Who Are The New Factions Featured In The Last of Us Season 2?
A spoiler-free lore deep dive.
When The Last Of Us season two premieres next month, quite a lot will have happened since we last saw Joel and Ellie. Set four years after the divisive ending of the first season, season two will put our heroes in the unlikeliest of environments: one of security and even comfort after the end of the world. They live in a functioning small community. We see them sharing quieter moments with each other and new loved ones (and in the case of Ellie, seemingly new love interests).
But as the most recent trailer shows, those emotional highs will be counterbalanced with moments of despair we’ve come to expect from this dog-eat-dog post-apocalypse world. The trailer gives us a look at two new factions, both of which had major roles in the 2020 sequel video game that the second season is adapting. But who are they and where do they come from?
Let’s break down what this new look at season two reveals, and what it says about the threats facing our charmingly flawed protagonists this time around.
Who are WLF?
The first of two factions we’ll go over is the one that’s clearly signposted throughout the trailer. The WLF, whose scary looking logo appears on tanks and the helmets of armed soldiers, is a Seattle-based paramilitary organization known as the Washington Liberation Front. The WLF is an independent faction that came to power after overthrowing the federal government that established control over the state capital in the aftermath of the Cordyceps outbreak.
While we never see the events that took place at the time of WLF’s battle against the Federal Disaster Response Agency (FEDRA) in the game, we know about the events leading up to their clash thanks to documents players discover in the game. In the 2020s, years before the time frame of the show, the people of Seattle were struggling through the same food shortages and social hardships that faced other quarantine zones around the U.S.
Unhappy with the job the FEDRA was doing after the disaster, some Seattle citizens protested. When peaceful protests were shut down, others took a more hands-on approach, sowing dissent among the public and even stealing and sabotaging military equipment. When the federal government eliminated two prominent leaders in the WLF to put down the movement for good, it set off an all-out battle over the city between its chargined citizenry and the government. In the end, the presumably blood revolt resulted in a successful push back of federal control and the start of a new centralized community.
Who Are The Serphites?
Some of The Last of Us Part 2’s creepiest moments come when you’re deep in Seraphites territory.
The Serphites, also known as Scars, are the less obvious faction featured in the trailer. Identifiable by their dark green raincoats and eerie whistling, this crew is a fringe extremist group that lives on the forest outskirts of Seattle.
In typical cult fashion, the Seraphites were founded in the 2010s by a charismatic leader who proposed the Cordyceps brain infection was a punishment brought on by God as a punishment for humanity’s sins. As a result, they see the post-apocalypse as a clean slate for humanity, outlawing all technology (save for defensive weapons) from the so-called “old world” in their new, religious society. They carved out an isolated existence in the rural parts of Washington.
Despite their peaceful existence, however, they are known to be violent when they do come across those they consider heretics. They have an ongoing feud with WLF, fallout from its clash with the militarized group years before the show. And as the trailer showcases, the Scars aren’t afraid to resort to torture and other gruesome means to dispense its version of altruistic justice.
Those who’ve played the games know there are plenty of reason to raise your eyebrows at the arrival of the Scars. They’re a new formidable band of fundamentalists who pose a serious threat to our leads this time around.
What’s Up With Joel and Ellie?
There will be a significant rift between Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us season 2.
While the end of season one left viewers divided on whether Joel’s pivotal decision is irredeemable or understandable, it’s clear in the trailer that he will have to face the consequences of those actions in the one way he likely wanted to avoid.
The trailer’s final moments allude to Ellie discovering Joel’s horrific secret. And it wouldn’t surprise us if that tears a big rift between the show’s two leads. While the game portrays that rift fairly early on in its runtime, the jury is still out on whether HBO will closely adapt how this all plays out in The Last Of Us Part 2. Season one made a few changes (including one that’s being retconned for season two), so it wouldn’t surprise us if the series creators wanted to subvert expectations in this highly anticipated follow up.
