After more than two years, The Last of Us is back for its sophomore season. This season is set to adapt half of Naughty Dog’s 2020 game The Last of Us Part II. This is a much steeper task than the first round, considering the game’s complex revenge plot, changing player character perspectives, and the sheer size of Part II. As the TLOU universe unfolds further on screen, more departures from the source material are expected than preservations. So, we are going to break down the biggest moments and elements from the games that The Last of Us season two adapts from the games.
Jump to: Episode 1 // Episode 2 // Episode 3 // Episode 4 // Episode 5 // Episode 6
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 1, “Future Days”
The Introduction of Abby
In “Future Days,” The Last of Us season two honors the cinematic nature of the second game. But it crafts its own legacy, with certain scenes and sequences occurring at different points. The first scene opens with Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) mourning her father in front of a set of graves alongside her former Firefly peers. This scene takes place in the open field near St. Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. This is a familiar setting to those who remember the season 1 finale.
But one may recall that this scene never takes place in the game. There, we met Abby with her WLF comrades after their arrival in Jackson. The show does not waste any precious time before throwing viewers in the deep end to meet the antagonist. (Or, she’s the second protagonist, depending on how you approach the material). However, in the series, her motives are immediately clear: she will avenge her father.
Ellie & Dina’s Love Story
The lifeline of the second game, amid the tragedy, is the burgeoning romance between Ellie and Dina. Thankfully, the series shows this in spades. The seeds of this arc stem from as early as season 1 episode 6 “Kin,” in which Ellie notices a girl matching Dina’s physical characteristics in the Jackson canteen. The girl is staring at her, and subsequently screams, “What?” to scare her off.
In this episode, many of Ellie and Dina’s scenes from early in the second game get such stunning visual accuracy. They include the patrol on horseback in the snowstorm and cleaning out the abandoned supermarket of infected. Most importantly, there’s the Jackson dance. In the show, this scene gets a rewrite to be the 2029 New Years Eve Party.
Watching the dance scene side-by-side with its video game counterpart underscores the show’s commitment to preserving what is a truly special moment. It is forever in the minds of longtime fans. We see this down to the fairy lights strung throughout the hall, the exact music playing, and the iconic line that Isabella Merced’s Dina richly delivers: “Oh Ellie, I think they should be terrified of you,” followed by their first kiss.
Just as in the game, Seth, the owner of the Tipsy Bison, lances a slur at Ellie and Dina. However, Joel’s response changes in the show: instead of an aggressive shove, Joel bodies Seth, punching him in the face—a cinematic victory.
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 2, “Through the Valley”
Jesse and Ellie on Patrol
While Ellie’s story in the The Last of Us—Part II game begins the morning after the Jackson dance, this The Last of Us scene comes in Episode 2. Much like in the game, Jesse wakes Ellie with a knock at the door of the garage found on Joel’s property, and the scene plays out almost exactly as it does in the The Last of Us—Part II, but this time, Ellie’s going on patrol with Jesse instead of Dina. As viewers, we learn this is due to the fact that Dina already left on patrol with Joel, which further shuffles the characters who are involved in key scenes that follow. In The Last of Us—Part II game, it’s Tommy who goes on patrol with Joel that day, versus, as mentioned Dina in the series.
While on patrol, Ellie and Jesse come across Eugene’s abandoned marijuana greenhouse which also exists in The Last of Us game, but in the series, it is housed within a disused 7-Eleven in place of the library basement. Despite the change, the setting looks very much the same: marijuana leaves hang from the ceilings, dried out and browning on the edges, belongings scattered on a green futon. In The Last of Us—Part II game, Ellie discovers this locale with Dina, and they have a love scene; this is marked as a “calm before the storm” in the game, but there is not as much levity in the show, with an eeriness permeating the entire patrol. Ellie is more inundated by the weight of Joel’s actions with the Fireflies, she carries much more grief on her shoulders; this is made evident when she comes across Eugene’s firefly pendant, as she and Jesse discuss his death in The Last of Us series. “That was a raw deal, Joel having to put him down […] What are you going to do? Couldn’t be saved.” Eugene says. This line suggests that Joel killed Eugene because he had been infected, that it was not out of malice but of obligation, tying back to Gail’s previous conversation with Joel.
WLF
On a mountain top overlooking the city of Jackson, we are reintroduced to members of the Fireflies-turned-WLF: Abby, Owen, Mel, Manny, and Nora. These The Last of Us scenes play out very similarly to how they do in The Last of Us—Part II game, but with more of a preamble, as Abby has already made her intentions clear as of the first episode: she is going to kill Joel. These scenes feel more lived-in than they do in the game, as the team tries to push through in the biting cold and snow, and fear that their operation will fail due to how developed Jackson is below; Abby’s confidence also wavers more on the show than it does in The Last of Us game—her grief feels more real.
