After the smashing success of The Last of Us Season 2, it only makes sense that HBO has decided to renew the popular science fiction show for a third season. But who exactly will be returning from the cast and what will the plot follow? We have all the details below, including whether Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will be returning.
What to know about ‘The Last of Us’ Season 3
Season 3 of The Last of Us was actually confirmed before HBO released the second season back in April, showing just how popular it is.
“It can’t be overemphasized how proud HBO is for the outstanding achievement we believe the second season of The Last of Us is,” Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, Head of HBO Drama Series and Films, said in a press release obtained by Woman’s World. “Craig [Mazin]. Neil [Druckmann], Carolyn [Strauss] and the entire executive producer team, cast and crew have delivered a masterful follow-up and we’re thrilled to carry the power of Craig and Neil’s storytelling into what we know will be an equally moving and extraordinary third season.”
The second season of the show, of course, ended on a massive cliffhanger, after viewers saw Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) shoot Ellie (Ramsey), intending to kill her. They are then left to try and figure out whether Ellie is alive or dead. But in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mazin said, “Abby is the hero of her story.”
“Wherever we go next, we’ll always be centering on somebody, whether it’s Ellie and Dina [Shannon Woodward] or Abby and Owen [Spencer Lord]. But everything is under the cloud or sunlight of Joel [Pascal]—what Joel did to Abby and what Abby did to Joel.”
In that same interview. Mazin also said that just because Pascal’s character, Joel, died in Season 2, it doesn’t mean he won’t be in Season 3.
“Next season we probably will have a lot more flexibility [to tell side stories],” the executive producer said. “Maybe a side trip to do Joel and Tommy [Gabriel Luna] terrorizing the countryside we’ll never know.”
Will there be a Season 4 of ‘The Last of Us’?
As of publication, there is no news on whether there will be a fourth season of The Last of Us, but in June, Mazin said that they do have the idea for it potentially planned out, thanks to the fact that there are two installments in the video game that it’s based off of.
“We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1, too,” he told Deadline. “We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that, as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television, Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4.”
“The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons,” he continued. “When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out [in Season 2], the national breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes.”
When will Season 3 of ‘The Last of Us’ be released?
Currently, there is no news on when Season 3 of The Last of Us will be available, especially since it’s believed that HBO hasn’t even started filming it yet.
Based on the fact that there was a two-year gap between Season 1 and 2, though, it will most likely be the same for the upcoming one as well.
