The Last of Us TV series will cover the entirety of the first game in season 1

Don’t expect to see much, if any, “filler” in the nine episodes that make up the first season of HBO’s TV series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us, which is set to premiere on January 15th, kicking off with a pilot episode that is expected to have a running time of 85 minutes. Series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann recently sat down for an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and during the interview it was revealed that this season of the show will cover the entirety of the first The Last of Us game. If the show gets a second season, it’s expected to cover the story of the second game, The Last of Us Part II. As Mazin told The Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t like filler.”

What if there’s a third season? The Last of Us game creator Druckmann wouldn’t confirm if there’s going to be a third game, but he did say, “I think there’s more story to tell. We have no plans to tell any stories beyond adapting the games. We won’t run into the same issue as Game of Thrones (which got ahead of the book series written by George R. R. Martin) since Part II doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.”

Mazin added, “I don’t have any interest in a spinning-plates-go-on-forever show. When it becomes a perpetual motion machine, it just can’t help but get kind of … stupid. Endings mean everything to me.”

The story of the The Last of Us video game is set years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for.

Pedro Pascal plays Joel, who is “tormented by past trauma and failure. He must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity”. He is joined in the cast by Bella Ramsey as Ellie, “a 14-year-old orphan who has never known anything but a ravaged planet and who struggles to balance her instinct for anger and defiance with her need for connection and belonging… as well as the newfound reality that she may be the key to saving the world”; Anna Torv as Tess, “a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world”; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world”; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, “the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime”; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, “a rebel in a quarantine zone”; Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as Bill and Frank, “two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town”; and Storm Reid as Ellie’s best friend Riley.

Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who did the motion-capture performances for Joel and Ellie in the video game, are also in the cast of the show. Baker is playing James, “a senior member of a group of settlers who must fight to keep their community alive in the face of increasingly brutal odds.” Johnson’s character is Anna, “a pregnant woman, alone and on the run, who must give birth under the most terrifying of circumstances.” Baker is also hosting a podcast that will serve as a companion to the TV series.

Mazin and Druckmann are directors on the series, as are Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole), Jasmila Zbanic (Quo vadis, Aida), Peter Hoar (Doctor Who), Jeremy Webb (The Punisher), and Liza Johnson (What We Do in the Shadows).

The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Druckmann serves as executive producer alongside Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions, and Mazin.

Are you glad to hear The Last of Us season 1 will tell the full story of the first game instead of dragging it out over multiple seasons? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.