Posted in: HBO, TV | Tagged: the last of us

The Last of Us: Young Mazino on THAT S02 Finale Moment, S03 Future

The Last of Us star Young Mazino discusses preparing for his fate in season two by playing the PlayStation game, Season 3 plans, and more.

It sounds like a broken record at this point, but The Last of Us isn't a conventional show. While it does dive into traditional narratives, it's also heavily driven by flashbacks, which means there's a little baited breath when creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin shock audiences when recreating pivotal moments of the game. It's something Young Mazino was ready to do playing Jesse, Dina's (Isabela Merced) ex, and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) best friend in season two of the HBO series. The season two finale, "Convergence," represents a watershed moment for the series, which aligns with what players experienced for Part II. The following contains major spoilers.

The Last of Us Star Young Mazino on Prepping Himself for Jesse's Season Two Climactic Moment

The story of Jesse (originally voiced by Stephen A. Chang) from the games felt a little unfulfilled as the character wasn't as fleshed out as well, and more operated to enhance the player as Ellie (voiced by Ashley Johnson). In the HBO series, the TV incarnation of Jesse, naturally, has an adverse reaction to the secret Dina and Ellie keep from him, but only Ellie hears it as she also finds out he voted against her revenge plan against Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). As the episode draws to a close, we see Ellie knock three names off her list with Nora (Tati Gabrielle), Mel (Ariela Barer), and Owen (Spencer Lord) from Abby's crew before she in turn, ambushes Ellie's crew in the Seattle theater as Abby takes Tommy hostage (Gabriel Luna) and killing Jesse as he charged in, leaving Ellie to plead for Tommy's life. To prepare for his imminent fate, Mazino played Part II on Sony's PlayStation up to the point where Jesse dies. "Then I put the controller down and I was like, 'I'm ready,'" he told Variety. "This is what I needed."

Upon reflecting on Jesse's death scene, which Mazino shot several times, "That scene is so important," he said. "That's another heartstring that gets severed by Abby, and Ellie registers that. I wanted Ellie to have the best performance by being there, and for her to be able to connect to that instead of the stunt doubles or a non-human figure. The first 10 times you fall, it's fine, but by the 15th, 20th, you kind of feel the compounding effects of dropping to the ground like that." While flashbacks are common with the show, the rest of Part II is planned over the course of season three, at least, but showrunners have planned for a potential season four. That means we could see Pedro Pascal's Joel return, but we won't know when, as it looks like Dever's Abby will be the primary focus at least the bulk of season three. As far as a season three return, Mazino said Druckmann and Mazin have been "cryptic, for good reason" before admitting, "…At one point [Mazin] told me Jesse and Tommy, they're going to fuck shit up, or something along the lines of that. That's all I know. We're going to fuck shit up, apparently."

Mazino's probably alluding to Jesse and Tommy's mission to search for Ellie and Dina and having to battle through the warzone between the militaristic Washington Liberation Front (WLF) and the fanatical Seraphites. "When you catch him in episode 5, he's already gone through some shit," he explains. "There's no jokes, there's no levity, he's not happy, he's not looking at anything half full. He's in compartmentalize [mode], survive, kill anyone in the way. It's just pure objective. He's not that guy that was just poking fun at Ellie after the New Year's Eve party." For more information, including Mazino discussing Jesse's history and worldviews, dealing with the potential for fatherhood the way his game counterpart never addressed it, and the inevitable divisiveness of fan discourse of the franchise, you can check out the entire interview. The Last of Us will return for season three on HBO and Max, with both seasons available to stream on Max.

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