The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 1: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 1: ‘Future Days’“The Last of Us” began with a prologue that set up everything about to happen, in the episode and in the series.In a scene set in 1968, a scientist explained that his greatest fear was that a warming planet would provide the perfect incubating conditions for a mind-controlling fungus that could turn humans into brainless killers.

There is obviously more to “The Last of Us” than just, “What if there were mushroom zombies?” But that idea put the plot in motion.The second season of “The Last of Us” begins with two prologues.In one, we meet Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), one of the surviving Fireflies from the Season 1 finale’s Salt Lake City massacre.

Abby and her fellow resistance-fighters gather around their loved one’s graves to discuss a plan to retaliate against Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), the man who slaughtered so many of their people.(“Slowly,” Abby says, when her allies say they will kill Joel.)In the other prologue, we flash back to the final scene from that finale, when Ellie (Bella Ramsey) made Joel swear that he took her away from the Fireflies because they had given up on finding a cure for the cordyceps plague.

Joel gave Ellie his word, which she warily accepted.I expect there to be as many twists, turns, new characters and new story lines in Season 2 as there were in Season 1.But based on the premiere, it seems this season will also be driven by one simple idea: that when Joel saved Ellie from the Fireflies and then lied to her, he made a godawful mess.After the prologues, the episode jumps ahead five years.

Joel and Ellie are now settled in Jackson, Wyo., the edenic survivor colony run in part by Joel’s brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna), and Tommy’s wife, Maria (Rutina Wesley).Joel is making himself useful with his fix-it know-how, and Ellie has been honing her fighting skills and going on patrols, to gather supplies and to winnow down the numbers of the infected in the area...