"The Last of Us" season two ended with a bang, as Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) finally came face-to-face for a moment in the last episode.
The second season pulled on heartstrings with gut-wrenching moments, chief among them Joel's (Pedro Pascal) death in episode two. But the series' exploration of grief and love has been just as emotional as the brutal violence that Ellie was forced to watch, and the season finale doubles down on it all.
The finale sees Ellie and Jesse (Young Mazino) head to Seattle to try to find Tommy (Gabriel Luna). They even hear on the radio that he uses a sniper rifle to murder numerous members of the Washington Liberation Front. But after the pair disagree about getting revenge on Abby, Ellie decides to go it alone and follow Abby's group to the Seattle aquarium.
After a brief detour and a clash with the Seraphites, Ellie eventually finds her way there and kills Abby's ally Owen (Spencer Lord) almost immediately. But Ellie is forced to reckon with the consequences of her actions when she realizes that she accidentally shot the heavily pregnant Mel (Ariela Barer) too, who begs her to perform an emergency C-section but dies seconds later.
It puts Ellie's revenge tour into perspective, as Tommy and Jesse bring Abby back to the Seattle hotel. When they arrive, Tommy questions whether Ellie can make peace with Abby's survival, and she replies, "I guess I'll have to."
However, shortly after, Ellie and Jesse hear Tommy shouting, and they rush to find out what's going on. As soon as Jesse bursts through the door, Abby shoots him in the head, killing him, while Tommy lies injured on the floor.
Abby tells Ellie, "I let you live, and you wasted it," before shooting at her — and it cuts to black. It's a much bigger cliffhanger than the end of the first season, albeit those who played the game will be expecting it, and it's a faithful adaptation of that moment in the games.
Still, the way it's executed will definitely get audiences tuning in when "The Last of Us" season three eventually arrives.
However, the final scene suggests that the HBO series will switch things up when it returns.
"The Last of Us" season 2 ending is faithful to the game.
After the brief stand-off in the theater, the episode cuts away to Abby taking a nap on a couch. As she wakes up and walks around the WLF base, it becomes clear that she's staying in the Seattle SoundView stadium, another location from the game.
A line of text reads: "Day One," similar to the way the show has dated Ellie and Dinah's (Isabela Merced) journey through Seattle.
This heavily implies that "The Last of Us" season three will switch perspectives to show audiences Abby's journey after killing Joel, in the same way that the game shows players her side of the story. In the game, this ultimately changes the player's perception of the character and the decisions she's made.
HBO has already greenlit "The Last of Us" season three.
Fans eagerly awaiting "The Last of Us" season three will be glad to know that HBO greenlit the show's return before season two was released in April 2025.
Most of the season two cast is likely to return for the next batch of episodes, so expect Ramsey, Dever, Luna, and Merced to reprise their roles.
The next season does not have a confirmed release date, but if season three follows the same pattern of a two-year gap between seasons one and two, it could return in early 2027.
Co-creator Neil Druckmann left "The Last of Us" ahead of season three.
On July 2, Neil Druckmann, the co-creator of both the original game and the TV show, announced on Instagram that he's leaving the HBO series before work starts on the third season.
He wrote: "I've made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in 'The Last of Us' on HBO.
"With work completed on season 2 and before any meaningful work starts on season 3, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects," he said before adding that he's going to focus on the studio's next game.
Druckmann described working on the TV show as a career highlight and praised the showrunner. "It's been an honor to work alongside Craig Mazin to executive produce, direct, and write on the last two seasons," he said.
Executive producer and writer Halley Gross has also left the series and praised the work of the producers and the cast in a statement on Instagram.
"The stories we told — about love, loss, and what it means to be human in a terrifying world — are exactly why I love this franchise," she said.
Representatives for HBO did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
