The Last of Us Season 2 Episode 5 is introducing this major aspect from the games, and we are excited about it

The Last of Us Season 2's untitled fifth episode is almost upon us as it will release on May 11, 2025, which is a Sunday. The stakes are rising in this episode as Ellie and (probably) a pregnant Dina have to traverse through the violent streets of Seattle and then a heavily armed WLF hospital building to get to Nora. Ellie had already promised that Abby and her friends were going to die for killing Joel, and she wants to make good on that promise.

Other than an armed hospital and violent streets, Ellie and Dina have to face a new threat in The Last of Us Season 2, Episode 5: spores. Spores, in The Last of Us Universe, were introduced in the first game, released in 2013. But the first season changed it to cordyceps tendrils rather than spores. But Craig Mazin himself had teased in a variety interview from 2023 that spores could play a role in the future.

What did the showrunners say about the inclusion of spores in The Last of Us Season 2?

As stated before, showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin replaced the spores with cordyceps tendrils in the first season. While some were fine with this change, others were miffed with this change. Thus, both Mazin and Druckmann sat down for an interview with Variety's Jordan Moreau in January 2023. Druckmann addressed the change first:

"It started with Craig hating zombies — I’m kidding. But we had talked about how we’re in a genre that’s popular, and there are a lot of different versions of stories of an outbreak. We did our best to find what’s unique about our story and world. For our clickers, we lifted them from the game, and kept them as is. But for the more recently infected, we had a lot of conversations about what else can we do with the vector other than bites. We looked at concept art where there’s this implication of the fungus growing under the skin. What if that was the thing? It’s not so much about the bite, they just need these tendrils to go from one host to another and that’s how the infection spreads."

Mazin, to his credit, teased the possibility of spores coming into play in a future season of the series, which comes into fruition in the next episode of The Last of Us Season 2:

"If you listen carefully, the word “spores” is mentioned. I don’t necessarily know if we’re going to see any spores this time around, but to say that our world is devoid of them would not be accurate. We don’t quite know yet. That’s part of the fun of adaptation, leaving these blurry edges of the map for our characters to discover as the adventure continues."

This year, Neil Druckmann teased the presence of spores in The Last of Us Season 2 during the cast and crew's SXSW appearance. There, he revealed how spores will raise the stakes this season.

How will the spores raise the stakes in The Last of Us Season 2?

The cast and crew of The Last of Us Season 2 appeared at the March 2025 SXSW to promote the upcoming season. In that panel, showrunner Neil Druckmann, who also worked on the game, hyped up the ongoing season by saying:

“But also as you see in the trailer, an escalation of the vector of how this thing spreads. Season 1 we had this new thing that wasn’t in the game of like these tendrils that spread, and that was one form. And then this one shot you see in this trailer, there are things in the air.”

Druckmann further revealed that there is a:

“A dramatic reason of introducing it now.”

Introducing spores this season makes sense because this will force the characters to adapt to this change. The characters have acclimatized to the tendrils, but the introduction of spores will show that Cordyceps is also evolving, raising the stakes.

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The fifth episode of The Last of Us Season 2 will release on Sunday, May 11, 2025, at 09:00 PM ET.

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