The second season of The Last of Us, based on Naughty Dog's video game series, premieres next Sunday. Here's the complete episode release schedule:
- Season 2, Episode 1, "Future Days": April 13, 2025
- Season 2, Episode 2: April 20, 2025
- Season 2, Episode 3: April 27, 2025
- Season 2, Episode 4: May 4, 2025
- Season 2, Episode 5: May 11, 2025
- Season 2, Episode 6: May 18, 2025
- Season 2, Episode 7: May 25, 2025
So far, HBO has only revealed the title for the season 2 premiere: "Future Days," which is also the title of a Pearl Jam song. In The Last of Us Part II video game, Joel plays this song for Ellie:
The timeline of the show is different from the timeline of the games; in the continuity of the TV show, the zombie apocalypse hits before Pearl Jam releases "Future Days" on their album Lightning Bolt in 2013. So Joel may not actually sing the song to Ellie in the show. In that case, the title is more of a wink to fans of the games, although we won't know for sure until episodes start airing.
The first season of The Last of Us aired back in 2023. Last we left off, Joel and Ellie were preparing to settle down in the town of Jackson, Wyoming, which had fortified itself against the zombie hordes and was regrowing civilization. But there's trouble on the horizon: Joel didn't tell Ellie what happened when she was unconscious in the Firefly hospital, when he killed everyone he could to stop the Fireflies from operating her on. A successful operation could have meant creating a cure for the zombie fungus that has destroyed the world. But it also would have killed her. Joel wasn't willing to let that happen to his surrogate daughter, even if it meant putting the entire world at risk. We get the idea that Ellie suspects what happened and has mixed feelings about it.
It all starts next Sunday, April 13. Six more episodes will drop on each Sunday thereafter. That means there's a grand total of seven episodes this season, two fewer than we got in the first season. That's disappointing. They'll just have to be as amazing and epic as possible to make up for it. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have plans for at least one more season beyond that, and possibly more. We'll see how things shake out.
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