HBO’s The Last of Us is back for season 2, and so are we

Summary

New episodes of season 2 of The Last of Us are premiering on HBO every Sunday night, and Ars' Kyle Orland (who's played the games) and Andrew Cunningham (who hasn't) will be talking about them here every Monday morning. While these recaps don't delve into every single plot point of the episode, there are obviously heavy spoilers contained within, so go watch the episode first if you want to go in fresh. Kyle: To start us off as we return to the world of The Last of Us, as a non-game player, maybe recap what you remember from the first season and what you've heard about the second. Andrew: Going into the first season, I’d been aware of The Last of Us, the video game, as a story about an older guy and a kid trying to navigate a post-apocalyptic world. And the show was also mostly that: It’s Joel and Ellie against the world, and who knows, maybe this spunky young girl with an apparent immunity to the society-ravaging fungal infection could hold the key to a cure! Things fell apart at the end of last season when the Fireflies (a group of survivalists/doctors/scientists/etc.) may or may not have been threatening to kill Ellie in order to research their cure, which made Joel go on a murder rampage, which he then lied to Ellie about. We fade to black as they make their way back toward the one semi-functioning human settlement they’d visited on their travels, where Joel’s brother and his family also happen to live. Going into this season: I know nothing. I don’t really engage in TV show fandoms or keep up with casting announcements or plot speculation. And the only thing I know about the second game going into this is a vague sense that it wasn’t as well-received as the first. In short, I am as a newborn baby, ready to take in the second season of a show I kind of like with the freshest possible eyes. Kyle: I may be to blame for that vague sense you have. I fell in love with the first game, especially the relationship between Joel and Ellie, and I thought the first season o...