Summary
Game of Thrones is the biggest hit in the history of HBO, a high fantasy epic so successful that the network created a spin-off series, something it had never done before.
That said, when Game of Thrones ended in 2019, fans were so dissatisfied that the showrunners were still addressing the backlash years later. What went wrong? That question has been much discussed, but HBO is doing all it can to make sure its current biggest hit show doesn’t meet a similar fate.
The Last of Us is ending right on schedule
The upcoming third season will be the last
The Last of Us is a zombie TV series about a grizzled survivor named Joel (Pedro Pascal) and a plucky young woman named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) who go on a cross-country journey across a zombie-infested United States. The show is based on the popular video game of the same name from Naughty Dog, and it was a big hit for HBO when it debuted in 2023.
The second season is based on the video game The Last of Us Part II, and debuted on HBO in 2025. Like the second game, the second season proved more controversial. Our perspective switches from Joel to Ellie, who travels to Seattle to get revenge on a woman named Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). The second season is more brutal and hopeless than the first, and some viewers took issue with the pacing, the tone, and the performances.
The second game is bigger than the first and will take more than one season of TV to adapt. For a while, it sounded like The Last of Us showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann were going to take three seasons to adapt the whole thing, meaning the show would have four seasons in all. There was even a possibility that the show could continue beyond that, since The Last of Us Part II video game seemingly ends with more story left to tell. Could the show continue telling Ellie’s story even though there’s no more source material to adapt?
As it ends up, no. HBO executive Casey Bloys recently revealed that the upcoming third season will be “the final season.” That season should adapt the rest of The Last of Us Part II and not go beyond it. And that’s definitely for the best.
What went wrong with Game of Thrones?
And how is The Last of Us avoiding it?
Game of Thrones is based on the Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R.R. Martin, a sprawling epic about a brutal war that breaks out on the continent of Westeros. Martin has currently written five books in the series, with at least two more planned; the long wait for the sixth book, The Winds of Winter, has become something of a joke among the fandom.
Those first five books are adapted as the first five seasons of Game of Thrones, with some spillover here and there. But with the source material not completed, the producers had no choice but to keep telling the story. Game of Thrones lasts for eight seasons in all, and while Martin shared some of his ideas for what happens next with the showrunners, they still had to make up a lot of material to get to the ending.
A lot of fans point to the moment when the showrunners ran out of source material as the moment that Game of Thrones started to decline in quality, a decline that climaxed with the catastrophic reception to the final season. They no longer had a template to follow, and it showed.
Fans of The Last of Us video game series have been waiting a long time for Naughty Dog to announce The Last of Us Part III, but it has yet to happen; they know something about how A Song of Ice and Fire fans waiting for The Winds of Winter feel. However, while The Last of Us Part II ends with much unresolved, it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger. The story is finished, even if it’s ambiguous. There isn’t a pressing need to continue it like there was when Game of Thrones ran out of A Song of Ice and Fire novels to adapt.
Even so, if HBO wanted to wring more value out of the show, it could try and continue Ellie’s story beyond the end of the games. But perhaps the producers looked at how badly that went for Game of Thrones and decided otherwise. All things considered, it’s a wise decision.
Game of Thrones played a dangerous game (and lost)
The Last of Us is quitting while it’s ahead
I say things went “badly” for Game of Thrones, but the franchise is still in pretty good shape. House of the Dragon wrapped up its third season this past August, and a new spin-off called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was received extremely well when it debuted in January. It’s even possible that the ending of Game of Thrones could be rehabilitated as people assess it with the value of hindsight.
Still, it’s probably a good idea by The Last of Us producers not to tempt fate. The third season will air sometime in 2027, although we don’t know the exact date yet. Incidentally, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based on a series of novellas that George R.R. Martin hasn’t finished, so the show will eventually need to decide if it wants to go the Game of Thrones route and continue without the benefit of source material, or take The Last of Us and quit while the quitting’s good. Maybe we’ll have this discussion all over again after they make a decision.
Finished and unfinished
If you’re interested in other fantasy shows that scratch that Game of Thrones itch, there are a lot of options out there. There are also a ton of completed book series you can read without fear that the author will never get around to writing the ending. Or, if you prefer to live on the edge, check out these great book series that are still in the process of being written.
- Release Date
- January 15, 2023
- Network
- HBO
- Showrunner
- Craig Mazin
- Directors
- Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, Mark Mylod, Stephen Williams, Jasmila Žbanić, Liza Johnson, Nina Lopez-Corrado
- Writers
- Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin, Halley Wegryn Gross
