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For Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us season 2’s themes of conflict, vengeance strike a chord

The Last of Us season two explores themes that are based ‘off the world we’re living in’, says Pedro Pascal, and co-star Gabriel Luna agrees

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Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in a still from season one of The Last of Us. Season two of the video-game adaptation explores themes that are based “off the world we’re living in”, says Pascal. Photo: TNS
Agence France-Presse

When The Last of Us – the smash hit series about a post-apocalyptic society ravaged by a mass fungal infection – arrived on our screens in 2023, the real world was emerging from a pandemic.

Its timely premise evidently struck a chord, as the video-game adaptation’s debut season drew a record-breaking 32 million US viewers alone per episode, according to HBO.
Now season two, which premieres on April 13 and hinges on themes of conflict and vengeance, will be equally relevant and prescient, promises returning star Pedro Pascal.

Part of the show’s strength is its ability “to see human relationships under crisis and in pain, and intelligently draw political allegory, societal allegory, and base it off the world we’re living in”, said the actor, who plays lead character Joel.

“Storytelling is cathartic in so many ways … I think there’s a very healthy and sometimes sick pleasure in that kind of catharsis – in a safe space,” he said.

In the first season, smuggler Joel is forced to take teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey) – seemingly the one human immune to the deadly cordyceps fungus – with him as he crosses the United States seeking his brother.

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