence does have a crucial character function. The biggest hurdle for The Last of Us Part II to overcome is getting the audience to empathize with Abby after what she did to Joel. Seeing her survive a scrape with the Rat King goes a long way toward endearing the audience to her character. Since The Last of Us TV show won’t have gameplay to actively endear the audience to Abby, it should take every opportunity possible to make her more likable and sympathetic.
