The first season of HBO's The Last Of Us has come to an end, and even though the wait for season two will be a long one, speculation regarding what it might include has already begun. Showrunner Craig Mazin has been fielding questions about how Part 2 will be adapted all week, revealing that there may well not be the same time jump between seasons that there was between the games.

Mazin spoke with Collider about that aforementioned time jump. Those of you who have played both games will know that when you return to Joel and Ellie, the pair are five years older. “The time jump is important, to some extent. It reflects the changing nature of Ellie’s relationship with Joel,” Mazin points out.

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Noting that The Last Of Us definitely won't experience the same leaps forward in time as House of the Dragon, and reaffirming Ellie won't be recast, Mazin pointed to the moments between the games that are included in Part 2. “There’s a primary shift in time, but there are also moments that you see, that are in between the events of the main storyline of The Last of Us Part II and the storyline of The Last of Us Part I.”

Ellie making Joel swear The Last of Us

Perhaps a suggestion from the Chernobyl creator that season two of the adaptation will focus on the five-year gap between Part 1 and Part 2 rather than jump forward half a decade right away. That line of thinking aligns with the confirmation that telling Part 2's story will require more than one season of television. It also makes sense if Mazin and Neil Druckman want Bella Ramsey to keep playing Ellie, which they clearly do.

Even though Ramsey is 19, they just spent a season of TV convincingly playing a 14-year-old. That might make it tricky to portray them as someone who has aged five years even though the actor will only be one or two years older. That might mean we have to wait a while until we are introduced to the live-action version of Abby, even though her voice and mocap actor made a cameo in Sunday's finale.

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