HBO subscribers and video game fans around the globe likely already know that the long-awaited second season of The Last of Us finally premiered on Apr. 13. The series, which adapts the PlayStation video game franchise of the same name, has drawn in millions of viewers thanks to its gritty design, powerful characters and unique world-building. After premiering to critical acclaim back in 2023, The Last of Us went on to win multiple Primetime Emmy Awards, and has since garnered cult status on streaming outlets such as Max. Despite all these accolades, you may find yourself struggling to recall the exact events of the show, now that two years have passed since the release of the first batch of episodes. Luckily, we’ve got you covered with a comprehensive guide to The Last of Us season one and a full recap of the material thus far.
As you can imagine, we’ll be entering full spoiler territory for the entirety of season one, as well as the whole first video game. We’ll also briefly touch on what to expect from the new season, though we won’t share any direct spoilers for the second game, or the season two premiere which aired last Sunday. If you’re trying to head into upcoming episodes of The Last of Us as blind as humanly possible, please proceed with caution. For everyone else, let’s dive right in and see what we can learn about the terrifying world of The Last of Us season one.
How Does ‘The Last of Us’ Begin?
Much like the 2013 video game of the same name, HBO’s The Last of Us centers on a post-apocalyptic adventure in a world overrun with humanoid zombies. The infected beings are afflicted with a mutated version of the real-life Cordyceps fungus, which can sometimes latch onto ants and other small creatures and force them to infect their entire nest. The series starts in 2003, as Joel Miller and his teenage daughter Sarah live a quiet, simple life in Austin, Texas. After spending some time with this pair and establishing their close, affectionate relationship, we see Sarah shaken awake in the middle of the night by a disturbance from her neighbors. Disoriented, she goes to investigate, only to see that the kindly old woman next door has developed a bloodthirsty fungal infection, making her a danger to everyone around her.
Joel just barely manages to swoop in and save Sarah in time, and places her in the back of his brother Tommy’s pickup truck. Together, the trio makes a beeline for the bridge out of town, as they tune into the news over the radio. As far as they can tell, this zombie outbreak has begun decimating major cities all over the United States, leaving the armed forces struggling to maintain a hastily established quarantine zone. Zombies, looters and other crazed citizens begin tearing Austin apart as Tommy and Joel drive through town, leaving them to swerve and weave through the chaos. Eventually, a plane falls out of the sky, destroying a large portion of the area and flipping Tommy’s truck. Joel picks up his injured daughter and tries to carry her out of town on foot, but an armed soldier appears and opens fire on them, killing Sarah.
Rebuilding in Boston
Twenty years after the events of the initial outbreak, the world has been completely ravaged. The government and armed services have fallen, and major cities are ruled only by the oppressive forces of quarantine guards known as the Federal Disaster Response Agency, or FEDRA. Joel is still alive, though his brother is nowhere to be found, and his general demeanor has been hardened by his overwhelming trauma. In 2023, Joel lives in a quarantine zone in Boston, Massachusetts, and serves as a smuggler and contraband dealer for others in the area. One day, he and his business partner Tess concoct a plan to leave the Q-zone behind and begin a cross-country trip, with plans of searching for Tommy in Wyoming. Before they can head out, the pair is contacted by Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies resistance group.
Marlene tasks Joel and Tess with smuggling a 14-year-old girl named Ellie out of the city, and asks them to bring her to the Massachusetts State House, where they can hand her off to Firefly reinforcements. Along the way, they are caught by a FEDRA soldier, triggering a harrowing PTSD response in Joel. He easily dispatches the soldier, but realizes shortly thereafter that Ellie has suffered a zombie bite and tests positive for the Cordyceps infection. For a moment, it looks like Joel and Tess are prepared to kill Ellie where she stands. They wonder aloud why Marlene would set them up with an infected passenger, though Ellie reveals that she received the bite weeks ago, leading her to believe that she is the first human being to be born with natural immunity.
Ellie’s Cross-Country Trip
As Joel and Tess continue transporting Ellie across the greater Boston area, Ellie explains that the Fireflies have arranged to send her to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where scientists are engineering a cure for the Cordyceps virus. Though these scientists have had no major breakthroughs thus far, Marlene believes that Ellie could be the key to developing a vaccine. While navigating the terrors of Downtown Boston, the gang faces off against a number of infected people, including a few “clickers,” or zombies who have developed a hard fungal shell over their heads, protecting them from any attacks and heightening their sense of sound. Unfortunately, after arriving at the State House, the trio finds that the Fireflies have perished in a shootout with a troupe of FEDRA agents, leaving them with no recourse.
