HBO’s hit zombie drama The Last of Us offers what might be TV’s ultimate found family: A rugged, former soldier bonding with an angry, rebellious girl while traveling across a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

During the show’s first season, back in 2023, Pedro Pascal’s handsome Joel led Bella Ramsey’s impulsive, wickedly smart Ellie across an America destroyed by a fast-spreading fungal infection that turned people into flesh-eating zombies. Along the way, Joel connected with her as a surrogate father — to the point where he killed a building full of people to save her life.

In its new season, The Last of Us challenges that notion of found family with a simple question: If the person you decide to love lies to you – even to protect you – does that eventually destroy the bond?

Such lies – alongside the terrible decisions required in this ruined world and the consequences that follow – are the themes hanging over the show’s new season like a shroud. They lend new weight and expanded drama to a series that has always fought to be more than a typical scare-of-the-week franchise.

A father-daughter bond under stress

Fans who vibed on Joel and Ellie’s hard-won bond may find it a bit jarring – if expected – to see the new season open five years later with the two characters estranged from each other, living at a settlement in Jackson, Wyoming.

Pedro Pascal in Season 2 of The Last of Us.

Liane Hentscher/HBO

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Liane Hentscher/HBO

Initially, Joel gripes to friends that Ellie is a typical 19-year-old rebelling against her surrogate dad. “I know I’m a hard ass and maybe overprotective,” he grouses. “But what did I do?”

Those who saw the last season know one possible answer: He lied to Ellie about what he had to do to free her.

When well-meaning lies become a problem 

In the first season, Joel took on a job escorting Ellie — the only person known with a resistance to the fungus — across the country to a medical facility. Back then, each episode offered a different adventure, until they reached the hospital and Joel realized Ellie must die to synthesize a cure. So he took action, killed a bunch of people and lied about it to Ellie.

In the second season, that lie seems to weigh heavily on both of them. Particularly as a new character played by Kaitlyn Dever called Abby – the daughter of someone Joel killed in that hospital – tries to make good on her promise to track him down.

Another consistent theme in this second season: What it takes to make hard decisions about saving someone and the consequences it can bring. Joel’s instinct is to spare Ellie the weight of those tough choices by lying to her, even when the lies corrode their relationship.

Ace character actor Catherine O’Hara offers a typically compelling performance as the community’s resident psychiatrist who has grown tired of Joel’s withholding after five sessions. “You’re lying to me, and it’s exhausting,” she says, wearily taking a long drink from a glass of liquor. “I’ve done this long enough to know when someone is leaving something out. And you are definitely leaving something out.”

Catherine O’Hara in Season 2 of The Last of Us.

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Liane Hentscher/HBO

Of course, just like many relationships in this season of The Last of Us, there’s more fueling her confrontational attitude toward Joel than his lies of omission — but I won’t spoil that delicious revelation. The show’s producers seem to delight in presenting situations which look like one thing, only to shift the dynamic as circumstances change and new facts emerge, like turning a crystal in a shaft of light.

Indeed, that’s what good TV storytellers do in a show’s second season: Take all the things that worked last time and turn them upside down, mining extra entertainment from the uncertainty and new dynamics.

Credit Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) who co-created the series with Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the video game. The two share writing and directing duties, and their formula has worked so far: Already the show has been picked up for a third season, amid glowing reviews for the second season and a shelf full of Emmy awards for the first.

Avoiding the typical zombie drama pitfalls

Often, the biggest challenge for other zombie series like The Walking Dead is how they can fall into a predictable pattern, with unkillable stars and episodes set in the same location, forcing a new calamity every week to keep things exciting.

Last season, The Last of Us avoided that by taking Joel and Ellie on a journey that led to different environments with almost every episode. This season, producers don’t have that luxury, with narratives centered on Jackson, where Ellie has found a new type of infected zombie which just might be kind of… smart.

Fans of the video game’s various iterations know there is a terrible twist coming that changes everything.

But that twist also shows the tough choices storytellers are also willing to make in developing The Last of Us, building a new season that challenges this found family — and the audience — in thrilling, unexpected ways.