The Last Of Us Season 2's Ending Explained By Co-Creators Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann

Stop reading right this second if you haven't watched "Convergence," the season 2 finale of "The Last of Us." You may also want to stop reading if you're not familiar with either of the original video games, particularly "The Last of Us Part II." Massive, enormous, Bloater-sized spoilers lie ahead — you've been warned!

The second season of "The Last of Us" has officially come to a close, and if you haven't played either of the original video games, you might have been a little surprised when, in the final moments of "Convergence," we abruptly switch perspectives. If you have played 2020's "The Last of Us Part II," though, you were prepared for this eventuality — specifically, that the story splits after Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) three days in Seattle and refocuses on Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), the young woman who killed Ellie's father figure Joel (Pedro Pascal) earlier in season 2. So, did showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (the latter of whom co-created the original two games for Naughty Dog) consider changing this up at all?

"We considered everything," Mazin told The Hollywood Reporter in a post-finale interview. "Maybe we should just interlace the stories [of Ellie and Abby]? I just remember saying, 'Isn't [switching perspectives] part of the genetics of how this story functions?' It's just part of the genetics. Now, what it means is we have to take risks as a television show, and HBO is backing us taking risks. But then again, we just did kill Pedro Pascal. Like [HBO] understands that this show is going to be a different show every season, which is a tricky thing to do when you're a hit show. You keep asking people like, 'I know you love this, we're taking it away and giving you this now.'"

"Abby is the hero of her story," Mazin said in the same interview, referring to the fact that we'll probably see a much bigger focus on Abby in season 3 (which is already confirmed). "Wherever we go next, we'll always be centering on somebody, whether it's Ellie and Dina, or Abby and Owen ... [But] everything is under the cloud or sunlight of Joel — what Joel did to Abby and what Abby did to Joel.'"

Again, I know the season 2 finale of "The Last of Us" is divisive, as evidenced by the mutterings and murmurs that have sprung up on social media in the wake of "Convergence." Apparently, Craig Mazin was prepared for this eventuality, and in that same conversation with THR, he acknowledged that he knows that using the structure of "The Last of Us Part II" (meaning, the perspective switch from Ellie to Abby and return to Day One in Seattle) is sort of a big risk. Still, he stands by it.

"I don't think television is supposed to work like this," Mazin admitted. "We're clearly breaking quite a few rules, and I love that. And I love it because that is the point. This is not something we're doing as a gimmick. The point of this story — and this is looked at from so many different angles in so many different ways — is that the entire concept of protagonist is flawed. The entire concept of villain is flawed."

What does Mazin mean by that? Well, he seems to echo something that Neil Druckmann said in HBO's post-finale featurette, which is that the goal of "The Last of Us" isn't to tell a story about "good" or "evil" but about "humans." (I'm paraphrasing gently, but you do get the point.) "Our way of processing the world through heroes and villains is a mistake," Mazin continued. "It ends up creating these barriers between people that shouldn't be there. It ends up giving ourselves justifications and conveniences for bad behavior, and it ends up allowing us to judge others summarily for things that we don't quite understand the motivation behind it. We know this is a challenging thing to keep track of emotionally. We understand people are going to be provoked. But part of this story is about examining why we're so comfortable with following one person's point of view about everything."

First things first: we probably won't get a third season of "The Last of Us" until 2027, considering that Isabela Merced — who plays Dina in season 2 — told Variety that she thinks production will pick up in 2026. Still, Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann revealed some tidbits to THR about what we can expect, especially considering some of the seismic events that happen in the season 2 finale. Besides the Ellie-Abby switcheroo in "Convergence," we also lose a major character in the form of Jesse (the father of Dina's unborn baby played by Young Mazino) when Abby shoots and kills him in the episode's final moments, and Joel's brother Tommy, played by Gabriel Luna, also gets injured in this chaos. So, what did Mazin say we can expect?

After saying that Jesse's death is partially Ellie's fault, in that he's only in Abby's presence because of Ellie's pointed quest for revenge, Mazin continued, "And we understand that Dina had this great relationship with Joel and she has gone in pursuit of Abby out of a sense of justice for that. So, now the question is: Who does she blame [for Jesse's death]? Jesse's death is going to change things for her."

Beyond that, Mazin indicated that we might see some deceased characters in season 3 ... including Joel, especially if we have time to explore Tommy's backstory and perhaps see him in some flashback adventures with his brother. "[Tommy's] been in war, and we also know that for some time, he and Joel were doing some pretty bad things," Mazin hinted. "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."

"We're telling you that next season, one, there's an epic nature to everything that's about to happen," Druckmann added. "But this other story is going to be really important coming backing to Joel and Ellie and everything we've seen so far."

"All I can say is we haven't seen the last of Kaitlyn Dever, and we haven't seen the last of Bella Ramsey, and we haven't seen the last of Isabela Merced, and we haven't even seen the last of a lot of people who are currently dead in the story," Mazin concluded. Again, we'll have to wait a little while to see where and how the story picks up in season 3, but it'll definitely spark a new conversation whenever we get new episodes of "The Last of Us." You can stream the first two seasons on HBO Max now.