The Last Of Us S2 - Tumblr Posts

THEY BOTH LOOK SO GOOD!!! I am hyped beyond belief for s2!!

(Gotten from @TheLastofUsNews on Twitter)

(Please don’t comment or reblog with any hate comments about them! Let’s keep this a positive post❤️)

I think a lot of people forget that Ellie and Dina in part 2 are only nineteen. Nineteen! They’re still teenagers whose brains aren’t fully formed, yet they’re dealing with a crazy situation and going through hell, on top of that losing loved ones and an unexpected pregnancy while they’re still freshmen in college!

It adds this whole other layer to the story, of these kids who grew up in the apocalypse falling deeper into the ways of the world they live in, and about breaking the cycle of violence and vengeance in the game’s conclusion.

Season 1 of TLOU HBO did amazing at showing the fact that’s Ellie’s still just a kid, way too young to be in this situation, and I bet (and hope) that’s something they continue to focus on in Season 2.

If you’re not gonna watch the Last of Us HBO because you don’t like how Bella Ramsey looks, then fine, whatever, your life.

HBO, Craig Mazin, and the rest of the fans? They don’t give a shit that you’re missing out on a fantastic show and performance because you’re too shallow to care about something other than someone’s appearance.

The problem is when you insult a someone’s appearance online. It’s cruel and objectifying, and it’s even worse when it’s someone who isn’t even old enough to drink in the USA.

You genuinely forgot that they’re a real human being with feelings and a life, and that they don’t exist to cater to you. That says a lot about you as a person.

Being awful towards Bella doesn’t make you special or opinionated. It doesn’t make you a bigger fan of the games. It doesn’t make you seem smart or cool or edgy. It just makes you seem like what you are: an asshole.

Listen to me when I say this: The Last of Us is a huge show and you being a dick isn’t gonna change the fact that it was one of the most viewed and best shows of 2023, and that the same thing is probably gonna happen in 2025. So go cry in a corner because they won’t recast an incredible BAFTA, Emmy, and Golden Globe nominated actor. We don’t care. We’ll be enjoying a great show with a great cast of real humans who look like humans instead of carbon copies of digital avatars or supermodels, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I am genuinely so excited for TLOU s2!

It has some of the most exciting, talented, and skilled new actors of recent memory and incredible and amazing veteran actors. Not to mention some of the best prestige tv directors and show runners in the world, and let’s not forget HBO quality production.

Seriously, my hype is unreal.

Something the Last of Us s1 did that I hope s2 and onward continue with is that every death matters. Every death affects the characters, the viewers, and the story, even if just a bit. And not just the main one’s, like Tess or Riley, but the small characters too. The one’s who are only in it for one scene.

I think it’s interesting how for me at least, when I hear a video game is getting adapted, I automatically think of the set-pieces and combat and how it’ll get adapted, but with TLOU HBO, the new medium actually allowed for them to scale down the violence, rather than up. (Except for the infected sequence in episode five, but that’s a whole other post about why that one worked so well).

After every death you see the characters faces. You see how it affected them more than you’d be able to with a video game (no hate to video games, they need more enemies to remain something you can play and it wouldn’t be realistic for a cutscene to happen every time you killed something).

I think it’s a testament to how well done TLOU HBO was, and how both versions played to their respective strengths as a medium. The game needed enemies and things to do so it didn’t become a long cutscene, but the show was able to scale down the violence and really make every death matter with dialogue and shots and closeups that just wouldn’t be realistic for a game, but works so well for a show.

I’m so excited for s2, not just because of all the regular reasons, but also because FUCK THE FANART IS GONNA BE SO GOOD

TLOU has so much STUNNING fanart, and I can’t wait to see artists works inspired by s2!!

Every time we get new TLOU s2 photo leaks I celebrate like it’s Christmas. It’s like “YEAH, THAT IS A COOL SHIRT THAT BELLA’S WEARING YIPEE”

Now that this has become a topic of discussion (again) there’s something I gotta say…

Honestly? I have some problems with Ellie’s part 2 design. Not because it’s a bad design, but because of a completely different reason:

Ellie in TLOU part 2 is nineteen years old. After the time-skip she’s 21-22.

Ellie in Part 2 is a Hollywood teenager. Plain and simple. And I know people are going to hate on this because they love Ellie’s character design, and it’s not that I think it’s bad, I just think it’s important to acknowledge that it isn’t realistic.

