HBO’s The Last of Us has been an undeniably successful television adaptation of the beloved Naughty Dog game. Now the challenge for creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin will be how to tackle the emotionally complicated beast that is The Last of Us Part 2. So, I’ve (perhaps foolishly) had a go at planning out the show’s second season and sketching a rough outline of what could happen in each episode.

The video game sequel is over twice as long as its predecessor, so cramming it all into one more season of TV seems like a bit of a stretch to me, so let’s ᴀssume this is going to be a story told over two. Alongside issues of length, there’s also no doubt that Part 2 is in need of more of a tinkering with than the mostly straight adaptation that was Part 1. Despite being a masterpiece in my eyes, Part 2 relies more heavily on gameplay and the involuntary nature of your actions to get its point across, which is inherently not viable in a TV show. But through some minor restructuring of the story and a liberal use of flashbacks, I think there could be an effective way of telling the layered and divisive tale.

The key will undoubtedly be in how season two opens and deals with the story’s inciting incident, as well as keeping the viewer connected to the plot’s two leads – Ellie and Abby. My best idea on how to do this is to make Abby – a character largely unexplored until the game’s second half – more integral to the story during its Ellie-led first half by creating a pre-existing bond between them. Abby could infiltrate the Jackson community and befriend Joel in the weeks before her revenge. This is actually something that Druckmann seemingly played with the idea of if some of the game’s early concept art is anything to go by.

I’d also utilise a series of cold-open flashbacks that tease young Abby’s story – much like how the brief openings to each of Netflix’s Mindhunter episodes set up the reveal of the mysterious man we’re watching becoming the BTK killer, but with more zebras. These brief glimpses into Abby’s background would eventually culminate in the reveal of Joel being the man who killed her father at the end of season one, allowing the second season of the show to end with the same crucial twist delivered by the game at its halfway point.

Now I’ve established the season’s overall format, here’s my best guess at how each episode of the show might play out. (No doubt Druckmann and Mazin have some much better ideas up their sleeve, but they should feel free to call me if there’s any gold in here.)