To make matters worse, Tess reveals that she suffered a bite during the skirmish outside the State House. Without Ellie’s immunity, Tess will be condemned to a fate worse than death – unless she can sacrifice herself quickly. After Joel shoots one of the zombies, the creature uses a network of fungal tendrils underground to communicate with a nearby horde. Tess agrees to hold them off by blowing herself up inside the State House, as Joel takes Ellie to meet with a few of his associates on the outside. With Tess gone, Joel truly has nothing left, and he does little to hide his outward disdain for this newfound responsibility of caring for Ellie. He also doesn’t really buy into the notion that a vaccine is even possible, though he agrees to follow through on the Fireflies’ mission per Tess’ final request.
Bill and Frank’s Excellent Adventure
The third episode of The Last of Us takes a detour from Joel and Ellie, and delivers backstory to a pair of tertiary characters from the original game. The episode, titled “Long, Long Time” centers on a doomsday prepper named Bill, who immediately escapes into an underground bunker when the infection goes viral in 2003. Shortly after his home neighborhood of Lincoln, Massachusetts is evacuated, Bill ransacks local department stores for generators, lumber and enough food supplies to last him for years. He also plants crops, constructs an electric fence along the perimeter of his neighborhood and turns half of Lincoln into a stronghold where he can defend himself from zombies, authoritarian soldiers and other potential invaders. Despite his solitude, everything runs quite smoothly for Bill, right until he catches a man named Frank in one of his nonlethal traps.
Frank comes from a small group of survivors who were headed toward the nearby Q-zone in Boston, though he became separated when he tried to forage some berries from the outskirts of Bill’s garden. At first, Bill threatens to shoot the man, though Frank ultimately bargains his way into a shower, a meal and a set of fresh clothing. After Frank is invited into Bill’s home, the duo bond over a shared love of fine cuisine, and eventually strike up a romance that blossoms into a full-blown domestic partnership. Years later, Frank reaches out to Tess and Joel via radio, and establishes an open line of communication to share goods and services, and aide one another in the event of an emergency. Over the years, Bill and Frank grow to become good friends of Tess and Joel, and the quartet even share in makeshift garden parties.
Once Joel and Ellie arrive in Lincoln, they discover that Bill and Frank have died. As explained by a note left behind for Joel, Frank had developed a degenerative disease in his old age, which made it difficult for him to move. During his final days, he and Bill shared a romantic dinner, a DIY wedding ceremony and ultimately shared a ration of poison so that they could die in each other’s arms. Bill writes that meeting Frank and caring for him gave his life purpose, and impresses that Joel likely has the same caretaker instinct. While Joel is moved by this note and still absorbing the emotional loss of Tess, he realizes that his new purpose is in carrying Ellie through her journey to SLC. Joel and Ellie wind up scrounging up supplies from Bill’s home and heading West in his old pickup truck.
Showdown in Kansas City
After departing Massachusetts, the duo manage to make it all the way to Kansas City, Missouri, where they are ambushed by a gang of rogue bandits. Joel kills a number of attackers before he is overpowered, and Ellie ultimately steps in to save him, using a gun that she secretly took from Bill and Frank’s place. Before Joel and Ellie can escape from town, they become embroiled in a gang war of some sort, as a woman named Kathleen commands an army to snuff them out. While setting up camp for the night, our protagonists meet a man named Henry, who is traveling under the cover of darkness with his little brother Sam. As Henry explains, he was inadvertently responsible for the death of Kathleen’s brother, making him a target for a city-wide manhunt.
Joel is extremely apprehensive of Henry, but ultimately agrees to join forces with him in order to escape town together. As the group traverses a series of underground tunnels, Ellie and Sam form a quick connection. In a sense, it’s the first time either of them gets to experience some semblance of a normal childhood. This doesn’t last long, however, as the group finds themselves ambushed by a sniper as soon as they emerge from the tunnels. Joel runs ahead to subdue the sniper, but by the time he gets there, he sees that Kathleen and her crew have already been alerted to their location. Joel mans the rifle as Ellie, Henry, and Sam take cover, but Kathleen’s army has them completely pinned down. Just when it looks like there’s no escape, a horde of infected zombies comes bursting forth from an underground cave, destroying massive portions of the street in their wake.
The zombies seem to be led by an enormous creature dubbed a “bloater,” who has been completely scaled over by fungal plates. As members of Kathleen’s army flee in terror, she and her right-hand man are brutally annihilated by the bloater, allowing the others a chance to escape. Unfortunately, after the dust settles on the encounter, Sam realizes he’s been bitten by a zombie and quietly reveals his fate to Ellie. Though she has agreed not to tell anybody that she is immune, Ellie attempts to save Sam’s life by rubbing some of her blood on his wound. The following morning, Ellie learns the hard way that curing the Cordyceps virus isn’t that simple, as Sam turns into a mindless zombie and attempts to attack her. Henry steps in and shoots Sam, before turning the gun on himself. Unable to handle the loss of his brother, or the guilt of having taken him out, Sam takes his own life, leaving Joel and Ellie to continue their journey alone.