I’ve seen so many ways people have tried to justify it, saying things like “well stress and lack-of-food make people look older”. Yeah, they do. What they don’t do is turn people into models. Stress doesn’t give them perfect cheek-bones and plush lips—it gives them wrinkles. A couple scars doesn’t make someone look realistic—especially when they’re precisely placed as to keep the sex-appeal at a maximum. Ellie in TLOU part 2 was absolutely designed to be attractive and appealing to people. The design wasn’t made to be realistic, the design was made to be marketable.

It’s absolutely fine to love the character design, what’s not fine is to expect people to look like it and be mad that they don’t.

Bella Ramsey looks like a real nineteen-year-old. Bella Ramsey looks like a human. Bella Ramsey didn’t have their appearance designed pixel-by-pixel and shown to focus groups and adjusted so they could look good to as large a range of people as possible.

People look like people. Get over it.

They’re gonna add Joel to the chalkboard, aren’t they? They’re gonna add Joel to the fucking chalkboard.

TLOU s2 first look (in video form) came out, and HOLY FUCK IT’S INCREDIBLE!! But you guys know me… you know how I am… let’s analyze this sucker.

Spoiler for tlou part 2

Other than the amazing dialogue and acting here, this scene thrills me because now we know we get at least a little more time with Joel. Thanks, Craig❤️

I’ve seen people say it could be therapy, which I love, but it’s also possible it could just be a normal conversation. Either way, I can’t wait!

Onto the next shot!

The “the tattoo looks bad!” People are sweating lol This looks AMAZING!! The scarring makeup is so well done! But ALSO did someone say shallow depth of field?? No?? Okay we’ll screw me I guess. Also, IT’S THE MOTH AGHHHHHH

Beutiful recreated shot. The shallow depth of field is gorgeous, and the lights… it’s just beutiful!

First thing’s first…

👏BELLA👏FUCKING👏RAMSEY👏 …holy shit.

It’s possible that the person holding onto Ellie’s shoulder is Maria, since if you turn your brightness up you can kinda see her side-shave hairstyle.

I have two theories for this: 1, this is right after the chemical burn? Or 2, this is after Joel dies? I could be totally wrong, though.

The guy in the background doesn’t look familiar to me, and none of the main cast have beards like that. I think he’s a new character, probably just a small role as a doctor.

ALSO DID SOMEONE SAY SHALLOW DEPTH OF—

This is definitely Jackson. You can see that the gates are the same as Jackson’s from ep 6.

And I’m fairly sure that it’s an infected horde, since none of them seem to have guns or weapons.

FUCK YES. LET’S FUCKING GO.

(No analysis here. Just hype.)

Definetly Seraphites, probably from the iconic forest scene. Looks great, love the lighting here.

First look at Dina!! Woo!!

Ellie has an assault rifle, and I think she might be on some rafters here, judging by the metal and because she’s definitely above ground level.

Gorgeous landscape shot, probably around the Jackson area.

JEFRREY WRIGHT RAHHHHHHHHH I don’t believe there’s a fight in the kitchen with Isaac in tlou part 2 (correct me if I’m wrong, but I definitely don’t think so?). He could be fighting Ellie here, which would probably be triggering for her (bad memories of guys fighting her in kitchens)

Firstly, KAITLYN LOOKS SO GOOD WOOHOO!!! Secondly, awesome recreated shot.

Not 100% sure, but could this be Tommy and Ellie? The first person looks like Tommy, with the longer dark hair and jacket. And the second person has the same color jacket that Ellie was wearing in the first look, and seems smaller than Tommy, which would also line up.

Awesome shot! I bet this is in the tunnels, especially since the shot after you see an infected slam against the doors.

Anyway, those are all my observations for now! This was the best 20 seconds of my day, and I’m so UNBELIEVABLY hyped!!

TLOU s2: Behind the Camera

One of the most anticipated shows of 2025, The Last of Us (my favorite show of all time), is likely getting an official teaser trailer this month for the absolutely stacked season 2! If you’ve been keeping up with the news around it, you’ll know the incredible new actors added like Kaitlyn Dever, Isabella Merced, Jeffrey Wright, Katherine O’Hara, and Young Mazino, but they’re not the only rockstars stepping onto the set.

(Super long post)

Directors:

Aside from the amazing returning directors, TLOU has added four prestige legends to the lineup. Thank you for your service, Ali Abassi, if you’re past work directing stories about blonde sex-offenders is any indication, your Trump biopic will be fantastic.

The four directors added to the lineup are Stephen Williams, Kate Herron, Nina Lopez-Corrado, and the legend himself, Mark Mylod.

