HBO’s The Last of Us raised some eyebrows with some of its creative decisions in Season 1. The next season of the hit TV show will be no different according to its showrunner.
The debut season of the live-action adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us was an instant hit. Critics and fans praised showrunner Craig Mazin for staying true to the essence of the game. The show has been nominated for a few Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Drama Series. However, there were some controversial moments in the show that caused some outrage from fans of the TV show. Episode 3 of Season 1 drew the ire of some fans for its depiction of a queer relationship.
Mazin shared that this doesn’t mean that they will shy away from what’s arguably going to be an even more-controversial follow-up season. In fact, it will have some unexpected moments that may cause fan “furor”. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the showrunner teased that fans will “never know what we’re gonna do.”
“I’m never gonna say there are things that are gonna happen in the show that happened in the game. You never know what we’re gonna do,” Mazin said. “But I will say that it is the adventure, the journey is the point. There are things that will shock people, things that were in the game, things that were not in the game, and that’s okay. As long as they’re purposeful, they’re not there to just simply shock. We are not interested in creating social media fear. We just want to tell the story the way we think it should be told.”
He adds, “Will there be furor? Yeah, probably. I mean, there usually is, starting even with casting. We knew they were the exact right person to cast and they had to go through quite a few months of people being awful on social media until they saw what we saw. That, to me, is the point. We don’t operate to either make people happy on social media or avoid making them upset. We just do what we think is right, and we hope that people come along for the ride and enjoy it.”
We currently don’t when The Last of Us Season 2 will air but it’s expected to premiere around 2025. However, the current writers’ and actors’ strikes may cause further delays in the production of the series. Reports indicate that studios plan to wait it out for a while and may return to the negotiating table by October.
