The Weight of Survival: Relive Ellie’s Journey in “The Last of Us” Before Season 2 Premiere

For all intents and purposes, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is a normal kid. She likes comic books. She’s bright but mischievous. She’s learning how to stand up for herself, but she also craves guidance and mentorship. She’s tougher than she looks, but she’s still just a kid.

That’s about where normalcy ends for Ellie, who has the both the blessing and the curse of being the one person alive in the world of The Last of Us who is immune to the virus that turns human beings into flesh-eating zombies in the wake of a cordycepts-borne plague that turned the planet into a living hell.

By The Credits  |  March 12, 2025
A Riveting New Teaser Confirms “The Last of Us” Season 2 Arriving on HBO in April

The second season of HBO and Sony Pictures TV’s gripping drama The Last of Us will sink its teeth into our eyeballs this April, Sony confirmed Monday night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A riveting new one-minute teaser for the series was released on Monday, revealing glimpses of what’s to come and confirming that April showers will also bring April zombies (one assumes that in the world of The Last of Us, 

By The Credits  |  January 7, 2025
“Game of Thrones” Prequel, “The White Lotus” Season 3 & More Coming to HBO in 2025

Before viewers can return to Westeros, they’ll have a slightly posher option—to check into The White Lotus for season three of Mike White’s biting, hysterical comedy on HBO.

During a tech and media conference on Tuesday night, Warner Bros. Discovery global streaming chief JB Perrette revealed some key release dates for some of HBO’s biggest titles in 2025. The White Lotus has a planned February 2025 release date, while another critically acclaimed series,

By The Credits  |  December 4, 2024
“The Last of Us” Season Two’s Premiere Date Coming Soon-Ish

With HBO’s fantastic eight-part miniseries The Penguin drawing to a close this past Sunday, we got a fresh update on when one of HBO’s other fantastic series returns, the Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey-led The Last of Us. We’ve known for a while HBO’s first big swing out of the gate in 2025 is the expansion of the world of Dune, recently reinvigorated by Denis Villeneuve’s two films in the upcoming series Dune: Prophecy,

By The Credits  |  November 14, 2024
“The Last of Us” Season 2 Unveils Haunting, Taut New Trailer

We’ve got our first look at The Last of Us season 2, and it’s a taut, tense glimpse at one of television’s most compelling series next move. The trailer opens with Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller and newcomer Catherine O’Hara as the two sit for what appears to be a therapy session. Heaven knows Joel needs it—the last time we saw him, he was seeing red in a brutal, vengeful bloodbath at a hospital where his charge,

By The Credits  |  September 26, 2024
HBO Reveals First Look at “The Last of Us,” New “Game of Thrones” Spinoff & More

HBO has dropped a new trailer that gives us our first look at some of their most eagerly awaited upcoming series, both returning and brand new. These include season three of The White Lotusseason two of The Last of Us, and the series premiere of the latest Game of Thrones spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, an adaptation from George R.

By The Credits  |  August 5, 2024
“The Last of Us” Concept Illustrator & Designer Pouya Moayedi on Imagining a Deadly Green World

HBO’s brilliant The Last of Us is, inarguably, the most successful video game adaptation in TV history. The series is based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name, which was created by Neil Druckmann and Naughty Dog, and when it bowed at the beginning of this year (adapted by Druckmann and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin), it was an immediate sensation. Here was a slow-burn, character-focused zombie show that felt utterly different from any in the genre.

By Bryan Abrams  |  November 15, 2023
“The Last of Us” Season 2 Will Likely Begin Production in Early 2024

HBO chief Casey Bloys gave us some good news at a press conference on Thursday morning—the second season for Craig Mazan and Neil Druckmann’s stellar The Last of Us is expected to enter production in early 2024.

The critically acclaimed adaptation of the video game Druckmann created for Naughty Dog was one of the best series of 2023 (and the best video game adaptation of all time), turning its two leads,

By The Credits  |  November 2, 2023

Interview

Casting Director Composer Producer Production Designer

Beyond the Craft With Emmy Nominees From “The Last of Us,” “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” & More

A ruined world, decimated by a fungi-borne plague and teeming with zombified hordes and hardened survivors who can be just as dangerous. A biopic about one of the all-time greatest musical tricksters who created an astonishingly successful career parodying hit songs. A reality show where contestants move into a palatial castle and need to cohere as a team to complete a series of increasingly difficult missions to earn big money, with some in the group committed to thwarting their ambitions from within.

By The Credits  |  August 28, 2023

Interview

Hair/Makeup

Emmy-Nominated “The Last of Us” Hairstylist Chris Harrison-Glimsdale on Shaping the Locks of the Living and The Dead

Calgary-based hairstylist Chris Harrison-Glimsdale happily pursued the apocalypse and lived to tell the tale. In fact, she’s got an Emmy nomination for her efforts, alongside her colleagues Penny Thompson and Courtney Ullrich, for shaping the locks of the survivors and their undead pursuers who populated HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Last Of Us.