The Last of Joel a.k.a. Joel’s Death Scene on The Last of Us
On patrol with Dina, Joel comes across swarms of infected, and naturally, they offer help to the girl trying to fend the massive attack off. This girl is later revealed to be Abby back at the cottage, where she takes Joel and Dina (instead of Joel and Tommy), and this looks all too familiar to The Last of Us—Part II game.
In the series, Abby, Joel, and Dina ride up to the gates on horseback, approaching the WLF members who are armed and ready to defend themselves against any intruders. At this point in The Last of Us show’s second episode, Abby has not shown her hand yet; she brings Dina and Joel in to the cottage to warm up and treat Dina’s frostbite, and she doesn’t give her fellow comrades any indication that the man in their presence is anything more than the person who saved her from hordes of infected, which stays true to the game. She even urges Owen to “help them too,” after he wraps a blanket around her.
However, as soon as she introduces Joel and Dina to her comrades, they spring into action—Dina is anesthetized, and Joel is shot in the knee. While this scene from The Last of Us series is very similar to that in The Last of Us—Part II game, it plays out with heavier emotions. Abby makes her motives clear in the series immediately, which happens much later in the game: she’s there to avenge her father, the Firefly surgeon whom Joel murdered to save Ellie’s life.
“An unarmed doctor you shot in the head. Yeah, that was my dad.” The violence, though graphic, is not much of a departure from the game, and the golf clubs are present in both. Ellie’s reaction is a change from the game, though, as she clings to Joel’s dead body while the others clear out in The Last of Us series. The connection between father and daughter is clearer in this scene now more than ever. It’s painful to see Joel, on the brink of death, try to lift his head to see Ellie.
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 3, “The Path”
The Decision for Revenge After Joel’s Death
In the game, the timing of events works out differently than in the show; Joel is killed, then a few days later, Ellie makes the decision to go to Seattle with Dina, but Tommy beats her to it and leaves a note for Maria to hold Ellie back. In the series, three months go by as Ellie heals from her injuries in the medical unit of Jackson.
Jackson is a much more developed settlement than in the game, with proper governance and infrastructure. More than that, given the recent attack on the fortress by the horde of infected and Bloater, the stakes are higher. The council of Jackson holds a hearing to vote on whether 16 people should be sent to Seattle to avenge Joel, and ultimately, they decide against it despite hearing Ellie’s plea.
Roadtrip to Seattle
When Ellie leaves medical in the show, Dina reveals information that she had previously withheld: that Joel’s murderers are part of the Washington Liberation Front located in Seattle, and lists the names of the WLF she remembers, including Abby. Instead of Maria granting permission for Ellie and Dina to leave for Seattle, the two girls steal off in the middle of the night on horseback with Dina’s intel.
The relationship between Dina and Ellie in the show is more of a slow burn than in the game, where by this time, the two would have already had their first love scene in library basement; instead, they are more cautious around each other, especially since Ellie spent months healing from her injuries and experiencing the onset of PTSD.
The Seraphites
The game’s introduction to the Seraphites is one of the eeriest and unsettling aspects of the entire story: you see their work before you ever see them. When Ellie and Dina and arrive in Seattle and show up at the TV station, there are WLF bodies hanging from the ceiling; Ellie makes the call that it’s too dark to be Tommy’s work, but they don’t piece together the culprits until much later when Ellie comes across them alone, whistling through the woods.
This unfolding mystery is somewhat sacrificed in this episode to establish all of the different factions of the show. A group of Seraphites are meandering through the ones towards the beginning of the episode, where an adult is training a child to recognize the different coded whistles, providing a pretty good explanation that only the more intense game enthusiasts would know. Before the end of this introductory scene, the Seraphites hide in the thicket of the forest as they hear WLF coming to exterminate them, establishing the ongoing warfare between these parties.
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 4, “Day One”
Set Design in Seattle
The Last of Us Season 2 is proving that some of its most replicated elements from the game are the sets. As Dina and Ellie embark on Day 1 of Seattle, so much of the environment is replicated with near exactitude: the TV station rotunda, the defunct Seattle subway, and even the abandoned theater where Ellie and Dina set up camp. Seeing the amount of care put into the set design of the HBO series is so fulfilling for loyal fans of The Last of Us games because you spend so much time in those spaces trying to get to the next checkpoint that it almost fills you with nostalgia. In the rotunda, the bodies of WLF members are hanging from the ceiling, disemboweled as in the game, but the reactions from fellow WLF are even more visceral.
