At the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards, there were quite a few critical darlings that didn’t fare nearly as well as they had in previous years. HBO’s The Last of Us, the most celebrated video game adaptation of the last half-decade, falls into this category big time. While the first season earned 24 nominations and 8 wins during Emmy Award season in 2023, the second season took home just one.
While that disparity can be attributed to some of the luster wearing off as the show enters its second season, a clearer reason why season two didn’t reach the same mark is the lengthy narrative of its source material and the decision to split it into two disjointed parts.
