HBO’s The Last Of Us adds more bad guy/good guys from The Last Of Us Part II

Now that it’s become abundantly clear that HBO’s The Last Of Us TV show is determined to spend its upcoming second season adapting the messy, sprawling, morally ambiguous story of video game sequel The Last Of Us Part II, the casting notices for Craig Mazin’s critically lauded drama have begun to come in as ferociously as a horde of rampaging mushroom men. (Or, perhaps, man was the real “monster metaphor” all along, hm? Makes you think.) Anyway, that means four new cast members joined the show today, to round out the crew surrounding Kaitlyn Dever’s newly introduced Abby, a whole new group of survivors for viewers to fall in love with/loathe to their very cores, because that’s just the kind of story The Last Of Us Part II is.

Specifically, that means the show has just added to its ranks the following four actor/character pairings: Riverdale alum Spencer Lord as Owen, How To Blow Up A Pipeline’s Ariela Barer as Mel, Top Gun: Maverick’s Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina co-star Tati Gabrielle as Nora. Take it as read that all of these characters have PR-approved descriptions like “a young doctor whose commitment to saving lives is challenged by the realities of war and tribalism” or “a loyal soldier whose sunny outlook belies the pain of old wounds and a fear that he will fail his friends when they need him most,” which is the sort of thing you attach to characters when you can’t say what their role in your story actually is. (Players who know already know, of course.)

None of these four, interestingly, will be played by the people who performed them in the original game; Owen, for instance, was played by Almost Famous star Patrick Fugit in The Last Of Us Part II, while Mel was portrayed by well-known performer/writer Ashly Burch. (That’s been standard practice for Mazin’s adaptation of the game series throughout—although original game stars Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson did both appear in the show’s first season in different parts.)

No word yet on when The Last Of Us’ second season will arrive on HBO, although filming on the season has already begun.

[via Entertainment Weekly]