An additional scene, which was slightly altered visually and occurs sooner than in the game, is when Ellie and Dina come across a pride mural rainbow imagery and have no idea what any of it means. ”What’s up with all the rainbows?” asks Dina, to which Ellie responds, “I don’t know, maybe they’re all optimists.” In this part of the game, Ellie and Dina are trying to escape the Seraphites and find themselves in a queer bookstore, which presents a different scenario, but the whimsy, humor, and irony are transferred all the same: Ellie and Dina, two queer characters, have never had the opportunity or community to learn about queer culture of any kind in the apocalyptic world.
Ellie & Dina’s Evolving Love Story on The Last of Us
As we have seen in prior episodes, Ellie and Dina’s love story arc has been stretched out over a longer time period in The Last of Us show, perhaps to evoke the complexity of their relationship. This leads to Ellie’s rendition of “Take On Me” by A-ha with even higher stakes, because at this point, she doesn’t even really know how Dina feels about her, especially since Dina has never come out to her. Bella Ramsey’s performance is so moving in this moment, and the connection between Dina and Ellie is tangible as Dina is moved to tears through the song. In the show, the weight of what these two girls have experienced and will experience is tangible.
This evolves later in the episode with three very vital revelations from the game that play out like dominoes: Dina sees that Ellie is bitten and learns Ellie is immune, Dina tells Ellie she is pregnant, and then the two of them have sex for the first time. In the game, this love scene happens much earlier, back in Eugene’s marijuana lab in the basement of the library; more importantly, in the game, Dina learns Ellie is immune because she refuses to share the only mask they have when encountering spores, so as to protect Dina. Since spores have yet to be introduced, this scene plays out similarly to the other times Ellie has been bitten before, which makes sense as she is not as preoccupied with avoiding bites as someone else might be.
Hello Isaac
Because plot elements of this season are not isolated to Abby and Ellie’s perspectives as they are in the game, the introduction to Isaac, the leader of the WLF, comes much sooner. It seems that faction lore of the game is crafted to be more immersive than spontaneous in the show, which is why the WLF-Seraphite conflict is being pushed forward.
In the game, we learn about Isaac before we see him, as Abby makes her way back to a WLF base on Seattle Day 1, and she waits for Isaac as he tortures a Seraphite man to acquire information. Isaac torturing a Seraphite man is brought to the screen without the same context, not through the eyes of Abby; perhaps it is this detached representation of the torture found in the WLF-Seraphite that makes the on-screen adaptation that much more terrifying.
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 5, “Feel Her Love”
Stalkers + Office Building
For Seattle Day 2, Dina takes over planning and communications as she uses the walkie-talkie they stole from the WLF to listen into their conversations. She finds a route that will allow them to pass through Seattle to the hospital where Nora is, according to the transmissions. Once the two of them make their way through their planned route, they arrive at the abandoned warehouse, which they suspect will be filled with Infected since this exists as a hole in the WLF’s patrol routes, and they’re right, but it’s not what they expect it to be.
In the game, the stalker attack occurs in the abandoned office building, and there are not many stalkers to take down. However, since the mythology of infected has changed in the show, with stalkers being the more “evolved” creatures infected by cordyceps, the encounter between Ellie and Dina and the stalkers is doubly more terrifying for the casual viewer: they’re quiet, and then all come at once.
Jesse Arrives
It quickly becomes obvious that this is not a fair fight, and the only way Dina and Ellie make it out of the warehouse is when Jesse swoops in and saves the day. As a recap, Ellie first encounters Jesse in the game in Hillcrest where she is trying to get past the WLF patrol to find Tommy; this is also Seattle Day 2, but Dina is not there at the time. As we know, Tommy does not arrive in Seattle before the girls do, but in the show, Jesse informs them that he and Tommy came to Seattle against the Jackson council’s orders.
Meeting the Seraphites
Shortly after they make their way out of the warehouse, Ellie, Dina, and Jesse find themselves in a wooded area that the WLF won’t touch, leading to the original setting where the game Seraphites are introduced in the flesh. At this point in the show, we already know about the Seraphites, but Ellie and Dina have only gotten hints of who they are, such as when they come across the “Feel Her Love” mural earlier on in the episode, another vestige from the game. Just like in the game, Ellie, though now in the show with Jesse and Dina, witnesses the Seraphites hang a WLF soldier and disembowel him in the center of the park, coupled with religious references and prayers to the Prophet.
Spores, Nora, and the Hospital
Ellie then makes her way into the hospital through vents and secret passages, and the hospital’s appearance like all of the other sets remains so true to the original design. The camera cuts to Nora just like in the game, and Ellie finally gets what she came for. The scene plays out very loyal to the game until a certain point, when Nora escapes Ellie to a floor filled with spores.
Up until this point in the show, spores were not included as part of the mythology of the Infected, so Nora does not entirely understand why she is breathing in the cordyceps spores and becoming infected. Exactly like in the game, Ellie approaches Nora in a red-lit hallway to the very end where Nora is becoming Infected, but not before she receives the information she came for: Abby’s location.
