The Last of Us is back. The second season of the hit show is now done and dusted, and it tells a story even more harrowing than the first season.
You may remember that the first season of the post-apocalyptic show focused on hardened smuggler Joel (Pedro Pascal) and the amusingly foul-mouthed teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Joel was hired to smuggle Ellie across the zombie-ravaged United States, but he soon found himself thinking of her as a daughter. So when it transpired that the immune Ellie needed to be killed to make a cure for the zombie virus plaguing the land, all hell broke loose thanks to Joel.
It’s five years later when we catch up with those beloved characters in season 2, but someone is on their trail. When Joel killed everyone responsible for threatening Ellie’s life, their loved ones understandably didn’t take it well. And so now Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) has made it her life’s mission to kill Joel – and here’s the spoiler: she succeeds.
Yep, The Last of Us season two loses one of its main protagonists in the second episode, and things get even worse from there if you can believe that. Let’s take a look at what earned the show its TV-MA rating.
Spoilers ahead for The Last of Us season 2!
The Last of Us season 2 is not for kids
Sex and nudity: Ellie and her girlfriend Dina (Isabela Merced) have sex, though we don’t see any nudity, just Ellie reaching into Dina’s jeans. The only full-frontal nudity comes during an intense and horrible scene where Isaac (Jeffrey Wright) is torturing a young man.
Violence and gore: The aforementioned torture scene is very unpleasant, but that’s not even the worst of it. The most horrible moment in the whole season comes when Abby beats Joel to death with a golf club before stabbing him in the neck. Ellie witnesses the end of this, which is agonizing for people who loved the Joel-Ellie bond.
Wait, we’re not done! The Seraphites (a ruthless, sadistic cult) torture people by hanging them and disemboweling them, and we see this too. And, then there’s the carnage Ellie unleashes on the people who helped kill Joel. One of them, Nora (Tati Gabrielle), is tortured to death by Ellie. Another one is shot outright, but another one is shot through the neck (by accident) while pregnant and goes out begging Ellie to save her baby. It’s rough stuff to say the least.
Language: Our main characters live in such in a terrible world it would be surprising if they didn’t swear. They do, a lot.
Drinking and drugs: Drugs factor into this season – the characters encounter a weed farm at one point, and the town therapist Gail (Catherine O'Hara) gets paid in weed. In a flashback scene, Joel reprimands a teenage Ellie for smoking a joint.
Frightening or intense scenes: Where even to begin? The zombies are bad enough, but what humans do to each other in this show is beyond the pale. All the torture scenes are harrowing to watch. There are some especially nasty zombie scenes as well, though, including the zombie attack on Jackson, the scenes with the “stalker” zombies, and the gruesome scene in the hospital basement with the spore-spewing zombies are just three of the highlights
Discrimination: It’s worth mentioning that Ellie and Dina do face discrimination for being a same-sex couple. The man who says a homophobic slur to them gets a punch in the face from Joel.
Young kids will be absolutely terrified by The Last of Us. Older teens of 15+ might be able to handle it, but keep in mind, this is a horror show first and foremost. If you do choose to watch with your older kids, you can turn the show into an educational experience at times. How do Abby and Ellie fall to the corrupting nature of revenge? And what could they have done differently?