Building a Community in Jackson
Episode six of The Last of Us leaps forward by several months, as Joel and Ellie arrive in the outskirts of Jackson, Wyoming. Following a tip that his brother may have settled nearby, Joel seeks directions from an elderly couple who live on a farm outside of town. They warn him that traveling any further West would be extremely dangerous, though he continues anyway. On the road, Joel and Ellie are picked up by a gang of cowboys, who bring them into an autonomous community as prisoners. Once they arrive, they learn that Tommy is alive and well, and that he’s married to Maria, the de facto leader of the survivor camp. Tommy and Joel share a warm reunion before Joel and Ellie are treated to a hot meal, running water, and some basic grooming for the first time in months.
While in town, Maria warns Ellie to be cautious of Joel, citing his sketchy past, and tells her about the traumatic loss of Joel’s daughter at the onset of the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Joel confides in his brother that he’s been losing his grip on survival, due to his advancing age and worsening mental health. Though he’s been trying to hide it from Ellie, Joel has been experiencing panic attacks throughout their road trip and has nearly been killed multiple times during his encounters with bandits. Joel asks Tommy to take Ellie the rest of the way on his behalf, since he no longer trusts his ability to keep her safe, but Tommy declines, revealing that he’s got a baby on the way with Maria. When Ellie learns that Joel wants her to leave without him, she attempts to assuage some of his anxiety regarding Sarah. Unfortunately, this only serves to infuriate Joel, as he refuses to speak about the experience with anyone and resents Ellie for bringing it up.
Back on the Road Again
Despite their disagreements, Joel ultimately comes to his senses and agrees to bring Ellie to Salt Lake City. Tommy offers them a horse and tells them both that they have a home in Jackson to return to once they’re finished with their quest. After making a stop at a Firefly stronghold in Colorado, the duo are ambushed by raiders, and are forced to shoot their way out of the building before running back to their horse. An intense struggle plays out as Joel subdues multiple attackers once again, only this time, he falls and gets impaled on a piece of rebar. In a panic, Ellie loads Joel onto the back of the horse and brings him to an abandoned home nearby. She attempts to nurse him back to health, though she lacks medicine, food, and a litany of other necessary supplies. To make matters worse, a winter storm blows through, blanketing the entire area with snow.
As Joel’s condition worsens, Ellie ventures out into the woods to hunt for food. She manages to shoot a deer, but before she can take it back to her safe house, she encounters a pair of hunters from a nearby village. The leader of the group, David, attempts to trade with Ellie and promises her penicillin in exchange for half of the deer meat. David sends his partner back to their camp to fetch the medicine, and spends some time getting to know Ellie while they wait for him. He explains that he used to be a teacher for students roughly Ellie’s age, and has since taken on the role of a preacher in the apocalypse. He also explains that he leads a large group of survivors who have found significant food shortages during recent months, making them extremely desperate.
The Series Gets Exceptionally Dark
Just when it seems like David is a kind and trustworthy individual, he drops a bombshell revelation on Ellie, and informs her that the raiders who attacked her and Joel at the Firefly stronghold were members of his group. Shaken, she takes the penicillin and returns to Joel, though David’s goons follow her and attempt to finish the job. Before they can locate her, Ellie arms an unresponsive Joel with a knife and warns him to stay quiet as she handles the thugs. Though she manages to take several of the men out, she is eventually captured, and brought back to David’s village where she is held in a cage. There, she learns that David has been feeding his villagers human flesh, as a last-ditch effort to avoid sweeping starvation. As if things couldn’t get any more disgusting, David begins propositioning Ellie to engage in a sexual relationship with him, offering her a position of power within the survivor camp.
As this is going on, the medicine finally begins hitting Joel’s immune system. He manages to wake up just in time to capture a few of the raiders as they enter the house, intent on killing him. After getting the drop on the men, he begins brutally torturing them, demanding answers for Ellie’s whereabouts. The scene draws an incredible parallel between the gray morality of the core characters, and highlights the lengths that Joel and Ellie are both willing to go to protect each other. Finally, Joel learns the location of the village, kills the two men, and sets off to rescue his partner in crime. Back at the village, Ellie attempts to kill David and escape. After a botched attempt at breaking his hand, the two wind up in a standoff inside a log cabin. Ellie manages to distract David by setting the building on fire, and eventually carves him up with a meat cleaver, in a berserk hail of swings that demonstrates her fear, desperation, and adrenaline.
How Does Season 1 of ‘The Last of Us’ End?
