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The Last of Us Season 2: Merced Doesn't Want "To Go Cardi B" on Trolls

Isabela Merced on the pushback they, Bella Ramsey, and Kaitlyn Dever received over Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann's The Last of Us Season 2.

Earlier this month, HBO used the occasion of the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale to offer a preview of what's to come with the second season of Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann's Pedro Pascal (Joel) & Bella Ramsey (Ellie)-starring The Last of Us as it readies for its 2025 debut. Now, we're getting a chance to hear from Isabela Merced, who checked in with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to cover a number of personal and professional topics. Unfortunately, one of those topics was the pushback that Merced, Ramsey, and Kaitlyn Dever have already received heading into Season 2 – well over a year before the series will even hit screens. Dever became a lightning rod the moment it was announced that they were tapped to play Abby simply because of who they're playing – especially considering the role Abby plays moving forward (no spoilers). In addition, Ramsey, Merced, and Dever have also been criticized for not being identical to their video game counterparts – both physically and from a backstory perspective.

"What confuses me is like… the showrunner and the creator of the video game, they work together to make this. So, if you like what the guy made, and he's making more of it, why are mad? You know what I mean? I don't know, I'm too opinionated to be on Twitter; it really pisses me off because I see this stuff, and it makes me want to go Cardi B on them," Merced shared with Horowitz. In fact, after Horowitz addressed his worries over the reactions that Dever will receive leading up to and during the season, Merced shared that Dever had to be "extra secured" by the production's security during filming.

The Last of Us: Craig Mazin on Season 2 & Beyond

Mazin on Season 2 Needing a "Breakpoint": "The story material that we got from Part II of the game is way more than the story material that was in the first game, so part of what we had to do from the start was figure out how to tell that story across seasons. When you do that, you look for natural breakpoints, and as we laid it out, this season, the natural breakpoint felt like it came after seven episodes."

Mazin on Possibly Needing Four Seasons to Tell Their Story: "We don't think that we're going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because we're taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too. We feel like it's almost assuredly going to be the case that — as long as people keep watching and we can keep making more television — Season 3 will be significantly larger. And indeed, the story may require Season 4."

Mazin on Possibly Expanding Character Story Arcs in Season 2: "Sometimes that means we do things just like the game, sometimes we do them differently. I think it'd be fair to say that since we are taking our time to dig into the story and expand certain areas, of course, there are going to be some things that are going to be expanded, but which characters and how we'll keep that secret."

Druckmann on Having "A Goal in Mind" with Season 2: "Our process was, we sketched out multiple seasons, then we did a deep dive on Season 2. To echo what Craig is saying, there is no padding; everything that is in there is intentional. There is always a goal in mind that we're heading towards, we are never meandering the sake of meandering, it's always to say something greater for these characters and the themes."

Mazin on Season 2 Having a "Quite Big" Episode: "Season 1 really was a 10-episode length season in hours. And certainly, in Season 2, there's an episode that is going to be again closer to — I don't know if I would say feature length, but quite big. I like generally hitting about an hour, it's a great length, I love working in that format. What we don't want to do is, say, a season of seven episodes where each episode is 90 minutes; part of why we're doing seven episodes is finding that nice line."

With Season 2 set to hit HBO & Max screens in 2025, Pascal, Ramsey, and Wright will be joined this season by Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Rutina Wesley as Maria, Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Jeffrey Wright as Isaac, and Danny Ramirez as Manny. In addition, Catherine O'Hara also guest stars. Behind the camera, Mazin and Druckmann will be joined by Peter Hoar (S01E03: "Long, Long Time") are Mark Mylod (HBO's Succession), Nina Lopez-Corrado (HBO's Perry Mason), Stephen Williams (HBO's Watchmen) and Kate Herron (Loki).

HBO's The Last of Us is written and executive-produced by Mazin and Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television and is also executive-produced by Carolyn Strauss, Jacqueline Lesko, Cecil O'Connor, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Evan Wells. PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog serve as the production companies.

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