The Last of Us Season 2 Just Retconned Its Biggest Retcon
There must be something in the air.
HBO’s The Last of Us is no stranger to meandering away from the video game’s story. Its changes are usually additions, not omissions: Season 1 gave us a closer look at the lives of Bill and Frank, more backstory for Tess, and a whole new villain. That pattern will be repeated in Season 2, with multiple background characters now getting fleshed out.
One big plot point was removed from Season 1, but now, thanks to the new Season 2 trailer, we know it’s set to make a terrifying return. Check out the trailer below to get a peek at everything our heroes will be going through soon.
Alongside shots of Joel and Ellie making a new life for themselves in Jackson and snowy Infected attacks that look like something from Game of Thrones, there’s one quick shot of something new. Ellie stands next to an Infected body that has been lying around for so long that it’s grown into the tree behind it, but what makes the shot interesting is what the body is expelling.
Tiny spores float through the air, which fans of the game will recognize as an airborne way the cordyceps infects new victims. In the game, this is solved by characters putting on gas masks. Ellie isn’t wearing one in the trailer, but as Season 1 established, she’s immune to the infection.
Spores float in the air as Ellie investigates a body in the Last of Us Season 2 trailer.
Despite being a major part of the game, spores didn’t appear in Season 1. Co-showrunner Craig Mazin explained the choice to ComicBook, saying, “In the world that we’re creating, if we put spores in the air, it would be pretty clear that they would spread around everywhere and everybody would have to wear a mask all the time and probably everybody would be completely infected by that point.”
To get out of that narrative corner, the writers introduced tendrils, a way for the cordyceps to communicate like real fungal networks. So what could have changed in Season 2 to make spores logical again? Will they be limited to one location to make them less of a global threat? Or will they be a new evolution of the Infected, one that forces the characters to stop what could be a world-ending threat?
Co-showrunner Neil Druckmann teased a cryptic explanation at the SXSW panel where the trailer debuted. “We really wanted to figure it out, and again, everything has to be drama,” he said. “There had to be a dramatic reason of introducing it now, and there is.”
That doesn’t tell us much, but it seems clear the spores will be important when Season 2 debuts next month. Play it safe and get your gas masks ready now.
