Pedro Pascal And Bella Ramsey Face Horror And Heartache In Intense The Last Of Us Season 2 Trailer

*SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for The Last Of Us Season 1.*

And just like that, there's only a month left before we return to Jackson and to the world of HBO's The Last Of Us. In recent weeks, an array of teaser posters and trailers have hinted at what's in store when Pedro Pascal's Joel and his beloved Ellie (Bella Ramsey) return to our screens, offering glimpses at new zombie-like infected, new cast members (Isabela Merced! Kaitlyn Dever! Jeffrey Wright! Catherine O'Hara!), and the consequences our world weary protagonists are set to face as they reckon with the events of Season 1. Now, in the newly released full trailer for Season 2, we're getting our first real sense of the horror — and the heartache — showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have in store for us this time out. Check it out below;

Anybody else have a random attack of hay fever watching that? The strangest thing, honestly. But seriously, for anyone who has had the exquisite pleasure/pain of playing Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us Part II, Season 2 of HBO's lavish take on the post-apocalyptic game series looks more than ready to live up to its source material — and for anyone whose route into TLOU was the first season of the show, that winning combination of legitimate, spine chilling horror and intricate, character driven drama seems set to continue apace.

As we see here, not only are we about to witness the fallout of Joel's lie after what went down at the Firefly Lab in the first series' finale ("You swore..." seethes Ellie at this trailer's climax as her father figure looks away, dewy-eyed), and to experience the evolution of the monsters those poor souls stricken by the Cordyceps plague have become, but we're also about to be introduced to whole new dimensions of this world and this story we've not really touched on yet. From the cult-like Seraphites to the militant Washington Liberation Front (WLF), led by Jeffrey Wright's Commander Isaac Dixon, the series' major thematic exploration of humanity's boundless capacity to make its own monsters is about to be taken even further. And in the form of Dever's Abby and Merced's Dina, the emotional ties that bind — and threaten to suffocate — Joel and Ellie's own bond are clearly poised to twist and fray in new ways, too.

We may be in for a shorter second season of The Last Of Us second time around, but on present evidence, perhaps that's a blessing in disguise: we're not sure our hearts could take another nine episodes all in one go when the mere sight of the rocket and the Wyoming Museum from TLOU Part II already has our collective bottom lip quivering. Still, steel yourselves, folks — The Last Of Us Season 2 premieres on Sky on 14 April. *Alexa — play 'Future Days' by Pearl Jam*