• The end of The Last of Us Part II is hard for the people in charge of the TV show because it can’t be easily turned into the end of a single season.
• The Santa Barbara part of the game isn’t long enough to be its own season, but not short enough to be added to another season. This puts the showrunners in a tough spot.
• The TV show could have a shorter third season with only five or six episodes, or the Santa Barbara part could be the second half of a longer season that is split into two parts.

The ending of The Last of Us Part II is set up in a way that will make it very hard for the showrunners of HBO’s The Last of Us to turn it into the season 2 finale. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann are currently hard at work on making a second season of The Last of Us that tells the huge story of The Last of Us Part II. This will follow the first season, which got a lot of praise. Making Part II into a TV show won’t be as easy as making the first game into a single season because Part II is a much bigger game with a much bigger story.

There are different parts to The Last of Us Part II. The first part picks up with Joel and Ellie four years after the first game. They have made a life for themselves in Jackson, but Abby is coming to kill Joel out of revenge. In the second part, three days pass in Seattle as Ellie hunts Abby to get payback. In the third part, the same days are seen from Abby’s point of view. In the fourth part, which takes place in Santa Barbara, the story of payback comes to a head. The problem is that this part isn’t long enough to be its own season but not short enough to be added to another season.

The Last of Us 2’s Santa Barbara part doesn’t work as the end of Season 2.

It will feel rushed as the end of Season 2.

In the ending of The Last of Us Part II, it looks like Ellie has given up on her plan to get revenge on Joel after Abby was nice to her at the theatre. She and Dina have moved to a cute house in the country close to Jackson. They are taking care of a flock of sheep and raising J.J., Dina and Jesse’s baby. Even though Ellie’s PTSD is still making her life hard, she is trying to let go of her anger towards Abby. One day, Tommy shows up with news that Abby has gone to Santa Barbara. Ellie goes to Santa Barbara to find Abby and finish what she started, even though Dina tells her not to.

Ellie is attacked by a group called the Rattlers when she gets to Santa Barbara. She finds out that they have Abby in their custody. So, she sneaks into their base, finds Abby tied to a post near the rising tide as a horrible way to kill her, and kills her for one last fight. Even though Ellie beats Abby in a fight, she decides to spare her life in the end. When she gets home, Dina and J.J. have already left, leaving the house empty. This drives home the point that Ellie gave up everything to get revenge. To make the season 2 finale, all of these events would have to fit into one episode, even a huge feature-length show. It would feel rushed.

The Santa Barbara part of The Last of Us 2 is too short for Season 3.

It could only handle five or six episodes at most.

However, the Santa Barbara part of The Last of Us Part II is too short to be its own season. It wouldn’t work as a single episode added to the end of season 2. It could only go on for five or six episodes, even if every scene was added on, like Abby and Lev being captured by the Rattlers and Ellie making the dangerous trip. That short of a story isn’t long enough to warrant a whole third season. Still, there should have been a break between Abby saving Ellie’s life at the theatre and Ellie’s choice to go with her to Santa Barbara.

There is a big jump in time in the game, so it makes sense that there is some time between these two parts of the story when it comes to when they come out on TV. Plus, it would give things some time to settle down. It looks like Ellie did try to forget about Abby and move on before she decided she couldn’t. If not, it might look like it’s happening right now. The show could just jump in time between episodes, like the last season of Barry did, but that always throws off the flow of the show. Instead, time jumps between seasons work better most of the time.

What The Last of Us TV Show Can Do About Santa Barbara

A shorter season or the second half of a longer one?

This TV show about The Last of Us can handle the Santa Barbara scenes in a few different ways. Season 3 might be shorter, with only five or six episodes, which would make sense since this part of the story is an ending. It could also be the second half of a bigger season that was split into two parts, like the last seasons of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and HBO’s The Sopranos. No matter what, the people in charge of The Last of Us need to make sure that the ending of Part II is properly adapted because it’s a powerful ending to the story and a bittersweet end to Ellie’s journey.

We Are the Last Of Us

The TV show is based on the highly praised Naughty Dog video game The Last of Us. It takes place twenty years after a parasitic fungal infection causes chaos around the world and turns people into zombie-like creatures. Ellie is a 14-year-old girl played by Bella Ramsey. Joel (Pedro Pascal) decides to sneak her out of a quarantine zone, but he soon learns that she might hold the key to finding a cure. Neil Druckmann, who was one of the original creators, and the author of the award-winning HBO show Chernobyl worked together on The Last of Us.

Release Date January 15, 2023

Cast Angel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Nick Offerman, Jeffrey Pierce, Anna Torv, and Bella Ramsey

Types: Horror, Adventure, and Drama

Network: The Seasons 1 Network HBO Go