The Last of Us was the top trending TV show of 2023

Google has released its annual lists of stuff people were searching for in the past year. As usual, Pedro Pascal had a good year, appearing in two places. First, his HBO series The Last of Us was the top trending TV show of 2023 TV show of 2023. Take a look at the top 10:

1. The Last of Us
2. Wednesday
3. Ginny & Georgia
4. One Piece
5. Kaleidoscope
6. King the Land
7. The Glory
8. That ’90s Show
9. The Fall of the House of Usher
10. Shadow and Bone

The Last of Us is adapted from the Naughty Dog video game series of the same name, where a man named Joel (Pascal) must escort a teenager named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a zombie-ridden United States. It’s long been considered a prestigious video game series and now it’s a prestigious TV show.

Looking at the rest of the list, I’m not surprised to see Wednesday on there, considering how much people were talking about the Netflix show. You couldn’t escape that damn dance for a while. Interestingly, even though the Netflix show The Night Agent was watched more than Wednesday, it appears nowhere on this list, proving that what trends and what gets watched are not necessarily the same things.

Google also released its list of the top trending actors of 2023. Pascal is on that, too, in the number five slot:

1. Jeremy Renner
2. Jenna Ortega
3. 市川 猿之助 (Ichikawa Ennosuke IV)
4. Danny Masterson
5. Pedro Pascal
6. Jamie Foxx
7. Brendan Fraser
8. Russell Brand
9. Kiara Advani
10. Matt Rife

Wednesday star Jenna Ortega takes the number two spot. Number one is Marvel veteran Jeremy Renner, who I’m guessing got a lot of search traffic early this year after getting into a snowplow accident that left him laid up for a long while.

Finally, for good measure, here are the top trending movies of 2023:

1. Barbie
2. Oppenheimer
3. Jawan
4. Sound of Freedom
5. John Wick: Chapter 4
6. Avatar: The Way of Water
7. Everything Everywhere All at Once
8. Gadar 2
9. Creed III
10. Pathaan

No surprise that Barbie and Oppenheimer took the top two slots. Long live Barbenheimer.

Now let’s return to The Last of Us with some potentially SPOILER-TASTIC information:

Kaitlyn Dever reportedly cast as Abby in The Last of Us season 2

The Last of Us season 2 will introduce a new character fans of the games will recognize immediately: Abby, who has a huge role to play in the continuing story of Joel and Ellie.

We won’t spoil anything about Abby’s storyline here, but we will share some rumblings about who’s going to play her. We’ve been hearing for a while that 26-year-old American actor Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, No One Will Save You, Dopesick) was in the running to play her, and the evidence is starting to mount. Both Jeff Sneider and Daniel Richtman, folks known for getting Hollywood scoops, have said as much.

According to Forbes, Dever read for the part of Ellie when HBO was casting season 1, which may be why they reached back out to see if she was interested in the role of Abby. If they did at all! None of this is official yet, but it’s starting to look more likely. If and when HBO announces that Dever has been cast, try and look surprised.

The Last of Us season 2 will premiere sometime in 2025.

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