‘The Last of Us’ star addresses what comes next after the jaw-dropping season finale

Warning: Spoilers for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II to follow.

The first season of The Last of Us is officially done and dusted as of last night, and it wouldn’t be the show we’ve all fallen in love with if it didn’t end on an emotionally discombobulating note. With Joel having left a hospital full of dead Fireflies in the wake of his heated decision to save Ellie from a fatal surgery, it’s only a matter of time before the internet becomes split over a #JoelWasRight hashtag.

Either way, this isn’t the last of Joel and Ellie we’ll be getting from HBO Max, as a second season has long since been greenlit by the streamer. The second season has been confirmed to cover the events of The Last of Us Part II, and for those of you familiar with the game, you know better than most that audiences haven’t known true heartbreak just yet.

Indeed, if the second season of The Last of Us stays faithful to the source material, and history suggests it will, Pedro Pascal’s Joel will be meeting his fate early on. A prospect that no tear duct wants to field.

For Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie on the show and could neither confirm nor deny Joel’s death in the second season, continuing the adventure without her scene partner would be the very definition of strange, as they revealed in an interview with ComicBook.com.

It would be weird doing it without Pedro [Pascal] for a lot of it. It would be sad but I think that also works. Yeah, I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see. But it’ll be weird for sure because like I said my experience is so tied to him.

The actress also expressed excitement at Ellie’s incoming relationship with the character Dina, who is more-or-less guaranteed to play a major role in the second season.

I’m really looking forward to the relationship with Dina. I think that’s going to be cool. I think it’s going to be really sweet and I’m glad that Ellie gets that because of what happened with Riley and I’m glad that she is able to have a good relationship and it not end tragically for a while.

Dina, of course, becomes Ellie’s girlfriend during the events of The Last of Us Part II, and given that Ellie’s groundbreaking queerness in the games has been translated inch-perfectly into the television series, it’s only a matter of time before we get that Dina casting confirmation.

The first season of The Last of Us is available to stream in full on HBO Max.