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 6, “The Price”
Ellie’s Birthday to the Museum
While there are many departures in this episode from the source material, there is also the long-awaited museum visit for Ellie’s birthday. These scenes from the game are slotted right in the episode between other birthday moments, making it Ellie’s birthday throughout the years. Joel, like in the game, surprises Ellie at the Wyoming Museum of Science and History for her 16th birthday.
The scene leading up to the museum reveal doesn’t include the swimming lessons Ellie receives from Joel, so one must wonder if Ellie can actually swim by the current year. Ellie’s famous line “I’m on a motherf**king dinosaur!” makes it into the scene after she climbs the statue of the T. Rex. The sequence cuts to the second floor of the museum, skipping the other inquiries of dinosaurs on the first floor.
The scene plays out almost exactly as in the game, with Joel and Ellie boarding the defunct spacecraft, Ellie’s head equipped with an astronaut’s helmet. Joel gives Ellie the blastoff tape to listen to, and she’s transported to space. Sequences like these from the game are especially cinematic that it would do a disservice to the show to change them in any abject way.
The Porch Conversation
The reckoning between Ellie and Joel on the porch after the dance happens much sooner in the show than it does in the game. In the game, it is one of the very last scenes, so players are made to wait to receive that offbeat closure. Ellie comes to Joel to finally confront him about what happened in Salt Lake City, and gives him another chance to tell the truth given that he lied to her before.
By then, she more or less knows exactly what happened, but she is giving Joel the ability to come back into her life. It’s a moment of catharsis and it gets at one of the core themes of the story, which is the lengths you will take to save the people you love even if it means more overall damage.
Joel tells Ellie, “ I’ll pay the price because you’re gonna turn away from me. But if somehow I had a second chance at that moment [Salt Lake City], I would do it all over again.” Ellie knows how much Joel loves her, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to be a parent yet. Where this scene is placed in the show provides a sort of foreshadowing to Ellie becoming a parent to JJ, Dina’s child with Jess; the effect in the game is different because by the time we see the scene, Ellie already knows what it’s like to feel parental love.
The Last of Us Season 2’s Biggest Elements and Adapted Moments From the Games – Episode 7, “Convergence”
The Fallout of Ellie Killing Nora
The moments following Ellie’s interrogation and beating of Nora occur in the dressing room, as in the game. The dynamic as Dina attends to Ellie’s wounds is different from the game, however. There is a distance between the two of them, and understandably so: their romantic relationship in the series is even newer than in the game, they’re in the middle of a warzone, and they realize they are possibly out of their depth. The state of things is worsened as Ellie confesses what Joel did in Salt Lake City, recontextualizing the whole motive for them avenging Joel’s death in Seattle. If their attachment in the game is anxious, their attachment in the show is avoidant; neither wants to be around the other in this scene, but they remain in each other’s company as Dina does not even know how to respond, other than: “We need to go home.”
The Last of Us Series’ Aquarium + Mel/Owen Scenes Are Even More Brutal Than in the Games
When Ellie arrives at the aquarium after weathering the high seas mid-storm, hoping to find Abby, she comes across Owen and Mel. She demands they tell her where Abby is using a map they have, and instead of complying, Owen reaches for his gun. This causes Ellie to shoot him in the neck, but the bullet incidentally also hits Mel who is behind him.
The relationship between Mel and Owen is not known at this point, and a recent interview with Mel’s actress Ariela for Esquire Opens in a new tabsuggests that there may be changes to their relationship between The Last of Us‘ games and show. As soon as Ellie realizes that Mel has been shot, Mel reveals her pregnancy; given her medical background, Mel knows that she is about to die and instructs Ellie to deliver her baby via C-section, but she quickly fades as she begins to instruct Ellie.
The series version of Mel’s death is much than in The Last of Us—Part II game, where Ellie kills Mel on purpose with her knife, and finds out she was pregnant after doing this. This change constitutes one of the more substantial departures from the game, as it tweaks the state of Ellie’s character—it softens her, attempts to humanize her in a completely inhumane situation, which presents some inconsistencies with her character development.
Jesse’s Death
The Last of Us season two nearly comes to a close the way Ellie’s POV in the game does—Abby shows up at the theater. Jesse is shot immediately as they exit the theater room into the lobby, and Abby has her gun pointed at Tommy. The cliffhanger from the game leading into Abby’s POV is also set up in the show; Abby, with her gun now pointed at Ellie, spits through her teeth, “I let you live. I let you live and you wasted it,” as the screen goes black with a gunshot ringing in the dark.
That’s it for The Last of Us season twoOpens in a new tab, but you can bet we’ll be back with game comparisons when season three rolls around.
Originally published on April 16, 2025.
