The Last of Us Season 3 Will Probably Be Its Last, Implies HBO Boss

If you were hoping for a fourth season of HBO’s The Last of Us TV adaptation, then I have some bad news for you. Or, rather, the CEO of HBO has some bad news for you.

Craig Mazin, the showrunner for HBO’s The Last of Us, has stated several times that the TV adaptation of Naughty Dog’s games would last for at least four seasons.

Makes sense. Considering how they adapted the events of The Last of Us Part 2 in the second season, I could easily see how the writers could stretch the rest of the game into two more seasons.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the writers will have to make do with just one more season, because Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO, has implied that the next season of The Last of Us may be its last.

In a recent interview with Deadline, Bloys was asked if he could confirm whether or not The Last of Us’ third season would also be its final season.

His response? “It certainly seems that way, but on decisions like that, we will defer to the showrunners. So you can ask them.”

The Last of Us season 2 official poster, HBO

So, it’s not a hard no, but it’s also oddly close to a yes. I mean, why the hell would Bloys say something like “it certainly seems that way” if he didn’t have some kind of inkling that it was true?

The real question is, if this is true, why has HBO or the team behind The Last of Us suddenly had such a change of heart regarding a fourth season?

That is pretty easy to answer. The ratings for the second season, both in terms of reviews and viewership, were nowhere near as strong as the first season. Plus, while I’m sure a lot of general viewers finished the season, not having Pedro Pascal back for the third season is going to tank numbers even further.

Of course, if the quality of the second season was on par with the first, that could have been offset entirely.

Plus, let’s not forget that Warner Bros, HBO’s parent company, has just been purchased by Netflix. While Warner Bros might have been willing to bankroll a fourth season of The Last of Us, regardless of the third season’s viewership, Netflix has cancelled far more popular and far less expensive shows before. It might be in Craig Mazin’s best interests to wrap the show up before Netflix does it for him.