Honestly, the pressure on the Last of Us stars heading into 2025 and 2026 was bordering on the impossible. How do you follow up a debut season that basically reinvented the video game adaptation? You don't just "do it again." You have to break the show apart and put it back together.
For Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the shift from the "found-family" road trip of the first season to the jagged, revenge-soaked reality of the second was a massive gear change. They weren't just playing survivors anymore; they were playing people coming apart at the seams.
The Physical Toll Nobody Saw Coming
If you watched the second season, you saw a lot of bruises. Most of those weren't makeup. Bella Ramsey, who uses they/them pronouns, has been incredibly vocal about how the production nearly broke them physically. They weren't just acting "tired"—they were living it.
Ramsey spent months training in London before even hitting the set in Vancouver. We're talking heavy stunt work, water sequences in the freezing Pacific, and high-intensity fight choreography. In a 2025 interview with AP News, Ramsey admitted there were days they thought their body was actually going to "cave in." It wasn't just the stunts; it was the sheer duration of being "on" for seven months straight.
Pedro Pascal faced a different kind of exhaustion. At 50, he was filming Season 2 while dealing with real-world injuries and a schedule that would make most people quit. He described himself as being in a "low place" during filming, which, funnily enough, helped him lean into the more vulnerable, settled version of Joel we see in the Jackson community.
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Moving On Without Joel
We have to talk about the elephant in the room: Episode 2.
For many fans, the Last of Us stars are Pascal and Ramsey as a unit. Their chemistry is the soul of the show. So, when Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) kills Joel early in the season, it didn't just shock the audience—it fundamentally changed the work environment.
Ramsey has mentioned how "lonely" the set felt after Pascal finished his scenes. They went from having a constant scene partner and mentor to carrying the emotional weight of a seven-episode season almost entirely on their own. That isolation is visible on screen. You can see the shift in Ellie’s eyes from a kid looking for guidance to a woman who has decided she doesn't need anyone.
The New Faces of the Apocalypse
It wasn't all just the "old guard," though. The new additions to the cast had a mountain to climb.
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- Kaitlyn Dever (Abby): Taking on the most controversial role in modern gaming history isn't for the faint of heart. Dever actually had to have extra security on set because some "fans" (and I use that term loosely) can't distinguish between an actor and a character. She played Abby with a grounded, quiet intensity that made the character's motivations—revenge for her father—feel painfully human.
- Isabela Merced (Dina): As Ellie’s romantic interest, Merced had to build a believable, years-long history with Ramsey in a very short amount of time. Their chemistry was one of the few bright spots in a season that was, let's be real, pretty bleak.
- Young Mazino (Jesse): Fresh off his breakout in Beef, Mazino brought a sense of moral stability to the Jackson crew. He’s the guy who stays good when everyone else is turning into a monster.
- Catherine O’Hara (Gail): This was a curveball. The comedy legend played Joel’s therapist—a character created specifically for the show. Her scenes with Pascal added a layer of interiority that the games never quite reached.
The Backlash and the Brilliance
Not everyone was happy. If you spend five minutes on Reddit, you'll see the debates. Some people hated the "bifurcated" structure of the season. They felt robbed of the Joel-and-Ellie time. Critics like Alan Sepinwall pointed out that the lack of their shared screen time kept the season from hitting the same emotional peaks as the first.
But here’s the thing: that was the point.
The story is about loss. You can’t feel the vacuum of Joel’s absence if he’s still there in constant flashbacks. The showrunners, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (before Druckmann stepped back in late 2025), wanted the audience to feel as frustrated and abandoned as Ellie.
What’s Happening Now? (2026 Update)
As of January 2026, the gears are turning for Season 3.
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Bella Ramsey confirmed at the Critics Choice Awards earlier this month that scripts are in hand. Filming is slated to begin in Vancouver in March 2026. This next chapter will cover the second half of the The Last of Us Part II game.
The focus is going to shift significantly. While Ramsey’s Ellie is still a core piece of the puzzle, Kaitlyn Dever’s Abby is expected to take the lead for much of the season. It’s a bold move, but if the Last of Us stars have proven anything, it’s that they can handle the heat.
Actionable Insights for Fans
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world before Season 3 drops in 2027, here is what you should actually do:
- Play the "Chronological Mode": If you have the Remastered Part II on PS5 or PC, the v2.1.0 patch added a mode that lets you play the events in the order they actually happened. It changes the perspective entirely.
- Watch "Sunny Dancer": If you want to see Bella Ramsey do something that isn't soul-crushing, they just finished filming this coming-of-age comedy in Scotland. It’s the "antithesis" of TLOU.
- Track the Production: Keep an eye on the Director's Guild of Canada (DGC) listings for British Columbia starting in March. That's where the real "boots on the ground" filming updates usually leak first.
The journey for these actors is far from over, but the era of the "Joel and Ellie road trip" is officially in the rearview mirror. What comes next is going to be even more divisive—and likely even more awarded.