The Last of Us Season 2 Spoilers: Here's What to Expect from the Final Episodes

Fans have plenty of spoiler-filled excitement to look forward to as The Last of Us Season 2 rounds into its final few episodes. The hit HBO adaptation of the beloved PlayStation video game franchise of the same name only has four episodes left in its second season, taking its post-apocalyptic action to the lush coast of Seattle, Washington. 

There have been several teases about where The Last of Us Season 2 will go in its second half. However, with Episode 3 having now aired, a new promo and some recently released production stills may have painted a picture of what will happen in Episode 4 and beyond. 

The Episode 4 trailer, released in the wake of Episode 3's HBO debut, teases even more intense The Last of Us action for the series, focusing on Ellie and Dina as they navigate the new threats of Seattle, Washington. 

Paramount of these new challenges will be grappling with the militaristic Western Liberation Front (WLF). Ellie (Bella Ramsey) knows that Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) and her friends who killed Joel were a part of the Seattle-based group, but they do not know about the dangerous head of the snake at the top of the WLF's ranks. 

The Episode 4 promo hinted that the series will give fans a few answers to some WLF-themed questions, including who the mysterious and ruthless leader of the group is. 

Much of the footage from Episode 4 so far highlights Jeffrey Wright's Isaac. Reprising his role from The Last of Us Part II video game, Wright's terrifying Last of Us antagonist will seemingly get the spotlight going forward in the series, with a few trailer shots showing what seem to be the origins of the WLF commander. 

The promo also included a few key moments The Last of Us fans have been waiting for the TV show to tackle. This included the long-teased "Take On Me" scene between Ellie and Isabela Merced's Dina, where the pair cement their romance with a moment of serenading in what used to be a Downtown Seattle music store. 

The last thing fans can look forward to in Episode 4, specifically, is even more infected-focused action, with Dina and Ellie navigating the untamed streets of the Emerald City. 

The trailer showed an action sequence featuring the fungi-festering infected and a potential tease of Ellie telling Dina about her immunity to the Last of Us world's all-consuming fungal infection.

This immunity tease was seemingly set up with Merced's teenage survivor pointing a gun at Ellie at one point in the trailer, potentially alluding to Ellie getting bitten in an encounter with some infected and then having to explain why she will be okay.

Watch the full Episode 4 trailer below:

The Last of Us Season 2 continues with new episodes debuting on HBO and Max every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, continuing the revenge-driven story from PlayStation's The Last of Us Part II video games. 

Showrun yet again by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and The Last of Us game director Neil Druckmann, Season 2 centers on Ramsey's Ellie as she hunts down Kaitlyn Dever's Abby for the death of her adopted father, Joel Miller. This takes the young survivor to Seattle, where she slowly loses herself on her hunt for retribution.

What Will Happen Beyond The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 4?

Thus far this season, the acclaimed HBO drama has remained relatively faithful to adapting the events of Naughty Dog's divisive The Last of Us Part 2. This culminated in Episode 2, as the revenge-fuelled Abby struck down Pedro Pascal's Joel Miller. 

Despite coming in the season's second episode, Joel's death serves as the narrative catalyst to Season 2's post-apocalyptic story. Episode 3 demonstrated this as Bella Ramsey's Ellie completed her recovery from the night of Abby's attack and pledged to seek vengeance against her adopted father's killers. 

While the rest of the Jackson settlement may not have agreed with Ellie's new commitment to hunting down and killing Abby and her Washington-based friends, Ramsey's teenage firecracker set out for Seattle anyway, heading westward with nothing but whatever she could carry and her best friend Dina (Isabela Merced).

This sets up an epic second half to the series, as Episode 3 left Ellie and Dina looking out over the Seattle skyline hot on the trail of Abby and her devoted group of WLF recruits. 

Series creator Neil Druckmann teased these intense final few episodes in a conversation with Deadline, telling the outlet, "So much of the season is about consequence" and that the show will continue to focus on "the ripple effect of Joel’s choice at the end of Season 1:"

"There’s this conversation that Joel has with Gail…it’s very similar to a conversation that Joel had with Tommy at the beginning of the game. [Gail is] someone that really challenges Joel in a way that maybe Tommy wouldn’t. In the game, we use that Tommy conversation like, 'Okay, how do we dramatize what happened in the first game? In case people haven’t played the first game or they forgot.' Here, we’re using it as drama to feel the ripple effect of Joel’s choice at the end of Season 1, because so much of the season is about consequence."

Halley Gross, who co-wrote The Last of Us Part II video game as well as several Season 2 episodes, hinted that audiences need to keep their eyes open when watching the last few episodes, as "everything is a setup for a payoff,"

"Nothing is frivolous, nothing is done just for decoration. Everything is a setup for a payoff…So I would pay attention to who are they when they feel safe, because things are about to get really dangerous."

One of these 'payoffs' could come soon, as Dina's pregnancy has yet to be revealed in the series.

As Ellie and Dina make their way through Seattle, one of the key moments from the game is Dina telling her companion in the post-apocalypse that she has been hiding a pregnancy. This prompts Ellie to sideline Dina in a Downtown Seattle theater, telling her that they must keep Dina and her baby safe. 

At the end of Episode 3, fans got a few subtle hints that the show is going to tackle this pregnancy storyline, including the character stopping off at the side of the road to puke as they entered the city. 

Dina attributed her upset stomach to seeing the dead Seraphites introduced earlier in the episodes (read more about The Last of Us Season 2's whistling Seraphite characters here). However, one would assume the character has seen plenty of dead bodies, so what was it about this particularly grisly scene that pushed her over the edge?

One thing fans need to be on the lookout for going forward is a significant moment that showrunner Craig Mazin has called "more upsetting" than Joel's death (via The Hollywood Reporter):

"And just the way Mark kept them all safe and connected to create what I think is the most upsetting … well, I take it back. There’s another moment in this season. It’s more upsetting."

With these comments, Mazin likely alludes to some of Ellie's more brutal upcoming moments as she hunts down Abby and her crew. This may culminate in the Aquarium sequence from the game, where Ellie kills Abby's pregnant friend Mel, the bearded Owen, and their dog Alice in an act of revenge.

This is one of The Last of Us franchise's darkest moments, and it puts Ellie and Abby back on a collision course with each other.

The death of Mel and Owen will likely set up a jaw-dropping Season 2 finale in which Abby tracks Ellie and Dina down to their downtown theatre hideout and tells Ellie she needs to leave the city if she wants Dina to live.

However, it will not be all darkness as the series goes forward. While The Last of Us Part II is an intensely dark and brutal story, it offers brief respites of tenderness. 

One of these that has been extensively teased is the museum flashback scene between Ellie and Joel. This is one of many flashbacks seen in the original Last of Us Part II video game, highlighting a trip to a museum for Ellie's birthday long before the pair severed ties (as seen earlier in the series). 

It is flashback scenes like the museum one, where Ellie (and fans) remember Joel. This allows the grizzled Texan to remain a key part of the Season 2 story, even though he was killed off very early on.