The first trailer for the sophomore season of The Last of Us is finally here. Along with a nearby release window, the teaser gives us our long-awaited first look at the season’s central queer love story.
Running at just over a minute, the trailer is short on information and big on vibes—mostly of the hairraising variety.
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We begin with newcomer Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) walking down a hallway with blaring alarms. “It doesn’t matter if you have a code like me,” she says in voiceover. “There are just some things everyone agrees are just wrong.”
From there, we are treated to a quick succession of ominous images: survivors readying their weapons on top of a wall, a scythe scraping a stone, a teary-eyed Joel (Pedro Pascal), and hordes of infected throwing themselves against all obstacles.
If the teaser is cryptic, the official Season 2 logline doesn’t deliver much more substance. “Five years after the events of the first season, Joel and Ellie are drawn into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one they left behind,” it reads.
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But there are some bright moments between all the horror. We finally get a glimpse of Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) love interest Dina (Isabela Merced), nearly a year after her casting announcement. In one brief flash, Ellie and Dina are slow dancing and gazing dreamily into each other’s eyes. Even at the end of the world, the sapphics are thriving.
As a character, Dina is described as “a free-wheeling spirit whose devotion to Ellie will be tested by the brutality of the world they inhabit.”
Of Merced’s casting, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann said, “Dina is warm, brilliant, wild, funny, moral, dangerous and instantly lovable. You can search forever for an actor who effortlessly embodies all of those things, or you can find Isabela Merced right away. We couldn’t be prouder to have her join our family.”
In other gay casting news, icon Catherine O’Hara will also appear in an as-yet-unspecified role. No word yet on who will play transmasc character Lev, but that’s just one more mystery to look forward to this spring.
The seven episode second season of The Last of Us will premiere on Max and HBO in April.
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