Watching your favorite movies abroad? Don’t forget to get your Aeroshield smart DNS to access any geo-restricted content.
We’re only just recovering from the finale of The White Lotus and HBO is already serving us another slice of appointment television viewing, courtesy of The Last of Us season two.
While the sophomore installment of the zombie drama series technically hasn’t arrived for us regular folk (it lands on Max on April 13), the new batch of episodes has been previewed by critics, meaning we’ve gotten a pre-season insight into what we can expect when Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey finally grace our screens once more. While we shouldn’t have expected anything less, the critics’ response to the seven-episode season is (almost) unanimously positive, with an accompanying score on Rotten Tomatoes to match.
The review aggregator has crunched the numbers, and The Last of Us’ second season now boasts 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 44 reviews of the new installment. For its part, The Age praised the series for its “expanded scale” and “thrilling and horrifying” depiction of the infected, while Consequence commended the season for “continu[ing] to be a powerful, emotional, and often brutal story about what it means to survive.”
Elsewhere, The Daily Beast wrote that The Last of Us remains “the finest video game adaptation ever,” and Empire said season two “delivers at almost every turn.” For all its fans, however, there were some quibbles mentioned by critics of season two. Los Angeles Times wrote that it is “an oddly constructed season of television” in terms of answering some questions while leaving others unresolved, while The Hollywood Reporter said that while “thrilling and addicting” the lasting impression of season two “is one of anticlimax.”
#TheLastOfUs Review: “The first installments of part two are carried by a breathless momentum…Those who’ve complained about the relative lack of zombie action will be pleased to find there’s no shortage of it this year” https://t.co/4AFSE68Hyu pic.twitter.com/vQiMcRR22n
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 7, 2025
Rolling Stone, meanwhile, praised the season’s visuals but wanted more from the “focus on Ellie and Joel’s relationship that made Season One superb,” sharing a similar sentiment with Time’s assessment that the show “is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.” On the character front, Variety commended the sophomore outing for allowing Ramsey’s Ellie to “take the reins,” and multiple critics were big fans of newcomer castmate Catherine O’Hara.
The fan response to The Last of Us’ season two critics score was similarly divided, though many fell on the side of excitement regardless of what the critics had to say. “Can’t wait,” one fan wrote, with another (correctly) adding that “anything with Pedro Pascal is a banger.” The audience response to season two is the latest update we’ve gotten ahead of its release, with two trailers for the season arriving in January and March. Elsewhere, we learned that Booksmart and Apple Cider Vinegar star Kaitlyn Dever was joining the season two cast, and saw glimpses of specific scenes as part of HBO’s recent supercut of shows slated for release this year.
Wherever the critics may land in terms of the quality of season two, we can at least rest assured that 2025 has already delivered us multiple prestige TV moments. Between Severance, The White Lotus and now The Last of Us, I’m starting to think I need a day off to binge all these long-awaited returns. Thankfully, I still have a few days before season two arrives to nurse those White Lotus finale wounds. HBO, please be mindful of my fragile state when plotting Pascal’s season two character arc, I can’t take anymore heartbreak!