Stephen Williams, the director who’s known for constantly directing episodes with an 8.7 score on IMDB (that’s not what he’s actually known for). He’s directed episodes of Westworld (one in s1 and one in s2, both with an 8.7 score) and Lost (in which he has two more 8.7s, and I believe over 10 other episodes in the range of .2 points of 8.7), so he’s pretty good with time-skips and flashbacks. He’s also worked on Persons of Interest in which he directed another, you guessed it, 8.7 episode, as well as two more win the .2 range of it. Recently he’s broken out of the “almost nine” range with HBO’s Watchmen, in which he directed episodes 3 and 6. (He’s directed 9s before, but this was the first time where they weren’t surrounded by 8.7s). His work with time shenanigans, and the fact that TLOU is rated 8.7 on IMDB, make this a fantastic match.

Kate Herron is next up, known best for her work on Loki. She directed the entirety of season 1, which includes my favorite episode of the show ‘The Variant’, in which Loki and Mobius go to the location of a disaster in the near future to find a sinister variant. It’s practically a demo real for TLOU, since a lot of it takes place in a supermarket filled with people waiting out a disaster that none of them survive, showing she’s got the skill to pull of apocalyptic. She also delivered us the absolute gold of the salad scene. Other than that, she directed multiple episodes of Sex Education back when it was still beloved and acclaimed.

Third we have Nina Lopez-Corrado. While she hasn’t directed shows quite as high-caliber as some of the other directors, she’s proven she’s good at found family through her work on Agents of Shield, in which she delivered one of the highest rated, and roughest episodes of the show ‘Devil Complex’, in which our favorite characters get put through absolute hell (so she’ll be perfect for TLOU s2!). She’s also shown that she can get Tumblr obsessed with queer ships with her work on Supernatural…

Last and certainly not least is the most well known and acclaimed of the new directors, Mark Mylod. I believe he will be directing the most episodes of this list, but I’m not entirely certain. Mylod is probably best known for his amazing work on Succession, which he won an Emmy for. He’s directed all of my favorite episodes except Panic Room and America Decides. While he’s worked on other projects like Game of Thrones, Entourage, and The Menu, it’s his directing for Succession that gets me most excited for his work on TLOU. He’s proven he can elevate emotional scenes, and his directing is consistently incredible across all spectrums of human feeling. His thematic work with grief, trauma, and the cycle of violence will very much carry over into TLOU, and I can’t wait to see the absolute emotional brutality and heartbreak of his direction paired with Bella’s acting. Actually I can wait because holy shit I’m not going to make it… He directed Kendall’s traumatizing car crash in the s1 finale, Shiv’s self-destructive decisions in Ternhaven, Kendall’s breakdown in s3 when he admits to Roman and Shiv what he did, Roman’s grief and self-harming behaviors at the funeral, the bittersweet bonding in the finale of the show, and obviously Connor’s Wedding. If you’ve seen Succession or know the plot of TLOU part 2 you’ll know exactly how that might carry over…

You thought this was the end? Hell no! Directors aren’t the only ones behind the camera!

Writers:

Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann wrote season one. Their brilliant writing elevated the show and led to some truly unforgettable moments, and this season they’ve brought in some more incredible writers to help!

Halley Gross co-wrote The Last of Us part 2 alongside Neil Druckmann. No one was particularly surprised by this news, but it’s still great nonetheless. It’s clear how much Mazin respects the source material, and I love how TLOU brings in the people who wrote the games to help adapt it for television. She also wrote episodes for Westworld s1.

The other writer is more unexpected. Bo Shim joined the writers room of TLOU s2, but we don’t know much about him. He currently has no official writing credits, which either means it’s a pseudonym (which I doubt), or, more likely, they found a young, talented writer who hasn’t made it big yet and decided to give him his big break and use his skills for TLOU. If you’re looking, Craig, I know a film student who’d love to join the writing room for TLOU…. She’ll do it for free… she’ll pay you… please??

Cinematographers:

Cinematographers work with directors to create the look of the show, the shots, the lighting, etc.

Ksenia Sereda, who did the cinematography for TLOU episodes 1, 2, and 7 will be returning along newcomer Catherine Goldschmidt who worked on the always-gorgeous House of the Dragon.

Some of her amazing HotD shots:

Finally, Emily Mendez and Timothy A. Good are returning as editors. Set designers Austin Chuqiao Wang, Kyle White, and Shannon McArthur are returning as well.

There are wild amounts of other crew members who work on everything from lighting to costumes to vfx to storyboards. If I mentioned all of them this post would be as long as the credits, but every single one of them is important to the show and helps make it as incredible as it is!

I can’t wait for season 2!