The Last of Us Producers Explain Why Season 2 Is Only 7 Episodes

The Last of Us Season 2 has a notably shorter episode count than Season 1, and the HBO show's producers have revealed why. Season 1 of The Last of Us stretched its story across nine episodes, which covered the entirety of Naughty Dog's first The Last of Us video game. Meanwhile, Season 2 comes in at only seven episodes and tells only some of the story of The Last of Us Part 2, raising the question of how many episodes will be needed for Season 3.

The Last of Us executive producer Neil Druckmann (who also created and directed the video game) spoke to Collider after the Season 2 premiere, explaining why the second game was necessary to split across multiple seasons, which they discovered during the writing process. Druckmann said they worked with "an ending in mind," which led them to break the story while "ignoring seasons or a number of episodes," eventually landing them with seven episodes for The Last of Us Season 2:

"Pretty early on, maybe day one, we were like, 'Oh, it’s too big to fit in one season.' But we like working with an ending in mind. We need to know the destination. That destination allowed us to make the correct creative choices as we did set-ups and payoffs, and slowly, over time, moved towards that destination. 

So, that meant we had to break the whole story, ignoring seasons or a number of episodes, all the way to the end. And then, we had to start working backwards and say, 'Okay, what’s enough material for a season? And with that, where’s a good break point?'... That process gave us the seven-episode count."

The Last of Us Season 2 co-writer, Halley Gross, added that they felt no pressure from HBO to adhere to a specific episode count and were allowed "whatever the holistic story of the season requires." Druckmann said this is "the luxury we have in working for HBO," as the network was only concerned with "telling the best story possible:"

Gross: "It’s whatever the holistic story of the season requires. We don’t want to thin it out and we don’t want to pad it out just because there’s some expectation of an episode count. We want to make every episode meaningful and make every episode impactful. If that’s 10 episodes, if that’s six episodes, if that’s eight episodes, that’s something that we’ll discover as we break the season. But we’re not bound to a number."

Druckmann: This is the luxury we have in working for HBO. From the get-go, every conversation has been like... 'How many episodes should there be per season?' 'Only as much as you guys think is appropriate for this chapter of the story.' Every step of the way, there are so concerned with telling the best story possible."

The result was that The Last of Us Season 2 covered around half of the game's story. The first three episodes of the season picked up with Ellie (Bella Ramesy) five years later, where she lives in Jackson with Joel (Pedro Pascal), until a group led by Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) arrives to murder her father figure. The remaining four episodes covered Ellie's quest for revenge in Seattle, where she scours the city for Abby and walks headfirst into a war between the WLF and Seraphite factions. 

The final episode of The Last of Us Season 2 ended on a cliffhanger as Abby and Ellie came head-to-head at the theatre. The show then cuts to a flashback, revealing that Season 3 of The Last of Us will tell Abby's side of the story. The point at which the writers decided to split the season makes sense, as The Last of Us Part 2 also has a natural break point between the stories of Abby and Ellie. 

While The Last of Us Season 1 covered the entirety of the first game in nine episodes, The Last of Us Part 2 is almost double the length of the first game, making it necessary to split the story across multiple seasons unless the creators chose to keep their episode density and have an extra-long 15-20-episode Season 2.

Will The Last of Us Season 3 Have More or Less Episodes?

Now that The Last of Us Season 2 has established Ellie's half of the story in seven episodes, it will be interesting to see how many episodes are necessary for Abby's half, and whether a fourth season will also be required.

Druckmann told Collier that they "know all the major stops" to get to the end of the story, but "don't quite know yet" how many episodes, or even seasons, The Last of Us will take to reach the end of the game's story:

"So, we know what has to happen after this season. We know all the major stops and we know the final destination. But as far as how many episodes or how many seasons it would take to get there, we don’t quite know yet. That’s something we’re gonna have to figure out when we get back in the writers’ room."

Abby and Ellie's segments in the game have roughly equal playtime as they each traverse the same three days in Seattle before culminating in the theatre confrontation. If the series follows the same outline in Season 2, this would equal roughly three episodes of Seattle content for Abby (one per day). 

However, this could be stretched further if the creators decide to show any flashbacks for Abby or to expand any side characters' stories, like they did for Bill and Frank in Season 1. It sounds like this may indeed be the plan, as showrunner Craig Mazin commented on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the opportunity to "explore some additional things" is more prevalent in the latter half of the story:

"There are some opportunities to explore some additional things. I think the opportunity to go beyond the scope of the source material starts to expand as you get deeper."

Mazin also added in an interview with Deadline that they planned to "take [their] time" with the rest of the story and felt that "Season 3 will be significantly larger:"

"We don’t think that we’re going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we’re taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too. We feel like it’s almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4."

The game's final chapter in Santa Barbara, which switches between Abby and Ellie's viewpoints, could provide the reasoning for a potential Season 4 of The Last of Us. However, this is only a few hours in the game and would likely result in a shorter season.