Co-created by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (creator of the critical and commercial smash hit video game that the series is based on),

By Bryan Abrams  |  August 24, 2023

Interview

Cinematographer

“The Last of Us” Cinematographer Ksenia Sereda on Shining a Light in the Darkness

The Last of Us, HBO’s thrilling, best-in-class adaptation of Naughty Dog’s critically acclaimed video game, provided 2023’s first certifiable must-watch series. Co-created by the video game’s mastermind, Neil Druckmann, and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, the series followed a pair of intrapersonally opposed survivors of a fungi-borne apocalypse as they picked their way across a devastated American landscape crawling with the terrifying permutations of the mindless infected and the almost equally dangerous humans who had,

By Bryan Abrams  |  July 11, 2023
After A Gripping Finale, “The Last of Us” Creators Tease Season 2 & Beyond

After the horror of “When We Are in Need,”  the eighth episode of The Last of Us, which found Ellie (Bella Ramsey) fighting off a sadistic cannibal preacher she’s forced to stab, repeatedly, in a fit of sorrow and rage, one hoped that the season finale, “Look for the Light,” would give the resilient but battered teenager a well-deserved break from carnage and horror. And, in a sense, that’s what Ellie got, but only because she’d been anesthetized into a deep sleep for an operation she was both unaware of and would never wake up from.

By The Credits  |  March 14, 2023
“The Last of Us” Finale Draws Huge Ratings as Season One Bests “House of the Dragon”

Now that the first season of The Last of Us has wrapped up, we can take a step back and marvel at not only the robust viewership numbers but what was the greatest video game adaptation (by a wide margin) and one of the most compelling new dramas on TV. Oh, and not for nothing, The Last of Us can make a credible claim for joining the pantheon of the greatest zombie stories ever put on the screen,

By The Credits  |  March 14, 2023

Interview

Production Designer

“The Last of Us” Production Designer John Paino on Building a World in Ruins

“I’ve noticed an uptick in mushroom articles,” production designer John Paino jokes. So have I, actually, but it might be a case of being suddenly aware of the ubiquity and centrality of fungi to the living world ever since HBO’s The Last of Us premiered. The series, based on the critically acclaimed video game by Naughty Dog, asks us to look afresh at the fungus and fear. It presents a world in which fungi,

By Bryan Abrams  |  February 23, 2023

Interview

Cinematographer

“The Last of Us” Cinematographer Eben Bolter on Episode 4 & More

It took a decade to get there, but The Last of Us’ migration from video game to television paid off big time last month when the post-apocalyptic thriller enjoyed the largest viewership jump in HBO history. Audience numbers increased 22 percent to 5.7 million viewers for the show’s second episode in the wake of its January 15 debut. Already renewed for a second season, the series comes from Emmy-winning writer-producer Craig Mazin of Chernobyl fame in collaboration with Neil Druckmann,

By Hugh Hart  |  February 6, 2023
How “The Last Of Us” Episode 3 Departed From The Game in a Beautiful, Heartbreaking Way

There will be spoilers for episode three below, so avoid this story like you’d avoid Cordyceps if you haven’t watched it yet!

So, have you dried your tears after watching the third episode of The Last of Us, “Long Long Time”?

The third episode in HBO’s phenomenal new series was a heartbreaker that switched focus from the journey of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to two other survivors,

By The Credits  |  January 31, 2023
HBO’s “The Last Of Us” Delivers Astonishing Second Ep For Largest-Ever Viewership Growth

If you watched the riveting second episode of HBO’s The Last Of Us, you were a part of history. The series delivered the largest-ever viewership growth for a drama from a premiere episode to its second, according to measurements by Nielsen. Episode two bested the premiere’s gangbusters numbers by bringing in 5.7 million viewers across linear airings across HBO and HBO Max. That’s a 22% jump from last week’s record-breaking 4.7 million haul.

By The Credits  |  January 24, 2023
HBO’s “The Last Of Us” Has Massive Debut

First came the outstanding reviews, and then came a monster debut. It’s all good news for HBO’s The Last Of Us, which lived up to its hype with not a more or less unanimously positive critical reception—it’s sitting at 99% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes—but by pulling in a whopping 4.7 million viewers across all linear and HBO Max platforms on Sunday night in the United States. This puts the video game adaptation, from co-creators Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Craig Druckmann (the creator of the original game),

By The Credits  |  January 17, 2023
Reviews for HBO’s “The Last Of Us” Call it an Astonishing Adaptation on Every Level

Last week, we wrote a bit about HBO’s upcoming The Last Of Ustheir most ambitious new series of 2023. There has been a slow, steady drumbeat of excitement about the new show as we’ve neared its January 15 premiere date, and now, the reviews suggest the excitement was warranted. The folks who have now seen the show are calling it a phenomenal, gripping drama and possibly the best video game adaptation of all time.

By The Credits  |  January 10, 2023
This “The Last of Us” Set Visit Reveals a Peek at HBO’s Biggest Swing in 2023

As we wrote yesterday, HBO’s The Last of Us is one of the biggest series coming out in 2023 and probably the most ambitious new show from the network since House of the Dragon. And while it would be unfair to set the expectations for The Last of Us at Game of Thrones levels, the hopes for the new series aren’t that far off from that.

By The Credits  |  January 6, 2023