The Last of Us co-creator on why we all feel so protective of Ellie

The Last of Us S2, one of the most anticipated series of 2025, screens on M-Net and Showmax on Mondays from 14 April. 

Last year, the post-apocalyptic series won seven Critics Choice Super Awards, including Best Horror and Best Superhero Series, as well as Best Actor (Pedro Pascal) and Actress (Bella Ramsey). The HBO show also collected eight Emmys and is one of IMDb’s highest-rated series of all time. 

The Last of Us has been widely hailed as the best video game adaptation of all time. Emmy winner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), the show’s co-creator, executive producer, writer and director, believes many previous game adaptations failed because “the people adapting it didn’t love the game.”

That’s clearly not the case here. “Until I first played the game about 11 years ago, I’d never felt that kind of connection,” he gushes. “It was so expertly crafted; even in the gameplay, it was always pushing you towards this feeling that you had for this kid; a parental thing. And then to switch perspective and put you in Ellie’s shoes … you feel an entirely different kind of fear and hope. And then the ending is heartbreaking. I’ve been playing video games since the Atari 2600 but I’d never felt anything like that.”

That parental protectiveness that both Joel and the audience feel for Ellie is key to the success of the series too. “We watched Ellie grow up. We’ve even shown Ellie being born. We are properly fascinated by her because she’s so many of the things that I would hope to be if the world were like that; but there are also parts of her that are dark and dangerous,” says Craig. “This is not a finished person. It’s like when we meet Luke Skywalker: he’s a young adult on the cusp of either being this or that. And so is Ellie. When you take characters like that and you put enormous pressure on them, and the world punishes them, especially punishes them when they do the right thing, when they open themselves up and create vulnerability, will they retract? Will they regress? Will they just drift towards their darkest impulses? Or will they somehow figure out how to evolve and become the person that we would want to be and we hope they will get the chance to be? Then that’s everything to us.”

“The first season – and the first game – was really an exploration of love, the light and the dark sides of it, what the selflessness of it could lead to; how much you’re willing to sacrifice of yourself to protect someone you love; how in the spirit of trying to protect someone you love, you’re willing to commit really horrible, violent acts,” says game co-creator Neil Druckmann, who also serves as co-creator, executive producer, writer and director on the series. “It was an exploration of the unconditional love that almost every parent knows the moment they hold their child in their hands; that you’d go to the ends of the earth to protect your kid.”

“By the end of Season 1, Joel is willing to sacrifice all of humanity to protect Ellie,” says Neil. “And not only that, he’s willing to put his relationship with Ellie on the line and lie to her about it in order to protect her. We end Season 1 on that lie, and we see that Ellie is accepting it— but we know how intelligent she is, too.”

Season 2 picks up five years after the events of the first season, as Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind. 

“Five years have gone by, which in and of itself implies that things must have been going pretty well,” says Craig. “They’re still alive.”

“They have settled in Jackson,”  says Neil. “They get to live as good of a life as exists in this world, post-apocalypse and pandemic. But there’s some tension between them.”

“Ellie’s become hardened since we saw her at the end of Season 1,” says Bella, who you’ll also recognise as Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones and, if you have kids, as the voice of Hilda. “She definitely has more of a cage around her heart. She’s older; she’s 19 – not 14. So much growing up happens over those years. She’s establishing herself as an adult in a community and she’s not used to being in a community. And I think she has been learning how to do that. She’s definitely in a different headspace – and with Joel, most noticeably.”

“Whatever positive relationship they’ve had is now clearly strained,” says Craig. “Joel is going to therapy to figure out how to deal with what he thinks – or I should say, what he hopes – is a standard, ‘I’ve got a 19-year-old kid who’s wanting independence, turning away and rejecting Dad.”

Bella says she could easily relate to that part of the rift. “When I was shooting Season 1, I was 17-18, but still a child in many ways. I was 20-21 when filming Season 2; I became an adult over that time. So yes, there are many ways in which I relate to Ellie’s need for independence, autonomy and to have the people around her trust that she can hold her own.”

One of the key new characters this season is Joel’s therapist, Gail, played by Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara (Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek). “Her point is, ‘No, I don’t believe that is what’s going on,’” says Craig. “And you can see that inside Joel, there is this suspicion that somehow, it is this flaw that he introduced into their relationship; this lie that maybe is starting to be the problem. Ellie’s relationship with Joel has taken an interesting turn and we’re not quite sure how or why. And we will find out.

There is a mystery at the heart of it.”

Other new cast members this season include Oscar nominee Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction), Emmy nominees Kaitlyn Dever (Unbelievable) and Young Mazino (Beef), and Ariela Barer, Danny Ramirez, Isabela Merced and Tati Gabrielle, four of IMDb’s Top Stars to Watch in 2025.

The Last of Us Season 2 premieres on M-Net (DStv Channel 101) at 21:00 on 14 April 2025, with new episodes on Mondays, express from the US. It’s also available to stream on Showmax.

Watch the trailer, which has over 25m views

While you wait, re-watch The Last of Us Season 1 on Showmax.