The Last of Us is already teasing Joel's return

Could we see Joel’s return in The Last of Us? Maybe so, if we read into a recent tease from the showrunners of the HBO series.

Season two of The Last of Us has come to an end with a teaser that has left us hanging in anticipation for the upcoming third season. That being said, without giving too much away, to me, the finale felt more like a penultimate episode, but I digress.

I am about to venture into major spoilers for not only The Last of Us Part II but also episode two of the second season of the live-action adaptation.

Fans of The Last of Us series, whether they’ve played the second game or watched season two, will know that Joel is brutally murdered in an act of revenge at the hands of Abby, after Joel killed her father when rescuing Ellie from the Fireflies in the first game/final episode of season one.

Despite his death, Joel returned in flashback scenes in both The Last of Us Part II and season two.

However, in terms of what’s been adapted from The Last of Us Part II, pretty much all the important flashback scenes have been brought to life in live-action.

So, that means that we shouldn't be getting more Joel/Pedro Pascal in season three of The Last of Us, right? Well, that might not be the case, because it seems like Joel might return for new scenes not featured in any of the video games, adding additional backstory.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter (thanks, Culture Crave), one of the series' showrunners, Craig Mazin, has teased the return of Joel in season three. “Next season we probably will have a lot more flexibility [to tell side stories],” said Mazin.

#TheLastOfUs showrunners were asked if Pedro Pascal will return as Joel in S3 🧟‍♂️

“Never say never”

“All I can say is ... we haven’t even seen the last of a lot of people who are currently dead in the story” pic.twitter.com/JaWikcC11C

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) May 26, 2025

“Maybe a side trip of Joel and Tommy terrorising the countryside, we’ll never know. I wouldn’t have guessed we’d have a short story about Joel’s dad before we wrote the season [two],” Mazin added.

“[Tommy’s] been in war, and we also know that for some time, he and Joel were doing some pretty bad things. So there is the potential of seeing this other side of Tommy, and that is now about him delivering on his understood promise to his brother.”

At the time of writing, despite being officially confirmed, season three of The Last of Us does not have a release date. But we do know that it will likely focus more on Abby, rather than Ellie.