How Many Seasons Will HBO's The Last Of Us Last?
This post contains spoilers for the first season of "The Last of Us" so far.
Now that it's here, "The Last of Us" seems to be going by all too quickly. The highly-anticipated adaptation of the award-winning Naughty Dog video game is four episodes into its nine-episode first season, and it's quickly burned through a large chunk of the first game's plot. The show has already taken some meaningful detours, like last week's beautiful, shattering reimagining of Frank (Murray Bartlett) and Bill's (Nick Offerman) relationship, but it's mostly moved along at a brisk pace that's stayed true to the heart-pounding game on which it's based.
In a cutscene compilation of the "Last of Us" video game, we'd be nearly halfway through the first game by now, with the introduction of Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Woodard) coming around the midpoint of the story. There's still plenty of heartbreak (and hope!) to come, but "The Last of Us" is moving at a quick clip that makes us wonder just how long we should expect it to, well, last.
The show isn't being billed as a limited series
Based on the screeners available for review and series co-creator Neil Druckmann's previous interviews, we know that the nine-episode first season of "The Last of Us" is set to cover the entire first game in the series, plus (as shown in the trailer) the plot from the downloadable add-on, "The Last of Us: Left Behind." This means that, by the time viewers say goodbye to Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) this spring, there will only be one more "The Last of Us" game that has not been adapted to screen — 2020's "The Last of Us: Part II."
While some elements of the sequel game divided fans, and the first game has what many (myself included) consider a perfect ending, it seems unlikely that HBO would stop this big-budget, buzzed-about series after just one go-round. A second season is a no-brainer, and not just because the cast and crew of the series and the network itself referred to these nine episodes as the show's "first season" in the first press days. Official press releases also use the same language, which made it pretty obvious that, long before the official renewal, that the show is planned as a multi-season story.
Druckmann has an outline for a story beyond Part II
So how many seasons should we expect "The Last of Us" to last? Well, it's hard to say. Two is the obvious answer, as a second season could cover the events of "The Last of Us: Part II," but there's also evidence it could go on even longer than that. In a 2021 appearance on the Script Apart podcast (via GameRant), game creator and series co-creator Druckmann revealed that he and second game co-writer Halley Gross put together a story for an outline "that we're not making."
The storyline sounds like a plot that could be "The Last of Us: Part III," but Druckmann is careful to note that the game isn't in the making. He says he hopes the storyline "one day can see the light of day," and notes that it "explores a little bit of what happens after" the second full installment in the franchise. Unconfirmed rumors about a third game have been rampant, but could the outline also serve as a foundation for a third season of the HBO series?
This is, of course, speculation, but the series has already proven it's able to successfully expand upon the world of "The Last of Us" in a way that is additive and compelling. Plus, Druckmann has already talked a bit about the potential for a third game — and the high standards he has for any future storyline — in this spoiler-filled interview with IndieWire. "To justify making a 'Part II' we had to do something not that fans would just be comfortable with, but do something that would match the emotional core we found in the first game," he tells the outlet. He reasons, "Without that, there'd be no reason to do a 'Part III.'"
HBO has been making unpredictable moves lately
When all is said and done, there's one more unfortunate reality to consider when it comes to guessing at the shelf life for "The Last of Us": money. HBO's parent company, Warner Media, infamously merged with Discovery, Inc last year in a consolidation of media power that has already had an industry-wide impact. As of October, the company had a plan to cut costs in TV and film of up to $2 billion, and we've already seen that plan play out with pretty ruthless moves including an ongoing overhaul of the DC universe, the gutting of the company's animation section, and the unceremonious removal of titles that aren't available on home media from the HBO Max catalog.
Some big-name projects have been caught in the crossfire during this painful transition period, with "Westworld" and "Batgirl" canceled in 2022, along with shows like the already-renewed "Minx" and nearly every scripted series on TBS and TNT. All of this is to say that even a series that seems like as sure a bet as "The Last of Us" doesn't have a guaranteed future in the money-driven and currently rocky streaming landscape. But the series clearly has a major fanbase, and the talent behind it to warrant future seasons. Druckmann and series co-creator Craig Mazin seem to be putting an enormous amount of thought into making this adaptation count, so hopefully, the series lasts exactly as long as it needs to in order to tell the best story it can.
New episodes of "The Last of Us" air on HBO and HBO Max on Sundays.