After her harrowing encounter with David, a blood-soaked Ellie reunites with Joel, and the two continue on their journey. Joel attempts to bond with her by sharing some more personal details about his life, including the fact that he once attempted suicide after losing his daughter. Ellie is still shaken by the events of the previous days, though her spirits are lifted when the duo stumble across a herd of wild giraffes wandering through downtown Salt Lake City, where nature has all but reclaimed the land. Ellie begins lightening up a bit, and shares a few corny puns from a book of jokes she found earlier on the adventure. Just before they arrive at the hospital, Joel tells Ellie that he’d be more than happy to just forget the whole mission and return to Jackson with her. She declines, citing the importance of finding a cure, and they continue on their way.
In The Last of Us season one finale, Joel and Ellie finally reconnect with Marlene at the hospital, where Firefly scientists claim to be inches from a medical breakthrough. The crew put Ellie under anesthesia and prep for her operation. Just before they can begin, Marlene lets it slip to Joel that the doctors will be examining Ellie’s brain, almost certainly killing her in the process. Needless to say, Joel doesn’t take this well. He begins storming through the halls of the hospital, demanding that the doctors stop the procedure immediately. Marlene attempts to have him removed from the building, but he snags a weapon from one of the guards and begins killing everyone in sight. After Joel finally locates Ellie’s operating room, he demands that the lead surgeon hand her over. When the surgeon refuses, Joel coldly blows him away and takes her unconscious body off the table.
On his way out of the hospital, Joel racks up a double-digit murder count and even slays Marlene as she begs for her life. He loads Ellie into the back of a vehicle and begins driving back to Jackson. When Ellie wakes up, Joel lies, and tells her that the Fireflies failed to conduct any meaningful research regarding her condition. He even claims that there are other immune people, and that past experiments on her condition have yielded no results. Just before the pair of protagonists make it back to Jackson, Ellie laments that their trip has been for nothing, and expresses feelings of intense survivor’s guilt. Joel assures her that it will all be worth it once they settle down and begin a new life with Tommy and the others. Skeptical of his story about the hospital, Ellie asks Joel to swear that he’s telling the truth about what happened. He promises that his story is true, and Ellie hesitantly accepts it, just as the series cuts to black.
What Can We Expect From ‘The Last of Us’ Season Two?
Though the series differs in many ways from the original games, The Last of Us season one manages to stick to the overall plot points of the first game quite faithfully. The ending is almost a shot-for-shot remake of the conclusion of the first game, meaning season two will likely stick pretty close to 2020’s The Last of Us Part 2. If this is the case, we can expect to see a time jump, a few new faces, and an adventure that takes the core characters to bold new locales. We’re also expecting to see a lot more zombie action, since the first season shied away from some of the more prominent horror sequences of The Last of Us Part 1. Season two premiered with an explosive new episode on Apr. 13. New episodes are slated to air Sunday nights on HBO, with a finale scheduled on May 25.
The Last of Us has also been renewed for a third season, meaning season two likely won’t be adapting the entirety of the second game. Longtime fans of the franchise probably have a good idea of where the series will split the story, though we won’t dive into major spoilers theorizing about that here. Suffice is to say, the new season will deliver on a large portion of The Last of Us Part 2‘s gripping narrative, while leaving a lot more for fans to sink their teeth into in the future. Beyond that, it’s likely that The Last of Us will conclude there, as series creator Craig Mazin has made no secret of his intention to never go beyond the source material. Franchise founder Neil Druckmann has also expressed that fans shouldn’t expect to see The Last of Us Part 3 anytime soon, so season three will probably be the end of the franchise as we know it.
Who Is Abby in ‘The Last of Us’?
For fans of the series that haven’t played the original games, one significant question might be weighing on your mind. A character named Abby was introduced in the season two premiere, garnering strong reactions from fans all over the globe. For those wondering about this character, it’s safe to say she will play a massive role in the story of The Last of Us season two, and an even larger role in season three. Without giving away any major spoilers, Abby is a golf enthusiast and member of a California-based survivor camp, who ventures to Jackson in the second game to discuss some pertinent business with some of the members of Tommy’s community. She and Ellie eventually develop some bad blood, though one of the key themes of The Last of Us Part 2‘s narrative is the fact that they’re far more alike than they are different.
In the game, Abby’s defining feature is her hulking physique. She lives in a community with a large, fully stocked gym and has entirely too much time on her hands which she dedicates to pumping iron and double-fisting burritos packed with protein. In the series, Abby is portrayed by Dear Evan Hansen‘s Kaitlyn Dever. While Dever has certainly prepared for the role mentally and physically, the showrunners felt it unnecessary to make her bulk up to match game Abby’s somewhat unrealistic mass. Even still, you can bet that this character will be a force to be reckoned with, as she has inspired tons of mixed reactions from The Last of Us players.
